神河当時 - テンポアドバンテージ

What is tempo?
The non-musical definition of tempo is something like: “A characteristic rate or rhythm of activity; a pace”. In Magic it’s basically a term that refers to your ability to utilise various aspects of the game, such as mana and life totals, to your advantage. Imagine a theoretical game of Magic where each player had a deck full of lands and 2/2 creatures that all cost 2 mana, but that can’t block. If you go first, (assuming you draw a reasonable number of lands and creatures) you win. You attack for 2 on turn three with your first guy. Your opponent attacks you back. You attack for four on turn four with two guys. Your opponent attacks you back. You attack again on turn five, and you kill your opponent on turn six, the turn before you die. Why did you win that game? Obviously, it’s because you went first. But in terms of tempo what did that gain you? Quite simply, you had access to two mana the turn before your opponent did. That enabled you to establish tempo over your opponent, and with those theoretical decks there was nothing they could do to get it back.

I’m sure many (if not all) of you have lost a game of Magic the turn before you would’ve killed your opponent simply because you lost the coin-flip and were forced to go second. That was a loss to tempo. The above example illustrates perfectly why it is almost always correct to go first in a game of Magic, and certainly in the Kamigawa limited block. There are some limited formats which are slow enough that card advantage is more important and in those formats you might choose to draw first, but those formats are few and far between, and the Kamigawa limited block certainly isn’t one of them.

引用元
TEMPO AND YOU Posted in Limited Information on February 28, 2005
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/limited-information/tempo-and-you-2005-02-28

テンポアドバンテージの解説記事です。神河ブロックのリミテッドがアドバンテージよりもテンポ重視の環境、ということで、引き合いに出されています。もっとも、（少なくとも当時は）リミテッドは大体がテンポ重視なので、ことさら神河に限った話でもないのですが。

また、テンポアドバンテージについても、その重要性ゆえか難解さゆえか、解説記事は公式・非公式問わず、多数存在しています。今更、このような古い記事で学ぶ必要性は薄いでしょう。

ただ、当時のリミテッド環境を、テンポアドバンテージという観点からみた話を知るのには良い資料になると思います。