Timewalk Control

[klaus]

Obviously this deck revolves around:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=129834&d=1333944194

The basic idea is to cast as many Temporal Masteries (hence TM) as possible, providing enough CA/CQ to comfortably dash through most scenarios.
When packing the full set it is very likely to draw at least one in your starting 7 --> undesirable scenario. However, there are two spells, which solve that issue neatly: Jace and Brainstorm, with Snapcaster Mage doubling the latter's numbers.
Ponder is a natural fit, setting up TM for the next draw step as well as finding BS, allowing you to put that Timewalk back on top.
Chrome Mox seems like a natural fit too allowing you to accelerate pseudo T1 style. Most other cards are self-explanatory, but feel free to ask if any choice looks questionable to you.

UPDATE:
4 TM
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Ponder

4 Jace
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Lingering Souls


4 STP
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance

4 Chrome Mox
18 Land

SB:
under construction

Looking forward to your crits!

[yutang]

How about this as a good start:

4 Delver
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle or Spell Snare (leaning towards Stifle)
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Wastelands
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Island

Maybe swap the 4 Delvers for 4 Predicts to fight against opposing Masterys?

Edit: Actually we may even skip on Swords to Plowshares...and just add Predicts/Snares/Repeals?

[Blitzbold]

You definitely want a number of both Personal Tutor and Noxious Revival in there. TM can be a 4-of if there are enough ways to shuffle them away should there be one in your starting 7. Also, Sensei's Divining Top wants to have a word with you. As a final suggestion, although this might turn out to be bad, I just remembered playing Lat-Nam's Legacy a decade ago.

[klaus]

You definitely want a number of both Personal Tutor and Noxious Revival in there. TM can be a 4-of if there are enough ways to shuffle them away should there be one in your starting 7. Also, Sensei's Divining Top wants to have a word with you. As a final suggestion, although this might turn out to be bad, I just remembered playing Lat-Nam's Legacy a decade ago.

Personal Tutor: see edit.
@ Top: seems to slow imo and doesn't pitch to FOW and Mox, which ultimately is a minor issue, but at the end of the day what makes me lean towards Ponder.

[baghdadbob]

I could be misunderstanding the point of noxious revival. I believe Temporal Mastery says you have to EXILE it after playing it.

[klaus]

I could be misunderstanding the point of noxious revival. I believe Temporal Mastery says you have to EXILE it after playing it.

Could be an okay out in case it gets countered/discarded.
Anywho, I think it's too narrow too.

[baghdadbob]

Ahhhh I see. Yes I agree in that case it is much too narrow.

[Erdvermampfa]

It's going to get banned anyway, so why do you actually bother?

[MaximumC]

What is this deck doing with it's extra turns? Ticking up Jace and swinging with Delver? Is that really enough?

I get that you'll win the resource war early because you're getting more land drops when things go well. But remember, you're not actually getting any CARD advantage out of Mastery because you cast it from the top of your library, negating your draw for that turn. So, say you go off turn 3 and get 2 extra turns. You're probably up a Jace and some land on the board, but you've still only got the two counterspells you started with.

I don't know that accelerating into Jace isn't good enough, but I question whether this deck does enough with the card.

[JDK]

Still waiting for Doomsday updates. :/

[Vacrix]

Why would you build a deck that revolves around taking at most 4 extra turns in a deck that can barely abuse the attack phase with 1/1 flyings? Unless you are doing something Nasty with Burning Wish that I haven't thought of after they get exiled upon resolution.. I don't see the point. Its going to be better in UR Delver where they can actually abuse the attack phase. Decks with heavy deck manipulation are often slow and therefore don't benefit much. Hell against decks like these, I EOT Meditate. Take your extra turn. Its usually just, land go. Maybe throw in a ponder.

[Tombstalker]

While I'm sure TM has potential to be broken I'm just not seeing it here. So many cards just to interact with it leaves very few threats, basically only jtms. Maybe we will find this to be the case with most miracle cards, forcing decks to reduce card quality and threats to try and abuse miracle? Idk. I've been testing wrath and its ok as a 2-of in Canadian, clunky sometimes and worse in higher amounts. I know TM is different but the concept is the same, except you take another turn to draw a bazillion cantrips to look for a threat.

[klaus]

Why would you build a deck that revolves around taking at most 4 extra turns in a deck that can barely abuse the attack phase with 1/1 flyings? Unless you are doing something Nasty with Burning Wish that I haven't thought of after they get exiled upon resolution.. I don't see the point. Its going to be better in UR Delver where they can actually abuse the attack phase. Decks with heavy deck manipulation are often slow and therefore don't benefit much. Hell against decks like these, I EOT Meditate. Take your extra turn. Its usually just, land go. Maybe throw in a ponder.

