Spiral Tide

I think that this list no longer belongs to Spring Tide Trhead, this is why I started this one for everyone who want sto talk about it. The list below is just my idea of the deck, but it is still very open, so I expect more people posting their versions here (mono color or with different splashes) so everyone can discuss, and hope that together we find a final strong list.


"N.S.T. - Negation Spiral Tide"

Main deck 60

4x Force of Will
4x Pact of Negation

4x Merchant Scroll
2x Cunning Wish

4x Explore
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Preordain

4x High Tide

1x Brainfreeze

4x Time Spiral
3x Turnabout

3x Tropìcal Island
7x Island
8x Blue Fetch (2 each)

Sideboard 15

1x Brainfreeze
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Meditate
1x Turnabout
1x Wipe Away
2x Krosan Grip
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Reubild
1x Snap
1x Mindbreak Trap
4x Spell Pierce/Dispel (to make the mirror, or the match against ther combo, stronger, I ' m fan of spell peirce over dispell since it is stronger against Tendrils storm, to protect discards and counterbalance, though dispel is better for the mirror.)

Mian game plan: deck your opponent with a single big brainfreeze (or make him/her draw with an Stroke of Genius). To do this you have a new Weapon time spiral. In this shell 2 very regular and strong plays (so you can go off by turn 3) are like this:

Turn1: land (cantrip optionally)
Turn 2: land + explore + land
Turn 3: land + high tide + Time Spiral

or

Turn 1: land (cantrip optionally)
Turn 2: land (cantrip(s) opotionally)
Turn 3: land + high tide + turnabout (on you chosing untapping lands) + Time Spiral

This doesn't pretend to be a primer so if you have any questions about card choices or anything else relevant about the deck, feel free.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

no ideas unbound or meditate main?

is there a reason you play the ponders and preordains as 4 of's instead of cutting them down to fit in ideas and meditate?

As I said, this is no Spring Tide, nor solidarity. The deck has a different approach to the high tide engine. Meditate and Ideas unboud are but redundant in with Time Spiral. Maybe a singleton Meditate for tutoring if needed can do the trick, but not in big numbers. Having as many 1 cost cantrips as possible (speciallyif they are good ones) is great for sculpting hand pre and during the combo, the idea is that you only need to repeatedily play high tide and time spiral's while cantripping for to generate more storm and find these pieces over and over again until you have reached the desired storm amount.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

Did some quick tests with it, and I like it. It's a good list; thanks for sharing it, and for starting this thread, egosum. I don't know whether I like it more than current Spring Tide lists, but testing will certainly determine my stance on the two different directions for the deck.

Imo, Pact of Negation should be Xantid Swarm if you're running green.
They are simply much better mid combo, where you can be screwed by opponents counterspells, and, like Pact, you don't have to use mana in your combo turn to cast it.
Specially good against Merfolk. Only having to worry against Cursecatcher is awesome.

Ideas Unbound seems like an incredibly strong fit. It is technically -1 card, but you can use it as an ersatz cantrip on turn 2, and it's got to be really good while you're going off.

Running back of the envelope calculations, it seems like the deck will find the cards to Time Spiral by turn 3 only about 1/3 of the time - perhaps a little more with smart mulligans. Personal Tutor could help a bit since you can use it on turn 1 to fetch explore, or on turn 1 or 2 to fetch time spiral -- Personal Tutor should also be reasonably good while you're going off since it can combine nicely with cantrips.

Assuming the deck does manage to start chaining, it then has to overcome the problem that the opponent is probably drawing into hate with the symmetric draw 7s. I'm not sure that the 8 free counters are enough, though I'm more inclined to look at something like Autumn's Veil.

A bit off-topic:

I'm looking at the black splash and trying to hash out the numbers for making repeated High Tide + Time Spiral/Diminishing Returns work as a primary combo engine, and mana-wise it's pretty tight.

You want to be able to fire off your draw 7 with enough mana left available to play untap effects that you draw, so you can chain draw 7s.

With 3 lands in play, you really need to find 1 High Tide (or Bubbling Muck) one untap effect (Cloud of Faeries, Candelabra of Tawnos Toils of Night and Day and Turnabout all work) and one more of either in order to get enough mana to either cast Time Spiral or cast Diminishing Returns with enough mana left over to have a decent chance of untapping and continuing afterward.

With 2 lands in play, you'd need a cloud of faeries (or candelabra in play), two high tides, and a second untap. This is pretty tight since there are, as far as I am aware, only 2 high tide alike cards available in the card pool...

I've been testing different configurations since the unbanning and I can tell you that you don't want to have to fetch a non-island unless the gain swings a match from unfavorable to favorable. Cut Explore. You will lose more gmes to wasteland then the gain from explore.

Swarm and Grip in the side are fine as they help your 2 worst match ups, Fish and Countertop.

I think we are better off just modifying Spring tide a bit. Cloud has a the benefit of getting past curse catcher on turn three, whereas Turnabout does not. I cut the Ideas unbound myself. I do like a couple Pacts of Negation if you can find room.

Good luck

I really like dream halls and diminishing returns. You can make an argument for Mind Over MAtter also. Just throwing ideas out there.

