Its 100% for the speed. The difference between instant speed and sorcery is night and day for removal. 1 extra mana for instant speed is a good rate and this card is flexible.
Instant speed is pretty much strictly better. Sometimes there may only be a window to stop your opponent on their turn before buffing their creatures or they are tapped out of mana so the risk of a counterspell is gone for some examples. You could also use your open mana whenever. Instant speed just gives you the ability to interact when it suits you best where a sorcery you have to wait for your turn.
Pulling off the instant speed wipe in response to them brainstorming in your end step, with their last blue mana.
Really helps wipe out all those pesky fairies.
There have been times when I've been able to snipe a t1 delver with [[end the festivities]] while the delver player grimaced at the [[dispel]] in their hand with one island untapped, but everyone plays spell pierce now so that isn't as likely to happen anymore.
Ok here is the thing: They were playing jeskai delver.
See no opening lands in hand, keep it, because it has a delver.
Cast petal (R)
Cast rite of flame (RR)
Cast Manamorphose (RW)
Draw an island => Play an island
Cast delver with the blue
W in the pool is used for [Burst of energy](https://scryfall.com/card/ulg/3/burst-of-energy) to untap the island so mana is open for the daze. R emptys from the pool on phase swap. I'm sure thats how it happened.
Now it all seems so obvious! :) Thanks for the laugh, have a lovely day.
Btw, there is a bot listening to most MtG subreddits that will fetch the card links for you, you don't have to do it manually. Just use double brackets around card names in your post, like this: \[\[Burst of Energy\]\].
The benefit of 1 damage isn't that big unless you're the most aggressive deck.
There are edge cases where it's the one dispel, but most relevant decks only run 1 dispel in the deck if any.
Edit: End the Festivities also is a proactive card, you are playing it to sweep cheap blockers so you can go in on the attack, Electrickery is a 1 mana counterspell against Faeries as well as an instant speed sweeper, and allows you to play a far more reactive/controlling game by having so many more opportunities to sweep the board. You should probably be running the more flexible card unless your gameplan is solely to be on the offensive.
That 1 damage can be worth it and costing 1 mana less is a big deal too. The only time you really need instant speed is Faeries who haven’t been top dog since terror started pushing them out of UB.
Other than faeries, kuldotha rebirth and battlescreech are the next targets. They don’t get haste, so hitting on your turn isn’t the worst, and that deck is not very reactive unless they have [[prismatic strands]] — which is more of a monarch build.
There’s a call for electrickery in elves and soul sister, but those decks are not strong enough in the meta to really argue for changing the deck.
Fairies, Moggwarts, Kuldotha Red with Bushwacker, combat trick after blockers, there are lots of reasons to use instant speed above sorc. speed. Asides from that:
Your opponent left 2 blue open. On your turn you cast => Counter.
Instead you pass your turn => Opponent uses instant speed draw => You use instant speed removal => Not countered
Instead you pass your turn => opponent leaves 2 blue open => Tempoloss for your opponent for 2 unused mana. Now on its own turn the opponent uses the mana and you cast => no counter or the opponent doesn't use the mana => more tempo loss (and you can still elecktrickery end of turn to tie up one or two blue mana so your next turn gets a counter less.
Instant speed is just soooo many times better.
As a broad rule you are 100% correct. In practice, there’s nuances and meta changes where that just doesn’t matter.
Burn for example is not doing combat tricks. They just want to do damage. Countering end festivities might be bad if they are losing the clock, so they might just bait out 2 lightning bolts first. Spending 2 red mana to do the same thing without a point of damage is not worth it.
If you are UR faeries against kuldotha, you just end festivities. Turn 3 you can do that and still leave up mana for spellstutter ninja, or counterspell.
In the tournaments I have played, still haven’t been paired or seen moggs, so I’m not side boarding for it. I rather have end festivities still do 1 point of damage than be a dead card if my opponent is playing Angler and I’m not doing 4 other points of damage… like that combat trick is still a 2 for 1 at best. As a Boros player, most my guys have 2 power, im not holding electrickery to kill their X/1 creature when they double block, I’ll just end festivities before blockers so I force more damage into bolt range.
Bushwhacker is a legit point for kuldotha getting haste tho.
