[Deck] UW Tempo

@evanmartyr

Just to clear up it wasnt me who played the deck, just my friend Clarence. He doesnt really get online much so im posting the results for him. As for how he boarded, what was good etc. ill talk to him and find out because I was only able to watch his top8 matches and none of his Swiss Rounds matches. And since both his top8 matches were against mono blue merfolk, there was no need to board in anything. For reference this is the list he ran. Its pretty much Jeff's list from the SCG LA 5k -2 KOTWO, -1 Jitte, +2 Stonefore Mystic, +1 Jotun Grunt

Maindeck
4x Tundra
2x Plains
1x Island
4x Flooded Strand
3x Windswepth Heath
3x Wasteland

4x weathered wayfarer
4x mother of runes
4x serra avenger
4x fathom seer
3x jotun grunt
2x stoneforge mystic
3x aether vial
4x brainstorm
4x swords to plowshares
4x force of will
3x daze
2x spell pierce
2x Umezawas Jitte

Sideboard
3x Burrenton Forge Tender
3x Enlightened Tutor
3x Aura of Silence
1x Tormods Crypt
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Runed Halo

Weren't alot of people today, so only 4 rounds and and top4.

Round1. Bg Train Wreack. Easy win 2-0
Round2. MonoG Progenitus Survival. Game1 I open without counters, and get blown out by a quick Survival. Game 2 and 3 are both trickier, where I managed to come from behind against Masticore with tons of mana.
Round3. Bant variation (Goyf + KoTR + Terravore + Wasteland + Stifle + 4EE + Jace-sculptors). Game1 is very long and in the end I get slammed by a huge Terravore, despite having active jitte. I had to swords a couple of his huge KotRs, so couldn't race. Game2 ends on turns, where I'm 1 damage short of killing him.
Round4. MonoU control. 2-0, game1 was won with active Shackles on his side.

Top4. Same Bant. Game1. I lose to 15/15 Terravore from topdeck. With active jitte. Again. Game2 I keep a nice hand of Tundra, Vial, Wayfarer, Mystic, Daze, but my Tundra gets wasted and he EEs away the vial. Some turns later my fetch gets stifled, and I don't see a 3rd land till the end.

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Originally Posted by tgDC$

Just got back from the Shuffle and Cut tourney for duals today. I didnt fare so well but my teammate Clarence Klase took UW Tempo and ended up 6th after the 6 rounds of swiss and took it all the way to finals for a prize split. His list is the list packing 3 md jotun grunt instead of the miser KOTWO and no vexing sphinx. His Matchups were as follows if I remember correctly.

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Wish I coulda gone to this one, but no ride and Ben and I couldn't organize anything to go at the last minute.

Tell Clarence I said congratz! I talked to him for like ten seconds at the last tournament, but he pimped that one, too, with a top 4 finish (I only made top 8).

This past Tourny at Shuffle and Cut was my first legacy play since 2003. I was the only other UW Tempo player there besides Clarence, and rolled in with the Dicehouse guys. I had not even really tested the deck that much, maybe a total of 20 matches all against zoo/eva green/and dredge. I also forgot to check what to sideboard against each deck from this thread, so I went with gut instinct.

Top 8 was going to cut down to 4-2 record, so that was the goal to hit.

I was running the up-to-date list, with perimeter captains instead of curfews since I couldn't find any before the tourny :(.

Round 1: Dredge

As soon as I played the first tundra and wayfarer, the guy had a disgusted look on his face and said "Oh god I don't want to play against this deck". And that pretty much sums up the entire matchup.

Game 1: I was one turn away from grunts wrecking his gy, but he managed to find his second bridge to go off and I scooped up quickly.

Game 2: I actually didn't see any graveyard hate, but had a strong opening hand while he mulls to 6. Eventually I have a Jitte online attached to an avenger by the time he gets his first bridge, and pop my own wayfarer to finish off his bridge and swing for lethal in 2 turns.

Game 3: Wheel of Sun and Moon is good.

Record After Round 1: 1-0

Round 2: Reanimator

Oh god, I cant find curfews and manage to get paired up against the only reanimator in the entire tournament in round 2 @_@. I practically cried when he dropped his Iona in the GY game one.

Game 1: Despite countering two of his attempts at popping out his Iona from the GY, He eventually pulls it through and I sit helplessly sobbing on the inside.

Game 2: Kept a hand with heavy counter and Relic of Prog. Despite him bouncing Relic constantly, he wasn't able to find a counter answer for it and my angel swings for lethal.

