I wish compulsive research was an instant. Ergh..Originally Posted by jamest
But I do agree, I hate TFK in this deck. I don't want to waste a whole turn on a lousy draw spell, when what I'm digging for 75% of the time is equipment.
Since it's past the point in time where I would play this deck (ie, tested the hell out of it, liked it enough to build it, ran it for a while and then got sick of it), I can release the build my team played unto the Source World. BEHOLD, I give you ELFS - EPIC Looter Faerie Stompy:
4 Sea Drake
4 Serendib Efreet
3 Flametongue Kavu
4 Trinket Mage
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Bonesplitter
2 Pyroclasm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
1 Great Furnace
4 Volcanic Island
4 Island
SB:
2 Pyroclasm
1 EE
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
3 Arcane Lab
3 Winter Orb
2 Misdirection
Now, this build has most of the same issues that FS has, basically that you end up mulling ALL THE DAMN TIME. This is the reason I gave up. However, this build is a powerhouse. FTK is absolutely too good not to play, and splashing for 5 MD cards is really, really easy. Pyroclasm improves the hell out of your Goblin matchup, so it's an auto-include as well. Yes, it blows up your Looters, but honestly, you should be ok with that if it wipes the opponent's board, or have it suited up with a Jitte or Sword to protect it. Looter is truly insane, and I'm glad this deck supports him so well. His filtering ability more than makes up for the loss of the sub-par draw of Thirst, which is why we went from 3 to 4. There's a noticeable lack of Seat of the Synod in this deck, which is something I'm known for bashing. I hate Trinket->Seat, because to play Trinket you have an active Blue source. That said, you still need the Furnace. Trinket also fetches up Bonesplitter, which is a new addition for us, since we really wanted fetchable equipment. Yes, Chalice at 1 stops it, but if you have Chalice at 1, most of the time you're pretty far ahead in the game anyway. Also you'll notice that we cut Cloud of Faeries, and we did so because the card sucks. In every way, it defines a win-more card in this deck.
If there are any questions, Diablos and I can answer them, as we put most of the work into this build. Let's hear the comments.
Question: Why in the world are you not running fetchlands, which leaves you with a whopping FIVE red mana sources (I'm not counting Trinkets here, because although they CAN fetch red mana, you are apparently running a small toolbox, so I think you would not like to miss the opportunity of fetching something else).
Other than that, the deck seems good, but all the choices seem to already have been debated to death on this thread (Bonesplitter, Explosives, Looter vs Cloud, the red splash), including the problem of running too few blue cards (you run 20, but probably less after sideboarding).
georgjorgeGeistreich sind schon die anderen.
Fetches are terrible when you run this few fetchable lands. Your only option is to cut the Islands, and then you run zero non-wasteable mana sources. Chrome Mox is very often imprinted with one of the Red cards, as well. I've rarely had more difficulty finding a red source than finding good blue cards. With such a slight splash, it's a very small issue.
@ Mr Nightmare: It's always nice to have quality players pick up the deck and give their take. Some thoughts:
1) I like the idea of a red splash, but I'm not sure I'm sold on clasm's maindeck (and this is from the guy who invented the Legacy deck that mainboards 4). Your build runs no draw spells (just creature dependent draw) so it seems like those clasms wouldn't show up with any consistency (and they are narrow cards to help an already decent matchup). Fire/Ice seems a much better fit there, and is a perfect imprint on a mox.
2) Please, please tell me the Bonesplitter was a joke.
3) I agree that fetches wouldn't be a bad thing, but I see your point about the manabase as well. Would -2 duals -2 islands +4 Fetches kill you? It might. I really shouldn't be talking about mana bases.
4) I know FtK is awesome from my time w/ Dragon Stompy, but did you ever run into any problems with him?
Bonesplitter is Japanese tech. There was some article awhile back written by world class japanese players on how to curve your deck using bonesplitter and how when done correctly it's incredible. I'll try to find it, but for now just take our word for it. It's just amazing.
It's impossible to waste SB slots against Goblins, improving the match up from good to great is fine; that aside, black has a lot of other interesting removal effects, Perish being a god send against aggro-board control, an archetype which totally fists this deck.
In other news, I came up with a couple of cards for AfFOWnity that could probably be applied here, Miscalculation, Keeneye Aven and Pendrel Drake. Their point in AfFOWnity is that they're all blue, cycle and they either increase your threats or your control with out forcing you to actually ever cast/keep the card. Ascending Aven and Fledgling Malcor are also a consideration, 3 for a 2/2 is enough to stop a Goblin Piledriver or a Goblin Warchief, and 2U and UU are both reasonable amounts to flip the card if it can't be hard cast for 2UU or 3U.
