[Deck] Solidarity

Ok, so maybe I'm paranoid but I'm fucking sure this guy was just too stupid to spell pierce the tide, or he has like a 3-1 split and is now holding the one-off snare. I would NOT twincast the reset, but I would keep it in hand over the wish.

You get to float 3 mana after the reset. If he has something, you can respond with twincast and at some point, fow it and get your untap. If he has shit, you get to play meditate with twincast with 6 mana available and at least an impulse in hand. This should get you to an untap effect, and after that you are pretty golden.

Unless I'm missing something, I haven't slept since.. uh, what day is it today?

EDIT: darkeslight. You can twincast both the reset and the meditate. Unless I'm really tired and somehow imagining this 2nd twincast.

deviant, you're not Tripping balls; the choice is between the 2nd twincast. :)

Looking at the situation again, I'd stilll keep the second Twincast.

Okay, so the breakdown is as follows:

1. Keep Meditate or Cunning Wish?
2. Keep Cunning Wish or Twincast?

The storm count in this turn is 2, and, unless our opponent is ACTUALLY braindead, will be 3 when he casts Spell Pierce (if he doesn't have it, we win instantly by Twincasting Reset, but let's say we have x-ray vision or want to give our opponent credit for a card he's currently misplaying the good goddamn out of). Let's say we need 14 Brain Freezes to kill him (given how long the game went and how many times he fetched, I am fine with this assertion). We have the following lines of play:

1. Keep Cunning Wish/Reset/Twincast/Twincast, decide to play around Spell Pierce

- cast Reset, float 3
- Reset resolves, untap with 11 available mana, storm 3 (effective 4)
- Cunning Wish + Twincast it, 6 available mana, storm 5 (effective 6)
- opponent casts Spell Pierce, we pay. storm 6.
- Twincasted Wish gets Turnabout, we cast Turnabout (storm 7) and it resolves
- We Twincast the Wish again (storm 8), getting Remand and Brain Freeze. We Brain Freeze + Remand + Brain Freeze, getting his library. Unfortunately, he gets an attack step, and we are killed from 6 life by his 6/7 Goyf.

Verdict: Suboptimal, and even if we wait until after his attack step, he almost certainly has a 2-drop to foil the Remand plan. No good.


2. Keep Meditate/Reset/Twincast/Twincast

- Reset with 3 floating, it resolves
- Meditate + Twincast with 6 available, they resolve, drawing us:

Impulse
Cunning Wish
six unknown cards

Those six unknown cards MUST include Turnabout or Reset, or else we move to plan B:

- cast Impulse, four available

If we miss here, we are back to the plan of "lose to Spell Pierce" unless we drew Force of Will + blue card. Keep in mind that we have the following densities of relevant cards left in our deck:

3 Turnabout
3 Reset
3 Force of Will


Given all of those options, I feel that my line of play (Twincast the Reset with Twincast/Meditate in hand, lose to Spell Pierce) was entirely fine. I welcome your feedback, as well as any discussion on my card choices.

To the point of Remand, however: I feel that Zoo is basically a die-roll matchup, and that nothing really changes that. Remand is a very ineffective tool for disrupting Zoo unless we're on the play, in which case we should already just be racing them. If they have the 1drop go, 1drop attack you opener, our Remand is garbage, since they can just hold up Lightning Bolt, eot it, and then untap and attack for 4-6. Obviously their clock is worse if their creatures are Lavamancer + Ape vs. Nacatl + Nacatl, but Remand is equally bad in both situations, and I would rather be focusing on comboing out on turn 4 in either situation.

Remand is clearly abysmal on the draw.

Been to a local 49 players tournament today and played solidarity. Here´s my decklist:

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2x Brain Freeze
4x Brainstorm
3x Cunning Wish
4x Force of Will
4x High Tide
4x Impulse
3x Meditate
3x Opt
1x Peek
2x Peer Through Depths
3x Remand
4x Reset
3x Turnabout
2x Twincast
1x Flooded Strand
13x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn

Sideboard:

4x Disrupt
2x Echoing Truth
1x Meditate
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Rebuild
1x Repeal
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Turnabout
3x Wipe Away

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Game 1 against Zoo:

I was on the play. Slowed him down with two times Remand to his Quasali Pridemage on turn 2 and 3. He didnt had another cc1 drop on turn 3, which turned out to be good for me. I missed one land drop and was able to combo out after turn 5 in his draw step.

