EtW is easier to use than ToA since it can be cast anytime when you have the mana (which is easier to get) for it and it will still be good. ToA is a dead card until you have 2BB+ 9 spells played.

Also, if you want to narrow down the cards that win the game then EtW is the choice:

it is one less card than tinker+coloss and cant be countered.
it is not as demanding as ToA in that you dont need to play it for lethal damage for it to be good.

/Gustav

But what about Paradox Haze? As far as I know, draw step is a part of upkeep which means that this is a Howling Mine for you but not your opponent. Am I getting this right?

If you use him in Oath, you can be sure to win the turn after he comes into play (reclamation for will for instance). Of course, the creatures used today usually do this without help but with this guy, it's one less dead creature card to draw in your deck.

This card looks truly terrible for type1. Having no mana cost means (like Evermind) means that the spell can't be played => you can't replay it with Will. Once in your grave (after 4 turns!!!) it plays no role whatsoever except for the farfetched welder interaction.

To have 1 less card during the 4 first turns of the game (my guess is that 90 % of all games are allready settled in the first 4 turns) is a huge drawback and the investment doesn't pay of at all. All the mana I'm interested in is to either get UU, BBB or lots of artifact mana available 1st turn.

/Gustav

You need some good way of finding the combo and getting it started. Eight mana is not that much but I see problems with assembling the combo (what do you gifts for?). Also, getting an unlimited number of time walks doesn't win you the game so you'll need to run the actual win-condition along side of the Mizzium+ Time Vault= bad usage of slots.

Eh? No I won't loose next turn since I turn his duress onto him instead. If he still is able to go off next turn even though he'll only have 4 cards left after I duress him then he obviously had a nutty hand.

This deck isn't UR-phid, I can't go on countering for ever, without superior card draw you will loose eventually which is why you should keep the merchant scroll and not the drain.

A second win is nice, but with the amount of protection this deck carries I feel I don't need it. Besides Burning wish usually only sits in your hand as a dead card in too much of the time.

@freakish777:
Thank you! Nice to see that there is someone with a little imagination in this forum!

Keeping Lotus and Drain will render me with no ways of drawing new cards and I'll probably burn for the drain-mana which means this alternative sucks.

Your chances of finding another FoW isn't that great (after he's duressed one away), that's why FoW isn't adeadequate in this situation.

OK so say he has 2 threats, 4 mana and 1 duress (a well balanced hand). You'll be screwed with both Requi or FoW but atleast Requi gives you a chance. You can steal his biggest threat and maybe buy time enough to stop the second, maybe he needs all his 4 mana and if you take one he'll stall a turn during which you can get drain on line or whatever.

Sarcasm: If you remove your FoW:s from your deck you don't even have to goldfish a 2-3 anymore. OK seriously, your chances of being able to interact with opponent increases if you pack both FoW and Requisition.

What I want to show with this scenario is: you must be able to handle a duress 1st turn without loosing your ability to disrupt the opponent, cause if you don't he'll win next turn. None of the plays you suggested gave you a descent chance here.

I'm giving you a list I've been goldfishing that uses Requisition and can play it reliably. It's nothing final but it's a good start:

4 Force of Will
4 Requisition
4 Mana Drain

4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Recoup
3 Thirst for Knowledge

1 Darksteel Colossus

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring

3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
6 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy

EDIT: CHANGED MISDIRECTION FOR REQUISITION...

In the scenario above, yes I'm willing to bet he doesn't have FoW and certainly not daze (the combination daze and duress isn't exactly common and there is absolutely no good comboplayer using daze). If I were playing combo and my first hand contained both FoW and duress + a bomb+ blue card to pitch+ mana to play the bomb next turn, then thats a really strong hand...

If I'm up against fish requisition is not good.
If I'm up against Oath requisition is not good, even tough it has its uses (steal mana or card draw could work).

If requisition gets countered I'm probably going to loose that game. I hope I don't have to repeat this last sentence again.

