[Deck]FaeryNinjaStill

[silenzio]

I've tested for a couple of matches a list like yours, without manlands but back to basics and more counters in the list.
I think that my impression was good: the counters are still not strong enough to control the match from the very first turns..
Goblin guide, Grim lavamancer or any creatures that is more than 2/2 squeeze down the deck, unless we manage to play a jitte.

The list lacks of aggressiveness; Standstill is really strong and useful if just played at turn 2, in a list like this -based on the control of the game, without manlands (that made Standstill really strong, too)- it becomes really unplayable, unless we have a really god hand at the beginning of the game with Cloud of faeries + Standstill + Fow + NotDH, but usually it doesn't happen because the deck has card advantage but lacks of mana fix like brainstorm or ponder.

Against combo decks it is really great.

My (humble? i don't know) proposes on that list are:

-Probably the splash of black in a control list would be nice, adding Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Bitterblossom and Go for the throat in mainboard for example, setting the sideboard just against graveyard and aggros. But.. there's no place for Back to basics.

or -Add more manafix to better your possibility to have cloud of faeries, ninja of the deep hours and standstill in the first turns, in order to control the match from the very beginning of it.

or -Add 4x fast creatures, maybe something different from ornithopter or zephyr sprite, that aren't enough strong as choices (imo, zephyr sprite is better than ornithopter).


Couple of months ago i've tested on mws an ub FNS list like the one i suggested before.
At the time, i tested something like:

// Lands
6 [8E] Island (3)
1 [ON] Riptide Laboratory
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [R] Underground Sea
1 [8E] Swamp (2)
4 [MOR] Mutavault
2 [DS] Blinkmoth Nexus
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

// Creatures
1 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
3 [BOK] Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
4 [LRW] Spellstutter Sprite

// Spells
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [NE] Daze
1 [DS] Echoing Truth
4 [MOR] Bitterblossom
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [ROE] Inquisition of Kozilek

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 4 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [CMD] Flusterstorm
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate





Jittes were in 4x because they really made me the game. No need to swords, because the only problems were aggro and the loss of life in the first turns for fetches, their creatures and my bitterblossom.
When i had one of them in play, i usually used to win. And the hate against it was strong, so the 2nd/3rd that I eventually draw were never a big problem. Then, Jitte destroys other jittes: the opposite jittes usually make us concede because we just play 1/1..

Probably the discard side of the deck had to be fixed. Thoughseize or Inquisition of kozilek are just better than Spell pierce or Spell snare.
In this list i've set 4x Inquisition of kozilek because the two damages by thoughtseize hurted me much.. and the cards with cc over 3 were never a problem for me, because of the other several counters i played.

If i had to fix up the list now, i would probably change 1x jitte for a 1x Sword of Fire and Ice and 1x Inquisition of Kozilek for 1x Go for the throat.

Has anyone some suggestions to improve the deck?

[thethirdbardo]

Cut daze down to 3 and maindeck Echoing truth and 1 Jitte for 3 Spell Snare maybe?

4 Jitte seems very very ambitious, since it's legendary after all.

[silentji]

The black splash seems intriguing, and since this deck runs into Chokes left and right (based on anecdotal experience), some variance wouldn't hurt; plus, Bitterblossom provides the necessary pressure that this deck can sometimes lack.

My problem with that build's that it doesn't have great synergy with Standstill; cutting down on Ninjas and adding more non-creature spells that are arguably not worth breaking a Standstill for seems sub-par, at best. Indeed, disruption like Inquisition and Thoughtseize immensely help our early game, but running enough disruption to see it in your opening seven seems like a stretch, especially considering how tight our slots are.

Also, I wanted to gauge peoples' opinions: what do you (or this deck, rather) do against early disruption? Provided you don't have Spell Pierce handy, a T1 Inquisition or Thoughtseize can really hurt or slow you down if they remove a key piece, e.g. Standstill, Ninja, etc. Moreover, depending on the deck they're running, countering those dinky 1CMC disruption spells with an alternate-cost Force of Will or Daze oftentimes does more harm (to tempo) than good. Match-ups like Rock, Junk, and even some janky combo (e.g. Gate with a Depths package) are tough precisely because of this.

