My First Time Spiral Sealed Deck Rebuilt

Since the pre-release, I have kept a keen eye and ear to all things Time Spiral, especially regarding new limited formats. As I begin to understand what you can and can not do in the new format, I have begun to acclimate myself to the new viable strategies and to soften my initially staunch support of ueber-tempo aggro builds.

Taking the same card pool that I presented previously, I build the following deck:

Lands

9 Swamp
8 Island

Creatures

Black

1 Mindlash Sliver
2 Deathspore Thallid
1 Faceless Devourer
1 Trespasser il-Vec
1 Cyclopean Giant
1 Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore
1 Evil Eye of Urborg

Blue

1 Screeching Sliver
1 Willbender
1 Coral Trickster
1 Looter il-Kor
1 Errant Ephemeron

Multicolor

1 Dementia Sliver

Spells

Black

1 Sudden Spoiling
1 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Traitor's Clutch
1 Mindstab
1 Phthisis

Blue

1 Bewilder
1 Temporal Eddy

Artifcat

1 Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII

Last cards out: Stormcloud Djinn, Smallpox, Hivestone, Call to the Netherworld

I tried playing this deck against the original build and against a few old Ravnica block decks and had a fair amount of success (I did not lose to the original deck). The list I presented above is fairly unprofessional. It was the list I was using, but I was just playing around, having fun and so it is not tuned for optimal power nor for optimal fun. One drop 1/1's need to be pretty powerful in limited to make the cut and Mindlash Sliver just does not make the cut -- I really should just play Hivestone if I want to have milling/hand destruction fun. Likewise, from what I have heard so far, Smallpox is much too powerful a card to be sitting on the sidelines, though I have no good madness outlets or other ways to break its symmetry.

Since this deck is probably still sub-optimal I just want to highlight a couple points on the path towards moving forward in Time Spiral limited strategies rather than over-analyze its strengths and weaknesses.

First, Phthisis is really good. I like it both playing aggressively and playing slow and controlish. The only suspend cards I can really get excited about right now are the ones that are good both suspended early and hardcast late. While Phthisis and Errant Ephemeron are both on the expensive side to hardcast late, at least late game you have the mana and probably do not have too many other spells you would rather topdeck at that point...removal and big fliers are almost always relevant in limited.
What makes Phthisis especially nice is that when you are playing aggressively, suspending it early can change the way your opponent plays -- always a good thing. Also, if you draw it late, then you are in the late game (obviously). That's usually not a good thing for an aggressive deck. It probably means your opponent has set up some kind of defense and that your attacked stalled a little short. Phthisis helps in both respects by both removing a blocker and probably doing a fair bit of damage (hitting a 4/4 or a 5/5 is not unreasonable).

The reason I really like this card though is that the same strong points hold for a control strategy. Suspending this early might be the only play and if you manage to live the five requisite turns it will definitely help with the stabilization (in fact just its presence on the board with time counters on it might slow some opponents down). Of course, once you have the mana to hard cast it in the late game it obviously plays into the control game plan as well....

Having made these statements about suspend, I guess I should mention Mindstab. The card seems pretty lackluster to me. I put it in this deck to try it out but it really should be switched with one of the cards on the bottom. It is a fine play on turn one, though even then not necessarily great. It is a terrible draw late game and you are lucky if you can get anything more than one random land out of your opponent's hand.

Another trick I like is the combination of Traitor's Clutch with Faceless Devourer. Traitor's Clutch is fairly expensive and not that great as a combat trick but it works well with the monolithic creatures in this deck. Plus, being able to get two uses out of it is pretty nice. Ideally the first clutch would hit the 6/3 eye allowing a 7 point blast of damage. The second one would also be headed the eye's way but if your opponent has a menacing monster on the other side of the board being able to flashback the clutch and eat the creature with the devourer is nice plan B.

The small blue creatures also help this deck significantly. The looter can smooth out any draw, allowing game against dangerous aggro decks, and Willbender can just win games from nowhere if your opponent is foolish enough to play the wrong spell....

Like the "control" deck I drafted in one of my last RGD drafts, this deck configuration has a lot of cards that do not seem too startling at first glance but seem to find ways to play nice together and wriggle out wins. I think there are much better sealed decks out there, but it is interesting that often the synergistic decks play better than the raw power decks -- that is not a choice I typically have the courage to make when playing in a real sealed deck tournament. But I am keeping my eyes open to this strategy in the new Time Spiral format as it has some amount of proven success in the past. I suggest you do the same -- blue is a very deep color, so deep that many of the cards that settle to the bottom are still quite powerful and hold little secrets of synergy, revealed only to those brash enough to look.

