[Deck] UW Tempo

Sorry for doubleposting, but I found this very important. I still think that any statistical data would be quite marginal, as final result depands on the level of the pilot. For example, last several tournaments I played with my buid of UW Fish (aka UW Mystic Control), and I have about 70-75% of won games. But I don't feel the deck is this strong. So with UW Tempo. No doubt the deck is strong, but I would say that figures will totally depend on the pilot, and as I am sure that the chance that I will play worse than 50/50 with this deck is minimal, I wouldn't say so for many other players (and certainly I would say that for other capable players). Exact figures will always be something marginal, to me at least.

While it's true that good players will rise to the top even with bad decks, we have no reason to believe the people piloting UW Tempo are better than the people playing the other decks.

Because the skill levels are about the same (or, if anything, because UW Tempo is cheaper than most other decks in the format, the skill level for UW Tempo players can be assumed to be lower on average), the primary factor that determines win percentage is going to be the deck strength.


My rating is a pretty mediocre 1738 (though it's up 22 points in the two tournaments, even intentionally scooping a guy in), and I think I play a better UW Tempo than most people posting tournament reports. If the Average UWT player is less than me, then the average UWT player is about the same as the average active Legacy player (there's also pretty significant rating inflation, since people with bad ratings/losing records tend to quit and people with good ratings tend to stick around, that's why the Average isn't 1600).

Ya I'm not gonna lie the play skill needed for uw tempo isn't incredibly taxing. My rating.... which granted use to be higher is only 1847 and I picked up the deck and had almost no trouble making the finesse plays. The deck post well because its good. And good decks draw good players.

some of you guys posting ratings as a reason isn't quite an excuse to say you are closer to an average player than professional.

Rating often doesn't accurately reflect skill especially between 1700-1900

Yeah I'm not sure if it's more important that Cheap decks draw bad players, or good decks draw good players. Maybe it's a wash. Actually... I mean good decks draw good players is like a multiplier that's applied after we find out how good the deck is, so it's a nonfactor for the question we're trying to answer anyway.

Johnny Cage you're "only 1847?"

That's pretty good. Or at least, I don't know how many games you've played.

Testing the deck I've found a creature that can potentially dor really well in here, especially considering the eakness towards certain decks like Reanimator or midrange-rockish ones like Survival (I just got owned by 4 Vangevine in a turn, btw).
I'm talking about Waterfront Bouncer
I mean, he has huge pros:
- He's pretty much on the deck's curve.
-He pitches to Fow, which is crucial in this deck. He can be the 17th-18th card.
-His ability can bounce Iona, giving us a chance from g1. If he sticks via Vial or cast normally, against Reanimator is pretty much gg (unless they reanimate stuff like Inkwell or Sphinx or Archangel, which is quite manageable).
-He cycles lategame dead draws and Wayfarer's extra lands (which are the real problem of this deck) into tempo advantage. Too much times I've found myself behind in time against aggressive decks when i was trying to get rid of their mana via multiple Wayfarer's activations/trying to make Jitte stick after SFM/putting myself back beause of Seer, and I was stuck with useless cards in my hand (Forces, Pierce, ecc) and I was badly beaten, without any possibility to play none of my conditional creatures (Fathom Seer above all. That guy is just weak in certain MUs).
With Waterfront you have the possibility to endure those decks while you're slowly re-equilibrating the situation. I think this pretty much embraces the philosophy of the deck completely.
-He can prevent a Natural Order from make Pro Bant winning a game we were dominating by continuosly bouncing their green creatures.
-Being a Merfolk (errata), he can blow in serious unblockable damages being pumped by Lord(s) of Atlantis.
-Last but not least, he can act like a pseudo-Mom when giving the final blow, bouncing any potential blocker.
-If vialed EOT, he can screw opponent's damage calculations the turn after.

I mean, these are huge pros for him. in a certain way, he acts like Sphinx, the difference is that he's more synergic with the deck in terms of Vial costs, and differently from her, Bouncer can live all the turns we want. Of course he's worse against Zoo, but to be sincere I've lately found also Sphinx to be lackluster against them, not really because of the Path issue, but because she can be killed blocking a dude+burn/Lavamancer activation, which is not really that uncommon.
The only weakness I find in him, is that is a clear board-out in the Storm Combo Matchup, and we'd risk to go at 16 blue cards. For the other points, he's really good.

Now, I'm waiting for you to know the reasons why he surely sucks.

