You guys really make me lose my faith in this thread. I've been playing Faeries ever since Lorwyn, in Standard, Extended and in Casual after the BB banning. So please trust someone who really knows the deck like the back of his hand: Swords, Snappy, Scions will make this deck worse than it could be! I have tried all of them in modern and none of them is good enough. Neither is any form of digging by the way. What we need is simply a strong control deck.
Snapcaster Mage is the strongest Modern control card. If you want Control Faeries, then you need to play Snapcaster Mage.
So far playing, I have noticed that I am at an advantage against
Storm
UWR
Burn
Affinity
even against
Rock
and at a disadvantage against
Zoo
Pod
I still haven't gotten to play much against either Twin, or Tarmo-Twin. How is our matchup against them?
I played my list against a UR Twin deck about 4 times, and didnt drop a game. It was almost easy mode. His list even ran 3 Swan Song in the main still didnt really matter at all. I am one of those fools that plays 3 Scions and a Sword of Feast and Famine. The Scions were actually pretty decent here. Probably the worst matchup for them but they just allowed me to turn the corner so quickly. which I think is a key part to betting the combo decks. Good disruption and a fast clock. I digress. The matchup seems super solid, and probably gets even better post bored.
I am sorry if I have come across rude to you. I should have declared my statements as my personal opinions and experiences and not as generally true points. I have also found myself accused of trying to stop new approaches to the deck, which is nowhere near true. I have spent hours playing on Cockatrice and with friends, testing various versions of the Fae. I have even tried a highly aggressive version with a full playet Scions and as much as eight one-drop-faeries!
Obviously, the latter didn't work. Is it due to Scion being a bad card? Not at all! The problems were simply the one-drops, which just don't race fast enough for Modern. Scion per se is actually not a bad card by any means, I played it back in Lorwyn Standard and loved it. I might come across as some kind of "Scion-hater" in my previous posts, and let me therefore relate my former statements: I personally don't think Scion is necessary in Modern based on my testings. However, if you really like playing with Scions, then go for it! I will be the last person to prevent you from doing so. The thing is Scion was actually a four-of in my earliest approaches after the Bitterblossom-unbanning. One of the reasons I have come to omit it completely is that I have found myself having no creatures on the field in a lot of cases. In such a situation, Scion does logically not make any impact at all. Yes, Scion does help you race faster. Yes, he can be used as a combat trick, and yes, you can protect your Bitterblossom/faeries with it. (It will, however, not help you dodge an Abrupt Decay as often as you might think. They will find a way to play around it.) Overall, as far as I'm concerned, Scion is really, really good if you can truly pull off the Bitterblossom strategy, but if you have no access to it for whatever reasons (it does happen), it will not make much of an impact. That being said, I've come to play more Discard over the Scions. They seem to me like a better way to protect BB on the whole.
As for the Swords, the reason I don't like them in Modern is similar to my above explanation on the questinable usefulness of Scion. Obviously, they are nuts with Bitterblossom. Unlike Scion, they are also worthwile when having few or only one creatures on the field. The best choice among them would be either SoFaF or SoFaI, the former bbeing better in earlier states of the game, the latter rather later. I have also tested SoLaS, but it struck me as less good, as I could not activate the return-a-creature-effect a lot. Despite this all, I still don't feel like Swords are necessary in this deck. I personally would much rather have a counter-/removal-backup than just throw in a Sword and start the beatdown. Then again, this is only my opinion and I do respect people who choose to play Swords. They are at least a more viable option than Scion to me.
