Red/Blue/Green Ramp Deck with Temporal Mastery

August 11, 2012 | Posted by Dee

Reid Duke is the man. Two weeks ago, he wrote about Red/Blue/Green (RUG) Wolf Run Ramp in a premium article. The deck was underrated at the time. Then, last weekend he put the deck on the map with a first place finish at the Starcitygames Standard Open in Washington, D.C.

He even beat two Blue/White (UW) Delver decks in the semifinals and finals. Check out his decklist below.

Wolf Run Blue
Creatures (14)
Spells (20)
Lands (26)
Sideboard (15)

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Temporal Mastery is a good card for ramp decks. If you have the card in your opening hand, it’s not too bad because a ramp deck is designed to hit seven mana quickly. You can often hardcast Temporal Mastery on turn five, which is reasonable enough.

Also, ramp decks play a lot of lands. Reid’s deck plays 26. With all these lands, if you miracle Temporal Mastery on turn three, you have a good chance of turning the card into a high-powered Explore.

Early in the game, that is Temporal Mastery’s main role as a two mana miracle. It functions as an Explore that also gives you an extra turn.

Late in the game, the blue miracle spell becomes really good if you have a Titan on the board. You can attack twice before your opponent takes his turn. This gives you a lot of value from the Titan’s triggered abilities and you deal a ton of damage.

If you have Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run on the battlefield, Temporal Mastery is generally lethal unless your opponent has a flying blocker that can trade with the infect flyer. You’ll usually have enough lands to deal 10 infect damage after attacking twice with Inkmoth Nexus and buffing it up with Kessig Wolf Run.

Taking an extra turn has the side benefit of untapping a land locked down by Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. I had one game where I was in topdeck mode with zero cards in hand while my opponent just played Tamiyo and tapped Inkmoth Nexus.

I drew Temporal Mastery and cast it. I took the extra turn and untapped Inkmoth Nexus during the untap step. Then, I killed my opponent with it since I had Kessig Wolf Run and enough mana to pump the manland for lethal damage.

Bonfire of the Damned is another miracle card that is good in ramp decks. Its regular cost is decent and it’s an X-spell so the more mana, the better. Primeval Titan gives you a lot of lands in a hurry. I’ve hardcast Bonfire for 6 to win a game. That’s tapping 13 lands for those counting.

I would cut the Blasphemous Act for the fourth Bonfire. I’m not sure why Reid played Blasphemous Act. There are not a lot of token decks running around and the card kills your own Titans. Bonfire seems better and having more copies gives you more chances for miracles. Bonfire is an awesome topdeck especially in a deck that generates a lot of mana.

Ponder has a lot of utility in this deck because it sets up miracle cards. Also, you can shuffle away cards from the top of your library with Solemn Simulacrum, Primeval Titan, Rampant Growth, and Farseek.

Speaking of Farseek, this M13 ramp spell replaced Sphere of the Suns. Along with comboing with Ponder, it also doesn’t die to artifact removal like Ancient Grudge or run out of charge counters.

Phantasmal Image underperformed for me. I think Reid played it to give him more outs against Geist of Saint Traft. If that card is not a big part of your local metagame, I recommend cutting Image and replacing it with something else.

If your local metagame has a lot of aggressive decks, you can try playing Whipflare instead. If there are many control decks, Beast Within is a decent card for those matchups.

Filed Under Standard 

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