Thopter fae

i had thought about trying to merge the two decks a few weeks ago but couldn't find the right mix..

here is the 12th place GP oakland deck missing top 8 on tiebreaks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wATyOuTKGLI

list is:
4 spell snare
4 thirst
4 bob
4 bitbloss
4 sprite
4 chrome mox
3 smother
3 v clique
3 thopter
2 sword
2 muddle
2 repeal
1 jitte

5 island
4 mutavault
4 riv tears
4 secl glenn
1 wat grave
1 scald tarn
1 sunk ruins.

----
sb:
4 deathmark
4 leyline
1 smother
1 jitte
1 negate
2 thoughtsieze
2 damnation
ill be testing this out this week.. seems good..

I believe Wesley tried something like this and ultimately gave up on it. Hopefully he'll weigh in here with some thoughts on the general idea.

only 20 land? this build looks pretty terrible. what does the faeries get you that dark depths doesnt? more counters but a weaker combo?

I agree with Jared. This deck is awful because it attempts to merge multiple strategies in the same deck and fails at finding synergy in that combination.

Here's the problem: this deck attempts to combine a creature-based control strategy (Faeries) with a combo strategy (Thopter-Sword). As a result, this deck operates with all three elements at the same time with each one diluted because the decks features cards that further each of the three strategies at the same time to exclusion of the others.
When you draw spellstutter, dark confidant, and thopter foundry you have not developed any synergy; instead what you have is a life-draining card-advantage engine with no hope of suriving an aggro rush like Zoo/Burn or fending off a powerful combo like Elfbomb or Dredge.

When you add in Thopter-Sword you consequently play less Faeries because there is limited space in the deck - as a result your creature-based strategy suffers. You have added in card-advantage tools (Bob) at the expense of countermagic (mana leak). Muddle the mixture is not an appropriate substitute against a creature-heavy format. This decks fails to perform competitively because it has attempted to clumsily merge together creature-based strategies (bitterblossom), control strategies (repeal), and combo strategies (thopter-sword) without finding out snyergy in the combination.

Faeries only succeeds in combining the creature-based strategy with the control strategy because it has insane synergy. Spellstutter, M-Clique and V-Clique create powerful control effects while at the same time advancing a legitimate army of creatures. This combined strategy works only because of it has powerful synergy.

Dark Confidant, Thirst for Knowledge, Bitterblossom, and Repeal (as one sample hand) fail to show any kind of synergy and thus the dilution of individual strategies for a hybrid is not worth it.

Do not play this deck Adam. It is too unfocused. If you do manage to beat off the aggro decks I suspect this deck loses to all of the other control decks because its marginal creature advantage will not overcome superior card-advantage countermagic support they will field.

jdoucette24 wrote:only 20 land? this build looks pretty terrible. what does the faeries get you that dark depths doesnt? more counters but a weaker combo?

You realize he has 4 Chrome Mox, right?

yea i do but i overall just really dont like the deck. I agree with noah statements about the lack of synergy in the deck. Chrome Mox rips a card from your hand that would have been useful otherwise so can play a turn 1 blossom? i guess that puts the forcefield up sooner against zoo and Depths

FWIW, while I think Noah's criticisms about lack of focus are valid, I think this deck might be better in practice than you guys are giving it credit for. At the very beginning of last extended season, there was a fae deck that was pretty successful predicated on maximizing Chrome Mox by making powerful turn 2 plays (Bob, Blossom) on turn 1. These plays both recoup card advantage long term, so the short term loss from the Mox is offset. The use of Thirst also helps filter through the large number of bad late game draws, e.g. Mox and redundant Bossoms, thereby offsetting the usual weaknesses of fae (draw a bunch of random Visions and Blossoms late). Plus Thirst's usual synergy with Sword of the Meek.

The question is whether the Thopter combo is value-added compared to the usual faeries cards that would occupy these slots (Mistbind Clique, for example). I don't think it's that easy to assess that at-a-glance like you guys are doing here. This is why I was hoping Wesley would comment, since he tried this and then moved away from it.

