[Deck] UW Tempo

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by huygee

How about we start using a succinct convention of describing the version of the deck in reference to pi4meterftw's post 900 list w/ full SB? So for you, it'd be -2 Sphinx +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Aether Vial. I just want to see how different builds play out. There's probably too much variance for me to draw definite conclusions, but it's nice to be able to learn even a little bit from the experience of others.

---

It's more like the old version with - 1 Grunt/KotWO, + 1 Spell Pierce.

I'm not a fan of the third Grunt main (he's fine in the sideboard against certain matchups) and in my opinion the deck has enough beatsticks preboard. So my idea was to find a card that a) doesn't have to be creature, b) supports the strategy and c) is blue (preferably).
Since ANT became more and more popular I chose the third Spell Pierce.

About Sphinx: Didn't have time to test it yet.

About the sideboard: Not much to say about that, it's kinda like the "standard" sideboard. The second Canonist easily trumps all the other cards I considered for the 15th slot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Forbiddian

My goal is to see a player, somewhere in the world, drop a Dread of Night turn 1 with a straight face.

---

:laugh:

By the way, Smennen and this other guy posted the entire metagame/matchup analysis breakdown from each of the 5ks that I was missing.


I compiled ALL the SCGs 5k data, and UW Tempo had a 65.1% win percentage throughout all of its matches in the 5k (around 70 matches). This is *extremely* close to the other data that I've collected (indicating the match win percentage is 65-70%) and helps confirm that my analysis is approximately correct.

We can also look to specific users, like Tinefol, who have posted a metric shitton of matchup results, and he has around a 70% win percentage, which makes sense since by now he's probably better than the average UW Tempo player.



Other things that are interesting, in SCGs play, we went 4-1 against Ad Nauseam and 8-3 against Merfolk, which is more what I thought the percentages were.

Last night I played about thirty games with UW. It was my first time playing the deck. I only lost one round. It was unfortunately to the mirror. The mirror was so dependant on who can draw jitte better. I was however quite impressed with the power level of the deck. One question though, If my opponent goes plains wayfayer and I go fetch plains mother. He swords mom and beats. Should I drop the next land basic island if I have stoneforge?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JohnnyCage

Last night I played about thirty games with UW. It was my first time playing the deck. I only lost one round. It was unfortunately to the mirror. The mirror was so dependant on who can draw jitte better. I was however quite impressed with the power level of the deck. One question though, If my opponent goes plains wayfayer and I go fetch plains mother. He swords mom and beats. Should I drop the next land basic island if I have stoneforge?

---

The mirror is based on who gets the Vial, in my experience. I'm really not sure what you're doing right/wrong.

It really depends on the situation about the SFM. You have the two basics, so it's theoretically a possibility, but I'd really want have some countermagic in my grip since playing the SFM gives your opponent any two lands that he wants. Without Countermagic, I wouldn't possibly try that since my opponent can counter with any: Mother of Runes, Jitte, SFM.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Forbiddian

In USA, you adjust to beat metagame.

In Soviet Russia, metagame adjusts to beat YOU!

---

Ok, I LOL'd.
And, Forbiddian, how effective is Pyrokinesis against this deck?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bakofried

Ok, I LOL'd.
And, Forbiddian, how effective is Pyrokinesis against this deck?

---

XD. I didn't know if people had still heard of Yakoff Smirnoff.


And I'd say pretty good to very good when played by Zoo, and average to good on Goblins.

Zoo already has a reasonably strong UW Tempo matchup. One of the ways Zoo wins is by applying a lot of pressure early. It's very tough to stop the Red Force of Will from getting a 2:2 with a whole lot of tempo and rushing in. If you get a hand like Nacatl, Qasali, Pyrokinesis, there are very few hands from UW Tempo that can even stop that, let alone if you add other Nacatls, Grims, and Goyfs and such.

Thankfully, it's a pretty terrible card to run in Zoo or in Zoo's board. And if they really want to play cards that are good vs. UW Tempo, there's better hate.


Goblins is a slower buildup game. It can very, very rarely bumrush a win, and more often it tries to build up a card advantage engine and hope we can't get out BFTs, Moms, and Jittes. Pyro doesn't answer any of those very well, and the status quo game for Goblins works pretty well if we don't have any of our counters. I mainly see it in Goblins to fight against decks like Zoo and Merfolk.

It's worth boarding in if you've got it, since it's always been decent, but I haven't ever felt beaten by Pyrokinesis.

What is the consensus on vexing sphinx?
And thanks forbiddian it was my first testing with the deck so I'm still learning the best plays. Btw I had force and blue card in hand.

Four rounds of Legacy today, I went 2-1-1.

