Dimir Faeries

Introduction

Dimir Faeries is a blue-black aggro-control deck: cheap fliers like Faerie Seer and Spellstutter Sprite that pay off as they enter, ninjas that swap in mid-attack to draw cards, and Counterspell, Snuff Out, and Cast Down to answer what the opponent tries in between. When the attack stalls, Baleful Strix, Cut Down, and Thorn of the Black Rose turn it into a control deck that grinds out the long game, until the small fliers finish it. It sits at 4.6% of the field, a steady presence rather than one of the most-played decks.

The deck has been a fixture of the Challenge Top 8s all summer. barff won the July 16 Pauper Challenge with a 9-0 run, Brvnx won the August 1 Challenge, and copies have kept placing near the top of the Challenge series since, including barff's 3rd-place finish on September 28. The September 7 legality of Baleful Strix and Cut Down handed the deck two of its best new cards, with the Strix explicitly flagged for close monitoring.

The deck beats many creature-based aggro decks that have to walk their cheap spells into the counters and trade their creatures into deathtouch blockers, and most ramp decks whose plan hinges on resolving a few expensive spells. It is favored against Blue Terror, Elves, Golgari Gardens, Madness Burn, and Flicker Tron, and slightly favored against Mono Red Madness and Gruul Ponza.

It struggles against control decks whose own card-draw engines outlast the counter suite once the game goes long, and against midrange decks whose cheap interaction lines up well against small fliers and whose threats dodge conditional removal. It is slightly unfavored against Jeskai Ephemerate, Familiars, and Dimir Control, and unfavored against Mono Blue Faeries, Grixis Affinity, Esper Affinity, White Aggro, and Gruul Ramp.

General Strategy

Dimir Faeries plays half of every turn cycle on the opponent's turn. You put a cheap flier on the table, pass with mana open, and let the opponent decide whether to run a spell into Counterspell or Spellstutter Sprite. If they cast nothing worth stopping, the same mana flashes in a Sprite or kills a creature with Cast Down at the end of their turn instead, and Snuff Out can do the same for 4 life and no mana at all while you control a Swamp. The fliers attack in between, and Ninja of the Deep Hours swaps in for an unblocked one to draw a card. The priority that decides most games is keeping mana open and keeping the attack step alive at the same time, because the deck's extra cards come from creatures connecting and from the enter triggers you get by recasting what the ninjas send home. Tapping out on your own turn for a creature the opponent can answer at leisure gives up both halves of that plan.

The engine is a loop of enter triggers. Faerie Seer scries two, Baleful Strix draws a card, Augur of Bolas digs for an instant or sorcery, and Spellstutter Sprite counters a spell, all the moment they land. Once that value is spent, the creature attacks, and if it goes unblocked you pay the ninjutsu cost of Ninja of the Deep Hours or Moon-Circuit Hacker to return it to hand and put the ninja onto the battlefield tapped and attacking in its place. The ninja connects and draws a card, and the returned creature gets recast for a fresh scry, draw, or counter. Every swap is therefore worth a card and a second trigger, and the fliers make it reliable because cheap ground blockers cannot stop them.

A typical game opens with Faerie Seer on the first land and an attack on the next turn, swapping the Seer for a ninja as soon as the ninjutsu mana is available while the Seer comes back to scry again. Baleful Strix joins a turn later and feeds the same swap, drawing a card every time it is recast. From there the deck holds up two mana every turn: and stop the spells that matter, and , often paid for with life off a Swamp-typed land rather than mana, removes the blockers that would shut the ninjas off. The close is pure combat: , , , , , and chip in a few points a turn while the opponent's hand empties into counters and removal.

The Cards

Spellstutter Sprite

The card the deck is named for. It flashes in and counters a spell whose mana value is no greater than the number of Faeries you control, and it counts itself, so a lone Sprite answers any one-mana spell and a Sprite with Faerie Seer on the table answers two-mana spells, which covers most of what gets cast in the first few turns of a Pauper game. The Faerie count is checked again when the trigger resolves, so a Seer dying in response to the trigger lets a two-mana spell through: protect the count until the counter has resolved. Once the trigger is spent the Sprite is the perfect creature to attack with and return by ninjutsu, because recasting it is another counter.

