As part of my effort to build up a Steemian Magic: The Gathering Community and in conjunction with the upcoming 25th Anniversary Masters set, I decided to try out something new. Inspired by @bafi ‘s post , I thought it would be fun to start an MTG Card Spotlight section as part of my TS Gaming Series.

So, today’s card spotlight is my all-time favourite Magic: The Gathering planeswalker! He is big, he is blue and he can win games on the spot! It is NOT Jace, the Mindsculptor! Instead, it is… drumrolls… Teferi, Temporal Archmage!

Teferi is a Dominarian from the Jamuraa continent. He was a student at the Tolarian Academy and was a former planeswalker. Eventually, he became a royal mage of his homeland of Zhalfir after losing his spark while phasing a continent back into existence after previously phasing it out. From a story point of view, Teferi’s power is no joke!

Note: (W) = White, (U) = Blue, (B) = Black, (R) = Red, (G) = Green, (C) = Colourless

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is the legendary creature form of Teferi.

Oracle Text:
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir (2)(U)(U)(U)
Legendary Creature – Human Wizard
Flash (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant.)
Creature cards you own that aren't on the battlefield have flash.
Each opponent can cast spells only any time he or she could cast a sorcery.
¾

The Mage of Zhalfir is extremely powerful despite its hard to achieve mana cost. (Triple (U) is hard to acquire in a multicolour format). Having Flash means that you can cast him in at any phase. So, you can cast him during your opponent’s end step! This is exceptionally important in Blue as you would want to keep your mana up just in case your opponents have a counterspell or removal.
However, he is not the only one with Flash. Once you successfully drop him on the board, all your creatures now have Flash. This can lead to explosive end steps where during the end of your opponent’s turn, you can dump your creatures out before they can do anything.

Teferi’s last ability is what makes him really special. He makes it so that other players cannot interact with your board when it is not their turn. You have effectively turned all their instant cards into sorcery cards!

Now that we are done with the weaker form of Teferi, let’s go onto the main event! Teferi, Temporal Archmage!

Oracle text:

Teferi, Temporal Archmage (4)(U)(U)
Legendary Planeswalker - Teferi
+1: Look at the top two cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the other on the bottom of your library.
−1: Untap up to four target permanents.
−10: You get an emblem with "You may activate loyalty abilities of planeswalkers you control on any player's turn any time you could cast an instant."
Teferi, Temporal Archmage can be your commander.
< 5 >

Teferi, Temporal Archmage is a planeswalker card. Planeswalkers are effectively like having a second player sitting on the table with you. They have insane abilities that they can activate once per turn by either increasing or decreasing his loyalty. Loyalty is for a planeswalker like life is for a player. If the loyalty equals to or is less than 0, the planeswalker would be placed in the graveyard.

Teferi’s <+1> is to look at the top two cards of your library (deck). Put one of them into your hand and the other on the bottom of your library. This is a very powerful way to filter through your deck by seeing 2 cards which each activation. This is very useful for the EDH archtype that Teferi is in, combo stax as you are able to dig out your win conditions or your resource denial more consistently. There are some very niche interactions that can abuse the ability such as Tunnel Vision where you could mill out your entire deck and win with a surprise Laboratory Maniac.

This planeswalker’s <-1> is one of the most powerful planeswalker abilities out there. The ability to untap up to four target permanents may seem simple and weak. However, it is ungodly insane in both archetypes that Teferi players would play in. Using his ability to untap your mana rocks to ramp out big Eldrazis is an option. However, my personal use for his <-1> is to combo off with The Chain Veil and 3 mana rocks that generate 5 or more mana. This allows me to activate Teferi’s ability infinitely when I use the surplus mana to recast him from the Command Zone.

The unique properties of The Chain Veil gives all planeswalkers that enter play during your turn the extra activations of their ability for each time The Chain Veil was activated. For example, if the Chain Veil was activated 5 times this turn, when I recast Teferi from the Command Zone, I can activate him up to 6 times without having to activate The Chain Veil again. Because of this, I can get a near infinite amount of Teferi activations, allowing me to look through my deck for any number of spells and cast them with any number of mana generated by the Chain Veil!

Teferi’s <-10> or Ultimate ability is somewhat underwhelming compared to his other abilities due to the time it would take to actually cause it to go off. You get an emblem with "You may activate loyalty abilities of planeswalkers you control on any player's turn any time you could cast an instant." This means that you could activate planeswalker activities once per player, meaning that if there were 3 other players, your planeswalkers can tick up or down 4 times in total per turn cycle. Don’t get me wrong, this is a powerful ability. However, compared to the card advantage of his <+1> and the game winning nature of his <-1>, his ultimate is rather lackluster.

Last Words

Among the MTG psychographics, I guess I am a Johnny Spike. That’s why I really enjoy comboing off competitively. My only real barrier to competitive EDH is the cost of some of the mana rocks. My deck is currently tuned to the max I can do with my budget. Sadly, I left my deck behind in Kuala Lumpur as I didn’t expect to stay up in Penang for so long.
I am really excited for what Dominaria will do for Teferi as he is a main character in the upcoming Dominaria set! I am so hype!

Have you heard its call? That is the call of the Planeswalkers of Steemit Discord Server! I am currently trying to build a community for Steemians who play Magic: The Gathering. On our server, we have a post-promotion channel for people to share their MTG-related Steemit Content. We also have an arena for people to suggest challenges through Skype, Facetime or any online app. Finally, we have the Bazaar of Baghdad where players may engage in trades that are transparent for all members of the community (with Steem/SBD transactions encouraged). In the near future, I am hoping to start up competitions to encourage creativity in deckbuilding, card alters or custom card design. So, stay tuned!

Come join us here: https://discord.gg/b6ThDYT

We are using the tag #magictcg . Anyone who uses the tag (at least for now during the early adoption stage) will have our support!

This is part of the TS Gaming Series. Feel free to check out my other posts in this series:
Beginner’s Guide to EDH
Bioshock Remastered
Bioshock Infinite
Loot Boxes and Crack Addiction
Shadow of Mordor

Note: All images portraying cards and the likeness as Teferi as depicted above are owned by Wizards of the Coast.