[Deck] Solidarity (Reset High Tide)

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Originally Posted by Windux

Quirion Dryad: You also can berserk it or Turnabout your opponent's creatures :)

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Iunno about Berserk, but I've done the latter. I had one 1/1 Dryad on the board facing a threshed Mongoose and two Meddling Mages (On High Tide and Cunning Wish) I dropped a second, passed the turn, and before my opponent declared attackers, managed to play Reset and Cantrips until both Dryads were 7/7, then finished with a Turnabout on the opponent's creatures, making both dryads 8/8 and giving me a clear swing. I topdecked an Opt next turn, Opted into a Meditate, and Meditated them both to 10/10 before swinging lethal. Lots of fun.

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I think that about covers it. Green has a big three:

Bound//Determined: Draws out counters or clears the path for a win. Also negates Chalice of the Void @ 1 counter. Has a downside of not letting Remand act as additional Brain Freezes and consequently makes you a little more vulnerable to Stifle.

Quirion Dryad: Alternate kill condition. Capable of reaching anywhere from 7/7 to 10/10 or higher in one turn with a mini combo-out, where the goal is merely to play as many spells as possible. Is less effective if the opponent guesses to keep a creature removal spell or two in.

Drop of Honey: Sweeps Meddling Mages, stalls for time. Is less effective if the opponent has 3+ creatures on the board or guesses to keep an enchantment removal spell or two in.

The only other cards I've considered much are Krosan Grip, which never seemed all that amazing to me, and Sandstorm, which is strictly a metagame call against Goblins and Empty the Warrens.

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Compost is also a pretty good green splash card.

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Iunno about Berserk, but I've done the latter. I had one 1/1 Dryad on the board facing a threshed Mongoose and two Meddling Mages (On High Tide and Cunning Wish) I dropped a second, passed the turn, and before my opponent declared attackers, managed to play Reset and Cantrips until both Dryads were 7/7, then finished with a Turnabout on the opponent's creatures, making both dryads 8/8 and giving me a clear swing. I topdecked an Opt next turn, Opted into a Meditate, and Meditated them both to 10/10 before swinging lethal. Lots of fun.

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Why not combo during the declare attackers step and kill some crits?

I think Misdirection might be just the tech we've been looking for to improver aggro-control matchups. If you can get your opponent to have 2 counters on the stack, for example: You play a High Tide, your opponent Forces, you play Reset in response, your opponent Forces again, then you can Misdirect one of the FoWs to the other and counter them both.

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Originally Posted by nightshade81

Why not combo during the declare attackers step and kill some crits?

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I have no idea. Good point.

I don't think my opponent would have actually swung into two Dryads against Solidarity.

Although that in itself might be another reason to run Dryad. Anything that makes people hesitate to swing at Solidarity can't be bad.

So what does your sideboard look like? I'm assuming something like:

1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Brain Freeze
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Rebuild
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Bound//Determined
1 ?

That's what I'm currently working on right now. Too many cards, not enough slots. When I tested the Quirion Dryads, I did it without Bound//Determined in the board just for the sake of fast testing without detailed thought.

Squeezing both in will be tricky. I won't play without Hydroblasts in some quantity as a personal preference. And I won't play without at least a single copy of Twincast and a single copy of Echoing Truth somewhere in the 75. Twincast is too insanely versatile to cut entirely, and Echoing Truth gets better and better the more people that play Empty the Nutsack in decks like Belcher and Epic Storm.

Right now, it's:
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Brain Freeze
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Twincast
4 Quirion Dryad
2 Bound//Determined
2 Hydroblast

what would you board out for the Quirion Dryads ?

My guess would be -4 Remand, -1 Meditate and -1 Turnaboutfor 4 Dryad and 2 Bound/Determined. I'm not sure tough, since there is a singe Twincast in the SB.

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Originally Posted by Blaukreuz

what would you board out for the Quirion Dryads ?

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It depends on the matchup. Keep in mind I don't claim what I'm currently boarding out is necessarily correct, just what I'm doing.

Against Threshold, Fish, or any sort of Aggro-Control deck with both Mages and Counterspells, I've been going:

-4 Remand
-3 Brain Freeze
(If you only run two Freezes, -2 Freeze, -1 ...Flash of Insight?)

+4 Quirion Dryad
+2 Bound // Determined
+1 Twincast

The reason for these choices is as follows:

Remand goes out because it sucks with Bound // Determined.
Brain Freeze goes out because my current plan is to dig for Dryad and kill that way. If I manage to go off anyway, it's not hard to Cunning Wish for a Freeze after 20 spells.

I'm admittedly not convinced of the wisdom of this plan, however. I'm trying to replace either one of the boardouts, simply because Remand can help stave off an assault while I'm digging for a Dryad.

