Rogue Report- Let’s do the Time Warp Again
by Jonathon Loucks
I love the possibilities of a new set. Even before the fragrance of a freshly-cracked pack hits my nose there is a spoiler to comb through. Normally core sets can be pretty bland, but Wizards’ new policy on core sets gives them a lot of room to make shiny new cards. This makes a person that likes to build decks, a person like me, very happy.
Out of all the cards in the Magic 2010 spoiler, one of them just screams “break me!” I’m not sure I’ve seen a card this obviously busted since I started playing Magic six years ago. It practically says “resolve and win” in the rules text. Check out Open the Vaults:
All artifacts and enchantments? Into play? Seriously? Sure, my opponent gets theirs back too, what the heck are they getting back that I care about? I’m getting back a full graveyard of sweet juicy cards, and they are getting back what, a Loxodon Warhammer that somehow left the battlefield? [Or maybe a Loxodon Warhammer that somehow left the core set. -Riki, spoilingly] If everything works out, I should win the turn I cast Open the Vaults.
Step One: Gather
The first thing I do with a card like this is a Gatherer search to see what I want to be bringing back. I manually set the filter to post M10 Standard, ordered by converted mana cost, and switched to the visual spoiler.
The first thing I noticed was a pack of cards that would give an incremental advantage when brought back. Executioner’s Capsule and Courier’s Capsule are perfect examples of the incremental advantage you can gain by using Open the Vault. You could mess around with Armillary Sphere and Wanderer’s Twig, or even Kaleidostone and Elswhere Flask. All of these options ensure that you’re going to draw a mass of cards after you resolve an Open the Vaults.
This strategy has a few inherent problems. The first is that it’s very mana intensive. Maybe if there was some kind of Lotus Bloom we could afford to sacrifice Armillary Sphere, but until then it’s not worth four mana upfront, followed by two mana after Open the Vault, to use. The same is true for Courier’s Capsule.
The other problem that a deck like this starts to have is that as you fill it up with do-nothing card drawing artifacts, all you’re drawing is do-nothing card draw artifacts. You cast Open the Vault, draw a bunch of cards, but your wheels just spin in place until you die. There needs to be something more impacting that Open the Vaults can do other than gain incremental advantage.
Other interesting targets that I saw in the gatherer for Open the Vault are artifact creature spells, namely Sharuum the Hegemon. Sure, Sharuum doesn’t naturally combo with Open the Vault, but it’s what happens when you have two Sharuum that’s interesting. Two Sharuum, with a little help from the legend rule, can loop into and out of play infinitely. Combine that with a Glaze Fiend that was already in play and you’re golden. Glassdust Hulk is another way to combo off, and it works well with Open the Vault because it can dump itself into the graveyard. The problem is the lack of haste, but that’s where super janky cards like Ashling’s Prerogative come in. There aren’t a lot of enchantments that caught my attention, but strangely enough Ashling’s Prerogative was one of them.
Now we come up against another obstacle: a lack of decent discard. Standard is practically void of efficient and cheap ways to put cards into your graveyard. What are you going to do, conspire Ghastly Discovery? When you have to put cards in your graveyard the hard way, by playing those with sacrifice abilities and using them, Open the Vault becomes a lot less attractive. We want to cheat Sphinx of the Steel Wind into the battlefield! Playing fair is for chumps. Knollspine Invocation is the most exciting discard outlet I can find, but you’re still paying for all your spells upfront. I guess we could Traumatize ourselves, but that seems sketchy.
Open the Vault’s biggest weakness is a lack of synergistic spells, be they artifacts, enchantments, or discard outlets. This is where I sat for a few days, moping over the most broken card in M10 going un-busted.
Remix: Back to the Future
Pouring through the Gatherer yet again, I finally stumbled on a tiny little artifact with potentially. It was cheap, had a “free” activated ability, and sacrificed itself. Heck, it didn’t just sacrifice itself, it brought other artifacts with it. Bonus! If anything in standard is going to break Open the Vault, it’s Time Sieve.
I’ve written about this artifact before, but the problem with my last deck was that it fizzled too often. Time Sieve couldn’t quite keep up with the number of artifacts it needed each turn to go infinite, and the games it won, the deck just collapsed over the finish line with a Tezzeret, barely making it before falling apart.