[thethirdbardo]

I never find hand disruption , besides Hymn to Tourach, hurting me too bad. They're still just one for oneing you. It's mass edict effects that hurt me way more than hand disruption.

[Elusidity]

I really enjoy this deck but found it had to many flaws in the standard list in my opinion. Mainly that you run out of steam even with the standstill and NotDH to win alot so I tweaked it a bit. Mainly with a small white and black splash. First white for geist of saint traft who has just proven absolutely phenomenal under still and gives you a free flyer to ninjitsu off of. So its either six damage or a ninja or they crack the standstill and give you cards which your probably going to counter anyways. Then I added PtE at first this was swords but I found with such small beaters even with swords or jitte the life gain killed me but I dont run daze and Im fast enough to race so the land did not hurt as much. the white splash also allows me to play wrath of god not ideal but gobs and elves are run by alot around here and that was a solid answer. Now on the topic of black protection has anyone considered cabal therapy I upped my count of walker of the secret ways to 4 and so far its worked extremely well when combined together as well as flashback giving me a use for extra ornathopters or useless creatures later. Plus she bounces ninjas allowing me multiple use out of their ninjitsu effects as well as a semblance of evasion on them. I also swapped signal pest out for slippery boggle as I never found the few points from its ability to be key and with spellstutter and v cliques all over usually blocked while the hexproof makes a huge difference especially with a sword. It also pitches to FoW.

So in all I have just in case some think its to diluted:

Deck
4 Ninja of the deep hour 4 Walker of the secret ways 2 Mistblade shinobi 3 ornathopters 3 Slippery Boggle 2 Geist of Saint traft 4 Spellstutter Sprite 2 Sword of body and mind 4 Path to Exile 4 standstill 4 cabal Therapy 2 Spell Snare 4 Force of Will 4 tundra 2 scrubland 2 marsh flats 2 flooded strand 3 mishra's factory x Basics(cant remember off top of head

Ive found the creature count balanced I know the mana base if easily disrupted by not a lot of land hate around here. The sword of body and mind are because I only own them lol but I would like to change that around and put in jitte eventually when I get some.

[thethirdbardo]

You only have 1 fairy in the list, so you can't hit spells with CMC over 1, for the price of 2 untapped lands.

Where are the cloud of faeries and Vendilion Cliques?

Also, you can only Walker of Secret Ways on your own turn. So I ended up cutting her early on, because using 1B on your turn to ninjutsu again next turn for another card was really not worth it. Probably works well with Cabal Therapy, otoh. But I'd still rather have more reactive cards like Stifle
and Daze
. Still, I think splashing black for hand disruption or white for StP seems to be a good route to take with the deck.

[silenzio]

ok, I made a lot of testing with this new list, not too much modified.

// Lands
6 [8E] Island (3)
1 [ON] Riptide Laboratory
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [R] Underground Sea
1 [8E] Swamp (2)
4 [MOR] Mutavault
2 [DS] Blinkmoth Nexus
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

// Creatures
1 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
3 [BOK] Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
4 [LRW] Spellstutter Sprite

// Spells
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [NE] Daze
1 [DS] Echoing Truth
4 [MOR] Bitterblossom
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
1 [MBS] Go for the Throat
1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
3 [SC] Stifle / Spell Snare

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [MBS] Go for the Throat
SB: 4 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [CMD] Flusterstorm
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate

And it performed very well. It is probably among the best lists I have ever played with this archetype in the last few years.
Bitterblossom is a very fantastic card. It made me win quite all the games that i played in these days.

@silentji: Standstill works very well.
The creatures aren't "really" cut down in this list: I play 6 manland that provide me to play standstill without problem: in many games, against some deck of which i knew that the opposite didn't play manlands, I had the possibility to play Standstill at turn 2, passing and just wait to drawing one of Mutavault of Blinkmoth Nexus.
Then, Bitterblossom + Standstill are lots of times gg. Even if i'm under pressure with some creatures by the opposite, i can just wait that Bitterblossom creates enough creatures to pass to advantage until Standstill is broken. Plus, NotDH can be ninjutsed with tokens.
Bitterblossom is also great against all that cards like Liliana of the veil, Innocent Blood, Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, Jace, the mind Scuptor..
4x Cloud of faeries and 4x Spellstutter sprite make the rest with standstill.

