[Deck] Solidarity

How many decks play hate permanates main board? Why do we play wipe away in the side? Why do we play cunning wish?

Has anyone tested the list I am testing?

I don't need " I tried this two years ago" and "what blue deck doesn't play force".

Put force of will in the sideboard if it helps you sleep at night. I know that most blue players kiss their force of wills goodnight every day before bed so I don't see how this is any different.

I don't really care how much experience you have with other versions and you don't have to tell me that you have played 600+ games. The truth is that solidarity is dead and if "SnapTide" can let us have fun and be more competitive than so be it.

If you don't want to shuffle up the 60 than don't but please don't get in the way of other people with "logic" that doesnt help us push forward.

Excuse my ignorance, but why are people not playing at least some copies of Three wishes in the main? I find it a great card

I'm currently goldfishing a list:

3 meditate (thinking about have 4 copies main cause the card is awsome and perhaps throw 1 Three whishes in SB?)
3 Three wishes (lol)
3 Snapcaster mage
3 Snap
4 REset
2 Turnabout
4 Braisntorm
4 Force of will
4 Impulse
2 Opt
4 Force of will
4 Cunning wishes
3 Hight tide (have one in SB for wish, i liek it this way)
3 Flusterstorms (With all that discrard and counters running around it amkes sense to me, also in the very least it protects Snap/Snapcaster mage from removal)
18 lands (12 island, 6 fetch)


Do notice I have all my wincons in SB as well as 1 High tide. I kind of like to whish EOT and then next turn play it. I hate to be dead to discarded high tide after searching fpr it.. vigorously I might add for that matter.

I also don't like palying Opt since I hate to draw it when comboing off. When doing the combo I want to draw as many Meditates and Three whisesh as I can (+ untap efects, ofcourse). Also storming the sufficient amunt is almost enver a problems so I don't need cheap 1 mana spells to excell in that.
It is however true that me getting to 4 lands consistantly on turn 4 is rather difficult and sometimes even the Opts/impulses/Brainstorms don't help. I find that qquite dissapointing casue if I'm having these problems when goldfishing I know that in real life games this will matter even more.

You need the 4 high tires main so you can have them in your hand turn 3-4 without having to wish for them.

Three wishes can only be cast on the combo turn for fun and profit and doesn't make the cut either.

This was from earlier…it got lost in my computer apparently.

All I am really seeing is a large group of people not testing this list and instead saying that they have "past experiences" telling them that it does not work. Ethersworn canonist with mother of ruins is what wipe away is for.

If you must put four force of wills in the board and bring them in against hate. No one is saying you don't have to and also no one said that this list is final or anything. Solidarity has been dead for years and I finally found something that gets me excited about it. Instead of everyone just bitching that something doesn't look right or that it loses to side board cards why don't you pick up the deck and play it.

Its fast, versatile and pretty flexibly in regards to game ones. Sideboard hate is what games twos and threes are for and if bringing in bounce/removal/force of wills are what the board needs than put them there but for fucks sake if you guys want to see Solidarity ever win a tournament than you have to get out of your comfort zone.

Dude, I'm not saying that you can't play whatever you want, or that I know all that there is to know about this deck. I am saying that I played without Force of Will before, and lost many, many games over the course of weeks of testing, solely to not having Force of Will in the deck. I'm certainly not saying that they're mandatory; at the very beginning, there was actually a lot of debate about whether or not Force of Will should be in there. But here's the thing: there are no other cards that do what Force of Will does. It singlehandedly answers every single problem spell and permanent that an opponent could possibly throw at you, and it costs no mana. 2 for 1-ing yourself has never been great, but it has been necessary for this deck to survive. You're not going to suddenly make Solidarity competitive by weakening all of your matchups by cutting Force of Will.