I'm not certain either of those options, except Miscalcuation, is better than just adding the Pro:Red Faeries, it's just something I thought up on my way home. Cycling cards and Morph cards seem to be a really cool way of adding a second color with out straining your manabase, or really powerful creatures (Quicksilver Dragon or Exalted Angel) and effects (Gilded Light) to the deck with out choking on their mana cost.
I don't have to take your word for it. I've tested it. I played roughly 60 Trinket Mages in a row without grabbing one Bonesplitter and decided that was enough. Frankly, a one cc piece of equipment is a pretty terrible idea in a deck where plans A, B, and C are Chalice @1 (even in the dark). It also doesn't help that the same card that will be used to fetch Bonesplitter is also used to fetch Chalice, meaning that fetching Chalice (and playing it at one) is almost always a better play. The other options for Trinket (Explosives and Needle) are also usually better plays, and in a build with a splash like yours, you'll be grabbing the red artifact land quite often.
Hell, I can't even imagine many situations where I would want a Bonesplitter over a SDT, and Top never even came close to making the deck.
P.S. Ignore this if you were being sarcastic.
Has anyone tested a white splash for Exalted Angel? I feel like it might be overkill and very straining on an already poor mana base, but I just kinda thought of it tonight since I have 5 Angels laying around unused right now. It's probably a crappy idea, but I'll be messing around with it on MWS tonight.
We found the Goblins matchup to be rather difficult, so Pyroclasm was the best option. Between Looter il-Kor and Sword of Fire and Ice, you can probably find one. I originally had 3 in the deck, but cut it for something else (can't remember right now)) I like the idea of a red splash, but I'm not sure I'm sold on clasm's maindeck (and this is from the guy who invented the Legacy deck that mainboards 4). Your build runs no draw spells (just creature dependent draw) so it seems like those clasms wouldn't show up with any consistency (and they are narrow cards to help an already decent matchup). Fire/Ice seems a much better fit there, and is a perfect imprint on a mox.
Trinket Mage is weak as shit. There, I said it. But because he is so useful at grabbing Chalice at the Void is the reason why it's in the deck. Because of this deck's terrible inconsistancy, we felt that it would be a lot better if Trinket Mage had the option of searching out something other than useless cards half of the time, that's why Bonesplitter is there. It at least allows Trinket Mage to become a threat on its own should there not be a Sword or Jitte in play.2) Please, please tell me the Bonesplitter was a joke.
Often times with the deck when you go into the mid-to-lategame mode Trinket Mage becomes awful because Chalice gets weaker, EE has limited use, and Chrome Mox is not worth mentioning. There's also Needle I guess, but that isn't a threat. Without a 1cc equipment Trinket Mage isn't even considered a threat by most standards because it doesn't provide you with anything aside from Chalice and EE. That's too weak in my book.The other options for Trinket (Explosives and Needle) are also usually better plays, and in a build with a splash like yours, you'll be grabbing the red artifact land quite often.
Psionic Blast is trash. FTK kills something and then attacks and gets equipped. I've had virtually nothing but greatness coming from this slot.4) I know FtK is awesome from my time w/ Dragon Stompy, but did you ever run into any problems with him?
See, I never, ever found this to be true at all. I can completely understand your thinking, which is exactly why I tested it, but I found it to almost never true. Hell, if you're worried about late game usefulness when Chalice @1 is not down, Cursed Scroll seems a much better choice as it will actually help the control and Goblins matchup.
I think the biggest thing you're overlooking is how you got to the mid to late game without getting one of your seven pieces of equipment down. I mean going through 15 cards out of 60 and not seeing 1 of 7 has to be pretty rare. I suppose it's possible that a piece of equipment got destroyed or neutralized, but that usually happens via needle or deed, in which case you should definitely be fetching an explosive or needle respectively. Disenchant should probably be fought with Chalice @2 as well.
I'm fairly sure that everyone involved in creating or testing the deck tried this idea at once and rejected it as terrible. Actually, a much more promising idea was fetching a creature, since opposing decks are much more likely to attack your creatures and leave your equipment. Sadly, the best creature options that can still make a Jitte fire are Rotothopter and Phyrexian Marauder. Not exactly murderers row.
If you look at D4D decklists, I tried this both days. Sounds good in theory, but in practice, I rarely used it. Are the incremental costs of splashing (inconsistency, Wasteland, fetchland life loss, etc) worth the incremental gains? I ended up dropping the splash, at least, soley for EE@2.A second splash is in order, being able to set Engineered Explosives to two helps out so much against randomness ...
