Wild Research: Pondering Anew - Faeries with M2010

Patrick Wild is a Swiss Magic player. He began his Magic playing career with Legacy events in 1998 and then moved on to play other formats such as Standard and Extended. Patrick also plays countless Vintage tournaments and won the Swiss Vintage National Championship in 2008.  As an experienced tournament player, he has played in several PTQs and Grand Prix, it is his goal to qualify for the Pro Tour, and he pursues that goal with utmost dedication.

Hi everyone!

As you have already read in the about the author section my main goal is to qualify for the Pro Tour and the two most common ways of accomplishing that, are either winning a PTQ or qualifying for Worlds through the National championship. A good Grand Prix finish is also a possibility. However, compared to the other two, if you only make top 16 in a Grand Prix you usually still have to pay quite a bit by yourself to get to the Pro Tour - first, there are the expenses for the Grand Prix and second, the costs for the trip to the ProTour location, which can't be ignored unless you finish in the Top 8 or the ProTour is held in your neighborhood.

There are two reasons why I'm writing this article (and hopefully many more to come!).
First, I think many players visiting Blackborder.com are in a similar situation as me – players who like the competitive side of the game and who want to break through to the pro level, but haven't gotten there yet. I think you can gain a lot by watching the struggles and experiences of a player in a similar stage as you are in.

Second, by having your feedback, I hope I can improve as a player and as a writer, helping me in my quest to get to the Pro Tour and write articles about it. So feel free to add any comments, critiques and suggestions – everybody will benefit from that.

In the first installment of "Wild Research", I want to talk about Faeries in Standard (Click here for a sample decklist), as Standard is the current PTQ format and is also an integral part of the upcoming Nationals all around the world.

Versions:
Lorwyn (Foil)

1. Cryptic Command plus Peppersmoke if needed

2. Mistbind Clique (during upkeep or attackers, playable through Volcanic Fallout) plus Peppersmoke if needed

3. Agony Warp your attackers while blocking with Mutavault, plus Peppersmoke if needed

4. Play Agony Warp and Scion of Oona

5. Broken Ambitions for 4

6. Broken Ambitions for a lesser number and play a combination of Agony Warp/Scion of Oona/Peppersmoke

7. Play Scion of Oona and block with Mutavault

Depending on the build, one also has to account for Remove Soul/Terror/Vendilion Clique or other options, increasing the number of possible plays even more. As you can see, it is very hard to play around all these things. Meanwhile, the Faerie player could simply be holding nothing relevant, but the opponent still has to respect the threats that you represent and thus can be “forced” into suboptimal plays. An opponent that has to play around so many cards, that he can easily choose the wrong line of play. The more choices your opponents face, the greater the chance is that they misplay. Faeries is a deck that maximizes this aspect of the game.

When I decided to get serious about qualifying for the Pro Tour, I was thinking how I could improve as a player. While it is important to master the technical aspect of the game, I realized that I needed to do something more. After all, why is it that pros can pilot the same deck to a better finish than an average player?

This is because pros are a lot better at playing the game beyond the game, they are more adept in psychological warfare. They are better at reading the opponent and not revealing information, this helps pros in winning games that an average player who is often not aware of these things wouldn't. Of course, stuff like the often-cited Jedi-Mind Trick, bluffs, counter-bluffs and many more mental maneuvers is just the icing on the cake, with the cake being flawless technical play.

Faeries is a deck that maximizes the psychological aspects of the game, with all the different options the deck has or more importantly, can represent. While you can certainly bluff with an aggro deck, such situations are a lot less frequent, and the gains you get from bluffing are also not that important. When playing an aggro deck, there is (Editor's note: most of the time) no benefit in bluffing a Path to Exile by not playing an additional creature, you need to deploy your threats and follow your game-plan. The Flash ability on Faeries allows it to simultaneously wait to deploy threats at the end of the opponents turn or answer your opponents plays. Simply put, you give your opponents more opportunities to misplay, while you give yourself more opportunities to do the right play. Since I wanted to improve my mental game, I felt that choosing Faeries was the right thing to do.

The M2010 Metagame
From a metagame standpoint, Faeries seems to be in an unfavorable position right now. The rotation of 10^th Edition and Seismic Assault means Swans, a good match-up for Faeries, disappears completely. To make matters worse, decks that had a bad match-up against Swans were often aggressive strategies, which Faeries can sometimes struggle with. The removal of Wrath of God from the Core Set is also a major incentive to run an aggressive deck. Red decks, your worst matchup, also will get played, as Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning will undeniably lure some players into sleeving up Mountains.

