I can see Dig Through Time eventually being a 4-of in control builds similar to the way Sphinx's Revelation was. It will be less powerful late-game than revelation (though probably not needing to delve to cast at that point), but more useful mid-game to find a wrath or the right answer.
I actually disagree about it being that similar to Sphinx Revelation....
I mean, late game, if your deck doesn't care about graveyard you'll be able to cast this for just UU
look 7 cards, choose 2 and gain a card advantage of 1....
also, as it's late game, you'll be able to actually cast one of those 2 cards if it's an instant.
for revelation to give +1 card advantage, it costs 2WUU, nets you 2 life, and doesn't let you choose anything, it just draws 2 cards and that's all.
This card gives an absurd amount of tempo if you actually have a bunch of cards in the graveyard to Delve it's cost to UU.
It may be actually MORE powerful than Sphinx's Revelation in a vast amount of time.
Yes... I do.
and I don't remember even one limited format where I'd love to have a vanilla 4/4 for 6 mana (and right now there are no "artifact matters" theme, thus being an artifact is, in fact, a minor drawback... colorless mana won't be much of an advantage in a format that will need to enable fixing for 3 colors in limited)
sure, you'll play this if there are no better options, but if you're really hoping to win anything with a limited deck that will play this over a swamp, you're probably out of luck
this card is one of those horribly designed cards that only serves the purpose of "bad cards need to exist so good cards are actually good."
I mean, it's not interesting enough for Jhonny, it's not powerful enough for Spike, it's not big enough for Timmy....
not nearly powerful enough for any constructed competitive format
not even one interesting effect one would like to abuse somehow, even in a weird casual deck.
and underwhelming for limited....
card is plain bad no matter how you look at it.
this is sad.
How exactly does that work? It feels like there should be a good loop in there somewhere but I can't figure it out. I always end up with either Parallax Wave gone for good or all my opponents' stuff brought back.
Like... exile five creatures with Wave and respond by exiling Wave itself with Mangara... everything ends up exiled, including Wave and Mangara. A 5-for-2 is nice, but I was hoping for more.
Or... exile five creatures with Wave and then exile Wave with Relic Warder... everything comes back except my Wave.
Compare with the Opalesence + Parallax Wave combo... you have Wave exile itself and in response exile a creature (or four)... creature(s) gone but Wave comes back ready to do it again. You can repeat this process to wipe everyone's board. It's even fairly resistant to removal since you can just have Wave exile itself in response.
wave by itself is a pretty versatile and strong control card.
with Venser, you can basically blink 5 of your dudes each turn instead of 1.
with Mangara you can either exile something and hit Mangara with Wave in response before blinking wave or do what you said and exile 5 dudes for good, or do both.... exiling 4 of their dudes while keeping Mangara.
with Leonin Relic-Warder and Fiend Hunter though, it really shines.
1 - exile Leonin with Fiend
2 - target 1 of their dudes with wave
3 - target fiend hunter in response with wave
4 - target 1 of your dudes you want to blink with wave
5 - your dude from 4 is exiled
6 - fiend hunter is exiled
7 - leonin comes back, target wave with it.
8 - wave is exiled, your dude from 4 and fiend hunter comes back, target fiend hunter with leonin.
9 - wave comes back with 5 counters.
10 - 2 resolves and exiles their guy for good.
11 - start over.
it's pretty much the same as the Opalescence combo, but it plays better in lots of decks because Relic Warder and Fiend Hunter are generally superior to Opalescence save in very specific builds.
still, if you're building a blink deck, Parallax Wave is your best friend, it wins soooo much tempo it`s not funny.
I definitely don't want to go Repercussion route; I've abused it plenty in our games.
Besides, it's often a fairly limited deck. I don't understand how Repercussion stacks with cards like Boros Reckoner--you'll kill yourself (same with Hunted Dragon). I hear this often; I guess I'm missing the point.
I believe you need to use cards that (1) have something like Protection-Red or (2) have a replacement effect (see something like Phytohydra) for it to work well. Unfortunately, there isn't a boatload of those creatures to abuse. tich/prid3 has it close to spot-on in my mind in his Red guide with how to abuse Blasp. Act/Repurcussion.
And Swans is super cute, but what's the point of drawing 13 cards again? You looking for more Blasphemous Acts or something?
In my meta, where you generally only have to take out 2 opponents, this strategy, whereby you use cards like Boros Reckoner or Mogg Maniac with Blasp. Act, yeah, you can torch a single opponent and, perhaps, it's not too bad to bomb two people. But in a game where you have to take out 3+ people, I don't understand this. You'll start running out of cards after you bomb a player or two (because you'll generally lose your creatures as well). It's a very weak strategy in a large MP game.
with repercussion, it`s insanely strong in multiplayer games... specially if you have ways to give creatures to the other guys....
it doesn't matter if you're going to "kill yourself" as long as you kill everyone else once you resolve Blasphemous act.
I mean, you control every trigger from Repercussion, just stack them so the other players die before you and... voilá.
The answer for all your problems with a UW blink deck is ALWAYS Parallax Wave.
Don't build a deck without it... unless it's not valid in the format... it's THAT powerful.
when Phyrexian Metamorph is in the battlefield, all it has is the characteristics of whatever it copied (+ it's an artifact)
the regular Phyrexian Metamorph characteristics aren't copiable anymore.
If I need to play a decklist composed of 90% the same cards of everyone else's deck, then I won't play. that's all.
I'll never play something that highly resembles any of the established decks of the format I'm playing in, even if I keep the same core idea, my version tends to have at least 10-12 cards that bend the deck strategy somewhere else.
