The Unfair Way (Ugw tempo)

[thefreakaccident]

lands//19
4 wasteland
1 mishra's factory (flex spot)
4 tropical island
4 tundra
4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta

creatures//11
4 weathered wayferer
4 tarmogoyf
3 jotan grunt

spells//30
4 force of will
4 daze
4 spell snare
4 stifle

4 swords to plowshares
2 rushing river

4 brainstorm
4 ponder

sideboard//
3 spell pierce
2 engineered explosives
4 relic of progenitus
2 ghostly prison
2 propaganda
2 krosan grip


Now, before anyone starts moving anything, lets talk about this exact list for just a minute.

This deck is neither NoGoyf, nor Tempo Threshold for some very specific reasons.

While this deck looks much like Tempo Threshold, it is in fact much different in playstyle, and while the number of different cards are small, the playstyle of the decks are different enough to warrent a new thread (as well as not running any actual threshold based cards).

Thrash tries to take advantage of temporary tempo gained through mana denial and daze to end the game quickly with large under-costed beaters and burn spells.

This deck tries to choke your opponent's resources over a slightly longer amount of time...

This deck plays a lot of the same cards, and similarly can function with very few resources throughout the game. Not many decks in this format are comfortable with only 2-3 lands throughout the course of an entire game, and this is where wayferer comes in. As you function at pretty much optimal efficiency with few lands, keeping your opponent with few lands makes it a very unfair game for decks that want to cast 3-4cc spells, or abuse mana-intensive strategies like counterbalance and such.

The deck is filled with synergies that complement the decks manadenial plan in such a way to keep your opponent choked off their resources as long as you wish.

Lets get some card-by card analysis shall we?

Individual Card analysis:

Wasteland: the main manadenial card in the deck... Made better by the wayferers and jotan grunts, they are what makes the soft lock in the deck possible.

Mishra's Factory: One of those questionable slots in the deck... He has actually saved me in a few situations that have gotten out of hand. He is also good to tutor up against decks that seek to abuse standstill. This happens to be one of the only flex spots in the deck.

No basics: You run wayferer, so if your opponent is destroying some lands, this can actually be advantageous to you, as he keeps searching for lands, and can eventually put you on the offensive in regards to the mana-denial battle. You want your opponent to waste turns wasting your lands. Decks such as these roll over and die to bloodmoon 90% of the time whether or not they have the 1-2 basics... Its not worth worrying about.

Creatures:

Weathered Wayferer: The other side of the 'lock'. He lets you keep pressure on your opponent's manabase, and also thins out the deck considerably... If you could run 5, you would (they actually get better in multiples, since if your opponent ever gets a land on you, you can start tutoring up a ridiculous amount of lands).

Tarmogoyf: He can either end the game quickly, or be a very good wall against invading critters. He is the best creature in the format, there is no good reason not to include 4 of him, unless you wish to get run over by opposing goyfs.

Jotan Grunt: He gives you more wastelands to do work with, as well as being just as big as goyf 80% of the time. He can keep with your goyf to end the game quickly if needed, or he can break stalemates by making all goyfs small.

Spells: (I'll just go over the ones you don't already know about in this archtype)

Rushing river: Most people perfer to run at least 1 wipe away... But this card is simply perfect for this deck's strategies... With the deck's ability to choke your opponent down to only 2-3 lands, playing this can either be a timewalk or a double timewalk depending on the situation. It is an out to problem permanents, and also has a kicker-cost that helps the deck keep wayferer active, if only for another turn.

Swords to plowshares: Being able to simply remove big critters is a nice thing that Thrash just cannot do... It gains the opponent life, but you would much rather they gain a little life than a basic land with path to exile.

The stanard package of FoW, Daze, brainstorm, ponder, stifle, and snare give the deck a solid base of the best blue spells so the deck can easily sift through its deck and deal with the opponent's spells.


Sideboard:

With recent testing done by me and Mister Agent, the sideboard has been tested over the last week to fight against a good number of the decks in the format.

Agro in general and ichorid both find the propaganda cards very painful in addition to the mana-denial of the main deck. They will only be able to attack with 1-2 creatures EVER, which kind of crushes their plans of ever actually killing you.


