Why are people using Nacatl? Question is not meant to be accusatory, just want to gain some more general knowledge about burn. Reasons for against Nacatl in my experience with/against burn are:
-seems to require about 6 life to get a 3/3 that is dead to just about every piece of removal without gaining advantage
-does not seem to match up well against the pace of all of these eldrazi decks I am seeing come out of the woodworks
-seemed to have been good mainly against traditional TRON and infect, but I've been seeing a sharp decrease in those (by all means chime in on what I'm not seeing)
-doesn't have the same explosiveness as swiftspears or guide, factoring in removal at least
-is also a bad topdeck like most creatures except it doesn't allow the haste surprise factor
I have everything except nacatl but I am hesitating on picking them up as I do not see the advantage. I'm seeing a lot of eldrazi variants, grixis control, Jund/abzan, and burn as the main parts of my meta.
The safe way to rule out Nacatl is to do some testing. Its not an expensive card, so it should be easy to get a playset of them. That said, I can share my playtesting experience.
I was on Boros Burn and was willing to do the leap to Naya. I got a playset of Atarka's Command and Wild Nacatl, and some Stomping Grounds. I initially tested the Nacatl version against a diverse field (Infect, BW Tokens, Grishoalbrand, Jund, Junk, Grixis) and was utterly displeased with the cat. It felt like it did close to nothing, as not having haste is a deal braker to me. Atarka's Command on the other hand, overperformed and its the main reason Naya builds are faster than Boros builds.
Therefore, I decided on a Naya list without Nacatl. However, I can see why some people like to run it in Burn, as it makes the deck feel more like a creature-based aggro build such as RDW or zoo with lots of reach in the burn spells. However, that's not how you should want to play Burn. Burn is a lot more akin to combo decks than to Zoo decks or Red Deck Wins. Your goal with the deck is to resolve 7 spells (3 * 7 = 21), not to have a wide board with lots of creatures.
I did experiment, which is why I felt so confused. I am trying to move away from the whole blind netdecking and understand an established deck. Brewing is fun and all, but I have never used a t1 deck in a field of pretty much only t1. I enjoyed mono red burn, gained some credit to slowly convert into boros, and now have gone the full Naya route with 8 fetches at the moment. I was starting to feel crazy because I just wasn't feeling the Nacatl despite so many people running it. I wasn't sure if my poor experience was because I was using it incorrectly (like how I was with Searing Blaze initially) or if I was reaching a reasonable conclusion.
From reading everyone's experience, I'm not crazy. Maybe when there's less Eldrazi or BR/X decks Nacatl will shine for me, but I have felt like it was more of a -6 life for no impact card :/
Why are people using Nacatl? Question is not meant to be accusatory, just want to gain some more general knowledge about burn. Reasons for against Nacatl in my experience with/against burn are:
-seems to require about 6 life to get a 3/3 that is dead to just about every piece of removal without gaining advantage
-does not seem to match up well against the pace of all of these eldrazi decks I am seeing come out of the woodworks
-seemed to have been good mainly against traditional TRON and infect, but I've been seeing a sharp decrease in those (by all means chime in on what I'm not seeing)
-doesn't have the same explosiveness as swiftspears or guide, factoring in removal at least
-is also a bad topdeck like most creatures except it doesn't allow the haste surprise factor
I have everything except nacatl but I am hesitating on picking them up as I do not see the advantage. I'm seeing a lot of eldrazi variants, grixis control, Jund/abzan, and burn as the main parts of my meta.
OK, so I went back to U/B since fatal push came out and went to my first GPT event. I will mention assumptions and results and hope my extensive testing will help people evaluate how they want to build their 75 cards.
ASSUMPTION: Based on the store's meta, I was assuming that people were going to come in with burn without nacatl, eldrazi tron, tron, abzan, and jund
In my preparation for today, I tested online and figured Ceremonious Rejection would be OK vs eldrazi tron since the deck tends to not have cavern of souls. I wanted to make sure aggressive and combo decks could be kept in check and midrange decks could be grinded against. If I ended up facing TRON, BANT Eldrazi, or dredge then I would phone it in because those match-ups are at the very best 40-60 with lots of sideboarding.
NOTE: I did NOT want Ashiok. I was going to pick up fatal push before the tournament started but they ran out. Only other card I had available was Ashiok and I figured what the hey, maybe I can use it against random surprise brews. I removed Hurkyl's Recall because my testing had shown Harvester to be sufficient, backed up with spot removal. There aren't many affinity players at the local store and I figured there was a really low chance of decks running ensnaring bridge as their main mode of survival, especially since there were plenty of TRON, burn, and infect players.
GAME 1: LANTERN CONTROL (1-2)
MATCH 1: Yeah...words can't describe how surprised I was to meet someone, much less during the first match, who was playing lantern control. I was extremely lucky to have been able to have spellstutter sprites and familiar ruses available to deal with the bridges. Vendilion Clique was my main offense piece and was sufficient.
MATCH 2: I thought I would be OK with all of those ceremonious rejections, countersqualls, hand disruption, and a bitterblossom. I thoughtseize to grab a bridge, he puts down a lantern. On t2, with no bridge on top or in hand, I put down a bitterblossom so that I can at least have a threat (didn't have mana for countersquall as I had swamp, mutavault, tar-pit) He shreds on his upkeep and low and behold the bridge. Couldn't get rid of it.
MATCH 3: Things are going decent. I kept a hand with hand disruption and ceremonious rejection. My main mode of threat was a harvester. I wear out my resources to counter/hand disrupt bridges. Eventually he draws a thoughtseize, grabs countersquall, then proceeds to put down bridge.
GAME 2: Grixis Control (1-1-1)
MATCH 1: I get two Aethersphere harvesters to try and stabilize vs a t2 Tasigur, but the player draws back to back kolaghan's command.
MATCH 2: Very similar to Match 1 except no back to back kolaghan's command.
MATCH 3: Went to time unfortunately. I needed 1 more turn but the player refused to hand me the win. I guess I can understand since the prize was a bye.
