Sick is not really the word I think (I mean this deck kills on turn 3 without it...)
But I can see it beïng played though...
Pré combo it's a 1 mana rampant growth, and while comboïng it's like a ritual...
I admit it's king of cool.
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Sick is not really the word I think (I mean this deck kills on turn 3 without it...)
But I can see it beïng played though...
Pré combo it's a 1 mana rampant growth, and while comboïng it's like a ritual...
I admit it's king of cool.
What do people think of Blue Sun's Zenith for this deck?
Honestly I think it's just replace stroke of genius.
UUU isn't a problem for this deck, and the part where you shuffle it back (to scroll for it) make's it stricktly better than stroke of genius
The new zenith is the exact same as stroke of genius except it shuffles itself back in. I guess it's a budget alternative to stroke since stroke is annoyingly hard to find and over $5. While new rares like the zenith will be $1-$2 since rares are now dirt cheap due to mythics...
Retraced image is interesting. It is exactly like explore but without cantripping. And it allows you to stay mono U which is nice due to wasteland stuff.
How so a budget replacement for stroke?
Its strictly better since you can wish for it mid combo when you're out of gass, and when you finally freeze them, you only need a scroll to zenith them to death (stroking them does SOUND better though...)
And also: I'm not sure if it's going to be cheaper than stroke...
It is gonna be cheaper because it is released in a new set... there will be loads of this floating around in the market in the coming months... stroke of genius on the other hand appeared in a set more than 10 years ago... so there will be less out there circulating...
This is true as long as it doesnt see play in standard.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrjumbo03
Otherwise you are completely right
Annayway, maybe I'll try 1 in the main deck and keep the stroke sideboard as a wish target.
Even with the unbanning of time spiral i still can't figure out how that will help us beat counterbalance decks
Sorry but the noob quetion but...why should i run this instead of instant speed solidarity??
Faster goldfish, infintely better cantrips, Merchant Scroll, Time Spiral (untap + draw in one card = you can go off with almost nothing) and lastly, and most importantly, you beat Merfolk instead of dying horribly to them.
Even though Spiral/Spring Tide has a bunch of sorceries, it will still never lose to non-Counterbalance control (just like Solidarity won't). With Spiral Tide you are also able to use Turnabout very aggressively on your opponent's lands in his upkeep. This play is basically a must-counter for control decks, as it turns off all their non-FoW protection and leaves them very vulnerable when you get to untap.
Solidarity is better against TES/ANT than S. Tide before SB. Solidarity is also slightly better against Supreme Blue than S. Tide, but not to any significant degree (you still lose if your opponent isn't stupid). Against everything else, I think S. Tide is definitely better than, or equal to, Solidarity. Being able to combo off on top of someone's Brainstorm or lethal Tendrils of Agony is very cute, but if you ask me, it's not worth playing cards that are significantly worse than the sorcery counterparts just you can be able to do that.
Time Spiral and the cantrips are the only things that puts Spring Tide above Solidarity.
The only downpart is that Spring Tide and Spiral Tide both lose horribly against Solidarity since they can just piggy-back on your combo and simply take over once you try to kill them with stroke/zenith...
This is a copy of a post I made in the Solidarity thread.
Since then, I've decided not to continue developing the build, as I prefer combo-control to pure combo. I thought I'd post it here, though, as I had not seen any Spring Tide players messing about with new cards.Quote:
I've just finished some serious play testing of a preliminary Snap Tide build (goldfishing only; the build is nowhere near ready for real play), and I have some comments. First, though, the list:
Lands:
10 Islands
8 Fetchland
Instants:
4 High Tide
4 Snap
4 Intuition
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Meditate
2 Cunning Wish
1 Brain Freeze
Sorceries:
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Preordain
Creatures:
4 Snapcaster
4 Cloud of Faeries
To begin with, once you get used to the deck, it goes off on turn 3 like clockwork (absent disruption, of course). You are looking for four cards: High Tide, Snapcaster, Snap & Intuition. If you have those cards you can win on turn three. Outside of pilot error & disruption, the combo is completely fizzle-proof; you WILL win.
The best part (and the reason that I'm posting in the Solidarity thread rather than Spring Tide) is that the combo is still instant speed! Only your initial dig is sorcery speed, and you don't need it once the combo is assembled.
So you can still delay going off if you want to, although there is generally no advantage in doing so. And unlike current builds, there is no "dead space" at the beginning of their turn; go ahead and deck them in their upkeep if you feel like it.
Let's talk specifics, though. How can this build be improved?
Card Choices:
Lands - 18 lands seems about right; I'm rarely land flooded, and I sometimes have trouble making my third land drop off a bad hand. This doesn't stop me going off, you understand, as long as I can find that third land while I combo off. I might even up the number of fetches to improve Brainstorm, but I seem to always have a fetch when I needed it, so perhaps the balance is right.
High Tide/Snapcaster/Snap/Intuition - these make the deck work, and finding them is critical. I wouldn't want to play less than four of each.
