[Deck] Solidarity

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Also with twincast you can kill the tendrils player with their own tendrils which is simply hilarious if it does happen. They go 'tendrils you FTW?' and you go "twincast it? kill you?"

This only works if your opponent is at two life which should not happen to them against Solidarity because we don't attack their life total (unless your opponent was so careless to Ad Nauseam himself down to two, knowing you could Twincast / Misdirect their Tendrils).

The Twincast copy of Tendrils has storm, however, the storm ability doesn't trigger because you are only copying Tendrils with Twincast (as opposed to casting it), so you only get one copy.

Having said that, copying Tendrils with Twincast can save you from dying if their Tendrils was just for lethal.

[leegoo]

Mmmm...i'll see if i understood with an example:

My hand: tide + impulse + reset + freeze + BS

My table: 6 islands.

So i drop tide, cb triggers, my opo uses mana for top, i drop reset, cb triggers again, then BS, triggers once more, now i have 2 island untap do i play the freeze?? Or just let the triggered resolve see what's happens and try to go fot the win with wat i drew with bs and impulse??

Note: oponente has no fow in hand.

you play tide
CB player tops in response, looks at 3 cards, puts them back. Before Counterbalance triggers you reset. Now the CB player needs to activate top again to move a 2cc spell to the top. He does. Now you play Brainstorm. Again, he needs to move a 1cc to the top with top. He does. Now, at this point, to accomplish what you are talking about in this scenario, you cast brain freeze In response to the CB triggering for the brainstorm. Assuming he's out of mana to top again (or, you have multiple storm built up so that more than one copy will hit him if he can cb back to a 2cc spell) you will mill the 3 cards off the top of his library first, and he will be left with a blind card on top of his library. Then the Trigger (from CB) will go off on brainstorm, then reset, then high tide.

Sorry if I misworded any of that, but that's the general gist of it.

- on winning vs. cb. I really like to have 3 md brain freezes because of this matchup. Even spells that are countered with CB count towards storm count... which makes it fairly easy to mill them out with a couple of mini-brain freezes. They generally have no clock to speak of either.

[Seraphus]

you play tide
CB player tops in response, looks at 3 cards, puts them back. Before Counterbalance triggers you reset. Now the CB player needs to activate top again to move a 2cc spell to the top. He does. Now you play Brainstorm. Again, he needs to move a 1cc to the top with top. He does. Now, at this point, to accomplish what you are talking about in this scenario, you cast brain freeze In response to the CB triggering for the brainstorm. Assuming he's out of mana to top again (or, you have multiple storm built up so that more than one copy will hit him if he can cb back to a 2cc spell) you will mill the 3 cards off the top of his library first, and he will be left with a blind card on top of his library. Then the Trigger (from CB) will go off on brainstorm, then reset, then high tide.

Sorry if I misworded any of that, but that's the general gist of it.

- on winning vs. cb. I really like to have 3 md brain freezes because of this matchup. Even spells that are countered with CB count towards storm count... which makes it fairly easy to mill them out with a couple of mini-brain freezes. They generally have no clock to speak of either.

Yeah it's kind of it =P the thing is training will get you there!

[KevinTrudeau]

Trudeau couldn't thirst for knowledge just be three wishes or am I missing something. Three wishes essentially draws 3. TfK draws 3 and discards 2 lands in the right case if you have 2 lands. I would never play thirst for knowledge in this deck ever it just seems awful.

The only difference between the two is that Thirst can be cast EOT turn three or later if your hand isn't so hot (multiple Turnabouts, FoW against aggro, excess lands, etc.) or if you need to absolutely dig for combo pieces against aggro, while Three Wishes can usually only be cast during your combo turn. I usually wait until I combo out to cast it, but Thirst does have practical applications outside of the combo turn, which is why I choose to utilize it. Discarding two during the combo turn has never affected me in a negative way, and while it is certainly within the realm of possibilities that it could, I think the chances of fizzling due to discarding important spells is less than fizzling due to drawing a Twincast with nothing to copy. Twincast is a fine card, but I feel with three Remands and four Forces that I'm okay against control.

