[Deck] Solidarity

[Kich867]

Hey all, so, long story short--I ran out of money! I had to sell all of my "Fair" decks (Aggro Loam, UR Delver) to stay afloat for a little bit while I was trying to find a job. I just graduated with my degree in computer science and I didn't want to get some bullshit job that I had before college again, so selling all my shit was the only real option for me.

I still wanted to play magic though, so I built a fairly budget list for Solidarity, I already had snapcasters so I didn't have to invest in them. The only real budget point actually is that I'm running Pact of Negations over Force of Wills. I've never really been a -huge- fan of combo decks, but in particular I've always felt solidarity conceptually jived with me really well. Furthermore, I'm significantly better at piloting combo decks than I am other decks as unraveling the decision trees of them comes much more naturally to me. I'll be taking it to my first local tourney tomorrow night (if all goes as planned) and I'm actually really excited about it.

And as a double dose of awesome, I was just offered my first career level job, so it won't even have to be budget for much longer! Everything is actually going really awesome all of the sudden haha. I don't have the list hammered out yet, I have a big pile of cards, but tomorrow I'll be able to post a list and results and progress.

[mtgaddict]

Hi,

I'm glad to see that this thread is alive with interesting brainstorming.

Did someone test this list : http://manatalks.com/mtg-decks/solid...en-legacy-3671 ? It seems to be more a controlish than a turn-3 build.

[Nuorukain]

Hi,

I'm glad to see that this thread is alive with interesting brainstorming.

Did someone test this list : http://manatalks.com/mtg-decks/solid...en-legacy-3671 ? It seems to be more a controlish than a turn-3 build.

Yes, if you can call the last few years of legacy tournaments with that junkpile(+/- few alterations) as testing....

Hilariously that maindeck starts to look more and more like the one I'm taking to GP Ghent... +/- last minute gutshot alterations... I feel sickened by the thought of adding 19'th land into the deck, but then again, I feel sick about playing in a GP and losing easy matchups to manascrews...

BUT the sideboard is the one which really makes me want to cry, cry, and bang my head to the wall...
atm there is no repeal, hibernation or divert BUT second flusterstorm and surgical extraction and a misdirection....
And my brains start to hurt with the options and attempt to optimise the side... Anyone with logically /pseudologically valid alteration ideas to the sideboard, please?...

Oh, and would the option of altering between "controll" and "combo" builds of the deck between the main and side be more worthy, than having actual "sideboard"-cards in there?

What I mean, should I instead of playing stuff like surcigal extractions, hurkyl's recalls, and all that bullshit OR simply have a sideboard of ;

meditate, turnabout, hunting back, zenith, twincast, flusterstorm
4x snap, pact of negation, 2xfreeze 2x wipe away or something as twisted as that?

I mean, trying to increase the odds of "racing" agaist other decks to a fast combo, or to attempt to use side slots to keep controll in differing matchups?
Against Sneak&show for example, should one stuff in extractions, flusterstorms, twincasts& other possible counters to be able to contoll the sneak attacks&etc
from resolving, OR just add 3x snap&turnabout in an attempt to combo off in
response to their combos..?

The classical misalignment of roles situation (-multiplied!), isn't it?

More so, how many counters do you want to run against delver after sideboarding? What does one side in the matchup? (rug/delver/********, what not).
To cut the snapcasters to be more resilient against stiffle or not? (it sometimes actually chump blocks well).
To use bounce to attempt to reduce the bleeding for a turn or two? if one sided 6 bounce spells, for eg. 3x repeal 3x submerge, thus diluding either the combo or the protection, how much more difficult will it be to beat a fast nimble mongoose, delver and a vendilion clique followed by a pierce, fow, daze and a stiffle and a REB?
Would it be easier to beat that with just 4x snap and 3x brainfreeze in and the deck, PRAYING that they tap out for that Clique at some point?

I have a head ache...
Need to play stompy or burn or something...

best wishes, see ya @gent(whoever is coming/going) and good luck. I know I'll need it with the pairings...

-Mikko Hyvärinen

[Silent Requiem]

In the brave new meta, hate bears are a dime a dozen. You either need to be faster than them, prevent them from resolving, or use sweepers.

