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I suppose this new card is amazing. It gets rid of Solidarity's most problematic hoser (early Counterbalance with a fast clock attached), ensures the time to hit the fouth or fifth land drop against Loam or Armageddon decks, stops land-searching cantrips, and the most important, makes Solidarity relevant in a field with faster combo. And at the worst scenarios, it's FoW-pitchable or Brainstorm-expendable at least.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fons
It's probably a bit better than Spell Snare, but really THAT better to get actually played?Quote:
Originally Posted by SilverGreen
It's probably something that mere theoric speculation won't be capable to tell us...Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenOne
That card seems pretty playable. I'm going to try it out sometime.
There's always the <have it in your starting seven or it sucks> problem. Plus it doesn't deal with Confidant. It might deal with a FoW in the lategame but generally it won't do that either.
I don't see any of the Zendikar cards being good at the moment. Playable in the deck certainly, but improving it? No.
Agree, but I'll test it a little replacing Disrupt for sure. Perhaps even MD as a 2-of, in place of 1 Peek and 1 Opt, I don't know yet...Quote:
Originally Posted by Van Phanel
Okay, play Spring Tide, and Iīve been wanting to ask these question for a while:
If Ideas Unbound was an instant, would you play it?
If Cloud of Faeries had flash, would you play it?
If Merchant Scrol was an instant, would you play it?
If Ponder was an instant, would you play it?
If you answer yes to any question, what would you cut for it?
Questions are assigned to everyone who posts in this thread.
(I only think ponder would come in instead of Opt, the rest I have no idea)
Edit:
Considerations:
Merchant Scroll is an Demonic Tutor, but canīt search for lands, thing that Impulse usually does.
Ideas Unbound is great, but I donīt know what to cut. protection? Twincast?
Cloud of Faeries is so-so without Snap, and would come in an untap effect slot, so I guess it wouldnīt make the cut.
Iīm asking these because Iīve been comparing Solidaritys slots with Spring Tide ones, to know what we can get the best out of each.
Obv we'd play them. However they aren't instants, and this deck functions on Reset as the mana engine. Spring Tide can play (arguably) more powerful untappers like Candelabra and Cloud of Faeries.Quote:
Originally Posted by ScatmanX
It appears that there is nothing new from Zendikar (save for SB traps) to help Solidarity as of right now.
I'd play this list:Quote:
Originally Posted by ScatmanX
// Lands
12 [P2] Island (3)
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ON] Flooded Strand
// Spells
1 [SC] Brain Freeze
2 [VI] Impulse
2 [US] Turnabout
4 [FE] High Tide (1)
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [RAV] Remand
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [LG] Reset
3 [JU] Cunning Wish
3 [TE] Meditate
+4 Ponder
+4 Merchant scroll
+2 Ideas Unbound
+2 Cloud of Faerie
So, basically,
-1 Brain Freeze (you got Merchant scroll now to tutor it)
-2 Flash of insight (you have card advantage in Ideas Unbound, and with less Brain Freezes it becomes less attractive)
-2 Opt/Peek (Ponder is just better)
-2 Impulse (you need less lands to combo out, and you have better search for lands with 4 ponders)
-1 Turnabout (you have more cloud of faeries and Merchant Scroll for Reset. Not sure about this one though.)
-2 Flex Slots (who needs flex slots when you have such power?? :cool: )
It would need some testing: Ideas Unbound might be better of Meditate in the Wishboard, and Cloud of Faeries might be inferior to Turnabout. After goldfishing/playing for a couple day I could find an almost optimal decklist, but I'm not willing to waste my time this way.
I play spring tide from time to time, but i can't see why we whould compare slots between spring tide and solidarity. ofc we whould play broken drawspells and untap effects if they where instants. I whould play Frantic Search or Ancestral Recall if they where legal.
They are different decks, with different gameplans. Where Solidarity functions more like MUC Spring tide works more like Ad Naseum storm.
is a black splash possible, using island swamps? maybe having access to some targeted discard would be useful for the pre-combo turns.
I can't think of any relevant discard that are instant. Skeletal Scrying might be good, but not good enough, on a consistant basis to be worth a splash.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sevryn
I might splash the black "remove graveyard trap" as a one-of in the board against ichorid and goyf. But that is mostly becouse the possibility to play it for zero. I want more of it, but i can't understand what im gonna remove from the SB.
