Taking Turns, or just 'Turns' is a control/combo deck with strong resource-denial, one of the more unusual tiered decks in modern, and has a unique strategy that brings with it its own brand of playstyle and game-state evaluation. The deck is primarily mono-U, but many players (including myself) choose to include a small splash for powerful sideboard cards, such as ghostly prison or rest in peace.
As a Turns player, you aim to win games by quickly chaining multiple 'extra turn' spells together, building up a critical advantage of land-drops and spells until a significant win-condition can be utilised. Your ideal game will play out as follows - disrupt for the first three or so turns, denying mana or resources to your opponent, then at an opportune moment (with a heavily slowed opponent), flash in Dictate of Kruphix, untap for your turn and "go off", never letting your opponent take another turn. The safest and quickest way to win is by casting an awakenedPart The Waterveil, although some players favour other methods. Time Warp, Temporal Mastery, Walk the Aeons, Temporal Trespass, Part the Waterveil; these cards are your bread and butter, and the entire deck is built around the goal of playing them one-after-another, without your opponent being able to interact. You run Dictate of Kruphix and can run Howling Mine (your "Mine Effects") as a way to leverage these extra turns (increasing your chances of drawing more 'turn' spells and hitting your land drops), and you play an array of disruptive early-game effects in order to facilitate the strategy, such as Exhaustion and Gigadrowse, which buy you time and resources to take over the game. Familiar favourites such as Snapcaster Mage, Remand and Cryptic Command make an appearance as well, offering power and versatility during the course of the game.
The deck wins extremely quickly if not interacted with significantly, but can be forced to "play out" against disruptive decks, which lengthens the clock. In its current guise, the deck is not prone to going to time, and matches can be over in as little as 15 minutes, with an average match-length closer to 35 minutes. Our best matchups are uninteractive creature strategies and go-big mana decks such as Bant Eldrazi, Dredge, Melira Collected Company, Elves, Tron, Death Cloud, Scapeshift, Breach Titan and so on. Our poorer matchups are mostly limited to Affinity, Jund (because of heavy discard), Ad Nauseam and Delver. Aggressive 'pump' strategies such as Infect can be challenging but are winnable, especially with powerful sideboard options. See the MATCHUPS section for a more detailed appraisal & more decks discussed.
In the past, the deck was slow and win-conditions were various, from Emrakul, The Aeons Torn to the humble Jace Beleren, and the deckbuilder was necessarily forced to give up crucial slots devoted to interaction or extra turns, in order to have a way to win the game. The deck was slower, less refined, and to avoid decking yourself it was necessary to run Elixir of Immortality, further diluting the strategy. This all changed, however, with the release ofPart the Waterveil...
With the addition of this card, the deck became more streamlined, much faster, more competitive, and didn't necessarily have to give up any 'extra turn' slots in order to run a win condition. Your extra turn spells became the win condition. Now, with a building community and a dedicated core of competitive testers, the deck is entering a new era. Welcome... to Taking Turns
Decklists are varied for this archetype, but there is general agreement about the importance and prioritising of certain core cards.
The decks listed below are meant as a rough starting point, as Modern is a changing beast & nothing stays relevant for too long. I will include a small selection of different versions, starting with the oldest first, to provide context.
Mono U lists
for your reference, here is a historic decklist which you could consider a "basic" or "blank slate" version
Here is a much more recent Mono U list, which won a large tournament last year at the expert hands of our own Rotanimod12. Notice a relative increase of cards such as gigadrowse and exhaustion:
Here is a current (circa Feb 2017) GPT-winning list, on the eve of GP Brisbane 2017. Not much to add on this one but it adds a couple of new cards into the pool of "considerations", as well as cementing the deck further into Mono U territory. It's fairly stock but showcases the general deckbuilding attitudes for Turns quite well:
A similar mono U list is what xenob8 is using. It has a trasformational sideboard to change from a creatureless build for game 1 to a time attack one that uses insta value creatures like snapcasters and cliques or thing in the ice to stall the game early turns. Note also that it plays a emrakul maindeck with jace beleren against infinite life. early versions played inkmoth nexus but it was switched for nefalia academy since the heavy discard meta. The transformational side can change based on preference. you should run 4-5 creatures. good side out cards are jace emrakul temporal trespass and often remand.
Here's a version splashing R which looks quite fun and is a good starting point for those wanting to test the izzet variant. Note the semi-transformational sideboard options with madcap experiment, although it goes without saying (I hope) that you must side out all other artifacts otherwise this surprise "gotcha!" spell won't work the way it's intended:
This was played by Marcus Ewaldh and it is something nobody expected, a URtaking turns that uses the recently printed As Foretold as an engine to cheat ancestral visions and wheel of fate and then gain a huge advante over the opponent like the other turn lists. win con here is a very efficient Chandra. more about it at this link
Finally, here is a U list splashing W for sideboard options, tailored to a proactive metagame. I have taken this list to a 16-4 record at GP side events, and numerous 4-0 wins at FNM. Once again, notice a relative increase in terms of interaction, and a move away from Howling Mine into Thing in the Ice, providing a similar sort of role (synergy with turn spells) but a different angle. It's not ideal for every metagame, but the switch is a valuable one against the right field:
This list made a top 8 finish at scg charlotte! It is a bant UGW version (three color turns hasn't been played before!) with focuses on ramp and the interaction between planeswalkers and the low count of extra turn effects. Original list was made by Saffron Olive but Ali Aintrazi tweaked it for the tournament.
This 75 almost got the winning place at gp vegas. Great top 8 finish for Daniel Wong and his UB turns! A very surprise since nobody tested the ub splash but Daniel proved his skills with the deck. He also wrote a very good report about the event so check it out!
currently adding more cards, as well as more detailed uses of specific key cards - thanks for your patience! ~Purk
Card Choices are versatile and metagame dependant in this deck, but ultimately we play a synergy-based game, meaning that how our spells interact with each other can be more important than pure card-value-in-a-vacuum.
Some singleton card choices in this deck may seem counter-intuitive, and that's for an important reason. The deck doesn't have any "unwinnable" matchups, and if able to combo off, we are able to beat any deck, apart from a couple of corner-cases. As a result, many of the choices you'll see (such as 1x Inkmoth Nexus in nearly every competitive list) are simply a case of "running the numbers" and figuring out what we can't beat when given the opportunity to combo off. Infinite Life, for example, is one of these fail states that we try to 'fix' with a spicy singleton, and it works. We also run the numbers on specific hate cards, as you'll see. Read on...
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General Structure of the Deck - use this as a guide when building your own version, and see the STRATEGY section for a detailed explanation:
10-11 Extra Turn Spells (although some versions have gone as high as 12)
22-24 Lands, 23 seems to be the ideal number, corroborated by a number of testers. This includes specific essential one-ofs such as Inkmoth Nexus and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea (see below)
key for priority: Core Spells (essential), Personal Preference, Other Considerations
Extra Turn Spells
Time Warp - 4x - always run four. This is your cheapest and most reliable extra turn spell. It's what enables you to blind-slam a dictate in your opponent's endstep when you have 4 lands in play, and reliably "go off" in your fifth turn. It can also be reliably flashed back with Snapcaster Mage, because it doesn't exile itself on resolution. You want to draw these at any point in the game, and put simply, without this card, the deck wouldn't function.
Part The Waterveil - 3x - Widely accepted as a solid 3-of. This is the card that changed the deck, and enabled truly fast wins for the first time. With 3 in the deck, you are able to cast them without the Awaken cost, just to get a chain going, without worrying about losing your only condition from the deck. In an ideal scenario, you only need to hit around 5 extra turns before you effectively win the game (if PtW is drawn during that time), because once you get to 9 mana and cast an awakened PtW, you have effectively locked the win. This is a vast improvement from older versions of the deck, which needed to chain so many turn spells that the player had to recycle them with reshuffle effects back into the library. A word of caution! When casting PtW for its awaken cost, it only has a single target. If that target gets removed (i.e. by a Ghost Quarter) before the spell resolves, it will fizzle due to no legal targets!. Thankfully, the deck plays numerous ways to protect your awakened lands from removal, the most obvious of which is Gigadrowse, tapping down a helpless opponent's lands before awakening your land. The nature of our early-game interaction (keeping lands tapped) normally makes for a worry-free late-game. PtW being included in the deck means that you are likely to never deck yourself.
Temporal Mastery - 3-4x - Probably the best choice overall in terms of rounding out your remaining extra turn spells. Serum Visions sets it up marvelously, and naturally getting miracle can be enough to swing a game heavily in your favour (for instance if you have a Thing in the Ice or 'Mine' effect on the field). A word of caution! When playing in tournaments, you must not let a drawn temporal mastery touch the cards in your hand, otherwise you will have missed the opportunity to trigger Miracle. I've seen heartbreaking moments when a turns player draws the temporal mastery when trying to play quickly, and then tries to back-up, only for a judge to rule that it's too late. I strongly advise looking at each card before you draw it, similar to how you might from a Delver of Secrets trigger. Some players dislike the chance-factor that this card represents, but in a deck so focused and full of redundancy, chances like this can make all the difference. An Early Mastery represents an extra land-drop and a card over your opponent, as well as an opportunity to play a Dictate with a "turn waiting", which can definitely mean the difference between winning or getting steamrolled. Notable downside - can't be flashed back with Snapcaster Mage as it exiles on cast. upside - hitting miracle is kind of like playing Vintage. Our very own Xenob8 has made a crude but effective simulator, detailing the number of times you're likely to miracle a Temporal Mastery over the course of a game. On average it comes out as around 1.2 times, and in the coming days i'll post a detailed summary in this very primer.
Walk The Aeons - 1-4x - I've seen this played as a singleton up to the full playset, and I respect that choice. upsides - can be flashed back with snapcaster mage as it doesn't exile itself, can be bought back with literal buyback, and it costs 6 mana to hardcast, not the 7 of Temporal Mastery. These are good upsides! This is a more consistent option in the late-game, but is dead and unexciting in the early game. Alternatively, setting up an early Temporal Mastery from a Serum Visions can be relevant in quite a few matchups, so it's a toss-up between mid-combo consistency and the ability to 'get there'.
Temporal Trespass - 1-2x - A niche but useful option, more often seen as a 1-of, if at all, and a perfectly respectable choice. Notably exiles itself, so can't be flashed back. In versions running Elixir of Immortality or Emrakul, The Aeons Torn, this card and its Delve cost represents a legitimate way to 'thin' your graveyard of chaff, and reshuffle, making your topdecks much better while comboing off. you only get one delve per copy of this card, so a max of 8 cards can be thinned per-trespass. It's also the only other turn spell besides Temporal Mastery that can be cast for less than the going rate, making it a fantastic mid-to-late-game card (although arguably at that point, the advantages of a cheap spell are diminished slightly).
Disruption
Gigadrowse - 4x - Advised as a four-of, but some players have had success with lists containing only 3. Gigadrowse is highly versatile and give us a way to "deny turns" very early in the game. They are also a sort of pre-sideboard against any control deck, allowing us to tap all of their mana sources down in their end-step, and do so effectively through counters as well (they can only counter one copy). A key niche play is to tap down Howling Mine in order to prevent a draw (for your opponent or yourself). 'Tap' effects synergise with our 'Mines', preventing opponents from doing anything with the cards they draw. It's also the most effective way to protect awakened lands from removal. Casting this spell has some nuance - for instance, when tapping lands to "push through" a critical spell, always do so at least a phase before you intend to cast your spell (so their floated mana empties) and ideally in their upkeep or end step (upkeep denies them their mana for a turn but allows them to still make a single land drop, end step catches their land drop as well which can be relevant). In a pinch, it can be Fog, Silence, or even a kind of Cryptic Command tap-down effect when closing out the game. With an on-board Thing in the Ice, Gigadrowse is often as good as any 'extra turn' spell. This is the lynchpin of our disruptive effects because of its versatility
Exhaustion - 3-4x - I'd recommend up to 4 of these. I have seen people successfully run 3, and I used to run 3 myself. This is the card we use to pressure and punish proactive and aggressive decks. Any deck that wants to tap out for threats of any kind, Exhaustion punishes them for it, all while giving you time and room to curate your strategy, and find crucial land drops. It can be flashed back easily with Snapcaster Mage, and in essence you can consider this to be an 'extra turn' spell almost 90% of the time. It's also an ideal way to secure your safety, if you fizzle slightly and have to pass the turn to your opponent. It's ideal against decks like TRON or Eldrazi, which rely on tapping out almost every turn, and it's very good against aggro decks. It synergises extremely well with Thing in the Ice (removing counters and acting like a kind of protection) and our 'Mine' effects, denying our opponents the opportunity to use any cards they draw. Don't leave home without them. Downsides: while granting you time, life and a topdeck, Exhaustion is disruption at the cost of card disadvantage and doesn't ensure you hit your land drops (the most critical aspect to winning with the deck). Turns players will be familiar with the opening hand with some promising disruption but you just spin your wheels for five turns while your opponent waits for you to run out of cards in hand.
Early Frost - 0-3x - This card is a piece of recent tech and has been seen cropping up in sideboards as well as maindecks in the last couple of months. Notably, it's present in the sideboard of one of the best-placing lists in recent weeks. It also does a very good Gigadrowse impression in the first couple of turns (but loses value later in the game quite substantially). All in all, you should see this as just another piece of the disruption puzzle, and while it doesn't have the versatility of Exhaustion or Gigadrowse due to not interacting with creatures, it can have its place. on the play, it's a fine way to tap an opponent's mana down on (for example) turns 2 or 3, and when you've got 4 mana open it's a great way to tap them down on their fourth turn but hold up Remand, or even cast a Thing in the Ice. Not bad at all.
