Welcome, to Modern obscurity!
This is my Temur-ific take on an Izzet deck that's been gliding around in modern tournaments for a while now; Shape Anew + Sphinx-Bone Wand
control.
Now, why did we add Green to an already existing deck? The Izzet deck had been doing well in tournaments when present, so why fix what isn't broken?
Because my friends... It kinda was broken, and in need of an adjustment.
What part of the deck was in need of doctoring?
Previous Shape Anew + Sphinx-Bone Wand
decks would operate thusly; You'd run 4 Trinket Mages, with a 0 cmc artifact like Everflowing Chalice, Tormod's Crypt or Astral Cornucopia as the target. You'd then sacrifice it with Shape Anew, hoping to hit a Sphinx-Bone Wand, effectively cheating it into play...
But it's not effective, and these questions will illustrate why.
1) Do we only run 1 copy of each artifact (The 0 cmc artifact, and a 7 cmc wand)?
2) If so, then what do we do if we draw the Wand before we cast Shape Anew?
3) If we do decide to run multiple copies of the artifacts, what if we Shape Anew into another 0 cmc artifact? And if we only run 1 Tormod's Crypt but multiple wands, then we can only Shape Anew once?
4) Is a Trinket Mage the best creature we could possibly run for this strategy? Is this the best card advantage / board advantage we can expect to get in this deck?
Obviously, the answers are kinda unsettling if we want your deck to have any consistency or power... So my answer to this problem, is ADD GREEN, for the Standard allstar Tireless Tracker!
Why is Tireless Tracker the answer to all our problems?
For the purposes of this deck (and perhaps in general), Tireless Tracker is better than Trinket Mage in every way; it turns our land drops into ARTIFACT GENERATORS. This means we can run multiple copies of Sphinx-Bone Wand, and have it be the ONLY artifact card in the deck. This is sweet, and guarantees that Shape Anew hits the right target. he's also a 3/2 that can veeeeeery easily become a bigger threat all on his own. On top of all this, clues are a great friggin' thing to have. 2 mana draw a card? yus please.
In the case of Everflowing Chalice + Trinket Mage
(or some other 0 cmc artifact), Tireless Tracker takes up less space in the deck, functions as a better creature, and makes the deck run more smoothly. 10 / 10, would cast.
So what about the rest of the deck?
EDIT It has been over a year now since I've put this deck together, and it's taken on a pretty different personality and appearance since its inception. Savage Knuckleblade and Sylvan Caryatid were definitely not on my hot-list, but I threw em in to try out the deck against my friends... And holy crap do they perform!
Savage Knuckleblade is such a good Temur midrange creature, because of it's utility and board presence. a 4/4 for 3, that can haste himself for a 4th mana, protect himself by returning himself to your hand, and even pump himself up into a 6/6? Yeah he's mana hungry, but it's really about scaring your opponent with mana up that makes him a huge threat; with 3 mana up and him swinging, do you block it? Let it through? What do you do? There are very few creaturea that can gove Goyf a run for it's money, and fizzle a Fatal Push.
Sylvan Caryatid is the best mana dork for this deck. One of the best blockers we could ask for with perfect mana-fixing, that only really dies to board wipes. A turn 2 Caryatid and a land in hand means turn 3 we can cast Tireless Tracker and get a clue right away. Yeah. That's awesome. Turn 4 we can Shape Anew, play another land, so we could potentially have 1 mana up for a Vapor Snag, Lightning Bolt or Distortion Strike? Siiiiiiiick.
Surrak Dragonclaw, Prophet of Kruphix and Disciple of the Ring are our creature curve-toppers. Disciple of the Ring Serves as support of a tonne of other cards; 1 mana and exiling instants/sorceries from our yard to do a myriad of things is great. Spell Pierce on a stick? Nice. Tap/Untap a creature? Whoa. Even making herself bigger can be beneficial in certain circumstances.
Prophet of Kruphix and Surrak Dragonclaw are the creature-support beasties, granting us some really strong play-potential, with Flash, Trample, Uncounterable creatures!
And finally, we have the value creatures, Merfolk Looter and Clever Impersonator. Looter js a great source of card selection, allowing us to steadily draw through our deck to find our combo and our answers.
Clever Impersonator however, is a massively strong threat, able to copy anything opponent is doing, as well as copy up anything we may want from our own board. With Prophet of Kruphix out, or a Chord of Calling, the Impersonator can even act as a pseudo anti-removal spell!
Now, this is just a speculation...
But When I first brewed this deck, I was thinking of what Sphinx-Bone Wand wants in an instant/sorcery. Free Cmc? Multiple triggers? On-board uility? I decided on the two latter, and hear me out, because there's certain spells that work better than others in this weird midrange strategy.
