[DTW] Faerie Stompy

I can't really see how mana stability could have improved when you have a grand total of one less coloured source for each colour than Faerie Stompy and heftier coloured requirements. I also don't see why you'd SB Meddling Mages. They only improve your best MU, combo, and aren't really good against the rest of the field. Also, one card you might consider cutting in numbers is actually Jitte; SoFI is generally just very much stronger and Jitte isn't a card you want against a non-aggro deck while SoFI will be smashing against anything where you can attack. I also see your MU against random decks MUCH worse without Chalices. Survival with Frog Lock before you have an active Jitte basically wins against you (they have artifact removal for Chalices), the Fog-spike is huge too, Platinum Angel is almost game (from reanimator or Welder-Survival) and you can't really prevent a Warchief-alpha from Goblins. Oh, and if opponent stops combat, you lose. The reason I like having Psionics is that not only do they speed up goldfish, they also take out many combo-critters, many 'I hate combat.critters', and are instant removal. In a polished field, they're probably weaker, but in a random field, they're increasingly strong. I'm going to try a combination of Looters and Facts in the mono-blue version, as Looter allows me to turn the raw cards from Fact into more useful versions (and find Facts). Still, if you don't expect to face any random decks and less combo, I can see dropping Psionics. The reason I might switch back from Thirst is, Looter gives me the cheap manipulation Thirst offered, so a more expensive bomb-spell seems like a better companion for it.

Oh, if you want to improve colour-consistency, try Solemn Simulacrum. The only problem with it is, it's an artifact and thus weakens the blue-consistency of the deck (and needs 2 colourless lands to be cast). I just wish there was a better blue landcycler than Shoreline :/ (or some cheaper artifact that CiPTs a land)

I brought the deck to a tournament yesterday, in Paris. About 50 people and a metagame still very agro, very red. Very few control, and almost no combo decks.

4 Serendib Efreets
4 Sea Drakes
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Trinket Mages
2 Sea Sprites
1 Weatherseed Faerie

4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Swords of Fire and Ice
4 Umezawa Jitte
1 Pithing Needle

4 Force of Will
3 Thirst for Knowledge

4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tombs
1 Seats of the Synod
9 Islands

SB: 3 Control Magic
3 Misdirections
1 Weatherseed faerie
1 Sea Sprite
2 Tormod’s crypts
1 Pihing Needles
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Winter Orbs

I finish 6th, winning a Chinese Planeshift booster. Again, there were sadly no top 8. Some 15 year-old kid wins the tournament (and the Juzam djinn associated :frown: ) with a burn deck(!). I won 2/0 versus MonoR Goblins and UWB fish ; won 2/1 versus UGr Threshold and mono B agro. I lost 2/1 versus Affinity and mono R control (!). This guy played 4 piroblasts main deck, with REBs, boils, and scalds in sb. Too much hate…

I was quite satisfied with this version of the deck, red being so present in my meta. I almost never regretted playing without the psionic blasts, although I understand the reach and removal they enable. I also really enjoy the 8 equipements. Against non aggro decks, Jitte gives life, or +2/+2. It is still a good deal.

@ Sea Sprite vs. Weatherseed: I run a little of both and I wouldn’t cut all the Sea Sprites. I really like to have some 2cc things to sometimes cast – or pitch. It does not prevent me from playing Weatherseed faeries.

@ Rainbow Efreet: It is great, and it can save some equipments from destruction too, but it is really efficient versus control deck (those decks I so seldom see here in France). And even with 22 blue manas, it is short to play it, and be able to reliably save it. I really see it as a sidebard card. If you could have some 30 slots for building it.

@Shoreline Ranger: “Basically, it's mediocre at almost everything, but at least it does almost everything.” I completely agree on that one, and that’s why I don’t play it. I tried it, and, most of the time, needed it for an island (which it is more or less replacing on every list). I understand it can be pitched, or on weird situations cast, but I think it really adds very little.

