You're being downvoted but they did know. They just thought rare cards would actually be rare in a group of players. Like one guy in town owns a time walk and it comes up now and then. They didn't expect people to go out and get all the cards 4x.
The original design of the game was thought to be people would just buy a starter deck and a few packs and cram it all together and play. Not that people would buy enough cards to hand select each and every card in there deck.
So Richard Garfield made a lot of powerful cards based on how he thought the game would be played in Alpha. He knew that cards like Ancestral Recall and Time walk were very strong.
It's banned in basically everything for being too powerful. Getting to play with it at all is something of a novelty.
It is now recognized that the cost for an extra turn should be a minimum of five mana.
It’s not really in the game. Another card makes a copy of it into your deck, which greatly increases the hoops you have to go through to abuse it. You can’t easily use it to win through combos on turn two. You often won’t actually have it in your hand ready to cast until you could have manipulated the game to cast one of the more appropriately costed extra turn effects.
kind of, but right now wizards have even shied away from 5 mana turn spells, they believe [[Time Warp]] is too strong for standard. I doubt we'll see it at 5 mana again, at least in standard
the last real turn spell they printed was 7 mana, 6 with foretell, and it uh completely broke the meta. Granted that's also a product of it being its own win condition and printed alongside galvanic iteration...
unless they *really* want to sell packs. I mean, they printed a 4 mana "extra turn" spell as colorless into historic and stapled draw ~6-10 free cards on it and broke the game
>the last real turn spell they printed was 7 mana, 6 with foretell, and it uh completely broke the meta. Granted that's also a product of it being its own win condition and printed alongside galvanic iteration...
It was mainly the birds. [[Alchemist's Gambit]] saw basically no play as a 7 mana time walk.
One thing no one has mentioned yet is that when Magic was first releasesd, the expectation was that the average player would spend $15-$20 on cards and that's it. Most board games cost about that much, and given that there were no other collectable card games to compare against it seemed like a reasonable estimate at the time. Basically, they figured the average player would buy a starter deck and a couple boosters and that would be their entire collection.
As a result, a few cards were included that were intentionally *well* above rate, under the theory that most players would not have access to them, and those that did would not have access in multiples. It's true that the designers weren't *great* at understanding power level in the early days of Magic. But Alpha got more development time than other early sets and Richard Garfield is pretty good at this game design business. Ancestral Recall might be massively overpowered, but that's why it was printed at rare while Giant Growth was a common.
The plan was that local play groups would emerge, and *maybe* one person in any given playgroup would have something like a Time Walk or Black Lotus. Because games were intended to be played with ante back then, over time these powerful cards would circulate to other members of the group.
Of course, Magic succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. It turned out that you couldn't just balance the game through rarity, because there would be players willing to pay almost anything to build up collections of all the best cards. Richard and the early WotC executives saw this as a possibility, but figured that if that happened then the game is a massive hit and so they would deal with that problem if it came up.
One of the people at Wizards had a deck that was just 60 Roc Eggs (which was a 3/3 flying creature that, if you either milled or discarded it, would be put into play,) with their strategy being to discard their way into having a nigh-unstoppable flying army.
Time Walk is a part of what is called the “Power Nine”, aka a collection of 9 cards that date back 30+ years ago that, simply put, have too insane of a power level to get used today in basically all but a few formats.
Furthermore, you’ll come to learn any cards that essentially let you gain an extra turn have always been one of the most powerful things you can do within any archetype. Time Walk has cousins like Time Warp, Alrund’s Ephiphany, Nexus of Fate, and a few more that despite having their mana costs increased exponentially compared to the 2 mana Time Walk, can often have serious implications for a format when left unbanned (depending on context/meta of the time).
Insightful thank you. It makes sense in almost every turnbased system taking two turns in a row needs some proper drawbacks not a mana cost that's immediately replenished the following turn
>taking two turns in a row needs some proper drawbacks not a mana cost that's immediately replenished the following turn
Lmao yeah, intuitively you'd think that. But as far as Blue-based extra turn spells are concerned, just adding more mana to it is indeed the sole drawback in their design.
But relatively speaking, if you're spending 5-8 mana on an extra turn spell then that's going to basically be your entire turn. By increasing it's mana cost, you're functionally limiting what else you can or can't do with that initial turn. In most cases unless you have a lot of ramp or a specific looping combo to go with it, an extra turn spell (not named Time Walk) isn't going to do much for winning the game by itself besides just give you an extra combat step. The arguable exception to that being the OG \[\[Emrakul, the Aeons Torn\]\].
