Time Flies *Primer* (Infinite Turns) (Modern MTG Deck)

Time Flies Primer (Infinite Turns)

Modern Casual Competitive Primer RUW (Jeskai, America) Tempo Turns

JKRice

Land (18)

Instant (14)

Creature (5)

Sorcery (16)

Planeswalker (4)

4x Gideon of the Trials

Artifact (3)

3x Sundial of the Infinite

Sideboard

Instant (6)

Planeswalker (4)

Creature (1)

1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy ^Flip

Sorcery (4)

Maybeboard

Sorcery (4)

Planeswalker (1)

1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Enchantment (3)

Instant (2)

Normal turboturns is bad and expensive, so I came up with this bad boy. Recent sets just gave me some amazing sideboard cards and Nexus of Fate, which we can actually take infinite turns with.

If you can understand my card choices just from looking at the deck, skip the first section (The Deck)

PLEASE HELP: The best way to go off is with gideon, but you have to play him turn three and have him survive to your turn four, and even with his +1 that's a bit much to ask for. This is literally the final thing I want to fix in this deck before I will consider it complete. I just need card suggestions for what would help here. Please note: I would prefer to play cards that don't become dead draws after you go off, meaning they should be versatile or modal or help the chain in some way. Even if they just cantrip, that would be enough.

The Deck Show

Wut is it

Ever since I saw saffron olive’s glorious turn deck, I began thinking about how to utilize the new turn spells that had been printed (Chance for Glory and Glorious End). I didn’t like the more controlling and less explosive approach that olive took, so I started brewing, and this soon became my pet deck. The essential strategy of this deck is to get either Sundial of the Infinite or Gideon of the Trials on the field so that glorious end and chance for glory don’t kill you. Then you take some turns. The original idea was something like storm, and it only used sundial; You get an enabler T2 and go off T3. However, this strategy was a bit too inconsistent and hard to go off with, and even though gideon slows the deck down to a T4 win, he adds mana efficiency that makes the deck viable. Now, this deck is a very strange tempo-turns deck. You don't have to take 20 turns in a row and win, like other turboturn decks. Instead, you can just take one or two turns to get super ahead as a tempo play, then let them take a turn if you are running out of steam and don't want to risk it for the biscuit.

Edit: This deck is very good right now! There are quite a few graveyard decks which Day's Undoing screws over. Furthermore, this is the type of deck that doesn't care about losing life unless it would bring you to zero, which is good in a fast meta. The only issue I can see is the jund matchup and UWx control.

Deck Analysis

The deck in general is a version of modern turboturns. However, the build is different enough that I don’t count it as just a variant; this is a unique deck, it simply accomplishes the same things.

Deck Comparison

The normal TurboTurn deck is dimir or grixis, whereas this version is Jeskai.

Pros of this version over TurboTurns:

This deck’s consistent(ish) win is one turn faster than that of Turbo, and its fastest win is two turns faster than turbo. This is because our turn spells are relatively cheap manawise, whereas normal turboturns plays only five and six cost turn spells.
When this deck goes off, it goes off. The normal turboturns deck will fizzle much earlier than this version; Day's Undoing and five effective copies of snapcaster give us a massive amount of consistency in continuing taking turns.
This deck is actually hard to play and you have to keep track of a lot of things, whereas turboturns is just “land, swing, take a turn. Land, swing, take a turn.” I count this as a benefit to playing the deck.

Cons to this deck:

It largely relies on an enabler. Even though the enablers in the deck are not vulnerable to singular lightning bolts, the deck is susceptible to artifact hate and will do poorly against Jund decks with the printing of Assassin's Trophy
Even though this deck has consistency after going off, it doesn’t have as much consistency in beginning the turn chain, and the mulligans and topdecks absolutely suck, since you usually want a combination of 3+ cards in hand rather than the 1-2 necessary in normal turboturns.
Fairly uninteractive. I personally enjoy hard to play combo decks, even if they are uninteractive, but I have heard people say that strategies which ignore the other side of the board are boring.

Single Card Discussion

Lands

The main thing of note is that this is virtually fetchless. The original deck had 5 total fetches, but this was changed due to the necessity of hitting every land drop for the first 5-6 turns (including extra turns).

I have the mana ratios at a level that I would say is pretty good. I made my choices based on the fact that 1) I need early blue for cantrips, 2) I need double white for gideon, 3) I need double blue for time warp later in the game as well as lots of blue for gigadrowse.

