[Deck] Solidarity

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Originally Posted by lebarion

I intend to test a list with Snap maindeck and no Cunning Wish. I believe with counters and creature bounce preboard we are able to deal with most hate G1, and have a focused sideboard for our bad matches.

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Try this: reduce cunning wish to 2 (common lists use 3) because you'll need to deal with emrakulls and friends (acessing zenith has no price). Main deck don't use Snap, yes it has some chemistry with Snapcaster, you'll need to have a second high tide to it actually produce any extra mana. Think about, the mage adds enough consistence to the deck its better to add things that allow us to be faster against decks that we need to be faster (those decks normally use creatures - bonus for snap that will not only be exclusively dependent on mage - yes many decks use creatures nowadays but i prefer consistence rather that an untapper).

I'm looking to build Solidarity within the near future, but one thing I'd like to talk about before the purchase is the use of Force of Will. Some decks use it, but some just run flusterstorm to win stack wars, remand for tech / tempo, and misstep to deal with missteps..

Is Force of Wills card disadvantage too brutal? It's not really an issue with cost as a playset is accessible for me, I'm just wondering if it's necessary for the deck. A free counter is always a free counter but I'm leery of hurting myself from losing my hand for it..

This topic was brought up briefly many pages ago, but the conversation went sort of a "preference" route, but I'd like a more definitive answer as to whether it's either useful or unnecessary. Would a deck perform better with it over one that did not, or is Flusterstorm that good at winning stack wars that it's not that necessary.

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Originally Posted by Kich867

I'm looking to build Solidarity within the near future, but one thing I'd like to talk about before the purchase is the use of Force of Will. Some decks use it, but some just run flusterstorm to win stack wars, remand for tech / tempo, and misstep to deal with missteps..

Is Force of Wills card disadvantage too brutal? It's not really an issue with cost as a playset is accessible for me, I'm just wondering if it's necessary for the deck. A free counter is always a free counter but I'm leery of hurting myself from losing my hand for it..

This topic was brought up briefly many pages ago, but the conversation went sort of a "preference" route, but I'd like a more definitive answer as to whether it's either useful or unnecessary. Would a deck perform better with it over one that did not, or is Flusterstorm that good at winning stack wars that it's not that necessary.

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Look at this question this way: Flusterstorm need cheap cards to storm (what's more cheap than free?);
With Vendilion on the way (almost every blue deck has it) you need to stop clocks and remand isn't enough...

Force is vital either to balance your game or to combo out...

I personally run a 2/2 split of FoW between the MD and SB right now. My counterpackage MD ATM is 2 FoW, 3 Misstep, and 4 Remand. I have 1 flusterstorm, 1 misstep, and 2 FoW in the SB along with a mindbreak trap for counterwars ending in cunning wish. Against decks you don't have counterwars with I usually board out some remand's for the misstep if they play targeted discard and force if they play trouble 2+ drops that you don't want to resolve like canonist, tidehollow sculler, etc. etc. It's worked out pretty well so far. I like remand for counterwars and against decks we have lots of time against I can just usually set up a board state where I will win any counterwar regardless of their hand based on being able to wish for flusterstorm/MBT to just blow them out.

I expect misstep will get banned so I'll have to revamp the counterpackage once again but that's fine by me; I'll probably just start running some amount of flusterstorm MD based on how sick it is in counterwars and even against just random discard and hymn it shines as a way to counter them for sure usually.

It depends on your hand on whether FoW's card disadvantage is brutal or not. If you don't have that many cards, it's brutal. If you have excess combo pieces it's a pretty easy call to FoW a certain spell.

The good part about snap on snapcaster mage isn't that it gains mana. It's that you can go EoT intuition for 3 snap's with a snapcaster mage in hand along with brain freeze and remand and you then kill them via going high tide, snapcaster mage, snap, snapcaster mage, snap, snapcaster mage, snap, snapcaster, high tide, brain freeze, remand it, brain freeze again and kill them due to them getting decked in their draw step. You don't even need reset, turnabout, or meditate for this lethal combination.

