Chronosavant MTG Card
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 6 |
| Rarity | Rare |
| Type | Creature — Giant |
| Released | 2006-10-06 |
| Set symbol | |
| Set name | Time Spiral |
| Set code | TSP |
| Power | 5 |
| Toughness | 5 |
| Number | 9 |
| Frame | 2003 |
| Layout | Normal |
| Border | Black |
| Illustred by | Pete Venters |
Key Takeaways
- Chronosavant recovers board presence from the graveyard, creating card advantage and disrupting opponent strategies.
- Paying life instead of mana for its ability offers resource flexibility, allowing for diverse play options.
- Returning Chronosavant during opponent’s turn can upset their tempo, making it a strategic gameplay piece.
Text of card
: Return Chronosavant from your graveyard to play tapped. Skip your next turn.
"In my dreams, I hear the voices of my future selves who have died in times yet to come. I use that knowledge to avoid those dark futures and continue my search for peace."
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Chronosavant offers a unique twist on card advantage by allowing players to regain board presence from the graveyard. This can potentially outpace an opponent’s removal strategies and keep pressure on, all without depleting the cards in your hand.
Resource Acceleration: The ability to pay life instead of mana for its return ability can serve as a resource acceleration by bypassing the need for mana investment in that turn. This gives you the flexibility to utilize your mana for other spell casting or maintaining open mana for responses.
Instant Speed: Chronosavant’s ability to return to the battlefield at the end of your opponent’s turn disrupts their tempo, forcing them to deal with it on their turn and using up resources that could have been used to advance their own board state.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Unpacking the dynamics of Chronosavant, players face a tricky scenario. Activating its unique time counter removal ability hinges on discarding a card. This demand can prove challenging, especially during the delicate balancing act of maintaining a robust hand. Should your resources dwindle, this requirement might become a costly hurdle, impeding your strategic flow.
Specific Mana Cost: The finesse of mana allocation is critical in the game, and Chronosavant’s demanding mana composition is no exception. Its resurrection from the graveyard doesn’t come cheap – it commands an exacting mix of mana, including one white, which might clash with the versatile demands of multi-color decks, potentially limiting its utility.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: When we weigh the mana economy, Chronosavant places a considerable demand on your reserves. Five mana to breathe life back into this creature may seem steep, especially when juxtaposed with other options available. Decks striving for efficiency might find this cost a deterrent, questioning its slot in a world where every mana point counts.
Reasons to Include in Your Collection
Versatility: Chronosavant offers the unique ability to repeatedly return from your graveyard, making it a resilient threat in multiple deck archetypes. Its presence shines in control decks as a recurring blocker, or in combo decks that are capable of abusing its time manipulation theme.
Combo Potential: This card can be a fundamental piece in intricate combos, particularly with anything that manipulates time counters or takes advantage of creatures entering the battlefield each turn. In some strategies, Chronosavant can repeatedly provide value every rotation, meshing smoothly into powerful looping interactions.
Meta-Relevance: In metagames that frequently reset the board, Chronosavant’s ability to come back into play turn after turn makes it an excellent inclusion. Players looking to outlast their opponents through attrition and strategic graveyard use will find this card to be a formidable asset in their long-term game plan.
How to Beat Chronosavant
In Magic: The Gathering, facing off against Chronosavant can indeed test your strategic acumen due to its ability to return from the graveyard. Dealing with a recurring creature requires a mix of precision and power. Instead of relying on traditional creature removal, it becomes imperative to lean on exile effects. Cards like Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares can permanently handle the threat by removing it from the game entirely, bypassing its graveyard-triggering ability.
Graveyard disruption also shines when facing Chronosavant. Employing effects that shuffle the opponent’s graveyard into their library such as Bojuka Bog or Rest in Peace cut off the revival loop. Moreover, counterplay can target the player’s ability to pay the time counters cost. Taxing effects or rules-setting cards, like Damping Sphere or Rule of Law, restrict the actions a player can take, making it costly or even impossible to bring back Chronosavant in a timely manner.
Overall, the key to besting this timeless adversary is to understand that traditional creature control might not suffice. Adaptation is vital, and a well-prepared deck with the right mix of exile and graveyard disruption will tilt the match in your favor, allowing you to dance around the time-bending capabilities of Chronosavant.
Cards like Chronosavant
Chronosavant offers a unique twist on creature recursion in the MTG universe. It bears some similarities to cards like Reassembling Skeleton which also has the ability to return from the graveyard to the battlefield. What sets Chronosavant apart is its use of time counters as a mechanism for its return, providing a thematic flavor of time manipulation that is both novel and risky.
Another parallel can be drawn with the card Pulsemage Advocate. Both serve the purpose of bringing creatures back into play, but while Pulsemage Advocate requires the player to return cards from their opponent’s graveyard to their hand as a cost, Chronosavant requires a time counter and life payment, reflecting its selfish design in comparison to the Advocate’s group utility. Additionally, Chronosavant’s six mana cost to reactivate is something that players must strategically plan for due to its higher cost.
While examining these cards side by side, Chronosavant stands out for its recurring potential in decks that can manipulate time counters or benefit from the cycle of life gain and loss. It paints a vivid picture of temporal energy in MTG, providing players with an innovative avenue for creature playability. Its unique mechanics encourage careful timing and resource management, making it a distinct choice for enthusiasts of the graveyard recursion strategy.
Cards similar to Chronosavant by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Chronosavant MTG card by a specific set like Time Spiral, 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 Chronosavant and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Chronosavant 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 Chronosavant card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2006-09-25 | If Chronosavant is in your graveyard, you can activate this ability multiple times in response to itself. The first one that resolves will return Chronosavant to the battlefield and make you skip your next turn. The others will just make you skip turns. |
