The 36 Best Izzet Creatures in Magic Ranked

Pinnacle Emissary | Illustration by Alejandro Pacheco

While I’m mostly a midrange player, every now and then I get the urge to outvalue my opponents and strike before they know what’s coming. There’s no better way to do that than by playing Izzet () decks, and today I’m breaking down the best creatures you can run in them and the cards that pair perfectly with each one.

Intrigued? Let’s dive in.

What Are Izzet Creatures in MTG?

Elemental Expressionist | Illustration by Zack Stella

In Magic: The Gathering, Izzet () creatures have a blue and red color identity, and they usually care more about spellcasting than raw combat stats. They often reward you for casting instants and sorceries, drawing extra cards, or chaining spells together, which fits perfectly with the Izzet Guild’s fast, experimental, and explosive style of magic.

This list covers creatures that represent this playstyle the best and ranks them from basic enablers to the most impactful ones you can build around.

#36. Nivix Cyclops

Nivix Cyclops begins as a chill defender, but every spell you cast turns it into a powerhouse that can rush into combat and hit like a truck. For a brief moment before the release of Modern Horizons, it even served as a key piece in Pauper Kiln Fiend decks that relied on chaining spells to threaten a win out of nowhere. While it doesn’t have trample itself, tools like Temur Battle Rage push lethal damage through blockers, very reminiscent of what Atog did before it was wrongly banned from the format.

#35. Wandering Mind

When Wandering Mind enters, it goes treasure hunting through the top six cards of your library and grabs a non-creature spell that keeps your game plan moving. This works wonderfully alongside value cards like Consider or Opt, since you get to fill your hand with more spells that keep the engine alive as the match continues.

#34. Nucklavee

When Nucklavee enters the battlefield, it brings double the value back to your hand by returning a red sorcery and a blue instant, which makes it especially strong in decks that fill the graveyard naturally and allows you to repurpose spells such as Electrolyze and Wrenn's Resolve without losing momentum.

#33. Stormchaser Mage

Stormchaser Mage leans on prowess to surge in size for a turn, which makes it excellent in Izzet Duel Commander, where cheap spells create sudden spikes of damage your opponents have to respect. Support from Slip Through Space or Rapid Hybridization give it openings to slip past blockers and craft scenarios where casting just a few spells makes it a lethal powerhouse.

#32. Stormcatch Mentor

With Stormcatch Mentor helping your spells cost less, it becomes easier to cast several in one turn and still send them into combat thanks to prowess. Commanders like Iroh, Grand Lotus benefit from the cost reduction; with the right setup, they can become virtually free.

#31. Third Path Iconoclast

Third Path Iconoclast turns every non-creature spell you cast into an extra soldier, giving you steady board presence without changing how your deck operates. It works especially well with commanders like Narset, Enlightened Exile or Kykar, Wind's Fury since those run a large number of spells and naturally grow the board while interacting.

#30. Lore Drakkis

Mutate is one of my favorite mechanics, and Lore Drakkis shows why. Placing it on another creature lets you return an instant or sorcery to your hand each time it mutates, and cheap mutate cards such as Sea-Dasher Octopus push its ability even further by picking up more spells as the match goes on.

#29. Izzet Staticaster

Izzet Staticaster can start picking off creatures right away and is especially effective against token strategies where everything shares the same name. Giving it support from cards that untap it or giving it deathtouch makes each activation far more dangerous and lets it handle boards that would normally be too large for small pings.

#28. Izzet Guildmage

Izzet Guildmage lets you double up on powerful effects for just a little mana. It also forms a well-known combo with Dramatic Reversal to generate infinite colored mana when you have enough nonland mana sources, giving cantrip-heavy lists and spellslinger commanders an easy way to close out the game.

#27. Enthusiastic Mechanaut

Enthusiastic Mechanaut helps develop your board quickly while still applying pressure from the air. In Pauper EDH, it can even serve as a surprisingly strong commander since the format offers a deep pool of efficient artifact spells that work naturally with payoffs like Thoughtcast, letting you overwhelm opponents with nonstop value.

#26. Sprite Dragon

Flying, haste, and counters that stay on permanently make Sprite Dragon a threat that grows out of hand as you cast noncreature spells. It often becomes a problem your opponents cannot ignore for long. It was even one of the best cards in early Historic Izzet Phoenix lists because spells like Curious Obsession and cheap cantrips helped it grow fast while dodging damage-based removal.

#25. Crackling Drake

Crackling Drake mostly shows up in the sideboards of Izzet decks looking for a reliable threat against grindy strategies like Rakdos () Midrange. What makes it especially strong is that graveyard hate does almost nothing to weaken it because the drake still picks up power from spells in exile, giving it a steady role against decks that try to shut your yard down.

