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Another year. Another World Championship. Okay, the 30th anniversary of Magic: The Gathering (and a new-look return to the Gathering itself) makes this a bit of special one.
But for a tournament with nearly SIXTY-NINE percent Esper variants in call-it-Type II, that most important mainline format somehow leaves us with a pretty enormous question:
How the hell have none of us been playing Cemetery Illumiunator?
If you didn't already know, again - despite an Esper-tacular distribution that went far further than just 75% of the Top 4 - arguably the most impressive Standard deck of the tournament was not only not Esper; but not anything most of us have ever seen before.
If you somehow haven't seen his deck yet, Julian Wellman brought a legitimately different (and quite awesome) tempo take to the game's biggest current stage. A lot of the time when people do something weird or different they're almost by mathematics doing something terrible or self-indulgent... But Wellman took only a single loss in Day One's Standard portion; and it wasn't even to one of those uber-popular Esper decks.
Here's his Worlds weapon of choice.
Izzet Tempo | DMU Standard | Julian Wellman, Magic World Championship XXVIII 2022
- Creatures (7)
- 1 Lier, Disciple of the Drowned
- 2 Cemetery Illuminator
- 4 Haughty Djinn
- Instants (21)
- 1 Abrade
- 2 Fading Hope
- 2 Rending Flame
- 2 Shore Up
- 3 Make Disappear
- 3 Negate
- 4 Consider
- 4 Impulse
- Sorceries (4)
- 2 Invoke the Winds
- 2 Strangle
- Enchantments (5)
- 1 The Elder Dragon War
- 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
The shell is not dissimilar to where Mono-Blue has gone the past couple of weeks. Many Mono-Blue players have moved away from Delver of Secrets to more of an eight-pack of Tolarian Terror and Haughty Djinn. Wellman replaced the Terror (at least main deck) with a Red splash for arguably the best card in Standard: Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki.
His Red splash does two things.
First of all, it gives the "Mono-" Blue shell a new sense of timing. Where previously Blue players had to kind of hope they could race a threat that got through their permission; or maybe pair a Fading Hope with a one-for-two Counterspell, Wellman can just kill an errant creature. He does so with the flexible Abrade, the counterintuitive (but efficient) Strangle, or the deceptively capable Rending Flame. Occasionally he can go completely over the top with Invoke the Winds, which has especial value in this deck because of the Haughty Djinn discount to 
.
The second thing that the Red inclusion does is to help enable Cemetery Illuminator.
It is truly shocking to me that no one - including myself - has been brewing or crushing with this wonderful spin on the Hurloon Minotaur. Typically you will exile an instant, because this deck has so many instants (including Consider and Impulse)... But the presence of real removal gives the card some additional texture. Example: Exile a creature from the opponent's graveyard to freeroll a Haughty Djinn. Yeah! That's powerful.
Wellman was quite successful against the popular Esper archetype at Worlds, and Cemetery Illuminator is a big reason why. Not only does this card do terrible things to poor Tenacious Underdog, but it gets around Dennick, Pious Apprentice // Dennick, Pious Apparition. You might be saying to yourself "An anti-graveyard creature can't be that good in a format where Dennick is one of the defining 2-drops; he makes it so you can't..."
Wait for it.
Go ahead.
Cemetery Illuminator doesn't target! It sure feels like it targets, but it doesn't technically target; meaning that it can hit whatever card you want in either the opponent's graveyard or your own, but Dennick doesn't interact with it at all. Which isn't to say Cemetery Illuminator doesn't interact with Dennick. You can surely prevent Dennick, Pious Apparition shenanigans before they ever come online.
It is truly odd to me that Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton has been heralded as one of the most unstoppable forces in the Standard format; played to a medium pulse in Golgari decks even before the recent Strixhaven / Forgotten Realms / whatever rotations... And no one - and I mean no one - touched the Blue Crimson Vow variant. Cemetery Protector spawned a whole archetype. Cemetery Gatekeeper sees regular Pioneer play. But a card that is half Blue Skies dreamboat / half Graveyard Trespasser / third-half Experimental Frenzy? Nah. Who'd thunk it?
Even outside of Izzet you have to imagine its non-presence in the format will be a thing of the past. This card is outrageous. I've kept it through an Invoke Despair over a 4/4 Dragon or even Haughty Djinn more than once. Cemetery Illuminator is a super Scroll Thief that hits twice as hard while blanking Memory Deluge and preemptively invalidating Invoke Justice. Too sweet.
The other major swap from the Mono-Blue version is Shore Up versus Slip Out the Back. I've been a Slip Out the Back fan, but Shore Up has more than a few advantages. While neither protection instant is better than the other in every situation, Shore Up specifically in Blue-Red gets some extra points from Reflection of Kiki-Jiki. Occasionally you will be able to double up Shore Up and the final form of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker for a surprise face breaker.
Generally, this deck is good at holding a lead. It's a little less good at starting with one (as it can't open on a turn one or turn two Delver of Secrets) but once you have a Haughty Djinn or the equivalent down, it is pretty easy to get the opponent to start tapping mana and playing into your interaction and answering efficiently. Izzet doesn't have much in the way of real card drawing, so the deck isn't trying to take total control. It really just wants to hold the lead for two turns, slam with an increasingly big Haughty Djinn, and get the game over with.
As such, it is not particularly good at taking control in the mid-game; but in the first four turns or so, Izzet Tempo is reasonably adept at flipping an opposing material advantage into a superior tempo position. What do I mean by that?
The opponent might have a slight advantage; say with a Tenacious Underdog or Dennick but not much else. Izzet Tempo can use Abrade or Rending Flame to clear the way into four mana. It's even better if the opponent does something dumb like tap into a Negate or Make Disappear on turn three; but whatever. If Izzet plays the Djinn with up, the game shifts. Usually this will signal a Negate / Make Disappear / Shore Up followed by the merely two or three attacks required to end the game from that spot.