Blue has his version of Explore :

Retraced Image

It is blue, costs less, doesn't cantrip, works only with a full Islands build (technically it works with fetchlands too...), (after 1 Hight Tide) nets you one U without additional untap effect or additional High Tide.

Explore costs 2, needs Tropical Island, cantrips, nets you no mana unless you use untap effect or High Tide.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kagehisa

Blue has his version of Explore :

Retraced Image

It is blue, costs less, doesn't cantrip, works only with a full Islands build (technically it works with fetchlands too...), (after 1 Hight Tide) nets you one U without additional untap effect or additional High Tide.

Explore costs 2, needs Tropical Island, cantrips, nets you no mana unless you use untap effect or High Tide.

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Nice find!

However. I've been running Explore for a little bit, and have found that it's strongest ability is to pump fetchlands out to keep Brainstorm and Ponder "fresh", Between Scrolls, Spirals and Explore/Fetchland Brainstorm almost always function as a pseudo-recall.

EDIT: In the OP, you definately want a real draw target for your scrolls (Meditate).

I like where we are headed with this.

So far I've been running a build with Intuition and Strokes.
I'd suggest exploring Rewind as well. Its been OK for me so far.
I run one Palinchron to make this work.

Trops and Xantid in the side.

I'll post a list after more tuning.

I love retraced image!

Should work on it for sure. Thanks a lot for this jewel.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

Well maybey is too early but made soe games with a mono U list with retraced image and have to say that this card seems pure rock and roll, it alows you second turn kils with:

1T- Isand + Retraced image + Island
2T- Island + High Tide + Turnabout + Time Spiral

This is the List:

"S.T. - Spiral Tide"

Main deck 60

4x Force of Will
4x Pact of Negation

4x Merchant Scroll
2x Cunning Wish

3x Retraced image ( Huge, though not sure if 4 would be the number. I know is very strong in the opnening hand but it is also a very risky move)
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Preordain

4x High Tide

1x Brainfreeze

4x Time Spiral
3x Turnabout
1x Meditate (Tutoring it maybe very important, specially since you can recur it after Spiraling)

14x Island (some may prefer more fetch but keeping high the island density is important for Retraced image)
4x Blue Fetch (but they must be the same name to improve Retraced image sinergy)

Sideboard 15

1x Brainfreeze
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Meditate
1x Turnabout
2x Wipe Away
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Reubild
2x Snap
1x Mindbreak Trap
4x Spell Pierce (we have no Krosan so Pierce is more important than ever).

As I said I have to test if 3-4 REtraced image, if I had to cut something it maybe 1xPact of negation, 1x Meditate, 1x Turnabout, but Pact is the most likely, though not sure yet).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

Not losing to Wasteland is huge for Tide.decks. Good find on Retraced image. Now it's a debate between being Wasteland prone but having the ability to run grips in the board is superior to monoblue having less out against Counterbalance (you can use Wipe Away I guess)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by egosum

1T- Isand + Retraced image + Island
2T- Island + High Tide + Turnabout + Time Spiral

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I'm sorry, but this seems really bad.
Whay would you want to do this?
You get a fresh 7, and 6 mana. I don't really like it. You have 7 cards to find (High Tide and Turnabout) with the initial 2 mana, otherwise you're pretty much screwed. And I don't count R.I. here, because it will only net you 1 mana.
How many times have you done it, and how many times have you not fizzled?
When I go off, I usually like having at least 4-5 mana the battlefield...
(for the record, my list is just like yours, but Spell Snare in place of Retraced Image, and -1 Turnabout, +1 Personal Tutor, -1 Ponder, +1 Wipe Away).

Fizzle, I've fizzled 1/30 times so far (aprox.), so the odds are with me, and when I say it alows 2nd turn kill is not because it is the optimal play (what high itde builds have is that you can set for a while if you have few/no pressure, but if you feel pressed you should have a B plan) but being able to do it may be nice in some matches, it also shows that the deck is a bit faster, which is a good thing in an eviroment as actual legacy is.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

I really like the direction this deck is going...removing the cloud/snap package i think is one big improvement because you don't lose to random bolts or swords on your faeries...
Nice find on the retraced image!i'm thinking of building this now that i don't have to splurge on tropicals...

Regarding the maindeck killcard, I've been much happier with a single Stroke as it both counts as fuel midcombo and finisher: in other words, I have been in situations where maindeck Stroke saved me, but not in a situation where maindeck Freeze was needed. With Scrolls it's very easy to grab a Wish->Freeze if you cannot generate enough mana with Stroke to kill.

Thanks to Spiral it's easy to generate tons of mana mid combo making Stroke a strong draw-engine for youself.

If you haven't tried it, might want to give it a go. I've been very pleased with removing the clunky Freeze from the starting 60. :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grollub

If you haven't tried it, might want to give it a go. I've been very pleased with removing the clunky Freeze from the starting 60. :-)

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That's a very interesting idea, and since you backed it up with solid reasoning then I'll certainly give it a shot. Thanks for sharing this.

MTG Salvation forum had a guy mention using Emrakul as the primary kill card and 1 brain freeze in the tutorable SB. Solid idea considering Emrakul can't be countered and you can save your FoW for other things.