[Deck] Tempo Faeries

[Jonathan Alexander]

Again, thanks Bardo. Do you think the formatting is better now?

I still believe that three maindeck Umezawa's Jitte is quite a lot, but if it works for you, why change it?
When choosing how to split between Umezawa's Jitte, Engineered Explosives and Firespout, I think it's best to consider when we want to see them and in which matchups they're important.

Engineered Explosives is the best sweeper against Zoo and Dredge, as it's the fastest of these cards. You can drop Engineered Explosives for one on turn one, making sure that you can use it on turn two (unless the Zoo player is mean and has Wastelands). Against Dredge it's the best way to deal with their tokens, as it can't be hit by Cabal Therapy and works at instant speed. On top of that it's quite useful against other decks as well, this is why I usually tend to have more of these than of the other options.

Firespout is best against Goblins, but it's also quite good against the other decks. Due to the fact that Merfolk lists are packing more and more lord effects, it's getting worse, but it's still incredibly powerful against Goblins, which is one of our worst matchups. Therefore I focus more on being able to beat Goblins than on being able to beat Merfolk.

Umezawa's Jitte is the strongest card against Merfolk, but does almost nothing against Zoo. Against Zoo the problem is not sticking a Jitte but rather sticking a creature; I usually side out Umezawa's Jitte against Zoo and it works well for me. Against Goblins it's basically only good when paired up with Tombstalker, as they have a lot of ways to deal with X/1 creatures, no matter whether they're flying or not (some lists even run Lightning Bolts now).

Keeping this in mind I prefer having 3 Engineered Explosives; 3 Firespout; 2 Umezawa's Jitte. I might cut one of my Firespouts for the third Jitte, but right now I'm reconsidering my gravehate-package. I'm not sure if Extirpate is still worth playing, I might cut them for a split of Ravenous Trap and Tormod's Crypt or something. We'll see how common Loam-based decks will be next year.

By the way, Bardo, are you still actively playing the deck? If so, would you mind posting a recent list? I remember that your old lists were not focusing solely on tempo but also had some control elements, are you still not running Stifle?

As is evident from above, I don't run any Engineered Explosives, but I do run Firespout. I prefer Firespout because Goblins, and their very diverse mana curve is a common deck at most tournaments I play in. The two slots of Firespout in the maindeck could just as well be Engineered Explosives though, it's a metagame call.

I agree that Firespout is better against Goblins, but did you never miss Engineered Explosives? You don't have many ways to deal with Zoo's and New Horizons' bigger creatures outside of Submerge. Your list has a lot of spotremoval (7-10 pieces, depending on the matchup), do you really think you need all of it? If it's a metacall I can fully understand it, but personally I'd rather run Engineered Explosives than Pyroblast.

I also cut Spell Snare from my list, despite it being MVP for the last two tournaments, because come January 1st, it's main target and the biggest reason for its inclusion will be banned. I have Spell Pierce in there instead, because it goes together well with the whole mana-denial plan, and it can hit stuff that are tough to deal with - planeswalkers for example. It is also decent at stopping TES and other combo decks, and while it is not a hard counter for Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish, it can at least deprive them from some mana, which heavily restricts their possible Tutor/Wish targets, and it can even stop them cold sometimes. I don't expect any decent enough TES pilots to run headlong into Spell Pierce, but the threat of flying 5/5s can disturb some.

I don't think it's the time to go back to Spell Pierce yet. The meta will most likely still be quite aggressive and feature a lot of creatures we want to hit on converted mana cost two. What I do think is that Spell Pierce will be a much stronger sideboard card than it has been in the past few months; there might be more control decks which couldn't beat Vengevine Survival.

The Submerges in the sideboard could also just as well be Curfews or some other stuff. The reason I run Submerge is because they're great against Zoo and green-based creature decks in general and they're a complete beating against Rock, another popular archetype here in Sweden. Other than the above, I guess the list is fairly stock.

Not much to say here, if Rock is important in your meta, Submerge probably warrants inclusion.

How is this different than Chrome Mox?

It isn't, I was just too lazy to continue writing Chrome Mox / Lotus Petal. But with Chrome Mox the whole thing will cost you a valuable card, Lotus Petal only costs Lotus Petal. This is why I'd rather run Lotus Petal. We don't need that much mana anyway.

[bsnake35]

Aside:

I have to respectfully disagree with Jona when he states that this deck shouldn't be called 'faeries'. Everything we use to win, aside from Tombstalker, is a Faerie. Spellstutter Sprite requires another faerie to be any good. There aren't too many things you want to be countering for one mana besides maybe Top and Grim Lavamancer that can really do this deck much harm. Everything is either 2-3 mana. The real selling point for me is that Bitterblossom creates Faeries, is a Tribal Enchantment - Faerie, and happens to be the single best (read: broken) card in our deck besides Brainstorm and FoW. The fact that we don't run 20 faeries is irrelavent. Back in type 2 most Faerie decks ran between 12 and 14 faeries (excluding bitterblossom). Also, 'FaeStalker' sounds cooler than 'BitterStalker' imo

/aside

My decklist as it stands:

4x Spellstutter Sprite
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Tombstalker
4x Bitterblossom

