[Deck] Solidarity

[fuga]

Keeping on the graveyard matters theme, could intuition be used as our demonic tutor of choice, to ensure we go off on turn 4?

I think that with a deck like solidarity most of the times we don't need to go on so early, I mean most of the times we wait for an exact moment (counting the number of spells played by opponent, or after he tapps out all his mana or after a counterwar) to start combo and brainfreeze him. The late it is the better it is because is much probable to not fizzle! ;D So i think that intuition is a very good card (specially in spiral tide candel-less, where you need timespiral), but here I never found it so useful (I play the deck since 3years more or less and every time I learn something new). But I think you can playtest it and tell us about your opinions and impressions, I am very interested in! :)

[lavafrogg]

The majority of decks either play life of disruption or can race the solidarity player. Being able to consistently find our combo cards is not a bad idea for when we have to go off early.

[mistercakes]

went 3-1 in a daily. made a slight misplay round 3 (sort of just gave up on myself)

[P-E]

i have some reset laying somewhere and i'm wondering what's the most recent effective list ^^
going off responding to his thalia must be very funny

[GoldenCid]

i have some reset laying somewhere and i'm wondering what's the most recent effective list ^^
going off responding to his thalia must be very funny

check some post above and you see the answer.

[GoldenCid]

Hi everybody!! I was playing against the wall and here's some spell chians for you. I post this because ii believe that there are suboptimal plays in the chain. First of all i set up some condition for going off:

-Turn 5 combo (the latest turn i believe the format admit)
-No disruption
-Repeal is always played at 1

This is the list:

4 Reset
4 Force of Will
2 Remand
3 Cunning Wish
4 High Tide
3 Meditate
1 Brain Freeze
4 Impulse
4 Brainstorm
2 Turnabout
4 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
12 Island
1 Polluted Delta
3 Opt
1 Murmurs from Beyond
2 Repeal
4 Snapcaster Mage

SB: 3 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Brain Freeze
SB: 1 Stroke of Genius
SB: 1 Snap
SB: 1 Turnabout
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Meditate
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction

Spell chain 1:

Opening on the play: 3 island + High tide + Reset + Turnabout + impulse

T1: play island
T2: Draw Brainstorm. Play island
T3: Draw island. play island. Impulse in opponent eot (island + mage + opt + BS. take mage)
T4: Draw mage. Play island. Mage in eot for impulse (tide + repeal + cunning wish + mage. take wish)
T5: Draw remand. Go off.

s1: HT
s2: BS for Fetch + FoW + Murmurs. Top: remand + fetch
s3: Reset (UU in pool)
s4: Murmurs (U) for: HT + fetch + remand. HT to yard
s5: Mage for HT (s6)
s7: TBT (UU)
s8: Mage for BS (s9, UU): Reset + 2fetch which return to top.
s10: wish for meditate (s11): 2 fetch + impulse + tide
s12: Reser (u)
s13: Impulse (uu): opt + reset + islad x 2. Take opt
s14: tide (u)
s15: opt in resp remand (s16, uu) for remand
s17: opt (u) in resp remand (s18, uuu) for fetch
s19: opt (uu) for mage.
s20: Mage for impulse
s21: Impulse (uu) come on BF!!!: 3 island + Braistorm.

Fizzle!!!

Spell chain 2:

Opeing on the draw: FoW + HT + CW + 3island + 1 fetch Mull
Opening 2: Reset x 2 + impulse + fetch + island + mage. Keep.

