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By: Psychobabble, PB
Nov 19 2014 1:00pm
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Block constructed is chugging along nicely on MTGO. While the numbers aren't insane, they're solid and both events and 2-player queues are firing consistently. I expect interest in the format to start picking up a little towards the end of the year with it being a MOCS format this December but remaining relatively steady apart from that. Given that, I'm going to be continuing my tour through the competitive and eventually rogue decks of the format, this week looking at the deck that was top of the pile last time I checked in - Temur. Is it aggro? Tempo? Midrange? All of the above? I'm not entirely sure in the context of this format, but one way or another, I've been jamming a bunch of games with it and I'll be reporting back for your benefit. But first, the metagame statistics.

Metagame statistics

It's been close to two weeks since I last posted an article, so this is more than a week's worth of stats. The current MTGO decklist reporting page is somewhat funky, with inexplicable breaks in the daily reporting, an inconsistent mismatch of dates between when something is played and when it is posted, and some days appearing to have multiple events reported for no apparent reason. I've done the best I can to try and report this properly, but it's possible I've mixed up a day or two here and there. Still, I think the big picture is relatively accurate:

A few notes:

  • Abzan is the big story of the week, lifting from 8% to very close to the top deck in the format. I like to think that its strong showing vindicates my initial read of the format, and the fact that Butakov has apparently moved off Jeskai and onto Abzan further points to Abzan being the real deal I'm not quite sure why it didn't perform very well initially, but perhaps pricing was a factor because the rest of the metagame hasn't changed much so I can't see any real reason for such a dramatic shift.
  • Jeskai is still going strong. People have entirely moved off the control plan though, which doesn't surprise me after my attempts at playing the deck, and it's all about the tempo version with cards like (Monastry Swiftspear), Singing Bell Strike, (Run Down) and various other tempo-ey cards to run you over.
  • Mardu Warriors (which accounts for virtually all of the Mardu decks) has essentially supplanted straight BW warriors, which dipped below 5% of the meta after an initial showing of nearly 10%. This does surprise me, I find that a pretty reasonable proportion of games in the format are decided by colour screw, I had thought that the two-colour aggro deck might have a place. It's worth noting that a new flavour of warrior deck has cropped up too, Abzan, which is essentially BW Warriors splashing Abzan Ascendancy. That gives the deck a great plan against wraths and could have some staying power, though it is relatively small in number at the moment.

Temur is also still going strong, and I'll be going into it in a bit of depth in today's article. Before I do though, I'll spotlight a rogue deck that I ran across during my tracking of the decklists. Ask yourself, which is better - Siege Rhino, Savage Knuckleblade or Butcher of the Horde? How about all of them? Displaying a breathtaking disregard for consistency and the rules of sane mana bases, Tombsimon piloted this concoction to a 3-1 finish a couple of weeks ago.

I had expected 4+ coloured decks to crop up in the format, but perhaps not this soon or this boldly. The mana base is worth examining more closely to see if a strategy like this can actually be viable in the longer term, because the power level is certainly there. First of all, the split between come into play tapped and untapped land is actually almost the same as the 3-colour decks of the format; this runs 13, others are running 12-15. The colour split is as follows:

  • W - 11
  • U - 12
  • B - 11
  • R - 9
  • G - 16

This is well, well below the numbers suggested by Frank Karsten in his recent article on 3-colour mana bases in standard. Even making some allowances for block being a slower format, it doesn't look good on the face of it. The inclusion of Embodiment of Spring and, particularly, Rattleclaw Mystic help somewhat. While Rattelclaw is good fixing even if you don't hit green, unfortunately Embodiment of Spring requires you to already have two colours before it helps you. Anyway, this looks like a fun high variance strategy to try if you're looking for it, but without a good colourless 5-colour fixer (eg. Chromatic Lantern) or a better green-based five-colour fixer (eg. Rampant Growth), I don't have a high hope for this kind of strategy in a competitive sense.

