Pointed Discussion

If you had this and Urza's Armor in play, would they prevent 2 damage to you?

Hoses Grapeshot combos.

And yes, cplmontana, they would prevent 2 damage.

come to think of it, why wasn't this in every sideboard last year when Grapeshot ran rampant through Extended??

Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day #15, 10/15/10

Time Spiral is really two sets jammed on top of one another. The first, which the set began design as, is a “time matters” set based around caring about when things happen or things happening at odd times. The keywords suspend and split second are part of that design, as is the abundance of flash in all five colors. Serra Avenger is the flagship card for this half of the set. The second set is a “nostalgia” set, based on bringing back all sorts of crazy mechanics from Magic’s past, such as morph, storm, echo, flanking, shadow, Slivers, and Thallids. Plague Sliver is a great poster-card for this half. The “timeshifted” sheet really plays into the latter half’s theme as well.

Both themes combine nicely to show that some kind of crazy mixed-up time phenomenon is happing on the plane of Dominaria, but the truth is that either theme would have been enough to carry a large set, whereas together they were too much.

When people ask me what my favorite set is, I answer “Time Spiral.” When people ask me what my favorite draft format is, I say “triple Time Spiral.” The set is made for me; I know because I helped make it. Unfortunately it wasn’t for enough other people, specifically less-enfranchised players. The time mechanics were counterintuitive and, in the case of suspend, incredibly hard to understand. The nostalgia was applied with too much of a wink and a nod—references were often to hyper-obscure cards, making the set feel like too much of an in-joke. (For what I consider a more straight-faced execution of nostalgia, see Scars of Mirrodin.) Never before had a set so polarized our audience: the long-time and high-level players loved it, and the low-level and newer players shied away from it like the plague (sliver).

Look at Plated Pegasus. It has a “time” mechanic, flash. It references one little-known card in its mechanics (Mirage’s Benevolent Unicorn... look it up) and another in its creative (Tempest’s Armored Pegasus... look that one up, too). Who gets that payoff? Certainly not the vast majority of the audience. So much of the set is put together like that it’s almost criminal in retrospect. Does the card stand on its own? Not all that well. I certainly can’t imagine putting it into another set. Luckily the card Grapeshot ended up being a major player in the format, giving the Pegasus a dream.

I still love Time Spiral as a player. As a director, let’s just say I’m glad we got it out of our system.

@mtgaaron

I have to say something:

Timespiral remains my absolute favorite block in Magic.

It was also my first block.

It is not my favorite because it was my first Block.

It is my favorite because of what it did, which was connect me to the game on multiple levels including the one that I, as a new player, was worried about the most: Magic's past.

The mechanics were varied, interesting, and everywhere. They were NOT hard to understand. In fact, I pretty much hate that R&D seem to dislike Suspend which, to me, is an amazing mechanic with tons of unexplored potential.

Mr. Forsythe, just thank you a lot for Time Spiral. It was my best times playing Magic (Playing since 6th). And I also love triple TSP drafts, and TSP experience was probably the best in all of Magic's history!
Just thanks!

I'm a huge fan of Time Spiral block as a player as well. After never really doing more than some casual dabbling into magic years ago I ended up coming back to it shortly after Morningtide came out and I absolutely adored Time Spiral. It was a great block for embracing my Johnny side. Also it has Clockspinning, one of my all time favorite cards. Complex, multi-layered, and multi-focused sets make me happy. I'm saddened by how few players enjoyed it like me and some others have, but such is the way of the world

I have to echo what a couple others have said.

3x TSP was also my favorite limited format by far. The great thing about such a large set is that there are so many different interactions possible. Playing Time Spiral block limited was extremely rewarding because you could still discover powerful interactions even after drafting it 20 times.

Suspend is easily one of my favorite mechanics of all time. I love that there is some tension involved in playing them. I have basically stopped playing Magic over the last couple years. Some of that is because I have less time in my life, but just as much has to do with the fact that cards today seem a lot less interesting. It seems that 95% of cards are all upside and no drawback. The main interest in evaluating cards is basically if they are costed low enough.

