Tsunami Warning – Bringing High Tide to Vintage

A funny little common from Fallen Empires, High Tide has managed to make its presence known in virtually every format known to Magickind. In Legacy, High Tide is a well-established archetype in the ever-popular “Solidarity” and the lesser-known “Spring Tide.” Solidarity takes advantage of the large card pool to combo the Legends rare “Reset” with High Tide and modern printings like Brain Freeze to actually kill one’s opponent on their upkeep. High Tide was once a force on the Pro Tour.

Yet it has never managed to find a home in Vintage. There are several reasons for this. First and foremost there is the problem of role. Any combo player seeking to generate mana and win with the card “High Tide” has to account for the fact that each Island an opponent controls now can cast Mana Drain. Since Mana Drain is a central if not format-defining card in Vintage, this drawback has always been enough to keep serious High Tide lists from washing onto Vintage shores. Another problem with High Tide has always been finding way to make it efficient. If you add colors, you expose the manabase to Wasteland vulnerability, and yet no Blue card aside from Brain Freeze really seems to be good enough to act as a serious win condition. A final problem is opportunity cost. If you have the opportunity to run a known monster of a combo deck like Pitch Long, why would you play something more fragile?

I can’t say that I’ve surmounted all of these obstacles, because I haven’t. But I have made some serious headway. Taking the last problem first: I present this Meandeck Tide list as a Combo option for players who play in proxy-free environments or in instances in which a player may not have access to full power and yet would still like to enjoy the taste of Vintage Combo. This is probably not a deck that you’d want to run at a SCG Power 9 event, but it could be perfectly fun to pick up and win some prizes in some sanctioned Vintage tournament at your local store.

Last year my teammate Ashok Chitturi presented a High Tide list on our team boards that he developed simultaneously to the development of the very similar “Spring Tide” list in Legacy. The printing of Ideas Unbound gave some serious draw to the High Tide mana engine of Cloud of Faeries and Snap. This summer I was thinking about how to build High Tide at the Columbus Art Festival with my girlfriend, and I was struck by the powerful synergies that Xantid Swarm had with the deck. It not only protected your combo, but it would synergize with Snap. The final touch was the realization that Research and Development would be the perfect win condition. While I was walking around the art show I literally built this list in my head. And when I sat down to play it, it was boatloads of fun! I’m proud to introduce:

As I said, this deck is presented as a combo option for the budget Vintage player. Tide actually does not want to run Moxen beyond Sapphire, and so it is perfect for a player who can’t play more than five proxies, or for many of you who love to play Vintage but play in proxy-free metagames. Many of my readers in Europe in particular may wish to try this deck out for themselves. The list I just posted is for the player who can fully power the deck. Here are the suggestions I have for those who can’t afford to build that configuration:

You can cut the Mox Sapphire, Black Lotus, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, and Timetwister for:

4 Force of Will
The 4th Meditate

This will slow the deck down a little, but it will in some ways provide some resiliency.

Another possible swap would be to add Erayo into the deck in some number. Feel free to tinker around with the list as you’d like.

Riding the Wave

The idea with the deck is to build up a very large Mind’s Desire. It’s surprisingly easy to pull off. Once you’ve got a large Desire going, you want to play Research. You can often just Mystical Tutor for Research with an arbitrarily large number of Desires on the stack and then play some draw spell, say Meditate, to draw the Research and play it. Once you play Research, you bring in Tendrils of Agonies and Regrowth. Then, your Desire will continue to reveal cards until it hits a Desire, which will win the game.

The Crucial Skill

The crucial skill with this deck is knowing when to combo out. That’s something you will have to learn to feel your way through with lots of experience. Don’t get frustrated if you fizzle too early. If you’ve timed it right, you won’t fizzle out that much if at all. The basic components you will want to combo out are 1) High Tide, 2) Cloud of Faeries, and 3) a draw spell. If you have those, you can combo out on turn 2 if you’d like. I’ve even won on turn 1 with Fastbond before.

