[Deck] Solidarity

Welcome to the Source, flrn. Your english is just fine.

I know what you mean about Echoing Truth, though it is also useful against multiple hate cards, such as Meddling Mage. I am seeing more countertop now, however, so I have been seriously considering 4 Wipe Away in the SB, allowing me to switch out Remand for 3 Wipe Away, leaving me one to wish for.

The disadvantage of Wipe Away over ET or even Repeal is that it is slow. In the ANT matchup that you mention, I need to bounce Xantid Swarm on turn 2, not turn 3. Unlike most of my matchups, this one is not about going off as fast as you can, but preventing him going off. Wipe Away is too slow for this, and it is one of the reasons that I have not yet replaced the ET. Still, I am more likely to see countertop that ANT, and ANT is my better matchup any way.

I must admit that I have been avoiding Mystic Tutor; I never used it even when it was in my SB. It produces card disadvantage, gives your opponent information, and needs to be paired with a draw card during the combo.

By the way, Twincast is very rarely dead. If you do not expect counters it doubles your untap/draw/etc. If you do expect counters, it counters right back. That being said, there are often better cards in a given matchup, and so it often gets replaced in games 2 & 3 against aggro or even countertop.

I have been considering a new SB:

1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
4 Wipe Away (for countertop & other slow prison decks)
4 Disrupt (for combo and discard)
3 Repeal (for fast, broken permanents like Swarm & Lackey - though Echoing Truth might be better, as it is more flexible, albeit without a cantrip - ET is weaker against countertop, though)

Any thoughts?

-Silent Requiem

PS> I think you are on the wrong track with Whispers of the Muse. Peek was played over Opt for information. If you are not going for information, Whispers does a worse job that Opt of digging for answers or ensuring your land drops. And I rarely feel that I have 7 mana mid combo that could not be doing something better than drawing 2 cards. Wishing for a draw card could be more cost effective than that.

Ye i get that thing with Wipe Away against ANT. Makes sense. About Mystical Tutor. The information that it gives shouldnt matter since you need to reveal the card you wish for with Cunning Wish anyway. So if you wish for a solution wether its in your board or in your deck, your opponent will see it, if you dont find it through Cantrips. The point about Mystical Tutor is about being able to handle the card disadvantage, which shouldnt be a problem with Solidarity since the deck is basicaly made of Cantrips, which improve our card quality and gives us card advantage. About Twincast. Yeah your probably right. I should put it mainboard instead of Disrupt.

Another thing is. Since the M2010 rule changes im not feeling comfortable with only 1 Stroke of Genius in my wishboard, since i cant get it back from the exile. Probably gonna put another one into the wishboard. Repeal seems like a good card for boarding, but i would at least put 1 Echoing Truth into the board against mass tokens. You´ll need it against those kinda decks. And yeah they are still in our meta.

Edit: This Rulechange also probably makes Flash of Insight worse than Peer through Depths, since you cant wish for exiled cards anymore. Since we only play instants, our graveyard doesnt make a Goyf more powerful than he is anyway with the graveyard of our opponent.

I will always play Twincast over Disrupt. Twincast is comparable to Disrupt in the Discard matchup and is arguably better against combo. I haven't seen Xantid Swarm since the early days of TES, and they are no problem for me because of that. The rest of the protection that ANT plays (Chant, Silence, Duress, Thoughtseize) is all very Twincastable. Twincast on Chant is like a hard counter + a Time Walk. Twincast on Duress will very likely destroy their chances of comboing out the same turn.

The second Stroke in the sideboard is not needed. I've never been in a situation where I had no other option than wishing Stroke, casting it on myself, removing it with FoI and having to wish it again.

FoI is not worse than Peer. They serve completely different roles. FoI makes your Brain Freeze an instant kill instead of a dead card.

Hmm. A lot to see, and a lot to say. Nice to have the thread come alive again.

Re: Mystical Tutor. Actually, we are not able to handle card disadvantage at all well. Cantripping only replaces the card, and produces no card advatage. Every time we cantrip into a land or other dead card while comboing, our hand essentially diminishes by one. This is lethal to us, as our only sources of actual card advantage are Meditate and Flash of Insight (and Twincast on either of those).