Cryptic Command - 2-3x - most lists run 2 of these, and it's an essential part of what makes the deck work. I've even seen people running up to four, but I don't think it's necessarily needed. once you get to 1UUU mana it's a fantastic card, but in terms of pure deck utility, there's probably more value to be gained from a 4th Exhaustion than a third Cryptic Command, and that's purely due to the nature of an aggressive format. Cryptic is most useful in three ways, and they are mid-to-late-game effects. Firstly is protecting yourself in the event of fizzling and having to pass the turn to your opponent. It's unlikely you're able to be killed if you're holding cryptic. Secondly is nuking a large spell from your opponent and gaining tempo from it, setting them back more than a turn. this doesn't tend to happen against aggro decks because their spells are so cheap, but any deck trying to play a threat at 3+ mana is fair game for a big tempo swing. The final way is bouncing a troublesome permanent/tapping troublesome creatures in order to facilitate getting the win. Cards such as Ensnaring Bridge need to be bounced, and blockers often need to be tapped down in order to crunch in for victory. A couple of other niche plays exist, such as bouncing an opponent's land in their end step, and then following up by bouncing a second land in your main phase (brutal against TRON), but these sorts of interactions aren't as necessary as the early interaction that Exhaustion offers. Despite being a mid-game-onwards card (and so only needing maybe 2 of them), Cryptic is definitely a must-include, as it gives the deck in-built outs to quite a few troublesome permanents that Modern might throw at you. Without Cryptic, you can just lose on the spot to certain cards such as Ensnaring Bridge (and we don't like losing on the spot).
Remand - 3-4x - Normally a 'lock' for the deck and seen in 90% of lists. Fantastic option in the early game, providing momentum, tempo and disruption. Great against decks like Living End and can buy you a turn against the otherwise tricky Ad Nauseam. Makes decks like Bant Eldrazi a piece of cake (if they can't find Cavern of Souls), great against Jund (generally anything that draws cards is good against Jund. Slowing them down is a bonus) and against TRON & any other ramp deck. Really though, the key to this card is in its hidden uses: In order to play this card to its full potential, you have to learn to remand your own spells. E.g. when attempting to force through a Dictate of Kruphix against a blue player, remandyour own dictate. This fizzles your opponent's counterspell and nets you a new card. Playing in this way extends the usefulness of Remand into the late-game (where it can sometimes become useless), and is a familiar process to Scapeshift players of years past. Note that remanding your own spell to net extra triggers for Thing in the Ice is also perfectly legitimate & has saved my bacon a few times, from the extra card draw (as well as keeping your original spell that you remanded). Serum Visions -- Remand -- Serum Visions is a cheap sequence that will most likely flip a Thing on the spot.
Boomerang - 1-4x - a niche but powerful choice. URSplinter Twin used to play a set of these for early disruption, and here it would perform a similar job, bouncing your opponent's turn 1 land if you're on the play, and crushing decks like TRON when used in multiples or before they have their lands active. As the game goes on, Boomerang loses some utility, and against cards like Thought-Knot Seer it's generally sub-par. In a slow grindy metagame (which happens occasionally in Modern) it shines, allowing you to stay a turn (or more) ahead of your opponent. Generally though, I feel like Remand is more worthy of the deck slot, if it's a choice between the two.
Spreading Seas - 3-4x - This has occasionally cropped up as an alternative to Remand in certain metagames, but the general wisdom is that it's worse against the premier aggro decks in the format, and so definitely a coin-toss in terms of whether it will help or hinder you on the morning of a tournament. The value to be had is very dependent on your opponent's opening hand, and while Seas can "getcha!" like a mini-Blood Moon from time to time, almost regardless of what they're playing, it doesn't have the broad-ranging value of Remand. Definitely one to keep in the back of your mind, and i wouldn't be surprised to see one or two of these crop up in a sideboard from time to time. Bear strongly in mind, though, that the slower "big mana" decks are usually very good matchups for us, and don't tend to need extensive sideboarding or tweaking the maindeck for.
Unsubstantiate - 1-2x - This spell has 2 sides to its value. One side is a powered-down Remand, the other side is a powered down Boomerang. The advantage is that it's versatile, and it can 'counter' uncounterable spells such as Abrupt Decay. Not drawing a card is a big downside, but in certain metagames, against creature-based strategies, this card's stock rises significantly. Expect there to be further discussion on this card in the months to come, we are potentially scratching the surface with this newer consideration.
'Leverage' Cards - used to take advantage of your extra turns
Dictate of Kruphix - 4x - ALWAYS run four, I can't stress that enough. ALWAYS. Nicknamed a 'Mine' effect after Howling Mine, this is your ideal way to leverage the advantage gained from taking extra turns. Having flash is key to the power of the card (letting you draw before your opponent), and arguably, without this card the deck wouldn't function. You are able to flash the Dictate in (Ideally when on 4 lands), and then go off the following turn if your opponent ever taps out. Without Dictate, you are left at the mercy of a single topdeck each turn to draw something useful, and can quickly fall behind. With as little as 1 'Mine' effect in play, you are often able to combo off in a single attempt. It can be correct to cast a Dictate for 'value', just to hit your land drops, while you present solid disruption in the form of Exhaustion or Cryptic Command, denying your opponent the opportunity to take advantage of the cards they are drawing. There are some nuances to playing the card, because you want to avoid it being countered or destroyed at all costs. See STRATEGY for specific plays and sequencing.
Howling Mine - 1-3x - Howling Mine is ironically "Mine" effect #2 in this deck, after Dictate. It costs 1 less and is excellent when cast part-way through a series of turns while 'going off'. It is, however, a much worse way to start the chain, as it gives your opponent first dibs on the extra draw. As such, it's played generally as a 2-of, sometimes as 3, and sometimes not at all. It can be tapped by Gigadrowse to deny someone a draw (more often than not, you use this function to prevent yourself decking out, but it equally works on opponents if it's relevant for some reason). Many players (including myself) have been moving away from Howling Mine over the last few months, in order to test cards such as Thing in the Ice, which performs a similar synergistic purpose in the deck, but has more utility (and is an excellent wincon in and of itself).
Ancestral Vision - 0-4x - This card needs its own special discussion. There are distinct advantages and distinct disadvantages to its inclusion, and the majority of players have fallen on the side of not including the card. Farf, the original primer creator and long-time player of the deck, has gone on record as saying Vision is a great include, so while not widely adopted by the community, it is still up for debate. Let's open up some of the specifics, to help any new or veteran players decide for themselves: PROS:
- if suspended on turn 1, Vision can most likely set you up for the rest of the game, and does so without further mana investment. Howling Mine is already a tough-but-mostly-necessary include in the deck, and with the right draws, Vision can be better than Mine, giving you 3-turns worth of mine triggers at once (if you have the disruption to survive long enough)
- Vision triggers Thing in the Ice and draws you into more ways to protect it. As a result, it might be significantly better in a list running Thing.
- unlike Howling Mine, it's a one-sided effect.
- if suspended on turn 1 vs. a Mine cast on turn 2, Vision represents 14 cards drawn when it comes off suspend on turn 5, vs. 14 cards drawn with a turn 2 Mine (and 3 cards for your opponent). The one-sided effect makes it better on paper (if suspended on turn 1).
- we are uniquely able to take advantage of the delay imposed by the suspend cost, because of all our resource/turn denial spells.
- Vision is really good against one of our toughest matchups in GBx decks such as Jund, because they are fairly slow decks, and can't remove it with Abrupt Decay. the four cards you draw on your 5th turn (from a turn 1 suspend) could be as good as game against an already-disrupted Jund player. CONS:
- Turn 5 is the earliest you can get any cards from Vision. This is quite slow, even though we do play plenty of disruption. If you aren't able to suspend Vision on turn 1, however, the advantage gained from running this spell diminishes considerably.
- Vision doesn't help you as directly if suspended mid-chain while taking a series of extra turns. The delay means that you suffer an increased chance of fizzling, and is very relevant.
- Vision is a great card to hit on turn 1, but considerably worse afterwards. It's also notably awful on turn 2, cutting you off Remand, which is a key part of disrupting the early game.
- Vision is a one-shot effect, and doesn't snowball with a series of chained turns.
- Visions can be countered when it comes off suspend, and is useless against Chalice on 0 (worth mentioning due to the Eldrazi Tron decks running around). Howling Mine can also be countered, but you're more likely to drop a mine later in the game when you've got backup or mid-chain (for instance after casting a miracled Temporal Mastery. This, plus the highly visible "here comes the spell" suspend mechanic, makes Visions more susceptible to disruption generally.
- Vision doesn't help you get to the late-game, it only helps once you've got there. Many decks can kill as early as turn 2, but more reasonably turn 4 or 5 with some mild disruption. If your hand doesn't include enough early disruption and your opponent is able to win before Vision comes off suspend, Vision is effectively a completely dead card. Alternatives such as Mine or Thing at least offer some quicker advantage, even if they are susceptible to creature or permanent removal.
- topdecking more than one Vision is pretty terrible.
- even though it's a Sorcery, it can't be flashed back with snapcaster mage (neither can Mine, obviously, but it's worth mentioning)
The jury is out on Vision. A couple of players swear by the card, although most are wary of the "does nothing before turn 5 if you're lucky" one-shot draw spell. I personally would like to test the card more, due to having had poor experiences of Howling Mine in the last six months. It's one of the tougher calls in terms of building the deck, for certain. This will necessarily have to be a crowd-sourced conclusion, and I can't offer a definitive 'no' or 'yes' for the card (although the general feeling among players is currently in the 'no' pile, for what it's worth)
Consistency and Setup Cards
Serum Visions - 4x - Always 4. As a synergistic combo deck, we need consistency enablers. Serum visions is the best we have in modern at this current time, so it's a non-negotiable include. Visions (see below in "Strategy - Early Game" is a key part of any opening hand or mulligan, digging you towards any pieces you happen to be missing from your hand. It has added value in this specific deck due to setting up Miracle spells for the following 1 or 2 turns. It plugs a lot of holes in the deck and we'd be much weaker without it. It is tempting as the deckbuilder to max out on big flashy effects to increase your chances of topdecking them while going off, but Visions does so much more than you'd get from that line of deckbuilding. It's an antidote (of sorts) to targeted discard, it flips Thing in the Ice very effectively, it sorts you out for the next couple of draws while allowing you to do something profitable with the rest of your mana. It's played in nearly every blue deck in modern, and we can see why. Bonus points if you have the DCI Foil versions with original art.
Mikokoro, center of the sea - 1x - This land is a highly useful 1-of which can handily replace a 'Mine' effect in a tight spot, aiding the consistency of the deck by a few percent, and draw you extra cards if you have the mana spare while going off (again, raising your consistency by a couple of percent). In a mainly mono-coloured deck, the downside isn't huge for playing a colourless land. The upside is huge. Use it in your opponent's end step for maximum value, if you need to draw into gas. No Turns deck should be complete without 1 of these in the manabase.
Geier Reach Sanitarium - 1x - This card is another Mikokoro (see above). Not as good in general, but absolutely worth your consideration. Being Legendary, you can't run more than 1 Mikokoro, so this is your second copy. Bonus gold stars if you run Emrakul and use the discard clause to reshuffle your deck.
Oboro, Palace in the Clouds - 1x - Bizarre card, but it has one essential purpose, one purpose only, and it does it really well. Modern has certain land-hate cards such as Choke and Boil, they do see play, and because of the existence of those cards, we need an Island that isn't an Island. It's niche, it's subtle, but if you're only running one, there is basically no downside to this card. Because of the lack of any tangible downside (nobody would play Blood Moon against us, as we run mainly basics), this card gets the nod as an essential include. If you have a competitive build and aren't running it, there needs to be a good reason why.
Minamo, School at Water's Edge - 1x - in much the same way as Oboro, this card is an "island that's not an island". As such it protects us against Choke and Boil which do see play in sideboards. You're not obliged to play both of these lands, but it's advised. There's very little downside.
Inkmoth Nexus - 1x - This card is in the deck purely as an out to infinite life (when awakened by a Part The Waterveil it's a 2 turn clock even if your opponent is on 1,000,000 life, although you still have to pay the activation cost in order to get the infect damage). I would always include it, and even though it's not part of the "core" of the deck, I would advise you to include it as well. In just one competitive tournament last year I beat infinite life three times, in successive rounds against three opponents playing similar but different decks. Since then, I haven't ever needed the effect, but it's still worth keeping in the deck to beat those niche situations. As you have seen, many of the choices for this deck aren't picked for their raw power but just "running the numbers". If I face even a couple of decks capable of hitting infinite life over the course of a few tournaments, it's worth the include, and every other time, Inkmoth is just a colourless land (or, if you're brave, a faster way to win with Part The Waterveil - but artifact removal is more common than you'd imagine so do so with caution)
Gemstone Caverns - 1x - only a singleton, but most likely worth it. On the draw, the deck can sometimes just get out-paced, and a free land-drop is often the difference between winning and losing (see Temporal Mastery above). Against very aggressive matchups, we want this sort of small percentage gain, as being able to (for example) remand on turn 1 can make all the difference. General rule of thumb on this one is to exile one of your expensive turn spells (an in-hand Temporal Mastery is ideal) as part of the cost.
