[Deck] Tempo Faeries

[Mr. Safety]

If you're looking for budget duals, use the ones from Scars of Mirrodin. As this deck rarely has more than three lands, their only drawback is they can't be fetched.

Darkslick Shores isn't as good as Sunken Ruins, mostly because that land can enable either the BB for Tombstalker or the UU for Vendilion Clique (and in my deck's case, the UU for Counterspell)

It's an option, and I think I will replace my Underground River with Darkslick Shores (I am currently using 2 Underground Rivers to get my duel land count up to 8, 2 Sunken Ruins, 2 Underground River, 4 Secluded Glen. the rest is basic islands)

Thanks for the note! Playtesting shall commence... :)

[Admiral_Arzar]

Darkslick Shores isn't as good as Sunken Ruins, mostly because that land can enable either the BB for Tombstalker or the UU for Vendilion Clique (and in my deck's case, the UU for Counterspell)

It's an option, and I think I will replace my Underground River with Darkslick Shores (I am currently using 2 Underground Rivers to get my duel land count up to 8, 2 Sunken Ruins, 2 Underground River, 4 Secluded Glen. the rest is basic islands)

Thanks for the note! Playtesting shall commence... :)

While Sunken Ruins is good, the reason I don't like it much is if you just have it and one other land, and they waste the other land, you have no colored mana. It is excellent at casting 'Stalker though.

[Patrunkenphat7]

A major drawback to these budget lands is the inability to use Daze with them. This is a huge factor in a tempo deck.

On another note, I would like to start building this deck. It is fun to play, rewards tight plays, and people don't get sick of playing against decks like this. My playgroup is about 8 people, and they are starting to get tired of my decks, such as Lands... One question I have for you guys: How is Ponder? I don't really like playing a sorcery on turn 1 when I'm playing Spell Snares, Stifles, and Brainstorms, but I feel like it is a crucial card. How many of these do people play?

[Jonathan Alexander]

If you're looking for budget duals either use the Ravnica ones or use more fetchlands and less real duals. You want to cast your Brainstorms and Dazes with full power. This is most important.

As for Ponder. It's not played much at all. If you're looking for additional cantrips, go for Preordain. It performs way better than Ponder, though I'm not sure if I want to play it at all. It makes me keep hands I would never keep with Curfew, and keeping them because of cantrips often turns out to be a bad decision. Cantrips are bad for your tempo play, I prefer having cards that improve my tempo play. Not quite sure yet what to play in the flex-slots, but I think Curfew fits them best. I haven't done extensive testing with Force Spike though.

By the way, the promo is ugly. It's English, it's foil and the art is way worse than Guay's.

[Patrunkenphat7]

So I decided not to play any sorcery cantrips, like Jona suggested.

Here is the list that I am now testing:

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

4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Tombstalker
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Bitterblossom

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
1 Force Spike

3 Firespout
2 Terminate
1 Smother
2 Fire // Ice
2 Umezawa’s Jitte

SB
1 Firespout
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
3 Extirpate
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Spell Pierce
1 Perish
1 Nature’s Ruin

Some questions people might have:
Why a total of 4 Firespouts?
Goblins and Merfolk are common matchups, and I really want to win them. Goblins seems nearly impossible to beat in 2 out of 3 without Firespout. This card is the #1 best card in these matchups, and it also has many other applications as well. It's easy to board out the Firespouts, as there are some cards in the SB that are amazing against decks that Firespout is irrelevant against.

Why the green sweeps? Aren't there enough sweepers already?
These sweepers play a different role in the deck. I'd like a little extra tech vs. Progenitus as well as big Bant decks. These cards can single-handedly decide those 2 matchups, and I would really like them in the board. It's also generally better than Firespout vs. Zoo players, but that sometimes depends on their list. Not to mention there is a Natural Order Elves player in my playgroup...

Force Spike?
Yeah, I like this card. The fact that I am only running 3 Daze lets me run the Force Spike. I like it because it has applications on both the play and the draw, whereas Daze can be painfully bad on the draw. Force Spike or Spell Snare is what you want to see if you are on the draw, and some amount of this type of card is necessary if you don't want to lose often to the die roll.

Why the chosen manabase?
EDIT: After some testing, I really do not like the basic Swamp. There are extremely few times when I want to fetch for it, and it sometimes screws me over when it is in my hand. The basic Island is very good, but the manabase is flowing better now without the Swamp.

