That was a pretty embarrassing finish though. Do people still run pact of negation as an out to force or is it really as bad as on camera scooping on the counter?
Honestly the part that is bugging me is they used to fill the legacy tab with articles and writing and suddenly its stopped. There is nothing until the top 8 and all of a sudden we get a few generic articles.
I could see a BUG deck built with Varloz... Phyrexian Dreadnought, Death's Shadow, lim-Dul's Vault, Stifle, plus counters and hand disruption seems crazy strong.
Well, trow, slitherhead even if you play them, they won't give you value.
Llanowar dead costs 2, and specific.
DRS costs 1, and hell, with the amount of fetchlands every deck is playing, it isn't totally unreasonable to cast him off of a chrome mox if you did not use summoner's pact. It could give us access to 2 mana on the board on turn two.
I am down with the idea of testing out DRS in the deck as a one off. He does help Chrome Mox turn on black mana not to mention if you ever do cast him can throw your opponent off a bit plus work toward mana generation himself.
People on The Source have also been discussing the name. The original poster there even brought up changing the deck name. There is no consensus to what the naming should be and people are posturing to leave their mark on the community.
My suggestion, the first to do well at a large tournament gets naming privileges.
I agree with this. I know if I manage to I will name the deck: "Rogue" because the main creatures are both rogues and this deck will be a rogue deck.
I might have missed this in your text, I will re read it in a moment to see but do you have any way to deal with hitting the Grim Monolith in the case you hit it with Balustrade Spy or Undercity Informer in the top cards of your library?
The way I understood it people ran Living Wish in its place in the case they needed to trade two mana for the land out of the SideBoard.
Belcher runs Land Grant partially for this purpose, is this something we need to consider as well?
Well done, Feline. (I did not figure that was actually your name.)
Quite a few top placing finishes for this deck recently. I want something new, I do not have any ideas nearing the construction stage, I actually have the cards to build this deck, but I have not piloted a High Tide deck since Solidarity. I want to get some insight before I bother. Can you folks help?
1. Why Flusterstorm over Spell Pierce? Is it because it is nigh uncounterable? Is it because you fear other storm decks? Something else?
2. What are the top 10 cards you would actually counter with Force of Will on a build-up turn before going off? Under which conditions?
3. Are the Pacts just against other blue decks? Even the ones with just a smattering of counters?
4. What do you fetch with Merchant Scroll most? I figured that since it can't get Time Spiral it was not so good.
5. Anyone ever tried this with red for Burning Wish, Faithless Looting, Pyroclasm, and Devil's Play or something? I say this because I look at the cmc of Time Spiral and it looks pricy. The red/blue version seeks to decrease that by keeping fewer in the main, lower the required mana in your pool to kill, and just give more/cheaper options. Are these concerns warranted? Are they warranted, but worth it for reasons I can't see?
6. Any other advice for me as I get back into this kind of deck purely for the thrill of it?
1. Flusterstorm is just a great card that gets better on your combo turn since you will have a high storm count. Spell pierce is good and can help against enchantment hate but we pack things like wipe away for those instances. In my mind Flusterstorm fills the spot of helping us win the counter war which it performs better than spell pierce.
2. Early turns of the game try not to Force of Will if you don't have to. We can deal with almost anything on the turn we combo and the card disadvantage of exiling can suck. We try to save as much protection as possible for the turn we combo so that we can be sure everything gets through. If I had to Force of Will anything it might be a Thalia but as Feline can tell you we can actually play through Thalia. I'll say Ethersworn Canonist for my biggest fear, or if you are targeted by a discard and can't afford to lose the cards. (Hymn to Tourach)
3. Pacts are there for your combo turn almost exclusively. Sure we can usually pay them on our next turn but that can be counterproductive. On your turn you are trying to combo we go pretty much all in. Because we are doing this a card like Pact of Negation has no down side such as paying life or throwing away another card. It exists as a free counter which can be huge in the first part of your combo turn and for winning battles.
4. Merchant Scroll is effectively High Tide 5-8. It also can find us Turn Abouts, and Cunning Wish if we need to find an answer. Most of the time though for me its grabbing me extra High Tides.
5. The biggest advantage of High Tide is that it plays only basic lands and fetch lands for can trip shuffling. This makes is immune to wasteland, and a number of other gimmicks such as Price of Progress. The less we have to worry about in early turns the better. Sure splashing red gives you burning wish but we already have cunning wish and merchant scroll. The deck is consistent as is and because of this the value gained by opening ourselves up to wasteland is negligible.
