Intro

Hey, I haven’t posted in a while. Mostly got bored with the meta; coin flips on who goes first in aggro, if they OTK you with a combo, if curve out on you. This weekend I got 23/25 with Tempo Magic, so I wanted to make a post on it.

Tempo Magic has seen the spotlight from time to time using the busted card of the week, Monolith of the Storm in DO, Leyhoard Hatchling in CSR, now its Academy Apprentice, Unannounced Arrival, and Unbound Flames in MJ. I expected at least one of these cards from MJ to be nerfed soon.

Decklist

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Last weekend, I played clecle’s Tempo Magic deck winning 20/25. For this weekend, I made a few changes to it. I cut Pyre Shaper, Wyrmbreath, and Oni Spellsword for Arcane Transcendent, Unbound Flames, and Iron-tooth Goblin.

Pyre Shaper rarely got to use the empower effect well. It comes down a little late against aggro and is just a 1m 2/2 against control. The 2 damage AOE on it is lackluster since you can’t boost it with spell boost and it hits your creatures.

Arcane Transcendent discounts a spell by 2 mana so you can swing the tempo by playing it and a spell in the same turn. I usually play it out early for tempo if I have a spell to discount instead of saving it to discount an expensive spell.

If you go first and play only 1 1 drop saving the pip, next turn you can pip out Transcendent and discount a removal spell to clear your opponent’s board. With a 1 drop from the previous turn, you have an early lead on board where you can start getting in face damage.

A big combo is discounting Unbound Flames so you can empower it for only 5 mana. 5 mana to deal 5 damage which usually goes face and 5 damage to the board is a huge swing, especially if your opponent went wide. Sometimes your only out to a big board is empowered Unbound Flames, so you have to hold out long enough for the combo. I wonder if discount Unbound Flames is worth making room for Warp Engineers in the deck.

Wyrmbreath is fine but I don't want to have that many 4/5 mana cards in my deck so I cut it to make room for Unbound Flames since Flames can combo with Transcendent.

Oni Spellsword isn’t good against aggro and you’re heavily favored against control, so I don’t find I need Oni that often. It usually got pinged and then ate a removal spell against Magic. The deck also doesn’t run that many cheap cards to play with Oni.

Iron-Tooth Goblin destroying a relic comes up occasionally against the meta, mostly against Magic and the uncommon War or Light. Nature relics have blitz, so they don’t stick around. Death and Deception rarely run relics you’re worried about, maybe the rare Skull Scepter or Makeshift Shiv. Most of the relics I busted were Lightning Talisman, Pallas’ Wand, or a partly used War relic. Destroying Lightning Talisman is pretty good since your creatures are on the small side and you don’t have that many of them, so getting rid of Talisman lets your creature get in that important face damage.

You have a ton of burn/removal with Ancient Texts, Form of Power, Blizzard Bolt, Vow of Learning, and Unbound Flames. This lets you grind out aggro by removing their threats and against control you can burn them out late game.

Demetrios, Pallas’ Wand, Vortimer, All-Seeing Spire, and Rune Moth give you tons of draw and card generation so you can keep your hand full.

I'm not too worried about playing Pallas' Wand early only for it to be destroyed by Iron-Tooth Goblin. You are unlucky to see an early Goblin since most decks only run 1 if any at all and they don't usually keep it in the mulligan I think. Even if it is destroyed you have plenty of other ways of getting card draw.

Several games I won by playing Apprentice and the echo then unloading a ton of burn into their face. 2x Blizzard Bolt and an Ancient Text boosted is 14 damage from 4 cards. You usually can get this off this since you have a ton of draw and can get other damage spells from the sanctum or Choralis Rune Moth.

The runes from Choralis Rune Moth vary widely but 0 mana spells don’t hurt. Most of the time you want Fire for more burn or removal, Sight can dig for what you need, Strength is okay since your creatures are small but represents 2 damage if you can play it, Healing is useless most of the time since you don’t need the healing.

Flying Carpet, Shadow Scryer, and Pyramid Warden are hard to kill for control decks and get in chip damage early. Getting in the early damage where you can is important since you usually win by dropping a ton of burn.

An early Flying Carpet gets in a lot of damage if it sticks. Against control they usually need a spell and a ping to get rid of it, so you can play it T1, it gets pinged and loses ward, Carpet gets in for 3, then it dies to removal; this effect was a 3 damage burn spell that made your opponent use up two cards. It’s kind of bad against aggro since 1 health dies to everything and they have creatures which can trade-in.