GAME 3: Mono Red Moon (0-2)
MATCH 1: t1 mountain, simian spirit guide, desperate ritual, blood moon. I have fetch, watery grave, mutavault. I only have 2 islands and a swamp for basics. I try to give it a shot but do not draw them.
MATCH 3: I have a great opening hand of mutavault, island, swamp, bitterblossom, harvester, spellstutter sprite, familiar's ruse. Was putting a fast clock on him but unfortunately an ensnaring bridge made it through. I drew into collected brutality when he was at 5 and was sad that I never got a second blue source to use familiar's ruse.
By now I will admit I was salty because of all of the ensnaring bridges I was seeing. I looked around and pretty much everyone was playing a prison deck that either involved MD ensnaring bridge, blood moon + land destruction, or both. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single TRON player.
I did manage to win my next two games, but they were against copycat saheeli which was way too easy with all of the disruption and land destruction prison. Funny thing was Ashiok was the only reason I was able to win against the land destruction prison. Afterwards, I started testing some more with the 75 vs other people. Here are my conclusions of the past 2 week's worth of testing:
Fatal Push: I am sure this card is really great and is the reason why there wasn't a lot of infect or junk decks. This card does nothing against a lot of the decks that ended up showing up at the GPT. The card does exactly how you would expect it to perform vs burn, affinity, jund, abzan, etc. I don't feel comfortable using it vs grixis control as chances are you are occupying slots to kill a snapcaster mage.
Familiar's Ruse: I personally enjoy having 2. The unconditional counter, as well as snagging a SSS, harvester, snapcaster, clique, basically any creature, does work against combo, counterspell decks, and to a much lesser extent TRON. I would not go over 2 since there were rare occasions I had to trade off a faerie token. I am OK trading a faerie token vs a bridge any day of the week though.
Aethersphere Harvester: I feel that it outperformed expectations despite it not performing well vs prison. The lifelink is very relevant and I haven't been in a situation in my weeks of playtesting to wish I could squeeze in a third lifelink. This is a very good card vs a lot of creatures that have historically given faeries problems (etched champion, Legion Loyalist, just about ANY zoo-esque creatures). I do like how it is colorless, only 3 CMC, does not die to bolt or go for the throat, dodges board wipes, can still be a threat without bitterblossom, has evasion, lifelink, and is just all around strong vs creature or burn decks. Getting kolaghan's command sucks but that's only one match-up whereas zoo, burn, and affinity could at times feel unwinnable. Unfortunately this guy will not help vs eldrazi or TRON pieces.
Ceremonious Rejection: If Eldrazi TRON ever becomes a frequent contender, I am content using rejection. Otherwise this card does nothing to help your game. Would much rather use Hurkyl's Recall.
Yahenni's Expertise: I feel like the card is in a funny area. Against aggro decks, I prefer this over damnation as you can drop a harvester or clique and swing the tempo back on your side. On the other hand, I would much prefer damnation vs TRON. I would gladly pick either of these over Languish however.
I still don't think faeries is quite t1 yet. I still feel very hesitant bringing this in vs an unknown meta. When I pick up burn, I feel like at least my chances of getting "Surprise! You can't interact in any way!" is much lower than with U/B faeries. I might go back to esper faeries for the SB tech and access to path and sorin. Of all the new cards to be released, I obviously side with everyone else in using fatal push but I think people should give Harvester a try.
Does anyone have any success with their list vs Tron or burn? Or are these just dead matchups for fae?
People are still playing TRON in your area? All of the TRON players around here have taken a hiatus with all of the burn, infect, dredge, and eldrazi in my area.
I wouldn't say they are dead match-ups...unfavored but not as dead(ha) as compared to say vs dredge. If they have t3 tron available without searching for it, oh wells. If not, we have a fair shot of disrupting their tutors or pay off spells. Pithing Needle is a good cross sideboard option if you really do have enough tron players in your area to justify planning something.
That's a pretty control deck with fae base inside: BB and SSS
I think that splashing white greatly enhances our:
- spot removal (Path to exile)
- gain life (sorin, blessed alliance, reinforcments, pulse the field etc) fixing our terrible burn MU
- Win condition (Sorin + BB on board it's GG)
- Side board (stony silence, rest in peace, planeswalkers)
- flexibility (i love esper charm and spellqueller split it fills our poor turn 3 eot vendilion adding some constancy at the deck)
Obviously i don't think i've found the perfect deck list (i don't even have a sideboard yet) but i do think that esper faeries could work! (i've always thought about it).
Other card choiche:
- AV 4x (i love this card, and it's the gas faeries needs, i would always play at least 3x of it)
- Slaughter pact (permit us to tap out for sorin/lili/kalitas and have a removal up)
- kalitas (a second "sorin" that don't need BB or muta activation to be effective)
- liliana (Tempo!/another win condition)
Let me know what you think about it ^ ^
I played esper faeries for about a year, and I'll just put my exp. My list was similar to yours and I think I might have posted some results here too. Ultimately, and I'm sure you've already noticed this, it helps make faeries more control-like and stabilizes but it doesn't solve issues that faeries runs into. Without BB, SSS and MBC still rely on getting cute with mutavaults or other faeries which still opens up 2 for 1 situations on us. Even if we control the crap out of the opponent, unless our BB amassed a large army, we are still unfavored for whatever the opponent top decks against us.
But what about the manlands for attacks? Well at that point you might as well have just dumped the entire faeries shell and go full esper control as we do not have strong card draw (sure we can put the stuff in but our mana base is essentially four color with mutavaults and/or GQs or vault of archangel). BB army with Sorin is great against a controlled board state, but that is not something the faeries shell has that is unique.
If we ever get some big bad wincon faeries that don't die to almost every piece of removal, then going esper would make a little more sense. The current shell, at least from my experience, needs more tempo and curving. The main sequence that makes faeries uniquely strong is the whole T1 discard, T2 BB, T3 counter/removal/VC, then t4 MBC. Once we start straying from that path, then we need to replace things with a stronger package.