No card I could think of could be better than requisition in this hand. The scenario was "I'm on the draw" with the hand above so I cant Brainstorm in response to duress. If I have a force he'll just take it with duress and I cant counter him next turn cause I can't get UU fast enough. Only requisition lets me remove a threat from his hand which will hopefully be enough to keeping him from going off next turn.

Depending on choice. I'd prefer drawing 3 fresh cards with one mana to spare (maybe brainstorm) to Gifting which isn't to great early on. I gift when I have fairly good control and want to win, 1st turn is often to early.

What party? After playing land, duress you'll (the combo player) have 5 cards left in hand. If that duress turns against you, you'll probably loose your only bomb with which you were planning on winning next turn. If you have multiple bombs you're probably short on mana instead and getting duressed for a ritual will hurt a lot.

@Implacable:
It is common to have at least one bomb in your opening hand. If you don't have ancestral it might be tinker (+crypt) or Lotus+ scroll (or simply mox + scroll is OK). The thing is you're gaining tempo by sacrificing some cards which you probably wouldn't be able to play for a few rounds thus being dead in your hand until then.

Control wants to survive the first few rounds and will then focus on the mid/lategame. This card (like fow) helps you do that. Requisition is even better than fow in that it accelerates you to midgame (fow does not). When you reach midgame, your draw engine should defeat opponent regardless of how many cards you lost early game.

@Purple Hat:
I don't agree with your reasoning. Say opponet plays first and lays land duress, you have this hand:
Drain
Requisition
Gifts
Ancestral
2x Land
Mox

Since he's duressing you, you can assume that he wants to force a biggie through next turn (or even this one). So you pitch drain and gifts and snag somthing from him, then you draw a card and play your ancestral. Seems like a fairly good way to get out of a dangerous situation when your on the play. Note that a FoW in the same situation wouldn't have helped (like requisition did).

@The post talking about subpar requi-targets above:
Being on the draw against STAX can really be a bitch. Being able to steal CoW, Smokestack, Wire (even though thats not a good play for him 1st turn) or simply stealing a mana generating artefact could be great. Imagine him playing waste, vault and you steal it then you go land gifts!

The card isn't great against control since chances are it will get countered but it helpes control in it's weaker matchups like STAX and Combo. The trick is, as already mentioned, to get it to resolve.

One thing you all are forgetting is: it's not a 3 for 1 trade, it's 3 loss for you yes, but then you gain whatever spell you're highjacking. Take his Lotus means 3 down for you and you get a Lotus... I can think of simply stealing a brainstorm in certain situations.

Plus, if their tutor is a sorcery (demonic), you're probably better off countering it cause they can get an instant and play it when you don't have they proper resourcess to counter (not mana up). I avoid countering mystical and vampiric, since it's card disadvantage and atleast mystical has to fetch a sorcery which I can counter.

/Gustav

Orb of Dreams from the sideboard vs Dragon is not a good idea. They will just side in Caller of the Claw and then it doesn't matter if his perms won't untap, he'll win next turn with inf 2/2:s.

/Gustav

So you rather have a card that doesnt do anything on turn 2 than a card that stalls them a turn? You're not likely to be plaing big twists turn 2. Sometimes it happens and if it resolves it's probably a winner but it can also stumble into drain and in that case, the mage is atleast a smaller manaboost next turn.


So they will need to find CoV or wish to get rid of it. This play will buy you time to set up. If they can bounce it and still go off in the same turn then twist is the only card that would have made a difference (DoJ, petal, Old Man wouldn't have mattered). If they bounce him during my next eot thats ok. I may have found a duress or a drain to protect myself against his attempt next turn.




I play in a world where combo is the new deck to beat and meddling does this better than Decree and Old Man. Twist isn't helping me getting to the late/mid game but once I get there, granted, it is a much better card than mage.

/Gustav

Thanks for the answers! I really enjoy this discussion. A few things though...



You said it yourself, they will need to bounce it eot to be able to go off and that alone makes it wothwhile. Actually almost all decks will need to get rid of the mage before continuing with their game plan.
 

I emphasise that I never count on the mage to go all the way. I count on the mage to be such an annoyance to the opponent that he decides to remove it. If they try to remove him then he's allready served his purpose.


