overall agony warp only truly shines in the aggro matchup, but it's pretty nuts there.
hatebears should only be an issue if you keep an average or below hand and they have the nuts. all of our removal is great and discard can be back breaking on t1. Not a cakewalk match, but i don't think it's terrible either.
4-0'd modern night. Played v Burn, Hatebears, Twin, and Kiki Pod. Dropped a game to Burn from mulling to 5, a game to Hatebears having the nuts of triple Wiltleaf. Deck still feels pretty unbeatable. Splinter Twin matchup is MASSIVELY fun.
i still can't decide if lili is with a spot or not. for now i would no but that could change.
boggles shouldn't be too rough. spellskite is a real beating to them as is ADD and g eths verdict. I'm honestly thinking about just going to a full set of spellskite in the board. it's good in all of our bad matches.
I'm not understanding how people are having so many issues with straight UB manabases. Can someone tell me where the problem is stemming from? We should never have to take a point of damage from our lands, so it just confuses me how I see people running shocks/fetches and everything from Vivid lands to Reflecting Pool.
Also Choke hoses Faeries if you can land it. Ideally you could wait until t4 and play it with Autumn's Veil up. They usually don't put on enough pressure to kill you by t4.
Wut. Faeries run like...4 basic island and no shocks.
Geist isnt bad vs fae either, they have very few ways to profitably interact with him, and no, double blocks from tokens arent one of it, you are still giving 2 life and 2 turns worth of tokens for that, and keep in mind that uwr still runs eiganjo, or bolt effects.
I think this is a key point...If Fae turn 1 fetch, shock thoughseizes and then turn 2 bitterblossoms, they essentially start the game at 14 life...having fae double block a geist and letting that 4/4 flyer through means they are at 10...
There is a really solid chance that you can burn them out from there, or let bitterblossom kill them...
Only Grixis or BUG Fae run shocks/fetches. Straight UB has enough in-color duals that they don't need/ don't want to run fetches and shocks, which I think is a good call given the reach most of the meta has with burn spells. I think Grixis Fae lists still look pretty similar to what they were pre-B&R, which was never a bad matchup for UWR.
Eyron, thank you for posting your thoughts on the RWU vs UB Faeries matchup that is sure to be popular over the next PTQ season. A question: since you consider Electrolyze a poor choice in the upcoming meta (I agree it is generally poor against Zoo, I'll have to see it in action against Fae to form an opinion there) do you think it possible that RWU Control will be better off dropping the red for a different color in the future? Electrolyze is the real reason to run red in my opinion. Exchanging it for something like black would allow the use of various tools like actual removal spells (Doom Blade, Smother, etc.) as well as discard of its own. It also would gain access to new tools, such as Esper Charm (a main deck able answer to BB) and potentially even Mystical Teachings.
Edit: ugh, the new forum format is horrendous for posting with a Galaxy.
I don't think so. Lightning Bolt/Helx are both very powerful right now. Thundermaw Hellkite should be suuuuuuper good as well, with an increase in fliers being pretty likely. It also has boardwipe options at 3 mana that are better than anything the other 4 colors have, so I would think red is still king.
No worries Paul. I actually play both of the decks (though now I lean more towards Fae), which is actually why I came in here. From the UWR perspective:
- You have a bad day when Bitterblossom lands unconstested, especially if it follows t1 discard. When you look at your opening hand, I prefer to look at it through the vein of "can this hand handle that worst-case scenario". If it can, usually a snap-keep.
- Once Blossom lands, the matchup changes how its played. Faeries goes from a semi-tempo deck to a draw-go deck because every Faerie has flash and they can sit on them+counters+removal. So it needs to be treated as a matchup where we play that. This is partially why I've cut down on Geists and gone more on the Snap/Resto plan maindeck, because it works very well against both Zoo and Faeries. I'm maindecking two Volcanic Fallout because my meta is fairly creature-dependent, and Resto is sweet with it.
- A big thing to remember is how Mistbind Clique works. For those who haven't played against it before: Once it resolves, it chooses a target to champion. If you kill it IN RESPONSE to the champion trigger, its effect will fizzle. Meaning the card is not Championed and your lands, more importantly, are not tapped. I've seen people lose games due to thinking "I can't counter this, guess I'll just float mana and kill it after the trigger resolves." If you have Path/burn/whatever but no counter, it's not the end of the world.
Shrug. If you want to keep playing Geists MD in a meta that doesn't let it work well, go ahead and do it. No one is stopping you. Spell Snare is literally one of the most meta-dependent cards possible. And Electrolyze doesn't deal with ANY creature in Zoo, Bogles, Tokens with ANY sort of anthem effect, Faeries, Living End, reanimation strategies, etc. etc. etc. If you want to be so narrow-minded that you can't realize that the deck HAS to change in a drastically changing meta, enjoying getting crushed each week.
I play both UWR and UB Fae. I posted that list in response to someone asking what list I ran this weekend.
If you want to go ahead and underestimate Fae as a matchup that's fine, but that's how it's always crushed people, and will continue to do so. Especially if you don't have the deck properly prepared to face it. I know I'm cutting Electrolyzes down to two for maindeck cards that deal with the matchup appropriately. The deck also does have the ability for some lifegain in the forms of Sword of Light and Shadow, Wurmcoil Engine, and Batterskull, as well as Spellskite to redirect burn damange (only Wurmcoil was available from these the last time this deck was a threat). Since the only real fliers outside of the faerie creatures themselves are white or black tokens, I would absolutely expect SoLaS to be maindecked in most lists not running Scion of Oona, so there is some lifegain to be had.
