Temurge was the deck used by the pros in Pro-tour EMN to shock the world expecting a BantCoco dominated tournament. While the core of the deck is intact (payoffs: Emrakul and Octopus and enablers: Traverse, Grapple and Vessel), the loss of Nissa's pilgrimage may slowdown the deck by a turn or two, which could be fatal.
Fortunately, Kaladesh has provided a way forward for the deck by bringing key additions - another way to accelerate payoffs and lifegain to buffer during early game setup. Welcome to Aether Temurge.
Early game strategy (turns 1-4)
Typical strategy is to use turns 1-2 to secure land drops / fix mana / populate graveyard cardtypes via Traverse, Grapple and Vessel. Turns 2-4 is to buffer with life gain and accumulate energy counters via Puzzleknot, Familiar and Lightning (yes, sometimes a Lightning for 0 is ok if you have 3 energy and Marvel in hand for Turn 4). Against aggro, you should aim for 3-for-1s with KReturn especially if you buffered with some lifegain early.
Midgame strategy (turns 4-8)
Curving out to Marvel with 6 energy is the main goal. Sometimes, delaying cracking the Vessel does the trick. Even with a ~70% chance of big payoff with 9 cmc+ cards, Marvel can sometimes miss but very low chance of hitting 6 lands so you should still be able to get a free spell out of it. Getting a free Puzzleknot builds up energy fast for another activation and hitting Traverse, Grapple or Vessel mid-game is usually another chance to hit payoff.
Getting a Familiar to survive to Turn 4-5 emerge with the Octopus can be backbreaking for the opponent, especially with KReturn in the graveyard. Conduit of ruin is an interesting addition, allowing you to topdeck an Eldrazi titan to ensure Marvel payoff or just get your next Eldrazi come in cheaper next turn (best case is a 4-mana Emrakul!).
Late game (turns 8+)
Your opponent should just scoop if you make it past turn 8 as your topdecks with Eldrazi titans should end the game quickly.
Sideboarding
With an Infinite Ob variant (Lost legacy) and other exile effects, 2x Coax should come in to recover your finishers. Counterspells (3-4 cards) - will vary depending on the meta. Given low land count, 1-2 lands can come in vs slower decks. Anti-enchantment finishers are also possible via World breaker and Mockery of Nature. Lastly, if super fast aggro becomes a thing, you can consider Ishkanah and Gnarlwood dryad.
Update: Switched Familiar with Thriving turtle to speed up energy ramp and early wall. Removed utility lands to smooth out mana. Split between Traverse and Attune. Currently considering split between Contingency plan and Grapple as well.
Update: switched sideboard counterspells for sweepers in view of aggro-heavy meta early in the format
Update: changed Turtles to Servant and Conduit to Nissa's renewal. Servant acts as a mana fork early so it's better than the turtle. Renewal is a great hit with marvel as it buffers you lifegain and ramps you up to allow you to cast those fatties stuck in your hand. Revised the lands to accommodate more basics.
I feel like Ishkanah, Grafwidow is in an odd place. I wanted to put in Combustible Gearhulk as an even more threat but the curve is too far off for hard cast and double red seems a bit difficult as well. I think the spider stays at the moment.
Testing against potential aggro decks (key weakness for ramp decks) suggests that lifegain from woodweaver's puzzleknot and filigree familiar will be important.
Ishkanah is typically used as the bridge between early-game setup and payoffs. Having incidental lifegain from your setup cards makes her redundant and push her to SB.
Attune with aether vs Traverse is an interesting dilemma, as Attune provides you with energy ramp early but is a dead draw later on, while a delirium-active Traverse is an excellent toolbox card later on. The way I see it, in balancing the energy needs, Attune works well with the blue puzzleknot (6 energy total) and Traverse with the green puzzleknot (6 energy as well).
Karsten's CFB article suggests 9+ payoff cards of 5cmc+ for Marvel to have 70% success rate, something to consider.
The other difficult part of the deck is finding the right balance for the mana base. The Pantheon's deck ran 21 lands with Nissa's pilgrimage and Pilgrim's eye to secure land drops while my version is only at 20 lands. So far, mana screw hasn't been an issue but worth observing moving forward.
You're right. Judging from SCG versus video, that additional lifegain from Woodweaver's Puzzleknot can be crucial against aggro decks and additional energy compared to Glassblower's Puzzleknot also changes the whole scenario. Of course the blue puzzleknot is able to filter top decks, giving better hit for Aetherworks Marvel but with 10 payoff cards I think it should be ok.
