[Deck] UW Tempo

It's the stock list with a worse manabase. Get those two Tundras in there asap, because for every Tundra that is a Plains or an Island instead you are either weaking your ability to play Serra Avenger and any other spell while keeping Wayfarer active, or you're making Fathom Seer worse.

Side note: I played the stock list in a tournament of 45 people last week, and went 3-3, which was a dissappointment. Here's to more testing though, I think I still suck too much with the deck to actually put up any decent results.

If you're expecting to see CB-Top, you want to run as many Aether Vials as legally possible, since resolving one usually spells doom to their strategy.

Hi, a couple of months ago, i stopped playing MTG until now.This thread was very active....maybe the most active thread on mtg source.Now this thread is dead.My question is WHY?

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Originally Posted by roioned

Hi, a couple of months ago, i stopped playing MTG until now.This thread was very active....maybe the most active thread on mtg source.Now this thread is dead.My question is WHY?

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Matt plays a lot of Starcraft. :P

Also, storm was a severely reduced part of the metagame until recently, so it should see a resurgence; however, I question how good the deck is against Survival since Survival has an easy time playing around fringe countermagic like Daze and Spell Pierce due to mana dudes.

It's the metashift. Goblins are rarely seen anymore and Merfolk got Coralhelm Commander. The deck has become a lot better than before, since we can't stall the ground as easily as we could before. Storm combo almost disappeared, but like Vacrix pointed out, is coming back. I also don't face any Dredge right now, which has been one of this deck's best matchups. You don't see that many tempo or slow control decks anymore either, which have almost been pretty good matchups for this deck. Reanimate almost completely disappeared, but Zoo, the other old bad matchup is still out there. The are better decks to play against Vengevine Survival right now, which are also better against a lot of other decks that see much play these days.
I'm sorry to say that I don't see getting this deck far right now. You could toss a few Pithing Needles into your sideboard and hope that this will be enough against Vengevine and Merfolk, but as far as I see it, this deck needs another good removal-spell. Being able to run eight-plow would be really awesome.

Apparently UWT made it into finals of SCG Open in Richmond. I've stopped playing the deck, mainly because it was folding to BGW Survival advantage decks, and Vengevines were giving me stable steam of prize finishes.

UWT is still quite viable though and is actually okay vs U/G Survival (much less against GW though), so its no wonder it can make it into the finals (and hopefully win!). Even though I'm playing Survival myself, I'm anticipating the supposed upcomoning ban, since it would eliminate one of the toughest match ups.

Edit: watching the finals, god, how awfully he's playing :( Missing Wayfarer activations all over the place. And completely wasting Brainstorm. UWT really requires tight technical play in order to grind out all the advantage. Missing activations is bad, even if it doesn't really change outcome of the game. Needle, really? ETutor for Needle?! Needle is crap in this deck, for realz. Well G/W Survival is winning.

Edit2: The sudden Submerge, along with a bunch of G/W Survial player's mistakes saves the day! So its 1-1 now.

Edit3: Over in game3. Survival wins.

I completely agree with you, U/G is a way better matchup than G/W(b) lists are. But here in Germany most people are playing G/W when they're playing Survival so I'm not really playing the deck right now either. I'm waiting for December 20th to show what will happen to the meta.
Oh and by the way, do you have a link to the video of the match?

Matt's creation finally sees the finals in SCG 5k, here is the list for those wondering:

Maindeck:
2 Jotun Grunt

Artifacts
2 Aether Vial

Creatures
4 Fathom Seer
4 Mother of Runes
4 Serra Avenger
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vexing Sphinx
4 Weathered Wayfarer

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares

Legendary Artifacts
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Basic Lands
1 Island
2 Plains

Lands
1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
4 Tundra
3 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Pithing Needle
1 Powder Keg
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Absolute Law
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Hibernation
2 Submerge
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress

Yeah, I made it to the finals and couldn't close. Why does starcity call it UW Aggro?
and yeah, by the end of the day I was far too exhausted to play correctly.
The E-tutor board and especially needle were key all day for me against survival.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Gatz

Yeah, I made it to the finals and couldn't close. Why does starcity call it UW Aggro?
and yeah, by the end of the day I was far too exhausted to play correctly.
The E-tutor board and especially needle were key all day for me against survival.

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SCG is notorious for having no idea what any decks beyond the 6-7 DtB's are (everything that runs Tendrils of Agony is ANT for example, and they make up a new name for something if they don't know what it is like Dark Horizons). Congrats on your finish, rough beats that you couldn't close the deal. Will a tournament report be up?

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Originally Posted by Tinefol

Apparently UWT made it into finals of SCG Open in Richmond. I've stopped playing the deck, mainly because it was folding to BGW Survival advantage decks, and Vengevines were giving me stable steam of prize finishes.

UWT is still quite viable though and is actually okay vs U/G Survival (much less against GW though), so its no wonder it can make it into the finals (and hopefully win!). Even though I'm playing Survival myself, I'm anticipating the supposed upcomoning ban, since it would eliminate one of the toughest match ups.

