If you feel like faeries is a bad version of other decks I think that you may be playing the deck incorrectly. I don't think that it is as powerful as some decks, and you definitely have to work for your wins...which is something I find appealing about the deck. I think that we have to think outside the box. I'm trying the new Gideon right now. I'm not sure if it is good, but trying it out. I think splashing for goyf and decay is a great idea. I know that it has been successful in the past. I would try goyfs, but can't see myself investing in them any time soon. If you test them please let me know how it goes.
I'm not the best pilot in the world, but I would think Gideon, Ally of Zendikar would make the deck too much of a bad BW tokens deck. His first 2 abilities just add non flying beef in the form of a bunch of 2/2 and himself an indestructible 5/5 (can still be path'd or dismembered), because the Ally typings mean nothing to us. Only his last ability has any real synergy with the deck, and then only in a tempo heavy version, in which case running a 3rd or 4th scion would likely be better.
Gideon is ultimately just BFZ's Siege Rhino a 4 cost 5/5 indestructible creature with upside in it's abilities and planeswalker status (harder to remove) to make for a good value play. Let's be honest here, Faeries isn't exactly hurting for a sorcery speed 4 cost value creature.
Game 1
I wasn't familiar with this deck, but I killed/countered all the spirits he tried to get out. I had played Oona's Blackguard, which apparently people don't like much. He tried to Helix it, but I played a Quickling and bounced it (plus getting the +1/+1 counter) and fizzled his Helix. I replay the Blackguard. He tries to bolt it, I spellstutter that one. He bolts again and it finally dies. It took 3 bolts aimed at it, so I feel success for both the blackguard and the quickling. He is top decking and tries to land a Godo, which I had crytpic for. He would have grabbed Batterskull, so good thing I stopped it.
Game 2
I stop his early snapcaster and lingering souls and I resolve a BB. He lands Olivia though and I didn't have a removal spell. Olivia won the game.
Game 3
He played gifts and through an Elesh Norn in his grave. So I played very very conservatively. I played harbinger end of turn to get 2nd harbinger. Then harbinger to spellstutter. I was pecking him down while he resolved some lingering souls and other small fry I wasn't going to counter. I held 3 spell snares and 2 spell stutters. He Kolaghan's Commands, but I had plenty in hand to discard.
Game 2
Well, he started off stronger. He T2 Ensoul Artifact his Darksteel Citadel and he bashed me for 10 damage before I was able to Cryptic to counter his Juggernaut and bounce the land. He never recovered. or even touched me again. I did side in both Hurkyl's Recall but never saw one as usual.
Not much to say as they weren't much interaction.
Round 3 - Affinity (0-2)
Game 1
He spills hand and I was a little off balance. Fairly quick pummeling. I only hit him for 2 dmg. He ran a standard list it appeared.
Game 2
This game was fully under my control, I had him stuck a Cranial Plating out and no real creatures. Was bashing in. He finally lands an Etched Champion (after I remanded it twice) I have him at 6 with lethal next turn. He top decks a 2nd cranial plating and swings for 17 which was my life total...
Game 1
He plays some hasty creatures, but I get a BB out and am able to trade and chump for a while. He terminates my good creatures, I had to Dismember a Ashenmoor Liege but luckily I did not have to pay even more life for the dismember. This game was frustrating. I had drawn 11 lands, 2 BB, a Remand, a Mistbind, and a dismember. He was at 4 life and I was at 1. I had 4 swinging faeries, with him holding one card. All he had to do was stop 1 pt of dmg or deal 1 pt of dmg first, but he couldn't.
Game 2
Little easier, he got some quick burst damage on me with a double Titan's Stength, but I stablaized, had counters ready and dealt with his threats.
Round 5 - Affinity (1-2)
Game 1
She spews her hand, gets the Vault Skirge with Cranial Plating and quickly goes up to 36 life... I got her back to 24, but couldn't get a board. I did do a fun interaction though with Quickling. So I had 4 mana. Needed to counter a 2 drop and I had spellstutter and quickling in hand. I cast Quickling, with trigger on stack, I cast Spellstutter, countered the spell, then bounced spellstutter to hand and had a 2/2 body to block with. Wasn't enough, but fun.