And what about the decks that dont use creatures? Or when you face creature decks but don't draw Old Man? If you run one Old Man you can hardly count on drawing him every time you need him. And he still takes a turn to activate and then yet another turn before you can use the stolen creature (welder). A welder is a 1st turn drop and TFK is usually cast on the second turn, what is Old Man doing against that? A mage works fine both against creatureless decks (TPS) and against resolved welders (naming TFK). Not to forget when you get the: land duress, land mage thing which praticly wins the game.
 


Of course I'm running 4x Drain but I don't allways have it turn 2. And if I do have the choice between leaving drain mana up or playing the mage, I allways (this needs no explanation) prefer drain over mage. If I don't have drain then the mage is a good turn 2 play (I avoid playing it if opponent have drain mana up and I don't have a FoW to back the mage with). On turn 2, would you rather have a decree/Old Man/Twist in hand than a mage?
   


If I were going to stabilize the mana bse by going to 24 mana, I wouldn't choose the petal as the 24 source. I would choose something solid like a land ( a fetch or maybe strip). But you are probably right that 23 is a bit low.

The only card that I cut that I really miss sometimes is the Twist which can be great vs Control (active Loa can be a real pain). I still won't be able to cast it until after a drain or turn 3 at earliest and that's why I prefer meddling. How do you expect to reach the lategame in a better manner with your card choises than mine, if you face an offensive deck (TPS, maybe CS or Dragon/Rector)?

/Gustav

What I feel that this deck wants to do is to get to the lategame in the easiest possible manner. This is where the mage helps as he attracts attention from the opponent if you name a critical card in his deck. If you for instance names tendrils against TPS that forces the opponent to play around the mage which will take time and thus giving you more time to set up. I never count on the mage to go all the way i I don't protect it if they try to remove it. It is however a 2/2 body that CAN win the game if it isnt answered, just like 2 soldier tokens can.

The cards I cut for the mages are generally a much slower clock against most decks. Old man is nice but it gets active on turn 3 at earliest and only playing one means you will have to tutor him up. Both twist and decree are nice drain-sinks but without drain they are really slow and clunky. Replacing Decree with a faster threat can hardly be bad?

About the manabase, have you even looked at the changes I proposed to make meddling fit? Here's my manabase:

7 SoLoMoxen
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
3 Islands
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Loa

Now this can be shaky if you fase alot of disruption in the form of waste/stifle/null rod but with 4 basics + fetch atleast I feel it's stable enough. Do you find this manabase Suicidal? OMG he cut the petal!! He will fizzle all day long without it!!!

/Gustav

What is the meaning with this comment? If you change a few slots in a deck then of course you'll have a different deck. With this reasoning, even sideboarding yields a completely different deck. Do you wish to argue that the cards I put in are bad, then go ahead.

@Duress:
I have never advocated removing duress from the deck (you said that duress shouldn't be cut a few posts back and I can't see anyone wanting to remove them) as they are the absolute best 1st turn play I can tink of. The optimal play as I see it is to duress 1st turn and then play a meddling 2:nd which forces him to find an answer to meddling or be severly crippled.

@Tapping out turn 2 to play meddling:
After a 1st turn duress there is absolutelly no problem tapping out for meddling. If he has drain mana up and you havent duressed him then it's a problem! But would you rather have a decree/old man/ twist here instead of meddling? The way I see it, meddling forces you're opponent to deal with him which takes time and get's you to the lategame (what this deck wants).

@The manabase:
So 24 mana including petal is just fine but 23 mana without petal is SUICIDAL? Come on, a petal isn't doing anything to your build except occationally giving you drain mana 1st turn. Aggreed that it has some synergy with Scrying and sometimes Will but it's still just one expendable mana. I've increased the number of basics to make the deck more resilient to wasteland. That's far better than adding a Petal in my view.

@Adding 4 mages makes the deck EBA:
I dont think they are that close actually. But if 4 mages is that big of a deal then what is better with 3cc than EBA? Do you agree that mages help getting to the late game (atleast more so than twist/old man/decree)?

