Introduction
After I had finished my article on Legacy deck building I decided that my next one should be about Tempo. Tempo is the most important concept in fair vs fair Legacy games but it is also a topic with great mystery. In fact there is a standing joke on Twitter where people try to ask others what Tempo is. I hope this article will help demystify this concept and teach you how to use Tempo theory to guide your lines of play.
I have split the article into two parts. This first one covers the generic concepts of Tempo, and the second one is more of a primer for Sphere Lands. Sphere Lands was adopted and fine tuned by Daniel Peretz from Denmark when Urza’s Saga came out. It’s a new direction for Lands that takes us from a Control to more of a Tempo (or Prison-Aggro) deck. It’s incredibly powerful, it has a lot of free wins, and it improves our historical bad matchups without meaningfully worsening our good ones. I have made Top 8 of the three last online tournaments that I have played with Sphere Lands (May’s Showcase Challenge, the MOCS Qualifier, and a Sunday Challenge). Daniel has also won many big paper tournaments with the deck (such as the Tier one 5k that was held last year in Sweden).
alli note: Some statements and examples in this article might be basic and perhaps obvious. It’s hard to write about a fundamental concept like Tempo without stating some obvious things. But I hope that you will also learn some new things by reading this. Let’s dive into it!
Definition
Magic games don’t last infinite turns. If they did, the control deck would always win, and the kid at your LGS would be correct in thinking that Spirit of the Labyrinth is the best card in magic, much better than Delver of Secrets or any other small creature.
What does this have todo with Tempo? Well, have you ever lost a game with your hand full of spells? Maybe you focused on casting clunky cards, like Valakut Exploration or Narset, Parter of Veils, and forgot about that flying 3/2 insect that killed you? You just lost the game by ignoring Tempo.
Simple definition
But what is Tempo? I think of it as an emblem, very similar to the Initiative or Monarch, and the player who controls the “Tempo emblem” will eventually win the game unless “something changes”. Every turn that you are attacking you get to walk one room in the “Tempo Undercity”, but the rooms don’t do much except the last one that wins you the game. The player with the highest total power among the creatures on the battlefield is typically (but not always) the holder of the emblem, and the total power among your creatures determines how many rooms that you have to pass before you reach that final chapter.
As an example consider a boardstate where a D&T Player has Thalia against a UR Player that has Delver of Secrets. Both players are at 20 life. In this fictive example you could say that the D&T Player is in control of the Tempo emblem because unless “something changes” then Thalia will kill the UR Player in 10 turns, and Delver will kill the D&T Player in 20 turns. This implies that the UR Player has “to do something” in order to take back the emblem or they will eventually lose.
What can the UR Player do in order to take back the emblem? They could for example kill Thalia, or play more creatures, or even just flip their Delver into Insectile Aberration.
Statistical definition
You could argue that the UR Player is statistically speaking very likely to flip their Delver before turn 3, and then they actually win the race as Delver into Insectile Aberration will kill the D&T Player in 7 or 8 turns (compared to the 10 turns that it takes Thalia to kill the UR Player). Statistically speaking it’s more correct to say that UR Player has the Tempo emblem in this example. This definition is different from a simple definition of Tempo that only looks at the current boardstate.
In a format like Legacy, that has many combo decks, it’s better to think of Tempo in a statistical way. Assume that a Lands player starts with Taiga into Elvish Reclaimer against a Storm player that starts with Underground Sea into Ponder. By a simple definition of Tempo the Lands player has the emblem but this is flawed.
I would argue that the Storm player actually has the emblem in this situation because they are very likely to end the game before Reclaimer attacks them down to zero. It is the Lands player that has “to do something” in this game or they will lose. In fact a deck like Storm always has no Tempo (in a simple definition) before they kill you. They just play lands until they reach that one turn where they play a bunch of spells and win. Their Tempo Undercity has just one room (Throne of the Dead Three) and the simple definition of Tempo has no meaning in this context. It’s much more helpful to consider if you can kill your Storm opponent before they statistically speaking will kill you. If you can’t do this then you don’t have the Tempo emblem and you better act in a way to delay their combo from being executed.
You can also get this singularity in the Tempo Undercity when playing vs a deck with reach. If you are below four life vs a deck with Lightning Bolt then your opponent has reached the final room before “Throne of the Dead Three” and any top decked burn spell will kill you. You now have to act as if you are playing vs a combo deck instead of a fair deck, and you no longer have the luxury to trade the emblem back and forth with your opponent.
alli note: Simple definition of the Tempo emblem can be summarized as “who is currently ahead on the board” and statistical definition can be summarized as something like “who is favored to win first”. This is not always the same player.
Usage
In a game like magic, that has a bottleneck thanks to the mana system, you won’t be able to play your entire hand every turn. You need to prioritize how you sequence your cards, and the Tempo emblem can be a good way to assess your role in a given situation. This is important when playing a deck like Lands that is multi-dimensional.
Strategic direction
If you are in control of the emblem then you will win the game unless “something changes” and you should try to figure out what your opponent can do in order to take it back, and make plays that prevent this. Likewise, if you are not in control of the emblem then you will have to change things up by either removing your opponents creatures, growing your Constructs, or try to end the game with Marit Lage.
Level-up tip: If you want to improve in this aspect of magic then you can create a Tempo emblem and pass it around between you and your opponent when playtesting. It’s not certain that you and your testing partner always agree on who has control of the emblem (in a statistical definition), and this can lead to interesting discussions.
Spot removal and Tempo
It’s obviously better to steal the Tempo emblem from your opponent than to just neutralize it, and this is why it’s never a good trade to use spot removal by itself. You are trading a card one-for-one, but you are at best coming out even in terms of both Tempo and Card advantage. Say that your opponent has a Thalia and you spend two mana removing it with Lightning Bolt.
