[Deck] Solidarity (Reset High Tide)

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Originally Posted by Reagens

I used the ******** sideboarding, meaning siding in 3 twincast, 2 brain freeze and an echoing truth and siding out 4 remand, 1 turnabout and 1 meditate. I don't think it is the right strategy but I am unsure what IS the good strategy.

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I would imagine that you want to leave the Remands in. Those should slow down his already slow clock even more, which lets you build up your manabase and decrease your dependency on High Tide. It also lets you fight his countermagic by Remanding your own spells. Turnabout is also probably good to leave in, as you can always use it to tap out his mana or creatures to buy time.

I'm curious as to exactly how one should sideboard in this matchup. I would think maybe -2 Opt -1 Cunning Wish for +2 Brain Freeze +1 Echoing Truth? Or do you want to leave in Opts to sculp your hand in the early game?

Deep6er/herbig/NANTUKO_SHADY: I'd be very interested to know how you board against commonly played decks. Have you thought about writing a primer or some sort of comprehensive update to the first post in the thread?

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Originally Posted by Reagens

No offense taken.
Ok. So the testing was warped. We play each other so much that we adapt our playing style and our mulling. We don't allow takebacks. Another factor may be that we played the aggro-control vs solidarity at least a few hundred times which I imagine gives him the advantage.



We played approximately 8 games with sideboard. With him siding duress in (he doesn't keep them on the main) and I believe some equipment for tempo. I used the ******** sideboarding, meaning siding in 3 twincast, 2 brain freeze and an echoing truth and siding out 4 remand, 1 turnabout and 1 meditate. I don't think it is the right strategy but I am unsure what IS the good strategy.
Typically a game goes like this. Either I have a good hand with the relevant cards and I try to go off on 4 lands. My intention is more to deplete his counters than anything else. Mostly I lose 2-3 cards in the process. Next turn I try to go off again and if I walk into another counter I am screwed. Other games leave me with a less desirable hand and I try to go off at the very end where 2-3 counters ruin my day. I need a strategy where I can generate some cardadvantage so I can compensate for the card loss.
Twincasts more often than not remain dead in my hand, so maybe I have to leave those in the sideboard. I don't know.

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Couple of things here. Jesse (Hatfield) and I have played roughly 350 games of Threshold vs. Solidarity. I know the ins and outs of that matchup intimately. Unfortunately, so does he. As you test against the same person over and over, they learn the intricacies of the matchup just as you do. However, since their deck is the one with the advantage, testing results will generally stay the same. However, your matchup against other players less familiar with the matchup will be at a disadvantage. So even though testing says otherwise, I still feel WAY more comfortable playing against anyone with Threshold with all the knowledge of the matchup that I've gained from testing with Jesse.Of course, it's worth noting that Jesse NEVER loses to Solidarity now. :(

Also, your board plan isn't quite right. Hanni Fish's draw engine isn't nearly as redundant as Threshold's is and thus, the deck is far more susceptible to your stack tricks is you leave SOME Remands in the deck. Credit goes where it's due. Thank you JRP for coming up with an idea that helped in a matchup (even if it wasn't the matchup you suggested it for). I'll have to cover this idea later (in the writeup I promised) but trust me, it's incredibly complex.

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Originally Posted by b4r0n

Deep6er/herbig/NANTUKO_SHADY: I'd be very interested to know how you board against commonly played decks. Have you thought about writing a primer or some sort of comprehensive update to the first post in the thread?

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I know that Gearhart is in the making of some comprehensive Solidarity thread that is to be released at a later date, a.k.a whenever he feels like it. On there, will be the sideboarding strategies for specific decks and matchups, so just sit tight and you shall soon be rewarded. One thing though. Although there is generally an "optimal" way to sideboard for each matchup, a lot of the times it depends also on the skill of your opponent. Reading your opponent is key as a Solidarity player, and noting your oponents confidence with their plays and decisions can often times affect your board plan. If your opponent is rather shaky or uncertain of what they are doing, then that could merit you to not board out your Remands (example) or whatever you normally do. To bring things to a close, Solidarity is a VERY flexible deck, and the pilot must be very flexible in order for the deck to run properly.

