Tempo Decks in Leviathan

Writing the Lord of the Rings Card Review was my first experience with creating MTG articles, and looking back I feel like there was much to improve in that text. Feel free to give feedback and thoughts in the comments so that I can improve and expand on these.

In this article I would like to take a stab in covering a specific deck archetype and how this archetype is translated in leviathan decks/metagame, as well as give deck examples and good practices/weaknesses. I also would like to talk a bit about a deck I have been brewing and testing with. Keep in mind that this is my personal opinion and experience with the archetype and these decks.

But first things first, what is Tempo?

From Urza’s Saga: Metrognome

Intro to what is Tempo archetype

Tem’po

noun

1. Speed at which a music is or should be played

2. The rate or speed of a motion or activity; pace.

Let’s focus on that last word from the dictionary definition: pace.

Setting the pace of a situation usually means taking the reins, the initiative.

In an MTG game it means that you are dictating the rhythm of the game, and your opponent has no choice but to follow and try to keep up. And they better be able to keep up, otherwise they will lose easily.

The decks that fall under this archetype usually are playing a combination of cheap and efficient threats as well as disruption spells (also usually cheap and efficient).

A disruption spell such as Vapor Snag would be pretty much unplayable in a pure control “draw-go” type of deck, but in tempo decks this type of spell shines. This is due to tempo decks using this spell while at the same time applying relevant pressure on the board.

The pressure will usually come from very cheap and well rounded creatures. One staple of tempo decks from the pre-horizons era is Delver of Secrets. Round the deck with an all time magic favorite that gives interaction and reach such as Lightning Bolt and you get yourself a deck that dictates the rhythm of the match, in this case Modern UR tempo from 2016.

One weakness of this type of deck is that it does not have any long game inevitability plan. This means that other deck archetypes (even aggro !) decks could overwhelm it in case the match starts dragging for longer than you can control the tempo. That is why when you are playing tempo decks sometimes you will barely win certain games it really feels like you got away with something you should not have been able to.

Now let’s think about this type of deck in our Leviathan format.

Being a 1v1 format in which each player starts with 30 life presents a challenge for tempo decks, as the extra life means extra time for your opponents and that can mess with your ability of “tempo ing” them out.

But even with this challenge, we have some commanders that already proved they excel at this time of gameplay, let’s check some examples:

Yuriko, The Tiger’s Shadow

This is a very aggressive tempo deck that usually will have Yuriko attacking you on turn 2. Once Yuriko is on board the deck can play very cheap ninjas to increase the clock very quickly while keeping you off tempo by playing cheap and free disruption.

It is ironic that right out of the bat Yuriko decks (probably one of the best tempo decks in the format) usually go against one of the points of tempo decks discussed above.

The creatures Yuriko uses are not the most efficient creatures by themselves, usually being difficult to block 1 drop creatures with bonus points if they are a ninja type. Some all-star examples are Changeling Outcast and Thousand-faced Shadow. These weaker creatures are compensated by the fact that they are very cheap and synergize very well with the commander herself, which is the centerpiece of the deck strategy.

After Yuriko is on the table and hitting you, very efficient (sometimes free) answers are deployed to delay any attempts of putting up a board presence or disrupt the onslaught.

Yuriko herself is extremely relevant on and off the board and she is explosive if you are hitting with additional ninja(s), as well as very hard to remove efficiently as it bypasses commander tax. That's all even without counting that it will overwhelm the opponent with card advantage as well.

As an example, here is a Yuriko list from a good friend of mine that I consider pretty optimized.

Geist of Saint Traft

Showcasing how Tempo can follow different approaches, we have Geist of Saint Traft. While the Yuriko list usually runs over 30 creature cards, this Spirit usually has a much lower creature count and higher creature quality.

This is mostly because this Tempo deck functions in a “Voltron-Like” way, where most of your damage is being dealt by the commander (or in this case by the commander + it’s angel buddy). The commander is cheap enough, and very hard to interact with out of combat. It also presents a significant clock, hitting for 6 damage by itself.

Because of this, the creatures in the deck are focused on protecting and supporting Geist like Mother of Runes, or just being format staples like True-Name Nemesis.

The rest of the deck will have the usual cheap and efficient interaction spells, as well as ways to make the commander harder to block, like Commander’s Plate and Steel of the Godhead.

Once Geist hits the battlefield your only job becomes clearing its way and protecting it from the deck main predators such as board wipes, edicts and untargeted removal.

This is a deck that has not been showing up in many reports as of late, but here is an older Geist list that I modified.

Wilson+Sword

Wilson is a very versatile commander. It can be paired with white to have a Boggles-like theme, it can be used as mono green stompy and it can be paired with black for a more grindy strategy.

Probably from all the combinations, the pairing with blue is one of the strongest, and it makes for a killer Tempo deck. Most of the time for the blue pairing we will choose the Sword Coast Sailor background. The most important part of it is that it is blue, but it also has a secondary less important feature of giving a sudo unblockable to the commander.

Wilson’s strength is his resiliency against interaction. He comes down early and it is HARD to remove. Similar to Geist, this deck will have a smaller creature count, and rely mostly on its commander to do the damage, allowing for a wide range of interaction (mostly focused on protection).

Once Wilson hits the board (and odds are that it will) and you untap, there are many tools to start taking advantage of this early threat. Many Curiosity effects like Curious Obsession and Sixth Sense will provide the card advantage while protection effects (Split Out the Back/Vines of Vastwood) paired with counterspells ensure that Wilson stays alive.

