This is a Temur deck that I built for myself to play with at my LGS. It's meant to be fairly competitive (my LGS has a lot of people show up with Tier 1 decks), but with the idea in mind that I'll be using the same deck for a long time with small changes as sets come out, and so it's meant to be fun for me to play and robust against a wide array of opponent archetypes. It is not meant to be the most competitive version that it could be for any particular large event on a specific weekend, but to have enough flexibility to be used over the course of months with only minor changes here and there.
I wanted to incorporate dragons as much as possible, while maintaining a reasonably competitive edge, and have done that. The deck is designed as a mid-range deck, being neither extremely fast nor extremely powerful at the top end. The plan is to produce a solid number of threats while playing enough reasonably-costed disruption to be able to outpace the opponent to victory. I like interactivity, so this is kind of my take on the R/G Dragons deck (which seems cool to me), taking out some of the power and speed for more countermagic and removal.
Why Temur?
These are the three ingredients to outpace the opponent to victory against a variety of opponent archetypes. Green mana-ramp speeds things up against aggro, Red gives me offensive or defensive firepower against anything, and Blue countermagic slows the opponent down, often at a resource disadvantage to them, such as stopping a high CMC threat with a counter or removal that only costs 1 or 2 CMC.
Why not Black or White?
I just don't like them as much...personal preference.
THE CARDS: MAINDECK
Mana-Ramp/Fixing
4x Sylvan Caryatid: Since I'm going for a design that can win grindy games rather than one that is simply racing, I'm using these rather than Elvish Mystic. Elvish Mystic is faster, but these are better blockers against weenie-aggro decks, and since my deck has three colors, and I have double-colored spells in all three colors, the -only aspect of Elvish Mystic is a downside I don't want to have.
4x Rattleclaw Mystic: These give me all three colors I need and can make reasonable trades as blockers.
4x Courser of Kruphix: We all know about this one, and it's the reason I went for a more grindy approach rather than aggro. The aggro version of this deck, in my opinion, uses Savage Knuckleblade in place of Courser of Kruphix and just tries to be lethal as quickly as possible. I'm willing to play a slower game to give my Courser more time to accrue value (card advantage), and I don't think the color requirements of this card mix well with the color requirements of Savage Knuckleblade, so I don't use them both.
2x Xenagos, the Reveler: This Planeswalker is PERFECT for this deck, and appears both as mana-ramp and as a threat.
Threats:
4x Thunderbreak Regent: This is one of my main threats. A solid body with Flying and some resistance to removal.
4x Stormbreath Dragon: We all know this one as well. A solid threat with Haste and Flying and pro-White. Its Monstrous ability also gives me something to do with extra mana in the late stages of longer games.
3x
Mindswipe
: This card is replacing Crater's Claws for now as an experiment. Claws win games for sure, but
Mindswipe
can serve a dual purpose here of providing both disruption and threatening the opponent's life total.
2x Xenagos, the Reveler: This card fills so many roles. If you're ahead, it slam dunks the game with Hasty satyr tokens. If you're behind, it can help you catch up with a burst of mana, or can buy you some time by spitting out chump blockers. And at 4 CMC I'm never sad to see this in my opening hand.
1x Sarkhan Unbroken: This has a nice synergy with the ability of Courser of Kruphix to let you see the top card of your deck. If you have both cards in play, you can make a better decision about whether you want to take the top card with Sarkhan's ability, and if you take it you get a second chance at a free land with Courser, or if the top card is a free land you get a second chance at something interesting to take with Sarkhan.
1x Keranos, God of Storms: This is another card that gives the deck power over a grindy game. It draws extra cards and deals damage. The more turns it's out the more value you get out of it. So I'm not in any hurry to end the game necessarily.
2x Den Protector: I'm putting in two of these to replace a pair of
Roast
. I like
Roast
, but since I've added
Mindswipe
in replace of Crater's Claws I feel like I'm really going all in on racing for damage and so I'm not as worried about removing the opponent's creatures, just flying over them and spewing fire everywhere.
