This is the deck I used to make the finals of Kadilak's second Dual Land Draft. I have made a couple changes after my experiences at that tournament.
4x Flying Men
4x Cloud of Faeries
3x Sea Sprite
4x Serendib Efreet
4x Sea Drake
4x Aether Vial
4x Mask of Memory
4x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Force of Will
4x Standstill
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
14x Island
SIDEBOARD:
4x Old Man of the Sea
3x Winter Orb
3x Chalice of the Void
2x In the Eye of Chaos
2x Rushing River
1x Wasteland
Card explanations:
Flying Men: There needs to be a 1-drop in this slot, and this is the best option being a flying creature and not having any disadvantage. It makes it possible to swing with Jitte on turn 3 along with Cloud, and late game Men can be discarded to Mask or Force.
Cloud of Faeries: Of course they just got much more exciting after the errata change, comboing with Aether Vial to give you 2 extra mana, untap Factories as a surprise, or make 2 mana out of 1 land when you're mana screwed. This isn't why they're good of course, it's because they cost 0 mana for a creature that carries equipment over the heads of most other creatures.
Sea Sprite: I actually played Skyshroud Condor in this slot at one point, but a 1/1 pro red body is often better than a 2/2 one, not to mention the fact that you can't play Condor sometimes. Besides that, blue does not have a wide array of good 2 drops, so Sea Sprite it is.
Serendib Efreet: This is really the all star of the deck. It can't be killed with a single bolt and blocks Mongoose all day among other things. One of the great undercosted creatures of all time.
Sea Drake: The other great fatty of the deck. Unfortunately it's both very hard to find and irreplacable. Its drawback can hurt, particularly if you have multiples, but with Vial it's usually not the end of the world. It can also save Factory from combat and it's drawback is cut in half if you were missing your land drop that turn otherwise, which happens quite a bit.
Aether Vial: I believe this deck abuses Vial even more than Goblins. The combo with Standstill is amazing. It also gives the ability to play and equip equipment while still playing creatures on the same turn. It also makes this deck one of the few decks where a one land hand is keepable. If my opening hand has Vial, creatures, Force of Will, and one land, I usually keep it & don't regret it.
Mask of Memory: I had forgotten the joy of playing this card until the DLD. It keeps your hand full of Force of Wills and fatties and turns dead lands and Jittes into good cards. It's rare when Mask is activated and it doesn't basically just say "Draw 2 cards", which is the nature of such draw and discard effects.
Umezawa's Jitte: This is probably my favorite card in the game currently. It's so deceptively powerful, and all 3 of its abilities come into play on a regular basis. I want to draw this every game, although I will be quick to board it out against a creatureless deck, especially one that doesn't deal damage like Solidarity.
Force of Will: Kind of a no brainer in blue decks. Why not more counterspells? it's usually easier just to draw into Forces with your draw engines than allot slots to a card that is subpar in many matches. Daze would be the only other counterspell I'd consider main deck, but at the moment, there's nothing that could be switched for Daze without making the deck strictly worse.
Standstill: The Vial-Standstill combo of Fish was the basis for my creation of this deck. Standstill is so easily castable in this deck that I have to say it's a better draw engine than Fact or Fiction or Thirst for Knowledge are in other decks. It does get boarded out against Goblins and some other aggro decks, but against decks like Threshold, you can cast Standstill at virtually any time and they'll have to break it almost immediately.
Mishra's Factory: Another combo with Standstill, this also adds another threat and occasional equipment carrier to the deck, and helps greatly against other aggro decks like Goblins by being an early 3/3+ blocker.
Wasteland: The other disruption in the main deck, it's a recent addition but one that has been great so far. The 4th Wasteland is in the board now.
14 Island, 21 total land: I feel this is the right amount considering certain one land or no island hands are keepable, if they have both Vial and Force or something similar. Standstill is the only card you actually can't play without blue mana so keep it in mind when looking at your opening hand.
SIDEBOARD: I'm not the best sideboard builder so this is all up for debate.
Old Man of the Sea: This is the anti-aggro sideboard which switches for Standstill in matches such as vs Goblins. It's a good sized creature so it can block the turn it comes into play if you're not worried about it dying, and if it sticks, it's a huge problem for aggro decks, especially Goblins where all but one of its creatures are targetable.
Winter Orb: This is the board for control decks like Wombat and Rifter, usually switching for Jitte. Ideally you can cast it after they tap out and surprise them, but it's a problem for them any time you cast it. Blue Skies has Vial to help work around the Orb, and Sea Drake's disadvantage turns into an advantage with Orb out. It's not a main deck option, but works very nicely with your strategy in the control matchup.
