[DTW] Faerie Stompy

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Originally Posted by rukcus

Sea Drake does in fact have NO disadvantages with it's CIP ability. There is no danger in casting Sea Drake without the required lands in play. The current wording states that you simply return two lands you control. That is it. If you control only 1 land, then it's returned. There is no "or sacrifice" clause on it.

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You're actually wrong. If you control only 1 land, it is not returned. You get to keep both Sea Drake and the land in play. That's the best part about Sea Drake. The turn one Chrome Mox + Ancient Tomb play (City of Traitors isn't always a land you want to play turn one, even for the sake of a Sea Drake), unfortunately it's close to a three card combo and happens in only a minority of games.

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Originally Posted by rukcus

The subtext of your entire argument is that Sea Drake costs far too much to acquire, which isn't really that bad compared to Grim Tutor.

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Wrong again. I actually got my hands on 4 Sea Drake for a realatively reasonable price over 2 months ago. I can send scans of them if you don't believe me. The subtext of my argument is tempo loss. Returning two lands to my hand (except for that rare turn one chrome mox, ancient tomb combo), slows you down by a two turns. To avoid the tempo loss, you have to wait a few turns to play it, and when the only real threats in the entire deck are it and Serendib Efreet. That means that usually you have a much slower clock than you would if you had and played Efreet on the second turn.

Once again, I'm not saying the card is bad. Just that perhaps it's not as good as people are hyping it to be.

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Originally Posted by cathl

One issue I had with my build were mana issues, which I don't think can be fixed without loosing alot of the deck's speed. In my final matchup I scrubbed out hard to B/W LD. I think perhaps running four Misdirection in the sideboard might be in order, as it can deal with both Wasteland and Sinkhole. Pithing Needle only deals with Wasteland, and is not very compatible with the Chalices.

Also, I'm not entirely convinced a creature like Sea Sprite is the best choice. SotF gives your creatures Pro red anyways, and Chalices do quite alot to mitigate the deck's suseptibility to burn. Soratami Cloudskater is something I'm considering, but I'm still trying to determine if I even need a fifth type of creature.

Running one Pithing Needle maindeck didn't seem very helpful to me. When I dropped a Trinket Mage, I would fetch Chalice, as it almost without exception would do more to improve my position then a solitary Pithing Needle would. I think a better approach would be to move all the Needles to the board, and then when playing against Goblins or whatever, side out all the Chalices and side in the Pithing Needles.

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I agree with you on all counts. The deck occasionally does have mana stability issues because of the nature of it's mana base. But that's also what makes the deck so powerful. Getting 3 mana from 2 lands is what let you play so many broken cards like Fact or Fiction. I had trobule with Pikula on occasion. But I've wrecked them plenty of times too. With that matchup, you either lose big or win big. Most builds including mine runs MisD in the side.

Yeah, I don't like Sea Sprite either. I run the 4th Trinket Mage and 1-2 War Beasts instead. War Beast provides a great clock and is out of bolt range. The more I use him, the more I've grown to like him, to the point that I'm going back and forth on cutting the 4th Sea Drake to run the 2nd War Beast. Soratami... sounds like it could be great or horrid based on how much mileage you get out of his ability, since he doesn't have much of a clock either. How useful has his ability been for you?

Pithing needle is iffy at times but it's only one slot.

The reason why I like keeping MD Needle is, while it's not that good with Chalice at 1, it gives you an out against so many things it's not even funny. Most importantly, it dramatically improves your game against Survival-variants and allows you to actually cast Chalice at 1 in the face of Vial. If I have a poor start, I might also name Wasteland and such. It's also good against Rifter. More importantly, it opens up one sideboard slot (they're all pretty valuable in a deck like this).

As for Soratami Cloudskater, the 'return a land'-part is kinda annoying. Floodbringer is another option, but I often like natural pro-red especially against decks packing artifact removal (practically all do nowadays).

But yea, I already stated my opinion regarding Drake on SCG, yea, it has a drawback, but occasionally the drawback is an advantage allowing for winning plays by replaying one of your 2-mana lands and occasionally you get it into play off Mox and land. The rest of the time you might have to delay it one turn, but that's a price I'm willing to pay for a 4/3. Bolt isn't much of an issue as far as I'm concerned. Honestly, who plays bolt? Burn? They aim it to your face and lose anyways. Perhaps RG Beats, Red Death and Sligh, that's about it. Gobbos have long since moved to either StP, Jitte, no-removal or Pyrokinesis.

So have the majority of people pulled out Sea Sprits for Phyrexian War Beast? I would agree with this because of the 2cc of Sea Sprite. With Sea Sprit removed Jitte is the only card dead at Calice @ 2 (Cycle Cloud of Faeries, and Calice @ 1 should already be played). I have been playing with Weatherseed Faeries and have been marginally satisfied with them (Although they have been better then Sea Sprit every time). Sea Sprite and the War Beast are about equal against red removal, but War Beasts are the much more efficient beater.