This is the only card from Zendikar that I actually consider adding to my 75 at the moment. Depends on your meta of course. Generally I'd still say it isn't worth the slot because few people ever play Dredge.Quote:
Originally Posted by cjva
What about Into the Roil?Quote:
Originally Posted by Van Phanel
Not even close. The converted mana cost stays 2, even if you pay the kicker so it doesn't get rid of CB.Quote:
Originally Posted by lorddotm
Oh and I obviously forgot mentioning the Fetchlands which are going to replace one Delta and one Strand as soon as I got them in foil.
This may have an obvious answer, but why Impulse over Peer Through Depths?
Impulse digs for land.Quote:
Originally Posted by iamajellydonut
So I'm bumping this thread because I have a relevant tournament report. Here's the story:
As Team Unicorn's newest addition, I felt remiss playing anything but a terrible David Gearhart deck. America, and specifically the East Coast, has been recently dominated by Zoo and Merfolk recently, and I expected a lot of board control and combo trying to take advantage of that at the Philadelphia 5K this weekend. With that in mind, I called up Dave to see if his all-foil Solidarity deck was available for the borrowing. As he doesn't enjoy wasting money quite as much as I do, it turned out that it was available! How lucky.
The list I played was as follows:
12 Island
2/2/2 Delta/Strand/Tarn (would've added a Rainforest for a Delta, but whatever, the point is to be even more diversified against bad players who think Needle is relevant against you)
4 High Tide
4 Reset
4 Brainstorm
4 Opt
4 Impulse
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
3 Turnabout
3 Meditate
2 Twincast
2 Peek
2 Cryptic Command
1 Flash of Insight
1 Remand
1 Brain Freeze
Sideboard:
3 Hydroblast
2 Wipe Away
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 Rebuild
1 Twincast
1 Remand
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
My choices:
To be perfectly honest, I was a card off of my ideal maindeck. I wanted to play Read the Runes over the 1-of Remand main. I've been testing this a lot, and here is the logic in two easy steps:
1. Early game, it sucks, but so does Brain Freeze or Flash of Insight, the cards I would consider running over it (more on why I ran Remand in a second). It is a mid-to-late combo piece that can very easily win you the game in EXACTLY the situations you need it to win you the game. Here's why:
2. The deck is not quite the turn 4 deck we all want it to be. Want to know why? Sometimes, you whiff on Meditate. You know the feeling. You draw Delta, Island, Force, cantrip, and the cantrip doesn't get you there. Ship it, etc. Really bad. Almost every game I've fizzled in was not for lack of mana. Quite the opposite, really. It's against Merfolk and Zoo, where I have to win turn 5, I get past the Force and the Cursecatcher, or the REB, and I'm in the clear, but my deck doesn't show up. Read the Runes is a stand-in Stroke of Genius for those bad situations. If you completely rip off of Meditate, then you don't need RtR. Congratulations, you're going to win anyways. But when you AREN'T going to win, casting it for 4-6 will turn a hand of Island x 3, fetch, Force, cantrip into a hand of Turnabouts, Wishes, and cantrips. Pretty sick.
The reason I wanted to maindeck Remand, given that logic and the SHOCKING lack of Read the Runes in the room, is that I expected a higher presence of combo, and I wanted a means of interacting with them on turn 2.
Sideboard choices:
3 Hydroblast: Zoo is popular. They fight with REBs. Boarding out Forces and some Wishes for these and combo pieces is pretty reasonable, considering that Wish for Meditate is altogether too slow in this matchup, barring mulligan(s) on their part.
2 Wipe Away: Jesse and Dave both want me to just replace the Cryptics main with these. I don't blame them, and I probably will. They felt slow and clunky throughout the day. Not what I really want out of something of a swiss-army knife.
1 Meditate, Turnabout, Stroke of Genius: Standard.
1 Brain Freeze: I'm not playing the 2nd main, so I wanted this for blue-based control. I will probably go up to 2 in the SB after this.
1 Rebuild: Chalice is a card that exploits both combo and aggro, so I was expecting some artifact presence in the room, and I didn't want to get blown out.
1 Twincast: I boarded this in against combo and never regretted it. Also a fine postboard call against aggro with minimal to no disruption, but I never played against race matchups.
1 Remand: Sucks. Everything is fast nowadays, and 3 Twincast is good enough. Remand is just too slow in this deck nowadays.
1 Mystical Tutor: I love it. It's just below "insane", but it basically does everything I want it to do, and I'm never sad to draw it in a postboard game against not-Counterbalance and not-Black.
The traps: Ravenous was a test card against Dredge, which I never saw. I was also expecting some awful Entomb decks. Dredge showed up, but Entomb didn't. Debatable slot, but I think it's Solidarity's best card against Dredge, and testing has borne that theory out.