The main match-ups that I have felt got improved by splashing white are affinity, ad nauseam, bogles, merfolk, and TRON. They are not slam dunked or solved by any means. Unless you really stretch your mana base, burn is still the same and your gameplan vs TRON remains only slightly adjusted. I thought path would help vs abzan or jund because of cheap spot removal, but the extra land really does make a difference when we're trying to tempo with our SSS.
I'm still trying to find ways of exploiting faeries' main strengths but until there is a strong 1 drop tempo/value faerie or a 3-4 drop that is harder to remove my perspective is a little bleak. Hell, if they unban stoneforge mystic then I feel like the esper version would get stronger. Best of luck in your testing though!
Dang, you guys get to go against mirror matches? Everywhere I go I am the "Faerie guy" which was endearing at first but always ends up sounding wrong when I think about it.
So is anyone else thinking about possibly going on hiatus vs all the incoming dredge? Mulliganing until you get a Grafdigger's and then having it get removed feels bad >.<
Discard is pretty important because it allows us to plan for the bitterblossom drop and win by attrition/tempo. Sometimes you don't want to throw down the t2 bitterblossom because of a counterspell, quasali pridemage, infect explosion, etc. I think the running consensus for IOK+Thoughtseize is 3-2 or 3-3 pending what your meta is looking like. If you and your opponent go 1 for 1 exchanges with discards/counters you'll pull out ahead really quickly since the SSS/MB package provide card advantage.
I personally like the snapcaster mage MB but it really comes down to preference as opposed to absolute min/max. I like surprise tempoing with him, and since I run esper, both discard and removal are typically 1 CMC anyway.
When I tested LotV in the U/B shell she was just like what she was: a powerhouse by herself without that much synergy. If you have lilis and want to use her, I don't see a reason not to include her. However I can't justify buying a playset of her since her contribution to this deck isn't THAT powerful. At that point I might as well run jund or spend money to go grixis or some other t1.
I like running pithing needles vs Jund. Jund doesn't really have a silver bullet like most decks because it has a fair playstyle, albeit chocked full of value. I try to go tempo over control vs Jund to beat them as you just simply cannot answer everything they throw at you due to diversity and the bob engine. I tried the GY hate method vs Jund but I feel like their deck is too diverse that the SB might just end up being dead to kalitas, lili, lands, bob, etc. The only card that I felt was the closest in becoming a Jund-specific SB card vs Jund was spell snare. Spell Snare may not hit lili, but it catches bob, goyf, scooze, and terminate all while only costing U.
[quote from="HarryStyles69 »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/542105-ub-x-faeries?comment=7657"]White ap
I also agree that esper faeries is not necessarily weaker/stronger than U/B faeries. I am currently enjoying the additional stuff that I can use and am just continuously tweaking it. If you are doing U/B right now then you might as well stick with it since it still performs well here and there.
I Will be waiting to see how you fixed the manabase, please post your decklist
White appears to be a good splash when I think about it - It solves the main issues of life loss through our power cards Bitterblossom and Thoughtseize and gives the deck the best late game a deck could ask for in Sphinx's Revelation. That card alone is very tempting for me to go into esper. Path to Exile would be the best removal spell we would have access to. Stony Silence is also attractive against Thopter Foundry. I think white would give Faeries longer game on top of it's aggro/disruption game. I actually think white does have great cards that would work well with the Faeries.
Or maybe the best way to be different, is just to be better. The more I play the classic U/B shell, the more I realise I have the tools to win and it's up to me to play the best I can with them.
I've been playing esper faeries a ton and experimenting a lot with a lot of the named cards listed. I've been doing it both irl and on untap so I may still not have the most wide experience, but I did get top 8 in a 54 man modern fnm, just no experience with bigger events still.
Esper faeries does not, and should not, run with a different gameplan than U/B. You're still going to mainly win by tempoing or stabilizing board presence. The reason I personally went esper was because I was tired of folding to wurmcoils, insufficient removal vs affinity, black's finicky removal conditions, and lack of life gain. I'll try to post up my list later as I am about to do a few more changes for reasons disclosed. Here is my experience with a lot of the commonly named cards thus far:
Path to Exile: 0 regrets. None of that "nonartifact" or "nonblack" or "CMC = X" etc clause. Removes wurmcoil, kitchen finks, voice of resurgence, indestructibles, fatties, etc. Does the extra land suck? From my experience I have never been in a situation where I regretted removing a threat to give the opponent more mana. Since it is a 1 CMC spell, does well MB against aggro MUs as well.
Sorin, the solemn visitor: I am going to be putting a second one in the SB. Getting life back is a wonderful thing. Having another token generator is great in case you haven't gotten the board situated. 4 CMC sucks but I am always relieved to bring it down as opposed to almost any other four drop.
Sphinx's Revelation: I really REALLY dislike this card in faeries. The mana cost is enormous. 4 CMC spells are already a tight fit (assuming X just equals one) and it will only help us in MUs where the game is long and drawn out. The only time I get really long drawn out fights is vs stuff like control, but gl trying to attain max value from a rev without it getting countered. You could protect it with counterspells but that cuts into your drawing and it is very rare that you get THAT much mana. I could never get the card to work and there was virtually never a time where I could either use it to its fullest or have it do anything that made a difference.
Stony Silence: pretty sure nobody needs me to explain how it is great.
Ojutai's Command: this felt too much like a weaker cryptic command. Most of the time I used it to gain life and draw because removal is cheaper costed and I would need the mana to protect something else or there just wasn't a 2 CMC creature in the GY (unless you're running snapcasters, it's only SSS).
