It’s been a while since I’ve wrote a non-Drafting With Rich, non-Battle Royale article, due to a combination of laziness and nothing interesting to write about. I like writing tournament reports, mostly because I find them quite easy, but unfortunately I haven’t done well enough at any tournaments to feel they deserved a report. That isn’t to say I’ve done outright badly… just not spectacularly at any tournaments in the last few months. Since Pro Tour: Prague, when I last wrote, I finished in the money at both Pro Tours, but neither time particularly well. I felt that we had a very good deck at Pro Tour: Charleston — a deck that may have been worth writing about – but since there were no more Ravnica Block Constructed tournaments, it felt rather pointless. I then just missed the Top 32 in Pro Tour: Kobe (that’s the 8th straight Limited cash finish, for those counting at home), and have been busy since then trying to catch up with the “work” (read: poker) I’d been neglecting while preparing for that tournament.
In the weeks between Pro Tour: Kobe, and Grand Prix: New Jersey, I drafted a fair bit once Time Spiral became available on Magic Online, with two aims in mind. First, I wanted to prime myself for the draft format, since I felt a little unprepared in Kobe. Second, I wanted to store up enough “Drafting With Rich” articles to be able to go on my trips to NJ, Yamagata, and Paris, without missing a day. Obviously I managed to achieve the first goal, but the second proved impossible due to some problems with DraftCap. (I sometimes mention problems with DraftCap, but I never mention how appreciative I am of its existence, so I’d like to do that here. It is an excellent program that has given me a great deal of material, and has allowed me to learn a lot by reviewing my drafts, and discussing certain picks with my peers, and I’m certain it can do the same for you. Go try it out at Blargware.com) Since I wasn’t able to record many drafts, I left Drafting With Rich in the capable hands of Tim Aten. Thankfully he didn’t prove be too popular in my absence, and he failed to usurp my position permanently. Despite my grumpiness, I do enjoy Drafting With Rich a great deal.
Now that I’ve rambled for a few hundred words, I suppose I can get to what I plan on writing about: that is, of course, Time Spiral Limited. I began writing a report for Grand Prix: New Jersey, but as usual I didn’t like what I had written, and I scrapped it halfway through. It quickly became apparent that you, my audience, would be better served by an overview of the format than the simple description of a few matches of sealed deck, a draft in which I opened two Dragons, a draft that was completely irrelevant (I needed a mere draw in three rounds to make Top 8), and a draft that you can already view online, in which the two matches I played were covered.
First I will go through each color, make a basic pick order, and stop to discuss a few cards which are overvalued, undervalued, or of interest for some other reason. Keep in mind with the pick orders that they are:
A) based purely on my opinion, and…
B) should never be strictly adhered to, since card values are constantly changing based on a great deal of factors.
Then, in a future article, I will discuss each color combination. If I’m feeling particularly ambitious I’ll write an article about each color combination, because each one definitely has enough nuances to fill an article, and there are ten!
Black Commons
Strangling Soot
Tendrils of Corruption
Dark Withering
Assassinate (Jelger says I have this too high)
Feebleness
Trespasser Il-Vec
Corpulent Corpse
Urborg Syphon-Mage
Mindstab
Mana Skimmer
Gorgon Recluse
Pit Keeper
Deathspore Thallid
Skulking Knight
Viscid Lemures
Drudge Reavers
Basal Sliver
Psychotic Episode
Cyclopean Giant
Mindlash Sliver
Sangrophage
Traitor’s Clutch
Call to the Netherworld
Black
There is an interesting trend that is shared by Black and Red. The top of the common list is all spells. That is for the fairly simple and obvious reason that the removal spells are very good, and the creatures go from average to well below that. That is truer of Black than Red, with Black’s best creature being a three mana 3/1 with a sub-par evasion ability. That’s ignoring its synergy with Black’s other commons, but it’s not like the other creatures get any more efficient. The color’s biggest creature is a 3/3 that you’re quite happy when it comes into play on turn six. That being said, Black is still quite good thanks to an excellent suite of removal. The removal varies from “destroy anything non-Black,” to “destroy anything tapped,” to “destroy anything twice” (almost). With the right spell you can kill pretty much anything, and be happy about the exchange.
Strangling Soot
I suppose this is as good a place as any to start. This would still be Black’s best common if it didn’t have flashback, although it would be a much closer race. As it is I’m very happy first-picking this card since it is the most powerful common, and is great even without Red, and easily splashed in nearly any Red deck. It’s at it’s worst against Green decks since Green is nearly the only color with commons it can’t target… but even there it is still excellent.
