I'm fairly new to Faeries, and am really enjoying the deck. I've had pretty pretty poor results with it thus far, but it feels like it is very very close to being good. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/639242#paper
It seems most poorly positioned against things that can win without having creatures attack. Specifically, the some of the matches I noticed being difficult:
Combo elves (winning with a huge shaman of the pack or the new Throne of the god-pharoh). Cryptic/mistbind doesn't help, and if I don't see a well timed damnation post-board, that match seems really really skewed (lost 10/12 games). This matchup feels like it should be better, perhaps I was having poor draws/keeps.
Burn seems less bad, but still not in our favor, unless they are on the creature plan. All of our removal is quite efficient. Bitterblossom has lost me a few matchups, and mistbind clique is really bad in this matchup (they can often cast in response to the trigger)
Tron/Eldrazi both seems like they they outclass our stuff. Push/Spellstutter sprite don't pull much weight against Reality Smasher and Karn. I'm not sure how we actually win matchups that can just go over our heads. Ancestral visions doesn't matter when I draw things that are simply outclassed.
Affinity seems like a 50/50 matchup. Some games bitterblossom can just take over a whole game, whereas other plans its more or less a dead card. Ghaipur Aether grid is amazing in that matchup, as do their etched champion.
Based on the above, I'm toying with the idea of running Yahenni's Expertise. It's a maindeckable wrath effect that also plays a Lili, removal or swords if anyone runs them, maybe that brings them into the deck.
Most of my other matches were either won, or lost on mistakes. This deck is one of the hardest decks to pilot I have played so far. Any insight into how to do better in these matches would be greatly appreciate.
The reason we don't play a lot of wraths maindeck is because of how much they hurt us as well. A lot of games can come down to racing, and stalling with cryptic for a turn is way better in those spots than resetting the entire board and taking several more turns to reassemble our clock.
Aside from that, you've touched on a lot of what are considered to be our toughest matchups:
- Affinity and burn have gotten a lot better for us as our early removal has gotten better. Bitterblossom is backbreaking against affinity if we can stunt their early aggression since all of our tokens trade with all of their threats. Burn is a little less straightforward since BB is actively bad most of the time. Lately I've found that my burn matchup scales with how many Collective Brutalities I can cast. 0 is even (with other cheap interaction like SSS, snare, or push) or behind, 1 is even-ahead, and 2+ is very far ahead. Both of these matchups are very tight and having a lot of familiarity is a huge benefit. For example, mutavault blocks etched champion (lots of affinity pilots get caught by that).
-Tron/Eldrazi are hard for the reasons you mentioned. Against Tron in particular being able to deploy a clock and then time walk repeatedly is the way to win. Bant Eldrazi is more of an attrition matchup, though I haven't played it enough to know the matchup that well.
-Combo elves really is as bad a matchup at it seems (source: my wife has played elves for the past 2 years and, counting the part where she was learning to play Magic, I have a significantly negative win/loss rate against her on that deck) The most recent games against elves that I've won involved lots of removal early (like 4-5 pieces), stalling while I ticked away with a BB, and then using a timely cryptic on 1-2 life to bounce BB and allow me to win over 2 attacks instead of 1. Collective brutality is also pretty nice here, since you can smooth extra cards into cheap, beneficial effects (all three modes are live). Between Elves, burn, and affinity, I'm actually considering running a 3rd brutality in my list.
For self-improvement as a Faeries pilot, take each loss and try to think of where you felt the game start to slip away from you and think if there was a line you could have taken that could have changed things. Maybe you opted for a draw-step Vendilion Clique, and could have let them keep rather than pushing a card to the bottom, or you could have waited until EoT to keep up countermagic. Maybe you spend your last counter on their last card since they're dead in two turns anyway and their last topdeck (which you now can't counter) buys them those two turns until you die to your own BB triggers. That second one was me when I built the deck, and believe me, I learned my lesson.
The other thing you can do is, when presented with a threat, ask yourself, "do I really care about this?" Often times the answer is that you kind of care, but it's not really so threatening that you need to answer it right away. For SSS in particular, you may not be able to take any un-cast ones with you to the next game, but you can gain a significant benefit to how you retain control of things by playing as if you could take them with you.
I'm fairly new to Faeries, and am really enjoying the deck. I've had pretty pretty poor results with it thus far, but it feels like it is very very close to being good. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/639242#paper
Modern has evolved to favour aggro and unfair decks with a proactive plan. I believe essentially some years ago Wizards decided that "players like to play their cards" and began a project of nerfing control down to where it is today. Recently they have shown glimmers of awareness that the golden triangle (aggro-combo-control) is a thing and perhaps are trying to push control up a notch. Hence cards like Yahenni's Expertise. For now, Faeries is Tier 3 or lower, but we can hope!
Combo elves (winning with a huge shaman of the pack or the new Throne of the god-pharoh). Cryptic/mistbind doesn't help, and if I don't see a well timed damnation post-board, that match seems really really skewed (lost 10/12 games). This matchup feels like it should be better, perhaps I was having poor draws/keeps.
Draw Damnation is the main plan. The other plan is to discard and kill their key creatures as fast as they draw them, so you could try cutting Venser, Shaper Savant and playing one Murderous Cut. Another option is Engineered Explosives although I would say that EE is generally not the right card for Faeries.
Burn seems less bad, but still not in our favor, unless they are on the creature plan. All of our removal is quite efficient. Bitterblossom has lost me a few matchups, and mistbind clique is really bad in this matchup (they can often cast in response to the trigger)
Tron/Eldrazi both seems like they they outclass our stuff. Push/Spellstutter sprite don't pull much weight against Reality Smasher and Karn. I'm not sure how we actually win matchups that can just go over our heads. Ancestral visions doesn't matter when I draw things that are simply outclassed.
Some MUs you just have to accept are bad and move on. They have a lot of triggers that happen even if you counter the spell. If Disallow countered both spell and triggers, we could use it. Sadly, it does not. Pithing Needle turns off planeswalkers, but you can expect Nature's Claim in game 2 and 3 when you would bring it in.
Affinity seems like a 50/50 matchup. Some games bitterblossom can just take over a whole game, whereas other plans its more or less a dead card. Ghaipur Aether grid is amazing in that matchup, as do their etched champion.
I feel like we are slightly favoured in the Affinity MU.
Most of my other matches were either won, or lost on mistakes. This deck is one of the hardest decks to pilot I have played so far. Any insight into how to do better in these matches would be greatly appreciate.