In the second match, he wanted to begin and i had to combo out on his fourth turn with 3 lands in play. I only had 1 High Tide, but was quite lucky that i was able to play 3 times Reset and 2 times Turnabout.

2-0

Game 2 against Mono-Red Goblins:

Match 1 i was on the play being able to combo out on turn 4 in his draw step, when he was ready to kill me with his goblin army.

Match 2, when he was on the play he was simply too fast and i wasnt able to combo out with only 3 lands in play (i didnt miss any land drops here).

Match 3 i was on the play again and made a critical mistake, when i took another spell instead of an island with my Impulse. I think i was too sure to land the fourth land drop, when i played Impulse on the end of his second turn with an Island on my Hand. I had a good hand to combo out, but in the end i didnt had enough mana to do so, because i missed the fourth land drop. With the fourth landdrop, I think i would have been able to win the game.

In all 3 games he started with a Lackey, bringing Matrone into play searching for another Lackey. Then he attacked with 2 Lackey´s, 1 bringing Matrone into play, the other one bringing Siege Gang Commander, which he found with Matrone, into play. I probably should have mulled to find a Force in Game 2 to counter his first Lackey.

1-2

Game 3 against Enchantress:

In the first game it seemed to run smoothly for me, because i had good cards to combo out. I didnt miss any landdrop and on turn 5, when he was ready to kill me, i couldnt go for the combo, because i didnt had any draw spell in my hand. So i lost with two times High Tide and three times Reset on my hand. I think the fact, that he had a Runed Halo (naming Brain Freeze) and a Sterling Grove on the table shouldnt have affected me, because i could have simply bounced those two.

Match 2 i had to counter Choke early in the Game with a Force. I pitched another Force into the first one, because i was afraid of pitching High Tide or Reset into it. In the fourth turn he played City of Solitude and i had no counter left to handle it, so i decided to go for the combo. In the combo i ran out of drawspells and lost the game afterwards.

0-2

Game 4 against UGw Grow with Countertop:

Match 1 i was able to counter his Counterbalance. He had a Top online and was able to find another Counterbalance. When he casted the second Counterbalance i decided to go for the combo and combo´d out with four lands in play.

I boarded 3 Wipe Away for 2 Twincast and 1 Peek.

Second Match he wasnt able to get a Top online for some time. Sooner or later he found one. I kinda knew he was holding some counters in his hand, because he played really slow and i decided to make him counter a fake attempt of my combo. I played High Tide and 2 Cantrips. When i wanted to play Reset he forced it, pitching another Force of Will into the first one. After that he played an Enlightened Tutor to find a top, leaving him without any hand cards. With the Top he found another Counterbalance and it resolved. I let that Balance resolve because i played a Brainstorm in response and found a Wipe Away this way. At the end of his next Turn i bounced his Counterbalance and combo´d out in his next Upkeep with 2 Turnabout. I used the trick with Brain Freeze and Remand in that case.

2-0

Game 5 against Aggro Loam:

Game 1 and 2 were copies of each other. When he was nearly ready to kill me, i combo´d out. Sadly in both games i didnt have the gas in the end to wish for Stroke of Genius to end it directly. In both games he had Volraths Stronghold in play, which bounced creatures from the grave on top of the library in his upkeep. Luckily for me he played Devastating Dreams in game 1, which killed his own Stronghold, beacuse he was afraid i would play something with 5 Lands in play. In his turn he then realized that the Stronghold wasnt online anymore and that he cant draw a card. In the second game he didnt do that mistake and won with Goyf Beatdown.

In Game 3 he boarded Gaea´s Blessing and i wasnt able to continue my combo on the Blessing Trigger, so i lost the game, after he had 4 turns in a row, due to me playing 3 Meditate´s in the combo.

1-2

Game 6 against Solidarity:

We both knew that the other one also played Solidarity, so we decided to draw.

1-1

I ended the tourney with an overall score of 2-3-1. Im quite satisfied for my first tournament with Solidarity and i really like the deck. I will for sure continue to play this deck, because i really think it fits my playstyle.

Im sorry for my bad english.

Always nice with a report. =) Thanks mate.

Have you ever tried running with 3 tide main and the fourth in the wishboard? I play 4 wish in my list, and find it rather easy to combo off on turn 4.

Don't know if forcing Lackey is that necessary, i have played against goblin some times, and i don't feel that the lackey start is that explosive, might have played against week goblin players, so don't take my word on with to much seriousness.

