In a deck where the first 7 cards essentially decide the game, playing the powder is essentially like playing with 56 cards in the deck.

In addition, if there is a certain card that you absolutely need to play and thus always want a copy of inyour opening hand, serum powder improves your odds quite a bit as it lets you see the first 14 cards to try and get a copy of the card. It's almost like you're playing 8 copies (not quite, but you know what I mean. And it also means you can probably safely use a spoils in your second hand since there are only 46 cards left in the deck with 4 copies fo the card.

Plus, it can be used with metalworker and the other uses you posted.

Its a very very narrow card. But I do think that certaiin decks could use it to their advantage.

I know that merfolk maybe a slightly faster clock (assuming you always draw and cast lord of atlantis). otherwise, manta riders doesn't even have evasion making it a piss poor curiosity target.

You make too many trade offs. grim lavamancer is incredible against aggro. It can take down many weenies by itself. Spiketail Hatchling can often counter one of their bigger threats or if not slows down their play by a full turn.

If you want to improve your aggro matchup some more. If you want a faster clock in fish. Splash in green and play 4 quirion dryad in place of the lord. Play lavamancer in place fo the manta riders.

If you have concerns about the mana base, use the one found here... http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18179

It runs very smoothly.

uh huh, right.

Gay/r has a favorable match up against madness, fcg, oshawa stompy, r/g beats and the various competitive aggro decks you run across. I'm just a bad player and that's the only reason I have trobule against these match ups.

I know there are a lot of people who think fish can't support three colors.

And I know that JP Meyer will say just try it is not a good defense.

But many people here including me posted several reasons and examples of how and why the mana base works.

So I do urge all fish players to try the deck out. Throw together the dryad into your fish build, adjust the mana base to the one above, and take it for a spin to your local type 1 scene. I especially urge you to try it against aggro decks, including decks like r/g beats, madness, and fcg that fish generally has a very veyr hard time against. Come back here and post your conclusions.

Thank you for reopening the thread jacob. Sorry i mixed you up with JP meyer.

I haven't had many problems with the mana base. I'm not saying it's as good as u/r fish. But it's never the less very stable. And I think the trade of is well worth it as this version does do better against aggro decks.

I know that the aggro matchup is also the reason people play u/w fish. But I personally think this version is more versatile. Swords is a great card. But against certain matchups, it doesn't do anything. You can't play curiosity on swords. And swords doesn't give you a threat to play under standstill. Both dryad and boa serve the purpose of killing off weenies, chump blocking big aggro critteers (or in the case of dryad growing bigger than them), all while providing nice targets for curiosity or a nice threat for under standstill against control decks.

As a bonus, green contributes so many great cards to the sideboard (more than white). I know that some versions of u/w fish also play meddling mage, but I've had poor luck with the card.

It doesn't always hit a card that they would've drawn and played that turn anyways (in fact, it usually only has about a 50% chance of doing so unless you're playing a combo deck with only one specific win conditon an no removal). And even so, it's just a easy to remove vanilla 2/2 that's neither a decent blocker, nor has the evasion to make it a decent curiostiy target.



Swords is a better way to take out creatures. But it can only take out one creature at a time. Dryad can get big enough fast enough that several of your opponent's creatures can no longer attack. Eventually, he gets big enough that nothing in your opponents entire deck can attack you while you outdraw them and ping them to death with your 1/1 curious flyers.

Plus, unlike swords, there is no matchup where he is useless. You can always use him. He is always a threat that gives your opponent a very hard time, and provides a great body for a curiosity target or a great creature under standstill, or at the very least a threat that your opponent  has to target instead of the curios faries that you also have on board.

In the dryad versus boa debate, I'm starting to lean back towards dryad. I went back to using the dryad version this weekend and I haven't looked back since.

It's nice not having to leave a mana to regenerate boa. And about half the games I played, I've been able to draw and play dryad by second turn. And by the time I emptied my hand and was in topdeck mode, it was almost always a nice juicy 5/5 or so that gave any aggro deck I faced a very hard time.

Even the third of the time or so that the dryad was topdecked, I usually had a draw engine setup and the dryad atleast became a 2/2 or 3/3 by the turn after I cast it, big enough to deter an attack from some of their smaller threats. And after several turns (aggro decks aren't hard to stall out), the dryad becomes big enough that none of their creatures can attack while your curious flyers keep getting you more threats.

I usually managed to FoW and/or Daze/Spiketail Hatchling a couple of threats from their opening hand so that I had quite a few turns before they were able to put any real pressure on me. By then, the dryad was always big enough that they couldn't attack me for fear of losing their creatures. Stifling their regenerators and misdirecting their burn was a lot of fun as well.

I know from past experience that u/r fish has a tough time against aggro. The matchups aren't nearly as bad for this deck.