It is a hard deck to play and so far as I can tell, that is why we enjoy it! Faeries pilots are whimsical masochists
Remember to hold tempo, particularly in their turn 2 and 3 when a well-timed Spellstutter Sprite can do a lot of damage to their plan. Don't discard what you can counter. Don't counter what you can remove. Let live everything you can play around. There is a lot of crossover in what your cards can do, and making those decisions - what to discard, what to counter, what to kill - is very important. Treasure the info you get from playing your discard spells.
Generally, play Bitterblossom and Liliana of the Veil aggressively. You can ride them to victory. Yes, this does conflict with holding up mana and making that decision is always difficult. There are many permanents that you simply cannot remove if they land - planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts. Cryptic Command is often your only out and must be timed so that you bounce and then are prepared to counter on the way back down. Good luck!
vonklaude & FaeKeeler Very helpful advice - I appreciate the well thought out and explained responses.
Expertise does kill our things, but I find against decks I want it, I'm racing with mistbind cliques or man-lands anyways, and using bitterblossom to trade/save life points. Maybe its sideboard only? Being able to cast immediately cast ancestral visions/lili seems so good post wrath.
Playtested against bant eldrazi last night. I was behind with little on the board. I was able to get a expertise to kill noble hiearch + skypawner + token, resolve lili to -2 and kill a reality smasher. I think that's magical Christmas land more often that not though.
vonklaude: You're playing Countersquall main?
As far as "Don't counter what you can kill", I think I actually fall too far into that. I typically build up a bunch of rules, like hold SSS for boros charm and push to goblin guide, but faeries has to be a lot more thoughtful, as it changes every game. Sometimes its important to SSS the guide I could push, because I don't have push in hand. Sometimes its better to just let it resolve and kill it on my turn with a collective brutality.
Mistbind clique is actually the card I've been unhappy with in all of our bad matchups. Its slow, vulnerable to removal, and ultimately non-impactful against many decks. Does this move to the sideboard, or maybe out completely?
I added swords to the board to give us better reach against some of the more controlling decks, and added expertise into the main to try. I have a modern 1k coming up this weekend, and will most likely be running this list.
A large portion of the Discord UB fae community has been off of Mbind for at least a 6 months, maybe closer to a year. The recurrence of big mana decks like tron or combo decks like ad naus make Mbind more appealing, but as you mention it is really poor in our bad match ups, and is good in the match ups we already seem favored in. I could see a potential 2 sb spots if your meta is just overrun with tron, but even then land hate may be more effective. I've been on Solas and sofaf mb since I cut Mbind, and have thoroughly enjoyed their utility. However, I've tried them in the sb and never once found myself desiring it post board. They don't really help any matches that other cards don't do more in its place.
Over the years I've traded off a lot of Faerie tribal flavor for a more hard-line control, trying to grind out with counters/removal/discard until manlands and snaps/tokens can win over a few turns chaining cryptics.
More practice with the deck is the best way to figure out your meta and decide how you like to operate the deck best. Your conclusion on Mbind is spot on imo, though plenty of people still run her(and honestly I think largely play the deck to cast her, lol) Good luck!
I find mistbind only exists as a means to closing out the game so its perfectly fine to cut it if thats what appeals to you
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
4 Cryptic Command
4 Fatal Push
1 Victim of Night
1 Muderous Cut
1 Dismember
Sorcery [6]
2 Thoughtseize
4 inquisition of Kozilek
Enchantment [4]
4 Bitterblossom
Land [25]
4 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Darkslick Shores
2 River of Tears
5 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Drowned Catacomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
Sideboard [15]
1 Dispel
2 Damnation
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Countersquall
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Ancestral Visions
2 Collective Brutality
1 Go for the throat
First match modern sneak and show. game one discard, copter,,sprite and cyptic command plus man lanes for win. game 2 played copter on turn 3 then ate emralkul on turn 3 but still won with a hand of x 3 land and cryptic command drawing bitter b next turn. sided out 5 removal not the delve one for 2 cage 2 countersquall and 1 go for the throat.
match two burn mulligan to watery grave, darkslick shores, copter, fatal push, victim of night, bitterblossom turns when turn 1 kill creature turn 2 kill creature, turn 3 copter, turn 4 bitterblossom turn 5 discard thoughtseize with copter draw cyptic command then win a few turns later. sided out 4 bitterblossom 2 thought seize 1 dismember for 2 brutality 1 go for the throat 1 dispell 2 countersquall 1 Engineered Explosives. game 2 he curved out perfectly and I was just a little bet to slow too keep up. game 3 turn 1 discard turn 2 discard turn 3 coputer turn 4 spellstutter turn 5 copter mutavault. he was stuck on 2 lands and i discarded his only burn that targets creatures and 2 copters played aggro and defense for the win with spell shutter and mutavault, with command for the tap down win next turn. note that the copters did let me murderous cut for black.
match 3 jund deathshadow. game one with a discard and fatal push turn 2. turn 3 play mutavault, then vidilion after they draw let him keep lili of veil abupt decay, wraith. he plays lili i sac vidlion kill lili with muta, win with 2nd vendilion and mistbind. sided out dismemeber and pestermite for go for the throat and 1 damnation. game 2 to much discard threats and removal got me. game 3, 1 polluted delta, inquistion , 2 bitter blossom, a copter, and 2 fatal push for win, with him playing white jund with lingureing souls i sould of put the explosives in over damnation.
As for pingu_pingu's Deck Faerie Miscreant is a very bad card, compaired to most of moderns 1 and two drops in the format a 1/1 just isn't going to win games your better off with discard or counterspells even if its blackmail, mana leak. what happends if u get a lot of 1/1s with no pendlehaven, or you need double blue and a black so you can vidilion and fatal push, your only runing 23 lands man cut the pendle add two faerie conclave if your budget. becuase your runing 4x Aether Vial and image? spell stutter on turn 3? are you hoping for Faerie Miscreant into spell stutter off vile, thats a turn too slow for modern your just hurting your deck. scion of oona is better then image, is you dont like scion play x4 smugglers copter. isn't Engineered Explosives and or pithing niddle better then echoing truth, if you need budget mass removal form play just run bileblight. scion of onna is better with mana leaks and counter squalls, while copter is better then removal and discard.
Do you cast Blossom versus Burn? I'm also quite new to the deck and competitively, in paper, only faced it once thus far. I simply denied playing it, which worked out.
I have tried casting BB vs burn, and never satisfied with the outcome. Its pretty difficult to get ahead in that matchup without some sort of clock, and our clocks don't line up well.
vonklaude & FaeKeeler Very helpful advice - I appreciate the well thought out and explained responses.
Expertise does kill our things, but I find against decks I want it, I'm racing with mistbind cliques or man-lands anyways, and using bitterblossom to trade/save life points. Maybe its sideboard only? Being able to cast immediately cast ancestral visions/lili seems so good post wrath.
