Mastering The Way

Two-hundred forty-nine. That’s the average large set size these days, and we get excited about everyone of them, even the basic lands. Planeswalkers,
creatures, and instants get us pumped up, but sorceries and enchantments aren’t far behind.

But not every card can be great. There are very few “bad” cards anymore, e.g. Chimney Imp, Sorrow’s Path, and Zephyr Spirit. Those true disasters vanished
years ago, so our sets are now stocked with good or mediocre Limited cards that suffer being overpriced versions of cards that would otherwise be good.

Cut the colorless costs from the cast and morph and you’d have a Standard playable token maker.

This is especially true in Khans of Tarkir; I’ve poured over the entire spoiler dozens of times, and I’ve been hard pressed to find something as laughable
as Vizzerdrix and Enatu Golem. Instead, commons can win you the game if they have enough time, of which you have an abundance in Khans Limited. That being
said, there are some cards that seem overpriced and conditional enough that it seems impossible for them to be a reasonable choice in any circumstance.

In my set discussion on State of the Gathering, the channel regulars asked me about my thoughts on this card. Does it have any place in Standard? Is there
a deck that could play this? If not, what’s preventing it from being played?

At first glance, this was a card that I forgot was coming out this set. I read it over a few times, then firmly declared: “nope, no place in Standard.”
They rebutted; “even with a controlling deck?” No, not even then, I thought. I said that, to be playable, it would have to cost one less mana and be an
instant. As is, this is a five-mana Lightning Strike that cantrips at sorcery speed. See Ember Shot, which even had the decency to allow casting during the
end step. At five mana though, you’ll be likely low on cards from playing lands and (hopefully) some early creatures and/or disruption. It’s a crummy
topdeck, and I just feel like neither thing, the draw or the burn, would be enough for that steep cost. You’re looking at a junky hybrid of Lava Axe and
Tidings, both with disappointing results.

As I looked for cards to match my blue and red brews though, I kept passing over this one again. And again. Always too expensive, always too conditional,
always win-more. Finally, I stopped on it. That’s it; I’m going to prove myself wrong and make this little sorcery work.

But, you see, I had been looking at Master the Way the wrong way. I hadn’t mastered the way to use this card at all. I hadn’t opened my
mind to the possibility that this card had the potential to do much greater things than just get fueled by a nice draw engine to deal four or five damage.
I could kill someone with this thing, but I’d need a ton of cards to do it. Without a Sphinx’s Revelation for double digits in the format, I had
to fake my hand size long enough for Master the Way to handle the rest.

Aha! The Pearl Lake Ancient gives me a zero-mana, instant-speed way to draw cards, and by “draw cards,” I mean pick up the land you used to cast
the Ancient. With enough lands, legitimate draw spells and incidental life loss, a Master the Way could deal lethal damage in one stroke. Bear in mind
that, with the Pearl Lake Ancient, returning lands is a cost that you pay each time you activate the ability, so you may do so in multiples of three as
much as you’re able to, providing a sudden burst of hand size sufficient to start mastering your opponent.

Master the Way locked me into two colors barring an awkward splash, but backing this guy up with cards like Jace’s Ingenuity and Magma Jet seemed
reasonable. Next, we need to get lots of lands into play, which is where green has a chance to shine.

So the goal is to survive long enough with counter and burn to amass sufficient lands to stick my uncounterable Ancient, untap, attack with it (if
necessary), bounce lands back to my hand and go for the kill. Sounds like a party.

Mas-Temur the Way

Matt Higgs

Test deck on 11-25-2014

Standard

Creatures (6)

Planeswalkers (3)

3 Nissa, Worldwaker

Lands (14)

Spells (37)

Sideboard

Creatures

As I put the list together, a control-oriented model seemed to be the best. This is a short list of critters, but there isn’t a need for many when you have
enough removal and disruption to get you to the Ancient to clinch the game. Embodiment of Spring was better than something like Elvish Mystic or even
Sylvan Caryatid because it provided a real land, an early blocker for troublemakers like Monastery Swiftspear and Goblin Rabblemaster tokens, and an
instant Rampant Growth, leaving me all the time I need to cast counters or removal before deciding to go for that land. There are two copies of the
Ancient, lest one get Thoughtseized away; in a way, it’s the best way to kill the Ancient, and I’m still pretty scared of that bullet.

Spells

Dissolve is just the best; counter and half-draw will always be sweet. I mean, it’s no Cryptic Command, but it sure beats the pants off former all-star and
current walk-on Dissipate. In a game where you’re all about controlling the board, incremental scrying is powerful. You don’t lose tempo in this deck, as
you might in others where you have to play Temples to even out the manabase and topdecks. Magma Jet is Dissolve for aggro decks, with twice the scrying
power and the potential to go for the head if things go long. It’s the control deck’s burn spell, so it’s only fitting that it lives here.

Now Nissa’s Expedition is a bit more bizarre. This is a Ranger’s Path that gets two of any land that is assisted by other creatures you control. Even with
a low creature count though, playing something like this helps me take an idle turn and advance my “boardstate” to a critical point. This lets me jump from
five to seven mana for a deck that needs to be able to make that tempo leap. There’s three Master the Way, as you’ll likely need to use one early to smash
up a big threat like Siege Rhino or even a Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker.

