The main thing I would recommend is adding more creatures, either Augur of Bolas or Viashino Pyromancer. This is because if you run out of creatures the deck doesnt really do much. Balancing the ratio of spells to creatures is important so you dont just auto lose if they have a few removal spells. I've been preferring Augur of Bolas lately, but Viashino Pyromancer is a fine card also.
I'm not sure that the amass synergy works too well with the main wizard plan, as you only have 3 cards in the maindeck that create zombie tokens, although Lazotep Plating could be good. However, I think that dive down or spell pierce would work better most of the time.
I've also been considering Samut's Sprint, but its hard to compete with the card draw of the other instants. How has it been performing for you?
I've also been considering maindecking 1 or 2 Risk Factors because every time I side them in they are amazing. Same for Spell Pierce.
Edit: Also, I was building this as a budget option to get back into paper standard. After playing ranked with it on MTGA at platinum level it has performed really bad against most meta decks unless I get really lucky. Considering going something else due to the performance, probably Gruul Aggro or Boros Feather
I like the idea, but I think you can go red also to increase the overall power level of your deck instead of having filler creatures like generous stray or druid of the cowl
I think grixis dragons is the best place for new Sarkhan due to the overall power level of the cards. Here's my version, doing pretty well on arena right now
Legion's landing is pretty good too. I think the choice there would between whether you want a more midrange list with gideon or a 1 drop tokens version with landing. I personally would leave hunted witness in if you are running landing and take it out if not.
Pretty solid starting point, the one thing that jumps out at me is that your curve stops at 3 and 4 and you are running 23 lands but then you have 3 of the 6-drop Lili's. I would just cut her for 3 gideons or dreadhorde invasions. From my testing, both gideon and dreadhorde invasion are really good, I would cut hunted witness to fit both of them in personally.
On another note, M19 has two decent additions to the deck. Banefire is insane against control, especially if they use Settle the Wreckage on you. Much better than a kicked Fight with Fire. Tezzeret, Artifice Master is another great value walker that synergizes well with Karn, Scion of Urza
Honorable mention to Demanding Dragon, but I think it's worse than Glorybringer.
I've been wondering why I didn't try Baral's Expertise earlier, it is pretty awesome. You can even bounce one of your creatures like Chainwhirler and recast it with the second part of Expertise. Alternatively, bouncing up to three opposing creatures and simultaneously playing a planeswalker is pretty nice.
I ran syncopate before and it felt very awkward since we want to tap out most of the time. We arent running many flash or instant speed cards to give us stuff to do in case our opponent doesnt leave themselves open to syncopate.
Fight with Fire and Abrade aren't fighting each other for slots. Casting kicked FwF wins many games as the board tends to stall with lots of Chainwhirlers and Champion of Wits since they are great blockers. I don't think adding four more cards that are dead to U/W control (Harnessed Lightning) is the way to improve the deck.
Have you playtested much with this deck? I think after getting a bunch of dead cards stuck in your hand vs U/W you would agree with me about the Harnessed Lightnings. Of course if your meta has very few U/W in it then go for it, but from my experience U/W is a significant part of the meta.
I have some ideas for the deck, adding an energy sub-theme can work for the deck, I'd go with:
#4x Whirler Virtuoso - a good midrange card, works with Saheeli, it can replace Champion of Wits which I find a bit weak in this deck (before it it is eternalized).
#2x Aethersphere Harvester - a good maindeck card that gains life and blocks flyers (especially in a red dominated meta). easy to crew and a decent target for Saheeli to copy as well, should replace Nimble Obstructionist. Heart of Kiran can also work here with so many PW's and 3-power creatures to crew it reliably.
#4x Harnessed Lightning - can replace the random 1x-of spells for a consistent removal option.
#1x Confiscation Coup - pretty much a better Entrancing Melody which requires less mana (unless you steal 1-2 cmc cards which isn't really worth it) and can get artifacts.
#3x Aether Hub can be another untapped multi-color land here, replacing FoR and Lake.
Thank you for the feedback and the congratulations!
I like the energy direction you took the list, but I have some concerns, mainly concerning the Chainwhirler and U/W matchups, as they are the majority of the metagame right now. I'm not sure that Whirler Virtuoso is much better than Champion of Wits vs Chainwhirler decks, as the tokens still die to Chainwhirler. The potential upside of an eternalized Champion of Wits getting copied by Saheeli seems better when compared to an extra 3 energy. Sure, they can block a Hazoret for another turn or turn on huge harnessed lightnings, but I would err on the side of Champion of Wits. At the very least run a 2/2 split and see which one you wish you had more often.