Edit: watching the finals, god, how awfully he's playing :( Missing Wayfarer activations all over the place. And completely wasting Brainstorm. UWT really requires tight technical play in order to grind out all the advantage. Missing activations is bad, even if it doesn't really change outcome of the game. Needle, really? ETutor for Needle?! Needle is crap in this deck, for realz. Well G/W Survival is winning.

Edit2: The sudden Submerge, along with a bunch of G/W Survial player's mistakes saves the day! So its 1-1 now.

Edit3: Over in game3. Survival wins.

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Another reason that people aren't playing UWT; people don't know how to play magic. This deck has a very blunt learning curve yet people can still fuck up something as simple as a Wayfarer activation. I'd say the deck is still quite viable if a suboptimal pilot can make it to the finals of an SCG.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Gatz

Yeah, I made it to the finals and couldn't close. Why does starcity call it UW Aggro?
and yeah, by the end of the day I was far too exhausted to play correctly.
The E-tutor board and especially needle were key all day for me against survival.

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I lost to this fellow in first round Top 8, and I didnt feel it was a horrible matchup. Was playing U/G stock survival. Topdeck jitte was the decider of game 1, and game 2 opened a mull to 5 with 1 waste as the land. And as his friends reminded him before game 2, he has no outs to turn 1 Memnite ;)

lol, I had to reset my password in order to make this post.


Primary reason for the thread not being the most-trafficked thread on the site: Jeff is banned and I have 2/3 warnings to a ban. It was way more fun when we could troll/countertroll and not worry about getting banned. After we stopped posting as much (and policing our threads by reporting troll posts instead of just trolling back), then trolls stopped posting.

Primary reason for the thread dying off: Jeff and I took a break from MTG. Just new stuff happened. He's doing grad school aps, but also had exams. Also, in the longer term, he's at Caltech instead of UCSD, which is obviously massively more difficult. He can no longer blow off studying to playtest 2 hours a day with me and still keep his whatever 3.98 or whatever he had at UCSD even though he was triple majoring.

In my life, my girlfriend moved in this year, and she doesn't really like me playing MTG. Not that she should have any say in my hobbies, but conversations like this suck:

"Hey, how'd it go?"
"Great! I got third and won 4 Wastelands."
"So you just won some more playing cards? No money?"

Proximately, Jeff and I are playing SC.


It's not really about UW Tempo becoming more or less competitive, though I'll note a lot of changes:

1) Goblins is finally completely gone. That was always a bye (at least 80%)
2) Canadian Threshold is finally completely gone. That was always a bye.
3) Merfolk is no longer a complete bye, because you can no longer STP (or threaten STP) them to keep them below the critical 2 lord threshold where Avenger can no longer lethally block with a Mom and Grunt can no longer clean-kill).
4) Storm combo was always a very good matchup (in excess of 70% for all combo)
5) Ichorid was always a pretty easy matchup when we had board space for it. As other decks started to move around, we took some of the dedicated Ichorid hate out, but we were still playtesting 75%.

Note that these matchups are now replaced by non-bye matchups.


This wouldn't normally do anything to affect the competitiveness of the deck, since Jeff and I would just make adjustments to beat the new metagame, but then Jeff and I aren't playing, so the base decklist beats a format that frankly doesn't exist anymore.


But I'm confident that with tweaks, it would be the best deck anyway. I mean, the deck was first competitive what? Three years ago?

When UW Tempo first came out, Goblins was THE deck to beat. People were just collectively figuring out that Daze was good (or in more theoretical terms, the format became tempo oriented and no longer rate-oriented) and that pure control was bad. The term "combo deck" was synonymous with Solidarity. Merfolk didn't exist, and control decks were like Legacy analogs to The Deck in Vintage.

UW Tempo, with changes, was the best deck Jeff or I knew about before and after Ichorid, Zoo, Merfolk, Ad Nauseam, Stax, Aggro Loam, Team America, that Stompy fad where people added Ancient Tomb to everything... (now I'm just stretching, I know, but I feel like I'm missing some great decks) entered the format. The basic concept of a Wayfarer raping you with Wastelands behind a wall of countermagia is pretty timeless.


If Survival gets banned in a few days (??), then UWT instantly becomes the best deck again. Right now, UWT is still a strong pick, but I think it needs some sideboard changes.

Nice, you're back, seeing you talk about the older meta I think you would've loved the tournaments this past weekend that you missed. The metas looked like we went back in time to agro loams, dredge, dreadstill, dragon stompy, with both tournaments no survival top 8 I believe.

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Originally Posted by Forbiddian

lol
If Survival gets banned in a few days (??), then UWT instantly becomes the best deck again. Right now, UWT is still a strong pick, but I think it needs some sideboard changes.

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Well? Would be interested to see how this deck would evolve now that Survival is gone.

