I am plaing it and I'm doing pretty well. The worst matchups are agro-control-tempo decks like UR Delver and GDS.
In your opinion what's the best sb strategy against those decks? TITI?
Glad you're finding success with the deck! Against those decks I do think that sneaking in an early Thing in the Ice before countermagic gets online is the best way to win the post-sideboard games. Obviously it can get taken by Thoughtseize/Inquisition, but basically anything can so it's more important to talk about what happens when it doesn't. The game plan that you generally want is to cast TitI on turn 2, then casting a few cantrips on turn 3, then flipping it on turn 4 or 5-ish. If you can flip with a Time Warp, that's even more insane since Time Warp becomes a must-counter representing an additional 7 damage. As for things to cut, when TitI becomes a major gameplan, the non-Instant or Sorcery cards become much less important, so I think trimming on cards like Fires and Howling Mine is reasonable.
I posted a video of Temur Super Friends Turns that I think is a pretty interesting direction to take the deck. The fact that you get to play a bunch of Planeswalkers in place of Howling Mine effects means that your advantages become one-sided, and Wrenn and Six in particular is amazing in a deck trying to abuse Mystic Sanctuary. If you have a chance, I recommend giving it a shot!
Just posted a league with Fires of Invention turns! I'm not super happy with the build (even made a deckbuilding mistake swapping in Mystical Dispute at the last second and ended with a 14 card sideboard. Whoops), but it was a cool place to start exploring.
LSV 5-0'd a league with Fires of Invention and I think his list did a lot of things better than mine. First of all, I was leaning too hard on the Fires + suspend spell package and was counting on Ancestral and Wheel of Fate to be enough of an engine, but they weren't quite good enough. LSV's card draw package was 3 Howling Mine, 2 Dictate of Kruphix, 1 Jace Beleren, 2 Narset, 1 Chandra Torch of Defiance, and 2 Jace the Mind Sculptor, all reasonable inclusions in Turns decks. His interaction was 2 Bolt and 2 Cryptic Command, which I think is a little better than the 3 Bolt and 1 Brazen Borrower that I played. His manabase had 24 lands, 21 of which either have the Island subtype or are fetchlands, which meant better support for Mystic Sanctuary and Castle Vantress. In my list with only 20 lands, I didn't think I'd have enough mana to activate Castle Vantress very often (and I didn't).
Overall there are a lot of ways to take the deck. I think LSV went down a much better path with an almost stock list that has Fires of Invention and Savor the Moment, as opposed to trying to include As Foretold and the suspend spell package.
So apparently the site didn't shut down after all lol. Anyway, here's my take on the Turns archetype using boros. I'm at work so I'll just link the deck I built, but I would like to clarify something. There's no sundial of the infinite because I think it's too fragile with Karn, TCG all over the place so I opted instead for Angel's Grace which can't be countered. Feel free to critique and give suggestions!
This is a fresh new take on the deck! I don't really have too much to say about it since it looks so different from what I'm used to. As a general rule, though, you do want to be getting some kind of extra value from your extra turns, like having a Howling Mine or getting your Ancestral Vision to tick down. Otherwise, you're spending your extra turn cards as expensive Explores, which isn't great. It looks like your deck can leverage Gideons to get a lot of value from extra turns, but I'm not sure if that's consistent enough to justify the turns package on its own. I'd consider cards like Howling Mine to try to get more value from your turns (and also help you draw into more extra turn spells). Really sweet brew, thanks for posting!
Anybody ever test Silence in their 'Taking Turns' build? Thoughts on its advantages and disadvantages.
Silence seems mostly worse than other options to me. If you're using it on your opponent's turn to prevent them from casting spells, Gigadrowse can do that is also flexible enough to fog when you need it. If you're using Silence on your own turn to protect a Time Warp, it seems mostly worse than Dispel since your opponent still has their counterspell in hand, and can counter your next move on your extra turn. Gigadrowse also protects you from non-Force of Negation counterspells if you tap out your opponent at their end step.
So I was under the impression the site was shutting down and you wouldn't be able to post anymore so I haven't checked in a while!
So it's been a really long time since I've posted but just wanted to share my recent successes with UB Taking Turns.. I really wanted a variant that could beat creature matchups and then have a lot of disruption postboard for non-creature matchups and this is what I've come up with.
Yeah I know what you mean! I really like the idea of Dead of Winter, though I'm not sure if it's maindeck material. Either way, this list looks very solid, and I think it'll do well in a creature-heavy meta.
Hello guys. I haven't played the deck in a long while and I'm thinking about returning to modern now that Hogaak is donezo. I pretty much only have one concern after going through my old list: doesn't Turns just scoop to a resolved Force of Negation on one of it's big turn spells? How do you even combat this?
There are a few reasonable ways to FoN. Splashing black for Thoughtseize effects is one way to go. Splashing white for T3feri would also work. My preference is to run more Commandeer to fight a manaless counter war. If you tap out your UW Control opponent with Gigadrowse at their end step, their only interaction is Force of Negation, so you can probably get away with using Commandeer as a bad counterspell for their FoN to protect your Time Warp. Commandeer is also great if they tap out for an early Planeswalker, which in my opinion is a big reason to run it.
The mainboard looks 60 for 60 identical to the list from the Modern Challenge, while the sideboard has been completely updated. The card that stands out to me the most is Niv-Mizzet, Parun, especially coupled with the fact that there are only two fetchable red sources for a card that costs UUURRR. In any case, congratulations to Marcus, and good luck at the Mythic Championship!
I really like Narset, but I rackon is good only if you can really abuse her ability, and I don't mean dicates and mines, I mean day's undoing or echo of eons. which is why at the moment i'm testing without dictates and with day's instead.
The above list looks like the place to start testing with Day's Undoing. Not sure if there's a way to make Echo of Eons work, but I'm also not sure it's necessary.
I may be way off, but since lists are going the Ug route, wouldn't Plow Under be worth a test? On a stable situation it's two Time Warps for the price of one. Worst case, it buys good time.
I'm still of the opinion that UG is the least competitive build of Taking Turns. Plow Under has an amazing best case scenario, but the worst case (which in my opinion is much more common than the best case) is terrible. Plow Under doesn't affect the board and doesn't stop you from dying to whatever the opponent already has on board, so I don't think it's worth running. In particular, Plow Under costs 5 mana. Isn't it better to spend one more mana and just cast Part the Waterveil or Walk the Aeons?
Hi everyone,i'm playing a UWR list. The deck is basically an UR with the W splash for the some key cards in side.
Obvliously i added x2 of the new Narset, Parter of Veils, that seems to be made especially for our decks (trigger with Dictate of Kruphix, Howling Mine, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea, Day's Undoing the latter combo is also a further closure). The real novelty I would like to discuss with you is the following, in the list I'm also testing x2 of Ral, Storm Conduit. The latter turned out to be a great card within the deck mechanics. Activated abilities of Ral, Storm Conduit are all very useful: with -2 you can copy any spell to take turns, +2 allows you to scry which is not a bad thing. However the real strength lies in the static ability, the latter turns out to be strong if combined with all our magic to take turns, counter spells and more resulting in a closure if combined with the snapcasters... and with Gigadrowse? :). I am doing good results in online tests, i wanted to know what you think about, shortly I will post my list.
My main concern with Ral is that he competes in the 4-drop planeswalker slot with Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Jace is a hard card to beat in the average case since he can immediately replace himself with +0 brainstorm if you suspect that he won't stay on board, whereas Ral can only get you a Scry 1 in those situations. Ral's extra loyalty is certainly useful for staying alive, but at the same time, if you suspect that your opponent has a single Lightning Bolt for your Jace, just use Jace's +2 to scry 1 anyway. The difference between 5 and 6 loyalty on a Planeswalker isn't enough to justify the power level disparity in my opinion. Ral's -2 seems like the main reasons to play the card, and in my opinion it just doesn't do enough. Taking two extra turns in a row isn't good enough if you don't have something meaningful on those turns, like a Dictate or Jace to net card advantage or some Snapcasters to get damage in, and Ral's +2 alone doesn't seem meaningful enough to be happy with having those extra turns. It's unclear to me exactly how useful the passive is, but at first glance it seems unlikely that it frequently allows you to win games that were otherwise unwinnable in its absence. Of course, like with Narset, it's entirely possible that I'm being too pessimistic here. The best way to find out is more testing!