I like this list because Firespout adds some power against the iffy matchups, but the SB Spell Pierces and Red Blasts really make sure that I am going to crush control and combo decks. 2 Jittes help turn my Spellstutters into real threats, and the 2 Fire//Ices can do almost anything depending on the matchup. I really think some number of Spell Snares (or Force Spikes) is needed to help this deck out on the draw, as losing the die roll multiple times can really hurt your chances of winning a tournament with a tempo deck without these cards.

[Purgatory]

I say cut the Spike for Daze #4 or Snare #4, they're not even comparable.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I say cut the Spike for Daze #4 or Snare #4, they're not even comparable.

I sort of see where you are coming from on this. I do not think that any of those cards are comparable in the role that they perform, but I think that they are comparable for that slot.

I feel like Daze is just not as good on the draw, and Spell Snare does not hit as much, so seeing it too much and in multiples is not fantastic. I also really do not like seeing Daze in multiples.

Early game Force Spike is like a one mana counterspell, but just like Daze, it's a pretty dead draw late game. Has anyone else actually tried out Force Spike in a small quantity?

[Jonathan Alexander]

First off, you should really run the full set of Dazes, especially with four Bitterblossom. I really only could see Force Spike in the flex-slots, but not replacing any of the stock counters. You really want that turn two Bitterblossom to resolve whenever you have it; this is Daze's most important role in this deck. Honestly, about one in three Dazes I cast I use to protect my Bitterblossom, and I only run three of them. Having free counters during the first few turns is also really important against basically everything that's not slow-control. Anyway, I can fully understand why you want it; in a way it's like Spell Snare #4 and Daze #4 at the same time, so that's pretty cool.

Though I didn't find the time to test Force Spike instead of Curfew, I must say that I really don't want to play even more cards that are rather bad in the lategame. We want to have as many life draws as possible; this is also the reason why I'm running Spell Snare ove Spell Pierce right now.

Cutting the basic Swamp is really a bad idea. You need to have it against Merfolk and Goblins.

By the way, yesterday I played my worst tournament ever with this deck. Actually I don't even know if I ever performed wose at all. Anyway, I managed to draw against TES (no offense, but he was really slow; he was still mulliganing when the guys next to us started game two) and all my other games were against control. One thing I noticed was that I managed to always lose the attrition wars. I don't really know how to fix this, as my mani problem was not having the wrong answers but mostly drawing into lands (I had several games with all my manaproducing lands on the battlefield) and not drawing threats. Still, I wanted my Curfews to be cantrips in only one game, so I don't think I'm going fo Preodain the next time. On top of drawing miserably, I also played miserably, so whatever.

[Cthuloo]

By the way, yesterday I played my worst tournament ever with this deck. Actually I don't even know if I ever performed wose at all. Anyway, I managed to draw against TES (no offense, but he was really slow; he was still mulliganing when the guys next to us started game two) and all my other games were against control. One thing I noticed was that I managed to always lose the attrition wars. I don't really know how to fix this, as my mani problem was not having the wrong answers but mostly drawing into lands (I had several games with all my manaproducing lands on the battlefield) and not drawing threats. Still, I wanted my Curfews to be cantrips in only one game, so I don't think I'm going fo Preodain the next time. On top of drawing miserably, I also played miserably, so whatever.

This can usually be fixed by holding the lands until you find a brainstorm. I never play excess lands after the fourth one (which allows for stalker/blossom + stutter and it's probably the maximum reasonable mana requirement for the deck). If you didn't see a single brainstorm... well, that's bad luck.
I don't know if this can be of any help to you, but usually the control matchups can be won by forcing them to play the "beatdown" role. I usually abandon the tempo plan (unless I have some spectacular combination of stifle+waste) and try to keep all the resources to win the relevant counterwar(s). We don't have many relevant threats compared to the number of opponent's removal, so it's usually a better plan to try to land a threat and protect it rather than throwing them on the battlefield one after the other, I've won more than one game against Landstill waiting to sculpt my hand under a standstill and breaking it after scuplting my hand,
Needless to say, the real nightmare for control is bitterblossom, since it's harder to get rid of. I hope I've been of some help.

[Jonathan Alexander]

This can usually be fixed by holding the lands until you find a brainstorm. I never play excess lands after the fourth one (which allows for stalker/blossom + stutter and it's probably the maximum reasonable mana requirement for the deck). If you didn't see a single brainstorm... well, that's bad luck.
I don't know if this can be of any help to you, but usually the control matchups can be won by forcing them to play the "beatdown" role. I usually abandon the tempo plan (unless I have some spectacular combination of stifle+waste) and try to keep all the resources to win the relevant counterwar(s). We don't have many relevant threats compared to the number of opponent's removal, so it's usually a better plan to try to land a threat and protect it rather than throwing them on the battlefield one after the other, I've won more than one game against Landstill waiting to sculpt my hand under a standstill and breaking it after scuplting my hand,
Needless to say, the real nightmare for control is bitterblossom, since it's harder to get rid of. I hope I've been of some help.

