Last Friday, Magic: The Gathering continued its recent tradition of overshadowing its own new releases by scheduling one of the biggest announcements we’ve ever seen on Spider Man release day. The set was already in trouble out in the community, but this move likely sealed its fate. That said, it’s not totally dead in the water just yet. Cards from Spider Man are slowly seeing play in more and more decks, including Dimir Faeries over in Pauper.
This is an archetype with a lot of history in the format. The new Spider Man cards take it in a bit of a new direction, however, bringing it more in line with the current metagame leaders. Spider Man has proven to be quite a strong set in Pauper so far. With this new take on Dimir Faeries, its hot streak continues.
Dimir Faeries Gets Some New Spider Man Cards
If you play Pauper at all, you’ve likely seen Dimir Faeries around. It’s nowhere near as popular as the Mono-Blue variant of the deck, but it’s still a solid meta deck at lower tiers. The list we’ll be looking at today comes via Barff, who took it to a 5-0 finish in today’s MTGO Pauper League.
The biggest innovations here are the two brand-new cards from Spider Man. Mob Lookout gets a full playset, which is wild considering it wasn’t really on anyone’s radar during previews. At minimum, it’s very likely a 1/4 body that loots on entry. That’s solid in Pauper, where small Aggro creatures are everywhere. You can hold off the likes of Voldaren Epicure and Goblin Tomb Raider easily with one of these.
Where it really shines, however, is in granting buffs to your other creatures. Dimir Faeries is full of Fliers, and the +1/+1 counter from Connive can make them serious threats. Whether it’s Spellstutter Sprite, or fellow Spider Man newcomer Swarm, Being of Bees, there’s no shortage of good targets for Connive in Dimir Faeries. The archetype has played The Modern Age in the past to similar ends, but the extra stats and body on Lookout makes it more desirable in the current speedy meta.
Speaking of Swarm, it’s the other big new Spider Man addition here. While Barff only runs a single copy, it’s a great fit in the deck. Discarding it to Lookout makes for a very tasty turn three, putting a whopping 3/6 in stats on the board. It’s also great to hold up alongside the deck’s many other instant-speed plays, even if you can’t use the Mayhem ability.
A New Discard Sub-Theme
These new Spider Man cards form part of a wider strategy in Barff’s version of Dimir Faeries. They’ve added a discard sub-theme here, which is very unusual for the deck. We’ve certainly seen players run the Sneaky Snacker/The Modern Age package in the past, but this version takes it even further.
Snacker itself is absolutely fantastic in Dimir Faeries. Not only is it a Faerie itself for Spellstutter Sprite, but it’s also very easy to reanimate thanks to all the draw power in the deck. Brainstorm does so single-handedly for one mana, and Ninja of the Deep Hours and Thorn of the Black Rose help a lot, too. With Mob Lookout, you also have a cheap way to loot it into the bin early.
What really brings this package together is Dihada’s Ploy. This is a mostly-forgotten Modern Horizons 2 card, but it does a ton of work here. For starters, it draws you enough cards to reanimate Sneaky Snacker on your own turn, which is great. It also lets you discard Snacker if you haven’t yet, or discard Swarm to cast it via Mayhem. What really pushes it over the edge is the fact that it has Jump-start, mind you. This gives you another discard outlet late in the game, and also makes the card a great discard target itself, since it works from the ‘yard.
This package blends perfectly with the tempo-driven playstyle of Dimir Faeries. Swarm and Lookout give the deck more ways to apply pressure, while the rest of the discard package helps out with resilience. While most lists try to go big with threats like Gurmag Angler, this one stays low and still manages to hold out nicely against removal.
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome
It’s always exciting to see new cards in established decks, especially when they usher in a wider change as they have here. The real question now is whether Dimir Faeries will continue to embrace the discard package going forward, or whether Barff’s result is just a flash in the pan.
Looking at the current metagame, the changes all seem very positive. The best decks at the moment, Mono-Blue Terror and Jund Wildfire, rely mainly on large ground threats to win. Bringing in Sneaky Snacker and Swarm as additional Fliers lets you race these decks effectively, while black’s removal options, Snuff Out in particular, deal with the problems. You’ll still find yourself outvalued in many games, but coming down on your cheaper Fliers like Faerie Seer is less important than value in these matchups.
The current Aggro decks in Pauper, Madness Burn and Mono-Red, are a bit trickier. Mob Lookout gives you a great early roadblock against them, but the rest of the new additions are a bit clunky in these matchups. Even with the extra lifegain, you’ll struggle to find a good time to fire off Dihada’s Ploy, for example. These are the games where the Gurmag Anglers Barff cut really come in handy, so it is a notable weakness of the new build.
That said, I think we still have more to see from this discard version of Dimir Faeries. Barff’s list didn’t go quite as all-in as it could’ve done, so there’s likely another version waiting in the future that could carve out a niche more effectively. For now, this is a very interesting experiment, but one unlikely to break into tier one.
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