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Tuning Temurby Brian Kibler

When I woke up to my alarm blaring last Saturday morning, I almost just turned it off andwent back to sleep. I had gotten back from my trip to Hawaii late the night before, and Icertainly wasn't pleased to be woken up at what would have been 5:00am where I'd beenjust 24 hours earlier.

There was a brief struggle inside my brain. On the one hand, I hadn't played a game ofMagic since the Pro Tour, so I couldn't be sure how the new metagame was shaping up orif my deck was really any good at all. On the other hand, there was a Grand Prix withindriving distance of my apartment, and whether I had the testing results to back it up or not,I thought my Temur deck was really sweet and wanted a chance to play it.

In the end, the desire to play a sweet deck won out over my desire to stay in bed, and I'mvery glad it did.

Here's what I played at Grand Prix L.A:

Temur AggroA deck, by Brian Kibler12th place at a tournament in Los Angeles, California, United States on2014-10-24Print this deck!

Maindeck:

Creatures3 Ashcloud Phoenix4 Elvish Mystic4 Heir of the Wilds4 Rattleclaw Mystic4 SavageKnuckleblade

EnchantmentCreatures4 Boon Satyr

Instants

Legendary Creatures3 Polukranos, World Eater

Planeswalkers1 Sarkhan, theDragonspeaker

Sorceries4 Crater's Claws

Basic Lands3 Forest2 Mountain

Lands4 Frontier Bivouac3 Mana Confluence

Sideboard:

2 Stormbreath Dragon2 Disdainful Stroke2 Magma Spray3 Stubborn Denial2 Surrak Dragonclaw1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker3 Hunt the Hunter

Stats:Average mana: 1.53Average creature mana cost:2.62Average creature power: 3.04Average creature toughness:2.23

Deck Composition:

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3 Lightning Strike3 Temur Charm

1 Shivan Reef2 Temple of Epiphany4 Wooded Foothills4 Yavimaya Coast

Basic Lands: 8.33%Creatures: 31.67%Enchantment Creatures: 6.67%Instants: 10.00%Lands: 30.00%Legendary Creatures: 5.00%Planeswalkers: 1.67%Sorceries: 6.67%

(The list I ultimately played was just a few cards off from the list from my article last weekbetween the maindeck and sideboard. You too, could have played my Temur deck at theGrand Prix!)

After the first day, I was in first place at 9-0, which was certainly a good feeling. I had astring of disappointing results last year, with several poor Pro Tour performances and onlya few decent Grand Prix finishes. I didn't make a single Top 8 at either a Pro Tour or aGrand Prix all season, the first such period for which that has been true since I startedplaying again back in 2009. I'm only half-joking when I blame Lifebane Zombie for my lackof success, since I stubbornly continued to play green creature decks in tournaments theentire time the card was legal.

I was hoping to get on the board with a Top 8 finish early this season after my day onestart, but unfortunately it was not to be. I took a pair of close losses early in the day toIsaac Sears and Brad Nelson, then rattled off three straight wins to stay in the hunt goinginto the last round. I was actually in a position where I could have drawn in based onmatch points and tiebreaker math, but my opponent in the final round - Eric Pei -unfortunately was not. I told him I'd happily accept a draw if he would give me one, butexplained that it was certainly not in his best interests. Unsurprisingly, he turned me down,and then dispatched me handily with his Mono-Red deck.

Those games in my win-and-in match were actually the first I'd ever played with Temuragainst Mono-Red. Aggressive decks outside of Jeskai weren't a major part of ourgauntlet for the Pro Tour, so Mono-Red certainly wasn't among the handful of decks Iactually tested against in my very limited practice time. When Frank Karsten hadinterviewed me for a deck tech after my 9-0 day one finish, he asked me what my badmatchups were, and I told him that I wasn't really sure, but it seemed like I was probably adog to aggressive red decks. Turns out my theory was right!

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Anyway, let's back up a little bit and take a look at the deck itself. I discussed how I cameto the overall structure of this deck last week, but I want to go into a bit more detail aboutthe individual cards themselves, both in terms of their role in the deck now, and mythoughts about their inclusion moving forward.

