Hello!
Today I’m going to talk about how M10 — what’s out, what’s in, the rules changes -affects Faeries. I’ll also talk a bit on how it affects the opposition, but this article will be centered around Faeries.
For reference, this was the list I was playing:
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (20)
Sideboard
Some people have told me that they don’t like Jace maindeck — while I understand the reasoning behind disliking him, I think he is still a pretty good card. I believe most people who don’t like him are simply not playing him correctly, though it might be that the format right now is not good for Jace — I’d still play three, and if you don’t like him I can see cutting one, but I would not play less than two Jaces.
The first obvious change is Underground River for the new Dual Land, Drowned Catacomb. (Bets on the next UB dual name? I say Sunken Graveyard.) I believe Faeries is probably the deck that benefits the most from the Painland-to-Dual change — I’ve really hated Underground River lately, but it was a necessary evil. The new Dual, on the other hand, I’ll gladly play as a four-of.
The drawback in this situation is almost irrelevant, because Faeries rarely cares about having its turn 1 land tapped — the real problem is having its turn 4 land tapped. Sometimes you need to topdeck that fourth land to play your game-winning spells, and you draw that Faerie Conclave and just die. Since the deck is so good, that’s not a situation I liked to put myself into very often, so I just ran one Conclave. With this new Dual, though, this is not going to happen — if you draw it turn 1, you don’t mind that it comes into play tapped, but if you draw it turn 4, it’ll come into play untapped.
The only real problem the land has is that it doesn’t play Thoughtseize turn 1. As it is, there are 7 ways to play Thoughtseize on your first turn, which is not a good enough number. On the other hand, the only match where you really want turn 1 Thoughtseize is the mirror, and if you are on the play you can wait for turn 2, so I don’t think it’s that bad. It’ll certainly diminish the number of hands you can keep in the mirror, which is always a bad thing since you already mulligan so much in this matchup, but it’s worth it.
On that topic, it’s also of relevance that there is no BW Dual Land right now. I expect this will make Zealous Persecution completely disappear from a competitive environment — you cannot splash it in Mono-White and there are no incentives to play BW anymore, with a bad manabase and the new Glorious Anthem not pumping Bitterblossom tokens or Murderous Redcaps. This is also a very good thing for the deck, because the match against Mono White is much better than the one against Black/White.
Llanowar Wastes is also gone, though I suspect that isn’t going to stop BG from existing, since they have Twilight Mire and Gilt-Leaf Palace. They’ll have to find another Elf to replace Civic Wayfinder, who is back but not as an Elf, and without Civic and Wastes the colored mana issues will be more common, but I expect it to remain a deck.
Still on the lands, you lose Faerie Conclave. I can’t say I’ll miss him much — I’d gladly not play Conclave so that my opponents don’t have access to Treetop Village. The Conclave should make room for the fourth Catacombs.
Next comes the Terror upgrade — Doom Blade. I can’t think of anything that it kills that Terror wouldn’t that has seen play in the last year, but maybe you run into some Esper deck and want to kill a big Master of Etherium. I don’t think it’s a strong enough upgrade to warrant the inclusion of more Terrors than you would otherwise play — if you decided that you wanted 1 Terror, then you are going to play 1 Doom Blade. This change is pretty irrelevant for the deck.
Some people have asked me what I thought about Duress, but I don’t think it has a place in the deck (or in any deck right now). I’d rather have Thoughtseizes against everything, and I don’t think you want more than four of those. Perhaps having Duress is good in the mirror, but you already have the problem of not having many ways to play it turn 1, so it makes it a really good card only on the play. It’s good against Five-Color Control, Fog, Sanity Grinding, but those are good matchups already and I believe Vendilion Clique is just better.
Overall, the Blue/Black cards in M10 are really bad — I don’t think anything else has the possibility of being played. Faeries is already a deck that has very little room for any changes. It’s been perfect since it was first spoiled, and you add very few, if any, cards from every new set, and M10 is no difference. The other colors, though, all get much better upgrades.