After few playtests, the thing I like about Woodweaver's Puzzleknot is that, a single card is able to charge 6 energy for Aetherworks Marvel. Example, if you have 6 energy and the legendary artifact and hit no big dudes but the green puzzleknot is there, I would play it and crack it to get another 6 more energy to activate again next turn and I believe it will be a sure hit Emrakul or Ulamog.
All in all, I like it. It just that hitting a land drop every turn can be tough but there are some tricks to handle it now that we are missing Primal Druid and Pilgrim's Eye. It can be slower but at the right time, Marvel can just turn the game around.
The gameplan is hardly fair. It involves self-milling to get Emrakul as early as Turn 6 even without Aetherworks marvel. I think having redundancies in your win condition makes the deck more resilient.
I agree that you can't always activate Marvel the turn you land it, as the energy ramp isn't all-in, but is usually doable 1-2 turns after.
The deck is still ramp to Emrakul focused and what you now have is incidental lifegain from the setup for a secondary win-con via Marvel-puzzleknot.
I feel like having Marvel as a primary win con is still better. Just need to tweak to make it consistent turn 4 Marvel with 6 energy counters. Self milling, or other strategy can be secondary. Like Karsten's CFB article suggested Architect of the Untamed and Demon of Dark Schemes as an alternative in case no Marvel to be found with all the energy saved.
I've switched to Thriving turtles over Familiar, as 2/2 with 2 life wasn't saving me much during early game. Smoother on the mana too.
Split Traverse and Attune since first 2 Traverse are used mainly as land tutor anyway.
These changes also increases energy ramp.
Aether Meltdown is a 2-drop which clashes with cards that will further our gameplan alot better like the puzzleknot. Also, harnessed lightning provides a "cleaner" removal as creatures hit with meltdown can still be sac for emerge.
True, but harnessed lightning uses the energy it creates, Meltdown does not and it will shut down a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Lathnu Hellion, Fleetwheel Cruiser, and greatly hamper the Gearhulks, Archangel Avacyn or an Ulvenwald Hydra, etc. You can also cast it in response to Bristling Hydra activating hexproof or play it on an emerged creature. It probably depends on deck going against as to which is better, but you might want to play test with 2 of Aether Meltdown and cut down to 3 Harnessed Lightning and 3 puzzleknots or try it in sideboard vs midrange decks. It may not be worth it in playtesting but it might.
So far in my testing harnessed lightning has been a great answer to smuggler's copter, and against other aggro / vehicle threats. It could be that there's merit to run Aether Meltdown when facing midrange threats. It's also easier on the mana with Blue instead of Red. Will test it out. Thanks.
I've switched to Thriving turtles over Familiar, as 2/2 with 2 life wasn't saving me much during early game. Smoother on the mana too.
Split Traverse and Attune since first 2 Traverse are used mainly as land tutor anyway.
These changes also increases energy ramp.
How do you expect to get out an emerge without 3 drops? It's super risky to activate Marvel on your opponents turn, so these changes make Elder Deep-Feind a strange card to play.
You apparently can do it at instant speed. That makes all the difference in the world. You pretty much always want to activate the marvel during your opponent's turn. (I thought it worked like Abbot of Keral Keep which does not dodge timing restrictions)
Been playing this to see if it was worth running on my channel and I ran into a huge problem with it. If Aetherworks marvel is removed you are dead in the water.
I had a game where I had two marvels right off. My opponent was playing a Sultai variant of Delirium. This was post sideboard. My opponent used Appetite for the Unnatural on the first one (which I cast when I had 5 energy) and Negate on the second.
I wound up sitting there at 5 mana with Emrakul, the Promised End, World Breaker, Conduit of Ruin, and Elder Deep-Fiend in hand.
Oh I had a Turtle on the board (which I was using to block one of his two Grim Flayers every turn while he got to filter with the other. 5 Mana is not enough to emerge a turtle into Deep Fiend (but it would be for Familiar)
There is no backup strategy with this deck anymore. It relies solely on Marvel and nothing but. In order to have a backup plan you either need to put the Familiar back in - or have more lands/land fetches (Attune to Aether etc)
Also, since this deck consistently needs Marvel as it's key piece - running 3 is not enough. You need all 4 (although I also had a game where I drew all 3 - but I wound up winning that one because I had 12 energy when I finally played one - I was playing around Spell Queller so I waited until he was tapped out. I got Ishkana off the first and Emrakul off the 2nd casting)
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Key to the strategy is to use Grapple and Vessel to pick back lands, with exception of Vessel picking Marvel instead when you mill it. So you have 4 direct land tutors (Attune/Traverse) and 8 land tutors via milling (Grapple / Vessel).