To put what I'm about to say in context, let me show you a snapshot of the Notes app onmy iPhone.

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Suffice it to say that I build a lot of decks with a lot of mana accelerants in them. What canI say? I like ramping into monsters, and one drop mana elves have been the best way todo that since pretty much the dawn of time.

Except when they're not. As strange as it may seem, I'm not certain that this is a deck thatwants four copies of Elvish Mystic. At the Pro Tour, I played Elvish Mystics and only threeRattleclaw Mystics (as a side note - is it annoying to anyone else that both mana creaturesare "X Mystic"? It makes it so much more difficult to refer to them in shorthand. I'll becalling them "Elves" and "Rattleclaws" to avoid confusion), and I think that split wascertainly incorrect.

Rattleclaw Mystic plays an important role in the deck as not only a mana accelerant, but

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also as a mana fixer. There are a lot of color intensive cards in this deck, and yourlandbase can certainly use a little help casting them. Rattleclaw Mystic helps atremendous amount when it comes to casting Savage Knuckleblade and giving it haste, orplaying Temur Charm or Ashcloud Phoenix.

Elvish Mystic doesn't do that. It can only ramp you into a turn 2 Knuckleblade if you draw aYavimaya Coast or Mana Confluence along with another land that isn't a basic Forest. Ifyou do play basic Forest into Elvish Mystic, you still need two other colored sources tocast either Knuckleblade or Ashcloud Phoenix (face-up, at least), which makes the ramp itprovides you less valuable than it might be in some other decks.

That being said, your best draws are still those that contain Elvish Mystic. Even if youhave the opportunity to play Elvish Mystic into Heir of the Wilds plus tapped land into turn3 Phoenix or Polukranos, you're pretty excited. But it isn't as powerful as it might be inother decks that can easily use it to play powerful three drops. My earliest versions of thedeck had Goblin Rabblemaster, and then Fanatic of Xenagos, both of which made ElvishMystic much more powerful than Rattleclaw because of the explosive openings it enabled.

This is a very long-winded way of saying I think it's possible that you only want to playthree, or even two copies of Elvish Mystic, even while you certainly want four copies ofRattleclaw. With a lower curve than many G/R decks, you're not nearly as reliant ondrawing mana accelerants to operate effectively, and you don't want as many low impactcards to draw late in the game.

Speaking of low-impact draws, I've had a lot of people ask me why I play RattleclawMystic over Sylvan Caryatid when the latter is much sturdier and more likely to live. Thereason is that Rattleclaw Mystic can attack for two, and in an aggressive deck, that's a bigdeal. Sylvan Caryatid is certainly the best option for decks that just want to ensure thatthey can rely on their mana accelerant surviving, because they're going to use it to rampinto powerful effects. This deck is much more about beating your opponent down from theget go, and a few hits from Rattleclaws here and there can really add up, especially whenyou have burn to back them up.

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This unassuming card is an absolute workhorse in this deck and probably one of the mostunderrated cards in all of Khans. One of the problems that aggressive decks can run intoin a world of midrange decks is its creatures getting outclassed. If you play a 2/2 or even a3/3 on turn 2, it's going to have trouble getting past your opponent's Courser of Kruphix, oreven worse, their Siege Rhino or Polukranos.

Heir of the Wilds doesn't have that problem. Thanks to its built-in deathtouch, Heir of theWilds pretty much never gets outclassed. It can attack into just about anything withimpunity, and if you're able to trigger ferocious, it hits pretty damn hard. And just like withRattleclaw Mystic, those hits add up, especially when you have tools to end the game inshort order.

I can see potentially cutting one or even two copies of Heir, depending on the directionyou want to go with the deck, but I'm generally in favor of playing the full four. You reallywant to have something proactive to do in the first couple turns of the game. You'dgenerally rather play Rattleclaw than Heir since it improves your options on future turns,but you'd much rather play Heir than nothing so you can start getting damage in as soonas possible.

Big Knucks. The Knuckleballer. Whatever you want to call him, this guy is an absolutemonster and perhaps the biggest incentive to play Temur in Standard. He hits hard, hehits fast, and he just keeps coming in, undaunted by even a Rhino on the opposite side ofthe table.

