Much like Gerry said, for this week we decided to play some matches of an interesting matchup and recount what happened, as well as offer some analysis. With any new endeavor, the best way to proceed is a process of trial and error, so feedback is greatly appreciated. We decided to each cover one of the two matches separately, then both cover the third, so we didn’t repeat ourselves too much. Still, let us know what you guys like best!
Last week (and this week too) PV went over in great detail his card choices for Faeries, so I deferred to his depth of experience with the archetype and ran the same maindeck. The sideboard we did change, since in our experience with BW, Stillmoon Cavalier is not nearly as impressive as it looks. Add in the three Infests Faeries expects to side in, and Stillmoon seems even worse. Enough about the lists, as I’m sure at this point everyone knows what Faeries and BW look like, and if you don’t, Gerry has conveniently listed them in his article above.
Match 1
Not a whole lot to say here, since Gerry is covering this one, but I figure I might as well mention my sideboarding.
The cards I want to board in:
3 Peppersmoke
3 Infest
1 Sower of Temptation
Possibly some number of Thoughtseize, although this becomes dead very quickly.
Cards that can be cut:
Terror — this is an easy cut, the rest aren’t quite so easy.
Broken Ambitions — on the draw this cannot stop Bitterblossom, so it seems worse than Thoughtseize, although it still gets Procession. Still, I often want to cast my own Blossom on turn 2, which doesn’t give me a window to counter the turn 3 Procession.
Scion of Oona — Dies to Terror and Infest, so I advocate cutting two.
Remove Soul — Not impressive against the multitude of noncreature spells.
What I settled on, after going through a few configurations:
On the play:
+3 Infest
+3 Peppersmoke
+1 Sower of Temptation
-2 Terror
-2 Scion of Oona
-2 Thoughtseize
-1 Remove Soul
On the draw:
+3 Infest
+3 Peppersmoke
+1 Sower of Temptation
+2 Thoughtseize
-2 Terror
-2 Scion of Oona
-3 Broken Ambitions
-1 Remove Soul
-1 Spellstutter Sprite
With Infests and Peppersmokes to answer Spectral Procession, I feel a little safer taking out the Ambitions.
Match 2, Game 1
My opening hand is:
Sower of Temptation
Scion of Oona
Agony Warp
Cryptic Command
Secluded Glen
Island
Island
On the play this hand is keepable, but not fantastic. If he has Sculler, he is almost forced to take Agony Warp, which means my plan of turn 3 Scion turn 4 Sower will likely stick, barring a Thoughtseize. The possibility of the Scion into Sower curve is the main reason I even still like Scion, since it really gives good value when protecting a Sower. Of course, he has the aforementioned Thoughtseize, but ends up taking my Cryptic Command. This means he isn’t too worried about Scion into Sower, indicating either a plethora of Terrors or just a bunch of tokens are to be found in his hand. I draw a Mutavault, and play it. Gerry doesn’t play Bitterblossom on turn 2, but he has it turn 3. Nice draw etc… I haven’t found anything to stop it, and just settle on playing Scion at the end of his turn 3. I untap, and have nothing better to do than crack with Mutavault plus Scion. Bluffing a counter is just pointless here. The three extra Mutavault damage is very relevant, and Gerry knows I didn’t have Spellstutter or Broken Ambitions in my hand last turn. I am all in favor of representing countermagic, but the cost here is too high. He doesn’t do anything but lay lands while I attack with Mutavault, until Spectral Procession on turn 6. I play a second Mutavault and Sower one of the tokens, declining to attack with my other Mutavault. The reason why becomes clear when I Spellstutter his Ajani, and he concedes the turn after when I hit with two Mutavaults, Sower, Sprite, and his Faerie Token (pumped by my Scion even!)
Match 2, Game 2
I sideboard as described above.
