Turns is one of my favorite decks to play in any format of MTG. It’s an incredibly unique deck in that it completely and utterly locks your opponents out of the game, allowing you to set up some pretty crazy board states and use some hilarious wincons. Once you go off, there are endless possibilities. It plays quite a bit differently than storm, as while storm is more focused on accelerating your own game plan, turns focuses more on slowing down you opponent’s, making it a much more interactive deck.

Another thing that makes turns so fun is just how versatile of a deck it is, being that your main combo is 12-18 walk or near walk effects plus 7-8 mine effects, there is plenty of room to experiment with your own pet cards. In my time playing modern, of the few people I’ve seen playing this deck, I’ve seen a huge variety of types. In this primer, we will be talking about U/b, but I’ve seen every single color splashed and even differences in strategies. I’ve also seen incredibly graveyard heavy lists, enlisting the help of Azcanta, Jace VP, and Thought Scour to power up Snapcaster and more easily cast Temporal Trespass.

With that being said, let’s get into the meat of what these decks are, see a few different lists, get into how to play them, how to build them, and how the cards work.

Mono Blue

1 mikokoro, center of the sea

1 Inkmoth Nexus

1 Oboro, palace in the clouds

18 Island

2 Snapcaster Mage

4 Cryptic Command

3 Exhaustion

4 Gigadrowse

4 Part the Waterveil

2 Remand

4 Serum Visions

4 Temporal Mastery

4 Time Warp

2 Search for Azcanta

4 Dictate of Kruphix

2 Howling Mine

Sideboard

4 Dispel

4 Hurkyl’s Recall

2 Sun Droplet

2 Thing in the Ice

1 Threads of Disloyalty

1 Trinisphere

1 Vedalken Shackles

Mono Blue is the most common list out there, and also the most consistent in a vacuum. Of the turns variants, this one fares the best against control decks, however you already should have quite a strong matchup against them to begin with. There aren’t too many fancy tricks with this deck, but being that it’s the core of turns I think it would be a good starting place to talk about the roles of some of the most important cards in the deck.

Graveyard Turns

2 Temporal Trespass

4 Time Warp

3 Part the Waterveil

1 Temporal Mastery

2 Exhaustion

2 Snapcaster Mage

2 Magus of the Bazaar

3 Gigadrowse

2 Cryptic Command

4 Dictate of Kruphix

2 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy

2 Search for Azcanta

3 Fatal Push

4 Thought Scour

1 Inquisition of Kozilek

2 Collective Brutality

1 Swamp

2 Watery Grave

8 Island

4 Drowned Catacomb

2 Polluted Delta

1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge

1 Inkmoth Nexus

1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

Sideboard

1 Thing in the Ice

2 Laboratory Maniac

2 Nihil Spellbomb

2 Dispel

4 Hurkyl’s Recall

4 Extirpate

U/B Graveyard Turns is a different take on turns that focuses on getting cards into the graveyard and using them as a resource. This means making Temporal Trespass easily castable as a 3-mana timewalk, popping azcanta as soon as possible, powering up Jace Vp, and giving snapcaster mage plenty of things to do. The self-milling action in this deck also makes it conceivable to win with everybody’s favorite wincon, Laboratory Maniac.