Cloud of Faeries - If you have managed to assemble the combo, you never play this card. However, if you are short a card you can use it in a "traditional" free-style combo, albeit on your own turn. However, you can also drop them on turn two without disrupting your dig, which can help buy you some time. Probably worth keeping as an all around solid backup plan.
Meditate - This can almost certainly go. I never cast it, because it is just too slow. I could see it having some purpose in the sideboard to fight discard, but Visions of Beyond is probably better if we are facing massive discard or control. It could be replaced by either more dig or disruption.
Preordain - Yes, it's better than Ponder here. You are digging for specific cards, and you can't afford dead cards on top of your library when you do that. You can only crack one relevant fetch if you go off on turn three, and Brainstorm needs that one.
Cunning Wish - I never find myself wanting Cunning Wish, but we do need an answer to Emrakul in the main, so it probably needs to stay.
That's my initial finding, and I have to say that I'm more excited about the build than I thought I would be; despite running sorceries, the combo is still instant speed.
I genuinely feel that this build is distinct from either Solidarity or Spiral Tide. It's a turn faster, and does not fizzle (disruption aside) if you can assemble the four main combo cards. Yet the combo is still at instant speed. You can race Spiral Tide and go off on Solidarity's turn, where they are less able to respond.
If anyone is interested in continuing this development, I'd be looking at making the deck more resilient to disruption, as it's already plenty fast and plenty consistent. Since Silence effects protect you from pretty much everything Snap can't handle (creature removal, faster combo, counters) splashing white might be worth looking at.
I was thinking the green splash might be more valuable. It offers:
1) Hunting Pack (with the ability to generate a lot of storm and mana with just 3 lands, this is a blowout for control/aggro without the risk of passing turns with Meditates since Snap/Snapcaster/Intuition is the primarily combo path rather than chaining Meditates)
2) Xantid Swarm. Sure the build right now is weak to creature removal, but this means 1 less removal on Snapcaster, and they better have the removal or lose to Swarm. In fact, I think swarm makes it hard for opponents to side out removal, which is better for us as long as we are prepared for removal on the stack i.e. board in flusterstorm
3) Grips for Counterbalance if it ever becomes a problem. Carpet of Flower, City of Solitude are all possible options. However, I'm not sure if splashing green is worth the timewalk if they have a wasteland. Tide decks cannot afford to lose land drop (it's a loss of both mana generation, a land drop and the dependency of the lands to go off).
I was playing a UW Solidarity list 2-3 years ago. It had 4 Chants and Decree of Justice, but often more I think it was win-more even if Chant is amazing. Not sure if green replacing Chants with Swarm is a better alternative. In addition, we can run Tangle as mentioned by Valcrix or even shit like Moment's Peace. Green seems to be the best splash color IMO.
Still tweaking lists. I'm not sure if the 4 CoF is better than 4 Candelabra for now. CoF makes the deck especially vulnerable to creature removal. I like diversifying the untappers to some extent.
@Metalwalker: Green also offers Autumn's Veil if you like Chant more than Xantid.
I'm liking a Spiral Tide build that wun 2 Snapercast, 2 Cloud of Faeries, 2 Snap, 2 Turnabouts as unttapers, and they've been working quite well (along with 4 Time Spirals). The deck felt consisten enough to combo without Time Spiral even, but I don't have the balls to replace them already. Do you guys think this is the correct move?
Am going to try Silent's list, and see how it goes.
Edit: Hm, looks like upping the Snap, Snapcaster and put an Intuition on my list would do wonders too. Sweet.
The trouble with a half and half build is that you don't get the full advantages of the Intuition/Snap/Snapcaster build. This powerful interaction is the reason to play Snap Tide.
Your goal is to go into turn 3 with 3 land and High Tide, Intuition, Snapcaster and Snap.
High Tide > Snapcaster (on Tide) > Snap > 3 storm, 2 lands untapped
High Tide (flashback) > Snapcaster (on Snap) > Snap > 6 storm, 2 lands untapped
Intuition (for 3 Snap) > Snap (on any opponent's creature) > 8 storm, 2 land untapped, 1 mana floating
Snapcaster (Snap) > Snap > Snapcaster (Snap) > Snap > 12 storm, 2 lands untapped, 5 mana floating
Snapcaster (Snap) > Snap > Snapcaster (Intuition) > 15 storm, 2 lands untapped, 2 mana floating
Intuition (for Merchant Scroll) > Scroll > Brain Freeze > 18 storm, all land tapped, 1 mana floating
(If going off at instant speed that last Intuition can be for 2 Snapcaster & Brain Freeze, which does the same thing)
It's tight, but completely draw independent, which means it offers a consistency (as well as speed) that Time Spiral builds lack. However, the mechanics require certain minimum numbers of various cards (such as Snap) to work.
Obviously, the combo becomes more flexible with more lands in play and more cards in hand.
I was going to post the list in Solidarity but realized that the core of the deck really drifts from the intent of playing as the combo-control deck. The list below still heavily focuses on being instant-based, but not with the purpose of playing the combo-control role, but utilizing the power of being heavily instant-based to win stack wars on your own turn.
