Time Spiral || Crack-A-Pack - November 7th, 2023

[@Jesperasa]

00:27 Oh, hi, that’s me! I’m Jesper, from Denmark. In a room full of Spaniards and Americans, being a pale Danish guy made me easy to identify. The story behind the pack is sadly boring, as such stories usually are. I bought it at one of the retailers at MagicCon, ‘cause I forgot to bring the pack I bought in Denmark with me (oops😓). I think it was one of the English-speaking retailers - so they’re probably from NA. So that’s probably why. Thanks to the folks at LRR for being so kind and patient with me - shoutout to Nelly and Ben for bringing this back!

[@00Clank]

Delighted by the extra context.

[@lukastrucka9447]

Hi Jesper, what a coincidence :) it was nice meeting you and your pack

[@janMelantu]

Pendelhaven Elder is a reference to Pendelhaven, one of the original Legendary Lands from Legends, which tapped for a green or could tap to give a 1/1 creature +1/+2, and it was on the Timeshifted Bonus Sheet (this is the set that invented bonus sheets). It was the second best land in that cycle, after Karakas (taps for a white or bounces a Legend, a Legacy & Highlander Staple), but significantly better than Hammerheim, Urborg, and Tolaria (which could only remove keywords like Swampwalk, First Strike, or Banding, in addition to adding mana). Pendelhaven mostly sees play in infect, as it’s a free, repeatable pump effect for your Glistener Elf/Blighted Agent/Inkmoth Nexus

[@collinbeal]

Oh, that makes so much more sense now for the land The Seedcore from ONE, which is an aggro Pendelhaven (+2/+1) with Corrupted, and a Phyrexian mana fixer. It works really well with the Mite tokens from the set, but I was curious why they specifically chose something Pendelhaven-like. Knowing now that Pendelhaven was used with Infect slots everything together in my head. I wasn't playing during that era of Magic.

[@sofer2230]

"Clearly this is a reference to something that's sailing so far over my head, even reach wouldn't be able to block it." Stealing this, thank you very much.

[@viperion_nz]

It's a reference to Pendelhaven, the land. Taps for G and also taps to give all your 1/1 creatures +1/+2

[@ankhi3585]

@@viperion_nz Pendelhaven is target 1/1 creature.

[@dragonmz5274]

Fun fact Krosan Cloudscraper was the biggest black-border creature when it was printed in Legions, finally topping the 12/12 Phyrexian Dreadnaught, and stayed the biggest until Emrakul was printed. Also they've printed 10/10, 11/11, 12/12, 13/13, 15/15, 16/16 but no 14/14 yet

[@gaz-l621]

No, you take the Cloudscraper, discard it while Living End is on suspend, and boop, free 13/13!

[@Flum666]

except you have to pay GG on your upkeep, and your monoblack deck can't do that

[@collinbeal]

​@@Flum666who's drafting monocolored primarily? We're going Golgari!

[@Moroklumpen]

Either that, or just play it as a morph and chump block with it as they try to kill you before Living End comes off suspend.

[@TehAmelie]

@Moroklumpen Ah, that's a much better plan than trying to get the opponent to attack into your morph card while you have 9 free mana.

[@Moroklumpen]

@@TehAmelie I mean, if you have the morph and the mana there's no need to cheat; just flip it when you want and attack for 13.

[@Drecon84]

The thing about one Gnarr being a good omen is a direct reference to the flavor text of Glade Gnarr.

[@davidstreicher1103]

Fun fact: There are four Gnarrs in Magic: Apocalypse had Glade Gnarr and Bog Gnarr, each of which was strengthened by playing with one of green's enemy colors; Time Spiral had Herd Gnarr as a reference to the original pair; and IKORIA had Trumpeting Gnarr; a mutate creature which also highlights one of green's enemy pairs. Also, each Gnarr costs 1 less to cast than the previous one: Glade costs 6, Bog costs 5, Herd costs 4, and Trumpeting costs 3 (though it mutates for 5).

