How has this been testing for you?Quote:
Originally Posted by SirTylerGalt
Printable View
How has this been testing for you?Quote:
Originally Posted by SirTylerGalt
I didn't have time to do much testing yet, online or offline. I'll try to find some time this week to test on Cockatrice, and I'll bring it to a local tournament once I buy DTT (I might wait a little for the prices to drop while packs are opened before buying... should have pre-ordered a playset, but I expected the prices to drop after release).Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldsrocket_27
Toying with these cards:
Island
Polluted Delta
Flooded Strand
Brainstorm
Meditate
Cunning Wish
Dig Through Time
Force of Will
Flusterstorm
High Tide
Turnabout
Reset
Opt
Impulse
Remand
Purposely trying to avoid Snapcaster Mage & Snap to keep removal dead, Graveyard hate weaker & to not suck up cards from the Delve cost. Though I'm at the same time wanting to abuse High Tide>Snapcaster Mage>Flashback High Tide>Snap targeting Snapcaster Mage>Replay Snapcaster Mage>Flashback Snap>Bounce Snapcaster Mage to the hand. (This chain requires 4 islands in this order to do, but at the end of it the storm is already ridiculous, and on top of that, you have 3 of the 4 Islands untapped, 1 mana floating, & Islands are tapping for 3 mana per.)
Another chain pointed out to me in the post below can do it with 3 Islands. High Tide>Snapcaster Mage>Snap targeting mage>Flashback High Tide>Snapcaster Mage again>Snap targeting mage in hand. This chain leaves you with a high storm count as well, with 2 of the 3 islands untapped & no mana floating.
Also considering:
Repeal
Peek
Mental Note
Thought Scour
Anything else I can think of that's an instant and seems alright.
Did you mean Dig Through Time, or do you really prefer the sorcery-speed Treasure Cruise?Quote:
Originally Posted by feline
Note that you can also do the Snapcaster/Snap chain with 3 Islands, if you go: High Tide > SCM targeting High Tide > Snap on SCM > Flashback High Tide > SCM targeting Snap > Flashback Snap targeting SCM > ...
It also works on turn 2 if you have a Reset: High Tide > Reset > SCM targeting High Tide > Snap on SCM > Flashback High Tide > SCM targeting Snap > Flashback Snap targeting SCM > ...
Once you have 7 storm, you can usually play SCM, respond with Brain Freeze while SCM is on the stack, resolve Brain Freeze, resolve SCM, flashback Brain Freeze for lethal (8 * 3 + 9 * 3 = 51 cards milled).
Yes I meant Treasure Cruise, thank you, and edited.Quote:
Originally Posted by SirTylerGalt
You're welcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by feline
What I really like about Snapcaster / Snap chains, is how deterministic they are. For example, with 3 Islands in play, you have a draw-independant kill with High Tide + Snapcaster + Snap + Brain Freeze. It doesn't even need Reset, so you can go off during your own turn.
Of course, Snapcaster / Snap makes you very GY-dependant, and can fizzle if your opponent has targeted removal... That's why I'm not sure I want Snap in a build that plays Dig Through Time.
I'm very excited about Dig Through Time, because it gives us the card advantage / card selection we were sometimes missing. It's great to find the missing combo pieces before going off, and it's also awesome mid-combo.
I am going to test the hell out of something. I saw someone playing Solidarity this weekend in SCGWorcester and then saw them doing Dig through Time and right away the gears started running. I wish I could remember the name of him though.
I am hoping Dig through Time actually gives this deck enough of a boost to put it on the map. I don't think Solidarity has ever top 16'ed an SCG Open before.
Could the snapcaster/snap combo be put into the sideboard if you're worried about removal? It seems like it definitely gives this deck the potential to combo way faster, and G2 at least people should be siding (non bolt) removal out.
You could always play 3-4 Snapcaster maindeck, with a few Snaps in the board to bring against aggro / creature / hatebears / fast matchups once they side out their removal. Only problem: while they side out removal, they might also bring GY hate...Quote:
Originally Posted by Valtrix
There were a ton of discussions about the Snapcaster / Snap engine when SCM was released. IIRC, benthetenor was a huge proponent of that approach, and wrote a lot of interesting posts about it, if you want to go back in the thread.