The spell pierces were Kevin's idea (Mister Agent)... They can really help in some control MUs, giving you more ways to pressure your opponent manawise... It also helps ice the Combo MU, giving you just that many answers to their spells.

Relic is kind of a given, as well as explosives and grip...

Match Up Analysis:

I will edit this part of the opening post in later.

[Jaynel]

Would Horizon Canopy be retarded in this deck? It's pretty insane with Wayfarer I'd imagine.

[KillemallCFH]

Jotun Grunt seems terrible in a deck like this. Tempo decks have a bad habit of running out of steam as it is; a creature that kills itself is the last thing it wants, especially since you don't have any burn to speed up the damage-doing process.

I get that you have Wayfarer to try to keep the pressure on, but a 1/1 that requires an untap step and your opponent having more lands than you doesn't exactly scream "reliable."

[Phoenix Ignition]

I like the direction you have taken with this deck but you really do need to run at least one basic plains in there. Playing nogoyf I've had hands with tundra or fetch and a wasteland with a wayfarer that I've kept, but have been sunk because the opponent wastes my wayfarer before I get to use him. Notice the white requirement instead of colorless. For this reason alone I'd put in a plains.

[Aggro_zombies]

Wayfarer seems kinda bad in a deck that runs both Stifle and Wasteland. Like, do you deliberately not Stifle your opponent's turn one fetch so you can activate Wayfarer to get a Wasteland? That seems...really shitty, actually. I mean, I know you have Daze and Rushing River to drop your land count, but it still seems cute at best and really unreliable at worst.

Grunt and Tarmogoyf do not play well together.

[Mister Agent]

After a bit more testing last night, I feel the sideboard needs to have four spell pierces because they are just that incredible.

Also, wayferer should really be noble hierarchs since I didn't find wayferer to be all that impressive.

I also think Jotun Grunts should really be Rhox War Monk. Rhox War Monk seems like a far better threat then Grunt for this deck. I mean sure they won me a few games against Ichorid but that's about it. Although, even in that matchup, I would of favored real graveyard hate over artificial shenanigans.

You should also try to find some room for Umezawa's Jitte. Maindeck would probably be preferred but you could run them in the sideboard. Jitte can be an absolute beating against the likes of zoo, merfolks, and goblins. I mean, I am sure you don't want to splash red for fire/ice and lightning bolt.

[yadda]

After a bit more testing last night, I feel the sideboard needs to have four spell pierces because they are just that incredible.

Also, wayferer should really be noble hierarchs since I didn't find wayferer to be all that impressive.

I also think Jotun Grunts should really be Rhox War Monk. Rhox War Monk seems like a far better threat then Grunt for this deck. I mean sure they won me a few games against Ichorid but that's about it. Although, even in that matchup, I would of favored real graveyard hate over artificial shenanigans.

You should also try to find some room for Umezawa's Jitte. Maindeck would probably be preferred but you could run them in the sideboard. Jitte can be an absolute beating against the likes of zoo, merfolks, and goblins. I mean, I am sure you don't want to splash red for fire/ice and lightning bolt.

so your saying he should just switch decks to bant aggro control?

[yadda]

they are also the primary unique feature of this deck. saying they are bad is essentially saying the deck is bad.

[Mister Agent]

they are also the primary unique feature of this deck. saying they are bad is essentially saying the deck is bad.

So? That's why this deck is in the new and developmental forum and not in the established. This deck is still in the testing preliminary stages and obviously I am trying to help Thefreakaccident out to make this deck competitive.

With that said, Jaynel's idea of adding Horizon Canopy seems interesting to test out.

[pi4meterftw]

If you thought about this for a while you'd just end up optimizing your deck into the nogoyf list again. For example, why aren't you running fathom seer, which gives you a creature, card advantage (even just counting the cards in hand) and lets you manipulate your land count? Why aren't you running knight of the white orchid (and the accompanying mana base.) when your deck can allegedly support wayfarer. Running these things, why not run vial? You can cut green entirely by merely cutting goyf for avengers, etc. etc.

Where's umezawa's jitte? How does this deck not lose to everything? Even nogoyf had some bad matchups. I can't imagine how this deck wouldn't get utterly obliterated in Nogoyf's negative matchups, since it suffers a strict superset of weaknesses.