This list cannot go off on the opponent's turn. I was working on a hybrid list with Resets/Candles that can potentially go off on either your turn or the opponent but it wasn't focused in its kill. I'll post the list below and run through some of the main thoughts since not everyone is thinking too much about Tide decks outside of Classic Solidarity or Spiral Tide.
18 Lands:
4 Strand
3 Delta
10 Island
1 Tropical Island
8 Cantrip:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
8 Tutors:
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Intuition
1 Cunning Wish
9 Untappers:
4 Candelabra of Tawnos
4 Snap
1 Turnabout
9 Combo:
4 High Tide
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Brainfreeze
8 Permission:
1 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
2 Repeal
1 Flusterstorm
15 SB: (still in progress but listing a rough list)
1 Turnabout
1 Pact of Negation/Krosan Grip/Echoing Truth etc
2 Flusterstorm
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Brain Freeze
1 Hunting Pack
1 Wipe Away
1 Repeal
1 Rebuild
1 Hibernation
2 Spell Pierce (flex slots)
The primary kill condition is assembling High Tide, Snapcaster, Snap with 3 lands. You will cantrip/Scroll or draw into Intuition for the kill. Silent Requiem and other Solidarity posts have outlined how to generate lethal storm with just these cards in hand, being draw independent and having no chance to fizzle outside of countermagic.
Brief notes on card selection:
18 lands to ensure that you hit 3 land drop, together with the 8 cantrips. I would love to play 10-12 cantrips including Preordain but the list is tight. One can possibly drop Repeal/Flusterstorm in the MD to make room for more cantrips depending on the meta but I'm just posting a rough MD that is built to have average outs to any matchup game 1.
You have 8 Tutors: winning primarily with Intuition. 4 Scroll finds High Tide/Intuition. Cunning Wish acts like the 4th Tutor that can be scrolled/Intuitioned for outs in game 1, or provide the Hunting Pack Kill in the SB against troublesome decks.
The untapper suite consists of 4 Snap (no need to talk about that here), 1 Turnabout which acts as a scrollable Reset in the combo-phase to generate larger amounts of mana if the game goes into the long-game. It is also tutorable as a fog or time walk or EOT Turnabouting a control player's land before going off safely next turn. Scroll helps this tremendously and these 5 untappers cannot be cut. 4 Candelabra of Tawnos essentially functions as Turnabout. I did some trivial maths for Candles and Turnabout. As long as you're combo'ing at 3 or less lands, Candles is equal or more mana efficient than turnabout. Lastly, I need to mention the synergy of Candelabra with Repeal, which I will get onto in the section below:
Your 8 permission includes: 4 Force, 1 Pact of Negation (scrollable) which is amazing with Snapcaster during the combo phase, 2 Repeals and 1 Flusterstorm. The Repeal/Flusterstorm configuration can be adjusted depending whether your meta is more combo/aggro-hate-bear heavy. The repeals however do something beyond just bouncing hate (Chalice/Canonist/Mindcensor) or buying a turn. Repeals are great pre-combo phase against aggro to buy some turns, and they are no longer become a dead draw during post-combo phase because you can bounce Snapcasters and continue to generate storm and tutoring. I recently realized that on top of all these, Repeal also acts as a 'reset-button' for Candelabras, allowing the deck to re-use its Candle much like how Snapcaster would re-use Resets in Solidarity lists playing Snapcasters. All in all, I feel that 2 Repeals MD offer everything for the deck to gain, and nothing to lose unless your meta is heavily combo.
You play 4 High Tide, 4 Snapcaster and 1 Brain Freeze MD for the kill. If your opponents have outs, you can opt to end the tutor-chain with Cunning Wish into Hunting Pack. The list is devoid of Meditates, which allows for the Hunting Pact kill to be consistent. Snapcaster-build for this list does not intend to play the long game, and generate card advantage with Meditate. It's essentially using the 8 cantrips and 4 Scrolls to find Tide/Snapcaster/Scroll/permission and go off ASAP.
I think 2-land kills are viable as well, but will involve double high Tides in hands and Snap/Snapcaster + intuition in hand, rare but do-able :P
Why would you play this over Spiral Tide? considering the similarities except that you play the Snap/Snapcaster package instead of Time Spiral? In general, I would say Spiral Tide is the stronger and more consistent deck (it can randomnly win with just 2 cards: High Tide and Time Spiral). This list is more fragile to GY hate or targeted removal on Snapcaster, but all in all, this list is more heavily instant-based, and is faster, and it does NOT fizzle if you are combo-gold-fishing (Spiral/ANT draws/Meditate-chains can still result in fizzle despite being statistically improbable). I'm not sure whether it's worth it, but the deck is under testing phase. I'll report on some results tomorrow :)
(I don't own my 2nd to 4th Candles and 4 Korean Snapcaster so I won't be able to play this deck for real but I'll just playtest it :P)