[Primer] Legacy High Tide Primer

Date Last Updated: 1/11/20
Last Set Updated For: Throne of Eldraine

Legacy High Tide
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handler...1874&type=card https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handler...1163&type=card https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handler...0423&type=card

1) High Tide Intro
High Tide is a deck that has been prevalent in Legacy’s history, predating even the Type 1 and Type 1.5 split (the split of Legacy and Vintage) back in 2005. High Tide is a deck that attempts to dominate one side of card game theory. It does this by attempting to monopolize the reactive style of play, as opposed to playing threats each turn.

2) High Tide Mainboard
High Tide can be split into 2 main archetypes: Spiral Tide and Solidarity. Spiral Tide is more control-oriented while Solidarity more combo oriented. After the banning of Dig Through Time, Spiral Tide became the more popular and powerful choice. due to its higher level of consistency versus Solidarity. It is worthy to note that Solidarity cannot easily win on your own turn but can usually win in response to an opponent declaring and attack or casting cards.

Spiral Tide:

Core Cards:
High Tide - The namesake of the archetype, causes Islands to tap to produce an additional blue. Be warned, opponents’ Islands also add the additional blue if they tap an Island. You don’t need to inform opponents about floating mana but you can’t lie about the symmetric effect of High Tide.
Time Spiral - When reading this card, both players drawing 7 cards and refunding the mana cost seems underwhelming. However, when paired with High Tide, we end up generating mana and shuffle back High Tides into the deck. Your common turn will be High Tide, followed by Turnabout, finally followed by Time Spiral. Opponents will often concede if this card resolves.
Turnabout- A mana generator. Since we want to combo when we have 4 or more Islands, a single High Tide means that we are generating the most mana we can get before we cast Time Spiral.

These cards are used together to create a huge amount of mana which is then used to cast Blue Sun’s Zenith on the opponent. In case you can’t generate enough mana, Brain Freeze is used to generate a storm kill.

Counterspells:
Force of Will - The star counterspell of Legacy. Exiling a blue card and losing one life is a minor loss compared to not needing to pay mana to counterspell.

Flusterstorm- Force Spike with the Storm mechanic. This ensures that a single counterspell cannot usually stop us from countering the spell. We do in fact become a storm deck during the combo turn so this helps us stop any and all interaction when we need it.

Spell Pierce - This is the budget alternative to Flusterstorm. Generally, both should be aimed towards countering a threat, but Flusterstorm is better since it cannot be countered as easily.

Utilities:
Brainstorm - This is one of the best card filters in Legacy. Whether drawing 3 to make land drops or finding a way to extend the combo, this card helps you find it. Also, if you’re faced off against Thoughtseize or Duress, you can use Brainstorm to hide key cards on top of your deck.
Cunning Wish - This allows you to pull whatever you need from the sideboard. Whether it be a bounce spell, another counterspell, or the win conditions, Blue Sun’s Zenith or Brain Freeze. Remember that you can only grab an instant from the sideboard.
Merchant Scroll - Our tutor. Search for any missing blue instant we need before we combo off.
Ponder- Rearrange top 3 cards of your library, if you don’t like them, shuffle your deck, then replace itself all for 1 mana. Excuse me while I Ponder a better card.
Predict- Ponder, Preordain and Brainstorm all give you the ability to see what is on top of your library. If we do not need, say an Island, we can target ourselves naming Island, getting rid of the Island and drawing 2 better cards.
Preordain- Scry 2 then draw. Need I say why card filtering is good?
Meditate - Drawing four cards is incredibly powerful. Skipping your next turn isn’t a drawback if you win the game. In some circumstances, it can also be a good move to cast it other than on the combo turn, assuming that your opponent is in a slow position and can’t threaten you during the intervening turn.
Intuition - This is a powerful tutoring effect.

Lands:
Flooded Strand/Misty Rainforest/Polluted Delta/Scalding Tarn: There are many reasons why Fetchlands are great. Say you Ponder and only want one of those 3 cards. Or say you Brainstorm and put 2 unneeded cards on top of your library. Now you can shuffle your library and not be forced to draw those cards for the next 2 turns. You may choose which to run, but for a budget friendly option, choose Flooded Strand and Polluted Delta. This also serves as a mindgame tool for turns 1 and 2. These lands can often make the opponent think you are playing delver and have them play around the wrong deck.
Island: For High Tide.

Solidarity:

Core:
High Tide - Making mana is good, and still part of the core winning pieces.
Reset - Cheap way to untap lands, on your opponent's turn. This will be used to continue comboing. Remember, you cannot cast this on your own turn.

Creatures:
Snapcaster Mage - recast a spell, and get a chump-blocker. This is also the only deck where Snapcaster Mage will sometimes cast Snap.

Counterspells:
Force of Will/Flusterstorm - See the reasoning in Spiral Tide.

Utility:
Brainstorm - One mana draw 3. Get rid of extra Islands.
Cunning Wish - Pull more instants from the sideboard.
Impulse/Opt - Card filtering. Impulse lets you select a card from the top 4 cards in your library while Opt lets you increase the chances of continuing the combo.
Meditate - 3 mana draw 4. There’s not going to be another turn so skipping your next turn is irrelevant.
Snap - Makes mana, removes threats.

Land:
Same as Spiral Tide.

3) High Tide Sideboard

Spiral Tide:
Spiral tide can be divided into 2 categories in the sideboard. Your Wish-board is what you can Cunning Wish for and your others are flex slots and the other is general hate.

