Taigam, Master OpportunistTaigam, Master Opportunist | Art by Joshua Raphael

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that ChronozoaChronozoa is the only card with vanishing that can create copies of itself?) Reviewing cards that I thought were really fun out of Tarkir: Dragonstorm, but never got around to, one stood out with flashing lights: Taigam, Master OpportunistTaigam, Master Opportunist.

He's slow as can be, mind you, but copying your second spell each turn? That seems pretty nuts. So I guess the question is, what can we do to speed up those four turns in between the initial casting and casting the copy?

Top 10 Time Travel Cards

1. The Tenth DoctorThe Tenth Doctor
2. Wibbly-wobbly, Timey-wimeyWibbly-wobbly, Timey-wimey
3. Time BeetleTime Beetle
4. Rotating FireplaceRotating Fireplace
5. The Parting of the WaysThe Parting of the Ways
6. All of History, All at OnceAll of History, All at Once
7. The Wedding of River SongThe Wedding of River Song
8. The Girl in the FireplaceThe Girl in the Fireplace
9. Coward // KillerCoward // Killer
10. ...

All right, so not only are there not enough things in mono-blue to build around time travel, but most of them are also one-time use spells. That can be mitigated somewhat by TaigamTaigam copying them, but what good is that if you have to wait four turns? You know what does seem like you could build around it, though? Throwing down a Time BeetleTime Beetle the same turn you cast TaigamTaigam as your first spell, and suspending a copy that the original removes time counters from.

So, what other permanents are there that care about time counters that we could copy?

Criteria: Nonlegendary permanents that have the words "time counter" in their full rules text, but don't have or natively gain suspend. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.

Top 10 Nonlegendary Mono-Blue Permanents That Care About Time Counters (But Don't Have Suspend)

10. TimebenderTimebender

(3,436 Inclusions, 0.12% of 2,902,038 Decks)

At first glance, TimebenderTimebender appears to be exactly what we're looking for: it adds and removes time counters. Slam it in the 99, move on with our day, right?

Well, not quite. Unfortunately, unlike other time travel cards that let us add or remove counters, TimebenderTimebender only does so when it unmorphs. This means that, rather than doubling up on how fast we time travel when we copy it with TaigamTaigam's ability, it will instead come out as essentially a vanilla 1/1... that we had to wait four turns for. No thanks.

9. ChronozoaChronozoa

(6,456 Inclusions, 0.22% of 2,902,038 Decks)

Every time I've seen ChronozoaChronozoa it's popped out of the screen and personally asked me to break it. I've always had to reply to this earnestness with a comic-like thought bubble and then a shake of the head. The reason? ChronozoaChronozoa is bad. It's four mana for a 3/3 flyer that copies itself three turns later, but in a way that it enters with summoning sickness, so you have to take a turn off. So to get your first exponential growth and actually benefit from it with damage? You're waiting six turns, the average length of an entire Commander game these days.

All that said, ChronozoaChronozoa not only isn't bad in TaigamTaigam, it's actually good. Really, really good.

The reason? Aside from copying it with TaigamTaigam, you're also copying a whole bunch of time travel cards from further up this list that will let you remove more counters to speed up this whole process and make it exponential from the start. In fact, I think this calls for a table:

For those not familiar with what's going on here, let me sum it up for you with a lovable Italian plumber:

We're climbing numbers of ChronozoaChronozoa's by exponents of two. In fact, the bigger problem you run into is if you keep doing this, you constantly have ChronozoaChronozoas that are summoning sick, and can't attack, so at some point you have to stop your Time Travel nonsense and start winning the game instead. KefnetKefnet, give us strength.

8. Reality AcidReality Acid

(10,205 Inclusions, 0.35% of 2,902,038 Decks)

Blink shenanigans aside, this is terrible in TaigamTaigam, because you're playing it as its baseline "pay three to remove a permanent three turns from now." Even speeding that up with time travel and copying it once is just not worth it.

