When Bitterblossom was unbanned, many people thought that Faeries would become a huge player in Modern, much like it was in Standard and Extended before. The archetype never really took off, in large part because of the speed of Modern, as well as the presence of cards like Abrupt Decay and Lingering Souls. However, the format continues to develop and Faeries lists have become more refined, particularly by players like osmanozguney, and the format may not be far off from seeing a return of the Faeries deck.

Blue-Black Faeries - Modern | osmanozguney, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (11)
• 4 Spellstutter Sprite
• 3 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Mistbind Clique
• 2 Vendilion Clique

• Spells (26)
• 4 Ancestral Vision
• 4 Bitterblossom
• 4 Cryptic Command
• 4 Serum Visions
• 3 Collective Brutality
• 2 Remand
• 1 Doom Blade
• 1 Familiar's Ruse
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Smother
• 1 Victim of Night

• Lands (23)
• 4 Island
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Mutavault
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 3 Creeping Tar Pit
• 2 Watery Grave
• 1 Tectonic Edge

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Familiar's Ruse
• 2 Damnation
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 2 Ravenous Trap
• 2 Spreading Seas
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Thoughtseize

Buy This Deck

Faeries has picked up a couple of key cards in recent months. Ancestral Vision lets you play a midrange game much more confidently; just trading cards until your Ancestral Vision resolves so you can take over the game with Cryptic Command. The second change is Collective Brutality. This is critical because it gives you a way to interact more efficiently with the format. There are many decks, such as Infect, Burn, and Death's Shadow, against which you need to trade cards as quickly as possible or risk getting killed on turn three or four by the likes of Cranial Plating, Become Immense, or Temur Battle Rage.

Beyond that, the deck is largely what you’d expect. Spellstutter Sprite is still a superstar, allowing you to counter key spells like Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize, and Path to Exile with ease, and frequently letting you trade up for more powerful spells like Tarmogoyf and Arcbound Ravager. Particularly important in control mirrors is the fact that Spellstutter Sprite is a counterspell that doesn’t get hit by Dispel or Negate. In fact, the card is powerful enough that it’s worth playing a single copy of Familiar's Ruse so that you have opportunities to rebuy your Spellstutter Sprite in the late game.

Another key to this deck’s success in the current format is its ability to leverage spell-base graveyard disruption in conjunction with Snapcaster Mage to dismantle the dredge deck. With dredge being as popular as it is online, and with the decks being prepared for hate like Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace, the ability to use Surgical Extraction on key cards and then Snapcaster Mage it back later has the potential to be much more disruptive than having a turn or two of Rest in Peace. Similarly, Ravenous Trap can be cast on a key turn where your opponent goes for a huge Cathartic Reunion or Faithless Looting to buy you an extra turn or two to resolve your vision and find more hate.

As the format becomes more streamlined and low to the ground, this style of deck becomes more interesting, since you have a strong core in Collective Brutality, Ancestral Vision, and Spellstutter Sprite to take advantage of that type of metagame. Given that Modern appears to be headed in that direction, this is a deck I would keep my eyes on.