Dies to Removal

Hopefully this thread isn't Mod killed anytime soon.

Welcome to the UB Faeries thread! Our core cards are as follows:
[cards]Vendilion Clique
Mistbind Clique
Spellstutter Sprite
Bitterblossom
Thoughtseize
Cryptic Command[/cards]

I have seen many versions that differ with Sower of Temptation(maybe not anymore), Scion of Oona x2-3, and slight differences in counter spells. Remand, Spell Snare, and Mana Leak seems to be debatable on what to run. Removal is generally a couple of direct kill (Go for the Throat, Doom Blade, and Smother) and some -x-x spells (Disfigure and/or [card]Dismember[/card:
2vgquvsc]). Discard is generally Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek. Here is a sample deck list.
[deck]Creatures (11)
4 Mistbind Clique
4 SpellStutter Sprite
3 Vendilion Clique[/card]

Enchantment (4)
4 BitterBlossom

Planeswalker (1)
1 Jace Beleren

Artifacts (2)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Instants (13)
4 Cryptic Command
3 Mana Leak
3 Go for the Throat
1 Doom Blade
1 Smother
1 Agony Warp

Sorceries (5)
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughseize

Lands (25)
3 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Secluded Glen
2 Watery Grave
3 Island
2 River of Tears
4 Mutavaults
2 Swamp
1 Sunken Ruins
[/deck]

There are version that run red for Lightning Bolt, Rakdos Charm, and Electrolyze, but I am unsure it's worth it to loose that much life as this deck does not gain life. If anyone wishes to add decks
with the third color; please do as we are open mided here.

The Side Board is rather tricky as we only have Blue and Black to work with. Here are some ideas.
[cards]Threads of Disloyalty
Relic of Progenitus
Engineered Explosives
Batterskull
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of Fire and Ice
Shadow of Doubt
Deathmark
Agony Warp
Hibernation
Damnation
Evacuation
Extirpate
Spellskite
Hurkyl's Recall
Echoing Truth
Bile Blight[/cards]

I ran this deck back when it hot and it was fun. Unfortunately, Volcanic Fallout, Electrickery, Abrupt Decay, Boil (if that ever shows up), Bile Blight, Drown in Sorrow, Pyroclasm, Firespout, Izzet Staticaster and [card]Voice of
Resurgence[/card] make this a little hard to run these days. Who cares! Everything dies to some type of Removal! I have found while playing this deck that is rewarding to patient players. Play everything you can on their turn. Another issue is life loss. You realy can't gain life relaibly unless you use one of the swords of X & Y. Thus it is important to not play to many phyrexian mana or fetch lands plus shock lands. That is why I find the Third color to be dangerous as you need the life for Bitterblossum cost. Snapcaster Mage and Creeping Tar Pit were a major gifts to this deck, thus use them. I could see an arguement for using Darkslick Shores, but I never get to use them as fast lands. I find it is better to have the option on the man land instead.

Reserved for Esper, BUG, or Grixis versions

4 Cryptic, 25-26 lands, Tectonic Edge, 3-4 Tar Pit. That part is non-negotiable.

4 Cryptic Command is good. 24 lands seemed better for me as I was not mana flooded so much. Spell Snare was a dead card way to many times. 4 mutuvault is better in making SpellStutter Sprite functional, thus 2 creeping Tar Pit was better. Too many man lands can bog the deck down. Been playing with friends and burn really hurts it. Thundermaw Hellkite shows up when your opponent makes you blow all your hand in counter spells or removal. Cavern of Souls and the Tree land (makes certain spells uncountable) makes most of your spells useless to near shut down. Robots can be an issues if the get ahead of you with Blood Moon (burn and Gruul as well).

American (I run) eats it bad. Tron is fairly easy to beat. Scion of Oona dropped against certain decks with limited removal is a huge blow out for them (Pod) if their only removal is Abrupt Decay. That's my findings so far.

24 lands seemed better for me as I was not mana flooded so much.

I am telling you that you need 25-26 lands, because you will lose many, many games if you are unable to hit 4 land fairly early. You'll be able to deal with the occasional flood if those 1-2 extra lands are Tar Pits.

updated with 25 lands. Post your version so we can figure the difference.

Should we run (main board) more consistent Instants or 1 or 2 of each different removal/counter

Spell Snare
Go for the Throat
Doom Blade
Agony Warp
Dismember (not liking it for life loss)


We got 4 Cryptic Commands and 3 Mana Leak in the main that is a must. What should the creature kill be?

Don't discount Dismember, the card is fantastic. You'll usually pay [mana]1B[/mana] or [mana]1BB[/mana] for it, but there are situations where paying 1 and losing 4 life puts you way ahead and you're happy to do it.

Don't discount Dismember, the card is fantastic. You'll usually pay [mana]1B[/mana] or [mana]1BB[/mana] for it, but there are situations where paying 1 and losing 4 life puts you way ahead and you're happy to do it.

Indeed, but I have had it loose me the game towards the end because they were sitting on 2 lightning bolts late game. I did stop thundermaw hellkite, but still lost cause of the life loss from continual Bitterblossom. Loosing life from Shocklands + Fetches is really enough. That's my opinion from piloting it the past and now. The difference is that now you can loose ALOT more life faster than back in the day.