7. Jhoira's TimebugJhoira's Timebug

(11,119 Inclusions, 0.19% of 5,878,048 Decks)

In the past, I've balked at Jhoira's TimebugJhoira's Timebug, even when building suspend decks. Removing or adding a single time counter a turn is supposed to feel like a Time WalkTime Walk, but I can assure you that most times it feels more like a wasted card.

That said, this precisely fits the theme of what we want to be doing, which is doubling up on our time travel effects with TaigamTaigam's suspend ability, and doing so as quickly as possible. Jhoira's TimebugJhoira's Timebug may not feel great when there's one of them, but when there's two, you're starting off every upkeep by casting a spell. Even better, you'll be able to cast suspended spells during other players' turns, meaning you can start copying second spells during other players' turns in addition to your own.

In fact, it seems so good that I wonder what it would be like to have three or four Jhoira's TimebugJhoira's Timebugs. Which raises the question: is TaigamTaigam really a suspend commander, or is he a copy commander?

6. Rotating FireplaceRotating Fireplace

(11,308 Inclusions, 0.22% of 5,133,224 Decks)

Okay, I'm not asking anymore; I'm telling. Rotating FireplaceRotating Fireplace, if anything, seems even more underwhelming than Jhoira's TimebugJhoira's Timebug. It enters tapped as a bad three-mana rock, and costs essentially five mana to time travel with. But what if you have it in multiples? Then every time travel adds a time counter to every copy of Rotating FireplaceRotating Fireplace, meaning you can activate the newest version with the least counters to add counters to your older version that can then tap to add enough mana to activate another copy. Next thing you know, you're sitting on four mana rocks that add three to five mana apiece. That there seems like not just a plan, but the plan.

What kind of things besides Taigam can copy artifacts?

Top 10 Mono-Blue Copy Artifact Effects

1. Phyrexian MetamorphPhyrexian Metamorph
2. Sculpting SteelSculpting Steel
3. The Mycosynth GardensThe Mycosynth Gardens
4. Mirage MirrorMirage Mirror
5. Mechanized ProductionMechanized Production
6. Jin-Gitaxias, Progress TyrantJin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant
7. MirrormadeMirrormade
8. Three Steps AheadThree Steps Ahead
9. Court of VantressCourt of Vantress
10. MirrorworksMirrorworks

What would really kick things off with either Rotating FireplaceRotating Fireplace or Jhoira's TimebugJhoira's Timebug? Mechanized ProductionMechanized Production. It would also be a win-con in a color where winning is hard to come by, which is nothing to sneeze at. What might be even better, however, is drawing cards as the mMonarch with Court of VantressCourt of Vantress, and copying it with TaigamTaigam to then make more copies of itself to make more copies with.

Let's hope that didn't wrinkle your brain too much, because I have a feeling copies of the copiers is where we're going with this whole thing.

5. Time BeetleTime Beetle

(11,923 Inclusions, 0.43% of 2,530,000 Decks)

We already talked about how with a two-mana rock, it's fairly easy to have four mana available on turn three to cast TaigamTaigam and then immediately put another two-mana spell on the stack to get suspended. My example for that was Time BeetleTime Beetle, and with good reason. It shouldn't be hard to cast two spells a turn every turn in blue, given that you can draw cards at will. With two Time BeetleTime Beetles and a TaigamTaigam, however, you're getting to cheat by getting a copy of the second spell you cast during your upkeep more or less every turn. That means that you're starting off with one spell already cast during your turn, or often casting one during your upkeep and then casting another suspended spell during your combat step via the Time BeetleTime Beetle's ability.

In other words, what you can often do is loop copies of Time BeetleTime Beetle that are suspended via TaigamTaigam, making them always be your second spell until you have an army of Beetles large enough that you can move on to copying bigger and better things every turn. Seems nice, eh?

4. Overlord of the FloodpitsOverlord of the Floodpits

(22,362 Inclusions, 1.51% of 1,481,337 Decks)

All of this "copies of the copies" nonsense made me forget for a moment that there were more normal time counter cards on this list, as well. At first glance, Overlord of the FloodpitsOverlord of the Floodpits looks fairly mundane here. It turns out, however, if you copy a spell cast for its impending cost, that particular bit of information doesn't carry over to the copy.

