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Eldariel
04-04-2007, 02:37 PM
Faerie Stompy


What is Faerie Stompy?
Faerie Stompy is a mono-blue aggro-deck built heavily around Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors and Chrome Mox. The mentioned cards give the deck more mana early on than it has any business having and consequently, the deck has a compressed manacurve basically ranging from 2 to 4 mana. The creatures are chosen with the idea of ending the game fast through opposition, hence mostly evasive, high power flyers. This all is complimented nicely by a compact, but potent permission suite designed to keep combo-players honest and to wreck decks with any number of common weaknesses. The core of this section is Chalice of the Void – a card that’s abnormally powerful in this deck due to the deck’s unique manacurve and heavy acceleration – allowing the deck to completely shut down certain parts of the curves (obviously depending on the opponent, but usually ranging from 0 to 2, depending on what’s the most painful for the opponent). Thanks to Trinket Mage, the deck can see Chalice just about as often as it wants to. In addition, there’s also Force of Will to add to the mana advantage the deck’s lands generate, to protect key cards, and most importantly to prevent combo players from going off too early. Finally, Trinket Mage can fetch any number of silver bullets such as Pithing Needle, Engineered Explosives and Tormod’s Crypt.

That’s Faerie Stompy in a nutshell, a fast aggro-deck that’s designed to blaze through while delaying the opponent. The deck can switch to a rather effective Stax-style control deck when need be, too.

Tournament Results
4th at The Mana Leak Open 1 (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4210&highlight=Faerie+Stompy)
Top 2 at Worlds 2006 Side Event (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=100534&postcount=520)
Top 2 at the Source Tournament 2 (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=91258)

First time Faerie Stompy made a splash in the US was The SCG Duel for Duals (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=leg&start_date=2006-07-16&end_date=2006-07-16&city=Richmond&limit=100), where Eric Darland Top 8d with the deck. Unfortunately, he hasn't written a report to my knowledge so I can't link that here. Anyways, search Star City Games deck database for Faerie Stompy for a rather comprehensive list of finishes in the US and large side events around the world. You might find some more reports from the old Faerie Stompy-thread too; it can be found here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3351).


Current List
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

For an explanation on the card choices, rules issues and match-ups, refer to
the old thread (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3351)

Present questions regarding the archetype:


How much equipment is right?

4-drops? Which? How many? Any?

Which draw-spells to use and how many?

Psionic Blast? Hot or not?

How much to abuse Trinket Mage with the MD? Pithing Needle? Engineered Explosives? Tormod’s Crypt? Sensei’s Divining Top? Cursed Scroll? Mishra’s Bauble?

Splash or stay mono?

Landcount? 21, 22 or 23?

Mox Diamond? Is it actually playable here?

Shoreline Ranger or Island?

Sideboard: generic or specific hate?

Trinisphere, Tangle Wire, do they have a place?

Right Blue-count for Chrome Mox and Force of Will?

Michael Keller
04-04-2007, 03:03 PM
How much to abuse Trinket Mage with the MD? Pithing Needle? Engineered Explosives? Tormod’s Crypt? Sensei’s Divining Top? Cursed Scroll? Mishra’s Bauble?

I really think Trinket Mage can be versatile in F.S. I'm just not sure if it's worth playing for the sake of fishing for a one-cost artifact (or less). You have yourself a 2/2 beatstick that Demonic Tutor's for an artifact...but is it really that important to the overall strategy the deck presents? If you were going to main-deck any artifacts that cost one or less, it would probably only be Chalice of the Void. And by the time you actually do cast it, it just seems like going in for the kill seems more prevalent than dropping Crypt or Needle.

Engineered Explosives is weak because you play one color. And even if you chose to play it, you'd blow the thing for one at most.


Psionic Blast? Hot or not?
...I'm actually going to go out on a limb and say very hot. It's cost-effective, a good finisher, and (potentially) knocks off:
a.) Werebear
b.) Sea Drake
c.) Serendib Efreet
d.) Phyrexian Negator (potentially devastating)
e.) Wild Mongrel (force heavy discard)

This is all assuming you play mono blue, by the way.

As it stands, splashing wouldn't be a bad thing. Every card in your current build has but one blue in its cost.

I used to absolutely love Weatherseed Fairies. But at three mana, does it really matter if it's a pro-red flyer? I mean, considering you equip it with the Sword...any creature you equip will have pro red and blue irregardless...

Trinisphere seems good...considering you're playing Chrome Mox :cool:

No Mox Diamond. And with Chrome Mox, you have to pitch a colored card for it to work essentially. Do you really want to pitch a rather useful blue card in your grip to that or Force of Will? You could use both I suppose, but you seem to have enough land-XL to keep it real on the board.

Also, have you considered Unstable Mutation or Curiousity? One card speeds the clock up over a full turn and the other gives you card advantage. Just something to consider if you want to maintain the Chalice feature of the deck with Trinket to boot. At worst with no creatures on the board they're fodder for FoW.

Eldariel
04-04-2007, 03:21 PM
I really think Trinket Mage can be versatile in F.S. I'm just not sure if it's worth playing for the sake of fishing for a one-cost artifact (or less). You have yourself a 2/2 beatstick that Demonic Tutor's for an artifact...but is it really that important to the overall strategy the deck presents? If you were going to main-deck any artifacts that cost one or less, it would probably only be Chalice of the Void. And by the time you actually do cast it, it just seems like going in for the kill seems more prevalent than dropping Crypt or Needle.

Engineered Explosives is weak because you play one color. And even if you chose to play it, you'd blow the thing for one at most.

There's been some discussion as to whether play a dual and some fetches/off-colour artiland/Mox Diamonds to enable additional colours for Engineered Explosives. Nevertheless, it's on the SB for a reason; it handles 1-CC without killing Chalices, and can hit 0-CC ones too (like Empty the Warrens-tokens or Chalice at 3) if need be. The most important 1-CC threats it kills are the Lackey, Vial, Mongoose (especially useful when dealing with Worship), Pithing Needle (so many other targets that naming EE would be waste), Mom, BoP, etc. and does all this even if I've had to drop a Chalice at 1 and thus can't use Pithing Needle. It's definitely good on the SB, but I don't know if it's strong enough to play MD.



...I'm actually going to go out on a limb and say very hot. It's cost-effective, a good finisher, and (potentially) knocks off:
a.) Werebear
b.) Sea Drake
c.) Serendib Efreet
d.) Phyrexian Negator (potentially devastating)
e.) Wild Mongrel (force heavy discard)

This is all assuming you play mono blue, by the way.

Yea, obviously in mono-blue. I agree with you, I absolutely love the card though and therefore haven't dropped it ever, it's won so many games for me. So many people have played without it and done well though, I've started thinking if it should actually be something else instead.


As it stands, splashing wouldn't be a bad thing. Every card in your current build has but one blue in its cost.

It does open us up to opponent going after our coloured source(s) with Wasteland though. That could be pretty bad.


I used to absolutely love Weatherseed Fairies. But at three mana, does it really matter if it's a pro-red flyer? I mean, considering you equip it with the Sword...any creature you equip will have pro red and blue irregardless...

Yea, but the key is, a pro-red creature can be equipped without the danger of being removed in response. Also, when SoFI gets destroyed/countered, pro-red can be awesome. Finally, Jitte really wants a wielder that survives. I'm not sure if Weatherseed is good enough though, or even just better than Sea Sprite for that matter. The additional power hasn't been enough additional power for me to enjoy it without equipment, so it's essentially an expensive Sea Sprite. It'd really want 3 power to be good in this format as that's what most of the blocking outside Goblins takes. Still, against red control and Goblins, it's awesome (killing all Goblins, surviving all red sweepers, etc.)


Trinisphere seems good...considering you're playing Chrome Mox :cool:

Yea, just, do we have enough blue cards after adding it? Slots to play it in? Also, is it good enough MD?? SB? What MUs would we really want it in? Does it fit the deck's playstyle?


No Mox Diamond. And with Chrome Mox, you have to pitch a colored card for it to work essentially. Do you really want to pitch a rather useful blue card in your grip to that or Force of Will? You could use both I suppose, but you seem to have enough land-XL to keep it real on the board.

Someone ran a very succesful 2/2 split with Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox, going down to 20 mana sources total, but getting the same amount of acceleration and less lost spells.


Also, have you considered Unstable Mutation or Curiousity? One card speeds the clock up over a full turn and the other gives you card advantage. Just something to consider if you want to maintain the Chalice feature of the deck with Trinket to boot. At worst with no creatures on the board they're fodder for FoW.

I did consider them, but they don't go well with Chalice (usually at 1), the card disadvantage from removal would hurt more (making StP even more powerful) and I don't know if just drawing cards of beats is good enough here. I usually want to try and kill people. Equipment does that admirably. Mask of Memory, now that's something to consider.

Amon Amarth
04-04-2007, 03:23 PM
Present questions regarding the archetype:

How much equipment is right?

4-drops? Which? How many? Any?

Which draw-spells to use and how many?

Psionic Blast? Hot or not?

How much to abuse Trinket Mage with the MD? Pithing Needle? Engineered Explosives? Tormod’s Crypt? Sensei’s Divining Top? Cursed Scroll? Mishra’s Bauble?

Splash or stay mono?

Landcount? 21, 22 or 23?

Mox Diamond? Is it actually playable here?

Shoreline Ranger or Island?

Sideboard: generic or specific hate?

Trinisphere, Tangle Wire, do they have a space?

Right Blue-count for Chrome Mox and Force of Will?

I play six at the moment, three of each Sword and Jitte. Six or seven seems fine.

I'm not huge on four drops. I really don't know anything that costs four that I would want to play anyways. Not even Fact or Fiction. Speaking of which...

Thirst for Knowledge is leaps and bounds better than Fact or Fiction. Being able to fix your hand on the first turn and you can always dump excess artifacts which this deck is not short on, thats or sure. TFK also gives your opponent less information too.

I admit I have not tested Psionic Blast but man am I really not very hawt on that card. It does take out Warchiefs and Werebears, which is about as good as it gets, but I would rather play more equipment or men, something that has a lasting effect on the field.

I could see playing a singleton Explosives to tutor for since the card is really good against Empty the Warrens, Lackey, Vial and other things. But I wouldn't want to put too much emphasis on it. Everything else seems rather 'meh'.

The manabase can be a bitch already, I wouldn't want to add anymore nonbasics. I don't think the power you get from another color is worth further destabilizing the decks consistency; its greatest weakness.

21 or 22 lands seems good. 21 has worked for me thus far, but I can see where 22 would be good.

Mox Diamond? Not in FS I think. The land count is too low.

I would rather play an Island than Ranger. Threats have never been a problem for me and I would much rather just have the Basic Island than waste time cycling into it.

I love the current SB. I haven't made any changes to it at all. The current 'board adresses most everything.

Do you really need a more Combo hate? That's the last thing this deck needs to worry about.

26 is enough Blue cards to support both Chrome Mox and Force of Will. I rarely ever have any problems with finding cards to pitch. The problem is what to pitch but that is a different subject all together.

My version is quite a bit different from yours as I currently run 6 equipment, 3 Looters, 21 land and no Psi Blast or Shoreline Rangers. Also why did you cut a Cloud? It is so versatile and deceptively powerful allowing a Chalice @ 2 on turn 2 with only a Tomb and Island. And after that the next ones cycle!

Tacosnape
04-04-2007, 03:26 PM
Updated list looks good. When I get to be a multimillionaire I think I'll hire you and Phantom to make my decks for me and retire from deckbuilding.:cool:

Now I'll answer all those pretty bold questions.

I say 7 is the right number of equipment. I personally run 4 Jitte and 3 SOFI, as I love being able to constantly curve out with a turn two equipped Drake/Efreet/Mage and swing. I run more Thirst for Knowledges, though, so I can get away with it without having a Jitte clog.

4 drops suck.

I say Thirst is the only draw spell short of the SOFI triggers. I fluctuate between 3 and 4. Fact or Fiction's nice, but I like being able to cast every single spell in my deck with one blue source and one 2-colorless source.

Psionic Blast is hot, but only as a 2-of max. The deck loses too much life as it is to Tomb, Force, and Serendib to rely on multiple Psionics.

Trinket Mage abuse is tricky. Every toolbox slot you insert for him weakens your Force of Will/Chrome Mox setup, and depending on what it is, weakens your Toolboxery. I run 2 Seat of the Synod to keep myself from needing to fetch it only to find it in my hand, as well as the 1 Pithing Needle. Based on the Metagame, I sometimes run a single Crypt main.

Stay mono blue. Land count is either 21 or 22. Not 23. Mox Diamond is awful. Trinisphere is unnecessary as it only really improves good matchups anyway. Tangle Wire is ehh, but possible in certain matchups. I like the lone Shoreline Ranger, but I can't tell if I like it in practice as much as in theory yet.

Sideboards of all decks should lean towards the generic. I run heavy on the Needles and Crypts in sideboard to maximize Trinket Mage postboard. (I once beat 4C Landstill by Needling Pernicious Deed twice, Mishra's Factory, and Nantuko Monestary.)

Right Blue count for Force/Mox? Iunno if there is a magic number here, as a lot depends on the number of Thirsts you run and so forth. My personal target is 26, which is interestingly exactly what Eldariel's current build has.


26 is enough Blue cards to support both Chrome Mox and Force of Will. I rarely ever have any problems with finding cards to pitch. The problem is what to pitch but that is a different subject all together.

What does DTW stand for?

Amazing how we keep coming up with 26. Also, I think making the correct Force and Mox pitches/imprints are the hardest part of correctly playing Faerie Stompy. Wrong pitches and imprints lose you the game, and on Mox you often have little to no information short of your own hand and deck with which to calculate your choices. At least on pitching to Force the spell you're countering gives you some idea of what you might be up against.

DTW = Deck to Watch. ATW = Archetype to Watch. DTB = Deck to Beat.

Citrus-God
04-04-2007, 06:01 PM
How much equipment is right?

I run 7 Equipment cards. 4 SoFI and 3 Jittes should do IMO, and still provide a fast clock.


4-drops? Which? How many? Any?

I run 3 Flametongue Kavus at the moment, and is current considering Ertham Djinn,


Which draw-spells to use and how many?

4 SoFI, and 3 TfK seems to work for me. SDT and Baubles should be considered. Chromatic Star if you go 5c like me.


Psionic Blast? Hot or not?

You dont need to run Blast, but if you dont want to run Blast, you better have a decent replacement for it.


How much to abuse Trinket Mage with the MD? Pithing Needle? Engineered Explosives? Tormod’s Crypt? Sensei’s Divining Top? Cursed Scroll? Mishra’s Bauble?

I run EE, Crypt, SDT, Needles, and Chromatic Star at the moment. I'm loving it, but sometimes I hate the 1-ofs.


Splash or stay mono?

You can splash colors in here actually, but it craps out on you sometimes. I went for Ur after I saw how powerful fetchlands are in this deck, rather than 5c Lands. I'm currently running Ur and am loving it...


// Mana 21
4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Flooded Strand
1 Volcanic Island
4 Snow-Covered Island


// Creatures 18
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Trinket Mage
3 Flametongue Kavu


// Spells 21
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Umezwa's Jitte
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle


// Sideboard 15
3 Volcanic Island
4 Rough // Tumble
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Trinisphere
3 Misdirection




Landcount? 21, 22 or 23?


I run 22 mana sources. I might move on to 23 if I go 5c.


Mox Diamond? Is it actually playable here?

Hardly. If you want to run Mox Diamond, just dont play FoW and run more mana disruption, but then it's turning into Junk Pile.


Shoreline Ranger or Island?

I'd rather run Island over Ranger. This deck is so mulligan dependent.


Sideboard: generic or specific hate?

It depends on the metagame IMO. This deck is good enough for a general metagame, but if you expect lot's of EE, bring those Trickbinds and Needles.


Trinisphere, Tangle Wire, do they have a space?

Tangle Wire seems awful in this deck IMO, since this deck already has tons of Tempo. Run 3Sphere in the SB to combat Threshold and Combo.


Right Blue-count for Chrome Mox and Force of Will?

I'm not sure, probably 24 Blue cards, but then again, I'm not completely sure...

Happy Gilmore
04-05-2007, 10:19 AM
Congradulations on LMF, now all we need is Sea Drake reprinted and this deck can get the showing it deserves.

On a more constructive note AnwarA101 has been testing a version of this deck that might be worth mentioning for its very different card choices. No thirsts, no Blasts, 7 pro red Faeries. I would post the list but I don't feel its my place. It seemed very solid and I thought I would get some discussion going about it. Hopefully he will get off his ass and post it soon. :rolleyes:

AnwarA101
04-05-2007, 10:42 AM
Congradulations on LMF, now all we need is Sea Drake reprinted and this deck can get the showing it deserves.

On a more constructive note AnwarA101 has been testing a version of this deck that might be worth mentioning for its very different card choices. No thirsts, no Blasts, 7 pro red Faeries. I would post the list but I don't feel its my place. It seemed very solid and I thought I would get some discussion going about it. Hopefully he will get off his ass and post it soon. :rolleyes:

Sorry its been busy, but a quick run down of my build.

23 creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Sea Sprite
3 Weatherseed Faeries
4 Trinket Mage
4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet

15 Disruption/Equipment
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Force of Will
1 Pithing Needle
4 Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice

I also play the exact same manabase as Eldariel's current list. This was the first time I put together Faerie Stompy. I like the idea of reach with Psionic Blast, but I think making your equipment spells more likely to be active with more creatures is more important. I also don't like Thirst for Knowledge or any draw spell as I feel it takes a turn to play and results in the loss of tempo. I would just rather draw a threat instead of Thirst. The pro-red dudes just make Goblins an easier matchup and make it more likely for your creatures to get equipped as red removal is pretty common (Red Thresh, Red Death, Zoo decks, etc.).

Phantom
04-05-2007, 11:14 AM
Anwar, always good to see quality players pick up the FS. A couple of thoughts on your build:

1) In the early stages of FS, we ran no draw spells at all. The deck kicked the crap out of Combo and aggro, but lost to control and ag-con, so if you run that build, be prepared to be unfavored to Fish, Thresh, and even Angel Stompy (at least preboard). Still, it's certainly a viable philosophy. I wanna say someone T8'd in Europe with a draw free version, and seeing as your roots are in Red Death, I guess this is no surprise.

2) One think I'm sure is a mistake is the equipment. Running 6 isn't a huge deal (vs. 7) but no way should it be 4 Jitte, 2 sword. It should probably be 4 Sword, 2 Jitte, but a 3/3 split would be fine too. This deck was made for SoFI, and it is simply better in the Goblins, Red Death, and combo matchups. I've hardly ever found the casting cost to slow me down (since this deck generally ramps to 3 quickly). There are some arguments for Jitte, but having tested the deck extensively, I can assure you that Sword is the superior card here. Plus 4 Jittes will lead you to the dreaded 2 of and 3 of draws, which is especially annoying with needle out.

Yamaelle
04-05-2007, 12:53 PM
Here is my current build, it has not really evoluted since the Worlds, but I kept trying every tournament some small changes (red splash, Silent Arbitrers MD, etc). I went back to this:

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

19 Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket Mage
3 Weatherseed Faeries

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

Sideboard
3 Winter Orb
3 Misdirection
2 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Momentum Stone (meta slot, vs Loam Confinement)
2 Sea Sprites
1 Weatherseed Faeries

I’m pretty glad that our lists are slowly moving toward the same direction (during the past months, I was insisting on 4 Trinket Mage MD, at least 18 lands, some proRed MD, etc…).


Regarding your questions,

- I play with 8 equipments, as you want one in opening hand, and they have a natural tendency to get countered/discarded/griped/whatever. I believe 7 is a minimum, I originally went to 8 when I dropped playing Psy blast 8 months ago, and never changed back. I couldn’t mention the number of tournaments matches where my Jitte was traded with opponent’s one, but, probably because I play 4, I could topdeck FTW another one shortly after. Nonetheless, I would play 4 SoFI before 4 Jitte in this deck.

- I believe if we keep playing monoU, no 4 drops are really necessary. If we splash R for instance, I could understand Flametongue Kavru. In monoU, Serendib Djinn probably > Su Chi, Juggernaut, etc, but he is costly in terms of lands to sacrifice, and combos pretty badly with the equipments and low land count.

- I really believe TfK > FoF in FS. I also firmly believe some draw spells are necessary. Therefore, 2-3 TfK seem all good to me.

-Psionic blast is a hot card for sure (gives removal, reach, can be pitched), but it also costs you 2 lives in a very “masochist” deck (Tombs, Efreets, FoW), and most of the time, I’m pretty happy to draw my 4th Jitte or 4th Trinket Mages that I run in those slots. I did have some results with this build, so clearly Blasts are not mandatory.

-We sadly don’t have enough MD room to really abuse Trinket Mages. Furthermore, we play Chalice of the Void, and we have a great probability of laying a chalice=1 in a lot of MUs. For this reason, Scroll and Top are bad here. Scroll is even worst, because SO situational in FS. MD Needle is almost everybody’s choice, and I believe, it is a better choice than 1 Tormod’s MD or 1 Explo MD. Trinket Mage’s job is getting a chalice some 90% of the time anyway. We have no way to recur them, so I think the SB toolbox (Extra Needles, Tormod’s, Explosives, and Stone for me) is enough.

- I tried the R splash and was disappointed. As our manabase is already pretty bad, we could worsen it a little more to splash some useful stuff (R and W come in mind). On the other hand, I really loved the concept of MonoU agro, and a part from the MU against Gob, I am confident and can usually handle other decks, especially post SB.

-22 lands is a minimum. And won’t totally prevent from Mulligans

-Mox Diamond looks great on paper (ease some splashes, allow some Explosives=2), but in order to fit here, a lot should be changed, i.e. proably upgrade to 20 lands, probably replace the TfK by Compulsive searchs (Sorcery). Not worth it, I’d say.

I never understood why you kept playing Shoreline Ranger, especially if you updated the land total. I know, it is a basic land, a 3/4 flying creature that can be pitched. But I’d rather not pay 4UU to have a 3/4 flying body, or 2 for one island in hand. It will always do something useful, true, but do it badly (overcosted)….

As for the SB, we need both generic and specific hate. I think everyone agreed on 3 Winter Orbs (Control) and 3 Misdirections (Combo/Burn/Pikula/Control), extra Needles, a few Tormod’s Crypt (Threshold), 1 Explosives (EtW tokens, DoJ tokens, opposite Needles, etc).
I run 1 Momentum Stone, because without this crappy Guildpact artifact, FS gets owned by UGW LoamConfinement. It is more played here than in the US, almost every tournament I face one. I no longer play Grasps, I switched them to Control Magic, better in FS in my opinion, and then dropped them for Silent Arbitrers (very useful against agro, useful against many Controls), and then dropped them…



-I wonder who suggested Tangle wire, as we don’t play that many permanents and I believe Tangle Wire would be a nuisance very often. As for the Trinisphere, I NEVER EVER understood the reason of its presence in many American FS SB. All the MUs where it helps, calices already help. FS has a very good combo MUs, good agro MUs, and bad Control MUs. I’d rather play something helpful for the bad ones (Winter Orbs), then “overlock” against Combo. Furthermore, Trinisphere is useless in multiples (opposed to Chalices), and conflicts with FoW and Clouds of Faeries. Maybe if we had like 40+ SB room, I’d try to fit a few, but with 15 slots, I cannot understand selecting them.

- I remember when I first posted my list with 18 lands and 8 equipments; you made this remark about wondering if I had enough blue. Truth is, I still have 25 blue spells, it might be a little less than other lists, but I think it still is playable. You just have to choose wisely, if you want to play that Mox, or that FoW.

Voila.

Tacosnape
04-05-2007, 01:25 PM
Don't you mean Moratorium Stone?

And since you can't pay the second activation on it, wouldn't you be better off with Phyrexian Furnace?

Or another Crypt? Or Chalice for 2?

Yamaelle
04-05-2007, 02:20 PM
Oups, my mistake. Thanks, Tacosnape, I was indeed referring to Moratorium Stone. We agree the 2nd ability cannot be paid, but:

- Tormod’s Crypt is targeted; therefore once Confinement is online, it is useless. The loam Confinement player can sustain it with Loam, Mikokkoro, Squee. You can needle Mikokkoro, chalice=2, but cannot handle Squee, and die to the Squee/Confinement lock. As a lot of agro decks do.
-Phyrexian Furnace is nice, not targeted so can work under Confinement, but you have to sacrifice it to remove the card you wish to remove (Squee), or tap it to remove the bottom one. In a lock situation, and you are not going to pack 4 Furnace/Stone in your SB anyway, I prefer to Pay 2 manas each time I use it, and be able to do it multiple times. Really, this rather ugly artifact is really golden in this MU.

You can also fetch it with a Trinket Mage, so it is perfect. I agree it is a very narrow SB card, but it is also useful against some Loam decks and Pox builds.

Tacosnape
04-05-2007, 03:12 PM
Interesting points. I wasn't quite awake yet on the Tormod's Crypt point to realize we were talking about Confinement (Somehow when I'm sleepy the word "Confinement" doesn't register as "Confinement. Meh.) My bad:cool:

I think on principle I'd still rather have the Furnace, but in that particular matchup, I can definitely see where Moratorium Stone would help. Out of curiosity, though, how do you keep them from Cycle-Dredging in response to your activation to save the Loam?

Amon Amarth
04-05-2007, 04:34 PM
Did some testing today and Looters were not pulling there weight against Goblins. I dropped them in favor of another Sword, Island, and Trinket Mage. I really hated not even being able to block with them. If I had a meta with very little Red in it then they might find a place back in the MD, but for now I will stick with the current changes.

Clark Kant
04-10-2007, 05:07 PM
Very happy to see finally see 4 Trinket Mages in your build. The build looks good. As for the card draw, I actually think that the new card in FS...

Sorcery 3U

Scrye 4 then draw 2 cards.

Might end up being better than either Fact or Fiction or Thirst for Knowledge in this particular deck. You don't cast countermagic so you can just as well tap out during your turn esp if you run few or no psionic blasts.

For me atleast, the primary function of the card draw is to get yourself an additional threat after having played out most of your hand. The problem with Fact or Fiction is, say you're looking for a strong threat/beater, you will on average uncover 2 beaters in the 5 cards if you're lucky, and you're going to end up with just one of them in your hand, not great for a 4cc card. And I think this is why people opted to run TfK over FoF, since both will usually get you just one threat, but the latter costs more mana.

With this card however, you will get both threats into your hand.

Once the card sees print, I'm going to test cutting the some slots from the 3 Juggernauts and 3 Looter il Kor I was running (because the deck felt threat lite) to play these.

The...

Sorcery B
Scrye 3, Buyback 2.

Seems like it could be decent too.

tivadar
04-10-2007, 05:19 PM
Sorcery 3U

Scrye 4 then draw 2 cards.

