All 13 Izzet Planeswalkers in Magic Ranked

Ral, Caller of Storms | Illustration by Kieran Yanner

While all Magic cards tell a story, planeswalkers get more opportunistic than most because they often represent recurring characters and allow Wizards to reiterate and expand upon established themes.

Izzet planeswalkers broadly care about instants and sorceries or artifacts, but there’s much space to explore within those confines. There aren’t many of these planeswalkers, but they have their places in Magic, and potentially your next brew.

What Are Izzet Planeswalkers in MTG?

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer | Illustration by Wesley Burt

Izzet () planeswalkers have a blue-red color identity across the entire card, which includes the backside of transforming cards. Izzet planeswalkers largely care about two things: artifacts or spellslinger strategies, which includes instants, sorceries, and more broadly, casting noncreature spells.

Most Izzet planeswalkers represent either Ral Zarek, a storm mage from the Izzet guild, or Saheeli Rai, an artificer from Avishkar (who is currently desparked). The other characters, Dack Fayden and the Kenrith twins, happen to fit this dynamic as well.

#13. Ral, Caller of Storms

Ral, Caller of Storms suffers from the Planeswalker Deck curse: For whatever reason, Wizards decided any and all cards designed for these products would be unplayable garbage, like the rares from the Starter Deck line.

This iteration of Ral suffers from a common ailment of these cards: It does far too little for 6 mana. My 6-mana planeswalker can draw a card, with no additional filtration or synergy? It can protect itself by removing up to 3 toughness worth of creatures? This would be a mediocre 4-mana planeswalker.

#12. Ral, Izzet Viceroy

For a while, Wizards made extremely safe planeswalkers with the template of 5 mana for a planeswalker that upticked to draw a card, downticked to protect itself, and had an ultimate that reasonably won the game.

Ral, Izzet Viceroy is a perfect example. The template keeps the planeswalker extremely tame, so we aren’t winning any awards. The card draw is nice—with cards like Past in Flames and Mizzix's Mastery it almost looks like drawing two cards. But the overall package is super tame and dull, and it’s good that they’ve moved away from it in recent years.

#11. The Royal Scions

Speaking of tame, The Royal Scions isn’t much better, though it costs a fraction of the mana. Looting as an uptick gets more interesting as Wizards relentlessly prints cards that reward red decks for discarding cards. But neither the second uptick nor the ultimate are enticing enough to run this.

#10. Saheeli Rai

Saheeli Rai’s big claim to fame was breaking Standard alongside Felidar Guardian—it was a literal Splinter Twin situation that saw the cat banned and the planeswalker fade from relevancy shortly afterwards.

#9. Ral Zarek

Ral Zarek is rather tame by modern standards. There are powerful artifacts to untap, like Mana Vault and The One Ring. There’s a world where that untap ability meshes with Displacer Kitten for a convoluted infinite loop that relies on Ral for mana, but that’s pretty narrow and about all you can ask of it.

#8. Rowan, Scholar of Sparks / Will, Scholar of Frost

It’s respectable that Wizards would be cautious with a double-sided planeswalker, but that might have gone too far. Rowan, Scholar of Sparks’ uptick does nothing to help it reach an exciting emblem. While Will, Scholar of Frost has protection, it’s too little, too late for a 5-mana planeswalker, and you’ll almost always lose it if you draw cards. If this had been designed such that you could flip between the twins and maintain loyalty counters, that could be spicy. But this is just… eh.

#7. Saheeli, Filigree Master

I want Saheeli, Filigree Master to be good, I really do. It just isn’t. The ultimate is very strong and looks amazing with proliferate effects since you can theoretically ultimate Saheeli the turn it comes down, but the other abilities are just weak. You don’t even get to draw a card for free; it has a condition. While the Thopters protect Saheeli as chump blockers, you practically kill it to get them. Too many things need to go right for this to be exciting.

#6. Saheeli, the Gifted

Saheeli, the Gifted looks much better thanks to the uptick that gives your next spell affinity for artifacts. This commander can be a pseudo-ritual with the right board state, which takes very little effort to assemble with artifact lands and mana rocks. The other uptick doesn’t really matter in Commander, but the ultimate can win. Between that and affinity, it has potential.

