The fact that it so dominated standard around the time of Lorwyn seems to have left some lingering dislike amongst non-faerie players against the tribe. I feel this is totally unjustified as there are other tribal decks that are more difficult to play against, have larger card pools and were even more dominant in their times (anyone remember when playing Onslaught block meant playing against endless goblin decks?).
I don't know if Goblins was necessarily more dominant than Faeries. However, any enmity that might have been towards Goblins was likely forgotten because Affinity came next and left a much bigger impression.
Enmity against faeries? Aren't we being just a tad paranoid here? If there's a tribe that has left recent scars, its Eldrazi, and the scars are actually here in the same format.
Secondly, Spell Queller is not a weak imitation of Spellstutter. Queller will unconditionally stop any spell including abrupt decay, up to supreme verdict. Spellstutter is a very conditional counter that will only work if you have enough faeries already on the board, which is to say she will mostly be catching 1 cmc spells most times, and if the opponent has a bolt they can totally mess with your ETB.
Lastly, I think its great to be passionate about one's main deck, but also be real. You're absolutely right that fae needs more support. This alone lends substance to the statement that fae are weak. They can't be excused with "hard to pilot", or "not mainstream". Decks usually (emphasis here) aren't mainstream for the simple reason they don't perform, at least in the meta. And the fae have never really performed in modern.
My last post regarding color, synergy, curve and speed reflect the issues ongoing with the fae. The fae are control, but not by choice. And they aren't even really good at it. They lack the one drops and explosiveness to win the early game, they lack the clean removal of shards including white and red to play proper control and are confined to the likes of smother/murderous cut, and they lack the beef to close a game quickly after controlling the board and getting to lategame. Smuggler's copter has been a boon to the fae in at least letting their tokens hit for 3 and then providing card selection, but the deck needs a little more than that. It either needs beefier fae so it can commit to control in 3 colors and be confident to close without mutavaults, or it needs utility fae at the 1-3 cmc slots so it can be a vial/coco deck.
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MarcWizard, Spell Queller only conditionally stops spells. Once your opponent kills Queller, they get to cast their spell for free again. Queller doesn't even stop counterspells if killed by instant-speed removal, that's how bad it can be.
On the other hand, Spellstutter Sprite counters spells as long as your opponent cannot kill enough Faeries in response. Once its trigger has resolved, the spell can never be cast again.
I've had a questionable time playing with Spell Queller in UWR Anything--there's a reason why Spell Queller is typically found in creature-heavy decks.
I think the big take away is that how solid a deck is doesn't determine how competitive and successful it will be. The meta has a much greater impact in that regard and makes any deck outside of established long term t1 very volatile.
This is more a concern of the pros though, than us folks who do casual fun.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Definitely standard domination isnt a reason Faeries can succeed in modern
They got their hype with Bitterblossom unban but the deck didnt perform well
Personally I really like tribal decks since they give flavor while still staying competitive and just because fairies isn't performing as well as spirits doesn't mean you should give up on the deck. Group think kills modern quite a bit and it takes people being adventurous to prove or change the situation with a deck.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think people are hitting good points here. Fae are like that sealed pool you got with a ridiculous mythic, three constructed-only uncommons and two good Commons in a color
I think people are hitting good points here. Fae are like that sealed pool you got with a ridiculous mythic, three constructed-only uncommons and two good Commons in a color
Guess I'm kind of wondering what you mean and where exactly you got that they have only a few good cards? Fae is highly playable and competitive as a tribe with a number of cards from the Lorwyn / Elwyn block as well as Shadowmoore. The main issue is that they aren't a good Lord tribe because the Faeries are mostly over costed and often compete with each other for slots, along with the fae themselves kind of being more supplementary to other archetypes like Rogue tribal or other decks.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Collected Company.
Huge amount of support between the two Innistrad blocks.
Collected Company.
Collected Company.
Confirmation Bias.
Collected Company.
Did I mention Collected Company?
Past that, knowing the difference between the two is like knowing the difference between Murder and Stasis Snare. On the surface they functionally come off as the same class of card, and sometimes one may be seen as better than the other due to the context of the metagame, but as you dig deeper into their nuances you start to realize how they're worlds apart. Spirits has Collected Company which has powerful synergy with their nature as a tribe that disrupts in the form of static on-field permanents, Faeries has the Cryptic/Mistbind crossup which thoroughly dismantles entire chunks of the opponent's turn in an archetype that gets a lot of value out of devaluing the opponent's turns as much as possible.
I faced spirits the other day (as a faerie player). I thought he was playing a home brew... been out of scene a while and didn't realize spirits was a deck now. Was easy match up...
Whoever said spellstutter sprite was inferior to queller. Lol! SSS is the best card in the deck, have countered Karn with it. Also yes, T2 we can likely only counter cmc-1 cards... hence spell snare.
I would love a better 1 CMC faerie, we'll see if that happens tho. Anything in blue makes players scared so it's slow to allow anything or unban anything.
New Lily has been good, copter looks good, so maybe fae will make a comeback. I do like being "the faerie guy" at my LGS tho while I have to play 4 matches against naya burn/zoo decks
But "any deck can run collected company". Spirits is basically a blue white deck with collected company and 1, grant it a very good, mana dork.
Fae could use collected company. You can splash it just as easily really... But there seriously isnt that many good fae and the few that are good... which really, they are, are around 2-3 mana, not 1-2 mana like spirits...
Also. Number of fae printed: 23, Number of spirits printed: 434. The odds are there will be a few good ones.
I also state it again. I think the problem with faeries is that there are not enouch cards that support the tribe. The tribe itself is good, but you need more of them. Perhaps you can make a hybrid deck by adding spell queller to faeries? Perhaps even splash for collected company. Something worth experimenting with if you want to give faeries more action.
If splinter twin wasnt banned you'd see more faeries.
Instead we have spirits.
Where did you draw this wild and asinine conclusion from?
From knowledge of how humans think and how metas work.
If they legalized splintertwin everyone would go back to that so a deck like faeries works better because it has a better tempo against twin.
You should test a current faeries deck against splinter twin and come back to me.
Faeries was not videly played during splinter twin. Even at the topp of it's game s.t. only made out 10% of the field. Faeries had a bad matchup against the remaining meta, even if s.t. was unbanned. The s.t. discussion is also not on topic as the card is banned.
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I have dyslexia, no I am not going to spell check for you, yes you have to live with the horrors of it.
Faeries was not videly played during splinter twin. Even at the topp of it's game s.t. only made out 10% of the field. Faeries had a bad matchup against the remaining meta, even if s.t. was unbanned. The s.t. discussion is also not on topic as the card is banned.
Current meta if twin wasnt banned.
I never said it would be a good deck, just said it would be played more often.
All I said before was basically "this format is too aggro based, if twin wasnt banned you'd see more faeries. lnstead we have spirits being the same type of deck."
Yes indeed. Currently faeries make out 0% of the meta. While in 2015 it made out an astoneshing 0% of the meta during Splinter Twins prime, as opposed to the 2% in 2014. I honestly do not think splinter twin affects the outcome that much.
I do not the raw data suporting your claim that splinter twin affects how much faeries is played, and I suspect you contribute coinsidents as coralation.
Faeries needs a new Lorwyn block. There are not enough cards to suport the tribe. To bad there was not some good faeries in Magic Origins. I also don't think there will be more faeries in Almokesh.
Yes indeed. Currently faeries make out 0% of the meta. While in 2015 it made out an astoneshing 0% of the meta during Splinter Twins prime, as opposed to the 2% in 2014. I honestly do not think splinter twin affects the outcome that much.
I do not the raw data suporting your claim that splinter twin affects how much faeries is played, and I suspect you contribute coinsidents as coralation.
Faeries needs a new Lorwyn block. There are not enough cards to suport the tribe. To bad there was not some good faeries in Magic Origins. I also don't think there will be more faeries in Almokesh.
Also never said popular.
The deck is similar to how bant company is set up but its not bant normally.
Its a deck a few local groups have been testing out and we all said if twin was in the format they might run it since its so popular and this wrecks twin.
The meta is what ever pros say it is, not what is best.
and yet when twin was legal nobody played it, so what kind of weird hindsight is this?
Pros would not run faeries so they could wreck twin and then lose to the rest of the meta, they would just run twin, period. That's what got the deck banned anyway. Let's just steer away from talk of twin, shall we? No matter what point you're trying to prove here, it comes too close to ban-talk.
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Looking at the comments it seems that stuffing good cards into a deck, adding X creature type, and calling it tribal is a thing in modern? :-$
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
We'll see how spirits do long term. Spellstutter Sprite and Bitterblossom are the two best cards and SSS at least trumps anything spirits has. BB is on par with Lingering Souls. It says a lot that Wizards is scared to print more than 1 mediocre faerie per block.
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I don't know if Goblins was necessarily more dominant than Faeries. However, any enmity that might have been towards Goblins was likely forgotten because Affinity came next and left a much bigger impression.
Secondly, Spell Queller is not a weak imitation of Spellstutter. Queller will unconditionally stop any spell including abrupt decay, up to supreme verdict. Spellstutter is a very conditional counter that will only work if you have enough faeries already on the board, which is to say she will mostly be catching 1 cmc spells most times, and if the opponent has a bolt they can totally mess with your ETB.
Lastly, I think its great to be passionate about one's main deck, but also be real. You're absolutely right that fae needs more support. This alone lends substance to the statement that fae are weak. They can't be excused with "hard to pilot", or "not mainstream". Decks usually (emphasis here) aren't mainstream for the simple reason they don't perform, at least in the meta. And the fae have never really performed in modern.
