Solemn Depths

[crowe_1]

When Solemnity was first spoiled, the implications for Legacy were immediately apparent. Its interactions with Dark Depths and Cumulative Upkeep seemed viable, as well as its fringe uses against mechanics like Infect or cards like Walking Ballista. Since the card came out, however, I feel like the community gave up on Solemnity without giving it a fair shake. Here's my admittedly unoriginal attempt to make it a "real" card, and input is appreciated.

First, here's the initial draft:

Deck: Solemn Depths

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Creatures:12
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Ramunap Excavator

Spells:21
3 Mox Diamond
4 Crop Rotation
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Life from the Loam
2 Sphere of Resistance
2 Sylvan Library
1 Phyrexian Unlife
4 Solemnity

Lands:27
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Dark Depths
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Plains
4 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Thespian's Stage
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:15
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Containment Priest
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Ground Seal
2 Krosan Grip
2 Ramunap Excavator
4 Leyline of Sanctity

Dark Depths is your primary win condition while Knight of the Reliquary and the other beaters can get there if Marit Lage fails. The deck also contains a formidable mana denial component composed of recurring Wastelands and Ghost Quarters, with a slew of tutorable utility lands to interact with graveyards, creatures, and even direct damage. Finally, Solemnity removes most of the downsides from Glacial Chasm and Phyrexian Unlife, often preventing the opponent from being able to win at all until the cards are removed.

Why play Solemnity over Vampire Hexmage?

Vampire Hexmage has been the quickest secondary Dark Depths enabler since before the Legend Rule change allowed Thespian's Stage to come into the spotlight. It is one less mana than Solemnity and allows you to make a 20/20 at instant speed. It is still effective and provides redundancy for the combo, as demonstrated in Turbo Depths.

The problem with Vampire Hexmage is that it's a one-and-done, and sometimes a one-for-two if the opponent can interrupt your combo or otherwise remove Marit Lage. To make a 20/20, both Hexmage and Dark Depths have to die. If the combo fails, you need to find new copies of Component A (Hexmage/Stage) and Component B (Dark Depths) to get going again.

While slower to play, Solemnity offers much more redundancy and inevitability than Hexmage. Once Solemnity is on the battlefield, every Dark Depths that enters play becomes a must-answer threat. If the opponent answers Marit Lage or Wastelands your Dark Depths, your Component A is still live; you just need to find another Component B, which is highly likely to happen quickly with full sets of Crop Rotations and KotR, as well as Sylvan Libraries for filtering and Loam/Excavator for recursion. It is not uncommon to be able to create three Marit Lage tokens in one turn to overwhelm answers. And on the topic of answers, Solemnity gets around one of the more common answers to Depths combo: Pithing Needle. Finally, as a relevant bonus, Enchantments are probably the hardest-to-remove card type in Legacy at the moment, with the vast majority of decks being totally unable to remove them during game one.

Problems with the Deck Right Now

Combo Matchup - Unlike most versions of Loam, we are not going to run Chalice of the Void because Crop Rotation is pretty essential to the strategy. As a result of this, we get to run Deathrite Shaman for combo hate, acceleration, and winning through our own Glacial Chasm, but DRS is generally not as effective as Chalice at stopping combo. I decided to add a couple of Sphere of Resistance supplemented by Enlightened Tutor, a Gaddock Teeg supplemented by GSZ, and a Bojuka Bog which can be tutored multiple ways. Still, I feel like there could be better options against the combo matchups.

Creature Removal - I am not sure how essential it is to remove opposing creatures here. We have a Karakas, Glacial Chasm and Maze of Ith to stop attacks from most of the field in a pinch, and Marit Lage will often simply not care what they have while it ends the game. Opposing DRS I can see being a problem, but decks that run DRS tend to be pretty soft to the single 20/20 in general so recursion might not be an issue. I thought about adding a Punishing Fire package or StP, but that would be at the cost of redundancy for the mana denial strategy or for Marit Lage so I don't know.

Card Choices and Interactions

Life from the Loam - Allows recursion of Wastelands and Ghost Quarters, as well as Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage. Dredging has a high chance of growing Knight of the Reliquary to unmanageable size. Is pretty bonkers with Azusa in play.

Ramunap Excavator - Tutorable land recursion that does not use the stack. If you use your Dark Depths on your main phase, you can just play it again before it gets eaten by opposing DRS. This card is also bonkers with Azusa in play.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking - This card allows you to quickly remove all of your opponent's lands from the board when combined with Wasteland/Ghost Quarter and Ramunap/Loam. Even if they run a lot of basics, you can run them out in only a few turns. Azusa is pretty unremarkable on her own, however, and could be "win-more".