If you're interested, the aggro decks I played against are... r/g beats, a gobvantage deck, a madness deck and a surprisingly well tuned elf deck (yes, i know it sounds scrubby but the deck is very strong with skullclamps and eight of those annoying critters that gives a 1/1 token every time they play a creature). I even sided out the null rods against the elf deck at the request of my opponent since his deck was designed to abuse skullclamp. (We were just playing for fun.)

Sadly, I didn't have enough time to play any of the control or combo decks there (I really wanted to gauge how useful dryad was against aggro.) But I have little reason to believe that this deck is much if any worse against combo or control. It basically cuts a daze, a shaman, and two voidmage from ptw's fish to make room for the dryad. In the past games I've played against control, the dryad was a very nice threat against control or atleast saved my curious faries from swords.

I think dryad vs. river boa is strictly a metagame choice. If you face a decent bit of aggro (and not weenie aggro decks that fish already beats like 10 land stompy or sligh but fat aggro decks like madness and r/g beats), I would definately recommend the quirion dryad. If your meta is mostly control with little combo or fat aggro, I would recommend the river boa. But if you play in such a meta, u/r fish does fine as well.

I designed this deck to be as versatile as possible. Fish already does well against control and combo. With this splash, it loses very little against these matchups but does pretty well against aggro decks too.

I imagine that quirion dryad isn't as good in WTF/r since it replaces some blues spells with maindeck green spells like oxidize and call of the herd. Dryad is best when it's the only green card maindecked.

But boa has more than it's share of advantages as well. It's certainly not an inferior choice, just one better suited for certain metas.

Call of the herd is a great threat as well. But I simply can't make room for it by cutting clouds like WTF/r since standstill is such a house in this deck. Also call of the herd rarely makes it under a standstill. And no, I have no desire to switch to WTF/r. I tried the deck and call it a personal bias if you wish, but I simply don't think brainstorm can ever compete with standstill.

I don't object  to Wizards using my ideas.

It does when the only offense is based on a couple of goldfishes.

Besides, it's not my only defense.

I illustrated and explained how the deck works and how it plays as well as the reason for each of the card choices several times.

If you wish, attack my reasons for why I play dryad and river boa, show how they don't work for fish.

Besides Jacob, this is the mana base you run in your WTF/r deck...

4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta (could just as easily be strand or foothills, or a mix)
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald

You essentially have 9 cards that can get you a green source and 9 cards that can get you a red source. My deck runs 10 ways to get out each.

Yet your deck is even more dependent on having both red and green than mine since you run far fewer blue spells and you run lavamancer along with oxidize and call of the herd along with your boas.

I've already explained how standstill is just as good at smoothing the manabase as brainstorm since you can lay down a threat and standstill and draw the lands you need.

So how is it that you can back his claim (a claim he makes without any playing with this deck mind you) that my mana base doesn't work, when your mana base has far fewer blue spells and is even more dependent on green than mine and yet has less ways to get out either blue or red mana sources.

Note, I've never claimed that the deck is invulnerable to mana disruption (name one deck in competitive vintage that is). I merely claimed that the deck works well and is competitive.

The factory was a mistake, I thought I read it. Ravenfire replaced the sapphire with a factory any ways so the hand still works out the same, only slightly slower. I illustrated how it would play out without the sapphire and with a factory already.

The factory isn't even relevent. It didn't make the dryad any bigger. The dryad got to be such a large and deadly threat so fast all by itself. Do you think the hand would be better if I ran voidmage prodigy? I wouldn't have been able to cast it (unless you let me keep the sapphire instead of replacing it with a stripmine or wasteland). And even if I had, what would it have accomplished. It probably couldn't have attacked since any blocker can kill it. The dryad is what made the hand even playable. Had it been a voidmage prodigy in place of the dryad, you probably would have had to mulligan.

The dryad was a 3/3 because of daze plus the clouds. If I drew another threat, it would be a 4/4, but I played it out as if I hadn't as well. If they had played a chump blocker big enough to take down the dryad (wild mongrel or something) second turn, you would have dazed him, if they left a mana open simply waiting to swords or bolt you, you daze the swords, or bolt. If they FoW it, you can likely FoW right back and have the dryad get even bigger. At the very worst, you attack with a 3/3. If they had a chump blocker left over from turn one, there's no chance it could take down a 3/3.

Any way you look at it, you're left in a very strong position thanks to the Dryad.

As for brainstorm smoothing out manabases. If you had a standstill (where ever the brainstorm would be). You're in a very strong position to use it, and at the same time have an even bigger dryad. You don't need to draw a factory for standstill to be usable. Any of your threats work just fine. If you drew a conclave instead, you would likely be in a worse position right now, as you would have wasted a turn. When they break the standstill, you'll have a smooth mana base and likely more threats and/or disruption.

