yeah having cryptic up and then being able to wrath the turn after is usually game and i really wish it was as simple as pathing the master all the time but ugh man it feels like you just always need to have more paths lol. Explosives is probably really good I need to test it in the side. I was mostly looking for confirmation that its actually pretty hard sometimes and that I'm not crazy for thinking that. I do have 4 wraths in my 75 but don't play detention sphere anymore as its been pretty bad for me lately but perhaps its worth siding it just for merfolk? Idk if that or explosives would be better though.
Merfolk is not the best matchup, they play caverns+vials so our counters are generally not Ok, we need to have 4 wrath in our 75, and maybe some explosives. The beauty about explosives is that it also destroy boogles (where wraths are ok but explosives just destroy them), and is good against lantern, prision decks and all that crap as well.
After everyone's great advice, this is what I came up with. I wound up going 2/2 at my local shop. Disfigure and Spell Snare were incredible. I don't miss Spell Pierce at all - it always winds up being irrelevant against an early creature or too weak to counter anything in mid-game.
Vs. Lantern Control - 0-2 Loss - I got blown out really badly by Ensnaring Bridge. Just never had the counters in hand to stop it. Even with a resolved Bitterblossom, I was never able to accumulate enough damage that a single Hurkyl's Recall could allow me to swing lethal. I put Memoricide and an extra Hurkyl's Recall in my board after the event to try and improve my odds.
Vs. Elves - 2-1 Win - Game one loss, then a very strong recovery. Disfigure became my new favorite card, and Snapcaster Mage made it even more devastating. This could have been a much harder match-up if my opponent had managed to find Cavern of Souls, or if I hadn't been so lucky in pulling all my cheap removal each game. At the same time, I only once had to resort to actually countering a creature. I was very happy with this win - I changed this deck to fight aggro, and that's what it did.
Vs. Land Destruction - 2-0 Win - Guy's deck crapped itself twice in a row, not much else to say. Flooded game one, mulliganned to death game 2. I will say that my kills took an embarrassingly long time here - during game 1 Bitterblossom continuously chumped a very large Myth Realized and left Mutavault to grind out the win on its own.
Vs. Selesnya Stompy - 0-2 Loss - Tons of fun but ultimately somewhat inevitable. Even game 2 I failed to find a Damnation or any relevant removal after the first couple of turns. Multiple Mistbind Cliques allowed me to stall the game out for a time. Added a 3rd Damnation to the board after the event to help. Considering swapping a Disfigure for a Dismember or bringing back a copy of Tragic Slip - once multiple 3/3 or 4/4 creatures come out my deck has a very hard time dealing with that in its current state. At one point my opponent managed to CoCo out two Loxodon Smiters. It wasn't pretty.
Though I truly hate playing against land destruction and anything with ensnaring bridge, I still had a lot of fun with Faeries this time around. After reading some of the articles posted recently about deck archetypes and particularly Aggro-Control, I do feel like in this state my deck is too much control - I'm lacking the ability to shift gears into aggression mode.
I noticed a list with Oona's Prowler and Oona's Blackguard, but I've tested extensively with both cards and found them to be underwhelming. Blackguard is far too slow - it competes with Blossom for the 2 drop spot on your curve, yet only truly shines when Blossom is in play. Prowler is a much worse Vendilion Clique for 1 less CMC... you're playing it for the damage, but if that strategy starts to work your opponent will just start discarding and you'll lose your momentum. It probably gets a lot better if you are already forcing constant discards with Liliana of the Veil.
I think I'll try putting some number of Scion of Oona back in - it's just that he always seems to eat a bolt. It bothers me to pay 3 for a 1/1 that can't protect himself... it would be a much better card if he gave himself shroud! However unlike Tasigur, the Golden Fang he maintains evasion, which I think is fundamental. Hopefully I can get away with only running 3 - moving Spellskite and Victim of Night to the board is easy, but I'd hate to lose any more removal and going down to 2 Vendi Cliques seems like a step in the wrong direction.
Nice list you got there! Sad that you lost hard those two times. It seems that the local curve is really low (aggro, lantern). I would consider a remand or two in place of Cryptics. Remand is better at finding what you need, especially with 24 lands.
Yeah, still lantern is a very bad matchup speacially with so low discard... Lantern is a really good deck in general, but cant win against burn.
If we are going to add red to the manabase for SB tech I would just run Slaughter Games personally.
YOu can exile emrakull with games, but get crushed by ulamog; you can exile ulamog and get crushed by emrakul. Sowing salt effects takes out tron forever; they are down 1 land at least (maybe even a card from their hand), and cant assemble tron anymore. all your tec edges are more live than ever.
