Creatures
4x Faerie Miscreant
2x Quickling
1x Ninja of the Deep Hours
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Scion of Oona
3x Pestermite
2x Vendillion Clique
3x Mistbind Clique
Fairly typical 15 for the sideboard.
My toughest decision was putting in the Aether Vials and Ninja. I like Quickling being protection at any time, and the ability to be buffed by Scion, so didn't want to cut them completely, and went from 3 to 2 to fit in 1 Ninja. As far as Aether Vial, I dropped the land count to 21 from 22, and dropped a pestermite. While I like the ability, I feel a 2/1 for 3 isn't powerful, even in the sense of Faeries. I'm not sure I made the right cuts, as 2x Quickling seems low, along with 21 lands. I haven't been able to playtest the deck in this iteration yet, so I'd like some feedback from anyone more experienced with the deck
What's people's thoughts on Moonring Island? Is occasionally checking the top of their deck (e.g. before a V-Clique) worth making one of the sixteen islands come in tapped in a mono-U deck like this? Is that more or less useful than, say, a Faerie Conclave, which doesn't count as an island?
I think the effect is way too limited to warrant play in this deck. You're better off playing Mutavault/Faerie Conclave/Pendelhaven//Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge (in that order).
Renier can I ask why you are running Faerie Imposter? I've always thought it was just a much worse quickling.
It's a remnant from the original list by SaffronOlive: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-98-18-tix-modern-mono-blue-faeries That said, until now I haven't regretted drawing or playing it. It comes in handy and is sometimes to be preferred over Quickling because of its mana cost (mana can be tight sometimes, you want to be able to do multiple things).
My current list:
My toughest decision was putting in the Aether Vials and Ninja. I like Quickling being protection at any time, and the ability to be buffed by Scion, so didn't want to cut them completely, and went from 3 to 2 to fit in 1 Ninja. As far as Aether Vial, I dropped the land count to 21 from 22, and dropped a pestermite. While I like the ability, I feel a 2/1 for 3 isn't powerful, even in the sense of Faeries. I'm not sure I made the right cuts, as 2x Quickling seems low, along with 21 lands. I haven't been able to playtest the deck in this iteration yet, so I'd like some feedback from anyone more experienced with the deck
I've played with Aether Vial, but not necessarily in this deck. I don't like it in mono blue faeries, because on turn one I want to play Faerie Miscreant (so I can t2 Spellstutter) or keep mana open for Spell Pierce. And playing Aether Vial in later turns is just bad. But I'm interested in how they play out for you, maybe my hypothesis is wrong. What I do know is: either a deck has 4 Aether Vials or it has none. Concerning Ninja of the Deep Hours: my feeling is that it will mostly hit once and after that it's a dead card because it can easily be blocked. Card draw is nice to have, but it's secondary to the strategy of this deck (tempoing out your opponent). Drawing cards with Miscreant and Remand is gravy, but not vital. Tempo decks win by amassing virtual card advantage; quote from Wikipedia:
Tempo is a non-intuitive way to gain card advantage, which aim to gain card advantage by using their cards faster than their opponent. If a player loses the game with cards in their hand, those cards are "lost", similar to losing them through other more conventional forms of card advantage like removal or discard. Therefore, if one spends their cards winning the game before the opponent can spend their own, they have gained virtual card advantage in the process. In Magic, this is typified by the "Burn" archetype, which uses cheap spells like Lightning Bolt to damage the other player directly, instead of affecting the board state. The burn player is effectively taking an 0-for-1 every time they do this, seemingly generating card disadvantage for themselves, but because they end the game before the other player's cards can affect the board state in a significant way, none of the card advantage their opponent may have had matters. Similarly, a spell like Remand does not generate card advantage one way or another; the tempo player and their opponent both spend a card and replace it. However, if the tempo player has a stronger board (perhaps because their creatures are small and aggressive), this enables them to retain the status quo for longer, shortening the game's length and indirectly gaining them card advantage.
I'll explain the deviations from the norm and ask for some thoughts:
1 Quickling - It sure is fun to recover a spellstutter or to flash in as a protection, but the number of times I've had 1 or 2 in hand and no creatures on the board is just too painful for me to run more than one quickling.
3 Pestermite - with a meta heavy on the Death's Shadow pestermite buys valuable extra turns. Being able to tapdown a flier to allow a lethal swing is also huge, and to top it off it is a 2 power creature which can trade with a lot more things than 1 power creatures. If there's a scion on board pestermite is very beefy (for faeries)
3 Mistbinds instead of 4 - Excellent finisher but I don't want to see more than 2 in a game and having them with no one down on the ground to champion is awful. Can also result in blowouts, so not a 4-of in my opinion.
2 Vendilion cliques - Should I be running three? My experience is they die almost instantly in every matchup I play, no one wants a 3 power flier sneaking around. The hand information is very valuable but turn 3 or 4 (if one wants counter magic) is a little long. I'm thinking I run either 3 vcliques or 3 cryptics, thoughts?
3 Cryptic Commands - Every time I feel trapped in a game I am hoping to draw a cryptic. Currently running 2 but am thinking of going up to 3. The tap + draw mode is so valuable to get an extra turn in for lethal damage, and having the ability to bounce troublesome permanents is great. Is it too slow?
2 Dismembers in main - 'cause things need to die
1 Echoing truth in main - basically a 5th vapor snag with the added bonus of being able to bounce other permanents. Is incredibly satisfying to use against tokens like a flashed-back Lingering Souls.