That was before Open the Vaults. I can’t imagine losing with this deck after casting that card. The engine of Etherium Sculptor and cantrip artifacts was interesting, and now I get to bring the whole thing back into play? Sick.
This is my most recent list:
Do the Time Warp:
I’m going to give my usual mana base disclaimer: it’s probably terrible. I’m especially bad at building Howling Mine manabases. Do you need less land because of the extra cards you’re drawing? Or do you need more land because of how important each land drop is? Until that’s answered, I’ll stick to the usual 24. I tend to build decks then let smarter people make the mana base. I actually enjoy getting down and dirty with percentages and number of sources. By the end of the Extended Martyr of Sands deck’s career, I knew every nook and cranny of that manabase. At this stage, however, that’s much less important.
Chromatic Star, Elswhere Flask, and Kaleidostone all look like they would make your mana issues disappear, but these artifacts are so valuable for your Time Sieve that you can’t afford to sacrifice them willy-nilly for mana.
Running four Time Warp was the biggest improvement to this deck’s clock and consistency. It’s so hard to lose with the Font of Mythos double Time Warp draw. One of the best hidden benefits of Time Warp is that it gives you an extra turn using just one card, so your hand tends to be really full after using it. This gives you access to the cheapest discard outlet in the game: the cleanup step. Discarding a bunch of excess borderposts on the end of your turn for an Open the Vault to pick up later is a huge bonus.
Tezzeret the Seeker is a great card for this deck. He serves as your win condition, building up to an ultimate that throws all your artifacts at the opponent, while fetching Time Sieve in the meantime. Being able to play Tezzeret and tutor up a Time Sieve, take an extra turn, then use Tezzeret’s untap ability on some borderposts to power out an Open the Vault is amazing.
This deck is goldfishing on turn five pretty consistently, and turn six almost guaranteed off of any decent hand.
Possible Matchups & Sideboarding
I’ll have to throw this against some of the aggro decks with Ball Lightning or Elite Vanguard to see if turn five is fast enough. I think the deck can switch into more of a slow turbo fog role against the aggressive decks, but has a combo plan to take control of the game that I really like. Instead of having to battle through all 60 of the opponent’s cards (meaning all four of their Lightning Bolts) this deck just needs to stall to the point where it can Time Sieve into Open the Vault for the win. This version of the deck isn’t exploring the possibility of a Pollen Lullaby, but I think that’s the next step if it wants to beat aggro.
Against the midrange decks that might destroy your Howling Mine with a Maelstrom Pulse, I think Open the Vault gives this deck one big advantage over the traditional Turbo-Fog decks. Maelstrom Pulse means your opponent is spending a turn not killing you, and as long as you can survive to six mana for an Open the Vault, you should be fine. The biggest threat is Pulse on your borderposts, not on your Howling Mine.
Cryptic Command then becomes the spell I’m most scared of. Again, the deck comes with the inherent combo advantage where I don’t have to fight though all four of my opponent’s Cryptic Commands, I just have to squeeze through an extra turn and then keep going. Luckily, M10 gives this deck a great tool against Cryptic Command in Silence. Now I get to Silence my opponent and force an Open the Vault through for ten artifacts, and then they’re done. Jace Beleren was the last card cut from this list, and he would probably help the control matchup a lot. He provides another Howling Mine effect, along with a win condition they need to answer.
Time to Shine
All the pieces seem to be there, now it’s just a matter of cutting the chaff and polishing what remains. The deck feels very smooth most of the time, I’m just worried that it isn’t fast enough. I feel like this is one of those situations where the cards exist, I just need to find the right combination. Who knows, maybe I’ll be doing the Time Warp at Nationals.
Thanks for reading,
Jonathon Loucks
Loucksj at gmail
I’ve got bad news about Chromatic Star
Comment by ??? — July 6, 2009 @ 11:28 pm
yeah. it got the sack, along with mind stone, which would make this deck run smoother.
Comment by Jim — July 6, 2009 @ 11:52 pm
I’m disappointed. I was expecting a much better application of the new combo cards.
You give us a decklist with cards that won’t even be legal that still manages to lose to every deck in the format.
Comment by Aceman — July 7, 2009 @ 12:37 am
Needs more Cryptic Commands
I think there is something here, by the way. Also, Thopter Foundry seems good with Open the Vault. Agree that Open the Vault is nothing close to fair and needs to be smashed wide open.
