In my continuing quest to port cards from Mono-Blue Devotion in Standard into Modern, today I’m looking at Faeries with Bident of Thassa.
The synergy is pretty obvious—Faeries is a "Skies" type deck full of evasive creatures that are cheap and work well in multiples, so it should be perfect with Bident of Thassa. Bident of Thassa does a little to shape the deck; in this case, I’m humoring the theory that it’s enough of a tipping point to make me want Zephyr Sprite, which powers up Spellstutter Sprite and lets me play a more aggressive curve, and that Zephyr Sprite offers sufficient Faerie density that I can justify playing Scion of Oona and Mistbind Clique. The rest of the deck follows from there:
Creatures (19)
- 3 Mistbind Clique
- 4 Scion of Oona
- 4 Spellstutter Sprite
- 3 Vendilion Clique
- 4 Zephyr Sprite
- 1 Thassa, God of the Sea
Lands (8)
Spells (33)
I’m relatively low on interaction, especially for resolved permanents, but with decks in Modern attacking in so many different ways, I think it’s important to prioritize aggression.
In game 1, I think it was a big mistake not to block his Vendilion Clique with my Mistbind Clique; I could have gotten his threat off the board and made him use another spell, and then I could have just played my next Mistbind Clique. This sequence let him get too much damage in too quickly.
I was pleasantly surprised by how well the sideboard plan worked in the second and third games. I was worried that my deck might just not do enough, but that didn’t seem to be the case based on how it played out.
I apologize for everything about both sides of that Thalia attack debacle. My opponent drew too much mana in game 1 and not enough in game 2, but that’s one of the essential weaknesses of G/W creature decks with mana guys. I was pretty impressed with how my deck played in the second game.
It was pretty awkward that I didn’t notice my opponent was playing Battle of Wits in the first game, but he was right that his deck wasn’t great.
This is likely the kind of deck that’s going to be harder; it has cheap interactive spells and creatures that come down before I can counter them and really punish my lack of removal. The problem is that decks like this apply enough pressure that Dismember comes at a pretty serious cost, and Vapor Snag isn’t a great answer to one- and two-drops (though it’s a reasonable consideration particularly because of the value of picking up my own creatures). I would love to have Gut Shot for Dark Confidant, but I’m not sure if it’s too narrow because it doesn’t kill Deathrite Shaman.
Overall, I think this is another deck that needs a few more tweaks, but I like the direction it’s going in and feel like it has some real potential. There’s a lot of tension in terms of wanting creature density for Bident and Aether Vial, but at the same time both of those (and Vedalken Shackles) work really well with Thirst for Knowledge since not only are they artifacts but they’re artifacts that you only want one of and only want at certain points in a game. I like the idea of splashing red to play Lightning Bolt and playing Thirst for Knowledge to try to play a more interactive game, but I’m not sure that you have room for the creatures at that point and without them the artifacts that pulled me in that direction in the first place don’t do anything. Tricky.
Sam
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