[Deck] Permanent Waves

[AnwarA101]

Permanent Waves started out as an attempt to improve Spring Tide. For those who have played Spring Tide, you have probably realized that its biggest problem was that its untap effects were insufficient to play out all of its draw spells. You simply couldn’t support your draw engine based on such weak untap effects. Cloud of Faeries and Snap only untap 2 lands. This becomes a big problem when you need to generate 15+ storm to win the game. Not only did they not untap enough lands, but Snap also opened up the deck to creature removal as disruption. This was a huge drawback against any deck packing creature removal including Goblins. Hitting a Cloud of Faeries in response to a Snap could spell doom for a Spring Tide player.

In an attempt to make Spring Tide better, I started to investigate better untap effects. The best one I found some time last year was Candelabra of Tawnos. A 1 mana artifact that lets you pay X mana to untap X lands. It avoided the Snap problem of opening yourself up to creature removal and had the advantage of untapping all of your lands if you had enough mana. It was easily the second best untap effect behind Turnabout and immediatedly replaced Snap in my builds.

The second change required some time and a policy change. Wizards of the Coast unbanned Mind over Matter in Legacy on June 1, 2007. I had wanted to try this card in Spring Tide for some time, but since the B&R had not changed in almost 3 years there was no reason to hope for this. I often heard people say that Mind over Matter was too expensive or that it would be completely worthless. I suspected that a card that let you untap your lands over and over again might be worth something even at 6 mana! After the unbanning, I immediatedly began testing Mind over Matter and the results were simply great. You never fizzled once MoM hit play and you could create a larger amount of mana than you would need to win the game.

Its worth noting that I put both Candelabra and MoM in the deck without realizing the synergy between the two. MoM lets you untap artifacts as well. So given enough cards in hand you can pitch a card to untap your Candelabra and then untap all your lands with any extra mana. This situation creates so much mana that it allows you to win without any worry about fizzling. It also allows the deck to move away from Spring Tide’s primary win condition, Brain Freeze. If you can create as much mana as this deck it makes more sense to play the better win condition, Stroke of Genius. Stroke of Genius wins the game when you cast it. It is simply the better win condition in this deck and it has the benefit of not being dead before you win.

The other main change to Spring Tide was to realize that playing 16 lands was simply not enough to support expensive spells like MoM and Cunning Wish. Permanent Waves should not play less than 18 lands. This not only prevents missing lands drops, but is more acceptable in this deck because extra lands can be pitched to MoM as you go off.

Permanent Waves

//Search and Tutors
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
2 Impulse

//Mana Acceleration and Untap Effects
4 High Tide
4 Candelabra of Tawnos
3 Turnabout
3 Mind over Matter

//Power Draw
3 Meditate
3 Ideas Unbound

//Protection and the Win
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
1 Stroke of Genius

//Lands
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
12 Island

//Sideboard
1 Meditate
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Brain Freeze
3 Wipe Away
4 Echoing Truth
4 Tormod’s Crypt


Sample hand and goldfish –

This is a hand I’ve goldfished just now as an example of how the deck works. Many people have asked me how does the deck actually work so I thought I would take this opportunity to show you step by step. It would take very long to do this for many hands but it makes sense for one hand to give a good example.

Opening Hand

Island
High Tide
Flooded Strand
Island
Flooded Strand
Merchant Scroll
Ideas Unbound


I would keep this hand in a tournament.

Turn 1)
Flooded Strand search for Island
Pass.

Turn 2)
Draw Island
Play Island
Play Merchant Scroll for Brainstorm
Pass

Turn 3)
Draw Meditate
Play Flooded Strand
Tap Island for Brainstorm
Draw Island, Island, Candelabra
Put 2 Islands back
Play Candelabra
Activate Flooded Strand put Island into play
Pass

Turn 4)
Draw Merchant Scroll
Put Island into play
Your remaining hand is – Merchant Scroll, Meditate, High Tide, Island, Ideas Unbound

