[Deck] Solidarity

[flrn]

I haven't posted in ages in this thread, ever since I moved away from High Tide combo to Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils. And here I am reading the last few pages, because I want to move back into High Tide combo and I see it is still Silent_Requiem and Seraphus throwing down the shit.

Recently a mate has build a sorcery speed variant of the deck, that utilizes Snapcaster Mage and Snap as an engine to generate mana, along with Intuitions as a tutor. The only sorceries in his deck were Preordain, Ponder and Merchant Scroll. So he sometimes wins on instant speed anyway, due to the fact that he doesn't need to cast one of those three cards. Basically it works like this. You have three Islands in play and your hand contains High Tide, Snapcaster Mage and Snap. The following spellchain occurs: High Tide, Snapcaster targeting High Tide, Snap targeting Snapcaster, High Tide, Snapcaster targeting Snap, Snap targeting Snapcaster. You are at storm six now, you have two Tides active, U floating, Snapcaster in hand and two untapped Islands. From this starting point, he basically goes off in two different directions. He either plays the Snapcaster Mage to replay previously played cantrips or he plays an Intuition. So what happens if he plays an Intuition. Basically the following occurs. He plays Intuition for three times Snap. He has four mana floating after the Intuition, two additional Snaps in his yard, and Snapcaster Mage + Snap in hand. So he plays the Snapcaster to target Intuition (because you need to find the kill later on with it) and plays Snap on Snapcaster. With the Snapcaster being in the hand, he can do this three more times and then cast Intuition to get him the kill. Before you cast the Intuition a second time and after you used up all your Snaps you are at storm 14 with 12 mana floating. And that off four cards. Now he goes ahead and casts the Intuition for three times Merchant Scroll, which will get him his Freeze or his 1-off Wish for the additional stormcount to cast Brain Freeze with 16 or 17 copies. What I'm suggesting is, that all this stuff can also be done at instant speed. You just have to replace a few cards in his list. You can completly ignore Gaddock with this approach, since you don't need to play any cards with a converted mana coast of four or more, except for the Force's. While this approach can be attacked with graveyard hate and creature removal, he still took down several tournaments with it, because he simply plays 4 Force of Will and 3 Pact of Negation main to protect his combo. It is another approach to the deck. You won't be digging through your whole deck in the combo turn, since you can simply go off by having the right cards in your hand. That's what you do anyway, but this approach gives you the certain kill. What do you think Seraphus/Silent_Reqiuem?

[Firefraise]

I'd like to expose some ideas :
Here's my new list. I did not test it yet, only made some goldfishes.
It is a cunning wish less list.

First:

4 high tide
3 meditate
2 opt
4 reset
4 brainstorm
3 snapcaster mage
2 remand
4 fow
3 repeal
2 snap
4 impulse
3 mystical teachings
1 turnabout
1 blue sun zenith
1 brain freeze
7 fetches
12 islands


Then, after a few reflections:

-3 repeal
+2 snap
+1 echoing truth

I know mystical techings have been dismissed in this very threat a few years back. But I didn't find intuition to match my style. Teaching, while very costy seems effective when comboing out, mainly since it can fetch snapcasters. With them, teaching's flashback cost becomes affordable.

Since I choose to play teaching, I decide to remove cunning wish and play singletons of turnabout, zenith and brain freeze. If I do draw these silver bullets before comboing out, I can always branstorm then shuffle them back with a fetchland.

During my goldfishes, turn 3 kills were frequent. But while repeal is very effective in gaining some time, I find it was not as useful that i like it to be in conjonction with snapcaster. Snap seems way better during combo and not that bad before. Quite often I find myself with multiples snapcasters on the board and a lot of spell I loved to flashback, so I thought about echoing truth MD. I've yet to goldfish with it though, and I'd like to see your advices and critics about my list.

[Firefraise]

DP

[GGoober]

I was working with Teachings (tutoring 1 Clique + Snapcasters) but it was just too mana intensive.

Tutoring with Teachings for Snapcaster is 4UU initial mana, before you even get to cast and flashback any card. The initial mana bump is incredibly hard to reach. I dropped the idea after playing gold-fished games against post-boarded Pierces/Dazes from opponents. Not working.

