Izzet Ensoul Is Once Again The Most Underrated Deck In Pioneer

Early in Pioneer’s life, I gravitated towards Izzet Ensoul because of its powerful synergies, fast clock, and solid supplementary disruption like Wild Slash and Stubborn Denial. After a solid run on Magic Online (MTGO) I declared it the most underrated deck in the format, and was fully on my way to registering it at the Season Two Invitational last November.

However, the emergence of Mono-Black Aggro as the dominant Smuggler’s Copter deck in the format put the kibosh on those plans. I expected to revisit Izzet Ensoul once the metagame reacted to Mono-Black Aggro but the ban of Smuggler’s Copter hurt the deck immensely.

When you have a deck that is composed of weak cards that serve as enablers for powerful payoffs, you need a high-enough density of power in those payoffs to make the deck work. Smuggler’s Copter was a payoff for playing with a bunch of 1/1 artifact creatures that also worked quite well with the animation effects, since it maintained all of its abilities when turned into a creature, even if not via crew. Without it, the deck was a little light on payoffs, and fell to the fringes of the metagame.

However, a few factors have shifted in Izzet Ensoul’s favor recently, and I once again think the deck is underrated. First, the recent metagame shifts very much favor the deck. I’ll save more detailed thoughts on the deck’s matchups for the sideboard guide below, but suffice it to say that Izzet Ensoul enjoys a close matchup against Dimir Inverter and Bant Spirits, and favorable matchups against Mono-White Devotion, Mono-Green Devotion, and Azorius Control.

Decks I don’t want to see are Sultai Delirium, which is rare online given its price point, and Mono-Black Aggro, which is on the decline. That’s a good matchup spread, especially when few players are preparing for Izzet Ensoul. When it emerged last fall, we saw an increase in Disenchant effects throughout the metagame, but now those are rare, even out of Mono-Green Devotion, which uses its entire sideboard as a Wish package. Mystical Dispute is annoying, especially when you want to cast an early Ensoul Artifact, but you get access to the card as well, and if you have an artifact-heavy hand, you can either blank the card or force them to tap out and open a window to land your Ensoul Artifact or Skilled Animator.

Second, a new build of the deck has emerged which I think helps make up for the loss of Smuggler’s Copter. Here’s the list I played in the Pioneer Challenge on Sunday:

The core of the deck is in its one-drop artifact creatures:

As well as the payoffs for playing those artifact creatures:

With 21 lands, which isn’t set in stone but I’ve been happy with, that leaves eleven flex slots. Many lists are playing cards like Hangarback Walker, Hope of Ghirapur, and more colored cards to fill out the deck. None of those options are objectively bad, but they don’t do anything to compensate for the loss of Smuggler’s Copter. On top of being an incredibly powerful card, it functioned as both a payoff for the cheap artifact creatures, turning them into a good attacker when your opponent had blockers on the ground, and an artifact that would gladly accept an Ensoul or Animator targeting. None of these cards serves both functions, and thus filling out the deck with them leaves it lacking.

This list uses those last slots to introduce an interesting package of cards:

The key gain here is Steel Overseer, which is great in a deck full of cheap artifact creatures, enough so that it was a staple in Modern Affinity for years before the ban of Mox Opal drove the final stake in the deck’s heart. However, its power level is dependent on creating a wide battlefield very quickly, necessitating some zero-drop creatures to flood the battlefield. Enter Ornithopter. It’s a weak card by itself, but a flying body to carry animation effects, Ghostfire Blades, or even +1/+1 counters from Overseer is enough to consistently make the card effective.

But we can do even better. To round out the package we have Metallic Rebuke to add some disruption. As a synergy-driven deck, Izzet Ensoul can’t afford to play many reactive cards, so it’s important that the cards you do play have a wide-ranging impact, especially in the maindeck. Last fall I played Wild Slash because Mono-Green Devotion and various aggressive decks were so prevalent, but in the current metagame, we need to be concerned with stopping the Dimir Inverter combo and other powerful plays, so a counterspell makes sense. Metallic Rebuke hits any card; sometimes costs one mana, which is an excellent tempo swing; and works well with Ornithopter and Ghostfire Blade.