Might end up being better than either Fact or Fiction or Thirst for Knowledge in this particular deck. You don't cast countermagic so you can just as well tap out during your turn esp if you run few or no psionic blasts...


I noticed this card too. IMHO it is better than FoF, but is it better than TFK, which essentially draws you three rather than 2 and costs 1 less? Certainly if you were running FoF, switch to this guy though.



Sorcery B
Scrye 3, Buyback 2.

Seems like it could be decent too.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but buyback doesn't add in to converted mana cost. That makes the converted mana cost for this card 1... In a deck that doesn't even run BRAINSTORM because it costs 1. Even if this was not the case, isn't SDT almost strictly better, because you pay 1 for nearly the same effect as this card, rather than 3, and it's instant speed...

Clark Kant
04-11-2007, 08:27 PM
I've run Thrist and dont like it because you have to discard an artifact to even get a tiny bit of card advantage out of it. Otherwise, it's just a cantrip in a deck that has only SOFI for card advantage.

And as far as discarding an artifact, artifacts are imo the most powerful cards in the deck. Chalice and Jitte just win games, and SOFI is a huge beaters+removal+card advantage. So the only artifacts I ever want to discard are extra chrome moxes, which doesn't happen that often.

That's why I disliked both TfK and FoF and will be testing this new card in place of either.

As for the second card, that was a brain fart on my part. For some reason I kept thinking of it as a 2U, Scrye 3 and return this to your hand. It does have a big advantage over Top though in that Top needs a shuffle effect to be good. But yeah, the card certainly doesn't belong.

jamest
04-11-2007, 10:10 PM
And as far as discarding an artifact, artifacts are imo the most powerful cards in the deck. Chalice and Jitte just win games, and SOFI is a huge beaters+removal+card advantage. So the only artifacts I ever want to discard are extra chrome moxes, which doesn't happen that often.
QFT. I really don't understand the fascination with TFK either. Currently I don't run any draw spells in FS, but if I did, my first choice would be Compulsive Research.

BreathWeapon
04-12-2007, 12:27 AM
A second splash is in order, being able to set Engineered Explosives to two helps out so much against randomness, I suggest black for Engineered Plague and a better Goblins match up.

CalebD
04-12-2007, 01:57 AM
A second splash is in order, being able to set Engineered Explosives to two helps out so much against randomness, I suggest black for Engineered Plague and a better Goblins match up.


No, it isn't. It could be good, but I haven't seen it done well in FS yet.

FS's matchup against gobblins is good, why would you waste sb slots, another color even, on a matchup that's already good?

I think it'd make more sense to have a Red Splash for Flashfires in the sb, hating on Wombat-Rifter-Landstill, which I think are all bad matchups, although I could be wrong.

Honestly though, FS probably neither wants/needs a splash.

mikekelley
04-12-2007, 10:27 AM
QFT. I really don't understand the fascination with TFK either. Currently I don't run any draw spells in FS, but if I did, my first choice would be Compulsive Research.

I wish compulsive research was an instant. Ergh..

But I do agree, I hate TFK in this deck. I don't want to waste a whole turn on a lousy draw spell, when what I'm digging for 75% of the time is equipment.

Nightmare
04-12-2007, 10:46 AM
Since it's past the point in time where I would play this deck (ie, tested the hell out of it, liked it enough to build it, ran it for a while and then got sick of it), I can release the build my team played unto the Source World. BEHOLD, I give you ELFS - EPIC Looter Faerie Stompy:

4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Flametongue Kavu
4 Trinket Mage
4 Looter il-Kor

4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Bonesplitter
2 Pyroclasm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives

4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
1 Great Furnace
4 Volcanic Island
4 Island

SB:
2 Pyroclasm
1 EE
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
3 Arcane Lab
3 Winter Orb
2 Misdirection

Now, this build has most of the same issues that FS has, basically that you end up mulling ALL THE DAMN TIME. This is the reason I gave up. However, this build is a powerhouse. FTK is absolutely too good not to play, and splashing for 5 MD cards is really, really easy. Pyroclasm improves the hell out of your Goblin matchup, so it's an auto-include as well. Yes, it blows up your Looters, but honestly, you should be ok with that if it wipes the opponent's board, or have it suited up with a Jitte or Sword to protect it. Looter is truly insane, and I'm glad this deck supports him so well. His filtering ability more than makes up for the loss of the sub-par draw of Thirst, which is why we went from 3 to 4. There's a noticeable lack of Seat of the Synod in this deck, which is something I'm known for bashing. I hate Trinket->Seat, because to play Trinket you have an active Blue source. That said, you still need the Furnace. Trinket also fetches up Bonesplitter, which is a new addition for us, since we really wanted fetchable equipment. Yes, Chalice at 1 stops it, but if you have Chalice at 1, most of the time you're pretty far ahead in the game anyway. Also you'll notice that we cut Cloud of Faeries, and we did so because the card sucks. In every way, it defines a win-more card in this deck.

If there are any questions, Diablos and I can answer them, as we put most of the work into this build. Let's hear the comments.

georgjorge
04-12-2007, 02:08 PM
Question: Why in the world are you not running fetchlands, which leaves you with a whopping FIVE red mana sources (I'm not counting Trinkets here, because although they CAN fetch red mana, you are apparently running a small toolbox, so I think you would not like to miss the opportunity of fetching something else).

Other than that, the deck seems good, but all the choices seem to already have been debated to death on this thread (Bonesplitter, Explosives, Looter vs Cloud, the red splash), including the problem of running too few blue cards (you run 20, but probably less after sideboarding).

Nightmare
04-12-2007, 02:12 PM
Fetches are terrible when you run this few fetchable lands. Your only option is to cut the Islands, and then you run zero non-wasteable mana sources. Chrome Mox is very often imprinted with one of the Red cards, as well. I've rarely had more difficulty finding a red source than finding good blue cards. With such a slight splash, it's a very small issue.

Phantom
04-12-2007, 05:04 PM
@ Mr Nightmare: It's always nice to have quality players pick up the deck and give their take. Some thoughts:

1) I like the idea of a red splash, but I'm not sure I'm sold on clasm's maindeck (and this is from the guy who invented the Legacy deck that mainboards 4). Your build runs no draw spells (just creature dependent draw) so it seems like those clasms wouldn't show up with any consistency (and they are narrow cards to help an already decent matchup). Fire/Ice seems a much better fit there, and is a perfect imprint on a mox.

2) Please, please tell me the Bonesplitter was a joke.

3) I agree that fetches wouldn't be a bad thing, but I see your point about the manabase as well. Would -2 duals -2 islands +4 Fetches kill you? It might. I really shouldn't be talking about mana bases.

4) I know FtK is awesome from my time w/ Dragon Stompy, but did you ever run into any problems with him?

troopatroop
04-12-2007, 06:51 PM
2) Please, please tell me the Bonesplitter was a joke.

Bonesplitter is Japanese tech. There was some article awhile back written by world class japanese players on how to curve your deck using bonesplitter and how when done correctly it's incredible. I'll try to find it, but for now just take our word for it. It's just amazing.

BreathWeapon
04-12-2007, 06:54 PM
No, it isn't. It could be good, but I haven't seen it done well in FS yet.

FS's matchup against gobblins is good, why would you waste sb slots, another color even, on a matchup that's already good?

I think it'd make more sense to have a Red Splash for Flashfires in the sb, hating on Wombat-Rifter-Landstill, which I think are all bad matchups, although I could be wrong.

Honestly though, FS probably neither wants/needs a splash.

It's impossible to waste SB slots against Goblins, improving the match up from good to great is fine; that aside, black has a lot of other interesting removal effects, Perish being a god send against aggro-board control, an archetype which totally fists this deck.

In other news, I came up with a couple of cards for AfFOWnity that could probably be applied here, Miscalculation, Keeneye Aven and Pendrel Drake. Their point in AfFOWnity is that they're all blue, cycle and they either increase your threats or your control with out forcing you to actually ever cast/keep the card. Ascending Aven and Fledgling Malcor are also a consideration, 3 for a 2/2 is enough to stop a Goblin Piledriver or a Goblin Warchief, and 2U and UU are both reasonable amounts to flip the card if it can't be hard cast for 2UU or 3U.

I'm not certain either of those options, except Miscalcuation, is better than just adding the Pro:Red Faeries, it's just something I thought up on my way home. Cycling cards and Morph cards seem to be a really cool way of adding a second color with out straining your manabase, or really powerful creatures (Quicksilver Dragon or Exalted Angel) and effects (Gilded Light) to the deck with out choking on their mana cost.

Phantom
04-12-2007, 07:19 PM
Bonesplitter is Japanese tech. There was some article awhile back written by world class japanese players on how to curve your deck using bonesplitter and how when done correctly it's incredible. I'll try to find it, but for now just take our word for it. It's just amazing.

I don't have to take your word for it. I've tested it. I played roughly 60 Trinket Mages in a row without grabbing one Bonesplitter and decided that was enough. Frankly, a one cc piece of equipment is a pretty terrible idea in a deck where plans A, B, and C are Chalice @1 (even in the dark). It also doesn't help that the same card that will be used to fetch Bonesplitter is also used to fetch Chalice, meaning that fetching Chalice (and playing it at one) is almost always a better play. The other options for Trinket (Explosives and Needle) are also usually better plays, and in a build with a splash like yours, you'll be grabbing the red artifact land quite often.

Hell, I can't even imagine many situations where I would want a Bonesplitter over a SDT, and Top never even came close to making the deck.

P.S. Ignore this if you were being sarcastic.

VsTheWorld
04-12-2007, 09:17 PM
Has anyone tested a white splash for Exalted Angel? I feel like it might be overkill and very straining on an already poor mana base, but I just kinda thought of it tonight since I have 5 Angels laying around unused right now. It's probably a crappy idea, but I'll be messing around with it on MWS tonight.

Di
04-12-2007, 10:40 PM
) I like the idea of a red splash, but I'm not sure I'm sold on clasm's maindeck (and this is from the guy who invented the Legacy deck that mainboards 4). Your build runs no draw spells (just creature dependent draw) so it seems like those clasms wouldn't show up with any consistency (and they are narrow cards to help an already decent matchup). Fire/Ice seems a much better fit there, and is a perfect imprint on a mox.


We found the Goblins matchup to be rather difficult, so Pyroclasm was the best option. Between Looter il-Kor and Sword of Fire and Ice, you can probably find one. I originally had 3 in the deck, but cut it for something else (can't remember right now)


2) Please, please tell me the Bonesplitter was a joke.


Trinket Mage is weak as shit. There, I said it. But because he is so useful at grabbing Chalice at the Void is the reason why it's in the deck. Because of this deck's terrible inconsistancy, we felt that it would be a lot better if Trinket Mage had the option of searching out something other than useless cards half of the time, that's why Bonesplitter is there. It at least allows Trinket Mage to become a threat on its own should there not be a Sword or Jitte in play.


The other options for Trinket (Explosives and Needle) are also usually better plays, and in a build with a splash like yours, you'll be grabbing the red artifact land quite often.

Often times with the deck when you go into the mid-to-lategame mode Trinket Mage becomes awful because Chalice gets weaker, EE has limited use, and Chrome Mox is not worth mentioning. There's also Needle I guess, but that isn't a threat. Without a 1cc equipment Trinket Mage isn't even considered a threat by most standards because it doesn't provide you with anything aside from Chalice and EE. That's too weak in my book.


4) I know FtK is awesome from my time w/ Dragon Stompy, but did you ever run into any problems with him?

Psionic Blast is trash. FTK kills something and then attacks and gets equipped. I've had virtually nothing but greatness coming from this slot.

Phantom
04-12-2007, 11:31 PM
Often times with the deck when you go into the mid-to-lategame mode Trinket Mage becomes awful because Chalice gets weaker, EE has limited use, and Chrome Mox is not worth mentioning. There's also Needle I guess, but that isn't a threat. Without a 1cc equipment Trinket Mage isn't even considered a threat by most standards because it doesn't provide you with anything aside from Chalice and EE. That's too weak in my book.


See, I never, ever found this to be true at all. I can completely understand your thinking, which is exactly why I tested it, but I found it to almost never true. Hell, if you're worried about late game usefulness when Chalice @1 is not down, Cursed Scroll seems a much better choice as it will actually help the control and Goblins matchup.

I think the biggest thing you're overlooking is how you got to the mid to late game without getting one of your seven pieces of equipment down. I mean going through 15 cards out of 60 and not seeing 1 of 7 has to be pretty rare. I suppose it's possible that a piece of equipment got destroyed or neutralized, but that usually happens via needle or deed, in which case you should definitely be fetching an explosive or needle respectively. Disenchant should probably be fought with Chalice @2 as well.

I'm fairly sure that everyone involved in creating or testing the deck tried this idea at once and rejected it as terrible. Actually, a much more promising idea was fetching a creature, since opposing decks are much more likely to attack your creatures and leave your equipment. Sadly, the best creature options that can still make a Jitte fire are Rotothopter and Phyrexian Marauder. Not exactly murderers row.

jamest
04-13-2007, 12:41 AM
A second splash is in order, being able to set Engineered Explosives to two helps out so much against randomness ...
If you look at D4D decklists, I tried this both days. Sounds good in theory, but in practice, I rarely used it. Are the incremental costs of splashing (inconsistency, Wasteland, fetchland life loss, etc) worth the incremental gains? I ended up dropping the splash, at least, soley for EE@2.


Now, this build has most of the same issues that FS has, basically that you end up mulling ALL THE DAMN TIME.
Yup. It's the nature of the deck, though I would suggest including more mana sources to help with this.


Also you'll notice that we cut Cloud of Faeries, and we did so because the card sucks. In every way, it defines a win-more card in this deck.
I use to think this. I ran zero COFs at TMLO1 for the same reason. Then I ran 2 at D4D. Now I'm up to 4. The key realization is that FS is a pretty slow deck, minus those once-in-a-blue-moon turn 3/4 kills. The extra speed COF provides is important in many situations. For example, we often need 4 mana for Chalice@2 or Jitte + equip.


Often times with the deck when you go into the mid-to-lategame mode Trinket Mage
How often do you not see at least one of those 7-8 equipment by the mid-to-lategame? And if you consider our Chalice strategy, Bonesplitter is just asking to be a dead topdeck. My current build includes Mishra's Bauble, so that's my lategame Trinket fetch (but that's not the main reason for the Baubles).


We found the Goblins matchup to be rather difficult...
Me too, but it's highly build dependent. In my testing against mono red with 4 Tinkerers, the matchup was 50%.

EDIT:

I mean going through 15 cards out of 60 and not seeing 1 of 7 has to be pretty rare.
~11.8%

Nightmare
04-13-2007, 09:47 AM
Has anyone tested a white splash for Exalted Angel? I feel like it might be overkill and very straining on an already poor mana base, but I just kinda thought of it tonight since I have 5 Angels laying around unused right now. It's probably a crappy idea, but I'll be messing around with it on MWS tonight.We tested the white splash a while ago, and it proved to be inconsistant at best. It gained Meddling Mage, which was awesome, but overall we thought red provided more utility in the matchups where you needed it.

Clark Kant
04-13-2007, 05:20 PM
Considering how many felt that going to a blue count of 22-24 wasn't enough to support FoW in my old build of Fairie Stompy, I don't know the reaction will be to going down to 20 blue cards.


8 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
1 Seat of Synod
1 Shoreline Ranger

4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Trinket Mage
4 Cloud of Fairies or 2 Weatherseed Fairies & 2 Chimeric Idol - Testing Both Intermittently
3 Looter il Kor
3 Juggernaut
3 Jitte
4 SOFI

1 Pithing Needle
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Force of Will

Imho, there was a never a good enough reason to splash white, until possibly now...

Aven Mindcensor 2W
Creature - Bird Wizard (TS)
Flash
Flying
If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.

2/1

A flash card that shuts down all fetchlands and most tutors and can singlehandedly beat Thresh, landstill, many combos seems pretty damn good.

I've also been a huge fan of armageddon and possibly exalted angel or cataclysm (though splashing either might require more than running fetchlands, dual lands, and replacing chrome mox with mox diamond).

A big creture with an equipment followed by armageddon ends games.

Even if we don't have enough reason to splash white...

At the very least, I think what this card does is bring us ever closer to a version of Angel Stompy that can support 4 Chalices and has a mana base a lot closer to Fairie Stompy.

Happy Gilmore
04-16-2007, 04:14 PM
Considering how many felt that going to a blue count of 22-24 wasn't enough to support FoW in my old build of Fairie Stompy, I don't know the reaction will be to going down to 20 blue cards.



Imho, there was a never a good enough reason to splash white, until possibly now...

Aven Mindcensor 2W
Creature - Bird Wizard (TS)
Flash
Flying
If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.

2/1

A flash card that shuts down all fetchlands and most tutors and can singlehandedly beat Thresh, landstill, many combos seems pretty damn good.



Huh? What are you talking about? Singlehandedly beating Thresh, thats a joke right?

It does nothing against Burning Wish or Plunge in TES, and it stops one fetch (maybe) against Landstill.

Splashing white for that jank is worthless, and I would never refer to running Exalted Angel as a splash. Meddling Mage is a more valid splash candidate than either of those two, but I think mono Blue is still the way to go.

I know that you have tested a version with 22+ threats before but I would suggest trying Anwar's build one more time. I bet that your old versions did not run 4x trinket mage or 7x pro red dudes. Thirst and Blast are just to slow and cost you more tempo than they can generate. Atleast this is my observations after playing against the two versions of the deck.

I might also recomend leaving in Needle if you see a Top in the first game. I lost game three because my opponent was able to get Chalice for one and a Pithing Needle (naming Top). I would probably have won if I found either a Ancient Grudge or Krosan Grip, something Needle prevented me from doing.

tivadar
04-16-2007, 04:47 PM
At the very least, I think what this card does is bring us ever closer to a version of Angel Stompy that can support 4 Chalices and has a mana base a lot closer to Fairie Stompy.

I've actually tried this, and it really just doesn't work. The thing with Faerie Stompy is you only need mono-blue. By definition (and by deckname), Angel Stompy runs Exalted Angel, which requires double-white. I've tried to make a 2-color AS version of FS, you can't run 8x 2-mana lands, 6x is even pushing it. You end up with 4x Tombs, 4x Moxen. While this can lead to broken plays, you also lose FoW, so a single counterspell takes you out. You can TRY FoW in the build, but this makes things quite a bit more difficult, as the number of blue cards you have decreases even more, and with Moxen, you end up imprinting some of them anyways (typically mage, as then it's a dual land).

Now, I'm not the perfect deck builder, but what I've found is AS crossed to be FS just doesn't work. It's a hair to slow, and just as inconsistent as FS in terms of mana in general. However, AS with trinket mage and meddling mage (Shall we say Angel Mage?) is looking quite good right now. In this build, you board chalice, but don't maindeck it. You get 4x STP in the main, and in matchups like iggy or solidarity, you can swap those for chalice.

P.S. The main issue with AS/FS is all the good white creatures generally require double white...

P.P.S. Has anyone looked at Maelstorm Djinn?

Clark Kant
04-17-2007, 03:31 PM
I know that you have tested a version with 22+ threats before but I would suggest trying Anwar's build one more time. I bet that your old versions did not run 4x trinket mage or 7x pro red dudes. Thirst and Blast are just to slow and cost you more tempo than they can generate. Atleast this is my observations after playing against the two versions of the deck.

Lol, my build was right there in the post you quoted. You can see perfectly well that it ran 4x Trinket Mages and doesn't run TfK or Blasts like you were saying, as well as more 3 toughness dudes to take on goblins.

Tacosnape
04-17-2007, 08:04 PM
I'm starting to agree that I don't like Psionic Blast. I've cut it. It's not helping me much in combo, it could just be another threat against Control, and it's contributing to Tomb/Force/Serendib in kicking my own ass against aggro.

That said, Thirst for Knowledge isn't getting the credit it's due. It basically draws three cards and pitches a dead one. The excess Mox with nothing to imprint, the redundant Jitte, the Seat of the Synod when you don't need land, the Chalice when you already have plenty of them.

Currently I'm running 4 Thirsts, as well as 4 Jitte and 4 SOFI and no Psionics. My strategy on removing creatures has become an apathetic one, as I find that lots of flying lets me outrace people, and that Jitte or SOFI controls just enough to keep me ahead on pace. 4 Thirsts gives me a passable game one against control, and reduces the amount of hands I have to mulligan drastically. If you have the one-two Drake-Equipment punch in your opening hand, so be it. Thirst pitches to Force when you already have a good hand, and gives you a good hand when you don't.

The Bonesplitter is interesting. I don't think it's as horrible as some people think (Sorry, Phantom. Much love anyway.) I don't run it, but I love the prospect of being able to drop it out -and- equip it with the tapping of a single land. I don't run it, as I'd rather have Chalice for 1, but I'm tempted to stick one in the board for games where I board out Chalice.

Oh, and Looter Il-Kor sucks. Just saying it now for when everyone has this revelation in the standard five months it takes.

Phantom
04-17-2007, 08:49 PM
Pretty much agree with you Taco. I have flip flopped between zero and two blasts, and I think I like my zero build better. Of course, I was never confident of this since I rarely play vs. Combo.

I agree that Thirsts should get more love. I ran the old creature based draw only build, and FS with unconditional draw is just better in a mixed meta, and they don't get much more mixed than Legacy.

I'm not nuts about the 4th Jitte though. I firmly believe that 7 equipment is enough, and that 8th spot is better used on a creature. I guess that's more debatable with 4 Thirsts.

Clearly, I've made my feeling known about Bonesplitter (that it is good in theory but sucks in practice), but if you test it and find it to be good, I'll give it another crack. I hadn't considered it for the board, but that does relieve my number one complaint.

I didn't like Looter either, but I guess I could see him being better in a creature heavy build with no draw spells.

Tacosnape
04-17-2007, 11:02 PM
I'm not nuts about the 4th Jitte though. I firmly believe that 7 equipment is enough, and that 8th spot is better used on a creature. I guess that's more debatable with 4 Thirsts.

I felt so. Not only does Thirst allow you to ditch extra Jittes, it allows you to draw into more threats than you would get otherwise. I run into far, far less of those situations where I'm sitting there without a creature on the board for 3-4 turns while the game shifts against me now. I feel Thirst for Knowledge in this deck works much like the Baubles do in Burn. Rather than run more sub-optimal creatures, run something that will help you find the optimal ones.

Also, a note on the fourth Jitte, is that I absolutely -love- being able to nearly always curve a turn one creature into a turn two Jitte-swing. I don't always have the double 2-colorless lands to accomplish this with Sword of Fire and Ice, but it's much more common to be able to drop a single-blue source and hit four mana on turn two, especially with Trinket Mage capable of fetching Seat of the Synod to ensure it.



Clearly, I've made my feeling known about Bonesplitter (that it is good in theory but sucks in practice), but if you test it and find it to be good, I'll give it another crack. I hadn't considered it for the board, but that does relieve my number one complaint.

It's kind of brain racking. I may test it. Knowing when to board the Splitter in would be insane. You'd do it against Combo if you plan to Chalice for 0 and 2 but not 1. You'd do it against most control, based again on where you want your Chalice, as it's a solid play under Winter Orb. You'd do it against some Aggro, but not others, depending largely on whether you're on the play and keeping Chalice in, or the Draw and boarding it out, and also on whether you're boarding in Misdirections (I board in less Artifacts if I board in more Pitch counters.) I'm not sure it's worth all that headache.



I didn't like Looter either, but I guess I could see him being better in a creature heavy build with no draw spells.

I don't like him because half the time you take mana burn to cast him. One of the prerequisites I have for Faerie Stompy (And I won't break this -ever-, which is why I cut Binding Grasp) is that every spell in my deck needs to be castable in some form for :2::u: , that is, if I have only a single 2-Colorless Land (Tomb or City) and a 1-Blue source (Island/Seat/Mox) in play. This ensures that I curve out optimally and don't have to mulligan with the deck any more than I have to. If I have extra mana, fine. I can Chalice for 2 or Jitte/Equip at four mana, and I can SOFI-Equip at 5, and Cloud of Faeries allows me to do this with ease. If you run Shoreline Ranger, you can drop him at six (He's okay under the :2::u: rule, since you can Islandcycle him.)

Liek
04-18-2007, 12:53 PM
I read these forums much, but don't post.

Anyways, here's what I've got put together. The list was compiled from reading various threads (like this one,) and throwing ideas together.

4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Looter il-Kor
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
3 Trinket Mage

3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Force of Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Cursed Scroll
1 Pithing Needle
1 Aether Spellbomb

4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Faerie Conclave
7 Island

The deck mulligans a lot, the main goal is to make it more consistent.

Ideas, reasoning, etc:
-Looter il-Kor instead of Sea Sprite: I found that the Sprite didn't do enough. It can only actually kill a Lackey or Matron (or Fanatic, I guess,) and is only good when carrying equipment (but it's easy enough to put the same equipment onto one of the 3 drops.) In non-goblin matchups the Sprite is just embarrassing.
-Thirst for Knowledge: I found myself wanting cards. These used to be Psionic Blasts.
-Cursed Scroll: Recurring damage, non-creature threat. Can help race Goblins.
-Aether Spellbomb: The idea is to either bounce something they are trying to race with (Piledriver,) or use it to protect my threat from a board sweep or removal spell. I'm not sure how good/bad this card is, I'll have to test it some more. If I find myself never getting it with Trinket Mage, it will be cut.
-One Faerie Conclave: If it ever loses me a game it'll be cut. So far it hasn't won me any games, so it might be leaving the deck soon.
-One Seat of the Synod: It got Wastelanded once. I can't think of a scenario when I'd need to Trinket Mage for it. Might also be cut.

Tacosnape
04-18-2007, 02:10 PM
Anyways, here's what I've got put together. The list was compiled from reading various threads (like this one,) and throwing ideas together.

4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Looter il-Kor
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
3 Trinket Mage

3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Force of Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Cursed Scroll
1 Pithing Needle
1 Aether Spellbomb

4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Faerie Conclave
7 Island


Your build is close to mine, and everything in your build I tried at one point.

Looter Il-Krap might be better than Sea Sprite, it might not. The current main list runs Weatherseed Faeries instead of either one now, as it's ironically easier with this deck to cast something for :2::u: than :1::u:. Weatherseed Faeries is pretty solid. It nets you that pro-red you need to get a creature equipped long enough to begin eating Goblins, and its 2 power makes it far more playable.

Faerie Conclave just isn't worth it. It will lose you more games than it will win. You just won't realize it. Most notably your hand will be something akin to Conclave/Tomb/Chalice/Serendib/Nonlands, and you get a choice. Either you can't drop that Serendib until turn three, or you don't get that Chalice turn one.