[igormagic]

Which deck is best, solidarity or spiral tide (with candelabro and time spiral)?

[Seraphus]

Which deck is best, solidarity or spiral tide (with candelabro and time spiral)?

LOL you are in the solidarity thread sooooo... LOL but i'll try to answer wile being the more impartial possible...
They are two very different decks although powered by the same mechanic - high tide plus untap effect cards - the solidarity killing weapon is Brain Freeze + draw effect or tap effect waiting until draw and spiral tide is directly the Blue Sun's Zenith. The other difference if you know the both decks is that solidarity has more in-game choices than sipral tide - imagine the combo decks (to simplify the things) they have all the same way of comboing do A than B and etc... Solidarity is the deck that by it's special ability - being all instant spells - you can response and manipulate the stack the situations and the happenings on table... That specific ability makes the deck many times (more than we like to admit) to hard to pilot and with a rate of fizzle a little bit higher than spiral tide.

Spiral tide is good deck and if i was starting to build some of this two decks i'll chose the spiral tide since it's very competitive deck and easer to play than solidarity...

Although a think that a good solidarity player will honestly be a god like skilled player in terms of combo and will almost never lose a round ever... (lol a bit over stated but imagine something like this without the god complex)...

[leegoo]

Which deck is best, solidarity or spiral tide (with candelabro and time spiral)?

When you resolve Time Spiral in Spiral Tide, you generally win. Period. It's akin to a traditional combo deck in that, you do what you do, and if your opponent can't stop you, you win the game.

Solidarity is a deck that can just as easily lose AFTER "comboing" as before. However, like Seraphus said, being all instant there is plenty of room to win in some very creative ways. It also is a deck that simply gives you the possibility to just Outplay your opponent. (ahem... and yourself...)

All in all I think Spiral tide is a stronger deck choice for most people. It's linear, and although I'm not saying it's an easy deck to pilot (or master) it, like any deck, pales in comparison to the level of master solidarity requires to even be playable. IMO if you want to play storm combo to just win games, ANT, TES, and Spiral Tide are the big choices of the moment. Solidarity WILL make you a much better player (or drive you insane) but the fact that the deck NEEDS to live to turn 4 generally (while not interacting with the opponent much at all) means it's going to be a long day if you sit down from goblins/zoo/affinity/infect every round

[Seraphus]

When you resolve Time Spiral in Spiral Tide, you generally win. Period. It's akin to a traditional combo deck in that, you do what you do, and if your opponent can't stop you, you win the game.

Solidarity is a deck that can just as easily lose AFTER "comboing" as before. However, like Seraphus said, being all instant there is plenty of room to win in some very creative ways. It also is a deck that simply gives you the possibility to just Outplay your opponent. (ahem... and yourself...)

All in all I think Spiral tide is a stronger deck choice for most people. It's linear, and although I'm not saying it's an easy deck to pilot (or master) it, like any deck, pales in comparison to the level of master solidarity requires to even be playable. IMO if you want to play storm combo to just win games, ANT, TES, and Spiral Tide are the big choices of the moment. Solidarity WILL make you a much better player (or drive you insane) but the fact that the deck NEEDS to live to turn 4 generally (while not interacting with the opponent much at all) means it's going to be a long day if you sit down from goblins/zoo/affinity/infect every round

That's why the repeals and remands ;) but right sometimes is like your opponent didn't win you just lost to your own deck...

[cjva]

Which deck is best, solidarity or spiral tide (with candelabro and time spiral)?

I actually think that Spring Tide (cloud of fearies/snap enginge) is the better High Tide deck right now, since its probably the fastest one.

Other then that, Solidarity is much a different deck then bouth Spiral Tide and Spring Tide, since Solidarity consist of only instants its a 100% responsive deck. Spring Tide and Spiral Tide should be compared to ANT, Doomsday and TES, cause the actual play style is much more similar.