Temur

I mentioned last week that I like keeping an eye out for regular MTGO grinders or pros that play block constructed. Not only to learn from their card choices, but because their decks tend to influence the meta in a format like this. I've certainly noticed that happen with this Temur deck from grinder and regular block competitor SpaceJam:

This list has some differences from the early Temur decks. The notable absences are Temur Ascendancy and Icy Blast, which many of the early decks were experimenting with. While fun and an absolute beating given the right board state, Icy Blast is really too situational to be a maindeck inclusion. It is only a card that's good when you're in a winning situation with at least a reasonable board presence, and even then you can still lose to removal. If you're not winning, then it's a glorified fog. Temur Ascendancy is actually similar. I tested a version with from 2-4 maindeck and found that it's a card which is very good when you have a good draw, with all of your colours and are curving out with big creatures. The snowball effect of curving hasty fatties into more fatties from your extra draw is intoxicating. But those aren't the games you have a problem winning and that's probably why most Temur decks at the start of the format had up to four copies but now most are running none. That's not to say the deck doesn't want some card advantage, which is why SpaceJam (and others) have included Dig Through Time which is a great way to close out a game. One issue I have noticed with Dig is that hitting double blue can be surprisingly tough sometimes even in the very late game. Perhaps in response to this, I've seen some lists go for Treasure Cruise instead which is a change I can get behind.

Anyhow, the deck itself. Unlike the aggro decks in the format which start on one ((Monastry Swiftspear), Bloodsoaked Champion) this starts on two which immediately puts it in the midrange camp in my book. There is often an interesting choice presented on turn two, between Heir of the Wilds and Rattleclaw Mystic. Heir is both a good aggressive and defensive creature, allowing you to attack for 2 or 3 or block almost anything on the ground (Rakshasa Deathdealer being the exception). But Mystic enables the deck's most explosive draws, obviously. Less obviously, many of those draws involve leaving a blue mana up to protect your threat with Stubborn Denial and having that in your hand is something which should make you favour the Mystic over Heir a lot of the time. Another interesting Nuance with the Heir/Mystic decision is that saving Mystic until turn 3 allows for a potential turn 4 face-up Sagu Mauler which is a huge problem for every deck not packing Crackling Doom; Sagu Mauler is markedly better un-morphed against some decks given the prevalence of 2-mana removal like Debilitating Injury and Singing Bell Strike. So there are lots of things to take into consideration there and it can be quite an interesting decision in-game.

Going up the curve, you have a 3-drop which you frequently like to play on 4-mana in Big 'Knucks, with the spare mana either allowing you to protect it with Stubborn Denial or giving it haste to beat face. Knuckleblade is a little worse against the green and Abzan decks in the format than you'd think, given the prevalence of Heir of the Wild and Rakshasa Deathdealer, both of which cause issues for him. He's still a very strong card though, at worst trading with virtually every ground creature in the format and being very annoying to kill in grindier matchups. On four you have Ashcloud Phoenix which has actually proven slightly underwhelming in practice. So much of the format's removal doesn't care about the egg ability (either because it exiles, or taps it in the case of Singing Bell Strike or Crippling Chill) or in the case of Arc Lightning, allows you to get easy value off the un-morphed half. Still, it's the deck's best (if highly imperfect) answer to Wingmate Roc and is a decent blocker against aggro; the four copies are probably justified for now.

Topping the curve are two five drops in Surrak and Sarkhan and a 6 drop that unmorphs for 5 in Sagu Mauler. In the set review, I made what I thought was a not-too-bold prediction that Sarkhan would be one of the best cards in the format. I've been somewhat less than impressed with him in practice though. First of all, both Utter End and Abzan Charm do a pretty good impression of Hero's Downfall if you try to +1 him, drastically reducing the utility of him having the Planeswalker card type. Second, there's enough large or otherwise resilient creatures that the -3 ability isn't as good as I thought it might be. And finally, there's a sufficient volume of flying, hasty and/or "go wide" creatures in the format that planeswalkers in general have a somewhat tough time staying alive. I find that Sorin, Solemn Visitor is markedly better at protecting himself than Sarkhan, which does surprise me. Something else detracting from Sarkhan's utility is that unlike most of your other threats, he doesn't trigger ferocious for Stubborn Denial on your opponent's turn, which is frequently relevant. Sarkhan does have some good spots, like sniping half of a Wingmate Roc after you've blocked one half with your Phoenix or something, but two is on the upper end of the number I want to maindeck here and I could certainly see going down to fewer, perhaps replacing him with more Crater's Claws which fulfils a similar role in a generally more flexible way (it does at least four damage for the same amount of mana, and that damage can't be prevented by Utter End, and it can also kill a Siege Rhino under other circumstances).