That said, with the addition of DTT, I'm not sure I want to play a Snapcaster/Snap engine, because they both compete for the graveyard, and make you more vulnerable to GY hate too... I'd rather play a more controllish build with Remand / Repeal, and use DTT for card advantage and to increase consistency.
Carsten Kotter posted an article on SCG yesterday about an UWR control deck playing 4 DTT and 2 Treasure Cruise. He said that since 4 delve cards worked well, 6 might work too. This made me consider playing 4 DTT maindeck in Solidarity for insane card advantage / consistency. You can usually fire one on turn 3 to setup the combo, then start the combo chain on turn 4/5, and fire a second one. Thoughts?
I've been a huge fan of at least some non zero amount of SCM in the deck. I think moving Snap as a wish target and maybe 2 Mages main board would mesh well with a dedicated DDT build.
Here's something really rough. Thoughts as well:
Solidarity draft 1
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 High Tide
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
4 Cunning Wish
3 Dig Through Time
3 Impulse
3 Thought Scour
3 Peek
2 Tolarian Winds
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
12 Island
Sideboard
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain freeze
1 Meditate
1 Dig Through Time
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Wipe Away
1 Cackling Counterpart
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Flusterstorm
1 Ravenous Trap
4 Leyline of Sanctity
Thought Scour seems like the best partner with DDT because it dumps half the Delve cost upon resolution (2 from you and itself after resolution) it can also trip up Countertop and opposing Brainstorms.
I'm trying Tolarian Winds. Could be cute with DDT and as a way to filter out crappy hand in the middle of the combo.
Thoughts?
My thoughts:
- why 20 lands instead of 18?
- why no meditate?
- I don't like Tolarian Winds, it's card disadvantage. It was considered a while ago as a Wish target, but IIRC the goal was to play 4 Meditate maindeck and replace the SB Meditate with Tolarian Winds. With DTT, you have even less need for Tolarian Winds.
- not sure about Thought Scour. I like the idea of playing more 1-mana cantrips to feed DTT, but I think I prefer Peek / Opt / Disrupt / Repeal in those slots.
- 4 wish is too much in a build that does not play a High Tide in the SB. I'm even considering going down to 2
- BSZ maindeck is not necessary, you can usually wish for it when you need to cast it. I'd play a 1-off R
Brain Freeze as the win condition
SB:
- Cackling Counterpart is bad. Play Echoing Truth instead. It lets you replay SCM, and has more utility (Zombie/Goblin tokens, bouncing annoying permanents, bouncing both SCM...)
- Words of Wisdom is unnecessary if you have BSZ in your SB
- I don't like Leyline
I'm running on about 2 hours sleep and I have back to back 13 hours days of work. Hence no Meditates.
Taking your words of advice I edited the list. I feel way more confident with this one:
Solidarity draft 1
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 High Tide
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
3 Cunning Wish
3 Dig Through Time
3 Impulse
3 Repeal
3 Peek
3 Meditate
3 Opt
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
12 Island
Sideboard
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain freeze
1 Meditate
1 Dig Through Time
1 Turnabout
1 Snap
1 Wipe Away
1 Echoing Truth
1 Repeal
1 Twincast
1 Ravenous Trap
4?
Not sure what the last 4 cards should be. More bullets?
I like it a lot more :)
I think the Meditate and DTT in your sideboard are redundant. I would move the 4th Meditate or DTT to the maindeck (not sure which is better), and open up another sideboard slot.
I might want a 4th Impulse and a few Remands, because Brain Freeze > Remand > Brain Freeze is just so good, and I love faking a combo start, then remanding my High Tide when they FoW. Insane CA.
With 2 Snapcaster, the 3rd Turnabout is less important, you could go down to 2.
I would play at least 1 Brain Freeze MD. I don't like the idea that they can extract all my win conditions with a surgical extraction on a discarded Wish...
Some good SB cards to consider:
- 2-3 Surgical Extraction. Wishable GY hate that can be flashbacked with Snapcaster. Very useful against Reanimator (hard matchup).