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

Testing the deck I've found a creature that can potentially dor really well in here, especially considering the eakness towards certain decks like Reanimator or midrange-rockish ones like Survival (I just got owned by 4 Vangevine in a turn, btw).
I'm talking about Waterfront Bouncer
I mean, he has huge pros:
- He's pretty much on the deck's curve.
-He pitches to Fow, which is crucial in this deck. He can be the 17th-18th card.
-His ability can bounce Iona, giving us a chance from g1. If he sticks via Vial or cast normally, against Reanimator is pretty much gg (unless they reanimate stuff like Inkwell or Sphinx or Archangel, which is quite manageable).
-He cycles lategame dead draws and Wayfarer's extra lands (which are the real problem of this deck) into tempo advantage. Too much times I've found myself behind in time against aggressive decks when i was trying to get rid of their mana via multiple Wayfarer's activations/trying to make Jitte stick after SFM/putting myself back beause of Seer, and I was stuck with useless cards in my hand (Forces, Pierce, ecc) and I was badly beaten, without any possibility to play none of my conditional creatures (Fathom Seer above all. That guy is just weak in certain MUs).
With Waterfront you have the possibility to endure those decks while you're slowly re-equilibrating the situation. I think this pretty much embraces the philosophy of the deck completely.
-He can prevent a Natural Order from make Pro Bant winning a game we were dominating by continuosly bouncing their green creatures.
-Being a Merfolk (errata), he can blow in serious unblockable damages being pumped by Lord(s) of Atlantis.
-Last but not least, he can act like a pseudo-Mom when giving the final blow, bouncing any potential blocker.
-If vialed EOT, he can screw opponent's damage calculations the turn after.

I mean, these are huge pros for him. in a certain way, he acts like Sphinx, the difference is that he's more synergic with the deck in terms of Vial costs, and differently from her, Bouncer can live all the turns we want. Of course he's worse against Zoo, but to be sincere I've lately found also Sphinx to be lackluster against them, not really because of the Path issue, but because she can be killed blocking a dude+burn/Lavamancer activation, which is not really that uncommon.
The only weakness I find in him, is that is a clear board-out in the Storm Combo Matchup, and we'd risk to go at 16 blue cards. For the other points, he's really good.

Now, I'm waiting for you to know the reasons why he surely sucks.

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For one easy counter: you say sphinx is lackluster because it dies to a block and a lavamancer activation. Well, lavamancer dies to only a lavamancer activation. Sphinx is an important part of the deck's clock, which has evolved over time.

When we ran 2-3 avengers, we were basically looking to end the game after we took control. (Which has always been the main strategy.)

But with 4 avengers and 2 grunts, it was often the case that an aggressive strategy was about the same as a control strategy when given the choice.

Now that we run sphinxes, I often end games early, some of them being games I might not have been able to end late. For instance, when zoo plays library, you're not looking to match his +~3 cards at the cost of 12 life+ card quality with your return 2 islands +2 cards or something. You want the game to end before the situation gets out of hand.

If you want an example of this, you should watch Matt's videos of me winning two games back to back with sphinx playing a critical role. Every time sphinx comes up vs. zoo, it's evident that it was a significant contributor to my win against zoo.

I mean when it doesn't come up, I'm not like: FUCK Where's vexing sphinx?!!?!?!?!

But it doesn't have to be that good to get its way into UWT. It just has to be better than every other alternative. Sphinx actually isn't even the worst card in the deck. A glancing evaluation of it is it's probably somewhere in the middle.

So I had thought about waterfront bouncer. Here are more details as to why it's bad:
Unsummon in the format, with the exception of reanimator, usually means +1 tempo, maybe 2. It's not really that good to be able to convert your cards into unsummon, but if given the choice to take this conversion for free, I'd be mildly happy to do so. (It's strictly better than not having this ability to convert, but it's not as good as even having the ability to pay U, discard a card, and then draw a card.)

But it's much worse than the above situation when you have to also pay 1U for a 1/1 to make this deal. What makes the situation even worse is that your opponent can remove the 1U creature, often for less than 2 mana, and then the deal's off. You're stuck with -1 tempo, which is terrible for a card where its major purpose would be tempo.

If Reanimator goes for Iona game 1, you can probably win. Inkwell is surely the better animation target, as Iona dies to like Vial --> Mom --> Avenger or just anything with a reasonable clock.

So he doesn't even answer Reanimator's good targets.