Hey all. Redid my mono blue list and took it to the SCG open Louisville. My first open. Went 2-2-2, not quite how I envisioned it, but lots of fun and good experience. Got to exhaustion amulet titan twice during game one after they pact for a titan, and have it gigadrowsed. UW control has changed, and i wasn’t quite ready for it. Lots planeswalkers.
I didn’t like narset in this build, she was a last second change. Another card that didn’t affect the board. Since I have swapped the 2 out for a GE Kefnet and a tempest djinn Main deck. I’m very interested in brewing more with her, I have some ideas.
Sad to see the site go... promised myself I wouldn’t cry...the good luck day site that keeps taking over this site has been very frustrating, I figured something was up.
Thanks for posting! I'm curious how God-Eternal Kefnet and Tempest Djinn will work out for you. Incidentally, I recommend taking out the Inkmoth Nexus (and possibly one or both Radiant Fountains) if you're adding Tempest Djinn because I think the extra power or being able to cast it on time are more important than the upside of those colorless lands. It's definitely possible that Narset works better when you shape your deck around her more, with cards like Vendilion Clique or more literal Howling Mine to take advantage of her passive, but so far I'm not impressed with her.
Well, here we go for quite the sad tournament report. I got my ass handed to me pretty violently, but had some fun and even discovered a card.
So, let's get onto the MUs:
- Rock, 0-2. G1 he slammed a LotV on turn 3, and I couldn't recover from a decay on my only mine. G2 went in the same way. Both games didn't feel that unwinable, but I couldn't get there fast enough even with the ramp package (and you'll see that it will be a common theme going into the rest of the report).
- Classic Affinity, 1-2. G1 I went down honorably, G2 went on for fourty damn minutes as I couldn't get my 3 TiTis which were constantly getting shuffled back on the bottom of my deck. It was a crazy game were I did cast Snapcaster Mage 11 times despite only having two Snapcaster mages in the 75 (two snaps, engulf, two snaps, engulf, two snaps, FB engulf, two snaps, FB engulf, two snaps, FB Cryptic boucning snap). It felt awful and amazing at the same time. We actually go to additional turns at the start of g3, he strugles to choose whether to mulligan or not, I'm starting to think he won't be able to kill me... I was wrong. He top decked a ravager on his second turn, dealt 5 infect to me, I draw a card which was not the Gigadrowse I absolutely needed, and I conceded after making my second land drop.
- Mono R Phoenix, 0-2: died both times on t4. It pretty much felt unwinable as he did not care about any tap schenanigans and I couldn't topdeck engulf on g2.
- Ad Nauseam, 2-1: first victory, lost g1 to a double Angel's grace+Pact of negation, won g2 and 3 without much trouble as I was faster than him and could disturb his ramp and lands easily by bouncing them.
- Amulet Titan, 2-1: second (and spoiler alert, last) win. He had the nuts g1: t1 amulet, t2 amulet+Azusa+pact+Titan... which led him to die on his third upkeep to a very well timed Exhaustion. He played around exhaustion very well g2 and eventually beat me, and g3 Damping Sphere plus well timed gigadrowses/exhaustion to lock him out of green mana allowed me to buy enough time to win on the third additional turn.
- Another Rock, 1-1: he didn't disturb me at all g1 leading me to kill him on his fifth turn, utterly annihilated me g2, and I went off a bit too late leading me to fail to kill him after playing all five of the additional turns in front of an amazed audience of 15 persons watching our game (they really liked the deck, which helped me cope with the sadness of my underperformance of the day)
- The weirdest elves deck ever, 0-2: I lost to confusion on g1 as he seemed to be yet another rock deck (shocking himself with a tomb on t2 to keep decay/trophy available)... before playing Archidruid. I then felt like I got some time, slammed Jace a turn after, only to face a CoCo at the end of my turn revealing two Dwynen's elite into a combo kill with Umbral Mantle. I lost g2 to fatigue, I litterally had the in in hand but a brain fart prevented me from seeing it.
- Mono G tron, 0-2: g1 went like a breeze for him, I sided out all green of the deck to get back to mono U turns with damping spheres, and after I managed to deal with two Ulamogs, two different Ugins and a Wurmcoil he just out valued me out of existence.
Conclusion: 2-6-1, which makes it one of my worst tournament results ever (only slightly better than a 1-3-drop at a GP last year). The green splash hardly felt useful as it was all built on the back of thing in the ice and I apparently wasn't good at drawing them. But even bigger disappointment than the splash, Jace felt awful. He was basically a 4 mana one shot brainstorm. I advise all of you to switch to Narset who's in my opinion much better at doing what we need to beat our opponents (denying extra draws was game changing in some cases). Plus, since she's only minusing opponents often went for the head instead of her to gun me down, which paradoxically led me to gain more time and value from her (plus, bouncing her with Cryptic is actually a thing).
TL/DR: green splash isn't good and control/real sideboard tools are much more usefull than ramp. Narset seems to be the real deal, and her lock should be envisaged as a real option. Lama, out~
Thanks for posting, sorry to hear the tournament went so poorly. I agree that Jace is overall not great (one of the most overrated cards by far), but I think you're overlooking a very important detail: Planeswalkers that tick up get better with removal, or at least early disruption. I think that one of the reasons that Jace did so poorly for you is that you have so few ways to protect him in the early game, which is why he was dying so consistently. You can conceivably block attackers with Snapcaster or Thing in the Ice, but they can easily be killed before they can block. Beyond that, your only ways to prevent the opponent from developing a board early are a Gigadrowse and 3 Exhaustion, which doesn't seem like enough to slow the opponent down. Compared to the UR build I like to play that has 3 Lightning Bolt, 1 Snapback, 3 Gigadrowse, 3 Exhaustion, and 4 Snapcaster Mage as ways to keep the board clear for Jace, I find that I'm able to get Jace to stick a reasonable amount of the time, and it's those times that he stays on board that he's actually good. Being able to set up Miracled Temporal Mastery easily leads to game wins.
Even though Jace did so poorly, I have my doubts that Narset would have been better on average. She protects herself even less than Jace (with Jace you can at least -1 to stop a lone creature from attacking and killing him), she's vulnerable to Bolt like Jace assuming you actually use her -2, and I think you're overestimating how good her passive is. Your build has 1 Mikokoro and 4 Dictate of Kruphix as ways to really abuse her passive, and I just don't think that's enough. It's hard for me to imagine a scenario where her passive is gaming-breakingly good as opposed to just a minor annoyance when going over some of the top decks. Humans cracks Horizon Canopy on your turn rather than theirs, and other than that the passive does nothing. Against UW Control, Jace and Serum Visions don't work well, but even Jace can start +2ing to look for an answer if Narset is actually a problem, and Opt or other instant speed card draw still work just fine. Against Tron, their Chromatic Stars and Spheres are worse, either just the color fixing or just the card, but it doesn't stop their most powerful cantrip Ancient Stirrings, and it doesn't stop any of their big threats or the Sylvan Scrying and Expedition Map part of assembling Tron. Against Phoenix is where Narset has the most promise, being good against Faithless Looting, Serum Visions, and Manamorphose. But even then, Sleight of Hand and Thought Scour can easily draw them cards when they need them, and I can imagine a Phoenix player giving up a few cards by casting a useless cantrip or two into Narset just to bring back their hasty Phoenix and kill her, or just throw a Lightning Bolt or two her way. Even in this best-case matchup, she seems weak to me on paper. Against Dredge, her passive does almost nothing since the Dredge mechanic replaces card draw, meaning the opponent doesn't actually draw a card while choosing to Dredge and can continue to Dredge 3 times with a Cathartic Reunion. It's certainly possible that I'm being overly pessimistic and more playtesting is really the only way to find out, but right now I just don't think she's nearly as good as you want her to be.