A few quick goldfish isn't the best way to judge if a mana base works. Try actually playing the deck instead. You'll see that the deck is very solid as is. You don't always have to be able to play the lavamancer immediately. You likely can't even use the lavamancer's abilities for a few turns anyways. It's okay if you don't cast it till turn three or four as long as you've been doing things and disrupting them up till then as well.

Ravenfire and Orgcandman...

I didn't cut the fairie conclaves to support a splash. I cut them because they absolutely sucked and weren't needed for standstill to be effective. Early on they tie up a whole turn needlessly. They require you to tap three mana sources to use as a 2/1 flyer in a deck that needs its mana for lavamancer, other man lands, disruption, and to waste the opponents lands. They're just very poor cards. And that's why they were cut.

Standstill runs fine without fairie conclaves. It has cloud, it has lavamancer, it has 4 mishra's factory and now it has a playset of creatures (either boa or dryad) that can both attack and make it impossible for your opponent to attack back. I've never yet had a problem with standstill being dead in my hand. I can always find a use for it, at worst pitching it to FoW.

Frankly I'm done with the whole standstill vs. brainstorm debate. Standstill is just plain better, end of story. And it certainly doesn't need fairie conclaves to work.

Splashing green wasn't done just because I disliked Voidmage Prodigy. Against decks that play a decent amount of removal, stuff like r/g beats and even 4c control, I've always found standard fish to be short on creatures.

You will lose your flyers and often your lavamancer (it's not a good curiosity target anyways) to removal. Spiketail often sacs itself to stop a key spell. The deck often ends up with curiosity and no targets for it. Voidmage Prodigy is a horrid target. He can't even attack when something like Gorilla Shaman or Metalworker is on the table.

Every single aggro matchup has improved dramatically since I splashed green for boa/dryad. Yes, that includes FCG. And it hasn't hurt any of fish's other matchups. The extra attackers have proven to be very helpful against control. And voidmage never had much impact on combo decks anyways. We all know that aggro is the one matchup that fish needed help with before it could be considered a tier one deck.

The mana base isn't as bad as people seem to think it is. It runs 10 ways to get red, 10 ways to get green, and 14 solid blue sources. It only needs either a volcanic or a tropical early on. It rarely needs both to be effective as I showed in the example above. But it also doesn't have much problem getting both. It certainly doesn't tie up it's manlands or strip effects in order to do so. I don't know where you got that idea. The casting costs are the same as standard fish. Only, since the fairie conclaves were cut, your development is a full turn faster. And one thing that people forget to mention. You need two solid blue sources to cast voidmage. If you can get two blue sources, it's a very high probability that you could have just as easily gotten a triopical and a volcanic island.

Something like what Orgcanmann is about the worst hand you get in terms of mana, and as I already showed, you can easily play around it and have a very strong disruptive opening.

Phele, I do like where you are going with this deck but have a few concerns....

You already know where I stand on the standstill vs. brainstorm issue. But I guess there is no way your deck could possibly support the former.

No Spiketail Hatchling! Especially if you're even more focused on attacking their manabase.

Spiketail Hatchling is like a timewalk when played in the first several turns. They'll either have to wait an extra turn anytime they wish to play something important or they'll have to have a key spell of their's countered.

No Daze! Daze is one of the best disruption spells in fish. In a deck like fish that only needs a few lands, it's a FoW without the card disadvantage for the first several turns. I would play atleast one if not two. Once your opponent had a spell dazed, they will hesistate everytime they tie up their mana. They WILL wait till they have two extra mana if you already have a spiketail hatchling in play. And this WILL win games.
 
I would cut a misdirection. Misdirection can be game swinging in certain matchups. But there are many matchups where it will not find a single target. Plus, your deck is especially low on blue sources. I'm not even sure it can support 6 pitch cards.

Both Quirion Dryad and River Boa are very strong creatures. But playing both together makes Dryad a bit weaker. Dryad really shines in my deck because it is the only green spell in my entire deck.

Don't underestimate Mishra's Factory. It's not standstill that made the card good. By itself, it can block to trade with a 3/3. With another, it can really screw up an aggro deck. Combined with lavamancer, it can take out some monsterous critters.

Serendib Efreet is a nice card. That's what I was playing in my River Boa/Quirion Dryad slot before I opted for a splash. The deck is certainly stronger because of the splash, but Efreet has rarely failed me.

Long really can't work without any of the acceleration (moxen, sol ring, lotus, mana vault, mana crypt) that type 1 offers. Even if it could, it wouldn't be any where near as powerful, and certainly not broken.

I mentioned Ritual and ESG because they have the same effect as lotus petal but for either black or green. It might be interesting to consider banning both ritual and esg and simply give all the colors access to a playset of a lotus petals. But that's unlikely.

What exactly are you going to mystical tutor for in 1.5 that's anywhere near broken? I can't think of anything. Am I missing something?

