[Deck] Spring Tide [Archive] - Page 2

TheRock

11-11-2006, 07:58 PM

I can understand running Echoing Truth main, especially with Faerie Stompy running those annoying Chalices on top of the usual Mages and Goblins. Not a bad choice in my book. :smile:

But let's continue with the Wish/X-draw discussion, because while you're presenting figures (and they're right BTW), you're not presenting the RIGHT figures.

Cunning Wish has the flexibility of finding a bounce spell, and that's very important. Most of the games I lose to Goblins are simply because I can't stop Pillar or Chalice. Cunning Wish is a TUTOR just like your Merchant Scrolls are; it just has one less target, costs one more, doesn't shuffle your deck, etc.

To take a perceptive look, if you use Cunning Wish, then you probably can't win without it, so in a sense, it becomes as important as your High Tides. But small points aside, Cunning Wish is never awful, and X-draw spells are usually better than Cunning Wish in a very small window.

A Braingeyser for ten will require that you have 14 or 16 mana (2, 10, 2-4 for untap usage). A Cunning Wish->Meditate will give you 4 cards for 6 mana (Stroke is 6 cards). Yup, clear winner sighted. BUT that doesn't usually happen until you are deep into the area where a Brain Freeze can win or you have 6-7 lands on the table. (and yeah, you're not losing then...)

If you have more mana (let's say 24), then Braingeyser will be for 18-20 cards. Cunning->Stroke will give you 14-16 cards. That's a minute difference. But the real problem is that X-draw can't do diddly until you have about 10 mana, where Cunning Wish can do almost anything. That really hurts, especially if you have a mediocre hand and need a few good draws.

If any card is good with our fundamental turn of 3, it sure isn't Braingeyser. Cunning Wish isn't that uber either, but it's better.

koeka

11-12-2006, 08:53 AM

in my opinion its yust better to play no maindeck wishes or stroke and geyser/capsize.
I do play 1 mainboard echoing truth wich is supplemented by 3 muddle the mixture's.
For matchups were you can face blessing I have 1x capsize and 1x braingeyser to combo out on them.
I really like muddle the mixture as a tutor especially aginst control decks where you have an uncounterable tutor for defense grid wich can even counter youre opponents counters:eek:
So my verdict is, dont play wishes and/or geyser maindeck.
If you would play in a meta where you face blessing game 1 :confused: then you should start maindecking them again

Iranon

11-12-2006, 02:15 PM

I was absolutely ecstatic about Muddle the Mixture at first. In addition to being a moderately useful counter, it is a good replacement for Cunning Wish. After playing with it a lot, exactly that is my problem: 3 mana is no bargain price for a tutor that is generally more limited than a Merchant Scroll.

Currently I run one and am considering to replace it with a 3rd Meditate (about the only gripe I have with my current deck is that it depends on a draw-x on myself more than I would like).

***

As a counterpoint to what I just said: If you run Brain Freeze in the maindeck, Muddle the Mixture is wonderful. An uncounterable tutor for an uncounterable win condition has some merit.
I have merely been more successful with versatile spells rather than narrower cards + tutors.

koeka

11-12-2006, 02:18 PM

I really like muddle with 1 mainboard brain freeze, but you only play 2 meditate? that sounds really weird. I would never go under 3 meditate

al the great

11-12-2006, 02:18 PM

I myself am pretty happy still with the 1 Cunning Wish.

For me 3x Meditates is good and I dont know how I dont have 4x Merchant Scrolls in there I just noticed today and put the 4th one in. Instant help.

Also my 1x Snapback has saved me 2 games now from fizzling out and putting back my Faeries back in my hand.

Iranon

11-12-2006, 05:53 PM

@ koeka: I cut Meditate down to 2 after including Braingeyser and Stroke of Genius (also only 2 Turnabout - Echoing Truth more than takes up the slack when not needed as bounce).

I don't really notice a lack in my draw department unless I had to discard/pitch a draw-x, and that only since I also cut Brain Freeze. In that case, however, getting the mana to cast the second draw-x for the win can be rough on only 4 Ideas Unbound and 2 Meditates for hand refueling. That is a weakness of my build, but any cure I tested so far is worse than the disease.

You seem to be be less short on slots than me - do you run less than 12 cantrips or 4 Force of Wills?

***

@ al the great: Snapback seems like it would cause more problems than it solves in most builds when run maindeck. Sure, it can get you out of an 'oops' occasionally, but most of the time it will be an inferior snap.

Also, is it worth restricting your sideboard options for a single Wish? Probably not an issue if you have a well-established metagame with only a few popular decks, just wondering.

Anarky87

11-12-2006, 09:40 PM

May I ask what the current deck lists look like for this, or were they posted a few pages back. I couldn't figure out what has been updated and what hasn't with all the recent discussion for and against Wish. Thanks.

TheRock

11-12-2006, 09:53 PM

I'm still using two Cunning Wishes. It does take up a few sideboard slots though, but I usually don't side in much anyway.

My current list is this, although I switch that Impulse slot around constantly:

4 High Tide

4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
1 Impulse
4 Merchant Scroll
2 Cunning Wish

4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Snap
3 Turnabout

4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate

4 Force of Will

10 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand

Sideboard:
3 Disrupt
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Defense Grid
1 Stifle
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Brain Freeze
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Meditate
1 Wipe Away
1 Chain of Vapor

Sadly, this doesn't totally answer your question Anarky87, since it's just my list. Since I'm pretty new here, I'm pretty sure that this list is anywhere else on this forum yet. Have you guys changed your lists at all, or are they the same as the changes you made on earlier pages?

koeka

11-13-2006, 09:52 AM

My list stands on something like this now:

4 High Tide
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
3 Sleight of Hand
2Muddle the Mixture
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Snap
3 Turnabout
1 Echoing Truth
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
4 Force of Will
10 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Brain Freeze

Sideboard:
4 Disrupt
3 Divert
4 Defense Grid
1 Braingeyser
1 Brain Freeze
1 Capsize
1 Hurkylls Recall

I have a lot of decks that pack discard in my meta so 4x dirupts, 3 divert are really needed.
Some people pack random aggro decks wich you yust murder, there also are some random control decks without fows because of budget but still with a lot of counters.

I prefer muddle to remand because it can counter against control and most important it can fetch brainfreeze, grids and draw

al the great

11-13-2006, 10:33 AM

My deck is officially Wish free. I'm putting in 1x Muddle in place.

Finn

11-13-2006, 12:49 PM

As much as it pains me to play a deck I did not invent, I have been playing this one recently. Let me post a list for reference.

10 Islands
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Brainfreeze
1 Braingeyser
4 Turnabout
4 Candelabra of Tawnos
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
2 Sleight of Hand
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Merchant Scroll
2 Muddle the Mixture
4 Force of Will
4 High Tide
2 Echoing Truth

1. First off, I know the list is flawed.
2. I really do not like Muddle the Mixture at all. This may be because I am not running Cloud of Fairies and Snap, but it was just slow as hell, awful even to get Echoing Truth. I would like to think that I am just playing it wrong, but this is unlikely. What is the attraction here?
3. Remand would have come in handy time and time again. The argument that it is not the best spell for turn two seemed to make sense, but in practice, it is just too good to not include. Even my opponents were quick to point out how much more it would have hurt them.
4. Candelabra seems to hurt the purpose of the deck - ya know, budget. But they work a lot better than fairies and snaps. One of my opponents had Needles and the insane uncounterable Naturalize (Krosan Grip, I think). You can play around those problems, and frankly I liked him siding in that stuff instead of offense. Well all of that stuff can be played around when you are drawing this many cards.

I'm going on record as saying that Remand is a must. Muddle is a bust.

What is so bad about Cunning Wish?
Has anyone else ever tried this deck with Candelabras?

TheRock

11-13-2006, 02:11 PM

Trust me Finn, if anybody should feel bad about playing a deck I didn't create, it would definitely be me. My maindeck is a whole whopping one card different than the original list, but I haven't liked practically any change that I've tried so far.

I don't hate Remand, but Remand is so situational. If I can get the cantrip Time Walk out of it, then it's great. However, that doesn't happen all of the time and it sure doesn't save my rear end all of the time. Then again, look at that marvelous Impulse I'm running...

Lego

11-13-2006, 09:53 PM

Finn

11-13-2006, 10:41 PM

Finn, the question about Candelabra and Muddle and Remand and all that, is why? What matchups does it make any better? Did you ever play the original list? Cloud of Faeries, Snap, Cunning Wish... they're amazing. What did you find wrong with them, and what matchups have you made any better by taking them out?

You are so right. The answer to all of these questions is "I don't know." I only have a single tournament's worth of information under my belt. I have not played the original. I was just looking for a deck to use Candelabras in to be honest. I knew it had potential in anything with High Tide but I was surprised that it was not being used when I found how good it was.

I have tried it with Candelabra (4 slots) instead of Cloud of Faeries and Snap (8 slots) and I did not have issues untapping. And that is my point. Freeing up some slots can't be a bad thing.

Lego

11-14-2006, 12:51 AM

You are so right. The answer to all of these questions is "I don't know." I only have a single tournament's worth of information under my belt. I have not played the original. I was just looking for a deck to use Candelabras in to be honest. I knew it had potential in anything with High Tide but I was surprised that it was not being used when I found how good it was.

I have tried it with Candelabra (4 slots) instead of Cloud of Faeries and Snap (8 slots) and I did not have issues untapping. And that is my point. Freeing up some slots can't be a bad thing.

It's true that freeing up a couple of slots isn't a bad thing, but imagine a few situations, do the math, and you'll see that Candelabra will maybe net you one mana over Cloud, and you'll never be able to go Cloud, Snap, Cloud, which is simply a hot play.

The problem with Candelabra is that yes, it frees up 3 slots (you only play 3 Snaps), but those 3 slots are untap effects which you want, so you ideally replace them with other untap effects. The Cloud + Snap engine is really good, and can't be beat with a single Pithing Needle. You should try it out.

Finally, by taking out Cloud of Faeries, you're losing the ability to go infinite. I don't know how many games I've been able to just stop comboing, gone infinite and ended the game. It beats Gaea's Blessing, it beats Battle of Wits, whatever. It can even technically be done with two lands in play.

al the great

11-14-2006, 12:54 AM

Ok guys I play tested with this deck with Muddle the Mixture instead of Cunning Wish and I did not like it at all. There were a few times I had a bunch of mana floating with the combo going but all I could do was get Ideas Unbound (all Meditates already used up) and dont fetch crap. I put back the 1x Cunning Wish so that way I can fetch it to grab the sideboard for a super draw when I have a ton of mana or whatever else I want.

despo

11-14-2006, 03:15 PM

Has anyone tested Gifts in this deck?
It is a better tutor than both muddle the mixture and cunning wish and it always gets you what you want (untap/draw/kill...) thanks to merchant scroll. Considering you always have at least two different cards performing the same function (turnabout/snap/cloud of faeries for untapping, meditate/ideas unbound/brainstorm/impulse for digging, brain freeze/stroke of genius for kill).

Perhaps adding one recall might even increase the potency of gifts, although it is card disadvandage.

Iranon

11-14-2006, 06:59 PM

The main problem is the mana cost. I want every card to be useful before- and mid-combo if that is feasible. If you tap out to tutor on turn 4 (if I even make 4 lands drops...) the game is not going well at all.
Expensive tutors don't measure up to bulk draw + cantrips in my opinion; especially if a skilled opponent can often force you to chain one tutor into another as with Gifts.

***

On a slightly more radical note: Since apparently the deck can afford to splash (original version ran Chant after all), might it be worth it to include green for Exploration? It's enough if it sticks around for a turn and an opponent wasting time to disenchant it is probably doing us a favour anyway.

That alone could push the chance of turn 2 kills into the non-neglegible range while still being more consistent than the established fast combo decks. In this case, I'd stick to Cunning Wish because despite all its shortcomings it does save a slot or two which is important when we squeeze something else in.

Something along the lines of...

+1 Fooded strand
+1 Polluted delta
+2 Tropical island
+4 Exploration

-4 Island
-2 Sleight of Hand
-1 Turnabout
-1 Cunning Wish

I am not sure whether this is the best implementation; the Exploration might allow cutting more untap effects but which ones? Turnabout is in my opinion the weakest originally, but it has the most synergy with Exploration (4 lands turn 2!). If we can avoid cutting cantrips, then obviously that's a plus.

I can also see running Candelabra of Tawnos; with the potential to cheat more lands into play it gains in attractiveness compared to the Cloud/Snap engine (also freeing up some badly needed slots; it might even be worth it to run 1 or 2 more lands after all). I have not tested them; maybe Finn can shed some light on the subject whether this might work out?

The question is whether it is worth it. The Explorations themselves help to make Wasteland an iffy option for the opponent, but the regular version does not have to worry about it at all. Same goes for enchantment hate.
I can see it being helpful in some matches, but the majority of the time the usual 'turn 3 on the draw, 4 on the play' the deck aims for at the moment should be enough.

Goblin Snowman

11-14-2006, 07:14 PM

If I were to splash a color, it would be Black. Black allows for Mystical Teachings, a better 4cc Tutor than Gifts, to be used and reused. Tutor up a Turnabout followed by another Teaching, repeat, grab Brainfreeze. Meh, it's an idea. Plus Teachings is good by itself as Set-Up against Solidarity and other slower decks.

mikekelley

11-14-2006, 09:19 PM

I've been running -2 wish for +1 Snap and +1 Meditate. I love the four snap, especially if the opponent has a mage down or some other minutiae. The meditate...just because I have an extra, and only one wish. I haven't had any issues with it yet. Just gets me a lot of cards.

Kronicler

11-14-2006, 10:36 PM

The only problem I see with going exploration / candelabra route is that candelabra is going to be hard to search out. Off the top of my head we could use trinket mage... which with an exploration we could cast on turn two, but I just feel that this would make the deck need more cards in order to go off (as well as being crippled by needle, but I guess we get that in exchange for being hurt by creature removal).

TheRock

11-15-2006, 03:39 PM

I would think that adding in Explorations would force you to run more lands, Candelabra or not. The chance of starting with one land is just too high with the current 16 land config.

AnwarA101

11-15-2006, 10:57 PM

TheRock

11-16-2006, 09:34 AM

The real problem with this deck is its poor placement in the metagame. Its essentially a turn 4 combo deck (I really think Solidarity is a turn 5 deck). That means it can race goblins, but not always. I've tested this deck against Goblins and it seems ahead maybe 60/40, but that isn't much better than Solidarity. Not to mention its Solidarity matchup which can only be described as the autoloss in game 1. It also has a really tough time with Threshold just like every combo deck. Its a deck that is in between Iggy Pop and Solidarity on the combo spectrum from fast to slow. It just doesn't have enough matchups where the benefit of being slightly faster (and with better draw) than Solidarity matters enough to warrant playing it over Solidarity. I'm a big fan of the deck, but I come to this conclusion rather reluctantly.

I can see part of that being true, yeah. You don't totally wipe Goblins off the floor or anything after sideboarding, but if you lose game one against Goblins when going first, then that's not good. It's not the fastest combo in the world either.

But I don't understand what you're getting at when you say that the speed doesn't matter and you can't beat Threshold. I consistently beat UGR Threshold and UGW Threshold, even with maindeck Mages, is a matchup that is still in my favor. My game against them would be better yet if I was running more than 2 Defense Grids SB. You have the manipulation and threat advantage, and you really don't lose to Armageddon/Thoughts unless you want to.

What makes Spring Tide so good is that it is the best "Time Walk" deck in Legacy (although Aluren and Gamekeeper are better in certain situations though). At a starting point, this link (http://members.fortunecity.com/dlanod/magic/theories/timewalk.html) could help out. If you don't want to win turn four, then you don't have to because you have way too much manipulation and turn-buying effects to really care. Yet, you have the speed to consistently win turn three on the play or draw.

Solidarity doesn't have as much turn-buying luxury. It also fizzles more and is an entire turn slower, giving it many more unfavorable matchups. I don't want to hear about Snap being bad because it isn't; I can't help it that people don't like free Time Walks because they can't plan in advance or change a few cards around.

I don't think that Spring Tide is always better than any other combo deck, but as a whole, I sure like this bad boy.

herbig

11-16-2006, 10:25 AM

I don't hate Remand, but Remand is so situational. If I can get the cantrip Time Walk out of it, then it's great. However, that doesn't happen all of the time and it sure doesn't save my rear end all of the time.

Where are all these Time Walks you're running? Just because someone writes an article about their magical theory doesn't mean it is correct, or is useful. My theory of "everything is a Healing Salve" can be justified in the same ways.

TheRock

11-16-2006, 11:07 AM

Where are all these Time Walks you're running? Just because someone writes an article about their magical theory doesn't mean it is correct, or is useful. My theory of "everything is a Healing Salve" can be justified in the same ways.

Everywhere. Snap, Cloud of Faeries, Turnabout, Force of Will, and 26 ways to find them.

Solidarity has just as many, but it wins is a turn slower. It can't abuse the fundamental turn like Spring Tide can.

Magic theory is created when people think of a different way to look at things. Tell me this then: why are some people complaining that the deck is too slow while some are complaining that the speed doesn't matter?

Finn

11-16-2006, 01:08 PM

Hmm.

It's true that freeing up a couple of slots isn't a bad thing, but imagine a few situations, do the math, and you'll see that Candelabra will maybe net you one mana over Cloud, and you'll never be able to go Cloud, Snap, Cloud, which is simply a hot play.

The problem with Candelabra is that yes, it frees up 3 slots (you only play 3 Snaps), but those 3 slots are untap effects which you want, so you ideally replace them with other untap effects. The Cloud + Snap engine is really good, and can't be beat with a single Pithing Needle. You should try it out.

Finally, by taking out Cloud of Faeries, you're losing the ability to go infinite. I don't know how many games I've been able to just stop comboing, gone infinite and ended the game. It beats Gaea's Blessing, it beats Battle of Wits, whatever. It can even technically be done with two lands in play.

Needle is a potential problem, but I have faced it already and been able to play around it without issues. Do people side these in against this deck and call sac lands usually? I would think so. If that is true, this is actually a hidden benefit of Candelabra - it deflects that strategy.

Do you folks play Clouds and Snaps on a turn you aren't going off? Probably it sucks to do so. Not so with Candelabra. It can be played or held - whatever you prefer.

But I see your point, Lego. I am sitting here wondering if maybe I am working with a different deck at its very heart. Let me explain.

I have these Echoing Truths in the main and I am pleased as hell with them. They could even be Chain of Vapor, I suppose. But I have found myself using them a good bit like the Snap, Cloud trick, except I make a crazy amount of mana, not one extra per High Tide per free spell. Consider this:

Every Candelabra I draw, play, and use can be returned and reused en-masse if I draw into Echoing Truth. I have been seeing that happening. It makes Echoing Truth into another untap effect. And the amount of mana doesn't max out the way it does with Clouds and Snaps.

The mana is so much sometimes that I could potentially Braingeyser for the win. I gather that is the goal of the "infinite" combo you are referrning to (I am still a bit sketchy on the details of that) but I am wondering if perhaps I should tweak a number of cards to find that what I have is fundamentally different in approach to a very similar goal. It's the quality of the untap effects I am wondering about.

Lego

11-17-2006, 05:45 PM

Play 3 High Tides, wish for Capsize, cast it on Cloud of Faeries. Rinse, wash, repeat, infinite storm. Do it with 4 High Tides and you've got infinite mana. It probably happens about 20% of the times I purposefully go off.

Finn

11-21-2006, 04:28 PM

AnwarA101

11-21-2006, 04:42 PM

Well, I have been doing the testing - both with and without Faeries+Snap. I can only conclude that Candelabra has just been ignored due to its difficulty to find. There is no other reasonable explanation. It is so much better than Fairies+Snap. The difference in reliability with versus without it is night and day. And ya know - Turnabout is better used on Candelabras than on land once you have a second one in play. And it turns Echoing Truth into a bonafide mana engine as well, adding to your storm count all the while - just like with Faeires. The only problem I have with the Candelabra is the inability to tutor for it. This is, of course, a minor problem with the amount of draw in this deck. It is much more of an issue to find High Tide. And that is not a big deal. I may consider a hybrid approach soon (Cloud with Candelabra), but there is no doubt that the Candelabra belongs in this deck as a four-of.

Since you've brought up the topic of Candelabra I should tell that you are right and I agree with you. I've been playing Candelabra in this deck for at least 6 months and its amazing. It removes one of the obvious weakness of the deck which was creature removal. Losing because your Goblin opponent can Mogg Fanatic your Faeries is not good for a combo deck in Legacy.

I've actually played the "hybrid" approach that you are talking about. I played 3 Turnabouts, 3 Candelabras, and 4 Cloud of Faeries. It was absolutely great not to worry about creature removal. I wouldn't cut Cloud of Faeries because its a non-dead untap effect. You can still cycle it and that's a great thing for an untap effect to be converted into a draw spell. You should really try it this way. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Iranon

11-21-2006, 10:11 PM

After some testing on my own, I found Candelabra to be somewhat lacking.

Creature removal is annoying with the Cloud/Snap engine but hardly a major problem from my experience. Not nearly as much as, say, a Pithing Needle on Candelabra. It also works better on limited resources, which can be a factor when facing heavy disruption. Snap's secondary uses are also nothing to be sneezed at.
Unless most decks I expect to face have more than 8 Removal spells and I expect to see few Meddling Mages or Pithing Needles (hmm...) I prefer Snap.

I had some limited success with Candelabra + Exploration though. Exploration on its own is only a minor mana effect alone and the increased land count (18 for now, and it feels like it should be higher) to make it work cuts into the cantripping department, so reliability suffers a little. On the plus side, it is about half a turn faster. Going off turn 2 is a realistic possibility, and a far cry from the desperate gamble it used to be.

Lego

11-23-2006, 04:28 PM

Yeah, totally losing to Pithing Needle is pretty cool too.

Finn

11-29-2006, 12:12 PM

Pithing Needle is far from a good solution for this strategy. I have a lot of games under my belt now, and if I were siding in against this deck, I would certainly not be counting on Pithing Needle on Candelabra if it is not backed up by counterspells. I have been playing with Cloud of Fairies and Candelabras (essentially in place of Snap) with a few other alterations, and I see Pithing Needle all the time. Only once has it actually been enough of a problem that I lost the game due to it. And that was against UGW Threshold.

Cavius The Great

11-29-2006, 02:15 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Candelabra of Tawnos accellerate you win and basically make the deck less likely to fizzle? That fact alone makes me want to run the card.

outsideangel

11-29-2006, 08:14 PM

Removing Snap for Candelabra also makes you more vulnerable to Meddling Mage, Glowrider, and True Believer, for what it's worth.

TheRock

11-29-2006, 11:07 PM

Candelabra is not that bad, and I won't deny that you will lose some games because of Snap. However, I've lost more games due to Candelabra against the bigger decks than I have due to Snap. It also doesn't make that much of a difference when your curve is so low.