Research

Research permits you to play any win condition you want. You should feel free to experiment with alternative routes to victory. You can literally bring in any card in Magic and play it for free with Desire. If you want, you could also bring in a card like Forbidden Orchard and Yawgmoth’s Will so that you can get the Orchard into play with Fastbond. The possibilities are limitless. Don’t forget that you can Merchant Scroll up Research and Development.

Merchant Scroll

Merchant Scroll is very powerful in this deck, but a little slow at times because of the lack of Moxen. You can find High Tide in the early game or Ancestral Recall. You can also find draw spells like Meditate mid-game as you build up your Desire. Never forget that you can also find Snap and Frantic Research (an amazing card in this deck!) to generate mana! Scroll for Mystical Tutor to find Mind’s Desire is also a thought that should never be far from your mind.

Alternative Designs

I’ve fooled around with several different configurations, including one with Cunning Wish, but I keep returning to the original list I thought up at that art festival. One possible avenue of design would be to use Black for the Tutor suite in addition to Bubbling Muck. However, that list wasn’t very good.

Last year, the key obstacle to design was trying to find a way to protect the deck from the Control decks in the format. Without Swarm, I couldn’t get this deck to have enough game to make it viable. One thought that I was working on was to use Erayo. Once you resolve Erayo, you may be able to sufficiently protect yourself from the control threat. The problem is that Erayo costs two and thus is played when the opponent will have Mana Drain mana up.

Walkthrough:

I had the bright idea of featuring some actual games of real Magic with this deck so you could see how it played out (a la Oscar Tan style: a.k.a. Apprentice/MWS logs).

I thought it would take a couple of games before I had a good sample. I logged onto MWS late Weds night on Nov 16, and the very first guy who joined my game was a lucky soul! I only played one game because the game played out exactly how I wanted it to for this walkthrough. I could not have planned it any better. I thank this mysterious unknown opponent for his graciousness and letting me combo out all the way.

Anyway, I win the die roll and my opening hand is:

Tropical Island
Polluted Delta
Xantid Swarm
High Tide
High Tide
Cloud of Faeries
Merchant Scroll

Here’s what happened:

Player1 versus bleakill (Note that I am Player 1)

Player1 shuffles library

It is now turn 1 (bleakill)
It is now the Beginning Phase, Untap Step

<Player1> I’ll keep
<bleakill> Keep

TURN ONE:

Player1 plays Tropical Island from Hand
Player1 taps Tropical Island
Player1 plays Xantid Swarm from Hand
<bleakill> Okay
<Player1> End my turn

I have the standard and ideal opening hand. Turn 1 Swarm. This turns off half of the interactive spells in the format.

It is now turn 2 (bleakill)
It is now the Beginning Phase, Untap Step
bleakill draws a card
It is now the Precombat Main Phase
bleakill plays Polluted Delta from Hand
It is now the End Phase, End Of Turn Step
<bleakill> Pass

Poor Bleakill only got to play a Polluted Delta this game.

TURN TWO:

Player1 untaps his/her permanents
Player1 draws a card

I drew Snap! Oh Snap!

Player1 taps Xantid Swarm
<Player1> Okay?
<bleakill> Okay
<Player1> Here we go

Now, this is exactly as I designed it thus far: play turn 1 Xantid, turn off the opponent by swinging in with the insect.

My opponent is thoroughly covered in bees.

“Covered in Bees!”
Paul Mastriano

I begin to combo out.

Now, you have seen the components of my hand – up until I play the Merchant Scroll, it’s rather perfunctory:

Player1 taps Tropical Island
Player1 plays High Tide from Hand

Storm Count is one. Let the fun begin.

Player1 plays Polluted Delta from Hand
Player1 taps Polluted Delta
Player1 puts Polluted Delta to Graveyard from Play
Player1’s life total is now 19 (-1)
Player1 is looking its Library…
Player1 puts Tropical Island into play from Library
Player1 shuffles library

Player1 taps Tropical Island

UU floating.

