Tidings MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Tidings brings the power of drawing four cards to the table, significantly bolstering your hand and giving you a variety of options for future plays. This surge of new cards can be a major game changer, tipping the scales in your favor.

Resource Acceleration: While Tidings itself doesn’t directly accelerate resources like some other cards, the sheer volume of cards drawn increases the likelihood of drawing into additional land or spells that generate mana, propelling you ahead in the resource game.

Instant Speed: The flexibility offered by Tidings being a sorcery means you can strategically plan your turns for maximum impact. Even though it’s not an instant, the card allows for setting up powerful play sequences, especially when combined with untap effects or during turns when you’ve kept mana open for counterspells but didn’t need to use them.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Tidings necessitates the disposal of another card from your hand. For players in a tight game, this could deplete crucial resources and possibly disrupt strategic plays that rely on maintaining a strong hand presence.

Specific Mana Cost: Tidings commands a specific blend of mana, requiring not just any four mana but also one Island’s worth of blue mana. This cost can constrain deck building, as it stipulates that a player’s mana base must support blue mana to reliably cast this spell.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost of five mana, Tidings may come into play too late in the game for players craving an early advantage. There are alternative draw spells in the game that present a lower mana investment, potentially yielding a quicker boost to a player’s hand and board state.

Reasons to Include Tidings in Your Collection

Versatility: Tidings offers significant card advantage regardless of the archetype you play. It’s well-suited for control decks that seek to maintain hand superiority and for combo decks that need to dig through their library for key pieces.

Combo Potential: Drawing four cards with a single spell fuels combo engines, providing the necessary card flow to execute complex sequences that can lead to game-winning turns.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where games go longer and control strategies prevail, the ability to replenish your hand gives you a decisive edge against opponents, making Tidings a relevant addition to your arsenal.

How to Beat Tidings

Tidings is a spell that garners a player significant card advantage in Magic: The Gathering by allowing the drawing of four cards upon its resolution. This card influx can swiftly tilt the scales of the game, making it pivotal to disrupt Tidings or mitigate its impact on the game. One effective strategy is to apply pressure early. Since Tidings has a higher casting cost, maintaining an aggressive stance can diminish its effectiveness as the player may not survive long enough to capitalize on their new hand.

Similarly, employing counter spells like Counterspell or Negate can directly prevent Tidings from resolving, thereby denying your opponent the chance to pull ahead. Hand disruption mechanics, featured in cards such as Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek, can extract Tidings from your opponent’s hand before they even have a chance to cast it. Lastly, leveraging spells that limit card draw, such as Narset, Parter of Veils, can effectively negate the advantage Tidings would provide. By staying one step ahead, you can thwart your opponent’s plans and maintain control of the game.