@flrn: I'm probably not the person who should be giving ideas and posting list in this thread since I'm still fairly new to the deck, but it's always a deck that I read the thread from front to end and a deck that I've always kept in mind whenever I think about Legacy.

You mentioned a list with more cantrips and sorcery Merchant Scroll but keeping bulk of the deck instant-based. Requiem has posted such a list a few pages back and I've posted a list myself (using Candelabras instead of Resets). The main appeal to such a sorcery-splashed list is that during the combo phase, you are still controlling the stack because outside of tutors and cantrips, the entire deck is instant-based i.e. you will win the stack war that is most critical i.e. the counterwar. The biggest appeal with Snap/Snapcaster engine is the ability to win without ever chaining draws. Once you have the Tide/Intuition/Snapcaster in hand, you can win right off there without risk of fizzling from chaining draws.

I was talking to a friend and was brainstorming an idea with the Snap/Snapcaster engine, winning primarily with Brainfreeze, and beating many random decks with Hunting Pack (it's in fact easier to beat Emrakul/Progenitus. dec faster with simply dumping a load of Beasts than to mill them out and generating huge mana and hoping to chain-draw into a Wish into a BSZ after milling them out with Emrakul trigger on the stack).

I'll try to post a list tonight because I'm bringing that list to some testing tomorrow. Hunting Pack could also potentially solve the reanimator matchup (still terrible). Because instead of trying to find an answer to Reanimator (which is incredibly hard since they have permission/discard and Iona), it is better to just delay them to turn 3, and in response to their reanimation, generate a bunch of storm, dump lethal beasts in play and using their storm count to get yet more 4/4 beasts.

[Kanti]

If you are running Snapcasters I doubt Reanimator will be too much of a problem. You can t2 Extraction>Snap>Extract again. This also lets Extraction become good Dredge hate. Problem with Snapcaster combo is that it gets hit by gy hate, hard. So does normal Solidarity though (Try gettng a Meditate extracted). It is an interesting road though. Immune to Teeg, a lot of bounce to deal with Canonists and the like, Snap+Extraction, and you get to keep some instant speed.

Hunting Pack isn't only meant for speed though, it's really not even all that fast. The only decks you really wanna go balls to the walls with Pack on t3 with are any aggro-decks. It's just a super consistent Plan B that gets around a lot of horrible situations you are sure to find yourself in.

[Firefraise]

I've got a question. What happens when we flashback BSZ? I've just stopped my goldfish because of that.I had resolved 5 high tides, have 4 islands on the board and a reset on the stack. I was wondering if it's possible to brainfreeze myself, putting all my deck in the graveyard, then flashback BSZ then cast impulse to get bsz and then recast it for the kill.

[flrn]

If you flashback Blue Sun's Zenith by targeting it with Snapcaster Mage two effects are applied, after you cast it.

a) Exile it.
b) Shuffle it back into your deck.

You are the controller of both effects and therefor you can decide in which way you stack them. But it doesn't matter in which way you stack them, the result will always be, that the card gets exiled. So no, your can't cast it from your graveyard, shuffle it back in, get it and recast it.

[Firefraise]

thanks.

I've found the official answer as well :

701.15d If an effect would cause a player to shuffle one or more specific objects into a library, and a replacement or prevention effect causes all such objects to be moved to another zone instead, that library isn't shuffled.

[Spigore]

I haven't posted in ages in this thread, ever since I moved away from High Tide combo to Doomsday Fetchland Tendrils. And here I am reading the last few pages, because I want to move back into High Tide combo and I see it is still Silent_Requiem and Seraphus throwing down the shit.

