Hey everyone,

There are two cards that I have been discussing with friends recently, Spirit of the Labrynth and Temporal Trespass. I am curious to see what the group opinion is on a couple of points...
Why don't they see play?

Is there an existing deck they could work in?

Spirit of the Labrynth is one of the most underused "anti-strategies" in Vintage. The ability to cut opponents off draws and cantrips hampers their ability to bot h find their own threats and dig for removal, so in a small way, it does (sort of) protect itself. You can do worse at 3 Power as well. Is there some sort of Spirit of the Lab, Confidant, fact or fiction, impulse control deck out there?

I look atTemporal Trespass and think that at one less blue this card is a no brainer. Then I think..is it really that far from the multiple dig through times that the majority of blue decks in the format were running through Champs? Delving 8 is not all that outrageous, and triple blue, while hardly optimal, is something that many blue mages will have available over the course of a medium or long length game. Time walk is extremely powerful in the format right now often being auto game over with a mentor, oath, griselbrand, or blightsteel (among others..) in play. Having the option to play time walk for value early to get ahead and having a second time walk effect later seems underused. Has Jace VP and Snapcaster made this unplayable giving you easy ways to recast the real time walk?

as far as i know spirit is played in the hatebears decks, but im not sure. as for the temporal tresspass, i think its not played because its not always the best card, in my experience time walk is either great of terrible, so why have even more swingy cads like that, also the ability to play time walk early on turn two is huge where as tresspass is a turn four or five card.r

Temporal Trespass is terrible. I think Time Warp > Temporal Mastery > Temporal Trespass.

Time Walk effects aren't good when they are explores. They are good when you get multiple things out of casting it (a land drop and a draw is not enough, not even close).

Time Walk has versatily. You can cast it on turn 1 or turn 10. That flexibility is the reason why it is good. Situational ones are completly unplayable.

Spirit doesn't see play because it is White. Spirit also doesn't stop Dredge strategies. It's not bad, but it's nothing to write home about.

1. Spirit of the Labyrinth has and does see play in "White Trash" hatebear decks. The competition for the 1W slot is fierce, with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Containment Priest, and Leonin Arbiter arguably more potent forms of disruption than the Spirit; it also doesn't help that 3/1 is awkward against the tokens generated by the decks most hindered by Spirit's ability.

2. The great thing about Time Walk is that it can be backbreaking late game, but can also be cycled in the early game for minor value such as to win an extra land drop or as a way to guarantee an untap before attempting to resolve an expensive permanent or sorcery. Time Walk is also excellent during Yawgmoth's Will turns.

Temporal Trespass is fine late-game but really, really bad early game. At least with Treasure Cruise you don't feel too bad spending large amounts of mana casting it when you don't yet have enough of a graveyard for a full delve; Dig Through Time is even more forgiving since at opponent's EOT you likely no better use for the mana anyway. On the other hand, spending an entire turn's mana and exiling your graveyard for a cantrip Explore is nothing to get excited about, particularly if the opportunity cost is playing a Cruise or Dig later in the game. Also triple-U is not an especially easy mana cost, though it's true most blue decks (even mana-light decks like Delver) won't have trouble assembling it mid-game.

EDIT: @gkraigher posted while I was typing and I agree 100% with his comments on Trespass as well.

@gkraigher said:

Temporal Trespass is terrible. I think Time Warp > Temporal Mastery > Temporal Trespass.

Time Walk effects aren't good when they are explores. They are good when you get multiple things out of casting it (a land drop and a draw is not enough, not even close).

Time Walk has versatily. You can cast it on turn 1 or turn 10. That flexibility is the reason why it is good. Situational ones are completly unplayable.

Spirit doesn't see play because it is White. Spirit also doesn't stop Dredge strategies. It's not bad, but it's nothing to write home about.

The shop matchup would beg to differ with your explore statement. I can think of worse things turn 1 than running out a time walk off a mox and getting an extra land drop out of the deal. Vs. shop decks that can be the entire difference between winning and losing.

Temporal Mastery is probably as close as any have come to being a time walk (cost+effect) when paired with sensei's top and brainstorm effects. Another card long before it, Seedtime, although green is even easier to cast and could get more mileage out of than Temporal trespass (in this blue heavy meta anyway)
Not to mention, Time vault combo exists.

