[Deck] Solidarity (Reset High Tide)

[Shimster]

Please let me hear your opinions, and please tell me how you usually board vs. Dragon Stompy.

I am definitely going to test Hunting Pack in February (either in Dülmen or in Iserlohn, the two larger Legacy tournaments in Germany, ~ 70 to 80 competitors), as I am on vacation during January.

I haven't played yet vs. Dragon Stompy competitively, but in theory it appears to be a very tough matchup. On the one hand, you have to avoid fetchlands because of their Blood Moon effects. On the other hand, they have got a pretty decent clock, so wishing for Rebuild doesn't seem to be fast enough.

As Dragon Stompy is Tacosnape's petdeck, I would like to hear his qualified comments on this topic.

[Blaukreuz]

the Dragon Stompy Matchup is not good, but okay. Their Blood Moon effects are not that devastating to us.

I would definitly board in some bounce.

Also Hydroblasts are very good. When they come through the chalice they can remove blood moon or kill every threat the Dragon Stompy player has. But most of us dont play hydroblasts anymore since goblin's decline.



I tested Hunting Pack in a row of games and it felt winmore most of the time. In most situations where i was able to cast Hunting Pack, just Brain Freezing was also possible.

[ImAChampion]

What do you mean avoid the fetchlands? Even if they are turned into Mountains...its better than missing a land drop. Did I miss something?

[Shimster]

What do you mean avoid the fetchlands? Even if they are turned into Mountains...its better than missing a land drop. Did I miss something?

Since your Cunning Wishes are limited, you can either wish for Rebuild (3sphere, CotV) or random bounce (moon effects). As you normally want to dispose their artifacts, you have to "avoid" fetchlands. Just crack them in response to the Blood Moon/Magus.

[ImAChampion]

Since your Cunning Wishes are limited, you can either wish for Rebuild (3sphere, CotV) or random bounce (moon effects). As you normally want to dispose their artifacts, you have to "avoid" fetchlands. Just crack them in response to the Blood Moon/Magus.

Gotcha.

[Tacosnape]

As Dragon Stompy is Tacosnape's petdeck, I would like to hear his qualified comments on this topic.

Strange that you mention this considering in my local metagame, Solidarity is viewed as my pet deck. Strangely I haven't played this match as much as I'd like despite owning both decks, but here are some general points on it.

1. Don't Force Trinisphere. You don't Force Trinisphere against Stax, and you don't Force Trinisphere against Dragon Stompy. You may argue, well, what if they've got a Pit Dragon or a Chalice to follow it up? The answer, which a lot of people miss, is that you wouldn't have been able to Force those anyway if you spent the Force on the Trinisphere. The only time I'll Force a Trinisphere is if I'm one land drop away from comboing off, if my opponent already has a major threat on the board and I didn't have the Force for it, if I have -two- Forces I'm prepared to play, or if I have one land down, it's the opponent's first play, and I'm holding two Remands (Meaning you'll be able to Remand-walk their next two plays, which is a solid situation.) It's also worth noting that if you get to the point of having five land down, it's easy to go off through Trinisphere. I recommend practicing goldfishing with a Trinisphere in play, without bouncing it, to anyone who hasn't before.

2. Do Force Arc Slogger, Rakdos Pit Dragon, and sometimes Gathan Raiders. Dragon Stompy's Goldfish is quick. Very often if Dragon Stompy power accelerates into Arc-Slogger via Seething Songs and SSG's, a well-timed Force will buy you a couple turns while they try to fix their manabase. Sometimes it won't and they'll just curve into Gathan Raiders and Pit Dragon, but that's magic.

3. Hunt a Cunning Wish and play the Rebuild plan if you can. Going off on turn 5 isn't as hard as you'd think against Dragon Stompy if they've spent their time playing Chalices and Trinispheres. You can Cunning Wish at the end of turn three, Rebuild at the end of four, and kill them before their next attack step, if all goes well. Often you'll need to make it a Stroke kill (Or a Turnabout on their creatures) at this point, because it's not uncommon to be near death at this point.

4. Board in Echoing Truth in addition to Wipe Away, but leave Rebuild as the bounce of choice in your sideboard. I made this mistake once against Stax when my Stax-wielding teammate Chaliced for 1 and 3 and I was left without any recourse whatsoever. A smart player, even a smart Dragon Stompy player, will keep this option open despite the high 3CC curve in the deck. The Echoing Truth would have saved me in this scenario. I generally board in one Echo and one Wipe (I'd board in a second Wipe if I ran it.) These will help you keep their large threats and their disruption off the board.