4x FoW
4x Daze
3x Spell Snare
4x Stifle
4x Brainstorm
3x Preordain
3x Terminate
2x EE
1x Jitte

4x Wasteland
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Swamp
1x Island

Sideboard
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Extirpate
3x Spell Pierce
3x Firespout
1x Jitte
1x EE

The only thing I really don't like about this deck is the fourth Daze. I find that Daze is only good if your opponent isn't expecting it (game 1/game 3) or if they are playing combo. Otherwise it is very easy to play around and really only good before turn 3. I'm still a bit iffy on running 4 Daze but the only other card I can think of to run instead of Daze is EE or a singleton Firespout main. The issue with me running either of these is that Firespout isn't a very good miser card and 3 EEs main makes me want to play Counterbalance with StPs. It just seems too cluttered.

As far as my threats are concerned:

4x Spellstutter Sprite
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Tombstalker
4x Bitterblossom

Bitterblossom
I am one of the only people (at least from what I've read in this thread) that is a proponent of running a full playset of Bitterblossoms. The reason for this is threefold: One, I really really want to land a turn 2 Bitterblossom against every single deck I play (except possibly burn, but who plays that? ). Running a full playset gives me the greatest chance of drawing one in my opening 7. Two, I am also a proponent of running out Bitterblossom in multiples early game. (I really don't think they suck in multiples unless for some god forsaken reason you draw 4 but usually you can just BS-fetchland the extras away) If I land a turn 2 Bitterblossom followed by a turn 3 Bitterblossom I win well over 50% of the time because not many decks can come back from something that doubles as a Forcefield and a win condition at the same time.

Think about having 3 Bitterblossoms out (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE RIGHT PLAY THOUGH ). On turn 7 they better have an answer for them or they die. At the last SCG Open I went to I outraced a combo Rock-depths deck game two with 3 Bitterblossoms. It was all in or I died. He spent 3 turns looking for a Deed but he never found one. Not to mention the virtual card advantage and tempo of two or more Bitterblossoms is retarded. Four turns after you lay the second Bitterblossom your opponent is dead. The third, and probably best, reason is that Bitterblossom doesn't lose to Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Terminate, Diabolic Edict (yes, I still see that in Rock decks), or any other spot removal played in Legacy like Tombstalker does. I win far more games with Bitterblossom than I ever do with Tombstalker. Most of the time I play him he's basically either a Rampant Growth or a 'BB: Exile your graveyard, gain five life'. I'm not saying Tombstalker is bad by any means but he's just not as good as Bitterblossom. About the only thing that makes Tombstalker better than Bitterblossom is that late game he is usually, but not always, a better draw than Bitterblossom is. Bitterblossom is the most resilient card in your deck and an absolute nightmare for any control or opposing tempo deck to deal with.

Spellstutter Sprite (SSS)
Spellstutter Sprite Jona explained well, although I think it should go under the 'threats' section. I'm ridden the back of many a SSS to victory before, especially against slow control decks. 20 turns really isn't THAT long and usually the extra damage SSS does paves the way for an alpha strike of a Vendilion Clique or a Tombstalker.

Vendilion Clique
If only Vendilion Clique wasn't a Legend...Then he'd be an auto-4-of and completely busted.

Tombstalker
I only run two Tombstalkers because I REALLY REALLY hate drawing them in my opening 7. They are basically a pseudo-mulligan because chances are good that they are a dead card until at least turn 4 and this deck really wants action on turns 1 through 4. Tombstalker is a beast late(r) game but unless you draw a lot of cantrips/fetches/wastes early game and can feed his hunger to power him out on turn 3-4.

Control/Tempo:

4x FoW
4x Daze
3x Spell Snare
4x Stifle
4x Brainstorm
3x Preordain
3x Terminate
2x EE
1x Jitte

Force of Will
If you are running enough other blue cards to support it (15+) they are an auto 4 of, but you knew that if you were playing Legacy right?

Daze
As I said above, I really can't tell if I want to run 3 or 4 Daze. 4 Daze seems a little much to me since they are basically dead draws after turn 5 most games, but like Bitterblossom I REALLY want one in my opening hand. I'm going to stick with 4 right now until I find a suitable replacement for the 4th one.

Spell Snare
Unless people stop playing Goyf/Counterbalance/Infernal Tutor/Quasali Pridemage/Dark Confidant/Jitte/EE/whatever other two-drop that's good I'm not going to ever have less than 2 in my main deck again. Spell Pierce is more of a matchup-dependent card, Spell Snare hard-counters pretty much every major threat for U.

Stifle
I'm a strong believer of running 4 Stifles or none at all. Also, if you are blue the only time you should run Wasteland (besides possibly Landstill that runs Crucible) is if you run a playset of Stifles as well because they compliment each other so well. Like Jona said "The card is not as narrow as some people seem to think." It randomly wins by itself.

Brainstorm
"BS"; the card's name says it all.