The UGW Threshold matchup turns from slightly favorable/even to not very good because Mage just starts to become a real problem. It also gives Faerie Stompy another dangerous artifact to whack in your face, and I've personally found that deck to be quite annoying already. The Goblins matchup gets a little better, but I really can't notice a big difference.

Since nobody answered my last question, I will throw it again, but I'll change it around to be more fair for all of you. I also think that it's somewhat relevant to this debate. What should this deck be doing: winning ASAP, or winning after it can't buy itself any more time?

mikekelley

11-29-2006, 11:14 PM

Since nobody answered my last question, I will throw it again, but I'll change it around to be more fair for all of you. I also think that it's somewhat relevant to this debate. What should this deck be doing: winning ASAP, or winning after it can't buy itself any more time?

Try to win ASAP, but be aware that you still can go off with lethal damage on the stack. It takes some luck and a lot of land, but it is certainly doable. You have a lot of instant speed stuff, stuff to wish for, etc, to help you. It's easier with Remand MD to up the storm count as well.

Iranon

11-30-2006, 09:54 AM

If you want to speed the deck up, definitely try Candelabra + Exploration. Candelabra does too little on its own to be worth the vulnerability; together they make quite a difference.

On the downside, Wasteland and Pithing Needle become relevant; not necessarily backbreaking but it begs the question whether speeding your clock up by half a turn is worth opening yourself up to hate that can come online turn 1 without acceleration.
Since Meddling Mage is probably the most popular problematic permanent, Snap will be sorely missed. Echoing Truth can take up some of the slack, but running too many of those is more problematic than Snap ever was.

I'd say in a normal metagame, the speed gain is hardly worth the drop in resilency. If you expect a ton of fast Aggro with more creature removal than mana denial, it becomes more attractive... but those match-ups should be favourable anyway.

@mikekelley: I haven't run into a situation where winning at instant speed mattered; going off on an iffy hand earlier in the game, probing the opponent with an EoT Turnabout or delaying with Snap/Echoing Truth seem more likely choices.
Since I have won games with Faerie beatdown I probably shouldn't dismiss it out of hand though.

AnwarA101

12-19-2006, 12:16 AM

We recently had one of our biggest tournaments in awhile (about 21 people) at our local store in Annandale,VA. I decided to play Spring Tide and I have to say my outcome was less than desirable.

My list -

4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand

4 Merchant Scroll
3 Meditate
3 Ideas Unbound
2 Cunning Wish
1 Brain Freeze

3 Turnabout
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Candelabra of Tawnos

4 High Tide

4 Force of Will

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
8 Island
1 Tundra

This is the list I've been working on with both Candelabra of Tawnos and Cloud of Faeries. Here is a brief tournament report

Round 1 Vial Goblins -

Game 1: My opponent doesn't have a great hand, but I stall on 3 lands and can't find a fourth land. I'm forced to go off on 3 lands and eventually fizzle.

Game 2: My opponent drops a turn 2 chalice which I force. He drops a turn 3 chalice which resolves. My hand is high tide, candelabra, candelabra, land, land, hydroblast. Yeah I lost before I could find a bounce spell or a cunning wish.

0-1

Round 2 Vial Goblins -

Game 1: I believe I mulligan here. My opponent has a slow start and I kill him easily on turn 4.

Game 2: He gets Lackey down and I don't have the force. He kills me before I can go off.

Game 3: This game goes to time, but basically when I try to go off I fizzle because I keep hitting hydroblasts and non-draw spells (perhaps I did a poor job of sideboarding). I also don't blast a pyrostatic pillar early enough and I'm at like 1 life by the end of the turn.

Round 3 Vial Goblins -

Game 1: He drops the Lackey on me. I attempt to go off on turn 3, but fizzle with no draw.

Game 2: I end up using both of my cunning wishes to continue the combo, but I had boarded out my maindeck Freeze so I can't win the game.

Round 4 Burn -

Game 1: Everyone should know that burn is not a good deck. I crush him on turn 4 or 5.

Game 2: He gets mana flooded and I kill him on turn 5.

I go 1-3 what a poor performance. Perhaps I'm not playing the deck optimally, boarding optimally, or perhaps my version of the deck isn't strong. But I'm convinced that this basic structure of the deck is lacking something. It often doesn't have the turn 3 go off when it needs against Goblins and other times I just seem to fizzle. I'm not sure what's wrong with the deck. Does anyone else have any ideas?

outsideangel

12-19-2006, 02:31 AM

I've been thinking a lot about Spring Tide, particularly in comparison to High Tide, lately. (when I haven't been writing papers, that is)

Like you've been saying, Spring Tide looks like it should be the better deck, on paper at least, because the draw is so much more potent. Ideas Unbound is huge, and Merchant Scroll is much better than, like, Impulse or whatever.

Last weekend I mentioned that I think one of the big reasons that Spring Tide plays out weaker than Solidarity is that it has to anticipate the turn when it will lose the game and try to go off one turn earlier, which often leads to attempting to go off with a sub-par hand, versus Solidarity which can sit around and play draw-go, sculpting its hand until the very last moment, because it can just go off in response to lethal damage or game-breaking hate.

I still think that's all true, but I think there's another element to it as well: Reset. It's Reset that makes all the difference between Solidarity and Spring Tide, and why Solidarity feels like it goldfishes a lot more consistently than Spring Tide.

Reset is, simply, the best untap effect avaliable, and is considerably better than Candelabra, Cloud, or Snap. Reset untaps all of your land (which, because you can wait as long as possible, often number four or more). That bears repeating: Reset untaps every single land for just 2 mana. Not only will it almost always make more mana than Cloud or Snap or Candelabra, Reset makes mana without High Tide, something that the aforementioned trio of Spring Tide untappers will not do. With Reset you can start your combo without High Tide and sometimes even finish it without one, though you'll likely draw into a few as you progress. The important bit is that you don't have to wait until you've got High Tide in hand before beginning your combo.

Because Spring Tide is forced to run an ultimately inferior untap engine, it has to run more of these inferior untappers to compensate, or else it won't draw into enough of them to keep its mana up mid-combo. But of course that means it has to run fewer draw spells, leading to a perilous balancing act between too few untaps and too few draws, and are often stuck relying on blind luck more than anything else to provide you with the cards you need to keep going. Even though Spring Tide's draw might be objectively more powerful, Solidarity's draws are typically worth more in that they are a) more likely to draw into additional draw, and b) only need to draw a single Reset, where Spring Tide needs multiple Cloud/Snap/Candelabra, to make the same amount of mana.

Example: Spring Tide and Solidarity both play a Meditate. With only a single Tide on the table, Spring Tide wants to draw two of it's two-mana untappers to actually make signifigant mana, where Solidarity only needs one, and is less likely to draw more than one. Even if the Spring Tide player does get the two untappers he needs, he had to give up one of his cards just to regain the mana he used on Meditate. Obviously, luck of the draw is going to determine whether or not you rip four lands off the top or not, but even assuming everything went right, the Spring Tide player is effectively drawing one less card than the Solidarity player.

Iranon

12-19-2006, 08:20 AM

A good analysis, but not a complete one in my opininon. Solidarity's mana engine puts Spring Tide's to shame once you hit your fourth land drop; I don't think anyone is denying that.
I'm not quite sure I agree with your assessment of Spring Tide's mana engine crowding out important draw though. Spring Tide can get away with less lands. Since the draw is also, as you stated, individually more powerful I doubt that drawing into the wrong cards and fizzling happens more frequently in Spring Tide.

Rather than comparing the relative merits of the decks in a vacuum, I'd compare how well they deal with common problems:

Problems Spring Tide handles better:

A fast clock - More conssitent when trying to go off early.

Discard spells - stronger library manipulation and tutor power help recover more quickly.

Land destruction - Needs less land to start with and can draw into one while going off.

Specialised hate - There is popular Solidarity hate out there that doesn't affect Spring Tide much, such as Defensive Grid.

Creature-based hate - Maindecked Snaps.

Problems Solidarity handles better:

Other heavy duty hate - being able to go off in response is more relevant than the slightly better chance to race it.

Counterspells - Having 8 independent mana generators make a big difference in the late game; if there is no relevant clock Solidarity has inevitability.

Instant creature removal - Spring Tide can play around it easily, but Solidarity doesn't care at all

Other storm combo - Solidarity has an easier time just going off in response. This more than offsets its lack of speed.

Solidarity is better at turning already good match-ups into autowins because a single high-cc bomb won't save their opponent. The mere threat of an Armageddon or something similar might goad a Spring Tide player into going off earlier than is safe. With its inevitability, Solidarity can force the clunkiest control deck into the Aggro role which is priceless.

Spring Tide is a conservative combo deck in comparison; it is faster, more consistent and more resilent but doesn't play the control game nearly as well. While it has a far lesser impact on the metagame (it has many favourable match-ups but doesn't make entire deck types unviable the way Solidarity does), it has a surprising amount of resilency to the common anti-combo measures.

In the hands of someone who can read their opponents well, I believe Spring Tide to be the (marginally) stronger deck, but there are a few things that keep it down.
More alternatives: There are strong reasons for playing Solidarity without considering any other combo deck but Spring Tide needs to let itself be judged against both Solidarity and fast combo like Iggy Pop.
Lacklustre near-mirror: Whereever Solidarity is common, Spring Tide needs to devote some scarce sideboard slots to it which leaves virtually nothing for other decks.
Reputation: Many players still dismiss Spring Tide as a strictly worse but more budget-friendly Solidarity.

TheRock

12-19-2006, 10:14 AM

Threshold's Armageddon is a major problem for Solidarity because of the accel of Werebear, Daze, and Mages which Solidarity has little defense for. Spring Tide doesn't lose the second that Armageddon hits as Iranon has already mentioned. Losing two lands isn't always a problem for this deck, but if they combine that with a clock, then they ARE going to get you with it.

Knowing when your opponent will win isn't a hard task if you know the format and the cards in those decks. Reading players is a whole other story at times. However, it is an additional task put on the Spring Tide player that can become a real pain in an awful hurry. If anything, it proves that Spring Tide is hard to play.

The Cloud/Snap and Cloud/Candelabra debate has already been discussed, so let's just leave it with this and not take up any more space.

Outsideangel - Cloud cycles and can attack or block. Cloud isn't never a dead draw. Snap is a Time Walk against everything that wins with a creature. "Ultimately inferior" untap effects isn't true; you just have to make the best out of what you have.

Anwar - The deck isn't easy to play with, so don't worry about a bad performance or anything. (Besides, you should have seen me play with it early on...it was pretty darn bad.)

Some questions that come to mind:

What were you siding out and siding in against those Goblin decks? Siding out too much usually causes problems.

Were you keeping too many lands and not enough business? Seeing a "2x Candelabra, 2x land, Hydroblast, Tide" hand would make me think mulligan almost right off the bat.

With the maindeck Tundra, what was your sideboard? Some Chants?

Maybe we should come up with some example scenarios and just see what happens; maybe then we can see the playstyle differences and whatnot. I'll try to think of some good ones later today (of course, feel free to make any that you want :) ).

b4r0n

12-19-2006, 11:00 AM

Do you think that Remand might be a worthy inclusion? If the problem is having to anticipate game-breaking cards, then maybe Remanding that spell for a turn and going off on your own turn is the answer. Or, maybe splashing white for Orim's Chant can buy you that extra turn (and land drop) that you need.

AnwarA101

12-19-2006, 12:44 PM

Anwar - The deck isn't easy to play with, so don't worry about a bad performance or anything. (Besides, you should have seen me play with it early on...it was pretty darn bad.)

I worry about statements like this. I think very often "hard to play" is a synonym for a bad deck. I understand the deck's strategy and how its suppose to execute that strategy. Most of the time I wasn't able to combo off because I didn't either have a combo piece or didn't have enough to continue the combo. When I goldfish the deck it seems to be a pretty consistent turn 4 combo deck, but sometimes goblin lackey kills you on turn 3. Postboard with cards like Chalice of the Void make it very hard to combo or find bounce before something like Goblins kills you.

Maybe outsideangel is onto something. While Solidarity can begin the combo without High Tide because Reset can generate a decent amount of mana starting on turn 4, Spring Tide has no such luxury. You have to find High Tide to do anything, but you have Merchant Scroll as well as better cantrips to help you find it. The problem usually isn't finding High Tide in Spring Tide, but often continuing the combo because at some point you might run out of mana or run out of card draw. Now don't get me wrong sometimes your go off is amazing and you can basically draw your whole deck on turn 4, but I'm still not sure what's wrong with the deck. I just know that if the deck was better more people would play it, but for some reason it isn't.

TheRock

12-19-2006, 01:38 PM

I worry about statements like this. I think very often "hard to play" is a synonym for a bad deck. I understand the deck's strategy and how its suppose to execute that strategy. Most of the time I wasn't able to combo off because I didn't either have a combo piece or didn't have enough to continue the combo. When I goldfish the deck it seems to be a pretty consistent turn 4 combo deck, but sometimes goblin lackey kills you on turn 3. Postboard with cards like Chalice of the Void make it very hard to combo or find bounce before something like Goblins kills you.

Maybe outsideangel is onto something. While Solidarity can begin the combo without High Tide because Reset can generate a decent amount of mana starting on turn 4, Spring Tide has no such luxury. You have to find High Tide to do anything, but you have Merchant Scroll as well as better cantrips to help you find it. The problem usually isn't finding High Tide in Spring Tide, but often continuing the combo because at some point you might run out of mana or run out of card draw. Now don't get me wrong sometimes your go off is amazing and you can basically draw your whole deck on turn 4, but I'm still not sure what's wrong with the deck. I just know that if the deck was better more people would play it, but for some reason it isn't.

Holy cow, not the way that I intended it to be understood. It is was more along the lines of "once you know what to keep, it's easier."

To be very honest, I'm worried that you would even think along those lines. I'm especially worried about that last line. I did ask you some questions to see if I could help you a bit, so why not answer them first? :)

All right, for the sake of keeping my word, here's a starting hand:

1 Island
1 Polluted Delta
1 Serum Visions
1 Brainstorm
1 High Tide
1 Snap
1 Force of Will

For this example, I'm on the play against Goblins. This is a fairly good hand, but it's missing some cards. What would you do?

AnwarA101

12-19-2006, 02:00 PM

All right, for the sake of keeping my word, here's a starting hand:

1 Island
1 Polluted Delta
1 Serum Visions
1 Brainstorm
1 High Tide
1 Snap
1 Force of Will

For this example, I'm on the play against Goblins. This is a fairly good hand, but it's missing some cards. What would you do?

This hand seems good. Looks like I'll go Island Serum Visions. I still have Force of Will for Lackey in this case. Next turn I'll have Brainstorm fetch and depending on what I draw/scry into. Did you want more info than that?

Iranon

12-19-2006, 02:11 PM

One thing that stikes me as odd: You complained about not making your fourth land drop in the tournament report, now you say it's 'amazing' when you are able to draw your entire library turn 4.
Doing just that, then stroking them out (on the off chance they believes Gaea's Blessings will save them) is what the deck is supposed to do; in fact being able to successfully go off turn 3 should be the norm (especially on the draw) and I'm upset when I can't.

Your chances to kill turn 3 should be way above that of Goblins, and if I am actually able to make my 4th land drop before going off I am close to grumbling about a mana flood (the reason to postpone it for a turn is drawing into your fourth land while going off; one very important thing Solidarity can't do).

I am not sure what went wrong there. Your build looks playable (although I personally prefer Snap over Candelabra, unless that change is followed through by an entire rework of the deck).
Some of your comments suggest that you are trying to play it too safe... but then you fizzled without outside interference twice.

Incindentally, Spring Tide is almost certainly easier to play than Solidarity. Predicting what your opponent might do is about the only thing where there are higher demands on the player, but the vastly better card selection can get you out so many corners.
To make it even easier for you, you could skew your deck slightly in one direction or the other (fo example going light on draw in favour of more mana sources) and use cantrips to get the thing that's on the light side...

outsideangel

12-19-2006, 02:29 PM

luka66_6

12-28-2006, 03:19 PM

Hi. I am playing this deck for abouth a month now and since I have almost only been goldfishing I do not know how to sideboard against other decks. I know what i should put in, but what do I take out? I have read a lot about this deck on this and other forums and I do not think it is only a slow and/or budget variant of solidarity deck. This one has different draw, different untap engine, different problems. I mean, most of combo decks are in fact at sorcery speed so that means that is not realy as bad as it might look. The real problem is dependency on Snap and Cloud of Faeries as untap engine since there is a ton of creature removal in legacy format. Thats why I was thinking to use semi transformational sb to avoid beeing totally stopped by Meddling Mage ( naming Snap) and creature removal. What do I mean? After game one replacing Snap with for example Toils of Night and Day. Has anyone tested something like that?
List that I am running is standard except I changed one Fow in to Echoing Truth, becouse there are a lot of Meddling Mages in my local metagame.
This is a list I am currently running.

//Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
//Spells
4 High Tide
4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Serum Visions
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Snap
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
3 Turnabout
3 Force of Will
1 Echoing Truth
//Land
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
10 Island
//Sideboard
4 Disrupt
2 Defense Grid
2 Brain Freeze
1 Echoing Truth
1 Snap
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Three Wishes
1 Force of Will
1 Stroke of Genius

I went with this list on a small turnament today. It was finnaly a chance to test my deck in real life experience. I went 1-2. I am not very pleased but I am sure I will do better next time.
First I played against deck using Swords to Plowshares, Daze and Meddling Mage main deck. Some sort of fish deck with addition of Jotun Grunts and Standstill. A horrific match for me. I lost 0-2 as he sideboarded four of Mana Mazes.
Second game was similar as opponet played Meddling Mages and Dazes main deck again. First game he used Duress, taking Tide and played Meddling Mage naming Meditate. I lost on turn 6 or 7 and I had only two lands in game. Second game he played Meddling Magenaming Reset in turn three and I went off in turn four. Third game he had Meddling Mage in turn three and four naming Snap and High Tide. He forced my Echoing Truth and it was a GG.
Game three I played against some kid with some homemade black zombie aggro. I went off turn four and in second game turn five and he just watched what the h**l was I doing.
Advice and comments will be highly appriciated.
Luka

zorrikon

04-03-2007, 03:31 PM

I recently went 4-0-1 in a local Legacy event of 22 people with a pretty traditional Spring Tide list:
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
4 High Tide
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Snap
3 Turnabout
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island
2 Polluted Delta

Sideboard
2 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Meditate
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rebuild
1 Snap
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Wipe Away
4 Defense Grid

(I couldn't find Misdirection before the event)

First Round: Jason Mayes (he got 2nd at Legacy Worlds, I think) playing Salvagers
Game 1: He played some discard and eventually Extripated my High Tide and I, perhaps prematurely, conceded in response (my hand was really bad even though it wasn't hopeless).
Game 2: I force a Gamekeeper and win.
Game 3: He gets out a Gamekeeper, plays innocent blood and flips into a Auriok Salvager. He's tapped out though, and apparently doesn't have LED, and I go off the next turn.

Round 2: Robin playing UB IGGY Pop
Game 1: He gets a turn 0 Leyline, but I go off third turn.
Game 2: We both mulligan, but he gets a turn 0 Leyline, and, on the second turn, he plays IGG. He returns 2 Lotus Petals and a Polluted Delta. I get a second land, but just play draw go without any play. Then, when I have 2 cards in hand, he plays Lotus, Lotus, LED, Infernal Tutor, in response break LED. Like the lucksack I am, I had a force, and counter the IGG. I then slowly recover, later playing a Meditate as a setup. Eventually I get enough critical mass to combo out through a Stifle after being Mindtwisted on turn 2.

Round 3: James playing 4 color Grow
Before the tournament I heard him talking about how he's going to SB 1 Gaea's Blessing for Solidarity, so I got kind of annoyed when I was paired against him.
Game 1: He Disrupts my first turn Serum Visions (!), which was bittersweet because only a nub would MD Disrupt, but this is also one of the few match-ups where it will be good :(. He then dazes my second turn Merchant Scroll, picking up his only land. I then decide to just take my time, and I eventually just overwhelm him.
Game 2: He boards in about 7 cards, so I'm *kind of* scared. He plays some creatures, but I just go off when I feel like it through a hand of Force, Remand, Pyroblast, and Stifle and other hate.

Round 4: Larry with BW Confidant
Game 1: I first turn cantrip, but he doesn't have a play. Second turn, I play Serum Visions and keep a Meditate; however, he goes, Ritual, Ritual, Hymn, Hymn, Confidant. I had a Force in hand, but was saving it for the creature that I predicted him to have, alas I was left with a hand of Meditate and something else (not a land), so I broke my Fetchland in the hopes of finding a third land. I eventually did, and ended up EOT Meditating and winning the next turn I had (the turn before I was going to die).
Game 2: He had a slower, but respectable start with discard, a Confidant and a Nantuko Shade and a Vincate on a land. He got unlucky though, and judging from his Confidant draws (Wasteland, Hypnotic Specter, and Hypnotic Specter) he didn't draw much disruption. He did manage to to Extripate a Hymmed Meditate, but when it came down to it, even though he had a second Extripate for my High Tide, I was still able to win.

Round 5: Tony with Ugrw Thresh
Another bittersweet moment because I knew what he was playing because his game was next to mine first round, but I also knew that this was his first time playing Thresh-- it was Jason Mayes's-- and the match-up is pretty skill intensive (it was the first time I've actually played Spring Tide outside of goldfishing, too).
Game 1: I keep a risky 1 land hand and don't see a land in the first 5-6 cards. He then accumulated his forces and it was soon time for game 2.
Game 2: He wins a counter war on Meddling Mage, but names the wrong thing (he named Cloud of Faeries when I think the best call is probably High Tide). I then proceeded to go off on turn 4-6, after laying 2 Defense Grids. I came close to fizzling, I was limited to 1 High Tide and was force to trust in a single Meditate twice before finally Merchant Scrolling up Cunning Wish into Brain Freeze.
Game 3: It was nearing the end of the round, and I just needed a draw to win the tournament. I decided to just defend, shuffling Meditates back into my deck and forcing a Werebear. It ended up into a position where, on turn 5, I had 11 life, he had no cards in hand, Threshold, a 2 Meddling Mages on Snap and Cunning Wish, and a Werebear and I had a Cloud of Faeries to defend. The only draw that he could get, as I was a little to happy to point out, was Fire/Ice or a cantrip into it, into a Lightning Bolt. He drew a Tundra and the match was a draw.

What I learned: it's hard as crap to play five rounds of Spring Tide where every one of your matches goes to time. Spring Tide is actually good :).

Should I have SB Disrupt? I thought I remembered someone saying they were unnecessary when I was prepping my deck, so I didn't include them. In other words, what's the ideal SB.

Also, to whoever said that Spring Tide isn't more consistent than Solidarity because our untap effects are weaker, that's simply not true, partly because we can consistently get more than one High Tide, although I still don't know which deck is better (Solidarity definitely wins in the coolness department).

Jaynel

04-04-2007, 08:45 PM

I also have some questions about my sideboard. However, my meta is very aggro oriented with almost no control, so I have some questions and I'd like some criticism.