Yeah, fetches are bad here. This is a deck that uses life as a resource, and it is not one to be squandered.. Lava Axing yourself turn 1 to Thoughtsieze is not how you want to start out. We may want to replace shocks and fetches with fast lands (ham can run the numbers, but with 26 lands you won't often be seeing this as your 11th or 12 card) and maybe even River of Tears (although it doesn't play well with Bile Blight).

Maybe 4 fetches is best? We generally need the one black (Shockland) early game or blue right now. I hate River of Tears cause it meeses up my color play when I need that 4 lands on my opponents turn. Fastlands seem ok but can be hair pulling when you need them NOW. We are already running 3 tapped lands. Might as well run Scry lands if you want more tapped lands.

The problem with fetches is that black is the color we often want to find early, but we need a lot of blue mana. Polluted Delta isn't in the format, and we can't just switch to black fetches. A split between the two isn't more sensible than just running other duals if we want to preserve our life total.

River of Tears is usually fine if you're smart about tapping your lands since you shouldn't need more than 1 black when it's not your turn (although I do really like Bile Blight) and you should have other black sources on the later turns when you can't trigger it. I haven't used fastlands in this deck, but Jund plays them and they want to hit 4 quickly as well (and don't mind having tapped lands after that, same as we do). Extended U/B Faeries also played them. It is very frustrating in the uncommon cases where these lands screw you over, though.

Nobody wants more tapped lands.

I played this deck in my very first Modern event EVER about a year and some change ago. It was extremely good to me, although it is not really a "faeries" list since there aren't many actual fae in the deck. I made top 8 playing it, I would have liked to see how far it would go, but everyone else wanted to ID the top 8 so we could go home and I didn't want to be that guy.


[deck]UB control[/deck]

Obviously this deck isn't anything like the Bitterblossom decks that will probably exist going forward, but I'm sure this deck probably still has legs too, since Liliana is still a very powerful card. When I built this deck, most of the Modern metagame was BW tokens, Infect, Splinter Twin, and Affinity, so it is VERY good in that environment, while being markedly weak to Storm. Since Storm isn't that good now, but the rest of the aforementioned decks are still out there, that's something to keep in mind.




Also if tokens is a thing you see a lot of, no card shits on them harder than Echoing Truth. It's super lulzy.

Thanks Alex on the Echoing Truth idea. It indeed shits on BW tokens as wel as mirror.

Here is a mana base my friends and I have been testing.
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
4 Secluded Glen
2 River of Tears
4 Watery Grave
1 Swamp
5 Island
1 Tectonic Edge
4 Mutavaults
26 lands

Zoo and burn can eat our lunch with damn fetches killing us. We still liked 4 Watery Grave as it was not to bad. One swamp was really needed for path to exile if blood moon hit the board (5 Island). I still don't care for River of Tears but it enters non tapped. We tried the check lands version and it often entered tapped anyway. We kicked out Sunken Ruins as it often sat with mutuvaults opening hand. Uborg, Tomb of all Swamps was helping my opponent more than me. 1 Tectoic Edge kept the man lands off our ass. Thoughts?

The winning deck from mtgo was this deck version. I tried the version and found much better than mine, but I hated the river of tears. Watery grave turn 1 was better for early discard. No Vendion clique was actually not to bad and it being in the side was better against zoo. Darkslick Shore was ok but could be a pain sometimes. Patience is needed for this deck. 3 engineered explosives is a huge help as I side it in very frequently. Grafdiggers cage is another hate card I love against Pod. I still use threads of disloyalty and steal goyfs all the time for a big win.
Question, should I use 1 or 2 tec edges? Ghost quarter is ok, but I hate giving them a land.

List updated.

Tec Edge > Ghost Quarter.

Tec Edge > Ghost Quarter.

Indeed. I am liking 2 tech edges so far in trials. Although drawing it plus mutuvaults sucks.

Updated as I won my local FNM the last Friday in February with it. 2 Jace Beleren was an excellent addition and I drew it frequently. Many killed it as if it was going to kill them. Weird. I pulled all the -1-1 spells as do nothing for me in testing and meta. Ultimate price was ok, but I forgot it is worthless against robots. I am changing it for doomblade. Deathmark was not as good as I thought it would be. I really needed to kill Thundermaw Hellkite, but got lucky with having a go for the throat in hand as well. I am adding flash freeze in one place. Hibernation was hilariously useful making mass green attack a pipe dream. I waited till he pumped up his dudes to a kill to find his plan was for not. 3 hurkyl's recall is a must. 2 river of tears is ok, and am glad I defied the norm and used 2 watery grave as one game only saw 4 lands (1 Mutuvault, 2 island, and watery grave). I would have died if my kill spells were not able
to be cast. Also, I seem to be pulling the discard more often against aggro as their hands empty faster than I draw more discard. I just replace it with green, white, and red hate.

It's fun to remind people that Mistbind Clique needs a chance to be played before they draw. They go so fast through their turn, and I have to warn them fast.

Have not lost a single FNM Modern night so far while playing this deck. The only update I have so far in the main is: -1 IoK and +1 Sword of War and Peace.

Side board so far-
2 Damnation
2 Flashfreeze
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Spellskite
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Batterskull
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Deathmark