General hate:
Grafdigger’s Cage - No I really hate reanimator. Be warned if you are using Snapcaster Mage, Grafdigger’s Cage stops Snapcaster Mage from being efficient.
Defense Grid- This is an option against slow, counter heavy decks such as Miracles and Stoneblade variants.
Teferi’s Realm- An effective catch all against various kinds of permanent based hate, and nullifies Chalice of the Void on your turn.
Narset, Parter of Veils- Narset is useful in grindy matchups where her static ability and card selection put you at a solid advantage. She is a significant roadblock for many decks and makes Time Spiral completely one-sided. However, she also turns off a Blue Sun’s Zenith kill, so either wish for a Brain Freeze kill or bounce her.
Thing in the Ice/Awoken Horror - This card can be a silly trick to play on people that sideboarded out all their creature removal.
Search for Azcanta/Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin - This is a potential bomb against grindy decks like Miracles if it comes down early. However, it is dead on the combo turn if not already in play.

Wishboard:
Blue Sun’s Zenith - Draw cards or make your opponent deck out.
Brain Freeze - Your opponent must pick up their deck and put it in the graveyard.
Echoing Truth - Empty the Warrens won’t kill me.
Flusterstorm/Pact of Negation/Mindbreak Trap/Force of Negation - counterspell backup for all your needs
Hurkyl’s Recall/Rebuild - These cards are very similar, but it is sometimes worth running both due to their slightly different applications. Hurkyll’s Recall has a lower CMC and targets one player, whereas Rebuild can be cycled away if necessary and bounces all artifacts. Both can be used to bounce Candelabra of Tawnos to up the storm count and generate silly amounts of mana.
Intuition - Why doesn’t this card say “with different names”. Since when did my opponent get a choice?
Snap/Wipe Away - Removal. One makes mana, the other can’t be responded to. It’s worth noting that Snap can only target creatures, but has very strong synergy with Snapcaster Mage and other useful creatures.
Turnabout - When cunning wish can turn into any card in your sideboard, you are almost like playing with 6 turnabouts, 6 High Tides, or whatever you need.
Surgical Extraction - I hate reanimator and pox so much that I will pay life to remove it. This card has a lot of general utility against both graveyard and combo decks. Remember to name what is immediately threatening. You only have to live long enough to combo.
Counterspell - This is a useful card to have in the side in combo heavy metas and can also be useful if you’re expecting to have to fight a lot of counter wars.

Solidarity:
High Tide in its Solidarity form exists with mindsets meant to lower the chances of your opponent being able to stop you in any way. Thus, 2 different mindsets came to be: Accumulated Knowledge. The Accumulated Knowledge plan is more graveyard reliant and tries to draw cards most efficiently with this. On the other hand, Snapcaster Mage and Snap are more board reliant and resist graveyard removal better. Snapcaster Mage is threatened more by spot removal as you will not get to untap with Snap, but does not need to rely so heavily on keeping the graveyard intact.

Blue Sun’s Zenith - One of two win conditions. You also can use it on yourself in order to draw cards and continue to combo before drawing it again
Brain Freeze - The other win condition. With a high enough storm count, you can just tell the opponent to put their library in the graveyard then pass the turn.
Flusterstorm/Pact of Negation/Force of Negation/Counterspell - More counterspells in case you need them
Rebuild/Hurkyll’s Recall - No artifacts to dampen our spirits. However, Solidarity doesn’t run Candelabra of Tawnos, so there isn’t the same potential synergy present in versions of Spiral Tide that do.
Reset- This is a cheap Turnabout and the reason why we are geared to win at instant speed. It is crucially important to the point that Solidarity is also called “Reset” or Reset Tide.”
Snap - Makes mana and removes a threat.
Surgical Extraction - Oh boy do I hate reanimator and pox. They put me under duress. When sideboarding, it is often correct not to side these in since you can’t find them with Merchant Scroll.
Turnabout - Same reasoning as Spiral Tide.
Wipe Away - Removal that can’t be responded to
Vendilion Clique - gain knowledge of an opponent’s hand and rip a threat from that hand. Also a decent blocker.
Visions of Beyond - This is sometimes Ancestral Recall. Some versions target themselves with Brain Freeze on occasion to turn this on.

4) Flex Slots and card choices
Let’s start at the big one: Candelabra of Tawnos and Capsize. Candelabra of Tawnos is great as it is extra copies of Turnabout. If the opponent counters it, that’s one less counterspell to worry about. Capsize makes infinite mana and infinite storm count with Candelabra of Tawnos and can bounce your opponents entire board before you go through the rest of the combo. As for the downsides, Candelabra of Tawnos is expensive (in terms of actual money) and hard to come by. In addition, it creates ways for your opponent to play cards since artifacts are easier to remove than lands. However, it opens up previously mentioned synergies with Hurkyll’s Recall and Rebuild.

Mission Briefing is next. Mission Briefing is a great new card that allows you to remove trash from the top of your library, and recast a card. It’s very handy in Solidarity.

Counterbalance is a fun card that allows you to counterspell cards sometimes for free. Since the majority of spells are 0, 1, 2 and 3 mana, you’re essentially playing with a Chalice of the Void with an ever-changing amount of counters. It’s less reliable, but you can manipulate the top of your deck with Brainstorm, Predict, and fetchlands.

Teferi’s Realm is one way of responding to Chalice of the Void. It can also deal with a variety of permanents, and is useful for against hatebears since it can phase out an entire board of creatures for a turn.

