AK is a very fine card in a vacuum but as you said the pb lies within "how to fit it in".
There are two very distinct periods in any Solidarity games:
1) the first period is sculpting your hand and making land drops
2) the second one is the combo turn
- During phase 1 (which can be long or short), Impulse seems to be better (not saying "is" better because it's my point of view) at finding what you need; be it lands or combo pieces. The more that setup phase lasts the less impulse is better than AK in a vacuum, ofc.
- During phase 2 (the combo turn), Meditate seems to be better (blablaba) at empowering your combo wheels. My rational would definitely check the mana spent per card drawn. Meditate wins hand down easily, not to mention the need of finding multiple AK just to match Meditate's effect.
To conclude, I would say that to make AK good enough for Solidarity, I feel you need to wrap your deck around it (intuition for example) and that is not a path I would take.
But, as usual, this is only from a theorical point of view and only tests will tell whether I am right or wrong.
Ralf
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
Accumulated knowledge could be good, but i think for draw power, i'd rather have meditate. It requires less setup, and is a known quantity (as in i'll always draw 4, instead of possibly 2-3). I had one test version that did 4 thought scour and 4 accumulated knowledge with flash of insight. It was, i think quite a lot of work actually combo-ing out, as stacking the deck requires not just counting mana, but counting how deep each AK/thought scour draws into the next mana, wish, draw. You can cobble together AK+TS as a 3 mana (2 card) dig 2 and draw 3+ cards (and milling 2 unnecessary lands/an AK) with flash of insight, so that's pretty cool. But i think for the sake of my sanity, it was way too much work for not enough payoff (as in i needed to storm up to like 6+, mill myself about 20+ cards, then flash FoI to stack my deck perfectly, then continue, hopefully having milled, and not exiled my AKs just to get myself up to enough storm to BF my opponent).
Also, if this is your way forward, you might wanna look at visions of beyond. I hear that ancestral recall is pretty good. That being said, it is probably a trap. for me, it's a win-more almost every time it's been relevant (i.e. if i have that many cards in my graveyard, i've already won... unless if I'm playing the mirror), and completely irrelevant (worse than even peek and opt) before you get there.
Three wishes, on the other hand, is a card i'm now experimenting with. 3 mana 'draw' 3:
1. allows me to have more 'pure-draw-spells' in the 75 (everything else in the deck is just card selection, not draw, which can be problematic in tempo games)
2. doesn't 'draw' (gets around leovold, notion thief, whatever that 2-drop in DnT is called)
3. says 'play cards'; so lands are still playable
4. doesn't skip my next turn (relevant especially against some aggro/counter-tempo/fast stompy decks)
5. against players who haven't seen this yet, it's great watching them 'play around' it, and essentially giving me a time walk.
Basically, i'm working out the cost-benefit of meditate/three wishes + 4 flusterstorm in the 75 instead of my current meditate only + 2 FS + 3 disrupt. Currently testing 3 meditate/2 three wishes, 3 FS, 4FoW main, 1/1 and 1 FS on the side.
In testing, disrupt has been great against counter-aggro decks, since it draws me back 1 card (so they drain their hand, mine's still pretty intact). Problem is that i can't disrupt dudes (sometimes, a delver/ just needs to go), and it's VERY limited to early-game. also, not being able to afford a skipped turn (untap and land-drop) is kinda bad against aggro decks. Being able to field 3 flusterstorm main has been quite good. it hits more things, and the best is that it's still active under a chalice. I've also seen a few builds that use spell pierce, but considering how easy it is for us to build a gigantic stack just for fun, i think flusterstorm is simply better.
Against non-aggro/quick decks, being able to FS random cards here and there is brilliant (sometimes, i gotta impulse/wish just to pump storm a bit). each one especially early game is like a time walk, especially if I'm keeping their clock on near-0.
Three wishes makes me have to re-assess how i play though, which isn't very good, and it does draw me 1 less than meditate which IS relevant. So the question i've been wrangling with is whether or not its use pre-combo is better than the cost mid-combo.
Another extremely 'cute' card tech is dominate (x1uu instant, gain control of target creature with cmc x or less). Ever face-down dark depths/lands that had a quick marit lage? Or hell even a scarily big endless one? it's quite good, actually. you don't even need to properly 'go off' - wish dominate a death's shadow, or even a goyf just to delay the game (or swing back for the win). I'm not sure if it's actually effective enough/does enough against problematic matchups though. That way, you can even 'store' them in your graveyard just to go off again with mission briefing/SCM.
