[Deck] Solidarity (Reset High Tide)

Well, people are going to Philidelphia trying to hate out goblins, therefore it is only a good thing for us solidarity playas, as we will slightly be off the game. The MWC sideboard stuff is unfourtunate, but at least they have to side in roughly 12 cards vs you and only you. I am a big fan of a SB rebuild, mostly because I am excepting at least a slightly sized porition of the feild to be some sort of artifact-hevey based deck. Stax or Angel Stax, the matchup is not too pritty, but it's very winnable as long as you force of will smokestacks.

Well, actually during my testing I found out, that the Stax matchup sucks almost as bad as Pox (well, it's not an autoloss, but turn one Chalice for one followed by turn three Chalice for two and other nasty stuff is bad...). People will be playing Stax-builds, because Steve Menendian brought it up in his SCG Flame Vault article, and there has also been a Mono White Legacy Stax article, as far as I know. Many Vintage players will try to convert their Stax decks into Legacy, as well, because it isone of the most broken decks in their format. Therefore I think that Rebuild should be included in the Sideboard.

I don't even think, Goblins will have impressive results, because every deck packs tons of hate against them. And since you have three byes, Dave, you might want to cut one Blast in the sideboard for Rebuild. It doesn't really worsen your Goblin matchup very much (I don't really think, you will see that many Goblins after round three), but it improves your Stax matchup a lot.

Goblins will have a strong presence day two if only by sheer numbers. Despite all the hate people will be packing, the deck is still a good choice for Philly, and probably the best in the hands of someone who really knows how to play it. But, I don't think dropping to seven Blasts will significantly weaken your game against them. With all the stax action I've been getting online lately Rebuild is necessary.
While I don't think that most of them will be playing Flame Vault, given the expense of Time Vault, the deck is a very tough match for Solidarity. Carlos is right in that you should focus on countering the Smokestacks since if one of them hits play it is pretty much over. Going off on your own turn should also be considered in this matchup, when under the influence of Smokestack/Tangle Wire.
Against Red based stax, you can side in Blasts to deal with Flame Fusilade and Welders, but don't side out the Forces, as you will need them for the Smokestacks. If it is strictly combo you should be ok.

Since Philly is coming up real soon, if anyone would like to start doing some playtesting against these decks send me an IM.

So What would be the optimal build for Gp? Is it still Deep6ers build with the inclusion of Rebuild? Because thats what I`m playing minus the Rebuild. But I have been following this thread closely and it seems I should slap it into the sideboard. But I dont want to take out the 8 blast plan. Is Evacuation what we are taking out instead of a Blast??

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Originally Posted by Deep6er

Ok, a couple of things to note here. One, Jack's sideboard is actually very, very impressive. He's also right, that games 2-3 are guaranteed to be an uphill battle. However, there are a couple of things that could happen to nuke Jack's plan. 1) The nuts turn 3 win backed by force. 2) Jack being mana screwed. 3) Punching Jack in the face and running away.

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I'd just like to point out that if you choose to go with option number 3, it's likely to get you disqualified from the tournament. Because of that, I'd like to take this opportunity to offer you double the top prize in cash should you decide to go this route.

It should be noted that, whatever his resemblance to a young Ming the Merciless, I have like 60 pounds on Dave.

Is there anyway solidarity can beat 3 blessings sideboard?

Only in the sense that it's ludicrously easy if you're not a complete tard about it and/or you're not forced to go off turn 3, yes.

I think this question has been asked every 5 pages or so.

The answer is still the same. Yes Solidarity can get around Gaea's Blessing. The card is crap. Worse than crap.
Blessing is a big steaming pile of elephant dung. Especially in decks with NO green mana.
Solidarity's answer to it is simple, multiple Brain Freezes followed by wishing for a draw spell or casting a large Stroke of Genius.

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Is there anyway solidarity can beat 3 blessings sideboard?

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@Loomis: Blessings are very difficult to deal with. My build runs 4x Extract and 4x Rootwater Thief in the board for this purpose. There is also the option of the black splash for Cranial Extraction, which would also allow you to run One With Nothing for synergy with Flash of Insight.


Edit: I just read back a few pages and found out you can cast multiple brainfreezes. I will have to totally revamp my build and test this option.

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Originally Posted by herbig

Blessings are very difficult to deal with. My build runs 4x Extract and 4x Rootwater Thief in the board for this purpose. There is also the option of the black splash for Cranial Extraction, which would also allow you to run One With Nothing for synergy with Flash of Insight.


Edit: I just read back a few pages and found out you can cast multiple brainfreezes. I will have to totally revamp my build and test this option.

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Plleeease tell me this is a joke. I thought you were a much better Solidarity player than this.

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Quote (herbig @ Nov. 03 2005,11:11)
Blessings are very difficult to deal with. My build runs 4x Extract and 4x Rootwater Thief in the board for this purpose. There is also the option of the black splash for Cranial Extraction, which would also allow you to run One With Nothing for synergy with Flash of Insight.


Edit: I just read back a few pages and found out you can cast multiple brainfreezes. I will have to totally revamp my build and test this option.

Plleeease tell me this is a joke. I thought you were a much better Solidarity player than this.