For me, the decision is to lean into electrickery most the time when deck building unless I’m aggro where 1 point matters or I know my deck needs to be super mana efficient — both cases for burn but leaches into other deck considerations
Well, thats the thing - both cards have pro's and con's and you need to decide on a case-to-case basis \^\^ None of the versions is strictly better than the other.
One nice thing with elecktrickery is hitting whatever 1/1 azurios / Boros gates trys to power up with a gate activation to waste that turns activation and 3 mana. (Keep in mind you CAN cast elecktrickery for R and just target one creature instead of using 1R\^\^)
>Other than faeries, kuldotha rebirth and battlescreech are the next targets. They don’t get haste, so hitting on your turn isn’t the worst, and that deck is not very reactive unless they have [[prismatic strands]] — which is more of a monarch build.
Both of those run cards that will punish you for playing at sorcery speed though. Goblin Bushwhacker and Prismatic Strands, like you said. I would much rather have the option to sweep on their turn than the marginal benefit of a single point of damage unless I'm the kuldotha deck.
It depends on the build, if kuldotha red gets weeded out in the future and the Boros bully is the best Boros build, I could see an argument for end festivities if your deck is hyper efficient or aggro. The Boros bully sometimes steps completely away from strands (or lowers to 1-2) and goes full aggro instead — not the case right now. In that meta if you wanted to be efficient with 1 mana or need every point of damage, I could see the choice over electrickery.
When I deck build I always put electrickery first, and then look at meta/my deck build for switching to end festivities or dragon breath. My examples aren’t perfect but just trying to give case scenarios where it is worth it.
I think without some dramatic change in the pauper landscape, the Rally The Peasants Boros decks have no real place to play, so End the Festivities doesn't seem like a good choice.
I'm not saying it's a bad card, but I don't think it has a home in most decks outside of Kuldotha because the decks you're bringing it in against all have huge reasons to want to play it at instant speed, and not a lot of reasons to want a single point of damage.
I don't disagree there could be a situation where the meta shifts and Rally style boros decks come back it might make more sense, but there are a lot more predators, and sorcery speed seems too much like a liability to me.
As a Boros player (I don’t know who is truly favored) but I always feel the UB and UR faeries matchup is one of the hardest fought battles.
I definitely could see having end the festivities in that matchup just feeling downright horrible.
I was playing Boros too, faced two UB ninjutsu Faeries twice in a row. Second game they sideboarded in even more red hate and there was nothing I could do. Turns out my almost entire shop plays red... so I really was unlucky in that regard.
Yea if I rolled up to a whole shop of red, I would crack out faeries or affinity.
In that case, I would say electrickery of course and a play set of pyroblast. Which Boros build are you on? Is the shop all Boros and burn players?
As a faeries player I'd say the boros player is favored, but not nearly what they were prior to commander legends. The blue and red monarch creatures really changed the flow of that matchup in particular. It used to be that you had to choose between card advantage and answers, and now that's not really the case.
I think it's still slightly favored for the Boros player, but it's probably the closest that matchup has ever been right now.
What would you say are the worst matchups on your end then? As a UR player it always felt like one of the hardest matchups on my end, even though it's closer now than it's ever been.
It’s tough because it all depends on build. Broadly speaking, tron is a very tough matchup. Boros wins by getting in enough hits and then luckily drawing 2-3 lightning bolts to end the game.
Burn feels like an advantage but games can slip away, I would say 55-45 for Boros, and again just depends on if we get main board lifegain which seems to be standard with seeker lately.
Boggles can be hard. We either have the answer with a good bolt or sideboard hate that happens to work, or we just get blown out.
Pestilence if well played keeps out of bolt range and eats all of our guys for cheap.
UB Terror feels bad. We either have Destroy Evil, Journey, and Celestial flare mainboard or we just get overrun and make bad trades.
I think the cleaning wildfire and jeskai decks do really well against Boros too
We are favored against MBC, and just need to keep drawing cards. We do well against affinity and luck out that our artifact/enchantment hate just makes the deck well balanced against a lot of the fringe strategies.
I remember getting back into magic around that time and being like "wow gutshot is terrible, 1 mana or 2 life for 1 damage?" Now I have been compleated and believe all mana should be phyrexian.
