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Legends Behind the Untap, Upkeep, Draw Phase
If you’ve ever drafted a blue tempo shell or brewed a cautionary tales deck that leans into phase manipulation, you’ve danced with the idea of bending the rhythm of a game. Untap, Upkeep, Draw is a rare rumor wrapped in a splashy Entwine package from the Unknown Event set—a card that teases the legend inside every Blue mage who believes time is a puzzle to solve, not a clock to obey. With a modest mana cost of {1}{U} and a cunning entwine ability, this sorcery invites you to imagine a pantheon of blue figures who chant to the tides of the phases themselves 🧙♂️🔥💎. Let’s wander through the legends tied to untap, upkeep, and draw, and how this quirky spell lets them cameo on your battlefield for a moment longer than normal.
Untap: A Ritual of Renewal and Legend
The Untap step is where creatures wake up, lands awaken, and the mana from your pool finally breathes again. It’s a phase that often goes understated—until someone grants it a longer lifespan. In MTG lore, blue’s affinity for timing, control, and subtle manipulation has produced figures who treat untapping as more than a mechanical reset; it’s a chance to rewrite what’s possible for a turn or two. When you cast Untap, Upkeep, Draw and choose the Untap option, you lean into that tradition: you extend the moment when your forces can spring back into action. It’s not just about more mana; it’s about more opportunity to tempo your opponent, to bait a counterspell, or to set up a flawless interaction with your top-deck knowledge 🧙♂️⚔️.
Legends associated with untap prowess include mythic blue icons who bend the flow of play. Think of Teferi’s long-term mystique—masters of time who slow the present to speed the future. In the imaginative sense, Untap, Upkeep, Draw becomes a tiny stage where Teferi’s ethos can moonlight: granting an extra untap step to unlock a combo, or simply buying you a moment of control when the pressure mounts. In casual circles, untap-centric dreams usually orbit around surprising resilience—a trickle of additional actions that can turn a tight match into a ceremonial dance 🧙♂️🎨.
Upkeep: The Quiet Moment Where Plans Are Formed
The upkeep is where many players lay their plans for the next two turns—an invisible, often overlooked, but absolutely decisive moment. The lore around upkeep-heavy blue strategies celebrates the calm before the storm: a place to reveal your intentions, tap your tutors, and set the tempo for what comes next. When Untap, Upkeep, Draw offers “After this phase, there is an additional upkeep step,” you’re inviting a legendary conceit: the chance to extend your draw-discovery engine, or to stall your opponent with an extra moment of consideration. The entwine option lets you stack all three extensions if you’re feeling audacious, which feels like inviting a trio of benevolent tutors to lean over your shoulder for a single turn 🧙♂️💡.
Within MTG’s story, there are plenty of keepers who savor the upkeep as a realm of quiet power. It’s a place where long-term strategies are forged, and where professors of time would approve your disciplined planning. The ability to add an upkeep step can echo legendary commanders who excel in maintaining advantage through deliberate redraws and controlled tempo—blue’s signature move when the chips are down and the board is a chessboard of possibilities ⚔️.
Draw: The Moment of Possibility
Draw is the heartbeat of a blue mage’s deck—every card drawn is a doorway, a chance to pivot, a chance to answer, a chance to dream bigger. When you glimpse an extra draw step, you glimpse the very pulse that powers card advantage engines and library manipulation. The lore of draw in blue is a story of knowledge, message-in-a-bottle moments, and the haunting thrill of glimpsing the future you’re yet to reveal. In the context of this spell, you can latch onto the idea of a legendary seer—someone who reads the future and extracts it into present power. The entwine option makes this a crescendo: pay three more and you take all three extensions together, effectively handing your plan a polished, triple-lane runway to execute a dream turn 💎🎲.
From a mythic flavor perspective, think of blue’s scholars—the Jaces and fewer-known storytellers—whose drawings aren’t just cards but maps to outcomes. The extra draw step can be the spark that reveals the exact answer you needed, the precise counter you’d circled in your notes, or the mana you needed to flip the entire exchange in your favor. It’s less about “more cards” and more about “more control,” and that distinction sits at the core of magic’s most legendary blue moments 🧙♂️.
Entwine: A Legendary Triptych, If You’re Bold
Entwine is the spell’s showpiece. For three mana, you can choose all three options, turning Untap, Upkeep, Draw into a single, devastating sequence if you’re willing to commit the entwine cost. It’s a nod to the old-school flavor of “why settle for one effect when you can have all three?”—the dream of a blue mage who wants to stall, re-activate, and refill their hand in a single, elegant breath. The entwine mechanic echoes tales of legendary bargains struck at the nexus of time and fate. You pay a price, and the universe answers with a chorus of opportunities: extra untaps to run a dangerous combo, an additional upkeep to frame a protective shield, and a fresh draw to fuel your plan—an orchestral flourish that can feel almost cinematic 🧙♂️🎨.
- Strategic depth: The entwine option invites you to consider multiple avenues at once, encouraging a deck that thrives on timing and tempo rather than brute force. It’s a mental chess puzzle with blue’s signature elegance 🧭.
- Deck-building inspiration: Pairing this spell with cards that reward extra untaps (like decks that exploit sequential untaps for value) can lead to memorable, edge-of-seat moments. Vedalken Orrery and similar effects can amplify its impact across turns ⚔️.
- Flavor and lore: The “after this phase” phrasing is a playful nod to legendary time-benders who treat minutes as mutable, chapters as controllable, and the table as their own improvisational stage 🎭.
“When the phases bend, the mind follows. A single ripple can redraw a game’s entire map.”
Whether you’re chasing a curious, meme-laced surprise moment or simply enjoying a blue card that cooks up inventive timing, Untap, Upkeep, Draw is a playful invitation to celebrate the romance of phase-based power. It’s a whisper of what legendary blue magic can feel like when time itself becomes a resource you can negotiate 🎲.
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