Apparently, Black Mage stew is all the rage right now.
With Standard continuing to adapt to the sweeping bans, Dimir Midrange was the clear winner from the recent ban announcement by seeing zero cards hit.
Since the update, Dimir Midrange has managed to rise to dominance and is arguably the deck to beat in Standard going forward. With that, Dimir Midrange has successfully taken away a lot of attention from a fairly new deck that was also untouched by the bans, which is Izzet Vivi Cauldron championed by none other than Hall of Famer Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa. The deck was able to compete prior to the bans, and the deck’s prospects (I would argue) are looking even better now.
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Izzet Vivi Cauldron is two Standard decks in one. On the one hand, it can threaten sizeable creatures like a quickly growing Marauding Mako or a Fear of Missing Out buffed by Proft’s Eidetic Memory to put your opponent under immense pressure. On the other hand, it can provide a huge mana advantage via Agatha’s Soul Cauldron exiling Vivi Ornitier to give your creatures the ability to make as much mana as they have power. Both these game plans intertwine very well as Proft’s Eidetic Memory pumps your creatures and spread the +1/+1 counters around, Marauding Mako gains +1/+1 counters naturally by you drawing and discarding through your deck. With all the excess mana, Winternight Stories also allows you to churn through your deck to build a gigantic creature with Proft’s Eidetic Memoryand then find a Voldaren Thrillseeker to finish your opponent off in style.
Aggressive red strategies have been heavily impacted by the bans and are often overwhelmed by Proft’s Eidetic Memory. Domain Overlord strategies like the rising Naya (and Abzan) Yuna decks are annoyed by Izzet Vivi Cauldron running four graveyard hate pieces in the main. Other Midrange decks often struggle with the card advantage and the grind equity that this deck can generate. The one archetype I’ve felt behind against has been Azorius Control as they have access to sweepers in Temporary Lockdown and Rest in Peace post-board, but by no means is it an unwinnable matchup. The sideboard inclusion of Ral, Crackling Wit has done some heavy work for me against decks like Azorius Control recently.
Izzet Vivi Cauldron Decklist
One nod against Izzet Vivi Cauldron is how difficult it is to play, as the combo turns are intricate and can be hard to maneuver. I’ll try my best to navigate you through them in this article. I found it to be the most powerful option in Standard right now, and I like my plans against the top decks in Standard (don’t worry, there’s a sideboard guide at the end of this article).
For the mainboard, I feel pretty good about it. There is a massive core that you can’t touch or really adjust, and these are the cards I would consider core for Izzet Vivi Cauldron:
- 4 Fear of Missing Out
- 4 Vivi Ornitier
- 4 Marauding Mako
- 4 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron
- 4 Proft’s Eidetic Memory
- 4 Winternight Stories
- 3 Tersa Lightshatter
- 3 Voldaren Thrillseeker
- 22 Lands
These come to 52 cards, which leaves us with eight slots to play with. In this list, I filled those up with seven interactive spells and a copy of Kiora, the Rising Tide.
- 3 Into the Flood Maw
- 3 Torch the Tower
- 1 Kiora, the Rising Tide
Through playing, I found the one mana interaction spells to be very desirable, as your deck has a lot of three-ofs and you’d love to combine a three with a one on turn four to double-spell. Into the Flood Maw isn’t always good, but the first game is less about attrition and more usually about generating tempo. As long as you can buy enough time, you’ll be able to cobble together your combo pieces. In addition, I found it to be crucial in the mirror match to bounce bigger creatures and to reset Agatha’s Soul Cauldron that exiled a Vivi Ornitier or is putting that ability on the stack. When it’s bad, just sideboard it out.
Kiora, the Rising Tide
Foundations, Rare
Kiora, the Rising Tide helps the deck with consistency. Creatures that draw and discard are really good in this deck, as you want both a creature and a way to sift through your deck in many scenarios.