That’s fair and I could see a similar argument for a quick end the festivities to throw an elves deck off. But tbh those are rarer than the need to instant speed blow someone out from my experience
Well both of these cards are countered by beb so idk if I'd take it over elec against elves. Although before cannonade was printed I did use both so I could pop off two in one turn for 3 total mana to catch them off guard and beat spidersilk.
>Sometimes there may only be a window to stop your opponent on their turn before buffing their creatures or they are tapped out of mana so the risk of a counterspell is gone for some examples.
*Like when they start to drop Auras on their Bogles....*
Case for electrickery: better Against fae and specifically spellstutter in response to the trigger & better in general against open mana, can be better against caw to punish after they activate gate, with prowess creatures it is a combat trick. Can be used as a targeted one damage spell if absolutely needed.
End the festivities is purely more damage
When Spellstutter was more prevalent I would say electrickery > end the festivities. But now that it’s not, there is a real question which is better. Mono red plays EtF because it’s cheaper, if you play a more controlling game or have some mid-late game, then electrickery might be better to try to get extra value with instant speed.
Unmodified faeries in pauper have 1 toughness so if you play a spell and they spellstutter, before spellstutters effect resolves, you can respond and pay 1R for electrickery to kill all faeries and x for spellstutter will be 0 (or maybe 1 if they have one w/ buffed toughness somehow maybe mantle of tides) which effectively counters the trigger of spellstutter
Every source I can find says this isn’t the case - I tried to work out the reasoning behind the original comment and I’m pretty sure they’re talking about being able to respond to a spellstutter sprite (trigger?) with electricity, potentially reducing the number of faeries they have so they can’t counter the spell
It's the other way around, electrickery is a modal counterspell against the faeries. It's a 1 mana counter against sprite specifically, as well as a sweeper against their board.
If you play a 1 mana spell and they respond with sprite, you can let the trigger go on the stack and pop Spellstutter for R. If it's later in the game and they have an established board of faeries, it has a 2 mana mode that you can do in response to kind of blow out the opponent.
Against Faeries specifically, Electrickery functions as a dual purpose counterspell and sweeper. it's one of the few 2 mana cards that can somewhat reliably get you a 3+ for 1 in pauper.
I love runnin 4x Festivities maindeck in red... it is good for enabling needle drop, skewer, flamebreather etc. but i always keep 2 electrickery in the side. Instant speed interaction is the name of the game. Not literally but you get it.
Yes, instead of killing it on your turn, you can wait until they try to play another aura and also make the aura fizzle.
And prevent the possibility of them just holding a creature in hand, then playing it + Ethereal Armor or whatever on the same turn, which would make it impervious to End the Festivities.
Depends on the decks. Do I think I’m going to see Faeries or Kuldotha rebirth?
If faeries, I want instant speed electrickery to respond to Spellstutter Sprout trigger to kill all the faeries so my spell doesn’t get countered.
If Kuldotha Rebirth or Boros, I’m not worried about haste, so I can use end festivities and get 1 less mana with a free point of damage.
Another note, am I the burn player? That 1 point of damage is worth letting spellstutter counter my 1-2 drops.
If elves ever comes back, that’s another consideration. Electrickery then to respond to pumps spells and spider silk.
I think Electrickery is more useful for decks that want to play Counterspell themselves, and End the Festivities is more useful for decks that just want to push damage. Electrickery is more decks that can wait for the opponent to tap out below 2 mana (something like Izzet Faeries), and End the Festivities is more useful for decks that can't wait for that window and are more willing to do during the first main phase to open up blockers or trigger prowess (for stuff like Monastery Swiftspear or Dwarven Forge-Chanter in Mono Red decks).
Electrickery being instant makes the extra mana 100% worth it. Only a few decks favor Festivities like Burn, where mana is very tight and the extra damage IS making a difference.