Remember what I said about Heir of the Wilds being valuable because it's a cheapcreature that doesn't get outclassed? Well multiply that by one hundred for SavageKnuckleblade. One of the most valuable traits a creature can have in a midrange deckwith an aggressive slant (which is really the sort of decks I always build) is the ability to berelevant both early and late in the game. Generally, this means the creature has someway in which it grows in power as the game progresses, like Knight of the Reliquary's+1/+1 for each land in your graveyard or Polukranos's monstrosity ability.

Savage Knuckleblade has not one, not two, but three abilities. When you have three mana

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in play, it's a 4/4 creature, which is decidedly ahead of the curve already. At four mana, it'sa 4/4 with haste. At seven mana? 6/6 haste coming through! And that's to say nothing ofthe blue ability to return itself to your hand to dodge removal, which can force youropponent into making very awkward plays.

Knuckleballer is the real deal. It's the most powerful creature in this deck, and this is adeck with Polukranos, which was already one of the most powerful creatures in Standard.It's no coincidence that he's the face on one of the GP Nashville playmats at the end ofthe month - or that Rattleclaw Mystic was featured on the playmat in LA! Wizards knewthe power of Temur. Soon, the rest of the world will too.

Boon Satyr is probably the worst card in the deck. It's a very flexible card, offering either acreature or enchantment at instant speed, which goes well with Temur Charm, LightningStrike, and the sideboarded countermagic. It's a four power creature for three mana, whichhelps enable ferocious for both Crater's Claws and Stubborn Denial. All of these are goodthings, but they don't necessarily make up for the fact that it's a three mana creature thattrades with Magma Jet and lots of one drops.

That said, just because it's the worst card in the deck doesn't mean it shouldn't be there.There's a band of power levels within any deck - every deck has a worst card. And as faras I've found, I still think it's the best option available at the moment. I tried GoblinRabblemaster, Fanatic of Xenagos, and Courser of Kruphix, and wasn't happy with any ofthem. But if there's a new three drop option in the next set, Boon Satyr is the first card I'llbe looking to replace with it.

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I'm not 100% sure what the appropriate mix of big creatures is for the deck. As Imentioned in my article last week, I wasn't happy with Stormbreath Dragon at the ProTour, since five mana is a lot to pay for something that dies to Stoke the Flames. That'seven more of an issue now that Mono-Red has experienced a resurgence - both the partabout costing five and about dying to Stoke. The more expensive creatures are worseagainst decks that can kill your mana accelerants, since you're less likely to be able tocast them early (if at all), and they're particularly bad when your opponent can easily killthem once you actually get them into play.

That's one of the reasons I've come to really like Ashcloud Phoenix. While it's vulnerableto removal spells that Polukranos and Stormbreath Dragon are not, like Magma Jet orLightning Strike, you're still getting value out of it if your opponent just flips it face down. Iactually had a number of games at the Grand Prix where I read my opponent for holdingup a removal spell to cast at the end of my turn, and I just played Ashcloud Phoenixinstead of a Polukranos. This left them in the awkward position of effectively wasting their

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turn by not spending the mana they had left open, or getting poor value from their Hero'sDownfall or similar effect by casting it on my Phoenix that would just threaten to comeback later.

Additionally, as I mentioned last week, it's important to keep in mind the fact that you canalways play Phoenix face down if it's appropriate to your curve. The presence ofRattleclaw in the deck can help disguise it, so your opponent won't necessarily just kill iton sight. And even if they do, that can often mean a burn spell that isn't aimed at yourmana accelerants, which can allow you to follow up with a Polukranos or a face upPhoenix the following turn. I won several games at the Grand Prix by flipping Phoenixesface up - both the 4/1 flying body and the damage trigger can do a lot of work to chip awayat an opponent's life total.

That chipping away is especially effective due to the deck's spell suite, which includesquite a few ways to finish off a wounded opponent. The best of these cards, hands down,

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is Crater's Claws. Crater's Claws can be a powerful tempo play to kill your opponent's twotoughness creature for one mana if you have a four power creature in play, and it can alsojust go to their face to finish them off.

