Yes, play more hand disruption. I'd add two more Thoughtseize. I can't tell you how great turn 1 disruption into turn two Blossom is, it basically tilts the game far in your favor. As for the other 2 slots, how about Scion of Oona? I play it as a four of in my list ands is over performed often, countering Bolts and pushing extra damage.
Only thing I´m worried with playing more disruption is that it can be quite dead card in the late game. Oona is something I´ve been thinking about playing, maybe 1 or 2. But it just doesn't feel so powerful. It has been discussed previously and I´m not too happy about the card itself.
Disruption late isn't THAT big of a problem, because almost any deck has something worth taking. The opening I described earlier more than makes up for that though. Scion is actually really good. Many times it's a blowout, maybe you just never had a situation where it could really shine. I'd still suggest playing at least 2.
Countermagic is the smell before rain, the sun on the horizon and the chocolate chips in my mint chocolate chip ice cream. It's the first time I saw a woman naked and the first time I smelled perfume. It's that feeling you get when you know you're right.
But most of all; it's the feeling of playing Magic
Disruption late isn't THAT big of a problem, because almost any deck has something worth taking. The opening I described earlier more than makes up for that though. Scion is actually really good. Many times it's a blowout, maybe you just never had a situation where it could really shine. I'd still suggest playing at least 2.
When I was playing U/R faeries I really liked Scion, especially post board. There are so many decks that will bring in Combust, the first time you get to counter one of those on your mistbind using Scion youll smile for a couple days.
Those BUG versions seem to have an even harder time against aggressive decks (which fortunately are disappearing from Modern), specially if you try to play Vedalken Shackles, a slow card that forces you to play many shocklands. I don't think the improvement against mid-range decks justifies the splash.
Are you forgetting the 4 green creatures that make almost every blue deck better and his 2 of sidekick that kind of does the same thing?
I didn't know Snapcaster Mage was green, and it's missing from most of the BUG lists... oh! you were talking about Tarmogoyf. Those are the ones that make the match-up against fair mid-range decks better (or at least against Jund and Rock, don't dare to put Pod decks in that list because they should have an easy time chumpblocking a Tarmogoyf and you don't want it to block their creatures and make the game go long). However, against aggressive decks the splash makes the deck way worse, against control the deck is less flexible, against combo you have a better clock but less disruption, and all of this losing 5 more life per game with your lands.
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Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
Yes, play more hand disruption. I'd add two more Thoughtseize. I can't tell you how great turn 1 disruption into turn two Blossom is, it basically tilts the game far in your favor. As for the other 2 slots, how about Scion of Oona? I play it as a four of in my list ands is over performed often, countering Bolts and pushing extra damage.
Only thing I´m worried with playing more disruption is that it can be quite dead card in the late game. Oona is something I´ve been thinking about playing, maybe 1 or 2. But it just doesn't feel so powerful. It has been discussed previously and I´m not too happy about the card itself.
I think you'll want to add more spells that force an opponent to answer them rather than more removal or discard. Yes, T1 discard into T2 Bitterblossom is kind of the dream, but what if you don't have the T2 Blossom? This deck cannot sit back on disruption and wait to draw bitterblossom until turn 7 or 8. That's something the thread has been working on a lot recently: what do we end up doing when we don't have bitterblossom early, since that can put us pretty heavily on the back foot? We've had discussions about pack rat, swords, shackles, and splashing additional colors like green for Tarmogoyf, so there are options available, but you cannot form your gameplan around mulliganing every game into t1 discard, t2 bitterblossom, t3 spellstutter, t4 mistbind or cryptic. yes, you will probably win every game that sequence happens in, but you are much more likely to fall every time that doesn't happen unless you have something else to be doing as well.
Those BUG versions seem to have an even harder time against aggressive decks (which fortunately are disappearing from Modern), specially if you try to play Vedalken Shackles, a slow card that forces you to play many shocklands. I don't think the improvement against mid-range decks justifies the splash.
Are you forgetting the 4 green creatures that make almost every blue deck better and his 2 of sidekick that kind of does the same thing?
I didn't know Snapcaster Mage was green, and it's missing from most of the BUG lists... oh! you were talking about Tarmogoyf. Those are the ones that make the match-up against fair mid-range decks better (or at least against Jund and Rock, don't dare to put Pod decks in that list because they should have an easy time chumpblocking a Tarmogoyf and you don't want it to block their creatures and make the game go long). However, against aggressive decks the splash makes the deck way worse, against control the deck is less flexible, against combo you have a better clock but less disruption, and all of this losing 5 more life per game with your lands.