Your question about Time Spiral - remember that time spiral untaps 6 lands. If you have 2 High Tides active and 5 lands, You can cast a time spiral with just 2 lands. This means that you can tap the extra for additional mana which stays in your pool and then untap all your lands and draw 7 new cards. Your High Tides go back in your deck to be used again along with all your counter spells.
6. Getting into this deck requires a lot of experience. Most new players forget that they have a time limit when playing High Tide and this can cause you to make bad decisions as you race the clock. Felines video at the recent SCG Open is an example of an expert level player. She has clearly played the deck for years and it shows in her quick decision making and counting of mana. To get to a point where she is requires that you play the deck a lot so you don't have to do as much math.
I promise you judges will be called for slow play and if you can't tell your opponent how much mana you have after iterations. That said, good luck!
Geez Feline you play that deck smoothly. Loved watching you wreck people. I laughed when he told you High Tide was a terrible deck in most metas and asked why you chose to play it.
Looks like high tide has come in people that makes quite a few top 8s and two wins in the past few months.
Interesting, I wonder why spell pierce over Daze.
Really frustrating.
Goooo, that is some sick art!
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=56521
For me it seems like three is still the best number.
How do they go from having interesting art to just the same art different colors.
I am down with the idea of testing out DRS in the deck as a one off. He does help Chrome Mox turn on black mana not to mention if you ever do cast him can throw your opponent off a bit plus work toward mana generation himself.
I agree with this. I know if I manage to I will name the deck: "Rogue" because the main creatures are both rogues and this deck will be a rogue deck.
I might have missed this in your text, I will re read it in a moment to see but do you have any way to deal with hitting the Grim Monolith in the case you hit it with Balustrade Spy or Undercity Informer in the top cards of your library?
The way I understood it people ran Living Wish in its place in the case they needed to trade two mana for the land out of the SideBoard.
Belcher runs Land Grant partially for this purpose, is this something we need to consider as well?
1. Flusterstorm is just a great card that gets better on your combo turn since you will have a high storm count. Spell pierce is good and can help against enchantment hate but we pack things like wipe away for those instances. In my mind Flusterstorm fills the spot of helping us win the counter war which it performs better than spell pierce.
2. Early turns of the game try not to Force of Will if you don't have to. We can deal with almost anything on the turn we combo and the card disadvantage of exiling can suck. We try to save as much protection as possible for the turn we combo so that we can be sure everything gets through. If I had to Force of Will anything it might be a Thalia but as Feline can tell you we can actually play through Thalia. I'll say Ethersworn Canonist for my biggest fear, or if you are targeted by a discard and can't afford to lose the cards. (Hymn to Tourach)
3. Pacts are there for your combo turn almost exclusively. Sure we can usually pay them on our next turn but that can be counterproductive. On your turn you are trying to combo we go pretty much all in. Because we are doing this a card like Pact of Negation has no down side such as paying life or throwing away another card. It exists as a free counter which can be huge in the first part of your combo turn and for winning battles.
4. Merchant Scroll is effectively High Tide 5-8. It also can find us Turn Abouts, and Cunning Wish if we need to find an answer. Most of the time though for me its grabbing me extra High Tides.
5. The biggest advantage of High Tide is that it plays only basic lands and fetch lands for can trip shuffling. This makes is immune to wasteland, and a number of other gimmicks such as Price of Progress. The less we have to worry about in early turns the better. Sure splashing red gives you burning wish but we already have cunning wish and merchant scroll. The deck is consistent as is and because of this the value gained by opening ourselves up to wasteland is negligible.
Your question about Time Spiral - remember that time spiral untaps 6 lands. If you have 2 High Tides active and 5 lands, You can cast a time spiral with just 2 lands. This means that you can tap the extra for additional mana which stays in your pool and then untap all your lands and draw 7 new cards. Your High Tides go back in your deck to be used again along with all your counter spells.
6. Getting into this deck requires a lot of experience. Most new players forget that they have a time limit when playing High Tide and this can cause you to make bad decisions as you race the clock. Felines video at the recent SCG Open is an example of an expert level player. She has clearly played the deck for years and it shows in her quick decision making and counting of mana. To get to a point where she is requires that you play the deck a lot so you don't have to do as much math.
I promise you judges will be called for slow play and if you can't tell your opponent how much mana you have after iterations. That said, good luck!
Newest skill I have to work on after seeing her do it. That looked so tech.
Looks like high tide has come in people that makes quite a few top 8s and two wins in the past few months.
Rofl I was wondering this watching the stream. Well have to see if we hear anything!
Edit - 4 candelabra's might be the biggest clue