"Freeze!" - The Original Jeskai Tempo

Standard Competitive RUW (Jeskai, America) Tempo Tokens

SoulTycoon

Creature (16)

• 3x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
• 4x Goblin Rabblemaster
• 4x Mantis Rider
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 4x Seeker of the Way

Planeswalker (2)

• 2x Chandra, Pyromaster

Land (23)

• 3x Battlefield Forge
• 4x Flooded Strand
• 2x Island
• 4x Plains
• 4x Shivan Reef
• 3x Temple of Epiphany
• 3x Temple of Triumph

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Banishing Light

Instant (16)

• 3x Crippling Chill
• 1x Hour of Need
• 4x Jeskai Charm
• 2x Lightning Strike
• 2x Negate
• 4x Stoke the Flames

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Harness by Force

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Sideboard

Enchantment (6)

• 2x Banishing Light
• 4x Circle of Flame

Instant (9)

• 3x Deflecting Palm
• 2x Dig Through Time
• 3x Disdainful Stroke
• 1x Negate

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Hushwing Gryff

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Introduction

Tempo decks haven't been seriously competitive in standard for some time now, but with the release of the new Khans block it's looking like it has real potential. Control has become less and less powerful (with the loss of Ravnica and the nerf of Blue) which leaves the format currently divided into aggro, midrange and devotion decks. I firmly believe that the Jeskai clan has a great angle of attack against all of these decks.

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Goal of a Tempo Deck

'To land a threat that can take over the game by itself and then stay ahead on beats until you win the damage race.'

For further reading on tempo, check out this great article by Scott Johns: 'My System - A Guide to Tempo'

Let's evaluate how well Jeskai (RUW) can satisfy this goal at the moment. We have access to a significant number of 3-drops that take over the game when unanswered (Mantis Rider, Brimaz and Rabblemaster) and have plenty of options for preventing the opponent from stabilizing (i.e. Jeskai Charm). This amount of power should let us reliably force opponents onto the defensive in the majority of games. There's also a great deal of synergy to be had with token generators, but we'll get further into that in card evaluation.

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Lines of Play

Primarily, the intention is to play a turn three creature and then keep it unblocked for the rest of the game. However, this deck can readily switch into a more defensive mode against aggro and a drawn-out-value mode against control/grind. Note that I'm no longer playing any one-drops, as they simply don't contribute enough towards the goal of this deck.

Roll out

1. Scry Land
2. Seeker of the Way
3. Brimaz/Rabblemaster/Mantis Rider
4. Freeze Spell (e.g. Crippling Chill), removal (e.g. Banishing Light) or a grindy threat (e.g. Chandra/Purphoros)

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Card Choices

In this section I'll go into a bit more detail regarding my thoughts on each card. Forgive me; it makes for rather a long read.

THREATS:

Seeker of the Way : A simple-looking bear that can easily trade up/provide a beating, but most essentially gains lifelink. Seriously useful against any match-up that seeks to race you! Too good not to play four.

Mantis Rider : All-star three-drop that gains a tempo beat due to haste and evasion, yet provides a line of defense at the same time due to vigilance. Will often be an evasive beater for the rest of the game that the opponent has to deal with.

Brimaz, King of Oreskos: Excessively pushed three-drop that can take over a game with armies of vigilant tokens. Provides fantastic defense versus aggro, yet can still trade up into X/4's. Infinitely better than a 4/4 for 3.

Goblin Rabblemaster: The horde summoning three-drop that's busily making red aggro decks terrifying once again. Fantastic in multiples, but blanked by some board states.

TEMPO SPELLS:

Crippling Chill : This card is amazing a great deal of the time, primarily when the opponent is trying to curve out. Actually sets you ahead a beat of tempo whilst cantripping. Still has defensive applications and can find that card/land you're missing in a bad situation.Nobody expects 'removal' in blue!

Jeskai Charm : I initially felt that Jeskai had missed out on its charm in this cycle, being wowed by the Temur and Sultai Charms. But this thing is no laughing matter, providing everything that this deck could possible need. Most of the time you'll want to be using the 3-mana Griptide option, but 4 damage to the face will close out many games and giving an army of tokens +1/+1 and lifelink is a ridiculous swing! Cannot stress how good this card has been in testing.

Chandra, Pyromaster : All of Chandra's abilities are good here. Most of the time you'll be using her to make sure your board remains unblocked, but occasionally it's great to be able to check the top of your library for that card you're missing. I can almost guarantee you her ultimate will hit one of our burn spells for 12 damage to their face. Good top of our curve.

FLEX CARDS/FUN-OFS:

Harness by Force: Fantastic tempo swing that also provides an out late game if the opponent has managed to develop a scary board state. Can easily win seemingly un-winnable games.

Hour of Need: This one took me a while to warm up to. The trick is not to think of it as a strive card, but as a 3-mana evasive 4/4 with flash. I originally hoped to make Illusory Angel work, but this just does the job better. Great as a fun-of for the games where it blows out combat or provides that late game out that you need to make your tokens relevant. Should also note that this is a fantastic response to a removal spell! Considering running more.

Purphoros, God of the Forge: This guy has been a fantastic out in those long, grindy match-ups. Considering moving him to the side-board, but so far he's treated me very well. Dumbly good in combination with any of our token generators.