This package has yet to blow me away, and they’re generally the first cards you cut when sideboarding, but it has a much higher upside than the other cards that see play in these slots. And when it comes to filling the last slots of the deck, I’m looking to play cards with high upside, even at the cost of a low floor, rather than cards that will be subpar every time.

A Note on Emry, Lurker of the Loch

Emry is the card I get the most questions about, since it’s quite common in lists these days. I’ve played with the card a fair amount, both in the maindeck over the singleton Hope of Ghirapur and in the sideboard in larger quantities, and have yet to be impressed.

Simply put, Izzet Ensoul is not interested in attrition fights. Steel Overseer and Stonecoil Serpent are your only cards that scale into the late-game, while your cheap creatures look worse and worse. Even worse, Pioneer is full of combo decks that take inevitability from you, along with Sultai Delirium that builds towards Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath and Emrakul, the Promised End. Izzet Ensoul wants no part of these games. It just wants to get people dead.

Emry does not get people dead. It can be nice to recur your dead creatures against decks with lots of removal, but in those matchups Emry, with its 1/2 body, has a hard time surviving. The card simply isn’t a fit.

The Secret to Playing Izzet Ensoul

If you want to succeed playing Izzet Ensoul, you need to embrace the fact that this is a deck that just wants to get them dead. As a result you should keep two things in mind. First is to approximate the thought process of a Burn pilot. Card advantage and tempo are still relevant for Burn decks, but they ultimately take a back seat to the philosophy of fire. In any exchange, you should be willing to sacrifice those first two resources provided you’re dealing sufficient damage. What constitutes sufficient damage is contextual, and one of the tricky parts of piloting the deck well, but whatever the number is, it requires a recalibration from typical play.

In general you want to get your opponent to five and ten, so they are in range to die quickly to your animation effects and Shrapnel Blast, but your evasive creatures and Ghostfire Blade also contribute to your reach, and should be accounted for when you’re deciding how aggressively to play your hand.

When your synergies come together, winning on five cards isn’t difficult, but when they don’t, winning on seven cards still is.

Second is to have no fear. Everyone who plays against you knows that stopping your animation effects is their top priority and will play to do so whenever possible. When you have Steel Overseers and Ghostfire Blades to pressure your opponent and draw out their removal, then by all means do so, but if your hand is reliant on an early animation effect, your best bet is to put them to the test as early as you can. 

This is especially true if your opponent is tapped out and you’re guaranteed to get an attack in. One attack is often enough for your mopey creatures to put the opponent into burn range, and two attacks are almost always enough. Try to get in your big chunks of damage early, and if you run into removal, it’s time to get scrappy. Izzet Ensoul wins plenty of games by limping over the finish line with Gingerbrute and Mutavault, often dealing exactly enough against a forlorn opponent who just needed one more untap step to seize complete control of the game. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s the ideal game of Magic.

The Achilles Heel

With a powerful, aggressive gameplan and a favorable metagame, you’d expect Izzet Ensoul to rise to the top tier of the metagame, but that hasn’t happened (not do I expect it will). Part of it is due to many players being turned off by the off-brand type of Magic the deck plays, but it’s not the primary reason.

Izzet Ensoul is lacking in a key aspect of deckbuilding which holds it back from ascending the ranks in Pioneer: consistency. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to do about it. The deck is roughly a third enablers, a third payoffs, and a third lands, and you have to draw them in the right mix. And on top of that, you have to do it in the first three or four turns of the game, when the variance in your draw is at its highest. With the speed you’re trying to operate on, cards like Opt aren’t appropriate so you’re at the mercy of the mulligan gods. The London Mulligan rule helps a lot here, and you should be availing yourself of its services quite regularly. When your synergies come together, winning on five cards isn’t difficult, but when they don’t, winning on seven cards still is.

