[Primer/Deck] High Tide

[l33twash0r]

What about Sanctum Prelate on 3? Can we beat that easily?

[Hohosaikou]

What about Sanctum Prelate on 3? Can we beat that easily?

I don't think so :(

D&T sucks, but elves is probably going to rise, and elves shits on D&T.

[Mackan]

A short introduction. My name is Marcus Ewaldh and I play as "Truckis" on MTGO. I have played this deck for several years and I have pretty strong opinion on most cards (As I have tested pretty much everything for the deck). That beeing said I constantly re-evaluate the list since meta shifts, I learn new things and new cards are printed! Feel free to criticize and sorry for my English :-)

Let's start with the maindeck...

SORCERIES (16)
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Time Spiral
*INSTANTS (23)
4 Brainstorm
3 Flusterstorm
4 High Tide
3 Cunning Wish
3 Turnabout
1 Intuition
4 Force of Will
1 X (mostly flusterstorm, but meditate is ok in a slower metagame)
*
ARTIFACTS (3)
3 Candelabra of Tawnos
*
LANDS (18)
6 blue fetches
12 Island
*
This is pretty much the stock list for me. I have recently been experimenting with the above -2 turnabout +1 candelabra of tawnos +1 meditate/flusterstorm. The untap effects are by far the worst cards in the deck, but often needed post-spiral. Candelabra in a vacuum I Think is better than Turnabout for game 1. Post-board however people will bring a lot of hate for Candelabra and even though most of it doesn't matter as much (like abrupt decay, if you play it after high tide has resolved) there are still stuff like pithing needle, phyrexian revoker and null rod. Post-board games tend to be a bit more grindy, trading Resources with your opponent, so siding out untap-effects is often where I start. That beeing said we still need a turn 4 goldfish available for game 1 and untap effects helps with that. Sometimes your best bet is to go for a brain freeze kill off of just 3 lands but most of the time I Think the goal is to aim for t4 which reduce the fizzle rate by a lot. Deckbuilding should reflect that.

My struggle is to play enough "good cards" to grind but still be fast enough to not die and also don't fizzle post-spiral :P
I currently look for a replacment to SDT/Predict that I tried and liked... The problem with our card-draw options are that they are slow or inefficient (Wizards will never forget their mistake with ancestral recall and treasure Cruise...). I often settle for more protection instead, as those are still very efficient cards and can be thrown at a random Ponder if need be.

My thoughts on some "commonly" played maindeck options:

Gitaxian Probe - I don't Think this is a very good card in the deck. It's low impact and 2 Life is a lot when played in multiples. Unlike ANT we don't really care about the storm Count and we have no Cabal Therapy to combo with Probe. I think it's just a very convinient card to play, you know when the coast is clear and post-spiral it makes life easier. I don't think "beeing lazy" is a strong enough argument to include Gitaxian Probe though. I could be wrong since the options are not really that great either.

Maindeck Bounce - Really bad. You need ALL of your cards to do "something" and you need as many as possible. From recent testing I actually belive it's as important as you would prefer to be on the DRAW in a lot of matchups. This will require some additional testing but a midrange deck with discard and counterspells can't really punish you for beeing slow.
Basicly you want 4 lands, 1 time spiral and 1 high tide. Could be 3 lands turnabout, high tide and spiral too. Basicly 6 cards. You'd prefer that the rest of your hand should contain fow+blue + PoN meaning a wipe away or something would just rot in your hand until it's pitch-fodder to FoW. I belive there are enough blue "dead" cards allready for when you try to combo off.

Maindeck win-con (bsz) - Bad. Not having to go for a time spiral is a nice option to have but it's more of a luxuary problem. If you have a bunch of lands, high tide and candelabras and a blue sun's zenith in hand you are allready in a good spot since that blue sun have been rotting in your hand until this stage of the game and still managed to go off or 2) if you dug for it with all that mana available you instead could've gone for intuition-spiral or just a meditate. I Think the option of having blue sun's zenith does not come up often enough to be a card Worth including in the maindeck. As a "set-up" card it's also quite bad. 5 mana Divination should not really be an argument and if so then Cunning wish for bsz is still an option.