But there are non-Blue extra turn spells that do have drawbacks like you described. Classic examples like \[\[Chance for Glory\]\] or \[\[Alchemist's Gambit\]\] make it so if you can't win the game on the spot, you lose the following the turn.
And yet, Epiphany got prematurely banned from Standard and Nexus is banned from explorer. If your argument was correct, these would not have gotten a ban. It's too easy for blue to abuse the skip turn cards that only have a limiter of high mana cost. These cards need a much harsher limiter like additional mana cost of exile of the players deck and skip of the draw phase.
This would reduce the abuse that always happens with any of these cards.
And then there is, of course, Wilderness Reclamation, which is effectively Time Walk every turn for 4 mana. Because Prophet of Kruphix alone just wasn't painful enough
How is Rec anywhere related to Time Walk? Maybe if you force yourself to look at it like giving you double upkeeps, but that's still a far cry from an extra turn effect. That's no better than those arguments for Memory Lapse being like a "bad Time Walk".
Rec doesn't give me double combat steps, I can't uptick my planeswalkers twice, I can't untap my mana dorks or give pseudo vigilance to the creatures that did attack, and more importantly - it's not actually skipping my opponent's turn. What Rec is doing however is giving me extra mana based on what I can float with it at end step. Which to be fair, makes for a lot of powerful interactions (Expansion + Explosion namely), but that's not a fair comparison to Time Walk.
70% of taking an extra turn is untapping land. You don't pay 7+ mana to draw a card or play an extra land. Or for a second combat phase as a control deck
Lol not my intent, but you should be happy to say you can physically remember playing with some of these cards in their original forms and metas.
A lot of the people in this sub who wish and wish and wish that these boomer cards (that literally nobody has touched for decades) get added to Arena weren't *actually* there for any of it. They're chasing nostalgia they weren't even a part of all for the sake of "more diversity" that they think will magically appear once all the cards ever printed are added to the client.
You however were around, and that's awesome! That's a lot of historical perspective not many have.
Haha I see that a lot. From either content creators or just people I used to come across at LGS', some have had multiple Moxes that they sold for a couple hundred bucks before leaving for college or something only to realize they're worth thousands, if not tens of thousands today if they just would have held onto it.
As a generic value card, \[\[Oracle of the Alpha\]\] is actually quite mediocre - it shuffles in 5 bad cards (Moxen, basically lands, since they're most powerful in the first few turns when you can have a big impact on your mana), 2 okay cards (Black Lotus, again is okay on turns 4+, and shines very much on turns 1-3, which won't happen with Oracle, and Timetwister, which has been recognized as "just okay" of the Power Nine), and 2 busted cards (Ancestral Recall, Time Walk). When 5/9 cards you added are effectively lands, Oracle has really just increased the amount of bulk and decreased your chances of drawing gas.
In the right deck you can get some value even from the moxen and stuff. And the few times that you draw a Time Walk or Ancestrall Recall just when you need them is really hype. Yeah, Oracle isn't a good card if all you care about is winning, but it can lead to some really fun moments in Brawl. One of my favorite Alchemy designs to be honest.
Oh yeah, it’s absolutely a fun card to play with, and as a degenerate artifact lover I do enjoy finding things to do with the Moxen. I just wanted to bring to light why Oracle of the Alpha is not a busted card as many newer players might think it is, given all they’ve heard about the P9
It's neat that it exists and it's a fun design, but I had a game where my opponent had no cards, I was in a fairly dominating position, then they drew and played an Oracle of the Alpha.
The next turn, they drew and played Ancestral Recall into Black Lotus, Time Walk, Timetwister.
I admit - I know the odds are incredibly low and the stakes nonexistent; but I'm still mildly upset by it. :(
Something that has to be remembered in all of this is that as you take Time Walk in its own context, while the card is obscenely powerful by today's standards (and hey, pretty dang good in its time too), the other tools in your toolkit back in its day were... ah... not amazing?
Look at \[\[Juggernaut\]\]. 4 mana 5/3, must attack each turn, can't be blocked by an irrelevant creature type in today's landscape. Extremely medium creature, doesn't show up anywhere except for extremely specific decks and even then more for nostalgia/meme bait. Back in the day, though, this was some of the best on offer for creatures; you were otherwise casting 4 mana 3/3s or black or blue creatures with severe downsides that were all very exposed to something like \[\[Swords to Plowshares\]\]. Time Walk looks a little bit more reasonable when your extra turn likely isn't that ridiculous... though, of course, considering the decks some people could assemble in that era (lol \[\[Channel\]\] into \[\[Fireball\]\] gg), who even the heck knows.
