[Primer/Deck] High Tide

Little to add to Di's post regarding those questions.

On the subject on md Intuition which clavio raised, I've been running both a md and sb Intuition for the past several weeks and I have been very impressed by it. Being able to tutor up Tides, Spirals, Candels, or counters without needing to Wish first has been great--and makes finding the 2nd Time Spiral a lot easier if you need it.

Another change I've been testing the past several weeks with great success involves the counter suite: -1 Flusterstorm, -1 md bounce spell for +2 Spell Pierce. It's been incredibly valuable to counter things like Sensei's Divining Top or Counterbalance from Miracles (especially on the draw), Chalice of the Void from Merfolk (see previous parenthetical), Aether Vial from various decks, other cards that Flusterstorm can't, all while also serving as another 1cc counter for counter-wars. It is admittedly a little awkward post-High Tide, but I'm often Turnabouting my opponent to reduce their interaction anyways. I've enjoyed it so much that I'm considering dropping one of my superfluous wish targets for a 3rd Spell Pierce in the board to go with my 3rd sb'd Flusterstorm. I highly recommend the change to people--especially if you're in a meta like mine with a lot of Counterbalances and Chalices.

Why not Swan Song instead of Pierce then?

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Originally Posted by Mackan

Why not Swan Song instead of Pierce then?

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I think he prefers Pierce because it hits artifacts. I'd like that to hit Vial too. An unfair card indeed.

The main deck Intuition is awesome, I am half the time wanting to put it back in. I like flusterstorm because it's so hard to counter back, against many spells it just counters and might as well say "you cannot counter back, so your show and tell, etc, is countered."

Spell pierce can hit non sorcery, non instant stuff though, counterbalance included. As well as Sneak Attack or Liliana. For myself, I just like what Flusterstorm brings more than I like what Spell Pierce brings, basically overall my personal feelings are to go with Flusterstorm. Though if you want to be really mean, run both! ha ha. Counter this spell, and this spell, and this spell...

Agreed--my current counter suite is 4 Force of Will, 2 Flusterstorm, and 2 Spell Pierce. I feel it gives me the best of both worlds (again, this is a meta call with so many counterbalances, chalices, and vials), increases my total count of counters by 1, and I still have the 3rd Flusterstorm in the board to swap in if need be. I think the extra counter is more versatile than the md bounce--considering we have wish to access it game 1. Spell Pierce often cuts the middleman by countering the thing you'd want to bounce anyway (hatebears excluded ofc).

I tested and disregarded Swan Song as it is unable to counter Chalice or Vial--all while speeding up my opponent's clock. My matches vs merfolk and D&T often come down to the wire either way, so I'm not at all keen on giving them a bird.

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Originally Posted by Pox22

Agreed--my current counter suite is 4 Force of Will, 2 Flusterstorm, and 2 Spell Pierce. I feel it gives me the best of both worlds (again, this is a meta call with so many counterbalances, chalices, and vials), increases my total count of counters by 1, and I still have the 3rd Flusterstorm in the board to swap in if need be. I think the extra counter is more versatile than the md bounce--considering we have wish to access it game 1. Spell Pierce often cuts the middleman by countering the thing you'd want to bounce anyway (hatebears excluded ofc).

I tested and disregarded Swan Song as it is unable to counter Chalice or Vial--all while speeding up my opponent's clock. My matches vs merfolk and D&T often come down to the wire either way, so I'm not at all keen on giving them a bird.

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...That's a point. Would Negate have a place here as a 'hard' counter?

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Originally Posted by Darkenslight

...That's a point. Would Negate have a place here as a 'hard' counter?

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at 2 mana the counterspell to use, is counterspell

Counterspell would definitely be your 2cc hard-counter of choice, but that 2cc is the problem. Spell Pierce fits the bill for countering these cards on the draw--or still letting you cantrip and hold U up on turn 2 on the play.

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Originally Posted by feline

at 2 mana the counterspell to use, is counterspell

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Yep. I realised that whilst I was away. I derped.