My fairly recent exclusion of Snapcasters has also been questioned. It has been said that it was the "best control-card in Modern". I don't agree with that. Snappy is extremely powerful, but much more so in UWR than in Faeries, as the former has access to much more good instants/sorceries than we do (Path, Bolt, Helix being the main). We can always retrieve a discard spell with Snappy, however, this possibility is not able to make use of his Flash speed. In the end I just don't know what I should cut for him, though I'm not completely reluctan to give him another shot. My list would be as follows:
3 IoK
3 Thoughtseize
2 Spell Snare
4 Mana Leak
2 Smother
2 GftT
4 Bitterblossom
4 SSS
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Mistbind Clique
4 Cryptic Command
4 secluded glen
4 mutavault
2 underground river
4 river of tears
4 darkslick shores
6 island
2 creeping tar pit
What bothers me about this thread is how it's just not focused on specific questions. Everyone is still suggesting crazy stuff (no offense) like splashes that we'd actually dealt with about 20 pages earlier already. We should just focus more on the actual deck that is UB faeries. I know the thread title says "UBx", but such splashes the deck a completely different one and should therefore have their own threads in my opinion.
Anyway, I still fail to see the usefulness in forbidden alchemy, by t3 you're not exactly digging for anything that you don't have anyway, not considering it takes a whole turn worth of mana, why aren't you playing visions then? The point of TfK is the CA in the 3x1.
I tried both Forbidden Alchemy and Thirst for Knowledge. The benefit of TfK is that it can improve the quality of your hand by letting you discard whichever two cards you dislike most. Alchemy won't do that, but instead digs 1 card deeper and drops cards into your grave as Snapcaster targets. Alchemy also has flashback although at a high cc. For me, the critical part is digging deeper. In both cases I was using the card to find me what I wanted to win with. If it didn't do that, then it just wasn't doing what I included it in my deck for.
I know many don't like using digging. However, I find I win when I have BB in play and SSS in hand. Therefore I want to see that as frequently as possible. The alternative is to play cards that if you draw them instead of BB will make you win. Note that since I think I win sufficiently often if I draw BB, I perforce will perceive it as simply 'win more' to plan to have them AND BB. I'm open to challenges to this logic BTW, I just wanted to reveal it so you could see what I mean: for me, the strategy is to make sure that I will play the card that I will win with, which so far seems to be BB.)
I apologize for the accusation, and the tone the second half of my response came with. Didnt intend to appear rude myself. Most of us actually did cover all the bases on each card mentioned (Snapcaster, swords, ect) and why they do not appeal to most of us, so you arent alone in your opinions. But you have actually brought a valid point up about the directionless nature of the thread. So I ask, what specific questions appear worth asking in your opinion?
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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
2 faerie conclave
2 pendelhaven
4 scion
4 AV
4 rune snag
4 terror
3 b gnomes
Are you genuinly saying we're not a control deck giving that as an example? We could avoid the silly periodical statements that this is a tempo deck and we'd improve sooner. This is a hybrid control deck and it's starting to sound like a baby whine on both ends of the argument but it's astonishing. We have the capability of being aggro-control, we're not an aggro-control deck like the first caw blade given in the article. Definately not any more, which is a point to consider.
That article can teach a lot though so yes, by all means highlight it. That's not the deck we're playing though, so remember to "translate" the information from past itterations to the current evolution of a core.
The decklists are anecdotal, and no particular choices are discussed throughout the article. You can compare it to the "How to play control" article linked at the beginning of that one and will find that Modern Faeries isn't a pure control deck, and in the middle of the article there's the comparison to a Legacy Tempo Threshold that states clearly that tempo=/=aggro-control. Given the fact that Modern has very few control decks and more and better combo and aggro decks, you'll have to play the control role more often than in other formats in which Faeries was a dominant deck, but you can't play on autopilot and stay always on that role, but be ready to switch whenever appropriate.
Another important aspect is mulliganing. With true control decks you don't mulligan very often, but with Faeries you can (and have to) be more selective with the hands you keep, and my results improved a lot once I understood it and stopped keeping hands that were good just to avoid mana screw; you won't draw a Supreme Verdict or a Sphinx's Revelation to get you back to game from a bad start.
I consider this article more interesting and useful than others more focused on discussing how to adapt the deck to old formats.
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Who is truer: you who are, or you who are to be?
Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I'm glad you ask that. The situation is that all the players in this thread share one common goal: We want to bring Faeries back to Modern. To fulfill this goal, however, we must work together, much more than we have up to now. Right now, everyone has his/her own approach to the deck and is developing it into completely different directions. The problem is we can't use this thread to create about five different decks at once. The result of this would be the chaos that we have right now.