Game 3: With 3 minutes left in the round, we both mulligan to 4!!! Unfortunately, I cut him into (Entomb, Underground sea, exhume, and daze) needless to say i was devastated from what should have been a draw @_@


Record After Round 2: 1-1

Round 3: Tony S Playing Countertop

Tony and I have played against each other for a little while, and I could tell he was really hungry for a win against me. He opted to play the true blue version instead of Natural Order- Progenitus.

Game 1: Despite having 2 Force of wills with 2 blue cards to pitch, he powers through a second top on turn 2, and counterbalance falls on turn 3. Avenger falls onto my side the next turn since he is tapped out, but can only get him down to 6 before he finally finds a Rhox war monk. I pop a second angel with him tapped out (wayfarer kept him on 3 lands the whole game) but he has the Firespout to finish off the flyers and its on to game 2.

Game 2: He mulls to six, and manages to land a top, But cant find the counterbalance to compliment it. Mother of runes does a total of 10 damage to him! haha! An angel with a Jitte swings for the win

Game 3: 6 minutes left in the round. I have 2 angels and wayfarer on board, and had managed to pop his counterbalance with an Aura of Silence. He was at 10 life with a 6/7 tarmagoyf in play, and I have 2 brainstorms, a second wayfarer, and a land in my hand. He taps out to cast Firespout to pretty much win the game. I use the last mana open to brainstorm......and get Force of Will/Force of Will/Force of Will!!!!!!! needless to say it was a miracle, since he had a second Firespout next turn and was devastated to see it also countered.


Record After Round 3: 2-1

Round 4: RGB Goblins

This guy had the craziest goblin deck. black for making opponent sac creatures, and green for the goblin that kills artifacts.

Game 1: Mulled to 4 with no lands in any of the hands. Watch lackey and a few others rape my face.

Game 2: got 3 perimeter captains out! was at 44 life, but didn't draw another creature for 10 turns and he finally managed to make me sac enough of them to swing for lethal. Yes, he had about 40 points of damage of goblins on the board.

I was super disappointed in this matchup because I feel like UW tempo can handle goblins very well. sometimes luck works against you as it does with you. I also sided out forces for the captains so I wasn't short any creatures.


Record After Round 4: 2-2

Round 5: Eva Green

This guy turned out to be the coolest guy at the tournament, which will be clarified later. I liked the matchup, but wasnt sure what to sideboard against the deck so I didn't add anything in second/third game.

Game 1: His first turn consisted of dark ritual into a thoughtseize and Hymn to Torach, followed by a second hymn on turn 2. I lose @_@.

Game 2: Wayfarer keeps him off green and grunts eat his GY to prevent a Tombstalker. that's a win.

Game 3: Epic Game, in which thanks to wayfarer I have sifted through so many lands that I manage to find all four swords to deal with his top-decked tombstalkers and goyfs. Finally time was called with him only having 3 swamps and me having a mystic with a jitte in play. Both of us had 2 cards in hand (mine were lands haha).

On turn 5 of turns, we just sit there knowing we both wouldn't have a shot at making top 8 with a draw, and finally he just concedes to me! I didn't even know the guy and despite him being at 24 life he was convinced by the board position and just let me have it! I have never seen something like this in a tourny where I did not know the person. Mad props. I am inspired to do the same good deed in future matches.


Record After Round 5: 3-2

Round 6: Mono green Natural Order-Progenitus

Another really friendly and likable opponent, At first I had no idea what he was playing but soon found out.

Game 1: Kept a fairly agressive hand with 2 spell pierces as backup. On his first turn he plays forest and......llanowar elves!? I practically fell over in my chair, as I had not expected an elf deck to be 3-2. He proceeds to play out more mana acceleration with 2 wall of roots and a Rofellos Lanowar Emissary. We both knock each others jittes off the board. He then pops natural order for progenitus as I stare at my usless spell pierces (he has like 100 extra mana) and shake my head in laughter. Cool Deck Bro!

Game 2: I sided in Auras as I knew he had jittes, survival of the fittest, and had probably sided in chokes (which he did). He mulls to four and his only attempt at a natural order is forced without hesitation.

Game 3: probably the best game of the night, in which a constant jitte battle along with 3 natural orders are cast. I manage to get a a mom and angel going as we both blast each other jittes with krosan grips and aura of silences. I keep wayfarer active every single turn and manage to always have the counter mana when he trys to natural order. eventually with 3 minutes left in the round. Angel swings for lethal over his tiny sea of ground creatures.