As for the Bauble, eh why not? Just need to find a spot for it.

My current build is...

21 Mana
7 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
2 Seat of the Synod

17 Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
4 Trinket Mage
1 Phyrexian War Beast

22 Other Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Fact or Fiction
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Rushing River
1 Pithing Needle

I upped the card draw slightly because I've often foundmyself in situations where I desperately wanted to draw another land, another threat, another piece of equipment, or that lone Rushing River to bounce back a Worship or something. To up the draw count, I've had to cut back down to the standard 21 lands, and cut Psionic Blasts.

I don't think Blasts are a bad card in the least. I've just been happier with card draw to help find threats or land when I need them.

P.S: Eldariel, I know you mentioned a type 1 legal build of this deck.

What I've found to be very solid is to make the following changes to the above build.

-2 Island
+2 Seat of Synod - Helps with Tolarian Academy

-3 Chrome Mox
+1 Mox Sapphire
+1 Black Lotus
+1 Tolarian Academy

-2 Fact or Fiction
+1 Ancestral Recall
+1 Time Walk

-2 Jitte
+1 Engineered Explosives - Blowing up all the moxen is very useful
+1 Trinisphere - It's a lot stronger in type 1. I think of this as Chalice # 9

This maintains an identical ratio of card draw, blue mana, blue sources, mana, and artifacts.

The reason I opted to stick with two mana lands over colorless moxen in type 1 is because I've found it easier to accelerate out a turn 1 Trinisphere. It also makes it far easier to fetch an Explosives with Trinket Mage and blow up all the moxen. Perhaps most importantly, running more moxen would mean I would have to up the mana count for the whole deck for it to work the same.

Last saturday I won a local 24 players tournament with Fearie Stompy.
I was playing the standartlist but I cut the psionic blasts and added an island a trinket mage and the 4. thirst for knowledge.

Iwent undefeatet 5-0.
won 2-1 vs turbomadness (lost a game to two 6/6 flying worm tokens)
won 2-0 vs burn (chalice owned him and 2. game Ikilled him by misdirecting his own fireblast for lethal damage :)
won 2-0 against zoo(chalice and equipment)
won 2-1 against goblins(these gmes were were hard to win as he was playing jitte, swords to plowshares and pyrokinesis main.)
lost the second game because he disenchanted my chrome mox XD
2-1 against R/G beats with 4 berserk main. (won always with chalice and equipment but in game 2 he had a mongrel and 5 cards in hand. he attacks and I don't block. He discards 3 cards and double berserks for the win)

my sideboard was:
1 jitte
2 sea sprite
2 propaganda
2 crypt
1 needle
1 explosives
3 misdirection
3 winter orb

I had to take about 5 mulligans the whole tournament(4 of them against madness)

I had the most problems agaist goblins especially because they were destroying my equipment after boarding with 4 disenchant.

so my questions are:
1) would you sideboard misdirection against such a goblin build
2) is propaganda good?
3) against the goblins I took out 3 chalice(1 for trinket mage left) for the second game as he played first and the i considered the chaalice to be bad.
i also took out 2 cloud of fearies and put in
+1 jitte
+2 sea sprite
+2 propaganda
Was that ok or should I have boarded sth. else?

He said that he was running the standard list minus the Psionic Blasts (like me), so it sounds like he was running 4 Sea Drakes.

Honestly though, if you can't get your hands on 4 Sea Drakes, that's no reason why you can't build this deck. 4 Phyrexian War Beast are a solid replacement for those slots. It doesn't have the huge tempo drawback though it can't be discarded to Chrome Mox/FoW, can't fly and opens you to disenchant effects, but you would rather that it wasn't directed at your Chalices, equipment etc. It's a trade off, but the deck really doesn't lose that much by running War Beast in Sea Drakes slot. The same goes to Psionic Blast. They're good, but the deck doesn't lose much if you run Rushing River and a couple more Fact or Fiction/Thirst in their place. In fact, personally I think the deck is better for it.

I say this after putting a lot of time into this deck. The strongest aspect of the deck is Chalice (and Trinket Mage to get Chalice and the curve that enables Chalice to be abused). Don't mess with that one key element and the deck will remain strong.

Is there any calm and patient player od Faerie Stompy?

When I see your positive results with this deck I´m very confused. I must do something in wrong way....e.g. I played against UGW Threshold again / 0:3 /, Rock / 0:2 /, Affinity / 1:2 / - in short, my results up to now are very, very bad:frown:

My meta is very diverse : Goblins, UGW Threshold, Rifter, Pikula, UG Madness, WR Weenie, Boros, Rock, Affi (2*), Merfolks,...you can meet almost anything.