In other words, while lack of focus is a valid critique and a genuine problem, it doesn't mean the deck is bad. Most decks have some intrinsic problems like this, including the opposite extreme, hyperfocus (U/G Scapeshift comes to mind here). Zoo is good in part because it doesn't seem to suffer from this kind of thing very much (all the cards are redundant, and efficient creatures + burn is a valid strategy vs. just about everything).

faeries with Mistbind clique and cryptics just feels too slow for the environment right now.. read Sam Black's article about him playing u/b fae at the GP.. zoo zoo zoo...

im not sold on this deck yet but i want to test it... having a deck that people don't know every single card in the list has its advantages. The guy who piloted it at the GP went x-2 only not making top 8 on tiebreaks in a field filled with zoo.

it has a low curve (maxing out at 3 with thirst and v clique) and the deck essentially goes either turn 1/2 BB or Bob every game.. I can't tell you how many times ive sat with the Fae deck with 3 lands with a handfull of mistbinds or cryptics that cant be played and lost to a nacatl.

this list gives you a lot of flexibility vs dif decks where u/b fae just hopes to get to either a jitte or a mistbnd clique after you have hopefully lived past turn 5. One of the biggest problems ive run into with Fae is that past the first one, BB/visions/V Clique are usually dead cards so the thirsts go the extra mile here.

the deck is running 4 spell snare/ 3 smother and then boards into a 4th smother/4 deathmark/2 damnation so the zoo matchup looks much better than the u/b fae's does. mistbind is such a liability vs zoo anyhow.

most of the time you just need to counter cmc 1 or 2 with the deck for the first few turns so sprites raw (or with a mutavault) are just fine. you are usually throwing out a BB turn 1/2 if you dont have spell snares so it should be ok.

Mistbind gives you a faster clock, but the only time you can reliably cast it is when you have BB or when you are playing against a deck you already beat (ie deathcloud or scapeshift)

the only matchups i fear losing cryptic for are scapeshift and deathcloud (and maybe DDT, but BB gets thrown out there in front of the 20/20's) but those matchups were already pretty easy for the faeries deck..

When I provide criticism on this deck, I am speaking from experience, not taking potshots "at-a-glance". I have played against this deck scores of times while Wesley was playing this deck. He realized during testing that his deck had a lack of synergy or focus, as evidenced when he routinely started with cards like Confidant, Thirst, and Thopter Foundry.

Anecdotes of Adam's dissatisfaction with 2x 4-drops in Faeries does not point at or undermine the fundamental problems with a deck that tries to do too many things at the same time at the expense of losing synergy in an established archetype.

We have a word for these kinds of decks that I found very appropriate right now:

LFGSCAT

I hear what you are saying and its valid criticism. it certainly looks unfocused.

you could say the same criticism you had of this deck for the DDT deck... which combo do you go for? which piece do you transmute for of which combo? sometimes you'll get a hexmage and a sword and cant get either combo going.. perhaps im just thinking that having bb/sprite/ss/smother is a better early game plan than hoping to get a 20/20 on turn two.

im not saying its the solution to breaking the format.. but perhaps the format has changed enough that this has a better chance vs zoo than straight up fae does.

what i was trying to say earlier is that from testing it a bit so far and looking at the list, it seems to NOT have the problems i was running into with fae while still having the early game plays sprite/bb/spsnare/smother... and has a better inevitable endgame that aggro decks can't beat. if you can live past turn 5 vs zoo you have won the game.

its something i definitely want to test further

No Adam DDT is different because it is a deck that merges two different combo decks together. Unlike the Thopter-Fae list, DDT does not attempt to use a creature based strategy (bitterblossom) or run control at the same time (spellstutter and spell snare). DDT is still focused on a combo-win strategy and does not surrender the original game or its synergy.

DDT is a combo deck through and through. Dark Confidant and Thirst both accomplish the objective of searching for a combo piece needed for the deck. Tolaria West actually gains value when you combine the two combos because TW can now trasmute for both Dark Depths and Academy Ruins. The same rationale goes for Muddle the Mixture because it can now transmute for both Hexmage and Thopter Foundry. This is an increase in synergy, unlike the decrease in synergy that Thopter-Fae suffered when it tried to ram a combo into a creature-based control strategy by merging thopter foundry with bitterblossom.

DDT has not lost focus. It retains the same 4x Hexmage and 4x Dark Depths while simultaneously advancing a combo of a different nature by including Thopter Foundry & Sword of the Meek without excluding essential cards of the first combo. This is a valid strategy and none of the problems I cited with Thopter-Fae in the previous post apply to DDT.

muddle and besmerch the queen can also get sword of the meek. i agree with mr. goulet. the synergy is definitely better with the addition.