Record After Round 6: 4-2 (12 points)

As the Board posted the final standings for top 8, 3 players with 4-2 records made it in............I had managed to hit 9th place from tiebreakers! Apparently all of my opponents scrubbed out on their last games?? laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame @_@

Overall the deck was a Blast to play competitively, and I had no problem facing a multitude of decks. Even the losses and bad matchup's didn't feel out of reach, and I loved how people were so interested in the deck because it was "techy". My last two opponents even wrote down the deck list and had me explain the sideboard because they wanted to possible play the deck!

Hope you guys enjoyed the tournament report, sorry if it was too long and had possible spelling/Grammatical errors.

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Originally Posted by Fouzt

Overall the deck was a Blast to play competitively, and I had no problem facing a multitude of decks. Even the losses and bad matchup's didn't feel out of reach, and I loved how people were so interested in the deck because it was "techy". My last two opponents even wrote down the deck list and had me explain the sideboard because they wanted to possible play the deck!

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I pretty much hear this every time I go to a tournament. The worst review the deck got was a guy who made a top 8 with it and then said, "It's not really my style."

Bummer about the tiebreakers, man. Out of curiosity, how many players were there?

I wanna say there was about 35-40? maybe slightly less than that

Eric, why did you FOW SDT? Even more questionably, why did you FOW back after he countered back?

That was the advise given to me by the countertop player in my group. What should i have been forcing? the balance? goyfs?

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Originally Posted by Fouzt

That was the advise given to me by the countertop player in my group. What should i have been forcing? the balance? goyfs?

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It makes sense that someone else gave you this advice, because the common misconception is that SDT is good.

It's not a bad card (Although it's very close.) It's kind of a mediocre spell that is overhyped because people somehow come to count cards they are floating as if they are "in their hands."

The problem is top doesn't actually draw 3 cards, although for the 5 or 6 mana you pay over the course of a game into it, it better draw 3 cards. But instead, it draws 0 cards. It's good because the card quality probably amounts to like about 1 or 2 cards, AND it sets up counterbalance.

I always FOW counterbalance if I FOW either of the two pieces at all. Sometimes when my board position is threatening, or if I have sphinx/vial/SFM in play with jitte in hand, CB resolves and I FOW their answers, if any. I never FOW top. I almost never daze top. Necessary conditions for me to daze top are reasonable evidence that doing so will mana screw my opponent. Otherwise, it's a waste of a daze.

I also rarely force goyfs. Goyfs are not threatening, because usually they are a 3/4, 4/5 is also somewhat common, but something really perverse has to happen to make it a 5/6. We don't play sorceries, and they only play 4.

At the end of the day, what you force will depend on the history of the game. You're going to make the optimal play at every step, and it will "probably" determine you into something recognizable as aggro or control (even though sometimes the optimal play puts me into a situation where I'm wishy washy... some combination of both.)

I've seen even professionals do things like double daze top. If you didn't know what top did, and just knew it was a magic card, and heard of the plays people execute against it, you might guess it was ancestral recall or something. People like to make grand statements like: All you have to do is FOW the top! Or like earlier in this thread "All UW tempo has against deck X is Y." They like to have catch-phrases they can parrot so they sound like they know what they're doing about magic. But if you optimize at every step, then I think you'll find the results are quite different from what people say. It could be that your friend independently reached these ideas, which would be commendable. But all I'm saying is that most people haven't really thought through the reasoning behind the statements. This, by the way, is why you'll hear things like "4 ofs only plz." Because some guy was like: consistency is good.

(Here ends the response about SDT)

See, notice the trick here, some pro probably put like a positive spin on the word, and also was sufficiently ambiguous that the good kind of consistency got confused with this useless kind. Good consistency is largely in reference to mana, because with mana I actually care about drawing a certain number, which is relatively large, and so you see more 3-4x in mana bases. I've made game theoretic arguments for doing otherwise for spells in the past. But if the pro in question had instead said like "monotony is good" or something, people wouldn't parrot that. Or if he said "Mana consistency is good" our thread wouldn't be polluted by suggestions that it's "4 vials or nothing, yeah!" when the probabilities clearly scale approximately in step. (Actually, with diminishing returns.)

I guess what I'm saying is be careful with taking advice, since most people didn't derive their facts themselves, but they still say it for one reason or another. Probably to sound impressive or something.

Hey guys, just to let you all know that I dropped Vials from my build.

Throughout my MWS testing, I substituted the 2 Vials with +1 Stoneforge Mystic and +1 equipment (I am actually running Jitte, SoFI and SoLS). If you dont like that idea, maybe you can try running 2 Scroll Rack on Vial's spot. Its awesome late game when you have multiple but not-so-useful cards in your hand. And with tons of shuffling effects, you can shuffle away chaff cards.

Yeh I get what you are saying Jeff, I'll do that next time hopefully with more productive results.

