This card is a fairly roundabout way to undo the
progress of mill decks, a cumbersome means of
refilling your hand back up to seven, and a very
subtle yet highly abrupt way of disrupting the
plans of any opponents who rely on graveyards,
or still have combo pieces in their hand by the
time you cast this. Other than that, the
symmetry of it makes it hard to use. Sure, you
get a fresh hand of seven, but so does your
opponent. Unless you'd been exiling cards out of
their library, which is a more black means of
milling than blue, you haven't given yourself
much of an advantage, you've only counteracted
whatever disadvantage you may have already been
at due to them having more cards in hand than
you.
Looking at it another way, if you could somehow
bounce several of their most bothersome
permanents to their hand immediately before
casting this, you'd have gotten rid of them
completely by casting Time Reversal. Or, if you
can get an Underworld Dreams effect into play,
then Time Reversal also hits each opponent for
seven. But of course the Reversal does nothing
about cards already in play, which leads one to
wonder what you gain by casting it. It's
definitely a combo piece in search of a partner,
and thus its strength is highly dependent on the
strength of its partner, and of the deck it goes
into.
Time Reversal is one of a fortunate few cards in
Magic that shares game text with one of the
Power Nine, in this case Timetwister. That card
is one of the Power Nine for a reason, and
restricted for a very good reason. Timetwister's
game text is always Timetwister's game text -
it's no longer broken at five mana, obviously,
but it's always good and always a crazy ride.
Try it with Spelweaver Helix.
Today's card of the day is Time Reversal which
is a five mana version of the old power nine
card Timetwister. The higher cost often
allows it to benefit the opponent almost as much
as yourself even with a deck built with the
effect in mind, but it can still be very
powerful. Timed for your own advantage you
should gain more than your opponent, especially
in the standard Blue/White control scheme of
deck design or in a Blue/Black.
For Limited giving your opponent as many cards
as you get isn't often the best strategy, but if
you have the edge this is still viable and
shouldn't be ignored just on that condition.
If your Sealed pool includes a somewhat control
theme this should fit in well, but it can be a
difficult first pick in Booster. It may
depend on your own style of play, but supported
with White or Black you can reduce the impact of
the cards they draw and play out the game.
An alternative might be Red/Blue and try to
refresh your hand with burn spells for a faster
kill, but this depends on what is passed to you
or is in your pool.
In Multiplayer arranging the deck to work on
everyone at once may be a bit more difficult and
giving all opponents the advantage of extra
cards is quite dangerous. Aside from a
build that will deal damage for cards drawn this
is a very risky card to play.