Comment by Chats — July 7, 2009 @ 12:48 am
What if you replaced the 4x Chromatic Star 3x Sleep and maybe a Brilliant Ultimatum or a Jace. 4x sleep would be unnecessary. I don’t like the 2 Sculptors. They seem like filler. I could understand 4 or 0 but not 2. Maybe replace them with 2 Jace and a third for the extra Chromatic slot. I would definitely want Jace in here for an alternate kill condition, because I’m terrified of getting Thought Hemorrhaged.
As far as the mana base goes. I think it’s pretty close. The only change I would consider just by looking at it would be -2 Islands +1 Swamp +1 Plain. I don’t think you need quite that much Blue since both of your Borderposts tap for Blue.
Overall, great article and I love the deck idea. With some testing and tweaking, I think this deck could take some random tournaments by storm.
Comment by Justin — July 7, 2009 @ 1:10 am
Hmmm…Chromatic Star…awkward…
I guess the original version of UB Mannequin had illegal Zombifies in it…maybe I’m starting a trend.
I pushed this deck out maybe a little prematurely, which led to the Chromatic Star, but it was really exciting to me. I’ve never Time Warped before, which was fun, and resolving a devastating Open the Vaults was a great feeling. I think there is room for this deck minus Chromatic Star, it just needs to probably run a little more like Turbofog.
Comment by loucksj — July 7, 2009 @ 1:38 am
Dear Jonathon Loucks,
Your ideas on how to best crack Open the Vaults are most intriguing. Please find a way to break Mirror of Fate.
Sincerely,
Gavin Verhey
Comment by Gavin Verhey — July 7, 2009 @ 1:45 am
courier’s capsule, architects of will, glassdust hulk, mannequin, looter, some spynx’s, with open the vault’s and you might got yourself a deck. just add removal for flavor; duress, plat angel, grim poppet or maybe some PTE’s.
Comment by sneeky — July 7, 2009 @ 2:35 am
hmmm nice try on breaking Open the Vaults but this deck doesnt look so good. perhaps enchantments are the way to go?
Comment by harakiri — July 7, 2009 @ 4:12 am
Filigree Angel + Sanguine Bond is a possible alternate kill. Of course, then you’re looking at a combo where none of the cards involved actually does anything on its own, and you still have to play lots of artifacts. (Also, you’re dead to anyone playing Everlasting Torment out of the board.)
Wound Reflection + Magister Sphinx?
Where Ancients Tread + 2x Sharuum, the Hegemon?
Reaper King + Scarecrows?
4x Spiteful Visions?
All of these seem to need Traumatize to set them up. I guess Time Sieve really is the least do-nothing of the options here.
Comment by IJS — July 7, 2009 @ 8:57 am
Turbofog with Timewarp seems a bit counterproductive.
Comment by Cozpolt — July 7, 2009 @ 9:33 am
I’d run four copies of Sculptor — some pretty sick things can happen when you have two copies of that guy in play.
Comment by mm_young — July 7, 2009 @ 9:58 am
i really like the sharuum+sharuum+glassdusk+progative+open the vaults+traumatize combo……. oh dang that’s a 6 card combo but atleast it can be done out of the yard and one of the peices finds 4 others
Comment by Dan — July 7, 2009 @ 10:48 am
one meddling mage for tez nice deck.
Comment by lolol — July 7, 2009 @ 10:50 am
I love this deck idea, but I agree that it needs to run a little more like turbo fog. Another two artifacts you could try squeezing into the deck would be ornithopter and platinum angel. Ornithopter is a good zero drop artifact (spellbook wouldn’t help the deck), and platinum angel could be a stall for a turn or two.
Comment by Joes2silly — July 7, 2009 @ 11:21 am
I have a suggestion. I’m a godawful deck builder (I can put cards together, but I need a basic skeleton to work with). So I’ve been playtesting this deck, trying to see what (if anything) needs to be cut/moved/whatever. To make it T2/M10 legal I ran 4x Ornithopters instead of 4x Chromatic Star and I have to say…They’ve saved my ass many times. They work great and even if your opponent has tramplers it slows them down. Besides, all going well, the ornithopters will be back the next turn and work as food for your time sieve.
Comment by Jason — July 7, 2009 @ 11:42 am
I don’t know if I like creatures in this deck, because without them you makeso many cards simply dead…
Gotta think about this list a bit. I like Time Sieve, Time Warp and Open the Vaults. All crapy but might work together.