Smuggler’s Copter gave the deck some added consistency via the looting effect, and that’s the one aspect of the card Steel Overseer can’t replace at all. And until a new card that brings some consistency back to the deck comes into Pioneer, it won’t be on the level of Mono-White Devotion and Dimir Inverter. But the good news is that’s what makes the deck underrated when metagame conditions are good for it, so if Izzet Ensoul is your jam, the time is now to break out your Shrapnel Blasts.

Sideboard Guide

VS Dimir Inverter

Out:

In:

A deck as disruptive as Dimir Inverter seems like it would be a poor matchup, but they have quite a bit of air, and with the move toward Hero’s Downfall and Noxious Grasp to counter the Devotion decks, they’re relying pretty heavily on Fatal Push to contain your early threats. Your counterspells make an early Inverter of Truth a risky play, and winning with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries is tough against Shrapnel Blast.

Tormod’s Crypt stops the early Inverter lines while providing more functionality as a zero-drop than Ornithopter, and Steel Overseer is relatively weak once they bring in more removal, so those are the cards to cut. Keep in mind that Tormod’s Crypt loses its value as the game goes long, so around Turn 4 or 5 you may want to cash it in if it will stop a Dig Through Time.

VS Mono-White Devotion

Out:

In:

They load up on Baffling Ends after sideboarding, which forces longer games. In those games, Bomat Courier’s lack of evasion makes it a huge liability, and Metallic Rebuke becomes a dead card, so they come out in favor of hard removal and a few cards to provide additional evasion to break through stalled battlefields.

VS Sultai Delirium

Out:

In:

A similar dynamic to Dimir Inverter, except instead of worrying about a combo, you should worry about Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath. It’s nearly impossible to remove since Aether Gust is too narrow to bring in and will take over the game very quickly. I prioritize animating Stonecoil Serpent since it’s invulnerable to Abrupt Decay and Assassin’s Trophy and attacks through Uro.

VS Bant Spirits

Out:

In:

This is the matchup where you get punished the most for having another counterspell over the third copy of Mystical Dispute, but I’ve compensated by having more removal, and Fry is great in the matchup. You’re going to get ahead early in most games, and stopping them from turning the corner is paramount, so this is a matchup where you have to play a bit tighter than usual, since you’ll typically wear them down if you don’t get blown out by their tricks.

VS Azorius Control

Out:

In:

A surprisingly good matchup because they don’t have access to good one-mana removal and you usually have the tools to play through Supreme Verdict. Stonecoil Serpent is an unsung hero here since it dodges Azorius Charm, both Teferis, and Detention Sphere while attacking through Dream Trawler. Ride it as much as you can, keep their planeswalkers in check, and play around Supreme Verdict as best you can. Because you’re trying to play around Verdict, Steel Overseer is a liability.

This is the matchup where you miss Experimental Frenzy or Karn, Scion of Urza in the Whirler Rogue slot, but I prefer the immediate impact of the creature and its role as a finisher in some matchups where the battlefield stalls.

VS Mono-Green Devotion

Out:

In:

Another matchup where the battlefield stalls, so Bomat Courier comes out. I trim a Metallic Rebuke as well because I don’t want to be too reactive in a matchup where you’re generally ahead due to their lack of profitable interaction. Karn, Scion of Urza is their best card in the matchup but it doesn’t stop your animation effects. Beware of it Wishing for Aligned Hedron Network, since that is a potential blowout card.

VS Mono-Black Aggro

Out:

In:

This is a tough matchup because they can both play an interactive game and win with recursive threats and race you with a strong aggressive draw. It’s hard to figure out which game to prepare for and there’s no substitute for experience here. Try your best to get a read for how they are approaching the matchup and play appropriately.