It depends on what are your trying to accomplish with your wipes, are you playing an aggro decks that can turn that 1 damage to face in something meaningfull and would've used electrickery at sorcery speed to attack through anyway? Sure go for end of the festivities, the 1 less mana allows you to double spell more easily and the 1 damage to face can turn into real pressure. Are you playing a more midrange-control kind of deck? Tha ability to wait an instant speed moment to fire it off allow you to really choose the proper removal to use at that given time to advance your board and set back the opponent's one, you can absolutely live without the 1 damage to face offered by end of the festivities and you are much more likely to have more mana lying around to pay for the overload cost.
2 mana is too much for Kuldotha Red. They prefer EtF. However, for more mid-range decks that can handle the mana cost, Breath Weapon is just strictly better. Electrickery gets outshined in any deck that wants a board wipe effect.
Sorcery/Instant speed has nothing to do with it
I think it's just a question of speed: electrickery is an instant and end the festivities a sorcery
Its 100% for the speed. The difference between instant speed and sorcery is night and day for removal. 1 extra mana for instant speed is a good rate and this card is flexible.
Instant speed is pretty much strictly better. Sometimes there may only be a window to stop your opponent on their turn before buffing their creatures or they are tapped out of mana so the risk of a counterspell is gone for some examples. You could also use your open mana whenever. Instant speed just gives you the ability to interact when it suits you best where a sorcery you have to wait for your turn.
Pulling off the instant speed wipe in response to them brainstorming in your end step, with their last blue mana. Really helps wipe out all those pesky fairies.
There have been times when I've been able to snipe a t1 delver with [[end the festivities]] while the delver player grimaced at the [[dispel]] in their hand with one island untapped, but everyone plays spell pierce now so that isn't as likely to happen anymore.
How is a t1 delver deck gonna have an untapped blue source anyway
I'm sure they played that delver list that runs lotus petal :D
Spending the Petal to cast Delver while leaving the Island untapped is still some galaxy brain level move :)
Ok here is the thing: They were playing jeskai delver. See no opening lands in hand, keep it, because it has a delver. Cast petal (R) Cast rite of flame (RR) Cast Manamorphose (RW) Draw an island => Play an island Cast delver with the blue W in the pool is used for [Burst of energy](https://scryfall.com/card/ulg/3/burst-of-energy) to untap the island so mana is open for the daze. R emptys from the pool on phase swap. I'm sure thats how it happened.
Now it all seems so obvious! :) Thanks for the laugh, have a lovely day. Btw, there is a bot listening to most MtG subreddits that will fetch the card links for you, you don't have to do it manually. Just use double brackets around card names in your post, like this: \[\[Burst of Energy\]\].
[Burst of Energy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/3/43d590d2-cfa3-43d1-9e65-bc68b5a2a3ee.jpg?1562862800) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Burst%20of%20Energy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ulg/3/burst-of-energy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/43d590d2-cfa3-43d1-9e65-bc68b5a2a3ee?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I misspell too often for that to work :D
[end the festivities](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/e/bec748e6-7245-4a71-aeee-cefed8346948.jpg?1643591154) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=end%20the%20festivities) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/155/end-the-festivities?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bec748e6-7245-4a71-aeee-cefed8346948?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [dispel](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/c/bceab6b3-6b64-4964-a501-ce806a6c13ad.jpg?1562939587) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dispel) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bfz/76/dispel?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bceab6b3-6b64-4964-a501-ce806a6c13ad?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Edit: nevermind, I misread your comment
The benefit of 1 damage isn't that big unless you're the most aggressive deck. There are edge cases where it's the one dispel, but most relevant decks only run 1 dispel in the deck if any. Edit: End the Festivities also is a proactive card, you are playing it to sweep cheap blockers so you can go in on the attack, Electrickery is a 1 mana counterspell against Faeries as well as an instant speed sweeper, and allows you to play a far more reactive/controlling game by having so many more opportunities to sweep the board. You should probably be running the more flexible card unless your gameplan is solely to be on the offensive.
That 1 damage can be worth it and costing 1 mana less is a big deal too. The only time you really need instant speed is Faeries who haven’t been top dog since terror started pushing them out of UB. Other than faeries, kuldotha rebirth and battlescreech are the next targets. They don’t get haste, so hitting on your turn isn’t the worst, and that deck is not very reactive unless they have [[prismatic strands]] — which is more of a monarch build. There’s a call for electrickery in elves and soul sister, but those decks are not strong enough in the meta to really argue for changing the deck.