1 faerie conclave - getting a guarantee of having some kind of manland is worth this spot, but it's definitely inferior to mutavault with it's 1U activation and only 1 toughness. Coming in tapped also sucks massively when playing tempo. would not run more than 1
1 Minamo - Is basically an island with the opportunity for some shenanigans with vclique and pendelhaven
1 Pendelhaven - makes miscreant, spellstutter, and scion slightly bigger. Very useful if you want to block other creatures (goblin guide) without losing a faerie.
SIDEBOARD
1 Dismember - to kill more things
2 Flashfreeze - against burn, scapeshift, some builds of coco/chord
3 spreading seas - against burn, tron, eldrazi, anything that doesn't want islands
2 dispel - against burn, coco, control
1 echoing truth - for more tokens and troublesome permanents
2 ceremonious rejection - against eldrazi, affinity
2 pithing needle - against infect/manlands, planeswalkers, affinity
2 hurkyl's recall - against infinity, latern
How much thought should I put into running Relics?
Most of my playtesting has been on untap.in which is likely not as competitive as real-world or MTGO, so thoughts and advice greatly appreciated.
The scooter is nice but it dies to every removal in modern, additionally the reason scooter was so powerful in standard was it gave any 1/1 haste and flying, effectively. We don't need the flying and as we cast most creatures on the opponent's turn we don't need the haste.
This deck works on early disruption, I don't think there is any other option than to hold up counterspell or spellstutter mana on T2, so really you're not going to get the scooter out till T4, at which point you either have a good board state and are going to win anyway or you're in a pickle where a scooter is not going to help at all. Mistbind, Vclique, and Cryptic are all better T4 plays. Really I can't think of a time in a game when we're playing tempo that I would rather cast Scooter than any other faerie card.
I think it works better in a more control build or in UB faeries with BB for pilots. Otherwise I think the scooter is too slow and fragile for us. The only thing I want to be casting in a main phase is a Miscreant.
I've been experimenting with Smuggler's Copter as a 2-of in Merfolk, and I love it there.
Merfolk tends to do a bit more tap-out aggro than Faeries does, and it's one of the reasons why I like Quickling so much in the role of the fast beater, because the 2/2 body is a decent clock, and it doesn't make me take down countermagic for the opponent's turn.
That said, I think that Smuggler's Copter fills a similar role as Ninja of the Deep Hours in that it's an aggro piece that is aggressive, and we need to tap out for it on our turn. I don't know how I feel about the Copter in this role. The best thing about Ninja is that it draws us a card the turn that it comes in, and we get to bounce a creature (hopefully a Miscreant or a Spellstutter) back to our hand. Smuggler's Copter doesn't do either of those, but it is a faster clock, and the large flier body means we can reliably crunch in against many board states where the Ninja would be locked out against ground blockers. This feels like the sort of card that would be good in the late game after a board stall, as a way to help gain a bit of card advantage and push through for that final tempo swing.
I'm intrigued. I would consider playing it as a 2-of for starters to see.
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I'm currently running a 22 land, 14 control, 24 creature build. My 14 control cards are 4x Mana Leak, 4x Remand, 4x Vapor Snag, 2x Spell Snare. I have 2x Cryptic Command on order from TCGplayer, intended to replace the Spell Snare, however I have also seen Unsubstantiate and Spell Pierce run in the same slot. Which of these is best? I really like Cryptic, but I'm not sure if Spell Pierce is run over it becajse Cryptic is a slower card?
So I've decided to have a play around with the widely derided Jace, Cunning Castaway. I think folks are largely correct that he sucks because they are judging him as a control PW - by his capacity to be a game winning bomb and control the board. He isn't super great at that and so he's less than $5.
I think that might be good news for us. Because of the nature of our deck we don't need any particular card to win the game for us. All they really have to do is be tempo positive. Typically this is by having an immediate impact on the board. We also need our spells to be fairly cheap because we run reasonably light on lands. My 23 land deck only has a 58% chance of hitting its fourth land on turn four and that's not considering that it has two tapped lands. I'm guessing you're about the same in whatever build you have.
This means we need most of our spells to be 3 cmc or less. 3 cmc walkers tend to be pretty good, Jace being the exception because he needs a specific shell. I reckon our deck might just be that shell. I'll go through his abilities and tell you why.
+1: This ability is admittedly weak. It requires a deck with lots of cheap evasive creatures to work well. That's us. Being a tempo deck we care less about card advantage than we do about card quality - we need the right card at the right time because we run very few hard answers. Because his ultimate is very attainable +1ing him is a pressure play - it forces our opponent to try to do something about it immediately. Having our opponent focus on Jace helps buy us the time we need to win the race to 0 life. It can be a liability against Tarmogoyf but in that case you can +1 him in your second main phase and not loot while still getting closer to the ult. If you're super clever you can discard cards with types already in the bin and keep Goyf the same while digging for that Relic of Progenitus. Liliana, the Last Hope often just +1s with no weenies on the board to kill just to hit her ult and she's a house.
-2: Most of our creatures are abilities stapled to weak creatures. In a sense Jace can be considered the same. We are guaranteed to get a 2/2 out of him, and a PW to boot. Sometimes the PW will be killed and so instead we get either a spell out of our opponent's hand or a creature that's swinging at Jace and not us. That's tempo. This is his floor and it's not dissimilar to the spells that we already run, except that it isn't at instant speed, which is probably the biggest thing going against him.
Also the token's triggered ability isn't really bad. It is ONLY spell (not ability), so they have to spend a card to kill it which I'm most happy for them to do. In fact in some ways it's better than a vanilla bear, because the trigger resolves before the spell that triggered it, meaning that the spell gets countered. In other words if they target the token with Lightning Helix they won't get three life because the token is already sacrificed when the spell tries to resolve. Also most of our creatures only have one toughness so by our standards the token has a big butt.