My maindeck is standard (like the one posted above), except I'm running -1 Force of Will and +1 Brainfreeze (for a MD win condition).

Here's the sideboard:

//Wish Targets (9):
2 Brain Freeze
1 Snap
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away

//Cards to side in (6):
3 Hydroblast
3 Stifle

Hydroblasts come in against Burn and Goblins over Forces. The last 3 slots are currently Stifle, which I plan on bringing in against Tendrils based combo and random jank (Scepter, WW). It is certainly the capable of handling the randomness that I'll be encountering.

However, it seems that Annul or Spell Snare could also be useful in those last 3 slots. Annul counters most hate (Chalice, Pyrostatic Pillar, Trinisphere, etc) directed at Storm based combo.
Spell Snare has a similar role by countering the above cards (Chalice @1, Pyrostatic Pillar), as well as some threats (Piledriver, Bob, Meddling Mage).

So what would you guys recommend: Stifles or Annuls or Spell Snares?

On a side note, would Remands be better over Forces?

Elfrago

04-05-2007, 04:58 AM

Your sideboard lacks Disrupt, this card is REALLY good aganist discard and still useful aganist other decks.

To decide between Snare, Annul or Stifle you should look at your metagame. If combo runs wild then go for stifle, aganist aggro snare should be better... Annul is really useful only aganist Angel Stax and maybe Landstill, I would not play them. BTW I would still play at least one stifle to counter those pesky Gaea's Blessing...

And no, Force is better than remand in this deck, you have to play your cantrips during your turn, you will never have two mana to play remand in your opponent turn.

koeka

04-05-2007, 06:51 AM

After a lot of testing, this is the list I came up with

4 High Tide
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Turnabout
3 Snap
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
4 Force of Will
3 Remand
1 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm
2 Sleight of Hand
4 Serum Visions
1 Brain Freeze
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
10 Island

Sideboard:
3 Disrupt
3 Defense Grid
1 Rebuild
1 Turnabout
1 Meditate
1 Brain Freeze
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Wipe Away
2 Hydroblast
1 Chain of Vapour

The Remands can slow down most decks enough to go for the turn 3 of 4 kill, cutting 2 cantrips does make the 16th land necessary since you can keep less of the 1 land hands.
I Really love the extra remands becausethey slow down hate pieces, allow you to go off when you are on a low storm count, and they can work as time walks.
So far I have never missed the cantrips I cut from the deck, by addings the 16th land(wich most of the players actually do play in 12 cantrip lists) you wont get any trouble wit youre mana and you can still keep an fair amount of 1 land hands.
The sideboard is still the major flaw in my list, I played in a side event at GP Amsterdam and never touched a single card of my sideboard except for the rebuild I wished against Affinity, I hope this can sparkle up discussion about the deck again ( I really need the sideboard fixed for the gp trial Im attending this sunday)

zorrikon

04-05-2007, 10:15 AM

There's no need for Hydroblast, Spring Tide should be able to race Goblins quite easily, much more consistently than Solidarity.

If you're going to play Cunning Wish and have a wishboard, then you should have more than 1 Cunning Wish.

Remands are unneeded because we should be able to race any deck, and we can get very high storm counts, so its interaction with Brain Freeze is irrelevant. Also, we should usually be tapping out turn two to insure a turn 3-4 win, so we won't have any time to play remand.

Also, why not play 4 Defense Grids? They single handily win two match-ups that would be very hard otherwise (Aggro Control and Solidarity).

koeka

04-05-2007, 01:14 PM

The biggest mistake I made when I started playing this deck was overestemating the goblin matchup, most of them pack enough tools now to slow you down and kill you before you can combo out.
Pyrostatic pillar is a card I regulary face, so the Hydroblast are needed.
If youre meta doesnt have a lot of those, you can replace them with the 4th grid and 1 open slot.
I personally like playing 1 cunning wish because I find it a clunky card to have in youre opening hand, a second one might be an option but I like it as it is.
Now for the remands, you really dont need to tap out on turn 2 to guarantee a turn 3 win, also the remands allow you to slow down the opponent so you can combo off much more consistently.
Now you would be suprised how many times remand+brainfreeze saved me the game when comboing yust because you get the random ideas unbound into 3 lands or something like that, they are really that good.
Defense grid is really good indeed(they really dont win the game) but they do help a lot in the matchups.
I hope this makes my choice for Remands a bit clearer(although they yust might be good because of my play style)

TheRock

05-07-2007, 01:18 PM

I hope that this isn't considered reviving an old thread, but I feel that something needs to be said.

It looks like Spring Tide would be a perfect deck to play with all of the Hulk Flash running around along with Aluren or a mirror-beating Flash list. Remand or not, it has the speed and can easily splash white for Chant or black for Duress/Therapy (take that you creature haters!) to add the disruption. Besides, it STILL beats Goblins more than Goblins beats it.

Thoughts?

mikekelley

06-16-2007, 05:05 PM

Necro time.

I recently thought about making this deck with a small red splash (either volcanic islands or simian spirit guides) for empty the warrens. It's sorcery speed, which works well with warrens, because that seems to be the monster kill condition these days, and it doesn't take much of a storm count at all to screw your opponent hard. This deck has no problem getting to 10+ storm on the 3rd~ish turn, and even more after that.

It could be way too slow, as the first turn shenanigans of TES are tough to deal with these days, but I think with force and remand in this deck, along with SSG or Volcs, it could have some game.

Jak

06-16-2007, 05:47 PM

I don't think it would be as effective to play EtW on the third turn minimum. What makes it good in TES is playing it first turn and winning turn three. Playing it turn 3 would open you up to Wrath, Plague, Infest, Clasm, Deed, Sharpshooter, etc...

mikekelley

06-16-2007, 05:58 PM

Yeah. That's what i was getting at by it possibly being too slow in a U-based deck

Cait_Sith

06-16-2007, 06:53 PM

Interestingly enough this deck still does well in the European Meta. It would be a DtW if it crossed over into America. Does anyone have any of the more recent lists that Top 8'd?

Jak

06-16-2007, 07:58 PM

Yeah I would definitely like to see a list. Plus I would love to play MoM.

deadlock

08-19-2007, 03:11 PM

I recently toyed around with the deck after i thought about the possibility of Time Spiral being unbanned :laugh:

To fully abuse Spiral i added a green splash for maindeck Exploration and maybe Xantid Swarm/ Main or Sb.
Even without Time Spiral Exploration could be run for a faster mana development.
Could this be viable or does it not compensate the added vulnerability against Wasteland?

zulander

08-19-2007, 03:18 PM

The deck is good with the unbanning of Mind over Matter with Candelabra's of Townos(sp?) as well.

deadlock

08-19-2007, 04:13 PM

Ok, a little bit more in depth explanation for Exploration, but first to answer your suggestion:
-MoM seems a bit too clunky and to discard a card for 2-3 mana isnt good either most of the time, this is not Academy :frown:
-Candelabra's of Townos could be worked in, but i dont know if its necessary.

About Exploration:
-its a good first-turn play and with another land leaves mana for a cantrip or whatever open.
-adds 1 mana with another land immediately if played while comboing and could easily add more with more Tides/ untap effects.
-reduces the number of dead cards of a bad draw spell while comboing.
-you can go off turn two with a god hand :laugh:

With the green splash i would start with something like this:

Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries

Spells
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
4 High Tide
4 Force of Will
3 Serum Visions
2 Meditate
2 Cunning Wish
1 Brain Freeze
4 Snap
1 Turnabout
1 Echoing Truth
4 Exploration

Lands
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
8 Island
3 Tropical Island

SB:
1 Brain Freeze
1 Turnabout
1 Meditate
1 Stroke of Genius
2 Echoing Truth
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Spell Snare
2 Hydroblast

Some notes:
- 4 Snap to combat MM and bounce unnecessary Xantid Swarms post-sbing.
- 1 Echoing Truth maindeck to fight Empty the Warren and Zombie tokens.

Questions:
- are 2 Meditates enough maindeck?
- what about 2 Sapphire Medallion main/sb to decrease the dependency on High Tide?
- what about cantrips, how many and which ones? Serum Visions is good to setup the combo, but not as good while comboing imo. It sets up a Meditate or Ideas Unbound quite nicely though. Sleight of Hand is the opposite.

I am open to further suggestions and will playtest this list to see how things are working out.

calosso

08-19-2007, 04:29 PM

To start take out snap and cloud of faeries and add candalabra of tawnos and Mind over Matter.

Bahamuth

08-20-2007, 02:56 AM

I read somewhere Anwar T8ed with Spring Tide with Candelabra and MoM. I'd love to see that list.

AnwarA101

08-20-2007, 12:17 PM

I read somewhere Anwar T8ed with Spring Tide with Candelabra and MoM. I'd love to see that list.

I acutally did not Top 8 with the deck at the Northern Virginia Legacy Draft. I played it to a 3-2-1 finish (16th place I believe out of 51). I feel the deck is very strong and I'll try to write something up about it when I get a chance. In my opinion its so much better than old Spring Tide. By the way if you were wondering, Mind Over Matter is really good in the deck.

Bahamuth

08-20-2007, 12:42 PM

I'd love that. Could you maybe already post the list here so we can try it out?

burkey_boy

08-20-2007, 09:09 PM

but how do you actually get MoM out? what turn? from my recolection, spring tide goes off turn 3/4 (havent played this deck in ages), seems like a win more card... i havent tested though

zulander

08-20-2007, 11:19 PM

but how do you actually get MoM out? what turn? from my recolection, spring tide goes off turn 3/4 (havent played this deck in ages), seems like a win more card... i havent tested though
Goes off turn 3. You play it after you play a couple of cards named High Tide. Then with Tawnos in play you untap your lands, then untap tawnos with MoM, then play your card draw. Then you win.

Sims

08-21-2007, 06:25 PM

With the addition of Mind over Matter, I vote this deck have it's name changed to Brain Matter, cause it simply sounds cooler.

Joon

10-19-2007, 03:17 PM

NECRO! Can this deck be effective in a slow meta without (or at least very low amount of) counters? Mind over Matter is very strong, not only together with Candelabra. Here's a list I threw together in about 5 minutes, and I guess that there are some really bad choices in there, so please tell me how to fix it :smile:

10 Islands
6 Fetchies

Obviously stuff
4 FoW
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 High Tide
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
3 Turnabout
1 Brain Freeze
1 Cunning Wish

Rest

3 Candelabra (don't know how many I should run since I can't tutor for it)
3 MoM (don't know how many I should run since I can't tutor for it)
4 Remand (buys Time)
2 Serum Visions (2 Slots left and 10 Cantrips are better than 8...?)

SB

4 Spell Snare (pretty good)
4 Defense Grid (must counter for control)
1 Turnabout
1 Meditate
1 Brain Freeze
1 Stroke of Genius
3 Bouncespells with different cc's (Chalice)

So that's my list. I'm not sure with any choices except the FoW and High Tides so please help me :cry:

URABAHN

10-19-2007, 04:19 PM

Joon

10-19-2007, 04:31 PM

I goldfished some games on MWS and your list is absolutely better than mine - 4 Candelabras are just insane :eek:
Now I got to get some Candelabras -.-

Zach Tartell

10-19-2007, 04:58 PM

In testing Permanent Waves with Anwar and Krieger, I recommend

Come on, call it something related to Jewish history. We all know that the Candelabra is just a fancier, Gentile word for "Menorah."

nitewolf9

10-19-2007, 05:21 PM

How about "throw the jew down the well"?

TheDarkshineKnight

10-19-2007, 08:30 PM

How about "throw the jew down the well"?

As a Jew, that movie was the absolute funniest film I have ever seen.

Anyhoo, I say we call it EPIC MENORAH SMACKDOWN!

sadface

10-22-2007, 08:15 AM

Is Ponder really an obvious inclusion in the deck? In my Spring Tide build (non-Candelabra version) I am currently running 4 Brainstorm, 4 Sleight of Hand and 4 Serum Visions. Should any of these be changed to Ponder?

Obfuscate Freely

10-22-2007, 08:22 AM

Ponder is better than Serum Visions in almost any application, and this deck is no exception.

In fact, the gulf between the two cards is even greater here, since Ponder gives you (almost) four times as many chances at chaining into what you need while going off, and that is much more important than Visions' ability to clear away the worse cards in the top three.

TheRock

10-22-2007, 08:27 AM

Ponder is a lot better than Sleight of Hand and after testing the deck with Ponders instead of Sleights for a while now, I'd say that it's a match made in heaven.

It's much better at finding land and it can tell you how valuable your draw-3 or draw-4 is really going to be before you play it. Did I also mention that it's fantastic at finding Cloud of Faeries and High Tide?

If you want to take this deck to a tournament now though, then you MUST have graveyard removal in your sideboard. I can't think of another combo matchup that you can consistently beat right now other than CRET Belcher (and there's a lot of if's involved), and Breakfast and Ichorid top that list of bad matchups.

sadface

10-27-2007, 09:21 AM

Alright, so Ponder is better than both Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand. But which is better of the last two? Is it just a matter of taste, or would you say that one is strictly better than the other (in this deck)?

If I want to play 12 cantrips, should I go with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder and 4 Serum Visions, or 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder and 4 Sleight of Hand? I've done some testing, but I just can't make up my mind. I guess I like them both. Perhaps 2 Serum Visions and 2 Sleight of Hand?

HdH_Cthulhu

10-27-2007, 09:31 AM

I think Slight of hand than Serum Visions is better in this deck.
Because draw a blind card from Serum Visions isnt good.
Yes Visions is better to find a land and you could dig a litle bit deeper, but sometimes scry is realy wrothless...

zulander

10-27-2007, 10:31 AM

12 cantrips? 4 brainstorm and 4 ponder is more than enough. Especially with the rest of the draw in the deck.

TheRock

10-27-2007, 10:37 AM

You go with 4 Visions. If you want to run more than 12 cantrips, then you can run some Sleights. However, regardless of how good Ponder is, 12 cantrips is still the right number.

Before Ponder came to existence, Visions was the best cantrip the deck had at finding lands, the best card in the deck at finding Cloud of Faeries (Meditate really doesn't count), and a card that worked great in tandem with Ideas/Meditate. Sleight of Hand just gave the player one of two. ZZZzzzzzzzz.

Ponder and Serum Visions are so good at finding land (and each other) that you can start with a hand of one land, one of those cantrips, and five decent cards and still be in great shape. Sleight of Hand is a bit too risky.

AnwarA101

10-27-2007, 10:42 AM

I would opt for neither Visions or Sleight of Hand post-Lorwyn. Ponder is simply amazing here as it lets you avoid a dead draw something Visions can't stop and Sleight of Hand only lets you pick out of the top 2 instead of top 3 and possible 4 card after you shuffle. Also Ponder's ability to shuffle during a mid-combo Brainstorm can't be undervalued here.

TheRock

10-27-2007, 11:01 AM

Also Ponder's ability to shuffle during a mid-combo Brainstorm can't be undervalued here.

In the 12 cantrip version, Ponder is the only reason why I don't side out the 4th Brainstorm against fast decks - the other cantrips are just better when it counts.

I can understand cutting some cantrips especially considering that we all side them out anyway, but this is a deck that wins turn 3 on both the play and draw because of Ponder's raw power. Why would you want to play nothing on turn one?

AnwarA101

10-27-2007, 11:29 AM

In the 12 cantrip version, Ponder is the only reason why I don't side out the 4th Brainstorm against fast decks - the other cantrips are just better when it counts.

I can understand cutting some cantrips especially considering that we all side them out anyway, but this is a deck that wins turn 3 on both the play and draw because of Ponder's raw power. Why would you want to play nothing on turn one?

My recent build has been running 8 cantrips and 2x mystery card (a cantrip of sorts) and I don't feel that Sleight of Hand or Serum Visions are cutting it. I was running Serum Visions until Ponder came along. But honestly I've had more luck with the 8 cantrip build than my previous versions with 11-12 cantrips. That also might have to do with the deck changing quite a bit as well, but honestly I'm not missing the weaker cantrips.

deadlock

11-03-2007, 08:10 AM

Ok, some points i want to talk about:
-I am not sold on Impulse, we might need it with a land count of 16, but i think there are better cards. Something that interacts with MoM, but doesnt need High Tide would be great like Mana Vault in the old days.:laugh:
I still think Exploration might be good here in order to speed up the deck a little bit.

-Both MoM and Ideas Unbound let us discard cards (IU if used as a setup spell), should we use this in form of Flash of Insight and/or Deep Analysis? Solidarity hast the same problem that it needs card advantage precombo and Think Twice does a poor job.

-With the current fundamental turn of 3-4 additional protection is needed imo, perhaps 2-3 Abeyance?

-Do we need a win condition maindeck? I played with 1 Stroke, 1 Echoing Truth and 2 Cunning Wish (3 stresses the mana curve to much i think). Even if there i a MM it can be bounced. My impression was that if you can get the engine of preferably multiple High Tides, Candelabra of Tawnos and MOM going mana is not the issue. At the current state it is a little bit more difficult to reach this point compared to Solidarity, but after that you have the stronger engine and dont struggle or even fizzle like Solidarity sometimes did.
Does this make sense to you?

rufus

11-08-2007, 08:29 PM

Ok, some points i want to talk about:
-I am not sold on Impulse, we might need it with a land count of 16, but i think there are better cards. Something that interacts with MoM, but doesnt need High Tide would be great like Mana Vault in the old days.:laugh:
I still think Exploration might be good here in order to speed up the deck a little bit.

With the candelabras you're already big-budget, so why not change the lands to:
4x Polluted Delta
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Underground Sea
4x Watery Grave
(maybe 4 more fetches)

Then you can run Bubbling Muck as a secondary High Tide, and, maybe, Tendrils of Agony as a secondary win condition, ... It does open the deck up more to non-basic land hate, but c'est la vie.

-With the current fundamental turn of 3-4 additional protection is needed imo, perhaps 2-3 Abeyance?

Blue/Black obviously provides access to Duress and Thoughtseize. Most protection will have the drawback that it's dead in your hand unless MoM comes out.

kilukru

11-11-2007, 05:32 PM

First off, im a budget player, so fetchland are out of the question. So im gonna run 16-20 island in the deck. My question is, could Trade route be played as a 2-of in the deck to permit me to use unwanted land or should I just impulse/ponder my way trought extra lands?

For ref

1U
1 Return target land you control to its owner's hand. 1, Discard a land card Draw a card.

deviant

12-17-2007, 06:05 AM

Fons

12-18-2007, 10:55 AM

When I played spring tide, there where two things that worried me:

1) Solidarity.

2) it has no way to control the tempo of the game, and so I was often forced to combo out on turn three and fizzle.

So i switched to solidarity, but I'ts matchups against the likes of goblins are a real anti turn-on when it was a complete bye with my old spring tide-build.

Hence: Enter maindeck brain freezes ( i NEVER EVER needed them with all that draw, untap and tutoring power to be maindecked )
And enter remand for tempo and stack tricks.

Goldfishing has been good to me, but I have no way of ACTUALLY testing it.
So I present it to you gyus, to hear your opinions and wish that someone else might actually be able to test the build and make it better.

A "rough scetch" of solidarity-spring tide hybrid:

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
10 Island
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Snap
2 Turnabout
4 High Tide
3 Ponder
3 Brainstorm
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
3 Merchant Scroll
3 Force of Will
2 Serum Visions
2 Cunning Wish
1 Flash of Insight
1 Twincast
2 Brain Freeze
3 Remand

It looks ugly cause I can't tell which cantrips are best now and how many tutors are needed and so on. It's a different deck so it has to be tested from the beginning, sadly I'm unable :frown:

Thanks for reading.

IMO
-2 Serum Visions
-1 Flash of Insight
-1 Twincast
-1 Remand
+2 Turnabout
+1 Cunning Wish
+1 Ponder
+1 Brainstorm

I've been playin' a different build of spring tide on MWS and i was wondering if anyone thinks Pact of Negation would be a good replacement for FOW (I'm Poor and can't afford them, I also play 15 Islands.)

I would rather have a ponder or brainstorm over serum visions because with visions you get a blind draw that can sometimes not help while with Brainstorm or ponder you pick what you get.

I've noticed that turnabout is necessary for the deck so either play 3 +1 in the board or just play 4 MD.

Cunning wish is handy :) (post your SB if your going to play it)

Remand is neat but im not sure if its needed.

deviant

12-19-2007, 02:03 AM

Now that's just "the basic list" then.

This was supposed to be a little different, just to see if it works.

BTW, ponder and BS are usually better cards, yes.
But they often leave shit on top of the deck when you try to find the third land drop.
Serum visions checks if there's a land on your top 4 cards.
It's quite good when you're trying to hit your third land drop to avoid having to combo off with only two.
And you should not cut a single land, I would rather add some.

By the way, Turnabout is at it's best when tapping your opponents permanents, not your own. It's a necessity, but it's not very good at generating mana.
You either need a lot of lands, when you have better untap spells at hand anyway, or a lot of tides, which isn't something i like to be dependant to.

Now the point was to add what is good in solidarity to the faster, more consistent spring tide.

Fons

12-19-2007, 07:18 PM

rufus

12-20-2007, 12:23 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong but the advantage solidarity has is its instant speed. That would mean your stuck playing one or the other as spring tide uses creatures and sorceries.

I'm not trying to completly put down your idea but I don't see how you can gain the advantage of instant speed if your going to play any sorceries and/or creatures.

I don't have any practical experience, but it seems like Brainfreeze would be a reasonably strong counter-card against solidarity simply played against the solidarity pilot mid-combo. The solidarity deck provides the storm count, and needs to resolve draw spells and resets to continue the combo. Because solidarity uses meditate and is relatively reliant on chewing through its own library, even stopping it mid-combo or killing a bunch of the library may cripple it.

Naturally, Spring Tide is vulnerable to the same tactics.
....

Pact of Negation isn't nearly as good as Force of Will in spring tide since the deck has no real chance of paying or avoiding the upkeep cost, except mid-combo. I'd suggest trying Daze, Blazing Shoal, or even Foil first.

P.S. Obviously not a budget approach, but there are alternative ways to go with Spring Tide:
With Candelabra of Tawnos
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7599

Blue/Black with duals means Bubbling Muck is almost as good as High Tide, and the deck can play discard-based disruption (Duress and Thoughtseize) as part of the early game.

I don't think it's quite strong enough to work, but Blue/Red untap-draw with Izzet Guildmage and splice onto arcane seems like something with potential.

Fons

12-20-2007, 01:09 PM

I have been testing Pact and it has been working pretty good, I only use it while im comboing out. Disrupting shoal is too situational and would not work and foil is terrible. Daze might work.

As for Permanent Waves I'm not going to spend that much money on candelabras.