#24. Aegar, the Freezing Flame

Every time your burn spells or giant friends deal more damage than needed to finish a creature or planeswalker, Aegar, the Freezing Flame rewards you with fresh cards. This makes cheap removal like Flame Slash even better because removal turns into card advantage and fuels more action.

#23. Fearless Swashbuckler

I like this card as one of the few Izzet payoffs that care about vehicles: Fearless Swashbuckler gives them haste and rewards you for attacking with both a pirate and a vehicle by letting you draw three cards and discard two. Using it with Smuggler's Copter and evasive pirates makes the trigger simple to set up, letting you stay aggressive while looting through your library for the strongest finishers your deck can offer.

#22. Dominus of Fealty

Stealing any permanent every upkeep makes Dominus of Fealty a very satisfying card to play, since untapping the stolen piece gives you a full turn to use it before sending it back or tossing it away. Sacrifice outlets or effects like Fling make those borrowed cards even more profitable, and it also answers planeswalkers by taking them right before they can activate a dangerous ultimate.

#21. Dack’s Duplicate

Dack's Duplicate enters as a copy of the strongest creature on the battlefield, and the haste plus the dethrone counter it earns for hitting the player with the highest life total lets it become dangerous right away.

#20. Eruth, Tormented Prophet

Eruth, Tormented Prophet changes how you draw cards because each card drawn turns into two cards exiled from the top of your library, giving you a steady stream of new options every turn. Just be warned that you need to act quickly since any card you don’t use right away is gone for good. That said, cheap card draw spells like Brainstorm are insanely good, letting you see six cards for just 1 mana.

#19. Keranos, God of Storms

Keranos, God of Storms won't always be a creature on the battlefield, but it always gives you value by revealing the first card you draw and either letting you draw more or dealing 3 damage. With some help from Preordain or scry effects, you can set up the top of your deck to always get what you want.

#18. Balmor, Battlemage Captain

If you need a cheap commander, Balmor, Battlemage Captain is a great pick because not only is it budget-friendly as an uncommon, but every instant or sorcery you cast acts as a way to buff your whole team with extra power and trample, letting even your smallest creatures hit much harder. Token makers such as Young Pyromancer work especially well here: A single spell like Warlord's Fury can push a surprising amount of damage. Its ideal partner is Harmonic Prodigy, which doubles Balmor’s trigger and turns every spell into even more power.

#17. Gandalf the Grey

Every instant or sorcery you cast lets Gandalf the Grey pick a new effect, whether that means tapping a creature, dealing damage, copying a spell, or bouncing itself to stay safe, giving it flexibility that shines in longer games. Instants are especially helpful because they let you set up neat plays where Gandalf can block a creature, then return to your library before damage, fogging the attack while keeping Gandalf protected for your next turn, where it can re-utilize previously used effects.

#16. Etherium-Horn Sorcerer

Mostly seen in cascade value decks led by commanders like Maelstrom Wanderer or Averna, the Chaos Bloom, Etherium-Horn Sorcerer can fire off back-to-back cascades whenever you bounce and recast it. Tools like Sensei's Divining Top help you set up the perfect spell on top of your library so each cascade hits something meaningful.

#15. Elemental Expressionist

Every time you cast or copy a spell, Elemental Expressionist lets you pick a creature that will transform into a 4/4 elemental token if it tries to leave the battlefield. Effects that sacrifice creatures such as Goblin Bombardment take advantage of this to turn a normal board into a huge army of elementals.

#14. Rielle, the Everwise

Rielle, the Everwise becomes stronger for each instant and sorcery in your graveyard and draws cards when you discard for the first time each turn. Tolarian Winds or Thrill of Possibility work perfectly here because they feed your graveyard and refill your hand at the same time.

#13. Galazeth Prismari

Galazeth Prismari hands you a Treasure when it enters and then lets all your artifacts produce colored mana specifically for casting instants and sorceries, giving spell-heavy decks a ramp option they don’t normally get. Support pieces like Trail of Evidence or Storm-Kiln Artist start generating artifacts that turn directly into spell fuel.

#12. Nin, the Pain Artist

Before Duel Commander evolved past its early French Commander format, many players used Nin, the Pain Artist as a compact draw engine by pouring large amounts of mana into the ability and aiming the damage at creatures that would survive it. Targeting something like Stuffy Doll, or even Nin when you had artifacts such as Grim Monolith or Sol Ring allowed you to draw an enormous number of cards in one shot.

#11. Mizzix of the Izmagnus

As you cast bigger spells, Mizzix of the Izmagnus builds experience counters that steadily shrink the cost of everything you play, turning combos into something much easier to pull off. This discount setup is famous for enabling powerful infinite loops, with the classic example being Reiterate plus Electrodominance, and even without combos, it lets you pour very little mana into massive finishers like Crackle with Power.