I play now this version:

Mana - 21:

4x Chrome Mox
2x Seat of Synod
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
7x Island

4x Chalice of the Void
4x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Umezawa´s Jitte
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Pithing Needle

1x Rushing River
2x Thirst for Knowledge
2x Fact or Fiction
1x Misdirection
3x Force of Will

4x Sea Drake
2x Sea Sprite
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Serendib Efreet
4x Trinket Mage

Side :

1x Fact or Fiction
1x Mask of Memory
2x Winter Orb
2x Tormod´s Crypt
3x Binding Grasp
2xHydroblast
2x Blue Elemental Blast
2x Misdirection

I haven´t any Psionic Blast, nor my third Jitte and fourt Fow ( I played Misd. in place of FoW ), when I´ll buy Jitte, I propably cut one FoF.

So, this is version, with which I reached so misareble results. When I hear/read you posts, fault must be in me - my skill...but in fact, what can I do wrong?
I feel the potential of this deck and I don´t wont to switch to another deck...:cry:

I´ll be grateful for any constructive critique or proposal...

EDIT: Because I very often lost some permanent, my teammate / yes, the annoying Thres player .-)) / bring in Perilous Research - yes, it ii for 1U, but maybe it could works....

Actually this deck is quite luck dependant and inconsistent in comparison to many other decks, but not much more than goblins.
Otherwise this deck quite frequently has some broken draws with turn 3 kills or simply win by first turn chalice.
In my (probably not very good) testing rock really was not such a good matchup for me as he alwas sinply had several deeds and won with them.
But against ******** I never had any problems(unless they wereplaying worship main).
You simply must resolve a chalice on 1 or 2 and you should be winning.
This should be very possible as they have about 10 counters and you have 4 chalice 4 trinket mage and 4 force to get one chalice into play.
Furthermore they can't let all of your other threads unchecked if they want to win.
Chalice is so amazing good against ******** because with one resolved the deck has tons of card disadvantage and loses its removal. Furthermore they'll lose all the cantrips and will have much harder times building ********.


In your list the most important thing you should add is the 3rd jitte.
It's a vital card in all aggro matchups.

Perhaps you're simply a bit unlucky or still to unexperienced with the deck,
but imo it is quite good.

How long have you been playing the deck, Rascal? When I first started playing I made a lot of bad moves, like not knowing how to use the Cloud of Faeries free mechanic to my advantage, how much to hurt myself for land, how explosively to play, what cards to pitch to FoW and mox, when to mulligan.

You've just got to keep practicing with it against as many other decks as possible to learn what to play and when, just like most other decks.

And yes, the grammar recently in this thread is absolutey atrocious.

After yet another T8 outing, this deck really seems to have found its groove. Nice work to Eldariel and everyone that's worked on it; there's nothing else in the MtG world quite like watching a deck go from idea to contender.

Anyway, one of the deck's flaws seems to be its inability to deal with resolved non-creatures. All that it takes is a single Worship/mongoose to GG the deck, as it has no bounce/targeted destruction; similarly, this deck gets overpowered by Reanimator, and bounce would put their Akromas and Spirits in the worst possible place for them - the hand. Thus, adding two or three Rushing Rivers to the deck would give it added flexibility by taking out threats that would hamper your gameplan.

In a similar vein, would Hurkyl's Recall be worthwhile as a SB entry to beat Affinity and Stax, as well as being worthwhile against X Stompy? Against Affinity it becomes a super-Timewalk, it keeps Stax off their balance, and would put any equipment users in a bad position when all their equipment (and Moxen - go card disadvantage!) is bounced, turning their alpha strike into an omega one.

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Originally Posted by JeremM

Anyway, one of the deck's flaws seems to be its inability to deal with resolved non-creatures. All that it takes is a single Worship/mongoose to GG the deck, as it has no bounce/targeted destruction; similarly, this deck gets overpowered by Reanimator, and bounce would put their Akromas and Spirits in the worst possible place for them - the hand. Thus, adding two or three Rushing Rivers to the deck would give it added flexibility by taking out threats that would hamper your gameplan.

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Reanimator isn't that bad. They basically need to go first and get a guy reanimated if they plan on keeping it, and you can still have FoW for it. Chalices shut down their reanimation potential VERY fast and if you get an active creature, you can quickly make sure they can't afford to Reanimate anything thanks to Psi Blasts. Post-SB, you've got Misdirections (letting them reanimate a misdirected Cloud of Faeries is funny), Crypts, etc. Similarly, Mongoose/Worship falls to Engineered Explosives. Rushing River is interesting, as is Repeal, but often you'll find it just clogging up your hand. I just don't really know how to fit some bounce in.

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Originally Posted by JeremM

In a similar vein, would Hurkyl's Recall be worthwhile as a SB entry to beat Affinity and Stax, as well as being worthwhile against X Stompy? Against Affinity it becomes a super-Timewalk, it keeps Stax off their balance, and would put any equipment users in a bad position when all their equipment (and Moxen - go card disadvantage!) is bounced, turning their alpha strike into an omega one.