Phyrexian mana: If Gitaxian Probe wasn't banned, I still wouldn't run it. Apostle's Blessing is circumstantial, and Gut Shot / Mutagenic Growth just... don't matter. Not for the 2 life loss anyway. Having cards in our hand is important, so wasting them on lacklustre cards is just kinda silly. The only one I'd really evwn consider is Noxious Revival, and only in the Sideboard / Maybeboard against Mill.
Rebound: Now we're talking! Rebound is a fantastic use of our spells, as it's effectively 2 spells in one. Now, it also needs to have a reasonably low cmc, so World at War won't cut it. Distortion Strike works incredibly well for us, potentially getting in for 5 damage with Savage Knuckleblade, then 5 more? Daaaaaang.
Buyback: There were a few times when testdriving, that I had the Wand out, only to not have enough spells in hand to win. No longer! Mystic Speculation is a wonderful card-selection spell, that can keep coming back. 3 mana Scry 3 on every turn? With a wand out, this is a ticking clock. This also alleviates the pain of drawing nothing but lands!
Modal: Oh Hellz yeah. I like having options, and the allstars of utility in the instant/sorcery spots would be Beast Within, Mission Briefing and Simic Charm. Simic Charm offers some of the best protection and utility around. 2 mana anthem hexproof? Sorry Naturalize effects, I keep this Wand kk thnx bye. Beast Within is the best unrestrictive removal spell barring Assassin's Trophy, killing Mind Sculptors, Tasigurs and Powerplants -- and can also work defensively, as you could poop a blocker out of nowhere by destroying one of your lands! Bam.
Mission Briefing, because Snapcaster Mage is damn near $100CAD each. Dang though, it synergizes really well with Sphinx-Bone Wand!
And finally, our damage spells. Lightning Bolt and Vapor Snag. Lightning Bolt is Lightning Bolt, moving on! Vapor Snag is a cheap bounce effect that can inch our opponents closer to death. Yeah, protecting your own guys at the cost of 1 life kinda sucks, but sometimes it's better than losing it completely.
What's going on with that Sideboard?
Indeed, we have an off-Temur Shockland of all things, along with 2 Boros and 3 Black instants. What exactly am I thinking with this?
Well sit down young Padowan, because I'm going to tell you something; this deck gets run over by aggressive decks. Like nothing.
Infect, Burn, Humans, Bogles, Goryo's Vengeance, Zoo, Bridge-from-below, Mill, Ponza. It all adds up to us being dead by turn 5, if not sooner. Sadly, Sphinx-Bone Wand doesn't do anything for us to pull us out of a bad situation.
So to supplement our Shape Anew strategy, we have an expanded gameplan; swap out 2 Sphinx-Bone Wand for 2 Platinum Angel, add Madcap Experiment, Chance for Glory, and Temple Garden!
Yes, we have a Selesnya Shockland in a Temur sideboard JUST for 2 cards. Yes, we have 3 Sylvan Caryatid and 2 Mana Confluence, but those can't be tutored with a Wooded Foothills. This just makes it more reliable.
Platinum Angel is a sweet-af answer to a Boros Burn or Simic Infect player barreling down on us for lethal, by just saying "lol sorry I don't die".
Although Shape Anew can grab the Angel in these matchups, we can't afford to rely on Tireless Tracker pooping out clues in order to save ourselves, so Madcap Experiment can do it all on it's own -- albeit, in perhaps the riskiest way possible. Chance for Glory is here, simply to assure that the Angel (and other beasties of course) don't die to removal. Simic Charm lends it's support by bouncing / hexproofing, so besides mass exile like mass eviction and Settle the Wreckage, we can potentially work through the barrage of Paths and Doom blades that Angel would have pointed at it.
But the fun doesn't stop there, because we're also squeezing BLACK into this sideboard with Surgical Extraction! Oh boi this is a good card, working together with our other removal/counter/LD magic to strip away ANY threat our opponent may be packing. Thank god for the Phyrexian mana symbol, so we can easily respond to a turn 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn / Griselbrand by exiling it and the rest of the copies!
Scavenging Ooze kicks the asses left in Surgical's wake. We're a midrange deck, so Ooze does mad work against GPG and Vengevine decks, beats face and gains us life along the way!
Destructive Revelry and Supreme Will come in against any unruly artifacts and enchantments that stop us from playing magic -- namely Ensnaring Bridge and Chalice of the Void. Though we don't get outright stomped by a Chalice = 1 like Burn does, we'd still like our 1Cmc spells. Ensnaring Bridge is a tough artifact to deal with, so revelry, counterspells and beast within are kept back to deal with it.
And that's our (not exactly) Temur Bone wand deck! Let me know what you think!
