[Deck] High Tide - Vintage "Solidarity"

[Harlequin]

Ok, so the Myriad Games "Will Banned" tournement is comming up, and I was fooling around with Tide as an idea. 

So I was not sure where to post this deck... Its a vintage legal deck for a meta in which one would expect a good amount of aggro and non-control combo.  And possibly alot of bomberman and oath.  Essentially a meta devoid of Drain based storm decks, and Will based storm decks.

Why Tide?  I think it is the next best option for "Control-Combo" next to Bomberman of course.  This is why I will post it in the improvement forum.  It seem like a good alternative to gifts in a low-power 5-proxy meta.

A quick overview of legacy tide.  Essentially the deck does very little before turn 4.  Once the deck has essentially 4 islands out, the game is locked in.  Because now, at any point, Tide can win in-response to anything you do.  Its a deck that wins on your turn by playing tide -> reset -> tons of spells/cantrips -> Brainfreeze -> wish -> Stroke.  The advantage is that the deck can litterally win the game with "Lethal damage on the stack."  It cares little for creatures in play, or either players life total.  It also can "Steal" storm by jumping in with tendrils on the stack and decking you.  Esp if you've done the 

So here would be the most dirrect port of "Solidarity" from Legacy into vintage:
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
11 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Black Lotus

4 High tide
4 Reset
3 Turnabout

4 Force of Will
2 MisDirrection
2 Remand

4 Brainstorm
3 Impulse
4 Meditate
2 Flash of Insight
1 Ancestral recall
1 Frantic Search
2 Repeal

2 Brain Freeze
3 Cunning Wish
 (Wish SB: Stroke, Freeze, Stifle, MisD, Twincast, maybe Remand?, E-Truth, Wipe Away, Turnabout, Rebuild)

---------------------

The changes were:
-4 Cantrips (Opt, Peak, slieght) for
+1 Ancestral
+2 Repeal
+1 Library of Alexandria
     --- Or mystical tutor
-2 Remand
-1 Impulse
+2 Misdirrection
+1 Frantic Search

The logic here is that obvisouly Ancestral recall >>>>> Peak/Opt.

I think Repeal is the best cantrip for this deck in vintage because chalice is more prevalant.  However, it doesn't do much to stop a chalice @1.  Still there will likely be plenty of moxen etc to bounce durring an opponent's turn.

Library is probably the most contraversial choice, and Mystical tutor is likely better beacuse of Recall.  However, with resets combined with meditate, I could see LoA being an interesting choice.  Also it will really do alot as turn 1 drop, by nabbing 4 cards before the deck attempts to win.

Misdirrection I think would be more potent in vintage (as opposed to legacy) because of the presence of ancestral recall.  Also there is a bit more countermagic flying around.  Lastly, your tide will also alow your opponent's islands to tap for ... so Remanding a Drain that targets your reset may not fully get the job done, if they already had double blue open (and your tide just made it x4 blue).  And ofcouse there is also the glory of stealing an Ancestral.

Frantic Search seems MADE for this deck.  I would even venture to say that if Frantic was un-restricted, Tide could be a major conteneder as a teir 1 vintage deck.  So, +2 cards, mini-reset, discard 2 lands .... yes please!

0 Moxen?
Niehter Tide nor reset work on Moxen.  Also if I plan to win durring their turn, they just will get in the way. 

ok... what about Moxen + Thirst? 
With tide, you never want to miss a land drop.  So cutting Lands to run moxen - to eventually run thirst seems like it would only generate inconsistancy.
--------------------------------------

Like I said, the above list is the more dirrect list I could come up with.  Then I got to thinking about what would be most sucessful in vintage, and what decks in vintage are going to give me trouble.

As an asside, I think that Locket of Yesterday is a card that could be explored in this deck.  It gives the deck something realavent to play on turns 1-3.  Finding space for it may be an issue.  It makes all those impulses, Turnabouts, and meditates cheaper.  Also unlike helm of awakening, it only effects you.  Also its worth considering hitting myself with a few copies of brainfreeze ... for 9 or 12 cards off the top to power up my yard.  A way to mini-go-off and come back from a low mana start.

back on topic: Vintage issues (that do not exsist in legacy)
-> More dangerous/abundant countermagic
-> Stax is viable and played
 ---> as a subset: Stripmine/COW = GG
-> Getting to 4 land drops without loosing can be a chalenge.
->  EDIT:  Ichorid with Bazaar could be a huge setback.  Legacy ichorid is much slower
-> Why play this over Gifts.dec --- this one I have already basically discussed, and this is especially relavent in light of the will-less tourney.

So.  Counter magic, Land destruction, artifacts, and land drops.  I think some of the answers can be found in white... and spesifically in 3 cards:
Abayance
Sacred Ground
Serrenity
EDIT:  Honor the Fallen

Abayance I think is a fairly amazing replacement to Remand.  I don't think that Remand/storm tricks are really that essential to the deck.  In the same vien I don't think that the non-cantrip Orim's Chant is as good as Abayance would be. 

