Total side note but I like how people are discussing running this over itself.
Well, it has to be said that Kolaghan is clearly better than Kolaghan. Considering what BR decks usually want and how stiff the competition in this guild is, there is no way that I would run Kolaghan over Kolaghan! Kolaghan might make it in as the sixth guild card or so. Kolaghan on the other hand ranks several places below that.
It was so funny to me when they described this as a downgrade to the original Zurgo during the Pax East panel. I was thinking if this is a downgrade, they should really "downgrade" all legendary creatures. Haha.
My deck designing is quite concise at this point:
1. Come up with deck idea
2. Realize this idea is somehow fundamentally similar to another deck I have or that is commonly played in my group
3. Decide I don't want to disassemble one of my existing decks
4. Give up and do nothing
I don't see the point of this new shroud mechanic. It's strictly worse than Hexproof. Threshold is pretty bad too, Delirium is a much better mechanic and probably easier to activate.
Otherwise this card is a pretty neat guy. Dodges removal and grows into a Primal Huntbeast. 3/5
Well, typicall hard aggro decks and tempo play differently. I think he's talking about supporting the Memory Lapse/Remand/Vendilion Clique kind of tempo decks, and not the Phantasmal Bear/Welkin Tern kind of aggro decks. One is basically a permission aggro-control deck that protects an early board state with splashable bounce and countermagic, and the other is basically zoo aggro which is a removal + turn early dudes sideways all-in aggro strategy. They are different.
Total side note but I like how people are discussing running this over itself.
Well, it has to be said that Kolaghan is clearly better than Kolaghan. Considering what BR decks usually want and how stiff the competition in this guild is, there is no way that I would run Kolaghan over Kolaghan! Kolaghan might make it in as the sixth guild card or so. Kolaghan on the other hand ranks several places below that.
It was so funny to me when they described this as a downgrade to the original Zurgo during the Pax East panel. I was thinking if this is a downgrade, they should really "downgrade" all legendary creatures. Haha.
My deck designing is quite concise at this point:
1. Come up with deck idea
2. Realize this idea is somehow fundamentally similar to another deck I have or that is commonly played in my group
3. Decide I don't want to disassemble one of my existing decks
4. Give up and do nothing
I don't see the point of this new shroud mechanic. It's strictly worse than Hexproof. Threshold is pretty bad too, Delirium is a much better mechanic and probably easier to activate.
Otherwise this card is a pretty neat guy. Dodges removal and grows into a Primal Huntbeast. 3/5
It typically doesn't, but I've seen it occasionally. People playing tap-out Blue Skies variants and stuff. Typically it's just tempo, since the support is basically free.
Is there really so much of a difference between aggro and tempo that they need distinctly different terms?
I have always figured there were four archetypes nearly every deck can fit into: Aggro, Mid-Range, Control, and Combo. Tempo is just a variant of aggro in the same way Prison is a variant of control.
Playing tempo instead of playing hard aggro actually changes your favorable matchups, particularly in the cube. It plays differently enough to be called something different. They called it "aggro-control" in constructed forever. Not aggro, not control, but gave it a specific distinction because of how different it played from the other two theaters.
So how many different archetypes are we calling things now? I think you could argue every deck plays differently from every other deck and Ramp doesn't fit into anything else perfectly either.
Magic has evolved from calling everything either aggro, control, or combo, for sure, but the decks were originally given those designations slightly before and solidified with (IIRC) Mike Flores' original "Who's The Beatdown" article. One deck is trying to win before the other deck gets their more powerful spells online, so one deck is the beatdown and the other is control. "Aggro-Control" or "Tempo" is almost always the aggro deck, but sometimes it's not, just like everything else.
I think when someone says "blue aggro" I think we all know exactly what they're talking about and there's not really a need to mince words when we all get their meaning.
