Tidal Force

Creature — Elemental

At the beginning of each upkeep, you may tap or untap target permanent.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (27)

legendofa on Why is Untapping Lands a …

10 months ago

In blue, the Urza's Block hugely skew land untapping, and that block is widely considered to be an overpowered mistake, especially for blue. Urza's Saga and Urza's Legacy alone have ten cards that allow land-specific untapping, more than half of all the blue cards that allow untapping lands without untapping all permanents. They'll be included for the sake of completion, but I wouldn't take them as any sort of precedent. Pioneer legality is just five cards, with one of them being Standard-legal. Blue is the undisputed king of untapping permanents in general, but doesn't have any special focus on lands.

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "land": Twiddle, Reset, Infuse, Jolt, Twitch, Mind Over Matter, Great Whale, Peregrine Drake, Rewind, Time Spiral, Turnabout, Cloud of Faeries, Frantic Search, Palinchron, Snap, Treachery, Trickster Mage. total 16

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "land": Oboro Breezecaller. total 1

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "land": Pore Over the Pages, Unwind, Finale of Revelation, Kelpie Guide. total 3

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "permanent": Telekinetic Bonds. total 1

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "permanent": Dream's Grip, Psychic Puppetry, Toils of Night and Day, Tidewater Minion, Rimewind Taskmage, Coral Trickster, Merrow Reejerey, Pestermite, Fatestitcher, Merfolk Skyscout, Reality Spasm, Deceiver Exarch, Captain of the Mists, Ghostly Touch, Hidden Strings, Curse of Inertia, Tidal Force. total 17

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "permanent": Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Clever Conjurer, Nimbleclaw Adept, Ioreth of the Healing House, Forensic Researcher. total 6

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "Island": none.

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "Island": none.

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "Island": none.

There's 44 mono-blue cards that can untap lands in some capacity, with 20 of them being more specific than untapping permanents in general. If Urza's Block is taken out, then there are 34 blue cards that untap lands, with just nine of them having any sort of restriction.

So in final summary, I see green land untapping increasing in recent years, and blue permanent untapping actually falling off slightly. There were 18 blue untap cards in the 12 years of the modern border, and nine cards so far in the nine years of the 2015 border. Discounting Urza's Block, there are slightly more green cards that can untap lands than blue cards, and many more green cards that untap lands than blue cards printed in the last ten years.

If I missed anything in this breakdown, please let me know. But I think the cards are there to support my initial position. Both green and blue are primary in untapping lands, if lands are counted as permanents, and blue is secondary in untapping lands specifically. Mark Rosewater's answer is is at best incomplete and missing nuance, and at worst totally wrong.

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Keeping the above because it took me a long time write and I don't want to undo the effort.

In response to wallisface, percentage of cards with a given effect doesn't matter to primacy of color.

• Primary – This is the color (or colors) the ability is seen in most. That means it shows up in the highest volume and usually at the lowest rarity that the type of effects get used at. The primary color will almost always get this effect in a set if it's an ability we do every set. It also tends to be the color that most often pushes the power level, if it's an effect we push the power level on. There's a wide range on what primary means, because different types of effects exist at different levels. A card secondary in flying can show up way more than a card primary in taking extra turns, for instance, because we have so many more flying cards than extra-turn cards.

• I want to stress one more time that primary, secondary, and tertiary are relative to how often an effect is used. Things that are secondary in a color, for example, may be far more prevalent in that color than things that are primary if the items in question occur at a higher frequency.

Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021

For example, MaRoo has repeatedly stated that red is primary in extra combat cards, with white as a contender for secondary.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/760377485190938624/can-any-color-aside-from-red-get-extra-combat

There are only 36 cards that grant an additional comabt. If primacy was considered as a proportion of cards that grant additional combats was considered only as a proportion of total cards of that color, I don't think any color would be considered primary.

So while there might be fewer cards that untap lands in green as a proportion of total green cards in recent years, that's not a relevant measure to color primacy. The relevant measure is how often cards that untap lands show up in green compared to other colors, which I think is demonstrated by the above lists that green has more land untap effects than any other color, with blue being nearly equivalent. That, according to MaRo's definition, means that land untapping is primary in green.