#5. Ral, Storm Conduit

Ral, Storm Conduit is most notable for its infinite combo potential. It can be a combo piece with cards like Fury Storm, but it’s more commonly a win condition for decks that generate infinite magecraft triggers with cards like Fork and Narset's Reversal.

#4. Ral, Crackling Wit

Cards that have a solid floor yet enable a dream scenario are always fun. The static ability on Ral, Crackling Wit does both. There’s the dream where you play Ral and ultimate it the next turn, or maybe even the same turn, then there’s the reality: The static ability provides protection.

You just get more Ral from the extra loyalty; more activations when your draw spell or removal or countermagic adds a loyalty counter to your planeswalker. Since it’s a modern spellslinger card, you can add mana rocks like Talisman of Creativity to the mix. Even if that doesn’t get you to the ultimate, two or three extra loyalty means you get another otter or maybe a crack at fresh cards.

#3. Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

It’s downright tragic that the best Saheeli is the uncommon one, but here we are.

Most of the power is in the static ability. Making tokens when you play things is very strong; making artifact tokens is even better. This turns a Mishra's Bauble into two artifacts for Urza, Lord High Artificer, Mycosynth Golem, or Time Sieve. That’s significant enough, but then we get to the downtick and all the fiddly things you can do.

You get any easy advantage by making a random Servo or other artifact into a Mana Vault, but you could also copy The One Ring to take advantage of the legend rule and ditch it before the burden counters add up. You can make a second Terror of the Peaks or other generic monster to destroy your opponent. It has so many applications.

#2. Dack Fayden

Dack Fayden is a famed Vintage Cube staple known for stealing Power and other great artifacts from your opponent. The uptick also does so much; there’s the red discard synergy, but it also fills the graveyard for delve cards, draws cards for spells that reward you for that, and can even mess with your opponents by targeting them while you have cards like Narset, Parter of Veils or Sheoldred, the Apocalypse that punish them for drawing cards. It’s a lot for 3 mana. Since you steal the artifact forever, you don’t even mind if Dack dies next turn.

#1. Ral, Monsoon Mage / Ral, Leyline Prodigy

The Modern Horizons 3 card rising to the top of the list is roughly as surprising as the Planeswalker Deck card sinking to the bottom.

Ral, Monsoon Mage is a key piece to Ruby Storm decks in Modern and beyond, in large part because it’s functionally a second copy of the namesake Ruby Medallion. But Ral is so much more than a cost reducer because it eventually transforms into Ral, Leyline Prodigy. The coin toss adds a level of variance to it, but if you cast enough spells you’ll get to transform Ral at some point. Oftentimes you flip it and immediately activate the -8, which wins the game. Even if you don’t, you can prep for the next turn’s kill by drawing a card and removing a threat.

Izzet Planeswalker Payoffs

Izzet has very few cards that reward you for controlling planeswalkers, with many of them being cards like Chandra's Regulator or Jace's Triumph that care about you controlling specific planeswalkers. Planebound Accomplice is perhaps the most meaningful of these, though it’s arguably better with big planeswalkers like Ugin, Eye of the Storms than anything Izzet has.

Proliferate cards always work well with planeswalkers since they let you reach ultimate abilities faster or just provide extra loyalty to keep your planeswalkers around. Flux Channeler works particularly well with spellslinger and Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus gets those ultimates fast.

In general though, Izzet planeswalkers are designed to enhance a particular strategy like artifacts or spellslinger rather than be an end to themselves, so the best way to play around them is to identify that strategy and work them into the deck.

Wrap Up

Dack Fayden | Illustrationa by Eric Deschamps

Izzet planeswalkers don’t have the greatest scope in the world, but the best of them are memorable cards with exciting, fiddly play patterns that fit what artifacts and spellslinger want to do; on a flavor level, it’s difficult to fault them.

Which Izzet planeswalker is your favorite? Would you ever brew around them? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!