Snapcaster Mage - 1-2x - This card is perhaps just on the edge of being non-negotiable, as I have seen the occasional list not running any. This said, El Snappo turns up in nearly every single Turns list, and nearly always as a 2-of. It's a consistency tool that can beat for 2. It's a Time Warp, a Remand, an Exhaustion, a Serum Visions or sometimes just an Ambush Viper. Whatever you use it for, it's the most flexible tool in the deck in terms of what it can do, so it earns its spot here as a sort of 'cement between the bricks' which doesn't do anything flashy but helps an awful lot to keep the deck working as it should. You don't need to run more than 2, as doing so would make you too vulnerable to graveyard hate (which for the most part we can kind of ignore).
Thing in the Ice - 2-3x - I was an early proponent of using Thing in the Ice instead of the sometimes-awkward Howling Mine in the maindeck. The early reasoning was that it provides more early roadblocks against aggro, and can be a win condition by itself. With time and testing, it became clear that the card exceeded expectations. We are able to flip and protect Thing in the Ice more consistently than other decks in Modern that have tried to run it, due to our oppressive mana-denial and slew of extra turns. Often it is enough to cast Thing, Exhaustion and then follow up this play with almost anything else. Essentially the card makes nearly all of your deck live in a different, more proactive way. It's also good against Affinity (an otherwise tricky matchup), as they run minimal removal and we can flip Thing quickly when we need to. We are fairly happy to see Thing get Path to Exiled, but for the most part we want it to stick around. Against a Heavy Jund Metagame (which has happened a couple of times in Modern so far), Howling Mine is better, as it sidesteps a lot of their maindeck removal and we have a combo they can't easily interact with.
pro
A flash flyer with a 3/1 body could be a very good ambusher and could be cute as a wincondition.
Cycling an ability is a rare effect but it is very powerful since it shuts down fetches, walkers and a lot of other cards in the tier 1 decks (mostly eldrazi affinity storm abzan and dredge)
contro
2U for casting is a bit too much. maybe in foretold turns there is more free mana and could work?
2U for cycle is again a bit too much.
we already have dictates and exhaustions in the 3 cmc spot and these are more important for us
Riddleform
pro
3/3 with Flying for 2 mana is efficient, works as a decent finisher and sometimes as a good blocker
Dodges removal
2U for a scry is costly but in late game could work
contro
it is too much a win more card and we can have better win conditions. But for the same cmc thing in the ice provides more value to us anyway..
Supreme will
pro
it has a good versality, and in a deck like turns we often have a lot of cards stuck in hand doing nothing so we should really be able to gain the most from this card
contro
very high cmc for what it does. maybe in baral builds?
Swarm Intelligence
pro
Copying extra turns spell is always fun
interesting art, should look nice in foil
contro
6U is just a lot. Probably UG/bant builds that ramp to good amount of mana and some of them have infinite combos could like this enchant ?
God-Pharaoh's Faithful
pro
one mana 0/4 body is so good! kraken hatchling was played in the past as an early blocker
even if we don't gain great amounts of life points from him even 2 or 3 are probably enough since it happens we lose for just a couple LP to survive a turn
contro
it isn't a powerful card but blocking and gaining some life points is good enough probably. doesn't really have contros
Amonket
Kefnet the Mindful
pro
very efficient creature to close games, four swings that can start as soon as we are able to chain turns and have 7 cards in hand, very easy condition to get since we have a very strong draw power and we can go back to 5-6 cards in second main and we don't suffer him losing block ability because we will get another turn right after
only answered by Liliana of the Veil, path to exile and dismember
contro
doesn't impact the board early game, having it in the board and not able to defend us sucks a lot.
4 mana: draw 1 isn't good
takes slots we don't really have
As Foretold
pro
Strong card for sure, helps cheat in game mines and other cards. chaining a lot of extra turns means we can get it to a great number of time counters Ancestral Vision interaction:
we can cast for free an Ancestal Vision with As Foretold the very same turn we get in the board. if someone wants to do that then should also cut snapcaster (bad thing) and include flip jace, since Jace, Telepath Unbound lets you cast AV from graveyeard. so the new engine(cutting dictates since we can cast 8 AVs) becomes:
4 ancestral visions
3-4 thing in the ice
3-4 as foretold
3-4 jace, vryn's prodigy - jace, telepath unbound
contro
since we get a lot of mana we don't really need it. we can simply play what we have. and mastery is enough to cheat things into play
early game with low time counters it will get us only serum visions and a free counter we don't care if it is free or not
"new engine" opens us to creature hate, graveyeard hate, cotv from eldrazitron ( a tier 1 deck and also we can't play it at 0 against a lot of decks)
"new engine" takes a lot more slots than 7 mines effect.
Failure (to) Comply
pro
can hit uncounterable cards (abrupt decay for example) and helps protecting mines. we can get protection for up to two turns with that or we can counter something and negate the possibility to cast a card with a different name aswell
compy can help A LOT to stop opponent plan in a lot of different ways and can be very difficult to play around it
another card that interacts well with gigadrowse
contro
doesn't have the versatility of unsubstantiate, since hits only spells on the stack and not creatures
doesn't draw a card like remand, and this is quite important
opens to graveyeard hate
Early-Mid-Late Game and Mulligans
Mulliganing:
Opening Hand Considerations:
- hitting your land drops, with U mana sources early on (to enable maximumGigadrowse)
- drawing a leverage effect by turn 4 (so you can cast one on turn 4). we tend to run about 7 of these (regardless of which build you go for), so your chances are good.
- having some disruption/resource-denial in your opener. You have effectively 12 of these effects (or should do) so you can usually rely on drawing one, and it makes mulligans reasonable as well.
- It's not necessary to have any 'turn' spells in your opening hand - it's often better when you don't. Out of all of them, the most reasonable one to have in your opening hand is Time Warp itself, as its base-cost is the lowest and so can be cast the earliest.
- if opener is weak on any of the above, Serum Visions is great at plugging the gaps and can get you there, as well as set up Temporal Mastery (remember, if you see a mastery from a turn-1 visions scry, put it as the second card down, otherwise you won't have the mana available to miracle it!)
Mulligans are highly important for Turns, and thankfully the deck mulligans well, as a rule. However, as with any competitive strategy, there are hidden depths to whether a poor mulligan choice actually ended up being the cause for a loss or a win, and becoming a better player with Turn relies on you being fiercely analytical with your pre-game choices. There are no shortcuts here; I can tell you what cards to prioritise (and you should look at the section on matchups) but the power of the deck comes mainly from a player's ability to foresee lines of play, and act with a sort of 'muscle memory' and familiarity that comes only with experience. This is true for mulligans, and I advise you when playtesting with fellow players to write down or photograph your choices, or show your mulls/keeps to your opponents and discuss them. Many people try to play at home or casually as if they were in a competitive arena, and sometimes that's viable, but you learn far more if you are open about your choices and discuss the optimal lines of play when you have the opportunity - in a real competitive arena, you don't have that luxury.
Here's a rough ranked order of cards you want to see in your opening hand:
1) Island (or U source): We absolutely need to hit those U sources early, so we can start Gigadrowse-ing or Serum Visions-ing as early as we can. We also need to be able to play a land drop for every turn we disrupt our opponents. An ideal hand for us probably has 3+ lands and the rest early interaction.
2) (on the play)Exhaustion: on average, against a metagame comprising a mix of go-wide aggro and GBx Midrange, Exhaustion is better than Gigadrowse.
2) (on the draw)Gigadrowse: on the draw, you can gigadrowse your opponent's first land on their second turn. This small loss of 1 mana on turn 2 can be enough to set them back a whole turn. Against decks like Jund, Burning-Tree Emissary zoo, Cheeri0s and similar, this is very important!
3) Remand (either on the play or draw): we all know remand gets worse on the draw, but against most decks in modern it's still a viable speedbump before you combo off. I like to see them in my opening hand because at their very worst, they force our opponents to use their mana badly while drawing us a card. At their best, they set our opponent back an entire turn while drawing us towards what we need, giving us land drops and time while our opponent struggles to execute their game-plan. Niche but cool; can even trigger miracle on Temporal Mastery in our opponent's turn.
4) Dictate of Kruphix (or some other leverage card): Assuming you've got some early interaction, this is essentially your "i win" card & you want to see one early. Turn 4 by the latest, but in the opening hand is a great way to start the game. Cards like Thing in the Ice tend to be (just from experience) played better early.
5) Cryptic Command: It's basically as good as Time Warp most of the time, and sometimes better, and it's 1 cheaper. I'm never upset to see one of these in my opening hands, but more than one can be iffy unless I have the disruption to get me there.
6) Serum Visions: This card fixes a multitude of problems, and sets up miracle very effectively. It's an ideal opening-hand card because whatever piece you're missing, it digs 3-cards deeper towards it. There are times (against fast zoo and burn decks) when we don't have time to sculpt our hands much, but even in those situations, Serum digs us closer to cards like Exhaustion which stall and set our opponents back while you develop your mana and draw disruption. That said, it's lower on the priority list than the other cards mentioned above because they are the "action" cards, and this merely plugs the gaps if you are missing them. It's essential, and you'll always be happy to see one in your hand, but it's not what's going to ultimately win you the game.
honorable mention: Time Warp: This is just about acceptable as an opening hand card... maybe. In reality we just don't want to see them until turn 4 or so, and having them early opens us up to hand disruption quite badly. A good opponent will leave the Time Warp stranded in your hand, and take the leverage cards or powerful cheap disruption - doing this means they've taken your route to victory and also rendered that Time Warp temporarily useless, a net loss of 2 cards in-hand. unless I mentioned it before, discard is bad for us....
In terms of opening hands, you don't really care for much else. Multiples of your disruption spells are great.
Early Game
The most critical stage of our game is the early one, and you will find as a Turns player, the majority of errors you make and losses you take will happen during the first four turns. Once we are 'in the clear' and can establish the mid-to-late game, there are very few decks which can beat us. This is the hidden strength of Turns as a lower-tier-but-competitive strategy, it's possible to beat any other deck reliably, if they stumble, are susceptible to mana-denial or have a slower game-plan. Our late-game is highly consistent and snowballs very well.
You may see where this is going. Turns can have serious issues with decks which do the following:
- place multiple threats on the board as early as turn 1 (Affinity, Emissary-Zoo)
- employ targeted discard followed by sizeable threats (Jund/Abzan)
- have a very quick clock via some other means (i.e. Infect and Burn)
With this basic context in mind, here's how we want to structure our first few turns:
Game 1 - unknown opponent
Turn 1: it's usually worth casting serum visions on your first turn, seeing as most of the important "surviving" business happens in the early turns. You tend not to care much about what your opponent is up to (thankfully) but rather, how hard can you disrupt his/her mana. As a result, prioritise gigadrowse, exhaustion and hitting your land drops if you've already got a dictate in hand. if you've got a hand with decent enough disruption, prioritise dictate of kruphix or whatever other leverage cards you are running. Make sure to set up any Temporal Mastery as the second card down otherwise you'll draw it on turn 2 with only 1 land in play. Remand is great as a turn 2 play, but against certain decks can lose traction after turn 3, so if seen off a turn 1 visions, it's a decent enough turn 2 play to scry to the top. After that, dig for anything else.
Turn 2: This is where things get easier, for the most part. Against a proactive opponent beating down with small creatures, go for a Thing in the Ice (if you're running it). Anything else with a higher curve, hold up Remand. Some decks (those which mostly play aggressive 2-drops and very little else, or those decks which 'storm out' a bunch of cards such as burning-tree emissary) warrant leverage of Gigadrowse on this turn as well, which can feel wasteful but is sometimes necessary. It's almost always wrong to run out Howling Mine on turn 2, unless facing off against decks with lots of discard. Jund (et al) are decks where their main path to success is stripping your hand away. Any way to draw cards, any way at all, is preferable, as you will generally draw far more spells than your opponent draws discard (they tend to run 6-8 total).
Turn 3: Turn 3 is the easiest. If your opponent has tapped out for something, maybe attacked with a creature, slam Exhaustion. If playing against a control-ish deck which likes to leave mana open, you can hold up Gigadrowse and prepare to deny them mana in their upkeep, thereby stifling them and giving you a turn's free reign to play whatever effect you need on your fourth turn - setting you up for turn 5. If your opponent isn't applying pressure or only has one blue source (sometimes) it can be correct to hold your gigadrowse until turn four, so you can protect your Dictate.
This is also a critical turn in terms of not dying. Many decks aim to win after you've taken this all-important turn, so if they have curiously left their mana up, it can mean a) they've got a terrible hand and you're doing fine or b) they are leaving up answers. Either is fine if you've got a Gigadrowse in hand, and they are really playing into your hands. Aggressive go-wide decks will be the test here, and this is where Exhaustion shows its value as a "proper" 3-mana extra turn spell, saving you damage and preventing an opponent from advancing their boardstate.
Game 2 - known opponent
Now you've played game 1, you'll have a good idea of what your opponent is up to. This can change your priorities:
Turn 1: on the play: turn 1 Serum Visions into Remand is still a fine play, and you'll have a better idea what to prioritise in terms of scry. on the draw: it's not always correct, but using your turn 1 mana to gigadrowse their first land is a legitimate option. This is best done against opponents who rely on getting their one-drops down fast to enable quick and powerful turn 2 & 3 plays. Delaying them by a turn is great at this very early stage. Against decks like Scapeshift, hit them on turn 2 instead. It's matchup-dependant so be aware of an opponent's mana curve. A keen awareness of the composition of current Modern decks will help you a lot here and quite a few mistakes can be made by delaying your disruption (or disrupting too early!). As before, there are no real shortcuts here to learning this stuff, just play a lot and make notes if you can.