@The white splash: On paper it looks great, it is too bad there is this W mana exigency on Hussar; otherwise, it would be perfect for the deck. I know you can try to add the white lands, and play it for 1UW, but it is supposed to help building consistency, and exposing yourself to wastelands and color deaths, creates the opposite. I cut the Conclaves and all but 1 Seat to run 9 Islands on my build, precisely to be able to face LD. I also think you burn yourself enough in this deck, so fetches are not really wished, those few extra lives will probably matter more than the thinning effect. Anyway, if you really want to play it, it is better for sure to keep some Thirsts in the deck too.

I have mixed feelings toward cutting the MD Needle. Against any survival, belcher, or TimeVault combo, … it can really give you g1. Since not many decks play it MD, there are expected, but mostly for the following games, with often some sb answers. And mages help to fetch it in case. I know you plan to chalice=1 almost always, but at worst, if you draw the needle, it can be discarded for Thirst.

In the past months, I almost never side boarded the Grasps. I recently switched them to Control Magic, since I had upgraded the island count and had some beta left. Nevertheless, I again haven’t used them in the last tournaments. I was considering cutting them for 3 Energy Flux, basically for the Affinity match up. Even if it is reliable only against this deck, otherwise you run too much artifacts to use it, I believe the match up is really close and the Fluxes should make the difference. On the other hands, you don’t meet Affinity that often.

Voila.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

I also don't see why you'd SB Meddling Mages. They only improve your best MU, combo, and aren't really good against the rest of the field.

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See, I think they could def help out some of our control matches. I've never been nuts about the MisDirections in the board. I only really board them in against combo and BW/BR because I have such a hard time getting enough blue cards to pitch to Mox, Force, and MisD, and actually play permanents at the same time.

Mage can serve us in several ways. First, it's like a mini Chalice and can hit cards that Chalice has a tough time getting to like Deed, Confinement, Humility, Wave, and Wrath. Second, it makes an absolutly splendid mox pitch (which makes me want to mainboard it). Third, I'm sure we'll board it in sometimes just to have some more bodies, and it gives us some nice options against control that doesn't run too many sweepers. Hell, we now have the ability to shut down all of Truffle Shuffle's removal (Chalice -> StP, Mage -> Vindicate, Needle -> Deed, FoW -> Wrath) and enough draw to realistically think about doing so. Also, with the success of FS and it's clones, we may start seeing some nasty hate in peoples boards. Mage can always help with that.

Anyway, this is all theoretical since the mana base has yet to be tested extensively. More to come.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

I also see your MU against random decks MUCH worse without Chalices. Survival with Frog Lock before you have an active Jitte basically wins against you (they have artifact removal for Chalices), the Fog-spike is huge too, Platinum Angel is almost game (from reanimator or Welder-Survival) and you can't really prevent a Warchief-alpha from Goblins. Oh, and if opponent stops combat, you lose. The reason I like having Psionics is that not only do they speed up goldfish, they also take out many combo-critters, many 'I hate combat.critters', and are instant removal.

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(I'm assuming in the first sentance you meant to say without "Blast" since I haven't seen a build drop Chalice and wouldn't accept it.) Well, whenever you add spells something has to go, and the extra draw will get us to Forces quicker, but I think that I agree with you and have a solution. I think we should make like Thresh and not be afraid of 1-2 ofs. With 8 draw spells, we have a significant shot of seeing a singleton when we need to, and all the draw spells let us deposit useless jank into the yard or bottom of the library. I think I'll try out 1 Blast, 1 pro red dude, and 1 needle mainboard and see how i like it.

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Originally Posted by Yamaelle

In the past months, I almost never side boarded the Grasps. I recently switched them to Control Magic, since I had upgraded the island count and had some beta left. Nevertheless, I again haven’t used them in the last tournaments. I was considering cutting them for 3 Energy Flux, basically for the Affinity match up. Even if it is reliable only against this deck, otherwise you run too much artifacts to use it, I believe the match up is really close and the Fluxes should make the difference. On the other hands, you don’t meet Affinity that often.

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Congrats on the finish! Always nice to see the deck place high. I'm a tad confused as to why you didn't board the Controls/Grasps in against Affinity. They are also great against AS, and any green based aggro save elves. Energy Flux is certainly a house vs. Affinity, but is really only useful there as it pretty much hoses us too. Anyway, good luck with the deck in the future.