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lol I think it was a joke... there's no way someone can be serious about a statement like that... :D

My questions on the sideboard are, why use both Echoing Truth AND Chain of Vapor, and why are these options better than Rushing River? Chain of Vapor's advantage is its 1 mana cost, Echoing Truth's advantage of bouncing multiple permanents seems irrelevant in almost all cases. Rushing River both dodges Chalice (if they set it to 3, you're not going to Wish for it anyway), can target two different permanents (while at a steep cost), and costs more. These two slots seem redundant, unless I'm missing something, and could be the things that give to Rebuild.

Chain of Vapor costing 1 is IMMENSELY important. Imagine you have 7 mana staring down a lethal Ex.Angel with a Rule of Law on the field. You wish for the Chain, cast it next turn, and then go off. With a Rushing River you'd have died. The point isn't to cast it while going off, that's only important for something like Ivory Mask and nobody plays that. The point is to use it before going off and still have the mana to go off. Without Chain, a Rule of Law is a double Time Walk. With a Chain, it's a single Time Walk with no tempo lost. Rushing River has its place, but it's not in this deck.
-Slay

I have heard rumos on the Wizos forums and on another forum whose name will not be mentioned (but it is trustworthy). That Solidarity will not do well in the upcoming GP. Saying that turn 4 is way to slow and with all the hype thats going around about it that it will be hated out. How does everyone feel about this?

What do you think will happen with Solidarity and the GP? Good or a waste of time?

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Originally Posted by "Jeska"

I have heard rumos on the Wizos forums and on another forum whose name will not be mentioned (but it is trustworthy). That Solidarity will not do well in the upcoming GP. Saying that turn 4 is way to slow and with all the hype thats going around about it that it will be hated out. How does everyone feel about this?

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I'd call this unfounded hearsay and irrellevant shit-talking unless those people back up their statements with something relevant, like a decklist. Here's the deal: turn 4 is only too slow in a format where other decks win faster than turn 4. There are plenty of combo decks that win faster than this, but all of them have very serious consistency issues and tend to be highly succeptible to hate. I'm certainly not claiming that a consistent, resilient combo deck that goes off before turn 4 doesn't exist; I'm just saying that no one has posted a list for one to date.

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What do you think will happen with Solidarity and the GP? Good or a waste of time?

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I think that, outside of possibly David Gearhart, no one will place with Solidarity. This isn't a product of its being too slow, however. It's the fact that a) the format is highly aware of and largely prepared for it, b) it requires an extremely intimate knowledge of timing rules and the way the stack works, and c) minor play mistakes cause game losses, making it very difficult to play, particularly in a long tournament.

I'd like to think I might do well at the GP but yes, the deck is insanely taxing on the brain. If I had the Howling Mines I'd be playing Turbo Stasis, but alas I have to make do with what I have.

@Mr. Nightmare: I was blatantly belittling our dear friend Mr. Loomis. Blessing is probably the worst hate card aside from Ivory Mask. The good thing is that despite constant discussion, so many people still think it owns Solidarity.

For a new, more useful discussion, today I was, for the first time ever in my illustrious Solidarity career, the recipient of a Blast protected Sirocco by an Ahnk Burn deck. I was caught totally with my pants down, but luckily kept a High Tide and a Meditate and pulled it off. My question is, what is the best way to protect against Sirocco. Should I assume every burn/goblin player is holding Sirroco post board. With their extremely fast game it is very difficult to leave mana open to Blast that shit and not optimize my hand.

Well, What you should do is one of two things... as usual, you should try only to win when you need to, as the deck is backwards in that it can win on turn four, but it just needs to win before it dies. This is the msot unique thing about the deck. While attempting to win on turn 4 verses goblins might seem good, if you can just wait a turn, it's fine. They are going to wait for you to have your 'pants down', as you say, and play all the hate on you at once, when your tapped out. The best way to aleivate this problem is to be flexable with your mana. In a matchup where the chances of being burned/socororo'd out are quite high, you must always make sure they are tapped out (for the most part), or make sure that they have the fewest number of hate cards in hand (Like 1 or 2), OR make sure that you have the ability to continue in response to them. I was playing against my friends' angel Stompy/r deck today and he had a hand that had socoro and double red elemental blast. I didn't sideboard becuase I didn't have my sideboard there, but I was able to hold off until I made my (piviotal) Fifth land drop of the game, and continue to go off. It didn't help him that I had triple meditate in hand (I'm a lucksack, what can I say?)

Incidentally, Sirroco is as terrible in Goblins as Red Elemental Blast is in Burn, and I have no idea why they continue playing it. A Goblins player played it against me last weekend on the attack in response to a High Tide. I discarded one card, went to 1 life, and proceeded to win with Meditate, Twincast, and Reset in hand. A Pyroblast would've killed me.

This shouldn't be that complicated. Goblins can apply pressure with creatures, but can't do anything on the stack. Play counterspells. This means 8 blast if you're playing the little red men.

Burn can't apply pressure if it's spells don't deal damage. REB becomes less than good. Play Pyrostatic Pillar and Sirroco.

These decks do two entirely different things. Their hate has to function differently. There's never a good reason to run 4 Blast, 4 Sirroco, but people continue doing it just because it's become a neat little mantra.

The reason that Burn has to play Blast is because it can hit Chill, and without a splash, it is our only answer to Chill. Sirocco is also probably not going to be seen very much at the GP, because it is a bad card. This is the only deck against which it does anything, and burn can already race you. If playing against a decent burn deck expect to see Pillars and REB's, as they are the best/most useful hate burn has. Goblins seems to like Pillars also, and REB is good for them too. Overall I wouldn't worry too much about Sirocco.