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Originally Posted by Pox22

Counterspell would definitely be your 2cc hard-counter of choice, but that 2cc is the problem. Spell Pierce fits the bill for countering these cards on the draw--or still letting you cantrip and hold U up on turn 2 on the play.

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Which is the key problem with the 2CC spells that both Fluster and Pirece don't have.

a bit off-topic but i saw the no-candles Snap/Snapcaster/PiF version on Joe Lossett's stream. I'm not about to buy candles just for this deck but it looked a lot of fun. Any of you able to quickly point to a "Red Tide" primer?

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Originally Posted by warfordium

a bit off-topic but i saw the no-candles Snap/Snapcaster/PiF version on Joe Lossett's stream. I'm not about to buy candles just for this deck but it looked a lot of fun. Any of you able to quickly point to a "Red Tide" primer?

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I compiled a list with Snap, Snapcaster and PiF and did some goldfishing in Cockatrice. PiF never showed up, and when it did i didn't want to cast it nor waste an island for just 1 red. Also since your graveyard is recycling due to Time Spirals i find it a bit underwheling. On the other hand the tech from Snapcaster Mage was pretty cool. Also being able to Snap it was nice. Budget wise i was trying out lists without candles, but it fizzled pretty often. With Snap(casters) i was able to continue chaining until i hit another Time Spiral/BSZ or a wish into a fatal brain freeze/BSZ.

A solid list still requires finetuning. It is pretty tight and it feels light on protection. For me i think PiF is a bit overstretched. I would stay mono blue.
List so far:

3 Snap
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
4 High Tide
3 Turnabout
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Time Spiral
4 Merchant Scroll
6 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest

Don't know of any red tide primers, possibly in the developing section though, but I rarely go there.

High Tide PiF version : http://www.starcitygames.com/article...o-Problem.html

If you add inconsistency to your manabase with another color you might aswell play ANT.

The snapcaster version is nice but the body is not very relevant and the downside of having your snapcaster getting plowed in response to Snap is quite brutal. Paying 2 mana extra for spells is a bit costly.... speaking of 2 mana, Predict costs 2 aswell... did anyone test it?

edit: I do encourage testing new things though. I really like the delver sideboard to fight the combo hate I just saw on oarsmans stream.

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Originally Posted by Mackan

I really like the delver sideboard to fight the combo hate I just saw on oarsmans stream.

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Could you provude us with any link for this?
Thanks.

Fwiw I run swan song instead of flusterstorm main. Too many counterbalances running around right now. Also, when you're trying to go off, swan song will always be better than flusterstorm except against enemy flusterstorms. Not too many people run main deck flusterstorm, and grid does well against that card in post boarded games. Grid is awesome.

Also there are many times elves will try and natural order, and they can easily pay for flusterstorm. Swan song will always counter their spells.

Hand from a game I just played:

preordain, tide, spiral, force, scalding tarn, scroll, turnabout. Would you keeping this?


I kept, got stuck on two lands and died.

My rule for one land hands is roughly to keep them, if they have 2 cantrips and it can't be 2 Brainstorms.

Maybe I'm bad, but if I see 1 land, I keep it almost every time, whether or not I have a cantrip. My "theory" is that if I have a 53 card stack as my deck, over 50% of those cards are cantrips and lands in these scenarios, if I keep a 1 lander. I absolutely hate to mulligan though. The only people I've also seen be so anti mulligan are Joe Losset and Gerard Fabiano, and the fact that I heard someone say Gerard would rather lose keeping 7 than mulligan to 6, is very close to how I feel about it too.

I basically only mulligan when I see a hand that tells me "if I keep this, I'm gonna be discarding soon." or of course "0 landers."

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Originally Posted by feline

Maybe I'm bad, but if I see 1 land, I keep it almost every time, whether or not I have a cantrip. My "theory" is that if I have a 53 card stack as my deck, over 50% of those cards are cantrips and lands in these scenarios, if I keep a 1 lander. I absolutely hate to mulligan though. The only people I've also seen be so anti mulligan are Joe Losset and Gerard Fabiano, and the fact that I heard someone say Gerard would rather lose keeping 7 than mulligan to 6, is very close to how I feel about it too.

