Sorry to disappointing you but no it's not...Originally Posted by Smash10101
PoN "eat" an opponent's counter without costing mana or added cards like fow. If you play against a tempo deck, the 2nd and 3rd game they bring in ReBs and/or flusterstorm and have a big number of permission spells. If, when you go off, you are short on lands, they'll counter your untapper, if you are ok with lands, then they'll go for the business spell (meditate/DTT). So, if you start your spell chain in response of a random opponent's spell, you have PoN for their first counter and this helps you to "enable" the trap if they have the second one or more. You can do the same with any combo piece, ofc, but it will cost you mana. It depends on the situation.
Years ago, when there wasn't PoN, we used to play 1-2 copy of "dispel" for this purpose.
It's written somewhere in the thread. I think also Seraphus played something like this in the past but maybe I'm wrong.
Mindbreak Trap was released more recently than Pact of Negation.
Not to mention the fact that Dispel is the newest of them all.
Maybe you are trying to say something else but formulated it rather clumsily?
Take some time and read my last tournament report.
@Feline mainly and to whom may interest:
Intro:
Well, I am a Storm player and of course long time ago in the David Gearhearth Era I played Solidarity wrecking the rest of decks... it was among all Storm Decks my favourite one (I played DDFT, TES, ANT ,TNT....), then the meta changed and was almost impossible to win with that Deck... BUT suddently I saw you - Feline doing very well in a tournament so thanks a lot - I sometimes looked at the post in this thread but the only improvement was the Snaps Added which seemed to me not very relevant, and suddently Dig Through Time appeared, I just forgot Solidarity existed and didn't notice this card was a GREAT improvement to the deck.
Trying to improve the Deck:
Well, A thing I love is reaching my own conclusions about a deck and noticing somebody by there reach also the same conclusions,
At first glance, and surprinsingly I'm 99% agree on the Base, the only thing I dislike is having 19 Lands and not 4th FoW so when testing this was the only change I made to the base.
The Original List had this numbers and sure sometimes I needed to Impulse for Land but this is something I can afford. In terms of Numbers the unique difference with D.G. List is that you don't play remand - if you consider it as a +0.5 or +0.X cantrip, because if the opponent doesn't play spells you are in the exact same position as your Build but -1Land.
One thing I noticed was the super power of Snaps and DTT.
Well Sure I prefer Opt versus Peek but Opt is not a super cantrip so my thought process was: well what happens if I use a cantrip to maximize both DTT and Snaps?
It would be wonderfull if you could play DTT on 3rd turn right?
Therefore a Testing Scenario which is giving me good results on the paper is substituing 4 Opt and include 4 Mental Note (or T.Scour)
- M.Note is good for scenarios in which you Meditate, then B.S. and M.Note to put the top 2 shitty cards in G.Y.
- on 3rd turn if you play a fetch and a B.S OR Impulse AND a M.N. you will be able to play DTT! sounds great
- it can be even an upside to put a Tide in the G.Y. as you can next Snap to Tide and then Reset! as you advance deeper with M.N than with Opt
- it also has synergy with Snaps as mentioned.
Well for me it is clear and the next step could be maybe - better 4DTT and 3 Meditate in base then?
Related to the Side, I'm not a fan of diluting the strategy by adding Vendilions, I would prefer to add more PoN and Swan Songs and Wipe Away maybe, but I'm not either the person to argue the opposite...
Questions:
Could you tell me the Side strategy you have vs the Diff decks in the meta or a link to this? and opinions about this proposal?
Thanks for your Build Feline!
Keep Storming!
Last edited by Pelikanudo; 12-24-2014 at 08:33 AM.
My Parfait Build
My Psychatog Build
Yes, I am advanced and you know it...
Suggestion: Play Magic as a Hobby. Competitiveness is uniquely usefull in this Era and just to evolve the human being to a certain extent...
Well for now it seems there's 3 ways I could go about it.
Doing the Mental Note / Thought Scour setup
The Remand / Brain Freeze setup
The Snapcaster Mage / Snap setup.