[@Kryptnyt]

Gnarr Gnarr Gnarr Gnarr! Gnarr Gnarr Gnarr Gnarr! Hey hey hey! Bad cards!

[@pyredynasty]

I read that first part in an exasperated Patrick Stewart voice.

[@houseofshadow6380]

​@@KryptnytI kinda hate you for this. But I love you more, though.

[@Ariamaki]

Graham, you can morph at instant speed. The point of the Krosan Cloudscraper is to swing with assorted face down 2/2s throughout the game and leave your opponent constantly wondering when one of them is going to be a 13/13 instant death beatstick. As for the discard effects, not only were there many cheap Flashbacks and some Madness, but this is the block (remember block formats?) that included the OG printing of Tarmagoyf.

[@LadyLunarSatine]

You'd think they could've at least given it trample.

[@marcushead9985]

9:33 Venser invented Landlord Sliver.

[@fundude365]

Tragically, drafting Time Spiral is a _serious_ financial decision.

[@OGNoNameNobody]

Watching Graham *whiff* on so many of that pack's references made me feel, _SO_ old....

[@xnopyt-aaajjj]

Ghostflame Sliver is my favourite member of Wu-Tang Clan.

[@TheIrishJackel]

Time Spiral was my first draft set. I'd been playing since Urza block, but it was this set that introduced me to my favorite way to play the game. Naturally I bought an entire case of TSR when it was revealed lol. Edit: Krosan Cloudscraper is still my top pick for dumbest card to not have reach. How can a card with _Cloudscraper_ in the name not block a bird?

[@ButzPuff]

For the edit: Wizards answered this back in the day in one their articles. The Cloudscraper is so massively big and dumb (it was the largest creatures in Magic at the time, outside of BFM) that it just doesn't notice anything around it. So, it wouldn't block a bird but it would hit if the bird just happened get in it's way.

[@mattlewis3472]

Hey same here! My roommate in college introduced me to drafting with time spiral after I'd been playing since Tempest/Urza era. Fond memories, even if that set had serious complexity issues

[@BenMarcWilliams]

Some FYIs for Graham: There were other Gnarrs besides Herd Gnarr, some of whom were cuter. You guessed correctly; there is, in fact, Madness in this set. Trespasser il-Vec is meant to be an enabler for that and flashback. So are the spellshapers, for that matter. Time Spiral was actually the _second_ time they had storm, the first being Scourge. Somehow WotC didn't learn their lesson the first time. Pendelhaven Elder is a reference to the legendary land Pendelhaven, from Legends. All the colors-matters stuff is just a product of the times. Protection from colors and color hosers were a lot more common back in the day. The purple rarity symbol cards are called Timeshifted cards, and yes, you got one in every pack. Krosan Cloudscraper has morph so you can surprise your opponent with 13 damage when they don't block it because they thought it was a Willbender. Or so you can cheat on the morph cost with Ixidor or something.

[@FanOfMostEverything]

Ghostflame Sliver is more a reference to Ghostly Flame, a card from _Ice Age_ that was intended to hose Circles of Protection. It was a lot better when protection from specific colors was vastly more prevalent than indestructible.

[@Mordalon]

Turning the opponent’s creatures colorless also made them vulnerable, if they were Black, to Black’s many conditional removal spells like Terror.

[@GumbyBrainDoctor]

I heard of a tournament where a player played 2 morph creatures on turns 3 & 4, then Ixidor, Reality Sculptor on 5. On 6, attacked with the morphs, defending player chose not to block. Attacker used Ixidor to flip both morphs for 2U each, revealing 3 Krosan Cloudscrapers, 26 unblocked damage on turn 6.

[@brendaneichler5244]

10:00 The reference is to Pendlehaven, the green memeber of the first legendary land cycle back in Legends.

