Between speed, power, and consistency, 
Prowess truly has it all. It was the deck of choice for 30.5% of the Pro Tour Secrets of Strixhaven and, now that the Pro Tour dust has settled, it's clear that Prowess still has a lot to offer in the current Standard Constructed metagame.
In this deck guide, I'll explain why I chose Prowess for the Pro Tour and why I would still choose it if I were to compete in an upcoming Regional Championship. I'll also break down our decklist, sideboard plans, and everything you need to start playing this archetype or to master it further. For those looking for an effective, interactive, and fun deck, Prowess might be the right choice.
Even when people are prepared to face Prowess and the metagame isn't particularly favorable, things can never really go that badly. The deck is inherently strong, with a very high average card quality, and therefore doesn't depend on the metagame as much as some Control and Midrange decks that need to be perfectly positioned on a given weekend. Much of my Pro Tour preparation involved building decks with the goal of beating Prowess... and still losing. In the end, unable to beat them, I joined them, and I was happy I did.
At the same time, Prowess can adapt to metagame shifts, and if you build your sideboard slots and flexible choices for the right matchups, you'll feel like you're one step ahead of the competition. Our Pro Tour list was fairly "stock," but that's because a good portion of Prowess's choices are so strong that they're essentially set in stone. As for the handful of flexible slots, I was very happy with a couple of our key choices.
Izzet Prowess Game Plan
Prowess is the definition of a complete deck. Your speed makes you strong against non-interactive decks; cheap burn spells make you strong against creature decks; and your ability to hold your own in long games makes you strong against grindy decks. This staying power primarily comes from Stormchaser's Talent and Flow State, which I consider the best cards in the deck and two of the best cards in Standard overall.
In the early turns, you can both develop creatures and cast cheap instants and sorceries to fill your graveyard. Sleight of Hand and Opt help filter your draws while powering up Flow State and Eddymurk Crab. Some cheap counters and removal like Burst Lightning help keep the game under control while you build your hand and graveyard.
Prowess is efficient, powerful, and difficult to attack. Since it sees so many cards, it consistently accesses its best tools for each specific matchup. For example, Eddymurk Crab against creature decks and permission spells against Control decks.
Mulliganing with Izzet Prowess
In your opening hand, you'll be looking for two to four lands (one-land hands can be keepable with the right spells) and something that can impact the board early, like Stormchaser's Talent, Slickshot Show-Off, or Burst Lightning. Don't be afraid to keep land-heavy hands, as you have long-term staying power and make good use of your mana.
You might also find yourself keeping some speculative hands that rely on cantrips to find missing pieces, and that's okay.
Hands you should keep:
Two to four lands with a creature you can cast or plot by turn two.
One land, a Stormchaser's Talent, and a cantrip. You'll see a good number of one-land hands. As long as the land produces blue mana and you have a draw spell like Sleight of Hand or Opt, you should often keep them, though you can still mulligan if the rest of the hand is clunky.
Hands full of burn against creature decks.
Seven-card hands you should mulligan:
Too much burn and too little action against non-creature decks.
Most five-land hands, and all six- or seven-land hands.
One-land hands without a draw spell.
As always, you should lower these standards if you've already mulliganed one or more times.
Most of your best starts will begin with Stormchaser's Talent. However, you'll be impressed by Prowess's ability to play a midrange game as well.
Izzet Prowess Key Cards
Stormchaser's Talent, Slickshot Show-Off, and Eddymurk Crab are the main threats we've chosen. Note that all cost two mana or less to deploy, as Eddymurk Crab will be cheap once your graveyard is full of instants and sorceries.
Elusive Otter is an old Prowess staple that some players continue to rely on to speed up the deck. However, we on Team TCGplayer found that in this new Standard environment with so many Burst Lightnings around, it's better to avoid fragile bodies like Elusive Otter, which are easily traded one-for-one. While the same could be said for Slickshot Show-Off, its plot and haste abilities give you more ability to find the right moment to play it.
Without Elusive Otter, you rely more heavily on the playset of Stormchaser's Talent, which is the best card to see in your opening hand. The blue enchantment is fantastic at applying pressure in the early turns, especially when paired with Boomerang Basics, and it's also a late-game mana sink that ensures you always have gas in the tank.
Colorstorm Stallion
Creature — Elemental Horse
Colorstorm Stallion
Creature — Elemental Horse
Ward , haste
Opus — Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. If five or more mana was spent to cast that spell, create a token that's a copy of this creature.
Some Prowess decks omit Slickshot Show-Off in favor of Colorstorm Stallion, but our goal was to fly over Landfall decks and avoid tapping out on key mid-game turns. Slickshot Show-Off effectively has double prowess, meaning it can be lethal in one or two attacks.
With plot, you can safely set aside Slickshot Show-Off, well-protected from removal and discard spells, and cast it for free on a later turn. This means all your mana will be available to help you generate the maximum number of prowess triggers. It also means you can pick a time when your opponent is "shields down" to make your big turn. The threat of a plotted Slickshot Show-Off scares opponents into not tapping out and developing their own game plan, changing the game dynamics in your favor without even having to cast it.
Opt and Sleight of Hand not only trigger prowess and fill the graveyard, but also draw more spells to repeat the process again. This is what makes the Prowess engine run so smoothly. Flow State is the best card from Secrets of Strixhaven and immediately became a powerhouse in multiple formats. Prowess is the best home for Flow State, and that's a huge reason to choose the deck.
Izzet Prowess Manabase
Regarding the manabase, 21 lands are the starting point. In a deck with many draw spells, it makes sense to play fewer lands than in other decks. Twenty-one seems to be the sweet spot between reducing failure and mulligan rates, while still maintaining plenty of power and reducing the risk of mana flood.
All lands should produce blue mana. You cannot keep opening hands without blue mana (watch out for those Riverpyre Verges). Also, there are late-game turns where you might want to cast four or more blue spells in the same turn. Sometimes you'll have to choose Mountain with Multiversal Passage, but do so carefully.
For the same reason, I prefer to minimize the number of Multiversal Passages. Choosing Mountain has a cost, and losing two life multiple times in the same game can add up. We also considered Stormcarved Coast and Great Hall of the Biblioplex to round out the red sources, but ultimately chose Multiversal Passage for its ability to enable Riverpyre Verge.
Flexible Slots and Sideboard Options
The Prowess sideboard is difficult to finalize completely, because Standard is well-balanced and the metagame is hard to predict right now. All things considered, I liked our Pro Tour sideboard.
Landfall and various Badgermole Cub decks are very strong right now, and Sunderflock might be the best card in Standard against those decks. You can cast it for two mana after Eddymurk Crab. And while some players will hate your graveyard after sideboarding, sometimes those games slow down so much that you can start casting Eddymurk Crabs at full cost.
Spell Snare is in a decent position in the Standard metagame, answering Badgermole Cub, Flow State, and Get Out, as well as countering many key cards in Lessons.
Broadside Barrage deals 5 damage to target creature or planeswalker. Draw a card, then discard a card.
While I don't recommend relying too heavily on board sweepers, a small number of Slagstorm and/or Ill-Timed Explosion can be a nice addition against Sage of the Skies and the various Badgermole Cub decks. Along with Roaring Furnace and Eddymurk Crab, Ill-Timed Explosion can be a strong sweeper that cleans up the board well.
Long River's Pull and Get Out are excellent for closing out games and preventing a big elemental like Eddymurk Crab from entering the battlefield. Most of the time, Long River's Pull will play as Essence Scatter, but giving up a card to counter Deadly Cover-Up, Nature's Rhythm, or Jeskai Revelation can be a game-winning play.
Get Out can bounce your Stormchaser's Talent, Roaring Furnace, and/or Eddymurk Crab back to hand for additional value, as well as cleanly countering various enchantments like the annoying Earthbender Ascension from Landfall decks. Counterspells seem to be in a great spot right now.
Graveyard hate cards are decent options against various decks playing Deceit, as well as against Spellementals.