I moved away from Familiar as coming down on turn 3 is too slow against aggro, which is this deck's main weakness. You will rather cast a sweeper by Turn 3. Against non-aggro builds, side in the extra 2 lands for better land drop consistency.
On counterspells / removals on Marvel, you just have to play around them to ensure you get at least 1 activation.
Getting stuck with 3-4 fatties is a variance issue I think (I assume mainly accumulated from draws as 3 fatties on opening hand should be a mulligan in most cases). I try to balance the fatties, trading conduits for Ishkanah and WB for Ulamogs, post-SB so that you can still have some plays at 5-7 mana.
Sideboarding against midrange-control
Out: -4 Turtle, -2 lightning, -2 return
In: +4 Crane, +2 Lumbering falls, +2 World breaker
These decks are slow enough that you can forgo some energy ramp from the Turtle for digging with Crane for Marvels. The Crane is also better for emerge at 2cmc. I would only side-out max 2 each of removals as these decks will typically try to be faster with more creatures post-board.
Sideboarding against Spirits with counterspells
Out: -4 Turtle, -2 Conduit
In: +4 Crane, +2 Ishkanah
Spirits is a tough matchup as it's both aggro and control. Cranes do double duty as artifact digger and flying wall. Ishkanah is also better here both as wall and as emerge fodder.
You can even consider dropping the artifacts (all 7 of them) for more sweepers, lands and WB and play like a typical Temurge deck.
Fortunately, Kaladesh has provided a way forward for the deck by bringing key additions - another way to accelerate payoffs and lifegain to buffer during early game setup. Welcome to Aether Temurge.
Early game strategy (turns 1-4)
Typical strategy is to use turns 1-2 to secure land drops / fix mana / populate graveyard cardtypes via Traverse, Grapple and Vessel. Turns 2-4 is to buffer with life gain and accumulate energy counters via Puzzleknot, Familiar and Lightning (yes, sometimes a Lightning for 0 is ok if you have 3 energy and Marvel in hand for Turn 4). Against aggro, you should aim for 3-for-1s with KReturn especially if you buffered with some lifegain early.
Midgame strategy (turns 4-8)
Curving out to Marvel with 6 energy is the main goal. Sometimes, delaying cracking the Vessel does the trick. Even with a ~70% chance of big payoff with 9 cmc+ cards, Marvel can sometimes miss but very low chance of hitting 6 lands so you should still be able to get a free spell out of it. Getting a free Puzzleknot builds up energy fast for another activation and hitting Traverse, Grapple or Vessel mid-game is usually another chance to hit payoff.
Getting a Familiar to survive to Turn 4-5 emerge with the Octopus can be backbreaking for the opponent, especially with KReturn in the graveyard. Conduit of ruin is an interesting addition, allowing you to topdeck an Eldrazi titan to ensure Marvel payoff or just get your next Eldrazi come in cheaper next turn (best case is a 4-mana Emrakul!).
Late game (turns 8+)
Your opponent should just scoop if you make it past turn 8 as your topdecks with Eldrazi titans should end the game quickly.
Sideboarding
With an Infinite Ob variant (Lost legacy) and other exile effects, 2x Coax should come in to recover your finishers. Counterspells (3-4 cards) - will vary depending on the meta. Given low land count, 1-2 lands can come in vs slower decks. Anti-enchantment finishers are also possible via World breaker and Mockery of Nature. Lastly, if super fast aggro becomes a thing, you can consider Ishkanah and Gnarlwood dryad.
Update: Switched Familiar with Thriving turtle to speed up energy ramp and early wall. Removed utility lands to smooth out mana. Split between Traverse and Attune. Currently considering split between Contingency plan and Grapple as well.
Update: switched sideboard counterspells for sweepers in view of aggro-heavy meta early in the format
Update: changed Turtles to Servant and Conduit to Nissa's renewal. Servant acts as a mana fork early so it's better than the turtle. Renewal is a great hit with marvel as it buffers you lifegain and ramps you up to allow you to cast those fatties stuck in your hand. Revised the lands to accommodate more basics.