#10. Malcolm, the Eyes

Before the release of Spider-Man 2099, Malcolm, the Eyes was the go-to Izzet commander in Duel Commander because it offered early pressure and steady card flow through easy double spelling. New tools give Malcolm even more support, like The Mechanist, Aerial Artisan, since creating Clues for every noncreature spell lets you keep drawing and turning those tokens into surprise attackers.

#9. The Locust God

I first met The Locust God as part of the infamous Indomitable Creativity combo with Sage of the Falls, where the two threatened to win the moment they hit the battlefield. On its own, the god turns every draw into a hasty flying insect, and, with access to Faithless Looting or any repeatable draw effect, you can create a massive swarm while knowing it bounces back to your hand if anyone removes it.

#8. Iron Man, Titan of Innovation

As an interesting twist on artifact-focused strategies, Iron Man, Titan of Innovation jumps into combat quickly and turns each attack into progress by making a Treasure and upgrading one of your artifacts into something stronger. With enough pieces lying around, Tony Stark lets you maximize utility artifacts like Ugin's Nexus to get double the value.

#7. Jhoira of the Ghitu

I know Jhoira of the Ghitu as one of the first truly powerful Izzet commanders because it comes down early and lets you suspend massive spells from your hand, setting up turns that can change the entire game once the time counters run out. Being able to queue up effects like Obliterate and then follow them with game-ending threats such as Kozilek, Butcher of Truth makes Jhoira feel like a commander that can shape the whole match from the moment it appears.

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

Like the other overpowered flipwalkers from Modern Horizons 3, Ral, Monsoon Mage comes with both a creature side and a planeswalker side, and the latter is definitely the one opponents fear most. It begins by reducing the cost of your instants and sorceries, and if you win the coin flip after casting spells on your turn, it transforms into Ral, Leyline Prodigy, giving you even more cost reduction and spell copying that has revitalized combo strategies in Modern, where it is now a key piece in Ruby Storm lists and works beautifully when backed up by Past in Flames.

#5. Vivi Ornitier

Vivi Ornitier is so powerful not just because it grows every time you cast a noncreature spell, but also because it lets you store mana equal to its power and spend it later, setting up turns that explode out of nowhere. Access to Gitaxian Probe or Gut Shot makes it scale quickly. It’s easy to see why it was banned in Standard and nerfed on Arena once players started chaining spells and essentially playing solo from there.

#4. Kraum, Ludevic’s Opus

Kraum, Ludevic's Opus draws a card whenever an opponent casts their second spell each turn, making it great at punishing decks that try to double spell or trade resources quickly. On top of that, it has built-in evasion and haste, letting it deal sudden damage to opponents who may already be close to losing. It’s partner ability works especially well with Tymna the Weaver as it gives access to more colors without overlapping color identities. Together, these form the backbone of the infamous Blue Farm cEDH deck.

#3. Spider-Man 2099

Spider-Man 2099 can’t be cast in the first few turns, but once it finally enters the battlefield, you get a vigilant double striker that rewards you for casting spells or playing lands from outside your hand by dealing extra damage at your end step. Foretell cards and adventure spells work especially well with it, and its success in Duel Commander comes from how easily those let you trigger its damage ability again and again.

#2. Pinnacle Emissary

Every artifact you cast makes Pinnacle Emissary create a flying Drone token, letting you build a growing group of fliers just by playing your normal artifact plan. Warp allows you to cast it early and slip it back to safety before returning it later at full strength. It has already made a mark in formats like Modern, Legacy, and even Timeless, where fast artifact shells give it plenty of chances to snowball and turn simple plays into lasting advantage.

#1. Niv Mizzet, Parun

Niv-Mizzet, Parun turns every spell and every draw into damage that never lets up, making it one of the most punishing commanders to face. Wheels like Windfall or even simple cantrips make the engine explode, creating a loop where card draw fuels more damage until your opponents have nothing left on the board or their life hits 0. If that isn’t enough, it goes infinite with Curiosity and similar effects for a convincing finisher.

Wrap Up

Stormchaser Mage | Illustration by Clint Cearley

Izzet () creatures vary from one to the next, but most of the time, your main goal is simply to cast noncreature spells and take advantage of the abilities they trigger. The real challenge is putting them together in a cohesive strategy that wins games consistently without messing with the non-creature spell count of your deck.

What do you think? Was there a favorite of yours that we missed and should have included? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading, and if you enjoy the content and want to stay up to date, follow us on social media so you never miss anything. Take care, and we’ll meet again in my next article.