I cut off the Inquisition of kozilek too: i wasn't too satisfied by their work. I don't know what to put at their place: stifle worked very well in this tests, giving me advantage at turn 1 and the possibility to cast Bitterblossom / Standstill without any kind of problem. But Spell snare has to be considered, too.

NotDH at 3x is just fine: i can play it when the situation is stabilized with standstill or bitterblossom + force of will or spellstutter in the battlefield, making it never though to me. I can play my game and, if needed, pitch him with fow. Faeries/Spellstutter/Tokens + Jitte or swords of fire and ice make the deck win.

Anyway, I never had big problems with the disruption; usually dazes, fows, snare/stifle or spellstutter made me protect my hand well. But yes, if a hymn to tourach hits at turn 2 is a big deal to our hand

[Elusidity]

Truth Im probably a freak but I hate V cliques and I know about the low fae count the spellstutters tend to be counter removal or ways to give me a beater for the next turn I can ninjitsu and the mishras would be mutavaults if I owned them. Which is why I run snare then FoW as ways to ramp and Cabal fixes what I cant. Originally you were right I cut her after a few games but with the cabals and running sweepers her abilities become much more useful. The biggest issue I was having was I could get the first swing in unblocked but with out ways to reuse the fliers or unblockable creatures to ninjitsu off of my ninjas just sat there eating blocks and removal. For a few mana though I can swing with thopter play NotDH replay thopter. Next turn bounce NotDH rinse repeat. I may end up trimming the numbers down with more testing however.

Edit: I may consider Bitter Blossom ive always wanted to use this card as I love the idea but cant get past the life loss if your tokens eat a cheap ratchet bomb or powder keg

[dondee]

i dont get why people go and ninjutsu an angel token up... why would you go and hurry up and draw instead of waiting for your opponent to let you draw. jeez. some people are just missing the point of why you are playing ninjutsu. if you have geist for 6 damage, let your opponent go take 6 damage. would you exchange 2 damage for a draw? thats silly. and it doesnt give you advantage at all, you ninjutsu up a creature to use the ETBT ability of the creature therefore gaining card advantage. what do you get from nijutsuing a 4/4 token? opponents laughing. ninjutsuing a land is fine as long as you have established mana source.

[silenzio]

why do you prefer Slippery Bogle over cloud of faeries or the fourth ornithopter? I don't get the point.
It can't be even equipped with the sword.

[thethirdbardo]

Eh.. I'd like to try bitter blossom but I'd probably run it in a BtB build without duals (fetches maybe) as I don't have any.

I just really find BtB to be overwhelmingly powerful. Too powerful to pass up. And so is Bitterblossom, it's starting to look like. I'll only need to draw one basic swamp or polluted delta to be set.

Originally Posted by Elusidity

Truth Im probably a freak but I hate V cliques

That's a shame, because they're ridiculously strong against, like all the decks.

[dondee]

Originally Posted by silenzio

why do you prefer Slippery Bogle over cloud of faeries or the fourth ornithopter? I don't get the point.
It can't be even equipped with the sword.

slippery boggle can be equipped with a sword. just FYI. and still a bad choice of creature. unless you are on a budget. but still, i prefer sage of epityr in that case.

[Elusidity]

Originally Posted by dondee

slippery boggle can be equipped with a sword. just FYI. and still a bad choice of creature. unless you are on a budget. but still, i prefer sage of epityr in that case.

Its not as bad as you think and that doesnt mean its a permanent choice. I just do not have much love for signal pest and I just happened to find a set of boggles and thought id try them. So far its proven to be hard to get rid of and still provides a turn one beater. Unlike the pest I dont have to worry about creatures and removal. I just save my counters for their creatures or big bomb spells while they sit on a useless hand of PtE or StP. But theres a good chance Ill swap them for something else and try those. This tends to be my most frequently changing slot. The thopters I keep bouncing around on sometimes three seems to few but 4 seems to many.

About cloud of faeries I like them and use them in other builds but here they dont seem proactive enough ok I got a free 1/1 flier and they up your count for spellstutter but just doesnt seem like a strong enough reason to play them. Id rather try other creatures in those slots.

