Introduction
A friend of mine is a big fan of Faerie's and was told by her playgroup that faerie's won't work in EDH. And while they may not be the most popular tribe and going aggro with faerie's (like in modern) is not an option. It's my opinion that most anything is viable in EDH, and after lots of research and brewing with her I am convinced that Faerie's can be a powerhouse and this deck proves it.
This deck needs a little bit of a primer, because there is a lot going on and it is not super straight forward... and there is lot going on... maybe too much, but I love decks that play differently everytime you pick them up.
Cruel Control
The first section I want to talk about is black control, or cruel control. There is a little bit of stax going on but nothing super oppressive like not letting people play magic. Cruel control works like this... Im willing to get kill my stuff so that you can't have yours. Key cards in this category are
Dictate of Erebos
and
Grave Pact
and
Smokestack
and
Magus of the Abyss
and
Pestilence
But they all need fodder or ways to feed them. The biggest cards in this category are
Bitterblossom
and
Ogre Slumlord
and
Reassembling Skeleton
... this are all cards that give you stuff to kill each turn for a small payment. They can all be search for with your tutors, and are a key to the game, but if you can't get one you also have one in your command zone in
Oona, Queen of the Fae
She will make you creatures when you can't find your fodder. Another note
Faerie Harbinger
can and should be used to find
Bitterblossom
everytime.
Finally, you need a way to kill the fodder to make cards like
Dictate of Erebos
go off. That's why we have plenty of amazing sacrifice outlets.
Ashnod's Altar
gives you mana to feed back into oona
Attrition
lets you kill the worst creature on the board
Contamination
acts as a stax/control card that slows people down
High Market
is hidden in a land, so its very hard to kill
Magus of the Abyss
and
Smokestack
double the amount of killing that happens.
In an ideal game you would have
Smokestack
out with 1 soot counter on it.
Bitterblossom
to feed it on your turn, and a
Dictate of Erebos
to make the feeding of
Smokestack
hurt your opponents. It would be impossible to play into this board for most decks...
They real allstar of the cruel control section of the deck is
Black Market
It is the best way to create tons of mana, just because you are killing everybody's goodies. It is a must include
I decided to exclude some cards, because I felt like they went against the fairy tribal aspect of the deck. They are great cards, but no faerie wants to see them in their deck.
Yahenni, Undying Partisan
and
Butcher of Malakir
and
Sheoldred, Whispering One
also
Phyrexian Altar
would be great but seems pricey and unneccesary.
Counter magic
Counter spells are awesome to have in magic, and especially fitting for faeries, who are the real tricksters of the game. I added 7 counter spells and the idea behind them is simple. Only counter a spell if you are about to win the game or about to lose the game. Sure a card like
Doom Whisperer
is scary, but it's not going to make you lose the game. Save your counter magic to protect yourself when you are going to go infinite or when somebody else is.
The same is true for board wipes. If you are finding yourself behind in the game that's ok. It's fine not to be the biggest target. Save your board wipes for when you are going to lose the game and trust that other people will do your work for you by attacking the scariest people
Pillow forts
This deck is not the fast deck by along shot, which is why you need to by yourself some time. Get a pillow fort set up and sit back and let everyone else attack each other. While you slowly build and then crush them. I only put in 4 pillow fort cards, because really you only need one out to make others attack someone else. The pillow fort cards are a good target for your tutors if you start off real slow, and need time to catch up.
Infinite Mana Combos
There are a few ways to create infinite mana in this deck. If you can do it then Oona is your win con... This is definitely the main way that this deck will win... create infinite mana or at least a lot of it and then mill your enemies out. Thats your goal... by yourself time with control and then go for a combo win. Sure there are some back up win conditions but this is it. So how are a few ways to make lots of mana
No.1 the easy
Palinchron
and
Caged Sun
... its simple, its classic, its two cards and then boom you win.
No.2 Just about the same
Palinchron
and
Cabal Coffers
and
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
or enough
Swamp
Same idea just gain enough mana with cabal coffers and your making it happen.