Drafting Blue: Musings on My Last Two Ravnica Drafts and Their Relevance to the Upcoming Limited Format that Is TSP-TSP-TSP

The week before the Time Spiral pre-release I scrubbed out of a standard tournament playing budget Vore and then participated in two six man drafts of RGD. Both drafts my team went 4 - 5. Both times I lost a game I should have won, and consequently a match I should have one. Both times I should have had the best record on my team. Both times there were duals on the line....

Any way, I am not writing this up to gripe and lament. Rather to delight and instruct (I think someone like Aristotle said that was the purpose of art?), I would like to present the two decklists because I found them rather elegant and because in this new age of nostalgia-fueled color pie chaos it seems fitting that I look back fondly on my last Ravnica block drafts -- already the memories of five color specials are fading into a beautiful rainbow-hued horizon in my mind....

By the way, you realize that our last Ravnica block drafts are behind us, right? It was an amazing format, one of the greatest achievements of both design and development of which its creators should rightly be proud. It was a shame that RGD was slightly displaced by the triple Coldsnap -- both formats had some serious strengths and deserved their time in the spotlight -- but still having trudged through triple Rav and RRG most players seemed to realize that RGD achieved a kind of perfection, a balanced manifestation of chaos where new possibilities seemed to unfold at every turn. Most people I know did not stop the RGD through the Coldsnap summer, but now with Time Spiral unveiled and about to crash down upon us there can be no more true RGD drafts -- drafts where the city of guilds is the focus of Magic and the defining format for skill testing. I am sure I will draft Ravnica again at some point but what I present now are my final real Ravnica block drafts.

In the local metagame for Ravnica block draft, blue has always been the most overdrafted color. Since for the most part I respect the skill level of my peers as reasonably high, I usually shy away from blue, not willing to fight over Snapping Drakes and Helium Squirters. But for these last two drafts I decided to give it a shot -- not before cracking packs of course, but as I thumbed through my cards I was drawn towards that color that most players respect as the deepest and most powerful.

Here is the first deck:

Deck 1:

Lands

7 Island
5 Plains
3 Mountain
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Izzet Boilerworks

Creatures

Blue

1 Drake Familiar
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Vigean Graftmage
1 Torch Drake
1 Wizened Snitches
2 Helium Squirter
1 Tidewater Minion

White

2 Soulsworn Jury
1 Stoic Ephemera
1 Droning Bureaucrats
1 Conclave Phalanx

Multicolor

1 Izzet Guildmage
1 Izzet Chronarch

Spells

Blue

1 Train of Thought
1 Thunderheads
1 Ocular Halo
1 Flight of Fancy

Red

1 Pyromatics
1 Galvanic Arc

Multicolor

1 Plumes of Peace

Artifact

1 Izzet Signet

Sideboarded in: Convolute *

This deck was partly inspired by the top8magic podcasts, specifically the Scott McCord appearances. In his top eight draft for limited champs, McCord, a zealous advocate of the color of card drawing and counterspells, drafted a strong, largely blue control deck which he proceeded to take to the finals (where he conceeded to his opponent to help his rating apparently...). Intrigued by the concept of a "control deck" in limited, I decided to try it and to draft a deck focused on card advantage and board control at the expense of raw card power (often my main concern in RGD drafts).

I was pleasantly surprised by the deck's performance. It still looks like a pile to me...but it seems to find ways to claw and fight into wacky board positions from which it can somehow eke out a win.

I think this deck is pretty relevant to the current cycling of limited formats as it is driven by many of the same features that will likely drive its Time Spiral brethren because once again blue is stacked for limited (based on the preliminary judgments of early drafts and abstract card evaluations).

At the pre-release for Time Spiral, I built my deck and played my games with one thought: tempo. Of course, tempo is a factor in any Magic format, though it manifests itself in different formats in different ways. In many ways Ravnica block allowed players to squeak by with wonky curves and even wonkier mana bases and survive with beefy creatures and powerful removal spells. My initial read on Time Spiral was that it was the opposite of Ravnica. My basic assumptions were that the two and three drops were strong and plentiful, the removal somewhat sparse, and the large creatures slow and somewhat less prevalent. I wanted to smash as fast as possible and I did so somewhat effectively....

