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Eldariel
03-29-2006, 09:07 AM
Updated on 4st April 2007

The build I'm presently playing:


22 Mana
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
9 Island
4 Chrome Mox
1 Seat of the Synod

18 Creatures
1 Shoreline Ranger
3 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket Mage
2 Weatherseed Faeries

20 Other Spells
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Pithing Needle
2 Psionic Blast


Sideboard
3 Winter Orb
3 Misdirection
2 Pithing Needle
3 Binding Grasp
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Weatherseed Faeries
1 Engineered Explosives


Rules issues:

-If you have only one land in play when you cast Sea Drake, the ability fizzles! The ability returns two target lands to my hand, and if it doesn't have enough legal targets when it's put on the stack, it is countered! This comes up a lot with Chrome Mox+Tomb/City>Drake or turn 1 City-Chalice at 1, turn 2 tap City for mana, Island, Drake.
-Chalice of the Void's manacost is 0 in everywhere but on the Stack! That means that a Chalice at 0 does not counter Chalice at 1 or Chalice at 2 cast afterwards. It also means that Chalice at 2 will counter Chalice at 1. Furthermore, it means that Engineered Explosives at 1 will not touch any of your Chalices, but Engineered Explosives at 0 will blow them all up regardless of the number of counters on them!
-Misdirection can counter Counterspells on an empty stack! Simply announce Misdirection, make the Counterspell target the Misdirection itself and the Counter will fizzle on resolution. Heck, you can even counter Last Word in this fashion!
-Auras are also targeted spells, so they’re perfectly Misdirectable. Stealing Rancors can be a great play.


Card-by-card explanation:

Ancient Tomb: The best fast mana available in the format. This is 1 land that taps for 2 mana, in other words, I get virtual card advantage out of needing less lands than my opponent as my lands tap for more mana. Note that the deck is crafted to have low blue mana consumption, so that one can make the most out of the colourless acceleration.

City of Traitors: Painless variant of Tomb, quite often Sea Drakes allow getting around the self destruction-part, occasionally opponent will waste them and every now and then, you've got enough lands in hand to be able to afford the self destruction, especially if you went 'turn 1 City of Traitors, Chalice of the Void for 1, turn 2 Island, Sea Drake'. It's also worth noticing that if you've got Cloud of Faeries off City/Tomb and an Island, you can untap them resulting in one mana floating in the pool, allowing for turn 2 Facts, Chalice for 2s, Jitte-equips and such with far higher consistency. Also, it makes turn 3 SoFI-equips easier.

Chrome Mox: Even more acceleration, makes those turn 3 kills happen. Of course costing a card is annoying, but generally the speed it grants you makes up for such nonsense as card advantage. It also allows you to start drawing a bit earlier with Fact or Fictions and Sword of Fire and Ices. These 3 fast-mana cards (Tomb, City and Mox) form the core of the deck that makes it faster than the competitors, allowing it to play a much higher curve than any normal deck could get away with.

Islands: Unwastelandable mana sources. Opponent generally targets the 2-mana lands anyways though. Oh well, still nice to have something.

Seat of the Synod: Trinket Mage-able Island.


Weatherseed Faeries: Bit bigger than Sea Sprite at the cost of costing 3. At the present, I've found the power of 2 more important to the creature worth a bit more against non-red decks.

Cloud of Faeries: Cycles to dig for land or business (Psionic Blast, equipment, FoW, whatever I need), provides me with a flying body while untapping my lands, also accelerating my mana. I presently only play 3 since I couldn’t just fit all 4 when trying to cram all the stuff I want in the deck.

Serendib Efreet: 3/4 flyer for 3. Bolt-proof and all that, nice card to equip up.

Sea Drake: 4/3 flyer for 3. Makes those turn 3 kills happen. Also allows playing all sorts of landtricks and comes in turn 1 without returning any lands to hand off a Mox and a 2-mana land. Superb.

Trinket Mage: I didn't think much of these at first, but as the deck evolved, the Mages have quickly proven themselves. Finding a Chalice at any point against a combo-deck or Threshold is always nice, they allow for locking people out of games, find me that elusive mana, fetch me Needle for everyone-knows-how-many-purposes, etc. Solid? Oh, right, there's that whole 2/2 body thing too. They just love to be equipped.

Shoreline Ranger: Some consider it a weird inclusion, but it's really an Island in disguise. The main use is to have an additional Island that can be pitched to FoW and Mox when need be. My landcount is already rather high with 23 dedicated mana sources, so I might have to cut a bit there, but at least this gives the deck good colour- and mana consistency.


Sword of Fire and Ice: All creatures but Trinket Mages have evasion. My lands tap for 2. This draws cards, kills threats, gives pro-the-most-played-colour-in-the-format, etc. Any questions?

Umezawa's Jitte: Kills anything that plays creatures. Otherwise it's mere +4/+4. Oh, it gains me life too, and as this deck tends to pay a lot of life, that doesn't hurt at all.

Force of Will: 0 mana. Counter target spell. Any questions? Sure, it costs me cards, but it counters whatever would give the opponent a glimmer of hope. It also tends to be combo decks' problem #1.

Thirst for Knowledge: Eventually the 3-caster drawing machine won out for me. It just makes sculpting hand with low landcount a breeze and can be cast in lieu of your other spells. It's also easy to leave mana open for (it generally takes only 2 sources, Fact was easier to cast with Cloud of Faeries, which made reactive use much more difficult) to dig for FoW if you suspect you need it soon (like if you're playing against Solidarity and it looks like they're planning to go off this turn). It also allows you to actually keep the rest of the cards if you hit FoW. Drawbacks, it doesn't dig as deep and it can't get 4 cards, but it increases card quality, which is always nice (often I just end up discarding excess lands when flooded, even if I have artifacts in hand, since they're dead cards).

Psionic Blast: Kills creatures, kills players (especially control-players who stabilize at 8), finishes the game turn 3. And pitches to FoW and Mox. Me likey.

Chalice of the Void: Chalice...of...the...friggin'...VOID! C'mon, even the name tells you the card is insane! This is more or less the heart of the deck. The number of decks in the format that get demolished by Chalice at 1 is innumerable and it's always at least mildly useful. Chalice at 2 is also often very powerful, especially vs. Fish, Angel Stompy, Threshold and such and such. It's also good for 0 against TES, IGGy Pop, etc. making my combo match-up good already pre-board.

Pithing Needle: At first I didn't want any 1-casters in the deck, but few points changed that. First, the chances of actually drawing into it are about 2%, so it's a rare problem to draw it when unneeded. Also, if a Chalice at 1 is in play, I'm usually winning so the dead draw is rarely an issue (occasionally a problem with blind Chalice though). It stops Survival, Vial, Recurring Nightmare, Maze of Ith Eternal Dragon, Decree of Justice, Belcher, Parallax Wave, Seal of Cleansing and so many other issues. It's definately earned its spot in the maindeck, although it comes out vs. a bunch of decks with no real targets for it.


Sideboard choices:
Winter Orb: Comes in vs. control. Not only does it hurt them, but Faerie Stompy is fairly resilient to the Orb. I have lands that tap for 2, I have Moxes that untap regardless and I have Sea Drake that can return tapped lands to my hand to let me play them untapped. It could even be in the main if the format contained sufficient amounts of control. As it is, I'd rather have it only come in when need be.

Misdirection: I used to have a dedicated anti-combo slot here, but I realized that I just need to resolve and protect a Chalice against most combo-decks, while beating them to oblivion. Hence I opted for a more generic card rather than a specific combo-hate. This comes in to complement my Force of Wills in protecting my Chalices/Needles/company, to fight counter wars and then some. The good thing about this card is, it's very useful in a few match-ups. It comes in vs. Pikula (Vindicate, Sinkhole, Hymn to Tourach, Swords to Plowshares, the deck is ripe with targets and they can't hope to win without resolving any of those spells), Burn (Fireblast them FTW), occasionally vs. Angel Stompy (Disenchants and StPs give a good amount of targets if they're running sets of both) and lots of randomness (anything with 12-16 burn spells is generally a fair game and if they run artifact removal and artifacts of their own, it's a plus too).

Pithing Needle: Because sometimes they're really good and I want more than 1 (Goblins, Affinity, Survival, etc.).

Binding Grasp: Great catch-all answer in an open metagame, works about basically all creature-decks save Goblins. Control Magic is arguably better, but I like the ease of casting this off just one blue, and the +0/+1 allowing a single Myr Enforcer/Werebear/such stall the whole ground against the respective decks.

Tormod's Crypt: Well, it's nice to be able to fight graveyard strategies. Only 2 because it's technically card disadvantage and I prefer to tutor for one with Trinket Mage. I definately like to have these on the SB though with the rise of not only Threshold, but also all the Life from the Loam-decks, Friggorid, reanimator, etc. It's good to have something to hit that zone too, especially since it's usually something, blue has a hard time touching.

Weatherseed Faeries: The third copy comes in against anything playing red creatures. Easy to equip (can't be burned in response), can block anything ad nauseum, overall very useful.

Engineered Explosives: It can be dropped past Chalices (I can state that X is 2 and pay UU or U1 for it to drop it with 1 counter, or just state that X is different from 0 and pay colourless mana to blast the Chalice at 0) and it takes out those frustrating problem-cards like all the Goblin-means of cheating (Vial, Lackey), opposing Needles, Zoo beaters and it can be used to blow up tokens and such too. All-around solid. Been thinking of playing around with fetches and duals to drop it at 2, but I like un-Wasteable lands.


Match-up Analysis

Vial Goblins
This is usually the most important match-up in any metagame as they’re cheap, strong and relatively simple to do relatively well with (excellent players of course do much better). The problem is, since it’s played so much, there’s an enormous amount of variety between the different lists. Here’s how it usually goes:
-Mono-red build with no MD tech or stuff like Jitte or Crypt is rather easy to beat unless they get nuts against a slow hand from you. Basically, your aim is to not let them cheat on mana with Vials and Lackeys, so drop Weatherseed Faeries, Serendib Efreets, Sea Drakes, the guys they have trouble removing. Then suit one up with Jitte or Sword and kill them while keeping their army in check. Important to know when to go all-out to the head as some boards not only make it possible, but require you to aim all damage to their head and win before they can get going. Important to know that if they get their mana going, you can’t keep up as then they’ve got even more than you. On the play, Chalice at 1 is devastating from you, but on the draw, you usually need to Needle their Vial and block their Lackeys and such before dropping it. Mana denial is something you should take into account when keeping hands and playing Mages (fetching Seat of the Synod or Mox is often the right call over business) as they play Wastes and Rishadan Ports. The good news is, you don’t usually get stuck playing land-go, so you can drop guys before their denial comes online, making using the denial in the first place a bad idea. And then there’s the whole ‘my deck can operate off 2 lands while yours require 5’-thing going on.

Post-SB, you get access to any possible extra Jittes and Sprites you’ve got on the SB, as well as Pithing Needles and Engineered Explosives (I usually take out a Looter il-Kor on the play, Chalice on the draw, as Chalice is much weaker if they get a cheater in play. Of course, if you have the nutty turn 0 Force+turn 1 Chalice, you’re a happy camper, but doesn’t happen often enough to rely on). They unfortunately get Red Elemental Blasts, Hydroblasts and Shattering Sprees along with any extra artifact-hating Goblins, which are all bad news. The good news is that Chalice at 1 is all the more devastating, especially if you can FoW the replicate-copy from Spree aimed at it. They also weaken their gameplan game 2 to fit the hate in, so if you can handle their early game, you should be fine.
-Rw Goblins contain some good and some bad news. Good news is that they are more suspectible to SB Misdirections (StPs and Disenchants are much easier to Misdirect than Red Elemental Blasts and Shattering Sprees, as REBs can’t hit their cards and there’s a whole lot of Sprees to Misdirect, but StP and Disenchant have no such problems) and Chalice at 1, the bad news is that without a Chalice, Swords to Plowshares is a major headache and Disenchant hurts too. You should be favoured, but this MU gets better post-board (take out some draw-cards and perhaps Psionic Blast or two for Misdirections, EEs, Needles and company). Just be careful not to side out too many Chalices on the draw as the StPs are painful and they may have Blasts on the SB too, although it’s less likely here.
-Rg Goblins are the worst; Tin-Street Hooligan is MD artifact hate and has an immediate effect unlike the usual Goblin Tinkerer, and can only be stopped by Force of Will. Krosan Grip is unstoppable and Pendelhaven can be an annoyance. The good news is, they don’t usually have much SB against you besides Grips as they’re busy playing anti-combo instead, but some Blasts may still come in.

Threshold
If Goblins are the #1 MU in any meta, this is usually the #2. The bad news is, the deck is extremely consistent and has extremely large dudes for their cost. The good news is, Chalice of the Void is a nuclear bomb against them and Sword of Fire and Ice + Umezawa’s Jitte make your guys just too large for them. Against the red variant, an active Sword is pretty much game, against the white variant, there’s always StP. If you land Chalice, their landcount of 17 basically makes their 4-cost finishers unplayable as they can’t cantrip into lands. Your Forces are best left for either Swords or to force through spells. Play around Dazes if possible, but if you’re stuck at three mana, don’t avoid casting spells just because. Most importantly, resolve creatures StPs can only handle so many and your creatures with flying can generally trump theirs. Post-SB, things get better with the useless Needle gone, the Binding Grasps to answer their 4-drops and steal Werebears, the Tormod’s Crypts to make races utterly unfair and the Engineered Explosives to smash their Needles and Nimble Mongoose. Worship is the only thing you need to fear from them, the best answer to that is to kill all their dudes. Overall, slightly favourable thanks to Chalices.

Solidarity/Spring Tide
There isn’t much to say about this MU. You’re about as fast as them, faster on nuts-draw, you have basically 11 cards worth of relevant disruption and you get Misdirections post-SB (instead of Pithing Needle and Umezawa’s Jittes in my build as the life is useless and the additional damage is kinda slow in this MU). Drop Chalice at 1 and enjoy, follow up with one at 2 for a game against most builds (some run Rebuild though, so beware). Oh yeah, don’t hold back, feel free to knock yourself down to 1 life as long as Efreet doesn’t kill you. I have, in all honesty, dealt 19 points to myself with Clouds, Psionic Blast, Ancient Tomb, Serendib Efreet, etc. Very favourable. Heck, if you feel like it, as long as you have a creature in play, play a Chalice at 3 to shut down Cunning Wish. Usually you’ll just want to FoW their bounce though. Remember that even though they have FoWs, it sets them back a bit as they need cards to go off, so don’t fear them while casting disruption. Just beware of Remands, try to cast spells through them (with enough mana to cast a spell twice a turn). Spring Tide is a bit faster, but doesn’t have Remands. You should do them in easily too.

Iggy-Pop
Like Solidarity, except you can’t race them usually. Chalice at 0, 1 and 2 are all good, but 0 is the easiest to play and thus the one you should usually cast. If they Infernal Tutor for something, try to Chalice the CC, the card was. Cast Chalice at 0 if you have mana for no more. Force their Infernal Tutor only if they pop LEDs in response, else you should just counter their Ill-Gotten Gains and win. Be careful with self-damaging, occasionally they can just go off and cast Tendrils from their hand to win. Post-SB, bring in Tormod’s Crypts and perhaps some Misds for bounce, instead of Weatherseed Faeries usually as they’re pretty bad here (and the useless Needle), and perhaps a SoFI or such if you’re worried about the white-count. Remember, they might try the Confidant-plan. If so, either go for the head, utilizing the Confidant, or kill the Confidant. Very favourable match-up.

TES
Iggy-Poppish, but slightly faster and has the capability to plop out a bunch of Goblins to try and kill you. The bad news is that Goblins might very well take G1 if they come out early enough. The good news is that post-board, your Engineered Explosives give you a cheap, tutorable answer to the Goblin-horde and going off with Tendrils in the face of all your Chalices and FoWs would be a feat of a lifetime (meaning it won’t happen very often). Very favourable match-up as well.

Other Tendrils-builds
They share weakness to Chalice. Chalice at 2 against Burning Wish/Infernal Tutor-variants, and Engineered Explosives comes in against Empty the Warrens-using versions (for Pithing Needle). If they play heavy Ill-Gotten Gains-plan, bring in Crypts. Just 1 doesn’t equal to heavy.

Burn
Nothing to see here, move along. Chalice at 1 rapes them, Jitte rapes them (you have pro-red and huge dudes to equip), low landcount>Price of Progress, your clock>their clock. Post-SB, Misdirection and you’re pretty much autowinning.

Angel Stompy
A decent match-up. Their Parallax Waves and Exalted Angels are the biggest problems. Try to Psionic Blast, Sword of Fire and Ice or Umezawa’s Jitte the Morph, before it comes online. That makes things a world easier. Chalice should be laid at 2 first. It stops their Disenchants, the bulk of their creatures, Jittes, Mask of Memory and overall evens the playing field. Pithing Needle should name Parallax Wave to beat it, else Wave is one-sided Wrath that should smash you most of the time. Their 1-drops are scary, but 2-drops are scarier including artifact removal, hence the priority on Chalice at 2. Post-board, they usually have a full set of Disenchants. You should bring in Binding Grasps in any case. Misdirections comes in if they play Disenchant over Seal of Cleansing, and the second Needle comes in in any case. Engineered Explosives is also a good card, things you should remove: Weatherseed Faeries, Umezawa’s Jitte (you aim to Needle theirs if they resolve it, and Chalice at 2 is still a priority, even more so with their extra Disenchants). You should be the slight favourite here, but definitely not by lots and their build-variance might affect the MU a lot (things like Seal of Cleansing are harder than Disenchant post-board, their Ramosian Sergeants, Aether Vials and such can hurt if they play them).

Uw Fish, UWb Fish, Ugw Gro, etc.
These usually have advantage over you on individual card basis, but you have Chalice. Basically, if you don’t resolve Chalice, they’re the favourites to win and if you do, you should do well. Their removal is usually at 1, so Chalice at 1 first. Chalice at 2 after should allow you to basically just win, but 1 is the first priority. Misdirections need to come in along with an assortment of Needles and EEs (see the pattern?) and Binding Grasps (3/4 Serra Avenger is nuts). Usually you’ll go for the 2-Chalice plan, but you’ll win your share of normal games. Wasteland hurts if they play it, but usually not enough to be worth Pithing Needling. Slightly favourable to slightly unfavourable, depending on their build.

Loam-based control
I group these all together (yes, even Tog) since it’s basically Chalice at 2 through their discard or problems. You can win, especially against red variant relying on Devastating Dreams since your pro-red goes a long way, but Chalice at 2 shuts down their Wishes and Loam and in general, their game. Needle is also good, on fetches or on Seismic Assault. Cards you bring in are Tormod’s Crypt (especially against Terravore-variants) and any additional pro-red dudes you’ve got, taking out perhaps Clouds, a Psionic Blast and maybe Looter. These are all favourable, since a single resolved Chalice is generally GG.

GBx control
Game 1 is tough. You should just cast dudes and keep swinging as they play discard you don’t want to be hit with. Chalice at 2 generally as it is strong against Pox-variants with Smallpox and Edicts, but 1 is good occasionally too as it stops Innocent Blood and the bulk of their discard. You need a Needle on Pernicious Deed though. Game 2, you get to bring in Misdirections (they generally have Hymns, Sinkholes, Putrefys and in white, Vindicates) and Winter Orbs (you can usually take out some Sword of Fire and Ices as long as they don’t play red) over some Swords (leaving few in), few Chalices and company. If they use grave, bring in a Crypt, second Needle for their Deeds, Tops, etc. and overall just to smash them. Post-SB game is good as you suddenly have a deckful of bombs against them, Misdirections, Winter Orbs, Chalices and such all capable of sealing games. You should split with them.

Rifter
Your equipment trumps their Humility, your Weatherseed Faeries are great before that (as well as big guys immune to their removal, and equipment in general), Needles usually name Decree of Justice or Eternal Dragon. Chalice at 2 if you can cast it before they lay down Rift. If not, at 1. Try to force them to Vengeance, let it resolve then follow up with Chalice at 2. Force of Wills should go for their big spells as that sets them back the most. Post-SB, you usually bring in Winter Orbs for something. Perhaps one Chalice and Cloud of Faeries and Psionic Blast or such, but overall, you need a number of Chalices in, but not too many and you want the reach Psionics provide as they lack LD. Favourable.

Landstill
Pretty much the same as Rifter, except their removal is relevant. Needle their manlands, try to prevent Crucible from resolving if you’re still in early game and don’t rely on Psionic Blasts too much. Misdirection to fight counter-wars maybe and screw their Disenchants and occasionally even StPs. A worse MU. Oh, and take out Psionic Blasts, they’re bad here as this deck runs counters. Winter Orb comes in again, but this time second Needle comes in too as you want to take out their manlands and perhaps Decrees.

43 Lands.dec
The reason I keep mentioning this in the card explanations is, people don’t seem to get how to play this MU. Here’s a rundown: Never cast Chalice at 1! Needle is the most important card against them. Their Maze of Ith is amazing; it not only stops an attacker, it stops your equipment too. Without it, they’re helpless against your flyers and equipment. Remember that you can use their Mazes to help you out a bit, it untaps an attacker and thus gives you a blocker. Force of Wills should primarily hit their Manabonds and Explorations, secondarily their Lifes before you drop Chalice at 2, and if they play it, Burning Wish and Crucible. Post-SB, if they run Glacial Chasm, bring in Tormod’s Crypt. Anyways, bring in second Needle and Winter Orbs. Generally a Chalice can go, Weatherseed Faeries are pretty weak and so on. Oh, and remember, paying for the Tabernacle is very easy as Rishadan Port can’t prevent floating mana in upkeep and they’re helpless against your Chrome Moxes. You might want to avoid letting Burning Wish resolve as they might have Shattering Spree SB. But yea, first use FoWs as tempo-cards to get Chalices down before they get going (=GG) and only later, if that fails, use them as surgical removal against the important cards. But if you play it well, you basically can’t lose. Needle on Maze and punish them for their lack of flyers. Careful on their Burning Wish recursion. And Needle has priority over Chalice at 2 unless they have Glacial Chasm online.

R(g) Beats, Mono-G Stompy, etc.
Cropping these together since it’s simply a matter of Chalice at 1 here. They’re so weak against it I should write a book about it. Make sure you don’t get crushed by their Jittes and you should be well off with your huge guys, equipment and FoWs. and post-SB Misdirections against their pump/burn further helps. You’re the control here, but you should still be able to finish them off quickly. If their plan is more midgame, Binding Grasp should come in. Else, it’s not worth it against Sligh/Stompy. All these MUs are favourable unless they specifically hate you with blasts and sprees and such.


Why I play Faerie Stompy, and why you should too!
Faerie Stompy is a deck that doesn’t really have any horrible MUs. Thanks to the generic nature of the reactive cards in the deck (Force of Will, Chalice of the Void, Pithing Needle), you’ve got cards that are basically good against anything. Better somewhere, worse somewhere, but still in all relevant cases with some use. Also, the fact that FS is a fast, aggressive deck means that it’ll always have a functional gameplan even against decks that do something you aren’t expecting. The fact that all the creatures have evasion is a god-sent against aggro-decks of all kinds and makes all the equipment stronger too. Also, the equipment turns every creature into a threat, keeping even removal-heavy opponents busy. And thanks to the Cloud of Faeries, Trinket Mages, 2-mana lands and Moxes, no other deck in the format is really quite adept at finding and playing early Chalices at relevant casting costs. That’s the secret behind the deck’s awesome combo-MUs. So yea, if you want a deck that’s got an advantage over the most aggro-decks, and combo to boot along with even Loam-control and generic red control, you’ve got your option right here!

Strikes against our friend here.
The deck really wants to draw one of the Ancient Tombs, Chrome Moxes or City of Traitors in the opening grip. Without those, it can be painfully slow with only FoW slowing the opponent down. That means that you have to be a bit picky about what hands to keep in what MUs. Also, you might lose few games to not drawing enough creatures thanks to the creature count of only 18. Thirst alleviates this somewhat, but I’m always actively seeking means to add more creatures to the deck. Looter il-Kor might be good, but at the present I like the raw card advantage, Thirst provides. Also, the deck burns cards out real fast. Yes, it can make up for the lost cards with SoFI, Thirst and Trinket Mage, but that usually only gets it even. Dedicated removal-decks with fast kills can be big issues. Also, Faerie Stompy is still a creature-deck so the most common hate in the format applies. Finally, it might deal lots of damage to itself with Ancient Tombs and Serendib Efreets, which is always something to look out for if possible.

Top 8s and tournament reports
I’ll list some when I’ve managed to locate the ones on my mind. In the meanwhile, feel free to check this particular thread, there are at least a few of them here, and a search at the SCG Deck Database should reveal a bunch of the well-finishing lists.

Mordenkain
03-29-2006, 09:50 AM
Well, what can i say, this looks really nice. I can't really point my finger on something, but i have a few things to say:
1) As you say yourself, this deck is based around tempo. Fairy Conclave is NOT tempo. They also have bad synergy with Sea Drake and Meloku. Me don't like much. I think you should cut em.

2) Have drawing 2 Jittes been bad to you? I would only run 3 as it's legendary, but this more of a personal taste.

3) The 2 Flying Men seems random to me. Randomness=Bad, Consistensy=Good. Therefore, you should either cut em, og squeze in more of them.

So the changes that i would make would be:

-2 Fairy Conclave (also random number, btw)
-1 Jitte
+1 Flying Men
+2 Island

Oh, btw, how have those Shield Spheres in the SB been treating you? How about going with good old BEB?

- Mordenkain

parallax
03-29-2006, 09:57 AM
Continuing the classic Legacy-deck naming tradition, the deck actually has nothing to do with the card Tidal Wave except a shared colour.

I don't think this convention allows the unrelated card to share a color with the deck. Blue decks should be named after a White card. Try naming the deck Planar Birth. I'm kidding. Don't hurt me, Anusien.

I think the deck is very strong. I wonder if each color couldn't use an Ancient Tomb-wielding Stompy deck. Tomb + Equipment is so good. I nominate Faerie Stompy for this deck's name. It's just so demeaning to everyone you beat.

The only card choices that look questionable to me are Faerie Conclave and the Shield Spheres in the side. You have so few Blue sources, I'd think that coming into play tapped and being vulnerable to Wasteland would hurt a lot. Against Goblins, you may never get to untap a Conclave.

As for Shield Sphere, the only deck you bring it in against is Goblins, which you correctly identify as the control deck in this match-up. Why bring in such a defensive card when you are the beatdown? Kira would be perfect if it weren't for double Blue. Anyway, I think you want a more aggressive card in this slot.

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 10:07 AM
Well, what can i say, this looks really nice. I can't really point my finger on something, but i have a few things to say:
1) As you say yourself, this deck is based around tempo. Fairy Conclave is NOT tempo. They also have bad synergy with Wind Drake and Meluko. Me don't like much. I think you should cut em.

2) Have drawing 2 Jittes been bad to you? I would only run 3 as it's legendary, but this more of a personal taste.

3) The 2 Flying Men seems random to me. Randomness=Bad, Consistensy=Good. Therefore, you should either cut em, og squeze in more of them.

So the changes that i would make would be:

-2 Fairy Conclave (also random number, btw)
-1 Jitte
+1 Flying Men
+2 Island

I wouldn't consider 2 a 'random' number, more of a 'complimential' number. With Conclaves, I have 22 creatures total. They've been winning quite a few attrition games for me, it's just brutal when I get to the 5 mana to equip a Sword on a Conclave and swing. They especially help against Rifter and Threshold, which like to try and kill all my guys. I'm DEFINATELY going to test more about them, but for now, it seems like they're about right.

Also, the reason for the 2-of Flying Men, no matter how ugly it looks, is that I'm a firm believer in the 'right is better than pretty'. I'm going to have a certain percentage of hands where I'm only going to have an Island for turn 1, Flying Men gives me 2 more cards which allow turn 1 plays (others being Chrome Moxes, Tombs, "Conclaves" (it's a "play") and Cities). I don't really see a reason to drop them as they're pretty much just another weaponbearer, opponents will want to deal with. Anyhow, I'll see if Conclaves really deserve to be cut or not, but so far I'm kinda leaning on the 'no'-side. The synergy with Sea Drakes isn't usually bad really, as I'm not usually forced to return a Conclave and even if that happens, unless I have some relevant plays off the other land, I can drop the Conclave and get the CiPT over with. I don't really find the 2-of problematic as running any more would risk drawing multiples, which I don't want, but a singleton is often pretty helpful.

4 Jittes have been working pretty fine thus far. I've actually rarely drawn multiples and the lifegain of the Jittes is surprisingly helpful in a deck like this. The deck actually USED to run a 4/3 in Swords/Jittes, but the 4th Jitte was crammed in at the expense of a Psionic Blast as, as the equipment is what truly wins those games against Goblins, Burn, Thres and Rifter. Also, 1/1 protectionless creatures are pretty fragile, so I'd rather not run too many of them (I've got 6 if you count Clouds).


Oh, btw, how have those Shield Spheres in the SB been treating you? How about going with good old BEB?

- Mordenkain

Shield Spheres have been rather good actually, although I'm definately considering BEB. The thing is, I like to try and drop a Chalice for 1, which will neutralize BEB, but will not affect Sphere and the Sphere does a surprisingly good job keeping the Lackeys, Piledrivers and company out, so I don't know if there really is a reason to switch to BEB (they're both pretty much limited to this MU, although BEB could perhaps be used against Burn too). As I said, I haven't yet concluded, what's right for this slot in the SB, but BEB is definately a candidate. Still, Shield Sphere seems pretty decent. BEB is a blue card though, which is a definitive plus (well, it can be countered by REBs, but still, it's pitchable to FoW and Mox). The thing I'm most iffy about BEB is that the deck is pretty tight on blue mana, so casting BEB will generally mean not casting a threat. As it is right now, I would not make the changes, you suggested.

Actually, Flying Men used to be a 3-of when I had a 2-of Thought Eater (2-of because the drawback isn't bad when there's only one in play, but multiple Thought Eaters are lethal to me), but a Flying Men made room for third Sea Sprite when I added those as I realized just how good they can be against the red decks.


EDIT: Faerie Stompy sounds awesome :D I've got a Faerie-deck, but...what the heck, that name is AWESOME!

EDIT2: Actually, I've considered Trinket Mage but haven't actually tried him yet. I kinda like the fact that all my guys fly, and thus can easily wear Sword, but the Mage could be superb utility as it can fetch Chrome Mox, Chalice, Needle, etc. I'd need to modify the hull of the deck a bit to fit it in though, and it'd be yet another card at 2U, making my draws without Tombs or Cities further weaker. I here and now vow to give it a shot though. I like the prospect of tutoring up a Tormod's Crypt/Chalice, or the elusive land (I guess I'd have to play a singleton Seat of the Synod, since tutoring up a Mox just doesn't sound too appealing) to play Meloku.

Mordenkain
03-29-2006, 10:29 AM
I wouldn't consider 2 a 'random' number, more of a 'complimential' number.

I still don't agree. When you consider a card for your deck, your considering it because it's good and it fulfills a role in your deck. When you then cram it into your deck, it's because you want have this. You want to draw the card. Without card draw, tutors or any kind of search, you WONT draw a card which is a 2-of, reliable. It's a fact, it's statestics.

Playing cards as a 2-of IS random. It's only not random in a very few scenarios, like: You got tutors to get the card, in which time you would normally play it as a 1-of, but it can be a very important card, so getting them all stopped by a single counter is not acceptable. You got card draw, and you got a freaking lot of it. Landstill could play Decree of Justice as a 2-of for this reason. The card is a compliment to another VERY similiar card (like 4x Llanowar Elves, 2x Fyndhorn Elves).

It's really your decision, but I hope I can talk you to play it at least as a 3-of.

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 10:36 AM
I still don't agree. When you consider a card for your deck, your considering it because it's good and it fulfills a role in your deck. When you then cram it into your deck, it's because you want have this. You want to draw the card. Without card draw, tutors or any kind of search, you WONT draw a card which is a 2-of, reliable. It's a fact, it's statestics.

Playing cards as a 2-of IS random. It's only not random in a very few scenarios, like: You got tutors to get the card, in which time you would normally play it as a 1-of, but it can be a very important card, so getting them all stopped by a single counter is not acceptable. You got card draw, and you got a freaking lot of it. Landstill could play Decree of Justice as a 2-of for this reason. The card is a compliment to another VERY similiar card (like 4x Llanowar Elves, 2x Fyndhorn Elves).

It's really your decision, but I hope I can talk you to play it at least as a 3-of.

Well, in testing, I've often been in a sitiuation where I just need a piece of equipment to win. Cutting any would lessen the chances of drawing them when in need. I just don't think there's anything in the deck I could happily cut to add a third Flying Men. While it's true that I won't draw it consistently, it still lessens the number of opening hands without turn 1 plays. It's kind of redundant with Cloud of Faeries in that they're both lowcost 1/1 flyers, Cloud just does a billion other things as well. The likeliest candidate to cut for a third Flying Men would be either Cloud or Sprite, but both are better most of the time. I think, in a bizarre way, Flying Men is a parallel to Chrome Mox in this deck, both let you utilize your turn 1 efficiently. That said, I'm willing to try the deck with 3 Flying Men and 3 Jittes, but I just think, Jitte is the better card of these 2 so I'd rather run more of it.

Btw, I just realized I might come off as unappreciative, but that's not it. Thanks for the help, your questions help me to arrange my thoughts related to some parts of the deck I'm not certain of yet. I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep the 2-Flying Men config for now, but then again, I might want to try and squeeze a third in. The big problem is, it's extremely hard to take anything out really. Technically I could take out a Meloku for them, as drawing multiples suck and it's not always castable, but it's so damn powerful, the polar opposite of Flying Men.

MattH
03-29-2006, 01:27 PM
Have you given any thought to running Wastelands of your own? Possibly over some/all of the City of Traitors, which aren't nearly as good as Tomb.

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 01:45 PM
Yea, but since the deck is pretty much built on explosiveness, I've so far discarded the idea. I like the fact that I have 8 2-producing lands, since it gives me much better access to that elusive turn 1 3 mana, turn 2 5 mana. If I dropped Cities, I'd probably drop them for Islands to enable the deck to play cards with UU-casting cost, since they offer a good deal of power (stuff like Waterspout Djinn, Control Magic, etc.), but in the creation of this, I opted for the explosiveness of an 8-2 mana landbase. Also, on another note, it's really helpful to have 12 cards (Moxes and two-mana lands) to drop a turn 1 Chalice for 1. Also, City's downside is helped by Sea Drake and Meloku, as they both can be used to play around it and utilize it simply as 'a land that taps for 2'.

Actually, I'm greatly intrigued by the idea of using Mox Diamond, Crucible of Worlds and maintaining an access to UU. That deck could play the card this deck was originally built around, the ultimate fatto, Serendib Djinn.

Parcher
03-29-2006, 02:07 PM
Absolutey love the deck. Just a thought. Since Winter Orb is not so great against the decks that can easily kill your Men and Cloud, perhaps you could side them out, and replace Orb with Trinishpere? In addition to hurting those decks,(Goblins, Burn, Zoo varients) it crushes Belcher, or Solidarity and Thresh if it resolves. Your curve runs past it, and Orb dosen't do much against those anyway. It will weaken you against Rifter/Wombat, but your the overall applications against the field may outweigh this.

Son_Gozen
03-29-2006, 02:20 PM
Well actually i´m playing Mono U Beatdown too. It´s nice to see Chalice Of The Void for 1 Counter against Threshold. When you get the Chalice for 2 Counters into play they will scoop. I´m running 4 Thirst For Knowledge instead of 4 Psionic Blast and only 3 Jitte. I´m playing no Flying Men and no Sprites. My deck looks like this:

// Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
5 Island (2)
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Faerie Conclave

// Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
3 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Waterspout Djinn
2 Trinket Mage

// Spells
4 Chrome Mox
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Fact or Fiction

Evil Roopey
03-29-2006, 02:26 PM
Why is this deck better than Angel Stompy other than it can Force something every once in a while?

Son_Gozen
03-29-2006, 02:33 PM
You´ve got Chalices and a Chalice=1 is deadly for most Deck. Chalice=2 can wreck everything. You got good Beaters with high Toughness. And Heavy Equip. I constructed my Deck this way, so i can get my Chalice out. A Chalice can´t wreck me. My Mana Curve is higher than 1 and higher than 2. I can discard the Jitte for my Thirst and the Faeries can be cycled. So Chalice=1 and Chalice=2 don´t hurt me at all. I played AS/u and had a bad Matchup against NQG the best MUs were against Goblins and Rift. Rock is also easy to win.

SillyMetalGAT
03-29-2006, 02:38 PM
I have to agree with Roopey.... but if I were to work on this deck, I would take out the Chalice in replace of Aether Vial. If your trying to be aggro, what would be a better 2nd turn than to tap 2, play Jitte, vial in cloud of faries, untap lands, tap 2 and equip Jitte. Thats pretty boss!

Or how about Curiosity in this deck? It's good in fish after all.

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 02:42 PM
Why is this deck better than Angel Stompy other than it can Force something every once in a while?

I thought it was fairly obvious at the latest by the match-up analysis, so I didn't elaborate on it in the mainpost. Unlike with stompy, my match-ups against combo are positive and control is fairly winnable too. Stompy is good against aggro and tends to struggle against anything else. This still maintains a decent game against aggro while gaining pretty good game against combo and control. Being able to play Chalice is of course a bomb, and the big blue beatdown creatures only require U instead of the UU of the good white ones, so I can afford far more colourless sources. Also, Cloud of Faeries gives me an additional accelerant compared to Angel Stompy, meaning that it's not uncommon at all to play-equip Sword or Jitte turn 2 and swing. Also, Psionic Blast gives me reach, something Stompy lacks.