Preordain
I'm going to refer to what I already said about it, and expound a bit more:
"Also, at least in this deck, I believe Preordain is FAR superior to Ponder. It smoothes out your draws so nicely and I have no qualms with waiting until after turn 1 to cast it so I keep mana open for Stifle/Spell Snare. With Ponder I revealed crap/crap/business, business/crap/crap, crap/business/crap, etc. too much. If you want to keep the business card, which is usually the case, you have to give your opponent basically a two turn timewalk. If your Ponder was instead a Preordain then, at worst, you would give your opponent a one turn timewalk or even filter out two cards you want to the bottom of your library. Where there is NO possibility of them coming back! Another thing I hated about Ponder in this deck is when I shuffle and my opponent ninja-cuts my deck to give me the same card I didn't want.

Like Jona has been preaching, this is a tempo deck. There is nothing worse than losing two turns because you needed that Jitte or that Tombstalker or that Bitterblossom and didn't want to shuffle it away because of Ponder. I have never been sad to see Preordain in my hand or off a topdeck. In fact, besides Tombstalker, and to a lesser extent Vendilion Clique, I like drawing a Preordain better than just about anything else late game (I suppose I should include BS in the cards above Preordain, but BS is BS after all)."

I can't stress enough how much this card smoothes out your draws. You don't always want a that Bitterblossom/Wasteland/Tombstalker/Jitte so ship it to the bottom. Sometimes you need one land but not two. Take one, ship the other to the bottom. It gives you a lot more versatility than Ponder does and sculpts your hand far better too. This isn't a combo deck, so your should never be digging for 'that one card'. Usually when that occurs you should have probably taken a mulligan in the first place. So much is decided already when playing this deck before turn 5 it's not even funny. Usually you can tell if you are going to win or lose by that time.

Terminate
I like this better than Snuff out for a variety of reasons. The first, and main, attraction is that it kills Bob. If an opponent somehow sticks a Dark Confidant against us for even a single Upkeep most of our tempo and card advantage are lost. The second reason is I don't always want to pay 4 life to make Snuff Out 'free'. Sometimes paying the 4 life to kill a goyf isn't worth it. The third reason is I like to operate this deck off of two lands. I’m aware that this makes Counterbalance’s ‘soft’ lock on the deck a hard one, but with 15 counterspells/mana denial Counterbalance should rarely hit board against Faeries. If it does, EE does a good job of killing it. Like Jona said, its two downsides are it can be countered by Spell Snare (minor inconvenience) and it is multi-colored. But with 8 Fetches the deck shouldn’t have a problem getting both colors out.

Engineered Explosives
Unlike Firespout, I’ve never felt that EE was a wasted draw. There are times when I’m sitting with a Firespout in my hand looking down at KotR/Terravore wishing it was an EE. Also, the mana cost can be spread out between turns so in essence it doesn’t always have to cost 3 mana all at once like Firespout does. Firespout is in my sideboard as a solid replacement to EE against Goblins and Merfolk.

Jitte
Jitte makes any creature in your deck a threat that has to be dealt with or your opponent will lose quickly. Even a lowly SSS equipped with a Jitte becomes a Weapon of Mass Destruction. I used to run 2 main board but they aren’t required to beat most matchups. The ones they shine against, Goblins Merfolk Zoo, I can easily SB another in game 2.

Manabase:

4x Wasteland
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Swamp
1x Island

This is the default manabase I’ve been using for some time now. The only difference is I used to run a Riptide Laboratory. I like it because at anytime I can fetch for any of my colors. The one Badlands has been an all star in many-a-game where I lead out with a fetched Island and need both Black and Red. I’ve tried it as a mountain but I don’t like drawing one in my opening hand since it casts literally 3 spells in my entire deck game 1. Some people like cutting this down to 19 lands but I feel I get manascrewed too many games so I upped the Scalding Tarn count from 3 to 4. This could just as easily be a Mountain if someone wanted to have all 3 colors available as basics to fetch for.

Sideboard:
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Extirpate
3x Spell Pierce
3x Firespout
1x Jitte

The Lightning bolts come in against decks with Aether Vial. If a Vial hits board against our deck it’s pretty decimating because it makes most of our counters worthless. It also gives the deck more reach against decks with a fast clock such as Goblins and even sometimes Storm if people get too greedy with their Ad Nauseum.

Extirpates are a trump card against Loam/Reanimator/Dredge. I feel they are better because they target and against most of the matchups where Relic is good, Extirpate is just as good, if not better because it’s uncounterable.

Spell Pierce is an easy substitute for Daze Games 2 and 3 if needed. I really like it against storm and belcher because it forces them to play around yet another counter spell. It’s also quite good against Counterbalance/Tempo/Landstill. Countering a Turn 2 main phase Brainstorm is usually pretty good for 1 mana because most players will only BS during their main phase on turn 2 if they didn’t find another land. Quite a blowout, I’ve done it on a couple occasions.

Firespout comes in against Goblins and Merfolk. Against Zoo usually EE is better because most of their threats cost 2 and if they run KotR you won’t be able to Firespout it away.

The last Jitte comes in against Goblins and Merfolk for sure. Sometimes it is a good replacement for Daze against Zoo if they go first game 2. I also randomly bring it in against decks that have no way to deal with artifacts and slow control decks to give my little 1/1s some stopping power.

