i might not be the best for this, seeing as how i don't use time that often, but here goes
xine's bans
SoG: duh...
discord: time is one of those elements that can't really go rainbow...
graboid: much more effective at dealing damage than anything else time can use (dune scorps might beat over a period of time, no pun intended)
deflag: eternity (and other permanents such as hourglass) is one of time's greatest strengths, so PC bans are to be expected
steal: see above, and you never want to give your opponent an eternity if his deck doesn't use any...
phase shield: time has nothing to go through that shield, and it's a game changer most of the time (again, no pun intended)
I'm not sure what you mean when you say Time can't go rainbow. Timebows are quite good and it isn't hard to make a 50% Time timebow. The major problem with discords is that you don't want to go rainbow all the Time, just in case opponent takes discords. And Time has many really expensive cards (Pharaohs, Eternity, Hourglass, Anubis, Devonian). That's the problem, not going rainbow.
(all puns intended)
In general, I planned to weaken all of the synergies Time has (thus eg. I banned graboid instead of banning both graboid and EQ)... well, that was impossible, since there are great
,
,
and
decks that aren't weakened by my bans, but at least the ones best in Time vs. Time are weakened. The best
decks (flying Eternities + Wings) aren't really a threat in Time vs. Time (although it might be possible to make a Blitz based deck too), while
is probably the only field I'm yet to see some ingenious decks in (maybe nymph tears - golden nymph spam or some kind of permafrost time stall?).
Anyway, I banned SoG only because Spike seems to use mostly rushes with a bit of control/stall, so I wouldn't expect too many SoG/stall decks from him. Thus, I banned SoG to prevent being surprised by one of these
Anyway, possibly the fact that I banned SoG, while he didn't might even our chances a little bit, but honestly, I mostly hope for an epic battle, rather than victory.
