Read back a few pages if you're actually interested in the reasoning. I maintain that Visions of Beyond is the perfect card for this deck.Originally Posted by herbig
I'm not really trying to prove anything to you, kid. A big tournament win, that doesn't even necessarily say much. My saying "prove it" means prove it to yourself. Personally, I don't care in the least bit whether or not you take my advice or keep playing Remand.
The thing that I have never feared with this deck is counterspells. I'm not sure why you think replacing Snap or Snapcaster Mage with Remand is going to make you stronger against Spell Snare. All of those spells cost 2, so all are equally vulnerable to Spell Snare. The difference is, Snap and Snapcaster Mage can be used aggressively to further your combo, Remand cannot. In a combo deck, I'd much, much rather be the aggressor, since you're never going to have enough actual counterspells to control the game. Besides which, this is the first time you've said anything about Spell Snare.
If they're casting Green Sun's Zenith, I win. Plain and simple. The only guys they can get off of that are Gaddock Teeg, which I just do not care about, and Scavenging Ooze, which is annoying but, again, not a deal breaker since I don't have to lean on Snapcaster Mages to get the job done, and since he can pretty easily be bounced before going off with my 4 maindeck Snap. But in general, if it's a creature, it's much, much easier to deal with with Snap than with Remand.
Reanimator's plan against us is, very simply, T1 Entomb for Iona, T2 Reanimate Iona, scoop. Bounce does nothing. Flusterstorm gives us a fighting chance since it's difficult to counter, and Surgical Extraction completely undoes all of their setup. Any other creature that they reanimate buys us several turns and/or can be Snapped. What does remand do in this situation? If we're lucky (it doesn't get Dazed, they're using one of the 2 mana spells rather than Reanimate), it delays them a turn. Flusterstorm, on the other hand, stops them. Surgical Extraction destroys them. I will never, never never, board out more than one or two Opt effects, or any number of Impulse. The deck has issues hitting land drops as it is, so cutting any of those cards is suicidal. I will not bring in bounce against them since it does nothing against a resolved Iona. So, specifically, what six cards would you like me to cut to bring in 3 Flusterstorm and 3 Surgical Extraction? What synergy does Remand have with Surgical Extraction?
I have tested with Remands for a very, very long time. I have found that trying to be a control deck is not something that this deck is capable of doing. Besides which, Remand is not a control card, since it doesn't actually stop them, just delay them. My testing has shown that trying to control the game against any deck except for Belcher is a bad move. That said, instead of spending two mana to maybe delay them a turn, I'd choose to spend one mana to actually stop them, potentially for many turns. I'd also like to still function as a combo deck, which means trading protection spells for protection spells, not business spells. In any combo deck, the cards have to buy you lots and lots of time to be worth not being combo pieces. Remand just doesn't do that. Surgical Extraction, on the other hand, does.
With 17 lands, 4 Brainstorm, 3 Visions, and 2 Peek, you don't have any issues hitting land drops? Why doesn't Spiral Tide cut lands in the same vein, with such drastically superior cantrips?
Some do. But honestly, I've got one more 1-mana cantrip than what most Solidarity lists play. It's always been much easier to hit land number 2 than land number 3 and 4, so Impulse can also be added to that list of cards to help dig with. In practice, the difference between 17 lands and 18 lands is pretty minimal, especially considering that I'll almost never keep a 1-land hand. Maybe one game in a hundred will it cause me to mulligan more than usual. But the 1-mana cantrips have always been weaker than those in the sorcery speed version, so they're there to provide card velocity, rather than powerful digging. That's kind of what Impulse is for. The difference between the second Peek and the 18th land has proved to be pretty minimal, with the exception being that Peek does a lot more and doesn't suck off of a Meditate.
As I said though, 17 lands is the one thing I'm not super excited about. But it also helps that this version can win off of fewer lands much, much easier than versions with Remand.
First time I mentioned Spell Snare? Are you joking? And for the last time I side in x4 Flusterstorms versus Reanimator and have Wish>Extraction. Read my posts.
For the last time Remand is an "actual" control card. You are going to be relying Forces like hell versus Reanimator. Remand is virtually another Force of Will when you use them together. You don't use Remand to just delay them for a turn, you save it until you can double-force. Unless you are going to die right there.