Kwhill on Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

4 years ago

I'd recommend cutting the following cards right away:
Tidal Force (Doesn't do much. Very expensive.)
Siege Behemoth (Good effect, but very expensive.)
Emmara Tandris (It doesn't look like you really have that many tokens. Not sure why this is here.)
Deepfathom Skulker (Good trigger, but expensive, and you can't activate its second ability easily.)
Archon of Coronation (Really easy to lose the monarch and it doesn't do much besides give you the monarch.)
Amareth, the Lustrous (Not really that good. Very rarely will draw you anything in general and the body is very meh.)
Inniaz, the Gale Force (I don't like this kind of effect. You are forced to give up something.)
God-Eternal Oketra (The tokens are okay, but it really doesn't do enough IMO)
Archon of Redemption (3/4 flyer for 5 with a situational life gain effect is pretty bad...)
Angel of Destiny (If it ever gets removed, all you did by attacking, possibly losing creatures in the process, possibly taking hits because your defense are down, was gain life. It just seems like the card really does nothing.)
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice (Not enough token synergy to matter. Life gain is not very good.)
Thassa, Deep-Dwelling (This doesn't do much in your deck. IMO)
Basri's Lieutenant (With almost no +1/+1 counter synergy in the deck, this really doesn't do anything for you.)
Adrix and Nev, Twincasters (Not enough token synergy.)
Niambi, Esteemed Speaker (Can save a creature, but other than that, the card pretty much does nothing.)
Ornithopter of Paradise (Can't trigger Derevi because it has 0 power. Pretty bad as a ramp card too.)
Rhys the Redeemed (Not being elf tribal or big on tokens means that he won't do much.)
Parhelion II (Way too expensive and really doesn't do that much for its cost.)
Righteous Authority (Very expensive and no way to abuse it in the deck currently.)
Cosmos Elixir (You have a ton of draw in the form of "when a creature deals combat damage, draw 1" type cards. You don't need this IMO.)
Sword of Vengeance , Sword of Body and Mind (Not really sure what they're supposed to do for you. Tiny pumps and trample aren't going to help you much IMO.)
Combine Chrysalis (Not enough tokens.)
Sol Talisman (Why is this not Sol Ring?)
Cloudshift , Ephemerate (Almost no abusable ETBs)
Griffin Aerie (Not enough life gain to make this work and not even a great effect.)
Garruk's Uprising (I feel like you should probably be focusing on smaller bodies, not bigger ones.)
Growing Ranks (Not enough tokens.)
Elspeth Conquers Death (Doesn't really do anything you're looking for IMO.)

That's just the ones I would cut right away for not being good in general or not fitting with your strategy.

The token subtheme is kind of unfitting IMO. There's only a few tokens here and there, and a lot of them are "big" tokens, not little ones that can trigger Derevi a lot, but then you also have lots of things to take advantage of tokens even though you don't have that many things that produce tokens (and a lot of times, they're too expensive). If you want to focus a deck on tokens, I think you should choose a different commander.

In general, I think you should probably focus more on having a bunch of smaller creatures so you can get lots of Derevi triggers rather than bigger creatures. This could be a way to work in tokens if you want to push it, because you could focus on smaller tokens that you can push out very cheap and early in the game.

In addition to this, you may also want to consider putting in more cards that you can abuse with Derevi. I love the inspire guy you have in there, Arbiter of the Ideal (don't know if you know, but you can stack tap/untap/tap/untap triggers on him and trigger inspire a bunch of times in one combat!). I think you should focus on this kind of effect more.

I think you should also try to put a little more ramp in there. Sol Ring, Simic Signet, Arcane Signet, and maybe a couple other mana rocks are noticeably missing.

That's pretty much all I have to say about it right now. Let me know what you think!

maxpelletierfortin on

4 years ago

Hey beets,

Love it, thanks for the feedback! I appreciate you leaning in and finding some great additions for the deck!

This build was my first crack at a 5-color deck and Horde just happened to be the card I went with.