I still believe this was the best approach to the pre-release of a new block where all the cards (ok, most...) were unfamiliar to me and my opponents and where speed and consistency could often overwhelm a poor understanding of new card values and power levels. However, I do not believe this is a winning strategy in the long term. Time Spiral is a subtle set with many synergies that take time to appreciate. As these become better known, the uninformed will fall behind and be taught -- the hard way. (I have been looking back over my initial sealed pool for other, non-green configurations and finding more potent than my original assessment -- I plan on writing something about this soon).

Let's go back to the decklist which I presented above but did not really analyze in any detail. What are the power cards in this deck? Well, I'll say Flight of Fancy since it was my first pick overall. Also, Galvanic Arc, Train of Thought and the two Helium Squirters are pretty big in this deck. Of course, Pyromatics is usually a great card in limited, but with red being only a splash it's just really strong rather than super amazing. So those are the stand-outs...but at face value, they do not seem to amount to all that much. Galvanic Arc is great, of course. But how good are Flight of Fancy and Train of Thought when you lack the good spells to draw into. And is it worth it to put Flight of Fancy on a Helium Squirter??

Look at the creature base for this deck. It's pretty shaky. Fifteen creatures total, of which five have defender, and most of the remainders have two power or less. Yet somehow I went 4 - 4 in games with this and should have been 5 - 3.

I managed to win games because this deck contains the following: six good defensive drops at two or three mana, three strong card drawing spells complemented by further sources of card advantage, five evasive creatures plus further means of granting evasion, a flexible suite of answers to threats, synergistic card interactions, and an overall theme.

The overall theme of the deck is defensive control -- being blue/white with a red splash is probably the optimal color configuration for this strategy. A curve of Izzet Guildmage to Soulsworn Jury to Wizened Snitches and Droning Bureaucrats allows this deck to hold off any early creature rush as long as the deck hits its fourth land drop. These solid blockers force the opponent to play the beatdown and attack aggressively -- a strategy which cards like Pyromatics, Thunderheads, and Plumes of Peace like to punish. Complementing these early defenders are some card interactions which grow stronger in the long game: Ocular Halo can win long games by itself but becomes even better when it teams up with Vigean Graftmage and Tidewater Minion; Galvanic Arc and Flight of Fancy are individually strong so playing them a second time via Screeching Drake has to be good; Train of Thought and Pyromatics can be effective in the early game and devastating in the late game...so why not cast them early and late thanks to Izzet Chronarch? It is not quite as tidy as these synergies, but the graft mechanic, present on three cards in the deck, also provides some welcome flexibility, especially with all the high toughness creatures -- it grants you the choice of having evenly powered attackers or one beefy blocker (like a 3/5 Conclave Phalanx).

These deck attributes are the ones to keep an eye on in the upcoming Time Spiral limited format. There are aggressive decks to be built in Time Spiral, but being equipped with some solid early blockers can allow a deck reliant more on synergistic combinations or larger, more powerful spells to succeed by surviving long enough to get its engines humming. Also, while the removal in Time Spiral is not as obvious and plentiful as it was in Ravnica, there are still plenty of ways to go one for one on cards -- taking into account the many blue sources of card drawing and that is already starting to sound like the makings of a pretty good deck. Also, coming off of Ravnica, I do not want to encourage anyone to play more colors than they should, but keep in mind that decks that draw alot of cards tend to draw their lands (ie their splash-colored lands) more easily than other decks!

The second deck which I would like to present to you is perhaps less instructive for the Time Spiral format, though it is still worth looking at, if only to question the viability of its strategy in the new format. Here is the deck:

Deck 2:

Lands

7 Plains
4 Forest
4 Island
1 Gruul Tuft
1 Selesnya Sanctuary

Creatures

White

1 Courier Hawk
1 Ghost Warden
1 Freewind Equenaut
1 Absolver Thrull
1 Guardian of the Guildpact
1 Skyrider Trainee

Green

1 Gristleback
1 Silhana Starfletcher
1 Ghor-Clan Savage
1 Simic Basilisk

Blue

1 Silkwing Scout
1 Torch Drake
1 Enigma Eidolon

Multicolor

1 Sky Hussar
1 Tolsimir Wolfsbood

Spells

White

1 Carom
1 Faith's Fetters

Blue

1 Repeal
1 Remand
1 Ocular Halo

Multicolor

1 Plumes of Peace
1 Leafdrake Roost
1 Pollenbright Wings

Artifact

1 Golgari Signet

I lived the dream with this deck. Selesnya is by and large the least drafted guild in RGD draft and widely accepted to be the weakest overall, due to the lack of synergy between its strategy and that of other guilds and the fact that green/white does not lead into two guilds in packs two and three. These circumstances open up an opportunity, however, and here I was lucky enough to take advantage of it.