Turn 2: This will necessarily come down to your familiarity with the matchup, and i'll explain more in the matchups section. An example would be to basically always stick a Thing in the Ice as early as possible against Affinity. They are rarely able to remove it, and you can generally flip it with such speed (while disrupting at the same time) as to win the game in short order.
Mid-Game
This section will be fairly short, as there's only a couple of things to discuss here.
1) Generally wait to play Dictate of Kruphix until your fourth turn (wait until your opponent's end step). This not only denies them a draw, but also allows you to use your mana on turns 1-3 to safeguard your life total and stall your opponent, rather than give them unnecessary resources.
You cast it in the fourth turn (in opponent's EoT) because this enables you to draw your fifth land and cast Time Warp in order to start "going off". Even if you don't have the Time Warp, it allows you to untap in your turn and perform some serious disruption with your five mana, and normally from that point your opponent is under the lock.
Exceptions: If you have nothing else to do, and a Cryptic in hand, sometime's it's correct to drop the Dictate on your third turn (again in opponent's end step) and treat the Cryptic as if it were an extra turn spell.
Also, if you are playing against Jund/Abzan/discard decks, it can be correct to not only get the dictate out of your hand and onto the field (safe from being Thoughtseized, but also mitigate some of the lost cards in hand by aggressively drawing more, even if it means more for your opponent.
Finally, against blue control players, try to protect your dictates from being countered by responding when your opponents tap out, or by using Gigadrowse to force it through (gigadrowse in opponent's upkeep to deny them a turn or the countermagic, and then flash the dictate in during your own upkeep to get you the all-important extra draw to keep hitting those land drops. This can leave you with a tempo-loss but most of the time works out just fine, drawing you into more Exhaustions and Gigadrowses.
2) Use Cryptic Command fairly aggressively. We want to draw as many cards as quickly as possible, in order to assemble a lock on the game. Don't go wasting it on unimportant things, obviously, but anything aggressive, anything that's going to slow you down needs to get countered, even if it's a one-drop (I see you, Death's Shadow). Your aim is to assemble the pieces as quickly as possible, and while it's reassuring to hold up cryptic and feel safe, many times if your opponent doesn't really do anything, the right play is to just bounce one of their lands and draw a card in their end step. Experiment with this idea and get aggressive with it.
3) if you don't have a Time Warp, the assumption is that you've probably got one of the other turns in your hand instead. In this case, it's still normally correct to slam the dictate in your opponent's fourth turn end step, because at this stage in the game you'll most likely be desperately needing more disruption, and thankfully the kinds of disruption we play tend to stop our opponents from using the cards in their hand. And of course, sometimes you just get lucky and draw Time Warp, and all is right with the world.
Decks to beat (scroll down for detail): 1. UBx Shadow 2. Affinity 3. Burn 4. GWx Company 5. Dredge 6. Eldrazi Tron 7. BGx Death's Shadow 8. Gifts Storm also other non tier 1 decks
1. UBx Shadow
2. Affinity
3. Burn Medium to Poor - 45%-55% game 1, 55%-45% game 2
Burn can be a fast deck. Thankfully we dodge Eidolon of the Great Revel rather well, and Remand is good against Rift Bolt, so there's some positives to the matchup. Burn are definitely favoured in game 1. Game 2, if we run cards like Timely Reinforcements and draw them, we are favoured. It's a bit of a sideboard battle and you need to be careful in managing your life total. Thing in the Ice is decent here being a good early blocker and saving some life. Remand, although quickly outclassed against other quick decks, is ok here because burn often functions on only a couple of lands (you still side it out though). Don't play any Mine effects until you need to, or have enough disruption that you can just carry the game longer with counterspells. Burn decks try to win with only the top 10 or 11 cards out of their entire deck. giving them more chances to draw extra lands and cast multiple burn spells a turn is not where you want to be. Cryptic, while four mana, is still serviceable in this matchup. sideboarding:
- Remand
- some number of Cryptic Command (i'd still keep a couple in)
+ lifegain/blockers
+ dispel
+ Chalice of the Void
the matchup is fairly straightforward. be aware the burn player will often side in Destructive Revelry and side out their fairly useless Eidolons. You can afford to drop the maindeck counterpells because any lifegain or blockers (pseudo lifegain) acts as a "negate" for one or more of their burn spells.
lastly, block with Thing in the Ice and Snapcaster when you need to, but don't throw them away unnecessarily. When you turn the corner, you need to win really fast. no dilly-dallying otherwise they'll just topdeck bolts and kill you while you durdle.
4. GWx Company
5. Dredge
6. Eldrazi Tron Favourable - 60%-40% game 1, 65%-35% game 2
This is why we play Turns. Their high mana curve and one-spell-per-turn game plan means we can leverage our disruption very effectively. Wait until the turn they threaten to play a Thought-Knot Seer and then fire it off. Cavern of Souls makes Remand worse, but not all decks run it (Tron variants often don't), and they have to draw it. Cryptic Command is a de facto 'turn' here due to the tap ability. Thing in the Ice is brilliant, as they play very little in the way of removal. They also play very little in the way of hand disruption. Generally speaking, use your disruption judiciously to prevent a Thought-Knot Seer from hitting the board, and combo off without much effort. Sideboarding:
- some number of remand against Cavern of Souls versions (i.e. Bant)
+ Supreme Verdict
+ Path to Exile
I wouldn't side in Spreading seas here & the reason is fairly straightforward. We aren't able to clock our opponent very quickly, so it's more beneficial to us to bring in big 2-for-1s or hard removal, than light disruption. We already have all the disruption we need in the form of mana denial.
be very aware of bant opponents bringing in spell pierce, stubborn denial or negate. Play around it if possible!
7. BGx Death's Shadow
8. Gifts Storm
9. Abzan/Jund Midrange Poor - 40%-60% game 1, 35%-65% game 2
Jund, Abzan and similar discard-themed midrange decks are poor matchups because of discard. Discard is bad for us because of the sort of mana-curve we play in our deck (very high). A good player will often take your cheap spells and leave you with more expensive warps stuck in your hand. The net result of this is that you've lost a card and the more expensive cards are now rendered temporarily useless as well. Thankfully Remand is decent here & Dictate and Howling Mine are good antidotes to this issue. I'd suggest attempting to stick a mine effect as early as you can against these decks, and/or hold up Remand for Liliana of the Veil wherever possible. They often only play one or two maindeck ways to remove your noncreature permanents and around 6 discard spells on average across all builds. Not only will sticking a mine effect protect it from being discarded, it will also ensure that you hit your land drops and get into combo-territory on time. You'll out-draw your opponent in terms of spells vs. their disruptive effects. Try to side in any 2-for-1 effects and remove disruption that's card-disadvantage. sideboarding:
- Thing in the ice if your opponent saw it game 1 (removal magnet)
- Gigadrowse (too much card disadvantage against decks that play tonnes of 1 drops)
+ sweepers (e.g. engineered explosives, supreme verdict)
+ anything that draws cards & disrupts (i.e. spreading seas)
general idea: reduce vulnerability to removal (even though they will side some of it out) and be more careful before awakening your lands. If you can protect them with counters or keeping your opponent tapped out, do.
These matchups are winnable but you have to play tightly and hope your opponent doesn't see many discard spells.
Pretty spot-on with the matchups in my experience.
Merfolk isn't 100% a lost cause, but it has become a pretty bad matchup ever since they've started playing more counters. It gets better if you splash for removal, but you have to draw it.
Burn isn't great, but better with the white splash. I would guess that people replacing their Eidolons with Shrines of the Burning Rage is overall good for us. Leyline and Chalice are the bomb; Mine, Exhaustion and Gigadrowse are bad.
Death's Shadow has game against any deck that isn't completely tuned to beat it, that's why it's so popular. Chalice is good either way, but I especially like the chances that the white splash has against it: Leyline is great, Path is great and Supreme Verdict gets around Stubborn Denial in Grixis (plus if you're really worried, you can go even harder with Celestial Purge or Blessed Alliance).
Elves is indeed a coin toss (speaking of which, going first is pretty important), but one that gets a lot more favorable with Supreme Verdict. Landing good Exhaustions is probably the most important thing in that matchup. You also have to be somewhat wary of Rec Sage.
Affinity is bad, lots of single target removal and Stony Silence helps though. On the play, you can just put Chalice on 0 turn 1 (if you draw it later, you might not need it anymore but on 2 it still shuts down Affinity's most threatening cards), but I wouldn't bring it in on the draw.
Storm is rough and doesn't get much better if you choose to play Remand. Chalice though!
Ad Nauseam is awful, but once again, Chalice shines (noticing a trend).
Your description of Vizier combo is very accurate. If they go for the Township plan, Turns should win. While we don't care about infinite life thanks to Inkmoth, if you have nothing going on, they're just going to scry the kill combo to the top.
Titanshift is about denying mana (Exhaustion is excellent), Leylines also improve the matchup.
And most everything else is indeed good, most importantly (in terms of meta share) Control and Tron, which is why you don't need specific sideboard cards for these matchups.
incoming
A sincere thank you and good luck to purk, you have made such a great job with the primer!
Upcoming:
- Jace unbanning 101
- More matchup discussion
- New cards from latest packs discussion
Latest changes:
- pixeleen quote for some matchups added in the relative discussion section
- Hour of Devastation interesting spoilers are now in the deck choice section
- Updated broken pictures
- Added different cards in the card choice section
- Subsection in "card choice" for creatures added!
- Amonkhet interesting spoilers are now in the deck choice section
- Subsection in "card choice" for interesting cards spoilered in the latest set added
- Slightly adjusted the matchup section in order to focus on tier 1 decks (for now)
- Foretold Turns and Bant turns added in the decklist section!
Welcome to the new primer for Farf's Time Walk deck!
The original primer can be found here.
Since the very first set of Magic the Gathering Time Walk effects have been one of the most powerful strategies in the game. From the earliest tournaments the ability to take an extra turn with all the accompanying steps and phases has dominated matches and decided tournaments.
Continuing that tradition, and even taking it one step further, once this Modern deck begins to combo off it's quite likely that your opponent will never get another turn again. After that your win condition is limited only by your imagination.
When time becomes endless, so to, do the possibilities!
In a format defined by Fetchlands and Shocklands and as a result saturated with two, three, and even four color decks, viable and competitive single-color decks are very rare. The original decklist for the Time Walks combo was conceived as mono blue and to this day remains a very real option.
Below is a good example of a generic Mono blue list
Time Walks is a unique combo deck in that it relies upon taking advantage of Howling Mine’s symmetrical card draw as an enabler to chain together Warp effects until you can kill your opponent with one of any variety of win conditions. In the case of this deck that will be most commonly be Part the Waterveil or Snapcaster Mage.
In general the goal of the deck is to utilize the disruption package to land a MineEffect and keep the opponent from winning before turn five. Then, it begins resolving Time Warp’s and ideally the opponent will not get another turn before you win the game.
Additionally in the list posted above it is possible to actually take infinite turns if necessary with the use of Elixir to recycle TimeWarps in combination with two or more Mine effects to continue to draw them.
As strange as the deck plays out in relation to traditional combo decks we see in Modern it is actually remarkably consistent once it begins going off.
If you are interested in the deck and want to try it out I highly recommend proxying up this list and seeing how you like it!
When constructing your Time Walks deck there are four main roles you want your cards to fill. Consistency, Combo Pieces, Win-Conditions, and Disruption. By ensuring your deck has a proper mix of these vital components you can have a powerful and consistent Time Walk combo deck.
It is worth noting that since this deck has a relatively small community that actively plays it there is no real consensus on what type of build or color splash is the "best". As a result there is plenty of room to experiment and see what works for you. However, for the purposes of this primer I will be putting an emphasis on the cards that are able to fulfill more than one roll in the deck (Such as Part the Waterveil being both a win-Condition and a combo piece) as those are usually some of our best options for inclusion.
Below and in the following sections I will give an explanation on the advantages and disadvantages of different card choices and some example decks that chose to splash one or more colors.
Disruption
Recommended: 8-12
The average turn for decks to kill without any relevant interaction from their opponent is turn four. Since this deck wants to win starting on turn five by disallowing any further interaction on behalf of the opponent, spells aimed to disrupt their game-plan enough so we survive that long are vital.
This most commonly includes Counterspells, Bounce, and Tapping the opponents permanents or not letting them untap. Click the link below for a card by card discussion of the disruption package.
Due to the nature of the combo this deck has a surprising amount of flexibility with how many of the pieces it chooses to play. A combination of Howling Mine and Time Warp effects are needed to enable the win but aside from that the number and even the individual card choices can vary greatly from deck to deck.
In the link below I will be discussing the merits of individual cards comprising those two components of the combo.
Since the deck operates as a Combo deck first and foremost it is crucial that there be cards to help you have what you need when you need it. There are a couple cards that stand above the rest in this category but there are arguments for the inclusion of many more based on personal preference.
Win conditions are rather tricky in this deck since once you have achieved unlimited turns you can win with practically anything. The trick is to have those cards be relevant before you have achieved the combo so that they are not dead in your hand.
While the possibilities truly are astounding the most popular choices have been outlined below.
Lands are the foundation of any good deck and are critically important to winning games of magic. In particular this decks needs to get up to 5 Mana in order to start comboing so insuring you have a proper amount is of the utmost importance.
In addition there is a broad number of utility lands that can be played in order to shore up some weaknesses of the deck. To find out more try the link below.
The importance of the sideboard cannot be underestimated. Approximately 60% of your games will be after sideboarding so including relevant cards to help in matchups where your deck is weak will often mark the difference between winning and losing a close game.
There are 15 slots allowed in competitive tournaments and often you will wish you could have double that. A discussion of popular and effective sideboard cards can be found below.