Game 2
On the play, I was much better equipped to stop threats. I just kept tempo the whole game, got BB and scions and smashed face.
Game 3
She again got 2 Skirges out early. In fact, I had no T1 play, so on T2 I counted 7 dmg coming at me next turn. I had spellstutter or BB. I went with BB, dropping to 10 on her swing. 9 with BB, then took another 5 on her next swing. I drop to 4... 3 and then manage to get the board and use Mistbind to exile BB. A Galvanic Blast finishes the job though.
Game 1
Kinda shut him down. I was on the play. He throws out a land, then casts a Signal Pest. He tries to cast Opal and I disfigure the Pest in response. He throws out a Ornithopter but, no metalcraft for him so he was stopped. I spellstutter his Springleaf Drum and he passes again. I just answer turn and after turn. Got a BB out and he just couldn't get anything going. I took 6 ticks off BB before winning.
Game 2
I had a good opening 7 for most match ups, but I mul to 6 and keep. I get lucky being able to spell pierce his cranial plating on T2 after he hand dumped. He is only able to peck in for 4 with a couple Memnites and signal pest. I got a BB out and stopped his board from going up. I couldn't push much damage through so it was sorta a stalemate with me ticking down for a while. He tried to Whipflare but spellsnare is good. I ticked from 14 to 6 before finally being able to get the win. He did have a plating out and one skirge, so he gained 11 life that game.
Hurkyl's Recall FFFFF this card!!!! I have sided two copies in since I started playing Faeries in May or June anytime I play affinity and NEVER not even once have I even drawn the card to my hand. I played 4 artifact rounds tonight. 5 games where I had sideboard cards in, one mulligan opening hand and not one Recall was drawn tonight (or EVER in my lifetime). So annoyed.
Faerie Harbinger Really glad I went to two copies. Going Harbinger, grab Harbinger is a good value. I pulled Harbinger, Spellstutter, Mistbind, Quickling and Scion with this card tonight. I never pulled Vendi or a BB with it. I love Harbinger.
Scion of Oona - Again, 2 copies is great. I still got 2 out to protect against terminate on the other and provide shroud to each other.
Quickling - He has never been a dead card in hand. I mean, yeah, he's not a T2 2/2 flyer, but I used it for so much value. My opponents were fairly impressed/annoyed at the value I kept getting off it. Protect my mutavault that swung and was about to die. Reuse spellstutters or Mistbinds or Harbingers. And a 2/2 body is relevant... sometimes that extra toughness makes a big difference.
The oona's blackguard still pulls hate like mad. Apparently people don't like 1/1 tokens every turn, and really don't like the idea of 2/2 tokens every turn. I will likely still go 1 copy.
I got stuck on 2 blue mana and a cryptic in hand often. It's very painful to be sitting on such a powerful card and have to pass priority and let their spells resolve that should be stopped.
I have not missed taking out my other man lands. I like keeping mana open and mutavault does enough work for me at the right activation cost.
Had some good compliments on the deck tonight. One guy went over my list after and we discussed the cards and how I'm not running discard. He said it worked for me, he (the affinity match up I had twice) said I always had a perfect answer and perfect curve. He really liked the deck and said he wasn't sure how he beat me in the swiss.
I'm getting a lot of respect and lots of good interactions with my list. I think I want to add Vampiric Link at some point, need a little lifegain somewhere.
Another card I want to try is Notorious Throng I feel like I can hit with a rogue easy enough, and if I do, I can pay 6 mana for an extra turn. Or hit them hard with my team, not leaving back blockers. Then pay 4 to get a field of chump blockers.
I know the thought is, its sorcery speed. It's a win-more card. But, I can see the situations, especially against affinity where this card is great. I got to a board state I could sit with 3 creatures back and swing in with a couple, but if I could swing with team and take an extra turn with extra creatures... probably a deal closer. Not a win-more, it's actually a stale-mate breaker. Because stalemates favor the opponent.
EDIT: Hopefully this is useful to post, it takes a long to type up. Maybe give me feedback about what parts are useful or informational and what parts aren't. I want to help provide my experience and also get critiques too.
