What are the core (and fringe I suppose) cards to support U Tempo in a cube?
Mono-blue tempo decks are likely to be rubbish, whatever you add to your cube. You could likely create some nice two colour tempo decks with blue in them though.
It is a very sweet deck that can keep many other archetypes on their back feet long enough to win. The main thing that is needed if you want to support monoblue tempo is the same thing needed to support any kind of aggro in any other color: you actually have to have creatures in your cube.
Your blue section should look like your other color sections, where the meaningful creature curve starts at 1 and 2, and 50%+ of the cards in that color are creatures. Doing this means raising the bar for epic blue spells and killing some darlings as far as blue control finishers. The secret here is that way more than half of the cards that are needed for blue tempo are also perfectly acceptable plays for blue control.
Ninjutsu is awesome in blue tempo. Ninja of the Deep Hours and Mistblade Shinobi are both quite good. Apart from that and the theme of bodies with bounce attached, building for blue tempo isn't actually that different from building for aggro in other colors -- you need to make sure that you have sweet playable bodies up and down the curve, in enough density that one person could realistically get 4-5 of them each at 2 and 3 mana.
From there, the same mana-efficient counters that are awesome in the early game in control are blue tempo's bread and butter. You want all of your counterspell, mana leak, memory lapse, arcane denial, remand, condescend, daze, FoW, misdirection-type of cards that are cubeable anyway -- you just don't trim a bunch of them in order to run a bunch of draining-whelk style 4+ mana counters.
Just like you don't trim a bunch of lightning bolts in order to run more wildfires -- there is one guy at the table who wants wildfires and is going to very easily table all of them. Meanwhile there are potentially lots of people fighting over bolts.
Below is something very close to the blue section from my non-powered cube. It is admittedly pretty far along the spectrum toward supporting aggro and tempo decks, but I assure you that if you don't make the curve of your blue section an exception to everything that makes sense in cube for all the other colors, then you'll wind up with sweet blue tempo decks. And yes, the control decks will be just fine at using these cards to stall, take opponents to valuetown, and resolve absurd finishers.
did this guy test well for you or are you speaking hypothetically? because he was pretty awful when i played him. i had a very exciting deck with multiple tutors that ensured i got him flipped when necessary but the majority of the time i was cutting him because a tempo-focused blue has too many creatures to ensure he flips regularly. i think he might be better in a more traditional blue section with mostly spells, but that section is a lot less interested in running him.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
did this guy test well for you or are you speaking hypothetically? because he was pretty awful when i played him. i had a very exciting deck with multiple tutors that ensured i got him flipped when necessary but the majority of the time i was cutting him because a tempo-focused blue has too many creatures to ensure he flips regularly. i think he might be better in a more traditional blue section with mostly spells, but that section is a lot less interested in running him.
He was solid when I ran him, Kenny's also had success with him.
He was solid when I ran him, Kenny's also had success with him.
can you elaborate? i often ended up cutting him from my deck because i had too few instants and sorceries. do you run him with 3 or 4 and just pray it happens?
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
can you elaborate? i often ended up cutting him from my deck because i had too few instants and sorceries.
That would be what I expect, too. Of course, I don't allow DFC at all, so I don't know from experience. But blue tempo in cube seems to have a lot of effects that come with creatures, enchantments or even artifacts, so the number of instants and sorceries available is somewhat limited.
Definitely agree with the one hundred and twenty-third white wolf. It isn't necessary to dilute the cube to support blue tempo decks. The cards are all very sweet, cubeable cards that have uses outside of blue tempo.
But if you want to support blue tempo, you can only do it by including a critical density of these specific good cards, at the expense of other good cards.
We have no problem paring down the number of totally sweet 5+ drops in other colors to support non-control applications of those colors, so supporting blue tempo is mostly just a matter of applying that same thinking to your blue section. Blue tempo doesn't have enough redundancy to reliably start the show with a 1-drop every game, but it isn't that far off from the other colors despite that.
Good catch on Phantasmal Bear, Phantizle. Going to need to give him another look and see if blue wants the 1-drop badly enough. He's not totally synergistic with the rest of the color, but might be undercosted enough to get in there anyway.
Definitely agree with the one hundred and twenty-third white wolf. It isn't necessary to dilute the cube to support blue tempo decks. The cards are all very sweet, cubeable cards that have uses outside of blue tempo.