[Forbiddian]

Blood Moon. There's no reason to lose to it.

[Maveric78f]

Play more Knight of the Reliquary (not less than 4).

[thefreakaccident]

Wow... That's a lot of posts... I will try to answer some.



Tempo Thresh Isn't worried about Bloodmoon, why should we? Even if we were to run a few basics, the only deck that we have to worry about bloodmoon brings it out on turn one, which makes it impossible to fetch for. Landstill gets around this by running 5-6 basics, but we cannot afford this as you can imagine.

Knight of Reliquery: Seems interesting... I don't really know what to cut for it... But it does seem interesting.

You would be surprised by how much Jotan grunt doesn't suck in this deck... You obviosly don't play him in the first couple turns... You wait so you can maintain him for several turns. He also plays pretty nice with goyf, remember you get to choose what to get rid of... And if you don't have a goyf, then you can feel free to shrink opposing goyfs (which is a nice additive).

@ Agro-Zombies comment about wayferer: We don't always play first, and we don't always have stifle... Stifling an opening fetch is an obvious play that you just wouldn't want to miss out on. What wayferer does is that he sits there, and if they ever play a third land, you tutor for a waste and kill it. He is a promise that they will never get more land than you (and unless you get river, you can happily stay at 2-3 lands). That's his purpose.

Also, when you use the classic tricks such as wasteland on the stack or fetchlands on the stack, he is still useful even then.

Horizon canopy does seem like it could be good... Perhaps I could go:
-1 tropical island
-1 mishra's factory
+1 horizon canopy
+1 plains

@Kevin... Yes rhox war monk is a very good card, but at 3cc, and only being a 3/4... He just doesn't seem to be very worthwhile in a tempo oriented list.

Thanks for the comments though, keep em comming!

[Mister Agent]

Well, if we are not running Rhox War Monk we should at least try out umezawa's jitte. It'll give us a solid chance against zoo and merfolks. Besides, I was able to steal a few doubtful games against merfolks with jitte from the board. Although, postboard, I also had two copies of trygon predators to increase the threat density of making umezawa's jitte relevant as well.

As a merfolk and zoo player, Propogandas/ghostly prisons seems quite poor against both matchups. Considering, both decks are more then just capable of playing around them and they actually have hate "if" the situation gets out of hand.

Also, I like the idea of adding Knight of Relinquary to the deck and I'd probably would swap out wayferers for them. At least the swap should be tested to see which one we prefer.

[Vacrix]

A few things that could be sick in this:

Crop Rotation:
Crop Rotation on the stack, wayfarer for wasteland, crop rotation for wasteland.

Sylvan Safekeeper:
Kind of like MoM, but obviously different. I think its legit that you can get your land count low for Wayfarer and protect your creatures at the same time.


Also, where is Knight of the Reliquary?? It's so dam good. Its one more creature that enables the wastelock and it brings the beats once it comes down far better than goyf ever could. He's no smaller than a 4/4 or 5/5 in my experience playing with or against him. If you have the mana to support rushing river, then I can't imagine why you would play goyf over this guy. I mean with Wayfarer tricks, you should easily be able to hit 3 mana.

EDIT:
Woah, just thought of this. If Scryb Rangers resolves, it is just SICK as hell in the merfolk matchup. It allows you get a high land count against merfolk with wayfarer via use wayfarer, return a forest, untap wayfarer, use wayfarer, replay the forest for your turn. Considering that you can't really wastelock mono-color fetching out a lot mana seems pretty impo to me so that you can actually resolve spells. Rangers with Jitte should be game against merfolk. He can attack, get counters, then untap to block and get moar counters!! Pro-blue, flying, vigilance is just too good to pass up. Test him if you run Jitte. You won't regret it.

[SpencerForHire]

On November 3rd, Doug Linn talked about my teams take on UGW Tempo that not only seems to have a fairly strong game against the field but also had two different pilots almost sweep an entire tourney. (I'm only talking one loss in the swiss, one loss in the T8 and every other match between both pilots was 2-0).

Although this deck is not directly what you are going for with the cute Weathered Wayfarer tricks in your list, it has a lot of the suggested options...

You may want to take a look at this (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18235_Legacys_Allure_Exploring_Tempo_Bant.html) and see what you think. I'm not suggesting that your TUW deck isn't the deck to be playing, just that you may find something you like in our list there.

