Have you just seen the Javier Dominguez (Izzet Phoenix) against Devoted Vizier game in the RedBull Qualifier? Javier casted Aria 5 times, because it was bounced. And he won playing 1cmc spells with a Chalice in 1 counter in the battlefield and activating Aria. Are you still saying Aria is not good?
Who you’re referring to?
If it’s me, I never ever said that Aria of Flame is ‘no good’. Context, please. Is a powerful spell that becomes much worse when the opponent can deal with it (due to the life gain for the opponent). In that situation, a single Drake would have won the game even more easily. Same for Force of Negation, which would have prevented Chalice of the Void at all.
Yes, I’m pretty sure they would have been better cards in the flow of the game. And we’re talking about a mu where Aria is strong. Think about what it against BGx, UWx Control and Tron variants, for example. It’s utterly terrible 90% of the time, here.
I wasn’t planning to share these thoughts, but chatting a little bit in the Ban topic lead me to the topic. This is what I’m trying, lately. The ‘usual’ Izzet Phoenix has felt pretty much unplayable in the last month. Aria of Flame is a good spell... IF the opponent can’t deal with it and he’s slower than you. Otherwise is pretty much terrible. Doh, half of the metagame is about decks that race us or that can remove it. Finale of Promise is an excellent card which suffers from graveyard hate. Guess what. GH is running rampant in Modern, right now.
What I noticed, is that the deck loses a lot against anything which goes against its primary gameplan. Chalice of the Void, Tron payoff spells, Ensnaring Bridge, Scapeshift, Narset, Parter of Veils and many others. We don’t have permission, nor discards. We’re not a turn three combo (most of the time). Ergo, even though the deck is resilient to hate cards, we pretty much die before we can close the game.
Force of Negation has been pretty sick, in my testing. It replaces Surgical + Aria slots, and i’m sure most people are going to dismiss the idea even before testing it. But, think about it: turn two Phoenix is still allowed by four Manamorphose, and it’s pretty rare anyway. Surgical is good in the mirror and vs Bridgevine, but those are games where the key is Thing in the Ice, and Force is equally good vs them. It shines against Control, Combo & Big Mana.
I would run 100% second Sinkhole and second Mountain maindeck. Other than that, it’s the same list I’m interested in trying.
Also, third Alpine Moon in the sideboard looks strong right now.
EDIT: I forgot. I’m not huge on Serum Visions in this kind of strategies, I much prefer having access to the cards immediately, so I run Opt instead of them. It pseudo-conflicts with Finale, but I only play one of them.
And I don’t see why we should take that amount of self damage when Burn and Mono Red Phoenix are already not between our good matchups. We already discard lands with our fodders, so we’re going to ‘cycle’ them very rarely anyway.
We make effective use of our mana, and usually discard additional lands to Looting/Axe. I would play fourth Spirebluff before the first Islet, and 4-1 split seems to be the best.
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Who you’re referring to?
If it’s me, I never ever said that Aria of Flame is ‘no good’. Context, please. Is a powerful spell that becomes much worse when the opponent can deal with it (due to the life gain for the opponent). In that situation, a single Drake would have won the game even more easily. Same for Force of Negation, which would have prevented Chalice of the Void at all.
Yes, I’m pretty sure they would have been better cards in the flow of the game. And we’re talking about a mu where Aria is strong. Think about what it against BGx, UWx Control and Tron variants, for example. It’s utterly terrible 90% of the time, here.
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
4 Spirebluff Canal
2 Fiery Islet
1 Mountain
3 Island
Creatures (11):
4 Thing in the Ice
4 Arclight Phoenix
3 Crackling Drake
4 Opt
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Thought Scour
4 Faithless Looting
4 Manamorphose
4 Force of Negation
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Slash
2 Magmatic Sinkhole
4 Alpine Moon
3 Abrade
3 Spell Pierce
4 Surgical Extraction
1 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
So.
I wasn’t planning to share these thoughts, but chatting a little bit in the Ban topic lead me to the topic. This is what I’m trying, lately. The ‘usual’ Izzet Phoenix has felt pretty much unplayable in the last month. Aria of Flame is a good spell... IF the opponent can’t deal with it and he’s slower than you. Otherwise is pretty much terrible. Doh, half of the metagame is about decks that race us or that can remove it. Finale of Promise is an excellent card which suffers from graveyard hate. Guess what. GH is running rampant in Modern, right now.
What I noticed, is that the deck loses a lot against anything which goes against its primary gameplan. Chalice of the Void, Tron payoff spells, Ensnaring Bridge, Scapeshift, Narset, Parter of Veils and many others. We don’t have permission, nor discards. We’re not a turn three combo (most of the time). Ergo, even though the deck is resilient to hate cards, we pretty much die before we can close the game.
Force of Negation has been pretty sick, in my testing. It replaces Surgical + Aria slots, and i’m sure most people are going to dismiss the idea even before testing it. But, think about it: turn two Phoenix is still allowed by four Manamorphose, and it’s pretty rare anyway. Surgical is good in the mirror and vs Bridgevine, but those are games where the key is Thing in the Ice, and Force is equally good vs them. It shines against Control, Combo & Big Mana.
Honestly, I do think it’s the way to go.
Also, third Alpine Moon in the sideboard looks strong right now.
EDIT: I forgot. I’m not huge on Serum Visions in this kind of strategies, I much prefer having access to the cards immediately, so I run Opt instead of them. It pseudo-conflicts with Finale, but I only play one of them.