Blue Black Turns

2x Baral, Chief of Compliance

2x Cryptic Command

4x Dictate of Kruphix

4x Drowned Catacomb

2x Exhaustion

3x Fatal Push

3x Gigadrowse

2x Howling Mine

1x Inkmoth Nexus

1x Inquisition of Kozilek

8x Island

1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

1x Minamo, School at Water’s Edge

1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

3x Part the Waterveil

2x Polluted Delta

2x Search for Azcanta

4x Serum Visions

2x Snapcaster Mage

1x Swamp

2x Temporal Mastery

1x Temporal Trespass

2x Thoughtseize

4x Time Warp

2x Watery Grave

Sideboard

2x Collective Brutality

4x Hurkyl’s Recall

2x Delay

2x Dispel

4x Extirpate

1x Thing in the Ice

I think that it’s important to talk about Blue Black turns for multiple reasons. Firstly, because this is the list that I currently run, I know the most about. Secondly, I truly believe that blue black turns is the best turns deck in the format right, and is good enough to be competitive. And that’s not just me, Back in August of 2017, it actually top-8’d a GP. This is for a variety of reasons, black gives the deck access to some prime time removal, proper graveyard hate, and oh so important hand disruption. These are important because it gives Turns a fighting chance against aggro decks, which are by far its worst matchup. For the rest of this Primer, I will be talking about U/B Turns.

Building a Proper Mainboard

The Mine Effects

Mine effects are critical to any turns deck, and should all be at least a 6-of. Normally these effects have a type of symmetry that makes them balanced or even underwhelming at times, but when you are taking all the turns, they help you far more than your opponent. Turns as a deck cannot function without them, think about it like this, a turn spell without a mine boils down to a mere cycling effect. The mine effects are what let you drop important lands every turn, draw more turn effects, and eventually cram a 7/7 flying Inkmoth Nexus into your opponents face.

Dictate of Kruphix is strictly a 4-of and never to be cut. It is insanely good and critical to this deck for multiple reasons. Because it can be played at instant speed, you can hold up counter magic, give yourself the extra draw with it first, play it right before you are about to go off, and so much more.

Howling mine is nice to mix in with the dictate because it gives you more early game options. Sometimes a T2 mine is better than a T3.5 dictate depending on how many lands you have in hand, what type of deck you are facing, etc.

The Soft Mines

The soft mines are a great place to put your mana when you have no other use for it. A lot of times you will find yourself having 3-4 open mana at the end of your turn during a turn chain and no other turn spells in hand. These cards are great because they can, and will, save your game in a pinch.

Azcanta, although incredibly new during the filming of this primer, is an instant staple. Its easily castable at 2 mana, provides excellent card filtering, and allows for Snapcaster to make use of those pitched cards. When it flips, its ability to dig 4 cards down and find a time walk is something insane that this deck hasn’t seen before. Not to mention, the effect of putting less useful cards on the bottom of your deck in the late game is actually really nifty and improves the consistency of the deck. Also, the mana acceleration provided by it popping is nothing to laugh at.

Mikokoro Is a hard to remove 3 mana sink to give you an extra card whenever you have the mana for it. It’s a very simple and straightforward card for turns, and is oh so sweet to use against that occasional 8-rack matchup.

Time Walks

Turn spells are what give the deck its name, and their abundance is what makes the deck work. After getting a mine out, casting these turn after turn is what wins you the game. There are many more than the ones found in the list that we are talking about, but these three are pretty much the all-around best, and they all have their own niche.

Time warp is the gold standard of time walks in modern. Costs 5 mana, gives you an extra turn, and (rather importantly) goes to the graveyard. This is the card that allows Turns decks to go off on Turn 5, or even 4 depending on how effective you can use your near time walks earlier.

Temporal Mastery is a clever small-mana time walk that’s alternate casting cost can be a huge boon. Early game, it acts as an explore, letting you importantly accelerate you mana curve. Later in the game it’s an honest gamble as to whether or not you will get to cast it for its miracle cost, but hard-casting it is always an option. Not to mention how well this tricky little card interacts with serum visions.

Part the Waterveil is the wincon of the deck. Paying 9 mana to animate a land you control into a 6/6 elemental creature with haste and taking an extra turn can effectively mean 12 damage to your opponent, or 14 poison counters if you animate an Inkmoth Nexus with it. You really should run no less than 2 of these, but I personally suggest running 3, as you can shamelessly use them early into your chain without fear of not having one to wrap the game up.

Temporal Trespass is definitely one of the most overlooked cards in turns. Trespass is an amazing card as, when you are ready to cast it, it essentially lets you play your one mana cantrips, hand disruption, and removal spells for free. And remember, with search for Azcanta being a thing it becomes more and more castable every turn. Its fatal flaw, however, is graveyard hate. Personally, I run it as a one-of. Should you choose to run Trespass, I would eat into the temporal masteries first. Also, its hilarious against mill.