Tap Island -> Play High Tide
Tap Island for 2 mana -> Ideas Unbound into (Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Mind Over Matter)
Activate Candelabra tapping 2 remaining Islands to untap all 4 lands floating 0 mana
Tap 3 Islands for 6 mana to play Mind over Matter
Pitch Flooded Strand to untap an Island
Tap 2 untapped Islands to play Meditate -> (Force of Will, Meditate, Ideas Unbound, Turnabout) floating 1 mana
Pitch Polluted Delta to untap an Island
Tap Island plus 1 floating to play Meditate -> (High Tide, Ponder, Ponder, Candelabra)
Pitch Island to untap an Island
Tap Island to play High Tide floating 1
Pitch Force of Will to untap an Island
Tap Island play Ideas Unbound -> (Turnabout, Island, Turnabout) floating 2 mana
Pitch Island to untap Candelabra
Tap Island to float 5 mana and untap all lands using Candelabra floating 1 mana
Play Ponder with 1 floating seeing Force of Will, Island, Island shuffle randomly drawing Impulse
Tap Island play Impulse -> (Island, Ideas Unbound, Force of Will, Polluted Delta) take Ideas Unbound floating 1
Tap Island to play Ideas Unbound -> (High Tide, Cunning Wish, Candelabra) floating 2
Play High Tide with 1 floating
Play Candelabra with 0 floating
Tap 2 Islands for 8 mana untapping 4 lands with Candelabra #2 floating 4 mana
Tap 4 Islands for 16 mana floating a total of 20 mana activate Candelabra #3 floating 16 mana untapping 4 Islands
Taps 4 Islands for 16 mana floating a total of 32 mana
Cast Turnabout targetting your artifacts 28 floating and 3 untapped Candelabras
Use 4 Mana to activate Candelabra #1 to untap 4 Islands and float 24
Tap 4 Islands for 16 mana and a total of 40 mana floating activate Candelabra #1 to float 36 mana untapping 4 Islands
Tap 4 Islands for 16 mana and a total of 52 man floating activate Candelabra #2 to float 48 mana untapping 4 Islands
Tap 4 Islands for 16 mana and a total of 64 mana floating activate Candelabra #3 to float 60 mana
Continue if you wish by playing more Turnabouts
Cast Merchant Scroll for Stroke of Genius and cast it on your opponent for X where X is greater than 60

This is a turn 4 win, but the deck can win on turn 3 as well. This hand should show you the power of MoM, Candelabra and of the deck in general.

Other Resources for understanding the deck –

Spring Tide thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2594)

I would like to thank everyone who helped me work on this deck. It includes so many people that I’ll probably leave someone out if I try to list them all.

This deck became different enough from the original builds of Spring Tide to deserve its own name. This deck is named for the 1980 Rush album of the same name. The reasoning behind the name is that this deck unlike its predecessor used permanents (Candelabra and MoM) to untap its lands and sometimes its artifacts!

[Bahamuth]

I'm so glad you finally decided to make a thread for this deck. I really like the concept and the decklist you presented seems really strong. I have some questions:

How are your matchups vs. the top tier decks? Is this deck capable of beating aggro-control decks like Thresh and Hanni Fish?

What exactly are the Toromod's Crypts in your sideboard used for?

What exactly are the 4 Echoing Truth in your sideboard used for?

Why don't you play any Defense Grids in your sideboard? That card seems like it would improve lots of matchups.

[Iranon]

Has anyone else fiddled around with a green splash and Explorations? With untap effects that scale properly, this resulted in a considerably faster goldifsh than regular Spring Tide and added the chance of a turn-2 win.

Also, I always liked a maindecked Echoing Truth because in addition to getting rid of whatever bothers you it can also be used as the biggest mana generator there is (albeit only towards the end of the combo).

With the ability to get large (but possibly not lethal) amounts of mana more easily, have you considered 2 Strokes of Genius - 'one for myself, one for them' or is this overkill?

[Peter_Rotten]

How are your matchups vs. the top tier decks? Is this deck capable of beating aggro-control decks like Thresh and Hanni Fish?

I'm curious about this too. Looking at the example of play that you gave, it seems that one counter spell on Turn 4 would be a whole lot of trouble for the deck.

And I'm just going to toss this out there as one of the those "interesting but probably not good" ideas: What about Bozium Strip? Ages ago, I was tinkering around with it in Solidarity, but it proved to be sorta overkill. It did get pretty disgusting when you could cast your Instants twice.

[zulander]

Has anyone else fiddled around with a green splash and Explorations? With untap effects that scale properly, this resulted in a considerably faster goldifsh than regular Spring Tide and added the chance of a turn-2 win.

Also, I always liked a maindecked Echoing Truth because in addition to getting rid of whatever bothers you it can also be used as the biggest mana generator there is (albeit only towards the end of the combo).

With the ability to get large (but possibly not lethal) amounts of mana more easily, have you considered 2 Strokes of Genius - 'one for myself, one for them' or is this overkill?

It's overkill, the deck runs 3 wishes to get the one for them after you use one up on you.

[deadlock]

Nice job dude.

The good thing about Permanent Waves is that it can recover from a Counterspell much faster due to the flexibility of Merchant Scroll. Additionaly you will also draw into Business faster than Solidarity, simply because there 6 rather 3 'real' draw spells and the power of MoM as a permanent engine.

The thing is that at the current state its not faster than Solidarity, runs less Protection and gets hit by Pithing Needle quit badly, but has the mentioned advantages. The question is if we either should keep strengtheing the engine and try to make the turn 3 kill more likely or adding 1-3 more protection spells.

