Limiting
Time Spiral – Izzet Possible?
By Dr. Chunk
Welcome all,
It is rapidly
approaching the official release of Time Spiral (TS) onto the streets of the
world and soon to be PT Kobe and PTQ Geneva season. This means that for the
foreseeable future Time Spiral limited is the format to be learning. Yes there is Champs and the exploration of a new Standard but we all
know limited is the place to be.
So post
pre-release we have seen some of the cards, started to get an idea of the
format and begun to figure where our pick orders lay. Thankfully the
pre-releases were kind enough to gain me some prize support (posting 5th
on Saturday, 4th on Sunday and still losing ranking points
despite an 11-4 record for the weekend!) and with these boosters and a selection
of friends I have had the opportunity to draft a few times.
But Time spiral has a lot to live up to
post-Ravnica. RGD draft was an immensely fun, intensely skill testing and
incredibly repeatable format. By this time with CHK, MDF and even OLS drafts I was saturated and looking on to the next shiny object on the
horizon – and I didn’t even draft them as many times as I drafted RGD!
Somewhere in
the middle was the heathen child of Coldsnap – a format that showed me no love
and a feeling I reciprocated. What good came of Coldsnap? It buffered the space
between RGD and TS. If it weren’t for CS I would have (possibly) resented TS
for not being as good.
However I have
to admit I love Time Spiral draft. The format is so deep and strong that I have
still many, many paths to explore. The added power of the purple cards just
increases the variety and makes early picks really crucial. The format seems to
be pretty fast but it is still in its infancy. I think particularly of Rav/Rav/Rav draft – Initially Boros was the way but this
soon petered out to a dominating Dimir mill. Until someone breaks the format
open we will just have to do as best we can.
To that end I
wish to talk about blue-red in Time spiral and the limited success I have had
with it. It may only be a few drafts but what more can you expect at this
stage!
So far red blue
seems to be about the usual – blue fliers, red burn – and we have a plethora of
both to collect. The curve has to be pretty aggressive as the format itself is
currently very fast. This is greatly helped by the number of morph creatures
available in blue and the good 2 drops and echo men in red. In addition to this
we get two solid common suspend creatures with some good support creatures.
There are also plenty of powerful uncommons, rares and time shifted cards that
get the pick over commons, but these are seen less frequently.
An example blue
red deck from a recent draft (which I won 2-1-0) is:
|
Blue
Red Burn by
Dr. Chunk //
Creatures (15) 1 Mogg War 1 Goblin Skycutter 1 Coral Trickster 2 Flowstone Channeler 1 Viashino Bladescout 1 Spiketail Hatchling 2 Crookclaw Transmuter 1 Coal Stoker 1 Keldon Halberdier 1 Eron the
Relentless 1 Magus of the Jar 2 Errant Ephemeron |
// Lands
(17) 9 Mountain 8 // Spells
(8) 1
Whispers of the Muse 2 Lightning Axe 1 Sudden Shock 1 Snapback 1 Orcish Cannonade 1 Browbeat 1 Empty the |
Rather than
discuss every single card in great detail I am going to go through what I feel
are high picks from the common runs. Obviously there are uncommons and rares /
purples you would pick over these in some cases but this will give you an idea
of what I am looking for.
High Pick
Commons (Picks 1-4):
Errant
ephemeron – 4/4 flying
for 7 mana is nothing special but suspending this man out on turn 2 or 3 gives
some real mid game power. He ends the game quickly once he gets out and is one
of the main kills in the deck.
Lightning
Axe – Although it card disadvantage in a
pure sense there is little to argue with 5 damage for one
mana and an excess land. One of the best burn spells you can get so pick
it high.
Fathom
Seer – This creature is
always a morph and then he is a gush on legs. Not only does he draw
cards but he blocks, kills and then survives a morph trade with no mana open.
Looter il-kor – If you have seen my pre-release
report you will see how much I love this guy. He doesn’t deal the most damage
in the world but he rips through your library and finds what you need.
Rift Bolt –
Another strong burn spell that only lacks from its sorcery speed. It makes up for this with flexibility
of suspend as long as you can wait the turn.
Snapback
(a.k.a. Bounce of Will) –
I may be going out on a limb but I absolutely love this card. Alone it is unsummon with the ability to play it while tapped out is
invaluable. I may be alone but I pick these high. Not quite first pick first
pack but not far off. Conveniently (at this time) these are going reasonably late
around my draft tables but I doubt that will last.