Recently a mate has build a sorcery speed variant of the deck, that utilizes Snapcaster Mage and Snap as an engine to generate mana, along with Intuitions as a tutor. The only sorceries in his deck were Preordain, Ponder and Merchant Scroll. So he sometimes wins on instant speed anyway, due to the fact that he doesn't need to cast one of those three cards. Basically it works like this. You have three Islands in play and your hand contains High Tide, Snapcaster Mage and Snap. The following spellchain occurs: High Tide, Snapcaster targeting High Tide, Snap targeting Snapcaster, High Tide, Snapcaster targeting Snap, Snap targeting Snapcaster. You are at storm six now, you have two Tides active, U floating, Snapcaster in hand and two untapped Islands. From this starting point, he basically goes off in two different directions. He either plays the Snapcaster Mage to replay previously played cantrips or he plays an Intuition. So what happens if he plays an Intuition. Basically the following occurs. He plays Intuition for three times Snap. He has four mana floating after the Intuition, two additional Snaps in his yard, and Snapcaster Mage + Snap in hand. So he plays the Snapcaster to target Intuition (because you need to find the kill later on with it) and plays Snap on Snapcaster. With the Snapcaster being in the hand, he can do this three more times and then cast Intuition to get him the kill. Before you cast the Intuition a second time and after you used up all your Snaps you are at storm 14 with 12 mana floating. And that off four cards. Now he goes ahead and casts the Intuition for three times Merchant Scroll, which will get him his Freeze or his 1-off Wish for the additional stormcount to cast Brain Freeze with 16 or 17 copies. What I'm suggesting is, that all this stuff can also be done at instant speed. You just have to replace a few cards in his list. You can completly ignore Gaddock with this approach, since you don't need to play any cards with a converted mana coast of four or more, except for the Force's. While this approach can be attacked with graveyard hate and creature removal, he still took down several tournaments with it, because he simply plays 4 Force of Will and 3 Pact of Negation main to protect his combo. It is another approach to the deck. You won't be digging through your whole deck in the combo turn, since you can simply go off by having the right cards in your hand. That's what you do anyway, but this approach gives you the certain kill. What do you think Seraphus/Silent_Reqiuem?

I've tested this for a short time. Personally I prefer a decklist with more cantrips and draw. Why? If the combo fizzles, you're stuck with cards which are combo related. With cantrips and draw you recover faster.

Ofcourse it's a matter of playstyle. I find the SCM/Snap/Intuition approach very card relient and mana intensive. You're putting slots for the combo whilst they could be cantrips and draw which are very much needed early game to secure land drops and secure counter/pitch in hand.

Again, its all playstyle.
I really enjoyed playing my list in Amsterdam, which basically comes down to the classic lists with Snapcaster. The fizzlerate was very low although the opponents sideboarded me like crazy.

[GoldenCid]

A bit late but i just read the silent requiem report. Please dont get dissapointed. I spended tons of money on getting cards, travelling and paying tournament increiptions and lots of time i wandered, why? Well, it's the "play cost" let's say...you win you loose, it happens. I'm trying a mono U verison with clique and snap MD and it's good, maybe the best run. If you wish i can post it and make comments to spread the discussion.

[Kanti]

I think half the reason I play this deck is because I get to play with Remand.

Remand my Flusterstorm to recast it after getting like 7 Force Spikes out of it. Mmm...

[Nuorukain]

About amsterdam; Nice trip, nice games untill the bad luck at pairing lottery & the classical 1% stiffle while digging for gas....
(6-3 with the byes that were earned in a last chance grinder.) that's about that. GG's NEXT.

Warning little bragpost ahead;
http://poromagia.com/index.php?page=...e&articleid=77

Thus I again managed to grind against a little field filled with annoying little RUG&canadian tres'hold-decks and such.
(luckily did not play against the counterbalance, so good that it's not popular nowadays!)