Either way, I think the best way to support Planeswalkers in the deck is with actual interaction that can keep the board clear. Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, and Path to Exile are all fantastic removal spells that will allow your Planeswalkers to actually stay on board and get value way more often than in a UG or mono-U build.
- Savor the Moment: quite the hard card to break, but combining it with another extra turn spell (ex: miracl'd Mastery, or Savor-Snap-Savor) in a single turn breaks its drawback and sometimes all you need is just one more turn... (be careful, TiTi doesn't untap too during the first extra turn)
Can you help to explain this to me? How does Savor-Snap-Savor break the drawback? Won't you just get 2 more turns without untapping?
The card only says "skip your next uncap step" so if you can cast multiple extra turn effects or multiple savor the moment you only lose out on one untap step
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Savor the Moment reads "Take an extra turn after this one. Skip the untap step of that turn." Casting Savor-Snap-Savor nets you two extra turns, and you will skip the untap step of both of those turns.
Quick rundown of my decisions:
- Growth spiral: it's much more of a Time Walk than Remand, which in this obscenely fast meta is incredibly helpful. - Search for Tomorrow: very good ramp, very good synergy with Thing in the Ice (T1 surch, t2 thing, t3 resolve search)
- Thing in the Ice mainboard: the meta is really creature heavy and beside beeing a very good control tool, closing a game with only two extra turns provides more stability to the deck.
- Savor the Moment: quite the hard card to break, but combining it with another extra turn spell (ex: miracl'd Mastery, or Savor-Snap-Savor) in a single turn breaks its drawback and sometimes all you need is just one more turn... (be careful, TiTi doesn't untap too during the first extra turn)
- Temple of Mystery: placeholder for Yavimaya Coast, figured out I could really take advantage of a few scry here due to the heavy ramp package. Will 100% be replaced in the future by Waterlogged Grove.
I firmly believe that Jace is better than Narset in your build because of the playset of Temporal Mastery and that his -1 is one of extremely few ways you have to interact. I don't think that Narset's Reversal is better than Remand here because you really want to be able to stop plays like Kitesail Freebooter, Drogskol Captain, Thing in the Ice, Gurmag Angler, etc that Narset's Reversal doesn't hit. As for the sideboard, I don't like Engulf the Shores because 9 of your 23 lands aren't Islands or able to fetch Islands (2 Forest, 4 Hinterland Harbor, 1 Mikokoro, 2 Temple of Mystery). Engineered Explosives is one of the best pieces of interaction in UG, even if you can only put it up to 2. I don't really know what your sideboard plans would look like with this deck, but that's something to consider when shaping your sideboard. For each matchup, what cards do you want to take out? How many cards do you expect to bring in?
JtMS to me was always just there to stack the top deck Miracle, nothing more. I never liked him as a WinCon, and his other modes are borderline for what we are doing.
Now, stacking that Miracle is amazing as it often meant we pull ahead, but he wasnt a wincon in and of himself, while netting you a card. This new Jace nets you a card AND is a wincon that you dont need to attack with, dont need to target other players with, and you can just go hard into chaining turns and protecting the Walker.
I disagree with that view (and this is coming from someone who thinks JtmS is kinda bad). As a quick example, check out a few turns against this Storm opponent. The fact that we got to use JtmS to bounce the Electromancer twice was huge. While I can't say for sure that we would have died if Mind Sculptor had been Wielder of Mysteries, I think we would have. I also think having Jace available as a wincon is a powerful threat, even though I probably win that way less than 5% of the time. It allows you to do things like not worry about your opponent gaining infinite life because you still have a way to win the game. I also think that digging 3 deep is far more powerful than you're giving it credit for.
Simic turns list looks sweet timewalkin, can’t wait to watch the video.
Haven’t got to play much lately, been busy, and do a lot of prerelease activities. Not sure I’m digging the Azorius turns, I’m thinking about going back to mono U. I want to try some chalice of the void and new kefnet in the side. I might try UR turns. @timewalkin why did you use different fetches for UR turns list? Funny is I only have 2 tarns so mine will look just like that
J-Wielder turns sounds zesty, I like it! Keep me posted on how that comes along.
Thanks! To elaborate on @zcowan's point, every fetchable land in my UR list is also an Island. This means that in the context of that deck, every blue fetchland is equal because they can all fetch every land. When I originally built UB Turns years ago, I made that split thinking "the 0.1% of the time the opponent Pithing Needles a fetchland, I'll sure be glad I did this!" But now that Whir Prison exists, it's actually kind of important to diversify fetchlands if you expect to play against it (for example, if you're going to a large tournament with an open field). They run about 2 Sorcerous Spyglass and 4 Whir of Invention maindeck, so letting them preemptively Stone Rain 4 of your lands at once is a weakness you don't need to have. I chose to favor Scalding Tarn because that was the most popular blue fetchland at the time (and as far as I'm aware it still is), so opening on Scalding Tarn gives your opponent the least information about your deck. That point is kind of moot for me because the opponents know what's up when I take out a quad-sleeved behemoth of a deck, but still Also, contrast this choice of fetchlands with the one from the Simic Turns video. In the Simic list, there are a bunch of basic Forests, so Misty Rainforest is much more powerful than any other blue fetchland. There, we're running the full playset of Misty Rainforest and one other fetch (which in hindsight maybe should have been a green fetchland). In that case, the upside of having all your fetchables available all the time is much, much more substantial than the downside of possibly getting mega Stone Rained by a Sorcerous Spyglass. The point being, if you decide to run one or more basics of your splash color, it's substantially more important to have on-color fetchlands that get all of your fetchables than it is to diversify your fetchlands.
Also - I like the idea of going back to mono blue turns now. I've been doing the same. Phoenix has a tough time against us from my play testing and since that's the top deck in the format I feel like now's the time.
I still feel like a splash adds a lot of power to the deck without taking away much. Yes, there are games that you'll lose to tapped lands or losing too much life to fetches and shocks, but the upside of having a few interactive spells substantially outweighs that downside in my opinion. What's your reasoning behind wanting to go mono-U?
I'm thinking I'm going to try a 3-1 or 2-2 Narset/Dictate split. The Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin effect is very powerful. The bonus of shutting off the additional draw for our opponents is probably worth a look too.
My main concern with Narset is that you only get two activations off of her. Turning off your opponents card draw is nice (and also has a cute "combo" with Geier Reach Sanitarium when you Sanitarium at your hellbent opponent's upkeep), but in my opinion having a finite number of activations is a huge downside for a deck aiming to take multiple turns in a row. I'm curious how your testing goes. Keep us updated!
Simic Turns video is finally here! It took a while before I was reasonably happy with the decklist, and even now I think there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm still of the opinion that Simic Turns is fundamentally weaker and less competitive than any other splash because it lacks meaningful interaction like Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, or Path to Exile. However, when Simic goes off, it really goes off, and that's when the deck is insanely fun.
61 maindeck is my personal signature since 1994, you can cut one Depths (22/60) or one Briefing (23/60)!
Mill myself to win is far, far easier than win with combat damage.
No more worries about nonblue open mana between opponent's lands until we have 4 cards in library (I only have to protect Jace).
No more worries about huge life gain to fight with Inkmoth Nexus.
No more worries about put all Dictate on the field.
I think that Jace will be a new pillar of my list.
It's super loose right now in it's build but it's because I'm testing several things at once..
Boseju hasn't ever been a card played in this deck but I figured it could be super useful in guaranteeing the Jace resolves or stays protected..
But will continue working on this
I dont know if I want it in U Turns, or some Bant shell, or UW, but the idea of chaining turns and just milling yourself out has taken root.
EDIT: First game in a long time on MTGO, beat 8Rack with Davriel. I know my list is not optimized, I had sold out of MTGO months ago and just threw this together to get in a game with Jace.
Game 1, drew my deck out after my hand got shredded win with Jace.
Game 2, boarded in the Things (should have the Lab Man too) and even through Extripate on Jace AND Time Warp, was able to eventually get there with a late thing flip.