There have also been attempts to go multicolor with payoffs like Lim-Dul’s Vault, Toxic Deluge, Teferi, Time Raveler, and sideboard spice like Monastery Mentor. Any splash is close to uncharted territory. You might have some results, who knows?

Narset, Parter of Veils and Narset’s Reversal have quickly become a powerhouse both for us and against us. Narset, Parter of Veils limits how many cards our opponent has access to per turn cycle, and how many they have post-spiral. Narset’s Reversal lets us play with the stack getting around Chalice of the Void, Flusterstorm, and Hymn to Tourach while refunding the card if we use it on our own spells. It’s worth noting that Narset’s Reversal is often better than Twincast, which is a playable card itself.

Force of Negation - This card is extra copies of Force of Will. While more narrow in targets, Force of Negation exiles the card.

Fae of Wishes- This card works as a modified Cunning Wish allowing us access to cards such as Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, Mystic Sanctuary or our instants and sorceries in our sideboard.

Brazen Borrower- Bounce spell and a blocker. Not as optimal but if you need blockers for your meta, this option exists.

5) How to Play High Tide
Regardless of which archetype that you picked, the initial play is the same in each deck. The deck wants to slow the opponent down as long as possible to sculpt the combo before going off, unlike most storm decks. Where we give up speed, we gain inevitability. It is hard to stop the onslaught of counterspells that we built up through sculpting our hand. Solidarity can only combo on the opponent’s turn and often is in response to your opponent tapping out, or in response to something that would cause you to lose the game. Spiral Tide needs High Tide cast on your own turn. The combo turn begins with casting the namesake card High Tide. After your High Tide resolves (more than one after each resolves is ok too), you want to cast Reset or Turnabout, depending on the version. Here is where we will diverge.

In Spiral Tide, your next action will be to cast Time Spiral, which will make a bunch of mana. From there, casting cantrips, casting Turnabouts and raising both your blue mana in the mana pool and storm count. From there, you want to Cunning Wish to take Blue Sun’s Zenith or Brain Freeze to deck your opponent out. The deck is non-deterministic, so the route you take to the lethal spell is going to be different in every circumstance. Flexibility and creativity are necessary to winning since you can’t always brute force your way to victory with Time Spiral.

In Solidarity, you instead want to just chain spells and untaps to make mana. Your untap effect is much cheaper so you do not need Time Spiral. From there, you are digging through your deck to find Cunning Wish. The win condition is the same, make a lot of mana, and Blue Sun’s Zenith or Brain Freeze to deck your opponent out.

Solidarity is completely instant speed so you can wait until the final moment before turning the Tide. You trade the consistency of having Ponders, Preordains, and Merchant Scrolls, for cheaper dig potential in Meditate, Snapcaster Mage, Snap, Accumulated Knowledge, Growth Spiral (for spicy people who like splashing colors) and many others.

Common Interactions
There are quite a few common interactions and synergies that High Tide players should be aware of:

Candelabra of Tawnos + Capsize - This interaction has previously been noted. Capsize is a common sideboard choice primarily because of this interaction. After casting a High Tide and beginning to combo, these allow the player to generate infinite mana and storm by using Candelabra to generate mana, which is used to cast Capsize targeting Candelabra, return Capsize to your hand, and recast Candelabra. Once you have made your arbitrarily large amount of mana, it’s just a matter of digging to your win condition.

Candelabra of Tawnos + Turnabout - When you have multiple Candelabras in play, using Turnabout to untap artifacts will generate more mana than untapping your lands. This synergy isn’t present when only one Candelabra is in play, so it is often advised to run Candelabra of Tawnos in multiples.

Candelabra of Tawnos + Rebuild or Hurkyll’s Recall - This is another common synergy previously mentioned. Like the synergy with Turnabout, this works best with multiple Candelabras. Simply use Candelabra to make some mana, bounce and recast the Candelabra, and then make more mana.

Narset’s Reversal + Brain Freeze - This is similar to an old trick with Remand. Narset’s Reversal makes Brain Freeze lethal very quickly. Simply cast Brain Freeze, then return it to your hand with Narset’s Reversal and cast it again. The second time you cast Brain Freeze, it will be much larger than the first cast due to all the storm copies. It normally takes a storm count of at least 18 (60-7=53, so 53 is often the number of cards in your opponent’s library post Time Spiral. 53/3=17.667, so you need a storm count of at least 18). With this trick, you need a storm count of 9 to make Brain Breeze lethal.

Narset’s Reversal gets some extra attention here because it can lead to blowouts against problem spells such as Hymn to Tourach and Thoughtsieze, as well as perform a variety of functions in a counter war. What you target with Narset’s Reversal varies based on the situation, but it can be used to save a key spell from being countered, recast spells like Turnabout, steal key spells such as Reanimate and even brute force a combo through Chalice of the Void on 1. Since it makes a copy of the spell, the copy will resolve through the Chalice.

Twincast + Blue Sun’s Zenith - This is similar to the Narset’s Reversal + Brain Freeze combo. Simply copy the Blue Sun’s Zenith, making it lethal from significantly less mana than normal due to X being copied.

6) Matchups
High Tide’s favored matchups are ones where the opponent has a limited number of options for dealing with the combo. Since High Tide is often creatureless and plays almost entirely on the stack, a large amount of cards in legacy designed to deal with permanents and “fair” games of Magic become dead draws. Everything from Mother of Runes, to Swords to Plowshares and Abrupt Decay and many other draws are dead draws. This gives High Tide an advantage in game 1 over a lot of decks.