Pore over the pages, pieces of the puzzle, any other draw spell - I'm still evaluating this but I draw the line at 3 mana but realisticly 2 is the maximum since our deck is slow with most of our mana tied up scrolling/cantripping. Meditate is the most efficient spell there is (Ideas unbound Another consideration) post-spiral but the downside of giving up a turn pre-spiral is huge. Some decks don't have a Clock so it's not allways terrible to skip a turn, and typically those are the grindy matchups we desperatly need our card draw. I wouldn't fault anyone for playing Meditate maindeck but I strongly recommend Intuition as the scroll-target of choice since scroll-intuition-Time spiral is a super strong line.

SIDEBOARD (15)
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Snap
1 Flusterstorm (or swan song)
1 Wipe Away (or echoing truth, depending on if Counterbalance and mother of runes sees play)
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Blue Sun’s Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Turnabout
1 Meditate
1 Pact of Negation
these are non-negotioable IMO

The last 5 slots can be a bunch of things. Here's a rundown of what I'm considering.

Mystic Remora - A great card vs a discard and combo Heavy metagame. Build your own Leovold!

Thing in the Ice - A great card vs an eldrazi / dnt / hatebear metagame. Can also be brough in vs, mostly non-red (red elemental blast), Control as an alternative finisher. Depending on the builds of delver it can also be
a strong finisher. It's quite fragile but it might be better than trying to combo off with very Little Resources.

Grafdigger’s Cage / Ravenous Trap / Relic of Progenitus / Surgical Extraction - The deck struggles AF vs Iona and Griselbrand so whenever you have a free slot it should go to hate for the graveyard. Which one is up to the metagame. The only graveyard decks we struggle against are those abusing it (dredge, reanimator) not using it (loam strategies) so I prefer Grafdigger's Cage over Relic for example. Cage also has some use vs GSZ/Natural Order too.

Blue elemental blast - A versatile card that help vs burn, goblins and all the seething song decks that sees play now. I Think it's a very powerful card but narrow often in the metagame. Something to keep in mind.

Defense grid - This is mostly for tempo decks with the additional use of beeing a fow-magnet vs Control. Depending on how the metagame shape up it's either awesome or terrible. If delverdecks pack discard it's not very good but if we look at something like Canadian Thresh where flusterstorm/Daze/fow and spell pierce are the main angle of attack it's awesome.

Teferi's realm - It's currently bugged on MTGO so I don't really know :P In theory it's a natural switch with flusterstorm in the matchups where hatebears and artifacts are they main convern. Unless I play thing in the Ice I absolutely want teferi's realm. being cmc 3 is kinda bad vs DnT but having the scroll-snap/hurkyll option together with realm for 3 makes sanctum prelate beatable.

I'll update this post later!

edit1: We should also take the time to discuss the different splashes. I would prefer to not play it for consistency issues but it's not unreasonable to have a volcanic Island and some red blasts in the board, past in flames and pyromancer Ascension are also options. I played with green for mistcutter hydra and krosan grip but since miracles is no more I don't Think we need that. White has some options aswell in monastery mentor for example. black is probably the worst but if the metagame is full of combo maybe some discard spells can help. I'm going to leave the splashes for now until the meta solidifies.

[Bigturk94]

Here is my list if anyone cares, I've been playing for a bit over 2 years. Haven't taken it to any big tournaments. I had 2 tops main deck, but since the ban I have added in an intuition and a swan song to take its place. I'm happy with the intuition I think, but not so sure about swan. However, I'm not entirely sure what can take its place.

SORCERIES (16)
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Time Spiral

INSTANTS (23)
1 BSZ
4 Brainstorm
3 Flusterstorm
4 High Tide
3 Cunning Wish
2 Turnabout
1 Intuition
4 Force of Will
1 Swan Song

ARTIFACTS (3)
3 Candelabra of Tawnos

LANDS (18)
6 blue fetches
12 Island


BSZ Main
Other then swan song, I'm happy with my main deck. I like main deck BSZ, it allows to to scroll for it post spiral to draw seven with ought burning a wish and saves me a bit of mana. It doesn't not happen often, but if you use a wish or two before you spiral this can become an issue. The biggest reason I see though is that game 2 and 3 if you board BSZ in to save yourself against cunning wish being extracted, you can no longer wish for a big draw spell, which reduces the redundancy of the deck.