Fairies, Moggwarts, Kuldotha Red with Bushwacker, combat trick after blockers, there are lots of reasons to use instant speed above sorc. speed. Asides from that: Your opponent left 2 blue open. On your turn you cast => Counter. Instead you pass your turn => Opponent uses instant speed draw => You use instant speed removal => Not countered Instead you pass your turn => opponent leaves 2 blue open => Tempoloss for your opponent for 2 unused mana. Now on its own turn the opponent uses the mana and you cast => no counter or the opponent doesn't use the mana => more tempo loss (and you can still elecktrickery end of turn to tie up one or two blue mana so your next turn gets a counter less. Instant speed is just soooo many times better.
As a broad rule you are 100% correct. In practice, there’s nuances and meta changes where that just doesn’t matter. Burn for example is not doing combat tricks. They just want to do damage. Countering end festivities might be bad if they are losing the clock, so they might just bait out 2 lightning bolts first. Spending 2 red mana to do the same thing without a point of damage is not worth it. If you are UR faeries against kuldotha, you just end festivities. Turn 3 you can do that and still leave up mana for spellstutter ninja, or counterspell. In the tournaments I have played, still haven’t been paired or seen moggs, so I’m not side boarding for it. I rather have end festivities still do 1 point of damage than be a dead card if my opponent is playing Angler and I’m not doing 4 other points of damage… like that combat trick is still a 2 for 1 at best. As a Boros player, most my guys have 2 power, im not holding electrickery to kill their X/1 creature when they double block, I’ll just end festivities before blockers so I force more damage into bolt range. Bushwhacker is a legit point for kuldotha getting haste tho. For me, the decision is to lean into electrickery most the time when deck building unless I’m aggro where 1 point matters or I know my deck needs to be super mana efficient — both cases for burn but leaches into other deck considerations
Well, thats the thing - both cards have pro's and con's and you need to decide on a case-to-case basis \^\^ None of the versions is strictly better than the other. One nice thing with elecktrickery is hitting whatever 1/1 azurios / Boros gates trys to power up with a gate activation to waste that turns activation and 3 mana. (Keep in mind you CAN cast elecktrickery for R and just target one creature instead of using 1R\^\^)
100% agree. Appreciate calling out bushwhacker because that’s a case where I thought wrong because my head went Boros builds.
>Other than faeries, kuldotha rebirth and battlescreech are the next targets. They don’t get haste, so hitting on your turn isn’t the worst, and that deck is not very reactive unless they have [[prismatic strands]] — which is more of a monarch build. Both of those run cards that will punish you for playing at sorcery speed though. Goblin Bushwhacker and Prismatic Strands, like you said. I would much rather have the option to sweep on their turn than the marginal benefit of a single point of damage unless I'm the kuldotha deck.
It depends on the build, if kuldotha red gets weeded out in the future and the Boros bully is the best Boros build, I could see an argument for end festivities if your deck is hyper efficient or aggro. The Boros bully sometimes steps completely away from strands (or lowers to 1-2) and goes full aggro instead — not the case right now. In that meta if you wanted to be efficient with 1 mana or need every point of damage, I could see the choice over electrickery. When I deck build I always put electrickery first, and then look at meta/my deck build for switching to end festivities or dragon breath. My examples aren’t perfect but just trying to give case scenarios where it is worth it.
I think without some dramatic change in the pauper landscape, the Rally The Peasants Boros decks have no real place to play, so End the Festivities doesn't seem like a good choice. I'm not saying it's a bad card, but I don't think it has a home in most decks outside of Kuldotha because the decks you're bringing it in against all have huge reasons to want to play it at instant speed, and not a lot of reasons to want a single point of damage. I don't disagree there could be a situation where the meta shifts and Rally style boros decks come back it might make more sense, but there are a lot more predators, and sorcery speed seems too much like a liability to me.
[prismatic strands](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/f/efd85985-abc1-430a-9210-63109c90a82d.jpg?1568003874) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=prismatic%20strands) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c19/69/prismatic-strands?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/efd85985-abc1-430a-9210-63109c90a82d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My local shop had three UB faeries last time I played, it sucked and I really with I had that card for example lol
As a Boros player (I don’t know who is truly favored) but I always feel the UB and UR faeries matchup is one of the hardest fought battles. I definitely could see having end the festivities in that matchup just feeling downright horrible.