[Mister Agent]

On November 3rd, Doug Linn talked about my teams take on UGW Tempo that not only seems to have a fairly strong game against the field but also had two different pilots almost sweep an entire tourney. (I'm only talking one loss in the swiss, one loss in the T8 and every other match between both pilots was 2-0).

Although this deck is not directly what you are going for with the cute Weathered Wayfarer tricks in your list, it has a lot of the suggested options...

You may want to take a look at this (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18235_Legacys_Allure_Exploring_Tempo_Bant.html) and see what you think. I'm not suggesting that your TUW deck isn't the deck to be playing, just that you may find something you like in our list there.

Ah don't worry man it's cool and I appreciate the advice.

I also really like that deck of yours, it's pretty solid since I actually had a chance to try it out a few times. With that said, me and thefreakaccident will consider looking at your list for ideas. Thanks.

[Tacosnape]

Get rid of Jotun Grunt. Replace him with ANYTHING. Pridemage, Teeg, Mage, Reliquary, RWM, whatever.

[Forbiddian]

On November 3rd, Doug Linn talked about my teams take on UGW Tempo that not only seems to have a fairly strong game against the field but also had two different pilots almost sweep an entire tourney. (I'm only talking one loss in the swiss, one loss in the T8 and every other match between both pilots was 2-0).

I thought it was impossible to have a good matchup against the field, and that tournament results don't matter. Hence the existence of this thread.

[Vacrix]

Get rid of Jotun Grunt. Replace him with ANYTHING. Pridemage, Teeg, Mage, Reliquary, RWM, whatever.

Why? He is tech with Wayfarer, good against thresh, and he brings the beats. You make him sound terrible.

[Mister Agent]

Why? He is tech with Wayfarer, good against thresh, and he brings the beats. You make him sound terrible.

That's because he is terrible as Tacosnape says sometimes, it's one of the sins of deck design. I mean, it's pretty much an sin to shrink your own goyfs.

[Vacrix]

That's because he is terrible as Tacosnape says sometimes, it's one of the sins of deck design. I mean, it's pretty much an sin to shrink your own goyfs.

Then why not drop goyf in favor of Knight of the Reliquary? Knight provides more wastelocking tricks, beats usually much larger than goyf does, and it allows you to keep your grunts. Sure you might have to shrink your knights sometimes, but it is not hard to get knights back up to a decent size, in fact, you can return wastes back into your deck for more wastelockin tricks with Knight.

[KillemallCFH]

Then why not drop goyf in favor of Knight of the Reliquary? Knight provides more wastelocking tricks, beats usually much larger than goyf does, and it allows you to keep your grunts. Sure you might have to shrink your knights sometimes, but it is not hard to get knights back up to a decent size, in fact, you can return wastes back into your deck for more wastelockin tricks with Knight.At that point, why the hell are you still playing Grunt over Goyf, who will be just plain better 99% of the time?

[Vacrix]

At that point, why the hell are you still playing Grunt over Goyf, who will be just plain better 99% of the time?

I disagree, often goyf is a 4/5 or 5/6. Grunt is always a 4/4. He shrinks enemy goyf's and serves his purpose of beating while also providing synergy with wayfarer (or Knight if FTA decides to run it). To say Goyf is better 99% of the time is to negate the facts, that is if 99% isnt sarcastic hyperbole.

[Aggro_zombies]

I disagree, often goyf is a 4/5 or 5/6. Grunt is always a 4/4. He shrinks enemy goyf's and serves his purpose of beating while also providing synergy with wayfarer (or Knight if FTA decides to run it). To say Goyf is better 99% of the time is to negate the facts, that is if 99% isnt sarcastic hyperbole.
You seem to be forgetting that:

a) 5 toughness > 4 toughness
b) 5/6 > 4/4
c) Grunt doesn't live very long
d) Goyf is always good whereas Grunt is much worse against decks that can't fill their yards quickly

Grunt lives for two, maybe three turns, whereas Goyf will pretty much live forever unless the opponent points a removal spell at it. That's actually really, really huge.

EDIT: If you want your Goyfs to be bigger, run Qasali Pridemage. That guy is Enzyte for Tarmogoyfs.

