[Deck] Solidarity (Reset High Tide) [Archive] - Page 2

Artowis

10-01-2005, 09:39 PM

Opt appeared out of nowhere, Thirst was questioned than forgotten about, and somehow Words of Wisdom went from being a 4-of to a 0-of without explanation

I think a lot of discussion is left out for obvious choices that, when we each individually tested, we can to the same conclusion. When Opt was first suggested, everyone tried it out, and everyone realized it both fit the mana curve and provided a desperately needed one mana cantrip that can search for lands. As for Tfk, even the people who did play it would acknowledge it was the weakest card in their decklist and thus when better cards like Twincast were found, it was cut without discussion. Words of Wisdom were lost for extremely obvious reasons; by the time you'd ever need to use one (ie, for the kill), you'd have enough resources to search for a Cunning Wish and just get one from the board. Discussion usually only happens on choices that are debatable.
Re: Some of the choices seem obvious right now, but weren't before or might not to some of the future people working on the deck.

Heck, just go to the original thread some of us wanted to add FoW and look at the people who didn't want to add FoW to the deck. People were reluctant to add it, but look at the deck for the last few months and now it seems obvious, but not at the time. That's what he was getting at by the whole lack of explanation thing.

Reading both threads in their entirety is more of a headache than an educational experince.

Edited By Artowis on 1128217642

twipcast

10-01-2005, 11:21 PM

hey i just wanted to say again that i posted to try and get a solid opinion on the deck
@ deep6er- i'm not doubting anything you've explained or posted seeing as you are the one with the most experience with the deck, but please don't assume that since that was my first post that i am just trying to ride someone's coattails to victory. i have more than enough experience playing combination decks, even one's that function similarly to this one (aka cantrip cantrip storm). i wanted someone to convince me that i am making the right choice, since i do have that build i listed in real life and do playtest and do understand the main intentions of the deck. i felt this was the strongest deck, capable of winning out of no-win situations. now, in the spirit of honesty, i haven't run the list with flash. this was not out of ignorance, i just felt comfortable with peer. same thing goes with the one copy of twincast, it felt right. that's not to say you're wrong, but every player has a preference...i do not have to copy your list verbatim just because. that said, i just wanted some clarification through reasoning as to my card choices and whether or not i'd like to try different options. you have my respect in many aspects and all i ask is for you to lend me some of your time and patience in order to me understand the more advanced tactics of this creation more fully. thank you.

that aside, i had thought of both sets of fetches (of which i now need to get deltas back) and i just liked seeing glaciers do stupid stuff...but yeah, wasteland demands a lack of targets for the deck. i thought of it every time i played the land. i'll tweak the deck a little more (i have time before philly), seeing it with flash. thanks for everyone's feedback and hopefully i'll have something to add soon.

If this post does not have every single grammatical error fixed in it in twenty-four hours I'm going to warn you for not passing sixth grade English. Please read the forum rules (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2619). Then realize we hold the LMF to a higher standard---Frogboy

Edited By frogboy on 1128223896

GAUDARD

10-02-2005, 05:36 PM

What turns do you usually win on? Goldfishing?

Do you usually win the turn that they would win?

Do you win in a specific part of their turn?
Any input?

T is for TOOL

10-02-2005, 06:20 PM

4

Depends on the deck they are playing.

Depends on the gamestate. Usually combat phase or end phase.

FRM

10-03-2005, 11:11 AM

Now, i may be a total n00b or scrub or whatever, but i was brainstorming about a new card from ravnica:

Remand 1U
Instant (unc)
Counter target spell. If you do, put it into its owner's hand instead of into that player's graveyard.
Draw a card.

Now, the list is so tight i can't find anything to remove, but i can see various reason to at least try this card:
1) additional protection; while this is no hard counter and wont save the day each time you play it, usually the faster the opponent, the more difficult to set up the 4th land: this can be a huge tempo swing against, say, goblins or monored or whoknows: yes, i can imagine a situation in which a piledriver with reduced cost (due to warchief) is replayed immediately, but then i can see me remanding a spell in my opponents hand when he have no more mana to replay it the same turn. Maybe this is situational, but, hey, we're here to discuss ;)
2) we draw. no conditionals, no "next turn upkeep", we do it now :)
3) juicy win more condition: if we remand to our hand the original copy of brain freeze, we can just replay it, effectively doubling it! That can be pretty good by my point of view: let's say it, solidarity, as any other storm combo, is difficult to play, even more if you are in round 4+ of a big event, usually having slept only a few hours the night before :p why continue deck drawing? let's win here and now :laugh:

I'd really like to know what are your thoughts...

Deep6er

10-03-2005, 11:39 AM

@FRM: If you could clarify whether or not you'd have this in addition to force would probably help. Although, technically I don't really see the value. You can't Remand a Lackey and Piledriver will slip through on the play. Remanding Warchief might give you a bit of tempo but why not just play Impulse? The 2 drop slot is where you have exceedingly limited versatility and I can see why you would want to add something here that (theoretically) draws you a card. However, the part that I'm missing is why not just stick with Impulse? Overloading the deck with cards like this could also easily be an issue. I do however, like where you're going with this in a generalized way and it might be worthwhile to test purely focusing on the goblins matchup. It seems like it would be interesting but it would be difficult to find room for.

@Gaudard: What turns do you usually win on? Goldfishing?
Do you usually win the turn that they would win?
Do you win in a specific part of their turn?

This question does not have as much merit as you might think it does. Unlike Belcher/Nausea/Tendrils Storm you're not looking for the earliest win possible. You are the REACTIVE combo deck and deciding from the beginning that you MUST win turn 4 is going to fuck you up pretty badly. Analyze the gamestate, if there's no need to go off, why try? Also, you're missing Brain Freeze's application of doing it to yourself. THAT'S why the card isn't dead all the time.

@twipcast: It's true you don't have to copy my list verbatim. It's also true that you can run whatever list you like. However, I've proven that my list is good more than once. It's generally agreed that, although players can add whatever they want to the deck, it's best if they stick with the core of the deck ('Tog decks having Psychatog in them, BBS with Counterspell). I didn't mean to come off as over the top if that's what you read. I'm just saying that perhaps in these situations you may want to START with what has been tried and proved to be effective instead of cards that were discussed endlessly and proven to be less than effective by the very person who tested with them extensively.Also, glaciers is just win more with a conditional backup of possibly fucking you over. Remember, they always just sit on their wastelands. Giving them a target is a bad idea.

@Kobefan: Analyze the situations where you lose because you drew too much land and you can start to see the balance. Also, I don't think destabilizing the mana base is worth it. There have been times (when I was testing the U/W version) that the ONE FUCKING TUNDRA would ACTUALLY BECOME RELEVANT. Don't forget as well that the deck that REB is good against is also packing wasteland. I really don't think that you can also go off as reliably anymore. Without the cheap cantrips you have no way to optimize your hand. Three Wishes can't optimize your hand and neither can Meditate (Unless they're board position sucks) and Words of Wisdom is complete balls. Also, did EVERYONE miss the post where I revealed "Secret Gearhart Flash Tech"? Brain Freeze is there to also help with the anti - fizzling. Not to mention that it also combats multiple Blessings. Also, losing the counterwar against Landstill and then throwing out two Freezes will still spell game over (Good ol' Storm, nice and balanced :) ).

In general, it's really easy to say that my list is good because it continues working. However, saying that my list is the end all be all of Solidarity may be a bit much. I encourage you guys to question some of the deck but please don't question the ones that prove themselves time and time again to be effective. In fact, you can feel free to start a new discussion about the possibilities of adding Color X to Solidarity and I wouldn't give a good goddamn. I would however, recommend that you NOT do that. (Or, if you do, start it in the new and developmental please don't bring it up here.) I don't mind the questions just make sure that you test MY list first and then whatever you tend to be unhappy with out of OVER 100 games, then you can feel free to bring it up in discussion. (Yes, that is true, I've goldfished every Solidarity list at least 100 times. It's my baby :) )

jrp

10-03-2005, 11:46 AM

@FRM
Did you think about anything that you would possibly cut to fit 1-4 Remands? I don't think there is anything, but you could always test swapping out different cards for a copy. Maybe start it as a one of and see if you like drawing it. Personally, I've found nothing that I would even consider cutting for any copies of Remand, but maybe you have some ideas.

GAUDARD

10-03-2005, 01:10 PM

@ Deep6er
Right, I understand that this deck is the reactive deck. I usually refer to it as a "win before I would lose" deck. It's also nice when people are like "just one more turn..." :p But I'm asking when goldfishing... you have nearly unlimited turns before you need to win, because the goldfish is land screwed. so you have to pick a turn to win, do you look at your hand and think "reset, high tide, meditate, opt, turnabout and 3 land in play...I guess I can win.' or "reset, reset, meditate, opt, impulse, and 5 land in play.. guess I can try to win."

You must also understand that all I had when I started was a list so the actual playing of the deck may be different, which makes different cards work differently. When I'm usually trying to win it is when I would otherwise die so I have to brainfreeze and words of wisdom for the win otherwise just brainfreeze they win because they wouldn't have to draw till their next turn. When going off against land still for example I usually try to win when they have tapped a little more than normal.. to play a standstill or attack with lands, to minimize their counterspells so in this matchup it usually can be effective to play multiple brainfreezes because I ain't dead yet.

When brainfreezing myself I feel I need to be careful because if I hit too much then I'll mill all my (insert needed card at the time) from my deck, so when I flashback flash of insight I won't be able to find what I need. OR I won't be able to cunning wish for what I removed and play it and have mana left.

What decks usually run blessing? The lists I'm currently testing against I haven't seen any blessings, from the top 8 at gencon to the dual for duals.

Did anyone from here play in the dual for duals with solidarity? The first 3 lists are almost identical to Deep6er's list, which has to say something for his list. The lower placing lists have changes...

I've played the deck about 150 times and goldfished probably 20 times, but I'm still wanting to learn how (insert any player outside of my playtest group) plays it. I'd like to discuss plays in situation x... for example.

Your board is 4 land. You have turnabout, hightide, meditate, twincast in hand. You have to go off. So you high tide, then turnabout floating 2, now you have 8 mana potential, do you meditate hoping hoping to hit draw + turnabout or reset in 4 cards, or twincast meditate hoping to draw resets + draw in 8 cards?

Deep6er

10-03-2005, 01:25 PM

OK, one thing at a time here. As for people who played in the Duel for Duals, I placed fourth and Ewokslayer (Playing my exact build) placed 10th.

Secondly, that last situation there depends on THEIR gamestate. However, in a situation like that, you actually twincast the turnabout. It's safer to depend on cantripping into the meditate instead of power drawing into the untaps. It also depends on what game it is and if they have some kind of answer that you need to think about.

Thirdly, you DO know to interrupt that stack again as soon as the flash hits the 'yard right? I'm not being insulting here I'm just double checking. Some people seem to think that you're supposed to let the Freeze resolve fully, which you do NOT do.

Fourthly (That's not a word is it?), goldfishing isn't QUITE as valuable with this deck as it is with others due to it's reactive nature and to the fact that the hate requires you to play around it.

Fifthly (That's also not a word is it?), There are multiple times where you can kill them but it's still not lethal damage. For example, they just cycled incinerator, or played brainstorm, that's when you analyze whether or not you can go off.

T is for TOOL

10-03-2005, 01:28 PM

@GAUDARD
First of all, 2 floating and 4 untapped lands = 10 potential mana. I would Meditate, Twincast, draw 8, 5 floating, and most likely draw into a Reset or another Turnabout. :)

More importantly, what was the point of that scenario?

GAUDARD

10-03-2005, 01:39 PM

Ewokslayer

10-03-2005, 01:50 PM

Your board is 4 land. You have turnabout, hightide, meditate, twincast in hand. You have to go off. So you high tide, then turnabout floating 2, now you have 8 mana potential, do you meditate hoping hoping to hit draw + turnabout or reset in 4 cards, or twincast meditate hoping to draw resets + draw in 8 cards?
err, 3 land

The point is to see how someone else would play it. The situation came up and my brother and I were trying to figure out 'the right play'.
Your math is still off. With only three lands you can't float anything going into the first Turnabout. That leaves you with a maximum of only 6 mana after it resolves. You can't afford to Twincast anything at that point. So obviously you Meditate and hope for a Reset.

The question is more interesting if you replace the Turnabout with Reset. Do you Twincast the Reset or the Meditate? If you copy the Reset you will have 3 mana floating 3 untapped lands and four cards about to be drawn. If you copy the Meditate you have 1 mana floating 1 land untapped and eight cards about to be drawn.
This actually came up in a goldfish and I went with the copy of the Reset as I was mana light but the 4 cards were like land and FOW. If I had gone the other way it would have worked out (the next four cards were I believe High Tide, Reset, Meditate, and something that didn't suck). Though I think that might have just been a statistical outlier. In the first situation there is a large number of configurations that the 4 cards can be for the combo to continue. In the second situation one of the eight cards needs to be either Reset or an Opt/Brainstorm to find the Reset.

GAUDARD

10-03-2005, 02:07 PM

We wrote down the situation at home... unfortunatly I'm at school

there was 8 mana to work with and those cards... I'll post it when I get home.

I'll try to record some situations tonight to discuss.

ExpectLess

10-03-2005, 04:18 PM

@Ewokslayer
Ok, your situation ultimately boils down to this: Is it better to have 8 cards in hand and 3 potential mana floating, or 4 cards in hand and 9 potential mana floating? Because you need Reset in the 8 card situation, let's find the probability of one those 8 cards being one of the 3 Resets left in the deck of roughly 50 cards.

100% - (47!/(47-8)!)/(50!/(50-8)!)x100% = 41.4% that one of the 8 cards drawn will be a Reset

I kind of forgot combinations, but I'm pretty sure this method works with permutations. Anyway, let's look at what happens if we Twincast the Reset and only get 4 cards. The probability that we'll get one of the 7 untap effects left in the deck is 46.4%. But with 9 mana floating, we also can draw into cantrips for untap effects. Opt + Impulse + Brainstorm + Flash of Insight + Meditate (with one used) = 17 cards, and lets say you used 2 cantrips during turns 1-2, so about 15 left in the deck. It's relatively probable that you'll draw into at least one cantrip, 77.3%. Statistically, your hand will probably be something like a land, a cantrip/draw, and 2 other cards.

So, is it worth a ~60% chance to fizzle to have 7 cards, 1 mana floating and 3 untapped lands over 4 cards, 3 mana floating, and 3 untapped lands? I'd say no, on the merits that the probability of a successful combo with only 4 cards is less than 60% lower than with 7. The thing that sucks about the Twincast Meditate situation is that, unless you drew into a High Tide, 3 lands is not enough to only have 2 Resets left in your deck. It would be difficult to succeed either way, but I think the better play is to Twincast the Reset.

With 4 lands, however, it's a different story... You'd end up with a 73.0% chance to draw either Reset or Turnabout in 8 cards. Then it turns into is it worth a ~25% to fizzle to have 7 cards, 1-3 mana floating, and 4 untapped lands over 4 cards, 7 mana floating, and 4 untapped lands? Yes, on the merit that the probability of a successful combo with only 4 cards is more than 25% lower than with 7, so it's worth the risk. In the case of 4 (or more) lands, the better play is to Twincast the Meditate.

So what's the point of all this? Generally, the threshold of when you should be Twincasting Meditate over an untap spell is with 4 or more lands and at least enough to cast a Turnabout after. If you have 4+ lands and will have 4+ potential mana left after doing so, Twincast Meditate. If you have less, Twincast the untap spell.

Ewokslayer

10-03-2005, 04:31 PM

That is pretty much the conclusion that I came to. It was just unfortunate that the single goldfish in which it came up that analysis didn't yield the better results.
However, I don't think that it would be valuable to force goldfishing the situation the additional times necessary for the stastics to bear out the conclusion we both reached as it is both an unlikely situation and the act of forcing the hand to be only High Tide, Meditate, Reset, Twincast, and three lands in play artifically would affect the results.

LinkXwing

10-03-2005, 09:10 PM

How often (in tournaments) do people end up twincasting a High Tide? Is it done primarily against counters with the opponents counterspell on the stack (or something like that)? Is it only done on the second or third High Tide cast when going off? Is it done at all? Are there always better targets for Twincast?

Slay

10-03-2005, 10:14 PM

Usually one High Tide wins the game. I can count the number of times I've wanted to Twincast a High Tide(that is, without a counter on the stack) on one hand. I'd be much more concerned about not drawing the cards I need. I've Twincasted Brainstorms far more often than High Tides.
-Slay

GAUDARD

10-03-2005, 11:02 PM

Once again someone much better at math than I would have to figure that out.

Most of the time I would twincast an untap before I would twincast a high tide. In fact I think you would almost always generate more mana that way...

Could anyone who has played the deck a lot give any pointers? Like the flash of insight thing?

FRM

10-04-2005, 10:21 AM

@jrp:
the reason i wrote here is to seek help in make room for the remand :D
the fact is that i'm usually extremely severe on my mana curve, and short of twincast i don't see any cc2 spell to replace... twincast on its side has the advantage it can be a counter in a counter war, just like remand, but can and will be as well a search, a cantrip, an untap...whatever! and i don't feel like replace opt, cause i do want still 8 cc1 cantrip, since i want to hurry set up the 4th land...

@Deep6er:
the remand was intended to be added to FoW, to protect a little more the deck. The draw a card benefit is what made me think to give it a try, since i'd use mana leak or counterspell if i wanted only protection. I could never cut impulse: instead, before the "new" twincast tech, i used to play BOTH impulse and peer through depths :)
I focused on the improvements the remand could make in a goblin matchup, 'cause goblins is widely played and is as fast as a F1 car, but the same benefits (even more, i presume) can be obtained in other matchup.
As for the "champagne" win, (remanding your original brain freeze), i made some math, which i hope is correct: average deck after 2 turns (assuming we draw first) has 51 cards; X= spells to do to mill the whole deck;
51=(3*X - 3)+3*(2+X) where the -3 is for countering my own freeze, and the 2+X is : X prevously played spell, 2 = remand+ the replayed freeze.
That makes the win possible on the back of "just" 8 spells, while not interfering with traditional ways of win (i.e. giant stroking etc.). Now, that, and the fact that i drafted a horrible deck in ravnica T8 at prerelease due to loss of concentration made me realize that this could be a easier way to win without losing precious energies :D but, i repeat, this could be a win more condition, and i could screw the decklist, if my replace goes wrong. So i came here to ask advice :)

GAUDARD

10-04-2005, 10:46 AM

It seems like you would be wasting time when you could otherwise just cantrip and draw a few more cards to either get the second Brain Freeze or a storm count high enough for 1.