Surrak on the other hand is quite playable in practice. "Can't be countered" has proven surprisingly relevant in a world of Disdainful Strokes - as I'll discuss further below, you can become virtually immune to that spell post-board which is really nice for a midrange deck in this format. Flash is nice for ambushing Siege Rhino's, Anafenza's (watch out for Abzan Cham) and the entire BWx warriors deck. The surprise ferocious-Stubborn Denial isn't too bad either, and occasionally you just use him as a combat trick to trample over for the final points of damage. I like, and can easily see playing up to three if it weren't for the fierce competition from Sagu Mauler which completely wins the format.... other than against Crackling Doom unfortunately. If it weren't for that card I'd be very, very high on mauler, as it is it's still really good against the rest of the format; Trample is particularly nice, and it's the only playable Hexproof creature in the format which is always a "fun" keyword to play with. You don't get to pro-actively abuse that Hexproof too often, although it is nice that it prevents you from getting blown out when you fight with Temur Charm.

Speaking of the charm, and seguing into the sideboard discussion, this is the card I find siding out of most often by far. I think it justifies a slot in the maindeck based purely on flexibility. Although the flexibility of having three modes is actually somewhat illusionary, as all three are only good when you are in a winning, or at least a parity, situation on the board. Mana leak isn't very exciting on an empty board (it's playable, but it's not going to win you the game) and the fight and falter modes obviously do nothing if you don't have a pretty decent board position, the latter having particularly narrow applications given its conditional nature. Post-board I find myself siding it out every game either for a better-targeted counterspell (ie. Disdainful Stroke where that will be good) or better removal (ie. more Arc Lightning/Crater's Claws). Of all the cards in the maindeck up there, that is the one I'm most unsure on and could certainly see cutting it over time if the format becomes more defined.

Anyway, on to sideboarding more generally. I found sideboarding with this deck really tough, and given the variety of strategies I see people adopting when I play against them online I'm not the only one. Perhaps this goes to the slight confusion I alluded to about whether this deck is aggressive (as Mtggoldfish labels it), midrange or tempo. One of the fundamental keys to good sideboarding is correctly assigning your role (per the classic "Who's the Beatdown?" characterisation). This deck really does straddle a number of roles and it can be difficult to correctly assign yourself as the beatdown or control player in any particular matchup. One issue is that it's so draw dependent. Sometimes you're all Heir of the Wilds, burn, Temur Charm and Dig Through Time to play the long game, other times you're curving Rattleclaw Mystic into hasty Knuckleblades into Sarkhan. Another issue is that so many of your controlling cards - Stubborn Denial, Claws and even Disdainful Stroke - are really only good when you have already established a decent board presence which makes the deck feel like it's playing an aggro/tempo gameplan. Anyway, I never quite got a handle of this deck from a big picture perspective, I came up with some specific thoughts on each matchup as I played, so I'll go over them. Given that there's lots of variety in specific lists and I'm not necessarily suggesting you play the exact 75 above, I'll just highlight sideboard cards which are good and maindeck cards which are less good in the main matchups.

vs Jeskai tempo

Good:
Winterflame Arc Lightning Icefeather Aven

Less-good:
Temur Charm Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker Sagu Mauler

As usual, Temur Charm comes out. Beyond that, assuming your opponent doesn't transform into a control deck post-board, you need to lower your curve. Sarkhan is the easy choice to remove so it's between Sagu Mauler and Surrak. I like the one which is always immune to Disdainful Stroke, but you can play around Stroke with Sagu Mauler and it's immune to annoying things like Singing Bell Strike so you could make an argument for either.