First, there is the obvious Great Sable Stag, which might as well say Protection from Faeries to make things clear in case anyone missed it. There isn’t much you can do about this guy other than Command to tap him for one turn, or Sower of Temptation to get a non Black/Blue guy and keep him at bay. Thoughtseize is good against it, and so is Vendilion Clique on the play. Mutavault with Scion is also an answer, as is double Mutavault, but overall very bad news for Faeries.
The big problem with this guy is that he makes it so that they win the even games. Usually, the games with Faeries are blowouts for you (you are still going to win those, Stag or not), blowouts for them (they don’t even need the Stag to win those), or fair games, in which Faeries has the advantage. In those fair games, Faeries usually starts behind and then controls the board, and all of sudden kills them before dying to Bitterblossom, but how do you beat this guy on turn 3 of those fair games? And let’s not talk about multiples…
There aren’t many ways to circumvent this guy other than maxing the number of Thoughtseizes (which I’m not willing to do in the maindeck, but I could go to 3) — the problem is that I don’t think I want four Thoughtseizes against anything but the mirror, so bringing the fourth in just because of this guy doesn’t seem worth it. Another option is splashing either Red or White, which would probably make you forfeit the new awesome Dual for Trilands and just leave you with a bad manabase, but it might be a solution. At least you don’t take mana burn anymore if you want to Path to Exile him off a Mystic Gate.
It’s a shame that the two artifacts that could deal with it, Razormane Masticore and Loxodon Warhammer, have rotated — I came upon both when looking for answer only to realize they were both gone, and there is nothing that comes close to replacing them, as far as answers to that guy go. It might be possible that this is the time for a comeback of Vendilion Clique (not that it was ever really gone), since it stops the Stag on the play and helps you race it when it’s already on the “battlefield.”
Mold Adder is another card that could have “nothing personal” for its flavor text, but unlike the Stag, I don’t think it’s problematic. It’s a small guy early on, when you can’t take care of guys, and later when he becomes big you can just bounce/steal/kill it. Don’t get me wrong, he is good against you, but he is worse than Figure of Destiny, and since he is completely worthless against everyone else, I don’t think he is going to see any play. If people sideboard him for Faeries, you should probably be glad it’s him and not anything else — he still dies to Deathmark and Plumeveil.
Still in Green, there is the new Hurricane, Windstorm. Windstorm is probably better than Hurricane, but worse than Squall Line. Overall I don’t think it’s a really big problem for Faeries, since basically anyone who can play this could be playing Cloudthresher before and I doubt they would play both, but this is probably an upgrade on Cloudthresher if your only concern is Faeries. It’s good for us (us being Faeries players) that it doesn’t damage players. I believe that all you have to do is acknowledge its existence and you will be fine. I can see some Five-Color Control deck that wouldn’t play Thresher because of the mana but is willing to play this, but I’m not overly worried about that.
White gets plenty of good cards, though none says “I hate Faeries” like the Green ones do. Of those, the new Crusade is the most annoying, since if they are on the play you can’t do anything to stop it from resolving on turn 3. It’s easier to Spellstutter if you are on the play, but even then they might just play it turn 2 and you can’t do much about it.
Harm’s Way is a good card but doesn’t have many applications in this matchup, as long as you are careful with your blocking. They can’t use it to kill Scion or something in response to you Mistbinding them, so you should probably be glad if they play a number of those instead of Path to Exiles.
Another relevant card is Guardian Seraph, which has the potential to be extremely annoying if you are intending on killing them with Bitterblossom. Still, it’s not much different than Windborn Muse, and that was never a real problem for Faeries. If it becomes played a lot, you might want to change back one Agony Warp (or more, if it becomes played a lot) for Doom Blades.