That was a lot of writing and I’m sure I missed some stuff. I should be an active poster and I plan on playing Faeries at many upcoming tournaments. I’ll even try to make a tournament report or two.

[Jonathan Alexander]

First off, I agree with most of what you said, so I'm only going to talk about the parts where I disagree or want to add something.

Aside:

I have to respectfully disagree with Jona when he states that this deck shouldn't be called 'faeries'. Everything we use to win, aside from Tombstalker, is a Faerie. Spellstutter Sprite requires another faerie to be any good. There aren't too many things you want to be countering for one mana besides maybe Top and Grim Lavamancer that can really do this deck much harm. Everything is either 2-3 mana. The real selling point for me is that Bitterblossom creates Faeries, is a Tribal Enchantment - Faerie, and happens to be the single best (read: broken) card in our deck besides Brainstorm and FoW. The fact that we don't run 20 faeries is irrelavent. Back in type 2 most Faerie decks ran between 12 and 14 faeries (excluding bitterblossom). Also, 'FaeStalker' sounds cooler than 'BitterStalker' imo

/aside

Yeah, whatever. It's not as if anyone cares about the name, I just wanted to make clear that I don't like the term Faeries.
But Spellstutter Sprite is pretty strong at one mana as well; it can counter the Swords To Plowshares thrown at your Tombstalker. I'm going to talk about this later.

My decklist as it stands:

4x Spellstutter Sprite
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Tombstalker
4x Bitterblossom

4x FoW
4x Daze
3x Spell Snare
4x Stifle
4x Brainstorm
3x Preordain
3x Terminate
2x EE
1x Jitte

4x Wasteland
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands
1x Swamp
1x Island

Sideboard
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Extirpate
3x Spell Pierce
3x Firespout
1x Jitte
1x EE

The only thing I really don't like about this deck is the fourth Daze. I find that Daze is only good if your opponent isn't expecting it (game 1/game 3) or if they are playing combo. Otherwise it is very easy to play around and really only good before turn 3. I'm still a bit iffy on running 4 Daze but the only other card I can think of to run instead of Daze is EE or a singleton Firespout main. The issue with me running either of these is that Firespout isn't a very good miser card and 3 EEs main makes me want to play Counterbalance with StPs. It just seems too cluttered.

A nice list, I like it. I think I'm going to try out Preordain instead of Curfew once more since I didn't draw them quite often and therefore don't have a full grasp on how good they are.
About Daze: When running the full set of Bitterblossoms you should run the full set of Dazes. The combination of these two cards on turn two is just so strong, I don't see how you want to miss that. I think you're playing the deck even more aggressively than I do, using your Spellstutter Sprites as early as possible and not keeping them for your Tombstalkers for example. Considering this you really should run the fourth Daze. But I think the best substitute for the fourth Daze is a singleton Spell Pierce. Having a full set of them against storm combo might be better than having a full set of Dazes I guess.

Bitterblossom
I am one of the only people (at least from what I've read in this thread) that is a proponent of running a full playset of Bitterblossoms. The reason for this is threefold: One, I really really want to land a turn 2 Bitterblossom against every single deck I play (except possibly burn, but who plays that? ). Running a full playset gives me the greatest chance of drawing one in my opening 7. Two, I am also a proponent of running out Bitterblossom in multiples early game. (I really don't think they suck in multiples unless for some god forsaken reason you draw 4 but usually you can just BS-fetchland the extras away) If I land a turn 2 Bitterblossom followed by a turn 3 Bitterblossom I win well over 50% of the time because not many decks can come back from something that doubles as a Forcefield and a win condition at the same time.

Think about having 3 Bitterblossoms out (THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE RIGHT PLAY THOUGH ). On turn 7 they better have an answer for them or they die. At the last SCG Open I went to I outraced a combo Rock-depths deck game two with 3 Bitterblossoms. It was all in or I died. He spent 3 turns looking for a Deed but he never found one. Not to mention the virtual card advantage and tempo of two or more Bitterblossoms is retarded. Four turns after you lay the second Bitterblossom your opponent is dead. The third, and probably best, reason is that Bitterblossom doesn't lose to Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Terminate, Diabolic Edict (yes, I still see that in Rock decks), or any other spot removal played in Legacy like Tombstalker does. I win far more games with Bitterblossom than I ever do with Tombstalker. Most of the time I play him he's basically either a Rampant Growth or a 'BB: Exile your graveyard, gain five life'. I'm not saying Tombstalker is bad by any means but he's just not as good as Bitterblossom. About the only thing that makes Tombstalker better than Bitterblossom is that late game he is usually, but not always, a better draw than Bitterblossom is. Bitterblossom is the most resilient card in your deck and an absolute nightmare for any control or opposing tempo deck to deal with.

I stated this in the primer, if I was going to max out on any of the threats, it would be Bitterblossom. Its resilience is incredible and it's definitely the deck's strongest threat. Any, I don't think rushing out multiples is a good idea. When I draw multiples I usually resolve the first one and then keep the second in hand. When you have one Bitterblossom on the battlefield, your opponent is usually trying to handle it, but when you have two, they're often just overextending and trying to race it, and we can't always stop them.

