Goldspan Temur Midrange Kaldheim Standard Deck Guide

Hello peeps, how do you like Kaldheim so far? I am having a great time and one of my favorite cards will be featured in this deck: Goldspan Dragon! This archetype existed before Kaldheim, too, but playing Terror of the Peaks always felt a bit weird when you didn’t get it out of Genesis Ultimatum.

This is the perfect deck to punish all the grindy Yorion decks but now you no longer have to fear getting completely blasted by Rogues. Why? Do not forget that we got some new other additions too, so let’s talk!

Decklist

Deck Overview

This might be the perfect example of a midrange deck: Control the board early with your Adventure package in Edgewall Innkeeper, Lovestruck Beast and Bonecrusher Giant. After you’ve achieved that, you top your curve with Genesis Ultimatum and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. That means that you have options versus practically every strategy!

This is also the best opportunity for Gloryblinger to shine: It serves as a gap closer between your turn 5 and 7, which helps you cast your expensive spells without having to play slow cards like Cultivate. If you’ve read my Set Review for Kaldheim, you might have remembered that I rated Goldspan Dragon fairly highly – but Cosima, God of the Voyage also got a pretty good rating by me! And guess what, we are playing both!

This might also be one of the best decks for Frost Bite. I don’t like the aggressive decks playing this, as it doesn’t help you deal direct damage to the face. Joshua Bausch gave me the idea to put Frost Bite and Cosima into this archetype, so definitely check him out. Without further ado, let’s talk about the card choices!

Card Choices

Main Deck

Frost Bite: Amazing card. This archetype struggled with closing the early gaps before Kaldheim and was forced to play Scorching Dragonfire instead. Not that Dragonfire is bad, but the difference between 1 mana and 2 mana for your removal is a landslide. Think about it: You can kill opposing Innkeepers or Robber of the Rich on turn 1 on the draw, you can play it on turn 3 when you play Fertile Footsteps by Beanstalk Giant in the same turn – never underestimate the power of cheap removal.

Edgewall Innkeeper: Don’t have to say too much about this card. Staple in Standard since Throne of Eldraine, one of the best 1 drops in the game right now and basically the reason to play Adventures.

Cosima, God of the Voyage: Now we’re getting spicy. This is one of the decks where playing the Omenkeel can be incredible, as this deck does want to find more lands and it’s so easy to crew with Lovestruck Beast’s Heart’s Desire and Edgewall Innkeeper. Against grindy decks or when you have enough lands already, you can just play Cosima as a creature and let her cook in exile while she will slowly, but surely win you the game. This can flood badly and some card draw is always needed. I wouldn’t blame you for playing more than 2, but I didn’t find more room for it.

Brazen Borrower: First of all, it’s an Adventure card for Edgewall Innkeeper. But I’ve always found it to be important to have a flexible option to gain back tempo against an opposing Lovestruck Beast to prevent turn 4 Great Henge or just strong Embercleave turns. Look, Brazen Borrower is an excellent card and depending on the metagames, this number can vary from 0 to 4. Right now I like 2, but don’t just sit on that number. Try out what works for you!

Bonecrusher Giant: If you’re playing red and you’re not playing 4 of this, you’re making a bone crushing mistake. This alone is already insane, but together with Innkeeper it’s an auto-include.

Lovestruck Beast: Just like Bonecrusher Giant, if you’re playing green and no Lovestruck Beast, you might as well go back to the drawing board and try to fit it into your deck. Lovestruck and Bonecrusher are pillars of the format – we all had to accept it at some point.

Goldspan Dragon: As already mentioned, incredible gap closer between your turn 5’s and turn 7’s. The old version of this deck struggled a lot in that regard and was forced to play cards like Storm's Wrath in the main deck, which doesn’t really help this deck’s strategy and is just expensive. You don’t want to play too many cards that can’t be hit by Genesis Ultimatum too, and we already have 4 Frost Bite. It also helps you be abit more aggressive against slower decks and fixes your mana – all of these points make Goldspan Dragon an allstar and much better than Terror of the Peaks, which is really only good with Genesis Ultimatum.

Genesis Ultimatum: Your top-end that will ground out every opponent. It’s pretty hard to lose after casting this as you would need to get insanely unlucky and most decks just can’t beat multiple permanents at the same time. Always remember that this card is in your deck – you don’t want to top deck this card and then not being able to cast it because you used your Fabled Passage or Beanstalk Giant wrong. Take a lot of thought into your early land drops!

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: Ugin just dunks on a lot of strategies when you get to resolve it, but besides Goldspan Dragon and Beanstalk Giant we don’t accelerate our mana, so it can be a bit difficult to cast. When you hit this from your Genesis Ultimatum, you’re in business though!

Sideboard

Soul Sear: Important card against every deck that play Lovestruck Beast: You just need answers for it or else The Great Henge on turn 4 will ruin your day and you need additional removal in your sideboard anyway.

Wilt: Nice piece of hate against The Great Henge and Embercleave, as you can always cycle it away when you don’t find a target.

Negate: You just need it post sideboard when people stock up their own counter spells as well and you can’t just rely on casting your big spells. After all, your opponent might also be playing Genesis Ultimatum!

Mystical Dispute: This deck primarily wants to get their spells through instead of interacting with your opponents big spells, which is why Dispute is much more important than something like Disdainful Stroke. Mystical Dispute is your cheap way to try and resolve your own spells and it also helps you gain early traction against Rogues. That’s not to say that Disdainful Stroke is a bad card – I just don’t like it in this specific deck right now, but I really wouldn’t blame you for playing it – with Rogues in the format, don’t replace the Mystical Disputes though.

