One of the most powerful cards in the history of magic has always been the formidable Time Walk. The ability to manipulate the way that turns are taken gives you the potential to really take the advantage in the game. Add that to a turbo-fog engine (Howling Mine / Dictate of Kruphix) and you develop a massive card advantage. The nice thing about this is the fact that your engine becomes your win condition whether it's passing the turn with lots of counter magic up or using Mikokoro to slowly and painfully win the game by drawing their library.
But surely with such massive casting costs and an engine that is beneficial to both players will allow the opponent to simply tempo you out with all the great draws you are giving them? Running great tempo counters in the form of Remand and Spell Snare (Snare being the counter of choice in the 1CMC slot b/c of how many 2 CMC bombs there are in the format) as well as a great fog-counter in the form of Cryptic Command (probably the most powerful spell in the deck being able to become Time Walk 13-16 against aggro decks or decks relying on resolving the one bomb spell late game).
Remember, you don't have to completely destroy the opponent, you just have to survive the opponent.
A first look at the deck shows a deck that appears to be weak to aggro and win-conditionless to combo/control. A deeper look shows a shell that allows surviving tempo while thwarting combo/control. The sideboard in this deck is crucial as it shores up our bad match-ups.
This deck should first and foremost be played like a control deck. If you're not dead, you still have time to make sure you can win 100% when you go off. I almost always wait until one of two criteria is met:
1. I can combo 100% because I either have the counters to deal with their mana that is up or they can't interact with me in that way (because they don't run counters or I Gigadrowsed them).
3. I will die and have to do what I can to win
If none of this criteria is there, I see no reason to attempt to combo out.
Selected Time Warp - Chosen for being the lowest casting cost time-walk. All star inclusion
Walk the Aeons - Fantastic for its potentially re-curable casting once you have those spare islands in play. The 6 CMC is also lower than all the other viable options.
Temporal Mastery - The printing of this card is what made this deck possible. Flipping a miracle off the top allows for additional card filtering/Planeswalker pumps and ramping to get to the late game that turn earlier.
Rejected Beacon of Tomorrows - The initial cost of 8 is far too high to warrant the inclusion even though the shuffle effect leaves room for potential infinite turns (excluding Elixir of Immortality loops).
Savor the Moment - Losing our untap step makes this an unprofitable choice. Although great in certain instances for ramp/card filtering/Planeswalker boosting, it's uses are too limited to include. You would most likely pass the turn after casting this card too often.
Temporal Extortion - Optional cards always see the opponent choosing the option you don't want. Not viable in a deck where walk spells need to be chained together.
Time Stretch by the time you have 10 mana, you should already be mid time travel somewhere between the 1400s and the 1600s.
Timesifter - Although you run a lot of high CMC cards in this deck, the fact that you can't control your top deck or the opponent's leaves this option in the dust.
Card Filtering
Selected Serum Visions - Allows you to filter the top three cards of your library for a single blue. Best filtering available in Modern.
Sleight of Hand - Filters the top two cards off your library. Great to burn down to what you need and get the chaff out of the way.
Rejected Thirst for Knowledge - I don't have enough artifacts, and especially artifacts that I want to ditch, to use this efficiently.
Think Twice - Costs too much to only see a single card.
Draw Engine
Selected Dictate of Kruphix - Flash and draw every turn. Allows you to keep up counter magic mana and draw first.
Jace Beleren - Low CMC and draw every turn as well as doubling as the win condition.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea - Dodges the artifact hate. This is big against MB Abrupt Decay. I've never had a game where this was a horrible draw vs an island, but I've had several games where this was the game winning draw since I was able to chain enough time-walks to get to the point where I had the spare land to draw. I'm not 100% sold on the idea yet, but I'm liking it.
Rejected Temple Bell - The best rejected option for a draw. It's a bit nicer than the Mine in that I can choose when the card draw for both players occurs (making it better to drop in the early game since I can EoT activate so they can't make use of most of their draws), but the fact that it costs 1 CMC more makes it contend with Jace for the play T3 and that makes it get the cut over Mine.
Disruptive 'Counter' Magic
Selected Remand - Fantastic tempo card. Allows card filtering as well as delaying a turn on the opponent.