However, I agree these are edge cases and it is defiantly not needed, and is likely the worst card in my 60. I just not sure if something like meditate or pieces is really a better option.

Additional Untap effects
I really think 5 is the right number of these, either 3 candle/ 2 turn split, 3 turn/2 candle, or candelabra/1turn. I find the deck goes off after spiral easily with 5, usually drawing cards is the biggest issue. Also these cards are not too amazing pre-spiral, but they do have there uses.

Intuition main
After top ban I think this is an easy choice to add to my main deck, scrollable, decent when drawn naturally. Also good post spiral in a pinch.

Sideboard
My sideboard needs some work, I'm toying with the idea of Teferi's realm, TITI, Vendillion Clique and Defense grid. I think I will have to see how the meta develops to get a clearer answer here.

Main Deck Bounce
Some people like this, but I feel this is not the best option. You don't see decks like storm main abrupt decay often or show and tell main deck bounce. I feel the main deck should be built to be an efficient machine. It can do things like give you mana from candles, or bounce a creatures to buy time. In most matches however this would be a bad topdeck. Main BSZ has this issue as well, but it makes the deck combo off easier and adds redundancy. Main-deck bounce I feel is trying not to lose, other then trying to win, if that makes any sense. To be fair, I have not tested this out much, and being able to scroll for it might make it better then I think.

Git Probe
I agree with Mackan here, storm count does not mean as much to us like ANT.

Meditate, pieces
One of these might be a better fit then my swan song. They each help against discard in someways, and are nice to see post-spiral. Not sure how I feel about these.

[the driver]

I don't think so :(

D&T sucks, but elves is probably going to rise, and elves shits on D&T.

Randomness like that is why some argue for either maindeck win conditions and/or bounce.

I understand the arguments above for maximum efficiency. But, 1 out of 60 isn't that bad especially with all the cantrips and tutors in the deck. They either help you avoid drawing that singleton or help you desperately find it. Plus a maindeck BSZ or echoing truth are from from flat dead cards.

Can't compare ANT not running Decay main to high tide. That deck is at minimum a turn faster

[Bigturk94]

Randomness like that is why some argue for either maindeck win conditions and/or bounce.

I understand the arguments above for maximum efficiency. But, 1 out of 60 isn't that bad especially with all the cantrips and tutors in the deck. They either help you avoid drawing that singleton or help you desperately find it. Plus a maindeck BSZ or echoing truth are from from flat dead cards.

Can't compare ANT not running Decay main to high tide. That deck is at minimum a turn faster

This is true, and also elves runs a searchable chalice/counterbalance destroyer main. It does flow with the rest of the deck being an elf and all, but it is a worse top deck then most of the other cards in the deck.

We can also wish for bounce game one, although this is slower then scroll.

[tarmogoat]

With the rise of combo and delver decks in the first 5-0s post ban in mind, I was thinking it's not too crazy for High Tide to become viable again. I was thinking something along these lines:

3x Flusterstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Candelabra of Tawnos
3x Cunning Wish
4x Time Spiral
4x High Tide
4x Merchant Scroll
2x Preordain
2x Spell Pierce
1x Intuition
1x Snap
1x Turnabout
1x Meditate
2x Polluted Delta
3x Misty Rainforest
3x Flooded Strand
10x Island

Sideboard:
1x Pact of Negation
1x Flusterstorm
1x Rebuild
1x Wipe Away
1x Snap
1x Brain Freeze
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Echoing Truth
3x Tormod's Crypt
1x Blue Sun's Zenith
1x Turnabout
1x Meditate
1x Intuition

I think the deck now has a chance to shine again, but I'm not entirely sure how the meta will respond. This list was put up considering almost every list that made 5-0 on MTGO post ban was either Storm or Delver.