Seat of the Synod, however, wins you more games than it will lose you. I run 2. Seat pitches to Thirst for Knowledge, is fetchable with Trinket Mage, and has no drawback outside of nonbasic hosers. Times when you would want to fetch a Seat with Trinket Mage are numerous. If you're sitting on only :2::u: on the board, and have nothing more in hand and a Jitte in hand, you'll be wanting to fetch it here so you can drop the Jitte and equip it next turn. Getting Seat of the Synod with Trinket Mage is all about making your deck curve out more efficiently.

I tinkered with Aether Spellbomb. It's a solid idea, but not in the maindeck with all those Chalices for 1 coming down. I'd run it in sideboard, but I'm actually running Echoing Truth in my sideboard (Bounces Solitary Confinements, Goblin Tokens, and my own threats against Control).

Cursed Scroll, however, is awful, as you'll often have to rely on Ancient Tomb to activate it. You can't afford to be playing defensively enough to be paying life to shock creatures, and you start every damage race behind and won't catch up doing 2 to each player. The Bonesplitter is better.

Also, I think Trinket Mage definitely deserves to be a 4-of in this deck. He's the key to beating tough control decks. Don't forget that in post-SB matches you'll want him to be able to fetch those Crypts or Needles at a moment's notice, both of which are very strong against a lot of control decks.

Eldariel
04-18-2007, 02:46 PM
People often seem to miss one of the key uses of Seat of the Synod. Against heavy LD-strategies, it doesn't hurt to fetch a land to hand. Let them exhaust their LD and keep lands available so that you can recover from the flurry of stuff trying to exhaust your resources. This is especially useful if you have nothing but Trinket Mage for threats left and are trying to topdeck more, getting that land helps you to cast the threat once you find it instead of having to find a land AND a threat. Also useful against Stax to offset Smokestack and keep you at manalevel capable of playing spells under Trinisphere.

Tacosnape
04-19-2007, 02:44 AM
Anyone tried Baleful Stare for the Goblin matchup? Drawing 5-6 cards on turn one is an amazing way to sculpt a hand, and being able to refill at a pace to match Ringleader is nice.

Wasteland
04-19-2007, 05:35 AM
I tried to make the Deck more consistant vs. Goblins and other Aggro-Decks, seeing, that the MU is far worse, then people would admit...
Finally, a small red splash does not make worse the Manabase, but allowes strong card choices AND makes a Explosive for 2 possible ( Excuse my bad English, i'm from Germany^^ )

Izzet Stompy, by Marius Hausmann:

//Mana
4x Polluted Delta
4x Volcanic Island
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
1x Island
1x Great Furnace
4x Chrome Mox

//Creatures
4x Sea Drake
4x Serendib Efreet
4x Trinket Mage
3x Cloud of Faeries
4x Fire Imp

//Other Spells
2x Thirst for Knownledge
4x Force of Will
3x Umezawas Jitte
4x Sword of Fire and Ice
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Pithing Needle
1x Engineered Explosives

//Sideboard
3x Winter Orb
1x Zuran Orb
1x Pithing Needle
1x Tormods Crypt
2x Binding Grasp
4x Pyroclasm
3x Pyrostatic Pillar

Because of the Fetchlands and the Trinket Mages you have 12 possibilities to get your 1 red Mana. The Imps are great Creatures against Piledrivers, against Hanni-Fish, against Boros etc. ...
While the MU against Aggro, exspecially Goblins is better then with classic Faery Stompy, you eat Goblins for Breakfast after Sideboarding...
Not mentioned, that Pyroclasm are useful too against TES, while the Pillars are a heavy threat to Solidarity ( better then Trinisphere in my eyes, cause they cant be rebuilded together with chalices / moxes )
Greetz, Wasteland

Eldariel
04-19-2007, 07:54 AM
Few points:
-The match-ups I'm talking about are a result of testing, not guesses, so I don't see how they could be too inaccurate. Still, the testing was done with older Goblins-lists and now that they've evolved more against artifacts, I might need to do some grand testing again.
-If you're running Cloud of Faeries, Flametongue Kavu might be better than Fire Imp. It's definitely stronger against non-Goblin aggro as it can take out big guys, and with Cloud, you can still power it out turn 2.
-Splash does give you one less coloured source and make your lands Wastelandable, so it makes your manabase worse. There's no way around that.
-You shouldn't sideboard dedicated anti-combo cards. Ever. That's already a good-great MU and you have many things which could use improving. It's simply wrong to SB stuff like Pyrostatic Pillar when you could be SBing anti-aggro and anti-control cards instead.
-Misdirection is better against Solidarity than Pillar (forcing through spells, fucking up their Turnabouts and Strokes, screwing up Remands by not even letting them draw, etc.) while having a plenthora of other uses (like raping Suicide Anything or black decks in general thanks to the high efficiency against Hymn, Sinkhole, Vindicate and the like). I don't see a single reason not to use it.
-Engineered Explosives already kills all Empty the Warrens-tokens and is tutorable, I don't see need for any more Warrens-killers. I think 4 Pyroclasms is overdoing it. Toss in another Explosives instead. You'll want more in many MUs, especially since you can blow it up for 2.
-Never hurting for another Tormod's Crypt? To me it looks like one isn't enough usually.

Tacosnape
04-19-2007, 01:34 PM
-Never hurting for another Tormod's Crypt? To me it looks like one isn't enough usually.

Hell, I run four. Blast all graveyard strategies, say I. Between that, Pithing Needle, and a couple of Winter Orbs, it's amazing how good a lot of my control matchups get postboard.

CalebD
04-21-2007, 12:00 AM
It's a budget list, as I don't have 200 bucks for Sea Drakes. I know it's a long shot, but if someone going to the GP had some they weren't using it'd be mad karma for them if I could borrow some drakes.

// Lands
8 [MM] Island (3)
2 [MR] Seat of the Synod
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb

// Creatures
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
4 [AN] Serendib Efreet
3 [UL] Weatherseed Faeries
3 [R] Juggernaut

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [MR] Thirst for Knowledge
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [SOK] Pithing Needle

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [UL] Weatherseed Faeries
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [IA] Binding Grasp
SB: 1 [MR] AEther Spellbomb
SB: 3 [B] Winter Orb

I was a bit curious to see if it was still tournament worthy sans-drakes, so I tested a bit. This hand is what finally convinced me.

Ancient Tomb
City of Traitors
Chalice of the Void
Juggernaut
Juggernaut
Force of Will
Trinket Mage

So, yeah. There's a chance I'll chicken out and just play TES, but I'll probably end up playing this. GL in ohio, everyone.

Tacosnape
04-22-2007, 01:33 AM
That's a really solid build for a version that can't afford Sea Drakes.

Clark Kant
04-24-2007, 06:35 PM
Angry Fairies

// Lands
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
8 [TS] Island
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors

// Creatures
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
4 [RV] Serendib Efreet
4 [P2] Sea Drake
4 [FS] Maelstrom Djinn
3 [RV] Juggernaut
1 [SK] Pithing Needle

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
3 [BK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [SK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 3 [4E] Winter Orb
SB: 3 [UN] Weatherseed Faeries

That's my post FS build.

Djinn is no slouch. Ten damage is devastatingly powerful. Think of him
as 2 Psionic Blasts/Ball Lightnings but for the price of just one
card, and without the self inflicted damage. Plus it morphs up as a
surprise to eat Exalted Angel, and force 1 for 1 trades with Mystic
Enforcer when combined with a single Cloud of Fairies, letting the
deck deal with its two biggest problem creatures without needing
Binding Grasps.

A first turn Serendib Efreet or Sea Drake followed by a second turn
Djinn is a fourth turn win without ever drawing more than a single
land, something that burn and affinity only manage by devoting their
whole decks to pulling it off, where as you're doing it with just two
cards.

I used to play draw to find more threats. But 3cc and 4cc card draw
sucked because it forced you to waste a turn to find an additonal
threat, thus slowing you down by a turn, assuming you can even find
the additional threat. Playing just more threats in place of card draw
is plain better.

Plus having all your threats sans Juggneraut (which is INSANELY GOOD
with Cloud of Fairies) castable with you never going past 1 Chrome
Mox/Island and 1 City of Traitors/Ancient Tomb over the course of the
entire game speeds up your consistency considerably.

Two additional cards that tested well but that I didn't have the room
for are Phyrexian Marauder (an exceptional finisher that can be
tutored by Trinket Mage) and Lightning Greaves which made your
creatures far more resilient and your kill a full turn faster almost
without fail.

CalebD
04-25-2007, 12:52 PM
I <3 faerie+juggs too.

Too bad FS wont be legal for columbus, I'd like to mess with mealstrom. Of course, if FS was legal I'd be playing combo (blue pact-yummie.)

I'm sure someone has tested this, I just want to know how it went. Ankh of Mishra instead of Winter Orb? We really only need 1-2 lands, and it seems like it would deal a lot of damage to thresh/landstill/rifter/wombat, especially if dropped on turn one.

I've added a bauble to my sb instead of the spellbomb, and it has been testing really well. Sometimes you have dead cards in a matchup, like pithing needle or EE, and the Bauble will turn mage into a source of card advantage when you really don't need more land. Spellbomb did this too, and had more utility, but chalice will definately be set at 1 more often than 0, and spellbomb costs 2 to draw a card while bauble doesn't cost anything.

Tacosnape
04-25-2007, 01:03 PM
Two additional cards that tested well but that I didn't have the room
for are Phyrexian Marauder (an exceptional finisher that can be
tutored by Trinket Mage)

That's just about the best idea you've ever had. And amazingly it's one you cut.

I'm always wanting a threat to snag with Trinket Mage against edict-packing control decks like Rock or TS or Landstill that prefer to just remove all my creatures one by one rather than lock me down with weird board positions. The problem is, they all either have power 0 or can't come down through a Chalice for 1. I didn't think to check the X's, though. Phyrexian Marauder's seems like a terrific idea for a 1-of in the board.

EDIT: It's also sexy-looking against MWC and Rifter, as it only gets bigger under Humility.

Kronicler
04-25-2007, 01:11 PM
That idea has been brought up before but was dismissed because most of the time it just sucks balls. Drawing it at any time is almost always bad, and you rarely trinket for it.

Kronicler

Nihil Credo
04-25-2007, 03:33 PM
@Clark Kent: Nice build. I had Djinn ready for testing in FS but never actually got around to do that; glad to see it's as awesome as it looked on the spoiler.
I noticed that you've got 5 Sophie in your decklist (4 MD, 1 SB). That SB slot could become the controversial Phyrexian Marauder, but I'm not sure it's needed given the increased threat density of your deck. Perhaps a random AEther Spellbomb? I run one as insurance against both Reanimator decks and fast Sutured Ghouls (from Ichorid); they can also be useful against slow-ass control, reading "Counter the next removal spell they play".

Tacosnape
04-25-2007, 04:29 PM
That idea has been brought up before but was dismissed because most of the time it just sucks balls. Drawing it at any time is almost always bad, and you rarely trinket for it.


Hence why you stick it in sideboard and play it against decks packing Edicts or Humility. Which are often tough matchups.

You'll never be sorry to see any sort of threat against a control deck, as it rarely takes more than one sticking around to swing for the win. So being able to turn Trinket Mage into essentially two threats instead of one would be a very useful thing indeed.

Phantom
04-25-2007, 06:47 PM
Hence why you stick it in sideboard and play it against decks packing Edicts or Humility. Which are often tough matchups.

You'll never be sorry to see any sort of threat against a control deck, as it rarely takes more than one sticking around to swing for the win. So being able to turn Trinket Mage into essentially two threats instead of one would be a very useful thing indeed.


I might be able to get behind this idea. I tried a creature mainboard that was fetchable (Roterothopter, I don't want to talk about it) but hated it for obvious reasons. Eldariel tested Marauder main, but eventually discarded it for the reasons Kronicler listed. Sideboard it has some potential, but I am just worried about diluting our board. Also, most control decks I play against are hurt by Needle, Crypt or Chalice, so I'm concerned about the number of times we are actually fetching this beast. Still, I'm willing to give it a shot and listen to testing results.

Clark Kant
04-26-2007, 12:37 AM
People were talking about Ankh before. But this was back when Landstill was dead and Loam has yet to see print. The card seems a lot stronger in the current meta.

[QUOTE=Nihil;126294I noticed that you've got 5 Sophie in your decklist (4 MD, 1 SB). That SB slot could become the controversial Phyrexian Marauder, but I'm not sure it's needed given the increased threat density of your deck.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, my first test build was 3 MD SOFI with 1 SB SOFI and 1 MD Marauder, but I switched the two cards places later on. Yeah I am running it in the board. It's a great card to bring in against slower decks. When you're just floating in giant pools of mana and have no threats left to play, it's nice to conjure up a 7/7 or something with Trinket Mage and see if you opponent can find a way to kill it before it kills them.

Tacosnape
04-26-2007, 02:53 AM
I might be able to get behind this idea. I tried a creature mainboard that was fetchable (Roterothopter, I don't want to talk about it)

Dude. We're discussing running Phyrexian Marauder. At this point, you can admit with no shame to having tried Roterothopter. It's kind of like girls admitting they "experimented" in college.


Sideboard it has some potential, but I am just worried about diluting our board.

Improving your worst matchups shouldn't count as dilution.

And while yes, all those decks are hurt by Needle/Crypt/Chalice, it's only a temporary setback at best for most of them. Even Winter Orb won't win a game if you give them four turns without a threat on the board. And there are lots and lots of times where Faerie Stompy just flat out loses to control because it doesn't have enough threats. This is true for just about any aggro-control deck running 20 or less threats. It happens to Threshold, it happens to Red Death, and it happens to Faerie Stompy. The little disruption tactics each deck packs only help if there's a threat around to put pressure on the control deck. Phyrexian Marauder gives us a chance to turn Trinket Mage essentially into a Threat Cantrip.

The bright side to Faerie Stompy is that due to the incredibly ridiculous amount of equipment we run, we rarely board it all out and it only takes one SOFI or Jitte to make any creature we drop a valid threat. Plus, there are times when that Marauder's going to be awfully freaking large on his own.

Clark Kant
05-01-2007, 05:55 PM
I feel like Chalice and FoW isn't enough versus combo some games and a few Trinisphere are needed.

This is what I'm considering making my sideboard.

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [DS] Phyrexian Marauder
SB: 1 [SK] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [4E] Winter Orb
SB: 2 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 3 [UN] Weatherseed Faeries
SB: 3 [MM] Misdirection

Any thoughts?

Tacosnape
05-01-2007, 06:04 PM
Yeah. Add four Trickbind. Nothing in that board helps against Flash combo.

Clark Kant
05-01-2007, 06:06 PM
Why plan for a combo that in all likelihood is going to be banned within two months. :wink:

Tacosnape
05-01-2007, 07:22 PM
Why plan for a combo that in all likelihood is going to be banned within two months. :wink:

Because in all likelihood it won't be. Wizards hasn't paid much attention to Legacy like, ever, if you haven't noticed. And in the event that it doesn't get banned, I'll be well ahead of the curve.

nitewolf9
05-02-2007, 02:17 PM
I've been trying 4 trickbind in the board for flash combo as well. I haven't been able to test it very much, but with that and chalice and fow, it should be an ok matchup. My board for reference:

4 trickbind
3 winter orb
2 pithing needle
2 tormod's crypt
4 hydroblast

Yamaelle
05-02-2007, 08:11 PM
nitewolf9, 4 hydroblasts in the SB is a false good idea. I supose it is against Goblins, as playing against Burn with FS is almost a bye, and you're right to have something to board against Gob. However, if you don't play calice=1 asap in this MU, you open yourself to 1)REBs/Piroblasts that a lot of Gob players have in their SB, and will bring against FS as it is monoU and 2)Pithing Needles, that many also have and neutralizes your equipements. Winning against Gob, at least from my tournament experience playing FS is with (fast) proR faerie+equipement. Maybe it is because I live in Europe, and metagames are different (for instance, I never meet any Rg Gobs in tournaments).

If you're worried about the frightning T1 Lackey, you have more chances to have an answer (4 FoWs, island+mox+Sea Sprite, Tomb/City+Mox+Sea Drake/Serendib Efreet/Weatherseed faeries, etc), than them actually having the lackey. Therefore, you're much better playing some proR faeries, than REBs, almost only useful against Gob, and often a dead draw. Or if you don't like proR faeries, even Shield sphere that you can fetch with Trinket Mage is better...

nitewolf9
05-04-2007, 05:47 PM
Interesting...I have only limited tournament experience with this deck (just tried it in a GP and did decently...but lost to goblins, with that sideboard sans trickbinds) but those are valid points. Especially now with the metagame shifting to god knows what because of flash combo. I'm not sure what I'd run in those slots...maybe leyline of the void?? Seems iffy since you can't hard cast it, but it seems if you hard cast it it's a fruitless effort anyway. I'm not really sure.

Eldariel
05-08-2007, 10:47 AM
While I wouldn't suggest this deck for GP Hulk Flash, I tried to metagame a bit against it and ended up with:

// Lands
4 [EX] City of Traitors
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
9 [UNH] Island

// Creatures
4 [AN] Serendib Efreet
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
4 [P2] Sea Drake
3 [AQ] Juggernaut
3 [PY] Chimeric Idol

// Spells
3 [MR] Thirst for Knowledge
3 [MM] Misdirection
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
3 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
1 [SOK] Pithing Needle

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 3 [HL] Sea Sprite
SB: 4 [TSP] Trickbind
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void


Obviously, G1 you hope to utilize your free counters to buy you enough time for a Chalice at 2. Post-board, you'll add Trickbinds and Leylines to the stalling package. MU against other decks probably gets worse (although against Fish-like decks, having 7 free counters to force through Chalices is probably good, as well as having all your guys be big enough to rumble with theirs in combat), but since other decks have to make themselves worse to compete in this meta as well, that's hardly a problem. The SB Sea Sprites might be better served as additional equipment or big creatures, I haven't tested, and probably won't, but I always like having something against red decks. Anyways, I like the near-immunity to Stifle Faerie Stompy has, as well as the total immunity to Leyline, so it won't be all that horrible a metagame choice, but I guess we'll wait and see if someone has the guts to play FS at the GP.

Finally, I just realized that the Cloud of Faeries might be better than Chimeric Idols, since they power out the all-important Chalice at 2 against Hulk. So worth trying. Anyhow, I definitely hope someone takes the deck to GP and actually manages to kick some ass.

Clark Kant
05-11-2007, 04:36 PM
That list looks like a decent strategy against Hulk.

And yes, if the meta is going to have a lot of Hulk, I would definately sub the Chimeric Idol and either a TfK or maybe even a Misdirection with 4 Cloud of Fairies. Against nonhulk decks, playing a Juggernaut turn two off of Cloud of Fairies is rarely a bad play either.

I really do think that with hulk, one of the more toggish type decks running Daze and Stifle and Brainstorm might be the better approach than trying to adopt F. Stompy and hoping that you have the cards to stop their combo.

So I'm actually more curious about the direction the deck might take after Hulk gets banned. Do you have any opinion on this build for example, most importantly in regards to Djinn?



// Lands
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
8 [TS] Island
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors

// Creatures
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
4 [RV] Serendib Efreet
4 [P2] Sea Drake
4 [FS] Maelstrom Djinn
3 [RV] Juggernaut
1 [SK] Pithing Needle

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
3 [BK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [DS] Phyrexian Marauder
SB: 1 [SK] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [4E] Winter Orb
SB: 2 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 3 [UN] Weatherseed Faeries
SB: 3 [MM] Misdirection

The changes I recently made to the above list are...

-4 Cloud of Fairies
+4 Infiltrator il-Kor

-3 Juggernaut
+1 Seat of Synod
+1 Phyrexian Marauder
+1 Misdirection

Sideboard
-1 Phyrexian Marauder
-1 Misdirection
+1 Sensei's Divining Top
+1 Trinisphere

I'm somewhat interested in Gossamer Phantasm as well, as he's a decent beater.

With the large number of evasive beaters, it seemed more relevent to have bounce to bounce back Shackles, Jitte, Control Magic, Mystic Enforcer and such for a turn and win. So I toyed around with Rushing River for bit.

As for Infiltrator, it has summoning sickness for one extra turn basicly. Not bad for a 2 mana 3 power evasive threat that dodges flying hate and big flyers that can shut you down.

I used to run Chimeric Idol and Weatherseed Fairies before Djinn came out, but I really like that Djinn is both blue and a very powerful beater. I suppose Djinn works better with the higher threat density since that ensures you can chip away 10 of your opponents life points fairly consistently with your other threats.

Clark Kant
05-17-2007, 09:13 PM
Any input on the recent changes I made to the deck.

As a staunch advocate of the Cloud of Faires/Juggernaut plan before, I can't say it's definately inferior.

just really like Infiltrator because it's a great threat to cast when you don't have a 2 mana land handy and thus have to wait an extra turn to play your other threats.

Plus, shadow is a lot harder to shut down with a Mystic Enforcer or Akroma or something.

He really is very good.

Card draw is not being great here with the high threat count as you barely have the mana to cast what you have which was indeed the reason I dropped it entirely before.

But with Juggs being dropped, maybe it's better than Rushing River.

Cloud is great with Juggernaut which is why I so heavily advocated both before.

But as you can see, in my most recent build, I dropped Juggernaut for an extra Seat of Synod, a Misdirection, and maindeck Phyrexian Marauder to make up for cutting Juggernaut. And Sensei's Top is occupying the sideboard slot that Marauder was occupying. Not sure if it was the best move, but Juggernaut is sometimes incredible, sometimes, pretty crappy as he's the only nonevasive beater in the deck.

Judge_Julez
05-24-2007, 11:17 AM
My Vintage deck of choice has been STAX; but I have looked at Faerie Stompy seriously as what it tries to cast out on a curve of [3] then [4] is similar to what STAX tries to achieve. Noteably; THis deck pluts out threats. Big Ones. Then nice equipment on the creatures. Stax just puts out lock pieces. The main one, CHALICE is solidly there in both decks though.

Essentially, what I am trying to say is that there are quite a lot of similarities between the two deck archetypes. More than people have mentioned so far.

OK, accepting that premise...
- refer to an update thread on STAX theory = The serious locks are kept in through Chalice; and after looking at the recent thoughts on the downside of SPHERE OF RESISTANCE and replacing it with DEFENCE GRID
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=32977.0
« Reply #3 on: 30 April 2007, 17:03:32 »

Here there is a clear theory that SPHERES ruin your own STAX deck, but DEFENCE GRID does not conflict with the deck.

This would also work in Faerie Stompy.

It's a [3] drop; it stuffs deck like High Tide; It stuffs blue counters & all the GIFTS/FOF at end-of-turn shannanigans. Also with the rise in INSTANTS in Legacy over Creatures (Goblins, Elves etc.) this is a serious consideration.

I even thought about one of my favourite STAX toys, IN THE EYE OF CHAOS into Faerie Stompy; what a (3) drop that is.

With the recent problems with FLASH; any of these (3) casting cost cards could possibly add strength to the deck.

___

....OK moving on to recent developments.

It is a generally accepted consensus on many threads that TfK is a weak part of the deck. Take these out and you are left with only FOUR blue instants, the FoW

The deck is basically Blue Aggro; placing down permanents and beating your opponent to death with the back up of counters in the shape FoW and Chalice.
Since Chalice is already a mainstay in the deck; what do people think of the following...

+ 4 Counterbalance
+ 3 In the Eye of Chaos
+ 1 Sensai's Divining Top

-4 Force of Will
-3 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Cursed Scroll



...OK; extreme I know,
but I want to put the idea out there; as the deck's RAISON D'AITRE is to get permanents out and create some sort of uncomfortable lock.
Top is pulled by the Trinket Mage; and Counterbalance has started to cement itself as actually more powerful than CHALICE in tournament play.

thoughts ?

Phantom
05-24-2007, 11:59 AM
thoughts ?

I'm all for innovation, and I try to go into new ideas with an open mind, but I can't get behind any of these changes.

Defense Grid - I fail to see the beauty of Defense Grid in the post Flash meta. It stop counters. That is it. All the other instants played can easily be cast during their own turn. So against more than half the field, it's completely dead. It also stops us from running FoW, our second strongest card.

In the Eye of Chaos - We tooled around with this as an anti combo card, but usually Misdirection is stronger. The problem outside of combo is that most instants in Legacy are cheap. Making someone pay 1U for Brainstorm or 1W for a Plow isn't really winning any awards.

Counterbalance - This is a terrible deck for CB. As good as the card is, it's slow to set up, and requires varied mana cost. This deck wants to be lightning fast, and has no 1cc cards, and 3 2cc cards. Even if you add top and CB it puts you at 1 and 7 respectively, meaning most of the time Counterbalance will read "Counter target opponents 3cc spell". That sucks. Also, our first Trinket Mage is usually going for Chalice (especially against decks that CB is good against) which proceeds to make SDT unplayable.

So basically, I think your changes would mildly strengthen the combo matchup (Solidarity at least), while completely destroying the aggro matchup. 4 less answers to Lackey = bad.

Hummingbird TG
05-25-2007, 05:23 AM
Untrue. Brainstorm loses much of it's power when it costs as much as an Impulse. Brainstorm can optimize hands FOR ONE MANA. If it costs 1U, the opponent has to wait another turn to cast it...slowing down their development and giving you time to land threats.

Eldariel
05-25-2007, 08:09 AM
Untrue. Brainstorm loses much of it's power when it costs as much as an Impulse. Brainstorm can optimize hands FOR ONE MANA. If it costs 1U, the opponent has to wait another turn to cast it...slowing down their development and giving you time to land threats.

Yes, and you've just spent 3 mana (=a turn) and a card to make him pay 1 mana. Congratulations. It usually just doesn't have enough impact. I'd be all for playing Trinisphere too if the deck also played Wasteland. It doesn't, so I'm not. Basically, since the deck doesn't actually have mana denial as much as acceleration, I feel better about just gaining card advantage through Chalices, SoFIs and stuff and trying to leverage it with quick wins. You could probably build the deck to accomodate mana disruption, but I'm not sure if you'd end up with a better, or a worse deck overall.

Goblin Snowman
05-25-2007, 11:57 AM
Chalice deals with Brainstorm already, and I'm not sure how Trinisphere would be worse. It can beat Threshold if you get lucky, and Faerie Stompy doesn't run 3Sphere as it is. What you're talking about sounds alot more like 5/3, of which there should be a thread already somewhere in Open.

Clark Kant
05-25-2007, 02:30 PM
I actually do advocate running Trinisphere... in the sideboard (refer to my build above - I would love to get some feedback on it).

I think Trini is absolutely essential to being able to slow down Storm combo long enough to be able to win, as Chalices and FoW don't do enough by themselves in my experience.