@thirdbardo I may try to get the V cliques today I won a box in the last tourney so Ill have trade bait. I just keep getting mixed responses about them. I personally prefer a counter to just hoping what you get rid of is worse then what they draw. But you never know till you try.

Originally Posted by dondee

i dont get why people go and ninjutsu an angel token up... why would you go and hurry up and draw instead of waiting for your opponent to let you draw. jeez. some people are just missing the point of why you are playing ninjutsu. if you have geist for 6 damage, let your opponent go take 6 damage. would you exchange 2 damage for a draw? thats silly. and it doesnt give you advantage at all, you ninjutsu up a creature to use the ETBT ability of the creature therefore gaining card advantage. what do you get from nijutsuing a 4/4 token? opponents laughing. ninjutsuing a land is fine as long as you have established mana source.

Never said I always do but its a reason to consider geist in the MB and can make a very solid field. Sometimes I bounce the angel yes its two damage that turn but next turn Ill get that extra two and have a draw engine on the field or be able to see my opponents hand etc. Sometimes CA is much more powerful then two damage for a turn and something Id happily consider doing every time. Particularly as the angel token disappears anyways so why not put a permanent beater/draw engine down in its place.

[thethirdbardo]

Trying to improve my Matchup vs. Maverick/DnT/Goblins etc. type decks. Especially playing around Cavern of Souls, which has exploded. Combo is still a much easier matchup, but now it is much more solid postboard instead of g1.

Deck
20 Island 4 Spellstutter Sprite 4 Cloud of Faeries 4 Ninja of the Deep Hours 2 Vendilion Clique 3 Pithing Needle 4 Brainstorm 3 Back to Basics 3 Spell Snare 4 Standstill 4 Force of Will 1 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 2 Vedalken Shackles	2 Tormod's Crypt 3 Spell Pierce 3 Surgical Extraction 2 Sower of Temptation 1 Vedalken Shackles 1 Back to Basics 3 Misdirection

Changes

1. Mainboard Pithing Needle. Most versatile reaction to this decks main weaknesses (deed, EE, Qasali Pridemage, Aether Vial, Knight of the Reliquary going to fetch maze of ith or Gaea's Cradle, and so on) I hedge my bets here, since it blanks against a few decks like Burn and certain combos that become much, much easier in g2 and 3.
2. Vedalken Shackles. Best thing ever with Ninjutsu. Take control of their creature, Ninjutsu it back to their hand, sit back with shackles ready to go again. Especially strong against creatures that you don't even wanna chump with. Already powerful enough, but with the decks looters it can lead to some really strong boards in your favor.
3. Misdirection in sideboard. Because I like to play this. Because I want to play this. I usually have stuff to pitch, and I really only need to establish a certain board to be in the position I want (ninjas can get in to loot) , I love using this on everything from Blue Sun Zenith to Swords to Plowshares. Against decks where FoW is crap, Misdirection typically does something much better, and can pay for itself in card advantage if you do it on a Hymn to Tourach or StP when they have a creature etc. etc.
4. Cut a Jitte. I was sad to see this go, but I only really use it to Jitte their Jitte anymore, or to go against Burn. I want a Sword of Feast and Famine the most out of any equipment, typically. I need to cut one more card, not sure what to do. I cut all the Daze in the deck: Do you all think this was a good or bad idea? Being able to threaten Daze is strong enough some times, since you're in mono blue.

[silenzio]

I don't really like the choice of the Sword of Feast and Famine instead of the jitte. Yeah, it probably depends on the meta you're going at, but jitte, now that aggro is returned on the stage because of the cavern, it is absolutely the best choice. Then, the abilities of the sword aren't too strong for a deck like FNS.. Untapping our land is quite always useless. I would come back to two Jitte.

Since you play only islands and Back to Basics, Vedalken Shackles is a very interesting choice.

Then, i'm still not convinced by the choice of Standstill in a list like yours. It was a good card since the list was aggro and it played mutavault/mishra's factory, but you don't.
Ok that this is the thread of the FNS and so Standstill should be played, but since it becomes a dead card against almost all the deck i would probably prefer to cut it, maybe for dazes

The deck is still too fragiles against aggros. I would cut some cards on sideboard (the matchup against combo seems to be really great, even with "just" the mainboard) in order to put something against red or green. Maybe REB, Chill or Submerge.