Lightning Strike is the best of the lot against Jeskai, since it lines up so well againstRabblemaster and Mantis Rider in particular, but it's fairly weak against Abzan and othergreen decks. It's good against the more aggressive versions with Fleecemane Lion andRaksasha Deathdealer, but lines up very poorly against Courser of Kruphix and SiegeRhino.

Temur Charm is an odd card. It was initially one of my motivations for building the deck inthe first place, but the more I play, the less I like it. The big problem with it is that none ofits modes are very good when you're behind. Fighting is clearly only effective if you have abig enough creature on the board. The Mana Leak mode needs you to have a boardpresence to be able to afford to leave mana untapped to counter your opponent's spells.And the semi-Falter mode is also clearly only good if you have a significant number ofcreatures in play.

It's certainly a good card in a lot of situations, but there are also a lot of spots - and entirematchups - where it is something of a dud. I'm not sure I'm ready to cut it from the deckentirely, because it fills a lot of roles and is one of your best answers to a lot of the cardsthat are otherwise great against you, like Hornet Queen (with two of the three modesbeing great there), but it's certainly a card that has not performed as well as others in thedeck.

I actually had a few copies of Stubborn Denial in the maindeck of one of my earliestversions of Temur, and it's possible that it's correct for them to make it back in. If I were toadd Denials to the maindeck, Temur Charm is certainly what I'd cut to make the space. Adeck like this wants a very high density of proactive threats, so you only want to play somany spells. I ended up cutting the Stubborn Denials from the original list for exactly thatreason and because I expected Green Devotion to be a significant player at the Pro Tour.In a world of mostly Jeskai and Abzan decks though, I could easily see playing a fewcopies of Denial in the maindeck.

Speaking of Stubborn Denial, let's transition to talking about the sideboard:

3 Stubborn Denial

3 Hunt the Hunter

2 Magma Spray

2 Surrak Dragonclaw

2 Stormbreath Dragon

2 Disdainful Stroke

1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

As I already mentioned, Stubborn Denial is simply fantastic and one of the major reasonsto play Temur. At the Pro Tour, I played four copies, and in the right metagame, I could

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certainly see doing so again. At the Grand Prix, I chose to play two copies of DisdainfulStroke alongside my Denials to give me some more flexibility in my countermagic options.Despite both being counterspells, they're very different cards. Stubborn Denial is generallysomething you use more proactively to protect your creatures from removal, whileDisdainful Stroke is a tool to keep big spells like Hornet Queen or Wingmate Roc fromletting your opponent back into the game.

I cut down from four copies of Hunt the Hunter to three, and I could see playing evenfewer. Hunt the Hunter was originally in my sideboard because it's the best card availableagainst Green Devotion decks, but those have waned quite a bit in popularity. It's goodagainst some versions of Abzan, but it can be a dangerous card to bring in against deckswith a lot of removal, because you run the risk of getting two-for-one'd if your opponentkills your creature in response. That said, G/R Monsters may experience a resurgenceafter its Grand Prix LA win, so it's possible that three or even four of these are right.

Magma Spray is the best option available against most non-green creature basedattacking decks, since it buys you time to get to play your bigger creatures. There was atime when just playing big creatures to block was good enough to beat aggressive reddecks, but cards like Frenzied Goblin and Hammerhand have made that a much moredifficult proposition. Now that red decks are likely to make up a bigger portion of themetagame thanks to their results at Grand Prix LA, I certainly want access to more cheapremoval against them. Magma Spray is where I'd start, though I think the fourth LightningStrike or something like Arc Lightning are also possibilities.

Surrak Dragonclaw, Stormbreath Dragon, and Sarkhan are all what I call luxury slots.They're sideboard slots that end up just serving as upgrades to cards that are alreadyreasonable in the matchups where you bring them in. Going into GP LA, I felt like I had mybases generally covered for most of the matchups that I thought I'd face, so I thought Icould afford to use some of my sideboard slots for these minor upgrades.