-5: This is a pretty attainable ultimate which is great. It's not hugely powerful but certainly has the capacity to take over games. Getting it off guarantees four permanents - 2 jace tokens that you -2 for two bears. That's not bad. With the number of creatures we run and manlands (if you run them) you can really turn the corner in a grind. Having the benefit spread over so many permanents is excellent against removal heavy decks.
This Jace works pretty well in our curve too. Turn one we usually drop Miscreant, Conclave or perhaps bounce a dork. Turn two is almost always Remand or Mana Leak. Turn three is Jace, and they likely haven't got much on the board (with a few exceptions obviously) so Jace hits a board with no immediate threat. +1 him and all of a sudden your opponent has a problem. If they do have threats then you can -2 him, let them swing and soak up damage. Drawing him late game doesn't feel bad because you can work to take over the board with his ult.
So overall I think he's a pretty solid card for our deck. I think he's especially solid in grindy matchups, and possibly even against control. I'm goldfishing him at the moment and it's pretty good, so soon I'll take him for a spin and see how he does in the heat of battle. Let me know what you guys think!
Though you've explained it pretty well I still think that Smuggler's Copter does pretty much the same job as Jace but better being 1-cmc less and increasing the clock.
I'd also prefer to tap out for Copter/Favorable Winds on turn 2 rather a Jace on turn 3.
Another card I'd prefer to Jace for card advantage purposes is Chart a Course which either replaces itself or puts you up a card.
I think that to justify tapping out on turn 3 the payoff should be much better than 3-mana Jace.
Maybe with an extra land Big-Jace can be a viable option, at least it isn't lacking in power.
#Another card which be worth considering for the deck is Curious Obsession (upgraded Curiosity) as the extra power increses the clock rather than just drawing cards like the previous aura.
It might be worth playing over Favorable Winds though it doesn't provide as big a power boost but the cheaper cost and card draw might be a better tradeoff.
Wow, that was a quick response! Thanks for your thoughts. I have a few responses BTW I'm FlabcasterMage, after the Twitch merger thing I didn't get to keep my name
I still think that Smuggler's Copter does pretty much the same job as Jace but better being 1-cmc less and increasing the clock.
I think that they fill almost opposite roles. As I said I think Jace "the Body Sculptor" is a good matchup against grindy decks, which typically are removal heavy (Grixis, Jund and Mardu come to mind). The Looter Scooter is terrible against these matchups for two reasons. It eats every piece of removal in Modern (just about). More importantly, it really only serves as 0.5 permanents due to it needing to be activated, so it's easier to turn the scooter off simply by killing its driver. Jace on the other hand is only outright killed by Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay and Dreadbore. If they trade Maelstrom for Jace and you get a bear out if it you win. Abrupt sucks but it's usually only a two-of and it kills Scooter just as well as it does Jace. Dreadbore is usually only a one or two-of in Mardu. Jace can dodge burn the same way the Lilianas do by ticking up straight after coming into play. If they waste two burn spells on it then that's profit.
Given the Scooter's fragility and the potential to lose tempo by being driverless I think it needs to be a pretty strong clock to be worth running. Brendaxmodern made a good point when he said:
the reason scooter was so powerful in standard was it gave any 1/1 haste and flying, effectively. We don't need the flying and as we cast most creatures on the opponent's turn we don't need the haste.
This means that the best the scooter does is essentially give a creature +2/+2 and a loot trigger (the exception being Miscreant which also gets haste). Half of our creatures are 2 or more power which reduces this benefit even more. Jace also adds two power and toughness to the board, but does so unconditionally and is guaranteed card advantage to boot. The Looter Scooter is cheaper and has a better loot trigger but outside of this lacks sufficient merit. Jace for mine has a lot more potential upside than the Scooter.
Of course it's not fair to simply gloss over the fact that looter is cheaper than Jace. I am hesitant to tap out on turn three for him and that's why I'm testing rather than definitely running him. Having said that tapping out turn two is significant as well; it's the turn I want to be casting Remand, Leak or SSS. Turn three is certainly going to see more powerful cards cast and thus tapping out is potentially more dangerous, so often I think I'd be holding onto Jace until later turns. I think Jace is a good enough card to impact the late game so this isn't necessarily an issue, especially as I'm most likely boarding two copies of him in for two copies of Mistbind Clique (who's weak against removal heavy decks) so he's substituting for a card which isn't a turn three play anyway. This brings me to another reason why I think Jace is superior to Scooter - he's a much better top deck peel. In top deck mode you really don't want to be peeling Scooter most of the time. Mutavault makes Scooter better here but even so Jace has more of a chance of taking over the game on his own.
The Scooter is good against decks that lack interaction, but I think most of these are decks that are fast enough that they don't care about the Scooter as a clock. In such matchups I wouldn't be running Jace either though.
Another card I'd prefer to Jace for card advantage purposes is Chart a Course which either replaces itself or puts you up a card.
Chart doesn't impact the board, so it's almost always tempo negative which is very bad. Furthermore it is conditional - at best a cheap Divination, at worst a two mana sorcery speed cantrip. Straight up CA is control's game and is too slow for us. I really don't rate it (although I've never tested it to be fair).
Maybe with an extra land Big-Jace can be a viable option, at least it isn't lacking in power.
As I said before I think being a tempo deck Jace doesn't have to be a bomb to be a valuable addition. If you look at the deck there are very few cards that are bombs, but nearly the entire deck runs tempo positive cards. Running 24 lands would push the chance of hitting your fourth land on turn 4 to 63%, which is still a little low. Despite this I think running JTMS is not a bad idea because he's unlikely to be your turn four play anyway. He's not at his best in this shell due to the lack of fetchlands but is still no doubt a beast. I'm not tempted by him due to the fact I can buy 33 Jace the Body Sculptors for one JTMS, and because he changes the focus of the deck somewhat which detracts from my attraction to mono blue faeries in the first place. Not a bad choice though for sure.