I wasn’t a fan of Pyramid Warden before MJ came out, but the new meta changed up a lot of things. PW is great against the plethora of aggro since its stats hold up well against aggro and they are likely to get back small guys from the afterlife. The deck has a great matchup against control, so you aren’t that worried about the afterlife in the late game and they rarely have creatures in the void in the early game. Midrange decks hurt PW the most since they had early creatures that could end up in the void and be brought back and have easy answers to PW. The cards that punished PW don’t show up often in the meta, Munosian Infiltrator, Guild Enforcer, Giant Pangolin.

PW holds up well against the popular gods in the meta. Magic usually has to spend 2 removal spells on PW, but the creatures they can get back, like Flying Carpet or Shadow Scryer, are kind of annoying to deal with. Against Nature, PW can handle the board usually until you have the removal spells, although they can get back a beefy creature which can be hard to deal with.

The gods with the better PW outs aren’t that popular in the meta.

Orcish Elite and to a lesser extent Wolf-Cult Vanguard hurt PW, but War isn’t a popular god. Light’s Levy and Thaeric Extortionist deal with PW well, but Light isn’t popular either and trading 1 for 1 isn’t the worst. PW might be a liability against Deception with all of their strength weakening effects, but it didn’t come up often for me.

There are a couple of flex spots where you can run a different package or different removal. A few people in the top 10 ran the Aethersnap package which runs Aethersnap, Dimension Door, and a few more spells like Cram to take advantage of the Aetherbugs. You can either hold the Snap until you can discount it or when you have more mana to play multiple spells with it in the same turn. The 1/1s with ward can be hard for decks without blitz to deal with as long as you clear the board, the turn you play Snap. I haven’t played with it myself yet. Let’s see the balance patch first.

Another package is Frumentarii Researcher with more mystic creatures like Street Conjuror, Frenetic Bibliomaniac, and Balthazar. AFAIK [TOXIC] TBH was the first one to popularize Researcher. I haven’t seen it played much. You play Researcher like Aethersnap, wait until you can get value out of it the turn you play it.

There are a few options for card draw in the 3 mana slot, Cram, Frenetic Bibliomaniac, and All-seeing Spire. They depend on what package you’re running. Spire works in my build since it’s a magnet for removal spells meaning my opponent doesn’t use those removal spells to kill my other creatures.

In comparison, I guess I would call my variant Zoo-ish since it runs the most creatures out of the builds I’ve seen and is the biggest difference between the builds.

Matchups

I didn’t plan on writing a post at the start of the weekend ranked, so I didn’t record going first/second, wen first/second stats. The meta has some variety, mostly Magic and Nature, but each god sees at least a bit of play. The meta since MJ was released is to play the busted god of the patch. First, it was Light and Deception, then Death, and now it’s Magic and Nature.

God	Archetype	Score (Wins/Matches)
Death
	Heirloom	2/2
	BWD	1/1
Deception
	Control	2/2
Light
	Control	1/1
Magic
	Combo	2/2
	Control	5/5
	Tempo	4/4
Nature
	Aggro	4/6
War
	Control	1/1
	Relic	1/1
Total		23/25

I usually play the deck aggressively using up my hand early, keeping the board clear, getting in the chip early, drawing tons of cards, then closing out the game with the burn. The sanctum helps you with card advantage as you gain favor. The deck is light on creatures only having 8 good attackers in my eyes, so you have to keep them alive to get in damage. It has fewer burn spells in exchange, but creatures can get in more damage over time if you keep them alive. Creatures usually get in more damage over time than burn spells, so look for them in the mulligan if you know you don’t need removal early. You need to get in a couple of hits with your creatures since you only have around 22 points of face damage from all of your spells unboosted unless you get some from the sanctum or moth.

When you are running low on cards in the late game, sometimes you have to find the time to use your god power and ping their face to get in the last points of damage. Over time, playing with the deck, you learn when to transition from controlling the board to go face with your burn spells and creatures. Also, know how much burn you have left in the deck so you can expect drawing into lethal and set up for it.

One important thing to remember on this deck is if you are planning to draw cards, do that first so that if you draw a good card, you can change your plans and play what you drew.

The deck is too fast for control to handle between your hard-to-kill early creatures, which can get your opponent low and your tons of damage from all your burn spells. They don’t apply any pressure early, so you have a lot of time to wear them down.

Against aggro, try to control the board and stabilize, then stick some card draw. They usually have a tough time outing spire. You have the better late game since you have better value from your card draw and generation.

Anubians can be hard to beat depending on their draw. Most of the time they want their creatures in the void to be brought back later, so your removal is less useful. If they can get Priestess and Necromancer out early and keep bringing them back, your health is going to get whittled down, then Land of the Dead is going to finish you. The game plan is just to face race. Stick some creatures out early so you can get them low to burn them out before you die.

BWD was an easy matchup, but I only faced 1. [8M] Aldous went 20/25 with it so maybe it isn’t as bad in the meta as I thought. You have so much burn, they draw you card, and they don’t put on any pressure, so you can easily get the time and cards to kill them.