Almost Time Walks

These Cards are what allow you to further slow down your opponent, and even lock them out of the game a turn or two earlier. Of all the card roles I’ve talked about so far this is by far the broadest umbrella, so lets get down to business.

Exhaustion is as close to a 3 mana extra turn spell without setting you back as modern will ever get. Early in the game it can be one of the most incredible control tools in your arsenal, and later in the game it can act as a turn spell in and of itself when combo’d with tap effects.

There is an old adage with Cryptic command. If it is you opponents turn and you have the mana open to cast cryptic command, you can’t lose the game on that turn. Being able to tap all of your opponents creatures down can not only save your life, but also endanger your opponents for when you awaken. Bouncing any target permanent is also an amazing ability, and many times it can save your life when you are a turn away from milling out and need to get a mine effect off the field. Being able to use two of these abilities at once essentially makes it 6 spells in one, and it has interesting interactions in just about every matchup.

Gigadrowse has is an incredibly versatile spell with many, many uses. These uses can range from tapping a few creatures down to stay alive an extra turn, tapping your own howling mine to prevent the opponent from drawing an extra card, tapping down a couple of your opponents remaining lands to power up exhaustion, or even forcing a control player to tap out at their end step, protecting your combo for the next turn. Not to mention, since a copied spell isn’t cast, its gets around chalice on one. This card is a must-include, being a 3-of at minimum.

Snapcaster Effects

Being able to re-use Time Warps, along with other almost timewalks and cantrips is extremely helpful. Using the graveyard as an extension of your hand is very alive in turns, in fact you can build your entire deck around it. Overall I would recommend running 2 of these effects in your deck, while they can be expensive they are absolutely helpful and something that should never be cut.

Snapcaster mage is a modern staple and a card that you will never regret running in your deck. The beauty of snapcaster mage is just how fast he is, by turn three you can use him to recast cantrips and hand disruption which is vital to setting up your game plan or destroying your opponents. He also can mean re-using a turn 5 time warp by turn 7. On the creature side of things, snapcaster can occasionally win you games just by beating your opponent down over time, having them down to under 8 health by the time you can awaken your lands. Despite his fragile toughness, he will rarely take any damage if you utilitze your gigadrowses properly. Not to mention the fatal push combo with him, you can use him to take out 3 creatures at once by pushing one creature, flashing him in to chump or kill an opponent’s attacking creature, and then using the revolt trigger to flashback push and kill a third.

Jace VP is interesting. In a more graveyard-intensive list, he can be an amazing way to constantly make use of your graveyard. Other times, he can be far to slow and turn on your opponent’s removal and will end up being dead weight. The loot effect is nice as he can trade redundant combo pieces for more lands or time walks, powering up azcanta at the same time. His +1 is rarely relevant as it only targets 1 creature and he likely won’t be coming in early enough for it to matter. His ult can be a neat alternate wincon against infinite life combos, but it takes so long to use it that it will, again, be rarely relevant. If you do want to give Jace a shot, I’d recommend running a 1/1 split between him and snappy.

Cantrips

Cantrips are an important part of any blue deck. Especially in a deck as picky about its card draws as turns, its important have an ample supply of card selection. The rule of thumb is for every two cantrips you run you can cut one land. Personally, I don’t think that rule is as accurate in turns as it is in other decks, because of the mine effects, but it still has a lot of weight to it. You will rarely have a better turn 1 play other than a serum visions into a mine or search.