Dark Withering
4BB is a lot of mana to pay for this effect, and without Madness this would be ranked much lower. B, on the other hand, is exceptionally cheap, which is what makes this card so good. Black only has two common Madness outlets, but each color has a playable Spellshaper, and Red and Blue each give you another excellent Madness outlet (although they also have the two weakest Spellshapers). If I often paired my Black Cards with Green or White, I would rank this card a little lower, since they have fewer Madness outlets, and a six-mana removal spell doesn’t really fit in with those colors’ gameplans. When your Black cards are paired with Blue or Red, however, this becomes quite good. Most of the rest of the Black and Red removal spells have a lot of trouble dealing with big Green men, while this does it well, with the exception of Penumbra Spider… and nothing deals with that.
Mindstab
Suspending this card on turn 1 is just unfair. It takes an excellent draw, or a terrible one, for this to not be devastating. If their draw is excellent, and they played first, they are sometimes able to get under the turn 1 Mindstab, losing only one or two cards to it, and often having created an overwhelming board position by that point. Not much you can do about that. If their draw is mediocre, on the other hand… if they miss land drops, or are flooded, they often suffer the small cost of discarding three cards that weren’t too likely to be relevant anyways. It is the 80% of draws that could be described as being in the general vicinity of “average” that this hits the hardest. Often they get to play two creatures and a spell before they lose the grip. Hopefully the other ten or so cards you have by then can beat that.
Drudge Reavers
I may have this card ranked a bit too highly, but it is a pet card of mine. While it is a bit slow and clunky, I think it is excellent in, well, slow and clunky decks. Hopefully when your deck is slow you have an excellent late game to fall back on. I’ve found that this will often give you the time needed to take over the game with your more powerful spells, unless you’re being attacked by evasion creatures.
Blue Commons
Errant Ephemeron
Looter il-Kor
Fathom Seer
Spiketail Drakeling
Crookclaw Transmuter
Viscerid Deepwalker
Snapback
Coral Trickster
Dream Stalker
Tolarian Sentinel
Slipstream Serpent
Temporal Eddy
Think Twice
Cancel
Eternity Snare
Mystical Teachings
Drifter il-Dal
Ophidian Eye
Bewilder
Sage of Epityr
Clockspinning
Shadow Sliver
Screeching Sliver
Blue
Blue is widely agreed upon as the best color in the format. It has three excellent, often game-swinging commons, and a lot more that go from good to playable. As usual, there isn’t any true removal, but Blue has it’s classic Unsummon, Time Ebb, and Thirst to deal with opposing creatures, as well as having men that aren’t afraid to fight. I recall reading Jeroen’s article very early on after the set’s release, and agreeing with his assessment that Blue is excellent, but is lacking the Horned Turtle variant to allow it to keep up with the other colors in the early game. Now that we’ve had a bit more time to play with the set I think most people have found Dream Stalker to actually be better than Horned Turtle. It is annoying when you need him early and he stunts your manabase, but certainly not disastrous, and he can be excellent in the late game. He is disgusting in combination with Firemaw Kavu and Grapeshot, among many others.
Errant Ephemeron & Looter il-Kor
I want to talk about these two together because when the set first came out nobody was really sure in which order to rank Blue’s top two commons. In fact, on the Thursday before PT: Kobe, Kenji Tsumura asked me which I liked. I said Looter, which he agreed with. By the end of the weekend, we discussed it again, and agreed that Ephemeron is definitely superior. I think that in a lot of formats the Looter would be better, but this format has a few big differences from other formats. The relevant one here is that it has many more playables, and those playables are much more similar in power level than they usually are (with the exception of the many ridiculous rares). Therefore getting to “loot” doesn’t provide as big an advantage is it would have in, say, Ravnica Block, where there was an enormous difference in the power level of the top and bottom of the playables.
Viscerid Deepwalker
He may not look like much, but he can sure hit hard when turn 5 comes around. Since you are able to plan around when he comes in, you are often able to use a removal spell on their turn 4 play, so they can’t block him effectively, and get in for five or six damage. Then next turn if you have a cheap removal spell, like Snapback or something, the game is usually over. Obviously this situation is asking for a lot to go right, but it isn’t exactly unreasonable. On the other end of combat, this is one of the few Blue ways of actually dealing with a Durkwood Baloth permanently.
Drifter il-Dal
This guy isn’t terrible, but he isn’t really good either. The problem is that there isn’t really a home for him. Not in the decks I draft, at least. My Blue decks are always fairly controlling, so this guy just doesn’t really fit. There have been times when I’ve been very happy with him, but those situations are rare. If you do end up playing him, it’s probably not a good idea to play him turn 1. And if you do play him turn 1, don’t be afraid to let him go after he gets his six-plus points in, so that you can cast your real spells.
