The wait is over; High Tide has finally made its way into Modern! Ok, they didn't actually reprint High Tide, but the spirit of the deck is alive and well! Extraplanar Lens fills in the role of High Tide in this Modern remake of the deck. The goal here is the same as High Tide decks; abuse the additional mana produced by my islands by using spells to untap my lands, then utilize that ridiculous amount of mana to cast a host of draw spells and more untap cards until I reach a lethal storm count. High Tide is absolutely one of my favorite Legacy decks, so it is an honor for me to be able to pay homage to it in a Modern deck. Let's get into the breakdown now:
[Rising Tide]
These are the cards that make the deck work and form the spirit of High Tide.
Extraplanar Lens: The High Tide of this deck, lets me generate ridiculous amounts of mana by turn 4. This has an added bonus of staying on the field if I fail to go off properly and need to wait another turn or two. Snow-covered lands make it so my opponent won't get the extra mana unless they run snow-covered islands themselves.
Blue Sun's Zenith: Straight from the Legacy High Tide, this either acts as a finisher if I manage to generate enough mana or just gives me more cards to play.
Hidden Strings: The cipher is pretty irrelevant, but the main point is to generate extra mana and this is more efficient than other Modern legal untap cards. Net gain of 2 mana with Extraplanar Lens on the battlefield.
Dream's Grip: More untappiness to take advantage of that Extraplanar Lens. Net gain of 1 mana.
Rewind: Not the most efficient untap spell, but it can be used to counter something cheap like Gitaxian Probe for massive mana gain. Net gain of 4 mana if used with 4 land in play.
Reality Spasm: Not much of a net gain from this card by itself, but it gets pretty ridiculous with Twincast.
Twincast: Doubles the efficiency of Hidden Strings and Reality Spasm and can be used with Rewind if done carefully.
Snapcaster Mage: This is a real star in this deck with the lack of efficient untap spells in Modern.
[Draw Engines]
These give the deck its explosive power by letting me get through nearly the entire deck with enough mana.
Vision Skeins: Excellent card for combo turn considering my opponent is not likely to have another turn to play whatever they draw.
Peer Through Depths: Ensures that I get the draw cards I need to effectively get through my deck and finds more untap spells.
Sleight of Hand: A little extra deck manipulation helps to find those Extraplanar Lenses and the extra draw is necessary.
Serum Visions: I don't get to control what card I draw, but the draw plus scry gets me through 3 cards on top of my deck and sets up my next draw spell.
Gitaxian Probe: One of the most efficient draw spells in the deck, the life loss is practically irrelevant. Great for grabbing something I put on top with Serum Visions.
[Game Over]
Once I finally reach that lethal storm count, it's time to end it.
Grapeshot: The obvious finisher; can either be cast once with a storm count of at least 19 for game, or twice using Snapcaster Mage with a storm count of only 8.
Simian Spirit Guide: After playing though three quarters of the deck, it's rather likely that I'll run into one of these to play that Grapeshot.
And there you have it, a viable High Tide list in Modern! This can go off on turn 4 as long as you get at least one Extraplanar Lens because you really only need 3 islands for this to work. You can even drop another Extraplanar Lens on the same turn, this deck is made to run off of as few islands as possible, so 2 islands and 2 lenses works just fine. Anyway, let me know what you think and certainly feel free to leave suggestions! Also, check out my popular Modern project; Obvious Combo is Obvious....