Spellstutter Sprite (SSS)
Spellstutter Sprite Jona explained well, although I think it should go under the 'threats' section. I'm ridden the back of many a SSS to victory before, especially against slow control decks. 20 turns really isn't THAT long and usually the extra damage SSS does paves the way for an alpha strike of a Vendilion Clique or a Tombstalker.

It's not a threat on it's own, but with Umezawa's Jitte it is. And 20 turns is a lot.

Vendilion Clique
If only Vendilion Clique wasn't a Legend...Then he'd be an auto-4-of and completely busted.

I'd probably still only play two or three, it's the deck's worst threat, despite being one of the most flexible cards in the deck.

Tombstalker
I only run two Tombstalkers because I REALLY REALLY hate drawing them in my opening 7. They are basically a pseudo-mulligan because chances are good that they are a dead card until at least turn 4 and this deck really wants action on turns 1 through 4. Tombstalker is a beast late(r) game but unless you draw a lot of cantrips/fetches/wastes early game and can feed his hunger to power him out on turn 3-4.

I kind of like having one in my opening seven, it means that I know how to set up the game for him. But multiples are pretty bad and you're right that he's usually dead until turn four, so I can fully understand why you max out on Bitterblossom and only play two Tombstalkers.

Stifle
I'm a strong believer of running 4 Stifles or none at all. Also, if you are blue the only time you should run Wasteland (besides possibly Landstill that runs Crucible) is if you run a playset of Stifles as well because they compliment each other so well. Like Jona said "The card is not as narrow as some people seem to think." It randomly wins by itself.

Just one thing: you can run Wasteland without Stifle, just look at Merfolk. What's true is that you want to run Watseland alongside other tempo cards, making its effect asymmetrical.

(I agree with your opinion on Preordain, it's definitely better than Ponder here, as you don't need to have additional fetchlands ready for them to work.)

Terminate
I like this better than Snuff out for a variety of reasons. The first, and main, attraction is that it kills Bob. If an opponent somehow sticks a Dark Confidant against us for even a single Upkeep most of our tempo and card advantage are lost. The second reason is I don't always want to pay 4 life to make Snuff Out 'free'. Sometimes paying the 4 life to kill a goyf isn't worth it. The third reason is I like to operate this deck off of two lands. I’m aware that this makes Counterbalance’s ‘soft’ lock on the deck a hard one, but with 15 counterspells/mana denial Counterbalance should rarely hit board against Faeries. If it does, EE does a good job of killing it. Like Jona said, its two downsides are it can be countered by Spell Snare (minor inconvenience) and it is multi-colored. But with 8 Fetches the deck shouldn’t have a problem getting both colors out.

Try out Smother, it's beautiful. Plus it can be cast off Island + Swamp, which is a major advantage.

Jitte
Jitte makes any creature in your deck a threat that has to be dealt with or your opponent will lose quickly. Even a lowly SSS equipped with a Jitte becomes a Weapon of Mass Destruction. I used to run 2 main board but they aren’t required to beat most matchups. The ones they shine against, Goblins Merfolk Zoo, I can easily SB another in game 2.

Just a small detail: I hate Umezawa's Jitte against Zoo. Against Zoo your favourite threat is usually Tombstalker, and it doesn't need an equipment to be strong, he ends the game on four turns on his own. Just make sure you counter their Path To Exile or Swords To Plowshares.

The Lightning bolts come in against decks with Aether Vial. If a Vial hits board against our deck it’s pretty decimating because it makes most of our counters worthless. It also gives the deck more reach against decks with a fast clock such as Goblins and even sometimes Storm if people get too greedy with their Ad Nauseum.

You should also bring your Lightning Bolts against Zoo since it lets you use your real removal against their Tarmogoyfs and Knight Of The Reliquary.

Extirpates are a trump card against Loam/Reanimator/Dredge. I feel they are better because they target and against most of the matchups where Relic is good, Extirpate is just as good, if not better because it’s uncounterable.

Against Dredge Extirpate isn't enough. Relic Of Progenitus' main use is to shrink Tarmogoyf and Knight Of The Reliquary by the way, so I usually also bring them in against Threshold and most importantly Zoo, this has won me a lot of games. You might want to replace one or two Lightning Bolts with Relic Of Progenitus.

That was a lot of writing and I’m sure I missed some stuff. I should be an active poster and I plan on playing Faeries at many upcoming tournaments. I’ll even try to make a tournament report or two.

I'm looking forward to your reports. I'd like to play German Magic II tomorrow, but I don't think I'll do it as my teammates aren't planning to go there either and I don't want to drive alone and get up at 4AM or something.

[jeanbathez]

Thank you guys for the good work on this new thread, and a lot of discussion, wondefull !!!

I'am also working on the list, i prefer 4 Bitterblossom ( I think 4 is a must), i also play 4 dazes, i think there is nothing better than play turn 2 BB, than daze your opponents turn 2 play, and the untap with SSS mana up....;-)

I will test the preordains, i think bsnake35 points are very good, i'am not sure about the amount of jitte (1 or 2) and firespout (main or SB)..

