Tinkering With Temur

This past weekend, I played in Grand Prix San Antonio. To the surprise of absolutely no one, I chose to play Temur Aggro. The list I played was virtually
identical to that which I used to record my most recent video,
with only a few changes in the sideboard.

Temur Aggro

Brian Kibler

Test deck on 12-05-2014

Standard

Creatures (27)

Lands (23)

Spells (10)

Sideboard

For a while, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to play in San Antonio. Traveling the weekend after Thanksgiving generally isn’t my idea of a good time, both
because of the hordes of people doing the same and because I knew I’d be missing out on delicious leftovers while I was away. But the last time I played
competitive Magic was over a month ago, when I narrowly missed Top 8 of Grand Prix Los Angeles playing Temur. I had a competitive itch that needed
scratched, as well as a desire to put Savage Knuckleblade and friends through their paces once again.

Unfortunately, San Antonio didn’t go nearly as well as LA. I lost my first round after my byes to Lawson Zandi playing Mardu Midrange on camera after I
failed to draw blue mana in game 1 and drew pretty much all land in game 3, which is always an inauspicious start to any tournament. I managed to rattle
off three straight wins after that, against another Mardu deck, Abzan, and G/B Devotion before running into another Temur deck, once again in the feature
match area.

I lost in three games, with both of my losses being nailbitingly close. In game 1, I had my opponent down to three life with a Rattleclaw Mystic in play to
his empty board, but I proceeded to draw five mana sources in a row and eventually died to a Goblin Rabblemaster plus Polukranos. I won the second game,
and then in game 3 found myself racing a Stormbreath Dragon with Polukranos and a Boon Satyr with a second Boon Satyr in my hand. My opponent was at nine
life with six land in play, one of them being a Mana Confluence. My Boon Saytr in hand meant that even if he played a blocker, I would get through for a
minimum of eight damage, putting him at one and leaving him unable to get enough mana to pay for monstrosity on Stormbreath Dragon without dying to his
Mana Confluence. To my horror, the blocker he played was Hornet’s Nest, meaning that I couldn’t attack without giving him enough insects to attack back for
lethal. I had to hold back, and he had the untapped land to grow his Dragon and kill me.

In my last round, I played against Abzan, and won a fairly ridiculous game 1 in which both of us were stuck on two mana, but I had multiple copies of Heir
of the Wilds that got in enough damage for me to burn him out before he could recover. I lost the second game to a bunch of Siege Rhinos while I drew
Stubborn Denials, and then had an aggressive start in game 3 with Heir of the Wilds into Savage Knuckleblade, but got stuck on three land–all of them
painlands–for multiple turns while I kept drawing more copies of Ashcloud Phoenix and Polukranos. Eventually, my opponent resolved End Hostilities and
then Elspeth. A Siege Rhino put an end to my painland-depleted life total shortly thereafter, and my tournament was over.

While I certainly felt like I got unlucky in my losses, my takeaway from the tournament wasn’t that I need to invest in rabbit’s feet or four leaf clovers.
While I feel like the build of Temur I played is powerful, some of that power certainly comes at the price of consistency. In fact, I can look at several
of the games that I lost and see that price manifesting itself. As early as the end of round four, I was already thinking of ways that I could improve on
the deck moving forward.

While it would be easy to write off my losses to mana screw or mana flood, there are deckbuilding decisions that I could have made to help mitigate these
issues to some degree. For example, in my loss to Mardu, I ended the first game with both Savage Knuckleblade and Stubborn Denial in my hand without any
blue mana and two copies of Elvish Mystic in play. If those Mystics were Caryatids, for example, I very well may have been able to cast my spells and may
have potentially won the game. In my loss to Abzan at the end of the day, I was stuck on a Mana Confluence and two painlands, which meant that I was
already nearly dead from damage I’d dealt to myself by the time I drew my fourth land, leaving me with no chance to make a comeback in the game. If I
didn’t have such a painful land base, it’s possible that I could have clawed my way back into the game despite my early mana troubles.

Both of these are issues I have discussed in my videos about the deck, so they certainly aren’t new to me. I’ve been meaning to try different versions of
Temur for a while, but so far I’ve just been taking things one step at a time.

I recently made the switch from Temur Charm to Stubborn Denial in the maindeck, but I don’t think I fully addressed the implications of the change. If you
recall my earliest articles about Temur, my first versions of the deck started out very differently, with a shell much more similar to G/R Monsters
splashing for Knuckleblade and Temur Charm. I didn’t like how Temur Charm played in a deck that was interested in tapping out on its own turn so often, and
ended up trimming down the top end of the deck and filling in the lower end of the curve with Heir of the Wilds.

Stubborn Denial was one of the reasons I was drawn to Temur from the start, but the metagame at the time was full of green devotion decks, against which
Denial is often a completely dead card in game 1. Now, though, with decks like Abzan, Mardu, Jeskai, and W/U Heroic making up far more of the field than
devotion, Stubborn Denial is an excellent maindeck card.