- 2-3 Flusterstorm. Great against combo / discard / tempo. Also flashbackable. You can even Remand the original copy, once the Storm copies have have countered the given spell.
- 1 Mindbreak Trap. Great against Storm / Affinity / Elves. Also useful when you start comboing, they attempt to counter different spells, then you wish for Mindbreak Trap to remove all their counters from the stack and resolve all your spells.
- Rebuild or Hurkyll's Recall against artifact hate (I think Rebuild was better, but I forgot the reasoning, I think it was possibly related to Chalice @ 2).
- Chain of vapor as a cheap bounce
- I'm not sure about the 4th Repeal in the SB. You already have 3 MD. You might want something that's more of a blowout.
Here is the list I'm currently looking to build on Magic Online this Winter:
1 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
3 Dig Through Time
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
4 High Tide
4 Impulse
4 Meditate
2 Opt
2 Remand
1 Repeal
4 Reset
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Turnabout
1 Twincast
8 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Dig Through Time
1 Echoing Truth
2 Flusterstorm
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Pact of Negation
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Rebuild
1 Repeal
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Turnabout
1 Twincast
Happy to receive feedback. Have been reading and analyzing recent posts since DTT was released.
I don't like the 10fetch/8 land configuration, even with 3 DTT. The life loss does end up mattering, and you don't need to be shuffling that often. Additionally, the tiny fractional amount of thinning fetching they get you isn't always a positive, because as often as you don't want more lands while you combo off, you do want more lands while setting up. I haven't been in love with the idea of repeal in the deck either, but I admit I haven't tested it, mostly because I'm only running a singleton snapcaster. Two snapcasters is what makes only two turnabout feel OK to me, but if you cut back on mages, I'd want a third turnabout. I'm a fan of the 2 cunning wish set up, and maindeck twincast and Brain Freeze. I still favor having a wipe away in the SB, since it allows you to wish and bounce chalice for 2, and helps marginally against countertop decks, though having rebuild halfway fills that role.
A lot of that is nitpicky and based on my preference. There really isn't a single established build for the deck any more, and the metagame you expect can affect how those preferences are shaped quite a bit.
In goldfishing, I'm just focusing on the combo so I haven't gotten to the point of worrying about countermagic, I just want to make sure the combo works as a deck. I can worry about the disruption part later. Anyhow, in the first stage of development I have come to these conclusions.
In goldfishing a number of times, I aimed to go off on turn 4 every time, & draw as much of the deck as possible. In doing so, every single time I tested a game, I drew the entire deck every single time. I also was able to get to 4 lands and go off turn 4 almost every single time.
Been running Preordain & Ponder as they are lands 19-26 when you need to search for lands in the first few turns. After the 4th land in hand they start getting combo pieces, since there's no Merchant Scroll, they can also help dig for High Tide before the combo turn, or a draw spell if needed, etc. Anyhow, additional lands can't do that, so I have Non sorcery Preordain & Ponders in the list, there's so many 1 cast cantrips that every single time I got to turn 4, I was always able to delve away 6 cards and cast Dig through Time for 2 mana once I started High Tide'ing and Untapping, etc.
Once you get to the combo turn, lands are dead draws anyway, so I figured I'd at least run preordain & ponder. They also help fill up the graveyard for the Delve, anyhow,
List #1:
Goldfished this:
3 High Tide
3 Reset
3 Turnabout
3 Dig Through Time
3 Meditate
4 Cunning Wish
3 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Opt
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
12 Island
Sideboard includes:
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Dig through Time
1 Meditate
1 High Tide
1 Reset
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
1 Wipe Away
1 Snap
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pact of Negation
1 Surgical Extraction
14th slot empty
15th slot empty
When I tested Solidarity out about a year ago, I don't remember the version I tested, but I do remember what issues I was & was not running into.
-The mana was fine, I seemed to never run out of that, that still holds true with this setup, once you get going, it just doesn't stop.
