Today’s Featured Deck comes from the SCG Open in Washingdon DC where Joseph Page piloted a Temur Midrange stragey, however instead of the conventional use of creatures like Savage Knuckleblade and Stormbreath Dragon, Page utilised Temur Ascendancy and enough devotion to make infinite mana, play every creature in his deck and swing for infinite damage, all in one turn. Lets look at how he did it:

Temur Ascendancy Combo – Joseph Page @ SCG Open Series Washington DC Jan. 2015

Mainboard

Creatures (30) 4x Sylvan Caryatid

4x Voyaging Satyr

4x Courser of Kruphix

4x Eidolon of Blossoms

4x Temur Sabertooth

3x Karametra’s Acolyte

2x Polukranos, World Eater

1x Nylea, God of the Hunt

4x Genesis Hydra Other Spells (7) 4x Temur Ascendancy

3x Singing Bell Strike

Land (23) 4x Frontier Bivouac

4x Yavimaya Coast

4x Wooded Foothills

1x Swiftwater Cliffs

1x Mana Confluence

4x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

4x Forest

1x Mountan Sideboard 2x Hunt the Hunter

3x Kiora, the Crashing Wave

3x Nylea’s Disiple

3x Nissa, Worldwaker

2x Reclaimation Sage

2x Setessan Tactics

Deck Breakdown

The way the deck performs the aforementioned ‘play everything and attack’ strategy is through a complex devotion engine that cycles permanents, producing one mana at a time. The engine breaks down like this:

Build your board to seven devotion, including with a Temur Ascendancy, Temur Sabertooth and Karametra’s Acolyte. Tap Karametra’s Acolyte for seven green mana, pay 1G from Temur Sabertooth to bounce the Acolyte back to your hand, then play it again for 3G. With Temur Ascendancy granting Haste, repeat the process, each cycle making seven green mana, but only costing six, resulting in making one green mana each time. With infinite green mana, play Genesis Hydra where x = the number of cards in your deck minus 1 (the minus 1 is very important as Temur Ascendancy lets you draw a card) and play Nylea, God of the Hunt. (optional) Bounce back Genesis Hydra, repeat step 4 as many times as necessary to play every non-land permanent in your deck. Because Genesis Hydra (and all other creatures) have Haste, use Nylea’s ability to pump them all to infinite/infinite with Trample and attack. Go to game two.

Other cards in the deck help to produce the seven mana needed to get the engine going. Voyaging Satyr and Nythos, Shrine to Nyx can act in the same way as Karametra’s Acolyte. Equally, Enchanting Karametra’s Acolyte with a Singing Bell Strike means that you no longer require Temur Sabertooth’s bounce ability. Instead you create seven mana, and untap the Acolyte for six.

Outside of the combo, the deck can still play a decent Mono-Green Devotion strategy. Cards like Courser of Kruphix and Eidolon of Blossoms can generate card advantage. Polukranos, World Eater can be used as a great early attacker and Genesis Hydra can still be played as a big, game winning threat. The original archetype hasn’t been diluted too much in order make room for the combo which allows the deck the ability to switch roles when necessary.

Looking Forward

Now you understanding how the combo works, the next step is to see how to improve it. The core of Temur Sabertooth, Karametra’s Acolyte, Voyaging Satyr and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx need to remain obviously, however the Haste enabler could very well change.

One option could be to cut the blue all together and run Hammer of Purphoros in Temur Ascendancy’s place. The benefits of this include having a stronger mana base whilst still being able to create infinite mana. In addition, Genesis Hydra and Nylea, God of the Hunt would not be necessary. Instead, sinking all of the mana into a Crater’s Claw would be a much simpler way of converting infinite mana into infinite damage.

The issue with this however is the lack of devotion to green Hammer of Purphoros gives you. From testing, there is a big difference between six and seven devotion. Mana accelerant, Temur Ascendancy, Temur Sabertooth, Karametra’s Acolyte and one more creature with two devotion such as Courser of Kruphix or Polukranos, World Eater is a secure and achievable way to reach seven devotion, but because Hammer of Purphoros does not provide any devotion, the deck needs another creature in play which takes more turns and leaves it more vulnerable to removal. That said, being able to combo off into a Crater’s Claw instead does make the process simpler and allows the combo to dodge any niche hate, for example Ætherspouts, which could become more prominent if the deck becomes popular. The question of whether the drawback outweighs the gain is up for debate however.

The second option would be to use Chariot of Victory. The benefits of this include being able to run a Mono-Green devotion strategy primarily while incorporating the combo into the deck for the ability to go over the top of the opponent. This iteration does however suffer from the same problem as the previous. The use of Chariot of Victory means every time you go through the cycle, you will need one mana extra to equip it to Karametra’s Acolyte. This means that you need to be able to make eight devotion rather than seven, couple that with the lack of devotion to green Chariot of Victory gives and it’s not difficult to see that this deck could struggle.

The way the problems with these two decks could be mitigated depends on whether spending the time to play an extra creature is acceptable. Because the creature played would likely have two devotion to green – Courser of Kruphix, Eidolon of Blossoms, Polukranos, World Eater etc. – the difference between seven and eight devotion is negligible. Both decks have the potential to get stuck at six devotion, with one needing seven and the other needing eight. If there is time in the games to play one of these creatures, both decks may have a shot. The Mono-Green variant also has the option of running Arbor Colossus which increases the chance of making the high devotion count.

So that is the Temur Ascendancy Combo deck explained and a few of my thoughts on where the combo can go from here. I expect the Temur version to be played for now as it will take some time to see whether another variant – like the ones discussed above – is possible, or whether Page stumbled on the best build for the combo early!

What do you think of Temur Ascenacy Combo? Do you think running three colours is necessary, or is it possible to cut some out? Also, do you have any suggestions on how Joseph Page’s deck could be improved after this weekend? Leave your responses and deck suggestions in the comment section below.

You can watch Joseph Page discuss his deck with Nick Miller at the SCG Open here.