Are you a new player and need a deck that is both strong and cheap? Well, I have the list for you then, I present to you the Izzet spells deck. A red and blue colored deck that not only is fun to play, but also requires you to understand the basics of Magic. It requires only Common and Uncommon cards. Using this as a new player will quickly level up your understanding of how to play. It wins by the traditional beatdown with creatures but it also requires you to control the game until your graveyard is full of gas.

This deck is designed for Best of 1 and works best at the lower rankings. When you get up to high silver and are nearing gold you should be working towards decks with Mythics and Rares, but in the beginning, this is one of the best decks you can play. The best of 1 queue matches you with decks that are around the same power level but it also matches you with players around your level. When you get higher up you will find that you will meet stronger decks even if you run a budget deck.  Now, let us get into its inner workings.

Creature Package
We have eight creatures that we use to win the game and both of them cares about the number of Instant and Sorceries in the graveyard. Cryptic Serpent is a big 6/5 that has no other special abilities other than getting cheaper depending on the amount of Instant and Sorceries in the graveyard, the earliest theoretical turn you could play him in this deck is Turn 4 and it happens. Actually, you can play two of them turn 4 if you have enough blue sources.

Then we have the superstar of the deck Enigma Drake. Being a flyer with 4 toughness makes him hard to deal with and the powerful ability to have his power be equal to the spells in your graveyard he slaps your opponent for a lot when he hits. The toughness makes him evade spells like Lightning Strike and Abrade who only do 3 damage.

Seeker of Insight is the last creature and is included to support the others. You want to use him as an early blocker and also activate his ability as often as you can. This means you have to cast your instant spells in the opponents turn, never waste an instant in your own turn, you do not want to have him tapped when the time comes to declare your blockers.

Draw cards and Control the game
Supreme Will is one of the most important cards in the deck as it allows you to do two things, either Find a card you are looking for or stop whatever the opponent is trying to do. You do not want to waste this if you can use Syncopate instead you are usually a lot better off saving this since it has more options attached to it.

Syncopate is a great card that works as early as turn two, be careful and double check your opponent's mana before casting this and be sure that he does not have any creature that can make mana as well because a punt like throwing away a card most often cost you the whole game. 

The classical counterspell Cancel counters anything an opponent can throw at you but we only have room for one in this deck. Disallow is its stronger relative that you should put in if you have.

Now we are over at the drawcard spells, Opt acts as fuel for our Drakes and Serpents, nothing much to say other than you should make sure to use them as soon as you can, if the opponent does not do anything in his turn and you have no targets for your counterspells, be sure to throw these out and do not forget to activate your Seeker of Insight.

Hieroglyphic Illumination is great to cast for four mana if you have the chance, but most often you will cycle it away for one blue. This, unfortunately, does not trigger the Seeker of Insight.

Burn and finisher
Your Shocks and Lightning Strikes should go to your opponent's creatures unless you are playing against a control deck where you can throw them to their face. We do have a weakness in this deck and that is that we have a hard time to deal with strong creatures with more than four toughness. It does not feel good, nor is it a good play to use two removal spells on one creature, you should try out-tempo the opponent and finish him off with burn to the face instead.

And then we have the funny bonus finisher Fling, we only have one of these in the deck as our creature count is low. The ability to have that extra reach, sacrificing our creature after hitting with a lot of power will make you laugh. 

Lands
While we could run Evolving Wilds as a fixer in addition to Highland Lake we want to keep the amount of tapped lands to a minimum. We also do not like to use a land where you have to shuffle your hand after fetching a land as it might mess up your top scry when you are mulliganing. Feel free to bing in rare lands such as Spirebluff Canal and Sulfur Falls.

Nuts & Bolts Spike spends his energy looking within. He tries to understand his own internal flaws and works to improve them.

I run Team Aether and stream MTG Arena on Twitch.tv/andreliverod, playing both Standard and limited. Stop by and say hello!
Not interested in live streams? Here is my Youtube channel: Youtube.com/c/andreliverod