I would therefore suggest we just have to come to a generally accepted "core list" and then altogether test and modify this one. Right now, the general consensus seems to be:
-4 Bitterblossom
-4 SSS
-2-3 Vendilion (3 for me)
-2-4 Mistbind (3)
-4-6 Discard (6)
-4 Mana Leak
-2-4 Cryptic (4)
-4-6 Spot Removal (4)
I've been running a nice list lately in the control list realm. See how it works for you guys. Feel free to sub in or out whatever, but it has been testing nicely as is.
4 Spot Removal Split (I use at least one bile blight for tokens ETC)
4 Bitterblossom
I do really enjoy Lily in my lists as she does things I like and in case of later game land flood she gives me use of unneeded mana sources. Running Pierce and Snare gives us 4 1CMC spells to help land BB with insurance or a T5 Mistbind
When running this list I never count on Lily as a crutch if I can drop her I will and I won't always necessarily do anything with her when she hits if I don't need to or I'm clutching important spells. Her being there has been enough to make my opponents misplay at times and then I can play the psychological game. You could run snapcaster in her slot if you'd like, I've done that and it does play nicely.
Note about the mana base: I choose to run 2X copies of Cavern of Souls and I HARD counter the crap out of people with SSS and its always nice in situations where V.Clique can help cycle a useless card (sometimes lily sometimes Cryptic), obviously its nice to freely tap your opponent out also. Synergy also comes in when you choose to run Snap naming Wizard.
Hope this helps it isn't too far off of the control lists that have faired well thus far.
I would therefore suggest we just have to come to a generally accepted "core list" and then altogether test and modify this one. Right now, the general consensus seems to be:
-4 Bitterblossom
-4 SSS
-2-3 Vendilion (3 for me)
-2-4 Mistbind (3)
-4-6 Discard (6)
-4 Mana Leak
-2-4 Cryptic (4)
-4-6 Spot Removal (4)
With the minor specific comments that 3-4 Mana Leak appears correct (not just 4) and I would add Serum Visions to the disputed list, I think you capture the core discussion. Getting to ThatStoryTeller120's challenge - the questions I suggest those disputed cards are attempting to address are as follows:
A. How do we put a fast clock on our opponent? Giving our opponent too many turns is a typical problem for control decks. We need more damage (Swords or Scion) or a lock (Liliana). B. How do we win game 1 against fast aggro? I differentiate that from beating the meta because even quite bad fast aggro decks can beat control. The main solutions seem to be either don't, and sideboard in to win games 2 and 3 (Batterskull, Deathmark, etc.), or add control (Spell Snare and Snapcaster). C. How do we spend more time on plan A? I confess that this might be more my own question than that of the group, but if we believe in Bitterblossom strongly enough to build a deck around then it seems reasonable to want to have Bitterblossom in play.
Does that capture it? What has the greatest priority for solving? I suggest we need answers that are highly synergistic with the rest of the deck and do more than one thing: Faeries thrives on synergy and flexibility. SoFaF is in that class I believe, due to its positive interactions with manlands, green threats, and control.
I think this is a great question. I think part of the reason that we cannot agree as a group is because we are all working toward different goals. Some of us want a deck that can compete at our fnm. Some of us want to string together a few wins on cockatrice or mtgo. Some of us want a deck that can compete at a more competitive level. The meta changes from place to place, and thus card choices change. I tend to always think of the most competitive meta(the protour) but big modern events are few and far between. We should decide who and what we are focusing on defeating.
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"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
What is the solid gameplan without BB? Our gameplan is currently control the game and win with flash creatures(uwr control). I think this strategy is okay(especially if you are playing the deck) but it does not feel like tier one in these colors. Nevertheless, tier 1, 1.5, and 2 are so close in modern I think that you can win with almost anything if you have enough experience and the right build at the right time. Do we need another game plan other than control and random faeries? If so what is it?
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"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
A. How do we put a fast clock on our opponent? Giving our opponent too many turns is a typical problem for control decks. We need more damage (Swords or Scion) or a lock (Liliana).