Yeah, this is what I'm usually doing. I only had all the landdrops because my hand was seven cards and playing a land is better than discarding it. I agree that four lands is the usual maximum, but I sometimes play the fifth one to be able to hardcast Force Of Will. I also saw all of my Stifles in game two, which sucked as well. I drew surprisingly few counters the whole day in general (for comparison, in two games against TES I saw a Spellstutter Sprite, two Dazes and one Force Of Will). The only Bitterblossom I saw against Control came in my last extra turn.
I really don't want to say I lost due to bad draws, I could've played better of course, but my draws were abysmal throughout the day.

[Cthuloo]

Well, in this case... bad luck just happens sometimes! I managed to lose to Belcher once, having seen only one Daze in 3 games as a counter (and mulliganing to 4, 6 and 5). ;)

Anyways, I generally have the feeling that control is an even-to-good matchup once you practice it a bit.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Yeah, I certainly agree. Bad draws happen from time to time and blue-based control are rather favourable matchups for us. Still these matchups are sometimes hard to play, since you need to be patient and aggressive at the same time; you need to resolve a threat as early as possible but you also don't want to waste your countermagic. I guess I need to mull more aggressively the next time to find my threats earlier.

[Bongo]

One thing I noticed was that I managed to always lose the attrition wars.

It seems this is because you lack a way of directly gaining card advantage. Have you tried Predict? In a deck with Brainstorm and a few Ponder/Preordain, Predict has been surprisingly good. It gets rid of excess lands or other dead cards while drawing you into more business.

[litmanen]

I am not convinced about this Tempo Faeries thing. Stifle and Wasteland package can be very powerful weapon in a right deck, and in my opinion, Faeries is not that kind of deck. Lets compare this Tempo Faeries deck to decks that make most out of stifle and wasteland. First my mind comes to Team America and New Horizons. Team America and New Horizons use biggest creatures that can have for 2 or 3 mana thus putting pressure every time they land a creature. Now, in Faeries deck, the best threat is Bitterblossom. I don’t see it is a tempo oriented card at all. It is rather slow threat. If you can play it in your second turn, you can win it by it in turn 9. Not so fast. With Tarmogoyf, you can win in turn 6 or 7.

Lets compare more Team America and Tempo Faeries. They both use same counter spells (Daze and Force), then ofcourse, Stifle and Wasteland, same cantrips (Brainstorm, maybe Ponder or Preordain) and few same threats (Vendillion Clique and Tombstalker). There is easily over 20 same cards. So what about the other cards? Bitterblossom against Tarmogoyf, Spellstutter Sprite against Hymn to Tourach or Sinkhole, Firespout against Snuff Out, Spell Snare and Jitte against Thoughtseize, Engineered Explosives against Pernicious Deed. You dont have to be a scientist to realize, which here are tempo cards…

So, if u want to play pure tempo cards like Stifle and Wasteland, why play Tempo Faeries over Team America? I don’t see any reason. You just trying to be everything with this deck, sometimes a tempo player, sometimes a control player. Stifle can be a contolling card, namely against Storm Combo but Faeries has already a good match up against it. Obviously Tempo Faeries can punish with Stifle and Wasteland some people in certain games, when they don’t crack their fetchlands correctly or are already manascrewing their own game. And still when starting a game and your opponent is in the draw, there is a big chance that Stifle ends up to be a dead card or the advantage you gain from it is minimal. But what about the other 50% of the games when your opponent starts the game and you are on the draw? Do you want to see a starting hand that holds both wasteland and Stifle? I dont.

In my opinion, Faeries should be mostly a controlling deck, because its main threat is rather slow (Bitterblossom) and Spellstutter Sprite is a counter spell. If u take those 2 cards out of your deck, it is no more a Faeries deck and then you just switch your deck to Team America.

In my Faeries deck, I play manlands over wastelands and 3 Dark Confidants and Jitte over Stifle.
I recently won a tournament 5 - 0 with a deck that has those changes plus few other changes compared to Jonas starting post deck list. I beat in that tournament Vampires, Burn, Black Suicide, Landstill and New Horizons.

