Premodern: Esper Tempo - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

While it doesn't receive new releases and has a well-defined card pool, Premodern is a format that still has plenty of room for exploration and testing. The format's mana base features a combination of pain lands, fetch lands, and some lands capable of producing any color of mana, enabling powerful goodstuff piles, while cards like Wasteland help keep these archetypes in check.

One of the strategies we can explore with three-color mana bases is Esper Tempo—an amalgamation of various cheap and potent creatures with quality interaction to "lock down" the opponent's ability to execute their game plan while applying an efficient clock.

The concept of Esper Tempo starts with establishing board presence early and delaying the opponent's ability to recover, combining proactive discard and disruptive creatures with cheap removal and stack interaction to control the pace of the match for as long as possible.

Every card in the list aims for a common goal achieved differently—an element that works as one of the archetype's main attractions, but with a drawback: the greedy mana base makes the archetype too punishing against Aggro, and sometimes we find the answers for a specific match when we need cards for another type of strategy, since not every removal or discard spell will be equally useful against every deck.

Maindeck

Mother of Runes is potentially the best card in the deck. She doesn't win games by herself, but she turns every creature into a problem that requires spot removal to solve, safeguarding the possibility of removing key pieces with Mesmeric Fiend and still forcing the opponent to use two removal spells to get their card back.

Mesmeric Fiend works as a targeted discard on a cheap and efficient body. It doesn't accomplish as much as Ravenous Rats in permanently getting rid of cards, but it allows for more effective information and resource control, given that we don't use Hypnotic Specter for recurring discard.

Meddling Mage provides one of the most powerful disruptive effects in its category, and a unique effect in the format: the ability to prevent the opponent from casting key cards—whether they're combo pieces, cheap interaction, or anything in between. There are matchups where it's just another control tool and others where it's the card we need to protect at all costs.

Shadowmage Infiltrator punishes opponents who can't stabilize the board or answer with cheap interaction, becoming our primary recurring source of card advantage. In games against Midrange and Control, it becomes our most important card.

Exalted Angel is the practical finisher. Our clock is slow due to the low power of our creatures, so having a larger threat that also helps hold off Aggro decks is a way to close out games more quickly.

Duress is our ideal first-turn play. It removes key engines or answers while providing essential information for future plays, especially with Meddling Mage.

Mana Leak punishes decks with greedier mana curves and protects our threats from removal, often forcing the opponent to choose between dealing with our creatures or attempting a more proactive play, since they can't do both in the same turn.

Swords to Plowshares deals with any creature at the lowest possible cost and with a manageable drawback most of the time, especially with Exalted Angel in play.

Vindicate has a higher cost but offers the flexibility to deal with any permanent, providing a way to handle problematic artifacts, enchantments, and lands from Game 1.

Impulse helps find lands in the early game and digs deeper—at instant speed—for answers and threats as the match progresses.

Fact or Fiction is a card advantage bomb that forces opponents to make difficult decisions about separating revealed cards into piles where, most of the time, one will be significantly more advantageous than the other.

Skeletal Scrying complements the card advantage package for longer games, converting interactions and Fetch Lands into more resources in attrition games.

With so many multicolored cards and without a vast array of dual lands, we need to be meticulous with our mana base.

Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand guarantee color access and serve as fuel for Skeletal Scrying, while Caves of Koilos, Underground River, and Adarkar Wastes offer immediate flexibility, but at the cost of life loss that adds up against Aggro.

Dromar's Cavern is part of the only cycle of "tri-lands" available in the format, and while it slows our tempo plan, it provides access to all three of our colors without paying life or additional costs.

Sideboard

Hydroblast and Warmth are efficient answers against Sligh and Goblins, working proactively to solve problems on the stack and board or to gain life and delay the opponent's clock.

Annul serves as efficient interaction against decks that rely on artifacts and enchantments, such as Stiflenought, Replenish, and Enchantress.

For these matchups, Seal of Cleansing provides an easy answer against artifacts and enchantments, with the advantage of allowing us to play it proactively and use it when needed, protecting us from targeted discard and Meddling Mage, though it still leaves us vulnerable to Abeyance.

Engineered Plague devastates any go-wide strategy dependent on a specific creature type. These archetypes often have too many blockers for our beatdown plan to succeed, so we need ways to permanently "lock down" their ability to establish board advantage.

Tormod's Crypt handles decks heavily reliant on the graveyard, like Reanimator, Psychatog, or Replenish, at the lowest possible cost.

Mono Blue Stiflenought

IN

OUT

Stiflenought is too efficient with its mana and forces us to have more precise and targeted answers against the combo while we apply pressure and protect our threat. Therefore, we reduce our higher mana costs and pieces that can be easily answered.

Replenish

IN

OUT

Our plan involves disrupting the opponent's setup and putting as many hate pieces on the board as possible in case the opponent casts Abeyance post-Sideboard. Our pressure is slow without Exalted Angel, but our creatures can accumulate on the board to build up damage.

Azorius Standstill

IN

OUT

Adding Engineered Plague is an option if we want to respect Decree of Justice tokens, but between Duress and Mesmeric Fiend, we have enough ways to disrupt the opponent's card advantage sources. However, we still need ways to answer Humility, so we include Seal of Cleansing and Annul.

Sligh

IN

OUT

Elves

IN

OUT

Goblins

IN

OUT

Enchantress

IN

OUT

Gruul Oath

IN

OUT

Psychatog

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!