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Originally Posted by wcm8

Well? Would be interested to see how this deck would evolve now that Survival is gone.

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You can pick up the old lists again.

So now that Survival is banned, let's discuss some old problems.

1. Merfolk having better threats.
2. Zoo.

With the first point, we know that they have replaced a set of Standstills for more Lords. Best way to solve this problem is to

1. Find a way to Survive.
2. Activate Jitte and simplify.

As for Zoo, we'll probably need to

1. Answer Lavamancer.
2. Answer big creatures.


With such a creature oriented format I propose that we try a side board that looks like

3 Relic of Progenitus!
3 Enlighten Tutor
2 Aura of Silence
1 Etherworth Canonist
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon?
1 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Wall of Omens!

The exclams after the names are my recommendations. Wall of Omens I have not tested against Merfolk yet, but I assume that it will be good enough to help stall so that you can find a jitte and dominate the board in that match up as well as gum up your side of the board. Also, the fact that it draws you a card for such an efficient cost and body works with this deck's tendency to be a control deck. As for the Zoo match up, I feel that 3 Relics and 4 Walls can easily make the post board games against Zoo easier to play. Relic is good against Zoo because it is efficient (you keep your opponent from gaining card and board advantage for the price of two mana and zero cards). Although it cuts off Mancers and Goyfs, it cuts off Knight of the Relinquary as well (which I believe can be superfluous, but the added benefit of being able to weaken Knight is a free perk that I will take). Walls will block Nacatls, Lynx and perhaps Goyfs all day while you make attempts to gum up the board with threats and find ways totake control of the game with Relics and Walls. I have played around ten games with that sideboard set up and won 7 of those post board games (lost three due to mana screws and mana floods). But seven is a good number for us... But a different list would be nice to play against. I feel like maybe the list could have been outdated.

So what do you guys think of this idea?

So now that Survival is banned, let's discuss some old problems.

1. Merfolk having better threats.
2. Zoo.

With the first point, we know that they have replaced a set of Standstills for more Lords. Best way to solve this problem is to

1. Find a way to Survive.
2. Activate Jitte and simplify.

As for Zoo, we'll probably need to

1. Answer Lavamancer.
2. Answer big creatures.


With such a creature oriented format I propose that we try a side board that looks like

3 Relic of Progenitus!
3 Enlighten Tutor
2 Aura of Silence
1 Etherworth Canonist
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon?
1 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Wall of Omens!

The exclams after the names are my recommendations. Wall of Omens I have not tested against Merfolk yet, but I assume that it will be good enough to help stall so that you can find a jitte and dominate the board in that match up as well as gum up your side of the board. Also, the fact that it draws you a card for such an efficient cost and body works with this deck's tendency to be a control deck. As for the Zoo match up, I feel that 3 Relics and 4 Walls can easily make the post board games against Zoo easier to play. Relic is good against Zoo because it is efficient (you keep your opponent from gaining card and board advantage for the price of two mana and zero cards). Although it cuts off Mancers and Goyfs, it cuts off Knight of the Relinquary as well (which I believe can be superfluous, but the added benefit of being able to weaken Knight is a free perk that I will take). Walls will block Nacatls, Lynx and perhaps Goyfs all day while you make attempts to gum up the board with threats and find ways totake control of the game with Relics and Walls. I have played around ten games with that sideboard set up and won 7 of those post board games (lost three due to mana screws and mana floods). But seven is a good number for us... But a different list would be nice to play against. I feel like maybe the list could have been outdated.

So what do you guys think of this idea?

While I feel this is a very strong deck, especially after the banning of survival. However as Citrus-God pointed out, I too feel the deck's greatest weakness is the lack of a good strong midgame threat, capable of answering the Zoo creatures (KoTR, Goyf, etc.). I have a strong feeling that Mirrodin Besieged will have a good card in store for us. Have anyone researched the option of Mirran Crusader in the deck? It goes great with Jitte and blocks KoTR, Goyf, Nacatls all day long. It still dies to a lightning bolt or a STP. What do you guys think? Perhaps the :w::w: mana cost is much a hassle?

Wall of Omens would never work against Merfolk, simply because their biggest threats are Lord of Atlantis, Coralhelm Commander and Merfolk Sovereign. None of which it deals with. Nor it would against Zoo, since it is largely irrelevant against their creatures. We've already tested a 0/4 wall from WWK, and it was simply not making it. If you're looking for the wall that deals with big creatures, try Wall of Nets :)

Anyway, Merfolk was never a problem for the deck. I admit that Corallhelm Commander made things tougher, but it was never enough. By the way, it can be run in UWT too.

I've used to run a removal package of 2 PtE/2 Wing Shards in the board. Worked wonders against Zoo/Merfolk/any other tribal deck. If I'm that scared of big creatures and Merfolk, I'd simply run Retribution of the Meek.

Looking forward for Mirran Crusader. WW is non issue and it is formidable beater, even more so with a piece of equipment.