Breaking Dawn - Extended Faeries 2
24 Apr 2010 | Jack Ding
Some of you may notice that this article has been uploaded earlier than usual and that is because I have something more relevant for next week’s column and decided to post this up early and before Extended becomes an even more distant memory. In Part Two of this article I will cover the manabase as well as the possible sideboard options available to Extended Faeries.
The Manabase:
I will start with the obvious inclusions. Every Extended Fae list I have seen runs a playset of both with good reason. Mutavault powers up your Spellstutter Sprites as well as being a champion target for Mistbind Clique in a pinch. River of Tears is the best painless way to fix your mana, with its only downside being that you cannot suspend Ancestral Visions off it turn 1.
Sunken Ruins is a very good mana fixer. Unfortunately it does not work very well with Mutavault. Mutavault is more important than Sunken Ruins and therefore it is usually played as only a singleton in most lists if at all. As an aside, please don’t keep Mutavault + Sunken Ruin opening hands. I’ve tried that enough times when Fae was in Standard and trust me, it never works out.
I have grouped these three together because they are dependant on each other. There is a big disparity between different Fae lists on how many of these run. They vary from 0-8. Personally I do not like running more than 1 fetchland unless you have heavier black requirements on turn 1 (such as maindeck Thoughtseize). The 1 life for a shuffle effect just is not worth it even if you are running Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Life is your most valuable resource in the Aggro matchup, even more so than most because it is a resource which you use in multiple ways i.e. through Bitterblossom.
I have not listed Island as it is pretty obvious that you should be running some of those. Swamp is a different case altogether. The upside of running this is that if you are cut off from black mana you can fetch it via a Path to Exile. The downside is that you have another land which cannot suspend Ancestral Visions turn 1 and hands with Swamp + Mutavault are almost as bad as Sunken Ruins + Mutavault. However, it does give you another painless black source on turn 1 to cast Thoughtseize so if you have those in the maindeck you could consider running one.
Sam Black thinks this card is good. I think it is bad.
OK I should probably say a bit more. The only creatures this can pump are Spellstutter Sprites and Bitterblossom tokens (barring Night of Souls Betrayal shenanigans etc). If you have active Bitterblossom, you are probably winning and do not need a slightly bigger Faerie token every turn. If you are rawdogging Spellstutter Sprites, you are probably going to lose and Pendelhaven is not going to help you. Oh and to top it off it produces colourless mana and is randomly Legendary (although it can help you EE for 3 if you run it).
Unlike Pendelhaven, this card is the blade. While an ETBT land is a little awkward at times, it makes up for it by being a legitimate threat in every matchup. Against control it gives you an extra manland which reduces the need to draw and resolve a Bitterblossom to win. Against Aggro it can trade with most of their creatures in a pinch and is a reasonable win condition if you are on too low life to cast Bitterblossom. Against combo it is a faster clock than Mutavault. In the mirror it can race their Bitterblossom. I would recommend 1-2 copies in every list unless you are running a full playset of Mistbind Clique and are going for a pure tempo build.
Sideboard Options:
The strength of the Extended Fae deck is mostly in its sideboard. Game 1 you are usually forced to play the Aggressive position against control and combo but Game 2 and 3 you are able to bring in incredible potent silver bullets which can take apart their game plan. Therefore your sideboard should be split into an anti-aggro section and an anti-control/combo section. As usual, the weight you give to each component depends on your metagame predictions.
The anti-aggro options include: Deathmark, Threads of Disloyalty, Damnation, Repeal and Darkblast.
The anti-control/combo options include: Damping Matrix, Extirpate, Leyline of the Void, Thoughtseize, Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Shadow of Doubt.
For discussion.