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I don't think those decks are played enough to warrant SB-inclusions at all. I'd just play Energy Flux anyways; sure it hurts us, but it hurts them plenty more. Anyhow, I don'tw orry about Stax or Affinity, even when playing fair, they aren't that bad as we've got quite the game with them without having specific hate (and against Stax, the fact that we can practically ignore Trinisphere is real nice, especially when not played turn 1).

I swung for 19 damage by the third turn without the aid of sea drake last night. It went something like this:

turn one- trinket mage imprinted on chrome mox, tomb, serendib, go
turn two- city of traitors, play cloud of faeries, tap mox and city, untap city, float 1, tap city and 1 floating for sofi, equip sofi with tomb, swing for 5+2, that's 7, draw, go
turn three- play sword, equip on efreet, attack with cloud (1) and serendib (7+4) =12 damage, draw two, go

next turn i just psi blasted for the win. but shit if i could figure out a way to wreck without the drake i'd be money. i might pick some up from a kid who has a ton of portal cards from when he started, we'll see how that goes. I am getting really sick of the war beast. his drawback is a real disadvantage in this deck i am coming to see, he is easily swords'd, etc, it is tough to sac a land and take even more life than you need to from him leaving play.

Short report from The Source-tournament. I obviously played Faerie Stompy, since...well, I plays Faerie Stompy.


Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
6 Island
2 Seat of the Synod

Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
2 Sea Sprite
3 Trinket Mage
2 Shoreline Ranger

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


Sideboard
3 Winter Orb
3 Misdirection
1 Pithing Needle
2 Sea Sprite
3 Binding Grasp
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives


Round 1, Bigbear, Truffle Shuffle (I recall):
Although I lose the die roll, this was over in 2 quick games. I don't have the logs of these games so I don't remember them very well, but I didn't know what he was playing and therefore kept a solid beatdown hand. There's not a whole lot into these, except that Needle is indeed good against Deed and free counters and big creatures fast are good.

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2, Evil Roopey, EBA:
I didn't know what he's playing for a change, and lost the die roll (for a change, as well). Turns out, he's playing his EBA and game 1, we trade blows and go back and forth with him ending up with a Rotting Giant and me having a guy (I don't remember which one, probably Efreet). What I do remember is, he played Umezawa's Jitte and I chose not to Force it, thinking I could either outpace it or draw out of it. The fatal flaw in my plan was the fact that my SoFI didn't kill his guy, nor him quickly enough to prevent his Jitte from wrecking me. I ended up losing, although it's possible that he had a counter and I would've lost anyways.

Afterwards, I was kind of confused as for what to do in this match-up. I make the worst sideboarding error of all the tournament and side out my Chalices against a Thresholdish deck, bringing in Binding Grasps (naturally solid gold here, but not instead of Chalices) and probably another Needle to handle his Jittes (mistake #2). Game 2 went in the same vein as game 1, he drew ~3 StPs and I just lost. Chalice would've been good, but I'm a friggin' retard so...

1-1 (2-2)

Round 3, Kadishack, playing BR Sui.
Again, I don't know what he's playing. Why can't people other than me play some signature decks?!

Game 1, he wins the die roll, we both keep with me having a pretty bombtastic hand with a Fow and feeling confident. He lays a swamp, followed by my Island. He throws my plans off a bit by dropping another Swamp and Sinkhole, so I decide to go all-in and FoW it. Next turn, I go Ancient Tomb-Cloud-Cloud-Sea Sprite-Sword of Fire and Ice (mistake, I should've just played and equipped it to Cloud instead)-go, which is pretty good since his only removal is red. He Sinkholes my Ancient Tomb, keeping me off the Sword-equipment mana, the obvious play, but one that escaped me when I was slinging spells. I just swing for 3 and pass, drawing something unconsequential. He Sinkholes my Island and I ask if he's got the 4th one too, only to get the cryptic 'maybe' as an answer. It all turns out moot though as City of Traitors shows its head and I equip SoFI, drawing a concession.

Game 2, I keep a hand with Mox as my only blue source and with a FoW, but choose to let the Duress resolve as I've got SoFI and some other juicy targets to take over the Mox. After a long and hard thought, he indeed takes the Mox (which suggests an LD-heavy hand). I lead with Ancient Tomb and pass, and surprisingly, he passes the turn with only Badlands out, suggesting that he's manascrewed as well. I cycle Cloud of Faeries, hit a Seat of the Synod, and take 3 to drop Sea Sprite. He Hymns, and to protect my SoFI, I FoW pitching a Sea Drake. The City of Traitors in my hand later, I've got an equipped Sea Sprite swinging for 5. He drops a Hypno to stall the beats, I just drop a Chalice of the Void at 1 and Sea Drake, passing the turn. On his turn, he drops a Nantuko Shade, which kisses the Grave after yet another aerial raid. His Hypno meets Thirst for Knowledge, allowing him to stall me yet another turn, but at 2 life, his Meltdown for 3 doesn't save him especially with a FoW and I swing for the win, with him showing an Infest, a Bolt and another Shade, commenting that the Infest should've been Mutilate (which I was expecting whole game long and banking double Efreet in my hand for).

