I was reminded of Parallax Tide (and also this thread here) while reading the Master of Waves' thread. Wow, that card is pretty good. I'm going so far as to call it "The blue Tangle Wire".
Tangle Wire taps 4-3-2-1 permanents (against slower decks usually lands or other mana producers).
Parallax Tide is a bit more flexible, but should mostly be used to exile (A) 2-2-2-2, (B) 3-3-3 or (C) 4-4 lands. Option B is pretty close to Tangle Wire.
While those two cards have a lot in common, Parallax Tide has three advantages over Tangle Wire:
- PT always deals with exactly the lands that you want to deal with, while TW gives the opponent the option to choose less significant cards (and sometimes completely insignificant cards, like equipments or some other artifacts) to tap. This makes it easier to mana/color screw the opponent.
- While TW gives the opponent a window during his upkeep to use his mana for instants or activated abilities, lands exiled with PT don't produce any mana at all until it leaves the battlefield. This means that you can make sure that the opponent plays no spell at all for two or three turns.
- You have to tap a permanent or two for your own TW, while PT has no effect on you. This means that you are fully operational the turn after playing PT.
I'd say that those advantages roughly justify a fourth mana and the card would be pretty cubable if it were an artifact for 4. However, the double blue is a huge drawback. Not only does being bound to a specific color mean that it goes into far fewer decks than a colorless card, but blue is also the worst fit for such an aggro support card in most cubes. Still, if you think your cube's blue can make good use of it, then Parallax Tide should be a pretty strong card.
Personally, I have recently brought Opposition back and am about to generally reconstruct my blue section (including the blue guilds) a bit. I will certainly give this card a try. Thassa, God of the Sea and Master of Waves can turn the disadvantage of having UU in the cost into an advantage.
on the topic of Master of Waves, what would be a good "blue devotion" package? Currently I'm thinking of:
Master of Waves
Thassa
Vendilion Clique
coralhelm commander
aether adept
any other big playable blue permanents I'm missing?
I tried / play all of those cards. The only one that didn't survive the cut was Coralhelm Commander(replaced with Faerie Conclave). The rest are fantastic. I'll also second rantipole and say that Venser and Opposition are also stellar in this deck. The important thing with Master of Waves is, I often find it's better to save him a turn or two later and instead deploy the tempo devotion critters beforehand. Something like:
T3: Aether Adept/Man-o-War/Clique
T4: Venser or any of the above
T5: Master of Waves
I don't find blue devotion particularly hard to support since most of the cards (minus the actual devotion cards) stand tall on their own. I feel like unpowered cubes have a lot of room to work with in blue since it's not devoting slots to blue power / artifact matters cards. Devotion fits nicely in an unpowered cube where the artifact.dec would be in a powered cube.
I run an artifact theme in my unpowered so I have a bit less wiggle room to work with, but I already run all the cards steve_man mentioned except for Thasa and Master of Waves. I might try and wiggle things around a bit to make devotion happen again. I used to run it and it was a super fun/powerful deck when it came together.
Blue tempo are always some of the best performing decks over here! One notable card for us that most cubes do not run, but has been overperforming in the blue tempo shells is parallax tide! It's the blue armageddon, but you don't even need to be far ahead because you can still pressure and develop for the next 2-3 turns depending on when you cast the card. Have other people here messed around with this card? I may be biased as I do love the card.
I think Parallax Tide would be really good in a cube that pushed blue aggro/tempo really hard. In the average cube where blue is usually a control color, I don't think there's room. Unless you're playing a deck that can take advantage of that set back quickly, I don't think it's worth taking a turn off to play the card.
I was big on blue devotion (Master of Waves, Thassa, Kira, Coralhelm Commander, etc) but have cut back on them in order to make space for other cards/archetypes. Blue tempo decks are already among the very best performing decks in my cube even without a devotion package, and with no particularly bad matchups (and relative ease of drafting) I don't feel the need for additional support, at least for now.
That sums it up perfectly. Blue tempo decks are draft-winning and available without dedicating tempo-exclusive cards to the blue section. It just doesn't need dedicated exclusive support to win.
I run like 2-3 cards in my 540 list that help bolster this archetype, and even that's not necessary.
You are correct. I was confusing it with vanishing. That's too bad. It still seems like a pretty strong card.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Tangle Wire taps 4-3-2-1 permanents (against slower decks usually lands or other mana producers).
Parallax Tide is a bit more flexible, but should mostly be used to exile (A) 2-2-2-2, (B) 3-3-3 or (C) 4-4 lands. Option B is pretty close to Tangle Wire.
While those two cards have a lot in common, Parallax Tide has three advantages over Tangle Wire:
- PT always deals with exactly the lands that you want to deal with, while TW gives the opponent the option to choose less significant cards (and sometimes completely insignificant cards, like equipments or some other artifacts) to tap. This makes it easier to mana/color screw the opponent.
- While TW gives the opponent a window during his upkeep to use his mana for instants or activated abilities, lands exiled with PT don't produce any mana at all until it leaves the battlefield. This means that you can make sure that the opponent plays no spell at all for two or three turns.
- You have to tap a permanent or two for your own TW, while PT has no effect on you. This means that you are fully operational the turn after playing PT.
I'd say that those advantages roughly justify a fourth mana and the card would be pretty cubable if it were an artifact for 4. However, the double blue is a huge drawback. Not only does being bound to a specific color mean that it goes into far fewer decks than a colorless card, but blue is also the worst fit for such an aggro support card in most cubes. Still, if you think your cube's blue can make good use of it, then Parallax Tide should be a pretty strong card.
Personally, I have recently brought Opposition back and am about to generally reconstruct my blue section (including the blue guilds) a bit. I will certainly give this card a try. Thassa, God of the Sea and Master of Waves can turn the disadvantage of having UU in the cost into an advantage.
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Oh hell yeah! I'd put that on the list right behind the red Armageddon.
Cheers,
rant
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Or in white. Or in black. Heck, even green would probably be better.
I just realized that you can use Parallax Tide to remove your own lands after tapping them for mana, then cast Upheaval or Balance or Armageddon or even Wildfire!
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
Master of Waves
Thassa
Vendilion Clique
coralhelm commander
aether adept
any other big playable blue permanents I'm missing?
Opposition
I'd run Venser in any cube and Opposition is strong enough without devotion but devotion may put it over the edge. You could also try Future Sight.
Cheers,
rant
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I tried / play all of those cards. The only one that didn't survive the cut was Coralhelm Commander(replaced with Faerie Conclave). The rest are fantastic. I'll also second rantipole and say that Venser and Opposition are also stellar in this deck. The important thing with Master of Waves is, I often find it's better to save him a turn or two later and instead deploy the tempo devotion critters beforehand. Something like:
T3: Aether Adept/Man-o-War/Clique
T4: Venser or any of the above
T5: Master of Waves
is just backbreaking.
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner is also great.
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- Reflector Mage
- Dimensional Infiltrator
- Whirler Rogue
Currently I'm running the following cards to support devotion
- Thasa
- Master of Waves
- Kira
- AEther Adept
- Harbinger of the Tides (soon to be replaced by Dimensional Infiltrator)
It's nice that blue devotion goes really well with Opposition too.
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I run like 2-3 cards in my 540 list that help bolster this archetype, and even that's not necessary.
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