High Tide

Instant

Until end of turn, whenever a player taps an Island for mana, that player adds an additional {U}.

Combos

• High Tide + Palinchron

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

3 days ago

Sometimes when I'm deckbuilding, I focus less on the commander and more on an interesting concept/combo that I want to use or exploit. This is the case with one of my favorite decks in my profile and actually one of the first commander decks I ever built. This deck began years ago when Magic finally started caring about the EDH format. It was a more simple time then, Rhystic study was $1.27 (exactly the price I paid for mine over 10 years ago), Cyclonic Rift was a bulk rare, and demonic tutor could be found for $10.

The combo that I was interested in was Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator. The latter was my favorite card at the time and is still one of my favorites. It was a great tool and with all the ETB effects that were out around then it was an underrated and uber powerful card. In fact, the entire blink mechanic was and is a very powerful strategy.

When I built this deck, I played a few times in shops and was quickly told that edh is a casual format and interaction of any kind is not fair (was told this by a land destruction deck...) So this deck is definitely more on the competitive side, but it would be the distant fringe of cedh. Alright with that let's get into it.

Initial thoughts

So we have a combo that we like Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator, but we don't even have a commander yet and going mono-blue seems not great, so we want to figure out what color(s) to add and what commander to choose. In a combo deck, there are generally three things that I like to make sure I include beyond the normal ramp, and card draw. That is redundancy, the ability to tutor up my combo pieces, and ways to protect my combo. So when thinking about tutoring up my combo pieces, I generally like to have the best tutors. Those are in black. So things like Wishclaw Talisman, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal (if you have money to burn or your playgroup is fine with you proxying the best cards so you can obliterate their precons j/k I proxy all my expensive cards and put them in a binder in case someone has an issue).

So we have Blue and Black and we can certainly add another color if we wanted to, but at the time I liked Dralnu, Lich Lord because Snapcaster Mage was in standard and flashback was cool. So I stuck with it when I revamped it, but decided that I wanted something that could ensure I can protect my combo from any threat and then also use it to win if I wanted to. The answer came in the form of Ertai Resurrected. He can counter basically anything from spells to activated abilities (which will come in handy) or he can take a threat on the field at the cost of letting your opponent draw a card.

So now that we have our commander, how to build the deck?

Redundancy

Combo decks need redundancy. If you don't get your two cards or one of them gets exiled, you need a backup plan, or scooping is your only option. Fortunately, there are some great redundancies here. We have Ghostly Flicker and Displace. Both of these will blink your creatures (ghostly flicker will also blink artifacts). Displacer Kitten can be helpful too, but I don't own it and it is a little more chaotic than I need it to be. Palinchron is great because you can return it to your hand and potentially play it again and create infinite mana through the use of High Tide, but a similar combo that has added benefits is Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker. This bounces both the drake and the archaeomancer untapping 5 lands, and returning ghostly flicker to your hand. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. Archaeomancer also will help in returning key counterspells and tutors to your hand. Nothing like doing double duty. Mnemonic Wall and Great Whale also fit here. The great thing about this combo is that each component is useful in and of itself. Bring out your Great Whale early untap some lands and do some other stuff or play out the rest of your combo with the untapped lands. Cast Archaeomancer to grab a used tutor for another combo piece.

One note here, if you get Peregrine Drake (or one of the other two) paired with Deadeye Navigator and you generate infinite mana you can now draw your deck with Ertai as commander: Step 1: Bounce Deadeye, when he enters don't soulbond with anyone.
Step 2: Cast Ertai, don't choose anything or if you want kill one of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter.
Step 3: Soulbond ertai and deadeye. Step 4: Bounce Deadeye and while that is on the stack bounce Ertai. Step 5: Ertai enters the battlefield counter the Deadeye bounce on the stack Draw a card Step 6: Soulbond ertai and deadeye again rinse and repeat. Draw as many cards as you need. Which means draw until you find your wincon.