I was thinking as a tron tech, and as we play 8 fetchlands, to play 1 or 2 steam vents main and crumble to dust as a sideboard card (maybe some scalding tarn, but not sure a bout it). Its sowing salt for only one red, and thats pretty good. If you cast it, tron can kiss goodbye their emrakul plan (and maybe the ulamog one too).
I like the idea of adding cavern of souls to help push through a Teferi at the end of their turn without having to hold up countermagic. Besides Tiago, are there other humans or wizards that would really shine from this addition, or any other creatures that would complement this plan well?
Grixis is loosing popularity right now as they have a hard time playing against burn/naya and tron. I think the next prevalent control deck will be UW control, and they play 4 tec edges/ghost quarters, so i dont think adding 1 or 2 caverns for tefferi is worth it. Id rather play my own quarters/edges.
If you play esper, you must definetly play 4 esper charms. Is the best controlling card in modern, and in faeries could be absurd. Mindrotting at instant speed or providing CA drawing two is insane; also the enchantment removal option is very live as well...
-> The left ones because the affinity matchup is a problematic one(there your one bad matchup)
-> The second one to fix your Burn Matchup, and because Remand is too bad of a card anywhere except URx battles, but I have decided to go on trying out valuing them with 3 Kolaghan's Commands+ 4 Snapcaster Mages. So with Remand gone and Kolaghans in place, you win some points against affinity and all those grindy matchups(including Bgx and maaaaybe against Tron- this is not something exceptional though).
A lot of bad matchups, so what are the good ones? I guess thats why we havent seen many grixis control decks with good results rarely.
Traditionally the good matchups were the BG(x) decks and all the flavors of Twin. With hyper linear decks being on the rise, the meta share of this deck has fallen and will continue to do so until it stabilizes. It's got a long list of bad matchups, but it's good matchups were certainly making up for the bad ones (only like 2-3 of those are really unwinnable, the rest just aren't *great* but whatever).
I see. I can see esper control being bad, but UW? I think they play finks+colonnades+resto angel+paths, all excelent cards againt this deck. still i thought it was in favour of grixis or at least 50/50.
Regards-
-> The left ones because the affinity matchup is a problematic one(there your one bad matchup)
-> The second one to fix your Burn Matchup, and because Remand is too bad of a card anywhere except URx battles, but I have decided to go on trying out valuing them with 3 Kolaghan's Commands+ 4 Snapcaster Mages. So with Remand gone and Kolaghans in place, you win some points against affinity and all those grindy matchups(including Bgx and maaaaybe against Tron- this is not something exceptional though).
Snaps is really, really good with spell snare and path, and pretty solid with verdict. I'm basically never unhappy to draw mine. I'll probably try 4x this week with some timelies in the board and see how it goes. Finks've been just, bleh lately for some reason.
You dont like Finks? I think he's one of the main reasons to play UW over UWR but fair enough - 4x snaps is way too much - they will be stuck in your hand a lot - that's what I found at 3x..
Finks is excelent, and if id play UWR, id definetly play 4 lighting helix, as lifegain really matters.
I don't mind the splash for lightning bolt but that's about it. I prefer the stable mana base of Azorius though, to be honest. I just prefer the power of Planeswalkers and a more spell heavy list with more cryptic commands and a couple sphinx revs/think twice as opposed to the value creature package. I am not stating one is better than the other just stating for my playstyle and personal observation from playing Control decks in Modern.
I understand that it may suite your playstile or you might like it more, but in this modern metagame, i think the resto angel version is better.
I have actually moved away from the heavy creature versions and moved back towards Planesalkers, more draw power and just using snaps. I just let decks like Tron go, it's not worth worrying about, I just let it be a bad match and that's fine. I really missed cards like think twice alot, and typically the Planeswalkers are just more effective and resilient to removal and survive supreme verdict. I added a 4th supreme verdict and a wrath in the sideboard. I removed walls/finks/angels and am up to 4 cryptic commands again, and added mana leaks back in again. I did this because over time I realized i just like snappy the most, which meant more spells, and i prefer more draw power as well as Planeswalkers more than incremental advantage, and for me it has worked much better recently.
If you go that way, id play UWR. You get access to sowing salt which is good against tron, and access to burn which can seal a lot of games.
I'm still unsure about Remand, I may end up trying Condescend instead.
I've cut Sphinx's Revelation and a Snapcaster to make room to the current creature package. I'd still try to add a second Ojutai somehow, maybe try Elspeth too.
Any last minute suggestions?