If you take a closer look you will realize TW.control can in fact do plenty of things with that extra turn.
Ticking up Jace is actually nothing you'd consider in the early/ early mid-game. But powering out a Jace as early as turn 2 (considering Moxen), or just even getting an extra Jace Brainstorm must be nice.
Those extra land drops, and most experienced U.control players would agree, are actually nothing but pure insanity until about turn 6. Bonus time and mana can further more be spend to comfortably do Snapcaster shenanigans, clogg the board with 4 fliers (turn 2/3) allowing you to gain enough ground to ride the game home from there without much effort. 8 flashbackable cantrips also make sure you'll find Jace when you want him.
That being said, I haven't tested the list yet, but will do so in the near future.
I'll post my findings asap!

[Mirrislegend]

Why would you build a deck that revolves around taking at most 4 extra turns in a deck that can barely abuse the attack phase with 1/1 flyings?

Exactly my issue. I say, why not put it in a deck with real potential to abuse the extra turn? Beating face seems good! I think this goes into a CounterTop Bant shell. Countertop, beaters, this, brainstorm, some personal tutors, and maybe NO as a backup that can be tutored with Personal.

[MaximumC]

Besides, you're not even running the most powerful interaction here. A control deck with 4x Top and 4x Temporal Mastery is threatening to timewalk during its opponent's end step anytime there is 3 mana up.

Control player leaves mana open to counterspell. Nothing worthwhile is cast. When he gets priority before the enemy's turn ends....

Pay 1, use top to look at top three. Put Temporal Mastery on top.
Tap top, draw and reveal Mastery.
Pay 1U to get two turns.

Then, the control player can tap out for a massive beatstick or Jace or whatever during the first free turn, secure in the knowledge that the shields will be up again after the next draw and ready to do it again. THIS is what Temporal Mastery looks like, not trying to pull it off of a Ponder.

[Rune]

I agree with the above poster, SDT is the stones with the Time Walk and should be in the deck. Personal Tutor seems really awful, though. Here's my (almost) MonoBlue attempt



4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Dismember
2 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Repeal
2 Back to Basics
3 Counterspell
1 Spell Pierce
4 Temporal Mastery
1 Vedalken Shackles


4 Chrome Mox
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Underground Sea
9 Island

SB: 3 Counterbalance
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Dread of Night
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Back to Basics

[yutang]

How about another approach:

NO Bant with Timewalk

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Temporal Mastery
1 Sylvan Library

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Goyf
3 Vendilion Clique

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Natural Order
1 Progenitus

4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Island
1 Forest
2 Verdant Catacombs

Natural Order is generally seen as one turn too slow for the format at the moment. The new Time Walk alleviates this.

[Antonius]

You're not playing Liliana. That's wrong. After attacking (which you're not really geared to do--UB doesn't have very powerful creatures) activating planeswalkers is the most powerful thing you could do with an extra turn. Even if all you're doing is +1 both turns, you've just made your opponent discard two cards. You replaced both of yours. Also, since you've got liliana now, you could throw in a Cursed Scroll for its synergy.

[Teknique]

@yutang I was thinking something similar.

Something like:
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Temporal Mastery
2 Personal Tutor (can find TM, NO, GSZ)

4 Noble Hierarch
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Green Sun's Zenith

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Garruk Relentless (I just like this card, it's almost certainly wrong, but then again so is trying to play this...)

2 Natural Order
1 Progenitus

4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Island
1 Forest

It just seems that this card will be really underwhelming. It requires too much investment when your resources are better spent actually winning.

[death]

This thread is getting derailed, NO Bant does not belong here. If Progenitus is a turn too slow, Protean Hulk alleviates it.

[Vacrix]

Exactly my issue. I say, why not put it in a deck with real potential to abuse the extra turn? Beating face seems good! I think this goes into a CounterTop Bant shell. Countertop, beaters, this, brainstorm, some personal tutors, and maybe NO as a backup that can be tutored with Personal.
Agreed. It seems way more dangerous in a deck like Blue Zoo that can go nuts on the attack phases than in a control deck. Lol cantrip go?

Seriously an extra swing with a Nacatl and a Knight? Fuck yeah take 8 more. 1U for an extra attack phase is tits. 1U for extra Jace counters.. you're already winning. One more land and a +9 Jace doesn't scare me MORE than a +7 Jace and 1 fewer lands.