I've been trying some matches against very different types of decks and have always felt like early pressure is missing.. Another concern of mine is that games with and without BB are extremely different (as already pointed out before). Games with an early BB resolved give us great advantage, while without it, I go back to my previous point where it just feels like I'm countering/removing everything without any pressure of my own.
For me you have picked out the central question. I feel like I cannot shut the door on my opponent fast enough unless BB is in play. Other decks are doing something broken and game ending any time from turn 4 on, or hitting life hard enough from turn 2 that their top-deck will end the game. Their plan A and plan B are either identical or in strong synergy, and both are lethal. Our plan A is lethal. Our plan B, not so much. Is the heart of the problem simply that Faeries requires a plan B that is as lethal as its plan A?
People are converging on card counts for lands (25-26), discard (5-7 counting VC), removal (4), counters (12 counting SSS), and victory conditions (7-8 counting MC) that make up about 90% of the deck. Is that right? If so, then 5-10% of the deck is available to address the question of pressure. 3-6 cards. What are they?
It is true that some other decks have "broken" win conditions (Twin combo, Wurmcoil...) that we do not have Access to. This is exactly why I think discard is such an important part of Faerie decks. (I run 3 IoK, 3 Thoughtseize and 3 Vendilion.)
As for the "unknown" Cards (it's only 2 in my case as a result of my high amount of both lands and discard) I'm torn between Liliana and Spell Snare. Snare seems to fit better into our control-based game plan, but is very situational on the other Hand, while Liliana Forces you to tap out, but is good in most situations... You see, I'd personally rather Play a stronger control-core than additional win conditions as I never seem to have difficulty killing my opponents even without BB. But then again, that's just me and others might want to Play Swords.
It is true that some other decks have "broken" win conditions (Twin combo, Wurmcoil...) that we do not have Access to. This is exactly why I think discard is such an important part of Faerie decks. (I run 3 IoK, 3 Thoughtseize and 3 Vendilion.)
As for the "unknown" Cards (it's only 2 in my case as a result of my high amount of both lands and discard) I'm torn between Liliana and Spell Snare. Snare seems to fit better into our control-based game plan, but is very situational on the other Hand, while Liliana Forces you to tap out, but is good in most situations... You see, I'd personally rather Play a stronger control-core than additional win conditions as I never seem to have difficulty killing my opponents even without BB. But then again, that's just me and others might want to Play Swords.
Tonight on MtGO I trialled a deck quite similar to Sittner's. SoFaF has the synergy you'd expect. What with flying and Tar Pit it is easy to land a hit; and that gets your lands upright for disruption duty and strips a card making your control more oppressive. In a way similar to Liliana it yields a soft-lock. Because it gets your lands upright it makes it more feasible to attack with Creeping Tar Pit. I played two copies and felt it did a lot of things the deck wanted.
How have you felt playing with Liliana? I find that making me discard is really strange.. I'm still trying to test Jace Beleren which is pretty much the opposite of Lili since I value card drawing so much.
I think Liliana of the Veil requires a shift toward thinking about control as oppressive. What I would call non-oppressive control is when you have spells, I have spells, and you hope with your spells to disrupt anything I try to do with my spells. What I would call oppressive control is when we each have one spell, and mine is Cryptic Command. So that's one aspect, but Liliana more commonly bears on board position and card advantage. Frequently I drop her in, down tick her to 1, forcing a sac. My opponent then dislikes seeing her in play so bolts her. They lost two cards, I lost one. Where that switches to oppressive is when I drop her in, up tick her to 4, and sit on that. Most opponents will now need to bolt her twice to kill her. They are then down three cards while I am down one. Of course it also can play out that Liliana will tick and fog: yielding tempo rather than materiel.
I do see your Point, but on the other hand, SoFaF is technically a 5-drop. Did you never experience Problems accumulating the mana to cast it?