Opponent Pre-Sideboard Post-Sideboard

Eldrazi Aggro This is a chalice deck. You will mostly fight this deck out of the wishboard. Their key threats are Chalice and Trinisphere. If you live and they don’t have one active in time to stop a combo, you pretty much win. Thought-Knot Seer is annoying, but that’s about the extent of their disruption. They do have a "gotcha" in the form of Warping Wail but nothing else threatening. This is still a chalice deck. You may want to consider Snap to bounce some creatures and stay alive. Hurkyl’s Recall and Rebuild are good to have in your Wishboard.

Grixis Delver Bad matchup. They have a quick clock and a wide disruption suite that includes both counterspells and discard. Surviving with the combo in hand is not easy. Different versions of Grixis Delver run different sets of disruption, but Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek, Daze, and Force of Will are all expected. Hymn to Tourach and Liliana of the Veil are less common, but still potent cards to be wary of. Bounce spells are very good at slowing Grixis Delver down since feeding multiple Gurmag Anglers can be tricky and bouncing a delver un-flips it. Black heavy lists will almost certainly run Liliana of the Veil out of the side if she isn’t in the main.

Death and Taxes How this matchup goes depends on heavily on the build of the Death and Taxes player. Builds of this deck aiming to take on fair decks are generally easy matchups. Versions of this deck aimed at fighting combo decks are going to be much tougher. Be careful of Sanctum Prelate, since Sanctum Prelate naming three is an auto-loss for us pre-board and difficult to beat postboard. Having a variety of bounce to break different locks is helpful. Death and Taxes has access to some very nasty creatures postboard, including Ethersworn Canonist and the exceptionally rare Spirit of the Labyrinth. Postboard games are very similar to preboard games. How well they do depends on how well they draw and what their list is tuned to beat.

Stompy The cards we care about coming from most Stompy decks are Chalice and Trinisphere. Get around those and you win. Their primary plan of Blood Mooning people out of games just isn’t applicable to High Tide. Sideboarding is very similar to Eldrazi. The creatures are secondary to the artifacts. Get around those and you’ll have no issue comboing.

Maverick We’re heavily favored in game 1. Maverick is a deck designed to mostly beat up other fair decks. They don’t offer much disruption until postboard. Sometimes all they have to put in our way is Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Maverick has access to Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg, and various other nasty hatebears out of the board. High Tide has the advantage as long as the board is clear of hatebears. If the game goes too long, they will be able to vial in something nasty, so combo as soon as practical.

Death's Shadow This matchup is functionally similar to Grixis Delver. The creature core of Delvers, Anglers, and Death’s Shadows presents a fast clock to back up countermagic and discard.

Burn Don’t die and you win. The only card you care about is Eidolon of the Great Revel. Don’t die some more. Pyrocstatic Pillar is the only thing from the sideboard that we care about. Teferi’s Realm can phase them out if you’re worried.

Goblins We have a good matchup here. Goblins is a very similar deck to Death and Taxes, only it’s much more skewed to defeating fair decks. They can simply drown a lot of decks in Legacy with little green men generated by card advantage. Occasionally they can close a game quickly with a Piledriver kill, but that is uncommon. For the most part, they are too slow and interact with us too little in game 1 to have much of a chance. This changes in game 2. Many lists run Earwig Squad in the side to help fight combo, and artifact hate is another possibility. Some lists are leaning heavier into black for discard as well. For the most part, they are still simply too slow and interact with us too little to prevent us from going off. This matchup is changing with innovations in the black splash, so you can’t always expect a bye in postboard games.

Affinity Affinity in Legacy is essentially a Chalice deck with a combo kill. Whether or not they get to be that depends entirely on how they draw. Sometimes they just have a nut draw and win. However, Affinity is fragile, so you can fight it off with countermagic and bounce. Lists that run Tezzeret are less consistent, but are more flexible. Artifact hate is important here. Hurkyl’s Recall and Rebuild are good cards to have in the wishboard

Canadian Threshold (RUG Delver) This is a bad matchup for similar reasons to Grixis Delver. The threat suite is different and actually slightly more difficult for us to interact with due to Nimble Mongoose having shroud. Overall, RUG Delver trades disruption for speed, but the game plan of play a threat or two and back it up with cheap disruption remains the same. Bounce is still decent in the matchup for unflipping Delvers. Survival is key, since a fair portion of their countermagic gets weaker the longer the game goes. It’s a better matchup than Grixis Delver, but it’s still not a good one.

Merfolk This is a Chalice deck that runs Force of Will. Their disruption is varied and it can be tricky to fight through all of it. The real threats in this deck aren’t the creatures, though Merfolk presents a fast enough clock to be able to kill us before we combo in some cases. This can be as bad a matchup as Grixis Delver. They’re more consistent than other Chalice decks and have a wide variety of tricks to play with Phantasmal Image and can develop a powerful board very quickly. Be prepared to fight a counter war over Chalice. Echoing Truth is a good card to have for this matchup. They will have extra countermagic in the sideboard, but the key threat remains the same. If Chalice resolves, they’re fast enough to close the game before we recover.