I tested the dryad tech in a few games now.

+ 4 Quirion Dryad
- 2 Brain Freeze
- 2 Flash of Insight

I really like the idea.
When the opponent doesn't have any removal in his deck a 5+/5+ Dryad is fucking strong.

In my dryad-testgames i never killed with brain freeze postboard. Once i tried it, but fizzled to a shitty meditate.

I'm not sure about this, but shouldn't you board out Meditates as well if you board in Dryads? Skipping turns and winning on attacking doesn't seem like tech to me.

Meditates allow you to 'go off' the turn you intend to hit lethal, by chaining a ton of spells. This would let you hit from lethal out of nowhere...

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

I'm not sure about this, but shouldn't you board out Meditates as well if you board in Dryads? Skipping turns and winning on attacking doesn't seem like tech to me.

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You don't want to do this. You don't want to abandon your normal combo entirely. Otherwise you're forcing yourself to hit one of a mere four threats in your deck in order to win. And if you attempt this and your opponent outguesses you and keeps in creature removal, you just lost.

It's not hard to go off even with the Dryads in your deck messing things up if your opponent can't catch a Mage. But it does make your deck a little less reliable, especially in the face of countermagic. I suggest goldfishing around with it a bit. You'll have to retrain yourself not to count on Meditate alone to hit cards you need. I'm still practicing it and getting the hang of it myself.

Whats going on? They banned Flash not Reset..

Where there any Solidarity decks in the top 64 of GP?

It would truly startle me if any number of Solidarity decks made T64 at the GP since the meta was as bad as it could be for this deck.

The Flash matchup was pretty bad since Flash decks were faster and ran more control elements, and the other part of the field, Fish, is a pretty bad matchup, as well.

All in all, the metagame at Columbus was the worst possible for Solidarity.


But with the banning of Flash, Solidarity became viable again. I have been testing the green splash that has been discussed a few posts above. Quirion Dryad is pretty nice, but is best against UGw Threshold in my opinion. UGr Threshold and UGW Fish, which are both more popular in Germany make the dryad a little weaker, though since UGr Thresh doesn't board out its removal and UGW Fish runs Mother of Runes to infinitely block a single Dryad. But I haven't done a whole lot of testing, yet. Drop of Honey seems better against UGW Fish since it clears the table and destroys Mages, Confidants, etc., I think I will try 3 copies in the SB at the next tournament.

you're right lukas, the dryad tech is not that good against Fish & NQG/r.
So in theory, what other matchups (besides NQG/w) does the Dryad improve?


Hm, Drop of Honey, i dont want to buy those crappy $20 cards :confused:

What other cards than Porphyry Nodes (=Drop of Honey in white) would white give to us?

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Originally Posted by Blaukreuz

What other cards than Porphyry Nodes (=Drop of Honey in white) would white give to us?

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Most importantly Orim's Chant, which has been a long time splash card.

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Originally Posted by Blaukreuz

you're right lukas, the dryad tech is not that good against Fish & NQG/r.
So in theory, what other matchups (besides NQG/w) does the Dryad improve?

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First off, I wasn't ever intending to board Dryads in, and I don't, against UGR Threshold. This is because UGR Threshold is way easier for Solidarity to beat up on. Solidarity's archnemesis hate card is Meddling Mage. Period. It's got a bajillion ways to power its way through almost every other piece of hate imaginable. Meddling Mage is a nightmare. Dryad was intended to circumvent this.

As for UBW Fish, the builds I tested against only ran 2 Mother of Runes, and I never saw one hit play in all my testing somehow, except for an occasional game 1. I must admit this didn't exactly occur to me, but yes, Mother of Runes does block Dryad all day long. Ah well. I did say something akin to it being either genius or awful.

The main match it was meant to improve was UGW Threshold, as UGW Threshold differs greatly from UBW Fish in that UGW Threshold doesn't suck quite as badly and is played considerably more.

Countermagic is beatable with Solidarity's awesome pet tricks, as long as there's not an annoying shutdown permanent backing it up like the Mage. This indeed makes Drop of Honey appealing, should green have enough other guns to warrant the splash.

I've seen Red Thresh play Counterbalance + Top often. If the thresh player gets these 2 down, how are we going to win? Oce they have a 1 and 2 mana cost card at the top of their library, they can counter practically anything....

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Originally Posted by Bahamuth

I've seen Red Thresh play Counterbalance + Top often. If the thresh player gets these 2 down, how are we going to win? Oce they have a 1 and 2 mana cost card at the top of their library, they can counter practically anything....

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This is making Spell Snare seem like a better and better idea. Or Wipe Away.