Playtested against bant eldrazi last night. I was behind with little on the board. I was able to get a expertise to kill noble hiearch + skypawner + token, resolve lili to -2 and kill a reality smasher. I think that's magical Christmas land more often that not though.
vonklaude: You're playing Countersquall main?
As far as "Don't counter what you can kill", I think I actually fall too far into that. I typically build up a bunch of rules, like hold SSS for boros charm and push to goblin guide, but faeries has to be a lot more thoughtful, as it changes every game. Sometimes its important to SSS the guide I could push, because I don't have push in hand. Sometimes its better to just let it resolve and kill it on my turn with a collective brutality.
Mistbind clique is actually the card I've been unhappy with in all of our bad matchups. Its slow, vulnerable to removal, and ultimately non-impactful against many decks. Does this move to the sideboard, or maybe out completely?
I added swords to the board to give us better reach against some of the more controlling decks, and added expertise into the main to try. I have a modern 1k coming up this weekend, and will most likely be running this list.
Mistbind is really good against most ramp decks since it taps them out. Fae typically struggles against 50 shades of eldrazi. Those decks also do not run a lot of removal.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
4 Cryptic Command
4 Fatal Push
1 Victim of Night
1 Muderous Cut
1 Dismember
Sorcery [6]
2 Thoughtseize
4 inquisition of Kozilek
Enchantment [4]
4 Bitterblossom
Land [25]
4 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Darkslick Shores
2 River of Tears
5 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Drowned Catacomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
Sideboard [15]
1 Dispel
2 Damnation
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Countersquall
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Ancestral Visions
2 Collective Brutality
1 Go for the throat
First match modern sneak and show. game one discard, copter,,sprite and cyptic command plus man lanes for win. game 2 played copter on turn 3 then ate emralkul on turn 3 but still won with a hand of x 3 land and cryptic command drawing bitter b next turn. sided out 5 removal not the delve one for 2 cage 2 countersquall and 1 go for the throat.
match two burn mulligan to watery grave, darkslick shores, copter, fatal push, victim of night, bitterblossom turns when turn 1 kill creature turn 2 kill creature, turn 3 copter, turn 4 bitterblossom turn 5 discard thoughtseize with copter draw cyptic command then win a few turns later. sided out 4 bitterblossom 2 thought seize 1 dismember for 2 brutality 1 go for the throat 1 dispell 2 countersquall 1 Engineered Explosives. game 2 he curved out perfectly and I was just a little bet to slow too keep up. game 3 turn 1 discard turn 2 discard turn 3 coputer turn 4 spellstutter turn 5 copter mutavault. he was stuck on 2 lands and i discarded his only burn that targets creatures and 2 copters played aggro and defense for the win with spell shutter and mutavault, with command for the tap down win next turn. note that the copters did let me murderous cut for black.
match 3 jund deathshadow. game one with a discard and fatal push turn 2. turn 3 play mutavault, then vidilion after they draw let him keep lili of veil abupt decay, wraith. he plays lili i sac vidlion kill lili with muta, win with 2nd vendilion and mistbind. sided out dismemeber and pestermite for go for the throat and 1 damnation. game 2 to much discard threats and removal got me. game 3, 1 polluted delta, inquistion , 2 bitter blossom, a copter, and 2 fatal push for win, with him playing white jund with lingureing souls i sould of put the explosives in over damnation.
As for pingu_pingu's Deck Faerie Miscreant is a very bad card, compaired to most of moderns 1 and two drops in the format a 1/1 just isn't going to win games your better off with discard or counterspells even if its blackmail, mana leak. what happends if u get a lot of 1/1s with no pendlehaven, or you need double blue and a black so you can vidilion and fatal push, your only runing 23 lands man cut the pendle add two faerie conclave if your budget. becuase your runing 4x Aether Vial and image? spell stutter on turn 3? are you hoping for Faerie Miscreant into spell stutter off vile, thats a turn too slow for modern your just hurting your deck. scion of oona is better then image, is you dont like scion play x4 smugglers copter. isn't Engineered Explosives and or pithing niddle better then echoing truth, if you need budget mass removal form play just run bileblight. scion of onna is better with mana leaks and counter squalls, while copter is better then removal and discard.
Why pestermite over snap? you even have copter so snap can crew it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
Putting 4 Death Shadows in a Faerie Deck because we have Bitterblossom is a lot worse than squeezing Bitterblossom in a Death Shadow deck.
I think Death Shadow is not really a card for this deck. That´s why we have to stretch into using Liliana, and then some more life loss, and some cards to dig for it... What you really want in the end is to put Bitterblossom in a Death Shadow deck.
The deck below is where I am up to so far, after several matches on MtGO. My last match was against Chord. The combination of discard, removal and counters obviously took Chord apart pretty well (2-0). From playing the deck, I feel like the key axis of synergy is the life loss and for me that argues more toward putting Shadow into a Bitterblossom deck, than the converse. Certainly dropping a huge hairy beater, and protecting it with Spellstutter and Cryptic, is feeling quite unfair. And the plan of letting Bitterblossom sink our life total to the needed levels is working out well so far.
If you recall the splash-green for Tarmogoyf Faeries decks from a few years back that put up a few results (they weren't better than UB Faeries but they won games), then I would point out that Tarmogoyf has next to no synergy with the rest of our deck whereas Death's Shadow ties right to our core. We have to spend life: spending life gets us stronger counterspells, evasive beat down, and a force field... and in this deck a huge hairy beater.
I forgot to try Slip Through Space so that will be next, replacing Serum Visions I think.
I used to run 4 secluded glen in my fae list with scions. Now that Took scions out 1 of snap does seem better.
Old list updated if anyone wants to try out scion of onna
Instants (14)
3 Cryptic Command
4 Fatal Push
3 Mana Leak
2 Countersquall
1 Psychic Barrier
1 Pull from Tomorrow
Sorceries (3)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
Lands (25)
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
5 Island
4 Mutavault
4 River of Tears
4 Secluded Glen
2 Swamp
1 Faerie Conclave
Sideboard
2 Spell Snare
1 Countersquall
1 Damnation
1 Dispel
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2 Filigree Familiar
I could run the 4th scion over the pestermite but 1 of mite really is good tempo even vs red decks. with scions pestermite and fea conclave gets better. lot of times late game I animate 3 manlands and attack becuase conclaves is a mana cheaper then tarpit. Play scion with 5 mana and mana leak play or counter squall then main phase play 2nd scion feels really nice. In testing Tamiyo did better then jace, you could main deck it over pull from tomorrow, or just play a 4th cryptic command. I really starting to like 4 cryptic commands as it helps for that final push or final counter vs combo to win game. I didn't care for liliana of the veil and snap caster in testing so I tend not to play them. with no 1 drops creatures and only 4 two drop creatures Engineered Explosives does a lot of work. Psychic Barrier Pull from Tomorrow used to be two Anticipate just to help curve plays. this version is pretty good vs merfolk because i dont run many islands or polluted deltas, I've gone down to 3 or 4 islands before if i know my meta will have merfolk. Burn merfolk infinity, deathshadow all of them I dont need to run fetch lands to go with my fatal pushes, at least when i'm heavy faeries with 4 secluded glens. The hard counters drain life do work, makes the tron match up great.