I would posit that you have no working knowledge of the format or playing with UG shells in any format if you think Tarmo, Ooze, and Shackles makes you worse against aggro. Furthermore, I can't think of a single UB shell that's done anything since GP Richmond, and a large part is the abysmal Pod match-up, somewhere Shackles and Ooze really shine. And How Tarmo makes you worse against control I haven't the foggiest.
Tarmogoyf should be good against aggro decks if you got attacked by Wild Nacatls, Goblin Guides and other ground beaters smaller than it, but not if you're being attacked by Signal Pests, Etched Champions and islandwalk Merfolks.
Vedalken Shackles is too slow against pure aggressive decks, specially if you don't run efficient removal (like Blue Moon does), lose so much life fetching for duals, and can't guarantee a high enough number of Islands with it. I'm not going to negate the card is good against Pod, but you can get a similar effect by playing Sower of Temptation.
Scavenging Ooze is also too slow against aggressive decks, you need green mana (which is just a splash color in a UB deck) to make it grow, and you won't be able to pump it if you don't feed it with creatures. The card is good once you've stabilized the board, but won't help you at doing that.
I didn't say Tarmogoyf makes you worse against control, but your strategy less flexible; you're forced to be the aggro player always. Then you have less ways of interacting with them (less counterspells, less removal for Celestial Colonnade) and with that painful manabase, their plan of throwing Bolts at you becomes more feasible.
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Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
Vs. the plan of just straight losing which is where the deck is now? Tarmo is there for things like Finks, other Tarmos, Voices, etc. Faeries isn't winning anything in the speed department anyway, and Shackles becomes active just as soon as Sower in the deck. Ooze is one of the best ways to combat the Pod, what does UB have that even bothers that deck?
Vs. the plan of just straight losing which is where the deck is now? Tarmo is there for things like Finks, other Tarmos, Voices, etc. Faeries isn't winning anything in the speed department anyway, and Shackles becomes active just as soon as Sower in the deck. Ooze is one of the best ways to combat the Pod, what does UB have that even bothers that deck?
Outside of lands... hibernation hits like 80% of pods permanents
So I've been testing out U/B with rat and Lilliana utilizing lingering souls. It really seems promising, I might sleeve it up and go to locals with it. Lily +1 ditching souls then flashing it back for two creatures or turn 5 copy rat ditching souls flashback are some insane plays with a huge tempo swing. It also gives us plenty of bodies for swords to equip. I've dropped one copy of BB and slotted in a couple mana fixing to hard cast the lingering souls if things don't go to the combo plays. I've also thought about maybe a zombie/fae list to bust out some early threats like gravecrawler giving us a nice 2/1 who can be regenerated with a mutavault in play or bloodghast for all the land flooding, but that might just be too cute. The lovely christmas day thought of "ditch bloodghast for rat, drop land, flashback lingering souls, IN YO FACE SUCKA!" <all this while having a BB in play)
That does seem strong, but posts like this and much of the discussion surrounding cards such as pack rat and liliana make me wonder why these strategies are being seemingly shoe-horned into the fae list, as they don't seem overly synergistic. I have to wonder if they really work alongside the fae core at all, or if they're incrementally pushing the fae out.
Liliana of the veil, pack rat, lingering souls, bloodghast, tarmogoyf - these are not cards that synergise with faerie tribal, and certainly not with bitterblossom. These cards are all still good, and some of them may work in a faerie list, but it seems to me like the discussion has really shifted from trying to make the best BUx FAERIE list as possible, and more and more about trying to turn faeries into a totally different archetype, so much so that the faeries themselves seem out of place and pointless. I am of the belief that some sorcery speed effects and non-faeries may be useful for the deck (SoFaF and targeted discard have proven themselves worthy), but the more we add the more we water down the primary plan of the deck and the less synergistic it becomes. The more faerie-relevant, and instant speed cards we remove, the worse spellstutter sprite, mistbind clique, bitterblossom, scion of oona (if you play it) and all of our instants become. This just so happens to be the supposed core of the deck, and the reason we are all here.
By all means suggest and test all manner of things, but the discussion overall really has shifted off course in my opinion, and in many lists the faeries feel totally out of place.
