TJP Distortion Control

I wanted to share this list with you, I'm having insane amounts of fun with it, and a couple of opponents asked me for a list, so I decided to do a bit of a guide on it.

The deck is based on sifudanny's Temporal Distortion deck, but I made quite a few adjustments to it to my liking. The idea is to control the game up until we can play Temporal Distortion and then super-control the game. We have no dedicated finishers, but Channel the Tempest or Lumen Reclaimer can finish games quite fast. However, our main win condition is the opponent having had enough and having the least amount of fun possible. The deck is still in experimental state and there are several cards that are really meta-dependent, so don't take it as a solid 75.

The deck is pretty bad for laddering, since you struggle against aggro, especially Skyscrag. Armory is the worst matchup for us since we are creatureless. These two need specific cards in our starting hand/early draws to beat. We destroy all other midrange and control decks tho.

Card choices

Wanted Poster - That's the kinda card draw we get in non-Primal colors, but it's better than all other options. Trailblaze is a consideration here, but there is rarely a situation where we can't use both cards we draw with it. It's wonky, sits dead in our hand a lot, but still fine in my eyes.

Disjunction - One of the best cards in the new set IMO, can get back Temporal Distortion, Wanted Poster or Staff of Stories for us. As Armory is one of the hardest matchup, it is also decent to get rid of their Sword of Icaria or Starsteel Daisho. Does well against Praxis Relics too. And Azindel's Gift. And Chalice of the void. Just an all around great card.

Lightning Storm - The best and most important card in the deck. It gives us a chance against aggro. Impromptu mulligan guide: have this in your hand. And two power at least. And one them needs to give you Primal. Boom. You done now.

Lightning Strike - One of the few anti-armory cards that doesn't suck versus other decks.

Strategize - Great card overall. We pack a lot of matchup-specific cards and 'combo-pieces' that we don't want early game. We will always have a dead card or two in our hand that we can pitch to Strategize and feel like we just drew 2 cards for 2 mana.

Unseal - Our first one-off. Playing one-offs with Celestial Omen is great, we will rarely draw them naturally, but they will always be there when we need them (for 6 extra mana, but hey...). It is our only answer to opposing Eilyn's Choices.

Vision of Austerity - Anti-armory and praxis tech, maybe 2 of them is a bit much, but I feel we need this card to beat them. In some matchups it's a completely dead card, make sure to put it on the bottom of your deck as soon as you can.:)

Eye of Winter - Harsh Rule's best friend.:) It makes the opponent overextend into our sweeper as well as remove Aegis from everything. Only a couple of the new busted cards has Endurance, I feel it's a great addition.

Shush - Our only permanent answer to cards like Dawnwalker and Inquisitor Makto after they are played. In most other matchups it's a really bad card.

Lumen Reclaimer - Our main win condition. We don't have enough cards or damage to finish an opponent otherwise. It makes you be able to use Channel the Tempest as a removal spell, then shuffle it back and finish the game with it. Just be careful, if the opponent plays and kind of silence or Steward of the Past, kill your first Lumen Reclaimer immediately after playing her to get the entomb trigger. After that just keep in mind how many of them you have in your deck and you'll be fine.

Rain of Frogs - I grown to love this card in the deck. If I could, I'd play 4, but can't fit them in anywhere. It solves all of our problems mentioned above with armory, recurring threats, relics, etc. And even if you play against a different deck, there are always hard-to-deal-with threats like Champion of Cunning, Icaria, the Liberator, Tavrod, Auric Broker, Eilyn's Choice etc. that you don't mind getting rid of.

Staff of Stories - One of the best engine cards for this type of deck. 2 of them may not be correct, I tried a split betwen this and Moondial, it worked equally well. We just need to make sure to lock up the end-game with card advantage. I think 2 of this effect is needed, not sure what fits best here.

Stronghold's Visage - The best source of lifegain I found. Sifudanny ran a one-off Water of Life, but I don't really like it since it messes with the reshuffle and is not a permanent solution. I don't really like it in the deck, but I couldn't find any better lifegain effect. It also combos well with Staff of Stories.

Celestial Omen - No need to explain really, just a word of advice: don't be afraid to tutor for the card you need. You don't have to win on turn 8-9 with this deck, you just need to not lose. If you need a sweeper or any of the one-offs, or even just a power - tutor it up.

Temporal Distortion - In this deck it is mostly just a ramp effect that doubles your current and future mana. Some people try to build spell-only decks to make this card even better, but it's overkill IMO.

Manabase - The only thing about the manabase is you may want to play more scrylan... scoutpowers. Depleted mana is only a big issue on turn 3-6 I think, but with all the sigils and Seek Powers you should have enough undepleted sources.

I hope you enjoy the deck, and please if you have any suggestions or questions, let me know. This is my first 'deck guide' and I'm not native, so please excuse my mistakes and let me know about them.:)