When you Wish, you replace your card 1:1, essentially a super-cantrip. When you Tutor, you lose a card without picking one up. You then lose the card you would have picked up if you hadn't needed the cantrip to pick up the tutored card. Your hand is one card smaller, and you are also "down" another card that you didn't see. I'm not saying that Mystic Tutor cannot be used, but be sure that you are aware of the price you are really paying.

Re: Flash of Insight. This card is strictly worse than before M10. However, it is still awesome. Not only is it one of only two sources of card advantage in this deck, it also protects you from graveyard hate (extirpate, haunting echoes, etc) and is great against discard. Mid combo, is practically a Demonic Tutor, guarenteeing you the card you need. It is very, very awesome.

Re: Echoing Truth. You talk about keeping one in the board for tokens, but by the time I can wish for it and cast it, I could just win. I need Echoing Truth when ANT or Dredge drops a dozen tokens on turn 1 or 2. So I actually need to just dump a whole bunch of them in the main deck and hope to draw into one.

This, then, is the source of my Repeal/ET debate. I need to go with one or the other for my fast bounce. Repeal bounces 0CC faster, with often hilarious results (try Repeal on a Mox after ANT casts Infernal Tutor off a Lion's Eye Diamond... it's almost as funny as Twincasting their Ad Nauseum to find FoW), it replaces itself, and it often works around Counterbalance.

Echoing Truth punishes multiple hate permanents, kills tokens dead, and never costs more than 2 mana. It is, however, a dead card mid combo (see my point about Mystic Tutor), and walks right into Counterbalance.

For me, this is a really tough call.

Re: Disrupt. Bahamuth, I would really like for you to clarify your opening statement in the last post. Are you suggesting going up to 4 Twincast against discard and combo rather than siding in Disrupt, or are you simply saying that you would side out something else for Disrupt in these matchups? I love Twincast, but it only comes in on turn 2 (their turn 3 if they are on the play), meaning it fails to stop the most broken plays. Disrupt, while much weaker, at least gives you a shot at stopping reckless combo/discard.

-Silent Requiem

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Originally Posted by Silent Requiem

I have been considering a new SB:

1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
4 Wipe Away (for countertop & other slow prison decks)
4 Disrupt (for combo and discard)
3 Repeal (for fast, broken permanents like Swarm & Lackey - though Echoing Truth might be better, as it is more flexible, albeit without a cantrip - ET is weaker against countertop, though)

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Stroke of genius MD? Or playing without it?

Since I'm leaving the almost sunken ship: Is anyone interested in shiny Solidarity cards? (:

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Originally Posted by Shimster

Since I'm leaving the almost sunken ship: Is anyone interested in shiny Solidarity cards? (:

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You are. You know you want to play this deck....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shimster

Since I'm leaving the almost sunken ship: Is anyone interested in shiny Solidarity cards? (:

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PM me what shiny ones you have.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mikeleroi

Stroke of genius MD? Or playing without it?

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No, I just took the short bus to work today. Stroke will be in the SB where it belongs. My SB should look like this:

1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
4 Wipe Away (for countertop & other slow prison decks)
3 Disrupt (for combo and discard)
3 Repeal (for fast, broken permanents like Swarm & Lackey - though Echoing Truth might be better, as it is more flexible, albeit without a cantrip - ET is weaker against countertop, though)

Taking a look at that, I have loads of bounce. I think I need to figure out what the ideal cards and ideal numbers are. Do I need that many? With one less I could add another Disrupt, which would be nice. Rebuild seems like the card to take out. A one-of is not fast, because I need to wish, and if I can wish, I can probably win.

Are 4 WA (3 sided in, one in the wishboard) too many for countertop?

-Silent Requiem

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

The second Stroke in the sideboard is not needed. I've never been in a situation where I had no other option than wishing Stroke, casting it on myself, removing it with FoI and having to wish it again.

FoI is not worse than Peer. They serve completely different roles. FoI makes your Brain Freeze an instant kill instead of a dead card.

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According to the new rules since M2010 cards who get exiled from the game cant be wished back with Cunning Wish. Thats why im thinking about gettin a second in the wishboard, since the Wish´es can only get cards from your sideboard these days, not cards who have been removed from the game (called exiled from the game now).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by flrn

According to the new rules since M2010 cards who get exiled from the game cant be wished back with Cunning Wish. Thats why im thinking about gettin a second in the wishboard, since the Wish´es can only get cards from your sideboard these days, not cards who have been removed from the game (called exiled from the game now).

