[Deck] Solidarity

[Seraphus]

sorceries makes solidarity vulnerable... having 4 cards that allow us to play them meaning that the first spell played must overrun the counters or stack war in result: vulnerability...

Please stop filling the deck with sorceries, in my opinion, the splash might be an answer but the inclusion of sorceries means that the deck is not solidarity... no matter what way you may find to play them instantly (quicken or leyline) i already have a two pieces combo... imagine how hard you ll feel when trying to cast some card that you can't because the other part isn't there...

As the question about cryptic command compared to mystical teachings: cc is a card that gives you a 2 per 1 effect, sure tutoring a card is good but for 4 cmc? god no! there's FoI and that is enough, don't compare cards that have different utilities like cryptic vs tutor. By the time of mystical we only use one on sb and it was vs aggro decks like zoo to have 5 high tides...

[Vacrix]

@Sunforger

I haven't bothered to test Quicken myself but if you are already going down that route, I suggest you make these modifications to your list:

MD
-1 Cryptic Command
-1 Visions Skiens
-1 Meditate
-3 Opt

+2 Cunning Wish
+1 Turnabout
+3 Peer Through Depths

SB
It looks pretty bad to me. Especially when you have access to so many tutors, there isn't much reason to play so many post-board Wipe Away's. With Counterbalance being relatively absent these days, you can get away with much less board space. Take a look at some of the stock lists and you can easily reshape it to your expected metagame.

By replacing Opts with Quicken you don't lose that 1cc cantrip. You might see one less card than Opt but it has an even stronger purpose in the maindeck by allowing you to play Merchant Scroll during the combo. With access to x7 virtual Impulses, we can easily dig for whichever piece we need to complete the Scroll + Quicken combo. I can see this combo having enormous potential, especially if we also run the full playset of Cunning Wish's, giving us x8 tutors, meaning we will probably see one every 7 cards or so.

Seraphus, the U and U/g stock lists are great already but I see no harm in exploring the unexplored, especially with potentially great rewards. Think about how good Merchant Scroll actually is. Its a cheaper Cunning Wish... but with a drawback. In that respect, its actually not much different than FoI. The difference is that FoI can't do anything for you while you are setting up, and usually you are already winning (ie. inside the spell chain and free from protection) when its a profitable play. Merchant's Scroll is the conceptual opposite of FoI, being a profitable play to help you set up, and difficult to cast once you are already inside the spell chain. However, we can remedy that problem easily by just running Peer Through Depths, increasing our digging power during the combo turn.. and if we need to use them to setup.

Further, we have to identify the deck's weaknesses. Right now the most inhibiting one is having the kill ready before aggro steam rolls us. Merchant Scroll has the potential to solve that problem.

Discuss.

[Seraphus]

i don't have any kind of trouble vs aggro - not even merfolks since my post bordered bounces are very effective and merfolks doesn't bordered almost nothing since it already run 3 spell pierces (only vs WR burn gives me some trouble ) since repeal and remand save the turns i need while delay and draw... And post bordered snap is like Christmas...

Regarding foi vs merchant scroll: you can play foi whenever you decide even if o play it x=0 only to have in grave since you'll need it to combo out the next turn... as scroll it's a sorcery spell, i tested it also running a tendrils to finish it, solidarity is and always ill be better with only instants sorry it's my opinion...

[GoldenCid]

A- Three wishes is good for drawing cards I hear drawing 3 for 3 mana is quite good second only to meditate.

B- Cryptic command is bad. It's what I keep telling people; most of the time the card is basically "Tap your opponents team, draw a card" for 1UUU. It was originally ran because of CB decks and who plays CB anymore? Almost no one since survivines rise to power. It is a terrible card for its cost if it were 3 mana sure I'd run it but at 4 it's virtually unplayable and during the spell chain drawing it instead of say a remand or opt or PtD is bad because what if the cantrip draws you into a land then you might fizzle because you spent 4 mana to draw a land, bounce a dude or something or another which is irrelevant.

A- I tested 3 wishes. Yeah it's like a meditate and like meditate it is not so useful until you go off. This this why you can't do T3 eot 3 wishes without the risk of reveling lands or something important (like reset or turnabout or meditate and so on) you can cast in that turn. That was what i hated most of it. But It's a great card in this deck.

