MTG Salvation

Hey guys Sharock here again with a huge question I'm looking to get a pauper deck together for an upcoming tournament for pure pauper and i wanted to go with a b/u faerie structure. Had an rough idea that I wanted to go something like this. Am I missing anything inpeticular for this type of deck? any help to help get this moving forward would be appreciated.

Several questions arise, namely why Violet Pall? I am running something very similar and winning with it. You can swap the faerie trickery and the counterspell fairly easily, and it might be better, but there is a lot of flashback in my local meta. The sideboard is transformational, moving in a more MUCish direction, switching from aggro to control.

I see we have kind of the same layout, and it seems like yours is pretty solid and can counterbalance what it needs too and be forceful when it needs to attack. The deck I threw together was just of cards I had lying around at the time but I was able to find some others which allowed me to switch a lot of things around.


After looking through things the strategy of this deck I came up with was this Oona's Gatewarden is good for keeping even large creatures at bay, since wither will generally be able to allow even my smaller guys to eliminate other things which allows me to save spellstutter sprite for countering bigger things. The Dreamspoiler witches practically turn any instant i cast into a kill spell, If there are two around using something like Peppersmoke or retracing Oona's Grace can do a lot of damage. Latchkey Faerie, Sentinels of Glen Elendra are my heavy hitters, while
Zephyr Sprite , and Briarberry Cohort provide support of the offensive end as well.




I know I should of went through and put more time into building and since I did this was the new turn out which I think is way better than the previous version. Any suggestions to improve this will be appreciated :).

You are taking a far controllier direction than I did, and despite playing several cards in common the decks could not play more differently preboard. I am very much in a tribal version of the old blue skies decks (aggro fliers), where as you are in a MUCish slowdown mode with creatures ill suited to grindy games (what with 1 being the most common toughness and all). I would probably try to get more aggessive, because trying to play control with what you're packing is going to be rough, probably rougher than you think.

My biggest problem with the deck as it sits right now is that you have some sneaky plan that I just don't think will work well when put to the test. Dreamspoiler Witches is expensive to cast, yes the ability is nice but your deck has some highly expensive things in it so do you really think you will have enough mana on your opponents turn to use the ability?

For instance in order to use Oona's Grace's retrace ability paired with Dreamspoiler Witches you will need not only to discard a land card from your hand but also pay three mana just to make a creature lose -1-1 and draw a card. The biggest gain from that is honestly the card draw because a -1-1 until end of turn really isn't anything.

Latchkey Faerie is also expensive, Sentinels of Glen Elendra is expensive, Soul Manipulation is also expensive.

Personally I would rework the deck to make it so you still use Dreamspoiler Witches but nearly everything else costs only one or two mana and no more. You are already running all instant spells now, but just make your creatures cheaper too and it will be much better for it.

I know faeries are a much more aggro tribal then most, but since most faerie decks are aggro type I wanted to go in a different direction with them. I wanted to go more control and have the main focus of control with a secondary of hitters in the deck so it would balance out. The changes I made was switching out Latchkey Faerie, for Cloud Sprite whom is a one drop and a quick hitter. Also removed Soul Manipulation, for Sapphire Charm which is cheaper and also has a card draw ability to it which kinda serves the same purpose as the Oona's Grace's. I've decided to drop one of the Sentinels of Glen Elendra to add in 1 other Briarberry Cohort but keep 1 sentinel for if i need a quick flash flyer to drop in during the game. I think with the changes I made the deck will run a lot smoother now and I appreciate the feed back I got for it. What do you guys think about the changes? Deck layout is as follows:

18 of your creatures are dead to electrickery. Warning.

I would run some form of draw power. Ponder, preordain, or brainstorm.

Counterspell is usually x4 in any blue deck.
Some nice removal would go a long way. No to hard to find good common removal.

Also,Bonesplitter should be in here as it can triple your clock for your fliers. I'd run 1-3.

Quote from Sharock

I know faeries are a much more aggro tribal then most, but since most faerie decks are aggro type I wanted to go in a different direction with them.

If you are looking for a competitive deck I can't really recommend playing against type. You may get the advantage of surprise, but you have to deal with either a lack of synergy or sometimes blatant anti-synergy. Faeries are very aggressively oriented and generally have very low toughness, if you use them to block you are getting a 1for1 at best, in a control deck you generally want creatures that survive combat. Oona's gatewarden seems like a very good blocker, but it's honestly more of a bad removal spell. Spire golem is a good blocker, it's a 2/4 which kills a ton of stuff, survives combat with nearly everything, flies to block a wider range of attackers, and the fact it gets dirt cheap in a hurry is frosting on the cake. You would probably be better off running delver MUC. Delver of Secrets is probably one of the best faeries in a control deck, and it's not even a faerie.

