Has anyone considered Surgical Extraction? I was thinking of SB'ing it, but honestly... I wouldn't mind maindecking a few. Counter something useful, then immediately extract it? In match-ups like Jund, where they can lay down a deadly Thoughtseize or Inqusition of Kozelik before I even drop a land, I immediately want to get rid of those. Seems to be pretty solid against any match-up:
Tron - Tectonic Edge on a piece of Urzatron, followed by an Extraction. Or on Emrakul before his ability triggers.
Boros - get rid of those damn fetchlands because of all that Landfall.
Caw Blade - that Snapcaster Mage can get awfully annoying
Jund - in response to those devasting turn one plays. Pretty much good against card in this match up.
And, well, as I said, once you counter something, immediately pay the 2 life and extract it if it's a threat.
I ran 2 extractions in my board during the Boise Ptq and never used it the entire day.
How impressed were you with Flashfreeze? I haven't tried it, but did consider it. My fear was that in the decks I'd bring it in against I was often losing to black or blue cards.
Has anyone else had issues with Blood Moon out of the sideboards of Affinity decks? I'm really tempted to run a few more basics rather than twilight mires. Maybe a split of 2 swamp 2 forest and only one mire instead of 2/1/2.
I played fae at the Boise PTQ and lost in the finals to a tempered steel affinity list.
From what I remember I played against Boom/Bust Zoo, tokens (my loss in the swiss), martyr, aggro loam, jund (we drew due to time as he won game one off the back of maindecked darkblasts), bant, and caw. That put me at 7th place with 5-1-1.
I beat twin in the quarters, red affinity in the semis, and in the finals I was getting close to taking control with shackles despite my opponent having two cranial platings in play. He drew the second white source he needed to lay tempered steel and that swung the game in his favor. Game two his hand was almost empty on turn 1. It was over as he was swinging for 8 on turn two and I failed to see land number four. The matchup was horrid and much worse than regular affinity due to tempered steel and the explosiveness of frogmites in conjunction of their low costing cards.
i won alot of games with this deck last night, didnt test, didnt make a sb, didnt care, just threw what i had in a pile together, sleeved, swept tournament, continued sweeping afterwards, never lost a game in many matches. i think this should be a terrible deck and my luck was just really good, does anyone agree or have any criticism?
I can hardly believe you won with this pile. So many cards that just appear bad for this format.
Clearly youre very uninformed considering caw won a 155 person ptq 2 days before that, had 2 top 8s in the mocs, and has won multiple premier events.
A competent Fae player will very often beat caw. Vedalken Shackles and the advantage you get from playing creatures who counter, peek, and time walk are what make this deck powerful. The other thing that makes this deck great is hte manabase which is extremely consistent and very often doesn't interfere with the overall game plan like the mana can occasionally do in other control style decks.
I don't think the aggro matchups are all quite that bad. Sure affinity is no cakewalk, but it's definitely not an auto loss. I would say splashing isn't a requirement and I've been quite happy with shackles, threads of disloyalty, and just basic tempo of the games.
There are a lot of directions to go with Faeries, and it seems like there are a certain subset of cards that are inherently good against the field, then a certain subset of slots you can devote for the purpose of improving the mirror-ish matchups, or beating aggro.
Spellskites and Shackles jump out at me as being the 'best' cards in the deck, which makes me wonder if other tempo decks are possible around that shell (with or without faeries)
I've seen a decent amount of caw-blade decks picking up on shackles. I think some delver decks just don't run enough islands to rely on shackles. The fae easily can.
I'm pretty sure I pick the assassin and look to either go rakdos or golgari from that point. That card has always been pretty good for me in draft.
I ran 2 extractions in my board during the Boise Ptq and never used it the entire day.
Jason Ford vs Chapin was a good example as was the finals between Shiels and Costa.
From what I remember I played against Boom/Bust Zoo, tokens (my loss in the swiss), martyr, aggro loam, jund (we drew due to time as he won game one off the back of maindecked darkblasts), bant, and caw. That put me at 7th place with 5-1-1.
I beat twin in the quarters, red affinity in the semis, and in the finals I was getting close to taking control with shackles despite my opponent having two cranial platings in play. He drew the second white source he needed to lay tempered steel and that swung the game in his favor. Game two his hand was almost empty on turn 1. It was over as he was swinging for 8 on turn two and I failed to see land number four. The matchup was horrid and much worse than regular affinity due to tempered steel and the explosiveness of frogmites in conjunction of their low costing cards.
I can hardly believe you won with this pile. So many cards that just appear bad for this format.
A competent Fae player will very often beat caw. Vedalken Shackles and the advantage you get from playing creatures who counter, peek, and time walk are what make this deck powerful. The other thing that makes this deck great is hte manabase which is extremely consistent and very often doesn't interfere with the overall game plan like the mana can occasionally do in other control style decks.
I've seen a decent amount of caw-blade decks picking up on shackles. I think some delver decks just don't run enough islands to rely on shackles. The fae easily can.
Agreed, you really should be running both.
Personally I like the Steelshaper's Gift. I'm expecting it as a random equipment, but with the versatility to be my 'second' mortarpod or sword.
Some pretty interesting changes. The one-of's seems so odd, almost like it was thrown together last minute!
Obv, these were tested quite a bit though.
That's good to hear. Are you able to post the list for those of us that can't access the Wizards site at the moment? (because of work restrictions)
I figured it was against creature decks, but in playing the deck against those I'm not really sure if that's the case.