Another card I am tempted by is Jace Beleren, who is both affordable in money and mana and is a genuine CA engine. I think he would be sweeeeeet against UWx control as well as handy in grindy games. He does lack a little as he can't protect himself and isn't a clock, so although he's surely a stronger choice against pure control than Jace the Body he's a little less versatile and isn't helping the tempo plan.
As regards your other ideas I think Retort is an interesting choice, although I think you'd really want to run four Snapcasters. Mistbind is a wizard but is a little expensive as an enabler for retort. Overall definitely worth a test and I'm interested to hear your experience with it.
I'm a little more wary of Curious obsession though - it really runs the risk of card disadvantage for no gain. Being an aura in a deck full of unprotected creatures makes it a liability, it's a nonbo with Scion, Quickling and even Mistbind and if you have to hold back blockers it is sacrificed. Having said that as long as you connect with it once it at least replaces itself. I'm glad you mentioned favorable Winds though, I've been wracking my brains for a solution to Lingering Souls and I reckon this is about the best.
What I like about Obsession is that it is rather wasy for it to break even on cards and start netting value especially as a 1-mana spell which can be timed either when the opponent is tapped out or with a counter backup.
I probably like it better than Copter though it was pretty useful especially with themanlands to grind through removal and not overextending into removal/sweepers.
I'm not really impressed by Jace's tokens so its main purpose is the looting, an alternative to this can be Monastery Siege which is more difficult to remove and doesn't rely on creatures the bad-leyline mode can also have its uses.
Other similar options are: Thassa which offers scrying which is worse than looting and will rarely become a creature and Search for Azcanta which is pretty good but probably requires a deck with a higher percentage of non-creature spells.
Beleren is pretty mediocre and I'd rather just draw a couple of cards with Chart rather then draw a card and try to protect him to draw 1 or 2 more cards as I would never want to plus him.
About adding more Snapcasters, I'm not sure if it wouldn't be too much with only 14x spells for it to flashback but maybe adding a couple of Obstructionist can be good over Quickling though reducing the number of faeries weakens the tribal synergy with SSS and Mistbind.
How is Ninja is better than Obsession ?
It costs more mana and is a as vulnerable to removal and the non-evasive 2/2 body isn't good and makes it difficult to draw more than 1-card with it.
It also becomes clunkier if your faeries get removed and you have to cast it for 4-mana (though it is better than having a dead aura in hand).
Military Intelligence requring 2 attackers makes it too inconsistent for my liking.
The deck being (mostly) all-flyers provides enough evasion/synergy for Obsession imho.
I agree that the ninja has some upsides like trading with smaller ground creatures and not being a dead card as a topdeck on an empty board but I prefer the mana efficiency of Obsession here so far.
Yeah Obsession could be OK, but I think the opportunity cost of running it doesn't merit the upside of having it in the deck. CA isn't a priority for us except against grindy match-ups where Obsession is not at its best.
Evaluating Jace CC doesn't reduce down to "looting engine". He can offer immediate impact if needed by producing the token, with the promise of future looting, another token, or simply damage prevention for a turn (by being swung at instead of you). He can also put immediate pressure on your opponent by going to 4 loyalty and threatening an ultimate. He can take take over the board if left unchecked. None of the other suggestions are able to do all that. They are good at filtering but that doesn't fill the same role as Jace. I think an evaluation based purely on looting ability is an oversimplification of the card's value. Versatility is extremely potent in Magic, which is why Kolaghan's Command is a premier card and Blightning isn't. Having said that I'm still on the fence about Jace and want to play some games when I can to see how he goes.
Beleren is a pretty decent card, and is surely better than Chart, which I think is poor for reasons I already mentioned. You can be happy to plus him in most circumstances, as it's actually card parity. There are decks that run Howling Mine and Temple Bell which are far worse. And then for the next four turns (even 5 if you're happy for him to die) he draws you a card every turn. If you don't mind plusing him every now and then he draws you cards indefinitely. My suggestion was to board him in against control so protecting him shouldn't be necessary, and even if you do have to he is likely going to be providing you with creatures and cards to do so. I wouldn't want him main board but if the meta was very control oriented and that was a problem I'd definitely consider him.
Sadly the meta is actually very aggro oriented which is bad for us as we are in the "aggro-control" position on the metagame clock. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion! Amicdeep said:
I think you missed one on the smugglers scooter front, as this is a tribal deck and the creature type matters it doesn't just provide haste and pump, it also essential provides totem armour, as people will always want to remove the scooter first and they don't bother with the fairy (making spellskutter sprite and mistbind more consistent and less delecate)
Lastly it survives boardwipes which are common in w/X control decks meaning if they don't remove it we really do get some explosive turns were our opponent is tapped out.
I actually think this is pretty good thinking. It is worth noting that it's not quite totem armour though because your opponent does get to choose. I've been thinking of how to try to survive against the aggro decks. Because it's a turn four format I want to my board options to come in on turn three. I thought of lots of different options which were all not quite there. There wasn't any good mass bounce, and anyway a lot of the aggro decks will be able to cast their hands again the next turn so you've bought yourself at best one turn cycle most of the time. Stuff like Ensnaring Bridge doesn't help us and sadly Propaganda isn't legal in modern. So I decided the best thing to do was to find a creature that would blank our opponent's creatures by out sizing them, generating tempo advantage this way. After a lot of searching I ended up with Aethersphere Harvester which I saw Saffron Olive playing in budget magic.