Mindbreak Trap is really interesting, and I will be keeping it. It serves two purposes, both of which I want:
1. Against fast combo, it's a 5th Force of Will if they Just Go For It turn 1-2 on the play.
2. It's the nuts in counterwars if you can count. This will be demonstrated in round 7 (a lot, incidentally, was demonstrated in rd 7, and there is a puzzle for those dedicated enough to read through this wall of text all the way to that section).
That said, the tournament:
Rd 1: Jesse Krieger, ANT/FT
Great. First round, and I have to battle a teammate. Jesse stopped gathering Magics for a while, so I have no idea what he's playing. When he leads with Tundra, Top, go, I almost slump. I don't want to fight a teammate playing Counter/Top round 1. This is going to be a long day. I have a double Force of Will hand with Twincast, so I just hold mana up and wait for something to happen, cantripping in the meantime. At the end of my turn 2, he taps his Island and casts MYSTICAL TUTOR, and I perk up. He gets ORIM'S CHANT, and I take the victory lap in my head. Nice keep, right? He goes to Chant me, and I Twincast it, since he could easily go with Delta into Sea, Rit/Rit/AdN, and my sick hand becomes for naught, so I just Twincast it instead of trying to call his bluff or make some other bad hero play. He passes, and I draw Peek. Hoooooooow luuuuuuuuucky. I pass, and he passes at his eot. I eot Peek, seeing Infernal, Rit, Rit, LED. I start setting up my hand to go off. His next turn is LED, Rit, Rit, Infernal responding with LED. I Force pitching Cryptic, and he picks up his cards. He played correctly, but I had the nuts. Oh well.
Game 2 is weird because turns 1-3, we set up with me Forcing an early Xantid Swarm, and I decide to try to go off in response to a Duress. He responds to my Twincast on my Meditate (emptying my hand) with Rit, Rit, Ad N, leaving him tapped out. He remarks, "Too bad I don't play Pact..." He draws a bunch of cards, then I combo him out. Sorry, Jesse.
1-0, 2-0
Rd 2: Cedric Phillips, Belcher
I see the pairings and immediately assume that he's playing 43land, like he usually does. I have to restrain myself from skipping to the table. He wins the roll, and I keep a hand with Force of Will, 2 land, and cantrips. He looks up, and says "Go." Uh...that is not 43land. "Go? Like, my turn?" "Yeah, go."
Awkward.
Island, go.
Draw. Chrome Mox? Sure. Imprint Dark Ritual. Mox? Sure. Imprint Empty the Warrens. Rite of Flame? Sure. LED? Sure. Seething Song?
Question 1: Do you counter the SS, and why? Here are the two modes of thought:
1. If he's going for Warrens, you lose. However, if he were going for Warrens, why wouldn't he lead with LED? He wanted to protect his LED with a Seething Song, which means that he's holding Wish or Charbelcher.
Song resolves. Charbelcher doesn't. I combo him out.
Game 2: I board in Mindbreak Trap and see it in my opener. Unfortunately, his first play:
Land Grant, show you:
ESG
SSG
Rite of Flame
ETW
Charbelcher
Duress
Dear Cedric,
Please get Taiga and go for t1 EtW for 6.
Love,
Me.
Bayou, Duress you.
Darn.
Game 3: I have a hand with Force of Will, and he starts playing Magic on turn 1 again. From how slowly he's playing and the fact that he plays LED with mana up again, I think he has Wish this time. I let his mana resolve, but tell myself to counter Seething Song. Unfortunately, it went:
Mox (imp. DR)
Mox (imp. EtW)
Rite (resolves)
LED (resolves)
RFG SSG
EtW for 10
Awkward.
Didn't get there.
1-1, 3-2
Rd. 3: WGr Enchantress
Since I am not braindead, I know that the only way for him to win is to set up Confinement/Grove/Enchantress effect, so I don't let that happen. EZ game, etc. At the end of game 2, David comes over and tells me how much he hates me. I ask why, and he tells me that he would be playing this deck if only he got crazy easy matchups like these all the time. I just think he's jealous. Damon (Parcher) asked me after the match, "Do you think there is a better matchup you could've gotten?" I think for a second, then reply with "43 land?" He says, "Fair, and it's even here today. But Enchantress is a close second."
2-1, 5-2
Rd. 4: Dream Halls
I sit down, and my opponent looks at me, drops his head, and says, "Fuck this, my matchup against you is soooooooo bad." Pessimist that I am, I say, "oh, cool, right, so you know what I'm playing. So you're obviously just mindgaming me. You're probably playing Counterbalance."