First round versus merfolk (a rather unusual, but - taking our metagame into account - very solid build featuring oddities like Control Magic). I won the first match after about 30 minutes, and lost the second one in the fourth extraturn due to my opponent's surprise wasteland. Seems like my bad-luck-streak continues. 1-1; 0-1-0.

Second round versus a strange Extended-legal Ally Swarm deck in GWB. Several people had problems beating it in the course of the event (I think he recorded two draws in the end, one versus Reanimator), since its allies had significant lifegain and mill built in. I didn't have such problems though, and my Jotun Grunts actually welcomed cards milled into my graveyard. After about 40 minutes, I managed to pressure thru for lethal, as my board consisted of 2 Jotun Grunt (one with 5 age counters, one with 3), 3 Mother of Runes, a Serra Avenger and a face-down Fathom Seer. 2-0; 1-1-0.

Third round versus Reanimator, I brought the adapted sideboard of four Curfew. I rather quickly scooped game one due to a resolved Iona naming white, and boarded nine or so cards. In came 4 Curfew, 1 Relic, 1 Crypt, 1 Wheel of Sun and Moon and 2 Enlightened Tutor. I don't recall exactly what had to go out, but I think it were 2 Stone Forge Mystic, 3 Vials and a few Mother of Runes. Boarding started to pay off immediately, as my first turn consisted of fetch for Tundra and Crypt. My opponent, still confident, said that Crypt won't give him worries, and he Ponder'd and Brain Storm'd for a few turns (whilst I beat face with a Wayfarer, and a Serra Avenger later on). I topdecked Wheel of Sun and Moon a little later, and he conceded at slightly below 10 life, after bouncing the Wheel via Echoing Truth.
Game three, I adapted the boarding plan (since my opponent was fetching basic lands exclusively), and exchanged Mother of Runes with Weathered Wayfarer. My reasoning was that Avenger + MoR > Iona. On the draw, I started with a very promising hand: 1 Tundra, 1 Mother of Runes, 1 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Curfew, 1 Serra Avenger, a fetchland and, well, something or another. He had second-turn entomb and reanimate, borught Iona into play and named white, again. I played my first Curfew in his end step (a gross mistake, as it would turn out), and he had a Daze. The second curfew on my turn was met with a Force of Will, and I was beaten. 1-2, 1-1-1. Extending his hand, he showed me another Land and Show and Tell. So even if one of my Curfews had resolved, I probably wouldn't have won this, anyway.

Foruth round against Supreme Blue feat. CBTop and Firesprout. I rather quickly beat the crap out of my opponent, going 2-0 in about 25 minutes. We played another 3 games for fun afterwards, and in the end, I went 5-0. I think that's just an easy matchup for UW Temp there.

Still, I hope to do better next time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JohnnyCage

What is the consensus on vexing sphinx?
And thanks forbiddian it was my first testing with the deck so I'm still learning the best plays. Btw I had force and blue card in hand.

---

I'm pretty sure Matt got behind me on vexing sphinx. I don't really keep track of people playing other builds anymore. What are the alternatives? KOTWO doesn't seem good, 3rd grunt doesn't seem good, adding random assortments of SP and vials doesn't seem good...

Sphinx is pretty good. I've been happy every time I've ever drawn it. Even the one time i drew it where it was only going to live 2 turns, it got swordsed immediately. (It was in a UWT matchup where we were playing identical builds.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pi4meterftw

I'm pretty sure Matt got behind me on vexing sphinx. I don't really keep track of people playing other builds anymore. What are the alternatives? KOTWO doesn't seem good, 3rd grunt doesn't seem good, adding random assortments of SP and vials doesn't seem good...

Sphinx is pretty good. I've been happy every time I've ever drawn it. Even the one time i drew it where it was only going to live 2 turns, it got swordsed immediately. (It was in a UWT matchup where we were playing identical builds.)

---

The other build ran one more vial. And I misplayed that swords. That was my third game ever with the deck. Lol. But it was Damn close

Call me noob,but I'm currently playing 2 Meddling Mages in your Sphinxes' slots. I know that they have already been tested and they didn't make the cut for you, but they're really good in covering some of this decks' weaknesses, specifically they can improve the ANT matchup pre-board, which is not really that easy, and can also lock several decks in naming crucial parts of their strategy, for example Loam decks as well as a good help against Reanimator, which can rely pretty much on Reanimate and Exhume (i usually name the first because the second is more likely to be sucessfully dazed/pierced).
I would say that, in general, Mage is a card that, if correctly played, can cause serious problems; the difficulty lies in a correct interpretation of the game-state, and thus in naming a possible out for the opponent or a card that can harm us badly. I often named Tombstalker with him in a situation where it was clear that my opponent was denying me of my resources/board creatures/hand to finish with it, and I won the game with that advantage; or, in another situation against Ugr Faeries, naming Firespout or Shackles (the latter, if resolved, is pretty hard to play around) g1 allowed me to take it off.
Finally, stopping Natural Order cold from g1 is something that's not really bad, since this deck happens to always have the pitch-less Force at the times you need it the most. Plus, Mage is a cc2 that does not force you to hardcast it if you have vial@3 as it would happen with Sphinx, as you can safely leave it @2. And brings the blue count at 18, a decent amount.

