I added a Scalding Tarn over Bloodstained Mire, as I only have one basic Swamp, and I’d prefer if my fetches got the most possible targets. It may be better to play a 3/2 split of basics, but I’m not sure. All I know is I wanted an extra one to help vs all the Field of Ruin and Path to Exile going around.
The other questionable choice is the full 4 Cryptic Command. I’ll admit, I’m most likely wrong here, I just love this card too much.
What do you think? Is this a good way going forward?
I'm going to be kind of critical, but don't interpret that as me not liking the list. I like a lot of the choices you've made (the removal suite and manabase in particular) in this list. Think of this as me saying "based on my experience with the deck, here's some problems I could see you having." As always, though, Faeries is one of the most customizable decks you can play, and different playstyles will want different card choices. At the end of the day you play what works for you.
I've got nothing against running 4 cryptic, it's a great card. That said, 24 lands with no opt is asking to have trouble casting your 4-drops reliably. I'm not a fan of Liliana for a similar reason. You're playing 8 4-drops, so in Liliana games you're going to be "spending" a lot of powerful cards without getting any benefit from them, especially since most of them want to sit in your hand and wait for your opponent to make a move. Liliana is best when you can proactively deploy all your threats and answers before using her to mitigate the downside of her +1. It's really anti-synergistic with Jace and the Faeries package (including cryptic), which want you to be holding cards on your opponent's turn to interact.
It's been a while since I last gave the "discard talk" on here, but the gist of it is that I think discard spells are a necessary evil in this deck, not a strong point like in jund or shadow. True you get information and can proactively deal with an opponent's cards, but you're spending your time and mana to answer a card that you opponent hasn't invested any of their time or mana into, which leaves them free to deploy something else. Think of the early game against a deck like humans (traditionally aggro decks are our hardest matchups). If you T1 discard, you may be able to take their vial or champion of the parish, but they'll just be able to play something else on their turn and you'll begin falling behind on board (that's the most common reason we lose games by far). If you have a fatal push instead, then they have to commit to playing one of their creatures and you trade their entire turn for your turn answering it, which lets you maintain board parity. Discard is also a horrible draw late, while fatal push is still live. Historically, I've had a lot of success playing with no discard in the main, so even though I think it's necessary to pack some now, it's a supplement to my tempo gameplan, not a major piece of it.
If you'd asked me to re-build your maindeck, here's how I'd do it.
and I'd swap the 2 inquisitions with the 2 collective brutality. I'd also recommend playing a 3rd tar pit as a 25th land over the 3rd opt. Bringing Brutality main over inquisition allows us to treat them as duress/disfigure split cards, which takes some pressure off our removal without compromising the discard numbers (it's also a maindeck hedge against burn, since that's still not a fun matchup). This lets us cut one fatal push for an opt, and we can cut 1 thoughtseize and 1 cryptic for the other two (the cryptic and the opts will take a lot of pressure off your manabase). I'm also cutting Liliana for Mana leak, since we want to be holding up answers and forcing our opponent to take the initiative in our interactions (we're playing tempo, not aggro or midrange). You'll notice that I've cut 3 sorcery-speed cards for instants, which allows you to play the flash game that faeries is so well-known (and feared) for. If you still want the 4th cryptic, be sure to play the 25th land and then include it as a 61st card for testing. As you test you'll figure out what card is the one you want the least.
Thanks for the critique bud!
I had worries about not playing Opt, I thought about it, I tried to make it work in the current list, and just decided to go for the discard spells and be proactive. I get your point on the discard spells, and I was probably a little too focused on 'force through Bitterblossom and Jace, or take their own Jace' thinking. I also agree with your thoughts on Liliana. Looking back now, it seems like i'm trying to make the deck more Jund like, which isn't the way to go.
I'm not the hugest person for Collective Brutality though. In the past, I haven't liked it as much in the maindeck, as I'd prefer to hold up a counterspell, or a catch all removal spell, and the escalate on Brutality sometimes meant awkward positions in the early game if you needed to deal with something quick. I've found it to be sub-optimal in some matchups, such as Humans (their stuff can grow out of range, and they have few spells), U/x control decks (two mana sorcery speed half Duress is kinda mediocre), where as I'd rather as many of my maindeck cards do something, regardless of the opponent's deck. I've found that vs Burn, game 1 is still just so bad regardless of Brutality in the main (unless its 2+, then you're good).
I do want to play the full set of Cryptic Commands though, it's a personal preference (it's gotten me out of many jams, and I love the card to death). That being said, I do like your idea of playing 25 lands. I'll see if I can make that work in a future list (of course, that means I'll need a third signed foil Tar Pit #humblebag)
I took some of your advice, and although it looks weird to me to only be playing 3 Fatal Push and 3 Opt, it's completely possible that it's correct. I also hedged a bit on the counterspells. Mana Leak is good early, and Logic Knot is good late, especially with the extra fetchland and cheap spells. I may have made a mistake cutting the Inquisitions completely out, but I think Thoughtseize is the discard spell I'd want the most, and without Liliana, we won't be discarding dead copies. I think 4 discard spells looks right. It's also totally possible that I'm misinterpreting your ideas and internalizing biases, but who knows? What do you think of this new version?
Due to card availability, I’m playing -1 Jace, +1 Fatal Push since my local store tournament doesn’t allow proxies.
I played a couple of games vs Humans (a home brew version) in between draft rounds at FNM, going 2-3. We were just playing for fun, and I made a few errors/ plays for style points. It seemed to me, that if swarm decks like that get ahead, it’s difficult to fight through and protect a Jace. Bitterblossom is one of the best cards outside of removal in the early game. Also, there’s some hard decisions in this matchup if you need to -1 Jace, as quite a few creatures have ETBs (this version had Venser, Shaper Savant).
After those few games, I’m a little unimpressed by the discard and counterspells. I know we can Jace them away, but if we don’t have a fetch, we’re just hitting them again, and they also are kinda bad to draw off the 0 ability. I know Thoughtseize is a nessisary evil sort of card, and the counterspells help in some matches, but it just didn’t feel great hitting them when digging for action cards. It’s bad enough that we have dead Bitterblossoms in the deck, which clog up the ‘brainstorms’. Opt also feels like a nessisary evil. It helps find lands, and smooth draws out, but it also sometimes feel like spinning wheels and durdling around. What if we cut the three Opt for Ancestral Vision, the Mana Leak for Snapcaster #4 or Vendilion Clique #3, leaving one counterspell for emergencies. Is there anyone who shares these sentiments?
Due to card availability, I’m playing -1 Jace, +1 Fatal Push since my local store tournament doesn’t allow proxies.
I played a couple of games vs Humans (a home brew version) in between draft rounds at FNM, going 2-3. We were just playing for fun, and I made a few errors/ plays for style points. It seemed to me, that if swarm decks like that get ahead, it’s difficult to fight through and protect a Jace. Bitterblossom is one of the best cards outside of removal in the early game. Also, there’s some hard decisions in this matchup if you need to -1 Jace, as quite a few creatures have ETBs (this version had Venser, Shaper Savant).