So, I know I said end of the month and all, but I've been pretty busy (and so has Ewokslayer). So it's going to take just a little longer. Also, just a little teaser but I may have solved that stupid Threshold problem. So, wait a bit and I'll have it for you as soon as I can. Appreciate not bitching about it too.

Before I go spending hours on testing this, I guess I'll ask the experts.

Has anyone tried any number of Spell Snare in board? It seems to hit all kinds of Solidarity-hate. Against Goblins, it'll stop Chalice of the Void and Pyrostatic Pillar, as well as the occasional Piledriver. Against Threshold it can stop Meddling Mage, Counterspell, and Daze, as well as the occasional Werebear. In the mirror it could stop their Resets, Flash of Insight, Impulse, Remand, and Twincast, though I don't know if it would be worth it there. Against BW Confidant it could stop Sinkhole, Hymn, Gerrard's, and Smallpox. It also seems to be solid when your opponent is on the play.

I'm sure there are plenty of drawbacks to it, the main one being that it can't draw any cards and therefore is useless when you're going off. But since most of the biggest problem cards seem to cost 2, I thought I'd ask if anyone has attempted it recently and what the successes/failures of it were.

Countering Daze with Spell Snare has been pointed out as being fairly silly previously in this and other threads.
Spell Snare can't counter Flash of Insight unless X is zero and if that is the case what is the point of countering it?

For the most part Spell Snare suffers from not creating any velocity. The lack of cantrippy goodness means it will clog the hand and stall your deck.

It is like Force of Will in that regard but it isn't free and isn't flexible and has a crappier picture

Not that it matters much, but wouldn't spell snare counter a flash backed flash of insight? (Sorry If I'm off, it's way to early for me to be thinking about rulings.)

not unless you chose 0 for X. When you flash it back, you choose X, and X is still going to be part of the CMC. ie, the CMC of a flashed black flash of insight for 2 is 4

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Originally Posted by Ewokslayer

Spell Snare can't counter Flash of Insight unless X is zero and if that is the case what is the point of countering it?

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I knew that. I need more sleep.

It still seems useful against Goblins and Threshold though. Again, it seems decent, as it counters two of Goblins main hate cards, Chalice and Pyrostatic Pillar. But I suppose Goblins isn't that ridiculously hard of a match anyway. Just thought I'd suggest it.

The Spell Snare thing has already been discussed some time ago.
Check out from Post #605 (Page 31) to post #631 (Page 32).
An interesting Disrupt vs Spell Snare vs Force Spike vs Divert debate concluded that none of those was worth it.

Abeyance before going off is just great imho..

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Originally Posted by Poron

Abeyance before going off is just great imho..

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Abeyance before going off when, Poron? If you're talking about playing Abeyance in response to High Tide, a good play for Solidarity would be to Remand or Force of Will the Abeyance. A slightly more complicated, but perfectly reasonable way to win in response to Abeyance would be to win with Abeyance on the stack. A couple examples include playing another High Tide in response or play Remand targeting the "Abeyanced" High Tide to get your High Tide out from under the stack, play High Tide, and proceed as normal.

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Originally Posted by Poron

Abeyance before going off is just great imho..

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Poron? Are you talking about the Solidarity player casting Abeyance themselves, and then going off? If that's the case, that idea is horrible, because you would have to splash white, which is not a good idea at all. We all know Abeyance can be casted against Solidarity, so I was just wondering what you meant by your post, cuz it's rather random.

I meant Abeyance played by the Solidarity player, yes. The only bad (very bad really it makes it nearly unplayable really...) thing is abeyance's color... white.