EDIT: I just re-read everything posted above. Are we really arguing about the differences between playing Welkin Tern, Phantasmal Bear and the myriad of 1-2 other cards that could be classified as a typical blue "aggro" card vs. the normal blue suite in cube? Any blue aggressive deck is going to have counterspells at its disposal, it's not like people are running around just casting blue beaters since they're so much worse than all the other colors.
I don't think I've seen a cube deck, ever, that conforms to what you guys are calling blue aggro.
Wtwlf123, how many theatres do you think there are if you're classifying tempo as it's own thing? In your cube article and in your cube thread, you list Aggro, Mid-Range, and Control. Do you think Tempo is entirely separate? What about ramp? Prison? What combo decks get their own theatres because they play so much differently than other combo decks?
I'm just saying that generally we can put everything into aggro, mid-range, control, or combo. Tempo would be more of an aggressive strategy. Ramp is more of a mid-range strategy. Prison is more of a controlling strategy. Yes, they're different, but they're trying to win at different stages of the game and that's why they were originally classified into aggro vs. control subtypes to begin with -- one is trying to last until their spells can be valuable enough to beat the other deck, while one is trying to win before that happens. Tempo is almost always in the aggro/beatdown/win-early camp.
So what's the split now? Aggro / Tempo / Mid-Range / Prison / Control / Combo / Ramp / Storm ?
I think this can start to get to be a little ridiculous. I think it's fine to say decks fit in somewhere within the spectrum of Aggro to Control unless they're Combo, and many decks can shift roles depending on what their opponent is doing.
Aggro-control, aka tempo, isn't a new thing. It isn't like they are making up the term. I've taught it to new players as one of the five primary archetypes for years (aggro, tempo, midrange, control, combo). I prefer the term tempo, but the name aggro-control has been around forever.
I never said it was a new thing or that they're making up the term. I find it very surprising to put it along side aggro, mid-range, control and combo because tempo decks are almost always beaters + counterspells. I actually don't know of any other tempo deck that doesn't play dudes + counterspells and some mana disruption like Wasteland, Stifle, etc. Is there even a tempo deck that doesn't play blue? To call that an entirely separate archetype or teach it to new players that way is so bonkers to me, but I guess that's how some people refer to it.
EDIT: For those of you who refer to tempo as an entirely different archetype, separate from aggro, mid-range, control and combo, what decks are out there that don't play blue?
Aggro, mid-range, control, and combo decks can be any combination of colors, but I have never seen a non-blue deck being referred to as tempo. I'm willing to learn if you guys can educate me. Extra bonus points for showing me some non-blue constructed decklists that people normally refer to as tempo.
Wtwlf123, how many theatres do you think there are if you're classifying tempo as it's own thing? In your cube article and in your cube thread, you list Aggro, Mid-Range, and Control. Do you think Tempo is entirely separate? What about ramp? Prison? What combo decks get their own theatres because they play so much differently than other combo decks?
Aggro, midrange and control are the three rock, paper, scissors theaters in the cube. They are generic terms, and a ton of different draftable decks fit each one of those descriptions.
Combo and tempo are outside of those three generic theaters, and they play differently than the others (having different advantages and different disadvantages than any of the other three theaters). Since Tempo decks are exclusively blue, I don't have those decks listed as a major theater, but it's definitely not aggro, midrange or control. Players need to be aware of how that deck functions and the major differences between it and regular aggro.
Just because a deck is its own thing doesn't mean it has to be its own theater. Lots of decks are aggro. Lots of decks are midrange. Lots of decks are control. Lots of decks are combo. Tempo decks are their own thing, and they don't fit into those theaters. They're control in some matches, aggro in others, and even midrange (and combo sometimes!) in other matchups. So ya, it's definitely not aggro. But it's also not its own theater. It's simply an outlier.
..........
As an aside, I really like how tempo functions outside of the regular suite of theaters. It plays solidly against everything, and doesn't really have a bad matchup or a stellar matchup against the typical decks. It seems to come down to draws and execution more than matchup strength, which is a refreshing wildcard to have floating around.