I don't think, this deck even has many similarities to Angel Stompy. Good match-ups are totally different and the whole gameplan is totally different. Not to mention, I have bigger guys on average, and all my big guys have evasion. Of course, all that comes at the cost of artifact/enchantment removal, Tithe, StP and Parallax Wave. Oh, blue can support a coloured manland (although I'm still not sure if that's the right thing to do). Blue also offers different Sideboard options, although presently I'm only utilizing Misdirection.

EDIT: There's simply no room for Vial. I don't have problems with mass removal or counters anyways. I want to use all possible slots for the important creatures and to support them. Btw, Cloud of Faeries has been erratad to only untap cards if played from hand, so Vialing it in doesn't untap lands. Chalice is just a bomb. It stops decks cold (a large portition of the positive combo match-ups, and a huge bomb against both, Goblins and Threshold) and most importantly, it hits the frustrating removal-spells like Lightning Bolt and StP. It also obliterates Burn. Curiosity is a card I'm on the fence with, but it's a creature enchantment. I have enough problems with removal as it is, I don't need 2-for-1s, not to mention, I want a Chalice at 1 most of the time, so I'm staying away from 1-casters (the 2 Flying Men find their way to Mox/FoW baits if I resolve a Chalice, I don't really want more cards for that role). Mask of Memory is an option, but I don't know if it's worth making room for yet. It'd hurt Chalice for 2 too, and it'd require removing some non-creature spells, something wouldn't do too readily.

Son_Gozen
03-29-2006, 02:52 PM
I have to agree with Roopey.... but if I were to work on this deck, I would take out the Chalice in replace of Aether Vial. If your trying to be aggro, what would be a better 2nd turn than to tap 2, play Jitte, vial in cloud of faries, untap lands, tap 2 and equip Jitte. Thats pretty boss!

Or how about Curiosity in this deck? It's good in fish after all.


It´s a Beatdown Deck we want to make Damage and don´t want to draw X Cards. And Curiosity draws cards if you got a Creature in play. If the Creature leaves play -> No Curiosity anymore. The Sword of Fire and Ice is better because you can usw it on all Monsters and reequip it. And you can untap only 2 lands, if you play the Cloud of Faeries from your hand. It has an errata.

kirdape3
03-29-2006, 03:48 PM
Serendib Djinn should be in this list somewhere, probably over some of the equipment. 8 is at least two too many pieces - far too often I'm finding I'm just drawing dead equipment when my opponents are gaining ground on the board. 5/6 fliers for UU2 are awfully good.

Also, I'd run Genju of the Falls long before I'd run Faerie Conclave.

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 03:59 PM
Serendib Djinn should be in this list somewhere, probably over some of the equipment. 8 is at least two too many pieces - far too often I'm finding I'm just drawing dead equipment when my opponents are gaining ground on the board. 5/6 fliers for UU2 are awfully good.

Yup, but you can't cast it pretty often. Also, the fact that the deck runs as few lands as this (17 actual lands) turns it into a troublesome card. Trust me, I tested the card. I played it for aeons and I really wanted it to be good. I built the whole friggin' deck around it originally. Harsh reality struck though. The deck would need at least 4 more blue sources to support it and it'd need some land recursion like Crucible. As I said, a version capable of supporting UU would certainly be an interesting idea, and the Djinn would be the first card I'd add, but I don't have the time to work on such a deck for this contest. It doesn't co-exist with Sea Drake or Meloku either. It's a great card for blue aggro, but not for this deck. For record, in the beginning of the recreation of this deck it was a 4-of, but it quickly became clear that it can't be more than a 2-of. Finally, it was dropped entirely as I lost one game too many for not being able to cast it yet again. Also, it's incredibly frustrating to play it, sacrifice a land and only see it StPd/REBbed.


Also, I'd run Genju of the Falls long before I'd run Faerie Conclave.

Genju is another card I'd run if I could support UU (playing it and attacking the same turn gives me a 'hasty' creature, something that's wonderful in a deck like this). For now though, I can't, so I'd gain a mere 3/2 enchantment that's really horrible against StP (if the enchanted Island is removed, the Genju is lost too as the land isn't put to grave, hurting my manabase and costing me a card). I also only would run 9 Islands even without Conclaves, which isn't sufficient by any means to support an Enchant Island. Conclave is a land, so it doesn't take a spell/creature slot and therefore, it only contests with Islands, although I'm not sure if it's better than a basic Island here. I'm sure that it helps in a somewhat difficult match-up, Rifter, though and that seems like a good reason to run it.

Son_Gozen
03-29-2006, 04:06 PM
The Serendib Djinn should be in the Deck but:
The Djinn makes your Manabase instable so your Base has Problems against Wasteland. With the Djinn you have to run Non Basics like Tolaria, Oboro, Minamo, Seat Of The Synod.. etc...

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 04:27 PM
The Serendib Djinn should be in the Deck but:
The Djinn makes your Manabase instable so your Base has Problems against Wasteland. With the Djinn you have to run Non Basics like Tolaria, Oboro, Minamo, Seat Of The Synod.. etc...

Correction: Serendib Djinn shouldn't be in this deck. Yes, it's possible that a very strong blue aggro could be built around Serendib Djinn, but it's not this deck. This is fundamentally incapable of supporting it. Just because we take a concept like 'Blue beatdown' doesn't mean there's only one right path. No, there are many choices with different advantages. We could choose to run enough blue mana to support UU-costs, at the cost of our speed, which would result in an entirely different deck. We could also choose to switch to more controllish approach through altering our landbase into including Wastelands and adding Crucible, turning the deck more into the Stackish direction. However, the present choices made are:
-Heavy acceleration
-Light blue requirements
-Light control elements

Changing any of those would require lots of fundamental shifts in the deck, but creating a manabase that supports UU would definately be a viable path, I don't deny that, nor the fact that it could potentially be very good, perhaps better than what I have here, but it'd lose lots of the speed advantage, so things like turn 3 kills would be reduced to dreams.

Son_Gozen
03-29-2006, 04:33 PM
I saw the Deck already on Starcitygames.com in the legacy part of the forum. the guy ran serendib djinns first. so i began building the deck and changed the serendib djinns against waterspout djinns. then the psionic blasts against thirsts. and now it´s working more consistent. i also threw out the flying men and replaced them with trinket mages. they can find me a chrome mox or mostly the chalice.

here´s the thread: http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=285871

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 04:35 PM
I saw the Deck already on Starcitygames.com in the legacy part of the forum. the guy ran serendib djinns first. so i began building the deck and changed the serendib djinns against waterspout djinns. then the psionic blasts against thirsts. and now it´s working more consistent. i also threw out the flying men and replaced them with trinket mages. they can find me a chrome mox or mostly the chalice.

here´s the thread: http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=285871

Make an educated guess, based on user name, who that 'guy' might be ^^ Yes, I used to run Serendib Djinn, but unfortunately it just wasn't working as well as I wanted it to, prompting me to cut them for eventually Melokus as the 'fatto of choice'. Meloku has won a few games singlehandedly already, and is always awesome when it doesn't eat the StP (surprisingly often, as people are generally busy with those StPs).

Lord Dralnu
03-29-2006, 06:10 PM
I have to agree with Roopey.... but if I were to work on this deck, I would take out the Chalice in replace of Aether Vial. If your trying to be aggro, what would be a better 2nd turn than to tap 2, play Jitte, vial in cloud of faries, untap lands, tap 2 and equip Jitte. Thats pretty boss!
Chalice is the best card in the deck, and what you suggested doesn't even work. Read the Errata on cloud of faeries.
I like the deck, but I think it needs some sort of card draw/pitch other than SoFI. I think thirst for knowledge would be pretty decent to pitch extra moxes jittes swords etc and draw new threats.

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 06:10 PM
I'm going to take this to a Legacy-tournament this saturday if I by some miracle am able to acquire all the cards by then (I've got 4 Sea Drakes in mail, from the US, and 3 Melokus still in an open auction that closes tomorrow -.- And seeing that those beaters happen to be pretty pivotal for the deck, especially the Sea Drakes, I'm not going to play unless I get them in time, or can borrow from someone). Yea, and I love the deck too. In fact, I guess I'll write about the origins of the deck, in case someone cares:

The deck's journey started quite a few years ago, before I knew of the existence of tournament formats and was just playing casually with friends. I read some MTG-sites and 'knew' about the Deck and such and was just thinking, 'What would be a new concept?' (notice my ignorance here, of course everything had been tried, but I didn't need to know it)

After long session of brainstorming and happening upon lots of blue cards that scream an aggressive deck, I finally realized that nobody ever plays blue aggro. I was aware of the Vintage B/R list at this point, although I didn't understand it, of course, so I decided that I'd make a deck to follow that as it allows me to play Arabian Nights. The deck was actually pretty decent, wrecking every casual opponent I got (it used Unstable Mutation, Essence Flare, Sunken City and Cloud Sprite among others and was very much a Blue Weenie-style deck). As I posted it at the Wizards-forums, I was informed of the existence of the Little Deck That Could, Fish, which I pretty much turned my deck into (mono-blue Fish without Merfolks, mind you). Flash forward a couple of years, I had began to play Magic somewhat competitively and was much more aware of...well, everything and actually had a decent understanding of deck construction principles and game strategy too. This deck had gone to the backburner as I played Standard, but it was still in my mind and eventually I updated it with goodies from Mirrodin.

Eventually we reach the point where Wizard announces the separation the Legacy- and Vintage-B/R lists (something that had been akin to a dream for me for a long time) and of course I was ecstatic. After following the Legacy-scene for a while, I noticed that WW actually did pretty well in the format, along with other creature-based decks and noticed that everyone was just ignoring the awesome blue creatures in the format. In the meantime, I had become aware of the cards in Portal- and Starter-sets and was strongly hoping that Wizards would legalize them for the Eternal formats as there were quite a few interesting cards I figured I could use in some decks. Of course, Wizards again fulfilled my hopes, and I noticed that people still weren't really catching on Mono-blue beatdown. In fact, I never saw anyone even mention the whole subject. As Portal was legalized, I first generated a Blue beatdown around the idea of counter manipulation with Unstable Mutations, Essence Flares, Chiseis, Power Conduits, Jittes, etc. as a casual deck, that was again of course pretty brutal. It also used the better beatdown cards from blue in the format (namely, Flying Men, Serendib Efreet, Sea Drake (2-of, I feared the drawback back then) and Serendib Djinn) and was heavily accelerated with Ancient Tombs and Moxes. As I posted the deck, people repeatedly suggested countermagic and the like, and I told 'em how it's a casual deck around the counter manipulation theme, but if one wanted to try and make it actually good, counters could be added.

The more I thought of it, the more I thought that the deck could actually compete in Legacy, if built so, which lead to a long project, which ultimately has lead to the list at hands here. A huge revelation was, when I was asking myself, 'why to play this instead of other beatdown' and I realized that I didn't really care about the 1-CC while just about every other deck in the format does, so I started playing around with Chalice of the Void. Finally, as this contest was announced, I decided to put serious energy into actually testing the deck and here's the fruitation of the work. Most of the actual testing has been done over the last month, but the changes are actually very few, with the 8th piece of equipment, Sea Sprite and the sideboard being the most notable ones (the original sideboard was something like 3 Energy Flux, 4 Arcane Laboratory, 4 Pithing Needle, 4 Propaganda or something).


Now, in case you haven't been bored to death yet, thanks for bothering to read that ^^ I hope you all, who decide to actually try it out, will enjoy the deck! I find it to be a blast to play, and quite powerful too. The largest downside of the deck is obviously, that while it has a cheap landbase, just about everything else in the deck, from Jittes to Moxes to Serendib Efreets, is quite expensive ^^'

Lego
03-29-2006, 10:03 PM
Who said that it was better than Angel Stompy to begin with?

I think Roop's point was that if it's not better than Angel Stompy, you shouldn't play it. There are, however, a few reasons to play this deck over Angel Stompy:

It won't catch hate like Anarchy and Flashfires. Not a large problem, but it's there.
It is slightly more explosive, with the ability for turn 1 Sea Drake, turn 2 SoFI equip and other such broken plays.
It plays slightly bigger creatures, and more flyers.
It can support Chalice of the Void, which is a great meta choice these days.
Force of Will.

Reasons to choose Angel Stompy:

It's more consistent, not relying on broken draws to win early on, and has a better late game.
It plays Angel, and she's better than anything Faerie Stompy plays.
Swords to Plowshares.
Parallax Wave.
Equipped Shadow Creatures.

I'd prefer Angel Stompy right now because I've been playing it for a while and it seems more consistent, but with proper tuning I think Faerie Stompy could give it a run for its money with bigger creatures and more flyers. You lose some of the protection and become more all-out aggro, but you gain Force of Will and Chalice. Like Eladriel said, it's mostly a meta choice. You're gaining a lot in your combo matchup in return for sacrificing a bit in some other places.

Eldariel
03-29-2006, 10:25 PM
I think Roop's point was that if it's not better than Angel Stompy, you shouldn't play it. There are, however, a few reasons to play this deck over Angel Stompy:

It won't catch hate like Anarchy and Flashfires. Not a large problem, but it's there.
It is slightly more explosive, with the ability for turn 1 Sea Drake, turn 2 SoFI equip and other such broken plays.
It plays slightly bigger creatures, and more flyers.
It can support Chalice of the Void, which is a great meta choice these days.
Force of Will.

Reasons to choose Angel Stompy:

It's more consistent, not relying on broken draws to win early on, and has a better late game.
It plays Angel, and she's better than anything Faerie Stompy plays.
Swords to Plowshares.
Parallax Wave.
Equipped Shadow Creatures.

I'd prefer Angel Stompy right now because I've been playing it for a while and it seems more consistent, but with proper tuning I think Faerie Stompy could give it a run for its money with bigger creatures and more flyers. You lose some of the protection and become more all-out aggro, but you gain Force of Will and Chalice. Like Eladriel said, it's mostly a meta choice. You're gaining a lot in your combo matchup in return for sacrificing a bit in some other places.

That's quite accurate. The good news is, people don't like to SB REBs and Pyroblasts as much as they used to, the bad news is, they hurt me real bad. To be frank though, if I were to play in a large tournament, I'd consider Faerie Stompy a wonderful option, as it has no autolosses (while I'll openly admit that Angel Stompy is a pretty horrible match-up, a strong draw can plow through there) with a decent to good match-up against most of the present Top Tier and apparently pretty good game against randomness. Also, I find it great that I don't need to support double coloured costs here, Angel Stompy occasionally has trouble hitting the WW for half of their deck, especially if some meanie counters their Tithe, but this has no such problems as a single blue source is all this'll ever need. That also means that those sideboarded Boils will stay at the sideboards, allowing me to ignore the more scary (and powerful) blue hate, leaving me to fight the REBs and Pyroblasts. Of course, there's also that little thing that unlike with Angel Stompy, my evaders can block too, which helps with many varieties of aggro decks. As I said, luckily it seems like people are moving away from the Blasts, since without REBs, Goblins should be at least somewhat favourable post-board too. It would also make Threshold easier post-SB as they don't have a bomb to bring in while I still have the Crypts (they've got the Naturalizes and the Needles, but they aren't too problematic).

Another good thing about having Chalice in the main is, it's like coming into combo-matches pre-sideboarded.

Eldariel
04-19-2006, 06:53 PM
I'm going to rewrite the first page in near future, since the deck has developed a good bit since this particular version, but for now I'd just want to ask, does anyone know if it's possible to rename the thread? When I edit the first post, it only lets me change the topic of the post, and I'd appreciate the thread being named 'Faerie Stompy' since that's the name everyone (well, everyone who knows the deck anyways) knows it by.

MonkeY
04-19-2006, 06:55 PM
We have an established list + this deck hs been taken to tournaments, if anyone wants to write a report thatd be awesome so we can move it to open forum. Heres a link to the Starcitygames Discussion:

Faeirie Stompy (http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=285871&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0)

Eldariel
04-19-2006, 07:44 PM
I don't think it's time for that yet. The decklist can use some finetuning before that and I'll want to get more comprehensive testing done with the new list+optimize a thing or two. But the proper thread name would be nice.

Phantom
04-19-2006, 09:56 PM
Another good thing about having Chalice in the main is, it's like coming into combo-matches pre-sideboarded.

More like EVERY matchup. I remember the first time I looked at this deck I thought it would play alot like Sui-black, Affinity, or aggro-berserk. Some cool wins with fast plays, but alot of losses where they kill your threats and you run out of gas. Two things I didn't consider:

a) Sword of Fire and Ice (and how quickly it comes down and is equipped)
b) Chalice

The sword is pretty obvious, and way to easy to stop. Chalice (almost always for one) is at least a harder to remove Meddling Mage against every deck in the format, and sometimes it's 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5 against Thresh and Burn). This thing instantly makes up for any card disatvantage you might suffer.

(As a side note, which decks should we be dropping a chalice for 2 before we drop one for one. I know RG survival, but anything else?)


The current build looks something like this: (i didn't see it posted here)


// Mana
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
7 [7E] Island
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
2 [UL] Faerie Conclave

// Creatures
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
4 [AN] Serendib Efreet
4 [P2] Sea Drake
2 [MR] Trinket Mage
3 [CHK] Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 [HL] Sea Sprite

// Spells
4 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
4 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
3 [A] Psionic Blast
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [5E] Winter Orb
SB: 3 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 3 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [IA] Binding Grasp
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives


Current things I'm testing/thinking:

1) Draw cards in the Meluko spot. Eldariel is thinking Thirst for knowledge or Oath of Scholars. I'm thinking Fact or Fiction. He's probably right. Oath looks pretty awesome, but could occasionally backfire.

2) +1 Tinker Mage. Also maybe a Aether Spellbomb and/or Cursed Scroll mainboard/sideboard. Cursed Scroll is a very good control card and a pretty decent finisher. Aether Spellbomb is a little more questionable, but it could be nice against Reanimate and Tog and the such. Also, it can always blow for the card. The beauty of Tinker mage is that it can tutor these singleton artifacts (like the E.Explosives for an opposing needle) without eating up space in the board.

3) I think we need a complete list of sideboard + and -. I'm not sure I'm the guy for it. I still have a bunch of questions like, what all comes in and out against angel stompy? and threshold? What and when is Misdirection coming in for?

4) I think we need to keep tinkering until the Thresh matchup is positive (not even, Trinket mages might have turned the tide) the Angel Stompy matchup is winnable (40/60 maybe, we need to test it with Binding Grasp) while keeping the combo and Goblin matchups are still positive (shouldn't be too difficult).


EDIT: I did some heavy testing vs. Thresh with the new build (-2 Flying Men, -3 Meloku, +3 Trinket Mages, +2 FoFs) and I'm pleased to announce that it was working really well.

Pre-board: 16-7
Post-board: 14-8 (trinket mage is huge as was Eng. Explosives and 5 ways to get a Crypt. I boarded out the P. Blasts for 1 Eng. Explosives and 2 Crypts. He boarded in needles and two disenchants. Does gro run disenchants?)

(Note: I was playing vs. UGw. A fairly old build running Mental note, Mystic Enforcer, and no mainboard needles)

Eldariel
04-20-2006, 08:32 AM
We'll have to test at least UGr, UGw, UGrw and UGb Threshold to get some comprehensive results. I really liked the sound of that though. Mind if I ask, how did you conduct the testing? Was your testing partner basically the same skill level as you? Did you take turns playing each deck? Btw, Thres usually runs a few Naturalizes on the SB. Since green mana is more consistent for the deck than white, it's usually the better alternative.

Present Board-plan vs. Angel Stompy is as follows:
-3 Sea Sprite
-2 Umezawa's Jitte
-1 Chalice of the Void
+3 Binding Grasp
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 Engineered Explosives

The idea is, you'll aim your Chalices at 2 post-board. Engineered Explosives gives you some removal against their Needles and the Needles of your own give you some leeway versus Parallax Wave. The reason all the 2-casters are coming out is, you'll want the Chalice for 2 to be as irrelevant for you as Chalice for 1 normally is. Misdirection is also something worth considering if they run Disenchant. Between Disenchant and StP, there are enough spells worth Misdirecting to bring in a few. Succesful Misdirection is generally a game vs. them, as it buys you tons of tempo at the cost of no cards. If they run Seal of Cleansing though, Misds stay on the board.

Misdirection comes in vs. Solidarity.
-3 Umezawa's Jitte
+3 Misdirection

This allows you to combat their counters when resolving Chalice and protecting it. Also, it's occasionally possible to screw them by misdirecting a Remand targeting Brain Freeze (Remand is countered when you Misdirect it to target Misdirection, so they don't even get to draw the card) or the Stroke of Genius when they went off minimally, and occasionally misdirecting Turnabout wins. Mostly though, Misdirection is used to protect the key spells in this MU. And for Jitte, as it's just not very effective against decks running 0 creatures and not trying to deal damage to you. Besides, artifacts don't pitch to FoW. Actually, it might be worth it to bring Binding Grasp or something blue in for the last Jitte as it pitches to Misds and FoWs.

Against burn:
-3 Psionic Blast
+3 Misdirection

The MU is ridiculously easy, but Misdirection is the icing on the cake. Misdirecting their final Fireblast and such is always a warm, fuzzy feeling (of course, usually they just get pwned by Jitte and/or Chalice). Psionic Blast obviously comes out as this is the match-up where you don't want to be dealing too much damage to yourself. That's actually their only course to victory, you hurt yourself enough for them to double Fireblast you and hope you don't have counters.

And against Pikula:
-1 Chalice of the Void
-1 Psionic Blast (they're fine as if Pikula happens to WIN a game, it'll be because they had an active Dark Confidant and it offs the Confidant)
-1 Sea Sprite
+3 Misdirection

This just makes you feel filthy. Misd their StPs, Misd their Vindicates, Misd their Sinkholes, Misd their Hymns, Misd their Gerrard's Verdicts, whatever you do, they'll be crying the whole ride home. Of course, there might be other cards to side depending on their build (Binding Grasps, Pithing Needles, Engineered Explosives, etc. depending on if there are worthy targets)

They might occasionally come in against Rifter too (if they run multiple Pyroblasts post-board) and they're worth considering against anything running counters. It depends much on the builds you're facing really, but at least against Solidarity, Pikula and Burn, they should always come in.

Caleb
04-20-2006, 12:53 PM
As a side note, which decks should we be dropping a chalice for 2 before we drop one for one. I know RG survival, but anything else?


Doesn't a chalice for 2 counter a chalice for one? I know when you mana drain a chalice for one, you get two mana, so on the stack it's cc becomes 2...

Eldariel
04-20-2006, 12:57 PM
Doesn't a chalice for 2 counter a chalice for one? I know when you mana drain a chalice for one, you get two mana, so on the stack it's cc becomes 2...

Yup. In short, if Chalice is to be dropped at 2, it should either be dropped at 1 first, or not at all.

MonkeY
04-20-2006, 08:33 PM
Eladarial, on Starcitygames you have said that after testing Lotus Petal you have turned it down. What I don't understand is how it is worse than Chrome Mox?

Chrome Mox
Pros:
-Permanent Acceleration effect for free.
-Can be fetched by Trinket Mage
Cons:
-Generates massive card disadvantage that makes you more prone to mulliganing than you already are.
-Doesn't work with Artifacts which you run a large and increasing amount of.

Lotus Petal
Pros:
-One-shot acceleration effect for free. Worse than Chrome Mox
-Can be fetched by Trinket Mage for no Card Disadvantage. Better than Chrome Mox
-Can add mana of any color. Better than Chrome Mox, though unessaccery.
Cons:
-Card Disadvantage. Better than Chrome Mox
-One Shot. Better than Chrome Mox

Even though Lotus Petal is one shot, it adds to the decks explosiveness as much as Chrome Mox does without ruining your mulliganing. And this deck is always going to be inconsistant, so making it less inconsistant to make it slightly slower seems better to me, especially if it is just as explosive.

Just some thoughts for you to consider.

EDIT: I also feel that you should be running at least one Tormod's Crypt MD. I havn't tested this yet, but it would beat thresh and IGGy Pop so badly. I'm sure IGGy isn't an easy match up and I'm also sure that Thresh isn't a walk in the park. Having 3 Tormod's Crypt would make it close to one. I would probably cut a Meloku for one, as Meloku is the worst of your finishers and you are running 10 big dudes already + a lot of equipment.

Eldariel
04-20-2006, 08:48 PM
Eladarial, on Starcitygames you have said that after testing Lotus Petal you have turned it down. What I don't understand is how it is worse than Chrome Mox?

Chrome Mox
Pros:
-Permanent Acceleration effect for free.
-Can be fetched by Trinket Mage
Cons:
-Generates massive card disadvantage that makes you more prone to mulliganing than you already are.
-Doesn't work with Artifacts which you run a large and increasing amount of.

Lotus Petal
Pros:
-One-shot acceleration effect for free. Worse than Chrome Mox
-Can be fetched by Trinket Mage for no Card Disadvantage. Better than Chrome Mox
-Can add mana of any color. Better than Chrome Mox, though unessaccery.
Cons:
-Card Disadvantage. Better than Chrome Mox
-One Shot. Better than Chrome Mox

Even though Lotus Petal is one shot, it adds to the decks explosiveness as much as Chrome Mox does without ruining your mulliganing. And this deck is always going to be inconsistant, so making it less inconsistant to make it slightly slower seems better to me, especially if it is just as explosive.

Just some thoughts for you to consider.


Well, the thing is, it's not a permanent source, so it can't take the place of a permanent blue source in the deck. 13 is the bare minimum, can't go under that. That's why I had to take out City of Traitors for the Lotus Petal and the problem isn't comparing Lotus Petal to Chrome Mox, it's comparing it to City of Traitors (City outshines it always). Actually Petal ruins mulligans worse as what I need in addition to explosiveness is the ability to follow up. A hand with Mox, Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors is generally a dream hand, hand with Petal, Tomb and City would be unkeepable (except under very specific circumstances). Chrome Mox's card disadvantage is annoying, but the speed and immunity to Wasteland, Sinkhole, Rishadan Port and company are well worth it (funny how landhate is more common in the format than artifact hate). When searching for mana with Trinket Mage, I almost invariably search for Seat of the Synod anyways. Occasionally I might have a City of Traitors in play and not wanting to blow it up yet, I'll get a Chrome Mox instead, but Petal would again be of no help as I need a permanent source.

To put it shortly, the explosiveness needs to carry on. It's not enough to explode turn 1, we need to keep the pressure coming. Also, one of the deck's major strengths is it's ability to get by perfectly with just 2 mana sources, Petal would weaken that side, increasing the number of mulligans again. Petal would really need to be in a spellslot to be worth anything and quite frankly, the spellslots compete on MUCH higher powerlevel presently.

The 8 lands are all the 'acceleration' we really need. Moxes are more like 'quick lands' or something. There are occasional problems with them, but they're worth withstanding. Once I had to Force of Will turn 1 Duress because Mox was my only blue source. I proceeded to win that game with a steady stream of 4/3s and 3/4s, and a 2/2 and finally SoFI for the win.


With Oath/Fact/another draw source, I might consider going back to 4 even. Between SoFIs, Trinket Mages, Chalice of the Voids (generates virtual card advantage by banning opponent's hand) and the draw, it's not hard to make up for the lost card advantage. Also, low landcount helps with that, something Lotus Petal would only hurt. Actually, the card disadvantage in Lotus Petal is worse, as you get nothing longterm for the investment of a card. From Chrome Mox, you get an extra land for that investment. Fact actually seems kinda interesting. We could be chaining Facts BBS-style here.

Phantom
04-21-2006, 06:39 PM
We'll have to test at least UGr, UGw, UGrw and UGb Threshold to get some comprehensive results. I really liked the sound of that though. Mind if I ask, how did you conduct the testing? Was your testing partner basically the same skill level as you? Did you take turns playing each deck? Btw, Thres usually runs a few Naturalizes on the SB. Since green mana is more consistent for the deck than white, it's usually the better alternative.


Well, the naturalizes/disenchant debate was moot, since I run no mana disruption, and he had no problem getting either color. As for the quality of testing, we were near equal skill, but we didn't switch, and I'm not sure if the UGw build was optimal. It doesn't change the fact that last time I tested against this exact same deck, I went about 45/55. My testing shoud NOT be taken as law. It SHOULD show that the changes improved the deck, at least in this matchup.

As for the Oath/Thirst/Fact debate, I didn't test Thirst or Oath at all, but did test Fact a bunch. Every time I drew Fact, I tried to think if Oath was better choice. I have to say that very few times I answered a resounding yes (once that I can remember when I Facted into 3 land and a mox). On the other hand, Oath would have been an awful card in a few instnaces (Thresh had less cards than me, Thresh had a Disenchant, Thresh had more cards, but could easily dump them, when I had the mana to play a spell that turn, etc).

Once again, this isn't a definite Fact >>> Oath statement, but we need a bunch of testing. Also, I'm thinking about bumping up to three Fof, because of how well they tested and how devestating Fact into Fact is.

Also, I have bumped back up to 4 Moxes. I feel so crippeled when I don't start with one... (and I was the one on STG who suggested Lotus Petal LOL)

Eldariel
04-21-2006, 07:30 PM
If you're gonna run FoF, even 4 is considerable. As I've said at SCG, oldschool BBS (which actually was, contrary to popular belief, very much an aggro-deck) was able to chain Fact of Fictions by running 4 of them, and digging 5 cards deep putting them closer to the next one. The deck could often cast FoF after FoF to completely devastate its opponent. If that's what we end up with, I can't complain about the power. FoF has proven time and time again to be a good competitor for the title of 'the most powerful card in the format'. It hasn't found home due to its high manacost, but what is it to Faerie Stompy? We can cast it turn 2 with reckless abandon. The only strike against it is, it doesn't allow us to improve our existing hand. Unlike Thirst, it doesn't draw us an extra card and force us discard a card. It just draws a ludicrous amount of cards for a low (and most importantly to us, colour indifferent) cost at an instant speed, and 'tutors' even deeper if we need a specific card (say, we need to hit a FoW. Chances are, 5 card down we will and they're forced to let us have it). Oath allows us to discard a hand for 3 extra cards each turn, it allows us to definately improve our hand quality and if we don't like the new hand, we can usually just toss it away too. Thirst allows us to discard excess Chalice, Jitte or Mox. FoF might just outpower the 2 other options though. All 3 are viable candidates, but I will say it once more: Only 1 slot for pure drawing. Else we'll be hurting our goldfish, something we can't afford to do. Aggro-deck is all good, aggro that doesn't run out of gas is great, but it's still aggro so it still needs to kill in some relevant timeframe.


But yea, if you consider yourself a decent Threshold-pilot and your playtest partner knows the ins and outs of Faerie Stompy, go ahead and switch the decks like every 10 games and so and play equal amount of games as both to trivialize the skill factor. Try to check for a list from a tournament when testing as those lists are the ones we're most likely facing in tournaments. Local tech doesn't really interest us, we just want to know the worst likely case scenario, since if it's alright, all the others are as well, except for perhaps that 1 deck in the huge field, which simply shouldn't matter to us. Of course, if a big innovation comes out, we'll update our gauntlet lists. But yea, this gives us the most reliable testing data.

Lego
04-22-2006, 02:54 PM
From the way this discussion has been going, I don't think there is an optimal, agreed upon decklist at all yes. I'm going to throw out something that is a bit off the beaten path, a bit different than what is being discussed here, but that I think is much more consistent. Credit for the list goes to Damping Engine. Here it is:

4 Flying Men
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Sea Sprite
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake

4 Force of Will
4 Standstill

4 Aether Vial
4 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Ancient Tomb
13 Island

SIDEBOARD:
4 Winter Orb
4 Propaganda
4 Disrupt
3 Counterspell

Changes in the deck: There is no "finisher" in Meloku. The reason for this is simply that your two biggest flyers and Sword of Fire and Ice are your finishers.

No Chrome Mox. This was a consistency issue, and at the most I could see including two moxen. No City of Traitors. Playing 4 Ancient Tomb, 4 Cities, and 4 Chrome Mox was simply crazy. No more comment.

Out Psyionic Blast, in Standstill. This is because the deck should not be playing for turn 3 wins, it should be playing a slightly slower, much more consistent game. This can go for some other draw if you find Standstill to not be optimal for you.

Out Chalice, in Aether Vial. This is the most iffy choice in this decklist, but I think it's strong. Chalice can go back in if you really need it in your meta, so this spot is up in the air.

Overall I think this decklist is much more consistent and a more powerful build because of it. Damping Engine has hat a lot of success with this deck in the Syracuse area, and it has some good game against a good portion of the field. It won't lose to itself as much as the original list would.

P.S. The title should be "FORMERLY" Tidal Wave, not Formally

Eldariel
04-22-2006, 04:55 PM
From the way this discussion has been going, I don't think there is an optimal, agreed upon decklist at all yes.

This is very true, and the deck also has no real tournament finishes on its back yet as it hasn't really been taken to any tournaments to the date (except for Kadilak's Draft). Also, there's very much room for development in the deck to optimize its performance in the metagame. I'm very sure it can have a positive match-up against at least the present top tier. When someone Top 8s in a tournament with this, I'm going to recommend moving this to the open forum, not before that. That said, I'm fully confident that the deck is capable of top8ing.


No Chrome Mox. This was a consistency issue, and at the most I could see including two moxen. No City of Traitors. Playing 4 Ancient Tomb, 4 Cities, and 4 Chrome Mox was simply crazy. No more comment.

Removing Mox I can see, but taking out cities? The deck loses a huge chunk of speed, turning to a Fish with only 4 accelerants instead of the present 12. Getting a Sword of Fire and Ice online is much slower without those cards, and the Sword, as well as Facts and company are the cards that are able to redeem the card disadvantage here.


Out Psyionic Blast, in Standstill. This is because the deck should not be playing for turn 3 wins, it should be playing a slightly slower, much more consistent game. This can go for some other draw if you find Standstill to not be optimal for you.

I don't know about this, Psionic Blast has appeared to be very useful removal in addition to finisher. I agree that draw should be added though, but I don't think this is the spot. Standstill makes sense in that list, after all it runs both, Mishra's Factory and Vial. This again makes it far more Fish-like though. I'd personally strongly suggest testing Dazes in that build. 13 Islands is plenty to support it and it could help a lot in taking advantage of the speed.


Out Chalice, in Aether Vial. This is the most iffy choice in this decklist, but I think it's strong. Chalice can go back in if you really need it in your meta, so this spot is up in the air.

Well, Chalice is the pivotal card in the deck in my opinion. That said, Chalice is also the card which makes all the acceleration not only good, but also important (as you'll want to be able to drop a Chalice for 1 turn 1). In my eyes, that deck is already so far off the plan that it's more of an accelerated Fish. I'm not saying it's a bad deck, but it seems to have very different strengths from the list I've been advocating thus far. Chalice can't really be played in that version, as just 4 Tombs isn't enough to drop it turn 1 for 1 with any consistency and 4 Flying Men, not to mention 4 Vials, really are hurt by it. Chalice generates huge virtual card advantage though, so I wouldn't want to remove it. To support Standstill though, I guess Vial is necessary. I'd definately choose some more active draw source than Standstill, since it gives opponent lots of time to build his board. If I was on the opposing seat, I'd take few points of damage for a while to develop my board before breaking the Still, since no equipment can come down during that time, rapidly eating to the speed advantage Faerie Stompy normally enjoys. That said, with that little acceleration, I'm pretty sure it can't support Fact or Fiction and with that few artifacts, it doesn't want to play Thirst for Knowledge, so I guess Standstill is the next best thing.


Overall I think this decklist is much more consistent and a more powerful build because of it. Damping Engine has hat a lot of success with this deck in the Syracuse area, and it has some good game against a good portion of the field. It won't lose to itself as much as the original list would.

P.S. The title should be "FORMERLY" Tidal Wave, not Formally

You can thank Peter_Rotten for that, I just couldn't figure out how to rename the thread itself (I only got to rename the first post), so I asked him to. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not (formally Tidal Wave makes sense too), but I'm not going to bother asking him to fix it. Gets the point through.

As for that list, it seems like wildly different deck really. It gives lots of speed for a more Fish-like approach. I think playing Standstill, Mishra's Factory and Vial instead of Chalice, City and some other draw engine might be a mistake as Chalice is such a huge bomb (and always going to be really unless Stax begins to dominate the format (which isn't too bad btw, since almost all our cards cost 3 or more anyways and we can generate mana just as fast as they can)) and as a bonus, improves game 1 against anything combo very much indeed. I'm still not certain on Mox to a direction or another. On the other hand, it gives me more consistent early Chalices and better chances to get swing with Swords and Jittes FTW early, as well as the power to cast whatever draw we decide to add in due schedule (and is great against Pikula, as their Sinkholes can't touch it), but it does eat cards. Then again, I have great experiences of playing 4 Moxes from way back from Mirrodin, since the deck just won more games thanks to them, than got screwed by them in (talking about WW). If we do add some heavy draw, I think Moxes will be alright. Trinket Mage definately helps.

Thanks for posting the list though, I was really interested in seeing, with what Damping was playing. That sideboard definately needs work though. Counterspell can't be supported with 13 Islands, Mana Leak can. Misdirection would be a free variant though, in my experience freeness>everything. Pithing Needles seems like it belongs, especially since the deck isn't playing Chalices. Also, Mind Harness could really work in the slot, Propaganda occupies presently. Perhaps the deck should even move to Wasteland over Factory and add Crucible.

EDIT: I don't want to dismiss the list or Damping Engine's testing, since it's fully possible that he knows a lot that I don't. I just feel like it's taken a different path and isn't necessarily as much an improvement as an alternative. As I already said, it seems very much like accelerated Fish to me. If it's a better alternative depends on the metagame and the match-ups.

Phantom
04-22-2006, 05:11 PM
P.S. The title should be "FORMERLY" Tidal Wave, not Formally

That I'll give you, lol!


Changes in the deck: There is no "finisher" in Meloku. The reason for this is simply that your two biggest flyers and Sword of Fire and Ice are your finishers.