Tacosnape
05-25-2007, 02:49 PM
It's also worth noting how incredibly god-awful Sensei's Divining Top is when you have no way in your entire deck to shuffle your library outside of Trinket Mage, and theoretically you already played one of him to get the Top. And, you know, that whole Chalice for 1 thing we like so much.

Clark Kant
05-25-2007, 03:01 PM
Did you miss the part where it's in the sideboard or something. As in, you probably wouldn't bring it in when you want to be setting chalice at 1. When chalice isn't being set for 1, ie. the control decks in the format, I prefer to use Top to get a hold of a good creature (and FoW) a little earlier, rather than tieing up my mana with Marauder against control. The card is still in testing, so it's not a shoo in, just something to consider.

Nihil Credo
05-25-2007, 03:20 PM
When chalice isn't being set for 1, ie. the control decks in the format
Disregarding for a moment the fact that control is woefully underrepresented in Legacy...you do know that control decks play Swords to Plowshares (or Lightning Bolt/Ghastly Demise as a replacement), Brainstorm, and usually at least one other 1cc card (Sensei's Divining Top, Stifle, Enlightened Tutor, Duress)? I'd play Chalice@1 just to turn off StP, which is basically their only way other than FoW to keep ahead on tempo; that it shuts down Brainstorm and random other cards is just gravy.

Clark Kant
05-25-2007, 03:36 PM
You make it sound like every control deck in the format splashes white. Most of the newer builds of BBS don't even run Brainstorm at the 1cc slot, instead opting to run Chalice themselves. And even when they do run 4 Brainstorm, in my experience you are far better off trying to cast chalice at 2 until you suceed, seeing as how it shuts down the bulk of their deck and it usually takes multiple tries to get that Chalice to resolve.

Even some of the landstill variants are opting out of running white.

Once again, I'm not saying that Top should be in the sideboard. Nor am I saying that Marauder should be in the maindeck. Once I get more playtime with the latest build, I will be able to say for certain.

Honestly though, Top is a really minor card to harp on. Especially considering that it's nothing new. Eldariel talked about wanting to test it months ago.

There's atleast 15 other changes I made that for the most part haven't been discussed at all before...

4 Djinn
4 Infiltrator
1 Misdirection
1 Phyrexian Marauder
2nd Seat of Synod to go along with the 4th Trinket Mage
SB: 3 Trinisphere

I am a lot more interested in hearing about those.

mikekelley
05-25-2007, 06:10 PM
This deck needs a total re-tooling. I've been playing with it for a year now, and i just can't seem to get it to where i want it. It's just too draw dependent, sometimes it goes off, sometimes it's dead in the water and just can't get the gas pedal to the floor. Some ideas I have considered:

-Removing chalice and adding a thresh-like counter engine to the deck and putting chalice in the board.

-Something that draws some freaking cards. Looter il-kor, i honestly cannot stand. He has never impressed me. I -4'd the looters and +4'd psionic blast again. I am of the opinion that psionic blast is one of the best cards in the deck. It makes it soooo soo so oso oso oso SOO much more explosive. A lot of time i find myself eating shit with my opponent somewhere between 2-8 life, and there is just nothing I can do. Outside of chalice we have no other source of card draw/advantage, other than a SOFI and Jitte. Which half the time, are equipped and in response my drake is sent farming. most irritating thing ever.

-Removing chalice would open up some slots for Trinket Mage to be much more useful. Again just an idea, but things like cursed scroll, and so on.


If only decks had to be like 64 cards. Man oh man

Yamaelle
05-25-2007, 06:28 PM
@Clark Kant :
Against most control decks chalice=1 is useful (not against 43 lands, ok).

Top is really awful in this deck. I think it has been discussed many time: in most games you’ll be playing chalice=1 asap. Sensei is then a dead draw. I don’t know if you’re still running TfKs or FoFs as draw spells, and how many, but we have enough artefact. No need to add useless ones to discard.

I’m not really convinced for the Djinns. It is big, but more vulnerable than a Drake or Efreet while unmorphed. 2 attacks are nice, but more would be better.

I haven’t tested the infiltrator (and I‘m not even sure I will). I suppose you always suspend them, so it costs 1U. 1U is not a very convenient cost in FS. I know you can have mox+Island T1, or double island T2, but you’d often prefer something at 2 or 2U cost. Then, they are 3/1 creatures, i.e. very vulnerable. You might have chalice to protect them, or some equipments but still. At last, you’d rather plays threats, than wait T3 or T4 to get one. I’d play Looters il-Kor before that.

Misdirections MD have also been discussed many times. It is a very good card, but in the SB. You already play 8 pitch spells (Moxes, FoWs), and little real CA .Adding some more seems not very strong. And there are some MUs where it is a dead card. And you run blue cards enough not to add some extras to pitch.

Phyrexian Marauder has also been discussed several times. I don’t like it, but I know it has a few proponents on this thread. You sometimes need an extra threat, but it is a dead draw very often, and not that powerful creature. I don’t know how many creatures you play, I play 19, and I don’t remember many games where I wished I could fetch a creature with Mages.

I’ll agree with you about the 4th Trinket Mages. I’ve been playing him since October, and never regretted it. However, I‘m not sure a second Seat of the Synod is a good idea .I know Wastelands are not that played (mainly Gob, random Loam decks, Pox), but the mana base is really a sensible issue here, no need to add extra vulnerability. The mana base is the reason why it stays monoB, as with a splash, it really gets ugly.

Trinisphere SB has always been a good card against Combo. Combo decks are already your good MUs, and Misdirections are more important I these slots. Therefore, it is a win-more card. It must be better in a Flash meta, but I suppose/expect Flash not to last too long.

I don’t know what you cut to bring in all these in your deck, but I am a little curious to see the whole…



@mikekelley : I’m not sure I understand what you imply by re-tooling. I still find it very efficient, at least in the French metagame.
You cannot remove chalices, as it is really the core of the deck.
I never really liked the Looters, nor the blasts, but if you are really worried about card draw add some extra TfKs or FoFs.

mikekelley
05-25-2007, 09:26 PM
I made some changes tonight.

The list before:

Land:

4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
9 Island
1 Seat of the Synod

Creatures:

4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Looter il-Kor
3 Trinket Mage
2 Weatherseed Faeries

Spells:

4 Force of Will

Artifacts:

4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Pithing Needle

I had extra creatures, so I added in the 4th Jitte. The problem that I was having was that I just couldn't get creatures to stick long enough, if at all. I couldn't do any damage. Enter the new list:


Land:

4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
9 Island
1 Seat of the Synod

Creatures:

4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Trinket Mage

Spells:

4 Force of Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Psionic Blast

Artifacts:

4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Pithing Needle

Sideboard:

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

Now you are probably saying wtf, he has less creatures. True. But a psionic blast does the same thing that a looter does in 4 turns in one turn. I used to hate tfk but I think it was because i was probably playing it wrong. Who knows, I wrote it off almost a year ago. I am a better player now. We'll see. Anyway, hopefully I can count on the TfK replenishing my hand EoT or having blasts to deal with threats. Anyway looter sucks.

I can't imagine this deck without blast. Fun as all hell card. Plus it is just so satisfying to blast an opponent to his death.

I moved the pro-red critters to the board and dropped the sea sprites entirely because they suck too. 1/1 doesn't really do much against gobs, sure it can sit back and block all day but 1 power doesn't kill the big threats such as piledriver (fuck that card anyway i dont think we'll ever be able to kill it), warchief, siege gang, and so on. And we still have an edge against them preboard as far as i am concerned with maindeck jitte and SofI, one of them equipped and swinging can end a game pretty quick unless they have already gone batshit with a warchief. Might still end up dropping the blast or jitte in the board to add another weatherseed.

Things that I thought about:

Fact or Fiction: sick card as always but I think it's above the curve for the deck. I haven't tested though. It's casting cost just seems wacky to me, we never got along.

Standstill: I think this could be awesome in here. Turn 1 beats, of the serendib or sea drake variety, followed by a turn 2 standstill is pretty tech. This also goes along with the Faerie Conclaves that we ran months ago. Yeah they suck in your opening hand but go with standstill nicely.

I might just put it in anyway because people are fucking stupid and break them without thinking all the time.

I want to see this deck succeed and evolve, but I keep going back to the earlier builds from last summer/fall. That may have been one of the most solid designs. We know the splashes don't really work that well. We'll see.

This is an angry post.

Clark Kant
05-25-2007, 10:54 PM
@Clark Kant :
I don’t know what you cut to bring in all these in your deck, but I am a little curious to see the whole...


Thank you for the input. I am certain that you would disagree with your own assessment of the cards if you tried them. Infiltrator is a lot better than you give it credit for, it's every bit as fast a clock as Efreet, and Djinn is an incredible finisher.

Since you wanted to see the whole build, here it is...

// Lands
2 [MR] Seat of the Synod
8 [TS] Island
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors

// Creatures
4 [FS] Infiltrator il-Kor
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
4 [RV] Serendib Efreet
4 [P2] Sea Drake
4 [FS] Maelstrom Djinn
1 [MM] Misdirection
1 [RV] Phyrexian Marauder
1 [SK] Pithing Needle

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
3 [BK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [DS] Sensei's Divining Top
SB: 1 [SK] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [4E] Winter Orb
SB: 2 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 3 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 3 [UN] Weatherseed Faeries

It fixes the consistency problems somewhat by going up to 10 Blue Lands. It runs Misdirection as a nice surprise. The first time you Misdirect someone's Hymn or Swords back to them, they fear the card for the rest of the game. Plus, sometimes, 4 FoW just doesn't feel like enough protection for your threats.

I disagree with your assessment that combo is always an easy matchup. Before Trinisphere, I've repeatedly found it to be actually around or slightly under 50/50 or so, which actually makes it one of this deck's worser matchups. Misdirection sometimes doesn't do enough.

Infiltrator is a hell of a lot better than Cloud of Fairies. It's every bit the clock that Efreet is, plus gets around stuff like Enforcers and what not.

And you can almost always count of Djinn for 10 points of damage, easily enough to finish off your opponent.

Five Force type effects to protect your threats when you can't play a Chalice at 1 really feels like the right number, especially with the high saturation of blue.

As far as I am concerned, Sensei's Top, and arguably Marauder and maindecking Misdirection are the only iffy cards in the deck. I could see myself cutting them for Psionic Blast, Juggernaut or perhaps Foresee or Rushing River or Weatherseed Fairies or TfK, but everything else has been rock solid.

And I am convinced that except for those two slots which might probably work better going to Psionic Blast, this is infact the best build of Fairie Stompy due to it's large number of threats all of which are exceptionally fast clocks.

And I am confident that once more people get around to trying this configuration, they too will come to the same conclusion.

Phantom
05-26-2007, 01:58 AM
It's always nice to see new builds kicked around. Here are my thoughts:

@ Infiltrator il-Kor: I'm not a fan. I think I'd rather play Looter, and I don't even run that. Most of our games, we are going to get to beat with it on what? Turn 4? Seven more turns and we might kill them on turn 11. That's AWFUL. Even if you have a piece of equipment out, they have turns to see what is coming a prepare for it. Oh, and it dies to every piece of removal ever, including the oft seen Mogg Fanatic (Grim Lavamancer, Lava Darts, Fire/Ice, Engineered Plague for the love of god). And thanks to shadow it can't even help us if we're in bad board position. So it's terrible in the Goblin matchup. Terrible in the combo matchup. And terrible against decks running removal. I can see it being useful against an Enforcer with threshold assuming we have some equipment around. Seems a tad narrow.

@ Maelstrom Djinn: It is at least an interesting card. I just wish it's actual casting cost wasn't so ludicrous. I'm not nuts about how vulnerable it is, and the fact that it doesn't actually pose a 20 point clock after flippage. Also, it's 6 mana over 2 turns for five damage. I'm not sure I like that either. It's also another card that's going to kill your Goblin matchup as I can't imagine them ever letting him get flipped, and they can actually race him pretty easily. He also has to stay face down while you clear out chump blockers and get equipment down and ready. I don't think he's worth a slot, but if you're going to run him I think P. Blasts are in order to clear the way and finish off an opponent after your Vanishing beast, well, vanishes.

Clark Kant
05-26-2007, 10:17 AM
It's always nice to see new builds kicked around. Here are my thoughts:

@ Infiltrator il-Kor: I'm not a fan. I think I'd rather play Looter, and I don't even run that. Most of our games, we are going to get to beat with it on what? Turn 4? Seven more turns and we might kill them on turn 11. That's AWFUL.

That's good in theory. But if you try the deck, you quickly come to realize...

Turn 1 Infiltrator, Turn 2 Drake (or Efreet if your opponent plays fetchlands) lets you do massive amounts of damage very early on, and lets you win on by the fourth turn with Psionic Blast or equipment. And this can be accomplished WITHOUT a 2 mana land in your opening hand!!

Turn 1 Looter/Fairies, Turn 2 Drake or Efreet is a Turn 6 win at best.

This is what makes Infiltrator so awesome, it lets you race goblins even when you don't have a 2 mana land in your opening hnd.

You have a turn one chrome mox along with an island in your opening hand far more frequently than you do a turn one chrome mox along with a 2 mana land.

And many of those times, that 2 mana land is a city of traitors and it's sometimes a bad call to play it turn one to lay down an Efreet because it will shut you out from playing any 4 casting cost cards, would make it untenable to play another land until you have atleast two land in hand and would suck beyond belief if your chrome mox is blown up and your creature Sworded.

So except in that rare situation where you have a chrome mox along with an ancient tomb, your usually better off not doing much of anything first turn.

There are plenty of other wise steller hands that have island island city of traitors, and double chalice (or trinket mage+chalice).

In all these situations, Infiltrator has proven to be a life saver and has accelerted my win by a full two turns while still allowing me to chalice or double chalice.

And lastly, the deck DESPERATELY needed more evasive undercosted beatsticks in a format full of removal.

Before, the deck had to cope with both an inconsistent mana base + a lack of threats. You could mulligan into proper mana, but the deck was precisely so inconsistent because you had to mulligan to account for both the right amount of mana and the right number of threats. And even if you successfully do, an early piece of removal completely wrecked your gameplan because the density of threats in the deck was such that it could take you several turns to draw another one

People tried to make up for this by playing TfK, except that TfK doesn't always get you a decent threat, and eats up a full turn in that process slowing you down by a turn if that TfK had infact been a threat itself.

That's why, in the past, I ran Juggernaut and/or Chimeric Idol/Weatherseed Fairies despite the former two lacking evasion and not being blue, and the latter being a 10 turn clock.

And that is why, I am now running Djinn and Infiltrator, because they do infact make the deck vastly more consistent.

As for shadow, thank god Infiltrator has shadow instead of flying. I am sick of losing games to Mystic Enforcer or a little bit of countermagic followed by a morphling or an exalted angel or something.

Disclaimer to Adress Some of the Replies Below: If your meta hasn't changed much in the last several months and goblins is still the predominant deck inspite of Iggy Pop, TES, SI and recently Flash all putting up very positive matchups against it, and most of the other decks in the format, then by all means you should continue to maindeck Weatherseed Fairies.
Goblins hasn't been the best deck in the format for several months now. Iggy Pop, TES, SI and now very recently Flash, all win twice as quickly, have plenty of disruption, and lots of ways to bounce back, blow up, or generally ignore Chalice. And they all have very strong matchups versus goblins.

My local meta has undergone a shift in just a bit over a month precisely because the very best players here insisted on bringing the best decks and owning everyone esp the goblins players, with them. Nowadays, I am a hell of a lot more concerned about Swords and Force and Daze stopping my threats than I am about Mogg Fanatic. So my assertion that the above is the best build only applies if your meta is one where the very best players play the best decks in the format.

Phantom
05-26-2007, 01:08 PM
You have a turn one chrome mox along with an island in your opening hand far more frequently than you do a turn one chrome mox along with a 2 mana land.


You run 10 islands (basically) and 8 2 mana lands so I wouldn't say FAR more frequently. Also, you start with a 2 mana land in like, 80% of your hands, so planning on having one is a much better strategy than not.

Your odds of starting with a Chrome Mox are somewhere in the 40% range, so planning for a 2 mana land and no Mox is a good idea. Planning for a Mox and no 2 mana land. Bad idea.


This is what makes Infiltrator so awesome, it lets you race goblins even when you don't have a 2 mana land in your opening hnd.


No Goblins build in history will ever let this guy live. EVER. You have given them till turn three or four to get a Fanatic, Incinerator, Kenisis, plow, (or even a Tin Street to kill your equipment and race you). Goblins is one of the biggest reasons NOT to run shadow.

Cloud of Faeries on the other hand is fantastic against Goblins. As a creature, it's about as good as Infiltrator (1 power but can block Lackey) but acceleration is so key to the Goblins matchup.


And many of those times, that 2 mana land is a city of traitors and it's sometimes a bad call to play it turn one to lay down an Efreet because it will shut you out from playing any 4 casting cost cards, would make it untenable to play another land until you have atleast two land in hand and would suck beyond belief if your chrome mox is blown up and your creature Sworded.

So except in that rare situation where you have a chrome mox along with an ancient tomb, your usually better off not doing much of anything first turn.


I disagree with this, but it might be a playstyle thing. If I'm holding City + Mox + Land, I'm always dropping the City and a Mox (unless I have prior knowledge as a good reason why not.). FS is a fast deck, not a particularly consistent one. Trying to turn it into a slower one is not a good idea IMO. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by 4cc cards (Jitte + equip?). Even your build isn't running any Juggs or anything...



There are plenty of other wise stellar hands that have island island city of traitors, and double chalice (or trinket mage+chalice).

In all these situations, Infiltrator has proven to be a life saver and has accelerated my win by a full two turns while still allowing me to chalice or double chalice.


I'm not sure I understand this example. Wouldn't you go Island -> Island + Chalice@1 -> Tomb + Chalice@2(or Mage) or Infiltrator. So your Infiltrator is hitting the board turn 5 or 6. Once again, that seems poor. I'd rather have a Cloud that allows me to drop a creature and piece of equipment turn 3, or a creature and Chalice (or Mage) turn 3.


As for shadow, thank god Infiltrator has shadow instead of flying. I am sick of losing games to Mystic Enforcer or a little bit of countermagic followed by a morphling or an exalted angel or something.

I fail to see the beauty of this as well. Everyone who's played this deck knows that creatures with flying is one of its biggest strengths. It allows us to play defense when we need to and unblocked offense when we want to. Shadow takes away that option and makes us a racing deck, which is not a good idea since the shadow creature is at best a 9 turn clock (Weatherseed Faeries is a 10 turn clock) and a terrible topdeck unless we can hard cast it. There are some flyers that give us trouble, such as Enforcer, but I fail to see how Infiltrator is even decent against an Enforcer. They come out at the same time, and your ass gets destroyed in a race. This is especially frustrating when you draw another blocker and could have gang blocked it to death. Now there are times when shadow will come in handy vs. big flyers thanks to equipment, but equipment + a flying weenie will usually be enough to convince an Enforcer to stay back (depends on the situation, but a CoF w/ a Sword attatched is much more dangerous than a Mystic Enforcer).

If you think shadow is worth it, that's your experience and I can't change your mind, but I do think there's a reason you see a ton of Flying creatures vs. one shadow creature in the entire meta, and that one is difficult to kill.

@ No draw spells: This is actually debatable, since one of the lists that did T8 I believe ran no draw spells, but I do think it hurts the deck, especially against Control and Aggro-Control. We'll have to see what the post-Flash meta looks like, but unless it's packed with Combo and Goblins, I'm keeping mine.

mikekelley
05-26-2007, 02:28 PM
I'm going to have to agree with phantom, this deck lives in topdeck mode lots of the time. Granted most of the time it can just rip savage cards off the top without breaking much of a sweat, but you don't want to be drawing into things that have to be suspended when you need a threat or a blocker. And if you need a threat or a blocker more importantly, infiltrator won't really be of a help.

Yamaelle
05-26-2007, 09:47 PM
And I am convinced that except for those two slots which might probably work better going to Psionic Blast, this is infact the best build of Fairie Stompy due to it's large number of threats all of which are exceptionally fast clocks.

I really wonder how you can write that. I tried to explain you in my last post, and I believe Phantom detailed it very precisely, infiltrator is very bad, comes too late, doesn't fit the curve, etc. And dies to every piece of removal.

The Djinns are nice, but are "dead" in some common MUs, such as Gob.

I believe Cloud of Faerie to be very important card : It allows some crazy starts (chalice=2 on turn 2, SoFI equiped T2/3, ...), cycles, gets pitched or attacks when needed. I clearly wouldn't drop them. Especially for what you added instead.

I really wonder if you tested your deck versus Gob. You have 10 nonbasics, and only 3 proRed SB, 0 MD. You do play more threats, but no draw. And you have a 9th pitch card...
No offense, but have you tested your deck in tournaments, and to you test out from MWS? When you call it optimal build, I really wonder.


I finished 2nd/30 with my build at a Legcy tournament this afternoon, winning an Underground Sea,. Only 30 people, because people were feared of Flash. As a result, weird meta with less people, and only 1 Flash. I had 4 Tricksbinds in SB, useless all day. I got a bye, than won 2/0 vs Countersliver, 2/0 vs MonoB Agro, 2/0 vs Gob monoR, and lost 2/1 to UGr Threshold. No Top 8, and I got my only 2 losses of the day by Trygoons Predators...

My MD list is still the same. It has worked well for me in several tournaments:

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

19 Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket Mage
3 Weatherseed Faeries

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

(SB should have been:)
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sea sprite
1 Weatherseed Faerie
3 Misdirection
3 Control Magic
3 Winter Orbs

This would be my optimal build.

mikekelley
05-26-2007, 10:04 PM
22 Mana
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
9 Island
4 Chrome Mox
1 Seat of the Synod


This is, in my opinion, the right manabase for the deck. It is extremely smooth compared to the manabase of the early builds, and I have never had a problem finding colored sources.

troopatroop
05-27-2007, 12:03 AM
This deck is for Faeries. LAWL.

Clark Kant
05-27-2007, 12:44 AM
you start with a 2 mana land in like, 80% of your hands, so planning on having one is a much better strategy than not.

How did you arrive at that percent? Are you taking into account that a 2 mana land by itself is unkeepable, as is a 2x 2 mana land hand without a blue source to accompany it? I can confirm that the deck has bad mana hands a hell of a lot more than 20% of the time.

It's precisely because of my experiences playing the deck locally that I come down in favor of running 4 high power clocks as opposed to just two.

In your build, the only real beatsticks are Efreet and Drake. In real life, what this translates to is that there are many games where you are utterly dependent on your equipment to have what could pass for as even a smidgeon of a clock. And guess what, when your opponent counters or needles or blows up that piece of equipment, you are up shit's creek because it's going to take 20 attacks for that Cloud of Fairies to kill off your opponent. Even a Cloud + a Weatherseed gives your opponent 7 full turns to shut you out of the game.

By replacing these low power creatures with high power creatures, suddenly, every creature you cast is one that your opponent has to take care of right away.

Like I said, the problem with the deck always was, not only is the manabase inconsistent, but with the threat base is also inconsistent. No matter how well you mulligan, there are many times that you end up with either too few lands, or no actual beatstick in your opening hand. A hand built around a first turn Cloud of Fairies with a Jitte equipped is a hand worth keeping only if your Jitte actually resolves, doesn't get destroyed or Needled. Fairie Stompy is the best deck in the format when it has a good hand, and a horrible one when it doesn't. That's why I say that that the old build was so inconsistent. With any inconsistent but explosive deck, any string of some good opening hands in a row can be enough to get you a top spot at one small tournament with any build of the deck. And it's easy to forget about or ignore the many tournaments that you lost due to a couple of crappy hands and instead focus on the few ones that you won because of a string of good hands.

A hand build around a first turn Infiltrator, second turn Jitte, puts your opponent on a reasonable clock whether on not that Jitte gets stopped. Compare that to the previous identical scenario with Cloud of Fairies.

Infiltrator is so good precisely because not only does it address the lack of beatsticks problem, but because it also addresses the mana inconsistencies. Virtually every hand with a two mana land and another colored mana source is a keepable one. Infiltrator makes it so that even those lands that don't have a two mana land are keepable ones. Finally, a hand with 2 island and a chrome mox is not a ridiculously slow one. After mulliganing once or twice and being forced to stick with what you have, a hand that went, chrome mox, island, cloud of fairies, second turn island sea drake, return back two islands, is one that you usually lost with. But a hand that goes chrome mox, island, infiltrator, second turn island sea drake, return back two island is one that you still have a good shot of winning with.

Test it if you want or don't, it doesn't matter to me. I'll just continue playing and winning with a creature that makes the deck a lot more consistent.

Yamaelle
05-27-2007, 01:39 PM
@Clark Kant: No flames, but the fact that you are the only one with these choices, and no one to back you up, and the fact that almost every other one bothering to reply has an opposite opinion, including some of the earliest players who picked FS, should make you revaluate your statements. At least, a little.

You criticize the constitency of FS, you are right, and you call an optimal build, a deck with 16 lands, no CoF (they do accelerate, or cycle to smooth draws), and no Draw an optimal build. The way I see it, is you understand the inherent problems of the deck, but provide the wrong solutions. Your build has 22 creatures, mine 19. Granted, you do play a little more, but to what cost? I disagree that the threat base is inconsistent, though sometimes I did wished I could draw a few extra creatures. There is a reason I run 8 equipments: CoF or any of FS creature with a SoFI equiped is a 4 turn clock. You have no idea how many opponents I killed in tournaments with equiped Weatherseed Faeries or Trinket Mages.


Test it if you want or don't, it doesn't matter to me. I'll just continue playing and winning with a creature that makes the deck a lot more consistent.

Well, test your build in tournaments. If you had tested it before, you would never ever write something like that. At least I hope for your sanity.

Clark Kant
05-27-2007, 03:10 PM
I offered up my reasons for saying that Infiltrator absolutely does belong in the deck and outlined how it greatly improves slow land hands all while decreasing the instances where you are dependent on your equipment resolving and sticking around to have a shot at winning. And they are based on actual play and testing both with and without the card, rather than just theory. This is why I am confident that as more and more people slowly come to try the card, it will become accepted and a mainstream part of the deck.

You are entirely entitled to your opinion that it doesn't belong. I just wish it were based on actual play time with the card, but whether you feel the card is even worth testing is once again your call as well. So that's the last I will say on this topic (unless flamed obviously). For now, I am very content having the only build that plays these cards. In my opinion, it just means more of an advantage.

P.S. The build I posted has 18 lands, not 16. I have recently gone back to one Seat of Synod and nine island over the two synod and eight island (depending on how often I anticipate my Tombs and Cities will get Wasted/Sinkholed to try and mana screw me), but it never fell below 18 either time.