Crop Rotation - This is your Swiss-army knife. At instant-speed, it answers just about any threat or pumps out a Marit Lage end-of-turn to swing for lethal. Once Solemnity is out, this is a one-mana instant speed 20/20 flying indestructible, and with multiples or a KotR it is easy to overwhelm removal like Swords or even Karakas. Getting Glacial Chasm during your opponent's alpha strike can save you the game.

Knight of the Reliquary - A huge beater, or a repeatable tutor in this deck. Gets bigger with Loam and Crop Rotation and can overpower many board states on its own. Neat interaction with Maze of Ith where you can attack and untap it after damage.

Deathrite Shaman - The best creature in Legacy, it acts as acceleration and maindeck graveyard hate. There should be plenty of lands in graveyards to feed it, at the minor cost of shrinking Knight.

Ghost Quarter - Hits basic lands to run the opponent out of mana completely. With Azusa and Excavator in play, it can eat three lands per turn. Slow on its own, so it would probably come out of Azusa did.

Phyrexian Unlife - You can't die outside decking if this is in play with Solemnity. At the very least, it gives you 10 more points of damage to work with.

Glacial Chasm - With Solemnity this never gets Cumulative Upkeep counters, so you can never take damage. You can copy it with Stage, recur it with Loam/Excavator, and just generally buy time from attackers in the worst of cases.

Gaddock Teeg - Maindeck tutorable Storm hate that also turns off FoWs. Honestly, this card is less remarkable since the Top ban and might get relegated to the SB.

Sphere of Resistance - Again, I don't feel we want to run Chalice, and we don't run too many creatures so Sphere might (?) be better than Thorn of Amethyst for us overall as combo-hate. Trinisphere might be better than either, since a lot of our business cards are three mana and with mana denial it would be possible to lock an opponent completely out of the game. Not being able to drop Trinisphere on turn one is why I chose Sphere.

Enlightened Tutor - A little extra consistency that can be Solemnity, P Unlife, or a SB enchantment if you need it.

Horizon Canopy - Draw many cards between Azusa, Excavator, and Loam.

Ground Seal - Nonbo with DRS and Loam, but it stops opposing DRS and prevents the opponent from casting Surgical Extraction on your Dark Depths. The extra Excavators in the board would replace Loam so that you can still recur your lands. Ground Seal also draws a card and stops all reanimation spells except Exhume.

I feel the other SB and MD cards are pretty self-explanatory.

The Mana Base is Weird

I'm running a full set of Savannah because in practice I've found colour requirements to be an issue otherwise. This is partially due to the number of colourless producing and non-producing lands in the deck, and partially because Knight eating specific land types can inadvertently lock you out of a colour. One of each basic is present to get around Blood Moon/B2B, and one Scrubland is fetchable to use DRS' drain.

Maybes

Punishing Fire/Grove - Recurrable Weenie removal. Would have to drop a couple of Savannahs, Azusa and maybe GQ.

Swords to Plowshares - The cleanest spot removal in Legacy.

Trinisphere - Slower but arguably more effective combo hate. Would take spot of Sphere.

Orim's Chant - Force spells through or stop Storm cold if you're lucky. Buys time. Would take spot of Sphere.

Sejiri Steppe - Force Marit Lage through blockers or save creatures from StP with a Crop Rotation.

Unburial Rites - Get an essential creature when Loaming.

[morgan_coke]

I can't help looking at this deck and thinking "If only Oath of Nissa covered Enchantments" too.

For combo I think you have to stick with the LD plan and hope to go off before them, it will never be a favorable matchup without reworking the deck or new cards getting printed. Gideon of the Trials is an option if you feel the need to go that route.

I feel like a 3rd Zenith would do you more good than the first Enlightened Tutor.

What's your plan against burn? Glacial Chasm? (fine if it is, just curious if that's all you've got)

A Riftstone Portal or Urborg, Tomb of Yawmoth, heck, even a Prismatic Omen seem like they could be good ideas given the many non mana producing lands in the list.

EDIT: The two Spheres maindeck should be something else, they're not enough on their own to stop combo, so they're just kind of wasted slots. The two Life from the Loams are also odd, they're a nonbo with Ground Seal, you can't tutor for them, and you don't get any advantage from having lots of cards in hand. I'd run extra GSZs, Gideons, and Ramunaps in their place.

[filln]

I've been building two Solemnity lists, one GWb and the other UW. For the GWB build I decided to skip the GSZ package and splash black for maindeck Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay, which helps with combo (as well as clearing the way before dropping Solemnity) while the Decays are solid catch-alls. The splash isn't that bad either with Mox Diamonds and Deathrite Shamans fixing your mana. I also played two Gideon of the Trials in the main to help out the Storm matchup. The double-white was kind of annoying sometimes but again, mana fixing is pretty good here.

I've had some good success with the UW shell too, though I plan to take out for another weekly event (went 3-0, 6-0 in games earlier this week) before bringing it up for discussion.