I guess I am too different from most players. I love combo decks. I love powerful cards with disadvantages that have to be minimized. I like storm (although the flavor on it is pretty horrible). I love land destruction. etc.

Anyway, I have to say that Time Spiral was the best time I have ever had playing Magic, and I want to thank you for it, even if something like it will never get made again.

That being said, this card is easily one of the worst in the set. I don't think I ever saw this get played.

P.S. I still don't understand how Vanishing makes more sense than Fading. Taking a counter off feels like a cost. You sacrifice a card when you can't pay the cost, not when you pay the cost for the last time.

I have to agree with Raedian--Time Spiral was the first set for my ex and me, and we loved it. Our longer-playing friends often explained the throwback cards to us.It prompted us to research old cards that we would otherwise never have learned about, and it really made us feel connected to the game.

My favorite random card comment of the day so far.

I find myself randomly stumbling onto cards that I had no idea were being referenced in Time Spiral, but years after Time Spirals release. For example, there's some online format a friend of mine plays, some sort of all-common format, and Grapeshot was huge. He found Benevolent Unicorn and was wrecking people, and I had no idea that card even existed.

It's tragic that Aaron Forsythe and Mark Rosewater frequently bring up Time Spiral block in a negative way. Time Spiral is my favorite set of all time, too, and triple TSP (I was just busy when FUT came out, so I didn't get to draft much TSP-PLC-FUT, but that seemed awesome too) is my favorite draft format ever too. I taught my then-girlfriend, now-wife how to play using Time Spiral cards, and she had no problem with Suspend (though admittedly, the rest of the set was a bit overwhelming for her, and Magic didn't really stick with her until we playing with a bunch of 10th edition cards). While I don't remember ever seeing a Plated Pegasus in play, per se, I hope that design and R&D realize that this block was HUGELY popular with a great number of people, and don't continue to write the block off as a mistake.

HEY WIZARDS OF THE COAST!

I just wanted to say that Time Spiral and Planar Chaos are THE best sets you have ever done. In-jokes are the funniest kinds of jokes, at least when you're in on it. And we were all in on it. Damnation, throwbacks, insane combinations of old strange mechanics that, according to your 1 reusable mechanic per block rule, would literally never have been created if it were not for this crazy block. Do it again some day..

I have to disagree with all the love for Time Spiral. And I'm neither a new player (been playing since Tempest), nor a casual one (I frequently play in the Brazilian Nationals).

The thing is, the color pie is pretty much why I love the game so much. And I just couldn't stand to see it butchered like it was in this block. Psionic Blast is reason enough for me to want to skip an entire block's two years in Standard altogether.

@ Aaron:

Ahh. As I can see are your player analytics well proven, when the younger players here write that they like the block and the "old guy" says: "Psionic Blast is reason enough for me to want to skip an entire block's two years in Standard altogether."

If you've ever had children or spend some time with them, you might have noticed a game. I call it the "But why?" game. Whenever you explain something, they ask "But why?". If you answer, they do it again... "But why?". You can play this game with adults too. The funny thing is that this game either ends in STFU, in a loop, where A causes B, because B causes A or third: "I don't know". This proves that many things are so common that people usually accept them as they are and never doubt that this might not be true. Basically, it's the logical-chain backwards... and this shows how good your conclusions have been.

I've quoted RickCorgan and his comment about Psionic Blast. He mentioned the Color Pie and how it forbids this card. The Color Pie is a concept about color-psychology. Cultures differ and some colors are based on how they were used in the past. In addition, the Magic Color Pie doesn't isn't identical to the physical color cycle or the colors of light, but uses aspects where appropriate and skips things where not. For example are blue and green usually connected to each other.

@ Psionic Blast or Timeshifted cards in general
These cards were chosen for some reason, maybe even to SHOW the changes the color pie has produced. Other cards are very interesting: Swamp Mosquito as an early hint towards infest. Darkness as a black fog. Witch Hunter as a white pinger and a white bounce ability. Squire as one of the worst vanilla creatures ever.