I allso feel fae is tier 2 now that we have fatal push
Considering changing the Countersquall in the main for another Liliana of the Veil, or Liliana, the Last Hope in place of 2nd LotV in the board (3 lilis total). Would also like to get another slot for GQ but can't touch surgicals as of now -maybe in the future- and the rest of the slots are pretty tight, can't really play it maindeck.
Not playing Mistbind mostly because Tron is not largely played in my LGS. Kalitas and Tasigur have been great in that spot, as they hose aggro decks pretty well.
The list feels strong, it has a fair game against most decks, although the only deck I have thoroughly tested is Merfolks (a bit over 100 games) with a win rate of 65% pre-board and 75%/80% post-board.
I've seen an uptick in discussion for Liliana of the Veil in the last couple pages. Having played her in faeries since 2014, here's my 2 cents on the card:
For people playing Lili in the main, consider trimming countermagic from your deck. Lili's dominance in the board comes from +1-ing her as much as possible, whether to quickly ultimate vs a Titan Shift deck or to control the board presence of a creature deck. If you can't profitably +1 her, you shouldn't be playing her (at least mainboard), and if you are siding her in, try to trim counterspells for her slots. When Lili is good, counters are generally bad -exception being combo/control, but then you do the same with removal spells- so keep that in mind.
In modern there are more creature based decks than spell based combo or control decks, so that makes our priorities a bit easier:
Removal spell > Counter spell.
Remember: Counters are good as long as there are things on the stack. For things to be on the stack, your opponent has to have cards in hand. Liliana is insanely good at having players go hellbent. So, if you're keeping your hand size in 1 card, keep the card that impacts the board, not the card that has the potential of impacting the stack. This is not really a rule, nor it's restricted to removal spells 100%. Assess the match up, assess your hand, decide what will have more impact before discarding and cursing your topdeck. Lili does not forgive.
Holding up counterspells and discarding value cards or removal to Lili is bad vs decks that want to tap creatures to win, that's why it's a general rule that Lili and counters don't get along (modern is a creature based format after all). Against creature decks it's easier to deal with a resolved creature through removal than having the window open to counter it, and -as where modern stands right now- good counterspells generally cost more mana than good creatures. So if you +1 Lili and you have a Counter and a Removal in hand, discard the counter and play the removal, then compliment with -2 if necessary. Even if you can't play the removal because you tapped out for lili or because you used your black source for a Tseize/IoK, discard the counter and play the removal next turn or when necessary.
The best card to join Lili in your deck is Snapcaster Mage. Always keep the Snapcaster when discarding to Lili's +1 (unless it's strictly necessary to hold something else and being forced to +1 her). Thiago will re-buy what you discarded to her or what you already used and need to re-use, while keeping the beats or protecting her. Don't be afraid of Snapcasting instants in your turn then proceed to +1 lili. If you play serum, you can play snap, target serum, +1 lili, then cast serum. Another great play is going Snap, flashback discard, +1 lili. Snapcaster Mage is the best ally of Liliana of the Veil in UB.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In Lorwyn's brief evenings, the sun pauses at the horizon long enough for a certain species of violet to bloom with the fragrance of mischief.
Thus, if we feel the way you do about Shadow then we need to question why we don't feel the same way about Lili, sofaf, coptor, Tasigur, Kalitas, snappy and all the other non-Tribal cards that we seem to like putting in Faeries?
Thus, if we feel the way you do about Shadow then we need to question why we don't feel the same way about Lili, sofaf, coptor, Tasigur, Kalitas, snappy and all the other non-Tribal cards that we seem to like putting in Faeries?
With the pervasiveness of death's shadow appearing in decks throughout the format, there always comes a point where you have to ask, "is this the most efficient and effective way to play this card?". I don't know that this way is NOT the most efficient; it would have been helpful if @equinox2793 had provided feedback on the deck instead of trashing it. That being said, many faerie decks start to look like another deck with a faerie splash. Faeries is tier 3, shadow is tier 1, are we making bad death's shadow decks, and not really playing faeries? lots of philosophical questions here...
Went 2-2 beating Affinity and DS Jund, lost to U Tron and Amulet Titan. Should have beaten Amulet but it was at the end of the night in a long game 3, and I blanked on letting a card resolve even though I had a Spellstutter in hand to counter that card specifically. So, minus the play error it would have been a 3-1 which is almost respectable.
I'll say up front, I did not like this build and won't be playing it again. There were however things I did like in the deck, so I want to talk about those.
The curve still needs a little bit of tuning, but I very much liked the idea of using Brutality to smooth things out. Getting the numbers right is going to take work though. Brutality with Swords works especially well, I want to look a little deeper into that line using Academy Ruins and maybe some Buried Ruin. Brutality was also an amazing combo with Ensnaring Bridge and good with Visions.
Jace VP was very good. I think he's definitely the call in a Vision build...
Which brings me to the next point. Ancestral Vision was bad. Generally it feels like you need to either go for a discard package or a card draw package. Card draw is nice, but the format demands early interaction, I had so many games with an early Vision and I just wished it was a discard spell. I lost a game in every single round (sometimes more than a game) due to this specifically. Also drawing a bunch of top end cards (which my list has more of) makes the problem of Vision being clunky even worse.
The manabase was excellent, I did flood in a game or two but a Brutality would have smoothed that out and hitting land drops helps a lot. The only thing I might change is the Faerie Conclave. I did have a game where activating for two was relevant, but it requires more thought on a 3/2 vs 2/2/1 creature land split.
Glen Elendra and Sower were both terrible. I played one because I only have 3 Mistbinds, and I played the other just to experiment.
The removal felt lacking.