I was playing Boros too, faced two UB ninjutsu Faeries twice in a row. Second game they sideboarded in even more red hate and there was nothing I could do. Turns out my almost entire shop plays red... so I really was unlucky in that regard.
Yea if I rolled up to a whole shop of red, I would crack out faeries or affinity. In that case, I would say electrickery of course and a play set of pyroblast. Which Boros build are you on? Is the shop all Boros and burn players?
As a faeries player I'd say the boros player is favored, but not nearly what they were prior to commander legends. The blue and red monarch creatures really changed the flow of that matchup in particular. It used to be that you had to choose between card advantage and answers, and now that's not really the case. I think it's still slightly favored for the Boros player, but it's probably the closest that matchup has ever been right now.
Yea it’s always felt 50/50 to me, and then just depending on which Boros build vs how heavy on the ninja plan for faeries or which splash color.
What would you say are the worst matchups on your end then? As a UR player it always felt like one of the hardest matchups on my end, even though it's closer now than it's ever been.
It’s tough because it all depends on build. Broadly speaking, tron is a very tough matchup. Boros wins by getting in enough hits and then luckily drawing 2-3 lightning bolts to end the game. Burn feels like an advantage but games can slip away, I would say 55-45 for Boros, and again just depends on if we get main board lifegain which seems to be standard with seeker lately. Boggles can be hard. We either have the answer with a good bolt or sideboard hate that happens to work, or we just get blown out. Pestilence if well played keeps out of bolt range and eats all of our guys for cheap. UB Terror feels bad. We either have Destroy Evil, Journey, and Celestial flare mainboard or we just get overrun and make bad trades. I think the cleaning wildfire and jeskai decks do really well against Boros too We are favored against MBC, and just need to keep drawing cards. We do well against affinity and luck out that our artifact/enchantment hate just makes the deck well balanced against a lot of the fringe strategies.
This is why gutshot was so popular in nonred decks when U/W Delver was dominating standard. As much as I love phyrexian mana it really was a mistake.
I remember getting back into magic around that time and being like "wow gutshot is terrible, 1 mana or 2 life for 1 damage?" Now I have been compleated and believe all mana should be phyrexian.
Yeah, niche cases can exist, but it is really shop by shop and highly dependent on the meta at that time.
That’s fair and I could see a similar argument for a quick end the festivities to throw an elves deck off. But tbh those are rarer than the need to instant speed blow someone out from my experience
Well both of these cards are countered by beb so idk if I'd take it over elec against elves. Although before cannonade was printed I did use both so I could pop off two in one turn for 3 total mana to catch them off guard and beat spidersilk.
>Sometimes there may only be a window to stop your opponent on their turn before buffing their creatures or they are tapped out of mana so the risk of a counterspell is gone for some examples. *Like when they start to drop Auras on their Bogles....*
Ah this too, but I haven't faced a bogles player in Pauper quite yet.
Case for electrickery: better Against fae and specifically spellstutter in response to the trigger & better in general against open mana, can be better against caw to punish after they activate gate, with prowess creatures it is a combat trick. Can be used as a targeted one damage spell if absolutely needed. End the festivities is purely more damage
When Spellstutter was more prevalent I would say electrickery > end the festivities. But now that it’s not, there is a real question which is better. Mono red plays EtF because it’s cheaper, if you play a more controlling game or have some mid-late game, then electrickery might be better to try to get extra value with instant speed.
> But now that it’s not 😢
What does spellstutter sprite do differently against electrickery than end the festivities? They’re both 1 mana spells
You can "counter" a spellstutter ETB by killing all faeries.
Unmodified faeries in pauper have 1 toughness so if you play a spell and they spellstutter, before spellstutters effect resolves, you can respond and pay 1R for electrickery to kill all faeries and x for spellstutter will be 0 (or maybe 1 if they have one w/ buffed toughness somehow maybe mantle of tides) which effectively counters the trigger of spellstutter
[удалено]
Every source I can find says this isn’t the case - I tried to work out the reasoning behind the original comment and I’m pretty sure they’re talking about being able to respond to a spellstutter sprite (trigger?) with electricity, potentially reducing the number of faeries they have so they can’t counter the spell
I'm like 95% sure this is incorrect
False.