Anguished Unmaking: I really thought this card was going to become a major necessity with the thopter combos and junk. The 3 life makes a very big difference. Think of it as paying more life on average compared to Dismember except that you must always have to pay 3 CMC. At first I thought "Who cares? Exile ANY permanent" but the pay-off was not as great as I thought. Let's say you want to exile an important TRON card. It's almost never going to be an expedition map so that is out. Planeswalkers? The damage will be done once they resolve anyway. Maybe vs fatties? Decks like jund, grixis, zoo, etc get their stuff out early, t2-3. Chance are you're going to have to be forced to fetch a shock and spend 6 life to remove a creature that could have been done for less life and mana. Don't get me started on how awful this card is vs burn. Even if your meta was flushed with something else with a bunch of artifacts/enchantments I feel that echoing truth is enough/better.
Rest In Peace: see stony silence.
Timely Reinforcements: it's OK. I've tried it mainly on SB. To be honest, I have only really liked it vs 8 whack. You might be thinking "but what about burn" but it's not as good as I thought it would be. Unless they are swarming you with goblin guides and stuff, you rarely get the soldiers. I am usually using SSS to get value from protection against spells or making sure vexing devil/eidolon does not resolve. I would have to be casting almost no creatures or trading a ton to get max value. Unless I am going up against a meta heavy with burn, I would rather occupy the spot with something else or no more than 1 copy.
Some obvious problems with running esper faeries:
I am going to cut cryptic command. As soon as I went esper, I noticed a significant drop in ability to cast cryptic command. Even though it was still >50% of the time, it is a really bad feeling to have a dud in your hand. I thought I was just going crazy, but I noticed a lot of other 3 color decks deciding to cut out cryptic command completely. It feels bad to remove an expensive card MB but I really think I should replace it with something else.
Additional pain from the manabase makes for trickier plays. I am OK with this.
Mana Leak is harder to run with since the opponent will more than likely have the available mana. I'm still not sure if leak or remand is better MB.
Some cards that I have tested:
Punish Ignorance: the life gain is barely noticeable. Doesn't further advance the board at CMC unless we are just winning harder.
Mana Tithe: just too gimmicky.
Kor Firewalker: I like it. Most of the time burn players will not put in path vs me. The life loss that I might incur to get the WW early is worth it (unless I am double fetch+shocking). Even if there is removal going in, that's what SSS, spellskite, inquisitions, and mana leaks are for.
Archangel Avacyn: this is probably going to come as a surprise to most people but I tested this card the most out of all of the white cards. It started with how I noticed that faeries was always susceptible to having the game snatched away by a pyroclasm, anger of the gods, kozilek's return, damnation, supreme verdict, etc. I spent a lot of time on gatherer to find a card that had flash and something to make up for this weakness. This card basically has the qualities of a fairy and has been responsible for a lot of sealed wins or board control. I have never had an opponent go after a flip on avacyn to wipe my board as the 3 dmg she deals + the transformed Avacyn is dangerous. Hell, I've won close games because I would trigger it myself! She's as beefy as mistbind and doesn't require the faerie clause. I've kept her vs tron and gotten around Ugins by either outright killing him or soaring past him with manlands to seal the deal. I kept playing this card to make sure that I wasn't falling in love with a standard card, especially the WW and 5 CMC, however I have yet to lose a game where she resolves. I am comfortable keeping two in the deck at the moment.
Supreme Verdict: maybe it's because of path being 1 CMC, or maybe it's because the meta has been shifting, but I do not find myself ever stretching for it. CoCo decks will just bring the finks right back in, GY rush decks will kill you before you get to cast it or laugh at you with bridges, burn will have milked their creatures for enough damage that the burns will finish you off, and vs affinity I would have preferred a stony silence anyway. The only deck that I have ran into that makes it worth it are zoo decks and even then it comes out a tad bit late.
Teysa, Orzhov Scion: a lot of people who liked how my deck played recommended this since I was using timely reinforcements heavily in the SB. You would think that having bitterblossom tokens chumping for more value and then possibly removal is great. You would also think that throwing timely reinforcements on top of that vs things like zoo or jund would also be great. If there was ever a moment where the whole "dies to bolt" concept came into play, it would be this card. Against TRON this card does nothing and is too weak to keep tempo. I've tested with 2-4 copies and have been disappointed each time. Unlike SSS, Teysa cannot give you any value whatsoever by herself or in conjunction with anything unless BB is out.
Fracturing Gust: You will never cast this...never...
Some cards I have yet to try out but am hesitant
Zealous Persecution: I don't feel like we consistently swarm the board like B/W tokens. This can turn the tide vs zoo and burn but that's assuming there is nothing in response.
Meddling Mage: why not stop the spells from dropping as soon as you know what you are playing?
Thalia: I feel that the +1 mana req penalty would hurt us more than the opponent's deck. New one seems cool but I think cards like that need some way of protecting or cheating her in.
Leyline of Sanctity: I feel that this could be a freebie vs burn and jund especially considering we have the SSS+BB engine to back it up. I don't think I would end up casting this persay, but if I am keeping it to only have a t1 Leyline then you could do that as U/B anyway. Casting it by t4 seems a bit late.
I also agree that esper faeries is not necessarily weaker/stronger than U/B faeries. I am currently enjoying the additional stuff that I can use and am just continuously tweaking it. If you are doing U/B right now then you might as well stick with it since it still performs well here and there.
Kalitas is good mainly against abzan as he stabilizes the board and becomes your wincon. Grafdigger's is better vs explosive GY decks like Grishoalbrand and zombie dredge as they will get their stuff going way before kalitas even becomes an issue. Relic isn't really good against coco but it is better than both vs loam and control. All seem to be fine against hulksteps but I haven't seen that deck in forever. If anyone plays thopter+swords combo then Relic is the only card that will give you a chance at interrupting their loop.
It also depends on what you usually replace your MB with your SB and how many decks play GY based strategies. If there are a ton of GY decks I personally would go for grafdigger's. If there's a mix of control and GY, relic. If GY isn't that big but things like burn and zoo are more prevalent then Kalitas. Since I run esper nowadays I am happy with RIP. Before I went the esper route, I followed basically what I have already said and found the results to be consistent.
What do you think about Westvale Abbey I like it for our decks, maybe only one or two
It's a trap. Since you have to tap it on use, you technically need 6 lands in play. Let's think of it in terms of best case scenario.