5. Use Brainstorms and crack fetchlands early. This is pretty obvious, but Blood Moon is annoying if it comes down too fast.

6. Hydroblast is risky. This is where I need more testing experience to decide if I'd board it in or not. It seems like every time I board in Hydroblast, the very first thing I face is Chalice for 1. And it seems like every time I -don't-, I end up facing a turn one Pit Dragon or Magus of the Moon while holding Fetchlands. Test this and draw your own conclusions.

7. Don't panic. Chalice aggro is never great for Solidarity, but fate eventually strikes down inconsistent decks, and Dragon Stompy, as much as I love it, is inconsistent. Any time they get a less than explosive draw, an experienced Solidarity player can capitalize.

[Bahamuth]

Strange that you mention this considering in my local metagame, Solidarity is viewed as my pet deck.

So is it for me. I've been wondering about this by the way. How many people still play this deck? How many Solidarity players do you usually see at a tournament?

To answer my own question, at the last two tournaments (69 and 130 participants) I went to, there were 2 Solidarity players, including me. Solidarity has never been really huge around here tough, so perhaps it's different in other parts of the world.

[Blaukreuz]

how do you guys board and play against Cephalid Breakfast?
I found it a fucking hard matchup, because they are faster than you and have nice disruption (FoW, Abeyance, Cabal Therapy,..) to protect their combo.

[Tacosnape]

Alright, well, I pulled a 1st Place with Solidarity again, beating BGW Rock, 4C Landstill, Burn, Pox, Train Wreck in the semis, and then BGW Rock again in the finals.

Here's my drastically modernized list, complete with all kinds of highly violated canon Solidarity Principles.

12 Island
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta

4 Brainstorm
4 Opt
4 Impulse
4 Peer Through Depths
3 Meditate
4 Cunning Wish

4 Force of Will
4 Remand

3 High Tide
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
1 Brain Freeze

SB:
3 Hydroblast
2 Twincast
2 Disrupt
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Rebuild
1 Brain Freeze
1 Stroke of Genius
1 High Tide
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout

First things first, Disrupt in the sideboard is strictly a metagame call. There's a ton of discard and a ton of land destruction in my metagame, and Disrupt is a monster in this setup. In a more blue metagame, these would either be additional Wipes/Echoes, or more likely Orim's Chant in a white splash.

Peer Through Depths has been the biggest change I've made. It started in place of Flash of Insight, which was feeling a turn too slow and a mana too expensive with the format being sped up. I loved it, and I've gradually gone up to first three, and now four. Peer Through Depths has made my combos almost never fail (Although I did completely misfire one game Saturday, but the fizzle rate is still less than usual.)

Cutting the Tide was a decision I made experimentally. With the additional draw in Peer Through Depths, I was running into far less situations where I needed to Cunning Wish at the end of turn three for Meditate, and a few less where I needed an untap spell. More and more I found I was missing Tide at this point if anything, because often I have to Impulse or Cantrip for lands on the first couple turns. So I swapped it for a fourth Wish to enable Wish to fetch me any combo piece I need to be ready to combo out on turn 4 if need be. I'm still not positive about this change, though it's been pretty good so far.

The single maindeck Freeze makes me cringe, as my comfort zone with less than two is very low, especially with the inability to move it from my graveyard to the RFG zone now that Flash of Insight is gone. However, as of yet, even playing against Duress/Seize/Extirpate packing decks, it hasn't yet come back to bite me in the ass.

BGW Rock was my first match, and I got it 2-1. Game one he only had one Thoughtseize, and I was able to recover and combo out around turn five. Game two he unloaded on me with five discard spells and a Witness. Game three I got stuck on one land after whiffing on two Opts, then I get my land Vindicated. I Force a Hierarch, then I topdeck lands for a few turns, get them Vindicated, and topdeck more. He goes Witness/Vindicate, gets about six hits with the Witness down and morphs an Exalted, but I'm able to combo off just in time.

4C Landstill was a pushover. Game one his first four land drops are all Factories (?!), and I manage to combo out with Force backup before I get destroyed. Game two his first four land drops are all Tropical Islands (Wtf?). I Remand Fact or Fiction twice, and combo off through his hand full of Mages and Extirpates.

Burn I outraced all three games thanks to Force, Remand, and Hydroblast. I somehow fail my combo game 2 after boarding out too many Peer Through Depths for Hydroblasts, as I Meditate into Land/Land/Blast/Blast, then Opt into Force/Land and fizzle out. Games 1 and 3 go well, though.