After those few games, I’m a little unimpressed by the discard and counterspells. I know we can Jace them away, but if we don’t have a fetch, we’re just hitting them again, and they also are kinda bad to draw off the 0 ability. I know Thoughtseize is a nessisary evil sort of card, and the counterspells help in some matches, but it just didn’t feel great hitting them when digging for action cards. It’s bad enough that we have dead Bitterblossoms in the deck, which clog up the ‘brainstorms’. Opt also feels like a nessisary evil. It helps find lands, and smooth draws out, but it also sometimes feel like spinning wheels and durdling around. What if we cut the three Opt for Ancestral Vision, the Mana Leak for Snapcaster #4 or Vendilion Clique #3, leaving one counterspell for emergencies. Is there anyone who shares these sentiments?
The question you're asking is a lot closer to "how should I sideboard?" than it is "are these cards worth playing?" Did you test sideboarded games at all? Also, how did the games play out when you won vs. when you lost? You managed to pull a 40% win rate making "a few errors," and there's every reason to believe that tightening up your play and taking a larger sample size than just 5 games might see the win rate climb closer to 50%. It's rarely correct to make major changes to your deck based on one matchup.
That said, your sideboard looks like it may want to hedge a little harder against humans. 1 Damnation and 2 Collective Brutality (and Engineered Explosives I guess) aren't enough to replace all the cards you want to take out. Maybe the Liliana's Defeat (which seems super narrow, btw) gets replaced with a second Damnation or a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? Maybe Ravenous trap could get cut for something similar? (unless there's a bunch of dredge in your local meta)
On Opt/Ancestral in particular, I'm firmly in the opt camp. I currently run opts in the slot that I used to devote to AV, and have no plans to change that back anytime soon. Quantity of cards rarely matters to us so long as we can use the cards to buy time and keep pressing the attack. I'd rather have 1 card that I know for sure is going to buy me a turn than 3 where (more than likely) 1-2 are irrelevant lands, and I'd certainly rather have that card now than 4 turns from now.
Due to card availability, I’m playing -1 Jace, +1 Fatal Push since my local store tournament doesn’t allow proxies.
I played a couple of games vs Humans (a home brew version) in between draft rounds at FNM, going 2-3. We were just playing for fun, and I made a few errors/ plays for style points. It seemed to me, that if swarm decks like that get ahead, it’s difficult to fight through and protect a Jace. Bitterblossom is one of the best cards outside of removal in the early game. Also, there’s some hard decisions in this matchup if you need to -1 Jace, as quite a few creatures have ETBs (this version had Venser, Shaper Savant).
After those few games, I’m a little unimpressed by the discard and counterspells. I know we can Jace them away, but if we don’t have a fetch, we’re just hitting them again, and they also are kinda bad to draw off the 0 ability. I know Thoughtseize is a nessisary evil sort of card, and the counterspells help in some matches, but it just didn’t feel great hitting them when digging for action cards. It’s bad enough that we have dead Bitterblossoms in the deck, which clog up the ‘brainstorms’. Opt also feels like a nessisary evil. It helps find lands, and smooth draws out, but it also sometimes feel like spinning wheels and durdling around. What if we cut the three Opt for Ancestral Vision, the Mana Leak for Snapcaster #4 or Vendilion Clique #3, leaving one counterspell for emergencies. Is there anyone who shares these sentiments?
The question you're asking is a lot closer to "how should I sideboard?" than it is "are these cards worth playing?" Did you test sideboarded games at all? Also, how did the games play out when you won vs. when you lost? You managed to pull a 40% win rate making "a few errors," and there's every reason to believe that tightening up your play and taking a larger sample size than just 5 games might see the win rate climb closer to 50%. It's rarely correct to make major changes to your deck based on one matchup.
That said, your sideboard looks like it may want to hedge a little harder against humans. 1 Damnation and 2 Collective Brutality (and Engineered Explosives I guess) aren't enough to replace all the cards you want to take out. Maybe the Liliana's Defeat (which seems super narrow, btw) gets replaced with a second Damnation or a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? Maybe Ravenous trap could get cut for something similar? (unless there's a bunch of dredge in your local meta)
On Opt/Ancestral in particular, I'm firmly in the opt camp. I currently run opts in the slot that I used to devote to AV, and have no plans to change that back anytime soon. Quantity of cards rarely matters to us so long as we can use the cards to buy time and keep pressing the attack. I'd rather have 1 card that I know for sure is going to buy me a turn than 3 where (more than likely) 1-2 are irrelevant lands, and I'd certainly rather have that card now than 4 turns from now.
Yea, I was too 'knee-jerk' wanting to slice out the discard spells after just a handful of games. I'll keep the list at what it is currently until I get more games in.
As for the sideboard, the Collective Brutalitys are for the Burn match, the Damnation and Explosives are for the go wide strategies (I like to have varied solutions, especially with Meddling Mage floating about). I'm testing the Liliana's Defeat (and maybe a Jace's Defeat as well), as I expect an uptick in Liliana's, and that can be especially disastrous, especially a Liliana, the Last Hope. It's an efficient card when it get brought in, and I think one is good for now. I'm also expecting lots of strategies which don't care about the unbannings (Dredge, Storm, Tron, etc), so the sideboard has hedged with the Ravenous Trap and the Ceremonious Rejections.
I went 2-2 with the list I posted above. My wins came vs a home brew Humans deck (2-0), and a GR Shamans deck (2-1). I lost to Temur Scapeshift (1-2) and RG Titanshift (0-2).
Round 1, Temur Scapeshift.
Game one, I kept a double Bitterblossom hand with 3 lands, Fatal Push, Cryptic Command, and played turn two Bitterblossom to battle a suspended Search for Tomorrow. I try to Spellstutter Sprite the Search, but he Remands the Sprite. A few turns go by, I counter a Cryptic Command tapping my creatures, and he untaps with Scapeshift and Remand backup. I never cast the second Bitterblossom, but I’m not sure if it would’ve made a difference.
Game 2, I mulligan to 6 (Jace, Dispel, 4 assorted land). He keeps a slow hand, accelerating his lands but having not pay off. I land Jace turn 4, asking if I’m just dead. He draws, plays a land and passes with nothing. I slowly take over and go on to win after many, many brainstorms.
Game 3, my hand is a bit slow, but it had a Thoughtseize and Collective Brutality. These unfortunately could not stop a top decked Scapeshift (copy 3), after I had used a Snapcaster Mage to flash back Thoughtseize and took the second copy one from his hand.
Sideboard plan: -4 Fatal Push, -1 Go for the Throat, -1 Dismember, +2 Countersquall, +1 Dispel, +2 Collective Brutality, +1 Surgical Extraction
Round 2, GR Shamans
Game 1, I mulligan to 5. Mono Islands can’t cast Fatal Push, and I lose to triple Burning Tree Emissary into Rage Forger turn 3
Game 2, I kept the board clean with a hand of double Fatal Push and a Snapcaster, then drop a Jace on turn 5 and draw more removal. Mistbind Clique flies in to win.
