And where is the more powerful cantrip?
I have the blue suns zeniths main so instead of mini freezing myself I can just draw 7-8 cards and win from there. Ffrkm what I have seen the mana is much easier to get when you don't have to make any cute plays and it is just make mana>draw cards>profit.
In my experience there has never been a good "other" cantrip as opt is boring, peek doesn't actually help anything and visions from beyond doesn't help you when you need it to.
Also with brain freeze main you have your kill spell that doesn't actually do anything pre combo unlike every other card and that was the point of the entire SnapTide list. Every card is a combo piece or card draw. Remand cantrips, snap untaps land. Repeal almost makes the cut but with what I am trying to build is an entire 60 card engine that allows total control over the deck.
SnapTide thoughts: I am feeling that I can cut turnabouts for brain freezes and just play reset/snap as the untap engine but I am scared...
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
No need to get tense and snappy. I just think he has every right to comment and express his opinion within the boundaries of this board, and since you didn't (want to) understand his post, I tried to make it clear to you, what he was trying to say (based on my perception).Originally Posted by benthetenor
You said "turn 3" in various posts and Miagi apparently thinks otherwise. So do I and as I've said, there is a difference between reliably going off at "turn 3" and "turn 3-4".
Anyway, since you "don't give two shits whether or not anyone questions" your "expertise", there is no point in elaborating further on this topic and there is no need to start a fight over such an insignificant detail, right?
The major problem with BSZ is that you're burning mana to draw a single card (three, isn't it?) And I would be leery of going below one in six cards being a definitive untap effect (Turnabout can fog a Delver player, for example, or tap down an opponent's lands, reducing their options.)
What's the problem with blue suns zenith? You get to 10 mana and draw 5-7 cards. It's also a win con. It seems better than getting to 10 mana and brain freezing for non lethal..
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Reminder: keep things passionate but civil, and avoid directly insulting other players.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
Tested all day today and came up with some pretty crazy ideas.
First: flusterstorm is way better than force of will in the 75. Storm, remand, storm wins any counterwar and it also lets you play around counterspells much easier.
Second: snap/remand is pretty good at keeping hate ears off of the table.
Third: 3 reset 4 turnabout main and 1 reset sideboard is where I am at right now. It lets cunning wish be an untap effect for 5 mana instead of 7 and turnabout is super useful in most disruption situations.
The big one: I have 3 cloud of fairies in the sideboard to bring in against non interactive decks. The number is most likely going to goto four soon. Against any deck that just wants to race or doesn't want to interact(elves, dredge, show and tell) I have been siding out the resets and siding in faeries which keys me combo off much earlier. With the ability to win turn 2 a non zero number and the turn 3 win much more likely, you can easily race these decks that just wanted to race you. High tide, cloud of faeries, snap, puts you in great position to go off.
It is also possible to flusterstorm lock a combo deck out of the game with snapcaster and snap recursion. Winning with 1/1s and 2/1s in a combo deck.... Priceless.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
If you're going to add sorcery-speed cards to the deck, then why on earth are you even playing Solidarity? You're giving up significantly more powerful cards like Time Spiral, Merchant Scroll and Candelabra of Tawnos by not just playing Spiral Tide, not to mention all of the better cantrips. Just from a logical position, why would you want to play watered down Spiral Tide when you could be playing the fully powered version? This deck was always capable of going off on your turn if needed by playing fully 4 Turnabout between main and side, so if you want to make that a thing again, just do that. But it is always incorrect to play Reset in the sideboard instead of main because Turnabout is more flexible, making it a better wish target, and you want to chain into Resets while going off, not Turnabouts. And boarding out Resets is terrible. Reset is the most powerful card in the deck, and is way more powerful than Cloud of Faeries. If you're intentionally making your deck weaker post board, you're doing it wrong.
Have you guys even read this thing? I feel like it's 2006 again.
You do know that flashed back cards are exiled, right?It is also possible to flusterstorm lock a combo deck out of the game with snapcaster and snap recursion.