-The card draw however was the issue in the past, I'd always fizzle out. Dig Through Time in my opinion, has completely solved this issue. The card is absolutely awesome in this type of deck. It's basically the Treasure Cruise for combo decks! (I've heard some Show and Tell players talk about it being good on their end as well)
-Storm count is always lethal by the time I got to the end of the deck and couldn't cast any more spells. Brain Freezing for upwards of 70-80 something cards. I never had an issue of "is the storm high enough"
-The mana available at the end of going through the deck however, was an issue under 1 condition, that I had to use Blue Sun's Zenith for the kill instead of Brain Freeze, if I was against an Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn type deck or whatever else. Only a couple times was I able to have enough mana for a Lethal Blue Sun's Zenith. There was the idea of "Brain Freeze for so many spells that it can mill their deck twice over +1, so if they hit Emrakul even as their last card, you can Surgical Extraction it out, then let the remaining Freezes resolve and do their entire deck all over again. But the issue with that was that was that I would have to use 2 Cunning Wishes as a kill, 1 for Brain Freeze, other for Extraction. This could be solved if I main decked 1 Brain Freeze however, and as much as I hate that idea since Brain Freeze is dead until the combo turn, it could be necessary. Games 2 & 3 I will need to have a kill condition in the main anyhow in case of opposing Surgical Extraction against Cunning Wishes.
-4 Cunning Wishes are in this setup because they are used to tutor for a lot, since there's no Merchant Scroll for High Tides as High Tide's # 5-8, I put 1 in the sideboard, though with Dig Through Time, I will probably test for Tides in the main deck.
The changes I am looking at already is maindecking all 4 meditates & all 4 high tides, I'd like to run just 3 cunning wishes but I was using them way too much and the last cunning wish has to be the kill spell if there's none in the main. A maindeck 1 of Brain Freeze is looking more likely at this point. But if I did that to go down to 3 Cunning Wishes, I'd rather just have 4 Cunning Wishes because the last Cunning Wish will always be castable if you've gotten your entire deck.
Anyhow, I am messing around with stuff. The only issue I am uncomfortable with using this build, is that if I go up against an Emrakul or Progenitus type deck, I can't rely on Brain Freeze, and I cannot reliably produce enough mana for a lethal Blue Sun's Zenith. It is usually at most for 30-40 something on average at the end of it all.
-
Hope this helps, Dig through Time has really helped this deck in my opinion. Also, I'm purposely not running the Snap Snapcaster Mage setup because I am actively trying to avoid making opponents removal live & targeted graveyard hate live, like Deathrite Shaman / Surgical Extraction / Swords to Plowshares / Abrupt Decay / Lightning Bolt / etc.
why not run Ravenous Trap in addition to Surgical to avoid Emrakul (Progenitus is not a problem as you just have to USZ him for 2 or number of progenitus+1)
Brain Freeze mills their library in 3-card chunks so you will never be able to hit all of their Emrakuls with 1 Ravenous Trap, because as soon as one gets flipped over it gets shuffled back along with the rest of their graveyard.Quote:
Originally Posted by P-E
With Extraction as soon as they mill 1 Emrakul you extract all of them and let the remaining Brain Freeze copies mill them out
Testing a new list. This time purposely running all instants. Opt is lands 19-22 in the early turns basically. This deck is set more on 2 drops -vs- the onslaught of 1 drop cantrips of the previous list above I tested. Now playing with this:
List #2:
4 High Tide
4 Reset
4 Meditate
3 Dig Through Time
4 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
4 Remand
4 Impulse
4 Brainstorm
4 Opt
12 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
Sideboard
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Turnabout
1 Dig Through Time
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Pact of Negation
1 Flusterstorm
1 Snap
1 Wipe Away
1 Rebuild
11th slot empty
12th slot empty
13th slot empty
14th slot empty
15th slot empty
As far as if I would wish for anything else, I consider the empty slots to be "anything I can think of at the time of wanting to wish" and when I think of something not in the sideboard already, it will take that slot.
-edit-
Question: Can you play Reset at the end of their upkeep or does the phase have to be completely over and into the draw step. Next question, can you play spells before they draw a card at the beginning of their draw step? Thank you.
No. You cannot play "Reset" at the end of their upkeep. Only during/after draw step, once you get priority. Usually, this means no sooner than the end of your opponent's draw step.Quote:
Originally Posted by feline
Drawing the card of your turn is not something that goes on the stack, so your opponent will pass priority only if he casts an instant during his draw step or at the end of it.