[P-E]

Mystic remora will shine in the uw build
There was a uw depths solemnity mentor in vintage top8 in mkm series lately

[.Ix]

Figured this deck could use an update with Solemnity.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...sen-2014-02-16

[filln]

Mystic remora will shine in the uw build
There was a uw depths solemnity mentor in vintage top8 in mkm series lately

I'm playing three Mystic Remora in the main (not quite as good as it is in Vintage), along with a Phyrexian Unlife, Glacial Chasm, and two Dark Depths. Also have a spicy Illusionary Terrain and Tidal Control in the side for fun. I'm also testing out some number of Stifle and Teferi's Response as well, which has been pretty great for protecting the Glacial Chasm and Dark Depths.

[crowe_1]

Thanks for all the constructive feedback, guys!

I can't help looking at this deck and thinking "If only Oath of Nissa covered Enchantments" too.

For combo I think you have to stick with the LD plan and hope to go off before them, it will never be a favorable matchup without reworking the deck or new cards getting printed. Gideon of the Trials is an option if you feel the need to go that route.

I feel like a 3rd Zenith would do you more good than the first Enlightened Tutor.

What's your plan against burn? Glacial Chasm? (fine if it is, just curious if that's all you've got)

A Riftstone Portal or Urborg, Tomb of Yawmoth, heck, even a Prismatic Omen seem like they could be good ideas given the many non mana producing lands in the list.

EDIT: The two Spheres maindeck should be something else, they're not enough on their own to stop combo, so they're just kind of wasted slots. The two Life from the Loams are also odd, they're a nonbo with Ground Seal, you can't tutor for them, and you don't get any advantage from having lots of cards in hand. I'd run extra GSZs, Gideons, and Ramunaps in their place.

I've looked at Oath of Nissa a lot wishing the same thing.

I've been tinkering with taking out the Spheres for a Courser of Cruphix and Mox Diamond number four. Courser can be pretty wonderful with Azusa as well as with Sylvan Library. It has been more consistent. I also realized Phyrexian Unlife beats Tendrils of Agony on its own, so that's something against Storm.

Against Burn, Glacial Chasm and Unlife are pretty great and easily tutored. Post-board there's also the set of Leylines. Burn can't stop Marit Lage at all and we can get that going fairly quickly. This is all theorycraft as I've never played the matchup.

I hadn't thought of not including Loam to be honest. If they were another Ramunap and GSZ that could be alright. Loam being one less mana than Ramunap, and not removable via creature hate is useful, and dredging lands to pump KotR is a nice bonus. I will give it a try without.

Enlightened Tutor is a virtual fifth copy of Solemnity and doubles the chance of getting Phyrexian Unlife. Don't want to cut it just yet but that may change.

Gideon of the Trials has been in and out. It's not wonderful against Sneak and Show (which we're weak to anyway) and gets a lot worse postboard against Storm. I do love the card but I'm not sure if this is the shell for it.

If Loam came out I would not run Riftstone Portal. Urborg has definite benefits but it's a pretty tight squeeze as-is as far as lands go unfortunately, especially since there are a minimum of actual black cards in the deck.

As for the suggestions of adding Blue or replacing green with blue, I do feel that Dark Depths is the best thing to be doing with Solemnity, and green offers the best tools to abuse Dark Depths. Mystic Remora is super sweet though. I did pick up a set just in case.

Given the feedback, I think this is what I'll try next:

Creatures:14
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Ramunap Excavator

Spells:19
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crop Rotation
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Sylvan Library
1 Phyrexian Unlife
4 Solemnity

Lands:27
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Dark Depths
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Plains
4 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Thespian's Stage
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:15
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
2 Containment Priest
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Ground Seal
3 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of Sanctity

Maybes: Gideon of the Trials, Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth

Thanks again, guys! Keep suggestions coming!

[procobrito]

Stearling groove instead of enligtened tutor is too slow?
The good point is that he protect your pieces against 90% of enchantment desteuction in legacy.
What about ancient tomb?

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[hovercraft]

I like Sylvan Safekeeper as a GSZ x=1 target for protecting Marit Laige.

[JackaBo]

In my testing little Gideon sucks versus storm. They make goblins. Then attack Gideon to death. Then you die.

[crowe_1]

Sterling Grove instead of Enlightened Tutor is an option, though it is much slower for tutoring. A lot of decks have trouble removing enchantments as-is, but I might make the switch if I find opposing removal to be a problem.

I have a Sylvan Safekeeper in the board. It might be better in the main instead of Teeg.

Ancient Tomb I will probably skip. I haven't had many problems with mana quantity as much as mana colour.

As for Gideon, I think there was a short time after the ban when a lot of Storm lists totally dropped Empty in game one. Gideon was better then. Still, he's randomly good at slowing fair decks, especially backed by Maze of Ith. I haven't had a chance to really test this out yet so we'll see if there's a niche for him.