No.3 my favorite
Bog Witch
and
Arcanis the Omnipotent
and
Intruder Alarm
and
Oona, Queen of the Fae
.... arcanis provides the card draw... bog witch provides the mana and oona provides the creatures creation, to trigger the intruder alarm. This combo is not technically infinite, but it gets better with the more mana dorks that you have ie
Plague Myr
You also get tons of cards into your hand. The other beauty of this, like all the cards in the combos is they have other uses, besides combos
No.4 the complicated...
this combo is provided by DSDX and is really nice, and not as crazy as it seems, but you gotta follow the steps.
Step 1: Cast Insidious Dreams, and discard FOUR cards to its ability.
Step 2: Search your deck for the following four cards:
Mental Note
and
Deadeye Navigator
and
Palinchron
and
Victimize
.
Step 3: Shuffle your library and place the four previous cards on top of it in this order from top to bottom: Mental Note, Palinchron, Deadeye, and Victimize.
Step 4: Begin your turn. Untap, upkeep, draw.
Step 5: The card you will draw for your turn will be Mental Note, because it was put on top of your library. Tap a blue mana and cast it from your hand.
Step 6: Mental Note will then put the top two cards of your deck into your graveyard. These two cards will be Deadeye and Palinchron. The last effect of Mental Note will be to make you draw a card. The card you draw will be the last card you put on top of your deck: Victimize.
Step 7: Cast Victimize, sacrificing the creature that you have in play. Use Victimize to put the Deadeye and the Palinchron onto the battlefield.
Step 8: Remember the soulbond ability! Soulbond the Deadeye Navigator to the Palinchron. The Palinchron will untap your lands when it enters, also.
Step 9: Pay two mana, at least one of it blue, to activate the Deadeye's ability. You can now make infinite mana!
Step 10: Cast Oona and win the game.
Alternate win conditions
One issue with having your commander as your win condition is the rare game that she gets taken by a card like
Control Magic
or turned into a bug with
Darksteel Mutation
. I was playing against a
Prime Speaker Zegana
the other day and when I played
Mind Control
on her the opponent was stuck not being able to do anything. So you need a couple other options
no.1 the equipment
I was digging through a box of bulk and found this gem the other day...
Kusari-Gama
The idea is simple if you go infinite and oona is gone then put this equipment on any old faerie and beat in some face. Plus it works well even if you cant go infinite. If you wanted another option then try out
Sacred Armory
. I feel like its less useful and really this is a back up plan anyhow.
no.2 infect
I love the idea of getting some infect damage with
Plague Myr
and with a a little bit of help from Hated you got a sneaky little win. You can also equip
Plague Myr
with the two equipments... especially
Kusari-Gama
no.3 commander damage
5 hits with a commander is not easy... but if you can equip oona with
Sword of Feast and Famine
then it becomes 3 hits. Plus she flies and the sword gives her pro green and black. Its another thing to look for... also
Kusari-Gama
does the same thing for Oona.
no.4 Pestilence
This card is a real powerhouse and often overlooked card
Pestilence
in every deck i build I like to have cards that remind me of my childhood. Whether its
Icy Manipulator
or
Royal Assassin
or
Serra Angel
or
Shivan Dragon
. These cards remind me of a simpler time. Of course
Pestilence
falls right into that category. First of all
Pestilence
can act as a board wipe, secondly it can act as a sacrifice outlet, killing a bunch of oona's faeries to feed
Grave Pact
but finally it can act as a win con. Usually it makes it so everyone dies, because rarely will you have the most life. But maybe once in a
Blood Moon
, you have the most life and enough mana to explode the whole table except you. If you can every do that please send me a text message. I would love that.
no.5 the ultimate win!
Here is how to win in style with this deck. Not going infinite, but creating enough buffed up faeries to lay the smack down. The card that is going to help the most with this is tribal favorite coat of arm.
If you can get everyone to focus on the cruel control part of this deck and forget about the damage then you can easily sneak in with a big alpha strike with a bunch of faeries. Cards like
Caged Sun
and
Sword of Feast and Famine
and
Cabal Coffers
are going to help create lots of mana if not infinite and then you can make a bunch of faeries with oona and tons of value along the way.
