I'll be playing in a tournament tomorrow and have been testing a bit through the week, tweaking a little bit here and there. Here's my current list. I'd be very interested in hearing some of your opinions so we can start getting a "core" card list going.
While I think Leo can support a much more controlling list (he's part UB after all), he seems to lend himself to tempo more in the games I've played. It's my opinion that if you want to play control their are better options, but I would be hard pressed to find a commander that fits flexible tempo as well.
I've only played one official event (10 person) and a couple test matches with my build so far, but I'm a huge mana dork advocate. I didn't lose a game where Leo came down turn 2. Maybe that will change with further testing. I'm currently considering going more control and building in a Doomsday pile to win instantly once I have a lock, soft or otherwise, and the dorks wouldn't fit as well into that plan.
I'm currently 5-1 with Faeries at gp:la. The deck feels amazing, the only loss was player error - I lost game one to a triple Mulligan, no land hand then lost game three because I kept a two land + bitterblossom hand on the draw against allies and he killed me before I could do anything. Total mistake on my part as I should Mulliganed.
Total Ancestral Visions stopped by Spellstutter Sprite: 4
Edit: 6-1. 8-whack is a pretty good matchup for us.
Edit: 6-2 lost to the Faeries mirror match at least that means Faeries is 7-1
Tldr: batterskull maindeck is good in the mirror. As is turn two bitterblossom in game three. I had already Mulliganed but I should have done so again to get either a blossom of my own or a way to stop it on turn one. My lack of experience with the mirror is showing.
That's great news! Keep it up! We'll all be rooting for you and looking forward to any notes you decide to post.
I've only played a couple games against the Nahiri deck, so take this with a grain of salt, but we're already pretty good against her. If we are executing our game plan correctly she isn't resolving. If she is, she is trading for a bitterblossom. We've always enjoyed slower games and the Nahiri deck seems like another one to add to the list. Counter magic + lazy lands are a great combo against control.
With Dig being banned, this helps our position in the meta right? Hymnn doesn't look so bad anymore, and we were already pretty solid if you were on a build without dig.
Did we ever decide if this was an okay place to talk about RBW decks? I have a list I'm working on that spurred from Dead Guy, but may warrant it's own thread.
I think the light red splash has tons of potential and I'm glad to see you are testing it. I feel like we can take advantage of kolaghan's command better than any other deck in the format since everything we play has flash and EtB triggers.
Hey folks, long time lurker who has been playing fae far a few months now.
What I wanted to ask was - How does adding Liliana of the Veil alter the play style of the deck?
Obviously you end up tapped out on turn 3, but beyond that are we usually using her to kill something that turn or discard a card?
Does including Lili mean snapcaster is also a must?
The card is costly but if she improves the deck significantly then I'm ready to take the plunge.
V clique Lilliana and BB are the strongest cards in the deck imo. Mostly Lilliana is a three mana two for one(edict then eat a bolt), but she had run away with a few games.
Most of my games have been very attrition based, and Liliana seems to perpetuate that.
Update on my own UB faeries expedition:
4-0'd another LGS event, currently 11-1 with the deck.
Snapcaster mage is certainly a nice addition in Faerie decks with liliana. The card hugely improves our burn matchups, while its -7 is at times godly against tron decks. Liliana cna work against aggressive decks and against control and combo decks, it is hardly ever irrelevant (aside from, predominantely, Affinity!).
I have had numerous times where I could discard a mana leak or cryptic command only to recover it a few turns later with my snapcaster mages.
11-1 at your shop is very nice . Would love to hear more about Faerie successes!
Yea. The more success stories we can get the better. Welcome to the forum. I also advocate for snapcaster.
We still haven't heard any solid info on when these will be distributed yet right? Wizards hasn't really ben too forthcoming with how the new exemplar program will work.
I like Vault of the Archangel best in builds capitalizing on large singular creatures (Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary, Rhino and Tasgiur). You will still win most standstill battles since most creatures in the mirror are x/(x+1) in power and toughness. A huge swing for life gain in any fair matchup is, well, huge.