Gigadrowse - Lock down their mana in their upkeep to essentially time walk some decks, tap down crucial combo pieces & tap down attackers to buy another turn. Great disruption
Cryptic Command - Doubles as a time-walk against aggro decks and has the utility of being able to bounce combo pieces, draw a card, or counter a spell.
Spell Snare - SIDEBOARD. Many cards in the format are 2 CMC and this is able to hit quite a few of the bombs with just a single blue.
Spell Pierce - SIDEBOARD. Not great against aggro, but turns the tide against non-creature combo early game.
Swan Song - SIDEBOARD. Fantastic against all forms of combo.
Trickbind - SIDEBOARD. Buys an uncounterable turn against many decks including Tron (Annihilator trigger), Twin (Untap trigger), Birthing Pod (Undying Trigger), Merfolk (Aether Vial/Mutavault Trigger), etc etc etc.
Rejected Mana Leak - Doesn't filter cards, but would be a close contender behind the current set we run.
Rune Snag - Leak would be strictly better in this list, but still not quite up to snuff.
1. Click the link
2. Click "Test" in the menu across the top
3. Click the buttons to do the action you choose (In order to use the card filtering spells, you draw the card and then rightclick the card when its in your hand to place either on the top or bottom of the library).
I realize that the first game at this point with the maindeck is a forfeit. I don't want to run Laboratory Maniac in the mainboard since it's a dead draw in the early game and is stuck in your hand until your last turn (since spot removal is so feisty against him).
One thing that I thought about was including a singleton Temple Bell to have a chance of winning since I could activate as an instant as all the cards were in their library, but figured that the % chance of them having their Eldrazi in the bottom portion was far too low to make it a viable option.
The next thought was a singleton Surgical Extraction in the mainboard. This is actually potentially viable as this would be useful against most decks at one point or another I would think. What to cut if that is truly the case? Since I don't play on MODO, I don't really see much TRON at all anyways, so I think at this point I'm not going to add anything, but just thinking about options for people that do want to run the deck and are playing against TRON players.
Lastly, another option to run is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn himself! You'll timewalk to the point where you'll most likely have enough mana to hardcast and faceroll with him. The reason why I don't like this is for two reasons. 1 - He's still a dead draw. 2 - It limits your time-walk spells since you don't want to sacrifice 'spare' islands to your Walk the Aeons.
Edit: As has been pointed out, Jace Beleren himself would win against TRON as long as you have the Elixir of Immortality up and running and drawing out their deck one turn at a time. It would take a while, but it doesn't take really all that long to draw a card, tap your lands and cast a spell. Rinse and repeat (:
I'm pretty glad that this deck has a forum now.
Does anybody have any ideas for any ramp creatures? Or even adding green for the added benefits of that?
I realize that the first game at this point with the maindeck is a forfeit. I don't want to run Laboratory Maniac in the mainboard since it's a dead draw in the early game and is stuck in your hand until your last turn (since spot removal is so feisty against him).
One thing that I thought about was including a singleton Temple Bell to have a chance of winning since I could activate as an instant as all the cards were in their library, but figured that the % chance of them having their Eldrazi in the bottom portion was far too low to make it a viable option.
The next thought was a singleton Surgical Extraction in the mainboard. This is actually potentially viable as this would be useful against most decks at one point or another I would think. What to cut if that is truly the case? Since I don't play on MODO, I don't really see much TRON at all anyways, so I think at this point I'm not going to add anything, but just thinking about options for people that do want to run the deck and are playing against TRON players.
Lastly, another option to run is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn himself! You'll timewalk to the point where you'll most likely have enough mana to hardcast and faceroll with him. The reason why I don't like this is for two reasons. 1 - He's still a dead draw. 2 - It limits your time-walk spells since you don't want to sacrifice 'spare' islands to your Walk the Aeons.
If you run Elixir of immortality in your 60 then G1 isn't an automatic loss it just takes longer than outright mill. Remember that baby Jace makes them draw too. You'll have a big Jace by the time you mill them out that way, but if you sit down and practice a few times before you play the match up then it won't take too long.
