Disagree 90%. Annul is a good card in you play it in an vial/chalice build. It really sucks in a Rod build. Why? because it has ZERO tempo on it's own! With vials, you can drop your beats eot and keep the mana open to play other stuff like F/I, Annul, Stifle or whatever you want to play so badly. In rod builds it's key to generate tempo in another way. THAT way is tapping out every turn and keeping the pressure up as high as possible. You can't just sit there with an Annul hoping that he plays something you can counter. Annul on a Lotus might be nice but for all the moxen you should have a Rod, Shaman, Chalice or kataki down. These might see play and then in a Vial build wich is probebly WHITE since that has better synergy with the cards (looking at CC and effects).

Then saying that it might work to beat all kind of combo decks is weird to, what if they go first turn island, go. ?? Then you go and it's still game 1.. would you really sit there, fetch go too?? hell if you just answered yes then u have no idea what fish is (OR WAS) all about. Annul might help but you really HAVE to know what u're up against to keep on your own good gameplan and avoid unnecesairy tempo-loss.

just my oldskool opinion, gl

Tijnie

actually this is not true. Go search in the historie and you'll find these words of Mr gay himself: Fish wanted to abuse 5 A. Recalls pointing to standstill. Lavamancer, cloud of faeries en mishra's factory all gave you treaths before your standstill. Spiketail Hatcheling could do the same thing because they were slowed again by one mana. Fish is an evalution of Landstill getting turned into an agrro deck AND the old mono-u agrro decks (like merfolk.dec). Now we had an aggro deck with 5 recall again (agrro got broken because of 4 A. recalls wich is why it got banned in the first place a LONG time ago). Then we wanted a second drai engine becasue 5 draw cards was to slow, searching for a cheap card it was curiosity that was found and brainstorm was left aside for once. This has been the formula for a strong deck that would have ruled the meta for a decent time and we're still building decks with this inspiration.

Back to this topic: i see why U/R is different than U/W. But what we didn't look for was WHY U/R's strategy wasn't working so well anymore. Lets take a look at the decks today, we can see that everyone suddenly fears wastelands. I think this is a major change because here you'll find yourself with the problem of not being able to play ur best gameplan. This is what made people change their gameplan and what did that give us? U/W and U/G (now even U/B). We addepted fish using new colors, and why shouldn't we? It's really just a choice and your meta screams for it. I don;t know what can bring U/R back. If i look at supa tim i'd say go play 4 stifle but is that the best way to solve red's problem? And though i see why your deck can disrupt your opponent completely, it look alot like old skool suicide black because it has no draw-engine (so it will stall more then once) but then without Necro or Will. I still believe fish MUST have a decent drawenige with a minimum of 7 "draw cards".

no-one seems to like Ninja around here, but if it's so bad why does it see play in almost all the fish decks that make it to the top8? (exept for U/B where it is replace for Dark Confidant). I Like ninja's and espesially in U/R where you have the best 1turndrops and the best toy's to remove smal creeps that are in your way.

Tijnie

Actually i don't know what we're discussing. You're discussing the best build of U/R fish, I think thats nice but not the best way to explain why U/R seems to have left the planet. Lets take a small look at the other fish builds and you'll see my point. I'm focussing on the creatures and not on whatever hate you'll put into your other slots. (I presume all lists play mishra's factory)

the last U/W list played this creatures: Meddling Mage, Voidmage, Ninja, Kataki and Stormscape Apprentice + sideboarde True believes. Look at their power, only the Apprectice has a Beat for 1, the rest all have power 2 making ur clock faster.

U/B: most U/B use Confidant, Withered Wretch and mesmeric fiend. Here we also see >50% creatures with power 2.

U/G: Rootwalle, Wild Mongrel, Gaea's Skyfolk? and whatever. But here too i see strong creatures.

Now lets take a look at U/R: Lavamancer (might kick for 2 but not always), shaman, cloud of faeries, water bouncer, rootater thief, voidmage and ninja. Only 2 creatures have a power of 2 and lavamancer might do 2 damage sometimes if u're lucky.