And anyway, if Reanimator didn't exist, would we even be thinking about Waterfront Bouncer. He's terrible in every other matchup except Emrakul, go (and even then you could get caught off guard and have to sac everything due to the timewalk).

Went 3-2-1 yesterday in Iserlohn, Germany. Played the latest build with -1 Vexing Sphinx +1 Spell Pierce.

- R1: Team America (2-1).
Game two I kept a hand with 6 lands + Mother of Runes and was pleased he didn't do anything for 3-4 turns (aka Sinkhole, Sinkhole, Wasteland, Stifle).
- R2: Punishing Fire/Gifts/Thopter Foundry (1-0-1).
- R3: Trisomy 21 (2-1).
Would probably have lost this one if it weren't for my opponent's mistakes.
- R4: GWB Rock (0-1-1).
First game he beats down with two Knight of the Reliquary, second game he keeps me busy with Stoneforge Mystic->Jitte, Eladamri's Call->Harmonic Sliver for my own second Jitte, and finally Eternal Witness recursion with Volrath's Stronghold, so I just can't seem to win (at least in time).
- R5: Aggro Loam (0-2).
Got totally crushed by Seismic Assault, twice.
- R6: ANT (1-1-1).
He starts with Underground Sea->Thoughtseize and sees a hand with Spell Pierce and lots of one-drops (Mother, Wayfarer, Vial). He takes the Spell Pierce, so I figure he plays combo. I draw a Brainstorm, play Island and pass, which gets him thinking and might have been good as a bluff even if I didn't draw something (possibly) relevant. Unfortunately I don't draw enough to stop him that game. Postboard I totally manage to keep him from winning, but I can't win fast enough myself, which happened to me at least twice now against ANT.

I cast Vexing Sphinx two or three times that day, and it has never been bad when I drew it. I never drew cards from it either, but that's not the point -- the relevant thing is that it beats and you don't mind discarding useless stuff for 1-2 rounds. I'll probably try playing a second one soon.

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Originally Posted by pi4meterftw

Yeah I'm not sure if it's more important that Cheap decks draw bad players, or good decks draw good players. Maybe it's a wash. Actually... I mean good decks draw good players is like a multiplier that's applied after we find out how good the deck is, so it's a nonfactor for the question we're trying to answer anyway.

Johnny Cage you're "only 1847?"

That's pretty good. Or at least, I don't know how many games you've played.

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Well I was higher. I won gencon a couple years back and for a while I was over 1900 but I really got into developing new decks and as we all know that's not friendly to ratings. Biut I tested this deck. My first game was the mirror against you lol. But I can instantly recognize this deck has some amazing plays and that's why I feel its drawing good players. All in all statistics don't really matter. If you wanna win games then sleeve it up. Re read my post. Sorry not trying to e-peen this just saying that the deck warrents a lot of play.

Everyone should join team Pi4meterftw, to petition that the name be changed to recognize Forbiddian too. Afterall, the grand symmetry of the situation would be ruined upon failure to recognize that Forbiddian and I are the same person.

Join the team, yeah!

Removed. Playing nice :)

Played magic-league trial.
R1. Zoo. I quickly lose game1 on tempo, being screwed on one land for far too long. Game2 I counter Sylvan Library and then proceed to stabilize on 6 life with a timed EE. Jitte wins from there. Game 3 I win easiliy, locking 2 Nacatls with Meekstone, StPing goyf and Dazing KoTR. Serra Avenger goes to the distance.
R2. ANT. He mulls to 4 game1. Game2 - he fizzles on the early attempt to go off, I topdeck a pitch for my FoW and do not let him make a second attempt.
R3. Merfolk. Easy 2-0
R4 (semis). Some GW rock (?) with hierarch, qasali, goyfs, kotrs, witness, mystics+equips, elspeth, garruk, natural orders and wastelands (not sure what kind of deck is that). I win a quick game1 on tempo. Game2 he wastelands my 2nd land and I'm screwed for a while, losing to Planeswalker duo. Game3 he finds Progenitus in top 4 cards of his library (I had Aven Mindcensor). I feel like I was cheated :( Although I probably shouldn't have casted Fathom Seer a turn before, so my FoW would be live. I of course got 2 lands off Seer - no pitch. I also probably S/Bed wrong, because I didn't know that the hell he plays.