My initial reaction to Jace, Wielder of Mysteries was that he competes in the 4-drop Planeswalker slot with Jace, the Mind Sculptor (a card I rate lower than most people) and can't protect himself, so he's probably worse. I didn't do any testing yet, but I'm glad that you all did and were happy because now I get to rethink my opinion of the new Lab Man! Wielder of Mysteries definitely lends himself to building a more combo-oriented, less win-con focused deck than just a typical Dictate / Howling Mine list, and it looks like you're all taking advantage of that. I really like the inclusion of Mission Briefing to both contribute to comboing off and also just smooth out the draws. Keep us updated on any other findings in testing!
God-Eternal Kefnet
2UU
Legendary Creature - Zombie God
Flying
You may reveal the first card you draw each turn as you draw it. Whenever you reveal an instant or sorcery card this way, copy that card and you may cast that copy. That copy costs 2 less to cast.
When God-Eternal Kefnet dies or is put into exile from the battlefield, you may put it into its owner's library third from the top.
4/5
(EDIT: forgot power/toughness) Wow, that's insane. Note that you copy the card, THEN cast the copy. The actual card stays in your hand!
I don't like outright saying "no" to deck ideas, but there are too many engine cards to combine Turns and Tron or Turns and Titan and still have the deck function in a reasonable way. If you want to try it, though, go for it! Just don't expect too much.
@Timewalkingonsunshine
what's your opinion on the new ral zarek in the UR build? copying timewarp, or copying bolt for 8 damage, or transforming gigadrowse in a fireball all seem pretty good
As @zcowan and @JPoJohnson said, I think new Ral is too win-more. He competes with the other 4-mana walkers, and while turning Time Warp into Time Stretch is cool, new Ral doesn't actually provide card advantage on his own like Jace the Mind Sculptor or Chandra Torch of Defiance, nor can he protect himself with a minus ability.
Hey guys! First time posting in this, and love all the list here. It gave me a good idea and general things that I need for my deck.
I've played turns in the past as a Mono U list. I want to get back into it now but I made a list as a UW Turns and wanted some great criticism for it. Any help would be appreciated from this community.
If I'm missing anything let me know, anything at all. I've played a list like this prior and had major success at my LGS.
Your list looks sweet! The two biggest things that are missing in my opinion are Jace the Mind Sculptor, which goes very well with Temporal Mastery and Terminus, and Part the Waterveil, which allows you to kill much faster than any other wincon currently in the deck. I have some nitpicks about card choices, but a lot of this is personal preference, so take everything with a grain of salt. Remand is weak in the format right now in my opinion because the top decks have very few spells that are good Remand targets. For example, Phoenix is mostly cantrips, so Thing in the Ice, Pyromancer Ascension, and Manamorphose are the few cards you can Remand and feel like you've accomplished something, and all of those come down before Remand when you're on the draw; Humans and Spirits have Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial that make Remand a very poor cantrip; Dredge has basically Cathartic Reunion and Conflagrate as the only spells that Remand is good against. Nexus of Fate in my experience is mostly an un-Miracleable Temporal Mastery. The Instant speed is rarely relevant because we beat counterspells by Gigadrowsing at the opponent's end step, and the shuffle clause is rarely relevant. It doesn't stop you from decking if you have a Mine or two out, and increasing the extra turn density of your deck is rarely the difference between winning and losing. Your Planeswalkers are in my opinion all outclassed by Jace the Mind Sculptor, in part because of the 5 Miracle cards in the deck. Manlands like Celestial Colonnade I've often found to be too slow, and I also don't like having more than one always-tapped land (you have both Colonnade and Temple of Enlightenment). I'm not a fan of basic Plains or Field of Ruin in the deck because of how important blue mana is for Gigadrowse, but I can see how that package goes together. I don't like the Laboratory Maniac sideboard plan, since I think it's rare than you can win with it in games 2 and 3 when your opponent has more interaction, like Naturalize effects for your Mines, or Thoughtseize effects, or counterspells. Like I said, these are just my personal opinions, so feel free to make as many or as few changes as you want. For example, Remand is great in certain metas full of decks like Tron, UW Control, and BG, so if your local store has tons of decks like that, then it's a fantastic inclusion.
Why Gelectrode and Crackling Drake in the SB? If there's a reason pages back, I'm down to check it out!
Gelectrode is mainly for Humans and Spirits. It deals with Thalia and Mausoleum Wanderer quite nicely, and with help from any Instants or Sorceries, it can take down other problematic cards like Drogskol Captain, Meddling Mage, Kitesail Freebooter, or Gaddock Teeg. It also happens to be ok against Vendilion Clique and Teferi out of UW Control and is another threat against Whir Prison, but those matchups are already good and that's not the reason to have Gelectrode in the board. Crackling Drake is primarily for Jund or Death's Shadow-style decks where the games tend to involve trading resources. Crackling Drake is a fantastic topdeck in that scenario. It replaces itself, so even in the worst case of getting Liliana edicted, you still got some value out of it. In the best case, it kills your opponent in one or two hits. It's also usually a reasonable blocker against many of the creatures in Humans, Spirits, Phoenix, Burn, etc.
Congrats Daniel, awesome finish. Excited for the report.
Decided to finally try a color splash for my deck. 3 fetches, 2 shocks, and a basic plains. New SB, few old favs. What do you guys think?
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Search for Azcanta
4 Dictate of Kruphix
3 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Inkmoth Nexus
15 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Plains
3 Gigadrowse
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
4 Serum Visions
3 Exhaustion
4 Time Warp
3 Part the Waterveil
4 Temporal Mastery
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Sideboard (15)
3 Path to Exile
2 Rest in Peace
2 Spreading Seas
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Dragon's Claw
2 Spellskite
Deck looks sweet! You definitely want to add more UW lands though. Frank Karsten recommends having 13 W lands to cast a 1W spell like Rest in Peace, for example. You get to cheat on that number a bit because you have Serum Visions, but it would still be a good idea to add about 5 more UW lands. I recommend Glacial Fortress and Prairie Stream, but you have lots of options. I also think Dragon's Claw isn't a great way to combat Burn, and would instead suggest Negate, Redirect, or Commandeer. If you're adamant about having an anti-burn artifact, I think Sun Droplet is the better option. One more thing to be aware of is the non-bo of Grafdigger's Cage and Snapcaster Mage.
Hey guys, new poster here, but longtime turns player. I’ve played UW my entire run, experimenting between dictate builds and As Foretold builds. My current, and longest lasting build is a hybrid between the two, with a huge success rate over the last year +, hoping to take it to a major event sometime this year. Right now though, with War of the Spark spoilers, I’m looking at trying out a full dictate/mine build using the new Jace walker. A lot of hate has been put on him, but with the crazy amount of draw power the dictate/mine build allows, I feel it might have the potential to be a quick and efficient way to close games. Any thoughts or constructive criticisms?
It's an interesting idea! I mentioned earlier that I'd envision such a deck having a lot of cantrips, a lower curve, a lot of Mine effects, and a focus on comboing fast without needing a wincon other than new Jace. I have my doubts as to the power level of this deck, but it certainly sounds fun!
Hi everyone. I thought I'd share my hybrid Turns/Control list that I played at GP Calgary to a 10-5 finish and 52nd place. The deck was very good to me on Friday where I won a Last Chance Trial (4-0) to earn 2 byes and on Day 1 where I made it to 8-0 before the cut. I was riding high into Day 2, then I promptly lost 4 matches in a row crushing my dreams of a top 8 finish.
I've been working on this deck for off and on for about a year, but really dedicated myself to it in the last few months, with the rise of UR Phoenix decks. I've had good success locally (I top 4'ed a 4k open in Edmonton a few weeks back) and on MTGO (24-11 in comp leagues, still no 5-0). I could write pages about how the deck works, the other variations I've tried, the different match-ups, lines of play etc. But for now I'm just sharing my latest list.
Also, I want to say congrats to Daniel Wong on yet another great GP finish! I regret not saying hi when I saw you on Day 2. It's because of you that I ever sleeved up Time Warp in modern.
Congrats on your finish and undefeated Day 1! Hopefully we'll get to meet at some other GP, it's always cool to see other people sleeving up Time Warps.