But the possibility to keep opponents sit while comboing shouldn't be understimed.. (imho) if Abeyance would have had Split second would have been an auto include in my Solidarity list. but it hasn't

Ok, not much left for the matchup analysis thing but I wantd to see if there was any particular matchups that people wanted to cover that have been discussed recently and that I have a strategy or two in mind for. Just for reference, the decks that I have done are; Goblins, the Mirror, Threshold (U/G/W Threshold both Hatfield and Bardo/Nightmare) and Hannifish (because Bardo's a jerkface :P), I can't do one for Fairy Stompy (Sorry Eldariel), and Life from the Loam decks are always so vastly different that it makes singular strategies hard to determine. Jack Elgin decks shouldn't be an issue, and Red Death/Deadguy/Stupid Black Decks are going to depend on whether or not you are able to Meditate. Iggy Pop hasn't settled on a single anti-Solidarity plan, so there's no real way to discuss that. I can't really think of anything that I've missed that would still be relevant and that I have a plan for. So, throw out some requests and I'll see what I can do.

Deep6er you mentioned Iggy Pop and that "there is no real way to discuss that" however I want to ask are there some key plays you should watch out for regardless of whether they run Xantid Swarm or Defense Grid or Orim's Chant? Is there a general strategy to follow or is it just mulligan for Force and hope to survive until turn four?

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Originally Posted by Silverdragon

Deep6er you mentioned Iggy Pop and that "there is no real way to discuss that" however I want to ask are there some key plays you should watch out for regardless of whether they run Xantid Swarm or Defense Grid or Orim's Chant? Is there a general strategy to follow or is it just mulligan for Force and hope to survive until turn four?

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There's no way to know for certain exactly which build they're running which will invalidate certain strategies. Mulliganing for Force will rarely work like you want it to, not to mention that realistically, you WON'T know they're playing Iggy Pop game 1. Until people have settled on a single strategy or even agree on a decklist, it could be bad if I were to say, 'You should Mulligan for Force' which is good against Swarm, but bad against Chant. The strategy will ALWAYS be, versatility.

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Originally Posted by Deep6er

Ok, not much left for the matchup analysis thing but I wantd to see if there was any particular matchups that people wanted to cover that have been discussed recently and that I have a strategy or two in mind for. Just for reference, the decks that I have done are; Goblins, the Mirror, Threshold (U/G/W Threshold both Hatfield and Bardo/Nightmare) and Hannifish (because Bardo's a jerkface :P), I can't do one for Fairy Stompy (Sorry Eldariel), and Life from the Loam decks are always so vastly different that it makes singular strategies hard to determine. Jack Elgin decks shouldn't be an issue, and Red Death/Deadguy/Stupid Black Decks are going to depend on whether or not you are able to Meditate. Iggy Pop hasn't settled on a single anti-Solidarity plan, so there's no real way to discuss that. I can't really think of anything that I've missed that would still be relevant and that I have a plan for. So, throw out some requests and I'll see what I can do.

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Ahhh Dave Gearhart speaks again! As a matter of fact, im almost certain that everyone would enjoy hearing your little strategies for Goblins, The Mirror, and Thresh. Seeming as how these three decks make up the "Tier-1", any information you have to give would most def. be helpful


p.s.= With little said recently concerning proper sideboarding, perhaps you should also include your current general sideboarding strategies for the top tier.

We still have a lot of landstill in our meta (I know). Altough I am not having too many difficulties with the deck I would be very interested in hearing your general strategy and sideboarding for that.
Last week I tested a few games against the 'terrageddon' deck that is very popular here in Belgium and the Netherlands (It's really 1 player winning everything with that deck). The reason why it's so succesful is because there is virtually no combo here and a lot of goblins. Either way I went 5-0 as het tried adjusting his sideboard. The key is having a 3rd turn remand for his armageddon or force of will.

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Originally Posted by Reagens

We still have a lot of landstill in our meta (I know). Altough I am not having too many difficulties with the deck I would be very interested in hearing your general strategy and sideboarding for that.

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I've never had much trouble with Landstill. Remand and Twincast drain their counters and stifles, and their clock is slow, meaning you can often build up to six or seven lands before attempting to go off. It gets a little tougher post-board with Meddling Mage, so try to keep them off the Mage.