For builds relying on pumping more creatures out faster with BoP, Noble Hierarch and Lingering Souls, Gavony Township activation are a much greater beating while being lackluster in match-ups where you might only have one or two creatures on the field.
I appreciate the reply. I'm going to stick with the Vualt for now then as I'm on the non-dorks plan.
I've been trying Bitterblossom as a 3 of this week in the 2 drop slot just for fun. If your meta doesn't have a ton of burn I would recommend it. Admittedly we are already pretty good against the grindy decks and this helps, but where it has really been shining is against control. WU tron and U tron have been showing up more where I'm at and the BG/x players are packing damnations now so the hard to remove threat has been good. I was worried about life loss at first, but Sorin has been able to make up for that since BB guarantees a creature.
The biggest issue I've always had with this thread is it's constant need to ask about "bad cards." I can understand people wanting to experiment with unique cards that would otherwise not really fit in most any other modern dec, (a la river of tears.) However, what I do not understand is the obsessive need to ask about almost every blue, black or blue/black card that comes out with each set since the unbanning ob bitterblossom.
I guess the point of this post (other than a somewhat silly need to rant about the redundancy of "is this bad card good in our deck") is to have us all realize that the deck is certainly missing a "certain something." I would like to boldly suggest that we begin to step out of our comfort zone and no longer try bad cards in the deck, but branch out and maybe have an overall different gameplan.
Every time the meta shifts slightly it always seems like fae is just short of the sweet spot it needs to be good enough.
I can understand the frustration but the reason why everyone is asking about off meta cards is because that card could be the difference maker into making this deck succeed. Personally, I believe that Faeries will do better once we get better Black removal cards so we actually have a consistent removal suite.
I second Equinox2793. The questions about weird new cards can seem daunting at times, but they get discussions going and that, in my opinion, are the whole point of having a forum in the first place. It's like a think tank. Sure, most of the suggestions will never work, but each one provides more understanding or could lead to the different gameplan we need.
I've taken Metillon's advice and bring in Disfigure, Dispel and Negate out of my SB and it's helped make the matchup fine for me. Sure sometimes they get a nuts draw, but I've found if you can preserve your life total to turn 3 you are usually pretty good. Spellstutter is a hard counter against most of their deck. I'm also on the Mana Leak over Remand plan, as well as Batterskull in the main, which helps a lot.
Thanks for chiming in about FaF and Jitte. I'll give them a try.
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Dark Depths
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Island
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pollted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Tolaria West
1 Tropical Island
1 Twilight MIre
1 Underground River
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wasteland
1 Watery Grave
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Woodland Cemetery
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Dark Confidant
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Primeval Titan
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Complicate
1 Counterspell
1 Countersquall
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Daze
1 Delay
1 Dismember
1 Force of Will
1 Force Spike
1 Go for the Throat
1 Mana Leak
1 Memory Lapse
1 Negate
1 Putrefy
1 Remand
1 Remove Soul
1 Spell Pierce
1 Sultai Charm
1 Unsubstantiate
1 Damnation
1 Day's Undoing
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Duress
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Life from the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Thoughtseize
1 Time Spiral
1 Windfall
1 Bitterblossom
1 Exploration
1 Sylvan Library
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
While I think Leo can support a much more controlling list (he's part UB after all), he seems to lend himself to tempo more in the games I've played. It's my opinion that if you want to play control their are better options, but I would be hard pressed to find a commander that fits flexible tempo as well.
That's great news! Keep it up! We'll all be rooting for you and looking forward to any notes you decide to post.
I've only played a couple games against the Nahiri deck, so take this with a grain of salt, but we're already pretty good against her. If we are executing our game plan correctly she isn't resolving. If she is, she is trading for a bitterblossom. We've always enjoyed slower games and the Nahiri deck seems like another one to add to the list. Counter magic + lazy lands are a great combo against control.
Yea. The more success stories we can get the better. Welcome to the forum. I also advocate for snapcaster.