In addition to all those new cards entering the format, a few important cards rotate out, namely:

• Painlands (Caves of Koilos and Llanowar Wastes in particular)

• Glorious Anthem

• Mogg Fanatic

• Treetop Village
  

BW Tokens and GB Elves, two difficult matchups for Faeries, take major hits with the rotation. While they won't vanish entirely, their manabase will be a lot worse since there are no new enemy-colored duals. Without Treetop Village, the threat density of BG Elves will also go down. Mogg Fanatic has long been the bane for Faeries. If players switch from Mogg Fanatic to Ball Lightning, that is a change I welcome, since Ball Lightning is a lot easier to handle and can't interfere with Scion of Oona or Spellstutter Sprite. Lightning Bolt is dangerous, but can be handled nicely with Spellstutter Sprite.
Of all the existing decks, Faeries can probably integrate the new duals the best, alongside UW Reveillark decks. The pain from Underground River was a real drawback because you were already losing life to Bitterblossom and Thoughtseize, so a non-damaging dual is very welcome. Faeries also runs enough basic lands to reliably play Drowned Catacombs untapped.

Doran and Dark Bant decks are also a casualty of the M2010 fallout, since they don't have enough basics for the new duals. Those decks were really reliant on the painlands.

Apart from Faeries, I expect the following decks to play a major role in the new metagame:

• Monowhite Kithkin (with Honor of the Pure)

• Cascade (Jund Aggro)

• G/W Tokens

• Combo Elves (with Elvish Archdruid: 1GG, Other Elf creatures you control get +1+1, Tap: Add G to your mana pool for each Elf you control)
  

• Red based aggro (with Lightning Bolt)
  

BG Elves, BW Tokens and UW Reveillark might get played in lesser numbers. There is also the chance that people want to play rogue decks in a new format. This is good for you since many new decks don't pass the "Faerie-test". The loss of Wrath of God will result in an upswing in aggressive strategies, which you can handle with a well-constructed sideboard.

The Maindeck
Speaking of well-constructed, let's get to the deckbuilding aspects. When analyzing and comparing the maindecks of various Fae lists, you notice pretty quickly that the following cards are often included as a four-of:

4 Bitterblossom
4 Mistbind Clique
4 Cryptic Command
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Scion of Oona
4 Broken Ambitions

In the remaining slots, we find the cards that show up in varying quantities, and sometimes are entirely omitted:
Agony Warp
Terror
Jace Beleren
Thoughtseize
Sower of Temptation
Vendilion Clique
Remove Soul
Puppeteer Clique
Peppersmoke
Loxodon Warhammer
Plumeveil
Soul Manipulation

The most interesting aspect from a deckbuilder's point of view is this category. We need removal to survive the early rush of aggressive decks, and the options are Agony Warp, Terror and Peppersmoke.My removal of choice is Agony Warp. You can often make favorable 2 for 1 trades in combat, which is important because of the increasing number of Bloodbraid Elves. Agony Warp is the only removal that allows you to reasonably deal with a Bloodbraid Elf into Boggart Ram-Gang opening. Terror is often a 1 for 1 trade, and has the disadvantage of not being able to deal with black creatures, most importantly Putrid Leech. I first ran a split of both removal spells to have an out to any creature my opponents may play, but after testing I gradually increased the number of Agony Warps while decreasing the number of Terrors. Especially against aggressive swarm strategies, Agony Warp is better, while Terror is better against fatties, which is something you can handle with Broken Ambitions or Cryptic Command.

M2010 Additions - But Not
M2010 brings a new removal spell in the form of Doom Blade. My first impression is that it is slightly better than Terror, because regeneration is less common than artifact creatures. Still, I think Agony Warp is better because of the reasons outlined above.

There is one creature which sees heavy play and can not be handled neither by Agony Warp nor by Terror/Doom Blade. That creature is Chameleon Colossus. Since you will lose most of the games where a Chameleon Colossus goes unhandled, you need to have a maindeck solution. The solution I chose is Sower of Temptation. If you can't kill it, why not use it against your opponent? Besides the obvious tribal synergies, Sower is a powerful tool in fighting aggro decks, especially when backed up by Scion of Oona. Some lists eschew Sower of Temptation entirely, which I don't think is a good thing. With the metagame moving more towards aggressive strategies, Sower of Temptation seems to be the correct choice. I run two – you don't want them to clog up your starting hand, but you still want to have a good chance of drawing them in the midgame.

