Last week, I looked at where I thought the metagame would go. My prediction was essentially correct, but apparently more people agreed with me than I could have anticipated and Faeries composed 20% of Day 2.
As I suspected, fear of Cascade Assault minimized the presence of BW Tokens and Red decks, minimizing the risk of playing Faeries, and most of the decks that were left had unfavorable matchups against Faeries. To me, there really didn’t seem to be another choice for this GP.
The result was very frustrating for me, as I think I understood the metagame and prepared properly and played the right deck, but things just didn’t come together for me. I drew almost entirely lands against Cascade assault in one game, had a bad matchup against Gabriel Nassif in a feature match, and kept a questionable hand (Faerie Conclave, Island, Spellstutter Sprite, Broken Ambitions, Peppersmoke, Terror, Bitterblossom – feel free to discuss that one) on the play against Bant in my last game of Day 1 that didn’t pan out (I never found Black mana).
Regardless, this GP has left Faeries as the deck of the moment, so I think you’ll probably forgive my spending more time talking about it (as you may have realized by now, it doesn’t take much to convince me to talk about Faeries). First, I’d like to make a note on my statement that it is the “deck of the moment.” I say this rather than something like, “Faeries has demonstrated that it is still the best deck in the format” because I think that the way this Standard format is evolving, a new deck should be on top every week (though this progression may slow when there aren’t GPs to shake things up). Each week a deck will do well and people will adjust to beat it, as in reality, this metagame is diverse and balanced and there are answers to every deck. I do think Faeries is the best deck overall, but I’m willing to trust that when people set out to beat it, they will succeed.
Having cancelled my flight to Sao Paulo because I only discovered while I was in Seattle that I needed a visa to enter Brazil, I can now discuss beating Faeries without shooting myself in the foot (in fairness to myself, I was planning to discuss it regardless before I had decided to give up on attending the GP). I think the next place for the metagame to move is either back to BW Tokens (as it would be insane to play Cascade Assault in a Faerie-dominated metagame) or to play some form of aggressive Jund deck with Putrid Leech and Bloodbraid Elf (I’m really impressed by the Sygg technology, by the way; props to Patrick or whoever thought of that).
The Doran deck that won the GP is also very reasonable. When I heard that the Top 8 was 5 Faerie decks and a Doran deck, I thought the Doran deck would have no chance, but Massicard’s Doran deck was much faster and better against Faeries than I imagined. The key to his win was certainly his low curve. Gaddock Teeg and Quasali Pridemage are excellent cards against Faeries, and the addition of Knotvine Paladin, giving the deck eleven two-drops, seems to have pushed it over the top, especially when combined with Path to Exile, the best removal spell against Faeries. The four Zealous Persecutions in his sideboard are also an excellent call, both killing and preventing other tokens from chump blocking his large creatures. All in all, I think this Doran deck is relevantly different than previous incarnations and really moves the deck to the next level, allowing it to compete with other current decks. The key seems to have been moving away from Wren’s Run Vanquisher and the subpar cards it requires you to play, and moving away from Black to make the mana more consistent. Though this comes with the disadvantage of abandoning Putrid Leech, it seems manageable given the very high quality of the other two-drops.
I think Faeries can continue to compete against the decks that should step up to beat it by following the lead of several decks in the Top 8 and making use of large numbers of Deathmarks and Flashfreezes as the format further embraces Green cards. The primary draw of Faeries to me is that all of its “bad matchups” are, as far as I can tell, very close to 50-50, while it’s good matchups can, in some cases (like Turbo Fog) be as high as 80-90%. There is never a match that I feel like I just can’t win when I sit down while playing Faeries.
I think Faeries maindeck hasn’t changed much, and I would play something like:
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
In Seattle I tried adding an Underground River in place of a Swamp to play Plumeveil in the sideboard, but after hearing more stories from others about losing games to pain lands, and my decision to move toward Deathmark instead, I think it’s better to move back down to two Underground River. This decklist is extremely close to Ben Lundquist Top 8 deck, except that I play Peppersmokes in the maindeck and Thoughtseizes in the sideboard. I feel that Peppersmoke is almost as good against Faeries and much better against Token decks, Red decks, and decks with Noble Hierarch, while Thoughtseize is better against control and combo decks that you’re more favored against. These are also those decks that I expect to become less popular for the next few events.
I might try cutting Scion of Oona for 3 Vendilion Clique and 1 Loxodon Warhammer, but I think I prefer Scion of Oona despite the fact that I side it out against almost everything except the mirror. This probably seems odd, but it happens because your plan changes between games one and two.
