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UG Tempo: A Foray into Pauper Standard

When I first saw the shadowmoor spoiler one card caught my eye, Hungry Spriggan.

Since Morningtide I had wanted to make use of the powerful one mana accelerants available to Green in Standard, Llanowar Elves and Boreal Druid. Both enable a 3 drop on turn 2, so I had been looking for powerful 3 cc creatures only to find this. I had initially planned to use Winnower Patrol in an elf deck to start a really fast clock. That idea was rather boring, although I did pretty well in the casual room dropping the patrol or imperious perfect on turn 2. Fast forward to now, I see the Spriggan and my interest is revitalized. Anyway, I spent a while thinking about the best way to use him, originally considering R/G aggro. However, I don't really like playing aggro, I'm more of an aggro-control player, leaning towards to control side. One idea that I came up with was a UG tempo deck. I'd been trying to build a successful tempo deck in pauper for a while, most recently with faeries in Classic and Standard. The decks had been somewhat successful in testing, but a lot of the wins came from decks I felt I could be playing just about anything and win against. So in this UG Tempo idea I could really bring both of these concepts to play: Tempo and Turn 2 fat.

Looking at the various PDC metagames for a while, I've always noticed what general archetypes are present: aggro, control, aggro-control, and the occasional combo when the cards permit it. But, this tempo archetype was conspicuously absent. There may be a few reasons for this. Tempo could be a theme in decks but not their focus, the cards are too limited so a strong curve can't really include the disruptive elements necessary to take it from curving out to controlling the tempo, or the successful deck designers lean towards other archetypes. Whatever the reason may be, I believe the post-Shadowmoor environment is ripe for a tempo based deck to enter into the metagame. If you look at some recent winners not many decks are particularly fast, so a tempo deck doesn't really need to worry much about being beat in a straight race. A bit of a stumble on WW's part and they could be on their heels. And the control decks in the environment tend to play strong card advantage late games but don't have a whole lot of action in the early part of the game. So an early threat like Hungry Spriggan or Winnower Patrol could really get in for a good deal before the opponent is active.

In this first article I want to go through the steps I took in building the deck, which I will test in a future article, and hopefully play in a tournament depending on how the testing goes. I started off with the following:

4x Llanowar Elves

4x Boreal Druid

4x Hungry Spriggan

I debated how many mana elves to play as they are rather weak in the late-game, but hopefully our deck will be in control of the tempo, and thus the game, by then as a result of a turn 1 mana-producing elf. What solidified my decision was adding 4x Winnower Patrol, which I felt I could get through a few times with the bounce I planned to add, so each kinship activation I could squeeze out of his already aggressively costed body would be a big deal.

For the bounce I want to play I'll use some combination of Whirlpool Whelm and Disperse. I feel like the Whelm can be really good if you win the clash, acting as a time walk early game and clearing blockers to get your creatures through for as much damage as possible. I also knew I wanted counterspells so I could keep my opponent off blockers or removal. It is especially important to keep them off removal because all the support cards the deck is playing mean its not likely going to be incredibly threat dense. Additionally losing your early creature virtually destroys your tempo, meaning you've likely lost. Counter wise I decided on Rune Snag and jotted down that I wanted to use either Remove Soul or Negate, possibly using the unused one in the Board.

At this point, the skeleton of the deck looked like this:

4x Disperse

4x Rune Snag

4x Remove Soul

4x Negate

I returned to the std cardpool + Shadowmoor to find more candidates. The cards I found that I wanted to use were:

Pestermite - He can completely set your opponents off one of their early turns, which is the crucial disruption this deck needs. Additionally, with a mana elf he can come down turn 2 which can set off other aggro deck's beginning of the curve.

Consign to Dream - This is absolutely nasty bounce against Red/Green but will likely be stuck in the Sideboard as 3 mana is a bit too much to ask for an unsummon in other match ups.

Nurturer Initiate - I could see this card being pretty strong, however I don't think it would quite fit. But because it’s an elf and may work I took note of it as a possibility if some other cards don't work out in testing.