All I know is I don't even like Peek because it doesn't dig, just draws a card basically, where as with Opt at least I'm scrying for 1 first. So I never went the Thought Scour / Mental Note route.
I tried Remand / No Snap/Snapcaster Mage tricks but after enough time I switched to Snapcaster Mage because it helped me resolve more High Tides faster. As well as just being able to flashback anything in the Graveyard.
I will likely try a few more runs with this deck at the Premier IQ's since that's the thing now, as I still want to attain the goal of making a top 16+ finish with Reset High Tide at some large scale event if I can.
As far as what I was doing where with sideboarding, I'd usually bring in Vendilion Clique against most strategies, just about all of them really. (I wouldn't against Belcher/All Spells however, lol, it's just too darned slow) Vendilion Clique was for blocking hate bears, potentially buying lots of time if you blocked their only creature (Like a flipped Delver) then they had to draw into another threat. I'd cut Flusterstorms for them against some match ups where the card was weaker. Other times I'd cut the Snaps, unless they had White which meant potential hatebears (Meddling Mage / Thalia / Gaddock Teeg etc.) But still bring in Vendilion Clique. I'd also cut 1 Wish if I was bringing in any of the kill condition to the maindeck from the sideboard.
I am a lot less experienced with this deck however, so don't take what I'm saying as concrete as I'm not even 100% on everything. Until I feel comfortable enough with a specific setup I keep all options open. Right now my "Solidarity Deck" is actually over 100 cards. Even though I'm not using them I still have stuff in a "more than the 75 pile" like the Remands I'm not using, the 4th Snapcaster Mage, even Counterspell & Peek even though I'm not leaning toward running either of those right now.
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
75 pages behind:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post590209
please (no disrespect to you feline) but because an American does something with the deck now it's fashionable to play solidarity?!
I am never right, but I'm pretty sure I am not wrong many times...
11 Island
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 High Tide
4 Reset
2 Flusterstorm
2 Force of Will
2 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
2 Dig Through Time
2 Opt
2 Peek
2 Snap
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Repeal
3 Remand
4 Meditate
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
2 Impulse ---------------------------------------------------- I WAS WRONG WE NEED THEM ------------------------------------------------------
SB: 3 Ravenous Trap
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 3 Rebuild
SB: 3 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Annul
Wanna me to do a breackdown of the list?
Gotta say Seraphus I don't know what the hell you are talking about. I almost never do, your posts are incomprehensible. Doesn't help much when you post a list literally every 3 posts. Anyhow...
On the land count, I've always felt better with 19. The deck did not have 19 in it's inception, and people have tested with even less lands (I remember Ben toying around with cutting the 18th land for a Snap). I don't think it was a good idea then, and I don't think it's a good idea now. If Ponder and Preordain were instants then hell yeah, but they aren't and our cantrips are weak. I've also developed some love for Peek after playing with G. Probe in other storm decks, and I don't feel comfortable running any less than 4 Opts if I'm at 18 lands. The land counts is actually one of the things that kept me from playing Peek, but after reading over arguements, and playing with TES a lot, I decided for myself that Peek is indeed the real deal. The fewer lands, the better off you are going to be when your forced to combo off early, as you will have dead draws. I feel like playing to Solidarity's strengths is a better option though, and rather focus on making a land-drop every single turn without breaking a sweat.
Feline, made a post a little ago asking why you cut Brain Freeze for Flusterstorm, besides the obvious having a reactive counterspell (that is abusable with Snapcaster) vs having a kill spell. Brain Freeze is so much more than a kill spell in the deck. Be cool to further the discussion and talk about the benefits of running some main-deck Brain Freezes. Maybe go back and read it, yeah? Kinda pointless asking others this question since they would probably post yout list for reference.