Game 3, another removal heavy game. The opponent gets stuck on 3 lands, and so my removal isn’t taxed by multiple creatures. He lands a Troll Ascetic, which gives me pause. We sit at a standstill for a few turns, and then he casts a Burning Tree Emissary without using Cavern of Souls. I pounce on this and Spellstutter Sprite the Emissary, and he tilts a bit. He then swings the Troll in, which winds up getting blocked by Snapcaster, and I take over from there. He concedes when I cast Jace.
Sideboard plan: -1 Logic Knot, -1 Mana Leak, -1 Cryptic Command, +1 Damnation, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Round 3, RG Scapeshift
This match was determined by mulligans on my part. It was quick, frustrating, and unexciting.
Sideboard plan: See round 1
Round 4, Homebrew Humans
Neither of us put any effort into these games, as we were both out of prizes. Game one, he kept a single Guost Quarter as his land and quickly lost. Game 2, I had Fatal Push plus Snapcaster Mage for his early guys and Vendilion Clique plus Mistbind to end it.
All in all, I was impressed by Jace being able to win the game by itself round 1, but acutely felt the absence of more counterspells vs Scapeshift. I’ve usually had 1-3 Spell Snare in my decks, which would’ve been excellent at many points (would’ve helped resolve the Spellstutter Sprite R1G1, or stopped multiple Farseek R3). I wonder if the Dismember is really even needed, as the rest of the removal seemed like enough, especially with the Snapcaster Mages. I was hoping to squeeze in a pair of Spell Snare going forward, though maybe we only want one. The other thing I encountered, was having multiple dead cards on the library from Jace, but no way to get rid of them. There was many turns where I was Brainstorming and just putting back two Bitterblossoms, or Thoughtseize and extra land. I don’t think we need more fetch lands, but it’s something to be aware off. Brainstorm doesn’t feel as broken when you only see one new card each time.
I wish I had faced some more mainstream decks, but that’s the diversity of modern I guess.
I went 2-2 with the list I posted above. My wins came vs a home brew Humans deck (2-0), and a GR Shamans deck (2-1). I lost to Temur Scapeshift (1-2) and RG Titanshift (0-2).
Round 1, Temur Scapeshift.
Game one, I kept a double Bitterblossom hand with 3 lands, Fatal Push, Cryptic Command, and played turn two Bitterblossom to battle a suspended Search for Tomorrow. I try to Spellstutter Sprite the Search, but he Remands the Sprite. A few turns go by, I counter a Cryptic Command tapping my creatures, and he untaps with Scapeshift and Remand backup. I never cast the second Bitterblossom, but I’m not sure if it would’ve made a difference.
Game 2, I mulligan to 6 (Jace, Dispel, 4 assorted land). He keeps a slow hand, accelerating his lands but having not pay off. I land Jace turn 4, asking if I’m just dead. He draws, plays a land and passes with nothing. I slowly take over and go on to win after many, many brainstorms.
Game 3, my hand is a bit slow, but it had a Thoughtseize and Collective Brutality. These unfortunately could not stop a top decked Scapeshift (copy 3), after I had used a Snapcaster Mage to flash back Thoughtseize and took the second copy one from his hand.
Sideboard plan: -4 Fatal Push, -1 Go for the Throat, -1 Dismember, +2 Countersquall, +1 Dispel, +2 Collective Brutality, +1 Surgical Extraction
Round 2, GR Shamans
Game 1, I mulligan to 5. Mono Islands can’t cast Fatal Push, and I lose to triple Burning Tree Emissary into Rage Forger turn 3
Game 2, I kept the board clean with a hand of double Fatal Push and a Snapcaster, then drop a Jace on turn 5 and draw more removal. Mistbind Clique flies in to win.
Game 3, another removal heavy game. The opponent gets stuck on 3 lands, and so my removal isn’t taxed by multiple creatures. He lands a Troll Ascetic, which gives me pause. We sit at a standstill for a few turns, and then he casts a Burning Tree Emissary without using Cavern of Souls. I pounce on this and Spellstutter Sprite the Emissary, and he tilts a bit. He then swings the Troll in, which winds up getting blocked by Snapcaster, and I take over from there. He concedes when I cast Jace.
Sideboard plan: -1 Logic Knot, -1 Mana Leak, -1 Cryptic Command, +1 Damnation, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Round 3, RG Scapeshift
This match was determined by mulligans on my part. It was quick, frustrating, and unexciting.
Sideboard plan: See round 1
Round 4, Homebrew Humans
Neither of us put any effort into these games, as we were both out of prizes. Game one, he kept a single Guost Quarter as his land and quickly lost. Game 2, I had Fatal Push plus Snapcaster Mage for his early guys and Vendilion Clique plus Mistbind to end it.
All in all, I was impressed by Jace being able to win the game by itself round 1, but acutely felt the absence of more counterspells vs Scapeshift. I’ve usually had 1-3 Spell Snare in my decks, which would’ve been excellent at many points (would’ve helped resolve the Spellstutter Sprite R1G1, or stopped multiple Farseek R3). I wonder if the Dismember is really even needed, as the rest of the removal seemed like enough, especially with the Snapcaster Mages. I was hoping to squeeze in a pair of Spell Snare going forward, though maybe we only want one. The other thing I encountered, was having multiple dead cards on the library from Jace, but no way to get rid of them. There was many turns where I was Brainstorming and just putting back two Bitterblossoms, or Thoughtseize and extra land. I don’t think we need more fetch lands, but it’s something to be aware off. Brainstorm doesn’t feel as broken when you only see one new card each time.
I wish I had faced some more mainstream decks, but that’s the diversity of modern I guess.
Agree that more fetch lands would be bad in the current build, but jace, the mind sculptor needs them to be more powerful. If you are running 3-4, although it is perhaps blasphemous to state this, dropping some bitterblossoms may be a good idea...
Went 3-1 yesterday night, losing only 1 very close match.
I played an unexpected set of matches facing Jund (1-2 loss), Faeries (2-1 Win), Faeries, again (2-1 win), and Lantern Control (2-1 Win).
The Jund games were SO close. The MU is really 50-50 and depends a lot on who gets the early advantage with discards. Game 1 I lost relatively easily. Game 2 I managed to win through 2 BBEs and 1 Lili of the Veil Ulti mainly because of Jace Brainstorm going unchecked for too long. Game 3, even though I had 2 BBs turn 2 and 3 and he went BBE+Bolt, into BBE+ Lili into BBE+Tarmogoyf..... Can't win against that really ever.
The two mirror matches were against very different builds from mine. One was against Faeries with cryptic and Mistbinds and no Jace and the other was against Faeries with thoughtscour+tasigur. Turns out whoever lands BB first wins. If none lands BB, Jace is probably the strongest.