Aethersphere Harvester has a decent number of benefits. It cost three, so it comes down on turn three. The aggro decks of the meta have little removal making the issue of being two-for-oned negligible. It gains life which is handy when you're trying to stay alive long enough to deal lethal yourself. It's a good offensive and defensive card. It has 5 toughness which is good against Hollow One, and it beats Mantis Rider. It has cool synergies with bounce (you get the energy counters so you can get maximum lifelink), Pestermite and manlands. It also has all of the benefits that Amicdeep said that Copter had. I've been goldfishing it and it's been really good. I'm going to take it for a spin on Cockatrice soon
You're right about Snapcaster, you'd probably need to build the deck around him if you ran him. Obstructionist seems like a solid choice.
I've been trying fairies with Ninja personally. I love the combination of both. Though, I'll admit, I'm a little disappointed there aren't any fairy ninja. I suppose the new Changeling Outcast, and the old Mothdust Changeling count as Fairy Ninja.. but yeah.
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Lands (21)
3x Mutavault
2x Faerie Conclave
16x Islands
Artifacts (2)
2x Aether Vial
Spells (14)
4x Vapor Snag
4x Mana Leak
4x Remand
2x Spell Snare
Creatures
4x Faerie Miscreant
2x Quickling
1x Ninja of the Deep Hours
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Scion of Oona
3x Pestermite
2x Vendillion Clique
3x Mistbind Clique
Fairly typical 15 for the sideboard.
My toughest decision was putting in the Aether Vials and Ninja. I like Quickling being protection at any time, and the ability to be buffed by Scion, so didn't want to cut them completely, and went from 3 to 2 to fit in 1 Ninja. As far as Aether Vial, I dropped the land count to 21 from 22, and dropped a pestermite. While I like the ability, I feel a 2/1 for 3 isn't powerful, even in the sense of Faeries. I'm not sure I made the right cuts, as 2x Quickling seems low, along with 21 lands. I haven't been able to playtest the deck in this iteration yet, so I'd like some feedback from anyone more experienced with the deck
BWTokensBW
RWBurnRW
UFaeriesU
I think the effect is way too limited to warrant play in this deck. You're better off playing Mutavault/Faerie Conclave/Pendelhaven//Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge (in that order).
It's a remnant from the original list by SaffronOlive: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-98-18-tix-modern-mono-blue-faeries That said, until now I haven't regretted drawing or playing it. It comes in handy and is sometimes to be preferred over Quickling because of its mana cost (mana can be tight sometimes, you want to be able to do multiple things).
I've played with Aether Vial, but not necessarily in this deck. I don't like it in mono blue faeries, because on turn one I want to play Faerie Miscreant (so I can t2 Spellstutter) or keep mana open for Spell Pierce. And playing Aether Vial in later turns is just bad. But I'm interested in how they play out for you, maybe my hypothesis is wrong. What I do know is: either a deck has 4 Aether Vials or it has none. Concerning Ninja of the Deep Hours: my feeling is that it will mostly hit once and after that it's a dead card because it can easily be blocked. Card draw is nice to have, but it's secondary to the strategy of this deck (tempoing out your opponent). Drawing cards with Miscreant and Remand is gravy, but not vital. Tempo decks win by amassing virtual card advantage; quote from Wikipedia:
Here is the list I'm cooking for an upcoming modern tournament:
4 Faerie Miscreant
1 Quickling
3 Pestermite
3 Mistbind Clique
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Scion of Oona
3 Mana Leak
3 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
4 Vapor Snag
1 Echoing Truth
2 Dismember
3 Cryptic Command
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4 Mutavault
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Pendelhaven
1 Dismember
2 Flashfreeze
3 Spreading Seas
2 Dispel
1 Echoing Truth
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Pithing Needle
2 Hurkyl's Recall
I'll explain the deviations from the norm and ask for some thoughts:
1 Quickling - It sure is fun to recover a spellstutter or to flash in as a protection, but the number of times I've had 1 or 2 in hand and no creatures on the board is just too painful for me to run more than one quickling.
3 Pestermite - with a meta heavy on the Death's Shadow pestermite buys valuable extra turns. Being able to tapdown a flier to allow a lethal swing is also huge, and to top it off it is a 2 power creature which can trade with a lot more things than 1 power creatures. If there's a scion on board pestermite is very beefy (for faeries)
3 Mistbinds instead of 4 - Excellent finisher but I don't want to see more than 2 in a game and having them with no one down on the ground to champion is awful. Can also result in blowouts, so not a 4-of in my opinion.
2 Vendilion cliques - Should I be running three? My experience is they die almost instantly in every matchup I play, no one wants a 3 power flier sneaking around. The hand information is very valuable but turn 3 or 4 (if one wants counter magic) is a little long. I'm thinking I run either 3 vcliques or 3 cryptics, thoughts?
3 Cryptic Commands - Every time I feel trapped in a game I am hoping to draw a cryptic. Currently running 2 but am thinking of going up to 3. The tap + draw mode is so valuable to get an extra turn in for lethal damage, and having the ability to bounce troublesome permanents is great. Is it too slow?
2 Dismembers in main - 'cause things need to die
1 Echoing truth in main - basically a 5th vapor snag with the added bonus of being able to bounce other permanents. Is incredibly satisfying to use against tokens like a flashed-back Lingering Souls.
1 faerie conclave - getting a guarantee of having some kind of manland is worth this spot, but it's definitely inferior to mutavault with it's 1U activation and only 1 toughness. Coming in tapped also sucks massively when playing tempo. would not run more than 1
1 Minamo - Is basically an island with the opportunity for some shenanigans with vclique and pendelhaven
1 Pendelhaven - makes miscreant, spellstutter, and scion slightly bigger. Very useful if you want to block other creatures (goblin guide) without losing a faerie.
