Tempo (Magic: The Gathering)

Tempo is a term used in Magic: The Gathering to indicate the advantaged gained when a player is able to play more or stronger cards in a shorter period of time due to efficient resource allocation. A companion concept to card advantage, it is sometimes defined as the means by which a player gains additional options or decreases the options possessed by the opponent by means not directly pertaining to respective numbers of playable cards.

Forms of tempo

Tempo can be gained in several ways, including:

• Mana acceleration - These cards allow a player to generate mana beyond the normal (one mana from each land, one land played each turn). This may come in the form of additional lands put into play, other cards which remain in play and generate mana, or cards which generate a one-time boost in mana. Sometimes, costs can be reduced by effects such as Madness, effectively accelerating mana.
• Mana denial - Conversely, these cards PReVENT an opponent from developing mana normally, limiting his or her options. Examples of mana denial cards include those which destroy lands or those which restrict mana expenditures, for example by raising the costs of spells played by opponents. Other cards can sometimes be used to generate tempo in this way, also, as when an opponent uses a creature capable of generating mana which is then removed by a card which destroys creatures.
• Efficiency - Some cards have stronger effects than other cards costing the same amount of mana. For example, Savannah Lions has 2 power while Eager Cadet, despite costing the same amount of mana, has only 1. Playing efficient cards such as Savannah Lions can generate tempo if they render an opponent's weaker cards irrelevant or substandard, restricting the options available to that player.
• Extra turns - A few cards, such as Time Walk, actually allow a player to take additional turns. This generates tempo in many ways, usually by granting the ability to lay extra lands or attack and use mana twice in a row.
• Punishing - In some Situations, it is possible to counteract tempo generated by the opponent. This generates tempo if it makes the opponent's expenditures useless and therefore inefficient. For example, an opponent may pay a large amount of mana to attach a powerful equipment card to a creature. If that player's opponent responds by destroying the creature with a cheap spell, the player who paid the equip cost will have wasted the mana and lost tempo.

Tempo and Card Advantage

Because both concepts are primarily concerned with the proliferation or limitation of options available to players, some theorists have suggested that they are actually aspects of the same central idea: namely, that play is driven by attempts by players to gain options for themselves and take them from opponents, an exchange which continues until one player is able to gain the option to win the game. This is similar to the idea of tempo as it is used in chess, and also equates to the chess concept of initiative, where a player can gain the advantage by setting the pace of the game. Some Magic players think of tempo in this way in order to better account for the quality of plays which generate both pure card advantage and a more abstract advantage in terms of position.