The Revolt mechanic was introduced back in Aether Revolt, and it quickly became apparent that triggering Revolt was incredibly easy. In formats like Modern, all you need to do is sacrifice a Fetchland and your copies of Fatal Push can take down four-mana creatures on the cheap.
Well, today, an Edge of Eternities story spoiler was revealed, and it features a mechanic that is clearly a throwback to Revolt. Known as Void, this keyword takes Revolt and makes one major change to it to make it much fairer. Unfortunately, that change does make this spoiler significantly less competitive.
Temporal Intervention
Temporal Intervention is the newly previewed Edge of Eternities common, and it’s the first card we’ve seen featuring the Void mechanic. Void functions similarly to Revolt, except that you can’t use lands to set things up.
If you can cast Temporal Intervention for one mana reliably, the effect is pretty strong. Thoughtseize is a premium discard spell, and Temporal Intervention does the same thing but without any life loss involved.
The issue is that because you need to sacrifice a nonland permanent to get the mana discount, chances are, you won’t be casting this card during the first couple turns. It’s also not worth giving up board presence in many instances to get your mana reduction.
Mishra’s Bauble does enable Temporal Intervention perfectly, which is cool. Consistency is key, though, and Temporal Intervention falls short in that department.
A Chance in Standard and Pauper
Negativity aside, there is still a chance for the card to make an impact in Standard and Pauper in the right decks. First of all, the competition for discard spells is much lower in these formats. Plus, there are already strong strategies that can easily get Temporal Intervention down to one mana at little cost.
In Standard, Orzhov self-bounce immediately comes to mind as the perfect home for this card. Even though the ban to Hopeless Nightmare hurt the deck’s stock, Tinybones Joins Up is a decent replacement. Alongside Nowhere to Run and Momentum Breaker, you have plenty of permanents to bounce with Nurturing Pixie and Sunpearl Kirin for value.
In doing so, you make Temporal Intervention a one mana spell without giving up any board presence. Beating out Duress and Dreams of Steal and Oil isn’t easy, but the flexibility Temporal Intervention provides as a discard spell is strong. It’s possible some new Edge of Eternities cards with cheap Warp costs will be spoiled to make Temporal Intervention even better, though that awaits to be seen.
Against mono-white token control and Jeskai control, two matchups where Duress shines, having the luxury of taking away Overlord of the Mistmoors or Shiko, Paragon of the Way instead of a noncreature spell is nice.
In Pauper, many of the best black decks in the format rely on generating value with sacrifice synergies. By abusing cards like Ichor Wellspring and Fanatical Offering, it’s easy to pull ahead on resources.
This makes it trivial to maximize Temporal Intervention. Pauper is slow enough that even if you don’t cast your discard spell until turn three, it’s not the end of the world. Duress is a strong alternative, though once again, being able to strip opposing creatures such as Tolarian Terror can be essential. This is especially true versus creature combo decks centered around Balustrade Spy or Putrid Goblin.
So, while Temporal Intervention suffers in formats where Thoughtseize is legal, there’s still hope for the card to make a dent in Constructed. We’re excited to see what other cards with Void get previewed in the near future.
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