Yeah. You get 4 flusterstorms plus 4 flashbacks. I said this because I was testing against sneak and show and it became relevant when I drew an awkward hand of dudes plus flusterstorms. 4+ power on the board ends the game relatively quick.
@benethor
As you have admittedly never tested the list I am playing I don't really know why my observations on playing the list and testing the shit out of it over the last week have anything to do with past reiterations of the deck.
I took your feedback on being faster and ran with it and that is why I am sideboarding in cloud of faeries and siding out resets. Cloud of faeries snap and snapcaster mage are a rediculous combination when you can resolve a high tide and allow the deck to pick up half to a whole turn on average. This would only be good against decks that just want to race. Reset is good but it is not as consistent as the snap/snap/cloud engine and makes going off earlier more risky.
I like reset against any deck that isn't going to win before turn 4 always and that's why I left it in the main. The all instant aspect also gives free wins against any deck with a slow hand.
The reset moving to the side is because turnabout is much more versatile especially with the turnabout you, untap>go off plan. Also, with snap you are a little less dependent on reset for mana.
If everyone wants I can create a SnapTide thread in NnD but I feel like solidarity is pretty close.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
I agree with you, personally I think your last posts are totally out of topic since you started to mension about remove FOW, put 1x reset in sideboard and in the end start to play cloud of faeries. There was a deck like this, without reset, 4x turnabout, cloud ecc. It's named "spring tide", but unfortunately it was overclassed by timespiral deck. Good luck ;D
Last edited by fuga; 12-28-2013 at 02:53 PM.
I am fully aware of what spring tide is and how spiral tide is the evolution of it.
I really don't want to go through the thought process behind the list again because I am at work but here are some main points.
High tide is the most important card in the deck I want to casts as many as I can.
Snapcaster lets me re cast night tides, even when countered/discarded.
Snap now has a target that we want to return to our hands plus it untaps lands, also can be used on opponents creatures to buy more time.
Removed force of will because I can bounce bears mainboard now and countering them is less important, remand stayed to help play around countermagic and delay any hateful permanates, also doubles brain freeze and cantrips in a pinch.
Mana is a lot easier to come by with 4 snaps and 4 snapcasters so bsz is main over brain freeze also switched the reset in the side with the turnabout because of turnabouts usefulness and higher mana cost.
I am currently TESTING cloud of faeries in the board to side in against straight race situations.
And also don't forget how awesome I think thought scour is.
Current board:
3 cloud of faeries
4 flusterstorm
3 brain freeze
1 Chain of vapor
1 reset
1 wipe away
1 echoing truth
1 blue suns zenith
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
But there are no reason to put cloud of faeries in side or generally in this deck! Really, just google spring tide and start another thread about to exhume the deck. If you want to tell someone your testing with cof, snap, ecc do it somewhere else, this is a mono istant/flash deck thread!
You do realize that it is three cards in the sideboard right? Take them out if they bother you. Decks splash for sideboard cards all the time and combo decks have transformational sideboards...all the time. It doesn't change the deck; it just gives it options.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
It is not my fault if to play these cards in side or main correspond to play the sorcery version. This is not constructive for the solidarity deck in primis and after for the topic. Benthetenor is right, we are not anymore in 2006, there are so many pages of discussion about your ideas...just go to read them. I told you, try to post your testing with these cards in another topic about the springtide deck, maybe someone is much interested to it then us! :)
Just one question @benthetenor and whoever is interested: vs elves wich kind of cards are recommendable for the sideboard? And which cards are better to remove from the main to side in the others? Which are the best cards to counter/bouce to slow this damn elves deck down? Thank you :)
We aren't in 2006…back then solidarity was good.
If you wanna beat elves you should try 4 of cloud of faeries in a 4 snap list, it allows you to go off a full turn faster!
I have read this whole thread, it seems you haven't read my last few posts:/
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Holy shit. People. Really. For people playing such a complicated deck, you people sure do seem lacking in reading comprehension. Step your game up, ffs.