Tacosnape
05-29-2007, 12:58 AM
You criticize the constitency of FS, you are right

Thank you for summarizing a fundamental point that anyone picking up -any- Chalice-Tomb aggro deck needs to be aware of. They are not consistent. They never will be consistent. What they are is fucking amazing when they work the way they're supposed to.


It's always nice to see new builds kicked around. Here are my thoughts:

@ Infiltrator il-Kor: I'm not a fan. I think I'd rather play Looter, and I don't even run that.

For real. What the hell is wrong with Cloud of Faeries? Mana Curving allows you to be much more explosive. Which i'll take at the price of some consistency. I like to actually win my favored games.

BreathWeapon
05-29-2007, 07:02 PM
As far as creatures go, Wizard Replica seems promising when it's compared to Weatherseed Faeries and/or Chimeric Idol.

1) It's a creature.
2) It's an artifact, so it can be cast with colorless mana or discarded to Thirst for Knowledge.
3) It's 3cc, so it can be cast off of a Mox and 2 Mana Land or an Island and a 2 Mana Land or two 2 Mana Lands.
4) It's 1/3, so it can block/blocked a Goblin and survive.
5) It's Flying, so it can carry any piece of equipment and connect with it.
6) Its ability can stall your opponent if they play around it, or it can counter a critical spell.

It just seems like one of the all around most solid creatures that can be added to the deck, it's good against Goblins, it flies, it's 3cc and colorless and it can control/disrupt the stack.

Derklord
05-30-2007, 03:58 PM
Wizard Replica
Interesting idea...
Imo it depends on the Meta. Replica is surely superior in a combo heavy meta.
Weatherseed ist superior in Goblin meta. Idol is the best choice in controll meta.

Since we our chances vs. combo are already not bad with Chalice & FoW, in a mixed meta including a normal number of Goblins I'd prefer the Weatherseed Fearies.

Tacosnape
05-30-2007, 06:55 PM
As far as creatures go, Wizard Replica seems promising when it's compared to Weatherseed Faeries and/or Chimeric Idol.

1) It's a creature.
2) It's an artifact, so it can be cast with colorless mana or discarded to Thirst for Knowledge.
3) It's 3cc, so it can be cast off of a Mox and 2 Mana Land or an Island and a 2 Mana Land or two 2 Mana Lands.
4) It's 1/3, so it can block/blocked a Goblin and survive.
5) It's Flying, so it can carry any piece of equipment and connect with it.
6) Its ability can stall your opponent if they play around it, or it can counter a critical spell.

It just seems like one of the all around most solid creatures that can be added to the deck, it's good against Goblins, it flies, it's 3cc and colorless and it can control/disrupt the stack.

Holy crap. I never realized Wizard Replica flies.

It does fit the :2::u: curve. It's weak as a threat without equipment, though, and it doesn't pitch to Force. I don't run Juggernaut for the latter reason (And that it costs 4), and I'm now going through in my head trying to figure out how I would justify running Wizard Replica and not Juggernaut.

Very interesting idea though.

BreathWeapon
05-30-2007, 07:26 PM
Holy crap. I never realized Wizard Replica flies.

It does fit the :2::u: curve. It's weak as a threat without equipment, though, and it doesn't pitch to Force. I don't run Juggernaut for the latter reason (And that it costs 4), and I'm now going through in my head trying to figure out how I would justify running Wizard Replica and not Juggernaut.

Very interesting idea though.

Neither did I, I was just going thru' Gatherer for 3cc creatures with Flying and he showed up. I'm impressed with him so far as an Equipment carrier, blocker and pseudo-disruption. He's like a Weatherseed Faeries that gives combo and control's mana curves a complete fit.

I'm not certain its' Juggernaut vs Wizard Replica, it's more like Wizard Replica vs one of the Faeries.

Tacosnape
06-01-2007, 04:17 AM
I finally found the "Fifth Creature" I like to go with Cloud of Faeries, Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet, and Trinket Mage. Ready for this?

Aquamoeba.

Rather than go into a long wordy endless paragraph like I usually do of why Aquamoeba is awesome, I've decided to break it down into catchy, fun-to-read categories:

It's Blue (Da ba dee)
It pitches to Force of Will. It imprints on a Chrome Mox. Therefore there's not a whole lot to complain about as far as it messing the deck up.

It costs :1::u:
This means you can play it off Island-Mox or Island-Island. It also greatly increases its chances of coming down in front of a fast Lackey. The downside of this is that you burn for one off Mox-Tomb or Island-Tomb, and it decreases your flexibility with playing Chalice for 2 (Except compared to like, Looter Il-Asshat.)

It curves with Cloud of Faeries.
If you have Island-City or Island-Tomb, it allows you to go Cloud, 'Moeba, 2 colorless floating. This 2 colorless can be used for a Chalice, a Jitte, or to equip the Jitte you played with your Tomb on turn one. It can also be used to cycle a second Cloud of Faeries.

It turns all your dead cards into pumps/shocks/sneaky ninja shit.
That's right. Those dead Chrome Moxes and excess lands and Chalices you draw? Now you've got something to do with them. Pump up the Moeba as you crush face, or do the 3/1 damage on stack 1/3 trick to take down your share of 2/2's. Aquamoeba Smash!

It has advantages over every other card in the slot. It can swing for 3, making it hit harder than Il-Kor, Weatherseed, Wizard Replica, and so forth. It costs far less than Juggernaut or any of the :3::u: gang. It's blue, which is an advantage over Juggernaut, Chimeric Idol, and Wizard Replica.

It's a Beast!
Yep. This means you can...um...sacrifice it to a Ravenous Baloth. That you Binding Grasped. That your opponent forgot to sacrifice in response for some reason. ...Alright, this isn't terribly relevant. However it means you'll only lose 4 creatures to Plague for Faeries instead of 6 if you run Weatherseed.

...Flame away.

EDIT: In one of the most retarded Pac-Man references ever, I have now christened my Aquamoebas, via Sharpie, as Inky, Pinky, Blinky, and Clyde.

Pinder
06-01-2007, 04:41 AM
Wizard Replica

Although I think Tacosnape is on the right track with Aquamoeba, I think that a better consideration over Wizard Replica is Sarcomite Myr (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=136212). It fits the same 2:u: curve as Replica, and also has 2 relevant abilities that can be activated off a single Tomb or City. The fact that one of those abilites is to gain flying also helps you carry over equipment. Also worth noting is that it's an artifact for Thirst for Knowledge, and it also pitches to Force. How sexy is that?

And the art is badass, too.

I probably don't know as much about this deck as most of the people here, but it seems to me that Sarcomite Myr is the more obvious choice here.

Tacosnape
06-01-2007, 04:59 AM
Although I think Tacosnape is on the right track with Aquamoeba, I think that a better consideration over Wizard Replica is Sarcomite Myr (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=136212). It fits the same 2:u: curve as Replica, and also has 2 relevant abilities that can be activated off a single Tomb or City. The fact that one of those abilites is to gain flying also helps you carry over equipment. Also worth noting is that it's an artifact for Thirst for Knowledge, and it also pitches to Force. How sexy is that?

And the art is badass, too.

I probably don't know as much about this deck as most of the people here, but it seems to me that Sarcomite Myr is the more obvious choice here.

There's about 18 things sexy with Sarcomite Myr. The problem is that they all just cover up that he's a 2/1 Grounder for three mana, which is pretty bad. He also makes you commit your mana repeatedly to maximize his usage, which is what really kills him from contention for me. If Ancient Tomb is your :2: producer, you don't get very many taps before you're dead.

EDIT: The art is badass, though.

EDIT A DAY LATER TO AVOID DOUBLE POSTING:
So, um, anyone tried Man-O-War out in the sideboard? Seems sexy. I kind of forgot he existed. I forget a lot of blue creatures exist because, well, they're blue creatures.

requiem33088
06-04-2007, 12:48 AM
Hey, guys, its been a while. I havn't been following Legacy much, I was starting to get back into it but I didn't want to build Flash Hulk. Now that that's gone, and its summer so I can pay more attention to Magic, I'm going to resume experementing with Faerie Stompie. After reviewing this (newer) thread it seems we're in much the same place, which is good and bad - good because the core of this deck is so sick and bad because its still missing the proper balances to be T1. I defently still think it can be, because at a pure power level our core can hold its own against the format. We don't have to run bad cards just to make it work, but it is (as I think Tacosnape said if not someone else) never going to be all that consistant, which sucks. The last decklist I had was the U/r with Tangle Wires, Lightning Greaves, Chimeric Idols, and Earthquakes, and I defently have to reexamine and continue to test that. I noticed that Clark mentioned Greaves two pages or so back; while I didn't get enough testing in to fully vouch for it, I've defently found it to be very good with an increased creature count and would be interested in other's opinions. I can see a Misdirection or two in the maindeck, though we still have problems running out of steam and the current card drawers just arent good enough to play with in my opinion (though I will retry FoF, I'm sick of Thirst not being good enough, and we really need the turn to play threats, which is why I anticipate still wanting to up the threat count over iffy draw). The most original, potentially good thing I've seen in a while is the Wizard Replica; I remember being passed loads of those back when I used to draft and always liked the card but I forgot it existed (yeah, I know I just used god in a completly different way in the no bad cards thing, but this could be a huge synergy card). I intend to test it agaisnt Idols and Faeries and the like and see if it can hold its own. I'm thinking I'd probably rather run it than Looter; I like its strengths as a blocker and its ability is defently good, I often find that after the first couple of turns I have an extra (U) laying around and its ability can be a total hassle on the other side of the board, particualry for decks that have better mana and maximize it always. Obviously it only has 1 power and that's iffy, but I'd like to test it and see, and I'd almost defently (I'll concede, Mr. Kant, that I havn't tested it so I don't know) want to run it over the Djinn or either il-Kor. I'm still thinking I'll like my Earthquakes and Tangle Wires, but I'll have to test them again as well. Anyhow, I don't know how much tiem I can spend on the game right now, but when I can I'll be working on the deck, and I'll check here often as well as post if I have anything worthwile to say (hopefully soon).

Have a good night.

Tacosnape
06-19-2007, 09:14 PM
So, uh, yeah. Bump this shiznit.

Anyone got any idea how to deal with Tarmogoyf? Short of, you know, the obvious efforts to fly over its head and outrace it, which seems to be losing for me?

Threshold seems like it's turning harder, between Spell Snare, Force, and Daze all keeping FS off Chalice for 1 and Tarmogoyf being simply gastronormous.

MattH
06-20-2007, 12:30 AM
Mind Harness comes to...mind. I have found Chalice for 1 being less than amazing these days against them. Of note: Chalice walks right into fscking Spell Snare.

Trinisphere is marginally insane. You only expect to cast like one spell per turn anyway, and you're likely paying 3 mana for it anyway. Why not drag him down to your level.

Zach Tartell
06-20-2007, 01:25 AM
The problem is that, against combo, that limits your ability to defend said 3sphere. They hull breach/shattering spree/meltdown your ass, and you have to drop :3: on your counter magic.

BreathWeapon
06-20-2007, 05:23 AM
The problem is that, against combo, that limits your ability to defend said 3sphere. They hull breach/shattering spree/meltdown your ass, and you have to drop :3: on your counter magic.

If you drop Trinisphere on the play, it's highly unlikely they'll be able to Burning Wish for an answer, let alone Burning Wish for an answer and be able to play it before you untap with 3 mana for Force of Will.

As far as Threshold and Spell Snare, I think it's time Faerie Stompy started using Misdirection to claim control of the stack. Getting your first creature to stick is pretty necessary to winning against control.

Yamaelle
06-20-2007, 08:27 AM
@Tacosnape: Handling Tarmogoyf with FS, or handling Exalted Angel or any fast creature too big for the equipements will be with your SB Binding Grasps, or if you added some blue mana like I did, Control Magic. Eladariel is still playing with 3 Grasps in his SB, and me 3 Control Magics. And they saved my ass many times in tournaments. Threshold is becoming a quite easy MU with the 3 Control Magic, I just run 1 SB Crypt.

@BreathWeapon: Misdirection is already on the SB, but shouldn't be in the MD: We run already 8 pitch spells, and little real CA. Most of our blue cards are creatures any way. What's the point of pitching a Efreet with Misdi to back up a Drake?

@MattH: Mind harness is much to narrow and not that great. The ability to cast fast and reliably Chalice=1 is still for me one of the main reason to play this deck. I've never been to found of Trinisphere or SoR in the SB. What Combo MUs do you fear? I supose those who play Trini won't have room for control Magics/Grasps, and will die to angry Tarmogoyfs...

Tacosnape
06-20-2007, 12:42 PM
@Tacosnape: Handling Tarmogoyf with FS, or handling Exalted Angel or any fast creature too big for the equipements will be with your SB Binding Grasps, or if you added some blue mana like I did, Control Magic. Eladariel is still playing with 3 Grasps in his SB, and me 3 Control Magics. And they saved my ass many times in tournaments. Threshold is becoming a quite easy MU with the 3 Control Magic, I just run 1 SB Crypt.


I guess I'll go back to Control Magic. I was running Man-O-War in its place, but with Tarmogoyf being as inexpensive as he is, sheesh.

Binding Grasp to me absolutely sucks versus Control Magic because if you don't have the double blue you essentially shut yourself down once you play the Grasp, and if you do have the double blue you could be playing Control Magic.

BreathWeapon
06-20-2007, 03:01 PM
I don't think the number of pitch cards matters all that much, most of the time pitch cards have a way of being pitched to other pitch cards to balance things out. This is something I noticed when I was playing 4 Force of Will, 4 Misdirection, 4 Mystical Tutor, 4 Chrome Mox and 4 Gemstone Caverns in Flash, one pitch card will pitch another pitch card and you'll go about your business from there. You're really just increasing the likely hood that you'll have a pitch card in your starting hand.

It's also entirely possible that you could go to a 4 Force of Will, 4 Misdirection and 4 Fact or Fiction set up like the old BBS decks. I know I wanted to fool around with Gifts Ungiven just for stacks like Juggernaut, Trinket Mage, Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet or Sword of Fire/Ice, Sword of Light/Darkness, Loxodon Hammer, Jitte or some other wonky stuff as a tool box.

Maybe the deck needs to stop playing fair and bust out some more over powered cards?

Powder Keg in the SB, IMO, is better than control magic against aggro-control if for no other reason it can really beat up on combo to. You could go straight to winning the permanent war by penalizing the opponent for playing almost all of his threats at 2cc and taking advantage of your relative hole there.

Top Deck
06-20-2007, 09:00 PM
what is the latest/best build for fairy stompy?

Tacosnape
06-21-2007, 01:41 AM
what is the latest/best build for fairy stompy?

I don't think there's a universally agreed upon one. There hasn't been since Eldariel started this thread.

My current build is as follows:

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

4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Trinket Mage
3 Aquamoeba

4 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
4 Force of Will
3 Thirst for Knowledge

SB:
3 Control Magic
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pithing Needle
3 Misdirection
2 Man-O-War
1 Engineered Explosives

Ninj4
06-21-2007, 04:29 AM
So how's propoganda in the board for help against goblins, and the ETW? id think it's pretty good o-o

coma
06-21-2007, 08:41 AM
Hy!
I write on this forum first time.I play only this deck much time and after many tournament and many changes , I think to find a balanced build.
Normally the build depended to the metagame and I play often against control , landstill especially, that is the worse MU I think.I'd like to post my build, but I want to ask some advice for the sideboard,because I've an idea to value.
I want to premise I already play this sideboard going strong against landstill.

9 island
1 seat of the synod
4 ancient tomb
4 city of traitors
4 chrome mox

4 coud of faeries
4 sea drake
4 serendib efreet
4 trinket mage

4 sword of fire and ice
3 umezawa's jitte
1 pithing needle
4 force of will
4 chalice of void
4 thirst of knowledge
2 psionic blast

side
3 misdirection
3 control magic
1 tormod's crypt
2 random slot (for metagame)
3 back to basic
3 island

The card is back to basic instead of winter orb.
Advantages:
1 it's more incisive than winter orb
2 it's possible to use against control deck , all the deck using 3 mana colour ,so whit much duals
3 against landstill lock all manland (one finisher)
Disadvantage:
1 we lose 3 slot for 3 island to don't be affected by ours back to basic

Tacosnape
06-21-2007, 01:20 PM
So how's propoganda in the board for help against goblins, and the ETW? id think it's pretty good o-o

Well it's good in the Curve, if nothing else. I don't know if it actually helps against Goblins or not. Thing about it is, if they get five-six goblins on the board that can't swing, they'll just wear you down slowly with Gempalm Incinerators and Siege-Gang tossings. So you still have to get down something, equip it with something, and smack your opponent to win.

It's nice against ETW, although Trinket Mage for EE gives us options as well. I'd rather play Echoing Truth though, which also gives you an out against random problematic artifacts and enchantments, like Solitary Confinement.

Daeniel
06-21-2007, 01:39 PM
Tacosnape, could I ask why you have 3 Aquamoeba in the main deck? There isn't really some better creature for 1U?

Tacosnape
06-21-2007, 02:29 PM
Tacosnape, could I ask why you have 3 Aquamoeba in the main deck? There isn't really some better creature for 1U?

I don't believe there is a better creature for :1::u: or :2::u:. One day I'm going to have to write long article as to why Aquamoeba's the single most underrated card in Legacy, but I'll shorten it for now.

Aquamoeba fits your curve, albeit weakening Chalice for 2. There isn't a better guy for the :1::u: slot. Aquamoeba blocks goblins and absolutely loves Equipment. He's a quick equalizer if you don't get a fast draw, as Faerie Stompy mulligans rather shittily. He improves your mediocre hand better than any guy not named Cloud of Faeries.

He also gives you an out for all the excess useless cards in your hand, such as extra Chrome Moxes, extra Islands, extra Jittes, and extra Chalices. We all know from playing this deck that due to its incredible strength in redundancy it also inherits the weaknesses of said redundancy, which is often having a hand full of cards you can't do anything with. Aquamoeba turns them all into shocks. He's at his absolute best when your deck is at its absolute worst.

He's a solid critter against combo as he can beat for as much as a Serendib Efreet for 1 mana less. He's awesome against aggro due to his toughness making him the perfect guy to carry Equipment. He can swing safely into a Nimble Mongoose or a Mishra's Factory, and for two cards he can swing into anything 2/3 or smaller, take it down, and live. He's also blue, which means he pitches to Force of Will and imprints on a Chrome Mox.

ASSASSIN
06-21-2007, 07:19 PM
So how's propoganda in the board for help against goblins, and the ETW? id think it's pretty good o-o
I play gobbo and test many time the match-up against FS and I think the only solution is play many proR.
propagandadon't stop the goblin destruction (of creature with pyrokinesis/gempalm, of mana base with wasteland/port/tinkerer/TSH, of equipement with tinkerer/TSH). And propaganda can be destroy with disenchant, krosan grip or REB if chalice is not in play (a proR must be countered with REB and it is hard for goblin).
With an equiped proR in the three first turns you win.

Tacosnape
06-21-2007, 07:37 PM
With an equipped almost anything in the first few turns you'll win.

Goblins versus Faerie Stompy generally comes down to the die roll, period. Faerie Stompy usually wins when it goes first and Goblins usually wins when it goes first.

ASSASSIN
06-21-2007, 10:28 PM
With an other creature pyrokinesis just own you.

mikekelley
06-21-2007, 11:04 PM
People play with Pyrokineses?


I have never seen that card in 1.5.

Phantom
06-22-2007, 01:21 AM
People play with Pyrokineses?


I have never seen that card in 1.5.

The only deck I've seen it in is Goblins, but it is quite common out of the board of the green splash (which is quickly becoming the most popular build, and really hurts FS) so you had better be prepared to see it.

Tacosnape
06-22-2007, 03:00 AM
With an other creature pyrokinesis just own you.

We do run Force of Will, you know. And Misdirection is amazing against Pyrokinesis if you only have one threat on the board.

Pro-red creatures in my opinion are a bad idea, mostly because all pro-red creatures that Blue has suck. Badly. They might rock against Goblins due to their equipment carrying capabilities, but so what? They're awful in every other matchup.

What else are you going to face that's red and kills your flyers? Let's go down the list:

Lightning Bolt: You have a gameplan involving Chalice for 1. Get it down. Otherwise, Misdirection it. Same applies for Chain Lightning.

Magma Jet: Doesn't kill Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet, or Aquamoeba. Not a big deal. Same applies to Fire//Ice.

Devastating Dreams: Don't worry, you lose to Loam anyway.

Flametongue Kavu: Can be problematic as he kills everything in your deck, but with any luck and some Clouds of Faeries you can get SOFI Equipped before he becomes a huge obstacle. You can also Force him.

And...um, not much else. Therefore unless you're planning on facing hordes of Goblin decks, I wouldn't fool with it. The matchup isn't all that bad without the pro-red guys. Post-board you can Needle just about every form of keeping you off an equipped Jitte they have except Pyrokinesis itself, and if you've got a Counter for Pyrokinesis, you're set.

Top Deck
06-24-2007, 12:58 PM
The deck seems very elusive. There are a lot of areas where you think you can improve it, but you are hurting the synergy with chalice whenever I decide to drop in other cards.

The only standard cards I see so far in all versions are:

sea drake
serendib efreet
ancient tomb

weapons of mass destruction (jitte or sofi)

and chalice.

Tacosnape
06-24-2007, 01:38 PM
The deck seems very elusive. There are a lot of areas where you think you can improve it, but you are hurting the synergy with chalice whenever I decide to drop in other cards.

The only standard cards I see so far in all versions are:

sea drake
serendib efreet
ancient tomb

weapons of mass destruction (jitte or sofi)

and chalice.

Elusivity isn't so much the deck's problem. Faerie Stompy's biggest problem is that it's a card short. Meaning mostly, if they printed one more amazing blue threat that fit into the curve whose drawback we could similarly circumvent, the deck would be fantastic. The problem is, this isn't likely to happen very soon, as Wizards is super cautious about printing blue cards as the entire Time Spiral block proved. (Seriously, was there a playable blue card in the entire block short of maybe Pact of Negation?)

Extensive testing and theoretical debate from most of us has produced the result that short of Cloud of Faeries, Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet, and Trinket Mage, there's no universal godsend for the fifth threat. Let's look at the solutions people have tried.

Weatherseed Faeries / Sea Sprite: Protection from Red is good, especially against Ialvay Oblinsgay. They also fly, which is good. Sea Sprite proved to be too small in most matches, however, and Weatherseed Faeries is thought by many to be too fragile.

Juggernaut: One of the better solutions, as he's enormously big, but he doesn't imprint on the Mox or the Force and takes 4, which can sometimes be a problem for the deck to get consistently due to City of Traitors. A lot of people, including Clark Kant, run anywhere from 2-4 of him for size.

Thought Devourer / Other Weird Blue 4-drops: They're all good sometimes and bad other times. Phantom Monster was one of the more bizarre ones I saw played in this slot.

Looter Il-Kor: Fast and digs for cards, but generally thought to be too small to be part of the core inclusion. A few people on this thread play the Looter staunchly, however.

Sarcomite Myr: Interesting due to being an artifact and being blue, but not generally overwhelming in the awesomeness department.

Aquamoeba: My personal pick for the 5th creature slot due to all his awesomeness I listed above. He's catching on as I've played against him in FS twice on Workstation. He's still the weak link compared to the other four, though.

SOmber Hoverguard: Seen him tried, but he's only decent if you've already nailed Moxes and Chalices and really requires a full quad of Seat of the Synods to be any good.

Color Splashes: Red for Flametongue Kavu, Black for Negator, anything for anything. Color splashes kill your ability to have a remotely functional manabase, as one of FS's strengths is that it has the single most consistent manabase of any major Chalice Aggro deck (Short of like, the colorless 5/3 ones, which have a natural advantage here.) They also kill your Force of Will power and generally don't work unless you go to the extreme of playing Junk Pile, which is a completely different deck altogether.

So, until they print another ungodly :2::u: threat or until someone makes a major breakthrough in testing a card we've all somehow overlooked despite extensive testing and gatherer research, the deck's still going to be running a somewhat suboptimal threat in it somewhere. And there's never going to be a consistent list as long as we all have to choose between our least-despised suboptimal guys.

However, I'd tell you to make your list this, as this is getting close to universal among FS players (Or as close as you're going to get):

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

4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Trinket Mage
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
3 Mystery Threat!

7 Swordizawa's Jitte of Fire and Ice
4 Force of Will
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle

SB:
3 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
Some Misdirections
Some Tormod's Crypts
Possibly some Control Magics or Binding Grasps
Possibly some Winter Orbs

Eldariel
06-24-2007, 04:32 PM
The one card I want to get by testing is Maelstrom Djinn as it looks like 10 damage should be plenty most of the time and it's truly huge, blue and drops at 3. However, I've been taking a hiatus from the deck and the game for a while so I truly cannot say if it's as good as it looks on paper. It has the Exalted Angel-syndrome of being very vulnerable as a Morph, and it happens to be smaller than Threshed Mystic Enforcer (bigger than anything else though), but not being able to hold it back for defense after morphing or swing longer may be a problem. At least it avoids the two most common pitfalls for the last slot:
-It only has single blue in its cost. That means that you can still fetch the Chalice/Needle you really want with that Trinket Mage.
-It's blue. Means that you can pitch it to FoWs and Moxes. Also means it isn't vulnerable to artifact removal for what it's worth (I kinda like having all my creatures immune to artifact removal so if they bring arti removal in, it doesn't complement their normal removal when trying to keep my board clear).
-It's a 3-drop. Now, I'm actually looking for a playable blue 4-drop costing 3U for the deck to go with Cloud of Faeries for a turn 2 play, but Maelstrom Djinn doesn't require any such.

BreathWeapon
06-24-2007, 04:41 PM
Juggernaut makes the most sense since he either uses Cloud of Faeries mana production or double 2 mana lands to get into the game. Also, MD Pithing Needle over Engineered Explosives is a mistake with Empty the Warrens being the biggest threat to to this deck. I even think you should splash a color even if you don't use it just to be able to set Engineered Explosives on 2.

I sort of like running 4 Seat of the Synod just because they pitch to Thirst for Knowledge after turn 2.

Tacosnape
06-25-2007, 12:45 AM
Juggernaut makes the most sense since he either uses Cloud of Faeries mana production or double 2 mana lands to get into the game. Also, MD Pithing Needle over Engineered Explosives is a mistake with Empty the Warrens being the biggest threat to to this deck.

That's pretty ballsy to call that a mistake over one card versus a ton of cards, considering we can already slow ETW with Force and Chalice maindeck and have it in board as a Mage target. ETW combo isn't the only deck in existence.

Besides, Pithing Needle maindeck lets you answer the Belcher itself. And Survival. And 80 billion other things.