Earliest turn you put out bitterblossom is t2, therefore to solely get creatures through bitterblossom alone you need t3-t7 to be perfect without you requiring to chump block or the opponent did not remove a single fairy.
Now let's assume you aren't relying completely on tokens. In order to get the ability still activated on t6 you would have to still let bitterblossom churn out but by t6 you will only have 5 bitterblossom tokens out. Therefore during t3-t6 you need to put down at least 1 creature, like a spellstutter sprite or snapcaster mage AND not have anything die. So before you are able to do virtually anything, you only have three turns to establish survival and not let any of your dudes die. If anything dies at all, then you are set back another turn or have to drop something down and not let it die again. Unless you are going up against tron, you are going to be eating a TON of damage if you are refusing to block anything to trade tokens. This is also assuming that you'll get value from SSS or snapcastermage because you either countered something or made a t1 1CMC spell that you can flashback for value with snapcaster.
So basically even with all of that investment, nuts hand to be able to consistently draw enough land AND have enough creatures ready upon activation you still have a creature that is likely to get exiled away by the decks that would potentially allow you to be able to pull it off like grinding out TRON. Burn, zoo, affinity, merfolk are going to run you over since you are not letting your bitterblossom tokens chump and even then those decks with creatures dropping make the MU from bad to almost unbeatable. The decks that are not interactive before they go off have plenty of things that will get rid of all of your hardwork. TRON, gifts and even jund have a ton of ways to force grinding you out or they already have a good exile package.
Also bear in mind that the gameplan is immediately shut down from cards that don't need to be niche to specifically screw us. Blood moon, fulminator mage, ghost quarter, tectonic edge even, etc will remove the gameplan. Basically you would have to devote so much to the gameplan and pray that you don't die or that they are unable to exile/landscrew you at the end. To make matters worse, the land only produces colorless so you are taking another hit in your manabase for something that won't help you unless the perfect plan is aligned.
Faeries does not need a haymaker. Faeries needs either something to help stabilize vs heavily creature-based match-ups or more stuff that builds synergy. Going creature for creature will always be bad for us since our creatures are typically small and lack COMBAT abilities that make trading favorable or racing possible.
I'm sure that nobody would argue that Umezawa's Jitte unban would help faeries a lot. The issue is that it would help just about any deck that runs creatures, thus forcing it to be ran in any deck as it is a cheap, effective, colorless shove in. Chances of it getting unbanned is less than AV as a lot of combo decks are fading out, one of the reasons why a few card draw engines were banned.
I did experiment, which is why I felt so confused. I am trying to move away from the whole blind netdecking and understand an established deck. Brewing is fun and all, but I have never used a t1 deck in a field of pretty much only t1. I enjoyed mono red burn, gained some credit to slowly convert into boros, and now have gone the full Naya route with 8 fetches at the moment. I was starting to feel crazy because I just wasn't feeling the Nacatl despite so many people running it. I wasn't sure if my poor experience was because I was using it incorrectly (like how I was with Searing Blaze initially) or if I was reaching a reasonable conclusion.
From reading everyone's experience, I'm not crazy. Maybe when there's less Eldrazi or BR/X decks Nacatl will shine for me, but I have felt like it was more of a -6 life for no impact card :/
-seems to require about 6 life to get a 3/3 that is dead to just about every piece of removal without gaining advantage
-does not seem to match up well against the pace of all of these eldrazi decks I am seeing come out of the woodworks
-seemed to have been good mainly against traditional TRON and infect, but I've been seeing a sharp decrease in those (by all means chime in on what I'm not seeing)
-doesn't have the same explosiveness as swiftspears or guide, factoring in removal at least
-is also a bad topdeck like most creatures except it doesn't allow the haste surprise factor
I have everything except nacatl but I am hesitating on picking them up as I do not see the advantage. I'm seeing a lot of eldrazi variants, grixis control, Jund/abzan, and burn as the main parts of my meta.
ASSUMPTION: Based on the store's meta, I was assuming that people were going to come in with burn without nacatl, eldrazi tron, tron, abzan, and jund
3x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Darkslick Shores
2x Island
4x Mutavault
4x Polluted Delta
4x Secluded Glen
1x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3x Snapcaster Mage
4x Spellstutter Sprite
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Ashiok, the nightmare weaver
3x Fatal Push
1x Murderous Cut
1x Slaughter Pact
2x Spell Snare
1x Collective Brutality
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Thoughtseize
4x Aethersphere Harvester
4x Bitterblossom
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
2x Ancestral Vision
2x Countersquall
2x Dispel
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Spellskite
4x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Yahenni's Expertise
In my preparation for today, I tested online and figured Ceremonious Rejection would be OK vs eldrazi tron since the deck tends to not have cavern of souls. I wanted to make sure aggressive and combo decks could be kept in check and midrange decks could be grinded against. If I ended up facing TRON, BANT Eldrazi, or dredge then I would phone it in because those match-ups are at the very best 40-60 with lots of sideboarding.
NOTE: I did NOT want Ashiok. I was going to pick up fatal push before the tournament started but they ran out. Only other card I had available was Ashiok and I figured what the hey, maybe I can use it against random surprise brews. I removed Hurkyl's Recall because my testing had shown Harvester to be sufficient, backed up with spot removal. There aren't many affinity players at the local store and I figured there was a really low chance of decks running ensnaring bridge as their main mode of survival, especially since there were plenty of TRON, burn, and infect players.
GAME 1: LANTERN CONTROL (1-2)
MATCH 1: Yeah...words can't describe how surprised I was to meet someone, much less during the first match, who was playing lantern control. I was extremely lucky to have been able to have spellstutter sprites and familiar ruses available to deal with the bridges. Vendilion Clique was my main offense piece and was sufficient.
MATCH 2: I thought I would be OK with all of those ceremonious rejections, countersqualls, hand disruption, and a bitterblossom. I thoughtseize to grab a bridge, he puts down a lantern. On t2, with no bridge on top or in hand, I put down a bitterblossom so that I can at least have a threat (didn't have mana for countersquall as I had swamp, mutavault, tar-pit) He shreds on his upkeep and low and behold the bridge. Couldn't get rid of it.