MUD This matchup is largely functionally identical to Eldrazi and Stompy. Chalice and Trinisphere are what matters. Sometimes MUD has more disruption we care about, such as Thorn of Amethyst and Lodestone Golem. MUD is much more artifact heavy than both Eldrazi and Stompy. Rebuild and Hurkyl’s Recall are both excellent cards out of the Wishboard.

Bant Bant decks tend to be midrange decks that use Noble Hierarch to power out powerful threats like Stoneforge Mystic and Knight of the Reliquary. Bant has a wide variety of threats and reliable countermagic, as well as a suite of powerful sideboard cards due to having access to White. In postboard games, they will have sided out their dead removal and sided in a variety of hatebears and countermagic. Gaddock Teeg is a threat from any deck running Green and White, and Ethersworn Canonist is a similarly prevalent sideboard threat

Jund Unless they manage some ridiculous curve along the lines of Thoughtseize-Hymn to Tourach-Liliana of the Veil, this deck won’t give us serious problems. High Tide has so much redundancy that discard by itself generally isn’t going to prevent us from assembling the combo. This deck is designed to beat other fair decks, so we’re heavily favored. Jund has access to Chains of Mephistopheles out of the sideboard. This card shuts everything in our deck off aside from Merchant Scroll and Cunning Wish. Do not let it resolve. Fortunately, their primary interaction with us is still discard, so we have the advantage.

Esper Mentor Esper Mentor has a similar countermagic and discard package to Grixis Delver and Death’s Shadow decks, giving them a disruption suite that can be very difficult to win through. However, Esper Mentor presents a slower clock than tempo decks, which gives us an opportunity to put a potential combo together. This matchup starts out tricky and simply gets harder postboard due to their ability to side out removal. Consider cards like Defense Grid to help get your combo off the ground. By the time they can pay to get over the Grid, we’re favored to win.

Grixis Control Grixis Control is a similar matchup to Esper Mentor. The biggest differences are in the removal suite. Lightning Bolt and Toxic Deluge are frequently present in Grixis Control decks. We don’t care much about removal. Prodigal Pyromancer replaces Monastery Mentor. Despite these differences, what matters is that they have access to plenty of disruption in the form of discard and countermagic. Similar to Esper Mentor, they get to side out their dead removal for live counterspells. However, Grixis Control is a tougher matchup due to their access to Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast. Mass bounce spells are effective against token strategies in general, so Echoing Truth is nice to have access to. They present a faster clock than other control deck, so we don’t have all day to grind them out and put a hand together. We can’t outpace them directly much of the time, so prepare for a counter war. Survive, run them out of disruption, and combo.

Lands Lands is a goldfish game 1. Their only hope is a fast 20/20. Lands often has sideboard Sphere of Resistance, so they can slow us down a little in postboard games. There isn’t much nuance to this matchup. Just have bounce ready for any Marit Lages or particularly annoying artifacts that may pop up. We’re a nightmare matchup for Lands.

Miracles This is another deck that likes long games. Miracles can be either the control or the beatdown in this matchup depending on how they draw and what their list is. We aren’t favored either way. Monastery Mentor is their most powerful clock against us, and Counterbalance is one of their most important pieces of disruption against us. Cunning Wish is a hugely important card in this matchup since Miracles doesn’t have many cards that cost 3. Finding your way out from under Counterbalance is the most important part of setting up to combo and there isn’t really any way to learn how other than experience. Be ready to fight a counter war from an unfavorable position This matchup gets more difficult postboard due to the fact that many Miracles pilots run Red for cards such as Pyroblast. Additionally, Flusterstorm is a very common card to be aware of when fighting a Counterbalance or beginning to combo.

Stoneblade Stoneblade is a jack of all trades deck in Legacy. It’s often said that it has 49-51 matchups across the board, and High Tide isn’t an exception to that. While some versions splash Red for Red Elemental Blasts and some splash Black for discard, Stoneblade decks are overall on the slow side. We have plenty of time to assemble a strong hand and cast our combo. This matchup doesn’t change much postboard. Both sides get ready for a counter war. If we win the counter war, we go off. If we lose, they have a fast enough clock to have a reasonable chance of winning before we rebuild. The versions splashing Red for Blood Moon and blasts are most common, so be ready to fight through cheap counters.

Loam Aggro Loam is a deck that runs a variety of artifact hate as well as hatebears. They lean strongly on Chalice in game 1 to interact with combo, so if that doesn’t resolve or gets bounced we’re in the clear to combo off. Aggro Loam has access to a wide variety of hatebears and artifacts out of the sideboard. Most dangerous to us is Gaddock Teeg. Fortunately, most of their interaction doesn’t line up well against us unless they resolve and early Chalice. We do relatively well against Loam, even postboard.

Nic Fit Nic Fit doesn’t present a large amount of disruption in game 1. Discard is about the extent of it. They’re a slower deck aiming to go big, so we have plenty of time to assemble a hand and combo off. How much this matchup changes depends on what kind of Nic Fit the pilot is running as well as what colors they have access to. Straight BG versions generally don’t have access to much more interaction out of the sideboard than they do in the main. Chains of Mephistopheles is one possibility, but it is rare. Junk versions have access to Gaddock Teeg, and Academy Rector versions of Junk Nic Fit have access to Spirit of the Labyrinth. Ethersworn Canonist is an unlikely possibility from Junk versions of the deck. Jund versions of Nic Fit aren’t likely to offer any more interaction than straight BG lists. And finally, BUG versions of Nic Fit have access to counterspells in the sideboard, so be prepared for Force of Will. Scarier is Leovold, Emissary of Trest. A resolved Leovold is very difficult to combo through. Don’t let him resolve.