I usually played the Sword of Feast and Famine on 5 mana. Tapping 3 to bring it into play and 2 to equip it. Unless my opponent stops this, I end the turn with 5 mana untapped. Sometimes when I had either 6 mana or no Cryptic Command in hand, I was able to shift the sword after combat onto an untapped faerie. On one occasion I put the SoFAF out on 3 mana because I had nothing better to play. That might be a matter of playing style: I tend not to try and bluff Mana Leak in such situations.
Snapcaster Mage is the strongest Modern control card. If you want Control Faeries, then you need to play Snapcaster Mage.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I played my list against a UR Twin deck about 4 times, and didnt drop a game. It was almost easy mode. His list even ran 3 Swan Song in the main still didnt really matter at all. I am one of those fools that plays 3 Scions and a Sword of Feast and Famine. The Scions were actually pretty decent here. Probably the worst matchup for them but they just allowed me to turn the corner so quickly. which I think is a key part to betting the combo decks. Good disruption and a fast clock. I digress. The matchup seems super solid, and probably gets even better post bored.
Obviously, the latter didn't work. Is it due to Scion being a bad card? Not at all! The problems were simply the one-drops, which just don't race fast enough for Modern. Scion per se is actually not a bad card by any means, I played it back in Lorwyn Standard and loved it. I might come across as some kind of "Scion-hater" in my previous posts, and let me therefore relate my former statements: I personally don't think Scion is necessary in Modern based on my testings. However, if you really like playing with Scions, then go for it! I will be the last person to prevent you from doing so. The thing is Scion was actually a four-of in my earliest approaches after the Bitterblossom-unbanning. One of the reasons I have come to omit it completely is that I have found myself having no creatures on the field in a lot of cases. In such a situation, Scion does logically not make any impact at all. Yes, Scion does help you race faster. Yes, he can be used as a combat trick, and yes, you can protect your Bitterblossom/faeries with it. (It will, however, not help you dodge an Abrupt Decay as often as you might think. They will find a way to play around it.) Overall, as far as I'm concerned, Scion is really, really good if you can truly pull off the Bitterblossom strategy, but if you have no access to it for whatever reasons (it does happen), it will not make much of an impact. That being said, I've come to play more Discard over the Scions. They seem to me like a better way to protect BB on the whole.
As for the Swords, the reason I don't like them in Modern is similar to my above explanation on the questinable usefulness of Scion. Obviously, they are nuts with Bitterblossom. Unlike Scion, they are also worthwile when having few or only one creatures on the field. The best choice among them would be either SoFaF or SoFaI, the former bbeing better in earlier states of the game, the latter rather later. I have also tested SoLaS, but it struck me as less good, as I could not activate the return-a-creature-effect a lot. Despite this all, I still don't feel like Swords are necessary in this deck. I personally would much rather have a counter-/removal-backup than just throw in a Sword and start the beatdown. Then again, this is only my opinion and I do respect people who choose to play Swords. They are at least a more viable option than Scion to me.
My fairly recent exclusion of Snapcasters has also been questioned. It has been said that it was the "best control-card in Modern". I don't agree with that. Snappy is extremely powerful, but much more so in UWR than in Faeries, as the former has access to much more good instants/sorceries than we do (Path, Bolt, Helix being the main). We can always retrieve a discard spell with Snappy, however, this possibility is not able to make use of his Flash speed. In the end I just don't know what I should cut for him, though I'm not completely reluctan to give him another shot. My list would be as follows:
3 IoK
3 Thoughtseize
2 Spell Snare
4 Mana Leak
2 Smother
2 GftT
4 Bitterblossom
4 SSS
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Mistbind Clique
4 Cryptic Command
4 secluded glen
4 mutavault
2 underground river
4 river of tears
4 darkslick shores
6 island
2 creeping tar pit
SB:
3 deathmark
2 damnation
2 spell snare
2 engineered explosives
2 hurkyl's recall
2 batterskull
2 grafdigger's cage
What bothers me about this thread is how it's just not focused on specific questions. Everyone is still suggesting crazy stuff (no offense) like splashes that we'd actually dealt with about 20 pages earlier already. We should just focus more on the actual deck that is UB faeries. I know the thread title says "UBx", but such splashes the deck a completely different one and should therefore have their own threads in my opinion.
