Last time you said you were going to try Spell Pierce over Spell Snare. How did the Pierces perform?
Against the UR Gifts Storm did you side in Relic of Progenitus? I am as yet to tussle with the deck but part of my plan is to side out creature control for counters and Relic in order to stop Past in Flames shenanigans. What do you think?
Glad to see the deck going well. I reckon you should chuck in a Pendelhaven though, it's great
Yeah that all makes sense. In modern I find Dispel is solid not so much to protect your stuff, but to stop some key cards in the format such as Collected Company, Chord of Calling, Ad Nauseam, and Cryptic Command which can beat you if they resolve. It is quite helpful for protecting yourself against Mistbind Clique blow outs and to slow down burn enough to get them in the long game. I am keen to try Spell Pierce as I like its utility against fast decks like Affinity but top decking them would feel pretty bad. I imagine that it comes down to the difference in the formats' metas which seems significant.
Yeah I'm not super keen on it in this build, as it really fits better with the pure control plan to out CA the opponent late game. Also even in the late game we aren't running the land count to make it sing. You'd need to cast it for X=5 for it to net us more cards than Jace's Ingenuity, and 7 mana is rarely something I find I have at my disposal. If I was going to go for CA I'd probably try Ancestral Vision, or Jace's Ingenuity on a budget.
Just wanted to say that I totally agree! Knowing when to switch gears is hard but can be rewarding. It's one of the more interesting features of playing this deck.
I've been enjoying playing this deck over my Affinity deck as it feels like it's testing my abilities and making me a better player. I love it.
As for the techy lands, I quite like them. I've played through Blood Moon easily a number of times - in fact I'm happy when my opponent wastes a turn on it. Pendelhaven is definitely the standout, netting me some significant damage over the course of games. Even with Scion it's not dead as Scion itself is a 1/1. Minamo, School at Water's Edge has been useful a couple of times where my opponent has had a valuable creature like Bob and I've had Vendilion Clique. It's allowed me to attack and threaten a blocker on their turn to save me some damage. A savvy opponent should probably attack and hope that I block to turn off my clock, but people most often want to keep their good stuff. Oboro, Palace in the Clouds hasn't done much yet. One thing I can say is that these lands haven't cost me much in games either - Pendelhaven is the only one that opponents tend to try to remove on a regular basis.
I decided to look at the top 50 most used cards in Modern to determine how many of them can be countered by Spell Snare. The answer isn't actually very pretty. Of the top 50 cards, 12 have a cmc of two. However we don't care about Stony Silence or Rest in Peace, and Abrupt Decay can't be countered. That leaves us with 9 desirable targets in the top 50. I have to add the caveat that Chalice of the Void can be 2cmc, as can Walking Ballista. Chalice at X=1 is probably not necessary to counter most of the time (unless we really need that Vapor Snag), however Ballista at one is. Often when we see Ballista it's arbitrarily large and raining down fire on our heads anyway. Overall I would say that based on this Spell Snare is probably not worth a slot.
The question is what to replace it with. Spell Pierce is the obvious answer except it doesn't hit creatures, and unlike most other decks we have almost no permanent answers to creatures once they hit the board (especially since one of our issues with Snare was that it didn't hit Death's Shadow). Maybe have Dismember in the main and Pierce in the bard or vice-versa? I'll be very interested to see how Renier's experiment with Pierce goes.
You've got me scratching my head. My comment was to suggest to Rabbit2310 that they should replace the copy of Inventor's Fair with a copy of Academy Ruins in their build with Walking Ballista. I don't run either in my own build which is very typical. Perhaps next time I should put @Rabbit2310 so it's clear who I'm talking to.
I think Pestermite is OK as a budget card, but the 3 drop slot really should be VClique, Scion if heavy on Fae, or Snap + 1 mana instant. I run spell snare and vapor snag in my list. Spell piece is an option too.
Fair enough. I don't run Pestermite due to budget but because I think it warrants a slot. I tend not to cast Scion on T3 as it requires either a more developed board state or something worth protecting. VC definitely is the card for T3, but even if I have it and Pestermite in my hand I'm happy to cast VC T3, then T4 Pestermite, untap one of my lands and keep up mana for Leak, Quickling, SSS or Remand. I love the Looter Scooter but it just seems more vulnerable due to its set up requirements. I am toying with putting some Scooters in my sideboard for when I need to play the aggro role however. Snapcaster doesn't do enough in my build due to a lack of good spells and the fact it isn't a faerie. I suppose it's just different strokes for different folks, and I'm pleased that the deck doesn't have an established list.