I think because Time Walk is power 9 everyone is over valuing a 'turn' itself. If its a conditional turn, then the value changes completely.

[vanele]

I has anyone had any time to test ancestral visions with this? Seems like it would be solid fit with the ticking effects.

[Antonius]

Agreed. It seems way more dangerous in a deck like Blue Zoo that can go nuts on the attack phases than in a control deck. Lol cantrip go?

Seriously an extra swing with a Nacatl and a Knight? Fuck yeah take 8 more. 1U for an extra attack phase is tits. 1U for extra Jace counters.. you're already winning. One more land and a +9 Jace doesn't scare me MORE than a +7 Jace and 1 fewer lands.

I think because Time Walk is power 9 everyone is over valuing a 'turn' itself. If its a conditional turn, then the value changes completely.

I disagree. While I agree that the best thing you could with an extra turn is attack, the nature of Temporal Mastery's conditionality leaves it best placed in a control deck that already uses lots of Library manipulation. And the best thing you can do with extra turns in a control deck is activate planeswalkers.

Though it does hurt that the planeswalker you really, really want to activate during your extra turns (Elspeth) competes with the best planeswalker overall (Jace)

also, if you time walk with Jace, you don't start ticking up, you brainstorm into shit that furthers your stranglehold over the game or wins the game at a more sensible pace (ie, elspeth)

[Vacrix]

The point is that extra turns are relatively meaningless if you just deal with the board state with the heavy control you are playing. If you, say Deed for X and wipe their board instead of Time Walking then why do you need to Time Walk at all? You've dealt with them, now you get to tick up on Jace like you would normally. Taking an extra turn means you are running fewer cards to deal with what the opponent brings to the table. Its not like you are going to consistently chain a bunch of Time Walks together and just deck them with Jace. The point is if you already have Jace, you are winning. +2 counters on Jace, even +4 doesn't get there if you can't effectively deal with what they are doing. Even a Jace thats Brainstorming every turn. You could easily be doing the same thing with Sensei's Divining Top and just Fateseal them. You have to consider what you forgo. Not to say this is the final list or anything but it plays a grand total of 4 removal spells, 4 countermagic, and 4 discard. How is this even a control deck with a grand total of 12 disruption spells? Good luck even landing a protected Jace or resolving your TM with a 4, even an 8 countermagic protection suite against a reasonable control or aggro control deck.

The best place for this card is probably Doomsday as you can avoid pass the turn piles by cantripping into it on the opponent's turn, then cast Doomsday on your first turn, and pass the turn into the win without giving the opponent another turn.

[Antonius]

The point is that extra turns are relatively meaningless if you just deal with the board state with the heavy control you are playing. If you, say Deed for X and wipe their board instead of Time Walking then why do you need to Time Walk at all? You've dealt with them, now you get to tick up on Jace like you would normally. Taking an extra turn means you are running fewer cards to deal with what the opponent brings to the table. Its not like you are going to consistently chain a bunch of Time Walks together and just deck them with Jace. The point is if you already have Jace, you are winning. +2 counters on Jace, even +4 doesn't get there if you can't effectively deal with what they are doing. Even a Jace thats Brainstorming every turn. You could easily be doing the same thing with Sensei's Divining Top and just Fateseal them. You have to consider what you forgo. Not to say this is the final list or anything but it plays a grand total of 4 removal spells, 4 countermagic, and 4 discard. How is this even a control deck with a grand total of 12 disruption spells? Good luck even landing a protected Jace or resolving your TM with a 4, even an 8 countermagic protection suite against a reasonable control or aggro control deck.


Good points, they make me reconsider a lot of card choices and black seems a lot worse in light of it. But I think that Top/Brainstorm/Jace are just too good to not run and none of those contribute to playing Nacatls and beating down. Furthermore, Blue Zoo is inherently unstable and I would just not want to play it. This is much closer to what I would like to test:

4 Strand
2 Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Island
2 Plains
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins

4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Mana Leak
4 Force of Will

3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Cruicible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives

4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique

3 Jace
2 Elspeth

4 Temporal Mastery

Elspeth is so much better than liliana. don't know what I was smoking for a sec there.

[klaus]

Thanks for your input Antonius!
-
Also, let's keep this thread on track - though it's open for different approaches, they should focus on a dedicated control shell.
-

I've started to doubt Personal Tutor - more testing needs to be done here..

[rufus]

If the primary game plan is to tick up planeswalkers, then you might as well play cards like Stasis or even Savor the Moment.

FWIW, the white and red miracle cards both look quite solid, so if the game plan involves miracle enablers, one of them should probably see play in the deck. Temporal Mastery has some synergy with that.