Meloku is gone from my build, but I'm not sure he was ever a "finisher". Sea Drake has almost always been my main finisher. Meloku was just another big flyer who happened to have a good ability (and could be played turns 2-3). He's certainly not worth it in your build since you're running little acceleration.


No Chrome Mox. This was a consistency issue, and at the most I could see including two moxen. No City of Traitors. Playing 4 Ancient Tomb, 4 Cities, and 4 Chrome Mox was simply crazy. No more comment.

I once agreed that it was crazy and started taking moxes out...and it ruined the deck. The answer here was adding draw to back up the moxes. At most I could see us cutting down to 2-3 mox and 3 City of Traitors. 1st and 2nd turn Drakes/Serendibs are huge. Backing them up with equipment (and equipping it) on the next turn is just as huge. Otherwise, how are we beating combo?



Out Psyionic Blast, in Standstill. This is because the deck should not be playing for turn 3 wins, it should be playing a slightly slower, much more consistent game. This can go for some other draw if you find Standstill to not be optimal for you.

PSIONIC blast is questionable I guess, but removing it hurts the combo matchup even more, and gives us no way to deal with resolved flyers (other than sword and Jitte which aren't exactly consistent). Standstill is an interesting thought, but Fact or Fictions seems better since I can cast them on the same turn. Eldariel swears by the blast, and it is an amzing card, but I find myself rarely playing it. Then again, I have tested exactly 0 games vs. Combo.


Out Chalice, in Aether Vial. This is the most iffy choice in this decklist, but I think it's strong. Chalice can go back in if you really need it in your meta, so this spot is up in the air.

Chalice WRECKS a ton of decks. Vial wrecks Landstill... Vial may be a decent choice for your build (i.e. fish) but it's waaay to slow for ours. We're not looking to lay uncounterable Drakes on turn 4. Plus taking out Chalices puts us back below 50/50 vs. Thresh and hurts too many matchups to be counted (combo, burn, goblins, RGSA, Angel Stompy, etc)


Overall I think this decklist is much more consistent and a more powerful build because of it. Damping Engine has hat a lot of success with this deck in the Syracuse area, and it has some good game against a good portion of the field. It won't lose to itself as much as the original list would.

Consistent, yes. Powerful, I doubt it. By removing moxes and cutting your 2 mana lands down to 4, you're ensuring that you can't consistently swing with a sword equipped creature until turn 4! Isn't that way too slow for Legacy? I know it's too slow to beat Combo.


@Lego Army Man: I've been reading the boards for a while now and it's clear that you know waaay more about Legacy than I do, but when it comes to this deck, I defer only to Eldariel, who somehow has better spelling and grammar than I do despite living in Finland...).

What we are trying to build here is a lightning fast creature deck, that sacrifices cards for speed, and backs that up with amazing draw to make up for that sacrifice. At first, we thought Sword of Fire Ice was enough draw, but recently we (I) realized that 2-4 Fact or Fictions (I think 3 as I don't want to draw 2 in my opening hand) were amazing for the few times I ran out of gas, or for digging for a needed piece of equipment, removal, etc.

I think what we've accomplished here (or, at least, what we're trying to accomplish) is an aggro deck with positive matchups vs. Thresh, Goblins, and Combo, that can also recover from mass removal/control. We may not be quite there yet, but I think we're too close to drastically change the deck. Also, after testing Chalice, I would NEVER, EVER take it out of my build.

I can understand how this deck might look like Affinity, or a pump/berserk deck (i.e. a deck that wins quickly sometimes, but fizzles too easily and folds to disruption/removal, but I assure you it is not).

Sorry if my rebuttal was too strong, but i have fallen in love with this deck.


EDIT: I started typing this before the above response was posted, which is pretty much my response heh. Just goes to show that Eldariel and I are on the same page when it comes to this deck. Also, I agree that it's somewhat crazy to run Counterspell and Prop with only 13 blue mana sources. Hell, WE almost run 13 blue mana sources.

Also, I agree that there is no optimal, agreed on list, but we're zeroing in. We need to decide on a draw engine, the correct amount of draw, and what is coming out. Then, we need to test the board more.

Son_Gozen
04-23-2006, 06:01 AM
Yesterday i went 3-1-1 on our weekly lagecy tournament(i was 6th Place) with this build:


Kerry´s Faerie Stompy
// Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
5 Island
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Seat of the Synod

// Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
4 Trinket Mage
2 Rainbow Efreet

// Spells
4 Chrome Mox
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Fact or Fiction
3 Thirst for Knowledge

// Sideboard
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Misdirection
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Chill
1 Scrabbling Claws
1 Phyrexian Furnace
2 Rainbow Efreet

I haven´t used my sideboard cuz, i needed 4 Misdirection so i filled that spot with random stuff like Time Stretch and such things.

Round 1: NQG

I can´t remember what splash he ran, but he has beaten me up in game 1. I held a god hand with Ancient Tomb, Island, Chalice Of The Void, Serendib Efreet, Sword Of Fire and Ice, Thirst for Knowledge. He countered my Chalice and then my Serendib Efreet. Then he countered my Thirst for Knowledge. Then i drew 2 more Sword of Fire and Ice. And no creatures. i went 0:2 against that deck.

Round 2: R/W Vial Goblins
Game 1: I started and played CotV=1. I play Chrome Mox, Serendib Efreet. Then SoFaI Ancient Tomb equip the Efreet: game
Game 2: He boarded in his Pyrostatic Pillars. i lost cause i couldn´t handle it and he stomped me with his Piledrivers, Warchiefs and Matrons.
Game 3: I start with CotV=1. I play Cloud of Faeries and SoFaI. I equip my Cloud Of Faeries and play CotV=2 then a Serendib Efreet. another SoFaI, equip: game. 2:1

Round 3: Rats

I stomped that girl with my big critters in game 1. Game 2: She boarded in some Diabolic Edicts and other crap. SHe can handle 3 of my creatures but a Cloud of Faeries equipped with 2 SoFaI and a Jitte with 2 counters on finishes the game. 2:0

Round 4: NQG/w

Game 1:I start with CotV=1 then 3rd round CotV=2. He scoops.
Game 2: He starts with the drug card and go. I Play CotV=1 he can´t counter it. He plays Meddling Mage i play FoW. I can get out a SoFaI. He plays 4th round Enforcer. I play Rainbow Efreet go. Equip with SoFaI and UU open to phase out. he doesn´t want to block. 6th round i play SoFaI equip he scoops. 2:0

Round 5: NQG/r

My opponent is a friend of mine who knows my Deck. So i asked him for a draw. But my friend said only if i can win game 1: I take mulligan down to 5 he down to 6. I start with Island go. He gets out a Mongoose go. I play Island Cloud of Faeries then CotV=1 go. He doesn´t attack. I play jitte go. he doesn´t attack. I equip the jitte then game. 1:1

it did quite well cuz i cutted the Waterspout Djinns for Raonbow Efreets. I didn´t board in anything against the decks. So far for them kids who say: Mono U Beatdown? That´s not possible. U mean Fish and that deck sucks. Even Flying Men + Unstable Mutation isn´t good so you´re kidding with your Deck.

H-a-n-d

Son Gozen aka Kerry

Anusien
04-23-2006, 06:19 AM
What exactly is Trinket Mage fetching? There are no Sensei's Divining Tops, you're not running Tormod's Crypt, and EE @ 1 is fairly underwhelming. And it shouldn't be fetching out Seat of the Synod, because if you can play Trinket Mage, you can make mana.

Fetching Chalice of the Void seems extremely sub-par. My Stax testing showed that it's almost always a dead drop past turn 1 on the play versus Goblins, and it definitely seems like there are better things to play versus Thresh than setting up a turn 3 chalice with almost nothing to show for it (1 beater).

Eldariel
04-23-2006, 07:05 AM
What exactly is Trinket Mage fetching? There are no Sensei's Divining Tops, you're not running Tormod's Crypt, and EE @ 1 is fairly underwhelming. And it shouldn't be fetching out Seat of the Synod, because if you can play Trinket Mage, you can make mana.

Fetching Chalice of the Void seems extremely sub-par. My Stax testing showed that it's almost always a dead drop past turn 1 on the play versus Goblins, and it definitely seems like there are better things to play versus Thresh than setting up a turn 3 chalice with almost nothing to show for it (1 beater).

Goblins is not a real issue. The record has been extremely positive, and post-SB, it can just be getting Pithing Needles or EEs (the reason for EE is, it can be dropped past Chalice and used to blow up Mongeese, Vials, Lackeys, Needles and company while still preserving the Chalice), but overall, Goblins aren't really kept in mind when constructing the deck. Chalice at any point versus Threshold is pretty hot and 2 is always pretty much game as they're reduced to playing Enforcers/Dragons and FoWs. It can get Seat if you want to play-equip Jitte or Sword or just Fact or cast Meloku and had a 2-lander. It's simply an insurance that you can do it in addition to getting Chalices. But yea, pre-board it generally goes for Chalice (good versus Solidarity as long as dropped before they go off, Threshold at just about any point, against AS one wants multiple Chalices at 1 anyways, since they play Disenchants/Seals, and so on. It also makes sideboarding much more effective as you get to bring in Needles, Crypts and EE you have tutors for. Actually, the sideboarding utility made the sideboard so much more powerful that it's one of the big reasons for Trinket Mage). Note: I'm speaking for the build posted at SCG. His build doesn't contain Pithing Needle (budget constraints, I presume?), but it's still fairly powerful.


Btw, how was the Rainbow Efreet? It seems to me like you might have trouble casting it on occasions, did it get stranded in your hand at any point? Btw, which flavour of NQG was the one you lost to? I've been considering Skywing Aven, as long as it doesn't get countered, it gives us a weapon against removal as we can 'convert' any cards in our hands into more Skywing Avens.

Also, how about the Scrabbling Claws and Phyrexian Furnace on the side? Did they actually do anything for you? Also, did you like that build more than the build with 4 Thirsts and 4 Facts?

Son_Gozen
04-23-2006, 07:16 AM
Btw, how was the Rainbow Efreet? It seems to me like you might have trouble casting it on occasions, did it get stranded in your hand at any point? Btw, which flavour of NQG was the one you lost to? I've been considering Skywing Aven, as long as it doesn't get countered, it gives us a weapon against removal as we can 'convert' any cards in our hands into more Skywing Avens.

Also, how about the Scrabbling Claws and Phyrexian Furnace on the side? Did they actually do anything for you?
Scrabbling Claws and Furnace do something for you. When you drop 1 of them at first turn they keep NQG from getting Threshold. And they make you not as vulnarable against Pithing Needle. Also Rainbow Efreet is nice since you can save him and the Equipment attached to it. So you´re not as vulnerable against massremoval as long as you keep UU open to phase the Efreet out. Like you can see i play TfK over Psi Blast. Cuz Psi Blast is a one shot Damage but drawing Creatures is mostly a more than 1 shot damage. I even hate to Blast away big threshed Werebears that i can´t handle with my own creatures.

Eldariel
04-23-2006, 08:10 AM
It's funny how cards can be good for totally random reasons. Fact is awesome against Threshold, not only because of the cards it puts to hand. But also because of the cards it puts to grave :P Binding Grasp gives me basically always Threshed creatures when I've resolved a Fact.

I'll have to test 2-Crypt/1-Furnace sideboard against Thres and see if it works better/differently.

Phantom
04-23-2006, 08:24 AM
Fetching Chalice of the Void seems extremely sub-par. My Stax testing showed that it's almost always a dead drop past turn 1 on the play versus Goblins, and it definitely seems like there are better things to play versus Thresh than setting up a turn 3 chalice with almost nothing to show for it (1 beater).

I can tell you from personal testing that Chalice at any point in the game vs. Thresh is a good thing. The only real time I might not want one is if he's laid an Enforcer. Still, stopping StP is enough, let alone any dig he draws into. Plus, I actually think the mage in an underrated beater in this deck. Thresh has a whole boatload of trouble dealing with an equipped mage, especially pre-Threshold.

If this ever proves to be a problem, we could always add a mainboard artifact like EE, cursed scroll, or needle.


Btw, how was the Rainbow Efreet? It seems to me like you might have trouble casting it on occasions, did it get stranded in your hand at any point? Btw, which flavour of NQG was the one you lost to? I've been considering Skywing Aven, as long as it doesn't get countered, it gives us a weapon against removal as we can 'convert' any cards in our hands into more Skywing Avens.

These both seem to have upsides. Rainbow efreet can dodge artifact and creature hate, but costs the elusive UU (which admittedly is easier to get now with Trinkets and seats) or the slightly slower (in that it needs to be recast), easier to save, Skywing Aven. I think the Aven goes a little better with Fact or Fiction so I might try him in the Psionic Blast slot. That would hurt my enforcer/dragon removal plan though (Trinket -> Crypt -> Psi Blast).

@Son_Gozen: Did you find Fof to be better than Thirst? Was the lack of moxes a meta choice (I noticed no combo matchup) or did you just want more business spells?

Mordenkain
04-23-2006, 10:26 AM
You know what guys, I would really like to play this deck, but there is one thing that really hinders me. Sea Drake. While being insanely good and all, they are hard to find anywhere. Here in my country, nobody has them on the trading forums and the shops don't have them too. Hell, using www.findmagiccards.com doesn't bring any results.
This could really be a hinderinge to this decks breakthrough. Is there any cards able to replace the Drakes until I by a miracle finds them?

Eldariel
04-23-2006, 10:51 AM
That's the one huge problem. I had to go through hell to get some (in the end, I found a person selling them on Ebay. I didn't hesitate to pay 26 dollars for a set). That said, while the deck will obviously be less powerful without them, if you can't get the Drakes, try some other 2U beater in the slot. The cost is the most relevant part (while obviously, no other beater can match the power of Sea Drake), since while Sea Drake's ability allows for sweet landtricks in the midgame in addition to being ignorable in the early game, most of the time victories still come through equipment. The mentioned Skywing Aven could be a decent replacement. 2/1 for a 4/3 is of course iffy, but the ability can be very useful against any deck running removal, and it's still a force to reckon with if you toss it any equipment. The notable problem is, Goblins can't really deal with early 4/3s (without Bolt anyways), but a 2/1 isn't going to stop them. Still, Sea Sprite and Efreet stop the Lackeys well enough. All this coming from experience, I was playing the deck without Sea Drakes and I did awfully. My mistake wasn't playing without Sea Drakes though, it was the replacements. Chalice is so powerful at 2 against Threshold that you'll often want to drop it there, but I just lost games doing that, since I had banned my Drake-replacements too. So, 2U is the magic thing. The deck will become weaker, but not by as much as it might first seem.

Cloud Spirit and Cloud Elemental are somewhat options, but they can't block, which will be frustrating every now and then. Wormfang Drake would need more edible friends. Skywing Aven, Wind Drake or perhaps Wormfang Drake are possible options. Oh, and Weatherseed Faeries. They're probably the best option actually, as red is mostly the colour that benefits of creatures having 1 toughness and pro-red counteracts that. It generates a totally random problem though: 11 of your creatures are suddenly 1-toughness Faeries (and anything black plays Engineered Plague).

If this is the path you choose, Sea Sprites should probably become 2 Thought Eaters (Thought Eater is a card, you can't play 3 of since having second is basically always going to destroy you) and 1 something (Flying Men, Trinket Mage, Sea Sprite, etc.). But yea, Weatherseed Faeries are actually my suggestion. They're decent beaters and are fine against Goblins, and pretty easy to equip up. Btw, there are 3 Sea Drakes going at Ebay right now, might be worth taking a look at.

Mordenkain
04-23-2006, 11:59 AM
Hmm...
What would you suggest if going into a meta that you know doesn't include goblins? My meta is thresh heavy but sees no goblins.

Eldariel
04-23-2006, 12:19 PM
Hmm...
What would you suggest if going into a meta that you know doesn't include goblins? My meta is thresh heavy but sees no goblins.

Prolly Skywing Aven. It dodges all their removal, generally drawing a Counter, which is always nice.

Son_Gozen
04-23-2006, 03:24 PM
Prolly Skywing Aven. It dodges all their removal, generally drawing a Counter, which is always nice.

Just saying that Rainbow Efreet is better. Cuz with it you can dodge mass removal like vengeance or save your Equip. Only for UU no cost of handcard.

Eldariel
04-23-2006, 04:16 PM
Just saying that Rainbow Efreet is better. Cuz with it you can dodge mass removal like vengeance or save your Equip. Only for UU no cost of handcard.

How often will you really have UU in this deck? I've definately had problems consistently generating 2 blue and even more so wanting to keep it open.

Phantom
04-23-2006, 10:48 PM
Rainbow Efreet:
Pros:
-3/1
-Can save equipment
-Comes back after phasing for 0 mana and without summoning sickness.
-Has word "rainbow" in title, thus enhancing humiliation of losing to "Faerie Stompy"

Cons:
-Can't be played turn 1 (mostly)
-Tough to generate/leave untapped the mana needed to phase it (3UUU first turn it is cast!)

Skywing Aven:
Pros:
-Can be cast first turn
-Can be saved with no mana investement.
-Ability works great with draw engine.

Cons:
-2/1
-Folds to a few cards like Darkblast and Eng. Plague
-Needs to be recast, and live through summoning sickness.



All in all, I'd have to declare my support for Skywing Aven.

Son_Gozen
04-24-2006, 05:45 AM
How often will you really have UU in this deck? I've definately had problems consistently generating 2 blue and even more so wanting to keep it open.
Actually that´s why i´m running them as 2-of and if you can get them out you shouldn´t have problems generation UU with 13 Blue sources. Also Remember you can fetch 1 of 6 blue Sources by playing Trinket Mage.

Eldariel
04-24-2006, 04:20 PM
Well, after some testing, I went 12-8 against the winning UGw Threshold from Kadilak's Dual Land Draft, all those games pre-board. I'm going to test post-board games later, my playtest partner ran out of time.

Anyhow, what I got out of it:
-Rainbow Efreet eats my shorts. No, seriously, it resolved once and even then it only looked stupid and chumped Werebear. Most of the time, it's simply impossible to cast with Dazes and Forces eating huge chunks of tempo. Besides, it costs way too much to cast pleasantly.
-Meloku is good to have gone. It costed too much, so it was unreliable with Cities and in topdeck mode, etc.
-Trinket Mage is good. I may want some more.
-Psionic Blast is sweet. If one doesn't have to cast it off Ancient Tombs anyways. It was the card I often most wanted to draw. That said, it was cast very rarely as it's primary purpose was usually to off Mystic Enforcers, which Threshold failed to cast since it never draws lands, no matter how many dig-spells are cast.
-Fact or Fiction seems good. Of course we got some trademark MWS-Facts (Island, Island, Chrome Mox, Island, Serendib Efreet, for example), but that was a game one wouldn't have won anyways. For some reason my playtest partner didn't get to use Fact nearly as much as I did. That said, I won basically always when I resolved a Fact.
-Chalice is good. I mulliganed to 4 and won thanks to Chalice at 1 on play. Only once did Threshold win through Chalice at 1 and that was when I was playing Threshold and had multiple Werebears, Predicts, FoWs and a Mystic Enforcer. And even then Stompy only lost to a play mistake. That said, Stompy can very well win games without it too, especially if Thres is forced to FoW pitching the cantrips. The deck turns to crawl without the cantrip engine.
-Mystic Enforcer is way too expensive for Threshold. But that's something for the Threshold-players, not for us.
-With Facts and Trinket Mages, my mulligan-rate was very low.
-Both of us made a bunch of playmistakes we talked about later, it appears Stompy should've won at least 1 of the games it lost (that was confirmed later on as we analysed it). Then again, Threshold-player did few mistakes with shuffle-effect timing and Predicts (it's hard -.- I don't really like Predict, since it makes the damn pile SO much more complicated to play), so might be Threshold should've won at least 1 of the games it lost.
-Faerie Stompy really seemed to be favoured even though the difference is marginal. Many of the games Faerie Stompy lost were VERY close (like Threshold won at 1 life due to Cloud of Faeries being forced to block with Serendib Efreet-damage), while Threshold basically always lost with a huge margin.
-I'll want something better in the Rainbow Efreet-slot though. I'll test Skywing Aven since it's easier to cast and it allows me to convert lands in my hand into 'creatures'. That said, Aven sucks in topdeck mode. Then again, Efreet is hard to cast with City of Traitors occasionally.

Phantom
04-24-2006, 05:14 PM
-Rainbow Efreet eats my shorts. No, seriously, it resolved once and even then it only looked stupid and chumped Werebear. Most of the time, it's simply impossible to cast with Dazes and Forces eating huge chunks of tempo. Besides, it costs way too much to cast pleasantly.
-I'll want something better in the Rainbow Efreet-slot though. I'll test Skywing Aven since it's easier to cast and it allows me to convert lands in my hand into 'creatures'. That said, Aven sucks in topdeck mode. Then again, Efreet is hard to cast with City of Traitors occasionally.


In what spot are you running these creatures? I thought we replaced Flying men with Trinket Mage and Meloku's with FoF. After that, there is ver little wiggle room.



-Meloku is good to have gone. It costed too much, so it was unreliable with Cities and in topdeck mode, etc.
-Trinket Mage is good. I may want some more.


Glad to here it!



-Psionic Blast is sweet. If one doesn't have to cast it off Ancient Tombs anyways. It was the card I often most wanted to draw. That said, it was cast very rarely as it's primary purpose was usually to off Mystic Enforcers, which Threshold failed to cast since it never draws lands, no matter how many dig-spells are cast.


This is the spot that is most up in the air for me. Blast seems great sometimes, and useless other times. There aren't many creatures I want to blast. They are generally too weak to justify the card, or so strong that I need to 2-1 (plus 2-4 damage to me). This deck always wants a creature AND a piece of equipment out, so any slot that is not either has to be looked at long and hard. Also, I'm not sure I've ever ended a game with a blast to the face.




-Fact or Fiction seems good. Of course we got some trademark MWS-Facts (Island, Island, Chrome Mox, Island, Serendib Efreet, for example), but that was a game one wouldn't have won anyways. For some reason my playtest partner didn't get to use Fact nearly as much as I did. That said, I won basically always when I resolved a Fact.


This is where saclands might help us out. All our gas to help us early games is pretty much crap in a FoF draw. Not sure if saclands would help too much here, but it might be worth testing.

Also, do you think Oath would have been better than Fact here, or did you come to similar conclusions to mine?

Eldariel
04-24-2006, 06:08 PM
In what spot are you running these creatures? I thought we replaced Flying men with Trinket Mage and Meloku's with FoF. After that, there is ver little wiggle room.

I'm dropping little in the spell-department, 1 Jitte and 1 Blast presently. I also cut a single Sprite to get me more room to play around with. It might go back, but right now I'm interested in testing out different options for the deck, not finalizing the list just yet. But if Facts are to be added, we'll need to cut some spells for sure, we can't afford too low a creature count, even with the added draw.


This is the spot that is most up in the air for me. Blast seems great sometimes, and useless other times. There aren't many creatures I want to blast. They are generally too weak to justify the card, or so strong that I need to 2-1 (plus 2-4 damage to me). This deck always wants a creature AND a piece of equipment out, so any slot that is not either has to be looked at long and hard. Also, I'm not sure I've ever ended a game with a blast to the face.

I did it a lot against Solidarity (more specifically, killing them in response to them trying to go off/bounce my Chalice) and now with Facts (or Oaths), it's easy to find them against Rifter where the card is at its best. 'Burn you for 12, gg?' 'WTF? Aren't you playing Blue!?'


This is where saclands might help us out. All our gas to help us early games is pretty much crap in a FoF draw. Not sure if saclands would help too much here, but it might be worth testing.

Also, do you think Oath would have been better than Fact here, or did you come to similar conclusions to mine?

I'll test Oath separately. Might be that it'd be bad in totally random sitiuations like against some stupid Zoo or Burn. That remains to be seen. Fetchlands could of course help with the Facts as we actually see lots of our library, but we're already shooting ourselves with heavy artillery, I'm not sure if we want some more. Not to mention, topdecking lands is occasionally actually nice here. Oh, and the poor shuffling is mainly courtesy of MWS. You seriously can't have 2 of each card in a row every time when you shuffle manually. But yea, Oath might be bad in some sitiuations, I'm just not sure yet whether they'll outnumber the sitiuations it's awesome in or not. 'Draw 4 a turn' sounds alluring, alright.

Phantom
04-24-2006, 11:32 PM
I'm dropping little in the spell-department, 1 Jitte and 1 Blast presently. I also cut a single Sprite to get me more room to play around with. It might go back, but right now I'm interested in testing out different options for the deck, not finalizing the list just yet. But if Facts are to be added, we'll need to cut some spells for sure, we can't afford too low a creature count, even with the added draw.

I'm a little worried about dropping a Jitte and a Sprite (although I can't imagine what else to drop LOL) just because I love having the Goblins matchup so strong. The nightmare situation for me isn't having a piece of equipment, and no creature (which is bound to happen with all the creature removal flying around) it's having a 1/1 flyer with no equipment. Still, it's def worth testing 3 Jitte, especially with the amount of dig we're adding.


I did it a lot against Solidarity (more specifically, killing them in response to them trying to go off/bounce my Chalice) and now with Facts (or Oaths), it's easy to find them against Rifter where the card is at its best. 'Burn you for 12, gg?' 'WTF? Aren't you playing Blue!?'

Blast is a franky overpowered card vs. Combo.


'Draw 4 a turn' sounds alluring, alright.

If you're into that sort of thing ;)

Mordenkain
04-25-2006, 06:00 PM
I am a little confused by the way. What is the newest build of Faerie Stompy?

Eldariel
04-25-2006, 06:12 PM
I am a little confused by the way. What is the newest build of Faerie Stompy?

Well, the one at the first page in Starcitygames is the 'newest' build, but it's really just the newest tested build. Right now I'm testing with that build -1 Psionic Blast, -3 Meloku, -1 Sea Sprite, -1 Jitte, +4 Fact or Fiction, +2 Rainbow Efreet, but I'm not going to advocate running Rainbow Efreet, since it's only crapped on me in testing. As I already said, exactly once did I resolve it versus Threshold and then it ended up chumpblocking a Werebear with me at 4 life. Fact or Fiction I'm probably going to advocate unless Oath of Scholars or Thirst for Knowledge turn out to function better. The creature-slot is still in the air. On one hand Skywing Aven is alluring, but extra Trinket Mages could be nice too. Rainbow Efreet and Meloku can't be entirely forgotten about either and there are other somewhat relevant optiosn too.

I'm going to update the front page of this thread once I've gotten enough testing done to nail a list I like. Of course the development won't end there (there's plenty of room for some), but it'll at least give something to base all the work on.

Phantom
04-26-2006, 08:44 PM
Proxied up Rifter and Confidant to test against.

Pre board vs. Rifter -> 7-3
Pre board vs. Confidant -> 9-1!

I couldn't believe these results, but it happened. Rifter was probably a little closer than the numbers show, but Chalice @ 2 FTW (I can't stress this enough. Lay this ASAP even if it's before you can get one down for 1) kept happening thanks to Trinket mage and FoF. That gets rid of Lightning Rift, Disenchant, Clasm, and Abeyance. Without Lightning Rift, Humility is useless, and their cycling cards are digging them to crap. I think I lost every game that I let a Rift resolve, except one (god bless Pro Red). FoF helped a bunch here too. They are not a fast deck so draw really help (find the Chalice if no rift out, find sprite + equip if it is).

Confidant never even felt close. Chalice @1 helps alot, but they really can't block out 8 fatties, or any of our flyers when equipped. The only time hand destruction was an issue was when I had 2 lands tossed by a hymn. The only game I lost was because of Tomb of Urami. LMAO!

If these results are accurate, we're getting close to nailing down a deck that has a favorable matchup to all the decks in the Metagame Forum.

Phantom
04-26-2006, 10:52 PM
Assuming we're talking mono-white AS, then AS has a great matchup against all aggro, goes 50/50 or so with heavy control decks (meaning its thresh matchup is a bit better than 50/50, but not much, preboard), and has a horrible matchup vs. most types of combo (especially solidarity).

It strikes me that this decks matchups are slightly worse against random aggro and gobbo (though still good, also, how do you handle piledriver?), significantly better against combo, and probably slightly worse against control, though I'm not sure on that one. My guess is that parallax wave would make the real difference here.

Once you get out of mono-white AS, all bets are off. I'm running WU, and while I don't get chalice, I do get meddling and force of will... Wub is also quite popular.


You bring up a good point about control. I'm not sure this deck has ever been tested against Landstill. Luckily there's not really much control floating around.

As for Piledriver, I thought he was going to be a HUGE problem but I've found otherwise. An active Jitte/sword wrecks their whole deck and can be used to kill Piledriver, or the other fellas that pump him. Other than that we have FoW and the newly added Cursed Scroll that can be fetched by our Trinket mages. I think he might be a large problem post-board if Goblins are playing REBs.

As little as I know about As, I know even less about multicolor. You run enough blue to run FoW?

Son_Gozen
04-27-2006, 04:22 AM
You bring up a good point about control. I'm not sure this deck has ever been tested against Landstill. Luckily there's not really much control floating around.

As for Piledriver, I thought he was going to be a HUGE problem but I've found otherwise. An active Jitte/sword wrecks their whole deck and can be used to kill Piledriver, or the other fellas that pump him. Other than that we have FoW and the newly added Cursed Scroll that can be fetched by our Trinket mages. I think he might be a large problem post-board if Goblins are playing REBs.

As little as I know about As, I know even less about multicolor. You run enough blue to run FoW?


The biggest problem about Goblins boarding is not the REB it´s the Pyrostatic Pillar. With our Ancient Tombs it can hurt a lot to see how a Psi-Blast damages our opponent for 4 but us for 6. Or a creature like Serendib Efreet this hurts a lot. Goblins are boarding Disenchants, Pyrostatic Pillars, Armageddons, sometimes Lightning Helix. I´m going to try out some Sea Sprites instead of Meloku maybe it´ll work better than before. Yesterday i tried out the SaT Colossus plan. It´s kind of funny to see first a CotV=1 and in second turn a Darksteel Colossus. But it doesn´t work that often since you can run only 4 Show And Tell and 4 Colossus. The Colossus have a good synergy with Thirst For Knowledge and Fact Or Fiction. But if you have no SaT they´re useless unless you have the TfK. Rainbow Efreets are doing quite well since i´m running only 2 of them. I never need a full board to win that´s why i never had problems with removal. I´m going to try out Fabricate in the SB cuz against Sporefrog Locks an Jitte with counters on is game. I don´t like the idea of wasting a Psiblast for a 1/1 Sporefrog. My SB is as it follows atm:

4 Misdirection
3 Chill
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod´s Crypt
1 Scrabbling Claws
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Cursed Scroll

Eldariel
04-27-2006, 07:13 AM
I really like having Psionic Blasts around. It allows me to kill Spike Weavers, Spore Frogs and such to buy the time I need to accumulate Jitte-counters (against creature-based disruption, Jitte-counters are teh hawt), or just the time to swing FTW.

I was going to test Landstill, but haven't gotten by it yet as there have been more important concerns. Your results are very much like mine, Phantom, Deadguy is incredibly easy pre- and post-board. The deck is just not built to handle with a number of quick, large creatures. Rifter depends much on the build, WoGs could be worse than Pyroclasms as they actually kill our creatures. Also, SB Blasts are very frustrating. Post-SB I suggest a Chalice at 1 as they have StPs, Blasts and perhaps Chants.


Gozen: I've rarely had trouble with Pyrostatic Pillar. If Goblins don't have Blasts to sideboard, I find it to be really easy. I mean, sure we damage ourselves a lot with the amount of spells we play, but the match-up still comes down to Jittes and SoFIs.


tivadar: Against control though, FS has access to Chalice and Force of Will which both help immensely. Also, Faerie Stompy plays few manlands which helps and is overall the faster deck as it runs more acceleration. Also, FS has reach in Psionic Blasts (and now testing a singleton Cursed Scroll as Trinket Mage-target), allowing us to finish off control from high lifetotal (in a version with Cursed Scroll, that is).

Piledrivers are generally killed through Sword of Fire and Ice and Jitte. They're obviously pretty scary since they're essentially unblockable, but the fact that all our guys fly helps. And yea, equipment and Chalices keep the Goblin-population low so Piledrivers never get very big. When the deck does lose to Goblins, it's mostly to the mass with a Piledriver thrown in, but it happens rarely enough. The MU is immensely good and if I had to pick a single MU I wanted to play all tournament, after Deadguy and Burn it'd probably be Goblins (Goblins without Blast-SB, that is).

Monkey: The reason AS isn't considered Top Tier is its horrible match-up to anything combo. FS has quite a good one with maindeck disruption in form of Chalices, and tutors for it too, as well as Force of Wills. Also, FS seems to have a better match-up against Threshold, than AS. It could be possible that the deck indeed becomes top tier eventually. We'll see. If it does though, Sea Drake-availability will be a huge problem.

Lego
04-27-2006, 06:04 PM
Monkey: The reason AS isn't considered Top Tier is its horrible match-up to anything combo. FS has quite a good one with maindeck disruption in form of Chalices, and tutors for it too, as well as Force of Wills. Also, FS seems to have a better match-up against Threshold, than AS.

Can you explain your Thresh matchup? I'm not claiming you're incorrect, I'm just wondering how the games usually go. Seems like Chalice will be the backbreaker here, but otherwise you're not going to have an overwhelmingly great matchup. Chalice might be good enough to make it that great though, just wondering what you thought about it.

Eldariel
04-27-2006, 06:18 PM
Can you explain your Thresh matchup? I'm not claiming you're incorrect, I'm just wondering how the games usually go. Seems like Chalice will be the backbreaker here, but otherwise you're not going to have an overwhelmingly great matchup. Chalice might be good enough to make it that great though, just wondering what you thought about it.

Well, out of the 20 games I tested with a newer build, most come down to either resolving a Chalice or forcing them to destroy their hand with FoWs (it's amazing how effectively the deck falls apart when it's denied its cantrips, be it through Force pitches or Chalice). After Chalice, they'll basically never reach 4 lands to resolve an Enforcer, so it's academic. Without Chalice, the games are pretty even. Equipment can give them fits, so they don't like seeing Swords and Jittes resolving, but they do have Needles. Fast flying clocks early on tend to do them in; they're basically forced to either Force or StP a turn 1 fatto or they're history.

Enforcer didn't turn out to be as big as I thought it would. Actually, if I played Threshold, I'd just cut 'em. They're win-more really and just too hard on the manabase. The games Threshold wins are generally ones where it can deny Faerie Stompy the larger threats (and obviously Chalice) and outsize the defenses and ride Werebears to victory. Mongeese have hard time impressing with Efreets and company around, they're slower clocks, but Faerie Stompy's own damage makes Werebears very scary. Actually, combat as Faerie Stompy is one thing I'll have to train in this match-up. I realized that in testing, I didn't sufficient utilize the flying advantage. Basically, Faerie Stompy can choose when to trade life and when not to. I often used Cloud of Faeries to chumpblock, but I now realize I should've left an Efreet and a Cloud back while pecking away with the last Cloud for 2 turns to Alpha him to death, but I lost that game to bad play. But yea, Threshold wins if it can deny Faerie Stompy the threats and itself draw into multiples. 2-3 Werebears and an Enforcer is the scale of offense, Faerie Stompy just can't handle, so Threshold's goal in the MU is to keep Faerie Stompy off-balance with StPs and counters and develop a large board presence. The thing is, with Threshold's cantrips and Faerie Stompy's speed, Threshold generally lacks the necessary time it needs to sculpt its hand with the cantrips, which is what gives it trouble. When the questions you need to answer are asked turns 1-3, there's precious little time for casting those Brainstorms, Serum Visions and Portents. Also, Fact or Fiction proved to be helpful as it just break's threshold's back if it resolves, and since it's an instant, it can be cast whenever it's convenient (for example, at my EoT in response to their draw, or at their EoT when they'd like to leave counter-mana open). Obviously the equipment helped too (the list I tested against now was the UGw winning list from Kadilak's. I'm going to test against UGb and UGr later with the present build, as well as the post-SB games, although I'd wager, UGw is the toughest out of the bunch) as even Cloud of Faeries or Sea Sprite becomes too quick a clock for Werebear to race with a Sword or a Jitte. And Jitte with 3 counters>any creature can attack right through Mystic Enforcers. That's why it never really played that big a part, either Threshold had won already or it wasn't enough to stop the flood.

But yea, the thing which pushes it into positivity is definately Chalice+Trinket Mages (and draw being added giving us some actual staying power too). I won a game where I mulled down to 4 just because Threshold didn't have a FoW.

Phantom
04-27-2006, 07:49 PM
Can you explain your Thresh matchup? I'm not claiming you're incorrect, I'm just wondering how the games usually go. Seems like Chalice will be the backbreaker here, but otherwise you're not going to have an overwhelmingly great matchup. Chalice might be good enough to make it that great though, just wondering what you thought about it.

This is actually why I proxied up the deck. I didn't believe that Eldariel's #s were correct about the matchups and I wanted to prove him wrong. Now I know that his #'s were correct and that he's much smarter than I am. If you look back a few pages I tested the new build (w/ Trinkets, FoFs and one Cursed Scroll) and had astounding results against UGw Thresh (which I'm assuming is our worst thresh matchup with all the pro red floating around).

I'll be interested to see the post board numbers. They get Needle and maybe some disenchants while we get E.Explosives and Crypts. Also, Misdiresction and Binding Grasp if we choose.

Basically since the day I took up the deck I've been looking for ways to improve the Thresh matchup without hurting the Goblins or Combo matchup. I think we've done a bang-up job.

I think that post board I might still lay Chalice @2 vs. Rifter. I guess it depends on how many Blasts they board and if I have a FoW, but it's almost imposible for them to win without Rift or Disenchant. They have to lay Humilty and wait for a huge Decree (Cursed Scroll was huge here both before and after Decree) or try to handle all your critters and hardcast a Dragon (Pro Red + FoF FTW).