Feels like we really can go aggro or control depending on the mstchup and state: true tempo deck, unlike some other "tempo decks" out there. It's also a blast to play with so many different lines at every point.
This is exactly why I love the deck. Being able to discern who's the beatdown is imperative to playing this deck well, and it really is capable of playing both when required. I like the way you can change gears in a game depending on the game state and transition from control to aggro or vice versa. You can turn the corner really quickly and without your opponent having much chance to respond thanks to the deck playing basically at instant speed. I just wish Merfolk wasn't a thing
Is the incidental life gain or tutor worth a slot for Inventor's Fair? Academy Ruins would allow you to grind out games with Ballista when you needed it to and can get back your other win cons. Maybe I'm missing something?
I suppose whether Baral's Expertise is good depends upon two things: how many cards you have in hand late game, and how easily you hit 5 lands. My build is built a bit lighter on mana requirements and so isn't great with either of these requirements. If you were mana heavier Baral's could be strong. With ninjas you can bounce critters to your hand and then recast them with Baral's for super value. I think when it is strong it will be very strong, but requires a lot of setup. You probably would avoid playing many copies as multiples in early turns would be crippling. It becomes a very good deal if you play AV, as topdecking one won't seem like a bad draw.
A card I've decided I'm going to experiment with as a sideboard option is Trickbind. It counters a lot of relevant abilities: all planeswalker abilities (take that LoTV and Tron!), fetchlands, equip, manlands, annihilator, etbs, STORM!, Devoted Druid in the popular new Counters Company builds, Expedition Map, Knight of the Reliquary (and therefore Knightfall combo), Snapcaster Mage and basically a million other things. It turns off the activated abilities of permanents until eot, stopping them from comboing for a turn. It has split second too so it can't be countered. It can even counter the champion trigger of MBC in a pinch if you need it to allowing you to play it without any other faeries. I love the card and I think it could be an excellent 1 or 2 of in the sideboard.
Edit: You can also do some really crazy shenanigans with Quickling, like using a Mistbind Clique to champion SSS, then at a later point, cast a Quickling returning the MClique back to your hand, bringing the SSS back to counter whatever they played, only to follow up with MClique again on their upkeep (with an extra Fae for protection) again.
Yeah, I've pulled this off yesterday and they immediately scooped. Bouncing your win con for a counter/etb reuse feels quintessentially faerie and just awesome. Quickling is a decent response to board wipes and as long as you don't over-extend can really swing things in your favour versus Supreme Verdict.
I am interested in Ninja just because I have found in longer games I run out of gas. He'd also help with flooding which has cost me a few games. Not being helpful against removal is his major drawback and the reason I haven't played him. I might do the opposite of you and switch him in to see how he goes
I'm still trying to figure out why I've been having so much trouble against heavy removal decks. It might actually just be bad play to be honest, most of the removal heavy decks I played were in the early rounds I played. Today I did away with a burn deck pretty easily (lost game two to flooding and a resolved Soulfire Grand Master) and almost every card in that deck could kill my creatures. Basically I think you're right that there should be enough protection against spot removal but it just hasn't been my experience so far!
Good luck in your testing, I's love to hear how it goes
That's a pretty good list! Mistblade Shinobi perhaps should go in the tempo section. If I think of others I'll mention them.
As for Pestermite so far in my games I have never been sad to see it. Tapping down a Seachrome Coast kept an opponent off his Supreme Verdict long enough for me to win last night. It's often very punishing to greedy mana bases and I've been able to tap out a colour and have them pass the turn a number of times. Tapping out a blocker has been great, and I've noticed that game two they are very anti-Pestermite (I've had people Inquisition and Thoughtseize them :P). They come allow you to do a bunch of little things too. I have used them to untap Pendelhaven to buff two weenies for instance. They can be used for double blocking if you need which is actually a pretty solid combat trick. At worst you can untap a land and play them for two mana. Basically I think they're pretty handy.
I've gone off Smuggler's Copter though. It eats every single instant speed removal there is, and we don't actually have a huge problem with sorcery speed removal as they usually tap out for it and we have responses up the wazoo. I'm much more concerned with well timed Bolts and Pushes. This has been a bit of a problem for me with MBC too, although I do think it is a very good game winning card. It's just that they can respond to you tapping their lands with all sorts of things that 2-for-1 you. Even if you have too many creatures for that play they often can just path the Clique and you have effectively Time Warped yourself and you're down a wincon. Perhaps I'm not playing it well but Scion is helpful without being an assurance. Even with Scion they seem to be able to sneak in a responding Bolt or something like that.