Next, Harnessed Lightning plus Aether Hub is a good package to include, but that's four more dead cards against U/W (and to a lesser extent U/B) which can hardly be afforded, considering that the three Abrades, the Magma Spray, and Entrancing Melody are often blanks, depending on if they run Gearhulks or not. This is the reason I'm currently running two Fight with Fires as they can be either removal or a win condition, the flexibility should not be underestimated.
Lastly, I like the Aethersphere Harvesters and Confiscation Coup, and I think that the the Aether Hubs have potential, but I would replace a Mountain instead of the Field of Ruin considering how prevalent Search for Azcanta and value Deserts are in the current meta.
I came to the same conclusion about Nimble Obstructionist that SaffronOlive did after the pro tour results. It was there for the U/B and U/W control decks because flashing a threat on their turn or countering a scarab god return to hand trigger/teferi activation is one of the better things you can do against them.
I replaced Nimbles in the main with another Fight with Fire and another Siege-Gang Commander as they fit the tough role of being relevant versus both control and aggro
Finished top4 (lost in semifinals of top8) in a 30 something person PPTQ today with a slightly modified version of this list.
Write up to come tomorrow.
For now here's the list I played and what changes I am making for next time(tomorrow).
The best part was my opponents' confusion at what I was playing.
For the PPTQ tomorrow I'm doing:
Maindeck
-1 Blink of an Eye +1 Spell pierce
-1 Memorial to Genius +1 Field of Ruin
Sideboard
-1 Aethersphere Harvester
-1 Sweltering Suns
-1 Spell Pierce
+1 Negate
+2 Sorcerous Spyglass
I've been tinkering around with similar Saheeli shenanigans in U/R and more recently Temur as well.
I've found that fortunately you can support a consistent Chainwhirler manabase without sacrificing too much of anything, which is awesome because Chainwhirler is nuts, especially with Soul-Scar Mage (and obviously Saheeli).
The reasoning behind Syncopate was that it only requires one blue mana. I run 4x Wizard's Retort in my midrange Wizards deck and it is amazing. I would run it in this deck too if I could, but it's just not feasible to consistently have double blue for it while running a manabase that also supports triple red on turn 3 for Chainwhirlers. Pierce has been great in my experience. I'm pretty sure every single deck out there right now has at least one target for it.
4 Ghitu Lavarunner
4 Burning Prophet
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
4 Augur of Bolas
3 Adeliz, the Cinder Wind
Instants and Sorceries (19):
4 Opt
4 Crash Through
4 Warlord's Fury
4 Wizard's Lightning
4 Shock
11 Mountain
2 Island
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Steam Vents
3 Spell Pierce
2 Dire Fleet Daredevil
3 Goblin Chainwhirler
3 Lava Coil
2 Fiery Cannonade
2 Risk Factor
The main thing I would recommend is adding more creatures, either Augur of Bolas or Viashino Pyromancer. This is because if you run out of creatures the deck doesnt really do much. Balancing the ratio of spells to creatures is important so you dont just auto lose if they have a few removal spells. I've been preferring Augur of Bolas lately, but Viashino Pyromancer is a fine card also.
I'm not sure that the amass synergy works too well with the main wizard plan, as you only have 3 cards in the maindeck that create zombie tokens, although Lazotep Plating could be good. However, I think that dive down or spell pierce would work better most of the time.
I've also been considering Samut's Sprint, but its hard to compete with the card draw of the other instants. How has it been performing for you?
I've also been considering maindecking 1 or 2 Risk Factors because every time I side them in they are amazing. Same for Spell Pierce.
Edit: Also, I was building this as a budget option to get back into paper standard. After playing ranked with it on MTGA at platinum level it has performed really bad against most meta decks unless I get really lucky. Considering going something else due to the performance, probably Gruul Aggro or Boros Feather
Here's my quick list:
4 Thorn Lieutenant
4 Gruul Spellbreaker
3 Nullhide Ferox
3 Vine Mare
4 Rekindling Phoenix
2 Carnage Tyrant
4 Collision // Colossus
3 Domri, Anarch of Bolas
4 Blanchwood Armor
4 Stomping Ground
15 Forest
Maybe the mana base doesn't want double red for Rekindling Phoenix and Blanchwood armor at the same time, not sure.