What about snapcaster? He's a better (faster) win con against tron as compared to Laboratory Maniac or Jace beleren's. All it takes is 1 cryptic command to tap/bounce any potential threat amidst the timewalking effect. Let's not forget that he is effectively Time Warp 5-8
If you run Elixir of immortality in your 60 then G1 isn't an automatic loss it just takes longer than outright mill. Remember that baby Jace makes them draw too. You'll have a big Jace by the time you mill them out that way, but if you sit down and practice a few times before you play the match up then it won't take too long.
Ha! You're so right, lets just hope you win game 1 hahaha!
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
I won't take -that- long actually, once you've drawn your deck, you can bounce your Howling Mines and then enter a loop where you go : Cast Elixir of Immortality, cast Time Warp, activate Elixir of Imortality, tick up Jace, pass turn. End result of the loop, you've gained 5 life and they've drawn a card.
I won't take -that- long actually, once you've drawn your deck, you can bounce your Howling Mines and then enter a loop where you go : Cast Elixir of Immortality, cast Time Warp, activate Elixir of Imortality, tick up Jace, pass turn. End result of the loop, you've gained 5 life and they've drawn a card.
It would be much quicker than that:
T# is the turn number within the combo-out turns
T1 - Tick up Jace, Cast a timewalk
T2 - Tick up Jace, Cast a timewalk
etc
etc
etc
T19 - Tick up Jace, Cast a timewalk, activate Elixir
T20 - Tick up Jace, Cast a timewalk.
Rinse and repeat until you deck them.
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
The deck idea seems awesome!! actually did a few test runs and it's pretty impressive the amount of Time Warps modern has... with a Howling Mine in Play it's not difficult to go off turn 5!! while crypting and remanding their stuff, so it plays out nicely...
I won't take -that- long actually, once you've drawn your deck, you can bounce your Howling Mines and then enter a loop where you go : Cast Elixir of Immortality, cast Time Warp, activate Elixir of Imortality, tick up Jace, pass turn. End result of the loop, you've gained 5 life and they've drawn a card.
You've wasted your Time Warp at the end of the loop, or did I miss something?? you'd actually run out of Time Warp effects before you mill them that way. With Gaea's Blessing it's pretty easy to loop some stuff with Time Warp: cast Gaea's Blessing shuffling a Time Warp and another Gaea's Blessing. There you go infinite turns. Green also gives us Coiling Oracle, which seems kind of nice in this deck! (other ramp could be useful too) Oh, if they reprinted Wall of Blossoms...
I'm pretty glad that this deck has a forum now.
Does anybody have any ideas for any ramp creatures? Or even adding green for the added benefits of that?
That said, this deck is too slow. While it's nice to have tons of redundancy (this deck has 12 extra turn effects), you have to take 3 things into account:
1) You need a Mine/Jace to keep going. The big deal with Mine is that your opponent gets to draw first. Jace...well, you have 0 creatures, so you're basically praying that your opponent has no creatures or burn.
Oh and also, Abrupt Decay kills both of these.
2) At the very minimum, you need to hardcast a 5-mana card in order to combo off. That's the best-case scenario; Walk the Aeons and Temporal Mastery both cost more than 5, Miracle notwithstanding. There's two ways you can do it: with ramp, and without ramp. Without ramp, aggro and combo decks will kill you before you get to 5 mana. With ramp (i.e. Extraplanar Lens), you get blown out if the Lens gets destroyed. And it will get destroyed, because...
3) The deck is very reliant on one artifact: Howling Mine. Without Mine, you can't win. Sadly, artifact hate (Ancient Grudge, Nature's Claim, Wear/Tear) is very common because of Affinity, so you're at a huge disadvantage in SBed games. They destroy Mine, you might as well pack it in - no way you're going to live long enough to cast another one, especially after Mine has already given them one free card.
Slow speed (as in winning turn, not time taken to play out the deck), vulnerability to common hate, AND giving your opponent free cards is a bad combination.
I've seen a variant of this deck run the Extraplanar and Snow-Covered Island Combo. They used it along with ramping with Timewalks to hardcast Emrakul. It was an extremely frustrating experience.
from the test runs, went off pretty easily Turn 5, with one turn 4 (when oracle ramped). This is a pretty brute list, but it's consistent while goldfishing. While this may fail to every kind of hate, it's pretty consistent. They are certainly ways of tuning it. I think that removing Remand was a mistake, as that minimal interaction is crucial to surviving the advantage we are giving to the opponent long enough. Don't know what else to take out though... I wonder if we absolutely need the 12 time warps. The thing is that the 3 copies have its own unique advantage, and I don't think we should be running less...
