Have you ever noticed how few staple creatures in Legacy fly?
Take a minute; look through the last few Legacy Open decklists, and tell me how many fliers you see there. Beyond Vendilion Clique and Emrakul, the
Aeons Torn, it’s pretty thin out there for the winged squad. Sure, there are a few Sowers of Temptation in Ben Wienburg sideboard from Indianapolis, but the vast
majority of combat takes place on the ground.
In a format full of ground-pounders, surely there has to be a metagame niche for a deck full of fliers, right? Maybe not Faeries but something like it.
Well, look no further. From the same people who brought you “Turn Two Bitterblossom,” I give you, “Turn One 4/3 Flier”:
Creatures (24)
- 4 Serendib Efreet
- 4 Trinket Mage
- 4 Sea Drake
- 4 Mulldrifter
- 3 Pestermite
- 2 Sower of Temptation
- 3 Phyrexian Revoker
Lands (9)
Spells (27)
There are a lot of interactions here, but I’ll get the best one out of the way first:
If you cast Sea Drake with one or zero lands in play, it has no drawback.
To explain: Sea Drake’s trigger requires two targets, much like Decimate requires four targets and Hex requires six targets. Without the requisite
number of type-specified targets, the trigger never goes on the stack. Of course, Sea Drake is still hanging out in play, doing its thing. Given this
odd wording, it’s entirely possible to cast a 4/3 flier with no drawbacks on turn 1. Your opponent better have a Swords to Plowshares, or this is going
to be a pretty short game.
Faerie Stompy is a fairly different deck from other aggressive Ancient Tomb strategies. Since it has access to Force of Will, it can’t play Trinisphere
effectively, and so it plays a faster game. To that end, it plays a ton of fliers that are all either good at racing or provide value upon coming into
play. In addition, it plays four Trinket Mages to expand its access to four Chalices of the Void, the first of which will almost always be set at one
counter. After pre-empting Swords to Plowshares, the Faerie Stompy player can typically race ground-based squads with the help of Pestermite and the
occasional Sower of Temptation.Â
A major strength of Faerie Stompy is its ability to switch between aggressive and controlling styles of play. As with Faeries from Standard or
Extended, the deck possesses tools that enable it to fight a short game (strap an Umezawa’s Jitte onto a Sea Drake and go to town) or a long game
(chain Mulldrifters and Trinket Mages to win attrition wars). Whereas other Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors decks we’ve looked at recently do not have a
great deal of decision-making inherent in the deck’s course of gameplay, Faerie Stompy is like any other aggressive deck in the format: full of combat
math calculations, windows of opportunity to trade cards for damage and vice versa, and maximizing mana utility on a turn-by-turn basis.
The biggest problem for the deck is playing against interaction-advantage-based midrange decks such as Junk. The problem that Faerie Stompy has with
these sorts of decks is that Junk’s cards are all worth at least a card in the first few turns of the game, with the two-card discard spells being
particularly backbreaking. The real problem with the deck is that when it’s put under pressure, the tension between Force of Will and Chrome Mox
becomes readily apparent. With only 21 blue cards in the deck, having cards to remove from the game while also continuing to cast spells and stay in
the game is a difficult proposition after a Hymn to Tourach resolves. To ameliorate this problem, I’ve cut back on difficult-to-cast game breakers such
as Sower of Temptation in favor of additional disruption in the form of Phyrexian Revoker.
Phyrexian Revoker came to me from a couple of different people (thanks, Caleb!) within the span of a few hours of each other. This Horror is an ideal
turn 1 play that, with a little scouting, can provide you with exactly the sort of pinpoint disruption that this deck needs. Shutting off Aether Vial,
Sensei’s Divining Top, or Pernicious Deed is a card well spent in game one.
The reason we want to shut Aether Vial off is that we aren’t presenting threats big enough to kill the Aether Vial player before their mana advantage
comes into play. Once that happens, the game can often go south for the Faerie Stompy player, especially if Ancient Tomb damage has been adding up.
The reason we want to shut off Sensei’s Divining Top is that, more than any other card in the format, Top has the ability to bury an opponent by always
having the perfect card for the situation. Chalice on one? Trinket Mage for Engineered Explosives. Sea Drake? Firespout. Sword of Fire and Ice? Pithing
Needle. And so on and so forth until you’re left with two City of Traitors and a Chrome Mox in hand, and they’re killing you with two Tarmogoyfs.
