4xTimespiral Storm

[senpai]

With the new unrestriction of this spell, it seems like it could be utilized fairly well by storm decks. Ideas?

[bluemage55]

I'm inclined to disagree that it could be utilized at all.  Even restricted it has not seen play as a 1-of.

6 mana is just too much.  By the time the TPS pilot can cast time spiral, the game is already won.

[LordHomerCat]

I'm inclined to disagree that it could be utilized at all.  Even restricted it has not seen play as a 1-of.

6 mana is just too much.  By the time the TPS pilot can cast time spiral, the game is already won.

That's not entirely true.  Bargain sees quite a bit of play, as does Desire.  The question is, can you use this card to win better than just casting a Mind's Desire for the same cost (but free spells instead of having to pay for them)?

[Elfrago]

It wasn't played as a 1-of, so I don't see why it should be played as a 4-of.

[Tobi]

Playing one copy of it in a deck ist quite a difference to playing four of them. You would not build a deck around Time Spiral if you can only play one.
However, decks built around draw-7s have not been good for a long time. I doubt this unrestriction will change that.

[Vegeta2711]

If any combo deck is going to run a bunch of these, it's going to involve High Tide. I have no idea why this deck would be better than what we have already, but you've got a pretty big canvas to work from if you're willing to make the attempt.

[wox2]

I agree with Vegeta but I am not sure if you will play Tendrils deck with Tide and Spirals... I was trying to test a deck with 4 Spirals, Chants and Drains but it wasn´t so good.

[Blitzbold]

If any combo deck is going to run a bunch of these, it's going to involve High Tide. I have no idea why this deck would be better than what we have already, but you've got a pretty big canvas to work from if you're willing to make the attempt.

Some years ago there was some tinkering with Hig Tide powered Combodecks in this forum as well as over here in Germany. WhateverWorks came up with different lists of his creation labeled 'Tidal Gifts' using different splashes back in 2005.

Here are the sample lists I still have on my computer from back then:

Tidal Gifts

2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Island
2 Snow-Covered Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island

5 Mox
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal

Counters:

4 Force of Will
2 Twincast

Combo or whatever:

4 High Tide
3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
1 Fastbond
1 Gush
1 Frantic Search
2 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Timetwister
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils Of Agony


Sideboard:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pernicous Deed
2 Ground Seal
1 Extract
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Brain Freeze
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Rushing River
1 Darksteel Collossus
1 Rebuild
1 Naturalize

2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island

5 Mox
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal

Counters:

4 Force of Will

Combo or whatever:

4 High Tide
3 Gifts Ungiven
2 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
1 Fastbond
1 Gush
1 Frantic Search
1 Cunning Wish
1 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Rebuild
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils Of Agony


Key Sideboard Changes
1 Time Spiral
1 Tendrils of Agony
Good red board cards that green doesnt have

Obviously the number of Brainstorms, Gifts and Scrolls need to be adjusted. Note that Spiral was only worth a spot in the board to be wished for.

[BreathWeapon]

With unrestricted Chrome Mox, I'd be more inclined to test a Diminishing Returns over a Time Spiral based deck.

[zeus-online]

I doubt that time spiral will make an impact, but now i can build a casual time spiral/mind twist deck, woohoo!

/Zeus

[Purple Hat]

bubbling muck is also interesting since it lets you accelerate into black cards with the same engine.  I think ultimately you just end up worse than a ritual combo deck though.

[redmage419]

For me, the first deck that popped into my mind, which used a singleton TS, was Steve's old Vintage Tide deck.

Meandeck Tide Suggested by Stephen Menendian:

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire

Creatures
4 Cloud Of Faeries
4 Xantid Swarm

Enchantments
1 Fastbond
   
Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
1 Frantic Search
4 High Tide
3 Meditate
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Research / Development
4 Snap

Sorceries
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Mind's Desire
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister

Basic Lands
4 Island

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island

Dropping 3x Brainstorm, 3x Merchant Scroll, and making a few other tweaks may provide a somewhat decent shell to utilize some of the new unrestricted toys. The origional gameplan was to ramp up for a large Desire, then use R&D to bring in Tendrils, but you may be able to tweak it for something akin to a "Draw7s into Freeze" kill. 