I guess that what is competing with Remand here is Coiling Oracle, what are your thoughts??
Oh, and Gaea's Blessing loop is, imo, a neat way of ending the game (mill with Jace Beleren and infinite turns). It can also reshuffle Time Warps into the library mid combo to help prevent fizzling, and serve as graveyard hate (oh, and it cantrips)
Gotta be faster to be competitive in Modern. It's a fun idea, but you need more speed to be viable in any realistic sense.
Sure, no one is saying this should be the final list. That's why people post in this section, to tune up decklists and try to get them to work in the best possible way!!
Gotta be faster to be competitive in Modern. It's a fun idea, but you need more speed to be viable in any realistic sense.
He did only just make the primer today.
That said, how can you really make this faster? Blue's kind of lacking in the ramp department, and going two color to get ramp is probably only so-so.
I've been tempted to run Gigadrowse in the mainboard since it can work as a semi time-walk. With how many lands and filtering this deck runs, odds are you're going to be making your land drop nearly every turn (especially nice if you get a T3/T4/T5 Temporal Mastery). You could tap out their attackers against an aggro deck or tap out their lands at the beginning of their turn. I'm gonna definitely playtest that:nod:
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
That said, this deck is too slow. While it's nice to have tons of redundancy (this deck has 12 extra turn effects), you have to take 3 things into account:
1) You need a Mine/Jace to keep going. The big deal with Mine is that your opponent gets to draw first. Jace...well, you have 0 creatures, so you're basically praying that your opponent has no creatures or burn.
Oh and also, Abrupt Decay kills both of these.
2) At the very minimum, you need to hardcast a 5-mana card in order to combo off. That's the best-case scenario; Walk the Aeons and Temporal Mastery both cost more than 5, Miracle notwithstanding. There's two ways you can do it: with ramp, and without ramp. Without ramp, aggro and combo decks will kill you before you get to 5 mana. With ramp (i.e. Extraplanar Lens), you get blown out if the Lens gets destroyed. And it will get destroyed, because...
3) The deck is very reliant on one artifact: Howling Mine. Without Mine, you can't win. Sadly, artifact hate (Ancient Grudge, Nature's Claim, Wear/Tear) is very common because of Affinity, so you're at a huge disadvantage in SBed games. They destroy Mine, you might as well pack it in - no way you're going to live long enough to cast another one, especially after Mine has already given them one free card.
Slow speed (as in winning turn, not time taken to play out the deck), vulnerability to common hate, AND giving your opponent free cards is a bad combination.
Your three points are quite valid. I think that in order to bring this deck up into the big leagues it would require something to help fight through this. Abrupt Decay is definitely an issue for this deck. The redundancy is definitely nice for this deck (the lowest count in the deck is 5 draw engines, unless you count the graveyard recursion of Elixir of Immortality, but I've won without activating that card before).
1. Abrupt Decay is definitely a huge issue. We could try something like Redirect which would protect us from Abrupt Decay and be essentially a counter-counterspell. I try not to drop Jace until we're ready to go, but obviously you need to draw into your gas so there are quite a few instances where I have to drop him unprotected. Mainboard Gigadrowse would be a potential answer for this (against all but burn, but he drops with essentially 5 loyalty after you pass so I would hope he would be in the clear at this point... granted giving burn gas when you're playing this deck isn't a great idea haha, that is a rough matchup!).
2. I don't think Extraplanar Lens is a viable option. We need to find spells that would operate similar to Cryptic Command (which in most instances will function very similar to a timewalk against most decks) that costs less than 5 CMC. As stated above, we'll see how Gigadrowse does against the majority of decks. The nice thing being if they try to counter it, the copies will still tap.
3. I agree...This is a concession. The other replacement option is Temple Bell and it falls into the same category of Howling Mine, but is a turn slower. We'll have to see about this one.
