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Blinking Together: Blink-Flicker Allies for Don't Blink
In the Doctor Who crossover era of Magic, Don't Blink stands out as a nimble blue instant with a time-warping twist. Its crucial clause—Until end of turn, if one or more creatures would enter from exile or after being cast from exile, their owners shuffle them into their libraries instead—drops the tempo hammer on a lot of ETB shenanigans. At the same time, it offers a compact engine: you can pay a cycling fee to draw a card and keep the wheel turning. 🧙🔥💎 For players who love tempo and saga-forward plays, pairing this spell with reliable blink/flicker tools can turn the game into a high-wire act of timing and precision, where you control which creatures actually make it to the battlefield—and when. ⚔️🎲
Think of Don't Blink as a tempo anchor that pushes you toward a looping, value-rich strategy. The goal is not to flood the board with creatures willy-nilly, but to sculpt the battlefield so your own ETB effects fire off on your terms while your opponents are left staring at their exiled options. The following cards are among the most reliable and player-favorite ways to exploit blink mechanics in a Doctor Who-flavored blue shell. Each option leans into the core idea: blink, flicker, and re-trigger in ways that keep your plans alive while the Doctor’s quip about time itself echoes in the background. 🧙♂️🎨
Top Blink-Flicker Cards to Pair with Don't Blink
- Ghostly Flicker — An iconic blue instant that blinks permanents, letting you shuffle a temporary board state and re-enter it for value. In a deck built around Don't Blink, this spell becomes a tempo-rich tool: you can exile and return key creatures to trigger ETB-based alliances or protect threats until you’re ready to unleash them after the shuffle replacement has resolved. The timing dance is tight, but the payoff can be spectacular when you weave in additional ETB engines. 🧙♂️
- Conjurer's Closet — An artifact that untaps a creature whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control. This is less about immediate ETB triggers and more about creating a perpetual loop of value: you blink your own creatures to reuse enter-the-battlefield effects, and Closet keeps the stage lights on by untapping a blocker or a critical attacker. When you couple this with Don't Blink, you’ve got a hospital ward of options: you can set up multi-step plays that threaten to outvalue your opponent as the clock ticks. ⚔️
- Displacer Kitten — A blue creature with a quintessential flicker engine built in. Whenever another permanent enters the battlefield under your control, you may exile that permanent until Displacer Kitten leaves the battlefield. In practice, you can blink a problematic threat away for a moment, then bring it back with fresh triggers on your next turn—provided you’ve timed the exile right. Don’t Blink makes this a risk-and-reward puzzle: you control the pace, and the Doctor would approve of clever time-shifts. 🧙♀️🎲
- Restoration Angel — White rather than blue, but a staple in many blink-centric decks because it gives you a flash-on-entry minute to re-target ETB effects. Entering the battlefield, Restoration Angel can untap a critical creature or set up a fast, aggressive tempo with blink interactions. In a Doctor Who crossover shell, it adds a lore-flavored stairway to value, letting you pressure life totals while Don't Blink’s exile-based clause keeps adversaries honest. 🎨
- Ephemerate — A lightweight white spell that exiles a creature you control and returns it to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step. This simple, efficient blink can reset a stubborn ETB engine or save a key creature during a fragile moment. When you weave Ephemerate with Don't Blink, you’re steering the ship through time: a clean blink that can outlast a rival’s aggression while sustaining your own engine. 🧭
- Panharmonicon — An enchantment that doubles ETB triggers for your permanents, turning every blink or flicker into double the value. In a deck built around Don't Blink, Panharmonicon multiplies the payoff of your ETB-based synergies, letting you squeeze extra tempo and board presence out of each flicker. It’s a deliciously bold choice for players who want to push the limit of how many times a single spell can ripple through a turn. 💥💎
“Blink and you’re dead.” — The Tenth Doctor
Beyond individual cards, the flavor of this strategy leans into a shared narrative: time is not a flat line here but a weave of moments you can redraw at will. The Doctor’s warning ring—time is precious, and one moment can vanish—fits nicely with a deck that dares to choreograph ETB triggers, exiles, and returns with precision. The payoff is a deck that plays with tempo, pressure, and resilience, where you’re always one card away from a clever solution. 🧙♂️⚔️
How to pilot the don’t-blink tempo in practice
To make the most of this pairing, focus on these practical priorities:
- Maintain a steady tempo: use Don’t Blink to deny your opponent’s key exile-based or re-entry plays while you assemble your own flicker suite.
- Time your exiles: with blue flicker spells, you can exile a threat during a moment of danger, then reintroduce it on your terms when the coast is clear.
- Build around value engines: add cards like Panharmonicon to maximize ETB effects and Ghostly Flicker to refresh your board state repeatedly.
- Protect your key pieces: leverage countermagic or protective spells to ensure your blink plan survives the early game, especially when your opponents are tireless in their own tempo engines.
- Include a soft tutor suite: you’ll want card-draw and selection to keep the engine fed; Don’t Blink’s cycling ability helps here, smoothing out draws to find the right blink spell at the right moment. 🧙🔥💎
Flavor, strategy, and a bit of time-twisting whimsy all ride together in this approach. The Doctor’s quips, the steady pulse of blue mana, and the satisfying click of a successful flicker all come into play in a way that only Magic can deliver. If you want to take this shell from “cute idea” to “consistent game plan,” you’ll want to balance your blink tools with a few robust win conditions and a reliable draw engine. The result is a deck that can outmaneuver a direct assault while delivering elegant, time-warped value on every turn. 🧙♀️🎲
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