I'm playing PSI right now (and so wish I was going to Ghent) because it can just be faster. Even with a Snap/Caster engine, Solidarity is turn 3, which is a turn too slow to race the hate.

This being the case, the deck needs to become more controling. The more control elements you add, the fewer combo elements you have. The fewer combo elements you have, the longer it takes you to reach a point where you can go off. It's a slippery slope to just playing Jace Control without the Jace.

Still, Spell Snare would be effective against pretty much every hatebear we don't want to see, and it could be sided out in favour of Flusterstorm against Storm/Blue. That would let us run 12 counters (FoW/Snare/Remand) in the main, which might actually be enough to lock out the hatebears.

I'd still love a better sweeper than Hibernate, though.

[benthetenor]

Played in SCG St. Louis to an unstellar 2-3 finish. Went back to Peek over Disrupt, since Disrupt is great in a few matchups and completely terrible against others, whereas Peek is at worst a 1-mana cantrip. And free information is awesome.

As much as I hate to say it, because it feels like something a bad player says, lost to luck. Round 1 I fizzled twice in three games against RUG, fighting through 3 counterspells in the last game but Meditating into three lands and a Brain Freeze. Third round, mulled a 1-lander all the way down to three card without seeing a second land. Last round I definitely just lost against a guy playing maindeck Force, Spell Pierce, Counterspell (!) and Dispel (!!!). Tried to go off through three counterspells to find he had a fourth. Then he boarded into Counterbalance. But I beat elf combo and MUD, so I guess that's something.

The sideboard was absolutely correct, aside from not really having a good way to beat Maverick. And I tried everything. But 3 Flusterstorm and 1 Pact of Negation fill out the RUG and Blade matchups nicely. Maybe there should have been a Mindbreak Trap in there in light of Dispel guy, but whatever. There's no way that guy's deck beats anything with creatures in it. And the combination of 3 Surgical Extraction and 3 Flusterstorm turns the Reanimator matchup around so that it's actually slightly positive.

I hate telling bad beat stories as much as you probably hate reading them, so sorry about that. I think if I were able to play more than one tournament every two months, I'd be able to beat out the crazy variance that was demonstrated in the games above, to be able to show that this deck is as good as I know it is. As it stands, I'm taking a break from Magic for a while. It's frustrating to not have a good post-sideboard game against Maverick, despite trying everything from Wipe Aways to a black splash for Massacre and/or Virtue's Ruin, and there's no worse feeling than having defeat snatched from the jaws of victory off of a bad Meditate. But whatever, that's Magic.

Keep going with the deck. I think this deck is more fun and more impressive than any other deck in the format, and when played correctly has a shot against anything. If they do something crazy like unban Frantic Search, this would probably be the best deck in the format, period. But until that day, I hope you guys have fun with it! I might be back someday. Who knows.

[Vacrix]

I'd love to see Frantic Search unbanned. Tempo might play it but the slower control decks, probably not. You can't reliably Snapcast it in non-High Tide decks since that would cost 5. Spring Tide would probably play it as well.

Against RUG you leave in your Brain Freezes? I like to board them out against control so that I can have a greater protection density. You always have Cunning Wish to find the win condition. Then again, I also play 4 Cunning Wish.

Maverick matchup definitely sucks, especially since they can board in Choke against you ontop of having Thalia maindeck and additional storm hate in the post-board.

I personally put this deck on the back burner and just keep checking the Instants that come out hoping that this deck gets something cool.

[lavafrogg]

Without some new card or frantic search being unbanned(which would be awesome) Solidarity as it exists is just not really playable. There are faster, more resilient combo decks out there that do everything solidarity wants to do but better, except for the whole instant speed thing.

I can see Solidarity being good again one day when wizards prints some blue instant along the lines of cryptic command. The shell of the deck is really strong with reset/high tide providing a rediculous amount of mana in addition to all of the blue draw power. The brain freeze win condition just requires a lot of hoops to jump through without some new/old tech.