Like beeing said i would run one Echoing Truth maindeck, maybe even one Wipe Away if your meta is Counterbalance, MM or Teeg infested. It also hits zombie and goblin tokens. I would cut one Wish for it, i found Wish often sitting dead in my hand.

[URABAHN]

I'm curious about this too. Looking at the example of play that you gave, it seems that one counter spell on Turn 4 would be a whole lot of trouble for the deck.

If you're talking about Gro, that's a bad matchup for Waves. Waves doesn't do well with Counterbalance in play. If you're talking about Landstill, Waves has the luxury of time, Landstill isn't going to go busted before Turn 4. The Landstill matchup Pre-board is somewhere around 50/50. This comes from testing over 30 games with Anwar, Krieger, and Happy Gilmore. Post-board, it's still about even. Waves brings in twiddle effects like Gigadrowse to tap Landstill's islands and Landstill brings in Meddling Mage.

[AnwarA101]

I'm so glad you finally decided to make a thread for this deck. I really like the concept and the decklist you presented seems really strong. I have some questions:

How are your matchups vs. the top tier decks? Is this deck capable of beating aggro-control decks like Thresh and Hanni Fish?


The Threshold matchup is very tough and nearly impossible when played against maindeck Counterbalance. I have no testing experience against Hanni Fish, but if they are playing maindeck Counterbalance its probably pretty bad, but otherwise you should have more time than you do against Threshold and that can give you just enough time to go off.



What exactly are the Toromod's Crypts in your sideboard used for?

What exactly are the 4 Echoing Truth in your sideboard used for?

Why don't you play any Defense Grids in your sideboard? That card seems like it would improve lots of matchups.

My sideboard is definitely not written in stone. I started playing this deck when MoM became legal at the end of June. Back then both CRET Belcher and graveyard decks (Ichorid and Breakfast) were big in my meta so I adopted those cards to help me with close matchups. Echoing Truth was suppose to help against Goblins as well against Chalice at 1 and it was a good way to have a non-dead card as you can bounce your Candelabras with an Echoing Truth to generate both mana and storm.

I don't think Defense Grid is a very good card as it seems to shut itself down as you play more and more High Tides, which this deck wants to do. I've tried it before in Spring Tide and I was underwhelmed with it.

The biggest question going forward is there some reliable way to deal with Counterbalance? Also I've explored splashing some colors, but nothing has really panned out as of yet.

[rufus]

Have you tested Diminishing Returns? The loss of 10 cards, and allowing the opponent to draw is potentially painful, but in terms of drawing horsepower, there's not much that can compete with it in the format.

Like many others, I look at this, and am stuck thinking that there's room for a color splash. Personally, it seems like black has something to offer with Bubbling Muck which has solid synergy with all of the untap effects, Duress/Thoughtseize for disruption, Infernal Tutor (and maybe Street Wraith) as hand management, Ill-Gotten Gains, Cruel Bargain or Promise of Power for alternative card drawing, and Tendrils as a backup victory condition.

It's a bit of an odd idea, but you're alread running Ideas Unbound which is arcane, so you might consider running Toils of Night and Day rather than Turnabout, and, maybe sneaking in a Psychic Puppetry and Peer Through Depths or two. (Toils will more efficient that Turnabout if you have a candelabra or two in play.)

[Lukas Preuss]

Hi Anwar,

Thanks for finally releasing your deck list! It looks very solid, but I have some very important questions regarding this mana engine.

From my experience, Spring Tide was able to go off almost always on turn 3, mainly because it's untap effects worked just as well with few lands in play. To me it seems much less likely to hit the turn 3 win with Permanent Waves (from my very limited testing), because untapping lands with Candelabra, Turnabout, and MoM is much more mana-expensive than with Cloud of Faeries and Snap. The longer the game goes on, Candelabra and MoM become much much better (similar to Solidarity's Reset), but it makes the deck considerably slower. One of the main advantages that Spring Tide had that Solidarity lacked was the 3rd turn win. The way I see it, this deck has a much more stable mana engine but is also slower than the old Spring Tide. This is much more like Solidarity, which also has a stable mana engine but lacks speed - the main reason it dropped out of the metagame (eventhough it plays more disruption than PW). Now my main question: is this deck really able to perform well in a metagame that contains Fast Combo and Aggro-Control? It seems that those decks are a hard matchup for both Solidarity and Permanent Waves.

I would really like to see a comparison between the three High Tide decks in the format and how their matchups differ. I'm looking forward to playing this deck, after all I already got my playset of Candelabras. :)

[Zach Tartell]

The biggest question going forward is there some reliable way to deal with Counterbalance? Also I've explored splashing some colors, but nothing has really panned out as of yet.