MATCH 3: Things are going decent. I kept a hand with hand disruption and ceremonious rejection. My main mode of threat was a harvester. I wear out my resources to counter/hand disrupt bridges. Eventually he draws a thoughtseize, grabs countersquall, then proceeds to put down bridge.
GAME 2: Grixis Control (1-1-1)
MATCH 1: I get two Aethersphere harvesters to try and stabilize vs a t2 Tasigur, but the player draws back to back kolaghan's command.
MATCH 2: Very similar to Match 1 except no back to back kolaghan's command.
MATCH 3: Went to time unfortunately. I needed 1 more turn but the player refused to hand me the win. I guess I can understand since the prize was a bye.
GAME 3: Mono Red Moon (0-2)
MATCH 1: t1 mountain, simian spirit guide, desperate ritual, blood moon. I have fetch, watery grave, mutavault. I only have 2 islands and a swamp for basics. I try to give it a shot but do not draw them.
MATCH 3: I have a great opening hand of mutavault, island, swamp, bitterblossom, harvester, spellstutter sprite, familiar's ruse. Was putting a fast clock on him but unfortunately an ensnaring bridge made it through. I drew into collected brutality when he was at 5 and was sad that I never got a second blue source to use familiar's ruse.
By now I will admit I was salty because of all of the ensnaring bridges I was seeing. I looked around and pretty much everyone was playing a prison deck that either involved MD ensnaring bridge, blood moon + land destruction, or both. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single TRON player.
I did manage to win my next two games, but they were against copycat saheeli which was way too easy with all of the disruption and land destruction prison. Funny thing was Ashiok was the only reason I was able to win against the land destruction prison. Afterwards, I started testing some more with the 75 vs other people. Here are my conclusions of the past 2 week's worth of testing:
Fatal Push: I am sure this card is really great and is the reason why there wasn't a lot of infect or junk decks. This card does nothing against a lot of the decks that ended up showing up at the GPT. The card does exactly how you would expect it to perform vs burn, affinity, jund, abzan, etc. I don't feel comfortable using it vs grixis control as chances are you are occupying slots to kill a snapcaster mage.
Familiar's Ruse: I personally enjoy having 2. The unconditional counter, as well as snagging a SSS, harvester, snapcaster, clique, basically any creature, does work against combo, counterspell decks, and to a much lesser extent TRON. I would not go over 2 since there were rare occasions I had to trade off a faerie token. I am OK trading a faerie token vs a bridge any day of the week though.
Aethersphere Harvester: I feel that it outperformed expectations despite it not performing well vs prison. The lifelink is very relevant and I haven't been in a situation in my weeks of playtesting to wish I could squeeze in a third lifelink. This is a very good card vs a lot of creatures that have historically given faeries problems (etched champion, Legion Loyalist, just about ANY zoo-esque creatures). I do like how it is colorless, only 3 CMC, does not die to bolt or go for the throat, dodges board wipes, can still be a threat without bitterblossom, has evasion, lifelink, and is just all around strong vs creature or burn decks. Getting kolaghan's command sucks but that's only one match-up whereas zoo, burn, and affinity could at times feel unwinnable. Unfortunately this guy will not help vs eldrazi or TRON pieces.
Ceremonious Rejection: If Eldrazi TRON ever becomes a frequent contender, I am content using rejection. Otherwise this card does nothing to help your game. Would much rather use Hurkyl's Recall.
Yahenni's Expertise: I feel like the card is in a funny area. Against aggro decks, I prefer this over damnation as you can drop a harvester or clique and swing the tempo back on your side. On the other hand, I would much prefer damnation vs TRON. I would gladly pick either of these over Languish however.
I still don't think faeries is quite t1 yet. I still feel very hesitant bringing this in vs an unknown meta. When I pick up burn, I feel like at least my chances of getting "Surprise! You can't interact in any way!" is much lower than with U/B faeries. I might go back to esper faeries for the SB tech and access to path and sorin. Of all the new cards to be released, I obviously side with everyone else in using fatal push but I think people should give Harvester a try.
People are still playing TRON in your area? All of the TRON players around here have taken a hiatus with all of the burn, infect, dredge, and eldrazi in my area.
I wouldn't say they are dead match-ups...unfavored but not as dead(ha) as compared to say vs dredge. If they have t3 tron available without searching for it, oh wells. If not, we have a fair shot of disrupting their tutors or pay off spells. Pithing Needle is a good cross sideboard option if you really do have enough tron players in your area to justify planning something.
I played esper faeries for about a year, and I'll just put my exp. My list was similar to yours and I think I might have posted some results here too. Ultimately, and I'm sure you've already noticed this, it helps make faeries more control-like and stabilizes but it doesn't solve issues that faeries runs into. Without BB, SSS and MBC still rely on getting cute with mutavaults or other faeries which still opens up 2 for 1 situations on us. Even if we control the crap out of the opponent, unless our BB amassed a large army, we are still unfavored for whatever the opponent top decks against us.
But what about the manlands for attacks? Well at that point you might as well have just dumped the entire faeries shell and go full esper control as we do not have strong card draw (sure we can put the stuff in but our mana base is essentially four color with mutavaults and/or GQs or vault of archangel). BB army with Sorin is great against a controlled board state, but that is not something the faeries shell has that is unique.
If we ever get some big bad wincon faeries that don't die to almost every piece of removal, then going esper would make a little more sense. The current shell, at least from my experience, needs more tempo and curving. The main sequence that makes faeries uniquely strong is the whole T1 discard, T2 BB, T3 counter/removal/VC, then t4 MBC. Once we start straying from that path, then we need to replace things with a stronger package.
