1. Your example has a mistake. If your opponent just Mana Drained your Temporal Mastery, they aren’t going to go Tinker for Blightsteel. They’re going to hardcast it :D

    Okay, more seriously.

    Unless I’m missing something, I think in that scenario you were losing to Tinker anyway. Let’s say you could make the Temporal Mastery any card in the game. What would you choose? Spell Pierce? If you play the Jace, you’re losing in exactly the same way you just lost here (it gets Mana Drained, and you lose the counter war). If you don’t play the Jace, or let it get countered, you still lose the counter war when your opponent Tinkers.

  2. You said something about not needing to oath a second time with upkeep stuff.
    Here is an oath shell that would love to oath a 2nd time.
    4 temporal mastery
    4 noxious revival
    3 rune-scarred demon.
    If you activate oath once, you might be able to take all the turns.

  4. @ PlanetWalls:

    Not necessarily; not if you had forbidden orchard on the board. You could ‘then donate’ a creature to your opponent every turn, keeping him/her ahead with # creatures.

    Right?

  6. correct mobz. if you have an orchard and activate oath you will always have at least 1 less duder.

  7. @Random Scrub: Yes, you would likely lose in either scenario. I was just trying to illustrate an example that wouldn’t be too uncommon to show how spending resources and time to get a Time Walk is unprofitable.

    @Whiffy: Demon Oath could also have a place for Temporal Mastery, though I’d argue that ShOath is actually better since ShOath wins in the face of Leyline and Cage. I had not considered Demon Oath before writing this article, thanks for mentioning it.

  8. Surprised that nobody has called me crazy thus far. If you think that I’m of base I’d love to hear your thoughts!!