Timely travel is always an amazing feat. Finding the right ways to navigate pathways we can’t control is a reward for our mastery over the world. It makes sense, then, that controlling time itself—the ultimate path we all must take—is the ultimate expression of power.

Or perhaps it’s just another illusion we begin to believe ourselves.

This week’s Ironroot Chef battle brought on someone who’s worked hard to determine his own fate, carrying the apropos title of The Professor at Tolarian Community College:

Our chairman, of course, chose a challenging ingredient to play on the flavors the Professor brought:

One contender hails from the time-stained halls of Urza’s failed experiments with time. Another appears as a tireless entity of Vorthos, always hustling for the next project. Only one can take the trip to the top of the Ironroot Chef stage.

This is Battle Tolarian Entrancer.

Challenger “The Professor”

Oh, hello. So good of you to join me here in the Tolarian Community College cafeteria. Just push that box of Bottle Gnomes out of the way, and come join me over the college hotplate as we cook up a spicy brew . . . that also meets the state nutritional guidelines.

Tolarian Entrancer obviously begs for a what’s-yours-is-mine-style control deck, but that’s so obvious that I find it dull. I want a flavorful brew, not just an effective and successful deck. This is Tolarian Community College, after all! So let’s look to the actual Vorthosian roots of the card, and that of course lies in . . . er . . . on . . . the isle of Tolaria and that most famous of schools that once stood there, the Tolarian Academy. Just hearing the history of this place should be entrancing for any student of lore.

The isle itself . . . 

• 1 Tolaria

First of all, I’m not just doing a causal, unrestricted deck. That would be classless, and here at Tolarian Community College, we are all about classes. What format best embodies the Vorthosian themes of the island of Tolaria? We are thinking of a distant isle, upon which lies great power but also great dangers. I can think of no other real-world equivalent than of course our own plane’s powerful yet dangerous island: Australia. That’s right, the perfect format for a Tolarian themed deck would be the incredible Australian 7-Point Highlander format!

Australian highlander is a sixty-card singleton format that uses the Vintage banned list and a points system. The format has been played across Australia and New Zealand for over twenty years. Instead of outright banning cards, Australian 7-Point Highlander assigns points to problematic or overly powerful cards, and decks cannot exceed a total of 7 points. Tolarian Academy is worth 2 points, so we can include it, but then we only have 5 more points of powerhouse cards.

• 1 Tolarian Academy

Now, the original Tolarian Academy has obviously been lost to time. Over at Tolaria West, they’ve started up The Academy, a so-called renaissance of magical learning, but over here at Tolaria East is our proud community college, conveniently located across the street from the mall. I might not be able to build an effective deck, but I can construct for you a history lesson so real you shall be entranced back to the days of old Tolaria . . . 

Let us begin with . . . 

The faculty . . . 

• 1 Barrin, Master Wizard
• 1 Rayne, Academy Chancellor
• 1 The Blind Seer . . . wait . . . why is this old man listed as faculty? There must be an error in the catalog.

• 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1 Jhoira of the Ghitu
• 1 Ertai, Wizard Adept
• 1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator

The adjunct staff . . . 

• 1 Academy Rector
• 1 Academy Researchers
• 1 Temporal Adept
• 1 Tolarian Emissary
• 1 Tolarian Entrancer
• 1 Hapless Researcher
• 1 Wizard Mentor
• 1 Stern Proctor

Classes at the Academy . . . 

Library Information Science (LIS)

• LIS 101 Introduction to Library Management — 1 Douse
• LIS 102 Advanced Cataloging & Classification — 1 Catalog
• LIS 647 Systems Analysis for Information Management — 1 Think Twice
• LIS 663 Database Searching — 1 Frantic Search

• EMC 180 Emergency Medical Responder — 1 Rescue

Online Accelerated Elementary School Teaching Certificate

• MSTC 101 Pre-K-12 Activity Management and Social Integration — 1 Show and Tell
• MSTC 501 Strategies For Managing Classroom Behavior — 1 Confiscate
• MSTC 506 Attention Deficit Disorder in Schools — 1 Disruptive Student

Communication

• COMM 1A Mass Media, Society, and Democracy — 1 Tolarian Winds
• COMM 1B Virtual People — 1 Hermetic Study
• COMM 135 Deliberative Democracy and its Critics — 1 Opposition
• COMM 200 Media Psychology — 1 Psychic Vortex
• COMM 400 New Media Entrepreneurship — 1 Pendrell Flux

Department of Economics

• ECON 101 Microeconomic Analysis — 1 Opportunity
• ECON 103 Cost Management — 1 Aura Flux
• ECON 311 Introduction to Macroeconomic Theory — 1 Windfall
• ECON 400 Statistical Methods — 1 Rewind
• ECON 500 Environmental Economics — 1 Mana Short