4c Control The primary version of 4c control is Czech Pile (BUrg). It’s essentially a pile of some of the best individual cards in the format. It is very good at grinding against other fair decks due to a wide suite of removal and individually powerful cards ranging from Baleful Strix and Leovold, Emissary of Trest to Gurmag Angler.

The biggest factors in this matchup are counterspells and Leovold. High Tide is favored in game 1 due to the durdly nature of Pile, as well as the fact that Pile barely has enough blue cards to consistently cast Force of Will for free. Game 2 gets more difficult due to Pile being able to side out the many dead cards in this matchup. They will inevitably side out the suite of permanent removal and side in extra countermagic. They should have more Blue cards in postboard games, making Force of Will more consistent, but we’re still the better deck in a counter war.

Due to the grindy nature of the matchup, knowing what counters to use and when becomes very important. Leovold is backbreaking and is the biggest permanent based threat they have to us. The rest is all countermagic and discard.

BUG Midrange/BUG Control This matchup comes in a variety of flavors. Most of them are fairly similar to 4c control variants (which branched off from BUG midrange style decks back when Deathrite Shaman was legal). These decks usually aim to drown their opponent in card advantage and card quality. Shardless Agent, Baleful Strix, and other value creatures feature prominently in this archetype. Leovold does as well.

BUG Midrange also encompasses decks such as Food Chain and Aluren. These are combo decks that have a grindy plan B. They both have different key cards and different finishes. However, stopping their combos should slow them down enough for us to combo off in return. Their critical turns come online at a similar time as ours, so which deck is the beatdown is occasionally up in the air.

All BUG decks are capable of fighting a counter war. However, some versions are less good at it than others. Shardless BUG often doesn’t have any countermagic in the main aside from Force of Will due to a lack of synergy with Shardless Agent for example. This matchup will be very similar to 4c control postboard. They have access to the same tools. Discard, countermagic and Leovold, and Liliana of the Veil can all make appearances.

Experience is crucial in this matchup due to the sheer variety of cards BUG decks can play. Knowing what to counter against Food Chain, Aluren, and other BUG decks takes practice.

Pox Pox aims to make life miserable for whoever is sitting across the table by means of attrition. Smallpox is a key card, as forcing us to discard and sacrifice a land slows us down considerably. Discard and land destruction is obnoxious. The key is simply hitting land drops until we manage to build our hand to the point we can combo. Pox has Chains of Mephistopheles in the sideboard. Sometimes they even have it in the main. As slow as Pox is, we can’t afford to make the matchup difficult for ourselves. Build to the point you can safely combo, then win.

Landstill There are three varieties of Landstill, UR, UW, and UB. Landstill is a very slow deck. You should have no problem surviving and winning a counter war when it comes time to combo.

The counterplay to Standstill is just play into it or ignore it. Sure, they get to draw cards, but they’re going to have problems stopping you once you resolve Time Spiral.

Tezzerator This is a heavily artifact based deck that leans strongly on Chalice of the Void. The primary win condition is Tezzeret, but the Sword of the Meek/Thopter Foundry combo, and Breya, Etherium Shaper can also make appearances.

Their mana base can be incredibly shaky and will sometimes lose to itself. This is somewhat balanced out by their nut draws. Transmute Artifact helps with this.

Most of the interaction they have against us is the combination of Chalice and Force, but Trinisphere is also an option for them. Tezzerator runs a large amount of artifact acceleration and has a high mana curve. Sometimes they have nearly unbeatable draws and sometimes they flounder around. Tezzerator can run all kinds of wacky stuff ranging from Ethersworn Canonist to Notion Thief and Dack Fayden. Be aware of what cards hurt you and what cards you can deal with before countering something. Hurkyl’s Recall and Rebuild are both recommended.

The Rock (Junk) There are two versions of The Rock, straight BG like the original standard lists, and Junk. Both matchups are fairly simple for us due to their lack of interaction. Bounce or counter any real threats and be prepared to deal with discard. Junk versions are the most dangerous versions for us to face due to their access to hatebears such as Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Gaddock Teeg. However, the matchup remains relatively simple as long as nothing backbreaking is resolved.

Stax Most of their interaction is artifact based. As long as we manage to hit our land drops, we’re favored against Stax simply because they’re incredibly slow. Postboard games depend on what kind of Stax we’re facing. Dutch Stax (white) has access to hatebears. Black versions of Stax have access to Chains of Mephistopheles. MUD Stax simply has even more artifact hate, which can appear in both Dutch and Black Stax decks. No matter what version of Stax you’re up against, they’re slow. Hit land drops, use countermagic and bounce to prevent a lock, and you’ll safely survive to the point where you can combo.

Sneak and Show Sneak and Show is a resilient combo deck that goes off faster than we do. Additionally, it matches our countermagic with countermagic of its own. In other words, it’s not a favorable matchup for us. They key is survival. If both decks deplete their hand from a counter war, we can rebuild better and have a higher chance of successfully comboing that they do. Neither deck changes much in posboard games. We side in extra countermagic to fight their combo and survive. If Show and Tell decks are popular in your local meta, you may want to consider giving a sideboard slot to Ashen Rider or Oblivion Ring.

Omnitell This matchup is functionally similar to Sneak and Show. It’s slower, but has added resilience. There isn’t much difference from our perspective.