vs Abzan

Good:
Disdainful Stroke Crater's Claws Sagu Mauler

Less-good:
Temur Charm Arc Lightning

This is the matchup for Disdainful stroke, it's simply an awesome card against the deck. The matchup in general isn't great though. As with Jeskai, Temur has real difficulties dealing with Rakshasa Deathdealer and Anafenza can also be quite annoying (she even exiles your Ashcloud Phoenix for rub-ins). Your best card in the matchup is Surrak Dragonclaw, as it allows you to keep up counterspell mana while also being a very relevant threat. Sagu Mauler is pretty nice too, hexproof is big game against Utter End and Abzan Charm, which are generally amazing against you. I also like Stubborn Denial in the matchup, but you don't want too many because all of the Abzan removal means you can get into topdeck wars where it becomes pretty bad. Your cards for winning those matchups are Knuckleblade and Dig Through Time, Crater's Claws also does some work. If you were looking for extra cards to help out in the Abzan matchup, a single Windstorm to deal with Wingmate Roc is worth thinking about and a single Temur Ascendancy can also help out in grindier games if your opponent is on the End Hostilities/Duneblast plan post-board. Speaking of Duneblast/End Hostilities, while I don't like Hooded Hydra as a rule against Abzan (too much exiling), it is a good way to deal with wraths so a card to keep in mind for game three, possibly over Sagu Mauler.

vs Temur

Good:
Stubborn Denial Hooded Hydra Crater's Claws

Less-good:
Temur Charm Rattleclaw Mystic Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker Arc Lightning

This is a fascinating post-board matchup. There are a number of points of tension - Rattleclaw Mystic is quite good in the matchup, but absolutely terrible against Arc Lightning. However, Arc Lightning itself isn't that great in the matchup, particularly if Mystics are taken out. For game 2, I like leaving in Arc Lightning - it's still decent against Ashcloud Phoenix and Heir of the Wild - but then re-evaluating it for game 3 if I don't see any Mystics in game 2. Another interesting tension is with Disdainful Stroke. I don't like Sarkhan at all in this matchup because Stubborn Denial is a beating and remains good post-board due to Crater's Claws and opposing counterspells. So if you take Sarkhan out, then you can end up with no creatures that get hit by it assuming you play Ashcloud Phoenix and Sagu Mauler as morphs first. That leaves Dig Through Time and a large Crater's Claws as your only target for Disdainful Stroke, which is enough to make that card actively bad. If your opponent leaves their Sarkhan's in though and runs their creatures into Stroke then it can be good, but I generally wouldn't bring it in for game 2. I note that Temur Ascendancy is pretty amazing in this matchup, as it can get quite grindy, so it's worth thinking about in the sideboard for that reason.

vs Mardu

Good:
Hooded Hydra Winterflame Arc Lightning Crater's Claws

Less-good:
Sagu Mauler Dig Through Time Temur Charm Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

This is the matchup where you want Hooded Hydra, and it's really quite good here. It's the single best card you can have against Crackling Doom which otherwise is very good against you and even if you aren't flipping it up, it's really easy to get value out of your post-death tokens in this matchup given the number of opposing x/1s. Utter End still gets you, but that just means your Phoenixes can get the job done. Apart from that it's just a curve-cutting exercise and Sarkhan once again doesn't make the cut while Sagu gets blown out too easily by Crackling Doom.

Conclusion

That brings me to the end of this week's article, join me next time as I try to get some warrior-synergy beats going with various combinations of BWx warriors.

 

3 Comments

Another great article on by Mundisv at Thu, 11/20/2014 - 15:52
Mundisv's picture

Another great article on Block! How do you feel about recent uprise in Abzan's popularity? Don't you think we will end up in a similar Block like Theros, where we have one dominant midrange deck and it's mirrors all the time? Because that deck looks quite dominant right now and that should not come as a surprise, Abzan is also the most popular colour combination in Standard.

An interesting question. At by Psychobabble at Thu, 11/20/2014 - 20:09
Psychobabble's picture

An interesting question. At the very start of the format, I was seriously worried about the potnetial domainance of abzan in the format (I wrote one and a half articles on it). On paper and in my early testing it easily outclassed the rest of the format. In practice though, Temur and to a lesser degree jeskai tempo does a great job of keeping it honest imo. Abzan only ever really gets to play one spell a turn. In between Stubborn Denial, Crater's Claws for x=0 (+2) and disdainful stroke, Temur can often play two relevant spells in a single turn and that gives them a good tempo advantage. Abzan should win most long games, but can certainly be tempo-ed out and I think that's enough to stop it being as dominant as GRx monsters in Theros - I think :).

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