Against Lantern control I just went all aggro. Jace is great but they pithing needle. IF you can keep them off of that, then you win.
Overall I am VERY happy with this counter-less build. Plays much more like a Jund but with more reaction and more avenues to stabilize. Less soft on spot removal, but more fragile to some other things. However the Jace really allows you to play that much discard AND spot removal. I will keep trying this build, I think it is a great way to utilize Jace and props to Piproberts for figuring it out and going 5-0 with it.
This list definitely not plays an aggressive plan at all. If anything, I would describe it as a much more midrange plan.
Personally, I always disliked Remand in Faeries, especially when you are not heavy on Mistbind Cliques. With MC, you can actually execute (sometimes) a proper tempo plan. But in other cases, it is just too hard. I always preferred hard answers, because if you can't answer the remanded thing, you are likely not winning any way.
All the games I played were long games, which revolved around emptying my opponents hand, establishing some form of board control, and winning late either with BB or manlands. The only "aggressive" take was against lantern, which is what we have to do anyway, and even then, I beat it with creeping tar beats.
It might be that there is a way to fit remand in this list instead of Opt, but I would still prefer the permanent answers and a way to find them, which Opt helps a lot more. I could try 2 Remand/2 Opt, have to think about it more.
May I ask why you chose to not run Duress in your sideboard? It's obviously no main deck material, but it is a better Thoughtsieze in control and combo matchups and its better then Inquisition in Tron matchups.
I will experiment with Peppersmoke as a removal, because I've noticed a lot of small body creatures in my meta. Thinks like Steel Overseer, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or even Vendilion Clique in some control decks. Not sure if that is something that would be applicable to you as well.
I am not playing duress because I am playing Collective Brutality, which is more widely applicable.
Peppersmoke, in a world of Fatal Pushes, is just bad. I know it can potentially cycle, but it is not as common as you would think. It also provides the tribal aspect for opposing tarmogoyfs which is a net negative.
I will experiment with Peppersmoke as a removal, because I've noticed a lot of small body creatures in my meta. Thinks like Steel Overseer, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or even Vendilion Clique in some control decks. Not sure if that is something that would be applicable to you as well.
In addition to what Ym1r said here, we're already naturally very strong against random X/1 creatures because of Bitterblossom tokens. We want our removal to be able to answer other problem creatures as well.
I took it to a tournament this weekend and went 6-0: 2-1 against 8Rack, 2-1 against Titanshift (with Through the Breach), 2-0 against Burn, 2-0 against Titanshift, 2-1 against BG Tron and 2-1 against Titanshift again: a very varied metagame.
About the low number of lands, I was mana screwed in just two games (not counting the ones against 8Rack), and still managed to win one of them against Burn, so eventually I lost as many games to misplays than to extreme bad luck. On the sideboard, Spreading Seas turned out to be better than expected. I'm also happy I could set up the combination of Liliana of the Veil into Mistbind Clique, which I never had, despite knowing these two cards pair with each other pretty well for years.
About how to play the deck, just get the habit of counting how many turns can it take you to win the game, how many turns can it take for your opponent to do so, and play accordingly.
Private Mod Note
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Who is truer: you who are, or you who are to be?
Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I guess that some of you play Faeries more similar to a traditional draw&go control deck and fail to take a more tempo approach, eventually being unable to pull many wins in games without Bitterblossom because you spent too many turns doing nothing instead of looking for alternatives to advance your victory. So let me propose a couple challenges based on games I had last week.
Challenge 1:
You're at 2 life against a Burn opponent, who's finally run out of cards. It's your main phase turn 5 and you only have Creeping Tar Pit, Island and Darkslick Shores into play, and 2 Vendilion Clique, Spellstutter Sprite, Fatal Push, Bitterblossom and Mistbind Clique in hand. He's dealt 6 damage himself through the game. Choose your play. Is it still possible to win?
Could you win the game if I told you the top 4 cards in your library are (in this order) Bitterblossom, Creeping Tar Pit, Thoughtseize and Watery Grave and your opponent has Monastery Swiftspear, Monastery Swiftspear, Lightning Bolt and Boros Charm?
Challenge 2:
Now against Tron, it's turn 3 and you feel safe on the play after playing Spreading Seas on your opponent's first Tron land and then him playing Blooming Marsh. He also has a Expedition Map into play. You have Creeping Tar Pit, Polluted Delta, Island, Liliana of the Veil, Mana Leak, Cryptic Command and Mistbind Clique in hand and Mutavault and Darkslick Shores into play. How do you sequence your next turns? I think this one needs no clues.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Who is truer: you who are, or you who are to be?
Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
3 lands on turn 5 is pretty rough, especially since your hand has a lot of clunky elements to it. That said, the first this to accept is that we're really behind and can only answer one burn spell with the cards currently in hand. We're completely dead to Boros charm, Lightning helix, Eidolon of the great revel, and main-phase rift bolt. We're also dead to suspend rift bolt if we don't draw a mutavault by our next main phase. We can potentially play around them playing draw-pass with an instant-speed bolt held up, but that line almost always ends with us dead since we need to draw both lands and counters while they only need to draw any sort of action to overload us. That said, we can still easily win if we get a little lucky and our opponent plays a little poorly.
The cards that I don't like here are BB, Mistbind, and second Vendilion, though Mistbind can buy us a couple turns once our plan starts coming together (thats 1 turn from locking out their cast spell and potentially a second from shortening our own clock by a turn). My goal for the next turn cycle is to resolve a Vendilion clique after my opponent does nothing relevant, though I still want to hold up SSS in case they try to lava spike me. I'm going to target myself with the trigger, since there's very little I can do to disrupt their play by seeing what they drew and I absolutely want to replace the BB in my hand with literally anything else. Since we only have 3 lands in play we can't even rip an untapped source to hold up SSS so Vendilion main is right out, so we're going to have to hope to.
So here's the plan: If they draw-pass or draw-swiftspear-attack, I'm ignoring them and casting Vendilion on their end step, shipping BB to the bottom. Going to 1 off a swiftspear attack shuts off my fetchlands, but I think I'm far enough behind that I can't afford to play around that. If they give me a chance I'm countering any 1-mana burn spell with SSS and hoping to draw out of it (smart burn players probably wouldn't play into your SSS with no follow-up, but it still might happen). If they play Eidolon I'm responding with Vendilion clique, but I'm probably dead anyway. If they goblin guide, I'll probably respond to the attack trigger with Vendilion and blocking, as that gives me the most extra looks at finding a land, which is the most important thing I'm missing.
If I survive to my next turn (drawing the 2nd tar pit), I can start attacking with Vendilion and have fatal push + SSS up to counter most of their draws and remove that swiftspear that hit me last turn. With them at 14 I need 4-5 attacks to kill (depending on how I draw) though if I get to 5-6 lands I can use mistbind + SSS + Tar pit to deal 8-10 damage on the last attack if necessary. With the draw steps you mentioned in your hint, I'm going to push their first swiftspear and SSS the second one, attack them to 7 on the next turn and mistbind in their upkeep (champion SSS) which lets me attack for 10 the following turn and strand the bolt in their hand.