[mtgaddict]

@Nuorukain : I didn't know you're Mikko! ^^
About your SB, I would change this :
-1 Hurkyl's Recall +1 Rebuild
-1 Hunting Pack (I think this card need 4 Cunning Wish MD)
-1 Twincast (seems redundant why Snappy?)
-1 Divert (only one is useless?)
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Repeal/Chain of vapor

@Silent Requiem : You're right! ;-)
At time, my best options for early hate bears are : Spell Snare, Submerge, Chain of vapor or Force Spike? :-/

Is Disrupting Shoal should be a under-FoW?

@benthetenor : I didn't know Massacre! :-o Did you consider Perish over/with Virtue's Ruin?

[mtgaddict]

I don't like the card disadvantage of Snapback. But Snuff Out could do the job, isn't it?

[Silent Requiem]

Without some new card or frantic search being unbanned(which would be awesome) Solidarity as it exists is just not really playable. There are faster, more resilient combo decks out there that do everything solidarity wants to do but better, except for the whole instant speed thing.

I can see Solidarity being good again one day when wizards prints some blue instant along the lines of cryptic command. The shell of the deck is really strong with reset/high tide providing a rediculous amount of mana in addition to all of the blue draw power. The brain freeze win condition just requires a lot of hoops to jump through without some new/old tech.

Solidarity's main problem is that our engine is too big. Whereas Reanimator (for example) needs only two cards in hand to go off (and can thus use the remaining 5-6 cards to protect the combo), we need at least three, and would really like a few more than that.

That's what makes Frantic Search so good. It doesn't do anything that the deck does not already do, but it does it more efficiently, doing the work of two cards in one. Efficiency (and a late game answer to multiple hatebears) is what Solidarity really needs.

[lavafrogg]

I disagree, solidarity needs a big card to play to end the game/almost guarantee a win, like time spiral, ad nauseum, doomsday.... The deck has all of the other components ready to go, clocks are just too fast and disruption is much stronger than when solidarity was a great deck.

[Silent Requiem]

Well, I decided to try seriously putting together a control version of Solidarity that ought to beat Maverick/Hatebears consistently without being too rubbish in other matchups.

First, though, I had to ask, why play control-Solidarity over actual control (such as MUC)? The answer has to be that MUC needs to stabilize, while we don't. We just need to delay long enough to go off. Nothing more is required.

So, I tried the following:

Lands:
13 Island
6 Fetchland

Disruption:
4 FoW
4 Remand
4 Spell Snare/Piracy Charm

Bounce/Removal:
4 Cunning Wish
4 Snap
3 Snapcaster

Dig:
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
3 Meditate

Combo:
3 High Tide
4 Reset

The deck is very rough (and far from optimised), but I played a dozen games against Maverick, and won them all. Very weird.

Okay, let's look at what's different here. First, the land count is high because I want to keep making land drops beyond turn four if I can. This is because I'm running a lot of disruption, so the deck is a little clunky trying to combo on low resources.

Edit: On this note, I've dropped Turnabout because it allows us to completely ignore Gaddock Teag while comboing. I've also got no maindeck win condition to try and minimise the "dead" cards precombo.

That said, the deck does run the Snap/Caster engine, so it is quite capable of going off on turn three with a bit of luck. This is made less likely, however by the lack of Opt/Visions. I have no good way of sculpting my hand on turn one, largely because I'm probably trying to leave mana open for disruption.

And that's a fair amount of disruption! I've got a total of 23 cards in the deck that can potentially deal with a hatebear (if you include surprise blocking with Snapcaster). I'm on the fence over Spell Snare v Piracy Charm - Caverns says Charm and Mom says Snare. I'm leaning towards Snare because it's good in other matchups.

Unlike some other controlling builds, this one doesn't feel too gimmicky when you play it - it's simply filled with decent disruption and a watered down combo engine. I would probably consider splashing green for Hunting Pack, and siding out Spell Snare for Flusterstorm in most blue matchups (or against fast combo).

If anyone has the chance to test this list independently, I'd love to know how it works out for you.

[Vacrix]

I wonder if we could attempt a new build of Solidarity that differs drastically from the original. Now that we have Snapcasters and Remands, we just have access to the cards we need to go off without needing Meditates. If we drop them perhaps we could go +3 cards to help us stall. We'd still have access to Cunning Wish --> Stroke when we are sitting on a hand that creates absurd amounts of mana.

