[Deck] Solidarity

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Originally Posted by lebarion

Maybe we're playng this deck a little differently. If I want to dig for lands, I'll usually wait untill after my draw step to cantrip, because if I find the land I need "naturally" I can wait and make the right decision with Opt. Of course, with VoB this is irrelevant.
But consider a situation were you have 2 lands in play and no lands nor cantrips in hand (it doesn't matter how things get this bad :wink: ). In your third turn, you draw Opt. If there's a land in you next 3 cards, you're not screwed. If you draw Visions Of beyond and your top deck is not a land, you're in bad shape.

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That's one way to play the deck, but I find that casting cantrips on my main phase really hurt my ability to go off if I need to. If I know that I'm going to need to make a land drop next turn and can cantrip at the end of their turn, I will, because then I know I won't need to potentially go off. I would consider the main-phase cantrip to be an emergency play, something I do against really fast decks where I know if I miss even one land drop, I will probably lose. But even then, if I make that play and don't hit a land, I've cut off the ability to even bluff a Remand or Impulse -> Force of Will.

In the situation you've described, we'll consider making your land drop to be a success, and anything else to be a failure. It's not true that it will be a success if there is a land in your top 3 cards with Opt. Top 2, sure, but if it's the third card down, you're going to miss your land drop no matter which card you're playing. If it's the second card down, then yes, Opt will be superior in this example. If it's the first card, then the two are equivalent.

But as I said, there will be times when you want that slot to be Opt, and times you want it to be Visions of Beyond. What matters more to me is the frequency of each occurrence, and that's what my testing showed me. The way I typically play, there were only five games in 100+ where Opt would have helped me hit the land drop that Visions did not. The situation that you bring up was surprisingly rare for me, as my typical opening hand has at least one of Brainstorm (which is absolutely a desperation play, but again, that's the only real time I'd main-phase a cantrip), Impulse or Remand, all of which are plays I'd make before main-phase Opt. If I pass the turn with Remand up and they don't do anything, then I can still Opt at their EOT, having bought a turn of them doing nothing and maximizing my chances of making my land drop for the next turn. And if I desperately need land, Impulse is a much, much better card for finding it than Opt.

The thing that switching to Visions of Beyond has done for me is drastically reduced the number of times that I've fizzled mid-combo. Playing Visions of Beyond has given me the ability to still play a card that gives me velocity on turn 1, just like Opt, but also gives me access to more Meditates mid-combo, which is something that Opt could never be. It's always a trade-off, but I've found the added mid-combo consistency to be relevant three times more often than the inability to find a land in the setup phase.

@benthetenor

Would you care to share the list you tested with? You mentioned you're playing only 4 Snapcaster Mage and 2 Visions of Beyond differently from Gearhart's list; what did you take out to add the Snapcasters?

To turn Visions on mid-combo, do you usually Freeze yourself or just chaining spells gets 20 cards in your graveyard?

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

Opt doesn't actually work that way. You only get to see one card before making your decision. It's not half of an Impulse, it's half of a Preordain. What it does give you is a false sense of control over your draws, when in fact you only get to make a single choice: take the top card or not. Putting a good card on the bottom with Opt is always a gamble because the card that you're forced to draw will very likely be worse. You don't get the choice with Visions of Beyond, but I would argue that you usually don't get much of a choice with Opt, anyway.

I also didn't build my deck towards Visions of Beyond. I'm running two Brainfreeze with a third one in the board, which is, I believe, the median number. In fact, my build is only 6 cards off of the last build that we got from David Gearhart's (mono U), with 4 of those cards being Snapcaster Mages, and two being 2 Visions of Beyond over 2 Opt. It is, by all accounts, a more conservative build than you're probably running, and certainly a more conservative build than you have run in the past. (No Hunting Pack, no High Tide in the sideboard, no Intuition + Snap) But Visions of Beyond is Ancestral Recall 95% of the time mid-combo, and that is without making sub-optimal plays or bastardizing the deck simply to ensure that the card goes off. The card works. Very well.

