Hello everyone, today we are back with another standard deck: Azorius Tempo. The deck did pretty well during the MTG Japan Open, reaching second place. The deck is not an absolute novelty in the standard since it was already played before rotation. Unfortunately, however, it has never been considered a valid option for the true tiers of the format and the result just achieved is certainly the most important recorded so far by the archetype. Another very relevant consideration is that in the top 64 of the tournament there is only one such list. We can therefore consider it a true outsider of the format that probably nobody expected to see. At the same time, being a deck that has been off the radar for some time, it is possible to think that no one was really ready to tackle such a deck. This may also explain the good performance of the deck.
In fact, the above deck turns out to be quite consistent during the first game but potentially very weak during the second and third games: graveyard hate and spot removal are the true weaknesses of the deck. Let's see in detail how the deck works.
What’s the deck plan?
Azorius Tempo in this version is a deck that uses many non-creature spells and only 12 creatures (of which only 8 are really impactful in order to close the game). The deck has a few creatures available and at the same time needs to play many instant and sorcery spells for two different reasons:
- fill the cemetery to make Haughty Djinn stronger;
- activate the effect of Monastery Mentor consistently.
Many of the spells played are used to filter the deck and find both Haughty Djinn and Monastery Mentor, while others are used to protect or reanimate them. The deck also has access to a few cheap removal spells that really fit the deck.
In simple terms, the plan is as follows: filter the deck to find our threats, defend them when necessary and possibly reanimate them. Getting one of our threats to stay on the field for a couple of turns might be enough to win the game.
The Creature Spells
As mentioned above, Haughty Djinn and Monastery Mentor are our main winning conditions. The first is very useful as it makes our instant and sorcery spells cheaper. At the same time, being able to cast many instant and sorcery spells will make it stronger. The deck plays 32 instants and sorcery spells and most of them turn out to be very cheap but the chance to make them even less expensive is something not to be underestimated. Monastery Mentor, on the other hand, gives us the possibility to create very large boards thanks to its ability. It won't take long before the situation gets out of hand for our opponent who will then be forced to use a mass removal in order to survive (in case they have any). Monastery Mentor doesn't need to create many tokens: actually, even 2 or 3 are enough to close the game in a turn thanks to the Prowess ability that is very synergistic with the composition of the deck. Picklock Prankster // Free the Fae is very useful for its adventure that allows us to put creatures in the cemetery (which will then be reanimated) and to make a minimum of card selection between instant and sorcery spells milled. The statistics and abilities of the creature are not very relevant in this context but they can still be considered as an additional resource at our disposal.
The Card Selection
Moment of Truth is the perfect card for this type of deck as it allows us to perform significant actions on three different cards. The spell cycles itself giving us the chance to filter the deck while it also allows us to fill the graveyard. On top of that, it gives us information about what we have placed at the bottom of our library.
Sleight of Hand is a cheaper (but also very weakened) version of Moment of Truth: we only have access to 2 cards in this case and we have no way to fill the cemetery. It is still a great spell for our deck as it is cheap but at the same time very useful to filter the top of the deck.
Chart a Course is a very strong draw spell if cast after attacking but it remains valid even if this condition is not met. In fact, we could even find ourselves in situations where we want to cast it before attacking just to be able to discard one of our creatures and then revive it.
You may be wondering: why is Three Steps Ahead in this section? It's true that the spell is mainly used as a counterspell but it's also true that if we don't need to counter an opponent's spell or have extra mana we could still use the other options. The card as we know is very flexible and I decided to insert it in this section because it gives us the chance to draw two cards (then having to discard one).
Conclusions
Personally, I think the deck is not too difficult to counter and I was very surprised by the excellent performance and position reached. I think it's a good deck especially at a time when the meta is still very poorly defined. As mentioned above, the deck has its weaknesses that should not be underestimated as they are easy to exploit.
The deck can certainly steal many games 1 but I think that, if it were to increase in popularity, there would be an immediate meta adjustment that would make it suffer a lot post sideboard. In fact, at the moment in standard there aren't many decks that use the graveyard so significantly and consequently the various sideboards may not be set up as well. The deck has shown the same weaknesses in the past and it is because of these that it has never been able to see much play. It's a deck that, at least for now, I highly recommend because it is really easy to pilot and at the same time discreetly strong.
