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.
Originally Posted by Gikkman
