Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

We are only three weeks into the Magic Origins season and a familiar trend is starting to emerge. Delver and Cloud of Faeries combo are winning far more than the other decks. After 15 events Delver has taken home almost one-fifth of all wins (from winning lists) while combo is not far behind at around 15%. Combined the decks that use Cloud of Faeries are taking home a plurality of wins. This is nothing new. Since the excision of Frantic Search Cloud of Faeries has been the singularly most broken card available in Pauper. And here is why.

In fair decks Cloud of Faeries is a 1/1 flyer for a nominal investment. Unless countered the creature will have a net cost of zero. So not only is there no mana to be wasted, but there is also no time spent. In most fair decks a 1/1 flyer for free would be well above the curve. Delver, however, is not most decks. While ostensibly fair (as in the deck does not try to do anything broken) the Cloud still enables a turn two Spellstutter Sprite without hindering offensive development. Alone this is not enough to end games but the pressure it exerts on other strategies is enormous. Decks have to take this into consideration and while this alone is not burdensome on the metagame it is severely limiting.



Esper



Delver

Simic

The ideal start - Delver of Secrets into Cloud of Faeries with Spellstutter Sprite backup- helps to slam the door in the first stages of the game. Remove Cloud of Faeries from the equation and replace it with a card like Zephyr Sprite or Faerie Miscreant and the opening remain strong but is hardly the soul crusher that starts with a five power air force that also stopped a turn two play. And that’s just the fair application.

In a combo deck Cloud of Faeries is quite a bit more dangerous. For those of you who have not heard my rant before, this is how the combo works:

1. Establish a land that can produce more than one mana - Dimir Aqueduct or a land enchanted with Fertile Ground.

2. Reduce of the cost of your spells. This can either be through cards like Sunscape Familiar or additional copies of Fertile Ground or Utopia Sprawl.

3. Cast Cloud of Faeries, untapping any two lands that produce more than one mana, while having a Mnemonic Wall in play.

4. Cast Ghostly Flicker targeting the Cloud of Faeries and Mnemonic Wall. At this point you will repeat this to generate mana, using it to cast card draw spells and find a kill condition.

5. Kill your opponent with effectively infinite Sage's Row Denizen triggers; an arbitrarily large Kaervek's Torch, or by repeatedly casting Ghostly Flicker on Bloodhunter Bat.

Cloud of Faeries is the fuel for the best combo decks in Pauper at the moment. Remove it from the format and this form of deck ceases to exist. The shell around the combo is robust, allowing slots to be dedicated to recouping lost pieces. Mnemonic Wall already is part of the core, so retrieving a spent Ghostly Flicker is easy. Reaping the Graves or Death Denied makes it rather simple to raise key pieces from the dead.

Cloud of Faeries combo is resilient, which is one reason it is so dangerous. Every card in the deck is either a combo piece or a way to find them. Since so many of the key elements are creatures - the easiest card type to manipulate in Pauper - it is rather easy for the deck to fight through hate.

I do not want this article to be a statement on Cloud of Faeries. To me the card is well above the average power level of a Pauper card and needs to be examined. Delver has been at or near the top of the standings for quite a long time, largely on the power enabled by Cloud of Faeries. Last season, despite Pauper adding Gut Shot (a strong answer to X/1 creatures), Esper Combo had one of its best eight week spans ever. And it does not seem to be slowing down, despite new tools.

Cloud of Faeries decks only suffer when there is an overabundance of hate. It is very easy to kill one flyer but the key is being able to remove the pesky creature while also applying pressure AND making sure recovery is difficult for the opponent. It is a challenge for any single deck and any single sideboard to accomplish this task. Rather the metagame itself must declare “we really hate Cloud of Faeries and we are not going to take it anymore” to have any impact. Let us examine some cards, both new and old that should be seeing more play due to their strength against tiny flying creatures.

Gut Shot

When Gut Shot was spoiled as a common in Modern Masters 2015 it was seen as a way for every deck to fight against Delver of Secrets and other small flying creatures. True to form this card has seen play in the sideboards of successful decks but it should be more prevalent.

No, not every deck is going to want Gut Shot. Mono-Black Control, with access to Disfigure and Snuff Out, will not get the same benefit from Gut Shot as White Weenie Tokens. At its best in decks that can apply pressure and just need to buy one more turn, Gut Shot should be seeing playing time becoming of such an all-star.

Aerial Volley

New to the scene, Aerial Volley takes the ability of Arc Lightning to kill three creatures and turns it into an instant. Far better against Delver where it can hit both sides of Delver of Secrets and its faerie friends. Aerial Volley retains utility against the combo Cloud of Faeries decks but only in the sense of buying time. Reaping the Graves makes relying on one Volley a risky proposition.

Like Gut Shot, Aerial Volley is best in a deck that can apply a significant amount of offense at all points in the game. Stompy jumps to mind as that deck can already potentially race combo, and this might just be enough to gain the precious seconds needed.

Plagued Rusalka

One of my favorite rarity shifts from Modern Masters 2015, Plagued Rusalka represents the ability to mow down quite a few creatures. Fume Spitter was a popular card for its ability to hit 1/1s as early as the first turn. Plagued Rusalka trades the ability to do its damage on the first turn for the chance to kill many more things. The key is to have an ample supply of mana and tokens to trade for small creatures.

So what is the best way to leverage this spirit? There I am less sure. Mogg War Marshal, Nest Invader, Brindle Shoat, and Butcher Ghoul all represent multiple activations. Grim Harvest or other cards represent the ability to repeat the process over and over. Unlike the previously listed cards, Plagued Rusalka is at its best in a slow deck that wants to grind out the game. Here the Rusalka is used to help keep to board under control to allow the rest of the deck to do its job.

Discard and graveyard removal are notably absent from this list. I think both are fine - Distress and Castigate do their job well - but neither class of cards is actually active. Instead these cards try to answer the threat of Cloud of Faeries, specifically combo, on an axis that given a long enough game the Cloud player can simply ignore. The deck is redundant enough that these sorcery speed effects eat up too much time without affecting the board. Compare this to the spells pointed out above. They are all instant speed and directly impact the board in some way, either by removing a piece or adding your own. The goal is to try and steal board position to shift enough time to the non-Cloud player to seal the deal. Removal can do this while discard and graveyard removal do not.

The presence of decks utilizing Cloud of Faeries has led to two different strategies experiencing a resurgence. Both Izzet Blitz and Affinity are surging up the standings largely on their ability to blank both Delver and Combo.

Affinity

Blitz



These decks are capable of dealing a ton of damage in a short window of time. To that end a prepared player must also pack answers for these decks. For me the best way to do this at the moment is Feed the Clan. The ability to gain 10 life, because let’s be real you will be ferocious at the time, can steal wins since often these decks will only be able to deal exactly lethal before leaving their own shields down.

What are your favorite metagame bullets for the current metagame? How do you fight Cloud of Faeries and its ripples? Sound off in the comments.

Keep slingin’ commons-

-Alex

SpikeBoyM on Magic Online

@nerdtothecore

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