You really don't want to run a shock/fetch mana base. River and Glen both allow us to have a non-painful manabase, as well as run 6-8 manlands. Our life total is a resource for BB, and I think it's EXTREMELY bad to be running shocks and fetches in straight UB Fae.
Currently I won't play around Spell Snare very much in Game 1. I don't think many maindeck it, nor do I think it's particularly good in the current meta. If I KNOW I'm against Control, I'll hold BB unless I have a t1 discard to make sure it gets through. Otherwise, I just wait til t4 and either Clique on t3/play it t4 or play it with either mana leakOR spellstutter sprite backup. It's not dead vs. the deck, but I know I really don't care about it once I've resolved a Bitterblossom.
Electrolyze in my eyes is fairly garbage. I don't care if the tokens die, because Bitterblossom gives me a near-endless stream of them. I don't have Scions for it to hit (actually the reason I think Scion is terrible right now), and whats more I think it's bad against the other creature-based decks in the meta like Tokens and Zoo. I'm much more a fan of going the boardwipe route. I think Volcanic Fallout is great against Fae (can wipe out all the manlands and everything but Mistbind, and is uncounterable). The big issue with Fallout is it doesnt do much against Zoo, whereas Anger does. Depends which matchup you feel you need to shore more I guess?
overall agony warp only truly shines in the aggro matchup, but it's pretty nuts there.
hatebears should only be an issue if you keep an average or below hand and they have the nuts. all of our removal is great and discard can be back breaking on t1. Not a cakewalk match, but i don't think it's terrible either.
boggles shouldn't be too rough. spellskite is a real beating to them as is ADD and g eths verdict. I'm honestly thinking about just going to a full set of spellskite in the board. it's good in all of our bad matches.
Wut. Faeries run like...4 basic island and no shocks.
Only Grixis or BUG Fae run shocks/fetches. Straight UB has enough in-color duals that they don't need/ don't want to run fetches and shocks, which I think is a good call given the reach most of the meta has with burn spells. I think Grixis Fae lists still look pretty similar to what they were pre-B&R, which was never a bad matchup for UWR.
I don't think so. Lightning Bolt/Helx are both very powerful right now. Thundermaw Hellkite should be suuuuuuper good as well, with an increase in fliers being pretty likely. It also has boardwipe options at 3 mana that are better than anything the other 4 colors have, so I would think red is still king.
- You have a bad day when Bitterblossom lands unconstested, especially if it follows t1 discard. When you look at your opening hand, I prefer to look at it through the vein of "can this hand handle that worst-case scenario". If it can, usually a snap-keep.
- Once Blossom lands, the matchup changes how its played. Faeries goes from a semi-tempo deck to a draw-go deck because every Faerie has flash and they can sit on them+counters+removal. So it needs to be treated as a matchup where we play that. This is partially why I've cut down on Geists and gone more on the Snap/Resto plan maindeck, because it works very well against both Zoo and Faeries. I'm maindecking two Volcanic Fallout because my meta is fairly creature-dependent, and Resto is sweet with it.
- A big thing to remember is how Mistbind Clique works. For those who haven't played against it before: Once it resolves, it chooses a target to champion. If you kill it IN RESPONSE to the champion trigger, its effect will fizzle. Meaning the card is not Championed and your lands, more importantly, are not tapped. I've seen people lose games due to thinking "I can't counter this, guess I'll just float mana and kill it after the trigger resolves." If you have Path/burn/whatever but no counter, it's not the end of the world.
If you want to go ahead and underestimate Fae as a matchup that's fine, but that's how it's always crushed people, and will continue to do so. Especially if you don't have the deck properly prepared to face it. I know I'm cutting Electrolyzes down to two for maindeck cards that deal with the matchup appropriately. The deck also does have the ability for some lifegain in the forms of Sword of Light and Shadow, Wurmcoil Engine, and Batterskull, as well as Spellskite to redirect burn damange (only Wurmcoil was available from these the last time this deck was a threat). Since the only real fliers outside of the faerie creatures themselves are white or black tokens, I would absolutely expect SoLaS to be maindecked in most lists not running Scion of Oona, so there is some lifegain to be had.
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Mistbind Clique
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Snapcaster Mage
Spells
4 Bitterblossom
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
3 Thoughtseize
3 Mana Leak
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Smother
1 Go for the Throat
1 Agony Warp
1 Vapor Snag
4 Cryptic Command
4 Secluded Glen
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Mutavault
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Watery Grave
5 Island
2 Swamp
2 Spellskite
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Negate
2 Damnation
2 Deathmark
2 Spreading Seas
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Surgical Extraction
Deck should have 4 River of Tears instead of the shocks/2 islands, and I wanted a SoFaI over SoFaF but couldn't locate it.
Electrolyze in my eyes is fairly garbage. I don't care if the tokens die, because Bitterblossom gives me a near-endless stream of them. I don't have Scions for it to hit (actually the reason I think Scion is terrible right now), and whats more I think it's bad against the other creature-based decks in the meta like Tokens and Zoo. I'm much more a fan of going the boardwipe route. I think Volcanic Fallout is great against Fae (can wipe out all the manlands and everything but Mistbind, and is uncounterable). The big issue with Fallout is it doesnt do much against Zoo, whereas Anger does. Depends which matchup you feel you need to shore more I guess?