Dark Depths They’re going to try to combo off as quickly as possible. Sometimes they have a nut draw and just win, but we can interact with them often enough to survive and combo ourselves. Bounce and counterspells are both useful in this matchup, but knowing what to counter can be tricky without experience and you’ll sometimes have to make tricky judgement calls. This matchup doesn’t change much postboard. Both decks will have the same strategy going into game 2 as game 1, unless the Depths player is running a transformative sideboard. In either case, have bounce ready and try to live. If they lost game 1, you’re favored.

ANT The first thing to note is that you want counterspells with different names due to Cabal Therapy. They sometimes run other discard to protect their combo, such as Thoughtseize and Duress We have many shenanigans that we can use to fight this deck though. Flusterstorm handles Tendrils of Agony quite well. Also any counterspell used on Infernal Tutor works wonders as Lion’s Eye Diamond will need to be cracked before passing priority. With our opponent having no hand, we are free to take our time. We can also counter their Past in Flames.

ANT is slower than TES, but it typically runs cards with more raw power. Empty the Warrens, City of Solitude, Flusterstorm, and Xantid Swarm are the only noteworthy cards. The game plan never really changes against ANT. If you happen to have Counterbalance, you can also put quite the hamper on this deck.

TES The dividing line between TES and ANT can be summed up by 2 cards. Rite of Flame and Chrome Mox. TES is meant for a more consistent post naus and wants to win on turns 1 or 2. It relies heavily on speed and synergies to make up for not having as much raw power as ANT. Burning Wish is often present in TES, giving it added flexibility. It’s harder to play than ANT, but easily as dangerous.

There is often no Tendrils of Agony so you have some assurance in that Empty the Warrens is the kill card. Beware of Cabal Therapy and you’ll do fine. This has the same threats as ANT but with Tendrils in the Sideboard to allow for a better Ad Nauseam.

Reanimator This is a terrible matchup. Reanimator is a combo deck that eats other combo decks for breakfast due to going off very quickly. Blue versions have additional resilience in the form of countermagic and Show and Tell. Quickly dropping a Griselbrand is going to win quite a few games. Red versions are all in on speed and use their interaction primarily to clear the way for a combo. Bounce is very important in this matchup. Saving countermagic to protect your combo is sometimes the right play against UB versions, but not often. Stranding their large threats in hand is a winning strategy and they will sometimes use discard such as Cabal Therapy on themselves in order to bin a fatty.

Elves Game 1 of this matchup High Tide is clearly playing the control side. They’re a faster combo deck, so hold up countermagic for their combo. Natural Order is a key spell and determining when to counter a Glimpse of Nature is one of the most important skills in this matchup. Postboard games get even trickier due to Elves’ ability to side in Gaddock Teeg while still being a faster combo deck than us. Green Sun’s Zenith or the Finale become a highly critical spell in the matchup instead of just being a combo payoff like in pre-board games. Additionally, some Elves pilots run discard in either the main or the side.

Infect Infect is a faster combo deck that also presents countermagic in order to both protect its combo and disrupt other decks. While Infect is capable of playing a pure tempo game, its ability to simply win out of nowhere is its primary advantage. Like Reanimator, Infect can “accidentally” kill on turn 2. Aim bounce at creatures during your turn so that they may waste a protection spell defensively instead of offensively. Offensive Turnabouts on our side can effectively slow Infect down. Not much changes in this matchup in postboard games. Expect more countermagic. They have a clear advantage in speed, but we have better counterspells. Infect is like most matchups in that we’re favored if we can manage to survive to cast the combo.

Dredge Dredge is quite scary pre-board as we dont have much interaction that affects them. They don’t need to cast most spells and can generate a lot of value quickly. We have 2 options pre-board- Cunning Wish for Surgical Extraction or mass bounce spells, or survive to combo off. Beware of Cabal Therapy but we have counterspells.

It is worth it to note that Lion’s Eye Diamond used to fuel Faithless Lootings can be counterspelled for maximum value (counter the Faithless Looting). Silent Gravestone, Leyline of the Void, Cabal Therapy and others can come in from Dredge. We have bounce spells galore post board. Grafdigger’s cage is amazing here too. Survive and win.

Manaless Dredge Manaless dredge gives up lands for more counterspells. Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal can pose a threat. Manaless dredge can also run Chancellor of the Annex along with the other threats from its mana counterpart. Other than that, we don’t have too much of a worry. Same game plan as with the mana counterpart. Survive and win.

Cloudpost There are several variants of Cloudpost: U/G, Colorless/G, and Colorless or Eldrazipost. The versions with Green tend to mostly be based heavily on it. They don’t present much disruption for us since a large portion of their deck is built around ensuring their ability to ramp into a massive fatty. Force of Will is very rare in the main. Artifact hate is more common, but they just don’t do much to us in game 1. Just combo before the drop an Emrakul and you should win.

Eldrazipost is a little different. You’re more likely to see artifact hate and Thought-Knot Seers, but game 1 is still simple. Postboard is still simple. Cloudpost can run some artifact hate, but Chalice is unusual. Versions running Blue can have Force of Will in the sideboard. Lodestone Golem and other Sphere effects may make an appearance, but are unusual.

Food Chain This is quite possibly the oddest midrange matchup. With the banning of Deathrite Shaman and Dig Through Time, much of the former consistency has been reduced. The main threat in this deck is Food Chain. This is supplemented by Force of Wills, Misdirections, Dazes, Spell Pierces, Duresses, and other interaction.
Other than that, the deck is insanely slow. Relic of Progenitus, Duress, and more counterspells can be expected. Our game plan against Food Chain doesn’t really change, though.