Chalice of the Void, In the Eye of Chaos: This is the hoser package for Solidarity. If you resolve In the Eye, it's almost impossible for them to win. They need 6 land in play before they can cast Cunning Wish, and they rarely have that much land on turn 6, so you'll have more than enough time to win before they can think about going off. Chalice is also good vs them, but a little more versatile. It can also be used vs Iggy Pop and some random decks like Burn. Since it's in the board, I would consider using it vs Threshold, but all my main deck cards are good vs them so I don't know what I would switch. I don't think a sideboard is necessary for Threshold anyways.
Rushing River: This gets boarded in against decks that have Exalted Angel or Reanimator decks, threats you can't deal with otherwise. I haven't tested this yet, so I can't guess if 2 is the right number or how effective it is.
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Matchups: I haven't run a gauntlet with the deck yet, but I have played it in several tournaments and can report on how I fared.
Threshold: Highly favorable. I beat white Threshold 2-0 twice at the DLD and have beat it previously as well. Equipment can be a problem for them just because of the tempo it generates, and they can't reasonably deal with all your creatures, especially if you play vial on the first turn. Without mass removal (and only two of your creatures die to Pyroclasm), they are generally just swarmed. Anything short of a 4th turn Enforcer with threshold can't realistically save them, and even then they may still be swarmed or have to deal with Jitte. I don't think any sideboarding should be done for this matchup as it would water down the deck's goals. None of your cards are really bad against them. I also tested against EBA and beat it 4-0, it seemed like it might be even more favorable than Threshold.
Solidarity: Unfavorable game 1, much better after board. I have won game 1s against Solidarity before, but it's very hard. The thing that makes this matchup better than it seems is that they're taking a big risk if they wait until you have lethal damage to go off. This is a risk because you will often be drawing extra cards off of Mask of Memory or Standstill if they wait, and drawing into Force of Will. Post board, it's a much easier matchup. Getting a Chalice will often buy you enough time to win, and resolving In the Eye makes it almost impossible for them to win.
Goblins: Probably 50/50. I haven't tried this matchup since I added the Old Men, and it could be favorable now. Previously I had been breaking even with Goblins, winning some matches and losing some. They can have awfully explosive starts, but at the same time Jitte is terrible for them as is Sea Sprite and the fatties. Standstill is really terrible vs them so at least it's a no brainer what to board out. Old Man or possibly Vedalken Shackles would be the best option here, Old Man being significantly faster but easier to destroy.
Survival: Slightly favorable. This isn't that bad a matchup since they can't block your creatures and you can often race them, which is how you win the majority of your games against any deck. Old Man can be sided in in this matchup.
Deadguy Ale: 50/50, maybe slightly favorable. They can go hymn, hymn, I win and there's not much you can do about it. However, if you get vial their land destrcution becomes bad, and if you topdeck creatures, they often have no way of dealing with them. This is another matchup where Old Man shines, since most of their threats are neutralized and their lack of creature removal becomes an even bigger weakness. I side them in for Sea Sprites.
others I have played:
5/3: I thought this would be a bad matchup since their creatures are so big, but it's favorable. I lost one game mainly due to double Tangle Wire, which is near impossible to overcome, but won the other two. One game was won by disrupting his mana, which is probably that deck's biggest weakness. The other game was won by swarm tactics, making his Tangle Wires and Smokestacks bad.
Dirt: I also won this matchup, 2-0. In fact, he did so little game 1 I didn't know what he was playing and boarded in my Old Men thinking it was a Deadguy variant. Wasteland is terrible for him as is Force of Will, since many of his spells are not must-counters. Also, Standstill is pure gold against it.
Iggy Pop: I beat this deck with my Counterspell/Disrupt sideboard, I don't know how good other cards like Chalice would be against it, but at least it's turn 1 disruption if set to 0. Force of Will is of course the best card you can have in your deck if you're facing Iggy Pop, so you at least have some advantage despite having a slow clock. Wasteland should also improve the matchup. I recently tested this matchup and went 3-0 without sideboards. Of course I had Force of Will in all three games, which singlehandedly determines whether you can win game 1 or not. I didn't get to test with board, but if you're playing first, a first turn Chalice for 0 should help a lot. If you're not playing first, the Chalice should probably be set to 1.
I hope to continue to test this deck in a tournament setting and post the results. I think it's a good choice if you expect a lot of threshold and fares well against other aggro decks.