Aethertow - I really wanted this card to work, but it's a bit slow at 4 mana, I'll likely never conspire it, and if a creature is blocking and the game is going well its probably just chumping.

Curse of Chains - I really want this to be good, as it would be removal for 1U essentially, but the fact that the creature won't tap until the upkeep after I cast it means it will still be able to block.

Silkbind Faerie - Shadowmoor and Lorwyn block in general had a lot of potential for faeries to be a really good blue tribe, but the rares in Lorwyn and Morningtide (mistbind clique, oona's prowler, scion of oona, bitterblossom) were so strong that the basics of disruption and tempo were kept from the commons as it would have made for really overpowered limited formats.

Somnomancer - This guy seems good, even though he is a 2 drop, meaning he will likely be not as efficient as a 3 drop might, I will likely want to drop him after I make a turn 2 play to clear a blocker, so he seems fit for that, as he will leave me with mana up to bounce or counter.

Topor Dust - Again Shadowmoor failing to provide faeries with adequate commons, such a shame.

Nantuko Shaman - I definitely want to play this guy, as I can drop him turn 2 as a mini-Winnower Patrol, assuming my Winnower Patrols do get bigger, or I can follow up a 3 drop with his suspend.

Wings of Velis Vel - This card I kept coming back to when thinking about how I could trigger Winnower Patrol slightly more than never. Initially I dismissed it; however I think it works really well with Hungry Spriggan (before trigger) and can give the deck some reach by turning idle mana dorks into evasive beaters. Boy do I wish they had made more changeling spells though.

Mire Boa - I think the weakness of this deck will be removal heavy decks, which can keep you off creatures until their card advantage and better threats take the day (I'm looking at you storm control and pyramid scheme), so this guy seems sideboard material for a black heavy matchup.

Uktabi Drake - This is pretty interesting because I really like guys with haste, as they allow you to mess up planned blockers to get in those last few points of damage, which I think might be important with this deck. I don't plan on starting with him in the deck, but if testing shows that I'm going to want him then I'll try to fit some in.

Fistful of Force - I already rely on clash to make or break the quality of one spell, so I'm not sure I want to do so again, which could make for randomly swingy games and no consistency. However, I was looking for a way to make Winnower Patrol Trample and pump my dorks for extra damage. Its a shame trample only comes on winning the clash, otherwise I'd say this would work.

Earthbrawn - I'm pretty split about this card as it doesn't really give the deck the trample it was looking for, but might make up for that with the versatility reinforce provides (including its interaction with Wings of Velis Vel). As I said, removal will be this deck's weakness, at least until it gets counter mana up, if that removal takes the form of burn, especially on my turn, this would be strong.

Strength In Numbers - This gives me everything Earthbrawn doesn't, but nothing it does. It's very aggressive and only effective during the combat phase, it gives trample, and scales with the number of otherwise useless creatures in play. However I can't use it retroactively against burn, and black targeted removal will two-for-one me.

Lys Alana Bowmaster - Suprisingly, most decks in the format use flyers; Errant Ephemeron, Blue Illusions, Faeries, Mulldrifter, Knights of Sursi, and Aven Changeling are all over the format, and so I could see this being effective in the sideboard although I could definitely see it being ineffective in those matches as well.

Sprout Swarm - This kind of came to me last minute like 'oh duh' but the addition of Sprout Swarm could really provide this deck with some sort of lategame plan and resilience to removal or a large blocker the deck can't deal with.

As for the mana base, each land drop is very significant, so you do not want to skimp on the lands. Additionally each land drop has a spot in the curve in each of the first critical turns, so anything that comes into play tapped really throws that off and keeps tempo out of your hands. I realize Terramorphic Expanse is a godsend for color fixing but the whole turn it slows the deck down is really what the deck is trying to exploit in its opponent's game.

Looking at this list and the spots left in the deck I'd suggest the following list to begin testing with once shadowmoor comes out.

Creatures

4x Pestermite

Spells

4x Rune Snag

4x Remove Soul

4x Whirlpool Whelm