[Mr. Safety]

Lotus Petal doesn't cost you two cards, it costs you one. Chrome Mox needs a card to imprint on it taking away more tempo from a fully-tempoed-out (or should be) deck.

I was going (and still am) to throw my 10 cents into the mix with Jona's explanations of the cards he used but my IE crashed and of course my work wasn't saved. Now I'm doing it in Word and am going to paste it onto IE. Should be done sometime tonight.

Purgatory's list looks a lot like my list. I STRONGLY suggest you try Preordain instead of Ponder. It is way better in a tempo deck.

Lotus Petal doesn't cost you 2 cards...but Mox is reusable. I understand that Petal functions the same (opening up seriously good options turn 1) and it also feeds Tombstalker. I think the difference is that my version is much more aggro-control, meaning I want to have mid-gamecard advantage available, rather than just out-tempo early and beatdown in the mid-game. I basically sacrifice Stifle for a Trinket Mage package. I won't post my list, as it is both budget and plays out in a different way than this deck, therefore not really making it BitterStalker.

I also promote 4 Bitterblossoms, mostly because extra copies allow for Chrome Mox fodder.

The reason I'm spending time in this thread is to weigh options and compare differences between a more traditional aggro/control faeries build and the tempo version that is highlighted here.

[Jonathan Alexander]

The thing about the tempo lists is that they're probably even more controlling than dedicated control lists. This has to do with a lack of a general answer to what tempo really is and how it shows itself. In general decks are called tempo when they pack Stifle and Wasteland, but tempo has more faces than just this. Tempo does not only work for aggro-control, it works for any kind of deck. When you look at Big Zoo for example, this is clearly an aggro deck. But it's exploiting tempo, and it does so pretty well. I think I'm going to write something about this and work it into the primer, most probably under Additional Reading. I actually wanted to start writing this yesterday, but I was kind of tired and couldn't fully concentrate.
In general you can think of tempo as virtual cardadvantage; it makes you have more options than your opponent has. Is anyone here reading One Piece? If you are, tempo is like Haki. You take something that's already existing and make it even stronger. This is basically the reason we don't see traditional slow-roll control anymore, it just gets crushed by decks that are able to out-tempo them.

[planarvoid]

I'm falling in love of this deck, i've never seen a man running this deck in my country, i'll probably be the first (Belgium) running the list.
The things I want to do is to integrate lightning bolt maindeck coz in belgium there mainly folk, gobz and zoo, but i don't know what to remove instead.

btw, nice primer jona

[Jonathan Alexander]

Thanks. Where to place Lightning Bolt depends on what else you want. If you want to have as much removal as possible, you should play them in the flex slots, in which I have Curfew and most others have cantrips. When playing a list with a significant amount of maindecked Lightning Bolts, I recommend playing a list with 16 lands + 4 Wastelands. You could also play them instead of the more expensive spotremoval, i.e. Terminate, Smother, or what else you're playing. It also depends on what massremoval you play, which depends on your meta. If there's a lot of tribal in your meta you probably want to run a few Firespout and Umezawa's Jitte maindeck, but if there's more Zoo, I'd rather run Engineered Explosives and a singleton Umezawa's Jitte. Read post #21 for further explanation, I think this should help you.

[planarvoid]

nice !!

I'll try it out in few weeks after new year and i'll feed the thread with my test.

Have you already tried the deck into competitive environment?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Sure I have, but I don't have any impressive results. I think my best result was in January or something when I went 9th at a GPT, but this was with an awkward list (and an awkward tournament for me in general). I usually either lose the first round of each tournament against Merfolk and then get pissed and scrub out the second round as well or I have a good start and then decide to scrub out later on. I think I went 3-1-1 in my last tournament, but I should've won the draw; I was just pissed about losing to Merfolk round one and played like shit in game two. Whatever.
Due to this I didn't play a lot of events during the psat few months and focused on serious playtesting and learning more about magic theory (I started playing Magic again about 1 1/2 years ago and started buying into Legacy about one year ago).
As of late my testing results are quite good and I really think I improved a lot, so I'm looking to start playing more events again (and perform better again).

[Purgatory]

Purgatory's list looks a lot like my list. I STRONGLY suggest you try Preordain instead of Ponder. It is way better in a tempo deck.

Yeah, another card I simply haven't gotten around to test yet. I can certainly see its appeal vs. Ponder though, but I like Ponder as well because it digs for answers deeper than Preordain (kinda).

I agree that Firespout is better against Goblins, but did you never miss Engineered Explosives? You don't have many ways to deal with Zoo's and New Horizons' bigger creatures outside of Submerge. Your list has a lot of spotremoval (7-10 pieces, depending on the matchup), do you really think you need all of it? If it's a metacall I can fully understand it, but personally I'd rather run Engineered Explosives than Pyroblast.

Not really, EE is very slow and my four spotremovals kill all of NHs creaures, not that I play against that deck very often - I've only seen one other person play it other than me in tournaments around here, and I didn't play against him. Firespout kills everything in Zoo bar Knight and Goyf and those are killed by Smother/Terminate, just like they are against NH.

The reason I run Submerge etc. in the board is that against some Rock decks, having them resolving even a single creature is a big problem. Bolts are very versatile and are good against many, many decks, everything from Goblins to TES (to an extent).