Because of the fragility of MBC and the difficulty I've been having I've been looking for something that can help close out games against removal heavy decks. Going wide was a bust, with the best card being Master of Waves, however he doesn't dodge nearly enough removal and is only good if you have devotion, which usually means you're ahead. I had a look at shroud and hexproof creatures but nothing really jumped out. Then I thought I'd have a look at swords, which do seem OK, but they have the problem of Kolaghan's Command and Abrupt Decay as well as every sideboard card against affinity ever. Them boarding in hate for artifacts can actually be a decent advantage if all we're running s swords, but I also have Pithing Needle and Relic of Progenitus in my sideboard so postboard games do get a little more artifacty. My main problems with swords though is that they're slow, require a creature and can be responded to with instant speed removal, which is the problem I'm trying to fix. So far not so good.
Then after searching protection, indestructibility, shroud and hexproof I remembered that there was a card that might fit the bill that had slipped through the net - Kira, Great Glass-Spinner. She seems pretty dang solid to me. Firstly, she's reasonably cheap to get into play and impacts the board immediately, which swords don't do. She is great with our manlands (activating them has been a bad time for me, a lot of brave Mutavaults have given up their lives) unlike swords which give our opponents a chance to kill them every turn and cost us 3 mana to get going. I thought she wasn't a good clock until I realised that a 2/2 flier with evasion is equivalent to a +2/+2 buff from swords while being less conditional. She protects subsequent creatures that come into play without offering a window for instants to be cast making her good with MBC - and she's even on curve! She doesn't rely on other creatures to do her thing unlike swords. Of course she's not bullet proof but two removal spells is what it takes to get her (or a sweeper, however we have other ways to deal with that, sweepers are much less common and swords aren't often helpful there either) so she at worst will probably be a 2-for-1 in our favour. If they do use two spot removal spells we potentially have the option of Vapor Snaging her back to our hand. She even synergises with Favorable Winds if that's your thing. Her biggest downside is that she doesn't stop Abrupt decay, but neither do swords and she's much more resilient to other threats than they are. Also, she doesn't get the cool triggers that you get from Swords (especially F&I and L&S), but it takes a fair bit of setting up to get them happening. They are great CA engines but are possibly too fragile. Really the biggest advantage that swords have is that they offer a creature evasion, but given that Kira has evasion built in and can attack on her own I'm not convinced this is a disadvantage unless you're running ninjas. I'm going to test her, and I might even mainboard her like those accursed Merfolk do if she does well. What do others think?
I'm not sure what the upside of playing Warp is over Mastery. Mastery's weakness is that you don't want it in your opening hand or on T2, but this deck has the ability to largely mitigate that through the ability to loot it away with Copter or Collective Brutality. After that it seems a lot better than Warp except that you might draw it off CC occasionally. It probably gets worse with if you run SV but otherwise it seems better than Warp. What makes you think Warp is better?
I think your list looks more like a control list while most people here are trying to build aggro/tempo lists. Common wisdom is that SV is bad in aggro decks, but I have been considering it due to the absolute lack of turn one plays. What has dissuaded me so far is that the deck seems to win on such small margins that diluting the tempo plan even a small amount is likely to cost wins. I haven't tested it myself so I can't really say with confidence.
In your list I think SV is actually quite important to make you hit your lands. From the research I've been doing into land bases and probability I've been doing you should need 22 sources of blue (not just lands) to have a 90% chance of getting UUU for Cryptic Command. Dropping a CC for an Island might be the way to go (so often dropping an expensive spell for a land is sadly).
Glad to see you doing well with it, I'm hoping to assemble my own build soon!
Last time you said you were going to try Spell Pierce over Spell Snare. How did the Pierces perform?
Against the UR Gifts Storm did you side in Relic of Progenitus? I am as yet to tussle with the deck but part of my plan is to side out creature control for counters and Relic in order to stop Past in Flames shenanigans. What do you think?
Glad to see the deck going well. I reckon you should chuck in a Pendelhaven though, it's great
Admittedly this list isn't super relevant to the thread, but I am interested in the four copies of Annul in the sideboard. Why no Dispel?
I've been enjoying playing this deck over my Affinity deck as it feels like it's testing my abilities and making me a better player. I love it.