Wipe away? That seems like the best option, with acess to wish.

Why aren't you main-baoarding like 2 brain freezes? I feel like that might help against thresh (just mini-freeze for twelve or fifteen two or three times).

Solid deck, though I still feel like the name should have a Hanukkah theme.

[rufus]

Solid deck, though I still feel like the name should have a Hanukkah theme.

It could, but you'd really have to replace one of the cantrips with a Sensei's Divining Top (a.k.a. Dreidl) for the theme ;)

[Illissius]

I have this amazing new idea.

Add red to the deck and name it URMOM. It will be unstoppable.

[Adan]

I have this amazing new idea.

Add red to the deck and name it URMOM. It will be unstoppable.

I lol'd. xD

But know there's a point I don't understand. SpringTide was a budget version of Solidarity, because some people couldn't afford Resets.
But now this type of SpringTide is also very expansive because of the 4 Candelabra of Tawnos. So what advantage does this deck have compared to Solidarity?

[Aggro_zombies]

I lol'd. xD

But know there's a point I don't understand. SpringTide was a budget version of Solidarity, because some people couldn't afford Resets.
But now this type of SpringTide is also very expansive because of the 4 Candelabra of Tawnos. So what advantage does this deck have compared to Solidarity?
Spring Tide was also a turn faster on average that Solidarity, as I recall.

[lukatron2]

I lol'd. xD

But know there's a point I don't understand. SpringTide was a budget version of Solidarity, because some people couldn't afford Resets.
But now this type of SpringTide is also very expansive because of the 4 Candelabra of Tawnos. So what advantage does this deck have compared to Solidarity?

I was actually wondering the same thing myself. You (Anwar) listed good reasons why to play this over SPRING tide but not Solidarity. Solidarity has more protection and the same clock...+ pithing needle hurts this deck a lot and is a very common mainboard card in threshold and also very commonly in the SB of many other decks. You did mention that this deck runs a better win condition (Stroke) but Solidarity is able to use that as well many times and also able to remand a brainfreeze and use it again. I guess Merchant Scroll is pretty good and the deck lets you get a TON of mana, but I'm just trying to see why you would play this over solidarity (honestly...I'm not trying to bash this deck, im REALLY wondering...)...

Other th

[Happy Gilmore]

Permanent Waves is a combo deck that plays fair.

I've had the luxury to play this deck on multiple occasions durring our testing sessions and it is by far the most intersting deck to play. I never get tired of finding the little quirks that make it even more fun. CB/Top is the bane of this deck, but by no means does this make the deck unplayable. Besides haveing a fairly consistent turn 3-4 win Waves can incorporate many of the anti-combo straties that the top blue decks utilize. I would certainly give the deck a try if you have the Candles. I have won games where my opponent hand 4 hard counters in hand, all of which he could use and still was able to go off with the remaning two cards in my hand (Stroke and Candle). Merchant Scroll is so unbelievably good in this deck I can't emphisize it enough. The untap affects are very efficient and Candle + MoM is indeed a combo. I only wish that third MoM was a second stroke, Legacy is so blue infested its worth running I think.

[Nihil Credo]

I tried and failed to morph Solidarity into a combo-control deck, but the problem that ruined that attempt (too many counters -> not enough untap effects or draw spells) can be dodged here since a single Mind over Matter turns every superfluous counterspell into a Dark Ritual, and Merchant Scroll is a cheap (in terms of card slots) way to consistently get both High Tide and draw spells in hand.

Maybe this deck could be reworked to run ~8 counters plus the CounterTop engine, while still going off on turn 5-6. This would make it somewhat attractive, since as it stands, despite being really cool, it's as slow as Solidarity and almost as disruptable as Spring Tide.

[rufus]

I think it's possible to push the clock with a deck like this to try for going off on the second land drop:

Underground Sea
Watery Grave
Bloodstained Mire
Polluted Delta

Chain of Vapor
Bubbling Muck
High Tide
Candelabra of Tawnos
Cloud of Faeries
Toils of Night and Day

Brainstorm
Ideas Unbound
Meditate
Diminishing Returns
Braingeyser

I'm not sure that the draw engine here is ideal (Ill-Gotten Gains and Infernal Contract have potential in something like this as and, Diminishing Returns is a bit risky) but something like that should have a non-trivial chance to go off on turn 2.

A sideboard, or construction with , Duress, Thoughtseize, Force of Will as replacements for the untap effects, can provide a bit of a sliding scale on the combo/control axis, but the deck needs to have some sort of answer to chalice at 1.