I tried both Forbidden Alchemy and Thirst for Knowledge. The benefit of TfK is that it can improve the quality of your hand by letting you discard whichever two cards you dislike most. Alchemy won't do that, but instead digs 1 card deeper and drops cards into your grave as Snapcaster targets. Alchemy also has flashback although at a high cc. For me, the critical part is digging deeper. In both cases I was using the card to find me what I wanted to win with. If it didn't do that, then it just wasn't doing what I included it in my deck for.
I know many don't like using digging. However, I find I win when I have BB in play and SSS in hand. Therefore I want to see that as frequently as possible. The alternative is to play cards that if you draw them instead of BB will make you win. Note that since I think I win sufficiently often if I draw BB, I perforce will perceive it as simply 'win more' to plan to have them AND BB. I'm open to challenges to this logic BTW, I just wanted to reveal it so you could see what I mean: for me, the strategy is to make sure that I will play the card that I will win with, which so far seems to be BB.)
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
The decklists are anecdotal, and no particular choices are discussed throughout the article. You can compare it to the "How to play control" article linked at the beginning of that one and will find that Modern Faeries isn't a pure control deck, and in the middle of the article there's the comparison to a Legacy Tempo Threshold that states clearly that tempo=/=aggro-control. Given the fact that Modern has very few control decks and more and better combo and aggro decks, you'll have to play the control role more often than in other formats in which Faeries was a dominant deck, but you can't play on autopilot and stay always on that role, but be ready to switch whenever appropriate.
Another important aspect is mulliganing. With true control decks you don't mulligan very often, but with Faeries you can (and have to) be more selective with the hands you keep, and my results improved a lot once I understood it and stopped keeping hands that were good just to avoid mana screw; you won't draw a Supreme Verdict or a Sphinx's Revelation to get you back to game from a bad start.
I consider this article more interesting and useful than others more focused on discussing how to adapt the deck to old formats.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I would therefore suggest we just have to come to a generally accepted "core list" and then altogether test and modify this one. Right now, the general consensus seems to be:
-4 Bitterblossom
-4 SSS
-2-3 Vendilion (3 for me)
-2-4 Mistbind (3)
-4-6 Discard (6)
-4 Mana Leak
-2-4 Cryptic (4)
-4-6 Spot Removal (4)
Disputed cards include (not mentioning lands):
-Scion (still)
-Swords
-Snapcaster
-Planeswalkers (mainly Liliana)
-Spell Snare
25 Land 6 manlands
4 SSS
3 V.Clique
3 MB.Clique
2 Lily
5 Hand hate split how you so choose
10 Interupt Spells
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Mana Leak
1 Remand
3 Cryptic
4 Spot Removal Split (I use at least one bile blight for tokens ETC)
4 Bitterblossom
I do really enjoy Lily in my lists as she does things I like and in case of later game land flood she gives me use of unneeded mana sources. Running Pierce and Snare gives us 4 1CMC spells to help land BB with insurance or a T5 Mistbind
When running this list I never count on Lily as a crutch if I can drop her I will and I won't always necessarily do anything with her when she hits if I don't need to or I'm clutching important spells. Her being there has been enough to make my opponents misplay at times and then I can play the psychological game. You could run snapcaster in her slot if you'd like, I've done that and it does play nicely.
Note about the mana base: I choose to run 2X copies of Cavern of Souls and I HARD counter the crap out of people with SSS and its always nice in situations where V.Clique can help cycle a useless card (sometimes lily sometimes Cryptic), obviously its nice to freely tap your opponent out also. Synergy also comes in when you choose to run Snap naming Wizard.
Hope this helps it isn't too far off of the control lists that have faired well thus far.
With the minor specific comments that 3-4 Mana Leak appears correct (not just 4) and I would add Serum Visions to the disputed list, I think you capture the core discussion. Getting to ThatStoryTeller120's challenge - the questions I suggest those disputed cards are attempting to address are as follows:
A. How do we put a fast clock on our opponent? Giving our opponent too many turns is a typical problem for control decks. We need more damage (Swords or Scion) or a lock (Liliana).
