Community

This thread is for discussion of this week's Limited Information, which goes live Wednesday morning on magicthegathering.com.

I had an awesome draft since everyone around me was passing Izzet stuff.. Two izzet charms, three punishing fires, 4 of the goblin that made everything cheaper, a cancel, two frostburn weirds, two essence backlash , a cyclonic rift and the cherry on top; a Jace.. The hardest decision i had to make was when i passed a the hasted blue red dragon for the guildmage, my deck kicked butt and represented izzet... then the next day some jerk with two pack rats wiped everyone away... sigh. I still hatedrated a Dreadbore and a bloodcrypt..good times.

Did WotC get a lot of complaints about draftng RtR? This is all pretty obvious stuff.

I just want to say that guttersnipe may be the best card for izzet barring the bombiest of bombs.  I had a game where I got my opponent to 12 before they stabilized.  I dug for cards and put them to 8 with the snipe while they bashed my face in and put me to 1.  I top decked the explosive impact to put them to 1 and then cast street spasm for 0 with my remaining red mana to win.  Also, thoughtflare is pretty strong in a control build.

I completely agree that Guttersnipe is arguably the strongest non-rare card for Izzet to have.  I've stolen so many games with him and found a new love for throwing Lava Axes at the face.

My only complaint with Izzet is that the non-rare guild cards are so weak!  Frostburn Weird is a good card to have since I've found red and blue 2-drop creatures to be lacking, but all those Izzet sorceries are so weak!  Overload is completely underwhelming when you have cards like Downsize , Mizzium Skin , Dynacharge , and Chemister's Trick .  Most of them are combat tricks, and Izzet is the color of instants and sorceries, not creatures!  The other overload cards, Vandalblast and Electrickery , are also weak.  Only Street Spasm is decent (and even then, the overload cost is so steep!).  I think Izzet sorely needs an expensive sorcery that puts a big creature token with flying into play at uncommon.  There's not enough incentive for me to value Goblin Electromancer that high.  

The problem with Izzet is that you are encouraged to go the Goblin Electromancer / Guttersnipe route yet that strategy just falls on its face in Limited. It's no Burning Vengeance.

The only 'Izzet' common I really want in Izzet is Frostburn Weird - aside from that I want mostly Rakdos stuff (Bloodfray Giant, Annihilating Fire, Splatter Thug), and at that point I'm asking myself, "why didn't I just draft Rakdos?" 

Yeah, I mostly dislike the Izzet cards. It's just like the original Ravnica block to me in that regard, where I basically loved the blue and red mono-colored cards and drafted blue/red often in Ravnica, but then actually drafted it significantly less in Guildpact where Izzet was an actual guild.