Temporal Extortion: Possible PC Bomb?

[Tin_Mox5831]

I was surfing around MTG Salvation, and I saw a spoiler that looks somewhat promising:

Temporal Extortion  -  Rare  -  BBBB
Sorcery 

"When you play Temporal Extortion, any player may pay half his or her life, rounded up. If a player does, counter Temporal Extortion. Take an extra turn after this one."

Illus. Stephen Belledin
#81/165

Granted, this card will be countered most of the time, but is that such a bad thing? It has some degree of synergy with Cabal Ritual and Dark Ritual, although a cost of BBB would be worlds better. I feel like this is a bomb that puts the opponent in a bit of a Catch-22. Either you get a Time Walk that you can play off Rituals, or your job as a combo deck was just made infinitely easier as the countering acts as a mini-Tendrils.

Thoughts?

Later,
Dave

[pyr0ma5ta]

I thought that it was widely agreed upon that Time Walk is, at best, rather poor in decks with Rituals?  How is a Time Walk that requires a land and a Ritual (that may or may not do what you want it to) better than Time Walk itself?

[Tin_Mox5831]

Well, I have always loved Time Walk in both Grim Long and Pitch Long, so maybe I'm a bit biased.

[Imsomniac101]

I'm struggling to find a slot for Timewalk. And the thing costs quadruple B. So no...

[Vegeta2711]

Well, I have always loved Time Walk in both Grim Long and Pitch Long, so maybe I'm a bit biased.

It costs quadruple black, it's awful.

[Keno]

This is the new Browbeat. It sucks, but for some reason some people will love it and will play for 4 of them in every deck that plays black.

The worst thing is that these players will cast this when there already winning, and then think they won because of it.

In other words: I hate this card.

[zeus-online]

Yay this thing rocks in suicide!
Wait...no one PLAYS suicide....
Nevermind.

/Zeus

[MaxxMatt]

A week ago I build this pile according to the New-Walk-Preview:

(8)
4 Phyrexian Negator 5/5
4 Dark Confidant 2/1

(17)
4 BBBB-Neo-Walk
4 Night's Whisper
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consutation
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral
1 Darkblast
1 Diabolic Edict

(9)
4 Duress
4 Unmask / Hymn to Tourach
1 Mindtwist

(26)
6 Swamp
5 Fetch
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Underground Sea
1 ManaCrypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
1 Stripmine


There are pros and cons with this archetype and list, but NeoWalk is the better clock of the deck.
It is nothing more than GripOfAmnesia, possibly unused, but there are some little extents that make me try to abuse of this card and of the life loss.

BBBB force you to play with a Black mana base, so there are really few possibilities to make it a Tier1, but I suppose that it could become a *better* suicide black.

If you would cut Cabal Ritual you can use Skeletal Scryings into Night's Whisper slots, but as it is now, Cabals are needed to busty first turn chain of threats.

Maxx

[President Skroob]

I think in most cases in Vintage it's probably not a very good card. Casting this off a Ritual and another land means that you're not getting back the investment that you put into it. Time Walk replaces itself, but you're putting two cards into this effect, one of which is probably much better suited to another spell in a Ritual combo deck. I think that in most cases against combo I can't see choosing to pay half one's life to counter this spell, as the investment required by the combo player to cast it is probably not going to outweigh giving the that player a random topdeck and a chance to untap.

If you can cast it off four Swamps, it's pretty good. If you're casting it off a Ritual I think it's a lame trade-off.

[UR]

This is the new Browbeat. It sucks, but for some reason some people will love it and will play for 4 of them in every deck that plays black.

The worst thing is that these players will cast this when there already winning, and then think they won because of it.

You nailed it right there...

[Zarathustra]

It costs quadruple black, it's awful.

QFT

-DShizzle

[Malhavoc]

Time walks costing 3UU have already been printed, and no one play them. BBBB is strictly worse in any deck not being a suicide black or something similar. Even Sui can have problems paying BBBB without a ritual since you run wastelands too. Maybe you could add some of these in suicide black, and they could even be decent, but far from gamebreaking. In every other deck, it's simply unplayable (storm decks almost don't need walk, even less this one).

[meadbert]

As mentioned above, Time Warp is better and only shows up in Europe with various unpowered Turbo Oath builds.

[Katzby]

Temporal Extortion  -  Rare  -  BBBB
Sorcery 

"When you play Temporal Extortion, any player may pay half his or her life, rounded up. If a player does, counter Temporal Extortion. Take an extra turn after this one."

Illus. Stephen Belledin
#81/165

To me, the most obvious comparison of this card is with Shahrazad.  Your opponent can basically pay half of his or her life to "counter" Shahrazad if he doesn't want to get too many cards RFG'd in the subgame, the potential for which is probably far more sinister (given the right deck) than letting you take an extra turn.  At twice the mana cost of Sharazad, this doesn't seem worth it.


Katzby

[Evenpence]

This card is absolute garbage in storm combo.  So you waste a ritual AND a card in your hand to take an extra turn where you reset your storm count.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

For this mana cost i'd rather bring kaervick's spite back.

[hazard]

I think the more interesting aspect of what we've seen from this card and the spoiler thus far is the muddling of the color wheel, consistent with what we expect from the block.  Not only do we have black stealing Time Walking from blue, but there is a green critter with haste, a red critter with comes into play bounce effects, and a red instant bounce effect.  It will be interesting to see if any of this mixing of the color wheel produces anything useful or makes anything obsolete viable.

[Xiphoid]

I think the more interesting aspect of what we've seen from this card and the spoiler thus far is the muddling of the color wheel, consistent with what we expect from the block.  Not only do we have black stealing Time Walking from blue, but there is a green critter with haste, a red critter with comes into play bounce effects, and a red instant bounce effect.  It will be interesting to see if any of this mixing of the color wheel produces anything useful or makes anything obsolete viable.

Perhaps this is where the name Planar Chaos came from? 

I think the muddling of the colors can be potentially very powerful. If colors are getting answers and threats that they usually don't have, I would imagine this would cut down on splashing a certain color for a particular answer. Depending on how PC comes out, decks will be able to cut a color because there is a suitable alternative.

[zeus-online]

Cant wait for...:

Blue ritual - U
Instant
Add UUU to your mana pool.

And ofcourse...

Blue Regrowth - 1U
Sorcery
Return target card from your graveyard to your hand.

Seriosly though, maybe they'll print a red or green playable answer to DSC? ....potentially putting those two colors into "playable" or "good" ?

/Zeus

[diopter]

Oh man, Blue Ritual would be amazing. It would ruin the format, of course, but man, imagine the power, the SHEER POW-UH *drool*

On-topic, BBBB Time Walk kinda sucks. The effect is powerful, sure, but having to pay BBBB doesn't leave you much room to do something else this turn, and it will almost certainly require an accelerant that you won't have available to do stuff next turn.

[emperorofguam]

I did see one card from the new set.  A split red/red card.  the first half is a shock (even at instant speed, aren't we special) the seond half is 2R return target creature an opponent controls to owner's hand, also at instant speed.  They're just full of surprises aren't they.