It's like saying NO is bad in Elves because NO wasn't worth it X years ago (which was true back then, but the meta has changed, and so has the value of cards)
How hard is it to understand that frogg's sideboard Clouds do not equate "going full sorcery", so to speak? He's still playing instant speed High Tide game 1, and g2/3 in most matchups because instant speed is good. It's just that there's decks like Elves and such that want to kill you ASAP and won't interact with you much at all, least of all with straight removal. So you add Cloud against those decks as extra speed. It doesn't mean he wants to go sorcery speed in other matchups or situations.
It's like telling me to play Stax or D&T because my Elves sideboard into what's basically a prison deck vs. Storm for example. Which is just retarded, the main gameplan is excellent against most matchups, just not good against other fast combo because they're typically at least as fast as I am and pack more disruption. Thus, I transform. Same thing here, except nowhere near as severe. Same gameplan, switch go-off timing to own turn instead of opponent's, more speed. Far, far less severe than turning a combo deck into a prison deck.
Besides, against a deck like Elves Candelabra is bad. We have a bunch of ways to kill it if you play it beforehand, and postboard we can bring in Needles and Null Rods which are just brutal, and savage any random SDTs you might play as collateral damage. Compare to dealing with Cloud, where we have, uh, Abrupt Decay... which does jack and shit to the important part of both Snapcaster and Cloud. Also, since the deck isn't super reliant on Time Spiral or somesuch and plays maindeck Snaps and Remand instead of FoW as a counter, it's way, way less cold to Teeg. Spiral Tide is super cold to Teeg. Forcing GSZ=2 is not a place where you want to be vs. Elves. You throw away cards, they just ask "can I win" every turn and then you're out of cards and dead either to beatdown or because one of those I Win cards gets through.
Then back it up with results across the board. And I don't mean goldfishes. I mean actual results against a competent metagame set. There's no point in goldfishing faster if all you're going to do in a tournament setting is durdle. Added to this, Reset becomes worthless junk, which loses you a full-untap item, rather than the mini-untap items of CoF and Snap. The reason benthetenor is harshing is because this deck's strength is that it can go off in an opponent's turn. Moreover, why aren't you comboing off in response to their spell-chains? Unless they play a top-decked NO, there's often three or four spells being cast by the Elves! player.
I will say this for all of the years I've followed the format. There is practically nobody who truly challenged the way this deck plays (or Spring Tide for that matters until a near auto-pilot card called Time Spiral became legal), and there is practically nobody who challenged the math behind it either. This deck is too much of a puzzle to lock it into certain ways of thinking.
I have run Pyroclasm in my Solidarity deck in the past because the red splash was worth it. I had to determine that it was worth taking the risk first, but I did it in the end.
To answer an earlier question though as to what the best one-drop cantrip is, I believe it's Opt even if Opt is boring. Without trying to over complicate things and to keep it really simple, let's say that you don't have enough lands but you have your one-drop of choice and you played it turn one (obviously). By using HYPGEOMDIST in Excel (and I'll show the formulas so that everyone has the examples to use to help them and to see what I'm doing), this is what happens when you run 18 lands:
You're going first and you have 9 cards to work with at the start of turn two (Peek / Thought Scour):
Only one land: HYPGEOMDIST(1, 9, 18, 60) = .144 (this is also when you play Opt and you find land right away too of course, but at least you can continue)
Only two lands (you need to use Impulse/Brainstorm to find 3rd land): HYPGEOMDIST(2, 9, 18, 60) = .279
You're going first and you have 10 cards to work with at the start of turn two (full extension of Opt):
Only one land: HYPGEOMDIST(1, 10, 18, 60) = .106
Only two lands: HYPGEOMDIST(2, 10, 18, 60) = .24
You're going second and you have 11 cards to work with at the start of turn two (full extension of Opt):
Only one land: HYPGEOMDIST(1, 11, 18, 60) = .078
Only two lands: HYPGEOMDIST(2, 11, 18, 60) = .199
That's a big change between how much resources you need to spend to get land that you might have been able to use to get more combo pieces or sideboard cards instead. Opt's usefulness can be completely proven and disproven by statistics and your cards (casting cost and approach) in the sideboard. Since you have about a 1/3 chance (let's use 32% as a barometer) of finding a needed land with your one-drop of choice, the question really becomes this: does your one-drop win you more games?