Mid Range
Commons (picks 5-8):
Crookclaw
Transmuter – Not only
does this man kill walls at instant speed he is one of the best “combat tricks”
blue red has outside of bounce and burn. On top of that he comes out at end of
turn as three points of flying beats if absolutely necessary. “Damage on
Stack?” and this man were made to be together.
Blazing
Blade Askari – Nothing
exciting but aggressive and flanking can be important. His colour loss ability
seems mostly irrelevant.
Spiketail
Drakeling
– A reasonably high pick as
it is a good evasive flyer with a potential to throw itself at your opponents
bombs, or at least delay them two turns.
Goblin Skycutter – This man does everything you could
want from a two drop other than him dying to any saprolings going. He is easily
capable of taking down a good number of fliers and can also get flying blockers
out of the way if absolutely need be.
Coal
Stoker – A 3/3 for four
deals with opposing morphs and allows explosive Stoker à Morph turns.
Orcish
Cannonade – The poor
mans Char it may be but do not underestimate “Draw a Card”.
Coral
Trickster – A morph is
always good and his trick, with a cheap morph cost, makes him solid.
Keldon
Halberdier – A great
man to suspend turn one and without removal there is little that either gets
past or stands in the way of this man.
Grapeshot – Takes a bit of working around but
once you get stormed above 2 it is well worth it and rips through thallid spawn
like there’s no tomorrow.
Late
Commons (Picks 8-12) – worth picking one or two up late:
Flowstone Channeler – He may look unspectacular but this
Grey Ogre kills a fair number of creatures. Repeatedly! He does also come
around quite late.
Temporal
Eddy – A sorcery bounce
is not always useful but is Vedalken Dismisser without the bear.
Ironclaw Buzzardiers – A 2/2 flier is respectable but often
the 3 drop slot is chock full of morphs.
Viscerid Deepwalker – With or without suspend this guy is
far from exciting yet not unplayable. Fire breathing in blue seems strange!
Bogardan Rager – A poor combat trick on an
unimpressive set of stats for more than I really want to pay.
Mogg
War Marshall – He makes
chumps like a good goblin should and that’s his only role in this deck.
Empty
the
Cards I
NEVER want to see anyone play (except when playing against me):
Conflagrate – For 5 mana you kill two x/1’s
or one x/2. Then you discard 2 cards to deal 1 damage.
This is inefficient in the absolute extreme.
Bewilder – It may draw you a card but Dizzy
Spell is still really bad, even
as a cantrip.
Eternity
Snare – Again do not
get distracted by cantrips. This card costs too much.
Finally I come onto some uncommons of note. Some of these are
definite first picks whereas others are a strong addition to any deck but
something may convince you to otherwise pass them:
Firemaw
Kavu – This man is rude in the extreme and especially in
U/R. If you look closely you see that his second ability triggers on “leaving
play” not being put into the graveyard. Cue some awesome bouncing power. I used
one Kavu, backed up by Snapback, to single handed-ly
ruin many an opponents day.
Careful Consideration – A constructed worthy
card draw spell is just as good in limited.
Sudden
Shock – The split
second mechanic is incredibly powerful and the block shock is, as always, a
very strong early pick.
Fledgling
Mawcor – An awesome man
with solid stats, evasion, morph AND ping thrown in. Pick it high or you
are sending the wrong signal.
Riftwing
Cloudskate – A flying
Ogre Savant that also has suspend is very strong.
Wipe
Away – Split Second is
just as strong as boomerang.
So there we
have a quick run through of my early Time Spiral experiences. There is still
much to explore in this format but I leave you with some pros and cons and a
final example decklist.
Pros:
- Bounce is good in a format where
suspend exists
- Burn is good in any format and so is evasion – we have both
- Blue
appears to be under drafted at present
- Morphs
mean you can be flexible with your curve.
Cons:
- Red is
always over drafted
- Burn is
often scarce
- No one
in their right mind is ever going to pass you a Firemaw
- We have
no absolute “Kill” spells when creatures start to get too big
|
Kavu
Go “Boing” by Dr. Chunk (3-0) //
Creatures (18) 1 Thick
Skinned Goblin 1 Goblin Skycutter 1 Fathom Seer 3 Blazing Blade Askari 1 Spiketail Drakeling 3 Crookclaw Transmuter 2 Fledgling Mawcor 1 Avalanche Riders 1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir 1 Keldon Halberdier 2 Errant Ephemeron 1 Firemaw Kavu |
// Lands
(17) 7 Mountain 10 // Spells
(5) 2 Snapback 1 Wipe Away 1 Temporal Eddy 1
Careful Consideration |
Thanks for reading. If you have any comments please do come to our Forum,
Dr Chunk