If you have a fucked up sideboard and run 3 Extractions then sure, you are probably well off enough versus Reanimator. Most of us have normal wishboards though. (How don't you see the synergy by the way? Extraction is a free spell meaning if you Remand it you can re-cast it for 2 life without any problems)
Check it out, kid.
-2 Snap
-2 Peek
-1 Impulse
-1 Brainfreeze
+3 Extraction, +3 Fluster
Oh my god. Or a plan for my deck!
-1-2 Snap (If they play SnT and a full set of Jins keep the Snaps in)
-1-2 Opt (Read: Snap)
-1 Brainfreeze
+4 Flusterstorm.
Maybe you would side out some shitty cantrips to bring in the proper amount of hate versus combo decks (decks that if stopped won't spit out a win for another 3-4 turns) if you ran some lands.
Kid.
I spent an evening goldfishing benthetenor's list, and I found it quite interesting.
First, I was able to go off on three land about once in every three or four games. I could probably get that number up a bit with more practice (better mulligans, etc). Now, I wouldn't want to have to fight through disruption on three lands, but that's not the point - we're talking about having to beat a super fast aggro hand on the draw. There's nothing stopping us waiting until that fourth land in other instances, after all.
I also agree that, once it gets going, this deck makes absolutely stupid amounts of mana. Because of this I was far more likely to simply BSZ for the win because I didn't then need to worry about tapping out my opponent's creatures.
However, I was unimpressed by VoB - I could simply win before I was drawing three cards. Of course, this might be different in a real game rather than a goldfish.
The deck is obviously abusing the graveyard, but is not really graveyard dependent. While being shut out of our graveyard would slow us down, it wouldn't stop us, and siding in that graveyard disruption presumably slows our opponent down too.
Finally, I had no issues hitting lands 1-3, but land 4 was something that could be tough to find. That said, I never failed to go off successfully on turn four, even if I only had three lands.
As I say, the deck is interesting. I'll probably test it some more.
Listen bud. I'm not sure what you're so mad about. My sideboard is solid, and my main deck is better than yours. Just deal with it and move on.
Seriously though, chill out. Extraction is in my sideboard for Dredge. I've never needed more than 3 Flusterstorm against even the most resilient combo, and that's without Remand. Those two cards together happen to be the nuts against Reanimator, which is awesome because that deck is a nightmare, but honestly if I weren't already planning on playing those cards in my sideboard, I'd just write off the Reanimator matchup since it's not oppressively played around here and even post SB, it can't be better than 50/50. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Relying on Remand in a match-up with a turn 2 combo deck that plays with Daze does not seem like a good plan. Going first, you'd better hope they don't have the Daze. If you happen to be going second, you just lost with a Remand sitting in your hand. But whatever. If it makes you happy, by all means. If you're not even going to test my list before telling me that I'm going to have mana issues or be "overloaded" on Snapcaster Mages, I'm not sure that you're open to rational discussion, which is fine I guess. You've pretty consistently failed to address half of the points I've made in each of my posts, and I'm getting tired of asking you the same questions over and over again.
This deck with 4 Snap and 4 Snapcaster Mage plays fundamentally differently than Solidarity builds that run neither. It's faster, it's more consistent, it doesn't need as many lands, it can generate incredible amounts of mana and storm, it's just more powerful than previous versions. All of that is directly attributable to cutting 4 protection spells (Remand) for 4 pseudo-combo pieces (Snap). It loses a small amount of interaction with spells by playing Snap over Remand, but as I've said, that is 100% a metagame call. The only decks I've lost to in the last six months (while playing with Remand) have been aggro decks. Remand sucks against Aggro decks. So I switched to Snap. Snap has more interaction against creatures than Remand does. What, exactly, is complicated about that?
The thing that is ridiculous about all of this is that I think that Remand is a great card and was one of my favorite parts about playing this deck. Man, it's like I killed your dog...
God bless!
Thanks! I'm glad you like it, since you're opinion is one that matters to me. I can't take all of the credit for the list; though this one is entirely mine, I've been working with my friend (Jeff Blyden) on the ideas behind this deck since he first brought it to SCG: St. Louis. They did a deck-check with him as part of the coverage.