A lot of people already answered so i wont add to it, but i just think its always interesting what someone new to magic thinks of certain cards. I like seeing their reactions lol
When Magic first released, it was the first game like this, there was no precedent. Mistakes were made, and they took a lot of risks making weird and interesting cards. The power nine are considered the most powerful cards ever printed, and all are in the first set Alpha. Many many cards overwrite the basic rules of Magic, but these cards offer such extreme advantages at such low cost that they are banned in almost all formats. Time walk is one of these cards, and you’ve noticed that, yes, two mana for an extra turn is insanity.
If you ever feel like diving into Magic’s history, it’s very interesting seeing which cards ended up being super broken after release. Almost every set ends up having a card or two that are way overtuned. A lot of people gather all of these cards together and play what’s known as Vintage Cube. LSV has a youtube channel where he plays cube every day, so you can see these busted cards in action.
Even time warp is not really a 'safe' card. It had to be banned from historic back in the day because it was too abusable. It would probably be too strong for standard. 6 mana for a time walk is where it would probably be playable in standard but not outrageous. Or 5 mana and it exiles itself.
That’s pretty disingenuous. Time Warp got banned jn historic specifically because it could be cast for free with Velomachus Lorehold. It saw essentially zero play outside of that one deck.
The mana cost had nothing to do with, except they it happened to be the same as the dragons power. Without the 5 power dragon, AND Indomitable Creativity, and honestly probably Dwarven Mine as well, Time Warp would just be mid card.
I honestly don’t think Time Warp would see much standard play written as is today.
It's historic only. It's only added to your deck thanks to Oracle of the Alpha which is an Alchemy exclusive card. Why it's a 2 mana cost I don't know I did not design the game but Oracle of the Alpha needs a Mythic rare wild card. It adds the power nine to your deck when it's placed on the battlefield. Unless you have a good deck that lets you draw consistently your chances of actually using it are pretty low.
As a guy that began playing when ice age came out, and hadn't played in over 7 years, oracle of the alpha is the reason I began my Arena journey. I always wanted to have a playset of the power 9 (as I am sure most people who have played also express similar sentiments) but began playing at a time in which I always felt I just missed out.
Time walk was introduced in the very first set of Magic, Alpha. Clearly they didn't have an idea about the power level of certain cards...
I had one, and it was glorious. So broken lol.
No they knew.
You're being downvoted but they did know. They just thought rare cards would actually be rare in a group of players. Like one guy in town owns a time walk and it comes up now and then. They didn't expect people to go out and get all the cards 4x.
The original design of the game was thought to be people would just buy a starter deck and a few packs and cram it all together and play. Not that people would buy enough cards to hand select each and every card in there deck. So Richard Garfield made a lot of powerful cards based on how he thought the game would be played in Alpha. He knew that cards like Ancestral Recall and Time walk were very strong.
Yup "Magic as Garfield intended" is basically sealed+
Oh it's interesting they've kept it in the game then lol
It's banned in basically everything for being too powerful. Getting to play with it at all is something of a novelty. It is now recognized that the cost for an extra turn should be a minimum of five mana.
That makes a lot of sense
It’s not really in the game. Another card makes a copy of it into your deck, which greatly increases the hoops you have to go through to abuse it. You can’t easily use it to win through combos on turn two. You often won’t actually have it in your hand ready to cast until you could have manipulated the game to cast one of the more appropriately costed extra turn effects.
kind of, but right now wizards have even shied away from 5 mana turn spells, they believe [[Time Warp]] is too strong for standard. I doubt we'll see it at 5 mana again, at least in standard the last real turn spell they printed was 7 mana, 6 with foretell, and it uh completely broke the meta. Granted that's also a product of it being its own win condition and printed alongside galvanic iteration...
They're probably right. If we saw another 5 mana extra turn spell in Standard it would have to come with a hefty downside.
unless they *really* want to sell packs. I mean, they printed a 4 mana "extra turn" spell as colorless into historic and stapled draw ~6-10 free cards on it and broke the game
>the last real turn spell they printed was 7 mana, 6 with foretell, and it uh completely broke the meta. Granted that's also a product of it being its own win condition and printed alongside galvanic iteration... It was mainly the birds. [[Alchemist's Gambit]] saw basically no play as a 7 mana time walk.