I don't think it's the time to go back to Spell Pierce yet. The meta will most likely still be quite aggressive and feature a lot of creatures we want to hit on converted mana cost two. What I do think is that Spell Pierce will be a much stronger sideboard card than it has been in the past few months; there might be more control decks which couldn't beat Vengevine Survival.

Well, you might be right, the list is nothing rock solid, but I do play against quite a few combo decks in most every tournament I play, and against most decks Spell Pierce is really good.

[Bardo]

Again, thanks Bardo. Do you think the formatting is better now?

I still believe that three maindeck Umezawa's Jitte is quite a lot, but if it works for you, why change it?
When choosing how to split between Umezawa's Jitte, Engineered Explosives and Firespout, I think it's best to consider when we want to see them and in which matchups they're important.

By the way, Bardo, are you still actively playing the deck? If so, would you mind posting a recent list? I remember that your old lists were not focusing solely on tempo but also had some control elements, are you still not running Stifle?

Yeah, the formatting looks a lot better. Thanks for fixing it. Overall, your primer could be a template on how you these things are organized. Very thorough and logically. I approve. :)

I haven't played the deck in a bunch of months, but here's where I left off.

Grixis Fae
by Bardo and Team Info Ninjas

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare
4 Daze

4 Lightning Bolt
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Firespout

4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Bitterblossom
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Tombstalker

4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
3 Extirpate
3 Perish
2 Spell Pierce
2 Hydroblast
2 Pyroblast
2 Smother
1 Firespout

I go back and forth on the 3 vs. 4 Bitterblossoms and haven't come around to Stifle. The deck is really a blast to play.

[mujadaddy]

I like Bsnake & Bardo's lists -- the one I'm working on is about right between them.

I wonder, though, in 4 Stifle lists, whether a single Phyrexian Dreadnought might not be a nice explosive move, perhaps 2 Tombstalker / 1 Dread.

Like...
1 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
//20 Lands

3 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Stifle
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Jitte

4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Bitterblossom
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Tombstalker
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought

//SB
4 REB
4 Curfew
4 Firespout
3 Spell Pierce

I'm thinking about Thoughtseize, too.

There is something to say for the non-Stifle package, but I recently Stifled the lifelink trigger on a two-life opponent's just-Reanimated Sphinx of the Steel Wind, which would've won him the game without a Stifle. Stifle does some very "Fae" things for you.

...I tend to get impatient playing the deck, though -- dumping my hand ASAP when i should be holding back, waiting to counter things.

[Nidd]

Lifelink doesn't use the stack anymore. From what I know, it's a static ability now, just like Flying and the like.
Same goes for Deathtouch.

...just for the record.

[mujadaddy]

Lifelink doesn't use the stack anymore. From what I know, it's a static ability now, just like Flying and the like.
Same goes for Deathtouch.

...just for the record.

Hm, my opponent actually looked up the rule and came back and said it was triggered and said I could. Good to know, though, thanks.

[kubalonek]

From the Comprehensive Rules (as of Magic 2010)

* 702.13. Lifelink
o 702.13a Lifelink is a static ability. Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller, or its owner if it has no controller, to gain that much life (in addition to any other results that damage causes). See rule 118.3.
o 702.13b Multiple instances of lifelink on the same object are redundant.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Nice list, Bardo. But don't you think that you kind of overload on tribal hate? 3 Firespout, 3 Umezawa's Jitte and 4 Lightning Bolt is a bit too much for my taste, I'd rather have some more serious removal in there, like Smother or Terminate. I also think that you really have a lot of threats in there, do you really feel you need that many? I think cutting a Vendilion Clique for the fourth Daze would be a good idea. But apart from that, I really like how streamlined your list is.

About Phyrexian Dreadnought. This is not its home. We want to use our Stifles to play tempo and not hold them back. Using your only Stifle on a fetchland and then drawing a Phyrexian Dreadnought hurts as well, especially when you only run one Dreadnought. It's also not that hard to deal with a resolved Phyrexian Dreadnought, and we really don't want to use all of our resources to protect it. If we were running Counterbalance, things would be different, but as it is, we don't.

By the way, I wrote some lines about tempo, but I'm not sure what to do with it yet. I might write some more, making it an article, but I could also work it into the primer. Basically it's some in-depth information on how to use tempo cards like Daze and Wasteland, backed up with some Magic theory and my definition of tempo. I don't know how interesting my opinion is though. We'll see what I'm going to do with it.

[atropos]

By the way, I wrote some lines about tempo, but I'm not sure what to do with it yet. I might write some more, making it an article, but I could also work it into the primer. Basically it's some in-depth information on how to use tempo cards like Daze and Wasteland, backed up with some Magic theory and my definition of tempo. I don't know how interesting my opinion is though. We'll see what I'm going to do with it.

This primer couldn't have come at a better time. I played Canadian Thresh and although I was sad to see it fall out of tournament play, I'm thrilled to have discovered Faeries. I'm in the process of building the deck at the moment and I've been enjoying reading all of this information. I really appreciate your new primer, Jona, and I would be happy to read even more about tempo. Great job!!!