Control Deception was easy, same as the other control decks, just rush them down. Oddly, both of my opponents choose Thievery for their god power, not sure if this is the new meta, I don’t know what you want it for, Magic 1 drops are good but it’s too slow.

I didn’t play any Hidden Rush Deception, but it shouldn’t be too difficult since you have a ton of removal and AOE.

I had one Order Light player, it was unusually difficult. They had a lot of order early to slow me down then dropped a huge Archpriest. I dealt with it, then they dropped another huge one. Fortunately, I had an Ancient Text to protect my face and buy me another turn to burn out my opponent.

I didn’t play any Aggro Light. Eyeballing it, it’s going to be largely based on who goes first and the draws. You could slow them down with your removal while getting in face damage to finish them later, or they could get a board and buff it up. Their protected and ward creatures are troublesome to deal with needing either two removal spells or taking the time to ping it off first.

Combo Magic is just a face race to see who wins first, do they combo you or do you burn them out. You almost always ignore all of their creatures and smack face all the time. I think Dralamar is too slow for the deck to worry about. Schoolteacher can OTK you on turn 5 but that’s just luck of the draw, nothing you can deal with.

Control Magic can be more difficult than other control decks since they have Safeguard Incantation and Lightning Talisman, which can slow you down a lot.

The mirror is a coin toss, who goes first, who draws better. As before mentioned, there are a few different packages decks can run Aethersnap, Frumentarii Instigator, or Zoo-ish, so you can try to save removal for the important creatures.

Aggro nature is the hardest matchup since they have so many beefy creatures that are difficult to kill Marsh Walker, Pyreshell Beetle, and War’s Wake and they have so many buff cards with Penumbra Howler, Singsong Satyr, Dagan, Wildfire, and sometimes Trial of the Hydra, that if you over 1 creature on their board then you are going to be in pain. Look for removal in the mulligan so you can slow them down. If they get wide, your only hope is spellboosted Unannounced Arrival or discounted Unbound Flames. Most of the decks cut Canopy Barrage so you can stick an All-seeing Spire most of the time unless they have Underbrush Boar.

I haven’t played against enough War to have a solid say on it, although I think it should be easy. Control War doesn’t have that much healing now, so you should be able to burn them out. They do have blitz creatures and relics so your creatures won’t stick around for long.

Aggro War should be easy. You have tons of removal spells to slow them down, then you can stick some card draw to out grind them.

Gameplay

Here’s some gameplay of the deck getting to 30 wins during weekend ranked. I don’t play with sound on. There isn’t a large variety of decks since I was lazy and skipped trying to pick and cut together the best games out of the 8 games I played and recorded for my 30 wins.

G1 Tempo Magic 0:00

It’s the mirror. My opponent is running Aethersnaps. I’m debating between value and tempo in this match, not sure what the best option was, but I went for tempo. Maybe I should have played Pallas's Wand on T4 instead of tempoing out Unannounced Arrival. Aethersnap is kind of hard to deal with if you don't have creatures on board, luckily for me both bugs went face so my Transcendent was able to live and squash a bug. I wear them down with my creatures. Empowered Unbound Flames clears their board buying me more time and puts them closer to lethal. I got kind of lucky getting a Rune of Fire from the sanctum for lethal. It worked out in the end, all the cards in hand are worthless if you are dead.

G2 Tempo Magic 12:12

Another mirror. I don’t draw a lot of card draw early so I run low on cards. My opponent high rolls on the random spells from Miraculous Familiar, getting Censure to slow me down and Another Round to put me on a faster clock. Then they get healing from the sanctum putting them out of lethal range. It’s close, but I don’t draw enough burn at the end and the Guild Enforcer stopped my creatures from getting in damage.

G3 Heirloom Death 22:50

My opponent has a slow start and gives me tons of draws from Vrock and Burrowing Scarab, so I have board control and a full hand. Unannounced Arrival spellboosted wipes my opponent’s board twice, then I burn them out after. They didn’t draw well and got in enough damage early for me to be worried about dying to Land of the Dead.

G4 Tempo Magic 30:42

Yet another mirror, I guess it’s good practice against the meta. My opponent has a slow start, and I stick a few creatures on board. They have a tough time removing my creatures and I get in some face damage. There are at 15hp by T6 and I have enough damage to finish them on my turn.

G5 Control Deception 35:25

You can see why I don’t think Thievery is not good, 2 mana to ge a 1 mana card that might be decent is too slow. They couldn’t remove my creatures until turn 6 with Rapture Dance, but by then it was too late. I had enough burn to finish them a few turns later.

G6 Tempo Magic 42:27

The final mirror. We’re slinging creatures and spells back and forth, fighting for board control. My creatures get them down low, then I have enough burn to finish them.