[Xyre]

I'm inclined to think that the High Tide deck is just a bit too slow for the format even with a bomb. Steve's deck is designed to play Mind's Desire; adding Spiral only changes the means to do so. Sure, you can cut out a bit of the crap, but it's just a bit off. If there was a way to play Reset and Time Spiral in the same turn, then maybe, but that's physically impossible, and I don't know if Faeries and Snap are sufficient to hit 6 for a bomb. Plus this deck grinds without Fastbond in play. It really just needs Gush... but so does every other deck.

[Tin_Mox5831]

Well, if there was an engine prepared to power out Time Spiral with consistency, it's certainly High Tide. I'm working on two different shells right now personally. The problem with Time Spiral.dec is that TPS/PitchLong is likely to be strictly better. The only true advantage you gain is a rock-solid manabase, but TPS already sports a perfectly respectable matchup versus mana denial strategies. Obviously, the shell is almost always going to be heavily committed to blue, making the simultaneous unrestrictions of Time Spiral, Chrome Mox, and Personal Tutor far too much to dismiss.

I guess to sum it up, I don't see a Time Spiral deck drastically shaking things up, but I'd hate myself if I was wrong and never tested it.......

Later,
Dave

[Grease]

No one thinks a card is good enough until someone wins something with it. Strategic Planning is a good example of this. The only way to be sure is to try to break it.

[IceOaks]

I'm inclined to disagree that it could be utilized at all.  Even restricted it has not seen play as a 1-of.

6 mana is just too much.  By the time the TPS pilot can cast time spiral, the game is already won.

That's not entirely true.  Bargain sees quite a bit of play, as does Desire.  The question is, can you use this card to win better than just casting a Mind's Desire for the same cost (but free spells instead of having to pay for them)?

Errr... When u manage to get out Bargain or Mind's desire, you tend to win during that turn, but for time spiral, the odds seem not to be in favour of winning that turn. Correct me if i'm wrong but usually when playing TPS, i'd either rituals and artifact accelerants to try to get either out, but for time spiral, the problem is these are not usable again in that turn, once it resolves and it is very luck dependent on what one gets in the next 7 cards. If you get crappy cards, then it's quite bad cos you cant even mulligan.

Bargain gets you cards now to win this turn... Desire allows u to get round counters.... Unless someone comes up with a pretty good reason for time spiral, then i honestly do not think time spiral will see much play. Then again, some genius might come up with a funky cool deck which might pawn the rest of the decks... We shall see eh?

[Vegeta2711]

Errr... When u manage to get out Bargain or Mind's desire, you tend to win during that turn, but for time spiral, the odds seem not to be in favour of winning that turn. Correct me if i'm wrong but usually when playing TPS, i'd either rituals and artifact accelerants to try to get either out, but for time spiral, the problem is these are not usable again in that turn, once it resolves and it is very luck dependent on what one gets in the next 7 cards. If you get crappy cards, then it's quite bad cos you cant even mulligan.

You have High Tide enhanced lands in play that are untapped and 7 cards in hand. You'll have min. 6 mana in most cases to play with. You pretty much win the game with any of the following: Tutor, Win Condition, large draw spell. Alternatively another draw-7 puts you back to needing to see one of those three again. The worst-case is going to be you draw mana sources and counters and have to pass the turn, which sucks, but it's one of those things that's always been a danger with using draw-7's. That said, that aren't so inconsistent that you can't build a deck around them, otherwise the original Time Spiral and Diminishing Returns decks would've been pretty poor.

[Tin_Mox5831]

No one thinks a card is good enough until someone wins something with it. Strategic Planning is a good example of this. The only way to be sure is to try to break it.

Fair enough, although I prefer to think of that particular situation as:

"Two of the most technically sound Vintage players I've played against chose to play a marginal card in an objectively powerful list and placed well mainly, if not entirely, due to their playskill."

