Time Mage is a 4 mana life rare card. It has 1 magic attack, 4 speed and 3 health at initial level.
When it's upgraded to level 3,8, it gains 1 more magic attack.
When it's upgraded to level 2, 4, 6, it gains 1 more speed to be 5.
When it's upgraded to level 7, it gains 1 more health to be 4.
When it's upgraded to level 5, it gains the ability of Rust.

Here's the one I have looks like.

Here's what I chose and my strategies on her:

Among all those gains, the Rust ability and the 1 additional magic attack are what I picked for sake of the budget and function - therefore, Upgraded her to be level 5..

Generally, Time mage is a excellent functional assistance card with her 2 powerful de-buffs, at the same time, she is also capable to make a fair damage to the opponents' crews. I would say, she is one of the "Must to have" cards among the entire Chaos Legion card edition.

I use Time Mage mainly in the battles which has the mana cost greater than 20.
And few functions I use it for in the battles:

1. Slow down the opponent's monsters - with her slow ability
2. Reduce their Armors - with her rust ability
   3, Damage the monsters - with her 2 magic attack
3. Protect the core monsters in my lineup
   • This is something comes with the flexibility
   • In usual case, I put her in #2 or #3 position and before the main attacker, or the monsters who have the skill of protecting the main attackers.
   • there are also some cases, i put her right after the main attacker at the backline to prevent the sneak attack.

Usually, how do I lineup life Time Mage team?

Here's what I lineup in the most cases when the mana cost is around 22-30.

Tank - Tank heal - TimeMage - TruthSpeaker - Key Attacker - Backline protector

How does her perform in the actual battle?

With all these ways of using, here I share 2 battles that I did with her.

Battle #1

This is a 26 mana with Melee Mayhem and Heavy Hitter rulesets.
In this battle , the overall strategy is to use both Uraeus and Stitch Leech to tear down opponent's team from their back line. The rest card contribute to this main goal - take the opponents' attack and protect these 2 main attackers.
In this specific battle, I used the dragon summoner - Quix to reduce the opponents speed and the range attack. Used Time Mage to further pull a gap on the speed. I put her on the 2nd position and expected by her death, the Stitch Leech could gain 2-3 health to be the mini tank and gain enough time for Uraeus to attack.

After seeing how this battle went through, it seems to me the strategy is ok. but the weak part of the lineup is the front tank as the opponent's team are all focusing on tearing down the front line. PELACOR CONJURER is a bit too thin. believe if put the WARRIOR OF PEACE as the front tank, the result should be better. with this thought, i did try it out with the help of SplinterTools and here's what I got from the finetune. This time, the opponent's team not even cut into Time Mage.

Battle #2
This is a 29 mana cost with Keep your distance and Silence Summonor's rulesets.
In this battle , the overall strategy is to focus on tearing down opponent's frontline with the key monster - PELACOR ARBALEST. The rest card contribute to this main goal - mainly take the opponents' attack and whenever possible, also have some attack to opponent's team.
In this specific battle, I used the dragon summoner again - Quix to reduce the opponents speed and the range attack. Used Time Mage to further pull a gap on the speed and try to remove their armors. This time, I adjusted the tank strategy by putting both PELACOR CONJURER and the WARRIOR OF PEACE to be front tank, hope the opponent will not use the monster which has opportunity skill.

Here's how the battle went through.

Luckily, the opponent does not use the monster that has the opportunity skill. if they used, the PELACOR ARBALEST is well exposed under the first attack by this skill which may lead to the loss.

With this major flaw on the strategy, I did a finetune with SplinterTools by adding the NAGA ASSASSIN in front of PELACOR ARBALEST to gain the benefit of the backfire with her super high speed. and the result showed it works pretty well.

With these 2 finetune and lessons learned, it well wrap up this sharing.

1. Time Mage is a pretty good functional assistance card which also have certain ability to attack.
2. Generally she is not the key attackers for me in the team but her excellent de-buffs bring the whole team's performance to a different level.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy this sharing.