MTGNexus

Hey everyone, I loved playing U Tempo in previous standard and when I saw another Staggering Insight I wondered if there is something here.

U Tempo is always draw dependant, with strong opening hands containing a 1 drop, curious obsession, and ideally protection or a cheap counter. Adding white hurts consistency in the manabase (not too badly with shocks and checks, but noticably) and cuts out Tempest Djinn as a finisher, but adds consistency by doubling our number of curiosity effects. We also get access to white protection to supplement dive down if we need more copies of that, and Teferi is a very strong card in UW that could be added perhaps in place of the djinn. Finally, at least post sideboard in a Bo3 version we might find some white answers to Shifting Ceratops which dumps all over U Tempo normally (what fun design )

I found I have been gravitating away from djinn in my historic U Tempo decks and don't really care about losing it. Mostly I swapped it out for Brazen Borrower, who fills the faster clock role along with having a control element and flash speed. So imo the main questions are whether its worth adding a better but 2 mana obsession to the deck, if the added consistency (or other effects like lifelink against pressure) is worth the less reliable mana, if there are other white or UW cards worth adding to the deck, and finally what numbers of all of these cards are ideal?

I'm not particularly good at magic or deckbuilding so feedback wanted on this decklist for Bo1. It's a first draft and can definitely use some optimization as its based off my U Tempo deck that I keep tinkering with and probably making less optimal than it could be lol

Edit: Updated with current list, adapted from my old Bo1 U Tempo list that had good results way back in a previous standard.

I would probably cut the random one ofs like negate, opt and shadowspear for more creatures. merfolk trickster is really good. Your deck seems a bit threat light but I don't actually know how many the mono blue decks run either

Edit: In the OP I took out my crappy deck and I adapted my old Bo1 U Tempo list and by essentially adding 4x Staggering Insight, swapping the Djinns for Brazen Borrowers, and altering the manabase. The U deck managed to clear the Bo1 event with 7-2 or better ten times so it was at least decent back then.

Big questions for me are how many white sources are needed (the temples feel bad) and if other white spells are worthwhile, ie Teferi or protection.

Deck just won five in a row in historic ranked. Yes its bronze level but I think a lot of players are like me and dont have any historic ranking due to the one day per week thing. Most of those wins were very solid. Shows its not trash at least

For what its worth (boy is historic forum dead) deck keeps doing well. It's currently limited by just 8 untapped white sources, so it still loses to itself, but I feel it does that less than mono blue did.

Sea-Dasher Octopus *might* have game as another saboteur effect but mostly mutated as an aura, rather than cast as a non-evasive 2/2 for 3.