EDIT: Does Eng. Expolsives kill tokens? I'm guessing not.

Son_Gozen
04-27-2006, 08:34 PM
yes it kills token if you set it at 0. but it doesn´t kill token that are exact copies of a creature in play.

Eldariel
04-28-2006, 06:19 AM
yes it kills token if you set it at 0. but it doesn´t kill token that are exact copies of a creature in play.

That is, it doesn't kill copies, but it does kill tokens. Tokens have a converted mana cost of 0. However, if any effect copies a card, it copies all aspects including the converted mana cost (and well, mana cost in general). So, Soul Foundry-copied Goblin Lackey would die to Engineered Explosives at 1. Siege-Gang Commander's little friends all blow up to EE at 0. Generally copies aren't called 'tokens' although I guess they technically still are.

adrieng
04-28-2006, 08:20 AM
i was thinking of a green splash
the green splash brings cards
like wild mongrel
intuition for wonder 3 roar
that s huge card advantage
the list that i used to test had good result vs nearly everything but goblin

4 flooded strand
3 polluted delta
2 island
1 seat of the synod(trinket target)
1 tree of tales
4 tropical islands
4 ancient tomb
4 city of traitors

3 roar of the wurms
1 wonder
4 intuition
creatures

4 trinket mage
4 sea drake
4 wild mongrel
4 aquamoeba
4 basking rootwalla
4 serendib efreet

4 umezawa's jitte
1 tormod's crypt
1 pithing needle

the main difference between this deck and the faeris stompy is intuition
intuition resolves its game cause you are looking for wonder and two roars
you really need maindeck tormod 's crypt for trinket mage target
cause call threshold and iggy pop are played
roar of the wurn is very powerfull you can play it turn three
i used to play chrome mox but didn t like them cause ofen you have two of them in the hand and it sucks maybe playing three could be good in a monocolour i agree but two colour you really need your tropical island
the format as also got quick removal so you don t want to waste a creature on a chrome mox and the two others be killed by lightning bolt or swords
the main problem i had was against goblin cause i don t have any removal but jitte which is slow maybe playing in the side propaganda to slow down goblin and killing them by the air
another problem of this deck is the mana base having two ancient tomb sucks

Eldariel
04-28-2006, 08:37 AM
Green splash seems to contribute a whopping nothing for the deck. Maindeck Tormod's Crypt is simply unnecessary, you don't need a Crypt to beat Threshold or Iggy-Pop, they're just used to further improve the match-ups post-board. Having a singleton Crypt in the main would just turn out completely dead card in many match-ups (like Rifter) especially after resolving lots of draw.

Intuition may be worth considering, but sure as hell that would warrant Deep Analysis and Deep Analysis only. When just about all creatures in the deck fly, Wonder is less than stellar and Roar, while a good card, just doesn't seem worth splashing green for. Dropping Chalices, Swords and Moxes? Na-a. 2-colour build should definately run Engineered Explosives, it's already good in 1-colour build, it'd be insane in 2-colour build.

Besides, that build is definately going to have a worse Deadguy- and Goblin-match with the inherent speed of the deck lost, no relevant turn 1 plays, total vulnerability to Wasteland (Islands and Moxes migtate this in the blue build), etc. I simply don't see why you'd want to add green; the deck already has a pretty damn good match-up against most of the field. Adding Green certainly doesn't fix any problems the deck presently has, but it does create a boatload of new ones. Seriously, I'll promise you, give me Rifter and I'm going to trash that build 10 out of 10 games. A resolved Humility is basically game and you have no ways of stopping it. After that, you're left with Jittes and they still have a deckful of removal and decrees and all that. The present version patches that up with Forces (and card draw to find them), higher speed and twice the equipment you're running.


Intuition, not a bad idea, but that build just seems like a weaker version. Deep Analysis is something I'll definately try out in the draw-slot, since when I draw it, opponent will have to counter it twice (good luck with that, Thres) and it might go with Intuition too. It's worth a shot (especially since I've got Intuitions lying around uselessly in my binder -.-). Intuition would give the deck an actual tutor too.

Phantom
04-28-2006, 03:28 PM
I thought of Intuition a while ago, but I saw too many problems for me to deem it test worthy. You'd have to add at least 3 Deep Analysis, so now we're devoting 2 spots to draw. Also, we are devoting two turns to draw (assuming we can't get UU and 5 mana reliable). I've never liked Intuition as a tutor. If I go get 3 pieces of equipment and the one that doesn't get discarded gets countered or removed, I've severely hurt my chances of drawing another. Basically, I've thinned my deck for the bad.

Deep Analysis by itself certainly has some merit(like the double counter aspect), but still a few drawbacks:

1) The next 2 cards might be useless. We run a fair amount of awful to mediocre midgame cards. Usually we are looking for a big beater or equipment. Occasionally FoW or a Blast.

2) Everything in this deck hurts us. Do we need more self pain?

3) Casting it with Ancient Tomb is some bad. Flashing it back with one is even worse.



As for the green build: You're all over the place. Either play madness or the F. Stomp, but not both (check out Uber Madness for a pretty cool build).

Also, I agree that the Crypts should remain sideboarded, but I have added the 1 Cursed Scroll for good. I've found it to be solid enough in every matchup I've tested.

Eldariel
04-28-2006, 03:40 PM
I'm also testing with 1 MD Scroll, but it has yet to really prove itself. I wasn't thinking 4 Intuitions and 4 DAs, just 1-3 Intuitions and 2-3 DAs (you can toss something else into the Intuition. If they give you DA, you can cast it and flashback it). The thing I like about DA is, Threshold has to counter it twice or give you more guys. Either way, you'll get card advantage. Not so with any other drawer.

Phantom
04-28-2006, 04:11 PM
I'm also testing with 1 MD Scroll, but it has yet to really prove itself.

I was iffy on it after testing Thresh. The only thing it helped me do was hasten the clock a little, and it killed an Enforcer with help from a Blast. Not exactly an MVP.

Where it shined for me was the Gobins and Rifter matchups. Psychic Blast is a horrific removal card against Goblins. They would gladly trade card for card +2 of your life. Chalice is pretty good vs. Gobs, but only if you play it turn 1 on the play, so I generally fetch my Scroll. Normally I can't attack over Goblins unless I have equipment of some sort for fear of the 10 point rush. Scroll gives me colorless, instant removal. Basically I use it to kill Warchief before he can attack, and Piledriver any time of day.

I was suprided at how useful Scroll was against Rifter. Once I figured out that the goal should be to get Chalice @2 down as quick as possible, I started fetching the Scroll with my Trinkets and never looked back. Rifters only course of action is to lay Humility and attempt to cycle out a huge Decree. Scroll prevents them from doing that by putting them on a clock as well as removing their tokens.

It may not deserve maindeck inclusion, but I'm putting it in there for now. After all, it only shows up in ~ 1/6 games.

Eldariel
04-28-2006, 04:43 PM
Well, I've often won games with Goblins by taking out Warchief at the beginning of combat step. Nothing really takes wind out of their sails quite like losing their mass haste. I'd figure that CScroll could be good indeed and against Rifter as well, but on SB, I don't really worry about Goblins (Needle and EE are more generally useful and happen to hit against Goblins) and Winter Orb is far stronger versus Rifter.

If it belongs anywhere, it belongs in the main. There's no space on SB for it.

Phantom
04-29-2006, 07:21 AM
Another thing I considered is that Cursed scroll could be good against alot of the random jank you see at tourneys (Elves, Welder, Zombie Infestation, Fish, etc). Also, it just plain shuts down Confidant (which is nice if they've double hymned all your threats away ><).

-BK-
04-30-2006, 06:41 AM
Looking at the decklist at the beginning of this thread I think that trinisphere might be an option for this deck. Because it simply says vs many decks:
I play this and now you do nothing for 3 turns and i kill you with my seedrake/efreet.

Eldariel
04-30-2006, 10:18 AM
Well, devoting too many slots for control artifacts just takes away from the pressure the deck can lay on the opponent. Trinisphere also hurts many cards in the deck, like Force of Will, Cloud of Faeries, Umezawa's Jitte, etc. It's all good if my opponent can't respond with an StP on the attacker, but if I don't have lots of lands, it's fully possible that I'll get locked under my own Trinisphere by a timely Wasteland. Basically, Trinisphere would have to replace Force of Will to not hurt the deck and I prefer FoW, as it's a free tempo-weapon.

Phantom
04-30-2006, 06:59 PM
Here's the list I'm testing if it helps

21 Mana
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
6 [7E] Island
2 [UL] Faerie Conclave
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
1 [MR] Seat of Synod

20 Creatures
3 [FD] Tinket Mage
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
3 [HL] Sea Sprite
4 [AN] Serendib Efreet
4 [P2] Sea Drake


19 Other Spells
4 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
2 [A] Psionic Blast
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
3 [IN] Fact or Fiction
1 [TE] Cursed Scroll


From the list on page one:
1) I cut Meluko's for Trinket Mages (fantastic)
2) Cut 2 Flying Men and a Jitte for 3 FoF (fantastic)
3) Cut 1 Blast for a Cursed Scroll (still testing. great vs. Gobs, sucks vs Combo)

EDIT: No board b/c I have yet to test the board well at all.

martyr
05-01-2006, 01:29 AM
No maindeck Pithing Needle, Phantom?

Other than that, I dig it. Do you run into any problems with Sea Drakes putting you back on U mana, or not having any instant card-quality stuff (ie, Brainstorm)?

Eldariel
05-01-2006, 06:10 AM
My build is presently identical to Phantom's, except -1 Trinket Mage, +1 Fact or Fiction. Oh, and it might indeed be worth testing Pithing Needle in the Scroll-slot. Of course it doesn't co-exist with Chalice, but hey, neither does Scroll. Then again, I want my 3rd Blast back!

Phantom
05-01-2006, 11:37 AM
No maindeck Pithing Needle, Phantom?

Other than that, I dig it. Do you run into any problems with Sea Drakes putting you back on U mana, or not having any instant card-quality stuff (ie, Brainstorm)?

As for the needle, I thought about it, but put it in the board insted. This may be a little simplified, but as of now there are 0 cards in the mainboard that are dead in any matchup. Pithing Needle is dead in a few so I wanted to keep it boarded.

The reason I went with Scroll was because of the fantastic card advantage, and the fact that Blast is a pretty crappy removal card (2-4 life to kill a lackey!). That spot is by no means set in stone.

The Sea Drakes are never really a problem due to Moxes and Tombs/Cities. If a Mox is out, I can immediatly get back to 2U, which casts 90% of the deck.

@Eldariel: The only reason I'm not running 4 FoFs any more was because I had too many opening hands of 2. 3 seems to be working perfectly for me. (I'm assuming this is the deck you are playing in the Source tourney? Do me a favor and win the whole damn thing)

Eldariel
05-01-2006, 11:49 AM
Lackeys practically never appear worth removing for me. Killing Warchief stalls them real bad, that's the main thing I use Blast for. It's really great against control though, it gives us reach and since none of the major control in the format runs counters presently, we can just take our time and blast them to ashes. It also is great against equipment-running decks as they try to equip and you Blast the would-be equipped creature as well as speed up the goldfish. But yea, Scroll seems alright. I don't know though, I've often wished to have a Pithing Needle available for Maging in the main. A singleton in the main with 2 more in the board seems somewhat right.

Phantom
05-01-2006, 02:04 PM
Lackey was a bad example, as I would never Blast him (if I had 2U first turn, I would play a creature) but I think the point still has merit.

Off topic -> While testing, one of my friends suggested Silver Erne because of the synergy between equipment and trample. I don't think it belogs, but I thought it was an interesting idea for a future deck (Slith Predator and Phantom Nantuka would be pretty nice with a Sword on them)

I'm a little hesitant to mainboard needle because I don't have that much exp with it. I'm assuming we're naming:

Thresh - fetches
Goblins - Vial (never SGC, right?)
Rifter - Decree?
Solidarity - ummm?
Survival - Survival
Angel Stompy - Parallax wave (unless we're sure they're running Seal of Cleansing)
Burn - ?
SalvageGame - Pyrite Spellbomb
AngelStax - ?
Landstill - ?

Eldariel
05-01-2006, 02:30 PM
Thresh is Fetches, but that's about it. Vs. Goblins, you've got Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Goblin Burrows, Skarrg, Gempalm Incin, SGC, depending on the board-state, but 99% of the time you'll be naming Vial.

Rifter has EDragon (returning it is triggered, but cycling it is activated), Decree, and any cycler you think they might have in hand, but generally Decree. It isn't all that good here as they run Akroma's Vengeance. Oh, and they run fetches too.

Solidarity has again fetches (they are used to empower their Brainstorms), and not much else.

Survival has obviously Survival, but a dozen other options as well (for example, many like to run Vial to help their great mana requirements).

Burn might run Mogg Fanatic (it's quite common) or Barbarian Ring (somewhat more rare), but you're obviously siding the Needle out here.

Salvagers, just name Salvagers.

AngelStax has Wastelands, Ports and such. Obviously the Suppression Field-version has none of those, but meh.

Landstill has Wastelands (Crucible), Mishra's Factory, occasionally Faerie Conclave, Decree of Justice, Eternal Dragon, Slice and Dice, Larry Nevin's Disk just a bunch of stuff really.

Stompy - Wave (you name it first. Screw the Seals, it's the Wave that wrecks you and you only have 1 Needle main), there're obviously sitiuations where one needs to name Jitte, SoFI or Mask too.

Few others:
Belcher - Belcher
Zoo-variants - Jitte, Lavamancer, Wastes, fetches, etc.
Pikula - Scroll, Wasteland
Scepter-Chant - Scepter


Finally, remember that it's only 1 card in the main, so the chances of drawing it without Mage-tutorage are low enough.

Phantom
05-01-2006, 04:14 PM
Thanks for the play help. I've been out of the game way too long (I didn't even know it shut down cycling). I guess the questions now become:

Cursed Scroll vs. Pithing Needle
------------------------------

1) Which is more useful? Which helps more in our problem matchups, or against the meta?

2) Which is more useless when drawn in it's bad matchups (and how many matchups are bad)?

3) Is there a spot for one of each?

4) Should we bump to 3 Trinket Mages (I'm already there)?

Eldariel
05-01-2006, 05:12 PM
Thanks for the play help. I've been out of the game way too long (I didn't even know it shut down cycling). I guess the questions now become:

Cursed Scroll vs. Pithing Needle
------------------------------

1) Which is more useful? Which helps more in our problem matchups, or against the meta?

2) Which is more useless when drawn in it's bad matchups (and how many matchups are bad)?

3) Is there a spot for one of each?

4) Should we bump to 3 Trinket Mages (I'm already there)?

I'm not sure there's spot for either one really, but it's worth considering. I really want my 3rd Psionic Blast vs. combo and control. Anyhow, our worst MU by a long shot is Angel Stompy pre-board, where Needle just happens to be an all-star, taking out a 4-of wrecking ball they maindeck in Parallax Wave (they generally only run 2-3 maindeck Seals and Disencs, so it's a matter of matching them FoW for Seal/Disenc, or just dropping a Chalice at 2). Cursed Scroll helps against Goblins (which are on decline and a very good MU too) and control (they appear somewhat favourable though. And I seriously would want my Psionic Blasts here as they might deny me my mana if the game goes long so I can't keep using Scroll).

Needle helps against Goblins (if they win, it's generally due to 1 of 2 things, a fragile hand screwed over by land disruption or Vial going nuts), AS (our worst MU hands down), variety of control (against decks with Disks, Engineered Explosives, Powder Keg or even O-Stones or Staff of Domination as removal or 'removal', Needle is great. Same with cycling), any non-Storm combo (I'm somewhat insecure about them pre-board so having an insurance is nice), and tons of randomness.

Both suck vs. Storm-combo (scroll sucks vs. non-Storm combo too), Threshold (Scroll is too slow. Later on it can't touch their big guys. Needle only hits lands), Burn (c'mon, seriously, you're racing them with your equipped guys, not some damn artifacts!), and that's about it.

Needle actually creates quite profittable trades most of the time (it's not card disadvantage like Needle naming Meloku if you take out their Vials/Waves/fetches/win condition entirely. Wastes still tap for mana though, but that might be necessary to save your ass), Scroll is an additional threat (++). Still, the fact that Needle often knocks out control's answers kinda helps it in that regard.


As much as I love Scroll (it's a personal favourite), I'm going to have to state that Needle is just better in the metagame. Needle helps the same MUs as Scroll (it's worse vs. Rifter, Wombat and some builds of Landstill though) and is a wrecking ball in some matches, in which Scroll is entirely inconsequential (think: Belcher, Survival, FEB, Aluren (naming Cavern Harpy), Salvagers, AS, etc.). Still, I like the idea of being able to fetch a damn threat with the Mage (lol, Ornithopter, Pwnt), but the maindeck is pretty tight. Hard to find room to get cute, especially since we need to keep up our creature count for our equipment.

parallax
05-01-2006, 06:04 PM
Rifter has EDragon (returning it is triggered, but cycling it is activated)
For the record, both abilities are activated. DoJ is probably going to be hardcast for 1-2 Angels to combat your flyers, so Dragon is likely your best Needle target.

Eldariel
05-01-2006, 06:16 PM
For the record, both abilities are activated. DoJ is probably going to be hardcast for 1-2 Angels to combat your flyers, so Dragon is likely your best Needle target.

Wow, thanks for the heads-up. I always remembered, it was worded 'At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay X. If you do, return Eternal Dragon to your hand'. Well, that makes it even better, preventing infinite recursion, making killing the damn Dragon actually worth something.

Btw, DoJ is still often the right call, since after Humility, they don't usually want to be hardcasting DoJ for 1/1 Angels. Humility often resolves if I can't kill the opponent just yet in case I lacked FoW, or decided that all I need to fear is Akroma's Vengeance (generally a sitiuation where I have some dudes and a SoFI), at which point DoJ suddenly becomes far larger a threat as cycled. Although, infinite 1/1 chumpblocking Dragon is frustrating if I lack Jitte as well (yea, been there in testing -.- Games with Rifter are REALLY weird. At some point my testing partner laid a Chalice of the Void at 4 and 6 and proceeded to win as I was piloting Rifter. Yea, DoJs were all in the last 20 cards or so. He was contemplating waiting until he gets 14 mana to drop a Chalice at 7, but decided that Vengeance is more dangerous than Dragon).

Phantom
05-01-2006, 09:49 PM
Still, I like the idea of being able to fetch a damn threat with the Mage (lol, Ornithopter, Pwnt), but the maindeck is pretty tight. Hard to find room to get cute, especially since we need to keep up our creature count for our equipment.

I was actually considering Roterothopter! :)

Everything you said seems to make sense.

@Parallax - In my testing I had similar results to Eldariel when playing Rifter. I was never able to wait to hardcast a Dragon or Decree. This deck is too damn fast and forces Humility down. As a player, I was less scared of Humility than I was of Lightning Rift.

Phantom
05-02-2006, 01:31 AM
As far as the Scroll vs. Needle debate, here's my breakdown for the 5 decks to beat:

Goblins
Scroll - 3/5
Needle - 4/5
Verdict -> Slight edge to Needle, which can slow down Vials. Scrolls are better late game, but can't really help you vs. an early rush.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Rifter
Scroll - 5/5
Needle - 4/5
Verdict -> Scroll was HUGE in all my testing. Needle is pretty nice too as it can shut down Decrees or Dragons (depending on which you percieve as a greater threat).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Confidant
Scroll - 5/5
Needle - 3/5
Verdict -> Needle can do some nice things here like shut down wastes/shades/fetches, but Scroll is just the bees knees considering it wrecks every threat they have.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Thresh
Scroll - 3/5
Needle - 1/5
Verdict -> Needle can be pretty effective vs. Thresh, but only when combined with land destruction. Scroll can kill Mages, Confidants, FTKs, unthreshed bears, blocked Enforcers, and can put a clock on the opponent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Solidarity
Scroll - 1/5
Needle - 1/5
Verdict -> They bothhave limited, sucky uses.


I would, however, agree that Needle is better against a large portion of the Open Legacy forum and possibly random jank. I'm just not crazy about playing it mainboard because you never know what to name if you have to drop it early (b/c of a Chalice @1).

I did some more hardcore testing tonight against Rifter, Confidant, Thresh, and Goblins. The only result I wasn't crazy about was Goblins. About 60/40 (I might not have been mulliganing enough for pro:red). Other than that, I'm fucking loving the new build. Fact or Fiction lets me drop Moxes/Forces with little fear, and the Trinket Mages were actually swinging for wins!

The only card I'm thinking about is fetches. 2 of each blue fetch might do nicely, plus it would be nice to confuse opponents with a ton of needle targets.

Also, about the board, any thought to fitting in 1 Sprite and 1-2 Blasts to get up to 4 against Goblins or Combo respectively?

Eldariel
05-02-2006, 07:31 AM
Vs. Thres though, they'll have Threshold way before you've got your Scroll active, so killing the bear is rare. I've NEVER seen FtK in Legacy Thres, but I'll give you that it takes out Mage and Conf. Still, Mage is generally SB nowadays and definately NOT coming in vs. us (unless they're stupid) and even in UGb, Confidant is just 1 creature. The one thing I can think of Scroll being good for is finishing the job through their removal and blockers.

At most I'd rate Scroll 2/5 vs. Thres; slightly better, but still sucks. As for Conf, the match-up is so ridiculously lopsided that I'm not sure it even matters -.-

Btw, against Solidarity, Scroll is 0/5, because you'll never reach a gamestate where you'd rather spend 3 mana for 2 damage than to beat or equip or draw or counter. Needle might win you something once in a blue moon as you name their 4-of Polluted Delta on the play, making their deck effectively a 12-land one.


Goblins has gotten slightly weaker with the added draw (we'll want to be dropping dudes, drawing cards is kinda slow vs. Gobbos) and dropping Melokus (it can block everything they've got and has a huge butt), but the MU is still alright.

I don't think we'll want to fit specifically anti-Goblin cards on the SB; rather wider cards like Needle. The problem with my early SBs was, I was focusing too much on the decks to beat. The truth is, the field is wide open and it's not nice to have wasted SB-slots. Blasts might indeed be worth considering on the SB (they might warrant dropping down to 2 Misdirections, although I've personally loved Misd) as they're used in the same MU as Misds.


Btw, how did you run your testing? Pre- and post-board or only either/or?

Grollub
05-02-2006, 10:09 AM
First off, I absolutely love and adore the deck. Being a aggro-monoblue aficionado myself, I'm in love. ;)


I don't think we'll want to fit specifically anti-Goblin cards on the SB; rather wider cards like Needle. The problem with my early SBs was, I was focusing too much on the decks to beat. The truth is, the field is wide open and it's not nice to have wasted SB-slots. Blasts might indeed be worth considering on the SB (they might warrant dropping down to 2 Misdirections, although I've personally loved Misd) as they're used in the same MU as Misds.

As a sideboard card, have you considered Mind Harness? It seems interesting as it snatches every goblin (barring Piledriver), every of the aggresive creatures in thresh (barring Mongoose) plus helps out against the random sligh/stompy and common R/G aggro decks.

It hits a wide range of decks, my only concern is the upkeep cost, however it should give the deck a tremendous tempo advantage, 'least in theory. :)

PS: Love the Trinket Mages, best innovation of 2006.

Eldariel
05-02-2006, 10:38 AM
First off, I absolutely love and adore the deck. Being a aggro-monoblue aficionado myself, I'm in love. ;)



As a sideboard card, have you considered Mind Harness? It seems interesting as it snatches every goblin (barring Piledriver), every of the aggresive creatures in thresh (barring Mongoose) plus helps out against the random sligh/stompy and common R/G aggro decks.

It hits a wide range of decks, my only concern is the upkeep cost, however it should give the deck a tremendous tempo advantage, 'least in theory. :)

PS: Love the Trinket Mages, best innovation of 2006.

Yea, I've been considering it, but my personal problem with it two-fold:
1) The two match-ups where I'd like to have it are the exact match-ups where Chalice comes down at 1 almost invariably.
2) Most creature-decks outside Thres and Goblins appear to be W (Angel Stompy), UW (Angel Fish), BW (Pikula), B (Sui Black), etc. so while RG-fish decks do exist, they appear more rare than base-white aggro, which Mind Harness can't hit. The slot is presently taken by Binding Grasp, which unfortunately doesn't come in vs. Goblins, but can come in versus basically anything else. Most importantly, it steals those frustrating Exalted Angels.

Like Pikula said regarding Phyrexian Negator in the Homebrew-SB, if decks had 25-card sideboards, it'd be a guaranteed inclusion, but as it is, I don't think I can fit it in, especially in such a varied environment.


Btw, I'd like to thank everyone who's posted in this thread, since things like Trinket Mage wouldn't just have been included otherwise. Also, thanks to everyone who's given comments on the deck, be the comments thanks or suggestions for improvement, they've all been helpful, either encouraging or idea-sparking.

Phantom
05-02-2006, 01:16 PM
Vs. Thres though, they'll have Threshold way before you've got your Scroll active, so killing the bear is rare. I've NEVER seen FtK in Legacy Thres, but I'll give you that it takes out Mage and Conf. Still, Mage is generally SB nowadays and definitely NOT coming in vs. us (unless they're stupid) and even in UGb, Confidant is just 1 creature. The one thing I can think of Scroll being good for is finishing the job through their removal and blockers.

Well, I was pretty much going off the DTB Thresh board and every build over there has mainboard Mages. They actually proved pretty Meddlesome (if you excuse the pun) naming Chalice and my equipment. FtK is in all the good red builds I saw (usually in the board) so I think he's catching on, and with good cause. Confidant is just one creature, but I really don't like leaving him out there to dig for removal.

As for killing bears, the only time I could really see it happening is if they stalled on Thresh, or we popped a Crypt (both rare). Still, I've been pretty happy with the Scroll in Thresh testing. Thresh often stabilizes at a low life against us.


I don't think we'll want to fit specifically anti-Goblin cards on the SB; rather wider cards like Needle.

Sprites aren't really too narrow as so many decks rely on red for removal (Goblins, Burn, UGr Thresh, Zilla Stomp and some zoo). I'd really like to simply fit them mainboard, but that's even tougher.

We only need, what, 2 needles in the side? (I guess it depends how many Trinket Mages)


Btw, how did you run your testing? Pre- and post-board or only either/or?

I ran pre and post board games against UGw Thresh, Rifter, BW Confidant, and Mono-Red Goblins.


UGw Thresh
Pre-board: Favorable
Post-board: Favorable
I've noticed the post board has gotten alot better thanks to the Trinket Mages and Eng. Explosives.

-1 Jitte
-2 P. Blasts
+1 Eng Explosives
+2 Crypts

Thoughts - I didn't have Misdirections on me unfortunately. The thresh build had 2 Needles mainboard, which were kind of a pain, but Fact or Fiction was a real gem here. They almost never have a counter left for it, and since I'm usually casting it for 4U, I'm inadvertently playing around daze! Pre-board I simply lay a Chalice @ 1 and go to town. Post board, Chalice @ 2 is important because of Naturalize. Still, I think these matches went 70/30.


Rifter
Pre-board: Very Favorable
Post-board: Favorable

Thoughts - I forgot to board in Winter Orbs, and still wrecked Rifter. I basically made the Rifter deck I thought most dangerous to Faerie Stompy (since it's impossible to nail down a list). Wrath of Gods and Disenchants in the main, no 'clasms, and REBs in the side board. Once again I found this matchup to be all about Lighting Rift. Keep it off the board and you WILL win. Humility is suprisingly easy to live with. We boarded in REBs, but maybe 2 more Disenchants would have been in order. The REBs helped stall even more, but they don't help Rifter WIN, which is the problem if you set Chalice @ 2. I would imagine that post-board would go back to Very Favorable with the addition of Orbs.

Bw Confidant
Pre-board: Extremely Favorable
Post-Board: Extremely Favorable

Thoughts - They boarded Dienchants (they had 4 StPs main) and I boarded el zilcho (once again, no Misdirections) but these games aren't even close. Their only real hope is to rip your hand before you lay a fattie, or plow/vindicate your threats and kill your land before you Fact or Fiction. Confidant managed to do that a whopping 3 of the 20 games we played. I actually won a few games here by laying a Trinket Mage, grabbing a Scroll, equipping the mage, (usually my first creature had gotten Plowed) then clearing a path with the Scroll and letting the Mage swing free. Very Satisfying.

Mono-Red Goblins
Pre-board: Favorable
Post-board: Even

Thoughts - This is the only result I wasn't too happy with. Mono-Red is probably our best Goblins matchup (disenchant and StP hose us, and Tin-Street Holligan ain't much better). Going first is actually HUGE here. You'll never lose a game where you drop a Chalice @1 on the play. Pro:Red and Jitte can save your ass too, but they might not be as big in the Rw matchup.






Final Thoughts - I think the Confidant, Thresh, and Rifter matchups are where they need to be. I want to keep testing Goblins, and I want to proxy up some Angel Stompy and see how we roll. Also, I want to test fetches (I NEVER want to draw land on a Fact, so this might help).

Eldariel
05-02-2006, 02:33 PM
Did you have Crypts on the side for Thres? I'd definately be reluctant to count Crypts with the number of Life from the Loam-decks and Threshold-decks seeing play. With Uncle Trinket though, we might be able to go down to 2 Crypts and still see it often enough (I don't really like drawing it, but I do like tutoring it up).

There're so many variants of Goblins it's not even funny. Pumpland Goblins (GR with Skarrg and RW with Waste and Burrows), GR manacontrol Goblins, RW manacontrol, mono-R Wasted Burrows and mono-R mana control and they all run a different assortment of all sorts of nonsense. This is the one MU where the old build was actually stronger. Meloku can be pretty hot, 3 Psionic Blasts really help and 8 pieces of equipment was awesome, not to mention Flying Men gives them more meat to worry about. But I think the improvement in every single other MU is worth it. The maindeck Pithing Needle could help a lot. Pithing Needle naming Vial>Chalice at 1, GG.

Phantom
05-02-2006, 02:51 PM
Did you have Crypts on the side for Thres? I'd definately be reluctant to count Crypts with the number of Life from the Loam-decks and Threshold-decks seeing play. With Uncle Trinket though, we might be able to go down to 2 Crypts and still see it often enough (I don't really like drawing it, but I do like tutoring it up).


Yeah, I sided in 2 Crypts for two Blasts. Not sure why I forgot that. Probably b/c I was fetching Chalices or Explosives almost every time. The Explosives might have come in for a Jitte. Is that the right call?

Two crypts is pretty optimal, because you draw a way to get (5 total) to them almost every game, but you aren't stuck with then if a needle is down on them. By the way, needling against this deck is a bitch.



But I think the improvement in every single other MU is worth it. The maindeck Pithing Needle could help a lot. Pithing Needle naming Vial>Chalice at 1, GG.


I agree that the improvements have been fantastic while hurting the Goblins matchup maybe 10-15%.

dahcmai
05-03-2006, 02:12 PM
Reminds me of a deck I made last year sometime back. I did really well with it, but had a hard time getting past the disruption of COTV if I didn't have a counter handy.


http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=22852.0

The only changes I made since then are the cloud sprites are now cloud pirates.

It won me quite a bit of money so I guess it's not too bad.

Eldariel
05-03-2006, 03:30 PM
That, in turn, reminds me of the roots of this deck. The very original idea came around Odyssey when I decided to create a mono-blue beatdown deck for T1 (as we all know, Legacy didn't really exist back then). It slowly converted into Fish, but as soon as Legacy became its own format and Portal was legalized, I started working on a first-casual deck, which eventually turned into this.

This deck is really odd by now as it eschews 1-drops entirely in favour of Chalice of its own.

Eldariel
05-04-2006, 07:28 PM
Ok, I went 2-2 in the Source-tournament, losing the 2 games to absolutely, utterly horrible playing. The deck seems strong enough, but I'll have to get my playing straight in my head before playing any tournaments; Instead of Trinket Maging for Tormod's Crypt or Needle, I decided to just pitch the Mage to FoW (I had an Efreet in hand too) and got wrecked. And we both missed Chalice at 1 when Rifter cast StP on my Sea Drake that would've made the game... Horrible, horrible stupidity out of me. Oh well.

Phantom
05-04-2006, 11:31 PM
Ok, I went 2-2 in the Source-tournament, losing the 2 games to absolutely, utterly horrible playing. The deck seems strong enough, but I'll have to get my playing straight in my head before playing any tournaments; Instead of Trinket Maging for Tormod's Crypt or Needle, I decided to just pitch the Mage to FoW (I had an Efreet in hand too) and got wrecked. And we both missed Chalice at 1 when Rifter cast StP on my Sea Drake that would've made the game... Horrible, horrible stupidity out of me. Oh well.


1) What were the two decks you beat, and what was the other one you lost to?

2) You lost to Rifter!?!?! It is always tough to drop a Trinket Mage to FoW casue it's like a 3-for-1.

Eldariel
05-05-2006, 07:14 AM
Yea, I lost to Rifter. Game 1, I shocked myself with Ancient Tomb once too often and lost with him at 2 life, tapped out and a Sea Drake with Sword of Fire and Ice on the table (he Rifted me out). He was on the play and had a turn 2 Lightning Rift. I screwed up by not playing a Chalice for 1 turn 1, but waiting to drop it for 2 instead. I woulda even had another Chalice. My new title is well-deserved. Also, second game he had 4 StPs and 3 Lightning Rifts. I would've still won had we remembered my Chalice at 1, but we didn't, so I lost with him at low-enough life to have died to 1 swing from the Drake.

Against Rec-Sur, game 1, he resolves a turn 2 Survival with me going second (man, at that point I seriously wished I'd have maindeck Pithing Needle). FoW is the next card on my deck. I eventually get him down to 3 or something and my deck fails to cough up Psionic Blasts. Game 2, I, the idiot, don't Mage for Crypt or Needle on Recursive Nightmare (Crypt would've prolly been better), he Needles my Scroll and proceeds to topdeck enough creatures to recur Boneshredder FTW (after my savage misplay cost me my Faerie Conclave that I had been using to attack with equipped with SoFI. Of course, it hurt me tons since I had to use Ancient Tomb to fuel it). Once again, not a Psionic Blast in sight, and he wins at 2 life. I even Facted in response to a lethal spell, but the next 5 cards contained 1 Cloud of Faeries, no FoWs, no nothing. FoW would've been enough to win me the game at any point, but it refuses to show up.

The games I won were quite anti-climatic. Against Life from the Loam-control, 2 consecutive games with double Chalice (at 1 and 2, shutting down the deck) and SoFId beater FTW. Then against MBC, steal game 1 with double Psionic Blast as he was forced to blow up his Helldozer since I had lethal flying damage on the board and I didn't miss the opportunity. Game 2, he draws no fast removal and it's academic.


So yea, might be I could've gone 4-0, but being the horrible player that I am, I can't seem to win any matches where I'd need to make any decisions. Maybe playing those games at 5 AM didn't help either, but yea...

Tinefol
05-13-2006, 08:35 PM
A small report.

vs GWB Rock
Game 1
I go first, I resolve turn1 chalice for 1, turn 2 efreet, then get Hymned, but it isn't much of issue. On my turn I cast Fact, and pop up a bunch of cards. He splits up lonely force of will and I get Chalice, 2 creatures and a land. I have 5 cards in the hand, pass the turn. He casts second Hymn, and guess what, it removes Chalice and trinket mage... I still thought its kind of doable, considering the card advantage from Fact, I cast second Efreet next turn, he mortifies my first one, then on his turn puts a treetop on the table and putrefies my efreet. On my turn I have nothing but cast cloud sprite and put faerie conclave in the game. Next turn he swings with treetop. I draw sword, but i don't have mana to equip it. next turn he swings with treetop and I'm down to very low hp because of excessive city of traitors use. He then casts pernicious deed. GG

Game 2
I mulligan to 4 cards, because of not having a single piece of mana 3 times in a row. However i get a good hand after all. Turn 1 chalice for 1, turn 2 Sea Drake, and he is just mana screwed. After I cast Fact or Fiction on turn 3 he concedes.

Game 3
This was nightmare. He goes first and duresses my Chalice... goodbye. I put Seat of the Synod and pass. He casts another Duress for Fact this time. Meh. I put City of Traitors and cast Sea Drake. Mortified right away. I put Seat of the Synod on table again. Haha, it gets destroyed by Putrefy. I have no blue mana next 2 turns, and he swings with mishra factory and casts Gerrard's Verdict. Finally I get faery conclave, which gets vindicated next turn. He puts another Factory, and I finally get Chrome mox, and get to Cast Efreet. Another Mortify, and he casts Pernicious Deed, removing my only piece of blue mana. GG

I just have to say, this one matchup is up to impossible if you lose the dice, and even if you win and succesfully put chalice for 1, you would have hard time casting in for 2 with these hymns... Not to mention all his removal is 3 mana which effectively stops your creatures, and you also need pithing needles for deed.

Eldariel
05-13-2006, 08:49 PM
He seemed to have pretty good hands those games though. In those match-ups, quick Mox-openings should allow for a win. Also Maging for Needle on Deed could help. Seat of the Synod is somewhat questionable as you obviously would've needed an Island that one game instead. Anyhow, the Rock is a deck against which I'd imagine speed is the key. Getting in for 8 before their Putrefies come online could help a ton. Also, Winter Orbs should probably come in in that MU as their deck is so mana hungry. Misdirection definately too, Hymns, Verdicts, Putrefies, Mortifies, Vindicates and company are all easy and good to throw at their face. Might be you'd actually want to take Chalice away as it doesn't do a whole lot and you're probably better off laying the quick beats, replenishing and and continuing, as their key removal is all 3-CC, something you can't ban. Anyhow, that match-up certainly should be well winnable. Needles, Orbs and Misdirections can certainly be worth their weight in gold there.