[Bardo]

Nice list, Bardo. But don't you think that you kind of overload on tribal hate? 3 Firespout, 3 Umezawa's Jitte and 4 Lightning Bolt is a bit too much for my taste, I'd rather have some more serious removal in there, like Smother or Terminate. I also think that you really have a lot of threats in there, do you really feel you need that many? I think cutting a Vendilion Clique for the fourth Daze would be a good idea. But apart from that, I really like how streamlined your list is.

Except for the Firespouts, I wouldn't call my removal package "tribal hate." Bolt is multi-modal, hitting TES players that get greedy on life; shaving a turn or two off your win when you're clocking them with Clique; killing Bobs, Nacatls and Hierarchs -- it's really flexible. Jitte I just love having, since it turns even a humble SSS or BB token into a 5/5, helps vs. burn and kills stuff. Jitte on a Tombstalker is kinda overkill, but really intimidating. :) Overall, Jitte is good because most of Faeries' creatures are kind of crap on their own.

In metas with more aggro-control and control, I'd drop the Firespouts for EEs.

From the other thread, I'm not a fan of Terminate, since it moves a critical utility (your removal) into both your off-colors. I prefer Bolt, Smother and Ghastly Demise since each of those only requires one mana from an off-color.

Also, I can see dropping Clique #3 for Daze #4; but Clique rocks. Hard.

I also might test a Badlands in place of Volcanic #4, though I'll probably go back the first time I need to mulligan because of it.

[bsnake35]

I think you're playing the deck even more aggressively than I do, using your Spellstutter Sprites as early as possible and not keeping them for your Tombstalkers for example.

Any, I don't think rushing out multiples is a good idea. When I draw multiples I usually resolve the first one and then keep the second in hand. When you have one Bitterblossom on the battlefield, your opponent is usually trying to handle it, but when you have two, they're often just overextending and trying to race it, and we can't always stop them.

It comes from playing this deck in Type 2 for the duration it was legal. Against different deck types I do different things. That's what is/was nice about Faeries and FaeStalker, it can either be a dedicated control deck, i.e. 'slow', or it can be hyper-aggressive.

Against a slow control, i.e. Landstill, Counterbalance, etc, I run out as many BBs as I can because they just become overwhelmed too fast for them to come back from. Against Zoo I probably wouldn't run out multiples. It also depends on what other cards I have in my hand. If it is a hand full of counters I usually run out multiples and just counter the stuff that can kill em, EE or Quasali Pridemage usually. Like I said, and most people already know, it's really hard to win against an active BB, even in Legacy.

And 20 turns is a lot.

I was joking.

Try out Smother, it's beautiful. Plus it can be cast off Island + Swamp, which is a major advantage.

I've used Smother in other decks way back in the day when Psychatog was still heavily played in Legacy. I like it, but I won't have enough time to test it before the next major tournament I play in. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it =) I've been screwed over in the past changing the removal in a deck the day before.

The only thing that completely made sense to me was changing out Firespout for EE. I play EE in a TON of my legacy decks. It's amazing. Firespout being a SB card makes way more sense.

Against Dredge Extirpate isn't enough. Relic Of Progenitus' main use is to shrink Tarmogoyf and Knight Of The Reliquary by the way, so I usually also bring them in against Threshold and most importantly Zoo, this has won me a lot of games. You might want to replace one or two Lightning Bolts with Relic Of Progenitus.

I have to disagree, I think a well timed Extirpate bends Dredge over. Also, I think Dredge is a terrible legacy deck (it seems better in vintage, but I don't play that format so I don't know). It's a 100x weaker version of ANT, which I happen to love. Also countering their Breakthrough/Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe and killing your own creature (even a faerie token) after they dredge with a lightning bolt or other such nonsense to remove their bridges from the game totally messes them up. It's kind of like belcher, very single minded and if you mess up their inital thrust they usually can't recover.

Planar Void:

My current record in the last three major (60+ person) tournaments is 14-4-3. I placed 22nd in the Minneapolis SCG that had over 200 people in it (one win away from top 8 with another FaeStalker deck. I misplayed against enchantress so I tied to them and couldn't just draw into top 8; lost to U/G Survival Madness because I didn't even know that was a deck at the time so I wasn't prepared for it at all.).

I scrubbed out of one tournament in the 0-2-drop club, and I split top four at another tournament for duals/FoW.

I have 43 lands, ANT, Landstill, Counterbalance (NO bant, Thopter Foundry, goyf), Canadian Thresh, Bant (Pro bant, NO bant, etc) U/W Tempo, Merfolk, Goblins, Dead Guy...basically have the cards to make just about any Legacy deck (besides Dredge and Belcher) and I keep coming back to Faeries for major tournaments. It really is good.

Atropos:

This is the 'next level' of Canadian Thresh. It is much more resilient to way more decks. You don't just lose to a Counterbalance lock. You should check out U/W Tempo also if you like tempo decks. It's pretty good as well.

A little aside as far as my experience with Legacy. I've been playing since Legacy and Vintage split B/R lists and became Legacy and Vintage. I have a good deal of experience to pull from.