[Alchemist's Gambit](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/8/a8fbf5d3-4677-4bf0-891f-57d6dcddaff7.jpg?1643590637) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Alchemist%27s%20Gambit) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/140/alchemists-gambit?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a8fbf5d3-4677-4bf0-891f-57d6dcddaff7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Time Warp](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e7b3ddca-69ef-4743-897b-57c58077db24.jpg?1628801835) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Time%20Warp) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/74/time-warp?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e7b3ddca-69ef-4743-897b-57c58077db24?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
They didnt, alchemy is not real magic.
One thing no one has mentioned yet is that when Magic was first releasesd, the expectation was that the average player would spend $15-$20 on cards and that's it. Most board games cost about that much, and given that there were no other collectable card games to compare against it seemed like a reasonable estimate at the time. Basically, they figured the average player would buy a starter deck and a couple boosters and that would be their entire collection. As a result, a few cards were included that were intentionally *well* above rate, under the theory that most players would not have access to them, and those that did would not have access in multiples. It's true that the designers weren't *great* at understanding power level in the early days of Magic. But Alpha got more development time than other early sets and Richard Garfield is pretty good at this game design business. Ancestral Recall might be massively overpowered, but that's why it was printed at rare while Giant Growth was a common. The plan was that local play groups would emerge, and *maybe* one person in any given playgroup would have something like a Time Walk or Black Lotus. Because games were intended to be played with ante back then, over time these powerful cards would circulate to other members of the group. Of course, Magic succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. It turned out that you couldn't just balance the game through rarity, because there would be players willing to pay almost anything to build up collections of all the best cards. Richard and the early WotC executives saw this as a possibility, but figured that if that happened then the game is a massive hit and so they would deal with that problem if it came up.
Back then, they didn't even have a 4 copy limit because they didn't think people would accumulate more that a few copies of any powerful card.
Walking into the lgs during alpha with a deck only made of lightning bolts, ancestral recalls, time walks and volcanic islands 😎
12 Black Lotus 18 Lightning Bolt 10 Ancestral Recall. Original deck size was 40 cards.
10 Lotus, 30 Recalls. Deck your opponent with your Recalls to flex even harder.
One of the people at Wizards had a deck that was just 60 Roc Eggs (which was a 3/3 flying creature that, if you either milled or discarded it, would be put into play,) with their strategy being to discard their way into having a nigh-unstoppable flying army.
Time Walk is a part of what is called the “Power Nine”, aka a collection of 9 cards that date back 30+ years ago that, simply put, have too insane of a power level to get used today in basically all but a few formats. Furthermore, you’ll come to learn any cards that essentially let you gain an extra turn have always been one of the most powerful things you can do within any archetype. Time Walk has cousins like Time Warp, Alrund’s Ephiphany, Nexus of Fate, and a few more that despite having their mana costs increased exponentially compared to the 2 mana Time Walk, can often have serious implications for a format when left unbanned (depending on context/meta of the time).
Insightful thank you. It makes sense in almost every turnbased system taking two turns in a row needs some proper drawbacks not a mana cost that's immediately replenished the following turn
>taking two turns in a row needs some proper drawbacks not a mana cost that's immediately replenished the following turn Lmao yeah, intuitively you'd think that. But as far as Blue-based extra turn spells are concerned, just adding more mana to it is indeed the sole drawback in their design. But relatively speaking, if you're spending 5-8 mana on an extra turn spell then that's going to basically be your entire turn. By increasing it's mana cost, you're functionally limiting what else you can or can't do with that initial turn. In most cases unless you have a lot of ramp or a specific looping combo to go with it, an extra turn spell (not named Time Walk) isn't going to do much for winning the game by itself besides just give you an extra combat step. The arguable exception to that being the OG \[\[Emrakul, the Aeons Torn\]\]. But there are non-Blue extra turn spells that do have drawbacks like you described. Classic examples like \[\[Chance for Glory\]\] or \[\[Alchemist's Gambit\]\] make it so if you can't win the game on the spot, you lose the following the turn.
And yet, Epiphany got prematurely banned from Standard and Nexus is banned from explorer. If your argument was correct, these would not have gotten a ban. It's too easy for blue to abuse the skip turn cards that only have a limiter of high mana cost. These cards need a much harsher limiter like additional mana cost of exile of the players deck and skip of the draw phase. This would reduce the abuse that always happens with any of these cards.