Bomberman The main agent behind bomberman is Auriok Salvagers and Lion’s Eye Diamond. Either prevent the Auriok Salvagers from resolving or have bounce ready for the Salvagers. Force of Wills, and Dazes are expected so be ready to fight to win. Bomberman has a lot of sideboard hate ready for us. Ethersworn Canonist, Painter’s Servant, Grindstone, and Chalice of the Void are usually brought in for us. Chalice and Canonist are both highly disruptive to us while Painter’s Servant combo is a quick unexpected win.

Enchantress The only thing stopping you in game 1 is Solitary Confinement. The only match up easier than Enchantress is Lands. Game 2 will involve leylines, Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg, and Spirit of the Labyrinth are all potential threats out of the sideboard. This makes the matchup slightly more difficult, but we’re still favored.

Painter’s Servant Part of the point of Painter decks is to run a ton of Red Elemental Blast effects. There are several variants of Painter decks, including R/W (Shortcake), Red (Imperial), Grixis, and U/R (Painted Stone). Central to all variants is the combo of Painter’s Servant and Grindstone.

Shortcake Painter runs Enlightened Tutors to find the combo as well as silver bullets out of the sideboard.

Imperial Painted runs Imperial Recruiter to find Painter’s Servant or a variety of utility creatures such as Goblin Welder. Against other decks, this gives them the ability to grind very well. However, many of the utility creatures and artifacts they run are focused mostly on accelerating their combo.

Grixis Painter aims for consistency. Black provides tutors and some additional disruption options in the form of discard. Blue gives access to Trinket Mage and other disruption options in the form of countermagic.

Painted Stone is aiming to combo as quickly as possible. Trinket Mage and lots of cantrips give it a different feel from the other Painter’s Servant decks. Countermagic is a strong possibility, especially since Painter’s Servant decks already run Red Elemental Blast effects in the main.

There are rare mono-blue Painter’s Servant decks. Instead of naming Blue and using Red Elemental Blast effects, they will name Red and use Blue Elemental Blast effects. They’ll try to combo quicky, so be ready with your own countermagic if you’re not the first to combo. Shortcake Painter is the most difficult version of the deck for us to face due to their ability to side in White sideboard cards and then reliably find them with Enlightened Tutor. Ethersworn Canonist is a very potent card against us on top of Painter’s high number of blast effects. This can make the matchup difficult at times, but not entirely unwinnable.

Other forms of artifact hate are possible, but unless they surprise us with a Chalice we don’t have much else to fear.

7) General Cards to Look Out For
Ashiok, Dream Render- Played fringely in Pox, and might appear in control. We do not have much of an option other than countering it in spiral tide. In Solidarity, you don’t really care.
Ugin, the Ineffable- Makes bodies each turn that can attack us. Other than that, it’s not that threatening.
Karn, the Great Creator- Threatening to Candelabra of Tawnos. Mostly notable for its interaction with Mycosynth Lattice.
Teferi, Time Raveler- Very big threat to Solidarity. Counter this card.
Dovin's Veto- We can work around this with Narset’s Reversal but other than that, the uncounterable part hurts.
Veil of Summer- Shroud and uncounterable. It is hard to play around this card, but this is more likely a sideboard card than mainboard in most decks.
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis- Hogaak Bridgevine has come to legacy for some reason. It is much less potent here as we have more answers than Modern has. You should be able to out tempo them and combo out on turn 3 or 4 easily. Dredge is much scarier.
Fireblast- Worth mentioning due to the surprise kill from burn. Other than that, this card isn’t that threatening.
Wrenn and Six- We don’t want this to ult. Other than that, we don’t care.
Archmage's Charm- Counterspell, cantrip and steals Candelabra of Tawnos..
Scale Up- Infect uses this card to help pull off its wins. Infect is a weird matchup where both life totals don’t matter, we are dead or we are not.
Oko, thief of Crowns- This card gives an active clock. It doesn’t hurt us much but it is something to be wary of.

Sideboarding Tips

Due to running a wishboard, High Tide has a much more limited set of sideboarding options than other decks. However, we have greater flexibility in game 1.

The most general piece of sideboarding advice is to side out a High Tide for a Blue Sun’s Zenith in order to protect against High Tide or Cunning Wish from being surgicaled.

When playing Surgical Extraction yourself, it is important to recognize when to leave it in the wishboard and when to side it in. You can’t fetch it with Merchant Scroll, but you can with Cunning Wish, so it’s often correct to leave it in the wishboard as a silver bullet. If wishing for it is too slow, then it can be better to board it in and hope for the best, even though you lose redundancy that way.

Spiral Tide has access to more sideboarding options than Solidarity due to not relying so much on instants. This opens up Defense Grid, Teferi’s Realm, Narset, Parter of Veils, Counterbalance, Thing in the Ice, Awoken Horror and Heart of Kiran. Each of these serves different purposes, but can all be very useful in a variety of matchups. Shutting down your opponent’s draws, turning off permanent hate, and gaining an advantage in a counter war are all powerful tools, particularly in grindier matchups. Counterbalance has added utility against other combo decks.

Solidarity has to make more use of flexible instants such as Narset’s Reversal and pack more countermagic into the sideboard than Spiral based versions of the deck. Versions splashing green have access to Naturalize for destroying pesky artifacts.