Izzet Tightens Grip on Standard Despite Banlist Nerfs

Last updated on November 18, 2025

Otter | Illustration by Julia Griffin

A week ago, Wizards swung the ban hammer and finally killed off Vivi Ornitier’s reign of terror. Vivi Ornitier and Proft's Eidetic Memory got banned on November 10 with the explicit goal of dismantling Izzet Vivi Cauldron. The Standard bans also nuked Screaming Nemesis to clip Mono-Red Aggro's wings.

WotC may have thought that these bans would be the end of Izzet’s nonsense, but it looks like a blue sphinx from Edge of Eternities may have other plans.

Quantum Riddler has stepped up to fill in Vivi's shoes: Alongside Thundertrap Trainer and a blink package, an Izzet Control shell has already taken 2nd, 1st, and 1st in consecutive MTGO Standard Challenges on November 14 and 15.

So, yeah. Vivi's gone. Cauldron too. But Izzet's still very much alive and kicking.

News of Izzet's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Quantum Riddler – Illustration by Cacho Rubione

Wizards of the Coast's Banned & Restricted announcement last week was very clear about the target: Izzet Cauldron. Wizards explicitly called it “the strongest deck in the format and has had unacceptably high win and play rates over a sustained duration,” with a strong fair game, a combo ceiling, and basically no good counterplay.

The expectation, including in Wizards’ own write-up, was that the format would open up and Izzet would step down from “format bully” to “just another strong deck.” And that’s basically what’s happening… except the “just another strong deck” is a new Quantum Riddler control shell that looks extremely real.

Instead of leaning on Vivi Ornitier, Agatha's Soul Caudron and a suite of cheap, aggressive creatures, this new “Izzet Control” shell slows things down and turns Quantum Riddler into a card-advantage engine that actually ends the game.

The creature base is really small: Just Thundertrap Trainer and Quantum Riddler. Both bodies give you value right away and both can be played early for cheap, or as a more chunky top-end later.

The innovation here is Splash Portal, which is a four-of. For a single blue mana, it flickers your creature and gives you another enter-the-battlefield trigger. In practice that means:

• You can blink a warped-in Quantum Riddler so you effectively “cheat” the full-price version.
  
• You can loop Thundertrap Trainer to keep drawing cards and stocking up on prowess bodies – and since the Trainer is an otter, Splash Portal will draw you an extra card.
  

Then you have two of the strongest blue cards, Stormchaser's Talent and Into the Floodmaw, which are one way how this deck puts more bodies on the board…

Into the Floodmaw

… and the usual red and blue suspects when it comes to efficient interaction and card selection: Torch the Tower and Obliterating Bolt keep your foe's board clean, while Opt and Stock Up smooth your draws and fuel your prowess turns. You also have Ral, Crackling Wit to spit out more Prowess Otters and draw more cards.

Punching Up

Izzet Control showed up right after the last weeks bans, almost reaching the Top 8 in the Standard MTGO Challenge 32 on Nov 11. And has been getting great results since then.

With minimum tweaks, it clinched the #1 spot on one of the MTGO Challenges on Nov 14…

Source: MTGTop8

… and that exact same list (but with a different pilot) reached #2 on the second MTGO Challenge that same Friday.

And the next day it came back for more: With just a single tweak to the mana base, a third pilot again reached #1 on the MTGO Challenge last Saturday.

Sunday didn't bring any new first place… but Izzet Control did get another Top 8.

Will Izzet Control Rule Standard, Just Like Izzet Vivi Did?

Ral, Crackling Wit (Bloomburrow) – art by Rudy Siswanto

If you were already a Standard Izzet enjoyer, odds are a lot of your pieces carried over: Quantum Riddler, Torch the Tower, Into the Flood Maw, Stormchaser's Talent, Astrologian's Planisphere. If you need a strong new deck to play this week, what you need is the flicker package.

Will it rule Standard, though?

If you look at the current data, Izzet's new iteration is indeed looking quite scary. As a rule of thumb, the strongest decks right after a bunch of bans are whichever decks were already strong and dodged the bans.

The fact that a new deck can get good results so consistently is indeed a sign that it may be top tier: It's already good, and it may still get refined further.