I see a lack of Flash of Insight in your list. That card is nuts, even after m10 i would never play a list with less the 2. (sometimes i would love to have one in the board, but can't find room for it)

When you mentioning lack of card draws i think flash is the missing piece, worst case cycle it for 3 mana the first time, and then play it for 6-12 to fetch what you need when comboing of. Best case you can stack your whole deck and know exactly what to draw.

Btw, i would never draw in the solidarity match up. Played it once, and its the most rewarding mirror you can ever play. Guess its the match up where you learn most about your deck and about the stack.

Open question to all the solidarity players out there: Have you played with Mindbreak Trap? I have been thinking about that card back and forth for sometime now, wouldn't it be rather easy to build up a trap where they have snare, fow, fow, or some other counters on the stack? Empty their part of the stack, get all your goddies?

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Originally Posted by cjva

Btw, i would never draw in the solidarity match up. Played it once, and its the most rewarding mirror you can ever play. Guess its the match up where you learn most about your deck and about the stack.

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I never thought about it, how would you play in a mirror? Because high tides affect both... it is insane :P

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Originally Posted by Mikeleroi

I never thought about it, how would you play in a mirror? Because high tides affect both... it is insane :P

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yes, it was totaly insane. We had like 20 ppl watching us when we played it. =)

I did wait him out, he tried to spin of during my EOT, i did let him build storm count, and in response to his reset (guess he played a bit wrong trying to spin off as well) i twincasted it, and spun of when he was more or less out of options and mana.

I guess another way to do it is to tap out his land in his EOT with a turnabout, and then spin off during your own turn with your remaining turnabouts, (wishing or the forth) and keep reset as fodder for your fow.

if he tries to spin of in response to your EOT turnabout, i would probably let him, just to respond when i guess the timing is right (opponent low on cards).

I also guess that the most important thing you can fetch with impulse aso is lands. Missing landdrops should probably mean lose in the long run, thanks to the fact that the game would probably go on for quite some time. =)

Wouldn't Mindbreak Trap be good in the mirror?
hell, even outside the mirror it can be used to add to your storm count (sarcasm)

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Originally Posted by cjva

I did wait him out, he tried to spin of during my EOT, i did let him build storm count, and in response to his reset (guess he played a bit wrong trying to spin off as well) i twincasted it, and spun of when he was more or less out of options and mana.

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I'm not sure, but does that even work? This means you Reset in your own turn.

Anyway, the mirror is a lot of fun. The sideboarding you do is the weirdest ever, because both High Tide and Reset suck. You want most of those out, especially the Resets.

What's also interesting, is that Meditate serves double purpose, but it's also an additional risk. Skipping a turn can be of huge importance, because generally, both players will end up with no deck anyway. The risk is that the opponent might mill your deck in response to the Meditate, killing you.

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

I'm not sure, but does that even work? This means you Reset in your own turn.

Anyway, the mirror is a lot of fun. The sideboarding you do is the weirdest ever, because both High Tide and Reset suck. You want most of those out, especially the Resets.

What's also interesting, is that Meditate serves double purpose, but it's also an additional risk. Skipping a turn can be of huge importance, because generally, both players will end up with no deck anyway. The risk is that the opponent might mill your deck in response to the Meditate, killing you.

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Now that you mention it, im not entierly sure. But as far as i understand the oracle its ok to twincast the reset.

"Cast Reset only during an opponent's turn after his or her upkeep step.
Untap all lands you control"

the first sentence tells you when you can play reset, the other one tells you what it does. When i play twincast during my turn thats a legal play, and then it copies reset, and resolving resets ability. I think the wording whould need to be like "If cast during an opponents turn, after his or her upkeep, untap all your lands".


Besides that, i totaly agree with your opinions.

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

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Originally Posted by cjva

I did wait him out, he tried to spin of during my EOT, i did let him build storm count, and in response to his reset (guess he played a bit wrong trying to spin off as well) i twincasted it, and spun of when he was more or less out of options and mana.

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I'm not sure, but does that even work? This means you Reset in your own turn.

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It works. Twincast doesn't play the copy of the targeted spell and the restriction on Reset only applies to playing it (Edit: Or casting it, like it's called nowadays).

