Chronomantic Escape MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	6
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Sorcery
Abilities	Suspend
Released	2007-05-04
Set symbol
Set name	Future Sight
Set code	FUT
Number	4
Frame	2003
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Franz Vohwinkel

Key Takeaways

Provides recurring combat-phase skipping, gaining players significant tactical advantage.
Indirectly aids resource acceleration by protecting key creatures from combat damage.
Manages to offer a degree of instant-speed interaction through its suspending nature.

Text of card

Until your next turn, creatures can't attack you. Remove Chronomantic Escape from the game with three time counters on it. Suspend 3— (Rather than play this card from your hand, you may pay and remove it from the game with three time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, play it without paying its mana cost.)

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Unlike typical protective spells, Chronomantic Escape doesn’t just stall for a single turn. Its recurring effect means every third turn you’re effectively skipping your opponents’ combat phases, leading to a card advantage by restricting their opportunities to utilize creature-based strategies against you.

Resource Acceleration: While not directly accelerating your resources, Chronomantic Escape can indirectly contribute to resource acceleration. By preventing combat damage, it allows your mana dorks and utility creatures to survive and be used for ramp or other effects, ensuring you progress unimpeded in developing your board presence.

Instant Speed: Though Chronomantic Escape itself must be cast during your main phase, its suspending nature and automatic triggering at every third upkeep after it’s played gives you a semblance of instant-speed interaction. You can align your plays around the turns Chronomantic Escape is set to trigger, freeing up resources to cast other instant-speed spells confidently, knowing you’re safe from combat damage.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Chronomantic Escape doesn’t directly require you to discard cards, effectively utilizing its suspend mechanic often necessitates a considerable amount of foresight and hand management. Mishandling your hand might negate the advantages of this time-based card.

Specific Mana Cost: Chronomantic Escape requires three white mana to cast. This specificity can be restrictive, especially for multicolored decks that might struggle with consistently generating enough white mana when needed.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a cost of six mana, Chronomantic Escape is a significant investment, particularly for what it offers. In faster-paced games or against decks with numerous low-cost creatures, its delayed effect might not justify the mana spent, especially when considering other defensive options available.

Reasons to Include Chronomantic Escape in Your Collection

Versatility: Chronomantic Escape offers a unique approach to defense, fitting well in decks that aim to delay opponents and secure the late game. Its ability to make your creatures unblockable by foes every third turn can support a variety of strategic setups, from control to combo.

Combo Potential: The card excels when paired with cards that manipulate or reset time counters, potentially locking opponents out of combat indefinitely. This opens up synergies with other cards and mechanics centered around time counters like suspend, offering creative and potent deck-building opportunities.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where creature-based aggro decks are prevalent, Chronomantic Escape can serve as an effective recurring fog effect, thwarting attacks and disrupting enemy tempo. This temporal shield can be critical for preserving your life total while you set up your win condition.

How to beat

Chronomantic Escape is a unique card in MTG that can upend the flow of a match by providing repeated protection from attacks. Every third turn, it effectively shields you from all combat damage, creating a wall that opponents must find a way around. To outmaneuver this temporal defense, efficient removal spells that can target suspended cards are your friends—think of cards like Krosan Grip or Abrupt Decay that can dismantle the protective time barrier.

Another strategy is to employ counter spells when Chronomantic Escape is initially cast or when it’s about to come off suspension. Tactics like these ensure it never gets the chance to lock you out of combat. If your deck is proactive, you might consider adjusting your gameplay to apply pressure on turns when Chronomantic Escape isn’t in effect, capitalizing on the windows of opportunity to deal significant damage or advance your board state.

While Chronomantic Escape could stall an aggressive opponent and serve as a temporal shield, a balanced approach combining disruption and timed aggression can ensure that its impact on the game is minimized, preserving your path to victory.

Cards like Chronomantic Escape

Chronomantic Escape is a unique spell that opens up different tactical avenues for players in MTG. At the core, it shares some concepts with other time manipulation cards such as Time Warp, both giving you the edge by affecting turns. Time Warp allows a player to take an extra turn entirely, whereas Chronomantic Escape temporarily detains creatures from combat, offering a different form of control over the game’s progression.

