[Deck] Solidarity (Reset High Tide)

Well I was off to a good start on Sunday at Altered States, going undefeated three rounds and winning the first game of the fourth and then the power goes out suddenly. Finally when I'm not scrubbing out with Solidarity fate has a way of taking the glory away. I played against WBU Angel, Angel Stax, RGSA, and the jankiest Solidarity mirror ever. My only mistake of the day was passing up a second Brainfreeze against Angel Stax (Mr. Nightmare) to keep comboing on the off chance he had Blessings in the deck. Even though I won, it involved me later Brainfreezing myself to get to a Flash. Not that I was ever in a position of losing. Paranoia is sometimes a bad thing when you know your opponent is competent enough not to side Blessings.

The fourth round was a mirror match (Dirty), except his deck ran no Cunning Wish and had Mystical Tutor / Words of Wisdom maindeck. I really feel that the mirror match is all about positioning yourself to capitalize on your opponent's mistakes. Most often the person who goes first loses. He tapped out with two floating to cast Turnabout, at which time I cast two more High Tides and tapped an island each to hardcast two Forces in the ensuing counter war. Once we were done with that I just comboed out in response to his Turnabout and killed him.

My decklist:
11 Island
8 Fetches
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
4 High Tide
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
2 Flash of Insight
4 Meditate
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
4 Opt
3 Brainfreeze
2 Peer through Depths
SB
7 Blasts
1 Turnabout
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Rebuild
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Evacuation
1 Brainfreeze

I have yet to get ahold of Twincasts, but the Peers will hopefully be replaced with them for Philly and I want to fit another into the sideboard.

A thought that just occured to me while daydreaming in class (I posted in the Battle of Wits thread as well) was that the the addition of one Gaea's Blessing, along with Brainstorm/Brainfreeze would allow the deck to go infinite. Just avoid Flashing while generating infinite mana and save a Cunning Wish for the Stroke. While this is incredibly unnecessary, the potential is pretty cool. As if the deck wasn't fun enough to play already... My head hurts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by herbig

Just avoid Flashing while generating infinite mana and save a Cunning Wish for the Stroke.

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Flash actually helps you immensely there, letting you set up a (near) infinite loop. Most likely it would be something like:

Brainstorm (in hand)
Gaea's Blessing
Brain Freeze
Reset

However, that's rather inconsistent. I don't quite think you would be able to go completely infinite - and it's a rather bad idea anyway. If Blessing gets into your hand you have to just tolerate it until you get a Brainstorm.


Edit: Congrats on your tournament performance, but it's kind of scary to see such a bad Solidarity list perform a 3-0. It seems like we have a downright terrifying deck on our hands...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by herbig

A thought that just occured to me while daydreaming in class (I posted in the Battle of Wits thread as well) was that the the addition of one Gaea's Blessing, along with Brainstorm/Brainfreeze would allow the deck to go infinite. Just avoid Flashing while generating infinite mana and save a Cunning Wish for the Stroke. While this is incredibly unnecessary, the potential is pretty cool. As if the deck wasn't fun enough to play already... My head hurts.

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Phantom Ogre over on the ABS boards has been advocating this since forever, along with 1x Predict. I think it's incredibly unnecessary, but eh.

Quote:

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Phantom Ogre over on the ABS boards has been advocating this since forever, along with 1x Predict. I think it's incredibly unnecessary, but eh.

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I think it's been mentioned here as well, but nobody payed attention to it, because it didn't really make the deck any better...

Oh I agree, I just thought that the possibility was interesting. But adding it doesn't let the deck do anything it can't already accomplish. And adding worse cards like Blessing and Predict make the deck combo less efficiently. On a side note, there was a post in the rules section about drawing the game with double Twincasts. Check it out, it is useful to know in the extremely unlikely situation you might want to do it.

Edit: Nevermind, it doesn't actually work.

If you're going to go down to a 4 card library, why not just win?
-Slay

Actually, the deck already has a way to go "infinite"; You can Twincast a Twincast targeting, say, Brainstorm, then Force of Will the Brainstorm. The Twincasts create an "infinite loop" with each other as long as no other spells are on the stack. You can interrupt this loop at any time to play a Brain Freeze and then Wish for a Stroke.

Keep this in mind should 800 card decks become the vogue. Because friends don't let friends play Predict.

But will that count towards a storm count (The infinte loop, that is). Say you do it and stop the loop say...50 times into it. Then play a Brain Freeze. That wont be applied towards the storm count?? Right?

No, the Twincast copies don't affect the storm count, so going infinite with Twincast tricks won't help you win at all.