Any thoughts on using the new Teferi? Being able to combo off without worrying about counters and the ability to time warp at instant speed seem pretty good. And for just 3 mana nonetheless
Gigadrowse mostly solves the issue of counterspells, so I don't think we need another card that does that. And Instant speed Warping again sounds like a way to beat counterspells, which we already have. Still, it's great in a control-heavy meta, but that's just not what Modern as a whole looks like right now. I don't think Teferi's -3 is especially useful, but I could definitely be underestimating it.
New Teferi seems really cool. Not sure if I will give him a slot though. Match ups I would want him in I already feel favored in, and don’t think he’s better then what I currently have. Worth checking out. The new Ral, storm conduit in a UR build looks really interesting imo. Might be a reason for me to try UR turns!
Went 2-2 Wednesday night at the LGS. Mono R Phoenix got me round 1. Lost to amulet titan r4. Had some interesting interactions with hive mind and turns. Learned I got to take turns first. Also when PTW awakens, he gets to awaken also. Beat grixis control, and an artifact prison style deck. New sideboard didn’t get a huge test drive, and bad beats against a couple tough match ups. Chocking this one up as 1 of those nights.
New Ral is interesting, but probably a worse 4-mana Walker than Jace the Mind Sculptor or Chandra Torch of Defiance. Ral's -2 is super sweet, but he can't protect himself like Jace and Chandra can, and his +2 isn't actual card advantage like Jace's +0 or Chandra's +1 to exile. Also, those are some interesting Hive Mind interactions that I definitely haven't thought about. Good to know!
I figured that in AFT builds you would play some number of mission briefing to fill a flashback roll that snap gives but also synergize with the suspend spells. Seems like a powerful 1 of.
Mission Briefing is reasonable, but the 2/1 body on Snapcaster Mage is in my opinion generally better than the Surveil 2 from Mission Briefing. The interaction with suspend spells is very cool though. I suppose @Magus_of_Farts can speak more to why Briefing isn't in the deck.
I now added a hopefully reasonable Sideboard and exchanged the Hinterland Harbor with a Gemstone Caverns to maximize the chances of a turn 2 draw engine. I'm not quite sure how many Nexus of Fate I want in the deck, but I will probably Proxy this up against some friends in the near future to tweak the numbers. I also would like some card filtering options in there, but I feel like there is nothing to cut from the maindeck to make room for either Serum Visions or Opt. It might also be a good idea to put extra copies of Gigadrowse into the Sideboard, but the Control-matchup is probably good enough without them.
@timewalkinonsunshine: I think you are right about the EE in the main and I will definately think about a Cyclonic Rift as well!
Awesome, I like the sideboard you've come up with. I think it's worth adding an extra wincon like Thing in the Ice (perhaps over the 4th Chalice?) or Tireless Tracker like @zcowan suggested, but that's personal preference. Thanks for being so open to feedback. I'm really interested in the continued evolution of the list, keep us updated on how it goes!
5-2 record at the SCG IQ. 10th place out of 75. Lost to humans twice. Beat BW tokens, Mono R Phoenix, BG, Burn, and had a no show in the last round that I assume forgot to tell someone he dropped. Very happy with my performance. Sad I just missed out on top 8. I think I’m going to try a white splash for sideboard answers to problem match ups. Maybe only add 3 fetches and 3 shocks main, take out 2 radiant fountains and 4 islands. Bring hate out of the sideboard. Terminus, timely, path, rip, stony, EE probably?
Congrats on the finish! Sorry to hear about just missing top 8 though, that's always rough. Humans is a tough one for mono-U because the opponent has so many relevant threats (Thalia, Kitesail Freebooter, Meddling Mage) and mono-U just doesn't have enough ways to get rid of them.
Also - Timewalkinonsunshine
Think you may be interested in this.. Was brainstorming with the Discord on a possibly mono blue variant or UB self mill styled turn deck that utilizes the new Jace as a win condition.. Still a work in process but seems cool. Would finally make mission briefing sound better then snapcaster for a deck.. and then thought scour in place of serum visions...
Just the early workings of an idea! Also could justify something like Temporal Trespass as a one of
Id personally still play UR over any other version at a big tournament obviously.. The deck has felt really good lately.. but I do like my experiments haha
That's definitely an interesting idea... I can imagine something with tons of cantrips, a lower curve, more Mine effects, and a focus on comboing fast without needing a wincon other than new Jace. I'm not sure how good it would be, but it would certainly be fun! Mission Briefing would be pretty good for sure in that build, but I think the scry on Serum Visions makes it worth playing still. But if we're going for tons of cantrips, why not both!
UW looks like it may be getting a boost from War of the Spark
Teferi Time Reveler could be good against control matchups and other decks that work at instant speed and it allows us to cast exhaustion and warp effects on our opponent's turn which is nice.. plus it has evasion
Also Dovin's Veto is just a better negate for the sideboard which is awesome.. but im secretly hoping they make counterspell modern legal with Horizon's haha
Our control matchup is already pretty good, but if your local meta is just full of control players then this is a great way to go. I'm really excited to see what toys the rest of WAR gives us!
@Timewalkin, Tempest Djiin you say... intriguing. I may need to play around with that card. Baral out of the side also sounds spicy. Thanks for all your advice and encouraging words, much appreciated. This Is my current idea for hardened scales at the moment, out 4x remand 2x snap. In 2x pithing needle, 2x ratchet bomb, and 2x spellskite. Needles to name overseer, ravager, or ballista. Skite has a decent butt to block early, and can keep the ravager from putting counters somewhere else, maybe absorb a few ballista pings.
Wasn’t able to play much last week. Did a Sunday event, only 5 people. Finished 2-1. Beat Bant nexus 2-0. Beat BG deck 2-1. Swore I was going to lose that one, somehow survived an onslaught of thoughtseize and IoK to finally awaken an inkmoth for a poisonous death. Don’t know if I could’ve survived long enough to beat him with a normal land. He was smart enough to keep me away from dictates. Game 3 was not as much hand destruction, but i survived a surgical on time warp, then snap flashed back on PTW. after Bob, thoughtseize and his mana base did enough damage to him, with a few clutch gigadrowse and exhaustion my snap beat him down. Game 3... my buddy decided to build 8 Whack. Has me pulling my hair out. Lost 1-2 and almost had it. I actually won game 1, my hand curved out perfect, and he didn’t have the hella explosive start. Game 2 I mana flooded hard. G3 dictate flashed in before turn 4, 3 lands on board, cryptic, warp, PTW, in hand, and whiff on the 4th land. Oy, goblins.
Gotta rant for a second on stupid tie breakers. 5 people, someone had a bye every round. Tie breakers decided the 8 whack deck that defeated me, 2-1, with a bye for 1 win was good enough to take first??? I actually beat 2 opponents, and this bumped his points because he beat me and I had 2 actual wins. WTF?! Salty AF.
Taking my list to an SCG IQ this weekend! I’m excited, it’s my first go at something bigger then FNM. I’m looking to take a lot of turns
Thanks for the report, and good luck at the SCG IQ! Your Hardened Scales plan sounds solid, though one annoying aspect of the matchup is how many Nature's Claims they get to bring in. Those usually hit Mine and Dictate, but in this case Nature's Claim can also hit Pithing Needle or Ratchet Bomb or Spellskite at inopportune times. There's not much we can do about that though, and spreading the Claims thin by having a bunch of artifacts and enchantments might be the way to go.
I have been running Tempest in the main as a singleton for some time just as a variety pick for wincons, since this deck can see most of its cards in short order. There have been a handful of matches where he just gums up the ground long enough that once you get going in the air you just win.
He is usually the first thing to get sided out for hate though, in any match that I know he does not add a ton of value. I have considered running a copy in the sideboard as well but I think 4 copies is way overkill as it just activates to much removal your opponent may have. The absolutely best turns with Tempest in my plays have been if you flip a miracle walk on turn 5 for 2 mana and you play the Jin that turn.