With Ichorid being a big concern, I think Honor the Fallen is an amazing one or two of that is wishable in game 1 and can be devistating to Ichorid.  Also, Its not that hard to deck ichorid because it trys to deck itself.

Sacred Ground / Serenity vrs Energy Flux / Rebuild.  Sacred Ground is a huge bomb against stax, and High tide could easily loose to a single smoke stack because of its low land count.  Energy Flux and Rebuild I don't think can cut it alone because they cost 3 mana.  I'm not a fan of Hurkyls because it can't hit chalice @2 and it can't be cycled.  So I think my sideboard will be something like:
2-3 Sacred Ground
2-3 Serenity
2-3 Rebuild
1-2 Honor the Fallen

Here is a decklist that takes advantage of Lockets and a white splash:

3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
8 Island
4 Tundra
1 Library of Alexandria // Mystical

1 Black Lotus
3 Locket of Yesterday

4 High tide
4 Reset
2 Turnabout

4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
4 Abayance

3 Cunning Wish
2 Brain Freeze

4 Brainstorm
4 Meditate
2 Flash of Insight
1 Ancestral recall
1 Frantic Search
==========================

Black Spash - Adding Black offers really, two big players:
Vamp tutor
Demoinic Consultation

And opens up the possiblity of:
Bubbling Muck
Dark Confidant
(possibly transformational into U/B Negator Fish)
==========================================

Now, I honestly don't have that much experiance with the deck in legacy ... so I may be totally off the mark on this.  But I'll be testing it over the next few days.  I would love to hear some other players input - esp if you play the deck in legacy.

[meadbert]

I don't get Repeal.  It seems that Chalice@0 does nothing to you and Chalice@1 cannot be bounced by Repeal.  Are you that worried about Chalice@2?  Even if you run into Chalice@2 you should be able to Cunning Wish for Rebuild or some other bounce Spell.

Repeal does bounce Meddling Mage, but maybe you should run Chain of Vapor and/or Echoing Truth.

Would Merchant Scroll be good?  I do not play High Tide so I do not know how much he would clog up your hand while trying to combo off during your opponent's turn, but Scrolling for Ancestral seems pretty good.  Normally Scrolls main draw backs are Misdirection and tapping out to kill your own Mana Drain.  As long as you are running Misdirections and no Mana Drains Merchant Scroll seems pretty good.

Maybe Quicken could be used to allow you to play Scroll during your opponent's turn.

[Mr. Nightmare]

Forget winning at instant speed.  Cut the resets, and add Timetwister, Windfall, and potentially Time Spiral, as well as 4x Merchant Scroll.  This would allow you to run the additional Moxen as well, although you probably still won't want to.  Steve Menendian wrote a nice article on SCG about low-powered Tide in Vintage, you should check that out for ideas.

Really, even without Will, Pitchlong and Grimlong are pretty damn good and will steamroll you.  The problem is, even in Vintage Solidarity is a turn 4 combo deck, and that's still probably too slow.

As for constructive critizism, White was previously played as a splash in Legacy, purely for Orim's Chant.  It's not as relevant anymore, but people have begun to splash red for Split-Second answers to Mage, and for Urza's Rage, of all things.  I've seen at least 3 games end with a Twincasted, Kickered Rage.  Worth considering, at the least.

[someone_unimportan]

I think if you're set on playing a Tide deck, you should probably play Spring Tide. With Spring Tide, you gain the most abusable card Vintage has to offer to your deck: Mind's Desire. Because of the elimination on the errata of Cloud of Faeries, Clouds played off Desire do in fact untap your lands, and it gets pretty ridiculous. However, I do agree with Mr. Nightmare saying that Long decks can probably still kill you faster than you can kill them. (Probably around turns 2-3 without Will)

[policehq]

Does this strategy, especially if you're considering Locket of Yesterdays, have considerable advantages over Sensei, Sensei? It seems that the latter has combo cards that contribute to the game state except for Locket of Yesterdays/Helm of Awakening. The added draw spells and counters also make the deck stronger since it will be able to last until the turn where it goes off.

-hq

[Harlequin]

Well day 1 of testing is proving to be less than amazing.  In goldfishing I think that abayance is not better than orim's chant.  Abayance theoretically would need to be played before High Tide, and that ment that I really required 4 lands in play. 

Even then, the deck seemed to be a bit slow -even in gold fishing- esp when I wasn't finding lands.  I'll test it against some non-will decks tonight ... maybe.  But I'll probably be scrapping it and be back to the drawing board.

Thanks for your posts, I'll let you know what I find.

[Fake0ut]

I think that sapphire medallion could be a much stronger option than helm of awakening.  Back when scourge had come out and the banned/restricted list wasn't updated yet, there was a desire deck that ran sapphire medallion, cloud of fairies, frantic searches and 'tap for 2' lands.  Needless to say, you hit 3 lands and won with sapphire medallion in play.