Faerie Seer

The one-mana flier that starts the whole plan: it attacks on the second turn, gets swapped out for a ninja, and comes back to scry again. It is also the second Faerie that stretches Spellstutter Sprite to two-mana spells, and its scry is the cheapest way to clean up the cards Brainstorm leaves on top. Treat it as a body you are happy to see die to removal, since every answer spent on it is one not spent on a ninja.

Baleful Strix

A flying, deathtouch artifact creature that draws a card as it enters, which makes it the best ninjutsu enabler in the deck (every recast is another card) and its best blocker, since deathtouch trades with nearly any ground attacker regardless of size. It wants black mana on the second turn, so it is the main reason to find a black source early. Its artifact type does expose it to artifact removal, a class of answer the rest of the creatures ignore apart from Mukotai Ambusher.

Augur of Bolas

Role Assignment

Dimir Faeries is an interactive and tempo-positive aggro-control deck that has medium inevitability: it generates card advantage through the attack step and the monarch, backed by raw draw spells like Lórien Revealed, and its interaction is dense and cheap (Counterspell, Spellstutter Sprite, Dispel, Snuff Out, Cast Down, Cut Down, Suffocating Fumes). Every matchup is fought on some mix of five axes: the stack fight, how the opponent's removal lines up against 1-toughness fliers, whether they can contest the attack step, who wins the long game of card flow, and how much your life total can be spent on Snuff Out and the monarch. Which of those axes dominates decides the role.

Vs. Aggro. Against aggressive creature decks you are the control. Their clock is faster than yours, their cheap damage-based removal trades up against your fliers, and the 4 life for Snuff Out plus the attacks the monarch invites are exactly the resources they want you to spend. Trade early and often: Cut Down on the first attacker, Baleful Strix drawing its card and then blocking with deathtouch, Suffocating Fumes on a board of small creatures, and Counterspell held for their payoff rather than their first creature. The play that defines the role is passing with two mana open and flashing Spellstutter Sprite onto a one-mana burn spell or creature on their turn; the ninjas and Thorn of the Black Rose wait until the board is stable.

Vs. Midrange. Against fair midrange decks the role is set by the attack step. If they cannot block fliers, you are the beatdown: swap ninjas in, draw ahead, and use the counters to protect the loop from their removal. If they have flying or reach blockers, the ninja draws dry up and you become the control, grinding with and on the blockers that matter and taking the monarch with once the crown can be held. The play that defines this matchup class is backed by a second Faerie countering the two-mana removal spell aimed at a ninja mid-combat, keeping both the creature and the card it was about to draw.

Play Patterns

Count Spellstutter Sprite toward its own counter: alone it stops a one-mana spell, and any second Faerie such as Faerie Seer stretches it to two-mana spells. The trigger counts Faeries you control with the Sprite already on the battlefield, so it is never dead against cheap spells, and Faerie Seer on the first turn is what makes the Sprite answer the two-mana plays that fill out the opponent's early turns. The two common errors are mirror images: waiting for a second Faerie before using it, which holds it too long, and aiming it at a bigger spell without one, which does nothing. When the opponent's turn passes with nothing worth countering, flash the Sprite in at their end step anyway: with two lands untapped and nothing on the stack, the trigger simply has no target, you untap with a flier ready to attack, and swapping it home with Ninja of the Deep Hours on the next attack puts the counter back in your hand for the next cheap spell.
Attack with the creature whose enter-the-battlefield value is already spent, and make that the body ninjutsu returns. The ninja's damage replaces the returned attacker's rather than adding to it, so the swap's real profit is the draw plus recasting Spellstutter Sprite or Faerie Seer later for a fresh counter or scry; bouncing a creature whose trigger you still want wastes the loop's whole point. With Baleful Strix already on the table from the turn before and a third land down, attack with the Strix, and once it is unblocked pay the single blue for Moon-Circuit Hacker's ninjutsu: the Strix returns to hand, the Hacker lands attacking and draws off the hit, and the two remaining lands recast the Strix after combat for a second draw, with both creatures on the board at the end of the turn.
Put a Swamp-typed land into play early (a basic Swamp or Contaminated Aquifer) so Snuff Out stays a no-mana kill while Counterspell stays open. Killing a creature for 4 life without tapping a land is how the deck answers two things in one turn, but that mode keys on controlling a Swamp rather than on producing black: makes black mana and still leaves you owing the full four-mana cost. And if the early lands all make only blue, the black in the printed cost is unpayable and cannot be cast at all. The deck also needs two untapped blue sources for on the second turn, so the Aquifer, which covers both colors and the Swamp type, is the land to play on turn one while it entering tapped costs nothing; fetching a basic Swamp and islandcycling for an Aquifer are the backups.