The maindecklist was almost perfect for the meta, except almost all the time I wanted to have a peek instead of the opt I was holding.
(as the information the peek gives just makes the life soooo much easier!
(as against rug's &such I find myself commonly in a situation where I just have to guess what they have and play around it.
But I'd RATHER know what around the moves need to be done. That information is often critical imho.
Unless you're psychic/extremely good at reading opponent (If you are, I recommend you to play poker! ;)) you seriously want it.
Ok, that's enough ranting about peeks! ;)
The next thing I noticed is; Snapcaster is nuts. Even against decks filled with all kind of nasty stuff against it, it still is NUTS.
One just has to be carefull not to overextend the deck to be a "snapcaster combo", that road leads to decreased skill and flexibility.
But as a 1u-instant regrowth midcombo with added benefits of blocking random Kavu's and the synergy with bounce,
AGAINST the fact that sometimes you just want to go for the snap/echoing truth the mage and if they got the bolt you lose.
I'm quite heavily leaning on the side; SNAPCASTER just FRICKING belongs to the deck. As a 1-2-3 or 4-'of, that I do not know.
But my instinct tells me that the correct number is somewhere between 2 and 3.
(but always remember the _option_ to just get rid of them in the sideboarded games, as then your opponents surgical extractions,
and stiffles&whatnot just got a bit more dead cards again!) (actually did not do that more than once last tourney, and even then,
only got out 1 or 2 out as they just seemed almost worth the risk anyway.)
Also, playing them finally helped to get rid of the 3'rd maindecked turnabout,
which I always hated, but that one just needed to play in order to keep the ability for early combos/own turn combos alive.
(actually one of the highlights of the tournament was a match where my opponent Altmets playing rug/tre-sh taps out
at the end of my 4th turn for some serious brainstorming action ;
the "tide-tide-fetch for tropical-turnabout-Wish for Hunting Pack-cast Hunting pack."-sequence
gets a really hearthly "Mitä vittua!?"-out of him; english version would be "What the f*ck?" and that long unbelieving stare
to accompany the "scoop in disgust"-mode...)

The finals would have been against a nice Russian gentleman, who somewhat knows me and somewhat knows how nice matchup his Aggro Loam will be for me, and he aggrees to my generous 70-80-split(instead of 60-90 that would have resulted from the playing) on the prize if he concedes immediately. ;)

Yours truly and purposely arrogant,
Mikko Hyvärinen aka Nuorukain

edit:
p.s. I seem not to be able to get the spacing as I write it in to the final form, need to study this at somepoint. Srry for making your eyes bleed! ;)

[Kanti]

Try to space out your text a little, it looks like the Berlin wall right now.

Gratz on the finish. Snapcaster is definately interesting, especially when you make it function as the 3rd Turnabout. The problem I ran into when I used it was that the body was almost never relevant enough for me to want to pay 2 mana to get Flashback versus having the real spell.

Disrupts are also techy. I had been testing with a split between them and Opt and even though they were extremely good (I countered Brainstorms, Hymns, and Force of Wills) I usually found myself longing for the consistency of Opt.

My fear with something like Peek is that it would suck at in the early game, and then not find me my answer in the late game. I always find myself Peeking then going "Oh wow, I am not going through that without an answer" and then I fail to find my answer. That and the fact that the deck actually fizzled during it's combo at times. Opt has saved me many times when all I had like was double Opt for draw, or Opt+Impulse. It also has a little bit of synergy with Brainstorm, which is pretty important.

Edit: So I combod out on my own turn the other day when my opp tapped out for Clique and went for a Pack for like 6. He untaps and Deeds me :(. I almost won 5 turns later but was 1 storm short of a lethal Freeze ;_;...

[Nuorukain]

Yes, Opt is definitely better in vacuum, and naturally the point of trying to combo off in an extremely tight spot (getting hit by heavy discard) the Opt is better, but even then situations like this come into my mind; opponent holds 2 cards in hand, you're comboing in a tight spot, and your opponent is likely to have a REB or Stifle or Surgical Extraction or a Spell Pierce. In my humble opinion, the info from the peek is more relevant most of the time, than the ability to dig one further. BUT then again, sometimes that 1 card deeper is critical. Difficult question indeed... :)

[SupREME-10]

Hey guys I am new to the forums so please understand if things look weird etc. Anyway, I have gotten back into MTG about a year ago and I am a Blue nut, so I slowly worked on building myself a High Tide deck (also have Merfolk; but I will save that for another thread). Now, I am comfortable with Aggro and Control; but find Combo stretches me as a player; I read most of this thread and have had a few games, but in general I fizzle just short of a win.

So here is my request. Please let me know if my deck has what it takes.