Wincon

Since this is an infinite mana combo we need something to use all that mana. Obviously the activated ability on deadeye is great, but we need something to actually win with. I went with Commander's Insight and Blue Sun's Zenith. Both of these cards are useful even when they aren't being used to force your opponents to draw their cards. Blue Sun's Zenith works nicely because once you cast it goes back into your deck, which I showed above you can draw as many cards as you need so you cast it once, put it in your library draw again until you find it, cast it again on the next opponent, then again. You can also tutor them up or bring them back from the graveyard with the tutors or the archaeomancer/mnemonic wall from earlier. I like this more than straight damage, because if you don't have infinite mana these cards will still draw you cards.

Tutors

This is a fairly simple step, we need some good tutors. There are a number of good choices in black so I won't belabor that too much. I don't have some of the standard ones and feel like the deck performs fine with the ones it currently has. I do have a Tribute Mage in the deck because nearly all my mana rocks are 2 mana and so is Wishclaw Talisman. I found that the consistency with the deck is vastly improved by being able to tutor up my ramp. Also with deadeye I can bounce it multiple times and get more rocks or the talisman.

Protecting the combo

So I needed to figure out how to protect my combo and do so in a way that is flexible or can be used as needed. So Counterspell. Honestly, this part was fairly simple, most blue counter magic is here. Only reason Fierce Guardianship isn't here is because I don't have it. Other than that we have the typical cards here Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, etc.

I also have a couple other standouts. Venser, Shaper Savant is great here as it can be bounced with Deadeye Navigator to essentially boomerang my opponent's board and all their spells. Ertai Resurrected also protects the combo and with deadeye becomes a nice repeatable counter/removal spell.

glen_elandra_archmage can be bounced when she has her -1/-1 counter allowing her to be used again and again to counter noncreature spells.

Typical stuff

There is a lot of ramp in the deck, so Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other mana rocks including some larger ones like Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith to really get the ramp going, the sooner you can get to 7-8 mana the sooner you can combo out.

For card draw some key performers here are Rhystic Study, Black Market Connections, Phyrexian Arena, The One Ring. Mystic Remora. In my initial hand I want to have 3 lands, and one of these/tutor to find one or I typically mulligan.

Special notes

A couple other cards deserve mention here. Time Stretch and Time Warp. These are both repeatable with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall and I can honestly say that if I'm able to resolve either of these, it is unlikely that I'm going to lose, especially Time Stretch. With the ramp in the deck or a well timed Dark Ritual/High Tide I can play this fairly early and get a huge advantage.

Lands

Since this deck tends to be fast, you don't want lands that come into play tapped, so this deck uses fetch lands, shock lands, and duals that have the ability to come in untapped. (there are a couple that come into play tapped, but they are fetchable so I fetch them only when I know that I'm not going to be able to use the mana and only on an opponent's turn.)

I've had this deck for a while and it performs far better than any of my other decks. It always presents interesting lines that if followed will lead to surprising victories. As always let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a commander in mind that you want to see me build put it in the chat.

Here is the final decklist: Unlimited Power!

Profet93 on Give me some cards

3 weeks ago

Leuwerinkje

What kind of suggestions r u looking for? I'll take a closer look later but for now, High Tide

Profet93 on Lost Among the Stars in Search of the Moon

1 month ago

Fair points all around!

I wasn't going to suggest something per say, it was more of a question. I was originally thinking of High Tide but I realized you focused on a field of the dead package. Btw, for that package, you should swap out half of your snow-covered islands for normal islands for field of the dead.

Speaking of blasts from the past, how has Teferi's Response been playing for you? Do people really target your lands that often in this deck?

Why do run Walk the Aeons over another 5cmc extra turn spell, do you have a way to recur the islands? Or is it you just want a repeatable time talk effect given you have 10 islands to spare? I do wonder given since you run only 10, often how you do initiate buyback on it.

Do you run crucible for your lands that etb and make you sac another land + walk the eons? How is crucible working for you?

Do you feel you have enough card draw?

Not an entirely serious suggestion, but maybe Shapesharer? You run a lot of activated abilities and training grounds eases the cost. Makes copies of either your creatures or important opposing ones? Is likely too mana costly for what you're going for.

Another changeling, Bloodline Pretender?

I assume rhystic study and mystic remora are other staples you avoid? If you're going for something a little more interesting, Misdirection > Foil

Foil's pros....

