Temur has always had a tenuous place in Modern. Any three-color combination
is going to have access to a lot of powerful cards, so what ends up
mattering is typically if there are any holes left by those colors.
Unfortunately for Temur, which must rely on red removal, it has had a hole
of varying size depending on how stocked the graveyards are for as long as
Modern has existed.
Yes, answering Tarmogoyf and other large creatures with red removal has
always been problematic, so decks in this shard have typically needed some
sort of alternate game plan that can trump an opposing Tarmogoyf.
With Tarmogoyf not as popular in Modern right now as it has been for much
of the format’s history, you may think that need has diminished, but now we
have the Eldrazi and Gurmag “no one has ever activated Tasigur, the Golden
Fang in a game of Modern so the common is better” Angler to contend with,
so there needs to be some plan to trump these creatures.
And what better way of trumping them than to stop them from being cast in
the first place. Once your opponent can’t effectively play Magic, cleaning
up a problematic threat or two, even at a material loss, is easy enough to
set up and from there winning is academic. Blood Moon may get a lot of
hate, but it’s in a lot of decks for a reason, and this Temur list is
situated as Blue Moon with green creatures, so you know I couldn’t resist.
The counter-heavy nature of Blue Moon makes it a great home for Huntmaster
of the Fells, letting you transform it back and forth for extreme value,
while Tireless Tracker is actually a better source of card advantage than
anything blue has.
Tireless Tracker may be my pick for most underrated card in Modern right
now. It just doesn’t have a great home, but it’s very powerful and perfect
here. The creatures here have the added benefit of helping you protect
Jace, the Mind Sculptor and let you use its -1 ability aggressively, which
has always been an overlooked element of the card.
I also like how the third color unleashes Engineered Explosives, which is
simply a great card. I still play it in U/R builds because it has an
unparalleled combination of efficiency and versatility, even without the
third color, and things only get better once you can answer Mantis Rider,
Etched Champion, and Detention Sphere.
Taking a more aggressive posture in creature-heavy metagames where Remand
is poor makes a lot of sense and is something I’ll keep in the back of my
mind for as long as I play Blue Moon. Temur Twin was a powerful variant of
that archetype many years ago, and I see no reason why that analogy can’t
carry into the present day.
Creatures (11)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (21)
Spells (26)