Sideboard

The sideboard choices are not set in stone, and are essentially flex slots.

Maybeboard Suggestions

All of the cards on the maybeboard have been suggestions from other contributors to the deck, but I have decided not to run them for varying reasons. If you disagree and can think of a reason that one of the them should be mainboard/sideboard, please comment.

Before I go through them individually, there is one important thing. On turn three-four, I would rather begin the turn chain and win than do anything else. Even though playing Jace or supreme verdict or something like that might stop my opponent, it is simply always better to win. This is the main reason why many of these cards are not included.

Budget Options

There are a couple of expensive cards in the deck that offset the price by quite a bit, but the main turn spells and structure is actually pretty cheap.

The Manabase

For the manabase, some good budget options are to take out the fetches completely, switch the shocks for more slow-lands like Seachrome Coast, and add in checklands like Sulfur Falls, as well as more basics.

Mainboard

Mission Briefing is the best substitute for snapcaster, but it would require a light alteration of the manabase to give more access to blue.
Time Warp can be switched for a more mana expensive turn spell, like Part the Waterveil, but this is a hard switch for the deck to make, and you might have to add in more lands to make it work.
Day's Undoing can be switched for more draw spells, and Reforge the Soul is probably the best budget alternative.

You can find the budget version here:

Budget Sundial Turn Variant

Gameplay Show

The first thing you have to get out of your head when playing this deck is that you use the turn spells to win, and that you can never pass the turn. Change the way you think about extra turns. They are tempo plays that ramp you, and nothing more. This is even more important because of the inclusion of Day's Undoing. Day's undoing allows you to play turn spells, ramp by five or six lands, and reset. Having six more lands than your opponent, as well as an automatic board presence, will absolutely be enough of an advantage to win if you don't think you can go off. Remember, every time you exile a spell (glorious end/days undoing exiling itself or flashbacking a turn spell) you lose a resource, so if you don't want to waste that resource and feel comfortable with your board presence, definitely just pass.

Mulligan Rules

4+ or less than one land in hand is probably a mulligan. 2 is usually good if you have sundial or Gideon and a cantrip. 4 is definitely not preferable, but a few 4 land hands are keepable. 3 land hands (with sundial) are also not preferable, but are almost always better than mulliganing.
if you have an enabler, but no turn spells and one or less cantrips that aren’t serum visions, mulligan
if you have 3+ turn spells, no enabler, and one or less cantrips that aren’t serum visions, mulligan

The Optimal Hand

1x hallowed fountain, 1x Steam Vents, 1x scalding tarn 1x gideon or sundial, 2x chance for glory, and 1x time warp OR 1x cantrip

This is optimal for multiple reasons.

The turn spells aren’t the ones that exile themselves and they don’t give the opponent an untap
It has an enabler in the starting hand.
It has either a late game accelerant or an early dig spell.

Mana Thresholds

With Sundial

In order to win with Sundial of the Infinite, you need seven mana over two turns. You would play Chance for Glory to take an extra turn. On that turn, you need to hit your land drop, play another turn spell, and end the turn with sundial. The first turn costs three, the second costs four. Note that the first few turns with sundial are a bit finnicky and tedious, at least until you get to 5+ lands and have some way to dig for turn spells or refill your hand. Another notable threshold is 6 lands. This lets you do four things.

1) Play Time Warp and end the turn

2) play Snapcaster Mage into Chance for Glory/Glorious End and end the turn (or have the mana to end the turn the previous turn if you snap end on the opponent’s upkeep)

3) Play Goblin Dark-Dwellers into Chance for Glory and end the turn

4) Play Chance for Glory and end the turn with Day's Undoing

This means that once you get to six lands, you are into the safe zone where you have to worry much less about fizzling.

With Gideon

With Gideon, you only need three mana to win. This means you can win even if you miss a land drop. This is because you never have to pay the mana for sundial; you don’t have to end the turn because you never lose.

The second notable threshold is five mana, for all the same reasons listed in the category on sundial, but costing one less.

Without an Enabler

You need five mana to win without an enabler. However, you would need to hit a land drop on your extra turn to get six mana total. On your extra turn, you would play a land, then play Chance for Glory or nothing, then end the turn with Glorious End or Day's Undoing. If you played no turn spell on the extra turn and passed, you would need a Glorious End to end their turn early. Note that if you have six mana and draw into an enabler at any time, you can play the enabler and continue going off.

