Welcome back to Master of Magics and another deep dive into the wonderful format that is Historic. Over the last couple of weeks, we have been sharing with you a bunch of deck techs that have been made possible thanks to the release of Kaladesh Remastered on Magic Arena. So far, we have looked at Mono Black Devotion and Simic Aetherworks, so today I thought we would leave Midrange and take a look at a good old Control deck. So, without further ado, lets have a look at Izzet Tower for Historic.

Based around the card Dynavolt Tower, this Red/Blue deck is a spell heavy Control shell. The aim of the deck is to keep our opponent wrong footed until such time we have a firm handle on the board, at which point we will finish them off with multiple Dynavolt Tower activations, or with good old combat damage. Now at first glance, spending five Energy to deal three damage might seem a bit of a steep cost to pay for not much return. But with the Tower’s trigger to gain Energy every time we cast an Instant or Sorcery (basically the game plan of any good Control deck) this is far more plausible that you might think, especially if we have multiple copies of the Tower on the battlefield.

With both the Red and the Blue sections of the colour pie available to us, we have quite a few options when it comes to both removal and counter magic. For removal we are going to run a full playset of Harnessed Lightning in order to synergies with our Energy plan, as well as two copies of Storm’s Wrath to sweep the board of threats when needed. Some would argue that Anger of the Gods would be better here, as it is more useful to sweep the board on turn three against aggro brews. But with so many toughness four creatures in the meta (and no end of Super-Friends decks) I think we have to upgrade somewhat.

For counter magic we have playsets of Quench and Ionize, which should be able to handle most threats in game one. We will of course have a bunch of more specific counter spells in the Sideboard for more focused threats, and we will cover them later. We must also remember to keep our hand full of gas, so card draw is a must. Anticipate gives us a chance to dig three cards deep to find our key pieces or silver bullet as and when needed, while Glimmer of Genius gives us more Energy and card advantage at the four-mana slot. Lastly, two copies of Search for Azcanta really help keep our hand loaded with the right answers when we need them.

Now while it would be fun to zap everyone we face, we can’t purely rely on Dynavolt Tower to win us games. And so we have some alternative win conditions. Whirler Virtuoso can be used to provide blockers on demand when we need them or give us a fleet of aerial attacks to finish up the game. Niv-Mizzet, Parun is a game winning engine in his own right, and unless our opponents have the removal in hand when we cast him, we are likely to be placed firmly in control of the match when he resolves. Finally, two copies of Expansion // Explosion can be used either to double up a spell, or be used in the late game to finish off our opponent with a giant fireball effect.

For lands we are going fairly simple. Seven Mountains and Islands for our basics, with two copies of Fabled Passage and a full playset of Steam Vents and Aether Hub to fix our mana.

For the Sideboard we have additional counter magic for more specific situations, with Spell Pierce, Disdainful Stroke, Essence Scatter and Negate, as well as additional removal with Fry and Abrade. Blink of an Eye gives us a way of bouncing back problematic cards like Enchantments, and River’s Rebuke sweeps away all our opponents momentum in one fell stroke. Lastly, Tormod’s Crypt is a must for those pesky Graveyard decks.

And that about does it for Izzet Tower for Historic. What do you think about today’s deck? Is this what you want to play, or have you a different brew you want to try out? Please let me know in the comments below, and while you’re there you could like and subscribe to keep up to date with all we do here at Master of Magics.

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