Then I went to play Finnish Legacy Champs with Faeries. I placed somewhere betveen 20 – 30 when there was over 80 players. I played 4 times against storm combo! 2 first I lose due to my poor knowledge how to play correctly against it, but I learned from those 2 matches and won the other 2 TES games. Then I won a Stax Deck, lose to a Goblins (which is by far the worst match up) and finally won a 4 colour control ending up 4 – 3 result.

[Mr. Safety]

There aren't any tempo cards...just tempo plays. Some cards are better at generating tempo than others, that's the fundamental principle.

The reason this is a good choice is because it is great at COMBATING team america. You can chump block Goyf with BB tokens all day long, for he low price of 1 life. Think about how good AEther Vial is right now, and realize that Bitterblossom does the same thing (with less power, but built in evasion) but with added benefits (supports Spellstutter, getting the countermagic count up to 15-16 in the deck) and being an early play that does not need any support, other than combating enchantment hate.

BitterStalker has a lot more inevitability potential than Team America, that's my take on it.

[Mr. Safety]

A major drawback to these budget lands is the inability to use Daze with them. This is a huge factor in a tempo deck.

I have posted before, and my deck is not nearly as tempo-oriented as this list. The old faeries deck thread is locked, or I would post there. My deck is more of a 'true' control deck. I play 11 Islands to take advantage of Daze, and I haven't had too much trouble yet. In most games where I get a hand with a Daze in the opener, I also have an Island to use with it.

[litmanen]

BitterStalker has a lot more inevitability potential than Team America, that's my take on it.

I think the same, Faeries has more potential than Team America. Thats why I am playing Faeries. Only thing what I am attacking is that I dont think Stifle should be in a maindeck. Maybe then, if you expect a heavy combo meta. I also think that manlands should be in this deck and maybe if you still find room to put wastelands they could be there.

The thing what I am trying to say is that Team America gains much more from those tempo plays what you possible can do with Stifle and Wasteland.

[Jonathan Alexander]

BitterStalker's tempo plays are really strong; in my opinion stronger than those of most other decks that focus on tempo play. We might not have Tarmogoyf, which is savage when dropped turn two after leading with Stifle, but we have a much better lategame than the other decks and our threats are more resilient than theirs. I mean, really, how are you going to stop a turn two Bitterblossom? You need to immediately remove it or have a Pernicious Deed when you want to deal with it; the other option is to race it, which is not that easy either because we have loads of countermagic and removal. To stop a Tarmogoyf is quite easy; almost every deck in the format either has some kind of removal for it or just packs Tarmogoyf as well.

When you want to play a less tempo-orientated control deck, this is really not the best deck. There are way more viable choices like Dreadstill or Landstill.

Also, I changed a few things about my list and played a few games with it. Again, I saw nothing of the new stuff during the first few games, but I hope to be able to test some more this weekend.

[Rune]

I am not convinced about this Tempo Faeries thing. Stifle and Wasteland package can be very powerful weapon in a right deck, and in my opinion, Faeries is not that kind of deck. Lets compare this Tempo Faeries deck to decks that make most out of stifle and wasteland. First my mind comes to Team America and New Horizons. Team America and New Horizons use biggest creatures that can have for 2 or 3 mana thus putting pressure every time they land a creature. Now, in Faeries deck, the best threat is Bitterblossom. I don’t see it is a tempo oriented card at all. It is rather slow threat. If you can play it in your second turn, you can win it by it in turn 9. Not so fast. With Tarmogoyf, you can win in turn 6 or 7.

Lets compare more Team America and Tempo Faeries. They both use same counter spells (Daze and Force), then ofcourse, Stifle and Wasteland, same cantrips (Brainstorm, maybe Ponder or Preordain) and few same threats (Vendillion Clique and Tombstalker). There is easily over 20 same cards. So what about the other cards? Bitterblossom against Tarmogoyf, Spellstutter Sprite against Hymn to Tourach or Sinkhole, Firespout against Snuff Out, Spell Snare and Jitte against Thoughtseize, Engineered Explosives against Pernicious Deed. You dont have to be a scientist to realize, which here are tempo cards…

So, if u want to play pure tempo cards like Stifle and Wasteland, why play Tempo Faeries over Team America? I don’t see any reason. You just trying to be everything with this deck, sometimes a tempo player, sometimes a control player. Stifle can be a contolling card, namely against Storm Combo but Faeries has already a good match up against it. Obviously Tempo Faeries can punish with Stifle and Wasteland some people in certain games, when they don’t crack their fetchlands correctly or are already manascrewing their own game. And still when starting a game and your opponent is in the draw, there is a big chance that Stifle ends up to be a dead card or the advantage you gain from it is minimal. But what about the other 50% of the games when your opponent starts the game and you are on the draw? Do you want to see a starting hand that holds both wasteland and Stifle? I dont.