Visions is a tricky card to get the full benefit out of. Pre-combo, it just cycles, which is just about all that Opt ever does, anyway. Where it's shone for me most is if I have a hand that's like High Tide, Reset, Reset, Brain Freeze, Visions. That hand would be terrible if you had Opt, but with Visions of Beyond, you can usually storm up a bit then Visions, respond with Brain Freeze and get them for enough to turn on Visions, and from there you will sometimes have enough gas to win. Not an optimal situation by any means, but it helps you way more there than Opt ever would. It's just another card that makes Brain Freeze an actual card in the deck, rather than just a kill condition, and the added synergy has been great. It certainly helps you pull way ahead if you're running ragged, which is not something Opt is ever able to do. I also like firing off a mini-freeze against control decks just to turn on my future Visions of Beyond, and let me tell you, having access to Ancestral Recall against control decks is really really bad for them.
For what it's worth, I've played more than my fair share of Reanimator (as my tournament reports will prove), and Remand is dead against them. They are trying to "win" (ie, Iona) on turn two, by casting a series of one mana spells. Half the time that I have the Remand (and was on the play), they can simply recast that same turn anyway. The other half of the time, I was on the draw and Remand was a dead card as I only had one land out.
My Reanimator plan was to board out Remand in favour of Faerie Macabre/Surgical Extraction. But even then, while my matchup improved, it was never great. Reanimator is simply a rough matchup for us. If Reanimator players were not magically attracted to me in tournaments, I'd simply write the matchup off and focus on games we can consistently win.
Edit: I do realize that some people are talking about Remanding FoW, but the odds of having both in your opening hand are about 16%. And it still eviscerates your hand (pitching two blue cards) and dies to Daze. You cannot beat Reanimator by focusing on their reanimation or "tutoring" spells. In addition to the fact that they have more of each resource than you do counter spells, they also have more counter magic than you. Their scarce resource is actually their relevant creatures (typically one Iona and three Jingataxis) - focus on those, and you can hopefully shut them down.
Nice deck coverage you showed up there Beethetenor.
I agree that Reanimator is tough; but they don't always get good cards in their GY now do they, Surgical can help here. Contorl vs their reanimate is decent still but the match only ever gets to about even if your lucky on the draw, etc. They are that fast and that consistent at times.
Cheers
I haven't posted here in ages but happy to see that there are still some people rocking with this deck. Personally I prefer the 20 land build that Silent Requiem introduced. After a lot of testing over the last weeks I ended up with the following list:
12 Island
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Tropical Island
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
4 Cunning Wish
1 Flash of Insight
4 Force of Will
3 High Tide
4 Impulse
3 Meditate
3 Peer Through Depths
3 Remand
2 Repeal
4 Reset
2 Turnabout
Sideboard
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Echoing Truth
3 Flusterstorm
1 High Tide
1 Hunting Pack
1 Krosan grip
1 Meditate
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Rebuild
3 Tangle
So far the green splash has been good to me in the 20 land build's, if I were to go back to a traditional 18 land build i'd have to cut it as wasteland would undoutably be more disruptive. I personally believe that Solidarity is in quite a good position in the European metagame at the moment but if the number of reanimator players would pick up I'd definitely opt on playing something else. For those whom haven't tried the 20 land builds, I urge you to try it out.
Played yesterday, and despite having an awful finish, I blame it on my playing. First, the list and some considerations:
11 Islands
7 Fetches
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
4 Visions of Beyond
1 Peek
3 Cunning Wish
2 Brain Freeze
4 Reset
2 Turnabout
3 Snap
4 Force of Will
3 Meditate
SB:
4 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Meditate
1 Brain Freeze
1 Blue Sun’s Zenith
1 Turnabout
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Rebuild
1 Wipe Away
1 Pact of Negation
- Snapcaster was awesome. It allowed line of plays that did not involve fizzling, and allowed going off with fewer lands.
- Visions of Beyond was bonkers. If I had played more with it before the tournament, I’d probably play it more optimally, since screwed up twice, not getting the best value of it.
- 18 Lands felt like too few, and screw lost me 2 games.
- SB was what it was. Missed Echoing Truth, Mindbreak Trap and Snap.
Round 1 – U Stasis
Game 1 – Yay, best MU! I brick on 3 lands, so attempt, while at 7 cards, Snapcaster. He counters it. 2 turns later I try it again, he counters it. I find a 4th land and try a Wish. He counters it. He lays a Jace, and get it up to 11. I’m still on 5 lands, cast 3 Spells + FoW, he counters them all. (This game I misplay with Visions. I brainfreeze myself with 1 copy only, and should have been 2-3. He countered the copy and I had only 19 cards on my grave. Next time I’ll do better)
Game 2 – I chose to draw first, and mull into a 4 land hand. I get up to 8 lands I guess, when he tried Jace. In response I played Tide, counter, Tide, ok, Impulse, ok, Meditate, counter, Reset, counter, Snapcaster, ok, Reset with 2 floating, with BF and Wish only in hand. He plays Force Spike. I let it resolve, and play B.Freeze for 30something, milling 3 Stasis. He Brainstorms but luckly don’t find the 4th one. My turn I play Tide, Wish and BF.