Magic the Gathering is a number centric game and this deck shines a spotlight on how complex the math of building a deck correctly can really get. Ensuring you have the right mix of these categories of cards will allow the deck to function but there is still little consensus on what is optimal.
Currently in progress
Let me know what you would like to have included in this and other card specific sections!
Spell Snare
A hard counter for 1 mana is amazing. The drawback of it only affecting cards with a converted mana cost of 2 might seem too narrow at first, but when you look at the most commonly played (and most powerful) cards in the format, it becomes immediately apparent that 2 is a very important number in the format. Playing two copies of Spell Snare in the seventy-five goes a long way to making sure this deck can get a foothold at the beginning of the game.
I really like the mono U build with extraplanar lens.Locking down opponents lands is what I've been doing lately,its been very good.I believe this deck,with some more refinement is top level.Ive quite enjoyed it.
Last night i x-0 My local tuesday Modern with UB Turns. (sorry im bad at describing anything past basic..)
Round 1: Grixis (g1 got him to counter my eot dictate, exhaustion into infinte turns won game), g2 (bring in all the hand hate and get there)
Round 2: Esper Tokens (easy games easy life)
Round 3: Tron (g1 he had t5 tron, to slow: g2, negate his t3 karn, into exhaustion, into cryptic, into combo ftw)
Round 4: Lantern control (first game he drew bad, g2 he got me, g3 was a grind to finish)
Played vs some burn/infect decks for fun: g1 was a grind, Once sideboard comes in you walk into heaven between chalice/brutality they can't get anything to stick and you stay just high enough to live
List, the point is to hit t5 and go infinite, killing with either brutality/awaken land, or chain cryptic to bounce everything back to their hand and since you have infinite turns who cars about how much life they have. Also Hidden MVP's Chalice (t2 gg burn/zoo/infect), Boseiju (gets there vs the long control counter mu's)
@konino yes Thalia is bad news... I always keep 3 Gut Shot in the sideboard, actually moving over to Dismember now because I'm a little scared of the Cheeri0s deck. I suppose Baral, Chief of Compliance could be an option.
Swan Song I have found to be bad against Burn even though it's a cool combo with TiTi. Even Spell Snare I have discovered is not where you want to be. Going 1 for 1 is just not good enough, you have to focus on getting your engines out early into more impactful spells like Exhaustion. Howling Mine and TiTi are good, and if you can pretty much lock them out starting on turn 3 sometimes you can win. Chalice wasn't that great for me but a lot of people like it so I might test it again.
@aggrosdemise that's a cool list I might try it out even though I like the straightforwardness of monoU.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you can cast a spell, you're doing well, If you can't, that's okay, too. It usually takes a few turns before you have enough mana to do anything. Meanwhile, you should figure out whether you need to discard (p.11). Then announce the end of your turn, and let your opponent have a go.
i kinda made it "functional" and with functional i mean it sort of plays his turns, goldfishing, with a deck of all island and mines(that are cheated in play without spending mana) and without discarding to 7 at the end of the turn. and all of this is done badly, maybe something is wrong with the order of the action, and obviously even the final version of the script is not intended to be a simulator but just a goldfish so it is easier to visualize how many times mastery can be miracled.
i have a question for all of you! how many mines do you usually stick on board if you want to combo a lot? in my script i used 3 as a max value for now
by the way here it is a first out put with the turn implementation:
Deck after shuffling is:
island mine island mine island island island island island island mine mastery island mine island island island island mine mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island mine island
First seven cards in hand are:
island mine island mine island island island
this is the turn number 2
cards i am drawing this turn: island
new hand is:
island mine island mine island island island island
i added a mine effect!
i will draw 2 cards next turn
this is the turn number 3
cards i am drawing this turn: island island
new hand is:
island null island mine island island island island island island
i added a mine effect!
i will draw 3 cards next turn
this is the turn number 4
cards i am drawing this turn: mine mastery island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island mine mastery island
i added a mine effect!
i will draw 4 cards next turn - Max limit reached
this is the turn number 5
cards i am drawing this turn: mine island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island mine island island island
i added a mine effect! ignore this message, max mine count is 4
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 6
cards i am drawing this turn: island mine mastery mastery
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island mine mastery mastery
i added a mine effect! ignore this message, max mine count is 4
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 7
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 8
cards i am drawing this turn: island island mastery island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 9
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 10
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 11
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 12
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 13
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 14
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 15
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 16
cards i am drawing this turn: island mine island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island mine island
i added a mine effect! ignore this message, max mine count is 4
re: sideboard plans. This is all my experience. For me the problematic matchups have always been BURN and INFECT. I'm sure Death and Taxes is bad but it doesn't really show up in my meta. Affinity is a fast deck that I have NOT had trouble with, so not all quick decks are bad.
#1 Infect - Dismember and Chalice are good but this is just always going to be a bad matchup. The good news is that at least on MTGO the deck has completely vanished. My meta still has a couple infect players but maybe the deck will eventually go the way of the Dodo in paper too.
#2 Burn - I've come to the conclusion that this will pretty much always be unfavorable too. I have extensively tested with both Mono Blue and UW with 3 Timely Reinforcements and 4 Leyline of Sanctity in the side. That SB plan probably brings it from 20-80 to 40-60 at best but you have to remember that they have Destructive Revelry and Smash to Smithereens making our life miserable. Timely generally buys you exactly one turn so it's pretty much on par with Exhaustion. Leyline is inconsistent but sometimes great if they have a creature-light draw. Otherwise pretty bad actually as Atarka's Command doesn't care and Boros Charm can do double strike.
My current SB plan of the 4th Exhaustion, 3 Thing in the Ice and 3 Redirect are almost as good as the white splash IMO so it's good enough for me to stay mono Blue.
One last thing: Chalice of the Void is NOT GOOD ENOUGH vs. Burn, after testing 3 in SB of MonoU. I'd wager it improves the matchup only a couple of percentage points if at all. It's too slow and can be removed and played around too easily.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you can cast a spell, you're doing well, If you can't, that's okay, too. It usually takes a few turns before you have enough mana to do anything. Meanwhile, you should figure out whether you need to discard (p.11). Then announce the end of your turn, and let your opponent have a go.
re: sideboard plans. This is all my experience. For me the problematic matchups have always been BURN and INFECT. I'm sure Death and Taxes is bad but it doesn't really show up in my meta. Affinity is a fast deck that I have NOT had trouble with, so not all quick decks are bad.
#1 Infect - Dismember and Chalice are good but this is just always going to be a bad matchup. The good news is that at least on MTGO the deck has completely vanished. My meta still has a couple infect players but maybe the deck will eventually go the way of the Dodo in paper too.
#2 Burn - I've come to the conclusion that this will pretty much always be unfavorable too. I have extensively tested with both Mono Blue and UW with 3 Timely Reinforcements and 4 Leyline of Sanctity in the side. That SB plan probably brings it from 20-80 to 40-60 at best but you have to remember that they have Destructive Revelry and Smash to Smithereens making our life miserable. Timely generally buys you exactly one turn so it's pretty much on par with Exhaustion. Leyline is inconsistent but sometimes great if they have a creature-light draw. Otherwise pretty bad actually as Atarka's Command doesn't care and Boros Charm can do double strike.
My current SB plan of the 4th Exhaustion, 3 Thing in the Ice and 3 Redirect are almost as good as the white splash IMO so it's good enough for me to stay mono Blue.
One last thing: Chalice of the Void is NOT GOOD ENOUGH vs. Burn, after testing 3 in SB of MonoU. I'd wager it improves the matchup only a couple of percentage points if at all. It's too slow and can be removed and played around too easily.
do you play mines during the burn matchup? Dont do it and matchup becomes e little bit easier on top of whatever you use in sideboard
Primer is coming along. Just wanted to provide a quick update and say I'm not dead and neither is the deck
glad to hear that! take your time, i'm sure you will do a great job with the primer
i have other news with my script if you(or anyone) is interested!
i implemented a counter for how many times temporal mastery is miracled!
temporal mastery was miracled 91 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 100 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 93 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 86 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 89 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 86 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 106 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 95 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 95 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 102 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 144 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 119 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 114 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 113 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 125 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 131 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 152 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 132 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 138 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 128 times in 100 games
KEEP IN MIND this cheats everything in play without spending mana, doesn't discard to 7 EOTemiracles temporal mastery even if it is the first card you draw in the game and you don't have lands lol i'll implement soon a mana counter and a cmc cost for the cards, shouldn't be difficult. next step after that will be adding serum vision, which improves a lot the miracles. last will be create a function for every card in the deck and try to see where that goes
still, it's something i'm working on and will help the "temporal mastery yes or no debate" i hope
ps likely serum vision and the mana count will compensate each other and final results I ASSUME will be similar to this
playing 4 or 3 temporal mastery means we basically go vintage with time walk in modern once each game during the combo PLUS sometimes a turn 3 miracled mastery wins us the game... and the average cmc of temporal mastery becomes less than 6
sorry the double post but i want to keep these two things separated
i'm copying my list from the old thread and i explain it here, maybe can help some new mono u players
i think it would be cool if everyone tries to do that and keep it updated and linked in the signature for other turns players
1 emrakul is here to reshuffle the deck with sanitarium and sometimes to just be dropped on the board and win with it. also it is a easy card to side out. you aren't pro if you don't have 1 or 2 easy flex spot
1 gemstone caverns
we are mono U, having another <> resource could be bad for gigadrowse yep but it is worth it when it happens
1 inkmoth nexus
additional wincondition against infinite life. two turn clock when animated with ptw. could be 4 turns if you swing 3 times as a 1/1 and then once as a 7/7
so the right number of warps imho is 12. i can see it go down to 11 in some lists.. super fine! i just play 12 to be sure the chain doesn't stop and because i kinda "need" all the additional effects.
4 warps because it is the better we have
4 temporal mastery because the miracle cost helps winning unwinnable maches + lets us play additional mines mid combo or stack extra turns.
2 part the waterveil, wincondition, the full 4x imho it is too much. ptw should be a 2x or a 3x. with 2x it happens every now and then to burn both before animating a lands
1 walk the aeons, i really really like it, helped me so many times with the buyback for a final attack or to get another turn right after it i simply wanna keep it. even as a 1x provides a lot of value. don't understimate it
1 temporal trespass, still in testing, usually it is casted around 6 or 7 mana, sometimes less, other more. doesn't get stuck in hand that often since it is only 1x. i play it because i usually reshuffle the deck if i have to go the jace+emrakul way and with trespass i can exile cards i don't wanna draw anymore. advanced tech here and it works
soo everyone is running 4x dictate and nothing else. i get it. it's fine.
i think 6 mines effect is the right number to almost always get one in the first turns and go off with more security.. actually i so want to be sure about that i play 8 if we consider mikokoro and sanitarium.
obviously 4 dictate because flashing it EOT or during a upkeep is very strong
i also want to play all the different mines possible. this because i really fear extraction effects against our mines... i think i won through extractions against win cons, against extra turns spells, but not against dictate when i was running only mikokoro + 4 dictate. so went up on them and even if i get an extirpate on dictate i have 4 other mines (mikokoro sanitarium jace howling mine)
1 howling mine, as dictate number 5
1 jace, a mine n° 6 and a win con against infinite life, can mill and can make the opponent draw all the deck if it has eldrazi in his 60s (it happens more now with nahiri+emrakul)
[/quote]do you play mines during the burn matchup? Dont do it and matchup becomes e little bit easier on top of whatever you use in sideboard[/quote]
I'm torn on that because T2 Mine into T3 Exhaustion is one of the best things you can be doing against Burn, but Smash to Smithereens is pretty brutal. Overall TiTi is probably where you want to be over Mine.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you can cast a spell, you're doing well, If you can't, that's okay, too. It usually takes a few turns before you have enough mana to do anything. Meanwhile, you should figure out whether you need to discard (p.11). Then announce the end of your turn, and let your opponent have a go.
Giving cards to burn is never good.. Strongest play i can remember was serum vision, cotv at 1, exhaustion, cotv at 2, Miracled mastery plus dictate and went off right after. Damn that was SO Good.
I really like the 8 seas package.Combined with exhaustion and remand it wins games.
Thalia and Burn gets far easier,keep hitting their plains with spreading seas/sea's claim and bounce there creatures or plains with boomerang, exhaustion keeps them tapped when they do get to do anything.I also side in two dragon's claw.
Lantern wrecks me though.That is a match up I'm stumped on.Seas package is usless,hurkyl's recall only buys a turn and gets extracted.I try siding in two elixir of immortality but I never get it.Boomerang slows them a bit.
Mono U Tron is a pain,they can go the distance and keeping them off tron isn't enough,wurmcoil,angel,titan are all one of's so counterbore isn't as effective,and they have lots of counterspells.
RG/UW tron are easy,shut down lands,exhaust and counter karns and wurmcoils.
Jund I agree is also easy peasy,bounce goyfs and counter lily's.
Valakut is another one I hate,its possible but your counterspells need to be saved for when they go off. Counterbore on scapeshift is huge,getting the titan too is an auto scoop.
I'm a huge fan of counterbore lately, it was suggested to me and has been huge help.I can usually slow the game long enough to remand then counterbore their counterspell when they just recast it backed by a dispel.
I also am using 3 part the waterveil now with two walk the aeons because I like the buyback.