All of the popular decks in the field nowadays play quite a few non-creature spells. Many of those spells cost quite a bit of mana, like Hero’s Downfall,
Stoke the Flames, Crackling Doom, and the various Charms, to say nothing of planeswalkers like Elspeth and Sorin. The ability to counter these spells for
one mana is incredibly powerful, and can generate an enormous tempo swing. Standard right now is defined by individually powerful cards, and the ability to
advance your board and counter your opponent’s play in the same turn can leave you almost insurmountably ahead. It’s the same reason that cards like
Chained to the Rocks or Murderous Cut are so powerful.

With the removal of Temur Charm and the switch to Stubborn Denial, there’s much less incentive to play quite so low to the ground. While Heir of the Wilds
is a quality card, it isn’t particularly high impact. Originally, I really liked Heir because it was a great cheap attacker against green devotion decks,
against which you’d play your cheap threats and keep the pressure on and then hold up Temur Charm to stop them from resolving their big cards.

Without Temur Charm to keep big creatures off the table, Heir gets outclassed quickly. Sure, it can trade with Siege Rhinos or Goblin Rabblemasters, but if
you’re trading blows with either, you’re quickly losing the race, and this is not a deck that is happy about holding back to block.

The other change that I’ve talked about making for a while, but have never pulled the trigger on, is getting rid of Elvish Mystic. Elvish Mystic is a great
card, and it’s part of some of the deck’s best draws–like turn 2 Savage Knuckleblade–but those draws are few and far between. In my attempt to make the
deck’s manabase less painful, I’ve cut down on Mana Confluences, leaving just six ways to play Elvish Mystic on the first turn that enable Savage
Knuckleblade to come down on the second. While those draws are great, the odds of them happening are quite slim. When they don’t happen, often Elvish
Mystic is mediocre at best, since it can only produce green mana and requires green mana to cast.

If you fetch a basic Forest to cast Elvish Mystic on the first turn, you’ve already locked yourself out of playing Knuckleblade until turn 3, and even then
you won’t be able to play it and give it haste in the same turn. Even Ashcloud Phoenix becomes somewhat difficult to cast on turn 3 at that point, since
you need two more lands, both of which produce red, and only one of which enters the battlefield tapped. While Mystic is the most efficient way to
accelerate your mana, it does nothing to fix it, and this deck relies on the latter nearly as much as the former.

Switching from Elvish Mystic to Sylvan Caryatid reduces the deck’s explosiveness somewhat, but it increases its consistency, since you not only have more
sources of colored mana, but more reliable mana acceleration from two to four, thanks to Caryatid’s hexproof. Caryatid also somewhat reduces the downside
of lands that enter the battlefield tapped compared to Mystic, since you can play a tapped land on the first turn and a Caryatid on the second. Even if you
have a second land that enters the battlefield tapped, you’re guaranteed to be able to play a three-drop on your third turn since your opponent can’t
easily kill your mana creature.

Having more stable mana creatures increases the incentive to go a bit bigger with cards like Stormbreath Dragon and Sarkhan. While I wasn’t a big fan of
Stormbreath Dragon at the Pro Tour in a metagame full of Jeskai and Green Devotion, the card is much better positioned now, as Mardu and Abzan both
struggle to deal with it effectively, particularly when it’s backed up by Stubborn Denial. Abzan generally relies on Hero’s Downfall as their way to kill
dragon, and the pressure from Savage Knuckleblade and Polukranos often doesn’t allow them to hold on to a copy for Stormbreath. Mardu has more options, but
Crackling Doom often isn’t a reliable answer, since you can always choose to sacrifice one of your other four power creatures to keep your dragon around.

Sarkhan is just a fantastic card, since it doubles as removal and a threat. This is a huge deal especially against a deck like Mardu, where you often have
to find a balance between proactive cards and ways to deal with their creatures. Both Goblin Rabblemaster and Butcher of the Horde can end the game in
short order if they stick around, but you don’t want to have to fill your deck with reactive cards to deal with them. Sarkhan offers a way to kill either
that can also kill your opponent, and–like Stormbreath Dragon–can dodge Crackling Doom with the tribute of a Boon Satyr or Ashcloud Phoenix.

Here’s the list I drew up in the Notes app on my phone as I was brainstorming throughout the weekend:

Temur Aggro

Brian Kibler

Test deck on 12-05-2014

Standard

Creatures (26)

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

Lands (23)

Spells (9)

Sideboard

Once I got a chance to look at the Top 8 decklists from the Grand Prix, I was amused to see that Jeremy Frye apparently had a very similar idea, posting a
semifinals finish with this deck.

Temur Aggro

Jeremy Frye

3rd Place at Grand Prix on 11-30-2014

Standard

Creatures (25)

Lands (24)

Spells (11)

Sideboard

While I obviously like the general direction of this deck, I’m not sold on some of the choices here, like Temur Ascendancy and Surrak. I tried both of them
as sideboard options before and found them wanting.