Serum Visions is, without a doubt, the best cantrip that turns can be running. Unless you have very good reason, you want to run it as a 4-of. Serum visions can help you set up miracle masteries, get rid of dead draws, and dig deep for lands when you need them. It also makes for a powerful snapcaster target

When opt was announced for its reprint into modern the community had a collective meltdown and everybody proceeded to cram it into their decks. Now that the hype has died down, I believe that we can now look at it from a fair angle. I ran it for a couple months after its reprint, and I can tell you, it is good but is secondary to visions. Serum visions into opt can be really good to dig up to 5 cards down in a single turn. If you want to run opt, just make sure that you already have 4 serum visions. If you do, it’s a great card to throw into flex spots.

Thought Scour is interesting. Depending on your list, it can either be fantastic or terrible. If you have a lot of graveyard usage in your deck, scour can be fantastic! It essentially makes trespass cost 3 mana less to cast, pops search earlier, and gives snapcaster more cards to flashback all in one simple spell. You can replace serum visions with this if you can make enough use of the graveyard in your deck. I will say though, it does out your deck pretty fast when your opponent sees a turn spell in your yard from it, and it leaves you very open to extirpates.

Creatures

Turns, being as unique a deck as it is, can afford to run some unique creatures. While creatures are not a necessity, and have the notable drawback of turning on your opponent’s removal, I run them and would highly recommend experimenting with them.

I will be honest with you, most people don’t run Baral, but I do. Baral opens up ample opportunity, allowing a T3 cryptic and can allow you to go off on turn 4. He also allows you to cram in more spells per turn than you should, and means you only need to leave one blue source open for a counter spell. The looting effect on counter is notably powerful for throwing away redundant mine effects. Its also great tricking your opponent into thinking that you are playing storm and having them Path him, essentially getting you a free land drop.

TITI is an incredible card in turns that can effectively be a 2-drop board wipe on a 7/8 body. With the amount of 1 mana spells, she is no problem to pop in turns and can win you games. I prefer putting her in the sideboard, and bringing her in G2 after your opponent has boarded out their removal. Should your opponent not board out their removal fret not; she gets around bolt, and path to exile benefits you more than it hurts, however fatal push is a concern. Also, bouncing Snapcasters back to your hand is a nice little benefit.

Laboratory Maniac is a fantastic alternate wincon that is actually viable in Turns. Should you chose to run him, the best strategy is to drop him deep into your turn chain. As your goal becomes to mill yourself, you can more easily justify dropping every mine you draw. The more mine effects you drop, the more turn spells and mines you will draw, making the game close exponentially faster. It is extremely important protect him from removal should you go with this strategy. This is critical as he dies to all 3 of the big one-drop removal instants in modern, and nothing would suck more than him getting bolted right before you mill yourself. Also, keep an eye for those slaughter pacts, they will show up to hose you from time to time, and they get around gigadrowse.

I almost wasn’t going to include Magus of the Bazaar in here but I figured that it’s worth a mention. It does carry with it a strong looting effect, and in a graveyard list it can be really helpful. It’s worth experimenting with, but I think that there are many better 2 drops that you can use other than him to help you in this deck. He basically boils down to a bad azcanta with more card selection. He also fits into the whole accidental wizard tribal thing that turns has going on, so do with that what you will.

Removal

Mono blue turns has a massive blind spot for creatures. Removal is absolutely needed to stand a fighting chance against hyper aggressive creature heavy decks, or even just combo decks that run creatures. In fact I’d argue that some matchups border on unwinnable without it. With the (somewhat) recent removal that black has received with Fatal Push and Collective brutality, black is now able to deal with many threats that it used to falter at.

Fatal push is arguably the best removal spell in the modern format. It can hit just about any relevant creature in modern with its easy-to-trigger revolt mechanic, and at no cost to the user, all for just one black mana. This tricky little spell can hit manlands, tokens, mana dorks, deaths shadow, and pretty much stumped tarmogoyf in the meta. Fatal push is a must-have spell, and honestly is half the reason to run black.

Collective brutality is an all-star against burn, and one of the most versatile tools in black’s arsenal. I run it in my sideboard but it certainly has mainboard potential. What makes it so good is that it is essentially a disfigure, bad lightning helix, and bad duress all in one, for 2 mana. This is a 3-for-3 against burn, and resolving just one of these can mean game for such a resource-heavy deck. With it, you can kill a goblin guide, gain 2 life, and take a bolt out of their hand.

