Hello all, and welcome to my new weekly column, PV’s Playhouse.
Writing this column is going to be quite a challenge for me, since I usually write three or four articles a year. Now I’m going to write about twelve times as much, but I think I’ll do fine. I’m not going to cover any topics in particular, but I’ll try to bring you a decent mix of decks, reports, and basic strategy. I hope you like it, and by all means let me know if you have any suggestions on a topic you’d like… *cough* no Eternal *cough*.
For my first two articles, I’m going to write a condensed report on my five-week trip around the world playing Magic, highlighting the points I think important. This is pretty much going to be a Faeries for Standard article, since I believe this is by far the most important topic of the first part of my trip, and I feel like another article specifically on the Mono Blue deck we played isn’t going to be very relevant right now. So, there you have it.
In the past month and a half, I haven’t done much more than play Magic. Whenever I travel to those tournaments, it seems someone opens a window in reality and I’m free to do whatever I want, I have no responsibilities, I can spend more money, I get to eat outside every day, I don’t have to clean anything because I stay in hotels — you get the point. This time, it seemed someone opened that window and forgot to close it.
Over the past month, I traveled to 6 different countries, with stops in two others. I spent 109 hours in airplanes, not counting the time I spent in airports. I went to London five times without ever leaving the terminals. At one point, I had in my pockets coins from Brazilian Real, USD, Japanese Yen, Euro, Czech Crown, Pounds, Singaporean Dollar and the money from Dubai, whatever it is called. I stayed in a hotel that had a television in the bathroom mirror, which automatically turned on whenever you walked in, and I stayed in a hostel that looked, according to Martin Juza, like a prison cell. I went from the coldest temperature I’ve ever faced, in Chicago, to the smothering hot of Singapore. I got to spend time with people I didn’t really know and found out what I was missing. And, on top of all, I played a lot of Magic.
My first tournament was Rotterdam. In Rotterdam, I received a reasonably good sealed pool. It became clear my base two colors would be Red and Green, and in the end Black won out over White for the third color. My removal suite was really strong — two Fiery Falls, Fallout, Jund Charm, Resounding Thunder, Magma Spray, among others. My creatures were somewhat lacking though — my biggest creature was Sprouting Thrinax. I decided the aggro approach would be the best, since I had three Rip-Clan Clashers. It was good enough for the first rounds, but then I started facing decks that had simply more powerful cards (like one opponent who played Flameblast Dragon, Thornling, Wall of Reverence, and Spearbreaker Behemoth… and he still had a Voracious Dragon left), and my deck was the kind of deck that couldn’t really get flooded. I had only a triple land and the Fiery Falls for fixing, and since I needed RG very early, I ended up not playing as many Black sources as I should have. That made it for awkward draws where I was flooded with Forests and Mountains and I still couldn’t cast my spells despite drawing land after land, since they were all Black. In the end, I didn’t make Day 2. I should probably have played another Swamp — I was under the impression that I needed to draw RG and then the Black cards were secondary, but that proved clearly wrong. Or I could have played fewer Black spells, though I didn’t have many playables in my colors left.
Then came Kyoto. I had my mind set on playing Five-Color Control from the beginning — it seemed like playing Faeries was just pushing it too much, with Volcanic Fallout and all. If I had to ban a card from Magic today, it’d be Volcanic Fallout, because it’s the single best card against all the decks I like to play. Either that or some Faeries, so I wouldn’t be tempted to play decks that lose to Fallout. Still, I knew that if I didn’t like Five-Color Control enough, I could always fall back on Faeries. It seems convenient that you have a deck you’ve played so much already, because you can try new things and if nothing works you can pick up a deck one day before the event and know how it works, since you’ve played something similar many times. Faeries is such a deck for me, so I felt that, if I ended up playing Faeries, I wouldn’t need to test much with it so I could spend all my time trying different things.
Once in Kyoto, me and my friend tried to find our hostel. We had directions and a map, but, well, it turns out we aren’t very good with maps. We ended up in the right street but in the opposite direction. We entered some other hotel to ask for directions, and the guy at the reception not only told us where to go and wrote it on our map, but he also said we could take his hotel shuttle and they’d drop us off at somewhere closer, so we would have to walk less. Then he proceeded to apologize infinitely for not being able to tell us precisely where it was or to drop us off closer. Things like that make me really like Japanese people; they are always eager to help, even though they hardly understand what you are saying.