[Zinch]

you play tide
CB player tops in response, looks at 3 cards, puts them back. Before Counterbalance triggers you reset. Now the CB player needs to activate top again to move a 2cc spell to the top. He does. Now you play Brainstorm. Again, he needs to move a 1cc to the top with top. He does. Now, at this point, to accomplish what you are talking about in this scenario, you cast brain freeze In response to the CB triggering for the brainstorm. Assuming he's out of mana to top again (or, you have multiple storm built up so that more than one copy will hit him if he can cb back to a 2cc spell) you will mill the 3 cards off the top of his library first, and he will be left with a blind card on top of his library. Then the Trigger (from CB) will go off on brainstorm, then reset, then high tide.

Sorry if I misworded any of that, but that's the general gist of it.

- on winning vs. cb. I really like to have 3 md brain freezes because of this matchup. Even spells that are countered with CB count towards storm count... which makes it fairly easy to mill them out with a couple of mini-brain freezes. They generally have no clock to speak of either.

Well, that won't work because after resolving all the freeze copies your opponent can tap the top and counter the brainstorm and the high tide. At that point I don't think you will have enough cards in hand to combo without a resolved high tide.
A different story would be if your opponent doesn't find a 1 CMC card on the first 3 and has to tap the top. Then it would be a lot easier because you only have to play the reset and BF and fight against a "blind" CB

[Seraphus]

Well, that won't work because after resolving all the freeze copies your opponent can tap the top and counter the brainstorm and the high tide. At that point I don't think you will have enough cards in hand to combo without a resolved high tide.
A different story would be if your opponent doesn't find a 1 CMC card on the first 3 and has to tap the top. Then it would be a lot easier because you only have to play the reset and BF and fight against a "blind" CB

So why do you think that the newest versions of solidarity and some players agree that the deck should take 3 main deck brain freeze? I'll answer, it's because you sometimes don't care if the cards of a very low cmc resolve (that's why i advice to sb the M. traps + dispel and all the cards of cmc = 1) you just want to have mana and play spells to raise storm and with multiple bf, that eventually you'll find through the FoI, mill your opponent.
This is tricky, hard to understand but believe in me: IT WORKS! ;)

[leegoo]

So why do you think that the newest versions of solidarity and some players agree that the deck should take 3 main deck brain freeze? I'll answer, it's because you sometimes don't care if the cards of a very low cmc resolve (that's why i advice to sb the M. traps + dispel and all the cards of cmc = 1) you just want to have mana and play spells to raise storm and with multiple bf, that eventually you'll find through the FoI, mill your opponent.
This is tricky, hard to understand but believe in me: IT WORKS! ;)

this

@Zinch
obviously, it's a lot better if your opponent puts top on top of their library... but you need a plan in case they don't. IMO the plan is to build up mana until you can fire off a couple of medium sized brain freezes. Also, remember you can respond to each trigger of CB. So your lands will be untapped (from reset) before high tide is countered... so there is definitely the possibility to get some other spells through as well.

[Zinch]

So why do you think that the newest versions of solidarity and some players agree that the deck should take 3 main deck brain freeze? I'll answer, it's because you sometimes don't care if the cards of a very low cmc resolve (that's why i advice to sb the M. traps + dispel and all the cards of cmc = 1) you just want to have mana and play spells to raise storm and with multiple bf, that eventually you'll find through the FoI, mill your opponent.
This is tricky, hard to understand but believe in me: IT WORKS! ;)

I know it works. If they don't put any clock on the table, it's a solid strategy.

I just was answering to the example leegoo was explaining that ended with "he will be left with a blind card on top of his library. Then the Trigger (from CB) will go off on brainstorm, then reset, then high tide." I undestood that as that the brainstorm, the reset and the high tide resolved, and that's not true. Only reset will resolve if your opponent flips the top.

[leegoo]

on the same note... your opponent could just have tons of mana available and counter every spell without flipping top. Or it could blindly be a 1cc on top.

Playing ANT, I lost to a Turn 2 Counterbalance that blindly flipped a 5cc spell (a force of will :/ ) so, anything can happen. The good news about the situation, is you likely get a good chance to wreck them once they flip top, as you'd (in theory) get the untap from reset, and the untap from your turn before they get to change the top card again. But I see what you are saying... I did word it a bit misleadingly.