I'll start it off; synergy with Brainstorm, turns on Dig through Time, can be used to play around CB-Top, saves sideboard space, and most importantly allows you win small rather than chain draw spell after draw spell. I feel that once you are at the point of going Wish>Freeze, or Wish>Snapcaster>Freeze>Snapcaster trigger target Freeze>Freeze you have enough mana and/or storm to just Stroke somebody out. Running some Freezes in the main-decks allow you to win small, and though anything is possible with this deck I feel like having smaller spell chains is a benefit in any storm deck, especially when dealing with assholes who cast boatloads of disruption.
Pelikundo, I feel that Thought Scour is good, but not better than Opt or Peek. Opt has scry 1, in a world of crap instant speed cantrips, which isn't very impressive but it is something. Peek lets you well, peek, and in recent years I'm pretty sure all of Legacy, especially combo players, have noted just how powerful that effect is. Gitaxian Probe isn't so popular because it's a Street Wraith that adds 1 storm. It's popular because it gives you vital information, allowing combo decks to establish their role in match-ups. I'll add that this effect is especially good in this deck, barring an active top Top, knowing what your opponent has means knowing in what order to cast your spells.
If you have any doubts on Opt, I get it. Somebody posted some numbers they crunched displaying the difference between Opt and other cantrips. Besides being neat, it offers hard evidence that Opt does indeed dig "more". I remember Ben hated Opt for as long as I remember, and was very, very outspoken against it, and for a long time refused to acknoledge it conceivably being a better card than Peek or VoB. For someone who doesn't have a numbers background it was hard putting my experience into some sort of forumula that could make sense, but thankfully someone came along and did it for me. What I'm trying to say is that I'm sure you don't want someone to tell you "Run Opt, it digs better. I've played this deck for XX amount of time, trust me" but you want some hard numbers showing you the difference between card A and card B. Someone has crunched the numbres though, and it's there for all of us to read. If you can't find it ask me and I'll get off my bum and fish the post out. Pretty sure the person who posted it was named TheRock
"Feline, made a post a little ago asking why you cut Brain Freeze for Flusterstorm, besides the obvious having a reactive counterspell (that is abusable with Snapcaster) vs having a kill spell. Brain Freeze is so much more than a kill spell in the deck. Be cool to further the discussion and talk about the benefits of running some main-deck Brain Freezes. Maybe go back and read it, yeah? Kinda pointless asking others this question since they would probably post yout list for reference."
1- Feline didn't do anything asking me whatsoever...
2- the discussion was about raising the fucking number of Brain freezes (which I was against it and I gave my reasons - someone said that vs cb it was a good idea because of a process that some years ago I mention here "trigger cleansing" was what I called it, which is useless with Flusterstorm on the other side - so now maybe you go back and read it; oh no wait I will make a brief explanation: Brain Freeze is a card that no longer brings cantrip or cardadvantage (no FoI), BF doesn't have any purpose to set the combo, to protect it or to make it work - use BF to get ride off BS cards? LOL after the extripate, surgical debate using a BF for nothing sounds good. Using it for enhance DTT? Why do you need to enhance a card that is per si already super powerful? (Still Following me?! Or I do keep saying something " incomprehensible"? Wanna me to draw it?)
As for your so called small chain it's all very cool except when you have an actual opponent interacting with you...
I challenge you to read the last 100 pages of the thread and point out who have been developing this deck and dedicating more time to it than me?!
Still lost man. I don't really get what point one or two are adressing. Just a bunch of babble and curse words. Didn't mean to cause such offense, as I know from lurking this thread for so many years that you've been told before by Sourcers and moderators alike to use a spell check and some better grammar as it is straining to make sense of your words. Thought I'd reiterate the sentiment.
On that list bit of point b, Brain Freeze still has some functionality outside of being the kill card, unlike Tendrils of Agony. Yeah, no BF>FoI, but this deck hasn't mained FoI for the good part of the last 5 years, and still ran Brain Freeze main. I would make the arguement that we all could have been running Fluster>Freeze all along when lists got teched and started rocking 4 Snapcasters main. But for some reason (not a magical, mystical one but a logical one, I hope) decided to keep jamming Brain Freeze in the main. Why? Because the deck can win small. Because there are opponents interacting with us that won't let us go off into some ridiculous spell chain where I'm sitting on triple tide and Stroking someone for 150 cards. Sometimes it's just Freeze, Freeze, pass the turn, die on your draw step. In a way you give that away by not maining Brain Freeze. Anyhow, I've repeated myself too many times. I'm off to do some testing.