Sequencing/Strategies

Your sequencing in the first four turns will largely vary depending on the matchup. The matchup will play a huge role in how you play the deck, whether agressively or defensively.

In General

Overall, there are a few general sequencing and strategy rules, depending on how tapped out the opponent is.

You want to save Day's Undoing until you can play it with a turn spell. This is because undoing automatically ends the turn, reshuffles the turn spells into your library, and refills your hand.
Be careful using your mana for cantrips. Remember, with sundial as an enabler, you always need one mana open to prevent an automatic loss.
Play Gideon as soon as you can, as long as you are very careful that you have enough mana to continue taking turns. You want to start whacking as soon as possible. Remember, Gideon can activate abilities as soon as you play him, so you won’t need one mana open to activate sundial if you play Gideon during a turn chain.
if you have serum visions and sleight of hand in hand, and you want to play both of them in the same turn, play sleight first and serum second. This allows you to see five cards no matter what whereas serum into sleight only lets you see five if you bottom both of your scrys. The same goes for opt and serum visions

Control Matchups

Always prefer Time Warp and Chance for Glory over Glorious End in a control matchup. This is because glorious end gives them an untap step, allowing them to disrupt our strategy with counterspells.
Prefer Sundial of the Infinite over Gideon in a counter-Control matchup, because the faster you play your enabler, the less time they have to find the mana to counter it.
Prefer Gideon over sundial in a destroy-control matchup like jund, because when you plus Gideon, he becomes unboltable, and there are more things that hit artifacts than planeswalkers.
Be careful with Day's Undoing, as it refills your opponent’s hand as well.

Key sideboard cards: Gigadrowse forces a counterspell or else you win, Pieces of the Puzzle/Fact or Fiction fill your hand against discard or just give you more resources to a Force of Negation doesn't end the game, Teferi, Time Raveler gets rid of controlling permanents and forces a counterspell or else you win, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy keeps your hand full of resources and makes counterspells half as effective.

Aggro Matchups

Glorious End is usually a better choice than the rest. This is because you want to save the real turn spells in case you fizzle, and pre board you shouldn’t be too worried about them getting an untap step, since they usually don't run any meaningful interaction.
Make them make you go off. Play in response. If you wait for them to have kill pressure on the field and the glrorious end then and then go off, this will accomplish two things. 1) they will most likely be tapped out/have an empty hand. 2) You will have had a few turns to set up some turn spells or a gideon or figure out your sequencing.
If you’re about to fizzle and you’re sure the opponent can’t kill you if you pass, day’s undoing can essentially turn into a mulligan, allowing you to reset everything except your board. This reset isn’t REALLY IMPORTANT since it essentially turns back the clock to the turn you started going off; you haven’t wasted anything as long as you reset.
Because of the previous point, only use your snapcasters as a last-ditch effort to prevent fizzling. If you play a snapcaster and are forced to fizzle with Day's Undoing, that snap becomes useless except as a blocker/attacker, and so does the card you exiled with flashback.

Key sideboard cards: Angel's Grace becomes a turn spell, Terminus can reset the board and allow you to win.

Combo Matchups

Most of the time, avoid resetting with Day's Undoing and passing. This gives the opponent the chance to set up their combo. However, if they have cantriped a lot or maybe cast some search spells to find their combo, undoing will mess this up again, so don't be afraid to trust the RNG.
many combo decks run instant speed stuff like Opt. If they try to do something on your end step, don’t be afraid to use sundial as a pseudo-counterspell.

Key sideboard cards: Angel's Grace makes their combo useless, Gigadrowse stalls for one turn if you think they have the whole thing set up, Narset, Parter of Veils kills a lot of combo decks, Pact of Negation kills the win condition of most combo decks, Teferi, Time Raveler can stall for one turn by bouncing an enabler.

Misc Tips

This section will include very obvious stuff for those of you who have no idea what’s going on

Matchups Show

This section is long, and I haven't bothered to update it to the new list.

Good Matchups

G/R Tron

This is a favorable matchup because this specific version of Tron does nothing for the first couple turns, until they get the Tron lands on the field. This gives us time to either go off or set up responses to their plays. The only problem is that if we get outpaced, they can ruin our mana thresholds with World Breaker or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. In this matchup, you want to use the spirit guides to accelerate a sundial onto the board as early as possible so we can outpace them.