Last edited by DampingEngine; 09-15-2006 at 11:02 PM.
Okay, I don't mean to be an ass, but, why would I want to run THIS over Faerie Stompy which I do believe has positive matchups against the Tier 1 decks?
I do think Fairie Stompy overall is a lot stronger.
But I don't think the two decks warrant comparison because they are so incredibly different strategically, in terms of the curve, in terms of every aspect of what defines a deck.
Fairie Stompy can be explosive but inconsistent (in terms of mana) at times. This is just the opposite and if anything is more of a Fish deck. And as far as fish decks go, it seems very strong.
I wouldn't say that Sea Drake is irreplacable here either. It's drawback is pretty huge, unless you're lucky to have gotten a Vial in your openign hand and it resolved. For the most part, I think War Beast could serve a similar function without the drawback, it survives bolt as well, though War Beast isn't nearly as awesome with Mask.
I've played both Faerie Stompy (although it was a different version than the one here on the Source) and this deck, and I found this deck to be better. Faerie Stompy isn't as good vs decks like Goblins and Deadguy Ale for example because it has a weak manabase and has a lot of trouble when the lands are attacked. Also, as SuckerPunch mentioned, it is generally unstable and can "lose to itself". It doesn't mulligan well at all, which is quite the opposite of Skies. It also runs a worse draw engine of Thirst for Knowledge over Standstill, which I mentioned a bit, and runs less threats. Actually, I was surprised when FS showed up on the source that it didn't run any more fatties than Skies. In my version, I had used Thought Devourer in addition and it worked well, but like I said, I also ran more mana sources which I think is another flaw in the source FS deck. FS probably does have a better matchup against Solidarity though, and I know both decks are fine vs Threshold. I just don't like playing decks that are so inconsistent in major tournaments because you have to win so many matches to win the tournament, and you can't help but lose some games to inconsistency with a deck like FS.
Actually, i used a play deck near identical to this a while ago.
Yes Fairie Stompy may be somewhat inconsistent, and it's fair that you don't want to play it at a tourney for that reason.
But I really don't think there's anything this deck can do that comes remotely close to damaging your opponent as much as an early Chalice of the Void or esp 2 chalices (one set at one and one at two) which happens quite often due to Trinket Mage does.
Have you considered or tested Sword of Fire and Ice? Off the bat I'd guess that it's not playable simply because there are no Ancient Tombs, but I have an obsession with the Sword. It seems like it could be a house with so many flyers, and seems better in the Solidarity and Goblins matches than Mask of Memory does. Then again, it has to hit play to become relevant.
Speaking of, why no Ancient Tomb? I'm not advocating making this Fearie Stompy by any stretch, but it seems like as a 3 or 4 of (you'd have to remove one of the other colorless lands, I'm thinking) it might be viable, and allow you to run something like Sword, while hopefully increasing your matchup with Solidarity. Have you tested this?
You say this, but then you put these matchups at 50/50. Faerie Stompy goes at least 60/40 vs. Goblins and something insane like 80/20 vs. Deadguy (I once went 19-1 vs Deadguy in 10 pre and post board matches). You also say that Standstill is a better draw engine than TFK/FoF. It CAN be, but there are many, many times when it is not. In addition to the sub-parness against Goblins, Standstill can never really get you out of a jam or dig for a kill piece after being topdecked.Originally Posted by DampingEngine
That being said, I do like the deck. I think where it will perform better is vs. Control. Faerie Stompy always mauled Rifter thanks to Chalice, but has a tough time with heavy removal decks like The Rock, Dirt, and Truffle Shuffle (I'm assuming on TS). Your deck runs a bigger threat base which will be tough for control decks to completely handle. Also, you may have a slightly more favorable Thresh matchup.
Plus, it's always good to see Flying Men doing their thing.
As to your board, Propaganda seems better vs. Aggro than Old Man.
Edit: Lego_Army_Man brought up Swords, which are a legitimate thought. You might not even need 4 Tombs to run them now that they changed the synergy between vial and Cloud for good. Even with one mana lands, a first turn Vial can mean a third turn play and equip. That's nearly as fast as Faerie Stompy. Also, you should really consider Trinket Mage. He's so insanely powerful, both for what he does when he's played, and for the room he frees up in the sideboard. First of all, he let's you get a Vial in any game you want. Also, he let's you run a myriad of answers in the board. Trouble with the Solidarity matchup? Why not run 8 ways to play Chalice instead of 4? Solid Thresh matchup? Why not boost it to autowin by siding in a single Crypy and some Chlices, all while packing 4 Tutors for them? Zoo decks and Discard bothering you? Send them packing with a Cursed Scroll.