With more maindeck Brainfreezes, perhaps we could mini-Brainfreeze in order to fill up the yard, and then start drawing cards with a Visions of Beyond + Snapcaster engine.

Also, Archive Trap. Doesn't seem like much but if we play it in combination with Visions of Beyond then it looks much better. Every deck I can think of will search its library at least once in the time frame it takes us to go off. GSZ, Stoneforge Mystic, fetchlands are cards we will encounter often so perhaps we should try to metagame a bit more. Too bad we can't pay two alternative costs and flashback it with Snapcaster Mage. :/

[Silent Requiem]

In my games against Maverick with the above deck I found that Meditate was still a key card. It was my most Wished for and Snapcastered card.

In part this is because the added disruption reduces the density of "business" spells, making in more important to cast multiple Meditates. I'd typically have a hand of 12+ cards by the time I actually managed a win, with the better part of those being "dead" cards.

The build I posted above also doesn't produce a huge abundance of extra mana, as half my untap effects only untap a set number of lands. Dropping Turnabout dodges Teag (and Snap can also address Thalia/Cannonist/etc) but also makes mana that little bit harder to come by.

Edit: I'd also consider Wipe Away maindeck in the Spell Snare slot. This would be awesome against Reanimator/Show & Tell, as well as dealing with hatebears & Counterbalance. Obviously weaker against fast combo.

[mtgaddict]

At first, I'm not a regular legacy player.

I tested your list with Force Spike in place of Spell Snare/Piracy Charm (because I have no one of them). Here, Maverik players are cutting GSZ for Vial. So, Force Spike isn't too bad. I often play versus Elves where Spell Snare is useless and Piracy Charm seems to be better. Merfolks should be back and Spell Snare will be awesome. But at time, we are focused to Maverik.

FoI RIP! I'm addicted to BF myself and stacking my deck.

I confirm that the most wished card is Meditate in order to Snapcaster it. So, a well placed SE should be a drama.

The deck doesn't procude a huge quantity of mana. However, the storm count grows quickly and the win condition could be :
- BF + draw(?)/Turnabout (or any spell to prevent lethal damage)
- HP to chump block and FTW

In the pre-combo phase, Snap isn't really famous without Snappy. Moreover, I often look for High Tide. I'm considering to replace one Snap by one PtD.

I'm still not use to pilot Snap/caster engine and I didn't play enough games to give an advise. They were only my first impressions...

[Rampart]

So I have picked up this deck recently as I need a change from what I was playing and this deck caught my interest. I have been reading the last 75 or so pages of this thread and no one seems to talk about thought scour?

Thought Scour seems to have so much synergy with the deck, especially with Snapcaster Mage, Brainstorm, and FOI.

Has anyone tried this out?

Sorry if my question seems noobish

[Liquid_elf]

Hola, i've been playing Solidarity (i'm borrowing most of it from a friend) for a couple months and i have recently settled on the following list:


4 Reset
4 High Tide
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Snap
3 Force of Will
2 Brain Freeze
4 Misty Rainforest
12 Island
1 Tropical Island
3 Remand
2 Peek
2 Visions of Beyond
4 Cunning Wish
2 Meditate
4 Impulse
4 Brainstorm
2 Turnabout
SB: 1 Brain Freeze
SB: 1 Meditate
SB: 1 Hunting Pack
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Ravenous Trap
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Stroke of Genius
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Flusterstorm

I'm playing in a very small meta- there are about 8 regular players every week but getting more players of late. I really like this deck and most of my losses i feel can be chalked up to pilot error. I recently managed to find a trop i can borrow on a regular basis (yay for random boxes of cards in peoples basements) and the addition of hunting pack is awesome. The rest of the board is pretty loose. Surgicals are good catch-alls.

As i said we don't have a big card pool so there isn't really anybody playing Canadian Thresh and there is one maverick player. but from the matches i played against him i felt my losses were more to pilot error than the danger of the deck. alas i haven't played many games against him and not with the remands in. But i think unless we are talking about the sort of maverick that runs 12 sb cards vs combo plus main board thalias. we have a fine game against them. seeing as how we run 3-4 main board snaps. Also the thing to remember about maverick is it takes a very long time to actually kill people so we can take that time to sculpt and then just bounce the relevant hate bear and go off.