[Forbiddian]

You seem to be forgetting that:

a) 5 toughness > 4 toughness
b) 5/6 > 4/4
c) Grunt doesn't live very long
d) Goyf is always good whereas Grunt is much worse against decks that can't fill their yards quickly

Grunt lives for two, maybe three turns, whereas Goyf will pretty much live forever unless the opponent points a removal spell at it. That's actually really, really huge.

EDIT: If you want your Goyfs to be bigger, run Qasali Pridemage. That guy is Enzyte for Tarmogoyfs.

Jotun Grunt would be terrible if you don't have other creatures. Grunt's strength is that he temporarily shrinks Goyfs or Terravores or Knights of the Reliquary. While those creatures are small, you can apply a ton of pressure to the opponent. Then even if Grunt goes away, your opponent is reduced to Alpha-strike range, or Grunt bought you enough time to set up your defenses.

If you only have 11 creatures, and 4 of them are Wayfarers (and no Jitte in sight), each creature has a vastly different duty than it does when you have 20+ creatures.

With 20 creatures, you're looking for flexibility. You'll see 5-6 creatures during the game and have 4+ to use even after your opponent's removal. With only 11, you might only see 2 or 3 creatures all game (and only 1 creature more than your opponents see Swords to Plowshares). Each creature has to be able to go the distance by itself.

Grunt is a good creature, but if you're not backing it up with other creatures to take advantage of the window of opportunity that he gives you, he won't be a good fit in the deck.

[Vacrix]

You seem to be forgetting that:

a) 5 toughness > 4 toughness
b) 5/6 > 4/4
c) Grunt doesn't live very long
d) Goyf is always good whereas Grunt is much worse against decks that can't fill their yards quickly

Grunt lives for two, maybe three turns, whereas Goyf will pretty much live forever unless the opponent points a removal spell at it. That's actually really, really huge.

EDIT: If you want your Goyfs to be bigger, run Qasali Pridemage. That guy is Enzyte for Tarmogoyfs.

What are you trying to accomplish? 5 toughness greater than 4, but in what context? Sure if your opponent blocks grunt with a kird ape and then bolts it, you should probably counter the bolt. In the case of 5/6 > 4/4, sure but my 4/4 shrinks your 5/6. Grunt doesn't live very long? Not always the case. If you are dropping it early then you are doing something wrong. If a deck can fill its yard quickly then its even better.

Its definitely better than Goyf sometimes.

[Aggro_zombies]

What are you trying to accomplish? 5 toughness greater than 4, but in what context?
I'm pretty sure we don't need context for basic math.


In the case of 5/6 > 4/4, sure but my 4/4 shrinks your 5/6.
So does Relic. Interestingly, Relic will outright kill Grunt, but won't kill Tarmogoyf if the Tarmogoyf hasn't attacked this turn or isn't hit with a burn spell.


Grunt doesn't live very long? Not always the case. If you are dropping it early then you are doing something wrong. If a deck can fill its yard quickly then its even better.
So, what, you're just going to sit on your hands while Zoo drops a turn one 3/3, turn two 3/4, turn three 4/4, turn four barrage of burn spells? If you play Grunt on turn three, you can keep him alive for maybe two turns. If you drop him later, he starts to be irrelevant.

Also, Grunts are fucking awful in multiples.


Its definitely better than Goyf sometimes.
And therein lies the problem. You don't want a creature that's only better sometimes. The fact that Grunt sees zero play in a format overrun with Tarmogoyfs should tell you something about how good Grunt is.

[SpencerForHire]

I thought it was impossible to have a good matchup against the field, and that tournament results don't matter. Hence the existence of this thread.

Forgive me:

I feel this deck has a good matchup against much including more importantly, the more popular decks. It has a poor matchup versus things such as Ichorid and goes fairly 50/50 against Goblins but in general has a good position in your average field.

Fair?

[Mister Agent]

Then why not drop goyf in favor of Knight of the Reliquary? Knight provides more wastelocking tricks, beats usually much larger than goyf does, and it allows you to keep your grunts. Sure you might have to shrink your knights sometimes, but it is not hard to get knights back up to a decent size, in fact, you can return wastes back into your deck for more wastelockin tricks with Knight.