AnwarA101

12-20-2007, 01:14 PM

P.S. Obviously not a budget approach, but there are alternative ways to go with Spring Tide:
With Candelabra of Tawnos
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7599

Permanent Waves (MOM/Candelabra build) removes any problems against creature removal as it doesn't play any. It does get hit by Artifact/Enchantment removal, but that is much less common than creature removal. Anyone willing to buy Candelabras should definitely play this version. I don't think there is a reason to play Spring Tide outside of budget constraints.

deviant

12-21-2007, 02:39 AM

Funny.
I tried the candelabra-version when it was a new idea. (In preparing to a tournament.)
But I find it to be a win-more thing at best. Creature removal rarely hurts the deck at all, and the candelabra version at least feels slower.
If I had to force anything those mom's just ended up sitting in my hand.
And Pacts suck 'cause you can only protect your combo with them. FOW's win you the MUs against faster combo and save you from the easy task of racing a 1st turn lackey.

And yes, solidarity is instant speed. Good for them. I played a few games yesterday with a bit more concentrated build of that thing I posted and so was I!
A few spells from my opponent ( they don't realise that sorcery-speed can kill you during your turn too, so they don't worry about the storm like they would against solidarity! ) and you do the thingy-things you usually do and remove target library. It was fun :)

And when I said that maybe we should take what is good in solidarity, I meant more like the cards than the idea. For example twincast. If ***** weren't my easiest matchup it would be a good card. Maybe against landstill?
And then the right number - if it doesn't damage the deck too much - and so on.
And same for every card they play and we don't.

As a side note: If I were to invest in candelabras, I'd slap myself and buy some resets. Which I'm about to do anyway since solidarity is better against control and that's what they play here in Finland.
And Fairy Stompy, the sick perverts.

Lukas Preuss

01-17-2008, 10:32 AM

Since this thread still discusses the Sorcery Speed High Tide deck that works with Cloud of Faeries and Snap (!) to generate mana, this could be one of the better decks to take advantage of Slithermuse. Since it only needs to leave play (not be put into a graveyard), you could play it, Snap it, generate mana and draw cards.

Citrus-God

01-17-2008, 10:44 AM

Has anybody talked about the inclusion of Bound // Determined yet? It's nuts against Counterbalance if it does resolve and running Green also permits you to run Xantid Swarm as well.

AnwarA101

01-17-2008, 02:00 PM

Has anybody talked about the inclusion of Bound // Determined yet? It's nuts against Counterbalance if it does resolve and running Green also permits you to run Xantid Swarm as well.

Bound // Determined is an okay card, but the problem is that Counterbalance decks are likely to have access to a 2 mana spell with Top, Brainstorm and plenty of 2cc spells in a deck like Threshold. If only Determined costed more mana. Its strange but Countebalance makes it so that less efficient spells are better because they actually resolve. What a bizarre situation to be in.

Arsenal

01-17-2008, 02:15 PM

Its strange but Countebalance makes it so that less efficient spells are better because they actually resolve.

True, but at the same time, the Timmy in me is almost glad to justify playing 3cc and 4cc spells that I would have NEVER of even considered playing before the rise of CounterTop (effectively making 1cc and 2cc spells a liability in your deck).

Jaiminho

01-25-2008, 11:49 PM

I was wondering... does Shrieking Drake deserves any spots in this deck? He costs a single 1 mana and doesn't target, so its ability pretty much can't be countered by removing one creature, if there will still be one on the table.

Finn

01-26-2008, 01:09 PM

Wow. That is really interesting. At the very least, it can up your storm count on the cheap.

Hot damn I love new blood. If you can locate one more of these (Arctic Merfolk perhaps, but not likely) that is actually worth including, you could have a funky alternate kill condition as well. But either way, that is a hell of an idea.

Good find, Jaiminho.

Funky-kun

01-31-2008, 06:44 PM

Another idea for this deck... has anyone tried running Mystic Remora in the sb as a 3-of? In theory it should improve matchups like deadguy and stax. Not sure, just a suggestion. If anyone has testing experience with it, please share.

And another question - how do you fight Counterbalance/Top with a monoblue version of the deck - with Spell Snare? I like this deck a lot and will invest in in sometime soon, but this is the problem that most worries me.

slyfer

01-31-2008, 06:53 PM

wipe away, they dont have cc3, they cannot counter. Problem is gaining access to it because side is small (mandatory slot like disrupt and blue blast AND wish targets), otherways 3x would be ok to deal with it, but there's no space I suppose

Jaiminho

01-31-2008, 08:01 PM

Wipe Away is a Wish target. They can counter the wish, though.

Benie Bederios

02-01-2008, 05:14 AM

Hi,

I didn't know there was discussion about this deck. Next friday I have a tournament, and I fear my Reset's aren't in then. So I think I'm going to play Spring Tide. I'm probably going to play a straight forward list, but I have some questions:

1. Meditate 4 or 3 MD? and Turnabout?

2. Cantrips? Only eight( 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder) or up to 12.

3. Disruption? Only FoW MD or Remand too?

4. How does the non-wish SB part thingy look like? I'm going to play in a B disruption and moncolored aggro( Gobbo's, Affinity) meta probably. Maybe 1 or 2 dedicated control. In any case very few Thresh, if any.

Thanks in advance.

BB

deviant

02-01-2008, 06:17 AM

Play 3 meditate md, one sb. Seriously. That's your no:1 wish target.
You also play 3 turnabout md. One turnabout or one snap as a wish target. People usually play turnabout but as a last minute tech I once switched it into snap cause you usually get more mana from it. That change saved my ass once and never backfired.
FOWs maindeck four. I've been tinkering with a remanding spring tide, cause that's so good in solidarity, but haven't tested it and wouldn't therefore recommend playing a non-combat proven "tech".

This is the list I played last time, and It's very good versus aggro. Goblin's is a bye due to it's consistent turn 3 win. Something like faerie stompy, or good heavens, even slivers could be troublesome for they have counterspells and a "fast" clock. Control is not easy, but it's winnable.

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
10 Island

4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Snap
3 Turnabout
4 High Tide

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate

3 Cunning Wish
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Force of Will

Wishboard:
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout / Snap / both.
1 brain freeze (if you're good, that's all you need. This, however is my preference only and maindecking some is not a sin.)
1 stroke of genious (alternative kill. mass draw)
1 stifle
1 misdirection (this is a preference call)
1 capsize (it's good to be able to go infinite if you suspect your opponent is holding three stifles or something)
1 wipe away
0 echoing truth or chain of vapor (though echoing your own faeries if fun)
hurkyls recall or something if there's affinity?

Sideboard:
at least 3 defense grid. (you should lose 1st game to control.)
propably 3 disrupt for black discard and such. (spell snare should be considered otherwise.)
Blue elemental blasts: 0 (goblins is an easy win if they don't side like 8 blasts.)

Oh yeah! And your wishboard is not for only wishing, you can sb it too. Like if you combo your whole deck and show your control playing opponent that you NEED to cunning wish for the kill, you might want to sb the kill in :)
Just something I had to learn the difficult way..

Feel free to ask anything. I don't know how people like that decklist but it's the most consistent combo-build I managed to pile together (about four months ago). I think a fast kill is good :) That's why I wouldn't go under 12 cantrips before adjusting the deck a lot.

Funky-kun

02-01-2008, 05:06 PM

Rebuild is good against multiples of trinisphere/chalice and stax stuff like smokestack and/or tangle wire. I found it a better idea than to rely on hurkyll, because it can be chaliced for 2 and you're gg.

In my tests I haven't found a good use of stifle, could you please explain why it takes a sb slot? And wouldn't trickbind be better in some cases?

Also, is there any point in having one BEB in the sb, against pyrostatic pillar or somethin? I am wondering, because you can bounce it, but just want to be sure.

Benie Bederios

02-02-2008, 02:29 PM

Play 3 meditate md, one sb. Seriously. That's your no:1 wish target.
You also play 3 turnabout md. One turnabout or one snap as a wish target. People usually play turnabout but as a last minute tech I once switched it into snap cause you usually get more mana from it. That change saved my ass once and never backfired.
FOWs maindeck four. I've been tinkering with a remanding spring tide, cause that's so good in solidarity, but haven't tested it and wouldn't therefore recommend playing a non-combat proven "tech".

This is the list I played last time...

Oh yeah! And your wishboard is not for only wishing, you can sb it too. Like if you combo your whole deck and show your control playing opponent that you NEED to cunning wish for the kill, you might want to sb the kill in :)
Just something I had to learn the difficult way..

Feel free to ask anything. I don't know how people like that decklist but it's the most consistent combo-build I managed to pile together (about four months ago). I think a fast kill is good :) That's why I wouldn't go under 12 cantrips before adjusting the deck a lot.

Of course I'm going to MD FoW's, but was wondering it's enough to protect me.

About the matchups, this deck has a decent game against control, a little less than Solidarity but still quite good winnable. I'm not afraid if an opponent plays BBS or Landstill.

Aren't the 12 Cantrips not overkill. You say you want to go for a quick win and the cantrips are the worst cards in the deck during combo( sans lands), so if you want to win T2 / T4 you won't play more than 2 cantrips pre combo. I would seem that 8 cantrips would be more than enough. Especially if you want turn 2 to play Merchant Scroll. Especially Serum Visions is bad.

I will probably change the list a little around, but the basic looks strong. Thanks. I will give a report about next week.

BB

deviant

02-04-2008, 12:17 AM

That cc point about hurkyl's recall / rebuild is a valid one. ( I was wondering why I had rebuild in my sideboard instead of hurkyl's. There must have been a reason.. :D )

And the 12 cantrips are really good during combo 'cause they're cheap and it's the untap power that might become a problem during combo, not the draw power, which is amazing with scrolls, meditates and ideas.
And the most important thing about them is that you play only 16 lands and you really want to see exactly 3 of them in your side of the table on yout third turn. No more and no less. Cantrips help a lot. Make some unkeepable hands good actually.

That sb stifle is, for one, against gaea's blessing. I did not have more than one brain freeze, and since some people are still under the misconception that the card is good against solidarity, I was a little worried that I might face some of the mishate. It's good against other storm-combos too (occasionally) and it's so versatile that I wanted it for that reason too. (You never know what's gonna happen and I had no idea what will the meta look like at that point.)

It is however, one of those slots that have more to do with preferences than actual card selection.

Zappa

03-18-2008, 01:21 AM

I apologize to necro such an old post, but posting here will be better than creating a new one. I was wondering that what do you guys/girls think of:

Ponder - [Sorcery] [Casting cost: U] [Set: Lorwyn]
Look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. You may shuffle your library. Draw a card.

A nifty little cantrip from Lorwyn, that I think may not seem too bad.

Also I see that the deck is running Force of Will. Whats your opinion on...

Pact of Negation - [Instant] [Casting cost: :0:] [Set: Future Sight]
Pact of Negation is blue. Counter target spell. At the beginning of your next upkeep, pay 3UU. If you don't, you lose the game.

Since when you are going to go off, you plan on ending it right there and then. Perhaps Pact of Negation can be used as subtitute for Force of Will?

Thanks.

deviant

03-18-2008, 02:29 AM

I've always played ponder over every cantrip that isn't named brainstorm.
Seriousy, Ponder is an additional suffle-effect if it needs to be (strenghtens brainstorm) and if you're in trouble, it digs 4 deep where sleight of hand digs 2, and serum visions.. well it digs 4 also, IF you have an additional draw-spell.
So in my book it's outright better card.
Pact sucks. I'm sorry. I wish it didn't. If you want an additional counter in your wish-board, play misdirection there. FoW is not only to protect your comboing, it stops the shit you don't like (CotV-1, CB..). Pact does not. You just shouldn't need pact when you try to combo.
If you want to evolve this deck - play remand. Seriouly, I don't get it why it wasn't incorporated here in the beginning, it's awesome.
It buys you time, cantrips, helps against dodging counterspells and does cool shit with BF. Storm of 7 is a lot easier to pull out than a storm of 17.

Tacosnape

03-18-2008, 03:39 PM

deviant

03-18-2008, 04:32 PM

To put it short: Without testing it sounds like inefficient win-more.

When you combo you usually have only 2-3 lands in play and one tide played (you drop the 3-4th on the way), so the advantage candelabra as an untap-spell would bring is.. insufficient. Before it becomes ridiculously powerful and at that point you usually could just win the game instead of showing-off.
I mean; untap 1-2 lands is about the same you get with faeries but those you can bounce-replay-bounce-cycle. Or play and block with them to buy time. Snap can also buy time. And turnabout - buys time, fishes counterspells, untaps. (You can also sb into a shitty faerie-stompy if you want to turn some heads.)
This deck can be more interactive than most combos, the obvious downside is vulnerability to shit like fanatic. Nevertheless, much like one crypt doesn't stop ichorid, one removal doesn't stop this - you just need to play around it. Versatility is what candelabra lacks.

Seriously though - play those remands. They help everywhere.

These are at least my first-impressions on the matter and I might of course be totally wrong.
And as for your combo-deck: do both. Build Ichorid and fool around with this one, it's not as bad as people give it credit for.

GreenOne

03-18-2008, 05:18 PM

If the opponent is playing gobbos and has a fanatic in play I strongly suggest to bounce their X/2 or X/3 creatures. Other than that, my advices are:
- Play Ichorid
- Re-buy those Resets

I'm a Solidarity player too, and after testing a while you feel dirty playing all those sorceries. If I had to choose a sorcery speed storm combo it would be Fetchland Tendrils.

Elfrago

03-19-2008, 09:53 AM

Seriously though - play those remands. They help everywhere.

Agreed, but what did you cut for them?

AnwarA101

03-19-2008, 11:19 AM

Alright, so, I sold my Resets. And I'm still contemplating whether to make my new combo deck of choice Ichorid or to tinker around with Sorcery-speed Tide builds for awhile.

My biggest issue with Spring Tide is that Snap/CoF sucks. Mogg Fanatic tends to be the biggest thing to mess this up, but STP and the like don't help either. However, I played with Permanent Waves awhile and didn't really like Mind over Matter either. It felt slow and sort of clunky.

So my question is, is there a reason no middle ground is ever played? Can you play Candelabra of Tawnos in Spring Tide without playing the MoM? Done in this manner, it would be immune to things like Krosan Grip if held back until you're going off (You play it, it resolves, your priority still, you activate it.), and if you get enough of them out, you can always Turnabout them instead of your lands to ramp up mana.

Spring Tide experts advice appreciated.

While I don't view myself as a Spring Tide expert, I can definitely tell you that you should play 4x Candelabra. I'm also certain that any sorcery speed High Tide deck should also play Mind Over Matter. A resolved Mind over Matter means that you never need to draw another untap effect. As long as you can generate card advantage you will not lose the game. You can play weaker spells like Cloud of Faeries, but you risk fizzling off too little mana to play the better spells the deck wants to play. Mind over Matter makes the deck more consistent by providing a permanent untap effect and its synergy with Candelabra can't be overlooked either.

deviant

03-19-2008, 12:03 PM

That's a 6-mana spell. You need other untap-effects to resolve that, and then you possibly need to win a serious counter-war. Then you need to have useless cards in your hand to discard (preferably lands, which you have after you're already very close to winning (7+ storm now with remands!)). Also, we already have to find a high tide in order to do anything relevant, so I don't like the idea of being absolutely dependant on more (untutorable) cards.
You also now have a combo that takes it up the &$½# from a certain split-second instant that everyone and their mother is running because of counter/top.

About the Remands:
I basically switched my serum visions for them as an experiment and left it at that. I also maindecked one bf (would want 2) and only run 2 wishes atm. (Would want more, but I'm also pondering if they could be entirely cutted, because they're not that great here. (Though I think this is a bad idea.)

I don't have a finely-tuned list to present, but I know for sure that it would include 3-4 remands. Just try them out, they make the deck better.

Lukas Preuss

03-20-2008, 05:14 AM

Since I have quite a lot of experience with Spring Tide (tested it with my friend Sebastian Ofner for months before GP Lille - he made Day 2 with it), I will try to adress some of the questions:

- @Tacosnape: Spring Tide and Permanent Waves play very differently. Spring Tide constantly comboes out on turn 3, whereas Permanent Waves is slower (turn 4) but less immune to creature hate.
There is a reason why nobody runs Candelabra in Spring Tide: Spring Tide's speed is defined by the untap engine of CoF and Snap, which is actually quite strong (and much faster than Solidarity's and Permanent Waves' engine). Candelabra would make the deck much slower. Cards like Candelabra and Reset want you to play as many lands as possible before you combo off, maximizing their effect. Spring Tide on the other hand doesn't. You can normally combo off with two lands in play and drop the third one in the middle of your combo (before casting the first Turnabout). So, in my opinion, Candelabra doesn't fit into Spring Tide, because it takes away from it's strenghth (the speed), without adding enough.

- Remand: You don't want to play this in Spring Tide. Seriously, have you guys actually tested this or are you suggesting it simply, because it works in Solidarity? There is a major difference here... Spring Tide doesn't want to keep mana open during it's first turns... it wants to play cards like Ponder, Sleight of Hand, and - most importantly - Merchant Scroll. You simply cannot afford to keep two mana open on turn two just for the possibility to play Remand on your opponent's spells. You want to find your missing combo piece and combo off the next turn. This makes Remand a very bad card pre-combo (this is much different to Solidarity, because there is no reason to not leave mana open before the combo, because all your spells are Instants). Since it is very bad pre-combo and you can't afford to use it, it is a very subpar card to run in the first place. Also, this deck has much more draw power (Ideas Unbound in addition to Meditate) and it can afford to run only a few win conditions, because you will end up drawing most of your deck anyways when you combo off. For GP Lille, we decided to run only 1 Brain Freeze maindeck and 1 Cunning Wish, because between your draw spells and Merchant Scroll, you're guaranteed to find them once the combo is rolling. Before that, Brain Freeze (and Remand) are just too clunky.

deviant

03-20-2008, 05:46 AM

Yes. When it's clear waters, remand is useless. But if this is the case, it's not going to get into your way either. But when troubles arise, it's really good. You can't always combo to storm 17, and it's even more troublesome when you've forced something and are facing a clock of only a few turns. Storm 7 is possible.

Against Faerie Stompy and counterslivers (two losses in the champs where I played spring tide came to these.) when they have an actual clock and counter-backup it's really good to get to tempo a bit. You don't need to go off on your 3rd turn, if I can wait, I usually like to wait to turn 4-5 because then you really don't need to push anything and the risk of fizzling is close to 0 (if not disturbed). Against counter-heavy control, you just can't combo on your 3rd turn. Playing through 2-3 counterspells is just too much that early. (That's a serious issue in my meta and that might distort my views since this is not, I understand, a common problem.)
Granted, I mulled to 5 twice and to 6 once against both these matchups, but that alone doesn't justify the trouble I had against them. Clock with counterbackup would be easier if you had a turn or so extra. (read. 2nd turn remand.)

EDIT: why would you want to play sleight of hand when ponder exists? Was it a "typo" or do you play like 16 cantrips?

And yet again, I'm thinking if it's the disgustingly blue-oriented metagame I have that makes me so fond of remands..
Seriously though, try them with your frind offman if you haven't already. I was happy without them till I tried the out.

Lukas Preuss

03-20-2008, 07:10 AM

When it's clear waters, remand is useless. But if this is the case, it's not going to get into your way either.

Imagine the following hand on turn two (you have two lands in play):
Island, Merchant Scroll, Ideas Unbound, Snap, Turnabout, Remand

Would you keep the mana open to use Remand, or would you rather Merchant Scroll for High Tide to improve your hand? Against which deck would you keep the mana open to play Remand? Isn't Remand in this case not only a dead card, but also a hinderance for your combo (it could be a draw spell instead)?

Also, how many copies of Brain Freeze da you run? To constantly use Remand during the combo (with 7 storm), you need to find a Brain Freeze, as well as a Remand... I only run like 1 Brain Freeze in the maindeck to minimize the dead cards you don't want to see before you combo off. Remand would need at least two or three copies of Brain Freeze to consistantly go for the Storm 7 plan.

Playing through 2-3 counterspells is just too much that early. (That's a serious issue in my meta and that might distort my views since this is not, I understand, a common problem.)
I know what you're talking about, I have been playing Solidarity for years now. Our German metagame is infested by Aggro Control, and I know that Remand is a nice card in those matchups for Solidarity, but mainly, because it is not dead as often as it is in this deck. You can afford to cast it turn 2 to counter their Tarmogoyf to buy you some time, because you don't have to make that descision before you pass your second turn...

If you really want to improve this matchup, try either Defense Grid in the SB (a must counter for Thresh), or more copies of Brain Freeze. With 4 Brain Freezes and Merchant Scroll, you can easily have 2 or three of them in your hand by turn 5 or 6. This is much better than having a single copy of Brain Freeze and Remand, because it doesn't cost as much mana and they can't counter the Remand to survive. You just have to start a counter war over your High Tide or your draw spell and then end the turn with a storm count of 5 or 6 with multiple Brain Freezes. Multiple Brain Freezes turn almost any blue based control matchup into an autowin, if they don't run something like Counterbalance.

why would you want to play sleight of hand when ponder exists? Was it a "typo" or do you play like 16 cantrips?

I play 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and 4 Sleight of Hand since it is superior to Serum Visions.

deviant

03-20-2008, 12:15 PM

First thing I want to say now is that this conversation is one I deeply appreciate. This deck has not been touched in ages and it is truly a shame, since it's actually a pretty good deck to lure people into legacy. (This way I got back into magic anyway :) )

Anyway, just wanted to thank Lukas Preus.

"Imagine the following hand on turn two (you have two lands in play):
Island, Merchant Scroll, Ideas Unbound, Snap, Turnabout, Remand

Would you keep the mana open to use Remand, or would you rather Merchant Scroll for High Tide to improve your hand? Against which deck would you keep the mana open to play Remand? Isn't Remand in this case not only a dead card, but also a hindrance for your combo (it could be a draw spell instead)?"

If they run "islands", you can't really afford to trade the scroll with daze/spell snare anyway -> wait. You are on no clock and if the game goes long enough, you have a good hand for that (turnabout, remand, scroll). You might also be able to remand something and get an opening to scroll next turn.

If they run something indicating aggro, you can wait and remand their 2-drop. If they're goblins with lackey/vial out (or some other deck that can kill you fast and don't need spells for that, like ichorid) go for scroll and try to kill them asap.

If they are combo, you can either race them or play remand on some of their spells, depends really much on how their side of the table looks like and if they mulled and all. To put it blunt: can they kill you next turn? If they can, remand just might have saved you. If they can't, scroll and win next turn, maybe with some neat remand tricks with all those untap-effects but light draw-capacity.

In my opinion that hand is a lot better with remand in it. You have scroll yes, but you only have a draw-3 as your draw-power. That's not something you really want to rely on. I've seen too many blank-blank-blank-blanks that I only feel safe to combo if I can dig 6+deep. (Deep6er?!WTF?) (have a brainstorm or ponder in addition of at least ideas.)
You also have a land-drop there, so the "time-walk" would be really useful, getting to combo with 3 lands is perfectly fine, but getting to combo with three lands and be able to drop a fetch-land later makes life just a little too easy.

