Mono Blue Faeries (Pauper)

Writeup by deleted user

With the release of MH1, we got a second playable 1 drop faerie in the form of Faerie Seer. Mono blue control has always been outshined by MUD, chiefly because they can match us in cards while presenting a large tempo advantage in the form of daze+delver. Now that daze is gone, there is a much better reason to play other strategies in U.

Gameplan:

Stick a few 1 drops early, counter everything you can, bounce what gets through, and counter it again. Your clock very quickly reaches 3-5 damage a turn over multiple bodies, which is plenty fast for a control deck, and also lets you sacrifice your value bodies to trade up into delvers or kor skyfishers.
Your main synergy packages come in the form of Spellstutter sprite, ninja of the deep hours, and snap. Being able to reuse a spellstutter once puts you way ahead, reusing it twice usually means you've stabilized. Weaving in one drops between counterspell/spellstutters is really where the decks power comes in.

Card choices:

​Pestermite is a star player in the delver matchup, but falls short in a lot of ways. He dies to electrickery, costs 3 mana (or 2 if hes just a 2/1 flying flash) and doesn't offer any tangible value on etb. That being said, he can kill creatures, trades with mulldrifter, and trades up when teaming with one of our one drops.
Quicksand is one of our ways to remove a creature on the field, and is especially good against other ninjas or letting our ninjas trade up with Palace Sentinels. The lack of a large blue requirement in the deck lets us get away with 3 of them, but otherwise we might put them in lower amounts.
Lonely sandbar is great in small amounts, especially in a deck that primarily functions at instant speed, because it lets us hold up mana and increases consistency. Control decks really benefit more from it than other archetypes.
Repulse is an odd choice, but its one I think really earns its place. Mono U can only deal with resolved permanents by putting it back and countering it on its way down, and repulse immensely helps in that regard while also never going down a card. Its a slow card for sure, which is why we have 3 of them.
​Snap is something most are familiar with. It plays two roles in the deck, the first one being a 0 mana unsummon, but the second being "flicker target spellstutter sprite" and the second mode is what really helps it to earn a slot.
Spire golem and Sentinels of Glen Elendra are the finishers of the deck, but also our biggest asset against faster decks. Spire golem can come down turn 3 and stone walls most creatures, and Sentinels can sometimes be a 4 mana removal spell. Most of the time, spire golem comes down for 0 or 1 mana so we're able to protect it and counter a spell in the same turn cycle.
Accumulated knowledge + Think Twice are both advantage cards, whos main purpose is to make sure we're able to use our mana each turn and also lets us incrementally grab card advantage.
Exclude is a good card when its good, and a very bad card otherwise. Most decks have a target for it, but in matchups like tron where you want to be able to counter two spells on their turn 4 and you're likely not able to spellstutter anything, Exclude burns in your hand. It can likely go up to 3 or 4, but being that the deck is only just beginning to breathe i've kept it conservative.

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Alternative card choices:

Bounce spells:
​Repeal lets you bounce any nonland, which can be useful when dealing with Curse of the pierced heart or boggle enchantments. Its best in metas where you're spending 2 or 3 for it, but its versatility doesn't carry it much more beyond that.
Into the roil isn't very good in this style of deck, because the Disperse mode is nearly unplayable for us. That being said, if there is a specific meta where removing a critical piece (tireless tribe, kiln fiend, ghostly flicker) is an equal portion to the grindy matchups (tron, tortex) then this card can be worth it in both modes enough to find room.
Vapor snag can be good, but in testing I've found that its really good at opening up the field for your ninjas but outside of that, the card loss isn't worth it.
Mistblade shinobi has actually proven to be decent, and the only reason im not running him is he further increases our vulnerability to Electrickery
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Counterspells:

If you really need another counterspell, Deprive is decent especially if you're using lonely sandbar or other utility lands. Other notable mentions are Mana leak and conditional counterspells such as Dispel, but the deck has an immense amount of countermagic already.

Utility spells:

Curfew does a lot of work for us, letting us pull back a fae and unsummoning something from our opponent, and also getting around hexproof.
Hydroblast, Dispel, Annul and others are self explanatory, and just give us an edge against appropriate decks.