*Ring* *Ring* *Ring*
Me: “Hello, who is this?”
Unknown: “It’s Tempered Steel; I’m here for my comeback.”
There’s so much disrespect here! The old Pac-Man of the metagame that used to beat down on the format via full on aggro style beats has completely been ignored, removed from everyone’s internal GPS systems.
Tempered Steel is a deck that is fast enough to beat the ramp decks that currently exist, and it builds board presence faster than any other deck and creates tough situations for decks like Delver. It’s fairly resilient to one of the best and most used board sweepers in Whipflare—a common answer for control and ramp decks against fast aggro decks. Tempered Steel is the deck that had the Channel Fireball completely demolish the field and put four members in the Top 8 of Worlds last year.
It’s possible I haven’t looked hard enough; however, I have not heard a whisper about Tempered Steel and its chance to come in and take down a PTQ, FNM, or StarCityGames.com Open Series lately. It’s the current Mono Red of 2012. A forgotten deck that comes in when everyone’s guards are down and “Steels” the show as players groan while a select few get paid.
What gets me even more excited about a Tempered Steel comeback is the fact that there have been one to two sets since anybody has even mentioned it or since I’ve seen it show up in a tournament. That’s not to say it hasn’t, but as far as I know it’s gone very under the radar. The fact that the card pool is larger opens up a world of opportunity for metagame tuning and new ideas. Let’s get to my proposed list:
Creatures (20)
Lands (20)
Spells (20)
The list is far from perfect to be perfectly honest. However, you’ll notice two cards you haven’t seen in Tempered Steel before. The first is my personal favorite: Blood Artist; the second is Lingering Souls. Lingering Souls is a card we all know is good. The advantage of Lingering Souls here is pairing up with Blood Artist while being included for additional gas and card advantage that the deck traditionally lacks.
The balance of artifacts and non-artifacts is a little more difficult when trying to utilize the most recent powerhouse cards of Standard. I generally side on the fact it’s worth it to stretch the deck’s capabilities if cards are performing well in the current meta. Blood Artist is a card that has been showing up quite a bit despite Delver’s domination. Here’s a link to a recent Standard Premiere Event on Magic Online in which Blood Artist showed up heavily.
Being in two colors makes it rather difficult in terms of your mana base. Blood Artist isn’t a card that has to be cast or even wants to be cast on turn 2 very often. This leads me to believe we can get away with it here, although one downside is only running a couple Inkmoth Nexus so that we don’t get too greedy. Lingering Souls takes the spot of cards like Etched Champion or Blade Splicer, which admittedly would both be acceptable and solid options if the black splash doesn’t work for you. In fact, here is a slightly different direction using a different take on the deck. It’s perhaps slower but more synergistic with a powerful midgame.
Creatures (23)
Lands (20)
Spells (17)
This version has a better mana base and also lets us utilize a more powerful core in terms of individual card power. It opens our sideboard up to being more “bomb” oriented as well. Using Restoration Angel with Shrine of Loyal Legions is a nice bonus synergy to keep in mind too. Sitting on mana in Tempered Steel usually equates to not having anything to do, but in this version it lets you interact a little bit and ideally bluff some removal or gas in addition to keeping Shrine mana up.
If you want to try one of these decks and have time to tinker with it, I’d try the B/W version, but if you are short on time and want to be sure you have something good, I’d take the Restoration Angel list. It’s heavily modeled after the successful Worlds lists.
So what’s the theory behind why Tempered Steel is poised for a comeback? As I mentioned earlier, Tempered Steel creates early board pressure similar to many aggressive decks in the past including Affinity, Mono Red, and many other decks. When I look through current lists from recent events including Magic Online and the StarCityGames.com Open Series, there isn’t very much hate in terms of removal or board sweepers, which is largely what crushedTempered Steel in the past.
There was a reason it didn’t actually win Worlds 2011 and ramp became the successful deck of that tournament. The ramp deck had insane amounts of Inferno Titans and early red board sweeper spells that kept Tempered Steel in check and prevented it from overextending. If you entered into an event next week, I doubt you’d see any hate remotely close to what the Worlds ramp deck had against the field at the time.
The other reason why Tempered Steel is a good choice is the fact that Delver lacks actual removal. In short, Delver is a tempo deck which relies on card advantage and synergy. In the meantime Tempered Steel is puking its hand onto the board, which can very quickly overwhelm Delver decks. All of this without the hate such as board sweepers and artifact removal result in a good opportunity and time to sneak in with a known archetype while packing a few surprises for your opponent to keep things fresh.
It should also be noted that Glint Hawk is a good trade against Delver, although be careful casting him on turn 1 or turn 2 if your artifact that you are bouncing is your only one. Vapor Snag would be ridiculously powerful in this situation, but overall Vapor Snag is not a very good card against Tempered Steel.
I wasn’t around for it, but since Blood Artist has been out I’ve been told about the Disciple of the Vault decks. While Blood Artist isn’t near what Disciple was in the old artifact decks, it does have a similar effect and is very good at getting value out of board sweepers or finishing off your opponent after quickly getting them below ten life. He doesn’t give your opponent many outs if you can get them facing near lethal within four turns or so.
Shrine of Loyal Legions along with Blood Artist not only work well together, but they both give you an extended game that Tempered Steel players didn’t have in the past. Sitting on a Shrine with a few counters or more and popping it end of turn followed by a BloodArtist or Tempered Steel is a strong play that lets you suicide into your opponent or simply win by overpowering them with a swarm of creatures.
PTQ season is in full swing, and I know you are all looking for an edge. I love to brew but have reallyworked on tuning decks orstretching ideas of existing decks for reference and comebacks. There is something here that is currently unexplored and is very much worth looking into. Personally, I have at least a couple PTQs coming up, and Tempered Steel is a deck that is in my current top three options depending on how things shape up. It’s a deck a lot of people are already comfortable with in addition to having good options versus the current metagame.
It should also be noted that I have not come close to exploring all the options available since Dark Ascension and Avacyn Restored have been released. There may just be the perfect storm of cards to be the kryptonite for a short while in this format.
Me: “Thanks for letting me know you’re still around bro. I’ll consider it.”
Tempered Steel: “I know this is crazy, but call me maybe.”