I basically only mulligan when I see a hand that tells me "if I keep this, I'm gonna be discarding soon." or of course "0 landers."

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After reading this I feel like I've been playing the deck totally wrong. In Worcester I was facing a deathblade type deck. I had 4 lands, a candle and 2 counters. I mulliganed. Is that incorrect?

Hi. I posted this over at MtgSalvation as well but I felt there is more activity here :-)

I've been playing this deck for about two years now and I really like the new direction this deck is heading. I have read through this entire thread (it took quite some time...) and I've had a fun time seing how the deck has evolved and how discussion have gone.

I've often felt that this deck has two major weaknesses:

1) It is relatively slow
This often comes into play against other combo decks as well as against fast aggro decks. This is relatively unique among combo decks since most other combo decks can easily outrace aggro. High Tide can seldom race other combo decks and is often on par with many aggro decks.

2) It quite susceptible to hate and discard
This is the major drawback with High Tide. There are very few decks today that are without either counters and/or discard and/or some kind of MD hate. Classic High Tide has relatively few ways to defend itself so (I know some of you do not agree with me here, but I often feel that my 7 counters are a bit few when the opponent has 4-5 discards).

Weakness one cannot really be tackled. The deck cannot really be sped up so trying to race other decks aren’t an option. And I think that most of us can agree that the deck has to evolve somehow. The meta has changed to the worse for High Tide so if we want this deck to become successful again, it has to change something. Thus, being more controlly is probably the best way.
CounterTop is a solid shell for a controlling deck, and just what we need. It attacks weakness two whilst still not giving in to faster decks. The only weakness of the CounterTop suit is that it makes the combo less stable (more dead cards post-spiral). In my opinion, the solution to this is Capsize.

To generate inf mana with Capsize, we need: 1 Candelabra of Tawnos, 1 Capsize and that our lands produce 8+N mana, where N is the amount of lands in play So, with 4 lands in play we need 12 mana from our lands (ie. 2 resolved High Tide). With 3 lands, we need 11 mana (3 resolved High Tide). If we have a Top in play with inf mana and a Capsize, we can draw our entire deck and thus win instantly. If we don’t have a Top, you can always bounce your opponents board, in worst case that’ll give you a few turns to build up again.
Capsize is a stable win-con, easy to assemble and fairly quick. I really think that if we want to play CounterTop MD, Capsize should be in the SB or even MD.

Other ways to make the deck more controlling could be to involve a second color. While I understand the Wasteland argument (and believe me, it is a very strong argument), with the slower CounterTop build it might be worth looking at again. We could look at what other colors could give us:

Black:
Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress - Useful to strip other decks of their weapons against us, also somewhat useful post-spiral to see if the opponent drew FoW.
Toxic Deluge, Drown in Sorrow - Kills almost all hate-bears out there

Red:
Pyroclasm - Kills almost all hate-bears out there
Izzet Charm - Every mode is actually useful. Question is, what card is it better than?
Red Elemental Blast - Meh... Maybe...

Green:
Tangle - Buys time
Exploration, Explore - Have been tried before to get a lot of lands into play
Nature's Claim - Might be useful in SB against... something...

White:
Terminus - Miracle plays it, and with Top, Brainstorm and Ponder we can set up our library almost as much as they can
Humility - If we get this baby into play, we have all the time in the world.
Orim's Chant - Safe combo, and it can buy a turn against aggro.


So other colors have good cards and I would really like the splash to be worth it. Is it worth it though? Truth is, I am not sure... I'll do some testing when I get the chance but unfortunately, I'll have to do most of my testing via Cockatrice.
I think the main question regardins splashing is: What would be requiered to justify a splash? If we could make our own non-blue card which would warrent a splash, how would it look? And after we've created our perfect card, analyze if there is a card which is close enough.