I think where we differ is that I believe Tempo, Ramp, Prison, and other decks are all just strategies that fit within the Aggro-Midrange-Control-Combo paradigms/theaters. Sure, they play differently than the more common variants of those strategies, but I don't believe they're so far outside the box that they can't be referred to by bigger picture stuff.
I'd simplify my posts (at the risk of losing some meaning) by saying: Tempo is a deck, not a theater.
Interestingly enough, I'd say Tempo is more similar to aggro than anything else, Ramp is more similar to mid-range than anything else, and Prison is more similar to control than anything else, but they are all definitely distinctly different in how they approach winning more than an average or goodstuff aggro/mid-range/control deck. Kind of interesting that the examples I thought up each got split into their own likeness with an overall theater.
I don't think it honestly makes that big of a difference to refer to Tempo as so much different than "blue aggro" that it's completely different just because it plays counterspells and mana disruption (which blue aggro very well might as well). On that point, what number of counterspells do I have to be at before I stop being an aggro deck and start becoming a tempo deck? Heh.
Using the rock-paper-scissors model of just aggro/midrange/control/combo, tempo don't fit the model. They don't have aggro's weaknesses or strengths. So does categorizing them under aggro give any really relevant information? It seems almost misleading calling it aggro, as newer players would expect the same strengths and weaknesses. Yes, blue is pretty much the only tempo color (I remember white tempo being a thing in constructed once, but that was an outlier), but how is that different then only one color having combo as an archetype? If the only combo in your cube is in blue with Tezzeret and Time Vault does that make is a deck and not a theater? And tempo isn't a single deck, you can have different tempo decks with different base cards and strategies.
Theaters help categorize what you are going to have good and bad matchups against in a broad sense, and tempo does not have anywhere close to the same good/bad matchups as aggro.
This is really offtopic to the card discussion. I'm just gonna leave off here. We all see things in a different way. I can't see categorizing tempo under aggro (or control) as being beneficial. If it works for you though, then it works for you.
Given how good dig through time has preformed in my cube and how strong both cards have preformed in eternal formats, Im definitely giving treasure cruise a trial run.
What I underestimated about both these cards is how big of a tempo advantage they provide over the expensive draw spells in the mid-late game.
When you get to cast them for 1-2 mana respectfully AND cast a spell or two on the same turn, it has a very big tempo advantage over a card like jace's ingenuity. Digging for an answer/threat AND casting the answer in the same turn is huge game.
Sure the average case scenario in the mid-game is 4 mana or whatever. But occasionally you get it in a deck with cards like Dack fayden, ponder, multiple fetches + removal spells... Then cast it for 1 mana in the mid game.
Or occasionally in an average blue deck , you happen to have a game where you trade off a lot of resources early and graveyards fill faster than normal.
Using the rock-paper-scissors model of just aggro/midrange/control/combo, tempo don't fit the model. They don't have aggro's weaknesses or strengths. So does categorizing them under aggro give any really relevant information? It seems almost misleading calling it aggro, as newer players would expect the same strengths and weaknesses.
Theaters help categorize what you are going to have good and bad matchups against in a broad sense, and tempo does not have anywhere close to the same good/bad matchups as aggro.
You're focusing on a single aspect of the aggro-midrange-control classification. No single part of magic theory or classification is supposed to encapsulate all possible frontiers. There are more things to draw from the theory than a simple rock-paper-scissors model.
I think you're inverting the way you should look at things:
I don't classify a deck that loses consistently to a control deck as a mid-range deck. The deck could be a combo deck or an aggro deck or a midrange deck. It could be anything. Just because it loses to control and not aggro doesn't mean it's a midrange deck. It just means it loses to control and not aggro. Matchups are just one part of aggro-midrange-control, and it's only meant to be used as a loose guideline of magic theory at that. You're saying a Tempo deck doesn't fit into the aggro-midrange-control paradigm because of its matchups. That's like saying Caw-Blade in standard a few years ago is literally nothing (or something completely different) because it doesn't have any bad matchups. The Caw-Blade deck was a tempo deck (oddly enough), but not because of its matchups.