Player1 plays Cloud of Faeries from Hand
Player1 untaps Tropical Island
Player1 untaps Tropical Island
Player1 taps Tropical Island

UU floating.

Player1 plays High Tide from Hand

U floating. Now every Island taps for UUU!

Player1 taps Tropical Island

UUUU floating.

Player1 plays Snap from Hand

UU Floating.

Player1 puts Cloud of Faeries to Hand from Play
Player1 untaps Tropical Island
Player1 untaps Tropical Island

Player1 plays Merchant Scroll from Hand

I use the two Blue floating to play the Scroll leaving no mana up.

This is the riskiest part of the game – I’m banking on my Scroll giving me the goods. I need to Meditate.

Meditate, although more expensive than Ancestral, digs a card deeper. That makes it more important. The difference between winning and losing could be that fourth card here. I need to be able to see as much draw and mana production in Snap and Cloud as I possibly can.

Getting Meditate is a forgone conclusion at this point. If you don’t see why, you will:

Player1 is looking its Library…
Player1 puts Meditate into play from Library
Player1 shuffles library

Player1 taps Tropical Island
Player1 taps Tropical Island

UUUUUU floating

Player1 plays Cloud of Faeries from Hand

UUUU floating.

Storm six.

Player1 untaps Tropical Island
Player1 untaps Tropical Island

Player1 plays Meditate from Hand

U floating.

I draw:

Xantid Swarm
Polluted Delta
Meditate
Cloud of Faeries

Player1 taps Tropical Island

UUUU floating.

Player1 plays Meditate from Hand

I draw:

Tropical Island
Echoing Truth
Merchant Scroll
Island

I keep hanging on by a thread here! But that’s the idea. The idea is to thread together as many draw spells as you can, maximizing every little last bit of juice from the deck.

The Echoing Truth is quite powerful, as you will see in a moment.

Player1 taps Tropical Island

UUUU floating.

Player1 plays Cloud of Faeries from Hand
Player1 untaps Tropical Island
Player1 untaps Tropical Island

Storm nine. UU Floating.

Player1 taps Tropical Island
Player1 taps Tropical Island

UUUUUUUU floating.

Player1 plays Echoing Truth from Hand
Player1 puts Cloud of Faeries to Hand from Play
Player1 puts Cloud of Faeries to Hand from Play

UUUUUU floating.

That’s why I have Echoing Truth maindeck over Chain of Vapor. This is the one deck where you don’t want to sacrifice lands when Chaining. Thus, Echoing Truth is the best bounce spell you can run because it deals with the opponent’s threats at the same time that it can generate you mana.

Player1 plays Cloud of Faeries from Hand
Player1 untaps Tropical Island
Player1 untaps Tropical Island

UUUU floating. Storm 11.

Although I have plenty of mana, at this point I’m getting a little nervous. The good news is that my deck is thinning and there is plenty of business. The bad news is that there is a non-trivial chance that I’ll just stall out here. At this point there is only one Meditate left in my deck and it’s still my best Scroll target.

Player1 plays Merchant Scroll from Hand
Player1 is looking its Library…

I reveal my Scroll target.

Player1 puts Meditate into play from Library
Player1 shuffles library

At this point my opponent interrupts:

<bleakill> Thinking…
<bleakill> Merchant Scroll restricted?
<Player1> Nope
<Player1> It’s unrestricted

It’s that powerful folks. Scroll is definitely a card potentially worthy of restriction some point down the road.

<Player1> There is some debate
<bleakill> This is t1 though
<Player1> As to whether it should be
<bleakill> -.-

Player1 taps Tropical Island

UUUUU floating.

Player1 plays Meditate from Hand

Twelve Storm.

I draw:

Ideas Unbound
Mystical Tutor
Another land
Another Swarm

And I think….

My instinct here is to simply play Ideas Unbound and hope to continue with more gas….

However, I realize that I may be able to win now!

Do you see how?

Watch….

<Player1> Thinking

Player1 taps Tropical Island

UUUUU floating.