[Gomoso]

Hi all,

I am a casual lurker that finally decide to joint the conversation.

I play High tide on both modo and real life, i drop the deck some time ago due to miracles been miracles and i decide to take it agian for a spin since top was banned.

The thing is that, (maybe it is me) i have been loosing a lot, and i mean a lot with the deck.

The list i played the last couple of legacy leagues was the latest one from mackan. Game 1 was normally winnable but after sideboard everything went downhill normally.

I made 3-2 and 0-5 is the first time on modo that i am not able to win a match on a league
SORCERIES (16)
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Time Spiral
*INSTANTS (23)
4 Brainstorm
3 Flusterstorm
4 High Tide
3 Cunning Wish
3 Turnabout
1 Intuition
4 Force of Will
1 X (mostly flusterstorm, but meditate is ok in a slower metagame)
*
ARTIFACTS (3)
3 Candelabra of Tawnos
*
LANDS (18)
6 blue fetches
12 Island

THe side i am playing is the following:
- 2 Defense grid (do not like it that much to be honest)
- 2 Cages
- 1 BSZ
- 1 Swansong (did not like it)
- 1 Turnabout
- 1 Pact
- 2 thing in the ice (i think they are terrible against the current meta)
- 1 Wipe away
- 1 Snap
- 1 Surgical
- 1 Hurkyl's recall
- 1 Brain freeze


All kind of delvers but specially grixis are terrible after side, with Pyro and therapy/surgical. BUG on top of hyms etc, have leovold now which can be a pain and slow us down a lot.
We become so much slower and they are so disruptive that is almsot imposible to came up on top.

I will like to know how is your experience on this new era after top, and what can be my mistakes, i am thinking even on upload my replays so you guys can check, the thing is that i have played this deck for a long time, i have won tournaments with it but now i feel completely outclassed.

[Mackan]

@tarmogoat
Could you please explain your thoughts on spell pierce over preordain/4th flusterstorm?

@Gomoso
Could you please post what you played against, how you sidedboarded and what happened when you lost?
If you have time to upload replays to Youtube that would be great and I would love to Watch!

vs a typical delver deck I go -1 HT -1 Int (to play around surgical) and if I have more things I want to bring I cut turnabouts/candelabras. I side in 1 meditate (pretty much allways the switch with intuition) and defense grid. Swan song can also be brought if you face a discard Heavy build with hymn for example (allthough the swan can backfire with cabal therapy).

[tarmogoat]

4th Flusterstorm is in the board, in case you'd need the 4th or got it discarded + surgicalled. I feel it's strong to keep 1 in the board for when the unexpected hits, you can always bank on your desired effect through a wish. Spell pierce counters lilis, jaces, LED's, Animate Deads, Vials and so on, it's a strong 1 cmc catch-all answer.

I have played the deck online and the metagame is full of discard and surgicals, it's disgustingly hostile for this deck. You'd think with miracles gone a window would open for us, but it seems like it didn't. We might need another similar to time spiral effect to get this deck rolling again.

[jasonious]

I'm very new to High Tide, and blue in general, so I've read this entire thread a few times. I've got a dozen or so games in with High Tide, basically how most of you suggest, although I only have 2 Candelabras (currently), so that impacts the deck's performance for me.

As for counters, I love having Spell Pierce in the deck, largely for turn 1 and 2 Chalices. There's a lot of Eldrazi in my meta, so Ancient Tomb - Chalice for 1 is a very common first play, and it pretty effectively shuts us down if it lands. Having 4 Force, 2-3 Flusterstorm, and 1-2 Pierce in the deck more or less assures me that I'll be able to counter it whether on the draw or play.

Also, thanks everyone for all the information. I really enjoy this deck, although I've yet to win with it, but I definitely learn more about timing and sequencing every game I play.

[Gomoso]

I have played another league, ending 1-4
I really think the deck is on a terrible place right now.