Hand Disruption

The second big reason to run black is that it gives hand disruption. Hand disruption is superior to counter magic in many situations, as not only does it give you valuable intel on your opponent’s game plan, which you should be slowing down, but it also removes combo-breakers and wincons before your opponent even gets the chance to cast them.

Thoughtsieze and inquisiton are two very similar cards that serve two very different roles. In the entire modern format, I would say that thoughtieze is as good as a card can get without being bannable. Despite how good it is in just about very deck, I think that inquisition is equally as good in turns. The reason I say this is most things that are going to hose the turns deck are 3 cmc or less, and the 2 life can be relevant in aggro matchups. Counter magic, small creatures, burn spells, and other hand disruption are the prime targets most of the time, as late game wincons hopefully wont be coming out once you go off. However, with the ever-present tron in the metagame, its never a bad idea to keep a thoughtsieze or two in the mainboard.

Building a proper Sideboard

When building your sideboard you need to keep a couple of things in mind. First of all, your goal should be to slow down decks that are faster than you. I’ll get into how these matchups go later, but for now Ill just let you in on our worst matchups. When building your sideboard, you should keep burn, affinity, and storm in specific in mind. With proper removal in the mainboard, no other decks will give you more grief than these three. Well, except for Ponza, but ill get into that later.

Graveyard Hate

The third reason to run black is the access to graveyard hate. Graveyard hate really is a necessity depending on your meta, and black has some of the best graveyard hate in the game.

Extirpate is, in my opinion, the best piece of graveyard hate that turns can use. It shuts down storm, throws a powerful wrench in dredge, and interacts extremely well with hand disruption. It gets outclassed by broad-spectrum graveyard hate against living end and dredge, but still are winnable matchups for us with it. Being able to shred people’s combos is important as well, which less specific graveyard hate can’t do. The reason that I say to go with extirpate and not surgical extraction is that, if you built your mana base properly, you will have open black mana just about whenever you will need to cast it, and the split second makes it much harder for control decks to deal with.

Leyline of the Void is a very viable choice for graveyard hate. Personally, I prefer more direct hate like extirpate, but leyline of the void isn’t bad at all. Importantly, you don’t even need to be running black to run it, and turns is a deck that doesn’t mind mulliganing once or twice if it doesn’t get its combo pieces. It’s a complete hoser for dredge and living end, but doesn’t really stop storm or other combo decks. Just be warned, knowing when to mulligan is a skill, and you should not throw out a good hand with a clear game plan just because it missed a leyline, and mulling too aggressively can and will punish the user.

Spellbomb can be used without black mana as well, and is a decent budget choice. The fact that it replaces itself if you have the black mana open is nice, and the instant speed graveyard exile is nice. Be aware that that it really is just a budget option though, it doesn’t do that well of a job at dealing with Tarmogoyf and if you miss a fatal push draw its easy to get pummeled by an angry lhurgoyf before you are able to go off.

Artifact Hate

Hurkyll’s Recall is by far the best piece of artifact hate that we have available to us. Against matchups that we need artifact hate, the opponent’s board is likely going to be crawling with artifacts. This simple card can slug an opponent all the way back to turn one, buying you just enough time to go off. This is all for only 2 mana! Honestly, run no less than 3 unless you don’t have any affinity in your local meta by some miracle.

Burn Hate

As I mentioned earlier, burn is one of Turn’s roughest matchups. They capitalize on our mine effects earlier than we can, appear in pretty much every meta, and can generally kill us before we get a chance to go off.

If you’ve been paying attention, you should have noticed that collective brutality has appeared 3 times now. Its just that good, against burn is a 3-for-3 and can win otherwise unwinnable games. I could go on all day about how good this card is, but I do believe that I’ve gotten my point across. The only event that you should not be running at least 2 in your sideboard is if you don’t run black or already have them in the mainboard.