[@Sientir]

I learned to play Magic by watching people play it in my college's cafeteria over the course of a year (the 2006-2007 school year, to be specific), then started playing myself the next school year around the time Lorwyn released. I *loved* Time Spiral block so much, it was an amazing crash-course on the history of Magic in so many ways: mechanics and references abound! I still have a huge soft spot for the block. Also, you could totally Morph the Krosan Cloudscraper, then blink it to turn it face up without paying its morph cost. Remember, Momentary Blink is in this set! That'd be a fun combo to pull off in limited. :D

[@DarkLadyMarie]

Well Graham if you ever find yourself in Texas, I've got a full Time Spiral block cube ready for draft. Every booster has one original Timeshifted card and one Remastered Timeshifted card for maximum chaos. Its a very fun and weird format

[@ankhi3585]

Time Spiral was the first set where you could open 3 rares in one pack instead of just 1. It introduced the guaranteed special slot (purple reprint in Time Spiral, colour-shifted card in Planar Chaos and "future" cards in Future Sight) but it also introduced the foil replacing a common card instead of a card of the same rarity. So all the guaranteed Innistrad flip cards, Multiverse legends, Enchanted Tales, etc... started here. As far as drafting goes you pretty much have to look at it like a Chaos draft there are no real pronounced archetypes (because they had to fit in so many references to older cards) just a little bit of synergy with madness. That said you didn't really open a strong pack imho. I think the goblin or the rebel might be the better picks. The aura Bound in Silence is from Future Sight because it's a very novel card design.

[@tipulsar85]

Storm was most definitely a thing the entire Time Spiral block, but it didn't first appear here, but in Scourge which was the final set to 100% be in the original borders for now.

[@chifii]

I will add that this is the set that infamously introduced Storm into Modern, so...Graham's not technically wrong.

[@_Max_Fan]

Regarding Madness "Is there (a mechanic that existed when Time Spiral was printed) in this set/block?" Yes

[@andreasbuehler1821]

I used to run two Cloudscrapers in my beast tribal deck back in Onslaught block! Only two because I couldn't find more of them to trade at my school.

[@cassie5248]

Fun fact!! Ghostflame sliver is a reference to Ghostly Flame, a BR enchantment that makes all your black and red spells and permanents colorless (for the purpose of fighting white's protection). The much more famous Ghostfire that came later in time spiral block in Future Sight is also a reference to that same enchantment, and created the character of Ugin. So we have some random jank enchantment from ice age that no one knows about to thank for ugin

[@Senovan1]

This was the set that was out when I first started playing magic. I could feel my hair greying when you read the year

[@cassie5248]

Also this video made me learn about Gnarrs, and that Ikoria gave us a new Gnarr for the first time since Herd Gnarr

[@einamune]

I was once playing a commander game and I was playing Sliver Hivelord the indestrucible one. And I was doing sliver things and was going off so the control player cast All is Dust and I was able to flash out with flash sliver my ghostflame sliver. He set everyone else back and I was perfectly fine. It is a bad card and I will never remove it from my deck.

[@collinbeal]

You're a scoundrel, but you have my respect.

[@twarnold14]

I put cloudscraper into a morph commander deck years ago. I had such high aspirations of attacking with a bunch of 2/2s and then turning one into a massive 13/13! As you might have guessed, that never happened.

[@alexandredesbiens-brassard9109]

Ah man, I cracked so many of these. This was during the period played the most magic.

[@huntery3568]

...yeah, I feel about like a screaming sliver today.

[@Mordalon]

While technically Planar Chaos was my first prerelease, this was my first set to start getting seriously into the game. I even got the fat pack with the novel and a booklet that had every card in the set. I didn’t even get most of the references but loved trying to figure them out. It’s my go-to example of it being okay to just jump into something even if you don’t get references, cause it’s fun to figure out as you go.

[@MarlaDesat]

Delightful as always!