"No, really, I can never win this. You'll see."
Fair enough.
Game 1 involves him fetching for Underground Seas, Duressing me once, and casting Dark Ritual. I look at him and say "Fetchland Tendrils isn't that bad against Solidarity..."
"No no, just wait."
"Okay, Dark Ritual resolves." "Dream Halls?"
I stare at a card I have never physically seen, and neglect to read it carefully. My thought process about the card, in order:
1. Fuck, what was that N&D thread I read? Win con package is like, Conflux and then Grozoth and Searing Wind? So I can combo in response? I only have three lands though, fuuuuuuuuck. This is going to suck. Dream Halls is so good! But he has to pitch the same CMC to the card, right? So he has to have 2 Confluxes? That card sucks.
2. Oh, it's the same color? That's pretty sick. So he's going to play Conflux by pitching DR? Nice life. But I still don't get how this is bad for him! He has a turn 3 combo, and I have a turn 4 combo...
3. OH MAN IT'S SYMMETRICAL HE CAN NEVER WIN HAHAHAHAHA
So the next five minutes is me laughing hysterically, calling everyone I know over, and making them watch me freecast Meditates with Force of Wills.
Yeah, it was great.
3-1, 7-2
Rd. 5: UGB CounterTop w/ Thoughtseizes
At some point, the joyride had to come to an end. He gets Confidant and Top going, and I respond to Counterbalance with Peek, which sees:
Goyf
Maelstrom Pulse
Confidant
Smother
So I'm sort of in good shape. I have Tide/Reset/Meditate/Cryptic/Impulse in hand and 3 land in play, so things could definitely get worse. I draw Opt off of Peek and respond again with Opt, seeing Peek. I ship Peek and hit land 4. Okay, we can do this. Counterbalance resolves.
I draw Turnabout and play land 4, just hanging out and hoping that he doesn't hit anything nutsy in his next two cards. Unlikely, but I have to hope. He flips Wasteland and draws, plays a Delta, attacks, and passes. I have perfect information now. I go to bounce Counterbalance, and he Tops in response, fetches, and Tops, before flipping Sower.
Awesome. That was fun.
Game 2: He has double Counterbalance.
[ ] had a chance
[ ] fun match
[ ] good games bro
[x] nice Sower of fking Temptation
3-2, 7-4
Rd. 5: Hypergenesis
I feel somewhat demoralized, but resolve to play for t16 and $100. I keep a hand with Force, Peek, lands, and combo pieces, and resolve to crush him. He's on the play.
City of Brass, ESG, SSG, Show and Tell.
Oh, cool, Hypergenesis combo. Force of Will your Show and Tell?
Force resolves, and buys me three turns before:
land, ESG, Violent Outburst, cascade in Hypergenesis.
Remand it lololololol
which buys me another turn before:
land, Show and Tell?
Okay, fine, show me what you've got.
Akroma, Angel of Wrath.
That wasn't that bad! So I go to 13, then combo all over his face.
Game 2: I keep a fast combo hand that even has Brainstorm, but no Force. Two lands, though. Good stuff. Keep.
Gemstone, ESG, SSG, Show and Tell.
Cool, I think your Inkwell Leviathan is going to be okay. At least it's not Progenitus. Upside: Brainstorm on turn 0! Yeah!
Fast forward to the part where I'm on 5 and I combo kill him with 3 land, because I like that part. Nice deck!
4-2, 9-4
Rd. 7: Superdonktiltmehardcore playing UGB CounterTop
Game 1: He lands t2 Confidant, t3 Top + Goyf (I Peek and see Vampire Hexmage, Brainstorm, and land), and then nothing turn 4. I go for it, but he Brainstorms and his last two cards are Force + Daze. So much for that plan.
Game 2: I board in Wipe Away, and we get into a really awkward situation where he has NINE CARDS IN HAND, five land, Confidant, Goyf, Top, and Thoughtseize on the stack. I stare at the board, wonder what the good goddamn he could possibly be holding, and decide that that Thoughtseize is never going to resolve.
High Tide, Reset, Turnabout, Meditate, Tide all resolve.
This seems fishy. Nine cards in hand, right?
Yeah.
My plan is to wait for him to pick his fight over something and hold three mana back for Wish into Mindbreak Trap and blow him out. Since I drew a second Wish, though, I Wish for Brain Freeze after drawing my maindeck copy. The plan is to freeze him for information, then Freeze him for the kill. Seems fine. And that happened. I notice that he has Forces, Dazes, Spell Pierces (and not Spell Snares), and the usual other Threshy stuff in the 33 cards I milled. Okay, good to know.