Ok, I've been testing with board recently. I've been boarding out 4 FOW and 3 Twincast leaving 1 blast in the board to wish for.

That hasn't seemed very well, most of the time they're like play a threat either sirioco or pillar and have blast back up. I've been trying to leave the FOW in and it hasn't seemed that bad. Isn't the free counterspell just as good as the 1cc counterspell?

Situation question.

Board position is 2 land, and their eot, your hand is brainstorm, opt, impulse, high tide, meditate, island. What do you do? I'm needing to find reset/turnabout so impulse is 4 cards, opt is 2 plus brainstorm is 5 total cards... so what is the play? Do you need to consider their board position? If so, it's goblins it looks like they've got 2 turns before they can kill you.

Double posts merged. - Zilla

dsg123456789

10-04-2005, 10:48 PM

Situation question.

Board position is 2 land, and their eot, your hand is brainstorm, opt, impulse, high tide, meditate, island. What do you do? I'm needing to find reset/turnabout so impulse is 4 cards, opt is 2 plus brainstorm is 5 total cards... so what is the play? Do you need to consider their board position? If so, it's goblins it looks like they've got 2 turns before they can kill you.

Assuming this is a preboard situation, I would impulse and hope to hit a fetchland, and then you could Brainstorm/fetch/opt the next turn, and go off when they are about to go lethal. Also, if you do it that way, you can be almost guarenteed to just draw one more land, so that it is unnessecary to have land in hand when you go off.

Even if that is postboard, I'd impulse at the end of this turn, and see up to 5 cards deep next turn in case I needed to dig for a counterspell.

Finally, if you still have two turns, I wouldn't be panicing in trying to set up every piece that I need to go off, but rather I would just make sure I had a strong hand with cantrips when I started to go off (assuming 4 lands in play at that point) because you can almost always dig for what you need.

Deep6er

10-05-2005, 11:11 AM

And now we discover why we shouldn't discuss situations. The problem here is that this isn't real. Supposition can only take you so far when you do it with Solidarity. However, just for the record, the correct play is to impulse unless it's post board. Since you never clarified if they have mana open then the situation becomes much more dangerous. You also did not state who was on the play and if they're killing you in two turns, what exactly will be doing it. The problem with discussing situational strategy is that if you find yourself in that situation, you will revert to what was generally decided as the "good play" instead of analyzing the situation and finding what is the ACTUAL "good play." Now, don't get me wrong, I don't particularly mind you bringing up situations, however, the real problem is that people who don't play the deck to it's fullest potential are going to regard these answers as the only possible solution to the situation. My recommendation is to stop discussing situations and focus on knowledge of the deck in its entirety. This includes the cards that hate the deck effectively. Learn how to play around Sirocco (involves a lot of time and thinking). Learn how to effectively neutralize Rule of Law/Arcane Laboratory. Knowing the appropriate responses to the hate cards is how you do well with this deck.

GAUDARD

10-09-2005, 02:21 PM

GPT Philly, in Indianapolis, IN 21 players

I went 3-0-2 in the swiss.

The build I played:

4 High Tide
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
4 Opt
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
4 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
2 Flash of Insight
4 Twincast
2 Brain Freeze
4 Force of Will
12 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand

Sideboard

4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Hydroblast
1 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Rebuild
1 Evacuation
1 Turnabout
1 Brain Freeze
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Words of Wisdom

Round 1 Sensei, Sensei
He respects me as a player and knows the type of decks I like to play so he suspects I'd play this which he says is a horrible matchup.

Game 1
I force 2 tops in the first few turns. Play some land and draw a few cards. He trys to go off around turn 7 or so and I let him then he trys to brain freeze me, so I try to reset, he wishes for Gilded Light so I reset again, flash of insight for a brain freeze, put a cunning wish on top (in the middle of my deck) and brain freeze him then let his brain freeze go down to my cunning wish then I brainstorm it into my hand and wish for words of wisdom.

Game 2
He trys to go off turn to, but has to tutor for the brain freeze and I brain freeze him in responce.
After the game I was thinking about it and should have stopped him on top # ~17 and brain freezed then he'd have lost right then... Oh well what happens when I don't test against a deck.
Round 2 R/W Slide like /Scepter-Raise the Alarm / contraption...

Game 1
He gives me plenty of time to draw cards and play land, I win with out problem.

Game 2
He boards in ~8 cards and I board
+ 4 Blue Blast
+ 2 Hydroblast
- 4 Force of Will
- 2 Twincast

Once again he lets me play lands and draw cards. He does try to Scullscorch me which I blast. I go off with out problem.

Round 3

I get paired against one of the guys I drove up with since we are both 2-0 and 3-1-1 or 3-0-2 makes I tell him we can ID and just win one of the next 2 rounds. He is playing goblins.

We play to burn time and I get slathered with sideboard hate, and mulligains. I knew he'd be able to play agianst me correctly with the board, good choice to draw.

Round 4 Goblins

Game 1
He starts off quick with Lacky, puts some guys into play on turn 4 he is swinging for the win. I have 3 land and some good cards in hand and procede to go off. I did have to stroke myself for like 10 and draw a turnabout, but once I did that easy comboing.

Game 2
Once again he starts off quick with lacky and putting guys into play but no pile driver this time so on turn 5 he is swinging for the win, which makes my comboing a lot easier.

Round 5
Paired with another guy I drove up with and he is 3-1 and I'm 3-0-1 so we ID He is playing goblins too.

I was the 1st seed going into the top 8. Top 8 looks like this

Top 8

Game 1
I combo off around turn 5 he trys to force my high tide by paying its mana cost... I twincast my high tide, which he forces, I force his force and win with out problem from there.

Game 2
He plays a turn 2 Mage on High Tide, then plays a turn 3 Arcane Lab... how annoying. Several turns later I haven't found a cunning wish and lose to man lands.

Game 3
He plays a turn 2 Mage on High Tide, then plays a turn 3 Arcane Lab...how lucky. I try to combo off in responce but can't so I brain freeze twice and I'm about 10 cards short.

I figure I can keep him busy for 10 turns... but he draws forces like a master so he can attack and counter...

During games 2 and 3 I see him pitching Blue Blasts to Forces, after a standstill is cracked end of his turn he is discarding disenchants, and disks... WTF? What could he have boarded out, 4 wrath, 4 akroma's vengancE??! Dont' know. Was very frustrated with this since he clearly hadn't played much and was still able to win. I can't think of any other way these games could have played out.

I lost 2 games on the day, they just happened to be the most important. It seemd that the entire top 8 was intending on going to Philly which I find REALLY hard to believe since it's like 10+ hours from Indy... but whatever.

The game was running salvager combo and he comboed out on turn 1 a few times on the day. My brother playing Aluren changed last minute from playing solidarity since he hasn't played it very much, and has a lot more experience playing Aluren, good choice on his part.

I think I want to cut 1 more blast from the board for something I can board in against 'the hate' that everyone seems to have for this deck. If I can't beat an inexperienced player playing a control deck, oxy moron?, then how can I beat a good player playing a control deck? I expected someone to be playing some type of stax/time vault deck so thats why I added the rebuild which will probably also come out before the next tournament.

Turns out landstill was running inteferance so his buddy playing the game could have the byes...

Ended up like this.

Me landstill
Landstill ------------ landstill
aluren --------------
Goblins (friend)------
Aluren (brother) the game
-----------------
The Game The game
Goblins------------- the game
A.Stompy ----------
Angel Stompy ----------
Goblins (friend)

GAUDARD

10-09-2005, 02:25 PM

... Learn how to play around Sirocco (involves a lot of time and thinking). Learn how to effectively neutralize Rule of Law/Arcane Laboratory. Knowing the appropriate responses to the hate cards is how you do well with this deck.
Any pointers you could give here?

I've found that with Sirocco never to tap out, that seems to be their favorite time to play it. But in testing I tested against the super hate board which was 4 Blast, 4 Sirocco.. I boarded in 7 blasts and well he'd Sirocco me and blast my blast... Maybe Forces should be left in?

Please stop double-posting. - Zilla
Arcane Lab... the only thing I can think of is hope to wish for bounce, and bounce it before I'd go off.

Pyrokinesis

10-10-2005, 02:16 PM

The problem with playing Cunning Wish for bounce is that once Lab/Law is down they can simply wait for you to play said bounce spell and then counter it. To fight that, you board in a random bounce spell or two to dig for so that you can try on their turn, then yours... and if that doesn't work it isn't as though you would win otherwise.
Why this is better than simply wishing for two bounce spells is that it costs one less Wish and the second bounce spell could catch them off guard since they never actually saw it.

The decklist seems to be just about fixed, except for the following points, nearly all of which concern the sideboard:

Meditate: One in the wishboard or no?
Twincast: One in the sideboard or no?
-These are usually questions of which of the two is in the sideboard, or if any are in it at all.
How many Brain Freezes maindeck?
Brain Freeze in the wishboard or no?
Blast variants: Seven or eight in the sideboard?

I believe that a Brain Freeze in the board is unnecessary.

Discuss.

"Jeska"

10-10-2005, 02:27 PM

I find myself wishing for Stroke of Genius alot just for draw. I`m wondering if this is normal or just me?? I have goldfished the deck quite abit and played several games and there have been times where I wish I could wish for a Meditate or some kind of draw in the sideboard. So I guess I`m just bringing up the same question as the post above me, but I`m hopping Deep6er could jump in and answer.

Is Meditate needed in the sideboard?? Go like 3-1 (maindeck-sideboard)

Or maybe an extra Flash of Insight in the board??

bunny

10-10-2005, 04:43 PM

When I play this deck (my pet deck is actually goblins, I only use it because noone else wants to play it), I usually find myself wishing for twincast, for the sole reason that meditate+twincast= gg. It gives you 8 cards to play with, and you don't even have to let the original meditate resolve. I usually kill my opponent with the meditate still on the stack.

Is Meditate needed in the sideboard?? Go like 3-1 (maindeck-sideboard)

If you have 8 mana (wish, meditate, reset), you're already winning. And meditate is just a better topdeck than any other card mid-combo.

ExpectLess

10-10-2005, 11:24 PM

@Jeska
I definitely like using Stroke as a draw mechanism if the situation is right. If I see I have an unproportional amount of untap effects compared to draw, I'll focus on Wishing for a Stroke. Similarly, if I see I have an unproportional amount of draw, I'll look to Wish for a Turnabout. Honestly, I think those two cover the vast majority of situations with respect to looking for either draw or untap effects in the sideboard.

@Meditate in sideboard
Despite the fact that Wishing for Meditate can be helpful, it's not useful enough that it outweights another one maindeck. You wouldn't even think of running a High Tide in the sideboard to be wished for, and Meditate isn't much different. It's not redundant enough in the deck to take one out for a toolbox (being our *only* literal card advantage).

@Twincast in sideboard
This is the sideboard slot I'm most conflicted about. Although in the maindeck it proves to be very functional, I feel like if you would ever need to Wish for one, you should already be winning (if you were missing draw or an untap you'd go for the Turnabout/Stroke). It's nice to Wish for a Twincast for a Meditate, but that's about it. Regardless, I'm still running one in the sideboard for lack of a better card to replace it with.

@Brainfreeze numbers maindeck and sideboard
I wouldn't go less than 3 Brainfreeze main deck. "Anti-fizzling tech" is great in addition to how much you want to see them in certain matchups (it's so nice to just Brainfreeze after a counter war against Landstill). The only time you don't want to see them is pre-combo against a fast clock. Even considering that, however, running 2 is so much more risky if an opponent has counters/stifles/gaea's blessings than appropriating one more maindeck slot to it.

As of now, I still run one Brainfreeze in the sideboard. If you're only left with a decent amount of mana and a Cunning Wish, grabbing a Brainfreeze for "anti-fizzle tech" and stacking your deck is very nice. There's really no other single get-out-of-jail-free card you can Wish for if your hand is thin.

@BEB in sideboard
If you have 8 spots to spare, you definitely should use them. Red cards can be such a problem for this deck (Goblins suck ala Lackey/Piledriver, Burn sucks ala Pyrostatic Pillar/Sirocco, Flamevault is definitely going to suck) and virtually every red deck runs at least 4 REB. Having 8 BEB against 4 REB is an undeniable advantage.

Right now my board looks like:
4 BEB
4 Hydroblast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Twincast
1 Turnabout
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Brainfreeze

I finally took out Evacuation after deciding that, in almost every case I used it, picking Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth or a combo piece to finalize my hand was just as good.

Lukas Preuss

10-11-2005, 05:30 AM

I have a question:

What is the best plan in the mirror match? Do you try to go off as soon as possible? Or do you wait until they go off to respond to one of their important spells?

I guess, it's nice to go off during their turn, but it doesn't really matter that much, because you can still use your Turnabouts and twincast their Resets to untap your lands...

How would you play the mirror?

Deep6er

10-11-2005, 06:52 PM

@Lukas Preuss: Solidarity Mirror usually comes down to who has the most experience. The easiest thing to liken it to is a Mexican Standoff. The first guy to blink is the dead one, unless, the guy who blinks can support the blinkage. See? Kind of confusing. (If you don't know what a Mexican Standoff is.....for shame) By the way, the Solidarity mirror match will frequently take 1 1/2 to 3 hours.

@"Jeska": Why are you wishing for Stroke? I wish for Stroke maybe once out of twenty five games. I think you might be getting a little too flashy. Believe it or not, I've come to the conclusion that having a Meditate in the 'board is not necessarily the best plan game one. It's best to push all of your advantages game one (Dead cards + Access to your sideboard) and ride that to the strong first game win so that you can follow the traditional Solidarity plan of win game one, lose game two to their hate, then win game three when you figure out how to play around their hate.

@Pyrokinesis: Don't put 'Freeze in the board. It's a wasted slot. The wishboard needs to have as much flexibility as possible and 'Freeze doesn't do anything until many things have already happened. I like the safety of 8 blasts, however, Ewokslayer was testing 6 and came out to the same 60-40 percentage that I had with 8 blasts. Although, there were times where he was lucky to find the blast. So, it's kind of a balancing factor.

@Gaudard: Playing around Sirocco revolves around two things. Intelligent use of draw spells and bluffing. Reading your opponent is important but some people are incapable of doing it. When they telecast Sirocco/Blast then you have to bluff Blast or the hand that loses to resolved Sirocco/Blast (When you have the blast in hand). Obviously, different things are applicable to different people and what works for someone will not work for everyone. Oh, also good job on the top 8.

@FRM: I don't think that warrants enough of an inclusion into an already tight decklist. If you can find a way to make it work all the better for you, however, I think that one of the issues with remand is that it's not actually strong enough when you're digging for lands. Mainly because it's better to impulse looking for lands instead of buying the "theoretical" two turns that remand would give you and hoping for the third land.

Pyrokinesis

10-11-2005, 10:24 PM

Jeska: I tended to do the same thing when I first picked up the deck. Playing a few untaps and then Wishing for a larger-than-thine Stroke of Genius... it's the sort of thing that seems like a good idea until you get a real grip on it. It leaves you far more open to Spell Counters and R-Blasts.
Just try practicing more. You'll get it.

"Jeska"

10-12-2005, 01:29 AM

Lukas Preuss

10-12-2005, 04:14 AM

Icemyn

10-12-2005, 10:55 AM

My suggestion if you are going to play solidarity and you know your opponent is too just Id and get something to eat save yourself some time. Lets be honest if your opponent is at all competent than you will be there all night.

Oh and now Ill be constructive. run at least 7 blasts side if you have to get lucky to get one then you are just not running enough.

I do think that you need at least one freeze side though jsut incase your deck decides to hate you and not cough up the main dec one.

jrp

10-12-2005, 11:28 AM

@Icemyn : You definetely do not need a brainfreeze in the board, here are a few reasons:

1) You should be running three in your maindeck already. Having three is great against control decks (Landstill, etc.), and is sometimes useful to 'Freeze yourself to get a Flash of Insight into the graveyard.
2) If you can't find a 'Freeze or all your Freezes end up in the graveyard for some reason you can always flashback Flash of Insight removing a BrainFreeze, and then Cunning Wish for it.

@Everyone : Is anyone running a Rebuild in sideboard? I know that a white stax deck exists, and affinity is out there. Affinity isn't much of a problem, but the stax deck is a bad matchup, and without Rebuild we have no outs to double Chalice of the Void. Thoughts?

Icemyn

10-12-2005, 07:28 PM

yeah I overlooked those little facts my bad.

Just so I know how does this deck handle sirocco someone brought it up and I was inthe belief that solidarity could handle it but I just cant see how.

"Jeska"

10-12-2005, 08:16 PM

yeah I overlooked those little facts my bad.

Just so I know how does this deck handle sirocco someone brought it up and I was inthe belief that solidarity could handle it but I just cant see how.
My belief is that you Blast it with Hydro or Blue Elemental, or you can combo off in responce or around it.

I dont know if this is correct seeing as I have not come across someone playing it yet.

Ewokslayer

10-12-2005, 08:36 PM

Handling Sirocco is easy.
You either
a) counter it
b) go off around it
c) discard everything but what is 100% necessary to combo off.
Sirocco can never kill you. It will always be something else that kills.
In games where you suspect Sirocco you have to leave mana open for the Beb/Hydroblast.

Icemyn

10-13-2005, 11:13 AM

Ok so you jsut side in blast and counter it easy enough

I dont think you can go off around it because if they are playing it on their turn they are jsut dumb.

and being that solidarity doesnt really do to much until it wins holding mana should be relatively easy.

t3h.sWaRm

10-13-2005, 12:55 PM

What do you guys take out for the blasts? I just started looking at the deck and I can't figure out how you make room for 8 Blasts.

"Jeska"

10-13-2005, 01:46 PM

-4 Force of Will
-3 Twincast
-1 Meditate

+4 Hydroblast
+4 Blue Elemental Blast

I believe thats what was said earlier in the thread and thats what I side out for them and it seems to be working great!

DI419

10-13-2005, 10:00 PM

Is Evacuation a necessary sideboard slot? I can see it being necessary in 2 situations:

1) There's a creature rush coming towards you and you simply can't go off.

2) There's a True Believer with Mom backup.

1 shouldn't be too much of an issue, because it consumes so much of your mana and costs you a card, making it even less likely you'll combo off, while the DTB seems to recover quite nicely from having its critters bounced. (Warchief, anyone?) 2 almost never happens anymore, and you can STILL get around it by going near-infinite and wishing for the Echoing Truth, rfg'ing it and Wishing for it. Evac just seems too expensive and too ineffective to do its job. Is there something about it I'm missing?