The main match-ups that I have felt got improved by splashing white are affinity, ad nauseam, bogles, merfolk, and TRON. They are not slam dunked or solved by any means. Unless you really stretch your mana base, burn is still the same and your gameplan vs TRON remains only slightly adjusted. I thought path would help vs abzan or jund because of cheap spot removal, but the extra land really does make a difference when we're trying to tempo with our SSS.
I'm still trying to find ways of exploiting faeries' main strengths but until there is a strong 1 drop tempo/value faerie or a 3-4 drop that is harder to remove my perspective is a little bleak. Hell, if they unban stoneforge mystic then I feel like the esper version would get stronger. Best of luck in your testing though!
Discard is pretty important because it allows us to plan for the bitterblossom drop and win by attrition/tempo. Sometimes you don't want to throw down the t2 bitterblossom because of a counterspell, quasali pridemage, infect explosion, etc. I think the running consensus for IOK+Thoughtseize is 3-2 or 3-3 pending what your meta is looking like. If you and your opponent go 1 for 1 exchanges with discards/counters you'll pull out ahead really quickly since the SSS/MB package provide card advantage.
I personally like the snapcaster mage MB but it really comes down to preference as opposed to absolute min/max. I like surprise tempoing with him, and since I run esper, both discard and removal are typically 1 CMC anyway.
When I tested LotV in the U/B shell she was just like what she was: a powerhouse by herself without that much synergy. If you have lilis and want to use her, I don't see a reason not to include her. However I can't justify buying a playset of her since her contribution to this deck isn't THAT powerful. At that point I might as well run jund or spend money to go grixis or some other t1.
1 Murderous Cut
2 Archangel Avacyn
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Remand
1 Tasigur, The Golden Fang
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Path to Exile
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
4 Bitterblossom
2 Spell Snare
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Mistbind Clique
2 Cryptic Command
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Polluted Delta
1 Watery Grave
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Mutavault
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Plains
2 Flooded Strand
3 Hallowed Fountain
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Godless Shrine
Going to probably cut the cryptic commands and swap a Plains for another ghost quarter.
I've been playing esper faeries a ton and experimenting a lot with a lot of the named cards listed. I've been doing it both irl and on untap so I may still not have the most wide experience, but I did get top 8 in a 54 man modern fnm, just no experience with bigger events still.
Esper faeries does not, and should not, run with a different gameplan than U/B. You're still going to mainly win by tempoing or stabilizing board presence. The reason I personally went esper was because I was tired of folding to wurmcoils, insufficient removal vs affinity, black's finicky removal conditions, and lack of life gain. I'll try to post up my list later as I am about to do a few more changes for reasons disclosed. Here is my experience with a lot of the commonly named cards thus far:
Path to Exile: 0 regrets. None of that "nonartifact" or "nonblack" or "CMC = X" etc clause. Removes wurmcoil, kitchen finks, voice of resurgence, indestructibles, fatties, etc. Does the extra land suck? From my experience I have never been in a situation where I regretted removing a threat to give the opponent more mana. Since it is a 1 CMC spell, does well MB against aggro MUs as well.
Sorin, the solemn visitor: I am going to be putting a second one in the SB. Getting life back is a wonderful thing. Having another token generator is great in case you haven't gotten the board situated. 4 CMC sucks but I am always relieved to bring it down as opposed to almost any other four drop.
Sphinx's Revelation: I really REALLY dislike this card in faeries. The mana cost is enormous. 4 CMC spells are already a tight fit (assuming X just equals one) and it will only help us in MUs where the game is long and drawn out. The only time I get really long drawn out fights is vs stuff like control, but gl trying to attain max value from a rev without it getting countered. You could protect it with counterspells but that cuts into your drawing and it is very rare that you get THAT much mana. I could never get the card to work and there was virtually never a time where I could either use it to its fullest or have it do anything that made a difference.
Stony Silence: pretty sure nobody needs me to explain how it is great.
Ojutai's Command: this felt too much like a weaker cryptic command. Most of the time I used it to gain life and draw because removal is cheaper costed and I would need the mana to protect something else or there just wasn't a 2 CMC creature in the GY (unless you're running snapcasters, it's only SSS).
Anguished Unmaking: I really thought this card was going to become a major necessity with the thopter combos and junk. The 3 life makes a very big difference. Think of it as paying more life on average compared to Dismember except that you must always have to pay 3 CMC. At first I thought "Who cares? Exile ANY permanent" but the pay-off was not as great as I thought. Let's say you want to exile an important TRON card. It's almost never going to be an expedition map so that is out. Planeswalkers? The damage will be done once they resolve anyway. Maybe vs fatties? Decks like jund, grixis, zoo, etc get their stuff out early, t2-3. Chance are you're going to have to be forced to fetch a shock and spend 6 life to remove a creature that could have been done for less life and mana. Don't get me started on how awful this card is vs burn. Even if your meta was flushed with something else with a bunch of artifacts/enchantments I feel that echoing truth is enough/better.
Rest In Peace: see stony silence.
Timely Reinforcements: it's OK. I've tried it mainly on SB. To be honest, I have only really liked it vs 8 whack. You might be thinking "but what about burn" but it's not as good as I thought it would be. Unless they are swarming you with goblin guides and stuff, you rarely get the soldiers. I am usually using SSS to get value from protection against spells or making sure vexing devil/eidolon does not resolve. I would have to be casting almost no creatures or trading a ton to get max value. Unless I am going up against a meta heavy with burn, I would rather occupy the spot with something else or no more than 1 copy.
Some obvious problems with running esper faeries:
I am going to cut cryptic command. As soon as I went esper, I noticed a significant drop in ability to cast cryptic command. Even though it was still >50% of the time, it is a really bad feeling to have a dud in your hand. I thought I was just going crazy, but I noticed a lot of other 3 color decks deciding to cut out cryptic command completely. It feels bad to remove an expensive card MB but I really think I should replace it with something else.
Additional pain from the manabase makes for trickier plays. I am OK with this.
Mana Leak is harder to run with since the opponent will more than likely have the available mana. I'm still not sure if leak or remand is better MB.