[AnwarA101]

This deck doesn't sacrifice the turn 3 win for stability. The problem with the turn 3 win for Spring Tide was that attempt could fail. The inclusion of Candelabra and MoM make this turn 3 more reliable. When you go off and you hit something like multiple Candelabras or even better a MoM this prevents you from fizzling because you have cards that untap all your lands instead of just 2 lands. Mind over Matter actually lets you not worry about drawing anything except for a card advantage spell. I've often done the following on turn 3 -

High Tide, Candelabara/Turnabout (floating 0), tap all 3 islands for MoM
pitch 1 card, play Ideas Unbound
pitch 2 cards, play Meditate

and you keep going as long as you can generate card advantage.

I encourage anyone who is really interested to try fishing the decklist that I have posted. I've done the turn 3 win in tournament play more than I did with Spring Tide.

[Nosomo.]

I have been playtesting for the past few hours and all I can say is...Cool!!!!
At first I lost a few matches due to playskill but after I got the hang of it, it turned out really good. the best I have done is making the opponent draw 327 cards with double FOW backup without the FOW backup it was 403.
My only concern is that is has too little countermagic to fight off control decks.

[AnwarA101]

I played Permanent Waves at my local tournament going 3-1 in the swiss and coming in 5th, but it was a cut to Top4 (lost out on tiebreakers). It was a 14 person tournament. Here's the list I played -

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Impulse

4 High Tide
4 Candelabra of Tawnos
3 Turnabout
2 Mind over Matter

3 Meditate
3 Ideas Unbound

4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
1 Stroke of Genius

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
9 Island
1 Tropical Island

Sideboard
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Meditate
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Brain Freeze
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
1 Wipe Away
4 Krosan Grip
4 Tormod's Crypt

Round 1 Mono-Black Suicide (Clay, don't remember his last name)

Game 1 - He plays a Dauthi Slayer on turn 2. Follows it up with a Duress on turn 3, but takes Cunning Wish not knowing exactly what I was playing. I Impulse, find High Tide and go off on turn 4.

Game 2 - He rituals out 2 Priest of Gix and burns for 3. I play Ponder and pass. He follows up with a Duress and this time takes Candlebra which is an okay since I have no other untap effect. I play a few more cantrips and he doesn't draw anymore disruption. I go off on turn 4.

1-0

Round 2 White Weenie (I'm sorry I don't remember his name)

Game 1 - I start with a Ponder. He plays a Savannah Lion and passes. I Merchant Scroll for High Tide. He plays a Plains and passes. I make my land drop and pass. He palays a land and casts Empyrial Armor on his Savannah Lions and swing for like 7. I go off turn 4.

Game 2 - I keep a slow hand on the draw (double Cunning Wish only 2 lands should have been a definite mulligan). He starts with Savannah Lions. I play land pass. He plays another Savannah Lions and swings for 2. I play my second land and pass. He swings for 4 and drops Longbow Archer. I top deck Impulse and cast it to hit land #3 and pass. He swings for 6 and drops Longbow Archer #2 and passes. I'm dead on board so on my turn I draw land #4 and cast Ideas Unbound and I don't hit the High Tide and lose.

Game 3 - I play land and Candelabra. He plays Savannah Lions. I play land and I think I Merchant Scroll for High Tide (or I just had it in hand). He plays another Savannah Lions and swings for 2. I think on turn 3 I just play a land pass. He plays Disenchant on my Candelabra and swings for 4. On my turn 4, I have 4 lands in play with High Tide, Brainstorm, Ideas, Turnabout, and something else. I debate whether to go off with only 1 untap effect, but I decide to go for it since I think my opponent might have a turn 4 Armageddon. I go off sucessfully on turn 4. My opponent shows me the geddon after the game.

2-0

Round 3 - UGW Threshold (Parcher)

Game 1 - So I know what he's playing and I'm not expecting to win, but I'm hoping to catch him off guard with the Krosan Grip sideboard. He resolves a turn 2 Coutnerbalance and Wish for Grip. I grip his Counterbalance. He plays another one and I think he counters my second Wish.

-3 Ideas Unbound, -1 Mind over Matter, -1 Candelabra
+3 Krosan Grip, +1 Stroke of Genius, +1 Fact or Fiction

Game 2 - This game goes on for a long time. I play a turn 3 Meditate after he has a turn 2 Counterbalance. My Meditate resolves and I draw into a Krosan Grip. I try to Grip Counterbalance on my turn but he flips a Grip (which he put there with the Top). The game goes on for awhile. I try to resolve a Fact or Fiction which he counters. Eventually I have a ton of lands out its like turn 8 or 9, he has double Counterbalance plus Top. I decide to Grip his Top which resolves. On my last turn I cast High Tide (he flips a land on top of his deck), I cast Cunning Wish for Meditate, my Meditate doesn't hit another draw spell and lose.