Against LoamPox I got slaughtered game one by Hymns, Seizes, etc. I pull Game 2 out after having Reset Cranial Extractioned (Who the hell runs that in Pox?) when he can't find a kill condition other than a turn seven Treetop Village and I have several turns to recover. Game three I Disrupt a Sinkhole, then chain three Remands on Hymns and Sinkholes while he's stuck at three black mana. When I run out of Remands, I just kill him.

Train Wreck was an auto-cruise in the Semifinals. I Force a Hymn on both games and then I win in response to Haunting Echoes both games. He doesn't draw Seize or Extirpate at all. BGW Rock went similarly well. I don't remember much about it because I was sleepy at this point. I do remember chaining Impulse/Peer Through Depths five times in a row during my final combo.

So there you have it. I'll continue to test the High Tide-in-sideboard thing and let you guys know how it works.

[Bahamuth]

Awesome. It's a good thing you're trying out new things.

To be honest, I don't really like Peer Trough Depths. I belive one of the most important strenghts of Solidarity is that it gives your opponent little to no information at all.

If you're not playing Flash of Insight, I'd say cutting a Freeze is absolutely the right call. Especially with 4 Wishes in the mainboard, Freeze is nothing more than a kill, which you only need to find at the very end of your combo. I remain playing Flash of Insight tough, because I still think it's a real powerhouse. It makes Brain Freeze a draw spell, and, depending on the situation tough, a much more powerful one.

I don't know what to think about the Tide in the sideboard. I'm not a big fan of 4 Wish in the mainboard.

Have you tried out Hunting Pack already?

[ClearSkies]

I tried Solidarity in my local tournament and I got 1-2. (At least I got to play in a tournament) This was yesterday, so I am just trying to remember from notes.

Anyways, the list was the same as Tacosnape because I wanted to test it also.

First match: Some kind of U/B CB-top Counter/Discard deck.

Game 1: I didn't see any discard or counterspells, and I win.
Game 2: he Duress me first turn and then a counterbalance/top in the next two turns, and I couldn't get it off the table.
Game 3: he uses multiple duress, hymn, and to finish off with counterbalance/top.

Some thoughts:
I should have put more disrupt in my sideboard, it would seem like a really good answer to those mass discard.

Second match: Some pile of 60-cards with maindecked Ivory Mask being the only threat.

Moving on. (Sadly, this is the only match I won the whole day)

Third Match: Mono-blue Control (with 3x Morphlings as win-conditions)
Game 1: Waited for an opportunity for him to tap out most of his mana, and then I tried to combo off, and did.
Game 2: He started out with a Sensei's Diving Top and shape his hand with counterspells. Just couldn't get pass his counter spells, and kind of rushed it when I thought there was an opportunity, which caused me to fizzled. (Time was called here too...)

Some thoughts:
Twincast ended up pretty nice against other mono-blue control decks.
I was afraid of casting High Tide against it. (Is that supposed to be right tactic?)
I kind of miss Flash of Insight in the very late game like that. With his hand getting more and more counterspells, should I have just waited till he played an actual win-condition? I was also trying to play around the 4x Trickbind in game 2 too. What are other tactics against MUC a Solidarity player has besides splashing?

[Bahamuth]

I kind of miss Flash of Insight in the very late game like that. With his hand getting more and more counterspells, should I have just waited till he played an actual win-condition? I was also trying to play around the 4x Trickbind in game 2 too. What are other tactics against MUC a Solidarity player has besides splashing?

I find it hard to find the right time to combo as well. It's usually best to either wait for him to play a win condition, since he taps mana at that point, which probably means less counters. If you're not going to wait until the win condition, or if the wincondition is already in play, remember to play your High Tide and eventually some other spells in your opponents upkeep, before he draws his card, which might be a potential counter.

I've been playing a thirth Brain Freeze in the mainboard. I really think it's really useful. It helps you fight trough a counterwall, and it fuctions as a very strong draw spell.

[ClearSkies]

Wouldn't High Tide give more mana to a MUC for him to counter my stuff? (Assume that his hand = my hand in size and all counters.) Or am I suppose to not care since it benefits me also?

[Bahamuth]

Wouldn't High Tide give more mana to a MUC for him to counter my stuff? (Assume that his hand = my hand in size and all counters.) Or am I suppose to not care since it benefits me also?

True. It depends on the situation. You could try to win without a Tide, which is very possible with the time MUC gives you. You could also try to Turnabout their lands first.

[Van Phanel]

Playing against Mono-U is a harder than playing against Landstill, as Mono-U has way less dead cards and all his lands are Islands. Still it's a rather good matchup as long as you know what you are doing.