Love seeing all the diffrent builds,goodluck.
primer under construction - ~Purk and ~xenob8
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As a Turns player, you aim to win games by quickly chaining multiple 'extra turn' spells together, building up a critical advantage of land-drops and spells until a significant win-condition can be utilised. Your ideal game will play out as follows - disrupt for the first three or so turns, denying mana or resources to your opponent, then at an opportune moment (with a heavily slowed opponent), flash in Dictate of Kruphix, untap for your turn and "go off", never letting your opponent take another turn. The safest and quickest way to win is by casting an awakened Part The Waterveil, although some players favour other methods.
Time Warp, Temporal Mastery, Walk the Aeons, Temporal Trespass, Part the Waterveil; these cards are your bread and butter, and the entire deck is built around the goal of playing them one-after-another, without your opponent being able to interact. You run Dictate of Kruphix and can run Howling Mine (your "Mine Effects") as a way to leverage these extra turns (increasing your chances of drawing more 'turn' spells and hitting your land drops), and you play an array of disruptive early-game effects in order to facilitate the strategy, such as Exhaustion and Gigadrowse, which buy you time and resources to take over the game. Familiar favourites such as Snapcaster Mage, Remand and Cryptic Command make an appearance as well, offering power and versatility during the course of the game.
The deck wins extremely quickly if not interacted with significantly, but can be forced to "play out" against disruptive decks, which lengthens the clock. In its current guise, the deck is not prone to going to time, and matches can be over in as little as 15 minutes, with an average match-length closer to 35 minutes. Our best matchups are uninteractive creature strategies and go-big mana decks such as Bant Eldrazi, Dredge, Melira Collected Company, Elves, Tron, Death Cloud, Scapeshift, Breach Titan and so on. Our poorer matchups are mostly limited to Affinity, Jund (because of heavy discard), Ad Nauseam and Delver. Aggressive 'pump' strategies such as Infect can be challenging but are winnable, especially with powerful sideboard options. See the MATCHUPS section for a more detailed appraisal & more decks discussed.
With the addition of this card, the deck became more streamlined, much faster, more competitive, and didn't necessarily have to give up any 'extra turn' slots in order to run a win condition. Your extra turn spells became the win condition. Now, with a building community and a dedicated core of competitive testers, the deck is entering a new era. Welcome... to Taking Turns
Decklists are varied for this archetype, but there is general agreement about the importance and prioritising of certain core cards.
The decks listed below are meant as a rough starting point, as Modern is a changing beast & nothing stays relevant for too long. I will include a small selection of different versions, starting with the oldest first, to provide context.
Mono U lists
4 Time Warp
4 Temporal Mastery
3 Part the Waterveil
Mines
4 Dictate of Kruphix
2 Howling Mine
Card Draw
4 Serum Visions
4 Remand
3 Cryptic Command
4 Gigadrowse
3 Exhaustion
2 Snapcaster Mage
Lands
20 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
1 Inkmoth Nexus
3 Thing in the Ice
3 Spreading Seas
3 Spellskite
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Ceremonious Rejection
20 Snow-Covered Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Gemstone Caverns
Creatures (2):
2 Snapcaster Mage
Artifacts (3):
3 Howling Mine
Enchantments (4):
4 Dictate of Kruphix
3 Cryptic Command
4 Remand
3 Gigadrowse
Sorceries (17):
4 Time Warp
4 Serum Visions
3 Exhaustion
3 Part the Waterveil
3 Temporal Mastery
2 Dismember
2 Dispel
2 Spellskite
2 Commandeer
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spell Pierce
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Part the Waterveil
4 Temporal Mastery
3 Exhaustion
4 Time Warp
4 Serum Visions
2 Telling Time
2 Cryptic Command
3 Gigadrowse
4 Remand
4 Dictate of Kruphix
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Inkmoth Nexus
22 Island
1 Gigadrowse
1 Exhaustion
3 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Pithing Needle
1 Elixir of Immortality
2 Swan Song
2 Thing in the Ice
3 Early Frost
17 island
1 oboro, palace in the clouds
1 minamo, school at water's edge
1 mikokoro, center of the sea
1 geier reach sanitarium
1 gemstone caverns
1 nephalia academy
warps: 12
4 time warp
4 temporal mastery
1 walk the aeons
1 temporal trespass
2 part the waterveil
4 dictate of kruphix
1 howling mine
1 jace beleren
creature: 1
1 emrakul, the aeons torn
tempo and control: 18
4 serum visions
4 gigadrowse
2 remand
2 boomerang
1 unsubstantiate
3 exhaustion
2 cryptic command
1 vendilion clique
3 thing in the ice
1 snapcaster mage
3 chalice of the void
3 leyline of the void
3 hurkyl's recall
1 redirect
4 Time Warp
4 Temporal Mastery
1 Part the Waterveil
2 Walk the Aeons
Mines
4 Dictate of Kruphix
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Thing in The Ice
4 Serum Visions
3 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
Interaction
3 Gigadrowse
3 Exhaustion
20 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
1 Inkmoth Nexus
9x Island
4x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Steam Vents
3x Sulfur Falls
1x Cascade Bluffs
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
splash 11
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Blood Moon
4x Dictate of Kruphix
1x Howling Mine
warps 10
4x Temporal Mastery
4x Time Warp
2x Part the Waterveil
interaction 11
2x Cryptic Command
3x Remand
2x Exhaustion
4x Serum Visions
1x Platinum Emperion
4x Madcap Experiment
1 Cascade Bluffs
4 Flooded Strand
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Inkmoth Nexus
9 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
2 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
Creatures:1
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Gigadrowse
4 Serum Visions
3 Remand
4 Dictate of Kruphix
4 Exhaustion
2 Cryptic Command
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Time Warp
3 Part the Waterveil
4 Temporal Mastery
3 Thing in the Ice
1 Keranos, God of Storms
2 Dispel
1 Spell Pierce
1 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Negate
3 Pyroclasm
1 Counterflux
1 Flooded Strand
2 Steam Vents
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
4 Sulfur Falls
1 Mountain
8 Island
Engine
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Wheel of Fate
2 Day's Undoing
4 As Foretold
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Other spells
4 Serum Visions
4 Telling Time
2 Cryptic Command
4 Exhaustion
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Time Warp
2 By Force
1 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pyroclasm
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Echoing Truth
2 Thing in the Ice
1 Vendilion Clique
4x gigadrowse
3x exhaustion
4x remand
2x cryptic command
Turn Leverage (7):
3x thing in the ice
4x dictate of kruphix
Consistency & setup (6):
2x snapcaster mage
4x serum visions
Turns (11):
4x time warp
4x temporal mastery
3x part the waterveil
4x flooded strand
1x gemstone caverns
1x inkmoth nexus
1x mikokoro, center of the sea
1x oboro, palace in the clouds
1x mystic gate
3x prairie stream
2x hallowed fountain
9x island
1x rest in peace
2x stony silence
3x chalice of the void
2x engineered explosives
2x supreme verdict
3x leyline of sanctity
2x hurkyll's recall (flex spot)
4 Forest
4 Island
3 Breeding Pool
1 Faerie Conclave
2 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Temple Garden
1 Treetop Village
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Creatures (11)
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Jace Beleren
2 Narset Transcendent
2 Nissa, Steward of Elements
Spells (19)
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Cryptic Command
1 Fog
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Seasons Past
2 Serum Visions
4 Time Warp
3 Walk the Aeons
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Rest in Peace
3 Rule of Law
3 Spreading Seas
2 Stony Silence
1 Celestial Purge
1 Fog
1 Gigadrowse
currently adding more cards, as well as more detailed uses of specific key cards - thanks for your patience! ~Purk
Some singleton card choices in this deck may seem counter-intuitive, and that's for an important reason. The deck doesn't have any "unwinnable" matchups, and if able to combo off, we are able to beat any deck, apart from a couple of corner-cases. As a result, many of the choices you'll see (such as 1x Inkmoth Nexus in nearly every competitive list) are simply a case of "running the numbers" and figuring out what we can't beat when given the opportunity to combo off. Infinite Life, for example, is one of these fail states that we try to 'fix' with a spicy singleton, and it works. We also run the numbers on specific hate cards, as you'll see. Read on...
Extra Turn Spells
Disruption
'Leverage' Cards - used to take advantage of your extra turns
PROS:
- if suspended on turn 1, Vision can most likely set you up for the rest of the game, and does so without further mana investment. Howling Mine is already a tough-but-mostly-necessary include in the deck, and with the right draws, Vision can be better than Mine, giving you 3-turns worth of mine triggers at once (if you have the disruption to survive long enough)
- Vision triggers Thing in the Ice and draws you into more ways to protect it. As a result, it might be significantly better in a list running Thing.
- unlike Howling Mine, it's a one-sided effect.
- if suspended on turn 1 vs. a Mine cast on turn 2, Vision represents 14 cards drawn when it comes off suspend on turn 5, vs. 14 cards drawn with a turn 2 Mine (and 3 cards for your opponent). The one-sided effect makes it better on paper (if suspended on turn 1).
- we are uniquely able to take advantage of the delay imposed by the suspend cost, because of all our resource/turn denial spells.
- Vision is really good against one of our toughest matchups in GBx decks such as Jund, because they are fairly slow decks, and can't remove it with Abrupt Decay. the four cards you draw on your 5th turn (from a turn 1 suspend) could be as good as game against an already-disrupted Jund player.
CONS:
- Turn 5 is the earliest you can get any cards from Vision. This is quite slow, even though we do play plenty of disruption. If you aren't able to suspend Vision on turn 1, however, the advantage gained from running this spell diminishes considerably.
- Vision doesn't help you as directly if suspended mid-chain while taking a series of extra turns. The delay means that you suffer an increased chance of fizzling, and is very relevant.
- Vision is a great card to hit on turn 1, but considerably worse afterwards. It's also notably awful on turn 2, cutting you off Remand, which is a key part of disrupting the early game.
- Vision is a one-shot effect, and doesn't snowball with a series of chained turns.
- Visions can be countered when it comes off suspend, and is useless against Chalice on 0 (worth mentioning due to the Eldrazi Tron decks running around). Howling Mine can also be countered, but you're more likely to drop a mine later in the game when you've got backup or mid-chain (for instance after casting a miracled Temporal Mastery. This, plus the highly visible "here comes the spell" suspend mechanic, makes Visions more susceptible to disruption generally.
- Vision doesn't help you get to the late-game, it only helps once you've got there. Many decks can kill as early as turn 2, but more reasonably turn 4 or 5 with some mild disruption. If your hand doesn't include enough early disruption and your opponent is able to win before Vision comes off suspend, Vision is effectively a completely dead card. Alternatives such as Mine or Thing at least offer some quicker advantage, even if they are susceptible to creature or permanent removal.
- topdecking more than one Vision is pretty terrible.
- even though it's a Sorcery, it can't be flashed back with snapcaster mage (neither can Mine, obviously, but it's worth mentioning)
The jury is out on Vision. A couple of players swear by the card, although most are wary of the "does nothing before turn 5 if you're lucky" one-shot draw spell. I personally would like to test the card more, due to having had poor experiences of Howling Mine in the last six months. It's one of the tougher calls in terms of building the deck, for certain. This will necessarily have to be a crowd-sourced conclusion, and I can't offer a definitive 'no' or 'yes' for the card (although the general feeling among players is currently in the 'no' pile, for what it's worth)
Consistency and Setup Cards
Lands
Creatures
Latest Set cards
pro
A flash flyer with a 3/1 body could be a very good ambusher and could be cute as a wincondition.
Cycling an ability is a rare effect but it is very powerful since it shuts down fetches, walkers and a lot of other cards in the tier 1 decks (mostly eldrazi affinity storm abzan and dredge)
contro
2U for casting is a bit too much. maybe in foretold turns there is more free mana and could work?
2U for cycle is again a bit too much.
we already have dictates and exhaustions in the 3 cmc spot and these are more important for us
pro
3/3 with Flying for 2 mana is efficient, works as a decent finisher and sometimes as a good blocker
Dodges removal
2U for a scry is costly but in late game could work
contro
it is too much a win more card and we can have better win conditions. But for the same cmc thing in the ice provides more value to us anyway..
pro
it has a good versality, and in a deck like turns we often have a lot of cards stuck in hand doing nothing so we should really be able to gain the most from this card
contro
very high cmc for what it does. maybe in baral builds?
pro
Copying extra turns spell is always fun
interesting art, should look nice in foil
contro
6U is just a lot. Probably UG/bant builds that ramp to good amount of mana and some of them have infinite combos could like this enchant ?
pro
one mana 0/4 body is so good! kraken hatchling was played in the past as an early blocker
even if we don't gain great amounts of life points from him even 2 or 3 are probably enough since it happens we lose for just a couple LP to survive a turn
contro
it isn't a powerful card but blocking and gaining some life points is good enough probably. doesn't really have contros
Amonket
pro
very efficient creature to close games, four swings that can start as soon as we are able to chain turns and have 7 cards in hand, very easy condition to get since we have a very strong draw power and we can go back to 5-6 cards in second main and we don't suffer him losing block ability because we will get another turn right after
only answered by Liliana of the Veil, path to exile and dismember
contro
doesn't impact the board early game, having it in the board and not able to defend us sucks a lot.