And, I've never run into a Miracles deck main-decking Flusterstorm. And if they are siding it they still have to draw it, and hold onto it until the penultimate Brain Freeze. The whole situation is so dependant on the game state that it isn't worth speculating it much, but saying you can't use Brain Freeze to go around CB-Top anymore because of Flusterstorm is hyperbole.
ps; go stretch your epeen elsewhere. I just wanna talk about Solidarity. I can give a crap what your Source handle is, or post number is.
Ignore Seraphus. He's not even running 4 impulse and 4 opt yet he runs 3 repeal maindeck. All repeal does is react to what the opponent does or bounce snapcaster to replay/spend all the mana's to flashback another spell with snapcaster. It is hideous in this strategy. 17 land? Less than 4 opt? How is that working out for you in terms of hitting land drops? Missing land drops with repeal in hand sounds as appealing as death by firing squad. You run less than 4 dig through time. All the 'development' you've done on the deck means close to nothing as dig through time turned this archetype on its head/changed how you can build the deck drastically. Lists are flying everywhere yet I'd bet a good amount of money that we haven't found the optimal list yet. What I'm sure of after playing with dig through time is that it is an auto 4 of in the 75 because it IS the best draw spell in the deck and not meditate. Meditate gets more raw cards yet one of them is virtually guaranteed to be a land/brick and the other cards aren't guaranteed to do anything especially in your list where you'll draw some pile of cards like repeal, land, force, and peek. Tell me how confident you are in those 4. Dig looks 3 cards deeper, bottoms the chaff, and gets you the 2 best cards in your top 7 assuming you are a competent pilot who takes the correct line. Oh and it costs 1 mana less and some cards lying around in your bin. As setup cards meditate is vastly inferior as well since timewalking yourself is something you don't want to willingly do in legacy or any format typically and quite often makes you discard anyways/it isn't a draw 4 it's a draw 3, 2, or 1. He still stands by the 6 fetchland ideology as well, which is quite outdated with dig in the picture and very little stifles running around if any/not getting punished that way. The chances of you needing more than 8 land in play with solidarity are slim as any solidarity player worth his salt with 8+ lands in play should probably win the game.
Miracles never maindecks flusterstorm unless you're talking about some localized list that someone runs in a VERY combo heavy meta/sure you can maindeck flusterstorm. Look at Schoneggers and Lossetts builds' of miracles. No maindeck flusterstorms and those are the lists that have put up results. You playtest against what you expect to run into in a tournament setting, not some crazy storm hating miracles deck that is inbred due to your legacy gauntlet testing.
Posting a list every 3 posts isn't helping anyone. If you're changing your list that often I seriously doubt you're getting in enough testing with the previous list posted unless you're actually just playtesting this deck 40+ hours a week/I have no idea what's wrong with you or the person you're playtesting with as playtesting that much for legacy is not remotely worth most peoples' time and playing solidarity that many hours a week just makes you sound like a masochist. Unless you're actually just developing trash/oh my god this list sucks so let's make a new list and toss the old one into the incinerator.