2-1

Round 4 - Dreadnought Affinity (ObfuscateFreely)

Game 1 - I think he's playing AfFoWinity, but my opening hand is really good. I think he starts with a Seat of Synod. I play land pass. He plays Dreadnought with Stifle. I'm caught off guard by the Dreadnought. On my turn 2 I Merchant Scroll for High Tide number 2 and pass. He swings for 12 and plays a Frogmite. On my turn 3 I go off with double High Tide.

-1 Stroke of Genius, +1 Rebuild

Game 2 - He mulls to 5. I mull to 6. He plays Island go. I play Island go. He plays a turn 2 Chalice for 1, but I have the Force of Will. We kind of play Land go for awhile. He gets a couple of Frogmites. I scroll for a Meditate at some point. He gets Needle on my Candelabra that I dropped earlier. At 5 life on turn like 5 or 6, I decide to Meditate at the end of his turn. He puts me to 1 with. The Meditate hit High Tide, High Tide, Brainstorm, Land. On my turn I cast High Tide which resolves, then another High Tide which he Vision Charms me in response (attempting to change my Islands to non-Islands), I respond by playing another High Tide which resolves. Then with Vision Charm still on the stack I Cunning Wish for Turnabout, casting Turnabout. I hardcast Force of Will on the Vision Charm. My only go off spells at this point are Ponder and Brainstorm. I eventually cast them trying to find a better draw spell. I think the second Brainstorm I cast finds a Meditate and that leads to me Meditate and Merchant Scroll with enough mana to keep going.

3-1

I was hoping to spark some interest with this tournament report and the slightly updated version of the deck. I did not miss the 3rd Mind over Matter and having 3 Impulse was very useful in finding both High Tide and any other missing piece that I needed to combo off. Krosan Grip gave me a shot against Threshold, but the matchup is still horrendous. I think Wasteland is seeing a lot less play and it makes it probably just fine to run the 1 Tropical Island to give you a shot against Threshold.

My observation about the deck is how good the deck seems against non-Threshold decks. It races aggro decks really well. Its very strong against control decks because they are just to slow to really threaten the deck. I'm not sure how its against other combo decks, but it seems strong against something like Belcher, but other decks Fetchland Tendrils and TES might be more problematic. I haven't tested enough against them to really know.

[Isamaru]

Doesnt an EOT Meditate give the opponent the turn right then? The turn to be skipped should be your immediately following one... right?

Anyway, nicely done, and nice sideboard too :smile:

[AnwarA101]

Doesnt an EOT Meditate give the opponent the turn right then? The turn to be skipped should be your immediately following one... right?

Anyway, nicely done, and nice sideboard too :smile:

Yes, EOT Meditate skips the turn I would have taken. So he gets another turn after his current one. I'm not sure what you mean.

[deadlock]

Several questions:

3 Ideas Unbound, could you please explain why you dont play them as a 4of. I asume that 6 + 3 through wishes card advantage spells are enough?

Against Affinity, why did you sb'in the lonely Rebuild, isnt the chance higher if you leave them in your sb as a wish target?

How do you liked Fact of Fiction, i suppose your opponent will always make piles like: vital combo parts/ rest.

I like the green splash for Grip, i may try it in Solidarity. I suppose they are stronger than the 4 Spell Snare plan, although less flexible.

[AnwarA101]

Several questions:

3 Ideas Unbound, could you please explain why you dont play them as a 4of. I asume that 6 + 3 through wishes card advantage spells are enough?


The current list only has room for 6 Power Draw spells not including Cunning Wish. I want to run at least 3 Meditate because it sometimes is playable before you combo especially against Control decks and sometimes even against Threshold depending on the type of hand they have. That only leaves room for 3 Ideas Unbound. I'm not sure I would play the 4th since you can almost never play it before you start the combo.



Against Affinity, why did you sb'in the lonely Rebuild, isnt the chance higher if you leave them in your sb as a wish target?


I can Merchant Scroll for it which gives me 5 ways to find instead of 4 with Cunning Wish. I thought it was the best to fight the Affinity deck.



How do you liked Fact of Fiction, i suppose your opponent will always make piles like: vital combo parts/ rest.


Its been pretty good. I've liked the fact that I have another card advantage spell in the board other than Meditate and something less expensive than Stroke of Genius.

[Tog]

Since hitting land drops are essential for this deck, have you considered Thawing Glaciers? With Candelabra in play, it allows you to search search up a Island every turn. It does however, open you up to Wasteland without a Candelabra in play.

~Tog

[AnwarA101]

Since hitting land drops are essential for this deck, have you considered Thawing Glaciers? With Candelabra in play, it allows you to search search up a Island every turn. It does however, open you up to Wasteland without a Candelabra in play.

~Tog

I'm not sure what Thawing Glaciers does for the deck. It doesn't seem to make the deck any faster and I'm not sure it really needs help against Control decks. It would be interesting to fit it in, but I'm not sure you can afford to cut Islands. Cutting spells for more land seems also risky as you often need every spell to continue chaining spells.

Do you have any suggestions on how to add Thawing Glaciers and what role it would play in the deck? I would be curious to hear your thoughts.

[Lukas Preuss]

Thawing Glaciers doesn't belong in this deck. It was tested in Solidarity quite some time ago and dismissed. Since Solidarity can make much better use of it (During the combo, Candelabra-ing the Glaciers repeatedly is much more expensive than just untapping it with Reset when you untap your lands anyways) and still doesn't run it, I think this deck doesn't need the card.
Also, Wasteland is becoming popular again...

I don't like Fact or Fiction in the SB. How often does it really give you more than one card you need against a competend opponent? Wouldn't another Impulse in the board or Peer through Depths achieve almost the same effect without costing that much mana? Of course, card advantage is great (especially with MoM), but how often do you wish for FoF instead of Meditate?

Oh, and how have the 8 Fetchlands been for you? Solidarity and Spring Tide both ran 6 Fetches so that their mana base would not be vulnerable to Stifle and because the life loss sometimes became an issue. I understand that with Tropical Island, more fetchlands make sense, but have you experienced any problems with Stifle?


I have been toying around with a different build of Permanent Waves lately that cuts 2 lands and the Impulses to run more cantrips to gain some speed. I haven't had any consistency issues with this build and I'm normally able to hit my land drops without problems. This is the build I'm trying:

// Lands
10 [PT] Island (4)
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta

// Spells
4 [FE] High Tide (3)
1 [US] Stroke of Genius
2 [EX] Mind Over Matter
3 [US] Turnabout
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [AQ] Candelabra of Tawnos
3 [OV] Meditate
4 [HL] Merchant Scroll
4 [SOK] Ideas Unbound
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [7E] Sleight of Hand
3 [JU] Cunning Wish

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Stroke of Genius
SB: 1 [US] Turnabout
SB: 1 [OV] Meditate
SB: 1 [SC] Brain Freeze
SB: 4 [SC] Stifle
SB: 4 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [TSP] Wipe Away

[Bahamuth]

Why wouldn't you play Defense Grid sideboard? It's a very solid tool in just about any matchup against a blue deck.

I'm not really convinced of the need of a Stroke mainboard. On the other hand, I woulnd't want to play this deck without at least 1 Brain Freeze in the mainboard.

Wouldn't Flash of Insight be a good card?

[AnwarA101]

Thawing Glaciers doesn't belong in this deck. It was tested in Solidarity quite some time ago and dismissed. Since Solidarity can make much better use of it (During the combo, Candelabra-ing the Glaciers repeatedly is much more expensive than just untapping it with Reset when you untap your lands anyways) and still doesn't run it, I think this deck doesn't need the card.
Also, Wasteland is becoming popular again...

I don't like Fact or Fiction in the SB. How often does it really give you more than one card you need against a competend opponent? Wouldn't another Impulse in the board or Peer through Depths achieve almost the same effect without costing that much mana? Of course, card advantage is great (especially with MoM), but how often do you wish for FoF instead of Meditate?

Oh, and how have the 8 Fetchlands been for you? Solidarity and Spring Tide both ran 6 Fetches so that their mana base would not be vulnerable to Stifle and because the life loss sometimes became an issue. I understand that with Tropical Island, more fetchlands make sense, but have you experienced any problems with Stifle?


I have been toying around with a different build of Permanent Waves lately that cuts 2 lands and the Impulses to run more cantrips to gain some speed. I haven't had any consistency issues with this build and I'm normally able to hit my land drops without problems. This is the build I'm trying:


I haven't had much problem with the 8 fetchlands, but I haven't run across many decks with maindeck Stifle (I did beat Dreadnought Affinity which had 4 maindeck).

The Fact or Fiction has been pretty good. I don't really wish for it much, but it can help against Threshold or Landstill to get much needed card advantage. I usually board it in these matchups, but it may not be necessary. Putting the 4th Impulse there seems okay, but if you want to wish for something you usually hope its really good. 5 mana to look at the top 4 cards isn't all that great.

I've never been impressed with Sleight of Hand. I have run it in previous builds of Spring Tide and it always seemed like a bad Ponder. I can't say I've ever been happy run 16 lands in Spring Tide or Permanent Waves. It just seem really low even with 12 1cc cantrips. I've missed land drops in Spring Tide even with 12 cantrips. I think its risky and not particularly advantageous especially since when going off if you only have a Sleight of Hand that only makes your chances off fizzling slightly better than if you had hit a land there, but an Impulse can make the difference between hitting the next Meditate or Ideas Unbound. By running more cantrips you will hit less lands when you are going off, but do you really want to pin your hopes on a Sleight of Hand? Its never worked out well for me.

[1maarten1]

`Hey, I have some questions :P.
First of all: Why would you play this in stead of Solidarity?? Is that just the fact that this deck can kill turn 3 in stead of 4??.
Second: Has anyone been testing this deck recently and give me a nice steady build to test with? :P.

thanks, Maarten

[Happy Gilmore]

`Hey, I have some questions :P.
First of all: Why would you play this in stead of Solidarity?? Is that just the fact that this deck can kill turn 3 in stead of 4??.
Second: Has anyone been testing this deck recently and give me a nice steady build to test with? :P.

thanks, Maarten

Besides being faster, when it goes off, it goes off for sure. I've seen Solidarity fizzle, but Waves really doesn't. I have also seen Waves win in one turn against 5 hard counters, I haven't seen any other deck do that. What it comes down to is that Merchant Scroll is amazing, and being able to play your untap affects early on is very good. That being said it runs into problems with CB. And since it can really only effectively go off turn 3-4 it has to deal with those cards more often. It has FoW but still can't effectively race other combo decks. However if Landstill (without CB), Agro, or goblins is all over your meta, this might be the right choice. However, I would say that in that meta goblins might just be better.

[Morim_Brightsmoke]

Hey there,

I was reading about a Type 1 version of Tide 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.

I also mentioned this in the spring tide forum. Here it seems to be even better potentially even though we have something to do with additional drawn lands. This can accelerate your mana more easily into mind over matter. Anyway my read is that this is just a better two mana "untapper" because it nets you 4 mana with 1 high tide in play, which is as good as any ritual. The basic untappers besides candelabra net you only 2 mana with one and with multiple high tides it just get better besides which if you don't have mind over matter in play it makes the dead draws that are islands into something useful

[death]

I stumbled upon Pulp_Fiction's article while trying to brew a High Tide + Candelabra.dec on my own. For those who haven't heard,

Jan 07, 2011: The Impact of Time Spiral in Legacy Storm Combo (http://www.mananation.com/impact-time-spiral-legacy-storm-combo/)

With respect to other threads (Spiral Tide, Spring Tide etc.), I decided to post here since this threaD already existed before them and mainly used Candelabra of Tawnos as an engine versus "free" spells. Although they shared key cards like Merchant Scroll, Turnabout, C.Wish etc.

Regarding the article, I would agree that this deck is not quite competitive at the moment even with Time Spiral unbanned. However I see a potential for it being a tier 1.5 perhaps. With fine tuning using Emrakul and basic lands, the deck can surpass Waste.dec (unlike TES/DDFT) and Stifle.dec via a massive Stroke of Genius.

/necro

[AnwarA101]

Since people are still discussing this deck, I'll throw out my latest list for some thoughts. I was finally able to cut Ideas Unbound as I always found it to be a risky spell to go off of. Time Spiral also bridges the gap between draw and untap which is hard to understate in a deck that tries desperately to walk this line. Its as though you added Diminishing Returns and Turnabout in one card for 6 mana and that's a deal that's too hard to turn down. A simple cut of Ideas Unbound + 1 cantrip leads to enough room for Time Spiral. I still like Mind over Matter in the deck as drawing it off of a Time Spiral is just great as you have plenty of cards to pitch to a MoM, but you don't really want to draw it until you've really gone off, and I've settled on 2 Mind over Matters. I'm currently testing 2 Preordain in the remaining cantrip slot, but I have to say I'm not overly impressed with it.

Spiral (Permanent) Waves

//Search
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Merchant Scroll

//Mana + Untap
4 High Tide
4 Candelabra of Tawnos
3 Turnabout
4 Time Spiral
2 Mind over Matter

//Draw, Protection, and the Win
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
1 Stroke of Genius

//Lands
6 Blue Fetch
12 Island

//Sideboard
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Gigadrowse
4 Repeal
3 Dispel

[death]

I've been tinkering with a list consisting of 3x Candelabras, I posted it on

[The Spiral Tide (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19565-Spiral-Tide&p=518134&viewfull=1#post518134) thread]

since I was not getting attention here. Fundamentally we play with the same cards, except I dropped Meditates and Mind Over Matter in favor of more protection, an extra win-con (Emrakul), and a singleton Intuition to add consistency and redundancy, I now play with a full set of Turnabouts main.

Since there are also lists that play Candelabra on that thread, I hope you won't mind checking it out or maybe continue the discussion from there. THere's only a slight difference in lists that use non-permanent untappers and Retraced Image to gain momentum and finish the game off with freeze.