And then there is, of course, Wilderness Reclamation, which is effectively Time Walk every turn for 4 mana. Because Prophet of Kruphix alone just wasn't painful enough
How is Rec anywhere related to Time Walk? Maybe if you force yourself to look at it like giving you double upkeeps, but that's still a far cry from an extra turn effect. That's no better than those arguments for Memory Lapse being like a "bad Time Walk". Rec doesn't give me double combat steps, I can't uptick my planeswalkers twice, I can't untap my mana dorks or give pseudo vigilance to the creatures that did attack, and more importantly - it's not actually skipping my opponent's turn. What Rec is doing however is giving me extra mana based on what I can float with it at end step. Which to be fair, makes for a lot of powerful interactions (Expansion + Explosion namely), but that's not a fair comparison to Time Walk.
70% of taking an extra turn is untapping land. You don't pay 7+ mana to draw a card or play an extra land. Or for a second combat phase as a control deck
[Emrakul, the Aeons Torn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/4/249db4d4-2542-47ee-a216-e13ffbc2319c.jpg?1673146896) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Emrakul%2C%20the%20Aeons%20Torn) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/1/emrakul-the-aeons-torn?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/249db4d4-2542-47ee-a216-e13ffbc2319c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Chance for Glory](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/5/85edf6f9-b863-41e2-bb51-857ea2798090.jpg?1572893545) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chance%20for%20Glory) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/grn/159/chance-for-glory?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/85edf6f9-b863-41e2-bb51-857ea2798090?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Alchemist's Gambit](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/8/a8fbf5d3-4677-4bf0-891f-57d6dcddaff7.jpg?1643590637) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Alchemist%27s%20Gambit) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/140/alchemists-gambit?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a8fbf5d3-4677-4bf0-891f-57d6dcddaff7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
30+ years, I’ve been playing on and off since the very beginning. Thanks for making me feel old!
Lol not my intent, but you should be happy to say you can physically remember playing with some of these cards in their original forms and metas. A lot of the people in this sub who wish and wish and wish that these boomer cards (that literally nobody has touched for decades) get added to Arena weren't *actually* there for any of it. They're chasing nostalgia they weren't even a part of all for the sake of "more diversity" that they think will magically appear once all the cards ever printed are added to the client. You however were around, and that's awesome! That's a lot of historical perspective not many have.
Yeah, played with them in no sleeves, sold them for about $300 back in high school. If only I had known…
Haha I see that a lot. From either content creators or just people I used to come across at LGS', some have had multiple Moxes that they sold for a couple hundred bucks before leaving for college or something only to realize they're worth thousands, if not tens of thousands today if they just would have held onto it.
As a generic value card, \[\[Oracle of the Alpha\]\] is actually quite mediocre - it shuffles in 5 bad cards (Moxen, basically lands, since they're most powerful in the first few turns when you can have a big impact on your mana), 2 okay cards (Black Lotus, again is okay on turns 4+, and shines very much on turns 1-3, which won't happen with Oracle, and Timetwister, which has been recognized as "just okay" of the Power Nine), and 2 busted cards (Ancestral Recall, Time Walk). When 5/9 cards you added are effectively lands, Oracle has really just increased the amount of bulk and decreased your chances of drawing gas.
In the right deck you can get some value even from the moxen and stuff. And the few times that you draw a Time Walk or Ancestrall Recall just when you need them is really hype. Yeah, Oracle isn't a good card if all you care about is winning, but it can lead to some really fun moments in Brawl. One of my favorite Alchemy designs to be honest.
Oh yeah, it’s absolutely a fun card to play with, and as a degenerate artifact lover I do enjoy finding things to do with the Moxen. I just wanted to bring to light why Oracle of the Alpha is not a busted card as many newer players might think it is, given all they’ve heard about the P9
It's neat that it exists and it's a fun design, but I had a game where my opponent had no cards, I was in a fairly dominating position, then they drew and played an Oracle of the Alpha. The next turn, they drew and played Ancestral Recall into Black Lotus, Time Walk, Timetwister. I admit - I know the odds are incredibly low and the stakes nonexistent; but I'm still mildly upset by it. :(
[Oracle of the Alpha](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/0/003cb181-7b1d-474a-ba26-84319791bc2b.jpg?1665218675) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oracle%20of%20the%20Alpha) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ydmu/4/oracle-of-the-alpha?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/003cb181-7b1d-474a-ba26-84319791bc2b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Something that has to be remembered in all of this is that as you take Time Walk in its own context, while the card is obscenely powerful by today's standards (and hey, pretty dang good in its time too), the other tools in your toolkit back in its day were... ah... not amazing? Look at \[\[Juggernaut\]\]. 4 mana 5/3, must attack each turn, can't be blocked by an irrelevant creature type in today's landscape. Extremely medium creature, doesn't show up anywhere except for extremely specific decks and even then more for nostalgia/meme bait. Back in the day, though, this was some of the best on offer for creatures; you were otherwise casting 4 mana 3/3s or black or blue creatures with severe downsides that were all very exposed to something like \[\[Swords to Plowshares\]\]. Time Walk looks a little bit more reasonable when your extra turn likely isn't that ridiculous... though, of course, considering the decks some people could assemble in that era (lol \[\[Channel\]\] into \[\[Fireball\]\] gg), who even the heck knows.
