Welcome back!
The first time I saw Rootha, Mastering the Moment, it was a faulty combo. There’s been this fun trend I’ve seen on Instagram to tell people that a combo is infinite in order to get more views and bait comments.
Rootha, Mastering the Moment
{2}{R}{U}
Legendary Creature - Orc Sorcerer
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you’ve cast an instant or sorcery spell this turn, create an X/X blue and red Elemental creature token with flying and haste, where X is the greatest mana value among instant and sorcery spells you’ve cast this turn.
Despite the obvious engagement bait, it’s a natural desire to want extra combats with Rootha’s interesting combat trigger. But instead, I would encourage you to think about building around damage triggers. The flying and haste keywords mean that it’s probably going to hit /someone/ if this is early enough in the game, especially if you do the setup of casting bigger instants and sorceries to get bigger creatures.
In the Secrets of Strixhaven set, the Prismari strategies revolve around casting spells with mana value five or greater. This type of play is encouraged by Rootha costing four, encouraging her as the setup piece to a spell of mana value five or greater the following turn.
Arcane Heist
{2}{U}{U}
Sorcery
You may cast target instant or sorcery card from an opponent’s graveyard without paying it’s mana cost. If that spell would be put into their graveyard, exile it instead.
Cipher (Then you may exile this spell card encoded on a creature you control. Whenever you that creature deals combat damage to a player, its controller may cast a copy of the encoded card without paying its mana cost.)
What I like most about Arcane Heist is all the opportunities it provides for free casts. Using it after playing Rootha could allow for a modest 4/4 flyer, but the ceiling is only constrained by the best sorcery or instant played by an opponent.
Surge to Victory
{4}{R}{R}
Sorcery
Exile target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard. Cretures you control get +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is that creature’s mana value. Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player this turn, copy the exiled card. You may cast the copy without paying its mana cost.
I know this card is already in the precon, but I really want to highlight its effectiveness on two major fronts. The first is that, when you play this Prismari approach to Blue-Red that loves to make creature tokens from instants and sorceries, you need ways to end the game. In Green, there’s Overwhelming Stampede. In Izzet, we have Surge to Victory. If you pick up the Prismari precon and have no idea what cards are worth keeping and worth getting rid of, I would press you to keep in Surge to Victory. Not only does it give copy casts that can trigger Magecraft and a power boost to our flying tokens, but the six mana it costs makes it a natural spell for Rootha to want to cast.
Commando Raid
{2}{R}
Instant
Until end of turn, target creature you control gains “When this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may have it deal damage equal to its power to target creature that player controls.”
The other path for Rootha to follow, and one that I’m most interested in taking her, is X spells. Getting that X as high as possible means the creatures Rootha makes will be actual threats to our opponents, not just hasty and evasive. However, for both paths, Commando Raid can be an effective spell, because it allows the damage our tokens get in to contribute towards removal. It won’t take out creatures with Shroud, Hexproof, or Indestructible, but removal is always valuable in this format. Combined with a card like Surge to Victory, Commando Raid turns a wave of unblocked creatures into a wave of removal.
Open into Wonder
{X}{U}{U}
Sorcery
X target creatures can’t be blocked this turn. Until end of turn, those creatures gain “Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.”
But how do we get unblocked creatures? Blue has a few ways to provide this to us, but Open into Wonder is a classic example for Prismari. In addition to making our creatures unblockable, Open into Wonder is a way to restock your hand and get more damage triggers. It’s worth noting that copying Open into Wonder means each creature you target will have multiple instances for drawing cards on combat damage to a player. I think this avenue of focusing on “saboteur” effects could be a great way to squeeze value from this deck, and even make use of the Harmonic Prodigy the deck comes with (side note: why is Rootha a Sorcerer if Harmonic Prodigy is in her precon?? Hello?) Here are some more Wizard and Shaman saboteurs in Izzet > > >
That’s all for this week. I’ll see you next week for the penultimate review for the Strixhaven face commanders!