Just because one color (or guild) is the strongest and one is the weakest does not mean that one should always draft the former and avoid the latter (though doing so might give you the best deck most of the time). The packs just can not support six blue drafters at one table. Likewise, the packs usually are nice enough to reward one Selesnyan drafter if everyone else stays out of his way.

In this draft, I was the Selesnyan drafter and I went for the Selesnya - Dissension strategy. The basic idea of this strategy is to take all of the good green/white cards in the first pack that no one else wants, grab whatever you can in Guildpact (shipping anything black or red), and the just enjoy yourself in Dissension being able to take both Azorius and Simic cards (though it is probably better to lean towards one two color combination rather than split evenly between green, white and blue).

This draft went fairly well for me as Leafdrake Roost, Pollenbright Wings, Tolsimir, and Sky Hussar are all really great cards which can be used to win the game and Plumes of Peace, Faith's Fetters, Ocular Halo, Guardian of the Guildpact, and Repeal are always solid contributors. The rest of the deck meets a decent curve with pretty respectable drops at each spot.

This deck has many of the qualities which I listed above for making the first deck successful, though this one has a less subtle, more aggressive bent. It has the ability to curve out -- playing creatures on turns two through six of successively higher quality -- which is so important for an aggressive strategy (as well as a controlling strategy looking to withstand an aggressive), plus a good amount of evasion and flexible answers to threats, and cards that fit the overall theme quick healthy beats (like Courier Hawk into Gristleback, or Tolsimir plus Pollenbright Wings, or any of the two through four drops followed up by Faith's Fetters and Plumes of Peace to keep blockers out of the way).

I do not want to dwell on the details of this deck because I feel it is fairly straightforward and less directly applicable to the new limited environment than the last deck. There is no guild model in TSP-TSP-TSP and you can expect to be passed much of the same things in pack three that you saw in pack one.

The relevant question brought up by this deck, though, is "What will be the underdrafted colors in Time Spiral, and how can they be exploited?" Much like Selesnya in RGD, early indications are that green will be the underdrafted color in Time Spiral. Likewise, blue seems the deepest and will likely be the most overdrafted. One thing to keep an eye on in the coming weeks and drafts is what can be done with green? There are several large common green monsters such as Durkwood Baloth, Havenwood Wurm, and Scarwood Treefolk -- could these round out the curve of a deck primarily in another color? Could the mana accelerators or seemingly underpowered Thallids be put to any good use?

I leave these questions open for now. I will keep an eye out for possible answers as the metagame is built up, and hopefully so will you. Have fun riding the spiral, just watch out for those sliver and u/b madness decks!

* I sideboarded this in against a guy sporting a broken deck with Sword of the Paruns, Stinkweed Imp, Blind Hunter, and Followed Footsteps. One game he played Followed Footsteps on Blind Hunter, I bounced it with Screeching Drake, and then countered it with Convolute to avoid the auto-loss! I won't even go in to the vast hordes I held off with Tidewater Minion and Droning Bureaucrats....

Play Fast, Swing Hard

Here is my first Time Spiral sealed pool:

Red

1 Lightning Axe
1 Fire Whip
1 Grapeshot
1 Mogg War Marshal
2 Blazing Blade Askari
1 Flowstone Channeler
1 Ironclaw Buzzardiers
1 Barbed Shocker
1 Coal Stoker
1 Subterranean Shambler
1 Keldon Halberdier
2 Plunder
1 Greater Gargadon

Green

1 Thallid Shell-Dweller
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Spinneret Sliver
2 Glass Asp
1 Thallid Germinator
1 Chameleon Blur
1 Herd Gnarr
1 Stonewood Invocation
1 Thelonite Hermit
1 Savage Thallid
1 Durkwood Baloth
1 Phantom Wurm
1 Tromp the Domains
1 Havenwood Wurm

Black

1 Call to the Netherworld
1 Mindlash Sliver
2 Deathspore Thallid
1 Smallpox
1 Faceless Devourer
1 Sudden Spoiling
1 Tresspasser il-Vec
1 Cyclopean Giant
1 Tendrils of Corruption
1 Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore
1 Evil Eye of Urborg
2 Traitor's Clutch
1 Mindstab
1 Phthisis

White

1 Detainment Spell
1 Amrou Scout
1 Disenchant
1 Temporal Isolation
2 Outrider en-Kor
1 Zealot il-Vec
1 Return to Dust
1 Watcher Sliver
3 Ivory Giant