Now what's my point? I think that U/r's clock became to slow to really beat ur opponent down fast enough. because you're this slow you can't keep controll with this deck for too long because fish is Agrro/(controll) and NOT controll. So you'll work youself into a gameplan you don't want. I think this is U/r's bigest problem today, the meta is alot faster now and our "tempo fish" deck doens't have the toys (yet) to adept to this speed. Al we're doing is trying to make it more into a Meta deck wich is good but limited especially on the biger tournements where you'll have a very big number of different match-ups.
Now we're only taling about our creatures power but we can all see that it's often more usefull to have a Meddling Mage of Dark Confidant in play than having a Lavamancer in play (at least in vintage, exept for the slaver and mirror match-up).

so i think red has to go find a better creature base for a faster clock instead of focussing on the metaslots. I think if it can adept in creature's the rest will follow by itself.

Tijnie

Stifle is goood against fetchies to screw your oppoent. But there's a reason why stifle is more counterlike. There are more situations in wich stifle is handy then just screwing a fetch. It can stop other wastelands but als alot of other usefull ability's. Welders, Oath (just for one turn but i helps), Titans/slavers and al sorts of things. Hell if there's a sloppy stormplayer you might just screw there kill completely. That make's stifle more usefull in other "random"matches.
Also for combo stifling a fetch is better then destroying the land that comes into play since he'll tap it anyway and might just go off. Last small detail, stifle is a blue card.

Yes you're right, in some matchups your wayfareer is better. And yes it has some synergy with fish, but sitting there and waiting for your opponent to get manascrew isn't fishlike. Most your keyspells ae 2 mana and are really great when cast turn two. you don't wanna waist then hoping you oppoentn gets screwed. And like said, you're entire gameplan might be screwed by people keeping fetchies in play (like most decks with non-basics will do).

when i play, i play stifle. The cearurebase looks fine the way it is to support the deck and Ninja's are kwel =).

Greetz, Tijnie

The card can be very strong, but like said very mana intensive. When playing Controll i will play it over memory jar for sure. Mirari is nice but that thing is even more mana intensive and you can't really builton it for drawing cards. Yes it will double some spells, but that will only help ifyou can play them in the first place.

I've been considering playing the card in Landstill, the deck might run this card. It's mana-intensive (enough lands  ), the CC is not a real problem, Disk costs 4 too so the 5th mana should be do-able. Most Drain-based decks could run this card. However most got better draw-engine's like Ak, TfK or Skeletal Scryings.

The cards will win you games whenit hits play, but when you drawit early itwill often be very dead. 5 mana is no joke and using it take's 1-2 mana (or more) every turn. If you got that much mana AND time (like Landstill) this might be a good try, otherwise I'd stick with Scryings&Co.

Tijnie

don't forget the cloud of faeries and grims, they cn dropped before droppig that standstill too.

@Matt:  Wait, so you're telling me I CAN use my MisD to counter a Counterspell??

@nataz: Omg that is like my decklist . Only I'm running 2 Stifle and No Mox-monkey.. though it could be a nice choice I've never tried it. Ik looks nice but it IS another RED spell (wich I'm trying to keep down in numbers) and it doesnt do anything more then Rod. So this is a 4th MD rod witch can kick... Not bad actually since it can screw welder by take out the mox in response. Maybe a Lone Fire/Ice is better in this slot. It can take out welder AND screw other creature's. The best part is that it's blue ofcourse  

The sideboard.. well we're very close. Only Unsummon just to screw dragon sounds CRAP to me, Take a 2nd BeB (or STifle). Both screw dragon AND can be nice in other matchups. beB vs Gobbo's and stuf. Stifle vs Draw7.dec or other funky combo   The Energy Flux looks a bit useless to me. 3 R&R, 4 Rods.. I don't like to pay for my own Rods. Maybe THIS can be your mox-monkey afterall..
Firestorm.. have you really been testing this or do you just put it on because PTW has 1 great experience with it.

Tijnie

I use the same mana-base with 5 fetchies. You forgat the mox I ques?

Anyway, the best thing about this deck is that it can run the way it does. Any deck with FoW, Null Rod and a draw-enige will be a good deck. Serious that Null Rods win you more game's then the rest of this deck. It's so cool all those though guys with fully (Beta) Powered decks playing for 5 years T1 or so. And then you walk in, with a "budget" deck and you can whoop their ass huge. That Null Rod shuts down like 10 cards at least in their deck probebly and they won't have to many options to stop you. At best they can counter back and if they fail.. the story will get a sad end for them.

the sideboard has alot of options.

