(Zur the Enchanter | Art by Pete Venters)

The Enchanted World of Faeries

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Recross the Paths, the series that gives commanders a typal twist.

Today's commander is a creature that has got an enormous target on its head ever since it hit commander tables: Zur the Enchanter. As a matter of fact, almost everyone in the EDH community seems to have a traumatic Zur story to tell. Either because of a super early Necropotence hitting the battlefield, or because of the sheer amount of value it generates through multiple combat steps. As a consequence, my plan today is to give this commander a whole new look, using it as a tool to empower a pretty unexpected army: Faeries.

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Stage One: The Deck

Step One: Magical Powers

As mentioned before, today's deck tech will be a Faerie deck lead by Zur the Enchanter. In particular, I'll try to change the way in both this commander and this typal strategy are usually played.

Starting with the latter, a typical Faerie deck wants to play most of the game at instant speed. It uses counterspells and removal spells to control your opponents' board and features commanders such as Alela, Cunning Conqueror, which reward you for playing during other people's turns.

Nonetheless, I think there's a pretty different way to play this same typal strategy. A more aggressive gameplan, that revolves arround swarming the board with cheap evasive creatures that will keep on pressuring our opponents' life totals. For this reason, we run cards such as Faerie Dreamthief, Faerie Seer and Snaremaster Sprite, which are all one-mana creatures that come with an added benefit.

Moreover, we can count on a number of creatures that will grant additional effects to our Faeries. Obyra, Dreaming Duelist will slowly-but-steadily chip away opponents' life totals. Scion of Oona will pump our creatures while also protecting them from targeted removals or interaction. Lastly, Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor will add to their stats as well as rewarding us for playing more aggressively.

Regarding our more combat-centric gameplan, there are quite a few creatures that want us to follow this strategy. For example, Faerie Bladecrafter is the perfect tool to take advantage of early aggressions which later becomes troublesome to remove as well. Then, Nettling Nuisance will force our opponents to damage one another, which will add quickly to the life loss caused by our aggro plan. Lastly, Shadow Puppeteers is a late-game payoff that is capable of winning us the game out of nowhere with an unexpectedly large attack.

Step Two: Enchanting Spells

The second area in which this deck tries to differ from more traditional builds is the enchantment pool. In fact, it seems as if every single Zur deck is always tutoring for the same targets: either Necropotence, Rhystic Study or, if you are lucky enough, All That Glitters.

Anyhow, given the innovation that this build tries to bring about, none of these (extremely powerful) cards are present in the decklist, nor any similar card. Quite the opposite: Our Zur triggers are all aimed at tutoring anthem effects that will empower our faeries. For example, we want to easily get access to effects such as Favorable Winds, Rally the Ranks or Shared Triumph.

Obviously, we can get our hands on more powerful enchantments as well, like Flowering of the White Tree, which will pump our creatures as well as giving our commander some sort of protection. We can count on Etchings of the Chosen as well, which lets us sacrifice some expendable creatures to protect more important ones. Lastly, we can take advantage of Backgrounds as well, with cards such as Agent of the Shadow Thieves and Feywild Visitor synergizing perfectly with our commander attacking.

Step Three: Tactical Formation

There aren't really a lot of cards that explicitly care about Faeries (if not Faeries themselves), but this deck can really take advantage of a number of typal staples. For example, cards like Herald's Horn and Icon of Ancestry can really make a difference, given that we run 34 creatures that share the Faerie creature type. The high concentration of creatures with the same type also allows us to take full advantage of Roaming Throne, which can be a powerful value engine in conjunction with some of our creatures. On a sidenote, it can also name "Human" or "Wizard" to double up on Zur triggers.

Also, we get a few pieces to support our go-wide strategy. Feywild Caretaker introduces the Initiative into the game, rewarding us with additional Faeries if we are able to keep it. On the same note, Ancient Gold Dragon is able to spawn a huge number of creatures with each swing, adding on to the huge number we are already playing. Lastly, Coat of Arms works as the perfect glue, as it becomes more and more powerful as we flood the board.

Step Four: The Complete Decklist

Stage Two: The Data Room

We're on to the last part of this deck tech: the data room. Was this deck idea actually unique? Let's compare this list against both the average Zur and the average Ooze deck to see what we gained (and lost) in the process.

Step One: The Average Zur Deck

Zur the Enchanter is currently the 5^th most popular Esper commander, with 9863 decks registered on EDHREC. This also means that it is the 51^st most built general overall.

Of course, when approaching Zur as commander, enchantments are the name of the game, so let's see if anyone has ever been down the same road we are walking.