As I recall, Mind's Desire is legal in extended and has yet to cause any problems. I think that without type 1's acceleration, desire isn't very strong. But I guess that if frantic search (or timespiral) is unbanned in 1.5, mind's desire should stay banned.

Timespiral is very powerful in the midgame. I don't think it should be unbanned.

I agree with you on doomsday.

I'm not sure if squee should be banned. But it's undeniably very powerful with survival or bazaar.

At this point, there's pretty much a consensus that the banned and restricted lists for type 1 and type 1.5 should be separated. Yes, players are sick of cards such as Earthcraft being restricted in type 1 for the sake of type 1.5 and cards such as Burning Wish being banned for type 1.5 simply because they were broken in type 1. But more importantly, separating the lists is essential if type 1.5 is to grow into a distinct, popular, competitive format.

When people see that there are certain cards they can use a playset of in type 1.5 that they can't even use in type 1, they'll have an incentive to try type 1.5 going into it as a wholly different format rather than continuing to see it as vintage’s bastard stepchild.

So this is a post on what the Banned List for Type 1.5 should look like.

Please add your thoughts on this...

First, a few ground rules…

A.) There is no restricted list for Type 1.5. While it might be cute to allow a single copy of broken combo engines such as Yawgmoth’s Bargain into an environment with very limited acceleration, it only serves to make the format more confusing and harder to differentiate from Type 1. If a card is too powerful to allow for four copies in an environment without power, it probably doesn't have a place in type 1.5

B.) Type 1 is notorious for low casting cost cards that can overwhelmingly swing the game in your favor against the majority of decks when resolved. Type 1.5 shouldn’t be. Thus, cheap, powerful, game swinging cards such as balance simply shouldn’t be allowed into the format, ever.

C.) Potential combos, acceleration and tutoring effects should be very carefully screened. This isn’t type 1. A difficult to disrupt, game winning combo shouldn’t be consistently playable by second turn. There is a reason that the dci gave entomb and squirrelcraft the boot. This requires that we, as a whole, take great care in ensuring that the format doesn’t let too much acceleration and tutoring slip through the cracks.

Here's the current list of banned cards in type 1.5...

   * Amulet of Quoz
   * Ancestral Recall
   * Balance
   * Black Lotus
   * Black Vise
   * Braingeyser
   * Bronze Tablet
   * Burning Wish
   * Channel
   * Chaos Orb
   * Chrome Mox
   * Contract from Below
   * Crop Rotation
   * Darkpact
   * Demonic Attorney
   * Demonic Consultation
   * Demonic Tutor
   * Doomsday
   * Dream Halls
   * Earthcraft
   * Enlightened Tutor
   * Entomb
   * Fact or Fiction
   * Falling Star
   * Fastbond
   * Fork
   * Frantic Search
   * Grim Monolith
   * Gush
   * Jeweled Bird
   * Library of Alexandria
   * Lion’s Eye Diamond
   * Lotus Petal
   * Mana Crypt
   * Mana Vault
   * Memory Jar
   * Mind Over Matter
   * Mind Twist
   * Mind's Desire
   * Mox Diamond
   * Mox Emerald
   * Mox Jet
   * Mox Pearl
   * Mox Ruby
   * Mox Sapphire
   * Mystical Tutor
   * Necropotence
   * Rebirth
   * Regrowth
   * Sol Ring
   * Strip Mine
   * Stroke of Genius
   * Tempest Efreet
   * Time Spiral
   * Time Walk
   * Timetwister
   * Timmerian Fiends
   * Tinker
   * Tolarian Academy
   * Vampiric Tutor
   * Voltaic Key
   * Wheel of Fortune
   * Windfall
   * Yawgmoth's Bargain
   * Yawgmoth's Will

Of these, I’ve listed below the cards that I think type 1.5 might be able to support without the acceleration that type 1 can provide.

I'll discuss each of these cards and say whether I personally think they should be unrestricted. My inputs are merely based on several casual conversations with other vintage players. I hope that these suggestions will lead to discussion of what the banned list in type 1.5 should look like and hopefully make it easier on the dci should they decide to follow through with the wishes of so many vintage players.

Braingeyser – The card can allow some insane card drawing in the mid to late game in a control deck. It's not nearly as powerful without the acceleration that type 1 offers (ie. Tolarian Academy), and concentrate and opportunity have similar effects in the early mid game for cheaper or similar costs. Plus, it’s close to worthless early on, but being able to draw seven new cards in the late game for nine mana can certainly be game swinging. Yet most type 1 control decks don’t even bother to play the single copy they’re allowed to.

Verdict: Tough call. Possibly unban.

Burning Wish - Balance and Yawgmoth's Will are the main reasons that this card is banned. Pretty much every legal combo I can think of relies on permanents. Without the brokenness that Yawgie’s Win provides, I see no reason to keep this card banned. Besides, it didn't have any distorting effect on 1.5 when this card was legal just a little while ago.

