Historically, Faeries has always been in the Dimir (blue - black) colour palette since the release of Lorwyn in the Fall of 2007. Although this 2 colour pair was efficient and often didn't struggle with mana or mana fixing, this potentially left the deck lacking the reach to close out the game quickly. The primary reason for the inclusion of red and the formation of the Grixis shell is to provide a greater variety of answers to our opponents' threats as well as giving us the added reach to close games faster with efficient burn spells.
Specifically, the inclusion of red opens up the deck to mainboard options such as Lightning Bolt, Terminate, and Kolaghan's Command. Being able to efficiently attack our opponents life, creatures and card resources at instant speed make these options incredibly powerful and fits well within the flash theme of faeries. Looking more towards the sideboard for difficult matchup solutions, having access to Vandalblast and By Force gives our Affinity (and other artifact based) matchups a solid boost and Rakdos Charm gives us a powerful modal spell for graveyard strategies or other "wide" matchups (such as elves or mass token based strategies).
Lastly, the inclusion gives the deck some more efficient options for cycling cards late game with Desolate Lighthouse in the event that we land flood or draw into too many copies of any less relevant cards for the current situation.
With the fairly recent release of Kaladesh, Smuggler's Copter has been one of the newer cards to undergo play testing. So for, the results have been moderately effective for a nubmer of reasons. On the plus side, any of the faeries in the deck can be used to pilot the vehicle, including those that just came into play from Bitterblossom (summoning sickness won't prevent the creature from crewing a vehicle, for those who were unsure). The additional bonus of cycling cards by simply attacking or blocking helps to find answers and dispose of less relevant cards during the later parts of games. That being said, the cycling wasn't always as the best course of action, and I opted to not cycle at times.
Before I get into the decktech, I want to mention I am currently brewing and testing a BUG list for faeries that I see potential in. So far, the list is putting up decent results in my local meta, given the grindy build of BUG vs Grixis. Althought we lose access to Lightning Bolt, we gain access to some solid removal options with Abrupt Decay and flexibility with Sultai Charm. As you may have noticed, I do like to playtest with various ideas and builds outside of the normal UB or less frequent Grixis counterpart.
Also, the deck is organized with custom sort categories if your curious to understand the various elements of the build.
The Creatures:
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Spellstutter Sprite and Mistbind Clique: These are the two most important creatures in the entire deck due to what their enter-the-battlefield effects do. Spellstutter Sprite is a counterspell given creature form that escalates in effectiveness as the game goes on. Mistbind Clique is one of the most powerful 4 drops in the deck and can often be the wincon. When its enter-the-battlefield trigger properly resolves, it can essentially act as a form of time walk by tapping all of our opponents mana. This can also be done during our opponents turn and the best time usually is on their upkeep which usually puts an end to their turn immediately.
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Scion of Oona/Vendilion Clique: This slot is often interchangeable depending on what you expect to encounter. If your meta is removal heavy, Scions will give you the protection to overwhelming your opponents, whereas Vendilion is a strong standalone threat. While I know Scion is far more synergistic with what the deck does, Vendilion is a powerful threat that gives us knowledge of our opponents' hand and can cycle away a hard to deal with threat. Overall, both fit well into the theme of the deck, and which one to run (or a combination) should be based on what your local meta looks like.
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Snapcaster Mage: Although not an actual faerie, this deck utilizes a wide variety of instant spells to disrupt and disarm our opponents and being able to reuse them with Snapcaster Mage is a huge benefit for those later game moments. This creature also provides value off cycling instants through the use of Desolate Lighthouse.
The Non-Creature Permanents:
- Bitterblossom: This is the card that essentially defines the deck. Although the usual primary win-con in the deck, this card is not always essential to winning every single game. In fact, there will be games where I didn't draw into Bitterblossom and still achieved a win. What makes Bitterblossom so effective is it provides fuel for Spellstutter Sprite to counter spells and gradually generates a board full of threats capable of taking over the game while you hold your opponents down with counter magic and removal. While the cost of 1 life per turn can seem intimidating, the ability to close games within 6 turns following a turn 2 Bitterblossom is incredibly powerful. By the sixth turn after a resolved Bitterblossom, it is possible to deal 16 points worth of combat damage total (assuming no additional damage from Scion of Oona or Spellstutter Sprites). On the seventh turn, if your opponent lives that long, you will have dealt 23 points of combat damage through faerie rogue creature tokens alone assuming no interruptions.
The Instant and Sorcery Spells:
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Spell Snare is one of the most powerful counterspells in the current meta where so many bombs cost only 2 mana. For those newer to magic and aren't sure what I'm referring to, these bombs include but are not limited to: Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Arcbound Ravager, Snapcaster Mage, and Voice of Resurgence to name a few. This is especially effective when on the draw.