And for those BF's. I play one md. I have not finalized my list and like I have said (?) I'd like to have 2 md. I do, however, have 4 scrolls and 2 wishes to get them. (1sb)
(On the other hand, I totally agree with wanting as little "dead" cards in the md as possible.)

- And I do play defense grids in my sb. (They are a must.) I also play spell snares there. (used to play... disrupt i think.)

- Also, I don't see a reason to consistently go for the "storm 7 -plan". It just kinda happens. When you have a storm of ~13 don't you ever have those moments when you draw 4, and then brainstorm and then ponder and all you see is lands, FoW's and untap-effects?
After comboing for while the draws start to go bad. It's a relief to know that all you need is six mana (easy at that point) and the missing "combo-piece". (remand or bf)

And about those cantrips (sorry for the length):
I played brainstorms, ponders and serum visions before remands. I cannot see how sleight of hand is better than any of those.
Compare it to serum visions: Sleight digs 2 deep. SV digs "3". The only situation where sleigh is better is when you need to topdeck something now, and that's already a lost cause. Visions puts you in a better position to play that draw spell in your hand - you probably draw gas.

And in the first 1-2 turns, when you might struggle to make those land-drops, visions is the second best of the four. Brainstorm isn't good at this, if they're non-lands you're screwed. Sleight digs 2 deep and if they're not lands, maybe the next card is. Ponder is obviously awesome, digs "4" if need be. Visions gets three non-lands out of your way if it doesn't hit, that's one more than what sleight does.
So I would state that in this deck the best cantrips are in this order:
1&2) Brainstorm & Ponder
3) Serum Visions
4) Sleight of Hand

(And as a side note: I first cutted visions from ponder's way but then learned better.)

And as far as ***** goes: I consider that to be a favorable match-up. In the champs where I played this (no remands back then) I faced two white-splashing with md m.mages. Went 4-0. Back then counter-top wasn't everywhere though :)
***** just doesn't put you on a clock fast enough and they don't really have that much of a counter-backup either.

Have you tested remands btw Lukas? I'm not talking out of my ass you know, I seriously think there should be some in the md. Don't know what the md should exactly look like though..

Bahamuth

03-20-2008, 02:11 PM

I want to share some of my thoughts here as well. I don't have that much experience with Spring Tide (I played at 1 or 2 tournaments I think, before I got my Resets) but I have been playing Solidarity for quite some time now.

I'd like to emphasize that Spring Tide cannot function anywhere near equally to Solidarity or Permanent Waves. Unlike Spring Tide, these decks have way stronger late-games than this deck does, and therefore act similarly to a control deck. Spring Tide can't accomplish this result, because it utilises untappers that are palyed to be fast, NOT to be especially strong. Therefore, Spring Tide will need to resolve a High Tide before it can win at all, which is an issue both Solidarty and Permanent Waves don't have (at least not in the very late game).

Spring Tide should focus on maintaining a healthy balance between on one side speed, and on the other side disruption and consistency. Really the only thing that makes this deck interesting, is the fact that it does have this balance. It's right between faster Tendrills-based decks and combo-control decks like Solidarity and Aluren.

For this very reason, I don't think Remand is a strong card in this deck. Remand generally has 3 purposes:
1) Delay the game
2) Copy Brain Freeze
3) Generate cardadvantage by Remanding your own spells in response to counters.

If Spring Tide does indeed has the speed-consistency balance I explained above, I don't think 1) should really be an issue. The only decks that are truely faster than you, are faster combo decks and Remand really isn't too strong against those decks.

I suppose 2) could be a reason to run Remand, but, as said earlier, you need to find a Brain Freeze to use Remand first.

3) is barely an option, because this deck can't delay the game as long as it wants, and therefore can't use this technique very efficiently.

Deviant, could you please explain why you see Thresh as a positive matchup?

deviant

03-20-2008, 02:44 PM

Like I said, it doesn't have much of a clock and neither does it have infinite counterspells like UW-landstill does. You have enough time to combo at leisure after they run out of counters. Somehow, this is also the mu I'm most comfortable with. All they really have is FoW since daze, and to some extent even double daze can be played around within the time limit they provide you with.
I haven't tested against the newest lists though, my opinion is based on testing against the UG list that won worlds or something. (the one with shitloads of counterspells) And in tournament play Meddling Mage wasn't much of a concern. (That was also the first tournament I played after ~5 years of not playing magic, so I probably didn't play perfectly :) )
Back then counter/top wasn't everywhere though, now it is. That's why I said I think of it as a favourable mu. Back then I considered and opening of tropical island as a bye.

All the points made about remand are valid btw. I'm seriously starting to doubt myself. I did however, just find someone who "agrees with me":

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=7303

(It's an old list though. And no fetches probably because he must have anticipated a lot of stifle, judging by the amount of blue in top8 he must have been on the mark. Or I don't know.)

AnwarA101

03-20-2008, 08:56 PM

Since I have quite a lot of experience with Spring Tide (tested it with my friend Sebastian Ofner for months before GP Lille - he made Day 2 with it), I will try to adress some of the questions:

- @Tacosnape: Spring Tide and Permanent Waves play very differently. Spring Tide constantly comboes out on turn 3, whereas Permanent Waves is slower (turn 4) but less immune to creature hate.
There is a reason why nobody runs Candelabra in Spring Tide: Spring Tide's speed is defined by the untap engine of CoF and Snap, which is actually quite strong (and much faster than Solidarity's and Permanent Waves' engine). Candelabra would make the deck much slower. Cards like Candelabra and Reset want you to play as many lands as possible before you combo off, maximizing their effect. Spring Tide on the other hand doesn't. You can normally combo off with two lands in play and drop the third one in the middle of your combo (before casting the first Turnabout). So, in my opinion, Candelabra doesn't fit into Spring Tide, because it takes away from it's strenghth (the speed), without adding enough.

I find this somewhat interesting, but I'm not convinced the speed of using the Cloud of Faeries/Snap is worth the vulnerability it brings as well as it doesn't untap all of your lands. If you are planning to go off with only 3 lands then its true that Cloud of Faeries/Snap at least untap 2/3s of your lands, but the problem is that if you do go longer in the game then Cloud of Faeries/Snap diminish in their effectiveness. I'm just wondering if Permanent Waves is the evolution of Spring Tide. Is Cloud of Faeries/Snap or Candelabra/Mind over Matter the better choice? I am sure I'm biased, but I feel that Candle/MoM is better because I've tried both.

TheRock

03-21-2008, 10:49 AM

I'd like to emphasize that Spring Tide cannot function anywhere near equally to Solidarity or Permanent Waves. Unlike Spring Tide, these decks have way stronger late-games than this deck does, and therefore act similarly to a control deck. Spring Tide can't accomplish this result, because it utilises untappers that are palyed to be fast, NOT to be especially strong. Therefore, Spring Tide will need to resolve a High Tide before it can win at all, which is an issue both Solidarty and Permanent Waves don't have (at least not in the very late game).

This seems like a misconception. Solidarity has a higher mana curve and has a much harder time finding lands early in the game. I find that many smart control players can steal wins from Solidarity simply by utilizing their early counters on Impulses and obvious "I need mana" Brainstorms. Spring Tide doesn't have this problem as much since it's cantrips can dig further, it runs more of them in the one-drop category, and eight of them impose that the unsuspecting player counter the spell coming after it instead. Solidarity has major consistency issues in GETTING to that stage, especially against decks that run cards like Stifle, Force Spike, Ancestral Visions, and Duress, but once it does reach that stage, then it's generally lights out. Spring Tide really only has problems late-game when its few maindeck metagame/personal customization slots don't help in that department (well, or it hits the proverbial Stifle wall and craps out.)

Permanent Waves has the exact same number of lands as Solidarity, although it's cantrips are quite a bit better. I'll admit that Waves has a better late-game than Spring Tide because I don't see or understand why it wouldn't, but I don't see how Spring Tide can't be effective late either.

Based on the knowledge that I knew (or remembered might be more like it) in 2005-2006, the reason many late-game cards weren't discussed is because, at that time, people felt that additional Cunning Wishes and Brain Freezes were better choices for making the deck have a better late-game than many of the other cards suggested. I don't 100% know what is and isn't applicable about information that is a few years old now, but outside of Ponder and Wipe Away (Spell Snare probably came out after then too), IMHO I really haven't seen any new cards for this deck whatsoever regardless of what point in the game they work the best. I don't see why somebody couldn't run 1 Candelabra in here in order to add another untap spell though.

Threshold isn't a great matchup IMHO, but it can be a lot better depending on what it is running and it isn't running. UGr Threshold is favorable since many of them don't run Thoughts of Ruin anymore and their reach really isn't that impressive. UGw Threshold is favorable too because Meddling Mage really doesn't hurt all that much and Armageddon isn't run as much. UGrw Threshold is probably the easiest since it is the least likely to run Counterbalance and Spell Snares over removal. UGb Threshold is a total nightmare because Thoughtseize hurts and Counterbalance usually follows behind it. UG Threshold runs more annoying cards like Stifles and extra Snares over StPs and the matchup really isn't that good.

Regardless of Threshold variant though, CB = :eek: , :mad: , and :cry: .

Finally, there are four things in general to remember about Snap:

Goblin Warchief is a 2/2, not a 2/1, and is critical to Goblins beating you early.
Cephalid Breakfast needs two creatures on the board in order to win.
Meddling Mage hates it to death.
The 2nd High Tide is an untap spell of sorts even if Snap won't work.

If this sounds like a lot of theory and not much "logical thinking", then I apologize far in advance. The idea isn't to scare anybody off; it's just to get more discussion started.

Bahamuth

03-21-2008, 11:22 AM

This seems like a misconception. Solidarity has a higher mana curve and has a much harder time finding lands early in the game. I find that many smart control players can steal wins from Solidarity simply by utilizing their early counters on Impulses and obvious "I need mana" Brainstorms. Spring Tide doesn't have this problem as much since it's cantrips can dig further, it runs more of them in the one-drop category, and eight of them impose that the unsuspecting player counter the spell coming after it instead. Solidarity has major consistency issues in GETTING to that stage, especially against decks that run cards like Stifle, Force Spike, Ancestral Visions, and Duress, but once it does reach that stage, then it's generally lights out. Spring Tide really only has problems late-game when its few maindeck metagame/personal customization slots don't help in that department (well, or it hits the proverbial Stifle wall and craps out.)

I really disagree here. It is a fact that Solidarity has a higher mana curve than Spring Tide, but really, the difference isn't that big. It certainly won't make the difference in control matchups for finding land at least, especially because Solidarity runs 2 more land. In a version with 4 Opt, it's very rare you miss your first 3-4 land drops.
Countering early cantrips as a control player is in my opinion the worst thing you can do. Usually, Solidarity runs more cantrips than Spring Tide (4 Brainstorm, 4 Impulse, 4 Opt and 2 Flash of Insight) and I don't think the deck really cares if it's being slowed down by the opponent. The counters will usually be the only thing control players have to fight you, and using them early probably means they will be out of options for the next couple of turns.

Permanent Waves has the exact same number of lands as Solidarity, although it's cantrips are quite a bit better. I'll admit that Waves has a better late-game than Spring Tide because I don't see or understand why it wouldn't, but I don't see how Spring Tide can't be effective late either.

Another reason Spring Tide doesn't have a strong late-game, is the fact that it absolutely needs to resolve a High Tide in order to win the game. The opponent could just focus all of his counters on that card, and the Spring Tide player won't ever be able to produce enough storm.

TheRock

03-21-2008, 03:49 PM

I really disagree here. It is a fact that Solidarity has a higher mana curve than Spring Tide, but really, the difference isn't that big. It certainly won't make the difference in control matchups for finding land at least, especially because Solidarity runs 2 more land. In a version with 4 Opt, it's very rare you miss your first 3-4 land drops.
Countering early cantrips as a control player is in my opinion the worst thing you can do. Usually, Solidarity runs more cantrips than Spring Tide (4 Brainstorm, 4 Impulse, 4 Opt and 2 Flash of Insight) and I don't think the deck really cares if it's being slowed down by the opponent. The counters will usually be the only thing control players have to fight you, and using them early probably means they will be out of options for the next couple of turns.

Solidarity runs more land and does have more cantrips; however, those cantrips are so completely inferior at finding land (and costing more mana) that Solidarity has to take quite a few more mulligans to get land than Spring Tide does. In addition, Solidarity almost always needs 4 lands to win the game instead of 3 even with, total number of lands combined as well, relatively equivalent land-searching abilities.

Your second paragraph is very worrisome to me. Your objective is to win the game, not play by the "philosophical rules". MUC, for example, can't beat Solidarity by trying to be the late-game deck; it has to be the aggressor and take chances early or scoop. Any control deck that thinks it doesn't have the better late-game has to (1) establish a reasonable clock and (2) make sure that said clock is good enough. Solidarity can probably laugh through 4 FoWs and 4 C-spells with 7 mana and the better components but it has a ridiculously harder time with less mana or less major components.

Speaking of which, I generally have no problems winning with Spring Tide once I reach seven mana without High Tide. By that time, my hand is loaded with the cards that I want and I've probably chucked multiple Turnabouts at you by then on top of multiple High Tides. Of course, that's pending on Daze and the opponent's deck and other instances of the like, but playing eleven-thirteen cards before the Brain Freeze isn't very hard when my opponents' counters will be two of them.

No deck is completely perfect. None. No two styles of play are either. But considering the metagame is loaded with aggro-control, fast combo, and Goblins which still win in a short amount of time, is smashing Landstill alone good enough to merit running a deck?

Lukas Preuss

03-25-2008, 11:04 AM

First thing I want to say now is that this conversation is one I deeply appreciate. This deck has not been touched in ages and it is truly a shame, since it's actually a pretty good deck to lure people into legacy.

[...]

So I would state that in this deck the best cantrips are in this order:
1&2) Brainstorm & Ponder
3) Serum Visions
4) Sleight of Hand

Let me just say that the feeling is mutual. I really appreciate this discussion. Eventhough this deck is by no means DTB or tier 1 material, it is a very solid one and a blast to play (also, the only expensive card is FoW, which everyone that wants to get into Legacy needs at some point - I think this deck might be one of the best decks when it comes to entering the format without much money available).

I play Sleight of Hand, eventhough Serum Visions might be better precombo. Granted, Visions is better when it comes to setting up a good hand before the combo, but Sleight of Hand is sometimes twice as good as Serum Visions when you combo off. Also, I like to choose what I draw. I hate Serum Visions unconditional draw... but this might be just a personal preference. I guess running Serum Visions would be just as good as running Sleight of Hand.

...

I agree with Bahamuth's arguments about Remand. I know the guy who piloted the Spring Tide list you posted, deviant. I really respect him as a player, since he is one of the best people to pilot combo decks in Western Germany, but his list looks somewhat unrefined. Running 4 Brainstorm without any fetchlands seems really bad. Stifle was never relevant enough in the meta to justify such a card choice. I guess he had other reasons to not run fetchlands (budget?).

I'm just wondering if Permanent Waves is the evolution of Spring Tide. Is Cloud of Faeries/Snap or Candelabra/Mind over Matter the better choice? I am sure I'm biased, but I feel that Candle/MoM is better because I've tried both.

Permanent Waves seems like a different attempt to the same concept as Spring Tide. Both are sorcery speed High Tide combo decks that rely on different engines to generate mana. I'm not really sure if Candle/MoM is clearly better... but I agree that it is a really strong engine. I have lost games when playing Permanent Waves though, because I wasn't able to combo off early enough (turn 3 is almost more impossible for Permanent Waves as it is for Solidarity). Spring Tide is different to Solidarity and PW, because it is at least a turn faster and runs "removal" in the form of Snap in the maindeck, which takes care of other hate like Meddling Mage. Of course, all these decks get hit by Counterbalance which makes them almost unplayable in the current meta. I have tooled aroung with a green splash for cards like Krosan Grip (as a Wish target) or Reverent Silence against Counterbalance.

I find that many smart control players can steal wins from Solidarity simply by utilizing their early counters on Impulses and obvious "I need mana" Brainstorms.

I find this funny, because as a Solidarity player I sometimes just bluff this, when I expect my opponent to counter my cantrips (like I play Brainstorm on turn two without my second land drop). If he counters it, I just smile at him, make my land drop, and feel as if I had played a duress for U. Of course, this is a solic tactic IF the Solidarity player is mana screwed, but if he has enough lands, you will lose the game because of this.

deviant

03-26-2008, 02:35 AM

It is sad that there's not really anything worth discussing here :(
(No, I do not find discussing PW worth time and effort. The deck is more vulnerable to counterspells without being faster, or more reliable against aggro. Doesn't sound like a stronger combo to me.)
Also, the list at the first page is "optimal", a well tuned presentation. The only card I would like to add there would be sb spell snare - the card solves too many problems not to play. That slot boils down to: BeB/Disrupt/Spell Snare.

And I would also not play all of the silver-bullets the suggested sb presents, but those are all meta-calls.

Also, I would play 4 md snap. Don't know what to cut for it atm though, and that is a bit of a metagame-call also.

AnwarA101

03-27-2008, 01:34 PM

Permanent Waves seems like a different attempt to the same concept as Spring Tide. Both are sorcery speed High Tide combo decks that rely on different engines to generate mana. I'm not really sure if Candle/MoM is clearly better... but I agree that it is a really strong engine. I have lost games when playing Permanent Waves though, because I wasn't able to combo off early enough (turn 3 is almost more impossible for Permanent Waves as it is for Solidarity). Spring Tide is different to Solidarity and PW, because it is at least a turn faster and runs "removal" in the form of Snap in the maindeck, which takes care of other hate like Meddling Mage. Of course, all these decks get hit by Counterbalance which makes them almost unplayable in the current meta. I have tooled aroung with a green splash for cards like Krosan Grip (as a Wish target) or Reverent Silence against Counterbalance.

I don't want to lose too much focus on Spring Tide, but I just wanted to point out that in my experience while Spring Tide could go off turn 3, it fizzled a good deal of the time. This is like starting a road trip, but having your engine give out before you get to your destination. Is it really useful to go off turn 3 if you aren't really going to win? That was my experience with Spring Tide. Permanent Waves can go off turn 3 and when it does, it actually goes off. I prefer the reliability of Permanent Waves even if in some cases which it might be slightly slower than Spring Tide, though I don't think it is substantially slower.

Happy Gilmore

03-27-2008, 02:33 PM

I don't want to lose too much focus on Spring Tide, but I just wanted to point out that in my experience while Spring Tide could go off turn 3, it fizzled a good deal of the time. This is like starting a road trip, but having your engine give out before you get to your destination. Is it really useful to go off turn 3 if you aren't really going to win? That was my experience with Spring Tide. Permanent Waves can go off turn 3 and when it does, it actually goes off. I prefer the reliability of Permanent Waves even if in some cases which it might be slightly slower than Spring Tide, though I don't think it is substantially slower.

I <3 Permanent Waves. That is all.

kingpong

03-28-2008, 06:28 AM

Permanent Waves can go off turn 3 and when it does, it actually goes off. I prefer the reliability of Permanent Waves even if in some cases which it might be slightly slower than Spring Tide, though I don't think it is substantially slower.

I find that going off with Spring Tide on turn three works for about 60/70% of the time. How, would you say are these rates with Permanent Waves? On turn 4, I rarely fizzle with Spring Tide. If Permanent Waves is slightly slower than Spring Tide, it means comboing at turn 4. Then, if the fizzle rate is so low with Spring Tide comboing at turn 4, why play Permanent Waves which has a worse turn 3?

Kanti

07-30-2008, 05:10 PM

This deck recently won a tourny in Berlin, and another dude piloted it to a 6th in place finish same tourny: http://www.deckcheck.net/event.php?event=Legacy++Berlin+Juni+2008

I've been trying to decide if I should play this or Solidarity, and still haven't quite made up my mind. This deck seems to be the better choice, even though you can't go off in the face of lethal damage, since it is faster, fizzles less, has a better card draw suite, and does have better SB answers in the form of Defense Grid. Speed might not matter much in the meta, but an opponent top-decking a FoW or a Daze or whatever really sucks. If anyone else can further speculate, it would be appreciated.

Also, Trade Routes has been really amazing in testing, but so has Muddle, and you really need those Spell Snares there. Don't know where I was going with that, but yeah.

Creatures [4]
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries

Spells [40]
1 [SC] Brain Freeze
4 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [JU] Cunning Wish
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [FE] High Tide
4 [SOK] Ideas Unbound
3 [TE] Meditate
4 [8E] Merchant Scroll
1 [RAV] Muddle the Mixture
4 [LRW] Ponder
3 [UL] Snap
2 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [US] Turnabout

Sideboard
1 [SC] Brain Freeze
1 [TE] Capsize
3 [8E] Defense Grid
2 [OD] Divert
1 [DS] Echoing Truth
1 [TE] Meditate
1 [UL] Rebuild
1 [US] Stroke of Genius
1 [TE] Turnabout
1 [DIS] Vision Skeins
2 [TSP] Wipe Away

I like the Divert tech, but I don't see the room to sb in more than 2, and having a Wipe Away in the main, and one to wish for post-board versus Thresh is pretty important.

Frid

08-01-2008, 11:25 AM

Hey, i am playing spring tide (i played it at 2 tournaments now).

I like the deck very much, its strong, its fast and it has sex- appeal xD.

Im playing this right now.

3 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
10 Island

4 brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Merchant scroll
4 Cloud of faeries
4 ideas unbound
4 Force of will
4 High tide
3 Meditate
3 Snap
3 Turnabout
3 Cunning wish
3 Serum visions
1 Brainfreeze

SB:

3 Defense grid (good shit against control)
1 capsize (killing with stroke of genius is sexier)
1 snap
1 turnabout
1 meditate
1 echoing truth
1 rebuild
1 wipe away
1 stroke of genius
2 remand (im playing these becouse of the gaeas blessings, people use to SB 1-2 gaeas and i dont use to end the combo with 2+ cunning wish so i sb some of these, it helps also with the storm)
1 brainfreeze
1 BEB

I find the deck way better than solidarity except for the weaker untap engine. It fizzle less and its a turn faster i dont really care about instant speek, just becouse when they combo in response to something i have comboed 1 turn ago :p. Ahh if we just could play frantic search... :smile:

I enjoy when you are in a tournament and you start going off, and people around start looking at you and "oooh" and "aaaah" and even if u could finish the game with brainfreeze you continue with the meditates and turnabout just becouse you have spectators :laugh:

donnhart

08-12-2008, 04:45 AM

Hello Guys,

first of all i want to excuse my bad english: Sorry!

I am that dude who finished 1st Place in the Berlin Tourney with Spring Tide. And i like to see that here are some other crazy people who are interested in playing Spring Tide. :tongue:

I think the most important reason for playing Spring Tide, is that nearly all other Players laugh and do not take care about it. So they dont know how to play against it.

So keep on playing Spring Tide, i would like to see more 1st places on deckcheck.net :cool:
Together, we make it a D2B!