An aggro deck is a deck that wants to be the beatdown. The best chance of an aggro deck winning is to be put into that role as often as possible until the opponent is dead. Tempo IS that deck. Tempo does not want to play reactive cards and be on the backfoot until it stabilizes and comes back to be the beatdown. Does a tempo deck play differently than a play-3-guys-turn-sideways-bolt-opponent-to-death deck? Yes, but lots of aggro decks play differently.
I don't think Tempo is so far removed from aggro that we can't call it aggro, just like Prison isn't so far from control that we can't call it control. They're definitely on those ends of the spectrum.
Yes, blue is pretty much the only tempo color (I remember white tempo being a thing in constructed once, but that was an outlier), but how is that different then only one color having combo as an archetype?
One color having combo as an archetype? What? Every color has access to combo. Especially in constructed magic, but the same can be true in cube.
We support Storm, which is largely UGBR, but there is also some white cards that enter into the equation with Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, and Replenish. Reanimator, which I see no reason to classify as anything other than a combo deck, largely consists of UBR cards as well, although Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, and Replenish are also fine in that deck.
If the only combo in your cube is in blue with Tezzeret and Time Vault does that make is a deck and not a theater?
The only combo in my cube is not blue with Tezzeret and Time Vault. Yes, the Time Vault deck is a deck, and I never argued otherwise. Saying it's a deck that fits within a theater was my entire point. It's a part of combo which is a theater. Tempo is a deck that fits within a theater (aggro, although not purely since it's a little mid-rangey, sure).
And tempo isn't a single deck, you can have different tempo decks with different base cards and strategies.
Neither are any of the combo decks I just listed. Storm, Reanimator, and Time Vault all have different base cards and strategies.
There's actually a thread discussing the theater paradigm ad nauseam. You guys should continue that discussion there (and I hope you do because I think it's a very interesting debate).
As far as Treasure Cruise, I think it's a really neat card. And as I'm running double fetches, triple brainstorm along with a host of other "spells matter" type cards, it may very well be a great addition for me. Still not sure it's better than Dig though (assuming I will only have room for one blue delve card - haven't really thought through that yet).
Does anyone actually support hard blue aggro? Generally "blue aggro" just means tempo to me.
I don't think I'd ever play Treasure Cruise at 360 though. Unless I just had to have 2 blue delve cards for some reason.
I tried for a while. It can be done IMO in a middling rare, tribal or big# list but the tighter the list and higher the power level, the less blue aggro dudes make sense.
There's actually a thread discussing the theater paradigm ad nauseam. You guys should continue that discussion there (and I hope you do because I think it's a very interesting debate).
A blue based deck that suffers alot from attrition would find Treasure Cruise handy I suppose.
I think Tempo is mainly a branch off the Aggro Theater. They basically are an evolution of the strategy, but relying on evasion and flexibility. It's "tempo" because this form of strategy allows for adjustment at various stages of the game, or adapt according to the opposition. Historically the strategy has always been in blue. I think it's safe to say that if someone is playing a blue aggro strategy you can almost always pinpoint it as tempo.
Now that we've had a few months of time, and been able to see how dominating this card has been across several formats, I think it's time to re-raise the question: how good is this card in Cube? I realize that Cube can be quite different, but Cruise has been so strong across pretty much every constructed format, and hasn't been a bad card in its limited environment either.
So, has anyone been playing this, and if so how good has it been?
Solid addition and likely not coming out anytime soon. Not as exciting as Dig Through Time is, but has been played in every deck in which it is drafted to good effect. The single U in the casting cost helps out the appeal of splashing it as well.
