INTRODUCTION:  A LITTLE BIT CRAZY

The Izzet guild is goofy.  With their representative colors, they seem to be comprised of polar opposites, only more so than the Boros guild.  Blue brings calculated knowledge accumulation, while Red brings reckless aggression.  Based upon what I've seen from the cards in Ravnica, Wizards tried to portray the guild members almost as mad scientists.  Which is cool and all but doesn't really fit into my idea of what Magic is all about.  Of course, my idea of Magic doesn't include giant mechs launching missiles, but they have done that too.  

There are only three possible generals in this color combination.  Jhoira is popular, but has power level issues (too high) and will make you an instant target.  Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind is a pretty decent commander but is really popular as well.  Plus, people are often wary of the instant win combo with Curiosity.  What I really wanted to do was use another unusual commander so I picked Tibor and Lumia.  Now, I've always assumed these two are siblings, and they seem like a pretty powerful duo.

Sort of like these two.  Except not quite as powerful.

They seemed interesting at least, and not overly powerful and as a result, they can fly under the radar for a while.  The color combination also has weaknesses to enchantments and planeswalkers, so I am going to try and work around that.  Let's see what I come up with.

THE DECK:
WONDER TWINS POWERS, ACTIVATE!

Let's look at the dynamic duo:

Seriously, that's an action shot.  This couple has 2 interesting abilities.  First, if you play a Blue spell, they can give any creature flying.  This is helpful in giving large creatures you control a form of evasion if needed.  It also coincides well with the second ability.  If you cast a Red spell, the duo deal 1 damage to each creature without flying.  This is pretty useful, as you can strap some equipment on them that gives deathtouch, and wipe out every groundpounder on the field.  I figured that this was a pretty cool ability, and this would be the theme of the deck.

However, if Tibor and Lumia don't have flying and you cast a Red spell while they are equipped with Basilisk Collar, they will kill themselves.  The easiest way to deal with this problem is to play with a lot of multi-colored spells and use the stack to give them flying before they deal their damage.  Unfortunately, a lot of the spells that are both Red and Blue are pretty horrible.

Not up to par. 

There are some Red/Blue creatures that are interesting as well, but didn't fit the theme I was going for.  They are unusual enough that they require a little bit of extra work to be effective, but they would give you some style points for using them.  If I make another Izzet deck at some point in the future they may have a place there, but they just won't do well here.

Cool, but not quite.

However, there is one card that is crap in most decks, but does well in here.  This card essentially solves our problems of killing off our Commander as well as splash damage that would kill any of our non-flying creatures.  Here it is:

This is typically a sub-par card, but it works well in this deck.  With Levitation, you don't have to worry about giving you General flying, as well as any of your other groundpounders.  Pretty sweet.  If you don't draw Levitation, you can also make sure that you don't destroy your own creatures by making sure that they have flying as one of their own intrinsic abilities.  This should not be a problem in these colors, as Red brings dragons and Blue specializes in large flyers.  Anyway, enough talking, let's take a look at the deck:

Tibor and Lumia

A Commander Deck

Creatures 1 Arcbound Reclaimer 1 Draining Whelk 1 Duplicant 1 Flameblast Dragon 1 Gilded Drake 1 Glen Elendra Archmage 1 Godo, Bandit Warlord 1 Hoarding Dragon 1 Izzet Chronarch 1 Keiga, the Tide Star 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 1 Knollspine Dragon 1 Mulldrifter 1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind 1 Nucklavee 1 Roil Elemental 1 Ryusei, the Falling Star 1 Sakashima the Impostor 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Sphinx of Magosi 1 Tibor and Lumia  21 cards Other Spells [Artifacts] 1 Basilisk Collar 1 Crystal Shard 1 Gilded Lotus 1 Gorgon Flail 1 Izzet Signet 1 Journeyer's Kite 1 Loxodon Warhammer 1 Oblivion Stone 1 Quietus Spike 1 Scythe of the Wretched 1 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Sol Ring 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Sword of Kaldra  [Planeswalker] 1 Tezzeret the Seeker [Enchantments] 1 Future Sight 1 Levitation 1 Mystic Remora [Instants] 1 Capsize 1 Comet Storm 1 Desertion 1 Evacuation 1 Mana Drain 1 Prophetic Bolt 1 Reiterate 1 Suffocating Blast 1 Swerve 1 Turnabout 1 Twincast [Sorceries] 1 All Is Dust 1 Blatant Thievery 1 Bribery 1 Call to Mind 1 Earthquake 1 Fabricate 1 Gamble 1 Recurring Insight 1 Rite Of Replication 1 Surreal Memoir 1 Windfall  40 cards

Lands 1 Academy Ruins 1 Cascade Bluffs 1 Faerie Conclave 1 Great Furnace 1 Halimar Depths 1 Izzet Boilerworks 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge 1 Miren, the Moaning Well 1 Mouth of Ronom 1 Reliquary Tower 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Seat of the Synod 1 Shivan Reef 12 Snow-Covered Island 6 Snow-Covered Mountain 1 Spinerock Knoll 1 Steam Vents 1 Strip Mine 1 Thawing Glaciers 1 Tolaria West 1 Vesuva 1 Vivid Crag 1 Vivid Creek 39 cards

Let's break down the cards by category:

Weapons of War

Gorgon Flail, Loxodon Warhammer, Basilisk Collar, Quietus Spike, Scythe of the Wretched, Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of Kaldra:  Obviously these are meant to be put onto T&L, but they generally do well on any creature.  However, you have to be a little bit careful when you put a deathtouch equipment on T&L, because if you play a Red spell next, T&L will likely not have flying and you will end up killing them.  Now, you can always re-cast them later, but that's pretty annoying.  Sword of Fire and Ice gives T&L protection from themselves, so you don't have to worry about playing things out of order.  And Scythe of the Wretched doubles up with the deathtouch equipment to steal every creature in play.  I never got it to work, but I know it will one day.  Warhammer on T&L just leads to lots of life gain, especially if there are a lot of creatures on the board.

