1. Time's standing is suffering a rewind, or at least seems to be trapped in a stasis bubble. Besides, it seems Time's participation is always lukewarm (and gradually getting worse!) - it doesn't fall right out nor does it fight for the top spot. It looses some matches, ends up with a reduced vault, hangs in there with 1 or 2 decks but finally leaves quietly, without much fuss or anyone really noticing it. It doesn't harness the glories of Fire or Entropy, but people also don't pity it like Gravity and (previously) Water. With the current card base, Time's role will keep being limited as a supporting actor in War? Do you think it need changes/buffs in order to grab the main role or - if not - as a Master of Time, what can you bring to the table to improve its standing?
To me, a big reason for applying for the Mastership was the prospect of leading Time to War as a General and I definitely wouldn't have done it if I thought that Time could not win. I always play to win and that would be my goal as Master of Time. So yes, I do think that in its current form Time is able to win a War. What I bring to the table is my experience from 2 Wars, various PvP Events, lots of PvE play and a lot of theoretical analysis.
2. Regarding War 3 in particular, how did you rate Time's participation? Explain giving specifically the perspective of:
(...)
10 men and PlayerOa: an opponent (Did you fear Time? How did you prepare yourselves specifically to play against it? Did it surprise or disappoint you?)
Um, I'd have to lie if I said that we feared it... In War 2 they were ambushed by our Discord strategy as most other teams, in War 3 they weren't one of our most feared teams either. We usually took cheaper creatures and not many rainbows against them in fear of RT.
Which do you feel Time represents better in ETG, speeding up/gaining cards faster (e.g. Haste), or slowing down/denial (e.g. Rewind Time), and why?
This is a little difficult to answer as I think that both those aspects (Hasten and Reverse Time) are fantastic mechanics. They are very elegant both in a flavour sense as they can be identified with manipulating Time to give yourself an advantage, as well in a mechanical sense. Hastening is about accumulating knowledge to put yourself into a better position for the future. Reverse Time in a sense does the opposite for your opponent by limiting his options and his developement. It is also very nice and unique way of CC which fits Time extraordinarily well as I see Time not as a very violent Element but more of a strategist. Reverse Time can get rid of creatures without harming them at all, you just have to think fourdimensionally and shift their timeline a little.
I conclusion I can't really say that any of those mechanics represents Time better as their are both an integral part to the Element.
That is not to say that I am a huge fan of every Time mechanic there is (I am not so keen about Neurotoxin for example), you just picked the two most important ones to me.
This is a shield that is similar to Bone Wall, except that it works with Time's ability to draw cards. For this card: 'time barrier' is similar to 'bone shield' for blocking damage. Plus it gives Time a shield that actually blocks damage. And it could work well in a mono-Time. And yes, it gets counters if your opponent uses a card effect to draw a card.
If this card was introduced into the game: What impact would it have? How would you utilize it? What decks would you build? How would it change 
? (You don't have to answer each question individually)
First of all, I really like this card, probably one of my favourite submissions in the CIA section. The card drawing mechanic is definitely one of my favourite aspects of the Time element, so I welcome everything that gives more interaction with it.
About its impact: Its main impact would be that Time would finally have a good in-element shield to use in a stall. Currently it only has Procrastination which is kinda underwhelming - it compares pretty badly to Dusk and Fog Shield as it cannot block weapons and always let's through the first attack. It also has some anti-synergy with the typical Time stall plan which is to put the opponent in a Rewind-lock where he cannot have more than one creature on the field which gets rewound every turn. In that scenario Procrastination actually blocks exactly 0% of the damage. Time Barrier on the other hand looks very much like a legit shield for Time.
A smaller factor is that it could give more value to 'smaller' card drawing cards like Precognition. The latter for example is right now pretty much only used for the purpose of thinning your deck usually to set up some OTK, or in a rainbow if you have really no other use for your Time quanta. Cards like Time Barrier could give it value outside of those strategies which is something I would look forward to as I really like the card mechanically but couldn't bring myself to play it in a Time Stall because the effect just isn't worth the quanta.
What decks would I make? Personally I love playing around with Time stalls, so probably everything.
No really there are tons of possibilities with it, obviously mono Time stalls would be possible, but I could also imagine Entropy decks (with Pandemonium and Neurotoxin probably), Death decks (with Poison) or Light decks (with Sanctuaries and Sundials - extra card draw hooray!). Tons of possibilities there.
What is your favourite deck, and why?
I'm going to have to post two decks here: One is my current FG farmer:
Hover over cards for details, click for permalink
6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 7n2 7n2 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q5 7q7 7q8 7q8 7q8 7q8 7qe 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 7ri 80b 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80d 80h 80i 8puRemember those 100000 cards drawn with Electrum Hourglass? This deck is the reason.
It's also the reason for the biggest chunk of my currently 2340 upgraded cards. The reason I like it is that for one, it perfectly fits my prefered playstyle for fighting against False Gods. Most other FG decks like RoL Hope or Voodoo or CCYB rely on some overpowered combo that they hope to deploy before the FG can counter it and somehow sneak through a win. This deck on the other hand is designed to utterly dominate the FG in every way and then just casually beat him with whatever comes in handy. It also does it extremely well - according to the FG efficiency study it is the deck with the highest winrate by far (over 60%, no other deck even reaches 50%). The flipside is of course that it is a very slow deck, but personally I am willing to sacrifice some grinding speed to play a deck that is fun and keeps me motivated. The other reason I like is that, well, I played a big role in developing it - archatys came up with the original idea (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,4148.0.html), but I tweaked it into its current form (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,4148.msg102256#msg102256) which is still used over one year after I made it, also Noobiecakes definitely deserves some credit for suggesting Ghost of the Past (
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,22028.0.html). I definitely consider this deck my biggest accomplishment as far as building Time decks are concerned.
I also couldn't answer this question without giving a deck from my Team Entropy time. My favourite deck from that time is mono Entropy rush or "turn two Discord".
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4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4vc 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4ve 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vf 4vi 4vi 4vl 4vl 4vl 4vl 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 50u 8pjI made this deck for War 2 where it did very well going 5-1 before our Vault was so diluted that we couldn't play it anymore. It was the single most succesful deck of War 3 fetching us 8 wins over the course of the Event. This particular version however is one that I used to wreck havoc on The Draft #1. It basically was a hard counter to two entire Teams and I remember getting a 9-0 (18-1) streak with it without ever changing a single card of my deck, sometimes even announcing that I would use it.
Thanks for the questions everyone, keep them coming!