[Seraphus]

Folks who can answer me: Why Cunning wish is so important and the use of them? (I know the answers just trying to establish a point here)

[leegoo]

Folks who can answer me: Why Cunning wish is so important and the use of them? (I know the answers just trying to establish a point here)

I'll bite.

Cunning Wish, in it's most basic, represents a "kill you now" solution when simply milling your opponent won't finish the game. (Lethal damage on the stack, Emrakul, etc) without requiring the maindeck to be filling with "semi-do-nothing" cards.

Next, it provides a "missing link" when you attempting to go off. Generally this just means wishing for BSZ after you've produced a ton of mana but ran out of card draw. (In this situation you really see how powerful BSZ is over Stroke. Being able to wish for it, draw 10+ cards and then still use it later as an "instant kill" is such a subtle difference... but so strong)

Of course, it can also read a variety of different ways. -4UU: return all artifacts to their owners hands - 2U: Remove a graveyard from the game - 2U: Remove (generally a bunch) x spells from the game. etc.

-edit- it's also a very good "bait" spell.

[Seraphus]

This is a short (semi-)answer because i am late to go to my university...

Imagine taking of the 3 cunning wish and place the 3rd brain freeze, the 4th meditate and the BSZ...

Imagine what would be your sb etc...

[leegoo]

Interesting.

Alright, a board without cunning wish targets.

First, I think a MD change would need to take place. Some form of tutoring I think is necessary in this sort of deck. The next choice is Intuition. Intuition obviously leads you down the path of wanting to make AK work. At this point, since one is not tutorable, you also want to move the third (and possibly a fourth) Turnabout to the main deck.

4 Reset
4 High Tide
4 Turnabout
3 Brain Freeze (which may indeed also need to be a 4x)
1 Flash of Insight
3 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
4 Force of Will
4 Meditate
1 Blue Sun Zenith


6 Fetch
14 Island

SB
4 Snap (Better than Repeal vs. Gaddock Teeg, Repeal raises how mana hungry the build is even more)
4 Flash Flood / Blue E Blast (goblins)
3 Hibernation (You need a way to slow down zoo / bant)
2 Echoing Truth (has to be instead of CoV to dodge Chalice. Better against dredge and empty the warrens)
2 Ravenous Trap ( Dredge, Show & Tell - other Emrakul Decks)


Making a change like this, the thing most people won't immediately pick up on is the land count. By cutting Wish (and changing to an intuition engine... which *could* be wrong... but again, I think you need SOME form of tutoring, and I can't think of anything "better".) and some of the cheap cantrips, the deck becomes much more mana hungry. You also have fewer ways to dig for one. (You could argue AK digs for one, but the first only see's one card, the second see's as many cards as opt, for one more mana)

Second. You are simply cold to the fast aggro decks now. With the exception of Force of Will and Turnabout, you've become a *race combo* deck as opposed to a *tempo combo* deck. At the Game 1 sacrifice of the Aggro matchup (goblins and dredge both look pretty terrible... not that they are wonderful to start with) you strengthen your control match, and possibly your fish match as well when they don't Lord Lord Lord you.

It doesn't do much for me, and the build probably reflects that I'm not a fan of the idea. But... if I had to, it'd look something like this.

[leegoo]

Back to regularly scheduled programming. Played in a (small) legacy tournament Yesterday (Sunday) I decided to battle with this over ANT as my local scene has a lot of Counterbalance... and that's a Pain in the @ss all day. I keep relatively bad notes so...deal.