T1: Draw fetch. play fetch crack for island
T2: Draw repeal. play island. repeal in the eot for brainstorm
T3: draw opt. play fetch. opt in the eot for fetch. take
T4: Draw murmurs. play fetch. impulse in the eot for meditate + mage + fetch + remand. take meditate
T5: draw high tide. crack fetch. go off.

s1: tide
s2: mage for impulse (s3): 2 island + 2 impulse. take impulse.
s4: Reset
s5: impulse for 3 island + opt. take opt
s6: meditate (u): brainstorm + mage + repeal + meditate
s7: opt for wish. take
s8: reset
s9: BS (uu): bs + freeze + Fow: top BF + repeal
s10: murmurs for bf + repeal + TBT. BF to yard
s11: TBT (u)
s12: BS for wish + mage + bs. top: bs + repeal
s13: meditate (u): bs + rpeal + tide + mage
S14: tide
s15: mage (u) for reset (s16, uu)
s16: wish (uu) for stroke
s17: mage for BF.
S18: Stroke for x=1 in reps BF (s19).

:D

Tomorow i'll post the next 2 spell chians.

GC.

[benthetenor]

If I'm reading this correctly, you're casting Reset before High Tides? And not tapping all of your lands when you Reset? And Brainstorms before other draw spells with no way to shuffle? And Impulses before Meditates?

There's a lot to your play that doesn't make sense. It's almost as if you're doing everything you can to fizzle at every turn. A little constructive advice: when going off, always* cast: High Tide before Reset, Meditate as many times as you can each game, Brainstorm as one of the last spells (or earlier, if you have lots of mana and an Impulse and not a lot of cards to shuffle back). Use your card advantage (Meditate, Murmors from Beyond, Stroke of Genius) before your card selection (Impulse, Brainstorm, Opt). If you're not getting the most out of every card, you will get punished.



*as this is the most difficult deck ever made, "always" does not of course actually mean always, but it's usually the best play, so if you deviate from it, you'd better have a good reason.

[GoldenCid]

Never cast reset before a tide

[benthetenor]

Never cast reset before a tide

Game 1:

Opening on the play: 3 island + High tide + Reset + Turnabout + impulse

T1: play island
T2: Draw Brainstorm. Play island
T3: Draw island. play island. Impulse in opponent eot (island + mage + opt + BS. take mage)
T4: Draw mage. Play island. Mage in eot for impulse (tide + repeal + cunning wish + mage. take wish)
T5: Draw remand. Go off.

s1: HT
s2: BS for Fetch + FoW + Murmurs. Top: remand + fetch
s3: Reset (UU in pool)
s4: Murmurs (U) for: HT + fetch + remand. HT to yard
s5: Mage for HT (s6)

The best sequencing here would be: High Tide, Snapcaster Mage targeting High Tide, flashback High Tide, Cast Reset, cast Murmur's from Beyond.....

As of Spell 2, you already had a High Tide in the graveyard, Snapcaster Mage in hand and access to 6 mana (having 4 lands in play). Instead you cast Brainstorm, Reset and Murmurs from Beyond before getting around to the Snapcaster Mage/High Tide play. You wasted at least 2 mana off of the Reset by casting it before flashing High Tide back. And the rest of your sequencing in that game was really not good. It's pretty clear why you fizzled.

[lavafrogg]

I am having a lot of luck with the super streamlined 4 snap/4 snapcaster/4 remand build with minimal disruption although I wish there was a real reason to play green and explore…. stupid wasteland!


Engine:
4 snapcaster mage
4 snap

combo:
4 reset
4 high tide

interaction:
4 remand
3 cunning wish
3 turnabout

card draw:
3 meditate
2 blue sun's zenith

library manipulation:
4 brainstorm
4 impulse
4 thought scour

8 fetches
9 islands

Sideboard:
1 echoing truth
1 stroke of genius
1 turnabout
1 brainfreeze
1 meditate
10 other wishable things

The deck can go off on turn three on a regular basis due to the dumb mana provided by high tide/snap caster and is a blast to play.

Card discussion:

Snap/Snapcaster: this opens you up to creature removal but all you need is another snapcaster/remand/snap to completely negate the removal… and the deck is all instants to go around just a thing. More so, if snapcaster has come into play than he has done his job by increasing the high tide count or untagging your lands.

Thought scour: Pseudo draw three with snapcaster for one mana, cleans out bad brainstorms, especially mid combo i.e. brainstorm> put back 2 lands> thought scour> profit

Remand: really good with snapcaster as you can remand walk several times in a row, really want to find a good bounce spell that would also work repeal is pretty mean with the option to bounce snapcaster for 3.

Blue Sun's Zenith: I go back and forth between this and stroke of genius. I have a stroke in the board but I find myself casting zenith a couple times a game for smaller amounts and still being able to re draw it has been beneficial. Could go either way.

Thats all I got right now!

[GoldenCid]

Game 1:

Opening on the play: 3 island + High tide + Reset + Turnabout + impulse

T1: play island
T2: Draw Brainstorm. Play island
T3: Draw island. play island. Impulse in opponent eot (island + mage + opt + BS. take mage)
T4: Draw mage. Play island. Mage in eot for impulse (tide + repeal + cunning wish + mage. take wish)
T5: Draw remand. Go off.

s1: HT
s2: BS for Fetch + FoW + Murmurs. Top: remand + fetch
s3: Reset (UU in pool)
s4: Murmurs (U) for: HT + fetch + remand. HT to yard
s5: Mage for HT (s6)

The best sequencing here would be: High Tide, Snapcaster Mage targeting High Tide, flashback High Tide, Cast Reset, cast Murmur's from Beyond.....

As of Spell 2, you already had a High Tide in the graveyard, Snapcaster Mage in hand and access to 6 mana (having 4 lands in play). Instead you cast Brainstorm, Reset and Murmurs from Beyond before getting around to the Snapcaster Mage/High Tide play. You wasted at least 2 mana off of the Reset by casting it before flashing High Tide back. And the rest of your sequencing in that game was really not good. It's pretty clear why you fizzled.

Thank you benthetenor for oyur words. Probably you are right in everything you say because you are a better player than me. As you said above solidarity is the most difficult deck ever made.
Let me tell you some points about me playstyle.
I try to make, unlike you said, my spell as powerfull as i can. I always play HT as first spell, al ways. But in the sequence you mentioned it's true that i didt mage it. Why?
My answer is a question: what if murmurs bring nothing after i played tide + mage + tide? We virtualylost 3 cards...4 if we cosider casting reset befor murmurs.
I often cast tide, search for fuel before droping a key spell (like reset). Probably with 4 island i'd go like: tide, meditate o cantrip, if something cool comes then reset and go - on. Also i can hit a second tide and cast it lefting the mage for a fuel spell. Do you get me?

Here are 2 aditional spell chains:

Spell chain 3:

On the play: 2x island + impulse+ BS + RMD + Reset + Repeal (keep)

t1: island
t2: draw wish play island. cast repeal in eot for meditate
t3: Draw fetch, play it. cast remand during the opo turn. get tide.
t4:Draw island, play it. Impulse in eot: mage + reset + wish + fetch. takemage.
t5: Draw FoW, crack fetch. Go off.

s1: HT
s2: Meditate (fuel) (u): BS + island x 2 + meditate
s3: BS (card selection before reset): tide + impulse + meditate. top 2 island.
s4: Reset
s5: HT (u)
s6: Impulse (i know that 2 of 4 cards are land, i dont want them): 4 lands, take 1. :(
s7: Meditate (uu): mage + fow + 2 island
s8: mage for reset (s9, u)
s10: Meditate (murmurs + BS + BF +island)
S11: mage (u) for impulse (s12, uu): Reset + opt + tide + fetch. Take reset.
s13: Murmurs (uu): impulse + RMD + Island. Impulse to yard.
s14: Reset
s15: Wish for SoG
s16 SoG (x=1, uu)
s17 BF in resp to SoG

GG.