Once at the hostel, we met the other Brazilians who were there, as well as a bunch of Magic players, some I knew and some I didn’t. We played a bunch, and since my friend who was sold on Five-Color Control wanted to play against Faeries, I played Faeries against him, so I’d get a feel for the matchup from the other side. I had always thought Faeries would beat our Five-Color Control deck, but not as much as I ended up beating him. It seemed very hard for me to lose, much harder than in our online playtests. I’m usually not one to abandon playtest results and get locked into what I see one day before the event, but the matches I played didn’t look abnormal — they looked like normal matches, that went the way all the matches should go. Then I played against other friends with RW and the result was really positive. In the end, I realized that the only reason I didn’t play Faeries was because I was afraid of playing Faeries “just because.” Since that wasn’t the case, I played Faeries.
The reason I played Faeries was because, to me, it was the best deck to play in that tournament. Five-Color Control was a close second, but Five-Color Control lost to Faeries, where Faeries lost to Mono Red. Since I thought there would be a lot more Faeries and Five-Color Control than Red decks (and BW, which is the other matchup Five-Color Control has better odds, though it’s not bad for Faeries either) – which there were – Faeries seemed the logical choice. I don’t regret my decision, and I’d play Faeries again if the tournament was tomorrow, though I’d play something different if I had knowledge of my first round pairings.
This is the list I played:
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (25)
Spells (20)
My tournament was very anti-climatic. I played round 1 against a Mono Red deck, with Fallout, Banefire, and Demigod all maindeck. The game looked very good when I was at 15 and he had no creatures, but then he played Demigod, which I countered, then another, which I countered but took 5, then Fallout, then Banefire, and I died.
Game 2 he never really had a chance to beat my multiple Mistbind draws, and game 3 I mulliganed to 5, but had Blossom. He killed two Mistbinds and had a Fallout and double Banefire, so I died. In the last turn I had a Bottle Gnomes and Blossom in play, and was at four life. He had seven lands in play. He promptly tapped six of them and announced “Banefire for 5.” I sacrificed my Gnomes, go to 7, then to 2, so I’m going to 1 next turn and I have another Gnomes in hand. He realized his mistake and tried to tap his land saying “no no, for six.” I obviously don’t let him and he shows me another Banefire saying “Okay, I have another one anyway”. If there was any justice in this world I’d have drawn Mistbind Clique or Vendilion Clique that turn, but I didn’t and he killed me.
Match 2 I played versus almost the same deck. I Thoughtseize him early and see Blightning and Ram-Gang, and I take the creature since I have extra lands to discard for Blightning. I have Bitterblossom and Mistbind, but he has two Banefires and a Fanatic to kill me the turn before I kill him.
Game 2 I mulliganed to five, and my first three lands were Mutavaults. Since bad things never happen by themselves, his first creature is a Fulminator Mage. He doesn’t even get to use it, though, since I take so long to draw a colored Mana. When I do, I play Bitterblossom, but he has second Demigod plus Fallout when I try to Spellstutter it.
At this point, I was really heartbroken. I had two losses in Standard, and both of them were to Red aggro decks, when both had Demigod (which no one seems to play nowadays), multiple Banefires, and at least one had Fallout maindeck (with the other having them in the sideboard). In both matches I mulliganed to 5, in both matches my opponents cast a second Demigod of Revenge, and in both matches I got double Banefired when I was about to win. This was a risk I decided to take when I had Faeries as my deck choice, that I’d likely lose to Red, but I didn’t think Red would be very popular and I didn’t think they would do well at all. It became clear to me after the PT that Red is the worst of all the popular decks, and I don’t see why anyone would want to play it, so that should be another incentive for playing Faeries. Sure, you might play it to beat Faeries, but what are you going to do when you get paired versus the other four most popular decks in the tournament? You have as bad of a matchup against them as you have a good with Faeries, and it doesn’t seem like a winning trade.