(edit: sorry, didn't post the list up)
Currently rocking -

4 Impulse
4 Brainstorm
4 Reset
3 Turnabout
3 Cunning Wish
2 Flash of Insight
4 Force of Will
3 Brain Freeze
2 Repeal
4 High Tide
3 Meditate
3 Remand
3 Opt
1 Peer Through Depths

12 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand

SB:
1 Blue Sun Zenith
1 Meditate
1 Turnabout
1 Rebuild
1 Twincast
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Brain Freeze
1 Tolarian Winds (This is just absolutely a wasted slot.)
1 Echoing Truth
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away
1 Dispel
2 Snap

(in regards to the decklist, I think I want the 4th meditate > PtD... with a 3 wishes/PtD in the board. Also, I'm close to going back to the old days and running 4x Blue Elemental Blast.) The fetch lands are split the way they are because of the very little *edge* against people packing pithing needle. Most people Auto name Polluted Delta with it, especially if they see a delta game 1. It could easily be any mix of them however.

Match 1 - Goblins
I lose the dice, and draw up a risky hand. Double High Tide, reset, opt, Island, Force of Will, Brainstorm. It has protection and with a little luck a quick kill. I keep. He leads with a Lackey and I force (getting rid of opt) Drawing a fetch land off the top. He has piledriver on 2 but brainstorm gets me a remand for his warchief on 3 and I am able to repeal it on 4 when he enters combat. At this point it's fairly academic and I freeze him out at the end of his 5th or 6th turn.

Game2 I keep a solid hand but lose to turn 1 lackey into ringleader.

Game3 Is a bit more interesting and basically he has the "slow" goblins hand (aether vial on 1 as opposed to lackey) I repeal it on 2 and tempo him out with repeals and snaps. I think I've made an epic punt when I meditate at the end of his turn when he has only chieftan in play. He untaps and drops 2 piledrivers and I take 14, putting me at 2. If it had been warchief instead he would have got me by being able to drop the war marshall in his hand as well. As it happened I untap, pass, brain freeze him and Turnabout his guys when he enters combat. Whew...

1-0

Match 2 - Counter-Top (thopters)
Game1 takes forever. The player tells me he used to play solidarity and immediately put me on it (as opposed to spiral tide) when I opt. I imagine this bode's bad for me as understanding the important spells gives him an advantage over most countertop players. We fight over some small stuff and eventually a meditate, but I have to burn 2 of my brain freezes to remove his tops when he flips them. My mills however were pretty significant and I get his jaces and all but 1 of his thopter foundries. I finally decide to make one more shot at going off, and after checking time, he concedes to move on to game 2 (I think he should have waited, there was a very good chance I would fizzle as his top card was an ensnaring bridge - no top - and I had burned 2 of my 3 md freezes and couldn't find the third.)

Game2 - he has a fast hand to assemble the combo, but it's protection light. Time is called and he threatens to kill with 1/1 thopters with counterbalance (again no top) backup, but I resolve two cunning wishes (1 for Echoing truth, that gets countered by counterbalance, the second for rebuild, which resolves) thanks to high tide and turnabout. I sneak out the win.

2-0

Match 3 - ANT
Game1 he goes for an unprotected turn 1 Ad Nauseam. I have Force. When I play ANT, I tend to agree, if you have the turn1 kill but no form of protection, you just have to run it out there and make your opponent have it. He (probably prematurely... it's not like I had the fastest clock) scoops them up with only an Underground Sea in play and an empty hand.

Game2 he brings in Xantid Swarm. Between it and Duress effects he gets there with a tutor chain.

Game3 he leads with Xantid again. It resolves but I bounce it with repeal and then Force the Swarm, leaving me open to his Thoughtseize. He takes the meditate will I'm holding, leaving me with high tide and reset... then passes. I draw cunning wish and pass. He thinks for a bit and gets greedy and decides to go for it with Ill Gotten Gains, being able to make enough mana to get back the seize and get my force. I respond with tide < reset < wish < twincast. After the judge confirms what I'm about to do to him works, he scoops.

Match 4 - Combo Elves -
We draw into top 8.

Top8
Match 5 - The mighty Quinn
Game1 My opponent puts me on spiral tide. I play Islands, he assembles a fast scepter chant. I play more islands, he locks me down during my turn and I feign frustration. Eventually I sculpt an "I win" hand and murder him when he attempts to resolve eternal dragon.