Disruption:
2x Stubborn Denial: I have gone around and around between different combinations of Stubborn Denial, Silumgar's Scorn, and Disdainful Stroke. I could go on at some length about all the thinking about those cards, but won't. I've recently switched back from having 4 Scorn in the main and no countermagic in the board to having 2 Stub in the main and a single Scorn. I was just wanting to speed up my offense some and Scorn was slowing me down a little bit too much. It's really nice to be able to counter creature spells, but with a little bit faster offense I hopefully don't need to do that as much, and Siege Rhino is seeing less play which was one of the main reasons for me wanting to play Stroke (along with Dragonlord Atarka).
1x Silumgar's Scorn: I just didn't want to have 3x Stubborn Denial because I often end up mulliganing when I have more than one Stub in my opening hand. Scorn is never a dead card and is OK as a turn 2 play, while Stub is often dead. So having 2x Stub and 1x Scorn should reduce the number of mulligans I have to do.
4x Draconic Roar: This is also only 2 mana and super efficient at what it does, especially when I satisfy the dragon requirement, which I usually do, just like with Silumgar's Scorn. Against RDW-type decks this is a card that I like to see in my opening hand. Even decks that have bigger creatures will almost always have mana-dorks, so this card can also be used to gain or increase a tempo advantage in the early game. I recently increased this from 3x to 4x by cutting one
Roast
as I'm trying to speed up my offense a little and the extra 3 damage to the opponent from this is helpful.
2x
Mindswipe
: See the Threats section.
THE MANA-BASE:
I won't go too far into depth here (leave a comment if you have a specific question or suggestion), but I've tuned this quite a bit, following Frank Karsten guidelines, to give myself the best chance to have mana early for both the double-Green requirement of Courser of Kruphix and the double-Blue requirement of Silumgar's Scorn when I have that in the deck, which I have at times. The 2x Haven of the Spirit Dragon give me extra sources for the double-Red requirement of the dragons, and can bring them back from the graveyard when needed. I only have 7 lands that ETB tapped, so I'm not wanting to play too many of these in each game as they slow down my tempo advantage. There are a few, for the tri-lands and the scry, as well as not playing too many pain lands against RDW-type decks. The 4x Frontier Bivouac and 4x Yavimaya Coast do a lot of work here, along with 8 mana-dorks that can tap for any of my three colors.
I rarely have mana trouble, so I've been very happy with this mana-base. Having the double-Blue for Scorn can sometimes be tricky if the mana-dorks get killed, but that is rare.
THE CARDS: SIDEBOARD
vs RDW (aggro):
4x Feed the Clan and 3x Anger of the Gods come in. I use 4x Feed the Clan because I want a high chance to see it in my opening hand (or at least very very early), and only 3x Anger of the Gods because I don't usually get much value out of having a second one. I have gone back and forth between Anger of the Gods and Seismic Rupture depending on what other creatures I expect to see. I like that Rupture leaves my Caryatids alive, but Anger is of course more powerful and the Exiling effect is often relevant.
vs Control:
2x Dragonlord's Prerogative, 2x Genesis Hydra, and 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon come in.
Dragonlord's Prerogative helps me to keep up with what is usually a good engine of card advantage in a Control build, and can't be countered if I satisfy the dragon requirement.
Genesis Hydra usually provides a second threat even when it gets countered, as you still get to search your top cards and play a permanent from among them even when the hydra itself is countered. I ran some numbers and should actually be able to find one of my three Planeswalkers, either one of the two Xenagos or the Sarkhan, about a third of the time if I cast Genesis Hydra with X=five, which also lets it hit any of my other permanents. If I did hit one of those Planeswalkers, I could make a creature token, so the one Genesis Hydra puts pressure on the Control build to have two answers or even three answers a third of the time.
I've taken out 3x Reality Shift to get in 3x Destructive Revelry just due to changes in the metagame. I'm not as worried any more about taking down Dragonlord Ojutai and Heroic biggies, and am needing to be able to get rid of powerful enchantments and artifacts from Origins, and Destructive Revelry does that while assisting with my burn strategy.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon gives me extra top-end power in this matchup, and can trump any dragonlord or Planeswalker.
This matchup tries to get the most use out of Stubborn Denial by stopping Dig Through Time or any of the removal or planeswalkers they try to use.
After each Game 1 I try to fit the opponent's deck into one of these three categories, either a mid-range like mine, an RDW-type, or Control, and sideboard according to these guidelines. The specific cards just depend on the particular cards I see in the first game, of course, but I feel like the tools I have here are flexible enough to piece together a decent post-board game against almost anything, and the maindeck has done surprisingly well against RDW-type decks in its vanilla form.