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Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize: These spells can effectively disrupt our opponents early game strategy as well as potentially breakup combos in combo based strategies. Because life is more scarce in faeries, Inquisition is favoured over Thoughtseize as it still hits most of what we care about. The deck also run a single copy of Collective Brutality because of its flexibility and utility. The life drain can also be a lifesaver in tight situations and discarding useless discard spells to escalate it is great late game.
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I have chosen to run a playset of Opt instead of discard in my build to further support the flash/instant theme of the deck. It gives us more flexibility to act according to the situation and can let us use unspent mana where we see fit. In the early turns, it can mean holding up Opt to draw, or holding up Bolt to remove a key target (such as a Birds of Paradise, or other similar mana ramp creature).
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Lightning Bolt: One of the main reasons for splashing red. Being able to bolt a creature for 3 damage at the cost of 1 mana is incredible efficient in dealing with threats. Also a potential finisher when paired with Snapcaster to flashback the lightning bolt targeting our opponents directly.
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Mana Leak: Through much playtesting and tweaking, this flex spot for 2 of 3 counterspells has changed from Mana Leak to Remand to Logic Knot and finally back to Mana Leak. While the ability to grow a Logic Knot as the game goes on seems powerful, there are far too many situations where drawing one too early hinders our ability to counter a key spell if we lack the necessary mana and / or graveyard to fuel delve. Remand in this spot was great at cycling and turn our opponents back a turn, however, it did not provide the hard answer I desired for many of my opponents spells. This flexible spot can vary greatly depending on which card better interacts with the rest of the deck, which is why I chose Mana Leak over the others for my build. I do run a 1-of Logic Knot as it is great when drawn late game, but can be difficult to work with early game. Having just 1 copy helps to ensure we don't always see it in our opening hand.
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Terminate: Arguably one of the most effective and efficient removal spells in the grixis palette. Although it requires having both black and red available, it easily deals with most threats and prevents regeneration for 2 mana. This is another of the key spells for splashing red because of how efficiently it can handle most threats with minimal drawback (the only drawback is needing to have both red and black mana to cast despite the deck being so blue heavy)
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Dreadbore: With Jace, the Mind Sculptor coming back to modern, Dreadbore is getting better at dealing with our opponents 'walkers. Beforehand, this was typically used to deal with opposing Liliana's, Karn's and Ugin's, but now offers more versatility to hit Jace as well.
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Kolaghan's Command: The first of the three modal spells in the deck. This has much utility, from destroying an irritating artifact, to shocking a creature and can even make our opponents discard. All around useful for 3 mana and can be easily recurred with a recurred Snapcaster using its first mode.
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Grixis Charm: So this is a new flexspot card I am currently testing out. While it does cost 3 mana, 1 of each colour, the effects are quite powerful when used correctly. So powerful in-fact that a well time Grixis Charm can end the game with the +2/+0 mode if we have enough faeries on board for lethal. Otherwise, this spell makes for solid removal for any creature with less than 4 toughness or any difficult to deal with permanent. So far, I am quite pleased with how Grixis Charm performs in the deck.
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Cryptic Command: The second modal spell in the deck and one of the most devastating counterspell/utility spells available in blue for modern. It does everything you could possibly want in blue: countering spells, drawing cards, tapping creatures and bouncing permanents. Yes, it bounces any permanent, including lands. As a bonus, can be recurred late game with Snappy for extra value.
The Lands:
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The mana base is fairly greedy and can potentially be punished by a Blood Moon. It runs enough basics and fetchlands that it can work around Blood Moon if necessary and has a variety of dual lands for both the early and late game. Blood Moon is also the reason why the deck doesn't run any basic Mountains. Darkslick Shores gives us the early turn 1 - 2 blue and black we need for our countermagic and discard spells. In both shorter and longer games, running the two checklands (Drowned Catacomb and Sulfur Falls) makes it easier to access untapped dual mana sources as early as turn two or three.
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As far as utility-based lands go, Mutavault and Desolate Lighthouse are the only "utility" lands we run. Mutavault is good because it activates for 1 and becomes a 2/2 with all creature types (which provides fuel for Spellstutter and Mistbind if and/or when necessary, and benefits from the static buffs provided by Scion) and Loothouse does exactly that, cycles cards late game (especially effective when excessively flooding with fetchlands).
The Sideboard:
My sideboard is currently tweaked to my local meta, which is mostly Tron, Storm and Humans. I encounter the occasional Jund/Abzan shell, but I find faeries has a fairly strong matchup against them, given how much removal we run to answer their threats.