Ewokslayer

10-14-2005, 11:18 AM

2 almost never happens anymore, and you can STILL get around it by going near-infinite and wishing for the Echoing Truth, rfg'ing it and Wishing for it. Evac just seems too expensive and too ineffective to do its job. Is there something about it I'm missing?
How exactly does what your saying actually work?
For the sake of arguement, lets say you Wish for the Truth, Cast Truth, they give their True Believer protection from blue, you can't RFG the Truth and wish for it again since it is still on the stack. You can wish for another bounce spell in response but that isn't what you said.
Protection on the True Believer is not something that you can let resolve if you don't have Evacuation in the board, except you can't counter it, you can only leave it buried in the stack.
So the big question is why isn't the opponent giving the True Believer protection in response to the first High Tide? At that point you would find it difficult to continue to go off without letting the protection ability resolve. Where as if you have Evacuation in the board you just ignore it and win.

Evacuation is there to simply maintain the Angel Stompy/ WW matchup as a bye.

TheyCallMeTim

10-14-2005, 02:17 PM

If you ever need to Wish for Brainfreeze, you can do so after removing one with Flash of Insight. If you're in mid-combo, you should be Wishing for draw or untap effects anyway, like Meditate, Stroke, and Turnabout. Can you elaborate more about a situation where you needed to Wish for it? I have never run into that problem.
Regarding "Secret Gearhart Flash Tech Version 2.0" (page 6 or 7?), after brainfreeze resolves and Flash is milled, can brainfreeze itself be removed to feed my giant impulse? I know the original b/f copy is the last to resolve (if your interupting the stack), but the card itself is in the yard, is it not? Personally, instead of targeting myself with every copy, I calculate how many cards need to be milled in order to pick up the rest of my library. I target my opponent with any additional copies.

Ewokslayer

10-14-2005, 02:37 PM

The Brainfreeze is put into the graveyard as the last step in resolving it. So it will only work if you let ever copy resolve.
The problem with only doing a certain number of copies targeting yourself is what if you don't hit the Flash of Insight? The only time I don't have all the copies target me is when I know where the Flash is due to Brainstorm or a previous Flash.

GAUDARD

10-14-2005, 03:01 PM

LinkXwing

10-14-2005, 03:10 PM

Lol, I honestly really hate to say this and it really fuckin' sucks, but I for the life of me cannot get my hands on a 4th reset. I've spent about 4 months looking and playing with them as proxies only to come to the conclusion that not a single shop in the entire portland/vancouver area has them anymore no matter how hard I look or how much cash I'm willing to pay. I hate this to be a budget discussion in the LMF forum, however, what would be a good recommendation to take the 4th reset's place in Gearhart's list? 1 Mystical tutor? drop a twincast and put 2 tutors MD? Thoughts? Opinions? Put the 4th turnabout MD? Have a Snap in it's place?

The only legacy GPT in the entire northwest is tomorrow. I've been trying forever, but just can't seem to get the deck from 98% built to 100%.

Edited By LinkXwing on 1129317304

herbig

10-14-2005, 06:04 PM

I would simply add the sideboarded Turnabout maindeck and put some other useful card in the sideboard, probably rebuild with all this talk about Stax. While no list is optimal without four Resets, you could get away with it. Cancel any notion of Mystical Tutor.

vanele

10-16-2005, 11:48 PM

Its a little off topic, but i play solidarity at a little non-dci sanctioned shop tournament. The matches aren't to tough but,there is this random aggro deck that seems to give me a ton of trouble. Its a green deck with cheap creatures (like rogue elephant or river boa) that can kill by turn 3-4 normally (by rancor + giant + berserk). I often find my self staring down lethal damage with no answers turn 3. While this tough post board he sides in 3 defene girds which force me to slow down a turn to bounce it or waste a combo piecetrying to counter it. seeing as red isnt prevalent in my meta i was thinking of taking out some Hydro/REB freeing up 3 slots in my sideboard, does anyone have any suggestions on what i should do?

T is for TOOL

10-17-2005, 12:11 AM

Hibernation

"Jeska"

10-17-2005, 12:40 AM

I just received an Underground Sea and a Tundra. Would there be any reason to splash black or white into the deck?

T is for TOOL

10-17-2005, 05:20 AM

No, there has yet to be a reason where the costs outweigh the benefits.

MattH

10-17-2005, 05:20 PM

For completeness' sake:

Orim's Chant was sorcery-speed Tide's best hope against instant-speed Tide, but instant-speed itself hasn't ever had a reason to splash.

DI419

10-17-2005, 06:13 PM

I think the reason for no splash is basically that there's a 10% chance minimum that you will see the dual in a game, even if you don't want to and be forced to play it (it's probably closer to 15% of seeing it, compensated by any "mana floods"). About half the time, Goblins will have the Wasteland. With the game between the two being such a race, any land getting wasted basically ends any chance of you winning the game. So, you're throwing away at least 5% of your games that you have a chance in against the most played deck in the format, in a matchup that's already 50-50. Ick.

edit: As Goblins is probably the only matchup that really needs work that can be easily fixed, the only reason I can see to splash is for some wishable mass removal, namely:

Firestorm
Sandstorm
Rain of Blades
Scorching Winds
Wail of the Nim (um, no)

so every other color does have an option, but could any other wish target be any help? White has Orim's Chant/Abeyance and Pure Intentions (Sirocco. Heh. But probably the danger of cool things.) Red has REB and artifact destruction. Green has Moment's Peace. These might be worth it, but if anyone's tested it, they'd know better than I would.

Even a straight trade of Firestorm for Evacuation (this DOES solve the True Believer problem) without even REB may be worth it. It can even let you win small (ie don't force them to draw a card when you've milled them) vs goblins when they're about to attack for lethal (if you honestly don't have the 1 extra mana for Words, of course). This is all theory though, and that wasteland percentage is frightening.

I guess the best support for Firestorm is the following:
Turn 1:
You: Land, EOT dig
Them: Mountain, Lackey
Turn 2:
You: Land, EOT dig
Them: Mountain, swing, drop warchief, play piledriver, fanatic/nothing
Turn 3:
You: Fetch
Them: Mountain, Matron->Piledriver, swing for the winz0rz
You: Fetch Volc, High Tide, Wish (tapping Volc for R), Firestorm for 2.

Now, you ARE giving up 4 cards. But you're at the least gaining parity, and possible card advantage in a scenario like this. You might even strand a Ringleader in hand if they don't have the last mana source. You significantly hurt your own hand, but you still have a much better chance than straight up trying to combo. Fizzle from drawing too much land? If you have 4 mana and the wish, you can make those lands do something.

Relaxed

10-19-2005, 08:35 PM

Hi, I'm new, and I've just started reading this thread. I've got a question for Deep6er (or anyone else who'd like to answer it for me).

You were discussing flash of insight on page 5, and an "anti-fizzling" trick of yours. I don't quite follow...

"All you have to do is freeze yourself and then once you've hit the flash, interrupt the stack, stack your deck, and win the game"

What do you mean by "interrupting the stack"? Don't you have to chose all the targets for brain freeze before they resolve? Doesn't this mean that if you're unlucky you might just end up milling yourself for a lot of cards, made useless in the graveyard? And isn't there a risk that you mill too many vital cards so that when you hit flash there are too few cards left in your deck in order to go off and win?

Btw... what is the "Mike Long impulse draw 4" trick?

Thanx!

Ewokslayer

10-19-2005, 08:46 PM

You have two Flash of Insights in the deck. The chances of removing every vital spell before you hit the Flash is low.
In order to prevent this occurance you stop the other copies of Brain Freeze resolving once the Flash is in the graveyard.
So the stack will be from top to bottom
Flash of Insight
Brain Freeze Copies that haven't resolved
Original Brain Freeze

As for the "Mike Long impulse draw 4" trick?
It is a job suggesting that he was cheating.

As for splashing red for removal.
That is awful.
For Goblins you have the blast plan games 2 and 3 and FOW game 1 to slow them down if need be. Discarding your hand to stop Goblins for a turn is not the way to win with a combo deck that wants cards in hand.

Relaxed

10-20-2005, 06:31 PM

Can Ray D 3 or anyone else post a working (as in not dead) link to a thread were the sorcery speed solidarity deck list is posted? Or post it here? All I've encountered so far is dead links. Pretty please, with sugar on top, I'd really like to see it.

scarface

10-20-2005, 08:03 PM

Here. (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2629) And its called Spring Tide.

KillerWhiteRabbit

10-24-2005, 05:55 PM

So, in playtesting for the GP, I have begun using solidarity. In all of my testing though, solidarity has been loosing almost everything to all of my test decks except RGSA. My burn, for example is 95-5 against it. Since solidarity has been doing so well recently, this surprises me.

I am running the list posted by "Jeska" a few pages back, with a few minor SB alterations. I seem to absolutely HAVE to have a high tide(or draw into one) to go off anytime before like turn 7. To go off turns 3/4, I often have to have a perfectly sculpted hand, and draw into the right cards. I have been using all of the little tricks and statistics (brain freeze yourself to get a flash of insight=tech), but haven't had any luck whatsoever.

I'm asking for tips and technique on playing this, because I can't understand for the life of me how this deck is doing so well! Am I unlucky? Giant sampling error? Just plain don't know how to play the thing (I hope)? Or does the deck just suck this hard? Convince me otherwise!

Ben-

"Jeska"

10-24-2005, 06:21 PM

@ Killer White Rabbit: Just for clarification that is Deep6ers build (He invented the deck). That is the optimal build out right now (as far as I`ve been told). When I started out playing Solidarity I lost alot. The best advice I could suggest is just stick with it, the more you play it the better you become with it. Since I learned how to play it and play it correctly I have been undefeted with it (and I`m playing the same build as I posted a few pages back).

As for your turn 7 problem, I dont know what to say there, I can go off turn 4 consistently. At times I have gone off on turn 3.

herbig

10-25-2005, 03:01 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I haven't seen any discussion about this, but is it possible to cast High Tide on the opponent's turn, after end of turn triggers, and have an untap with High Tide still in effect? This could help Spring Tide tremendously, and benefit Solidarity in some instances. Playing the mirror match and sometimes against Lamestill I have a tendency to combo during my turn. This is because when playing against another Solidarity player, I often pass by Resets in an effort not to be caught with useless cards when he tries his thing. High Tide and Turnabouting the other player when your hand is just right would put you at a huge advantage.

As far as the burn matchup goes, that should be at least 50/50 pre-sideboard. You are almost certainly playing the deck wrong if your figures are that bad. The funny thing about a storm combo deck like Solidarity is that there are so many decisions to make that you can't just grab the deck and start winning. It really is a deck that you have to be taught to play well. My play style comes from my own judgements and the little tournament experience that I get. I make bad decisions, but some styles of play with Solidarity are worse than others.

Some things that I've seen really bad (worse than myself) players do:

Fetching without a spell to cast in longer matchups: Against decks like Landstill, Wombat, and Solidarity you really want to hit lands drops. Fetching decreases your chances of drawing land. If you fear Stifle, that Stifle isn't going anywhere anyways. The same situation is true for not fetching while going off. Drawing into a Brainstorm/fetch combo is not as beneficial as not drawing lands.

Fetching before Brainstorm: Half the reason fetchlands are in the deck is for Brainstorm. You'd better have a phenomenal hand if your going to do this.

Not casting spells, only dropping lands: I've seen Solidarity players do this, on the basis that they'll have a higher storm count when they go off if they don't put all those spells in the graveyard the first few turns. I liken this to losing cards to Millstone.

There are plenty of other bad play mistakes that I see made, such as attempting to kill early or Mystical Tutor, but those you can quickly learn from.

Ewokslayer

10-25-2005, 03:47 PM

Obfuscate Freely

10-25-2005, 05:07 PM

The same situation is true for not fetching while going off. Drawing into a Brainstorm/fetch combo is not as beneficial as not drawing lands.
I took this to mean that you fetch immediately before playing draw spells, instead of holding off in the hopes that you will draw a Brainstorm.

I will argue that you almost always should hold off on fetching, because drawing a Brainstorm is both more likely and more desirable than drawing 1 less land due to the thinning effect.

Taking 1 land out of a deck with 14 or so left in it does not decrease your odds of drawing a land much at all (less than 2% in most cases). That small change does not translate into a high chance of actually seeing 1 less land until you have drawn quite a few cards (and probably won).

The Brainstorm + fetch combination is worth drawing an extra land, anyway, because it allows you to get rid of the 2 worst cards in your hand (probably lands). So, it is close in effect to drawing 2 less lands.

Overall, fetching beforehand decreases the quality of your topdecks, instead of increasing it, because the damage it does to the power of Brainstorm outweighs the small effect of the deckthinning.

Ewokslayer

10-25-2005, 05:34 PM

While Obfuscate Freely is correct all that analysis is meaningless once you reach a point that you are going to cast an untap effect. Then you are no longer talking about potential thinning and card quality but mana that you are losing. Pissing away mana so you could make a possible future brainstorm better is silly.

Carlos El Salvador

10-27-2005, 10:06 AM

I agree with Ewokslayer completly. There really isn't too much of a reason to hold back on your little fetchlands. Hell, my version plays 8x fetch and I still generally pop them off when I draw them, mostly becuase I do like the awesomeness of having my mana there right then, and also having lots of cards to dig with for more mana. Lately, though, I've started to wonder about the mirror match. I've heard how horrid it is (It's one of those things where you will only get through the first game), but how exactly do you play against the mirror match? Do you usually try to upkeep turnabout the oppoenet if you think your hand is that good? What cards (other than twincast) Shine in the matchup? What cards are lame? If I am serious about bringing this deck to philidelphia, I need to know this information.

herbig

10-27-2005, 10:35 AM

In my experience the worst card to have in the mirror is Reset. Since you can't really be sure when someone is going to make a move, Reset's restriction of only being play after your opponent's upkeep makes it dead. Turnabout, Force of Will, Twincast, and Brainfreeze are generally the cards you're looking for. I would usually wait, dropping lands until the opponent combos, so that I don't have to have High Tide, and combo in response to their draw spell. Since there is usually a lot of mana flying around, attempt to hardcast your Forces to save yourself the card. Also remember to use Flash of Insight when you get Brainfreezed.

Carlos El Salvador

10-30-2005, 01:10 AM

Well, It really seems like (I've never acually tested the mirror, I NEED some help with that, IM Me for MWS testing) that the mirror is all about trying to get a turn your opponent is weak. Also, remeber that because of how reset is worded, you can twincast your opponent's reset and untap your lands, thanks to the neat way copies work. I think I would probibly side like -2 reset +1 Twincast +1 Turnabout from the board, thanks to wish targets. I think having twincast superiority is probiblyt he key in the match, as both decks can dig for exactly what they need once they are comboing. The stack probibly gets really messy, too.

tehmaty

10-30-2005, 10:35 AM

I think the mirror revolves around one card: Mana Short. It can cut the legs right out from underneath someone who's trying to go off when you play it in response to a draw spell... I don't know if it's a commonly accepted card for the SB of this deck, but if you're expecting the mirror, it's definitely worth packing.

MattH

10-30-2005, 02:21 PM

What does Mana Short do that Turnabout does not?

Slay

10-30-2005, 03:12 PM

Not allow them to float mana in response. The only time a Turnabout would actually be important is if you did it in response to a High Tide, in which case neither of you has mana.
-Slay

TheInfamousBearAssassin

10-30-2005, 06:14 PM

Turnabout still allows you to move to the next phase, which empties their mana. Not saying it's better than Mana Short for that particular scenario, but it's functionally similar enough that the narrow Wish target seems unnecessary.

Slay

10-30-2005, 07:22 PM

SenilePack

10-31-2005, 10:24 AM

But the thing is, it costs 4 mana, so without Tide in play, it's going to be both of you tapped out. With Tide in play, they have the goods to go off around it. I think Mana Short is a fair bit too slow, as it does actually cost 4UU, and you could actually win the game in response.
-Slay
how does it cost 4UU?
Here are the specs for reference:

Mana Short-2U
Instant
Tap all lands target player controls and empty his or her mana pool.

Lukas Preuss

10-31-2005, 10:33 AM

You have to cast Cunning Wish to get it.

Cunning Wish, as well as Mana Short, costs 2U.

2U + 2U = 4UU

MattH

10-31-2005, 11:47 AM

Um...I'm not saying you cast Turnabout mid-combo. You cast it at the exact same time you would be casting Mana Short.

Slay

10-31-2005, 04:42 PM

Would you be casting it at the end of yuor opponents turn? That seems doable but still fairly lame. And they can go off in response.
-Slay

Mad Zur

11-01-2005, 07:42 AM

They can go off in response to a Mana Short, too.

Lukas Preuss

11-01-2005, 09:10 AM

Yeah, exactly. I don't really know why were're talking about this, because there's almost no significant difference between Turnabout and Mana Short...

herbig

11-01-2005, 09:33 AM

I agree, Turnabout does the same thing as Mana Short, whether it resolves or not.

One thing I've been thinking about lately is replacing Echoing Truth with Hurkyl's Recall. One of the main reasons for having two different bounce spells in the sideboard is Chalice. Barring a double Chalice situation, I think Recall is a better option, since it allows some protection against the various Stax decks. Having Chain of Vapor, Echoing Truth, and Rebuild is too much when there are so many other options you want to have there. Also, is Evacuation really necessary? Because of the Wizards articles, Philly might have a lot of White Weenie, but are situations like True Believer/Mother of Runes all that common? What other times will the card help? Seeing as how the main deck is pretty solid I want to begin optimizing the sideboard for Philly.

Lukas Preuss

11-01-2005, 12:21 PM

I think Rebuild is better than Recall, because Recall doesn't work if there's a Chalice set for two. Whereas a Chalice for three is very unlikely. I would go with the Chain of Vapors, Echoing Truth, Rebuild sideboard if I was expecting a lot of Stax.

but are situations like True Believer/Mother of Runes all that common?
Well, I suppose they're as common as double Chalice. Both don't usually happen but can make you lose games if you're not prepared.

DI419

11-01-2005, 04:01 PM

Anyone have any clue what the savage Rabid Wombat tech is, and/or how to get around it? I'm assuming it's some combination of Abeyance, Orim's Chant, Chalice, Gilded Light and I don't know what else. We have been targeted by them, so they will have something. Game 1 should still be solid, but is there anything we can sideboard for the match?

The biggest problem is probably Gilded Light. It's really the only card you have to worry about; the other stuff is beatable by itself. Unfortunately, your answers are beatable by Gilded Light in most cases. What solutions are there to a prepared MWC player?

edit: IBA has listed an SB in the Wombat thread, and it looks like he's currently suggesting Glowrider, Sphere of Resistance and Rule of Law. Thoughts?

