This is a variant on another list I found here
(10/23/18 Update) TJS~TemporalControl:MaskedParliament.
It has a very different play style from anything else I've played relying on combos not generally used. However, the original list lacked a lot of consistency being fairly "Highlander" in it's top end. I did like
Bartholo, the Seducer for weapon fetch late-game, but I removed it for more copies of other key cards.
The deck really revolves around
Excavate and
Mask of Torment. A very cool and unique combination that is key to your Tempo swings mid-game and requires really thinking two turns ahead at all times.
As for win-conditions, the two key ones are Mask and
Talir, Unbound with
Temporal Distortion for the early 2-turn ultimate kill... assuming you can get Talir to stick of course. Lastly,
The Last Word acts as a back-up/lucky draw win-condition.
One last thing on the win-con. I actually think it might be better to replace
Temporal Distortion and/or
Talir, Unbound with
The Last Word and possibly more Azendel's Gift copies. Possibly even
Sword of the Sky King. However, at that point this becomes a far less fun and unique list and you may as well be running JPS Unitless Control.
Lastly, I've been running this for the last couple of days at Masters Rank 500 - 330 with a positive win-rate, but that could mostly be because the novelty was preventing counter play from my opponents.
Modifications/Side Board
I still get power screwed on a regular basis and have been fiddling quite a bit with the balance there. With that in-mind, I'm not sure about
Vara's Favor over
Seek Power or other fixing options.
Also,
Madness/
Devour could be changed to your preferred removal/draw cards, but I really like the combo potential after
Temporal Distortion comes in to play (such as stealing their own attacking minion and blocking another attacking minion with it).
That said, I'll freely admit this isn't actually the strongest card choices for these slots, just the most fun ones.
Match-Ups
This deck basically auto-loses to JPS Unit-less Control. Fortunately that list isn't run that much.
Your removal suite dictates the other match-ups quite a bit, but I find it does 50/50 against aggro in this incarnation. Rakano Aggro is actually the worse of Aggro match-ups because they run a lot of 3-health units making
Devastating Setback less useful. However, Rakano is slower and you can usually get
Harsh Rules off unless they get the nut-draw.
Most importantly for me, this has a positive win-rate against Feln Midrange/Control (the most common lists I run across on ladder at the moment).
Tempo match-ups (Praxis Midrange for instance) can be VERY draw dependent. If you get
Harsh Rules and
Excavates in time then you run them out of cards, otherwise they run you over with board presence.
Lastly, the TJP Mid/Tempo list full of Aegis is very difficult to win against. I have around a 35% win-rate against it.
Update - 5/21/18
Running this list in the 200s in master I had to bite the bullet and remove
Devour and
Madness. I was losing to both heavy aggro (Skycrag, I'm looking at you) and Big Dude decks too much (Praxis Midrange) so I threw in
Ayan, the Abductor and
Slay for more early game play and mid-game removal options (
Harsh Rule just isn't enough with all the Aegis being ran now).
Also, a quick play note.
Xenan Augury is extremely powerful in this list. Don't be afraid to
Excavate it multiple times to filter your draws for key pieces.
Oh, and I forgot that I removed a
Temporal Distortion for
Bartholo, the Seducer as a Fetch card. Sometimes he's also burn bait as people fear him for some reason just because he's unblockable.