Blue

1 Screeching Sliver
1 Coral Trickster
1 Dream Stalker
1 Looter il-Kor
1 Willbender
1 Bewilder
1 Temporal Eddy
1 Stormcloud Djinn
1 Errant Ephemeron

Artifact

1 Hivestone
1 Chronatog Totem
1 Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII
1 Grinning Totem

Lands

1 Fungal Reaches
1 Urza's Factory

Multi-colored

1 Dementia Sliver

I don't have a feel for the set but it seems like a decent pool to me: nothing too broken here, but a decent number of solid roleplayers. This was my first (and only) flight on day one of the Time Spiral pre-release and my mindset going in was that this set was going to be fast and furious, especially for one in tune with the rhythms of RGD draft. My guiding principles were speed, consistency, efficiency. I was willing to accept that I was going to build what would in hindsight look like a sub-optimal deck, but I was banking on my opponents doing so as well so I just wanted to give self the best chance by playing a forgiving deck that drew and mulliganed well and was close to an automatic win against anyone off to a slow start or forcing too much of a color stretch.

Here is what I went with:

Lands

7 Forest
6 Mountain
3 Swamp
1 Fungal Reaches

Creatures

Red

2 Blazing Blade Askari
1 Flowstone Channeler
1 Ironclaw Buzzardiers
1 Coal Stoker
1 Keldon Halberdier
1 Greater Gargadon

Green

1 Scryb Ranger
1 Spinneret Sliver
1 Thallid Germinator
1 Herd Gnarr
1 Thelonite Hermit
1 Savage Thallid
1 Durkwood Baloth
1 Phantom Wurm
1 Havenwood Wurm

Black

1 Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore
1 Evil Eye of Urborg

Spells

Red

1 Lightning Axe
1 Fire Whip
1 Grapeshot

Green

1 Stone Invocation

Artifact

1 Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII

First off, I made one glaring error. Greater Gargadon is a completely dead card in my deck. Perhaps it is possible to build a control deck in Time Spiral limited (I am not convinced of this yet), but in my deck even the long, grinders only took about ten turns total. And, of course, since I play like a complete n00b, I always forgot to sacrifice my creatures when they were destroyed in combat.... Any way, after the first match I always subbed the beast out for Tendrils of Corruption. I overlooked this card a bit on the first pass because I was trying to keep my black splash as light as possible, but it turned out that this card would actually always have an impact on the game even if I cast it with only one swamp in play.

Another sideboarding plan which I had prepared was to swap out black for white: 3 plains for 3 swamps and Disenchant, Temporal Isolation, and Grinning Totem for the three black spells (pretend I didn't maindeck the Gargadon like I am trying to do...). Multiple people were opening up Akromas and other bombs around me and, while my speedy deck was my first defense against huge bombs, I had a back-up plan if my little beaters needed a little help keeping the path clear to the finish line.

So how did the deck play? Well, I should have taken notes but here are some brief details from my memory:

Round 1: I drop some beaters, he drops some fungi, we trade for a bit, then he hits seven mana and plays out Trisklavus. I play a Phantom Wurm to try to tempt him in to using his little artifact bullets, but he doesn't go for it and game 1 ends. Games 2 and 3 go pretty similarly. On turn three, I play a morphed Thelonite Hermit. On the end of his turn on turn 5 I flip my hermit and then crash in with my many 2/2's on turn 6 and quickly overwhelm him. Sadly this would be the only round I ever draw the hermit.

Round 2: These games were all exciting, rough and tumble battles, in part because we both played like good players (ie never blocked). We would battle down to dangerously low life totals and then just see who had the better trick to come out on top. This was helped in part by his aggressive use of his Sangrophage. One game found us both down to 2 life and no cards in hand with me having more two power beaters than he had blockers. Unfortunately he got to draw first at that point of the game and ripped a Griffin Guide to fly over for the win (just one instance where I would probably have rather had disenchant in my deck than Eyes...). The other games went similarly except I came out on top...without really drawing any big creatures either. Herd Gnarr learned that reading can be quite enlightening as he oftened crashed through for four after brushing up on his Sarpadian history. I made one major misplay in game three, playing a Scryb Ranger and never using its ability to take out his Skulking Knight but luckily he didn't realize that I didn't realize...until I was too far ahead.