T is for TOOL

11-01-2005, 06:36 PM

URABAHN

11-01-2005, 07:33 PM

The way Wombat lays down land every turn like it's going outta style, Sphere seems like an excellent way to slow down Solidarity until Wombat plays Rule of Law or Glowrider, then an Angel, then beat face. Very interesting.

DI419

11-01-2005, 09:22 PM

MWC is almost a bye. The purpose of a SB is to improve your worst matches. It makes little sense to SB cards for one of your best matchups just because they might fill their SB with hate.

Also, you win in response to Gilded Light, much like you would against any other hate. It's sort of like Goblins or Burn casting Sirocco, except MWC has no clock, so it should be very easy to win in response.
Preboard, you need to fight through up to 8 "counters"-Abeyance and possibly Gilded Light. When you have until turn 20, this isn't too hard, and you should win pretty much every game 1. However, when a Glowrider or Sphere of Resistance is coming down every turn 2/3 (and Rabit Wombat can afford to hate on this deck that much-we're the only tier 1 bad matchup they have), followed by a morphed Angel, AND they can screw you over with 2-mana "counters" when you try to be cute and find bounce, the matchup becomes a lot more difficult.
Look in the Rabid Wombat thread, at IBA's sideboard. There's a discussion in that thread on how there are bad and good anti-combo cards, and they pretty much nail it. By running 7-8 2 and 3-mana threats that effectively stop you from winning, they are proactive, and you really can't play reactively and hope to control them. Honestly, if they run Gilded Light and 8-10 SB cards, I really don't think that you can win a sideboarded game without one of the following happening:
them being mana screwed, them playing badly, you having Force AND the turn 4 win (which is only good enough some of the time), or you going off in response to Glowrider on turn 3. If they play correctly, it will be REALLY hard to win, because you HAVE to care about what they're playing, and that is really bad for you.
You say that they might fill their SB with hate. What else do they have to SB against? They already completely serve the other "tier 1" decks, and random creature-based strategies will also get hosed. Their SB doesn't just hit us; it also hits the other Storm combo decks. Decree of Justice gives them strategy superiority over every counter-based deck that gives them the time to abuse Eternal Dragon. The only other real danger is Stax, but I think that that will be even less played than Solidarity, AND Sacred Ground solves the issue of Smokestack as well as Flashfires and other traditional hate. But even if they devote 4 slots to Sacred Ground and 3 slots to junk like Seal of Cleansing, they have half their sideboard, just for us.
Game 1, MWC is a joke. Against MWC players who think that Solidarity is a joke, you will get the bye. But you will get walloped by prepared Wombat players if you think that they can't SB for you.

T is for TOOL

11-01-2005, 10:53 PM

Mhough

11-02-2005, 12:04 AM

Mana short is significantly better than turnabout when needing a spell to stop your opponent in the mirror. They can't let it resolve so if played in response to a spell they have to have resolve it stops them essentially the way Orim's Chant is used against Solidarity. Now Turnabout isn't really effective they just tap out float mana and thank you for the storm count. Maybe I'm not seeing when else you would be casting these spells so I may have missed the point.

URABAHN

11-02-2005, 07:38 AM

Preboard, you need to fight through up to 8 "counters"-Abeyance and possibly Gilded Light.
Many players consider it cheating to have an 8 counter hand all game, and even if you play by the rules and discard down to 7 at the end of your turn, it’s awfully hard to make your land drops.

However, when a Glowrider or Sphere of Resistance is coming down every turn 2/3 (and Rabit Wombat can afford to hate on this deck that much-we're the only tier 1 bad matchup they have), followed by a morphed Angel, AND they can screw you over with 2-mana "counters" when you try to be cute and find bounce, the matchup becomes a lot more difficult.
When the opponent has Glowrider/Sphere of Resistance + Exalted Angel + 2-Mana counter every game, I would once again suspect that there was game afoot. Though it my just be personal preference, I only consider games when my opponent isn’t cheating. Out of curiosity, how exactly do their 2-mana counters stop you from bouncing a Sphere or a Glowrider?

Look in the Rabid Wombat thread, at IBA's sideboard. There's a discussion in that thread on how there are bad and good anti-combo cards, and they pretty much nail it. By running 7-8 2 and 3-mana threats that effectively stop you from winning, they are proactive, and you really can't play reactively and hope to control them.
… Control??? High Tide is a combo deck. Also, of the cards you listed, only Glowrider and Exalted Angel are threats. Exalted Angel does nothing to stop you from winning, and Glowrider neutralizes a High Tide. There’s absolutely no reason to play proactively against MWC. You try and win when you are comfortable, or are forced to, period.

Honestly, if they run Gilded Light and 8-10 SB cards, I really don't think that you can win a sideboarded game without one of the following happening:
them being mana screwed, them playing badly, you having Force AND the turn 4 win (which is only good enough some of the time), or you going off in response to Glowrider on turn 3. If they play correctly, it will be REALLY hard to win, because you HAVE to care about what they're playing, and that is really bad for you.
So... you haven’t tested this? The MWC SB just looks that damn good on paper?

Tool, you act as if Solidarity is invincible. Are you ignoring the anti Solidarity tech? If so, go right ahead and keep believing that there's nothing Wombat can do. If you're playing Solidarity and you're not prepared for Glowrider, Sphere, AND/OR Gilded Light, expect the worst.

Mad Zur

11-02-2005, 08:08 AM

TheInfamousBearAssassin

11-02-2005, 09:40 AM

Deep6er

11-02-2005, 11:36 AM

Ok, a couple of things to note here. One, Jack's sideboard is actually very, very impressive. He's also right, that games 2-3 are guaranteed to be an uphill battle. However, there are a couple of things that could happen to nuke Jack's plan. 1) The nuts turn 3 win backed by force. 2) Jack being mana screwed. 3) Punching Jack in the face and running away. Now, I'm not so sure about number 3 but you still have two options games 2-3 that at least give you a fighting chance. It's also important to remember that NEITHER player wants to play this matchup. It's frustrating and irritating. The MWC player has to hope that his hate comes online before you do all while remembering that mulliganing into the hate may fuck him over. The solidarity player needs to analyze all of the possible situations and mulligan accordingly.

Just one more thing, the mana short and turnabout in the mirror match are terrible. I really don't think it's worthwhile to discuss it. It's been tried and failed so I'd recommend that we move to a new discussion about other things of note. Something like, discussion about the re-inclusion of Rebuild for GP: Philadelphia.

Carlos El Salvador

11-02-2005, 01:30 PM

Well, people are going to Philidelphia trying to hate out goblins, therefore it is only a good thing for us solidarity playas, as we will slightly be off the game. The MWC sideboard stuff is unfourtunate, but at least they have to side in roughly 12 cards vs you and only you. I am a big fan of a SB rebuild, mostly because I am excepting at least a slightly sized porition of the feild to be some sort of artifact-hevey based deck. Stax or Angel Stax, the matchup is not too pritty, but it's very winnable as long as you force of will smokestacks.

Lukas Preuss

11-02-2005, 02:11 PM

Well, actually during my testing I found out, that the Stax matchup sucks almost as bad as Pox (well, it's not an autoloss, but turn one Chalice for one followed by turn three Chalice for two and other nasty stuff is bad...). People will be playing Stax-builds, because Steve Menendian brought it up in his SCG Flame Vault article, and there has also been a Mono White Legacy Stax article, as far as I know. Many Vintage players will try to convert their Stax decks into Legacy, as well, because it isone of the most broken decks in their format. Therefore I think that Rebuild should be included in the Sideboard.

I don't even think, Goblins will have impressive results, because every deck packs tons of hate against them. And since you have three byes, Dave, you might want to cut one Blast in the sideboard for Rebuild. It doesn't really worsen your Goblin matchup very much (I don't really think, you will see that many Goblins after round three), but it improves your Stax matchup a lot.

herbig

11-02-2005, 03:22 PM

Goblins will have a strong presence day two if only by sheer numbers. Despite all the hate people will be packing, the deck is still a good choice for Philly, and probably the best in the hands of someone who really knows how to play it. But, I don't think dropping to seven Blasts will significantly weaken your game against them. With all the stax action I've been getting online lately Rebuild is necessary.
While I don't think that most of them will be playing Flame Vault, given the expense of Time Vault, the deck is a very tough match for Solidarity. Carlos is right in that you should focus on countering the Smokestacks since if one of them hits play it is pretty much over. Going off on your own turn should also be considered in this matchup, when under the influence of Smokestack/Tangle Wire.
Against Red based stax, you can side in Blasts to deal with Flame Fusilade and Welders, but don't side out the Forces, as you will need them for the Smokestacks. If it is strictly combo you should be ok.

Since Philly is coming up real soon, if anyone would like to start doing some playtesting against these decks send me an IM.

"Jeska"

11-02-2005, 03:38 PM

So What would be the optimal build for Gp? Is it still Deep6ers build with the inclusion of Rebuild? Because thats what I`m playing minus the Rebuild. But I have been following this thread closely and it seems I should slap it into the sideboard. But I dont want to take out the 8 blast plan. Is Evacuation what we are taking out instead of a Blast??

Zilla

11-03-2005, 05:51 AM

TheInfamousBearAssassin

11-03-2005, 07:15 AM

It should be noted that, whatever his resemblance to a young Ming the Merciless, I have like 60 pounds on Dave.

Loomis

11-03-2005, 10:04 AM

Is there anyway solidarity can beat 3 blessings sideboard?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

11-03-2005, 10:15 AM

Only in the sense that it's ludicrously easy if you're not a complete tard about it and/or you're not forced to go off turn 3, yes.

Ewokslayer

11-03-2005, 10:18 AM

I think this question has been asked every 5 pages or so.

The answer is still the same. Yes Solidarity can get around Gaea's Blessing. The card is crap. Worse than crap.
Blessing is a big steaming pile of elephant dung. Especially in decks with NO green mana.
Solidarity's answer to it is simple, multiple Brain Freezes followed by wishing for a draw spell or casting a large Stroke of Genius.

herbig

11-03-2005, 11:11 AM

Is there anyway solidarity can beat 3 blessings sideboard?
@Loomis: Blessings are very difficult to deal with. My build runs 4x Extract and 4x Rootwater Thief in the board for this purpose. There is also the option of the black splash for Cranial Extraction, which would also allow you to run One With Nothing for synergy with Flash of Insight.

Edit: I just read back a few pages and found out you can cast multiple brainfreezes. I will have to totally revamp my build and test this option.

Nightmare

11-03-2005, 11:17 AM

Blessings are very difficult to deal with. My build runs 4x Extract and 4x Rootwater Thief in the board for this purpose. There is also the option of the black splash for Cranial Extraction, which would also allow you to run One With Nothing for synergy with Flash of Insight.

Edit: I just read back a few pages and found out you can cast multiple brainfreezes. I will have to totally revamp my build and test this option.
Plleeease tell me this is a joke. I thought you were a much better Solidarity player than this.

Lukas Preuss

11-03-2005, 11:36 AM

Quote (herbig @ Nov. 03 2005,11:11)
Blessings are very difficult to deal with. My build runs 4x Extract and 4x Rootwater Thief in the board for this purpose. There is also the option of the black splash for Cranial Extraction, which would also allow you to run One With Nothing for synergy with Flash of Insight.

Edit: I just read back a few pages and found out you can cast multiple brainfreezes. I will have to totally revamp my build and test this option.

Plleeease tell me this is a joke. I thought you were a much better Solidarity player than this.

lol I think it was a joke... there's no way someone can be serious about a statement like that... :D

DI419

11-03-2005, 05:08 PM

My questions on the sideboard are, why use both Echoing Truth AND Chain of Vapor, and why are these options better than Rushing River? Chain of Vapor's advantage is its 1 mana cost, Echoing Truth's advantage of bouncing multiple permanents seems irrelevant in almost all cases. Rushing River both dodges Chalice (if they set it to 3, you're not going to Wish for it anyway), can target two different permanents (while at a steep cost), and costs more. These two slots seem redundant, unless I'm missing something, and could be the things that give to Rebuild.

Slay

11-03-2005, 06:51 PM

Chain of Vapor costing 1 is IMMENSELY important. Imagine you have 7 mana staring down a lethal Ex.Angel with a Rule of Law on the field. You wish for the Chain, cast it next turn, and then go off. With a Rushing River you'd have died. The point isn't to cast it while going off, that's only important for something like Ivory Mask and nobody plays that. The point is to use it before going off and still have the mana to go off. Without Chain, a Rule of Law is a double Time Walk. With a Chain, it's a single Time Walk with no tempo lost. Rushing River has its place, but it's not in this deck.
-Slay

"Jeska"

11-04-2005, 12:10 AM

Zilla

11-04-2005, 12:24 AM

I have heard rumos on the Wizos forums and on another forum whose name will not be mentioned (but it is trustworthy). That Solidarity will not do well in the upcoming GP. Saying that turn 4 is way to slow and with all the hype thats going around about it that it will be hated out. How does everyone feel about this?
I'd call this unfounded hearsay and irrellevant shit-talking unless those people back up their statements with something relevant, like a decklist. Here's the deal: turn 4 is only too slow in a format where other decks win faster than turn 4. There are plenty of combo decks that win faster than this, but all of them have very serious consistency issues and tend to be highly succeptible to hate. I'm certainly not claiming that a consistent, resilient combo deck that goes off before turn 4 doesn't exist; I'm just saying that no one has posted a list for one to date.

What do you think will happen with Solidarity and the GP? Good or a waste of time?
I think that, outside of possibly David Gearhart, no one will place with Solidarity. This isn't a product of its being too slow, however. It's the fact that a) the format is highly aware of and largely prepared for it, b) it requires an extremely intimate knowledge of timing rules and the way the stack works, and c) minor play mistakes cause game losses, making it very difficult to play, particularly in a long tournament.

herbig

11-04-2005, 03:48 AM

I'd like to think I might do well at the GP but yes, the deck is insanely taxing on the brain. If I had the Howling Mines I'd be playing Turbo Stasis, but alas I have to make do with what I have.

@Mr. Nightmare: I was blatantly belittling our dear friend Mr. Loomis. Blessing is probably the worst hate card aside from Ivory Mask. The good thing is that despite constant discussion, so many people still think it owns Solidarity.

For a new, more useful discussion, today I was, for the first time ever in my illustrious Solidarity career, the recipient of a Blast protected Sirocco by an Ahnk Burn deck. I was caught totally with my pants down, but luckily kept a High Tide and a Meditate and pulled it off. My question is, what is the best way to protect against Sirocco. Should I assume every burn/goblin player is holding Sirroco post board. With their extremely fast game it is very difficult to leave mana open to Blast that shit and not optimize my hand.

Carlos El Salvador

11-04-2005, 04:17 AM

Well, What you should do is one of two things... as usual, you should try only to win when you need to, as the deck is backwards in that it can win on turn four, but it just needs to win before it dies. This is the msot unique thing about the deck. While attempting to win on turn 4 verses goblins might seem good, if you can just wait a turn, it's fine. They are going to wait for you to have your 'pants down', as you say, and play all the hate on you at once, when your tapped out. The best way to aleivate this problem is to be flexable with your mana. In a matchup where the chances of being burned/socororo'd out are quite high, you must always make sure they are tapped out (for the most part), or make sure that they have the fewest number of hate cards in hand (Like 1 or 2), OR make sure that you have the ability to continue in response to them. I was playing against my friends' angel Stompy/r deck today and he had a hand that had socoro and double red elemental blast. I didn't sideboard becuase I didn't have my sideboard there, but I was able to hold off until I made my (piviotal) Fifth land drop of the game, and continue to go off. It didn't help him that I had triple meditate in hand (I'm a lucksack, what can I say?)

TheInfamousBearAssassin

11-04-2005, 10:58 AM

Incidentally, Sirroco is as terrible in Goblins as Red Elemental Blast is in Burn, and I have no idea why they continue playing it. A Goblins player played it against me last weekend on the attack in response to a High Tide. I discarded one card, went to 1 life, and proceeded to win with Meditate, Twincast, and Reset in hand. A Pyroblast would've killed me.

This shouldn't be that complicated. Goblins can apply pressure with creatures, but can't do anything on the stack. Play counterspells. This means 8 blast if you're playing the little red men.

Burn can't apply pressure if it's spells don't deal damage. REB becomes less than good. Play Pyrostatic Pillar and Sirroco.

These decks do two entirely different things. Their hate has to function differently. There's never a good reason to run 4 Blast, 4 Sirroco, but people continue doing it just because it's become a neat little mantra.

bigbear102

11-04-2005, 01:57 PM

The reason that Burn has to play Blast is because it can hit Chill, and without a splash, it is our only answer to Chill. Sirocco is also probably not going to be seen very much at the GP, because it is a bad card. This is the only deck against which it does anything, and burn can already race you. If playing against a decent burn deck expect to see Pillars and REB's, as they are the best/most useful hate burn has. Goblins seems to like Pillars also, and REB is good for them too. Overall I wouldn't worry too much about Sirocco.

herbig

11-07-2005, 01:21 PM

Well I was off to a good start on Sunday at Altered States, going undefeated three rounds and winning the first game of the fourth and then the power goes out suddenly. Finally when I'm not scrubbing out with Solidarity fate has a way of taking the glory away. I played against WBU Angel, Angel Stax, RGSA, and the jankiest Solidarity mirror ever. My only mistake of the day was passing up a second Brainfreeze against Angel Stax (Mr. Nightmare) to keep comboing on the off chance he had Blessings in the deck. Even though I won, it involved me later Brainfreezing myself to get to a Flash. Not that I was ever in a position of losing. Paranoia is sometimes a bad thing when you know your opponent is competent enough not to side Blessings.

The fourth round was a mirror match (Dirty), except his deck ran no Cunning Wish and had Mystical Tutor / Words of Wisdom maindeck. I really feel that the mirror match is all about positioning yourself to capitalize on your opponent's mistakes. Most often the person who goes first loses. He tapped out with two floating to cast Turnabout, at which time I cast two more High Tides and tapped an island each to hardcast two Forces in the ensuing counter war. Once we were done with that I just comboed out in response to his Turnabout and killed him.

My decklist:
11 Island
8 Fetches
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
4 High Tide
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
2 Flash of Insight
4 Meditate
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
4 Opt
3 Brainfreeze
2 Peer through Depths
SB
7 Blasts
1 Turnabout
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Rebuild
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Evacuation
1 Brainfreeze

I have yet to get ahold of Twincasts, but the Peers will hopefully be replaced with them for Philly and I want to fit another into the sideboard.

herbig

11-07-2005, 03:01 PM

A thought that just occured to me while daydreaming in class (I posted in the Battle of Wits thread as well) was that the the addition of one Gaea's Blessing, along with Brainstorm/Brainfreeze would allow the deck to go infinite. Just avoid Flashing while generating infinite mana and save a Cunning Wish for the Stroke. While this is incredibly unnecessary, the potential is pretty cool. As if the deck wasn't fun enough to play already... My head hurts.