4x Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
2x Verix Bladewing
2x Skarrgan Hellkite
Instants and Sorceries (16):
4x Thought Erasure
2x Shock
2x Tyrant's Scorn
2x Angrath's Rampage
2x Lava Coil
2x Cry of the Carnarium
2x Carnival // Carnage
Enchantments (1):
1x Search for Azcanta
4x Sarkhan, Fireblood
3x Sarkhan the Masterless
3x Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
Lands (25):
4x Blood Crypt
4x Dragonskull Summit
4x Watery Grave
4x Steam Vents
3x Drowned Catacomb
3x Sulfur Falls
1x Island
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
3x Duress
3x Negate
2x Dire Fleet Daredevil
2x Lava Coil
2x Ritual of Soot
1x Entrancing Melody
1x Cry of the Carnarium
1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
On another note, M19 has two decent additions to the deck.
Banefire is insane against control, especially if they use Settle the Wreckage on you. Much better than a kicked Fight with Fire.
Tezzeret, Artifice Master is another great value walker that synergizes well with Karn, Scion of Urza
Honorable mention to Demanding Dragon, but I think it's worse than Glorybringer.
Current list:
4 Soul-Scar Mage
4 Champion of Wits
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
2 Glorybringer
3 Siege-Gang Commander
Instants and Sorceries (7):
1 Blink of an Eye
3 Abrade
2 Fight with Fire
1 Baral's Expertise
4 Saheeli Rai
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Karn, Scion of Urza
Artifacts (1):
1 God-Pharaoh's Gift
Lands (24):
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Sulfur Falls
1 Field of Ruin
2 Highland Lake
1 Island
12 Mountain
3 Negate
2 Dire Fleet Daredevil
1 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Magma Spray
1 Abrade
1 Baral's Expertise
1 Entrancing Melody
3 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Crook of Condemnation
I've been wondering why I didn't try Baral's Expertise earlier, it is pretty awesome. You can even bounce one of your creatures like Chainwhirler and recast it with the second part of Expertise. Alternatively, bouncing up to three opposing creatures and simultaneously playing a planeswalker is pretty nice.
Fight with Fire and Abrade aren't fighting each other for slots. Casting kicked FwF wins many games as the board tends to stall with lots of Chainwhirlers and Champion of Wits since they are great blockers. I don't think adding four more cards that are dead to U/W control (Harnessed Lightning) is the way to improve the deck.
Have you playtested much with this deck? I think after getting a bunch of dead cards stuck in your hand vs U/W you would agree with me about the Harnessed Lightnings. Of course if your meta has very few U/W in it then go for it, but from my experience U/W is a significant part of the meta.
Here's my current list for reference:
4 Soul-Scar Mage
4 Champion of Wits
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
2 Glorybringer
3 Siege-Gang Commander
Instants and Sorceries (8):
1 Spell Pierce
1 Blink of an Eye
3 Abrade
2 Fight with Fire
1 Entrancing Melody
4 Saheeli Rai
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
3 Karn, Scion of Urza
Artifacts (1):
1 God-Pharaoh's Gift
Lands (24):
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Sulfur Falls
1 Field of Ruin
2 Highland Lake
1 Island
12 Mountain
3 Negate
2 Dire Fleet Daredevil
1 Nimble Obstructionist
3 Magma Spray
1 Abrade
1 Sweltering Suns
3 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Crook of Condemnation
Thank you for the feedback and the congratulations!
I like the energy direction you took the list, but I have some concerns, mainly concerning the Chainwhirler and U/W matchups, as they are the majority of the metagame right now. I'm not sure that Whirler Virtuoso is much better than Champion of Wits vs Chainwhirler decks, as the tokens still die to Chainwhirler. The potential upside of an eternalized Champion of Wits getting copied by Saheeli seems better when compared to an extra 3 energy. Sure, they can block a Hazoret for another turn or turn on huge harnessed lightnings, but I would err on the side of Champion of Wits. At the very least run a 2/2 split and see which one you wish you had more often.
Next, Harnessed Lightning plus Aether Hub is a good package to include, but that's four more dead cards against U/W (and to a lesser extent U/B) which can hardly be afforded, considering that the three Abrades, the Magma Spray, and Entrancing Melody are often blanks, depending on if they run Gearhulks or not. This is the reason I'm currently running two Fight with Fires as they can be either removal or a win condition, the flexibility should not be underestimated.
