UW Enduring Ideal

[kombatkiwi]

The reprint of Solitary Confinement has been confirmed in MH2

Solitary Confinement 2W
Enchantment
Skip your drawstep
At the beginning of your upkeep sacrifice Solitary Confinement unless you discard a card
You have shroud
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you

This is a possible option for the "protect myself from damage" lock instead of Phyrexian Unlife + Form of the Dragon. (But if you have a build of the deck with multiple Unlife + Solemnity etc then the situation / argument is a bit different)

Just considering the pros/cons of Solitary Confinement vs Unlife alone:
- Solitary Confinement protects vs infect whereas Unlife doesn't (but dovescape mostly safely KOs that deck anyway so this isn't a huge issue)
- Solitary Confinement offers 'total protection' whereas Unlife can be overwhelmed by eg a ton of burn spells or first/doublestrike creatures or valakut triggers etc. (The above 2 points may allow Sphere of Safety to be cut from the deck).
- Phyrexian Unlife can be played pre-ideal to stay alive for a few extra turns whereas Solitary Confinement can't
- Unlife protects from non-targeted non-damage lifeloss whereas Solitary Confinement doesn't (not exactly sure if there are any relevant examples of this in the format but might as well mention it)
- Skipping your drawstep and acting as a discard outlet after your Enduring Ideal has gone off can sometimes be an upside, as it stops you from drawing your important enchantments which you might want to tutor later, and if you have any such enchantments in your hand already it gives you an outlet to discard and put them back in the deck with Mistveil/Hall. It also means you can win easily by decking after locking the opponent. (This is usually easy to do anyway with Hall/Mistveil in the deck but e.g. those don't work if there is rest in peace in play for example, well I guess be careful in that instance because then Skyblade also wouldn't work)
- However skipping your draw step can also be a downside, as it stops you from drawing into the Mistveil/Hall, and it stops you from drawing extra mana sources to activate Heliod or whatever

Then in terms of the supporting cards you have either Endless Horizons or a new card Skyblade's Boon

Endless Horizons 3W
Enchantment
When Endless Horizons enters the battlefield search your library for any number of Plains cards and exile them.
At the beginning of your upkeep return a card exiled with Endless Horizons to your hand

Skyblade's Boon 1W
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has flying
2W: Return Skyblade's Boon from the graveyard or the battlefield to your hand

Endless Horizons Pros/cons
- Does something useful in the midgame (card advantage, finds lands)
- Can search for Mistveil Plains after Enduring Ideal has resolved
- Only protects you for a number of turns equal to the number of plains in your deck
- Needs 1 turn delay before it puts cards in your hand (i.e. if you are hellbent when you use Ideal to get Confinement then Ehorizons can't help you)

Skyblade's Boon
- Not a very useful card by itself
- Works with confinement indefinitely
- Provides a card to discard immediately when you tutor for it so it works if you are hellbent
- There needs to be a creature on the battlefield to be able to tutor it from your library (you can get your own Heliod / Heliod Token, so it's not totally reliant on the opponent, or even a dovescape token)

Of course there are other more convoluted options like Dawn of Hope + Honden of Cleansing Fire but I think these are the only 2 options that function with only 1 card

Then we can consider the relative pros/cons of these 2 cards compared to Form of the Dragon

- Form of the Dragon is a wincon that kills the opponent quickly, can sometimes be relevant to have in your deck vs e.g. Tron where you don't have a good way to totally lock them and want to kill them before they draw ulamog etc
- But it's not strictly necessary as a wincon if you have e.g Heliod in the deck already, and you also have the ability to just lock the opponent and prevent them from doing anything then mill them out
- Form + Splendor provides a lock vs creatures that isn't Abrupt Decayable (particularly relevant because Decay isn't stopped by Dovescape)
- 4RRR manacost is difficult and provides no devotion, is especially annoying in a version of the deck with no Lotus Bloom as I have brewed in the last post, as it's literally uncastable
- Solitary Confinement offers protection by itself if you have extra cards in hand to pitch to it whereas you usually need to go directly from Unlife to Dragon in sequence to survive. (Whereas you can go Confinement, next turn discard random extra card, Dovescape, then the turn after that get e.g. Skyblade to keep the Confinement alive).

Overall I think the combo of Confinement + Skyblade could be worth playing (replacing unlife and form of the dragon).
Then ill think about whether Sphere of Safety can be cut as well (probably yes, maybe for 1 maindeck nevermore/gideons intervention).