BreathWeapon
06-25-2007, 02:07 AM
That's pretty ballsy to call that a mistake over one card versus a ton of cards, considering we can already slow ETW with Force and Chalice maindeck and have it in board as a Mage target. ETW combo isn't the only deck in existence.

Besides, Pithing Needle maindeck lets you answer the Belcher itself. And Survival. And 80 billion other things.

I don't think so, the worst case scenario is that the combo deck wins the coin flip and resolves an Empty the Warrens before you knew to mulligan for Force of Will. At that point, you need to be certain that you have a post-emptive, not pre-emptive answer to your opponent's threat. You only really count on using Pithing Needle to disable Aether Vial in the Goblins match up, which Engineered Explosives can already do, and with a splash Engineered Explosives is just as, if not more so, flexible as Pithing Needle.

Pithing Needle really isn't answering any of the format's critical threats, so I definitely think it's a mistake to disclude Engineered Explosives from the MD in favor of Pithing Needle.

Tacosnape
06-25-2007, 02:13 AM
Pithing Needle really isn't answering any of the format's critical threats, so I definitely think it's a mistake to disclude Engineered Explosives from the MD in favor of Pithing Needle.

I'll still take a card that's solid against 75% of the decks in the format versus one that's amazing against 10%. We can't cast EE for more than 1, if you recall, which makes it somewhere between narrow and horrible.

That rogue Needle will win you random game 1's against Control, which is a far more problematic matchup. Plus it shuts down Belcher. Don't forget most ETW decks run ETW as only a second choice kill.

BreathWeapon
06-25-2007, 03:39 AM
I'll still take a card that's solid against 75% of the decks in the format versus one that's amazing against 10%. We can't cast EE for more than 1, if you recall, which makes it somewhere between narrow and horrible.

That rogue Needle will win you random game 1's against Control, which is a far more problematic matchup. Plus it shuts down Belcher. Don't forget most ETW decks run ETW as only a second choice kill.

You're underestimating how much combo decks need ETW against this deck. Belcher alone has almost a 2/1 ETW vs Belcher ratio, so ETW is going to be the predominant threat, and TES can't risk taking the time to assemble the IT chain because of Chalice of the Void, so it's going to default to ETW or Diminishing Returns, the second of which is likely to produce an ETW for a high storm count.

Maybe you run both?

Tacosnape
06-25-2007, 03:50 AM
You're underestimating how much combo decks need ETW against this deck. Belcher alone has almost a 2/1 ETW vs Belcher ratio, so ETW is going to be the predominant threat, and TES can't risk taking the time to assemble the IT chain because of Chalice of the Void, so it's going to default to ETW or Diminishing Returns, the second of which is likely to produce an ETW for a high storm count.

Maybe you run both?

I suppose running both is an option.

There's always Echoing Truth in sideboard, also. This deck doesn't really have any way to get anything problematic off the board. Bounce is great for tempo in this deck, or at least it was when I ran Man-O-War. Echoing Truth would solve ETW Tokens as well as random annoying crap like multiple Needles, Smokestacks, whatever.

Yamaelle
06-25-2007, 09:10 AM
I just moved back to China, so I’ve been away for a week. I am happy to see this thread is active again, but I hardly sagree about many of the last posts.


@coma: you only play 16 threats. TfKs are nice, but maybe more would help. In FS, you usually run 7-8 equipments, with 18 creatures which is a HUGE ratio. Lowering this number does not seem the best move. Draw Spells are good, but you still need a strong creature base. Back to basics perfectly fits the curve, but I don’t believe at all in it: It is very good in monoU, but here, it makes little sense. You already are sensible on your manas, blocking your Tombs/Cities, which is your main acceleration, does not sound nice. You beat Landtill with Orbs. And here you also need 3 Islands in your SB, which look like imo the most useless cards in SB I ever saw in a FS SB.

Propaganda fits the curve, but the only aggro decks you would need it are Gob decks. And without chalice=1, they get Piroblasted for sure. I really tried it, and it only seldom works.

@ Tacosnape: I am really not convinced by Aquamoebas, even if “It might be the single most underrated card in Legacy”. I really avoid 1U cards, they are MUs where you need this Chalice=2 (Pikula, monoB Aggro, Aluren, Life, 43 Lands…). It might be a metagame call, as you will probably answer me that no Life, 43 lands, Aluren in your meta.
What do you worry about Combo MUs? Which ones? In which MUs are you happy to waste (read discard) one card a turn, for an extra 2 damages? Unless there is some MUs Combo deck that does not exist elsewhere

I’ll bask ASSASSIN on his points. Not because he’s French, but because I know him, and played many times irl with him. I faced him 4 times in tournaments, and he is skilled with Gobs, maybe very lucky too, but clearly, I lost to him several times because of his MD Pirokenesis. I agree Gob vs FS usually comes to who wins the die roll, but I cannot believe you won Gobs in tournaments, without proR in your version. I played with up to 3 MD+4 SB, I went back to 3 MD+2 SB. I tried combinations of Cursed Totems, Propagandas, Silent Arbiters, proR, (even Volcanic Eruption, yes I was high that night), and it really comes to win the die roll and play some proR vs Gob. Period.

Pyrokenesis is a very good SB answer for Gob (FS, but Mirror, anything with creatures). I saw ASSASSIN won vs Belcher/EtW in the last tournament I went to before moving to China (he finishes 2nd, me 3rd, him being my only loss of the day). The guy put some 8-10 tokens T2, and Pyrokenesis made the difference. It is very common in European Gob SBs.

I agree proR creatures shine vs Gobs, and are more sucky in the other MUs. But It is very often cards you remove for better ones (Control Magics against nonGobs aggro for instance). They fly, which is very important with all the equipements we play. As you mentioned, if we have chalice=1 online, which is something you try to do almost every game, they are protected from the 2 most common piece of removal (Stp, Bolts) .They fly, and with a SoFI it is a 4 turn clock (just like almost creature, true, unless they crawl (not fly), and gets blocked all days).

I don’t understand your point about DD, and losing to Loams. The most difficult MU with Loams are UGW LoamConfinement, but you face it seldom, and you can win post board with a huge SB (including Moratorium Stone) .I cannot see any single other bad MUs with Loam. Maybe Terrageddon, because of the 4 Null Rod in SB+Krosan Grips SB. 43 Lands is a bye if you know how to play it. Chalice=2>Loam anyway.

I however agree with your universal list of FS. And I agree about all your comments for the mystery 5th creature, but not Weatherseed Faeries.

@Topdeck : I disagree, I believe most of the slots in FS are already set. There are at least:

17-18 lands
4 Chrome Mox

4 Sea drakes
4 Efreets
4 Clouds of Faeries
4 Trinket Mages

4 Chalices of the void
1 Pithing Needle
4 SoFI
3 Umezawa Jitte
4 Force of Will
2 TfKs/FoFs

That leaves us 4 open slots. Mine are +1 Jitte, +3 Weatherseed Faeries. Others use Looter il Kor, psy blasts,…

For the SB, it also comes to what meat you have. Generally, you need Orbs vs Control, Misdi vs Combo/Pikula/Burn/many MUs, Grasps/Control Magics vs Aggro, some more proR vs Gob. Explosives should be there too (answers vial, needle, under chalice=1, is an out against tokens such as Landstill’s Decree, or Belcher/TES Gob tokens, …), some Tormod’s crypt helps vs Threshold, some Needles vs Belcher, Afinity, Survival, many other decks….

I tested the Djinns, not extensively I concede, but I have not been impressed.

@Breathweapon : Juggernault is huge but sucks in FS. Okay you might play it T2 out of a CoF, but I‘d rather play Trinket Mage + Needle, or calice=2 if needed, or SoFI equiped, … The fact that it must attack each turn, is not that relevant, as anyway you are an aggro deck, but it can sometimes matter .What matters the most, is that
1) It dies to every piece of removal without chalice. Which is the case for others of our creatures, but:
2) It has no evasion (unless you count cannot be blocked by walls, which imo can only be relevant against Aluren). It gets block by any regenerating creature, killed by any first strike dude with 3+ power, Mongeese, etc…. It might be an impressive T2 play, but it won’t happen all times. And what a dead draw vs Gob! What is the point of playing 4 SoFIs, if you don’t try to have a maximum of creature with evasion???
3) It’s not blue. You cannot pitch it to FoWs , nor Chrome Moxes. Trust me, the blue count is already tight enough, and the numbers of mulligan important enough. Adding some artifact creature hurts the consistency. Another reason why splashes are also a bad idea in FS.

Running 4 Seats of the Synod only improve your already important vulnerability to Wastelands. Between extra drawn moxes, extra Jitte, sometimes extra chalices, or Seat, you run enough artifact. Also, Tfk T2 is cool, but I’d rather play a creature. I also played with up to 4 TfK, but it is too much. Have you seriously ever played against Gob?

Pithing Needle MD is CLEARLY the best alternative MD target for Trinket Mages. The best one being Chalices of course. Tormod’s are nice in some MUs, Explosives in others, but the difference with Needle is that the Needle you fetch will allow you not to lose some g1 in tournament. What do you do g1 vs Maze of Ith? Usually, those decks run severals. How do you handle Survival T2 or Belcher T1? You were praising Juggernault for the T2 trick with CoF. Well, T2, Tomb+City, CoF, Trinket Mage(for Needle), Needle can sometimes give you a win versus some decks. Explosives is a mandatory SB slot, but not worth MD over Needle. Once again, what Combo decks do you fear if you need it as a MD Combo answer?

BreathWeapon
06-26-2007, 01:02 AM
Game one, Belcher is going to win the game if it wins the coin flip, casts ETW before the opponent knows he has to mulligan into Force of Will and there's no Engineered Explosives in the MD. Game two, Belcher is going to SB in Shattering Spree on the draw and have good odds of destroying Chalice of the Void and winning the match. Game three, if it gets to game three, Belcher is going to SB in 8 Blasts against your Force of Will, and if your Force of Will gets countered and he resolves Goblin Charbelcher or Empty the Warrens, you are very likely going to lose before you can find the Pithing Needle or the Engineered Explosives.

I've played the match literally hundreds of times, if you don't MD an Engineered Explosives your turning a favorable match up into a coin flip. You can play Pithing Needle and Engineered Explosives, and if you find Pithing Needle that vital to the deck's performance, than I suggest you do so.

Juggernaut is the best fat creature in that slot, and against Goblins, which is the only aggro deck that matters, Sword of Fire and Ice gives it evasion. I don't have a problem with the blue count, I played AfFOWnity, and I know when to hold a Force of Will, when to imprint a Force of Will and when to keep the Chrome Mox in hand.

One of the creatures I have been evaluating in the last threat slot is Raven Familiar, because Raven Familiar is a Sorcery speed Impulse that chump blocks, and you can pay the Echo for the card advantage and another flyer for your equipment. I've seen Aluren use Raven Familiar to good effect as a tempo tool/catrip, and it does the same thing here, except you get the option of keeping it as a threat or letting it die. The deck benefits from both another threat and another draw spell, so it's the best creature this deck could ask for.

The_Prince
06-27-2007, 04:47 AM
After some testing, I found that running 1 Needle and 1 EE let's me handle most things I need to deal with.

As for the Mystery Threat, I've tried Djinns, Gathan Raiders and the Zombie Cutthroat.

Out of the 3, I found the Raiders most promising, although they are not blue. They do have the additional drawback of not being evasive, however, since I usually like to keep the pressure on, rather than keeping things in my hand, they are ususally big enough.

The Djinn is just too evasive for my liking, as he evades from play usually when I would need him most.

The lifeloss of the cutthroat just seemed too much in most games, combined with efreet and tomb. And it's not blue either.

CleverPetriDish
06-28-2007, 01:25 PM
Imaginary Pet. The deck practices so much anti card advantage that it could be worth a try.

BreathWeapon
06-28-2007, 03:01 PM
Raven Familiar has been awesome in testing, between the additional threat and the additional draw spell he just pulls the deck together and makes it so much more consistent.

So far it's the best non-Juggernaut creature I've used.

Tacosnape
06-28-2007, 04:59 PM
Imaginary Pet. The deck practices so much anti card advantage that it could be worth a try.

This is an awful idea, as this deck already tends to get things like Chrome Mox and Jitte and Chalice stuck in its hand.


Raven Familiar has been awesome in testing, between the additional threat and the additional draw spell he just pulls the deck together and makes it so much more consistent.

So far it's the best non-Juggernaut creature I've used.

This is also an awful idea, as Legacy isn't a format where we pay six mana to swing for one.

BreathWeapon
06-28-2007, 06:11 PM
This is an awful idea, as this deck already tends to get things like Chrome Mox and Jitte and Chalice stuck in its hand.



This is also an awful idea, as Legacy isn't a format where we pay six mana to swing for one.

Impulse + chump block is more than good enough, Echo just gives the option of keeping the Raven Familar on the board.

VsTheWorld
06-28-2007, 08:06 PM
Impulse + chump block is more than good enough, Echo just gives the option of keeping the Raven Familar on the board.

Therein lies the problem. Faerie Stompy does not chump block. If you are on the defensive, you are in most likely in topdeck mode anyway, and I would certainly NOT want to topdeck a Raven Familiar to chump block in that situation.

BreathWeapon
06-28-2007, 09:18 PM
But top decking a Raven Familiar, choosing one of the three cards it reveals, adding it to your hand and then choosing whether or not to keep Raven Familiar on the board is still good. Faerie Stompy is going to black with any creature it cast on its summoning sickness turn against Goblins, so it's like getting to play with Impulse (which is a really underrated card any way) and prevent one of their Goblins from attacking.

You get an Impulse, a chump block and the option of keeping the creature, even a 3cc Impulse is worth considering in that slot since there's no other 2/3cc draw spell that is as good as that draw spell other than the actual Impulse which conflicts with Chalice of the Void at 2.

If you actually bother to try it, you'll see that it's way better than it looks.

Tacosnape
06-28-2007, 11:19 PM
Therein lies the problem. Faerie Stompy does not chump block. If you are on the defensive, you are in most likely in topdeck mode anyway, and I would certainly NOT want to topdeck a Raven Familiar to chump block in that situation.

I agree. I would go so far as to say if you are on the defensive, you probably lost.

Breathweapon, you're falling into the "Danger of Cool Things" category. A card that does no more than cantrip and chump block is not a good card for us to have here.

So let's clear up a few things about Raven Familiar.

1. Raven Familiar doesn't Impulse. Impulse picks one of the top four. Raven Familiar picks one of the top three. The difference in this changes your chances from above 50% to below 50% of Raven Familiaring into another threat.

2. The 2U you spend to cast Raven Familiar may very well cost you two life off of an Ancient Tomb. In many circumstances, this is no better than the chump block.

3. Raven Familiar costs :4::u::u: to get the privledge to swing. Creatures in this deck, especially ones with a power of 1, need the ability to pick up equipment cheaply and swing next turn. This makes keeping the Raven Familiar in play highly unfeasible, especially when doing so may cost you 4 life off an Ancient Tomb.

4. Raven Familiar, because of its Echo cost, doesn't curve into equipment. If you drop a fast Raven Familiar, you aren't going to be able to play an equipment, equip it, and swing next turn.

So, in conclusion, Raven Familiar is an incredibly bad threat with a moderately bad ability, and this in no way adds up to making it a decent option in this deck. Short of Imaginary Pet, it's one of the worst ideas I've seen.

EDIT:

If you actually bother to try it, you'll see that it's way better than it looks.

Also, for what it's worth, and this applies to everyone, not just Breathweapon: Don't say this. It's ridiculous. I could say that Burrowing is super tech in Vial Goblins and that none of you could disagree until you tried it, but that would be ridiculous. So is every statement like this. The mark of a skilled, experienced deck designer is being able to visualize how a card would work in a deck. So back up your suggestions with more than a "Test it yourself" throwdown.

BreathWeapon
06-29-2007, 03:20 AM
Whatever, it works for me, if nothing else it makes Impulse worth looking into as another draw spell. I think the Ancient Tomb inflicting 2 damage argument is completely bogus tho', that's true of any spell you cast off of Ancient Tomb.

Edit: On a constructive note, a friend suggested Ophidian, and that's probably solid against any control deck.

Xurcks
06-29-2007, 07:17 AM
What do you think of Chromeshell Crab as the mystery tech in this deck?
It could come soon as a morph and has a late game ability that may help(trading triket mages,COF for something bigger or the like).
Just my 2 cents.

Tacosnape
06-29-2007, 12:53 PM
@Ophidian: Interesting and a much better idea than Raven Familiar. If he hits, he'd help a lot against control. Shame he can't draw his card while dealing damage though.

@Chromeshell Crab: I actually tried it. I wasn't insanely impressed, but it's an idea.

Goaswerfraiejen
06-29-2007, 01:33 PM
If Chromeshell Crab is going to be your secret tech, why not use Gilded Drake? Sure, you can hardcast the Crab and not exchange anything, but the Drake is also much less mana intensive. On the downside, it gives your enemy something that flies to block your stuff with.

honz
06-29-2007, 10:07 PM
As far as the mystery slot goes...

Aquamoeba - an amazing card, but not here. You don't have a card a turn that you want to pitch to ping for an extra 2 (assuming they have no blockers). You are already pitching alot of cards to chrome mox, and FoW, you really can't afford to loose any more. I have tried it out, but a costly ability, combined with no evasion, and a poor fit on the curve leads to exclusion.

Ophidian - I think this deserves atleast some testing. It offers the same body that aquamoeba brings, but it fits the curve, and gives card advantage. It is the right color, and can even block if it has to. I think this is the best option so far.

All the other choices have been pretty well discussed, and nobody is really happy with any of them. Ophidian might be able to help; as it helps the control and (kinda) the combo MUs. Of course, my favorite choice in the mystery slot is dandan, for the surprise factor.

Has anyone tried out stifles? I think this might be the most underated card in legacy. There might not be much room, but i have seem people squeeze in alot more janky stuff. It is something of a happy-medium between EE and pithing needle. I think it should atleast be tried out; maybe then everyone will stop complaining about ETW :rolleyes:

KillemallCFH
06-29-2007, 11:17 PM
Has anyone tried out stifles?This deck does want to play cards with 1cc (save Pithing Needle), simply because of CotV @ 1.

Phantom
06-29-2007, 11:39 PM
Has anyone tried out stifles?

Trickbind would be the stifle effect of choice for this deck. Still, I think it's at best a board card since we don't like leaving our mana open.

BreathWeapon
06-30-2007, 12:22 AM
Ok, here's a radical suggestion, what about adding 4 Ornithopter as a free Flyer that you can use to equip a Sword of Fire and Ice to on the second turn, block Goblin Lackey, tutor with Trinket Mage or discard with Thirst for Knowledge? The more I think about it, the more it makes sense as a way to shore up the Goblins match up when you are on the draw and just get another free Flyer to abuse your Sword of Fire and Ice with.

I think this really has a lot of promise just from playing with Ornithoper in AfFOWnity for the last few months. The tempo you scored off of a turn 2 Sword of Fire and Ice/equip post board was usually back breaking for most decks.

Phantom
06-30-2007, 12:28 AM
Tried it. Can't get a Jitte going. It wasn't terrible as a singleton (since you can fetch it), but it gives you some crappy draws (and would be awful as a 4-of), and the fact that it NEEDS a Sword to even be decent sucks.

BreathWeapon
06-30-2007, 12:58 AM
It doesn't seem so bad as a 4 of, Sword or no Sword, because it's still a first turn answer to Goblin Lackey, discards to Thirst for Knowledge and lowers the mana curve. It's sort of like another set of Cloud of Faeries, and so far the tempo has been useful in one of the most difficult match ups and just plain amazing with Sword.

Edit: Another random Idea I had for that slot was 4 Frogmite and using 4 Seat of the Synod and trying to get another possible drop out of Chrome Mox + 2 Mana Land, Chrome Mox + Seat of the Synod, two 2 Mana Lands or some combination of 2 mana land + Island + Chalice of the Void or Island + Chrome Mox + Chalice of the Void for a second turn drop. If you get 2 Frogmites or just go for the Efreet/Drake drop or hit a sword it's possible to cast the guy for free.

I think some sort of tempo creature feels really right in that slot.

ReAnimated
06-30-2007, 02:40 AM
@BreathWeapon: I really dont think the Affinty creatures are needed due to the fact that Faerie Stompy already has low CC creatures. And if ur going to be adding Ornithopter , Frogmite , and more Seat of Synod , you might as well be playing AfFownity :rolleyes:

Tacosnape
06-30-2007, 03:24 AM
Faerie Stompy's Curve has never been the problem. Its threats being undercosted, big and scary has been the problem. Other than the 8 big flyers, they aren't. Trinket Mage pulls its weight due to awesome search tech, Cloud pulls its weight due to ridiculous mana curving and being amazing with equipment. But nothing else has jumped out and been all like, "Hey, I'm awesome, run me."

I still haven't found anything to pull me away from Aquamoeba yet. Maybe Lorwyn will bring something awesome.

BreathWeapon
06-30-2007, 02:40 PM
Faerie Stompy's Curve has never been the problem. Its threats being undercosted, big and scary has been the problem. Other than the 8 big flyers, they aren't. Trinket Mage pulls its weight due to awesome search tech, Cloud pulls its weight due to ridiculous mana curving and being amazing with equipment. But nothing else has jumped out and been all like, "Hey, I'm awesome, run me."

I still haven't found anything to pull me away from Aquamoeba yet. Maybe Lorwyn will bring something awesome.

You're never going to get another 3cc Flyer with 3/4 or 4/3 to fill in that slot, so for threats that leaves Juggernaut and all of the 2UU 4/4 Flyers, for control that leaves Raven Familiar, Ophidian, Wizard Replica, Spiketail Drake, Spiketail Hatchling, Voidmage Prodigy, Lumengrid Sentinel (really, really interesting) or Aven Mindcensor with a white splash and that leaves the other two Faeries and Ornithoper.

All of those cards are decent, it's just a question of figuring out what this deck needs in that slot or just going with Street Wraith.

Edit: Wormfang Drake could use Cloud of Faeries or Trinket Mage as an outlet, and then after Wormfang Drake dies it gets to reactivate the Cloud of Faeries or Trinket Mage. I considered it as a budget Sea Drake for AfFOWnity since it could use both Cloud of Faeries and Ornithoper as an outlet, but I think it could also work here as long as you are willing to accept it'll never be a turn one drop. Even if you have to use another 3cc Flyer to put it into play, you're gaining Vigilance for that turn, and if your opponent kills it you are getting the other creature back with tempo (you attack with Serendib Efreet, you play Wormfang Drake, RFG Serendib Efreet, next turn your opponent kills your Wormfang Drake and you get Serendib Efreet back) allowing you to play around Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives.

That seems sort of awesome to me, even Wormfang Drake and Ornithoper looks like a reasonable budget version for people with out Sea Drakes. Between Sword of Fire and Ice, Wormfang Drake, Thirst for Knowledge and chump blocking that gives Ornithoper a lot of shit to do.

Edit Edit: It was also on my list of cards to break with Dryad Arbor.

Nihil Credo
06-30-2007, 04:36 PM
If you want to play Wormfang Drake you need to get the creature count very high, otherwise you run a serious risk of getting it stranded in your hand.

Not to mention that the opponent can kill your other creature in response, gaining both card advantage and tempo... then again, if you attack before playing the Drake, it's highly likely that they will play their removal at that time. Then again, your Drake will be stranded in hand until you draw another creature, so it's almost like a 2-for-1.

Meh. Seems worth testing. Myself, I've not yet played anything that made me move away from the Fattie Stompy list (-TfK, +Juggernaut, +Maelstrom Djinn).

DuxDucis
06-30-2007, 05:00 PM
Hey guys,

I just thought I would share my success with the deck this week. I went 4-0 at a 16-man tournament up here in Canada on Thursday.

I basically played the no Sea Drake List from here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=125185&postcount=48) except -1 SoFI & +1 Bonesplitter with a few changes to the sideboard account card availability.

Avert your eyes but this was my sideboard:
1 Pithing Needle
3 Control Magic
3 Psionic Blast
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Daze
2 Man-o'-war

I was most unhappy about Daze but I pretty much knew that going in.

I beat Vial Goblins (2-0), a UG Quirion Dryad deck(2-1), Iggy Pop(2-0), and a BW Confidant deck(2-1).

I'm pretty happy in how the deck performed. I do have some questions about the Landstill matchup. A guy finished second with it and I played him after the tournament and couldn't seem to beat him. Any suggestions or strategies?

BreathWeapon
06-30-2007, 05:47 PM
If you want to play Wormfang Drake you need to get the creature count very high, otherwise you run a serious risk of getting it stranded in your hand.

Not to mention that the opponent can kill your other creature in response, gaining both card advantage and tempo... then again, if you attack before playing the Drake, it's highly likely that they will play their removal at that time. Then again, your Drake will be stranded in hand until you draw another creature, so it's almost like a 2-for-1.

Meh. Seems worth testing. Myself, I've not yet played anything that made me move away from the Fattie Stompy list (-Cloud, -TfK, +Juggernaut, +Maelstrom Djinn).

You need Ornithopters to get them to go, I'm going to cut Thirst for Knowledge for Wormfang Drake and add Ornithopers for a balls to the walls aggro approach and see where I get.

Tacosnape
07-02-2007, 01:43 PM
Ok, so, weekend testing results: Add Keiga, The Tide Star to the list of creatures tried and that suck. Thought maybe I could get away with him due to the single blue, but no.


I'm pretty happy in how the deck performed. I do have some questions about the Landstill matchup. A guy finished second with it and I played him after the tournament and couldn't seem to beat him. Any suggestions or strategies?

You have three options here:

1. Run Winter Orbs in sideboard.

2. Trinket Mage for every Pithing Needle ever.

3. Lose. This is probably what you'll do regardless of the first two.

Phantom
07-06-2007, 06:37 PM
So, the more I think about the current meta, the more I'm considering creating (or running) a red splash. If the three biggest factors in the new meta are going to be:

1) ETW
2) Goblins
3) Tarmogoyf

then I think the red splash help with all three via Pyroclasm (1 and 2) being able to set Explosives to 0-2 (1, 2, and 3) and FtK (2 and 3 sometimes). It also solves our problem of the 3rd fattie to run along side of Serendib and the Drake. Also, we could drop all the pro:red nonsense for one sided sweepers. Lastly, and I'm not sure of this, but running such a high amount of fatties might allow us to drop a piece of equipment or two.

My problem with the splash has always been getting the mana consistently (especially against Goblins). 4 dual and a Furnace never seemed enough for my taste (see EPICs build back on pg2). The 4 Chrome moxen seemed useless in creating red since you would probably pitch your only red card to it (I think the build ran 6 red cards maindeck). I've always wondered if Mox Diamond could fill a role here. Clearly, we would need more land, which brings me to my next point. I've always missed Faerie Conclaves vs. control. Sweepers like Wrath and Deed smack this deck upside the head. Still, Conclave just sucked against combo and popular aggro decks like Goblins and Red Death. So I'm wondering if Mishra's could fill that role. We don't need more blue sources, but we need more lands to fuel Diamond. (Also Academy Ruins might be worth a test run for bringing back countered Chalices, destroyed equipment, or blown Explosives)

Anyway, this is all speculation. I'll post a rough list so you can suggest things before I go test (especially the mana base).