1º Bug Control
First game
i won with at turnabout at the end of his 4º turn and going off with FOW and 2 flusterstorm.
- 1 HT
- 1 Intuition
- 1 candelabra
- 1 turnabout
+ 2 Defense Grid
+ 1 Snap
+ 1 FLusterstorm
Second Game
I opened a great hand, with the combo + fow and Ponder.
He do turn one Shaman, i island go (waiting for knowing what to look for with ponder).
He leovold, i fow and he fows back.
I draw turnabout and go
He attack and Hymn me (spiral and turnabout go)
I draw land play ponder and see a snap, but i have to wait for fucking leovold.
A cuople of turns away i try to snap and he surgical my time spiral, i have brainstorms but leovold is still on the table so tide is gone. THen he cunterspells the snap and i concede.
Third game
I open a decent hand with cantrips, tide and fluster.
Island go from my side.
He thoughseize and i fluster.
I do Island preordain (looking for counter and spiral) found none, i kept one land and send other below.
He Hymn... ( taking a ponder and and island)
I draw spiral, but without counter magic and only 3 islands i do not have a way to go off.
He foes land snapcaster/TSZ picking spiral and use surgical on it.
... a few turns later i am eated by leovold.

2º NEW D&T (with Chalice and recruiters)
I open a T3 easy combo with countermagic up but he starts.
He turn one Chalice at one. I FOW.
I play island and let fluster up ( i had a ponder but i do not know it was D&T and i was afraid, i wanted to ponder next turn)
He plays cavern Thalia

I play some cantrips looking for wish but i am not able to find them on time.

-1 Tide
-1 Intuition
-3 Fluster
+1 snap
+1 Hurkil
+2 Thing in the ice
+1 wipe away (i shoud not do that, learned here)

I put all the bouncer maindeck, i believe due to my increasing tilt.

My hand is quite average, some cantrips a fow and a couple of lands.
He plays land vial.
I do land ponder finding tide
He plays thalia and i FOW since i have only 1 more cantrip and this will slow me down as hell.
I play island use preordain and get wish and land ept the land and put wish bottom. at my EOT he pick mother with vial.
On his turn he dropped sanctum prelate at 1 with mother up i have no more cantrips and can only wait to find wipe away.

I draw for a couple of turns and on my last one find merchant, but i do not have the time to do merchan + wipe and end up death.

3º BR reanimator
He wins game one with a turn two griselbrand after a unmask ( i believe unmask)

-1 Tide
-1 Turnabout
-1 Chandelabra
+1 Snap
+2 Cages

Second game:
I open with T1 cage and combo him out before he find an answer.
Third game
He tries to reanimate turn one but i have FOW, i fluster the next reanimate spell, and find on my 4º turn cage with fow to protect, a couple of turns later i combo out.

So i am 1-2 but hey at least i win one! lets try to get the 3-2!

3º Game: Grixis delver.
I win game one on my 6th turn, as i said deck on game one is really solid.

-1 HT
-1 Intuition
-1 Chandelabra
-1 Turnabout
+1 FLuster
+2 Defense Grid
+1 BSZ

Game two
He starts with mana DRS i do island go, my hand is tide + spiral FOW land land fetch merchant
He drop a fectch and cast young pyro, then a probe and then a therapy... i decide to fow with merchant to keep a part of the combo, he come back and take spiral with cabal retrospective.

This put me really behind maybe fow is a mistake i draw bs and i play it mainphaseseen nothing special, i take a desire and fetch the rest of the cards (i believe my only way to win is to wish for intuition and then pray for no surgical.

He plays BS on his mainphase so he is at 5 cards after brainstorm and hitting me 5 this turn and 6 the follwing with 2 lands untapped. i have 2 more turns and im sure he has pyro so i let him go.
He goes and Therapy me... and i am like... umm ok... i loose.

1-3 Really depressed about my and deck performance, as i said i had very good results on the past with it but know i am 1-8 in the last leagues.
Even with that i say to myself, come on play the last one, whats the worst can happen.

Round 5: All in red.

