From The Lab - The (Nearly) Definitive Guide to Time Spiral Block Constructed

Right, it’s time.

Hopefully, if all goes to schedule, you should be reading this while I’m currently halfway through Day 1 of Pro Tour: Yokohama. I’ll probably be frantically trying to stay in the tournament after starting 0-2 as usual. As no one ever reads my articles until they’ve first read Forsythe, Flores and BDM, and will hopefully be watching the PT coverage anyway, I’m probably in no danger of damaging my chances with this.

I can always sabotage the computers in the Pro lounge. Accidents happen.

As I’m writing this it’s 3 o’clock on Monday morning. My flight is scheduled to leave at 7:30 this evening. Sometime between now and then I’ve got to write this article, read up the notes for a two-hour lab session I’m demonstrating for undergrads at eleven, book a hotel for Stockholm, and edit a press kit for Wizards. For a wastrel student, I appear to be inordinately busy at the moment. Wherever will I get the time to formulate those plans to invade Greenland?

So what do we have this week?

Deck lists. Lots of deck lists. Yep, I’m finally going to spill the beans on Time Spiral Block Constructed.

This is what I think the metagame will be, based upon the testing within my team and from what I’ve observed online. Either it’ll be spot on and I’ll look like a genius, or everybody will be playing completely different decks and I’ll look like a moron.

Oh well, let’s get ready to fall flat on my face.

This block format is a little different to previous formats, in that there are a number of different viable decks and a number of different ways to build those different decks. A lot of this is because of the presence of the Timeshifted cards. Not only is it like having an additional set, but the purples are also like Magic’s greatest hits. As a lot of these cards were pretty damn good in the first place, there is a much higher density of playable cards than you would normally expect from a two-set format.

So, on with the decks.

Last week I said Teferi was public enemy number one, but I’m actually going to lead off with the other obvious deck.

White Weenie

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (26)

Lands (1)

1 Flagstones of Trokair

Spells (33)

Sideboard

This is the premier beatdown deck of the format and my tip for the most played archetype at Yokohama. When the entire Top 8 of a 108 player premier event online is all White Weenie, then you have to sit up and take notice.

With White Weenie possibly up to number one on the Decks to Beat table, there will be a number of common misconceptions.

1. “My deck beats White Weenie.”
What you actually mean is that your deck beats White Weenie if it gets its good draw.

Miss a land drop and bam! You’re dead.

Fail to draw that Damnation? Bam! You’re dead.

What normally happens is that people assume that their beautifully crafted decks live in an ideal world where they draw sensible combinations of cards. Reality is far different. If your deck can beat the aggro deck if it gets the right draw, but only gets that draw 40% of the time then actually you’re on the wrong end of a 60-40 matchup. Red decks have operated on this principle for years.

2. “My first choice deck isn’t working out. I can always fall back on White Weenie. After all, it’s easy to build and play.”
Oh my, are some people in for a rude awakening. The deck is actually not as intuitive to play as you might think, especially in the mirror. I’m 0-3 in the mirror in PEs, partly because I had the wrong cards in my deck, but mainly because I utterly crippled the deck after boarding.

There are no Javelineers in this list, because they’re rubbish and don’t do anything.

There are no Serrated Arrows in the sideboard because they are rubbish in the mirror. They are too slow and don’t do enough, and the last thing you need is yet another spell that can’t be cast until turn 4 at the earliest.

Sulfur Elemental is an important consideration. While two in play is fatal, the first on its own is likely to be painful for them as it only kills Priest and pumps everything else. Originally I had Sacred Mesa as an answer to the various flavours of Damnation deck, but I suspect the popularity of Sulfur Elemental will render this card extinct.

Temporal Isolation is probably the best single removal card in the format, but you need to be very careful in the mirror. Trying to be cute and stacking damage before playing the Isolation as a removal spell is asking to be wrecked if they have Stonecloaker (You lose both the Isolation and your creature. They get a 3/2 flier in play and can replay the other creature in the future. Not good times).

A popular alternative for this deck is to run a Sliver package of Sidewinder Sliver and Sinew Sliver as early drops. When I tested this it seemed that the sliver draw was potentially more explosive but not as reliable overall. Sidewinders on their own suffer from the same problem as Javelineers, in that they don’t really do a lot.

The deck has a number of sideboarding options that I’ve seen. Sunlance and at least four Disenchant effect (Cloudchaser Kestrel is good as you get a 2/2 flier attached, bargain!) are the obvious start. After then it gets tricky. I’ve seen Magus of the Disk in use and this is probably the best answer to “indestructibles” such as Red Akroma, Blood Knight, and Wildfire Emissary. I’ve also seen weird rares used such as Dust Elemental (pretty good in concert with the Magus) and Opal Guardian. I’m not convinced on the Guardian. He’s a solid undercosted guy when he arrives, but is horrible in the situations where you’re behind and your opponent doesn’t need to lay another guy. My feeling is that you need something that turns the game around in the mirror when your opponent gets the drop on you with early creature advantage.