I mean, Jimmy is very proficient and how many PTs has Brian qualified for already?

But you are 100% right on your basic premise. Someone has to go out on a limb to figure out if Card X is broken or not.

[meadbert]

Perhaps a Combo Heavy Turboland Shell could use both Timespiral and Mox Diamond.

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Cephalid Colliseum
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Glacial Chasm

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Memory Jar
3 Crucible of Worlds

1 Wheel of Fortune

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor

4 Time Spiral
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Ancestral Recall

4 Exploration
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth

2 Argivian Find
1 Enlightened Tutor

I do not really see anything along these lines as being competitive, but if I had to run Time Spiral I would probably try something like this.

[i-never-smile]

What about focusing on Academy for this deck?  That's where Time Spiral was originally broken to bits, wasn't it?  Turn one wins where you draw a new hand and untap your academy?  Obviously the downside here is the restriction of Academy and the restriction of Crop Rotation, but would it be very hard to build around a shell of 1xAcademy+1xCrop Rotation+4x Tolaria West?  Or how about throwing the academy in the board with 4x Living Wish and 1x Mystical Tutor+4xPersonal Tutor to dig up the second turn Wish+Academy+tap for tons of mana+Timespiral-win.

What I know is this: Unrestricted Time Spiral and unrestricted Chrome Mox looks like it's made to rebreak Academy even as a 1-of.  There's enough free/cheap artifact mana to abuse it to death.

[meadbert]

Academy is absurdly broken in the above list because it runs close to 20 artifacts.
Tolaria West is a solid idea since you can discard it to Mox Diamond.  Also, you can tutor up Strip Mine which is huge at times.
Crop Rotation probably makes sense for the same reason, but I lose too many games to Force on Crop Rotation.  I have basically stopped playing it in any deck.

[arctic79]

It looks fun but why all the fuss for a tinker DSC win.  I see no other win condition unless you can get rid of their yard and deck them with draw 7's.

[Purple Hat]

It looks fun but why all the fuss for a tinker DSC win.  I see no other win condition unless you can get rid of their yard and deck them with draw 7's.

you use crucible fastbond to recur colliseum infinitely with chasm in play to prevent killing yourself.

[Jo84]

This deck has no protection, so your opponent can either kill you first or just throw his counter magic at you (and if you play that much Draw7s, chances are high they get their Force of Will / Mana Drain). Furthermore the combo can be hated by Pithing Needle and/or Tormod's Crypt.

So why could this deck even be better than Belcher?

Academy seems not like the way to go... if you can assemble Academy with Time Spiral it´s obviously insane, but it´s too hard to get to that point.

The idea of playing Spring Tide in Vintage is really interesting. Starting with Stephen's list, but I am unsure about the protection. Xantid Swarm is sooo one-sided but insanely good when you rip off some Draw7s the turn he attacks.
Actually I try Remand together with Force of Will to have something to stop my opponent from being faster than me.

just for referance I am trying:

    5  Island
    4  Polluted Delta
    4  Flooded Strand
    4  Tropical Island
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Sapphire

    4  Cloud of Faeries
    4  Meditate
    4  Remand
    4  High Tide (2)
    4  Time Spiral
    4  Ideas Unbound
    4  Force of Will
    2  Brain Freeze
    1  Fastbond
    1  Mystical Tutor
    1  Frantic Search
    1  Brainstorm
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Time Walk
    1  Merchant Scroll
    1  Timetwister
    1  Ponder
    1  Mind's Desire

[meadbert]

Furthermore the combo can be hated by Pithing Needle and/or Tormod's Crypt.

Neither works.  Needle on Strip or Waste does nothing since the other is untouched.
Needle on Colliseum stops that win but the infinite mana engine still exists and Twister, Regrowth and 4 Time Spiral mean that it is trivial to drop DSC and then recur Time Walk a few times.

So why could this deck even be better than Belcher?

Belcher is better.

[Demonic Attorney]

Moved from Vintage Open to Vintage Improvement.