4 Aether hub
4 Botanical sanctum
2 Evolving wilds
4 Forest
3 Island
2 Mountain
1 Shrine of the forsaken gods
Instants (10)
4 Harnessed lightning
2 Grapple with the past
4 Kozilek's return
Sorcery (8)
2 Traverse the ulvenwald
2 Attune to aether
2 Contingency plan
2 Nissa's renewal
4 Vessel of nascency
Artifacts (7)
4 Woodweaver's puzzleknot
3 Aetherworks marvel
Planeswalkers
1 Chandra, flamecaller
Creatures (10)
4 Servant of the conduit
3 Elder deep-fiend
1 Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger
2 Emrakul, the promised end
2 Lumbering falls
3 Radiant flames
4 Glint-nest crane
2 Ishkanah, grafwidow
2 Coax from the blind eternities
2 World breaker
4 Sage of Shalia's Claim
3 Aethertorch Renegade
2 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
4 Elder Deep-Fiend
3 Emrakul, the Promised End
4 Attune with Aether
4 Vessel of Nascency
2 Glassblower's Puzzleknot
4 Grapple with the Past
4 Kozilek's Return
4 Aetherworks Marvel
4 Aether Hub
2 Spirebluff Canal
4 Botanical Sanctum
8 Forest
3 Island
1 Mountain
Temur Emerge just found a new theme, energy. Best case scenario is turn 4 Emrakul, granted if lucky enough.
Turn 1 Attune with Aether (2 energy)
Turn 2 Grapple with the Past (finding a land, removing Kozilek's Return)
Turn 3 Aethertorch Renegade (6 energy, or 7 energy if Aether Hub is in)
Turn 4 Aetherworks Marvel. EOT hoping to find Emrakul, board wipe, swing for 13 on turn 5.
Attune with Aether : replacing Traverse the Ulvenwald, losing delirium effect but provides early energy counters.
Sage of Shalia's Claim : replacing Primal Druid, losing its ramp ability but provides energy at etb. Another option is Aether Theorist but I prefer to be heavy green with Attune with Aether, Vessel of Nascency and Grapple with the Past as early spells.
Aethertorch Renegade : replacing Pilgrim's Eye, losing land card replacement effect but grant 4 energy, which I think the best energy provider.
Glassblower's Puzzleknot : I think the blue puzzleknot is much more suitable than green Woodweaver's Puzzleknot because of scry. I thought of using Woodweaver's Puzzleknot over Sage of Shalia's Claim, but the elf provides a body for early blocker, or as emerge fodder.
Aetherworks Marvel : Its first ability well suited with emerge mechanic. With 17 cards providing energy counters, I think hitting 6 energy is relatively easy, and it might be able to be activated 2nd time as well.
I feel like Ishkanah, Grafwidow is in an odd place. I wanted to put in Combustible Gearhulk as an even more threat but the curve is too far off for hard cast and double red seems a bit difficult as well. I think the spider stays at the moment.
Modern : RG Titan Shift RG | RG Revolt Zoo RG | RG Ponza RG | RGW Naya Burn RGW
Legacy : RG Belcher RG
Ishkanah is typically used as the bridge between early-game setup and payoffs. Having incidental lifegain from your setup cards makes her redundant and push her to SB.
Attune with aether vs Traverse is an interesting dilemma, as Attune provides you with energy ramp early but is a dead draw later on, while a delirium-active Traverse is an excellent toolbox card later on. The way I see it, in balancing the energy needs, Attune works well with the blue puzzleknot (6 energy total) and Traverse with the green puzzleknot (6 energy as well).
Karsten's CFB article suggests 9+ payoff cards of 5cmc+ for Marvel to have 70% success rate, something to consider.
The other difficult part of the deck is finding the right balance for the mana base. The Pantheon's deck ran 21 lands with Nissa's pilgrimage and Pilgrim's eye to secure land drops while my version is only at 20 lands. So far, mana screw hasn't been an issue but worth observing moving forward.
After few playtests, the thing I like about Woodweaver's Puzzleknot is that, a single card is able to charge 6 energy for Aetherworks Marvel. Example, if you have 6 energy and the legendary artifact and hit no big dudes but the green puzzleknot is there, I would play it and crack it to get another 6 more energy to activate again next turn and I believe it will be a sure hit Emrakul or Ulamog.
All in all, I like it. It just that hitting a land drop every turn can be tough but there are some tricks to handle it now that we are missing Primal Druid and Pilgrim's Eye. It can be slower but at the right time, Marvel can just turn the game around.