I can understand your hesitancy, I suppose. I just started posting here a few days ago. But I have read the entirety of the thread, and was likely playing Solidarity before you were. I've done a lot of testing to come to the conclusions that I have. I ran 100+ games for this Visions of Beyond study alone. I'm not Gearhart, but I know what I'm talking about. If you don't believe me, test it yourself. If you can't make it work, then...I don't know. Maybe I'm just better than you. Or a savage cheater. I guess that's always an option.

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Well I found that when I play this deck, since it has 18 lands, usually I don't draw all the lands I need. Often I'm just trying to make land drops in the early turns because this deck needs land more than it needs anything else typically unless you get land flooded. Opt see's 2 cards for this purpose; if there's a land on top sure it see's you one card then unless you don't need the land but then it see's two cards. Seeing two cards versus one card is often huge in a combo deck or any deck in general. I won't pretend to be a master of solidarity as I don't play this deck that much anymore but I know that opt has been a mainstay in solidarity for years because of its ability to find land and help out midcombo as well because during the combo it see's two cards unless the card you need is right on top. Bricking off of visions of beyond can easily cause a fizzle in this deck since the only real draw spells we have are meditate and blue sun's zenith/stroke if you have the mana to play those while drawing a lot but this is often planned a turn in advance i.e. you cunning wish turn 3 for stroke/BSZ and turn 4 play high tide and some rituals in order to draw a bunch of cards. Often we have to rely on meditate, and draw 4's aren't even close to the power of ad nauseam since they cost 3 mana and you can easily fizzle after casting meditate into nothing with this deck if you're pressured enough early on to combo off prematurely. This is still the problem with the deck; against aggro you're often not favored because they can kill you faster than you kill them and when you try to go off with too few resources you can fizzle out very easily if you don't draw well enough to continue the spell chain.

Usually you want to brainfreeze yourself to turn on VoB so you can stack your deck with flash of insight then draw any 3 cards you want to draw to kill them.

Can we stop discussing VoB?
It's a very bad card which turns into an Ancestral Recall by the time 1/3rd of your deck is in your graveyard. Having that pre-combo, basically needs you to freeze yourself (on your opponents stormcount) with a decent stormcount, which means spending cards to play..

Setting up pre-combo is the most important thing to Solidarity and Opt is a very powerful card to do so. VoB is very occasionally better.
If you want to play risky early turns without the possibility do land drop, play VoB.
If you want higher chances of getting the spells/lands you need pre-combo, play Opt.
Or play a split.


Imho by the time VoB is a Recall, you're already in it to win it.

Listen, guys, we don't need to keep discussing Visions of Beyond if you're done with it. I'm telling you that it is not a very bad card. The thing that is rather annoying to me is that it seems that most of you haven't even read what it is that I've been saying. It is absolutely true that Opt is occasionally the superior card in the setup phase. What surprised me during testing is HOW OFTEN THERE WAS NO DISCERNIBLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OPT AND VISIONS OF BEYOND. More than 80% of the time, both cards got me the land I needed. Even more than that, I usually had Impulse or Remand, which functioned to also get me the land that I needed. It's always been the case that getting the 3rd and 4th land is much more difficult than getting the 2nd one, and getting lands 3 and 4 is where Impulse shines, not Opt.

The benefit of Visions is that I never, ever, ever fizzle out mid-combo. Seriously. Once in 50 games or so. And this is with me pushing the deck, trying to win off of three lands, going off with only 2/3 of the combo, etc. The ability to Brainfreeze yourself to turn your Brainstorms and Visions of Beyonds into Ancestral Recalls, as well as to pump up the yard for Snapcaster Mage, greatly increases the consistency and resilience of the deck. Don't just say "It's Ancestral Recall 1% of the time." Test it. It's Ancestral Recall every time that it matters. Every. Time.