Looking at Fog, it also delays combat by preventing all combat damage for a single turn. Chronomantic Escape extends that protection across multiple turns due to its suspend feature. Another card worth mentioning is Stonehorn Dignitary, which also skips the opponents’ combat phases, but it does so through a creature’s enter-the-battlefield effect, whereas Chronomantic Escape is recurring, albeit with a longer delay between activations.

These comparisons underline that while sharing a thematic link with turn-based control, Chronomantic Escape stands out with its unique approach to disrupting opponent strategies over successive turns, illustrating its distinct role in MTG’s vast array of defensive spells.

Cards similar to Chronomantic Escape by color, type and mana cost

Guan Yu's 1,000-Li March - MTG Card versions

Sudden Disappearance - MTG Card versions

Descend upon the Sinful - MTG Card versions

Deploy the Gatewatch - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Chronomantic Escape MTG card by a specific set like Future Sight, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Chronomantic Escape and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Chronomantic Escape has restrictions

Format	Legality
Commander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Predh	Legal
Penny	Legal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Chronomantic Escape card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

Date	Text
2013-04-15	Chronomantic Escape can affect creatures that aren’t on the battlefield at the time it resolves, because it modifies the announcement of an attack, not the creatures on the battlefield. For example, if Chronomantic Escape resolves on your turn, then on your opponent’s turn they cast a creature with haste, that creature can’t attack that turn.
2014-02-01	Unless some effect explicitly says otherwise, a creature that can’t attack you can still attack a planeswalker you control.
2021-06-18	As the second triggered ability resolves, you must cast the card if able. You must do so even if it requires targets and the only legal targets are ones that you really don’t want to target. Timing permissions based on the card’s type are ignored.
2021-06-18	Cards exiled with suspend are exiled face up.
2021-06-18	Exiling a card with suspend isn’t casting that card. This action doesn’t use the stack and can’t be responded to.
2021-06-18	If an effect refers to a “suspended card,” that means a card that (1) has suspend, (2) is in exile, and (3) has one or more time counters on it.
2021-06-18	If the card has in its mana cost, you must choose 0 as the value of X when casting it without paying its mana cost.
2021-06-18	If the first triggered ability of suspend (the one that removes time counters) is countered, no time counter is removed. The ability will trigger again at the beginning of the card’s owner’s next upkeep.
2021-06-18	If the second triggered ability is countered, the card can’t be cast. It remains exiled with no time counters on it, and it’s no longer suspended.
2021-06-18	If the spell requires any targets, those targets are chosen when the spell is finally cast, not when it’s exiled.
2021-06-18	If you can’t cast the card, perhaps because there are no legal targets available, it remains exiled with no time counters on it, and it’s no longer suspended.
2021-06-18	If you cast a card “without paying its mana cost,” such as with suspend, you can’t choose to cast it for any alternative costs. You can, however, pay additional costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, you must pay those if you want to cast the card.
2021-06-18	Suspend is a keyword that represents three abilities. The first is a static ability that allows you to exile the card from your hand with the specified number of time counters (the number before the dash) on it by paying its suspend cost (listed after the dash). The second is a triggered ability that removes a time counter from the suspended card at the beginning of each of your upkeeps. The third is a triggered ability that causes you to cast the card when the last time counter is removed. If you cast a creature spell this way, it gains haste until you lose control of that creature (or, in rare cases, you lose control of the creature spell while it’s on the stack).
2021-06-18	The mana value of a spell cast without paying its mana cost is determined by its mana cost, even though that cost wasn’t paid.
2021-06-18	When the last time counter is removed, the second triggered ability of suspend (the one that lets you cast the card) triggers. It doesn’t matter why the last time counter was removed or what effect removed it.
2021-06-18	You are never forced to activate mana abilities to pay costs, so if there is a mandatory additional mana cost (such as from Thalia, Guardian of Thraben), you can decline to activate mana abilities to pay for it and hence fail to cast the suspended card, leaving it in exile.
2021-06-18	You can exile a card in your hand using suspend any time you could cast that card. Consider its card type, any effects that modify when you could cast it (such as flash) and any other effects that stop you from casting it (such as from Meddling Mage’s ability) to determine if and when you can do this. Whether you could actually complete all steps in casting the card is irrelevant. For example, you can exile a card with suspend that has no mana cost or that requires a target even if no legal targets are available at that time.