Standard - Azorius Tempo

10
41
18
20
0
22
Control
  • Deck contains 9 invalid cards for this format: Sinister Sabotage (GRN), Quench (RNA), Hallowed Fountain (RNA), Brineborn Cutthroat (M20), Gods Willing (M20), Spectral Sailor (M20), Teferi, Time Raveler (WAR), Aether Gust (M20), Cerulean Drake (M20)
Main 60 cards (19 distinct)
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (20)
$0.20€0.090.03
$0.25€0.110.03
$0.23€0.160.03
$0.27€0.170.03
$0.24€0.100.03
$0.44€0.180.02
$0.17€0.100.03
$0.25€0.110.03
Creature (18)
$0.52€0.430.02
$0.20€0.130.03
$0.29€0.180.03
$0.25€0.140.03
$0.43€0.290.03
$5.998.93
Land (22)
$0.480.04
$1.550.04
$0.37€0.200.02
$9.60€9.560.27
$1.48€1.000.02
Side 15 cards (7 distinct)
$0.25€0.170.03
$0.40€0.350.06
$0.48€0.450.04
$0.20€0.060.03
$0.25€0.110.03
$0.20€0.130.03
$8.40€8.018.66

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Description

Frustrate your opponent to death

Frustrating your opponent is always the goal of Tempo, and what's more frustrating than countermagic? We have Quenchimage to control the early game, Negateimage and Sinister Sabotageimage for counter magic that can go later than Quench, and Thassa's Interventionimage which gets better as the game goes on (and can also help you dig for the cards you need to survive a turn or close the game). Brazen Borrowerimage gives you additional options with bounce.

But those are all the normal blue frustrating cards. What about frustrating cards in white? Azorius Tempo seeks to leverage Staggering Insight to frustrate our opponent via quickly insurmountable card advantage:

image

Probably the best white card for tempo in current Standard - the ability to draw an additional card every turn is game winning (not to mention the lifelink against Mono Red), and this card advantage is what made Mono Blue Tempo so powerful in the last block with Curious Obsessionimage. However, Staggering Insight must be protected and we lost many good cards to help us do that cheaply, like Siren Stormtamerimage, Dive Downimage, and Spell Pierceimage. However white did gain a couple of notable cards for consideration in tempo:

image

Alseid, like Siren Stormtamer, can be sacrificed to protect one of your creatures from removal. It can also be used to absorb a lot of damage (particulalry powerful against Embercleaveimage decks), or to make one of your big creatures unblockable if your opponent's creatures all share a color. This means that unlike Siren Stormtamer, Alseid is also a good top deck to help you finish games, and it should not be understated how relevant that is in tempo when you are running cards like Brineborn Cutthroatimage and Nadir Krakenimage which can grow to be giant threats and whose biggest downsides are a lack of evasion.

Gods Willingimage is the other big protection card we've gained since rotation which can do the same work as Alseid at a slightly cheaper cost: either protect a creature or make it unblockable for the win.

Big Threats that Need Protecting

We honestly don't have a perfect replacement for Tempest Djinnimage. In blue, Nadir Krakenimage and especially Brineborn Cutthroatimage are pretty good, but they lack the evasion which was a huge part of what made Tempest Djinn so dang good. Luckily, Alseid and God's Willing can help us there by making our threats unblockable. We'd honestly like to play Archon of Sun's Graceimage and run a few more enchantments like Omen of the Seaimage, but running a double pipped white card is very hard to do with the lands we have currently available in standard - this deck cares A LOT about having untapped lands in the early game. Without untapped lands on turns 2 and 3 we miss out on some of our best counterspell targets in the current meta and/or on our opportunity to put down a Brineborn Cuthroat on our opponent's turn 2 and hold up protection for it on turn 3. Tapped lands are particularly bad in Tempo when you are on the draw. I believe there is a viable version of Azorius Tempo which can run Archon of Sun's Grace, but it has more lands which come into play tapped in order to help color fix and so it makes less opening hands keepable since you cannot reliably Quench, Negate, or Sinister Sabotage when you need to, especially when you are on the draw. Because Tempo is already very susceptible to variability in the opening hand, I went with Nadir Kraken instead for this list, but I could see this changing if we get better aggressive lands in future sets.

 

Sideboard

A variety of counterspells for different matchups is good, especially because our mainboard is fairly light on counterspells for a tempo list. Teferi, Time Ravelerimage against control mirrors, flash decks, and Reclamation decks. Glass Casketimage against aggro when you need cheap removal for creatures or exile for Phoenix of Ashimage, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrathimage or Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hungerimage. There's also some color hate with Aether Gustimage and Cerulean Drakeimage.

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MrQirn
Last Updated: 20 Feb 2020
Created: 20 Feb 2020
2203 368 0

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