Hi everybody!

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

I can't really see how mana stability could have improved when you have a grand total of one less coloured source for each colour

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Oh no, "mana stability seems to work very well" in my last post was referred to my previous manabase, that was always UW - of course mono color manabase is more consistent... It's an inevitable law for every deck

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

I also don't see why you'd SB Meddling Mages. They only improve your best MU, combo, and aren't really good against the rest of the field.

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Maybe you're right. I don't fear combo (I also run 4 Trinket Mages for fast Chalice), I thought they could have been Chalice n.5 and 6 against StP or something similar - but never test for real.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

one card you might consider cutting in numbers is actually Jitte

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I understand your point, but I play in a very aggro environment, and Jitte is the best equipment imo - I don't play 4 just because it's legendary. Moreover, Jitte shines especially well when equipped on Hussar: attacking you becomes very scary!

@Psionic Blast: I hesitated too before dropping all blasts, and am not yet 100% persuaded it's the best move; but I want to test Phantom's tip for a while (I mean playing 7-8 draw spells and no blasts). As noticed by Eldariel, Blasts are a minor drop against top tiers, but are increasingly useful against randomness. I must test more. Maybe I could keep Blasts as sideboard options, being they a situational requirement:

-2 Meddling Mage
-1 Binding Grasp (?)
+3 Psionic Blast

@Looter: Looter vs. TfK? This is interesting. Looter cannot block, but neither does TfK, said someone. Jokes apart, TfK is unconditional, while Looter needs 3 more turns to dig 3, but on the other hand Looter can give our equipments a reason to exist. I need some test to decide what is better.

@Solemn Simulacrum: if it costed one less mana it would be a must; as it is I'll test it, but I'm not conviced. When facing heavy LD I can use all my search resources to fetch the mana I need - 1 Ranger, 4 Trinket Mages, 4 Court Hussar and 3 TfK - I have a lot of options. I add or replace something only if it is a real improvement.

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Originally Posted by Yamaelle

I have mixed feelings toward cutting the MD Needle. Against any survival, belcher, or TimeVault combo, … it can really give you g1. Since not many decks play it MD, there are expected, but mostly for the following games, with often some sb answers. And mages help to fetch it in case. I know you plan to chalice=1 almost always, but at worst, if you draw the needle, it can be discarded for Thirst.

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You're right when you say Needle's 1cc is not a problem, and it's generally useful. The point is that it is rarely required for real. Look at your examples. Survival: it's six months I don't see one in play in my meta. Belcher: fetching Chalice@0 has more or less the same effect. Timevault combo: you mean Time Vault+Mizzium Transreliquant in 5/3? I never saw anyone playing it for real... Time Vault has disappeared after the last rewording.
Decks really hurted by Needle exist, but they're not extremely dangerous nor widespread, so I think Needle can be a sideboard option.

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Originally Posted by Yamaelle

In the past months, I almost never side boarded the Grasps. I recently switched them to Control Magic, since I had upgraded the island count and had some beta left. Nevertheless, I again haven’t used them in the last tournaments.

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This is very situational. Unlike Psionic Blast or Needle, Grasp has been very useful for me last tournaments (lot of random big threat aggro, like Angel/Zilla Stompy variants). It's a meta choice I think.

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Originally Posted by Yamaelle

I was considering cutting them for 3 Energy Flux, basically for the Affinity match up. Even if it is reliable only against this deck, otherwise you run too much artifacts to use it, I believe the match up is really close and the Fluxes should make the difference. On the other hands, you don’t meet Affinity that often.

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Play UW FS then: you can play Kataki, War's Wage which works much better! :laugh:

[Edit]

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Originally Posted by Phantom

I think we should make like Thresh and not be afraid of 1-2 ofs. With 8 draw spells, we have a significant shot of seeing a singleton when we need to, and all the draw spells let us deposit useless jank into the yard or bottom of the library. I think I'll try out 1 Blast, 1 pro red dude, and 1 needle mainboard and see how i like it.

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You posted this while I was writing, so I did not consider it before. It's very interesting. I must think about it. BtW how do you fit 8 draw spells? Have you already a list?