Your list lacks generic early game counterspells. You are too vulnerable to combo. No maindeck Condescend/Mana Leak. No sideboard Negate. I know you run Cliques and other specific answers to combo like Mindcensor, but still.
You have a lot of options to make room for these counters. You could move the bombs to the sideboard (by the way, Elspeth, Sun's Champion is a better card than Gideon Jura for this deck). You could reduce late-game counterspells like Cryptics or Logic Knot. You could cut a D Sphere, a Wall of Omens.
Also, another thing: I would not leave home without that fourth Verdict in the sideboard. The card is crucial against Merfolks and Naya/Abzan Company. And I would always run 4 Restos in this deck.
Im not sold on remand (id rather play leak or condescend), and i dont like logic knot with only 4 fetches; if playing UWx with more fetches knot would be better. Id rather play the 4th finks vs the 4th wall. I also favour relic of progenitus vs rest in peace. I agree about the 4th wrath in the board, another card ive been happy with is explosives, its good against all decks that wrath is good (not that good against the creatures decks), and also hits nonsense like lantern control and such. Im not sold on the disenchants in your sb.
I need help with my sideboard. My LGS has a very wide ranging meta. Bogles, infect, storm, grixis delver, mono U Tron, RG Tron, Abzan coco, Merfolk, Zoo, loam pox, and lots of Burn.
I definetly prefer relic of progenitus vs rest in peace. besides that ive been happy with baneslayer angel and teferi on the board. Im not a fan of threads and cage in your 15.
Honestly? I just feel bad about cutting a $60 card.
Don't get me wrong, it is an excellent card that can still be very good in our deck. We may not have as many targets as UWR or Esper, but he can still be an extra Path or Cryptic Command. Also, he can be blinked with Restoration Angel, giving us even more value.
Turns out he may not be the optimal choice for the builds we are currently playing. The higher the creature count, the fewer options we'll have for our Snapcasters.
I agree that we dont have that many targets for snapscaster as esper or UWR, but still, i prefer them over wall of omens as they actually attack; our worst matchups as amulet and tron require us to attack, and snapcasters can. Dropping a turn2 wall of omens against tron is misserable, while a snapcaster on mana leak or path to exile or even to only attack is much better.
Merfolk is not the best matchup, they play caverns+vials so our counters are generally not Ok, we need to have 4 wrath in our 75, and maybe some explosives. The beauty about explosives is that it also destroy boogles (where wraths are ok but explosives just destroy them), and is good against lantern, prision decks and all that crap as well.
Yeah, still lantern is a very bad matchup speacially with so low discard... Lantern is a really good deck in general, but cant win against burn.
YOu can exile emrakull with games, but get crushed by ulamog; you can exile ulamog and get crushed by emrakul. Sowing salt effects takes out tron forever; they are down 1 land at least (maybe even a card from their hand), and cant assemble tron anymore. all your tec edges are more live than ever.
Grixis is loosing popularity right now as they have a hard time playing against burn/naya and tron. I think the next prevalent control deck will be UW control, and they play 4 tec edges/ghost quarters, so i dont think adding 1 or 2 caverns for tefferi is worth it. Id rather play my own quarters/edges.
I see. I can see esper control being bad, but UW? I think they play finks+colonnades+resto angel+paths, all excelent cards againt this deck. still i thought it was in favour of grixis or at least 50/50.
Regards-
A lot of bad matchups, so what are the good ones? I guess thats why we havent seen many grixis control decks with good results rarely.
Finks is excelent, and if id play UWR, id definetly play 4 lighting helix, as lifegain really matters.
I understand that it may suite your playstile or you might like it more, but in this modern metagame, i think the resto angel version is better.
If you go that way, id play UWR. You get access to sowing salt which is good against tron, and access to burn which can seal a lot of games.
Im not sold on remand (id rather play leak or condescend), and i dont like logic knot with only 4 fetches; if playing UWx with more fetches knot would be better. Id rather play the 4th finks vs the 4th wall. I also favour relic of progenitus vs rest in peace. I agree about the 4th wrath in the board, another card ive been happy with is explosives, its good against all decks that wrath is good (not that good against the creatures decks), and also hits nonsense like lantern control and such. Im not sold on the disenchants in your sb.
I definetly prefer relic of progenitus vs rest in peace. besides that ive been happy with baneslayer angel and teferi on the board. Im not a fan of threads and cage in your 15.
I agree that we dont have that many targets for snapscaster as esper or UWR, but still, i prefer them over wall of omens as they actually attack; our worst matchups as amulet and tron require us to attack, and snapcasters can. Dropping a turn2 wall of omens against tron is misserable, while a snapcaster on mana leak or path to exile or even to only attack is much better.