Player1 plays Cloud of Faeries from Hand
Player1 untaps Tropical Island
Player1 untaps Tropical Island

UUU floating and 13 Storm.

Player1 taps Tropical Island
Player1 taps Tropical Island

Nine Blue Mana. That’s the magical number. This is what I need to win:

Player1 plays Mystical Tutor from Hand
Player1 is looking its Library…
Player1 puts Mind’s Desire into play from Library
Player1 shuffles library
Player1 puts a Mind’s Desire on top of Library from Play

Player1 plays Ideas Unbound from Hand
Player1 draws a card
Player1 draws a card
Player1 draws a card

Exactly UUUUUU left.

Player1 plays Mind’s Desire from Hand

And with thunderous rapture the heavens part and the skies become a maelstrom of magical forces.

Mind’s Desire for sixteen.

I reveal:

Player1 puts Xantid Swarm into play from Library

Fifteen to go.

Player1 puts Flooded Strand into play from Library

Fourteen to go.

Player1 puts Snap into play from Library

Thirteen to go.

Player1 puts Time Walk into play from Library

Twelve to go.

Player1 puts Timetwister into play from Library
Player1 puts Black Lotus into play from Library
Player1 puts Island into play from Library
Player1 puts Brainstorm into play from Library

Eight to go. At this point I have to think. I can Brainstorm in the middle of Desire. However, I don’t see any reason to do so yet.

Player1 puts Brainstorm into play from Library
Player1 puts Tropical Island into play from Library
Player1 puts Ideas Unbound into play from Library
Player1 puts Frantic Search into play from Library

Four Desires still on the stack and its time to stop. Remember that my win condition is Research and Development into Tendrils, which I seek to have revealed by a Desire.

My goal is to resolve R&D before any more Desires resolve. Watch what I do:

<Player1> Response to the other 4 Desires on the stack
<Player1> I’ll play some instants

I play Frantic Search first, untapping two lands:

Player1 puts Xantid Swarm to Graveyard from Hand
Player1 puts Tropical Island to Graveyard from Hand
Player1 untaps Tropical Island
Player1 untaps Tropical Island

Then I play Brainstorm:

Player1 draws a card
Player1 draws a card
Player1 draws a card
Player1 puts a card on top of Library from Hand
Player1 puts a card on top of Library from Hand

I found it!

Player1 plays Research/Development from Hand
<Player1> Research
Player1 is looking its Sideboard…
Player1 puts Tendrils of Agony into play from Sideboard
Player1 puts Tendrils of Agony into play from Sideboard
Player1 puts Tendrils of Agony into play from Sideboard
Player1 puts Brain Freeze into play from Sideboard

<bleakill> rawr

Player1 puts a Tendrils of Agony on top of Library from Play
Player1 puts a Tendrils of Agony on top of Library from Play
Player1 puts a Tendrils of Agony on top of Library from Play
Player1 puts a Brain Freeze on top of Library from Play
Player1 shuffles library
Player1 shuffles library
Player1 shuffles library

<Player1> Still with 4 copies on the stack
Player1 shuffles library

Since I’ve just shuffled and I want to maximize my chance of one of my four remaining Desires hitting Tendrils, I decide to Brainstorm first.

Player1 draws a card
Player1 draws a card
Player1 draws a card
Player1 puts a card on top of Library from Hand
Player1 puts a card on top of Library from Hand

<Player1> Desire 13 resolves
Player1 shuffles library
Player1 puts Lotus Petal into play from Library

Player1 puts Tendrils of Agony into play from Library

Desire 14 does exactly what it is supposed to do. A Tendrils has entered the game board.

Because I can’t kill him at instant speed, other Desires resolve:

Player1 puts Ideas Unbound into play from Library
Player1 puts Brainstorm into play from Library

<Player1> gg

And there it is. Admittedly, my opening hand was solid. I won on turn 2 with turn 1 Xantid Swarm. That is the goal. I hope that you enjoyed this article and enjoy my deck even more.

Until next time,

Stephen Menendian