Elysian Tempo. Deck+Guide

This deck is a tempo deck that looks to establish an early board advantage then ride continuous cheap disruption and a steady stream of cards from nightfall to victory. The deck is very similar to Team Rankstar's reverse card advantage deck. While this version does lack the additional nightfall units the shadow version does, it makes up for it with a more consistent power base and card quality being able to include a card like Teacher of Humility.

Like in any tempo deck, you value time, power efficiency and cheap interaction over raw card advantage. Early units provide you with enough of a board presence to start applying pressure. Back that up with efficient removal like Permafrost and Equivocate and you can keep your opponent on the back foot long enough for you to get the win. Power efficiency is key. Especially when you reach the mid game and are able to play two cards, most likely a disruption card and an additional threat to increase your clock.

Nightfall is what brings the entire deck together. You are able to take advantage of the extra cards significantly better than your opponent due to how power efficient you are. Nightfall provides incidental damage and the steady stream of cards you need to continue disrupting and pressuring the opponent. An early disciplinary weights on the opponent can render their extra cards useless while maul actually turns those cards against them.

While most of the card inclusions are obvious once you understand the above, I will go over a few of the atypical card choices here.

Hesitate and Slow - Both of these cards showcase the time element that you value in a tempo deck. Delaying a spell or large unit for a turn or two is just as good as negating it a majority of the time in this deck. It provides just enough time for you to get in an extra attack before that cruicial sweep or before a big butt blocker comes down. Both cards are very power efficient and allow you to double drop alongside another unit early in the game. With Slow, think ahead. You need to be able to map out the script of the game in order to make the correct choice. It might only be turn 1 but Slowing a Tavrod or Rizahn might be the right choice if you expect the game to get to that point. Hesitate is particularly brutal against midrange and control opponents banking on a Harsh Rule or End of the Story to wipe your board.

Praxis Displacer - This card hasn't seen much play since the nerf but I feel it's a good inclusion here. Again, we want disruption and continued pressure. This is both of those things in a single card. It doesn't have to have great stats as long as it does exactly what the deck wants. I have tried SST, Poaching Drake, and a variety of other better statted and evasive units in this slot and the displacer has been the best performing of them all.

The lone Crest - One of the downsides to a 2 faction deck with Standards and a high power count is that it actually hurts your chances of hitting your influence requirements on time. Crest, and to an extent Diplomatic Seal, are a nod to that. To give us a higher percentage chance of hitting our influence requirements on a redraw. I only included one due to the fact that we want to have as few depleted power sources as possible.

Entangling Vines in the market - This slot could easily change. I didn't like crystallize due to it costing 5. You already spend several turns in the mid game using removal spells to keep the opponents units locked down. Very rarely would crystallize ever hit more than 2 units. I thought Vines would do much of the same but, yet again, be more power efficient. Crystallize would be better against go wider strategies like various tokens decks and other aground decks, but those matchups are already pretty bad for you. Very very rarely do you get to the point in those matchups where you can play AND capitalize on the crystallize, not just delay the inevitable.

This deck has great matchups against midrange decks that really only can do 1 thing per turn. Has good matchups against control decks due to being able to constant apply pressure thanks to a low curve and damage/cards from nightfall. The deck tends to have rough matchups against otherdecks that go wide or are just as power efficient. In the right meta, I believe this deck can be a great choice or both ladder or tournament play.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. Be sure to catch me on twitch where I will most likely be streaming this deck for the foreseeable future. Twitch.tv/nrausch1 .

Enjoy!