Keep in mind that taking out the blasts is negating a fundamental part of this deck, and throwing any chance of a win within the first four turns out of the window. There are certainly other cards that I would cut before Blast.

Needle shouldn't be dropped. It kills Vials, which can often, when you have a slower hand, be the difference between life and death against Goblins. It also shuts down fetches (meh, less useful in your build, but still doable) and Wastes, and most importantly, anything with Survival, Recurring Nightmare (they've placed, silently, but they have), Ravager (seriously, want to beat Affinity? Play Needles, Needle Ravager and Plating, GG, you win), Parallax Wave (no Needle=Angel Stompy Stomps you), Maze of Ith (yea, you need to shut it down if it's played against you) and a thousand other things. Basically, it does too much for a too low cost deck-size wise to drop. Tormod's Crypt does so much less that I don't MD it, but Needle nearly belongs to the MD as a singleton.

Excellent! Construtive discussion at last, and I have much to say in response.

1) After some testing with Oath of Scholars and Rainbow Efreet I agree with Phantom that both have no place in the deck. The times where the oath screws us are not worth the times where it helps, and Rainbow efreet just isn’t useful enough.

2) While the white splash seems to have potential, mostly because of the blatant power of meddling mage, I still am not sold on the Hussars. 1WU seems so far out of the mana curve of this deck regardless of the advantages the card may provide.

3) I also disagree with dropping the 1 needle mainboard. It’s power is irreplacable in many matchups, and the chances of drawing it when you don’t want it / can’t play it are slim to none.

4) I think Eldariel’s idea of switching TfKs with FoFs is an excellent one. The past couple lists have not included Looter il-Kor and I think this is a major mistake. FoF + Looter seems like a winning team with Looter providing nice hand sculpting as well as an equipment carrier and FoF providing a slightly slower drawing bomb.

5) I think psi blast as a 2 of should not be dropped. It provides us with creature removal (as people have said) as well as a faster clock when needed. It's just to useful in to many matches.

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4) I think Eldariel’s idea of switching TfKs with FoFs is an excellent one. The past couple lists have not included Looter il-Kor and I think this is a major mistake. FoF + Looter seems like a winning team with Looter providing nice hand sculpting as well as an equipment carrier and FoF providing a slightly slower drawing bomb.

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This leads for me to the Question: Should the remaining pro red-critters Weatherseed Fearies or Sea Sprites?

Weatherseed Fearies now would better fits in the manacurve (because FoF and Looters have CC 4 and 2) but could be to slow!

What do you think?

Thanks

Odabella

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Originally Posted by Phantom

I think we should make like Thresh and not be afraid of 1-2 ofs. With 8 draw spells, we have a significant shot of seeing a singleton when we need to, and all the draw spells let us deposit useless jank into the yard or bottom of the library. I think I'll try out 1 Blast, 1 pro red dude, and 1 needle mainboard and see how i like it.

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Yes, a 2of @8 draw spells is at least as reliable as a 3of @3 draw spells. On the other hand, a 1of is reliable only if it is tutorable. In this deck, you can play Pithing Needle as a 1of, but Psionic Blast should be at least a 2of: otherwise, it's too random.

Now let's try to put your suggestions together. I have to add 1 draw spell (to have 8), 1 needle and 2 blasts. What should I cut?

Not the manabase, of course.

Artifacts?
4 Chrome Mox: absolutely not (manabase)
4 Chalice of the Void: absolutely not (FS basic plan)

Equipments?
4 Sword of Fire and Ice + 3 Umezawa's Jitte: maybe I could cut one with 8 draw spells, but I'm very reluctant: it's true you don't need multiples, but it's also true you need at least one. More consistency means higher probability to set FS plan, whose core is an equipped threat. Anyway I think I'd never cut more than one equipment.

Spells?
4 Force of Will: absolutely not (should explain?)

Creatures?
1 Shoreline Ranger: needed for manabase
4 Sea Drake: nope, they're the best
4 Serendib Efreet: nope, they're close to the best. We want to keep our stars
4 Trinket Mage: needed for manabase and extra synergies
4 Court Hussar: nope, I'm trying to up draw spell count!