Aetherspouts has been an iffy card that occasionally is awesome but sometimes is uncomfortably expensive and awkward. We’re all about the ramping here, so
Aetherspouts seems like a nice instant Wrath of God as they go for that alpha strike. Jace’s Ingenuity helps you if you don’t need to Aetherspouts
them after all. Mindswipe is a convenient alternative finisher as well as an inefficient but passable way to counter a spell midgame. As you hammer lands
into play, “counter unless you pay 10, take 10” should be the order of the day. I’ve also added in one Dig Through Time to recover, potentially, a copy of
both combo pieces, ready to unload in one turn. Anger of the Gods is a great spell to have access to, and there’ll be more where that came from the
postboard if they start to get too angry for you.

Nissa, Worldwaker is my only planeswalker, but she works great with this land-heavy strategy. She’s another win con, though significantly less reliable
against a black and/or creature deck, and she does require you to leave yourself open for a turn if played on time.

In the land area, we skipped out on scry lands in favor of basic land fixing with Evolving Wilds and lots of basic lands. Nissa’s Expedition and Nissa
herself can grab a lot of them, so there’s plenty of enablers to reward basic land use; plus, eight other lands search for basics directly, including the
full set of Evolving Wilds.

The sideboard allowed for plenty of hate against mono-red and other aggressive strategies with a full set of Circle of Flame and the remaining three Anger
of the Gods. Six counterspells in the form of Negate and Disdainful Stroke would tag in for Magma Jets in a grindy, counterwar matchup. Finally, a third
Mindswipe tags in for the midrange decks, and Aggressive Mining is a great fueler, given that lands should come flying in from all our enablers.

I built this deck on MTGO, finally tearing myself away from other testing babies, and took it for a spin.

Now, you savvy deckbuilders out there probably looked at my initial list and dismissed it as too low in power, bulky, and top-heavy. Well, go ahead and get
your “I-told-you-so” caps on, because you were right.

In practice, this deck was horrendously clunky, often stalling at five mana with nothing to do but Dissolve and attempt to beat down with a resolved
Ancient. While Pearl Lake Ancient did a bang up job as an awesome attacker, it frequently came down to my opponents overwhelming with me either speed or
power. The field was full of everything from Mono-Red Aggro to U/B Control, with every color combo of midrange imaginable. I needed some help, so I gave
the deck a serious overhaul to correct its errors.

Mas-Temur the Way

Matt Higgs

Test deck on 11-25-2014

Standard

Creatures (8)

Planeswalkers (8)

Lands (14)

Spells (30)

Sideboard

Lessons Learned:

· Embodiment of Spring was a really awful Magic card in this deck; the only thing it has on Font of Fertility is that it can awkwardly block once and only
if you have two mana up. Instead, Sylvan Caryatid proved that its on-time color fixing and ability to not be targeted was critical.

· Dig Through Time wasn’t that great without cheap spells; I still ended up paying five or six mana each time I cast it.

· This deck was packed with five-drops, meaning I’d get one spell a turn and drop my shields for countermagic about half the game.

· The deck was pretty anemic; beefing it up with more planeswalkers gave me more options and more manaless activities to do.

I went back into the gauntlet and did about as well with the new list, with some marked improvements. The combo was only doing the job about a third of the
time, but the rest of the time, Kiora’s Kraken emblem and Nissa’s Elementals were doing the job mightily. Xenagos was even able to help me ramp out a
couple nifty spells, but overall, the deck wasn’t coming together the way I liked.

The deck still continually had problems with midrange decks, so I was concerned I was too slow to be adding relevant pressure to keep midrange on the
backfoot. So, once more, with feeling, we’ll take a final shot at this list.

Mas-Temur the Way

Matt Higgs

Test deck on 11-25-2014

Standard

Creatures (11)

Planeswalkers (5)

Lands (13)

Spells (31)

Sideboard

Now this felt pretty close! I lowered the curve a bit, diversified the spell base, and added the ultimately critical Hornet Queen.

Hornet Queen was an easy ramp choice, and you could even stick one and immediately ramp again thanks to Nissa’s Expedition. Adding in familiar staples like
Courser of Kruphix might be what gets this deck off the ground, but it does admittedly put it dangerously close (for creativity’s sake) to stock Temur
lists floating around these days.

I tested this one too, and afterwards, this 75 seemed pretty firm. Control decks had a hard time answering all of the threats, and Mindswipe turned out to
be excellent against all but the fastest decks. For them, Hornet Queen was outstanding, especially against green or red aggro decks. I didn’t miss the
extra draw power; I had plenty to do on most turns, and the Master the Way combo was still present, but relatively secondary. The sideboard also changed
considerably, as I decided that some cards were best served as backup win conditions against control and discard-heavy decks and that the core was the
strongest starting 60 possible.

Through all my games and in all versions, I never boarded out the Pearl Lake Ancient/Master the Way combo, and I didn’t feel like that was a problem. Both
were perfectly fine cards on their own. Master the Way especially, even without the hand full of lands, was fine in every instance, dealing three or four
damage to a creature and replacing itself. I underestimated it. While certainly not a high-level card, it followed in the footsteps of its mediocre Khans
pack-fodder proudly.

In fact, it was way better.

How’ve you been working with this spell? Does the Temur list I’ve crafted up still need improving? What’s your U/R control deck looking like these days,
and is there any room to Master the Way?