Highlights

• Izzet decks excel in card draw and direct damage, perfect for various formats like Commander.
• Pair non-creature spell-oriented colors red and blue to unlock the full potential of Izzet.
• Choose from strong Izzet commanders like Okaun, Zndrsplt, and Mizzix to obliterate opponents.

Two of the most non-creature spell-oriented colors in Magic: The Gathering are red and blue. Each possessing many synergies that utilize their powerful instant and sorceries, there is a deep well of potential when these colors work together to form the Izzet color pairing. Excelling in the areas of card draw and direct damage, Izzet decks are very capable in a variety of formats, including the much-beloved Commander format.

While there are numerous Izzet commanders for players to choose from, each comes alongside their own strengths and weaknesses. Here are the commanders you'll most be wanting to look at if you want to make your very own Izzet Commander deck.

Updated on March 6, 2024 by Ryan Hay: Izzet has been one of the more powerful color duos in Magic's history, combining removal, damage, Treasure tokens, and counterspells together to make a dangerous color pairing. All this combines to give you all the tools necessary to obliterate your opponents with any number of combos, synergies, and strategies.

Saheeli, The Sun's Brilliance

Copies Are Temporary

Copy effects are aplenty with the creature version of Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance. Recently desparked, Saheeli finds herself on Ixalan, lending her skills with artifacts and automatons to build replicas of some of the most powerful creatures on the plane. Sitting at a tiny two mana, Saheeli can come down quickly and start accumulating value almost immediately.

For two mana and a tap, you can have Saheeli make a copy of either a creature you control or an artifact. Either way, it gains haste, and you have to sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step. Some of the best things you can copy include cards with enter the battlefield effects, or ones with exceptionally powerful attack triggers.

Ovika, Engima Goliath

Sling Spells For The Might Of Phyrexia

Like lots of Izzet commanders, Ovika loves it when you cast massive spells. Cast a big, chunky non-creature spell, and you'll get that many 1/1 Phyrexian Goblins with haste to swing out with, turning spellslinging into more of an aggro-style deck.

For big spells, things like Call Forth The Tempest, Trasncendent Message, Surge To Victory and Explosive Singularity can flood the board incredibly quicky. Then, use enough Kindred effects for Phyrexians, like Roaming Throne and Shared Animosity to make your Phyrexians hit harder or swarm quicker.

Mizzix Of The Izmagnus

Cast Big Spells For Peanuts

One of the commanders from Commander 2015 that utilize experience counters, Mizzix is a commander who helps lower the cost of your instants and sorceries.

Putting an experience counter on Mizzix each time you cast an instant or sorcery, provided you keep casting spells with mana value higher than her total number of counters, lets you reduce the cost more and more. This goblin lets you subvert costs and discount your way to victory.

Okaun, Eye Of Chaos//Zndrsplt, Eye Of Wisdom

Heads Of Tails?

Despite being the colours of clever plays and lots of spellslinging, Izzet is also known as the most chaotic colour pairing of all. Very few embody this unpredictability better than Okaun and Zndrsplt, a coin-flipping partner duo.

It's pronounced Zen-dur-split.

The more coins you flip, the stronger Okaun will get, so make sure to fill up on coin-flipping tools like Tavern Scoundrel, Stitch In Time, Karplusan Minotaur, and Fiery Gambit. In just a few flips, Okaun will be hitting for hundreds of damage with ease.

To make Okaun really scary, find ways to make it unblockable or have trample, like with Whispersilk Cloak and Embercleave. That way, you'll be knocking people out with Commander damage and not having to worry about those pesky blockers.

Magnus The Red

Spawn Your Army Of Spawns

Magnus the Red comes from the Warhammer 40,000 Universes Beyond set, and has been something of a sleeper hit despite combining two very powerful red and blue abilities into one card. Magnus' Unearthly Power reduces the cost of your instant and sorcery spells by one generic mana for each creature token you control. Once you hit five or six tokens or so, you'll likely never have to pay the generic cost of a spell again.

If you're worried about making tokens, you don't need to fret for long. Anytime Magnus deals combat damage to a player you get to make a 3/3 Spawn creature token, while at the same time reducing the cost of your spells by one. While red and blue generally isn't great at making duplicates of tokens, you can certainly pump them out with any number of efficient spells.

Jhoira Of The Ghitu

Just Wait A Second

Jhoira of the Ghitu is a commander that's all about trading mana for time. For the cost of two mana, Jhoira can suspend cards, exiling them for four turns with four time counters on them, removing a counter at the beginning of each of your turns.

Jhoira allows for huge creatures with massive converted mana costs to be suspended for mere fractions of their mana costs, subverting a great deal of their costs. When working in conjunction with spells such as Fury Charm and Timecrafting that are capable of removing time counters, one would be hard-pressed to find more efficient means of playing massive creatures within the Izzet color identity.

Galazeth Prismari

Amass Your Hoard Of Treasures

Galazeth Prismari synergises really well with artifacts, instants, and sorceries, making it useful for everything from spellslinging and basic artifact strategies, to more unexpected ones like zero-cost cheerios decks.

While normally treasures are sacrificed to provide mana, Galazeth allows artifacts to be tapped to produce one mana of any color — though this mana can only be used to cast instants and sorceries. When paired with zero-mana artifacts that one would find in a Cheerios deck, Galazeth can alow you to treat these artifacts as free-to-cast mana rocks, quickly building up until you're ready to drop some big spells to close out the game.

Vadrik, Astral Archmage

Day Or Night, Vadrik Slaps

Vadrik, Astral Archmage is a potent option for a commander, allowing you to greatly reduce the costs of your instants and sorceries.

While Vadrik can interact with the Day/Night mechanic of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, what's truly important about the card is that, as a 1/2 for three mana, Vadrik uses his power to reduce the cost of instants and sorceries.

This means that if you can increase Vadrik's power through the use of +1/+1 counters, Auras, Equipment cards, or even pump spells, Vadrik can provide massive discounts to your spells.

Neera, Wild Mage

One of the more interesting legendary creatures from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, a set that has tragically slipped through the cracks of many player's attention, Neera, Wild Mage is a commander that should be on everyone's radar. You see, whenever you cast a spell of any type, you can choose it put it on the bottom of your deck.

If you do, you get to flip over cards from the top of your deck until you find a nonland card. You get to cast that card for free. With a little deck manipulation, you can very easily swap one or two mana spells for giant bombs like an Eldrazi creature or even an Omniscience. You only get to do this effect once per turn, but it will resolve on your opponents turn as well, letting you potentially swap things around time and time again.

Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

A Terrifying Token Commander

While red has been long associated with token strategies such as those found within goblin decks, Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer is a commander who puts an Izzet twist on classic token decks. Providing each token with haste, Brudliclad creates a 2/1 Myr token at the beginning of each of your combat steps.

More importantly, however, is Brudiclad's last ability. Each turn, Brudiclad allows you to choose a token you control, and turn each other token into a copy of that token.

There are numerous fun and interesting synergies that can be accomplished using Brudilcad due to the numerous blue spells capable of creating tokens that are copies of other creatures. Note that this doesn't just mean your token creatures, but any token will be turned into the target, including all those Treasure tokens you could have made.

Veyran, Voice of Duality

For Those Who Love Really, Really Long Turns

Veyran, Voice of Duality is an extremely potent commander capable of doubling the value of already impactful effects. Veyran is able to deal significant damage over the course of a game, getting +1/+1 for each instant or sorcery you've cast or copied in a given turn.

However, the primary appeal of Veyran is that, whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell, and it causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.

This means that the likes of a Guttersnipe or Electrostatic Field are capable of dealing devastating damage over the course of a game, while cards like Birgi, God of Storytelling can provide incredible value.

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain

A Delicious Bowl Of Cheerios

An extremely capable commander, what Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain lacks in complicated abilities, she makes up for in pure value.

Drawing a card whenever an artifact, legendary spell, or Saga is cast, Jhoira decks will almost never run out of cards to play, as each spell should ideally replace itself in your hand upon being cast.

This incarnation of Jhoira is easily one of the strongest options for an artifact-based commander in the entire format, supplying a nearly unparalleled engine of card advantage.

The Locust God

Plague The Table With A Swarm Of Locusts

A commander capable of converting card draw into immediate board presence, The Locust God possesses a straightforward albeit powerful ability.

Whenever you draw a card, the Locust God creates a 1/1 insect token with flying in haste. Capable of evading many blockers and attacking immediately, these tokens often come in great numbers and should not be taken lightly.

The Locust God synergizes well with wheel effects that cause you to discard their hand and draw a fresh batch of new cards, creating numerous new tokens to attack with.

Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph

In The Grim Darkness Of The Future, There Are Only Tyranids

Rocking up from the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks, Ghyrson Starn is a horrifying hybrid of Tyranid and Human that wants you to ping and nip at your opponents with lots of instances of one damage.

By using one-power creatures, famous pingers like Thermo-Alchemist, Prodigal Pyromancer, and Witty Roastmaster, and single-damage burn spells like Spikefield Hazard and Lava Dart, you can build up damage super quickly. Combine it with Curiosity for card draw, and this Tyranid will be pinging and refilling your hand all the way to victory.

Niv-Mizzet, Parun

The Most Infamous Combo Commander

While Niv-Mizzet has appeared in numerous incarnations, they've all followed a similar trend of dealing damage to any target whenever cards are drawn, while also having an ability to let you draw cards to speed things up.

Niv Mizzet, Parun is the most powerful of the Niv-Mizzets available, possessing similar traits in the most effective manner. Dealing one damage to any target whenever you draw a card, Parun also a card whenever any player casts an instant or sorcery.

These two abilities can get out of hand at blistering speeds, as even the spells of opponents will cause new spells to be drawn, all whilst dealing direct damage to problematic creatures, Planeswalkers, and even players.