[@ChroniclerC]

Time Spiral was a wacky block. Basically *every* keyword (that existed thus far) was in the set somewhere. Anyway, Herd Gnarr did things in the Thallid deck, so much so that the precon included a couple. Elder of Pendlehaven was a reference to the legendary land Pendlehaven (also in the Thallid precon). There wasn't really a color-maters theme, but there was plenty of Madness and Flashback to go around. Lasty, Venser's Sliver was kind of okay at the time, because this was the era where slivers gave their benefits to *all* slivers, not just your own.

[@Mordalon]

Not every keyword. Ravnica, Mirrodin and Kamigawa’s unique mechanics were largely unrepresented until it came to Future Sight which had Convoke.

[@mattlewis3472]

This made me want mtgo to do time spiral flashback drafts for the nostalgia

[@colinjones5379]

The real tech with Krosan Cloudscraper is that you attack with a bunch of morphs, and they don't block it because it's just a Willbender right? It's always Willbender - until one day, when one of them gets past the declare blockers step and turns out to be a 13/13

[@ricohard1986]

Everyone forgets Skirk Alarmist

[@gamerbear84]

Morphs can be flickered to face side up, also you can attack with a mystery 2/2 and they have to guess whether it'll turn out to be a 13/13 or not. lol

[@elijahmcdowell9690]

I think the ghostflame sliver is because this set seemed to have a lot of protection from colors. I think. Don't quote me on this

[@GerBessa]

Yep, like that goblin just before in the pack.

[@BenMarcWilliams]

I mean, protection was just generally more common back then.

[@Mordalon]

There were a bunch of Slivers in the set that all referenced old cards. Magic in general cared more about colors back then.

[@christopherlundgren1700]

It's a callback to Ghostly Flame from Ice Age. Black and red decks had few answers to Circles of Protection, which were heavily played in those days, so Ghostly Flame was sort of a counter to the counter. I don't know if Ghostflame Sliver was intended to have a mechanical function in Time Spiral, or if they just thought it would be a fun old card to invoke.

[@stevenstephens504]

Time spiral and others before it had a lot of protection of all colors we called the cop (circle of protection) making slivers colorless allowed them to get through protection from colors.

[@floataway3]

Time Spiral was my first set! (Might have actually been Planar Chaos, but it was right around the release window, so I think TSP was still the big set at the time). I remember seeing Grapeshot and immediately thinking "Well. I can do SOMETHING with this." Which is how I became largely an Izzet degenerate Until Worldwake when I learned what Azorius could do.

[@paulallison3974]

did anyone else try to pandemonium -> cloudscraper -> momentary blink? I think I had it in a sealed pool and got to do it once, mostly pandemonium killed me though, but that one time was worth it :)

[@NStripleseven]

Plunder seems kinda interesting actually, because you pay 2 mana to basically say “your opponents probably don’t want to play artifacts for the next 4 turns, then kill a land.”

[@cameronneveu7277]

Ahh but the Trick is Swing into combat with your 2/2 Morph, and when they don't block with their rare because your holding up 9 mana and Grinning evilly, you unmorph and hit them like a truck.

[@Kryptnyt]

Momentary Blink was in the set at common, so there's a nonzero amount of bant flicker decks interested in that Krosan Cloudscraper. Just be prepared to pay that upkeep!

[@pietarimajuri9753]

Ahh, timeshifted cards, the original bonus sheet.

[@Mordalon]

Spellshapers can discard Lands and Madness cards. Every pack had a Timeshifted card. Magic in general cares about colors more back then. Ravnica the block before had a bunch of it like the Boros mechanic Radiance.

[@Arisorio]

Krosan Cloudscraper can attack and unmorph after not being blocked.

[@GerBessa]

Cloudscrapper was, at one time part of the package in cephalid breakfast decks with stitched ghoul. Mill your deck Get Narcomoebia in play Flashback dread return by saccing Narco, Cephalid and Kor Get back the Ghoul, exile two Cloudscrappers for a 26/26 Breath of the Dragon goes on the ghoul and the ghoul attacks

[@brendaneichler5244]

4:37 The card in question is Bound in Silence

[@lostmarble540]

the art really does feature a minotaur just floating about like Ophelia

[@BigDiff7]

9 mana is absurd, but morphing after declaring no blocks to dome the opponent for 13 is the dream. I had a friend who held a going away Odyssey draft and I opened this card and gave it a go. It was usually a 3 mana 2/2.

