Peer Through Time precon upgrade guide

Four mana rocks in this box make ten mana between them, and Teferi untaps all four for a second ten. The box has two counterspells to defend that turn, one of which only stops creatures.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage is a planeswalker you cast from the command zone for six, and his -1 untaps up to four target permanents. The box ships ten mana rocks. Thran Dynamo ({C}{C}{C}) and Dreamstone Hedron ({C}{C}{C}) are the two biggest, and Sol Ring, Worn Powerstone and Ur-Golem's Eye make {C}{C} each. Tap the best four, use the -1 on them, tap them again, and one loyalty point has bought ten more colorless mana. That is the deck's engine and nothing on the cards says so.

What the box does with the mana is the problem. Fifteen of its cards cost six or more, its average nonland mana value is 4.07, and the only counterspells are Exclude, which stops creature spells only, and Dismiss at four. Teferi has 5 loyalty and is not a creature, so the table's creatures can attack him, and the spells that remove him or the rocks resolve because nothing cheap stops them. Ten swaps add cheap answers, an extra turn and one sweeper that spares your Krakens, for $13.52 at the cheapest released printing of each card as of October 2026 (sometimes a promo). The list stays at Bracket 3, where the box's Cyclonic Rift already puts it, because none of the ten adds is a Game Changer.

What are the best Peer Through Time upgrades?

Interaction goes first because the engine already works and the box can't defend it. Ramp is last because it already has ten rocks.

1. Counterspell ($2.36) and Memory Lapse ($0.37): a hard counter and a tempo counter, both at two mana. The box's cheapest counter costs three.
2. Reality Shift ($0.26): exile a creature for {1}{U} at instant speed. The 2/2 it leaves behind is smaller than the 3/3 that Pongify gives.
3. Whelming Wave ($0.77): returns every creature except Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses and Serpents, and the deck has three that stay. The ten cuts are further down.
4. Time Warp ($7.58): the box has no extra turn, and this one gives Teferi a second activation in a row.
5. Brazen Borrower ($0.53), Remand ($0.23) and Mystic Confluence ($0.48): three more instants, one with a flash flier attached.
6. Control Magic ($0.56) and Arcane Signet ($0.38): a four-mana steal for the table's best creature, and an eleventh mana rock that makes {U}.

Ten cuts, starting with the four that only help one creature

Swiftfoot Boots, Assault Suit, Infinite Reflection and Fool's Demise are the four cards that improve one creature. This deck's plan runs through a planeswalker and a pile of spells, and several of its creatures do their work the turn they arrive (Mulldrifter, Sea Gate Oracle and Hoverguard Sweepers), so attaching something to one is the weakest use of the mana. Boots give hexproof and haste and can't protect the planeswalker the deck is built around. Assault Suit costs four, equips for three and lets you hand the equipped creature to an opponent on their upkeep. Infinite Reflection costs six and makes your other nontoken creatures copies of the one it enchants, and Fool's Demise costs five to bring one creature back when it dies.

Crown of Doom is the cut that costs you something. Its trigger gives +2/+0 to any creature attacking you or a planeswalker you control, so while you hold it every attack at Teferi hits harder. It exists to be passed to someone else with its {2} ability, which makes it a politics card with a price. Tormod's Crypt is free and exiles a graveyard. It only matters against a table that recurs from the graveyard, and this deck has Call to Mind and Artisan of Kozilek reaching into its own.

Nevinyrral's Disk destroys all artifacts, creatures and enchantments, and the box has 17 artifacts, so the sweeper kills its own engine. Well of Ideas draws you two cards and then two more every draw step, but each opponent draws one extra card a turn, which at a four-player table is three extra cards a round for the other side against your two. Phyrexian Ingester exiles a creature for seven mana and Breaching Leviathan taps the nonblue ones for nine. Reality Shift exiles a creature for two, and Whelming Wave clears the table's creatures for four.

Protecting a planeswalker that is not a creature

Fog Bank is already in the box and it is the best blocker Teferi has, because it flies and prevents all combat damage dealt to it and by it. One attacker a turn is not the table. Counterspell, Memory Lapse and Remand add three counterspells at two mana to the four instants the box already has at two mana or less (Pongify, Cyclonic Rift, Into the Roil and Turn to Frog), and Reality Shift makes eight. Brazen Borrower's Petty Theft side returns a nonland permanent an opponent controls for {1}{U}, and you cast the 3/1 flash flier from exile afterwards. It can block only creatures with flying, so it is a tempo play and not a wall.

Whelming Wave returns all creatures to their owners' hands except Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses and Serpents. In this list Stormsurge Kraken, Deep-Sea Kraken and Lorthos stay. The other creatures return to hand, so Mulldrifter, Sea Gate Oracle and Hoverguard Sweepers come back to draw or bounce again. It is a sorcery, so it clears the board for your own turn and the table can replay their creatures, which makes it a turn bought and not a kill.

Reality Shift exiles the creature and its controller manifests the top card of their library as a 2/2, so it answers a creature with a death trigger or a way back. Pongify, which stays, destroys and leaves a 3/3 Ape. Control Magic costs {2}{U}{U} and takes the creature, and it is the one Aura I add while cutting two, because it is an answer and a body at once and the two I cut are neither. Mystic Confluence is three modes at five mana: counter a spell unless its controller pays {3}, return a creature, or draw. Pick any three.