In my opinion, Faeries should be mostly a controlling deck, because its main threat is rather slow (Bitterblossom) and Spellstutter Sprite is a counter spell. If u take those 2 cards out of your deck, it is no more a Faeries deck and then you just switch your deck to Team America.

In my Faeries deck, I play manlands over wastelands and 3 Dark Confidants and Jitte over Stifle.
I recently won a tournament 5 - 0 with a deck that has those changes plus few other changes compared to Jonas starting post deck list. I beat in that tournament Vampires, Burn, Black Suicide, Landstill and New Horizons.

Then I went to play Finnish Legacy Champs with Faeries. I placed somewhere betveen 20 – 30 when there was over 80 players. I played 4 times against storm combo! 2 first I lose due to my poor knowledge how to play correctly against it, but I learned from those 2 matches and won the other 2 TES games. Then I won a Stax Deck, lose to a Goblins (which is by far the worst match up) and finally won a 4 colour control ending up 4 – 3 result.

You have very little reason not to run Wasteland in a 2-colored aggro-control deck with a low mana curve. It's not just a tempo card, but also a control card that can cut your opponent off certain colors or get rid of problematic lands (man lands, academy ruins, etc). Once you have added Wasteland, Stifle becomes a logical inclusion. It's not really a combo hoser, as you seem to think. Against most tier 1-2 combo decks, it won't do much other than rape fetchlands (thereby making their Brainstorms a lot worse). In other matchups, it will protect your lands from Wastes, stop Pridemage and EE activations (very important if you rely on Blossom) and sometimes it wil, ofcourse, be the pseudo-Timewalk for U, which is also the main attraction to the card. I don't think New Horizons and Team America are very good decks because: a) They only use the tempo from Stifle/Waste to put some kind of dork into play, and 90% of the time this creature will still die to StP and then you are back to square one. b) They don't play red -> almost an auto-loss to Merfolk and a bad Goblins matchup. TA can play Deed, but you sometimes end up in situations where you want to blow up everything but you have already comitted a Goyf to the board = sad face.

I think it's usually more efficient to use the big tempo swings to drop a problematic non-creature permanent, such as Jace, Crucible of Worlds or, in this deck's case, Bitterblossom. That's not to say you shouldn't run creatures, but I think it's dumb to rely almost entirely on them to abuse the tempo. Turn 2 Goyf vs empty board will not get there surprisingly often.

Stifle/Waste is also a good way to beat a deck like Zoo. I can almost guarantee you that slapping a Jitte on a faerie will not get you there in this matchup. You can only equip Jitte if you have nothing else to do or if they are tapped out, often making it a do-nothing card or just a giant tempo hole. Now, if you played Stifle to keep their resources low and to protect the Jitte from Pridemage, it would make the card a whole lot better..

[litmanen]

I can’t imagine a better play than turn two Bitterblossom, turn three either a Vendilion Clique or Spellstutter Sprite and turn four Jitte. There is no need to have that additional tempo you might have from turn 1 Stifle, and seriously, how often that happen? Ofcourse, if your opponent plays without thinking, you can get him Stifled easily in turn one. And what about when you are on the draw? Please, answer this question, how good is Stifle when you are on the draw? I would rather dig deeper with my cantrip to get that turn 2 BB or other good stuff, use a one mana removal, or if I am on the draw, possible counter with a Spell Snare on first turn.

I admit that Stifle can be a good card, and sometimes it can even win you matches. But how often it end up to be a dead card in your hand? Or the benefit you get from it is irrelevant? One thing I love in my Faeries deck is how consistent it is. I really have to say that I have never played a deck before that is so consistent. You can play reactively, trying to keep board empty, and once you have your blossom out, you are on your way to win. Okey, allways things wont go that smooth..

Jona, I have never criticised Bitterblossom. It is THE reason to play Faeries. The thing is, that I don’t believe it needs that additional tempo boost from Stifle. Like Mr. Safety said, you can chump block with your tokens all the day, there is no hurry. When you think about Tarmogoyf, it is quite easy to kill. Therefor it need’s more that tempo boost so it can do it damage. Yes, Bitterblossom is much harder to remove. Let say opponent has found his EE, Pridemage or Krosan Grip few turns later, you have by then alreday made some tokens! It wont be a setback if they destroy BB. It has done it thing.