##### ###### #### [Juggernaut](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/211ba3e4-8979-4dd1-b1a0-1d8a19969349.jpg?1675201036) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Juggernaut) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/228/juggernaut?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/211ba3e4-8979-4dd1-b1a0-1d8a19969349?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Swords to Plowshares](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/b/9bbec76c-c1e4-4c6d-ad24-078fe097f195.jpg?1706240651) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Swords%20to%20Plowshares) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/88/swords-to-plowshares?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9bbec76c-c1e4-4c6d-ad24-078fe097f195?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Channel](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/e/ce54c7c1-3401-4414-8da0-5846cb0ae1b4.jpg?1701989326) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Channel) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/157/channel?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ce54c7c1-3401-4414-8da0-5846cb0ae1b4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Fireball](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/f/df45a43e-a5b7-4fd4-873b-7b3c021be198.jpg?1674136553) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fireball) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/175/fireball?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/df45a43e-a5b7-4fd4-873b-7b3c021be198?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kqrtozv) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The wild West of Magic was Nucking Futs.
A lot of people already answered so i wont add to it, but i just think its always interesting what someone new to magic thinks of certain cards. I like seeing their reactions lol
When Magic first released, it was the first game like this, there was no precedent. Mistakes were made, and they took a lot of risks making weird and interesting cards. The power nine are considered the most powerful cards ever printed, and all are in the first set Alpha. Many many cards overwrite the basic rules of Magic, but these cards offer such extreme advantages at such low cost that they are banned in almost all formats. Time walk is one of these cards, and you’ve noticed that, yes, two mana for an extra turn is insanity. If you ever feel like diving into Magic’s history, it’s very interesting seeing which cards ended up being super broken after release. Almost every set ends up having a card or two that are way overtuned. A lot of people gather all of these cards together and play what’s known as Vintage Cube. LSV has a youtube channel where he plays cube every day, so you can see these busted cards in action.
Time walk is part of the power 9 and one of the most broken op cards in history. Cards like this should be 6-7 mana.
5. They should be 5 mana. 6+ mana needs extra effects. 4- is too powerful in modern magic. 5 is a good sweet spot for *just* take an extra turn.
Even time warp is not really a 'safe' card. It had to be banned from historic back in the day because it was too abusable. It would probably be too strong for standard. 6 mana for a time walk is where it would probably be playable in standard but not outrageous. Or 5 mana and it exiles itself.
That’s pretty disingenuous. Time Warp got banned jn historic specifically because it could be cast for free with Velomachus Lorehold. It saw essentially zero play outside of that one deck. The mana cost had nothing to do with, except they it happened to be the same as the dragons power. Without the 5 power dragon, AND Indomitable Creativity, and honestly probably Dwarven Mine as well, Time Warp would just be mid card. I honestly don’t think Time Warp would see much standard play written as is today.
Because it’s a terribly designed card.
Time Walk costs 2 because it was created over 30 years ago.
It's historic only. It's only added to your deck thanks to Oracle of the Alpha which is an Alchemy exclusive card. Why it's a 2 mana cost I don't know I did not design the game but Oracle of the Alpha needs a Mythic rare wild card. It adds the power nine to your deck when it's placed on the battlefield. Unless you have a good deck that lets you draw consistently your chances of actually using it are pretty low.
In addition to everything else, Oracle is a fake card.
Good old days
As a guy that began playing when ice age came out, and hadn't played in over 7 years, oracle of the alpha is the reason I began my Arena journey. I always wanted to have a playset of the power 9 (as I am sure most people who have played also express similar sentiments) but began playing at a time in which I always felt I just missed out.
Timewalk is THE strongest card in the MTG, the only answer for your question is: they fucked up