Spell chain 4

On the draw: opt + 4 island + 1 repeal + meditate (Risky keep i know)

T1: draw island and play island. Opt in the eot for fetch (bottom) then opt again.
t2: Draw reset. play island, cast repeal in the eot. Get impulse. Play impulse: RMD + 2x isand + BS. Take RMD.
t3:Draw HT :D. Play island. Opt in the eot for impulse (keep)
t4: Draw BF. Play island. Opt + RMD (shows HT). Recast opt for island (bottom) get another insland. Poor play i know.
t5: Draw island 0.0 play it and go off.

s1: HT
s2: Impulse (search for fuel): 3 lands lol + BS. Take BS
s3: HT (u)
s4: Meditate (u): reset + TBT + Mage + impulse (nice)
s5: Reset (uu)
s6: Impulse: wish + HT + murmurs + bs. Take wish (think on winning with a giant SoG)
s7: Meditate: 2 x Reset + HT + wish
s8: HT (uu)
s9: BS (u): meditate + wish + fetch. top: fetch + island
s10: mage (uuu) for tide (s11, uu)
s12: reset (10xu)
s13: Meditate: meditate (7xu): 3 lands + fow
s14: wish (uuuu) for meditate
s15: meditate (u): 3 fow + impulse
s16: impulse (uuuu): 2 lands + opt + 1 RMD. Take opt. Add 20 x U)
s17: Reset (22 x u). Add 25 x u)
s18: reset (45xu)
s19: reset (uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu)
s20: TBT (uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu)
s21: Wish for SoG.
S22: SoG for X = 60+.


GG.

Cheers,

GC.

[benthetenor]

Your play in general isn't like completely off, but the biggest mistake I see you making pretty constantly is casting Brainstorm at a lot of points where it would be better not to, or just generally not getting very much out of your brainstorms. In the third game, you have basically infinite Meditates, so there's no reason to cast Brainstorm at all before you would cast a Meditate. You should just chain out Meditates until you run out of them, since they have the best chance of drawing you enough spells to win the game. The only* times you should be casting Brainstorm are: 1) you're setting up and have a fetchland and dead cards (like lots of Islands) in hand, 2) you're going off and don't have any other draw spells to cast. Any other times and there's probably something better you could be doing. Sometimes you can build your own fetchland with Brainstorm and Impulse, but that's kind of a lot of mana to play when you could just cast Meditate instead.

In the fourth game, you have tons of lands in your hands, including a fetchland, and you Impulse into 2 Island, Remand, Brainstorm while setting up. The obvious play to me is to take the Brainstorm and turn some of those Islands into actual useful cards, but you just take the Remand.

And the only thing I would say about the High Tide thing is, you have Cunning Wish in hand, and you're playing a goldfish. Your surest way to victory is to either Cunning Wish for Meditate and start going off like that, or make a whole bunch of mana with lots of High Tides and Resets, then Cunning Wish for Stroke of Genius and draw lots and lots of cards. Either way, Snapcaster Mage for High Tide makes more sense because you were restricted on Mana, not draw spells, in that games.

[lavafrogg]

Okay,

I am at the official "other people should try this list" stage of testing here is where I am now:

4 Snapcaster Mage

4 Snap
4 Remand

4 High Tide
4 Reset

4 Brainstorm
4 Thought scour
4 Impulse

3 Meditate
3 Turnabout
3 Cunning Wish

2 Blue Sun's Zenith

6 Fetch lands
11 Islands

Sideboard…also in progress:

4 Think Twice
3 Brain Freeze
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rushing River
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Wipe Away

Some reasoning:

This list loves to go off on turn 3 which…some times you have to, it is not the safest turn to combo and is usually vulnerable to removal or graveyard hate but this is more than the other high tide lists can say. With high tide, a snap or two, a snapcaster and any draw, you can put yourself in great position to win the game(usually looking for the money reset). With two blue sun's zeniths main you can blow a high tide, cantrip a little and draw 7 cards and pass with out having to resort to meditate or cunning wish into brain stroke. This is a great way to win off the opponent has little pressure or draws a bad hand(old lists could durdle too much and not "step on the throat" of a durdling opponent). Blue Sun's Zenith is also the main way to win the game and brain freeze has been moved to the side.