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

I personally run a 2/2 split of FoW between the MD and SB right now. My counterpackage MD ATM is 2 FoW, 3 Misstep, and 4 Remand. I have 1 flusterstorm, 1 misstep, and 2 FoW in the SB along with a mindbreak trap for counterwars ending in cunning wish. Against decks you don't have counterwars with I usually board out some remand's for the misstep if they play targeted discard and force if they play trouble 2+ drops that you don't want to resolve like canonist, tidehollow sculler, etc. etc. It's worked out pretty well so far. I like remand for counterwars and against decks we have lots of time against I can just usually set up a board state where I will win any counterwar regardless of their hand based on being able to wish for flusterstorm/MBT to just blow them out.

I expect misstep will get banned so I'll have to revamp the counterpackage once again but that's fine by me; I'll probably just start running some amount of flusterstorm MD based on how sick it is in counterwars and even against just random discard and hymn it shines as a way to counter them for sure usually.

It depends on your hand on whether FoW's card disadvantage is brutal or not. If you don't have that many cards, it's brutal. If you have excess combo pieces it's a pretty easy call to FoW a certain spell.

The good part about snap on snapcaster mage isn't that it gains mana. It's that you can go EoT intuition for 3 snap's with a snapcaster mage in hand along with brain freeze and remand and you then kill them via going high tide, snapcaster mage, snap, snapcaster mage, snap, snapcaster mage, snap, snapcaster, high tide, brain freeze, remand it, brain freeze again and kill them due to them getting decked in their draw step. You don't even need reset, turnabout, or meditate for this lethal combination.

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I play with the "classic" 4 FoW and 4 Remands.
I believe that for the first game, the versatility of FoW is unmatched by any other counter.

In the playtest I've done, Snapcaster and Snap have been golden. You don't need intuition for them to be good (I don't ever play intuition). Snapcaster Mage is just brutal if you have resolved a high tide, it's just the card you need in every moment and Snap is an untapper for 2 mana, wich is very important in a lot of situations and allows you to replay Snapcaster Mage for another card.

Thoughts:

(I'm still playing a wishless list, albeit pretty modified with the release of the Mage.)

- The Value of a card like Intuition has changed. Before ScM, intuition was a bit of liability (in thinning your deck of very likely a card you'd like to draw multiples of over the course of the turn) however now it is considerably stronger, even if it's just to use it similarly to the way *some* used Cunning Wish. (Except you don't have to cut down from the max # maindeck.) As well, you can also run single copies of the "kill spells" (BSZ & BF) and still "tutor" for them (searching up BSZ / ScM / ScM - or Snap if you already have ScM's in play)

- As above, both Pact of Negation and Mental Misstep should be re-evaluated, as should Force of Will. The deck (and player piloting it) should decide if they would prefer a more controlling build (in which FoW retains it's power level) or a more "combo" build (in which case all you want to do is protect your "going off" turn, where PoN becomes much stronger) - keep in mind MM and PoN can both be flashed back for "free"

- Both Remand and Flash of Insight should be under heavy scrutiny in lists that run (and especially ones that max out on) ScM. Similarly, Turnabout is almost certainly unnecessary in lists that run multiple Snaps, and ScM+Reset is basically turnabout in itself.

- Visions of Beyond is still trash.

I'm not 100% sure on Wish lists. Personally I'm more interested in having a full sideboard to pull from.

Everyone say a little prayer for MM to get banned.

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Originally Posted by Seraphus

Try this: reduce cunning wish to 2 (common lists use 3) because you'll need to deal with emrakulls and friends (acessing zenith has no price). Main deck don't use Snap, yes it has some chemistry with Snapcaster, you'll need to have a second high tide to it actually produce any extra mana. Think about, the mage adds enough consistence to the deck its better to add things that allow us to be faster against decks that we need to be faster (those decks normally use creatures - bonus for snap that will not only be exclusively dependent on mage - yes many decks use creatures nowadays but i prefer consistence rather that an untapper).

