Peasant Magic is a format with an identity crisis. On the one hand, the banning of rares and strong restriction of uncommons, combined with allowing cards from throughout the history of Magic, make Peasant a very casual-friendly format. At the same time, so many powerful commons have been printed over the past ten years that the power level of the best decks in the format is extremely high. I'd feel totally confident taking FrozenTide against a deck from any format except type I. In fact, FrozenTide is not type I legal because it feature four copies of some restricted cards. Peasant Magic isn't sure if it's a friendly format where people can play whatever decks they care for or a competitive format where only the strongest decks survive.
This identity crisis contributes to the metagame at Peasant Magic tournaments. Casual players will come to these tournaments playing interesting, creative, and fun decks. They'll be playing strange decks with little consideration for how they do against the field. They'll be playing cards that are suboptimal in terms of power, because they're unwilling to spend the money for older, more powerful cards, because they're uninterested in playing a power card when they could play a card that's more fun, or because they're simply unaware of the existence of the more powerful card. This creates an extremely broad metagame, where a huge fraction of the decks are 눼rogue.눼
Of course, the Peasant Metagame is already pretty broad. While I think FrozenTide is a cut above the rest of the field, the other tier 1 decks are all very close. Burn, Monoblack Control, Monoblack Aggro, Elves, White Weenie, and Sol Ring Blue are all competitive. In fact, I'm sure there are other decks that are tier 1 that I haven't mentioned in this list.
There are also plenty of decks that seem a hair's breadth away from being tier 1, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone presented a W/u Rebels deck, a U/G Madness deck, or a Worthy Cause deck that could also be considered tier 1.
In extremely narrow metagames it makes sense to try to 눼beat눼 the metagame. If almost everyone is playing "deck A" because it's good against random decks, and you know that "deck B" beats deck A, even if it isn't good against random decks, it makes sense to play deck B. In very tight metagames, you can find the best deck then build a deck to beat it. In broader metagames, like Peasant's, though, this strategy does not make sense.
In broader metagames, where people are playing all sorts of decks, the best strategy is to find the best deck and play it. In the case of Peasant Magic, I think that the best deck is clearly FrozenTide.
FrozenTide is an evolution of earlier decks that were also built around High Tide. Like many combo decks, there is an engine: High Tide causes your lands to produce extra mana. Urza's Saga features spells that are free if your lands each produce one mana, and that produce extra mana if your lands each produce more than one. Together, these cards can produce a great deal of mana.
Since this mana production requires trading cards for mana, it makes sense to include card drawing. Before Scourge came out, the card drawing of choice was Prosperity. Prosperity let you trade the vast amounts of mana you were producing for more cards. It also provided a win condition, since when your opponent can't draw cards he loses. By using Feldon's Cane to refill your library you can make Prosperity both part of the combo and the win condition.
ProsTide is an extremely good deck, and is absolutely tier 1. However, while it goldfishes very, very well, it has trouble with discard and with counterspells, including Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast. The deck is extremely reliant on Prosperity, and if it is forced to discard one early, or if the first Prosperity is countered, the deck is in a great deal trouble. FrozenTide avoids this problem. It runs more dedicated card drawing to make up for the trading of cards for mana, and it wins with Brain Freeze. Since Brain Freeze is a spell with Storm, it is extremely difficult to counter. Since it's a Blue Instant, it can be fetched with Merchant Scroll. With so much card drawing, the deck is much less affected by discard, and with no vulnerability of the win condition to counterspell, it's much less clear how to stop the combo. In fact, because so many of the key cards are Instants, it's not too difficult for FrozenTide to go off during an opponent's turn, where every Counterspell equates to one more copy of Brain Freeze.
Here is the decklist I ran at Origins to a 6-1 record, including winning the tournament:
FrozenTide goes off very quickly, can deal with Counterspells, and it can recover from discard. The only thing it can't really do is recover from discard quickly, or, to a lesser extent, deal with Counterspells early. To beat FrozenTide, an opponent needs disruption matched with a fast clock. The best deck to do this is Mono Black Aggro, which still is about 50-50 against FrozenTide. Recently, another problem with FrozenTide has been raised: Gaea's Blessing stops Brain Freeze from milling a library. Anyone, it has been said, "can play two copies of Gaea's Blessing in the sideboard and beat FrozenTide."