If they hold the second swiftspear, we can hold up SSS (since we don't know they have a swiftspear), attack them to 8, and then we either have to bluff double-counter (4 untapped lands makes that somewhat feasible) or decide that they don't have an instant and Mistbind them anyway in their upkeep. The numbers make the mistbind line awkward (attack with tar pit puts them to 1 and we still only have the one counter), but the bluff really only buys us enough time for them to beat double-counter (which is one turn) so in either case we're pretty sunk with the draws we end up with. We can probably bait the second swiftspear with a little showmanship though. If we act like we just drew the fatal push off the Vendilion clique by casting it main phase, we can probably sell the lie that we don't have anything relevant and induce the opponent to play into our SSS, securing the kill.
For challenge 2:
As an aside, this situation illustrates why I'm not a huge fan of Liliana in this deck.
Since they can't tron next turn or the turn after (turn 5 at the earliest), there's no point in holding up mana leak since we want to answer their threats, not their mana. I want to mistbind them on turn 6 if at all possible, and cryptic/mana leak and all my lands are important here for bridging to that point, so I don't really want to Liliana either, though having her in play for future turns isn't terrible for if we draw extra lands/SSS. That said, here's my line. Play tar pit this turn and attack with mutavault.
My general plan is to start attacking with mutavault and plan to mana leak the first threat they play by the time they assemble tron(~turn 5), then mistbind the next turn and hold up cryptic while I clock them. That represents 13 damage (mutavault attacks T3, 4, and 5, plus mistbind attack T7 and one tar pit attack once they get to a low total) with cryptic representing at least 4 more damage (another mistbind attack T8+, with no tar pit since I need the mana to cast the cryptic). This gives me ~6 additional draw steps to find 3 damage before Tron has a decent chance of starting to fight back, and if they can't answer Tar pit they die anyway.
If I'm afraid of T5 World breaker exiling mutavault or wurmcoil engine with 3 mana up I can Mistbind on T5 instead and then try to cash in mana leak later, either with Liliana or if they tap low for something. I don't have quite as much time here, but cryptic can help bridge the gap.
The worst-case is they play tron land into oblivion stone on 3, but we can still make their lines awkward here. We can just continue to attack with mutavault and hold up mana leak and cryptic until they deploy a threat (~T5-6), where we can counter-bounce O-stone with cryptic and then resolve Mistbind the following turn. This lets us maximize the delay in their threat deployment and deals at least 13 damage (assuming we play an untapped land on T6 and immediately get aggressive with Tar pit after mistbind resolves), giving them exactly one turn to answer mistbind/tar pit, with O-stone costing 8 mana (of the ~10-12 they'd have at best) and leaving them at 2 with both tar pit and mutavault threatening lethal the next turn.
In any event, we have a ton of draw steps to improve our lines with things like thoughtseize, BB, Field of ruin, or additional mutavaults/tar pits, and even the tools we have can put them to nearly dead.
There is an argument for deploying Liliana on 3 and discarding mana leak as it can begin to pinch their threat/mana balance over time, but we're already not favored going long, so I'd rather start getting with mutavault and not try to prolong the game by putting us both into topdeck mode.
I agree with you that not pushing our advantage and thinking control rather than tempo is the single, most-common way to lose games with Faeries. Faeries can seemingly win out of nowhere, but those wins usually take a lot of setup and posturing correctly, knowing how much time you need to buy, and identifying what you need to answer vs what you can ignore.
I tried to assert the importance of playing more aggressively instead of holding lands untapped bluffing counterspells and we got moved to the new aggro sub-forum
As for the challenges...
1: I misplayed this one the first turn and ended up trading Vendilion Clique with the first Swiftspear, which left me with nothing to press my opponent on board and without a second faerie to counter a Boros Charm/Lightning Helix/Eidolon with Spellstutter Sprite. Luckily, he drew a second Swiftspear and I managed to see the right lines of not trading with the second Vendilion, then countering Bolt with Sprite and pushing the Swiftspear, upkeep Mistbind Clique and deal exactly lethal the next turn. Had I done the right plays from the beginning I would have been exposed to just one turn of potentially being dead instead of 2. Sometimes Faeries is forgiving.
2: I understand some people might be uncomfortable playing Liliana at this spot when they're holding a hand with so many blue cards, but if you have her in your decklist, I can't think of a better time to play her than this scenario. Additionally, Liliana is the closest thing you have to discard to secure the risky play of Mistbind Clique with just a Mutavault to champion against a deck with Fatal Push. Casting turn 5 Mistbind Clique into turn 6 ultimate isn't aiming for the long game, but for establishing a board position from which the Tron player should never be able to recover. What you shouldn't do is playing Creeping Tar Pit pass, holding mana up to Mana Leak an Ancient Stirrings/Sylvan Scrying/Expedition Map/Oblivion Stone; this play does not advance your game plan at all, and you can't chicken out of a Fatal Push. Might consider it if you have Bitterblossom into play (hence the reason why so many people complain they can only win if they resolve an early Bitterblossom).
Hope you take your time to think about these situations before you open the spoilers.
Private Mod Note
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Who is truer: you who are, or you who are to be?
Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I wouldn't call your list a troll list, unless the trolled ones were our opponents. It played almost all the cards I like. I didn't know how to fit a random Tasigur in there, but guess that with so many Mistbind Cliques you don't need it as much as in the Yuuta's list I was playing this summer, and the deck was already really short on lands.
As for Jace, it depends on the build of Faeries we're aiming to build. In this more tempo deck, he can give you some value by bouncing any of your own creatures, or playing the occasional Brainstorm, but I doubt you'd ever use his ultimate (unless somehow your opponent had gained infinite life and hadn't been able to deal infinite damage to you), or his +2 more than once in a single game. There is the dream of playing a Mistbind Clique the turn after playing Jace, and gain 5 extra turns using the -1, but thinking of that scenario is kitchen table deckbuilding; specially, when it's hard to fit more than 2 Jaces in such a deck.
However, I don't know if you could take this original Yuuta's list, replace Ancestral Vision for Jace and call it a deck. In that case, the minimum number of Jaces you'd need would be 3, and probably 4 would be better.
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Who is truer: you who are, or you who are to be?
Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I generally dislike Tasigurs. I like including more flash creatures in there, as indicated by the 3-off MBC and 2-off VC. This gives more options. Liliana of the Veil combined with MBC is murderous. Other than discard, value planeswalkers and bitterblossom itself, I always try to exclude sorcery options as much as possible. It is why in my view Serum Visions has no place in this deck, for example.
I highly doubt that jamming Jaces in place of AV would help Yuta's. Dropping Cryptics and extending the discard suit is probably better.