//Mana (27)
4 Tomb
4 City
6 Fetch
3 Volcanic
1 Island
1 Great Furnace
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox

//Fatties (15)
4 Serendib
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket
3 FtK
(Shoreline Ranger might be worth it here since it can cycle for Volcanics)

//Spells (18)
3 SoFI
3 Jitte
4 FoW
4 Chalice
2 Thirst
1 Explosives
1 Needle


(Hmm, blue count is awful low)

Tacosnape
07-07-2007, 01:37 AM
Two points:

1. I think the ground you gain against control by running Mishra's Factory will similarly be lost by running a heavy land count and dead threats like Flametongue Kavu. I find when I beat control, it's usually because I get threats down fast and get a Chalice at 2 and kill them before they can get the stabilizers they need. Also, Cloud of Faeries being amazing against Edicts helps.

2. I hate not having Cloud of Faeries in this deck. In fact, without Cloud of Faeries, I wouldn't even play blue - I'd just play Dragon Stompy. I find the curve acceleration from Cloud of Faeries is absolutely nutbar ridiculous.

EDIT: Your blue count can actually afford to be slightly lower due to you not using Chrome Mox. 18 is marginal, but vaguely feasible.

Phantom
07-07-2007, 02:03 AM
Yeah, Mox Diamond wasn't working so I bumped up the land count. Testing went ok, but way too many mulligans. Mishra's was suprising (won me games vs both Thresh and Goblins when equipped) but I did miss cloud. Maybe something like this:

// Man (21)
4 Tomb
4 City
4 Fetch
2 Volcanic
2 Island
1 Great Furnace
4 Chrome Mox

// Creatures (21)
4 Serendib
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket
3 FtK
4 CoF
2 Shroreline Rangers

// Spells (18)
4 Fow
4 Chalice
3 SoFI
3 Jitte
1 Needle
1 Explosives
2 TfK

Assuming we don't imprint a red card on a mox (and there is no need to pre board) we still have 4 fetches, 2 duals, 2 islandcyclers, and 4 Trinket mages that can all provide us with red if needed.

Tacosnape
07-07-2007, 04:04 AM
I think that's a significantly better list.

I might consider dropping down to one basic Island for a Volcanic, though. It can be fetched or Islandcycled for (I still don't like Shoreline Ranger, but as long as it's working, what the hey.) and being able to go Cloud/FTK would give you fair chances to kill a 2/3 or 3/4 Tarmogoyf before it got to the point of absuridty (Although sometimes they just come down 4/5, in which case, sucks to be you.)

What would the Red-splash board look like? I would think, off the top of my head, of something along the lines of:

4 Earthquake
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Flametongue Kavu

Though I'm sure this could be tweaked to a degree.

Nihil Credo
07-07-2007, 06:03 AM
When I toyed around with the red splash, I liked Fire//Ice a lot. It's obviously the best Chrome Mox imprint in the world, and Ice is great at buying a turn against board sweepers (essentially a one shot Rishadan Port) as well as turning damage races against 'Goyfs in your favour. The Fire side was less impressive, but it did clear the way for Flametongue Kavu once in a while. And it still pitches to FoW, which is pretty good since it lets you board in Pyroclasm while keeping a high blue count.

Phantom
07-07-2007, 11:23 AM
When I toyed around with the red splash, I liked Fire//Ice a lot. It's obviously the best Chrome Mox imprint in the world, and Ice is great at buying a turn against board sweepers (essentially a one shot Rishadan Port) as well as turning damage races against 'Goyfs in your favour. The Fire side was less impressive, but it did clear the way for Flametongue Kavu once in a while. And it still pitches to FoW, which is pretty good since it lets you board in Pyroclasm while keeping a high blue count.

I thought about this, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I would drop for it.

@Taco: the new list def tested much better. I might drop down to 1 island, and I might drop a Shoreline (since I had no problem getting R). As for the board, do we really need 4 Crypts? Seems like a lot with Trinkets, and we can't even board them in against Thresh anymore. Love the earthquakes though, since we can board them in against almost any aggro and most combo. Red does open us up to the world of artifact destruction. Shattering Spree is out due to Chalice we would need RR, but Smash is still solid. I'm not sure if we need it though, as Explosives (which were fantastic against 'goyf) may already be filling that role.

Once I get a set list and board, I'll do some hard testing.

Eldariel
07-07-2007, 11:38 AM
I thought about this, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I would drop for it.

@Taco: the new list def tested much better. I might drop down to 1 island, and I might drop a Shoreline (since I had no problem getting R). As for the board, do we really need 4 Crypts? Seems like a lot with Trinkets, and we can't even board them in against Thresh anymore. Love the earthquakes though, since we can board them in against almost any aggro and most combo. Red does open us up to the world of artifact destruction. Shattering Spree is out due to Chalice we would need RR, but Smash is still solid. I'm not sure if we need it though, as Explosives (which were fantastic against 'goyf) may already be filling that role.

Once I get a set list and board, I'll do some hard testing.

Who has ever supported boarding 4 Crypts? Heck, I'm occasionally thinking, 2 is too many. Crypt is a dead draw a lot even against decks you want it in so you really just want to Trinket Mage into it. If anything, play more Needles to enable something like Chill against red decks. Seriously though, I'd keep the number of Trinketable cards low as Trinket already makes them readily available (Needle might be an exception since you tend to want multiples in some MUs. Crypt you generally need no more than two of due to your clock and EE should probably increase in numbers given a second colour and thus stronger EEs.

The SB-space is still valuable for all the untutorable cards, since due to the low amount of draw-effects, you tend to want them as 3-4 ofs, so keeping the tutorables low in numbers is pretty important just to open up the space.

coma
07-11-2007, 06:51 AM
@Eldariel:Do you think the fourth trinket fundamental is?I play,in this period, with your old creatures configuration (17 creatures with only 3 mage).When I play with four mage I feel the deck too slow and clusmy.Mage is a fantastic tutor ,but I consider it a B plane for chalice ,because we lose one turn for each trinket in the stax plane .I play with one tfk more, and I feel the deck very functional, especially in beat factor.With 4 mages we exasperate stax component ,but , in my opinion, we lose the speed beatdown.
Bye

BullBar
07-29-2007, 11:19 AM
Greets from the Sydney scrubland.

In all the threads on this deck I've seen, no-one has been using Zuran Orb as a trinket target. There must be a good reason why its bad which I'm yet to pick up on. Anyone care to fill me in?

In the meantime, the deck has seen a lot of play in my team over the last 18 months or so. We can barely imagine the deck without it. Of course, the concern is that you use it then you're stuffed. Things don't seem to work out that way. I find that once you have a dude equipped, you just win most conceivable damage races from there with the ZOrb on your side. Synergies with the SDrake and Cities exist too, and recurring a Seat with Academy Ruins (more antipodean tech?) was a cute happenstance.

If indeed none have actually tried Zuran Orb, I would be honoured if you would include a copy sideboard for damage race matchups and report your views on it's performance. It really is IMHO a prime trinket target.

The team also trialled Tradewind Rider in the board. Pretty funny stuff, and actually solves all sorts of random jank a varied metagame can throw at you, like Reanimator and Survival based decks. More modern versions of this deck seem lighter on creatures though; it may not be viable or appropriate in more refined metas.

Tacosnape
07-29-2007, 11:51 AM
In all the threads on this deck I've seen, no-one has been using Zuran Orb as a trinket target. There must be a good reason why its bad which I'm yet to pick up on. Anyone care to fill me in?


Actually, I've been using a single Zuran Orb in the sideboard for a few weeks now. I had the same thought you guys did. Given that your guys fly and theirs probably don't, damage races are far more common with FS than most decks, and FS tends to lose them by about 2-3 life points more often than not. Zuran Orb fixes that. It's also bizarrely useful while playing Sea Drakes or when you're about to lose a City of Traitors. I think it's turned out to be a quality sideboard addition.

Phantom
07-29-2007, 12:18 PM
Actually, I've been using a single Zuran Orb in the sideboard for a few weeks now. I had the same thought you guys did. Given that your guys fly and theirs probably don't, damage races are far more common with FS than most decks, and FS tends to lose them by about 2-3 life points more often than not. Zuran Orb fixes that. It's also bizarrely useful while playing Sea Drakes or when you're about to lose a City of Traitors. I think it's turned out to be a quality sideboard addition.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED (but interested) to hear this! I used to run an Orb in the board, and on the occasions that I did board it in (mostly against Rifter!), I almost never fetched it. In fact, this was back when I ran a 'thopter too, and it affected the damage race almost as much as orb, and was actually useful in other situations.

Off the top of my head, here are the mathups where i would board in Orb:
Burn (almost a bye anyway, and Trinket is going for Chalice)
Red death (ditto on Chalice)
Goblins (Trinket usually goes for Chalice, Needle, or EE, but I could see Orb paying dividends here)
Red Thresh (maybe?)

The biggest problem I found was that Orb was almost always coming off a Mage, and the Mage itself was usually enough of a stall as a chump blocker (often equipped) that i would win the damage race in the air (Goblins was often the exception).

I'd be more than happy to listen to more dbate on the subject and even give it a test whirl in any matchups where it has been found strong.

ParkerLewis
07-29-2007, 05:03 PM
Hello all,

I've tried & played FS for a few weeks a few months ago (posting mostly on scg). I'm still mono-u, probably because i'm not up-to-date with the latest developments the deck might have gone through since then, but here's the list :

// Lands
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
8 [P3] Island (1)
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors

// Creatures
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
4 [P2] Sea Drake
4 [R] Serendib Efreet
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
4 [DS] Juggernaut
4 [FUT] Maelstrom Djinn

// Spells
1 [SOK] Pithing Needle
2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 3 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [UD] Powder Keg
SB: 1 [IA] Zuran Orb

Explaining a few of the choices I made :
-no tfk/additional draw other than sofi. Since the very early first games i played with the deck i had always found myself not limited by the number of cards i could draw, but simply by the raw mana capacity to play them all, even with all the pitch cards. thus, the sofi alone are largely enough to fit any need of additional cards i might have.

-i've always stuck to 4-of CoF. Basically for the same reason as before : the deck is ALWAYS in need of mana. CoF is just a godsend everytime i see one, basically always allowing me to play one additional in the same turn, be it a piece of equipment, or equipping a creature, or even playing a juggernaut.

-Juggernauts. I tried cutting them, but in the end, i always found them too brutal not to play them (they don't need any equipment). especially since they're so easy to play with a CoF.

-Maelstrom Djinn : that's actually far from a definite choice. Its prons are its raw power even unequipped, its cons are its very intensive mana cost to get online at full power - it basically costs you two turns of investment. On the other hand, he can still attack the turn after you first started investing for it, like a regular creature would. I guess you should read the card as 2U with Echo (except you can decide to pay the Echo cost anytime, with card being more vulnerable till you do). But i'm seriously considering cutting it for aquamoeba - a fine idea i discovered reading the thread, for its flexibility, and also lower mana requirements, which is always a good thing for the deck.

-no other kind of looter/whatever : tried every of those, hated every of those. shadow is horrible as you want to be able to block ; extra card draw is not what the deck needs most (it's mana, mana, mana).

The sideboard itself isn't very tuned, it's just what i used to play with one tweak (the Zuran Orb one, being another great idea i found in the thread).

I'd be very glad to hear what you think of this list, and any comments/suggestions/possible updates is of course appreciated.

insertnamehere
07-29-2007, 07:26 PM
I tried the Maelstrom but felt it required too much to keep it out. I definetly think it could eventually fit into some deck that relies on Trickbind for other reasons also.

SuckerPunch
07-31-2007, 01:35 AM
Maelstrom is great without Trickbind too. 10 damage is a lot.

What do you guys think of the Phyrexian Dreadnought + Trickbind combo?

You could run 1 Dreadnought since it can be tutored with Trinket Mage.

And you could run 4 Trickbind or Stifle to get rid of the CIP ability.

They are good against combo and lands too.

Here is a list ripped off of another very aggresive list I saw here...

// Lands
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
8 [TS] Island
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors

// Creatures
4 [FS] Infiltrator il-Kor
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
4 [RV] Serendib Efreet
4 [P2] Sea Drake
4 [FS] Maelstrom Djinn
1 [RV] Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 [SK] Pithing Needle

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [TS] Trickbind
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
3 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
2 [BK] Umezawa's Jitte

Do you think the Dreadnought has potential. A 12/12 trampler is nothing to sneeze at. And Trickbind combined with the Chalices gives you an autowin versus storm combo and is great with Maelstrom Djinn and against Deed and lots of other cards too.

Judge_Julez
07-31-2007, 09:57 PM
What do you guys think of the Phyrexian Dreadnought + Trickbind combo?
You could run 1 Dreadnought since it can be tutored with Trinket Mage.
And you could run 4 Trickbind or Stifle to get rid of the CIP ability.
They are good against combo and lands too.


That's awesome, I love it

Last Month, I finished 2nd in our local Manchester_UK tourney

R1 vs Goblins 2-0
R2 vs Goblins 2-1
R3 vs Gro/Burn 0-2

I was running 3 Weatherseed Faeries, which helped the match-up vs Goblins; but I can see that Maelstrom Djinn IS powerful with the stifle effect :smile:

I also chose to run 4xCounterbalance & 1xTop - which really doesnt work due to the expensive spells in the deck. :cry: Nix would have been better

This build is far more in line with the aggressive nature of the deck; and I think STIFLE (or TRICKBIND) would help against Fetchlands and Goblin Ringleader.
It would clearly assist in stopping BELCHER and IMPERIAL RECRUITER :smile:

I never saw the 1x Misdirection so that can be dropped for the Dreadnought
___

What do players think of 4xPropoganda in the board? It worked for me, but I accept there may be better plays

What do players think of Nix as a suitable counterspell in the environment ?
(Pyrokinesis is no fun when it clears off your SEA_DRAKE and CLOUD_OF_FAERIES in one fell swoop)

Tacosnape
07-31-2007, 10:14 PM
Yeah, I've got Stifle sitting in my Faerie Stompy board. It's a general godsend to assist combo in a world where Chalice and Force alone don't cut it, and I can't think of a Combo deck where I set Chalice to 1. It's usually 0 and 2 I want.

Mehioch
08-11-2007, 06:18 AM
Hi, I need help with my faerie stompy list from more experienced Legacy players.
(Yes, it's my first post and I am a total Legacy noob, not much legacy tournaments in SA.)

My list (Tinkerbell/Tinkerbomb):
// Lands
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
1 [TS] Island
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [R ] Tundra
4 [ON] Flooded Strand

// Creatures
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
4 [RV] Serendib Efreet
4 [P2] Sea Drake
4 [FD] Auriok Salvagers

// Trinket Toolbox
1 [SK] Pithing Needle
1 [MR] Aether Spellbomb
1 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [DS] Sword of Light and Shadow
3 [DS] Echoing Truth
3 [MR] Thirst for Knowledge

Questions:
1) Sideboard strategy?
2) Is Auriok Salvagers worth the white splash?
3) Should I add Sword to Plowshares?
4) Isn't sword of light and shadow >> sword of fire and ice in this deck?

Thanks for any advice.

Nihil Credo
08-11-2007, 08:31 AM
Mixing Salvagers with Faerie Stompy seems interesting, if incredibly dangerous with Chalice, so... why not put in 1 Pyrite Spellbomb (cutting an Echoing Truth maybe) so you have access to the infi-damage combo? Lion's Eye Diamond provides the necessary colour (make infi white mana, then infi red mana). If you draw the Spellbomb without the rest of the combo, it still cycles.

Also, SoFI is much better than SoLS because the former increases your clock twice as much and provides much needed card draw. Faerie Stompy is almost always the aggressor, so lifegain is only needed against similarly fast decks which can race, but against those decks you're better off with pro-red guys. And the Shadow ability is not very hot when Swords to Plowshares is the most common removal in the format.

VsTheWorld
08-11-2007, 07:42 PM
Since my friend/member of our unofficial team won 4 Volcanic Islands at the 4x Sea Drake tourney last month, I've decided to try out the red splash. Here's the list I've been testing for the past few weeks.

// Deck file for Magic Workstation
//NAME: U/r Faerie Stompy

// Lands
1 Great Furnace
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb

// Creatures
4 Trinket Mage
4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Flametongue Kavu
2 Weatherseed Faeries
2 Shoreline Ranger

// Spells
1 Pithing Needle
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Force of Will
3 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Flametongue Kavu
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 Earthquake
SB: 3 Trickbind
SB: 3 Winter Orb
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt

While my testing has been admittedly limited, I've generally been very pleased with the splash. The debatable slots in my list are the 2 MD Weatherseeds and the SB Trickbinds. For as long as I've been playing FS, I haven't been overly happy with Thirst for Knowledge. I'd almost always rather be drawing threats than drawing a draw spell. While obviously not efficient at 2U for a 2/1 flying guy, the Weatherseeds certainly help in a Goblin-heavy meta. Pro-red + Jitte = win vs Gobs. Pro-red combined with the often-played Chalice @1 means they are immune to all the most common removal.

I chose to include Trickbind over Stifle in the board mostly because of Chalice, but this slot is still up for debate and I'm certainly open to any suggestions. For budget reasons, I'd rather not buy another Pithing Needle, and I might be tweaking the Volcanic and fetch count because of card availability.

mostlyharmless
08-12-2007, 05:27 PM
The one addition I dont seem to have seen here, but I have just added to my build, is one copy of O-Naginata.

I was running 1 copy of Cursed Scroll, but largely found it to be subotimal.

Here is the build I'm running now:

4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Volcanic Island
1 Great Furnace
7 Island

1 Pithing Needle
4 Chrome Mox
1 O-Naginata
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Chalice of the Void

4 Force of Will
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Fire // Ice

4 Trinket Mage
4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Cloud of Faeries
3 Infiltrator Il-Kor

Sideboard:
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Misdirection
2 Pithing Needle
3 Weatherseed Faeries
4 Stifle
3 Leyline of the Void

I'm probably going to cut the Leylines for a Crypt and 2 more answer cards, not sure what yet tho. Maybe Flametonge Kavu?

Nihil Credo
08-12-2007, 06:13 PM
I stumbled upon an idea that shows great potential in testing, especially because it significantly improves the difficult Control matchup:

Momentary Blink.

1) It counters TWO pieces of spot removal
2) It lets you unmorph Exalted Angel for 1W/3U instead of 2WW
3) It lets you keep Maelstrom Djinn around forever
4) It has synergy with Thirst for Knowledge
5) It has synergy with Trinket Mage
6) The dissynergy with Sea Drake is not as backbreaking as I feared

With that in mind, here is my list:

// Lands
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [PR] Tundra
1 [MR] Ancient Den
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
4 [ON] Flooded Strand

// Creatures
3 [FUT] Maelstrom Djinn
4 [P2] Sea Drake
4 [AN] Serendib Efreet
3 [ON] Exalted Angel
3 [FD] Trinket Mage

// Spells
3 [TSP] Momentary Blink
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [PR] Force of Will
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
3 [MR] Thirst for Knowledge
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte

You may have noticed I cut Cloud of Faeries. The truth is, Momentary Blink does make the deck slower (hence, incidentally, the re-inclusion of TfK). I consider this a necessary evil to enjoy the anti-Control benefits of the splash; fortunately, White offers some pretty interesting anti-Aggro SB options, to counteract the diminished ability to race (-4 Chalice, +4 StP?).

You will definitely have noticed that this list is 61 cards. I'm still in doubt about where to make the final cut, since each of the previous ones was more painful than the last.

mostlyharmless
08-12-2007, 06:19 PM
I stumbled upon an idea that shows great potential in testing, especially because it significantly improves the difficult Control matchup:

Momentary Blink.

6) It has some synergy with Jitte (chumpblock to get counters, then Blink and the creature lives)



The creature has to be in play when damage is dealt to get counters, post-blink it is a different creature and unequipped.. so you will not get jitte counters.

just an FYI

Nihil Credo
08-12-2007, 06:38 PM
The creature has to be in play when damage is dealt to get counters, post-blink it is a different creature and unequipped.. so you will not get jitte counters.

just an FYI
Duly noted. For some reason I thought it fell under LKI (Last Known Information) and so the game would remember that the damage had been dealt by the Jitte's equippee.

mostlyharmless
08-12-2007, 07:08 PM
Jitte has a clause that states "when equipped creature deals damage" so if for some reason the creature is no longer equipped when damage is dealt, the ability wont trigger.. part of why Sakura tribe elder was SO good in Chk Block/T2.

Nihil Credo
08-12-2007, 07:18 PM
Jitte has a clause that states "when equipped creature deals damage" so if for some reason the creature is no longer equipped when damage is dealt, the ability wont trigger.. part of why Sakura tribe elder was SO good in Chk Block/T2.
Actually, STE was a good Jitte-blocker because of the "dealt damage" part, not the "equipped creature". With Blink, damage is dealt (unlike with STE), it's just that Jitte's equipped creature (that is, no creature) is not the source of the damage.

But that's enough OT for today. I've got to go back to testing Blink. Let me know if you try it.

Happy Gilmore
08-14-2007, 06:31 PM
In the current metagame wouldn't 1x Crypt in the MD be such a beating?

mostlyharmless
08-14-2007, 10:23 PM
a MD Crypt would be nice, but I'm not sure what to drop to fit it in.

suggestions?

Sidenote: some goldfish testing shows that O-naginata is brutal... i'll be playing in an actual event at the end of this month and will let you know how it works out in practice.

Hatthehat
08-14-2007, 11:02 PM
Drop the O-naginata crypt is alot better.

coma
08-20-2007, 08:54 AM
I have a question.
In a not much red metagame ,can I use like equippe 4 jitte and 3 SoFI? I feel the jitte easy to cast and more complete ,because enable to make up for lost time ,when we are disadvantage on the race.
I have this doubt , because I've see no one use the equippe in this way.
bye

Taurelin
08-20-2007, 09:15 AM
The thing is, because Jitte is legendary, extra copies often sit uselessly in your hand, while multiple SoFis are never a a bad thing.

Another point is that I often like setting Chalice @2.

zulander
08-21-2007, 12:09 PM
What are some of the most recent lists? I'm interested in putting this deck together but modifing it with some crazy cards and I'd like to know what the core of the deck is. I'd use the list in the original post but I doubt that cloud of faerie's is still used today.

cheddercaveman
08-21-2007, 12:34 PM
Actually, I wouldn't say that using cloud of faeries is bad, it lets you cheat a guy into play and untap some big mana, you could play it, a SOFI and equip all in the same turn potentially, thats pretty solid (ditto for jitte). And late game it cycles, also solid.

However, I too would be interested in seeing a new list. I know there is a lot of talk of guys like Maelstrom Djinn, some shadow guys, etc.

Kronicler
08-21-2007, 03:53 PM
The core of the deck would be this:

4x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
4x Chrome Mox
1x Seat of the Synod
8x Island

4x Sea Drake
4x Serendib Efreet
4x Trinket Mage

4x Chalice of the Void
4x Sword of Fire and Ice
3x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Force of Will

After that there are many choices. Most people play 4x Cloud of Faeries because they speed the deck up a lot (Turn 1: Tomb, Mox, Drake. Turn 2: Island, Cloud of Faeries, play SoFi and equip it to drake, swing for 7) and can always cycle if their acceleration is unneeded. You can add another island (which most people do), you can add the 4th Jitte, you can put a number of <2 cost artifacts in the main to tutor for with trinket (Needle being the most common followed by EE, Crypt, and loads of other stuff), you can add card draw (usually in the form of TFK, FoF, or Looter il-Kor), you can add removal (psi blast), you can add more threats (Juggernaut, Maelstrom Djinn, etc), and you can even add another color (White for Blink, MM, and Exhalted Angel I think, Black for E Plague and Negator, Red for Pyroclasm and FTK).

Kronicler

zulander
08-21-2007, 04:03 PM
Awesome, thanks!
Quick question though, have people tried mox diamond/crucible in the place of chrome mox?

And is the green splash viable for goyf/k. grip and cards like iwomari?

Phantom
08-21-2007, 04:23 PM
I have tried Mox Diamond to terrible results (sadly). I really don't think a green splash it the way to go (Iwomari is out of the question as it is GG). Red gives you a bit more with Ftk, clasm, and artifact answers.

Answering Goyf also becomes much easier as Trinkets can now fetch a deadly Explosives, Ftk can sometimes nab him (since we don't put much in the yard) and there is always some version of control magic coming out of the board.

White splashed for meddling mage, Angel etc. were never all that successful. A black splash offers Negator, Rend Flesh, and Plague out of the board. I've never tried it though.

zulander
08-21-2007, 04:30 PM
What would the manabase of a splash look like? Fetches and duals instead of 8 islands?

Also, have you ever had FtK sitting in your hand against storm combo because he'd kill one of your guys? Would Covetous Dragon be a feasible creature with the red splash?

Phantom
08-21-2007, 05:02 PM
I tried this:
4 Tomb
4 City
6 Fetch
3 Volcanic
1 Island
1 Great Furnace
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox

and it didn't work AT ALL. The factories were solid, but nothing else worked. This did the job better:

4 Tomb
4 City
4 Fetch
2 Volcanic
2 Island
1 Great Furnace
4 Chrome Mox

zulander
08-21-2007, 07:17 PM
Nice. Here's the build that I'm contemplating.

Mana: 22
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Seat of Synod
1 Great Furnace
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Chrome Mox

Creatures: 19
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Trinket Mage
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
3 Flametounge Kavu


Control: 8
4 FoW
4 Chalice of the Void

Draw: 3
3 Thirst for Knowledge

Trinket Toolbox: 3
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt

Equipment: 5
3 Sord of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard: 15
4 Trickbind
4 Echoing Truth/Pyroclasm
3 artifact hate.
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle


With the addition of fetches + SoFI + TfK the late game is amazing and the card advantage starts to add up. Against combo Trickbind is amazing because of it's split second and gets around chalice @ 1. I'm still debating Pyroclasm/E.Truth. Is there anything that I missed?

Bovinious
08-21-2007, 07:19 PM
Umm wheres Brainstorm?

zulander
08-21-2007, 07:22 PM
Umm wheres Brainstorm?
I'm not so sure brainstorm is better than TFK in this deck, usually it's an autoinclude though.