Great write up, definitely picking up a couple harbingers for my deck. Also going to reinsert Quicklings. All the added creatures just adds so much value to Scions, maybe consider running a third scion in the board for games where blackguard does nothing? Affinity looks like it was a struggle for you, but it's a struggle for a lot of decks, unless you are running grixis and can side in real artifact hate (or main it with Kommand). Throng seems like it would be a decent singleton in matchups where a timewalk wins you the game. The tribal is sadly wrong though, so no crazy stupidity with harbingers.
As an aside, that janky artifact deck you played sounds like it was someone trying to port over the pre rotation scissors deck that took standard by storm, though if it was, you would expect to see hangarbacks and ornithopters before you saw Juggarnauts.
In other news, I finally am getting some remands (budget has been a real constraint on me), so I can begin some real testing soon. Still using Conclaves instead of Muties, but hopefully I can get some eventually.
I've been playing tragic slip a lot, and sometimes the -1/-1 is fine, but a lot of the time, its the -13/-13 you really want.
I'm not sure peppersmoke is the best.
I wish more of our guys had more than 1 toughness, so we would be able to cycle it.
As it is, worth a shot. You'll hate yourself against burn and zoo though (just in case you don't already)
Well, if people are testing Quickling more seriously, that leaves it, Mistbind, and popping tokens for cards as potential cycling targets. Also, if you just want to cycle, you could always just hit an enemy dude to mess with combat math or something.
It was just a thought anyways, a cheap cantrip that can be early game removal seems useful to us, but the drop off from Disfigure might be too much.
If we are revisiting old ideas, what do you guys think of perhaps Peppersmoke over Disfigure? cantripping is potentially helpful, but I'm not sure how the loss of -1 toughness hurts on the 1 cost removal front.
Also, perhaps Anticipate could be useful to help control draws and help top decking? Just some random ideas I'm having while sitting up sick tonight.
I would never feel comfortable tapping out for whip. It feels mediocre even when you do play it, but I'm worried about ever finding a safe opening to drop it.
Tell us how it goes, I guess, but I think there might be better options for lifegain.
It does feel almost fantastic, but just not good enough in every way.
Well, tell us how it does.
I've playtesting it some out of curiosity in some casual games (nothing serious), and it feels awkward to cast like any other big sorcery speed permanent in this deck. The activated sorcery limitation is also big unless you're trying to bring in a clique of some description to close out the game. It also only does a lot for you when you're pushing a lot of creature damage (read, Bitterblossom has pumped some serious tokens already). Overall, I'd say it feels clunky and winmore when it sticks, which it doesn't always due to being suceptible to both enchantment and artifact hate, which deck's run against us anyways to kill the blossom.
This isn't tested against in a super competitive environment, mind, but it's still my results.
You don't want to go too crazy with the delve as it's hard to keep the graveyard filled for it constantly. We need Dig Through Time, so it's hard to fit cut knowing that we'll be delving clean for dig most times. It's even harder to fit cut because Swift Reckoning is capable of doing quite a bit of damage itself, usually at instant speed. Murderous Cut is going to be more at home in a Sultai control running Kiora for more delve juice, or Abzan Control that doesn't run Dig.
The problem with Ulamog's Nullifier is the conditional. The only way it works is if you've exiled something, and that means you've likely used a Stasis Snare or Utter End to exile something you wanted rid of for good. This is really problematic in that it can be dead in hand if you've only got 1 card of theirs exiled, or 2 and one of them is Deathmist Raptor. In these situations, the thing just reads: Flash, Flying, 2/3. Not bad, but not really a good thing for something that we would rather have countering spells.
Brutal Expulsion is good stuff, the problem being Jeskai Control just doesn't have the horses to run right now with burn getting crippled the way it has in BFZ. There's just not quite any red cards that control would covet, as with rotation red lends itself better to tempo than control. So while it's a good card, I don't think the shell is there to run red in control oriented decks (outside of some crazy rainbow control we aren't seeing yet anyways).