Green Commons
Durkwood Baloth
Gemhide Sliver
Penumbra Spider
Search for Tomorrow
Strength in Numbers
Nantuko Shaman
Herd Gnarr
Spinneret Sliver
Thallid Germinator
Thrill of the Hunt
Greenseeker
Havenwood Wurm
Thallid Shell-Dweller
Scarwood Treefolk
Savage Thallid
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
Ashcoat Bear
Aether Web
Wormwood Dryad
Molder
Sprout
Glass Asp
Chameleon Blur
Green
I really don’t like Green. That’s not just a mild distaste. I’m not even sure what’s wrong with it. The cards look pretty good… they just never seem to win. It seems like Green should be just as good as it always is. You’ve got your two good mana accelerants, one really good fatty, and a few decent fatties, as well as the two men that can provide card advantage. For some reason it just doesn’t seem to work. The problem that first occurs to me is that too many of the good cards cost four. Yes, both of the accelerants get you to four mana on turn 3, but if you don’t draw one of them, your deck is just far too slow. It seems to me that Green could be really good if you know how to draft it, but there are many important decisions that need to be made during the draft and deck construction which need a great deal of familiarity with the deck you’re drafting to be consistently made correctly. I haven’t been able to put enough time into it to be able to make these decisions correctly.
Durkwood Baloth, Gemhide Sliver, Penumbra Spider
I’m really not sure what order to put these three in, which is odd since they do very different things. Usually one effect is simply more powerful than another, but in this instance all three do their assigned role very well. The Baloth is enormous, and is great in both your opening hand and on turn 10, which is one of the signs of an excellent card. Gemhide Sliver on the other hand, is pretty much only good on turn two, but it is an absolute necessity for Green since so many of its creatures cost four. Penumbra Spider is also worthy of mention with these two, since he is an absolute nightmare for so many decks. U/W decks can’t really beat it short of Temporal Isolation, and Black/Red decks get at least two-for-oned by it.
Strength in Numbers
For a few weeks after the set’s release I vastly underrated Strength in Numbers. It really didn’t look that good, but now that I’ve played with it (and against it even more), I have a great deal of respect for it. I think Quentin Martin put it best when he said in Yamagata “I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks that often when I get attacked on turn 8 or so, if they have the Strength in Numbers I’m just dead. I have to look for something else to play around.”
Greenseeker
I think Greenseeker is absolutely terrible outside of three-plus color decks. People like the deck-thinning aspect, but it’s quite rare that games actually go long enough for the effect to be more than negligible.
Red Commons
Lightning Axe
Rift Bolt
Coal Stoker
Orcish Cannonade
Grapeshot
Keldon Halberdier
Empty the Warrens
Mogg War Marshal
Blazing Blade Askari
Ironclaw Buzzardiers
Goblin Skycutter
Flamecore Elemental
Bonesplitter Sliver
Flowstone Channeler
Subterranean Shambler
Bogardan Rager
Two-Headed Sliver
Viashino Bladescout
Aetherflame Wall
Ancient Grudge
Ghitu Firebreathing
Ground Rift
Plunder
Red
While popular opinion states that Blue is the best color in triple Time Spiral draft, I have had the most success with Red. I think that’s because Red fits my style best. It can be very aggressive when necessary, with overwhelming draws, usually involving Coal Stoker. It can play the card advantage game with Orcish Cannonade and Subterranean Shambler, and it can win with a more combo-ish approach with the interaction between Suspend and Storm. I guess it’s not really a style thing, it’s just that the Red cards allow you to adapt very easily once you determine what approach is best for a certain matchup.
Lightning Axe & Rift Bolt
While all that fancy mumbo jumbo I stated above is true, it also helps to have the second and third best removal spells in the set. These two spells serve quite different roles. Lightning Axe gets the job done quickly and efficiently. While it does often cost you some card advantage, it’s surprise capability more than makes up for it. Rift Bolt, on the other hand, is much more of a finesse card. It often gets suspended even when you have mana to cast it, so that it can add to the storm count.
Coal Stoker
I must overrate this card, because there’s no way every pro I talk to is wrong in liking it a lot less than I do. One (who may or may not wear a yellow hat) went as far as to describe it as a “bad Serpent Warrior.” In my second draft at Worlds I went as far as to take it over Word of Seizing (a card I believe to be quite overrated, just like Flash Conscription). I can count the times I’ve mana-burned for three on one hand. That may be because I also coincidentally like cards that can act as mana sinks, such as Ironclaw Buzzardiers and the storage lands. The tempo swing when it comes into play and brings a friend or a removal spell is very difficult to beat.
Flamecore Elemental
This guy is enormous. Nothing at the common level can even compete with him when he starts attacking on turn 5. Many people don’t like echo creatures in a format as tempo-oriented as this, but I like him a lot in all matchups where I can count on him not getting bounced. Think of it this way. Flamecore Elemental is providing a form of card advantage. You are paying his casting cost twice, and essentially getting two creatures worth of power and toughness.