I like decks that surprise people, that do different and interesting stuff.... they could be midrange, combo, aggro, control... anything goes, as long as it's original and interesting
when you cast Noxious Revival, it's still on the stack as Ripple 4 resolves.
then you reveal the top 4 and find another noxious revival which will be cast because of the ripple... at this time, the first Noxious Revival is still in the stack, and another Ripple 4 will try to find a third Noxious Revival.
either way, until all ripple effects resolve, there are no Noxious revivals in the graveyard (because none of then have resolved yet) to be targeted by a rippled Noxious revival thus making that infinite loop.
Dig Through time is quite decent though.
may see a fair amount of play.
I actually disagree about it being that similar to Sphinx Revelation....
I mean, late game, if your deck doesn't care about graveyard you'll be able to cast this for just UU
look 7 cards, choose 2 and gain a card advantage of 1....
also, as it's late game, you'll be able to actually cast one of those 2 cards if it's an instant.
for revelation to give +1 card advantage, it costs 2WUU, nets you 2 life, and doesn't let you choose anything, it just draws 2 cards and that's all.
This card gives an absurd amount of tempo if you actually have a bunch of cards in the graveyard to Delve it's cost to UU.
It may be actually MORE powerful than Sphinx's Revelation in a vast amount of time.
Yes... I do.
and I don't remember even one limited format where I'd love to have a vanilla 4/4 for 6 mana (and right now there are no "artifact matters" theme, thus being an artifact is, in fact, a minor drawback... colorless mana won't be much of an advantage in a format that will need to enable fixing for 3 colors in limited)
sure, you'll play this if there are no better options, but if you're really hoping to win anything with a limited deck that will play this over a swamp, you're probably out of luck
this card is one of those horribly designed cards that only serves the purpose of "bad cards need to exist so good cards are actually good."
I mean, it's not interesting enough for Jhonny, it's not powerful enough for Spike, it's not big enough for Timmy....
not nearly powerful enough for any constructed competitive format
not even one interesting effect one would like to abuse somehow, even in a weird casual deck.
and underwhelming for limited....
card is plain bad no matter how you look at it.
this is sad.
Artifact dude isn't playable even in limited....
wave by itself is a pretty versatile and strong control card.
with Venser, you can basically blink 5 of your dudes each turn instead of 1.
with Mangara you can either exile something and hit Mangara with Wave in response before blinking wave or do what you said and exile 5 dudes for good, or do both.... exiling 4 of their dudes while keeping Mangara.
with Leonin Relic-Warder and Fiend Hunter though, it really shines.
1 - exile Leonin with Fiend
2 - target 1 of their dudes with wave
3 - target fiend hunter in response with wave
4 - target 1 of your dudes you want to blink with wave
5 - your dude from 4 is exiled
6 - fiend hunter is exiled
7 - leonin comes back, target wave with it.
8 - wave is exiled, your dude from 4 and fiend hunter comes back, target fiend hunter with leonin.
9 - wave comes back with 5 counters.
10 - 2 resolves and exiles their guy for good.
11 - start over.
it's pretty much the same as the Opalescence combo, but it plays better in lots of decks because Relic Warder and Fiend Hunter are generally superior to Opalescence save in very specific builds.
still, if you're building a blink deck, Parallax Wave is your best friend, it wins soooo much tempo it`s not funny.
with repercussion, it`s insanely strong in multiplayer games... specially if you have ways to give creatures to the other guys....
it doesn't matter if you're going to "kill yourself" as long as you kill everyone else once you resolve Blasphemous act.
I mean, you control every trigger from Repercussion, just stack them so the other players die before you and... voilá.
Parallax Wave is plain bananas with Flickerwisp, Venser, the Sojourner, Mangara of Corondor....
there's also stuff like Augury Owl, Sage of Epityr, Wall of Omens, Mulldrifter, Ixidron, Champion of the Parish and more importantly Fiend Hunter and Leonin Relic-warder, both of which make for a completely insane combo with Parallax Wave that allows you to create infinite ETB effects and permanently exile the entire board of your opponent.
The answer for all your problems with a UW blink deck is ALWAYS Parallax Wave.
Don't build a deck without it... unless it's not valid in the format... it's THAT powerful.
you really want they blocking your dudes when you attack...
I actually have a BG deck in this theme, and Revenge of the Hunted on Glissa, the traitor is the all star of my deck.
I have a couple artifacts for glissa to bring back such as Ratchet Bomb and Wurmcoil Engine also.
you may want to use "Fights" stuff such as Ulvenwald Tracker or Prey Upon as removal.
Green is REALLY powerful for a build like this.
these cards do win games,
I also use Forbidden Orchard and Hunted Dragon in the same deck, to warrant my opponents will have dudes to kill them once I have Repercussion going and blow up the table with Blasphemous act.
when Phyrexian Metamorph is in the battlefield, all it has is the characteristics of whatever it copied (+ it's an artifact)
the regular Phyrexian Metamorph characteristics aren't copiable anymore.
If I need to play a decklist composed of 90% the same cards of everyone else's deck, then I won't play. that's all.
I'll never play something that highly resembles any of the established decks of the format I'm playing in, even if I keep the same core idea, my version tends to have at least 10-12 cards that bend the deck strategy somewhere else.
I like decks that surprise people, that do different and interesting stuff.... they could be midrange, combo, aggro, control... anything goes, as long as it's original and interesting
when you cast Noxious Revival, it's still on the stack as Ripple 4 resolves.
then you reveal the top 4 and find another noxious revival which will be cast because of the ripple... at this time, the first Noxious Revival is still in the stack, and another Ripple 4 will try to find a third Noxious Revival.
either way, until all ripple effects resolve, there are no Noxious revivals in the graveyard (because none of then have resolved yet) to be targeted by a rippled Noxious revival thus making that infinite loop.
I don't really think it could become competitive, though.