Black Sacrifice

Carrion Feeder - emblematic card for this matchup — Read the Black Sacrifice full guide →

Matchup - Even

The matchup is even, and it is a race they have to win early. Black Sacrifice is the beatdown: 76.7% of their nonland cards cost one mana, so they add one or two creatures a turn, faster than Counterspell and Spellstutter Sprite can answer them one at a time. Going first makes it worse, because they have a board before we can hold up two mana. We take the control role. Their individual cards are weak once Carrion Feeder and Mortician Beetle are gone, while our late draws are Lórien Revealed, ninja card draw and the monarch from Thorn of the Black Rose, so the long game leans our way. One handicap in Game 1: every creature card they play is black, so Snuff Out can only hit Squirrel and Mercenary tokens, and the early game rests on Spellstutter Sprite, Cut Down, Cast Down and Baleful Strix.

Spend Spellstutter Sprite and removal on the growth payoffs (Carrion Feeder, Mortician Beetle, Bloodthrone Vampire and whatever wears Sadistic Glee), not on fodder like Nested Shambler or Infestation Sage, whose deaths only hand them tokens. Spellstutter Sprite alone counters any of their one-mana cards, and a second Faerie stretches it to Bloodthrone Vampire, Rite of Consumption and Accursed Marauder. A creature countered this way never dies, so it leaves no token behind. Hold Counterspell for Rite of Consumption and Accursed Marauder instead of trading it for a one-drop. Hold Suffocating Fumes until Carrion Feeder and Bloodthrone Vampire are off the table. Every creature card they play has 1 toughness, and Nested Shambler dies at 0 power without making Squirrels, but with a free sacrifice outlet in play they sacrifice the doomed 1/1s in response and grow one creature out of range.

On the board, keep Baleful Strix and Augur of Bolas home as blockers: deathtouch kills a grown Carrion Feeder or pumped Bloodthrone Vampire no matter how big, and 3 toughness lets Augur of Bolas survive the -1/-1 from Shambling Ghast. Our fliers attack over a board that can't block them until Insect tokens from Infestation Sage show up. Once the board is under control, chip in with Faerie Seer and a Spellstutter Sprite whose counter is spent, and swap them for Ninja of the Deep Hours only when paying for ninjutsu doesn't cost us Counterspell on their turn. Thorn of the Black Rose waits for a controlled board too, because a single creature connecting takes the monarch and its extra cards.

Key Threats

Carrion Feeder is the first target for Cut Down, Cast Down or a Spellstutter Sprite while it is on the stack. It is their main attacker and a free sacrifice outlet, so while it lives, any removal spell or sweeper aimed at their other creatures lets them sacrifice those creatures to grow it instead. Leave it alive next to spare fodder and every answer we cast becomes counters on it, until it is too big for Cut Down and becomes the creature they sacrifice to Rite of Consumption. Cut Down is an early play for the same reason. Once they have fodder to spare, one sacrifice to Bloodthrone Vampire, or two to Carrion Feeder or Mortician Beetle, pushes the target past a total power and toughness of 5, and from then on the payoff takes Cast Down.

Shambling Ghast shows up in most lists. Next to a free outlet like Carrion Feeder or Bloodthrone Vampire, its death trigger is a -1/-1 they can fire whenever they choose. It kills Spellstutter Sprite, Baleful Strix, Faerie Seer or Moon-Circuit Hacker at any point in combat. Do not attack with a lone 1-toughness flier into Shambling Ghast plus an outlet while planning on ninjutsu: they sacrifice it before blockers to kill the flier, and there is nothing unblocked to return. Baleful Strix dies to the trigger as well, but by then it has already drawn its card.