Round 3 I play the mirror, and we split the first two games on Blossom advantage. He keeps a rather bad hand in the third and on top of that doesn’t draw lands, so I win. One of the interesting points is that he never attacked my Jace, which was probably what won him the game he won, the way it turned out. Had he tried to kill Jace, I’d have had one extra turn to capitalize on all the extra cards I drew, and as it was I didn’t have that turn.
The fourth round was against RW, and again nothing very interesting happened. We split the first two games, he played Fallout to kill two Scions in game 3 but I was able to play around most things and win when he had a turn to topdeck another Fallout but didn’t.
I felt really bad with my 2-2 score — I really wish I could have played more matches with my Standard deck in that Pro Tour.
After that, we went to the draft. My draft table was surprisingly good for my record, and I recognized almost every name. Though I have a very good memory for games and situations, I don’t remember exactly how the draft went — I didn’t get to keep it between all my travels, and it’s certainly a long time ago. I know that I was solidly in Red/Green in pack 1, and then, in pack 2, when they said “open the pack and count the cards”, I had to turn a card facedown (because they face opposite directions) and I had a glimpse of my rare. It was Red, and it was 5/5*. My mind rushed trying to think what other possible Red 5/5s it could be, and I kept smiling to myself as I couldn’t find another. I finally get to look at my pack and pick my Flameblast Dragon. I ended up getting a Rakka Mar in pack 3, over a Volcanic Fallout, and I wheeled two Suicidal Charges, which are better than people give them credit for but worse than I gave them credit for. My deck ended up pretty good, with bombs, solid guys, and removal in the form of Thunder, Magma Spray, and Executioner’s Capsule.
I lose the first match to a much worse Bant deck, and I’m still trying to figure out how. This was by far my worst game of the tournament, and my opponent played really well to win a game I couldn’t possibly lose. It started when I had a 2/2 Wild Nacatl and 6 lands in play, and he had two x/1s and a Rakeclaw Gargantuan, with one Green open. I had Magma Spray and Suicidal Charge in hand. I had two possible actions: Play both and kill his team, or play the Charge and attack with Nacatl. I was going to attack with the Nacatl — there is no way he doesn’t give First Strike there, so I can kill it in response with the Magma Spray and he can’t pump it with Might of Alara, if he has it. But then I think that, for some reason, “he is not going to have this particular pump spell, I might as well deal two extra damage”. I go for it and he has the pump spell. I got my two damage in, but his Rakeclaw stayed alive. I knew what to do, I knew I should play around it, and for some reason I didn’t. I wanted to kill myself.
Then the game goes on and I play a Flameblast Dragon. He is at 9, I have 9 lands and a Resounding Thunder in hand. He is not going to do anything anytime soon, so I don’t have to attack now — I can wait until I have one extra mana. But then, since the game looks so won, I still have the Thunder if he has the Silence, and stopping to think for a minute would make things too easy, I attack. I hit him to one and he Silences it. Next turn, I can Thunder him. I think maybe I should play around Sylvan Bounty (he had already cycled one), but then I thought “oh, no way he has ANOTHER one of those.” And, of course, to think for one minute would have made things too easy. I just wanted to finish with the game, no sense waiting for him to tap his mana. On his upkeep, I Cycle Thunder at him. He gains 8. Five turns later, I attack into Resounding Silence again. Three turns later I lose.
So many things I could have done differently. In every fork I had the good play and the lazy play, and I picked the lazy play. The right play was always on my mind, but for some reason I had to think that “no way he is going to have it” that we think sometimes. Well, I was wrong. He had it.
I win game 2 because my deck is much better, and have the worst draws in the world, including a mulligan to 5, to his good draws in game 3, so I lose. My opponent tried to rush me a lot during shuffling, since we didn’t have much time left, but I took my time shuffling and the table judge agreed I could. My deck was somewhat stacked from the last game and not shuffling properly just because he was in a hurry couldn’t do any good. It was actually the only good thing I did this match — I didn’t let him rush me into not shuffling enough. In the end, we had quite some time left anyway, since I didn’t do anything, and he apologized for rushing me.