4 Cloud of Faeries: Mmmh. I love their speed boost and wouldn’t ever want to cut them. But they result on the bottom of my required list, so they're the most rational drop, needing to find room for other.
Their effect is great early game, but you can be fast even when you don't draw any, right? Plus they're not a big threat; and even if you can cycle them if not needed (→later topdeck mode), directly drawing a better answer would save 2 mana. Moreover, they have sense as a 4of: if you cut one, cut them all.

In conclusion, the better answer to the hard question What should I cut? seems:

-4 Cloud of Faeries
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Psionic Blast
+1 TfK/Looter il-Kor/Fact or Fiction

and the list becomes:

Mana:
2 Tundra
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox
1 Shoreline Ranger (list here to emphasize mana option)
4 Trinket Mage (list here to emphasize mana option)

Draw: (8)
4 Court Hussar
4 Looter il-Kor/TfK/Fact or Fiction (what is the best splash?)

Fatties:
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake

Other tools:
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
2 Psionic Blast
4 Force of Will
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte

At this point, someone could say: "OK, you want to play 8 draw spells. So why don't you play some TfK/Looter/Fact or Fiction mix and stop boring us with your white splash?"

Don't forget I'm trying to improve the deck, even if it doesn't seem. Cutting 5 standard FS cards to add 5 TfK/Looter/Facts mix doesn't make FS stronger: too many slow down cards.
White splash allows Hussar, that is a relevant creature other than an equivalent draw spell. UW manabase is weaker, but Hussar itself is a stronger card than the ones it replaces.
8 draw spells plan needs such powerful cards to be a real improvement.

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Now, I go on bothering you with a new card discussion: what about Grand Arbiter Augustin IV? It fits perfectly UW FS manabase and is a nice guy. Speeds up all your blue spells (26-28) warchief style, and slows down opponent at the same time. As for the Blasts, if played should be at least a 2of.

Best regards

Don't forget that Sword also draws you cards (the more I play, the more I use that particular ability) and Cloud cycles, which gives you decent amounts of card selection and draw (basically, if you don't have a use for the mana acceleration and don't need the body, cycling Cloud is a good bet. Or if you need a certain card as your only out).

Anyhow, pro-red as 1-of doesn't really work since you usually want them early on. Anyway, I like 2 at the present. I'm thinking of trying to cut a Jitte and a Psi Blast for 2 Fact or Fictions and try to fit one more Looter in and see what happens.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

Don't forget that Sword also draws you cards (the more I play, the more I use that particular ability) and Cloud cycles, which gives you decent amounts of card selection and draw (basically, if you don't have a use for the mana acceleration and don't need the body, cycling Cloud is a good bet. Or if you need a certain card as your only out).

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This is surely true: I like Clouds too, but I want more card selection and draw, so I needed to drop something... And Clouds seems the most rational choice.

Now I’m playing 8 draw spells (11 if you count SoFI) in the most aggro way: 4 Hussars and 4 Looters. I’m testing Grand Arbiter Augustin IV too (as a 2of - need to think well what to cut): seems very nice. When it resolves opponent moans because of the slow down, but the most impressive thing is the speed boost it gives you: all your blue spells have colorless mana in their casting cost, and your blue spells are 26-28 (half deck!) You can play two 3cc spells or hardcast a FoW with 4 mana, play Hussar with UW, and Looter with U! Something like one more spell every turn.
Need to test more (and to choose 2 cards to cut – suggestions?) but early tests are good.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

Anyhow, pro-red as 1-of doesn't really work since you usually want them early on. Anyway, I like 2 at the present. I'm thinking of trying to cut a Jitte and a Psi Blast for 2 Fact or Fictions and try to fit one more Looter in and see what happens.

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I play no pro-red and a higher creature count, and I'm fine. All in all pro-reds are situational, while more creatures are always cool. Surely I don’t miss pro-red against goblin. I will test more against burn.