Tinefol
05-14-2006, 06:35 AM
I would see Orb doing wonders here, but unfortunately I didn't draw it. Not to mention Putrefy and Vindicate kill artifacts too. I agree it is winnable, but you need a very speedy hand with certain extra pieces (orb, needle), which, you know, are rarely to get as a whole. I still think it is one of these matchups, which are clearly not favorable. And if you remove chalices, expect nightmare of disrupting discard.

Vimes
05-14-2006, 07:17 AM
Oops. I didn't even realize my build was outdated. Stupid me ;/.

I'd also like to call your attention to two things here. You didn't even counter something with Force of Will once, and he always seemed to have early discard and all the removal he needed. I think you got a little unlucky. Due to Phantom's testing vs. Pikuladeck being so favorable, I don't see how the matchup could be an autoloss.

This, however, is another one of the matchups adding more counters or other maindeck disruption could improve, I think. Is there any space for Wastelands, Rishadan Ports, or more manlands?

Eldariel
05-14-2006, 07:17 AM
I would see Orb doing wonders here, but unfortunately I didn't draw it. Not to mention Putrefy and Vindicate kill artifacts too. I agree it is winnable, but you need a very speedy hand with certain extra pieces (orb, needle), which, you know, are rarely to get as a whole. I still think it is one of these matchups, which are clearly not favorable. And if you remove chalices, expect nightmare of disrupting discard.

Well, I don't really see Duress and Cabal Therapy doing a whole lot. While they're attacking your hand, you're swinging for 20. At least that's my experience vs. Deadguy, when they attack your hand, they give you a free reign over the board, so just HULK SMASH! Needles should basically always be tutored for with the Trinket Mages, post-SB you'll have a grand total of 6 ways to get a Needle (3 Mages and 3 Needles). Also, every Putrefy and Vindicate they use on a Needle is plus for you. And if you drop another Winter Orb after they Putrefied the first one... But yea, I think Misdirection could help a lot. I might run some testing of my own on that match-up though, but I'll first need to test all the major match-ups with the new build.

EDIT: The manabase is stretched thin. 13 is the absolute minimum number of blue sources I'd want in a blue deck. Therefore, the only thing we could drop for Wastes/Ports would be Cities or Tombs, which would, in turn, hurt the overall gameplan. Manlands have to produce blue as well which is why Faerie Conclave is really the only option and I can't bring myself to bring them up to 4 as while 1 CiPT-land is usually easy to sneak into play at some point, 2 is already painful for the tempo.

Tinefol
05-14-2006, 10:18 AM
Well it could be the issues of bad hands, but swinging for 20 scenario is fun if they don't kill the creature. And there tends to be alot of removal in these decks.
Vimes, yeah I didn't draw the force, but playing it is itself a loss of 2 cards :-/ I wouldn't mind countering one of these mortifies though ^^
I'll do more playtesting and would write report on every match next week.

Eldariel
05-14-2006, 10:20 AM
Try to play at least 20 games (both, pre- and post-board) to get some kind of a picture on how the match-up really plays out and try to make sure that playskill isn't influencing the outcomes. Tell us the results, getting some data against a bit more rogue-deck is always nice.

The thing is, while they're casting discard, you're swinging. If they cast removal, they don't have mana left for discard.

Phantom
05-14-2006, 05:05 PM
Fact or Fiction is always huge vs. a control deck that's not running counters. It basically says "All your work was for naught. I just got a 3 for 1".

Mana disruption can occasionally hurt this deck. That is the exception, not the rule. Hand destruction can also be annoying (stripping you of your equipment usually) but they better do it fast, kill you creatures, and pray I don't topdeck a Fact.

In your descriptions of the games, it seems like he was playing a ton of control (some of it very subpar. Mortify?). You didn't even mention how he won any of the games, just how he locked down the board.

FoW is huge here. Sure, it's a 2-1 in their favor, but who cares about card advantage while we're smashing face? It's nice to save the counters for Deed, but any anti-creature spell will do.



I'm currently testing a build that runs 4 Trinkets and a Cursed Scroll, Pithing Needle, Seat of Synod, Roterthopter mainboard. Trying to see if a small toolbox helps.

Phantom
05-15-2006, 02:41 PM
So I tested a ton of games pre and post board against Angel Stompy (mono white). Here's how it went:

Pre-board: Even

Faerie was slightly ahead in games, but I backed it up a little since this was my and my partners first time playing AS (and the build might not have been optimal). Faerie's wins came through speed, backed up with counters if neccesary. First turn fattie and either no Swords, or a countered Sword can be it.

The games I didn't win through speed, I won through Chalice. Chalice @ 1 hurts them as does Chalice @ 2, but if you manage to drop both, it's game 95% of the time.

Parallax wave is as much of a house as advertised. Needle it ASAP. Every time I was forced to needle something else (sometimes I was forced to needle Jitte or Sword) it came back to bite me in the ass.

Angel is, of course, incredible against us. Their shadow creatures were a pain too, but the rest of their critters were just kinda meh. I was afraid of mom, but we actually don't do much blocking so she's often a waste of space against us.

One thing I didn't expect was how nasty SOFI is against us. All out removal except Cursed Scroll and Equipment is dead, and the creature becomes unblockable. Pretty nasty. Jitte destroying Jitte is an interesting subplot in this matchup.

Post-board: Slightly Favorable

Their deck gets a little better by upping the artifact destruction to 4 (this build ran 2 Seals, and 2 Disenchants). Took me a while to figure out how to board here. Eventually I discovered that Misdirection was crap here. When it's useful, it's a nice 2 for 2, but there were too many times when they cast Stp or Disenchant with only one target in play. Also, it slowed me down by forcing me to keep a blue card in my hand at all times.

It also took me a while to notice that Cursed Scroll and Eng. Explosives were eating up space. Scroll rarely kills equipped creatures (which is what kills you) and Eng. Explosives only hit the Lions and Hounds, which were almost never the problem. The point here is that I suck at sideboarding. Anyway my boarding stategy ended up like this:

+3 Binding Grasps
+1 Needle

-2 Sea Sprites (my worst creature vs. them and is dead w/ Chalice @2)
-1 Roterothopter (came in handy occasionally, but doesn't seem better than a Blast so far)
-1 Cursed Scroll (ditto)
(I had these 2 artifacts in the Blast spot. Would have sided the Blasts out probably)

Two needles were plenty 9you don't need them ASAP and you usually don't need multiples), especially with 4 Trinkets, but the Binding Grasps really shined here as they can rarely save a disenchant for them. I can't stress this enough, my partner and I were driven crazy by the abundance of Seal/Disenchant targets. Stealing angels should be a felony. One game I stole one and was paying the upkeep with a Tomb and an island (3 damage a turn) and was joyous about the situation. Just hilarious all around. Occasionally I was forced to steal a less optimal creature, but it's still a strong play.

Chalice for 2 is a better play here than pre-board as they have probably boarded out a few one-drops (Moms if they're smart) for 2-drop artifact hate. Still, if you can manage to drop a Chalice @1 first turn and follow it up with one for 2 turn 2 or 3, it's usually a strong play (sometimes they disenchant the first one, so screw them for that!).

Eldariel
05-15-2006, 03:14 PM
The power of Parallax Wave is easy to underestimate. It's often very good for saving your own creatures (with lethal damage on stack), getting back Grasped guys, and of course, it can often take out 3-4 creatures for the remainder of the game. That's card advantage with big C. I'd go almost as far as to state, Faeries can't really win against an active Wave. The card is just that insane.

I knew how bad SoFI is, but it usually merely puts them even with us. They lack ways to remove our equipped guys too and all our guys fly, so we already have the blockability on our side. SoFI merely evens the score. But it IS quite scary. The good thing is, Faerie Stompy runs less acceleration than we do, so they take a long time to get active SoFIs and if we have active equipment, we can just sweep their board. Also, we have more Jittes than they do. I'll have to test that match-up myself with the new build (seeing that I have played Angel Stompy a good bit so I consider myself a competent AS pilot (it doesn't have Trinket Mage-tutorage or FoW-pitching, so I can't screw up there >_>)), I can see Needle helping a huge deal as just about all the games Angel won were thanks to Parallax Wave.

Lego
05-15-2006, 05:27 PM
I don't know how you guys are getting such good results versus AS. I've talked to a couple of people who pilot FS (DampingEngine et al) and they'll tell you that AS is one of their single worst matchups. The builds are a bit different, and I'm sure Chalice does something, but that's a serious disparity in results.

As an AS player, there are basically two problems that I see when facing Faerie Stompy: Big Flyers, and Big Equipment. Pre-board I've got two Disenchants plus my own equipment to deal with the equipment problem, and I've got 4 Swords, 4 Parallax Wave plus my own equipment to deal with the creature problem. I've found that I consistently put out more creatures, and while they may not be bigger, I can consistently race if it comes down to that. This means that early on FS has to go on the defensive with big creatures, and I'm able to pick them off, or at least pick out counters, until I resolve a Parallax Wave to put the game away. Any equipment staying on the board for me is usually game, and without equipment on the FS side, I usually win as well.

Post-board I get more Disenchants plus Needles. Because FS plays more equipment, I can create large numbers of dead cards for them, or simply bait counters for the game winning Parallax Wave. Like Eldariel, I don't think I've lost a FS game after active Parallax Wave.

Even with the increased explosiveness of this build, with Chalice thrown in to put a damper on some of the plans, I've found that this build is so much less consistent than the other that it's not even close to even for the FS player. As for the more consistent build, I more often lose to killer hands, but it rarely happens twice in a match.

Phantom
05-15-2006, 06:12 PM
As an AS player, there are basically two problems that I see when facing Faerie Stompy: Big Flyers, and Big Equipment.

After playing it, I would add to this list Chalice and FoW (as they both gave me huge problems when I was on the AS end), but I can completely understand how it's difficult to understand this matchup on paper. Actually, if I hadn't been keeping track of the pre-board matchup on paper, I probably would have classified it in Angel Stompys favor. This is because Faerie Stompy wins games in this matchup in the least interesting fashion ever. Angel Stompy wins most of the drawn out, hard fought battles (Fact keeps you in these, but it's still tough). Faerie usually wins with turn 1-2 fattie + equipment + FoW (or more creatures) or Chalice @ 1 + Chalice @ 2.

The race for first equipped creature is also pretty big here, since they give us control over almost all of Angel Stompy's creature. Luckily we usually win this race.


Post-board I get more Disenchants plus Needles. Because FS plays more equipment, I can create large numbers of dead cards for them, or simply bait counters for the game winning Parallax Wave.

Two thoughts:

1) I'm confused about the boarding process here. When I was playing AS, I didn't board needles in because I didn't want to hurt my own equipment. Are you saying take out all the Jittes and Swordes for Needles? This could change the matchup alot (Farie would have to bring in Eng Explosives, and Cursed Scroll would be nasty) but I'm not so sure it would help (I won alot of games for AS on the back of SoFI). I'll try it out if you'll think it'll help.

2) It's hard to play a Wave pre-board becuase Faerie has 4-5 ways to get a needle. It's nigh impossible to play one post-board because they have 6-7 ways to grab one (and saving a Disenchant for one is often suicide).

Eldariel
05-15-2006, 08:35 PM
Two thoughts:

1) I'm confused about the boarding process here. When I was playing AS, I didn't board needles in because I didn't want to hurt my own equipment. Are you saying take out all the Jittes and Swordes for Needles? This could change the matchup alot (Farie would have to bring in Eng Explosives, and Cursed Scroll would be nasty) but I'm not so sure it would help (I won alot of games for AS on the back of SoFI). I'll try it out if you'll think it'll help.

This is definately a mistake. Needles should come in, but probably not at the cost of the equipment. Jittes exist to fight Faerie Stompy's Jittes and Swords are the single biggest offensive weapon in the arsenal of AS. The thing is, AS needs to disable FS's equipment before they get active, since FS simply steamrolls AS if it gets the beats going. I'd probably, depending on the build, take out at least Mask of Memories for Needles as it's so hard to connect with Masks in the match-up. This is also why I'd bring EE in as FS-player, I anticipate opposing Needles and want a way to blast them into oblivion. The tricky question for FS is, should there be a Chalice for 1 or should one go straight for Chalice at 2. Chalice at 1 hinders FS's plans of Needling Parallax Wave, but on the other hand stops the likely opposing Needles and more importantly, StPs (along with a good chunk of AS's beaters, but that only factors in later on if the board stabilizes). I'd personally go for Chalice for 2 as it's a safe bet, AS brings in more artifact removal which costs 2, and the bulk of their beaters cost 2 too, so dropping a Chalice at 2 cuts down their more fearsome creatures and the thing which keeps them in the match-up. My sideboarding would probably be:
-2 Sea Sprite (as I only run 2 presently)
-1 Umezawa's Jitte (to lessen the impact of Chalice at 2)
-2 Psionic Blast (as I run 3 and while it's alright in the match-up, there's better stuff on the SB, as I'm bringing in Binding Grasps for some hardcore creature control. The singleton Blast might still occasionally show up and Blast that Soltari, but this really isn't a match-up for Blast to shine in)
-1 Chalice (by gut I'd say that you'd want to drop it at 2. If that's the case, you'll want to stay away from hands with excess Chalices. Furthermore, I wouldn't see it as essential here. Still, the card is ridiculously powerful, so I wouldn't probably cut more than 1)

+3 Binding Grasp
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 Engineered Explosives


EDIT: But I'd imagine, maindeck Pithing Needle improves the match-up tremendously along with Mages to tutor for it, as Angel Stompy is already lacking in the artifact removal department pre-board and being able to shut down their most powerful card certainly is a huge weapon against them.

Phantom
05-15-2006, 09:23 PM
Now I'm even more confused. You're saying, that as an Angel Stompy player, I should bring in Needles, name SoFI and Jitte with them, and still play SoFI and Jitte? Wouldn't this make cards in your own deck dead?


The tricky question for FS is, should there be a Chalice for 1 or should one go straight for Chalice at 2. Chalice at 1 hinders FS's plans of Needling Parallax Wave, but on the other hand stops the likely opposing Needles and more importantly, StPs (along with a good chunk of AS's beaters, but that only factors in later on if the board stabilizes). I'd personally go for Chalice for 2 as it's a safe bet, AS brings in more artifact removal which costs 2, and the bulk of their beaters cost 2 too, so dropping a Chalice at 2 cuts down their more fearsome creatures and the thing which keeps them in the match-up.

I completely agree with all this. I always felt dumb when I layed a Chalice @ 1, only to have it disenchanted. Almost as dumb as I felt when I layed one @ 2, only to have my onslought Plowed. My solution was to lay both (gun to my head: Chalice @ 2 was better).

Eldariel
05-15-2006, 09:31 PM
Now I'm even more confused. You're saying, that as an Angel Stompy player, I should bring in Needles, name SoFI and Jitte with them, and still play SoFI and Jitte? Wouldn't this make cards in your own deck dead?

Use them according to the sitiuation. If you're getting that Jitte down and getting counters, don't Needle it! Generally, avoid blind Needles and if you're getting equipment-advantage, don't Needle that particular equipment (at least before you've equipped (in SoFI's case)). The thing is, FS is likely to have the equipment advantage, so you can balance the board with Needles in addition to your equipment as additional answers. Only drop blind Needles if equipment X could wreck you, else you should hold onto them. Also remember, they can shut down Faerie Conclave.

Lego
05-15-2006, 11:43 PM
Because FS plays twice as many Jittes/SoFIs as Angel Stompy, you're safe bringing in the Needles but leaving in the equipment. I wouldn't take out the Mask of Memory simply because if your shadow guys start connecting, or FS is light on threats, the card advantage will simply be too much for FS to handle. This will draw you into your equipment, Needles, Parallax Waves, and Disenchants that are so strong in the matchup. Leaving in the equipment allows you to get an early advantage off of them, but you can still lay Needle if you need to.

Admittedly, most of my early playtesting was with a much more consistent version of the deck (FS) that therefore did not play Trinket Mage or Chalice. Without either of these, the matchup is practically unwinnable for FS, with very few ways to keep Parallax Wave off the board while still dealing with equipment and a steady stream of threats. When I added these cards in, plus the extra acceleration needed to make the viable, the deck became inconsistent enough that AS still maintained a heavy advantage in the matchup.

I would love to do some more testing with the super-acceleration list, because after a good 20 games, it becomes clear that the inconsistencies of the list are not worth the added possible explosiveness, and hurt the matchup as much as they could theorotically add to it.

Eldariel
05-16-2006, 10:22 AM
The inconsistency has actually rarely caught up to me. As I've often said, Vial Goblins run 14 red lands, 8 of which are fetches. The fast build of FS runs a grand total of 1 less, and it runs no fetches to more or less make up for the 1-land difference (along with cyclable Clouds if you've got a hand worth keeping without blue). My older version ran the same manabase, just the main was a bit different (with Sword as the only way to recuperate the lost cards). It posted positive record vs. anything but AS, Thres and Rifter (with the latter two being close to even (something like 9/11 to 11/9 or so) and AS straightout bad), the manabase rarely gave in (usually mulligans were mostly due to a complete lack of lands (considering that the deck runs 21, those came up frighteningly often. Then again, I was playing on MWS), rather than colour screw). The new version is basically the same, except now it packs draw and the Pithing Needle. Also, the manabase didn't give in over 20 testgames with Threshold any more than any normal manabase. The biggest loss in using the accelerated manabase is the fact that the deck can't support Wasteland or colourless manlands. Still, I'd consider the acceleration worth it in a deck that can support it.

About the Needles, I'm just having a trouble thinking of what else to take out. Taking out even more creatures is just bad news versus Chalices, Jittes, Blasts and Grasps, and taking out Disenchants, StPs or Waves is just plain stupid. To me it seems like Mask is just the worst card remaining in the deck.

Phantom
05-16-2006, 10:49 AM
Yeah, I was going to test some more sideboarded games, with the new strategy, but I'm unsure of what to take out. I figured:

-2 Mask of Memorys
-4 Mother of Runes
+2 Disenchant (Seal of Clensing)
+4 Pithing Needle

but Lego seems to disagree. The little testing I did with this sideboard in and it didn't seem to go much different (went 3-3). Many of the games were more drawn out though. Still, as soon as I'm sure of the optimum boarding, I'll test some more.

Lego
05-16-2006, 11:02 AM
I don't board the full number of Needles. My board looks like this:

3 Armageddon
2 Disenchant
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Rule of Law

Out of the Main I drop the Moms and a Savannah Lions. You can leave in a Mom or two and drop the other Lion or an Isamaru. This way you're keeping all the relevant creatures (mostly two drops + Angel) and all of your equipment to draw into the most important cards. You board in 2 Disenchant and 3 Pithing Needle.

I've considered Armageddon when I was on the play, but I've never tested it. Powering out a couple creatures followed by Armageddon could be game, but I've never wanted to test it seeing as FS could make that entire plan worthless by dropping a singly flying fatty. Still, Parallax Wave followed by Armageddon would be game (although I suppose no more game then the Wave alone.)

Phantom
05-16-2006, 11:07 AM
My playing partner tried Armageddon with pretty horrible results. This brings you down around FS number of threats but with less accel. Also, if FS plays a Mox, all they need to hold onto is one of their 2 mana lands for a near full recovery.

Thanks for the boarding help. I'll put the Masks back in and see how that goes.

Phantom
05-16-2006, 03:04 PM
I playtested 20 post-board games (with Lego's boarding strategy) and jotted down a few notes on how they went (FS = Faerie Stompy. AS= Angel Stompy. When I say "me" it refers to FS player even though it wasn't always "me".):

Game 1: First turn Angel beats. Binding Grasp stalls, but is disenchanted.
0-1
Game 2: Parralax Wave + StP = ouch.
0-2
Game 3: FS lays Chalice @2 and FoFs. AS is forced to needle SoFI. Turns into Serendib and Conclave vs. Isamaru (which is actually only 5 damage vs. 4 thanks to mana burn). Late Angel gets Grasped FTW.
1-2
Game 4: AS lays shadow creature turn 1, and 2. That was all she wrote.
1-3 (I'm ready to declare this matchup unwinnable at this point LOL)
Game 5: 2 Sea Drakes both get plowed. Follow it up with Chalices @ 1 and 2. I beat him with his own Angel FTW.
2-3
Game 6: I have written "Sea Drake + Jitte > Angel" and "FoW > Disenchant"
3-3
Game 7: Double Binding Grasp + Chalice @ 2 = Game.
4-3
Game 8: Long, tough game. FoF was huge. A potentially huge Wave gets Forced and Jitte gets needled. A Sea Drake soars over Savanah Lions for the win.
5-3
Game 9: Another long game. Grasp and Trinket are huge 2-for-1's here. Sea Drake with a Jitte takes him to 2. Drake gets plowed and I win 5 turns later with a Serendib. One of my Facts went Landx4, Chalice. Ouch!
6-3
Game 10: Mulligans and Slow draws for both decks. All AS drew was a StP, and a couple of Hounds and Disenchants. FS proceeds to draw it's good creatures and beatdowns ensue while keeping a fattie back to block.
7-3 (At this point I'm thinking WTF?)
Game 11: Slow start for FS. Chalice @ 2 helps, then grasping an Angel, but Wave hits the board and that's all she wrote.
7-4
Game 12: 2 StP answer 2 quick threats and a disenchant answers a Grasp. Mask of Memory prevents any notion of a comeback.
7-5
Game 13: Turn 1 and 2 Trinkets lead to Chalices @ 1 and 2. This leaves AS with Angels and Waves and FS with FoW, Grasp, Needle, Sea Drake, SoFI, etc. to stop them.
8-5
Game 14: Turn 1 and 2 Sea Drakes. FoW backs them up nicely.
9-5
Game 15: Turn 1 Drake. Turn 2 facedown angel. Turn 2 FS lays a SoFI and equips it. Swings and kills the Angel. Ballgame.
10-5
Game 16: FS mulligans and gets manascrewed. AS lays first turn shadow, second turn Mask. Scoopsville.
10-6
Game 17: No Fattie for FS + needle on Jitte = bad. Chalice stalls, but Angel seals it.
10-7
Game 18: Turn 1 Chalice @1 followed by 2 Sea Drakes and backed up by 2 FoWs (which hit an Angel and a Wave) end it. AS player does 8 damage to himself with tombs.
11-7
Game 19: All I have written is "Angel + SoFI = bad." True dat.
11-8
Game 20: Tightest game of the whole bunch. We trade threats and equipment for StP and Disenchants. Finally I start flying over a hound with a Serendib and lay a needle on Wave the turn before he draws one. FS wins @ 2 life.
12-8

FS props:
Explosive hands.
Not as many mulligans as usual.
FoW, Trinket Mage, Fact or Fictions and Binding Grasp.
Chalice @ 1 and 2 (undefeated when that happened)
Cloud of Faeries for being such a damn versatile card (I cycled it a bunch)
Eng Explosives. A nice suprise card to knock out needles on my equipment, or equipped Hounds and Lions.

FS Slops:
Facts off Tombs (bleh) and crappy facts (I really need to test fetches)
Slow hands.
Double moxes in opening hands.
Serendib for poking me.
Eng Explosives. For the time I blew up my needle on Wave, only to see a Wave next turn.

AS props:
StP and Disenchant.
Wave and Angel for being houses. Wave smacking around Binding Grasp jsut ain't fair.
Shadow creature (who I refer to as Shadow creature b/c I can't remember the name) for racing Sea Drakes and occasionally winning.
Mask of memory. When it worked, AS won.

AS Slops:
Savanah Lions for getting killed by Faeries in Clouds.
Parralax Wave for being needle-able.
One and two drops.
Tithe for sucking vs. FS.
Mask of Memory. It rarely worked.

Eldariel
05-16-2006, 06:14 PM
Tithes? From what I know, all the modern lists have dropped them. Here's the list Lego_Army_Man used to Top 4 at Kadilak's:

4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
16 Plains

4 Mother of Runes
4 Silver Knight
4 Soltari Priest
4 Exalted Angel
4 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
2 Savannah Lions

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Parallax Wave
2 Disenchant
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Mask of Memory

Sideboard:
4 Armageddon
3 Rule of Law
2 Disenchant
3 Pithing needle
3 Tormod's Crypt

Most people prefer 18 white sources for more consistent WW (and I tend to agree, hence why Faerie Stompy is constructed to only need a single U (allowing for mere 13 blue sources to consistently support the deck's mana requirements Vial Goblins- or 9-land Stompy style), resulting in lots of cuts like Waterspout Djinn, Serendib Djinn, Halcyon Glaze (woulda of course been an entirely different deck to support the creature-count, but the point is that costing UU makes it unplayable here), Control Magic, dozens different Threshold-hate cards and overall a good dozen SB cards), some with Chrome Moxen, some with no Moxen. The fact remains that the deck contains no Facts, Trinket Mages and Chalices (don't be fooled by the lack of word 'draw a card', against most decks, it creates tons of virtual card advantage), so losing a card is more painful for AS than for FS, especially since FS is more capable of utilizing the extra speed since it doesn't need to spend the other turn playing beaters, it can go straight for the throat with equipment. I'm just wanting to make sure you're not testing vs. a suboptimal list, since that's certain to skew the results.

Phantom
05-16-2006, 06:35 PM
My list was exactly the same except:

-2 Cities
-1 Plains
-1 Isamaru
+2 Tithes
+2 Savanah Lions

and the Disenchants in the board were Seals. The Tithes helped me get to WW alot in certain games. I just said they sucked because FS never has any damn lands in play so I was rarely fetching 2 plains.

Eldariel
05-16-2006, 06:38 PM
My list was exactly the same except:

-2 Cities
-1 Plains
-1 Isamaru
+2 Tithes
+2 Savanah Lions

and the Disenchants in the board were Seals. The Tithes helped me get to WW alot in certain games. I just said they sucked because FS never has any damn lands in play so I was rarely fetching 2 plains.

^^ Good. Yea, FS really never tends to have all that many lands in play (except when you're attacking with equipped Faerie Conclaves, then you usually have at least 4 lands in play), one of the reasons it's so resilient to LD. The deck can produce all the mana it needs off 2 lands, which is something you can't say about many decks. I hope your results are accurate, eliminating the bad match-up and turning it into slightly favourable is huge for the viability of the deck.

Phantom
05-16-2006, 06:54 PM
I agree. Even if the results aren't entirely accurate (and I'm sure they aren't) I would guess at worst we would go 8-12. Still a winnable match (and that's what it's all about, right?). It was strange how the testing went in streaks (AS taking 3 of 4, then FS breaking off 6 in a row!) and how well the decks complement each other. FS usually takes the early lead with a big flyer, while AS makes it's push midgame on the backs of Angels and Waves. If FS makes it to the late game, Fact or Fiction and Binding Grasp can put them right back in it. There really were some amazing games played.

Lego
05-17-2006, 04:24 PM
I must be reading something wrong. Your games say that he had a first turn shadow creature, yet the list you say you played has absolutely no way to do that.

My current list is identical to Kaddy's tournament list -2 Cities, +2 Chrome Mox. With that configuartion, you can play the Priest on turn 1. I assume you're playing Chrome Mox somewhere in there, because otherwise you're playing Foot Soldier, and that's sort of a problem (although I'd give you mad props for the old school tech.)

Isamaru is better than Savannah Lions, which is why I run 4. I'd go 4/3 Isamaru/Lions before I went 3/4. I've never lost a game for having an Isamaru stuck in hand, but I've won a lot because Isamaru is 500 times better than Savannah Lions (487 times better in my calculations.)

Get those Tithes out of there for Chrome Moxen and you've got a pretty optimal list, although I wouldn't go less than 22 mana sources, that's just a matter of personal preference.

I don't know why I'm talking so much about Angel Stompy in the FS thread. All in all, I love both decks, and it seems like they've got a fairly even matchup. Sometimes FS is ahead, sometimes AS is ahead, but it seems like it would be a pretty fun match to play over and over again :smile:

Phantom
05-17-2006, 04:38 PM
Yeah, I'm an idiot. I think I was only playing 13-14 plains and Moxes in their place. I didn't notice that they were missing in the posted build. I also agree with you on the Isamaru front, I was just netdecking.

They are very similar decks on paper (both winning through quick, equipped creatures). It's amazing how the small differences between the deck turn them into very different decks.

JeremM
05-30-2006, 05:07 PM
Have you considered Thalakos Deciever in place of the Grasps? He costs the same, steals creatures permanently, has no upkeep cost, and can serve as an unblockable 1/1 if there's nothing worth taking. The only downside of him over the Grasp is that he can't steal the creature right away and can be Plowed/Bolted/Fanaticed/Etc (although a Chalice at 1 would alleviate most of this).

Eldariel
05-30-2006, 06:31 PM
The problem is, he doesn't do it immediately. That's why I opted for Grasp, you steal the creature now and swing with it next turn. Sure, Deceiver is a creature, but when you're bringing Grasps in, chances are your opponent's deck contains creatures anyways.

Phantom
05-30-2006, 10:36 PM
I can see how one might think that the slowness of the Deciever might trade with the upkeep and disenchant vunerability of Grasp to make them about even. I had actually even considered him myself, but one of the main matchups we need Grasps for is Angel Stompy, and they actually run shadow creatures. It would also make us even more vunerable to 1 toughness hate.

I have long looked at the blue shadow creatures and wondered (especially the one's that are hard to kill like Thalakos Scout) but one of the best parts about flying is that it's evasion when we want it to be, and blocking when we need it to be.

Eldariel
06-11-2006, 07:56 AM
And there's like one Legacy-tourney/month in Finland and even those aren't of very high level (the one that was supposed to be today was cancelled). That means, I'm pretty much limited to playing the deck online even though I actually own the cards for it (save Needles presently). But yea, winning some a bit bigger tournament would be real good for the deck and seeing the testing results and finishes I've heard of, it should be far from impossible (what I'm saying is, I'd love to hear of results from you lot too as I'm personally unable to make any relevant ones).

APriestOfGix
06-15-2006, 08:52 PM
OK I don't remember much but I'll post about the last tourny I went to.

4 rounds Swiss, Top 3 get store credit and 1 Rare of choice under 30 bucks. (20 dollars store credit for first, 10 = 2, 0 = 3).


Match 1 - Thresh
Game 1. I play a first turn Drake, equpie next turn and swing for the next 2 turns to win while he playes out lands, and creatures that can't block.
Game 2. He lays land, I play challice for 1, he lays land I play challice for 2, he lays land I play Effreit and SoF&I, he scoops

2-0


Match 2 - Goblins
Game 1. Play land, he plays lacky, I play land cloud, cloud, spirit, he draws, and scoops w/ 2 SGC and 2 PD, and 0 land.
Game 2. He plays Prospector, I play Jitte, he plays Warcheif, I play cloud of fairies equip, he plays 3 PD and wins.
Game 3. I do something random, and w/ with a Drake 4th turn

4-1

(End of god Draws)

Game 3 - Rifter
Game 1. I get loats of stuff, counter a Slide, and win.
Game 2. I play lots of stuff, but get sliceanddiced, and lose (hard casted)
Game 3. I play out Effrit first turn, and he plays slide turn 3, sliding out the effreet for the win. (Effrit and Tomb deal me 14 damage), he burns me for 6.

5-3

Game 4 - Goblins
Game 1. Flying men rule, I play cloud, SoF&I and win
Game 2. I play cloud, SoF&I and watch as he wins faster than I can w/ 3 Piledrives (whats up w/ opponet getting 3 PD's???)
Game 3. I beat face w/ Drake over one lacky held back by a sprite.

7-4

Son_Gozen
07-09-2006, 06:41 AM
I went 4-1-0 in our Legacy Tournament yesterday. I was third place and won a Scrubland for 5€ starting fee...

First Match: NQG/r 0-2
Lost the first game because of color Screw just drew 2 City Of Traitors and 1 Ancient Tomb no Mox or Island
Lost second game due to not havning a 2-mana land just drew Conclave, Island, Island, Conclave

Second Match: Angelstompy 2-1
First game i started on the play with COTV=1 it was game
Second game i was on the draw and lost cuz i didn´t have a creature
Third game i was on the play and opened the game with COTV=1 game again.

Third Match: NQG/rw 2-1
The Match started with Deckcheck and my opponent got a game loss. so i lost the first game again no good stuff on my board
I sideboarded 3 Trini 1 Claw and 2 Crypts i won the game COTV=1 and big flying guys made the game.

Fourth Match: Zoo 2-0
First game he was on the play starting with savannah lion. i laid down a COTV=1 and started dropping big flyers and heavy equip. Game for me
Second Game he started with Isamaru and i laid down a COTV=1 then started beat down with Sea Sprite and Rainbow Efreet close game for me.

Fifth Match: Goblins 2-0
I waited 17 Minutes for my Opponent to show up and he got a matchloss.

My Build looks like this Atm:

Maindeck:

Lands(17):
7 Island
4 City Of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Faerie Conclave

4 Chrome Mox
4 Sword Of Fire And Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Pithing Needle
4 Trinket Mage
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Sea Drake
4 Cloud Of Faeries
2 Sea Sprite
2 Rainbow Efreet
4 Force Of Will
4 Thirst For Knowledge
2 Fact Or Fiction
//62 Cards

Sideboard:

2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Scrabbling Claws
3 Winter orb
3 Trinisphere
3 Binding Grasp
3 Misdirection
//15 Cards

Actually this build is really good maybe i´m going to throw out 1 Thirst and 1 Mage for 2 Psi Blasts

Eldariel
07-09-2006, 06:52 AM
Only 3 Sea Drakes? In my experience, it's the best beater in the deck. Btw, you always mulligan no-blue mana lands unless A) You've got Cloud of Faeries (preferably multiples) to cycle or B) You can lock opponent away with multiple Chalices. How has Rainbow Efreet been serving you? To me it appears just a worse Sea Drake (or appeared when I tested it). But yea, the deck is stretched to the very edge for 60 cards, I'd imagine 62 would really hurt. Still, suit yourself.

Son_Gozen
07-09-2006, 07:56 AM
I had no Problems Rainbow Efreet is doing well Eldariel. Actually i´m running only 3 Sea Drakes cuz i only have 3 and here in germany they´re hard to get.. in the first match first game i already took 2 mulligans and drew no blue mana i didn´t want to get down to 4 hand cards.. second game the same thing...

Eldariel
07-09-2006, 08:29 AM
I had no Problems Rainbow Efreet is doing well Eldariel. Actually i´m running only 3 Sea Drakes cuz i only have 3 and here in germany they´re hard to get.. in the first match first game i already took 2 mulligans and drew no blue mana i didn´t want to get down to 4 hand cards.. second game the same thing...

My tip: Go to 4 cards. I've often drawn nuts 4-card hand (turn 1 Sea Drake. I think I got a SEfreet occasionally too) and won easily (that happened in testing once against Goblins and once against Solidarity), drawing into equipment to seal the deal. I got a turn 4 kill, I recall (turn 2 SoFI, turn 3 equip, turn 4 kill) vs Solidarity and since I was on the play, it was enough to race him. Occasionally, you can also hit Chalice-hands and win.

I can see that Sea Drakes are hard to come by, and their price has been soaring lately (MoTL lists them at 11 dollars a piece, just few months ago it was 5 and few months before that, 1).

Son_Gozen
07-09-2006, 02:27 PM
i know how sick Faerie Stompy can start a game. Once i had a God hand and went like this:
1st turn: Mox, City, Sea Drake
2nd Turn: Sofai, City, Equip Sea Drake beatings for 8
3rd turn: Jitte, Island, Equip Drake beatings for 8..... game

The funniest thing i had against goblins (i was on the play)

My 1st turn:
Island then his turn.

His first turn:
Mountain Lackey then my turn.

My 2nd turn:
City Of Traitors, Cloud Of Faeries, Cloud Of Faeries, Sofai, equip then his turn. eot: He scoops

Son_Gozen
07-09-2006, 02:32 PM
Here´s the link to our Top 8 Decks: http://morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=440

Phantom
07-10-2006, 12:28 PM
Eric Darland T8'd on day 2 with Faerie Stompy! (unconfirmed) Move us to the Legacy Metagame Forum ASAP!

I'd love to see the list he used, and I'm actually hopeful that he won the whole thing considering the T8 was:

4 Goblins
2 Solidarity
1 Faerie Stompy
1 B/R Sui thingy

Hopefully he was packing 4 Sea Sprites and 3 Blasts.

Big day for us and congrats are in order for Eldariel!

Eldariel
07-10-2006, 12:39 PM
Legacy Metagame? Open forum if anything. And the list he was playing was probably a bit different. But Open forum is probably the right place for the time being.

EDIT: Not a very apparent one then :P But I actually tend to think that the deck belongs to Open now.

Lego
07-11-2006, 01:14 PM
I realized that I had never actually read the entire thread (although I posted in it on and off) so I went back and did so. Now I'm up to speed on all the changes and whatnot.

@Phantom from a million pages ago: I agree that the build I originally posted was the wrong way to go. I wasn't posting it so much because I thought it was a better build, but more to increase discussion about the deck. This it did not do, but rather lent itself to half a page of discussion about the list I posted. I appreciate your comments anyway :smile:

Now, however, I think the time may be better to look back at that build, or at least one card from that build: Aether Vial. Does it warrant inclusion due to the new eratta (or removal thereof) of Cloud of Faeries? Turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Chalice, turn 3 vial in a Cloud of Faeries, play a Sea Drake, SoFI, and equip?

Seems like it at least deserves testing. Anyone up for some MWS?

Phantom
07-11-2006, 03:07 PM
Yeah, this whole de-erranta of Cloud has thrown me for a loop. I'm not sure exactly what to do with this, and what the new build would look like.