I expect there will be at least be two White Weenie decks in the Top 8, probably more, but I also expect there will be a whole load of people sitting it out Saturday with the exact same lists.

Bog Standard Teffy Control

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (10)

Lands (13)

Spells (48)

And now onto the second elephant of the format, and the card I still believe shapes it even if White Weenie looks to be top dog going into the tournament.

First off, I’ll apologize for the list. Control decks aren’t my thing, so this is a “back of the ciggie packet” listing. Our team did a very good job at finding new decks, but nobody really wanted to run with the ball of trying to tune the deck we thought would be expected and probably hated out anyway. I don’t exactly blame them. I got enough practise running into the damn thing online.

The principle is there. Counter stuff, kill everything with Damnation, chain Mystical Teachings, and then counter stuff until your opponent dies from boredom.

Other options include running Shadowmage Infiltrator (Johnny’s back!) and tinkering with the numbers and tutor targets.

Personally I think the best option is to be greedy and work in Red, as Sulfur Elemental and Bogardan Hellkite are just that good. Unfortunately you then end up with about 70 cards, and I have no idea what gets cut. I imagine we’ll know after seeing what the Japanese play at Yokohama.

If you still think I’ve got anything relevant to say about Tef, then I’ll look at the sideboard. Riptide Pilferer is a nasty little cutthroat from a creature-light deck, especially as your opponent probably boarded out Soots. Strangling Soot is one of the best answers to White Weenie, as you get to kill two guys with one card. As much as Extirpate is over-rated, there is a nice feeling to ripping out your opponent’s Teachings engine and then going through their deck to see how they plan to beat you.

Other things I’ve seen include Plague Sliver and Dodecapod (thank you for Dismal Failing my Prismatic Lens).

Greedy Angry Tef

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (19)

Lands (11)

Spells (30)

Sideboard

This kind of takes the same theme as the Teferi control deck but moves it more into aggro-control territory. I’m using aggro in the loosest sense here, although turn two suspended Cloudskate followed by an end of turn Sulfur Elemental can lay on the beats fairly quickly.

The manabase is a horror, but the deck is playing the most powerful cards in the format. I mean all of them.

Bogardan Hellkite, check.

Teferi, check.

Vesuvan Shapeshifter, check.

Shapeshifter is actually a master of versatility. Sometimes he’s Vindicate for legends, sometimes he’s silly with other morphs, he’s definitely evil versus White Weenie as a second Sulfur Elemental, and he’s one of the best things you can counter a Hellkite with.

If White Weenie is going to be as dominant as people think, then having a deck with ten Sulfur Elementals main might not be a bad call if you can handle the risk of not being able to cast anything.

The Grinder

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (10)

Lands (19)

Spells (31)

Sideboard

This was my pet deck for a long while. At one point I was convinced it was going to be the deck I was going to play as it had good game against both White Weenie and Teferi.

It’s basically the evolved version of Mono-Black control, going into Red for more kill and better win conditions in Bogardan Hellkite. With no Phyrexian Arena around (no, I don’t count Null Profusion), a Blue splash gives you Aeon Chronicler for the card advantage.

The deck doesn’t exactly win quickly and instead relies on grinding its opponent to pieces, usually with Factory tokens when all the other monsters have died. It beats white because they kind of need creatures in play to beat you. It beats Teferi because Teferi doesn’t really have a way to kill you when counters don’t stop you Sudden Deathing their legend.

The big problem is it’s a slow control deck with no counters. You can’t stop your opponent casting something like a Disintegrate to the head for twenty. The matchup against early incarnations of Green/x control decks was really bad because they stomped all over you in the same way Tron overpowers other control decks. I figured the best way to fight high-costed brokenness without counters was to hit them with my own broken trick, in this case Gargadon plus Bust, before they got me.

I actually really like the Gargadon plus Bust combo as one of the best in the format. Unfortunately it just happens to be rubbish against the two best decks. Against any other matchup I bring it in though.

So this was going to be my deck, then the Teferi decks started playing Hellkite… and a good matchup went to unwinnable in a single stroke. I haven’t ruled it out, but it will probably depend on how greedy I think the Teferi decks will be.

Grr Dragons

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (17)

Lands (5)

Spells (38)

Sideboard

This is the Timmeeeh! Deck of the format: bucket loads of mana acceleration into a single threat capable of winning the game on its own. Bogardan Hellkite again makes an appearance, because 5/5 fliers with Wrath of God attached are pretty good, and while the new incarnation of Akroma lacks the Vigilance of her predecessor, Protection from White is more relevant in a format where Temporal Isolation is the best removal spell. Fire-breathing ends the game real fast.