4 mana: draw 1 isn't good
takes slots we don't really have
pro
Strong card for sure, helps cheat in game mines and other cards. chaining a lot of extra turns means we can get it to a great number of time counters
Ancestral Vision interaction:
we can cast for free an Ancestal Vision with As Foretold the very same turn we get in the board. if someone wants to do that then should also cut snapcaster (bad thing) and include flip jace, since Jace, Telepath Unbound lets you cast AV from graveyeard. so the new engine(cutting dictates since we can cast 8 AVs) becomes:
4 ancestral visions
3-4 thing in the ice
3-4 as foretold
3-4 jace, vryn's prodigy - jace, telepath unbound
contro
since we get a lot of mana we don't really need it. we can simply play what we have. and mastery is enough to cheat things into play
early game with low time counters it will get us only serum visions and a free counter we don't care if it is free or not
"new engine" opens us to creature hate, graveyeard hate, cotv from eldrazitron ( a tier 1 deck and also we can't play it at 0 against a lot of decks)
"new engine" takes a lot more slots than 7 mines effect.
pro
can hit uncounterable cards (abrupt decay for example) and helps protecting mines. we can get protection for up to two turns with that or we can counter something and negate the possibility to cast a card with a different name aswell
compy can help A LOT to stop opponent plan in a lot of different ways and can be very difficult to play around it
another card that interacts well with gigadrowse
contro
doesn't have the versatility of unsubstantiate, since hits only spells on the stack and not creatures
doesn't draw a card like remand, and this is quite important
opens to graveyeard hate
Early-Mid-Late Game and Mulligans
Mulliganing:
- hitting your land drops, with U mana sources early on (to enable maximum Gigadrowse)
- drawing a leverage effect by turn 4 (so you can cast one on turn 4). we tend to run about 7 of these (regardless of which build you go for), so your chances are good.
- having some disruption/resource-denial in your opener. You have effectively 12 of these effects (or should do) so you can usually rely on drawing one, and it makes mulligans reasonable as well.
- It's not necessary to have any 'turn' spells in your opening hand - it's often better when you don't. Out of all of them, the most reasonable one to have in your opening hand is Time Warp itself, as its base-cost is the lowest and so can be cast the earliest.
- if opener is weak on any of the above, Serum Visions is great at plugging the gaps and can get you there, as well as set up Temporal Mastery (remember, if you see a mastery from a turn-1 visions scry, put it as the second card down, otherwise you won't have the mana available to miracle it!)
Mulligans are highly important for Turns, and thankfully the deck mulligans well, as a rule. However, as with any competitive strategy, there are hidden depths to whether a poor mulligan choice actually ended up being the cause for a loss or a win, and becoming a better player with Turn relies on you being fiercely analytical with your pre-game choices. There are no shortcuts here; I can tell you what cards to prioritise (and you should look at the section on matchups) but the power of the deck comes mainly from a player's ability to foresee lines of play, and act with a sort of 'muscle memory' and familiarity that comes only with experience. This is true for mulligans, and I advise you when playtesting with fellow players to write down or photograph your choices, or show your mulls/keeps to your opponents and discuss them. Many people try to play at home or casually as if they were in a competitive arena, and sometimes that's viable, but you learn far more if you are open about your choices and discuss the optimal lines of play when you have the opportunity - in a real competitive arena, you don't have that luxury.
Here's a rough ranked order of cards you want to see in your opening hand:
1) Island (or U source): We absolutely need to hit those U sources early, so we can start Gigadrowse-ing or Serum Visions-ing as early as we can. We also need to be able to play a land drop for every turn we disrupt our opponents. An ideal hand for us probably has 3+ lands and the rest early interaction.
2) (on the play) Exhaustion: on average, against a metagame comprising a mix of go-wide aggro and GBx Midrange, Exhaustion is better than Gigadrowse.
2) (on the draw) Gigadrowse: on the draw, you can gigadrowse your opponent's first land on their second turn. This small loss of 1 mana on turn 2 can be enough to set them back a whole turn. Against decks like Jund, Burning-Tree Emissary zoo, Cheeri0s and similar, this is very important!
3) Remand (either on the play or draw): we all know remand gets worse on the draw, but against most decks in modern it's still a viable speedbump before you combo off. I like to see them in my opening hand because at their very worst, they force our opponents to use their mana badly while drawing us a card. At their best, they set our opponent back an entire turn while drawing us towards what we need, giving us land drops and time while our opponent struggles to execute their game-plan. Niche but cool; can even trigger miracle on Temporal Mastery in our opponent's turn.
4) Dictate of Kruphix (or some other leverage card): Assuming you've got some early interaction, this is essentially your "i win" card & you want to see one early. Turn 4 by the latest, but in the opening hand is a great way to start the game. Cards like Thing in the Ice tend to be (just from experience) played better early.
5) Cryptic Command: It's basically as good as Time Warp most of the time, and sometimes better, and it's 1 cheaper. I'm never upset to see one of these in my opening hands, but more than one can be iffy unless I have the disruption to get me there.
6) Serum Visions: This card fixes a multitude of problems, and sets up miracle very effectively. It's an ideal opening-hand card because whatever piece you're missing, it digs 3-cards deeper towards it. There are times (against fast zoo and burn decks) when we don't have time to sculpt our hands much, but even in those situations, Serum digs us closer to cards like Exhaustion which stall and set our opponents back while you develop your mana and draw disruption. That said, it's lower on the priority list than the other cards mentioned above because they are the "action" cards, and this merely plugs the gaps if you are missing them. It's essential, and you'll always be happy to see one in your hand, but it's not what's going to ultimately win you the game.
honorable mention: Time Warp: This is just about acceptable as an opening hand card... maybe. In reality we just don't want to see them until turn 4 or so, and having them early opens us up to hand disruption quite badly. A good opponent will leave the Time Warp stranded in your hand, and take the leverage cards or powerful cheap disruption - doing this means they've taken your route to victory and also rendered that Time Warp temporarily useless, a net loss of 2 cards in-hand. unless I mentioned it before, discard is bad for us....
In terms of opening hands, you don't really care for much else. Multiples of your disruption spells are great.
Early Game
You may see where this is going. Turns can have serious issues with decks which do the following:
- place multiple threats on the board as early as turn 1 (Affinity, Emissary-Zoo)
- employ targeted discard followed by sizeable threats (Jund/Abzan)
- have a very quick clock via some other means (i.e. Infect and Burn)
With this basic context in mind, here's how we want to structure our first few turns:
Game 1 - unknown opponent
This is also a critical turn in terms of not dying. Many decks aim to win after you've taken this all-important turn, so if they have curiously left their mana up, it can mean a) they've got a terrible hand and you're doing fine or b) they are leaving up answers. Either is fine if you've got a Gigadrowse in hand, and they are really playing into your hands. Aggressive go-wide decks will be the test here, and this is where Exhaustion shows its value as a "proper" 3-mana extra turn spell, saving you damage and preventing an opponent from advancing their boardstate.
Game 2 - known opponent
Now you've played game 1, you'll have a good idea of what your opponent is up to. This can change your priorities:
on the play: turn 1 Serum Visions into Remand is still a fine play, and you'll have a better idea what to prioritise in terms of scry.
on the draw: it's not always correct, but using your turn 1 mana to gigadrowse their first land is a legitimate option. This is best done against opponents who rely on getting their one-drops down fast to enable quick and powerful turn 2 & 3 plays. Delaying them by a turn is great at this very early stage. Against decks like Scapeshift, hit them on turn 2 instead. It's matchup-dependant so be aware of an opponent's mana curve. A keen awareness of the composition of current Modern decks will help you a lot here and quite a few mistakes can be made by delaying your disruption (or disrupting too early!). As before, there are no real shortcuts here to learning this stuff, just play a lot and make notes if you can.
Mid-Game
This section will be fairly short, as there's only a couple of things to discuss here.
1) Generally wait to play Dictate of Kruphix until your fourth turn (wait until your opponent's end step). This not only denies them a draw, but also allows you to use your mana on turns 1-3 to safeguard your life total and stall your opponent, rather than give them unnecessary resources.
You cast it in the fourth turn (in opponent's EoT) because this enables you to draw your fifth land and cast Time Warp in order to start "going off". Even if you don't have the Time Warp, it allows you to untap in your turn and perform some serious disruption with your five mana, and normally from that point your opponent is under the lock.
Also, if you are playing against Jund/Abzan/discard decks, it can be correct to not only get the dictate out of your hand and onto the field (safe from being Thoughtseized, but also mitigate some of the lost cards in hand by aggressively drawing more, even if it means more for your opponent.
Finally, against blue control players, try to protect your dictates from being countered by responding when your opponents tap out, or by using Gigadrowse to force it through (gigadrowse in opponent's upkeep to deny them a turn or the countermagic, and then flash the dictate in during your own upkeep to get you the all-important extra draw to keep hitting those land drops. This can leave you with a tempo-loss but most of the time works out just fine, drawing you into more Exhaustions and Gigadrowses.
2) Use Cryptic Command fairly aggressively. We want to draw as many cards as quickly as possible, in order to assemble a lock on the game. Don't go wasting it on unimportant things, obviously, but anything aggressive, anything that's going to slow you down needs to get countered, even if it's a one-drop (I see you, Death's Shadow). Your aim is to assemble the pieces as quickly as possible, and while it's reassuring to hold up cryptic and feel safe, many times if your opponent doesn't really do anything, the right play is to just bounce one of their lands and draw a card in their end step. Experiment with this idea and get aggressive with it.
3) if you don't have a Time Warp, the assumption is that you've probably got one of the other turns in your hand instead. In this case, it's still normally correct to slam the dictate in your opponent's fourth turn end step, because at this stage in the game you'll most likely be desperately needing more disruption, and thankfully the kinds of disruption we play tend to stop our opponents from using the cards in their hand. And of course, sometimes you just get lucky and draw Time Warp, and all is right with the world.
1. UBx Shadow
2. Affinity
3. Burn
4. GWx Company
5. Dredge
6. Eldrazi Tron
7. BGx Death's Shadow
8. Gifts Storm
also other non tier 1 decks
Medium to Poor - 45%-55% game 1, 55%-45% game 2
Burn can be a fast deck. Thankfully we dodge Eidolon of the Great Revel rather well, and Remand is good against Rift Bolt, so there's some positives to the matchup. Burn are definitely favoured in game 1. Game 2, if we run cards like Timely Reinforcements and draw them, we are favoured. It's a bit of a sideboard battle and you need to be careful in managing your life total. Thing in the Ice is decent here being a good early blocker and saving some life. Remand, although quickly outclassed against other quick decks, is ok here because burn often functions on only a couple of lands (you still side it out though). Don't play any Mine effects until you need to, or have enough disruption that you can just carry the game longer with counterspells. Burn decks try to win with only the top 10 or 11 cards out of their entire deck. giving them more chances to draw extra lands and cast multiple burn spells a turn is not where you want to be. Cryptic, while four mana, is still serviceable in this matchup.
sideboarding:
- Remand
- some number of Cryptic Command (i'd still keep a couple in)
+ lifegain/blockers
+ dispel
+ Chalice of the Void
the matchup is fairly straightforward. be aware the burn player will often side in Destructive Revelry and side out their fairly useless Eidolons. You can afford to drop the maindeck counterpells because any lifegain or blockers (pseudo lifegain) acts as a "negate" for one or more of their burn spells.
lastly, block with Thing in the Ice and Snapcaster when you need to, but don't throw them away unnecessarily. When you turn the corner, you need to win really fast. no dilly-dallying otherwise they'll just topdeck bolts and kill you while you durdle.
Favourable - 60%-40% game 1, 65%-35% game 2
This is why we play Turns. Their high mana curve and one-spell-per-turn game plan means we can leverage our disruption very effectively. Wait until the turn they threaten to play a Thought-Knot Seer and then fire it off. Cavern of Souls makes Remand worse, but not all decks run it (Tron variants often don't), and they have to draw it. Cryptic Command is a de facto 'turn' here due to the tap ability. Thing in the Ice is brilliant, as they play very little in the way of removal. They also play very little in the way of hand disruption. Generally speaking, use your disruption judiciously to prevent a Thought-Knot Seer from hitting the board, and combo off without much effort.
Sideboarding:
- some number of remand against Cavern of Souls versions (i.e. Bant)
+ Supreme Verdict
+ Path to Exile
I wouldn't side in Spreading seas here & the reason is fairly straightforward. We aren't able to clock our opponent very quickly, so it's more beneficial to us to bring in big 2-for-1s or hard removal, than light disruption. We already have all the disruption we need in the form of mana denial.
be very aware of bant opponents bringing in spell pierce, stubborn denial or negate. Play around it if possible!
Poor - 40%-60% game 1, 35%-65% game 2
Jund, Abzan and similar discard-themed midrange decks are poor matchups because of discard. Discard is bad for us because of the sort of mana-curve we play in our deck (very high). A good player will often take your cheap spells and leave you with more expensive warps stuck in your hand. The net result of this is that you've lost a card and the more expensive cards are now rendered temporarily useless as well. Thankfully Remand is decent here & Dictate and Howling Mine are good antidotes to this issue. I'd suggest attempting to stick a mine effect as early as you can against these decks, and/or hold up Remand for Liliana of the Veil wherever possible. They often only play one or two maindeck ways to remove your noncreature permanents and around 6 discard spells on average across all builds. Not only will sticking a mine effect protect it from being discarded, it will also ensure that you hit your land drops and get into combo-territory on time. You'll out-draw your opponent in terms of spells vs. their disruptive effects. Try to side in any 2-for-1 effects and remove disruption that's card-disadvantage.
sideboarding:
- Thing in the ice if your opponent saw it game 1 (removal magnet)
- Gigadrowse (too much card disadvantage against decks that play tonnes of 1 drops)
+ sweepers (e.g. engineered explosives, supreme verdict)
+ anything that draws cards & disrupts (i.e. spreading seas)
general idea: reduce vulnerability to removal (even though they will side some of it out) and be more careful before awakening your lands. If you can protect them with counters or keeping your opponent tapped out, do.
