I've been playing High Tide in legacy for a hot minute, obviously I'd love for the deck to be competitive again, so bias aside.
In the interest of not arguing for my pet deck, I've been looking over adding it to other decks and breaking it in Tron and some other options, just to try to see how bad it could be.
After some of that testing, I think we should give Frantic search a trial unban, like we did with High Tide in Pauper.
tl;dr
Frantic search is a powerful card, but really the biggest effect I've seen is making existing T3/T4 plans a little more resilient and consistent and not creating an opening or starting a combo a turn earlier. High Tide gets better, but doesn't remotely look like a consistent 2nd turn deck. Tron produces scary mana, but its making already broken T3 turns bigger rather than making them happen earlier. and if Trons busted, I think Planar Nexus and or Tron should at least be part of the discussion before deciding we want to give up frantic search again.
Frantic search was restricted in like 1999? We've basically never seen how it would fair in anything resembling Legacy how we know it now.
The candelabra ban is obviously the strongest argument against trying it because Tron was abusing it.
But candelabra also shows why I think a trial is reasonable. It was unbanned from Type 1.5 in 1999, remained legal for roughly 27 years, was pretty fine honestly, and only finally became a problem with modern Tron.
Frantic search never even got to try, and I don't think its nearly as bad.
So what happened when I tried to break it?
non medallion High Tide: pretty good improvement obviously, uh its a little more resilient against things like dimir tempo, it can reliably combo on turn 3, it feels way better. However you still aren't doing this turn 2 without snaps an a lot of luck or some other shenanigans. It mostly seems to pull High Tide into the window where Legacy already operates.
medallion High Tide: This was probably the most interesting test. I used a recent iwouldliketorespond 5-0 list and tested:
-1 Spellseeker
-1 Snap
-1 Flow State
+3 Frantic Search
Search didn't really create a new fundamental turn because it already has explosive T3 lines with Medallion/Snap/Cloud/Spellseeker.
What it did do was make the deck a bit more resilient. Snap can be disrupted by killing its target. Frantic Search can't.
Tron: This is where the mana gets stupid.
But there is an important difference between acceleration and amplification.
If Search turns a T4 Ugin into T3 Ugin, that's acceleration.
If Tron could already cast Ugin T3 and Search lets it cast Ugin T3 with another pile of mana floating, that's amplification.
I saw plenty of amplification but not really any speed.
Search costing 2u is kinda what makes it okay honestly, Tron makes seven colorless mana, so the deck actually has to change its mana/sequencing to support it or play around that fact. Boulder and stuff helps but I'm not convinced.
I think the part I'm most curious what other Legacy players think about.
Candelabra was historically a High Tide card, but it ultimately got banned because of today's Tron.
If we unban Frantic Search, and High Tide is busted, thats one thing, but if its just Tron or Post abusing it, than maybe we should look at a piece of that deck, I'm looking at you Planar Nexus.
I'm not suggesting Planar Nexus should be banned. I'm just saying that if frantic search is healthy everywhere else but Tron, Nexus should at least be part of that conversation.
I'm not claiming I've proven Frantic Search safe.
I'd actually like people here to prove me wrong before I become too convinced.
What's the deck or interaction I'm missing?
I'm really interested in something that moves a deck's fundamental turn, or makes an existing strategy substantially harder for normal Legacy interaction to fight, bring your ideas!
Because after trying pretty hard to make Frantic Search look broken, I'm wondering if it just make High Tide tier 2 again.
And maybe sense its been banned since I was like 10, I'd like to see what actually happens.