Glad you've had some success with the Djinn! I disagree about 4x in the sideboard being too many - key aspect being sideboard. In the mainboard games, your opponent is more likely to have removal spells like Fatal Push (revolted of course), Path to Exile, Terminate, etc that are very good against Tempest Djinn, but very bad against the rest of the deck. In fact, the budget list I posted has zero creatures, with the only target for those removal spells being an awoken land (and if you suspect that your opponent has a handful of removal, try to Gigadrowse before awakening). In the post-board games, your opponent is much less likely to have those removal spells, and Tempest Djinn will get its time to shine. Having multiple is also good for blocking better and killing more quickly, which is why I don't think 4x is overkill. Of course, if your opponent anticipates this plan and leaves removal in for game 2, or if your opponent switches up their sideboard plan for game 3 after getting beaten down by a Djinn, you can next-level the opponent by sticking with plan A and leaving Tempest Djinn in the sideboard.
Hi guys, I lately brew a bit with UG turns and wanted to share this list. Any thoughts and critics on the deck are welcome as well as advice on some Sideboard ideas.
This list is sweet! I like the 6x ramp spells to power out T3 Wilderness Reclamation and Dictate. There's certainly a weird tension in the manabase between wanting Forests for Utopia Sprawl and wanting blue sources for Gigadrowse / Blue Sun's Zenith / Cryptic Command, but it looks like you mostly solved that with a lot of fetchlands and Breeding Pools. I'm kind of concerned about a manabase with 10 fetches and 5 shocks that isn't a Death's Shadow deck. It would be pretty funny to have Death's Shadow in the sideboard though... probably not a good idea, but a funny one. It also feels weird to me that Mystical Teachings can't grab hard removal in this deck, but I think trying to add cards like Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Fatal Push, etc will stretch the manabase too far. I guess that's just one of the inherent issues with Simic though. I think it's worthwhile to add some one-ofs like Cyclonic Rift and/or Echoing Truth so that you have more ways than just Cryptic Command to temporarily remove problem permanents like Meddling Mage, Thalia, Gaddock Teeg, etc. It may also be worthwhile to run an Engineered Explosives maindeck as hard removal, which Mat Stein did at Toronto with UR. I don't really know about what the sideboard should look like. My usual go-to includes some number of Thing in the Ice, but the enchantment count is so high in this deck (and consequently, Instant/Sorcery count relatively low) that I think TitI is slightly less effective than normal. Probably still worth in my opinion, but good to be aware of. Engineered Explosives / Ratchet Bomb seem reasonable removal options, along with maybe some more bounce spells like Echoing Truth. Some selection of counterspell(s) for the meta is probably worth it. You can add some green Naturalize effects if those are important for your meta. Add a dash of graveyard hate in Surgical / Relic / Tormod's Crypt / whatever, and you've got yourself a sideboard!
Played UR turns last night at my LGS and went 3-0 beating Breach Titan, G Tron, and As Foretold balance.
My list was basically D Wong's UR list w 2 mines instead of Jace a second Part the Waterveil in place of Opt.
Loving the deck a lot it seems very strong!
4 Snaps is definitely the way to go and Commandeer is fantastic.
Congrats, glad you're enjoying the deck! How do you like the second Part the Waterveil? So far I haven't missed it, but I've certainly had games that were dicey because I burned my only Part early.
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I posted a video of Temur Super Friends Turns that I think is a pretty interesting direction to take the deck. The fact that you get to play a bunch of Planeswalkers in place of Howling Mine effects means that your advantages become one-sided, and Wrenn and Six in particular is amazing in a deck trying to abuse Mystic Sanctuary. If you have a chance, I recommend giving it a shot!
LSV 5-0'd a league with Fires of Invention and I think his list did a lot of things better than mine. First of all, I was leaning too hard on the Fires + suspend spell package and was counting on Ancestral and Wheel of Fate to be enough of an engine, but they weren't quite good enough. LSV's card draw package was 3 Howling Mine, 2 Dictate of Kruphix, 1 Jace Beleren, 2 Narset, 1 Chandra Torch of Defiance, and 2 Jace the Mind Sculptor, all reasonable inclusions in Turns decks. His interaction was 2 Bolt and 2 Cryptic Command, which I think is a little better than the 3 Bolt and 1 Brazen Borrower that I played. His manabase had 24 lands, 21 of which either have the Island subtype or are fetchlands, which meant better support for Mystic Sanctuary and Castle Vantress. In my list with only 20 lands, I didn't think I'd have enough mana to activate Castle Vantress very often (and I didn't).
Overall there are a lot of ways to take the deck. I think LSV went down a much better path with an almost stock list that has Fires of Invention and Savor the Moment, as opposed to trying to include As Foretold and the suspend spell package.
This is a fresh new take on the deck! I don't really have too much to say about it since it looks so different from what I'm used to. As a general rule, though, you do want to be getting some kind of extra value from your extra turns, like having a Howling Mine or getting your Ancestral Vision to tick down. Otherwise, you're spending your extra turn cards as expensive Explores, which isn't great. It looks like your deck can leverage Gideons to get a lot of value from extra turns, but I'm not sure if that's consistent enough to justify the turns package on its own. I'd consider cards like Howling Mine to try to get more value from your turns (and also help you draw into more extra turn spells). Really sweet brew, thanks for posting!
Silence seems mostly worse than other options to me. If you're using it on your opponent's turn to prevent them from casting spells, Gigadrowse can do that is also flexible enough to fog when you need it. If you're using Silence on your own turn to protect a Time Warp, it seems mostly worse than Dispel since your opponent still has their counterspell in hand, and can counter your next move on your extra turn. Gigadrowse also protects you from non-Force of Negation counterspells if you tap out your opponent at their end step.
Yeah I know what you mean! I really like the idea of Dead of Winter, though I'm not sure if it's maindeck material. Either way, this list looks very solid, and I think it'll do well in a creature-heavy meta.
There are a few reasonable ways to FoN. Splashing black for Thoughtseize effects is one way to go. Splashing white for T3feri would also work. My preference is to run more Commandeer to fight a manaless counter war. If you tap out your UW Control opponent with Gigadrowse at their end step, their only interaction is Force of Negation, so you can probably get away with using Commandeer as a bad counterspell for their FoN to protect your Time Warp. Commandeer is also great if they tap out for an early Planeswalker, which in my opinion is a big reason to run it.
1 Howling Mine
4 Dictate of Kruphix
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Extra turns
4 Time Warp
1 Part the Waterveil
3 Temporal Mastery
Pseudo extra turns
3 Gigadrowse
3 Exhaustion
Interaction
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Snapback
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Cryptic Command
1 Commandeer
Cantrips
2 Opt
4 Serum Visions
3 Island
3 Snow-Covered Island
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
4 Sulfur Falls
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Gemstone Caverns
2 Abrade
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Commandeer
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Negate
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thing in the Ice
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Polluted Delta
1 Steam Vents
1 Flooded Strand
9 Island
1 Mountain
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
Spells
4 Opt
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Remand
2 Force of Negation
2 Day’s Undoing
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Cryptic Command
4 Time Warp
4 Temporal Mastery
1 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
2 Abrade
4 Thing in the Ice
2 Pyroclasm
2 Spell Pierce
4 Ravenous Trap
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
Creature (4)
4 Snapcaster Mage
Sorcery (14)
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Day's Undoing
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Time Warp
Instant (16)
2 Cryptic Command
2 Force of Negation
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Opt
4 Remand
1 Flooded Strand
9 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Mountain
1 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Abrade
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Ravenous Trap
1 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
2 Spell Pierce
2 Thing in the Ice
The above list looks like the place to start testing with Day's Undoing. Not sure if there's a way to make Echo of Eons work, but I'm also not sure it's necessary.
I'm still of the opinion that UG is the least competitive build of Taking Turns. Plow Under has an amazing best case scenario, but the worst case (which in my opinion is much more common than the best case) is terrible. Plow Under doesn't affect the board and doesn't stop you from dying to whatever the opponent already has on board, so I don't think it's worth running. In particular, Plow Under costs 5 mana. Isn't it better to spend one more mana and just cast Part the Waterveil or Walk the Aeons?
