one of the only decent blue cards from fallen empires
Dalek9
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(8 votes)
What! Off-Color-Wheel Antics?! Oh, Early Days of Magic!
febbstalicious42
★☆☆☆☆ (1.1/5.0)(4 votes)
I managed to make a Merfolk Combo deck much like the Elf Combo Deck, except that it used this + permanent untappers and fallowsages to play my deck out consistently by turn 5, then win with a) infinite merfolk tokens, b)decking the opponent, or c) brainfreeze.
Gilgiga
★★★☆☆ (3.9/5.0)(8 votes)
Did you just say it's "no dark ritual?"
Seriously this card is bonkers. Dark ritual is a pretty good one turn of acceleration, dropping High Tide means you should have just won the game, the amount of mana this produces is pretty nuts.
Ritual is a tempo gain early, this is a degenerate win condition.
Baconradar
★★★☆☆ (3.2/5.0)(4 votes)
Agree this card is bonkers. I do believe dark ritual is better though, overall.
This is certainly one of the best cards from FE, but I think the best is probably Hymn to Tourach, personally.
Alsebra
★★☆☆☆ (2.0/5.0)(3 votes)
Wait...you're comparing it to Dark Ritual? One mana for three or one mana for 2 x the number of Islands you control (minus the one for this card)...
Combine this with one of the blue cards that untaps your lands when you cast them (Peregrine Drake, Cloud of Faeries, Great Whale, etc) from the Urza block (or, god forbid, something later on...perhaps Bear Umbra) and use it to power some big nasty spell...my favorite finisher is a High Tide-powered Stroke of Genius to deck the opponent.
gasimakos1
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(3 votes)
it's no dark ritual, but this is actually a pretty useful card.
@gilgiga, they're reasonably-similar mana-producing spells. high tide is late game and dark ritual is good at any time. however, dark ritual is literally useful in ANY deck, whereas high tide absolutely requires the entire deck to be built around the use of it. you can't just throw high tide into any deck with islands and expect it to work. no one played this card for years until free spells came along, and that says more about free spells than it does about high tide. it requires the deck to run almost all islands AND the rest of the deck has to be composed mostly of cards that can abuse high tide: stroke of genius, free spells, thawing glaciers, etc. throw 4 dark rituals and the mana to cast them in a similar deck, or any other for that matter, and they will still work perfectly. you could never say that about high tide, and that is why it is an inferior card.
look at the comparison of mana produced by each card - with 1 island in play, high tide gets you 0 mana. with 2 islands, 2 mana. with 3 islands, 4 mana, with 4 islands, 6 mana. you need at least 4 islands in play in order to get any sort of juice out of it, whereas dark ritual produces 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively. with 2 dark rituals in hand, it's crazy.
blurrymadness
★★☆☆☆ (2.3/5.0)(5 votes)
The problem Gasimakos is that building around a card DOES make it better or worse. No one will tell you Emrakul, Progenitus, or heck Dream Halls are bad cards unless they're idiots, but they're also cards that require a specific "build around me" status to work very well. Just because this can't be thrown into EVERY blue deck for *maximum* effect doesn't mean that it can't be thrown in for pretty-darn-good effect.
Further, unlike Dark Ritual, High Tides stack in a beautiful way. You tap for 1, then play high tide. Tap for 2, play two more. Now the third island produces more mana than the original 3 islands you had! I have a mill deck that goes off TURN 3 because of High Tide shenanigans. All it takes is a single untapper and a draw engine and you'll run into other untappers of various kinds. Further, it's trivial to create infinite combos with this card: ((Earthcraft + any 1 creature) OR Argothian Elder OR Juniper Order Druid OR Krosan Restorer OR Ley Druid OR Magus of the candelabra)+ freed from the reel OR pemmin's aura = infinite mana.
Even better, things like Twiddle become Rite of Flames, Dark Rituals, or even better. Dark Ritual literally has no cards that cause infinite combos so easily and is nearly ALWAYS a card disadvantage. High Tides into a draw engine such as Brain Geyser can easily net 2+ cards (plus the others you had to use) resulting in card advantage, and that's without abusing it. WITH abusing it you fill up your hand, dump it, fill it, dump it, etc and you'll quickly get to your wincons as you do. Even better, once you do, you likely have yet even more untappers, protection, and the mana to cast those wincons right off.
Further, enemies only have a slim opening to reliably counter the set of cards you'll play and if they screw it up you have the mana to counter their counter and go right back on doing what you were. Rewind works wonderfully for completing this once you're floating enough mana.
Accuran
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
This card isn't that great too early. Dark ritual is 100% better in terms of speed. In order to really get any use out of this you need at least 3 islands on the board, and even then, it only produces 1 extra. Having 5 islands out brings it up to speed and while not so good at first, a blue mana ramp can win games, dropping a sphinx or leviathan.
Psychrates
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Just ANOTHER under-rated card from FE...
I played this when it first came out, kicked ass with it, and was still told it was 'too situational'. Now look at y'all. good for ya.
Put the pipe down, and cast more than one in a turn. See how why it poops on on Dark Ritual now?
Lord_of_Tresserhorn
★☆☆☆☆ (1.8/5.0)(2 votes)
One of the coolest sleeper cards ever. Was totally ignored when FE came out.
Dustylou_2
★★☆☆☆ (2.0/5.0)(3 votes)
This card is absurdly strong; it's one of the reasons that I refuse to play against one of my friends' blue decks. Doubling your mana at instant speed is kind of a good thing. Ritual is great; this is broken.
Kryptnyt
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Now watch in horror as I cast two homarids on turn four!