Game 2 – I mull to a 3 land hand with cantrips. He plays a 1/2 guy to combo with Stasis, and on his 5th or 6th turn play Stasis. I had 4 lands into play, and another on hand. Fine. I draw for 12 turns, finding 0 lands, having to discard 10+cards. He plays a Kira and beats me down to 1. (yeah…), with 10lands on the battlefield. I try Tide. He counters, FoW, counter, Reset, Counter, Reset, Counter. Had I had more lands, the rout I took game 2 (and should have taken game 1), would kill him, since I still had BF, C.Wish and Snapcaster on hand.
0-1
Round 2 – Agroo Loam.
Game 1 – He knows what I play, so T1 plays Goyf, T2 gets in for 4 (intencionally sacrificing a Mox). He gets me to , and can maybe kill me next turn. I drew 0 business, with only 1 Impulse. His eot I Snap his Goyf, and next Upkeep Turnabout his lands. He plays goyf anyway (but not Assault, that would have killed me). I draw Snapcaster. He draws and plays Assault. In response I Tide, Reset, Snapcaster and Impulse. Find a Meditate, that gets me into more gas, Snap + Snapcaster gets me ton of mana and I Stroke him out.
Game 2 – He leads with Ravens Crime, and plays it once a turn. I brick on 2 lands with 2 Tide, 2 Snapcaster, Snap, reset and Meditate. 3rd land would be bonkers (Impulse failed to find it). I discard for Crie for a few turns, and he Devastating Dreams for 2. Then I draw a land. Then another one. Unfortunately, he had a BIG Terravore by now, and a Volrath’s Stronghold, so I went to game 3, with a proper SB plan.
Game 3 – He leads with Crime again, and uses again next turn. His 3rd draw step I Surgical it. 1 Inquisition and 1 Extirpate on BS, I struggling. He gets Assault and Loam. We get to a point where I have 5 lands, and he has 5 cards in hand (1 is a goyf), and I have 8 Life. He passes. I play Tide. Ok. Play Reset. He discards 4 lands. In response to the last, I cast a 2nd Reset, untap (with 2 cards), and BF him. My last card is Visions, that finds Land, Snapcaster and Meditate. With that I’m able to find more resources to BF him again and Stroke him out.
1-1
Round 3 – Reanimator.
Game 1 – I keep FoW and Snap. FoW and Entomb, and he Seizes a Snap. I draw lands. When he Entomb again, I have Snapcaster and Lands. I recast Impulse, find a FoW, but had not U cards to pitch. Iona kills me.
Game 2 – was awesome. I Surgical Iona, and see his deck and hand, but then, his eot, I misplay again. I cast Tide, Snapcaster on Snap, and BF myself, to get 2 Visions going. The problem is, I should had milled him. The deal is, he would not go off that turn, and I would draw 6 new cards, and would be able to go off next turn. Instead, I mill myself and get all my winconditions (BF, 2 Wishes, 2 Snapcasters and Snaps) into my grave. He had Stifled the Snapcaster trigger, and I just don’t have how to win anymore. Eventually he reanimates Jin, and kills me.
1-2
I drop because my ride wanted to go =(
Looking back, I think the Reanimator MU was quite winnable with 4 Pierces and 3 Surgicals, but I misplayed badly and lost.
The deck, however, felt great, and I always felt I could win if not manascrewed.
When I buy my own Snapcasters and 3 more U fetches (only have 4), I’ll be playing this deck way more, and hopefully these rooky mistakes won’t happen again.
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
That's awesome, Scatman, and I could definitely see cutting a Snap for a land. That's been an option in my mind for a little while, but I haven't had gratuitous mana issues, so I haven't changed it yet. But even with that change, I've never really liked the 4th Snap in the sideboard; Echoing Truth does what you need the Snap to do 99 times out of 100.