Game2 he gets grindstone / painter online and I am milled into oblivion.

Game 3 I deal end up using echoing truth on his 3(!) turn 0 Leylines. The rest of his hand revolved around painter stone, but force of will ended that dream and a well timed mindbreak trap removed his stack of chant effects, letting me freely mill him out.

Match 6 - Fish (with Black)
Game1 Is pretty terrible. Like goblins, sometimes fish just has all the right dudes. The bad thing is, against fish they also have countermagic.

Game2 looks a lot like game 1, except with Vial. I resolve snap on his Mutavault which is neat... but his double standstill just puts him so far ahead I can never get back in it, even before he starts vialing lords into play. I give one last attempt at going off, but fizzle in epic fashion when I am forced to freeze myself to find FoI... and don't see it in 18 cards.

All in all I was pretty happy with the deck. I got some lucky kills I admit, but the deck ran like it should and let me pull out some sick wins from seemingly nowhere. I had a ton of people asking me what I was playing... so crazy that this deck used to BE legacy and now it's unknown.

I am questioning the Meditate in the board. More and more I want it main (as when I would normally wish for a card draw spell its almost always BSZ) with possibly a 3 wishes / peer through depths in it's place.

[Seraphus]

Interesting.

Alright, a board without cunning wish targets.

First, I think a MD change would need to take place. Some form of tutoring I think is necessary in this sort of deck. The next choice is Intuition. Intuition obviously leads you down the path of wanting to make AK work. At this point, since one is not tutorable, you also want to move the third (and possibly a fourth) Turnabout to the main deck.

4 Reset
4 High Tide
4 Turnabout
3 Brain Freeze (which may indeed also need to be a 4x)
1 Flash of Insight
3 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
4 Force of Will
4 Meditate
1 Blue Sun Zenith


6 Fetch
14 Island

SB
4 Snap (Better than Repeal vs. Gaddock Teeg, Repeal raises how mana hungry the build is even more)
4 Flash Flood / Blue E Blast (goblins)
3 Hibernation (You need a way to slow down zoo / bant)
2 Echoing Truth (has to be instead of CoV to dodge Chalice. Better against dredge and empty the warrens)
2 Ravenous Trap ( Dredge, Show & Tell - other Emrakul Decks)


Making a change like this, the thing most people won't immediately pick up on is the land count. By cutting Wish (and changing to an intuition engine... which *could* be wrong... but again, I think you need SOME form of tutoring, and I can't think of anything "better".) and some of the cheap cantrips, the deck becomes much more mana hungry. You also have fewer ways to dig for one. (You could argue AK digs for one, but the first only see's one card, the second see's as many cards as opt, for one more mana)

Second. You are simply cold to the fast aggro decks now. With the exception of Force of Will and Turnabout, you've become a *race combo* deck as opposed to a *tempo combo* deck. At the Game 1 sacrifice of the Aggro matchup (goblins and dredge both look pretty terrible... not that they are wonderful to start with) you strengthen your control match, and possibly your fish match as well when they don't Lord Lord Lord you.

It doesn't do much for me, and the build probably reflects that I'm not a fan of the idea. But... if I had to, it'd look something like this.

You simply discarded the remand and repeal that also draws a card each time you use them, look into my usual list, now take the cunning wish and put the zenith, meditate (losing one of them and returning to a 60 cards list). My sb is now: 1 condescend, 2 M. Traps, 2 R. Trap, 3 snap, 1 repeal, 1 Echoing Truth, 1 cov, (not to continue but not sure on what to replace it) 1 Rebuild, 1 twincast, 2 dispel. After boarding you can adapt the deck for example vs aggro: + 3 snap + 1 repeal + 1 chain of vapor and +1 echoing truth you'll take the -2 cryptic command, -4 FOW (if it's merfolks and zoo add: +2 dispel and take - 1 brain freeze -1 impulse(?) or -1 remand if it's vs merfolks )...


Congrats on the top8, i would like to some day play tournaments that aren't gpt, gp or something like it with top8 since our Portuguese tournaments never ever have top8s...