Dispel is a very powerful card against burn as it’s a guaranteed 1-for-1 against burn. Being able to counter a lightning bolt might not seem like much, but it does a lot more for you than Cryptic command will in such a fast matchup. Not to mention that its always nice to board this in in control matchups, or against Coco-style decks.

Leyline of Sanctity can be a complete hoser for burn if they don’t have enchantment hate, however they more than likely will after seeing your dictate of Kruphix combo. The other problem with leyline is that its really only good against burn, unlike dispel and brutality. Of course its nice to have against 8-rack, but its rarely a hoser for them and turns will usually outdraw them anyways. Along with its narrow uses, it comes with all the problems that Leyline of the Void does, and on top of that, unless your splashing white, its completely uncastable, making it a dead draw against a very resource-intensive matchup should you not get it in your opening hand.

The Matchups

Now that I have hopefully given you a basic understanding of how all the cards work and interact with each other, I think that its important to go over what its like playing against some of the most popular decks in the modern format.

Ponza

I’m going to get the worst out of the way first. Remember how I mentioned how bad this matchup was earlier? Well lets get into that now. Ponza is half ramp, half land destruction and big creatures. This is really a miserable matchup for us, as we cannot afford to be missing too many land drops, and ponza can very easily set our curve back. Against them, its very important to not let them destroy our lands, because the second that they resolve a stone rain on a black source is the second that they have won the game. Game 1 you should be focused on killing their ramp and keeping your lands alive. Game 2 bust out those collective brutalities that I’ve been raving about, or more counter magic and just prevent the land destruction from taking effect.

Sideboarding

OUT – 2 gigadrowse

IN – 2 Collective Brutality

Affinity

Affinity is a very fast deck and has historically been one of the best throughout the history of magic. In fact, it is the deck that knocked Turns out in GP vegas. Game one you should be focusing dominantly on fatal pushing cards that pump your opponents creatures up, like signal pest and steel overseer. Go heavy on the exhaustion and cryptic command use and try to go off as soon as possible. Game 2 should be a cinch if you can cast those hurkyll’s recalls, resolving just one can win you the game, especially if your opponent has a darksteel citadel out.

Sideboarding

OUT – 4 Serum Visions

IN – 4 Hurkyll’s Recall

Burn

Another hard matchup for us, Burn is lightning fast, and is heavily in their favor. Game 1 you need to be focused on going off as fast as possible and casting hand disruption or counter magic to save as much life as possible should be your priority. Always kill the Goblin Guide or swiftspear the second you get the chance. Game 2 just bring in those Collective Brutalities and dispels and hope for the best. Its best to use those brutalities when you can use all three modes, essentially making it save you 7-8 life.

Sideboarding

OUT – 2 Thoughtsieze, 2 Serum Visions

IN – 2 Collective Brutality, 2 Dispel

Storm

Storm is an honest race. Our one goal should be to slow them down. Always push the electromancer and baral, and make good use of your hand disruption. Since past in flames is a thing, know that whatever you knock out of their hand will still be able to come back. When playing against storm, try to starve them of card draw, gifts ungiven is never a bad thing to take, and manamorphose is a close close second. Game 2 bring those extirpates in, when storm goes off you can destroy their game plan by extirpating a grapeshot. Empty the Warrens hurts as well, but keep in mind that we have Cryptic and exhaustion for crowd control. Not to mention that Storm generally only runs one empty.

Sideboarding

OUT – 4 Serum Visions, 1 Gigadrowse, 2 Exhaustion

IN – 4 Extirpate, 2 Dispel, 1 Collective Brutality

Scapeshift

Scapeshift is an easier matchup for us. Just keep in mind to always have mana open on your opponent’s turn to make them worry about counter magic; countering a scapeshift can win you the game man times. Go heavy on the hand disruption, you want to be ripping your opponent’s combo apart.