My next match was just the worst match ever. I win game one with a surprise Rakka Mar, then game 2 and 3 we both flood absurdly. I play a creature turn 5, he kills it, and the next play of the game is Inkwell leviathan on turn 20 for him, when I have my hand full of removal and lands. I almost race it with my Gharial in one of the games, but he has a Thunder to kill me one turn before.
So, my Pro Tour ended. I had the worst tiebreaks I’ve ever had, some 40% (I’m looking at you, opponents playing Demigods), so I had no chance to make Top 200 for the extra pro point even if I won, so I dropped. Quite the bad start for my trip.
Still, there were three more GPs to go. Last year I 2-4ed Kuala Lumpur, and it made me want to commit suicide because there was nothing else for me in months. This time I still had three more chances, and I was looking forward to a very good time in Singapore and Prague regardless of the tournaments.
The day after the tournament, I went to Nara with Olivier and Antoine Ruel, Raphael Levy, Martin Juza, his friend Martin, and my friend Luiz. Nara is a place that was about 40 minutes away from where we were (ended up being 20, because Raphael Levy kindly bought the wrong ticket so we all had to pay double for being in the wrong train. At least it was faster). It had some temples, some statues and a lot of deer. It was actually pretty cool and I recommend it to whoever goes to Japan.
After that, I went back to the hotel. Next day I was going to have a plane to Narita, then to London, then to Chicago. To give you an idea of how much worse this is than going straight to the U.S., my friend left ten hours after me and had to wait four hours for me at the airport in Chicago. What one doesn’t do for a cheaper flight…
I’ll now give some explanations on the Faeries deck, mainly why I think those card choices are the best and what I’d change, since Kyoto was a month ago and the format has certainly evolved. Next week I’ll continue the report part of the trip, and give some explanations of the decks I played in Chicago, Hanover, and Singapore, as well as some situations that I think are worth mentioning.
4 Scion of Oona: From the beginning, I knew I wanted to play four Scions and I honestly believe anyone not running the full amount is making a mistake. This is really good in the mirror and really important against BW and RW. The advantage you get by running only two or three when you get paired against the decks it isn’t good against (Five-Color Control and Red) is often irrelevant when you compare it to the advantages of drawing one or multiples against the decks it is good against. Without this card, you lose a lot of your greatest strength, which is the ability to go aggro or control in a nanosecond depending on what the situation demands. Without this card, they don’t have to fear your untapped mana nearly as much. This is also responsible for many blowouts in multiples, and protects your Sowers, which are very good against RW, BW and random decks such as Reveillark versions. It also protects your Mistbinds from Paths, and playing this card means they have to Path stuff on their turn, which in turn means you get an extra untapped mana to work with. Assume you play this turn 3 – they can let you untap, in which case it might mean they never get to Path another one of your guys for the rest of the game if you have a second (or a Spellstutter), or they can Path it right away, in which case you now have Five mana to activate Mutavault + Mistbind, or to play Jace + Broken Ambitions, or even another Scion + Spellstutter. Really, play four of this card.
3 Terror, 1 Agony Warp: Basically the same reasoning from Worlds – you need a number of Terrors to kill Mistbind, Figure of Destiny, Cloudthresher, Plumeveil, now Wall of Reverence, etc. Nowadays I really like Terror more, and the only thing stopping me from playing 4 Terror and 0 Warp is that I wanted to have access to two after sideboard, since it kills Scullers, and it’s also better against the Red deck.
3 Spellstutter Sprite, 1 Remove Soul: Remove Soul right now is really good. It’s good against simply every deck in the format, and the only reason I don’t play more is because there is no room, though I really consider making room for more of them. It’s one of the best cards against RW, and it’s very good against the Five-Color Control list that won the tournament because it’s an easy way to get rid of the Walls and Broodmate. Being able to play Sower while still countering the Reveillark next turn is an important way to beat the RW deck, and Remove Soul is the best way to do that. As for only three Spellstutters… well, they got worse. Decks became more powerful and the cards you want to counter are more expensive. If anything, they suffer from Fallout as much as Scion. They stay in the deck because most of your best draws include Spellstutter Sprites, and you need Faeries for your other cards, and it makes sure you win when you play Bitterblossom, but I think three is a fine number.