Round 3: Evil Eye of Urborg makes its first appearance and begins eating my opponent's board one critter at a time. My other creatures become roadkill as keep attacking and hoping that eventually he not draw a blocker for a change. Eventually I start pushing through damage, but on the turn before I would win the game he casts Phthisis on my eye with me at 11 life. Luckily I had been holding back Stonewood Invocation all game and can use it to counter Phthisis and win on the next turn. I enjoy game two because he plays Nightshade Assassin and shows me Sudden Spoiling. Being behind in life and creatures, I try to come up suboptimal blocks that are juicy enough to bait his sudden spoiling but still leave me with a chance to win. Of course, I lose because I am behind on life and creatures and he has Sudden Spoiling.... My little 2/2's pound in as hard as the can the last game but unfortunately swampwalking Viscid Lemures and a Nightshade Assassin embracing a Fallen Ideal slip through my defenses for the wins.

Round 4: In the first game I draw three lands and four three drops in my opening hand (or maybe I got a Coal Stoker and worked up to the double drop) and just ran him over before he could set up his defenses. In the second game, my Keldon Halberdier stares blankly across the board at a D'Avenant Healer, leading me to conclude that one toughness creatures are not too good in Time Spiral (though they rarely are in general either). This game, I do finally get the double eye tag team running, however, and overwhelm my opponent by the sheer proposterousness of it -- he made alot of misplays this game though my card quality might still have been high enough to win...Amrou Scout was doing good things for him though....

Some Final Pre-Release Thoughts

So I went 3-1 on match record and 7-4 on game record...not bad, I can't complain about getting six extra packs for my efforts though some of those games were much closer than I would have liked. In hindsight, I think the Greater Gargadon and Keldon Halberdier were the two cards that didn't really shine as I would have liked. There were several cards vying for MVC and it would be difficult to single out just one. With my extreme three drop redundancy (six 2/2's for three counting morphs) Coal Stoker actually played surprisingly well, allowing for two creatures to come down on turn four usually; it also helped boost a Grapeshot one time. Scryb Ranger and Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII interacted well with the Herd Gnarr in numerous games. The ranger also helped power out a Havenwood Wurm one game when I was short a land. Stonewood Invocation helped finish off an opponent a couple times (including the time detailed above).

Overall, I was happy with the way the deck played. I would have preferred a couple more solid two drops like Ashcoat Bear just to make the deck a little more consistent and fast. With seventeen lands and mostly two colors, I was never color screwed and rarely mulliganed even (I did mulligan some and my six card hands were usually solid). It was pre-release and I wanted to have fun so I don't regret playing the eyes though I'm not sure they are the best splash. Tendrils of Corruption was definitely a better black splash -- there are a few ways the eyes can be neutralized and neither one is quite effective enough on its own to make up for it: Orms-by-Gore is too slow of a clock for my fast deck which would rather swing with everyone than rely on three unblockable points of damage, and Urborg just takes out your opponent's worst creature while the good ones can swing back without worry of you alpha striking. They would work better in a controllish deck, or a deck capable of getting rid of them which could serve to throw your opponent off guard (yes, the Gargadon could help with this...).

Looking at other paths I could have taken with the deck, blue seems like it might have been better than I originally gave it credit for. Evasion was so sparse as to be irrelevant most games (and very relevant in a few). Those two big fliers and the shadow looter might have been quite effective, and I am sure the two morph creatures would have played their roles well. Temporal Eddy and Bewilder seem like decent tricks as well -- though still that's only seven playable cards which is on the light side for this format where you need to be basically two colors. I wish I had had a couple more white creatures because I think my rebel suite could have worked pretty well (I am a fan of the scout -- from experience playing against her, searching up a nice three drop when you don't have a good four drop in hand is pretty effective), plus the above mentioned utility sideboard cards...I stand by my judgment that the giant is too slow. There were a bunch of black cards but they seemed too slow and weak to me. The thallids combo well with Sarpadian Empires but are really weak Plagued Rusalkas for the most part. I would have loved to have been able to play Sudden Spoiling, my only real bomb, and Phthisis but the other black cards just didn't make it worthwhile for me. Traitor's cluth would have been nice...if there were guys worth targeting with it -- perhaps one of them could have fit in to the deck I ended up playing instead of an eye.

As for the colors I did play, I am glad I didn't play the asps due to the previously mentioned weakness of one power creatures in the format. Contradictorily, I wish I had played the Mogg War Marshal. I think getting four 1/1's for two mana would have been helpful in many games -- whether those 1/1's served as chump blockers or helped swarm on offense, they could have had an impact on the damage race. Also, the Subterranean Shambler is probably better than I gave him credit for. I was worried about negative synergy with my deck but he probably would have been better than the halberdier and could have wrecked my opponents in some instances.