In retrospect - especially after my thorough beating at the hands of Mono-Red playing forTop 8 - there are certainly better options for these slots. As I mentioned before, I couldsee playing more Magma Sprays, as well as the fourth Lightning Strike or Arc Lightning.But I wanted to go over a bunch of other different sideboard cards I'd considered too.

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I think this is a worse option than Arc Lightning or Magma Spray against opposing smallcreature decks since it kills so many of our own creatures. It's certainly one of the bestcards available against Mono-Red though, and Jeskai decks looking to fight back wouldbe well served to take a page out of Shaun McLaren's playbook and try this card.

I considered playing this against Jeskai, because when you do lose it's almost alwaysnarrowly to burn, but Stubborn Denial can counter lethal burn spells as well as protectyour creatures.

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Decent for breaking open stalemates against other green decks, but Hunt the Hunter isbetter overall against G/R and Devotion, and Disdainful Stroke is better against Abzan. AsI mentioned earlier, you can only afford to have so many situational or low impact cards,and this is certainly one of those.

Kind of like an Icy Blast that also has broader applications against token decks. Worthkeeping in mind if those become popular.

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Pretty much a worse version of Feed the Clan against burn decks, and you have a lot ofuses for your mana already so this isn't easy to activate.

Probably the best card against U/B Control, especially because Perilous Vault doesn'texile the animated lands. If those decks become popular, I'd certainly considersideboarding one or two copies of this lady.

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This guy is just too vulnerable in the current Standard. I'm actually pretty surprised to seethat he showed up in the winning G/R Monsters deck, so maybe there's something I don'tknow, but generally I've been super unimpressed by Xenagos in this environment. BothMantis Rider and Lightning Strike are popular, Siege Rhino has trample, and then there'sstill Wingmate Rocs and Herald of Torment to worry about! Just not the right satyr for thejob right now - good thing he managed to find part-time work as a god!

As far as how to sideboard goes, I'm generally pretty fluid. There are a lot of differentversions of different decks out there, so any hard and fast guide is going to lead tomistakes. Basically, Lightning Strike is usually your worst card against decks that don'thave cheap non-mana creatures you want to kill, and Temur Charm is your worst cardagainst aggressive decks, especially on the draw. I'll often shave a copy of Crater's Clawsin matchups where it won't have good targets at X=0, and sometimes an Elvish Mysticagainst opponents who can easily remove the creatures I might ramp into.

Anyway, with all that having been said, here's what my list would look like if I were to playin another Standard event tomorrow. This is operating under the assumption that reddecks will be more popular than before, though Abzan and Jeskai are still what I expect tosee the most:

Temur AggroFeatured by Brian Kibler on 2014-10-24 () As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/29585.htmlPrint this deck!

Maindeck:

Creatures4 Ashcloud Phoenix3 Elvish Mystic4 Heir of the Wilds4 Rattleclaw Mystic4 Savage

Legendary Creatures4 Polukranos, World Eater

Planeswalkers1 Sarkhan, theDragonspeaker

Sorceries

Sideboard:

2 Disdainful Stroke1 Lightning Strike3 Magma Spray3 Stubborn Denial1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker2 Arc Lightning3 Hunt the Hunter

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Knuckleblade

EnchantmentCreatures4 Boon Satyr

Instants3 Lightning Strike2 Temur Charm

4 Crater's Claws

Basic Lands3 Forest2 Mountain

Lands4 Frontier Bivouac3 Mana Confluence1 Shivan Reef2 Temple of Epiphany4 Wooded Foothills4 Yavimaya Coast

Stats:Average mana: 1.60Average creature mana cost:2.78Average creature power: 3.22Average creature toughness:2.33

Deck Composition:Basic Lands: 8.33%Creatures: 31.67%Enchantment Creatures: 6.67%Instants: 8.33%Lands: 30.00%Legendary Creatures: 6.67%Planeswalkers: 1.67%Sorceries: 6.67%

As I said in the intro, there hasn't been nearly the degree of testing and tuning put into thisdeck as I'm sure many of the other decks out there have seen, so I'm sure there are waysit can be improved. I definitely feel like Temur has the tools to compete at the highestlevels - it's just a matter of finding the best way to use them.