2-1 (4-2)

Round 4, Mad Zur, Solidarity
Didn't know what he was playing and lost the die roll...

Game 1, I cycle a Shoreline Ranger turn 1 for my Island with my 2-critter+Ranger+Thirst+2-mana lands-hand, a good hand against anything not-combo. His early Brainstorms put him either into Threshold or Solidarity and the fact that the Islands keep a-coming turn 2 confirms him to be indeed playing The Tides. I drop an Efreet turn 2 and start the beats. Turn 3 Trinket Mage resolves, but Chalice meets Force. Next turn I drop a Sea Drake to try and speed up the clock, and it does indeed resolve, but when he sets up with a Flash of Insight, I see the writing on the wall. I've drawn 3 manacards and a Trinket Mage thus far, and when I thirst in his EoT, I hit 3 more manacards (I think one was Shoreline Ranger). He proceeds to go off and my 5-land hand is of little resistance, my beaters get tapped out so he doesn't need to fear the Psionic Blast and I just draw myself the next turn.

Game 2, I keep a normally unkeepable hand with City of Traitors, 2 Clouds, Chalice, Psionic Blast and Misdirection, but against Solidarity, it might just work. He mulligans and I lead with City-go, cycling a Cloud, hitting some random non-land non-Chalice non-FoW card (I hit a City at some point). He drops an Island. On my turn, I draw another random card and go for the Chalice. He Opts and then FoWs, I Misd and find myself in a good position. I cycle the second Cloud and still no blue lands, but he's stuck on one Island. Around turn 6, he hits another Island, while I'm still struggling for coloured mana. I've discarded for a few turns now, while he casts a Flash of Insight for 0. Around turn 10 I comment that I'll be decked without a single Brain Freeze cast, obviously marking the turn I hit my Island, drop a Sea Drake into Remand, which I Force, and he Forces back and I opt to keep my second Force in hand to protect my Chalice and to keep Trinket Mage in hand. Next turn I play that instead (since I had to play my second City and would be landless if I cast Drake this turn), fetching another Chalice, while he finally gets to cast Cunning Wish, having found his third land. Trinket Mage puts him to 15 (3 damage from 2 fetches and a FoW) and I opt to cast my Chalice for 2 as he's got Echoing Truth as his bounce of choice (he said he fetched it over Rebuild for reasons he'll never know). He FoWs, I FoW back, he Truths my Chalice at 1, but the one at 2 sticks. Next turn, I drop the Sea Drake and put him on a 2-turn clock aided by his second FoW. Next turn, I swing for 6, followed by the next turn him trying to go off in spite of Chalice for 2 and failing after Tide-Turnabout-Meditate sequence.

Game 3, I keep yet another questionable hand, but it has something nutty like Misdirection, Chalice, Trinket Mage and such, and he mulliganed to 4 so I felt slightly comfortable. Only problem is the single Mox as a mana source, but I figure I can draw another one playing second in due time. Sure enough, turn 2 I hit Seat of the Synod, resolve a Chalice with Misdirection-aid and pass. I hit yet another Mox, imprint Cloud, cast Sea Drake, it sticks and the beats start. The following turns, he Remands my Serendib twice until finally FoWing it, and next turn Cunnings, but I've been topdecking Islands only and hardcast FoW on it. He draws, passes the turn and 'GG's. Weird games to say the least.

3-1 (6-3)


Next turn I would've played Lukas Preuss (didn't know what he was playing and would've lost the die roll), but since he was locked into Top 8 and I wasn't even with a draw (I could've ended up 9th had things went wrong), he scooped for me (thanks man!) to increase the Euro-density there and off I was to Top 8.


Quarterfinals, Dontbiteitholmes, Loam-Assault

Didn't know what he was playing and lost the die roll with a 19 (he rolled 19 too and on the second roll, I got 12 to his 17).