Clearly, nobody until now has ever showed interest in this kind of build. In particular, it is worth noticing how typal-matters cards such as Rally the Ranks and Radiant Destiny are at the bottom of the list. This shows us how Zur the Enchanter is not at all perceived as a typal commander. On the other hand, Bitterblossom is the only card that sees some kind of play. I guess it's mostly because of its status as a cheap enchantment that can provide attackers and/or blockers reliably.

Instead, the way to go with this commander seems to be the same through the years. People are just much more interested in tutoring enchantments such as Necropotence (present in 39% of the decks), Rhystic Study (present in 55% of the decks) and Mystic Remora (present in 42% of the decks).

Also, it is worth noticing that 24% of the Zur the Enchanter decks play all three of these cards. This means that basically one quarter of the lists led by this general revolve around the same three cards. While it is perfectly understandable to include these specific enchantments in your deck (as they are among the most powerful in the format), this decision also comes with a downside. In fact, as soon as the other players at the table realize that your are playing that Zur the Enchanter deck, you'll instantly get an enormous target on your head. All in all, you may be fine with it (as a high power level implies drawing the attention of all the players at the table), but it could could also create a bias in others' threat assessment. This means that, no matter what you do, the mere threat of being that deck will make them use a good portion of their resources against you.

Step Two: The Average Faerie Deck

The most popular Faerie commander is Alela, Cunning Conqueror, which has 6062 decks registered in EDHREC. This is pretty staggering, given that it was printed very recently. Also, this means that Faeries as a typal strategic have recently recieved newer creatures and spells to play with. So, let's see how popular the ones we play are in the context of maximum competition.

The graph represents the usage rate of 30 of the Faeries we run in today's list in Alela, Cunning Conqueror decks. The ones that don't appear are Alela, Cunning Conqueror herself and those that include white in their color identity (and, therefore, aren't playable in Alela, Cunning Conqueror decks). Moreover, the orange columns are the cards that are present in the Faerie-typal pre-constructed deck that came out with Wilds of Eldraine.

What's staggering to notice is that 17 out of the 30 cards taken in consideration (57%) were actually present in said Precon. On an even more surprising note, among the 10 most played ones, 8 of them were included in that list. This can lead us to two different conclusions. On one hand, it means that the newer creatures are powerful and players are willing to include them in their typal decks. Such cards are, for example, Obyra, Dreaming Duelist, Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor and Malleable Impostor.

On the other hand, such high inclusion rates signal a lack of innovation. In fact, we can notice how the absolute majority of Faerie decks are based on the Precon decks, with very few changes. The only cards that manage to break this core are Spellstutter Sprite and Faerie Mastermind, with the first being an extremely synergistic card and the latter a very powerful standalone card that also happens to be a Faerie. To find another creature not present in the pre-built deck, we have to look at Faerie Harbinger, which is present in less than half of the decks considered despite its positive synergy.

All in all, the picture is that of a typal strategy that's just undergone a renovation and just constructed a new central core. For this reason, there is pretty consistent group of solid-to-good cards that are present in almost every deck, with little room for innovation. These spots are represented by cards such as Talion, the Kindly Lord, Vendilion Clique and Mistbind Clique, which are all between 47% and 33% inclusion rate. They represent a small group of cards that are being considered and may end up replacing some of the cards considered fundamental now.

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Takeaways From Today's Article

• Zur the Enchanter can be played in a new and innovative way! Of course, most of the player will still build and expect those decks to be centred around the same powerful enchantments, but there is room for a different build. The ability to reliably get on the battlefield anthem effects is a sweet deal in typal decks, as it makes the whole aggro plan flow smoothly. In fact, there is no need to take the foot off the gas to set up and play those enchantments: we can get directly to the point in which our creatures hit like trucks.
• This idea seems to fit perfectly with an innovation regarding how Faeries decks are played. In fact, rather than being a control draw-go list that only plays during our opponents' turns, it can become an actual aggro deck. It can swarm the sky since the first turns and later use Zur the Enchanter to make sure each creature can deal significant damage.
• The only point in which there isn't really much room for innovation is the creature pool. In fact, Faeries have recently recieved a ton of attention, with both the main Wilds of Eldraine set and the commander preconstructed decks offering new tools to play with. This lead to a renovation of the usually played creatures which is still going on. For this reason, while there are some cards that may find a place in this new panorama, it is seems as if a new solid core is forming around the newly-printed Faeries. Hence, the only way to make something new out of this is to cooperate in the innovation, trying to see if some of these newer staples aren't actually so essential.

That’s all from me for the moment. I hope you enjoyed this deck tech, but now it’s on to you: what do you think of it? Would you have changed anything? Or there’s something you particularly liked? Most importantly, do you believe this was a true innovation? Let me know in the comments below!

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