Due to card availability, I’m playing -1 Jace, +1 Fatal Push since my local store tournament doesn’t allow proxies.
I played a couple of games vs Humans (a home brew version) in between draft rounds at FNM, going 2-3. We were just playing for fun, and I made a few errors/ plays for style points. It seemed to me, that if swarm decks like that get ahead, it’s difficult to fight through and protect a Jace. Bitterblossom is one of the best cards outside of removal in the early game. Also, there’s some hard decisions in this matchup if you need to -1 Jace, as quite a few creatures have ETBs (this version had Venser, Shaper Savant).
After those few games, I’m a little unimpressed by the discard and counterspells. I know we can Jace them away, but if we don’t have a fetch, we’re just hitting them again, and they also are kinda bad to draw off the 0 ability. I know Thoughtseize is a nessisary evil sort of card, and the counterspells help in some matches, but it just didn’t feel great hitting them when digging for action cards. It’s bad enough that we have dead Bitterblossoms in the deck, which clog up the ‘brainstorms’. Opt also feels like a nessisary evil. It helps find lands, and smooth draws out, but it also sometimes feel like spinning wheels and durdling around. What if we cut the three Opt for Ancestral Vision, the Mana Leak for Snapcaster #4 or Vendilion Clique #3, leaving one counterspell for emergencies. Is there anyone who shares these sentiments?
The question you're asking is a lot closer to "how should I sideboard?" than it is "are these cards worth playing?" Did you test sideboarded games at all? Also, how did the games play out when you won vs. when you lost? You managed to pull a 40% win rate making "a few errors," and there's every reason to believe that tightening up your play and taking a larger sample size than just 5 games might see the win rate climb closer to 50%. It's rarely correct to make major changes to your deck based on one matchup.
That said, your sideboard looks like it may want to hedge a little harder against humans. 1 Damnation and 2 Collective Brutality (and Engineered Explosives I guess) aren't enough to replace all the cards you want to take out. Maybe the Liliana's Defeat (which seems super narrow, btw) gets replaced with a second Damnation or a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? Maybe Ravenous trap could get cut for something similar? (unless there's a bunch of dredge in your local meta)
On Opt/Ancestral in particular, I'm firmly in the opt camp. I currently run opts in the slot that I used to devote to AV, and have no plans to change that back anytime soon. Quantity of cards rarely matters to us so long as we can use the cards to buy time and keep pressing the attack. I'd rather have 1 card that I know for sure is going to buy me a turn than 3 where (more than likely) 1-2 are irrelevant lands, and I'd certainly rather have that card now than 4 turns from now.
Yea, I was too 'knee-jerk' wanting to slice out the discard spells after just a handful of games. I'll keep the list at what it is currently until I get more games in.
As for the sideboard, the Collective Brutalitys are for the Burn match, the Damnation and Explosives are for the go wide strategies (I like to have varied solutions, especially with Meddling Mage floating about). I'm testing the Liliana's Defeat (and maybe a Jace's Defeat as well), as I expect an uptick in Liliana's, and that can be especially disastrous, especially a Liliana, the Last Hope. It's an efficient card when it get brought in, and I think one is good for now. I'm also expecting lots of strategies which don't care about the unbannings (Dredge, Storm, Tron, etc), so the sideboard has hedged with the Ravenous Trap and the Ceremonious Rejections.
Round 1, Temur Scapeshift.
Game one, I kept a double Bitterblossom hand with 3 lands, Fatal Push, Cryptic Command, and played turn two Bitterblossom to battle a suspended Search for Tomorrow. I try to Spellstutter Sprite the Search, but he Remands the Sprite. A few turns go by, I counter a Cryptic Command tapping my creatures, and he untaps with Scapeshift and Remand backup. I never cast the second Bitterblossom, but I’m not sure if it would’ve made a difference.
Game 2, I mulligan to 6 (Jace, Dispel, 4 assorted land). He keeps a slow hand, accelerating his lands but having not pay off. I land Jace turn 4, asking if I’m just dead. He draws, plays a land and passes with nothing. I slowly take over and go on to win after many, many brainstorms.
Game 3, my hand is a bit slow, but it had a Thoughtseize and Collective Brutality. These unfortunately could not stop a top decked Scapeshift (copy 3), after I had used a Snapcaster Mage to flash back Thoughtseize and took the second copy one from his hand.
Sideboard plan: -4 Fatal Push, -1 Go for the Throat, -1 Dismember, +2 Countersquall, +1 Dispel, +2 Collective Brutality, +1 Surgical Extraction
Round 2, GR Shamans
Game 1, I mulligan to 5. Mono Islands can’t cast Fatal Push, and I lose to triple Burning Tree Emissary into Rage Forger turn 3
Game 2, I kept the board clean with a hand of double Fatal Push and a Snapcaster, then drop a Jace on turn 5 and draw more removal. Mistbind Clique flies in to win.
Game 3, another removal heavy game. The opponent gets stuck on 3 lands, and so my removal isn’t taxed by multiple creatures. He lands a Troll Ascetic, which gives me pause. We sit at a standstill for a few turns, and then he casts a Burning Tree Emissary without using Cavern of Souls. I pounce on this and Spellstutter Sprite the Emissary, and he tilts a bit. He then swings the Troll in, which winds up getting blocked by Snapcaster, and I take over from there. He concedes when I cast Jace.
Sideboard plan: -1 Logic Knot, -1 Mana Leak, -1 Cryptic Command, +1 Damnation, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Round 3, RG Scapeshift
This match was determined by mulligans on my part. It was quick, frustrating, and unexciting.
Sideboard plan: See round 1
Round 4, Homebrew Humans
Neither of us put any effort into these games, as we were both out of prizes. Game one, he kept a single Guost Quarter as his land and quickly lost. Game 2, I had Fatal Push plus Snapcaster Mage for his early guys and Vendilion Clique plus Mistbind to end it.
Sideboard plan: -1 Logic Knot, -1 Mana Leak, +1 Damnation, +1 Engineered Explosives.
All in all, I was impressed by Jace being able to win the game by itself round 1, but acutely felt the absence of more counterspells vs Scapeshift. I’ve usually had 1-3 Spell Snare in my decks, which would’ve been excellent at many points (would’ve helped resolve the Spellstutter Sprite R1G1, or stopped multiple Farseek R3). I wonder if the Dismember is really even needed, as the rest of the removal seemed like enough, especially with the Snapcaster Mages. I was hoping to squeeze in a pair of Spell Snare going forward, though maybe we only want one. The other thing I encountered, was having multiple dead cards on the library from Jace, but no way to get rid of them. There was many turns where I was Brainstorming and just putting back two Bitterblossoms, or Thoughtseize and extra land. I don’t think we need more fetch lands, but it’s something to be aware off. Brainstorm doesn’t feel as broken when you only see one new card each time.
I wish I had faced some more mainstream decks, but that’s the diversity of modern I guess.
