Some Temur Thoughts
Standard forum
Posted on Sept. 28, 2014, 10:28 a.m. by capriom85
I have been seeing a lot of Temur decklists lately (of course), and have noticed something about most of them (I'd say about 90%) that is completely counter-productive to the way I plan to play Temur. The first thing I notice is that Rattleclaw Mystic showing up as a 3-4 of. Ok, I get it, he does cool things but I still prefer Sylvan Caryatid , oh wait, she is there too as a 4 of. But, none of these decks have a damn thing to do on Turn 1. No Elvish Mystic . The meta is slower, but not slow enough to warrant a deck that NEVER has a T1 play, right? I know, rattleclaw mystic mystic and Sylvan Caryatid are technically better for a 3 color deck, but that T1 acceleration does a lot in this meta. Not only does it privde a T2 3 drop or a T3 5 drop, etc, but sometimes the 1 drop soaks up some removal that would have hit harder on one of your threats. Why are Temur decks not running Elvish Mystic , who was arguable the best card in standard last season (as quted by Craig Wescoe")?
Second Temur though: Is it me, or is Keranos, God of Storms awesome in Temur midrange builds? Savage Knuckleblade , Surrak Dragonclaw , Temur Ascendancy , etc all provide his devotion. Also, if you use Prophet of Kruphix (those of you who are familiar with me know my feeling son this card), playing a creature on your opponents turn will draw you a card from Ascendancy, activate Keranos, and either draw you another card or deal 3 damage to something. I think it's a good deal. It's reall not that unlikely to have Keranos become a creature in here with all the GRU mana costs, either. Most of the good stuff provides the devotion you need and you still have things like Stormbreath Dragon to round out the devotion in a tough spot. Its not as easy as Arbor Colossus made it to animate Nylea, God of the Hunt , but its not unlikely by any means. Also, Courser of Kruphix lets you know what you are drawing with this guy, so you can plan ahead.
Ok, what do you all think? Why no more Elvish Mystic (or have I been seeing the wrong lists)? Keranos...good, bad, we know he's ugly either way.
The_Wolf_Pack says... #3
I prefer the Xenagod over Keranos personally.
September 28, 2014 11:19 a.m.
The_Wolf_Pack, I respect your love for Xenagos, but something just one let me use him.
September 28, 2014 11:33 a.m.
weisemanjohn says... #5
Keranos, God of Storms can only trigger on your turn, so no Prophet of Kruphix + Temur Ascendancy combo draw trigger for him.
As far as Elvish Mystic is concerned, with me running 7 scry lands in my build, I often don't get to make a turn 1 play anyway.
September 28, 2014 11:53 a.m.
Ok, so no synergy with Keranos and Ascendancy. Oh well. I guess that makes sense with the Mystic.
September 28, 2014 11:58 a.m.
capriom85: First off, I encourage you to take a look at my following deck, as I'll be using it to explain a few things.
Enlightenment of the Dragonclaw | Temur Control Playtest
Standard*
SCORE: 120 | 22 COMMENTS | 14024 VIEWSI currently have decided to play zero copies of Elvish Mystic . Why is that? It's simply due to the fact that my T1 play is usually that of a tapped land. I have 4x Temple of Mystery , 3x Temple of Abandon and 1x Temple of Epiphany . When you add to that the fact that I'm testing the viability of running a Frontier Bivouac or even the new lifelands to avoid taking as much damage from painlands, I'm sure you can understand why ever seeing an elvish mystic in my opening hand would feel janky.
Secondly, Keranos. I currently run 1 Keranos, God of Storms in my mainboard and 1 in my sideboard. He has proven to be an absolute powerhouse when I can get him onto the field. He provides consistent advantage either through burn to the face, removal for creatures or card advantage, and this is even more potent against the other midrange decks in the format. If they don't have an answer for him, it's almost assured to be a game win for me. As you predicted, Courser of Kruphix combos incredibly well with him as I can predict what I will be doing as my draws are coming up. Additionally, I can use fetchlands to shuffle that top card to essentially choose what I will be doing with Keranos. And I can also set up the top card even moreso the turn before with Chandra and/or Kiora. AND I can set it up even MORESO with my Prognostic Sphinx . Basically, He is an engine that I can utilize almost fully without him even becoming a creature.
And that's what I want to bring up: Keranos never becomes a creature in my deck. Does this bother me? Not one bit. I've tried out Savage Knuckleblade and other cards heavy in devotion to him and they just ended up getting in the way. In Temur, I've found that it's best to focus on a green mana core (caryatid/courser), add to that a red burn core (lightning strike, stoke, magma jet, magma spray, anger, arc lightning, etc), provide the top end of G/R monsters or control (stormbreath, sphinx, Keranos) and then to hold it all together with some control elements in the form of utility walkers (Kiora, Chandra, Sarkhan) and utility spells (Dig through time, Dissolve, etc).
Hopefully this helps you out as you desired. I'll be continuing to test this archetype I've been working on in the newly created metagame. Who knows? Maybe I have enough to handle an influx or Jeskai Tempo and Mardu Midrange and G devotion. Or perhaps I have to adjust further.
September 28, 2014 1:37 p.m.
Spootyone, I definitely can see with the 3 color theme and lack of lands that come in untapped Elvish Mystic
no longer holds the same value. Too bad I invested in a play set of Promos :( the good news is that opens up 4 slots in my deck. Probably need to run more than 22 lands now, though.
Your deck looks solid, but I don't plan to run a control build, I want to play Temur Monsters. Less spells are more creatures. Now that the board wipes can all be countered I don't need to worry about over extending on the field as much if I keep Dissolve (or Negate post sideboard) mana open. Yes, I know the "experienced" control player will wait to keep their Negate mana up to counter mine but now we are looking at turn 7 or so and that will usually mean I win already because I have attacked with Stormbreath and Surrak 2 times by now.
September 28, 2014 7:39 p.m.
weisemanjohn says... #9
Oh ho ho! Temur monster player capriom85 come over here!
the key word is temur Playtest
Standard*
SCORE: 5 | 6 COMMENTS | 974 VIEWSHere is a deck you want to look at! Rather than Dissolve though, I personally prefer Stubborn Denial as creatures shouldn't be of issue to us and all we care about is countering those pesky removal spells!
GoldGhost012 says... #2
Well, for the Elvish Mystic , Temur is 3 colors, so tap lands could be a thing depending on the speed of the deck. When you have a lot of tap lands, generally they're best played in the early game when everything's slow.
Keranos, God of Storms is awesome, period. And he's definitely not ugly; dat foil version.
September 28, 2014 11:11 a.m.