Some cards that I have tested:
Punish Ignorance: the life gain is barely noticeable. Doesn't further advance the board at CMC unless we are just winning harder.
Mana Tithe: just too gimmicky.
Kor Firewalker: I like it. Most of the time burn players will not put in path vs me. The life loss that I might incur to get the WW early is worth it (unless I am double fetch+shocking). Even if there is removal going in, that's what SSS, spellskite, inquisitions, and mana leaks are for.
Archangel Avacyn: this is probably going to come as a surprise to most people but I tested this card the most out of all of the white cards. It started with how I noticed that faeries was always susceptible to having the game snatched away by a pyroclasm, anger of the gods, kozilek's return, damnation, supreme verdict, etc. I spent a lot of time on gatherer to find a card that had flash and something to make up for this weakness. This card basically has the qualities of a fairy and has been responsible for a lot of sealed wins or board control. I have never had an opponent go after a flip on avacyn to wipe my board as the 3 dmg she deals + the transformed Avacyn is dangerous. Hell, I've won close games because I would trigger it myself! She's as beefy as mistbind and doesn't require the faerie clause. I've kept her vs tron and gotten around Ugins by either outright killing him or soaring past him with manlands to seal the deal. I kept playing this card to make sure that I wasn't falling in love with a standard card, especially the WW and 5 CMC, however I have yet to lose a game where she resolves. I am comfortable keeping two in the deck at the moment.
Supreme Verdict: maybe it's because of path being 1 CMC, or maybe it's because the meta has been shifting, but I do not find myself ever stretching for it. CoCo decks will just bring the finks right back in, GY rush decks will kill you before you get to cast it or laugh at you with bridges, burn will have milked their creatures for enough damage that the burns will finish you off, and vs affinity I would have preferred a stony silence anyway. The only deck that I have ran into that makes it worth it are zoo decks and even then it comes out a tad bit late.
Teysa, Orzhov Scion: a lot of people who liked how my deck played recommended this since I was using timely reinforcements heavily in the SB. You would think that having bitterblossom tokens chumping for more value and then possibly removal is great. You would also think that throwing timely reinforcements on top of that vs things like zoo or jund would also be great. If there was ever a moment where the whole "dies to bolt" concept came into play, it would be this card. Against TRON this card does nothing and is too weak to keep tempo. I've tested with 2-4 copies and have been disappointed each time. Unlike SSS, Teysa cannot give you any value whatsoever by herself or in conjunction with anything unless BB is out.
Fracturing Gust: You will never cast this...never...
Some cards I have yet to try out but am hesitant
Zealous Persecution: I don't feel like we consistently swarm the board like B/W tokens. This can turn the tide vs zoo and burn but that's assuming there is nothing in response.
Meddling Mage: why not stop the spells from dropping as soon as you know what you are playing?
Thalia: I feel that the +1 mana req penalty would hurt us more than the opponent's deck. New one seems cool but I think cards like that need some way of protecting or cheating her in.
Leyline of Sanctity: I feel that this could be a freebie vs burn and jund especially considering we have the SSS+BB engine to back it up. I don't think I would end up casting this persay, but if I am keeping it to only have a t1 Leyline then you could do that as U/B anyway. Casting it by t4 seems a bit late.
I also agree that esper faeries is not necessarily weaker/stronger than U/B faeries. I am currently enjoying the additional stuff that I can use and am just continuously tweaking it. If you are doing U/B right now then you might as well stick with it since it still performs well here and there.
It also depends on what you usually replace your MB with your SB and how many decks play GY based strategies. If there are a ton of GY decks I personally would go for grafdigger's. If there's a mix of control and GY, relic. If GY isn't that big but things like burn and zoo are more prevalent then Kalitas. Since I run esper nowadays I am happy with RIP. Before I went the esper route, I followed basically what I have already said and found the results to be consistent.
It's a trap. Since you have to tap it on use, you technically need 6 lands in play. Let's think of it in terms of best case scenario.
Earliest turn you put out bitterblossom is t2, therefore to solely get creatures through bitterblossom alone you need t3-t7 to be perfect without you requiring to chump block or the opponent did not remove a single fairy.
Now let's assume you aren't relying completely on tokens. In order to get the ability still activated on t6 you would have to still let bitterblossom churn out but by t6 you will only have 5 bitterblossom tokens out. Therefore during t3-t6 you need to put down at least 1 creature, like a spellstutter sprite or snapcaster mage AND not have anything die. So before you are able to do virtually anything, you only have three turns to establish survival and not let any of your dudes die. If anything dies at all, then you are set back another turn or have to drop something down and not let it die again. Unless you are going up against tron, you are going to be eating a TON of damage if you are refusing to block anything to trade tokens. This is also assuming that you'll get value from SSS or snapcastermage because you either countered something or made a t1 1CMC spell that you can flashback for value with snapcaster.
So basically even with all of that investment, nuts hand to be able to consistently draw enough land AND have enough creatures ready upon activation you still have a creature that is likely to get exiled away by the decks that would potentially allow you to be able to pull it off like grinding out TRON. Burn, zoo, affinity, merfolk are going to run you over since you are not letting your bitterblossom tokens chump and even then those decks with creatures dropping make the MU from bad to almost unbeatable. The decks that are not interactive before they go off have plenty of things that will get rid of all of your hardwork. TRON, gifts and even jund have a ton of ways to force grinding you out or they already have a good exile package.
Also bear in mind that the gameplan is immediately shut down from cards that don't need to be niche to specifically screw us. Blood moon, fulminator mage, ghost quarter, tectonic edge even, etc will remove the gameplan. Basically you would have to devote so much to the gameplan and pray that you don't die or that they are unable to exile/landscrew you at the end. To make matters worse, the land only produces colorless so you are taking another hit in your manabase for something that won't help you unless the perfect plan is aligned.
Faeries does not need a haymaker. Faeries needs either something to help stabilize vs heavily creature-based match-ups or more stuff that builds synergy. Going creature for creature will always be bad for us since our creatures are typically small and lack COMBAT abilities that make trading favorable or racing possible.