I don't play peek at all. It is training wheels in this deck. There's a huge difference between peek and probe other than the sorcery/instant speed difference of course. One costs zero mana and is one of the most broken cards they've printed in the past 10 years. The other costs a mana and has not seen any widespread success since psychatog ruled centerstage and I can't quite recall if it even saw widespread success then. The card is garbage in terms of looking for lands and in terms of how much countermagic the opponent has if they know what to counter/card draw like meditate/dig instead of mana and cantrips it all comes down to how much countermagic you have versus what they have. If they really have more countermagic than you well tough luck or try to bait. I've never really wanted to see the hand of my opponents out of this deck unless I could see it while making mulligan decisions. If we have 2 counterspells that should likely push through what they have as a general rule. Sometimes 1 is enough too. This deck has a lot of redundancy though/even if your opponent plays their countermagic for full effect/counters, say, meditate we can still easily win that turn depending on the strength of our hand. There are much better cards we can run than peek. I run 18 land alongside 4 opt, 4 brainstorm, and 4 impulse to find lands/spells if I have enough lands. I absolutely adore gitaxian probe in ANT and such but those decks play quite different from solidarity in my experience because they are fundamentally faster and far more all in than solidarity is unless you're running pact of negation/I have no clue how you can cut down below 4 forces when your opponent can just play something you want to force quite badly but instead you're holding unplayable pact that is purely a combo card and not the greatest at that. There are things you want to force before the combo turn ranging from skillforge mystic to hymn to treasure cruise. Pact any of those and you die. Force them and you get more time to play with. This deck wants more time usually strange I know but you also want to be able to goldfish a turn 4 win with protection. Force fulfills that role admirably. You can't say it's bad in multiples as force pitching force is a line. Force fuels dig through time. Force counters everything except storm spells and uncounterable spells but I'm not sure what uncounterable spells pertain to this deck and its plan short of abrupt decay on a snapcaster mage that is targeted by snap/repeal if you want to run that nonsense.
Lastly, cunning wish is uncuttable. I have grown to love the card more and more in playing this deck. Anything less than 3 is very, very wrong as it grants you insane flexibility. 3 mana split card that is either card draw, countermagic, or mana/everything the deck wants in one 3 mana card. It's batshit crazy not to run it. If you run anything else over it you'll draw the card you replaced it with and think "man I wish this wasn't a flusterstorm I really wanted a meditate there." It is the closest we're getting to demonic tutor in this deck or merchant scroll for that matter and merchant scroll is one of the sickest cards in spiral tide that enables the deck to even exist as without it I'd like spiral tide infinitely less.
Impulse is one of the best cards in this deck. It pains me whenever someone runs less than 4 since it is the ideal setup card and combo card at the 2cc slot. Find land, check. Great to get out of brainstorm lock during combo, check. Digs more than every card in the deck except dig through time, check. Every time I resolve impulse I like it a lot. It's like a 2 mana preordain that bottoms 3 and puts 1 in your hand. At 1 mana it would be broken beyond belief. At 2 mana it's still quite a deal in terms of card selection at that cost. Our cantrip quality is low at the 1 drop slot outside brainstorm.
Have to go but I'll post later on.
Bread Connoisseur on MTGSalvation Forums
Currently Playing:
All flavors of storm combo
@Kanti:
Well, I agree that Opt digs deeper than Peek and Mental Note. (In the D.G Era I played 4 Opt instead of shitty Peek)
However M.N has advantages over Opt and Peek and the one I love most is the ability to cast a 3rd turn DTT, there is no other way you can do this in Solidarity.
Also M.N has other advantages over these 2 cards as explained before:
- IF you have SnapCaster in hand you can dig virtually deeper than Peek Or Opt, the reason is that you can next play one of the cards in G.Y. with Snapcaster
- With B.S. in hand you can also dig deeper as you put the top 2 cards in G.Y. drawing the unknown 3rd card
@Feline:
I'll play a local tomorrow with your build but:
-4 Opt -1 Meditate -1Land = +4 M.Note, +4th DTT, +4th FoW, leaving the 4th Meditate in Side
I'm so happy to play again Solidarity!!!
as mentioned in the Side there will be more PoN and Swang Song and Looking for options vs HateBears I saw the following card: Polymorphist's Jest, I'll see how this work but not conviced... anyone tested this?
I'll expose later how the tournament went!
@Seraphus:
Calm down please it's chrismast and we are all in the same Storm board!
My Parfait Build
My Psychatog Build
Yes, I am advanced and you know it...