SO i do not remember the game, i win the second one with first turn FOW and then mull on 3º to 6 (4 lands ponder tide CHandelabra) but do not get FOW. He chalices to one and while looking for hurkills he kept kll me with a Rabblemaster. (I had hurkil on my last turn not i was not able to go off)


So thats it.
I will keep playing at least one more league, but i think we really need to splash red right now. Maybe remora on the side or... i do not know i think both bug and Grixis are bad matchups and with leovold and a lot of chalice decks a bouncer main can be needed. Because we really need to win game 1 and something like repeal do not hurt that bad.

I will record next league and post it if i am not completely depressed and embarrased with the results.

[Kanti]

I play Solidarity so not too familiar with what list you are playing, but as far as the hate goes you faced in the tournament report I have some ideas/suggestions.

First of all, the games you played seemed brutal. g1 vs BUG you got Deathrite->Levold with FoW back-up, into Hymn just to make sure you knew your place. I'm not sure any combo deck can beat that draw from BUG.

A t1 Chalice the next round, followed by Thalia is Richard Garfield spitting on you. If this was g2 I would have said, let the Chalice resolve, Force the Thalia. I play x1 Rebuild in the side, and Rebuild bounces all of their Swords, Chalice, Canonist, and any other problem artifact while circumventing Mother of Runes.

g1 vs Grixis you got DRS->YP+GP+Cabal all on turn two? What is this the Twilight Zone? What combo deck wins through that brutality? Also, no g3 vs Grixis? Not seeing Defense Grid helping too much vs BUG or Grixis where most of their disruption comes at sorcery speed. Some raw CA cards might help there, since they are grindy matches.

edit: liking the idea of Remora a lot, though a big downside is that you need to play at least 3 in the sideboard to see them in an opening hand g2. Still, you can play it early to stall the game and bring you to t4, or play it on your combo turn before High Tide. If it sticks then you are probably going to win any ensuing counter-war.

also, looking at your list now, you have no natural CA in it. All your cards are cantrips. You need like a Meditate or Pieces of the Puzzle.

[Slactinizer]

Mackan's list of post 1223 is a good list, though the 3 copies of turnabout feel like 1 should be exchanged for a candelabra.

A question: How can you combo out on only 1 high tide, in case someone extracts all copies after boarding and if you were smart enough to move one to the side? Has anyone ever gotten in this scenario and won? What lines are feasible?

[clavio]

Mackan's list of post 1223 is a good list, though the 3 copies of turnabout feel like 1 should be exchanged for a candelabra.

A question: How can you combo out on only 1 high tide, in case someone extracts all copies after boarding and if you were smart enough to move one to the side? Has anyone ever gotten in this scenario and won? What lines are feasible?

Yeah I won after slaughtergames on High Tide. It's not that difficult. I would have been dead though if he picked Cunning Wish instead. Keep in mind every time you cast timespiral High Tide gets shuffled back in.

[Slactinizer]

Yeah I won after slaughtergames on High Tide. It's not that difficult. I would have been dead though if he picked Cunning Wish instead. Keep in mind every time you cast timespiral High Tide gets shuffled back in.

Ow, that is a harsh attack indeed. How did you win? Multiple time spirals with 6 lands, and building a storm count?

And I guess that means you should board one high tide for a win-con if you suspect extraction effects.

[hymnyou]

saw this 4-1 run on twitch yesterday, players first run with the deck

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/145636888

[Jonathan Alexander]

Hey guys, I have never been active in this thread and in fact I don't have any kind of history with this deck whatsoever, but after Shawn streamed with it and Mackan / Marcus / Truckis offered to lend me the cards to record a league with the deck, I decided to put it up as an option for one of the polls I run for my YouTube channel. Marcus and I apparently aren't the only ones who enjoy the deck, so it won the poll. I played the deck through a few leagues; here's the one that I ended up recording: Complete Spiral Tide League — #thedailywars #34-38

If you enjoy this and would like to see me play the deck again, please let me know so I can have it as a poll option again at some point!

[Scott]

Sweenmachine took High Tide to 5-0 on MTGO today. Is my brain not catching something, or is that Brainstorm without fetch lands?

[KIP_NZ]

Sweenmachine took High Tide to 5-0 on MTGO today. Is my brain not catching something, or is that Brainstorm without fetch lands?

Fetches cost money online, maybe the guy was budget constrained?