Graveyard hate: Tormod's Crypt
Artifact Hate: Null Rod, Rack and Ruin, Goblin Vandal, Energy Flux, (Crash   ) are probebly you best shots. Maybe Hurky's Recall.
Agrro: Fire/Ice, Sigil of Sleep, Maze of Ith (Anything Else??) Firestorm??
Controll: Black Vise, ReB

And ofcourse, BeB and Arcane Lab. can take some spots too. (maybe even Rootwater Thief if you got a funny Meta) I could be missing some cards but these are the cards that will see the sideboard in most Meta's.

Rack and Ruin gets played in almost any built and it stills costs 3 mana.

I just got a second place with my Gay/R. matchups:
Suicide B/R 2-0 win
Suicide mono 2-0 win
Workshop Slavery 2-1 win
Keeper 2-0 win
draw7.dec 2-1 Lost
Urphidian 2-0 win

And i played a 7th round because we were even and both wanted the mana drain

Trinisstax 2-1 Win

I played almost the same as PTW. Only I went 2 Voidmage's, 2 daze's and 2 Stifle's.. no further changes. Sideboard was like this:

3x Maze of Ith (poor today)
2x Sigil of Sleep (poor today)
2x BeB (nice)
2x Fire/Ice (ownage)
2x ReB (nice)
2x Rack and Ruin (never casted, didn;t draw)
1x Crash (secret tech, was nice)
1x Null Rod (important!!)

Crash was cool, I needed that mana right away and this was free. byebye Chalice for 2, hello cloud of faeries and null Rod.
I like this sideboard, though I might need that 3 R&R but the rest felt fine. Normally maze's and Sigils make me feel Fuzzy, I didn;t really needed them this day though, nice matchups =)

would this be difference if it were an opponents jar?? Ques not right?.

great so lets add a creature in this deck to beat uo the MIRROR?? and welder matchups were BeB/ Lavamancer and Fire/Ice can do the same trick.

sorry I really have to dis-agree with you here. at the best, your thief will go remove 1 card in turn 3.. and you don't even know if they even would have drawn it anyway.. Most combo use tutors so they'll find any unrestricted and important card they need for the combo anyway.
Isn't Combo ment to kill you turn 2-3?. so, you might just say that you're tfief is a bit slow here?. I even prefer voidmage, just as slow, but you will counter a card they PLAY so at least you stop a card that they want to play, and your lavamancers start acting like counterspells   .

Another replacement often said is Goblin Vandal.. yes it is strong I can't deny that, but you're replacing 3 blue cards for 3 red cards. You'll find yourself unhappy with several FoW's unless you're holding back. As far as I know, Agrro shouldn't be holding back and that obviously counts for fish since it already kills slow. With 3 Rods maindeck, and nice Artifact hate in the sb you should be able to win these game's.. .

Razorfin might be the best replacement if we need to replace it anyway. Its blue, can shoot and in an agrro meta it will be very handy. yes we lose some strong counters in this deck. But if your meta is really agrro you won't play counter, but remove-all wich works fine too  

I haven't been following this threath really, but this is in short words what came to my mind. It is prety balanced, but still it would be very cool

Time Waltz
RG
Sorcery
Take an extra turn after thuis one. After that turn, all opponents gain an aditonal turn after theirs.

Agrro can work with this just fine, playing it turn 3-4 might give you that turn you need, but if you don't kill... you'll have a huge problem .

could this make it to type1? or would this be to strong for FCG, TnT, Tog? (they use artifact mutation too).

@Atog lord

well why don't you take a peek right http://www.morphling.de/coverages/top8decks.php?id=116 . I see atog, S, Blasts.. looks like agrro ravenger to me or something like that  

Hi there, Ive one question that you'll almost never need but i want it to know, with a wasteland it might reduce two damage from a PoP.

Wasteland:

Errata:  : Add to your mana pool. ; ,Sacrifice Wasteland: Destroy target nonbasic land.