So for ideas:
Add discard over card draw
Only flash threats
In trying to come up with ideas, I came across something interesting. Jace (and Snap for that matter), and all the Faerie's worth running aside from Bitterblossom happen to be Wizards. That offers up a couple of interesting possibilities. I haven't seen this talked about, but I also haven't read all 360 pages of this thread so maybe I'm rehashing old territory. Stonybrook Banneret isn't a Faerie, but it is cost reduction on all other creatures we're interested in running. The other one that's neat is the Wizardcycling guy Vedalken Aethermage who can EOT cycle for a Snapcaster to get something from the GY or for a Sprite if you need a counterspell.
Do either of those cards sound like they hold promise?
Good that you have had some succes with your list. Sounds fun to play
Stony Brook does not accelerate anything. Vendilion Clique on turn 3 was already possible. Mistbind Clique on turn 3 needs a faerie...which you cant play, because you played Banneret. For the miser 2-3 Snapcaster mage it is not enough. Might be something in your speficif deck, but I dont really see this in regular Faerie lists
For vedalken aethermage, perhaps Mystical Teaching is better? Or Harbinger?
I highly suggest running 4Iok and 2 Thoughtseize, though that doesn't mean you can't run AV as well(usually 3 max). AV is good in grindier match ups, so you may prefer them sb. Most Faerie builds are pretty creature-light aside from hardcore tribal builds. I would cut to 2 Mbind, up to 3 Vclique( eot 3 vclique into their upkeep Mbind, so you know the coast is clear, is an important play) cut Glen elendra, and sower. Jace is nice if you can flip him, but he's pretty slow. Looting isn't as good in a deck that wants to load up on hand size, and our deck doesn't play too many spells to warrant flashback play. 2 snapcaster would fill a better role of consistently flashing back spells like CC but also putting on aggression fast by flashing eot. Very often our clock looks like 1 damage, 3-6-10. Ensuring we have one or two extra turns to close the game is what we need, and I would suggest cutting a few CB (maybe to sb entirely for burn) and adding some more creature removal, discard, and remands. Go for the throats and dismember are good options, 2 of one along 4 push is good. CB being sorcery speed is a big turn off. However, it is probably the single best card ever printed against burn, so again it's a meta call. AV can still be good mb for decks like tron and Titan and especially jund/grixis, but it does depend on the meta. I've recently cut my solas and sofaf sb, taking after a friends list, but again Solas is really great in the grindier or fair deck games, getting back sss. Good luck!
With the pervasiveness of death's shadow appearing in decks throughout the format, there always comes a point where you have to ask, "is this the most efficient and effective way to play this card?". I don't know that this way is NOT the most efficient; it would have been helpful if @equinox2793 had provided feedback on the deck instead of trashing it. That being said, many faerie decks start to look like another deck with a faerie splash. Faeries is tier 3, shadow is tier 1, are we making bad death's shadow decks, and not really playing faeries? lots of philosophical questions here...
Agreed. That is the angle I am approaching this from. My goal is a good Faeries deck not a bad Shadow deck. How it started is that I watched a number of matches on SCG and two facts connected for me. I noticed Shadow players Tarfire themselves or put down shocklands needlessly untapped to accelerate the pace of their life loss. And I recollected that Faeries' lands are chosen to avoid dealing life loss due to the tax of a Bitterblossom in play. Thus it felt reasonable to suspect there may be a synergy between Shadow wanting faster life loss, and Faeries' core commitment to self harm.
The deck I propose is playing the 14 Faeries that in my opinion are reasonable in the current meta. Shortening the deck via Streetwraith results in a deck that pro-rata feels very much like Faeries so I'd probably suggest simply cutting one wraith for one Mistbind if I felt it was good in the meta.
Thus, if we feel the way you do about Shadow then we need to question why we don't feel the same way about Lili, sofaf, coptor, Tasigur, Kalitas, snappy and all the other non-Tribal cards that we seem to like putting in Faeries?
My issue is that you are only on 3 shadows which doesn't make sense since you tailor the list to the card. Shadow also wants a lower to the ground list with less mana than faeries normally run. If it works for you then w/e but I don't see the fit.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
With the pervasiveness of death's shadow appearing in decks throughout the format, there always comes a point where you have to ask, "is this the most efficient and effective way to play this card?". I don't know that this way is NOT the most efficient; it would have been helpful if @equinox2793 had provided feedback on the deck instead of trashing it. That being said, many faerie decks start to look like another deck with a faerie splash. Faeries is tier 3, shadow is tier 1, are we making bad death's shadow decks, and not really playing faeries? lots of philosophical questions here...
Agreed. That is the angle I am approaching this from. My goal is a good Faeries deck not a bad Shadow deck. How it started is that I watched a number of matches on SCG and two facts connected for me. I noticed Shadow players Tarfire themselves or put down shocklands needlessly untapped to accelerate the pace of their life loss. And I recollected that Faeries' lands are chosen to avoid dealing life loss due to the tax of a Bitterblossom in play. Thus it felt reasonable to suspect there may be a synergy between Shadow wanting faster life loss, and Faeries' core commitment to self harm.
The deck I propose is playing the 14 Faeries that in my opinion are reasonable in the current meta. Shortening the deck via Streetwraith results in a deck that pro-rata feels very much like Faeries so I'd probably suggest simply cutting one wraith for one Mistbind if I felt it was good in the meta.
My question to you is: how is your list not a worse version of Grixis shadow/UB(x) shadow? What does your deck do that's better than those decks? One of the backbones of this archtype is our ability to win with our man lands/using mutavault plus sprite to win. For example you run 23 lands, yet you have an extremely low curve which makes me feel like this deck floods a lot.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
The reason we don't play a lot of wraths maindeck is because of how much they hurt us as well. A lot of games can come down to racing, and stalling with cryptic for a turn is way better in those spots than resetting the entire board and taking several more turns to reassemble our clock.
Aside from that, you've touched on a lot of what are considered to be our toughest matchups:
- Affinity and burn have gotten a lot better for us as our early removal has gotten better. Bitterblossom is backbreaking against affinity if we can stunt their early aggression since all of our tokens trade with all of their threats. Burn is a little less straightforward since BB is actively bad most of the time. Lately I've found that my burn matchup scales with how many Collective Brutalities I can cast. 0 is even (with other cheap interaction like SSS, snare, or push) or behind, 1 is even-ahead, and 2+ is very far ahead. Both of these matchups are very tight and having a lot of familiarity is a huge benefit. For example, mutavault blocks etched champion (lots of affinity pilots get caught by that).
-Tron/Eldrazi are hard for the reasons you mentioned. Against Tron in particular being able to deploy a clock and then time walk repeatedly is the way to win. Bant Eldrazi is more of an attrition matchup, though I haven't played it enough to know the matchup that well.