/Gustav

Hi all,

I played the deck this weekend in a tournament (about 60 people showed up). I played it with theese changes:

-1 Twist
-1 Petal
-1 Decree
-1 Old Man

+4 Meddling Mage

I expected alot of combo and that's the primary reason wyh I put the mages in there. Naming Tendrils (or rector or necromancy) forces them to dig for answers which gives me valuable time. Unfortuantelly I only faced one TPS and I fizzled big time against him (got manaflooded both games) so I never got to test the combo mathcup properly.

Since the restriction of trini, the meta here in Sweden seems to be a little stirred up. There is no clear tier1 anymore as all the people who used to play STAX have turned away from the deck. I faced a suppriceingly high amount of aggro (Sui) and I found that to be a hard matchup. I know that my lifetotal shouldn't matter but against aggro or aggro-control it usually does, which made me wish I had the angels instead of the decrees.

I don't think the petal is necessary, having 16 land and 7 solomoxen is quite enough for me. The ony thing that petal accompliches is occasionally giving you drain mana up first turn (or meddling 1st turn) bu I don't think it's worth it. I'd rather dures 1st turn and play meddling second turn. I changed the manabase a little to make it more wasteland proof:

7 SoLoMoxen
3 Islands
4 Flooded Strand
1 PLains
1 Polluted
1 Loa
3 Tundra
3 Ug Sea

Whast I love about the deck:
It has great disrupting against allmost anything. I love the duresses and wouldn't cut them for the world. I like the mages alot too.
The sideboard works good for the matchups you have difficulties with, I changed the Sacred grounds to Seal of Cleansing as they work with more decks.

What I didn't like:
It takes a long time to win. The decks you face today needs only to resolve one bomb for it all to be over and 2-3 soldier tokens isn't a fast enough clock. I also find my life total matter more than I  would have tought. I therefor recommend the angel over the decrees as she helps against aggro also. I foud out that when siding out the wishes the number of blue cards got really low which makes it hard to find cards to pitch to FOW.

/Gustav

Here's what I cut to get 4 mages maindecked:
-1 Decree
-1 Mind Twist
-1 Old Man
-1 Petal

+4 Meddling Mage

With this change the deck turns to a combo-hater. It's really hard to loose vs Combo with this config. Without the Old man you have one less removal card which can prove hazardous but I generally find it enough.

/Gustav

Remember that land=>ritual=>necro involves three cards and is thus more unlikely than 1st turn trini. Yea, it's probable that you'll have a land to go with it but it reduces your chances. With a 2 card combo, you can mulligan to get it but that's close to impossible with a 3 card combo. Of course, necro is far better than trini if played on any turn except turn 0 and that's why necro got the axe.

/Gustav

Not all decks will FoW a 1st turn lackey, welder or duress. If he plays his moxen, lotus etc then that seems to include restricted cards right?

What do you think of the above as part of an restricted criteria? If a card that can be played through the mana of a single land allways meets FoW if you have it, it should be restricted right? This doesn't touch the mana accelerants which has to be covered in some other way.

/Gustav

Not if I FoW a necro cast of a ritual.

No card that can be played through the mana from only one land should warrant a FoW unless it's restricted or it's a hatecard aimed at my deck (i.e Tormod's if I play dragon etc.).

/Gustav

I agree with dicemanx and Shock-Wave in all that they've said and I belive that almost all people here in Sweden agree with them as well.

@Trini dominance:
I know that Sweden has a smaller meta than the US but we still have a big enough meta to count for something. In Sweden, Stax has dominated the scene for a long time. People have been packing about half their sideboard with hate aimed at STAX for a long time and they still dominated top8s. Someone said it very clear: You can't hate a 1st turn resolved 3sphere! If opponent go ritual + broken stuff it allways includes restricted cards (Meandeck Tendrils excepted) and often more than one play. Even if you face a 1st turn necro there are outs left. With trini, if it got FoWed, they would still only have lost a single card where you would loose 2. If it resolved, you could only PRAY that they didn't have a smokestack to follow up with. I know this has been dragged before so I'll stop now.