Well the question is really short, can a Wasteland target itself?? same goes for fanatics and other cool stuff. I think not, cause when you sac it, you'll need to pick target after saccing right?? or am I mistaking??

thnx for helping, bye Tijnie

You're so right, Sigil is great. People can tell you such great things about it, but still you won't destroy any threath rightt?? you just bounce them and you can't keep bouncing forever...  can you?? YES WE CAN!!. Since we're fucking up you're mana-base with enough strips, rods and stifle's you can't get out so many threaths a turn. and if you're going to try it, we'l have to give you permission to do that so no way there'll be a nice threath on the board for you.

I don't like Sofai that much, I think very few people REALLY tested this. It slows down this deck so much. that mana-cost just doesn't de the trick, 5 mana that means you're busy 2 turns only trying to equip it, and unless you hava a fearie there will be no threath on your side to put it on anyway. so turn 4 you can block something finely and you didn't played anything else. Sigil will start working turn 3 and can be in play turn 2. Meanwhile, you can go play wastelands, rods, standstill or whatever. this is Fishy, Sofai is NOT Fishy. And Sofai say no to your curiosity's and rods.. it just sucks for fish. nice on paper, bad on board. Don't believe me?? try it!  

Need more cards for aggro?? you must have a crappy meta dude , Fire/Ice and/or maze of Ith can often help out nice to. Fire/Ice can stop 2 cheap threaths. he tried so hard to have a few mana and drop threaths and you play 1 card and both are gone... Life's a Biatch. maze just paralyses a creatue, you fly so you don't care if he has a non-flying threath on the board and with several maze's on board you can have so much fun on the long game. Attack with two mishra's. one gets blocked, I untap to pump my other mishra and do the same again (same target) to pump it again. Same idea goes for attacking Lavamancers that can shoot twice that turn.

@PTW, nice story and so true. though with darkstweel coming, we DO have a new man-land so you're not 100% right   .

Fish also has the ability to cause a mayor land-screw. Null Rod, 5 Strips, Stifle (fetch? DON'T!), Spiketail Hatcheling and Daze. All these cards will do their best to make you pay to much mana for any spell. I think that's a very strong side of fish.

The deck (gay/R) is Red/Blue, giving it a great number of strong sidebord cards for any Meta, meaning you can go anywhere if you would just try to tweak it.

The fact that fish is can be played by budget players is just very cool   . Though I think thats also a bad side. If you finely have al the powercards availble (or most of them), you got everything you want and you can play all kind of superdecks like Dragon, Mud, Keeper, Tog..... Why would you even try fish out??

For the green splash, I don't really like it (yet). Yes Boa is great, but I don't like the Root Maze's. Like Orlove said, starting second really sucks.. Fish already doesn't like going second cause daze's, spiketails and rods should come out fast. This deck is making those matchúps even worse. and with al those artifact-decks coming up (slavery, Affiny maybe) I think you're better of with red. rack and Ruin, vandals and maybe even crash (witch I'm testing these days) are great cards to take with you.

The main questions answer, Fish has ownage.

Spiketails are good enough on their own. Even without daze (making then like a walking FoW and go for daze as the removed card) your opponent still needs to pay that 1 mana extra not knowing if you're even planning to counter it afterall. Thos gives you speed (or slows down your opponent) making it easier to go for a quik standstill, Firewalker and stuf like that.

and don't forget, paying one mana extra with Rods, maze's, Strips and maybe even stifle a fetch.. that one mana may be hard to find for some decks.

Don't go cut any Spiketail here plz, Cutting a creature wouldn't be smart right now anyway You'll be playing only 14 creature's then, If you lose 1 (maybe 2) there will be nothing left to drop Curiosity on making you weak and feel stupid   .

like you said, going second really sucks. Fish always hate's to go second, and this deck makes that only worse   . Wil this be the new fish?? No I don't think so, But it can be a nice Fish deck for some funny Meta's.

Good Job, Hope to hear more about this thing.

SoFi is so strong. to bad your 2 "best" card hate it. Null Rod, (obvious) and Curiosity. Since it's Blue, it will jump off when you equip yor creature with SoFi, and fast cardadventage is better then alot of damage.

Killing and opponent isn't hard for fish, Stopping them from overrunning you IS. SoFi is a bit expensive too. For Agrro, I'll let my Sigils of Sleep and Maze's of Ith do the job.