Now that we've had a few months of time, and been able to see how dominating this card has been across several formats, I think it's time to re-raise the question: how good is this card in Cube? I realize that Cube can be quite different, but Cruise has been so strong across pretty much every constructed format, and hasn't been a bad card in its limited environment either.
So, has anyone been playing this, and if so how good has it been?
Not great. It's hard to fill the 'yard up in a timely fashion. You can reasonably expect to cast a delve card for about half of its cost on average. Sometimes 1 mana more, sometimes 1 mana less. But on average, you can cast it in the right window for about half of it's delve. So this card is a Plea for Power most of the time. Occasionally better and sometimes even worse, but on average, that's what you can expect. Now, Dig Through Time is a bonkers card at 4 mana, and still very respectable at 5. Pretty much every constructed format is filled to the brim with fetchlands and cantrips, and it makes Cruise a reliably low-cc card. The cube just isn't that same format, and it's hard to get it to be better than a Concentrate variant.
It's about on par with Ancestral Vision. Vision is great early and terrible late, and Treasure Cruise is pretty much the exact opposite of that card. Terrible early and great late. But if you want your spells to be good when drawn/cast in the midgame, neither card is any good.
I haven't found the 1/2 thing to be true; Cruise is often once of the last cards I cast in hand (after my business spells) and there is usually plenty in the yard at that point. The times I find that it is mediocre (and something bad isn't happening like mana screw/flood) is when I'm either winning because my creatures aren't dying or that I'm playing a bunch of non-creature permanents that aren't getting destroyed (like mana rocks and such). It's way better in tempo-type decks that are proactively casting spells than in the more reactive blue decks that want to keep mana available and want a stream of new cards coming in. In those decks, Dig is WAY WAY better.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
You, uhh, you do know what Tempo is, right?
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I don't think I'd ever play Treasure Cruise at 360 though. Unless I just had to have 2 blue delve cards for some reason.
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I have always figured there were four archetypes nearly every deck can fit into: Aggro, Mid-Range, Control, and Combo. Tempo is just a variant of aggro in the same way Prison is a variant of control.
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Magic has evolved from calling everything either aggro, control, or combo, for sure, but the decks were originally given those designations slightly before and solidified with (IIRC) Mike Flores' original "Who's The Beatdown" article. One deck is trying to win before the other deck gets their more powerful spells online, so one deck is the beatdown and the other is control. "Aggro-Control" or "Tempo" is almost always the aggro deck, but sometimes it's not, just like everything else.
I think when someone says "blue aggro" I think we all know exactly what they're talking about and there's not really a need to mince words when we all get their meaning.
EDIT: I just re-read everything posted above. Are we really arguing about the differences between playing Welkin Tern, Phantasmal Bear and the myriad of 1-2 other cards that could be classified as a typical blue "aggro" card vs. the normal blue suite in cube? Any blue aggressive deck is going to have counterspells at its disposal, it's not like people are running around just casting blue beaters since they're so much worse than all the other colors.
I don't think I've seen a cube deck, ever, that conforms to what you guys are calling blue aggro.
Wtwlf123, how many theatres do you think there are if you're classifying tempo as it's own thing? In your cube article and in your cube thread, you list Aggro, Mid-Range, and Control. Do you think Tempo is entirely separate? What about ramp? Prison? What combo decks get their own theatres because they play so much differently than other combo decks?
I'm just saying that generally we can put everything into aggro, mid-range, control, or combo. Tempo would be more of an aggressive strategy. Ramp is more of a mid-range strategy. Prison is more of a controlling strategy. Yes, they're different, but they're trying to win at different stages of the game and that's why they were originally classified into aggro vs. control subtypes to begin with -- one is trying to last until their spells can be valuable enough to beat the other deck, while one is trying to win before that happens. Tempo is almost always in the aggro/beatdown/win-early camp.
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I think this can start to get to be a little ridiculous. I think it's fine to say decks fit in somewhere within the spectrum of Aggro to Control unless they're Combo, and many decks can shift roles depending on what their opponent is doing.