Suggestion: Play Magic as a Hobby. Competitiveness is uniquely usefull in this Era and just to evolve the human being to a certain extent...
@Dark Ritual
I will ask you again:
You throw around your list like it's the freaking Ten Commandments and yet I cannot see how it's any better against the URx meta than any other list in here. Or even as good.
Opt & Peek
Opt is obviously the better choice in terms of "digging". It gives you selection, even though just a little bit. Peek just replaces itself. The value of peek is not that you see the opponent's counters and counter accordingly, because it is almost always clear how to stack your counters. Peek allows you to see how much time you have to build your resources. It allows you to see if SCM+Snap is save. It allows you to see what to discard after e.g. a Meditate. It allows you to see if you have to go for it or if you can still search for lands or spells. Sure you can always play as if you would face the worst or just go for it, but you increase your percentages if you actually know.
With Dig Through Time the selection during combo and the midgame has become much better, but it still needs setup and doesn't work as setup very well itself - at least not early or against GY-hate. Solidarity was always in need of CMC1 spells to efficiently use resources like mana and time. With DTT and the rise of URx even more so. That's why I think (based on experience and theory) 3+ Opt are the way to go, with 4 CMC1 draw-spells being the absolute minimum I'd consider with 2+ DTT.
Cunning Wish
I rarely...ummm...wish I had a Wish instead of any other card and especially against fast decks you don't want a card that works turn 3+ only. Another disadvantage of Wish is that it doesn't directly fuel your DTT and SCM. Even against Emrakul.dec I was always fine playing 1 BF & 1 CW in my maindeck. It's versatile, yes. It is also clumsy and slow.
DTT
4? In such a slow build? Even a DRS would significantly slow you down or throw you off. Not to mention the fast clocks like Delver.
countering SFM
I feel like countering SFM is something you should rarely do (given you are playing bounce-spells - which you don't MD, for whatever reason). Why? Because SFM is not that fast. Pre-board most people just have access to BSkull and Jitte. Most likely your opponent will fetch BSkull and you have enough time to set up and combo off. If you want or need to, you can just bounce the token or equipped creature and get at least another turn. This is also true for postboard Sword of Feast and Famine.
That's not true. 3 fetchlands + 2 spells cast by turn three lets you cast a dig through time by paying 3 and delving 5. This is, in my opinion, one of the reasons one should run a large number of fetchlands. Turn 3 dig is the best way to set up a turn 4 combo if you can manage it.
There is at least one reasonable argument for not running 4 force of will. Namely that if you rely primarily for force as your protection, it becomes harder to combo through multiple counterspells your opponent has. Losing 4 cards for 2 counterspells is sometimes a rough proposition, which is why I like to diversify my counters just a little bit. (Yes, of course you do pitch one force to the other when you can't afford to use both. However, if you drew force + pact or force + swan song for example you could pitch some other card instead and then cast the song/pact for a second counterspell.) I do run 4 force in my 75 though, because there are plenty of times when you really do need it, but currently I run 3 main/1 SB to help make it less pressure on my hand to combo off with multiple protection. I do not believe that it's a clear choice at the moment to run all 4 forces in the main. I wouldn't fault anybody for running all 4 main. As you say though, I think 2 is too low however.
I always thought that Peek was "training wheels". This was back when I was young and arrogant. Then I saw Finkel running Peek in a Standard deck the last time it was Standard legal. The full four, just because it was in the format. He was the only one doing it. He was winning.
Was he winning because of Peek, or was he winning because he is Jon Finkel? Tough to say. He's still in the conversation for the best player of all time, and he was at his peak back when Urza's Saga was in Standard. But then I always ask the question: if the best player in the world is doing something that no one else is doing, is it more likely that he's wrong or that we are wrong? I don't know that I know the answer to that, or that anyone can know. I do know that it made me a lot less arrogant about Peek. If the best player in the world doesn't think it's "training wheels" (or doesn't care), then why should I?