It took me awhile but I believe I got this deck to a point where where I got it to what I want it to do. It's the faerie tribal thing i wanted but also has the control aspect with a bit of aggro ish touch but it doesn't take away from it's main charm. The creatures compensate the Dreamspoiler Witches which I decided to knock down to two instead of the 4 I had previous, and all the creatures have flash which can be popped out whenever I need them. All the instances I think provide even more synergy with the idea I want for this deck which is finally present but I know some last minute tweaks can be made. What do you guys think of the lay out though I know it's a way different path from what I originally posted. I look forward to reading your thoughts of this new layout.

This deck looks pretty good! I really like Agony Warp here, especially since it can greatly change the outcome of combat. Add in Peppersmoke and Dreamspoiler Witches and it gets better in your favor.

Not sure if Broken Ambitions is the best choice here. The potential to mill them a few cards doesn't seem like it's worth it. As far as both tempo and control, Mana Leak does it better. Broken Ambitions takes 4 mana to do what Mana Leak can do with just 2 mana. Also consider that at 4 or more mana you can use both Mana Leak and a Spellstutter Sprite to tax them at least an extra 4 mana depending on if other Faeries are in play (which they should be).

Cloud of Faeries is also a great card to use, but seeing as it's a 1/1 and you've got a fairly tight list, it may have trouble finding a spot here. The only bonus it adds is improving your Spellstutter Sprite earlier.

I see your point about swapping in Mana Leak over Broken Ambitions since it allows me to free up for mana and add more control to the deck, I don't get the mill option but I would rather have the spare mana to throw out Spellstutter Sprite if I needed too which is why those cards were swapped. As for Cloud of faeries though it can help me out a little bit I just don't have the room for it in the deck since everything is already laid out plus I think the way it is now it will be a good competitive Pauper deck but if anyone has any final thoughts feel free to drop them in on what kind of tweaks can be done. With the one change here is my deck list:

That looks good! I don't have any other suggestions or complaints about the list. The next step is making a sideboard. Do you have any idea what you might face or is this gonna be a whole new meta for you?

Why the panoramas and not 4x terramorphic expanse and 4x evolving wilds? The panorama's only advantage in these cases is the ability to grab abu duals and shocks, which is not relevant here, so it's all downside, mostly because of the mana cost. And for that matter why all the fetches and only two guildgates? You have no abilities in the deck that make shuffling relevant, nor anything with landfall, nor anything that eats cards from you graveyard. We're talking all downsides here. Is there something i'm missing? If you were running ponder or brainstorm you would have good reasons, but at the moment not so much.

I really would include cloud of fairies. Its hard to argue with a free creature. If you have Dimir Aqueduct out, You'll even net one mana. It's also almost equivalent to a creature with flash, in that you can keep counterspell mana open on opponents turn after casting it.

Quote from TheSquirrel

I really would include cloud of fairies. Its hard to argue with a free creature. If you have Dimir Aqueduct out, You'll even net one mana. It's also almost equivalent to a creature with flash, in that you can keep counterspell mana open on opponents turn after casting it.

I am actually in agreement about Cloud of Faeries with the Dimir Aqueduct. Netting yourself an extra mana can be very useful indeed.

I'll give the Cloud of Faeries a shot but I only went for 2 since it seems the most optimal choice atm, and I switched my mana base around to removing panorama's for two more expanses and an Dimir Aqueduct and dividing the rest up to some basic land. how it looks I believe it can still function really well and I wanna thank you all for your input on helping me shape and improve my pauper deck.

I'd go for 4 Dimir Aqueducts and 4 Cloud of Faeries.
The combination of both is just too strong to leave to chance.
Untapping an aqueduct with Pestermite on your opponent's turn seems strong, too. Followed by a Doomblade or counter, for example.

With all the suggestions made I believe all these have made this deck epic and a contender in pauper and I love how it looks I believe this will be the final layout unless there are some final thoughts before I start play testing it at the next pauper tourni.

Cloud of Faeries is a trap most of the time. If you are running ninja of the deep hours it can serve a role, but even then it's just a 1/1. Free is good and all, but the loss of a card is much more painful than the free mana can offset. There is some argument for it when you add in spellstutter sprite, but the impact is minimal given the high spell count of the deck, compared to more aggressive variants, where it is a much more powerful tempo piece, as opposed to trying using it as a control piece.

Dreamspoiler witches is nowhere near as good as it seems, it will disappoint you time after time.

So, it's been more than a week now. Did you already get to play the deck?
I'm interested in how it performed

I had a chance to play the deck at two tourni's and the first one I went 3 and 2, and the second went 4-1. It proved to work out pretty well and the only deck I really had a problem against was red burn, if I wasn't able to get my deck going quick enough, but against a deck like Kiln fiend it just ran over it going 2-0 in a match in both tourni's against it. The control factor and synergy the deck had was fanaminal and worked really well as a whole. Dreamspoiler Witches worked exactly as it was supposed to as the main focal point of the deck with the added Cloud of Faeries adding the mana I need to cast one of my flashers, instants a key counter card like spellstutter sprite etc.or card draw if I need it though rarely was used that way to get a little bit of card advantage. I really enjoyed playing it and it's a solid deck of faerie pauper control at it's finest imo.I would highly recommend people try this deck out it's overall fun and deadly control tactics produce solid effort and wins but like every deck has it's weaknesses but again overall I believe it's an amazing layout and would like to thank everyone for their input that helped me craft this pauper deck that now sits as my top tier in the format.

Quote from Sharock

I had a chance to play the deck at two tourni's and the first one I went 3 and 2, and the second went 4-1. It proved to work out pretty well and the only deck I really had a problem against was red burn, if I wasn't able to get my deck going quick enough, but against a deck like Kiln fiend it just ran over it going 2-0 in a match in both tourni's against it. The control factor and synergy the deck had was fanaminal and worked really well as a whole. Dreamspoiler Witches worked exactly as it was supposed to as the main focal point of the deck with the added Cloud of Faeries adding the mana I need to cast one of my flashers, instants a key counter card like spellstutter sprite etc.or card draw if I need it though rarely was used that way to get a little bit of card advantage. I really enjoyed playing it and it's a solid deck of faerie pauper control at it's finest imo.I would highly recommend people try this deck out it's overall fun and deadly control tactics produce solid effort and wins but like every deck has it's weaknesses but again overall I believe it's an amazing layout and would like to thank everyone for their input that helped me craft this pauper deck that now sits as my top tier in the format.

Glad to hear it worked out so well

Did you use a Sideboard?
Against burn I would suggest (obviously) a number of Hydroblast/Blue Elemental Blast, less removal, and overall more counters. Confound might work great to protect your stuff.
Burn is all-in deck, it can only win using all of the cards it has in hand.
If you counter 2-3 spells before they can kill you, you should be able to survive a number of turns. They don't really have any good draw spells.

If you are playing against non-kiln fiend burn you cannot allow keldon marauders to stick. It's the biggest "burn spell" in that deck, but don't bounce him, that's just giving your opponent free damage. Also hitting needle drop is going to slash a hole in their tire pretty well because, while you only stopped 1 damage, you hurt their hand immeasurably, burn only sees about 10 cards per game, cutting off a draw is big dent in their plan. So when you counter needle drop you actually prevented 4-5 damage (1 from the drop, 3-4 for what they would have drawn).

Quote from DarthStabber

If you are playing against non-kiln fiend burn you cannot allow keldon marauders to stick. It's the biggest "burn spell" in that deck, but don't bounce him, that's just giving your opponent free damage. Also hitting needle drop is going to slash a hole in their tire pretty well because, while you only stopped 1 damage, you hurt their hand immeasurably, burn only sees about 10 cards per game, cutting off a draw is big dent in their plan. So when you counter needle drop you actually prevented 4-5 damage (1 from the drop, 3-4 for what they would have drawn).

I was thinking exactly of Keldon Marauders, you should not bounce them (that would just be stupid), but if possible you should not remove them either - best is to counter them.
That's why I would board out quite a bit of removal, and only keep the one in that can also do something else - read: Hydroblast, Blue Elemental Blast. If you have the mana: counter the Marauders on sight. If you ****ed up and don't: Kill them with that.

Force Spike is quite a good counter against burn.

Disrupt, Outwit, Spell Pierce are even more options.

I think it's all done now the deck is solid I took it to a couple more local tournis and actually came out on top goin 5-0 in both which really was good :). The sideboard I came with with the help of the suggestions recommended was solid with the counter spells helped my faes rise to the top and counter what needed to be done and I was finally able to beat my decks weakness of the burn decks. I also added in a few other kill spells if needed in the sideboard as well as Faerie Macabre to deal with any grave shananigans which i faced a couple times. All in all I think it's a completed project and I want to say thank you to everyone who helped me fine tune this awesome pauper of the faes. Again thank you and I appreciate all the help that went into the final line up:).






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