-Combo elves really is as bad a matchup at it seems (source: my wife has played elves for the past 2 years and, counting the part where she was learning to play Magic, I have a significantly negative win/loss rate against her on that deck) The most recent games against elves that I've won involved lots of removal early (like 4-5 pieces), stalling while I ticked away with a BB, and then using a timely cryptic on 1-2 life to bounce BB and allow me to win over 2 attacks instead of 1. Collective brutality is also pretty nice here, since you can smooth extra cards into cheap, beneficial effects (all three modes are live). Between Elves, burn, and affinity, I'm actually considering running a 3rd brutality in my list.
For self-improvement as a Faeries pilot, take each loss and try to think of where you felt the game start to slip away from you and think if there was a line you could have taken that could have changed things. Maybe you opted for a draw-step Vendilion Clique, and could have let them keep rather than pushing a card to the bottom, or you could have waited until EoT to keep up countermagic. Maybe you spend your last counter on their last card since they're dead in two turns anyway and their last topdeck (which you now can't counter) buys them those two turns until you die to your own BB triggers. That second one was me when I built the deck, and believe me, I learned my lesson.
The other thing you can do is, when presented with a threat, ask yourself, "do I really care about this?" Often times the answer is that you kind of care, but it's not really so threatening that you need to answer it right away. For SSS in particular, you may not be able to take any un-cast ones with you to the next game, but you can gain a significant benefit to how you retain control of things by playing as if you could take them with you.
Modern has evolved to favour aggro and unfair decks with a proactive plan. I believe essentially some years ago Wizards decided that "players like to play their cards" and began a project of nerfing control down to where it is today. Recently they have shown glimmers of awareness that the golden triangle (aggro-combo-control) is a thing and perhaps are trying to push control up a notch. Hence cards like Yahenni's Expertise. For now, Faeries is Tier 3 or lower, but we can hope!
Agreed. I'm playing Countersquall instead of Mana Leak for exactly that reason
Draw Damnation is the main plan. The other plan is to discard and kill their key creatures as fast as they draw them, so you could try cutting Venser, Shaper Savant and playing one Murderous Cut. Another option is Engineered Explosives although I would say that EE is generally not the right card for Faeries.
I find Burn a reasonable MU with my Death's Shadow version of Faeries. As you say, Mistbind Clique is bad here and I believe bad generally in the current meta due to the amount of efficient removal available to most decks in Modern. All the White decks get Path to Exile. All the Black decks get Fatal Push, Dismember and Murderous Cut. Some get Terminate or Dreadbore. I feel like Yahenni's Expertise is a really interesting suggestion as I believe it can cast Ancestral Vision.
Some MUs you just have to accept are bad and move on. They have a lot of triggers that happen even if you counter the spell. If Disallow countered both spell and triggers, we could use it. Sadly, it does not. Pithing Needle turns off planeswalkers, but you can expect Nature's Claim in game 2 and 3 when you would bring it in.
I feel like we are slightly favoured in the Affinity MU.
It is a hard deck to play and so far as I can tell, that is why we enjoy it! Faeries pilots are whimsical masochists
Remember to hold tempo, particularly in their turn 2 and 3 when a well-timed Spellstutter Sprite can do a lot of damage to their plan. Don't discard what you can counter. Don't counter what you can remove. Let live everything you can play around. There is a lot of crossover in what your cards can do, and making those decisions - what to discard, what to counter, what to kill - is very important. Treasure the info you get from playing your discard spells.
Generally, play Bitterblossom and Liliana of the Veil aggressively. You can ride them to victory. Yes, this does conflict with holding up mana and making that decision is always difficult. There are many permanents that you simply cannot remove if they land - planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts. Cryptic Command is often your only out and must be timed so that you bounce and then are prepared to counter on the way back down. Good luck!
Expertise does kill our things, but I find against decks I want it, I'm racing with mistbind cliques or man-lands anyways, and using bitterblossom to trade/save life points. Maybe its sideboard only? Being able to cast immediately cast ancestral visions/lili seems so good post wrath.
Playtested against bant eldrazi last night. I was behind with little on the board. I was able to get a expertise to kill noble hiearch + skypawner + token, resolve lili to -2 and kill a reality smasher. I think that's magical Christmas land more often that not though.
vonklaude: You're playing Countersquall main?
As far as "Don't counter what you can kill", I think I actually fall too far into that. I typically build up a bunch of rules, like hold SSS for boros charm and push to goblin guide, but faeries has to be a lot more thoughtful, as it changes every game. Sometimes its important to SSS the guide I could push, because I don't have push in hand. Sometimes its better to just let it resolve and kill it on my turn with a collective brutality.
Mistbind clique is actually the card I've been unhappy with in all of our bad matchups. Its slow, vulnerable to removal, and ultimately non-impactful against many decks. Does this move to the sideboard, or maybe out completely?
Current working version: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/640130#paper
I added swords to the board to give us better reach against some of the more controlling decks, and added expertise into the main to try. I have a modern 1k coming up this weekend, and will most likely be running this list.
Over the years I've traded off a lot of Faerie tribal flavor for a more hard-line control, trying to grind out with counters/removal/discard until manlands and snaps/tokens can win over a few turns chaining cryptics.
More practice with the deck is the best way to figure out your meta and decide how you like to operate the deck best. Your conclusion on Mbind is spot on imo, though plenty of people still run her(and honestly I think largely play the deck to cast her, lol) Good luck!
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
This tourament list
Creature [10]
2 Mistbind Clique
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Pestermite
Artifact [4]
4 Smuggler's Copter
Instant [11]
4 Cryptic Command
4 Fatal Push
1 Victim of Night
1 Muderous Cut
1 Dismember
Sorcery [6]
2 Thoughtseize
4 inquisition of Kozilek
Enchantment [4]
4 Bitterblossom
Land [25]
4 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Darkslick Shores
2 River of Tears
5 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Drowned Catacomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
Sideboard [15]
1 Dispel
2 Damnation
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Countersquall
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Ancestral Visions
2 Collective Brutality
1 Go for the throat
First match modern sneak and show. game one discard, copter,,sprite and cyptic command plus man lanes for win. game 2 played copter on turn 3 then ate emralkul on turn 3 but still won with a hand of x 3 land and cryptic command drawing bitter b next turn. sided out 5 removal not the delve one for 2 cage 2 countersquall and 1 go for the throat.
match two burn mulligan to watery grave, darkslick shores, copter, fatal push, victim of night, bitterblossom turns when turn 1 kill creature turn 2 kill creature, turn 3 copter, turn 4 bitterblossom turn 5 discard thoughtseize with copter draw cyptic command then win a few turns later. sided out 4 bitterblossom 2 thought seize 1 dismember for 2 brutality 1 go for the throat 1 dispell 2 countersquall 1 Engineered Explosives. game 2 he curved out perfectly and I was just a little bet to slow too keep up. game 3 turn 1 discard turn 2 discard turn 3 coputer turn 4 spellstutter turn 5 copter mutavault. he was stuck on 2 lands and i discarded his only burn that targets creatures and 2 copters played aggro and defense for the win with spell shutter and mutavault, with command for the tap down win next turn. note that the copters did let me murderous cut for black.
match 3 jund deathshadow. game one with a discard and fatal push turn 2. turn 3 play mutavault, then vidilion after they draw let him keep lili of veil abupt decay, wraith. he plays lili i sac vidlion kill lili with muta, win with 2nd vendilion and mistbind. sided out dismemeber and pestermite for go for the throat and 1 damnation. game 2 to much discard threats and removal got me. game 3, 1 polluted delta, inquistion , 2 bitter blossom, a copter, and 2 fatal push for win, with him playing white jund with lingureing souls i sould of put the explosives in over damnation.