3 Thoughtseize: I can definitely see cutting one Thoughtseize for one Remove Soul, depending on what you expect. Thoughtseize is really good in the mirror though, and really good with Jace. Again, like at Worlds, I wouldn’t play four, but I added an extra.
2 Jace Beleren: Though he gets sided out a lot, he is never really bad. He is awesome against Five-Color Control and much better than I gave him credit for at first in the Faeries mirror – sometimes you get a no Blossom / two Blossom stall and he helps in both situations. Nowadays, it might be interesting to charge him first against Five-Color Control so he doesn’t get Fallouted.
0 Peppersmoke: I swear I don’t understand people who play Peppersmoke. It wasn’t good enough for the maindeck when Faeries was the most popular deck, and now that Faeries is not the most popular deck (and those who play Faeries don’t even always play Scions), everyone started playing Peppersmoke in their decks. If it wasn’t good before, it’s even worse now. The only relevancy I can see is when they play Procession and have Heights and no other creature, then you stop them from activating it while drawing a card, but overall the effect isn’t powerful enough in my opinion.
0 Vendilion Clique: I can see playing that, but I can’t find room. It basically bows down to Vendilion or Jace, I think. Vendilion is also never really bad, as it’s just a strong card per se, and even looking at their hand is already good, and it’s also very good against Five-Color Control (though not better than Jace). Jace is better in the mirror, though, which is why I picked him. I can see swapping their numbers without a problem, and maybe I should have done that.
0 Ponder, 0 Conclave: My reasoning from Worlds still stands — getting your fourth mana is too important in some matchups. Against BW, for example, you live or die by your turn four plays, you cannot afford to have your turn four Land come into play tapped and you cannot afford to dig for it. I actually like the one Ponder from Karsten, as a way to play “25.5 Lands”, but in the end if I decide I want more Lands I’d rather play 26 than risk having to Ponder for it in the early game. As someone (I believe Gerry T) said in the forums, Ponder is good turn 1 and 5, but I agree with him that it’s not good enough to make up for the times where it completely hinders you.
The Sideboard
One of the things I really liked about my Sideboard is that it had A LOT of cards against both decks you have a lot of cards to take out, and just enough cards against the decks you’d rather not change your strategy a lot, though some of the cards are not really optimal anymore. Before, I could cut all the bad cards against Five-Color Control and Red and add Glen Elendras, Puppeteers, Vendilions and the specific cards against those two decks. I believe the Persist guys are actually good against Red, since they are a threat that survives Fallout, hit for reasonable and give you more outlets to champion Mistbind Clique, when having Cliques stuck in your hand is one of the most common ways of losing the matchup. Stealing an Unearth guy, a Siege-Gang (if they keep those) or a Demigod isn’t too shabby either. The Gnomes buy you time to play all those more expensive guys against Red. However, I think the decks have changed — Five-Color Control is not what I expected and Mono Red should be less popular, so I’d play something a little different.
As I see it, right now, there are two possible approaches for a Faeries deck — Thoughtseize and Jace or Remove Soul and Vendilion. Thoughtseize pairs very well with Jace, since it protects it, which in turn lets you draw more cards to compensate for those Thoughtseizes you draw later in the game. This version is much better in the Mirror. The other version is much more reactive, and much better against Red — since you don’t have to tap out for your three drop, you can play more countermagic and choose which one you want to play. As I said, Remove Soul nowadays is very good, and you’d rather counter than kill most creatures in Standard. I can see playing 3 Thoughtseize/2 Jace/1 Remove Soul, as I did, or 3 Remove Soul / 2 Vendilion / 1 Something else (maybe one misers Thoughtseize, or a third Sower, or even a 26th Land. Vendilion is probably not good enough as a 3-of main, but I can live with it as well). Regardless of which you play, you should probably sideboard the others, so that wouldn’t change the sideboard configurations much.