B-Some considerations about C. command: everytime i played it was in 2 main situations: to buy a turn before going off or to buy a turn before loosing anyway. So, i the first situation suppose that i had a hand at turn 4 like: Tide + Reset + Meditate + Cryptic + Land + Something with 4 lands on battlefield. Looks good but if you "time walk" you oppo with command you'll got a better combo. In the second you play command praying for something in the top, it could be good or not...uselly not (remember you loose anyway). Off course i had my odd situation where i bounced a Tsphere or a chalice the turn before going off, keeping cunning wish in hand, but they are a 5-10%. So 4 cmc for winning or loosing anyway (winning is not warranted) i think it's too expensive. For the same cmc i think t hat Fact or Fiction could probably do better thing for us is almaost every situation because you can play it even before going off (unlike meditate or 3 wishes) for with a stuff of 5 cards! A similar line of thoughts took me to mystical teachings. However if you don't like both cards i think that 3 wishes instead of command could be productive. Agree?

[Dark Ritual]

Yes I agree GoldenCid. FoF has been tried in solidarity before and the only thing it has over three wishes is that you get to see the top 5 and you can use it on non combo turns. But on the combo turn it can be risky to cast because if your opponent knows what you need they can make the 2 piles really one sided especially if you see 2+ lands with FoF. Sure if you see all business in the top 5 the card is good but seeing land during the combo is always bad unless you have brainstorm + PtD/Impulse in hand to get the lands on the bottom.

At first in the quicken list I thought he included no sorceries lol then I remembered merchant scroll and just laughed at myself. But yeah quicken + merchant scroll is an exact replica of cunning wish almost for cards in your deck only because you don't have the one ofs. But I agree c. wish should be upped to at least 3 if not 4 I love cunning wish so much in solidarity it's like the greatest card in the deck.

I would never, ever play FoI for 0 if I did play it. Seems pretty bad to have it used only once via flashback although the mana cost originally is costly when you actually use mana for X once it's in the yard its pretty good.

Good luck with the quicken testing.

[Olesch]

When you play BF,I assume you can choose freely in which order the original BF and the copies will go on the stack?

So I can play BF and set the copies on top of the stack and start resolving them and then last resolve the original BF or remand it?

If, how do I declare that during play? I play BF and then I say I want to put the copies on the stack first and then resolve them according to the stack? Or do I have to play BF without passing priority and declare the copies on the stack and then pass priority? I would like to know how I should do it to not get power gamed or something like that.

[entity]

No, Freeze goes on the stack first, then storm triggers. So the copies always resolve first and original Freeze last, unless someone would do something unusual.

[GoldenCid]

Yes I agree GoldenCid. FoF has been tried in solidarity before and the only thing it has over three wishes is that you get to see the top 5 and you can use it on non combo turns. But on the combo turn it can be risky to cast because if your opponent knows what you need they can make the 2 piles really one sided especially if you see 2+ lands with FoF. Sure if you see all business in the top 5 the card is good but seeing land during the combo is always bad unless you have brainstorm + PtD/Impulse in hand to get the lands on the bottom.

Agree...but just for playing...let's test these situations to compare 3 wishes vs FoF during the combo (we'll asume with 4 lands in play and enough mana in pool i.e 6-8 after playing one or other spell):

Top 1:

Land
Land
Brainstorm
--------------------------
Force of will
Remand

Top 2

Impulse
Land
Meditate
----------------------
Reset
FOW

Top 3

Land
Land
PtD
---------------
Land
Land

Top 4

High tide
Remand
Land
-------------
Remand
Meditate

Top 5

Land
Land
FOW
-----------
Brainstorm
Land

Top 6

Cunning wish
Meditate
Turnabout
------------------
Impulse
Land

Top 7

Land
Cuning
Fow
----------------
Fow
Land
Land

Top 8

Land
Land
Land
--------------
Impulse
Impulse

And so on. This are real tops in simulated combo lines. In which ones do you think That FoF is worst than 3 Wishes or viceversa??

eDIT: --------------- separates the 3 first cards reveled with 3 wishes.

[lorddotm]

Blah.

So this is cute. The fact is that Fact or Fiction is only marginally better at time, and when its great, Wish is too. Costing 3 also means a lot. You can only realistically cast FoF when you're deep into going off, but you can cast Wish in the beginning so you don't have to invest too many resources.