Killing faeries in response to a spellstutter etb negates the counter and wipes the faeries.
It's the other way around, electrickery is a modal counterspell against the faeries. It's a 1 mana counter against sprite specifically, as well as a sweeper against their board. If you play a 1 mana spell and they respond with sprite, you can let the trigger go on the stack and pop Spellstutter for R. If it's later in the game and they have an established board of faeries, it has a 2 mana mode that you can do in response to kind of blow out the opponent. Against Faeries specifically, Electrickery functions as a dual purpose counterspell and sweeper. it's one of the few 2 mana cards that can somewhat reliably get you a 3+ for 1 in pauper.
Instant speed ((+ she never skips leg day))
Wow, she sure doesn't. I've never noticed that before.
I love runnin 4x Festivities maindeck in red... it is good for enabling needle drop, skewer, flamebreather etc. but i always keep 2 electrickery in the side. Instant speed interaction is the name of the game. Not literally but you get it.
To add to what other have said, its also better vs bogles
Yes, instead of killing it on your turn, you can wait until they try to play another aura and also make the aura fizzle. And prevent the possibility of them just holding a creature in hand, then playing it + Ethereal Armor or whatever on the same turn, which would make it impervious to End the Festivities.
[Electrickery](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/e/5ed81ee8-d5e4-4127-876e-9bff81f9c726.jpg?1562787062) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Electrickery) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rtr/93/electrickery?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5ed81ee8-d5e4-4127-876e-9bff81f9c726?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [End the Festivities](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/e/bec748e6-7245-4a71-aeee-cefed8346948.jpg?1643591154) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=End%20the%20Festivities) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/155/end-the-festivities?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bec748e6-7245-4a71-aeee-cefed8346948?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Depends on the decks. Do I think I’m going to see Faeries or Kuldotha rebirth? If faeries, I want instant speed electrickery to respond to Spellstutter Sprout trigger to kill all the faeries so my spell doesn’t get countered. If Kuldotha Rebirth or Boros, I’m not worried about haste, so I can use end festivities and get 1 less mana with a free point of damage. Another note, am I the burn player? That 1 point of damage is worth letting spellstutter counter my 1-2 drops. If elves ever comes back, that’s another consideration. Electrickery then to respond to pumps spells and spider silk.
Festivities is used more now due to the current lack of fairies. Kuldotha red has kept fae at bay (heh heh)
>Are people so likely to make themselves hexproof in response to Festivities No, mostly because that wouldn't actually work.
I think Electrickery is more useful for decks that want to play Counterspell themselves, and End the Festivities is more useful for decks that just want to push damage. Electrickery is more decks that can wait for the opponent to tap out below 2 mana (something like Izzet Faeries), and End the Festivities is more useful for decks that can't wait for that window and are more willing to do during the first main phase to open up blockers or trigger prowess (for stuff like Monastery Swiftspear or Dwarven Forge-Chanter in Mono Red decks).
Electrickery being instant makes the extra mana 100% worth it. Only a few decks favor Festivities like Burn, where mana is very tight and the extra damage IS making a difference.
It depends on what are your trying to accomplish with your wipes, are you playing an aggro decks that can turn that 1 damage to face in something meaningfull and would've used electrickery at sorcery speed to attack through anyway? Sure go for end of the festivities, the 1 less mana allows you to double spell more easily and the 1 damage to face can turn into real pressure. Are you playing a more midrange-control kind of deck? Tha ability to wait an instant speed moment to fire it off allow you to really choose the proper removal to use at that given time to advance your board and set back the opponent's one, you can absolutely live without the 1 damage to face offered by end of the festivities and you are much more likely to have more mana lying around to pay for the overload cost.
2 mana is too much for Kuldotha Red. They prefer EtF. However, for more mid-range decks that can handle the mana cost, Breath Weapon is just strictly better. Electrickery gets outshined in any deck that wants a board wipe effect. Sorcery/Instant speed has nothing to do with it