If you wanna discuss something about the Deck, feel free to mail me...

sadface

08-12-2008, 01:25 PM

donnhart

08-12-2008, 02:17 PM

Actually, there are two things I would like to discuss:

1) You're playing a fancy combination of 1 Muddle the Mixture, 1 Twincast and 1 Trade Routes in place of the more traditional 3 Serum Visions. Is this thoroughly tested? Do you think the deck is still consistent enough without the early game card-drawing manipulation of Serum Visions?

2) Most Spring Tide players seem to agree that 16 lands is the way to go. The number of fetch lands, however, varies somewhat between different builds; in the tournament you won you played 6 fetches - which I believe is the most common number - whereas the guy who placed 4th in the same tournament only played 4 (he played the 3 Serum Visions, however). How do you motivate playing 6 fetches instead of, let's say, 5 or 7? Personally I've played with 8 on several occasions with some success.

1) The main reason for playing this three cards is that i like to be flexible precombo. Serum Visions are strong in finding land and needed cards, but in my opinion they are not necessary at all. This little toolbox i play is very useful:
-Trade Routes to avoid flood, makes you not fizzle while drawing to much lands
-Muddle is a great counter in the counterwar and fetches all cards which the scroll do not find (faery,traderoutes,merchant scroll,ideas)
-Twincast is the joker and also a hardcounter in the war
These slots are also my boarding plan, they go out for the 3 grids or the 3 divert without making the combo weaker:laugh:

2) I think you can play any number of fetchlands between 6 and 8. In my version is 6 the way to go, because of only 4 one drops (ponder). You do not want to fetch and play brainstorm, you want to play brainstorm and then shuffle useless cards away. So less then 6 costs cardquality, and more do not help you to find land in the earlygame. If you play serum visions, go for 8 fetchlands to increase the chance of higher quality.

I hope you can get what i want to tell you with that terrible english :cry:

Frid

08-12-2008, 09:12 PM

Kanti

08-12-2008, 09:20 PM

What is your boarding plan for every match up? Also, gratz on the win ; D!

And hrm, although Trade Routes has been really good, and so has Twincast, but I enjoy having 2 Spell Snares in their place. They solve so many problems.

donnhart

08-13-2008, 02:30 AM

Hey i have seen the trade routes idea and i liked it very much, i didnt test it yet but i supose that when you play one then you win, all your tutors can be used to untap effects and keep drawing with the trade routes, i have to test it.

Anyway i play 16 lands but also 11 cantrips, isnt 16 lands too low if you cut the serum visions? Whats your usual target with muddle the mixture? isnt merchant scroll for muddle the mixture and then tutor for trade routes a little mana expensive? didnt u try playing 2 trade routes?

You are right! I never fizzle when trade routes hit the board:laugh:
Only 16 lands with 8 cantrips seems low, but isn´t. You only need to have 2 lands in pay when going off, because you can draw into your third land drop.

My usual target with muddle is trade routes, faery and sometimes ideas. Going with scroll > muddle > trade routes is expensive, sure. But if you have to go that way, you are not in mana trouble. If it lacks on mana you will go for turnabout or snap. If you are low on mana and need draw, you will go for meditate with the scroll. I like to have the choice, and playing trade routes gives the chance to play around every kind of hate (blessing etc).
I never tryed playing 2 trade routes, because the second routes seems to be a dead card and wether the first neither second is needed for the win.

What is your boarding plan for every match up? Also, gratz on the win ; D!

And hrm, although Trade Routes has been really good, and so has Twincast, but I enjoy having 2 Spell Snares in their place. They solve so many problems.

Thank you:laugh:
I dont like the spell snares. I had tested them and they did not make the cut.
The only thing you want to counter is the counterbalance, but an eot wipe away deals with it, too. Also i dont like drawing dead cards when going off.

My boarding plans:
Against Control,AggroControl:
- Trade Routes
- Muddle/Twincast/Brainfreeze (2 of 3, depends on the build)
+ 3 Defense Grid

Deadguy,Sui,Discard
- Brain Freeze
- Twincast
- Ideas
+ 3 Divert
Trade Routes helps here much. It protects your lands from getting destroyed.
But its not a good matchup at all :frown:

Dragon Stompy,Stax,Chalice Aggro
- Muddle
+ Echoing Truth
Maindeck bounce is necessary here. If you can FoW their threats, you will have enough time to deal with the chalice/trinisphere.

Survival,Rock,Loam
no sideboarding at all, these matches should be a cakewalk :laugh:

Belcher,Dredge
- Twincast
+ Echoing Truth

TES
- Trade Routes
+ Echoing Truth

Iranon

08-18-2008, 12:54 PM

Personally, I quite like Muddle the Mixture; it's a fairly powerful tutor in this deck.

However... what is the real reason for Trade Routes over Braingeyser? Saving land from LD doesn't seem a big priority; we have so much draw that lands destroyed isn't the problem, land drops missed is (which TR doesn't aid).
I also see a little advantage in not having to invest a ton of mana into a spell that might be countered... but generally, it seems like Briangeyser would be far more powerful.

donnhart

08-18-2008, 01:56 PM

I added Trade Routes because i hate fizzling by drawing 3 lands in a Meditate. Braingeysir doesnt help comboing when you are on low Mana, Trade Routes do. You can cast it before going of, and it helps little against Sinkhole/Vindicate.
Drawing about 20 cards while comboing seems to be a win more...

Gocho

08-18-2008, 06:21 PM

In my meta, a lot of decks sideboards Gaea's Blessing vs Painter-Combo.
I want to play Spring Tide this Friday, but I have some questions:

How can you avoid it? I don't see stifle or Tormod's Crypt in your version.

And how can you defeat Dragon Stompy with a Chalice at 1 the first turn?

deviant

08-18-2008, 06:34 PM

Put a wishable Stifle/Trickbind in your sb, and a Rebuild for the DS?

You can also setup the combo-kill so that you can just cast a new, lethal BF in response to the Blessing-trigger and then wish-> Stroke.

overseer1234

08-18-2008, 06:44 PM

Rebuild helps against DS (as does countering their relevant threats), and just going infinite (capsize overkill) and wish for stroke of genius will make gaea's blessing pretty useless.

Dark_Cynic87

08-22-2008, 03:54 PM

how do you go "infinite" with Capsize? I'm REALLY new to this deck, and a walkthrough would be great. (By really new I mean built it at GenCon, goldfished with it maybe 5 times so far). I'm actually still short by 2x Merchant Scrolls and 3x Ideas Unbound, but otherwise it's complete.

Pce,

--DC

TeKo

08-22-2008, 04:02 PM

Limz

08-25-2008, 08:48 PM

Cloud in play
min. 3 H Tides played
5UUU open

|-> 1. play Capsize+Buyback
| 2. bounce Cloud
|_ 3. play Cloud untap 2 Lands

Not very good with these requirements you should win anyway.
Or is there an easier way?

Infinite storm Combo
3 Tides played, a COF in play, and three islands untapped:
1) Play Capsize with buyback targeting Faerie (floating UU)
2) Play Faerie, untap and repeat
3) Use your remaining island/mana to freeze opponent and win.

Infinite Storm+mana
4 tides played, a COF in play, and two island untapped
1) same as above but you'll have floating UUU instead of UU
2) Play Faerie, untap and repeat and you'll get an extra U floating everytime you repeat.
3) Use both brainfreezes and stroke of genius on your opponent (backed up with all your Force of Wills) for Godly kill. Playing stroke is a must here or you'll just burn yourself :tongue:

ScatmanX

08-28-2008, 02:09 PM

Hello everybody. 1st post here and on the forum. Excuse me for the bad english.

I saw, in the earlier posts, someone did a math, calculating the odds of winning on the draw and on the play, and on the draw were always grater. Does it meas that, if we win de roll to game 1, we should choose to draw first, not to play?

thanks.

donnhart

08-28-2008, 05:25 PM

If i win the dice (what rarely happens) i never choose to draw. I dont want the opponent give the chance finding and dropping hate before i go of.

Gocho

09-20-2008, 07:00 AM

Yesterday I play a little tournament (14 players).
I became 3rd losing only two times in all the day. Both vs Eva Green.

The first one match I won easily in 3rd or 4th turn.
The second one I only draw two lands in 20 cards, 0 ponders and 0 brainstorm :frown:
The 3rd one I started the combo and saw an Orim's Chant in response to Ideas Unbound, breaking a fetch for Savannah :cry: . I had a meditate and 6 mana left, but didn't play it searching a FOW because I had a Merchant Scroll on hand and can try to combo the next turn. After Ideas resolves I draw a FOW :mad:
The next turn I starts the combo again and after playing some cards I have two FOW, three Cunning and a bunch of lands on hand. I Cunning for untap effect (three manas lefts) and I forgot to put any untap effect in my sideboard ! :eek:
The four Turnabout was in my maindeck (in any case I need one more mana) and didn't have chain of vapor or snap. So I lose this game.

For my next tournament I expect that I'll do even better. 3rd place aren't bad for my first Spring Tide tournament.

Any one has try Flash of Insight? Solidarity players BF himselfs to put Flash on the graveyard (and a bunch of Blue spells) and put the rest of the deck in order so they can combo without problem...

Mantis

09-20-2008, 09:04 AM

A friend of mine played this deck in a tournament and he's a very solid player. Top 8-ing almost every tourney he goes to, however when he decided to give this deck a spin he went 2-3. He told me he was never ever going to pick up the deck again and hated it.

My question; did he just scrub out with bad luck, or is the deck just very bad in today's metagame?

Gocho

09-20-2008, 09:45 AM

The deck isn't easy to play. You need a lot of matchs to make good decisions about wich card search, wich cast in every moment (Ideas or Meditate with only three lands?) and how sideboard vs other decks.

If your friend didn't test the deck one or two weeks before the tournament it's completely normal that he went 2-3.

And finally the deck it's a bye vs counterbalance or discard if you don't have your MD and sideboard specially designed vs them. The old versions don't work very well in this aspect.
In Solidarity, Cryptic Command helps a lot vs counterbalance, but I haven't done any test with Spring Tide yet.
Vs discard you can play Divert, Disruption or Spell Snare. A Meditate before your turn if your opponent doesn't expect to have a new turn helps too.

donnhart

09-21-2008, 06:53 PM

QUOTE Gocho:
If your friend didn't test the deck one or two weeks before the tournament it's completely normal that he went 2-3.

Quoted for truth!

Spring tide isnt a very good choice if you expect some suicide and/or counterbalance.dec.
Flash of Insight is not nessasary, because your draw is better than Solidaritys. I had tested Cryptic Command and i think he isnt as good as he is in Solidarity. You dont want to left 4 mana open to counter something, go for Cunning Wish -> Wipe away and bounce the cb eot, then win in your turn! :cool:

Gocho

09-22-2008, 03:23 AM

Flash of Insight is not nessasary, because your draw is better than Solidaritys.

Flash of Insight let you make some little tricks with Brain Freeze and Remand, but I haven't test it yet.

I had tested Cryptic Command and i think he isnt as good as he is in Solidarity. You dont want to left 4 mana open to counter something, go for Cunning Wish -> Wipe away and bounce the cb eot, then win in your turn! :cool:

Cunning + Wipe are 6 mana EOT, Cryptic Command are only 4, and can counter CB before it would be a problem. And Command helps a lot in other matchs too. (Solidarity + Cryptic Command report here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10963)

In any case, 2 Cryptic Command are almost $40-$50 so I will try another solution for CB :tongue:

donnhart

09-22-2008, 04:06 AM

Dont make the mistake to compare Spring Tide with Solidarity. Its a different deck. Freeze + Remand + Flash are nice, sure. But in Tide those tricks arent needed, because you are faster and you have stronger draw/tutor power.

But go for it and test Command and Flash, then you will see what i mean. :wink:

Gocho

09-22-2008, 07:11 AM

What i can see it's that Spring Tide has access to less mana that Solidarity, but combo faster :laugh:

I need more gametest with the deck, but I like it a lot

Piceli89

09-22-2008, 08:02 AM

I always appreciated this deck, and recently I decided to build it, becuase it's so funny to play and it's also a valorous way to examine your playing skills with a deck which is,surely, not easy to play.
I wanna ask you only a question: I saw that several people confirmed how it's almost an autoloss when an opposing counterbalance lands on the ground, but I had an enormous difficulty also, of course, in managing to keep a decent bunch of cards to combo -off with when I tested against black-discarders decks. I wanna ask that german guy who ploted spring tide on the top of a tourney (donnhart?): how do/did you face those enemies ? i mean, it's almost impossible to win against those typologies of decks, I wanna know how can we manage to face these threats in a consistent way. I always sided in Divert g1 e g2, but , of course, it's not easy to rely on 3 cards to prevent a heavy discard suite (about 12 cards, which magically, always appear in opponent's hand in the first turns).. Are there any techs to fight the fucking duresses, thoughtseizes and hymns ( not counting the land destruction..), apart from brainstorming in response and hoping that divert comes in our hands?
And what do you usually side in against them , only divert ? and which card do you take out ? trade routes ( which, in my case, is a Peek), twincast and..?
I wanna know these things because I'm seriously indecided whether to choose spring tide or solidarity, which seems to offer a more preventive response against them, having all instants ( " thoughtseize? well, in response i combo out in your face"). I'm in a meta with quite of Eva greens and some TheRocks with few Thresholds, but i DO wanna play this deck and manage to fuck off all their discard-suites/counters, but it seems very hard..
But, on the other side, I don't wanna play a crappy deck such as Burn to get top8.

Zinch

09-22-2008, 09:37 AM

I don't play this deck, so maybe i'm wrong, but... Is not deep analysis a good sideboard option against discard??

donnhart

09-22-2008, 09:41 AM

I had explained my boarding plan few posts ago. Seriously, if your meta is full of EvaGreen/Deadguy/Counterbalance you shouldnt play any Stormcombo.dec.
With the "Divert-Tech" you can increase this Mu to about 30%. (Preboard maybe 15-20%)
There is no way to fight through heavy discard without weakening the combo (which leads to the same result:rolleyes: ).
You can play some Think Twice or Spell Snares main to refill your hand or counter Hymn/Sinkhole. With lucky draw you can combo of before they discard your hand, but this isnt a solid plan...

Try to do goldfishs with 2-3 lands in play and only 3-4 cards in hand, if you are able to win 80% of the attempts, go for the tourney. If not: change the deck for a time.
After my succes with tide, the meta had turned to combohate. So i dropped the deck and play muc for some time -> http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=19886
(not-quite-mono-u-but-with-random-other-colors-control)
I will pick up Spring Tide again, but for now is this my choice :cool: .

Gocho

09-22-2008, 09:58 AM

In my opinion Solidarity it's better that Spring Tide vs Discards.dec, because with remand you only need storm of 7 + BF + Remand + BF again. It's easy to do with 4-6 lands in play and only one reset.

Spring Tide needs storm of 15-16 + BF to win and it's very difficult to do with all the Duress and Hymns around you.

But I'm with donnhart, if you have an anticombo meta don't play combo.

Edit:
Anyone have try Shappire medallion or Locket of yesterdays in the Snap slot?

donnhart

09-23-2008, 06:45 AM

I didnt test Locket or Medallion, but the idea seems at least interesting.
Medallion enables to combo of without High Tide, which could be great sometimes. But i have no idea what to cut for 2-3 Medallion.
Locket isnt worth trying, i think.

Derklord

09-23-2008, 09:17 AM

Anyone have try Shappire medallion or Locket of yesterdays in the Snap slot?
I did try Locket but it just sucked. It sucks in your start hand and moreso when you draw it later.

Didn't try Medallion, though...

Morim_Brightsmoke

10-04-2008, 06:38 PM

Hey There,
I was reading about a Type 1 version of this deck and I came across an interesting idea that I had never considered and didn't know if other people had really though about it.

Summer Bloom
1G
Sorcery
You may play up to three additional lands this turn.

Now I know that it is very dangerous to play non basics in this deck but if this card allows me to go off more easily with less lands in play initially. Also, it turns the dead draws of lands into something useful. An on average i would guess as useful as an untap spell. For a given two mana untap spell we average 2 to 4 mana. This spell average a >4 mana increase. It seems like it might be worth it though it cannot be fetched with scroll (obv) it can be fetched with mystical.

deadlock

10-04-2008, 06:50 PM

I dont think its currently worth the green splash, on the other hand green gives us foremost Krosan Grip and Xantid Swarm.

If they decide to unban Time Spiral this could be decent though

Dark_Cynic87

10-04-2008, 07:50 PM

But I'm with donnhart, if you have an anticombo meta don't play combo.

That statement just shows that a.) you don't know how to play combo effectively and b.) that you may not just play MONO BLUE combo in an anti-combo meta...

Trade Routes has proven itself to me time and again. I don't know why people refuse to play it. It turns every land you draw into a Lonely Sandbar, only just a little worse (stifleable, but honestly, is that really a concern?)...

Pce,

--DC

KillemallCFH

10-04-2008, 07:54 PM

It turns every land you draw into a Lonely Sandbar, only just a little worse (stifleable, but honestly, is that really a concern?)...Lonely Sandbar is also stifleable.

Dark_Cynic87

10-04-2008, 07:56 PM

True story. My bad. Shit, I even knew that...

Pce,

--DC

Frenger

10-07-2008, 12:21 PM

So I've been playing this deck recently. I sold most of my cards to get into vintage unproxied, but i kept FoW and fetchlands, so this deck was a logical choice costing me about 25 dollars and an afternoon of trading to build.

Mana
10 Island
3 Delta
3 Strand

Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries

Spells
1 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
4 High Tide
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Ponder
3 Snap
3 Remand
3 Turnabout

Sideboard - in for some change
1 Brain Freeze
1 Capsize -- Nuts, i go infinite so much with this.
3 Defense Grid
2 Divert -- Have never used this card, don't know why its there.
1 Echoing Truth
1 Meditate
1 Rebuild
1 Stroke of Genius -- is it better to stroke the opponent or yourself? Stroking myself is awesome (oh exploitable!) But i often feel its a waste and i would have been better off stroking my opponent.
1 Turnabout
1 Vision Skeins
2 Wipe Away

Its a very slightly modified version of a deck posted a few pages back, the modification being i added remand. I read the whole thread and still don't get why we don't play this card. Remanding my brain freeze in response to a stifle or if i dont have enough storm has been really strong.

I'm becoming alright playing the deck itself, but knowing when to mulligan with this deck has been difficult i've found.

...So, yeah. Remand is better than spell snare. I'm assuming spell snare was there to combat CB? Thats not a huge issue in my meta, and you could always fetch bounce or just remand it and go off on your turn :wink:

TheRock

10-07-2008, 01:04 PM

Gocho

10-08-2008, 04:49 AM

I don't like remand. If you don't have enough Storm to cast BF for 51 cards usually don't have six mana to cast BF + Remand + BF.

I always draw 1-3 FOW after a bunch of draw cards, so when I cast BF I don't need to remand my cards.

Anyway this 3 slots are in the deck to play everything you like. If you want remand, it's ok. I play Trade Routes, Muddle the Mixture and the 4th Turnabout MD, with the 4th snap in the SB.

Divert is here to SB vs discard. After opponent's Dark Ritual, Hymn to Tourach to him is fun :). You can play Disrupt too.
It's fun vs Ichorid too, you can Disrupt Therapies or Divert Dread Return to reanimate an Ichorid or a Putrid Imp instead a big critter. I don't have many problems to win Ichorid except that I can't go to 3rd turn win vs Therapies. If you can counter (Fow or Disrupt) his massive discard spells targeting himself, Brainstorm to hide your key spells and tutor for Echoing truth you can kill him on 4th or 5th turn after SB.

Stroke have some tricks, You can get infinite mana with Capsize and kill if you can't counter stifles or he sideboards Gaia's blessing. You can kill the opponet in your turn after a BF if he cans kill you in his upkeep without draw (can do it with visions skeins too). But I never cast it to draw cards target myself. Wish + Stroke It's a lot of mana to get 3-4 cards.

Frenger

10-08-2008, 06:12 AM

Spell Snare is there because it counters cards lik Counterbalance (except it still isn't that good at it on the draw), Pyrostatic Pillar when you don't have Red Elemental Blast, and Devastating Dreams (even when you have REB, you usually can't lose unless this resolves).

Right now though, I really think running at least one maindeck Brain Freeze is mandatory for a larger tournament. Landstill is still everywhere and if they don't have Duress or Stifle maindeck, then they have NO ANSWER to you if you can manage to generate storm. MUC falls to the same trap, and this is why Soldiarity can easily win games against these decks. If they have Stifle, then games two and three aren't that easy. I generally think that you need two Freezes to pull this off, and I've never consistently resolved Cunning Wish against them, so two MD Freezes might be the way to go but I'm not sold on this.

I have dropped Divert from my sideboard and just 0-2'd Eva Green for a long time because I've found Ichorid to be the matchup I'd rather try to win instead. It's definitely not a good matchup either, but with access to multiple Freezes and Crypts, Spring Tide can win lots of post-board games against them just by finding cards.

I'll post more later on, but back to work I go...

Hmm, counterbalance is not seen very much in my meta, so i'm not sure about spell snare. I like remand as an additional out to stifle, which is more prominent here thanks to dreadnaught decks since i can remand my brain freeze and say thank you for 3 more storm lol. I'ts good to know those are the meta slots though, since now i know what to cut if CB top shows up.

When reading this thread i never got why people ran no brainfreezes MD. With one MD you have 3 Cunning Wishes, 4 Scrolls, and the brain freeze itself, so you more than double your chance of getting it and not being screwed over by a countered wish all at the cost of one slot. Seems good. It also lets you wish for a meditate or turnabout or something else good if you have the brainfreeze in hand.

I don't like remand. If you don't have enough Storm to cast BF for 51 cards usually don't have six mana to cast BF + Remand + BF.

I always draw 1-3 FOW after a bunch of draw cards, so when I cast BF I don't need to remand my cards.

Anyway this 3 slots are in the deck to play everything you like. If you want remand, it's ok. I play Trade Routes, Muddle the Mixture and the 4th Turnabout MD, with the 4th snap in the SB.

Divert is here to SB vs discard. After opponent's Dark Ritual, Hymn to Tourach to him is fun :). You can play Disrupt too.
It's fun vs Ichorid too, you can Disrupt Therapies or Divert Dread Return to reanimate an Ichorid or a Putrid Imp instead a big critter. I don't have many problems to win Ichorid except that I can't go to 3rd turn win vs Therapies. If you can counter (Fow or Disrupt) his massive discard spells targeting himself, Brainstorm to hide your key spells and tutor for Echoing truth you can kill him on 4th or 5th turn after SB.

Stroke have some tricks, You can get infinite mana with Capsize and kill if you can't counter stifles or he sideboards Gaia's blessing. You can kill the opponet in your turn after a BF if he cans kill you in his upkeep without draw (can do it with visions skeins too). But I never cast it to draw cards target myself. Wish + Stroke It's a lot of mana to get 3-4 cards.

Hmm, I didn't think about divert like that lol. I do have one question about the sideboard though. What exactly does defense grid do? Is it like a pseudo orim's chant so you can combo off without worrying about FoW? Because it makes your FoW's useless except when they manage to squeeze one out on your turn. I think i'm missing something here.