I believe that, of those, the two best cards are Thoughtseize and Remove Soul, but I don’t like running big numbers of both — they clutch your hand with somewhat reactive cards and make topdecking wars worse. You can’t stop every threat always, and sometimes they’ll stick one and you’ll start drawing counters and Thoughtseizes because you have too many and just die to whatever they already have in play. However, against decks such as BW and RW, which have a lot of relevant threats, you don’t mind having that many answers, and since both Jace and Vendilion are bad against them you end up with a lot of those reactive cards in your deck after board.
This is the sideboard I would run right now:
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Remove Soul
1 Thoughtseize
1 Jace Beleren
2 Sower of Temptation
4 Stillmoon Cavalier
1 Agony Warp
1 Card that work against both Mono Red and Five-Color Control — probably either Puppeteer Clique or Glen Elendra Archmage, maybe a Wydwen.
Or…
4 Thoughtseize
3 Jace Beleren
1 Sower of Temptation (assuming you run the third maindeck)
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Stillmoon Cavalier
1 Puppeteer/Archmage
1 Agony Warp
Both versions are suited so you have access to four Thoughtseize, three Jace, three Remove Soul and three Vendilion Cliques after board, but I honestly believe either configuration is fine in the maindeck. If you expect more mirrors, I’d strongly recommend the first one, and if you expect more Red strongly the second, but if you don’t expect much of either, both versions are fine. For simplicity sake I’m going to board as if I was playing the first version, but it should be easy enough to figure out what to do if you are with the second one since it’s the same 75 but only in different order.
With this version, against Five-Color Control you want the 3 Vendilions, the 2 Remove Souls, the Thoughtseize, the Jace and the big Faerie, whichever you are playing. For that, you take out 4 Scions, 2 Sowers, 1 Agony Warp and 1 Spellstutter Sprite. I’d rather have the third Terror still in than board another big Faerie, so I can still have one Agony Warp sideboard for BW and Red. The two strongest cards they’ll have against you are Pithing Needle — which shuts down Jace and Mutavault, so be careful when keeping hands that rely solely on Jace (though they usually only have 2 — still, nowadays you should always Seize them in the first opportunity. I’d understand doing it turn two before, so you could see one extra card and make sure Jace resolves, but I’ll always go for it turn 1) and Wyden, which is probably the technology I like best in Nassif’s sideboard, and one I hadn’t thought of, at least in Five-Color Control (though I did think about it in Faeries). Remove Soul is really key when fighting Wyden, as well as Plumeveil.
If I had to say one thing about this matchup, it’d be “counter the Mulldrifter.” There have been periods in time where card draw was always countered and periods in which it was never countered. My instinct is to usually allow it, since you can just counter whatever comes next and this way you gain tempo, but against those Five-Color Controls of today, I counter the Mulldrifter on turn 3. Of course this is not a rule, but it’s a good guide for when you are in doubt of whether you spend that Broken Ambitions on their turn 3 evoked Mulldrifter or not. The reason for that is that they really want to out-land you, and they have Volcanic Fallout. You can’t let them draw their cards and counter the card they drew anymore, because Fallout can’t be countered. However, if you counter the card drawing (which can also be Esper Charm, obviously), not only there is the chance they don’t find it or the Land to play it but it’ll also mean they can’t just untap with 10 Mana and then overwhelm you after you have no board while you sit on useless Broken Ambitions. The games you lose against Five-Color Control are usually like that — you attack while he draws cards. Then, at some point, he finds a Fallout and, unless you have plenty of Vaults, the damage you’ve already dealt is not that relevant, but the cards they drew are going to win them the game. It also helps that they don’t have anything to punish you short of Cruel Ultimatum at seven mana — so if you have 2 Mutavault and Spellstutter Sprite, or even Cryptic Command, there is nothing to punish you for tapping out to counter an end of the turn Esper Charm.
The reason I have those Stillmoon Cavaliers now is that they are the best card against BW and against WW. They really do everything you want them to do against BW — they cannot ever be killed, they block anything, they kill Planeswalkers, and they kill players. Sometimes they’ll just play Bitterblossom and you not, and the Knight gives you a different approach of sneaking in some damage and then eventually playing a Command and winning. Since your best cards are Stillmoons, Sowers, and Scions, running Infest seems counter-productive. After SB, you become much more of a tap-out deck. Against WW, Infest is still good, but not good enough to justify the slot in my opinion. Stillmoon also happens to be good against the Bant deck, blocking War Monk, Doran, Rafiq, Sculler, Teeg, Liege — basically all of their guys, though I don’t expect that deck to be much popular.