B. How do we win game 1 against fast aggro? I differentiate that from beating the meta because even quite bad fast aggro decks can beat control. The main solutions seem to be either don't, and sideboard in to win games 2 and 3 (Batterskull, Deathmark, etc.), or add control (Spell Snare and Snapcaster).
C. How do we spend more time on plan A? I confess that this might be more my own question than that of the group, but if we believe in Bitterblossom strongly enough to build a deck around then it seems reasonable to want to have Bitterblossom in play.
Does that capture it? What has the greatest priority for solving? I suggest we need answers that are highly synergistic with the rest of the deck and do more than one thing: Faeries thrives on synergy and flexibility. SoFaF is in that class I believe, due to its positive interactions with manlands, green threats, and control.
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
For me you have picked out the central question. I feel like I cannot shut the door on my opponent fast enough unless BB is in play. Other decks are doing something broken and game ending any time from turn 4 on, or hitting life hard enough from turn 2 that their top-deck will end the game. Their plan A and plan B are either identical or in strong synergy, and both are lethal. Our plan A is lethal. Our plan B, not so much. Is the heart of the problem simply that Faeries requires a plan B that is as lethal as its plan A?
People are converging on card counts for lands (25-26), discard (5-7 counting VC), removal (4), counters (12 counting SSS), and victory conditions (7-8 counting MC) that make up about 90% of the deck. Is that right? If so, then 5-10% of the deck is available to address the question of pressure. 3-6 cards. What are they?
As for the "unknown" Cards (it's only 2 in my case as a result of my high amount of both lands and discard) I'm torn between Liliana and Spell Snare. Snare seems to fit better into our control-based game plan, but is very situational on the other Hand, while Liliana Forces you to tap out, but is good in most situations... You see, I'd personally rather Play a stronger control-core than additional win conditions as I never seem to have difficulty killing my opponents even without BB. But then again, that's just me and others might want to Play Swords.
Tonight on MtGO I trialled a deck quite similar to Sittner's. SoFaF has the synergy you'd expect. What with flying and Tar Pit it is easy to land a hit; and that gets your lands upright for disruption duty and strips a card making your control more oppressive. In a way similar to Liliana it yields a soft-lock. Because it gets your lands upright it makes it more feasible to attack with Creeping Tar Pit. I played two copies and felt it did a lot of things the deck wanted.
When I get another chance I intend to test the swords with Liliana in the same deck. The hand disruption effects I will be playing will then be 2x Liliana of the Veil, 2x Sword of Feast and Famine, 3x Thoughtseize, 2x Inquisition of Kozilek, and 1x Vendilion Clique with 1 more in the Sideboard. I would argue that Liliana and the swords feed strongly into control as well.
I think Liliana of the Veil requires a shift toward thinking about control as oppressive. What I would call non-oppressive control is when you have spells, I have spells, and you hope with your spells to disrupt anything I try to do with my spells. What I would call oppressive control is when we each have one spell, and mine is Cryptic Command. So that's one aspect, but Liliana more commonly bears on board position and card advantage. Frequently I drop her in, down tick her to 1, forcing a sac. My opponent then dislikes seeing her in play so bolts her. They lost two cards, I lost one. Where that switches to oppressive is when I drop her in, up tick her to 4, and sit on that. Most opponents will now need to bolt her twice to kill her. They are then down three cards while I am down one. Of course it also can play out that Liliana will tick and fog: yielding tempo rather than materiel.
I usually played the Sword of Feast and Famine on 5 mana. Tapping 3 to bring it into play and 2 to equip it. Unless my opponent stops this, I end the turn with 5 mana untapped. Sometimes when I had either 6 mana or no Cryptic Command in hand, I was able to shift the sword after combat onto an untapped faerie. On one occasion I put the SoFAF out on 3 mana because I had nothing better to play. That might be a matter of playing style: I tend not to try and bluff Mana Leak in such situations.
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver