For Those who Haven't Heard

Time Spiral is now legal to play in Legacy! I kind of wanted to get a few so when I went on eBay the day Wizards made the announcement I was very surprised to watch the cards spike up to the $30-50 price range. Doesn't anyone remember what happened when Wizards unbanned Grim Monolith? Prices spiked, the card isn't played in anything relevant, now most people can care less. The exact same thing is going to happen with Time Spiral. We are very excited to get new cards to test out and Time Spiral is no different. With it's unbanning it will move ONE deck from tier 2 to …. maybe tier 1.75.

It Used to Be Broken

I know a lot of people remember the brokenness that was Urza's Saga, but those were drastically different times. Time Spiral is an incredibly powerful card but its just largely worthless in today's storm combo decks. TES, ANT, and DDFT, the best storm combo decks in the format will never run it and here is why:

1. The card is too slow. 2x Dark Rituals + Ad Nauseam reveals half your deck and usually wins the game on the spot … why play this?
2. The casting cost is too high. Doomsday costs BBB and after doing the math and storm count, flat out wins the game. Ad Nauseam costs 3BB and usually wins the game, Time Spiral costs 4UU and DOES NOT WIN THE GAME.
3. Has UU in the casting cost. This is huge, it is largely reliant on Burning Wish/Infernal Tutor and Lion's Eye Diamond to cast it and running Manamorphose to assist with the CC is not an option.
4. If gives your opponent their disruption back. This is probably the most important, after I have Duressed a Force of Will or a Mindbreak Trap out of someone's hand … Time Spiral shuffles it back in and they have a chance to redraw it. Ad Nauseam and DD can both avoid giving your opponent hate cards back, and even Ill-Gotten Gains can work if a Duress and some extra mana is available.

Time Spiral used to be really good … those days are long gone and it is just outclassed by other storm enablers in simply every way.

So Where Will it Be Played?

I have tested some very interesting Spring Tide and Permanent Waves builds on MWS and … they are really fun … but that's where it ends. For those who are not familiar with Permanent Waves it is basically a version of Spring Tide that replaces Cloud of Faeries and Snap with Candelabra of Tawnos and Mind Over Matter. Here is the list I was playing if anyone is interested:

[cardlist]

[Spells]

4 Brainstorm

4 Ponder

4 Merchant Scroll

2 Preordain

4 High Tide

4 Candelabra of Tawnos

3 Turnabout

2 Mind over Matter

3 Ideas Unbound

2 Meditate

2 Time Spiral

4 Force of Will

3 Cunning Wish

1 Stroke of Genius

[/Spells]

[Lands]

3 Polluted Delta

3 Flooded Strand

2 Scalding Tarn

8 Island

2 Tropical Island

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

This is a copy/paste of Anwar's old list with Preordain and Time Spiral in it. It was a VERY consistent turn 4 kill and Time Spiral was totally nuts … but why would I ever play this over TES or DDFT? It is vulnerable to all the regular cards that hate storm combo: Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, Thorn of Amethyst, Sphere of Resistance, Mindbreak Trap, Counterbalance, Gaddock Teeg, etc. These are problem cards for all storm combo decks but High Tide decks are even more vulnerable to them. Not only do they have very hard times dealing with the aforementioned cards, but mana denial and hand destruction also destroy the deck. If you do not hit 4 lands (3 can work but depends on how good your hand is) it is very difficult to combo off. Eva Green can even be a rough matchup.

If you don't believe me test it out. The deck is loads of fun but has a tougher time fighting through those hate cards, answering the hate cards, and can be raced by a fast Goblins, Zoo, or Burn draw. Those 4 reasons I listed for why Time Spiral will not be played, 3 of them are relevant here as well, in a deck that can abuse the card to its fullest potential. The only problem this deck does not have with Time Spiral is the UU in its' mana cost. Sorcery speed High Tide decks are now updated to a tier 1.75 with Time Spiral, rather than the tier 2 they were sitting at; fun to play, but largely irrelevant when compared to the other storm combo decks in the format.

Is That it??

I will not post the lists here but I played with Time Spiral in TES in the main deck over Ad Nauseam just to see if it was any good … it was terrible. I then built an ANT style deck with Time Spiral in it … still to slow and those 7 cards don't always win you the game. It is largely reliant on LEDs and just tough to get UU. It also places more reliance on hitting land drops and keeping those lands in play to handle the CC. The only place Time Spiral has in the Tier 1 storm combo decks in Legacy is as a wish target for Burning Wish. And even then, it is still quite worthless. Think of it this way, you are playing TES and have 6 mana available after Burning Wish …. why are you not winning the game with Ill-Gotten Gains or Ad Nauseam or even making sick amounts of goblin tokens?

When playing TES, Diminishing Returns is just better. I regularly use Returns after a mulligan or when I am short on mana. You simply Burning Wish for Returns then cast it the next turn, very rarely will I ever go all-in on LEDs to cast the card on the same turn I wished for it. Now, Diminishing Returns is used as a last resort, you only use it when there are no more options; why does TES need another panic button, in particular one that costs more mana and doesn't necessarily win the game? Time Spiral is a neat option, but Diminishing Returns is the better card in this deck. There is really no reason to run Time Spiral at all in TES.

DDFT (Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils) is the exact same way. Some lists run Burning Wish and I will tell you, this deck is able to abuse Wish better than any deck I have ever played. With 6 mana available after Burning Wish you WILL win the game if you have a Top in play or a draw effect in hand. It is that simple, you will build a DD pile with Meditate or Brainstorm/Top in it and flat out win the game that turn with either Tendrils of Agony or you have the option (assuming you haven't played a land and have decent life) to build an Emrakul stack and kill them next turn. Again, Time Spiral is neat, but largely worthless because these tier 1 combo decks can simply win the game with 6 mana available rather than shuffle in their hands and draw 7 new cards. Doomsday is not a roll of the dice, it is a calculated route to assured victory.

The Future of Time Spiral

As the current Legacy environment is, there is no real need for Time Spiral. If you want to play fun and crazy decks, Permanent Waves and Spring Tide are awesome … but competitive, not so much. Don't get me wrong, with good matchups these decks absolutely have chances of making a top 8, assuming they don't encounter: CB Top, Reanimator, Merfolk, other combo decks, Stiflenaught, Tempo Thresh, Stax, Dragon Stompy, or have slower draws. Its' not as bad as I make it out to be, but its close. DDFT, ANT, and TES are just superior decks that are vulnerable to fewer hate cards, faster, and more resilient.

Perhaps Wizards will print something in the future that makes it nuts. But with Doomsday, Ad Nauseam, Ill-Gotten Gains, and to a lesser extent Empty the Warrens that just win the game on their own, why would you want to play a card for 6 mana that doesn't win the game on the spot?

Comments are welcome and if you have any questions or suggestions feel free to message me on The Source, my name is Pulp_Fiction. Keep the storm count high, Jason Schoenecker.