Yup. It's the nature of the deck, though I would suggest including more mana sources to help with this.Now, this build has most of the same issues that FS has, basically that you end up mulling ALL THE DAMN TIME.
I use to think this. I ran zero COFs at TMLO1 for the same reason. Then I ran 2 at D4D. Now I'm up to 4. The key realization is that FS is a pretty slow deck, minus those once-in-a-blue-moon turn 3/4 kills. The extra speed COF provides is important in many situations. For example, we often need 4 mana for Chalice@2 or Jitte + equip.Also you'll notice that we cut Cloud of Faeries, and we did so because the card sucks. In every way, it defines a win-more card in this deck.
How often do you not see at least one of those 7-8 equipment by the mid-to-lategame? And if you consider our Chalice strategy, Bonesplitter is just asking to be a dead topdeck. My current build includes Mishra's Bauble, so that's my lategame Trinket fetch (but that's not the main reason for the Baubles).Often times with the deck when you go into the mid-to-lategame mode Trinket Mage
Me too, but it's highly build dependent. In my testing against mono red with 4 Tinkerers, the matchup was 50%.We found the Goblins matchup to be rather difficult...
EDIT:
~11.8%I mean going through 15 cards out of 60 and not seeing 1 of 7 has to be pretty rare.
We tested the white splash a while ago, and it proved to be inconsistant at best. It gained Meddling Mage, which was awesome, but overall we thought red provided more utility in the matchups where you needed it.
Considering how many felt that going to a blue count of 22-24 wasn't enough to support FoW in my old build of Fairie Stompy, I don't know the reaction will be to going down to 20 blue cards.
Imho, there was a never a good enough reason to splash white, until possibly now...
Aven Mindcensor 2W
Creature - Bird Wizard (TS)
Flash
Flying
If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.
2/1
A flash card that shuts down all fetchlands and most tutors and can singlehandedly beat Thresh, landstill, many combos seems pretty damn good.
I've also been a huge fan of armageddon and possibly exalted angel or cataclysm (though splashing either might require more than running fetchlands, dual lands, and replacing chrome mox with mox diamond).
A big creture with an equipment followed by armageddon ends games.
Even if we don't have enough reason to splash white...
At the very least, I think what this card does is bring us ever closer to a version of Angel Stompy that can support 4 Chalices and has a mana base a lot closer to Fairie Stompy.
Last edited by Clark Kant; 04-13-2007 at 09:53 PM.
Huh? What are you talking about? Singlehandedly beating Thresh, thats a joke right?
It does nothing against Burning Wish or Plunge in TES, and it stops one fetch (maybe) against Landstill.
Splashing white for that jank is worthless, and I would never refer to running Exalted Angel as a splash. Meddling Mage is a more valid splash candidate than either of those two, but I think mono Blue is still the way to go.
I know that you have tested a version with 22+ threats before but I would suggest trying Anwar's build one more time. I bet that your old versions did not run 4x trinket mage or 7x pro red dudes. Thirst and Blast are just to slow and cost you more tempo than they can generate. Atleast this is my observations after playing against the two versions of the deck.
I might also recomend leaving in Needle if you see a Top in the first game. I lost game three because my opponent was able to get Chalice for one and a Pithing Needle (naming Top). I would probably have won if I found either a Ancient Grudge or Krosan Grip, something Needle prevented me from doing.
Team Unicorn is too hetero for me.While this is close it's still wrong. Every one knows it's an orgy of unicorns.******s?
TeaM NOVA for life.
I've actually tried this, and it really just doesn't work. The thing with Faerie Stompy is you only need mono-blue. By definition (and by deckname), Angel Stompy runs Exalted Angel, which requires double-white. I've tried to make a 2-color AS version of FS, you can't run 8x 2-mana lands, 6x is even pushing it. You end up with 4x Tombs, 4x Moxen. While this can lead to broken plays, you also lose FoW, so a single counterspell takes you out. You can TRY FoW in the build, but this makes things quite a bit more difficult, as the number of blue cards you have decreases even more, and with Moxen, you end up imprinting some of them anyways (typically mage, as then it's a dual land).
Now, I'm not the perfect deck builder, but what I've found is AS crossed to be FS just doesn't work. It's a hair to slow, and just as inconsistent as FS in terms of mana in general. However, AS with trinket mage and meddling mage (Shall we say Angel Mage?) is looking quite good right now. In this build, you board chalice, but don't maindeck it. You get 4x STP in the main, and in matchups like iggy or solidarity, you can swap those for chalice.