Game 1, I open with a mull to his kp and he blind-therapies my Chalice, the only reason to keep the hand in the first place (I guess I just have 'Faerie Stompy' written all over my forehead). Turn 2, he starts loaming and I try to get some beats going with Mox, Island, Cloud and Sea Drake. He Duresses me for some lands in my hand and Gambles for Seismic Assault, discarding Seismic Assault. I swing, he keeps Loaming. I play Sea Drake from my hand to save my Islands with my hand full of lands (huge mistake #1) and to put him to lethal range (his only out is a Devastating Dreams anyways) instead of casting Jitte and just forcing Dreams out of him. He's at 8, Duresses my Jitte and Dreams my dudes away (Sea Drake pulled the lands into safety, but as said, I was landflooded, so that was a retarded move, especially since Mox doesn't give a fuck about Dreams), resetting his board to 2 lands and few handcards as well. I play land-go into Sword of Fire and Ice (if I now had the Sea Drake in hand, I could play the Drake and equip it, preventing him from...well, doing anything about it since his only removal for it is sorcery-speed. He keeps doing his Loam-thing and Devastating Dreams my Islands away trivially (they're the ones my Drake saved). He Therapies me for FoW, taking both the ones I topdecked, Burning Wishes for Nostalgic Dreams, while I City-Trinket Mage into finally a creature and a Chalice (shoulda considered Needle, although Chalice was ultimately the right choice). He Nostalgics for Seismic Assault and played it. I'm a fucking retard, trying to equip SoFI even though he's at 8 and has Seismic Assault with 3 cards (I calculated that he has no lands in hand, of course forgetting that he has a drawphase). I lose my Mage (Huge mistake #2, shoulda just attacked and cast Chalice at 2 with the Seat and City in hand) and he casts Life a couple of times the next turn, Assaulting me from 20 to 0 in one turn.

Game 2, I open with keeping my 7, Island-go, turn 2 Tormod's Crypt-Tomb-SoFI (over Sea Drake since I have a land in play and can play-equip next turn, and I honestly need to get my SoFI out of Duress/Therapy-zone), he Gambles (discarding a land this time, later he tells me that he had Needle too), passes the turn after Duressing empty. I just go City-Sea Drake-equip SoFI-beat-you-senseless. I also foil his first Life with Crypt to slow him down even further. Next turn Jitte is followed by a concession.

Game 3, I draw some sort of nuts, City, City, Mox, Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet, SoFI, FoW. He Therapies for Chalice, wiffing. I draw a Sea Sprite, imprint it dropping turn 1 Drake. He drops Wall of Roots and flashbacks Therapy, which I FoW as I want to end the game fast, protecting my SoFI. Turn 2, I equip SoFI, swing for 8, draw a card and have found another SoFI and Island. I'm a City/Tomb away from turn 3 kill, he wonders if he can race my kill, comments 'WTF am I doing', Gambles for Burning Wish, discarding Burning Wish, and is rightly a bit frustrated ('that shit happened 3 times game 1'). I Jitte-equip instead of playing a Chalice at 2 (I'm still a fucking retard even if I'm drawing better), but luckily he has no outs and I manage to win.

4-1 (8-4)


Semifinals, Evil Roopey, EBA

This time I actually know what my opponent plays and manage to win a die roll too! The tides have turned! I've also developed an SB-plan (bring in Grasps and Misds for some equipment, Sea Sprite and random dudes, keeping the single Needle for his potential Jittes).

Game 1, I get to play! Turn 1 Sea Drake runs into FoW, but I FoW straight back, going down to 1 card in the process ('all-out', that's the only thing the hand had going on for it). He's a bit confused by the Sea Drake-ruling, but we figure it out. Sea Drake gets in once before going farming, while I draw a land, cycle Cloud into Serendib Efreet and play it. He Mages on SoFI (damn Jedi), which I draw next turn and that would've won the game (why couldn't it be Jitte?). We trade blows, but I proceed to draw like 6 consecutive lands while he starts building an army with Serendib Efreet of his own, Dark Confidant, then a second one, but has no good attacks since my Efreet can stop anything he has. When he cast his second Efreet, he was down to 8 from my 2 swings, his Efreet, Confidant and all his fetching. He decided, he needs to start to swing and comes in with his Confidant and Efreets, when at 5 from those 3. I've still got a nice life advantage since he's been unable to swing into my Efreet, so I can afford to just take it, blocking an Efreet (the last thing I wanna do is kill his Confidant). I just swing back and he succumbs to his own Efreets with me drawing nothing but lands. This game Meddling Mage was truly only a spell, it just couldn't swing since equipped SoFI would've ended the game. This goes to show, life advantage can be good.

Game 2, I bring my SVG SB-plan in (I know he brings in Disenchants, so Misdirections are really good). We both keep, he plays Island-go, I Mox a Ranger, drop Tomb-Efreet-go. He Brainstorms. He Duresses my Force away (only non-land non-critter in hand) and I swing, and drop a second Efreet. He drops a Rotting Giant. I cycle Cloud of Faeries since I really want equipment being low on business, and swing. My tomb and Efreet-upkeep make the race a bad idea, and he Swords one Efreet. Next turn, he manages to Ghastly Demise the other one and I'm looking bad, having drawn nothing of consequence off my Cloud. I manage a Chalice at 2, but that and 10 lands do very little, and he's already got a Giant + Jitte. I manage to draw Binding Grasp, but he has the FoW and we are off to game 3 as his Jitted Giant swings for the last 7 points.

