Temur energy (Primer + Decklist

When I started playing magic, there was a deck I heard stories about. A deck which won the world championship. Nowadays known for the crimes committed in boros in modern, energy’s first breakout was in temur in standard, where it would eventually get 4 cards banned.

So what does it do in this format?

Temur energy is a midrange list backed up by the insane draw power printed on peema trailblazer, the two for one’s on amped raptor and synth eradicator, and the ability of oko, thief of crowns or Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes to singlehandedly close out games.

The Creatures

The stars of the creature lineup are by far amped raptor and peema trailblazer, but you need more than just 2 creatures to win games. While synth eradicator is an easy third, after that your choices open up significantly. I’ve found the most success with whirler virtuoso, as he both makes 3 energy for both trailblazer and synth. In addition, the flying tokens give control, initiative and any kind of other flying deck headaches. If you want a potential snowball, longtusk cub is there. If you’d like a aggressive curve, Voltaic brawler or assultron dominator might be more your speed. If you want more rwa value, then rogue refiner got banned for a reason.

The Noncreatures

This being a temur deck, there are a few no brainers. Once upon a time and galvanic discharge are both easy includes. Attune with aether and tune the narrative both look subpar, but being able to give your raptor 4 energy on T2 means sometimes winning the game on the spot by flipping into either ooko, thief of crowns or Minsc & Boo, timeless heroes. Lightning bolt also makes an appearance both for copies 4-8 of removal and burn to close out games. Finally both oko, thief of crowns and minsc & boo, timeless heroes round out the list as cards that win the game on the spot, as well as sol ring to let you power them out faster.

Lands

Nothing special to report here, other than the inclusion of helios one as a 1 of to grind better and sometimes blow up a card that otherwise is protected by countermagic.

Sideboarding

Being in temur gives us access to basically anything we could ever want, besides hard spot removal. We get to go more into anti combo with cards like test of talents and spellpierce, hedge against control withactive volcano, because the deck has high card advantage the downside of wear down is practically nonexistent, and a boardwipe like anger of the gods insures we can’t get run over by a go wide deck. If you’re not playing a card that prevents you from running it, this is also where I should mention jegantha, the wellspring. While I’m not the biggest fan of this card, attune with aether and once upon a time mean you’re often hitting land drops for the whole early and most of the midgame, so if your trailblazer gets answered this can be a turn 4-5 play against a control list that isn’t applying any pressure; otherwise it’ll come in after turn 8 once you’ve grinded the opponent out of resources. And while aner of the gods and ravenous trap both disable jegantha, both of those cards are coming in against decks where you won’t get to the point of the grind that jegantha can offer matters.

Decklist

When the list inevitably goes over, cutting the oko’s for more copies of minsc would be what I would recommend; as well as cutting the helios one.

Other cards to consider

For mainboarding, Aether spike looks promising as a counterspell that gives you energy, but runs into the issue of being a huge energy sink in the later half of the game compared to lose focus. However, both run into the issue of making amped raptor a whole lot worse since flipping either of them means you’ve done nothing with the raptor. unstable amulet is a great card for value, but it butts heads with peema trailblazer, with its consistent need for energy to be fed into it to do anything. You could also play some amount of volatile fault to help against a lands deck like post or depths, or a deck not running basics like oops.

For sideboarding, there’s a lot of options. Mystical Dispute, dispel, and rending volley can help more against control lists; vapor snag, wipe away, and in too deep can help against a deck aiming to play/cheat in one large creature. damping sphere would seem like a good idea, but this deck often wants to double spell and that hurts your ability to do that a lot.