As for pingu_pingu's Deck Faerie Miscreant is a very bad card, compaired to most of moderns 1 and two drops in the format a 1/1 just isn't going to win games your better off with discard or counterspells even if its blackmail, mana leak. what happends if u get a lot of 1/1s with no pendlehaven, or you need double blue and a black so you can vidilion and fatal push, your only runing 23 lands man cut the pendle add two faerie conclave if your budget. becuase your runing 4x Aether Vial and image? spell stutter on turn 3? are you hoping for Faerie Miscreant into spell stutter off vile, thats a turn too slow for modern your just hurting your deck. scion of oona is better then image, is you dont like scion play x4 smugglers copter. isn't Engineered Explosives and or pithing niddle better then echoing truth, if you need budget mass removal form play just run bileblight. scion of onna is better with mana leaks and counter squalls, while copter is better then removal and discard.
I have tried casting BB vs burn, and never satisfied with the outcome. Its pretty difficult to get ahead in that matchup without some sort of clock, and our clocks don't line up well.
Mistbind is really good against most ramp decks since it taps them out. Fae typically struggles against 50 shades of eldrazi. Those decks also do not run a lot of removal.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Why pestermite over snap? you even have copter so snap can crew it.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
At this point, why are you even playing faeries? Just play some UB(X) shadow deck.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Old list updated if anyone wants to try out scion of onna
Creatures (14)
3 Mistbind Clique
3 Scion of Oona
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Pestermite
Enchantments (4)
4 Bitterblossom
Instants (14)
3 Cryptic Command
4 Fatal Push
3 Mana Leak
2 Countersquall
1 Psychic Barrier
1 Pull from Tomorrow
Sorceries (3)
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
Lands (25)
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
5 Island
4 Mutavault
4 River of Tears
4 Secluded Glen
2 Swamp
1 Faerie Conclave
Sideboard
2 Spell Snare
1 Countersquall
1 Damnation
1 Dispel
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2 Filigree Familiar
I could run the 4th scion over the pestermite but 1 of mite really is good tempo even vs red decks. with scions pestermite and fea conclave gets better. lot of times late game I animate 3 manlands and attack becuase conclaves is a mana cheaper then tarpit. Play scion with 5 mana and mana leak play or counter squall then main phase play 2nd scion feels really nice. In testing Tamiyo did better then jace, you could main deck it over pull from tomorrow, or just play a 4th cryptic command. I really starting to like 4 cryptic commands as it helps for that final push or final counter vs combo to win game. I didn't care for liliana of the veil and snap caster in testing so I tend not to play them. with no 1 drops creatures and only 4 two drop creatures Engineered Explosives does a lot of work. Psychic Barrier Pull from Tomorrow used to be two Anticipate just to help curve plays. this version is pretty good vs merfolk because i dont run many islands or polluted deltas, I've gone down to 3 or 4 islands before if i know my meta will have merfolk. Burn merfolk infinity, deathshadow all of them I dont need to run fetch lands to go with my fatal pushes, at least when i'm heavy faeries with 4 secluded glens. The hard counters drain life do work, makes the tron match up great.
I allso feel fae is tier 2 now that we have fatal push
4x Fatal Push
3x Thoughtseize
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Bitterblossom
4x Spellstutter Sprite
3x Snapcaster Mage
1x Go for the Throat
1x Collective Brutality
1x Countersquall
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Dismember
3x Cryptic Command
1x Murderous Cut
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4x Mutavault
4x Polluted Delta
4x Darkslick Shores
2x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Secluded Glen
1x Watery Grave
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Island
1x Swamp
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Surgical Extraction
1x Dispel
2x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Echoing Truth
1x Collective Brutality
1x Countersquall
2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Damnation
Considering changing the Countersquall in the main for another Liliana of the Veil, or Liliana, the Last Hope in place of 2nd LotV in the board (3 lilis total). Would also like to get another slot for GQ but can't touch surgicals as of now -maybe in the future- and the rest of the slots are pretty tight, can't really play it maindeck.
Not playing Mistbind mostly because Tron is not largely played in my LGS. Kalitas and Tasigur have been great in that spot, as they hose aggro decks pretty well.
The list feels strong, it has a fair game against most decks, although the only deck I have thoroughly tested is Merfolks (a bit over 100 games) with a win rate of 65% pre-board and 75%/80% post-board.
I've seen an uptick in discussion for Liliana of the Veil in the last couple pages. Having played her in faeries since 2014, here's my 2 cents on the card:
For people playing Lili in the main, consider trimming countermagic from your deck. Lili's dominance in the board comes from +1-ing her as much as possible, whether to quickly ultimate vs a Titan Shift deck or to control the board presence of a creature deck. If you can't profitably +1 her, you shouldn't be playing her (at least mainboard), and if you are siding her in, try to trim counterspells for her slots. When Lili is good, counters are generally bad -exception being combo/control, but then you do the same with removal spells- so keep that in mind.
In modern there are more creature based decks than spell based combo or control decks, so that makes our priorities a bit easier:
Removal spell > Counter spell.
Remember: Counters are good as long as there are things on the stack. For things to be on the stack, your opponent has to have cards in hand. Liliana is insanely good at having players go hellbent. So, if you're keeping your hand size in 1 card, keep the card that impacts the board, not the card that has the potential of impacting the stack. This is not really a rule, nor it's restricted to removal spells 100%. Assess the match up, assess your hand, decide what will have more impact before discarding and cursing your topdeck. Lili does not forgive.