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Once I had a deck with Temporal Mastery and I found cards such as Faithless Looting good to get rid of an unmiracled Mastery. Then I found Noxious Revival nice to get it back on top, so you can miracle it. The Revival is good anyway to cast a Time Warp after your Time Warp. Not sure how to fit it in your list, just a random thought...
Yeah, I have a playlist of them from when I use to run a 16 miracle modern deck. I think they're a decent draw since they can recycle filtering, counters and time walks (essentially acting like time walks 13-16 at times). I'll have to try them out. I'm just not sure what I want to cut since cutting filtering would lower it's consistency and counter magic would make it more vulnerable. I guess land is an option, just want to make sure we get those land drops every turn though since missing a land drop in the early turns is essentially a turn later that we can go off. Any thoughts on what we could remove?
Edit 1: Just played a UR Twin game. Oof, that was a rough match. They're a turn or two faster than us which makes all the difference! I went 2-1 squeaking out game 1, but mostly because I think he didn't know what he was up against, and then he proceeded to side in 8 cards that did the job against me. I got lucky G1 countering a few of his crucial spells. The game winning play though was Remanding his Splinter Twin into spell pierce, allowing it to resolve, then tapping his army and netting a draw with Cryptic Command to go off the next turn safe and sound.
I have been playing this deck for a while in various Modern events. My overall tournament record with the deck is 12-1 with the only loss to Mono Red. My list maindecks Lab Maniac and wins with him almost every time. I haven't tested Mikokoro but I suspect Temple Bell might be better. I also run only one Jace, and I have Reliquary Tower maindecked allowing for easy infinite turns and.life. I'll post more later.
Introduction
One of the most powerful cards in the history of magic has always been the formidable Time Walk. The ability to manipulate the way that turns are taken gives you the potential to really take the advantage in the game. Add that to a turbo-fog engine (Howling Mine / Dictate of Kruphix) and you develop a massive card advantage. The nice thing about this is the fact that your engine becomes your win condition whether it's passing the turn with lots of counter magic up or using Mikokoro to slowly and painfully win the game by drawing their library.
But surely with such massive casting costs and an engine that is beneficial to both players will allow the opponent to simply tempo you out with all the great draws you are giving them? Running great tempo counters in the form of Remand and Spell Snare (Snare being the counter of choice in the 1CMC slot b/c of how many 2 CMC bombs there are in the format) as well as a great fog-counter in the form of Cryptic Command (probably the most powerful spell in the deck being able to become Time Walk 13-16 against aggro decks or decks relying on resolving the one bomb spell late game).
Remember, you don't have to completely destroy the opponent, you just have to survive the opponent.
A first look at the deck shows a deck that appears to be weak to aggro and win-conditionless to combo/control. A deeper look shows a shell that allows surviving tempo while thwarting combo/control. The sideboard in this deck is crucial as it shores up our bad match-ups.
This deck should first and foremost be played like a control deck. If you're not dead, you still have time to make sure you can win 100% when you go off. I almost always wait until one of two criteria is met:
1. I can combo 100% because I either have the counters to deal with their mana that is up or they can't interact with me in that way (because they don't run counters or I Gigadrowsed them).
3. I will die and have to do what I can to win
If none of this criteria is there, I see no reason to attempt to combo out.
Current Deck List
22 Island
2 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Spells (29)
3 Cryptic Command
3 Remand
4 Gigadrowse
4 Serum Visions
3 Telling Time
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Time Warp
4 Walk the Aeons
4 Dictate of Kruphix
1 Elixir of Immortality
Planeswalkers (2)
2 Jace Beleren
2 Ætherize
2 Spell Snare
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Laboratory Maniac
2 Rapid Hybridization
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Swan Song
2 Flex Spots
Card Selection
Time Walks
Time Warp - Chosen for being the lowest casting cost time-walk. All star inclusion
Walk the Aeons - Fantastic for its potentially re-curable casting once you have those spare islands in play. The 6 CMC is also lower than all the other viable options.
Temporal Mastery - The printing of this card is what made this deck possible. Flipping a miracle off the top allows for additional card filtering/Planeswalker pumps and ramping to get to the late game that turn earlier.
Rejected
Beacon of Tomorrows - The initial cost of 8 is far too high to warrant the inclusion even though the shuffle effect leaves room for potential infinite turns (excluding Elixir of Immortality loops).