Thanks.
Comment by Kenseiden — July 7, 2009 @ 3:05 pm
Forgive me for my ignorance (im a bit off today) but other than Tezz, what is the win condition? Sac all of your artifacts/borderposts to get a few extra turns then bring em all back, activate Tezz, then swing? Im not a rules expert or anything, but would the artifacts that you bring back have “summoning sickness” because they are now creatures? Or does that not apply? I do like the deck alot though, and since I ran Turbo Fog, this might be a nice little modification to make to change things up. I do think it needs to be more fog-ish just so you have time to fire off. Maybe some pollen lullaby’s and even the new card Sleep would fit in nicely. And i do think Cryptic could be a good addition to add a sort of control aspect to the deck. I also like Jace in the deck as an alternative win condition. Give yourself all the extra turns with Time Sieve/Time Warp and you can fire off Jace before your opponent can even touch him with a creature or burn spell. Plus he is another Howling Mine anyways, so that always helps. My suggestions for the deck are as follows:
-4 Chromatic Star (as im sure everyone knows by now, it will no longer be in standard)
-4 Kaleidostone (its basically 4 more Flasks, but I like the flask better)
-1 Time Warp
-3 Island
+3 Jace (Explained Earlier, A Second Win condition/Howling Mine Effect)
+4 Cryptic Command (so good)
+2 Plains
+4 Pollen Lullaby
I also think you need at least 3 Sculptors. they will help you cast more artifacts early
Thats about all I can think of right now… The deck still would be iffy, but I’d have to playtest to really know what to take out/add. I didnt want to remove too many artifacts, seeing as that is really the point of the deck… But you may have too. Of course taking out artifacts for Fogs or control just makes the deck look too much like Turbo fog (the Tezz Version that won by using Cryptic to Tap your creatures, and then activated Tezz and swung with all the Howling Mines and Font of Mythos and Borderposts). But I will definitly be testing this deck out, as I can see it actually being playable in T2 Competitive.
Comment by David — July 7, 2009 @ 6:04 pm
If you need anything, it’s *certainly* not *more* Kill Conditions.
Cycling cards, though…
Also, what about just a take DI turns deck? Like
4 Savor the Moment
4 Fertile Ground
4 Howling Mine
4 Jace
4 Font of Mythos
4 Time Warp
4 Cryptic
4 Garruk
2 Tezzeret
Time Seive
Borderposts
I know my originality knows no bounds
Comment by Chats — July 8, 2009 @ 12:56 am
Trying out the deck
I don’t think you need the howling mine/Font
You will just autolose to Red aggro/burn if you run it.
Turn 5 time sieve is kind of cool if you can sacrifice your cantrip artifacts and then open the vaults next turn, you draw 4 cards get the time sieve back… Seems powerful to me. 1 inkwell Leviathan and 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind seem like natural choices to me since you could ramp up to them with Tezzeret.
Comment by Atli — July 9, 2009 @ 7:43 pm
So I updated the decklist in my next article. Basically, Cryptic Command is the best card for this deck, so it’s an easy addition. As for more win conditions, the deck doesn’t need them, especially with Cryptic Command. Now you can bounce Meddling Mage, or tap their team and swing after you ultimate with Tezzeret. Yes, your artifacts have ’summoning sickness’ the turn you bring them back with Open the Vault, but then you just go off next turn. You’ll always have enough artifacts after an Open the Vault.
A friend of mine, Andy(sweetcandy) says that Silence is the real deal, but I haven’t been able to test it yet. It was my sideboard plan against Cryptic Command to get an Open the Vault to resolve. Apparently it’s good at giving you time against Maelstrom Pulse. My theory is that fogs are just want you want instead, but I should probably just test silence next time I play the deck.
Speaking of fogs, they have helped a lot. Sometimes you even just go Tezzeret, untap two borderposts, fog on your turn, kill you. Not often, but you have the option.
What scares me are the draws where you don’t have font/howling mine (which are absolutely necessary in my mind), so maybe I need to run Jace? He just always seemed to die, so he didn’t seem worth the mana investment.
Comment by loucksj — July 13, 2009 @ 10:07 am
[...] Loucks’ brew, the Time Sieve deck (written about here, although disregard the Chromatic Stars) occupies a similar spot in the metagame that Turbo-Fog [...]
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