Is there a reason why you chose Spell Pierce over Flusterstorm? Also, since you're playing a version with Snapcaster Mages, I suggest using Stroke of Genius, rather than Blue Sun's Zenith. It's easier to find if you have to stroke yourself then stroke them out if it's just sitting in your graveyard, vs. in your library.
Have not thought about that with Stroke. Interesting.
Spell Pierce was used because: A) I don't have Flusterstorm, B)There is usually burn here, and they play Priostatic Pillar. I'd like to be able to counter that. Maybe I'll go 3/1 or 2/2 when I have some.
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
@ravingxfantasy
I like your list. Post-board Tangles are the nuts against aggressive decks that would beat you to the combo turn. Whats the european metagame like right now?
@ScatmanX
Pretty sure you left 4 High Tide out of your build, but otherwise, I like it.
As you know Solidarity isn't a particularly forgiving deck so it makes sense that you lost to a few misplays. Stasis just seems like bad luck. Drawing for 10 turns straight without seeing lands kinda sucks.
Visions does seem pretty dam sweet with Brainfreeze, especially since you can Snapcaster them for a 1UU --> Draw 3. Thats a wealth of business spells.
Do you miss Remand or Peer Through Depths?
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
No. The deck felt faster with this build, and Visions drew a hell lot of cards.
PtD was not missed too, but I did found Tide pretty easily, so guess can say I was lucky on that part. But won't be playing PtD again soon...
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
Maybe he didnt miss remand becuase he could use the snaps on opponent's creatures. In my experience i always liked to see remand in my hand in addition with some "control" cards like repeal or clique. I got used to wait until the last moment for going off. I feel rare with the concept of a "fast solidarity" because it cant be as fast like ANT (for example) at the time it goes off consistently.
Yes. Snapping my opponent Goyf did buy me a turn, and with Snacpcaster, could be 2/3 turns (happened often while testing against UWR Tempo).
Also, Snap was good against Reanimator. Unfortunately he saw my hand, but had he gotten Gin-Gitaxias early G1 or G2, Snap would have solved the problem for a while.
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
Snapping the opponents creatures can be a good application of Snap, but Snapping Goyf usually doesn't make much sense. We only play Instants and Lands, and occasionally Snapcaster. Its rarely bigger than a 2/3 when I play against Goyf, occassionally a 3/4. I guess Snapcaster itself can help you delay for a little longer as a chump blocker. Remand does have the advantage of stopping key spells for the turn such as SnT, Reanimation, etc.
If you want to go balls to the wall on speed, I met a guy IRL that foregoes Force for Pact of Negation. Snap/Snapcaster certainly enables more turn 3 wins so I can see card disadvantage being a factor in those hands.
How often did you want the Turnabouts Scatman? Did you ever want the 4th Snap?
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
Was it a black guy named Jeff? I can't imagine there are a whole lot of other people out there trying out Snap versions of Solidarity with Pact of Negation.
I tried out the Pact myself, but found myself just losing to combo decks. Force really, really sucks at protecting the combo (at least, in comparison to Pact of Negation) but it buys a lot of time against decks that are legit faster than us, which with the Snap version is mostly combo. I played in a tournament a few weeks ago with Pacts where I went 1-2 drop against Reanimator (actually won the first game, couldn't win 2 or 3, super frustrating), Maverick (beat it, obv) and TPS. I directly attributed having Pact of Negation instead of Force of Will to two different game losses, which would have won me each of the two rounds that I lost. So I'm not going back, though that may be due to sheer frustration, rather than actual statistical backing. But the theory is sound.
In theory, against permission, Pact of Negation is awesome because it costs nothing to Snapcaster back and you're going to skip your next X turns with Meditate as it is, but I'm not sure that that's specifically what the Force of Will spot is for. I mean, it helps in defending the combo, but by the simple fact that we're instant speed, we can get around a lot of permission just by playing correctly. But I think it's mostly there to defend against sick openings from opponents that are faster than us, which is something that no other card in the game can do.
I will say that it's incredibly satisfying to use Pact on an enemy Force of Will. It's just such a beating!
I like Flusterstorm simply because it can act like Mindbreak Trap against a crap load of counterspells, which is something that's nice to have access to in a version of Solidarity that's dropped Remands. Pyrostatic Pillar is really rough though, I agree, and might be a good enough reason alone to run the Spell Pierce, though if your meta were that heavy with Pyrostatic Pillars, I'd probably opt for 1-2 Hydroblast.
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