Magosi, the Waterveil - Opens you up to Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge as well as giving your opponent two turns in a row. Double whammy no-no.
Ral Zarek - More suitable for a deck with Krark's Thumb and Stitch in Time with potentially a Pyromancer's Ascension. In other words, an Izzet timelord.
Savor the Moment - Losing our untap step makes this an unprofitable choice. Although great in certain instances for ramp/card filtering/Planeswalker boosting, it's uses are too limited to include. You would most likely pass the turn after casting this card too often.
Search the City - Haha, moving on.
Stitch in Time - More suitable for a deck with Krark's Thumb and Ral Zarek with potentially a Pyromancer's Ascension. In other words, an Izzet timelord.
Temporal Extortion - Optional cards always see the opponent choosing the option you don't want. Not viable in a deck where walk spells need to be chained together.
Time Stretch by the time you have 10 mana, you should already be mid time travel somewhere between the 1400s and the 1600s.
Timesifter - Although you run a lot of high CMC cards in this deck, the fact that you can't control your top deck or the opponent's leaves this option in the dust.
Serum Visions - Allows you to filter the top three cards of your library for a single blue. Best filtering available in Modern.
Sleight of Hand - Filters the top two cards off your library. Great to burn down to what you need and get the chaff out of the way.
Rejected
Thirst for Knowledge - I don't have enough artifacts, and especially artifacts that I want to ditch, to use this efficiently.
Think Twice - Costs too much to only see a single card.
Dictate of Kruphix - Flash and draw every turn. Allows you to keep up counter magic mana and draw first.
Howling Mine - Low CMC and draw every turn.
Jace Beleren - Low CMC and draw every turn as well as doubling as the win condition.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea - Dodges the artifact hate. This is big against MB Abrupt Decay. I've never had a game where this was a horrible draw vs an island, but I've had several games where this was the game winning draw since I was able to chain enough time-walks to get to the point where I had the spare land to draw. I'm not 100% sold on the idea yet, but I'm liking it.
Rejected
Temple Bell - The best rejected option for a draw. It's a bit nicer than the Mine in that I can choose when the card draw for both players occurs (making it better to drop in the early game since I can EoT activate so they can't make use of most of their draws), but the fact that it costs 1 CMC more makes it contend with Jace for the play T3 and that makes it get the cut over Mine.
Remand - Fantastic tempo card. Allows card filtering as well as delaying a turn on the opponent.
Gigadrowse - Lock down their mana in their upkeep to essentially time walk some decks, tap down crucial combo pieces & tap down attackers to buy another turn. Great disruption
Cryptic Command - Doubles as a time-walk against aggro decks and has the utility of being able to bounce combo pieces, draw a card, or counter a spell.
Spell Snare - SIDEBOARD. Many cards in the format are 2 CMC and this is able to hit quite a few of the bombs with just a single blue.
Spell Pierce - SIDEBOARD. Not great against aggro, but turns the tide against non-creature combo early game.
Swan Song - SIDEBOARD. Fantastic against all forms of combo.
Trickbind - SIDEBOARD. Buys an uncounterable turn against many decks including Tron (Annihilator trigger), Twin (Untap trigger), Birthing Pod (Undying Trigger), Merfolk (Aether Vial/Mutavault Trigger), etc etc etc.
Rejected
Mana Leak - Doesn't filter cards, but would be a close contender behind the current set we run.
Rune Snag - Leak would be strictly better in this list, but still not quite up to snuff.
Want to Playtest?
Link - http://mtgdeckbuilder.net/Decks/EditDeck/995123
1. Click the link
2. Click "Test" in the menu across the top
3. Click the buttons to do the action you choose (In order to use the card filtering spells, you draw the card and then rightclick the card when its in your hand to place either on the top or bottom of the library).
Relevant Information:
Discuss! Just a rough draft as I just created the primer, but I saw the deck on MODO and thought it looked like a fun decklist to work with.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
I realize that the first game at this point with the maindeck is a forfeit. I don't want to run Laboratory Maniac in the mainboard since it's a dead draw in the early game and is stuck in your hand until your last turn (since spot removal is so feisty against him).
