Titan Mastery

By Conley Woods

A few years ago, Valakut was the best deck on the planet. It was fast, explosive, resilient, and punished unprepared opponents. When it rotated there was a sigh of relief, but with Primeval Titan sticking around, a new kid on the block was bound to emerge. Wolf Run was the immediate follow-up deck, and being red-green in nature, the comparison was fitting, even if it was nothing close to a perfect match. From there, we have seen a million shades of Wolf Run, from Black-Green to Naya to Black-Green-White, and they all have had strong finishes. Blue has been notably absent, though, until now.

Synergy_Man plays the role of flag-bearer this week, as his particular list is being showcased, but this deck has been all over the place online and is beginning to show up in live tournaments as well. Previously, blue was never added because there were not enough incentives behind it. Frost Titan is always solid, but what else do we acquire? Mana Leak? With the release of Avacyn Restored, though, some expensive miracles caught the eye of most Ramp players and you can see the results below.

Temporal Mastery fits great into Ramp for a few reasons. First, naturally a Ramp deck is going to have a faster and more reliable hard-cast of Temporal Mastery. Sometimes you do draw it in your opening hand, or without blue mana available, and it is nice to know it isn't a dead card. Second, though, is that Temporal Mastery plays like an Explore in the early turns. You get the chance to play an additional land and draw a card at least, and that is not considering later turns where Rampant Growths are involved or even just Ponder. Plus, any deck packing nine—yes, nine—Titans has got to be pretty good, right?

Synergy_Man's Wolf Run RUG

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Creature (12)

2 Frost Titan 3 Inferno Titan 4 Primeval Titan 3 Solemn Simulacrum

Sorcery (18)

4 Ponder 4 Rampant Growth 3 Slagstorm 4 Temporal Mastery 3 Whipflare

Artifact (4)

4 Sphere of the Suns

Land (26)

3 Cavern of Souls 2 Evolving Wilds 5 Forest 4 Glimmerpost 2 Hinterland Harbor 1 Inkmoth Nexus 2 Island 1 Kessig Wolf Run 2 Mountain 2 Rootbound Crag 2 Sulfur Falls

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Whipflare 1 Amass the Components 2 Ancient Grudge 1 Batterskull 2 Blasphemous Act 2 Combust 2 Dissipate 1 Karn Liberated 1 Stingerfling Spider 2 Thrun, the Last Troll