My main concern with Ral is that he competes in the 4-drop planeswalker slot with Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Jace is a hard card to beat in the average case since he can immediately replace himself with +0 brainstorm if you suspect that he won't stay on board, whereas Ral can only get you a Scry 1 in those situations. Ral's extra loyalty is certainly useful for staying alive, but at the same time, if you suspect that your opponent has a single Lightning Bolt for your Jace, just use Jace's +2 to scry 1 anyway. The difference between 5 and 6 loyalty on a Planeswalker isn't enough to justify the power level disparity in my opinion. Ral's -2 seems like the main reasons to play the card, and in my opinion it just doesn't do enough. Taking two extra turns in a row isn't good enough if you don't have something meaningful on those turns, like a Dictate or Jace to net card advantage or some Snapcasters to get damage in, and Ral's +2 alone doesn't seem meaningful enough to be happy with having those extra turns. It's unclear to me exactly how useful the passive is, but at first glance it seems unlikely that it frequently allows you to win games that were otherwise unwinnable in its absence. Of course, like with Narset, it's entirely possible that I'm being too pessimistic here. The best way to find out is more testing!
Thanks for posting, sorry to hear the tournament went so poorly. I agree that Jace is overall not great (one of the most overrated cards by far), but I think you're overlooking a very important detail: Planeswalkers that tick up get better with removal, or at least early disruption. I think that one of the reasons that Jace did so poorly for you is that you have so few ways to protect him in the early game, which is why he was dying so consistently. You can conceivably block attackers with Snapcaster or Thing in the Ice, but they can easily be killed before they can block. Beyond that, your only ways to prevent the opponent from developing a board early are a Gigadrowse and 3 Exhaustion, which doesn't seem like enough to slow the opponent down. Compared to the UR build I like to play that has 3 Lightning Bolt, 1 Snapback, 3 Gigadrowse, 3 Exhaustion, and 4 Snapcaster Mage as ways to keep the board clear for Jace, I find that I'm able to get Jace to stick a reasonable amount of the time, and it's those times that he stays on board that he's actually good. Being able to set up Miracled Temporal Mastery easily leads to game wins.
Even though Jace did so poorly, I have my doubts that Narset would have been better on average. She protects herself even less than Jace (with Jace you can at least -1 to stop a lone creature from attacking and killing him), she's vulnerable to Bolt like Jace assuming you actually use her -2, and I think you're overestimating how good her passive is. Your build has 1 Mikokoro and 4 Dictate of Kruphix as ways to really abuse her passive, and I just don't think that's enough. It's hard for me to imagine a scenario where her passive is gaming-breakingly good as opposed to just a minor annoyance when going over some of the top decks. Humans cracks Horizon Canopy on your turn rather than theirs, and other than that the passive does nothing. Against UW Control, Jace and Serum Visions don't work well, but even Jace can start +2ing to look for an answer if Narset is actually a problem, and Opt or other instant speed card draw still work just fine. Against Tron, their Chromatic Stars and Spheres are worse, either just the color fixing or just the card, but it doesn't stop their most powerful cantrip Ancient Stirrings, and it doesn't stop any of their big threats or the Sylvan Scrying and Expedition Map part of assembling Tron. Against Phoenix is where Narset has the most promise, being good against Faithless Looting, Serum Visions, and Manamorphose. But even then, Sleight of Hand and Thought Scour can easily draw them cards when they need them, and I can imagine a Phoenix player giving up a few cards by casting a useless cantrip or two into Narset just to bring back their hasty Phoenix and kill her, or just throw a Lightning Bolt or two her way. Even in this best-case matchup, she seems weak to me on paper. Against Dredge, her passive does almost nothing since the Dredge mechanic replaces card draw, meaning the opponent doesn't actually draw a card while choosing to Dredge and can continue to Dredge 3 times with a Cathartic Reunion. It's certainly possible that I'm being overly pessimistic and more playtesting is really the only way to find out, but right now I just don't think she's nearly as good as you want her to be.
Either way, I think the best way to support Planeswalkers in the deck is with actual interaction that can keep the board clear. Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push, and Path to Exile are all fantastic removal spells that will allow your Planeswalkers to actually stay on board and get value way more often than in a UG or mono-U build.
Speaking of bad news, MTG Salvation will be closing and going into read-only mode on July 8, 2019. It's been an honor discussing the evolution of this deck with all of you.
But back to actual discussion!
I firmly believe that Jace is better than Narset in your build because of the playset of Temporal Mastery and that his -1 is one of extremely few ways you have to interact. I don't think that Narset's Reversal is better than Remand here because you really want to be able to stop plays like Kitesail Freebooter, Drogskol Captain, Thing in the Ice, Gurmag Angler, etc that Narset's Reversal doesn't hit. As for the sideboard, I don't like Engulf the Shores because 9 of your 23 lands aren't Islands or able to fetch Islands (2 Forest, 4 Hinterland Harbor, 1 Mikokoro, 2 Temple of Mystery). Engineered Explosives is one of the best pieces of interaction in UG, even if you can only put it up to 2. I don't really know what your sideboard plans would look like with this deck, but that's something to consider when shaping your sideboard. For each matchup, what cards do you want to take out? How many cards do you expect to bring in?
Thanks! To elaborate on @zcowan's point, every fetchable land in my UR list is also an Island. This means that in the context of that deck, every blue fetchland is equal because they can all fetch every land. When I originally built UB Turns years ago, I made that split thinking "the 0.1% of the time the opponent Pithing Needles a fetchland, I'll sure be glad I did this!" But now that Whir Prison exists, it's actually kind of important to diversify fetchlands if you expect to play against it (for example, if you're going to a large tournament with an open field). They run about 2 Sorcerous Spyglass and 4 Whir of Invention maindeck, so letting them preemptively Stone Rain 4 of your lands at once is a weakness you don't need to have. I chose to favor Scalding Tarn because that was the most popular blue fetchland at the time (and as far as I'm aware it still is), so opening on Scalding Tarn gives your opponent the least information about your deck. That point is kind of moot for me because the opponents know what's up when I take out a quad-sleeved behemoth of a deck, but still
I still feel like a splash adds a lot of power to the deck without taking away much. Yes, there are games that you'll lose to tapped lands or losing too much life to fetches and shocks, but the upside of having a few interactive spells substantially outweighs that downside in my opinion. What's your reasoning behind wanting to go mono-U?
My main concern with Narset is that you only get two activations off of her. Turning off your opponents card draw is nice (and also has a cute "combo" with Geier Reach Sanitarium when you Sanitarium at your hellbent opponent's upkeep), but in my opinion having a finite number of activations is a huge downside for a deck aiming to take multiple turns in a row. I'm curious how your testing goes. Keep us updated!
2 Savor the Moment
4 Nexus of Fate
Engine (11)
4 Rites of Flourishing
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Search for Azcanta
3 Wilderness Reclamation
Ramp (7)
3 Arboreal Grazer
4 Growth Spiral
Draw (4)
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
3 Serum Visions
Interaction (5)
2 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Lumbering Falls
3 Hinterland Harbor
3 Breeding Pool
2 Botanical Sanctum
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
2 Gemstone Caverns
1 Watery Grave
1 Halimar Depths
4 Island
4 Forest
2 Thing in the Ice
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Negate
1 Spell Snare
1 Dispel
1 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Nature's Claim
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Boomerang
1 Echoing Truth
My initial reaction to Jace, Wielder of Mysteries was that he competes in the 4-drop Planeswalker slot with Jace, the Mind Sculptor (a card I rate lower than most people) and can't protect himself, so he's probably worse. I didn't do any testing yet, but I'm glad that you all did and were happy because now I get to rethink my opinion of the new Lab Man! Wielder of Mysteries definitely lends himself to building a more combo-oriented, less win-con focused deck than just a typical Dictate / Howling Mine list, and it looks like you're all taking advantage of that. I really like the inclusion of Mission Briefing to both contribute to comboing off and also just smooth out the draws. Keep us updated on any other findings in testing!
(EDIT: forgot power/toughness) Wow, that's insane. Note that you copy the card, THEN cast the copy. The actual card stays in your hand!
