[Deck] Stoneforged Tempo

[St3B]

Hi everyone, I always enjoyed playing tempo-oriented decks like Canadian Threshold and New Horizons. Lately I’ve been playing quite successfully Excalibur. While looking for something new to play I had the idea drop green for Bitterblossom. My initial idea was that BB will help me to not run out of critters that can wear the awesome equipments. BB also improves Spellstutter Sprites, which allowed me to drop the Mutavaults for Wastelands. While tweaking the first drafts I realized this deck has quite a few things in common with Fatestalker, so I borrowed some ideas from there as well.

Without further ado this is what I came up with:
4x Waste land
3x Tundra
4x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strands
1x Scrubland
1x Island
1x Swamp
3x Bitterblossom
3x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Tombstalker
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
4x Stifle
1x Umezawa’s Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Jace, The Mind Sculptor

SB: (not tested)
3x Perish
1x Rushing River
3x Spell Pierce
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Disenchant

I must admit that I haven’t had much time testing so far, but the deck feels quite powerful. I’ll try to squeeze out some more time for testing and hopefully post some real results. In the meantime any suggestions are welcome.

[Sevryn]

You might want to check out the U/W tempo deck for potential ideas. Things like Weathered Wayfarer and Mother of Runes can all generate a bit of tempo.

Aside from that, Jace kind of sticks out. Why are you playing him?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Alright. I wonder why you haven't just posted this in the Faeries-Thread in Established Decks? I really think that this is the direction Faeries should go, but I'm really not sold on using Stoneforge Mystic in this deck. I'm testing U/W/x Faeries for quite a while now and in my experience there are almost always better things to do than to use Stoneforge Mystic. I always ended up playing it and then waiting for about three or four turns to activate it. I think equipment in general doesn't really fit the playstyle of the deck. To make equipment work effectively, you need about four mana, because you never want to give away the opportunity to counter. This normally just happens when you're winning anyway, so Stoneforge + stuff seems a bit win-more.
Another thing I don't like that much about your list is your manabase. You're playing 18 lands + 4 Wastes. Usually these kind of decks play around 15 or 14 mana producing lands, which really is more than enough. I'm playing 15 + 3 Wastes and end up being flooded in almost every single game. But like I mentioned before, this is when I'm winning anyway, so it's not that much of a problem.
The two Jaces seem a bit weird, just as Sevryn mentioned. I would cut them for another Tombstalker and a singleton Vendilion Clique. Vendilion is really nice, but you really never want to see more than one.
I wonder if you should try Standstill, seems kinda nice to me. Play Bitterblossom or Tombstalker, then play Standstill. Looks really potent to me. Definitely the next thing I will be testing.
Not much to say about the board, looks completely different than mine would, only thing I can really agree on are the Pierces, though I'd rather play four or maybe four Mindbreak Traps, which have proven extremely good in this deck. But I think Pierces are just way more general and therefore the better choice. By the way, what about cutting a Crypt and a Relic four two Ravenous Traps?

Edit: I thought about how good Spiketail Hatchling still was in the current meta. It seems to not be played at all anymore but I really feel it should be tested... If they're not good enough, I'll most probably replace them with other counter (Spell Pierce or Spell Snare) but whatever. This is the list I'm going to work with for the next few weeks at least:

//Lands
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
2 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland

//Creatures
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Spiketail Hatchling
3 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

//Spells
3 Bitterblossom
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Swords To Plowshares
4 Standstill
4 Stifle

Basically looks like your list with less lands and without Jace and the Stoneforge package. Aside from the Spiketails the changes are quite minimal. Standstill as cardadvatage-engine and additional critters which really are needed without Stoneforge. I really don't know what to do with the board, but I'm sure there should be some graveyardhate, something against Progenitus and Reanimate-Creatures and something against fast aggro like Zoo. The additional counters (Spell Pierce or Mindbreak Trap) are the only slots I'm sure about.

[St3B]

Thanks for the input. I included Jace because he’s just that good. If we attack the mana base we can fate seal them out of lands. We can bounce potential blockers to improve equipped creatures or just get the badly needed card advantage to stay in the game. Bitterblossom just asks for Jitte and maybe I’ll drop the Sword, but it worked really well in Excalibur. As for the 22 lands, equipments need a lot of mana and with Jace we can get rid of extra lands using his Brainstorm ability. Like I said I need some more testing, but I’ll try to fit in a few Weathered Wayfarers, I always liked that guy.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I don't think that Wayfarer is the way to go for this deck. Don't get me wrong, I love that guy, I'm searching for a deck to play him (which is not U/W Tempo, because it's just not an option in my meta) but he seems weird with equipment and Stifles. Your gameplan should almost always result in you having a lot more lands than your opponent, which is the exact opposite of the way you play with Wayfarer.
Another reason for cutting the Jaces is that you need more creatures to get the full potential out of your Equipments. Right now you are playing only nine creatures plus Bitterblossoms, three of which are Stoneforge Mystics. I would cut at least one of the Stoneforges for a third piece of Equipment or the fourth Ponder. I think Ponder is superior here.
Then I would really cut three lands for Standstills, which work really great with Stoneforge, Bitterblossom and Tombstalker.

Summed up my changes would look like this:
-2 Jace
-1 Stoneforge
-3 Lands

+1 Tombstalker
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Ponder
+3 Standstill

This would only be minor changes of course, but I think the addition of Standstill is quite important if you want to play with Stoneforge. It's pretty damn good in this deck in general, though I'm still not sure about Stoneforge, it's sometimes a bit slow.



EDIT: It feels like Spiketail isn't the right choice for this deck. It doesn't fit the gameplan, which usually is like this: play tempo, play more tempo and counter stuff, land Bitterblossom or Tombstalker with counterbackup, land Standstill. On top of this, Spiketails body plays no role in this deck. It's not like Spellstutter Sprite, which is a cheap hardcounter that comes with a body, it's more like an overcosted critter, that doesn't do much without equipment (which I don't play) and can be a softcounter if sacrificed. I think I'm going back to maindeck Spell Pierce, maybe Spell Snare, not really sure about that. Spell Pierce seems better, because it's more versatile in handling removal, but Snare hits Goyf and Qasali Pridemage, which is damn good against Bitterblossom. Spell Pierce just hits so much more, namely Force Of Will, Swords To Plowshares, Chalice @ 2, Trinisphere, Ad Nauseam, Natural Order and loads of other dangerous stuff. Did you ever test mainboard Spell Snare? I tried them in an earlier incarnation of this deck, but switched to Pierce quickly, which proved to be a good choice so far.

[Vacrix]

I really like your list. The only changes I would make are -1 SoFI, +1 SoLS. I think you would much prefer to gain life and possibly return dudes from your grave to your hand. It also protects your guys against the 2 most common removal colors.

[St3B]

I really like your list. The only changes I would make are -1 SoFI, +1 SoLS. I think you would much prefer to gain life and possibly return dudes from your grave to your hand. It also protects your guys against the 2 most common removal colors.

I used to play both Swords in Excalibur and always preferred SoFI. In this build I play even less creatures, which makes it even harder to return something to your hand to make SoLS worthwhile.