Gitaxian Probe isn't powerful because it's free. It's powerful because it replaces itself and it breaks one of the fundamental rules of the game: you get to know what is in your opponent's hand, and more importantly, they do not get to know what is in yours. It makes outplaying your opponent much, much easier. It being free is a bonus (and a large one), but also in a deck that is naturally slower I'd rather pay the mana and not the life (since the mana is going to be a less scarce resource throughout the game) and have the flexibility that being an instant affords it. I'd go so far as to say that Peek costing mana all the time (rather than just some of the time with Gitaxian Probe) does not make it significantly worse to the point that it's probably wrong that some decks aren't playing Peek right now, or that the optimal number of "Gitaxian Probe" effects might make it so that a 4 Gitaxian Probe, 1-2 Peek deck could be correct. The fact that not everyone is doing it increases the information-disparity bonus gained from Peek.
I've always felt that the one-mana non-Brainstorm cantrip slot was a compromise. When the deck was (relatively) inconsistent, before Snapcaster Mage and Dig Through Time were printed, Opt was much more of a necessity because it was the card that best added stability to the deck, though even in those days it wasn't uncommon to see a 2/2 split between Peek and Opt. With the printing of those two cards, that slot needs to cheat towards consistency much, much less, which affords the opportunity to run Peek without losing overall consistency in the deck. With Dig Through Time in the deck, I'm also not convinced it's incorrect to simply run a full set of both (and maybe more one-mana cantrips) to ensure you're always casting DTT early and often, and allowing the power of DTT to make up for the lack of consistency you get from not running Impulse or whatever it is that you're cutting from those slots. Which is crazy.
I do believe that we are still far from the optimal build, as most of what I'm seeing is people just jamming Dig Through Time into old shells and I believe that Dig Through Time fundamentally alters how the deck functions. I think it will look like a slow deck (because there are no good ways to break the fundamental one land a turn rule), and I think it will have a maximum number of Dig Through Time with as many Snapcaster Mages as usable because they are the best cards we have been given for the deck since Reset and High Tide and Brainstorm. It will likely cut down on many of the other options we've had in the past to increase consistency (Impulse, Cunning Wish, Opt) because it's just not as necessary, but I think it would be a mistake to cut all of them because they are still strong cards. I also feel that it will include Brain Freeze in the main deck because doing so only makes the deck better. I also feel that having more than five counterspells is probably unnecessary, and I personally am hesitant to play more than four. These are all my opinions. I have no hard evidence to back any of them up and I could be wrong. But they are based on what I know about the deck after years of playing with it and years of trying out every blue instant ever printed in this deck specifically.
I hope I can soon begin to contribute more than just theory to this thread. I received the final two Force of Wills I needed to complete the deck, and my first event will be a Legacy FNM on 1/2 (and hopefully again on 1/9). There is a SCG event nearby at the end of January, and I will be playing in the Premiere IQ there. After events, I will report back with my notes and observations with the deck.
For reference, here is the list I am working with currently (will tweak with hands-on experience):
1 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
3 Dig Through Time
2 Flusterstorm
3 Force of Will
4 High Tide
4 Impulse
3 Meditate
4 Opt
1 Pact of Negation
1 Repeal
4 Reset
2 Snap
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Turnabout
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
10 Island
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Brain Freeze
1 Dig Through Time
1 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Pact of Negation
1 Polymorphist's Jest
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Snap
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Turnabout
2 Wipe Away
I am happy to hear any feedback, any questions about my list, and anything anyone thinks I should look for with regards to how my list plays.
L2 Judge
List seems good. I would seriously consider changing the SB Dig to the 4th Meditate for two reasons. You don't want your primary Wish-able draw spell to be affected by GY hate. It's just too easily visible a choke point if you Wish for Dig, and they have a way to affect your GY. Also, with the amount of Pacts you run, resolving a Meditate means that against any non-Emrakul deck, Freeze is lethal, and you don't have to worry about paying, or Zenithing them out. So you always want to be sure you have access to one.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
I've been back and forth of this, and it is something I will seriously consider before the 2nd.