I don't like outright saying "no" to deck ideas, but there are too many engine cards to combine Turns and Tron or Turns and Titan and still have the deck function in a reasonable way. If you want to try it, though, go for it! Just don't expect too much.
As @zcowan and @JPoJohnson said, I think new Ral is too win-more. He competes with the other 4-mana walkers, and while turning Time Warp into Time Stretch is cool, new Ral doesn't actually provide card advantage on his own like Jace the Mind Sculptor or Chandra Torch of Defiance, nor can he protect himself with a minus ability.
Your list looks sweet! The two biggest things that are missing in my opinion are Jace the Mind Sculptor, which goes very well with Temporal Mastery and Terminus, and Part the Waterveil, which allows you to kill much faster than any other wincon currently in the deck. I have some nitpicks about card choices, but a lot of this is personal preference, so take everything with a grain of salt. Remand is weak in the format right now in my opinion because the top decks have very few spells that are good Remand targets. For example, Phoenix is mostly cantrips, so Thing in the Ice, Pyromancer Ascension, and Manamorphose are the few cards you can Remand and feel like you've accomplished something, and all of those come down before Remand when you're on the draw; Humans and Spirits have Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial that make Remand a very poor cantrip; Dredge has basically Cathartic Reunion and Conflagrate as the only spells that Remand is good against. Nexus of Fate in my experience is mostly an un-Miracleable Temporal Mastery. The Instant speed is rarely relevant because we beat counterspells by Gigadrowsing at the opponent's end step, and the shuffle clause is rarely relevant. It doesn't stop you from decking if you have a Mine or two out, and increasing the extra turn density of your deck is rarely the difference between winning and losing. Your Planeswalkers are in my opinion all outclassed by Jace the Mind Sculptor, in part because of the 5 Miracle cards in the deck. Manlands like Celestial Colonnade I've often found to be too slow, and I also don't like having more than one always-tapped land (you have both Colonnade and Temple of Enlightenment). I'm not a fan of basic Plains or Field of Ruin in the deck because of how important blue mana is for Gigadrowse, but I can see how that package goes together. I don't like the Laboratory Maniac sideboard plan, since I think it's rare than you can win with it in games 2 and 3 when your opponent has more interaction, like Naturalize effects for your Mines, or Thoughtseize effects, or counterspells. Like I said, these are just my personal opinions, so feel free to make as many or as few changes as you want. For example, Remand is great in certain metas full of decks like Tron, UW Control, and BG, so if your local store has tons of decks like that, then it's a fantastic inclusion.
Deck looks sweet! You definitely want to add more UW lands though. Frank Karsten recommends having 13 W lands to cast a 1W spell like Rest in Peace, for example. You get to cheat on that number a bit because you have Serum Visions, but it would still be a good idea to add about 5 more UW lands. I recommend Glacial Fortress and Prairie Stream, but you have lots of options. I also think Dragon's Claw isn't a great way to combat Burn, and would instead suggest Negate, Redirect, or Commandeer. If you're adamant about having an anti-burn artifact, I think Sun Droplet is the better option. One more thing to be aware of is the non-bo of Grafdigger's Cage and Snapcaster Mage.
It's an interesting idea! I mentioned earlier that I'd envision such a deck having a lot of cantrips, a lower curve, a lot of Mine effects, and a focus on comboing fast without needing a wincon other than new Jace. I have my doubts as to the power level of this deck, but it certainly sounds fun!
Congrats on your finish and undefeated Day 1! Hopefully we'll get to meet at some other GP, it's always cool to see other people sleeving up Time Warps.
Gigadrowse mostly solves the issue of counterspells, so I don't think we need another card that does that. And Instant speed Warping again sounds like a way to beat counterspells, which we already have. Still, it's great in a control-heavy meta, but that's just not what Modern as a whole looks like right now. I don't think Teferi's -3 is especially useful, but I could definitely be underestimating it.
New Ral is interesting, but probably a worse 4-mana Walker than Jace the Mind Sculptor or Chandra Torch of Defiance. Ral's -2 is super sweet, but he can't protect himself like Jace and Chandra can, and his +2 isn't actual card advantage like Jace's +0 or Chandra's +1 to exile. Also, those are some interesting Hive Mind interactions that I definitely haven't thought about. Good to know!
Mission Briefing is reasonable, but the 2/1 body on Snapcaster Mage is in my opinion generally better than the Surveil 2 from Mission Briefing. The interaction with suspend spells is very cool though. I suppose @Magus_of_Farts can speak more to why Briefing isn't in the deck.
Congrats on the finish! Sorry to hear about just missing top 8 though, that's always rough. Humans is a tough one for mono-U because the opponent has so many relevant threats (Thalia, Kitesail Freebooter, Meddling Mage) and mono-U just doesn't have enough ways to get rid of them.
That's definitely an interesting idea... I can imagine something with tons of cantrips, a lower curve, more Mine effects, and a focus on comboing fast without needing a wincon other than new Jace. I'm not sure how good it would be, but it would certainly be fun! Mission Briefing would be pretty good for sure in that build, but I think the scry on Serum Visions makes it worth playing still. But if we're going for tons of cantrips, why not both!
I finished at 11-4, which was good for 25th place. I'll be writing a report soon, hopefully posted in the next few days!
Our control matchup is already pretty good, but if your local meta is just full of control players then this is a great way to go. I'm really excited to see what toys the rest of WAR gives us!
Glad you've had some success with the Djinn! I disagree about 4x in the sideboard being too many - key aspect being sideboard. In the mainboard games, your opponent is more likely to have removal spells like Fatal Push (revolted of course), Path to Exile, Terminate, etc that are very good against Tempest Djinn, but very bad against the rest of the deck. In fact, the budget list I posted has zero creatures, with the only target for those removal spells being an awoken land (and if you suspect that your opponent has a handful of removal, try to Gigadrowse before awakening). In the post-board games, your opponent is much less likely to have those removal spells, and Tempest Djinn will get its time to shine. Having multiple is also good for blocking better and killing more quickly, which is why I don't think 4x is overkill. Of course, if your opponent anticipates this plan and leaves removal in for game 2, or if your opponent switches up their sideboard plan for game 3 after getting beaten down by a Djinn, you can next-level the opponent by sticking with plan A and leaving Tempest Djinn in the sideboard.
This list is sweet! I like the 6x ramp spells to power out T3 Wilderness Reclamation and Dictate. There's certainly a weird tension in the manabase between wanting Forests for Utopia Sprawl and wanting blue sources for Gigadrowse / Blue Sun's Zenith / Cryptic Command, but it looks like you mostly solved that with a lot of fetchlands and Breeding Pools. I'm kind of concerned about a manabase with 10 fetches and 5 shocks that isn't a Death's Shadow deck. It would be pretty funny to have Death's Shadow in the sideboard though... probably not a good idea, but a funny one. It also feels weird to me that Mystical Teachings can't grab hard removal in this deck, but I think trying to add cards like Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Fatal Push, etc will stretch the manabase too far. I guess that's just one of the inherent issues with Simic though. I think it's worthwhile to add some one-ofs like Cyclonic Rift and/or Echoing Truth so that you have more ways than just Cryptic Command to temporarily remove problem permanents like Meddling Mage, Thalia, Gaddock Teeg, etc. It may also be worthwhile to run an Engineered Explosives maindeck as hard removal, which Mat Stein did at Toronto with UR. I don't really know about what the sideboard should look like. My usual go-to includes some number of Thing in the Ice, but the enchantment count is so high in this deck (and consequently, Instant/Sorcery count relatively low) that I think TitI is slightly less effective than normal. Probably still worth in my opinion, but good to be aware of. Engineered Explosives / Ratchet Bomb seem reasonable removal options, along with maybe some more bounce spells like Echoing Truth. Some selection of counterspell(s) for the meta is probably worth it. You can add some green Naturalize effects if those are important for your meta. Add a dash of graveyard hate in Surgical / Relic / Tormod's Crypt / whatever, and you've got yourself a sideboard!
Congrats, glad you're enjoying the deck! How do you like the second Part the Waterveil? So far I haven't missed it, but I've certainly had games that were dicey because I burned my only Part early.