Let me know if you are ever in Inland Empire area (Pomona, Brea, Anaheim, etc), I'd love for a chance to meet up and get some insight on the deck.

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Good for you!

On a somewhat related note: Who are you and why should anybody care what "your build" is? Also, I strongly recommend to you and anybody who happens to be reading this: Don't do anything he just said.

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harsh Matt, and yet I laughed.

I was just adding suggestions. It is the essentially the principle behind this site :(

I also, I'm sorry if I use the wrong choice of words. Calling it my build and all. I'm just used of saying that when I am playtesting a deck, to avoid confusion on deck variations.

Would you Spell Pierce a Top on turn 1? Against CB-Top? Against "Island-Top" (considering it could be ANT or something else, landstill perhaps)?

Do you guys think I could run this deck with only 2 Tundras?
If so, what other 2 lands would come in in they're place?

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Originally Posted by ScatmanX

Do you guys think I could run this deck with only 2 Tundras?
If so, what other 2 lands would come in in they're place?

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Probably your favorite 2 UW lands: at your own risk.

Also, I almost never counter tops.

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Originally Posted by elof

Would you Spell Pierce a Top on turn 1? Against CB-Top? Against "Island-Top" (considering it could be ANT or something else, landstill perhaps)?

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Depends on what I have in my hand. Since I didn't keep a hand with a one-drop, I probably have a two-drop that I want to cast, so against CB-Top I'd almost certainly just Spell Pierce it. The threat is turn 2 CB-lock while I'm tapped out, and a spell pierce can prevent that threat (although typically you want to save SP for the NO).

In general, I'd rather keep a Spell Pierce and have them keep a Top, it's just that the situation described it's really unlikely that I could stay open the next few turns, and my hand doesn't have the one-drop so kinda a slow opening and in that situation, I'm looking to fill out my mana.

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Originally Posted by pi4meterftw

It makes sense that someone else gave you this advice, because the common misconception is that SDT is good.

It's not a bad card (Although it's very close.) It's kind of a mediocre spell that is overhyped because people somehow come to count cards they are floating as if they are "in their hands."

The problem is top doesn't actually draw 3 cards, although for the 5 or 6 mana you pay over the course of a game into it, it better draw 3 cards. But instead, it draws 0 cards. It's good because the card quality probably amounts to like about 1 or 2 cards, AND it sets up counterbalance.

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The "virtual card advantage" theory that gets people so excited about SDT takes into account the many shuffle effects available in legacy. Presumably, with a 1 mana investment each turn, you can always draw something useful, and then shuffle into a new top 3 when that's no longer the case. I've also seen CB decks with Bob that were able to use SDT effectively to draw the extra cards for free. Obviously, SDT isn't THAT powerful by itself, but I've definitely been on the receiving end of a beating orchestrated by an unanswered SDT.

However, I believe there are a couple of reasons that UW Tempo can ignore SDT more than other decks: 1) real card advantage, and 2) the 1 mana activation cost can start to seem really expensive when you're wasting all their lands with wayfarer.

With that understanding (not that I'm saying that it's correct), would it be worth it to FOW a sylvan library?

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Originally Posted by huygee

The "virtual card advantage" theory that gets people so excited about SDT takes into account the many shuffle effects available in legacy. Presumably, with a 1 mana investment each turn, you can always draw something useful, and then shuffle into a new top 3 when that's no longer the case. I've also seen CB decks with Bob that were able to use SDT effectively to draw the extra cards for free. Obviously, SDT isn't THAT powerful by itself, but I've definitely been on the receiving end of a beating orchestrated by an unanswered SDT.

However, I believe there are a couple of reasons that UW Tempo can ignore SDT more than other decks: 1) real card advantage, and 2) the 1 mana activation cost can start to seem really expensive when you're wasting all their lands with wayfarer.

With that understanding (not that I'm saying that it's correct), would it be worth it to FOW a sylvan library?

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Yes, you would FOW a library in almost any case where it's possible and if your opponent is at like >10 life. If it's only acting as a top, and your opponent doesn't have 4-8 life to spare, then you wouldn't FOW it.

When I would counter Top:

1) I'm positive they're mana screwed and top is their only way out.
2) They complete a C/B lock with it.
3) Their hand and board is empty except for the lands, and I don't have a clear advantage.

I would almost always counter a library, because Zoo makes a huge use of it and it actually provides card advantage.

You should not counter top in situation 3. You and your opponents are locking horns in a topdeck war, and he just drew a card card. Don't waste one of your good cards on it. Of course, don't take this piece of advice too far, or you may never counter anything cast at all.