L2 Judge
Also, I would want BEBs. Not for REBs, I think your Pacts are better for that. But for Red speed creatures, and Burn. You can't effectively Pact a Swiftspear, or Eidolon. And saving any damage against Burn The Deck is relevant.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
Increase your odds if you know your opponent has more countermagic than you can beat? Peek does a lot of things but that isn't one of them. Let's say they have triple force of will and triple blue card. Knowing they have that means jack shit. Knowing if you can go for it? You're playing the deck wrong on a fundamental level if you're trying to kill your opponent before they can kill you short of them having little to no cards in hand/giving them more time to draw into countermagic/hatebears/relevant stuff. Peek helps none of that. Peek is pure training wheels. Finkel played it in standard wow so revolutionary. It *really* doesn't matter what Finkel plays or doesn't play because he has more talent than everyone in this thread combined. I'd heavily suggest that people learn to read their opponents if they think peek is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Cunning wish doesn't exile for DTT unless they counter it and they virtually always do if they can. Bad with snapcaster? Last I looked you grab an instant that you can snapcaster back unless it's ravenous trap/I haven't the faintest idea as to why you'd want to snapcaster that anyways. Slow? Maybe a little bit but 3 mana really isn't much when you're getting a tutor for anything out of the deal. The card is the greatest tool we have to fight surgical extraction as well since extracting high tide before we've resolved one is a very real way to lose the game if we have all 4 in the exile zone. The flexibility it offers is unparalleled in this combo control deck and is completely necessary short of some revolutionary list coming about that doesn't utilize it as a 3 of or more let me know when that happens because the lists that are putting up any results run 3 cunning wish and not this 0, 1, or 2 bullshit that people seem to think is a good move deckbuilding wise.
Great DRS slows me down yet DRS is already virtually nonexistant in legacy right now. I'm not about to start jamming mental note(s) or something like that to try to combat DRS when DRS already hates on snapcaster too/if it isn't affecting dig it's countering a snapcaster trigger that we could very well need to win. DTT is the best thing to happen to this deck in forever and people still haven't figured out that delve is a busted mechanic in this thread apparently because everywhere else treasure cruise is wrecking the format with its power yet people in the mono blue combo deck thread seem to think we don't want 4 in the 75 when everything else in the deck pales in comparison powerlevel wise to DTT. Resolving a DTT is the main gameplan of this deck as once you do you're heavily favored to win even if the opponent has resolved a treasure cruise their 3 blind cards they get off cruise are heavily likely to be worse than the best 2 cards in our top 7 since we're a combo deck/the power level of our deck as a whole is significantly higher. If it wasn't why would we play this deck?
SFM was an example. You can replace SFM with delver, young pyro, or any significant clock. Sure you don't always want to counter SFM/significant clock and I wouldn't fault you if you didn't but the more time we have the stronger our chances of winning the game are just like a control deck. Giving up some cards for that is worth it if it ultimately wins us the game. Aggressively FoWing can be the correct line regardless of what you think FoW is not some last resort type of card that is cast only in dire need especially with dig in the picture to recoup the card disadvantage associated with forces pitch cost.
Yes, I have jammed my list against the URx meta. I have had success with it. Snap maindeck may be correct or it might not be hard to know. The worst part about the card is that it can turn the opponents removal on when normally swords to plowshares does nothing against us. Turnabout is guaranteed mana upon resolution whether the opponent has plow or not. For snap to be a more efficient card in mana production with tide than turnabout means that we have 3 or less lands in play/why are we trying to combo. Bouncing a dude to buy time can be great no doubt but turnabout does that exact same thing in terms of fogging an incoming army of pyromancer tokens, TNN, or multiple large threats to buy time as snapping something to buy a turn is virtually the same short of it being a batterskull germ token that snap is targeting/yay that one case. We're far more likely to care about stopping an army of elemental tokens as people play a lot of instants/sorceries against the combo deck who knew.
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