Meddling Mage is either a good hate spell OR a bear. If you ever use it like a creature (i.e. to fight and to die for the cause), then it's as if it had no abilities, since your opponent can usually get rid of it and then play all of his spells at no disadvantage. Particularly when deciding whether or not to attack with it. If you attack with it, you give your opponent the choice to make an extremely profitable set of blocks. If you don't use it as a creature, you're wasting your time with a horrible Cabal Therapy.

Also, there's a reasonably good chance that you whiff. Even if you name the scariest spell, he might not have it and Meddling Mage does little.


One of the problems of UW Tempo is that it has trouble ending a game very quickly. If you're relying on Meddling Mage to hold some spells back, they have plenty of time to draw into e.g. Barbarian Ring and remove Meddling Mage from the equation. Your opponent will almost always eventually get to play his strong spells again.


The other problem is it's tough to remove the matchups where he's really good: ANT, Lands, Ichorid from the matchups where he's really bad: Zoo, Goblins, actually most decks and adequately evaluate him as a card on the whole. Just as a construct of the brain that you should be aware of: You're more likely to remember heroics and good fortune and forget mediocrity than you are to remember consistent solid play. I'd say that's especially true with Meddling Mage. Every time you pick the right card, you go, "Damn, I got sick reads!"

I played with Meddling Mage for probably two years and can't remember ever missing. I can remember naming Sinkhole to double blank my opponent, naming Swords to Plowshares when I had one of my own in hand (and my opponent had 3, but I didn't even know for sure that he had 1), and one time naming Hurkyl's Recall to protect a double Thorn of Amethyst (when my opponent could have had the global Hurkyl's Recall or Echoing Truth) and my opponent had Hurkyl's Recall in hand and was waiting for me to pass the turn.


Keep in mind also that it will evaluate better in testing than in real tournaments because in testing you know what your opponent is playing and sometimes even his specific decklist. Even if you don't know for sure what deck he's playing, you certainly can narrow the possibilities down a lot more than you could in an open tournament.

Jeff and I took incredible pains to avoid this bias in our original testing of the deck (including switching decks between matchups, and using random number generators to determine opponents), but I still knew a lot of cues like my Jeff would go Island, pass and I break out sick reads by naming High Tide with my turn 2 Meddling Mage.

In a real tournament, you wouldn't be able to do that, since he might be Landstill, Merfolk, ANT, etc. etc. So if you're testing out Meddling Mage seriously, be very careful to try to replicate tournament conditions.

1) I'd have to add on that: Meddling Mage is outright brilliant when its a hate-spell that wins you the game (prevents them from winning/going off), e. g. the above mentioned ANT, Lands, Ichorid, Enchantress etc match ups.

2) Against other decks... situations where you can squeeze a win out of a fragile one shot cabal therapy are pretty, well, rare. Yes, everybody has their mind reading stories, much like Forbiddian mentioned, but in the majority of games its simply better to take advantage of it's flip side: 2/2 body. But why would you run bears in this deck?

Consider point 1, consider point 2 and notice, that we don't really run first kind of cards (hatespells) maindeck and running MM for it's "fat" body is questionable. You're clearly looking at a sideboard card. And I think there are better options.

Sorry if it seems like I'm trolling for ways to beat a deck, but honestly, asking someone in the Goblins forum won't get quite the same response because they'll be using it, they won't have had it used against them in this particular MU. You claim a fair to good MU against Goblins, and I'm wondering how you deal with common sideboard cards. For instance, would you ever let an Anarchy resolve, given the chance(to counter it)?

Have you already discuted of the inclusion of stifle in the deck ? Because it is neither in the primer nor in the videos I've seen, and I did not read all the fifty pages (mainly because there's a lot of "flood" for the results).

But this deck really impressed me, I could not imagine that wayfarer was so good...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bakofried

You claim a fair to good MU against Goblins, and I'm wondering how you deal with common sideboard cards. For instance, would you ever let an Anarchy resolve, given the chance(to counter it)?