One thing that I thought about was including a singleton Temple Bell to have a chance of winning since I could activate as an instant as all the cards were in their library, but figured that the % chance of them having their Eldrazi in the bottom portion was far too low to make it a viable option.
The next thought was a singleton Surgical Extraction in the mainboard. This is actually potentially viable as this would be useful against most decks at one point or another I would think. What to cut if that is truly the case? Since I don't play on MODO, I don't really see much TRON at all anyways, so I think at this point I'm not going to add anything, but just thinking about options for people that do want to run the deck and are playing against TRON players.
Lastly, another option to run is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn himself! You'll timewalk to the point where you'll most likely have enough mana to hardcast and faceroll with him. The reason why I don't like this is for two reasons. 1 - He's still a dead draw. 2 - It limits your time-walk spells since you don't want to sacrifice 'spare' islands to your Walk the Aeons.
Edit: As has been pointed out, Jace Beleren himself would win against TRON as long as you have the Elixir of Immortality up and running and drawing out their deck one turn at a time. It would take a while, but it doesn't take really all that long to draw a card, tap your lands and cast a spell. Rinse and repeat (:
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Does anybody have any ideas for any ramp creatures? Or even adding green for the added benefits of that?
If you run Elixir of immortality in your 60 then G1 isn't an automatic loss it just takes longer than outright mill. Remember that baby Jace makes them draw too. You'll have a big Jace by the time you mill them out that way, but if you sit down and practice a few times before you play the match up then it won't take too long.
Ha! You're so right, lets just hope you win game 1 hahaha!
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
It would be much quicker than that:
T# is the turn number within the combo-out turns
T1 - Tick up Jace, Cast a timewalk
T2 - Tick up Jace, Cast a timewalk
etc
etc
etc
T19 - Tick up Jace, Cast a timewalk, activate Elixir
T20 - Tick up Jace, Cast a timewalk.
Rinse and repeat until you deck them.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
You've wasted your Time Warp at the end of the loop, or did I miss something?? you'd actually run out of Time Warp effects before you mill them that way. With Gaea's Blessing it's pretty easy to loop some stuff with Time Warp: cast Gaea's Blessing shuffling a Time Warp and another Gaea's Blessing. There you go infinite turns. Green also gives us Coiling Oracle, which seems kind of nice in this deck! (other ramp could be useful too) Oh, if they reprinted Wall of Blossoms...
I know this deck used to play Snow-Covered Island and Extraplanar Lens for that purpose. There's lots of other artifact ramp: Mind Stone, Talismans, Signets, etc.
That said, this deck is too slow. While it's nice to have tons of redundancy (this deck has 12 extra turn effects), you have to take 3 things into account:
1) You need a Mine/Jace to keep going. The big deal with Mine is that your opponent gets to draw first. Jace...well, you have 0 creatures, so you're basically praying that your opponent has no creatures or burn.
Oh and also, Abrupt Decay kills both of these.
2) At the very minimum, you need to hardcast a 5-mana card in order to combo off. That's the best-case scenario; Walk the Aeons and Temporal Mastery both cost more than 5, Miracle notwithstanding. There's two ways you can do it: with ramp, and without ramp. Without ramp, aggro and combo decks will kill you before you get to 5 mana. With ramp (i.e. Extraplanar Lens), you get blown out if the Lens gets destroyed. And it will get destroyed, because...
3) The deck is very reliant on one artifact: Howling Mine. Without Mine, you can't win. Sadly, artifact hate (Ancient Grudge, Nature's Claim, Wear/Tear) is very common because of Affinity, so you're at a huge disadvantage in SBed games. They destroy Mine, you might as well pack it in - no way you're going to live long enough to cast another one, especially after Mine has already given them one free card.
Slow speed (as in winning turn, not time taken to play out the deck), vulnerability to common hate, AND giving your opponent free cards is a bad combination.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I've seen a variant of this deck run the Extraplanar and Snow-Covered Island Combo. They used it along with ramping with Timewalks to hardcast Emrakul. It was an extremely frustrating experience.