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EDIT: For those of you who refer to tempo as an entirely different archetype, separate from aggro, mid-range, control and combo, what decks are out there that don't play blue?
Aggro, mid-range, control, and combo decks can be any combination of colors, but I have never seen a non-blue deck being referred to as tempo. I'm willing to learn if you guys can educate me. Extra bonus points for showing me some non-blue constructed decklists that people normally refer to as tempo.
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Aggro, midrange and control are the three rock, paper, scissors theaters in the cube. They are generic terms, and a ton of different draftable decks fit each one of those descriptions.
Combo and tempo are outside of those three generic theaters, and they play differently than the others (having different advantages and different disadvantages than any of the other three theaters). Since Tempo decks are exclusively blue, I don't have those decks listed as a major theater, but it's definitely not aggro, midrange or control. Players need to be aware of how that deck functions and the major differences between it and regular aggro.
Just because a deck is its own thing doesn't mean it has to be its own theater. Lots of decks are aggro. Lots of decks are midrange. Lots of decks are control. Lots of decks are combo. Tempo decks are their own thing, and they don't fit into those theaters. They're control in some matches, aggro in others, and even midrange (and combo sometimes!) in other matchups. So ya, it's definitely not aggro. But it's also not its own theater. It's simply an outlier.
..........
As an aside, I really like how tempo functions outside of the regular suite of theaters. It plays solidly against everything, and doesn't really have a bad matchup or a stellar matchup against the typical decks. It seems to come down to draws and execution more than matchup strength, which is a refreshing wildcard to have floating around.
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I think where we differ is that I believe Tempo, Ramp, Prison, and other decks are all just strategies that fit within the Aggro-Midrange-Control-Combo paradigms/theaters. Sure, they play differently than the more common variants of those strategies, but I don't believe they're so far outside the box that they can't be referred to by bigger picture stuff.
I'd simplify my posts (at the risk of losing some meaning) by saying: Tempo is a deck, not a theater.
Interestingly enough, I'd say Tempo is more similar to aggro than anything else, Ramp is more similar to mid-range than anything else, and Prison is more similar to control than anything else, but they are all definitely distinctly different in how they approach winning more than an average or goodstuff aggro/mid-range/control deck. Kind of interesting that the examples I thought up each got split into their own likeness with an overall theater.
I don't think it honestly makes that big of a difference to refer to Tempo as so much different than "blue aggro" that it's completely different just because it plays counterspells and mana disruption (which blue aggro very well might as well). On that point, what number of counterspells do I have to be at before I stop being an aggro deck and start becoming a tempo deck? Heh.
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Theaters help categorize what you are going to have good and bad matchups against in a broad sense, and tempo does not have anywhere close to the same good/bad matchups as aggro.
This is really offtopic to the card discussion. I'm just gonna leave off here. We all see things in a different way. I can't see categorizing tempo under aggro (or control) as being beneficial. If it works for you though, then it works for you.
What I underestimated about both these cards is how big of a tempo advantage they provide over the expensive draw spells in the mid-late game.
When you get to cast them for 1-2 mana respectfully AND cast a spell or two on the same turn, it has a very big tempo advantage over a card like jace's ingenuity. Digging for an answer/threat AND casting the answer in the same turn is huge game.
Sure the average case scenario in the mid-game is 4 mana or whatever. But occasionally you get it in a deck with cards like Dack fayden, ponder, multiple fetches + removal spells... Then cast it for 1 mana in the mid game.
Or occasionally in an average blue deck , you happen to have a game where you trade off a lot of resources early and graveyards fill faster than normal.
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You're focusing on a single aspect of the aggro-midrange-control classification. No single part of magic theory or classification is supposed to encapsulate all possible frontiers. There are more things to draw from the theory than a simple rock-paper-scissors model.