/Gustav

You missed a few points about the opening criteria.
- Opening hand you need trini+ MWS or 1mana land+ crypt or land+ vault or Lotus or Tomb+ mox or 2xmox+ 1mana land or.... This list goes on for quite a while. You may now argue that land+vault opening isn't that good but eventually you would find that shop/tomb and just break the lock.

After a 1st turn trini resolves, all you can do is prey

One thing on the FoW vs 3sphere: Who woould not FoW a 1st turn trini? Isn't a card that, combined with a 4of land, allways atracts fow (if he has it) a little to good?

One thing on SoR vs Trini: Combo players allways tend to say how simple it is to get out from either lock. If a 1st turn trini resolves, you allways have 3 basics + rebuild and then go off the following turn. If a 1st turn SoR resolves, you just play land, mox, mox, then another land and rebuild or you claim that is easy to go off with SoR on the table. let's face it, you won't have that good hands all the time.

/Gustav

Orchard, mox, oath= 3 card combo. MWS, trini=2 card combo. 1st turn oath is in no way a sure win anyway, there's a million things that can happen to either: your creatures, opponents spirits, your oath+ he may actually just ignore your oath and win instead.

I repeat what I said earlier: We've gotten rid of the worst kind of kombo (the 2 card combo that randomly won games).
T-H-A-N-K    Y-O-U     D-C-I  !!!!
To handle the remaining kombo decks shouldn't be impossible now when you actually gets to play your Duress/CotV/Stifle/whatever.

/Gustav

Combo will not be stronger because of this, on the opposite, the worst kind of combo (MWS=>3sphere) is now restricted. In my view, STAX was never such a good foil to combo anyway. What STAX (thanks to 3sphere) did was to hate out combos best foils (Hulk with duress and to some extent fish) which may now be viable again. Instead of facing 3sphere every other game, combo will now face FoW every game and duress/stifle/waste/daze/nullrod/CotV every other game. All artifact hate which used to be sided will now be combo hate instead. I don't see this as an improvement for combo...

I dont agree that basics were the ultimate anwer to trini either. There is no answer to a 1st turn trini. If it's followed by a CoW then yes, basics help to some extent, but it's not likely that you'll have 3 basics/fetch in your opening 9 cards. If it's followed by a smokestack, that's game. If it's followed by a wire, that's close to game. If it's followed by tinker/jar/ancestral/walk/tfk/strip that's close to game. If you waste his shop he still has 5 more lands that give more thatn one mana+ he is one landdrop ahead which means he'll be able to accelerate out of the lock well before you can.

MWS=>3sphere? Good riddance!! Thank you DCI!!

/Gustav

If you want to reliably kill creatures you have to run more removal than they have creatures. Let's say he has 4 welders which you want to kill before they become active, then you would need atleast 5+ removal cards with cc preferably no higher than that of the creature (i.e cc 1). The problem here is that no deck can run 5+ creature-removal cards and not be slowed by them. IMO, a cc 1 creature shouldn't be so powerfull that it can win the game once it gets active.

/Gustav

Oh that's right. Thanks for helping out. Do you think it might work?

/Gustav

I've been thinking about Phyrexian Furnace as a way for fish to deal with 2 of its worst enemys, namely welder (if the play dart) and CoW. You would have to skip null rod but as allready stated, the decks that are hurt by nullrod will most probably race it anyway. Furnace will prevent wasteland recursion aswell as stopping some nice welder targets and at worst it cycles.

+ for Furnace
Cycles if useless
A one mana drop that becomes active imidietly
Helps against land recursion with CoW
Helps against welder<=>TFK
Helps against dragon.
(Helps to some extent with preventing treashold)
God synergy with Shaman

- for Furnace
Not compatible with null Rod
Useless in a number of matchups: oath, some combo etc..
Can be played around
Useless against tinker=>DSC or any other allready resolved threat.

What do you think? I previously tried to fit this card into Landstill but didn't have much succes. Do you think it's a viable option?

Edited Scrabbling Claws=> Phyrexian Furnace which is obviously better.

/Gustav