Verdict: Unban

Chrome Mox - The card isn't nearly as broken as the moxen. But it still provides for very cheap acceleration early on that is permanent and fuels combo decks. Probably best to be safe than sorry.

Verdict- Keep banned

Crop Rotation - No Tolarian Academy, No Library of Alexandria, not even a lousy strip mine. At best, it's a color fixer. Why not?

Verdict - Unban

Demonic Consultation/Demonic Tutor - Too many cheap unrestricted tutors are rarely a good thing for any format. And these aren't even card disadvantage.

Verdict - Keep banned

Doomsday - Without ancestral recall, any combo you play is going to take a few turns. And the casting cost certainly isn’t very flexible, but cheap combos like mask/dreadnought keep this too tough a call for now.

Verdict - Not sure. Probably keep banned

Dreamhalls - I'm sure this would make for some crazy wins in a deck designed to abuse the mechanic even without the power (ie. a playset of concentrate, opportunity and other card drawers along with some bombs).

Verdict - Keep banned

Enlightened tutor – A less versatile vampiric tutor in a format where many of the really cheap combo cards (grim monolith, earthcraft) as well as all of the broken artifacts and enchantments (yawgmoth’s bargain) are already banned. But virtually every combo abuses artifacts and enchantments, so combos like Mask would undoubtedly take on new life.

Verdict – Tough call but should probably stay banned

Fact or Fiction – Without any of the acceleration to help get this out early and without any of the bombs that make this card so potent, I’m not certain that it would be powerful enough to justify banning. But it’s certainly a good deal more powerful than it’s cousin, concentrate.

Verdict – Possibly unban

Fork – For godsake, can we take this card of the restricted list already? Fork is just not a very good card. Considering the casting cost and without ancestral recall to target, it’s pretty worthless actually.

Verdict – Unban

Frantic Search – Tolarian Academy doesn’t exist. First turn combo kills don’t exist. However, madness decks, dragon decks, and any decks that use bazaar of bagdad could abuse the mechanic. So for now, it might be better to be safe than sorry.

Verdict – Tough call, probably keep banned.

Lion’s Eye Diamond – Long was the reason this card was even considered for restriction in the first place. But as usual, the restriction caused unintended collateral damage in Type 1.5. In 1.5, about the most broken thing this card allows for is a flying 6/6 wurm token very early on. This is a powerful effect in a deck designed to abuse it, but I’m not convinced that it justifies banning. Then again, we should be very careful about just how much acceleration type 1.5 can support.

Verdict – Tough call, possibly unban.

Lotus Petal – Elvish Spirit Guide has a nearly identical effect for green and Dark Ritual is a good deal more powerful. Unbanning this card while keeping the other two intact could lead to an explosion of combo decks. But in the interests of fairness, one could reasonably argue that this card be unbanned and both ESG and Dark Ritual be banned so that all five colors get access to early acceleration.

Verdict – The decision rests on what happens to Dark Ritual and ESG. But it’s probably best to leave it as is.

Mind Over Matter – The card is near impossible to hardcast in type 1.5. And without Tolarian Academy or Library of Alexandria, the card is also very limited in it’s usefulness.

Verdict – Unless I’m missing something, I think we can probably unban this.

Mind Twist – With acceleration so much rarer in this format, large mind twists early on are just that much harder. The card often ends up being a more expensive hymn to tourach. But in certain situations (or when combined with mana elves), the effect can certainly be game swinging.

Verdict – Tough call, probably keep banned.

Mind’s Desire – While the card is absolutely insane when combined with type 1’s inherent brokenness, I see it as being merely somewhat powerful in type 1.5. It doesn’t even see play in extended.

Verdict – Can probably unban.

Mox Diamond – Any deck that plans to reliably use this early on must play several lands just to speed up the deck’s development by one turn. And if countered, the player being mana screwed. I see very few situations where this would actually be advantageous or even worthwhile.

Verdict – Can probably unban. .

Mystical Tutor – Not only is this card disadvantage, it’s near worthless without cards such as Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Balance, Yawgmoth’s Will etc. to back it up. It’s not a bad option for combo decks but I can’t even think of any combo decks that would benefit from this card. Extended has the far more versatile Vampiric Tutor and yet still can’t seem to break it.

Verdict – Tough call. Can probably unban.

Regrowth – This card is only playable because of the many broken bombs that are found in type 1. Without cards like Ancestral Recall, Time Walk and the like to make it worthwhile, the card isn’t even playable.

Verdict – Can probably unban.

Stroke of Genius – Between it’s high mana cost, the lack of Academy and the overall lack of acceleration in type 1.5, I see little reason to think this would even see play. Braingeyser is more efficient and yet still warrants consideration for unbanning.

