At a glance
- Format: Brawl (100-card)
- Commander: Kraum, Violent Cacophony
- Colors: Blue / Red (UR)
- Archetype: Izzet Draw-Go Control (permission + attrition)
- Power tier: mid
- Competitive Brawl: ✅ Legal
Strategy
Draw-Go Izzet permission-control under Kraum, Violent Cacophony (FIXED commander, not among the 99). Do nothing on your turn, hold up mana, and answer threats on the stack (12 counters) or the battlefield (13 burn/bounce + 3 wipes). A dense cheap-cantrip package (11: Opt, Consider, Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Deduce, Chart a Course, Think Twice, Frantic Search, Behold the Multiverse, Treasure Cruise) refuels the hand AND acts as the FIRST cheap spell each turn so a reactive counter/removal lands as your SECOND spell — feeding Kraum a +1/+1 counter and a card. Correct defensive sequencing (per the critic panel): lead with an INSTANT-speed cantrip (Opt/Consider/Brainstorm) or flash body (Spectral Sailor/Brineborn Cutthroat) BEFORE the answer so the interaction is spell #2 on the opponent’s turn — the sorcery cantrips (Ponder/Preordain/Chart a Course/Treasure Cruise) can only be the second spell on YOUR turn, so don’t count on Kraum snowballing every single turn; the token engines + Psychosis Crawler are the resilient backup if Kraum eats removal. Finalizer changes vs the candidate: (1) cut Windreader Sphinx (an attack-only flyer payoff that a hold-up-mana deck never triggers) for Psychosis Crawler — the draw-go-NATIVE kill that turns all 11 cantrips + Narset/Ral/Kaito/Archmage draw into uncounterable life loss and a fat body from a full hand; (2) cut Turtles in Time (a symmetric panic button that shuffled away your own delve/serpent graveyard fuel, bounced your own token boards, and refilled the opponent) for Enigma Drake — a cheap 3-drop evasive clock that scales off the spell-dense graveyard and lowers the top end; (3) cut Whispering Wizard (weakest token engine, non-bo with the four symmetric wipes) for Unwelcome Sprite, a 2-drop flyer that surveils 2 whenever you cast on an opponent’s turn — pure on-plan reward for the reactive game that also fuels the graveyard payoffs; (4) added Blink of an Eye + Banishing Betrayal (owned instant bounce) and cut two redundant cantrips (Winged Words, Quick Study) to patch the deck’s single worst coverage gap — NO answer to a resolved noncreature permanent (enchantment/planeswalker/rock); these two bounce also double as toughness-agnostic creature answers and second/third artifact answers behind lone Abrade. Manabase rebalanced for its double-U pip demand (12 double-U cards incl. T2 Counterspell / T3 Narset-Sabotage-Void Shatter-Kaito): cut Rogue’s Passage (colorless utility that can’t cast a counter, redundant with the deck’s heavy evasion), Baron Airship Kingdom (vanilla ETB-tapped), and Den of the Bugbear (a red-only tapland that does nothing for blue) into basics, moving to 16 Island / 10 Mountain — ~26 U land sources (~29 with Arcane Signet/Prophetic Prism/Coldsteel Heart) meeting the Karsten double-U benchmark, with red comfortably at ~20 land sources for its mostly single-pip suite (its three double-R spells all resolve T3+). That also drops taplands from ~8 to 6. Final composition: 36 lands (10 nonbasic + 26 basic, blue-weighted), 4 rocks, 11 cantrips, 12 counters, 13 removal/bounce, 3 wipes, 4 planeswalkers, 16 creatures = 99. Interaction density (~28 answers) sits well above the 10+ control benchmark; the top-end is intentionally payoff-only and mostly cost-reduced (Blasphemous Act ~{1}{R}, Treasure Cruise/Tolarian Terror delve, Cryptic Serpent spell-count discount).
Cards
Decklist
Paste straight into MTG Arena (or Moxfield/Archidekt):
Commander
1 Kraum, Violent Cacophony
Deck
1 Command Tower
1 Steam Vents
1 Riverpyre Verge
1 Thundering Falls
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Izzet Guildgate
1 Swiftwater Cliffs
1 Restless Spire
1 Airship Engine Room
1 Evolving Wilds
16 Island
10 Mountain
1 Arcane Signet
1 Mind Stone
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Opt
1 Consider
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Deduce
1 Chart a Course
1 Think Twice
1 Frantic Search
1 Behold the Multiverse
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Spell Pierce
1 An Offer You Can't Refuse
1 Flusterstorm
1 Counterspell
1 Remand
1 Negate
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Essence Scatter
1 Make Disappear
1 Sinister Sabotage
1 Syncopate
1 Void Shatter
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Abrade
1 Scorching Dragonfire
1 Torch the Tower
1 Lightning Strike
1 Fiery Annihilation
1 Fading Hope
1 Into the Flood Maw
1 Slick Sequence
1 Sear
1 Inescapable Blaze
1 Blink of an Eye
1 Banishing Betrayal
1 Slagstorm
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Burn Down the House
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Ral, Crackling Wit
1 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
1 Kaito, Cunning Infiltrator
1 Spectral Sailor
1 Brineborn Cutthroat
1 Cloudkin Seer
1 Unwelcome Sprite
1 Archmage of Runes
1 Murmuring Mystic
1 Mulldrifter
1 Soulblade Djinn
1 Enigma Drake
1 Psychosis Crawler
1 Niv-Mizzet, Visionary
1 God-Eternal Kefnet
1 Ovika, Enigma Goliath
1 Kairi, the Swirling Sky
1 Tolarian Terror
1 Cryptic Serpent
Card images & data via Scryfall.