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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day
Daily Since November 2001!

Turn the Tide
Image from Wizards.com

Turn the Tide
Mirrodin Besieged

Reviewed March 11, 2011

Constructed: 2.25
Casual: 2.60
Limited: 2.50
Multiplayer: 2.50

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all of our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Turn the Tide

The awesome flavor text is basically all this card has going for it. It's a weak, defensive combat trick that only delays your imminent face-bashing. Sure, it could allow your blockers to survive, but if they don't kill the attackers it's still just delaying the inevitable. And if they do, well, congratulations-- your opponent attacked into your creatures with creatures he knew would probably die, and they did die. Sure, your opponent didn't get to trade, but...
Here's the real issue. Giving creatures -X/-0 is mechanically similar to preventing damage. Remember Healing Salve? Mending Hands? Samite Healer? Have those made any real impact on any game you've ever played, besides to just make it drag on longer? I didn't think so.

Constructed- 1.25
Casual- 1.25
Limited- 1.5
Multiplayer- 1.5

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Turn the Tide
 
The color pie confuses me sometimes. Turn the Tide plays an awful lot like Fog, but it's blue rather than green. Cards like this usually play best in limited, but this particular one's impact is not as great as other similar cards. It requires a little more planning to ensure you actually survive the opponent's all-out attack to launch your own. (Perhaps that's why it's blue, as well.) It also works more in regular combat than conventional Fog cards.
 
Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 2/5
Limited: 2/5
Multiplayer: 2/5
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Turn the Tide which is a two mana instant that gives all creatures opponents control -2/-0 until end of the turn. 
This isn't really a bad card, but is at best a sidedeck option for Blue to use against against token swarm builds and possible Infect.  It doesn't really work in maindecks and is very narrow in design which keeps it from really standing out.
 
For Limited this is slightly better as you know both you and your opponent will be using creatures whenever possible and the odds of Infect being a factor are fairly high.  Even then a one turn -2/-0 is not a priority pick in Booster and should be pulled after more direct removal and stronger creatures.  In Sealed this can be played as filler, to support your mana curve, or as improvised removal depending on your pool.
 
In Multiplayer this may seem to have more of an impact for controlling how battles turn out, but the applications are likely to be somewhat rare and unlikely to be a major factor in most formats.  A notable exception is Two-Headed Giant where something like this works quite well due to the turn rules.
 
Constructed: 2.0
Casual: 2.0
Limited: 2.5
Multiplayer: 2.5

John
Shultis
Phoenix
Gaming

   Welcome to the Card of the Day here at Pojo.com. Let’s take a look at Turn the Tide from Mirrodin Besieged. This one generic one blue instant gives creatures your opponents control -2/-0. I have long been a fan of these style cards, from Ovinize to Disorient, blue has been able to exploit making creatures weak for some time, and now it just gets better.

    In standard the easiest application to Turn the Tide is simply run red and blue together, pop the turn the tide and attack with Hero of Oxid Ridge. The depletion to your opponents creatures powers is sure to enable a few more creatures to get through and hit home with Battle Cry. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt if you are facing off against infect creatures, and really don’t want to take a lot of damage.

   In vintage formats, this card can be downright fatal. I built a deck focusing around Ovinize and cards that dealt with reducing power to zero, and than ran the Merfolk Thaumaturgist. The switch in power and toughness can cause even the scariest creature to become “illegal” and be sent to the graveyard. With the abilities that allow copied creatures and untap creatures, using Turn the Tide could potentially wipe an opponents side of the board.

    All in all a fun card with multiple uses that should see a lot of play, and all for different reasons.
 
Limited: 4/5
Casual: 5/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
Constructed: 4/5


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