Since they don’t have access to Zealous Persecution anymore, it might be correct to go back to Stillmoons and Sowers strategy, other than pinpoint removal and Plumeveil, but it might also be correct to just play a number of Infests — unlike the BW matchup, this matchup is not always a race that you can win with Cryptic, and killing all the guys in play has merit. It might be problematic because of the Anthem and the new 2/3 Soldier that pumps other Soldiers, though, so you might want to play Sowers and Stillmoons anyway. I believe that, if I play Faeries in the new format, I’m going to have 4 Sowers in my 75. Since they printed five new Lords, it might be that people start playing tribal decks more, and both Sower and Infest are very good against those, so that is something to keep in mind.
Red gets Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning as cards of relevance. Bolt is problematic depending on what they are playing it over — if they play Bolt over Incinerate, that is not a very big problem, since the one mana is not going to make much difference in this matchup. It’s easier to Spellstutter, but only in situations where you have nothing in play and they are trying to kill you, since if they are attempting to Bolt a guy you’d have at least two Faeries to counter Incinerate anyway. If they are playing Bolt over Magma Spray, though, this is bad for you, since the “remove from the game” is completely irrelevant but the “deals three damage to target player” certainly isn’t. But, overall, not something that makes me worry more about the matchup than I worried before.
Ball Lightning, I have mixed feelings about — if everyone starts to play it, it makes Peppersmoke much better. It also makes cards like Plumeveil and Agony Warp better, like all the haste guys do, because they have to tap out to play them — though Plumeveil is not very effective at taking care of Ball Lightning itself, it might be worth it to just take 6 so you can eat a Figure of Destiny and have that Plumeveil stay in play.
Red also loses Mogg Fanatic, which was a good card against you — now Scion gets a little better against them. If they start running Tattermunge Maniacs, then they will probably follow those with Jund Hackblades, so Peppersmoke becomes much better.
Overall, I don’t think those cards will make the matchup more problematic than it already is, but I believe they will drive people to play Red more than before, and that is where the problem lies. I think Red did get better, but it’s still not a good deck — but I know people will want to play those cards, so they’ll play the deck, and the deck is good against Faeries. The matchup is not unwinnable, of course, but it’s the one I like the least to play against, so that’s another bad thing for us — though I have the hope that Baneslayer Angel becomes a player in this new format, and it’s a card that just beats the Red archetype by itself most of the time, while being the kind of card that is seen in decks that Faeries usually beats.
Black and Blue, as I said, don’t really gain anything of relevance, so you shouldn’t worry about those much. Overall I think the changes almost balance themselves — no Koilos, no Treetop, new Dual, against the Stag and Red decks being more popular. It’ll depend on what the format becomes, to see if Red is a real player and if people are maindecking a lot of Stags, to see if the pros outweigh the cons.
M10 brings a lot of different cards (though I must say my idea of “half new cards” did not include a functional reprint of Grizzly Bear with the same creature type), but that’s not all it brings — it brings a lot of different rules as well. The head judge of our Nationals will probably not care that I don’t like the changes, so I might as well try to see how they impact this deck, and I believe they impact it more than most decks.
– Combat damage: This change is not particularly problematic for Faeries — not more than for any other deck, that is. You lose some Scion tricks, but most of the time they kill the Scion, and not the creature that is in combat, so it doesn’t matter much. It can be relevant when you are in combat with, say, Stillmoon Cavalier — with damage on the stack, you could stack first strike and then play your Scion and they could no longer do anything to stop your Mutavault from killing their Cavalier, but no longer. You also can’t stack damage and play Mistbind Clique, which is a play I did somewhat frequently in the Faeries mirror, even on my own turn when they blocked my token, but again it shouldn’t be very problematic.
Another thing is that now, if you double block a 2/2 with two tokens, they have no choice but to kill one even if you have Scion, whereas before they could try to distribute the damage and then you’d keep both tokens.
The good side is that some cards that are good versus you, like Chameleon Colossus and Putrid Leech, also get worse. Say you block their Colossus with Mutavault and Scion… they now have to either trade or expose themselves to Cryptic Command. Putrid Leech is the least affected by the change, since you could Mutavault plus Agony Warp it before anyway, but nowadays you can reduce the power of another attacker while killing the Leech and still keep your Mutavault, which is a plus.