The cards I bring in against BW are 4 Stillmoons, 2 Sowers, 1 Agony Warp and 1 Remove Soul, and I board out 3 Terrors, 2 Jace Beleren and 3 Spellstutter Sprites. Sprite is really not that good against them, especially now that they don’t run Thoughtseizes, and even though it gets better after sideboard because of Path I’d still prefer overpowering them with targets instead of trying to keep mana open to counter it all the time. Agony Warp is better than Terror because it kills Sculler and combat actually happens in this matchup, and the Thoughtseizes are fine because there are important cards you have to deal with. Their important cards are Bitterblossom, Glorious Anthem, Spectral Procession, and Ajani, and those are the most usual Thoughtseize targets. It’s more important to play conservatively game one, since their cards are better, but in game two and game three you can be more aggressive, because you have a higher chance of winning races, since you now have Stillmoon and more Sowers. If you ever have the chance to stick two Scions, it’s probably going to win you the game no matter what they do if you have a reasonable draw after that, so sometimes it’s interesting to let a Spectral Procession resolve even when you can counter it just to use the opening to play end-of-turn Scion, main-phase Scion. I’d expect most people to play Path only in the sideboard, so I wouldn’t bother playing around it game 1 unless you see them. In the end, it’s just a worse Terror against you and you should be glad if they are playing it. This is the matchup in which you Command tapping all their guys the most, so always keep in mind this possibility.
RW is much easier than BW, and I consider it to be a very good matchup. I honestly see no reason why someone would play RW, since it’s just worse than BW against almost everything, but it seems to be a pretty popular deck anyway. The games are radically different against them — instead of having a bunch of good cards, they have a bunch of bad cards and then some superb cards. Since your deck is better equipped to deal with a few bombs than with a lot of regular threats, you should be fine. You play a lot more conservatively here, since there are some cards you just cannot let resolve, mainly Siege-Gang Commander and Reveillark. Remove Soul really shines here, letting you tap your mana to do something while countering their next threat. If they play Balefire Liege, that’s even better for you, since it’s basically a Reveillark that dies to Terror. From my experience, the ways you lose this matchup are to a quick Figure that you can’t deal with or to a lot of Reveillark/Siege Gang draws, but even those you’ll be able to beat most of the time.
I sideboard +2 Remove Soul, +2 Sower of Temptation for -2 Jace Beleren, -1 Spellstutter Sprite and -1 Thoughtseize. I’m comfortable with four answers to an early Figure, plus Sowers, so I don’t board in the other Warp, though you certainly could. I don’t like the Stillmoons against them, because of Mogg Fanatics and whatever burn spell they are playing. After sideboard, the card that is going to cause you to lose most of the time is Volcanic Fallout, so be wary of that. Not everyone plays it, though, but it’s still wise to play around if you can. You shouldn’t go out of your way to play double Scion after board, like you do with BW, because they can punish you for it. The extra Remove Souls mean you can probably counter all their relevant cards, so you don’t have to go all-in to kill them before they can slip something through like you do in many matchups. You should also consider Banefire, though I don’t think it’s that good against you. If I played RW and had trouble with Faeries (and I would have, because this is a bad matchup), I’d play Fallouts.
The mirror is the mirror — I take out 1 Agony Warp, 2 Mistbind Clique for 1 Sower, 1 Thoughtseize, 1 Jace most of the time. Remove Soul is definitely not bad against them, but I really don’t want less than two Mistbinds — perhaps on the draw you can take out the extra Sower, Jace or a Broken Ambitions for a second Remove Soul. The mirror is mostly all about the opening hand, and I have yet to see a match where I mulligan more aggressively. If your hand has no way to deal with a turn 2 Blossom or a way to stick yours, or at least some perspective to win if they resolve it (like 2 Scion + Sower and Mutavault to race them), you should mulligan. Bitterblossom is easily worth more than two cards in the matchup and a hand with 6 cards and a Thoughtseize or 5 cards and a Bitterblossom is better than most 7 card hands without those. There is also the gamble that the opponent will mulligan to five in search of Thoughtseize/Ambitions so you keep a 7 cards hand without Blossom or a way to deal with one just so you overpower them with more cards, but I don’t like that because you can never be sure if they mulliganed into the Seize or into the Blossom.