Latronis
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(2 votes)
you mean watch in horror (for half an hour) as I force you to draw 60 cards on turn 2?
green4456
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
People are saying this card is not as good as Dark Ritual, well, how does a Turn 2 infinite Brain Freeze sound?
Turn 1: Island *Insert cantrip here* Turn 2: Island, High Tide, Cloud of Faeries, Cloud of Faeries, Ghostly Flicker, Archaeomancer, Ghostly Flicker *Goes Infinite* Brain Freeze
O0oze
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
"with 1 island in play, high tide gets you 0 mana. with 2 islands, 2 mana. with 3 islands, 4 mana, with 4 islands, 6 mana."
gasimakos: actuall high tide give you mana equal to the number of islands you control (other than the one used to cast). you are correct about the mana you have, but the mana it gives is less than that. half of that.
blurrymadness: many cards are good because you build decks around them, but there are no decks built around black lotus, or actually any of the power 9- they are so powerful because they are used in so many decks, because they are so versatile and you don't need the deck to be around them.
oh, and infinite combos are really not the thing cards should be measured by. there are many bad cards that can be used for infinite combos. heck, obelisk of undoing can be a part of some combos... does it make it good?
in most cases, this will give you more mana than dark ritual. that is really not the point- each has its uses, in different decks. and yes, each has godhand combos, which is a REALLY bad thing to judge cards by, since youll rarely get godhands.
one last thing- this saw a lot more play in vintage than dark ritual. that doesn't automatically make it better, but i suppose it might say something.
Comments (16)
Seriously this card is bonkers. Dark ritual is a pretty good one turn of acceleration, dropping High Tide means you should have just won the game, the amount of mana this produces is pretty nuts.
Ritual is a tempo gain early, this is a degenerate win condition.
This is certainly one of the best cards from FE, but I think the best is probably Hymn to Tourach, personally.
Combine this with one of the blue cards that untaps your lands when you cast them (Peregrine Drake, Cloud of Faeries, Great Whale, etc) from the Urza block (or, god forbid, something later on...perhaps Bear Umbra) and use it to power some big nasty spell...my favorite finisher is a High Tide-powered Stroke of Genius to deck the opponent.
@gilgiga, they're reasonably-similar mana-producing spells. high tide is late game and dark ritual is good at any time. however, dark ritual is literally useful in ANY deck, whereas high tide absolutely requires the entire deck to be built around the use of it. you can't just throw high tide into any deck with islands and expect it to work. no one played this card for years until free spells came along, and that says more about free spells than it does about high tide. it requires the deck to run almost all islands AND the rest of the deck has to be composed mostly of cards that can abuse high tide: stroke of genius, free spells, thawing glaciers, etc. throw 4 dark rituals and the mana to cast them in a similar deck, or any other for that matter, and they will still work perfectly. you could never say that about high tide, and that is why it is an inferior card.
look at the comparison of mana produced by each card - with 1 island in play, high tide gets you 0 mana. with 2 islands, 2 mana. with 3 islands, 4 mana, with 4 islands, 6 mana. you need at least 4 islands in play in order to get any sort of juice out of it, whereas dark ritual produces 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively. with 2 dark rituals in hand, it's crazy.
Further, unlike Dark Ritual, High Tides stack in a beautiful way. You tap for 1, then play high tide. Tap for 2, play two more. Now the third island produces more mana than the original 3 islands you had! I have a mill deck that goes off TURN 3 because of High Tide shenanigans. All it takes is a single untapper and a draw engine and you'll run into other untappers of various kinds. Further, it's trivial to create infinite combos with this card:
((Earthcraft + any 1 creature) OR Argothian Elder OR Juniper Order Druid OR Krosan Restorer OR Ley Druid OR Magus of the candelabra)+ freed from the reel OR pemmin's aura = infinite mana.
Even better, things like Twiddle become Rite of Flames, Dark Rituals, or even better. Dark Ritual literally has no cards that cause infinite combos so easily and is nearly ALWAYS a card disadvantage. High Tides into a draw engine such as Brain Geyser can easily net 2+ cards (plus the others you had to use) resulting in card advantage, and that's without abusing it. WITH abusing it you fill up your hand, dump it, fill it, dump it, etc and you'll quickly get to your wincons as you do. Even better, once you do, you likely have yet even more untappers, protection, and the mana to cast those wincons right off.
Further, enemies only have a slim opening to reliably counter the set of cards you'll play and if they screw it up you have the mana to counter their counter and go right back on doing what you were. Rewind works wonderfully for completing this once you're floating enough mana.
I played this when it first came out, kicked ass with it, and was still told it was 'too situational'. Now look at y'all. good for ya.
Put the pipe down, and cast more than one in a turn. See how why it poops on on Dark Ritual now?
Turn 1: Island *Insert cantrip here*
Turn 2: Island, High Tide, Cloud of Faeries, Cloud of Faeries, Ghostly Flicker, Archaeomancer, Ghostly Flicker *Goes Infinite* Brain Freeze
gasimakos: actuall high tide give you mana equal to the number of islands you control (other than the one used to cast). you are correct about the mana you have, but the mana it gives is less than that. half of that.
blurrymadness: many cards are good because you build decks around them, but there are no decks built around black lotus, or actually any of the power 9- they are so powerful because they are used in so many decks, because they are so versatile and you don't need the deck to be around them.
oh, and infinite combos are really not the thing cards should be measured by. there are many bad cards that can be used for infinite combos. heck, obelisk of undoing can be a part of some combos... does it make it good?
in most cases, this will give you more mana than dark ritual. that is really not the point- each has its uses, in different decks. and yes, each has godhand combos, which is a REALLY bad thing to judge cards by, since youll rarely get godhands.
one last thing- this saw a lot more play in vintage than dark ritual. that doesn't automatically make it better, but i suppose it might say something.