– Change in names: This change is bad for Faeries, because now you have to say “as long as Sower of Temptation is in the Battlefield” and “when Mistbind Clique comes into play, exile a Faerie” if they ask you what your cards do, and no person should have to go through that.
– Mana Burn: This change is very very good for you. First, there is the obvious application of not taking Mana Burn from Sunken Ruins anymore. A lot of people said Mana Burn never came up for them, and I can only assume those people haven’t played Faeries much, because I take burn to play Thoughtseize off Ruins every other tournament.
Then there is Mistbind Clique. Before, they could float the mana and draw into an answer — now they need to have the answer already, which benefits you. The best part, though, is in combat. Before, if they attacked and you played Mistbind Clique, they could float the mana, let you block, and finish it with a burn spell. Nowadays, they can’t do that — they must play the Burn spell before you block. Say they attack with Ghitu Encampment. You play Mistbind Clique and they either Lightning Bolt it, in which case you just take two, or they let you trade with their Ghitu — they no longer have the option of letting you block and then killing it. That’s especially relevant with the new combat trick, Harm’s Way — you force them to play it before blockers and then you can decide how you are going to block.
– Simultaneous Mulligans: This is not going to matter much in most of your matches, at least not more than it matters to every other deck, but this is going to impact the Faeries mirror a bit. Before, sometimes you would be able to keep a slightly bad hand because they went to five — the new rule forces you to mulligan all those. The good side is that now you won’t be tempted to keep something bad just because they went to five — you will have to mulligan it on the dark. You can still see if they keep their seven before you get to decide, so it’s not like you are totally in the dark. This rule will save a lot of time in this matchup, because both players always mulligan a lot.
Take this hand, for example:
Mutavault
Mutavault
Island
Swamp
Cryptic Command
Mistbind Clique
Scion of Oona
I would keep this hand if my opponent mulliganed to 5, but, under the new rules, if I only know they are mulliganing to 6, I’d ship it back.
One thing you have to be aware of is that the number of keepable hands on the draw is now smaller — since you have no Underground River to play your Thoughtseize turn 1. I think that means you now have to keep some hands you wouldn’t, because the chance of mulliganing into a Bitterblossom or Thoughtseize hands are lower.
Overall I think the rules changes favor Faeries — the mana emptying thing with Mistbind is a huge plus that no one else gets, while everyone is affected by the other rules at least as much as you.
All in all, as I said before, I think M10 doesn’t change a lot as far as the place of Faeries is concerned in Standard. Maybe it gets better, because of the rules changes and the loss of some enemies, and maybe it gets worse because of Stag and Red, but I don’t think it gets much better or much worse, and I certainly don’t think this new set spells the doom of Faeries as I’ve already heard (though, to be honest, I hear that every set. I even believed it once, to some extent…).
I don’t know what I’m playing at Nationals yet — it’s on the last weekend of July for us. It might be Faeries, it might not be — I’ll do some brainstorming on the new format and try to figure out the local metagame, but there is certainly a chance that I play it. If I play it, it’s probably going to be something close to what I had before, swapping the lands and the Terrors, and probably with one less Jace and one more Peppersmoke, since I believe the format is going to become more aggressive and more suited for Peppersmoke, now with Ball Lightning and Savannah Lions.
The sideboard loses Warhammer, and for that you can add the Jace you took out, or a Sower. I think you can also take out one of the three Puppeteer Cliques for another Sower, since I expect at least some decks that played Cloudthresher to play Windstorm instead. Another approach could be taking out the maindeck Thoughtseizes for Vendilion Cliques, or even more Sowers, since you now have less ways to cast them turn 1, and then move the Thoughtseizes to he sideboard — I’ll have to try both approaches before my Nationals to see which I like best, but I guess I’ll just be sticking to the maindeck Thoughtseizes for now.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this, and see you next week…
PV