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Fairish Faeries (Alela Budget EDH)

Commander / EDH Budget Casual Faeries Flash Goad Midrange Multiplayer UB (Dimir) Value Engine Weenie

LynxGoddess

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Combo (20)

Lands (34)

Lords (4)

Goad (1)

Reanimation (1)

Interaction (20)

Draw (10)

Cantrips (8)

Commander (1)

Commander: Alela, Cunning Conqueror

Value (13)

Mana (10)

Tokens (2)

Tutors (1)

Introduction

This is a not so fair magic midrange combo deck looking to use value engines to gain advantage from interaction and end the game through a combo finish. The deck is at roughly a $100 Card Market budget, meaning we are striking a balance between overall card quality and the value of specific key cards. One such card for this deck is Intruder Alarm, which swallows a considerable part of the budget by itself.

Our commander, Alela, Cunning Conqueror, allows us to play a more reserved game than most decks. By rewarding us for playing spells outside of our own turn and goading our opponents' threats, she gives us great defensive tools that we can use to great advantage.

Primer

Thus, this is not a faerie deck. We surely gain advantage from playing faeries - but rather than focusing on building a massive army of big fliers, we take a value oriented, interactive approach by leveraging effects that reward play outside of our own turn. Focusing on the word "faerie" in the text box ignores the main draw of Alela - she gives us time.

Game Plan

Every time we cast our first spell on an opponent's turn, we create a Faerie Rogue 1/1 B. That's a free blocker right there, just for playing a Brainstorm that gets us card advantage, a Doom Blade to kill a dangerous threat, or a Negate to counter a removal spell. By doing the things we already want to be doing, Alela rewards us with protection and signals to our opponents that if there's mana open, we can block.

But there's so much more going on with these little faeries! They're not content hanging back to block; they wanna fly off to poke dragons in the eyes with their little needle swords and they want to feed the duchess's favorite earring to the neighbor's pigs! These little nasty critters will look at the scariest creature on each opponent's board and make sure that creature does something it'll regret. Goading the largest threat each opponent presents, each turn, "only" using tokens we gained from doing the things we should be doing anyways, seems like a pretty nice deal.

Getting Alela out on the field and playing spells we want to be playing anyways will give us the tools to execute our plan:

"Stay Away - Let Us Cook"

Stay Away

Keeping our opponents away is helped a lot by Alela's abilities, but by supplementing them with engines that make our play style even more advantageous and supporting our efforts with heavy targeted interaction we can pick up most of the slack that a couple of annoying faerie tokens can't deal with.

To supplement our plan, the deck runs several engines that give us advantages if we play spells on our opponent's turns. Alela, Cunning Conqueror herself is one such card, but cards such as Wavebreak Hippocamp, and Naiad of Hidden Coves do so too, and Cunning Nightbonder, Mocking Sprite, Mindsplice Apparatus and Slitherwisp all support our strategy as well.

We then run an extensive interactive suite focused on targeted removal at instant speed. We are running counterspells like Spell Stutter, Unwind, Wash Away and Spellstutter Sprite - but also Alexi's Cloak and Blessing of Leeches that can effectively "counter" a removal spell. We are running creature removal such as Cast Down, Heartless Act, Reality Shift and Go for the Throat. We play spells more general interactive spells in the form of Blink of an Eye, Into the Roil, Drown in the Loch and Resculpt. All these cards can - and generally should - be played on an opponent's turn, getting a discount, drawing us extra cards, or making faeries.

If we really need to, we can try to wipe the board using Crippling Fear and Languish. But we probably shouldn't unless we have become the archenemy.

In order to find the interaction (and later to find combo pieces), as well as to allow us cheap triggers of Alela, we are running a set of cantrips and some synnergistic ways to keep our hand full. These range from Cerulean Wisps to Dig Through Time, from Opt to Reconnaissance Mission and from Twisted Image to Corrupted Conviction, among many other draw effects.

Let Us Cook

Now, this deck runs a bunch of combos. We're hopefully doing great in keeping our opponents away, but how do we translate that into a win? We cook up a combo to finish the race.

Below I'll list some combos that are important for the deck's ability to win games. There are for sure more ways to go infinite in the deck, and if you see one that should be listed please let me know. Before the list I'll just add that any combo requiring a creature to tap obviously needs that creature to not be summoning sick, and that any combo relying on Hell's Caretaker loops will need one looped creature to be dead and one to be alive when the loop starts.

Combos that will win the game:

Combos that will generate infinite creature tokens:

Combos that generate infinite mana:

Combos that generate infinite card draw:

Combos that generate infinite spell copies

Naru Meha, Master Wizard + Saw in Half + any instant or sorcery cast by us

Summary: A Mess of Values

Well, thats the game plan right there! Stay away and let us cook just a little. I'd just like to end this primer by shining a light on the things this deck can do outside of the main plan. With all of these powerful combo pieces in the deck, there is a lot of generic value that can be found in unexpected places - and it might often be better (or at least more fun) to use those combo pieces for some other purpose.

The things this deck can do are sometimes way out there, and we do want to be careful not to waste a combo piece on something unnecessary. But if you're a good bit away from assembling a full combo and you can do something very powerful by expending a piece, it's not unreasonable to do so. There are more combos and more chances in the deck, there are faeries flying around goading stuff, there is value to be found, and there are stupidly powerful things these cards can do out of nowhere.

So experiment and have fun! Go out there and poke som dragons in the eyes. After all, it's what faeries do, ain't it?

Suggestions

Updates Add

Banishing Knack — Nov. 19, 2023
Edit

I've added Banishing Knack to the deck in place of Hypnotic Sprite. Knack combos easily with Intruder Alarm in the same way as other combos that use untaps to generate mana or damage. Such as Banishing Knack + Intruder Alarm + Cloud of Faeries + Obyra, Dreaming Duelist allowing Obyra to repeatedly bounce the Faeries back to hand to be replayed.

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93% Casual

Competitive

Revision 5 See all

(5 months ago)

+1 Banishing Knack main
-1 Hypnotic Sprite main
Date added 8 months
Last updated 5 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

4 - 0 Mythic Rares

22 - 0 Rares

20 - 0 Uncommons

30 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.45
Tokens Copy Clone, Demon 5/5 B, Elemental 4/4 UR, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Knight 2/2 WU, Manifest 2/2 C, Ninja 1/1 U, Treasure
Folders 1 Budget 8, Commander Decks, decks
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