Quote:

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Played magic-league trial.
R1. Zoo. I quickly lose game1 on tempo, being screwed on one land for far too long. Game2 I counter Sylvan Library and then proceed to stabilize on 6 life with a timed EE. Jitte wins from there. Game 3 I win easiliy, locking 2 Nacatls with Meekstone, StPing goyf and Dazing KoTR. Serra Avenger goes to the distance.
R2. ANT. He mulls to 4 game1. Game2 - he fizzles on the early attempt to go off, I topdeck a pitch for my FoW and do not let him make a second attempt.
R3. Merfolk. Easy 2-0
R4 (semis). Some GW rock (?) with hierarch, qasali, goyfs, kotrs, witness, mystics+equips, elspeth, garruk, natural orders and wastelands (not sure what kind of deck is that). I win a quick game1 on tempo. Game2 he wastelands my 2nd land and I'm screwed for a while, losing to Planeswalker duo. Game3 he finds Progenitus in top 4 cards of his library (I had Aven Mindcensor). I feel like I was cheated :( Although I probably shouldn't have casted Fathom Seer a turn before, so my FoW would be live. I of course got 2 lands off Seer - no pitch. I also probably S/Bed wrong, because I didn't know that the hell he plays.

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........what the hell was in your sideboard???

Here's the link to the decks. Includes the list (and S/B) I played with.

How was that Mindcensor maindeck? Seems an interesting alternative to Sphinx.
And why all that 1xs in your sb? i mean, it seems that you're relying too much on Enlightened tutor then,needing to side 3 of them all the time. Btw, how were your solutions to Zoo (meekstone and EE)? Did you side Trinket, too? I also think your list needs more slots in the sideboard to be dedicated to aggro.

Aven Mindcensor worked a couple of time. Its not really a hard lock, but it makes life harder for some decks (fetchlands, survival, natural order, tutors, entomb, the list goes on). It doesn't require you to tap out, and that's a serious con too. A fine beater with evasion. So far I like it.

I don't rely on tutor at all. I only side it in against decks where hate equals to a win (Ichorid, ANT, Enchantress, etc). When I don't need it, I use Trinket Mage and applicable singletons. Mage is even card advantage. I like this setup as it gives me a highly flexible sideboard.

Against Zoo I sided in Trinket Mage, EE, Meekstone and Relic. Guess it worked. Against Zoo I fetched EE with Trinket Mage, traded it with a Nacatl (blocked with Trinket+Fathom Seer) , and 2for1'ed Goyf and Qasali with EE.

I trust you. But the point I can't seem to understand is: what do you side in and out against the tiers, Countertop and Zoo in particular? I often find myself having a real hard time when doing it, because I both know the blue count is at a minimum and i can't take out blue cards (Fathom Seer, for example,which against aggro is a bit slow, and Spell Pierce), and so i have to cut out the good cards (white critters), also being careful at keeping an approximately equal mana-curve against aggro or aggro-control decks.
Gimme some tips, plz.


@Everyone: have you ever thought about the possibility of cutting a Seer? Granted that he's the only form of card advantage we have along with Wayfarer, sometime sdrawing 2 of it just suck.
Also, against the Goblin MU, would you side FoWs out? I think they're pretty much only for hitting t1 Vial/Lackeys (perhaps also hardcast Ringleaders, but that is way less scary because we probably have already set the game a bit), and to let them in means to also keep the Pierces, which of course are clearly suboptimal. I can see a possibility in cutting them for 4 cc1 critters (BFT or Perimeter captain), but what to do with a sideboard that does not pack them (say, pi4's last one or Tinefol's one)?

I never side out Fathom Seer. Not only doing so lowers the blue count, Fathom Seer gives a direct card advantage, slow or not. It never sucks to draw two, it least I can't remember ever thinking so. If you do, you're doing it wrong.

Against Zoo
-3 Weathered Wayfarer
-1 Aven Mindcensor (just does nothing)

+above 4

Against CB/Top (no Order)
-1 Aven Mindcensor
-1 Mother of Runes
-1 Daze

+ 2 Aura of Silence
+ 1 EE

Against NO C/B Top
-1 Mother of Runes
-1 Serra Avenger
-1 Jotun Grunt
-1 Daze

+ 1 Aven Mindcensor
+ 2 Aura of Silence
+ 1 EE

Don't side out FoW against Goblins. Assuming this is MonoR.
-2 Spell Pierce
+ 1 Trinket Mage
+ 1 EE

On other hand, don't take my words as granted. I'm running experimental sideboard.

Interesting board Tinefol. I like how many options you have. Has the 2nd Mindsensor proved more useful than another Etutor target?