As far as making land drops, I'm playing a 2/2 split right now between Visions of Beyond and Peek, and I very rarely have an issue making land drops. The control that Opt gives you over the cards you draw is a fantasy. It only lets you dump the top card if it's not the one you want. Which is, admittedly more than Visions of Beyond does (as I've said consistently), but that actually does very little to ensure land drops that any other cantrip can't. If you get into the situation where your top card is a High Tide, 95% of the time you'd take it, even if you really, really needed land. Same with Meditate. Usually the same with Reset. Because you're far more likely to draw lands off the top than any of those cards.

Also, if you're not currently testing the deck, then I don't really want to hear arguments from you. I've been playing the deck non-stop for the last two months (and played it for years, years ago), and I assure you that I've tested very specifically the differences between Opt and Visions of Beyond. That's the whole point of my chiming in here. If all you can offer the discussion is that one "seems" better than the other, that's pretty useless.

As far as turning Visions of Beyond on, probably 3/4 of the time I point a Brain Freeze for 6 or 7 at myself. I'll use the storm copies to maximize Brainstorm and Visions of Beyond, and cast whatever spells come off the top, usually finding a Remand to bring the Brain Freeze back to my hand (or, worst case, a Snapcaster Mage for when the original falls off the stack). Then I'll point the Brainfreeze at them, usually paired with a second one or another Remand to ensure it's lethal, though after going through this process, it's not uncommon to have a storm count in the 18-25 range. Then either Snapcaster Mage for Turnabout or Cunning Wish for Blue Sun's Zenith/Stroke of Genius.

The other 1/4 of the time, I'll cast a Visions of Beyond and then respond to it with a Brain Freeze pointed at them, usually after a chain of spells. That usually happens if Visions of Beyond and Brain Freeze are literally the only business in my hand, since it will maximize the damage that Brain Freeze will do, while also potentially drawing me into some more business to continue to go off. If I've got plenty of mana and haven't seen a Remand yet (or only saw one), then I'll Brain Freeze them and Visions of Beyond as soon as they have 20 in their graveyard, giving me the best chance to Remand the Brain Freeze and play it again for lethal. For reference, my current list:

13 Island
5 Fetches

4 Brainstorm
2 Peek
2 Visions of Beyond
4 High Tide
4 Reset
4 Impulse
4 Remand
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Brain Freeze
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
2 Turnabout
4 Force of Will

SB:
1 Blue Sun's Zenith / Stroke of Genius
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor / Wipe Away / Echoing Truth
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
3 Twincast
1 Mindbreak Trap
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Ravenous Trap

Test it. Or don't. But without testing, your claim of "seriously guys, it's bad. Just don't even try it" is misleading at best. It works for me. Very well. It's increased the number of games that I've won by a statistically significant number. Even controlling for my increased experience with the deck. It is better than Opt.

Shit, ask the guys who were running 20 lands and no Opts how often they missed Opt. The theory is 2 cantrips = one land. My deck is identical to theirs, according to that theory. If you're that worried about it, go to 3 Visions of Beyond and 19 lands. I did that for a while and it works even better in terms of hitting land drops. I just really like how Peek can steal games, and haven't had a serious issue missing land drops with this build. Or you know what? Do whatever the hell you want and stop trying to justify it to me. I'm just trying to advance the discussion on this thread with some encouraging results I've gotten via testing. I don't really care if you play Visions of Beyond or not. Just don't discourage other people from trying it out.

For what it's worth, you've convinced me to seriously test VoB when I next start getting back into Solidarity (which is not going to be soon). But then, I've also played Optless builds (and generally do "heretical" things like splash colours and add more lands), so I've had plenty of experience in doing without it.

At the most basic level, there are probably only a half dozen cards in the whole deck that I would actually skip when playing an early Opt (Cryptic, FoI, Brainfreeze, etc). The rest are too valuable to cast away. This makes VoB and Opt indistinguishable in most cases. I've always seen that, and I've assumed that everyone else sees it too. That's why playing Peek over Opt has long been considered a valid variation.

What had actually been holding me back was the post-combo phase. After all, if I'm going to be casting Brainfreeze on 6-7 storm to trigger VoB, then why would I just not cast Remand instead and just win? On paper, it looks silly to bother with VoB.

Your testing, however, seems to suggest things are not that simple. I'm particularly impressed by your sample size and fizzle rates. Although it was a while ago, I actually played hundreds of games with Solidarity and recorded the fizzle rates (among other details) - I think I actually posted some of the results to this thread. What this exercise taught me, though, is that, claims from other players of never fizzling not withstanding, is this deck is actually more unstable that we normally acknowledge (at least when played by a mere mortal, such as myself), especially if forced to go off on turn 4 (or earlier).

If VoB stabilizes the deck without sacrificing the setup stage, I'm prepared to take it seriously.

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Originally Posted by Silent Requiem

For what it's worth, you've convinced me to seriously test VoB when I next start getting back into Solidarity (which is not going to be soon). But then, I've also played Optless builds (and generally do "heretical" things like splash colours and add more lands), so I've had plenty of experience in doing without it.

At the most basic level, there are probably only a half dozen cards in the whole deck that I would actually skip when playing an early Opt (Cryptic, FoI, Brainfreeze, etc). The rest are too valuable to cast away. This makes VoB and Opt indistinguishable in most cases. I've always seen that, and I've assumed that everyone else sees it too. That's why playing Peek over Opt has long been considered a valid variation.

What had actually been holding me back was the post-combo phase. After all, if I'm going to be casting Brainfreeze on 6-7 storm to trigger VoB, then why would I just not cast Remand instead and just win? On paper, it looks silly to bother with VoB.

Your testing, however, seems to suggest things are not that simple. I'm particularly impressed by your sample size and fizzle rates. Although it was a while ago, I actually played hundreds of games with Solidarity and recorded the fizzle rates (among other details) - I think I actually posted some of the results to this thread. What this exercise taught me, though, is that, claims from other players of never fizzling not withstanding, is this deck is actually more unstable that we normally acknowledge (at least when played by a mere mortal, such as myself), especially if forced to go off on turn 4 (or earlier).

If VoB stabilizes the deck without sacrificing the setup stage, I'm prepared to take it seriously.

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The times when I find Visions of Beyond most helpful are when I've got a hand of something like Brain Freeze, Visions of Beyond, Brainstorm and 5-6 land. So something like, mid-combo, after having Meditated into nothing once or twice. Usually my storm will be around 6-7, so almost lethal with a Remand, but I still need some more gas. Brainstorm and Visions of Beyond turn that game into a win whereas I'd very often brick on just one Brainstorm or Opt + Brainstorm. Even better is that hand where I don't have the 5-6 lands, which is where Visions gives me the cards to filter with Brainstorm.

I'm not saying it's Meditate. I am saying that it's rarely not as good as Opt, and often better. I also consider a 19 land, 3 VoB build to be maybe a bit more consistent, so the thing that needs the most testing is whether or not Peek is still earning it's slot, vs. just drawing more cards and powering through via Visions of Beyond.

Hi everyone. I finally joined the community of this forum after a long time spent reading.

English is not my mothertongue, but I hope there will be not misunderstanding among us.

About this thread, i have to submit to you my way of playing this deck (that I think is underrated by most of magic players which think it was substituted by Spiral Tide).
What the deck means for consistently win when it goes off is TIME. Even without a cantrip that dig deep like Ponder, we still have the chance to set us up for the time when we have no other way to survive but winning immediatly. So, IMHO, it is not a cantrip better than Opt that will make the cut, nor a possible Ancestral one because while we are going off we still have the possibility go refill our tank of gas,especially with Snapcaster (of course, assuming that a 4 lands Meditate is something we can do little against). All this quite-senseless speech to say that, instead of a cantrip of any sort, i think the right way is to play something that give us time, like a bounce against aggro or Remand. Using the Opt/Visions slot for something like Repeal to gain free time (it's the only bounce that replaces itself) against fast aggro decks or to maximizing the Remand for delaying any sort of threat (other that do the Freeze-trick) will give the deck the time to see more cards and do more land drops.

That is my actual list, which has performed good in testing (I never missed Opt. The PtD is there to be 5th Impulse, very good for finding the missing combo piece/another cantrip to dig deeper)

12 Island
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest

3 High Tide
4 Reset
3 Meditate
4 Cunning wish
4 Force of Will
3 Remand
2 Brain Freeze
4 Impulse
1 Peer through Depths
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
2 Snap
3 Repeal
1 Turnabout

Wishboard

1 Stroke of Genius
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Echoing Truth
1 Pact of Negation
1 Wipe Away
1 Rebuild
1 High Tide
1 Meditate
1 Mindbreak trap
1 Brain Freeze
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Flusterstorm
1 Stifle

What do you think about it?

(I am not able to link the card to make the image appear when the mouse cursor is passed on them, sorry for that.)

Your approach is not unreasonable; in fact, some pilots have had some success with similar builds.

However, the difficulty (in my view) is that Solidarity plays two different games: the setup game, and the combo game.

Cards like Repeal, while not completely dead in the combo phase are really very bad; it's almost as bad as drawing into FoW or Cryptic Command. The more cards like that you have in your deck, the more likely you are to fizzle when you combo. The opposite is true of cantrips which speed your setup along - these cards will also help you when you combo off. In isolation, then, cantrips/tutors >> stalling cards.

Unfortunately, we have an additional limiting factor: land drops. Even if you open your hand with all your combo pieces, you still need to make three or more land drops before you can go off, and you can only do so at the rate of one per turn. So once you have enough cantrips to find your combo and combo off successfully, stalling cards >> cantrips/tutors because they make it more likely that you will live long enough to make those critical land drops.

It is this inherent contradiciton that Solidarity pilots wrestle with, and we all strive to find the right balance for our own play style. To be honest, though, the correct equilibrium is going to make very little difference to the overall success of the deck; it's simply too slow.

What Solidarity needs is a way to go off on turn 2-3 rather than turn 3-5. This is why Spiral Tide is more popular (and more successful); it's got the ability to go off that one turn early.

Any build that does not address that shortfall is ultimately just retreading old ground. At this point, I'm not sure that even the unbanning of Frantic Search would really help much. I'd much rather see:

Voyage of Discovery - U (Instant)

Search your library for a basic land and put it into play. Sacrifice that land at the end of your turn.

Draw a card.

I agree with you on almost everithing, especially that we are too slow.

So far, we know that combo legacy decks have to broke some rules of the MTG game to be effectively good, and we can break none on these. I mean, ritual-based storm deck can cheat with mana acceleration (Dark Ritual style) and card advantage (Ad Nauseam style) for get the right chain of spell. In other words, when they go off they break the two fundamental rules of MTG: a land per turn (mana limitation) and a card per turn (resources limitation). We don't have access to any ritual, so we break the limitation of resources by cheating on the UNTAP phase and giving drugs to our land to force them to produce more mana. But this is not as effective as the ritual strategy, since it causes almost the same cards disadvantage but require a setting phase that is nor necessary to other combo decks. I mean, let's do an example:

ANT can go off with a God hand turn 1 with Land -> Dark Ritual -> Dark Ritual -> Ad Nauseam
It has break mana limitation at the cost of card disadvantage (just like us), playing a spell CC5 on the first turn, a spell that can itself break the rules of resources limitation (just like a Meditate of us).