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Hinterland Harbor
8 Island
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Cryptic Command
4 Howling Mine
2 Jace Beleren
4 Time Warp
4 Walk the Aeons
2 Gaea's Blessing
from the test runs, went off pretty easily Turn 5, with one turn 4 (when oracle ramped). This is a pretty brute list, but it's consistent while goldfishing. While this may fail to every kind of hate, it's pretty consistent. They are certainly ways of tuning it. I think that removing Remand was a mistake, as that minimal interaction is crucial to surviving the advantage we are giving to the opponent long enough. Don't know what else to take out though... I wonder if we absolutely need the 12 time warps. The thing is that the 3 copies have its own unique advantage, and I don't think we should be running less...
I guess that what is competing with Remand here is Coiling Oracle, what are your thoughts??
Oh, and Gaea's Blessing loop is, imo, a neat way of ending the game (mill with Jace Beleren and infinite turns). It can also reshuffle Time Warps into the library mid combo to help prevent fizzling, and serve as graveyard hate (oh, and it cantrips)
How To Keep Your FOIL Cards From Curling: http://youtu.be/QTmubrS8VnI
The Best Deck Boxes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEwgLph_Pjk
The Best Binders: http://youtu.be/H5IauASYWjk
Sure, no one is saying this should be the final list. That's why people post in this section, to tune up decklists and try to get them to work in the best possible way!!
He did only just make the primer today.
That said, how can you really make this faster? Blue's kind of lacking in the ramp department, and going two color to get ramp is probably only so-so.
I've been tempted to run Gigadrowse in the mainboard since it can work as a semi time-walk. With how many lands and filtering this deck runs, odds are you're going to be making your land drop nearly every turn (especially nice if you get a T3/T4/T5 Temporal Mastery). You could tap out their attackers against an aggro deck or tap out their lands at the beginning of their turn. I'm gonna definitely playtest that:nod:
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Your three points are quite valid. I think that in order to bring this deck up into the big leagues it would require something to help fight through this. Abrupt Decay is definitely an issue for this deck. The redundancy is definitely nice for this deck (the lowest count in the deck is 5 draw engines, unless you count the graveyard recursion of Elixir of Immortality, but I've won without activating that card before).
1. Abrupt Decay is definitely a huge issue. We could try something like Redirect which would protect us from Abrupt Decay and be essentially a counter-counterspell. I try not to drop Jace until we're ready to go, but obviously you need to draw into your gas so there are quite a few instances where I have to drop him unprotected. Mainboard Gigadrowse would be a potential answer for this (against all but burn, but he drops with essentially 5 loyalty after you pass so I would hope he would be in the clear at this point... granted giving burn gas when you're playing this deck isn't a great idea haha, that is a rough matchup!).
2. I don't think Extraplanar Lens is a viable option. We need to find spells that would operate similar to Cryptic Command (which in most instances will function very similar to a timewalk against most decks) that costs less than 5 CMC. As stated above, we'll see how Gigadrowse does against the majority of decks. The nice thing being if they try to counter it, the copies will still tap.
3. I agree...This is a concession. The other replacement option is Temple Bell and it falls into the same category of Howling Mine, but is a turn slower. We'll have to see about this one.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
Yeah, I have a playlist of them from when I use to run a 16 miracle modern deck. I think they're a decent draw since they can recycle filtering, counters and time walks (essentially acting like time walks 13-16 at times). I'll have to try them out. I'm just not sure what I want to cut since cutting filtering would lower it's consistency and counter magic would make it more vulnerable. I guess land is an option, just want to make sure we get those land drops every turn though since missing a land drop in the early turns is essentially a turn later that we can go off. Any thoughts on what we could remove?
Edit 1: Just played a UR Twin game. Oof, that was a rough match. They're a turn or two faster than us which makes all the difference! I went 2-1 squeaking out game 1, but mostly because I think he didn't know what he was up against, and then he proceeded to side in 8 cards that did the job against me. I got lucky G1 countering a few of his crucial spells. The game winning play though was Remanding his Splinter Twin into spell pierce, allowing it to resolve, then tapping his army and netting a draw with Cryptic Command to go off the next turn safe and sound.
Edit 2: I've been testing out Mikokoro, Center of the Sea instead of Tectonic Edge. Will continue to test, but I'm liking it so far.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
It would be so nice to have Moment's Peace in UG....
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru