The last two decks* to place highly were "Dig Through Time decks" that did not feature either Candle Sticks or the Top/Balance combination. I've been tinkering with High Tide for a few months (and assembling the cards) and personally liked the DTT approaches because they seem to be more streamlined. Also, most of these recent decks are ditching Cunning Wish or are only playing one. I'm still not sure how I feel about this because CW does allow a lot of flexibility, but so does playing a few utility pieces in the deck alongside Merchant Scroll. The savage tech part about CW is of course boarding out a high tide just in case a Surgical Extraction comes along. Our disadvantage really is the speed of high tide, with an uptick in cantrips (13 or so) and using DTT and 4 Turnabout we might be able to get the deck to go off more consistently turn 3 in the face of aggressive threats. I know I have managed to win turn three by going High Tide, TA, TS. What I noticed about going off early and in this build is that you will inevitably use your Time Spiral's more than with the Candlesticks build.
* http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=9543&d=254778&f=LE
* http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=77388
And another for good measure:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=9035&d=251480&f=LE
Finished 5-3 at Lille with this list, and got this as a bonus:)
Too bad the deck gave up in round 8: got 3 lands, 2 fow, candel and brainstorm (more lands and counter magic) off the time spiral at 10 storm vs. delver.
All 3 losses came from various delver decks too. I guess maindeck flusterstorms are not going to cut it.
12 island
2 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
2 scalding tarn
4 high tide
4 time spiral
4 merchant scroll
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
3 preordain
4 force of will
4 candelabra of tawnos
3 turnabout
2 dig through time
1 intuition
3 cunning wish
2 flusterstorm
SB:
1 blue sun's zenith
1 brain freeze
1 rebuild
1 echoing truth
1 turnabout
1 intuition
1 dig through time
1 flusterstorm
3 ratchet bomb
2 grafdigger's cage
1 wipe away
1 ravenous trap
You are going to have a very hard time going off on turn 3 consistently without Candels, no matter how many cantrips you jam into the deck. At that point, you should really just play Omnitell, and I mean that seriously. Turn 3 High Tide is an A+B+C mono-blue combo deck, while Omnitell is an A+B mono-blue combo deck. Cutting Candels just makes it that much harder to find one of your pieces.Originally Posted by Nantuko88
To go off turn 3, without Candels, you have 3 mana in which to find High Tide, Time Spiral, and Turnabout. 3 cantrips or 1 cantrip and a Scroll. Then you play HT>TA>TS, Draw 7 and have 6 mana available. You absolutely have to hit three "Real" cards to keep going - some combination of High Tide, Scroll, Turnabout, and Spiral. Without these, you're dead in the water - if you don't have a HT or Scroll+Turnabout in that seven you can't even afford to cantrip to find it the other pieces:
Post-Spiral:
Tap Island for UU, Scroll for HT, Tap Island for UU, HT, Tap Island for UUU, Turnabout, 9 mana available to find and play TS.
To top it off, DTT definitely does not want to go off turn 3. You'll have to pay full cost, because unlike Solidarity we generally don't have cards in our graveyard, and you'll be very constrained on mana for the aforementioned reasons.
This might have sounded a little harsh; I don't mean to be, I really enjoy discussing High Tide! Personally, I think that rather than trying to shore up the disadvantages of our deck, we should emphasize the advantages - inevitability and more hard countermagic than any other deck in the format. I play two Tops and no counterbalances for three reasons: Top smooths out my draws, lets me float counterspells or combo against discard, and the capsize-candel-top combo. I play very control oriented, usually aiming to go off around turn 6. This gives me enough time to get the cards I need, counter a key spell or two, and even miss a couple land drops if I get unlucky. I've gone 3-1 or better every night for the last 3 months (aside from a single 2-2 night against Jund, Mud, Mud, and Fish), so I have to be doing -something- right. Our meta is a little light on Delver lists, but otherwise its pretty representative - Miracles, Omnitell, and Hatebears are the three most common decks. (Followed closely by Chalice.dec).
"I have a dream that my children will one day play in a tournament where they will not be judged by the color of their cards but by the execution of their play."
Nice. How did you like Dig Through Time?
What are you doing with all those ratchet bombs?
The ratchet bombs seem sweet! Can hit all those hate bears or other annoying permanents, like Counterbalance!
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
Digs have been great for me. I wouldn't change their count any time soon.
And ratchet bombs are hate bears' best friends:) Feline is right about counterbalance and there are chalice's and other nasty stuff around as well
Have you tried Teferi's Realm? Deals with all the annoying permanents, permanently, plus it doesn't get hit by Revoker.
