Ninjas and Faeries team up to stop your opponent from playing. Izzet Fairies plays like a classic control deck, though I've seen it described as tempo too. The goal is to use numerous counterspells and targeted removal to lock your opponent out of their game plan. While trading resources you get ahead on card advantage and never let them resolve anything.
Step one is finding answer pieces. Faerie Seer, Augur of Bolas, Preordain and Brainstorm filter your draws, getting the cards you need when you need them. It's possible to see over 30 cards a game, so you'll have plenty of chances to run into whatever you need.
Step two is stopping your opponent from doing things. This deck runs a whopping 11 counterspells between Spellstutter Sprite, Counterspell & Muddle the Mixture. Each has their own use so I'll cover them here:
-Spellstutter Sprite is your best counterspell for card advantage. She stays in the field after countering something, letting you attack next turn & Ninjutsu her back to your hand. Ninja of the Deep Hours & Moon-Circuit Hacker not only let you re-cast Sprite but draw you a card. The ability to efforrlessly recur counter magic and draw cards forms the core of this deck & makes it very difficult for opponents to come back from behind.
-Counterspell is your classic catch-all, baleeting whatever needs baleeting. It helps to hold these for key combo pieces so learning when to say "Yes" is important. I suggest goldfishing a lot of different decks to find their weak points.
-Muddle the Mixture is the most toolbox-centric card in the deck. While it can only counter instants or sorceries, you can transmute it into numerous better options. More on that later.
Part of what makes Izzet so strong is the ability to handle threats that resolved without bouncing them anywhere. Skred and Lightning Bolt are those key red splashes, granting you powerful removal for little cost. Lightning Bolt fries anything small that needs to die right now while Skred will kill big threats later game. This deck runs two Curse of Chains for Guardian of the Guildpact, an otherwise lethal card if resolved. It works wonders in other matchups as well, since enchantment removal is rather poor in Pauper. Should you need multi-target removal, End the Festivities and Fiery Cannonade are strong options in your sideboard for games 2 & 3.
Step three is building your advantage. The top of your curve is a Crimson Fleet Commodore and two Tolarian Terrors. The Crimson Fleet Commodore grants you the Monarch token, providing essential card advantage against all sorts of decks. It's useful for breaking parity, snowballing advantages and closing games. The Commodore himself trades with a lot of big bodies but his low toughness makes him a poor attacker. That means if you lose the Monarch you'll need to rely on your flying faeries to take the crown back, which can be difficult against equally evasive decks with Squadron Hawk. Tolarian Terror is a big body for blocking other big bodies and closing games. He smashes a lot of the metagame's biggest threats and helps you hold the Monarch. There's a third one in the sideboard in case you fight a deck that requires more big bodies.
Muddle the Mixture grants this deck a strong toolbox angle. There are many valuable 2 drops that only need a single copy to be effective, allowing you to fetch what you need (at an admittedly high price). Valuable search targets include:
-Spellstutter Sprite
-Moon-Circuit Hacker
-Augur of Bolas
-Curse of Chains
-Echoing Ruin
-Coast Watcher if you hate Bogles (you will)
If you want to calculate your card odds mid-match, use this formula: (# of the card you want) / (# of cards you have not seen)
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Card you want is: (Total # of cards you want) - (every copy of that card you have in hand, in grave, in exile, on the field or scry'd) = (# of the card you want)
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Cards you haven't seen is: (Cards in deck) - (Cards you've scry'd since your last shuffle) = (# of cards you have not seen)
This sounds hard, but with practice it's simple napkin math. Just don't let a judge call you on "slowplay" lol
Sideboard notes:
-1x Aura Flux to tax Bogles players out of their win conditions. You should remove Skred to make room for this enchantment and non-targeted damage.
-3x Blue Elemental Blast because we want to stop red decks from winning as best as we can and they run Red Elemental Blast to kill us faster.
-1x Coast Watcher because Bogles and Izzet Curve are difficult matchups and Coast Watcher stonewalls these deck's attackers. Most Hexproof decks in Pauper run green creatures and if their deck doesn't run Gutshot or Journey to Nowhere they basically can't answer a Coast Watcher. Serpentine curve should be fought with more graveyard hate and counter magic, but their Fractal beaters are Green so Coast Watcher stonewall them too.
-2x Cleansing Wildfire for Tron, Caw-Gates, Ponza and Affinity. Land interaction is one of Izzet's strengths over mono-blue so you should play into it. Keeping Urza's Tower and Basilisk Gate off the field buys a lot of time. You can also go +1 in card advantage by destroying land enchantments like Utopia Sprawl since Cleansing Wildfire replaces itself.
-1× Echoing Ruin for Affinity. Let them play all their enforcers or Frogmites, then obliterate them all at instant speed. You can even destroy all their non-indestructible artifact lands!
-2x Fiery Cannonade to deal with affinity frog floods, Elves, Bogles with low toughness, dodge Vines of Vastwood protection & neuter any other weird token strategy floating around. It also preserves your Crimson Fleet Commodore so the Pirate evasion is relevant!
-2x Gorilla Shaman for artifact removal. That activated ability might look expensive, but you can destroy normal artifact lands for 1 mana. Land destruction is always nice in a control deck like this.
-2x Red Elemental Blast for fighting counter wars. 3 of the top 4 decks run Counterspell right now.
-1x Relic of Progenitus to destroy graveyard decks.
v1.53