But I believe that it's a long way from a color towards an gaming effect. And there is enough room to argue pro or contra some effects. I have enough arguments why Fog should be blue (not white, black or green) and bounce should be white (not blue). So it's just a matter how open you are to new ideas and changes.... and these posts here have proven that "new players" seem to be more tolerant in general, and therefore might have loved this block nonetheless.

Plated Pegasus is simply a good card, its ok if one doesn't know the reference.
TimeSpiral is the best set Wizards has ever done and I'm saying that as a player who has played Standard, Legacy and Casual since Kamigawa, and can include Booster Draft/Sealed for each block since Kamigawa, as well as Mirrodin, Onslaught, and Mirage.

cplmontana: Yes, they do stack. But this one is much, much better than the Armor.

Time Spiral was pretty good, in the sense of a time-focused set. Though it is weird having all those mechanics at once.

<- Remembers when mechanics would stay with us. Cumulative upkeep found its way into Mirage. Rampage even found its way into Fifth Edition.

Wow, lots of good discussion on this page. I think I'll throw my hand in the ring as well. I enjoyed playing TS, but since I only started playing in Ravnica, I'm afraid I was one of those people that Aaron_Forsythe mentioned- the one who's left out of the in-joke.

Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Time Spiral. It was a lot of fun, and I had no problem understanding any of the mechanics. There were a lot of cards that I enjoyed playing with and building decks around. I even built my favorite deck from Time Spiral. But unfortunately, the flavor of the block completely escaped me. Looking at other blocks like Zendikar or Ravnica gives you a certain feeling about the set (exploration, or guilds in a big city or whatever). Time Spiral simply doesn't. And for a new player like myself who understood nothing about Akroma or Kobolds or Saffi Eriksdotter, the set didn't have much to offer me in that way.

Time Spiral was one of my favorite sets as well. I loved that there were so many cool things you could do in so many different ways. You could go for Shadow, or Suspend, or Storm, or Flash. I also loved how they reprinted old cards that went great with the new cards (like Dragonstorm). Because the set was so big, it had so many different ways you could go.

My introduction to Magic came in the form of a 7th Edition Starter Deck (Thorn Elemental was and still is one of the most badass things I'd ever seen). My next major purchases came from the Mirrodin block. Finally, upon entering college, I was re-introduced to the game and played in the time of Alara and the beauty that was Zendikar. I recently was fortunate enough to be able to draft some Time Spiral packs, and I must say it was a blast. My point is, ever since I learned the set existed I've been in love with it. Breaking the color pie? Thought provoking! Cards that reference famous cards from the past? Glorious! In any case, one doesn't have to have played Magic in the time of Legends to appreciate its history. I did research on it on my own time, as do at least four of my friends. Aside from this strange card, we get the references and we love it. I could see this sort of block as being a one time thing, but I nevertheless appreciate it immensely. It ain't as hated as y'all think.

@Raedin
Exactly, its not hard for new players to learn magic. But they always tailor core cards for new players, and make them weaker then they should be.

Plated Pegasus nerfs those burn spells everyone like to use against White Aggro. Honor of the Pure+Plated Pegasus counters Pyroclasm. (One of my friends in a Friends+Enemies game board-wiped me with pyroclasm, so I've been trying to stop that spell.)

Time Spiral block was one of the best you made. Reminding people that Magic has a history is important. That notion of splitting Time Spiral into two sets; the time-based set, and the nostalgia set; is excellent. The people who didn't like it probably ran into too many different mechanics, with too little explanation. I recommend sprinkling some more nostalgia thoughout upcoming Magic sets (like the cycles in Return to Ravnica block; Guildmages, Lands, Charm, Keyrunes), so that there are more opportunity to appreciate the story of Magic.

@Champion_Kitsune: Because they also had Ignite Memories, Dragonstorm, and Empty the Warrens, all of which can kill you even with Plated Pegasus?

Nearly every card in Time Spiral was a throwback to at least one previously printed card.

This card references Benevolent Unicorn and Armored Pegasus.

This pegasus loves grapes.

HA! Now your Lightning Bolts are all Shocks again.