In the mirror matchup, against mid-range creature-heavy decks, I feel like I'm already well-positioned to have just the right mix of threats and efficient disruption, and have cards in the sideboard to be able to fend off decks that are faster than mine, or to hang tough in longer grindy matchups.
WEAKNESSES:
Planeswalkers: Other than attacking with my creatures, or maybe redirecting damage from a
Mindswipe
, I don't have a good way to deal with enemy Planeswalkers if they hit the board past my counterspells.
Hordes: I don't have any sweepers in the Maindeck, and only Anger of the Gods in the sideboard, so anyone who can establish a board presence consisting of multiple significant creatures, especially in Game 1 (like G/R Devotion), will force me to have to race for the win, which is why I've been making tweaks to get better at doing exactly that. There are certainly games that I'd love to have a Crux of Fate but just don't want to splash a 4th color for it.
Control: I don't play a huge number of threats in the Maindeck, so I don't have a great Game 1 matchup against control, as I'm not fast enough to get underneath them effectively, and can't beat that particular type of opponent in a grindy game until post-board.
STRENGTHS:
Mana Efficiency: I have robust mana-ramp and mana-fixing, but I'm not absolutely counting on that to play high CMC cards like Dragonlord Atarka. With fewer mana-dorks I don't flood as often, and although I CAN use lots of extra mana with the Monstrous ability of Stormbreath Dragon, or
Mindswipe
, or Genesis Hydra out of the sideboard, I'm not dead in the water if my mana dorks are killed or I miss several land drops.
Card Advantage: Free cards from Courser of Kruphix, Sarkhan Unbroken, Keranos, God of Storms, or Dragonlord's Prerogative from the sideboard are the reason this deck can pull ahead in long slow games against most opponents (not Game 1 vs Control).
Early Blockers: Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix have been the reason I do fairly well against RDW even in Game 1, and because I don't NEED my mana-dorks, I can even trade Rattleclaw Mystic as an early blocker, effectively using him as a Wild Slash. Most decks that use mana-dorks are REALLY relying on tapping them for mana, and people are often surprised when I'm willing to kill their early attacker by blocking it, and trading one-for-one, with a Rattleclaw Mystic. Because I essentially got to use the Rattleclaw Mystic ahead of its summoning sickness, by using it as a blocker after passing the turn I summoned it on, that ends up as a tempo advantage to me as the creature they were ahead of me with on the board dies to the Mystic.
Disruption: I like interactivity, so I went for a higher number of countermagic and removal (10 cards total) than an aggro deck would normally allow. I basically took out some of the early aggro creatures like Heir of the Wilds, Frost Walker, Savage Knuckleblade, Zurgo Bellstriker or even Elvish Mystic in order to have space for Draconic Roar, Stubborn Denial, and
Mindswipe
. I tried an aggro version and just didn't like not having any removal of any kind at all. It's just so satisfying to fry an opponent's creature that I really like piloting this deck more than the more creature-heavy beastie-beastie versions.
TYPICAL GAME:
The ideal opening hand is one Frontier Bivouac or something else that gives , a second land of any color that doesn't ETB tapped, either a Rattleclaw Mystic or a Sylvan Caryatid, and then things to play starting on Turn 3, like Xenagos, the Reveler or Thunderbreak Regent. But because the disruption is relatively low CMC you can keep opening hands that mostly just have disruption in them as long as the lands in hand look OK for the colors you need, and then draw into the threats later in the game. Stubborn Denial and
Mindswipe
aren't so great early, so there are occasional mulligans from flooding on these.
I have NOT had good luck keeping one-land opening hands and always mulligan these. Occasionally the opening hand doesn't have enough low CMC spells, but it doesn't happen often at all.
So ideally you play a Turn 1 tap land, a Turn 2 untapped land and a mana-dork, then after that either Coursers or threats or hold mana up for disruption and play the creatures later, depending on what the opponent is doing.
So you're trying to balance using disruption, to slow the opponent down, against playing your own threats, and that's exactly the kind of in-game decision-making I enjoy and feel like I'm good at. I often want to tap out to play threats, so deciding when to hold up mana for countermagic or removal can be a bit tricky, but since
Mindswipe
is also a burn spell it should be OK to sit on mana for that, as countering even something small can yield good results.