"I have a dream that my children will one day play in a tournament where they will not be judged by the color of their cards but by the execution of their play."
I Test Teferi's Realm right now and its running good !
I'm thinking about it. Even though it's not super good in this meta you gotta know a lot of poor people bring burn to these big events. I'm trying to learn DnT but I don't know if I'll be able to figure it out in time.
I agree @ Teferi's Realm. Good call iGrok.
I've been testing 1 Volcanic Island main so I can board in Young Pyromancer in the Show and Tell and Miracles matchups! It's been great against Omni but I don't have a reliable Miracles testing partner. It makes Swan Song worse.
A High Tide deck made it to day two of the SCG Washington DC Open:
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...breakdown.html
Someone day 2'd the Legacy Open with High Tide, they went 9-6 overall, talked to them after it was over, they were doing candeless build with max turnabouts and dig through times. Best part is they said they felt they could have won all but 2 of the matches they lost, in other words, they felt if they played differently they could have potentially top 8'ed. Also said they might post on the source about their run! Next chance at a big Legacy looks like Eternal Weekend and later on, St Louis open.
Personally by the way I bombed, went 4-4 drop, friend in same car as me knocked me out round 8 as we got paired and they were on miracles!
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
What was your list/board this weekend?
"I have a dream that my children will one day play in a tournament where they will not be judged by the color of their cards but by the execution of their play."
I started out 5-1-1 before washing out to finish 5-3-1. Honestly I was extremely lucky to even finish that well, a lot of things went my way.
Do you think that High Tide was competitive at the DC open?
I don't really know. You could plausibly day2 with it (someone did) but day2 is going to be a much tougher battle after all the jokers are eliminated.
Any lessons learned from your experience? I wonder if the DTT list sported a full play set. In my brew I am playing two which seems like plenty to me.
The one who day 2'd with the deck was running this maindeck, and all wish target sideboard stuff:
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
4 Time Spiral
4 High Tide
3 Turnabout
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Intuition
1 Meditate
3 Dig through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
3 Cunning Wish
18 lands (I think Fetchland count was 8)
He said what I was suspecting myself but I hadn't come up with exactly how to do it yet, which was that Dig through Time was really good with the deck. Also to note, there's no Candels in the build, which I agreed with him that it was fine, since you want to fuel more spells to help Delve anyhow. Most Dig through Time decks in the format have 35-40 things of the main deck (instants/sorceries/fetch lands) that go to the graveyard once resolved.
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
Hey guys, my name is Brian Marx and I'm the one who made day 2 in DC with High Tide. I'm at work right now but Feline suggested I write a tournament report for you guys and I agreed; I didn't take super detailed notes and my memory isn't always perfect but that will be put up some time tonight. But for a brief summary; I went 9-6 losing to Grixis Delver three times, and Death and Taxes, Sneak and Show, and Miracles once each. My list was as follows:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Dig Through Time
3 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition
1 Meditate
4 High Tide
4 Time Spiral
3 Turnabout
4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
10 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
Sideboard:
1 Pact of Negation
1 Flusterstorm
1 Swan Song
1 Intuition
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Dig Through Time
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Snap
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Wipe Away
1 Polymorphist's Jest
1 Brain Freeze
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
If you have any questions post them here and when I write up my report I'll try to address any questions. The main question "Is Dig better than Candelabra" I think is a resounding yes from my experience; I played this deck as combo-control and pulled ahead on card advantage and countermagic every game thanks to Dig and I wouldn't cut any of them. Thanks!
Congratulations for the run, waiting for your report; did the Polymorphist's Jest perform well? I really like the Meditate's split.
TEAM MtG Berlin
"Dredge isn't a deck, it's public masturbation with graveyard triggers."
Dig just got banned, so I need something to replace it with. Any ideas, Tide vets? Below is my current list. (Note: I don't own Candles.)
Combo: 12
4 High Tide
4 Time Spiral
3 Turnabout
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Draw/Tutor: 22
2 Dig Through Time
1 Intuition
2 Cunning Wish
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
1 Retraced Image
Protection: 8
4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
Mana: 18
6 Fetches
12 Island
Board: 15
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Wipe Away
2 Pact of Negation
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Teferi's Realm
2 Defense Grid
My first thoughts are:
- Replace Dig with Meditate. I ran this before Dig and liked it, but I feel like it's just devolving to a weaker form.
- Replace Dig with more Intuitions and/or Cunning Wish.
- Go for a more controlly build and try out a few Counterbalances and Tops. I've played Top as a 1-of in the Retraced Image slot; as a singleton it didn't do much, but the Countertop package could be nice.
- Go more cantrippy with replace Dig with some Gitaxian Probes.
- Buy Candles
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