Pointed Discussion

This card is so fun. It controls the order of all turns, so you just need to control the top card of your library and you have turn after turn after turn...

The problem with it is that it exiles the expensive card that you used to make it work! XD That's annoying.

I LOVE this card. It's not necessarily powerful or tournament-worthy, but it's SO much fun. At a multiplayer table, one of these hitting the board means upcoming madness that will have everyone shouting, laughing maniacally at getting multiple turns, and screaming about how stupid the card is. Stupid, stupid fun that takes "skill" and "multiplayer politics" by the scruff of the neck and uppercuts them. Good times with this card, good times. For being great fun and memorable, this card gets 5/5.

Milling is not what this card was made for, i wouldn't call one card each turn "very quickly" for five mana, majinara.
Although in multiplayer games one indeed notices that this card exiles a good bit of each library.
But i also think the main point of this card is the fun aspect ratched1215 already figured out. Anyone who ever used this card will likely agree with him.

I also tried using this card in a more serious way by controlling the top card of the library, but since it gets exiled you'll have a very hard time to ensure that you're the one that gets the turn.
Therefore messing around with the top card of your opponent's library in regular games is the more effective way. So try putting his/her lands on top. Metamorphose, Fallow Earth, Plow Under, Uproot or Temporal Eddy could be used to do this. Orcish Spy, Goblin Spy and Lantern of Insight can be useful to hold track of the top cards to ensure the right timing. Cards like Sage of Epityr or Sage Owl could find use to evade exiling your lands with the Timesifter.
If there just was a way to ensure that your opponent is playing with basic lands, i'd even consider putting it into a land destruction deck along with Lodestone Bauble.
But overall this isn't quite worth the effort since it's still an unreliable way and because the sifter has the unappealing cost of five mana.

It stays a fun card which is apparently not meant for competitive play...

You can go "infinite" by using a big creature, Research on a stick and Worldly Tutor on a stick. Then you just wait until everyone else has an empty library and destroy the sifter.

The big problem with this card is that it punishes players for building decks with low mana costs. Against goblins, white weenies, some elves, there is practically no possibility of taking a turn ever again, especially in multiplayer. (had that problem last night)

There's also a strange issue not currently covered by the errata- what happens when the player who is going next dies on the current player's turn? We played it that normal turn order resumes, then the sifter triggers that upkeep again.

Overall annoying card which hoses people in the worst way- arbitrarily.

The card mills people very quickly, since it exiles a card from each players library during each upkeep.

@ Mode: in a 6 player game, it basically exiles 6 of your cards until it's your turn again, in the average. And then you draw one too of course, so you your library loses 7 cards each turn. And that's what I call fast. :) Not to mention that it's only the "average". If you have bad luck you won't have another turn again ever. ^^

Research no longer works on cards removed from the game under the new exile rule in the 2010 changes. Cards exiled or removed are no longer considered "outside the game".

Same as Ratchet. It's so much fun! 5/5 just for that.

...The problem with this card is that the art looks like a ballsack. Someone had to say it sooner or later.

Path to success:

1. Have a Sensei's Divining Top out
2. Run it in a colorless Eldrazi deck.
3. ????
4. Profit!

I wish one of the planechase planes did this. The chaos face of the die could just allow the active player to reshuffle cards of his from the exile zone.

Stranglehold to take one side profit

Stuck this on a Prototype Portal in EDH. Hilarity and confusion ensued

Great to build around with a lot of high cmc cards that have alternate methods of being played other than just paying the high amt's of mana, ie- morph!

I noticed how no one has mentioned this card can't mill an opponent. Once your opponent's deck is empty they can never take another turn, will never have to draw again, and won't lose the game. It will eat your deck until it's empty, possibly killing you. If you draw your last card, this thing goes off with both libraries empty, and it forces a tie.

Hilarious in a Relentless Rats mirror match.

Nobody should ever use the phrase "on a stick" again when proposing a game-breaking combo. If your combo involves Isochron Scepter, please, just keep it to yourself.

Oh, should I comment on this Time Sifter thing? Derpy Derp Oh Boy What A Powerful Card Derpy Derp

"ALL HAIL THE GREAT LORD EGOTIST!"
"Nope, Worldspine. Looks like it's my turn again."
"...You're an as­shole, you know that?"

I've got two that I want to find a deck for, they look like quite the troll cards.
3/5 Stars

Just use with Divining Top.

The fun way to combat that one guy who keeps taking infinite turns.

I played multiple of these on the field, with copy artifact... it like playing multiple Chains of Mephistopheles with copy enchantment, just,... Nooo...

I have found that this works excellently in the commander 2013 grixis EDH deck. After you have nekusaur + underworld dreams / spiteful visions / howling mine out, your opponent taking turns more turns still hurts. Alternatively, with Jelava, you can use brainstorm / scry to manipulate the top of your deck to be stacked with high converted mana cost spells like Curse of the Cabal.

I think this card can be abused in commander with the command zone rule. Use Cromat. Put him on top of your library, exile him with Timesifter, he goes to the command zone, play him again and put him on top of your library again. Infinite turns as long as you can keep playing Cromat and your opponent doesn't reveal higher than 5.

Another option for normal play is to put fatties like Draco on top of your library with spells like Bone Harvest or something like Hua Tuo, Honored Physician. But in casual there are easier ways to get infinite turns.