Faerie Unfair

Posted on July 23, 2018

Modern is getting lower to the ground. People have started adapting to the removal-heavy Jeskai Control decks by building decks with more explosive potential and more longevity. Cards like Militia Bugler even take previously favorable matchups and make them more questionable. This starts to demand a different kind of control deck; one that can interact more proactively and aggressive rather than leaning on late game cards like Search for Azcanta. It's a tall order, but _Batuhina_ may have figured out how to do it:

Blue-Red Faeries - Modern | _Batuhina_, 9th Place Modern Challenge

Some of the problems with Spellstutter Sprite in Modern have been that it's hard to make it work against a high density of one-mana removal spells and that you don't always have enough Faeries to make it relevant as games drag on. As the metagame gets lower to the ground, Spellstutter Sprite becomes more powerful in unfair matchups. Like Spell Queller, it's a card that lets you pressure your opponent while disrupting cards like Ancient Stirrings.

Normally, the problem with the Faeries decks is that they don't have enough efficient removal. It's hard to be a three-color tempo deck in this format because of all the damage your lands deal to you over the course of a game. Wizard's Lightning changes that. With both Wizard's Lightning and Lightning Bolt, this deck can effectively pick apart the fast starts from decks like Affinity and Humans.

All in all, this is a deck that has many of the advantages of the interactive decks - strong, efficient interaction against a broad variety of decks, resiliency against Blood Moon, and utility lands like Mutavault. However, the addition of Delver of Secrets and a faerie package lets you be more aggressive and capitalize on tempo cards like Spellstutter Sprite without having to tap out for cards like Geist of Saint Traft. If you're expecting to see lots of decks that are very fast but short on interaction, this could be exactly the kind of deck you're looking for.