Verdict – Can probably unban.

Time Spiral – Tolarian Academy is what allowed this card to crossover from powerful to outright broken. Without Academy, this card is worth a second look. The card certainly has a very powerful effect and being essentially free, it definitely warrants much deliberation.

Verdict – Tough call. Should probably leave banned for now.

Timetwister – If Time Spiral shouldn’t be unbanned, I see a tough time arguing that Timetwister should be.

Verdict – Tough call. Should probably leave banned for now.

Vampiric Tutor – The cheapest versatile tutor in the game, this isn’t an easy card to unban. Sure it’s card disadvantage but I see no reason why every combo deck won’t pack a playset. Recall however that extended allows a playset and has yet to break it. But type 1.5 isn’t quite extended.

Verdict – Should probably leave banned.

Voltaic Key – Without grim monolith, sol ring, mana vault or mana crypt, the usefulness of this card drops dramatically. Sure it can let you disk a turn earlier, but is this effect really ban worthy?

Verdict – Unban.

Wheel of Fortune – See time twister.

Verdict – Tough call. Should probably leave banned for now.

Windfall – Very similar to Timetwister, but makes for even more of a game swinging effect in a very fast deck.

Verdict – Tough call. Should probably leave banned for now.

Now, the candidates for banning from type 1.5...

Mana Drain - Mana drain allows for even larger tempo swings than moxen in type 1. There is a reason that landstill is dominant in type 1.5 to the point of distortion. This card is simply too broken in a format meant to go without so much cheap acceleration. If it saw as little play in type 1 as Entomb and Earthcraft did, it would probably already have been restricted for the sake of type 1.5.

Verdict – Should probably be banned.

Mishra's Workshop – A permanent source of three mana each turn in artifact decks (affinity, welder mud and the like) is a tough card to defend in an environment without moxen.  This a strong candidate for banning at a time when so many artifact decks are popping up so fast.

Verdict – Should probably be banned.

Bazzar of Bagdad - The dragon combo is the most powerful, resilient combo in type 1, and it really doesn't need power to shine. Considering that much lesser combo pieces like Earthcraft got the boot, why not this? Plus it can do nutty stuff with madness, survival of the fittest and Squee, to the point that bazaar was a very strong candidate for restriction even in type 1.

Verdict – Could justifiably be banned.

Survival of the Fittest – This is an extremely powerful engine when combined with even a single Squee. But without Squee, it’s just a versatile and fun option for creature decks and an easy way to get Worldgorger Dragon into the graveyard, but no easier than buried alive.

Verdict – Before even considering this card, why not simply ban Squee.

Squee, Goblin Nabob – This mechanic really fuels some very powerful engines (Bazzar, Squee, etc.). But it’s tough to decide if the engines are powerful enough to justify a ban.

Verdict – Tough call either way.

Food Chains - This is a very powerful combo making for a very powerful deck. If the dci felt Earthcraft was too broken for type 1.5, this card maybe as well. But the card requires an entire deck to be built around it and the combo aspect of it just dies to a Counterspell or Naturalize (as you have no means to protect the card) and you’re left with a decent aggro deck. So I think that while the deck is powerful, it doesn’t justify a ban.

Verdict – Leave unbanned.

Dark Ritual – Not really that powerful. Unless Lotus Petal is unbanned, there’s no reason to consider banning this card.

Verdict – Shouldn’t be considered for banning unless lotus petal is unbanned.

Illusionary Mask – While the combos that this card fuels aren’t quite as powerful as some of the other combos in the format, the fact that this combo is so cheap and can afford to dedicate the rest of the deck to disruption and tutoring makes it quite powerful indeed. But artifact hate is quite prominent, even in type 1.5 and I’m not convinced that the combo justifies a banning.

Verdict – Tough call but should probably leave unbanned.

Psychatog – Win conditions, however powerful they may be, aren’t what decide matches. They’re simply the means to an end.

Verdict – Leave unbanned.

Intuition – Worldgorger Dragon, Deep Analysis or Accumulated Knowledge, these are the chief culprits that make Intuition a powerful card. Simply put, they don’t justify restricting a three mana easily counterable tutor.

Verdict – Leave unbanned.

Type 1.5 deserves to flourish. It is without question the most diverse and open format in magic. You can play pretty much any card. And a lot more cards, strategies, archetypes and decks are viable due to the lack of power. A budget deck doesn't have to dedicate several slots to null rods and further weaken themselves to compete in type 1.5. A budget deck doesn't have to run a playset of force of wills to have a shot against combo decks. This opens up a lot more options. I sincerely hope that this article goes further along in encouraging the lists to be separated and furthering the very promising format. And I think that if done correctly, many different archeatypes of aggro, combo, and control can all flourish in type 1.5.