These matchups are winnable but you have to play tightly and hope your opponent doesn't see many discard spells.
Upcoming:
- Jace unbanning 101
- More matchup discussion
- New cards from latest packs discussion
Latest changes:
- pixeleen quote for some matchups added in the relative discussion section
- Hour of Devastation interesting spoilers are now in the deck choice section
- Updated broken pictures
- Added different cards in the card choice section
- Subsection in "card choice" for creatures added!
- Amonkhet interesting spoilers are now in the deck choice section
- Subsection in "card choice" for interesting cards spoilered in the latest set added
- Slightly adjusted the matchup section in order to focus on tier 1 decks (for now)
- Foretold Turns and Bant turns added in the decklist section!
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
also 150 pages were a bit too much to read for new players, it is good to start here from 0
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
You ought to visit the Mono U tron primer.
Anyway good luck/job with the new primer, looking forward to it! Hopefully it'll include the aether revolt options like Baral.
Last night i x-0 My local tuesday Modern with UB Turns. (sorry im bad at describing anything past basic..)
Round 1: Grixis (g1 got him to counter my eot dictate, exhaustion into infinte turns won game), g2 (bring in all the hand hate and get there)
Round 2: Esper Tokens (easy games easy life)
Round 3: Tron (g1 he had t5 tron, to slow: g2, negate his t3 karn, into exhaustion, into cryptic, into combo ftw)
Round 4: Lantern control (first game he drew bad, g2 he got me, g3 was a grind to finish)
Played vs some burn/infect decks for fun: g1 was a grind, Once sideboard comes in you walk into heaven between chalice/brutality they can't get anything to stick and you stay just high enough to live
List, the point is to hit t5 and go infinite, killing with either brutality/awaken land, or chain cryptic to bounce everything back to their hand and since you have infinite turns who cars about how much life they have. Also Hidden MVP's Chalice (t2 gg burn/zoo/infect), Boseiju (gets there vs the long control counter mu's)
4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
2x Watery Grave
2x Sunken Hollow
2x creeping tar pit
2x Boseiju, who shelters all
2x Ghost quarter
1x Reliquary tower
4x Island
2x Swamp
Spells-37
4x Serum Visions
4x Time warp
3x Part the waterveil
3x Temporal mastery
2x Beacon of tomorrows
2x walk the aeons
3x Fatal Push
3x collective brutality
3x Dictate of kruphix
2x Howling mine
3x Exhaustion
2x Cryptic Command
2x Devastation tide
1x Elixir of immortality
3x Leyline of sanctity
3x Thoughtseize
3x Chalice of the void
2x Negate
2x Damnation
2x Relic of progenitus
Standard
BUG SuperFriends
Modern
RWGKiki's CastleRWG
UB Turns UB
GRBU HulkBreach GRBU
Legacy
GRWBNic-ShiftGRWB
Swan Song I have found to be bad against Burn even though it's a cool combo with TiTi. Even Spell Snare I have discovered is not where you want to be. Going 1 for 1 is just not good enough, you have to focus on getting your engines out early into more impactful spells like Exhaustion. Howling Mine and TiTi are good, and if you can pretty much lock them out starting on turn 3 sometimes you can win. Chalice wasn't that great for me but a lot of people like it so I might test it again.
@aggrosdemise that's a cool list I might try it out even though I like the straightforwardness of monoU.
i kinda made it "functional" and with functional i mean it sort of plays his turns, goldfishing, with a deck of all island and mines(that are cheated in play without spending mana) and without discarding to 7 at the end of the turn. and all of this is done badly, maybe something is wrong with the order of the action, and obviously even the final version of the script is not intended to be a simulator but just a goldfish so it is easier to visualize how many times mastery can be miracled.
i have a question for all of you! how many mines do you usually stick on board if you want to combo a lot? in my script i used 3 as a max value for now
by the way here it is a first out put with the turn implementation:
Deck after shuffling is:
island mine island mine island island island island island island mine mastery island mine island island island island mine mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island mine island
First seven cards in hand are:
island mine island mine island island island
this is the turn number 2
cards i am drawing this turn: island
new hand is:
island mine island mine island island island island
i added a mine effect!
i will draw 2 cards next turn
this is the turn number 3
cards i am drawing this turn: island island
new hand is:
island null island mine island island island island island island
i added a mine effect!
i will draw 3 cards next turn
this is the turn number 4
cards i am drawing this turn: mine mastery island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island mine mastery island
i added a mine effect!
i will draw 4 cards next turn - Max limit reached
this is the turn number 5
cards i am drawing this turn: mine island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island mine island island island
i added a mine effect! ignore this message, max mine count is 4
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 6
cards i am drawing this turn: island mine mastery mastery
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island mine mastery mastery
i added a mine effect! ignore this message, max mine count is 4
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 7
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 8
cards i am drawing this turn: island island mastery island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 9
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 10
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 11
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 12
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 13
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 14
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 15
cards i am drawing this turn: island island island island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island
i will draw 4 cards next turn
this is the turn number 16
cards i am drawing this turn: island mine island
new hand is:
island null island null island island island island island island null mastery island null island island island island null mastery mastery island island island island island island mastery island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island island mine island
i added a mine effect! ignore this message, max mine count is 4
i will draw 4 cards next turn
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
#1 Infect - Dismember and Chalice are good but this is just always going to be a bad matchup. The good news is that at least on MTGO the deck has completely vanished. My meta still has a couple infect players but maybe the deck will eventually go the way of the Dodo in paper too.
#2 Burn - I've come to the conclusion that this will pretty much always be unfavorable too. I have extensively tested with both Mono Blue and UW with 3 Timely Reinforcements and 4 Leyline of Sanctity in the side. That SB plan probably brings it from 20-80 to 40-60 at best but you have to remember that they have Destructive Revelry and Smash to Smithereens making our life miserable. Timely generally buys you exactly one turn so it's pretty much on par with Exhaustion. Leyline is inconsistent but sometimes great if they have a creature-light draw. Otherwise pretty bad actually as Atarka's Command doesn't care and Boros Charm can do double strike.
My current SB plan of the 4th Exhaustion, 3 Thing in the Ice and 3 Redirect are almost as good as the white splash IMO so it's good enough for me to stay mono Blue.
One last thing: Chalice of the Void is NOT GOOD ENOUGH vs. Burn, after testing 3 in SB of MonoU. I'd wager it improves the matchup only a couple of percentage points if at all. It's too slow and can be removed and played around too easily.
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
glad to hear that! take your time, i'm sure you will do a great job with the primer
i have other news with my script if you(or anyone) is interested!
i implemented a counter for how many times temporal mastery is miracled!
temporal mastery was miracled 91 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 100 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 93 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 86 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 89 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 86 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 106 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 95 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 95 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 102 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 144 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 119 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 114 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 113 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 125 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 131 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 152 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 132 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 138 times in 100 games
temporal mastery was miracled 128 times in 100 games
KEEP IN MIND this cheats everything in play without spending mana, doesn't discard to 7 EOTemiracles temporal mastery even if it is the first card you draw in the game and you don't have lands lol i'll implement soon a mana counter and a cmc cost for the cards, shouldn't be difficult. next step after that will be adding serum vision, which improves a lot the miracles. last will be create a function for every card in the deck and try to see where that goes
still, it's something i'm working on and will help the "temporal mastery yes or no debate" i hope
ps likely serum vision and the mana count will compensate each other and final results I ASSUME will be similar to this
playing 4 or 3 temporal mastery means we basically go vintage with time walk in modern once each game during the combo PLUS sometimes a turn 3 miracled mastery wins us the game... and the average cmc of temporal mastery becomes less than 6
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
i'm copying my list from the old thread and i explain it here, maybe can help some new mono u players
i think it would be cool if everyone tries to do that and keep it updated and linked in the signature for other turns players
17 island
1 mikokoro, center of the sea
1 geier reach sanitarium
1 oboro, palace in the clouds
1 minamo, school at water's edge
1 gemstone caverns
1 inkmoth nexus
12 warps:
4 time warp
4 temporal mastery
1 walk the aeons
1 temporal trespass
2 part the waterveil
4 dictate of kruphix
1 howling mine
1 jace beleren
18 tempo and control:
4 serum visions
4 gigadrowse
2 remand
2 boomerang
1 unsubstantiate
3 exhaustion
2 cryptic command
1 creature:
1 emrakul, the aeons torn
1 vendilion clique
1 thing in the ice
1 snapcaster mage
1 baral, chief of compliance
4 chalice of the void
3 hurkyl's recall
1 relic of progenitus
1 redirect
1 commandeer
1 flex slots
1 emrakul is here to reshuffle the deck with sanitarium and sometimes to just be dropped on the board and win with it. also it is a easy card to side out. you aren't pro if you don't have 1 or 2 easy flex spot
23 lands:
17 island, stock basic lands
1 mikokoro, center of the sea
1 geier reach sanitarium
these work as mine effects 7-8
1 oboro, palace in the clouds
1 minamo, school at water's edge
against chokes and boils, minamo can also provide some shenanigans with mikokoro/sanitarium
1 gemstone caverns
we are mono U, having another <> resource could be bad for gigadrowse yep but it is worth it when it happens
1 inkmoth nexus
additional wincondition against infinite life. two turn clock when animated with ptw. could be 4 turns if you swing 3 times as a 1/1 and then once as a 7/7
12 warps:
4 time warp
4 temporal mastery
1 walk the aeons
1 temporal trespass
2 part the waterveil
so the right number of warps imho is 12. i can see it go down to 11 in some lists.. super fine! i just play 12 to be sure the chain doesn't stop and because i kinda "need" all the additional effects.
4 warps because it is the better we have
4 temporal mastery because the miracle cost helps winning unwinnable maches + lets us play additional mines mid combo or stack extra turns.
2 part the waterveil, wincondition, the full 4x imho it is too much. ptw should be a 2x or a 3x. with 2x it happens every now and then to burn both before animating a lands
1 walk the aeons, i really really like it, helped me so many times with the buyback for a final attack or to get another turn right after it i simply wanna keep it. even as a 1x provides a lot of value. don't understimate it
1 temporal trespass, still in testing, usually it is casted around 6 or 7 mana, sometimes less, other more. doesn't get stuck in hand that often since it is only 1x. i play it because i usually reshuffle the deck if i have to go the jace+emrakul way and with trespass i can exile cards i don't wanna draw anymore. advanced tech here and it works
6 mine effects:
4 dictate of kruphix
1 howling mine
1 jace beleren
soo everyone is running 4x dictate and nothing else. i get it. it's fine.
i think 6 mines effect is the right number to almost always get one in the first turns and go off with more security.. actually i so want to be sure about that i play 8 if we consider mikokoro and sanitarium.
obviously 4 dictate because flashing it EOT or during a upkeep is very strong
i also want to play all the different mines possible. this because i really fear extraction effects against our mines... i think i won through extractions against win cons, against extra turns spells, but not against dictate when i was running only mikokoro + 4 dictate. so went up on them and even if i get an extirpate on dictate i have 4 other mines (mikokoro sanitarium jace howling mine)
1 howling mine, as dictate number 5
1 jace, a mine n° 6 and a win con against infinite life, can mill and can make the opponent draw all the deck if it has eldrazi in his 60s (it happens more now with nahiri+emrakul)
18 tempo and control:
4 serum visions
4 gigadrowse
2 remand
2 boomerang
1 unsubstantiate
3 exhaustion
2 cryptic command
curve here without the warps is
8 cards with 1 cmc
5 cards with 2 cmc
3 cards with 3 cmc
2 cards with 4 cmc
fibonacci (2-3-5-8) for the win. ahah
win cons are:
milling with jace
animated land
inkmoth nexus
emrakul
transformational side
jace, emrakul, trespass are also usually slots for siding in
snapcaster mage
thing in the ice
vendilion clique
baral, chief of compliance
so i can go creatureless game 1 and when they side out removal i can be more chill playing creatures
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
win conditions is not what the deck needs.. you can even win with hedron alignment, if you are comboing you win. problem is how to get there
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
I'm torn on that because T2 Mine into T3 Exhaustion is one of the best things you can be doing against Burn, but Smash to Smithereens is pretty brutal. Overall TiTi is probably where you want to be over Mine.
Giving cards to burn is never good.. Strongest play i can remember was serum vision, cotv at 1, exhaustion, cotv at 2, Miracled mastery plus dictate and went off right after. Damn that was SO Good.
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Thalia and Burn gets far easier,keep hitting their plains with spreading seas/sea's claim and bounce there creatures or plains with boomerang, exhaustion keeps them tapped when they do get to do anything.I also side in two dragon's claw.
Lantern wrecks me though.That is a match up I'm stumped on.Seas package is usless,hurkyl's recall only buys a turn and gets extracted.I try siding in two elixir of immortality but I never get it.Boomerang slows them a bit.
Mono U Tron is a pain,they can go the distance and keeping them off tron isn't enough,wurmcoil,angel,titan are all one of's so counterbore isn't as effective,and they have lots of counterspells.
RG/UW tron are easy,shut down lands,exhaust and counter karns and wurmcoils.
Jund I agree is also easy peasy,bounce goyfs and counter lily's.
Valakut is another one I hate,its possible but your counterspells need to be saved for when they go off. Counterbore on scapeshift is huge,getting the titan too is an auto scoop.
I'm a huge fan of counterbore lately, it was suggested to me and has been huge help.I can usually slow the game long enough to remand then counterbore their counterspell when they just recast it backed by a dispel.
I also am using 3 part the waterveil now with two walk the aeons because I like the buyback.
Love seeing all the diffrent builds,goodluck.