Ox of Agonas: Your best friend against Rogues, which can be a tough matchup. Don’t hesitate to bring this in in other super grindy matchups, though, as it’s easy to run out of cards against counter spells.

Koma, Cosmos Serpent: This is how this deck beats counter spells and this wasn’t possible before Kaldheim. Especially with Izzet being popular right now, this card is an absolute must for decks that play blue and green – it’s just that good against counter spells.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: This may not make sense at first, but if you play against Mystical Dispute decks you don’t want to play Genesis Ultimatum after side boarding anymore – but you still need these heavy hitters in the late game, so I choose the option that plays around that spell at least. You can’t just play more Koma I think, because It’s not that great against Yorion decks (still gets hit by Elspeth Conquers Death and Extinction Event), but Ugin is just monstrous there – just like against the food decks.

Matchups and Sideboard Guide

Generally speaking, cut Genesis Ultimatum against decks with Mystical Dispute. It’s just not worth it. Think about it, if you’re trying to win these counter wars with your own counter spells, don’t you also have less targets that it can hit? As such, don’t be too scared of aggressive decks. Lovestruck Beast and Bonecrusher Giant are your sword and shield and they will give you a great defense even without additional removal spells.

Dimir Rogues

In	Out
+4 Mystical Dispute	-3 Genesis Ultimatum
+2 Ox of Agonas	-3 Beanstalk Giant
+2 Koma, Cosmos Serpent	-1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
	-1 Island

Between Frost Bite, Bonecrusher Giant and Soul Sear you have a lot of removal for the pesky early Rogues. You don’t want to play too many expensive spells, as they will just get dunked by their flood of counter spells, but one Ugin is always okay to come in clutch. Koma should be great even though they have ways to remove it, because your opponent will play more counter spells after side boarding and Lullmage's Domination can be incredibly expensive when you exile your own graveyard with the Ox of Agonas, too. Domination is definitely a risk though, so it’s possible that you should just replace them with more Ugin, even though it’s tough to resolve.

Mono-Red Aggro

In	Out
+3 Soul Sear	-2 Cosima, God of the Voyage
+1 Wilt	-2 Genesis Ultimatum

This matchup got a lot better with these Frost Bite. Bonecrusher Giant and Lovestruck Beast are already absolute power houses against aggressive decks and all you need to do is survive and kill their things – you don’t need too much late game, as your cards will probably be better than theirs anyway. Wilt is there because it can destroy Embercleave in combat, blowing them out – but don’t forget that it can hit Anax, Hardened in the Forge, too.

Mono-Red splashing White for Showdown of the Skalds

In	Out
+3 Soul Sear	-2 Cosima, God of the Voyage
+1 Negate	-3 Genesis Ultimatum
+1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

This deck is grindier because of Showdown of the Skalds, but Ugin will be your best card here. Negate is better now because it hits Embercleave but also the Showdown – it’s possible you even want 2. You don’t want Wilt now because it’s not really good against Showdown too (already drew them 4 cards) and you’re not really getting anywhere.

Naya Adventures

In	Out
+3 Soul Sear	-4 Frost Bite
+2 Negate	-2 Brazen Borrower
+1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Two grindy decks against each other and you should win more often than not because of Ugin. As I said – it’s pretty tough to out grind this deck, even with the presence of Showdown of the Skalds. Soul Sear is more important than Frost Bite as Lovestruck Beast is your primary target to kill. Negates are good as they hit Showdown and also The Great Henge. You might die a game or two against their early pressure – don’t take this as a reason to take the grindy cards out though, or else you’ll just die to the Showdown as well.

Izzet Tempo

In	Out
+2 Koma, Cosmos Serpent	-4 Frost Bite
+4 Mystical Dispute	-3 Genesis Ultimatum
+2 Negate	-1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
+2 Soul Sear	-2 Bonecrusher Giant

Frost Bite doesn’t have enough targets, as these Bonecrusher Giant and Faceless Haven are easily blocked by your Lovestruck Beast. Bonecrusher Giant has no targets at all, so you just cut some of them – for the Adventure density you don’t want to cut too many though. Koma is the name of the game and you don’t need anything else – survive and resole the Snek and you’re good.

Temur Midrange (Mirror)

In	Out
+4 Mystical Dispute	-4 Frost Bite
+2 Negate	-2 Brazen Borrower

You don’t want to worry about your opponent’s smaller creatures too much when you’re both trying to go over the top of each other. Don’t cut your early creatures though, as you need that early traction. Play around with the numbers of Ugins and also Bonecrushers, as not every Temur Midrange deck also plays Edgewall Innkeeper Package, in which case you could just cut all of them and play Koma and Ugin instead.

Obosh Version

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This alternative list is courtesy of Joshua Bausch. It tries to go harder on Cosima, God of the Voyage and also has Kenrith, the Returned King. The Idea is that your Genesis Ultimatum wins the game on the same turn most of the time, giving your creatures trample and haste. This deck plays Obosh, the Preypiercer as Companion, but I really hate not having Ugin in these grindy decks. I’d recommend you to try out both lists and really try and feel the differences!

End Step

Thank you so much for reading again – Kaldheim just started but it already had severe impact on the format, even though a lot of people said that it would be hard to compete with the old established decks. I really enjoy Goldspan Dragon in this deck – it might honestly be the best card in Kaldheim!