[@Jaebird88]

Time Spiral block was when I was the most reckless with my money. I no longer have a majority of those cards, which keeps me sad to this day.

[@Billchu13]

Flicker a morph into 13/13

[@thewonderdoc2999]

Wternity Snare is surprisingly playable in TSP. Blue removal is not great. Its basically 3 types of bounce and cancel other than this

[@Vmcf1968]

much fun

[@Veelofar]

I still wish Venser’s Sliver and Metallic Sliver made all Slivers artifacts.

[@coolcockatoo3707]

I cant wait to see you guys at the prerelease in rain city games

[@furbyfubar]

Krosan Cloudscraper really feels like it at least should have gotten trample for that cost. I guess the dream is to play an elf deck that ramps and goes wide and have your opponent make the questionable choice of not blocking your morph creature? Yeah, clearly needs trample!

[@Mordalon]

The original idea with Morph is it's a shell game. You have other morphs and they have to make blocks not knowing if the 13/13 is getting through or not.

[@daxlyon3512]

I herdly gna-er

[@matthewwebb4777]

You might want your slivers to be colorless if your opponent has Ugin in play

[@siltyroach1584]

Crack that pack yeyeye

[@davidhouseman4328]

Pulled a Pendelhaven from this set, I'm now wondering if it's my most played card as its so low cost to add to a deck.

[@GeminiTasiri]

I assume the Cloudscraper having Morph is just to make it not a bricky card if you don't get to the 10 Mana to cast it and instead would like a 2/2 chump blocker?? What a weirdly designed card.

[@Mordalon]

It's actually fairly normal for a Morph design from back then, other than being the (at the time) biggest creature printed. Morph from the beginning was meant to act as essentially a shell game. Your opponent doesn't know which 2/2 to worry about. You're supposed to attack with it and other 2/2s and try to get it past their blockers.

[@Veelofar]

Aside. That Cloud Scraper isn’t wheeling if I’m there. I love playing the cup game of death with KCS. Five morphs on the ground and I held up Cloud Scraper mana. Which of them do you block?

[@KalElelVigilant]

When i heard Jasper I thought of Jesper Eising. He's from Denmark?

[@SwiftrunnerXXY]

I dunno about at the time but nowadays I want Ghostflame Sliver because All Is Dust.

[@rewindg8604]

All is Dust

[@HMFons]

Pack printed for BE/CA market maybe?

[@taylord2006]

Crack! A! Pack!

[@pyredynasty]

Tim Espiral

[@EricChoiniere]

Maybe Jasper bought and mailed the pack while on a trip to Canada? I don't know the shipping rates but tid be certainly be cheaper than sending you a pack from Denmark itself

[@collinbeal]

It was given to Graham in Barcelona

[@EricChoiniere]

@@collinbeal missed that, thank you

[@Arrowatch]

I like many of these cards, for low power or even jank eternal format decks. I do not like any of these themes in a limited draft.

[@cheshirecreeper3743]

Couldn’t you cheat out Krosan with living end?

[@thormachinejean4842]

Gramm, I am 100% slamming that sky scrapper, its a 2/2 morph at the start and if your op dosnt know what you got you can easly unmorph it mid combat and 13 to the face them

[@toastermon2272]

Krosan Cloudscraper should definitely have had reach but this wasn't a thing back then but still it's so big, it should be retroactively get "can block creatures with flying"

[@davidgill9463]

Remember when Rosewater told us TSP block was too complex? That’s funny

[@Mordalon]

that's an oversimplification. Modern sets have complexity, but that also have consistent themes. TS block had lots of references that left the uniformed baffled and were not resonant, as well as far more mechanics than the average set these days has.