In my humble opinion Temporal Trespass, as a one-of, has a place in Griselbrand Oath. It is little more than Force of Will fodder in the early game but having another Time Walk post Oath is very strong in game one and can be better than playing Time Vault combo in that it only requires you to have a graveyard to be active and can be pitched to Force of Will when it isn't. When you're attacking with a Griselbrand you really don't need to take ALL of the turns. Just one more is going to be enough most of the time. So, if you're already playing Time Vault combo in Griselbrand Oath, I'd recommend testing one Temporal Trespass in it's place. It gives you an extra slot for a control piece, or whatever else is at the top of your maybe board, and reducing the number of dead draws in Oath of Druids is really crucial so the fact that it's blue is a big deal.

Has anyone actually tried to build and test a delver deck with 1-3 trespasses? Time Walk is usually the second-best card in that deck, after Black Lotus. Seems worth a look.

said:

Temporal Trespass

@evouga said:

1. Spirit of the Labyrinth has and does see play in "White Trash" hatebear decks. The competition for the 1W slot is fierce, with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Containment Priest, and Leonin Arbiter arguably more potent forms of disruption than the Spirit; it also doesn't help that 3/1 is awkward against the tokens generated by the decks most hindered by Spirit's ability.

2. The great thing about Time Walk is that it can be backbreaking late game, but can also be cycled in the early game for minor value such as to win an extra land drop or as a way to guarantee an untap before attempting to resolve an expensive permanent or sorcery. Time Walk is also excellent during Yawgmoth's Will turns.

Temporal Trespass is fine late-game but really, really bad early game. At least with Treasure Cruise you don't feel too bad spending large amounts of mana casting it when you don't yet have enough of a graveyard for a full delve; Dig Through Time is even more forgiving since at opponent's EOT you likely no better use for the mana anyway. On the other hand, spending an entire turn's mana and exiling your graveyard for a cantrip Explore is nothing to get excited about, particularly if the opportunity cost is playing a Cruise or Dig later in the game. Also triple-U is not an especially easy mana cost, though it's true most blue decks (even mana-light decks like Delver) won't have trouble assembling it mid-game.

Evogua answered the question correctly; but I would add one more point.

Chains of Mephistopheles is a great card that is seeing more play with the rise of Blue. The problem is, Chains is up over $200.00, last I checked. You can buy a playset of Spirits with couch change. Now, Chains is probably better because Enchantments are harder to remove than a creature in today's meta, but as a budget option I think Spirit is an absolutely viable metagame call.

@MaximumCDawg

I haven't really seen any Chains showing up in top 8 decklists, though. What is the best shell for Chains right now?

isnt spirit of the labyrinth an enchantment creature?
gets hit with the same hate as chains

-Temporal trespass: I like the idea as a finisher in very specific decks. The problem is that it's often a win more when you can play it, or just an overpriced explore. It's not reasonably to play it before turn 3, most likely in turn 4. If you play some delver deck light on countermagic and full of aggro, this can be worth it, going all for it.

T1 land,delver
T2 land,pyromancer
T3 preordain, land, preordain, probe, bolt/pierce
T4 gush, land, brainstorm, temporal trespass
T4b hopefully win

Thing is, when you have no board presence, this card is really bad. On the other hand not passing turn is massive.

-Spirit of the labyrith. I have played it in UWR bomberman, with faydens and FoF. Other people had success with blue angels. Thirsts can be replaced with Fact or fiction, confidant skips it... but nowadays gush, preordain and probes are the main choices for a good reason. If you are not playing them and your opponent does, spirit is great. However if spirit is not in play, you are playing probably suboptimal cards and there is a good chance that spirit is not going to resolve. And as stated, any token kills SotL, something really sad. So if you play lots of SotL and answers to tokens and you face a non-gush deck, then you have lots of dead cards and you'll likely lose.

@Juggernaut-GO said:

isnt spirit of the labyrinth an enchantment creature?
gets hit with the same hate as chains

Yes, anything that hits chains also hits Spirit, but my point was that it's the creature side of Spirit that is ultimately the more vulnerable. It gets hit by Swords, Bolt, splash hate from Dread of Night against Mentor, Jace bounce, etc, etc, etc.