Why hello, darling...
I climbed to Top 70 in Masters during the February 2018 season (peaking at
Rank 69) using versions of this list exclusively from Rank 1000+.
Some key features:
Ambush Units
In a Charge-heavy meta, units with Ambush go up in stock. Over a third of the units in this deck may be played during your opponent's turn. These provide unexpected answers to enemy chargers and relic weapons, in addition to blocking standard attacks.
With Icaria and other evasive units being so prevalent,
Scorpion Wasp is your friend.
Ayan, the Abductor is a Xenan staple, and here his +3 Ultimate pairs nicely with the Gunslinger/Pistol combo for late-game value.
An ambushing
Cabal Countess delivers 6 or more points of unexpected Quickdraw attack. At 1 health she may not be much of a defender, but that Quickdraw damage adds up...especially when buffed by a
Xenan Obelisk or
Hideout Pistol.
Xenan Madness
Madness combos are typically considered a Feln and/or Stonescar thing, and rightly so because they receive a lot of support in those factions from multiple sacrifice effects. But Time also has a couple of underutilized tools that combine very well with stealing your opponent's units.
If
Inquisitor Makto and his never-ending revenge are giving you a hard time, why not make him your own? With a Madness combo you can do just that.
Madness plus
Teleport allows you to permanently retain an enemy unit and play them with no influence costs.
In Fire decks,
Combust plus
Madness lets you to take out two enemy units at once. But you can also do this in Xenan (provided the combat math works out) by combining
Madness and
Xenan Initiation. Just remember that Initiation will add +1/+1 and don't forget to account for enemy Quickdraw units.
The pairing of
Madness with
Ashara, Ruthless Assassin is perhaps not as surprising as it once was, but in a Time deck it is still unexpected and can be quite effective.
Lastly,
Madness plus
Devour is a classic combo, and 4x
Devour are included here. In addition to removing Maddened enemy units,
Devour is our main source of card draw when alternatively targeting friendly blockers and dead ducks.
Gunslingers
No
Annihilate or
Banish, and only 2x
Deathstrike here. However, multiple kills are made possible by the inclusion of
Hideout Pistol and several Gunslingers.
Pistol can be quite scalable when combined with other cards. Early game you pair it with one of ChaMy's gunslinging Angels to take out weaker enemy units. Later on it becomes possible to remove enemies with 8 attack or greater by using Pistol in some combination with ChaMy himself, or any of the other Gunslingers buffed by Xenan Obelisk and/or
Ayan, the Abductor's ultimate.
As far as facing aggro goes: You have 19 units that cost three or less for defending against early attackers. Nine of those units are Deadly, eight have Ambush, and five provide life gain. Extract and Vara's Favor are additional tools for both early removal and increased health. Hideout Pistol is another source of removal when combined with any of your Gunslingers. Additional life gain comes from 4x Devour and 4x Amber Waystone.
In a tournament setting you have even more anti-aggro tools in the sideboard: Suffocate, Devastating Setback, Devoted Theurge and Stray into Shadow