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Yesyes I know, what I'm saying is that you don't really need 2 Stroke, because it never really happens that you absolutely need 2 Stroke in a single game.

Silent Requiem, please read my above comment on Disrupt & Twincast.

I got a rather stupid question concerning Twincast. What happens, when i copy Tendrils with it. My Twincast (which is Tendrils now) resolves before his Tendrils resolves and since Twincast is a spell it has a storm counter which is higher by one than his. So he should die before i do?

Twincast creates a copy of Tendrils. The Storm-ability, however, won't trigger, because the spell was not cast.

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Originally Posted by flrn

I got a rather stupid question concerning Twincast. What happens, when i copy Tendrils with it. My Twincast (which is Tendrils now) resolves before his Tendrils resolves and since Twincast is a spell it has a storm counter which is higher by one than his. So he should die before i do?

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That's not right. Storm ability says "when you play this spell" and twincast says "copy target spell", so you don't play (or cast) that spell and storm doesn't trigger.

PS: Wow, I love to see this thread alive!! :wink:

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Originally Posted by Silent Requiem

No, I just took the short bus to work today. Stroke will be in the SB where it belongs. My SB should look like this:

1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
4 Wipe Away (for countertop & other slow prison decks)
3 Disrupt (for combo and discard)
3 Repeal (for fast, broken permanents like Swarm & Lackey - though Echoing Truth might be better, as it is more flexible, albeit without a cantrip - ET is weaker against countertop, though)

Taking a look at that, I have loads of bounce. I think I need to figure out what the ideal cards and ideal numbers are. Do I need that many? With one less I could add another Disrupt, which would be nice. Rebuild seems like the card to take out. A one-of is not fast, because I need to wish, and if I can wish, I can probably win.

Are 4 WA (3 sided in, one in the wishboard) too many for countertop?

-Silent Requiem

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Four Wipe Away is most likely too much. The problem is that multiples clog up your hand and while you will be able to deal with CB more often than not, they play 56 other cards. Depending on the number of Cryptic Commands I'd run either 2 or 3 Wipe Away. I tried 3 Repeal once but I had the exact problem described above when needing to cantrip and the only permanents were Mongeese, SDT and/ or Factory. FYI my current sideboard (2 Cryptic Command still main):

1 Stroke
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
2 Wipe Away
2 Echoing Truth
1 Repeal
2 Twincast
3 Disrupt
1 Rebuild
1 Mystical Tutor

- Mystical Tutor: It does two things for you:

a) It gets you High Tide when you need to go off fast.
b) It gets boarded in against any nonblue, non-Chalice deck that doesn't run more than four discardspells and while giving up a card sure hurts, the boost in speed is really helpful against decks with a fast clock or against decks where you need to find the fitting answer.

- Repeal has a big problem: It doesn't get rid of Chalice of the Void (at least not if it's set on one). Which is why I'd always want two Echoing truth to board in against Chalice-decks. Plus Truth + Disrupt gives you an actual shot against dredge. Finally the random useful bounce all with the same name steals games. (Examples: Bouncing three unmorphed Gathan Raiders resulting in a 6 for 1 trade, wishing for an eot-Truth against Tempo-Thresh against double-Goyf basically timewalking him + forcing him to tap low in the midgame, bouncing double Hyppie when I couldn't go off but held double Remand)


@ flrn: (more than one Stroke of Genius) How often do you encounter Gaea's Blessing? How often do you need to Stroke to get through the combo? How often do both happen in the same game? This unlikely scenario is not worth a precious sb-slot.


@Shimster: Your loss. Is some of your shiny stuff Asian? Also if you happen to own a Foil Peer Through Depths and 2 Think Twice I'd be interested.

This has been spoiled an hour ago:

Mindbreak Trap 2UU
Instant (Mythic rare)

If an opponent cast 3 or more spells this turn, you may pay 0 rather than pay ~this~ mana cost.
Exile any number of target spells.

The things are getting even uglier... or not? Will this see play?

On the other hand is a mandatory one of (or more) in our sideboard against ANT. This is the good side.

