When Bloomburrow previews began, I got excited about building some kind of mustelid typal deck. To save you a click back to the original article, mustelids are a family of small carnivorous mammals. It includes weasels, otters, badgers. minks and the fearsome wolverines. 

I realized that I have not shared any mustelid decks since then. I’ll remedy that today.

A quick search reveals that there are 22 mustelid cards in Standard. Not much has changed since my last article with these being mostly otters with a sprinkle of badgers and weasels. The entire colour wheel is represented but most cards fall in Blue and Red. So no big surprise, I built on my original idea, an Izzet Otter Prowess deck. It’s gone through a few iterations and this is what the current deck looks like:

Deck

• 3 Seize the Secrets (OTJ) 64
• 3 Bria, Riptide Rogue (BLB) 379
• 1 Tempest Angler (BLB) 235
• 4 Stormcatch Mentor (BLB) 234
• 2 Ral, Crackling Wit (BLB) 230
• 4 Coruscation Mage (BLB) 131
• 3 Stormchaser’s Talent (BLB) 75
• 2 Pearl of Wisdom (BLB) 64
• 3 Valley Floodcaller (BLB) 79
• 3 Shore Up (DMU) 64
• 3 Stasis Field (MOM) 79
• 2 Into the Flood Maw (BLB) 52
• 2 Long River’s Pull (BLB) 58
• 2 Demonic Ruckus (OTJ) 120
• 10 Island (THB) 251
• 1 Lilypad Village (BLB) 255
• 6 Mountain (THB) 253
• 1 Restless Spire (WOE) 260
• 2 Spirebluff Canal (OTJ) 270
• 3 Swiftwater Cliffs (NEO) 277

Sideboard

• 2 Kitsa, Otterball Elite (BLB) 54
• 2 Stormsplitter (BLB) 154
• 3 Meeting of Minds (MOM) 66
• 2 Freeze in Place (WOE) 50

Now, the big question: How does it play? Let’s start by saying that this is far from a Tier 1 or Tier 2 deck. As it stands today, it has only won 35% of the time with an 18-33 record. The deck can be quite explosive but can also be frustrating when you either don’t get your creatures onto the battlefield or they don’t last long enough for Prowess to kick in.

There are a couple of potential improvements:

• Make the deck more aggressive by dropping the Stasis Fields in favour of Monstrous Age
• Drop Bria, Riptide Rogue in favour of a couple of creatures (Elusive Otter perhaps) and a couple of spells
• Cut a land more and add an additional spell

As for next steps, I’m going to play with the recommendations above and add this deck to my deck portfolio here on the site where I can easily update it as I make changes.

If you’re playing an Izzet Otter deck, drop me a note below and let me know what has worked for you.