Consuming Tide MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: With the ability to potentially return a multitude of nonland permanents to their owners’ hands, Consuming Tide can deliver significant card advantage. This puts you in a commanding position to dictate the pace of the match while forcing your opponents to redeploy their resources.

Resource Acceleration: Following up on the card advantage, the player who casts Consuming Tide is allowed to choose a nonland permanent to keep on the field. This selective advantage enables smart players to tailor the game state to accelerate their strategy, keeping the most useful resources active while disrupting opponents.

Instant Speed: While not an instant itself, Consuming Tide’s potential for instant-speed interaction is notable when combined with flash enablers. This allows you to react swiftly to your opponent’s threats or end-of-turn decisions, reshaping the board in your favor unexpectedly.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While leveraging the strength of Consuming Tide’s ability to reset the board may look appealing, it also necessitates that at your next end step, you part with a nonland permanent you didn’t cast this turn. This demand could strain your grip on the game if you can’t secure a card to discard without compromising your strategy.

Specific Mana Cost: One of the more challenging aspects of fitting Consuming Tide into a deck is the specific mana cost denoted in its casting requirements. Needing both blue and colorless mana means it must find a place in decks that can accommodate such mana needs without causing inconsistency or hindering the deck’s fluid play.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost demanding four mana, Consuming Tide comes with a price that raises the question of opportunity cost. When you reach the point in the game where four mana becomes available, it pits itself against other potent spells and creatures that could offer immediate impact, making it a costly consideration in tempo and control-oriented decks.

Reasons to Include Consuming Tide in Your Collection

Versatility: Consuming Tide is a potent card that can be incorporated into a wide variety of blue-based decks. This card excels in strategies that revolve around bouncing creatures to hand, allowing for repeated use of enter-the-battlefield effects.

Combo Potential: It pairs exceptionally well with cards that benefit from or mitigate symmetrical effects. It can combo with permanents that have leave-the-battlefield triggers or that you’d want to replay for value, leveraging the tide to turn the game in your favor.

Meta-Relevance: As the metagame often includes decks that heavily rely on creature presence, Consuming Tide acts as a reset button, disrupting your opponents’ board states and providing you with a significant advantage in the late game.

How to beat

Consuming Tide is a unique spell in Magic: The Gathering, known for its tidal wave effect that forces each player to choose a nonland permanent they own, return the rest to their hands, and then draw cards for the number of permanents returned to their hand this way by an opponent. To effectively counter this card, players should focus on strategies that minimize the impact of such a reset. Playing an aggressive or low to the ground strategy can pressure an opponent before they have the resources for a four-mana sorcery. On the other hand, keeping instant-speed removal or counterspells in hand allows for a reaction to Consuming Tide that can mitigate its effects or negate it entirely. Additionally, players can also tailor their decks to benefit from bounce effects, using enter-the-battlefield triggers to their advantage or capitalizing on spell-based strategies that are less reliant on permanents. Employing these tactics can turn the tide against Consuming Tide, allowing players to maintain control of the game flow.

BurnMana Recommendations

Consuming Tide presents a fascinating addition to any MTG blue strategist’s arsenal, offering both challenge and opportunity. Balancing its high mana cost and specific requirements against the sweeping advantage it can provide takes skill. For those looking to harness control, disrupt opponents, or capitalize on repeatable enter-the-battlefield triggers, this card is a must-consider. Looking to expertly weave Consuming Tide into your deck and strategies, or seeking further insights on playing with or against it? Explore our detailed coverage that will help you master the ebbs and flows of this powerful sorcery. Gain the upper hand and steer the tide of battle in your favor today.