Eldariel
07-11-2006, 03:36 PM
It's interesting to see. Seeing that Chalice is still the thermonuclear warhead it has always been, I'd be reluctant to cutting away from it (it being the chief cultrip for the deck being able to take on Threshold and combo on more than even footing), but Vial does look even more alluring now, especially since it would also allow playing some UU-guys (Waterspout Djinn, Serendib Djinn (prolly not), something) in the deck, but as said, it conflicts with Chalice in a rather serious way (since turn 1, I almost always want to cast Chalice if possible, but if I've got Vial, I gotta cast it before Chalice, diminishing the efficiency of Chalice in the process). I'm not really sure what to do. Hypothetically though, if Vial were to be added, it would probably also mark the return of Flying Men, as a 4-of. It'd also want few more big guys to the deck to more properly abuse the effect, Cloud of Faeries offers with it. It'd probably also suggest increase in the total creature count, and preferably some extra 3-drops so that I can comfortably leave the Vial at 3. Interestingly, it could also fuel Chisei in the deck as it allows dropping Chisei easily AND keeps Chisei active. Probably not though, but it's worth wasting a thought on. It would be a wildly different build though, that's for sure. It should probably eschew Chrome Mox, since Vial is already extra 'land'-cards in the deck, so Chrome Mox card disadvantage would be a lot more relevant (right now, with 21 mana-cards, it's quite bearable, but with 25 mana-cards, it would be a whole lot worse). Also, without the chance of Chalice at 1 turn 1, and with a number of 1-drops, all the acceleration isn't even needed.

Phantom
07-17-2006, 02:12 AM
The list that Top 8'd is finally up. No Vials (thank god). It's actually similar to what we've been running except Thirst for Knowledge in the FoF spot:

Artifacts
4 Chalice Of The Void
4 Chrome Mox
1 Pithing Needle
4 Sword Of Fire And Ice

Creatures
4 Cloud Of Faeries
4 Sea Drake
2 Sea Sprite
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Trinket Mage

Instants
4 Force Of Will
3 Psionic Blast
3 Thirst For Knowledge

Legendary Artifacts
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Artifact Lands
2 Seat Of The Synod

Basic Lands
5 Island

Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City Of Traitors
2 Faerie Conclave

Sideboard:
1 Cursed Scroll
2 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Winter Orb
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Misdirection

Tacosnape
07-17-2006, 03:53 AM
I like this version of the deck a lot, simply because it cuts out everything that costs over three mana to play. This means you get mana screwed less. Which is good. I definitely like Thirst over FoF.

I also am loving Engineered Explosives in this the more I play it. It's Trinketmageable (That's a word, I swear) and it blasts away Mongeese, Needles, Lackeys, Isamarus, and other things that you couldn't Chalice away, like...er...um, Tarpan. Yeah. Tarpan. Owned, scrubby green deck wielder I will face in round one of every tournament ever.

..Of course, I run 3 Engineered Explosives in RG Vial Goblins' sideboard, too, (Die, Silver Knight/Jitte!) so it's possible I just have a bizarre fascination with the card that I need to get over.

SuckerPunch
07-17-2006, 01:55 PM
I agree. This deck is strategically superior to Fish, which is in the open forum.

Heck I am of the belief that Fairie Stompy is superior to Angel Stompy as it's more explosive, has disruption that can slow down combo, not just creatures, and can set Chalice for 1.

The build looks solid. I have a few concerns though.

Why is Psionic Blast so needed. Between Jitte and SOFI, you have more than enough means to deal extra damage and kill creatures including Angel. Couldn't something a bit more disruptive like Daze, or a Misdirection fit better. You lay down a beater and then disrupt their way to deal with it with countermagic. Sounds like a better plan to me.

Does anyone else feel like the 3 cc is too crowded in that build. Inspite of the mana base, having 80% of all spells that cost mana be 3cc isn't a great curve. How about something like Mask of Memory in place of Thirst for Knowledge, esp if you run a couple of Daze/MisD to better protect your creatures.

Eldariel
07-17-2006, 02:16 PM
Sword is the only way to deal extra damage the turn you play it. Even that's combat step-related. The reason I want the stupid Blasts is that there always floats a good number of decks that destroy combat phase in a way or another, and I prefer being able to do something about it. Spike Weaver is a card I honestly want to blast away, same applies to Spore Frog and such. Also, against decks with heavy removal, I can Blast their life away. Psionic Blasts reduce the deck's reliance on the combat step hence their inclusion. The beautiful part is that while Mask of Memory would work in the spot of Thirst for Knowledge/Fact or Fiction, it would again require me to have creatures to draw more creatures. In short, it's a card I'd need to cast when I'm beating, while at that point I want to be dealing damage. Thirst/Fact allow me to draw into more beaters if I'm empty and also into Psionic Blasts if I need to finish the game. They obviously deal damage the turn I play them. I might try without them to see if I'll miss them, but so far they've served me well.

I am aware of how crowded the 2-slot is, but in reality, not so. The 3-drops that are usually cast on turn 3 are Serendib Efreet and Sea Drake. Sword of Fire and Ice should be used when you have 5 mana, Psionic Blast is a removal-spell so it's rarely cast at 3 mana. Also, the way in which the deck's manabase is constructed makes casting 3-drops easy. Usually the deck can optimise its mana consumption as long as it has spells to cast really, thanks to Cloud-shenanigans and the ability to split costs over multiple turns.

Phantom
07-17-2006, 02:51 PM
Does anyone else feel like the 3 cc is too crowded in that build. Inspite of the mana base, having 80% of all spells that cost mana be 3cc isn't a great curve. How about something like Mask of Memory in place of Thirst for Knowledge, esp if you run a couple of Daze/MisD to better protect your creatures.

Quite simply, it is just as easy for the deck to produce 2U as it is to cast 1U, and since we often lay a Chalice @ 1 and 2, we really don't want to decrease the curve.

Mask is a big no-no for 2 reasons. The afore mentioned Chalice @1 and the fact that it is draw dependant on creatures.

@ P. Blast: I have no combo in my area and have tested everything in their slot. Nothing has worked near as well as the blasts (+1 Sprite, +1 Explosives, +1 Scroll came closest). Solidarity is on the rise, not on the fall and the Blasts are dead in 0 matchups.

@ Thirst vs. Fact: I'm sure they are both fine choices with the interesting synergy of fetching a seat to discard. The only reason I never tested Thirst was because Fact was so damn good. The only way I could see Thirst being strictly better is if its lower cc allowed another play the turn it was cast. Also, I guess pitching unused Moxen isn't irrelevant.


I can't understand why this deck still is in the N&D Forum. There are much worse and less played in the Open Forum. With the Top8 from Eric Darland this should definetely get into the Open Forum.

Tell me about it. The deck is 1-for-1 in T8s in major tourneys (which I guess can be decieving). The matchups speak for themselves, and this is a great deck if the meta is headed in a Goblins/Thresh/Solidarity direction (as it seems to be).

SuckerPunch
07-17-2006, 02:54 PM
Wouldn't additional permission, Daze, MisD, Mana Leak etc preventing them from casting something that disrupts your combat phase in the first place. It can counter Angel, Wave etc.

Permission on top of that could help you out against combo to a greater degree, which is critical seeing as how popular combo is becoming.

Afterall, there's no way to be sure that extra 4 damage is all you'll need to kill them.

Eldariel
07-17-2006, 03:08 PM
This is an aggro-deck, I don't want to be guessing when my opponent casts something threatening and leave mana open to counter. Trust me, if there was another good free counter, I'd be running one main, but one hasn't turned up. Also, Psionic Blast can be cast after the threat has been resolved, so I can start digging for it at that point instead of being forced to have it when the threat is being cast.

The deck has too low Island-count for Daze, and it can be played around easily anyways.

Misdirection is too specialized for maindeck, oftentimes, it lacks targets entirely and other times it can only counter the things I don't really care about (like opposing counters and such).

Disrupting Shoal would require me to have a manacurve, which is exaclty what this deck is lacking.


And you're actually worsening your combo match-up by adding permission (by replacing Blasts) since Blasts speed up your goldfish. I've occasionally just plain killed Solidarity before they can go off (usually involving Sea Drake, Sword of Fire and Ice and Psionic Blast, with occasional Serendib Efreet and Cloud of Faeries thrown in). I've also won games where I've cast a Psionic Blast in response to Solidarity going off, killing them (I had lethal in play that turn). But if you really worry about combo, just fit 3 Arcane Laboratories on the side. That should be more than enough with 7 ways to just prevent them from going off, 3-4 (Mages) tutors for them, 4 Force of Wills (and Misdirections vs. Solidarity) and a fast clock.

SuckerPunch
07-18-2006, 12:13 AM
My other question is Faerie Conclave. I've been extremely disappointed with this card. It sucks ass in the early game, makes your blue mana vulnerable to wastelands, really screws up your tempo esp if you're in top deck mode desperately waiting on a blue source because your other blue source got destroyed. I would much rather run 2 Islands.

Does everyone else run it. If so, have you been really happy with it.

So that and the fact that I only run 1 Seat of Synod is why I guess I have 8 islands (I'm convinced that the manabase is this deck achielles heel) and feel like I can support Daze. It just seems solid to run 2x Daze (or 1 Daze/1 Misdirection) just to screw with your opponents head and make them wait a turn longer to play key spells (a one sided Sphere of Resistence that doesn't cost any mana to cast) and up the Jitte count instead of running Psionic Blast. Mana Leak is another possibility. But that's just a personal call as I've never been satisfied with with Blast.

Overall though, I want to congratulate you on building one of the best most explosive and innovative decks in legacy. Anyone can throw together a bunch of cards with a nice curve, but this deck has a extraordinary deal of built in synergy usually only found in combo decks.

Son_Gozen
07-18-2006, 03:16 AM
Well if you think that it makes your Blue Mana Sources vulnerable to Wastelands, then why are you running Seat Of Synod?? I cutted them cuz it hurts just to fetch your Blue Source and then it gets wasted... uh uh... i like the Conclaves in the eraly game they can also be very explosive if you have enough mana in the early game....

Eldariel
07-18-2006, 07:05 AM
You'd really want to cut all Chrome Moxen for Islands too before running Daze. With 9 lands, the Daze is going to look stupid in your hand more often than once. But yea, suit yourself. The reason for Faerie Conclaves is pretty much the same as for Psionic Blasts, they allow me to swing for the win once my board has been cleared. Again, they're mostly used against decks with exhaustion strategies like Rifter or Survival-variants. I've come to the conclusion that I generally can't win fast enough to kill them regardless of their removal (since their StPs, Wing Shards, Slice and Dices and such just are going to kill some of my guys), so I'm playing the build as it is now.

Getting blue mana wasted can be annoying, but I've rarely really had trouble with getting crippled by such. I only need one turn worth of blue mana to cast a beater or two, after that equip 'em up and go to town. Wastes on two-mana lands can be effective if I kept a 2-lander. On the other hand, if I didn't, the opponent buried himself since I'm playing turn 3 while he's still playing turn 1. An interesting prospect is that Homebrew, the premiere LD-deck in the format, was a total blowout and against Goblins, the only real problem was their sideboard Red Elemental Blasts/Pyroblasts (or StPs in white variant). REBs are worse though since I can't bring in Misdirection for those.

And as I've often said, Blast quickens your goldfish, plain and simple. I've done turn 3 and 4 kills just in time thanks to blast, that would've been a turn too late without. Against MBC, I was basically locked away from the board, but it didn't matter as I just topdecked a land, and Blasted him out. Against Rec-Sur in the Source-tournament (yea, I screwed up, but regardless), he was at 3 for a dozen of turns and I forced him to bring back Boneshredder each turn to block my Faerie Conclave with Sword of Fire and Ice. Had I drawn a Psionic Blast at any point (I actually Facted 5 card deep one turn, no Blasts in sight), I would've won that game. Also, often against Goblins, all I need to do to win is kill their Warchief to buy a turn. Psionic Blast and Jitte are the only cards that can do in a Vialed Goblin Warchief before they get to attack. Also, one big reason for it being so good is that the deck runs Sword of Fire and Ice. It draws me a card after combat. If it draws me a Psionic Blast, I can put the opponent away right then instead of having to wait a turn.


Mana Leak I'd stay clear from (especially since you don't run Psionic Blast. If you did, it could make sense to leave mana open for Leak and if they don't cast anything Leakable, Blast them), but feel free to try Daze and Misd. I've just personally had trouble with the Island-count on many occasions, which actually leads to the fact that Trinket Mage fetches for lands quite often (especially against decks packing LD).

bigredmeanie
07-18-2006, 01:11 PM
I don't think Vial is going to make the cut. Mostly because it's incredible dissynery with Chalice. It also belongs in the Mox spot, and Mox is more important to the deck than Vial. There is also an inadequate curve to properly abuse Vial.

How about Vexing Sphinx? I haven't noticed it be discussed. For Refrence

1UU
Flying
Cumulitive Upkeep: Discard a card from your had.

When This is put into your GY from play you may draw a card for each age counter on it.
4/4

Seems really solid, deal 8 damage and draw 3 cards. It's really only affraid of Swords, and will kill a Mongoose should you chose to block.

Dow does this deck fair agaist goblins. Seems like a swarm of hasty Piledrivers could easily race. And the fact that they have pro U makes the card just dumb.

Quicksand could be an effective form of removal against goblins.

Peter_Rotten
07-18-2006, 02:44 PM
Moved to Open for the following reasons:

- Standard list without too much variation
- Has placed well at a tournament of significant size

Tacosnape
07-18-2006, 03:38 PM
Thirst/Fact > Mask for a third reason, also. Mask doesn't pitch to Force of Will, and in a deck that empties its hand at ludicrous speed (No! Not Ludicrous speed!), that's relevant.

Same reason why Psionic Blast is also a great additional creature removal / face crusher. Jitte/SOFI don't pitch to Force of Will.

Eldariel
07-18-2006, 04:41 PM
I don't think Vial is going to make the cut. Mostly because it's incredible dissynery with Chalice. It also belongs in the Mox spot, and Mox is more important to the deck than Vial. There is also an inadequate curve to properly abuse Vial.

Unfortunately. However, might be that reworking the deck to utilize Vial could be possible. It might be worth it start from scratch instead of beginning to modify this deck though. For example, the list Lego posted (DampingEngine's list) could be a good starting point seeing that it already utilizes Vial and still contains Clouds and lots of high-cost cards. Also, since it fixes colours, an UW list seems potentially doable.


How about Vexing Sphinx? I haven't noticed it be discussed. For Refrence

1UU
Flying
Cumulitive Upkeep: Discard a card from your had.

When This is put into your GY from play you may draw a card for each age counter on it.
4/4

Seems really solid, deal 8 damage and draw 3 cards. It's really only affraid of Swords, and will kill a Mongoose should you chose to block.

It was discussed in the 'new card'-discussion thread. Unfortunately the card, while has things going for it, has the unfortunate cost of '1UU', which means that the deck can't simply pay for it consistently, and unlike other 3-drops in the deck, it's extremely tough to play turn 1 or 2. Furthermore, 2-mana lands can't be used to cast it. 2UU is actually easier to pay than 1UU for the mentioned reasons, but I'd steer clear from anything with UU and no alternative cost.


Dow does this deck fair agaist goblins. Seems like a swarm of hasty Piledrivers could easily race. And the fact that they have pro U makes the card just dumb.

Quicksand could be an effective form of removal against goblins.

Quicksand is way down in the list of 'colourless lands to add'. Unfortunately, the deck has already filled those slots with acceleration, so there's no room (the options much higher up there would be Blinkmoth Nexus, Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, Rishadan Port, etc.).

However, Piledrivers aren't that much of a problem. Only occasionally, when they cast 2 Piledrivers and I have no equipment do they generate real problems. Generally I can just either stump their play with Chalices and FoWs (Chalice at 1 on play is SO brutal, and on the draw, if I have FoW followed by Chalice, it's almost an autowin) or annihilate their board with equipment or race with beatdown. The games they win usually have something to do with an unchecked Vial (Lackey rarely causes problems. I've won games even after Lackey connecting, dropping a SGC. It had something to do with dropping Sea Drake and Serendib Efreet the same turn and following it up with some savage beatings) or an extremely slow hand on our part. That or REBs/Pyroblasts (or StP/Disenchant pair).

But yea, Piledrivers are only a problem with Warchief really and the deck does a decent job keeping the Warchiefs dead, and not giving Goblins much time to twiddle around with their Vials and Matrons.


And wops, it seems like I forgot to mention the FoW/Mox-pitchability. It's a major factor indeed, occasionally you don't want to pitch creatures.

JeremM
07-18-2006, 05:09 PM
On the subject of Psionic Blast, would it be worthwhile to have Psychic Purges in the board in a Goblin/Deadguy-heavy meta? Granted, it gets eaten by Chalice, but provides an out against a Lackey if you're on the draw and completely owns Deadguy (pops Bobs, domes them for 5 if they force a discard).

Eldariel
07-18-2006, 05:33 PM
Nah, Deadguy match-up is already great and gets even better with Misdirections, and against Goblins, there are much better SB-cards, such as Sea Sprites.

EDIT: I realize I should extrapolate on this a bit. Deadguy has incredible trouble dealing with even a single resolved creature. Their only removal is StP (and Vindicate, which comes online frighteningly late and they have a hard time attacking the landbase if they're dealing with creatures, allowing FS to just keep replenishing and playing more creatures) and if I happen to play a Chalice at 1, I cut off their speed as well as their removal. If they attack my landbase, they aren't playing a threat and I'm bashing them senseless. They need 3 mana to Vindicate a Mox, which makes Moxen quite consistent sources of mana. I also have FoW if there's a critical resource I need to protect. All in all, they're a tempo-deck, they have serious trouble dealing with decks faster than themselves, since their LD never has the time to create a weakness in the opponent it normally would if opponent can simply be playing turn 3 on turn 1. I didn't realize how weak Deadguy is against strategy of quick, big flying fattos, but something like 9-1 preboard made it painfully clear.

to1701
07-18-2006, 05:54 PM
Has anyone considered running sword of light and shadow? Isn't pro white a good candidate for stopping StP? Or is UJ just that much better. (I own not a UJ, so seems like a good replacement, plus, it does give life gain too,possibly getting a critter back never hurts).

Eldariel
07-18-2006, 06:28 PM
First, please use the edit-feature in future when you wish to add something to your post :/

Anyhow, the name is pretty much cemented, no point in switching it around all the time. And not every card honestly needs to be a part of the name. Calling this Clouds of Efreet-Drakes-stompy would seem pretty excessive, don't you think?

And Sword of Light and Shadow is always a consideration, but it's frighteningly passive. It would be good against decks with white removal, but in match-ups like Goblins, it would be pretty poor and even worse against combo. The card is quite strong, but I simply can't see it replacing any of the artifacts presently in the deck, nor would I wish to go lower in blue cards. It's perhaps worthy of sideboard consideration, but that's about it. Sword of Fire and Ice has a devastating effect; it either deals 4 damage to a player, or 2 to a player and kills a creature AND it draws a card. It blows up those pesky Goblins and goldfishes Solidarity. It draws me into answers or threats and it allows even Sea Sprite to do the job of a Phyrexian Negator (of beating for 5 starting from turn 2). Also, in a format with Goblins, burn and all that, pro-red is no slouch either.

Moby Dick
07-18-2006, 10:31 PM
would it make more sense to run 4x jitte and 3x sword? or is card drawing that im portant

Eldariel
07-18-2006, 10:41 PM
Sword deals damage the turn it comes into play, which in essence makes it a turn faster, and that's not even touching on the matter of the cards it draws. Also, Jitte is Legendary. When I have to trump an opponent's equipment in race, I've found that multiple Swords practically guarantees victory in any equipment duel. Sword also gives the not-so-insignificant protections from red (no Goblin-removal will be able to touch it, nor many other decks), and protection from blue (if one's meta is anything like mine, there're always some Togs and Fish-variants and company around. Being able to walk right through Serendib Efreets and block Tog with Cloud are pretty damn sweet). Also, the simple fact that the deck has very little in terms of pure card advantage makes the Sword sweet as it generates just that.

Also, Sword is obviously better when opponent runs no creatures, and if it's equipped, Needle on Sword is trivial, while Jitte can be shut down at any point. Overall, I find Sword the more solid of the two, although I won't blame anyone for running more Jittes instead. But yea, if you expect any combo, goldfish rate becomes increasingly relevant and the extra cards offer you the disruption you need, which makes Sword just way better. I often side out Jitte vs. control, but never Sword.

SuckerPunch
07-18-2006, 11:24 PM
SOFI is better at racing, Jitte is better against aggro decks that put up a good fight as the way it manipulates combat damage is unmatched.

Jitte help tremendously in the Angel Stompy matchup (one of your tougher matchups).

Both equipment are so insanely good in this format that I see little reason not to run a playset of each.

nightshade81
07-19-2006, 12:46 AM
Serendib Djinn - I think this guy needs some reconsideration. I know most people are in fear of the UU, and rightly so, but as a 2 of he can defiantly win games by himself. I also think people are not as aggressively pitching him as I am. We have 8 pitch effects in this deck and if we are only running 2 Djinns the odds are you will either be able to cast him or be able to pitch him. I have read the posts not in support of him but I fell more people need to test with him before we rule him out, so far I think he's a positive attribute to the deck.

Weatherseed Faeries - I favor these over Sea Sprite.
Quite simply, it is just as easy for the deck to produce 2U as it is to cast 1U, and since we often lay a Chalice @ 1 and 2, we really don't want to decrease the curve. The curve is set up for three and I think these faeries will make a great addition. The Weatherseed Faeries are double the toughness for one additional colorless mana. An additional benefit is making Jittes the only card dead at chalice at 2.

I'm still spectacle of Faerie Conclave, because it lost me a game (and match) in a tournament because it was a turn slow. It also has not won me a game outside of test, so I'm heavily considering cutting it.

I'm also a huge fan of Thirst for Knolwege over FoF.

Eldariel
07-19-2006, 08:24 AM
I haven't really had trouble with Faerie Conclave, but I guess it might cause some trouble on occasion. If you feel like those outweight the benefits (as it seems, control isn't heavily played right not, making Conclave worse), feel free to cut them for Islands.

As for Djinn, with Trinket Mage in the deck, it's actually an option again. However, the big question is, what to drop for it? If one drops creatures, there's little use in adding the Djinns as the creature count remains stagnant. What support-spells are droppable? Psionic Blast? Draw? Equipment? I just have a hard time trying to find room for going to 20 creatures.

Sea Sprite I like in the main for the simple reason that what Phantom said isn't strictly true. Turn 1 Mox-Island, you'll want to have some play and Sea Sprite kills any problems. Sea Sprite can generally come out off Cloud of Faeries along with Jitte or Chalice at 1 or similar. The deck actually has a number of 2-drops, Cloud of Faeries (cycling and casting), Jitte, Chalice of the Void, Sea Sprite are all commonly cast at 2 mana. Sea Sprite is simply easier to get into play for blocking duty (which is naturally important vs. Gobbos)

to1701
07-19-2006, 01:49 PM
I have no problem with SoFI, it absolutely rocks, I just see the SoLS as a decent replacement for jitte. Pro white and black is fun too. I love both cards alot, and seeing it is so easy to equip with this deck, ( plus critters with built in pro red easily see alot of play,) why not test it.

I was merely adding a letter to the name, it was just a gag, nothing more, no harm meant, not a flame. I think the name for the deck is great. It is funny to see a faerie be a major part of a deck.

bigredmeanie
07-19-2006, 02:40 PM
I have no problem with SoFI, it absolutely rocks, I just see the SoLS as a decent replacement for jitte. Pro white and black is fun too. I love both cards alot, and seeing it is so easy to equip with this deck, ( plus critters with built in pro red easily see alot of play,) why not test it.


There is no way that SoLS is an acceptable replacement for Jitte. Jitte plays an importat role in life gain and board control and deals an additional 4 damage a turn if you need it too.

Eldariel
07-19-2006, 03:33 PM
Emphasis on the board control. It's instant removal, which is very relevant against certain 3-mana 2/2 Goblin and certain 1-mana artifact that taps for creatures. SoLaS offers different benefits, but unfortunately I don't see it simply doing enough, and it costs 3. While the manacurve of '3' is leet, having 2-drops allows for better utilization of non-speed hands (those exist too, and especially with FoW, they can still win games). I'd really want to find SoLaS a place, but I honestly can't think of anything.

SuckerPunch
07-20-2006, 04:54 AM
Piledriver still dies to both Jitte and SOFI, which are really this decks main removal spells.

Eldariel
07-20-2006, 10:24 PM
Additionally, Piledriver alone is useless. It goes with other Goblins. Due to its inherent summoning sickness and such, it's not even high on my list to kill . If Warchiefs and Lackeys are dead, you are golden. Use Jittes/Swords/Force of Wills to stop Piledriver when need be, but realize that you can often kill the opponent before the Piledriver becomes a threat, when it's right to just use your defenses on Warchiefs that speed their deck up by a few turns.

But I've lost to Piledrivers also, just to make matters clear. The card is strong, but only if it goes unchecked. Usually you can keep them checked. Oh, and if they bring their Vials past 2, Chalice at 2 can be a nice touch (provided that your hand isn't Jitte/Sprite-heavy (preferably those are already resolved). It not only stops their Drivers, but also all their usual (and usable against you) artifact hate: Goblin Tinkerer/Tin-Street Hooligan/Disenchant (seems to be seeing some maindeck play). Shattering Spree appears too limited for most SBs, which is a relief, since the card packs some serious punch vs. decks like this that utilize a large number of artifacts.

Eldariel
07-22-2006, 06:38 PM
A friend of mine brought up an interesting idea; Erayo. Thinking about it, the deck runs 12 free or pseudo-free active spells (Chrome Mox, Chalice of the Void, Cloud of Faeries) and can pump out lots of mana with relative ease to cast a lot of spells in a single turn. Oh, and of course FoW can be cast at will too. I'll be running some testings with it to see if it works, and in what kind of match-ups it could be useful. It sounds intriguing enough, especially it's yet another flyer to wield the heavy equipment.

NANTUKO_SHADY
07-22-2006, 10:31 PM
I like this idea of Erayo... ALOT. It seems hardly difficult to produce 4 spells on any given turns, especially if you counter/feed off opponents spells. and if your lucky enough, your opponent will be afraid to play spells in the fear of flipping erayo, so gg there as well. I have yet to test, but I do believe this card has excellent synergy in this deck. Plus a 1/1 flyer to boot.. equipment FTW.

Muradin
07-23-2006, 04:20 AM
I also think, that erayo might be a very interesting card in this deck, but I don't know, what i should cut for it in testing.
Does anyone have suggestions? I thought of the sea sprites perhaps.
Edit: How many erayos would you put in then?

SuckerPunch
07-23-2006, 04:35 AM
Yes, I would cut Sea Sprites.

Interestingly, I was trying to port this deck into Vintage (even the Legacy version did well against Vintage decks), and there's a thread over at SCG Vintage Forum called Vintage Skies, Erayo was the first card I thought to replace Sea Sprites with. It's pretty solid.

Back to topic...

While it's explosive, I've been very displeased with the inconsistency of the mana. It seems like I don't get blue and have to mulligan 40% of the time. And a full 1/5 of the games I play, I straight up lose due to mana screw even though I mulliganed correctly. I even added a blue source and the difference has been minimal. Is there any way to decrease these percentages.

Anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?

Also, it seems like Trinket Mage is MVP in this deck. So many of the games I win, it's because of a bomb that I fetched with Trinket Mage (usually Chalice). So I see no reason why we're not running 4 copies. In fact, half the times that I beat Solidarity, it's because of this one card.

To accompany 4x Trinket Mage, I have been using the following configuration, and it's been great...
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives - Would be a 2nd Pithing Needle if I didn't end up playing so many Vintage decks
1 Sensei's Divining Top - This deck loves stacking it's library more than most.
1 Cursed Scroll/Steel Wall/Brass Man - Brass Man is a bomb versus Gobins, Angel Stompy and such. Steel Wall is a bomb versus Zilla Stompy and many random decks, and Cursed Scroll is all around solid.

Also, I hate the uphill battle this deck has with Solidarity some of the time and am now trying Mana Leak.

For reference, this is what my current configuration looks like

8 Island - Told you I upped the blue count
2 Seat of Synod
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Brass
4 Chrome Mox

4 Cloud of Fairies
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket Mage

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak - I was running Psionic Blast and Thirst till yesterday so don't say this is why I've been having trouble.
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawe's Jitte
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives - Would be a 2nd Pithing Needle if I didn't end up playing so many Vintage decks
1 Sensei's Divining Top - This deck loves stacking it's library more than most.
1 Cursed Scroll/Steel Wall/Brass Man - Brass Man is a bomb versus Gobins, Angel Stompy and such. Steel Wall is a bomb versus Zilla Stompy and many random decks, and Cursed Scroll is all around solid.

In short, I believe that while this deck is very explosive and has tons of potential, it's still not optimal. I hope the list above is taking it closer to an optimal build.

JeremM
07-24-2006, 01:34 AM
Although I'm probably being ultra-dense on this one, is there any reason why Snap was never considered? At the very worst, it pitches to FoW, and can gain you tempo and mana (often at the same time), allowing for more explosive early turns while keeping Lackeys and other nasties off the board.

As to running Erayo, it's an interesting idea, although I'd advise against it due to it being terrible with Chalice. Given the low number of decks running 0cc stuff, with a Chalice at 1 out, no opponent will ever have the mana to trigger his ability. You might be able to via Clouds and Moxen, but there's a minimal chance of even that. Granted, he could be used to keep an opponent from doing too much while you look for a Chalice, but the benefit's too small to give up a slot for.

@SuckerPunch - Er, City of _Brass_? I hope to God that's a typo. Anyway, why run SDT over FoF? While SDT is cheaper, after you first use it you're still looking at the same two cards each iteration and don't really get anything out of it - you're simply moving your draw step around. FoF digs two deeper and shoves unwanted cards into the graveyard, and replaces itself (and more) instantly. It also has the added bonus of psyching out your opponent, which never hurts. ;)

PTBNL
07-24-2006, 06:51 AM
While it's explosive, I've been very displeased with the inconsistency of the mana. It seems like I don't get blue and have to mulligan 40% of the time. And a full 1/5 of the games I play, I straight up lose due to mana screw even though I mulliganed correctly. I even added a blue source and the difference has been minimal. Is there any way to decrease these percentages.

Anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?

I also ran into problems with the manabase. Too few blue sources and too much card advantage with Chrome Mox and City of Traitors on top of Force of Will. So, this is my current manabase: 14-15 Island, 4 Ancient Tomb, 4 City of Traitors. I cut Chrome Mox because I thought losing a business spell wasn't worth the marginal acceleration. Many times, I would have an opening hand of Mox and one land, in which case, I couldn't cast a turn 2 Efreet/Drake/Mage anyway. And then I definately didn't want to see Mox when I mulliganed. The occasional Mox Tomb Drake opening is nice, but I'm opting for consistency and better midgame.

Eldariel
07-24-2006, 08:53 AM
Mmmh, blue problems, eh? That's weird, the deck runs enough blue sources to get one on the draw 84% of the time and some hands without blue sources are keepable (mostly ones with Chalice and Cloud, but occasionally either/or, depending on whether one's going first or second and the match-up). If you really want, you can cut a City of Traitors for an Island. 22 mana sources is a possibility though (it increases your chances of having a turn 1 blue source by 2 percentages).

How are you having trouble in Solidarity match-up? I had about 70% win rate in testing, be it with FoW+beats, Chalice+beats, Chalice+FoW, double Chalice or just quick beats. I lost some games (of course, there's never a match-up that's an autowin) to lacking all 3 of above or getting Chalice FoWed and being unable to stop them, or having them go off in spite of FoW. Still, in my testing I found it quite favourable.


Trinket toolbox seems like a good idea, except I usually prefer to tutor for Chalice anyways. Have you ever had trouble with just having Chalice at 1 and drawing Tops and Needles? Also, if you want a creature, I strongly suggest Ornithopter as it can actually attack in addition to blocking and goes bpast Chalice at 1. If you'd really want a card off Mage, you could run a singleton Urza's Bauble/Mishra's Bauble. I don't know, I really prefer using Mage as a sideboard tool.


You're playing 16 creatures, has that been enough, or too few? It seems lower than I'd want to go, especially since you already drop Conclaves anyways. It seems like Thres could win by just countering your creature-spells.


As for dropping Mox, you might conisder that, but it also lowers the amount of turn 1 Chalices you can drop, which is very powerful in the meta (or a format like Legacy overall). It also makes dropping Sea Drake hard as you can really relevantly drop it turn 3 first without Mox, since turn 2 Sea Drake is usually just a bad play, unless your hand is weird.



Snap, simply because it never bounces the true problem-cards and is dead in so many match-ups. I've found that the best way to answer Goblins is to have bigger/pro-red creatures anyways and it's card disadvantage to gain tempo, something this deck does quite a bit already.


Good point about Erayo, the Essence is almost dead with a Chalice in play. I'll just forget about it, this is the wrong deck.

SuckerPunch
07-24-2006, 10:06 AM
I guess it's really dependent on how you shuffle. On MWS, which uses completelly random shuffling, I get mana screwed so often. In the real world, it's not as bad, but I just though I wasn't doing a good enough job shuffling.

Is there something screwy with MWS shuffler?

I'm curious, just how good is Sea Drake really, esp if you drop the Mox altogether? It's sweet if you have it with a chrome mox (a two card combo), but the rest of the time, I end up wishing it was something else as it slows you down loads. Have you guys all been 100% satisfied with this card?

I love running 4x Trinket Mage and a mini toolbox. Hasn't let me down yet. But you can still run Sea Sprite with it too.

And what do you guys think of Mana Leak. I've been pretty happy with it.

Eldariel
07-24-2006, 11:54 AM
I guess it's really dependent on how you shuffle. On MWS, which uses completelly random shuffling, I get mana screwed so often. In the real world, it's not as bad, but I just though I wasn't doing a good enough job shuffling.

Is there something screwy with MWS shuffler?

Short answer is "Yes, there is something screwy with it." and the long answer has to do with computer's inability to produce random numbers (although, of course sites like random.org exist, but that's not the point) which leads to the program using an algorithm based on some integer (like time) to generate 'pseudorandom' numbers. Unfortunately the algorithm used by MWS doesn't produce very good randoms, which leads to decks containing lots of cards piped (ever noticed how easily you manaflood on MWS? Just try to check your top cards, if your opening hand contains 4 lands, you've probably got 5-6 more lands waiting. And if you've got a low-land hand, you've probably got a spell-pipe coming, most likely consisting mostly of the same spell). The good news is that every deck is similarly handicapped on MWS, the bad news is, it makes decks with actual library manipulation all the stronger and when using small amounts of games, it probably screws up testing results too. If you followed the last Source-tournament, the amount of bitching about MWS-shuffler was endless, and for a good reason, many people just never drew their key 4-ofs or any tutors after skimming through half of their library since MWS succesfully always shuffles them to the bottom. For example, my game against Diablos, his deck was built around Crucible of Worlds-abuse. Guess what: He never found one of his 4 Crucibles in the 2 games we played!


I'm curious, just how good is Sea Drake really, esp if you drop the Mox altogether? It's sweet if you have it with a chrome mox (a two card combo), but the rest of the time, I end up wishing it was something else as it slows you down loads. Have you guys all been 100% satisfied with this card?

110% satisfied in my case. I played the deck in a tournament without Sea Drake, the deck just doesn't work. I just don't cast it turn 2 unless I drew a Mox. Turn 3 is no problem since you get to do a landdrop after returning them, so in the case that you lack lands (like normal), it actually only winds up costing U or 2 (depending on whether you replay Island or 2-mana land). Besides, it gives the deck the speed it needs to race combo, and overall a great damage output. It's the only really good blue 3-drop in addition to SEfreet, hence why they're in the deck. VERY rarely do I have problems with the drawback. Yes, those games happen, but towards every one of those games, there are 100 games it just wins. And even if I'm forced to return stuff, it's not the end of the world. It's a card I would never cut from the deck. In fact, I wouldn't probably even play the deck without the existence of Sea Drake. Heck, the deck wouldn't even exist without it.

HOWEVER, if you were to drop the Mox, Sea Drake would be less fantastic. It would probably lead to dropping few of them, but hardly to dropping them entirely. The whole deck has synergy with Sea Drake as the 2-mana lands make returning lands much less painful and you can use the extra 1 or 2 mana from replaying a returned land very easily in this deck. Basically, Mox allows using them hyperaggressively though, utilising their low manacost. Other decks like Fish drop it from Vial as a combat-trick to return Mishra's Factory with lethal damage to hand or such, but Faerie Stompy can play that card aggressively, to smash face. Occasionally I also lead with City of Traitors-Chalice, turn 2 tap for mana, Island, Sea Drake if I have a land-heavy hand allowing me to only set me back one turn while achieving a desirable board state.


I love running 4x Trinket Mage and a mini toolbox. Hasn't let me down yet. But you can still run Sea Sprite with it too.

And what do you guys think of Mana Leak. I've been pretty happy with it.

Mana Leak is interesting, I never really found myself wishing for more countermagic, but might be that it could work a bit into the game. How is it against gro and goblins though? Also, is it easy to keep mana open, especially without Psionic Blasts in the deck? I mean, wouldn't you often be rather casting spells than waiting on Mana Leak? I like Psionic Blast for the ability to end the game without creature-combat, I take you don't often face nonsense like Spore Frog-locks and company?

Phantom
07-24-2006, 12:22 PM
Good to see some new ideas floating around:

@ Erayo - I actually tested him a long time ago, but he really sucked here. I could rarely flip him and when I did it was because I held back my early explosive plays till Erayo was out.

@ Mage Toolbox - I did a lot of testing with a toolbox in the Blast spot, but simply found it lacking. Needle is the only card I run mainboard since it's never dead. I thought Scroll was going to be a bomb, but I only really needed it against Rifter, and sometimes Angel Stompy (what sealed the deal here, was that it did suprisingly little vs Goblins). Eng. Explosives is a bomb vs some of the top decks in the format, but is dead in too many. I chose Roterothopter as my creature to fetch since it flies, and can get Jitte counters with a pump, but it still didn't win me many games I wouldn't have won. Plus, I really missed the creature removal/burn of Blast. In closing, there are perhaps some meta's where the Toolbox is a good idea, but even a whiff of combo and the Blasts are much better (the Blasts may be better no matter what). Plus, you have most of this stuff in the board for games 2 + 3 anyway.