I am liking where the rotation is sending things. Going esper might be correct, but I want to actually play with the manabase to get a feel of how much black is too much. I don't like the new jace (pricetag and all), so I will avoid playing it for now. As a result, ojutai's command becomes unnecessary, and allows for other cards. My stock list looks like this:
I am liking where the rotation is sending things. Going esper might be correct, but I want to actually play with the manabase to get a feel of how much black is too much. I don't like the new jace (pricetag and all), so I will avoid playing it for now. As a result, ojutai's command becomes unnecessary, and allows for other cards. My stock list looks like this:
Leap could do dirty things in a Jundrazi deck, I think. Scion Tokens and Thopters as sac outlets to potentially get Ulamog or Twin? Throw in Aggregate as a beneficiary of all the colorless tokens you're making and just go crazy.
Here are my axioms for UW control once the rotation occurs in couple of weeks.
Any competitively minded post-rotation UWx list starts with 4x Jace and 3-4x Ojutai's Command and it really isn't up for a debate. It is the most powerful card interaction in years and you absolutely have to take advantage of it.
For wincons you can go either battletested dragon route (which comes with a non-negotiable minimum packet deal of 4x Dragonlord Ojutai + 2 other dragons and 4x Silumgar's Scorn) or you could try something new like creatureless (aside Jace ofc) list that relies on awaken spells + Secure the Wastes and Jace for kill.
While this is an UW thread, splashes should definitely be discussed because those are so easy to do in Fetch-Battle land environment and 3 color decks get manlands. 2 color lists get to run more utility lands such as Haven of the Spirit Dragon or Blighted Cataract. Even pure UW lists should replace at least 2 Tranquil Coves with off-color fetchlands to make manabase more etb untapped.
Here's some preliminary decklists based on the above:
I'm a fan of this list in particular. My only concern is the lack of a true sweeper like End Hostilties, which I feel should replace tragic arrogance.
Arrogance may not be a traditional sweeper, but it cuts through indestructible and allows you to select what stays on the board, as well as hitting more than just critters. It's odd in that sometimes it's much better than a traditional wrath, and sometimes it's much worse. Going one mainboard and keeping the other sideboard doesn't hurt either way, I'd think.
I think it's so that you can use the main effect on the land you are awakening. Since targets are chosen on cast, and the land becomes a creature on resolution, you wouldn't be able to awaken and put the counters on the awakened land if it said creature.
They could have just said target creature or land then. The fact it says permanent lets it play nice with things like Starfield of Nyx, the various Gideons, and Sarkhan, Dragonspeaker.
It's funny you guys are mentioning colorless tribal and yet nobody has mentioned Hangarback Walker. Sacrifice your walker at instant speed to give this guy an explosion of power to mess with combat math.
Worth mentioning that good ol' Hangarback Walker works well with the aforementioned Ruination Guide. A 3/3 Walker with a guide in play produces 6 points of evasive flying damage to add to the Vile Aggregate shenanigans going on.
Personally though, I think Hangarback is destined for the G/U/w Hardened Scales deck which *will* be a thing in the upcoming standard.
Hangarback will likely continue to be lots of places as he benefits from all the Eldrazi colorless matters shenanigans. Grixis Eldrazi has fun with him as well. Forerunner of Slaughter giving him haste later in the game just makes it easier to boost him up and make Aggregate in to a monster. My only sad right now is that Bone Splinters is a sorcery.
Largely good starting points. I've only got a few concerns.
-I don't think Silumgar's Command is efficient enough for standard. The options just don't add up to the 5 mana it costs. If it's for kill target walker, Ruinous Path can do it, and sorcery speed doesn't matter much for that particular effect.
-Going UWG, it feels like a waste not including Kiora, Master of the Depths. Extra mana, keeping Ojutai's hexproof up, land search that also feeds delve, and a game ending emblem make her a versatile threat that can help in multiple ways
-I personally don't care for the awakened wastes list. Like, at all. I'm also not a believer in Gideon as a replacement for Elspeth. Most control decks that ran her will likely replace her with Ob Nixilis and be quite pleased. Also the lack of Halimar Tidecaller for recursion and evasion feels like you're missing out. Narset will also not allow you to recur the awaken effects themselves, just the base effect. Awaken feels more like a tempo mechanic than control to me, honestly.
Just completely fed up after being a long time reader of the posts here, felt like someone should say something and put these types of posters in their place. The set is fine, the problem is the players and the entitled brats who come on here who hide behind their monitors.