Your board could look like this:
4 Propaganda
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Winter Orb
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Cursed Scroll
Last edited by Phantom; 08-06-2006 at 11:41 PM.
Even if Blue Skies has a better matchup against Goblins than Faerie Stompy, I would run Faerie Stompy simply because it is better against Solidarity. Goblins is beginning to lessen in popularity, which means the Solidarity matchup is significantly greater in importance.
Well like I said, I haven't run a gauntlet with this deck so I don't have any real percentages. It could be much more favorable than I predict vs Goblins and Deadguy. It could be more favorable vs Solidarity as well; I have beaten it in matches in the past. Plus my sideboard could have been better for it, Chalice is probably better than what I had and there could be something even better out there. And you were hitting on one point that I was trying to get at. Against various tier 2-3 decks like the control decks, Skies is usually better than FS because you won't lose any games to horrible draws due to an unstable manabase and lower threat density. You will face many decks not in the top tier in a large tournament just because it's Legacy and that's how it is. Less than half the decks I played vs at the DLD were tier 1, including my top 4 match.
As for Ancient Tomb and Sword of Fire and Ice, I have tested both in the deck. Ancient Tomb is terrible with Sea Sprite and Standstill and it also has to replace a utility land and not an island, which means less threats or disruption. You'd have to totally change the deck to add Tomb, and then you'd have something more like FS anyways. Sword of Fire and Ice was terrible for me and Mask of Memory was great for me, which is why I propose the current equipment configuration. I can swing with Jitte on turn 3 much, much easier than I can swing with Sword of Fire and Ice. Also, I don't want either in my deck in matchups like Solidarity because they're too expensive. I want to drop my biggest creatures from turn 3 and on ideally. They can win on turn 4 easily so SoFI is much too late. I draw twice as many Forces off of Mask for much less mana and if I'm swinging with Mask on turn 3, I can drop a Chalice that I just drew into on the same turn. This is all off the top of my head.
As for propaganda, I have boarded it before but only a couple times so it didn't prove anything. I know Old Man is very good though. Your first thought might be that it dies too easily, but realize that it is creatures 25-28 when I side it in since it often replaces Standstill. It would only be bad vs mass removal, and it's not coming in vs decks with mass removal.
The reason I don't run stuff like Trinket Mage or Phyrexian War Beast is because that would compromise the deck's strategy. As it is right now, Skies can beat decks like Goblins and Threshold because it has 20 (mostly) unblockable creatures. This combines with the equipment to stifle the strategies of aggro and aggro control decks. Also, Trinket Mage would be very slow in this deck considering anything you mentioned except Tormod's Crypt would be coming out on turn 4 or even later. FS can cast it on turn 1 sometimes, which is a world of difference.
As a final note, both decks are iffy for the average player since Sea Drakes have gone completely through the roof and may be worth more than my foil Jittes now. I'm sure some people couldn't get them even if they were willing to pay that much so it's a big problem. I'm just glad I've hoarded all these playable Portal cards, and I expect anyone with Goblin Settlers to PM me immediately.
check your PM
info.ninja
I think this deck could use a white splash. White offers a few cards I really like for this deck. The first one being Pride of the Clouds. Second is Swords to Plowshares. White also has nice cost effective flyers like Leonin Skyhunter, Suntail Hawk, and Lantern Kami. I would even be tempted to run Meddling Mage.
This is way off topic. But I'm just curious. How much did Sea Drake cost you when you started hoarding them? I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a playset as soon as portal was legalized as I knew I wanted them but I figured I had time and should wait till there was a way to make aggro blue competitive, stupid mistake. I had to pay a bunch for them later. So I just want ot hear how much they were on ebay before this archeatype showed up.
And not to sound harsh, but a similar build was posted and considered in the Fairie Stompy thread, and was rejected as it tested worse against the popular decks. And random decks are just as vulnerable to Chalice as compettive decks if they're built well (ie. run a low efficent curve). But I agree the two decks are different and warrant different places in the meta.
I do love Mask of Memory though.
Last edited by SuckerPunch; 08-09-2006 at 02:58 PM.
I wouldn't say the deck is inferior to Faerie Stompy in any way. It simply trades card power for consistency, a trade I wouldn't do, but I can definately see floating some peoples' boats. Worth noting that both decks have the essentially same amount of blue mana, but this one has Vial to support cards like Old Man of the Sea. Here you've got an access to Wasteland and Mishra's Factory over accelerants. Overall, if I was going to play a Fishesque deck in this format, it'd be very much like this.