ANSWERS:

Stoke the Flames : The Rabblemaster decks have proved the viability of this card, and Jeskai tempo just takes it to a new level. Great with prowess/vigilance/tokens, and a reliable way to either answer a Courser of Kruphix/Stormbreath Dragon/Butcher of the Horde or get through those last 4 points of damage. Kills most of the scary threats in the format.

Lightning Strike: I consider this an answer more than a threat, simply because it's useful to be able to answer a threat on turn two (enemy Mantis Rider /Goblin Rabblemaster in particular). Of course, provides extra reach in the late game if you need it.

Banishing Light: Too good not to play, even if I personally don't like that white has so many catch-alls. You can figure this one out for yourselves folks.

Negate/Disdainful Stroke: Every good tempo deck typically runs a counter suite to protect their threats and stay ahead in beats. Unfortunately the blue counter spells available are a bit sub-par at the moment in my opinion, so these two will have to do. Necessary to prevent a couple of nasty spells resolving, and are useful in most match-ups.

SIDEBOARD PICKS:

This section is still being worked through and is obviously highly dependent upon your local meta. Let me explain some of my choices.

Circle of Flame : Hoses many aggro decks, particularly in multiples. I've found that Rabblemaster decks really struggle and Soldier decks need to find an anthem before they can swing, which is worth the saved turns anyway. Mardu Tokens doesn't stand a chance once this resolves. Bring in all four against anything that plays x/1's and hopes to kill you quickly.

Dig Through Time: A great way to switch into a value/control game post-board. Necessary against the disruption decks (like Abzan Midrange).

Deflecting Palm: This card has proven to be surprisingly effective. Have put it to great use in the mirror, burn, midrange, devotion and combo match-ups. It's often just much better than any other 2-mana burn spell.

Negate: Need four of these against the Jeskai combo deck to minimize their ability to combo off. Also great against disruption/control decks.

CARDS THAT DIDN'T MAKE IT:

I like to think that I have considered the options available to this deck fairly extensively, but if you disagree with any of these choices please feel free to explain why.

Combat tricks: Triton Tactics is the only dedicated combat trick that I originally included, and even that eventually got cut. Most of the time they just don't do enough. We have better options to blow out the opponent.

Token generators: Tokens are great and all, but not so much if you have to dedicate a card towards it (in my opinion). Seriously considered launch the fleets, Triplicate Spirits , Raise the Alarm and Hordeling Outburst but they're all either win-more or just not quite necessary to the game plan.

Jeskai Ascendancy : This card was in the deck for quite some time, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing with it. It often results in some very explosive board states, but is mostly irrelevant if you don't have any creatures (thus not good vs control) and our spell suite is already ensuring our creatures are beating the other match-ups anyway. Too much of a win-more card.

Many, many other spells and creatures: Please feel free to make suggestions and I'll either seriously consider them or explain why they didn't make it.

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Match-Ups

To be updated as standard develop. Based on many online test games and theoretical extrapolations, this is roughly how I expect various matches to play out.

Mid-Range/Monsters: This is the match-up this deck was born to beat. It's ludicrously hard for the mid-range player to stabilize when their early cards tend not to win combats and every ahead of curve creature they play simply sees a Griptide in response. Probably the hardest creature to deal with is Hornet Queen. Siege Rhino is also difficult to deal with here, but that's what Disdainful Stroke is for!

G/x Devotion: Cripes these guys are scary. Mystic->Courser->Polukranos is hard enough to deal with, but it's rapidly followed up by 2+ threats per turn. Disdainful Stroke and Deflecting Palm are the way to go here. Protecting your Mantis Rider is your best hope!

Aggro: This match-up is relatively easy for us, due to vigilance creatures and plentiful removal. Our capacity for devastating lifelink swings helps a lot here. Gets even better after side-boarding.

Control: I don't think we'll see a lot of control in the next meta, but we have plenty of game against them. The things we're most worried about are board wipes and planeswalkers, both of which we have answers for.

Burn: Ouch. They really take advantage of our painful mana base. Deflecting Palm and Negate are the best options here, with lifelink on the ground providing us with great potential outs.

B/W/x Rock: This is a tough one, as their suite of hand disruption and removal is pretty good at ensuring that we never have a threat in play. Mantis Rider is capable of sneaking in some damage, but not enough to swing the game in our favor. Side into Dig Through Time and more threats/counter-spells rather than removal, since they're fairly light on threats themselves.

Mirror/Jeskai Burn: Excited to see people picking up on and playing this archetype! This match-up is in favor of the first player to successfully swing with a Mantis Rider , as any subsequent Mantis Rider s just trade with the original and then you're down 3 life. As such, going first is a massive plus here. Another match-up in which Deflecting Palm is quite useful. Note: Most other Jeskai decks aren't playing Brimaz, King of Oreskos, which I think gives us an advantage here.

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Summary

Thank you for bearing with me through this exhaustive dissection of my new deck! I'm excited to hear feedback from you, and please feel free to pilot this deck if you like it!

Don't forget to up-vote!

Top Ranked	Achieved #24 position overall 10 years ago
Date added	10 years
Last updated	10 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 26 - 5 Rares 15 - 9 Uncommons 7 - 1 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.97
Tokens	Cat Soldier 1/1 W, Goblin 1/1 R, Sphinx 4/4 U
Folders	Things to Consider, Damn, Interesting decks, Normal Decks, Jeskai, America, Khans wants, t2 khans, RUN THIS, ideas