@mirrormatch:

- It's all about the landdrops. Assuming both players can play magic and have a firm understanding of the stack, a difference of two or more landdrops basically always decides the game.
- If both players have the same amount of lands in play, the player starting to go off will likely lose because they have less handcards after playing the first High Tide.
- Turnabout on your opponent is a possibility but it costs you four mana and a card so you'd better hope they can't use the opportunity to go off.
- If you must go off, try going off in your own turn because you'll have eight handcards thus offsetting the disadvantage of going off first.
- Twincast is the allstar in the mirror because it does everything you need and then some.
- Generally 2 Force of Will in hand in the mid- to lategame is the correct number as you'll rarely have enough mana to play more than three of your spells at a time anyway (and if you have enough mana, just pitch one FoW to the other).
- If possible at all, try to wait for your opponent to go off. The only exception to this would be game1 when you draw more than one Reset early or game2 if your opponent has won game one. A turn 4 combo before your opponent's fourth landdrop might succeed, but you can never know their exact hand (unless you Peek them) so trying this is risky.
- Peek rulez.

hi to everyone, nowadays im playing solidarity and the metagame is harder since zendikar realease... Mindbreak trap is good against solidarity, beaside that i would like to know against Fish with standstill and aether vial what methodes, sideboarding and who to play with the fast clock...


(sorry about the spelling) :tongue:

I played in a small tournament recently (about a dozen people) and I thought I would post a tournament report.

My deck list:

4 High Tide
4 Opt
4 Impulse
4 Brainstorm
4 Reset
4 Force of Will
3 Turnabout
3 Meditate
3 Cunning Wish
3 Remand
2 Brain Freeze
2 Cryptic Command
2 Flash of Insight
6 Fetchland
12 Island

Sideboard:

1 Brain Freeze
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Rebuild
2 Twincast
2 Echoing Truth
2 Wipe Away
4 Ravenous Trap (I knew Dredge was showing up)

Round 1: Elf Aggro

I played 3 games against a guy newly returning to magic from a 7 year absence. This was his first tournament, and I very much hope he enjoyed it.

His deck was a little slow, but my deck decided to play "Hide-Tide-And-Go-Seek". I was not able to go off with High Tide in hand in any of our three games. I just had to wait for lethal damage on the stack and try to make it work. The first game I couldn't make it happen, but the last two I could. The poor guy left his sideboard at home, so I did not sideboard for these games. 2-1 for me.

Round 2: Stax

First, a little backstory. I had been chatting with the Dredge player earlier about his deck (which I had never seen before). He confessed to me that his only really bad matchup, which was completely dire, was Stax, but nobody played that around here, and it was a pretty rare deck generally. Guess who he faced round 1? My early victory, combined with his early loss, meant I never had to face Dredge, and I am most grateful to the Stax player for that!

In game 1 I had a Force for the first chalice. When he topdecked a second chalice, I dug frantically and found a second Force. I managed to go off and deck him, but he had this weird recursion land that meant he could put an artifact from his graveyard on top of his library each turn. He proceeded to beat me down with recurred manlands (via Crucible), but I found a second Brain Freeze and decked him again right before his draw step.

In game 2 everything was going well until he played a turn 3 Tanglewire. Now, I had the trinity (Tide-Reset-Meditate) in hand, so I could have tried going off. However, I reasoned that after one turn the Tanglewire would be irrelevant, as I could untap with Reset, but that I would be potentially several lands and several cards better off, and therefore more likely to go off successfully. So if his next card was not completely broken I was better off waiting. I therefore let the Tanglewire resolve.

His next card? Trinishere. Oh.

I spent most of the rest of the game locked down. If he had found his clock, he would have had me (10+ turns). Instead, I found Rebuild, and went off from there. 2-0 for me.

Round 3: Squirrels

I expected this game to be a straight up race, so in game 1 I kept a fast hand with no Force. He punished me by Living Wishing for a creature that only allows players to play spells on their own turns. I was not able to find an answer fast enough.

Games 2 and 3 went my way thanks to Echoing Truth (gods, I love that spell) and my insistence on starting hands that included Force. 2-1 for me.

Round 4: UW Control

We were the only players with 9 points, so we agreed a draw to ensure we split the prize money. He had better tie breakers, so he took first (edit: or so I thought; checking my DCI stats shows me that I won the tournament). However, to keep things interesting, we agreed to play a single, un-sideboarded game for the odd pound (we each took £22, with the last pound up for grabs).