Plus out of your examples you assume there are no draw spells in hand, and even then, only once is it strictly better, while twice is it worse. It is easier to chain draw spells with Wishes since it costs 3.

[ummon]

No one has tested quicken as of yet; The best sorcery speed card we could possibly play is that one card that puts up to 3 lands into play in green...useful midcombo when it nets you a lot of mana's. But even that card is questionable since without quicken it's terrible because it's a sorcery and playing it before you combo on turn 3 seems bad considering you won't put 3 lands into play since you have not begun to draw a lot of cards. But test it if you want I doubt you'll get good results though.

Mystical teachings is bad

Three wishes is good for drawing cards I hear drawing 3 for 3 mana is quite good second only to meditate.

Cryptic command is bad. It's what I keep telling people; most of the time the card is basically "Tap your opponents team, draw a card" for 1UUU. It was originally ran because of CB decks and who plays CB anymore? Almost no one since survivines rise to power. It is a terrible card for its cost if it were 3 mana sure I'd run it but at 4 it's virtually unplayable and during the spell chain drawing it instead of say a remand or opt or PtD is bad because what if the cantrip draws you into a land then you might fizzle because you spent 4 mana to draw a land, bounce a dude or something or another which is irrelevant.

You mean Summer Bloom? I'd expect that won't be allowed. The ruling says "This spell increases the number of lands you can play in a turn. The land cards are played as you would normally play lands." So I'm not sure if that would allow you to use it on your turn. Additionally, the ruling for Explore is quite explicit: "If you somehow manage to cast Explore when it's not your turn, you'll draw a card when it resolves, but you won't be able to play a land that turn." I expect the same would apply to Summer Bloom.

[GoldenCid]

Giving a round to the page...what about Lim-dul vault??? Does its power justify the black splash??

[Vacrix]

We aren't Dark Ritual combo so we really can't afford to lose life to find combo pieces. We already have some trouble beating aggro's clock.

[Sunforger]

Ok here's the first ten game feedback. I made the changes you suggested for these games but went with 3 Wishes and a Tolarian Winds.

Affinity (no Erayo) 2-0
G1 - Merchant Scroll T2 go off T3 during his attack step, he has me dead on his next turn.
G2 - He mulls to 5. I go off turn 5 with little pressure after using my Remand on Ravager. During the combo I Quicken a Scroll twice but I probably would have won with the old build anyway.

CB 1-2
G1 - I think he miss-assigns my deck. I go off in response to a t5 CB through Force.
G2/3 - He resolves T2 CB both games and chooses to counter my 3's plus a Force on one of my High Tides. I think maybe G3 was winnable if I went for two smaller combo turns.

Affinity (no Erayo) 2-1
G1 - I get steamrollered.
G2/3 - I go off turn 4 both games in the face of lethal in G2 Scroll plays a big part.

Deadguy Ale 2-0
G1 - He has a Wasteland draw. He hits me with a Hymn but it misses my combo parts. I go off T4 after Scroll gets me a Meditate T3.
G2 - He chews up my hand. I go off turn 7 with only 4 cards in hand - Tide, Tide, Quicken, Meditate - in response to another Hymn. Probably more luck than judgment this game. During the combo I quicken several scrolls to keep me going.

GW Survival 2-0
G1 - He has the recruiter Iona trick after he sees my t2 Impulse t3 Scroll. I respond with Wish for Slaughter Pact. I go off in his following turn.
G2 - He's all in on early vengevines. I have wish for Ravenous Trap on the crazy turn in response to the triggers. He never recovers.

GU Survival 0-2
G1 - He's got too many counter spells. He counters my Scroll. He counters my card Meditate on the combo turn and I almost get him but he has enough time to get his vines out of the bin and beat my face with them.
G2 - I go for multiple small combo turns. I wish up my Trap in the first one after seeing 2 Vines hit the yard but he has Force and I dont. He beats my face in.

Mighty Quinn 2-0
G1 - He has turn two runed halo but I combo through it with a wish for Wipe around turn 7/8.
G2 - He tutors a rule of law up. I brain freeze it off the top of his deck. He never finds the two pieces of disruption he needs and I combo.

Belcher 2-1
G1 - He combos I have force and freeze to mill him out.
G2 - He combos I dont have force.
G3 - He mulls into oblivion. He concedes when I scroll for Force.