• ABI 100 Introduction to Animal Biology — 1 Ordered Migration
• ABI 300 Invertebrate Zoology — 1 Horseshoe Crab
• ABI 305 Introduction to Marine Biology — 1 Sandbar Serpent
• ABI 400 Ecology and Environmental Studies — 1 Peregrine Drake
• ABI 290 Animal Observation — 1 Pendrell Drake
• ABI 700B Quantitative and Population Genetics — 1 Bubbling Beebles

Education

• EDU 100 Introduction to Schools — 1 Mental Discipline
• EDU 200 Issues in Higher Education — 1 Meditate
• EDU 300 Methods in Educational Research — 1 Relearn
• EDU 400 The Use and Misuse of Standardized Tests — 1 Back to Basics
• EDU 500 Educational Policy Analysis — 1 Boomerang

Finally, those who cannot remember the past . . . History

• HIST 101 Introduction to Tolarian History — 1 Academy Ruins

Finally, let’s not forget the landscape . . . 

• 1 Calciform Pools
• 1 Coastal Tower
• 1 Coral Atoll
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Flood Plain
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Plains
• 4 Island

Battle Tolarian Entrancer ? Ironroot Chef | The Professor

• Creatures (21)
• 1 Academy Rector
• 1 Academy Researchers
• 1 Blind Seer
• 1 Bubbling Beebles
• 1 Disruptive Student
• 1 Hapless Researcher
• 1 Horseshoe Crab
• 1 Pendrell Drake
• 1 Peregrine Drake
• 1 Sandbar Serpent
• 1 Stern Proctor
• 1 Temporal Adept
• 1 Tolarian Emissary
• 1 Tolarian Entrancer
• 1 Wizard Mentor
• 1 Barrin, Master Wizard
• 1 Ertai, Wizard Adept
• 1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
• 1 Jhoira of the Ghitu
• 1 Rayne, Academy Chancellor
• 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

• Spells (23)
• 1 Boomerang
• 1 Catalog
• 1 Frantic Search
• 1 Mana Short
• 1 Meditate
• 1 Opportunity
• 1 Rescue
• 1 Rewind
• 1 Think Twice
• 1 Tolarian Winds
• 1 Ordered Migration
• 1 Relearn
• 1 Show and Tell
• 1 Windfall
• 1 Aura Flux
• 1 Back to Basics
• 1 Confiscate
• 1 Douse
• 1 Hermetic Study
• 1 Mental Discipline
• 1 Opposition
• 1 Pendrell Flux
• 1 Psychic Vortex

• Lands (16)
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Plains
• 4 Island
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Calciform Pools
• 1 Coastal Tower
• 1 Coral Atoll
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Flood Plain
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Tolaria
• 1 Tolarian Academy

Buy This Deck

In the end, this was not a deck built to win, for of course the original Tolarian Academy lost its battle. Nor was this deck meant to embody the future journey of the Weatherlight and her crew, nor tell us of the life of Urza, or even the lives of the faculty and staff of the Tolarian Academy.

It was a deck that wanted to entrance you with what the Tolarian life was instead, back in those days when wizards like the Tolarian Entrancer roamed the halls of that fine and noble place.

I hope this deck has, at the very least, been flavorful for you.

Ironroot Chef Mike Linnemann

I love political intrigue. I started college as a political science major and am fanatical about watching House of Cards. When I scrolled down to see the Tolarian Entrancer this week, I knew exactly which way to run with it.

I chose a kitchen-table deck of sixty cards with no sideboard because it’s an all-in campaign of Bernie Sanders.

I’d probably vote for him, given the choice. I like what he represents and love that he doesn’t need flashy, expensive tactics to be heard. He’s just logical. He’s the Selesnya choice, in essence.

Selesnya Old and New Logos, found here

Tolarian Entrancer, the shining star of the deck, is no hypnotist. He is not forcing someone to vote Sanders and then disappear. No, that would be any number of other candidates willing to say yes to religion and business but not to aiding the working poor. Think of his campaign as being “non-Threaten-ing,” if that helps.

Vote-snatching is a tactic, but Tolarian Entrancer, and thus Bernie Sanders, doesn’t force you to interact with it, and its impact on the game and your life is minimal. What is notable is that when the Entrancer leaves the battlefield, dies, or disappears in any way, the effect is still there. In short, if a campaign member can just talk some logic with you, to let you know, you’ll probably agree.

So there will be voting tactics and things, right?

Conspiracy voting is just awful. Not a single option here is one Bernie would choose. These are flavorful traps, and any Ironroot Chef may attempt a subtle dish of it, but after seasoning and tasting the flavor, a seasoned chef should remove them. I mean, look at these options:

• Sickness or Psychosis?
• Multiple votes?
• Carnage or Homage?
• Special preferential treatment for a color?
• Exiling something?
• Returning lost things if people agree with you?
• Causing pain for voting against you?
• Grace or Condemnation?
• Time or Knowledge?
• Denial or Duplication?
• Death or Torture?