Fittingly, we tossed the "pride pound" to determine first play, and I won the call. Having not had time to scout, I did not know what he was playing, so I kept a fast hand with no Force. A turn two Meddling Mage forced me to dig for a Force, which I found, but he had daze ready and I was tapped out from digging. He named High Tide, so I settled in for the long game.

His next play was a turn 3 Mage, however, on Reset. Turn 5 saw an Armageddon, to which I Cunning Wished for an Echoing Truth (I had just drawn the Wish), on the basis that after I found 2 mana, I could deal with the Mages. However, in the 4 turns it took him to beat me down, I did not see a single land. In hindsight, I should probably have used the mana for Mediate, my only dig spell.

Closing thoughts:

I am glad I moved Cryptic Command to the maindeck over Twincast. It never proved game breaking, but it was usually solid. It gave me a way to take lethal damage off the stack while going off without using Force or Turnabout. The cantrip is a nice bonus too.

-Silent Requiem

Silent Requiem: thanks for the report and congrats to your success. =)

Seraphus: Yes, fow and cards like it can e tricky, but i can't see how Minbreak Trap would be such a big hinder for us. Can you explain your thouts a bit more?

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Originally Posted by Silent Requiem

I managed to go off and deck him, but he had this weird recursion land that meant he could put an artifact from his graveyard on top of his library each turn. He proceeded to beat me down with recurred manlands (via Crucible), but I found a second Brain Freeze and decked him again right before his draw step.

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Had the same situation in my last tourney, only with Volrath´s Stronghold, bringing creatures back on top of the library. Now that you say it, i just should have used Remand on my on Brainfreeze, to play Brainfreeze, after he was using Stronghold. Damn it.

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Originally Posted by cjva

Silent Requiem: thanks for the report and congrats to your success. =)

Seraphus: Yes, fow and cards like it can e tricky, but i can't see how Minbreak Trap would be such a big hinder for us. Can you explain your thouts a bit more?

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Imagine this:
the matchup against control decks the plan b is always (at least in my case) stormcountig trought spells that maybe countered but in the end the counter war is in advantage for us. in this case until mindbreak trap we only have to concern about having remand in hand in case of stifle or trickbind hit the play and screwed the storm. but that is changed now we need to concern about the trap that can (the new stupid name) EXILE the spells on the stack them its impossible to flashback flash of insight due to the problem that solidarity never let the counters resolve it just go on plaing the cards.
Remand turns to be the solution unless the opponent has a counter to it...

the autor of the post simon ritzka play a recent event and in is version (that i really support the only 2 turnabouts in maindeck strategy) takes only 3 remand... should be possible to play against control decks have the 4º in sb?

Thanks for the posting and discussion :wink:

maybe up the peek count can be a solution? When i played in a control infested meta i had 4 peek instead of 3/1 opt/peek. I bit to many i guess, but peek give info about if we need to play around mindbreak trap or not.

The only controlmatchup i feel that this deck has a hard time to play against is tempotresh. Big beater early and lots of counters. During normal control matchup i allways wait em out, and often go of in my own turn with extra meditate cards in hard and turnabout as untap effect.

But yea, another free counterspell for the controlplayers is a problem. Maybee we could play Traps of our own?

twin cast is more playable than the trap... i think...

do u ever play against merfolks? what percentage do u think is the match?

yea, i play twincast right now. (played cryptic until CB/top went away from my meta)

rarely play against merfolk actually, but the theory behind the tempotresh and the merfolk matchup is more or less the same from their part.

they put us on a fast clock and start to try controlling the match. So yea, its hard.

Hi Solidaritiers,
I was scrying on your Solidarity Boards,and i found an odd list of some months ago by LukasPreuss which was meant to be an alternative version of the deck. It packed 1 MD Tropical island and 1 MD Tundra to run ,in SB, Krosan Grip and Orim's Chant.
Now, can someone explain me why this concept has been abandoned? I know that 2 Dual lands can make the deck more exposed to Wasteland (although this is kinda relative because that version runs 8 fetches, which ensure more selection), but holy shit, Chants are a big boost against decks which tend to smash Soly's face like Tempo Threshold, and KGrip ..well..we all know what KGrip is there for. The Bastard Enchantment.

Could this version be a good way to counterbalance (sorry for the pun) Solidarity's visible weaknesses in this odiern meta? In the End, decks packing Counterbalance nowadays tend to refuse Wasteland (except Dreadstill, ok), and a protected Chant is just nuts against CanadianThresh (now that they pack Spell Pierce in addition to REBs, which make this Mu even harder).