Counterspells

: Draining Whelk, Glen Elendra Archmage, Desertion, Mana Drain, Suffocating Blast, Swerve:  I think this is the highest amount of counters I have ever played with.  The creatures work well with Crystal Shard for multiple uses.  Mana Drain is just good acceleration, and I often blow it early just for the extra mana.  Suffocating Blast and Swerve are both decent counters that work well with your general.

Card Draw

Knollspine Dragon, Mulldrifter, Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Sphinx of Magosi, Sword of Fire and Ice, Future Sight, Mystic Remora, Recurring Insight, Windfall:  What's a deck that uses Blue without card draw?  There are some of the typical favorites in here.  Niv-Mizzet works well due to his colors.  As a matter of fact, if you get tired of T&L, you can use the big dragon as your general instead.  He works almost as well with all the equipment that grants deathtouch, and can do a good job of keeping the board clear of opposing threats.

Recursion

Arcbound Reclaimer, Izzet Chronarch, Nucklavee, Call to Mind, Surreal Memoir, Academy Ruins:  There are going to be plenty of times when you will want to re-use your spells, especially your equipment.  Arcbound Reclaimer and Academy Ruins both make it so that you can get some of your good stuff out of the 'yard.  The Chronarch and Nucklavee are also good forms of recursion that play well with T&L and Crystal Shard. The one card that has slightly underperformed here is Surreal Memoir.  There aren't a huge number of instants in this deck so there isn't always a target for this card.  In addition, most of the instants are situational and can't be immediately cast, so that you can get it immediately in graveyard for when Memoir rebounds.  I guess this is a cuttable card.

Tutors

Hoarding Dragon, Godo, Bandit Warlord, Tezzeret the Seeker, Fabricate, Gamble:  You are going to want to access your equipment fairly quickly, and each of these cards provides ways to get what you're looking for.  Gamble works well when you have a full grip of cards and are looking for something specific, such as Levitation.  Godo is another card that works with Crystal Shard. Hoarding Dragon has done its job very well in this deck.  However, another sac outlet like Diamond Valley may help to ensure that it dies instead of getting removed from the game to a Swords to Plowshares.

There are a few other interesting cards here, such as Prophetic Bolt, which fits the deck theme and digs for cards, and Twincast, which is just an all around useful card.  Obviously you want to take advantage of your Commander's damaging ability to clear the board, and use control to win the game.  The one card that I really wanted to play, but couldn't currently due to availability, is this:

This would be awesome but Mercadian Masques isn't online yet.  It would basically be a Scythe of the Wretched that didn't require you to actually kill the creatures.  You wouldn't need any extra equipment, just this card and red spells.  You would be able to steal everyone's creatures that had a toughness greater than one, which isn't a bad thing.  Essentially every one of your Red spells would become an Insurrection!  That sounds pretty sweet.  Unfortunately, we just have to wait until Mercadian Masques comes out for this one.  One of the few good things to come out of that block.

Other than that, the deck is comprised of the usual control deck stuff that occurs in these colors.  Card draw, some recursion, some board control.  The deck can have a little bit of a hard time with fliers, but you can usually just use your own fliers as defense if you need it.  The deck also leans toward Blue, so sometimes you will be searching for Red spells to activate Tibor and Lumia.  But for the most part, you should do all right.

As previously mentioned, if you wanted you could easily transform this to a Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck.  Niv's ability works well with all of the deathtouch equipment, and it would be a different take on the general than all the card draw a typically Niv deck uses.  I would probably try to squeeze Memory Jar in there somewhere though.  Just an idea for switching things up.

THE GAME:  FIGHT!

I actually played this game a day or two after Scars of Mirrodin came out, so this was the first time I had seen a bunch of these cards in action.  Here are my opponents for this game.

 

Not quite, but pretty close.
 

CONCLUSION

So the biggest MVP of the game played by an opponents was this card:

The Karn player had enough mana to be able to bring back almost his entire team each time the board was wiped with this card.   Even if you were only able to bring back one creature each time, this would still be a pretty good method of card advantage.  I would recommend giving this card a shot when you get a chance.

You can find the deck for download or purchase HERE.  It comes out to around 140 tickets, which isn't horrible.  If you want to save some cash, Strip Mine can be replaced with Ghost Quarter, Mana Drain can be replaced with Counterspell, and All is Dust can be replaced with Oblivion Stone.  The last big money card is Sword of Fire and Ice, but you should get that card for all your other decks as well.  Trust me, it's worth it.

Other considerations for the deck include Pithing Needle, and more artifact destruction, such as Shattering Pulse.  Some graveyard hate may be helpful as well.  This deck is obviously not top tier, but it can hold its own against most of the decks out there. I definitely had fun playing it, and lot's of people were impressed that Tibor and Lumia could be competitive.  Like I said, people generally underestimated what you were capable of with this deck, until they saw me drop an equipment with deathtouch.

Hope you enjoyed the deck.  Until next time!

Leviathan, aka Tarasco on MTGO
mrmorale32 at yahoo dot com