The Izzet Vivi Cauldron Combos
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Your best possible draw is Marauding Mako on turn one into Agatha’s Soul Cauldron on turn two into Tersa Lightshatter on turn three, discarding two cards (with one of them being Vivi Ornitier), then activating Agatha’s Soul Cauldron on Tersa Lightshatter (exiling Vivi Ornitier), which will leave you with a 4/4 and a 3/3 Marauding Mako, and the ability to generate seven mana alone. To quickly explain, for each Vivi Ornitier exiled by Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, your creatures with +1/+1 counters will be able to make as much mana as they have in power during your turn (and once per turn). And yes, you heard me right, while it doesn’t come up all that often, the number of Vivi’s exiled by Agatha’s Soul Cauldron will give your creatures Vivi’s ability X times, this includes the ones that you’ve cast fair and square. That one will also have the ability once (for itself) and X times (X being each Vivi Ornitier exiled by Agatha’s Soul Cauldron).
Going back to our starting example with a 4/4 Tersa Lightshatter and a 3/3 Marauding Mako in play, you can now activate the Tersa Lightshatter to create four mana and cast Winternight Stories for three mana, leaving one blue mana floating. After resolving it and pumping your Marauding Mako further, you can cast Winternight Stories again from your graveyard for just one blue mana by using the Harmonize ability and tapping Tersa Lightshatter. As you resolve the spell, you will discard more cards and make your Marauding Mako into a 7/7. Then, you can use the Marauding Mako’s mana-generating ability (going up to seven mana) to cast more creatures or even something like Proft’s Eidetic Memory and Voldaren Thrillseeker to deal a huge chunk of damage. While you are going through all of these motions, you can cast more copies of Marauding Mako that become stronger by further discarding and are then able to generate mana again, turning these into a Dark Ritual (of sorts) while improving your board state. Knowing which cards to discard to Winternight Stories isn’t always easy, as sometimes, you need the extra card and prefer to discard a creature, sometimes you need the extra power on Marauding Mako to generate more mana. Context genuinely matters here.
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There are multiple different ways you can try to kill your opponent while you are going off. Often, your Agatha’s Soul Cauldron will already be tapped (especially on turn three), so you can’t exile a discarded Voldaren Thrillseeker with that one. But if you have enough mana, you can discard the Voldaren Thrillseeker and then play another Agatha’s Soul Cauldron to exile it and shoot your opponent to death with massive creatures (grown via Proft’s Eidetic Memory or by Marauding Mako). Be aware, as soon as you legendary rule out your first Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, all your creatures will lose the Vivi mana ability, be sure to float mana in advance.
You can play Vivi Ornitier from hand to generate more mana by casting spells and dealing your opponent some amount of damage from Vivi’s triggered ability in the process. With Vivi Ornitier under Agatha’s Soul Cauldron hard-casted, Vivi has the ability twice, which means that casting two spells will net you mana already. You can use one ability, and then use the second ability later when Vivi is even bigger. Playing more creatures to the board can help Harmonize a Winternight Stories from the graveyard, too.
Generally speaking, it is difficult to go completely off without drawing a single copy of Winternight Stories, but you can still cobble together a pretty substantial board or maybe even a lethal attack. If you have to take plays through attacking the opponent, it can be key to have one land untapped, so you can use all of your Vivi abilities to generate a bunch of mana, cast as many spells as you can with Voldaren Thrillseeker as your last spell, buffing your biggest creature. Then, you attack and you need that one land untapped to throw your biggest creatures at the opponent postcombat after dealing them a notable chunk of combat damage. You’ll never generate infinite mana, which makes going through your combo turns an exciting but also stressful way to go off.
You’ll always have to calculate how much mana you will have and what spells you need to cast first to gain more mana to chain further spells. If you can’t kill your opponent in the turn you are going off, you are usually able to build a strong board position and/or draw a bunch of cards to set up a kill in the following turn.
The Play Patterns of Izzet Vivi Cauldron
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With Izzet Vivi Cauldron, I believe it to be really important to know when to cast which of your spells. When playing, the second and third turns are the most interesting in that regard, so I will go into detail on those. You look at your hand and you have a Proft’s Eidetic Memory, Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, and a Fear of Missing Out in hand. Which one do you play on turn two?
- If you’ve cast a Marauding Mako on turn one, you usually want to cast Proft’s Eidetic Memory on turn two. If you have a Tersa Lightshatter or Kiora, the Rising Tide lined up for turn three, you also want to cast Proft’s Eidetic Memory.