Modern : RG Titan Shift RG | RG Revolt Zoo RG | RG Ponza RG | RGW Naya Burn RGW
Legacy : RG Belcher RG
The deck is still ramp to Emrakul focused and what you now have is incidental lifegain from the setup for a secondary win-con via Marvel-puzzleknot.
Modern : RG Titan Shift RG | RG Revolt Zoo RG | RG Ponza RG | RGW Naya Burn RGW
Legacy : RG Belcher RG
Split Traverse and Attune since first 2 Traverse are used mainly as land tutor anyway.
These changes also increases energy ramp.
4x Thriving Turtle
4x Aether Theorist
4x Servant of the Conduit
3x Whirler Virtuoso
2x Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
3x Emrakul, the Promised End
Plainswalkers (2)
1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1x Nissa, Vital Force
Instants (4)
2x Kozilek's Return
1x Negate
1x Blossoming Defense
4x Attune with Aether
2x Confiscation Coup
Other (6)
4x Aetherworks Marvel
2x Aether Meltdown
Land (22)
4x Aether Hub
3x Botanical Sanctum
3x Spirebluff Canal
2x Cinder Glade
4x Forest
3x Mountain
3x Island
4x Harnessed Lightning
3x Glint-Nest Crane
2x Negate
2x Blossoming Defense
2x Aether Meltdown
2x Kozilek's Return
Decided I would rather have turtles in main than harnessed lightning
How do you expect to get out an emerge without 3 drops? It's super risky to activate Marvel on your opponents turn, so these changes make Elder Deep-Feind a strange card to play.
EDIT: Wait.. does Marvel dodge timing restrictions on playing cards? (Goes rules hunting)
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/757522-aetherworks-marvel-and-emrakul-promised-end
You apparently can do it at instant speed. That makes all the difference in the world. You pretty much always want to activate the marvel during your opponent's turn. (I thought it worked like Abbot of Keral Keep which does not dodge timing restrictions)
I had a game where I had two marvels right off. My opponent was playing a Sultai variant of Delirium. This was post sideboard. My opponent used Appetite for the Unnatural on the first one (which I cast when I had 5 energy) and Negate on the second.
I wound up sitting there at 5 mana with Emrakul, the Promised End, World Breaker, Conduit of Ruin, and Elder Deep-Fiend in hand.
Oh I had a Turtle on the board (which I was using to block one of his two Grim Flayers every turn while he got to filter with the other. 5 Mana is not enough to emerge a turtle into Deep Fiend (but it would be for Familiar)
There is no backup strategy with this deck anymore. It relies solely on Marvel and nothing but. In order to have a backup plan you either need to put the Familiar back in - or have more lands/land fetches (Attune to Aether etc)
Also, since this deck consistently needs Marvel as it's key piece - running 3 is not enough. You need all 4 (although I also had a game where I drew all 3 - but I wound up winning that one because I had 12 energy when I finally played one - I was playing around Spell Queller so I waited until he was tapped out. I got Ishkana off the first and Emrakul off the 2nd casting)
I moved away from Familiar as coming down on turn 3 is too slow against aggro, which is this deck's main weakness. You will rather cast a sweeper by Turn 3. Against non-aggro builds, side in the extra 2 lands for better land drop consistency.
On counterspells / removals on Marvel, you just have to play around them to ensure you get at least 1 activation.
Getting stuck with 3-4 fatties is a variance issue I think (I assume mainly accumulated from draws as 3 fatties on opening hand should be a mulligan in most cases). I try to balance the fatties, trading conduits for Ishkanah and WB for Ulamogs, post-SB so that you can still have some plays at 5-7 mana.
Sideboarding against midrange-control
Out: -4 Turtle, -2 lightning, -2 return
In: +4 Crane, +2 Lumbering falls, +2 World breaker
These decks are slow enough that you can forgo some energy ramp from the Turtle for digging with Crane for Marvels. The Crane is also better for emerge at 2cmc. I would only side-out max 2 each of removals as these decks will typically try to be faster with more creatures post-board.
Sideboarding against Spirits with counterspells
Out: -4 Turtle, -2 Conduit
In: +4 Crane, +2 Ishkanah
Spirits is a tough matchup as it's both aggro and control. Cranes do double duty as artifact digger and flying wall. Ishkanah is also better here both as wall and as emerge fodder.
You can even consider dropping the artifacts (all 7 of them) for more sweepers, lands and WB and play like a typical Temurge deck.