Deck List
* 4 x Brainstorm
* 1 x Cryptic Command
* 3 x Cunning Wish
* 2 x Flash of Insight
* 4 x Force of Will
* 3 x High Tide
* 4 x Impulse
* 3 x Meditate
* 3 x Opt
* 1 x Peek
* 3 x Remand
* 4 x Reset
* 2 x Spell Pierce
* 3 x Brain Freeze
* 3 x Turnabout

18Land
* 12 x Island
* 1 x Flooded Strand
* 2 x Misty Rainforest
* 3 x Scalding Tarn

Sideboard
* 1 x Ravenous Trap
* 2 x Surgical Extraction
* 1 x Blue Sun's Zenith
* 1 x Brain Freeze
* 1 x Echoing Truth
* 1 x Flusterstorm
* 1 x Hibernation
* 1 x High Tide
* 1 x Meditate
* 1 x Mindbreak Trap
* 1 x Rebuild
* 1 x Cryptic Command
* 1 x Turnabout
* 1 x Wipe Away

Ok, now once that is aside I have a stack question as something I read early on hit me weird.

If I play Brainfreeze with 7 on the stack, how does it work to remand that and get to do another Brainfreeze for the most mill ? And please bear with me, as my understanding is that the first Brainfreeze is countered and returned to hand (so I can't use it's mill) thus all I get is the stack add on from Remand, + the card I draw, + the final Brainfreeze. If I am messing this up, then I think I could win a lot more games.

Thanks in advance and Cheers.

[ScatmanX]

If I play Brainfreeze with 7 on the stack, how does it work to remand that and get to do another Brainfreeze for the most mill ? And please bear with me, as my understanding is that the first Brainfreeze is countered and returned to hand (so I can't use it's mill) thus all I get is the stack add on from Remand, + the card I draw, + the final Brainfreeze. If I am messing this up, then I think I could win a lot more games.

Thanks in advance and Cheers.

If you play 6 spells + BF (Brain Freeze), then you'll mill 7x3 = 21 cards.
If you play 6 spells + BF + Remand, then you'll mill 6x3 = 18 cards. (BF countered)
If you play 6 spells + BF + Remand + BF then you'll mill (6x3) + (9x3) = 18+27 = 45 cards.
This is usually enough to kill someone.

[Psychovoid]

@SupREME-10

The deck list is alright. If you want to play with a Tide in the board (along a Turnabout and a Meditate), you might consider running 4 Cunning Wishes. I would also go down to 60 cards by cutting a Brain Freeze or a Spell Pierce.

About the Remand Brain Freeze trick:

1. When you cast Brain Freeze, the Storm Trigger goes on the stack before the Brain Freeze itself resolves.

2. If you counter the Brain Freeze with Remand, the Storm Trigger remains on the stack.

3. If the Storm Trigger resolves, it will put 7 copies of Brain Freeze in the stack. The Storm Trigger does not care about whether the original spell was countered or not (the only way to counter the Storm Trigger is with Stifle or similar spells).

4. If you cast the Brain Freeze again, its Storm Trigger will put 9 copies in the stack (+1 from the original Brain Freeze and +1 from Remand).

[ThoSha]

The storm copies of Brainfreeze are not countered by Remand.

[SupREME-10]

Thanks a lot guys, as that was exactly the type of info I needed.

I appreciate the comment about adding a 4th Cunning Wish; but I don't own that yet, so once I trade into it I will make that adjustment. I play 61 cards for personal reasons and will continue to do so -- thanks for the comment and I fully understand that it reduces my margin of Win-Con by x%.

I will let you know how it goes for me; I do most of my playtests vs Merfolk, Sligh, Dredge, Goblins, Pox and The Rawk and so far Pox & The Rawk are just friggin nuts for their Land & Hand disruption, so any advice vs those two particular decks would be appreciated as well. Otherwise I guess 1 million more practice games to go.

Cheers

[Silent Requiem]

Against Pox, Meditate, FoI and Surgical Extraction are your friends.

Meditate and FoI are card advantage, which you will sorely need. Surgical Extraction hits their recursion engines, shutting down their own card advantage. Their clock is weak, so you have a shot at stabilizing and going off in the late game.

It's not an easy matchup, but I've managed a draw against Pox at nationals (losing game 1 and then winning game two using the above strategy).