While I'm all for cheeper spells, the Grand Arbiter seems to slow. A quick gatherer search revealed Sunscape Familiar, which basically provides the same thing without the extra 2 mana and the blue requirement. White it doesn't slow down your opponent, speeding you up 2 turns earlier than Arbiter provides roughly the same tempo boost. After reading the forums yesterday, I tweaked my own list and it now looks something like this:

Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Looter il-Kor
4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Trinket Mage

Spells
3 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
2 Psionic Blast

Artifacts
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
1 Pithing Needle
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
8 Island
1 Seat of the Synod

First off, I am LOVING the FoFs with looters. They work wonderfully together and after testing against Gobos, U/G Madness, and Salvagers I can confidently say that the change from TfKs to FoFs increased my win percentages and decreased the number of times I went into top-deck mode significantly.

Morte: I would never cut clouds. While I understand your need to cut something, clouds accelerate into turn 2 FoFs, turn 2 chalice at 2, turn 2 sofi or jitte and equip all while providing a body to equip or block with. Cloud can also cycle (which can be crucial in order to dig for a blue source on turn 1) throughout the game if her acceleration / body is not needed. This is all much more relevant to the mono blue version though, as when you need 2 colored sources it provides much less accel (since the accel only occurs when you have a 2 mana land).

Yes, I understand your point and agree with that. I explained in a previous post the reason why I tried Hussar. Never though to cut the stars of this deck: its cheap, big fliers. Hussar was just a replacement for the cards I retained subpar, like TfK or pro-reds; and I wanted higher consistency, in the form of more card selection and draw.

It doesn't matter if my very first idea has not obtained consensus: I wanted to awake this forum from a sterile debate on minor details, and research together a structural upgrade, in order to improve FS consistency.

I may not have been that useful personally... Who cares? At least, my provocation seems to have borne good fruits: last list by Kronicler plays 10 good dig/draw spells, has a high creature count with no main deck pro-reds, plays all the good tools... And yes............... IT IS MONO BLUE! :laugh:
Great work, Kron.

@white splash: at this point, you demonstrated me that you could add the consistency I missed without color splashes, and playing all cards from fine to superb level. So I admit there is no reason to weaken the manabase. Just for sideboard? Naaa... We have no relevant board weakness: Meddling Mages are quite redundant - Chalice+Trinket Mage is enough against combo - and we have other answers to mass destruction or hate cards. Disenchant instead adds something we lack, but you don’t splash a color just for that (at this point, green would be better, for Krosan Grip!)
No. Somehow, now we know bicolor manabase can be dealt. Maybe we’ll think to it in the future, when new, outstandingly broken cards will come. [CREDITS] :wink:

Thanks everybody, and good night.

I took my Faerie Stompy deck to it's first real tournament this weekend:

It was the 4x FoW tournament at Dragon's Lair in Massachusetts. I did alright, I went 2-2 after four rounds of swiss and 22 players. I'd never been to that place either, so I had no idea of the meta.

I played this build:

22 Mana
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
9 Island
4 Chrome Mox
1 Seat of the Synod

17 Creatures
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Sea Drake
2 Weatherseed Faeries
2 Looter il-Kor
3 Trinket Mage

22 Other Spells
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
3 Psionic Blast


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

Match 1: R/G Loam
Game 1: He wins the roll, drops a wooded foothills, fetching Taiga, Kird Ape, go. I come back with COTV@ 1 and pass. I topdeck a mox, pitch cloud of faeries to it, sea drake, island, go. He drops a werebear and the savage beats begin. Next turn they have thresh, I manage to equip a SoFI on the drake but it is too late. He is at 1 life and I blast the werebear, but it isn't enough.

Game 2: I keep a mediocre hand. I don't remember much other than eating shit to a Seismic Assault/LftL combo that killed my Efreet and Faeries in no time.

0-1

Match 2: Survival
Game 1: I am swinging with a Looter dude and SoFI. He gets to five and sets me up in the squee/solitary confinement lock. I scoop because if the kid played any slower we would have went to time. It was like watching paint dry.

Game 2: I keep another mediocre but playable hand hoping to get some results from it. I put a chalice on 1 and 2 but it isn't enough, parallax wave and a lone loxodon hierarch fuck me while i'm in uber topdeck mode.