In games 2 and 3 you get to refine your answers to target your opponent’s strategy directly, and as a result I want to lean on one-for-one removal and Jace-powered card advantage as much as possible. They get to bring in cards that punish Faeries themselves, like Volcanic Fallout, Zealous Persecution, and Cloudthresher. In game 1, your deck can’t be as tuned to beat them, and theirs can’t be as well prepared for your creatures, so it’s better to be prepared to end the game quickly with Scion of Oona or Vendilion Clique.
From my previous version of Faeries, this gives up something against control decks, but I think my control matchups have always been too good. When Five-Color Control was the deck to beat, I planned to have the perfect deck to beat them after sideboarding, but now I think those decks are uncommon enough that you can afford to win a smaller (but still favorable) percentage to help worse matchups. Thoughtseize is still necessary for the Faerie mirror matchup, which should continue to be common, but I don’t think it’s good to play it maindeck because it’s very bad against the decks that beat Faeries.
In trying to figure out how I expect the metagame to react to Grand Prix: Seattle, I run into a question about how people think about developing metagames. If players view metagames as following a linear development they would think the BW was the best deck at the beginning of the season, but then better decks evolved and now it isn’t good anymore. If instead they view the development as cyclical, in which several different similarly-powered decks vie for validity based on which other decks succeed or fail, then they could reasonably conclude that the decks that beat BW have been suppressed, and now it’s time to play it again. This view is somewhat encouraged by the fact that it allows people to play cards they already own, and also supported by Faeries’ “comeback.”
Personally, I would be more inclined to move to BW Tokens as I think about it, except that I think I just prefer Jund as a deck, but that might only be because I’ve played it less. Regardless, I expect both to become more common than they were at GP: Seattle. I wouldn’t want to move ahead to decks that beat those decks and lose to Faeries, as I expect that people who don’t follow the format closely and just want to play the best deck will pick up Faeries, as will players like myself who just like Faeries. When you see where the metagame is going, it’s important not to get too many steps ahead, because it may not be there yet. Sometimes you just have to wait on a deck until its time has come.
A note on trying to beat Faeries… When sideboarding with any deck, it is almost correct to shuffle the sideboard into the deck, remove all cards that do nothing (like Deathmark), and then cut the most expensive cards until you’re down to 60 regardless of what they are. Cloudthresher is the most notable exception. I mention this because at one point in the GP a player playing BG Elves had Primal Command in his deck in game 2, and as a result spent many turns not putting any pressure on me because his hand was full of them, and Cloudthreshers, and maybe Makeshift Mannequin. Every deck needs to be able to put pressure on Faeries, and it is sometimes right to do things like side in Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender and side out Siege-Gang Commander, even though Siege-Gang Commander is much better for its cost against Faeries; you just can’t afford to have a high curve against them.
As for Jund, I think Sygg is awesome, but I think I prefer playing changelings and Lorwyn lands to using Vivid lands to splash Cryptic Command. The deck Nassif played looked like a tuned version of the changeling Jund deck that I posted a few weeks ago. At one point he said that Jund Charm wasn’t as good as he’d hoped, and I don’t think I like the card in the maindeck. I think I’d play something like
Creatures (29)
- 4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
- 4 Chameleon Colossus
- 4 Boggart Ram-Gang
- 4 Kitchen Finks
- 2 Sygg, River Cutthroat
- 4 Putrid Leech
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 3 Anathemancer
Lands (24)
Spells (7)
Nassif’s sideboard had 15 different cards, and I think that approach makes sense based on how few cards can reasonably be sided out in any given game without destroying the mana. I won’t give an exact sideboard because I really don’t know enough, but I would consider Thoughtseize, Colossal Might, Naturalize, Puppeteer Clique, Guttural Response, Jund Charm, Volcanic Fallout, Deathmark, Tauren Mauler (to add a changeling while cutting Nameless Inversion), Vexing Shusher, and maybe even Lavalanche.
I’m not entirely sure about how the Jund decks play against each other, but I’m guessing aggression is extremely important and cards like Kitchen Finks and Anathemancer, which directly impact life totals while providing added value on one-for-one exchanges, are extremely important. As such, I would suspect that Puppeteer Clique is one of the better sideboard cards for the mirror.
My conclusion is that, for the next week, I would recommend playing Faeries to anyone who has had good experiences with it in the past, but to prepare for a lot of aggressive creature decks trying to combat you. Playing one of those aggressive creature decks would also be reasonable. If none of that appeals to you, I think the next best option is probably Cascade Assault, which is not favored against Faeries, but which I discovered can win matches and which will be well positioned if creature decks successfully beat the expected Faerie decks.
Good luck, and thanks for reading.
Sam