Time Warp, and the turn after it

Time Warp is five mana, and in this deck it does more than an extra turn usually does. A planeswalker uses one loyalty ability a turn, so the extra turn is a second activation: +1 to dig two cards deep, or -1 to untap four rocks again. The untap step comes with it. I would not cast it before Dreamstone Hedron and Thran Dynamo are in play, because the turn it buys is worth the most when the rocks are already doing the work.

A nine-drop, a five-mana draw spell and four tapped lands stay

Artisan of Kozilek costs nine, which is why it looks like the first cut. It stays because ten mana from the rocks, plus lands, is exactly where nine becomes a turn and not a plan. Its cast trigger returns a creature from your graveyard before the spell resolves, and annihilator 2 makes each attack cost the defending player two permanents. Lorthos, the Tidemaker is the same argument at eight: its attack trigger asks for {8} and then taps up to eight permanents that don't untap, which is a number this deck can pay.

Rush of Knowledge draws cards equal to the greatest mana value among permanents you control. Teferi is a six on the battlefield, so on any turn he is out it draws at least six cards for five mana, and Deep-Sea Kraken on the table raises that to ten. Without Teferi or another big permanent it is a five-mana sorcery that draws less, and that is the only time I would call it a cut.

Coral Atoll, Lonely Sandbar, Myriad Landscape and Remote Isle all enter tapped, and I kept all four. Lonely Sandbar and Remote Isle cycle, Myriad Landscape fetches two Islands for {2} and a sacrifice, and Coral Atoll taps for {C}{U} after it returns an Island to your hand. With Teferi out, the -1 can also undo a tapped entry, as one of its four untaps.

The cards I left out, and where they sit in the buying order

Force of Will is $55.73 and Rhystic Study is $67.12 at their cheapest printings as of October 2026, and both are Game Changers. Adding both would make three with Cyclonic Rift, the most Bracket 3 allows, so the list would still fit. I left them out on price. Mana Drain is $52.18 and is not a Game Changer. It counters a spell and adds {C} equal to that spell's mana value at the start of your next main phase, and colorless is what this deck spends on generic costs, which is why it is the first card I would buy after the ten. Consecrated Sphinx ($26.63) is a Game Changer as well, and the deck is not short of card draw. Treachery ($44.54) steals a creature and untaps up to five lands, so it is an alternative to Control Magic and not an addition.

Where the ten swaps landed

Cards at six or more drop from 15 to 11 and the nonland average drops from 4.07 to 3.82 mana value. Two-drops go from 11 to 15. Creatures go from 25 to 24, and the box's 38 lands stay. Blue sources go from 37 to 38, and the odds of {U}{U} by turn three on the play improve from 91.6% to 92.5%. Ramp goes from 10 to 11. The deck total is $95.57 against the box's $98.03, because the cuts are worth more than the adds cost.

The upgraded decklist

The hundred cards as they stand after the ten swaps. Hover any name for the card.

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“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena, with no account needed.

FAQ

Can Teferi untap his own mana rocks for extra mana?

Yes, and the box is built to do it. Tap Thran Dynamo and Dreamstone Hedron for {C}{C}{C} each and any two of Sol Ring, Worn Powerstone and Ur-Golem's Eye for {C}{C} each, spend it, then use the -1 to untap those four and tap them again. That is ten more colorless mana for a loyalty point. It is colorless only, so it pays for generic costs like the seven in Deep-Sea Kraken and not for any {U}. Teferi lands with 5 loyalty, so the -1 is available the turn he arrives.

Does Time Warp give Teferi a second activation?

Yes. The extra turn is a new turn, and a planeswalker can use one loyalty ability each turn, so Teferi gets another +1 or -1 and every rock untaps in the extra untap step. That is the reason it is in the list. The box has no extra turn card, and five mana is a fair price for a second activation.

What does Whelming Wave leave on the battlefield?

Every Kraken, Leviathan, Octopus and Serpent, and nothing else. In this list that means Stormsurge Kraken, Deep-Sea Kraken and Lorthos, the Tidemaker stay, and the other creatures you control go back to your hand with everyone else's. Tokens are the cost, since a token that returns to a hand ceases to exist. It is a sorcery, so it clears the way for your own turn and does not stop an attack that is already coming.

Should I suspend Deep-Sea Kraken or wait for ten mana?

Suspend it. It costs {2}{U} for nine time counters, and every spell an opponent casts while it is suspended removes another, so it arrives sooner the more the table casts. It has haste when it comes off suspend, and it can't be blocked. Casting it for {7}{U}{U}{U} is a real option once Teferi has untapped four rocks, but then you have spent a turn and the whole untap on one creature.

Is it worth adding Force of Will or Rhystic Study here?

Both are good and both are Game Changers, at $55.73 and $67.12 for the cheapest printing as of October 2026. The box already holds one Game Changer in Cyclonic Rift, which puts its floor at Bracket 3, and Bracket 3 allows up to three, so adding both would still fit. Price is the reason I left them out. Mana Drain ($52.18) is not a Game Changer and is the first card I would buy after the ten. These two come after it.

How much does the Peer Through Time upgrade cost?

$13.52 for all ten adds at the cheapest released printing of each card, as of October 2026, and sometimes that printing is a promo. Time Warp is $7.58 of it. The other nine come to $5.94, and only Counterspell at $2.36 is over a dollar.