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I'm not very concerned about Emrakul, as Hive Mind and other Show n'Tell decks are not that common in my metagame. If my opponent has no targets to Snap it usually means I'm not under pressure, and I'm fine if my own ScM is the only target. Still, I see your point on improving consistence and being faster. I guess a lot of test and time will tell if Snap deserves its place MD.
My main current concerns playing this deck are the same of most people here: finding out if FoW is worth it or not and how to achieve land drops consistently while sculpting the combo. The answer to the firts question is still yes for me; but I'm still not sure about the second.

This thread is not excited with the banning of Misstep?

Here let me help you guys out:

WOOOHOOOO!!!!

Anyway, I've shelfed my Solidarity cards in my binders during this period waiting for MM to be unbanned. I am definitely going to pick up this archetype more and leego's points are pretty spot on (at least from what I've gathered and theorized, but fuck theory, need to get down to real testing!). What's cool is with MM banned, Spiral Tide is picking up, so we can combo off on their High Tide and win!

I never really found MM to be that much of a problem, honestly, as we've had to fight through counters and other instants from the outset. MM at least helped me as much as it hurt me.

With MM gone we will face fewer counters on our High Tide, but the format will also speed up again, putting us under pressure to assemble the combo before we go under. And that's really what we are missing, a Merchant Scroll equivalent that ensures we can assemble the combo by turn 3 - Lim Dul's Vault is the closest we've got.

Mora than the speed of the format (zoo was a very used deck in the MM era and is the same as now) what "scares" me a little is the (posible) Counter Top come back.

At the end, MM was a counter just like spell snare (it counter the tides, so was a little worse but not that worse) and Solidarity is the king of the stack, but Counter Top is a lot harder to beat and you can't remand the tide and try the next turn, you have to solve the Counter Balance issue first.

I hope that the speed on the format that everybody is assuming is too much for the CB decks...

Against old CB decks boarding into 3-4 Brain Freezes and mini-milling always worked for me in the past.

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Originally Posted by Zinch

Mora than the speed of the format (zoo was a very used deck in the MM era and is the same as now) what "scares" me a little is the (posible) Counter Top come back.

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Merfolk will keep CB in check. Not that the Merfolk matchup is a cakewalk, but I believe it to be better than the CB match.

I completely agree with Silent Requiem about assembling the combo. The problem is that it is hard to figure something other than Frantic Search being unbanned that would help this deck without favoring other blue decks, too.

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Originally Posted by Silent Requiem

I never really found MM to be that much of a problem, honestly, as we've had to fight through counters and other instants from the outset. MM at least helped me as much as it hurt me.

With MM gone we will face fewer counters on our High Tide, but the format will also speed up again, putting us under pressure to assemble the combo before we go under. And that's really what we are missing, a Merchant Scroll equivalent that ensures we can assemble the combo by turn 3 - Lim Dul's Vault is the closest we've got.

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I have only played Spiral Tide and I know Solidarity runs Instant only, but could not this deck just play 3 Merchant Scroll? It is a dead card in the combo turn, but you use it on turn 2 to assemble the combo or protection. For such a powerful effect on turn 2, could it outweigh the liability?

the problem is, when you start justifying non-instant non-land cards in the deck... it gets hard not to justify a card like Time Spiral that basically just wins as soon as it resolves. And then we're talking about a different deck entirely, much the same way MUD and affinity are both artifact decks, but you couldn't just shove wurmcoil engine into affinity.

-edit- albeit I will say that a couple of years ago somebody tried to run Merchant Scroll + Quicken. I don't think it worked out all that well, but you may want to scour some pages back and see what become of it.

If (and this is a big "if") we could consistently combo out on turn three then we could probably support some non-instants.