SIDEBOARD
1 Dismember - to kill more things
2 Flashfreeze - against burn, scapeshift, some builds of coco/chord
3 spreading seas - against burn, tron, eldrazi, anything that doesn't want islands
2 dispel - against burn, coco, control
1 echoing truth - for more tokens and troublesome permanents
2 ceremonious rejection - against eldrazi, affinity
2 pithing needle - against infect/manlands, planeswalkers, affinity
2 hurkyl's recall - against infinity, latern
How much thought should I put into running Relics?
Most of my playtesting has been on untap.in which is likely not as competitive as real-world or MTGO, so thoughts and advice greatly appreciated.
This deck works on early disruption, I don't think there is any other option than to hold up counterspell or spellstutter mana on T2, so really you're not going to get the scooter out till T4, at which point you either have a good board state and are going to win anyway or you're in a pickle where a scooter is not going to help at all. Mistbind, Vclique, and Cryptic are all better T4 plays. Really I can't think of a time in a game when we're playing tempo that I would rather cast Scooter than any other faerie card.
I think it works better in a more control build or in UB faeries with BB for pilots. Otherwise I think the scooter is too slow and fragile for us. The only thing I want to be casting in a main phase is a Miscreant.
Merfolk tends to do a bit more tap-out aggro than Faeries does, and it's one of the reasons why I like Quickling so much in the role of the fast beater, because the 2/2 body is a decent clock, and it doesn't make me take down countermagic for the opponent's turn.
That said, I think that Smuggler's Copter fills a similar role as Ninja of the Deep Hours in that it's an aggro piece that is aggressive, and we need to tap out for it on our turn. I don't know how I feel about the Copter in this role. The best thing about Ninja is that it draws us a card the turn that it comes in, and we get to bounce a creature (hopefully a Miscreant or a Spellstutter) back to our hand. Smuggler's Copter doesn't do either of those, but it is a faster clock, and the large flier body means we can reliably crunch in against many board states where the Ninja would be locked out against ground blockers. This feels like the sort of card that would be good in the late game after a board stall, as a way to help gain a bit of card advantage and push through for that final tempo swing.
I'm intrigued. I would consider playing it as a 2-of for starters to see.
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It seems like a good idea to reconsider Psionic Blast for this deck, I've initially dismissed it (mainly because it costs 3-mana) but I could've been wrong about it as it really helps closing out games (especially when you get overwhelmed on board).
So I've decided to have a play around with the widely derided Jace, Cunning Castaway. I think folks are largely correct that he sucks because they are judging him as a control PW - by his capacity to be a game winning bomb and control the board. He isn't super great at that and so he's less than $5.
I think that might be good news for us. Because of the nature of our deck we don't need any particular card to win the game for us. All they really have to do is be tempo positive. Typically this is by having an immediate impact on the board. We also need our spells to be fairly cheap because we run reasonably light on lands. My 23 land deck only has a 58% chance of hitting its fourth land on turn four and that's not considering that it has two tapped lands. I'm guessing you're about the same in whatever build you have.
This means we need most of our spells to be 3 cmc or less. 3 cmc walkers tend to be pretty good, Jace being the exception because he needs a specific shell. I reckon our deck might just be that shell. I'll go through his abilities and tell you why.
+1: This ability is admittedly weak. It requires a deck with lots of cheap evasive creatures to work well. That's us. Being a tempo deck we care less about card advantage than we do about card quality - we need the right card at the right time because we run very few hard answers. Because his ultimate is very attainable +1ing him is a pressure play - it forces our opponent to try to do something about it immediately. Having our opponent focus on Jace helps buy us the time we need to win the race to 0 life. It can be a liability against Tarmogoyf but in that case you can +1 him in your second main phase and not loot while still getting closer to the ult. If you're super clever you can discard cards with types already in the bin and keep Goyf the same while digging for that Relic of Progenitus. Liliana, the Last Hope often just +1s with no weenies on the board to kill just to hit her ult and she's a house.
-2: Most of our creatures are abilities stapled to weak creatures. In a sense Jace can be considered the same. We are guaranteed to get a 2/2 out of him, and a PW to boot. Sometimes the PW will be killed and so instead we get either a spell out of our opponent's hand or a creature that's swinging at Jace and not us. That's tempo. This is his floor and it's not dissimilar to the spells that we already run, except that it isn't at instant speed, which is probably the biggest thing going against him.
Also the token's triggered ability isn't really bad. It is ONLY spell (not ability), so they have to spend a card to kill it which I'm most happy for them to do. In fact in some ways it's better than a vanilla bear, because the trigger resolves before the spell that triggered it, meaning that the spell gets countered. In other words if they target the token with Lightning Helix they won't get three life because the token is already sacrificed when the spell tries to resolve. Also most of our creatures only have one toughness so by our standards the token has a big butt.
-5: This is a pretty attainable ultimate which is great. It's not hugely powerful but certainly has the capacity to take over games. Getting it off guarantees four permanents - 2 jace tokens that you -2 for two bears. That's not bad. With the number of creatures we run and manlands (if you run them) you can really turn the corner in a grind. Having the benefit spread over so many permanents is excellent against removal heavy decks.
This Jace works pretty well in our curve too. Turn one we usually drop Miscreant, Conclave or perhaps bounce a dork. Turn two is almost always Remand or Mana Leak. Turn three is Jace, and they likely haven't got much on the board (with a few exceptions obviously) so Jace hits a board with no immediate threat. +1 him and all of a sudden your opponent has a problem. If they do have threats then you can -2 him, let them swing and soak up damage. Drawing him late game doesn't feel bad because you can work to take over the board with his ult.