Infect

Infect is a very fast and aggressive deck, however its far from unwinnable. Fatal push is going to be what wins you the game, but you need to know when to use it. Sometimes its OK to push the infect creature early game if they don’t have any other infect creatures in hand, or too many blossoming defenses in hand, however other times the best course of action is to wait until they stack those pump spells and then push to leave them without a hand. Another neat trick is to gigadrowse right before combat to keep you alive an extra turn, and get rid of sorcery-speed pump spells.

Sideboarding

OUT – 2 Cryptic Command

IN – 2 Collective Brutality

Tron

Tron is a terrific matchup for us. Turns laughs at chalice of the void, and goes off before tron has a chance to give proper Wurmcoil beats or cast an Ulamog. Thoughtsiezing a karn or exploration map on turn one can hose tron. Despite the fact that it destroys decks with lower mana curves, Tron is a slower control deck at heart that we are faster than. Personally, in all my time playing turns, I have never seen a Karn ult actually happen against me. Game 2 we can pretty much take out our low mana targeting cards completely and throw in whatever counter magic or alternate wincon that you want. TITI is nice here because it can bounce wurmcoils and pressure karn to exile it before he dies to it.

Sideboarding

OUT – 1 Inquisition of Kozilek, 3 Fatal Push

IN – 1 Thing in the Ice, 2 Delay, 1 Hurkyll’s Recall

E Tron

E Tron is a decent matchup for us, but can win at the drop of a hat if you’re not careful. An unchecked Walking Ballista will destroy turns every time, and a Reality Smasher can have you dead before you can get a chance to combo off. Fatal push, hand disruption, and counter magic are going to be vital here. However, despite all this it still takes your opponent until turn three to put any real pressure on their opponents. Capitalize on this time to drop your mines and rip apart their hands. When you’re ready to go off, just watch out for the occasional warping wail, it will burn you if your not expecting it. I also would like to brief mention of the Thought-knot combo, if you cryptic bounce a thought-knot and draw a card, you get to draw 2, which is extremely nice in putting yourself ahead of your opponent in terms of card advantage, and doing that before your combo can win games.

Grixis Death’s Shadow

Grixis DS is a brutal matchup for turns, they frequently end up goldfishing through half of their deck, building up an impressive board state in the meantime. Because of this, they almost always have a painful stubborn denial in hand, which inconveniently stops turns just as it is able to go off. Pair that with ample hand disruption, preventing you from having combo pieces to begin with, and you have yourself a mean matchup. Despite all this, they are not flawless. Game 1 you should, again, focus on using your hand disruption to your advantage, and fatal push the Death’s Shadows as they come out. When Gurmag Angler or Tasigur are on the field make good use of your gigadrowses to save yourself as much life as possible. When you are about to go off do as much as you can to get stubborn denial’s out of your opponent’s hand, or tap down their blue sources with gigadrowse. Also, do not fall for the trap of your opponent not having a stub in hand but still able to flash it back with snapcaster.

Control

Turns can pretty much steamroll any control deck. The strat is simple, get your mine effects down before your opponent can counter them, and gigadrowse down all their blue sources as they’re about to go off. I will warn you, just watch out for Gideon Emblem’s that allow your opponent to abuse Negation Pact.

Sideboarding

OUT – 2 Cryptic

IN – 2 Dispel

Conclusion

Overall, Turns is an incredibly fun and interesting deck to play with, with much room for deckbuilding. In a more control-heavy meta it can tear up, and while it has difficulty with aggro, those matchups are far from unwinnable. Turns is a skill-intensive deck with plenty of decision making. Personally, I recommend running a Blue/Black list, but there is plenty of room to splash whatever colour you feel, and has plenty of room for deckbuilding and experimentation. There are many more matchups that I could talk about, but the only way to truly learn how to play against these decks is to do it yourself. There is ample room for deckbrewing and experimentation, and I hope that you find your own pet cards to play with. With that being said, I hope that you have fun and find your own tips and tricks that you like to play in your deck. Happy Timewalking!

-KingBlob, /u/-Usernamed, /r/TurnsMTG