My initial take of the time theme is that it just means win as fast as possible -- my experiences with thallids and suspend cards were not too positive as most games were almost decided after turn six or seven before suspend or thallids could really contribute much to anything. There are a couple exceptions of course. Ancestral Vision seems like it is powerful enough to wait for and cheap enough to suspend to be good as long as you draw it in the first four or five turns.... Also, talking to my round 3 opponent, playing heavy enough black makes Phthisis a playable card just as a hard cast in the sealed deck environment at least.

I am curious to see how the draft format plays out. I played seventeen lands and felt in the end that eighteen would probably have been preferable. There are enough discard effects to make extra lands in hand useful and in most of my games my six and seven mana creatures were just dead cards because I didn't draw my sixth or seventh land quickly enough to make them relevant.

With half the card pool rare/Time-shifted cards, there is alot of variety in Time Spiral limited and plenty of subtleties to tease out.... Good luck playing fast and swinging hard in post-apocalyptic Dominaria!

Appendix:

A couple other potentially better deck configurations:

Exchange both eyes, the halberdier, and Phantom wurm for:
Thallid Shell Dweller, Traitor's Clutch, Subterranean Shambler, and a mountain

Or those cards and Tendrils of Corruption and the swamps for
Willbender, Coral Trickster, Stormcloud Djinn, Subterranean Shambler and a mountain plus islands for the swamps (currently I think this is the overall strongest deck)

Or work in the Ephemeron

Or etc.

Post Scriptum:

I must admit that when I was looking back over the cards I realized I had misread Tendrils (I thought X was twice the number of swamps...). I still think getting one or two points is pretty decent for the last spell to make the deck -- there are alot of one and two toughness creatures in Time Spiral that people value too highly for their fragility...but I should perhaps have been a little less gushing in my 3 swamp Tendrils splash.

Removal/Tricks

I have picked out of most the significant removal spells and combat tricks in Time Spiral and listed them below. It could be a helpful reference for getting acquainted with the set. Cards with stars (*) can be played as instants. I tried to list the casting cost and amount of damage or equivalent damage that the card could do (equivalent damage: eg. -3/-3 is treated as three damage). I got lazy after doing red and black...I separated those into common/uncommon/rare+timeshift. The other colors are just common+uncommon/rare+timeshift. Hopefully it's helpful....

Red

* Bogardan Rager (5R)
Flowstone Channeler (2R) (1)
Goblin Skycutter (1R) (2 - flying)
* Lightning Axe (R) (5)
* Orcish Cannonade (1RR) (2)
Rift Bolt (2R) (3)
Subterranean Shambler (3R) (1)
Viashino Bladescout (1RR) (*)
-
Conflagrate (x)
Firemaw Kavu (5R) (4/2)
Sudden Shock (1R) (2)
Sulfurous Blast 2RR (2/3)
--
Disintegrate
Fiery Temper (1RR)
Tribal Flames
Bogardan Hellkite
Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
Magus of the Scroll

Black

Assassinate (2B)
* Dark Withering (4BB)
Deathspore Thallid (1B) (1)
* Feebleness (1B) (1)
* Strangling Soot (2B) (3)
* Tendrils of Corruption 3B (x)
-
Nightshade Assassin 2BB (x)
Pthisis 3BBBB
Premature Burial 1B
Small Pox BB
* Sudden Death 1BB (4)
--
Sudden Spoiling 1BB
Avatar of Woe
* Funeral Charm B (1)
Shadow Guildmage B (1)

White

* Celestial Crusader 2WW
* Plated Pegasus 2W
* Fortify

Green

* aether web 1G
* ashcoat bear 1G
* Havenwood Wurm 6G
* Sprout G
* Strength in Numbers 1G
* Thrill of the Hunt G
* Might of Old Krosa
* Scryb Ranger
--
* Squall Line
* Stonewood Invocation 3G

Blue

* Crookclaw Transmuter 3U
* Bewilder 2U
* Cancel 1UU
* Clockspinning U
* Snapback 1U
* Wipe Away 1UU
--
* Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
* Draining Whelk
* Voidmage Husher
* Psionic Blast

Time Spiral First Look

The Time Spiral spoiler has just been posted on gatherer on Friday night before the Saturday pre-release. I have kept up with the spoilers over the past month but most of the updating took place within in the last week during which time I would read over some cards but didn't keep up comprehensive scrutiny. I have just hastily read over the spoiler focusing mostly on the commons with a quick glance at the uncommons and paying little attention to the rares. What follows is my initial reaction.