Lastly, I like the Aethersphere Harvesters and Confiscation Coup, and I think that the the Aether Hubs have potential, but I would replace a Mountain instead of the Field of Ruin considering how prevalent Search for Azcanta and value Deserts are in the current meta.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-izzet-saheeli-standard
I came to the same conclusion about Nimble Obstructionist that SaffronOlive did after the pro tour results. It was there for the U/B and U/W control decks because flashing a threat on their turn or countering a scarab god return to hand trigger/teferi activation is one of the better things you can do against them.
I replaced Nimbles in the main with another Fight with Fire and another Siege-Gang Commander as they fit the tough role of being relevant versus both control and aggro
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-standard-constructed-league-2018-05-28#decklists
Here's the list:
4 Soul-Scar Mage
4 Champion of Wits
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
2 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Glorybringer
2 Siege-Gang Commander
Instants and Sorceries:
1 Spell Pierce
1 Magma Spray
1 Blink of an Eye
3 Abrade
1 Fight with Fire
1 Entrancing Melody
4 Saheeli Rai
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
Artifacts:
1 God-Pharaoh's Gift
Lands:
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Sulfur Falls
1 Field of Ruin
2 Highland Lake
1 Island
12 Mountain
3 Negate
2 Dire Fleet Daredevil
1 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Magma Spray
1 Abrade
2 Sweltering Suns
3 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Crook of Condemnation
Write up to come tomorrow.
For now here's the list I played and what changes I am making for next time(tomorrow).
4x Soul-Scar Mage
4x Champion of Wits
4x Goblin Chainwhirler
2x Nimble Obstructionist
2x Glorybringer
2x Siege-Gang Commander
Instants and Sorceries: 9
3x Abrade
2x Blink of an Eye
2x Fight with Fire
1x Spell Pierce
1x Entrancing Melody
4x Saheeli Rai
2x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2x Karn, Scion of Urza
Artifacts: 1
1x God-Pharaoh's Gift
Lands: 24
1x Field of Ruin
1x Memorial to Genius
2x Highland Lake
4x Sulfur Falls
4x Spirebluff Canal
1x Island
11x Mountain
1x Abrade
2x Aethersphere Harvester
2x Crook of Condemnation
2x Dire Fleet Daredevil
2x Magma Spray
2x Negate
1x Spell Pierce
3x Sweltering Suns
The best part was my opponents' confusion at what I was playing.
For the PPTQ tomorrow I'm doing:
Maindeck
-1 Blink of an Eye +1 Spell pierce
-1 Memorial to Genius +1 Field of Ruin
Sideboard
-1 Aethersphere Harvester
-1 Sweltering Suns
-1 Spell Pierce
+1 Negate
+2 Sorcerous Spyglass
I've found that fortunately you can support a consistent Chainwhirler manabase without sacrificing too much of anything, which is awesome because Chainwhirler is nuts, especially with Soul-Scar Mage (and obviously Saheeli).
Here's where I'm at now on the Temur list.
4 Soul-Scar Mage
4 Champion of Wits
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
3 Merfolk Branchwalker
2 Glorybringer
4 Regisaur Alpha
Instants and Sorceries (6):
1 Spell Pierce
1 Blink of an Eye
4 Abrade
Planeswalkers (8):
4 Saheeli Rai
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
6 Mountain
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Island
1 Forest
4 Sheltered Thicket
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Negate
3 Sweltering Suns
2 Shapers' Sanctuary
2 Dire Fleet Daredevil
1 Spell Pierce
1 Magma Spray
2 Crook of Condemnation
1 Aethersphere Harvester
4x Walking Ballista
4x Soul-Scar Mage
2x Wily Goblin
1x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
4x Goblin Chainwhirler
1x Pia Nalaar
2x Glorybringer
2x Siege-Gang Commander
Instants and Sorceries (9):
1x Magma Spray
3x Abrade
2x Lightning Strike
3x Fight with Fire
3x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2x Karn, Scion of Urza
Artifacts (2):
2x Treasure Map
Lands (24):
20x Mountain
2x Scavenger Grounds
1x Field of Ruin
1x Desert of the Fervent
2x Magma Spray
2x Dire Fleet Daredevil
1x Abrade
3x Crook of Condemnation
2x Sorcerous Spyglass
2x Aethersphere Harvester
3x Sweltering Suns