Because UB Faeries with a overly tribal themes and instant speed interactions simply isn't good enough. It's not charting anywhere in any numbers that make it more than a tier 2 deck. I'm only here because this appears to be the best shell for Cryptic+BB, and whether or not that's even good enough remains to be seen. The green elements I've seen online and in paper seem to be able to cope with a meta full of Pod and BGx better than UB normally does.
I don't mind the green splash. Tarmogoyf is pretty much the only consistent sorcery speed addition from what I've seen, and abrupt decay seems soooo good. The core of the deck isn't really damaged by the green addition.
The only thing I don't like about the bug list is the massive amounts self inflicted damage, and this is one reason i think faeries may be one of those decks that is just waiting for the onslaught fetches. When we get them bug and esper seem much more viable.
I wasn't attacking one list specifically, or even the desire to innovate, just the general tone and direction of discussion. I'd prefer it if people could keep in mind that the thread is supposed to be about developing around the fae core, and in some lists I wonder how people are consistently countering spells any greater than 1cmc with their spellstutters.
I will agree that talk of lingering souls and bloodghast are very strange to me. But faeries has a core that builds into a few different potential strategies. I admit the search for the best UBx faeries list might lead to watching how decks like Next Level Blue did it back in the day with Goyf and such, but in modern people are still trying to carve and add to see what actually works in faeries. Honestly a large body for cheap cost like goyf would help if it werent for the issues of perfecting a tricolor manabase that doesnt make it easy for your opponent to kill you faster.
...Speaking of which
@Godec- I'm not well versed on green, and I think the discussion of green actually helps show us weaknesses we not necessarily need to handle 100% in UB but be aware of. Anyway, Would you say that the ability to use your life as a resource is threatened by your manabase at all? Truly it is what I have a hard time with in this strategy.
Onto the reason I wrote this post...I have news: Trip Lillys is trending.
Snapcaster being successful is no surprise but i really think it really is a personal choice. Funeral Charm stands out to me, but I haven't wrapped my head around it. Seems like a pretty strong possibility that these two are from the same testing team, or just both made the no thoughtseize meta call. I had them in sb for a bit myself, so these might be notes to make on deck progression for aggressive environments (less combo/control).
So hear me out Liliana is a very weird choice that might be very skill intensive in an already skill intensive deck, so maybe we should thoroughly discuss using her matchup to matchup
I think the fact is that strict UB faeries can be a liliana deck at its core, effective in a completely different way than jund or BG and 4c-gifts are (the only other decks to use trip lillys to major successes). I dont think the way I would explain it is conducive to a strategy per-say though, so if anyone could comment Id gladly respond to your points. But Liliana acts more as a reusable diabolic edict that turns dead cards into a chance to rip cards from the opponent's hand (most useful when your gameplan is to throw a wrench in their gears and you have cards that don't interact with their strategy at all) and threaten ultimate (which is why i think 3 might be pretty good). I am usually pitching lands mostly, as I have found 6 lands to be the stable late-game mana count (activating creeping tar pit and mutavault on offense mostly). Plus, when I am topdecking with this deck (outside of drawing cryptic or mistbind) using her abilities keeps me in some control of the game even though I have no hand (which is an easily navigated situation in a few matchups)
And frankly i think if we are searching for the best UB faeries deck Liliana might become a staple because faeries get taken out by gusts of wind all the time.
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
I dont understand the frame of your question. I actually sometimes use cryptic to bounce mistbind clique championing spellstutter sprite in response to my opponent's spells and draw with cryptic. It comes down to what you value your cards at in specific situations.
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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
I do think if we add pack rat, lingering souls, Liliana, and bloodghast into the faerie deck we should cut the faeries. At that point we have two different decks being smashed together, and neither maximize the synergy.
I do like the potential discussion on the best ways to use Liliana in the matchup. The first time I heard it discussed I wasn't a fan, but that is quite possibly because I don't see all of the potential lines available with the card. The cards surrounding Liliana also seem important. I usually play Liliana in jund, so my mindset was there. I would love to hear from people that have successfully utilized Liliana in faeries.
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—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
I do think if we add pack rat, lingering souls, Liliana, and bloodghast into the faerie deck we should cut the faeries. At that point we have two different decks being smashed together, and neither maximize the synergy.