4 Faerie Miscreant
2 Mistbind Clique
3 Scion of Oona
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Ancestral Vision
1 Burst Lightning
2 Cryptic Command
1 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Remand
1 Spell Snare
3 Vapor Snag
2 Flooded Strand
6 Island
1 Mountain
4 Mutavault
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Spirebluff Canal
1 Steam Vents
1 Electrolyze
1 Spell Snare
3 Blood Moon
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Dispel
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Magma Spray
1 Negate
2 Relic of Progenitus
I have no idea what to think of this, and kinda want to see it in action.
Agree that more fetch lands would be bad in the current build, but jace, the mind sculptor needs them to be more powerful. If you are running 3-4, although it is perhaps blasphemous to state this, dropping some bitterblossoms may be a good idea...
I played an unexpected set of matches facing Jund (1-2 loss), Faeries (2-1 Win), Faeries, again (2-1 win), and Lantern Control (2-1 Win).
The Jund games were SO close. The MU is really 50-50 and depends a lot on who gets the early advantage with discards. Game 1 I lost relatively easily. Game 2 I managed to win through 2 BBEs and 1 Lili of the Veil Ulti mainly because of Jace Brainstorm going unchecked for too long. Game 3, even though I had 2 BBs turn 2 and 3 and he went BBE+Bolt, into BBE+ Lili into BBE+Tarmogoyf..... Can't win against that really ever.
The two mirror matches were against very different builds from mine. One was against Faeries with cryptic and Mistbinds and no Jace and the other was against Faeries with thoughtscour+tasigur. Turns out whoever lands BB first wins. If none lands BB, Jace is probably the strongest.
Against Lantern control I just went all aggro. Jace is great but they pithing needle. IF you can keep them off of that, then you win.
Overall I am VERY happy with this counter-less build. Plays much more like a Jund but with more reaction and more avenues to stabilize. Less soft on spot removal, but more fragile to some other things. However the Jace really allows you to play that much discard AND spot removal. I will keep trying this build, I think it is a great way to utilize Jace and props to Piproberts for figuring it out and going 5-0 with it.
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Mistbind Clique
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
4 Fatal Push
4 Opt
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Dismember
3 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Field of Ruin
4 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
2 Collective Brutality
2 Countersquall
1 Damnation
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Surgical Extraction
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
23 lands also seems pretty low here. I get that you have opt, but opt isn't that strong at finding lands.
Personally, I always disliked Remand in Faeries, especially when you are not heavy on Mistbind Cliques. With MC, you can actually execute (sometimes) a proper tempo plan. But in other cases, it is just too hard. I always preferred hard answers, because if you can't answer the remanded thing, you are likely not winning any way.
All the games I played were long games, which revolved around emptying my opponents hand, establishing some form of board control, and winning late either with BB or manlands. The only "aggressive" take was against lantern, which is what we have to do anyway, and even then, I beat it with creeping tar beats.
It might be that there is a way to fit remand in this list instead of Opt, but I would still prefer the permanent answers and a way to find them, which Opt helps a lot more. I could try 2 Remand/2 Opt, have to think about it more.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Peppersmoke, in a world of Fatal Pushes, is just bad. I know it can potentially cycle, but it is not as common as you would think. It also provides the tribal aspect for opposing tarmogoyfs which is a net negative.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
In addition to what Ym1r said here, we're already naturally very strong against random X/1 creatures because of Bitterblossom tokens. We want our removal to be able to answer other problem creatures as well.
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Mistbind Clique
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Opt
4 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Remand
3 Mana Leak
2 Cryptic Command
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Polluted Delta
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Mutavault
3 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Secluded Glen
1 Field of Ruin
2 Watery Grave
3 Island
1 Swamp
3 Spreading Seas
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Collective Brutality
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Countersquall
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Spell Snare
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Batterskull
I took it to a tournament this weekend and went 6-0: 2-1 against 8Rack, 2-1 against Titanshift (with Through the Breach), 2-0 against Burn, 2-0 against Titanshift, 2-1 against BG Tron and 2-1 against Titanshift again: a very varied metagame.
About the low number of lands, I was mana screwed in just two games (not counting the ones against 8Rack), and still managed to win one of them against Burn, so eventually I lost as many games to misplays than to extreme bad luck. On the sideboard, Spreading Seas turned out to be better than expected. I'm also happy I could set up the combination of Liliana of the Veil into Mistbind Clique, which I never had, despite knowing these two cards pair with each other pretty well for years.
About how to play the deck, just get the habit of counting how many turns can it take you to win the game, how many turns can it take for your opponent to do so, and play accordingly.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
Nice result! Love the list. Must feel very balanced. Third Leak in a Jace meta is awesome.
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678Challenge 1:
You're at 2 life against a Burn opponent, who's finally run out of cards. It's your main phase turn 5 and you only have Creeping Tar Pit, Island and Darkslick Shores into play, and 2 Vendilion Clique, Spellstutter Sprite, Fatal Push, Bitterblossom and Mistbind Clique in hand. He's dealt 6 damage himself through the game. Choose your play. Is it still possible to win?
Challenge 2:
Now against Tron, it's turn 3 and you feel safe on the play after playing Spreading Seas on your opponent's first Tron land and then him playing Blooming Marsh. He also has a Expedition Map into play. You have Creeping Tar Pit, Polluted Delta, Island, Liliana of the Veil, Mana Leak, Cryptic Command and Mistbind Clique in hand and Mutavault and Darkslick Shores into play. How do you sequence your next turns? I think this one needs no clues.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
3 lands on turn 5 is pretty rough, especially since your hand has a lot of clunky elements to it. That said, the first this to accept is that we're really behind and can only answer one burn spell with the cards currently in hand. We're completely dead to Boros charm, Lightning helix, Eidolon of the great revel, and main-phase rift bolt. We're also dead to suspend rift bolt if we don't draw a mutavault by our next main phase. We can potentially play around them playing draw-pass with an instant-speed bolt held up, but that line almost always ends with us dead since we need to draw both lands and counters while they only need to draw any sort of action to overload us. That said, we can still easily win if we get a little lucky and our opponent plays a little poorly.
The cards that I don't like here are BB, Mistbind, and second Vendilion, though Mistbind can buy us a couple turns once our plan starts coming together (thats 1 turn from locking out their cast spell and potentially a second from shortening our own clock by a turn). My goal for the next turn cycle is to resolve a Vendilion clique after my opponent does nothing relevant, though I still want to hold up SSS in case they try to lava spike me. I'm going to target myself with the trigger, since there's very little I can do to disrupt their play by seeing what they drew and I absolutely want to replace the BB in my hand with literally anything else. Since we only have 3 lands in play we can't even rip an untapped source to hold up SSS so Vendilion main is right out, so we're going to have to hope to.