As for the techy lands, I quite like them. I've played through Blood Moon easily a number of times - in fact I'm happy when my opponent wastes a turn on it. Pendelhaven is definitely the standout, netting me some significant damage over the course of games. Even with Scion it's not dead as Scion itself is a 1/1. Minamo, School at Water's Edge has been useful a couple of times where my opponent has had a valuable creature like Bob and I've had Vendilion Clique. It's allowed me to attack and threaten a blocker on their turn to save me some damage. A savvy opponent should probably attack and hope that I block to turn off my clock, but people most often want to keep their good stuff. Oboro, Palace in the Clouds hasn't done much yet. One thing I can say is that these lands haven't cost me much in games either - Pendelhaven is the only one that opponents tend to try to remove on a regular basis.
I decided to look at the top 50 most used cards in Modern to determine how many of them can be countered by Spell Snare. The answer isn't actually very pretty. Of the top 50 cards, 12 have a cmc of two. However we don't care about Stony Silence or Rest in Peace, and Abrupt Decay can't be countered. That leaves us with 9 desirable targets in the top 50. I have to add the caveat that Chalice of the Void can be 2cmc, as can Walking Ballista. Chalice at X=1 is probably not necessary to counter most of the time (unless we really need that Vapor Snag), however Ballista at one is. Often when we see Ballista it's arbitrarily large and raining down fire on our heads anyway. Overall I would say that based on this Spell Snare is probably not worth a slot.
The question is what to replace it with. Spell Pierce is the obvious answer except it doesn't hit creatures, and unlike most other decks we have almost no permanent answers to creatures once they hit the board (especially since one of our issues with Snare was that it didn't hit Death's Shadow). Maybe have Dismember in the main and Pierce in the bard or vice-versa? I'll be very interested to see how Renier's experiment with Pierce goes.
Fair enough. I don't run Pestermite due to budget but because I think it warrants a slot. I tend not to cast Scion on T3 as it requires either a more developed board state or something worth protecting. VC definitely is the card for T3, but even if I have it and Pestermite in my hand I'm happy to cast VC T3, then T4 Pestermite, untap one of my lands and keep up mana for Leak, Quickling, SSS or Remand. I love the Looter Scooter but it just seems more vulnerable due to its set up requirements. I am toying with putting some Scooters in my sideboard for when I need to play the aggro role however. Snapcaster doesn't do enough in my build due to a lack of good spells and the fact it isn't a faerie. I suppose it's just different strokes for different folks, and I'm pleased that the deck doesn't have an established list.
This is exactly why I love the deck. Being able to discern who's the beatdown is imperative to playing this deck well, and it really is capable of playing both when required. I like the way you can change gears in a game depending on the game state and transition from control to aggro or vice versa. You can turn the corner really quickly and without your opponent having much chance to respond thanks to the deck playing basically at instant speed. I just wish Merfolk wasn't a thing
A card I've decided I'm going to experiment with as a sideboard option is Trickbind. It counters a lot of relevant abilities: all planeswalker abilities (take that LoTV and Tron!), fetchlands, equip, manlands, annihilator, etbs, STORM!, Devoted Druid in the popular new Counters Company builds, Expedition Map, Knight of the Reliquary (and therefore Knightfall combo), Snapcaster Mage and basically a million other things. It turns off the activated abilities of permanents until eot, stopping them from comboing for a turn. It has split second too so it can't be countered. It can even counter the champion trigger of MBC in a pinch if you need it to allowing you to play it without any other faeries. I love the card and I think it could be an excellent 1 or 2 of in the sideboard.
Yeah, I've pulled this off yesterday and they immediately scooped. Bouncing your win con for a counter/etb reuse feels quintessentially faerie and just awesome. Quickling is a decent response to board wipes and as long as you don't over-extend can really swing things in your favour versus Supreme Verdict.
I am interested in Ninja just because I have found in longer games I run out of gas. He'd also help with flooding which has cost me a few games. Not being helpful against removal is his major drawback and the reason I haven't played him. I might do the opposite of you and switch him in to see how he goes
I'm still trying to figure out why I've been having so much trouble against heavy removal decks. It might actually just be bad play to be honest, most of the removal heavy decks I played were in the early rounds I played. Today I did away with a burn deck pretty easily (lost game two to flooding and a resolved Soulfire Grand Master) and almost every card in that deck could kill my creatures. Basically I think you're right that there should be enough protection against spot removal but it just hasn't been my experience so far!