Decklist deleted. This list isn't Blue Skies, it's U/W Fish. They're different decks, and a Fish thread already exists. Please discuss your list there, and keep this thread on topic. - Zilla
Last edited by Zilla; 08-09-2006 at 08:04 PM.
Zilla, I don't know if that decklist was inappropriate or off topic. Blue Skies is basically fish. If anything, all the talk about fairie stompy (which I admittedly partook in) was what was off topic as this deck is a hell of a lot closer to fish than fairie stompy.
And the list posted was this deck + swords and pride of the clouds, the very same white splash cards that people were suggesting on this thread + Kira, Great Glass Spinner to dodge all sorts of removal. You could argue that fish plays more utility creatures (though a lot of variants dont) and thats what differentiates it from blue skies, but the list posted didn't have any utility creatures either (sans Kira), just flying beaters.
Sorry if that came off as rude, that's not how it was meant to sound.
While this deck runs a lot of the same creatures as fish, it really plays a lot differntly. This deck forgoes a lot of disruption for a more pure beatdown strategy. In a really heavy combo metagame I'd opt to run a more traditional fish build that runs cards like voidmage prodigy, spiketail hatchling, daze, counterspell, mana leak, stifle etc.
My only dream is that yours never come true.
"People played violin as the Titanic sank. Tomorrow they will play Green Day songs with plastic keytars as their Hoovervilles burn."
A lot of the decklists I see over in the fish thread don't run the overwhelming majority of the cards you listed. Also my point was, the list ch33bs posted wasn't fish either. It ran no utility creatures other than Kira, great glass spinner. Everything it ran was a flying beater, it just had a light white splash for Pride of the Clouds and Swords, both of which were already suggested earlier in the thread. And regardless, this deck is a heck of a lot closer to fish than Fairie stompy.
The deck also perfoms better than fish in the current MWS metta. Yes, it plays alot like fish but you tend to beat more face with it. The white splash gives it a better clock. Of course we all know that a better clock is good for soldarity. With the addition of STP and Pride it also gives you a better game agaist gobblins.
If someone wants to work on the deck with me I'd be very thankful. If you wish to you can contact me over AIM
Could the big brother of the efreet, Serendib Djinn, have a place in this deck as a heavy-hitting finisher? The manabase would have to be altered considerably to run nonbasic Islands (Tolaria, Seat, Minamato, or that bouncing land from Kamigawa) and open up to Wasteland/PoP, but the ability of having a creature that can tangle with Enforcers and eat a Fireblast might help out a bit.
Speaking of Fireblast, could Misdirection find a home in the SB or possibly MD? Given the obscene amount of spot removal in the format, it'll rarely be card disadvantage and would sometimes be card advantage (Hymn/Verdict and such), and the benefits of tempo (along with making your opponent think twice before Vindicating!) couldn't hurt.
Looking at your decklist again, I notice that you have no way of dealing with resolved threats such as Worship. While there's not much room for bounce in the current list, perhaps somewhere in the board Rushing Rivers or Boomerangs (land decks don't seem to be going anywhere after GenCon) could find space to deal with such cards.
No kidding. When Faerie Stompy was first being discussed they were cheaper than a pack of Tic Tacs; two months later they were around the Birds of Paradise level; today they're probably the most expensive card in Legacy printed after 1994, possibly only trumped by Rolling Earthquake, Burning of Jingze, and ilk. A lot of my friends got into MtG with Portal 2, so I might have to look through their collections and hope for hitting the proverbial jackpot ("Sea Drake? Oh, that's from Portal, and it's not like anybody ever uses Portal/Starter cards.")
"This unholy weapon is obviously intended for Quality Assurance to massacre any creature in their path as quickly as possible." - Planescape: Torment
I did some playtesting with this deck, and decided to try using Spindrift Drakes in place of the Flying Men. I'm rather torn on using them as a full replacement after a few games, as they can either win a game thanks to the nearly guaranteed 2 damage a turn, or sit dead in my hand because of the tempo loss.
I also added a fourth Mask and cut one Sprite, as the hand-fixing ability of the Mask has won me quite a few games by keeping my hand stocked with creatures. It also finds needed land/FoWs, which always helps, whereas the Sprite often feels like a Zephyr Falcon in non-burn/Goblin matchups.
"This unholy weapon is obviously intended for Quality Assurance to massacre any creature in their path as quickly as possible." - Planescape: Torment
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