Do you make up for the fact that, if you are going first, that in many of the games in this case ((.144-.106) * 68%) = .26 (or about 26 games in 1000 games) that you will be in a considerably worse situation because you played your one-drop of choice over Opt? Please keep in mind that this is ONE situation and while it is a very important situation to consider, it's not everything and if my math or approach is wrong then it is an entirely different ball of wax.
I doubt Peek is winning me that many games back especially games 2 and 3 of a match, and with Impulse, Brain Freeze, Peer, and even Opt to help remove useless cards after a Brainstorm during the combo, I doubt that Thought Scour would do that. You would have to get a LOT of use out of putting a combo piece into the graveyard where you wouldn't have been able to find it to get those games back.
Here's the great thing. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. I'll make the adjustments and I'll make a better deck and have fun doing it.
WHAT? No, just no.
While we're saying things that aren't options for the people asking the questions, I would argue that if you want to beat Elves specifically, you should do it right and play Miracles. To actually answer his question, boarding in some number of Repeal should help, and additionally I'd consider a version with Remand, Snap and Force of Will if you have a lot of that kind of combo deck in your meta. If you stop them from going nuts with Natural Order or Glimpse of Nature, then they're just playing a slow creature deck with no disruption, which means if you can stop those two cards, you should survive until turn 5-6 at which point you should be able to go off without too much risk. Likely they will board in discard spells which will make things more difficult, but that's why we play the games.
A very simple question that I asked earlier that you didn't answer: if you're worried primarily about the speed of this deck, then why are you playing the instant-speed version? Or any other sort of faster combo deck? You lose a lot of powerful sorceries (Merchant Scroll being one of the best) and are forced to work with trash like Opt and Peek (and Thoughtscour and Visions of Beyond and Remand) instead of Ponder and Preordain, and you have no card that lets you come back from being decimated by discard spells (Time Spiral), and Candelabra is at least as powerful as Reset. Or if you like Snap + Cloud of Faeries + Snapcaster Mage, you can still get all of the benefit from those cards by updating a Spring Tide list. Both of those decks are faster and better against a deck like Elves that doesn't try to interact with you, and you will fizzle less with more powerful cards. I understand that you like the instant-speededness of this deck, but the second you introduce cards that aren't instants (and much worse, a card that you want to go off around) you completely destroy the strongest point of this deck, which is the ability to go off in response to something your opponent is doing, so there's no real reason to not just take that idea to the logical extreme.
It's clearly not going to mean much to you to try to explain just how bad a sorcery-speed card (even a singleton, let alone one that you're trying to build a strategy around) is in a deck that has as it's primary strategy the ability to go off in response to anything that's happening, or in your opponent's turn. Playing even one means that you have to restructure the way you play your spells and pass priority to your opponent, and if they have a response it's much, much worse to have that card in your hand vs. if it were an instant. You can do whatever you want; I really do not care, mostly because it's going to make itself obvious to you just how bad it is after you face a few dozen opponents. You can try to innovate just for innovation's sake, but I assure you that there is no card that's been in existence (instant or not) since the deck first came to be that hasn't been heavily tested by myself and by the people who play this deck. If you don't believe me, read the old thread, too. This one only goes back to the end of 2008, at which point the deck was already pretty much dead. You can also innovate just because you want to, just to have fun as you've put it, but that discussion has no place here.