---

Anarchy is a not a common sideboard card for Goblins, at least in Germany.
I played Goblins like forever (it's my petdeck) and Anarchy is way to narrow in todays metagame to find its place in the sideboard. Perish is better against the field and kills Progenitus. And Krosan Grip gets rid of most of the annoying white permanents (Moat, Humility, Ghostly Prison) and is more versatile.

But most of the time, you want to counter it, since some of your best cards in this matchup, Mother, Forge-Tender, Avenger, are white. Or Goblins will kill you via alpha strike.

I saw Amaroid getting blown away by a topdecked Anarchy, but he was playing against Dragon Stompy.

Have you guys seen Virtue's Ruin or is that WAY too narrow for decks to pack?

@Forbiddian: I got what you wrote me. I just want to point out that I always tested it on MWS (Wait! against good opponents), so I didn't know what they were playing; but it came clear to me after a few turns, since i always play Meddling Mage in the mid-game , the first turns are spent either staying open or playing the defense-role dudes like Wayfarer and Mother.

However, I'm not sold on Sphinx, both because it often forces you to ramp vial@3 only for her, and because 4x1ing yourself because of a Path to Exile (i.e., against Zoo, where she would theorically shine being another fatty) or a Stp is just terrible. It seems to me that she also relies a bit on Wayfarer's activation, or in general on a good game-state; other way it's just a 4/4 lasting 1, max 2 turns giving the function of a wall or a fleeting Grunt.
I can see the sinergy with the deck, though. Feeding Grunt and cycling the late-game dead-draws into goodness is something really strong in here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Piceli89

@Forbiddian: I got what you wrote me. I just want to point out that I always tested it on MWS (Wait! against good opponents), so I didn't know what they were playing; but it came clear to me after a few turns, since i always play Meddling Mage in the mid-game , the first turns are spent either staying open or playing the defense-role dudes like Wayfarer and Mother.

However, I'm not sold on Sphinx, both because it often forces you to ramp vial@3 only for her, and because 4x1ing yourself because of a Path to Exile (i.e., against Zoo, where she would theorically shine being another fatty) or a Stp is just terrible. It seems to me that she also relies a bit on Wayfarer's activation, or in general on a good game-state; other way it's just a 4/4 lasting 1, max 2 turns giving the function of a wall or a fleeting Grunt.
I can see the sinergy with the deck, though. Feeding Grunt and cycling the late-game dead-draws into goodness is something really strong in here.

---

I think you're forgetting PTE is at least as bad as a 1:2. It's probably more like a 1:3 if you convert the tempo into card advantage. (Look at played cards like chrome mox, etc.)

You don't ramp vial up for sphinx, just like you don't try to vial seer. Since you always try to win, you should take the lesser drawback. So when computing what the drawback of sphinx's 3cc is, you should read it as whatever would cost you less between sacrificing a vial and casting it. In practice, usually casting it costs less than saccing a vial.

Try playing sphinx. Since I'm saying it's good, and Matt's saying it's good, you shouldn't have to be sold on it to give it a shot. You should have to be sold on it before taking it to a tournament, since we could be mistaken, but I think you should at least try it in testing. Alternatively, you could also watch me play them in Matt's video.

The worst thing that can happen to sphinx is STP and/or being unaffordable. Being unaffordable isn't that bad, nor is it that common. 1UU is not hard to get, and when you can't get it, you have 8 ways to usefully ditch sphinx.

STP is more of a problem. But for this you have 9 counterspells and 4 moms, as well as a plethora of other things they really should have swordsed before turn 3. Sphinx often comes down midgame, after they've already used their removal so that they don't die to wastelands, etc.

If for some reason, swords is a threat, then you never overinvest into sphinx. You shouldn't be discarding good cards anyway. The most common pitches to sphinx are land, vial, swords, daze, spell pierce, extra jitte, and FOW without a blue card. I don't see why you're so worried about discarding these cards and then not drawing cards for them. I mean, it's not really a full -3 or whatever you're worried about.

I understand it's kind of like gameshows where the crowd boos the player off the stage for losing on an obviously worthwhile gamble, where even though the crowd is retarded, you probably feel bad for getting bood off the stage. Similarly, here even though you and I both know that pitching useless crap doesn't really matter (We run conditional stuff because we have 6 outlets), I bet it sure sounds embarassing when your friends see you take a "-3."

I dunno, just be rational about it, and you'll see that as long as you follow my guidelines it won't get out of hand.

Obviously, you shouldn't be so cavalier about pitching junk if you have brainstorm ready.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frenchy-man

Have you already discuted of the inclusion of stifle in the deck ? Because it is neither in the primer nor in the videos I've seen, and I did not read all the fifty pages (mainly because there's a lot of "flood" for the results).

But this deck really impressed me, I could not imagine that wayfarer was so good...

---

Anyone who can answer me on stifle ?