Mogg War Marshal
This is another card I seem to like more than most other pros. When asked why I’ve found it difficult to explain, and eventually gave my reasoning as “it attacks and blocks.” Even that statement is nearly untrue since he does a lot more blocking than attacking. He makes attacking quite a challenge in the early game, since people don’t want to trade their “real creatures” for your worthless 1/1s. Since I try to draft decks that can handle the early game and have a powerful late game this little man fits perfectly into my plan.
White Commons
Temporal Isolation
Castle Raptors
Amrou Scout
Benalish Cavalry
Amrou Seekers
Ivory Giant
Cloudchaser Kestrel
Momentary Blink
Fortify
Errant Doomsayers
Flickering Spirit
D’Avenant Healer
Watcher Sliver
Zealot il-Vec
Icatian Crier
Jedit’s Dragoons
Pentarch Ward
Gaze of Justice
Sidewinder Sliver
Detainment Spell
Children of Korlis
Foriysian Interceptors
Divine Congregation
White
When I first read the spoiler I thought White would be the set’s best color. I vastly overrated the rebel mechanic since I didn’t think the format would be as fast as it turned out to be. In fact, in discussions a few days after the prerelease, I stated with a degree of certainty that Amrou Scout was the set’s best common, a notion that is now laughable. At Pro Tour: Kobe I refused to play Green, and really liked White. Since then I’ve learned a great deal more about the format, and now White is my most hated color, with Green following closely behind. All the other colors are able to gain card advantage, and have overwhelming draws fairly easily, but White has to play some average creatures, maybe a trick or two, and hope it’s enough. White does have a source of card advantage in Amrou Scout, but it’s simply too slow, and the rebels that you search out aren’t always relevant.
Ivory Giant & Momentary Blink
In case you hadn’t noticed, this is kind of a combo. For the two of you who still haven’t figured it out, you Blink your Giant on their turn, then do it again next turn, which gives you three Falters and two Fogs, which is usually enough to win. Individually neither card is all that hot. Ivory Giant is barely playable in decks whose creatures aren’t almost exclusively White, and Momentary Blink is a very mediocre trick without Blue mana to flash it back.
Fortify
At first I thought this was going to be the standard mediocre Warrior’s Honor type trick, but I was proven quite wrong. The ability to get in for a surprise four to eight damage is what makes this card playable, and all the other potential utilizations are what make it good.
Jedit’s Dragoons
This card just keeps growing on me. At first I believed it to be unplayable, but then I started boarding it in against Red decks that would burn me out once I stopped their early game. Then I started playing it main, and was still happy whenever I drew it. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’ve played two yet, but I could see it happening in the near future. I had it in three of my decks in Kobe, and it wasn’t even until the last draft that I found out it has Vigilance!
Artifacts
Prismatic Lens
Chromatic Star
Jhoira’s Timebug
Venser’s Sliver
Brass Gnat
Prismatic Lens & Chromatic Star
There are two situations in which I really like to have these two cards. The first and most obvious is when I’m splashing a third or fourth color and need the mana fix. Short of Gemhide Sliver, these are the best ways to get other colors of mana. I take them higher in the first pack because I feel a lot better taking off-color bombs over solid cards in my colors when I already have ways to splash them. The second situation is with Empty the Warrens. Chromatic Star gets played in Extended because it can add one to your storm count for a single mana and replace itself in the process (among other things), so surely that’s good enough for draft. The Lens can also add one to your storm count for a huge turn, or make that big turn happen earlier, depending on your hand.
Jhoira’s Timebug
After some theorizing of my own, and discussion with others in #Wisedraft, I’ve come to the conclusion that for the Timebug to be playable you need at least five “normal” Suspend cards, like Ivory Giant or Viscerid Deepwalker, or three to four total Suspend cards with at least one being a really big or uncastable one, like Deep-Sea Kraken or Ancestral Vision.
Lands
Terramorphic Expanse
This, like Prismatic Lens and Chromatic Star, is very good at fixing your mana, but it definitely comes at a price. This is the fastest format in recent memory… and with more one-drops than usual thanks to Suspend, having a land come into play tapped is far more painful than you’re used to. That being said, one of the most important things in a fast format is a good manabase, and this definitely helps with that. I’ll always play one, and if I’m splashing something I’ll play more, but there’s definitely a limit as to how many I would be happy about running.
…
I apologize for the lateness of this article. I didn’t feel comfortable writing about the format after PT: Kobe, because in all honesty I didn’t think I was very good at that point. But after making Top 8 at two Grand Prix tournaments, going 5-1 in Limited at Worlds, and winning countless Team Drafts, I think that my advice is well worth listening to. Hopefully everything I’ve just said remains true when Planar Chaos is released in a few weeks.
If you have any specific questions about certain cards or strategies, I’ll be happy to answer them in the forums.
Rich