Game 3, I draw a different prison-style hand with Chalice + Trinket Mage and acceleration. I open with an Island, since I have Cities in hand, but draw a Tomb. He Brainstorms, but my Chalice at 1 resolves as the Island allows me to play around Daze. He drops a Rotting Giant and I Trinket Mage for a second Chalice. My Chalice at 2 resolves and as he tries to Disenchant the first one in response, I Force, then pay for the Daze I've been playing around all game. I take a hit or two, then drop Efreet. I stay on defense to keep myself from dying to the Efreet. I manage to draw a Binding Grasp and that's all she wrote.

5-1 (10-5)


Finals, Tao, Gbw Rocky Rec-Sur

Game 1, I lose the roll, back to my usual role. I also don't have a clue of what he's playing, throughout game 1. Game 1, I keep a hand with Mox, Seat and Chalice. I drop 'em, but draw no lands. Few turns later, he Deeds my board for 0 and I draw an Ancient Tomb, kinda frustrated. Loxodon Hierarch and company mop me up soon after.

Game 2, I Needle his Top (idiocy strikes again) and get my board, including Binding Grasp on his Genesis, swept only costing him the Needled Top. I Needle his Survival soon after, but Viridian Shaman comes and I can't really fight an active Survival with a Krovikan Horror coming back. I didn't see Survivals or such game 1 so I put him on the Rock. Else I would've brought Tormod's Crypts in, but as it stood, I could've done better had I done the smart thing, not the cute thing, by Needling Deed over Top even if the Top is strong. I had a FoW, which is why I Needled the top in the first place, figuring I can FoW the Deed, but a Survival came along without a Mage or the other Needle in sight, forcing me to expend the FoW. Eternal Witnesses recurring StPs are bad news without Chalices.


Overall, I did ok, and the deck did great, but I really need to work the few stupid basic mistakes of card-priority out of my system, learn to think, and to adapt to random opponents. I'm happy with the deck and my finish, but not with my playing, especially since the finals were perfectly winnable with the MU being pretty good actually. Just, Needle on Deed, Needle on Deed, Needle on Deed, Needle on Deed... But yea, nice tourney. Oh yea, MWS sucks. I systematically lose all but 1 roll every day, although usually I lose that one too (in Magic-League tournaments and all that), and it keeps happening. It's really frustrating. Also, every Gobbo-opponent I ever play always has a turn 1 Lackey without mulligans. But yea, whatever. Perhaps one day, I'll start winning die rolls.


Shoreline Ranger is nice since it pitches to FoW and Mox, being essentially a blue land and occasionally actually gets hardcast. It's interesting, I'll definately keep testing it; I like lands that don't fall prey to Wasteland, so the fact that it gets an actual Island is a real boon. The fact that it balances out those uneven draws is real nice too. 1-Island+Ranger hands are kinda annoying though. Oh well, Tomb/City+Ranger are usually just fine. Looks decent so far, the idea is 'blue land' (pitching for FoWs and Moxes is huge, having lands to pitch is often great in land-heavy hands or quickly emptying hands).

Congrats Eldariel! I really enjoyed the report (that Solidarity match sounds amazing) and I think you're being a tad hard on yourself. There's no way you made it to the finals playing all bad (everything looks bad if you remember it!). I really love the different style draws the deck gets. Shoreline Ranger seems nice, but I think I'd rather have the 4th trinket Mage. Your right about upping the number of blue card in the deck though. I got a little cute with toolbox for awhile and was often stuck without FoW/MisD backup.

I'm suprised you beat TruffleShuffle so easily. I would have guessed it a tough matchup. I have also learned the hard way to needle Deed, even if they're playing mono red.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

Game 2, I keep a normally unkeepable hand with City of Traitors, 2 Clouds, Chalice, Psionic Blast and Misdirection, but against Solidarity, it might just work. He mulligans and I lead with City-go, cycling a Cloud, hitting some random non-land non-Chalice non-FoW card (I hit a City at some point).

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I'm curious as to why you didn't lead with chalice here? I'm not a seasoned enough Solidarity player to know the correct move.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

He Duresses me for some lands in my hand

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I'm a little confused here. Do you mean he just saw lands?

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

This goes to show, life advantage can be good.

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I never would have thought this deck would prove that, at least not in our favor :)

Again, great stuff with the report and the result.

Nice tournament report and good job on the 2nd place finish. Strangely, you didn't run into Goblins or Thresh all tournament. Do Sourcers play Tier 1 decks anymore?

I tested Shoreline Ranger and there are times when it's good and bad. Good, when I have excess lands. Bad, when I have too few or just enough. An opener with City and Ranger is a mull, and Tomb and Ranger is slower than if Ranger was an Island. Right now, I'd rather have actual land over Ranger, but I do agree on the importance of having blue cards in this deck, so I think Ranger is a decent option.

Ditto on the importance of basic lands, as I have 10+ maindeck in my build.

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Originally Posted by Phantom

I'm suprised you beat TruffleShuffle so easily. I would have guessed it a tough matchup. I have also learned the hard way to needle Deed, even if they're playing mono red.