I believe that this deck is due for a renaissance as a new player’s deck. Its mana base costs about as much as two Underground Seas; its major beater
is $30 instead of the Tarmogoyf-sized $50, and the Forces of Will are a worthwhile investment to make in the format. If you’re looking for an
aggressive blue deck that doesn’t play garbage like Silvergill Adept, try Faerie Stompy.
A Few Words on Richard Feldman Metal Force
As you might have seen, Richard Feldman wrote a pretty nice article on a blue Ancient Tomb deck in Legacy. For reference, his list:
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (20)
Spells (23)
Feldman referred to his list as “a Level One Marketplace deck. It doesn’t rely on exploiting specific weaknesses of the best decks; it’s just powerful
in its own right. If you’re paired against a random unknown deck, you’ll generally be confident about your chances.”
The problem that I have with that statement is that the only reason I would want to play Trinisphere in this format is because I think it’s going to
exploit specific weaknesses of the best decks. If Trinisphere is garbage against the best decks, why am I supposed to feel good about having it in my
deck? It’s not a card that I would put in a deck for value — I want it on the play against almost everything and on the draw against almost nothing. If
I do want it on the draw against certain decks, I should know what those decks are, why Trinisphere is good against them on the draw, and how games are
likely to play out under a Trinisphere. Without that level of thought about the format, shot gunning Trinisphere seems like a plan that is almost
guaranteed to burn me.
The issue I have with Metal Force is that even though Feldman claims that it’s a Level One deck, it doesn’t have a coherent plan within the metagame.
When I wrote about the Natural Order Counterbalance list I was planning on playing in the Indianapolis Legacy Open, I would’ve called it a Level One
deck: it was just full of a bunch of sweet cards, and I was going to Counter/Top lock them and/or Natural Order for a Progenitus. Simple enough, right?
The problem was that my cards were terrible in context. My Knights of the Reliquary couldn’t buy a game against AJ Sacher and his Goblin hordes. The
Wastelands made the mana base a joke to disrupt. Things had to change once I realized that a card as simple as Mogg War Marshal was a problem for me.
Once I cut the Knights, I was forced to evaluate what I wanted to do within the context of the metagame.
After I decided that the plan was to Counter/Top lock people and survive long enough to kill them with my Progenitus, the decision to maindeck four
Rhox War Monks went from unthinkable to a no-brainer. Since I needed extra utility in dealing with problematic permanents in game ones, I added a pair
of Qasali Pridemages. It’s not because I’m lucky that I beat resolved Moat + Runed Halo on Jace, the Mind Sculptor in game one of round one of the
Legacy Open — I had a plan for how I was going to win, but it required me to have built my deck with a modicum of foresight. If all I wanted to do was
play a deck that was “just powerful in its own right,” I would’ve lost to all the game one Ensnaring Bridges and Runed Halos and Moats and, yes, Mogg
War Marshals.
Similarly, this deck is going to lose to Ensnaring Bridge, Humility, Rebuild into any combo turn, and any deck that casts Armageddon. Instead of
including Bribery “against Progenitus,” why not just board in your Llawans for that matchup and use those two slots that you’re wasting on Bribery to
include something like Sunder, Wipe Away, Ratchet Bomb, or Powder Keg to beat the cards that are actually going to beat you? I have no issue with a
strong linear deck, but trying to posit an Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors deck as strong in its own right is not the way to go about selling this
particular idea.
I do think that a big-mana blue deck is an interesting top-down idea for Legacy, but the deck feels like it doesn’t know its role in any matchup. If
I’m beating down, why not just cast Sea Drake? If I’m controlling the game and relying on inevitability, why not include the resources with which to
execute such a plan? Ultimately, I don’t know what this deck is accomplishing beyond being a more fragile version of Michael Bomholt’s deck. Believe me; I love a Tinker just as much
as you do, but this is not the second coming of the big blue artifact deck.
Hopefully I’ve given you more to think about regarding Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors. If so, let me know in the forums. If not, there’s always
tomorrow!
Until then,
Drew Levin
@mtglegacy
on Twitter