This was a funny game, for reasons that will soon become apparent. One of the reasons was his mulligan to five, and the other is this odd situation that unfolded on turn 1. I play a Secluded Glen untapped, revealing a Bitterblossom, of which I had two (Gerry went land, go). I did this for a few reasons, some of which have more validity than others. The reason with the most merit is that by showing him Bitterblossom, he is more likely to play Sculler or Thoughtseize on turn 2, which I vastly prefer to him playing his own Blossom or a Knight of Meadowgrain. As Gerry describes, if he thinks this whole scenario through it becomes clear that I must have double Bitterblossom in hand. There are literally no creatures I could Peppersmoke, which is my only one mana play beyond using Broken Ambitions purely to clash. Since I have no incentive to play a Glen untapped, I have to be showing Blossom to make him do something like Sculler or Thoughtseize. Then again, the mastery of the play also lies in the simple pleasure of taunting Gerry by showing him the inevitable turn 2 Blossom. So, my opening hand:
Mistbind Clique
Bitterblossom
Sower of Temptation
Secluded Glen
Island
Island
Swamp
My second Blossom showed up in my first draw step, making the untapped Glen just a little more satisfying. Gerry indeed does cast Thoughtseize on his turn 2, but elects to grab the Mistbind Clique instead of the redundant second Blossom. I play Blossom, as expected, and he follows with his own turn 3 Blossom. If I didn’t know better, it would seem my Glen gambit worked (he played turn 2 Thoughtsieze, turn 3 Blossom), but Gerry assures me this isn’t the case. SURE it wasn’t, just can’t give me any satisfaction. I play my own second Blossom, and turn 4 he rips his second running Bitterblossom, making this game a lot more interesting than it looked like it would be at first. I decide to get aggressive, as is usually the best plan against double Blossom, and Sower his first token. He promptly Terrors the Sower, and I keep trading tokens, since he has more ways to pump them or use them (Windbrisk Heights) than I do. On turn 6, he plays a Cloudgoat Ranger, which I Broken Ambitions. I keep Sower on top, and he sends a Sculler to the bottom. I Sower a token, then Spellstutter the second Cloudgoat he rips. The Sower plus the Spellstutter let me force damage through, and he ends up dying to his Blossoms in short order.
Match 3, Game 1
Ah, the deciding match. Of course it doesn’t really decide anything, but it seemed like an appropriate thing to say when going to a third match tied at 1-1.
On the play, I keep:
Spellstutter Sprite
Thoughtseize
Thoughtseize
Mistbind Clique
Secluded Glen
Island
Island
This hand needs a little help, but double Thoughtseize should keep him off his game for long enough. I turn 1 Thoughtseize, showing the Mistbind Clique for the Glen. Mistbind is harder to play around, so I would much rather him not know about the Spellstutter. I see a hand of:
Fetid Heath
Fetid Heath
Swamp
Spectral Procession
Spectral Procession
Terror
Cloudgoat Ranger
I take Spectral Procession, with the plan of taking the other Procession on turn 2. The Terror is annoying, but I figure I can deal with it later, while I have no real plan against Procession here (besides Seizing it, obviously). Turn 2 I draw another Glen, and Thoughtseize his other Procession, noting the Ajani he drew. He draws a Knight of Meadowgrain on his turn (so lucky!), which is actually pretty good here. We both land, go on our turn 3. Turn 4 I draw Broken Ambitions, and promptly use it on the Elspeth he attempts to play. Getting hit by a 5/5 Knight each turn seems like it would be bad. I clash a Swamp to the bottom, and he keeps Spectral Procession number three on top. Things aren’t looking great here, as I have a pretty useless hand of Sprite and Mistbind against his quite live hand of Terror and Cloudgoat, with Procession on top. Plus, the Knight is widening the life total gap each turn. Luckily, the draw step exists for a reason. I peel Broken Ambitions, and counter his Spectral Procession. Here I clash a Spellstutter Sprite to the bottom, since I really want a Bitterblossom or Sower or Cryptic for a little action. He elects to put his Bitterblossom on the bottom, since he wants to play Cloudgoat by hopefully drawing a fifth land. I draw nothing, and simply pass on turn 6. Gerry similarly does nothing besides attack, so I decide to run out Spellstutter end of turn. My hand at the time is two Spellstutter Sprites and a Mistbind Clique, with five lands in play. Yes, even though I clashed a Sprite to the bottom I drew one, which actually ended up good. So I run out the Sprite, and just hope to draw a land so that I can upkeep Clique him with Spellstutter up to stop his Terror. I do draw the land, but Gerry is way too clever just to run out the Terror. He correctly surmises that by waiting a turn, he can use Thoughtseize to strip the only card I have left in hand and then Terror safely. This plan goes awry on his next turn, when it turns out that I had peeled the last Spellstutter in my deck, and the Mistbind Clique is safe. It still looks pretty bad for me, but then I draw another Mistbind Clique. I Time Walk Gerry, but still have no cards in hand against the Cloudgoat I still know he has. Of course, Broken Ambitions number three saves the day, and he finally packs it in. That was a nice string of peels, something like four perfects in a row.
