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Much Abrew: Mono-Blue Faeries (Modern)


Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. A long time ago on Budget Magic, we played a Mono-Blue Faeries deck in Modern, and the tribe felt pretty powerful in the format, even on a budget. How much does dropping the budget restriction help the tribe? That's what we're going to try to find out today as we take the Mono-Blue Faeries deck from last week's Instant Deck Techs out for a spin. The primary plan of the deck is to focus heavily on the tempo plan, using some annoying counters and tricky tribe members to disrupt the opponent just enough that our evasive Faeries can fly over and win the game. If that doesn't work, we can just lock our opponent out of playing Magic with the help of Mistbind Clique and Quickling. How competitive is non-budget Mono-Blue Faeries in Modern? Is the tribe still playable, with Spirits all the rage in Modern these days? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!

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Much Abrew: Mono-Blue Faeries (Modern)

Discussion

  • As for our record, we played a league and finished with a 3-2, which is a solid, if unexciting, record. We also came super close to beating Hardened Scales to finish with a 4-1. We managed to get a sideboard Thing in the Ice down to one counter with a Snapcaster Mage in hand to flip it the following turn. After I got very excited, our opponent attacked and passed, but our Thing in the Ice had two counters for some reason. At the time, I thought maybe I was losing my mind and has somehow miscounted, but in hindsight, the real answer was Throne of Geth proliferating another counter on Thing in the Ice, which kept us from being able to flip it and win the game. So close. 
  • As for the deck itself, in general, it felt solid. While Faeries don't have a lot of of high-power-and-toughness creatures, they make up for this with some very good enters-the-battlefield triggers. Spellstutter Sprite was especially impressive in the deck, helping us take down Storm. 
  • One thing I missed during the Instant Deck Tech was Mistbind Clique's ability to soft lock the opponent out of the game with Quickling. While Mistbind Clique is one of the best Faeries in Modern even when played fairly, if we can get two Mistbind Cliques and a Quickling, we can lock our opponent out of playing anything but instants for the rest of the game. The basic loop is to play a Mistbind Clique on our opponent's upkeep to tap the opponent out. Then, we can Quickling to pick up Mistbind Clique and recast Mistbind Clique, championing Quickling to tap our opponent out for a second turn. On the next turn, we can use the second Mistbind Clique to champion the first Mistbind Clique, which not only taps our opponent out again but returns Quickling to the battlefield, which can then return Mistbind Clique to our hand, while returning the first Mistbind Clique to champion Quickling. Once we get to this point, we can simply cast a Mistbind Clique on each of our opponent's upkeeps for the rest of the game by repeating the process. While it doesn't come up often, this loop was essential to our deck being able to beat an opponent with active Tron. 
  • Smuggler's Copter is sneakily good in Mono-Blue Faeries. One of the challenges with the deck is that it doesn't close out games very quickly, since it plays a lot of one-powered creatures. Being able to upgrade Spellstutter Sprites, Faerie Miscreants, and the like into a 3/3 flying, looting vehicle really speeds up the process. 
  • Another huge upside to the non-budget build of Mono-Blue Faeries is that we get a mana base overloaded with creaturelands in Faerie Conclave and Mutavault. In the late game, having a big turn where we activate several lands and swing with everything is often a good plan for closing out the game.
  • Perhaps the strangest card in the deck is Thing in the Ice in the sideboard. While it was good in some matchups and almost good in others, we don't really have that many spells, and most of the spells we do have are counters, which makes flipping a Thing in the Ice a fairly slow process. While I have no idea how to make them fit, finding a way to squeeze in a cantrip or two would really help Thing in the Ice. It might even be correct to bring in Shadow of Doubt, just to have an additional spell in matches where we are bringing in Thing in the Ice
  • Now for the big question: why should you play Faeries when you can play Spirits? Here, the answer is a bit complicated. With the printing of Supreme Phantom, Spirits is the more aggressive tribe and offers some really powerful options that Faeries are lacking, like Rattlechains, Selfless Spirit, and Supreme Phantom itself. However, Faeries have some advantages too. Being Mono-Blue makes the tribe much more consistent in terms of mana, and having a bunch of creaturelands adds some late-game reach. Plus, Spirits don't have a flying Time Walk like Mistbind Clique. While it's possible and even likely that Spirits is the better tribe in Modern at the moment, it would be foolish to completely count out Faeries because they are still very playable and do get new tribe members on occasion. They are one Supreme Phantom away from being very, very good in Modern.
  • So, should you play Mono-Blue Faeries? I think the answer is mostly yes. If you have the Budget Magic build, this seems like a good upgrade path, and if you like tricky, evasive tribes, Faeries seem like a solid option. While shooting up to the top tier of Modern is probably unlikely, you can certainly win with the deck and have a lot of fun, grindy matches along the way!

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to vote for next week's deck by liking, commenting on, and subscribing to Instant Deck Tech videos!  As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.



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