The entitlement generation argument died years ago when we accepted that entitlement and demanding higher quality is a good thing. This thread is fine and there is very few invalid complaints here. The fact is, BFZ is a poor set for anyone other than limited or EDH players. There is simply just very few constructed playable cards or even build around mechanics that function in the efficiency based formats. Will there be surprises? Probably, until you really dig in and play with some stuff, it can be hard to see all the interactions.
Here's a question for you, can you name one new deck from BFZ from looking at it that wouldn't get crushed in constructed formats by existing decks? There are a few cards that will see standard play by virtue of the rotating format, but can you honestly say that Scatter to the Winds is better than the rotating Dissolve? Certainly not enough to justify a bump to it's rarity. What about the massive downgrades of many traditionally instant speed effects to sorcery? These get pushed out just by virtue of their inability to allow reaction.
Ultimately, and while I'm assuming it wasn't your intent, you come off as more whiny and pretentious than the people you chastise, waving your fist at the passing clouds because disappointment in a lack of cards for more competitive formats strikes you as entitled.
I'm not the best pilot in the world, but I would think Gideon, Ally of Zendikar would make the deck too much of a bad BW tokens deck. His first 2 abilities just add non flying beef in the form of a bunch of 2/2 and himself an indestructible 5/5 (can still be path'd or dismembered), because the Ally typings mean nothing to us. Only his last ability has any real synergy with the deck, and then only in a tempo heavy version, in which case running a 3rd or 4th scion would likely be better.
Gideon is ultimately just BFZ's Siege Rhino a 4 cost 5/5 indestructible creature with upside in it's abilities and planeswalker status (harder to remove) to make for a good value play. Let's be honest here, Faeries isn't exactly hurting for a sorcery speed 4 cost value creature.
Great write up, definitely picking up a couple harbingers for my deck. Also going to reinsert Quicklings. All the added creatures just adds so much value to Scions, maybe consider running a third scion in the board for games where blackguard does nothing? Affinity looks like it was a struggle for you, but it's a struggle for a lot of decks, unless you are running grixis and can side in real artifact hate (or main it with Kommand). Throng seems like it would be a decent singleton in matchups where a timewalk wins you the game. The tribal is sadly wrong though, so no crazy stupidity with harbingers.
As an aside, that janky artifact deck you played sounds like it was someone trying to port over the pre rotation scissors deck that took standard by storm, though if it was, you would expect to see hangarbacks and ornithopters before you saw Juggarnauts.
In other news, I finally am getting some remands (budget has been a real constraint on me), so I can begin some real testing soon. Still using Conclaves instead of Muties, but hopefully I can get some eventually.
Well, if people are testing Quickling more seriously, that leaves it, Mistbind, and popping tokens for cards as potential cycling targets. Also, if you just want to cycle, you could always just hit an enemy dude to mess with combat math or something.
It was just a thought anyways, a cheap cantrip that can be early game removal seems useful to us, but the drop off from Disfigure might be too much.
Also, perhaps Anticipate could be useful to help control draws and help top decking? Just some random ideas I'm having while sitting up sick tonight.
I've playtesting it some out of curiosity in some casual games (nothing serious), and it feels awkward to cast like any other big sorcery speed permanent in this deck. The activated sorcery limitation is also big unless you're trying to bring in a clique of some description to close out the game. It also only does a lot for you when you're pushing a lot of creature damage (read, Bitterblossom has pumped some serious tokens already). Overall, I'd say it feels clunky and winmore when it sticks, which it doesn't always due to being suceptible to both enchantment and artifact hate, which deck's run against us anyways to kill the blossom.
This isn't tested against in a super competitive environment, mind, but it's still my results.
Standard maybe, but Dissipate is strictly better in older formats.
4x Flooded Strand
4x Prairie Stream
4x Swiftwater Cliffs
2x Sandstone Bridge
2x Blighted Cataract
2x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
2x Island
2x Plains
4x Mountain
4x Dragonlord Ojutai
2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2x Dragonmaster Outcast
Spells
4x Silumgar's Scorn
3x Scatter to the Winds
2x Clash of Wills
3x Swift Reckoning
2x Stasis Snare
2x Tragic Arrogance
3x Dig Through Time
3x Ojutai's Command
2x Valorous Stance
2x Roast
Might be a bit cute, and it's certainly not tier 1, but it gets the job done I think.
