Previous to Tarkir: Dragonstorm, Standard was in a completely medium spot. It wasn’t fantastic and it wasn’t bad. There were 3 top decks that each played rock, paper, scissors with each other, and there were some decently playable tier 2 decks. Gruul Mice, Esper Pixie, and Zur Domain were what Standard could be summed up as.
However, one card changed the entire format. Arguably warping the entire format around itself, Cori-Steel Cutter terraformed the standard constructed environment.
What Does it Do & Why is it Powerful?
Cori-Steel Cutter is a 2-mana artifact equipment (not that anyone really pays to equip it to creatures). It gives +1/+1 trample and haste, and whenever you cast a second spell each turn, it creates a 1/1 white monk token with prowess and attaches itself to the monk.
Upon a first read, it seems powerful but not anything too crazy. When I first read the card, I didn’t really think about how powerful a 1/1 prowess creature is. But in a deck built around the card, Cori-Steel Cutter runs into the same problematic design space as Lurrus of the Dream-Den.
First, the card is powerful because in a deck built to abuse prowess, casting 2 spells is trivial. Additionally, if casting 2 spells is trivial, then your 1/1 tokens made each turn are not 1/1s but more likely to be 2/2s or 3/3s. Think about how broken a 2 mana artifact that essentially creates a 3/3 each turn is!
Second, much like Lurrus, Cori-Steel Cutter incentivizes you to build better decks. Before you start to think, “Don’t most good cards incentivize you to build better decks?”, the answer is not in the way Lurrus and Cutter do.
Lurrus and Cori-Steel Cutter both incentivize decks to be incredibly low to the ground. Lurrus required all permanents to be mana value 2 or less, and Cori-Steel Cutter asks for you to cast 2 spells each turn, which is going to happen most effectively when cards are incredibly low cost. They both reward a player for doing something that is already incredibly powerful, being incredibly mana efficient.
In most formats, decks that go incredibly low to the ground are less powerful in the late game simply because their cards cost less mana. But Cutter and Lurrus are each exceptions to this rule because they provide a constant churn of value that is not characteristic of decks with these incredibly low mana curves (Stormchaser’s Talent exacerbates this problem by being an additional mana sink on a cheap threat). Cutter produces an onslaught of threats, and Lurrus recasts permanents from the yard each turn.
To fully abuse Cori-Steel Cutter, the deck Izzet Prowess has emerged. The deck is equipped with its choice of 16-20 threats. Monastery Swiftspear, Slickshot Show-off, Stormchaser’s Talent, and Cori-Steel Cutter make up the deck’s options for threats. Stock Up provides card selection and card advantage. A suite of 1 mana cantrips, removal spells, and combat tricks fills in the rest of the deck.
With the reasons as to why Cori-Steel Cutter is crazy powerful established, how has it done in tournaments?
In the European Regional Championship, Izzet Prowess crushed. At 16% of the metagame, the highest in the room, it had a 56% win rate, also the highest in the room. The finals were an Izzet Prowess mirror match.
This past weekend, the weekend following the European Regional Championship, both the Korean-Japanese Regional Championship and the first United States Regional Championship took place. In both tournaments, Izzet Prowess took up 32% of the metagame. (I believe there was the South American RC as well, but at the time of writing this, I cannot find its data.)
As a result of the deck's dominant showing the previous weekend, it took up a great portion of the metagame. To better prepare for the mirror match, Drake Hatcher also became a mainstay of the deck. The 2-mana 1/3 creature is resistant to the decks primarily 2 damage removal, and when combined with a Monstrous Rage & Opt (or any other non-creature spell), it swings for 6 vigilance & trample while creating 2 2/2 drakes!
Izzet Prowess did well at both events, but interestingly, in each of the Regional Championships, Izzet Prowess did not win. Instead, decks built to prey upon Izzet Prowess took down the tournaments. The Japan-Korea Regional Championship was won with Orzhov Pixie, and the United States Regional Championship was won by Jeskai Control.
To answer the question posed, Cori-Steel Cutter has done very well in tournaments and is at the top of the metagame.
How Has this Affected the Metagame?
As previously mentioned, the deck has started to tune itself for the mirror with the inclusion of Drake Hatcher. Some even go as far as including Abrade in the maindeck.
Domain has greatly shrunk in play percentage. It has a terrible Prowess matchup, but crushes everything that is trying to beat Prowess. This is because while prowess is able to go under Domain and kill it quickly, the decks that try to disrupt Prowess and go a bit bigger are stomped on by Domain because Domain goes EVEN BIGGER.
Jeskai Oculus, which is more of a Jeskai Profts (Proft’s Eidetic Memory) deck that has a plan B combo of Oculus + Helping Hand, has risen in prominence due to its powerful midrange strategy, positive matchup vs prowess, and powerful Plan B.
Mono-Black Demons has been crushing it online, and 1 lone Mono-Black Demons player top 32d at the Regional Championship and qualified for the Pro Tour. The deck is built to exploit Prowess’ weakness towards 5 toughness creatures. It is essentially a pile of removal spells and threats that kill quickly, gain life, or both. Qarsi Revenant is a beast, and its ability from the graveyard is no joke either.
Jeskai Control also looks to have a positive Prowess matchup, which is easier said than done. The deck recently got Shiko, a dragon that casts a 3-drop card from the graveyard on ETB, and between a pile of removal spells (including 4 Lightning Helix), Stock Up, and Beza the deck can grind well while also dealing with aggro.
Dimir Midrange has a bad, but serviceable, Izzet Prowess matchup and a good matchup vs pretty much everything else in the metagame, so it has seen some play. It's like Modern Jund of the glory days, 50/50 matchup vs everything and a pile of good cards. Dimir is good vs Prowess’ non-Cori-Steel Cutter draws but struggles to beat cutter if it can’t Pierce or Duress it.
Azorius Omniscience has risen to prominence as its previous predators have been pushed out. 4 Temporary Lockdown gives it game vs aggro, and against Domain, it combos too quickly. The deck also no longer runs Invasion of Arcavios but rather loops 2 Marang River Regent and 1 Founding the Third Path to mill their opponent out.
Where to Go From Here?
I think Izzet Prowess is incredibly powerful, if that wasn’t already obvious, but can be beaten. Pack your lifelinkers, big creatures, and artifact removal. Sheoldred, Abrade, and Qarsi Revenant are gonna be good in the coming weeks.
Read again soon to get an exclusive interview with the now Pro Tour Player who top 32d on Mono-Black Demons!