Tips and tricks
- Cast your spells aggressively: this is a deck that wants to use its mana every turn.
- When in doubt, spend mana on creatures and selection spells. Cast permission spells when the opportunity arises, but these will retain their value in the mid and late game.
- Having a lot of mana is more relevant than it seems. Even when you start the turn with an empty hand, you can chain cantrips or level up Stormchaser's Talent.
- Do the math! These decks can present lethal surprisingly quickly, so assess the situation carefully before rushing into plays.
Sideboard guide
Selesnya Landfall
In: 2 Sunderflock 1 Roaring Furnace 1 Sear 1 Spell Snare 1 Annul 2 Slagstorm
Out: 4 Stormchaser's Talent 2 Boomerang Basics 2 Spell Pierce
MonoG Landfall
In: 2 Sunderflock 1 Roaring Furnace 1 Sear 1 Spell Snare 1 Annul 2 Get Out 1 Slagstorm
Out: 4 Stormchaser's Talent 2 Boomerang Basics 2 Spell Pierce 1 Stock Up
Izzet Lessons (with Monument to Endurance)
In: 2 The Legend of Kuruk 1 Annul 1 Spell Snare 1 Negate 1 Soul-Guide Lantern
Out: 4 Eddymurk Crab 1 Get Out 1 Impractical Joke
Izzet Lessons Midrange (without Monument to Endurance)
In: 2 The Legend of Kuruk 2 Get Out 1 Negate 1 Spell Snare 1 Soul-Guide Lantern 1 Roaring Furnace
Out: 4 Slickshot Show-Off 2 Impractical Joke 2 Eddymurk Crab
Selesnya Ouroboroid and Nature's Rhythm decks
In: 1 Sear 1 Roaring Furnace 2 Sunderflock 1 Annul 1 Get Out 2 Slagstorm
Out: 4 Stormchaser's Talent 2 Boomerang Basics 2 Spell Pierce
Izzet Spellementals
In: 2 Get Out 1 Disdainful Stroke 1 Roaring Furnace 1 Spell Snare 1 Negate
Out: 2 Impractical Joke 4 Burst Lightning
Izzet Prowess with Colorstorm Stallion
In: 1 Sear 1 Roaring Furnace 1 Spell Snare 2 Get Out
Out: 4 Burst Lightning 1 Slickshot Show-Off
Izzet Prowess without Colorstorm Stallion
In: 1 Spell Snare 2 Get Out 1 Soul-Guide Lantern 1 Roaring Furnace 1 Negate
Out: 2 Impractical Joke 2 Slickshot Show-Off 2 Burst Lightning
Dimir Excruciator
In: 2 The Legend of Kuruk 1 Roaring Furnace 1 Disdainful Stroke 2 Get Out 1 Spell Snare 1 Negate 1 Sear 1 Soul-Guide Lantern
Out: 4 Burst Lightning 2 Impractical Joke 2 Spell Pierce 2 Eddymurk Crab
Azorius Flash and Momo
In: 1 Roaring Furnace 1 Sear 2 Slagstorm 2 The Legend of Kuruk
Out: 4 Slickshot Show-Off 2 Spell Pierce
Golgari Midrange
In: 1 Negate 1 Roaring Furnace 2 The Legend of Kuruk 2 Get Out 1 Sear
Out: 4 Burst Lightning 2 Impractical Joke 1 Eddymurk Crab
UWR Control and other Control decks
In: 2 The Legend of Kuruk 1 Disdainful Stroke 1 Negate 1 Spell Snare 1 Annul 2 Get Out 1 Roaring Furnace
Out: 4 Burst Lightning 2 Impractical Joke 2 Eddymurk Crab 1 Slickshot Show-Off
Omniscience
In: 2 Get Out 1 Roaring Furnace 1 Sear 1 Negate 1 Disdainful Stroke
Out: 3 Burst Lightning 2 Impractical Joke
Remove 1 Eddymurk Crab on the play.
Remove 1 Stock Up on the draw.
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English Source: https://www.tcgplayer.com/