Time or Knowledge should be an and, not an or, and everything else is unethical at best and horrid at worst.

We’ve seen the all-star of the deck, Tolarian Entrancer, and to see the rest of the deck, it’s a token-producing machine. It builds a victorious campaign slowly. Raise the Alarm and Gather the Townsfolk allow for singular effort to produce two people in support of your cause. They won’t win you the game, but when you add the Intangible Virtues of Bernie Sanders, a Mentor of the Meek to inform them of how to help the cause, and a constant barrage of Growing Ranks, you start to see the deck—like a grassroots campaign—take shape.

Gather the Townsfolk by Dan Scott

Conviction alone won’t win, but when friends in the know and those who have been mentored gather, these early stabilizing forces allow for an Ardent Plea to radically improve the chances. It allows for our all-stars, the unsung heroes of campaigns and games, to use their ability to strike first by bringing new Knights with them. A snowball becomes a Cathars' Crusade, making each and every person valuable, important and vital to the cause.

Cathars' Crusade by Karl Kopinski

These Knights brought the help. Once that task is done, they become a Tolarian Entrancer in a 2.0 capacity. They then have the Charisma to recruit even more members to your cause. Adding first strike and Charisma not only gets you phone numbers at your friend’s barbecue, it also makes people aid you in whatever cause you have. These first-striking leaders bring the grassroots to the caucus polls and primaries.

When the remaining months come for the presidential election and the ability to get real Retribution of the Meek to Fell the Mighty well-funded and corrupted other candidates, only one thing is left to be done.

Devout Invocation by David Palumbo

People don’t decide presidential elections, the electoral college does. These “super candidates” are wise, established heroes. They can be wise, like Sphinxes, or noble, like Angels. In either case, this deck showcases this plan to “win the state, get the electoral votes” by using Hour of Need and Devout Invocation. They remove the Humans and bring a transformation into a magical creature able to end both the Magic: The Gathering game and the election.

Entrancing the Nation ? Ironroot Chef | Mike Linnemann

• Creatures (9)
• 2 Attended Knight
• 3 Mentor of the Meek
• 4 Tolarian Entrancer

• Spells (28)
• 4 Hour of Need
• 4 Raise the Alarm
• 1 Decree of Justice
• 1 Devout Invocation
• 1 Fell the Mighty
• 1 Retribution of the Meek
• 4 Gather the Townsfolk
• 1 Ardent Plea
• 2 Cathars' Crusade
• 2 Charisma
• 3 Growing Ranks
• 4 Intangible Virtue

• Lands (23)
• 12 Plains
• 6 Island
• 1 Thalakos Lowlands
• 1 Tranquil Cove
• 2 Tundra
• 1 Boreal Shelf

Buy This Deck

I struggled with choosing a political way to showcase nearly the entire country via land selections. There are no mountains across the counties, but there are always islands and plains from coast to coast. I tried to divide the country by region and find representative lands from Magic’s history.

Lands can be arbitrary, but I disagree here. I think they’re incredibly flavorful to show more perspectives of the U.S.A. and, politically, each place is no more important than the other to a presidential candidate. You have to be relatable to everyone, not just your home state.

• 2 Plains — hills of the North with lakes surrounding them
• 2 Plains — the rolling hills of the Carolinas
• 2 Plains — the semi-mountainous Southwest plains
• 2 Plains — the utter flatness of Nebraska and its neighbors
• 2 Plains — the foothills of Montana before the Rocky Mountains
• 2 Plains — the plains near the swamps and lowlands of the Deep South

• 1 Island — Great Lakes
• 1 Island — Atlantic Ocean
• 1 Island — Pacific Ocean
• 1 Island — Gulf of Mexico
• 1 Island — Bering Sea
• 1 Island — all the inlets becoming islands of the Mississippi River

I loved the idea of representing each major chain of lakes and water forms of the U.S.A., but I only had a few spots! So, to keep it simple, I chose one island that is evocative of the Great Lakes from John Avon in Portal Second Age. That was the set with guns and ships, remember? The others just fell into place, and I found a perfect Bering Sea Boreal Shelf for Alaska. Oddly enough, boreal and taiga are almost used interchangeably, and yet, the colors of Magic don’t work as easily.