Bovinious
08-21-2007, 07:26 PM
Yeah I really dont know either, I just assumed it was an auto include in any deck with Islands. I'd wager it is better tho because TFK only seems good when you have tomb/city to cast it, which wont be always. On the other hand, its be so cool to play TFK and FTK in the same deck

Phantom
08-21-2007, 07:40 PM
LOL. You guys don't play much FS, do you.

CHALICE @1!!! We cast it more than any deck ever has. We want to cast it turn 1. Otherwise, we want to FIND it turn one (or at least drop a fattie). We live it. We love it. we learn it. We run NO one drops (except the occasional 1 Needle).

Also, we don't (usually) run fetches to take advantage of Brainstorm and when we do there are very few.

And our draw spells are usually not for card quality, they are for refilling our hands after we dumped them all over the board.

Bovinious
08-21-2007, 08:51 PM
That makes a lot of sense actually, I even said I didnt know but just assumed it should be an auto include in any blue deck, but apparently not here b/c of Chalice.

Phantom
08-21-2007, 09:42 PM
That makes a lot of sense actually, I even said I didnt know but just assumed it should be an auto include in any blue deck, but apparently not here b/c of Chalice.

No biggie. It use to happen all the time, but now it's rare since the deck sees a lot more play.

Oh, and as to the holding an Ftk vs. combo with another creature down, if you look at the splash build (check out the bottom of pg 8 for my build) it's really not a big deal. Either you have a piece of equipment, in which case you just go with the creature on the board, or the creature on the board is a fattie (Drake or Efreet) in which you just go with the creature on the board, or it is a Cloud or Trinket. That is the only real time there is a decision to be made, and you usually just drop the Ftk for the better clock. It really doesn't come up as much as you'd think. Postboard you can board in Trickbinds, BEBs, REBs, Crypts, Needles, Explosives, Clasms, whatever you need (and are packing).

zulander
08-21-2007, 10:04 PM
I'd like to fit SoFI # 4 in the deck along with TFK #4. Any suggestions as to what I should take out? I just love both of them so much in the deck.

Phantom
08-21-2007, 10:28 PM
I'd like to fit SoFI # 4 in the deck along with TFK #4. Any suggestions as to what I should take out? I just love both of them so much in the deck.

Drop the Needle and a Shoreline maybe? If Goblins is truly on the run, then def pack as many Thirsts in as possible. The reason I dopped down to 6 pieces of equipment, is because while you would like to see one, you would rather see 0 than 2. This build has 13 creatures that stand on their own as significant beaters. Every piece of equipment opens us up to card disadvantage if we cannot sustain a beater (which control and aggro control decks do to us). Still, I will never argue vehemently against a fourth sword.

zulander
08-21-2007, 10:40 PM
What's a shoreline? Do you mean a fetch? Also, what list are you running? Are you splashing anything?

Bovinious
08-21-2007, 11:08 PM
Shoreline ranger is that Islandcycling guy.

zulander
08-21-2007, 11:17 PM
Shoreline ranger is that Islandcycling guy.
Yeah, but I'm not playing him in my deck. I think he might have meant a fetch since both of them have shorelines in the pictures. Lol copenhaver, we're like total noobs in this thread. Maybe I should just stick to gagomy lol.

Taurelin
08-22-2007, 01:05 AM
I am currently working with a sort of mini-splash for one single reason: To be more flexible in the application of Engineered Explosives. There are just too many cards around @CC2 that I like to get rid of (Goofy, Confidant, Nantuko, Counterbalance, Grunts, Meddling Mages, enemy Jitte etc.).

The card I'm experimenting at the moment is this:

Minister of Impediments (http://magiccards.info/di/en/144.html)

Though he's a rather unspectacular beater (beater?), he offers some advantages:

+ He's two-coloured, but being a Hybrid Card you don't need to change your landbase at all.
+ His CC is 3, with only one colured mana required. That means he fits neatly into the Island/Mox + City/Tomb manacurve.
+ When imprinted in a Chrome Mox, you get your second colour for EE.
+ He pitches to FoW.
+ His ability can be useful vs. many cards, reading: "T: Target Tarmogoyf/Exalted Angel/Mishra's Factory can't attack this turn" or even better "T: Target flying creature can't block your SoFi-equipped Sea Drake this turn".

- No evasion.
- Only 1/1.
- Can't tap a Piledriver (Prot Blue).

What do you think about the idea?

zulander
08-22-2007, 05:50 AM
The black splash can also bring you Moroii as well as negator. It seems to me 18-22 is the correct number of creatures, and anything beyond that seems overkill correct?

Also, the white splash just got another flier.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=55597&d=1187737750
Galepowder Mage
Creature - Kithkin Wizard 3w
Flying
Whenever Galepowder Mage attacks, remove another target creature from the game. Return that card to play under its owner's control at end of turn.
3/3
Seems like this would be strong if you wanted to remove on of their blockers and swing for the win or just get through with a SoFI. Thoughts?

Maveric78f
08-22-2007, 06:23 AM
Faerie stompy is not a control deck don't start running (bad) control creatures.

Ringleader does not have problue. You meant pilly I guess.

Galepowder mage would be insteresting for the come into play effects such as for the trinket mage but also for the clouds of faeries. However it's 4CC and in another colour. That's really a pain.

If you think that Tarmogoyf is too powerful to gain advantage of the field in early games against threshold, just play more control magics cards (control magic, binding grasp, mind harness, threads of disloyalty, Govern the Guildless, Keiga, the Tide Star, ray of command, Seasinger, Thalakos Deceiver, Treachery, Dream Leash, ...) even main deck. If it's still not enough, just abandon the deck and sell your sea drakes.

Taurelin
08-22-2007, 06:38 AM
Faerie stompy is not a control deck don't start running (bad) control creatures.

Hm. Chalice, Force, Needle and the like make it a Hybrid. You can explode with a 2md turn equipped beater, or start with Chalice @1 Blocking your opponent's early game. This flexibility is one of the deck's strengths, imho.




Ringleader does not have problue. You meant pilly I guess.


Piledriver, sure. Sry for the temporal confusion.



If you think that Tarmogoyf is too powerful to gain advantage of the field in early games against threshold, just play more control magics cards ... even main deck. If it's still not enough, just abandon the deck and sell your sea drakes.

As I said above, EE @2 not only helps vs Tarmo.

mikekelley
08-22-2007, 06:44 AM
With goblins on the decline the fact that he can't tap piledriver isn't that huge of a deal anyway.

Nihil Credo
08-22-2007, 08:40 AM
I am mildly content with Momentary Blink, I'd love to try out the Galepowder Mage.

zulander
08-22-2007, 10:08 AM
I am mildly content with Momentary Blink, I'd love to try out the Galepowder Mage.

He seems great where your opponent has fliers and you need to push through some SoFI damage, or if you want to have TfK/FoW mana open. The only problem is if your opponent doesn't have any creatures in play and all you have is a beater. I think he's definitely going to be tested though. Also, has anyone tried out stonecloaker or aven mindcensor?

EDIT: Has crystal vein been tested over say city of traitors?

Phantom
08-22-2007, 01:02 PM
@Zulander: I did mean Shoreline Ranger. I was telling you what to drop out of my list. Did you post a list? I can't tell you what to drop unless you do (just point it out if I missed it). And I would almost always run Shoreline in any splash since it can get you an island or a dual (like a fetch) or can be pitched to Mox/Force. It's extremely versatile.

And Crystal Vein is terrible here. 90% of out deck is 2U or 3 meaning a first turn Mox and City or Island and second turn City and we are set. It also has savage synergy with Sea Drake.

@Momentary Blink: Interesting card. Awful here. First, where are we going to run it? Second, now we have to have an extra 1W open in order to cast our creature spells? This deck DOES NOT like leaving mana open. AND it knocks our equipment (and with it the protection) off AND it's useless without a creature on the board (we already run enough cards like that) AND it's flashback cost is prohibitive AND it won't let us save out critter and get Jitte counters. Why would we not run creatures or draw in this slot instead?

Galepowder mage seems worth testing. There are a few thinbgs I'm not crazy about (removing Goblins can be dangerous, his cc, his boltableness, etc). In my white splash, I liked Court Hussar. I like that he digs up his own equipment (and he is an AMAZING carrier) or digs up a replacement, doesn't require white (just benefits from it) and pitches to Force.

zulander
08-22-2007, 01:12 PM
@Zulander: I did mean Shoreline Ranger. I was telling you what to drop out of my list. Did you post a list? I can't tell you what to drop unless you do (just point it out if I missed it). And I would almost always run Shoreline in any splash since it can get you an island or a dual (like a fetch) or can be pitched to Mox/Force. It's extremely versatile.


I posted a list on the page before this (at least I think I did). Also where's the list you're currently running? After some boredom at work I came up with another list though, and it seems a little more consistent.

Mana: 22
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Volcanic Island
2 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Furnace
4 Chrome Mox

Creatures: 18
4 Cloud of Faerie's
4 Trinket Mage
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
2 Flametongue Kavu

Control: 10
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 EE

WMD's: 7
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Draw: 3
3 Thirst for Knowledge

Sideboard: 15
4 Trickbind
4 Earthquake/Pyroclasm/Echoing Truth
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 EE
2 Pithing Needle
1 FtK

I think adding the 4th SoFI instead of the 4th TfK is a little better because SoFI wins the game, and if it just connects a couple of times it'll generate more card advantage. I also like the red splash mainly for the burn in the board. However, is quake better than pyroclasm? The pain it inflicts on you could be major, I've noticed I do more killing myself then other decks do to me.

On another note, I've done some testing with mox diamond and it's worked well with 20 lands. I took out 1 SoFI and a jitte and added the 4th fetch and 2nd Island. You can run it with 19 lands barely though, and I'd recommend the 20 lands, I know some people also want some manlands in here and I think diamond > chrome at that point.

Phantom
08-22-2007, 02:02 PM
On another note, I've done some testing with mox diamond and it's worked well with 20 lands. I took out 1 SoFI and a jitte and added the 4th fetch and 2nd Island. You can run it with 19 lands barely though, and I'd recommend the 20 lands, I know some people also want some manlands in here and I think diamond > chrome at that point.

TRUST ME IT DOES NOT WORK. I did a ton of goldfishing with Diamond, and the mulligan rate, which is already fairly high, skyrocketed. FS loves its one City or Tomb, one Mox hands. Now they become unplayable. Trust me, I couldn't even make it work with 26 lands!

As for Thirst vs.Sword, they are both solid. I might lean toward Thirst these days since it is better vs Aggro Contol (and control) while Sword is better against aggro.

My list is the last post on pg 8.

deadlock
08-22-2007, 04:52 PM
I really like the idea of Aven Mindcensor, but i dont see how to rework the manabase to warrant a second colour without making you too vulnerable.

I thought about Magus of the Moon too, he would be nuts if you somehow can work in the red splash with the consequences he brings.

zulander
08-22-2007, 07:09 PM
The manabase I'm playing right now doesn't have too many problems, but then again I only play 2 FtK. If you run into a ton of wastes just take out the 4th volc for the 2nd island.

Hatthehat
08-22-2007, 08:10 PM
Did anyone try testing spir4e golem he looks good but I don't know.

zulander
08-22-2007, 09:37 PM
Most of the time you're only going to have about 2 islands in play, and so he'll usually cost 4 for a 2/4 flier which isn't that great. with 3 islands in play he'll cost 3, in which case he's ok but not great. These are best case scenario's too :(

B0W53R
08-23-2007, 08:37 AM
Other than the mana base, the only other thing that irritates me with this deck is one of its greatest strengths as well. The ability to dump your entire hand by turn 3 or 4 and find yourself in topdeck mode. If you have an active Sword of Fire and Ice then you can keep rolling (and probably win), but the other option that seems rather universal is Thirst for Knowledge. For the most part, I don't play TFK untill my hand is very low since that means I'm out of threats and toys (if it wasn't pitched to something earlier). If the initial onslaught is haulted, it's up to TFK and top deck skills to come up with another threat.

I've been questioning TFKs overall usefullness in this spot though, especially when you don't have an artifact to pitch. When that happens, you get a subpar Brainstorm for :3: and no true card advantage. The fact that TFK is an instant is really not that important unless you are saving mana to possibly hard cast a Force but don't, and then play TFK at the EOT, so I looked at possible sorceries. One card that caught my eye was Breakthrough. I laughed at first but started thinking it might not be so bad in the TFK spot.

If played as the last card in hand and you pay just as much as TFK, you draw four and discard two which I'd say is better then TFK and only gets better if you happen to have more than :3: available. If you happen to have one or two cards in your hand and would rather play TFK/Breakthrough than whats in your hand, its probably crap at that point anyways. I haven't tried it yet and could easily be trippin, but what do you guys think?

zulander
08-23-2007, 09:10 AM
I play thirst usually after I play a beater and an equipment, especially if I have a cloud of faeries in play, because after thirst resolves most of the time I'll attack and then play efreet/drake #2 to block and go on the offensive the next turn. If you're waiting until after you've emptied your hand to play TfK then you're probably playing the card a turn or two late, or you are playing 1 too many. I could see cutting it down to a 3 of from 4 if you'd rather play the threat first.

cheddercaveman
08-23-2007, 09:47 AM
I really like the idea of Aven Mindcensor, but i dont see how to rework the manabase to warrant a second colour without making you too vulnerable.

I thought about Magus of the Moon too, he would be nuts if you somehow can work in the red splash with the consequences he brings.

You need enemy colored fetch lands, that'd how you'd work out Magus of the Moon. We don't have those at the moment. However, try out Back to Basics, should wreck similar havok out there. Threshold and Fish and so forth would be pretty sad to see that guy.

zulander
08-23-2007, 09:50 AM
You need enemy colored fetch lands, that'd how you'd work out Magus of the Moon.
No you don't need enemy fetchlands, because you don't need to run a basic mountain. A couple of blue fetches and 3 volcanics will do the trick fine, add in a great furnace so you can always get red with trinket mage and you're in business.

blacklotus3636
08-24-2007, 03:29 AM
I have to admit thirst for knowledge is by far one of the weakest slots in the deck and as someone else has discovered being an instant doesn't really matter. Infact, I was almost always casting thirst as a sorcery because I wanted to play whatever I drew. So perhaps we should look into sorcery speed card draw since the stronger draw effects are sorcories anyway. Someone suggested breakthrough which isn't terrible if your hand is close to empty when casting it but it doesn't seem so hot in any other situation for this deck. I was thinking of something along the lines of tidings or compulsive research. Tidings seems fun but generating double blue(or double anything) in this deck seems rough. Any suggestions?

Tacosnape
08-24-2007, 03:55 AM
Ancestral Vision comes to mind for those times where we don't get an amazing start but have a playable hand. It lets us in effect have a one drop: Island, suspend Ancestral Vision, go.

zulander
08-24-2007, 07:14 AM
Visions also gives your opponent 3 turns to find a counterspell though.

deadlock
08-24-2007, 07:24 AM
And its a terrible topdeck too.
The problem with TfK is that it only really shines with something like Goblin Welder imo.
What do you guys think about Fact of Fiction or Foresee?

zulander
08-24-2007, 09:25 AM
And its a terrible topdeck too.
The problem with TfK is that it only really shines with something like Goblin Welder imo.
What do you guys think about Fact of Fiction or Foresee?
Fact is good when you're looking for one card, not when you want to refill your hand. I'll test foresee out, but right now I love the 4 thirsts that I have in the deck.

Eldariel
08-24-2007, 09:41 AM
Breakthrough actually isn't a horrible idea. While it doesn't allow you to keep an early hand, in midgame it can be used to basically draw 4. The scaleability added to the ability to maintain an advantage is pretty sweet. Oath of Scholars is another ancient idea I've tested occasionally, and it looks alright, but there're the cases where you've got a handful of stuff. Breakthrough at least warrants testing.

Fact is occasionally played, but being able to discard bad cards is the good feature of Thirst. Meh.

zulander
08-24-2007, 09:48 AM
The thought of Foresee allowing you to dig fo 6 cards seems really good right now, but FoF allows you to dig 5 cards at instant speed, however your opponents gets the 411 of your hand which can be bad.

SuckerPunch
08-24-2007, 09:41 PM
As has been said before, I think both Foresee and Compulsive Research are great options.

The problem with TfK is that you even when you have an artifact in hand, most times, it's a card that you don't want to have to discard.

But with Research, if you have the mana to cast Research already, you could make due with dumpign a land. Well worth drawign 3 new cards.

Foresee is similar in that respect givign you cards you catucally need.

Galroth
08-27-2007, 04:38 AM
Has the possibility of Standstill been discussed?

I have no experience with Faerie Stompy beyond a proxied list and a couple of goldfish experiences. So blast away if the idea has already been tested or is completely off base. Standstill seems like it could be a possibility. Faerie Stompy can put up excellent board position fairly early - it doesn't seem much worse than Thirst for Knowledge, and potentially it draws more. Thoughts? Is this a ridiculous notion?

What about Sensei's Diving Top as a 1 of to fix your draws instead? From reading the thread I understand that FS runs into the problem of running out of steam. Just trying to figure out a way a bit more reliable/successful then something like 2x Thirst for Knowledge to get things rollin' again.

zulander
08-27-2007, 11:28 AM
Top isn't much of an option due to the chalice @1 play the deck tries to play immediately. I've been testing Foresee and it's been amazing so far. Digging for 6 is great in this deck.

zulander
08-27-2007, 02:54 PM
Some things I've noticed from the playing the deck with the red splash is that the deck takes a ton of damage from itself due to the tombs + serndibs. I think I'm going to go with the white splash for the angels, now my question is do people think Whip-Spine Drake is any good? So far this is my proposed build.

Mana: 22
4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
1 Seat of Synod
1 Ancient Den

Equipment: 7
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Creatures: 18
4 Looter Ill Kor
3 Trinket Mage
4 Serendib Djinn
4 Sea Drake
3 Exalted Angel

Draw: 3
3 Foresee

Control: 10
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 EE

Eldariel
08-27-2007, 03:33 PM
Whip-Spine Drake is a 3/3 flyer for 6. He's at best as a Gray Ogre. No, he's not especially good. And watch out with Angel, your manabase can't really support it, at least without heavy use of Trinket Mage.

Joon
08-27-2007, 03:58 PM
What's about Momentary Blink? It's useful with Mage, Hussar (even when he dies) and of course Angel.

Phantom
08-31-2007, 12:20 PM
What's about Momentary Blink? It's useful with Mage, Hussar (even when he dies) and of course Angel.

To recap my rant on Blink:
@Momentary Blink: Interesting card. Awful here. First, where are we going to run it? Second, now we have to have an extra 1W open in order to cast our creature spells? This deck DOES NOT like leaving mana open. AND it knocks our equipment (and with it the protection) off AND it's useless without a creature on the board (we already run enough cards like that) AND it's flashback cost is prohibitive AND it won't let us save out critter and get Jitte counters. Why would we not run creatures or draw in this slot instead?



In related news, I think Pride of the clouds may be the card worth playing in the White splash. Being able to produce token after token in a deck with equipment seems pretty hot. And it still pitches to Force and is a great Mox imprint.

HdH_Cthulhu
08-31-2007, 06:59 PM
I think Pride of the clouds is a realy bad card! it as a bad token producer and a bad beater! Whene we have enogh flyers thene we are already winning and whene we have no creature, spending so much mana for a stuipid token isnt that wroth... Especially with Ancient Tomb you schouldnt wast your mana...

Phantom
08-31-2007, 07:23 PM
I think Pride of the clouds is a realy bad card! it as a bad token producer and a bad beater! Whene we have enogh flyers thene we are already winning and whene we have no creature, spending so much mana for a stuipid token isnt that wroth... Especially with Ancient Tomb you schouldnt wast your mana...

First, this deck isn't really concerned with "wasting it's mana" . We dump our hands pretty quick, so having a spell or ability eat up all our mana isn't that big a deal. Second, ok so 4 mana for a 1/1 flyer isn't that great, but the fact that we can equip those flyers, or chump block Tarmogoyf over and over while waiting for an answer seems relevant (even with a Tomb this is a good deal). If you can think of a better token generator that is blue and is useful no matter what, I'll gladly test it. Clearly, I'm not testing Pride for his body, which will rarely be more than a 2/2, but this guy and his forecast ability seem to thrive with equipment, and might even give us a decent control game.

I have no idea if it is worth anything, but I think I'll try it at some point.

Also, what's the best 1W or 2W removal spell? The only thing on my mind is Arrest, but there has to be something better than that...

Clark Kant
08-31-2007, 07:28 PM
I'm against splashing any color into the deck as it seems unneccesary, but if you are looking for 1W casting cost removal, I'm a huge fan of Temporal Isolation.

It's instant speed (unlike Arrest), gives no life gain, circumvents chalice at 1 and there are less than a handful of creatures that the card can't hit. The one problem is that Isolation can't hit Dark Confidant, but neither can Arrest.

HdH_Cthulhu
09-01-2007, 03:23 PM
. If you can think of a better token generator that is blue and is useful no matter what, I'll gladly test it. Clearly, I'm not testing Pride for his body, which will rarely be more than a 2/2, but this guy and his forecast ability seem to thrive with equipment, and might even give us a decent control game.

Meloku
Ok and now dont say Pride is better because you couldnt counter the token things...



Also, what's the best 1W or 2W removal spell? The only thing on my mind is Arrest, but there has to be something better than that...

Exile
Ok and now dont say Arrest is better because you couldnt remove things that dont attack...

SuckerPunch
09-02-2007, 04:41 AM
If you guys want to splash soo badly, just freaking splash Green for goyf and be done with it.

-4 Island
-1 City of Traitors
-3 Maelstron Djinn
-4 Infiltrator il-Kor

+3 Tropical Island
+3 Flooded Strand
+2 Polluted Delta
+1 Tree of Tales
+4 Tarmogoyf
+3 Berserk

All a splash does is make the manabase inconsistent.

Or better yet, just run Dreadnought is a Fairy/Naughty Fairies.

mikekelley
09-02-2007, 05:33 AM
I will say now that I have always hated the idea of a splash in this deck.

I'm not going to have access to my cards until november, but when I do I am certainly eager to test a list that goes something like this:

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

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Psionic Blast
2 Fact or Fiction


4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Chrome Mox
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle

2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Seat of the Synod
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
5 Island

Sideboard:

3 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Misdirection
3 Winter Orb
2 Enginnered Explosives
1 Psionic Blast


Basically, it drops some of the power that a turn 1 Tomb-Chalice provides and replaces it with a Brainstorm-Fetchland type of draw smoothing power.

I keep seeing how much power this deck can have (and does have), but all too often I am dumping my hand to drop an early beater only to have it wiped away, leaving me in desperate topdeck mode with no access to something to improve card quality.

I still have Chalice via Trinket Mage if I need it, but I also have them in the board to bring in against decks that it will cripple in g2 and 3. Sometimes dropping a blind chalice on the play in g1 can hurt you, if it cuts off access to the lone MD needle that some people run. We still have access to it against decks that it hurts in g1.

Psionic Blast, Faerie Stompy wouldn't be the same without it. I can't justify cutting it, as it wins games when you are running out of steam (which does happen with this deck).

So this is all theoretical. But my build retains the brokenness, but just cuts some cards for access to more draw.

Some people will say that one of this deck's most powerful plays is turn 1 chalice go. I say yeah, that's powerful, but sometimes a blind chalice on the play in g1 isn't the smartest thing to do. If we need them, they come in.

And don't be afraid of the life loss. It's a risk I'm willing to take, ha.

Iranon
09-02-2007, 05:39 AM
To be honest, I don't get some of the current attempts to improve on this. Faerie Stompy is probably the most fickle and inconsistent deck that doesn't suck. I'd work on reliability rather than power or cool gimmicks.

A splash seems totally the wrong choice, doubly so for bad cards.
Pride of the clouds is too colour hungry for us, and is more of a lategame card. The mana base becomes too horrible for words. Taking a hit to both speed and reliability sucks. Arrest and other 3-mana 'removal' in white is just bad when we have Psionic Blast and Binding Grasp.

If we're talking artifact monstrosities, what happened to Phyrexian Marauder? I always thought one reason for Trinket Mage's excellence was that he covered your beatdown needs as well as utility. Trinket Mage, 5/5 Marauder is a pretty decent opening.



Zulander brought up that we're looking for draw that refills our hand rather than digging. People are getting desperate enough for a warm body to hold equipment that crappy token generators are considered.
For some hot gooey sex that draws 3 cards, fits our curve and beats down in one slimy package, Riptide Survivor fits the bill. Seriously.

mikekelley
09-02-2007, 06:12 AM
Was that above post directed at the build I just posted? I don't think it was but I don't want any confusion.

Riptide Survivor is neat, but (of course there is a but) it draws three cards for 6 mana. Not so hot, if you ask me.

why not just play brainstorm, draw three cards, find a creature, a good creature even, say, serendib, and play that. Or find cloud of faeries and equip it that same turn.

All for less mana.

Eldariel
09-02-2007, 06:46 AM
Breakthrough has been testing well. It's easy enough to cast, you get a nice amount of cards to keep, it can be used to dig and it scales with power, so if you've got mana-heavy hand, chances are you can even pull full 4 cards off it.

Iranon
09-02-2007, 08:03 AM
@Mikekelley: No, it wasn't. I wouldn't abandon Chalice if you paid me (and hence want to avoid Brainstorm), but I was criticising other attempts.


***

Riptide Survivor is worthy of consideration because, in my experience, you rarely want to spend mana for card draw when you have other things to do. He also addresses several problems of the deck: Having a fistful of sharp sticks but nobody to poke things with them, addressing the atrocious mulliganing behaviour of the deck, literally burning through your entire hand in 2-3 turns. I definitely like him a lot better than Thirst for Knowledge, although I haven't really done enough with Breakthrough to conclude that he's better.

One question though, do we need any actual draw, or can we replace them with more threats? I found Phyrexian Marauders useful enough to run them as more than a tutor target, for example. I'm slightly put off by the deck's tendency to not do anything immediately useful a lot of the time.

mikekelley
09-02-2007, 08:28 AM
I do'nt want to abandon Chalice either.

And I'm not :D


I don't think I ever will. It's very strong in this deck. I just want to test the deck w/o 4 in the main. I think it's certainly feasible.

thebastard2
09-02-2007, 09:57 AM
Guys, I found this list which was good enough to place 4th in a 49 man tourney in Japan

Main:
8 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
2 Faerie Conclave
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb

3 Trinket Mage
3 Serendib Efreet
3 Weatherseed Faeries
4 Sea Drake
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
4 Chrome Mox
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
2 Misdirection
3 Binding Grasp

count:60

Sideboard:
3 Chill
4 Propaganda
3 Back to Basics
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Trickbind

count:15

I think their meta there is mainly aggro. Here is the link (http://f18.aaa.livedoor.jp/~nameless/AMC/AMC_27th_E.html)
for all the decklist. What do you guys think about this list?