Ascendancy can certainly be powerful, but three mana is a lot to spend without impacting the board in a format as fast as the current Standard. It can
definitely be very useful in an attrition game, but that’s not the sort of game that Temur is looking to play, and in my experience it’s important that
your draws aren’t clogged by cards that don’t adhere to your primary gameplan of advancing the board.

Surrak can certainly come up big in some spots, both as a big instant speed threat and by giving trample to your team as a surprise, but five is a lot of
mana, and I feel like you can only play so many cards at that point in your curve. Both Stormbreath Dragon and Sarkhan outperform Surrak, in my mind. It’s
important for a card that costs that much to have an immediate impact on the game, and the haste of both dragon-kin, along with Sarkhan’s removal ability,
can immediately close out games by themselves, while Surrak needs help to do the same.

The biggest divergence between these two lists is in the choice of non-Knuckleblade three-drops. Jeremy played the ever-present Courser of Kruphix, while I
eschew centaurs for satyrs of the Boon variety. It’s possible that increasing the deck’s curve with five cost creatures makes Courser more important, but
in my experience, I really appreciate Boon Satyr’s ability to give me consistent access to Ferocious Crater’s Claws and Stubborn Denials early in the game.
Sylvan Caryatid makes it much easier to consistently have access to three-drop plus Claws for zero on turn 3, which can be a huge swing against something
like a Goblin Rabblemaster. Boon Satyr is also great at finishing off opponents, especially with as many fliers as these decks play. A Boon’d up Phoenix or
Dragon ends games quickly.

I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong and Courser is the better card, but Boon Satyr plays more to the gameplan of what Temur is trying to do. It does match
up much worse against cards like Lightning Strike and Magma Jet, but the fact that it can be played as an instant means that you can often keep your
opponent from gaining tempo with cheap removal spells by playing it on their turn rather than your own. It’s even better when your opponent leaves up three
mana for something like Abzan Charm or Hero’s Downfall and you pass the turn back to them before playing Boon Satyr, since you’re effectively denying them
of the use of their mana for a full turn.

I’m certainly not sure what the optimal build is at this point, since I’m only just trying out this new version. The sideboard, in particular, is very much
up in the air. At the Grand Prix, I played Xenagos, which was good but not great. It’s certainly very powerful against control decks like U/B or Esper, but
doesn’t match up very well against things like Siege Rhino or Butcher of the Horde. Chandra feels like a powerful option against Abzan, since it can both
generate card advantage over time and force damage past a Siege Rhino. It also kills goblin tokens from Hordeling Outburst or Goblin Rabblemaster against
Mardu, but it gets taken out in one hit by a Butcher of the Horde, which is somewhat unfortunate.

Similarly, I’ve debated at length between Reclamation Sage and Destructive Revelry. Sage is higher “value” because it leaves behind a creature, but the 2/1
body gets invalidated quickly in some of the matchups where you want it, like against G/B Constellation or Sultai Reanimator. Destructive Revelry is
cheaper and an instant, which lets it take out Whip of Erebos before it can activate or kill an Ordeal of Thassa or Aqueous Form on a heroic creature to
deny your opponent cards or allow you to block. Right now, I’m leaning toward Revelry (which is why I played it at the Grand Prix), but I can see arguments
either way.

One card that I’m 100% sold on in the sideboard is Disdainful Stroke, which is just super powerful. The ability to stop everything from Siege Rhino and
Whip of Erebos to Dig Through Time and Hornet Queen for just two mana is incredible and can absolutely swing games in your favor. On that, at least, it
seems Jeremy and I agree, as he played the same three copies as me.

The last major sideboard debate is the creature removal suite. In the Grand Prix itself, I played four copies of Magma Spray, while Jeremy played four
copies of Anger of the Gods and two Magma Sprays. I’m not totally sold on Anger in this deck. You have quite a few creatures that die to it, including all
of you mana accelerants, which are especially important with the higher curve. Playing Courser over Boon Satyr certainly makes Anger fit better, but I
wonder if you can’t do better. I’m interested in trying Arc Lightning. It’s not as powerful as Anger against really full boards, but it can do the job of
wiping out multiple small opposing creatures without putting your Mystics and Caryatids at risk. Arc Lightning lines up quite well against both Hordeling
Outburst and Goblin Rabblemaster, and can combine with Chandra to take out Butcher of the Horde if need be. I do have to say that I like Jeremy’s use of
Savage Punch, which is like a slightly less efficient Hunt the Hunter with more applications. It’s a great tool for winning Polukranos fights, as well as
taking out big Heroic creatures that Hunt the Hunter cannot.

All of this contributes to why I love the current Standard environment so much. We’re several months into the format, and here I am still tinkering with
fundamental aspects of a deck I’ve been playing the whole time! There are so many different options available, many of which change in value from week to
week as the format shifts. That’s what makes Magic so great!

What do you think? What should Temur look like in the current Standard?