This weekend at MagicCon: Las Vegas, tons of elite players are battling for high stakes at Pro Tour Final Fantasy. Izzet Prowess made up a huge percentage of the room, with other popular archetypes like Azorius Omniscience combo and mono-red aggro also heavily represented.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering how dominant the red decks have been in Standard for quite some time. While it’s clear Izzet Prowess has a chokehold on the metagame, that didn’t stop some players from having success with innovative archetypes.
For instance, one player made it to day two with a sweet take on Naya enchantments. This deck is built to abuse the power of Yuna, Hope of Spira, but has a lot of very intriguing card choices. There are plenty of tools that shine against Izzet Prowess, making it a neat metacall.
The Yuna Package
In order to take full advantage of Yuna as a finisher, you need access to a high density of enchantments as well as ways to get those enchantments into the graveyard. While this deck is less all-in than some other Yuna strategies that utilize bombs like Summon: Knights of Round, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some heavy hitters present.
At the top of the list, Overlord of the Boilerbilges makes an appearance. Overlord of the Boilerbilges is a solid card to cast at both four mana and six mana. It cleans up most threats that the opponent can play, making it a decent draw even if you don’t have Yuna at the ready.
Assuming you can discard it and reanimate it with Yuna, though, you’ll do a lot to stabilize the board. Remember, Yuna gives your enchantment creatures Lifelink during your turn. So, the turn Yuna comes down, assuming you can make it to your end step, you can resurrect Overlord of the Boilerbilges, deal four damage to any target, and gain four life as a bonus.
In order to fuel Yuna, cards like Fear of Missing Out and Joshua, Phoenix’s Dominant play an important role. Fear of Missing Out doubles as a discard outlet and an enchantment that you can bring back with Yuna if you haven’t found any of your better haymakers.
Joshua also does a good job getting enchantments into the graveyard for Yuna. As a four-toughness creature, Joshua is a pretty good blocker, and its activated ability is very threatening. This deck is fully capable of winning a fair game with beefy creatures in the event you don’t draw Yuna.
Fighting in a Hostile Environment
In order to give yourself the best shot at beating Izzet Prowess, this deck features a handful of unusual inclusions that line up very well in the matchup. In the enchantment section, you’ll find a full playset of High Noon.
High Noon commonly sees play in control decks and does a good job here preventing you from getting run over by Izzet Prowess. So long as High Noon is on the battlefield, Cori-Steel Cutter becomes a non-factor. Any creature in play with Prowess is also way less threatening when your opponent is unable to cast a flurry of spells on the same turn.
Another enchantment that makes an appearance as a four-of is The Elder Dragon War. The Elder Dragon War’s first chapter makes it easy to clean up a bunch of Prowess tokens at once and keep Cori-Steel Cutter in check. The second chapter sets up Yuna, and the third adds a big flier to the battlefield.
Because The Elder Dragon War has Read Ahead, in matchups where the first chapter is irrelevant, you can always skip it and get to your big Dragon faster. The first chapter is still a life saver against the red decks, though. All of your creatures have three toughness or more, so they will survive the first chapter unscathed.
To showcase how much this deck is slanted to beat Prowess and mono-red, you’ll even find Screaming Nemesis and a playset of Lightning Helix in the mix. Screaming Nemesis is a beating against archetypes that rely on damage-based removal. Lightning Helix bolsters your life total while answering most threats that Izzet Prowess or mono-red aggro can play.
It’s clear the red decks were a concern going into the tournament and given that Izzet Prowess made up over 40% of the field, bringing a dedicated metabreaker to the event wasn’t unreasonable.
The Struggles
The biggest downside to running this style of Naya enchantments is that the Azorius combo matchup is rough. Even with Screaming Nemesis, you just don’t apply enough early pressure to reliably race the combo. Ghost Vacuum out of the sideboard helps a little, though you still risk losing to Marang River Regent in a fair fight.
The pilot of this strategy noted that the matchup is poor, suggesting that more sideboard cards were needed to have a better chance of winning the matchup. Azorius Omniscience combo ended up making up nearly 20% of the tournament, and having a matchup this polarizing be that popular is far from ideal.
Even against control decks, having some duds like High Noon can make things a bit tougher. What’s nice is that you at least have ways to rummage and loot away your situational enchantments. Nonetheless, your lack of pressure versus control can come back to bite you if you’re unable to successfully resolve your finishers.
Naya Yuna is a metacall at heart and really goes to show just how format-warping Izzet Prowess is. With bans on the horizon, don’t be surprised if a multitude of red cards get the axe.
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