Rite of Consumption is their finisher against our slow flier clock. If a grown Carrion Feeder or pumped Bloodthrone Vampire survives combat, they sacrifice it in the second main phase, drain its full power from us and gain that much life, swinging both life totals at once. Kill the big creature during combat, or stop the spell itself with Counterspell or a Spellstutter Sprite backed by a second Faerie. The sacrifice is paid as the spell is cast, so countering it costs them both the creature and the drain.

Accursed Marauder is in many main decks. Every creature we play is a nontoken creature, so its edict always takes one of ours, and both sacrifices grow Mortician Beetle if it is in play. Do not tap out with a single creature on the table: the edict takes it, and Unearth can bring Accursed Marauder back to do it again. With a second creature out we at least choose which one goes. Better still, Counterspell or a Spellstutter Sprite with a second Faerie stops the spell before the trigger exists.

Sideboard Plan

In:

2 Arms of Hadar
2 Relic of Progenitus

Out:

4 Snuff Out

Arms of Hadar comes in because all of Black Sacrifice's creature cards have 1 toughness. Its one-sided -2/-2 wipes their board, kills a Carrion Feeder or Mortician Beetle carrying a single counter, and makes Nested Shambler die at negative power with no Squirrels.

Relic of Progenitus answers Unearth and the return from Supernatural Stamina, both of which bring creatures back from their graveyard. It also stops Unearth from returning Accursed Marauder for a second edict, and it draws a card when cracked.

Snuff Out goes out: every creature card in their deck is black, so it can only hit Squirrel and Mercenary tokens. Cast Down and Cut Down have no color restriction and stay in.

Sideboarding moves this matchup moderately toward us. Four blank cards turn into a one-sided sweep and graveyard control, while their additions bring more removal for our creatures without fixing how they run out of cards in a long game.

Post-board Strategy

Four blank Snuff Out become two Arms of Hadar and two Relic of Progenitus, so we gain a one-sided sweep for their 1-toughness board while they add removal aimed at our fliers. The order of our answers matters more than before. Spend spot removal or Spellstutter Sprite on Carrion Feeder and Bloodthrone Vampire first, then cast Arms of Hadar into a board with no free outlet left, so they can't sacrifice the doomed creatures in response to grow one out of range. What survives is little beyond the Insect and Mercenary tokens their death triggers create. That cleared board is the window for Thorn of the Black Rose, whose monarch then pulls us ahead on cards.

Relic of Progenitus waits on the table, with one mana available, until Unearth or a Supernatural Stamina return trigger is on the stack. Crack it in response to exile the creature card before it comes back. Emptying their graveyard also takes away the black cards Spinning Darkness exiles for its free cost.

Much of their added removal only hits nonblack creatures. Extra Snuff Out and, in some lists, Spinning Darkness can't target Baleful Strix, Thorn of the Black Rose or Mukotai Ambusher, and Dispel gains both of those spells and Tragic Slip as targets.

Tragic Slip comes out of nearly every sideboard. A free sacrifice turns on morbid, so it kills Thorn of the Black Rose, Augur of Bolas or a ninja as easily as a 1-toughness flier. Once morbid is on, neither 3 toughness nor being black protects a creature from it.
Counter Mesmeric Fiend on the stack, which a Spellstutter Sprite with a second Faerie does. It comes for a Counterspell or a Spellstutter Sprite we are holding, and with a free outlet they sacrifice it while its enters trigger is on the stack, so the card it takes stays exiled.
More copies of Accursed Marauder mean more edicts, so the rule against tapping out with one creature in play gets stricter.
If Drown in Sorrow shows up, save a Counterspell for it. It kills everything we have except Augur of Bolas and Thorn of the Black Rose, while their death triggers rebuild with Insect and Mercenary tokens afterward.
Some lists bring Mutagenic Growth. Cast in response to Cut Down, it lifts a 1/1 to a total of 6 and out of range, and it saves one creature from Suffocating Fumes or Arms of Hadar. Cast Down is the answer it can't stop.