Goblins 2-0
G1 - He doesn't make a turn one play. I combo T4 after a T3 Scroll and a T2 Impulse.
G2 - I mull a tough one. Island, Quicken, Quicken, Impulse, High Tide, Meditate, Remand. I get Island, Island, Island, Scroll, Reset, Meditate. I draw a second reset and a Quicken before managing to go off T3 in the face of lethal, this was again a lucky one. I wonder if I should have mulliganed there or not...

Janky.dec 2-0
G1 - He has an interesting turn one involving Kobolds, Gaea's Cradle, Elvish Spirit Guide and Glimpse. I counter his Beastmaster Ascension. I combo easily T5.
G2 - He mulligans to 5. He lays out a Khalni Garden T1. I chuckle. I kill him T4 in response to his big Glimpse turn.

8-2 Overall. I had quite a bit of luck that could easily have been 7-3 I think. There were a couple of times I had to burn Quickens in the early game on the land hunt and once when I had a fair few Scrolls in hand at the end of a combo turn, luckily I was able to Tolarian Winds them and all my islands away. Scroll got countered once that was significant - most people seem to follow the mentality of counter the spell I get rather than the tutor, people will cotton on to this though for sure.

[Dark Ritual]

1 land hands are always questionable like I mean really questionable unless you have a lot of 1 mana cantrips and then if you do get to 2 land you have an impulse to get the 3rd land. I have lost games due to land screw due to keeping 1 landers and they are generally trap hands that seem good because they have 6 spells and 1 land but if you don't hit lands they become very, very bad.

Also the janky.dec is called cheeri0s, it was in an SCG decktech article and I lol'ed when I read the name it fits the deck so well.

Only reason to splash black right now would be to be able to pay for slaughter pact in upkeep lol and extirpate. LDV is terrible because card disadvantage in solidarity is pretty bad unless you see the top 5 cards to be absolute nuttiness. The lifeloss is too relevant against aggro as well which we have problems racing.

[GoldenCid]

Only reason to splash black right now would be to be able to pay for slaughter pact in upkeep lol and extirpate. LDV is terrible because card disadvantage in solidarity is pretty bad unless you see the top 5 cards to be absolute nuttiness. The lifeloss is too relevant against aggro as well which we have problems racing.

I think that i get you point but i'm not sure if the phrase is card disadvantage. Yes, LDV does not increase the number of cards in hand but it "programes" you combo even as a t2 drop.
During combo you must combinate it with draw stuff of it sucks but come on this is really difficult.

On the "blue hand"...so you think that 3 wishes > FoF > C. command right?

[Vacrix]

If you use one card, such as LDV, and don't get a card out of it, then its card disadvantage, regardless if it makes the rest of your card advantage stronger. Basically you are digging deeper than an Impulse or PtD can but you don't get to keep the card. You might as well just play both Impulse and PtD and then chain them together to find what you want. It works much better than trying to set up FoI (and deal with random grave hate or not be able to set up with it). Three Wishes is the strongest if your goal is to have a good business spell. FoF is more like a tutor than anything else and C.C is just a utility piece and/or protection (even from creatures), or a counterspell, but its usually too hard to cast if your opponent fights over High Tide's Resolution. If your opponent doesn't see Cryptic Command he will probably go for your business spells instead because he knows you don't have that extra protection/utility.


Also, Merchant's Scroll/Quicken builds look promising by what your results have to say SunForger. I suggest you try a Green Splash. I can imagine delaying for a long time with Merchant's Scroll -->Moment's Peace/Tangle, as well as having Merchant's Scroll-->Krosan Grip for the Counterbalance matchup (though its more uncommon these days).

In your GU Survival Matchup, you should have tried baiting him out in one big turn with a Mindbreak Trap. The beautiful thing is you can usually draw out all of your opponent's Countermagic and then land an Autumn's Veil to get ahead. Trust me, switch to a green Splash and clean up your Sideboard and I think you will be able to win the games that you lost.

[ScatmanX]

I can imagine delaying for a long time withMerchant's Scroll -->Moment's Peace/Tangle, as well as having Merchant's Scroll-->Krosan Grip for the Counterbalance matchup (though its more uncommon these days).

Merchant Scroll only searches for Blue instants...