Game 3, wherein a lot of things happen and you get to play along.
He's on the play and mulligans. I keep a hand of Force, Wipe Away, Peek, land, land, High Tide, Twincast. The plan is to figure out what he's up to with Peek, not let him resolve Confidant/CBalance, and then combo kill him turn 5.
Trop, Top?
You Make the Play! Do you Force of Will this?
My opinion: I could've, in retrospect, but then I'm absolutely fucked when he casts Confidant or CBalance. I could Force pitching Peek, but if he has anything, I lose. If he has blanks, then it's on him to hit something, and I still have Force and Wipe Away.
Top resolves.
Island, go.
Upkeep, Top. Land, go.
Eot, Peek?
Peek resolves, seeing:
KROSAN GRIP, Delta, Dark Depths, Underground Sea.
Notes: FOUR BLANKS LOL
The six teammates standing around are silently fistpumping right now. I almost laugh in his face for having Krosan Grip in his hand game 3, and Dark Depths is only slightly a card in the sense that he could draw Hexmage, fetch Sea, drop Sea, pass, and then drop Hex/Depths and put me on a one-turn clock.
The game eventually develops into the state I will soon describe, with the following thing to take note of:
- He has not drawn Brainstorm
The game state, with that in mind, is this:
It is the end of his draw step. He has, on his previous mainphase, flipped Top to draw Thoughtseize. He has Counterbalance in play, a 4/5 Goyf in play, and has just drawn Top. His hand, I am completely sure, is:
Krosan Grip, Top, and SPELL I DON'T KNOW
Neither he nor I know the top spell of his library, as we will soon see.
I have four Islands in play and, while I am not facing lethal damage, see this as my best window to go off. My hand is:
High Tide
Reset
Cunning Wish
Twincast
Brainstorm
I do not know the top cards of my library.
He has five lands in play: Sea, Sea, Trop, Dark Depths, and Verdant Catacombs (B/G fetchland). There are a lot of cards I can lose to, but I have to go for my opportunity.
High Tide?
He thinks forever, then flips Living Wish. I stare at it, my teammates behind him recoil, and I want to concede. Still, not all is lost, I still have outs, they just aren't in my control.
He allows High Tide to resolve.
Note: If he has Force of Will, it is irrelevant, as Dark Depths does not tap for mana. If he has Brainstorm, I am fucked as soon as I cast Cunning Wish for Meditate. I can't do much about that. If he has Spell Pierce, he would cast it here and I would lose. If he has Daze, he would also cast it here, but he might try to get me to cast an untap effect with zero mana floating, so perhaps not. Still, Pierce on Tide is strictly the optimal play, as it leaves me with the option to either not pay and have 3 mana available with four cards in hand, wherein the only successful way forward would be to have a second Tide, at which point I would have four mana and a Chalice on 2, and would have to have Turnabout into Meditate. Twincast, Reset, and Impulse are all dead cards going forward, and I will almost certainly fizzle. Pierce thus becomes the easy correct play.
Tide resolves. I think for a bit, and realize that my only way forward is to cast Brainstorm. He responds by breaking Verdant Catacombs. I take a victory lap in my head. I shuffle his deck while my teammates look at each other, bewildered and somewhat hopeful. I ask him if he is planning on triggering Counterbalance, he replies with the affirmative, and I put his deck on the table and flip over Urborg.
So far, so good.
I draw Impulse, Meditate, Twincast. I get to keep four cards. Wish is my insurance policy and thus I don't want to use it for drawing, forcing me to keep Meditate. I also want to maximize Meditate by using Twincast, so those both have to be in my hand. Impulse isn't going to get cast before Meditate + Twincast, so it can go back. The fourth card can thus either be Wish or Twincast no. 2. So herein lies the big question, and the one I will leave you with for the next 24 hours:
Do you keep Twincast, and if so, do you Twincast Reset?
Keep in mind his lines of play, the cards you have to worry about, and his level of playskill up to this point.
Cool report, very elaborate. I'm glad people still play this deck.
I'd never play less than 3 Remand. I don't think the card sucks. You can very often Remand a turn 2 drop from Zoo or Goblins. The card is almost never dead. The function in both doubling Freeze and pulling counters is very important for this deck.
Note that in the below scenario, if you had Remand, you would've boarded them out and you could've instantly won with Wish Twincast to Freeze + Remand.
In the other case, yea I'd Twincast the Reset.
I'd keep the twincast, and I'd NOT Twincast the Reset. I'd consider twincasting the Wish or Meditate instead.