@TheRock
Thank you for those numbers! I have a stats background and it's nice to see someone else crunching some numbers. I did a lot of testing back in the day concerning Opt vs. Visions of Beyond, and the conclusion I came to is that Opt is superior when digging for land (clearly) but VoB (in the build that I was running) was better when going off as it was always* Ancestral Recall. I found that the exact situation that you describe was so rare that it didn't override the strength of playing with VoB while you're burning through the deck. Both the situation where you're digging for a second land and only have the 1-mana cantrip to use and the situation where you're going off and are stuck with only the 1-mana cantrip are relatively rare to be sure, so while the numbers seemed impressive (where it seemed that VoB was the correct card for that slot over 80% of the times that the differences between the two mattered) and involved, just, hundreds of games to get my n up beyond the point where it was strongly significant (I think my n>=70), it's such a small point that it might only come up once a tournament, if that. Most of the time, about 80% if I remember correctly, the two cards were functionally identical, which led me to state that as long as a card cantrips, the vast majority of the time it's going to function exactly the same as any other cantrip, no matter the situation, which is why I've been very pro-Peek. I don't know that there's a good way to design an experiment that would run things the way I did to let the computer do the work (it's a very complex question), which is why I had to do it the hard way. My views have softened on Opt, but I do still prefer the added utility you get from Peek, or the added combo-turn stability that Visions of Beyond provides, in most situations. I do find a lot of draw in having Opt as a one-of in situations where you need a 5th 1-mana cantrip, for instance.
Ok, good morning everyone here we go:
@zombie
Thank you. I felt like this entire post needed to be reposted/quoted for the people that seem to only read the last post.
@Darkenslight
Has anyone put up good results across the boars in years? Benthetenor seems to believe that his best defense is seeing how far back he can reference so the rest of us just forget what is happening currently. No person has a Solidarity list that wins access the board. Including me, you , benthetenor, Richard Garfield or Santa Claus. No one.
If you actually read anything that I have wrote you would see that when I side in the cloud of faeries I have been siding out the resets, due to the fact that I want to go off as early as possible and when you only have 2-3 lands reset vs cloud are very similar except cloud plays much better with snap. If you think a natural order for Runic That on turn 2 gives you enough steam to win than more power to you also remember that they can side in any number of storm hate from thorns to cabal therapies.
I have said before that I love solidarity due to its instant speed ability and its ability to auto win on any slow hand from any deck across the board. This only stopped when counterbalance became a thing and now counterbalance is almost non existent.
@theRock
Comparing all of the one mana instants by there ability to find lands doesn't really take much math to understand. While I appreciate the number crunching I imagine it is impossible for you to quantify the value of knowing the opponents hand or milling the top two cards of any library. 2 cards to find a land vs 3 cards to find a high tide. The deck plays around 17 lands and 4 high tides so I often find myself digging for the high tide more than the land. In my list specifically, not anyone else's, I am playing 4 snapcaster mages 4 snaps and echoing truth in the board…I love cards in my yard.Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid.
@benthetenor
Please stop bringing up 2008 or 2006 or 2010. Snapcaster mage didn't exist, thought scour didn't exist, blue suns zenith didn't exist..that argument is invalid. Past experiences do carry weight but who is to say that you have a better understanding of the deck than me? Especially when it is concerning a list that you refuse to play. Very few people have tried a 4 snap 4 snapcaster list and zero people have tried it with 4 thought scour. I could be wrong to the single person who is goig to post after me to "prove" me wrong but thought scour was given one look in the forum and pushed aside.
You yourself have recommended a 4 snap 4 snapcaster list for bing the fastest and most consistent. I am just trying to build on that. Your response to beat elves, the most popular combo deck right now, was to play miracles or a list that played 4 remand 4 snap 4 force of will. I have said numerous times to side board 4 force of will if your meta is combo heavy, and I am personally on the fluster storm train right now.
You tell me that I missed a question that you asked me, why am I playing the instant speed version, and then you answer it yourself, because I like it. I am not sure of your argument here so I am just going to leave it.
I am not playing spiral tide, i am not playing spring tide. I am siding out a card that lets me win turn 3-4 and siding in a card that lets me win turn 2-3. I am side boarding it because I like reset in more match ups than cloud and every time you play in a tournament you get to switch cards out between your main board and your side board to tune your deck appropriately. Getting faster by a turn has helped me beat non interactive match ups like elves and other combo decks.
By removing resets your goal is now to go off as fast as possible and not in response to your own death. Once again, this has only been a test in the SIDEBOARD so you don't have to get all preachy about how I should play a different deck.
And magic is a game, if you don't post to improve and have fun than you shouldn't be posting in an online forum. I have been playing since urzas block and haven't stopped having fun yet.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
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