Pyrokinesis

11-08-2005, 01:11 PM

Just avoid Flashing while generating infinite mana and save a Cunning Wish for the Stroke.
Flash actually helps you immensely there, letting you set up a (near) infinite loop. Most likely it would be something like:

Brainstorm (in hand)
Gaea's Blessing
Brain Freeze
Reset

However, that's rather inconsistent. I don't quite think you would be able to go completely infinite - and it's a rather bad idea anyway. If Blessing gets into your hand you have to just tolerate it until you get a Brainstorm.

Edit: Congrats on your tournament performance, but it's kind of scary to see such a bad Solidarity list perform a 3-0. It seems like we have a downright terrifying deck on our hands...

TheInfamousBearAssassin

11-08-2005, 01:28 PM

Lukas Preuss

11-08-2005, 02:18 PM

Phantom Ogre over on the ABS boards has been advocating this since forever, along with 1x Predict. I think it's incredibly unnecessary, but eh.

I think it's been mentioned here as well, but nobody payed attention to it, because it didn't really make the deck any better...

herbig

11-08-2005, 03:52 PM

Oh I agree, I just thought that the possibility was interesting. But adding it doesn't let the deck do anything it can't already accomplish. And adding worse cards like Blessing and Predict make the deck combo less efficiently. On a side note, there was a post in the rules section about drawing the game with double Twincasts. Check it out, it is useful to know in the extremely unlikely situation you might want to do it.

Edit: Nevermind, it doesn't actually work.

Slay

11-09-2005, 11:00 PM

If you're going to go down to a 4 card library, why not just win?
-Slay

TheInfamousBearAssassin

11-10-2005, 12:44 AM

Actually, the deck already has a way to go "infinite"; You can Twincast a Twincast targeting, say, Brainstorm, then Force of Will the Brainstorm. The Twincasts create an "infinite loop" with each other as long as no other spells are on the stack. You can interrupt this loop at any time to play a Brain Freeze and then Wish for a Stroke.

Keep this in mind should 800 card decks become the vogue. Because friends don't let friends play Predict.

"Jeska"

11-10-2005, 01:43 AM

But will that count towards a storm count (The infinte loop, that is). Say you do it and stop the loop say...50 times into it. Then play a Brain Freeze. That wont be applied towards the storm count?? Right?

herbig

11-10-2005, 02:04 AM

No, the Twincast copies don't affect the storm count, so going infinite with Twincast tricks won't help you win at all.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

11-10-2005, 02:32 AM

Well, shit. Yeah, I forgot about that technicality.

It might look cool, though.

DI419

11-10-2005, 07:12 AM

Well, it does draw the game to have double Twincast on the stack, so it's something to keep in mind when time is called in game 2/you're fizzling and are about to get your face smashed.

Ewokslayer

11-10-2005, 08:44 AM

Actually I am not too sure about that (http://mtgthesource.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=265)

As the copy of Twincast that the 2nd Twincast is making is created before the 2nd Twincast finishes resolving the 2nd Twincast is a legal target of the copy. It it targets the 2nd Twincast (The Twincast that made the copy) the copy will fizzle thus ending the loop.
At least that is what was said in the thread and it makes some sense, in a confusing way.
I would ask a judge about it though. I suppose it really depends on when the targets for copies of spells created by Twincast are declared.

JavaJacker

11-10-2005, 10:55 AM

For a little clarification, with more detail:

The Twincast copy is created and put onto the stack.

Then, you get to choose whether or not you want to change the target(s) for this copy. Supposing you're copying the first Twincast (the one that targetted the spell that was countered), if you chose 'No, I do not want to change the target(s),' then this copy of Twincast will fizzle because it's target is no longer legal (it's the countered spell you played first). If you choose 'Yes, I do want to change the target(s),' then you may either continue by copying the first Twincast (serving no purpose), or choose the second Twincast: the one generating the copy in question.

Then, the second Twincast finishes resolving.

And then, the copy generated by the second Twincast begins to resolve, and it will either fizzle, or copy the first Twincast, at which point you get to make the same decision as before.

NOTE: You may chose not to change the target, even if that target (the target it currently has) is no longer legal.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

11-10-2005, 11:58 AM

Note also that this would only create a draw anyway if you were unable to interrupt the cycle, i.e., you had no instants in hand, in a deck running nothing but Instants. An infinite loop only draws the game if neither player can stop it... hence why Seeker of Skybreak doesn't say 'Tap: draw the game.'

DI419

11-10-2005, 03:53 PM

No, there's actually a big difference bewteen Seeker of Skybreak and this. Seeker requires the player to actively play the ability. Saying that you must play an instant (which doesn't break the cycle) is like saying Dragon must use Bazaar to get another reanimation target into the yard. Even if you keep playing, the Twincasts and their copies will never resolve when there are other spells on the stack, because they'll be stuck at the bottom of the stack. These other spells will resolve, and then we'll be back to the 2 Twincasts. If there are two Twincasts at the bottom of the stack, the stack will never be emptied.

bleonhar

11-10-2005, 04:20 PM

You cannot draw the game with double Twincast.

Let's say you're resolving the 152nd copy of Twincast. The stack looks like this:

Twincast targeting-> Original Spell (which was countered)
152nd copy of Twincast targeting-> Twincast

Now, you add another copy of Twincast to the stack and choose a target. There are two targets: the first Twincast and the 152nd Twincast.

If you choose the first Twincast, the loop continues. If you choose the 152nd Twincast, then your 153rd Twincast will be countered on resolution as the 152nd Twincast will no longer be on the stack after it resolves.

Choosing to target the first Twincast repeatedly and never breaking the loop is illegal for the same reason that Dragon cannot draw the game when there is another creature in the graveyard. It's considered stalling.

carlitobunz

11-11-2005, 04:46 PM

I'm a huge fan of solidarity and am seriously considering playing it tomorrow at the GP, but I'm worried about the abiity to correctly for so many rounds. My advice to anyone is to slow down, make sure your choices are exactly what you wish to do. Remember that 1-0-1 rounds are still wins and don't be afraid to mulligan when you feel borderline. Land drops are essential so keep that in mind too. Does anyone have advice for me? Perhaps anything I've overlooked and things to keep in mind? i.e. decktypes, cards to watch out for or even certain turns of decktypes that are crucial. Thanks for your help and everyone, good luck tomorrow!

mackaber

11-13-2005, 05:11 PM

Mad props to david gearhart! Really sorry you didn't make top 8 man, was rooting for you all weekend! Beeing 9th really sucks since you don't even get your picture on the frikkin coverage! At least you get to cruise to honolulu!

DI419

11-13-2005, 06:15 PM

Great try, Gearhart. Excellent performance, and have fun in Honolulu.

Did anyone even play this deck at the GP? I played it, going 4-0 (3 goblin decks) losing to R/G survival in game 3 due to a mental error, and then hitting UWG threshold and straight Rock. I saw absolutely no one else even playing the deck. I know Gearhart did, and performed excellently.

However, I think that the hype was simply too much for this deck. I played against Pillars/Blasts and 8 blasts or Gaea's Blessing way too often. If this deck had been secret tech, and 4 very good players played it, I would predict that it would have 2 top 8 slots and possibly won if it didn't meet up with Pikula's deck. (now THERE'S a fright *shudder*) The problem is that if someone wants to beat you, they can make it very tough for you. This is true of almost any deck, but so many players took aim at this because it was so talked about.

SpatulaOfTheAges

11-14-2005, 02:03 AM

Zilla

11-14-2005, 03:15 AM

I think this is a very relevant point. It should also be added that black is making a resurgence also in the Tog archetype with the growing popularity of the dredge mechanic. A lot of these builds are running Therapy, with Duress either maindecked or in the board. It looks like black will no longer be the least-played color, and this doesn't bode well for Solidarity.

Nightmare

11-14-2005, 10:41 AM

Congrats to Green, the new Black of Legacy. Congrats to Black, the new White of Legacy. Congrats to White, the new Blue of Legacy.

Blue and red, well, They're pretty much still Blue and Red.

Carlos El Salvador

11-14-2005, 11:05 AM

Yeah, I guess It's very bad for solidarity. Pikula had a decent deck, but suicide black I think is still not that totally awesome. As far as how i did, I made day 2, to go 0-5 to Goblins, NQG (The top 4 list), Ravager, Goblins, Goblins. I lost intrested almost after facing NQG...

herbig

11-14-2005, 12:06 PM

I played Solidarity, coming in 75th with a 6-2 record. My loses were to Sligh and Red Deck Wins that both raced the hell out of me. I'm pretty happy with my performance though. Seven out of eight matches were red, three being Goblins. Congratulations to Gearhart, your matches were probably the most fun to watch.

carlitobunz

11-14-2005, 12:31 PM

I played solidarity and first round played this guy named Jessie who was playing stax vault, ity was a great match and we actually drew which put me in the draw bracket all day, not good for me. I was wondering if anyone knows him, I'd like to talk with him again. He said he was from VA and knows Gearhart since the two of them were chatting with me on solidarity tech after that first round. I had a blast playing the deck and will continue to do so in the following legacy events that occur in my region.

Please change your text color to something that doesn't burn my eyes out---Frogboy

Edited By frogboy on 1132073433

Deep6er

11-14-2005, 05:20 PM

Ok, so here's the newest list and a couple of things that I found.

4 High Tide
4 Opt
4 Brainstorm
2 Peek
4 Impulse
4 Reset
3 Brain Freeze
2 Twincast
3 Cunning Wish
3 Meditate
3 Turnabout
4 Force of Will
2 Flash of Insight

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
12 Island

Sideboard
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Evacuation
3 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Hydroblast
(Edit: Oops, I forgot the sideboard. Thanks to the guy who PM'd me and brought that up.)

Now, on to a couple of interesting things to note.
1) Contrary to popular belief, High Tide was NOT hated out of the format and in fact the only real "hate" cards that I came across were things that were invaluable in other combo matchups in general. There was NOBODY playing Sirocco or other extremely narrow hate cards.

2)I finished 11-3 out of the two days. Here were my three losses.

Paul Lyons with Goblins/w. Game 1 I beat him. Game 2 He ABEYANCES me. I responded with ABEYANCE!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! and lost the game. Game 3 I make a retarded mistake involving abeyance that cost me the game.

Michael Krumb with Affinity. Game 1 my hand is insane but I had to main phase Impulse to hit the third land (I had the turn 3 go off in hand) and I was unable to get around the vialed Meddling Mage. Game 2 he has ALL FOUR MEDDLING MAGES. I'm not going to beat that.

Dennis Tsao with R/w/g Zoo thing? Game 1 he drops turn two Pyrostatic Pillar. I respond with "Are you serious? You play maindecked Pillars? Are you joking me?" I then proceed to inquire about his goblin matchups and he responds with "Pillar is insane against goblins." I neglect to mention that his deck curves at 2 and just calmly lose. Game 2 He has no idea what I'm playing but it doesn't matter he drops turn 3 Pillar and I still don't have the blast. Ridiculous. Let me clarify something, I'm definitely not bitter but he says he was 6-0 against goblins and lost to Wombat and Landstill. His manabase was terrible at best and he had no draw engine to speak of. I don't know man.

Anyway, let me say that Peek is FUCKING INSANE. Congratulations to Anwar (AnwarA101) for the suggestion a LONG time ago and his continuing insistence of its inclusion in the maindeck. In case you're curious, I pulled the Twincast from the board and replaced it with a Meditate. I found that it's so unbelievably important to keep the 60-40 matchup against goblins consistent through the match and pulling out some of the strength against control is fine because of the deck's already favorable matchup against control.

Edited By Deep6er on 1132262488

t3h.sWaRm

11-14-2005, 05:42 PM

First of all, congratulations on your finish.

Could you please explain why Peek is so good? I haven't tested it or anything but it seems that most of the time it would just be U to draw a card. Does knowing your opponents hand really help that much? How exactly does it help the Goblin matchup?

11-14-2005, 06:09 PM

Anyway, let me say that Peek is FUCKING INSANE. Congratulations to Anwar (AnwarA101) for the suggestion a LONG time ago and his continuing insistence of its inclusion in the maindeck. In case you're curious, I pulled the Twincast from the board and replaced it with a Meditate. I found that it's so unbelievably important to keep the 60-40 matchup against goblins consistent through the match and pulling out some of the strength against control is fine because of the deck's already favorable matchup against control.

QFT. Peek was something I mentioned to some people a couple months ago as something to go into Solidarity as well as Gro. Being able to see the opponent's hand is incredible as it shows whether or not they have a bluff, and also gives you an estimate as to how much time you have to work with to set up combo. Note that in Gro, eot Peek to turn 2 Meddling Mage has tits written all over it.

Whit3 Ghost

11-14-2005, 06:13 PM

Peek-> Therapy in Tog also seems to have big jugs.

laststepdown

11-15-2005, 01:07 AM

I played 3 Sirocco in my sideboard at GP: Philly, playing Zoo. Sadly, I never once played against Goblins, or Solidarity-but I did get my butt handed to me by Lam Pham.

Lukas Preuss

11-15-2005, 03:39 AM

First of all, congratulations to your 9th place finish at the Grand Prix... Good job! :)

So, on to the changes you made to the deck. Just let me get this straight. You cut one Meditate and one Twincast from the maindeck to include Peek, right? You also cut one Twincast from the Sideboard for a Meditate.

Now, you only have 3 cards in your maindeck, that provide you with card advantage (not counting Twincasts). Doesn't this seem to be a problem? I'm sure Peek is great, I will most definitelly test it, but somehow it feels wrong to cut Meditate and Twincast for it. Wouldn't you rather cut some other cantrip, like Opt?

El_Tombo

11-15-2005, 06:05 AM

most versions play 3 medidate main and the 4th in side to be tutored for with cunning wish so that hardly seems to be the issue

but 11-3 is a nice finish indeed

any news on how other tide decks fared ?

coverage of the GP only gives us top 8 decks and some randomly selected decks but not much statistics about what decks were being played and how they did

MalachI

11-15-2005, 11:44 AM

First off I have to say that watching Deep6er playing at GP Philly was highly amusing. I was part of the Zebra Herd at the GP, and it was awesome having someone interesting to watch instead of the normal boring, stolid play that most people showed. 'grats to Deep6er for your finish, and for displaying the dominance of MTGSource over TheManaDrain (I think round 5 day 2??). I don't play legacy much, I'm mainly a 5-color player, but after seeing the diversity of the field this past weekend, I may try to put together something. I don't know if any other Tide decks finished well, I think two or three made day two. Lam made it to the Top 8, his deck was interesting, but he got smashed by Pikula. There were a lot of Flame Vault decks, most of which did pretty horrible. The Game was there in number, one person showed up trying to run the Colossus/Dragon Flame tech that doesn't work. There was a BRU home grown control deck that did pretty well, running stuff like Maher, Fire/Ice, Daze, and Lavamancer. It looked like it was almost a Fish base that had gone horribly, horribly wrong. I'm pretty sure one WW deck made T8, along with two Goblins. Affinity was there in number, lots of them made day two, but I don't think any T8ed. Iggy Pop was probably the most interesting deck I saw, it uses Ill Gotten Gains and Dark/Cabal ritual to set up a huge Tendrils. Pikula's deck looked really solid. Sideboard StP and Darkblast provided good control against anything with little creatures (maindeck Engineered Plague was great for him against little red men). Oh, and I saw lots of people playing SB Tivadar's Crusade, which made me happy (I love that card - even if it is mostly useless). That's about all I remember from the weekend.

AnwarA101

11-17-2005, 07:54 PM

There's a point that seems relevant; with Pikula's success, it seems like black, for so long the red-headed step-child of Legacy, will be back in force. I saw people starting to throw together the deck as we were watching the finals. The absence of a strong black presence in the meta-game was a huge boon to Solidarity; if it returns, that seems highly problematic for the deck. Thoughts?

*Team Bikini High-Five*
While the rise of black decks maybe a big problem for Solidarity isn't the 3 top8 finishes for Gro an even bigger problem? Pikula's deck and Gro have the same elements that make it a positive matchup against Solidarity - disruption/counters + a clock. I saw almost all of David's matches on Day 2 and I saw him beat control decks, but aggro-control would have been another story.

Ray D 3

11-19-2005, 09:39 AM

Just a very quick note:

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta

should almost certainly be

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta

As I have seen many a deck side out completely useless card for Pithing Needles.

I know it is quite insignificant, but it can occasionally make the difference.

Anyway, great job Gearhart. I was pulling for you the whole way. Just out of curiosity, how many games did you lose to not finding Tide?

Deep6er

11-19-2005, 04:33 PM

1) People will always say switch the Fetches. I'm never going to. People who side in Pithing Needles just in the small hope that they hit a fetch are losing the game anyway, so it makes little difference.

2) I only lost 2 games to not finding Tide.

3) Thanks. I was pulling for me too. :)

Burnout

11-20-2005, 07:31 AM

What strategie, sideboard Cards are you goingt to play against Pox, or heavy Discard Decks?

I've played 10 roungs against pox and lost all 10!!!

The Discard ist too much! You cant go into Combo, because the Carddraw is missing, or the Untap spells...
Is there something against this Deck type?

Lukas Preuss

11-20-2005, 08:01 AM

scrumdogg

11-20-2005, 08:38 AM

Is there something against this Deck type?

No. Actually we don't have an answer to heavy discard and land destruction. Solidarity's plan on dealing with this problem has always been hoping that Pox won't be played at a good tournament.
Sadly (well, from the Solidarity player's point of view), with Chris Pikula's success at the Grand Prix and the rise of Black White Aggro Control in Legacy, this will most likely change in the future.
Yes you do. You have the ability to go U/w and run cards like Spiritual Focus in the sideboard. White gives you access to instants like Abeyance anyway and possibly cards like Solitary Confinement which can be abused in the way that Enchantress abuses it.(although that seems way to slow and vulnerable to Vindicate, as well as kicking your normal draw phase in the junk...just a thought). Someone else mentioned Misdirection in another thread relating to this discussion, as shooting a Hymn back at a Black player is a fine way to screw with their strategy. Perhaps a higher proportion of early game conditional countermagic ala Daze and Force Spike might become necessary. Who knows? But if the archetype is truly so fragile that it cannot adapt, then does it truly deserve to be a DTB as opposed to a spectacular metagame deck?