My objective was to build something that was budget and that could easily satisfy the 5-color Horde activation requirement while filling up the graveyard with some big creatures for value! Woo! (All hopefully on curve haha)

There are lots of secondary synergies which would potentially be removed to make the deck run smoother as well as a more refined mana base/ramp package. ex: Might of the Nephilim is in there to sneak in with some commander damage.

One objective was to fill the deck with cards which tap for WUBRG to easily get the ball going, this combined with Tidal Force was an attempt at an engine. Greenwarden of Murasa is a powerhouse in the deck with the past games for getting tutors and good non-elementals back to hand. Rings of Brighthearth was one card which I found awesome however was out-of-budget.

If you look at my page I've built a more pricey Omnath, Locus of the Roil deck with some of the powerhouse elementals that come out to $8 and up.

You were bang on about the murderers axe as a discard outlet and I love the alternative. I also like the idea of Wispmare, and Ingot Chewer as synergistic alternatives to the other removal in the deck.

Again, thanks for the feedback, much appreciated! I hope this helps provide some more detail into where my mind was going with this build. If you've got any more suggestions keep em coming!

Optimator on Mermaider

5 years ago

All owned:

Shipbreaker Kraken - Diluvian Primordial - Stormtide Leviathan - Tidal Force - Kraken of the Straits - Deep-Sea Kraken - Tromokratis - Great Whale - Colossal Whale - Scourge of Fleets - Inkwell Leviathan - Talrand, Sky Summoner - Aethersquall Ancient - Isleback Spawn - Grozoth - Gearseeker Serpent - Tidal Kraken - Pearl Lake Ancient - Merfolk Looter - Lorthos, the Tidemaker

Kalo_Wen on Ping [300ms]

5 years ago

Cadois I think finding that sweet spot is always the hard part. I took a look at JLK’s Tim deck and he has 14 untappers and 8-10 pingers. Though, his deck has a lot of other tap effects he wants to abuse. We also have access to a pinger in the command zone, which he does not.

I may start with seeing what other tap effects I like in Mono Blue and stick close to his shell. Tidal Force seems like a good add.

MESS1802 on Derevi

6 years ago

Bchong, the deck normally ramps rather well, actually. It’s around the same speed as the decks I play against. I can usually get everything I need in time, and I’m pretty good at keeping the stax enough in my favor to work. Seedborn Muse and Tidal Force really help with that. So casting my big cards aren’t usually a problem.

But like I said, I was hoping to keep it a little equipment based, that’s why I have cards like Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith and Sigarda's Aid in it. But I see your point that the second may be unnecessary.

Also, yes, I meant to make all the basic lands snow covered. I just forgot to do it on the website.

You’re probably right that I don’t have enough benefits for infinite mana. I meant to try adding Nylea, God of the Hunt as well as a combo with Filigree Sages and Planar Bridge, but kept putting it off. I also have an infinite combo that I took out a while ago, but may put back in.

Thanks for the insight, I really appreciate it! I’ll see what changes I can make and post them soon.

Strangelove on This is Why You Can't Have Nice Things

6 years ago

Deceiver of Form... kinda cool.

Tidal Force... might be even better than frost titan. Good for politics too.

Sphinx Ambassador... this card is ridiculous.

Platinum Emperion... why not.

Platinum Angel... and again why not. These last two could serve as your "lifegain."

Phyrexian Ingester... removal? Maybe... there's also Meteor Golem.

Nullstone Gargoyle... hilarious.

Galecaster Colossus... more removal.

IAmTheWraith on *RETIRED* The Fat Blue Weirdo

6 years ago

Well hello there...

bushido_man96: Thanks man! Don't forget to upvote!

Daedalus19876:

So I've never heard of Tidal Force, seems pretty good, but I don't think it's what I'm really looking for, I will probably put it in the maybeboard, just in case.

Arcane Laboratory Is not going in the deck. I feel like it hinders me too much.

Damping Sphere is fun. Maybeboard for now.

Stifle and Disallow seem decent. Again, Maybeboard for now until I can find the slots.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage Seems like it may be decent. Maybeboard??

Been considering adding Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir+Knowledge Pool so my opponents can't cast spells...