Well, shit. Yeah, I forgot about that technicality.



It might look cool, though.

Well, it does draw the game to have double Twincast on the stack, so it's something to keep in mind when time is called in game 2/you're fizzling and are about to get your face smashed.

Actually I am not too sure about that

As the copy of Twincast that the 2nd Twincast is making is created before the 2nd Twincast finishes resolving the 2nd Twincast is a legal target of the copy. It it targets the 2nd Twincast (The Twincast that made the copy) the copy will fizzle thus ending the loop.
At least that is what was said in the thread and it makes some sense, in a confusing way.
I would ask a judge about it though. I suppose it really depends on when the targets for copies of spells created by Twincast are declared.

For a little clarification, with more detail:

The Twincast copy is created and put onto the stack.

Then, you get to choose whether or not you want to change the target(s) for this copy. Supposing you're copying the first Twincast (the one that targetted the spell that was countered), if you chose 'No, I do not want to change the target(s),' then this copy of Twincast will fizzle because it's target is no longer legal (it's the countered spell you played first). If you choose 'Yes, I do want to change the target(s),' then you may either continue by copying the first Twincast (serving no purpose), or choose the second Twincast: the one generating the copy in question.

Then, the second Twincast finishes resolving.

And then, the copy generated by the second Twincast begins to resolve, and it will either fizzle, or copy the first Twincast, at which point you get to make the same decision as before.

NOTE: You may chose not to change the target, even if that target (the target it currently has) is no longer legal.

Note also that this would only create a draw anyway if you were unable to interrupt the cycle, i.e., you had no instants in hand, in a deck running nothing but Instants. An infinite loop only draws the game if neither player can stop it... hence why Seeker of Skybreak doesn't say 'Tap: draw the game.'

No, there's actually a big difference bewteen Seeker of Skybreak and this. Seeker requires the player to actively play the ability. Saying that you must play an instant (which doesn't break the cycle) is like saying Dragon must use Bazaar to get another reanimation target into the yard. Even if you keep playing, the Twincasts and their copies will never resolve when there are other spells on the stack, because they'll be stuck at the bottom of the stack. These other spells will resolve, and then we'll be back to the 2 Twincasts. If there are two Twincasts at the bottom of the stack, the stack will never be emptied.

You cannot draw the game with double Twincast.

Let's say you're resolving the 152nd copy of Twincast. The stack looks like this:

Twincast targeting-> Original Spell (which was countered)
152nd copy of Twincast targeting-> Twincast

Now, you add another copy of Twincast to the stack and choose a target. There are two targets: the first Twincast and the 152nd Twincast.

If you choose the first Twincast, the loop continues. If you choose the 152nd Twincast, then your 153rd Twincast will be countered on resolution as the 152nd Twincast will no longer be on the stack after it resolves.

Choosing to target the first Twincast repeatedly and never breaking the loop is illegal for the same reason that Dragon cannot draw the game when there is another creature in the graveyard. It's considered stalling.

I'm a huge fan of solidarity and am seriously considering playing it tomorrow at the GP, but I'm worried about the abiity to correctly for so many rounds. My advice to anyone is to slow down, make sure your choices are exactly what you wish to do. Remember that 1-0-1 rounds are still wins and don't be afraid to mulligan when you feel borderline. Land drops are essential so keep that in mind too. Does anyone have advice for me? Perhaps anything I've overlooked and things to keep in mind? i.e. decktypes, cards to watch out for or even certain turns of decktypes that are crucial. Thanks for your help and everyone, good luck tomorrow!

Mad props to david gearhart! Really sorry you didn't make top 8 man, was rooting for you all weekend! Beeing 9th really sucks since you don't even get your picture on the frikkin coverage! At least you get to cruise to honolulu!

Great try, Gearhart. Excellent performance, and have fun in Honolulu.

Did anyone even play this deck at the GP? I played it, going 4-0 (3 goblin decks) losing to R/G survival in game 3 due to a mental error, and then hitting UWG threshold and straight Rock. I saw absolutely no one else even playing the deck. I know Gearhart did, and performed excellently.

However, I think that the hype was simply too much for this deck. I played against Pillars/Blasts and 8 blasts or Gaea's Blessing way too often. If this deck had been secret tech, and 4 very good players played it, I would predict that it would have 2 top 8 slots and possibly won if it didn't meet up with Pikula's deck. (now THERE'S a fright *shudder*) The problem is that if someone wants to beat you, they can make it very tough for you. This is true of almost any deck, but so many players took aim at this because it was so talked about.