I do like the potential discussion on the best ways to use Liliana in the matchup. The first time I heard it discussed I wasn't a fan, but that is quite possibly because I don't see all of the potential lines available with the card. The cards surrounding Liliana also seem important. I usually play Liliana in jund, so my mindset was there. I would love to hear from people that have successfully utilized Liliana in faeries.
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"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
I added two Lilianas to the deck. I feel no need for Pack rat and/or Bloodghast. Some beautiful plays are that you can force your opponent to play cards, without tapping out for mana in mid/late game, to let them walk into your cryptic command.
I prefer to add a counter to lilly than to play a thoughtseize, which in mid/late game often results similarly.
Your opponent will have a hard time battling through faerie tokens to reach the liliana, while you can let them sac multiple creatures.
At worst, liliana is attacked immediately after a sacrifice activation. Playing snapcaster makes obvious plays, as was demonstrated in old U/B Delver decks.
In short, i feel it is a great addition to the deck.
Also, there have been a lot of attempts to increase the quality of our cards by draw(Jace Beleren, Serum Visions, etc.), but to achieve the same through discard better.
Disruption late isn't THAT big of a problem, because almost any deck has something worth taking. The opening I described earlier more than makes up for that though. Scion is actually really good. Many times it's a blowout, maybe you just never had a situation where it could really shine. I'd still suggest playing at least 2.
When I was playing U/R faeries I really liked Scion, especially post board. There are so many decks that will bring in Combust, the first time you get to counter one of those on your mistbind using Scion youll smile for a couple days.
Thirst for Knowledge % to hit artifact
I didn't know Snapcaster Mage was green, and it's missing from most of the BUG lists... oh! you were talking about Tarmogoyf. Those are the ones that make the match-up against fair mid-range decks better (or at least against Jund and Rock, don't dare to put Pod decks in that list because they should have an easy time chumpblocking a Tarmogoyf and you don't want it to block their creatures and make the game go long). However, against aggressive decks the splash makes the deck way worse, against control the deck is less flexible, against combo you have a better clock but less disruption, and all of this losing 5 more life per game with your lands.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I think you'll want to add more spells that force an opponent to answer them rather than more removal or discard. Yes, T1 discard into T2 Bitterblossom is kind of the dream, but what if you don't have the T2 Blossom? This deck cannot sit back on disruption and wait to draw bitterblossom until turn 7 or 8. That's something the thread has been working on a lot recently: what do we end up doing when we don't have bitterblossom early, since that can put us pretty heavily on the back foot? We've had discussions about pack rat, swords, shackles, and splashing additional colors like green for Tarmogoyf, so there are options available, but you cannot form your gameplan around mulliganing every game into t1 discard, t2 bitterblossom, t3 spellstutter, t4 mistbind or cryptic. yes, you will probably win every game that sequence happens in, but you are much more likely to fall every time that doesn't happen unless you have something else to be doing as well.
I would posit that you have no working knowledge of the format or playing with UG shells in any format if you think Tarmo, Ooze, and Shackles makes you worse against aggro. Furthermore, I can't think of a single UB shell that's done anything since GP Richmond, and a large part is the abysmal Pod match-up, somewhere Shackles and Ooze really shine. And How Tarmo makes you worse against control I haven't the foggiest.
Vedalken Shackles is too slow against pure aggressive decks, specially if you don't run efficient removal (like Blue Moon does), lose so much life fetching for duals, and can't guarantee a high enough number of Islands with it. I'm not going to negate the card is good against Pod, but you can get a similar effect by playing Sower of Temptation.
Scavenging Ooze is also too slow against aggressive decks, you need green mana (which is just a splash color in a UB deck) to make it grow, and you won't be able to pump it if you don't feed it with creatures. The card is good once you've stabilized the board, but won't help you at doing that.
I didn't say Tarmogoyf makes you worse against control, but your strategy less flexible; you're forced to be the aggro player always. Then you have less ways of interacting with them (less counterspells, less removal for Celestial Colonnade) and with that painful manabase, their plan of throwing Bolts at you becomes more feasible.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
Outside of lands... hibernation hits like 80% of pods permanents
Thirst for Knowledge % to hit artifact
We should not be afraid of playing away from winning through the stack in some occasions.