My last post regarding color, synergy, curve and speed reflect the issues ongoing with the fae. The fae are control, but not by choice. And they aren't even really good at it. They lack the one drops and explosiveness to win the early game, they lack the clean removal of shards including white and red to play proper control and are confined to the likes of smother/murderous cut, and they lack the beef to close a game quickly after controlling the board and getting to lategame. Smuggler's copter has been a boon to the fae in at least letting their tokens hit for 3 and then providing card selection, but the deck needs a little more than that. It either needs beefier fae so it can commit to control in 3 colors and be confident to close without mutavaults, or it needs utility fae at the 1-3 cmc slots so it can be a vial/coco deck.
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On the other hand, Spellstutter Sprite counters spells as long as your opponent cannot kill enough Faeries in response. Once its trigger has resolved, the spell can never be cast again.
I've had a questionable time playing with Spell Queller in UWR Anything--there's a reason why Spell Queller is typically found in creature-heavy decks.
This is more a concern of the pros though, than us folks who do casual fun.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
They got their hype with Bitterblossom unban but the deck didnt perform well
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Guess I'm kind of wondering what you mean and where exactly you got that they have only a few good cards? Fae is highly playable and competitive as a tribe with a number of cards from the Lorwyn / Elwyn block as well as Shadowmoore. The main issue is that they aren't a good Lord tribe because the Faeries are mostly over costed and often compete with each other for slots, along with the fae themselves kind of being more supplementary to other archetypes like Rogue tribal or other decks.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Huge amount of support between the two Innistrad blocks.
Collected Company.
Collected Company.
Confirmation Bias.
Collected Company.
Did I mention Collected Company?
Past that, knowing the difference between the two is like knowing the difference between Murder and Stasis Snare. On the surface they functionally come off as the same class of card, and sometimes one may be seen as better than the other due to the context of the metagame, but as you dig deeper into their nuances you start to realize how they're worlds apart. Spirits has Collected Company which has powerful synergy with their nature as a tribe that disrupts in the form of static on-field permanents, Faeries has the Cryptic/Mistbind crossup which thoroughly dismantles entire chunks of the opponent's turn in an archetype that gets a lot of value out of devaluing the opponent's turns as much as possible.
Whoever said spellstutter sprite was inferior to queller. Lol! SSS is the best card in the deck, have countered Karn with it. Also yes, T2 we can likely only counter cmc-1 cards... hence spell snare.
I would love a better 1 CMC faerie, we'll see if that happens tho. Anything in blue makes players scared so it's slow to allow anything or unban anything.
New Lily has been good, copter looks good, so maybe fae will make a comeback. I do like being "the faerie guy" at my LGS tho while I have to play 4 matches against naya burn/zoo decks
Fae could use collected company. You can splash it just as easily really... But there seriously isnt that many good fae and the few that are good... which really, they are, are around 2-3 mana, not 1-2 mana like spirits...
Also. Number of fae printed: 23, Number of spirits printed: 434. The odds are there will be a few good ones.
Where did you draw this wild and asinine conclusion from?
Caleb Durward has championed spirits in modern a bit. You can read about his latest tournament here. He talks a lot about the deck.
: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/bant-so-hard-1st/
I also state it again. I think the problem with faeries is that there are not enouch cards that support the tribe. The tribe itself is good, but you need more of them. Perhaps you can make a hybrid deck by adding spell queller to faeries? Perhaps even splash for collected company. Something worth experimenting with if you want to give faeries more action.
Faeries also see some action as can be seen here: http://www.mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=223
From knowledge of how humans think and how metas work.
If they legalized splintertwin everyone would go back to that so a deck like faeries works better because it has a better tempo against twin.
You should test a current faeries deck against splinter twin and come back to me.
Current meta if twin wasnt banned.
I never said it would be a good deck, just said it would be played more often.
All I said before was basically "this format is too aggro based, if twin wasnt banned you'd see more faeries. lnstead we have spirits being the same type of deck."
I do not the raw data suporting your claim that splinter twin affects how much faeries is played, and I suspect you contribute coinsidents as coralation.
Faeries needs a new Lorwyn block. There are not enough cards to suport the tribe. To bad there was not some good faeries in Magic Origins. I also don't think there will be more faeries in Almokesh.
Source: http://www.mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=223
Also never said popular.
The deck is similar to how bant company is set up but its not bant normally.
Its a deck a few local groups have been testing out and we all said if twin was in the format they might run it since its so popular and this wrecks twin.
The meta is what ever pros say it is, not what is best.
Pros would not run faeries so they could wreck twin and then lose to the rest of the meta, they would just run twin, period. That's what got the deck banned anyway. Let's just steer away from talk of twin, shall we? No matter what point you're trying to prove here, it comes too close to ban-talk.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
(2 x 4)2 mana lords is why merfolk do so well lol. I would bet faeries would do better if Scion of Oona were UU instead of 2U.