So overall I think he's a pretty solid card for our deck. I think he's especially solid in grindy matchups, and possibly even against control. I'm goldfishing him at the moment and it's pretty good, so soon I'll take him for a spin and see how he does in the heat of battle. Let me know what you guys think!
I'd also prefer to tap out for Copter/Favorable Winds on turn 2 rather a Jace on turn 3.
Another card I'd prefer to Jace for card advantage purposes is Chart a Course which either replaces itself or puts you up a card.
I think that to justify tapping out on turn 3 the payoff should be much better than 3-mana Jace.
Maybe with an extra land Big-Jace can be a viable option, at least it isn't lacking in power.
#On another topic, since it hasn't been mentioned yet I think that Wizard's Retort can work pretty well in this deck as a Counterspell.
The deck already plays wizards like: Spellstutter, Clique and Mistbind and if you really want more wizards then Snapcaster Mage
(or Nimble Obstructionist) is also a good flash option for the deck to consistently support Retort.
#Another card which be worth considering for the deck is Curious Obsession (upgraded Curiosity) as the extra power increses the clock rather than just drawing cards like the previous aura.
It might be worth playing over Favorable Winds though it doesn't provide as big a power boost but the cheaper cost and card draw might be a better tradeoff.
4x Faerie Miscreant
4x Spellstutter Sprite
2x Quickling
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Scion of Oona
2x Vendilion Clique
4x Mistbind Clique
4x Vapor Snag
4x Remand
4x Wizard's Retort
2x Dismember
Enchantment (2)
2x Curious Obsession
Land (22)
16x Island
2x Faerie Conclave
4x Mutavault
4x Ceremonious Rejection
3x Negate
1x Echoing Truth
2x Dismember
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Ratchet Bomb
The changes from my previous version are:
-2x Favorable Winds, -2x Smuggler's Copter, -4x Mana Leak, -2x Spell Snare.
+2x Curious Obsession, +2x Snapcaster Mage, +4x Wizard's Retort, +2x Dismember.
Another flex-slot that might be better used might be Quickling which can be replaced with either Nimble Obstructionist or maybe Smuggler's Copter/Favorable Winds or more copies of Curious Obsession.
I think that they fill almost opposite roles. As I said I think Jace "the Body Sculptor" is a good matchup against grindy decks, which typically are removal heavy (Grixis, Jund and Mardu come to mind). The Looter Scooter is terrible against these matchups for two reasons. It eats every piece of removal in Modern (just about). More importantly, it really only serves as 0.5 permanents due to it needing to be activated, so it's easier to turn the scooter off simply by killing its driver. Jace on the other hand is only outright killed by Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay and Dreadbore. If they trade Maelstrom for Jace and you get a bear out if it you win. Abrupt sucks but it's usually only a two-of and it kills Scooter just as well as it does Jace. Dreadbore is usually only a one or two-of in Mardu. Jace can dodge burn the same way the Lilianas do by ticking up straight after coming into play. If they waste two burn spells on it then that's profit.
Given the Scooter's fragility and the potential to lose tempo by being driverless I think it needs to be a pretty strong clock to be worth running. Brendaxmodern made a good point when he said: This means that the best the scooter does is essentially give a creature +2/+2 and a loot trigger (the exception being Miscreant which also gets haste). Half of our creatures are 2 or more power which reduces this benefit even more. Jace also adds two power and toughness to the board, but does so unconditionally and is guaranteed card advantage to boot. The Looter Scooter is cheaper and has a better loot trigger but outside of this lacks sufficient merit. Jace for mine has a lot more potential upside than the Scooter.
Of course it's not fair to simply gloss over the fact that looter is cheaper than Jace. I am hesitant to tap out on turn three for him and that's why I'm testing rather than definitely running him. Having said that tapping out turn two is significant as well; it's the turn I want to be casting Remand, Leak or SSS. Turn three is certainly going to see more powerful cards cast and thus tapping out is potentially more dangerous, so often I think I'd be holding onto Jace until later turns. I think Jace is a good enough card to impact the late game so this isn't necessarily an issue, especially as I'm most likely boarding two copies of him in for two copies of Mistbind Clique (who's weak against removal heavy decks) so he's substituting for a card which isn't a turn three play anyway. This brings me to another reason why I think Jace is superior to Scooter - he's a much better top deck peel. In top deck mode you really don't want to be peeling Scooter most of the time. Mutavault makes Scooter better here but even so Jace has more of a chance of taking over the game on his own.
The Scooter is good against decks that lack interaction, but I think most of these are decks that are fast enough that they don't care about the Scooter as a clock. In such matchups I wouldn't be running Jace either though.
Chart doesn't impact the board, so it's almost always tempo negative which is very bad. Furthermore it is conditional - at best a cheap Divination, at worst a two mana sorcery speed cantrip. Straight up CA is control's game and is too slow for us. I really don't rate it (although I've never tested it to be fair).
As I said before I think being a tempo deck Jace doesn't have to be a bomb to be a valuable addition. If you look at the deck there are very few cards that are bombs, but nearly the entire deck runs tempo positive cards. Running 24 lands would push the chance of hitting your fourth land on turn 4 to 63%, which is still a little low. Despite this I think running JTMS is not a bad idea because he's unlikely to be your turn four play anyway. He's not at his best in this shell due to the lack of fetchlands but is still no doubt a beast. I'm not tempted by him due to the fact I can buy 33 Jace the Body Sculptors for one JTMS, and because he changes the focus of the deck somewhat which detracts from my attraction to mono blue faeries in the first place. Not a bad choice though for sure.