I'm not sure how strong it is in general, but Scroll Rack has potential as a miracle enabler and hasn't been mentioned.

[baghdadbob]

I don't think the extra 4 spots for personal tutor will pay off. Just playing brainstorm and a certain number of Jace should be sufficient. You really want those extra turns you are getting to pay off, with a tempo swing that puts you ahead. I think something with flying plus a equip of some sort is most powerful (ex. a deck with stoneforge and delver). TM is a card that will improve a lot of tempo decks, but I can only see it as being run as a 2/3 of, anything more just seems overkill/waste of spots. I would suggest instead of trying to create a deck around it, we try to incorporate it into a deck in which it will add that extra little umpf. Just my opinion though, I have been wrong before. :tongue:

[klaus]

I don't think the extra 4 spots for personal tutor will pay off.
Initial testing has confirmed your doubts. Personal Tutor will not make the cut for the time being. For referance, here's my current list:

4 TM
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Ponder

4 Jace
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Lingering Souls


4 STP
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance

4 Chrome Mox -----------------> has proven itself. Turn 2 TM happened quite frequently
18 Land

[HPB_Eggo]

You have a pretty consistent way of playing a breakable card. That is one half of getting a deck that works and has a decent power level.

The other half of the deck needs to revolve around abusing the card. To my mind, there are only three real ways to do that...

1) Extra combat. Being able to swing for the extra damage is awesome. You need a lot of damage on the table for this to work well, though.

2) Abuse extra mana. Have something awesome that's a bit too slow to work in a normal deck, especially if it's a win condition of some sort.

3) Abuse the mere fact that you have an extra turn. Play with Ancestral Visions, some planeswalkers, or something else that gets significantly stronger with an extra turn thrown in there.

Without one of these three methods of abusing the card, the deck will never achieve an appreciable power level. You also probably need to invest more heavily into the 1st than the second two, so I'd say try focusing on some combination of the second two first.

To put it more in perspective, there is a very good chance with Brainstorm that you will be able to play TM on the beginning of your second turn without a problem. What you really need is a couple of backbreaking three/four drops and a free counterspell or two to make sure they resolve.

I honestly have no idea what those drops would be, but I think that's what you need to look into.

[MaximumC]

Given that you're invested in topdeck manipulation anyway, what do you think about abusing the Descendant enchantment? Adding 4x Mutavault is easy, and once you have a Mutavault resolved, Descendant will put Emrakul into play if he's revealed. I'm not sure that it's better than Show and Tell, but who says you can't do both?

[Teknique]

I'm not that keen on CB in this deck. TM itself is 4 cards that blow your CB curve, and more 3s seems good right now. If you're going to run the CBs, I'd only run 3 in the main at most (it's terrible against maverick anyway). I'm not sure it's right to completely discount Personal Tutor. Sure as a 4 of it's wrong, but I'm thinking 2 and some small sorcery toolbox (wrath, souls, TM, and sideboard cards). Also, it enables you to make sure CB is online against a suspected threat. If your reason for disliking tutor is the card disadvantage well then I'm not sure chrome mox is what you want. It's a lot of card disadvantage just to say, TW on turn 2?, especially when that is your draw.

I'm not sure what the game plan is against maverick. There is nothing to put on your tokens as they fly over (or more likely, turn into chump blockers). Snapcaster dies to a block from nearly their whole deck. And you're going to have a hard time winning with Jace when you need to -1 every turn. Also, an active Jitte just seems like gg :eyebrow:

At first glance, the immediate changes I would try are:
-1 Counterbalance
-1 Sensei's Divining Top
-1 Jace
-2 Ponder
-4 Chrome Mox

+1 Wrath of God
+1 Vedalken Shackles (would honestly consider something like 1 Revoke Existence here in the main because it can be tutored for, and like I said, you lose to Jitte).
+2 Vendilion Clique
+2 Personal Tutor
+3 Lands

[Tombstalker]

Ive been thinking about this deck and I would like to suggest a few ideas. As other posters have said you have ways to set up TM now you need to abuse it. Ponder seems extraneous with 8 brainstorm and 4 top effects. I would cut them for a couple cliques.
Not sure on chrome mox since I havent tested it but 3 seems optimal, especially since all your draw/TMenabler cards give a high probability of poor opening 7. Lastly how have you found counterbalance? Full sets of FoW, TM and JTMS add up to feeling clunky quite often but maybe your experience has been different?