Peppersmoke might seem weak at first glance, but is useful in quite a few situations and complicates combat math for your opponent. In the new metagame, it is also the perfect answer to Ball Lightning and to a first turn mana-accelerator that might accelerate into Great Sable Stag, the new bane of Faeries. With the exception of Cascade, Peppersmoke is good against every deck I expect in the new metagame (see the list above). Peppersmoke also forms an effective one-two punch with Sower of Temptation – Peppersmoke nukes the small guys, while Sower takes care of the big ones. Currently, I found two copies to be optimal.

Now we get to the unusual choices. You'll see them in my current maindeck:

Faeries by Patrick Wild

Deck by Editor Andy on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 15:46

• Black
• Blue
• Faeries
• Standard
• Wild Research

This is my version of the Faeries deck. The decklist forms part of my latest feature article "Wild Research: Pondering Anew - Faeries with M2010".

Wild Research: Pondering Anew - Faeries with M2010

Article by Patrick Wild on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 06:54

Average:

4.666665

In the first installment of "Wild Research" you are given firsthand information about Faeries in the current Standard format, as well as the impact of M2010 on the deck. Patrick makes an amazing feature writer debut and this is an article you definitely will not want to miss out on!

Main Deck (60 cards)		Sideboard (15 cards)
4	Secluded Glen	4	Thoughtseize
4	Sunken Ruins	3	Infest
4	Drowned Catacomb	2	Puppeteer Clique
4	Mutavault	2	Flashfreeze
6	Island	2	Plumeveil
2	Swamp	2	Deathmark
4	Ponder
4	Bitterblossom
4	Mistbind Clique
4	Cryptic Command
4	Spellstutter Sprite
4	Scion of Oona
4	Broken Ambitions
4	Agony Warp
2	Peppersmoke
2	Sower of Temptation

Colors
Black	6
Blue	26
Gold	4
Land	20

Converted Mana Cost
1	10
2	12
3	4
4	10

Type
Basic Land	8
Creature	14
Enchantment	4
Instant	14
Land	12
Sorcery	4

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Why Ponder?
It is very important for Faeries to have the right card at the right time. It is no secret that turn 2 Bitterblossom is one of the best plays if not the best play in the current Standard format, which Ponder helps dig into. But there's a lot more:

• Ponder smoothes out your mana by preventing screw and flood and helps in playing Drowned Catacomb untapped, because 8 basic lands are not that much. It allows you to run 24 lands and still get 4 mana on turn 4 consistently.

• Ponder also helps you to find the right answers, which is important in strengthening your tactical bluffing position. To use a poker analogy, when your opponent “calls” you and plays into a solution you might have, it is better when you have that solution. Granted, you might have the solution already without Ponder, but you're relying on topdecks for that. I rather increase my chances than rely on lady luck.

• Ponder will allow you to make more decisions, giving your greater control over the game. It is useful in the early-game to dig into the needed card and can prevent you from drawing lands in the late-game.

• Ponder gives you better access to your sideboard cards.
  

In a vacuum, Jace Beleren is certainly stronger than Ponder. However, I expect a metagame with a lot of aggro decks where Jace Beleren is suboptimal. Even before M2010, Jace Beleren was the card I sided out the most. Tapping three lands in your main phase is a lot, and compromises your ability for tactical bluffing.

Like the metagame, my sideboard is still in flux. The sideboard is geared against aggressive decks, since the maindeck already has a good matchup against control decks like Reveillark or 5 Color Control. Thoughtseize only cements your advantage by taking out their key cards. Thoughtseize will also be key against Great Sable Stag!
Infest is the closest equivalent to Damnation you will find, and it should help you to stabilize against Kithkin and Combo Elves.
Puppeteer Clique is a great answer to Anathemancer, as the decks that play Anathemancer are ironically pretty vulnerable to it themselves.
Plumeveil has been pure gold against aggressive strategies, since they often have to expend multiple cards to get rid of it.
Deathmark and Flashfreeze are against the popular Jund Cascade decks and Elves (both BG and the combo variant). Wren's Run Vanquisher and Putrid Leech are some of the best cards against you, and both cards allow you to handle them efficiently.

To conclude, I have to say that Faeries is still a force to be reckoned with - despite obvious anti-Faerie cards like Volcanic Fallout and Great Sable Stag.

I hope you liked this article and you were able to profit a lot from it. Please leave your feedback in the comments section, where I would also be happy to answer all your questions. Thank you for reading.

Until next week,

Patrick