If you cannot help it and they have Seize/Blossom and you don’t, what I said in my Hollywood report is still valid and you should try to go as aggressive as you can. The best turn 2 response to a turn 2 Bitterblossom besides your own is attacking with Mutavault, as it gives you the best chance of winning. In this match, you usually want to charge Jace, since if you both have Blossom your opponent cannot afford to just attack Jace and have his life attacked on the way back.
Against Red… well, good luck. It’s not that bad a matchup, and I don’t think it’s going to be very popular considering it’s just a bad deck (in my opinion), but it is your worst matchup. Bring in the Remove Souls, the Vendilions, the Agony Warp and the big Faerie, and take out a combination of Sowers, Scion, Jaces and Thoughtseizes. Jace is generally very bad, so you’ll always want to take him out. Other than that, it depends on what you see — if they have Blossom, you might want Scion still. If they have Fallouts, it becomes much worse. If they have Banefires, Thoughtseize might not be that bad. None of those cards are really good against them, but you have to keep some. It should also depend whether you are on the play or on the draw, since a card like Thoughtseize is much more appealing when you can take their Figure of Destiny as well.
Vendilion is good against them because it hits for three, which is again good for making sure they can’t topdeck the burn to kill you, blocks and kills Ram-Gang with value and gets rid of Banefires, Fallouts and extra Blossoms you might have. It also makes it sure they don’t have any way to deal with your guys before you Clique them. The effect is very powerful against Red because Red wants its cards in specific moments of the game – if you get rid of burn later and give them a creature instead, it’s not going to do them much good because you have a defense against creatures already. If you get rid of their three drop and give them a burn spell instead, sure, they kill the Vendilion, but now they aren’t killing you.
All in all, your worst matchup, but certainly winnable. I think the Gnomes and such add too little in your win percentages to be worth it over the other cards, though.
A while back, at the Superstars $5000 Standard event, LSV and Josh did well with the same Faeries list, both losing important matches to the Swans deck. In theory it’s a good matchup, especially since they play Scepters in the board. Here is his list for reference:
4 Bitterblossom
4 Mistbind Clique
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Wydwen, the Biting Gale
2 Sygg, River Cutthroat
2 Jace Beleren
4 Broken Ambitions
4 Cryptic Command
4 Terror
1 Remove Soul
1 Peppersmoke
1 Agony Warp
1 Loxodon Warhammer
4 Mutavault
4 Secluded Glen
4 Sunken Ruins
4 Underground River
2 Faerie Conclave
5 Island
2 Swamp
Sideboard:
4 Thoughtseize
3 Infest
1 Peppersmoke
3 Scepter of Fugue
2 Plumeveil
1 Persuasion
1 Puppeteer Clique
I’ll not dwell on this list, since I’ve never play it, but I think they are very fundamentally different that you can’t exchange elements from one into the other, and overall I still prefer mine whenever they conflict because I think the Sower/Scion combination is just too strong to pass up.
…
I think that covers everything for the deck. I hope I was able to explain things in a way that I didn’t just repeat myself from the previous article, though the basic concepts can’t help but being the same – It’s still all about being the aggro in the right moment.
To finish this article, I’m going to leave you with some pictures from my trips. I hope that if my introduction didn’t inspire you to try harder to qualify and travel to events that are far away, those pictures do. See you next week!
PV
* It’s always better being safe than sorry I guess, so just to clarify, I was not peeking or anything. In a Pro Tour, they always tell you to count the pack facedown, and there is always one card that you have to turn to do that. When you do that, you get to look at a card. There is no advantage to be gained though, since nothing happens between you looking at the card and actually looking at your booster, other than the counting of the cards.
Pictures