Wizards has a lot to gain from supporting type 1.5. It contains many of the oldest and most dedicated players of the game, the players that often draw new players into the game. In addition, type 1.5 is the format that embodies the spirit of the vast majority of magic players. The casual ones that like to play with their very first cards but neither have access, nor wish to utilize the brokenness that type 1 offers. If a format is created that actually encompasses them and their philosophy, this could well be enough to convince them to regularly play magic once again, possibly even competitively. Eventually, they may begin to buy the newer cards and contribute to other formats as well.

Yes standstill does great smoothing out my mana base.

If I draw a standstill (the thing taking up brainstorm's slots) with the hand provided in the above situation, I would be able to play it turn two.

Turn one fetch for tropical, sapphire, Quirion Dryad. Daze (or FoW) their spell next turn.

Turn two, mishra's factory, cloud of faires, standstill. Attack with 4/4 dryad

You'll be beating down with a 4/4 dryad, a 2/2 factory and 1/1 flyer each turn till they break the standstill.

The three cards you draw will fix the mana base the same as Brainstorm. But the fact that you actually drew the cards instead of just shuffling around your hand for a few turns is HUGE.

Where as with brainstorm, you'll only have one card left in your hand. With standstill, you'll have three.

Even if the sapphire was a wasteland or factory.

First turn mishra's factory.

Second turn fetch for tropical island, dryad, daze and/or FoW discarding cloud their turn

Third turn replay tropical cloud (if not discarded for fow), standstill, attack with 4/4 dryad.

Fourth turn second mishra's factory or wasteland, attack with 4/4 dryad, 1/1 cloud, 3/3 factory or a 2/2 factory + waste a land.

They'll have to break standstill asap (and you FoW whichever spell they used to break it if it's important). You'll get the fetch or volcanic you need (to play lavamancer) if you would have gotten it with brainstorm, only you also get two other cards with which to refuel your hand and pump the dryad up to a 7/7! Plus they hadn't been able to resolve a spell since turn one.

Standstill is perfect for smoothing your manabase and works better with dryad since it not only works well with a decent sized dryad under it but also provides more spells to play and pump dryad up.

There are very few situations where brainstorm is better than standstill.

And to answer your first question. I've been playing this deck regularly for the past month or so against just about every archeatype out there. I think that qualifies as testing.

I still haven't been able to decide between quirion dryad and river boa. An early dryad won me so many games that it feels wrong not to play it. But river boa is a LOT better in top deck mode if you don't have a draw engine going. Plus it's harder to kill.

This is why I would like to hear some honest, sensible, or well tested reasons on why one should opt for either the quirion dryad or river boa.

I think it comes down to this... Shaman is good for mana denial. Heretic is near worthless for this purpose.

Heretic is a good card against big artifacts. But it'll never be maindecked. And in the sideboard, I would almost always prefer something a lot faster or more effective like oxidize, artifact mutation, or rack and ruin.

Heretic effectively takes 5 mana to blow up the first artifact and has to wait till the turn after it's cast to do that. Rack and Ruin, Artifact Mutation, and Oxidize are all better for this purpose.

But it's certainly not a bad card. Try it if you wish.

WTF/r (the fish variant using brainstorm) supports three colors just fine.

The mana base works. I dislike using brainstorm and that's why I don't use it.

So does U/R/W Fish (the one that splashes for meddling mage and swords).

I tried this a bit as well. Meddling Mage wasn't very good IMO. It's not as useful as often as people seem to think it is. Plus you have to protect it if it is to have affected the game at all.

Swords is great. But there are many situations where it just sits in your hand doing nothing.

River Boa is great against aggro, whether chump blocking or working with lavamancer or mishra's factory to take out fatties. It's a great curiosity target. It's a great threat as well especially under standstill. It's never a dead card.

The same can be said of Quirion Dryad. It's even better than dryad against aggro, great under curiosity, great at taking out fat and is a sweet threat.

If you have any questions about the mana base, try the deck out yourself (the build I posted). You can almost always draw two fetches or a dual and a fetch or something in the first few turns.



In the situation you listed, I would fetch tropical, play sapphire, play dryad turn one. Daze their next spell.

Next turn, play factory, cloud, play another threat if you drew one and attack with a 3/3 dryad or 4/4 dryad turn two. FoW whatever they try to play the next turn if it's a solid threat.

By now, you should've drawn another fetch for lavamancer, or another threat, or a curiosity or standstill or something. Play it, attack with a 5/5 or 6/6 dryad, a mishra's factory, another threat if you played one last turn and a clouds. Note: I probably would only over extend myself like this against certain match ups. There are a few match ups where I would slow play, never having more than 2 or 3 threats in play at once.

They're now at 5-9 life on a very fast clock with essentially nothing on the board (thanks to the disruption you played so far) facing numerous threats. They'll likely die next turn or atleat in two turns unless they do something big and you can't disrupt it (and you probably can).