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678Liliana of the veil, pack rat, lingering souls, bloodghast, tarmogoyf - these are not cards that synergise with faerie tribal, and certainly not with bitterblossom. These cards are all still good, and some of them may work in a faerie list, but it seems to me like the discussion has really shifted from trying to make the best BUx FAERIE list as possible, and more and more about trying to turn faeries into a totally different archetype, so much so that the faeries themselves seem out of place and pointless. I am of the belief that some sorcery speed effects and non-faeries may be useful for the deck (SoFaF and targeted discard have proven themselves worthy), but the more we add the more we water down the primary plan of the deck and the less synergistic it becomes. The more faerie-relevant, and instant speed cards we remove, the worse spellstutter sprite, mistbind clique, bitterblossom, scion of oona (if you play it) and all of our instants become. This just so happens to be the supposed core of the deck, and the reason we are all here.
By all means suggest and test all manner of things, but the discussion overall really has shifted off course in my opinion, and in many lists the faeries feel totally out of place.
The only thing I don't like about the bug list is the massive amounts self inflicted damage, and this is one reason i think faeries may be one of those decks that is just waiting for the onslaught fetches. When we get them bug and esper seem much more viable.
I wasn't attacking one list specifically, or even the desire to innovate, just the general tone and direction of discussion. I'd prefer it if people could keep in mind that the thread is supposed to be about developing around the fae core, and in some lists I wonder how people are consistently countering spells any greater than 1cmc with their spellstutters.
...Speaking of which
@Godec- I'm not well versed on green, and I think the discussion of green actually helps show us weaknesses we not necessarily need to handle 100% in UB but be aware of. Anyway, Would you say that the ability to use your life as a resource is threatened by your manabase at all? Truly it is what I have a hard time with in this strategy.
Onto the reason I wrote this post...I have news: Trip Lillys is trending.
http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/78655
http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/78655
Snapcaster being successful is no surprise but i really think it really is a personal choice. Funeral Charm stands out to me, but I haven't wrapped my head around it. Seems like a pretty strong possibility that these two are from the same testing team, or just both made the no thoughtseize meta call. I had them in sb for a bit myself, so these might be notes to make on deck progression for aggressive environments (less combo/control).
So hear me out Liliana is a very weird choice that might be very skill intensive in an already skill intensive deck, so maybe we should thoroughly discuss using her matchup to matchup
I think the fact is that strict UB faeries can be a liliana deck at its core, effective in a completely different way than jund or BG and 4c-gifts are (the only other decks to use trip lillys to major successes). I dont think the way I would explain it is conducive to a strategy per-say though, so if anyone could comment Id gladly respond to your points. But Liliana acts more as a reusable diabolic edict that turns dead cards into a chance to rip cards from the opponent's hand (most useful when your gameplan is to throw a wrench in their gears and you have cards that don't interact with their strategy at all) and threaten ultimate (which is why i think 3 might be pretty good). I am usually pitching lands mostly, as I have found 6 lands to be the stable late-game mana count (activating creeping tar pit and mutavault on offense mostly). Plus, when I am topdecking with this deck (outside of drawing cryptic or mistbind) using her abilities keeps me in some control of the game even though I have no hand (which is an easily navigated situation in a few matchups)
And frankly i think if we are searching for the best UB faeries deck Liliana might become a staple because faeries get taken out by gusts of wind all the time.
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
I do like the potential discussion on the best ways to use Liliana in the matchup. The first time I heard it discussed I wasn't a fan, but that is quite possibly because I don't see all of the potential lines available with the card. The cards surrounding Liliana also seem important. I usually play Liliana in jund, so my mindset was there. I would love to hear from people that have successfully utilized Liliana in faeries.
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
I do like the potential discussion on the best ways to use Liliana in the matchup. The first time I heard it discussed I wasn't a fan, but that is quite possibly because I don't see all of the potential lines available with the card. The cards surrounding Liliana also seem important. I usually play Liliana in jund, so my mindset was there. I would love to hear from people that have successfully utilized Liliana in faeries.
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
I prefer to add a counter to lilly than to play a thoughtseize, which in mid/late game often results similarly.
Your opponent will have a hard time battling through faerie tokens to reach the liliana, while you can let them sac multiple creatures.
At worst, liliana is attacked immediately after a sacrifice activation. Playing snapcaster makes obvious plays, as was demonstrated in old U/B Delver decks.
In short, i feel it is a great addition to the deck.
Also, there have been a lot of attempts to increase the quality of our cards by draw(Jace Beleren, Serum Visions, etc.), but to achieve the same through discard better.
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678