Without Force of Will, you are giving up percentage points to combo. There's no two ways about that. If you're comfortable with that, I guess that's your decision. I know for me, I face combo every single large tournament I play in, and I'd really rather not throw away percentage points against a 50/50 matchup. Saying "the deck's not competitive now so we should try something drastic" is not an argument for something, since it's not debating the merits of your idea, just the failings of the past. This deck is not competitive not because it's bad, but because there are much better, more consistent options out there if you want to play combo. Why would you play this deck when you could play ANT and have Yawgmoth's Bargain, Black Lotus, Demonic Tutor and Yawgmoth's Will? Or play Sneak and Show and have the ability to cast a game-ending 3 mana spell (and accelerate into it) while simultaneously protecting it with 2-3 counterspells? Power creep is the reason. It's not because the deck is playing Force of Will.

Also, I think you're missing a couple of "0"s on the number of games I've played with this deck...

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

Also, I think you're missing a couple of "0"s on the number of games I've played with this deck...

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obviously….

so have you tried my SnapTide list yet?

Happy holidays everyone (assuming you celebrate it of course)!

I have no right to say how often combo is played at any given tournament. Do not get me wrong though - if the percentages favored me losing the games to combo decks to running cards to maybe combo off faster or to stop Stax/Dragon Stompy, I would not run FoW maindeck at all or even in the sideboard or run a different counter in its place. It's just that simple. If I don't have to worry about Wasteland or Stifle as much, then I will add another color to win more games. It's just that simple.


My own base skeleton (turned to 60) I ended up with when I was last testing was this even though it doesn't have slots for the metagame cards:

4 High Tide
3 Meditate
4 Impulse
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
3 Cunning Wish
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
3 Opt
4 Force of Will
1-2 Remand
2 Snap
1-2 Peer Through Depths
1 Brain Freeze
18-19 lands

Sideboard with mandatory Meditate, Turnabout, Brain Freeze, bounce...


It's not that I don't run something a little off the trail as well, it's just that it's almost a nitpick thing.

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

obviously….

so have you tried my SnapTide list yet?

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There is quite literally no reason for me to even begin to test a list that does not start off "4 Force of Will", for all of the reasons that I've stated above. Remand simply does not do everything that Force of Will does, and so doesn't function as a replacement, and relying solely upon Cunning Wish for bounce to get me out of sticky situations that could have otherwise been avoided just by running Force of Will is much, much more cumbersome. As I've said throughout this thread, if you like something and it's working for you, then by all means play it. There is no reason for me to test your list because I know what is going to happen as soon as I face off against a legitimate combo deck, or when I'm on the draw against Maverick and they curve out Mother of Runes -> Thalia -> Ethersworn Canonist and I'm stuck looking at a useless Remand that could have been. It does not matter how much you gain in other matchups, combo in all of its forms make up fully a third of the metagame, and so I personally must run Force of Will whenever I am playing a deck that can support it. To do otherwise is just dumb.

You are certainly free to shoot down my arguments with "if you don't test it you'll never know!" but my arguments are not based upon the strength of your deck in a vacuum, but rather upon the fact that we live in a world where you cannot afford not to play Force of Will. No amount of testing is going to change that fact. My build of the deck runs Force of Will and goes off on turn 3 reliably. There is nothing more I can ask of this deck than that.

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

There is quite literally no reason for me to even begin to test a list that does not start off "4 Force of Will", for all of the reasons that I've stated above. Remand simply does not do everything that Force of Will does, and so doesn't function as a replacement, and relying solely upon Cunning Wish for bounce to get me out of sticky situations that could have otherwise been avoided just by running Force of Will is much, much more cumbersome. As I've said throughout this thread, if you like something and it's working for you, then by all means play it. There is no reason for me to test your list because I know what is going to happen as soon as I face off against a legitimate combo deck, or when I'm on the draw against Maverick and they curve out Mother of Runes -> Thalia -> Ethersworn Canonist and I'm stuck looking at a useless Remand that could have been. It does not matter how much you gain in other matchups, combo in all of its forms make up fully a third of the metagame, and so I personally must run Force of Will whenever I am playing a deck that can support it. To do otherwise is just dumb.

You are certainly free to shoot down my arguments with "if you don't test it you'll never know!" but my arguments are not based upon the strength of your deck in a vacuum, but rather upon the fact that we live in a world where you cannot afford not to play Force of Will. No amount of testing is going to change that fact. My build of the deck runs Force of Will and goes off on turn 3 reliably. There is nothing more I can ask of this deck than that.

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I mean don't take it to personal, I totaly agree that running 4 Fow is a must. It protects you, or at very leastbuys you time to set up combo.
But with that being said, I find your statement "going turn 3 reliably" to be .... (insert random cynical word) and is undermining your crediblity in other statemetns. Finding hightide (and other combo/protection pieces) will lot of times take you longer.
Solidarity has always been more of a turn 4 deck then turn 3, even thoguh snap/snapcaster combo gives it a bit more speed. Also the deck wanted to go of at last possible moment (going off before lethal is always amusing) I don't see any point in that T3 argument.

In the list I run, I've gotten a turn 2 kill twice and have had room for 4 force.

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

In the list I run, I've gotten a turn 2 kill twice and have had room for 4 force.

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So hooray for variance?

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Originally Posted by Mr Miagi

I mean don't take it to personal, I totaly agree that running 4 Fow is a must. It protects you, or at very leastbuys you time to set up combo.
But with that being said, I find your statement "going turn 3 reliably" to be .... (insert random cynical word) and is undermining your crediblity in other statemetns. Finding hightide (and other combo/protection pieces) will lot of times take you longer.
Solidarity has always been more of a turn 4 deck then turn 3, even thoguh snap/snapcaster combo gives it a bit more speed. Also the deck wanted to go of at last possible moment (going off before lethal is always amusing) I don't see any point in that T3 argument.

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I'm not really sure what it is that you're trying to say here. Adding Snap and Snapcaster Mage has dropped the fundamental turn to somewhere around 3.5, and about half of my kills against a goldfish are on turn 3. You are correct in saying that Solidarity was not designed to beat a goldfish as quickly as possible. The way you play the deck is to sculpt your hand and go off at the best possible moment. But lavafrogg's argument is that not having Force of Will has sped up the deck and made it more of a turn 3 deck, which is inaccurate as it was already more of a turn 3 deck simply by having Snap and Snapcaster Mage, and that cutting Force of Will does nothing to the speed of the deck. Please, at least read the thread before you make comments. I do not care about the speed of the deck as it is plenty fast when it needs to be. This was lavafrogg's statement that I was exploring.

Nothing wrong with Miagi's post. He was commenting on a statement/point of view of yours, which you stand by regardless of the discussion with lavafrogg: having a "turn 3 deck", which "goes off on turn 3 reliably".

"Please, at least read the thread before you make comments." is totally uncalled for.

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Originally Posted by H3llsp4wn

Nothing wrong with Miagi's post. He was commenting on a statement/point of view of yours, which you stand by regardless of the discussion with lavafrogg: having a "turn 3 deck", which "goes off on turn 3 reliably".

"Please, at least read the thread before you make comments." is totally uncalled for.

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Perhaps I was unclear in saying that I'm still quite unclear as to what Mr. Miagi is trying to say. In particular, this statement:

"But with that being said, I find your statement "going turn 3 reliably" to be .... (insert random cynical word) and is undermining your crediblity in other statemetns."

does not make sense to me. As in, I cannot understand what it is that he is trying to say to me. It is not a clear or well constructed sentence. My suggestion that he read the thread before commenting is always called for, as everyone should do that in all situations. I got the sense that he had not done so, given that he seems (to me) to be saying that I think this deck should be as fast as possible to be competitive, which is not what I'm saying, nor is it something I have ever said. If his statement is that Solidarity is not able to consistently go off on turn 3-4, then that is quite simply false, and if that is what he's trying to say, then it again suggests that he has not read the thread as I've said as much over the last 20 or 30 pages, and it's a statement that's backed up with thousands and thousands of games. If he is not saying any of those things, then I apologize, though perhaps he should have been more clear.

Obviously he thinks Solidarity is not a "turn 3 deck" and since you stated otherwise, he thinks one could question your "expertise".

There is a difference between reliably going off at "turn 3" and "turn 3-4".

Was that really so hard to follow or didn't you read the whole thread? :p

Btw thousands of games != thousands of goldfishes

To be clear: what I am saying is that the deck does not need force of will and has lines of play to beat any deck without the card disadvantage of force. Between cunning wish, remand and snap almost all game 1s should be winnable and the sideboard can have whatever you need to shore up bad matchups ie force of will.

Going 4 snap 4 snapcaster makes the deck able to combo earlier and with less fizzles.

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

To be clear: what I am saying is that the deck does not need force of will and has lines of play to beat any deck without the card disadvantage of force. Between cunning wish, remand and snap almost all game 1s should be winnable and the sideboard can have whatever you need to shore up bad matchups ie force of will.

Going 4 snap 4 snapcaster makes the deck able to combo earlier and with less fizzles.

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One thing that interests me in the SnapTide list is that it seems to lose less horribly to Elves. You're faster, so better able to race them and when they ask "Can I win?" which they can do every damn turn due to the absurd amount of business esp. postboard, you can still counter. They can't ask the question more than once a turn usually. It's also less cold to Teeg than Spiral Tide or the like by virtue of engine choice (and Tiago can assassinate Teeg if they swing with it, which they want to do). All in all, I quite like it.

Also, wrt FoW-Solidarity being a T3 deck, wtf. I mean, we'd have to assume the entire playerbase is a bunch of complete dumbfucks. T3 fundamental turn, FoW protection, Wasteland proof, win at instant speed, Brainstorm funtimes, cheap deck money-wise. You can damn well bet everyone and their dog would be playing Solidarity if that was true.

I find that the deck wins on turn 4 most of the time and has hands that can win earlier quite a bit more often than I realize. The beauty is that you don't have to win early, and you win when the other deck tells you too. If you need to try and go off on turn 2 I hope you have a high tide, some snaps and a snapcaster mage.

Why do you need to force it if the opponent is not going to win until turn 6?

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Originally Posted by Zombie

Also, wrt FoW-Solidarity being a T3 deck, wtf. I mean, we'd have to assume the entire playerbase is a bunch of complete dumbfucks. T3 fundamental turn, FoW protection, Wasteland proof, win at instant speed, Brainstorm funtimes, cheap deck money-wise. You can damn well bet everyone and their dog would be playing Solidarity if that was true.

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The sad thing is that Spring Tide has/had all of those things except for the win at instant speed. Granted, does Time Spiral help out even for a T3 fundamental turn? Yes. Did it move the needle and is it necessary in any way? Not really. Did it stop the deck from nearly auto-scooping to Ichorid, Solidarity, and Counterbalance? Nope. It doesn't need (and shouldn't run) Candelabra for a T3 fundamental turn either.


FWIW, I believe Solidarity's problem is that it's too inconsistent. Snapcaster Mage was an enormous help especially with the need to extend the combo after your first Meditate and untap spell...but you had to GET your first combo pieces first. I believe that Impulse and Cunning Wish (and Opt to a small extent) are the glue of the deck and I believe that 7 of them isn't enough. I cut the 4th Opt because Peer is actually a mathematically better card.

Solidarity seems to waste a lot of open mana between turns 1 through 3 too. It's a surefire sign that the cards don't mesh or flow when you're trying to assemble what you need.

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Originally Posted by TheRock

The sad thing is that Spring Tide has/had all of those things except for the win at instant speed. Granted, does Time Spiral help out even for a T3 fundamental turn? Yes. Did it move the needle and is it necessary in any way? Not really. Did it stop the deck from nearly auto-scooping to Ichorid, Solidarity, and Counterbalance? Nope. It doesn't need (and shouldn't run) Candelabra for a T3 fundamental turn either.