Huh, i didn't think about gaea's blessing. That could be relevant if theres alot of painter running around, so good to know about the Stroke kill if you suspect they sided it.

Gocho

10-08-2008, 06:46 AM

Hmm, I didn't think about divert like that lol. I do have one question about the sideboard though. What exactly does defense grid do? Is it like a pseudo orim's chant so you can combo off without worrying about FoW? Because it makes your FoW's useless except when they manage to squeeze one out on your turn. I think i'm missing something here.

Huh, i didn't think about gaea's blessing. That could be relevant if theres alot of painter running around, so good to know about the Stroke kill if you suspect they sided it.

Defense Grid was tech before CounterBalance. A single grid vs control limites the number of counters that your opponent would play against you. If you can play a land every turn you can win 5th turn dropping an unexpected Defense Grid and comboing with the remaining three lands. Control doesn't kill you before 5th turn, so you can wait a little.

You can always BF as usual and if any Blessing appears let everything resolve and go infinite ;)
Solidarity can do it at instant speed forcing to draw the remaining cards of his deck, you can't because playing Faeries it's at Sorcery speed.

Frenger

10-08-2008, 06:54 AM

Defense Grid was tech before CounterBalance. A single grid vs control limites the number of counters that your opponent would play against you. If you can play a land every turn you can win 5th turn dropping an unexpected Defense Grid and comboing with the remaining three lands. Control doesn't kill you before 5th turn, so you can wait a little.

You can always BF as usual and if any Blessing appears let everything resolve and go infinite ;)
Solidarity can do it at instant speed forcing to draw the remaining cards of his deck, you can't because playing Faeries it's at Sorcery speed.

yeah I definitely thought grid cost 3 lol. Is it still being used or has grave hate ( crypt) taken that slot? I see control and ichorid in my meta but little CB.

Gocho

10-08-2008, 07:16 AM

You ALWAYS need two cards in your SB:
1 Meditate (Three whises if you play it MD)
1 Turnabout (Snap if you play it MD)

I lose only a game getting 3rd in my last tournament (a little one with 17 players) because I forget to put an untap card in SB.

Any other card depends on your meta.
3 Defense Grid vs Control (doesn't work against Counterbalance :( )
3 Divert/Disrupt vs Discard
3 Tormod's Crypt/Relic of progenitus (graveyard hate)

Toolbox for Cunning Whis:
1 Brain Freeze
1 Capsize
1 Stroke of Genius
1-2 Echoing Truth (vs tokens and Chalice)
1 Rebuild (vs Chalice, Trinisphere and Affinity)
1 Vision Skeins (I drop this because only uses it to kill the opponent after BF, Stroke do it too for only 2 more mana and I need the slot)
1-2 Wipe Away
1-2 Stifle/Trickbind (vs Fast Combo or lonely Gaea's blessing)

And finally, Solidarity decks are using 2 Cryptic command vs Counterbalance. I don't test it yet.

Choose the cards as you want but the usually is to go 0-2 vs some decks (discard, Ichorid or CB) and center in the others.

Personally I play this, but I have to revise it:
1 Meditate
1 Snap (4th Turnabout MD)
3 Defense Grid
3 Divert
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Capsize
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Wipeaway
2 Stifle

TheRock

10-09-2008, 01:05 PM

Hmm, counterbalance is not seen very much in my meta, so i'm not sure about spell snare. I like remand as an additional out to stifle, which is more prominent here thanks to dreadnaught decks since i can remand my brain freeze and say thank you for 3 more storm lol. I'ts good to know those are the meta slots though, since now i know what to cut if CB top shows up.

When reading this thread i never got why people ran no brainfreezes MD. With one MD you have 3 Cunning Wishes, 4 Scrolls, and the brain freeze itself, so you more than double your chance of getting it and not being screwed over by a countered wish all at the cost of one slot. Seems good. It also lets you wish for a meditate or turnabout or something else good if you have the brainfreeze in hand.

For the most part, from years ago to about a year ago, I've consistently stuck with running 12 one-mana cantrips and an Echoing Truth maindeck instead of cards like Stifle, Spell Snare, and Freeze. CB is definitely around now, Painter has arrived, and Landstill is back in action again.

I hope that nobody took my list and did poorly with it because I didn't explain things enough - I would hate for that to happen. However, having an out to EtW and Faerie Stompy cards was well worth it for me at the time, especially since it wasn't useless with a Cloud of Faeries in play.

When I get a chance, I will post what my skeleton looks like now for sake of comparison. Since you don't see CB much, that's a blessing for Spring Tide.

Frenger

10-16-2008, 06:24 PM

So I took third at FNM tonight with spring tide (Oh yeah, Legacy FNM thats in fact held in thursdays. Europe ftw), not bad for the first time i've ever played it not goldfishing I think.

I decided I didn't like remand too much, and i don't own spell snare, so my list was a bit different.

I didn't run a brain freeze maindeck since i wanted to run AK in full force. Overall I'm undecided as to if it's worth it. I found it underwhelming as a set up card, but quite good once going off. One guy also played AK tonight (he played togless) , but I didn't play him. I would loved to have played that out.

I might cut those for some combonation of 1 brain freeze, spell snare, twin cast or remand. I dont know about spell snare since i see no counterbalance in my meta.

Oh, and i noticed how defense grid is fucking amazing versus Merfolk (mono blue tritons minions).

3 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
10 Island

4 brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Merchant scroll
4 Cloud of faeries
4 ideas unbound
4 Force of will
4 High tide
3 Meditate
3 Snap
3 Turnabout
3 Cunning wish
4 Accumulated Knowledge
0 Brainfreeze

SB:

3 Defense grid
1 capsize
1 turnabout
1 meditate
1 echoing truth
1 Hurkyll's Recall
2 wipe away
1 stroke of genius
2 Divert
1 Brain Freeze
1 Trickbind

I talked to some other guys after the merfolk matchup (final round) and we came to the conclusion that spring tide is better than solidarity, and merchant scroll is the nutz, giving you amazing stability while going off, being an amazing set up card, and shuffle effects 6-10 for brainstorm.

Dark_Cynic87

10-17-2008, 01:38 PM

Frenger

10-17-2008, 01:53 PM

Curious if anyone runs Dream's Grip? I've been debating with a buddy as to how successful it might be in place of say...Cloud of Faeries and Snap? You could run 4x and then have 2x open slots to toy with, and this also gives you 7 untap effects.

1x Brain Freeze is absolutely necessary in the Maindeck, and AK has lost a LOT of it's power due to an overall lack of it in the environment. I don't care that it's a draw-4 if you hit all 4. It's crap.

Pce,

--DC

How does cutting 7 untap effects and adding 4 give you 7 total untap effects? I wouldn't cut snap or faeries as they often let me go off off of one high tide when a turnabout would be either uncastable, or would be better off played later (ie almost always).

If you have one cloud of faeries and one snap, you untap six lands in total, for a cost of six mana. All you need is two islands and a high tide. With 2 dream grip you would untap two lands for a cost of two mana. Since generating 6 mana at 2 mana intervals is remarkably easy (cast high tide, tap one island) i think untapping 6 lands is better than two.

So basically the mana paid:lands untapped ratio is the same, but faeries snap untaps more.

The last nail in the coffin of dream grip is Capsize. You can go infinite with faeries and capsize, but not with dreams grip.

Regarding AK: It is actually played over here, as i mentioned there was another deck in the room playing a full set of ak and intuition, so i would let him intuition 2 in the yard and reap the benefits.

However I do agree that it is probably not ideal.

Dark_Cynic87

10-17-2008, 01:56 PM

How does cutting 7 untap effects and adding 4 give you 7 total untap effects?

10-7+4=7

Basic math...

Frenger

10-17-2008, 02:04 PM

10-7+4=7

Basic math...

Sorry I thought you meant you would end up with the same number of untap effects that you began with. I wouldn't want any less untap effects than i have. What would you put in those flex slots that would be better than Cof and Snap?

Regardless, my last post shows why CoF + Snap are way better that dream grip and 2 random cards.

TheRock

10-20-2008, 07:35 PM

Snap's Time Walk effect doesn't have much effect in the overall metagame now that Threshold simply can use CB and Time Walking Landstill and MUC doesn't do anything, but it still does a great job of making Canonist, Painter, and Dreadnought worse. That doesn't mean that you won't get that fantastic effect in a local metagame though.

Where Snap is decent against Landstill is this simple fact - it gives you mana and lets you play another Cloud if they don't counter it, and it costs two if they do. They can't afford to counter it because they have to counter the other cards you play first. However, it order to make that useful, you need two maindeck Brain Freezes and you need to keep up with dropping lands.

The problem with having one Brain Freeze MD is that it doesn't do much. It doesn't really give you that many more wins, if any, than an extra Serum Visions/Sleight would, and it doesn't give you outs against problem cards. Again, for the American metagame right now, it really has to be two or none.

Snap's Time Walk effect doesn't have much effect in the overall metagame now that Threshold simply can use CB and Time Walking Landstill and MUC doesn't do anything, but it still does a great job of making Canonist, Painter, and Dreadnought worse. That doesn't mean that you won't get that fantastic effect in a local metagame though.

Where Snap is decent against Landstill is this simple fact - it gives you mana and lets you play another Cloud if they don't counter it, and it costs two if they do. They can't afford to counter it because they have to counter the other cards you play first. However, it order to make that useful, you need two maindeck Brain Freezes and you need to keep up with dropping lands.

The problem with having one Brain Freeze MD is that it doesn't do much. It doesn't really give you that many more wins, if any, than an extra Serum Visions/Sleight would, and it doesn't give you outs against problem cards. Again, for the American metagame right now, it really has to be two or none. However, that plan doesn't do a lot against all of ITF and UGb this-and-that around, so meh, I guess you do what you can.

EDIT: This is the skeleton that I use (although please keep in mind that this really doesn't mean anything because I haven't decided on a 2nd color and I do more playing in a local metagame than I do anywhere else):

10 Island
6 fetches

4 High Tide
4 Cloud of Faeries
2 Snap
3 Turnabout

4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
2 Cunning Wish

4 Merchant Scroll
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Serum Visions

Which leaves the 3 slots I think about the most (usually Snap, Serum Visions, Brain Freeze, Spell Snare, Cunning Wish, Echoing Truth, ....)

SB:
1 Island
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Wipe Away
1 Brain Freeze (2 if I'm not running any in the MD)
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Hurkyl's Recall OR Rebuild (or usually 2, but again, depends)
8 slots which change around a lot

ravingxfantasy

01-06-2009, 12:30 PM

I have been out of the game for a year and decided to dust off my good "old" spring tide (actually I just dont have the cash to play something else) and do some testing for a GP trial in 2 weeks, my testing is pretty limited (a few games on MWS per day) and my knowledge of the current legacy metagame isnt that updated. So I 'm hoping to come up with a decent list for the current metagame with some help.

@ The Rock:
The skeleton you posted seems pretty solid, I think not going for a third Snap would be a mistake, snap offers speed and versatality wich is something the deck definitely needs (snap your dreadnaught).

I think having brain freeze maindeck depends on personal preferance, I prefer to pack at least one maindeck and packing 1 cunning wish as back-up for mana efficiency. (I tend to have bad experiences with cunning wish's mana-cost)

So far I have been using 2 lists for testing but I havent decided wich one is better.

Spring Tide:

6 Fetch
10 Island
1 Brain Freeze
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Snap
1 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Meditate
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Force of Will
2 Serum Visions
3 Turnabout
3 Remand
4 High Tide

Sideboard:

1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Wipe Away
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
3 Defense Grid
3 Divert
1 Rebuild
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Echoing Truth
1 Vision Skeins

The list performed decent but does have some flaws, Remand really helped me out a few times stalling the opponent a turn but feels pretty dead when your going off (accept for the times when you play him on your freeze which most times is more overkill than necessary).

After some browsing in my old files I found a second list which got from a friend and used on a FNM legacy tourney,

4 Cloud of Faeries
1 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
4 High Tide
3 Meditate
1 Muddle the Mixture
3 Snap
3 Turnabout
1 Twincast
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Ponder
1 Trade Routes
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island
2 Polluted Delta

# 60

Sideboard:
1 Brain Freeze
1 Capsize
1 Echoing Truth
1 Meditate
3 Divert
1 Rebuild
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Vision Skeins
1 Wipe Away
3 Defense Grid

Muddle the Mixture proved itself to be quite versatile but still seems a bit random as a one off, by packing just 8 cantrips the deck loses a bit of stability in the early game.
Has anyone done testing with several Muddles in the mainboard?

Greetz, RavingxFantasy

Jaynel

01-06-2009, 01:42 PM

I think your sideboard is a tad outdated. Divert seems pretty decent against Team America, but I think Disrupt might be better (as it's also good against storm combo and Thresh). Wipe Away needs to be included, probably over Defense Grid, in order to deal with Counterbalance.

If I were to play Spring Tide (which I wouldn't; TES and ANT are currently much stronger choices) my sideboard would look like this.

2 Wipe Away
3 Disrupt
2 Twincast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Meditate
1 Snap
1 Echoing Truth/Rebuild
1 Brain Freeze

Blue Elemental blasts help slow down Goblins, and Disrupts can be sided in along BEBs for Goyf Sligh/Zoo.
Wipe Away comes in against Dreadstill and Counterbalance Thresh.
Disrupt comes in against Thrash and Team America, maybe Twincast also.
Disrupt and Twincast come in against Tendrils-based storm.

ravingxfantasy

01-06-2009, 02:56 PM

TheRock

01-07-2009, 01:02 PM

I agree with you and running Disrupt over Divert although it is meta dependant.
Defense grid proved today to be good against merfolk but might be a bit of overkill, maybe ill try out a single copy in the sideboard with a mainboard muddle the mixture toolbox. Has anyone so far actually tried a version of this deck with a muddle the mixture tolbox? It seems quite potent, since muddles are never dead and can grab quite a lot, seems like an intresting route to try out.

If your metagame dictates that you run Divert, then that's the way to go. Knowing what you'll face is really important no matter what deck you're playing. If I were to go into a completely unknown American metagame right now, I would DEFINITELY be taking no less than 4 Divert and/or Disrupt though. Beating Team America is a top priority and that matchup can get ugly if you don't slow down that disruption package (but if you do get some time, you'll simply beat them).

Having more than 8 cantrips is really important because this deck simply can't operate on 16 lands and 8 good cantrips that well. (Of course, when you side in Disrupt it does help out in that department but I wouldn't go nuts over it). That's one of the main reasons I usually run only 2 Cunning Wish and never really liked Muddle the Mixture - turn 3 is your fundamental turn and anything that really isn't good before turn 3 needs to be pretty darn powerful.

Since I'm at work and I'm short on time, I would advise running the first build and cutting a Remand for a Cunning Wish (you don't want to run a wishboard without multiple Cunning Wish). I think the 2nd Remand can be pretty much any card that you want it to be.

ravingxfantasy

01-07-2009, 01:59 PM

Agreed, the Dutch metagame is as far as I know pretty unpredictable, so I got no clue wich decks to aim for, but 3 disrupts/divert should stay as a basic staple.
Going for the first list and swapping a remand for a cunning wish sounds like a good plan, the wish does give all the awnsers needed and muddle is pretty slow.
I dont think ill cut another remand since it saved my hide so often.
The sideboard definitely needs some tweaking, and would look something like this on the moment:

3 Disrupt
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
2 Wipe Away
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Rebuild
2 Twincast
1 Echoing Truth
2 Open slots, this spot could be taken by 2 hydroblast/BeB, but im not sure.

TheRock

01-08-2009, 01:01 PM

Sounds like the maindeck is in place then.

Jaynel's sideboard would look pretty good to me but I do have some more insight that I hope will prove helpful.

The thing with Blue Elemental Blast is that you beat Goyf Sligh and Goblins unless they really have a sideboard that will impede your progress. As long as the card you're siding in gets rid of Pillar or Chalice (which players could still run quite a number of if your metagame contains Aluren or other combo decks), it pretty much doesn't matter what it is. I like having one BEB in my sideboard just to Scroll for it or have a cheap 5th out, but the last time I ran 2 BEBs was when Goblins was the deck to beat. Spell Snare always countered either card for me and Echoing Truth/Wipe Away still gets rid of them anyway.

After testing against ANT and TES a bit, I've found Disrupt and Divert to be the keys to winning (although neither matchup is very fun for this deck). Divert on Chant is just awesome and Disrupt can still buy you time if you counter set-up cards. Since I use Merchant Scroll a LOT on turn two (or Ponder/Disrupt #2), I'm usually screwed if I can't win turn three against them. Remand will help fight that cause enough that you may not need to Scroll for a Force as much as I do.

ravingxfantasy

01-08-2009, 02:48 PM

Agreed, BeB/Hydroblast just help to win matches more against red based aggro decks, wich are most times a good matchup anyway.
I dont expect a lot of combo but maybe a fourth disrupt would be in place in case off, its a versatile card and it also improves some other matchups.
Tonight im gonna do some testing online, im still thinking of adding a third remand to the maindeck instaid of a cantrip but im not completely sold yet, some testing hopefully gives a bit more insight.

ScatmanX

01-08-2009, 09:15 PM

I have dissembled my Spring Tide in a while now, and I wat to ask you guys that still run it one thing: Why would you rather play this over something like TES or TEES? (aside from being cheaper)

TheRock

01-09-2009, 01:04 PM

I have dissembled my Spring Tide in a while now, and I wat to ask you guys that still run it one thing: Why would you rather play this over something like TES or TEES? (aside from being cheaper)

While a full powered version of Spring Tide isn't all that cheap, it can also be an issue of what staples the player currently has or is going to get. Blue fetchlands and Forces are mandatory cards to have in Vintage and Legacy, and the rest of the deck really doesn't cost all that much.

I don't know TES and ANT enough to give you "perfect" answers and I REALLY DISLIKE throwing statements about matchups around, but I tend to beat Landstill quite a lot. The only times I've ever lost to Landstill is when I just draw pure garbage and I lose to their beats because I can't go through their counters, they're running Extirpate, or they're running Counterbalance and they have a three-mana cost card on the top. I don't think that TES and ANT are as good against that matchup.

However, I think that TES and ANT have better matchups against Threshold and Team America.

I will definitely concede that TES is a better deck in American metagames (and there is a lot of very useful and valuable information in the discussions here), but I simply have too much experience with this deck to ever think about running TES over Spring Tide in a tournament. Without knowing the metagame though, it's really all speculation.

ravingxfantasy

01-10-2009, 09:33 AM

Agreed, I'm currently playing spring tide because of budget issues and even if I had the money I would still roll Spring Tide because I have a lot of experience with the deck.
I still havent decided on the 2 wish/2 remand or 1 wish/3 remand, wish is obviously a more versatile card but remand does offer some stability for the first turns, it allowed me to take more time in the aggro matchups wich made going off a lot more stable, also in the combo matches remand proved to be a little time walk in some situations.

My currents sidboard is:

4 Disrupt
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
2 Wipe Away
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Rebuild
2 Twincast
1 Echoing Truth
1 Open slot (could be a Hydro/Beb or maybe a third wipe?)

talon7331

03-28-2009, 12:31 PM

So, Spring Tide is my legacy deck, and its a very good deck, but to my great disapointment I havn't seen a lot of my ideas on this thread. I have a lot of good ideas for this deck, and some seem not as good, while some seem a lot better. I will challenge a lot of the previous assertions made here, and hopefully everybody will write back and argue with me so we can get some more development. I will address most of the major issues that I have seen with what other people wrote, but I will start with the goal of the deck.

Goal: Win by Turn 3 (Alternate Goal: Win by turn Four)

With this goal in mind. Any deck that needs an un-tutorable card to win can be written off. Any deck that wants to drop a card with cc more than 3 or 4 (in my deck 3) can be taken out.

So: If we want to win by turn three, Are we worried about aggro? No, aggro cannot win by turn three. Our biggest fear is a combo that goes off before ours does, (iggy pop/ TES). Our other bad matchup is stax and the like, but not AS bad as turn 1 combos.

Now I will begin to discuss deck construction:

Cantrips: 12? No way. Anybody running 12 cantrips is begging to not go off by turn three. (it makes for an EXTREMELY consistent turn 4) but I want to win turn three before control can lock down the board, or aggro can kill me.

Cantrips: 7
Brainstorm 3x
Serum Visions 4x

Yes, I do believe serum visions is better than ponder because it allows you to keep only one of the cards as opposed to having to either keep/throw all three. It also has AMAZING synergy with Mystical Tutor.

Tutors: These are a must for a deck that needs high-tide to win. Period. 4 Merchant Scroll is not enough to gaurentee to draw one every game you don't have a tide or a draw spell, so I add two more.

Tutors: 2 + 6
Merchant Scroll: 4x
Mystical Tutor: 2x
Cunning Wish 2x --Not a tutor, but it fits in here

Some will say that Mystical Tutor is card disadvantage. They are correct, however, when you can't go off without hightide... its a pretty easy play.

Protection: This is another place where I expect people to call me crazy, but the deck works, so at least think about what I'm listing. We have to think back to what really beats this deck (iggy pop, tes, stax)What would be nicer to shut down early combo than chant? Nothing I can think of

MD Protection 5
3x Force of Will
2x Orim's Chant

Force is simply too much card disadvantage to run 4x and chant is better for shutting down combos than trying to simply stop one card from resolving (although countering IGG is clutch, often they will play a chant of their own to stop you from interrupting their combo.)

UNTAP EFFECTS:
I don't understand a lot of what people are thinking in this department. Some people say cloud/snap isn't good... well, i have news for you, they are. here is another news flash: when you only have 3 lands in play turnabout is not good until you've played two high tides at least. I have a better idea for you: Frantic Search. When going off turn three (which is the goal) it unaps all your lands, AND it lets you loot 2. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I ALWAYS end up with lands in my hand. And yes, playing brainstorm and then tutoring or activating a fetch is a good way to ditch two lands. But how about draw 2 cards, untap three lands for 2U. That is what frantic search is (granted as a first untap you may only hit one/zero lands in your hand, but that is rare).

Untap: 11
4x Cloud of Faeries
3x Snap
4x Frantic Search

Draw:
This is the easiest part of the deck. There should be very little contention here, so I will simply say that I leave meditate in board to wish for (to make with wish not such a useless card early on).

Draw: 7 (4)
3x Meditate
4x Ideas Unbound
(4x Frantic Search ) It fits in here too.

OTHER:

Brainfreeze x1
High Tide x4

Strand x4
Delta x2
Hallowed Fountain x3
Island x7

I love this list, and it works well. Feedback wanted/appreciated:cool:

Van Phanel

03-28-2009, 12:46 PM

Frantic Search is banned.

Fail.

Lukas Preuss

03-28-2009, 12:49 PM

Is this a joke? Well, first of all, welcome to the source, we appreciate input from new members, but seriously:

1. Frantic Search is banned. If it wasn't banned, we would already run it in every deck packing High Tide.
2. Serum Visions better than Ponder and Brainstorm? Because of its AMAZING synergy with Mystical Tutor? I don't get it.