Side in: shattering spree to kill the T1 Expedition Map/Chromatic Star.

Bogles

Bogles has zero mainboard ways to stop our turn chain, and it isn’t fast enough to kill us before we go off. Also, they want to attack every turn, meaning game one they probably won’t leave up a blocker, and if they do it won’t be the one that’s buffed by the enchantments.

Side in: engineered explosives, 0-2 thing in the ice

Graveyard Decks (Hollow one, bridgevine, dredge)

Day's Undoing is literally a reset for the opponent. That’s it.

Side in: angel’s grace against combo-ey-er yard decks that might kill you T3 (Bridgevine), spell snare/dispel against yard decks that go a jund-ier destroy route, 1x terminus

Equal Matchups

U/R Gifts Storm

Since our snares can hit the enablers, and since storm plays only two counter(ish) spells (Unsubstantiate and Remand), we can go off relatively without fear of interaction. However, since storm is a very fast combo deck, it can easily get out of hand if we don’t have responses or we are on the draw. Storm’s quickness makes it an equal matchup, but it’s consistency makes it a bit skewed in favor of storm.

Side in: 2x dispel, 1-2 leyline of sanctity, 2x angel’s grace, maybe spell snare

Jeskai/UW control

Mostly, these decks have lots creature based removal and a decent amount of counterspells. They also have some midrange-y cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor for the long game. If we have responses to their interaction (Spell Snare) or if they tap out for a Jace, we can easily win on the spot. The fact that they don’t have targeted artifact removal means sundial will stay on the board if it resolves. However, the counterspells balance the matchup considerably. If we attempt to prevent ourselves from losing by ending the turn with Day's Undoing and undoing gets countered, we just lose. Therefore, you have to be very aware of their mana and your mana, and what they might be able to play at instant speed.

Side in: 2x dispel, 1x spell snare

Zoo (all variants)

Zoo is a decently equal matchup that goes slightly in favor of zoo. Since they have lots of creatures that usually gain hast from Goblin Bushwhacker, they probably won’t have any blockers when we go off. However, we do have to be aware that those hastey creatures might just kill us if we’re a turn late.

Side in: 1x engineered explosives, 2x thing in the ice, 1x terminus

Naya Burn

Naya burn is one of the less favorable equal matchups, but it is good enough to fit into this section. We have creature removal to deal with Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear, and the fact that burn has no removal for sundial and it’s fastest win is T4 means we have a decent chance. The problem against burn is its inevitability. If you have a hand that is one turn too slow, you will lose to burn. It has too many ways to kill you. Prefer sundial over Gideon, as their creatures can poke Gideon down quickly.

Side in: 2x leyline of sanctity, possibly 1-2 angel’s grace

Bad Matchups

Eldrazi Death/Taxes

Eldrazi death and taxes is a horrible matchup. You have to be on the play and go off turn two-three (probably through a thalia) in order to win. Other than that, you will lose, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Side in: 2x thing in the ice, 1x terminus, possibly engineered explosives

KCI

We have no mainboard responses to KCI, and the sideboard is pretty bad against a deck that works on sacrificing artifacts and artifact death triggers.

Side in: engineered explosives, shatterstorm, shattering spree

Bant Eldrazi

This is a very hard matchup. Chalice of the Void makes much of our deck useless if they hit it on three. Thought-Knot Seer is unboltable and can prevent us from beginning the turn chain. Reality Smasher means we have a very fast clock to beat.

Side in: shattering spree, terminus, maybe engineered explosives

Jund

Assassin's Trophy and Abrupt Decay are very annoying agains our deck. Trophy is the main reason why I run the spell snares. Both of these can hit our enablers. Furthermore, jund runs a multitude of one mana discard spells which can strip our enablers and turn spells.

Side in: 2x welding jar, 1x engineered explosives, 0-2 dispel, 1x terminus

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Casual

93% Competitive

Top Ranked	Achieved #55 position overall 6 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 1 Mythic Rares 29 - 10 Rares 4 - 1 Uncommons 8 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.79
Tokens	Emblem Gideon of the Trials, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Folders	Somewhat Original Deck Primers, Prox, Decks I Want To Make, Ausprobieren, decks
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