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It is a tough one, I'm just a lucksac. Their best card is Deed, meaning Needle is the pivotal card of the MU (you'd rather save FoWs for other uses, like protecting Needle). Misdirection is great though. And yea, Needle, Needle, Needle.

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Originally Posted by Phantom

I'm curious as to why you didn't lead with chalice here? I'm not a seasoned enough Solidarity player to know the correct move.

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I wanted to try and find a blue source first. That would've given me more options and I just really wanted to know my draws (since I had Misdirection in hand, I was pretty confident I could resolve Chalice as long as his Remands weren't online yet).

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Originally Posted by Phantom

I'm a little confused here. Do you mean he just saw lands?

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Yea, I guess I worded it poorly.

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Originally Posted by Phantom

I never would have thought this deck would prove that, at least not in our favor :)

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2 Efreets, Confidant, FoWs and fetches can rival us ^^

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Originally Posted by jamest

Nice tournament report and good job on the 2nd place finish. Strangely, you didn't run into Goblins or Thresh all tournament. Do Sourcers play Tier 1 decks anymore?

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There was at least one Threshold in Top 8 (Angel of Despair), but mostly in these the Source-tournaments, people like to try their own creations. I was this close to playing 'Fat Goblins' (Green Gobs with Pendelhaven, Mogg Flunkies and Goblin Goon), but in the end, I realized that I can only play Faerie Stompy.


Oh, I've been recently testing a singleton Phyrexian Marauder. It sucks that it can't block, but it's nice to get a bigger creature off the Mage.

Goblins has for the most part died off where I play making Sea Sprite worthless. While War Beast is solid, I've been actively looking at new sets for possible replacements.

Here's what I ran across in Time Spiral...

Looter il-Kor 1U
Creature - Kor Rogue
Shadow (This creature can block or be blocked by only creatures with shadow.)
Whenever Looter il-Kor deals damage to an opponent, draw a card, then discard a card.
Unable to touch items of value, he goes forth to steal secrets instead.
Illus. Mike Dringenberg
1/1

Advantages.

His evasion is Shadow not flying. That's a huge bonus in a format with Mystic Enforcer, Exalted Angel, Serra Avenger (the real bomb from Time Spiral) and many other flyers. This means that he's the ideal way to bring in those last few points of damage if your opponent managed to stabilize with a big fat flyer. This also means that he's an awesome SOFI target.

He basically has a built in curiosity. He cycles through the deck very rapidly.

He's blue making him pitchable to FoW and Chrome Mox (the main drawback of War Beast).

Those advantages are reason enough for me.

What do you guys think. I think the above reasons are reason enough to run him anywhere that Goblins isn't a major force.

On a related note, god how badly I wish that Spiketail Drakeling was 2U instead of 1UU. A 2/2 flying Mana Leak is so much better than a 1/1 Flying Daze.

If Goblins isn't in your meta, then Looter il-Kor is decent.

But then a lot of things would be different if we didn't have to worry about Goblins. For example, Looter may be a good SOFI target, but without Goblins to worry about, SOFI might not be necessary in the first place.

SOFI is what enables turn 3 kills, all while drawing you cards. How could that not be neccesary?

I'm not saying lets pretend goblins doesn't exist. I'm just saying, lets not consider it like 1/3 the metagame which it was when this deck was conceived, because right now, it fells like 1/10 to 1/15 of the metagame, atleast from what I've seen recently. Goblins is a boring deck to play, and it's no where close to as good as it used to be since everything built in the past year has been designed to have great game against it. So it's understandable why few people want to play it.

So assuming that goblins is 1/10-1/15 of the metagame, lets compare and contrast Sea Sprite vs. Looter-il-vec vs. War Beast.

War Beast is a 3/4. This makes him a great blocker too, as well as a great clock. In addition, his 3cc means he isn't nuked by your own chalice.

Of Sea Sprite and il-vec, il-vec draws cards and has shadow > flying so I'll pick him over Sea Spirte. Both pitch to Mox and FoW, but both get nuked by Chalice at 2 though, which sucks. Then again, how often do you top deck one after casting chalice at 2, and not end up being able to pitch it to FoW or discard it to Thirst. Besides a resolved chalice at 2 usually means you win anyways. il-vec makes fire/ice really good though but you only run two and your opponent will likely side out fire/ice as a result. (most all other red removal can nuke sea drake so you probably prefer it if they waste it on il-vec)

What are your thoughts on this issue? How often do you think the 1 toughness, and more vulnerability to your own chalice at 2 matters?

Well at the moment i am playing Weatherseed Faeries instead of Sea Sprites even though Sea Sprites have more style... And the secret Weapon against Truffle Shuffle is still the good ol´Superman substitute Rainbow Efreet... i played against U/W Control and it rocked Swords To Plowshares didn´t work cuz of the Good Old Chalice and Wrath Of God didn´t do it cuz i phased him out... Best Creature you can have in a Control Meta... They´re still my cards nr. 61 and 62... And still playing with only 3 Sea Drakes .....