However it's very hard to give a description of the matchup as you have to change your plans according to the situation all the time. Some general things can be said:

- Play Flash of Insight. It makes your handsize eight instead of seven (seems obvious). Of course if it is to slow for your meta, you have to cut your losses and throw it out. I'm not quite fond of Taco's change as the Flash's turn Brain Freezes into cantrips, but time (and testing) will tell, if it's actually a good idea.

- Play Twincast. It acts as whatever you need (hm, that was obvious again ).

- Don't hold to many High Tides. One should be enough all the time unless you want to go off in your own EOT when he tries to play carddraw. The problem is that every card counts and even if High Tide produces mana, it's one less relevant card you hold.

- Try to always Remand your own spells when he tries to counter them. Trading <random spell> + Remand for two hardcounters is generally good for you. Especially Turnabout targeting him during his second mainphase stands out here as he generally has to counter it (don't be afraid of doing this as a bluff, but don't do it all the time either!). Then when he has less counters resolve a Meditate.

- If you can avoid it, never try comboing if you would lose to him countering your carddraw. If you trade Untaps for Counters, that's ok. But you only have four Meditates, so make sure they resolve.

- Be greedy with your Forces. More often than not Meditate is the only spell that is worth it. In this matchup you don't want carddisadvantage at all.

- Think Twice is huge as it practically can't be countered. However it's slowness in other matchups won't help. (see Flash of Insight)


That said, remember Bahamuth's words:

It depends on the situation.

This sentence is generally true in magic, but even more so when talking about Solidarity. My post is just there to give some ideas, but you still have to think for yourself.

Hope I could help

- Van

[lesly]

how are the testing results so far with hunting pack now bahamuth?

[Bahamuth]

how are the testing results so far with hunting pack now bahamuth?

Well.....I'm not playing them anymore. I have a good reason for it tough. The meta in The Netherlands and Belgium isn't quite the one I need it to be for my green splash. I've noticed more and more people playing Dragon Stompy, while Pikula and Sui Black are still popular. I don't think it's a good idea to run them right now.

I'm still not sure how good they are. I noticed that, if your opponent expects this card, he'll have a much easier time playing around it (Reset becomes way more important).

I played a local tournament yesterday by the way with Solidarity and I took the first place, which was a Badlands. I beat Armageddon Stax, Goyf Sligh and Aluren.

[Benie Bederios]

To answer my own question, at the last two tournaments (69 and 130 participants) I went to, there were 2 Solidarity players, including me. Solidarity has never been really huge around here tough, so perhaps it's different in other parts of the world.

Make that three in the near future I picked up a playset of Reset's.

Although I was fairly good with Spring Tide there are alot changes with this deck. I want to explore alot. I have some questions.

First of all the Skeleton, wich cards are definitly needed. I would think something like this.

12 Islands
6 Fetches

4 Reset
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
4 High Tide
3 Meditate
3 Turnabout
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse

Is this correct, or are there other cards that are definitly needed too?

For splashes, why would you splash another color. and how many duals would you play.

Green: Hunting Pack, Krosan Grip and Quirion Dryad.

Red: Red Elemental Blast, Urza's Rage.

Black: Skeletal Scrying???

White: Orim's Chant, Disenchant, Abeyance.

More questions comming up..

Thanks in advance

[Bahamuth]

Make that three in the near future I picked up a playset of Reset's.

Although I was fairly good with Spring Tide there are alot changes with this deck. I want to explore alot. I have some questions.

First of all the Skeleton, wich cards are definitly needed. I would think something like this.

12 Islands
6 Fetches

4 Reset
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
4 High Tide
3 Meditate
3 Turnabout
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse

Is this correct, or are there other cards that are definitly needed too?

For splashes, why would you splash another color. and how many duals would you play.

Green: Hunting Pack, Krosan Grip and Quirion Dryad.

Red: Red Elemental Blast, Urza's Rage.

Black: Skeletal Scrying???

White: Orim's Chant, Disenchant, Abeyance.

More questions comming up..

Thanks in advance

I'd add at least 3 Remand, 2 Brain Freeze and at least 2 Opt. There really isn't that much room left in this deck, unless you want to play a card that replaces one of the above.

You're right about the splash cards. You might want to play StP in your sideboard if splashing white. Disenchant doesn't seem that usefull to me.

I do think, as I stated in my last post, that it's a better idea not to splash right now in our meta with Dragon Stompy upcoming and not too much blue-based aggro-control.

[xsockmonkeyx]

12 Islands
6 Fetches

4 Reset
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
4 High Tide
3 Meditate
3 Turnabout
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse

Is this correct, or are there other cards that are definitly needed too?

2 Brainfreeze, 2 Flash of Insight, and some amount of Remand and Opt are also usual suspects.