Holding up counterspells and discarding value cards or removal to Lili is bad vs decks that want to tap creatures to win, that's why it's a general rule that Lili and counters don't get along (modern is a creature based format after all). Against creature decks it's easier to deal with a resolved creature through removal than having the window open to counter it, and -as where modern stands right now- good counterspells generally cost more mana than good creatures. So if you +1 Lili and you have a Counter and a Removal in hand, discard the counter and play the removal, then compliment with -2 if necessary. Even if you can't play the removal because you tapped out for lili or because you used your black source for a Tseize/IoK, discard the counter and play the removal next turn or when necessary.
The best card to join Lili in your deck is Snapcaster Mage. Always keep the Snapcaster when discarding to Lili's +1 (unless it's strictly necessary to hold something else and being forced to +1 her). Thiago will re-buy what you discarded to her or what you already used and need to re-use, while keeping the beats or protecting her. Don't be afraid of Snapcasting instants in your turn then proceed to +1 lili. If you play serum, you can play snap, target serum, +1 lili, then cast serum. Another great play is going Snap, flashback discard, +1 lili. Snapcaster Mage is the best ally of Liliana of the Veil in UB.
Faerie decks have for years included a small number of non-tribal cards as victory conditions. Anything from Liliana of the Veil (not a Faerie) to Sword of Feast and Famine (not a Faerie) to Smuggler's Copter (not a Faerie) to Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet (not Faeries).
Thus, if we feel the way you do about Shadow then we need to question why we don't feel the same way about Lili, sofaf, coptor, Tasigur, Kalitas, snappy and all the other non-Tribal cards that we seem to like putting in Faeries?
With the pervasiveness of death's shadow appearing in decks throughout the format, there always comes a point where you have to ask, "is this the most efficient and effective way to play this card?". I don't know that this way is NOT the most efficient; it would have been helpful if @equinox2793 had provided feedback on the deck instead of trashing it. That being said, many faerie decks start to look like another deck with a faerie splash. Faeries is tier 3, shadow is tier 1, are we making bad death's shadow decks, and not really playing faeries? lots of philosophical questions here...
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Watery Grave
1 Secluded Glen
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Island
2 Mutavault
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
Creatures 13
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Mistbind Clique
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Sower of Temptation
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Fatal Push
4 Collective Brutality
4 Bitterblossom
4 Cryptic Command
1 Far // Away
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Spellskite
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Monastery Siege
1 Dispel
1 Vedalken Shackles
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Liliana of the Veil
Went 2-2 beating Affinity and DS Jund, lost to U Tron and Amulet Titan. Should have beaten Amulet but it was at the end of the night in a long game 3, and I blanked on letting a card resolve even though I had a Spellstutter in hand to counter that card specifically. So, minus the play error it would have been a 3-1 which is almost respectable.
I'll say up front, I did not like this build and won't be playing it again. There were however things I did like in the deck, so I want to talk about those.
The curve still needs a little bit of tuning, but I very much liked the idea of using Brutality to smooth things out. Getting the numbers right is going to take work though. Brutality with Swords works especially well, I want to look a little deeper into that line using Academy Ruins and maybe some Buried Ruin. Brutality was also an amazing combo with Ensnaring Bridge and good with Visions.
Jace VP was very good. I think he's definitely the call in a Vision build...
Which brings me to the next point. Ancestral Vision was bad. Generally it feels like you need to either go for a discard package or a card draw package. Card draw is nice, but the format demands early interaction, I had so many games with an early Vision and I just wished it was a discard spell. I lost a game in every single round (sometimes more than a game) due to this specifically. Also drawing a bunch of top end cards (which my list has more of) makes the problem of Vision being clunky even worse.
The manabase was excellent, I did flood in a game or two but a Brutality would have smoothed that out and hitting land drops helps a lot. The only thing I might change is the Faerie Conclave. I did have a game where activating for two was relevant, but it requires more thought on a 3/2 vs 2/2/1 creature land split.
Glen Elendra and Sower were both terrible. I played one because I only have 3 Mistbinds, and I played the other just to experiment.
The removal felt lacking.
So for ideas:
Add discard over card draw
Only flash threats
In trying to come up with ideas, I came across something interesting. Jace (and Snap for that matter), and all the Faerie's worth running aside from Bitterblossom happen to be Wizards. That offers up a couple of interesting possibilities. I haven't seen this talked about, but I also haven't read all 360 pages of this thread so maybe I'm rehashing old territory. Stonybrook Banneret isn't a Faerie, but it is cost reduction on all other creatures we're interested in running. The other one that's neat is the Wizardcycling guy Vedalken Aethermage who can EOT cycle for a Snapcaster to get something from the GY or for a Sprite if you need a counterspell.
Do either of those cards sound like they hold promise?
Good that you have had some succes with your list. Sounds fun to play
Stony Brook does not accelerate anything. Vendilion Clique on turn 3 was already possible. Mistbind Clique on turn 3 needs a faerie...which you cant play, because you played Banneret. For the miser 2-3 Snapcaster mage it is not enough. Might be something in your speficif deck, but I dont really see this in regular Faerie lists
For vedalken aethermage, perhaps Mystical Teaching is better? Or Harbinger?
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678Agreed. That is the angle I am approaching this from. My goal is a good Faeries deck not a bad Shadow deck. How it started is that I watched a number of matches on SCG and two facts connected for me. I noticed Shadow players Tarfire themselves or put down shocklands needlessly untapped to accelerate the pace of their life loss. And I recollected that Faeries' lands are chosen to avoid dealing life loss due to the tax of a Bitterblossom in play. Thus it felt reasonable to suspect there may be a synergy between Shadow wanting faster life loss, and Faeries' core commitment to self harm.
The core of Faeries was 4 Bitterblossom, 4 Spellstutter Sprite, 4 Mutavault, 2-4 Mistbind Clique, 1-2 Vendilion Clique and 0-4 Scion of Oona. A minimum of 15 and maximum of 22 cards. For the last couple of years Faeries has habitually omitted Scion, and ubiquitous cheap removal has devalued Mistbind in the current meta.
The deck I propose is playing the 14 Faeries that in my opinion are reasonable in the current meta. Shortening the deck via Streetwraith results in a deck that pro-rata feels very much like Faeries so I'd probably suggest simply cutting one wraith for one Mistbind if I felt it was good in the meta.
My issue is that you are only on 3 shadows which doesn't make sense since you tailor the list to the card. Shadow also wants a lower to the ground list with less mana than faeries normally run. If it works for you then w/e but I don't see the fit.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
My question to you is: how is your list not a worse version of Grixis shadow/UB(x) shadow? What does your deck do that's better than those decks? One of the backbones of this archtype is our ability to win with our man lands/using mutavault plus sprite to win. For example you run 23 lands, yet you have an extremely low curve which makes me feel like this deck floods a lot.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)