I've tried U/R Fish and it's performance was too poor against aggro decks to be considered a well rounded deck.

WTF/r performed somewhat better against aggro but tended to stall out far too often.

The absence of standstill from WTF/r is a mistake in my opinion. Fish thrives on card drawing. Even with River Boa, Call of the Herd or Quirion Dryad, the threats simply aren't powerful enough to make something like brainstorm worthwhile. And WTF can deliver beats faster than U/R Fish making standstill more potent than ever.

So this is what I've arrived at, a compromise between both builds that keeps the best aspects of each.

//NAME: Fish on RUGs
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        4 Curiosity
        4 Standstill

        4 Force of Will
        1 Misdirection
        1 Stifle
        1 Daze
        3 Null Rod

        4 Grim Lavamancer
        4 Cloud of Faeries
        4 Spiketail Hatchling
        4 Quirion Dryad or River Boa
       
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Library of Alexandria
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Wasteland
        4 Mishra's Factory
        4 Polluted Delta
        3 Flooded Strand
        3 Tropical Island
        3 Volcanic Island

SB:  1 Stifle
SB:  1 Gorilla Shaman
SB:  1 Null Rod
SB:  1 Artifact Mutation
SB:  1 Rack and Ruin
SB:  1 Pyroblast
SB:  1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB:  2 Maze of Ith
SB:  2 Fire / Ice
SB:  2 Oxidize
SB:  2 Red Elemental Blast

It's pretty much a standard fish deck except for a green splash to replace the voidmage prodigy.

Voidmage Prodigy is just not a very good threat. It dies to just about anything making it worthless against aggro. It's disruption is too slow to effect combo. It helps a bit against control, but that's a matchup that fish already does well against.

Replacing it with a creature that actually helps fish against aggro, and at the same time poses a real threat to control decks, was a very lucrative option.

Between lavamancer, factories and either dryad or river boa, the deck performs pretty well against solid aggro decks like FCG, r/g beats and madness. I'm not claiming that these matchups are favorable, but they are easily winnable. Against FCG, if you can keep the Food Chains of the table, you're essentially dealing with gobvantage with numerous viable blockers of your own and in the case of Dryad, an ever growing threat.

I've had quite a hard time deciding between quirion dryad and river boa. In testing, I've continously gone back and forth. River Boa is in general a more versatile creature. But Quirion Dryad made aggro a winnable matchup, and wasn't poor against control either.

I'm sure most WTF players are already aware of just how potent a threat river boa is. So allow me to explain the advantages of Quirion Dryad...

The dryad is usually a 3/3 the turn after I play him, and by next turn gets big enough that almost none of the aggro critters can attack and i can play my standstill. A 3/3 that keeps getting bigger is a great target for curiosity as well against the many deck that don't play any way to remove the dryad or any really large creatures.

Dryad does suck in topdeck mode if you don't already have a curiosity or standstill draw engine set up. But in every other situation, I've never regretted seeing it.

Dryad makes standstill better. Where as before, you couldn't play standstill against a weenie aggro deck that plays multiple weenies early on (r/g beats). Now you can, simply by playing a Dryad, some other spell next turn (curiosity, cloud of fairies, lavamancer, one of the many free or cheap disruption spells) followed up with the standstill. Now, none of their guys can attack while your 3/3 is on the table but all your flying critters can. And when they break standstill and you draw three more spells, dryad starts to get obnoxiously big.

Having a big threat IS tempo. You can simply play a dryad then play fish as usual while he just keeps getting bigger and gaining more and more tempo. Decks that previously play the waiting game with fish till they have the mana for their powerful bombs now have something they need to deal with asap. At worst, dryad saves your curious fairie from being swordsed because they are forced to use it on the dryad instead.

River Boa is by no means a bad creature. But it does require that you leave a green mana source open at all times to protect it or to be able to chump block aggro decks. Leaving mana open is something that fish does NOT like to do.

The 1/1/1 configuration for Misd/Daze/Stifle has been working out very well. The opponents never know what to expect or prepare for and all three cards can have game swinging effects.

The mana base is solid since I removed the Fairie Conclaves. The conclaves were slowing me down by a turn every time I draw them in my opening hand. Even mid game, I rarely have the mana to use them effectively as I always need mana for the spells I keep drawing, for lavamancer, to regenerate boa, or to pump mishra's factory. Tapping three lands to attack for 2 just isn't very viable anyways.

The sideboard is pretty standard and has been working out very well. But if someone requests, I can go into specifics on sideboarding. One mistake I urge you not to make is don't fall too low on threat density when sideboarding, you need them for your draw engine to work. And also, be wary of siding out curiosity, they're essential to not stalling out.

Note: Currently, I am running river boa in Fish on RUGs. I'm simply suggesting that dryad is a very viable alternative as well.