Well, you list looks funny and interesting and I bet it's a hell lot of fun, but I don't feel there's any real advantages over the established decklists. Incidentally, I have been doing quite some testing with an entirely new take on Spring Tide lately (no, not Permanent Waves) and it looks quite promising. I will get back to you after more testing and with results.

MasterC

03-28-2009, 01:03 PM

EDIT: too slow

gamegeek2

03-28-2009, 10:39 PM

Candelabra of Tawnos, anyone? Saw it used to good effect in a recent tournament I played in.

bowvamp

03-28-2009, 10:45 PM

That's permanent waves gamegeek. Welcome to the source (sorta).

ddt15

02-02-2010, 07:03 AM

Thread necromancy! Here is my list:

4 High Tide
4 Cloud Of Faeries
4 Snap
3 Turnabout

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate

4 Merchant Scroll
2 Cunning Wish

4 Force Of Will
4 Remand (really shines in this deck).

16 Island

-sb-
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Stroke Of Genius
1 Pact of Negation
2 Echoing Truth
2 Fact Or Fiction
2 Trickbind
1 Twincast
1 Wipe Away
2 ?

I'm really fond of Remand in this deck; usually it acts as a Time Walk on turn 2, or you can use it to 'bounce' your High Tide if it meets countermagic, allowing you to go for the combo again the next turn. Occasionally it can also copy Brain Freeze.

Incidentally; would unbanning Frantic Search and maybe even Time Spiral have any impact on Legacy at all? The only deck that can use them effectively is Tide, and I don't think it changes anything to the decks bad matchups.

Silent Requiem

02-02-2010, 07:21 AM

I agree that Remand is an valuable additon to the deck. While Spring Tide is clearly distinct from Solidarity, there are enough similarities that comparisons can be made, and at least 3 Remand are played in most Solidarity builds. I have recently gone up to 4 copies myself.

What I would say, is that with no maindeck Brain Freeze (twitch! twitch!) running only two Cunning Wish seems a little silly.

What is the counterbalance matchup like for this deck? it's the only matchup I really hate with Solidarity.

-Silent Requiem

ddt15

02-02-2010, 07:49 AM

I would like to maindeck a brain freeze except i'm already short of space. Maybe i will cut a scroll for a maindeck freeze. Counterbalance is a bad matchup but not unwinnable. Especially if you are on the play you can force/remand their turn 2 counterbalance and go off the turn after. If they get top and counterbalance in play it becomes quite tough although you can still try to win through it if they are short on mana to activate Top multiple times. I still have room in the sideboard though maybe some extra Wipe Aways? The worst matchups are no doubt Thresh and Fish as they play alot more counterspells than you and have a fast clock. Its good matchups are all aggro decks, you can even use their creatures to start the combo (for example with only Snaps in hand to generate mana). Dredge/Reanimator decks can be tough; if they get Iona in play you can probably scoop.

MGC_player

06-23-2010, 10:33 AM

I've finally got my hands on 4 Forces, so I am quite happy since I can finally run a more optimized version of my pet deck.

4 High Tide
4 Cloud Of Faeries
3 Snap
3 Turnabout

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate

4 Merchant Scroll
3 Cunning Wish

4 Force Of Will
3 Remand
1 Brain Freeze

6 U fetches
10 Island

-sb-
3 Disrupt
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Stroke Of Genius
1 Capsize
1 Echoing Truth
2 Trickbind
1 Remand
1 Wipe Away
1 Mindbreak Trap - flex slot, may become something else like Cryptic Command or Twincast

Any other thoughts on this before I start running it in an unknown meta?

ScatmanX

06-24-2010, 04:35 PM

My MD is exactly like yours.
Regarding sb, you don't need Trickbind. Nobody runs Gaeas Blessing anymore, and you can fight other cards. And I think the 4th Remand cold be a Twincast on the board.

I think there isn't much to discuss for this deck, until they print new cards.
(yeah, like Preordain...)

Vacrix

06-24-2010, 04:59 PM

On the contrary, I think its worth discussing MD Mindbreak Trap. I think its worth running 1. Especially when you have 4 Merchant Scroll, you can set up against control with it.

ScatmanX

06-24-2010, 05:02 PM

On the contrary, I think its worth discussing MD Mindbreak Trap. I think its worth running 1. Especially when you have 4 Merchant Scroll, you can set up against control with it.

This deck cant ignore the first 2 counterspells the opponent plays like Solidarity can. Here, if they counter High Tide, you just can't combo off. So, fo MB Trap be good, you have to have: 2 High Tides and another counter, or 1 High Tide and 2 Counters.
I actually think Pact of Negation is better here than Trap...

Vacrix

06-24-2010, 05:17 PM

Unless you just take more time to set up and hit your land drops. I guess its much harder to hit the land drops here than in Solidarity. Is it worth running an MD Pact then? And in place of what?

ScatmanX

06-24-2010, 05:29 PM

I do not know if it is worth to MD Pacts. That depends a lot, but if I were, would be in place of Remand. Spring Tide usually don't have the amount of spare mana to make a good use of Remand. And we want to go off Turn 3, so turn 2 you should have Merchant Scroll or more 1cc cantrpis, searching for more lands (once it only run 16...).
Taking more time to set up haven't the advantages it has in Solidarity, because we don't have Resets to make it worth. On the contrary, going off fast, with 1, maaaaaaaybe 2 protection spells, is the best way to play this decks against blue based decks.
BTW, Preordain is f*** good in this deck. Try it (also, don't know on what spot...)

Vacrix

06-24-2010, 05:39 PM

Hmm.. Yes I agree, Spring Tide can't really abuse Remand as well as Solidarity. Maybe just 1 Pact would be worth it to fetch with Merchant's Scroll before the combo turn. Then again, that would be putting all the eggs in one basket, because we wouldn't really have another chance to combo off.

Maybe cutting Remands for Preordains is the right call.

MGC_player

06-24-2010, 06:37 PM

Remand for me has been good for me, but that was when I didn't have the Forces and I also had Serum Visions in the deck. I do agree that this deck can't abuse Remand nearly as well as Solidarity. Now that I have the Forces I think Preordain would be great in the Remand Spot that was occupied by Serum Visions. I am still kinda fond of Remand though since in the past it has saved me when I couldn't generate the lethal storm count when forced to go off turn 2 and 3.

As for the Sideboard, I'll cut the Trickbinds and replace them with Twincast and another Wipeaway.

Edit: As another option, would a splash for a U/G dual be advisable since it would allow running K. Grip in the sideboard?

Vacrix

06-24-2010, 11:51 PM

Green splash? I think its a better investment when you can do more with it. Merely getting rid of CB may not be worth opening up to Wasteland. Especially when you go off with so few lands in the first place. Wipe Away still works and you are fast enough that you don't need to run post-board Moment's Peace like U/g Solidarity.

Gocho

06-25-2010, 04:40 AM

Green Splash gives you a permanent way to crush CB, Fog effects to gain turns vs fast aggro and landdrop spells to generate more mana.

As I said in the M11 Spoiler Thread a deck with the new Draw7 beginning with the initial lists of Spring Tide and adding G, could make a funny deck, I don't know if enough competitive, because you need all your landdrops and you can't use Daze to stop combo, but you can use Fog effects to stop Aggro.

But "FogTide 7" is an horrible name xD

Vacrix

06-25-2010, 04:44 AM

Spring Tide is fast enough not to need the Fog effects. They go off turn 2-4 pretty consistently.

Iranon

06-25-2010, 08:09 AM

I agree. a major draw of Spring Tide is killing reliably by turn 4 on the play, having a decent chance to kill turn 3 on the draw while also having a reasonable number of ways to slow down an aggro opponent (Force, Snap, blocking with Faeries in a pinch).
If Spring Tide isn't faster than the Aggro decks you expect to face (should be rare; most that can match you aren't considered very good since they sacrifice the redundancy and consistency that makes Aggro attractive in the first place) and you consider things like Moment's Peace, don't play Spring Tide.

Combo Winter

06-25-2010, 08:19 AM

The new draw 7 looks pretty good for 5 from M11 looks like s decent addition to this deck.

Vacrix

06-25-2010, 11:51 AM

IDK why it would run it. Like Iranon said, it already has good speed, and that card is horrible MD against control because they get a full grip, possibly with more countermagic, and you would lose the rest of your hand when playing it. You might as well stick to chaining Meditates together.

Dark Ritual

06-25-2010, 12:01 PM

Why play that draw 7 when you can play diminishing returns? D. Returns exiles the top ten cards of your library but does the same exact thing otherwise which is draw you 7 cards to generate storm with all for 2UU instead of 3UU. I'd rather just rely on meditate as it is the deck is already consistent enough without tinkering it to include the draw 7.

To get rid of CB I suggest running wipe away or cryptic command. You use those cards at their EoT step, then go off on your turn. K grip does the same thing as those cards only it destroys it at their EoT step instead of bouncing it to their hand with you comboing out the next turn unless you fizzle mid combo by lacking the pieces somehow.

Vacrix

06-25-2010, 12:06 PM

Cryptic Command is horrible. If I played Spring Tide I'd probably splash green for Grip EOT.

Yes you could just as easily play Dreturns instead, but why would you play that over the Meditates + cantrips + Wish package? It works. No need to innovate that and expose yourself to countermagic.

VITASOY

06-25-2010, 04:56 PM

Can we get some good pilots for this deck to post some game results and strategies, I would like to see this deck grow.
.

Vacrix

06-25-2010, 05:33 PM

Does anyone even play this IRL? I play Solidarity so I could easily take it to my meta at some point for the lols.

MGC_player

06-25-2010, 06:37 PM

I can play this IRL using the list I posted and am very familiar with it. I'll see if I can find some other people to test this with. I'm not yet very familiar with the central GA meta since I just finished my move here.

Edit:
New Sideboard from my list posted a page back

3 Disrupt
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Stroke Of Genius
1 Capsize
1 Echoing Truth
1 Twincast
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Remand
2 Wipe Away

Any thoughts on it?

VITASOY

06-25-2010, 07:11 PM

I play -1 disrupt and +1 Hurkyl's recall for the upcoming changes on July 1st, this deck has a problem with Chalice. I've play tested this deck against stax and MUD many times so maybe I just hate artifacts.

Vacrix

06-25-2010, 09:21 PM

Is Capsize/buyback ever really used? It looks like a wasted slot IMO.

MGC_player

06-25-2010, 10:34 PM

I've actually used Capsize with it's buyback several times in the past. Being able to generate infinite mana and force them to draw their whole deck was how I would win on a few occasions or I used it to keep adding +1 storm until I had a high enough count to finish someone.

ummon

06-27-2010, 12:05 AM

Hey all. I'm a budget player who likes to play legacy, though I haven't played in many competitive tournies yet. I created a burn deck with decent success, but red just isn't my style. :D Well, I'm going to give Spring Tide a try. I'll be goldfish testing a proxy at Boy Scout summer camp (well, not exactly goldfishing, but the only legacy competitive decks anyone will have there are aggro, so...).

Anyways, assuming I like this deck, I'll try it out at the local Austin, TX meta when I go back to college. I hope we can make this a Tier 2 deck someday. :D

Gocho

06-27-2010, 03:54 PM

I make some Top1-2-4 in little tournaments with Spring Tide some years ago.

Counterbalance and Gaddock Teeg seems to be your worst cards. If they didn't play them, you'll be ok.

ScatmanX

07-02-2010, 12:02 PM

Grumpollion

07-04-2010, 03:13 PM

Currently working on a Spring Tide / Solidarity hybrid, with the new spoiled Leyline of Antecipation.
Does anyone think that this could be any good? I mean, we could bring together the best of both decks in theory...

Leyline of Anticipation would be great! Spring Tide generally has more powerful cards (e.g., Ideas Unbound), but has the disadvantage of not being able to go off on your opponent's turn. The only problem I see with Leyline is that you'd want to run 4, but drawing into the rest after you've played the first would be a bummer.

ummon

07-04-2010, 06:19 PM

Currently working on a Spring Tide / Solidarity hybrid, with the new spoiled Leyline of Antecipation.
Does anyone think that this could be any good? I mean, we could bring together the best of both decks in theory...

Looks very promising. Are you planning to use Spring Tide with Reset and Leyline of Anticipation replacing Cloud of Faeries and Snap? I think you will lose some of the speed of Spring Tide but it might become strictly better than Solidarity. Not sure how consistent it would be though. I'm certainly looking forward to what you come up with.

Anyways, I came back form summer camp and found that it is quite easy to play, even for a newbie like me. :D I never fizzled, though I think I had a bit of luck on my side there. I had to go off on turn 3 twice, and succeeded, and went of on turn 4 four times. However, one of the scouts had an oversized Eldrazi deck, against which I waited till turn 5 to use a lethal Stroke of Genius. So, I'm going to sideboard a few Tormod's Crypts.

Of course, I'll have a lot more trouble against real non-aggro legacy decks, especially as at the moment I can only afford Pacts instead of Force of Will's and fetchlands (yes, Ponder was my only shuffle effect to use with Brainstorm). The only good side is that I will soon be able to replace Sleight of Hand with Preordain.

Anyways, I'll order my budget Spring Tide and if I do decently with it, I will feel better buying fetchlands and a set of Forces.

MGC_player

07-04-2010, 06:32 PM

ScatmanX

07-04-2010, 08:43 PM

@MCG_Player: that is stricly harder to do in Spring Tide than with Solidarity but is an option. Depending on the card, you can sb a stifle, or only try to combo once you are sure you can Stroke ftw. The latter is the best option, because there are decks, like Aeon Bridge, running 4 Emrakuls...

@list: haven't really come up with something very good... I only figured out that the deck should not rely on Leyline. I mean, your main untap effect cannot be Reset, if you run Ideas Unbound and Merchant Scroll. I'm going to try a pretty much Spring Tide shell now, maybe with 1-2-3 Resets, and see how it turns out. Also, I'm trying 8-11 cantrips, 16-18 lands, 2-4 Ideas unbounds, 4 Merchant Scrolls, 1 Wish, 1 BF... so this may take a while... will post again by the end of the week, if it is worth it...

ummon

07-05-2010, 12:31 AM

In regards to those graveyard reshufflers, I usually didn't need Crypts or Relics. You can respond by Brain Freezing again then forcing the draw with their triggers on the stack. Or you can wish for something like Ravenous trap to exile their graveyard with the reshuffle trigger on the stack so their trigger does nothing as you continue to mill them.

Haha I thought of using two Brain Freezes just last night and then forgot all about it when I decided to SB Tormod's Crypt. :D I haven't been thinking too straight since coming back from the camp... Still, Ravenous trap looks like it could be a useful card in some situations, and good to keep in the wishboard.

@MCG_Player: that is stricly harder to do in Spring Tide than with Solidarity but is an option. Depending on the card, you can sb a stifle, or only try to combo once you are sure you can Stroke ftw. The latter is the best option, because there are decks, like Aeon Bridge, running 4 Emrakuls....

When I played, I (rightly in that case at least) didn't feel I could use a lethal Stroke until at least turn 5. Any tips for a faster win?

@list: haven't really come up with something very good... I only figured out that the deck should not rely on Leyline. I mean, your main untap effect cannot be Reset, if you run Ideas Unbound and Merchant Scroll. I'm going to try a pretty much Spring Tide shell now, maybe with 1-2-3 Resets, and see how it turns out. Also, I'm trying 8-11 cantrips, 16-18 lands, 2-4 Ideas unbounds, 4 Merchant Scrolls, 1 Wish, 1 BF... so this may take a while... will post again by the end of the week, if it is worth it...

Hope you can come up with something neat (though I won't be able to afford the Resets to purchase your deck in any case).

Pastorofmuppets

07-05-2010, 01:33 AM

I've been trying out Recall. Works wonders in the late game.

VITASOY

07-05-2010, 03:11 AM

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=107035&d=1278302906

SPLASH GREEN :D i was thinking about splashing for grips too

ScatmanX

07-05-2010, 09:00 AM

The bad thing about Autumn's Veil here is that we can't Snap after it resolves... Don't think it will work here...

ummon

07-05-2010, 12:34 PM

While we are on the subject of possible additions to the deck, I noticed Call to Mind, but realized it is no better than Relearn, which is never used in the deck. And when I think about it, a Remand or Twincast would be easier to use.

ummon

07-08-2010, 01:09 PM

For bounce spells on the wishboard, what are your thoughts on Wipe Away vs Cryptic Command vs Chain of Vapor vs Capsize? My thoughts are that Cryptic Command's mana cost negates its utility as a counterspell and draw spell, and that Capsize should be included to feed Stroke of Genius (or generate infinite storm count). However, is Wipe Away's split-second worth its extra mana cost over Chain of Vapor?

MGC_player

07-08-2010, 01:37 PM

Capsize has been great for me. It is at least a 1 of in the wish board since with it has so many uses.

ummon

07-08-2010, 01:41 PM

Yes I think I'm going to include a Capsize in my wishboard for sure, since with 3 High Tides, it can be used for infinite storm count, and with 4 High Tides, for infinite mana. However, what bounce cards should be used in addition to it? I have eliminated Cryptic Command, but can't decide between Wipe Away, Chain of Vapor, and Echoing Truth. Should I include one of each?

MGC_player

07-08-2010, 02:00 PM

I also run Echoing Truth and Wipe Away in my board as well since each has specific uses though both can bounce.

Tiberius

07-09-2010, 02:59 PM

Malakai

07-09-2010, 03:49 PM

I guess I don't understand why people suddenly think this is a viable deck. Nothing has changed to make it more viable. It wasn't like no one played it because better combo decks existed; no one played it because anything with disruption laughed in its face.

ummon

07-10-2010, 03:33 PM

I am thinking of building spring tide, as it seems like a fun, budget deck. Stephen Menendian had this list that I'm working off of posted in an article here: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18707_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Your_EmCompleteem_Guide_to_Legacy_The_50_Decks_of_Legacy.html
I have a few questions:
1. What are the Fact or Fictions in the sideboard for? They have me stumped.
2. What's the consensus on fetchlands? Goldfishing, I never felt like I needed more shuffle effects, but I've seen a lot of lists with them.
3. Has anyone had success with a list not running Cunning Wish? They seem clunky: I feel like I'd rather have more Scrolls, Brain Freezes, and maybe some Muddle the Mixtures.

I'm planning to work off of this list: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?2594-%5BDeck%5D-Spring-Tide&p=465950&viewfull=1#post465950, but I expect to replace the Remands with Preordains.

1. I don't understand the use of Flash of Insight in the Star City article, since sorcery speed gives us better draw cards (ideas unbound and meditate). I feel the same way about Fact or Fiction. I think some people try to put weaker Solidarity cards in Spring Tide.

2. The fetchlands are useful with the Brainstorms and the deck-thinning effects are pretty significant. That said, the lifeloss is a significant factor. Personally, I'd add a pack if I could afford them. :D

3. There is this deck: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=32347. However, I think the Cunning Wishes add extra options (such as Wipe Away) to deal with hate, and this is invaluable. Also, you can also wish for a Vision Skeins after a lethal Brain Freeze to not give your opponent that extra upkeep to beat you.

I guess I don't understand why people suddenly think this is a viable deck. Nothing has changed to make it more viable. It wasn't like no one played it because better combo decks existed; no one played it because anything with disruption laughed in its face.

Actually, Mystical Tutor has been banned. This means that other combo decks are going to be slower, making combo-hate less common and aggro more common. This makes Spring Tide more competitive.

Galrael

07-16-2010, 05:39 PM

I was wondering if Preordain could find a slot in Spring Tide. When I play out for the win I always feel like I want more cheap cantrips. It's also nice for when you hit a pocket of land and you can send it away. The real question is where the heck do we fit it in, this deck is really tight as is.

GoldenCid

07-18-2010, 02:51 PM

This deck cant ignore the first 2 counterspells the opponent plays like Solidarity can. Here, if they counter High Tide, you just can't combo off. So, fo MB Trap be good, you have to have: 2 High Tides and another counter, or 1 High Tide and 2 Counters.
I actually think Pact of Negation is better here than Trap...

Would you run pact of negation over force of will in this deck?? It's just for protect the combo and nothing else.

And i've running muddle the mixture as tutor and works well anyone has tried it??

ScatmanX

07-19-2010, 01:34 AM

Would you run pact of negation over force of will in this deck?? It's just for protect the combo and nothing else.

And i've running muddle the mixture as tutor and works well anyone has tried it??

- Wouldn't, because Pact can't stop things like Counterbalance or a 1st turn Lackey... FoW is there because it is an all around anweser to your problems. It's not the best to every one, but can handle all.

- Have tested it. I do not think the deck needs more tutoring, but having the built-in ability to counter spells is very nice. If you like it, use it, I guess, but only as a 2 off max...

GoldenCid

07-19-2010, 09:38 PM

- Have tested it. I do not think the deck needs more tutoring, but having the built-in ability to counter spells is very nice. If you like it, use it, I guess, but only as a 2 off max...

I like it, but if i include it i have no room for ponder. Is this a problem??

ummon

07-24-2010, 01:34 PM

Deck: "Perigee Tide" - Ummon Karpe (http://deckstats.net/deck-214158-0be132213f70e137e900e7bdc0d2e702-en.html)

Combo
4x High Tide (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=High+Tide)

Untappers
4x Cloud of Faeries (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Cloud+of+Faeries)
3x Snap (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Snap)
4x Toils of Night and Day (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Toils+of+Night+and+Day)

Draw
4x Ideas Unbound (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ideas+Unbound)
3x Words of Wisdom (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Words+of+Wisdom)

Tutor
3x Merchant Scroll (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Merchant+Scroll)

Cantrips
4x Brainstorm (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Brainstorm)
4x Ponder (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ponder)
3x Preordain (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Preordain)

Win-con
4x Brain Freeze (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Brain+Freeze)

Protection
4x Pact of Negation (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Pact+of+Negation)

Lands
3x Scalding Tarn (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Scalding+Tarn)
3x Misty Rainforest (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Misty+Rainforest)
10x Island (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Island)

http://i.hbtronix.de/chart_pie.png Display Deck Statistics (http://deckstats.net/deck-214158-0be132213f70e137e900e7bdc0d2e702-en.html)

This is my attempt at a turn 2 version of Spring Tide. The goal is to have a decent chance of winning on turn 2 at the expense of consistency on turns 3 and 4. 3cc cards (Meditate and Cunning Wish) were dropped in exchange for Words of Wisdom and more Brain Freezes. Additionally, Turnabout was replaced by Toils of Night and Day. Too bad Frantic Search is banned, as it would be a much better replacement for Turnabout. Finally, with the speed that this deck is aiming at, and because of its inability to generate large card advantage using meditate, Force of Will was dropped in exchange for Pact of Negation.

I haven't proxied it yet, but looking at sample hands and trying to simulate a combo, it seems to be near impossible to combo on turn 2. Any thoughts as to wether and how this could be made to work?