We can break almost the same rules, BUT we cannot really break mana limitation unless we observed it before as we don't have other way to break it. Also, our card advantage engine give us only four cards and forces us to lose if the combo fizzles (to skip a turn is a very bad things, especially against the deck that form the metagame nowadays).

Spiral Tide in fact can pass over all this things, simply running a broken card that cover the lack of an efficient untap effect whith is brokeness. Casting Time Spiral is like doing a Reset and a Meditate at the same time. With this tools, it's easy to go off one turn earlier than us, since you only have to drug your lands and cast Spiral someow, often Turnabouting your three Islands on turn three after a High Tide.

Anyway, complainings about the lack of speed we have does not lead us anywhere. Up to now, gaining time is the only thing we can do to ensure that once we go off an instant win will happens. We can abuse Snapcaster Mage to do so, wich is the most valuable card that the deck has got in the last two blocks. He is amazing: blocking and recycle a Brainstorm on turn 3 is possible as reuse a Meditate or generating storm count for a fast-double-freeze with Snap.

The cards you have imagined would be the perfection for us, more than Frantic Search: it cheats on mana without card disadvantage and can give us the ability to go off even on turn 2 (in a limit-case like ANT's turn1 win).

Oh my God, i've written too much for my writer's skills! Forgive me for any errors, I don't know if there are others!

Nice insights. The thing that Solidarity can only go off turns 4+ is a real hindrance at the current state of legacy.

- It makes us vulnerable to aggro decks; they can reliably Green Sun's Zenith into Gaddock Teeg or tutor for Ethersworn Cannonist on turn 3. Then you have to find your way out of this while a 8/8 Knight of the Reliquary is bashing face.

- We have to fight through a wall of countermagic in the control matchups. I've tried comboing out and was met with 4 counters. Take into account that we have to cast a High Tide before comboing off and that we're basically trying to "my 7 against your 8" them (because Solidarity goes off on their turn), and things get really tough.

One thing I'd like to note though, is that Repeal is not dead mid-combo anymore, as you can Repeal Snapcaster for more goodstuff.

I've been following this thread for a while and wondering about this card from Dark Ascension:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attac...1&d=1326863106

Do you think something like this can be useful? I sometimes get stuck with several land in my hand during my combo. When I cast Brainstorm for example I can put two lands back and mill those away with this card, also feeding the VoB.

Any thoughts?

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Originally Posted by Cybey

Do you think something like this can be useful? I sometimes get stuck with several land in my hand during my combo. When I cast Brainstorm for example I can put two lands back and mill those away with this card, also feeding the VoB.

Any thoughts?

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If you have Brainstorm and Opt you see 5 cards (Brainstorm is always cast last). With Brainstorm and Tome Scour you see 4.

If you Brainstorm without Impulse, Peer Through Depths, Brain Freeze, or a fetchland to get chaff out of the top, then you'd better find any of the previously mentioned cards than Tome Scour.

Mental Note does actually the same, and it's not played by anyone because it is a bad card and we have several cards that are better than it. So Thought Scour will not see play: it's a bit less narrow than Mental Note, but we just have better things to do even with a single blue mana.

Unfortunately, Dark Ascension has no Snapcaster-likely cards for us. :mad:

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Originally Posted by Psychovoid

If you have Brainstorm and Opt you see 5 cards (Brainstorm is always cast last). With Brainstorm and Tome Scour you see 4.

If you Brainstorm without Impulse, Peer Through Depths, Brain Freeze, or a fetchland to get chaff out of the top, then you'd better find any of the previously mentioned cards than Tome Scour.

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This consideration actually is what I thought, but figured I should at least try to bring this card to our attention to see if you guys might have a different opinion.

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Originally Posted by Psychovoid

If you have Brainstorm and Opt you see 5 cards (Brainstorm is always cast last). With Brainstorm and Tome Scour you see 4.

If you Brainstorm without Impulse, Peer Through Depths, Brain Freeze, or a fetchland to get chaff out of the top, then you'd better find any of the previously mentioned cards than Tome Scour.

