Standard Cascade – Festival of the Fae Event Guide and Decklists

Festival of the Fae is now on to its third and final week for your chance to obtain the last batches of five Adventure Showcase Card Styles from Throne of Eldraine. This weekend marks the return of Standard Cascade, which we have not seen for a while. Read on to find out the details of the event, how it works and some decklists that you can use to get your five wins required for the event!

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Event Information

• Duration: November 17 2019 at 12:00 AM PST – November 20 at 12:00 AM PST
• Format: Standard Cascade
• Entry Fee: 2500 Gold or 500 Gems
• Ends After: You can keep playing, but rewards do not go past five wins.
• Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)

Event Rewards

To clarify, you do not have to re-enter the event and you only have to pay the entry fee once. There is no limit on the number of losses (or victories). Play as much as you want for the duration of the event.

• 1 Win: Rimrock Knight Showcase card style
• 2 Wins: Foulmire Knight Showcase card style
• 3 Wins: Fae of Wishes Showcase card style
• 4 Wins: Lovestruck Beast Showcase card style
• 5 Wins: Realm-Cloaked Giant Showcase card style

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What is Standard Cascade?

Even Faerie parties must come to an end, but not before going out with a bang. A magical cacophony fills the Wilds as festivalgoers launch spells like fireworks into the night sky, summoning all manner of mayhem. Join in if you dare!

In this Magic: The Gathering Arena event, each player begins the game with a Maelstrom Nexus Emblem that has the following ability:

Whenever you cast your first spell each turn, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with converted mana cost less than that spell’s. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Then put the exiled cards that weren’t cast this way on the bottom of that library in a random order.

There is also a list of banned cards for this event, which will be explained below:

• Deafening Silence: Shuts down the Maelstrom Nexus Emblem.
• Fae of Wishes: Can be cascaded into easily and you can cast the Adventure portion for free, deemed to be too good for this format especially in BO1.
• Field of the Dead: Already banned from Standard.
• Flaxen Intruder: Same as Fae of Wishes, as you can guarantee three bears.
• Lavinia, Azorius Renegade: Shuts down the Maelstrom Nexus Emblem.
• Lucky Clover: Way too much value from casting Adventure spells, especially if cascading into another Adventure.
• Rule of Law: Same as Deafening Silence.
• Teferi, Time RavelerThe passive ability shuts down the Maelstrom Nexus Emblem.

Building Your Cascade Deck – Tips and Strategies

• Adjusting your deck’s mana curve will do wonders for this event to maximize your chances of hitting the best spells with the Maelstrom Nexus Emblem. This means literally having a cascade of spells at different mana costs! Your most expensive spell will have a chance to cast any spell from your library, and conversely you would generally not want more 1 mana spells than your 2 mana spell. As an example, if Knight of the Ebon Legion is the most important card in your deck, you don’t want to put in any other 1 mana cost creatures to fill the space. You can then build around certain cards as, for example Witch's Oven.
• The Emblem activates on the first spell you cast on each turn, which means that you must remember that you can also activate it again during your opponent’s turn. This makes instant speed spells, cards with flash better in this event.
• The mana cost of the creature portion of Adventure cards is the one that counts when the emblem triggers. For example, you will not cascade into a Rimrock Knight when you cast Runaway Steam-Kin as they are both 2 mana spells. However, if you happen to hit Adventure cards (for example with Slaying Fire) you will be able to choose either mode.
• On a similar note, split cards like Discovery // Dispersal count as mana cost 7 (adding both halves of the card) in your library, so you will need to cast something that costs 8 or more to be able to cascade into it.
• The Legendary Artifacts (e.g. Embercleave and The Great Henge) seem like fun cards to build around, since their high converted mana cost means that you can pretty much cascade into almost anything in your deck.
• Fires of Invention decks will unfortunately not be the best for this event, as you are limited to two spells per turn and cannot even cast spells during your opponent’s turn.
• Once Upon a Time is pretty overpowered for this event, as it allows you to cast it on your opponent’s turn, find the card you need and even cascade into something that costs 1 – all before they even cast anything! This also means that green based decks will be one of the most powerful.
• If Cauldron Familiar and Witch's Oven decks start to annoy you, add 4 Leyline of the Void into your deck.

Our Top Cascade Decklists

Casting spells for free is always a fun matter (like Omniscience Draft) and we liked some strategies more than others. Here are some fun decks for you to try in this event and hopefully will get you to 5 wins in no time! Also included is a budget deck that has no rares or mythic rares if you are a newer player.

Wrapping Up

We hope you enjoyed our guides for Festival of the Fae! We will be counting down to Historic in MTG Arena’s next update, so keep an eye out for our Theorycraft decks that includes cards from Historic Anthology 1!

Also remember, you can always engage in our growing MTG Arena Zone community:

• Discuss everything and ask quests about MTG Arena in our Discord server
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• Leave a comment below if you have any feedback or just want to let us know how the decks went!