Anyways, recent tests says that jace brainstorm is the best way to kill JTMS decks. gives that smug PW something to really think about.
So in the last local I went to, went 0-4, 1-2 against miracles (I think the guy luck-drew like 3-4 pyroblast every game), 1-2 stoneblade, 1-2 deaths shadow, 0-2 goblins.
Sideboard needs some serious reworking. It always felt like I tried to go off one turn too late. Growth spiral has been good to great. I felt like my build is too greedy though. I think I need my opts back; if I had more 1mana cantrips, it’d let me go off+dig without running out of mana early on.
I’m not sure I’d snap/snapcaster has been better than mission briefing. Being able to force pitch from the graveyard from mission hadn’t been relevant a single time.
I think siding out 1 high tide isn’t right. In combo, I think the correct thing to do is to always be the one doing stuff, not having to constantly try to play around stuff. And leaving only 3 copies of a critical combo piece seems weird. That being said, I’m not even sure any opponent of mine had surgical - so maybe that’s something to consider.
I’m not sure if my disruption suite is good enough. 4 force, 2 fluster. Going forward, I’m thinking of going 1/3 mission/snapcaster, and finding space for 1-3 memory lapse/remand. Bouncing a spell is great, time-walking them is possibly even better. Saving a high tide or critical piece mid combo is a slight sweetener.
My side was the following:
2 surgical
1 three wishes
1 snap
1 growth spiral
1 brain freeze
2 flusterstorm
1 unsubstantiate
1 blue sun zenith
1 dominate (a for funsies, off-chance nick a marit lage that I should take out)
1 evacuate
2 echoing truth
1 ravenous trap
Aside from the dominate, I’m not sure where to go with the side. More disruption seems good.
I’ve also been considering going for the “no change”, but pretend that I’m putting in like 8+ cards. Not sure how to make the deck go off faster more consistently to make that more possible.
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
Sure;
4 high tide
4 reset
4 meditate
4 impulse
4 force of will
4 brainstorm
3 snapcaster mage
3 mission briefing
3 growth spiral
3 cunning wish
2 snap
1 brain freeze
2 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
2 misty rainforest
1 scalding tarn
2 breeding pool
12 snow-covered island
Side:
2 surgical
1 three wishes
1 snap
1 growth spiral
1 brain freeze
2 flusterstorm
1 unsubstantiate
1 blue sun zenith
1 dominate
1 evacuate
2 echoing truth
1 ravenous trap
That’s about right, I think. I’m thinking that going forwards, I should be going for more disruption, less flash-backing, and more lower cmc-digging (opts/peeks).
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
Did you identify why you lost ?
Each time you ended up like 1-2 (except gobelin) was it close ?
I believe you need to play 3 Tropical/Breeding pool to sustain 3 growth as, during my test, having access to 12 green was relevant instead of 11 (9 fetches included) because too many times, I ended up with Growth in hand without access to green mana (when I was testing with only 2 trop).
Also you need 3+ flusterstorm between main and side. You can't expect to win a counterwar post side against blue decks without those.
Finally, one reason to add green to the deck is to play Hunting pack. This card is real as you can catch many blue decks post side who have cut all their removal (and it is very good against aggro decks in a vacuum).
It also emphasis why you don't need a kill condition MD:
1) You don't know what you are playing against so you don't know what is going to be your kill condition and amongst the hundred games I have with the green splash, 75 % (if not more) I'm going for the HP kill. It might be because I'm glad to smash face with it but still.
2) Drawing/having BF in hand is 90 % bad as it doesn't help you in the "setup" phase at all. It is a dead card until you go for the kill.
Anyway, I have OK results (kitchen table games but versus tiers 1 nonetheless) with the list provided a few pages ago and my play skills are definitely not the best.
You could also tune your sideboard to your meta. If you don't face Rea/dredge, cutting surgical/ravenous trap could greatly improve the other MUs.
There are a few options that might help you/us beat permission decks:
- Carpet of flowers
- Xantid Swarm
- Hope of Ghirapur
Those cards force you to play a spiral tide kind of game but packing 2+ turnabout should definitely do the trick with 4 of these (I would pick up xantid to be honest at first but maybe carpet is strong also).
Many blue decks will be caught off guard post side and you only need to win twice :p
My two cents,
Ralf
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
In identifying why I lost:
Miracles - games 2 and 3, I don’t know how, but he had at least 3 pyroblasts one of those games, so I couldn’t even high tide (PB), high tide (PB), reset (FoW, force back, then he PB over that), then I fall flat. Can’t remember the other game, but he had like infinite counters, and couldn’t bait them all out fast enough. My assessment is that I should just go off on the turn he dropped the mentor, when he tapped out a bit more, giving me more space to go off.
Stoneblade, he had PBs all over, but also a much faster clock. Didnt play daze, but he did have 3-4 spell snares and 4 spell pierces in addition to 4 forces and PB. Like seriously, felt like the guys deck was built to kill blue. Game one was easy enough, but I think he thought I was miracles digging for back to basics since I basically only showed islands.
RB death shadow. This one was a bit of a rogue deck though; not sure how many decks run fireblasts and price of progress (he PoP himself for 6, when I only had 3 island). Games 2 and 3 he dropped multiple eidolon of the revel which I had to cunning wish for a evacuation against, while getting beat by 6/6s. Didn’t have enough SCM to emergency block with, and he didn’t run those eidolons in for me to ambush. Game 3, I experimented with trying to just go off faster, but who’d have thought turn 1 eidolon off a simian spirit guide follows by turn 2 eidolon into turn 3 eidolon would be a thing? I countered one, but the 2nd and third was just nutty. I think in this game, I should have been able to win. I think the misplay was thinking that 1 force was good enough. I think it’s probably worth having more maindeck disruption like memory lapse, just to give us more time to set up. Not sure.
Goblins, he turn 3d me. Then game 2, he turn 3 or 4d me with piledrivers and vials. Game one was via caverns. I think he also had some number of PB. Had one for funsies game, and in that one, he goblin settlered me, I think with Kiki jiki, and I don’t think I could really do much about that at that point.
It was a fun night though. I’m far from being good, I think, but I’m at least somewhat aware of lines of play that gives me some edge, especially against players who aren’t very used to thinking about stack interactions as this deck makes. But the greatest weakness I can see is that I can’t deal with permanents.
As a side note, I played the goblins player a for funsies mono blue delver tempo build, and ground it out pretty well. He never saw that psionic blast coming.
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
So... Force of Negation
Not sure if this new card is good for us or bad for us, although the extra timing restriction actually favors our game plan. Another counterspell, even one that can cast for pitch, isn't the type of card that's going to significantly move the needle. But it's not irrelevant.
Some thoughts-
Compared to FoW, easier to hard cast (say on turn 3) and easier to flashback.
I'm much much more interested in this at the moment:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D7WpEvQW...png&name=small
An instant speed divination that's also a counterspell and can steal a delver (or whatever) seems like a solid and versatile card. I could see it as a 2-of or one main one board, or what have you.
I was thinking more stealing a marit lage. But sure, stealing s delver is good too!
I think I saw the casting cost and thought it’s like a worse cryptic command, so it doesn’t seem good enough to play. But I think you’re right, that charm seems good
The new force is something im not sold on. The restrictions are too severe to make it worth a slot. Bear in mind some of our worst enemies are creature-based permanents. I think when going off, protecting the combo is easier by just out-stacking our opponent, not necessarily forcing things through.
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
I think the flexibility of FoW is what makes it so great. Agreed that the restrictions of FoN make it less exciting. That being said, there might be a certain meta where we just want a 5th force. The cheaper casting cost and exile wording isn't irrelevant either.
I'm unsure whether it's good enough but I'll probably test the mono blue charm as the 60th main deck slot too. That flexibility is pretty tempting.
Let me know how the charm goes. I proxied one up, and am struggling to make a case for it in the 75. I really wanna find a reasonable use for it!
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
My next legacy fnm is tomorrow so I'll just miss out on release date, but I'll pick one up for next time.
Also just wanted to say thank you to everyone that's contributed to the forum. I've been a long time lurker and picked up the deck around a year ago. Although I've not been playing much recently, trawling through the two forums from the last 10-15 years really helped with getting started.
cool! congrats!
can you share a decklist? i'm curious to see what you've come down to after trawling through the forums here.
Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
Sure!
11 Islands
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Opt
4 High Tide
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
2 Flash of Insight
4 Reset
3 Remand
2 Brain Freeze
3 Cunning Wish
4 Meditate
3 Turnabout
4 Force of Will
Sideboard:
2 Flusterstorm
1 Dispel
1 Hydroblast
1 Misdirection
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away
1 Repeal
1 Brain Freeze
1 Turnabout
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Had lots of fun at FNM tonight (even if it wasn't the most successful record):
0-2 Vs UB Death's Shadow
0-2 Vs Grixis Control
1-2 Vs UB Death's Shadow
1-1 Vs Burn (We both had to run to get our last trains, so we couldn't get the last game in.)
Overall, I don't think I can beat myself up too much when I played against so much main deck discard, particularly when I'm a bit rusty. (T1 thoughtseize into T2 hymn hurts.) There were some interesting stacks throughout the night, and it was to get some second opinions on in game decisions and sideboard options. Tons of fun.
NB: I'm glad to see Leovold drop off the radar, but I think the new Narset is going to be here to stay.
cheers!
Yea, that looks like a pretty stock list. How was the remands? have you tried narsets reversal? it does what you tend to want to do with remand, and can save stuff for ya (also, it counters uncounterable stuff).
Have you tried three wishes in place for the meditates (on the off-chance you meet a lot of narset)? could be good, but i've not considered them to be that great unfortunately.
I've started to put together the greediest of all high tide lists. its Ugw, G for growth spiral, W for new teferi. The deck's basically solidarity with 3-4x time spiral, 1-2x new narset.
It's the pinnacle of win-more. I think the typical combo turn allows me to continue dropping lands between each time spiral, which lowers the chances of whiffing, and all at instant speed (because of teferi), after an opponent's upkeep step. One of the tricks i've had to do was to narset's reversal the cunning wishes, so keep on wishing during the combo turn without exiling the wish. It's hilariously fun, but amazingly bad if even one thing doesn't go your way.
Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
Hello,
So after quite a lot of testing I'm afraid the UG version is not as good as the mono blue one.
Long story short, the results of many matches (>50) against Tempo and Stompy decks on 3 games proved that my win % is higher with a mono blue shell than with a UG shell.
I haven't thought about the new cards recently spoiled but I do think none of them are playable (except maybe, MAYBE, the new charm).
Anyway, just as a reminder here is my mono blue version (which is quite stable at the moment since oct 2018 printing of Mission Briefing):
PS: One can play 2 BF MD and replace the Remand with Unsubstantiate but I prefer the list as is:
11 Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
4 Brainstorm
4 Opt
4 Impulse
4 Meditate
4 Force of Will
3 Remand
4 High Tide
4 Reset
3 Cunning Wish
2 Mission Briefing
2 Snap
3 Snapcaster Mage
SB: 3 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
SB: 2 Brain Freeze
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Ravenous Trap
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Snap
SB: 1 Turnabout
SB: 1 Engulf the Shore
SB: 1 Pact of Negation
I'm glad some are playing the deck !
Regards,
Ralf
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
Cool. I actually run a split of 1 unsubstantiate, 2 Narsets reversal in your 3 remand spots.
I also came down to that mono u is more consistent than ug.
I’m also brewing the most win-more high tide list. Features new narset PW, resets, high tides, time spirals, splashing green for growth spirals, splashing white for new teferi, and the new timetwister.
Has anyone tested the new force of will and/or new charm? My brief testing says he new charm is unplayable. Each mode is pretty mild, cost is too high.
new force can be good (mostly cuz it’s straight castable when needed), but the most important is that it exiles the spell countered. Fringe, but very good when relevant.
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
How do you like Reversal ?
I tried it as a 1-of but wasn't convinced.
It opens up a few "cool" plays BUT it was usually too narrow:
+ good vs discard deck
+ spare 1 mana compared with Remand (Tide + Remand + Tide + Reset / Tide + Reversal + Reset) and act as a very strong comblo enabler because you can replay the Tide you have Reversal'd.
+ can work under chalice (at least it gives you a window to combo)
- only works against ritual/instant
PS: Actually, I think Reversal should not replace Remand but Snapcaster.
Last edited by Ralf; 06-06-2019 at 05:01 AM.
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
I've not tried Narset's Reversal, but I'd imagined the wider range of targets for remand would outweigh any advantages of NR. Sometimes Remand is just a time walk when your opp plays a planeswalker. Remand can still bounce a High Tide or a Brain Freeze back to your hand, too. (As Ralf said, it seems sweet against discard though.)
I've not cast all that many three wishes, but I think the extra card from Meditate means I wouldn't currently consider a split of the two.
Ralf- thanks for the feedback on your Narset's Reversal and UG testing.
How have people found playing Teferi/Narset? I've never seriously considered anything that isn't instant speed. Doesn't including planeswalkers push you closer to a Spiral Tide list?
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