Match 3, Game 2
I keep:
Bitterblossom
Bitterblossom
Mutavault
Secluded Glen
Sunken Ruins
Underground River
Island
Can’t mulligan this, although some spells would be nice. Gerry leads with turn 1 Windbrisk, turn 2 Knight against my Blossom. Despite appearing a little dorky, Knight of Meadowgrain does quite a good job of pressuring Faeries while running up BW’s life total. He follows the Knight with a turn 3 Procession. I choose not to deploy a second Blossom, instead leaving up mana for the Spellstutter I just drew. I also have drawn a Scion by this point, so I decline to trade tokens when he attacks. Postcombat on his turn 4 he plays a Bitterblossom, and I Stutter it, so he evokes Wispmare on my Blossom. I pass again, and when he attacks I make some pretty risky blocks. I put a token and my Spellstutter on two of his tokens, and my Mutavault on his Knight. I play Scion, and just hope he doesn’t have Terror for the utter blowout. He doesn’t, but his postcombat Cloudgoat still leaves me behind. On his next turn, Gerry trades Cloudgoat for my token plus Sprite, and then plays yet another Cloudgoat. Still, my Infest leaves the board as his 3/3 against my Mutavault plus freshly played Bitterblossom. Luckily, he whiffs on a Thoughseize and I draw a Sower, tilting things heavily in my favor. I also draw a Broken to counter his Procession, leaving a Sower on top so that I will kill him a turn before I die to Blossom. He draws a Terror, I draw a blank, and like that I die to my own enchantment.
Match 3, Game 3
My five-card hand (ew) is:
Sower of Temptations
Cryptic Command
Sunken Ruins
Underground River
Swamp
Leaves much to be desired, like most five-card hands. I do nothing while Gerry has turn 2 Knight and turn 3 Thoughtseize. At this point my hand is two Cryptic Commands, Sower, Peppersmoke, with three lands on the board. He takes Sower and drops a Bitterblossom. Turn 4 I do draw my land, so I just pass. Gerry declines to play anything, so at the end of his turn I bounce his Blossom and draw a card. Next turn he plays Anthem, which I counter and bounce his Knight of Meadowgrain, so Gerry contents himself with just replaying Blossom. At this point I am rich with Bitterblossoms, and drop two on the board. Those two soon become one, as a magical horse rides on to the stage (Wispmare). I use Peppersmoke on the Wispmare and then Infest to clear the board, but then the game hits this weird stall. For something like five turns, neither of us do anything, and I just end up dying to Bitterblossom.
Whew, that was a lot of recapping! I hope this didn’t get too tedious, but games tend to be pretty complex. It’s why we play, right? I think overall WB is favored, although it isn’t really due to just this three-match set. We have played many more games than this; these matches are just to give everyone a feel for how it goes. Basically, WB has more trumps and more broken draws than Faeries, which makes it much harder for Faeries to actually win games. BW can disrupt Blossom with both Thoughtseize and Sculler, as well as simply beating a Blossom with Procession or Anthem. Faeries has much more trouble with an opposing Blossom, giving BW more “free” wins. The Terrors are surprisingly important, although you generally only want to see one a game. I like siding in one Unmake as a fifth Terror in BW nowadays, just to make sure.
From the Faeries side, I continue to be unimpressed with Infest. I may go back to trying Stillmoons, since Infest really doesn’t seem to pull its weight. When you have a bad draw it won’t save you, and it doesn’t mesh well with your good draws involving Blossom or Sower. One interesting piece of tech I faced in Worlds is Sigil of Distinction, intended to be strapped onto a Stillmoon. Against BW, it is just a fireball every turn, and seems like it puts a very fast clock on them.
I still want to experiment with different sideboarding strategies as well, since I can think of situations where almost every card in the main (besides Terror) is good enough to keep in against BW. Peppersmoke was also not as impressive as I thought it would be, although it remains insane in the mirror. Jace is an interesting alternative, although I am aware Jace is fairly common in sideboards. What I mean is Jace might be good against BW, since if you both have Blossom it breaks parity. Still, Jace never really helps when you get a slow draw or are behind.
It was interesting chronicling our entire matches, as it really brings into focus just how many decisions we take for granted each game. Were I to write a simple summary of each game, it wouldn’t be very long, but just describing the events that happen takes much longer. It really drives home the point that there is no substitute for playing, as no set of rules or recommendations I could give would be in any way comprehensive enough to cover even the most basic of situations. Something like what hands to keep maybe, but how to actually play is a completely different animal. Anyway, let Gerry or I know if you liked this, as the feedback we get will certainly determine if we do something like this in the future!
Until next time…
LSV