Burnout

11-20-2005, 09:04 AM

Well to run a White Splash is another risk! Because you give your oponent targets for their Waistlands...

I also thought about 2 Misdirections instead of Force of Will, they seem to be quite good.

That's a big problem ;-(

Thx for the quick answers!

URABAHN

11-20-2005, 10:47 AM

According to starcitygames, Nathan J. Xaxson says Solidarity was hated out at GP: Philly? I can recall at least 4 Solidarity decks that made Day 2, and one that made Top 16. What else does that apparently lame article say?

Pyrokinesis

11-20-2005, 10:59 AM

I got bored this morning and started doing some goldfishing (which, fellow combo whores, you should know doesn't get you much past a deck's basic mechanics). But I was having a lot of trouble finding High Tide by turn four. Yet another moment when you wish you had High Tide in the board... or, hell, a Mystical Tutor to get High Tide. There are problems with both, as has been beaten into a bloody pulp..:

High Tide in the sideboard: You reeeeeeally want to see it in your opening hand. Plus, it reduces your chances of a turn three kill (in the event you need it) drastically.

Mystical Tutor: Card disadvantage, mediocre to draw in the middle of going off, just sort of slow like that.

But in the case of wondering where the hell High Tide is, neither really matter. In almost all matchups you NEED High Tide, making the card your first priority. Thus, for such times, perhaps Mystical TUtor should be run in the Wishboard? Not only will it fetch High Tide, but whatever else you might think of Wishing for before going off. It has nice but narrow uses, so it seems like a good target.
Thoughts?

Carlos El Salvador

11-20-2005, 11:16 AM

By hated out, I think he means nobody made top 8 with the deck. Which is fine. Like I said, I know David was 9th place, SWK made top 32 as well. I was 63rd place,unfourtenetly. The other one that made day two I have no clue about, however.

As far as finding high tide, I usually don't have a problem finding it. I think the fact is that you can't goldfish like you can with traditional combo. You win when you have to with the deck, or when the opportune moment strikes. This might mean you have three turns, or thirty turns. So Just play the 4 MD Tides, because cutting one will only make your chances of drawing it worse, even though you can wish for it. Or running a bad card in your sideboard is bad, especially with Gro already being a bad matchup.

MattH

11-20-2005, 01:18 PM

Someone else mentioned Misdirection in another thread relating to this discussion, as shooting a Hymn back at a Black player is a fine way to screw with their strategy. Perhaps a higher proportion of early game conditional countermagic ala Daze and Force Spike might become necessary.
Disrupt is pretty good against discard.

ExpectLess

11-20-2005, 02:47 PM

If discard actually does become a problem there are still a lot of options for Solidarity. That being said, I doubt Pox varients ever will become successful. Pox has tried to be good for ages snd while Dark Confidant may have made the deck playable, it certainly didn't go from tier nothing to DTB or anywhere near it. Pikula is just a really good player, he probably would have done well with any half-decent deck.

Muddle the Mixture is another option that wouldn't be bad against discard if it does become popular (UU: Counter target instant or sorcery, Transmute 1UU). It's a nice counter against a whole bunch of non-permanent problems and also serves as a pseudo-tutor for Reset, Twincast, and Brainfreeze. I would hesitate splashing white unless absolutely required though, simply because it slightly weakens a whole bunch of matchups.

anonymos

11-20-2005, 08:31 PM

Oh my God! The Sky is Falling! This Deck is Bad now! I laugh at you all. Just because one REALLY good player does well, doesn't mean that it's good. This deck can do well reguardless. Not everyone can afford to play sinkhole or even confidant in some cases. Sure, this isn't good against aggro-control, but didn't we already know that. Now that it is becoming more prevalent, lets just find an answer, not complain. I got my resets for $2 each a year ago, and haven't put the deck down since. Sure, discard hurts. Could we just cut back the wish board some and grab something specifically for this match and NQG? If they came from the same direction that would be viable, but for now I think NQG is the more viable threat. I've had to deal with discard for a year from little kids and Rod in his reanimator. It sucks to deal with. Brainstorm is a best friend there. I think that disrupt may be worth trying. It at least replaces itself. Daze/Force Spike aren't really worthwhile. What about a super techy dodecapod from the board? Don't kill me for that please. Seriously, something in the board for them specifically. I don't know what, but something. That's my best plan. That and pray they don't pack persecute!

herbig

11-26-2005, 08:27 PM

I'd like to ignore the previous post completely, give a quick tournament report and revamp some useful discussion on Solidarity. I beat out seven other players in four rounds at a tournament in Auburn (near Syracuse) today. All I really wanted to mention, since I had no trouble defeating any of my opponents, was that I went 2-0 first round against blue/black Battle of Wits. To be fair, he put up absolutely no resistance, and both times I killed him when he tapped out to transmute / cast Battle. It was pretty funny though. The other decks I faced were Burn (2-0), Loam-atog (2-0), and atrociously bad Burn, ie Scent of Cinder (2-1). My one game loss was due to not being able to make him draw a card, allowing him to untap and kill me during his upkeep...

What I've been wondering is how many people like Peek? I haven't tried it out but I'm not really sure I like it over cards like Opt, and I especially don't like moving a Meditate into the board. Gearhart did well with it so I get the feeling I may be wrong about it. What do other people feel?

About the Pox issue: It is a tough matchup, but its not like black control suddenly got playable with one showing in the top eight at a major tournament. Any type of "scientific" conclusion must be backed by subsequent results by the deck. Lots of people might jump to play it, but that doesn't mean it is going to win them tournaments. If that means putting Solidarity down until they've realized the deck isn't as good as Pikula makes it look, then thats another option.

Lukas Preuss

11-27-2005, 04:23 AM

I haven't tried it out but I'm not really sure I like it over cards like Opt, and I especially don't like moving a Meditate into the board. Gearhart did well with it so I get the feeling I may be wrong about it. What do other people feel?

I don't like moving the Meditate to the board, either. Currently, I'm playing the pre-GP version with these changes: +2 Peek, -1 Opt, -1 Twincast, although I'm playing two Twincasts in the Sideboard now. They're just great against the mirror match and against Gro decks...

PTBNL

11-28-2005, 03:15 PM

For the Gro/Threshold matchup, I think splashing Red for REB/Pyroblast could help. REB is obviously strong vs countermagic but it also destroys key obstacles like Meddling Mage and Arcane Laboratory. Gro normally doesn't run Wasteland so using Volcanic Islands should be safe. Also the red splash offers Pyroclasm vs Goblins, and artifact destruction vs Stax. If you don't like maindeck Volcanic Islands, you could put 1 or 2 in the sideboard.

A sample sideboard with red splash:
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Hydroblast
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Volcanic Island

anonymos

11-28-2005, 11:27 PM

the problem with splashing red isn't so much for the gro matchup. That actually may be improved with the splash. I don't know for certain. However, bringing in a SORCERY that is in a splash color in a deck that almost always wins at INSTANT speed is not exactly the best plan. I'm not so sure that running land in the sideboard to support the splash, reguardless of color is the best way to go either.

On a completely different matter, I apologize for the whole "the sky is falling" thing. I was very frustrated with everyones general dismissal of everything because of one event.

I'm a big fan of meditate in the board. My 4th one never left it. I wasn't very hot on twincast to begin with, so it was an easy choice for me. Would gro be easier to beat if we changed our play style against it than trying to board against it? I know I'm used to sitting back and winning when I need to with this. What happens if we take advantage of that they're working in our direction and just brain freeze with storm about 5 once or twice instead of just trying to "win now" because we are forced to. That means that we can take advantage of their card drawing more and play more like a "true" combo deck. We know that the tools are already there to beat most of the rest of the field, why not them too?

-BK-

11-29-2005, 04:35 PM

I had an idea for a card you could perhaps play in the solidarity wishboard.
I thought of wishing for " keep watch". It's a 3 mana instant and it draws a card for each creature attacking you. I thought of perhaps waiting against aggro decks until they've declared attackers. Then their creatures are attacking. So you could start the combo before the damage goes an the stack and there would be a very powerfull drawspell in your sideboard waiting to be wished for.
Against goblins I if they attack you with perhaps 5-6 little green men this is a real good alternative to moving a meditate into the board.
and I say they will attack you with all their creatures because they dont think that you might play such a crappy card.
(if my idea is bad please dont be angry on me, because this is my first post at the source.)

Slay

11-29-2005, 07:06 PM

It's a bad idea simply because it's far too situational. Gro is perhaps the greatest problem for this deck, and it will attack with 2 creatures max. Most aggro-control decks will do the same. And if you took Meditate out of the sideboard for that card, when you need to wish for a draw spell you're going to have to get Stroke and spend a lot more mana.

Basically, Goblins has to attack with more than 4 creatures for it to be a better Meditate. Other than that, it's inferior.
-Slay

anonymos

11-30-2005, 06:21 PM

Has anyone else been considering using Three Wishes as a backup/substitute for Meditate?

here's the oracle text:Remove the top three cards of your library from the game face down. You may look at those cards as long as they remain removed from the game. Until your next upkeep, you may play those cards. At the beginning of your next upkeep, put any of those cards not played into your graveyard.

So it allows us to dig for three without losing a turn. Against all of the goblins, that's good. You can cast it in response to hymn and be able to start going off. You may not be able to finish it right there, but you don't lose your next turn to the attempt. That stops them from raping your hand and mana base when you time walk them with meditate. It has an odd synergy with Flash of Insight.

Good sides to Meditate: 4 cards IN HAND instead of 3 removed from game and then in graveyard.

:blues:

-BK-

12-01-2005, 08:15 AM

In my oppinion 3 wishes is a good card, but no as good as meditate. meditate simply gets one more card advantage.
But I think that 3 wishes should be tested, but i don't know what I should take out of the deck, to make space for the 3 wishes.

Ewokslayer

12-01-2005, 08:39 AM

Three Wishes has been tested. It Proved Sub-par at the time.
Its problem is fairly simple. You can never really use it before you are comboing off because you can't keep the cards.
With Meditate you can just cast it for cards against certain decks or in certain situations.
And the one card difference is significant.
As is the fact that you can't use any of those cards to pitch to Force of Will

rleidle

12-02-2005, 12:41 PM

it seems like three wishes in the sideboard would be good because then it would allow you to play 4 meditate main.

Lego

12-16-2005, 10:23 AM

I just moved Meditate to the side because I've been finding so often that I want to Wish for a draw card mid-combo, and Stroke of Genius just doesn't do that for me. Three Wishes seems almost as good mid-combo, although those cards can't be pitched to Force, and you do lose one card, which could be big. That being said, do you think it is worth it for the fact that you get to keep 4 Meditates main?

dontbiteitholmes

12-20-2005, 01:27 PM

A sample sideboard with red splash:
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Hydroblast
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Volcanic Island
Just so you know in solidarity Pyro/hydroblasts>>>>>>>REB/BEB because you can target a non-red/blue card with the ice age one and get your storm count up. The ONLY downside would be if someone was to Misdirect it to something you didn't want it to target which is unlikely and would also increase the storm count for you if you chose to go off that turn.

Lego

12-21-2005, 08:40 AM

Since I've found my last three resets, I've been running this deck againt the gauntlet, and feel pretty good about playing it. Except, I've never tested the mirror. I've run it a couple of times, and it just seems crazy, I have no idea how to play it.

With an exact 75 card list, it seems like I would never, ever want to go off. I wouldn't really know how/when to stack things, and how exactly I would be winning. I guess if you go off on your opponents turn, it takes away their Resets, and you're not worried about Force, but they've got Flash of Insign to stop you mid Brain Freeze, plus when you get a high enough storm (and keep in mind that you're drawing a lot as well, so they don't need a storm as high as you do) they can just Freeze you. But with so much turn skipping due to Meditate, it seems like Words of Wisdom might be needed, except that when storm gets high enough, every cantrip becomes dangerous, as they can Brain Freeze in response. I just don't understand!!

Can someone give me some advice? Absolutely anything would be helpful, because I have no idea how to even begin to approach this.

Luckily, it's not a match I've ever had to play in a tournament.

Lukas Preuss

12-21-2005, 01:13 PM

Well, David Gearhart answered that question already:

Solidarity Mirror usually comes down to who has the most experience. The easiest thing to liken it to is a Mexican Standoff. The first guy to blink is the dead one, unless, the guy who blinks can support the blinkage. See? Kind of confusing. (If you don't know what a Mexican Standoff is.....for shame) By the way, the Solidarity mirror match will frequently take 1 1/2 to 3 hours.

I haven't been able to test the mirror alot, but I've tested Solidarity against Spring Tide (which is much easier). You basically wait until they cast their High Tide(s) and than you try to combo in response to one of their crucial spells.
I'm running two Twincasts in the Sideboard and have thought about bringing them in against the mirror (boarding out Resets). In this case, I would try to go off with one of their Resets on the stack, so I could Twincast it over and over again. I still have to test this, though.

One last thing I wanted to say: Peek is just nuts. I was running two Peeks in my deck at GP Lille and I absolutely loved them every time I saw them. They're great against Threshold, Control and the mirror...

Lego

12-21-2005, 11:05 PM

Right, so that doesn't help much ;) I think what I got from that is that you don't want to try to go off first, unless you've got a killer hand. Basically I just don't ever want to have to play it. I suck at this deck :) Much time is needed to learn :)

Did you say you try to go off when Spring Tide's Resets are on the stack? I'm going to assume you mean Solidarity and I just read that wrong. Seems like a good idea, that or going off with Meditate on the stack, drawin' lots of cards is good. But it seems crazy to cast High Tides and up the storm so much, although I guess if you cast a couple Meditates they'll lose first, even if they Brain Freeze (unless they have the words of Wisdom, but you can Brain Freeze in response)... that just works me into the conundrum of, um, I suck at this game.

Lukas Preuss

12-22-2005, 11:45 AM

I was talking about Solidarity when I mentioned Reset. :)

Much time is needed to learn
Yeah, right.. but it's worth the effort... :;):

Lego

12-23-2005, 01:13 AM

Much time is needed to learn
Yeah, right.. but it's worth the effort... :;):
Is it? I don't think I'll ever have to run the mirror in tournament play. Or did I mean much time is needed to learn to play the deck in general? Because that's worth it :)

My Name Is Scott

12-25-2005, 06:42 PM

Btw, this is what the new build can fight through.
http://x12.putfile.com/12/35817402767.jpg
This is deep6er peeking at madzur's hand. 4 forces, 3 counterspells, and a sea drake. Remand=awesome. Peek=awesome. Both players=savage cheaters.

Is it? I don't think I'll ever have to run the mirror in tournament play. Or did I mean much time is needed to learn to play the deck in general? Because that's worth it :)
A little of both, actually. If you play the deck, you're going to have to play the mirror eventually. You have to learn all the tricks as well.

AngryTroll

12-25-2005, 10:49 PM

AnwarA101

12-25-2005, 11:40 PM

How on earth do you go off through that? Did Madzur have the mana to cast half of those counters? I have seen storm combo (TJS a couple times, and Solidarity a couple times) go off through two or three counters, but 4? Or more then that with islands untapped? I know it can happen, but it usually involves quite a story.

To make a relevent point, what is the referred-to new build?

How bad of a matchup is threshold, really? Mage, Force, and Daze all serve for countermagic, and the deck still manages to put on some pressure. However, they only pack 2-3 Counterspells and 4 Force, along with Daze, which can be played around. Mage seems like it could be the biggest problem.
I think MadZur ended up casting 4 of his counterspells. I think that game is the exception to the rule. Though Solidarity might be able to win games against hands like that most of the time it will just lose.

The matchup is quite bad. You are trapped by the countermagic and the Werebear/Mongoose that is beating you down. You don't have the option of waiting against control nor the option of going off as soon as possible against aggro. The worst of the both worlds. But I don't think this is anything new. Isn't it well established that Gro is very good against combo and Solidarity is no exception.

Lukas Preuss

12-26-2005, 10:14 AM

I think MadZur ended up casting 4 of his counterspells. I think that game is the exception to the rule. Though Solidarity might be able to win games against hands like that most of the time it will just lose.

But the great thing about Solidarity is, that it doesn't lose all the time, whereas every other combo deck just scoops to a hand like that. :) If you really wanted to play combo in a control oriented meta, Solidarity would be your pick, because all the other combo decks are significantly worse against control (there might be a few combo decks that are not as bad, but I think you know what I'm talking about).

Lego

12-26-2005, 07:21 PM

(there might be a few combo decks that are not as bad, but I think you know what I'm talking about).
You're talking about that amazing Ninja Gaiden list that's floating around, aren't you? (Just kidding)

What is the new list, anyway? I see that people have begun to include Peek, which is awesome, but otherwise, what are people playing these days? I assume no huge innovations have been made that I missed out on, but I'm still playing Deep6er's old list from quite some time ago. Pre-GP Philly at the very least.

Deep6er

12-28-2005, 05:24 PM

Just a couple of things to note here. MadZur had the ability to play 5 counterspells. 3 Counterspells and 2 Forces (by pitching the other Forces) and he had a Thresh'ed Mongoose in play with me at 6. Dear Jesus, I must be some kind of good at this game. :)

Anyway, on to the new list. I was actually waiting to spring this for the Dual for Duals but there is a very slim possibility that I won't be playing Solidarity because of the ridiculously huge presence of Threshold. Although, to be fair, not many Threshold players know exactly how to beat Solidarity and me being rather good with the deck is another disadvantage they have. So, it could go either way.

4 High Tide
2 Peek
2 Opt
4 Brainstorm
2 Brain Freeze
4 Reset
4 Impulse
4 Remand
1 Twincast
3 Cunning Wish
3 Meditate
3 Turnabout
4 Force of Will
2 Flash of Insight

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
12 Island

Sideboard
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Meditate
1 Twincast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Evacuation
4 Hydroblast
4 Disrupt (Probably going to change)

Remand is strong but hasn't been fully tested. However, Remanding your own Freeze proves to be absolutely ridiculous. Once again, the Twincast in the board is for SIDEBOARDING NOT FOR WISHING! Too many people are under the assumption that because it's a one of in the board means you wish for it. That is simply not true, in this situation, you board it in for control and Threshold. The Disrupt in the board proves to be amazing against faster combo decks, but dismal against Threshold and thus should probably change. Whenever I have a concrete plan for Threshold I'll give you guys the lowdown.

Lukas Preuss

12-30-2005, 09:45 AM

Pyrokinesis

01-01-2006, 01:40 PM

That would be way, way too inconsistent. Yes, it's ridiculous, but.. yeah. Reeeeally inconsistent. Until you play that any sorcery spell you draw is going to be a dead card... although I suppose they could be used for hand-sculpting and whatnot. Drawing Diminishing Returns right after Black.dec has eviscerated your hand (Or a failed early combo attempt v. Gro) would be nice...

