Decklist Updates: Polukranos Reborn from March of the Machine is a great addition to the deck that goes a long way to improve what were two of your most difficult matchups previously in Izzet Wizards and Izzet Phoenix, whilst also acting as another powerful mana sink.

This is a ramp deck that is largely built around Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and is looking to generate absurd amounts of mana as fast as possible, and then pull cards from the sideboard off both Karn, the Great Creator and Grizzled Huntmaster to close the game out.

This is one of the most generically powerful decks in the format that is capable of very fast starts off the back of Leyline of Abundance and manadorks like Llanowar Elves, and Storm the Festival allows for some crazy combo-esque turns where you can produce huge amounts of mana by untapping Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx with Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner.

You also have big creatures that can act as a roadblock against aggro decks like Cavalier of Thorns, Polukranos Reborn, and Grizzled Huntmaster which are great at stabilizing and also draw you a card off the Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner passive. There are builds that run Old-Growth Troll over Grizzled Huntmaster which is much less vulnerable to interaction and frees up more space for Karn, the Great Creator targets in the sideboard, but also makes the deck more one dimensional and less flexible.

Weaknesses: The two biggest weaknesses of the deck is that it’s very vulnerable to early interaction and it can’t interact itself in the first few turns so tends to struggle against other decks that can goldfish faster.

Having your turn 1 elf hit by a Fatal Push or having your top end threat hit by a Thoughtseize can completely pull your gameplan apart and leave you at the mercy of the top your library – having said that if the opponent doesn’t apply pressure immediately the deck is very capable of drawing out of early removal but things won’t always play out like that, and you generally mulligan slightly more often than most other decks because of your reliance on early ramp which makes interaction like discard spells even more punishing.

Additionally, you don’t really have good ways to interact in the first few turns which can leave you vulnerable to other decks that can race faster than you like Auras or Elves for example.

When is it good to play? The deck is so generically strong that I think it will always be a solid choice, but it will be at its best when most decks don’t have turn 1 interaction, and other decks that just want to race as fast as possible aren’t popular.