But if you want to support blue tempo, you can only do it by including a critical density of these specific good cards, at the expense of other good cards.
We have no problem paring down the number of totally sweet 5+ drops in other colors to support non-control applications of those colors, so supporting blue tempo is mostly just a matter of applying that same thinking to your blue section. Blue tempo doesn't have enough redundancy to reliably start the show with a 1-drop every game, but it isn't that far off from the other colors despite that.
Good catch on Phantasmal Bear, Phantizle. Going to need to give him another look and see if blue wants the 1-drop badly enough. He's not totally synergistic with the rest of the color, but might be undercosted enough to get in there anyway.
One of the things I like the most about blue tempo is the way you can get out a cheap/utility flier and slap equipment on him. There actually aren't many flying creatures in most colors that can block them before you get into angel/dragon territory.
did this guy test well for you or are you speaking hypothetically? because he was pretty awful when i played him. i had a very exciting deck with multiple tutors that ensured i got him flipped when necessary but the majority of the time i was cutting him because a tempo-focused blue has too many creatures to ensure he flips regularly. i think he might be better in a more traditional blue section with mostly spells, but that section is a lot less interested in running him.
I tested Delver for a bit. I actually really like him, but as you say, he's much more inconsistent than in constructed. I was playing with the idea of overhauling my blue section, getting rid of some of the more expensive control-only cards like Dismiss etc, and going with a more tempo/disruption/aggressive feel. Delver could certainly come back in that environment.
So I'm remaking my cube from the scratch and since blue tempo is enjoyed by my playgroup I tends to push it much further than most.
I just gather some lists of playable blue creatures. Not all of it will fit tempo, but it might be helpful to those who want to look for cubable blue creatures to expand their blue creature list because blue spells tend to be so strong.
I probably won't put all of it in my cube. I'll have to test and try em again.
Two cards to consider are murktide regent and ethereal forager.
Delve Works well with the blue spells that are great.
I like a lot of cantrips and baubles, founding of third path was a recent great print...So it works with my cube, but its not for everyone!
The Commandments of EDH
Mono-blue tempo decks are likely to be rubbish, whatever you add to your cube. You could likely create some nice two colour tempo decks with blue in them though.
I'm a fan of:
Azorious Guildmage
Opposition
Tradewind Rider
Delver of Secrets
Remand
Memory Lapse
Into the Roil
Snapcaster Mage
Not to mention all of the Man-o'-War like dudes like Venser, Shaper Savant, Aether Adept, Riftwing Cloudskate, and even the new 2UU one from Avacyn Restored.
One card that I always liked the look of was Annex. Seems like a mono blue Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Juju Alters - Altered MTG Cards
For starters.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
pestermite
gush
aquamoebaonly if you want overlap with supporting reanimator
barrin, master wizard is awesome but quite slow and somewhat fragile.
undo
withdraw
Counterspells:
[CARD]Remand
Memory Lapse
Force Spike
Glen Elendra Archmage[/CARD]
Bounce:
[CARD]Into the Roil
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Man-o'-War
Repeal
Riftwing Cloudskate
Venser, Shaper Savant
Waterfront Bouncer[/CARD]
Other:
There are many other blue cards that fit well into this archetype, but that's more because they're good cards than anything else.
It is a very sweet deck that can keep many other archetypes on their back feet long enough to win. The main thing that is needed if you want to support monoblue tempo is the same thing needed to support any kind of aggro in any other color: you actually have to have creatures in your cube.
Your blue section should look like your other color sections, where the meaningful creature curve starts at 1 and 2, and 50%+ of the cards in that color are creatures. Doing this means raising the bar for epic blue spells and killing some darlings as far as blue control finishers. The secret here is that way more than half of the cards that are needed for blue tempo are also perfectly acceptable plays for blue control.
Ninjutsu is awesome in blue tempo. Ninja of the Deep Hours and Mistblade Shinobi are both quite good. Apart from that and the theme of bodies with bounce attached, building for blue tempo isn't actually that different from building for aggro in other colors -- you need to make sure that you have sweet playable bodies up and down the curve, in enough density that one person could realistically get 4-5 of them each at 2 and 3 mana.
From there, the same mana-efficient counters that are awesome in the early game in control are blue tempo's bread and butter. You want all of your counterspell, mana leak, memory lapse, arcane denial, remand, condescend, daze, FoW, misdirection-type of cards that are cubeable anyway -- you just don't trim a bunch of them in order to run a bunch of draining-whelk style 4+ mana counters.