Thanks for all suggestions.

[Guitarnewf]

I would move safekeeper to main, and teeg to the side. I run a singleton safekeeper in my maverick, alongside ramunap, and it's nasty. Works too well.
What about cutting a knight or a deathrite to add a scryb ranger? He's a bloody powerhouse in maverick, seems like he would be good here. Maybe that's just the maverick player in me talking.

[crowe_1]

^
I might switch it to the main, but to know for sure you'd have to start showing up on Mondays again. Haha

Not planning on going full Maverick but you never know. Might be a better build.

[Guitarnewf]

^
I might switch it to the main, but to know for sure you'd have to start showing up on Mondays again. Haha

Not planning on going full Maverick but you never know. Might be a better build.

Never! I have my own perfect little bubble now.

[crowe_1]

I've been building two Solemnity lists, one GWb and the other UW. For the GWB build I decided to skip the GSZ package and splash black for maindeck Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay, which helps with combo (as well as clearing the way before dropping Solemnity) while the Decays are solid catch-alls. The splash isn't that bad either with Mox Diamonds and Deathrite Shamans fixing your mana. I also played two Gideon of the Trials in the main to help out the Storm matchup. The double-white was kind of annoying sometimes but again, mana fixing is pretty good here.

I've had some good success with the UW shell too, though I plan to take out for another weekly event (went 3-0, 6-0 in games earlier this week) before bringing it up for discussion.

Are you still running this?

4 Solemnity
1 Phyrexian Unlife
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Crop Rotation
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mox Diamond
3 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Life from the Loam
1 Sylvan Library
2 Gideon of the Trials
1 Scattered Groves
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Karakas
2 Wasteland
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Plains
2 Forest
1 Swamp

3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sacred Ground
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Containment Priest
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Pithing Needle

Saw it on the Dark Depths thread. I really like this list. Did you put any thought into Collective Brutality? It would free up a few slots to fit the Zenith package if you swapped out the Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay. Maybe something like:

Creatures: 12
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Ramunap Excavator

Spells:22
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crop Rotation
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Collective Brutality
2 Sylvan Library
1 Phyrexian Unlife
4 Solemnity

Lands:26
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Dark Depths
1 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
4 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Thespian's Stage
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:15
2 Containment Priest
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Ground Seal
1 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of Sanctity

[Rome]

I tried to build this deck like w-Stax

// 60 Hauptdeck
// 15 Artifact
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Ghirapur Orrery
1 Zuran Orb

// 6 Creature
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 Thought-Knot Seer

// 12 Enchantment
4 Solemnity
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Oblivion Ring

// 27 Land
4 Wasteland
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Glacial Chasm
3 Plains
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Dunes of the Dead
1 City of Traitors
4 Dark Depths
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

What do you think about it?
When Solemnity is on the field, I can't have Chalice over zero. This is a anticombo.
But the rest works :)

[crowe_1]

^
Not sure if you intended this but there is no Smokestack in the list. Without Smokestack, cards like Tabernacle, Dunes of the Dead, and Crucible might be a little underwhelming. As for Solemnity, the non-bo with Chalice might not matter if you could consistently jam Marit Lage, but I'm not seeing a consistent way to get Dark Depths once Solemnity is out. I figured you could be just trying to grind them out until you get both pieces, but then noticed no Smokestack. Ghirapur Orrery seems a little suspect as well, but it's your deck. Have you had issues with consistency? I do like the acceleration with Sol Lands. Could be an effective way to go.

As for my list, it proved still too finicky and Azusa is a little too clunky given she's underwhelming without graveyard recursion. What I have found since, however, is that Oath of Nissa makes the deck run like a dream. I'm still acquiring the pieces and won't get to take it to my weekly Legacy night for awhile yet, but it seems solid and consistently pumps out at least one Marit Lage by turn three-four, usually multiple and usually with an accompanying board state and some mana disruption. I also managed to include both a tutorable Teeg and Safekeeper in the main.

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Creatures:12
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Ramunap Excavator

Spells:22
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crop Rotation
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Oath of Nissa
2 Sylvan Library
1 Phyrexian Unlife
4 Solemnity

Lands:26
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Dark Depths
1 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
1 Plains
4 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Thespian's Stage
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:15
2 Containment Priest
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Ground Seal
2 Rite of Consumption
2 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of Sanctity

I really like this build. Will update as I get some actual games in.

[square_two]

The only cards Oath can't grab are Moxes and tutors (13 cards in the deck). I really like this build. Will update as I get some actual games in.

FYI Oath can't grab enchantments - that means it's a miss against 22 cards in your list.

[crowe_1]

Yes of course. Thank you. Made that change.