I tried this deck and was unhappy with the results. However, I think after playing fae for a longer period of time and learning how to play the deck in the current format, I would TRY this idea again. Im currently not satisfied with Cryptic Command and one or two other spells in the deck. Combining the two decks is tricky and maybe Noah is correct in saying its impossible, but I have hopes. I dislike the mediocrity of faeires and want to change the usual lists; I think it can be more powerful, I just dont know how to achieve innovation yet.

I'm tempted to try Venser.

I got this list from Matej on saturday after day 1, and played it in the GPT on day 2, which I won. I made a few changes, but I only lost one game on the day, because I forgot to register my repeals. The point of the deck was to cut the slower, 4 mana spells, because they were liability against zoo, and the deck already beats dark depths and most combo decks. The addition of thopter foundry shores up the game 1 weakness vs the zoo deck, and allows us to be better in game 2, because they side in cards like dampning matrix, while we side out the combo for more removal, damnations, and an extra jitte. Notice, the deck only plays spells that cost 3 or less, so we don't need 26 mana sources like a lot of the control decks out there.

Frankly I'd run 25 anyway in Faeries even if my curve stopped at three. I like making my land drops tyvm.

Robert Goulet wrote:When I provide criticism on this deck, I am speaking from experience, not taking potshots "at-a-glance". I have played against this deck scores of times while Wesley was playing this deck. He realized during testing that his deck had a lack of synergy or focus, as evidenced when he routinely started with cards like Confidant, Thirst, and Thopter Foundry.

Well, pardon me, Mr. Goulet. I had forgotten about the games you played vs. Wesley when he was trying this out.

Conelead wrote:Frankly I'd run 25 anyway in Faeries even if my curve stopped at three. I like making my land drops tyvm.

Um, O.K. Maybe we should start playing 25 in zoo, too.

Matt C wrote:I got this list from Matej on saturday after day 1, and played it in the GPT on day 2, which I won. I made a few changes..

Matt...
what changes did you make?
repeals seem the likely target to change... perhaps making them a 4th smother/3rd muddle?
what did you face in the GPT?

i tested the zoo matchup with the thopter fae build tonight and it felt 70/30.. which is a world of difference from the regular fae matchup vs zoo.

zoo just cant get through a forcefield of tokens or your removal. generally i was to about 8 before either i got the thopter combo online or got jitte going.

the chrome moxes allow you to have turn one sprites to counter their 1 drops and then smothers/spell snares deal with their two drops. Getting a turn 1 BB is sweet also.

DDT will practically be a bye also as 4 spell snares and sprites/bb are just too much for them to deal with. then with 3 thoughtsieze/4 extirpate from the board its gg as it was with the standard fae deck.

same goes for u/g or b/g scapeshift.

The hardest matchup i tested so far was the R/G bbelf scapeshift deck as the card advantage of bbelf is too hard to deal with and you rarely have the hard counters for the bbelf or scapeshift that they only generally need to do 10/12 with. Sideboarding will need to be figured out for the r/g scapeshift matchup, but i was boarding as if it were zoo for the most part.

the deck may look like an unfocused pile, but it has a ton of game against the two most popular decks in the format (DDT and zoo).

id imagine the matchup vs boros is similar to the zoo matchup altho boros is probably faster.

more testing to be done on Wed...

Boros is very very very different from Zoo. The deck has much less staying power but punishes lack of action in the early turns far better. I don't think your match-up against Boros is nearly as good as against Zoo. I would estimate 40/60 from the limited testing I've done today (my build is like 20/80 at best).

Adam, I am honestly not sure it is worth boarding against my deck as it isn't very popular.

Winterhalter wrote:

Conelead wrote:Frankly I'd run 25 anyway in Faeries even if my curve stopped at three. I like making my land drops tyvm.

Um, O.K. Maybe we should start playing 25 in zoo, too.

Remind me who said they wanted to run 26 lands in Jund at States? :-p

Conelead wrote:Remind me who said they wanted to run 26 lands in Jund at States? :-p

The defense rests, your honor. Jund plays at minimum 6 4 drops, 3 5 drops, and 3 6 drops.

Winterhalter wrote:Adam, I am honestly not sure it is worth boarding against my deck as it isn't very popular.

i wouldn't put specific cards in the board for it but perhaps boarding differently for it.

i pretty much could have just brought in my whole board vs you and taken out the fae aspect of the deck and just had creature removal, extirpates and the thopter combo.. =)

your deck seems pretty popular on MTGO, so I can't imagine why it wouldn't see play IRL..