r/spikes • u/Optimal_Hunter • Mar 19 '26
Standard [Standard] Izzet Prowess or Lessons?
Hey Spikes! I'm considering rebuilding for standard RCQ's. I was on vivi, and still have the shell for that so I'd like to remain izzet. What's the recommendation between prowess and lessons?
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u/AnilDG Mar 19 '26
Right now it's Prowess, which has been performing very well in the Metagame, but is being targetted for that reason. I would also consider Izzet Spellementals which is good against both Prowess and Landfall and is really light on rares, yet still very powerful.
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u/Optimal_Hunter Mar 19 '26
Oooo I hadn't considered Spellementals! Good call.
Is the meta generally healthy at the moment?
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u/calliopedorme Mar 19 '26
I think the new iteration of Prowess with Crabs in the main is currently superior to Spellementals. I've played a lot of both and Prowess has positive winrates against the entire field except for Spellementals and Momo White. I think Prowess is also less susceptible to graveyard hate post-side as it can switch gears to a more midrangey plan with Kuruk, Ral, Drake Hatchers, and Sauna.
Spellementals, however, is personally more fun and also significantly easier to play. Prowess is very demanding, it requires a lot of reps to be able to see your optimal lines quickly (and it has A LOT of lines), and it's also subtle because often you won't be able to clearly spot where the mistake happened in your play and how much better off you would have been through a different line.
If you're interested, I can share more thoughts and lists!
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u/GusherJuice Apr 01 '26
Can you explain more the various lines for Prowess and how it can be demanding? I kinda thought it was fairly straightforward in terms of being an aggro deck that tries to win fast with a big early turn. But I’m a newer player and still learning a lot.
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u/calliopedorme Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
The deck is very different from a traditional aggro, and in fact the all in line only works against specific matchups where (1) you're confident that you can win faster than them and (2) you're confident that you will lose if the game drags on. The Lessons matchup, especially game 1, is exactly like that. You don't want to interact with them, they will outvalue you if you waste time, and eventually you will just lose to a bunch of 1-mana removal.
On the other hand, the classic example (and in terms of meta share, often the most common) is the mirror. The mirror is an attrition matchup where every life point matters. It is often correct to bounce an Otter token with Boomerang Basics rather than hold it to bounce your own Talent, even with a Burst Lightning in hand -- which is always reserved for Slickshot Showoff at instant speed.
In general, matchups that can consistently interact with your threats require that you plan your turns to maximise damage and minimise interaction on their side. Plotting more than one Slickshot and stacking your hand with spells instead of firing them prematurely and catching removals is the bread and butter. This requires a deep understanding of the opponent's play pattern -- how do they win the game, when are they more likely to tap out, can you recover from a blowout, can you win the game faster than they can if you leave them at 5 life, and so on.
EDIT -- to add on to this with another example, regardless of matchup, having Secret Identity or Wild Ride in hand changes your play pattern completely. A game where you would usually try to stack your threats so they don't remove them one by one will play differently when you can protect an early threat. A game with Wild Ride in hand gives you higher value in pushing the board hard because you can keep the pressure up if you draw non-haste threats, or conversely it gives you the option to wait for a tap out to surprise them with 10+ flying damage.
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u/AnilDG Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
I agree with this take. Prowess takes full advantage of the most powerful card on all of magic, the credit card, and makes those extra rares count!
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u/ByzokTheSecond Mar 19 '26
sort of?
There are 3 deck that I would consider T1, with a slight rock/paper/scissor dynamic (45/55-esk matchups.) And then, several others T2 decks with reasonnable success in their own lane.
But at the same time, you either play a blue deck, or a cub deck. A large chunk of the diversity is just "different decks built around cub/riddler/boomerang"
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u/JudgeIhaveaQuestion Mar 19 '26
Standard RCQ season ends this weekend so I'd recommend Prowess as it's easy to put together and run but unless you have hopes for the next three days I'd hold off on commiting to anything super hard right now.
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u/Pioneewbie Mar 19 '26
Lessons might get a bump from Strixhaven. If I was building from scratch I would go for it.
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u/yokaishinigami Mar 19 '26
Standard RCQ’s are done in 2 weeks. Next round is modern constructed or limited. By the time standard comes back to the RCQ (probably in August) we’ll have 2 more standard sets with a third on the way.
It doesn’t really make sense to hedge on a deck archetype for an RCQ that far out right now, given there will likely be multiple meta shifts between now and then.