You don't want to go too crazy with the delve as it's hard to keep the graveyard filled for it constantly. We need Dig Through Time, so it's hard to fit cut knowing that we'll be delving clean for dig most times. It's even harder to fit cut because Swift Reckoning is capable of doing quite a bit of damage itself, usually at instant speed. Murderous Cut is going to be more at home in a Sultai control running Kiora for more delve juice, or Abzan Control that doesn't run Dig.
The problem with Ulamog's Nullifier is the conditional. The only way it works is if you've exiled something, and that means you've likely used a Stasis Snare or Utter End to exile something you wanted rid of for good. This is really problematic in that it can be dead in hand if you've only got 1 card of theirs exiled, or 2 and one of them is Deathmist Raptor. In these situations, the thing just reads: Flash, Flying, 2/3. Not bad, but not really a good thing for something that we would rather have countering spells.
Brutal Expulsion is good stuff, the problem being Jeskai Control just doesn't have the horses to run right now with burn getting crippled the way it has in BFZ. There's just not quite any red cards that control would covet, as with rotation red lends itself better to tempo than control. So while it's a good card, I don't think the shell is there to run red in control oriented decks (outside of some crazy rainbow control we aren't seeing yet anyways).
You're in Esper and playing control. No reason to run the inferior Gideon when you have Ob Nixilis Reignited available to you.
Arrogance may not be a traditional sweeper, but it cuts through indestructible and allows you to select what stays on the board, as well as hitting more than just critters. It's odd in that sometimes it's much better than a traditional wrath, and sometimes it's much worse. Going one mainboard and keeping the other sideboard doesn't hurt either way, I'd think.
They could have just said target creature or land then. The fact it says permanent lets it play nice with things like Starfield of Nyx, the various Gideons, and Sarkhan, Dragonspeaker.
Hangarback will likely continue to be lots of places as he benefits from all the Eldrazi colorless matters shenanigans. Grixis Eldrazi has fun with him as well. Forerunner of Slaughter giving him haste later in the game just makes it easier to boost him up and make Aggregate in to a monster. My only sad right now is that Bone Splinters is a sorcery.
-I don't think Silumgar's Command is efficient enough for standard. The options just don't add up to the 5 mana it costs. If it's for kill target walker, Ruinous Path can do it, and sorcery speed doesn't matter much for that particular effect.
-Going UWG, it feels like a waste not including Kiora, Master of the Depths. Extra mana, keeping Ojutai's hexproof up, land search that also feeds delve, and a game ending emblem make her a versatile threat that can help in multiple ways
-I personally don't care for the awakened wastes list. Like, at all. I'm also not a believer in Gideon as a replacement for Elspeth. Most control decks that ran her will likely replace her with Ob Nixilis and be quite pleased. Also the lack of Halimar Tidecaller for recursion and evasion feels like you're missing out. Narset will also not allow you to recur the awaken effects themselves, just the base effect. Awaken feels more like a tempo mechanic than control to me, honestly.
The entitlement generation argument died years ago when we accepted that entitlement and demanding higher quality is a good thing. This thread is fine and there is very few invalid complaints here. The fact is, BFZ is a poor set for anyone other than limited or EDH players. There is simply just very few constructed playable cards or even build around mechanics that function in the efficiency based formats. Will there be surprises? Probably, until you really dig in and play with some stuff, it can be hard to see all the interactions.
Here's a question for you, can you name one new deck from BFZ from looking at it that wouldn't get crushed in constructed formats by existing decks? There are a few cards that will see standard play by virtue of the rotating format, but can you honestly say that Scatter to the Winds is better than the rotating Dissolve? Certainly not enough to justify a bump to it's rarity. What about the massive downgrades of many traditionally instant speed effects to sorcery? These get pushed out just by virtue of their inability to allow reaction.
Ultimately, and while I'm assuming it wasn't your intent, you come off as more whiny and pretentious than the people you chastise, waving your fist at the passing clouds because disappointment in a lack of cards for more competitive formats strikes you as entitled.