You can also win without reset if you have to, which is a big thing, meddling mage on reset or extracted resets happen too. People often misjudge what cards to hate on and if we are careful high tide should never get hit by extraction effects. Without reset you can draw snaps/turnabouts and high tides to wish for a freeze and win in weird situations.

I firmly believe that letting people keep in creature and graveyard hate against us is actually slowing down their clock and letting us go off around their hate. You can always remand around hate and since all of our spells are instant speed we can remove cards from any zone in the game in response to their hate.

Specific reasoning:

Blue Sun's Zenith: allows for value draws where you blow a high tide and an untap effect to draw 7-ish cards. Much like elves can value glimpse sometimes you hit the nuts and just win.

Snap/Snapcaster: This engine makes the deck go fast and also helps to grind wins against hate/discard/removal by generating card advantage and protecting spells/creatures. Snap also is great at bouncing delvers/goyfs/stoneforge mystics and buying time against all creature decks especially when combined with the next card.

Remand: This is the only "counter spell" that made it into the board and that is because I wanted all cards to be "live" when going off. The two mana remand-time walk on turn two almost guarentees that we will make it to turn four. Also allows us to play around counter spells, especially force of will.

Thought scour: This care is nuts. Often you are casting brainstorm turn one and throughout scour turn two to burn off two bad cards and draw a third. Mid combo the same trick can be used to trade lands in hand for cards off of brainstorm without having a fetch in play. I have often cast thought scour with a snapcaster in hand and only needing to hit a high tide in either the graveyard or off the draw to win. It is a pseudo ancestral in the same way that brainstorm is.

Everything else is pretty normal and all i can say is that everyone with resets sitting in their collection covered in dust should shuffle this up and try it out.

[HammafistRoob]

I don't think this deck is viable at all without Force of Will. Your sideboard is also extremely weird to me, Disrupt seems subpar and should likely be Flusterstorm. Echoing Truth and Chain of Vapor fill similar roles and you should only need one, I'd go with Chain personally.

[lavafrogg]

I don't think this deck is viable at all without Force of Will. Your sideboard is also extremely weird to me, Disrupt seems subpar and should likely be Flusterstorm. Echoing Truth and Chain of Vapor fill similar roles and you should only need one, I'd go with Chain personally.

If you played solidarity in its prime you would know that you hated to force of will anything…it was always called the necessary evil of playing the color blue. I would side force of will out most of the time and eventually i switched to iggy pop with maindeck leylines for the ability to turn one mind twist my opponents.

what actually needs to be force of willed? Hymn to tourach? meddling mage? goyf? You no longer need the force of will to stop the turn one lackey play ever other round and turn one delver is far less scary that lackey.

For a deck that wants to win turn 4 and has control over the stack the format just isn't as scary as it once was on the aggro side of things. The hate bears and delver decks are everywhere though and you need to be able to push through or around counter magic and two drops.

Remands help against counters and snap helps against hate bears all while still helping you combo, unlike force of will.

First and foremost the difference between chain and echoing truth is that echoing truth can be played over the top of a chalice at one when you can't get to three. I have always played 1,2 and 3 cc bounce to get around strange situations like chalice, counterbalance, spell snare. Rushing river is for multiples and wipe away is for mother of runes protection/counters.

In this list specifically echoing truth is also a combo card that will win you the game and ensure you don't fizzle. If you get to the "I have multiple snapcaster mages in play what do I do now" stage of the game, you wish for echoing truth to just go nuts.

If you want to wish for chain of vapor and bounce one snapcaster and start sacrificing lands to bounce more than that is your prerogative and no one can tell you how to play.

p.s. and could you please shuffle the list up before comments like that?

[HammafistRoob]

So you scoop to one well placed counter? Force isn't to stop other decks, you only do that if you need to..

