Tempo doesn’t care about card quality, it doesn’t care about how much your deck costs, and it doesn’t care about how you would have won next turn. Tempo
only cares about getting the jump on you and staying ahead long enough to kill you before you kill them.
However, in a weird way, tempo decks care about card advantage. The biggest advantage a tempo deck has is the virtual card advantage it gains by not giving
you enough time to cast all your spells. In order to do that, you probably need to have a lower curve than average, and this deck certainly delivers on
that.
To accomplish that goal, it runs such hits as Young Wolf and as many Pongifys as are legally allowed. It may seem weird to use so many, but aside from
being good against Splinter Twin, they probably get cast on your own creatures far more often than your opponent’s. Targeting your own Young Wolf or
Strangleroot Geist levels up your own creature thanks to undying, plus it creates a 3/3 creature for you on the cheap. With Cloudfin Raptor and Experiment
One, you can have some pretty sick early turns. From there, Mana Leak, Remand, and Vapor Snag maintain your advantage.
This deck is very cheap to build, even for a Modern deck. Obviously some Misty Rainforests would be a slight upgrade for the manabase, but when you’re
likely building on a budget, it doesn’t make much of a difference. I doubt many games are won or lost on the back of Yavimaya Coast damage or because you
couldn’t fetch the basic Forest with your Flooded Strand.
Creatures (18)
Lands (18)
Spells (24)
Sideboard