Not sure, funny that I didn't heard any-one calling Suicide yet, (okay I saw the word negator once). This card is so amazing, in theory it solves alot of suicide's  problems. Burn, Lack of card-adventage, Agrro

the mana-base is used to heavy CC. Shade's, wretches, disruption.. uicide can take this card up quit easy if its for the CC+equip-cost.

Prod. red really is nice, negator is a nice choice, but any other thread will do since you can now block anything, and when attacking you deal +4 dmg, take out a treath most of the time and draw a card. very nice and we can re-equip after that having a strong blocker again..

How-ever, like fish Suicide is in love with his Null Rods. Rods won me more games then any other card in this deck and cutting them really hurts. but it is NOT imposible. Kegs can do a nice job too, and if you really don't like that, this card can maybe played in Chalice Black wich is using CotV. I haven't tried it in Chalice Black yet, but Suicide with Kegs and SFI's is really dointg a better job beating agrro.

For Fish, I tried them, saw my Curiosity-engine dying, my null Rods disrupting myself... cutting any of these really sucked. I don't think Fish can pick this sword up, Fish is a big pile of Synergy and SFI ain't working there.

Hi there, thank you so much for helping me out   (you are, are you?)

First off, this al started with rumors, I'm not sure about anything here and haven't noticed this while playing yet. lets start with the Wish since that is the Easy-est question.

Cunning Wish/Burning Wish or whatever, when I play this card is my opponent now allowed to look at my sideboard?? I've checked the oracle but I can't find anything about any ruling like this.



ques I don't have to, but a guy on MWS (he looked prety serious, nice playing and good deck. said he played alot IRL too so...) he told me I had to before the wish would resolve so he could think some stratergy up.. crap or true??.

------------------------

Well, the other thing is about artifacts, for howling Mine they finely wrote it on the card.



So if its tapped, no drawing for me.. okay that sounds prety clear. but does this go for any artifact with trigered abilities?? I've heard something about ruling like this but never actually needed this, with my new deck (toggie) I've to know since fire/Ice can be tech, like so many other things ofcourse.

-----------------------

last one, Berserk. I know all the rulings and stuff, this is just a small timing question.

Okay here goes, i play berserk, my opponent says he won't counter it, can I in respond discard my hand to make my Psychatog really big and dubble its power after that?? yes I know this is possible, but can my opponent respond by countering the berserk anyway?? just a small question, but very handy to know  

Thanks for reading, hope you can help me out of this hole of complete darkness..

Greetings, Tijnie

well, I think you can. I see you own Mana Drains, those things are so goddam important. I ain't own Mana Drains but still my Tog-list feels fine. I do have some power (Jet, Saphhire, Recall, Lotus and Loa..) But no drains. It works fine, but things like Mind Twist, P. Deed, Deep Analyses are a bit hard to drop, I think REcall and Drains are the most important things to have if you play Hulk, the Power makes your deck alot faster but if you're in a slow (unpowered) meta then a deck like this will be fine.

I've treid Aphetto Alchemist once.

1U
Wizard
tap: Untap target Artifact or Creature
Morph U
1/2

worked nice, Untap my Grim, shoot again (darw), Attacking (and blokking) 3/3-4/4 Mishra's.. 1/2 himself.. not really bad. Sac for voidmage counter. wasn't that bad, but spiky's fly and give you more speed, wich is just better then an aditional wizard.

mono won't become the NEW gayness. I'm not sure if this deck will make it. More testig tells me another thing, this mono-thing is sooo fucking slow. Gay/R has more speed.
Voidmage+Grim is faster counter then with the firewalker. this means you will have faster options to take cntroll of the board and swing for the win.
You can shoot away creeps with Grim alot faster than firewalker can do (and some more creature's too since this is 2dmg) I found myself really unhappy in my sligh matchup with firewalker. It's just to dam slow (unless I draw Lotus) to keep up with all the threats coming out fast, with grim your agrro matchup feels alot better.
Cloud of Faeries, I knew they were strong, but I found out there real strenght the moment I removed them from my deck. you play like 1 spell each turn, while normally it would be secong turn cloud, standstill or whatever. This lack of speed on turn 2 make's spiky's, curiosity's and standstill alot weaker and those are the cards we really want to use.




