Ghostly Flicker + Mystic Sanctuary + Temporal Manipulation + Eternal Witness

4-card combo · GU

Verdict

Yes — this 4-card loop generates infinite turns and locks the table out of the game as long as four Islands stay in play.

Cards required

Cheapest stack total

$6.90

Color identity

Popularity

232 decks

Format

Commander

Buy required cards on TCGplayer

Temporal Manipulation gets cast each loop; Ghostly Flicker blinks Mystic Sanctuary and Eternal Witness on the same stack, putting Temporal Manipulation back on top while recovering Ghostly Flicker to hand. The whole engine resets every turn for 3 blue mana — whatever Simic shell runs this just needs Islands in play and the four pieces assembled. The soft requirement here is real: Blood Moon, Spreading Seas, or basic land destruction dismantles the loop by stripping Island count below four.

How it works

Prerequisites

You control at least four Islands.

Steps

Activate Mystic Sanctuary by tapping it, adding .
Cast Temporal Manipulation by paying its mana cost, causing you to take an extra turn after this one.
Cast Ghostly Flicker by paying , blinking Mystic Sanctuary and Eternal Witness.
When Eternal Witness and Mystic Sanctuary enter the battlefield, they trigger.
Resolve the Eternal Witness trigger, returning Ghostly Flicker from your graveyard to your hand.
Resolve the Mystic Sanctuary trigger, putting Temporal Manipulation from your graveyard onto the top of your library.
Move to your next turn, drawing Temporal Manipulation during your draw step.
Repeat.

Result

Infinite turns; Skip your draw steps; Lock

Cheaper, tighter, alternate lines

Capture of Jingzhou and Walk the Aeons are direct swaps for Temporal Manipulation if redundancy matters. Time Warp is the most interchangeable piece and the easiest to tutor. The loop technically runs on any extra-turn spell that goes to the graveyard, so Nexus of Fate is the only common exclusion — it shuffles back in and breaks the chain.

Ghostly Flicker + Mystic Sanctuary + Temporal Manipulation + Eternal Witness

How it works

Cheaper, tighter, alternate lines

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