Initially, the deck ran all instants simply because Reset could only be played on the opponent's turn, and Reset was, along with High Tide, our strongest mana generator.

However, as the format sped up, we also needed to delay our opponents long enough for us to play four lands, which lead to the inclusion of cards like Remand and Cryptic, as well as using our dig spells to find FoW. This meant that we never knew what we could afford to play until we saw what our opponent was doing; were we digging for High Tide, or digging for Fow?

This created a second reason for running only instants, a reason actually stronger than the convenience of playing well with Reset: we were forced to play control in the early game.

If (and again, this is a big "if") we can build the deck in such a way that it reliably combos out on three lands then we can, to a large extent, drop the control role we have been forced into. Doing so would probably allow us to support a few sorceries, with Merchant Scroll being the obvious one.

Incidentally, being able to go off on three lands would benefit the deck in other ways, primarily by reducing the need to find a fourth land. We could (for example) try running Quicken/Peek/Visions over Opt because the early game digging power would be less critical. We could try Lim Dul's Vault, because the card disadvantage hurts us less. And so on.

We would also want to be able (if possible) to go off on our own turn when on the play, too. Most people are tapped out on turn 2, so if we go off on our own turn 3 then we face far less disruption. And no need for a pesky BSZ.

Can Snapcaster + Snap help us do all this? I don't know, but it's going to be interesting to find out.

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Originally Posted by leegoo

the problem is, when you start justifying non-instant non-land cards in the deck... it gets hard not to justify a card like Time Spiral that basically just wins as soon as it resolves. And then we're talking about a different deck entirely, much the same way MUD and affinity are both artifact decks, but you couldn't just shove wurmcoil engine into affinity.

-edit- albeit I will say that a couple of years ago somebody tried to run Merchant Scroll + Quicken. I don't think it worked out all that well, but you may want to scour some pages back and see what become of it.

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Well, do you mean Time Spiral > Reset? Merchant Scroll serves better along with Time Spiral, but it does not mean it can't improve Reset lists. Wurmcoil Engine, on the other hand, is certainly worse than Tezzeret in Affinity, or Master of Etherium if you want it to be compared with a creature.

@Silent Requiem: AFAIK, Spiral Tide combos out on turn 4. Although it has a higher percentage of turn 3 combo than Solidarity, both are negligible (versions with Retraced Image being an exception). On paper, there is no conflict between countering their turn 2 play by Remand and Scroll for a card on turn 3 to prepare for the turn 4 combo. There are Cunning Wish and Intuition as turn 3 tutors, but their effects are arguably worse than Scroll's even if they cost 1U.

Snapcaster Mage is the whole reason for my interest in Solidarity. Do you have a draft list that you want to share?

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Originally Posted by tsabo_tavoc

On paper, there is no conflict between countering their turn 2 play by Remand and Scroll for a card on turn 3 to prepare for the turn 4 combo.

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Ah, but that's the point! You don't know whether you should Remand on turn 2 and Scroll on turn 3, or Scroll on turn 2 and Remand on turn 3. Casting Merchant Scroll means (short of FoW) letting them do whatever the hell they want that turn. That's a pretty risky play.

Edit: While casting Merchant Scroll on turn 3 means you have a mana open for dig or Flusterstorm, it also means you have given up the option of going off on turn 3.

2nd Edit: I'm actually quite curious as to how Lim Dul's Vault would work, as cracking a T2 fetch (when they are tapped out, so no wasteland) for an Underground Sea into Vault looks like it would set you up pretty well for a turn 3 win, either on your own turn or on their next turn (if you needed to use Reset).

I'm not totaly convinced of Snapcaster Mage, yes he has flash so it fits to the deck, but he makes n+2 the cmc of the spells on yard and has a tigerred ability. So he 's a countereable / stifleable spell.