- If you do not have Marauding Mako in play nor a Tersa Lightshatter lined up, but a Vivi Ornitier in hand to discard, you are happy playing Fear of Missing Out on turn two and discarding the Vivi. That sets up powerful Agatha’s Soul Cauldron lines for turn three.
- If you do not have Vivi, but pressure is important in the matchup, you play Fear of Missing Out over Proft’s Eidetic Memory on turn two.
- If pressure is not important, or let’s say your creature will likely die in the face of open black mana, play the Proft’s Eidetic Memory, so you play around removal and give yourself more looks at Vivi Ornitier before playing your discard outlet.
Playing Agatha’s Soul Cauldron turn two can be nice as well, especially into open mana from the opponent representing removal or Faerie Mastermind, as it’s the only two-drop you have that doesn’t trigger the pesky flyer. Agatha’s Soul Cauldron on play on turn two is really threatening to your opponent, as it means that any of your eight creatures that discard cards can discard a Vivi Ornitier to start the chain. But if the opponent doesn’t develop further and keep holding up mana to prevent that from happening, you can punish them by casting a Proft’s Eidetic Memory or Winternight Stories to develop your own game plan while they sit on their removal, respecting your combo potential.
As for turn three and generally speaking, Tersa Lightshatter is your preferred play, especially if your opponent is tapped out or only has a few mana sources available. If your opponent has mana up, you can lead with Winternight Stories. At times, casting Voldaren Thrillseeker or Vivi Ornitier can be a reasonable play to get on the board or in the face of Faerie Mastermind, but usually, you prefer casting creatures that rummage those two three-drops rather than deploying them. If you don’t have a discard outlet, casting Vivi Ornitier on turn three will likely see that card end up in the graveyard soon after, as it is a removal magnet, even though it’s a lot less powerful in play in this deck than it was in Izzet Prowess.
The Sideboard of Izzet Vivi Cauldron
Sideboards in a young format are always tricky to build. You have to do some guesswork, but here’s what I am working with right now:
- 2 Disdainful Stroke
- 2 Unable to Scream
- 2 Fire Magic
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 2 Abrade
- 2 Ral, Crackling Wit
- 1 Obliterating Bolt
- 1 Broadside Barrage
- 1 Lithomantic Barrage
Fire Magic
FINAL FANTASY, Uncommon
Fire Magic has impressed me against Dimir Midrange. Picking off their small, evasive flyers for one mana can be a game-deciding swing, plus it’s a two-for-one (and in some cases, even more).
Disdainful Stroke
Wilds of Eldraine, Uncommon
Disdainful Stroke seems good against the various Overlord Decks (many of them playing Yuna, Hope of Spira) or Azorius Control with Ultima and Overlord of the Mistmoors to counter.
Ghost Vacuum
Duskmourn: House of Horror, Rare
Abrade has been nice, as almost all of your opponents either have creatures and/or Ghost Vacuum in the sideboard to hit with it.
Spell Pierce
Aetherdrift, Uncommon
Spell Pierce I found crucial in the mirror match to counter an early Proft’s Eidetic Memory or Agatha’s Soul Cauldron on turn two when on the draw. Also, tagging an opposing Winternight Stories is a huge game-breaker.
Ral, Crackling Wit
Bloomburrow, Mythic
Ral, Crackling Wit is a pretty great card in this deck. The first ability gives you creatures to feed to Agatha’s Soul Cauldron against a removal-heavy deck. The second ability works nicely at enabling your combo, bolstering your creatures with Proft’s Eidetic Memory and growing Marauding Mako. Similar to Izzet Prowess, by boarding a lot more removal (plus the Ral), you can pivot into a grindy controlling deck postboard if you don’t need the combo to win, like against a fair Black-based Midrange opponent or a Red-based Aggro deck that struggles with a creature supported by Proft’s Eidetic Memory.
Lithomantic Barrage, Obliterating Bolt, and Broadside Barrage are there to respect various creatures or Planeswalkers that might be coming at you. Each has its downs and upsides, I’m certainly not locked on this particular split.