[lavafrogg]

I'm not exactly sure what well placed counter I would scoop to that another combo deck wouldn't also scoop to. If you are playing counters than I can play around them as best as possible. I am going to assume that you haven't played solidarity but please correct me if i am wrong. If someone counters a spell you have several options you can snapcaster the spell after it has been countered, remand the spell from under the counter or just ignore the spell altogether. Ideally you will be casting cantrips every turn to ensure that you hit land drops and can play any way that you need to.

If someone has a fast clock and multiple counters then you might lose, but what combo deck wants to play against delver.dec, it might not be the best matchup but unless they get a highly aggressive and controlling hand than they will be missing wither a clock or enough counter magic to stop you from going off. With delver going turn 1 delver, blind flip, turn two delver, flip, they still are only killing you on turn 5(4 with double bolt) and if the goal is to go off on turn 3-4 i think turn 5 is ample time to be as ready as possible, not to mention snapping the turn 1 delver or remanding/turn about.

All of the current stoneblade decks are not racing fast enough for a "SnapTide" player to care about and that is why i think tide can do well by just playing the game. Jund is soft to combo and really popular right now, the stoneforge decks are beatable and most random.dec is an auto win as is anyone who keeps a slow hand.

The disrupts have been switched to think twice to help play through discard like hymn with all of the GB decks still floating around.

[TheRock]

Even though it's been a long time since I've played true Legacy Magic, the one advantage about running Force of Will is that it is, at worst case, almost always a Time Walk. What a deck like Spring Tide or Solidarity can do with an extra turn is so powerful that it cannot be completely ignored (there's a point where your opponent won't have any clue what to counter if that strategy would even stop you at all).

The one thing I will admit, playing Spring Tide before Time Spiral did it's thing, is that I didn't play it right either. I had 4 FoWs, 3 Snap, and 4 Cloud of Faeries maindeck - all of which could act as Time Walks...yet my deck was designed to win turn three when almost nothing in the format could really beat me turn three except for combo. I couldn't take full advantage of cards like Brainstorm or Cunning Wish in situations like that when I could have done so.


Case in point now, I would not play this deck without 4 of them. It is the best blanket answer to SB answers as well since you have absolutely no idea what will come at you in a tournament. You don't have to cast FoW if you don't want to cast it, but it's best to consider all options with a deck that has infinite possibilities.

[Darkenslight]

I think that Forces need to be somewhere in the 75 as a concession to Show and Tell decks and Storm-like decks.

[benthetenor]

I tested a list without Force of Will somewhat extensively, and it just didn't work. I lost to combo. And I lost to hatebears. And I lost to hate permanents.

Your plan of having Snap to pick up Ethersworn Canonist is completely undone by a Mother of Runes, which has been in my experience the only reason why this deck could possibly lose to Maverick and Death and Taxes, both of which are not overly positive matchups. Much more than that, the thing that slows you down with those hatebears is that once they're in play, they disrupt your ability to set up, so bounce isn't really a good plan against them since that means you're waiting until you're going to go off, which means you're getting taxed in all of the turns proceeding. Force of Will, while very expensive, deals with Ethersworn Canonists, no questions asked. It also deals with Counterbalance, Chalice of the Void, Thalia, Reanimate, Infernal Tutor, Smallpox, Aether Vial, and yes, Force of Will and Goblin Lackey and Delver of Secrets, should you need to. It deals with everything, and I would not go to a tournament without Force of Will. We are not a tempo deck, we cannot survive by constantly making tempo plays until we suddenly have the means to go off. There are occasions where we must play the control role, so it is suicide to remove one of our best control cards simply because you don't like casting it. It is a dead card when going off and it is a card that creates card disadvantage which can further hinder your ability to go off, but it is non-negotiable. Legacy is far too random to not play it.

I'm not saying that to put you down or stifle innovation, I'm saying it because I have tested it in the past and was very frustrated to just lose games that I otherwise would have won had the card I was testing been Force of Will. This deck is not good enough to give away percentage points like that. Frankly, no deck is. In Legacy, if you can play Force of Will, you must play Force of Will.