Isn't this just Tyrannids again?! What the hell does "Tempo" mean?! Who even are you?!
Listen up, because we're gonna have a cute little chat about a badass alien wizard named Lucy.
Magus Lucea Kane's baseline is a 4-cost mana dork that gives us a +1/+1 counter every turn. That's not very exciting, but it does, at the very least, allow us ramp while utilizing our Hardened Scales effects. Her real power comes from her lingering Psychic Stimulus effect: After we tap Lucea for mana, our next X-cost spell or ability gets copied. As she was released in the same deck that keyworded Ravenous, we can assume this was intended to be used alongside big X-cost creatures to refill our hand, so that we feel a bit better about spending our whole turn to cast a single spell. We definitely use Ravenous creatures like this, although we're going to get a little silly with it.
Before we dive in, let's talk about X-cost spell math real quick. It is, no joke, seventh grade shit. Most of these cards can be simplified to linear equations: y=mx+b, where y, the output, is the amount of mana required to cast for that value of X, (m) is the number of times (x) appears in the spell cost, and (b) is the non-(x) CMC. Shivan Devastator is y=x+1. We can actually graph our dragon! If we're casting a spell with multiple X costs (eg. Awaken the Woods), we add a non-1 value to (m). Doing so, we see that the function for our dryads is y=2x+2. Checking our graph, it doesn't look great: Not only is the baseline y value for casting this card high, but doubling the slope results in a massive difference! Dryads at an unreasonable rate?! Preposterous! Ten mana for four of them is technically better than four for one, but not in a way that makes this feel great to cast. I can search my main-deck Dryad Arbor for [g] with Green Sun's Zenith, or play it for free as a land on my turn. What what sort of deck would want to run this horribly inefficient card?
The sort of deck that would run this horribly inefficient card is capable of two things: first, maxing the (y) value to minimize the relative effect of (b), and second, utilizing our Psychic Stimulus to double our output. If I cast Lucea on curve, I'm able to, on my next turn, cast Awaken the Woods for 6 mana where X=2, bearing in mind that I can't have an odd-value input. As our output is doubled, x=2 results in 4 Dryads, all of whom can be used to maximize the (y) value of whatever spell I'm casting next, improving our relative return on all future X-cost casts, while consequently improving the value of Lucea's doubling effect. If we draw this card in mid-lategame, and say "what the hey, I'll take a boatload of Dryads," we can really start to abuse our graph. How many Dryads could we make if you had Lucea and 10 other mana? On our next turn, assuming we play a basic land, how much damage can we blast with a Fireball?
Of course, we don't really need to go all-in like this, as an X=1 Awaken cast with Lucea is, effectively, an Explosive Vegetation; a respectable card on a respectable curve. We can also just use our Magus as a mana dork; 2:1 cost:return for colorless mana isn't uncommon, although Green certainly has better options available if mana is the only thing we need. That being said, I've often untapped with Lucea and used her mana to advance my boardstate (or to hold a cheeky Beast Within,) without necessarily relying on her copy effect the moment she hits the field. Wizard's Rockets is included to increase the effectiveness of these turns, as its activation fully benefits from Psychic Stimulus, doubling and colorfixing whatever mana we're willing to dump into it, including the 2 mana provided by Magus Kane.
Magus Kane is a high-threat target. We put a lot of effort into protecting her, but she can die, and she often does die. When Magus Kane dies, we shouldn't be afraid of casting our big X-cost spells anyway. If we've set up properly, assuming we've gotten at least one Psychic Stimulus off with Kane, we should consider ourselves in a comfortable spot, even if we have opponents threatening the board. Bearing in mind that we play heavy ramp, recasting Kane for six mana is certainly an option. We also have the option to exploit our natural mana lead (again, assuming setup) to build our board and disrupt enemy plans. Unlike most builds, which can't necessarily exploit the mana flood of lategame 4-pod Commander, we instead gain increasing value from it at a per-card level. The more we can slow our opponents, the longer we have to build, the more tempo we can generate.
While a Storm build would seek to exploit a mana flood by casting its entire deck in a single turn and going for a win-or-fizz, we instead want to dump an efficient quantity of mana into One Big Spell every turn, while keeping a comfortable amount of mana pocketed to protect our board and advance our lead. The Tempo gameplan centralizes around maximizing the value of each spell we cast, while attempting to cast spells that net us multiple vectors of value. Hugs, Grisly Guardian is an excellent example of this: he's a great body on the board, he builds our mana lead, and he also grants us a big Impulse X that persists through our next untap.
Without access to restricted cards like Jeweled Lotus and Dockside Extortionist, or to cards generally reserved for CEDH (eg. Mana Crypt), we instead turn to our low-cost Green ramp package for mana generation. These are our preferred options for turns 1-2, pivoting to Magus Kane on turn 3. We should continue to play our Green Ramp spells throughout the game. We should try to only leave as much mana as necessary for instant-speed responses during our opponents' turns.
Let's assume that, on turn 5, we have 9 available mana and Temur Charm, Arcane Denial, Mawloc in hand. We should first consider how big our Mawloc needs to be to devour our opponents' threat, and then consider how much mana we want to keep open during our opponents' turns. We should consider whether it's worth it to make Mawloc big enough to survive its fight, and whether or not we just need it to just be as big as fucking possible. We also need to consider its Ravenous effect -- that is, if we commit seven mana to this Tyrranid, we get to draw a card. That does leave us with only 2 mana, which isn't enough to Temur Charm, but is enough to hold up our Arcane Denial. Is the ability to fight an extra creature with my Charm worth sacrificing that tantalizing draw effect? Is the threat on the board right now more or less dangerous that what I expect my opponent to play next? Unfortunately, the only way to solve this problem is by gaining context of the enemy boardstate. Your ultimate goal is to balance your own buildup with whatever response is required to disrupt opponent play, and this will not always be a linear decision.
Value grinding alone isn't enough to win a game. Happily, our kill-threat increases beautifully with every bit of value we're able to gain. We cast big spells. We conquer worlds. We tempo out. I hope you like the build.