The opponent will often be able to engage in card advantageous or just "big" or high rate counterplay, but if they can't stop Izzet from hitting them three times with a protected flyer, none of that matters.
Is Izzet Tempo the "best" deck? If there is one, it's a heck of a candidate. Certainly, it's on the short list, and the runaway favorite for most novel.
To finish this initial exploration out, I took Wellman's Worlds build for a spin in a Standard Event. I've talked about it before; and while I'm a big fan of achieving Mythic in Limited (which simply involves the process of opening packs and just playing LimitedI), I feel like Events are overall better on Magic: The Gathering Arena than Constructed ladder grinding. Not only do you make your entrance fee (and more) back at five wins, but seven wins can get you on the path to the let's-call-it-Pro Tour anyway.
Round One: Mono-Red
This match was a good showcase of how the Izzet deck can operate better than its Mono-Blue predecessor. I let the opponent come out with Phoenix Chick and Kumano Faces Kakkazan // Etching of Kumano; then punished them with The Elder Dragon War.
It's not just that The Elder Dragon War is kind of a reasonable sweeper; but that a follow up of Cemetery Illuminator pre-empted future Phoenix Chick shenanigans while giving me a 2/3 body just a little bit bigger than the next Etching of Kumano.
1-0
Round Two: Orzhov Control
I was pretty happy to start in this one because The Elder Dragon War was able to catch an Evolved Sleeper before it could become 3/3 or bigger. Then I lost to Sheoldred. Well, not Sheoldred exactly because I was able to lace together Abrade and Strangle; but I was way behind at that point and lost to the next Evolved Sleeper. Yes. It was exactly that boring.
1-1
Round Three: Dimir Control
I came up with a pretty novel play that I not only ended up using multiple times in this Event; but will probably be important long-term.
Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance is a card everyone just kind of throws into any deck that can make Red. When aggressive decks use the Channel Plan B it's usually sort of random and not that powerful... But in a Blue deck?
I got the party started with the Channel, which forced my much more controlling opponent into main phase action. A few attacks in I was able to sneak down a Haughty Djinn... Then I just let their next two Invoke Despairs resolve. Each one snagged half a Sokenzan and the Djinn kept on swinging. I saved the one-mana Negate for something that might actually stop the beatdown!
2-1
Round Four: Regular Esper
This was an echo of any match you might have seen from Worlds. They got double Dennick, triple Wedding Announcement // Wedding Festivity but were kind of never in the race despite tons of lifelink and plenty of chump blockers.
3-1
Round Five: Esper Control
I screwed this one up really badly. Multiple potentially game losing mistakes, that I saw.
The first was not Channeling Sokenzan before my fifth turn. I didn't want to give the opponent an open to respond with The Wandering Emperor. It wasn't until I had clicked to My Turn that I realized there was only one untapped white-producing land on the other side of the battlefield. This didn't persist and I had to start dealing with The Wandering Emperor the next turn cycle.
Then was the second mistake! The opponent played one (predictably) during my End Step and I cast Negate. Which was fine? Nope. Land #6 after the untap and... a resolved The Wandering Emperor. I obviously should have cast Make Disappear during End Step, and then if the opponent wanted to try the double The Wandering Emperor play, I'd have had a hard Negate.
Anyway, I caught up from behind the next couple of turns, and eventually eked out a mild advantage from Cemetery Illuminator. Never give up, right? I took a slight lead before a Path of Peril removed both my 3-drop flyers and we were both in topdeck mode.
You can probably imagine that the deck with all the Planeswalkers and 6-drops would be better in topdeck mode than the one with Shore Up and Strangle. You would be right to imagine that.
There was a second where it looked like I could Invoke the Winds Hullbreaker Horror but by "a second" I mean a second. The concession came quickly after.
3-2
Round Six: Mono-Blue
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki finally proved its value. Finally. Like when was that card going to break out, am I right?
Sweet exactsies finish with multiple Haughty Djinns (double tokens!) and a 4/4 Dragon straight to Chapter Three.
This one had the exciting play of running a 2/2 Goblin into an enemy Haughty Djinn just to get the second Treasure so I could cast multiple cover spells with my own Djinn already down.
4-2
Round Seven: Regular Esper again
Bet they thought that they had me with multiple Planeswalkers online, right? Sure, The Wandering Emperor missed (thanks Shore Up) but Sorin resolving with double Wedding Announcements would be...
An invitation to Invoke the Winds?
Took that Bat token, got in, and scared off the stupid 2/2 Humans all at the same time!
Once this deck has the lead - especially with such a huge tempo flip as stealing a Bat - with a Djinn and an untapped , it rarely loses it.
5-2
Even money!
I was in a coffee shop so I didn't dance like CovertGoBlue at this point, but Izzet would be playing with house money for the next two rounds.
Round Eight: Mono-Blue again
This one I was able to "get the party started with Sokenzan" into a Blue opponent, which as you've read was a riot all Event. Late game the tokens were just chumping Tolarian Terror. Never even looked close.
6-2
Round Nine: Gruul
All the marbles!
Play-In Point on the line!
What a time to draw three Shivan Reefs :/
The opponent was on the play, had a perfect draw of Kumano Faces Kakkazan // Etching of Kumano into double Thundering Raiju, but we still would have gotten there with deft Illuminator and mighty Haughty Djinn but for taking 2-3 damage per turn to bounce and counter all those haste creatures.
6-3 is not only not the worst record; it's a solid return on a Standard Event. Had I not completely tossed that one round against Esper Control this could easily have been worth a Play-In Point.
Surely, we'll get 'em next time!
LOVE
MIKE