@ Mana Leak - No thanks. I don't like leaving my mana untapped. I don't like conditional counters. I don't like more 2cc spells. Most of the time you're going to be countering a spell that removes one of your threats, so why not just run FoF and draw into more threats? When I first looked at this deck, I thought it should have more counters, but after testing I found that it's not true.

@ Card disadvantage - This was actually a big problem when we first started working on the deck. At one point I was down to 2 Moxen because of it. The solution was not to cut Mox or FoW, thus destroying our early explosive plays, but to simply recover from the early card disadvantage with cards like Trinket Mage and Fact or Fiction (or by giving the opponent even more dead cards by dropping Chalice). Mox just has so much synergy here (as Eldariel pointed out) that I might not even play the deck without it. It's going to cripple your combo matchups (where speed is life), and severely hurt both your Thresh (Chalice @1 with Mox for Daze and FoW for FoW) and goblins (need a first turn answer to lackey or it's going to be rough) matchups.

@ The manabase - I've never really had too many problems with it. Going down to 5 is never fun, but this is one of the few decks that can go down as low as 4 and still win. If you're going to bump up the land count, I would HIGHLY suggest adding fetches. This deck topdecks pretty poorly and you don't want to be drawing lands (or ripping them with FoF).

@Snap - Not too many creatures give us problems, so I would generally be using it to save my own creatures, which negates the bonus. The dream scenario would be to snap an Angel though.

SuckerPunch
07-24-2006, 03:06 PM
With all the concerns about the manabase and the card disadvantage of Chrome Mox, I think a manabase like the one below may warrant consideration (mainly Mox Diamond to fix mana floods of either too many basic lands or too many two mana lands in your opening). Plus, you're now effectively running 16 blue sources, and Wastelands as well.

// Mana (28) :
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitor
4x Wastelands or Mishra's Factories
4x Mox Diamond
12x Islands

Could this work? Should certainly improve goldfishes on MWS.

Eldariel
07-24-2006, 03:24 PM
Adding lands is all fine and dandy, but you do realize that you generate enermous card disadvantage that way too, right? By that, I mean that you spend 7 spellslots from the present build into your manabase, which is bad news in aggro-deck, since you'll end up topdecking lands more often than you'd want to (½ of your cards produce mana). Do realize that every deck has to mulligan a good number of times. The key is winning those games where you don't, and maximising the resources you have left if you do have to mull. Playing less lands is a good start. 13 should give you sufficient consistency though. But if you absolutely insist, you could try some more.

Tinefol
07-24-2006, 05:55 PM
Just a link to a recent magic league t1.5 tournament
http://www.magic-league.com/deck/22584/legacy_t15.html

This is really crazy.

JeremM
07-24-2006, 06:28 PM
Er, _Wandering Ones_? That's probably the worst use of SB I've seen yet, unless it's some sort of ultra-secret tech or something. Since cost wasn't an issue, Flying Men are far better (unless the metagame is suddenly packing Needle Storms as a foil to FS), and even Manta Riders provides more flexibility than Merfolk of the Pearl Trident.

Rushing River also seems odd, given the deck's tight manabase. While it gets around Boomerang's UU cost, it can't set an opponent back a turn by bouncing land, and the kicker seems to be more of a liability than a bonus.

SuckerPunch
07-24-2006, 06:32 PM
Lol, around how many people played.

And how many of them were playing Faerie Stompy?

If it was like a 9 man tourney, I wouldn't be surprised.

PTBNL
07-24-2006, 06:39 PM
Sea Drake - even without Chrome Mox, I still think Drake is a strong inclusion. We can usually cast Drake turn 3 and still have 3 mana on turn 4. The return effect can save Traitors and also can be used to generate mana i.e. Island Tomb in play, cast Drake, replay Tomb, which gives us 5 mana on turn 3.

Chrome Mox - I'm testing 2-3 MD. It doesn't seem good to play 4, since we don't want to see multiples. It's strong with Sea Drake, but it's also weak with Force of Will.

Mox Diamond - worse than Chrome Mox, because it reduces our spell count by forcing us to run more land.

Creature base - to me, the clear 4 ofs are Serendib, Drake, and Trinket. So the question is about the secondary creatures. Right now, I'm testing Weatherseed Faeries, Cloud Spirit, Rishadan Airship, and Cloud Elemental. I don't really like Cloud of Faeries or Sea Sprite. What do you guys think?

Tinefol
07-24-2006, 06:46 PM
SuckerPunch this is decks participated breakdown:

5 Faerie Stompy
3 BW Pikula Homebrew
2 Goblins
2 Pox
1 White Weenie
1 UGw Madness
1 Red Death
1 Affinity
1 Elves
1 Mono Red Sligh

3 Solidarity
1 2 Lands Belcher
1 Iggy-Pop
1 Ichorid
1 The Game
1 Enchantress
1 KCI
1 Loam Confinement
1 "Reanimator?"

3 Train Wreck
1 Rifter
1 RGB Loam Control
1 GBW Control
1 RG Aggro
1 UGB Dark Depths Control
1 GW Control

8 ******** decks:

4 UGR ********
2 UGRW ********
1 UGW ********
1 UGB ********

Djinn
07-24-2006, 07:07 PM
Hi,

I used to read this forum a lot when I was really interested in legacy, but I was forced to move to study and I stopped playing mtg. I've been reading this forum as often as I've been able to, I really like legacy format. There was a magic-league trial on 07/20 which I 3-0ed an drop, but I finished 4th so I uploaded the deck.

http://www.magic-league.com/deck/22572/legacy_t15.html#Faerie%20Stompy26

Gfo also played the deck in the same trial, he knew of the deck before but felt like playing it when I said I was going to play it (we got paired r2 and he lost, I think we were the unique Faerie Stompy players).

Now, moving to 07/25 trial, I think that besides me and gfo (which had actually played the deck a bit and wanted to play it more), the other 3 Faerie Stompy players just netdecked the deck (only one made changes, the 3rd one) and made some changes/research on the deck.

The point of the post: I don't know much about the deck to discuss it yet, but as you can see the m-l metagame is diverse, so don't flame the league and let's improve the deck.

EDIT: I netdecked the deck from here, thanks for the hard job on developing such a deck :P
EDIT2: Gfo Wandering Ones is obv not a card to side in at all, just a joke he has with some friends :P

Eldariel
07-24-2006, 07:21 PM
Er, _Wandering Ones_? That's probably the worst use of SB I've seen yet, unless it's some sort of ultra-secret tech or something. Since cost wasn't an issue, Flying Men are far better (unless the metagame is suddenly packing Needle Storms as a foil to FS), and even Manta Riders provides more flexibility than Merfolk of the Pearl Trident.

Rushing River also seems odd, given the deck's tight manabase. While it gets around Boomerang's UU cost, it can't set an opponent back a turn by bouncing land, and the kicker seems to be more of a liability than a bonus.

Wandering Ones is a joke. That's as classic as the Plains in whatever deck's SB in worlds so long ago. He couldn't figure out his last SB-card so he tossed a Plains there. It's interesting to notice that Rushing River-build was third, suggesting that it's worse than the classic build.


Btw, reading the comments, it's funny how Solidarity-player claims he wants to play Faerie Stompy, considering that Faerie Stompy kills just about any kind of combo.

Heh, now we gotta work on sideboard tech for the mirror match :S Binding Grasps, anyone? Those guys seem to be convinced that Blue Elemental Blasts are good, btw. It's weird. But I guess that proves the deck's viability -.- Perhaps I should participate in that league too, seeing that I'm signed in and all.


And thanks for playing the deck, Djinn ^^ Have you been happy with the Blue Elemental Blasts? I found them unnecessary long ago, and would much rather SB 2 more Sea Sprites and 4th Jitte against Goblins.


Sea Drake - even without Chrome Mox, I still think Drake is a strong inclusion. We can usually cast Drake turn 3 and still have 3 mana on turn 4. The return effect can save Traitors and also can be used to generate mana i.e. Island Tomb in play, cast Drake, replay Tomb, which gives us 5 mana on turn 3.

Chrome Mox - I'm testing 2-3 MD. It doesn't seem good to play 4, since we don't want to see multiples. It's strong with Sea Drake, but it's also weak with Force of Will.

Mox Diamond - worse than Chrome Mox, because it reduces our spell count by forcing us to run more land.

Creature base - to me, the clear 4 ofs are Serendib, Drake, and Trinket. So the question is about the secondary creatures. Right now, I'm testing Weatherseed Faeries, Cloud Spirit, Rishadan Airship, and Cloud Elemental. I don't really like Cloud of Faeries or Sea Sprite. What do you guys think?

Regarding Mox, I prefer consistent Chalices over consistent openings any day. Especially if you opt to run Thirst for Knowledge, you'll be happy to have that extra Mox to pitch without second thought. As for Creatures, Cloud of Faeries is really strong. I occasionally start questioning its inclusions, then I return to my sanity. It's a mana accelerant, it makes early Sword-equip turns easy. More importantly, it cycles, so when you need equipment or FoW or Chalice or even land (it cycles with colourless cost), just feel free to toss it out. I like Sea Sprite simply because you can never have too good a Goblin match-up, and getting low toughness creatures equipped against red can be hard, but not so with Sea Sprite (and white has to waste its good StPs on friggin' 1/1s). Oh, and 2-mana makes it really easy to cast along with Jittes and Chalices and all that on turn 2. Or heck, you can even cycle Cloud the same turn (the power of Cloud is in its versatility. It does everything from making some hands with only Tombs and Cities keepable to enabling turn 3 kills with weird hands).

Djinn
07-24-2006, 07:42 PM
And thanks for playing the deck, Djinn ^^ Have you been happy with the Blue Elemental Blasts? I found them unnecessary long ago, and would much rather SB 2 more Sea Sprites and 4th Jitte against Goblins.

Talking about sb changes, I just suggested Carry Away in m-l. I think mirror match come down to whoever gets the SoFI/Jitte, and it's good vs Angel Stompy and any aggro deck that rely on jitte to win.

I haven't playtested this deck besides the 8 matches I've won in the trials, which were 1 goblins, 1 mirror, 2 ********, 2 rifter and other 2 decks I don't remember. Blue Elemental Blast killed a warchief, guess same would've done the 4th jitte (perhaps even in a better way). I'd need to playtest more to make better suggestions (and I hope I'll have time to do so), so just give me some time and don't flame my posts so much.

Greets!

Eldariel
07-24-2006, 08:07 PM
Don't worry, flaming is definately not something anyone in this thread is fond of. Carry Away was something I considered, but the 'UU' in the cost is once again a problem. With Trinket Mage though, it might be worth it to just toss in Carry Away or straight Steal Artifact for the mirror and any random artifact-decks you might face. Although, Carry Away is cheaper and unattaches the equipment instantly. Else you'd have to pay mana to do that. Gah, this is so stupid. Mmm, bounce is another idea, Repeal could be good on the SB for the mirror and AS, as using it at the right time could be devastating. Of course, problem is, bounce never rids you of the problems :/ Bah, I guess Carry Away and Needle are the 2 best tools. I'm not sure if you want to side in EE for Needles though. I'd probably bring it in, since the Chalices are still totally worthless.

Thanks for all your help, btw!

Gerrardfo
07-24-2006, 11:13 PM
Lo all- I did use the Wandering Ones, for the record, as a joke. As Eldariel said, it's a classic sb prank, and Djinn is also right that it's an inside joke with my friends. The only reason I chose Wandering Ones was because when I used to prank up the 15th slot in type 2, I wanted to use the closest thing I could find to Mountain Goat, so I got Wandering Ones. Going off topic, but now time to get to the point.

I originally saw that this deck placed in the top 8 of the SCG D4D and was quite intrigued by its performance. Plus, a long while back, somebody placed second in a trial with the same sort of deck (http://www.magic-league.com/deck/20305/mono_blue_men.html#Mono%20Blue%20Men29490), so it was worth a shot. Although, his build had Hibernation, which I feel isn't the optimal choice for sideboard slots. I discussed some deck decisions with m-l staff, and Djinn brought up Faerie Stompy- I opted out of Iggy Pop for it, which I grateful for doing.

I played this deck in two trials. The first trial my round one opponent had RWG loam aggro--game one I set on two Chalices and I made an idiotic play mistake that cost me the game because I didn't exactly know what he was playing until he dropped Seismac Assault and Terravore. Game two I locked up again with Chalice and was careful enough to secure the game with an equipped Efreet, and game three I got the nut-draw with a double-SoFaI'd and jitte-equipped flyer who never looked back (also had Pithing Needle on Assault I think). In round two I faced Djinn (the 74-card, thank god for Wandering Ones, mirror). Game one I got mana flooded and couldn't catch up. Game two I resolved a Psionic Blast on his Drake, so he was left with four lands in hand and an empty field with an abysmal draw. Game three he got a nice curveout and rocked me with a critter equipped with SoFaI.

Going into the second trial I decided to chance again on the deck. I'll put it this way: I got lucky. Round one I faced Elves, which I beat game one in five or six turns and game two in four turns (not joking). Round two I rematched up with the same pilot who had the loam deck, but this time he was using a version of that Br Suicide deck. I won game one bye locking up his 1cc slot with chalice then beating his head over with flyers that he couldn't deal with. Game two I got a poor draw and he had the nut-high of discard. Game three I again got a turn one chalice for one and never looked back when I assembled my team and equipped a guy with SoFaI. He even played out his Phyrexian Negator in games one and three, which I burned up to kill his field.

Round three I faced some bad build of Pikula Homebrew--that, or his draws were poor. Long story short, I got a flyer up with SoFaI or jitte games one and two and countered any sort of kill card. Round four I played the worst Gobbo player I've ever seen (not colosso, but close), a player who decided to use...Goblin War Buggy. As well, while I was crippled on a bad land draw of nonbasics, he never used Wasteland or Dustbowl, even though he had multiples of them. I finally suited up a guy with SoFaI and Jitte and owned him. I would have had trouble in that match had my opponent been...better (he even had a 7-card sideboard, how did he make it that far?).

Round five I faced a poor version of mirror- game one his only real play was bouncing a creature with rushing river, which I didn't quite understand as a maindeck card choice. I ended up replaying the man and P-blasting his own Efreet, eventually causing him to scoop. Game two he only had City of Traitors, so he elected to keep on the hopes of cycling through Cloud of Faeries for a blue source. Long story short, the closest thing he found was an Ancient Tomb that forced him to ditch the City of Traitors and take some damage to cast...Phyrexian War Beast. I had an Efreet out and was about to drop the SoFaI from my hand before we had some connection problems from his side and he couldn't continue the match.

Djinn dropped before finals, so I ended up taking the tourney, but faerie stompy ruled the day :). Had we played, I'm suspecting Djinn would've won.

Props:
-Djinn for suggesting the deck
-niknight for hosting our happy tournament, which he did decently in
-Wandering Ones for being a topdeck that savagely came out and beat my opponent's face in for twenty consecutive turns until I won

Sorry for the brief report that's a bit choppy, but the games themselves were over fairly quickly.

@Carry Away: Double blue is indeed a problem, but I do agree bounce is totally necessary. I don't like edi1986's idea of Rushing River or the Echoing Truth though, but I'd love some mirror tech.

As for idea of adding a fourth Psionic Blast, I'm totally for it because it's a nice card in particular for most of the decks I see on m-l.

Earlier idea of Mox Diamond: not too hot. I needed most of the lands I drew (except for the one game where I somehow was manaflooded), and I could always find something to pitch to Chrome Mox and still be well off. Maybe I might change opinions later in testing, but so far the Mox has served me well.

I have to say I'm impressed with the job done so far, keep up the hard work in developing this deck to be all it could be :).

-Gerrardfo

dontbiteitholmes
07-25-2006, 01:51 AM
I'm not trying to be a dick but can we seriously forgo the M-L meta reports for something actually relavent. I mean this deck top 8'd the Dual for Duels shouldn't we be talking about that? I dare say M-L Legacy tournaments are the most garbage results you could summon up. I mean seriously unless you want tournament reports from M-L on Ichorid http://www.magic-league.com/deck/22389/legacy_t15.html#Ichorid28441
or maybe how Dirt owns Faerie Stompy http://www.magic-league.com/deck/20305/bgw_control.html#BGW%20Control7690
Or perhaps someone would like to hear how I came 1 mana away from winning with Gifts Rock. http://www.magic-league.com/deck/18346/gifts-rock.html#Gifts-Rock8942
Or how Life.dec won the biggest online Legacy tournament all year http://www.magic-league.com/deck/16932/lifedec.html#Life.dec23466

At any rate can we not take the HUGE step backward in the format that is acknowledging M-L results as mattering for shit.

tivadar
07-25-2006, 09:03 AM
So, is it fair to break down the decks matchups as so:

Combo: Very Good
Aggro: Good
Control: Poor

The only reason I ask is because control seems as if it could be a very weak point for this deck, given the quick card disadvantage they put themselves in. Against other styles of decks this is easily remedied with FoF and Sofi, but against control decks where they can counter/stp your creatures/FoF, this strategy doesn't seem to work as well. I'm guessing this does horrible against landstill and the like? Even chalice won't fully save you there.

Eldariel
07-25-2006, 09:38 AM
So, is it fair to break down the decks matchups as so:

Combo: Very Good
Aggro: Good
Control: Poor

The only reason I ask is because control seems as if it could be a very weak point for this deck, given the quick card disadvantage they put themselves in. Against other styles of decks this is easily remedied with FoF and Sofi, but against control decks where they can counter/stp your creatures/FoF, this strategy doesn't seem to work as well. I'm guessing this does horrible against landstill and the like? Even chalice won't fully save you there.

I must say that I haven't tested against Landstill. Thing to remember though, Chalice at 1 still shuts down their StPs which is their only standard removal. Anyhow, the only control-match up I've tested is Rifter, which turns out to be actually fairly good since their red removal is horrible in the match-up and they only have so much white (and if one gets a Chalice at 2 without Rift in play...), it turns out to be very winnable indeed. The biggest problem is that a 'tempo victory' is very hard since one really needs to draw a FoW for that unavoidable removal spell to kill the opponent before they get their big cards online, and more importantly, the second removal-spell can be troublesome.

Shiskasi, Faerie Conclave and Psionic Blast help a great deal against control-decks of all kinds. Conclave makes equipment a threat and PBlast can be great to finish things with (digging for it with the draw-spells). Also, the sideboard Winter Orbs are absolutely brutal against anything control, and Pithing Needle+Trinket Mage is pretty hot vs Landstill. Actually, it depends tremendously much about the specific control-deck. Landstill could be a problem (again, I haven't tested it), but for example, black control variants have always been easy, Chalice at 1/2 is absolutely wrecking against them (they tend to run Innocent Bloods and Edicts as their basic removal) and Psionic Blast finishes the job, and the deck's clock is really fast, getting even one hit in takes a quarter of their lifetotal. Life from the Loam-control again has trouble with Chalices and SB Crypts and PBlasts and everything else. Actually, many of the maindeck choices have been made with control in mind (for example, they're the cultrip for me being so adamant to keep the MD PBlasts (in addition to PBlast quickening goldfish vs. combo), and that's why I like the Faerie Conclaves).

Usually, Fact/Thirst/whatever is easy to resolve vs control, they've got their hand full trying to counter the creatures and equipment and killing whatever gets through.

tivadar
07-25-2006, 10:08 AM
Fair enough, "control" is rather vague after all. I only know that AS has a difficult time against landstill, and I'd expect this deck to fair worse. Fortunately landstill isn't hot now, but I'd assume the same applies to any U/W control. They tend to have good ways to remove your creatures, FoW to counter chalice, and they don't care if you get a creature or two out, so long as no equipment that draws you cards hits the board. Gobbo gets around mass removal with haste, this deck doesn't have that advantage, and neither does AS.

Mainly, I just think it's an interesting build because it definetly reminds me of my AS splashed blue, which actually gave up some of the speed of traditional AS to add a control element (meddling and FoW). This deck sacrifices a lot of cards for quicker aggro and an element of control as well (chalice and FoW in this case).

Chalice serves a similar role to meddling here, except it's a bit more diverse but doesn't swing. Even with meddling naming STP, they could just wait on a wrath to clear the board and counter relevant things like equipment until they hit it. Perhaps you've got the extra boost of speed to push you over the top, but I'm not sure of that.

Anyways, just some thoughts. I think this deck is a lot more diverse than a lot of the junk I see out there nowadays. It's probably better suited to a meta that's constantly changing than things like rifter.

tivadar
07-26-2006, 11:39 AM
What's the view on Compulsive Research Vs. Thirst for Knowledge? This deck really doesn't care about casting its spells as instants, so the only relevant issue outside of the type of the card is the targetting (misdirection, can't be target type things). I doubt this would come up very often. Is the consensus that you'd rather pitch an artifact than a land? This deck is artifact heavy, but even so, I'm surprised that Compulsive Research isn't considered better.

Eldariel
07-26-2006, 12:14 PM
What's the view on Compulsive Research Vs. Thirst for Knowledge? This deck really doesn't care about casting its spells as instants, so the only relevant issue outside of the type of the card is the targetting (misdirection, can't be target type things). I doubt this would come up very often. Is the consensus that you'd rather pitch an artifact than a land? This deck is artifact heavy, but even so, I'm surprised that Compulsive Research isn't considered better.

I personally like Fact still although I've promised to give Thirst a try. Still, the deck plays 4 Moxes, a card you prefer to use early on most of the time (there are scenarios, like post-board with Winter Orb, when you want to play additional ones, but most of the time you're happy with just the turn 1 Mox). Later on, it doesn't do a whole lot. Landdrops are relatively painless, but once you start running low on cards, pitching spells is very painful. This means you'll rather discard Moxen than lands. Also, the instantness makes it better; you can leave mana open for Psionic Blast for that potential Warchief and if it isn't cast, you can Thirst. Heck, you can leave mana open for hardcast Force of Will (in combo match-up, I do it often, since if I have a fast hand, I tend to deplete it early, and if it was a bit mana-heavy, I've easily got the 5 mana for FoWs (especially against Solidarity and Spring Tide, since thanks to their Tide, one of your Islands produces the necessary UU, so Island, Tomb or City and anything else (second Tomb, another Island, Mox, Conclave) is enough), so no point in holding a pitch back), and if it turns out unnecessary, you can Thirst at EoT. The advantages are slight, but they're there. The bigger advantage is that Thirst eats cards you don't mind having eaten in midgame, while Compulsive eats potentially useful cards (like Conclave, that really shines in midgame).

Muradin
07-26-2006, 01:58 PM
What do you think about Whash out as a sideboardcard against goblins?
It gives you a huge advantage in a damage race, but also let's them recast their ringleaders/matrons and is no instant.
It also is quite good in some other matchups.

Eldariel
07-27-2006, 10:21 AM
It was briefly considered long ago, but the thing is, the match-up is rarely a race. Generally, it's about whether I can get active equipment/Chalice-lock or not. If I can, I'll win, if I can't, I'll lose. That's how it goes most of the time. Wash Out does very little too, thanks to the big bugger named 'Goblin Warchief'. It gives all their guys Haste, so they just untap, drop Warchief through Vial, Matron, fetch Piledriver, drop double Piledriver, swing for 17. The means to win this match-up is keep the Warchiefs dead, for which Psionic Blast and Umezawa's Jitte are excellent tools. Also, Needle on Vial/Chalice at 1 help a great deal, especially coupled with Chalice at 2 to stop Piledrivers, Tinkerers and overall, all the problems.

Actually, I've been thinking about dedicating some more sideboard space to combat Goblins, mostly 2 more Sea Sprites for the early 'impregnable wall'-duty (and more importantly, something to equip) and the 4th Jitte.

Peter_Rotten
07-27-2006, 10:24 AM
Also, do you really want to return Goblin Ringleader and Goblin Matron to the opponent's hand? If I was a Goblin player, I don't think that I would mind that at all.

MattH
07-27-2006, 05:37 PM
Also, do you really want to return Goblin Ringleader and Goblin Matron to the opponent's hand? If I was a Goblin player, I don't think that I would mind that at all.
If he has Warchief or a Vial set at the appropriate number of counters, then no. But if I can get him to tap 3 or 4 lands to replay them, then that is awesome, because it means he isn't Gempalming or Porting.

Although Propaganda is probably better at doing this.

Eldariel
07-27-2006, 06:49 PM
If he has Warchief or a Vial set at the appropriate number of counters, then no. But if I can get him to tap 3 or 4 lands to replay them, then that is awesome, because it means he isn't Gempalming or Porting.

Although Propaganda is probably better at doing this.

The bigger question is, are either of those effects honestly worth paying a card for? I'd much rather just have a dead Warchief than have them to pay mana to beat me senseless. I also don't really like Propaganda, since it's quite likely that with Solidarity as large a segment of the metagame as it is, REBs might just be around.

Squares
07-27-2006, 07:04 PM
Propaganda seems fine as a general agro hoser. Especially on turn 1 to answer their Lion/Hound/Lackey etc. Also, seemingly helpful in the mirror.

The largest hesitation would have to be that REB is an easy answer for it and one that would also be reasonable to see in a tournament.

What about Chill? Chill seems more useful over all, considering it could be brought in agsint Goblins, Burn, Sligh/Zilla Stompy and UGR Gro.

Wash Out forces your opponent to attempt to quickly rebuild their board position while you maintain one. It seems like it'd be better agsint something like Angel Stompy, where the threats cannot gain haste OR where the opposing deck is just slower. The negative synergy with Mind Harness effects needs to be considered, though.
I'm not sure it's the correct choice, but I don't think that you could fault somebody for running it. I mean, I'd rather have Wash Out than a Plains/Wandering One...

Phantom
07-27-2006, 09:04 PM
The bigger question is, are either of those effects honestly worth paying a card for? I'd much rather just have a dead Warchief than have them to pay mana to beat me senseless. I also don't really like Propaganda, since it's quite likely that with Solidarity as large a segment of the metagame as it is, REBs might just be around.

That's true, but it's not like they won't have plently of targets for their blasts anyway. Still, I think Sea Sprites do more for us out of the board (and I def agree they should be there) than Propaganda.


What about Chill? Chill seems more useful over all, considering it could be brought in agsint Goblins, Burn, Sligh/Zilla Stompy and UGR Gro.

Wash Out forces your opponent to attempt to quickly rebuild their board position while you maintain one. It seems like it'd be better agsint something like Angel Stompy, where the threats cannot gain haste OR where the opposing deck is just slower. The negative synergy with Mind Harness effects needs to be considered, though.
I'm not sure it's the correct choice, but I don't think that you could fault somebody for running it. I mean, I'd rather have Wash Out than a Plains/Wandering One...

The problem with Chill is that it's unplayable vs. Goblins thanks to Lackey and Vial.

As for Wash out, I'd have to agree that it seems sub-optimal. Most of the time I'd rather kill one of their threats than bounce three, and there are many times, even in it's good matchups when it will be a dead card. I'd much rather fill the slot with something versitile like P Blast.

Eldariel
07-28-2006, 07:26 PM
After some more testings, I'm beginning to notice that the maindeck singleton is rather Engineered Explosives than Pithing Needle, since you can't really drop a blind Needle turn 1, but blind Explosives is no problem and this deck generally wants to maximize the spent mana, since the whole idea is spent on mana advantage. Furthermore, I found that 3 Needles is kinda too many, so I placed a 4th Psionic Blast in the slot of the Engineered Explosives on the side, in anticipation of combo- and control-matches where I tend to want the 4th copy. Psionic Blast was always satisfactory for me, btw. When I had it in hand, but didn't use it, was just a game that I won anyways. On occasion I really wanted to draw it to steal the game, but couldn't for the life of me. I'm also liking Thirst simply because it's one mana cheaper than Fact, meaning it's easier to make Daze-proof vs. Threshold, and it does nice job getting rid of trash. Also, if I'm a bit manashy with only 1 blue and double-mana and highly expensive hand without Clouds, it's easy to cast to try and fix the sitiuation.

JeremM
07-30-2006, 02:52 PM
I've tested the 4th Blast a bit, and it's been great against decks that focus on quickly dropping large creatures (FS, anything running Angel, etc.), and can easily replace EE against combo for a bit of added reach.

I was thinking about the MD Sea Sprites, and was wondering if putting Coast Watcher in the SB or maybe MD would be worthwhile given the meta as a whole, or if it's more of an individual meta choice. While it looks like Gobbos isn't going anywhere, Coast Watchers can help tremendously against Thresh, Madness, Survival, and random GreenStompy.decs.

Tao
07-30-2006, 07:54 PM
What about Repeal? Maybe in the Blast Slot or somewehere else.

- You have more Mana than your opponent, therefore it is a great Tempo card if you play it on your opponents threats, especially in the first turns after dropping a threat.

- Furthermore it can save your creatures from Removal with real Card advantage

- it can shut off Needles for one turn (that should be enough to equip and swing with Sword or remove the counters from the Jitte).

- You also mentioned that you have problems with Aether Vial going insane. Repeal is just insane strong against that card. Especially with Chalice on one...

-...Repeal random thing, then Chalice its Mana cost sounds so strong.

- it is fun vs. random things like Roar/Call of the Herd token, Moxen, IsoScepter and morphed Angels

- You can bounce "blind played" Chalices. For example you can Bounce that Chalice on 1 if your opponent goes for Life from the Loam.

I think it is a very flexible card that is nearly never dead.

Eldariel
07-30-2006, 09:29 PM
I've been thinking about it and I really like the idea of it, but I just have a hard time thinking, what to replace with it. Blast has been treating me really well, everything from blasting Negators into oblivion to killing Goblin Warchiefs to taking out players turn before going lethal to even tying lost games. Blast gets me out of spots no other decks do. Then again, I've been playing a world of different control-decks, which might affect my view of things. But I simply don't see Repeal changing the game enough. Sure, it's great when you get enough, but quite often, free countermagic keeps us playing too honest to utilize our advantage enough, and if we can utilize it, we're usually winning anyways. I'd really love to have it just for reassurance against all the stupid enchantments and artifacts in the format, but I don't know...

Btw, mirror-match is a weird animal. I tried it a bit and noticed that it's very much about racing actually. It's very hard to stabilise when opponent gets to an advantage as the stuff just keeps a-coming. Sword of Fire and Ice had a surprisingly small splash, usually the player with more Sea Drakes wins. The thing with SoFI is, if you're attacking, it's just extra damage to the head, and you don't want to be defending.

Phantom
07-31-2006, 12:29 AM
@ Repeal: It certainly does seem tempting, but the only real spot for it is the draw slot (i.e. FOF/TFK). There are certainly times when I would like the Reapeal better, but I'm not sure how often. This deck doesn't really have too many problems with permanents.

Eldariel
07-31-2006, 08:16 AM
Now that I've been playing with Thirst, I can definately say that the one mana matters. A lot. It doesn't quite dig as well as Fact, but it improves hand and doesn't show opponent what you're getting (and gets you multiple threats if they're on the top; opponents are savvy when making the splits). Most importantly though, when my early hand is manalight (City+Mox), I can use Thirst to dig for more, while Fact is almost exclusively for mid- to lategame. Fact is better later on, and for more specialized purposes, but Thirsts feel more solid overall, and they make up for all the mulligans and Moxes I end up using. I don't think I've ran out of cards too often in recent memory, actually. Also, costing 3 means that around turn 3-4, I can often cast Thirst and a threat the same turn. I'm just beginning to see, just how strongly the deck interacts with 3-casters. I also like the Psionic Blast on the SB, but I've moved Needle back to the main over Engineered Explosives as it's overall more useful, even though it doesn't interact well with Chalice. I just wished it were there too often.

Too bad, Shoreline Ranger, the only Islandcycler, is so poor otherwise (if it costed 5 instead of 6, I'd be all over it :S), I'd love to have a creature that can get me the elusive Island in case of colour screw and doubles as a creature in the midgame.

PTBNL
08-01-2006, 02:05 AM
I tested FS against my Goblin build which maindecks 4x Tin Street Hooligans, and I find that FS has a tough time in that matchup. Without Jitte and SoFI, FS can't really deal with Piledriver and friends. And Matron and Ringleader usually allow Goblins to draw enough Hooligans and Incinerators to outpace us. What do you guys think?

SuckerPunch
08-01-2006, 02:36 AM
Chalice at 2 shuts off Tin Street and a lot of other goblins. And it can be fetched out with Trinket Mage. Surely, it can't be that favorable.

Eldariel
08-01-2006, 06:07 AM
I'd be interested in knowing the list you used. Anyhow, Goblins match-up depends much on who goes first; if you open with a Chalice at 1 and have a hand with castable card, you basically win. On the draw, you'll need to basically have a FoW and Chalice to get anything out of the Chalice; else you'll be trinketting for Pithing Needle to shut down their Vials before playing Chalice at 1 (if they had the Vial, of course). And at 2, you should of course consider the Chalice at 2 (it's not that bad for FS as you can cycle your Clouds and Sprites you'll want in play already, leaving only Jittes hanging) if your hand can support it. I've noticed that in Goblins match-up, you'll need to calculate very carefully what role you should take. On occasion, trying to play too defensively, I've missed that I've got the kill on board if I cast one more beater, and proceeded to lose because of that extra turn. Also, the order of playing is very important, especially against Tin-Street, since it can only be cast at Sorcery-speed and even one swing from SoFI can be fatal (Jitte isn't quite as brutal though. If possible, you'll want them to remove your Jittes while swinging with your SoFIs).

I haven't tested against Tin-Street using versions yet though, do you have a decklist? Might be that more MD sprites were in order.

SuckerPunch
08-01-2006, 01:02 PM
As I still don’t believe that this deck is perfect, there’s many variations on the whole Fairie Stompy theme that I’ve been trying.

The most promising thing I’ve tried by far is Ankh of Mishra.

With all the acceleration you run, you can always cast this your first turn, and you have it in your opening hand half the time.

When you cast it, your opponent can’t use any fetchlands, or they’ll lose 5 life in the process. Even if they’re playing one of the rare few decks that don’t run fetchlands, or luck out and don’t draw any, they’ll lose on average 8-10 life over the course of the game. So much damage that it’s been well worth it to cut back to 16 creatures (4 Trinket Mages) for me.

Best of all, this card completely hoses a lot of this decks worse matchups, include control decks like rifter and landstill, the same decks that your high creature count is meant to compete with the removal with.

This is a build that runs Thirst as well, so you have something to do with the occasional topdecked Ankh’s in the late game.

The lifeloss you suffer has rarely mattered when I played the card. It’s like a cheaper Psionic Blast that does a lot more damage to both players.

I cut Psionic Blasts and a Jitte for this card, but you can cut just about anything to make the room. It deals a ton more damage than either Blasts or Jitte.

Now moving on to the less promising, but still decent variations…

Trinisphere – This card is rock solid. It definitely hosed a ton of decks for me. But it does have poor synergy with a few of your own cards, and it works better if you’re running Wastelands. Has anyone else tried out this card? I want to hear more results about it.

Mana Leak – This has been discussed already, but I want to hear if any others have tried it.

Adding 4 Wasteland, 4 Mox Diamond, 4 Trinisphere, 4 Ankh and 2 Crucible of Worlds – This eats up a lot of your utility slots (Jitte, Blasts, Chrome Mox, Thirst) , but you end up with a ton more disruption, and don’t have to worry about discarding your business spells to Chrome Mox. It is a very different animal though, but a strong one none the less. And I’m curious to hear if others have tried something like this.

After trying out these building, I do very highly endorse Ankh of Mishra. It’s an extraordinary strong card that comes out turn one consistently and doesn’t helps you curve out a bit as well. You have to try it out in the real world to see just how massively it can speed up your clock and wreck your opponent’s strategies esp considering this deck usually only needs to play a single land after turn one, and this deck already doesn’t run fetchlands.

Some of the other changes above I believe warrant more exploration as well.

But for now, I strongly recommend Ankh of Mishra, I couldn't recommend the card much higher. The amount of damage your opponent's take from a first turn Ankh is mind blowing.

PTBNL
08-01-2006, 01:50 PM
going first is pretty critical in the goblin matchup. FS gets to use chalice for 1 or usually can cast a creature to block lackey. going second seems to hurt FS more than it hurts goblins. The problem with setting chalice at 2 is the slowness. casting a creature, equipment, and chalice for 2 takes a while, even for a deck with as much fast mana as this. of course, trinket for chalice takes more time. with jitte, we need to cast it before chalice and often goblins can destroy jitte the very next turn. with sofi, the process is just slower. even when we can cast chalice for 2, goblins can still remove our creatures so we can't equip in time or can't block their counterattack, which is especially dangerous with tomb in play.

here's my goblin test list

8 fetch
8 mountain
2 taiga
4 burrow/waste/port
4 vial

4 lackey
4 fanatic
4 piledriver
4 hooligan
4 warchief
4 matron
4 incinerator
4 ringleader
1 siege gang
1 tinkerer

ankh of mishra sounds promising to me. we dont run fetches plus we can survive with just 2 land. ankh would be strong against threshold and even against goblins with hooligan, since they'll run 8 fetches to support green. i'll test it.