Another card I am tempted by is Jace Beleren, who is both affordable in money and mana and is a genuine CA engine. I think he would be sweeeeeet against UWx control as well as handy in grindy games. He does lack a little as he can't protect himself and isn't a clock, so although he's surely a stronger choice against pure control than Jace the Body he's a little less versatile and isn't helping the tempo plan.
As regards your other ideas I think Retort is an interesting choice, although I think you'd really want to run four Snapcasters. Mistbind is a wizard but is a little expensive as an enabler for retort. Overall definitely worth a test and I'm interested to hear your experience with it.
I'm a little more wary of Curious obsession though - it really runs the risk of card disadvantage for no gain. Being an aura in a deck full of unprotected creatures makes it a liability, it's a nonbo with Scion, Quickling and even Mistbind and if you have to hold back blockers it is sacrificed. Having said that as long as you connect with it once it at least replaces itself. I'm glad you mentioned favorable Winds though, I've been wracking my brains for a solution to Lingering Souls and I reckon this is about the best.
Happy testing, and may you always go 4-0
I probably like it better than Copter though it was pretty useful especially with the manlands to grind through removal and not overextending into removal/sweepers.
I'm not really impressed by Jace's tokens so its main purpose is the looting, an alternative to this can be Monastery Siege which is more difficult to remove and doesn't rely on creatures the bad-leyline mode can also have its uses.
Other similar options are: Thassa which offers scrying which is worse than looting and will rarely become a creature and Search for Azcanta which is pretty good but probably requires a deck with a higher percentage of non-creature spells.
Beleren is pretty mediocre and I'd rather just draw a couple of cards with Chart rather then draw a card and try to protect him to draw 1 or 2 more cards as I would never want to plus him.
About adding more Snapcasters, I'm not sure if it wouldn't be too much with only 14x spells for it to flashback but maybe adding a couple of Obstructionist can be good over Quickling though reducing the number of faeries weakens the tribal synergy with SSS and Mistbind.
It costs more mana and is a as vulnerable to removal and the non-evasive 2/2 body isn't good and makes it difficult to draw more than 1-card with it.
It also becomes clunkier if your faeries get removed and you have to cast it for 4-mana (though it is better than having a dead aura in hand).
The deck being (mostly) all-flyers provides enough evasion/synergy for Obsession imho.
I agree that the ninja has some upsides like trading with smaller ground creatures and not being a dead card as a topdeck on an empty board but I prefer the mana efficiency of Obsession here so far.
Evaluating Jace CC doesn't reduce down to "looting engine". He can offer immediate impact if needed by producing the token, with the promise of future looting, another token, or simply damage prevention for a turn (by being swung at instead of you). He can also put immediate pressure on your opponent by going to 4 loyalty and threatening an ultimate. He can take take over the board if left unchecked. None of the other suggestions are able to do all that. They are good at filtering but that doesn't fill the same role as Jace. I think an evaluation based purely on looting ability is an oversimplification of the card's value. Versatility is extremely potent in Magic, which is why Kolaghan's Command is a premier card and Blightning isn't. Having said that I'm still on the fence about Jace and want to play some games when I can to see how he goes.
Beleren is a pretty decent card, and is surely better than Chart, which I think is poor for reasons I already mentioned. You can be happy to plus him in most circumstances, as it's actually card parity. There are decks that run Howling Mine and Temple Bell which are far worse. And then for the next four turns (even 5 if you're happy for him to die) he draws you a card every turn. If you don't mind plusing him every now and then he draws you cards indefinitely. My suggestion was to board him in against control so protecting him shouldn't be necessary, and even if you do have to he is likely going to be providing you with creatures and cards to do so. I wouldn't want him main board but if the meta was very control oriented and that was a problem I'd definitely consider him.
Sadly the meta is actually very aggro oriented which is bad for us as we are in the "aggro-control" position on the metagame clock. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion! Amicdeep said:
I actually think this is pretty good thinking. It is worth noting that it's not quite totem armour though because your opponent does get to choose. I've been thinking of how to try to survive against the aggro decks. Because it's a turn four format I want to my board options to come in on turn three. I thought of lots of different options which were all not quite there. There wasn't any good mass bounce, and anyway a lot of the aggro decks will be able to cast their hands again the next turn so you've bought yourself at best one turn cycle most of the time. Stuff like Ensnaring Bridge doesn't help us and sadly Propaganda isn't legal in modern. So I decided the best thing to do was to find a creature that would blank our opponent's creatures by out sizing them, generating tempo advantage this way. After a lot of searching I ended up with Aethersphere Harvester which I saw Saffron Olive playing in budget magic.
Aethersphere Harvester has a decent number of benefits. It cost three, so it comes down on turn three. The aggro decks of the meta have little removal making the issue of being two-for-oned negligible. It gains life which is handy when you're trying to stay alive long enough to deal lethal yourself. It's a good offensive and defensive card. It has 5 toughness which is good against Hollow One, and it beats Mantis Rider. It has cool synergies with bounce (you get the energy counters so you can get maximum lifelink), Pestermite and manlands. It also has all of the benefits that Amicdeep said that Copter had. I've been goldfishing it and it's been really good. I'm going to take it for a spin on Cockatrice soon
You're right about Snapcaster, you'd probably need to build the deck around him if you ran him. Obstructionist seems like a solid choice.
Having said that I dont think fae are at the point they can pull it off.
I like the amount of good fae we have access to now, starting to resemble spirits a bit now in terms of good creatures.
If only we had another good 2 drop fae, how is quickling testing for you guys?
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