There are two statements that could be made here, from opposite ends of the spectrum, that are both untrue. Firstly, you could conclude that this means that FrozenTide is useless. Secondly, you could suggest that this is a non-issue, and that it's not worth considering.
In response to the first conclusion, that FrozenTide is no more since that people could run Gaea's Blessing, two things must be considered. Firstly, will people run Gaea's Blessing? Secondly, how much does it matter? People who run Gaea's Blessing will be giving up sideboard space, and more importantly, uncommon slots for a deck that very few people will be playing. People who choose not to sideboard Gaea's Blessing will have a good shot against people who run it, meaning that Gaea's Blessings stand to be culled as the rounds progress.
When people do choose to run Gaea's Blessing, it's a problem for FrozenTide, but not an insurmountable one. The version of FrozenTide I played at Origins this year had no way, between the deck and the sideboard, to win against a deck with Gaea's Blessings. That doesn't mean that Gaea's Blessing beats FrozenTide, though. It simply beats the version I played at Origins.
Gaea's Blessing has a triggered ability. When Gaea's Blessing is put into a graveyard from its owner's library, an ability goes onto the stack that causes the player to shuffle his graveyard into his library. In response to that ability, before it resolves, it is quite possible to play another Brain Freeze. When enough copies of that Brain Freeze resolve to put an opponent's library into his graveyard, an Instant that would cause an opponent to draw a card will cause him to lose. There aren't a lot of common Blue Instants that cause an opponent to draw a card. Inspiration can target an opponent, forcing a card draw. I think that Words of Wisdom, from Odyssey, is a better choice. It lets you draw two cards and makes your opponent draw one, as an Instant, for 1U. In the early game, this is card drawing. It maintains card parity, but if your deck is designed to capitalize on those cards faster than an opponent's deck, it's quite strong. In the 눼mid game,눼 while the combo is going off, it acts like a little Prosperity, except you get an extra card out of it and it can be cast during an opponent's turn. In the 눼late game,눼 it can act as a finisher.
Frozen Tide
4 High Tide
4 Frantic Search
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Deep Analysis
1 Fact or Fiction (uncommon)
4 Disrupt
4 Brain Freeze (uncommon)
20 Island
SB: 4 Power Sink
SB: 4 Snap
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Hydroblast
SB: 1 Capsize
Here is a new decklist, the one I would play at GenCon:
[Editor note: I was unable to play this deck at GenCon 2003 or get this article posted by that time. I am sorry for the delay]
Now, if the plan is to cast an extra Brain Freeze for each Gaea's Blessing, FrozenTide will lose to decks with 4 Gaea's Blessings in the sideboard, and the need to cast an extra Brain Freeze will make it a little harder for FrozenTide to go off. Gaea's Blessing can't be ignored. It doesn't, however, spell the end of FrozenTide. In fact, I still believe FrozenTide to be far and away the best deck in the format. Chris Pikula once joked about Extended, 눼Ban everything until Necropotence is good, then ban Necropotence.눼 I'm not sure what the equivalent card is in Peasant. It's probably Fireblast, Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor, or Hymn to Tourach. I'm pretty sure, though, that none of these cards are going to be good as long as High Tide is in the format. Even if people are right and Gaea's Blessing shuts down FrozenTide, do we really want to expect everyone to include this card in his sideboard? Even if we do, ProsTide is an extremely good deck, second, I think, only to FrozenTide, and I think it would still be a dominant deck in the format. Strip Mine was moved from Common to Uncommon in order to increase the health of the format, and High Tide should be a similar, if not harsher, fate.
4 High Tide
4 Frantic Search
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Words of Wisdom
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Disrupt
4 Brain Freeze
20 Island
SB: 4 Power Sink
SB: 3 Snap
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Hydroblast
SB: 3 Deep Analysis
by Chris Morling