FWIW, I believe Solidarity's problem is that it's too inconsistent. Snapcaster Mage was an enormous help especially with the need to extend the combo after your first Meditate and untap spell...but you had to GET your first combo pieces first. I believe that Impulse and Cunning Wish (and Opt to a small extent) are the glue of the deck and I believe that 7 of them isn't enough. I cut the 4th Opt because Peer is actually a mathematically better card.

Solidarity seems to waste a lot of open mana between turns 1 through 3 too. It's a surefire sign that the cards don't mesh or flow when you're trying to assemble what you need.

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I understand your arguments and I agree that the deck needs to draw and play a high tide to win. The main difference between a turn 3 kill and a turn 5 kill is not drawing high tide.

That being said, thought scour is everything that this deck wants to be doing. Dumping two cards to be flashed back and then drawing the third is amazing when you just need to hit he high tide to win. No other 1cc instant lets you see three cards(or has such awesome synergy with brainstorm).

In current list I have never wished for brain freeze. Could most likely win faster with brain freeze main over BSZ but BSZ lets you go nuts with the mana of SnapTide.

I have found that it is much easier to get tons of mana with SnapTide the restricting factor is always having gas to play with all of the mana. Cunning Wish> echoing truth is pretty nuts but Impulse has been the MVP n this aspect.

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Originally Posted by H3llsp4wn

Obviously he thinks Solidarity is not a "turn 3 deck" and since you stated otherwise, he thinks one could question your "expertise".

There is a difference between reliably going off at "turn 3" and "turn 3-4".

Was that really so hard to follow or didn't you read the whole thread? :p

Btw thousands of games != thousands of goldfishes

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I have always said turn 3-4, or pegged the fundamental turn at 3.5, which is equivalent. His posts were difficult to follow because he used poor grammar and spelling. Those things tend to inhibit clarity. And I'm not sure why you're jumping to his defense; he's perfectly capable of writing back and it is confusing to have to be constantly saying "well you said that he said". I don't give two shits whether or not anyone questions my "expertise" with this deck because I'm not here to get into an internet pissing contest. Some guys on the internet thinking I'm good at this deck isn't going to translate into more wins, just more excuses. Words are empty. Results matter.

I said games, and I meant games. If I had meant thousands of goldfishes, I would have said that.

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

That being said, thought scour is everything that this deck wants to be doing. Dumping two cards to be flashed back and then drawing the third is amazing when you just need to hit he high tide to win. No other 1cc instant lets you see three cards(or has such awesome synergy with brainstorm).

In current list I have never wished for brain freeze. Could most likely win faster with brain freeze main over BSZ but BSZ lets you go nuts with the mana of SnapTide.

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Those are all arguments for playing Brain Freeze main. They are all plays you can make with Brain Freeze, which is beneficial because it can't be countered and it works much better at digging deeper to get to Snapcaster Mage targets. If you're using it to clear a Brainstorm, for example, if they Spell Pierce or otherwise stop the Thoughtscour, you're stuck with 2 dead draws, whereas Brain Freeze avoids countermagic. Playing with Brain Freeze main allows you to play more powerful cantrips in the Thoughtscour slots without making you primarily a graveyard deck and opening you up to graveyard hate, while at the same time lets you run a compact, efficient and uncounterable kill condition main and frees up sideboard slots. The most important thing to take away from a SnapTide list is that you shouldn't always be going for a Stroke of Genius for 70. If there is a line of play that kills them with 15 less moves, that's 15 fewer chances to make a mistake and 15 fewer chances for them to have something to stop you. This deck has always had the capability to just go nuts and do whatever it wants, but the biggest skill you can learn with it is how to kill as quickly and efficiently as possible. It will save you mental wear and tear and help you get through tournaments, and it drastically lowers the chances of something going wrong. It is precisely because this deck has no tutors or ways to make going off a "sure thing" that getting fancy is a great way to tank your win percentages, as the variance of the deck could easily destroy you. As long as casting a Meditate and hitting 3 land and Remand is a possibility, you should be playing as conservatively as possible to eliminate the odds of that happening. Just some friendly advice.