Use your goddamned shift key. - Zilla

Eldariel
08-01-2006, 02:28 PM
Mmmh, Ankh could be a potential SB-card. For example, against Goblins I absolutely want none, as it might very well end up being my unmaking, not theirs, as I need some time to get damage going, especially when going second. Also, I think dropping Psionic Blasts might be the exact opposite of what you want; I think you'll love your Psionic Blasts when opponents nuke half of their lifetotal. Remember, Psionic Blasts are primarily removal and secondarily finishers, although they do both admirably (I especially love it with all those sui-variants around. Today I killed 7 permanents from a fellow with a chumpblocking Efreet and Psionic Blast, destroying his board of 4 lands, Cursed Scroll, Nantuko Shade and Negator). But Ankh's optimal role could be as a sideboard card vs. control-decks. My aggro-matches are often nailbiters with 1 life left the turn I get a Jitte going or at 3 when I topdeck the winning Blast, etc. Against Sui today (talking about the same match, but a different game), I ended the game at 1 life with lethal in play. I've got similar experiences against Affinity and all that (although occasionally Affinity just does its thing and there's nothing to do. Y'know, the kind, turn 1 land, worker, orni, go. Turn 2 land, frogmite, frogmite, enforcer, enforcer, enforcer, go home. But their bit slower hands are much more combatable; we WILL end up at low life though). I'll promise to see if I like it vs. aggro too though, but I feel I might lose a lot of the games I win nowadays, especially as it weakens my City of Traitors (normally City into City is a very powerful play for equipping SoFI for example, but the added pain makes it a bit less exciting. Even more so with Ancient Tomb).

Trinisphere doesn't help with Goblins though, and that's a huge minus. Even going first, you'll need to rip some luck to be able to stick it there turn 1. Also, against Threshold, it's hard to resolve. The deck would need to morph into 5/3 splash blue to support it, losing all the threat density it presently enjoys. Those changes you suggest have one huge flaw: Your ability to support FoW drops tremendously (dropping 7 blue spells, one of which can be used to dig for FoW. Most importantly, you drop blue spells, so you can't really use FoW to protect your creatures from removal without losing a creature in the process).

Mana Leak I find interesting, but I don't find it similar problem solver as many cards in the deck. The deck actually topdecks rather well since most of its cards are active, but topdecking Leaks later in the game is very weak and early on, it's hard to find a hole to cast it in. You might also end up being forced to leave 2U open for Leak, which I find annoying as it means you can't optimally spend your mana. It also makes Chalice at 2 a less stellar proposition, I want to keep it as an open option.

Phantom
08-01-2006, 10:03 PM
I actually agree that Ankh could be a good sideboard card for some matchups, but it's just too dead against anything aggro to maindeck. It can hurt us too much, and we already hurt ourselves a ton. Playing this thing off a Tomb gives them a free land drop, and tapping tomb gives them another. Not to mention the headache that is returning two lands to your hand via Sea Drake.

Also, what matchup does this help more than Winter Orb. Orb seemingly does a much better job vs. Rifter, landstill, and the Rock. Orb sucks against Thresh, but I'm not sold on Ankh in this matchup. Thresh survives on about as many lands as we do, so the matchup still comes down to Chalices, Fatties, and equipment. All Ankh would do is let us win a turn quicker, which PBlast already does. And Ankh ain't never killed no Werebears or Mages on SOFI (my most hated of Magi).

Eldariel
08-06-2006, 05:53 PM
Alright, after testing Ankh for a moment, I'm thinking that it could be an SB-card. It's really Ankh vs. Orb for the control match-up. On the other hand, Ankh dropped early will provide a hard-to-answer threat that might put them very low on life indeed, making the finishing Blast easy. On the other hand, Orb drawn at any point when they've tapped low basically paralyzes them if not Disenchanted immediately. The thing I like about Ankh is that it helps the overall plan of the deck; deals lots of damage for a cheap price. Winter Orb, on the other hand, goes to the other end of the spectrum, slowing the opponent down to crawl to buy whatever we've got the time to beat 'em up.

MD though, definately not. Against any red decks, AS, general RG-decks and company, it might just kill me instead and I definately have better use for my mana.

On another note, you know that the deck is getting popular when you find random threads in random languages from random forums about the deck when you search for 'Faerie Stompy'. The bad part is, I'm very disappointed with the lack of understanding regarding the card choices (some people opt to drop Sea Drakes for god-knows-what reasons, others are convinced that they want thee uncastable Meloku in there somewhere and that's only the start of it).

SuckerPunch
08-06-2006, 09:37 PM
Honestly, the Vial/Still and this deck differ so much at this point that they aren't even comparable. They're completely different archeatypes with very different strategies.

Personally, I still think this variant is the best as it gets far more broken starts, and most importantly abuses Chalice like a madman to eat the rest of the metagame alive.

My testing pretty much agrees with you about Ankh. It's absolutely incredible against certain matchups, but horrid against Goblins for example. I'm definately going to be subbing out Orbs for it.

A couple of other changes I've made...

I'm running 2 Phyrexian War Beast in place of the Sea Sprite. Sprite is awesome agiainst Goblins, but War Beast isn't that bad either, and is solid against every deck, not just those running red based removal, where Sprite is just a lone 1/1 flyer. I know War Beast can't fly, but as a 3/4, I have been minding that too much. It's drawback really isn't that bad either. In fact, if people are having trobule finding Sea Drake, they really are near impossible to find - I had to trade for them thru a dutch forum, I think War Beast could temporarly as a substitute. I think the difficulty of getting Drake is a big reason this deck isn't seeing more play actually.

Another change I've made is to run a single Rushing River. It's nice to have atleast one out when the game becomes a stalemate, Worship multiple big creatures on both sides, things like that. And I've honestly never regretted drawing it. It bounces back potential blockers to kill a turn faster, bounces back Pithing Needle on your equipment while you already have a Chalice down set a 1 to stop them from replaying it, bounces back Reanimated creatures, DSCs all sorts of great plays. At worst it can be mounted to a Chrome Mox or pitched to a FoW.

Also, I really think it's about time that the Trinket Mage count is brought up to 4. Chalice (through Mage) is the single most powerful play this deck has. And fetching Needle can be huge too against decks like Survival and what not.

I also really think the land count should be brought up to 18. This is a very mana intensive deck, and your lands are already vulnerable to Wastelands. And since I've gotten the Drakes and have been able to play this in more places (only a couple of people I knew were okay with Proxies), it's become more and more apprarent that the issues of getting mana screwed isn't just a MWS anomoly. This deck for whatever reason is more vulnerable to mana screw and mana disruption than most. And for me atleast, it's had a very hard time against any Pikula/Sui variants even with 18 land.

The reason I've been able to make room for all these changes is because I had to trade away my Jitte. So I'm currently not running any, which I know isn't good (though it is nice to not have any hesitation about setting Chalice at 2 esp since I'm not running Sea Sprite either, and can cycle Cloud of Fairies).

For reference, this is what my build currently looks like (I will find room for the Jittes the first chance I get)...

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
8 Island - I also cut Conclaves as this deck is slightly more mana intensive than your version, and I absolutely hate topdecking Conclaves
4 Chrome Mox
2 Seat of the Synod

4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket Mage
2 Phyrexian War Beast

4 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Fact of Fiction
2 Psionic Blast
1 Rushing River
1 Pithing Needle

Sideboard
4 Ankh of Mishra
3 Misdirection - I hate sui variants
3 Binding Grasp
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sea Sprite
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives

Eldariel
08-06-2006, 10:45 PM
It could be because they're near impossible to find.

That's certainly a reason, but the comments have been more like 'I haven't been satisfied in Sea Drakes, since I insist on casting them turn 2 off Tomb and Island and that is a major tempo setback' (in other words, they're striving for an optimal build out of an infinite cardpool) Perhaps I should add the following line to the opening post: "Your turn 2 play is not Sea Drake."


I'd personally take the Chalice-variant simply because Chalice is a ridiculous bomb in the format and gets me out of jams I have no business getting out of, as well as just plain wins games and makes up for the card disadvantage of all FoWs and Moxes I cast (through making half my opponent's deck uncastable), shuts down Life-engines and gives me a solid combo match-up, which is definately harder without an access to 7-of MD hate. Vial and Still would probably work better in a more controllish environment, but one great aspect I like about the present build is how much mana it can get out of few cards; dropping City of Traitors automatically decreases that. Also, adding Vial automatically increases the amount of manacards in your deck. But yea, I view it kinda as a separate archetype, since Chalice is so pivotal in the deck (it dictates much of the deck construction thanks to being often dropped at 1).

Rushing River is certainly a nice card to have, but I'd really appreciate having tutors for a singleton. Then again, just knowing that one has an out is always nice (although I haven't been in a non-life related sitiuation where I wouldn't have had an out between Chalice, Needle and EE).


Your results with Sui-variants surprise me. In my experience, as long as FS is able to lay a beatstick, the game is basically a wrap-up and add to that the Misdirections on the SB (they aren't going anywhere), it's all good. Sure, occasionally one gets landscrewed into oblivion, but more often than not, some combination of Mox, FoW and two-mana lands can dig one out of such a jam.


And yes, the deck does have more mana issues than your average deck, but not notably more than say Vial Goblins (with the difference that a Wasteland/Port hand with Vial is keepable in some match-ups (namely ones featuring no FoWs and you going first)). I have to mulligan every now and then and yes, occasionally because I don't have coloured sources, but it's pretty much a risk I'm willing to take; on the other side of the coin is to lose more and more games to manaflood and lack some cards in your deck that you'd need to win some match-ups.


I'm glad Rushing River is working, but have you tried Repeal? I mean, sure it doesn't bounce DSC, but it does practically everything else and without costing a card. I'm half-considering trying a larger number of Repeals in the MD. If only they could painlessly replace something. But then again, if they could, the deck would have some cards not worth playing I guess it's good there're no easy replacements.

SuckerPunch
08-07-2006, 01:04 AM
I don't know. Repeal doesn't seem as nice as bouncing back two of their key blockers/equipped creatures and winning that same turn. But I'll try it.

Do you have anything to add in regards to...

running 18 land

running 4 Trinket Mage (I am 100% certain this is the way to go)

running War Beast over Sea Sprite for a stronger overall creature against all decks, not just goblins. And possibly recommending those who can't get Drakes to run War Beast instead now so that they can atleast play something akin to this deck. I really think the difficulty of getting Drakes is the main reason that the deck only seems to be played on MWS tourneys as opposed to real tourneys.

Also, I know I mentioned this before, but given Drake fish's surprising finish, I really think Mask of Memory should be tested, it's generally stronger than Thirst. The only disadvantages are, it can't be pitched to Force, it can't be cast if you have a Jitte at 2. Both seem pretty minor though, but then again, I haven't ran the card myself anytime recently. When I did run it way back when, I was generally happy with it, but details of it's performance in comparison to the drawers I use now escape me.

Phantom
08-07-2006, 01:59 AM
Do you have anything to add in regards to...

running 18 land

I've never had any seroius problem with the landbase the deck has, but that may have to do with the way I mulligan and what I'm comfortable keeping. When it comes to an issue like this it's kind of tough to reccomend a perfect number. Some people can't stand the fact that every once in a while, this deck loses to its landbase. Those people should feel free to run more lands. I, personally prefer the current build.


running 4 Trinket Mage (I am 100% certain this is the way to go)

I've been running 4 for a while now, so I'm on board.



running War Beast over Sea Sprite for a stronger overall creature against all decks, not just goblins. And possibly recommending those who can't get Drakes to run War Beast instead now so that they can atleast play something akin to this deck. I really think the difficulty of getting Drakes is the main reason that the deck only seems to be played on MWS tourneys as opposed to real tourneys.


I wouldn't replace the Sea Sprites for anything since I'm actually trying to get back up to 4 of them. The most recent D4Ds proved that the rumors of Goblins downfall were greatly exagerrated, and after many changes to the deck, the matchup has slipped from ~ 75/25 to about 60/40 maybe.

As for Sea Drakes, I guess War Beast is an ok sub for Sea Drakes, but the fact is, there really is no ok sub for Sea Drake. A lot of people complain about hard to find cards, but I would much rather the card take a little work to find than cost a ton. A couple of drawbacks on War Beast are that it makes one land hands unkeepable, and that this deck already suffers at the hand of mass artifact destruction (Deed, anyone?).


Also, I know I mentioned this before, but given Drake fish's surprising finish, I really think Mask of Memory should be tested, it's generally stronger than Thirst. The only disadvantages are, it can't be pitched to Force, it can't be cast if you have a Jitte at 2. Both seem pretty minor though, but then again, I haven't ran the card myself anytime recently. When I did run it way back when, I was generally happy with it, but details of it's performance in comparison to the drawers I use now escape me.


(I'm assuming Jitte means Chalice)

Mask just has no place here. The last thing we need is another draw engine based on our creatures connecting. Mask works in AS and Blue Skies because of their high creature count, which we don't have. There are too many control decks that can keep us at 0 creatures for too long. This is where our dig shines.

SuckerPunch
08-07-2006, 06:34 PM
That's a good point about Mask.

As for being annoyed with Sui Variants. It's not that I've had trouble with the matchup, atleast when I play this in real life as opposed MWS.

It's that the matchups that I win go by so fast taht I barely notice, and the ones that I lose are so drawn out and annoying with you basically spending the whole game praying for more land and some Facts to recover from the discard, that they stick out more. It's like playing versus Stax.

Some one should contact the MWS programmers with the problems with the MWS shufflers, as the program would be perfect if not for that one easily fixable flaw.

Rascal
08-08-2006, 11:06 AM
Hi, now I have about months intensive testing with this deck and I don´t understand your results of matchup with Threshold. Your Threshold version for testing is quite different. But in my area is very popular little different version ( maybe looks little crazy, but has an answer almost for everythink ) of Threshold and my chance agains it is about 20%...which seemed to me very subpar.
My playmate play it, he wons last two bigger Legacy tourney in our country with zero or one losing match.
So, I feel, that Faerie Stompy needs more universal cards. Chalice is great, but without it we have only four copies of FoW - it seemed to little. Another control cards? Some disrupt, more cantrip?? I agree with statement of somebody that 4 Trinket Mage is the right way - without Chalice we much more vulnerable. We have too little creatures.
Against this mentioned version of Threshold I have this problems - he has too counters against me. Unless I resolve Chalice in very few first turnas, I lost that game. Some games I lost due to manascrew. If he resolves Worship ( in 95% cases if he want ) I almost everytime lost. You almost can´t shut down his creatures. Enforcer is too big ( yes, I know, Sword of F/I + Psionoc Blast....but Mongoose is untargetable......Mongoose+Worship=gg )...........etc.
For me the worst of bad matchups.

Also I agree with cut off Faerie Conclaves. No game I wins thanks to it, few games I lost thanks to it. Maybe we need some returns of resolved permanents...but smart player of Threshlod has prepared counter for Rushing River.....

So, this is my first feelings...

Off Topic....I´m lucky for buy last three copies of Sea Drake....for 80 US, but I have it...:rolleyes:

And the decklist of mentioned Threshold for curious fellow:wink:

decklist:
lands:18-----------
4xflooted strand
4xwindswept heath
3xtropical island
2xtundra
2savannah
1xisland
1xforest
1xplains

spells:28--------
4xforce of will
4xdaze
2xcounterspell
4xserum vision
4xbrainstorm
3xpredict
1xcunning wish
3xswords to plowshares
3xworship

creatures:14-----------
4xnimble mongoose
4xwerebear
4meddling mage
2xmystic enforcer


+sideboard .....variable:o))
2xcounterspell
2xvoidslime
3xstifle
2xnaturalise
1xmoment peace
1xswords to plowshares
1xboomerang
1xcapsize
1xmana short
1xteferi´s response

?
(1xkrosan reclamation
2xchill
4xpithing needle)

SuckerPunch
08-09-2006, 12:33 PM
Oh one thing I forgot to mention, in addition to the 4th Trinket Mage, and running War Beast over Sea Sprite...

Ever since I started running Rushing River, I've felt like bringing in Trinisphere again.

With the ability to bounce back threats, I've been loving Chalice and feel like runnign even more disruption. Trinisphere does a great job esp combined with Chalice and Rushing River, to slow your opponent down to a crawl.

Now I haven't tested the card yet, but was wondering if anyone else has.

Edit: Yeah I agree, Conclave sucks. The key to the thres matchup is infact Chalice. An early resolved chalice at 1 will win the game by itself which is why 4 Trinket Mages is so vital. I imagine a major reason that build is posing such a problem for you is the 3 maindeck Worship which combined with a Mongoose shut you out of the game entirely. So if you don't get out an early chalice for 1 to stop their Mongoose, they have a way to autowin. Fortunately, very few thres decks run Worship either MD or SB and are thus not a difficult match up for Fairie Stompy. Enforcer can be stolen with Binding Grasp, but Mongoose can't. Rushing River should help shore up that weakness against Worship. Bouncing back that Enforcer and/or Worship for one turn should be enough to win the game esp if you can bait a counter with something else (Chalice for 1 first) and play around daze. So if I were in your situation having to often play that deck, I would considering running ~2-3 Rushing Rivers with more in the sideboard unless someone has a better idea (like enchantment hate, which blue seems to lack). And don't forget to save your FoWs for Worship.

Also Trinisphere is everybit as solid agianst Thres as Chalice is, so you should consider running a few of those as well and your percentages should go up dramatically.

P.S. Anyone know why the strongest most versatile and most bombastic deck in Legacy (this deck) still isn't in the metagame forum yet? It put up great results everytime it was run and anywhere it was run including MWS and the last D4D. A very different but never the less a deck that was an earlier version of this very same development project, see Lego Army Man's early list, 1/2 split at the dual land draft.

lillelassie
08-09-2006, 01:52 PM
SuckerPunch It seems you are cutting a lot of blue cards for brown cards. Thats ok, but make sure that you can still fuel FoW. You also have moxen, so thats a total of 8 remove-a-blue-spell-from-your-hand cards. Its not relevant yet, but if you plan to squeeze in trinisphere, you might lack some blue spells in the games.

I really think players sould cut Psionic Blast. I find it very suboptimal, and I always seem to pith it to Mox or FoW. There is a reason why goblins or any red decks don't run Char. (damn you Eugene Levin).. xD

SuckerPunch
08-09-2006, 02:15 PM
Lille, the build I posted above runs the exact same number of blue spells as past builds. It cut Jitte and runs Rushing River, 4th Trinket Mage, and now is running Thirst for 6 draw spells where Psionic Blast used to be. Those two Thirst will probably get the boot for 2 Jitte or 2 Trinispheres though, and I will be running 2 less blue spells than other builds. Then your post above might apply. But then, I'll probably sub Sea Sprite back in for War Beast

I agree completely. Psionic Blast sucks in a decent number of situations.

You already lose a ton of life to Tomb. Theres lots of situations (goblins) where you would rather this be a source of disruption (Rushing River, Trinisphere, Jitte, or even card draw ala Thirst), than a way to speed up the goblins win against you, all just to take down one measly creature of theirs.

PTBNL
08-09-2006, 04:20 PM
Rascal - I agree that Threshold is a tough matchup, even without Worship. In my testing, the matchup is slightly in Thresholds favor. Basically, we must resolve Chalice in order to win. It's not a bad idea to try to mull into a good Chalice hand. Trinisphere is probably the next best thing to Chalice so they are a good inclusion for that matchup. If Worship is a problem, I suggest including some Engineered Explosives. They are fetchable with Trinket and can destroy Goose (and Needle on Jitte/SoFI).

Phyrexian Warbeast - I considered it but I already have too many problems with Tin Street Hooligan in my testing.

JeremM
08-09-2006, 05:26 PM
I really think players sould cut Psionic Blast. I find it very suboptimal, and I always seem to pith it to Mox or FoW. There is a reason why goblins or any red decks don't run Char. (damn you Eugene Levin).. xD

Red doesn't need Char for direct damage, as it already has Bolt, Jets, Chains, Fanatics, and friends. With mono-U, you have access to three direct-damage instants: Psionic Blast, Psychic Purge, and Suffocation. Suffocation's too narrow to be useful outside of a sideboard in a burn-heavy environment, and Psychic Purge is a worse Lava Dart that's a bomb against Deadguy. Psi Blast can easily finish a game, toast a blocker so your equipped creatures can swing with a SoFaI, or finish off creatures with a lot of toughness. Yeah, the two damage sucks, but I'd gladly take two (or even four with Tombs) to fry a Mage or Warchief, or finish an Angel.

SuckerPunch
08-09-2006, 05:39 PM
You equip flyers, so the only blockers you could be speaking of are Mystic Enforcer, and Exalted Angel. That example doesn't work in either case.

I would rather bounce two 2cc goblins with a chalice already set for 2, or a Enforcer + Mage back to the opponents hand with Rushing River, attack with all my creatures without worrying about Enforcer blocking to win the game. I would certainly prefer to fetch an Engineered Explosives off the 4th Trinket Mage you now have room to run, to slaughter more goblins or that Pithing Needle stopping your Swords.

Both situations certainly sound stronger than doing 4 damage to yourself by playing Blast off of Tomb to take out a Warchief, only to die next turn because your life is too low. But then again, those are biased examples, as are the examples you provided (not meant as a flame). The only way to get the right answer is to try out both cards.

northcentralband
08-09-2006, 08:55 PM
I play in an extremely random metagame. Ok, so it is actually a wierd extended, sorta T2, Legacy format. I really see non of teh standard decks in Legacy unless I play at a larger tournament. I love this deck though. My question is what would you replace Chalice of the Void with? It will do nothing in my meta. Any ideas? Thanks.

kicks_422
08-09-2006, 09:49 PM
How can Chalice of the Void do nothing in your meta?... Isn't anyone playing 1-2cc spells?... It's one of the best cards in the deck and a great proactive answer to a lot of cards in your opponent's game...

SuckerPunch
08-10-2006, 11:34 AM
He could be playing in a meta where everyone runs ineffecient curves, slow decks, and mostly 3cc and 4cc cards.

The simple rule is, if you play in a meta where Chalice of the Void isn't powerful, play solidarity. You'll win before they even get a threat on the board.

SuckerPunch
08-10-2006, 05:47 PM
In theory, yes.

But in such a meta, with a bunch or random aggro and horrible curves, some of the better players will start playing random jank like humility, worship and other cards to crush those aggro decks.

Those hurt Fairie Stompy too, and without it's chalices, it's not really worthwhile running it anyways when you could run Solidarity which would truly own any and all sorts of random jank.

SuckerPunch
08-15-2006, 05:39 PM
Do any of you guys ever feel like Sea Drake is subpar when compared to Serendib Efreet or Phyrexian War Beast.

On one hand yes War Beast can't fly, can't be pitched and is vulnerable to artifact destruction.

On the other hand, Sea Drake dies to just one burn spell and most importantly is damn near unplayable early on unless you also happen to have a Chrome Mox in hand with you. That's kind of sucked for me... having to wait till turn 3 or 4 till I have no more lands to play, to play Sea Drake when he's my only threat unless I have a Chrome Mox and 2 mana land in hand, which doesn't happen that often. Otherwise, the tempo loss of returning two lands to hand is just too massive.

Does anyone else share this experience.

I agree with you about the faster clock Eldariel, I agree with you.

The main times when I wish it's a war beast is when he's the only threat in my hand, or the only one I can resolve. You only run a few threats afterall.

When you're not able to play your only threat till the 4th turn (or 3rd turn sometimes), it slows you down a lot.

Koby
08-15-2006, 11:34 PM
@SuckerPunch:
Sea Drake does in fact have NO disadvantages with it's CIP ability. There is no danger in casting Sea Drake without the required lands in play. The current wording states that you simply return two lands you control. That is it. If you control only 1 land, then it's returned. There is no "or sacrifice" clause on it.

Sea Drake, unlike Serendib, can enable a turn 4 kill with SoFI.

And as for your argument about removal, Chalice for 1 shuts down the two biggest culprits of Sea Drake killers - Bolt and Swords.

The subtext of your entire argument is that Sea Drake costs far too much to acquire, which isn't really that bad compared to Grim Tutor.

cathl
08-15-2006, 11:44 PM
I took a similiar list to what Eldariel has posted to my local tournament this Saturday and took second with it. Chalice is really powerful if you can get equiped creature on the board and this deck is really good at doing that.

One issue I had with my build were mana issues, which I don't think can be fixed without loosing alot of the deck's speed. In my final matchup I scrubbed out hard to B/W LD. I think perhaps running four Misdirection in the sideboard might be in order, as it can deal with both Wasteland and Sinkhole. Pithing Needle only deals with Wasteland, and is not very compatible with the Chalices.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced a creature like Sea Sprite is the best choice. SotF gives your creatures Pro red anyways, and Chalices do quite alot to mitigate the deck's suseptibility to burn. I haven't played Faerie stompy competitively against Goblins, but I've matched against it many times on my own, and I'd almost always rather see Cloud of Faeries, Trinket Mage, Sea Drake, or Serendib Efreet in these matchups. Soratami Cloudskater is something I'm considering, but I'm still trying to determine if I even need a fifth type of creature.

Running one Pithing Needle maindeck didn't seem very helpful to me. When I dropped a Trinket Mage, I would fetch Chalice, as it almost without exception would do more to improve my position then a solitary Pithing Needle would. I think a better approach would be to move all the Needles to the board, and then when playing against Goblins or whatever, side out all the Chalices and side in the Pithing Needles.

SuckerPunch
08-15-2006, 11:49 PM
Sea Drake does in fact have NO disadvantages with it's CIP ability. There is no danger in casting Sea Drake without the required lands in play. The current wording states that you simply return two lands you control. That is it. If you control only 1 land, then it's returned. There is no "or sacrifice" clause on it.

You're actually wrong. If you control only 1 land, it is not returned. You get to keep both Sea Drake and the land in play. That's the best part about Sea Drake. The turn one Chrome Mox + Ancient Tomb play (City of Traitors isn't always a land you want to play turn one, even for the sake of a Sea Drake), unfortunately it's close to a three card combo and happens in only a minority of games.



The subtext of your entire argument is that Sea Drake costs far too much to acquire, which isn't really that bad compared to Grim Tutor.

Wrong again. I actually got my hands on 4 Sea Drake for a realatively reasonable price over 2 months ago. I can send scans of them if you don't believe me. The subtext of my argument is tempo loss. Returning two lands to my hand (except for that rare turn one chrome mox, ancient tomb combo), slows you down by a two turns. To avoid the tempo loss, you have to wait a few turns to play it, and when the only real threats in the entire deck are it and Serendib Efreet. That means that usually you have a much slower clock than you would if you had and played Efreet on the second turn.

Once again, I'm not saying the card is bad. Just that perhaps it's not as good as people are hyping it to be.


One issue I had with my build were mana issues, which I don't think can be fixed without loosing alot of the deck's speed. In my final matchup I scrubbed out hard to B/W LD. I think perhaps running four Misdirection in the sideboard might be in order, as it can deal with both Wasteland and Sinkhole. Pithing Needle only deals with Wasteland, and is not very compatible with the Chalices.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced a creature like Sea Sprite is the best choice. SotF gives your creatures Pro red anyways, and Chalices do quite alot to mitigate the deck's suseptibility to burn. Soratami Cloudskater is something I'm considering, but I'm still trying to determine if I even need a fifth type of creature.

Running one Pithing Needle maindeck didn't seem very helpful to me. When I dropped a Trinket Mage, I would fetch Chalice, as it almost without exception would do more to improve my position then a solitary Pithing Needle would. I think a better approach would be to move all the Needles to the board, and then when playing against Goblins or whatever, side out all the Chalices and side in the Pithing Needles.

I agree with you on all counts. The deck occasionally does have mana stability issues because of the nature of it's mana base. But that's also what makes the deck so powerful. Getting 3 mana from 2 lands is what let you play so many broken cards like Fact or Fiction. I had trobule with Pikula on occasion. But I've wrecked them plenty of times too. With that matchup, you either lose big or win big. Most builds including mine runs MisD in the side.

Yeah, I don't like Sea Sprite either. I run the 4th Trinket Mage and 1-2 War Beasts instead. War Beast provides a great clock and is out of bolt range. The more I use him, the more I've grown to like him, to the point that I'm going back and forth on cutting the 4th Sea Drake to run the 2nd War Beast. Soratami... sounds like it could be great or horrid based on how much mileage you get out of his ability, since he doesn't have much of a clock either. How useful has his ability been for you?

Pithing needle is iffy at times but it's only one slot.

Eldariel
08-16-2006, 07:00 AM
The reason why I like keeping MD Needle is, while it's not that good with Chalice at 1, it gives you an out against so many things it's not even funny. Most importantly, it dramatically improves your game against Survival-variants and allows you to actually cast Chalice at 1 in the face of Vial. If I have a poor start, I might also name Wasteland and such. It's also good against Rifter. More importantly, it opens up one sideboard slot (they're all pretty valuable in a deck like this).

As for Soratami Cloudskater, the 'return a land'-part is kinda annoying. Floodbringer is another option, but I often like natural pro-red especially against decks packing artifact removal (practically all do nowadays).

But yea, I already stated my opinion regarding Drake on SCG, yea, it has a drawback, but occasionally the drawback is an advantage allowing for winning plays by replaying one of your 2-mana lands and occasionally you get it into play off Mox and land. The rest of the time you might have to delay it one turn, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for a 4/3. Bolt isn't much of an issue as far as I'm concerned. Honestly, who plays bolt? Burn? They aim it to your face and lose anyways. Perhaps RG Beats, Red Death and Sligh, that's about it. Gobbos have long since moved to either StP, Jitte, no-removal or Pyrokinesis.

nightshade81
08-19-2006, 05:53 PM
So have the majority of people pulled out Sea Sprits for Phyrexian War Beast? I would agree with this because of the 2cc of Sea Sprite. With Sea Sprit removed Jitte is the only card dead at Calice @ 2 (Cycle Cloud of Faeries, and Calice @ 1 should already be played). I have been playing with Weatherseed Faeries and have been marginally satisfied with them (Although they have been better then Sea Sprit every time). Sea Sprite and the War Beast are about equal against red removal, but War Beasts are the much more efficient beater.

As for the Bauble, eh why not? Just need to find a spot for it.

SuckerPunch
08-21-2006, 03:14 PM
My current build is...

21 Mana
7 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
2 Seat of the Synod

17 Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket Mage
1 Phyrexian War Beast

22 Other Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Rushing River
1 Pithing Needle

I upped the card draw slightly because I've often foundmyself in situations where I desperately wanted to draw another land, another threat, another piece of equipment, or that lone Rushing River to bounce back a Worship or something. To up the draw count, I've had to cut back down to the standard 21 lands, and cut Psionic Blasts.

I don't think Blasts are a bad card in the least. I've just been happier with card draw to help find threats or land when I need them.

P.S: Eldariel, I know you mentioned a type 1 legal build of this deck.

What I've found to be very solid is to make the following changes to the above build.

-2 Island
+2 Seat of Synod - Helps with Tolarian Academy

-3 Chrome Mox
+1 Mox Sapphire
+1 Black Lotus
+1 Tolarian Academy

-2 Fact or Fiction
+1 Ancestral Recall
+1 Time Walk

-2 Jitte
+1 Engineered Explosives - Blowing up all the moxen is very useful
+1 Trinisphere - It's a lot stronger in type 1. I think of this as Chalice # 9

This maintains an identical ratio of card draw, blue mana, blue sources, mana, and artifacts.

The reason I opted to stick with two mana lands over colorless moxen in type 1 is because I've found it easier to accelerate out a turn 1 Trinisphere. It also makes it far easier to fetch an Explosives with Trinket Mage and blow up all the moxen. Perhaps most importantly, running more moxen would mean I would have to up the mana count for the whole deck for it to work the same.

Muradin
08-22-2006, 04:56 AM
Last saturday I won a local 24 players tournament with Fearie Stompy.
I was playing the standartlist but I cut the psionic blasts and added an island a trinket mage and the 4. thirst for knowledge.

Iwent undefeatet 5-0.
won 2-1 vs turbomadness (lost a game to two 6/6 flying worm tokens)
won 2-0 vs burn (chalice owned him and 2. game Ikilled him by misdirecting his own fireblast for lethal damage :)
won 2-0 against zoo(chalice and equipment)
won 2-1 against goblins(these gmes were were hard to win as he was playing jitte, swords to plowshares and pyrokinesis main.)
lost the second game because he disenchanted my chrome mox XD
2-1 against R/G beats with 4 berserk main. (won always with chalice and equipment but in game 2 he had a mongrel and 5 cards in hand. he attacks and I don't block. He discards 3 cards and double berserks for the win)

my sideboard was:
1 jitte
2 sea sprite
2 propaganda
2 crypt
1 needle
1 explosives
3 misdirection
3 winter orb

I had to take about 5 mulligans the whole tournament(4 of them against madness)

I had the most problems agaist goblins especially because they were destroying my equipment after boarding with 4 disenchant.

so my questions are:
1) would you sideboard misdirection against such a goblin build
2) is propaganda good?
3) against the goblins I took out 3 chalice(1 for trinket mage left) for the second game as he played first and the i considered the chaalice to be bad.
i also took out 2 cloud of fearies and put in
+1 jitte
+2 sea sprite
+2 propaganda
Was that ok or should I have boarded sth. else?

SuckerPunch
08-22-2006, 02:49 PM
He said that he was running the standard list minus the Psionic Blasts (like me), so it sounds like he was running 4 Sea Drakes.

Honestly though, if you can't get your hands on 4 Sea Drakes, that's no reason why you can't build this deck. 4 Phyrexian War Beast are a solid replacement for those slots. It doesn't have the huge tempo drawback though it can't be discarded to Chrome Mox/FoW, can't fly and opens you to disenchant effects, but you would rather that it wasn't directed at your Chalices, equipment etc. It's a trade off, but the deck really doesn't lose that much by running War Beast in Sea Drakes slot. The same goes to Psionic Blast. They're good, but the deck doesn't lose much if you run Rushing River and a couple more Fact or Fiction/Thirst in their place. In fact, personally I think the deck is better for it.

I say this after putting a lot of time into this deck. The strongest aspect of the deck is Chalice (and Trinket Mage to get Chalice and the curve that enables Chalice to be abused). Don't mess with that one key element and the deck will remain strong.

Rascal
08-24-2006, 01:19 PM
Is there any calm and patient player od Faerie Stompy?

When I see your positive results with this deck I&#180;m very confused. I must do something in wrong way....e.g. I played against UGW Threshold again / 0:3 /, Rock / 0:2 /, Affinity / 1:2 / - in short, my results up to now are very, very bad:frown:

My meta is very diverse : Goblins, UGW Threshold, Rifter, Pikula, UG Madness, WR Weenie, Boros, Rock, Affi (2*), Merfolks,...you can meet almost anything.

I play now this version:

Mana - 21:

4x Chrome Mox
2x Seat of Synod
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
7x Island

4x Chalice of the Void
4x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Umezawa&#180;s Jitte
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Pithing Needle

1x Rushing River
2x Thirst for Knowledge
2x Fact or Fiction
1x Misdirection
3x Force of Will

4x Sea Drake
2x Sea Sprite
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Serendib Efreet
4x Trinket Mage

Side :

1x Fact or Fiction
1x Mask of Memory
2x Winter Orb
2x Tormod&#180;s Crypt
3x Binding Grasp
2xHydroblast
2x Blue Elemental Blast
2x Misdirection

I haven&#180;t any Psionic Blast, nor my third Jitte and fourt Fow ( I played Misd. in place of FoW ), when I&#180;ll buy Jitte, I propably cut one FoF.

So, this is version, with which I reached so misareble results. When I hear/read you posts, fault must be in me - my skill...but in fact, what can I do wrong?
I feel the potential of this deck and I don&#180;t wont to switch to another deck...:cry:

I&#180;ll be grateful for any constructive critique or proposal...

EDIT: Because I very often lost some permanent, my teammate / yes, the annoying Thres player .-)) / bring in Perilous Research - yes, it ii for 1U, but maybe it could works....

Muradin
08-24-2006, 02:47 PM
Actually this deck is quite luck dependant and inconsistent in comparison to many other decks, but not much more than goblins.
Otherwise this deck quite frequently has some broken draws with turn 3 kills or simply win by first turn chalice.
In my (probably not very good) testing rock really was not such a good matchup for me as he alwas sinply had several deeds and won with them.
But against ******** I never had any problems(unless they wereplaying worship main).
You simply must resolve a chalice on 1 or 2 and you should be winning.
This should be very possible as they have about 10 counters and you have 4 chalice 4 trinket mage and 4 force to get one chalice into play.
Furthermore they can't let all of your other threads unchecked if they want to win.
Chalice is so amazing good against ******** because with one resolved the deck has tons of card disadvantage and loses its removal. Furthermore they'll lose all the cantrips and will have much harder times building ********.


In your list the most important thing you should add is the 3rd jitte.
It's a vital card in all aggro matchups.

Perhaps you're simply a bit unlucky or still to unexperienced with the deck,
but imo it is quite good.

mikekelley
08-24-2006, 10:15 PM
How long have you been playing the deck, Rascal? When I first started playing I made a lot of bad moves, like not knowing how to use the Cloud of Faeries free mechanic to my advantage, how much to hurt myself for land, how explosively to play, what cards to pitch to FoW and mox, when to mulligan.

You've just got to keep practicing with it against as many other decks as possible to learn what to play and when, just like most other decks.

And yes, the grammar recently in this thread is absolutey atrocious.

JeremM
09-10-2006, 02:04 AM
After yet another T8 outing, this deck really seems to have found its groove. Nice work to Eldariel and everyone that's worked on it; there's nothing else in the MtG world quite like watching a deck go from idea to contender.

Anyway, one of the deck's flaws seems to be its inability to deal with resolved non-creatures. All that it takes is a single Worship/mongoose to GG the deck, as it has no bounce/targeted destruction; similarly, this deck gets overpowered by Reanimator, and bounce would put their Akromas and Spirits in the worst possible place for them - the hand. Thus, adding two or three Rushing Rivers to the deck would give it added flexibility by taking out threats that would hamper your gameplan.

In a similar vein, would Hurkyl's Recall be worthwhile as a SB entry to beat Affinity and Stax, as well as being worthwhile against X Stompy? Against Affinity it becomes a super-Timewalk, it keeps Stax off their balance, and would put any equipment users in a bad position when all their equipment (and Moxen - go card disadvantage!) is bounced, turning their alpha strike into an omega one.