P.S. The main issue with AS/FS is all the good white creatures generally require double white...
P.P.S. Has anyone looked at Maelstorm Djinn?
Lol, my build was right there in the post you quoted. You can see perfectly well that it ran 4x Trinket Mages and doesn't run TfK or Blasts like you were saying, as well as more 3 toughness dudes to take on goblins.
I'm starting to agree that I don't like Psionic Blast. I've cut it. It's not helping me much in combo, it could just be another threat against Control, and it's contributing to Tomb/Force/Serendib in kicking my own ass against aggro.
That said, Thirst for Knowledge isn't getting the credit it's due. It basically draws three cards and pitches a dead one. The excess Mox with nothing to imprint, the redundant Jitte, the Seat of the Synod when you don't need land, the Chalice when you already have plenty of them.
Currently I'm running 4 Thirsts, as well as 4 Jitte and 4 SOFI and no Psionics. My strategy on removing creatures has become an apathetic one, as I find that lots of flying lets me outrace people, and that Jitte or SOFI controls just enough to keep me ahead on pace. 4 Thirsts gives me a passable game one against control, and reduces the amount of hands I have to mulligan drastically. If you have the one-two Drake-Equipment punch in your opening hand, so be it. Thirst pitches to Force when you already have a good hand, and gives you a good hand when you don't.
The Bonesplitter is interesting. I don't think it's as horrible as some people think (Sorry, Phantom. Much love anyway.) I don't run it, but I love the prospect of being able to drop it out -and- equip it with the tapping of a single land. I don't run it, as I'd rather have Chalice for 1, but I'm tempted to stick one in the board for games where I board out Chalice.
Oh, and Looter Il-Kor sucks. Just saying it now for when everyone has this revelation in the standard five months it takes.
Pretty much agree with you Taco. I have flip flopped between zero and two blasts, and I think I like my zero build better. Of course, I was never confident of this since I rarely play vs. Combo.
I agree that Thirsts should get more love. I ran the old creature based draw only build, and FS with unconditional draw is just better in a mixed meta, and they don't get much more mixed than Legacy.
I'm not nuts about the 4th Jitte though. I firmly believe that 7 equipment is enough, and that 8th spot is better used on a creature. I guess that's more debatable with 4 Thirsts.
Clearly, I've made my feeling known about Bonesplitter (that it is good in theory but sucks in practice), but if you test it and find it to be good, I'll give it another crack. I hadn't considered it for the board, but that does relieve my number one complaint.
I didn't like Looter either, but I guess I could see him being better in a creature heavy build with no draw spells.
I felt so. Not only does Thirst allow you to ditch extra Jittes, it allows you to draw into more threats than you would get otherwise. I run into far, far less of those situations where I'm sitting there without a creature on the board for 3-4 turns while the game shifts against me now. I feel Thirst for Knowledge in this deck works much like the Baubles do in Burn. Rather than run more sub-optimal creatures, run something that will help you find the optimal ones.
Also, a note on the fourth Jitte, is that I absolutely -love- being able to nearly always curve a turn one creature into a turn two Jitte-swing. I don't always have the double 2-colorless lands to accomplish this with Sword of Fire and Ice, but it's much more common to be able to drop a single-blue source and hit four mana on turn two, especially with Trinket Mage capable of fetching Seat of the Synod to ensure it.
It's kind of brain racking. I may test it. Knowing when to board the Splitter in would be insane. You'd do it against Combo if you plan to Chalice for 0 and 2 but not 1. You'd do it against most control, based again on where you want your Chalice, as it's a solid play under Winter Orb. You'd do it against some Aggro, but not others, depending largely on whether you're on the play and keeping Chalice in, or the Draw and boarding it out, and also on whether you're boarding in Misdirections (I board in less Artifacts if I board in more Pitch counters.) I'm not sure it's worth all that headache.
I don't like him because half the time you take mana burn to cast him. One of the prerequisites I have for Faerie Stompy (And I won't break this -ever-, which is why I cut Binding Grasp) is that every spell in my deck needs to be castable in some form for, that is, if I have only a single 2-Colorless Land (Tomb or City) and a 1-Blue source (Island/Seat/Mox) in play. This ensures that I curve out optimally and don't have to mulligan with the deck any more than I have to. If I have extra mana, fine. I can Chalice for 2 or Jitte/Equip at four mana, and I can SOFI-Equip at 5, and Cloud of Faeries allows me to do this with ease. If you run Shoreline Ranger, you can drop him at six (He's okay under the
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