I think you're inverting the way you should look at things:
I don't classify a deck that loses consistently to a control deck as a mid-range deck. The deck could be a combo deck or an aggro deck or a midrange deck. It could be anything. Just because it loses to control and not aggro doesn't mean it's a midrange deck. It just means it loses to control and not aggro. Matchups are just one part of aggro-midrange-control, and it's only meant to be used as a loose guideline of magic theory at that. You're saying a Tempo deck doesn't fit into the aggro-midrange-control paradigm because of its matchups. That's like saying Caw-Blade in standard a few years ago is literally nothing (or something completely different) because it doesn't have any bad matchups. The Caw-Blade deck was a tempo deck (oddly enough), but not because of its matchups.
An aggro deck is a deck that wants to be the beatdown. The best chance of an aggro deck winning is to be put into that role as often as possible until the opponent is dead. Tempo IS that deck. Tempo does not want to play reactive cards and be on the backfoot until it stabilizes and comes back to be the beatdown. Does a tempo deck play differently than a play-3-guys-turn-sideways-bolt-opponent-to-death deck? Yes, but lots of aggro decks play differently.
I don't think Tempo is so far removed from aggro that we can't call it aggro, just like Prison isn't so far from control that we can't call it control. They're definitely on those ends of the spectrum.
One color having combo as an archetype? What? Every color has access to combo. Especially in constructed magic, but the same can be true in cube.
We support Storm, which is largely UGBR, but there is also some white cards that enter into the equation with Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, and Replenish. Reanimator, which I see no reason to classify as anything other than a combo deck, largely consists of UBR cards as well, although Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, and Replenish are also fine in that deck.
The only combo in my cube is not blue with Tezzeret and Time Vault. Yes, the Time Vault deck is a deck, and I never argued otherwise. Saying it's a deck that fits within a theater was my entire point. It's a part of combo which is a theater. Tempo is a deck that fits within a theater (aggro, although not purely since it's a little mid-rangey, sure).
Neither are any of the combo decks I just listed. Storm, Reanimator, and Time Vault all have different base cards and strategies.
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As far as Treasure Cruise, I think it's a really neat card. And as I'm running double fetches, triple brainstorm along with a host of other "spells matter" type cards, it may very well be a great addition for me. Still not sure it's better than Dig though (assuming I will only have room for one blue delve card - haven't really thought through that yet).
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
I tried for a while. It can be done IMO in a middling rare, tribal or big# list but the tighter the list and higher the power level, the less blue aggro dudes make sense.
http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/993
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/23690
Ooh! I'd like to read it. Can you link to it?
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I think Tempo is mainly a branch off the Aggro Theater. They basically are an evolution of the strategy, but relying on evasion and flexibility. It's "tempo" because this form of strategy allows for adjustment at various stages of the game, or adapt according to the opposition. Historically the strategy has always been in blue. I think it's safe to say that if someone is playing a blue aggro strategy you can almost always pinpoint it as tempo.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
So, has anyone been playing this, and if so how good has it been?
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Not great. It's hard to fill the 'yard up in a timely fashion. You can reasonably expect to cast a delve card for about half of its cost on average. Sometimes 1 mana more, sometimes 1 mana less. But on average, you can cast it in the right window for about half of it's delve. So this card is a Plea for Power most of the time. Occasionally better and sometimes even worse, but on average, that's what you can expect. Now, Dig Through Time is a bonkers card at 4 mana, and still very respectable at 5. Pretty much every constructed format is filled to the brim with fetchlands and cantrips, and it makes Cruise a reliably low-cc card. The cube just isn't that same format, and it's hard to get it to be better than a Concentrate variant.
It's about on par with Ancestral Vision. Vision is great early and terrible late, and Treasure Cruise is pretty much the exact opposite of that card. Terrible early and great late. But if you want your spells to be good when drawn/cast in the midgame, neither card is any good.
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I use descriptive language. Assume that I'm being nice and respectful. (I'll tell you when I'm not.)
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