Inconsistency. Argh.

Lukas Preuss

01-01-2006, 05:44 PM

Well, I would not run four Diminishing Returns in the maindeck... maybe only one or two... this way, you would only draw them when going off and after you already played one of these new spells from Quildpact. Actually, I don't really know how good it would be, but I think it's worth testing.

AnwarA101

01-01-2006, 10:48 PM

I just found an interesting card in the Guildpact Spoiler over on MTG Salvation:

Quicken U
Instant
The next sorcery spell you play this turn can be played any time any time you could play an instant.
Draw a card.

This might be very interesting, since it could make cards like Diminishing Returns, Ideas Unbound, or Merchant Scroll playable for Solidarity... Oh, and you get to draw a card... seems pretty awesome. :)
Are you really willing to play sorceries in a deck that operates at instant speed? That means if you draw a sorcery before you draw your Quicken you will draw a dead card. That makes it much more likely that you will fizzle because you are drawing dead.

If you want to play sorceries in Solidarity play Spring Tide it makes so much more sense.

Lego

01-01-2006, 11:47 PM

I agree that it wouldn't be good to put in possibly dead cards. Quicken would have to be a 4 of, and would have to replace one of the more effective one mana cantrips. If Cunning Wish could grab sorceries, this could possibly replace one of the 1 mana cantrips, but that's simply not the case.

@ Deep6er, props on the Remand -> Brain Freeze play, it's just killer.

MattH

01-02-2006, 03:18 PM

@ Deep6er, props on the Remand -> Brain Freeze play, it's just killer.
Yeah, no one was thinking of that over a month ago. (http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=21129.msg389582#msg389582)

In other news, if you're going to Quicken something, the #1 choice has got to be Merchant Scroll, since it can be cast at normal speed as a setup card (doesn't REQUIRE Quicken).

The best Threshold plan might be to play Mind Harness and turn the tables, especially since StP is the first thing they'll side out (so they'll have to block your Werebear to remove it, getting you a 2-for-1 [and that's two juicy threat cards, not two random cantrips or lands]) and you probably have an even easier time hitting threshold than they do, what with cantrips+fetches+a small Brain Freeze on your own library. Don't be locked into thinking that all 15 cards have to be wishable! It can also buy some time against Goblins if it comes to that.

The biggest downside of that plan is that it does nothing to stop their biggest threat, Meddling Mage. Submerge might be better for that.

Lego

01-03-2006, 01:16 AM

Sorry, I don't read anything but the Source. It's part of my belief that the Source is the only existing Legacy forum. Showing me other Legacy forums won't cange that belief.

Have you tested Mind Harness? Thresh is the only reason I'm not playing this deck right now (and I just got the Resets too *cry*)

gnurbel2000

01-06-2006, 07:08 PM

[color=#000000:post_uid1]Did anyone tried Grip of Amnesia for the Threshold matchup?
It replaces itself and can set them back from Threshold for about 2 turns or it counters one for their critters. If they didn't drop a Meddling Mage naming High Tide it can be enough time to win befor they kill you.

P.S.: Hallo :;):[/color:post_uid1]

GAUDARD

01-12-2006, 09:34 PM

...

Remand is strong but hasn't been fully tested. However, Remanding your own Freeze proves to be absolutely ridiculous. Once again, the Twincast in the board is for SIDEBOARDING NOT FOR WISHING! Too many people are under the assumption that because it's a one of in the board means you wish for it. That is simply not true, in this situation, you board it in for control and Threshold. The Disrupt in the board proves to be amazing against faster combo decks, but dismal against Threshold and thus should probably change. Whenever I have a concrete plan for Threshold I'll give you guys the lowdown.

I played with Remand tonight, it seemed pritty good. It's good for tempo, because you counter their turn 2 or 3 play and it puts you a turn a head basicly...

As for what would help the threshold matchup... no idea. Splash white for Chant... I played against it tonight, while it didn't seem like it was an easy matchup, it didn't seem to be that bad. Daze can be played around, and peak is quite helpful :-) Remanding their counterspells doesn't seem very good though. Maybe Gainsay?

PTBNL

01-18-2006, 05:17 AM

Lukas Preuss

01-18-2006, 11:29 AM

I've mentioned this before... how about splashing red to help with the Threshold matchup? Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast efficiently answer most of the problem cards of Threshold: Meddling Mage, Force of Will, Counterspell.

Well, people don't want to splash anything, because one of the deck's major strengths is that Wasteland is not an issue, at all. You are dependant on your lands, since they are your only mana source. You don't want to lose to Wastelands.
FoW and Counterspell are not the problem for Solidarity. The deck can play around those pretty easily.

Gro's strength against Solidarity is its fast clock, combined with counterspells. I thought about trying 3 or 4 Snap in the Sideboard, since it deals with everything except Mongoose and buys you some time. It can also be useful when comboing, since it untaps your lands. I haven't tested it yet, but I think people should look at the options they have in mono colored Solidarity first before splashing a color.

Lego

01-18-2006, 01:14 PM

Repeal might be an option.

Repeal -XU
Instant
Return target nonland permanent with converted mana cost X to its owners hand.
Draw a card.

I don't think it's as strong as Snap, but like I said, it's an option.

Ewokslayer

01-18-2006, 01:25 PM

Lukas Preuss

01-18-2006, 02:15 PM

Well, I thought about Snap, because it could get that one annoying Meddling Mage set for High Tide out of the way, that's hindering you from going off through their disruption.

Snap is great, because after that, while comboing, you can use it to bounce werebears, etc. just to generate mana.

But, of course, it's not a great solution. After all, Aggro-Control is supposed to be combo's bad matchup. This deck will always have its good and bad matchups and Threshold is always going to be one of its worse matchups, the way I see it. :?

Lego

01-18-2006, 03:44 PM

Threshold is always going to be one of its worse matchups

And that's sad, because Threshold is big right now. I suppose we just shelve Solidarity for a few months until the metagame changes.

@ Repeal: I didn't say it was good I was just throwing it out there :)

AnwarA101

01-18-2006, 03:45 PM

That is an X in the mana cost. As in you have to pay an amount of mana equal to what you want to bounce PLUS one. Paying three mana to bounce a werebear or a mage doesn't seem so hot. Just because an instant has the words draw a card in its text box doesn't mean it is playable in Solidarity. At least Snap generates mana.

Though really, bouncing there threats for a turn as a way to win the Gro matchup seems sub-par.

If you were going to pay 3 mana to bounce a werebear or a mage why wouldn't you just pay 3 mana to kill it with Psionic Blast. Psi Blast at least kills threats which in theory should buy you more time. The problem here is that Mongoose can't be targeted.

PTBNL

01-18-2006, 04:43 PM

Well, people don't want to splash anything, because one of the deck's major strengths is that Wasteland is not an issue, at all. You are dependant on your lands, since they are your only mana source. You don't want to lose to Wastelands.
FoW and Counterspell are not the problem for Solidarity. The deck can play around those pretty easily.

Gro's strength against Solidarity is its fast clock, combined with counterspells. I thought about trying 3 or 4 Snap in the Sideboard, since it deals with everything except Mongoose and buys you some time. It can also be useful when comboing, since it untaps your lands. I haven't tested it yet, but I think people should look at the options they have in mono colored Solidarity first before splashing a color.

We should be looking for options everywhere, not just mono color or splash. Test Snap, test REB, test everything.

I think fetchlands allow us to splash and avoid Wasteland pretty well. All we need is 1-2 duals in the sideboard or maindeck. Also, Threshold normally doesn't play Wasteland.

Since Threshold has a fast clock, FOW and Counterspell are definately big obstacles to us. We don't have the luxury of having ten lands in play and sculpting the perfect hand to play around the countermagic, in which case the card disadvantage of FOW and the mana cost of Cunning Wish become a real issue. REB is a one-mana catch-all solution to all the maindeck obstacles of Threshold. Also, having REB in the sideboard means that we can wish for it to answer Meddling Mage in Game 1.

Besides, REB not only helps with Threshold but also Landstill, Fish, Donate, FlameVault UR, mirror match, etc

Lego

01-18-2006, 04:45 PM

If you were going to pay 3 mana to bounce a werebear or a mage why wouldn't you just pay 3 mana to kill it with Psionic Blast.

So you can draw a card? They're both pretty suboptimal.

Lukas Preuss

01-19-2006, 01:10 PM

Threshold normally doesn't play Wasteland.

Yeah. Right. But I don't actually plan on weakening all the other matchups, just to get a little bonus against Threshold. This would be rather stupid.
Besides, with the emergance of Threshold as a DTB, every deck that is able to afford Wastelands should be running them. And since the metagame is not 100 percent Threshold, Wasteland would be a serious issue to a deck like this, that relies on its lands to go off.

Lego

01-19-2006, 06:01 PM

Not that it matters too much, but some Threshold decks are running Wasteland in the side, mostly for the mirror. I'm not saying it would be a good idea to side them in just for Solidarity, but it's still a possibility.

Right now one of the very reasons to run this deck is that it can't lose to Wasteland, period. That's a big strength, and I would need to see some real power to change that, not just narrow (or even broad) answers.

sporkcore

01-20-2006, 01:52 AM

Threshold seems like a reason to put Hibernation or Evacuation in the board as a wish target. Both can throw them back a turn or two as they have to recast the creatures and then wait for them to no longer have summoning sickness. Maybe put one of those in a BEB spot as it seems that 5-7 Blasts could be enough.

Burnout

01-22-2006, 08:30 AM

Hello!

What do u all think about "QUICKEN"?
[Quicken; Instant; U; The next sorcery spell you play this turn can be played any time you could play an instant.
Draw a card.]

This is the optimal card. Now ist possible to play cards which make the sorcery speed version good. Like "Ideas Unbound", and "Merchant Scroll"...

I suggest: -4x Opt and +4x Quicken, this seams a fair deal!
and +2x Merchant Scroll +2x Ideas Unbound ore something like that

with Merchant Scroll, Solidarity builds becomes a constantly 3rd turn killer! Because you can play it in the second turn for fetching an High Tide or the missig Combo Part (which is in 90% High Tide) and if you draw Merchant Scroll in Combo it is everything you need... ;-D

This is something that needs to be tested... but what do you all think about this card? And are there any other good sorcery cards that would fit into solidarity?

regards
Burnout

Lego

01-22-2006, 01:18 PM

Quicken was discussed a few pages back. Basically what was mentioned is that it makes the deck inconsistant, and if you want to play Sorceries, you can simply play Spring Tide. I'll quote what was said by Anwar a fiew pages back.

Are you really willing to play sorceries in a deck that operates at instant speed? That means if you draw a sorcery before you draw your Quicken you will draw a dead card. That makes it much more likely that you will fizzle because you are drawing dead.

If you want to play sorceries in Solidarity play Spring Tide it makes so much more sense.

EDIT: I like using Quicken for Merchant Scroll much more than for Diminishing Returns, because Merchant Scroll can be used to set up, but I think it would need testing, because dead cards are not fun.

Lukas Preuss

01-22-2006, 04:36 PM

it makes the deck inconsistant

This is not true. Test it. With Merchant Scroll you can go off (way) more consistantly on turn 4. Quicken would just be in the deck to make sure that Scroll is not dead during the combo.

I'm not sure, if people should run it though, but you guys should definitely test it.

Slay

01-28-2006, 02:04 PM

Burnout

01-29-2006, 03:28 AM

What do you guys think about including Izzet Guildmage in the sideboard as a 3-of? The ability to go infinite is amazingly powerful, and having it come in after your opponent sides out all their critter removal makes it much better than it normally would be. It also allows you to combo out around counterspells much easier.
-Slay
the Guildmage seems to be very good but only in the Sorcery speed version! Because when you will get hin during the combo you can't play it. Its only a dead card in your hand! Solidarity has Twincast thats enough!

I've tested 2x Merchant Scroll with 4x Quicken. It is really amazing! ;-D

Lukas Preuss

01-29-2006, 04:58 AM

What do you guys think about including Izzet Guildmage in the sideboard as a 3-of? The ability to go infinite is amazingly powerful, and having it come in after your opponent sides out all their critter removal makes it much better than it normally would be. It also allows you to combo out around counterspells much easier.
-Slay

I don't think the Izzet Guildmage belongs in this deck. Sure, it gives you the possibility to go infinite, but I never missed that possibility, so I don't really see why it's needed.
Apart from that, it doesn't really help any of your bad matchups... why would you have this card in your sideboard over other, more useful cards? Against what matchups would you bring it in? What would you take out? To me it just seems like a win-more card...

Slay

01-29-2006, 12:24 PM

I don't think the Izzet Guildmage belongs in this deck. Sure, it gives you the possibility to go infinite, but I never missed that possibility, so I don't really see why it's needed.
Apart from that, it doesn't really help any of your bad matchups... why would you have this card in your sideboard over other, more useful cards? Against what matchups would you bring it in? What would you take out? To me it just seems like a win-more card...

The point is that going infinite is an automatic win, even against bad matchups like Gro. I'd take out some random draw spells to put the Guildmage in. And it does help your bad matchups, a billion times over. A High Tide with this and 5-6 lands in play means you can easily weave around counterspells as you always have the threat of going infinite. Against Gro there's never any such thing as a win-more card.
-Slay

disrupted

01-29-2006, 08:33 PM

I am appreciating the sideboard discussion on this thread.

I usually run Chain of Vapor, Echoing truth, and Rushing river in the side to get around CoTV and all of these seem to buy time against Fast aggro/Thresh.I have also been running 1 Hibernation in side.

A fellow High Tide player was remarking to me Fri. night about the power of snap in older builds to deal with aggro threats and I think playtesting with it in the side will follow for me.

I am interested to know what cards you all would side out VS Goblins for 6 BEB effects. And also what you would side out VS R/G Zoo style decks for 4-6 BEB effects.

My problem with R/G zoo is their ability to resolve a Pyro Pillar and back it up next turn with a REB this is game for me. I need the Blasts but always feel unceratin about the cards to take out. I lean tword the higher CC spells as the R/G aggro clock is so fast and they have so much anti blue disruption after side.

Lego

01-29-2006, 09:08 PM

Snap also has the added benefit of being able to take care of Meddling Mages, which is one of the reasons Spring Tide has such a better matchup against Gro. It can also go off sooner, which helps.

Zilla

01-29-2006, 09:35 PM

Snap also has the added benefit of being able to take care of Meddling Mages, which is one of the reasons Spring Tide has such a better matchup against Gro. It can also go off sooner, which helps.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Snap your unly untap effect? Why not just name Snap with the first Mage?

Lego

01-29-2006, 11:53 PM

Snap, Cloud of Faeries, and Turnabout are the untap effects. The first Meddling Mage probably should name Snap, as long as you have another. Then it should name High Tide. Unless there's a danger of them going off immediately and you need to stop that. The real problem card, obviously, is High Tide, but the good thing about the Spring Tide build is that they basically play twice as many Tides (Merchant Scroll) and twice as many Meditates (Ideas Unbound) so it's usually easy to fight through counters.

The other thing that Spring Tide can do against Gro, assuming the "Go off really easy" plan doesn't work is stall the game long enough to draw out all the counters, deprive the opponent of a hand, and then go off at leisure. I've done this several times as well, and while I prefer the going off quickly route, this is a viable option (although not so much against the Red splash).

Incidentally, why are we talking about Gro and Spring Tide on the Solidarity thread?

FRM

02-06-2006, 11:27 AM

Congratulations to deep6er for the victory in the duel for duals :)
David, i'd like to ask how did you find your winning build: are 4 remand as useful as we thought? Were disrupt a suboptimal choice? (and by consequence, are 4 blast enough to compete against goblins?). Why the lone twincast instead of say, opt? Isn't this combination a bit more "casual" than, for example 3 opt? Speak to us, we're avid of info ;)

Eldariel

02-06-2006, 12:43 PM

Meh, I'd figure that 9 ways to stop counters is better than 8, especially as those spells also help the combo plan. Twincast used to be a 3-of, but Remand took some of the places. With Remand, the deck also has a nice way to counter-stall the opponent in addition to being strong when going off. Twincast can be used to counter counters and it's great with just about any spell in the deck. But yea, I'll shut up now as I'm sure, David himself will explain it all in great detail.

Lukas Preuss

02-06-2006, 03:16 PM

Congratualtions, Dave!
Way to show all those people that Solidarity is not as dead as they thought. ;)

I can't wait to hear from you about the tournament and your winning deck. :)

Edit 1: Btw, SCG have the top 16 lists online, so here's a link to David's build:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=15651

Edit 2: I think the most interesting thing about his list is his Sideboard. Only 4 Blasts against Goblins (and he still wins agaist the little green men in the Top 2...), 4 Disrupt, and no Words of Wisdom. I always thought those were quite important for the instant kill...

Anusien

02-06-2006, 06:28 PM

Nah, for the instant kill he still has Wish for Stroke. He only had to go off facing down lethal damage against WW and he turnabouted the guys and let the rule of law resolve. Don't forget Stroke is only 2 mana more for the instant kill, plus it's useful while going off.

Lego

02-06-2006, 07:14 PM

Congrats Dave!! I'm excited that someone has shown that this is still a viable deck (although I've got to stick to Spring Tide for now) by winning a large tournament. I'm kind of dissapointed in the amount of Goblins we had, but Enchantress making a showing is awesome!

I always thought the Words of Wisdom was a useless slot with the Stroke already there. I actually love the board, but do you find Chain of Vapor is needed when you've got Echoing Truth there already?

You went down to 2 Brain Freeze in the main, and none in the Side, has that been okay for you?

And lastly, have you considered (or tested) Quicken/Merchant Scroll?

Lukas Preuss

02-07-2006, 08:14 AM

You went down to 2 Brain Freeze in the main, and none in the Side, has that been okay for you?

I guess, it should be enough, since you can Remand your Freezes to get the same effect. In this case, Remands count as additional Brain Freezes that cantrip, as well. :)

I'm very curios on how the Goblin match went. He was only running 4 Blasts in the sideboard, something that most people wouldn't dare to bring to a tournament with Goblins all over the place. :) Did the Remands make your Goblin matchup better? I can imagine, that they buy you quite some time before you need to go off.

Why did you play that one lonesome Twincast in the maindeck? I love that card in Solidarity and I never wanted to cut it (I love them when going off against Gro or something else with Meddling Mages - Twincast won me some games against Gro at the GP in Lille), but only one copy seemed to be a bit random. I know that you have one in the sideboard, but still...