- Before casting Lightning Bolt
- Opponent has Thalia and 2 lands.
- You have 2 lands.
- Tempo emblem: Opponent
- After casting Lightning Bolt
- Opponent has 2 lands.
- You have 2 lands.
- Tempo emblem: No one.
You came out even in this exchange, but if you had instead spent your two mana to cast a creature that is larger than Thalia (or that kills Thalia like Orcish Bowmaster) then you would have taken back the emblem and come out ahead.
- Before casting Orcish Bowmaster
- Opponent has Thalia and 2 lands.
- You have 2 lands.
- Tempo emblem: Opponent
- After casting Orcish Bowmaster
- Opponent has 2 lands.
- You have an Orcish Bowmaster, an Orc Army and 2 lands.
- Tempo emblem: You.
Many creatures in Legacy (like Uro, Stoneforge Mystic, Baleful Strix, Orcish Bowmaster etc) have ETB effects that effectively “draws a card” and if you spend classic spot removal on these then you are at best coming out even in Tempo but losing on Card advantage.
Spot removal only gets you out ahead if you already have a threat in play. If you would have had a Delver of Secrets in play when you cast Lightning Bolt on your opponent’s Thalia (in the example above) then you would have taken back the Tempo emblem and come out ahead in the exchange. This is not only valid for Tempo decks, it also applies to Control decks. I don’t care too much if my control opponent removes my creature unless they have something like a Narset in play that will generate value for them every turn that it sticks around. This is why a planeswalker like Teferi, Time Raveler is so broken. Instead of spending your mana removing a creature you can cast Teferi and bounce it. You have now dramatically changed the board as your opponent has nothing but you have a planeswalker. Further, the static ability of Teferi makes it so that your opponent cannot kill it on your turn. They have to spend mana on their own turn to kill your planeswalker, and this means that they (possibly) can’t recast their creature on the same turn. You have just given yourself a free Time Walk by casting a three mana planeswalker.
Daze and free Time Walks
Speaking about free Time Walks. Have you ever thought about the cost for playing around Daze? It feels horrible to get your spell countered by Daze, and many people are inclined to “do nothing” this turn and wait until the next turn when they can pay the additional tax on Daze. But when you “do nothing” this turn then you are effectively giving your opponent a free Time Walk (or at least a free Silence). The value of this free Silence highly depends on who has the Tempo emblem. If you have the emblem then it’s fairly cheap to play around Daze. You are already winning this game anyway, and it’s better to save your resources for when your opponent makes a play that tries to steal the emblem from you. On the contrary if your opponent has the emblem then you are giving them a broken free spell by playing around Daze.
 You give your opponent this card by playing around Daze if you have the Tempo emblem. |  You give your opponent this card by playing around Daze if they have the Tempo emblem via a 3/3 DRC. |
Thalia has a similar effect to Daze since her taxing ability effectively forces your opponent to “play around Daze” for every non-creature spell that they cast. Thalia is also a 2/1 creature so every free Silence that your opponent gives you also comes with a free Shock attached. Sphere of Resistance does the same taxing, but in order to capitalize on the free Silences that Sphere provides we need to have a board presence (more about this in next week’s article).
Final words
I hope that this article has helped demystify the concept of Tempo. Just think of it as another emblem that you fight over. In a sense it’s pretty similar to the Initiative except that it’s only the last room that really gives you an advantage (albeit a pretty huge one). Tempo theory can help give you strategic direction, and it can help prioritize how you should sequence your cards.
Many long-time Legacy players think of Tempo as “going down on cards” but going “up on time”. I think this comes from the historical RUG Stifle Delver lists that would run with razor thin margins and ride their small Tempo advantage to victory by Forcing removal etc. In my definition of Tempo you don’t have to go down on cards to take the Tempo emblem, and in FIRE design magic many cards give you both Card and Tempo advantage. Say for example that I escape Uro (against a semi-empty board) then I have effectively gone up on cards, but I have also created a 6/6 body and gained three life. Uro will kill my opponent in a few turns so I have also taken the Tempo emblem.
In general you want to be the holder of the Tempo emblem because then you can slow down and preserve your resources for when your opponent tries to take it back. This applies to all fair decks in Legacy and certainly also to Lands. I used to play a very controlish Lands build, with two Sylvan Library and three Valakut Exploration, and when I played vs a fair deck my strategy was to accelerate out one of these value engines and then slow my opponent down with Maze of Ith, Tabernacle and Rishadan Port. Every turn that my value engine stayed in play I would accrue an advantage, and I just wanted to slow the game down until I had buried my opponent in this advantage. This is certainly utilizing concepts from Tempo theory, you first cast a permanent that gets you ahead on board, and then spend your resources to slow your opponent down in order to let this permanent accrue value for you.
In Sphere Lands your value engine is Urza’s Saga, and this gives you a really fast clock so you become more of an Prison-Aggro deck. Saga does not cost mana the turn that you play it (in fact it generates one mana on its first turn) so you become much faster compared to the old Lands deck. I like to start with Mox Diamond and Urza’s Saga into Sphere of Resistance. Sphere slows my opponent down, by effectively forcing them to “pay the Daze tax” for every spell that they play, while also speeding my own plan up by growing my Constructs. I often find myself winning with zero cards in hand where my opponent has six or seven. It definitely feels like I am playing a “Tempo deck” and not a “Control deck”. It might still be wrong to call Sphere Lands a “Tempo deck” as the word has a very specific meaning for people, and it often references the old RUG Stifle Delver deck. But then again what is really the difference between a “Tempo deck” and a “Prison-Aggro deck”?
Thanks for reading!
// alli
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