Maybe something like this:

4 TM
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Jace
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Lingering Souls

1 Batterskull
1 Jitte

4 STP
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell

3 Chrome Mox
19 Lands

This version gives 17 library manipulation cards and a few more ways to abuse TM, namely 'hasty' batterskull and jitte. The 4th souls could easily be another SCM.Thoughts?

[klaus]

Here's what I'm testing, after the initial CB approach turned out to be too slow.

4 Tundra
1 Plains
4 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
1 Riptide Laboratory

4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Lingering Souls
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Temporal Cascade

SB:
2 Wrath of God
4 Surgical Extraction
2 Disenchant
2 Ghastly Demise
4 Thoughtseize
1 Engineered Explosives

--
What card would you cut from the MD? Currently it's 61 cards..

Edit: I'm thinking -2 Clique +1 Lingering Souls

[Telkku]

First of all playing one jitte is just stupid in my opinion, so many decks will just destroy it immediatly with either another jitte or other ways. Jitte count 2. And why do you need 4 x Jace, now you got other ways to kill too, 2 in starting hand is just horrible. Lingering souls is just too good card not to be 4 of, tokens carry jitte like a champ and they can block for example Knight of Reliquary for quite a long.

i'd say : -1 jace -2 clique, +1 jitte + 2 lingering souls

[serendib]

I predict a new metagame coming which sees:

- lot of burn decks (mono R, UR & URW)
- some combo using Reforge The Soul (the miracle Wheel of Fortune)
- some deck still present in metagame (RUG, GW, UWx)

so, I want lifegain maindeck and more creatures to be able to well use Temporal Mastery (new miracle time walk) because timewalk also means additional combat phase ...

that's what I'm thinking:

4 flooded strand
2 windswept heath
3 misty rainforest
7 island
3 plains
1 forest
1 tundra
1 karakas

TOT = 22 lands (wasteland proof manabase because I think opponent wasteland + opponent temporal mastery would hurt a lot)

4 snapcaster mage
4 kitchen finks
2 jace, the mind sculptor
2 Sigarda, Host of Herons ( the new 5/5 hexproff )

4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 temporal mastery

4 force of will
3 counterspell

4 swords to plowshares
3 engineered explosives

side:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
X meddling mage
X spell pierce / envelop
X terminus (the miracle wrath of god like)
X back to basics
X surgical extraction
X bant charm (anti-artifact & varsatility) / dismantling blow

what you think ?

[klaus]

I predict a new metagame coming which sees:

- lot of burn decks (mono R, UR & URW)
- some combo using Reforge The Soul (the miracle Wheel of Fortune)
- some deck still present in metagame (RUG, GW, UWx)

so, I want lifegain maindeck and more creatures to be able to well use Temporal Mastery (new miracle time walk) because timewalk also means additional combat phase ...

that's what I'm thinking:

4 flooded strand
2 windswept heath
3 misty rainforest
7 island
3 plains
1 forest
1 tundra
1 karakas

TOT = 22 lands (wasteland proof manabase because I think opponent wasteland + opponent temporal mastery would hurt a lot)

4 snapcaster mage
4 kitchen finks
2 jace, the mind sculptor
2 Sigarda, Host of Herons ( the new 5/5 hexproff )

4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 temporal mastery

4 force of will
3 counterspell

4 swords to plowshares
3 engineered explosives

side:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
X meddling mage
X spell pierce / envelop
X terminus (the miracle wrath of god like)
X back to basics
X surgical extraction
X bant charm (anti-artifact & varsatility) / dismantling blow

what you think ?

I don't think Sigarda is playable at CMC5. Could be a one of maybe, but two seem greedy.
Terminus could make an appearance here. Kitchen Finks is nothing what I'd be looking for atm, since it especially shines against Aggro, which will almost disaopear due to Terminus.
Damn those Miracles! The sky is falling!

[serendib]

I don't think Sigarda is playable at CMC5. Could be a one of maybe, but two seem greedy.

What You sat is correct. I was considering them because Singarda eats any opponent planeswalker for breakfast and timewalks can give me additional land drops.


Terminus could make an appearance here. Kitchen Finks is nothing what I'd be looking for atm, since it especially shines against Aggro, which will almost disaopear due to Terminus.

I would never play a control deck without lifegain cards maindeck.
New aggro will run:

4 delver
4 Vexing Devil
X goblin guide
X Steppe Lynx
X snapcaster mage
8 bolt
X brainstorm + ponder
4 Thunderous Wrath
X prince for progress
X fireblast

Who do you plan to face them ?
I don't think lingering souls + jitte works ...


Damn those Miracles! The sky is falling INDEED