Well, why not play both Reliquary and Tarmogoyf since this deck can?

Also, it just seems to be "win more" to wastelock someone in my opinion. You just want to do enough to where your opponent can't play much of anything in the early game. With that said, stifle, daze, force of will, spell snare, wasteland and spell pierce should be plenty of tempo based disruption.

[Maveric78f]

I'm generally a fan of grunt. But it's far better with vial and we have to admit that it generally can't remove what you want from the grave (Ichorid is too fast for grunt, reanimator will entomb at your end of turn or will discard on his turn, and grunt is probably too slow too, survival will tutor with Squee at end of your turn, it will cut the life from the loam engine but you won't prevent it from making a +3 CA). Vial makes it a surprise 4/4 blocker (its somehow an anticreature) and a surprise recursion denial. Playing 2 of them as a surprise factor (and fear factor) in a vial shell seems good but 3 of them with Knight of the Reliquary and no Vial is no good.

[thefreakaccident]

I dont understand why everyone is agruing between the merits of goyf and grunt... The current list happily keeps both going...

I tested kotr, and was very disappointed... He was often far too slow for what the deck needs out of the slots he would take up... And he doesnt 'add' wastelamds for further use... In short, he just doesnt work in this type of shell.

Thus deck trades a slightly quicker clock for a very strong grasp of the mid and late game... As we all know, cards like daze and snare generally get weaker later in the game if your opponent is allowed to continue to play lands... With the waste soft lock, you can minimize the number of lands (therefore the options of kinds of cards to play) the opponent can have, which makes these cards much more powerful for much longer in the game... Daze becomes almost worthless if an opponent has a bunch of lands on board, but if you can restrict them down to. 2-3-4 lands, the card maintains its power (making multiple spells impossible, or just being able to counter whatever they play)..
I have gotten a chance to test a few MUs (merfolk, threshold, and ichorid)... I will edit the opening post to include the results later today, but I can tell you that it had a positive outcome against thresh/ mer... And while the preboard was negative against ichorid (around 40-45%... not too negative) it does shift nicely postboard to be slightly positive.

I will post gamelogs for your viewing pleasure as well.

[bokepa]

If you are using WW at least exploit it to the max. I would modify the mana base to this:

2 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Windsteap Heath
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horyzon Canopy
1 Quicksand // Centaur Garden // Plains

The 1 of Fetchlands is to protect against Pithing Needle, also leaves your opponents thinking what the hell are you playing

1 Ghost Quarter: Allows you to mana srew even decks that play 3-5 basics

1 Horyzon Canopy: Card draw engine

1 Quicksand// Centaur Garden: Not sure about this, but recurrable removal//pump even if conditional seems good.

Also im not sure if Goyf is superior to KotR in this deck, searching for double wasteland while giving +3/+3 is too nice to pass up.
Maybe -2 Ponder +2 KotR
However, you said you tested it so i will not insist.

Vineslasher Kudzu as a 2 of could also be interesting.

If you feel you need a 1 basic plains then forgot the part about fetchlands and use the ones that can search for it

[Grollub]

Have you considered/tried Keldoran Outpost instead of Mishra's? I'd imagine it being a much bigger backbreaker against Standstill, and a better staller against creatures. Drawback should be bearable with the Wayfarers.

[thefreakaccident]

I'm sorry I haven't gotten a chance to post everything that I've promised to you guys... College mid-terms are brutal.

Anyways, I have finally decided on a change in the list for the deck.

When I had tested the Kotr, I made the incorrect decision to cut grunt for it, which often times gave my opponents opportunities to do whatever they wanted later in the game if I was unable to put it away.

Grunt is kind of the late-game savior, and added pressure of the deck... But I decided that since grunt is simply a supplement, he can be trimmed to just two, as you will often times not want him all that early anyways.

So, I decided:
-1 jotan grunt
-1 weathered wayferer
+2 Knight of the reliquary (sp?)

Having multiple wayferers can be nice at times, tutoring up a shitton of lands in just a few turns... But he is more of an engine than a beat-stick (something people seem to forget sometimes). Knight helps supplement that LD plan while not hampering the deck too much at just being a 2 slot.
Its like having your cake and eating it too.

I am very happy with the decision so far.