Budget Magic: $30 (Zero Rare) Izzet Lessons (Standard)
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Budget Magic! This week we're heading to our new Avatar Standard format to play one of the archetypes I'm most excited for, Lessons, but on a zero rare/mythic (or, in paper, $30) budget! Are the new lessons strong enough to be their own archetype, even on a super tight budget? What's the reason to overload your deck with lessons? Let's get to the video and find out, and then we can talk more about the deck!
Budget Magic: Izzet Lessons
The Deck
Izzet Lessons is a spellslinger-style deck built around the lesson card type. Oh yeah, it's also super cheap both on Arena and paper.
I heard you wondering, why play a deck full of lessons? While there are a few lesson payoffs in our deck, there's really only one answer here: Accumulate Wisdom. As soon as I saw the card I thought it was one of the strongest in the set. It starts off as an Anticipate, which admittedly isn't very exciting in 2025, although it's not the end of the world if you have to cast it and grab just one of your top three cards, but once you get three or more lessons in the graveyard, it turns into a two-mana instant-speed draw three, which is insanely above the curve, even in 2025. For me, Accumulate Wisdom is, all by itself, a big enough reason to build around lessons, especially considering the new Avatar lessons are much more efficient than the old Strixhaven lessons, which seemed to get a one or two mana tax because of the learn mechanic letting you tutor them from your sideboard, but we've also got a couple of backup lesson payoffs too!
As far as additional reasons to play a bunch of lessons, we also have Gran-Gran and Combustion Technique. Gran-Gran was a card I almost left out of the deck in favor of Opt as another cheap spell, but I'm glad I didn't forget granny, because the card is actually super powerful. Along with giving us something to do on turn one, it loots to fill our graveyard with lessons and eventually makes our non-creature spells cost one less, which hilariously turns Accumulate Wisdom into a literal Ancestral Recall that's legal in Standard, which is super strong. Meanwhile, Combustion Technique just gives us a two-mana hard removal spell that even exiles the creature it kills since our deck is so good at filling the graveyard with lessons.
As far as the rest of our lessons, Boomerang Basics, Firebending Lesson and Iroh's Demonstration are all reasonable removal spells, with Iroh's Demonstration likely the weakest of the bunch, but still fine thanks to its flexibility of wiping out a board of X/1s or killing one larger creature.
Meanwhile, Abandon Attachments might not look like much as a two-mana discard one to draw two cards, but it's great in the deck since if we discard another lesson, it, all by itself, gets us up to two lessons in our graveyard, one away from drawing a ton of cards with Accumulate Wisdom. We also have Stock Up as a backup card advantage spell; it's way worse than Accumulate Wisdom in our deck, but once we get going we really want to be able to chain together a ton of spells, so having a bit more card draw is helpful.
Our finishers are also payoffs of playing a bunch of lessons, either directly by caring about lessons or indirectly by caring about spells, which obviously includes lessons. Dragonfly Swarm is both, basically being a twist on Enigma Drake, with ward 1 and drawing a card when it dies as a bonus. While it does die to a lot of popular removal spells, the ward at least makes it pretty annoying for our opponent to kill, and by the mid game it's pretty easy for Dragonfly Swarm to be something like a 5/3 flier for three, and later it can climb to 10 or more power, letting us close out the game in just a couple of attacks.
Finally we have a flock of sea monsters in Eddymurk Crab, Tolarian Terror and Serpent of the Pass. While each card has a different name, they all do essentially the same thing, as seven-drops that actually cost one or two mana if we can fill our graveyard with spells, with big bodies and some sort of upside. Heading into the games I figured Eddymurk Crab was the best of the bunch since it can tap down opposing creatures, which is why we are playing four copies of the crab and two each of the others, but after playing the games I came away impressed with Serpent of the Pass. Like Eddymurk Crab we can cast it with flash (once we have three lessons in our graveyard), but unlike Eddymurk Crab, Serpent of the Pass enters untapped, which means we can often flash it in and eat our opponent's best creature during combat. Is this better than temporarily tapping down two creatures? Maybe not, but Serpent overperformed and felt way better than I expected. Finally, Tolarian Terror doesn't do anything cool, but is the cheapest of the bunch since it only has one blue pip and ward 2 is actually relevant protection. Together these cards let us quickly build a big board, often at instant speed, in the late game and overwhelm our opponent to close out the game fast.
If I was building Izzet Lessons with an infinite budget rather than on a zero rare / $30 budget, the non-land cards in the deck would look almost exactly the same, but the one place the deck would get a massive upgrade if budget wasn't a concern is the manabase, which is currently one tapped dual land and a bunch of basics. While this mana is functional enough, it's not great. The deck would prefer to play zero tapped lands, and having so many basics sometimes makes it hard to double or triple spell in a turn, which is something the deck wants to do since it draws so many cards. The optimal manabase is likely four Riverpyre Verge, four Spirebluff Canal, and a couple of Thundering Falls and perhaps a Soulstone Sanctuary or two for value, but this adds a ton to the budget. If you have any untapped dual lands in your collection, throw them in place of the tapped dual lands and some basics; every one you add will improve the deck by increasing consistency.
Wrap Up
Record-wise, we went 6-3 with the deck, although this was during early access day, so records don't mean all that much (although thanks to Wizards for letting me use the account for the day!). What is more important is how the deck feels, and Izzet Lessons felt great! I was convinced that Accumulate Wisdom was busted; the only question was whether the rest of the lessons would be strong enough to support it, and after playing the deck a bunch, I think the answer is an easy yes. Combustion Technique is great removal, Firebending Lesson is solid removal, both Boomerang Basics and Iroh's Demonstration are fine removal spells. I considered It'll Quench Ya!, but didn't end up running it, although it might be worth playing some number since our deck is really good at playing at instant speed, making it easy to leave up a counter and still use our mana for something if we don't need to cast it. At this point I'm convinced that Lessons have a chance to be a real Standard deck, probably not on a zero rare budget, but based on the same concept. If you're looking for a super cheap deck to try out in Avatar Standard, this would be my current pick! The deck is fun, seems competitive, and draws an absurd number of cards. Plus you get to play with Gran-Gran; what more could you want?
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