• 1 Tranquil Cove — East coast
• 1 Thalakos Lowlands — Mississippi River delta
• 2 Tundra — lakes and plains of the North (doubled due to sheer number of snowy lakes!)
• 1 Boreal Shelf — Bering Sea of Alaska

Odd questions you may have:

• Where are the black cards? Black is selfish, and Bernie is about as left as a Democrat could be to socialist while caucusing for the left. He’s technically an independent, but still, he’s about as far from being black-aligned as possible.
• Where is Leyline of the Meek? Since it can come before the game starts, it makes no political sense. How could one be bolstered and support something without encountering it first? This is like an independent throwing support at Bernie without even knowing anything about him. A flavor foul would be to include that card.
• Where are Doubling Season and Parallel Lives? Those are unchecked growth of support, not the incremental slow build that the Bernie Sanders campaign is doing. It doesn’t fit.
• Where’s Phantom General? Bernie isn’t invoking Reagan for soundbites. Likewise, Thraben Doomsayer is basically the tea party and had to be excluded.
• “No Timely Reinforcements? Bruh do you even know how to token?” The Koch brothers won’t be bailing Bernie out if he’s in trouble. He doesn’t have anything in his back packet in case things go odd or he’s behind. I thought that fitting. He has to do it with like $20 donations and 1/1 creatures. I think that’s totally sound!

I hope you enjoyed.

The Vote

Below, you can read the judges’ scoring to see how Nate and Stybs cast their ballots. However, this is your chance to score the winner of Battle Tolarian Entrancer.

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The Judging

Nate’s Judgment

Nathan Holt @walktheplanes

Nate’s the host of Walking the Planes, a documentary series about Magic: The Gathering with a healthy dose of sketch comedy (for value).

Challenger The Professor

The departments, the curricula, and the "textbooks" (Magic cards) are funny, thoughtful, and well chosen. My favorite inclusion is Douse. Hosing red is so fundamental to blue's scholarly identity that Douse is the featured text in Library Science 101. I lol'd.

Creativity: 3

Boldness: 2

Adherence to the theme: 2

Ironroot Chef Mike Linneman

Cool, I love Bernie. But wait . . . why? What about Tolarian Entrancer reminded you of politics, much less specifically Bernie Sanders? You never explain this. To me, it's about as random an association as if Goblin Grenade or Elvish Mystic made you think of politics. If there's a connection here, I'm missing it.

All that said, the deck is really cool. Giving you the benefit of as much doubt as I can muster, I'd say that you interpreted Entrancer's flavor text not as vanity or pride, but rather a testament to his loyal following. And maybe Entrancer's ability is not about Control Magic or Mind Control, but rather about winning over the support of his opponents. Is it about him bringing them to his side? Am I getting somewhere here? Can you please explain your reasoning next time? As is, I have to squint a lot to transform the gritty-toothed, mind-warping Entrancer into the "Selesnya Sanders" character you've painted.

Creativity: 2

Boldness: 2

Adherence to the theme: 1

Stybs’s Judgment

Adam Styborski @the_stybs

Adam is the Content Manager for Gathering Magic. He's a casual player at heart and weekly columnist for MagicTheGathering.com. He also travels the country for Pro Tour and Grand Prix coverage, and he shares his Pauper Cube everywhere.

Challenger The Professor

But we came to feast on Tolarian Entrancer, not Tolaria itself.

Nevertheless, your effort showed your attention to detail. Choosing an obscure format—that I trust you followed the rules for since I’m unfamiliar myself—and pushing Tolarian Community College to its full flavor was an impressive feat of work.

While I admire your boldness, going for one-to-one correspondence for cards with a sharp veer away from a focus on the Entrancer himself left me to award you’re a score that reflects the split nature of your presentation.

Creativity: 2

Boldness: 3

Adherence to the theme: 1

Ironroot Chef Mike Linnemann

If your goal was to advertise for Bernie Sanders, it was successful, but not something I could reasonably accept.

Like all your decks, you are thorough and careful to cover the details that help illustrate your point. Gratuitous use of images literally illustrates how we’re to view the deck and show off your background in the world of art. But in the end of it, your choice to showcase the flavor of Tolarian Entrancer was misguided at best or intentionally misleading at worst.

And Tolarian Entrancer is a martyr, a 1/1 that will probably die in combat but wins over the opposition in defeat. It’s far too early to declare any winners or losers in Senator Sanders’s campaign, and he’s no martyr that falls easily. I was unable to follow the flavorful leap you asked us to take this week, and your score reflects that.

Creativity: 1

Boldness: 3

Adherence to the theme: 1

Voting closes midnight Thursday, and the first winner will be announced Friday (9/11/2015). Follow @IronrootChef on Twitter for the final score and victory announcement and to share your ideas for secret ingredients. Chairman Holt will continue to use your suggestions to challenge our chefs to the core.

And if you think you have what it takes to challenge the chefs, send an email to IronrootChef AT gmail DOT com with all of your flavorful qualifications. We’re looking for new Ironroot Chefs and competitors, and you could be the next to take a shot at impressing the judges.