How to Build an Izzet Lessons MTG Deck by Completing and Solving

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A deck so powerful it won the Magic: The Gathering World Championship in 2025, Izzet Lessons is built around a lot of spell-casting and relies heavily on activating Monument to Endurance. This artifact can be triggered up to three times each turn to draw more cards, generate treasure tokens, or reduce your opponent’s life total by three points.

Even though the deck depends on an artifact, it has multiple ways to win games. Still, it’s a pretty rigid build, and making small changes without breaking the synergy can be difficult.

Izzet Lessons Deck List

Card Name	Card Type	Copies in Deck
Monument to Endurance	Artifact	4
Stormchaser’s Talent	Enchantment	4
Artist’s Talent	Enchantment	4
Gran-Gran	Legendary Creature	4
Boomerang Basics	Sorcery	4
Iroh’s Demonstration	Sorcery	4
Firebending Lesson	Instant	4
Accumulate Wisdom	Instant	4
Combustion Technique	Instant	4
Abandon Attachments	Instant	3
It’ll Quench Ya!	Instant	1
Island	Land	7
Mountain	Land	2
Riverpyre Verge	Land	4
Spirebluff Canal	Land	4
Multiversal Passage	Land	4
Aegna Qel’a	Land	1

The deck primarily features just one creature, Gran-Gran, with the rest being a mix of instants, sorceries, enchantments, and artifacts. While you can include other creatures, this setup might seem intimidating for new players.

How This Deck Works

Izzet Lessons blends aggressive plays with control strategies. Its effectiveness often depends on the matchup. Against control decks, patience is key so you don’t cast critical cards into counters. Versus fast, creature-heavy decks, you’ll want to ramp your mana quickly and get Monument to Endurance on the battlefield early, while defending yourself with damage spells.

Note: Monument to Endurance costs three mana, but you can pay one less if Artist’s Talent is upgraded to level two or if Gran-Gran is on the battlefield with at least three lessons in your graveyard.

Monument gives you a choice when you discard a card: draw a card, create a treasure token, or make your opponent lose three life points. Each action can only be used once per turn, so ideally, you want to discard a card three times each turn to maximize its benefit.

The deck also includes synergy with lesson cards, with several cards gaining extra power based on how many lessons are in your graveyard.

Ideal Starting Hands

While there’s no perfect opening, it’s best to have three lands, a copy of Gran-Gran, some card draw options, and at least one enchantment. This setup allows you to start progressing toward your first Monument to Endurance. When you play the Monument, having an upgraded Artist’s Talent, a Gran-Gran, and some spells in hand makes it easier to cast it efficiently and discard a card each time you cast a spell, with Gran-Gran providing additional discard opportunities.

Changes You Can Make

One important rule: do not change the land structure. Swapping out lands or adding different types—whether due to availability or preference—is not recommended. The current land count strikes the right balance, ensuring you don’t run short at key moments.

Note: Making minor adjustments, like replacing certain spells or creatures, often results in a completely different deck style. For instance, removing Monument to Endurance and enchantments in favor of creatures such as Sunderflock, Eddymurk Crab, Dragonfly Swarm, or Tolarian Terror transforms the deck into a more straightforward creature-based brute force strategy.

If you try these modifications and find the original deck too hard to manage, it might be better to look at other archetypes altogether, as the tweaks tend to shift the deck’s fundamental approach.