I'm not sure but with only 5 strips, I think they'll have a hard time screwing you and keep up there own play. With fetchies and stifle's I still believe getting screwed can be prevented (if they even try to screw you, like said manlands are often a target too)

my conclusion, this mono thing needs work, Conclave's should obviously see play, but we can't really cut anything so this is going to be really fun   . Untill then, I'll stick with Gay/R.

don't you guys ever sideboard and/or play in crappy beatdown meta's??

I've a Question to PTW, but if anyone else has an aswer go on.

Gay/R counterbase
4x FoW, 3x Daze, 1x MisD.

Mono-u counterbase
4x FoW, 2x Stifle, 2x MisD.

WHYWHYWHY?? Stifle's are tech in Gay/r to take out wastelands, the mono version doesn't really need to. then in mono-u we play firewalker, and now we do need more MisD's?? why you have less creature's that can be the target. sorry but this doesn't really make any sense to me.

The way you try to "fix" Gay/R's mana base, you're actually creating a complete new deck. maybe U/R Controll is a fine decklist for you   .

about the black vise, I don't really like it, Standstill should be broken by the opponent, not by you. with the manlands, you're often the man that will be able to force his opponent in breaking that standstill.

about sword of Fire and Ice, I'm starting to like that idea. Imagine, a Flying man (or whatever) with a curiosity and a Swords equiped. attack, deal 3 dmg, draw a card for Curiosity, draw a card for sword, then deal 2 dmg for sword and draw another card for curiosity. That's 5 dmg,+3 cards and you migt drop 2 dmg and a card to deal two damage to target creature (we also gain prot. Red/Blue). the mana-cost isn't a real problem and in the mono build it can come out really fast with lotus. If there's any deck this card can be used by I'm sure it is Fish, it has such great synergy with the deck (exept for the Null Rod)

I agree, Any-one playing less then 2-3 spiky's doesn;t know what Fish is al about, I think 3 is the right number to run.

About single cards, can Sword of Fire and Ice be cool in fish?? we run like 7-8 Flying creature's wich often will come though, they'll be 3/3 Flying with a MAD ability (Shock, draw) and prod red/blue. right we can't target it with our own curiosity but in my eye's a creep like that with the counterbackup of fish means you will obviously win this match. It IS a bit slow I know, but can it be worth a try or am I just bull-shitting here??.

EDIT, It doesn't have great synergy with the Rod's though   . Null Rod is so important to this deck that we can't even use it most of the time, I Answered my own question   . but more serious, maybe 2-3 SB slots?? for sligh and stuff we don't need Rods anyway right?

ok I changed my mind . I've been playing this deck for a few days now and it owned like... like whatever, it just owns. I didn't use PTW's list, here's my build: (note, I don't own time walk YET   )

Blue Neon, By Tijnie (maybe we should call this Lesbian Blue)

Creeps // 14
4 Flying Men
3 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Suq'ata Fire Walker
3 Voidmage Prodigy

Counter // 10
3 Daze
4 Force of will
1 Misdirection
2 Stifle

Draw // 9
4 Curiosity
4 Standstill
1 Ancestral Recall

Other // 3
3 Null Rod

24 // Mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Faerie Conclave
9 Island

I didn't even tried the deck without Daze's since I know they are very powerfull and I don't feel like cutting them. This deck feels great, better then Gay/R, not sure but it feels more solid. It's obviously a better choice in a Meta full of Sligh, Landstill and other decks that use alot of burn and wastelands, I saw that fast enough. however is a bit slower for aggro decks since you can't go burn them on turn 2 for 2dmg. If you can live with that this deck is great.

I like to pinch a Flying men on my FoW's, couldn't do that with a lavamancer and this manabase is really smooooth   . Ques I was wrong about this deck, it can be really strong and isn't far from gay/r. If it's a better deck depends on the player. If you're fully powered this might be better, for powerless players Gay/r is great since you still play 4 islands MD, enough to prevent mana-srcew.

I didn't tried anything with my sideboard, but I don't think there will be a problem this mono-u sideboard can't handle. I'll be trying; BeB's, Masticore's, Maze's, Energy Fluxes, Null Rod, Crypts, Sigils of Sleep and maybe even Back to Basic...

mix it al together and we can say this is a fine deck  

allright I completely understand it now. so I can "prevent" the madness to trigger and he'll never even get a chance to pay any madness cost since it is countered... cool  .

thnx dude, you own me