Good luck in your testing, I's love to hear how it goes
As for Pestermite so far in my games I have never been sad to see it. Tapping down a Seachrome Coast kept an opponent off his Supreme Verdict long enough for me to win last night. It's often very punishing to greedy mana bases and I've been able to tap out a colour and have them pass the turn a number of times. Tapping out a blocker has been great, and I've noticed that game two they are very anti-Pestermite (I've had people Inquisition and Thoughtseize them :P). They come allow you to do a bunch of little things too. I have used them to untap Pendelhaven to buff two weenies for instance. They can be used for double blocking if you need which is actually a pretty solid combat trick. At worst you can untap a land and play them for two mana. Basically I think they're pretty handy.
I've gone off Smuggler's Copter though. It eats every single instant speed removal there is, and we don't actually have a huge problem with sorcery speed removal as they usually tap out for it and we have responses up the wazoo. I'm much more concerned with well timed Bolts and Pushes. This has been a bit of a problem for me with MBC too, although I do think it is a very good game winning card. It's just that they can respond to you tapping their lands with all sorts of things that 2-for-1 you. Even if you have too many creatures for that play they often can just path the Clique and you have effectively Time Warped yourself and you're down a wincon. Perhaps I'm not playing it well but Scion is helpful without being an assurance. Even with Scion they seem to be able to sneak in a responding Bolt or something like that.
Because of the fragility of MBC and the difficulty I've been having I've been looking for something that can help close out games against removal heavy decks. Going wide was a bust, with the best card being Master of Waves, however he doesn't dodge nearly enough removal and is only good if you have devotion, which usually means you're ahead. I had a look at shroud and hexproof creatures but nothing really jumped out. Then I thought I'd have a look at swords, which do seem OK, but they have the problem of Kolaghan's Command and Abrupt Decay as well as every sideboard card against affinity ever. Them boarding in hate for artifacts can actually be a decent advantage if all we're running s swords, but I also have Pithing Needle and Relic of Progenitus in my sideboard so postboard games do get a little more artifacty. My main problems with swords though is that they're slow, require a creature and can be responded to with instant speed removal, which is the problem I'm trying to fix. So far not so good.
Then after searching protection, indestructibility, shroud and hexproof I remembered that there was a card that might fit the bill that had slipped through the net - Kira, Great Glass-Spinner. She seems pretty dang solid to me. Firstly, she's reasonably cheap to get into play and impacts the board immediately, which swords don't do. She is great with our manlands (activating them has been a bad time for me, a lot of brave Mutavaults have given up their lives) unlike swords which give our opponents a chance to kill them every turn and cost us 3 mana to get going. I thought she wasn't a good clock until I realised that a 2/2 flier with evasion is equivalent to a +2/+2 buff from swords while being less conditional. She protects subsequent creatures that come into play without offering a window for instants to be cast making her good with MBC - and she's even on curve! She doesn't rely on other creatures to do her thing unlike swords. Of course she's not bullet proof but two removal spells is what it takes to get her (or a sweeper, however we have other ways to deal with that, sweepers are much less common and swords aren't often helpful there either) so she at worst will probably be a 2-for-1 in our favour. If they do use two spot removal spells we potentially have the option of Vapor Snaging her back to our hand. She even synergises with Favorable Winds if that's your thing. Her biggest downside is that she doesn't stop Abrupt decay, but neither do swords and she's much more resilient to other threats than they are. Also, she doesn't get the cool triggers that you get from Swords (especially F&I and L&S), but it takes a fair bit of setting up to get them happening. They are great CA engines but are possibly too fragile. Really the biggest advantage that swords have is that they offer a creature evasion, but given that Kira has evasion built in and can attack on her own I'm not convinced this is a disadvantage unless you're running ninjas. I'm going to test her, and I might even mainboard her like those accursed Merfolk do if she does well. What do others think?
I think your list looks more like a control list while most people here are trying to build aggro/tempo lists. Common wisdom is that SV is bad in aggro decks, but I have been considering it due to the absolute lack of turn one plays. What has dissuaded me so far is that the deck seems to win on such small margins that diluting the tempo plan even a small amount is likely to cost wins. I haven't tested it myself so I can't really say with confidence.
In your list I think SV is actually quite important to make you hit your lands. From the research I've been doing into land bases and probability I've been doing you should need 22 sources of blue (not just lands) to have a 90% chance of getting UUU for Cryptic Command. Dropping a CC for an Island might be the way to go (so often dropping an expensive spell for a land is sadly).
Glad to see you doing well with it, I'm hoping to assemble my own build soon!