A) Cheaper to hard cast B) Can directly counter spells rather than hope it's targeted C) If you get a FOIL Foil, then you can say "You've been foiled by a Foil foil" as the pod stares at your in disbelief.

Misdirection Pros....

A) "Same speech I give for Imp's mischief on every deck" - "Counter" counterspells while redirecting targeted removal, draw and extra turns. B) Costs 1 less card, sometimes it's a tough decision between countering their spell or keeping the other card in your hand given your 3 opponents

demon_vayu on Giger's Dream

1 month ago

aladinnsane cards like Chromatic Lantern or Harrow could also help fix your color sources, Harrow may sac a land but you can get what you need from there. There's also a couple of creatures like the dryad from theros beyond death that have the Lantern text - note however the dryad makes your lands every type not just tap for any color (good for effects like High Tide but kind of niche outside of it or boil) There's always Hour of Promise or Grow from the Ashes to get a pair of lands for 5 Mana, one is basics only the other is ANY lands.

ThassaUpYo@ssa on Issa Thassa

2 months ago

Profet93

Love this list - reminds me of the second commander deck I ever built! Got inspiration from multiple FNM's back when I played standard around the time of RTR & Theros when mono blue devotion was popular.

What about High Tide to facilitate an insanely productive turn mid-late game and Force of Will given the ease you'll have casting it to counter a problematic response an opponent may throw out? Also, Master of Waves would be a solid add given how much devotion is likely to be present on your board. Mox Amber may be valuable here, too.

Just a few thoughts, and glad to see someone else had something very similar in mind when it came to constructing a mono blue Thassa commander deck.

DreadKhan on Legacy merfolk (Help)

3 months ago

I think in Legacy mono-Blue you really should consider running x4 Force of Will if you're trying to be competitive, if you're going for a more casual sort of deck then you probably don't need to worry about Force. Force is really useful to protect yourself from opponent's combos (and other unfair Magic stuff), is it a budget issue? I run budget brews in Legacy, so my Rack deck with only 2 Lilianas feels your pain if so!

I think if you're playing x4 Aether Vial in Blue you probably need to have some card draw to support it? I'm not sure if it's within your budget, but The One Ring is pretty decent card draw, especially if you add in Force. You could also add x1 or x2 High Tide if you add more draw.

It's technically a Merfolk, any reason you don't run any copies of Svyelun of Sea and Sky in here? It offers card draw and Ward, both are useful. I think it just got reprinted, so it's pretty cheap atm.

I'm not very familiar with Legacy Merfolk, but I hope some of these ideas help! Ask away if you have any questions.

Profet93 on S U P E R F R ! E N D S (Tekuthal)

3 months ago

SufferFromEDHD +1

Spellskite - Protection/politics

Cyclonic Rift - Wipe

Why Planar Portal and not Planar Bridge?

At the risk of being a dead card, Basalt Monolith to combo with rings for infinite mana and top to draw your entire deck.

Staff of the Mind Magus seems weak. Have you considered swapping it for something more impactful like High Tide?

Azoth2099 on So basically dimir Talrand

4 months ago

Hey man! You're gonna need a higher density of card draw, ramp and tutors if you want this bad boy to he more consistent, there's no way around it. Fortunately you're in {U}{B}, so that's no big deal. I'd recommend the following options:

Tutors: Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Grim Tutor, Beseech the Mirror, Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Solve the Equation, Fabricate Spellseeker, Merchant Scroll & Lim-Dul's Vault.

Draw: Talion, the Kindly Lord, Necropotence, Black Market Connections, Dark Confidant, Dark Tutelage, Night's Whisper & Ad Nauseam (if you can lower your mana curve).

Ramp: Talisman of Dominance, Dimir Signet, Fellwar Stone, Springleaf Drum, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Culling the Weak, Bubbling Muck & High Tide. Maybe Rain of Filth.

Other synergistic value: Praetor's Grasp, Bribery, Acquire, Entomb, Reanimate & Mnemonic Betrayal.

Other than that I'd probably say add more cheap counterspells and instant speed removal so you can control the board and bolster your own. Let me know if you need help with cuts, I'm seeing a lot of them.