@rampant: yeah i'd like to try thought scour but i just don't think it's better than visions or peek (info is really useful). If it said target player draws then maybe (sometimes it would be nice to have a one mana way to make my opponent draw.

[mifme]

Hi guys, i've been reading these threads for a while but never owned any 'reset' so could not really play Solidarity, i have however played Spiral Tide quite a lot in my early legacy career.
I now own 4 'reset' :) so i'm going to try this out at a local 20 man tourny tonight, the list i've wittled down to from reading the posts is as follows :

4 high tide
4 impulse
4 sanpcaster mage
3 snap
4 brainstorm
2 opt
3 meditate
3 cunning wish
4 reset
2 turnabout
1 brainfreeze
1 flash of insight
4 force of will
3 remand

9 island
2 tropical island
2 polluted delta
4 scalding tarn
1 flooded strand

SB:
1 turnabout
1 meditate
1 surgical extraction
2 wipe away
1 echoing truth
1 blue suns zenith
1 brainfreeze
3 disrupt
1 hunting pack
2 flusterstorm
1 snap

So i'm going to try out the disrupts in the board, the meta where i am is quite diverse roughly 1/3 combo 1/3 control 1/3 agro, there will be ANT, TES, Sneak and Show, Mavrick, Painters and maybe 1 counter top deck for sure.

i Was looking a lot at Vision of Beyond but when goldfishing i was finding i had practically won by the time it became an ancestral so i stuck with Opt in the maindeck as its way better early game to set/dig for lands. I am also playing the flash of Insight even though i'm running 4 snapcasters, i think 1 main deck is fine as even with snapcasters its fairly easy to reach a point where you can stack your deck for the win especially when you are using the snapcasters to recast meditates.

I assume the primary win con is to wish for blue suns zenith and then brain freeze and zenith them for an instant win (especially with emrakul triggers on the stack) but i have a question about hunting pack, i can see making an army of 4/4 beats is good if you get to untap and swing for the win but whats the thoughts on hunting pack after youve cast multiple meditates ? i guess its not really what you want to do i mean casting 4 meditates for example off snapcasters is going to mean your opponant has 4 extra turns to deal with them, is it worth going for the hunting pack after multiple meditates ?
what i actually mean is say you have a storm count (say 15) but can't find the brain freeze but you have cunning wish, you could wish for the brainfreeze but say its not enough to deck them but you could make say 15 4/4 beasts but you have used 3 meditates already giving them 4 turns to deal with the beasts, is it worth making 15 beasts or risking it on trying to storm more, missing the chance to hunting pack, or just cast the pack and cross your fingers for 4 turns ?

i'll let you all know how it goes !

Regards

Matt

[Silent Requiem]

Hunting Pack is not intended for high draw, high storm count plays. It's designed to make bad hands with loads of mana but no real draw into winning hands. It's like your backup handgun - it's not the assault rifle you want to bring to the fight, but what you pull out when the assault rifle has jammed.

A common hand might be High Tide, Reset, Turnabout, Cunning Wish, blank cards. You could Wish for Meditate, but you've just spent six mana to draw four cards, and if you draw into Islands/untap/countermagic then you've just given your opponent a free Timewalk and Duress (on High Tide) for no profit.

Alternatively, you can just Tide>Reset>Turnabout>Cunning Wish>Hunting Pack (assuming four lands) for five 4/4 beasts. Timed right (after he has declared attackers) you will wipe his board with your blockers, and win on your next turn.

[Liquid_elf]

Visions is very misleading in gold-fishing. In gold fishing this deck just tends to turn three-four people reliably. But when you have to force a whole bunch of stuff or have your hand destroyed by hymns/discard or if that silly person on the other side of the table is playing blue ( i mean who would do that?) then you have to more complicated things. In those cases Visions -> in response -> brain freeze for storm 6-7 can often draw you into your snapcaster (to finish them off) or just more dig/untap.

The real thing about hunting pack is that ll you need to do is count to ten(mana) opposed to 15-16(storm). It allows to you to go off quickly against decks that are just going to destroy you if you give them time. Also people don't expect it. :P

best of luck, in theory if people have no idea what your playing you'll have good matches vs storm.