Mindbreak Trap sounds like a fantastic anti-storm card, except most storm tries to fit a Silence in first. This may be a reason to start splashing white (for Abeyance/Orim's Chant/Silence). It might also end the (now dormant) green v white splash debate, as Bound/Determined will not protect against this card.

@ Van Phanel: It's funny you should mention Mystic Tutor again. Right after telling flrn not to run it, I lost a game to an exalted block deck (oh, the shame) simply because I could not find a High Tide.

I have a tournament on Sunday, and given that I do not own any Cryptic Command (I will pick some up when they rotate out of standard, though), what do you think of this sideboard?

1 Stroke of Genius
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Brain Freeze
1 Mystic Tutor
1 Rebuild
2 Echoing Truth
3 Wipe Away
4 Disrupt (I've started testing these in place of Opt against discard & combo)

-Silent Requiem

flrn: I play a list who utilise Cunning Wish more then the regular list. I play 4 Cunning Wish MB and 1 High Tide in the Wish board. I have yet to encounter a time when i _need_ to wish from the exile zone. The 15 cards you have in your SB is more then enough targets if you just play the deck a litle tighter and don't trow away stroke of genoius asap to draw you cards.

Shimster: I whould rather consider solidarity a pirateship. You need to be cunning, and play the deck well in order to win. This deck demands more out of you then any other deck i have played (vintage and legacy). When people ask me about matchups, i tend to say that i have at most 45% chance of winning against any deck. (i know that this statement i false) but its mostly becouse the biggest threat you'll ever play against with this deck is your self and the misstakes you make. Whatever they do to make this deck worse the answer is allways "play tighter, do less errors". Was so with CB/top, was so with M10.

Zinch: That card is more or less like a Medling Mage set to Brain Freeze instead of High Tide. When most people will play it we will have drawn tons of cards, and have every force of will we'll need to have to be able to counter it. Why whould we board this against ANT? I might be somewhat of the line, but i have never had any problems playing any other combodeck (except Ichorid maybee). Solidarity is a control/combo hybrid, much like TPS in vintage. We have the usefull control elements in order to get us to the turn we need to, and then we don't need to spin of as much as usually thanks to the fact that they have already played a bunch of spells.

Solidarity will still be the same deck as allways much becous of the fact that its more a theory of how this game works than a deck. And that theory is still a valid theory.

That spoiled card is just awesome. I'll be trying it out as a 1-off wish target. Situations where this card is playable come up a lot. Waiting against Aggro-control becomes much more profitable for us, as we can gain huge advantage if our opponent counters 2 spells and casts a cantrip or something similar.

In tight situations, you can even use this as a double Twincast:

You: Meditate
Opp: FoW
You: Resp Reset
Opp: FoW
You: Mindbreak trap your FoWs, Reset Resolves? Meditate Resolves?

AND you can use this as a hard counter if the situation comes up.

EDIT: Oh you were talking about other decks playing this. It's absolutely terrible anti-combo hate, because it doesn't stop the actual combo from happening. I think (hope) people won't be stupid enough to actually play this.

Just a quick note on speeding up the deck. I don't think this is practical, but I throw it out there in case it triggers a more productive thought.

To get 4 lands in play (untapped) by turn 3, we would need to splash white and have a Tundra/fetchland, a Spiritual Visit (create a 1/1 token) and a Path to Exile in our opening hand (or the means to find them in the required order).

The idea is that we play the Tundra, followed by Spiritual Visit before our next turn. We then drop another land (which could be used to dig) and use Path to Exile on our own token before our turn 3 untap. Assuming we make our turn 3 land drop, we start our opponent's turn 3 with 4 untapped land on the table.

What makes all this interesting, besides the other goodies white has to offer, is that these cards are also useful to us on their own. Path to Exile is an answer to all sorts of nasties (lacky, confidant, goyf), and Spiritual Visit also helps with those cards, either as a damage soak or an outright kill (lackey, confidant) if they should attack. These cards could be sided out against more controlling decks.

Assuming you can find/draw the pieces, this speeds up the potential kill time by one turn. It can also be used mid combo to put more land on the table, both increasing the mana available and thinning lands out of our deck (plus another shuffle effect).

-Silent Requiem