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No offense, but playing Impulse/PTD after a Brainstorm is really horrible. You want to make sure you use every spell to its maximum digging capability.

For discussions sake, I will post my current list. Please note I'm not a big fan of putting up my decks but I feel an urge to share it.
I really believe having success with Soli is very much depending on the skill of the player and how he abuses his cards.

If VoB/PTD/Hunting Pack works for you, keep it there. I totally don't feel the Magic on those cards and Pack requires the scary non-basic land.


2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
12 Island

2 Snapcaster Mage

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

1 Three Wishes
1 Turnabout
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
3 Flusterstorm
3 Ravenous Trap
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Dismember
1 Rebuild


I feel a need for Disrupt in the mainboard. I've played a list with Disrupt and was quite amazed with the power of the little bugger. However, the card is most effective early game and basically loses all its power as the game progresses.

Comments, flames and suggestions are more than welcome.

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Originally Posted by Spigore

[...]

I really believe having success with Soli is very much depending on the skill of the player and how he abuses his cards.

[...]

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Those are golden words, I completely agree.

About your list, I can't see the point of have double Dismember on side and Three Wishes as a Meditate-likely target to wish for.

Dismember's waste of life don't make your opponent's race quicker? Why do you prefer playing it in place of additional bounces if you think you need more ways to get rid of nasty creatures? When I have to deal with hatebears (for example) I feel that bouncing them EOT and then go off in response of their recasting is enough.

For Three Wishes, when I wish for a buisness spell, I want it to let me draw as many cards as possible because I spent totally six mana on it. If i would raise the draw effects, I would play a Three Wishes maindeck, leaving the fourth Meditate in the side. Why have you splitted the buisness this way?

I don't want to be polemic, I apologize if I look so. I only want to understand your choice that looks weird to me :wink:
I know there's not ad univoque way to play this deck (see my list some posts above), but I think that understanding the reasons behind personal deckbuilding choice is a way to expand the deck knowledge.

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Originally Posted by gesucca

Those are golden words, I completely agree.

About your list, I can't see the point of have double Dismember on side and Three Wishes as a Meditate-likely target to wish for.

Dismember's waste of life don't make your opponent's race quicker? Why do you prefer playing it in place of additional bounces if you think you need more ways to get rid of nasty creatures? When I have to deal with hatebears (for example) I feel that bouncing them EOT and then go off in response of their recasting is enough.

For Three Wishes, when I wish for a buisness spell, I want it to let me draw as many cards as possible because I spent totally six mana on it. If i would raise the draw effects, I would play a Three Wishes maindeck, leaving the fourth Meditate in the side. Why have you splitted the buisness this way?

I don't want to be polemic, I apologize if I look so. I only want to understand your choice that looks weird to me :wink:
I know there's not ad univoque way to play this deck (see my list some posts above), but I think that understanding the reasons behind personal deckbuilding choice is a way to expand the deck knowledge.

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Meditate is very, very, very important, I can't stress enough how I love it 4 MD.
Three Wishes is an awkward choice, I know. Mostly used when you're running out of gas during combo, which makes you escape through C.Wish -> Three Wishes to continue the combo.
Splitting MD to 3 Meditate 1 Three Wishes is a bad choice. You barely want 3W outside of your combo-run.
To be very honest, I barely wish into 3W, but trust me, sometimes it's the only way out and you have to!
C.Wish is your spell you keep in your hand as a last resort to dig into your SB.

Dismember is the permanent hatebear removal for i.e. Zoo/Maverick. Ofcourse EOT bouncing or when opponent declares attackers is golden. Sometimes you really need these threats in the yard instead of bounced.


@Psychovoid: Not to be an ass or anything, but I never cared much about a resolved Gaddock Teeg. It shuts down FoI, BSZ, Turnabout, Repeal... FoW/R.Trap is pretty irrelevant in the Maverick match.

