Pointed Discussion

Equilibrium + Cloud of Faeries + High Tide + Irrigation Ditch + Dire Undercurrents = Turn 3 victory. Sure it would require a perfect draw and sure it wouldn't be the only win condition in the deck, but it is an interesting scenario. A deck like this would be wise to utilize a few Brain Freeze for an easier mill combo. How it works:

Step one: drop Irrigation Ditch.
Step two: drop Island #1 and play Equilibrium (sacrifice Irrigation Ditch).
Step three: drop Island #2, tap Island #1 and play High Tide.
Step four: tap Island #2 and play Cloud of Faeries, and untap both Islands.
Step five: tap Island #1 to return Cloud of Faeries to your hand and leave floating.
Step six: repeat steps four and five. (You now have floating)
Step seven: repeat steps four and five. (You now have floating)
Step eight: repeat steps four and five. (You now have floating)
Step nine: repeat steps four and five. (You now have floating)
Step ten: use your five floating mana to play Dire Undercurrents.
Step eleven: repeat steps four and five, using Dire Undercurrents's ability to force your opponent to draw one card. Repeat this step until opponent loses via draw. Alternatively, force yourself to draw cards first to put defenses into play or bank counterspells/cancels etc. before drawing out your opponent in case you are worried they may pull a counter through your methods.

I know that it's a very situational victory but throwing this into a deck that utilizes general mill wouldn't harm one bit, and if you set up perfectly it'd be a nice ace in the hole. Since the ability says "may have target player draw a card," you can easily just use it to benefit yourself later in the game. The reason why this is a guaranteed win while the old Brain Freeze combo is not is because using this method you can actually put potentially your entire deck into play if necessary to ensure victory (and potentially draw Brain Freeze anyway).

Again, I know this particular strategy is flawed, but it is just one possible application of such an ability and I felt obligated to comment considering no one else has thus far.

I don't often credit other peoples comments on cards, but here I shall make an acception. Crenel, the combo that you have concieved of is pure genius; it shows that you have true potential for ultimate combos that most people might not even notice. And never before has someone detailed an amazing combo like this before; most people generally jot down the cards that combo but never explain how the combo works. I hope that you and other writers on the Gatherer create more comments like this one.

As for my opinion of this card heres what I think: remarkable. Even at five mana this card can be extremely useful, as long as a player has plenty of small blue/black creature that they can summon; Sygg, River Cutthroat, Inkfathom Infiltrator, and Sphinx Summoner are just to name a few. Even cards that aren't entirely blue/black can be useful with this enchantment; Tidehollow Sculler, Mulldrifter, and Oona's Prowler. And the power it can have in EDH is insane. By far one of my favorite enchantments in the game.

Use this with Cavern Harpy, and just return the harpy to your hand. It's simple, only requires 2 cards, and it is good card advantage.

I agree, it is a brilliant combo. Unfortunatly, it doesn't work. If you read the rulings on Equilibrium you'll see that you can't return a creature to your hand with it unless you play another creature. Quote:
The ability is put on the stack immediately after you play a creature spell, whch means the creature that spell will become won't be a legal target.
Sorry.
However, many other combos are possible, such as Weirding Shaman for a continuous discard, that can be played right as the opponent draws.
Using Cowardice and Shuko the Cloud of Faeries can be infinitely replayed.

Just not powerful enough.

Run with token generators. Glamerdye the Undercurrents so both abilitys trigger off the same color if need be. Persist creatures and a way to get rid of -1/-1 counters also works quite well.

Wild infinite combos aside, this was the deathblow in a fun deck I built around Vedalken Mastermind. This was pre-M10 so damage still used the stack (ahh, the good 'ol days) so Tidehollow Strix Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, Blizzard Specter, Sedraxis Alchemist, and others provided a nasty soft-lock as well as massive draw potential. That was a fun deck.

Makes Breeding Pit pretty good.

I agree with Kenji18, Cavern Harpy is my favourite creature to use with Dire Undercurrents because of the nearly effortless repeatability.
If you just need to draw cards, play good old Shrieking Drake.

Oona, queen of the fey ftw.

I managed to make this card a must kill in EDH with my playgroup. I suppose that makes it quite a good card.

I would totally use it with Sharding Sphinx or any other Thopter generator.

Lich lord of unx.

@crenel
First, for a high tide combo that abuses untap-land spells, that's lame.
You're working too hard to pull off an effect. I have a mill deck that "goes off" somewhat routinely by abusing the snap and cloud of faeries combo, where you get to uptap a total of 6 times, generating a minimum 6 mana for 3 cards and having 2 lands uptapped at the end. With a mix of "target player" and "all players" draw spells i eventually run into brainfreeze and other big milling cards. Turn 3 milling 2-3 opponents for $20 or less is pretty awesome. (only things that costed anything were mystical tutors and brain freeze)

Second, you must pay equilibriums cost BEFORE the creature enters the battlefield. It's whenever you PLAY a creature spell, but Cloud of faeries uses an ENTERS THE BATTLEFIELD trigger, meaning that equilibrium's chance to respond is too late. You'll need one more mana to pull off infinite mana.

Further, assuming i was wrong in the above paragraph (i'm not) notice that to go off turn 3 for you (the ideal in that combo) it takes SIX specific cards (I include the islands because tapped-lands won't work.) That's essentially a god-draw. If you didn't have non-basic lands in there i wouldn't bother counting the islands, but because the non-basics kill the strat you pretty much have to count them.



With all of that, why irrigation ditch? Saprazzan Scurry will give you double mana twice if you just want a sac land, and that'll get you to your cloud of faeries trick.



EDIT: @Piechart
Again, even without that, the combo wouldn't work because it's when he plays the spell. He'd need two cloud of faeries (one in play already as you've suggested) AND one more mana (as i've suggested)

Combos with Oona, Queen of the Fae.

It´s a bit costy, but I really like this card for its great synergie with Oona and her tokens, plus it also has great combo possibilities.

I have recently fallen in love with this card since I tucked it into my flicker deck. It's totally insane when you're casting ghostway with things like Mulldrifter, Baleful Strix or Phyrexian Rager... just kind of roll around in the delicious card advantage. Priced just right for such delicious attrition.

i play this in my newly revamped dimir deck. i use this card in particular with Call of the Nightwing. the other wombo combo in the deck is Hidden Strings and Agent of the Fates. And the creature that ties it all together?

Invisible Stalker.

yeah, maximizing the power of a single stalker has made alot of people i know begin to hate it...

Four words: Army of the Damned. Dropping 13 zombies and making someone discard their hand is just about as cruel as it gets. In a multiplayer game, 13 is usually good enough to get at least two opponents to discard their hand this way. That's the true beauty of this card; you get a powerful effect for doing the things you want to do anyway. That makes it a 4/5 for me, but the art puts it over the top. So cool.

Wait a minute....... these are dire straits.