What Ever Happened To Faeries?
Modern forum
Posted on Jan. 4, 2016, 7:15 a.m. by pleasiodmakerblooloo
I only started getting into modern Magic in about 2013 so I had never known a modern with Bitterblossom (and Wild Nacatl) unbanned. Then came around 2014 and both of those cards were unbanned. Since UB was always my favourite 2 colour combination, I immediately checked out everything concerning the decks: articles, videos etc. as I had always heard that it was an amazing deck that caused Bitterblossom to be banned in the first place. As we all know, while it was played quite a bit when the card was unbanned, Faerie decks never really put up results as good as their original tier 1 place warranted and have now mostly fallen out of favour. I just wanted to know, what happened? Why did I hear about this absolute powerhouse of a deck and then suddenly, after one of their best cards was unbanned, they failed to become a tier 1 deck again?
I'm not trying to piss of any Faerie players, I'm simply curious.
pleasiodmakerblooloo says... #3
Ok, so it originally was actually a standard deck. But I'd also like to know, What is actually wrong with it? Is it too slow? Lacks good late-game advantage? Burns itself too much?
January 4, 2016 7:30 a.m.
It's essentially too slow. The marquee 4-cmc cards in the deck are Cryptic Command and Mistbind Clique. In Modern you really want your 4 CMC cards to win the game, and neither of those two cards really do that. Faeries just plays a game that isn't well suited for Modern.
January 4, 2016 8:11 a.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #5
Faeries can have great openers that put you in a great position to close the door on a match, but it's also prone to running out of gas despite having a great opener and it punishes the pilot for anything less than great decision making.
TL;DR: Twin is a more reliable tempo deck that can win out of nowhere, so faeries has never gained favor post Bitterblossom unbanning.
January 4, 2016 8:32 a.m.
My experience with Faeries is it simply doesn't compete with the decks that roam the meta now. Especially with cards like Dromoka's Command about now.
January 4, 2016 9:35 a.m.
And with the unbanning of Bitterblossom, Abrupt Decay style decks have rose in popularity (because of unrelated factors), and faeries have a rough time grinding out that type of deck.
January 4, 2016 10:11 a.m.
One thing to note about the OP, Bitterblossom was banned at the beginning of Modern and was only unbanned in 2014. But in the time when Modern was made and it got unbanned we have gotten quite a few answers to it. The big offender being Abrupt Decay.
January 4, 2016 10:15 a.m.
elementalheroflamewingman says... #9
In standard and extended, fae players often died to their own Bitterblossoms because fae tries to play control, and has no lifegain. It was fine in a slower format, and extended had Umezawa's Jitte then.Faeries in modern lack a truly niche area. Anything UB faeries do, other decks in the format can do it better. Trying to pump out tokens/ go wide ? B/W tokens and merfolk does it better. Trying to play a control game ? Twin can do the same thing and has a better plan to finish the game. Faeries are still a decent tier 2 deck though, and IMO it's an unfinished modern deck right now. Any great support printed will very likely push faeries up in popularity. The strength of faeries is very apparent, considering how the bulk of the cards are from a single block, so it's definitely a deck you should keep a lookout for.
January 4, 2016 11:52 a.m.
canterlotguardian says... #10
So what about U/B faeries splashing W for Sphinx's Revelation. Is that viable?
January 4, 2016 12:35 p.m.
elementalheroflamewingman says... #11
canterlotguardian At that point you would just be better off playing esper mentor, because one of UB fae's strength is how easy it is on the manabase. Also, what would you really swap with for Sphinx's Revelation ? Cryptic Command ?
January 4, 2016 2:22 p.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #12
Faeries is a tempo deck as defined by Bitterblossom and its interaction with Mistbind Clique and Spellstutter Sprite. Splashing white brings it too near control to continue to be effective. In order to make room for the white splash and the cards it brings to the table (Path to Exile, Lingering Souls, etc.) you end up cutting out a lot of the cards that makes faeries faeries and you just wind up with esper control featuring Vendilion Clique because Bitterblossom is subpar in that shell without Mistbind Clique and/or Spellstutter Sprite and vise versa.
January 4, 2016 2:42 p.m.
Harashiohorn says... #13
Most control decks in modern are dirty control (Control that wins through a combo, Ie. Twin or to a certain extent Tron), Faeries is trying to play a "fair" deck in the weakest archetype in modern. There is just too much either resilient or just breakneck fast aggro right now. Faeries either needs some new cards, or for Combo to finally start beating back aggro, to make a space for control in modern.
vampirelazarus says... #2
Well, it was the standard deck faeries that was really good in standard.
Fearing it's power level, when the modern format was created, wizards didn't want their new, shiny format to be overrun with one deck, so it was placed on the ban list.
So, you're not wrong, faeries was a great deck, just in a different format. The unbanning was the first time anyone saw it in modern, and when it was unbanned, the format had evolved enough to deal with it.
January 4, 2016 7:25 a.m.