My initial judgment of the set, especially in regards to playing in the pre-release, is that it is a fast, tempo-oriented format. This is based partly on my quick read-through and partly the general chatter I have heard various knowledgeable and unknowledgeable sources during the time when officially no one who knew about the set could really talk about it. Below is my categoratization of all commons in Time Spiral as either "Definitely", "No", or "Workable". "Definitely" means splash for this if it has one off-color requirement that you can handle and play it if it's in your color. If you have alot of these in one color, that is your color. "No" means I think you're safe putting this one face down and forgetting about it while building your sealed deck. "Workable" is mostly for roleplayers and safety cards such as artifact and enchantment removal which is not very valuable in limited but your opponent's deck could make it worthwhile. This category also includes some creatures and spells which fall below the curve but could fill a curve slot or be boosted by other supporting creatures (mainly this refers to the weaker slivers and thallids). Some of these evaluations could of course be way off the mark. Some standard card mechanics could change in value in the new environment. One of the most obvious examples is that bounce could become much more powerful against a suspend heavy deck.

I also included "Notable Uncommons" which I think are eminently playable or have large enough effects that you should be aware of the possibility of your opponent playing on of them against you.

Red

Definitely:

Blazing Blade Askari
Empty the Warrens
Flamecore Elemental
Goblin Skycutter
Grapeshot
Ironclaw Buzzardiers
Lightning Axe
Orcish Cannonade
Rift Bolt
Viashino Bladescout



No:

Ground Rift
Plunder
Two-Headed Sliver

Workable:

Ætherflame Wall
Ancient Grudge
Bonesplitter Sliver
Coal Stoker
Bogardan Rager
Ghitu Firebreathing
Keldon Halberdier
Mogg War Marshal
Subterranean Shambler



Notable Uncommons:

Sudden Shock
Sulfurous Blast


Black

Definitely:

Assassinate
Basal Sliver
Corpulent Corpse
Feebleness
Gorgon Recluse
Pit Keeper
Strangling Soot
Tendrils of Corruption
Urborg Syphon-Mage
Viscid Lemures

No:

Mindstab
Skulking Knight
Traitor's Clutch

Workable:

Call to the Netherworld
Cyclopean Giant
Deathspore Thallid
Drudge Reavers
Mana Skimmer
Mindlash Sliver
Psychotic Episode
Sangrophage
Trespasser il-Vec

Notable Uncommons:

Evil Eye of Urborg
Premature Burial

Green

Definitely:

Ashcoat Bear
Durkwood Baloth
Gemhide Sliver
Greenseeker
Herd Gnarr
Penumbra Spider
Scarwood Treefolk
Scryb Ranger
Search for Tomorrow
Spinneret Sliver
Thallid Germinator
Thrill of the Hunt


No:

Chameleon Blur


Workable:

Æther Web
Glass Asp
Havenwood Wurm
Molder
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Savage Thallid
Sprout
Strength in Numbers
Thallid Shell-Dweller
Wormwood Dryad


Notable Uncommons:

Blue

Definitely:

Clockspinning *** highly conditional, but seems appealing ***
Coral Trickster
Crookclaw Transmuter
Drifter il-Dal
Errant Ephemeron
Looter il-Kor
Mystical Teachings
Sage of Epityr
Screeching Sliver
Slipstream Serpent ** I think grey ogre is playable **
Snapback ** unsure how good bounce is in Time Spiral... **
Spiketail Drakeling
Temporal Eddy

No:

Bewilder
Cancel
Dream Stalker
Eternity Snare
Think Twice (unless your deck is short a playable)


Workable:

Shadow Sliver
Tolarian Sentinel
Viscerid Deepwalker



Notable Uncommons:

Brine Elemental
Telekinetic Sliver


White

Definitely:

Amrou Scout
Amrou Seekers
Benalish Cavalry
Castle Raptors
Children of Korlis
Cloudchaser Kestrel
D'Avenant Healer
Flickering Spirit
Fortify
Gaze of Justice
Sidewinder Sliver

No:

Foriysian Interceptor

Workable:

Detainment Spell
Errant Doomsayers
Griffin Guide
Icatian Crier
Ivory Giant
Jedit's Dragoons
Momentary Blink
Pentarch Ward
Temporal Isolation
Watcher Sliver
Zealot il-Vec

Notable Uncommons:

Cavalry Master
Celestial Crusader
Knight of the Holy Nimbus