0-2

Match three: Mono black discard
Game one: I handily win this one with a jitte on a weatherseed faerie, i beleive. I needle his phyrexian totem so he has nothing to swing with. Finally, a win.

Game 2: He gets out a Nantuko Shade on the second turn and the savage beats get me. He is holding casual conversation with some girls on the other end of the table and not really paying attention to what he is doing, taking forever to play, etc. I chalice at 1 and he manages to mindlessly play a sensei's divining top. I'm getting pissed at the social hour going on and I miss it, not paying attention to the game. I draw my card next turn and I ask him about it, he says let it stay, I sigh, cut my losses, and continue playing. I mulled on this hand and nothing worked for me. Fuck.

Game 3: I draw a god hand of Tomb, City, Mox, Cloud, 2 SofI and Sea Drake. I equip Sea Drake and he scoops on the third turn. GG, thank god.

1-2

Match 4: B/W skies
Game 1: I go city, mox, weatherseed, pass. He drops a cloud of faeries and passes. He drops a pride of the clouds, i psi blast that right out. I equip the weatherseed and it doesn't take long before he scoops up the cards.

Game 2: I side in the Engineered explosives, everything in his deck is 1 or 2 costers. He goes first, drops a suntail hawk and some other 1/1 for 1. Turn two I chalice for one and pass. Not much happens, turn after that I play trinket mage fetching engineered explosives. he meddling mages force of will, I force it, he disenchants the chalice but doesn't do anything. he knows i'm holding the EE and scoops after I equip the mage with a SoFi I'd been holding.

2-2

Some thoughts:

Looter is amazing. Equipped with a SoFI is great.

We need ways to take care of enchantments and artifacts (most notably parallax wave and seismic assault, they both murdered me and there was nothing I could do. I could have needled it but we need more than that)

When the deck works, it wins, period. If it doesn't work, you just roll over and die with nothing on the board. Anything you get equipped pretty much spells GG which is great, but sometimes you have trouble fishing out cards that you need, when you need them.

That being said, it was fun, Dragon's Lair is an awesome place, great people there.

Maindecking answers to random artifacts and enchantments is a really good idea imo. I currently play thresh, with a singleton MD echoing truth to dig for in emergency. It's almost never dead, since it can save my creatures, slow aggro's clock, or bounce a problematic permament. Considering you don't have the draw engine of thresh, I would suggest 2 maindeck copies.

If you are serious about a maindeck answer, I think you should play rushing river over truth though. It fits your mana well, and you can always sacrifice an extra land (maybe a city of traitors, and then drop another land). Just a thought.

I don't really see why we would maindeck more answers for randomness an answer in needle, and 3-4 ways to get it as well as 4 FoWs. Not to mention that Rushing River is going to do absolutly nothing against either of the enchantments listed (bouncing Wave is actually GOOD for the opponent most of the time).

There's really not much you can do about wave. It's a nasty card that needs to be needled ASAP if you think they are playing it. Seismic assault is fairly easily dealt with. We run a bunch of pro-red, and Chalice @ 2 stops Loam in it's tracks.

Exactly. The deck does MD hate for the mentioned cards. Also, Chalice at 2>Seismic, since no Loam=no damage. Actually, it's a priority against any deck with Seismic, as you generally kill their Burning Wishes and whatnot too, while still keeping 1-CC open to resolve Needles as need be. And Parallax Wave is the whole reason MD Needle was added in the first place, FoW wasn't enough against Angel Stompy.

Solitary Confinement+Squee, not much to do about it if they get it online, however, if you can either FoW it or Tormod's Crypt their Squee, you're fine. Worth noting that we don't care about Life+Confinement since Chalice shuts down that plan just fine. If Confinement is big, some SB bounce or Confiscate-effect could be good. I wouldn't bother myself with it MD and just rely on FoW for that, it does the job quite well quite often.

I mentioned it some pages before. 1-3 Repeals should be a great in this deck for 2 reasons.

- It is a perfect card against problematic things like Confinement, Aether Vial, Pithing Needle, Ensnaring Bridge or Humility. It also buys time against Pernicious Deeds, Seismic Assault, Disks, Oblivion Stones, Smokestacks and creates card advantage in many situations. For example against Moxen, Scepter, Rancor or while Bouncing a creature that gets targeted by Swords. It also has great synergy with Chalice: bounce X EoT, then set Chalice at X is very strong.

