[Deck] Faerie Stompy

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
Top 2 at Worlds 2006 Side Event
Top 2 at the Source Tournament 2

First time Faerie Stompy made a splash in the US was The SCG Duel for Duals, 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.


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

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?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

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?

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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.

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Psionic Blast? Hot or not?

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...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.

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Originally Posted by A Legend

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by A Legend

...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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by A Legend

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

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by A Legend

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...

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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.)

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Originally Posted by A Legend

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

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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?

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Originally Posted by A Legend

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.

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by A Legend

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.

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

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?

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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!

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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Amon Amarth

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?

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

How much equipment is right?

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

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4-drops? Which? How many? Any?

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

Quote:

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Which draw-spells to use and how many?

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

Quote:

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Psionic Blast? Hot or not?

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

Quote:

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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?

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

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Splash or stay mono?

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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

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Landcount? 21, 22 or 23?

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

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Mox Diamond? Is it actually playable here?

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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.

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Shoreline Ranger or Island?

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

Quote:

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Sideboard: generic or specific hate?

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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.

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Trinisphere, Tangle Wire, do they have a space?

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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.

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

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

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:

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Originally Posted by Happy Gilmore

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:

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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.).

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

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...

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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.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

Sorcery B
Scrye 3, Buyback 2.

Seems like it could be decent too.

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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...

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by BreathWeapon

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.

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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.