[Vacrix]

So it does. I must have confused its text with Mystical Teachings from a few pages back. I still think a Green Splash has potential in that list.

Also, due to Quicken being slightly worse than Opt at getting lands, we ought to add one land to that list, maybe two.

[Sunforger]

Hey all. I want to include this six game set before I finish it out to 10 games because it shows how agro my meta is. Heres my altered decklist and sideboard.

12 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand

4 High Tide
4 Quicken
4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Impulse
3 Peer Through Depths
1 Brain Freeze
3 Remand
3 Cunning Wish
3 Meditate
1 Turnabout
4 Force of Will

4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Turnabout
1 Brainfreeze
1 Meditate
1 Stroke of Genius

Games
#1 Affinity [Erayo] - G1 I fluff the combo and hand him the win. G2 he has Erayo, I Forced, and 2 Arcane labs plus pressure.

#2 Spanish Inquisition - G1 He fluffs going off when I force his first infernal. G2 I mull twice for a force he has duress. G3 I mull twice no force but I do have peer. I peer on his combo turn but no force in top 5.

#3 Burn - G1 I combo T3. G2 I die T3. G3 I die T3. He has Pyrostatic Pillar in the side. Seems a very boring matchup.

#4 Zoo - G1 I combo T4 with lethal next turn. G2 I go for combo T3 in resp to his rule of law he chants me, I dig and find Echoing Truth. T4 I combo again and easily mill him out. He sided in 3 Silence 2 Chants and 2 Rule of Law.

#5 WW - G1 He has T1 vial. I go off in response to him vialing in a Mangara to remove an island of mind, he has Karakas in play. G2 He has T2 Runed Halo on Brain Freeze when he plays a Rule of Law T4 I combo in response.

#6 WW - G1 He has Vial on two for a long time. As I High Tide on T6 he vials in an Ethersworn. In response I cast another High Tide and go off. G2 He has Ethersworn on the table on T3 I scroll for an Echoing Truth. T4 I plays Rule of Law but I have Force. I go off easily.

Total 8-6

The only maindeck card I'm not sure on right now is 2 of the three remands. These could possibly become Snap which would almost always have useful targets. However there are some control players in my meta and there are a couple of people toating Emrakul x4 for sure so Remand is useful. Remand falls down against Affinity I think, which has been 3 from 16 matches so far, and Snap would possibly help during the combo turn. I'm staying with remand at the moment but I wonder what people think.

As for a green splash. Moment's peace looks like its the buisness against agro but I'm actually beating up agro pretty well right now. My losses primarily come when they have a lot of good disruption plus a clock or to counters and faster combo.

[Sunforger]

Ok I don't want to hijack the thread too much so this is my last set of testing unless people are finding it useful. Its just the other half of my second set of ten matches.

Games
#1 Burn - G1 He wins T3 with a fireblast. G2 I win T3 after comboing him out he fireblasts and i remand it. G3 he wins T3. Do these guys never flood or mulligan?

#2 Affinity - G1 I draw 8 lands in a row off my two meditates which fizzles me. G2 I Hurkyl him EOT he wud have nothing on board and 4 cards to discard. He concedes. G3 I scroll for Hurkyl which buys time. I get to 7 lands and combo in hand on 9 life. I scroll and he concedes.

#3 New Horizons - G1 He has no disruption and his deck really isn't designed to interact with mine. G2 is much the same except he has Extirpate during my combo turn on Reset. I limp over the line but wishing things out.

#4 WW - G1 He has nothing useful but I fluff up the combo with a missclick, im on MODO for this round. G2 I combo T4 having to Stroke myself for 5 cards to keep going - I had echoing truth for his Canonist. G3 He mulls to 5 and concedes when I dont mull.

Overall 7-4

So heres my testing breakdown for the 20 match series. Overall its 32-14 in games for a win %'age a little under 70%. Out of 20 opposing decks 13 were agro. A lot of this testing has been done on the MTGO tournament practice room, which I think skews the numbers toward agro a little since FoW is a barrier to many control decks. Additionally this portion of the testing - which was maybe half the matches - had Disrupting Shoal instead of FoW as I dont own those online at the moment. I'd love it if someone else could test a build with the Quicken-Scroll element in it because I think it might be really good but frankly I'm not the best player in the world so I'm not sure.