In other words, if you cast Overlord of the FloodpitsOverlord of the Floodpits as your second spell with TaigamTaigam, the second copy that gets cast gets cast as a creature. Sure, sure, that probably happens at the same time as you're done removing time counters from your first enchantment version, as it will have impending 4 while the TaigamTaigam copy has suspend 4, but if you're speeding up that process at all with time travel and the like, you've got some serious flying threats that are also drawing you cards.

One might think that's the kind of thing that could win you games, and one would be right.

3. Flesh DuplicateFlesh Duplicate

(39,194 Inclusions, 1.55% of 2,530,530 Decks)

Like Reality AcidReality Acid, this is a great card... for other decks. Don't get me wrong, we will be copying some creatures, but we're more interested in copying them over and over again than having a single cheap copy of any creature on the battlefield that then goes away if we aren't currently time traveling. Stick to the cEDH that you're used to, Flesh DuplicateFlesh Duplicate.

2. Dreamtide WhaleDreamtide Whale

(47,715 Inclusions, 2.57% of 1,856,642 Decks)

If you were looking for a win-con for this pile that wasn't Mechanized ProductionMechanized Production, then it's probably ChronozoaChronozoa. If that falls through? Then it'd be hard to go wrong with making a few copies of Dreamtide WhaleDreamtide Whale. The least-read portion of this card is its power and toughness, and there's good reason for that. The vanishing 2 is edge-of-your-seat, high-risk, high-reward stuff, and the proliferate ability is one of the best in the game. It's worth getting past all that at least once, however, and realizing that some poor fool over at Wizards of the Coast decided that "proliferate anytime you cast a second spell" wasn't good enough for a three-mana creature. Instead, they went ahead and made it a 7/5. For three. In other words, multiple copies of this thing will ensure that they all stay alive forever, in addition to probably just winning you the game outright through combat.

1. As ForetoldAs Foretold

(60,497 Inclusions, 2.09% of 2,894,639 Decks)

If you were thinking this whole article seemed familiar, then congratulations, you remember more about my articles than I do. Because it wasn't until I got to this point that I realized that I have done this exact list before, only with all five colors. And would you guess what card was at the top of it last time? As ForetoldAs Foretold. It wasn't a surprise then, it isn't a surprise now. With that said, I do think we've hit a point where As ForetoldAs Foretold probably isn't worth playing unless you're in a deck that can give it more counters routinely. The days of the format being slow enough that you could wait three turns for this to start doing much are over, and at the same time you'd probably get some side-eye breaking this thing out in an Exhibition (Bracket 1) deck.

As for TaigamTaigam? It still ended up just on the outside of the 99 for me, which was a surprise. For every goldfish where it felt great, there were five more where it showed up after I already had 10 mana rocks laying around, and it was just a card that didn't do anything. It also felt bad in the early turns, where I often found I'd rather be doing TaigamTaigam things, making it feel like a poor fit overall. TaigamTaigam's nonsense is just so potent that you don't really need a card with this much setup.

Honorable Mentions

Another card that isn't a permanent but can absolutely be abused by TaigamTaigam is ClockspinningClockspinning. Early game, it can make a suspended spell the second spell of the turn by removing its last counter, or do the same to itself to keep things rolling long-term. Late game, it's a back-breaker of a repeatable spell that will have you repeatedly suspending the same huge thing over and over again and casting it every turn. All in all, it's one of the best cards in the deck.

But why take my word for it? Take a couple clicks over to Archidekt's playtester and goldfish this thing yourself to see how easy it is to end up with three Mechanized ProductionMechanized Productions making larger and larger Metallic MimicMetallic Mimics. Okay, okay, maybe "easy" isn't the word; it's a monstrously difficult deck to pilot. But if you're a Johnny that's about that nonsense, then trust me, you'll want to check this one out.

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, not my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

What Do You Think?

And finally, what's your favorite card that cares about time counters? Are you planning on building TaigamTaigam, and if so, how?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the standard white folding table. Seems like there's more every day...