Just like you don't trim a bunch of lightning bolts in order to run more wildfires -- there is one guy at the table who wants wildfires and is going to very easily table all of them. Meanwhile there are potentially lots of people fighting over bolts.
Below is something very close to the blue section from my non-powered cube. It is admittedly pretty far along the spectrum toward supporting aggro and tempo decks, but I assure you that if you don't make the curve of your blue section an exception to everything that makes sense in cube for all the other colors, then you'll wind up with sweet blue tempo decks. And yes, the control decks will be just fine at using these cards to stall, take opponents to valuetown, and resolve absurd finishers.
did this guy test well for you or are you speaking hypothetically? because he was pretty awful when i played him. i had a very exciting deck with multiple tutors that ensured i got him flipped when necessary but the majority of the time i was cutting him because a tempo-focused blue has too many creatures to ensure he flips regularly. i think he might be better in a more traditional blue section with mostly spells, but that section is a lot less interested in running him.
He was solid when I ran him, Kenny's also had success with him.
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
can you elaborate? i often ended up cutting him from my deck because i had too few instants and sorceries. do you run him with 3 or 4 and just pray it happens?
For example, this is a deck that's perfect with Delver (but the person was incorrectly told to omit it. Note Kenny's response in the comments.)
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Almost every blue card on your list meets this criteria. Very few of them were actually exclusive tempo support cards.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
But if you want to support blue tempo, you can only do it by including a critical density of these specific good cards, at the expense of other good cards.
We have no problem paring down the number of totally sweet 5+ drops in other colors to support non-control applications of those colors, so supporting blue tempo is mostly just a matter of applying that same thinking to your blue section. Blue tempo doesn't have enough redundancy to reliably start the show with a 1-drop every game, but it isn't that far off from the other colors despite that.
Good catch on Phantasmal Bear, Phantizle. Going to need to give him another look and see if blue wants the 1-drop badly enough. He's not totally synergistic with the rest of the color, but might be undercosted enough to get in there anyway.
One of the things I like the most about blue tempo is the way you can get out a cheap/utility flier and slap equipment on him. There actually aren't many flying creatures in most colors that can block them before you get into angel/dragon territory.
Phantasmal Bear can't wear equipment.
My Cube Blog @theCubeMiser on Twitter
I tested Delver for a bit. I actually really like him, but as you say, he's much more inconsistent than in constructed. I was playing with the idea of overhauling my blue section, getting rid of some of the more expensive control-only cards like Dismiss etc, and going with a more tempo/disruption/aggressive feel. Delver could certainly come back in that environment.
Juju Alters - Altered MTG Cards
I just gather some lists of playable blue creatures. Not all of it will fit tempo, but it might be helpful to those who want to look for cubable blue creatures to expand their blue creature list because blue spells tend to be so strong.
I probably won't put all of it in my cube. I'll have to test and try em again.
1
Cloudfin Raptor
Phantasmal Bear
Enclave Cryptologist
2
Ledger Shredder
Sea Gate Stormcaller
Snapcaster Mage
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Suspicious Stowaway
Thieving Skydiver
Phantasmal Image
Warkite Marauder
Wharf Inflitrator
Skyship Plunderer
Augur of Bolas
Malevolent Hermit
Looter il-Kor
Harbringer of Tide
Stratus Dancer
Waterfront Bouncer
3
True-Name Nemesis
Vendilion Clique
Aether Channeler
Hullbreacher
Brazen Borrower
Poppet Stitcher
Cloudkin Seer
Barrin, Tolarian Archmage
Deceiver Exarch
Serendib Efreet
4
Glen Elendra Archmage
Sower of Temptation
Venser, Shaper Savant
Dungeon Geists
5
Feywild Caretaker
Arcane Savant
Mulldrifter
Meloku the Clouded Mirror
6
Consecrated Sphinx
Aetherling
Notable Spell for Tempo
Sunder
My cube
My cube on Cube tutor
I'm OP_Forever. I'll be putting this in my signature for a while so everyone know I change my nickname.
Delve Works well with the blue spells that are great.
I like a lot of cantrips and baubles, founding of third path was a recent great print...So it works with my cube, but its not for everyone!
Food for thought.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg