An Analysis of Izzet Draft Archetypes

The Izzet Draft Archetypes

Azorius | Dimir | Rakdos | Gruul | Selesyna | Orzhov 

Welcome back! This is the seventh installment of the Current History of Draft Archetypes. The impetus for this series is that I was interested in how often certain archetypes really show up and what kind of variance there tends to be, so I dug in, looked up old draft formats, and crunched some numbers. 

I think looking over the archetypes reveals interesting patterns, telling us what tools are most useful in a designer's belt and letting us predict what could be around the corner. It's also a great way to highlight some interesting evolutions and developments over the years. 

Summary of caveats:

• I include all premier sets from Return to Ravnica through Bloomburrow.
• I included most, but not all, supplemental sets released during that time.
• I only included sets with a two-color archetype in the analysis of that color pair. No three-color/five-color draft themes included.
• My research on determining an archetype was either a direct statement about the color pair's theme, looking at the gold card in the set, or occasionally looking at some articles talking about the set if it couldn't otherwise be determined.
• Sometimes a theme is part of two categories (Artifact Sacrifice); I make the final call on a case-by-case basis which it's more representative of, but also try to address that in the notes.

The Color Pair

I always take a second to think about the colors as individuals and how they work as a pair before really tearing apart the data for these. I love the raw numbers, of course, but I want the story behind them as well, and the color pie provides most of that all on its own. Individual sets force the hands every now and then, but always within this framework.

The relevant notes is that blue cannot efficient remove pesky permanents; it can only slow them down while trying to draw into their control finisher while red is all about slinging goblins and fire at the opponent, even at the expense of card advantage. Many red players have 2-for-1'd themselves in the search of just 1 more point of damage. Combine the two and you can have an aggressive strategy backed up by card draw or a control strategy capable of actually dealing with creatures in the early-to-mid game.

This is a particularly resonant color pair, one of the most interesting sources of conflict in the color pie. Blue is the slowest color in Magic, while red is the fastest. When designing an archetype, you can't have the colors each actively trying to move at different speeds, so the creatives have to pick a lane. This leads to interesting choices, like making blue faster or red slower, or meeting in the middle for a midrange. (I would talk more about speeds throughout these articles, but there's only so much time and space! Unless you have a TARDIS?)

The shared creature keywords are... a source of ongoing frustration to the designers! That's right, blue-red does not have a primary shared creature keyword. Prowess was considered for a time, but it being "noncreature" chafed with certain set themes and caused problems by being the only evergreen ability that stacked and triggered, so away it went. They do share flash and flying, like most colors.

When I go into these analyses, I have an idea in mind for how it might go and what I could expect. This goes like you would expect, with hits and misses. For Azorius, I expected flyers and was vindicated handily. For Gruul, I expected power 4 and got a more complicated answer. For Izzet... well, I was right but I was surprised by how much!

Wildcard Archetype: Spellslinger

Any player who has been in the game for a year or more could probably handily guess this would be the most popular draft archetype for the Izzet color pair. I wonder who would be able to guess close to the actual number. Tell me your honest guess before checking out the answer below!

• Dragon's Maze
• Theros
• Journey into Nyx
• Shadows Over Innistrad
• Eldritch Moon
• Amonkhet
• Hour of Devastation
• Core Set 2019
• War of the Spark

...but wait, there's more!

• Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths
• Core Set 2021
• Strixhaven
• Midnight Hunt
• Crimson Vow
• Dominaria United
• Brother's War
• Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
• Wilds of Eldraine
• Bloomburrow

No surprise at the type, but eighteen is something else. Blue is primary in "friendly to instant/sorcery" while red is secondary. It's notable that there are other sets with a powerful "spellslinger" core of cards running through them, sometimes hidden behind a set mechanic (like jump-start) or creature type (like Wizard). As I've said in previous articles, I have to make some kind of choice with these to present actually interesting data and not just a fuzzy ball of mush, but I like to provide the caveats as well for as clear of a picture as I can make. 

Some of these have deviated a little, like Strixhaven focusing on big spells, Bloomburrow batching in Otter spells, or Wilds of Eldraine making use of Adventures. Instant/sorcery decks are fairly stock-standard as an archetype, as every set has those card types in a high enough abundance to make it interesting without dull. They have to balance with the need for creatures, but it can work out well.

Set Mechanic Archetypes

Set mechanics help the four premier sets released each year stand out from one another. They often have hidden themes that interconnect, but the loudest parts of each set are usually distinct. These mechanics may be something that the color pair hasn't done before or they may just be a different way to do the same old, same old. For Izzet, the sets are as follows:

• Return to Ravnica: Overload
• Oath of the Gatewatch: Surge
• Kaladesh: Energy
• Aether Revolt: Energy
• Guilds of Ravnica: Jump-start
• Modern Horizons 2: Delirium
• Adventures in the Forgotten Realms: Dice Rolls
• Phyrexia: All Will Be One: Oil Counters
• March of the Machine: Convoke
• Modern Horizons 3: Energy

First, a note: three of these (RTR, DGM, GRN) are definitely spellslinger with a fancy word on the cards. You could make an argument about surge, but that falls either way. Dice rolls and oil counters are both open-ended but unique. Delirium and convoke were both shifted from a different color pair entirely, feeling fresh in Izzet colors. I hope both return to it again! 

The last to talk about is energy, which finally returned after eight years. In both appearances, it's been in Blue-Red, and I would expect that trend to continue in the future. Energy, like oil counters, is a fairly open-ended "resource mechanic" that could appear on one-off cards intended to be closed systems. We'll see how it goes. It and convoke are the ones I feel strongest about returning in the next five years.

Creature Type Archetypes

With blue and red being the instant and sorcery color, I expected them to have the lowest "creature type" archetypes. They weren't! (We haven't gotten to that one yet. Wait and see.) We have had eight blue-red draft archetypes themed around the creature type, those being: 

• Ixalan: Pirate
• Rivals of Ixalan: Pirate
• Dominaria: Wizard
• Zendikar Rising: Wizard
• Commander Legends: Pirates
• Kaldheim: Giants
• Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate: Dragons

Pretty close split here between Pirates and Wizards! Pirates have had more individual archetypes, but I will note that Wizards tend to show up alongside the prevalent "instant and sorcery" archetype. They're sort of a "soft kindred" tied into that, and there's definitely a high enough density of Wizards caring about spells that you could go to build either Wizards or spellslinger and come out with a deck that looks like both. Wizards will return.

Giants and Dragons were something of a one-off put into the archetype by the needs of the set, but I do hope to see both. The upcoming return to Tarkir will have Dragons, but it'll be interesting to see if they're spread out across all five colors equally or focused in one or two color pairs for drafting purposes. If they are focused, I'd expect to see them in Izzet or Gruul. 

Card Type Archetypes

Okay, here's a contentious one. The "instant or sorcery" is technically a card type archetype. I'll note the final numbers if it were to be lumped in with card types rather than separated at the end of the article. As those spellslinger spells indicate, card type archetypes are important and interesting, as the card type mattering makes it easier for the card as a whole to be relevant to two different draft archetypes.

Discounting the spellslinger archetypes, there have been six card type archetypes in Izzet in the past twelve years:

• Magic 2015: Artifact
• Khans of Tarkir: Noncreature Spells
• Magic Origins: Artifact
• Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty: Artifact
• Lost Caverns of Ixalan: Artifacts
• Murders at Karlov Manor: Artifact Sacrifice

It's kind of funny to me that blue-red gets to care so heavily about artifacts and the "instant or sorcery" group. Blue is primary in caring about artifacts, with red being secondary, exactly like with the instant or sorcery archetype. 

Some quick notes. Magic 2015 is kind of fuzzy with its archetypes, but artifacts seemed to be the loudest part of the blue-red draft strategy thanks to Darksteel Citadel and Ensoul Artifact. The other note is that Lost Caverns of Ixalan is another "subliminal creature type" draft strategy, with Pirates being the majority of the creatures who care about artifacts.

The only odd duck in the bunch is Khans of Tarkir, where the broader noncreature spells archetype ruled the roost thanks to prowess in Jeskai. It pulled some big creatures from the Temur archetype (and the Ferocious mechanic notably worked if your creatures got their buffs from prowess.)

Other Archetypes

Some things just don't fit neatly into any of the defined slots. These one-off, quirky archetypes can stand out, as I think they tend to here:

• Battle for Zendikar: Colorless
• Modern Horizons 1: Draw 2
• Core Set 2020: Flyers
• Throne of Eldraine: Draw 2
• Theros Beyond Death: Flash
• Outlaws of Thunder Junction: Second Spell

Flyers and flash represent the only shared creature keywords of blue-red, albeit primarily found in other color pairs. The colorless archetype in BFZ was for the Eldrazi theming, allowing colorless noncreature spells to go in with the Eldrazi themselves. Draw 2 works with cycling but also with blue and red having various cheap cantrips or various card draw spells (especially powerful with red's rummaging spells being at a cheaper rate than normal draw). I personally hope that Draw 2 becomes prevalent in Dimir archetypes, but I wouldn't be mad about it here! 

The last one to talk about is the Second Spell archetype in OTJ, a way to care about plot without just caring about plot (much like the Draw-Go in Azorius in that set). This plays similarly to surge in some respects, and really brings out the "tempo" nature of blue-red. Hope to see it more!

Final Analysis

Okay, we've looked over what the archetypes have been (and dug into a little of the "whys"), now let's put it all together for one Epic Experiment!

Instant or Sorcery: 19 (39.6%)

Set Mechanic: 10 (20.8%)

Card Type: 6 (12.5%)

Creature Type: 8 (16.7%)

Other: 5 (10.4%)

This is the most uneven split between the categories, with the highest overall percentage in wildcard. As previously mentioned, there are a few set mechanics and creature types that tie heavily into the "instant or sorcery" archetype. Those wouldn't bring us up to the staggering 50%, but it's kind of shocking that it is so close. Nearly every other premier set? Wow.

If we did merge "card type" with the wildcard slow, we would in fact be over 50%, but I stand by separating them. The prevalence of "instant or sorcery" makes it feel distinct from regular card type matters (as in those sets, the card normally has to show up at a much higher volume to make it work). 

The "other" category being as low as it is is likely due to how "easy" it is to build in the instant/sorcery draft archetype. It's a solid back-up which makes the color pair easy to adjust to, no matter the set, while having a clear identity. 

Conclusion

Whew. Seven down! Izzet's clear identity in spellslinging is an interesting one, with the archetype almost feeling invisible in some ways. I rarely see complaints about this one being so prevalent, possibly because it plays differently in different sets or just because it's accepted. Would love to hear your perspective on it.

Next time, I'll be digging up some bodies, because it's time for the Golgari!