- Faerie Stompy creates Mana advantage with Tomb, City and Mox. Then it empties its hand very fast while the opponent will sit on some cards he cannot play because he does not have enough Mana. If you cycle Repeal in this situation and just bounce anything your opponent has played until now it is very likely that you will gain Tempo advantage: the opponent will have an additional card in hand and if he replays it he cannot play his other cards while you play out the drawn card quite fast. So Repeal takes best use of the Mana advantage FS creates.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tao

I mentioned it some pages before. 1-3 Repeals should be a great in this deck for 2 reasons.

- It is a perfect card against problematic things like Confinement, Aether Vial, Pithing Needle, Ensnaring Bridge or Humility. It also buys time against Pernicious Deeds, Seismic Assault, Disks, Oblivion Stones, Smokestacks and creates card advantage in many situations. For example against Moxen, Scepter, Rancor or while Bouncing a creature that gets targeted by Swords. It also has great synergy with Chalice: bounce X EoT, then set Chalice at X is very strong.

- Faerie Stompy creates Mana advantage with Tomb, City and Mox. Then it empties its hand very fast while the opponent will sit on some cards he cannot play because he does not have enough Mana. If you cycle Repeal in this situation and just bounce anything your opponent has played until now it is very likely that you will gain Tempo advantage: the opponent will have an additional card in hand and if he replays it he cannot play his other cards while you play out the drawn card quite fast. So Repeal takes best use of the Mana advantage FS creates.

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Yea, I've considered it occasionally too. My only real problems with Repeal are that I don't really know if there are enough problems we need it against to play it, and the fact that it doesn't generate card advantage (because that's the slot it would go into should it be played). Also, Chalice at 1 is something of a problem as it prevents 'cycling' Repeal by bouncing a 0-caster. Confinement might be reason enough to add it though, as it's an excellent answer to it. The idea I do like is defensive bouncing. While with Sea Drake, it isn't much of a plan, bouncing a Serendib, a Looter or a Cloud sounds like a sound plan. Heck, bouncing Cloud allows digging a bit deeper if you're in a pinch and really need a FoW.

I might try to cram 2 in and see how it goes. On another note, I've been really happy with the increase in the threatcount, created by the Looters. Nowadays I basically never have to mull due to the lack of solid creatures, as Looter not only beats, it also digs.

So, I'm not ready to fully comment on the white splash yet, but I have tested it a tad, and here's what's up. First, here's the list:

// Mana (23)
4 Tomb
4 City
4 Chrome Mox
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
2 Island
1 Ancient Den
1 Seat of Synod

// Creatures (18)
4 Looter
4 Sea Drake
4 Court Hussar
3 Serendib
3 Trinket

// Spells (19)
4 Thirst
4 FoW
4 Chalice
3 Sword
2 Jitte
1 Needle
1 Blast


As you can see, I overloaded on draw. 4 Thirsts, 4 Hussars, and 4 Looters. Some of the cuts might be questionable, but with all the draw I still felt like I was playing with plenty of equipment and creatures.

Played 15 games vs. Goblins (I went with the second place list from Duel for Duals IV since it splashed white without losing much mana disruption). I went 9-6. Pretty good, but not great. I missed the pro-red creatures and the blasts. Suprisingly, I didn't have much problem with the mana base. My first fetch was always sent to a basic, then I would grab a Tundra (I might even go -1 Tundra, +1 fetch). The Ancient Den wasn't even needed (I would only want it if I brought in Disenchant). Looter was the absolute least useful card.

Then, I did some testing against Thresh. 15 games, went 12-3! The draw just kills Thresh's control elements and allows you to resolve a Chalice in a scary amount of games. I actually found Looter pretty crappy again. They are slow and conditional and can't block. Bleh.

Anyway, I'm going to continue to test with the following changes:

-4 Looter
+3 Sea Sprites/Weatherseed
+1 Blast
(Maybe -1 Ancient Den, +1 fetch)