How often did you bring in Disrupt, btw? Did you play (or even win) against Deadguy Ale/BW Confidant/Suicide/whatever?

Deep6er

02-07-2006, 06:51 PM

There are a couple of things to address here.

Subject the First: 4 Blasts against Goblins. I've tested all number of blasts and it doesn't actually matter. 4 is the EXACT same as 8. Weird, huh?

Subject the Second: Remand. Fucking insane. Using it against goblins (first game, second game you turn those into blasts) buys you a turn. Remanding YOUR OWN SPELLS in the face of counterspells is important too. The obvious Remanding freeze allows me to cut a freeze and thus have less dead cards against goblins.

Subject the Third: Quicken + Merchant Scroll. Haven't tested it yet but I'm going to later.

Subject the Fourth: Didn't play against Pikula but my testing against it (with Disrupt and Remand) proves that it's 50-50 first game and 60-40 second game (my favor).

Subject the Fifth: One Twincast. The second Twincast is to be boarded in for control and Threshold and it's there to keep the dead cards against goblins down.

Subject the Sixth: Words of Wisdom. It sucks balls. Big, hairy, monkey balls. Balls the size of something inhumanly large and probably disgusting. (Which means that the card just isn't worth the SB slot.)

Subject the Seventh: Spring Tide. Just so everyone knows, we've tested spring tide against gro and found that it sucks just as much as Solidarity against it.

Subject the Eighth: Rushing River. It sucks. Don't play it.

Subject the Ninth: Izzet Guildmage. It sucks. Don't play it.

If anyone has any questions about my reasoning, feel free to ask. Just know that I've done a shit ton of testing and I would appreciate if you could at least give me the benefit of the doubt in most situations regarding Solidarity.

Eldariel

02-07-2006, 07:09 PM

One more question: Did you play against Threshold in that tournament? Do you believe, Remand, Twincast and FoW give you enough control overall to have a realistic chance against W-base gros sporting Meddling Mage? Has Disrupt proven to be good in that MU?

EDIT: Well, I guess that's more than one question, but ones I'm intrigued by anyways. Btw, congratulations once more, and superb job bringing this deck to this point. It's one of the most elegant pieces I've ever seen.

AnwarA101

02-07-2006, 10:13 PM

SenilePack

02-07-2006, 10:16 PM

The name of the thread was most likely changed in order for people newer to the site to understand what the deck discussion was about. Again, great job David.

I was also curious as to how you personally handle the BW or mono black discard situation. Did you just get lucky, or did you set up a concrete strategy?

Zilla

02-07-2006, 11:03 PM

I was just wondering when and why the name of this thread was changed from Solidarity to Solidarity (Reset High Tide)? Just because people give Solidarity a dumb name like Reset High Tide doesn't mean that we should agree with them. We don't need to get into the naming convention, but I was still curious as to why it changed?
What SenilePack said. Dave's name still takes precedence, which is why it's not listed as Reset High Tide (Solidarity). However, we've been getting a huge influx of new members lately, and we want the site to be as accessible to new members as possible.

Raatcharch

02-08-2006, 10:48 AM

Deep6er, what do you usually take out of your maindeck in various matchups to make room for your sideboard? The maindecks is so tight, I can never figure out exactly what should and shouldn't come out in games 2 and 3 for things like Disrupt or the other Twincast.

GAUDARD

02-08-2006, 10:47 PM

Good job at the tournie.

Teen Titans has now been retired.

You don't want to have multiple chains in the board for decks that bring in teh hate? Like landstill with meddling mage or rule of law?

dontbiteitholmes

02-08-2006, 11:56 PM

Good job at the tournie.

Teen Titans has now been retired.

You don't want to have multiple chains in the board for decks that bring in teh hate? Like landstill with meddling mage or rule of law?
In these cases wouldn't Echoing Truth be better just in case they play 2.

MattH

02-09-2006, 01:43 PM

Subject the Seventh: Spring Tide. Just so everyone knows, we've tested spring tide against gro and found that it sucks just as much as Solidarity against it.
But does it suck MORE? I would dearly like to know I don't have to find Resets to play a good Tide deck.

Lukas Preuss

02-09-2006, 03:06 PM

But does it suck MORE? I would dearly like to know I don't have to find Resets to play a good Tide deck.

I guess it depends. I usually play Solidarity, Sebastian Ofner plays Spring Tide (and was the only one that made day 2 at Lille with it... unfortunately, we couldn't find a place to sleep and since I was really sick that day, we decided to drive home instead of winning the whole thing, but that's a whole different story... ;)).

We both have a positive record playing against Gro (I played 2-0 against Gro at the GP). So I guess, as long as you know what you're doing, you're good to go either way. This matchup is probably 60-40 in Gro's favour if both players are good and have tested the matchup thoroughly. But since people are idiots, it's more like 50-50 and that's not really a bad matchup.

Seriously, I made the experience, that you can beat Gro with both decks... so I'm not sure which one would be better... If you don't want to buy Resets, you should play Spring Tide, though, since Solidarity doesn't have a significantly better matchup against Gro, as far as I know. :)

Lego

02-10-2006, 01:23 AM

I'm not sure if this is the place to talk about it (although if it's not, I don't know what would be) but from my experience, Spring Tide is a better choice in our current meta. Solidarity plays slightly better against dedicated control decks, but Spring Tide is more consistant and plays about 1.5 turns faster. This makes it better against Aggro and Combo, which are much bigger in our current meta than dedicated control. Overall the matchups are pretty much the same, but I'd choose Spring Tide at this point. It's mostly up to you though.

If you can't find Resets, Spring Tide is just as viable as Solidarity.

Burnout

02-10-2006, 12:49 PM

Hello and congratulation to Deep6r!

I have a few questions:

-You have to play at least 6 spells in a turn because:
5x3+(5+3)*3=39
6*3+(6+3)*3=45
You Play that 6 spell than brain freeze remand and freeze to mill 45 cards. After that you play Cunning wish (that should normally one of the 6 spells I think) and Stroke with at least X=1.
So I count: 2(Freeze)+2(Remand)+2(Freeze)+3(Cunning Wish)+4(Stroke of Genious) that are 13 Mana only to kill your opponent without the 6 Spells…

I’ve tested Remand but it didn’t make the Deck faster its slower with a lot better Counter backup, I think that was your plan in the Black Control and Gro Meta! ????
But I cannot understand why you’ve cut the Words of wisdom? I mean it speeds a little bit up and why should you pay 4 Mana when you can pay 2 instead?

I have also a second question according to Evacuation in the Sideboard: I don’t understand this slot! Evacuation is to slow to get during a Goblin match and without High Tide it’s nearly impossible to play.
Now my question: Why do you have this in your sideboard? I mean when you can only play it with high tide it is a little bit better to kill your opponent with playing some spells and kill him with brain freeze…
I’ve heard people say that they only play Evacuation because it is the only way to bounce a Meddling mage with protection from blue… but the meddling mage always blockade the High Tide… So it is nearly impossible to play evacuation…?
When do you use this card? And why? Isn’t Turnabout cheaper and the similar solution?

Ewokslayer

02-10-2006, 01:43 PM

Some Answers to your questions.

Words of Wisdom sucks. It is a bad card that only serves one purpose. Stroke of Genius can actually be used to draw a large amount of cards. Why waste a slot on something that does almost nothing when another card can do the same thing for only 2 mana more? Especially when that 2 extra mana will rarely if ever be important.
Evacuation is in the board to bounce creatures that have protection from blue, originally that was True Believer with a Mother of Runes out.
It can also be used as a massive stall play against weenie decks. It is not designed to be used in the Goblin matchup.

FRM

02-21-2006, 08:53 AM

Did anyone thought about misdirection to help the deadguy ale matchup? i know that with duress and or cabal, odds are that we won't play the card, but almost a good half of deck's card can target the caster generating at last a 2 for 2...

Lukas Preuss

02-21-2006, 10:50 AM

Misdirection isn't that bad, but right now, I think I'd go with Disrupt, since, as you said, Misdirection can't target Duress or Therapy. It draws a card, too.

gnurbel2000

02-21-2006, 12:12 PM

Instead of Misdirection you could try to use Divert.
That way you can create some card advantage

Slay

02-21-2006, 12:17 PM

It's a good idea, but it still has the problem of being pretty bad against Duress, which is far more common than Hymn or Sinkhole, which is what I'd put it in for.

Disrupt is also good against Gro decks and such.
-Slay

Raatcharch

02-21-2006, 04:04 PM

Can someone explain to me how to sideboard with this deck? The maindeck is just so tight, I never know what to take out for Disrupt.

Also, I've done some minor testing with 4x Quicken and 2x Merchant Scroll in the main deck. I'd taken 2x Peek, 2x Opt and 2x Inpulse for these cards. The Quickens fit into the spot of the other 1cc cantrips without a problem, but finding a space for Merchant Scroll is really difficult. Impulse probably is not the correct choice, but I'm not sure what is. Has anyone else been testing this modification?

Burnout

02-22-2006, 03:26 AM

Can someone explain to me how to sideboard with this deck? The maindeck is just so tight, I never know what to take out for Disrupt.

Maindeck:
Instants
2 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
2 Flash Of Insight
4 Force Of Will
4 High Tide
4 Impulse
3 Meditate
2 Opt
2 Peek
4 Remand
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
1 Twincast

Basic Lands
12 Island

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta

Sideboard:
1 Chain Of Vapor
4 Disrupt
1 Echoing Truth
1 Evacuation
4 Hydroblast
1 Meditate
1 Stroke Of Genius
1 Turnabout
1 Twincast

I would board something like that (well it's not verry difficult, because you have only 2 diffrent cards to board in 4x Disrupt; 4x Hydroblast; 1x Twincast)
Against Gobbos you board:
-4x Remand
+4x Hydroblast

Against Pikula Deck/ Ying Yang or other Discard Engine based deck:
-2x Peek
-2x Opt
+4x Disrupt

Against Gro, Madness, Landstill:
-2x Peek
-2x Opt
-1x Brain Freeze (I suppose, the other cards are going to be needed)
+4x Disrupt
+1x Twincast

Against some other Aggro Decks:
-1x Reset
+1x Turnabout
I've found out, against MGA (Mono Green Aggro this could be very helpful)

Also, I've done some minor testing with 4x Quicken and 2x Merchant Scroll in the main deck. I'd taken 2x Peek, 2x Opt and 2x Inpulse for these cards. The Quickens fit into the spot of the other 1cc cantrips without a problem, but finding a space for Merchant Scroll is really difficult. Impulse probably is not the correct choice, but I'm not sure what is. Has anyone else been testing this modification?
I'm still testing it ;-D

Bryant Cook

02-22-2006, 09:30 AM

Lukas Preuss

02-22-2006, 10:12 AM

Against Gro, Madness, Landstill:
-2x Peek
-2x Opt
-1x Brain Freeze (I suppose, the other cards are going to be needed)
+4x Disrupt
+1x Twincast

Why would you take out Peek against Aggro-Control? This card is so amazing against Gro, I would never want to play the matchup without it.
Seriously, believe me. I've played Solidarity 2-0 against Gro at GP Lille and Peek was just amazing in these matches...

Raatcharch

02-22-2006, 11:06 AM

Why would you take out Peek against Aggro-Control? This card is so amazing against Gro, I would never want to play the matchup without it.
Seriously, believe me. I've played Solidarity 2-0 against Gro at GP Lille and Peek was just amazing in these matches...

So how do you sideboard against the gro matchup?

In response to WastedLife:

Tendrils strikes me as bad. I am making this claim without any testing to back me up, but here is my reasoning:

Tendrils makes you more succeptable to non-basic land hate. If you can only find one Underground Sea and it gets Wastelanded, or if you play both and both get Wastelanded, you simply cannot win. That doesn't seem good.

Also, I do not like the idea of Quicken being needed to win. I see Quicken/Merchant Scroll as a potentially powerful "engine" to help the deck along, but the neccessity to cast Quicken in order to go off seems like an unneccessary weakness for the deck.

Lukas Preuss

02-22-2006, 02:55 PM

So how do you sideboard against the gro matchup?

Well, first of all, I was running a list different to those with Remands and Disrupts, since I hadn't thought about that before the GP. I think my list looked something like this:

4x Reset
4x High Tide
4x Brainstorm
4x Impulse
4x Force of Will
4x Meditate
3x Opt
3x Turnabout
3x Cunning Wish
3x Brain Freeze
2x Peek
2x Flash of Insight
2x Twincast

11x Island
4x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta

Sideboard:
4x Hydroblast
2x Twincast
3x Blue Elemental Blast
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth
1x Rebuild
1x Turnabout
1x Brainfreeze

The only cards I sideboarded was one Twincast, since having three Twincasts in the maindeck is awesome against Gro. Note that David Gearhart sides his lonely Twincast in the board against Gro, as well...

Well, I don't need to mention that this list is not optimal and that Remand and Disrupt are awesome in the current metagame... I just wanted to point out, that Peek is amazing against Gro... I wouldn't side it out.

My Name Is Scott

03-01-2006, 05:21 PM

Against Gro, Madness, Landstill:
-1x Brain Freeze (I suppose, the other cards are going to be needed)

Definately don't take those out. Brainfreeze is one of the key cards in the gro matchup. With them countering your spells, brainfreeze is twice as good as it is normally. That, and it wins the game. You'd be left with only one brainfreeze in the main to dig for.

deadlock

03-02-2006, 01:09 PM

Hi there,
i am following the discusson for quit some time with great interest and now the time hast come to say some things by myself (due to the lack of posts recently^^)

About the Quicken / Scroll engine. Imo its not good for this deck for several reasons, the first thing is that scroll comes handy if you can cast it at sorcery speed in your turn, but the need to be combined with quicken in other situations makes it weak. Also I dont think its really needed, the deck has enough cantrips already and if you really want to use more i rather would use peer through depth instead of ms/quicken. (Note that both let you reaveal the choosen card, which can be a disadvantage too).

Another point is peek, i am not sure if 4xOpt could be better? Ideas?
(I ask because is see peeks value in the threshold matchup only, against nearly all other matchups i side it out after g1).

Lukas Preuss

03-02-2006, 04:40 PM

Well, I think you're right about the Qicken/Merchant Scroll engine. I came to the same conclusion after testing it extensivly during the last days. It's not bad, don't get me wrong, it's quite decent, but it doesn't actually improve any matchups...

In my meta, there's a lot of Gro decks... There's almost twice as much Gro in Western Germany than Goblins. I would never run Solidarity without Peek, since it's also good against Control like Landstill. If you don't expect to face a lot of Gro or Control, I think it's safe to run 4 Opt over 2 Peek and 2 Opt... but, as I said, right now I would not do the changes... it really depends on your meta.

Raatcharch

03-02-2006, 11:03 PM

Lukas, you quite often sing the praises of Peek. How exactly does it work to improve the Gro matchup? Is the improvement significant?

Lukas Preuss

03-03-2006, 04:41 AM

Lukas, you quite often sing the praises of Peek. How exactly does it work to improve the Gro matchup? Is the improvement significant?

It is a common misconception, that Solidarity should wait until it faces deadly damage and than goes off. Against Aggro, this is the right strategy in most cases, since you get to lay more and more lands while waiting. This means you fizzle less often. But against Gro, this can be wrong, since you want to go off when the your land/his counterspells ratio is favourable (I hope you get, what I mean, if not, ask and I will try again).

Well, when playing against Gro, you quite often find yourself wondering: "Can I go off now? How many Counterspells/FoWs does he have in his hand? Should I wait until I have more land, or is he going to draw his counterspells then? Can I go off through what he has in his hand?" In this case, it is wrong to wait until you face deadly damage, since it would give him the time to collect a bunch of Counterspells. You want to combo off at the exact right moment, when you can fight through his counters. This is where Peek is awesome, since you know exactly when you have to go off and through what kind of hand you have to fight.

Against pure Control it's kind of similar, it helps, but that matchup is favourable already.

Oh, and to answer your question: Yes, I think the improvement is significant. I have won games against Gro, because of Peek.

lillelassie

03-04-2006, 11:52 AM

Hi I'm kinda new the hold legazy-thing..

But why aren't you guys running 8 fetches in your decks?

It thins the deck and has more synergy with brainstorm + protecs your lands agaisnt sinkhole and stuff..

Is it because of the lifeloss? or because of needle?

Amon Amarth

03-08-2006, 12:06 PM

I have been thinking; is Solidarity a combo-control deck now? With the addition of four Remand, which has made this deck so much better, the deck seems to be more control oriented.

Koby

03-08-2006, 01:04 PM

I can say for sure that against black, you do not want to be caught with Fetchlands against their Pithing Needles. This is how I beat Solidarity playing Pox (nevermind the obvious good matchup for me). Pithing Needle #1 & #2 on Delta and Flooded Strand, plus Sinkholes on Islands. He also didn't have Disrupt in his SB but that's another issue.

herbig

03-09-2006, 02:42 AM

I won a tournament last weekend in Auburn with Gearhart's latest list and let me say that I'm very impressed with the way this deck has developed recently. Remand is simply amazing, and having eight maindeck counterspells is a really great feeling. I was a little hesitant cutting Words from the board but the only time I wished it was there was when I had to Stroke myself for cards and then flashback Flash to get to the Stroke for the kill. Words would have been easier but unnecessary. I kept eight blasts because, well its Auburn and I did end up playing against burn, but I don't think eight blasts is entirely necessary, just reassuring. I also kept a Brain Freeze in the board because for some reason I always seem to get extracted for it by bad players there. Anyways I just think the maindeck is pretty solid and even more fun to play with the Remand tricks. Highlight of the day: Comboing on my turn in the last round against Turboland with a Defense Grid in play. I must have reminded him three times that he had to pay more mana for his spells.

The past few weeks have seen very little discussion about the deck though, and I would like to see more thoughts on particular play styles so that people who aren't familiar with the deck can learn to play it. Basically every time Solidarity is mentioned on Starcity, The Mana Drain, and sometimes here everyone says that Deep6er is the only one who knows how to play the deck right. While I believe he is the best Solidarity player I don't think he is the only one who can pilot it correctly. But the vast majority of people who I have seen play the deck make incredible mistakes. I have beat Solidarity on workstation with Wombat. There really is no excuse for that.

So instead of constantly repeating well-worn and discarded ideas (ie splashing a color) perhaps we could look at situations, such as the above. I knew he had a Force to back up his Defense grid so I Forced pitching Reset instead of any of the other most likely candidates. I even had Cunning Wish in my hand to deal with the grid if I wanted to but since the game had gone on long enough I had enough land to kill on my own turn. Do others think this would be the right play?