Matches against this deck can be pretty difficult to navigate, particularly if you are on the draw. When you are playing with this deck there is a satisfying sense of safety at the beginning of the game, knowing your commander will resolve and very likely stick on the table. Just need to look out for edict and wrath effects.

If you want to play a Blue/Green strategy that leans away from the usual lands/ramp that these colors are known for make sure to give this nice Tempo deck a try. This is a Wilson+Sword deck that was used in the last edition of KrakenFest for your viewing pleasure.

Raffine, Scheming Seer

This sphinx makes quite the splash in other x1 format Duel Commander, but in Leviathan tourneys it is criminally underused.

Esper colors bring a lot to the table, and these colors have commanders and decks representing several Archetypes at a very high power level. In the tempo department, Raffine brings us another powerful creature heavy Tempo deck.

The creatures in this deck are what you would expect, cheap and with relevant abilities. Here we see again the use of white staples such as Esper Sentinel, Mother of Runes and Drannith Magistrate while other colors add a lot of value beaters like Baleful Strix and Dark Confidant.

Usually these types of creatures would represent a somewhat slower clock, since they hit for 1 or 2 damage each, but with Raffine in a single attack you can get your Esper Sentinel to become a 3/3 or 4/4 easily while at the same time filtering cards on your hand.

With the card filtering this deck has, it is not hard to find the answer you need, and in this deck you will have the usual esper suspects in terms of interaction. One cheeky addition is the graveyard recursion with Reanimate and Unearth one mana spells that allow you to buy back most of the threats, including Raffine herself !

This deck is perfect for someone that wants to strike a balance between being aggressive and controlling, while only playing with great creatures.

This is a Raffine list from a recent Leviathan tourney win from my country in Teresina, Brazil.

Other Tempo deck honorable mentions for our format:

Eldric, Spymaster of Trest

Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph

Yoshimaru+Esior

About an Angel and a Street Artist

Now for the reason I wanted to write this article. I would like to share a tempo brew of my own that I have been testing with and really enjoy playing: Errant and Giada.

This deck has a lot of tempo elements, but it is leaning more towards tempo-control instead of a tempo-aggro such as Yuriko.

Being a more “contro-ly” deck, you will see that the list has a larger amount of interaction spells ,that includes more counterspells. That instant speed interaction ties well with the deck's flash theme, which paired with Errant and Giada becomes the main source of card advantage and pressure. This deck has a total count of 46 spells that can be cast at instant speed !

Even though it has a shell leaning towards control, this deck is able to apply pressure out of the end of the opponent’s turn, keeping them guessing on what will hit the table next as well as allowing you to wait until the last minute to decide what to cast, an answer or a threat.

Speaking of threats, one of the things that make this deck so fun to play is the wide range of flash creatures with very useful abilities, ranging from Snapcaster Mage to Aven Mindcensor.

Recent set’s also added very efficient and useful creatures to the flash family: Deep Gnome Terramancer, Archivist of Oghma, Faerie Mastermind and Samwise the Stout Hearted are all cheap flash creatures that can start applying pressure early and have useful abilities to punish your opponent in various ways.

In the interaction department these colors, as usual, bring in some of the best removal and counterspell in the game. So prepare to use a wide range of interaction, from Swords to Plowshares to Council’s Judgment, from Force Spike to Force of Will.

Additionally I am also running a small suite of cheap good flying creatures, to have a higher density of plays of the top with Errant and Giada such as Gold-Forged Theopteryx and Esior, Warding Familiar for some added protection Ledger Shredder and Serra Paragon as just good value fliers. Ideally going forward with more set releases these fliers would be switched by better flash creatures.

Nothing is perfect, so let's talk about the deck’s weaknesses. Even though this tempo deck leans more to the control side, it does not have the same density and power of threats of a pure control so in the late game after stabilization it can be difficult to come back and close the game.

Additionally this is also not as fast as an aggro deck, so against those matchups we need to play as a full control deck and try to take as much advantage as possible for playing cards off the top of the deck, even if you need to do that at upkeep. Every value counts when playing vs aggro/midrange.

Usually tempo decks will also need to manage not overextending on the board, to not be completely blown out by wrath effects, especially if you do not have countermagic, or when playing against tricky board wipes such as Supreme Verdict. Errant and Giada have an easier time with this, since playing creatures end of turn is usually a pretty good strategy versus wraths. Even so, need be careful not to use all your resources and get blown out.

Finally, the card advantage of playing creatures and flash spells of the top can be inconsistent, so you can find yourself with an unfortunate series of draws where the card on top does not really match with your gameplan, so a tough choice of losing on card advantage or changing the game plan will be required.

Outro

Playing Tempo decks is challenging and fun. It takes some time to really be comfortable with the balance between your interaction and threats, but once you do master it the games you play are always on edge and the wins are very satisfying to achieve.

I still think that Leviathan has room for new and innovative Tempo builds to be created and perfected.

What about you, reader? Do you sleeve Tempo decks yourself? Which ones? Have you played against any of these commanders or different ones?

For myself, I am planning on bringing this Errant and Giada deck to test it on the next KrakenFest, so if you are planning to play there as well maybe we can have some good matches there!

Hopefully you enjoyed this text as much as I did writing it, and with some it might have given some food for thought and good ideas to you.

I wish players feel encouraged to test out some of these decks and strategies,including brewing and sharing new builds of the commanders discussed here, or new ones ! Do share your feedback, stories or just topics you would like to see in the comments or on the Leviathan discord server directly (I am #Intet there).

See you next time !

Guilherme Lopez