So here's the plan: If they draw-pass or draw-swiftspear-attack, I'm ignoring them and casting Vendilion on their end step, shipping BB to the bottom. Going to 1 off a swiftspear attack shuts off my fetchlands, but I think I'm far enough behind that I can't afford to play around that. If they give me a chance I'm countering any 1-mana burn spell with SSS and hoping to draw out of it (smart burn players probably wouldn't play into your SSS with no follow-up, but it still might happen). If they play Eidolon I'm responding with Vendilion clique, but I'm probably dead anyway. If they goblin guide, I'll probably respond to the attack trigger with Vendilion and blocking, as that gives me the most extra looks at finding a land, which is the most important thing I'm missing.
If I survive to my next turn (drawing the 2nd tar pit), I can start attacking with Vendilion and have fatal push + SSS up to counter most of their draws and remove that swiftspear that hit me last turn. With them at 14 I need 4-5 attacks to kill (depending on how I draw) though if I get to 5-6 lands I can use mistbind + SSS + Tar pit to deal 8-10 damage on the last attack if necessary. With the draw steps you mentioned in your hint, I'm going to push their first swiftspear and SSS the second one, attack them to 7 on the next turn and mistbind in their upkeep (champion SSS) which lets me attack for 10 the following turn and strand the bolt in their hand.
If they hold the second swiftspear, we can hold up SSS (since we don't know they have a swiftspear), attack them to 8, and then we either have to bluff double-counter (4 untapped lands makes that somewhat feasible) or decide that they don't have an instant and Mistbind them anyway in their upkeep. The numbers make the mistbind line awkward (attack with tar pit puts them to 1 and we still only have the one counter), but the bluff really only buys us enough time for them to beat double-counter (which is one turn) so in either case we're pretty sunk with the draws we end up with. We can probably bait the second swiftspear with a little showmanship though. If we act like we just drew the fatal push off the Vendilion clique by casting it main phase, we can probably sell the lie that we don't have anything relevant and induce the opponent to play into our SSS, securing the kill.
For challenge 2:
As an aside, this situation illustrates why I'm not a huge fan of Liliana in this deck.
Since they can't tron next turn or the turn after (turn 5 at the earliest), there's no point in holding up mana leak since we want to answer their threats, not their mana. I want to mistbind them on turn 6 if at all possible, and cryptic/mana leak and all my lands are important here for bridging to that point, so I don't really want to Liliana either, though having her in play for future turns isn't terrible for if we draw extra lands/SSS. That said, here's my line. Play tar pit this turn and attack with mutavault.
My general plan is to start attacking with mutavault and plan to mana leak the first threat they play by the time they assemble tron(~turn 5), then mistbind the next turn and hold up cryptic while I clock them. That represents 13 damage (mutavault attacks T3, 4, and 5, plus mistbind attack T7 and one tar pit attack once they get to a low total) with cryptic representing at least 4 more damage (another mistbind attack T8+, with no tar pit since I need the mana to cast the cryptic). This gives me ~6 additional draw steps to find 3 damage before Tron has a decent chance of starting to fight back, and if they can't answer Tar pit they die anyway.
If I'm afraid of T5 World breaker exiling mutavault or wurmcoil engine with 3 mana up I can Mistbind on T5 instead and then try to cash in mana leak later, either with Liliana or if they tap low for something. I don't have quite as much time here, but cryptic can help bridge the gap.
The worst-case is they play tron land into oblivion stone on 3, but we can still make their lines awkward here. We can just continue to attack with mutavault and hold up mana leak and cryptic until they deploy a threat (~T5-6), where we can counter-bounce O-stone with cryptic and then resolve Mistbind the following turn. This lets us maximize the delay in their threat deployment and deals at least 13 damage (assuming we play an untapped land on T6 and immediately get aggressive with Tar pit after mistbind resolves), giving them exactly one turn to answer mistbind/tar pit, with O-stone costing 8 mana (of the ~10-12 they'd have at best) and leaving them at 2 with both tar pit and mutavault threatening lethal the next turn.
In any event, we have a ton of draw steps to improve our lines with things like thoughtseize, BB, Field of ruin, or additional mutavaults/tar pits, and even the tools we have can put them to nearly dead.
There is an argument for deploying Liliana on 3 and discarding mana leak as it can begin to pinch their threat/mana balance over time, but we're already not favored going long, so I'd rather start getting with mutavault and not try to prolong the game by putting us both into topdeck mode.
I agree with you that not pushing our advantage and thinking control rather than tempo is the single, most-common way to lose games with Faeries. Faeries can seemingly win out of nowhere, but those wins usually take a lot of setup and posturing correctly, knowing how much time you need to buy, and identifying what you need to answer vs what you can ignore.
More of these would be greatly appreciated.
As for the challenges...
2: I understand some people might be uncomfortable playing Liliana at this spot when they're holding a hand with so many blue cards, but if you have her in your decklist, I can't think of a better time to play her than this scenario. Additionally, Liliana is the closest thing you have to discard to secure the risky play of Mistbind Clique with just a Mutavault to champion against a deck with Fatal Push. Casting turn 5 Mistbind Clique into turn 6 ultimate isn't aiming for the long game, but for establishing a board position from which the Tron player should never be able to recover. What you shouldn't do is playing Creeping Tar Pit pass, holding mana up to Mana Leak an Ancient Stirrings/Sylvan Scrying/Expedition Map/Oblivion Stone; this play does not advance your game plan at all, and you can't chicken out of a Fatal Push. Might consider it if you have Bitterblossom into play (hence the reason why so many people complain they can only win if they resolve an early Bitterblossom).
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
Love it that you performed well with that troll list sans smashers
I 100% agree with you. Faeries is more Jund than UWR Control.
Dont try to play the long game for too long. What do you think of Jaces?
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678As for Jace, it depends on the build of Faeries we're aiming to build. In this more tempo deck, he can give you some value by bouncing any of your own creatures, or playing the occasional Brainstorm, but I doubt you'd ever use his ultimate (unless somehow your opponent had gained infinite life and hadn't been able to deal infinite damage to you), or his +2 more than once in a single game. There is the dream of playing a Mistbind Clique the turn after playing Jace, and gain 5 extra turns using the -1, but thinking of that scenario is kitchen table deckbuilding; specially, when it's hard to fit more than 2 Jaces in such a deck.
However, I don't know if you could take this original Yuuta's list, replace Ancestral Vision for Jace and call it a deck. In that case, the minimum number of Jaces you'd need would be 3, and probably 4 would be better.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I generally dislike Tasigurs. I like including more flash creatures in there, as indicated by the 3-off MBC and 2-off VC. This gives more options. Liliana of the Veil combined with MBC is murderous. Other than discard, value planeswalkers and bitterblossom itself, I always try to exclude sorcery options as much as possible. It is why in my view Serum Visions has no place in this deck, for example.
I highly doubt that jamming Jaces in place of AV would help Yuta's. Dropping Cryptics and extending the discard suit is probably better.
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678Actually that's exactly what he did. But now also uses Serum Visions and no discard.
https://mtgdecks.net/Modern/faerie-decklist-by-takahashi-yuuta-730518