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Originally Posted by Silent Requiem

Ah, but that's the point! You don't know whether you should Remand on turn 2 and Scroll on turn 3, or Scroll on turn 2 and Remand on turn 3. Casting Merchant Scroll means (short of FoW) letting them do whatever the hell they want that turn. That's a pretty risky play.

Edit: While casting Merchant Scroll on turn 3 means you have a mana open for dig or Flusterstorm, it also means you have given up the option of going off on turn 3.

2nd Edit: I'm actually quite curious as to how Lim Dul's Vault would work, as cracking a T2 fetch (when they are tapped out, so no wasteland) for an Underground Sea into Vault looks like it would set you up pretty well for a turn 3 win, either on your own turn or on their next turn (if you needed to use Reset).

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Yeah, it is almost always better to tutor on turn 3. You see 2 more cards (1 from Remand), and with 1 untapped Island, Scroll is Daze-proof and there is mana for Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm. If they did not play anything relevant on turn 2, good for you as you probably won't be killed on turn 3.

Has anyone been testing a Mage list? I seriously doubt Solidarity can combo with 3 Islands more than 1/3 of the time. With 8 counters, I would accept a turn 3-4 loss.

Intuition almost becomes a must as a 3-off in Snapcaster builds. I've been testing/goldfishing 4 Snapcaster, 3 Snap, 3 Intuition MD, and many times I find that going the Intuition route with Snapcaster has greatly improved the win consistency as opposed to hopefully chain a draw spell off another draw spell (I had 3 Impulse fizzle on me when I was going off at one point).

I was testing Gifts Ungiven over Intuition but the mana bump is significant and you can't grab 2-3 spells with the same name when you sometimes need to in certain situations. It feels really scary that Intuition + Snapcaster is somewhat more powerful than Demonic Tutor when it resolves.

I ran into an interesting hand on turn 3 last night.

3 Islands:
Hand: 2 High Tide, 1 Reset, 1 Snapcaster, 1 Snap, 1 Brain freeze, 1 Remand

This was a draw independent hand but outlines how powerful playing multiple Brain Freezes in a single turn abuses a low storm count.
(Tide, Tide, Reset, Brainfreeze (4 storm),
Remand (Brainfreeze), Snapcaster (Reset), Snap (Snapcaster), Reset
Brainfreeze (9 storm), Snapcaster (Brainfreeze), Brainfreeze (11 storm))

Anyway, what I'm really amazed with is the fact that Snapcaster builds not just enable Snaps (which help in our aggro matchup), but I've been testing out 2 Repeals in the SB (against decks like Bant/TA/Zoo/Goblins/Vial), and the nice thing is Repeal is not a dead draw against aggro in the combo phase (since you can repeal Snapcaster back again). So against aggro deck, having 4 Snap + 2-3 Repeal postboard is quite incredible. Against non-aggro decks, 3 Snaps in the MD is still undead as long as you resolve Snapcaster (which should be the focus in the Intuition-Snapcaster path to victory). For non-aggro decks, I'm really beginning to like MD/SB of up to 4 Flusterstorm.

Here was the list that I was practicing with. It still needs a little fine-tuning.

Lands: 19
6 Fetch
13 Island

Dig: 15
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
4 Meditate
3 Intuition

Combo: 19
4 High Tide
3 Snap
4 Reset
2 Turnabout (I have 2 MD because I feel you need at least 6 unsituational untappers)
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Brainfreeze

Permission: 7
4 Remand
3 Force of Will

I really want to have 9 permission spell because I feel 7 feels tad light. I am not impressed with FoW in this list, and I'm very tempted to go to either 3 Flusterstorm or 2 Flusterstorm + 1 Repeal. Note that every card in the deck is not dead during the combo phase except lands and FoW. If FoW is replaced by 2 Repeal in a more aggro environment, not only would Repeal function against an opposing deck, but drawn repeals actually continue to fuel the combo.

I would like to fit 3-4 Opts in the above list, but I'm finding slots incredibly tight. Any advice?