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Originally Posted by Spigore

@Psychovoid: Not to be an ass or anything, but I never cared much about a resolved Gaddock Teeg. It shuts down FoI, BSZ, Turnabout, Repeal... FoW/R.Trap is pretty irrelevant in the Maverick match.

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Man, I don't take offense on these forums. I just wish every one was as constructive as Silent Requiem and a few other fellows.

Maybe what I hate Teeg for is that it prevents 4 Repeals post-board to be as attractive as it could be against aggro.

But I agree with you that Gaddock Teeg is easier on Solidarity than it is on Time Spiral. My comment is probably influenced by the fact that I also play Spiral Tide. But Gaddock Teeg also shuts down Turnabout. I know it's not a big deal (specially in your list that only plays two), but it's a deal.

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Originally Posted by Spigore

Meditate is very, very, very important, I can't stress enough how I love it 4 MD.
Three Wishes is an awkward choice, I know. Mostly used when you're running out of gas during combo, which makes you escape through C.Wish -> Three Wishes to continue the combo.
Splitting MD to 3 Meditate 1 Three Wishes is a bad choice. You barely want 3W outside of your combo-run.
To be very honest, I barely wish into 3W, but trust me, sometimes it's the only way out and you have to!
C.Wish is your spell you keep in your hand as a last resort to dig into your SB.

Dismember is the permanent hatebear removal for i.e. Zoo/Maverick. Ofcourse EOT bouncing or when opponent declares attackers is golden. Sometimes you really need these threats in the yard instead of bounced.

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I'd usually find with Dismember that I just didn't have the life to spare; if I were in a situation where I needed to kill a hate-bear, paying 4 life was never an option. Pongify is better in a lot of ways, but it's a pretty narrow situation where simply bouncing the hate isn't enough. Echoing Truth, for example, is way more useful in way more situations.

As for the Meditate/Three Wishes debate, I go back and forth, but it's been discussed so much already that it's barely worth going over again. I will say that the times that I've had 4 Meditate main, I've used Tolarian Winds in the sideboard to great effect. With 4 Meditate main, it's super rare that you will wish for a draw spell and not have it be Blue Sun's Zenith. The only times you will are when you've exhausted your resources, are mid-combo and about to fizzle, and can't afford to stroke yourself for a bunch. Tolarian Winds is a completely bomb in exactly that situation.

I've also played around with maindeck Snap/Repeal (used to be running a full 3/1 main/side), but I came to the conclusion that they're just not significantly better than having more Snapcaster Mages, with the benefit being that Snapcaster Mage is great mid-combo, whereas Snap and Repeal are mostly dead. Snapcaster flies out there to surprise-block whatever's about to kill you, flashes back some cantrip on his way out, and just generally adds a lot of flexibility. Repeal is slow, especially in a format defined by Delver of Secrets and Goblin Guide. Snap isn't as slow, but the not-cantripping is really pretty devastating.

I'd also like to add that playing an Impulse after a Brainstorm is not always "really horrible". If you're only ever using Brainstorm to dig three cards deep, then you're not really using it to it's fullest. Brainstorm drastically improves card quality. Impulse is just Demonic Tutor under Aven Mindcensor. Swapping the top three cards of your deck for two lands and a Brainstorm, then Impulsing those lands to the bottom will do wonders to increase your threat density. Impulsing and then Brainstorming to simply dig as deeply as possible for threats make you more vulnerable to hate and counterspells, in addition to putting a greater percentage of cards you probably want (3, vs 1 and 2 lands) on the bottom of your deck. Making that play weakens Impulse, but Brainstorm is and always has been the stronger card anyway, and playing into the stronger cards will win you more games in the long run.

Make no mistake, I'm not saying you always make that play. Often you don't. I'm saying that ruling that play out as "really horrible" is short-sighted and an incomplete answer. In a deck that is 100% about options and flexibility, limiting your plays is absolutely the wrong thing to do.