“Izzet Delver is a tempo-based aggro-control deck that uses cheap cantrips (Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain) to fuel Delirium on Dragon's Rage Channeler and grow a fast Murktide Regent, threatening lethal damage in just a few turns. The deck protects its threats and disrupts the opponent with free counterspells like Force of Will and Daze while using Lightning Bolt and Cori-Steel Cutter to close games efficiently. Wasteland provides additional disruption by denying the opponent's mana, keeping them off-balance while the deck's threats apply relentless pressure.”
Missing sideboard cards? The full 15-card sideboard runs about $125.
Buy sideboard on ManapoolThis is a mirror-ish grind where free countermagic and resilient threats matter most. Consign to Memory counters the colorless Mishra's Bauble and any triggered abilities like Bilbo or Kaito, giving extra interaction against their value engines. Surgical Extraction can strip a Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, or key copy of Murktide Regent out of the matchup entirely once one resolves or hits the graveyard. Cut the weakest singleton interaction and Preordain for density against a deck that out-grinds you on card quality. Keep the core engine intact since both decks are racing on the same axis.
Ocelot Pride Midrange wins by flooding the board with Cat tokens and gaining incremental life; the extra Unholy Heat gives a cheap answer that can scale to 6 damage off Delirium against Ajani, Nacatl Pariah or Amped Raptor. Surgical Extraction can exile every copy of a card like Ocelot Pride from their hand and library once one has hit the graveyard, disrupting their redundancy in a deck full of four-ofs. Mishra's Bauble and a copy of Flow State are cut since they're lower-impact cantrips in a grindy matchup where tempo and removal matter more than raw card selection, and Into the Flood Maw is weak here since it only trades one-for-one with cheap creatures that they can simply recast. Keep leaning on Lightning Bolt and Dragon's Rage Channeler to race before their board gets too wide, and use Wasteland to punish their Karakas and nonbasic-heavy manabase.
Aluren combo wants to resolve Show and Tell, Aluren or Omniscience and chain value from there. Consign to Memory is narrow here, but it has real targets. It counters colorless spells like Lotus Petal, and it can shut off triggered abilities such as Atraxa's or Acererak's enter-the-battlefield triggers and Acererak's attack trigger. Their other spells are colored, so it cannot hit those. Force of Negation lets you counter their noncreature spells (Aluren, Show and Tell, Omniscience) for free on their turn, which is exactly when they're trying to go off. Spell Pierce is easy for them to pay through with Lotus Petal and Ancient Tomb mana, and Into the Flood Maw is too narrow against a deck assembling a game-ending engine. Unholy Heat is weak here since Atraxa's 7 toughness is out of its kill range even with delirium.