Unable to Scream is the card I am the least sure about. It’s for Screaming Nemesis and big Demons, but I haven’t seen much of these decks on the MTG Arena ladder lately. Cards I want to try in the future are Wild Ride and Monument to Endurance as a sideboard option to go around graveyard hate and removal spells. As for Wild Ride, I can see it as a pseudo-Dark Ritual effect with Flashback on your combo turns.
Is Izzet Vivi Cauldron Standard Rotation-Proof?
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Market Price: $58.83
Oh, absolutely. The only mainboard cards the deck will lose are Shivan Reef and Voldaren Thrillseeker. Shivan Reef can be replaced by Starting Town from Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY and will likely be replaced by an upcoming printing of Steam Vents in the near future. For Voldaren Thrillseeker, we have a pretty solid replacement as well in Draconautics Engineer from Aetherdrift. While not as powerful, the ability to spew out a bunch of Dragons and give them haste and to your other creatures is strong enough. If exiled by Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, it puts a +1/+1 counter on the creature by activating it, essentially costing you zero mana if you haven’t activated the Vivi Ornitier ability of that creature yet. Another incredible payoff for Agatha’s Soul Cauldron is Loot, the Pathfinder, but Loot seems less impactful during your combo turns and a lot harder to cast.
Izzet Vivi Cauldron Sideboard Guide
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And there we have it! Izzet Vivi Cauldron is a blast to play but isn’t without its challenges. I’ll leave you with a sideboard guide to help navigate your way to victory — good luck!
Dimir Midrange
- In: 2 Abrade, 2 Fire Magic, 1 Obliterating Bolt, 1 Broadside Barrage, 1 Ral, the Crackling Wit, and 1 Lithomantic Barrage
- Out: 1 Agatha’s Saul Cauldron, 1 Vivi Ornitier, 1 Voldaren Thrillseeker, 3 Into the Flood Maw, 1 Proft’s Eidetic Memory, and 1 Marauding Mako
You can answer all their threats with your removal and turn into a Control deck on the draw during post-board games. Keeping Enduring Curiosity and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares off the battlefield will lead to Dimir Midrange flooding out. Kaito isn’t particularly good when threatened by hasty Tersa Lightshatter that can be supported by Proft’s Eidetic Memory or Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, the turn Tersa comes down to swinging at Kaito for four or more damage.
Izzet Vivi Cauldron
- In: 2 Spell Pierce, 2 Abrade, 1 Obliterating Bolt, and 1 Broadside Barrage
- Out: 3 Torch the Tower, 1 Vivi Ornitier, 1 Kiora, the Rising Tide, and 1 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron
Gruul Delirium
- In: 2 Abrade and 1 Obliterating Bolt
- Out: 2 Torch the Tower and 1 Kiora the Rising Tide
Azorius Control
- In: 2 Disdainful Stroke, 2 Ral, Crackling Wit, and 2 Spell Pierce
- Out: 3 Torch the Tower, 1 Glacial Dragonhunt, 1 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, and 1 Into the Flood Maw
Golgari/Mono-Black Demons
- In: 2 Unable to Scream, 1 Obliterating Bolt, 2 Abrade, 1 Broadside Barrage, and 2 Ral, Crackling Wit
- Out: 3 Torch the Tower, 1 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, 1 Proft’s Eidetic Memory, 1 Vivi Ornitier, 1 Voldaren Thrillseeker, and 1 Tersa, Lightshatter
Naya/Abzan Yuna
- In: 2 Disdainful Stroke, 1 Lithomantic Barrage, 1 Broadside Barrage, and 2 Abrade
- Out: 1 Into the Flood Maw, 1 Glacial Dragonhunt, 3 Torch the Tower, and 1 Kiora, the Rising Tide
Mono-Red Aggro (including Gruul)
- In: 2 Fire Magic, 2 Abrade, and 2 Unable to Scream
- Out: 2 Into the Flood Maw, 1 Kiora, the Rising Tide, 1 Voldaren Thrillseeker, 1 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, and 1 Vivi Ornitier
Mono-White Token Control
- In: 2 Disdainful Stroke and 2 Ral, Crackling Wit
- Out: 1 Torch the Tower, 1 Into the Flood Maw, 1 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, and 1 Vivi Ornitier