Goldfish Gladiators: Temur Control (Standard, Magic Arena)
by SaffronOlive // Feb 15, 2019
video Goldfish Gladiators standard
Welcome to Goldfish Gladiators! Wilderness Reclamation is a broken card—to the point where some people are already talking about the possibility of it (or Nexus of Fate) being banned in Standard. Well, today, we're going to see just how busted Wilderness Reclamation really is, except instead of using Nexus of Fate to finish the game with a bunch of extra turns, we're looking to throw huge Expansion // Explosions at our opponent's face or cast a bunch of cheap instants to make a board full of Birds with Murmuring Mystic. Just how good is Wilderness Reclamation? Is Temur the right colors for control in Standard? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!
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Goldfish Gladiators: Temur Control
Discussion
- As for our record, we played a traditional constructed (best-of-three) tournament and ended up going 2-2, which isn't all that exciting but not horrible.
- Our two losses came to fairly aggressive decks: Izzet Drakes (thanks in part to us not being about to hit our fourth land drop on time in game three) and Mono-Red Aggro (also in a tough three-game match). While our deck can do a good job of stabilizing the board, burn spells are a huge problem, since we don't really have a way to gain life or that many counterspells. While having some Fogs is good at stopping creatures, Temur Control really struggles against decks that can get in early damage with creatures and then close things out with direct damage. It might be worth finding a way to sneak some lifegain into the sideboard to solve this problem.
- Meanwhile, our wins came against Esper Control and Mono-Red Memekin (which doesn't play much burn), and these games showed the power of the deck. Temur Control feels like a pretty unstoppable deck once it gets going, with tons of card draw and huge combo-esque finishing turns involving Murmuring Mystic and Expansion // Explosion to bury our opponent quickly.
- Apart from finding a way to include some lifegain, it might also be worthwhile to find a way to play more removal in the main deck. While having a ton of instant-speed cantrips to synergize with Wilderness Reclamation and Murmuring Mystic is great, the deck sometimes gets hands that are all fluff, and we spend turn after turn cycling through cantrips without hitting a meaningful spell.
- All in all, Temur Control felt fine, but it's probably not one of the most competitive builds of Wilderness Reclamation in our current Standard format. While playing without the infinite-turn plan makes Temur Control unique, the ability to go infinite with Nexus of Fate is by far the most powerful thing you can do with Wilderness Reclamation in Standard. As such, at least from a Spike's perspective, it's probably wrong to leave the Nexus of Fate plan on the sidelines.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