This listing is more explosive than similar ones, as it also features Lotus Bloom (as if there wasn’t enough acceleration anyway) into Dragonstorm. While it isn’t Dragonstorm in the Standard “kill you on turn 4” sense, the spell is a fantastic late game threat against control decks and sometimes you get ridiculous draws that blow your opponent out completely.

Other variants are less explosive and run more threats, such as Spectral Force and maybe Call of the Herd. Stormbind can figure as well as both finisher and critter control.

To my mind this is possibly the most powerful deck in the format, but pays for it in a lack of consistency. A significant proportion of the deck just produces mana. If your opponent deals with the first threat, it may be a while before you draw a second.

It’s not quite that bad, though. A lot of the cards thin out lands from the deck, and Harmonize is fairly efficient for refuelling.

I’m not totally sold on the sideboard. Basically the deck either goes after White Weenie’s creatures with removal, or after control’s lands with Avalanche Riders, or maybe even Volcanic Awakening.

From here, we go onto the second tier decks.

Blink Riders

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (18)

Lands (10)

Spells (32)

Sideboard

Blink Riders consistently seems to put the odd player into the Top 8, but I can’t work out why. The manabase horrifies me only slightly less than the White Weenie matchup.

The deck does have good game against the control decks, as they don’t really like their land being blown up, especially from turn 2 with Boom off Flagstones.

I wouldn’t regard the above list as representative, and despite my negative comments it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody did very well with a well-tuned version. While the White Weenie matchup is bad, the deck can assemble the permanent Wrath of God of two Sulfur Elementals. Lighting Angel is also a significant obstacle, as is the combo of Blinking a face-down Akroma.

And blowing up lands is always pretty good versus the Blue decks.

In theory, Blink Riders does have the tools to go all the way. Just make sure you have a virgin handy to sacrifice to the mana gods the night before.

Mono-Red Aggro

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (22)

Lands (2)

1 Pendelhaven
1 Gemstone Caverns

Spells (36)

Sideboard

Red is the other beatdown option, and in an interesting role reversion it actually has the upper hand over White this time. While White has problem cards in both Calciderm and Soltari Priest, Red trumps them with Blood Knight and Sulfur Elemental while having the removal to kill everything else.

Unfortunately it’s a little underpowered in a lot of the other matchups.

Sliver Pair

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (25)

Lands (6)

Spells (27)

Now we move onto the combo decks, and the consensus decision is that the best way to abuse Wild Pair is with Slivers, but that it isn’t quite good enough.

The deck is fairly simple. Accelerate out Wild Pair and then abuse Whitemane Lion to assemble a critical mass of Slivers. At some point you fetch the haste Sliver, tap them down with Telekinetic Sliver, and finally administer the killing blow with Might Sliver.

I’ve also seen versions that move more into Black with Mindlash Sliver and Basal Sliver. With a Pulmonic and Dormant Sliver out, the deck can assemble infinite mana with Mindlash and Basal (cast Mindlash, respond to the Dormant draw a card trigger by sacrificing it for two Black mana and sticking it on top of the library thanks to Pulmonic. Then you resolve the draw a card, getting back Mindlash Sliver. Repeat the loop for as many times as you like, netting one Black mana for each iteration.)

While all the little combos are quite complicated, the deck has a fair degree of redundancy in that there are so many of them depending on which Slivers you draw.

The deck and variants of it look a lot of fun, but I suspect the brute force of White Weenie (backed up with Disenchant effects) and the control elements of Teferi make it too much of a hostile environment for this to shine.

Gargle Balance

Craig Jones

Test deck on 04-22-2007

Time Spiral Block

Creatures (8)

Lands (12)

Spells (40)

Sideboard

This is the final deck, and something the Ruel’s have apparently been fooling around with online.

This runs the Restore Balance plus Greater Gargadon combo, and roughly has the same game plan as the old Balancing Tings decks. Armageddon them, Wrath them, and Mind Twist them all in the same turn, and then follow up with an enormous monster.

The Johnny player in me really wants to play this deck, but I suspect it’s very tricky to play and I don’t know how consistent it is. I like the combo though and I suspect the rest of the deck, in the hands of someone skilful, buys you time to blow up the world enough so that Gargadon or Totem ends the game.

The matchup against Teferi probably isn’t as horrific as it originally seems, mainly because of the sideboarded Word of Seizing. Against Word of Seizing, Teferi can sometimes be a death sentence. They steal it and all of a sudden you can’t stop the Timecrafting on Restore Balance or the Greater Gargadon. They can’t really afford to be too cavalier in your end step either, as a Timecrafting after they’ve just tapped out for Teachings is a wrecking ball.

It looks like a fun deck, but probably too late in the day for me to pick up.

So that’s the block format as I see it with a few days to go. Some of the information will be out of date when it actually comes to the tournament, but it’s an interesting snapshot of what I think will be the metagame a week before the tournament. Obviously this will change as more information becomes apparent, and obviously I’ll look a moron, but hey, I tried.

Ugh. Must get some sleep before flight.

Thanks for reading

Prof