It was a lot of fun meeting some new faces for sure. Why did you put quotations marks around Sport when referring to Football Cody? hrm? what are you implying there?

I was surprised at how good fanatic was for Eric all day.

How many times have you kept a decent hand with the mitigating factor being "I have the fetch/brainstorm, I'll be ok".

Like you always try to ensure that Will resolves and protect it, you're going to play around this card. It'll change that turn 1 brainstorm fix that so many players are fond of - compounding the fact that it is a split-second spell makes it a lot harder to deal with.
I don't think its intended target is going to be mana drain, although that'll probably do just fine. If gifts or whatever deck just drained you, they're typically about to do something nasty to you with the added mana. I honestly feel that this card will target brainstorm a *lot*, and at U, Brainstorm has been one of the most undercosted unrestricted cards in MT:G for a long time. We could deal with brainstorm via CoV, or Meddling Mage, both of which potentially let no brainstorms resolve for the opponent, Extirpate/Root of Evil/whatever it'll end up being called is a permanent answer (short of playing C. wish).

In conclusion: Yay! In the face brainstorm

I've had a hell of a time against Chalice for 1, quite honestly. My brainstorms, plows, stifle, javelineers (dark confidant is huge in my area) and ancestral are all dead cards. If you happen to be running Isamarus or S. Lions, it's even worse. Yes, my meddling mages, jotun grunts and ninjas can still come out to play. The problem is just the draw engine while facing a turn 1/2 Chalice @ 1. I can sometimes squeeze it out and win the game, but it's extremely tough.

So, I ended up fitting in a couple of cards that have made a significant difference: Mystical Tutor, Merchant Scroll and Rebuild. No-one ever plays a Chalice @ 3 against fish, and the number of times where I rebuilt to be able to fix my hand/remove a threat/stifle a tendril's has been significant enough to where I'm really starting to encourage others to try those additions.

I've cut the dazes entirely from my build as well - I had 2 misdirections in there for a while, but ended up cutting 1 for a Gush. I know it sounds weird, but the biggest problem I've had with fish has been keeping my grip full. I thought about running the old staple Curiosity instead of Ninjas, but it didn't work out all that well. The threat density of the deck just dwindled to the point where the mirror match became a pain. So, I've been fiddling with Gush and it's been pretty darn good so far. Any thoughts/comments/help as to how I could keep drawing cards without splashing black for Confidants?

I'm honestly amazed by this card. It strengthens Fish and Cullen Control against its worse matchup - combo.

Here are some possible repercussions of his inclusion:

- Makes Aether Vial that much better.
- Pithing Needles to make an appearance in combo?
- Massacres every which way.

While Wizards printed this little gem, they also did create that red storm spell (1R) that does 1 damage to target player or creature which will probably make an abundant appearance as very solid removal against this little guy and as an accelerated kill condition for combo.

I didn't have any tricks up my sleeve - I was just a bit fried at that point, and I was bit dejected that after all that work from both of us, the result of the second game, and potentially the match, would depend on something totally out of our control.

I'm sure there were mistakes on both sides, but this was probably one of the most demanding and fun magic games I've had in a long, long time. I still think my best play of the day was naming Crucible in game 3 on that mage.

Overall, the tournament was a lot of fun, and we'll hopefully do it again. By the way, misdirection is > daze. That is all.

I don't understand why people are coming down on brainstorm. Yes, the overall relative power of the cards is very close - but they don't do the same thing at all. How many times would you have rather had a Grunt/Swords instead of that second Kataki/Nullrod/x card? That is the true power of brainstorm in this deck; the ability to fix your hand so that it retains its "silver-bullet" feeling. Not to mention it's always, always very good against duress. Cutting it just seems to cripple the deck to me.

As far as daze is concerned, I'm in the same boat as the OP. There are times where I simply adore it, and times I want to rip the card to shreds. I took out the dazes and one StP from the deck, adding 3 Misdirections and 1 Gush instead. It's been working out very well, but I may cut back down to 2 MisDs - while it has been truly amazing, there are a handful of times I would've rather had anything else. Gush has been very good for me, and while it can make for a hefty drain target, the ability to draw cards for free in such a redundant deck has been outstanding.
 
I'm considering inserting an enlightened tutor or perhaps a Crucible of worlds into the main deck for the 3rd Misdirection slot currently - one would add another shuffle effect and the ability to find that Nullrod (plus added functionality with Seals of Cleansing/Jitte/Serenity/Flux/etc) or the random protection from waste/strip while giving myself another way of causing some heavy disruption in the mid/late game.

Anyhow, thanks for the primer, it does help define the deck's role and gameplan.

If you want to maintain that slot as a counterspell, you could always try Rune Snag - not quite as efficient at first, but becomes stronger late game than Mana Leak is.

Otherwise, I'd make those 3 Mana Leaks one of 3 cards: Duress, Cabal Therapy or Stifle.

True Believer, much like Meddling Mage, is a must answer threat. If he's in the main deck, as he is very rarely a dead card, then game 1 against combo I don't see how they're going to massacre it, since most combo decks run it in the board; I'm assuming we're mostly talking about Long here. Even in game 2/3, resolving a True Believer leads the opposing player down a very narrow path that must either lead to Massacre or Chain of Vapor. Anytime you limit your opponent to a very limited amount of outs, you're doing something extremely valuable. Here, I'm going to quote Jdizzle to help clarify this and illustrate my point:

"Disagree.  Mage on Tendrils is a MUST answer.  Anything else is an inconvenience and can be won around.  Mage on Tendrils must be dealt with, which is what you want to force Long to do--deal with things in play.  It's not that good at it if the cards aren't artifacts."

Feel free to replace the term "mage on tendrils" with True Believer. They cannot win unless they get rid of it, and for that simple fact alone, he is not just "really good with aether vial". Combine True Believer with Meddling Mage on Chain of Vapor/Massacre/Tendril's, and you suddenly have a situation in which Long is in a lot of trouble for game 1, and extremely difficult in games 2 and 3.

Running Aether Vial main with a deck that runs Null Rod is also questionable at best. With U/W Fish, the Null Rods come into play fairly fast, since you want to maximize its utility in many matchups - meaning turn 2 or 3. Assuming I play a Vial on turn 1, at best, I'd be using it twice: once for a 1cc creature and once for a 2cc creature. Maybe putting Vial in the board could possibly help, and sub them out for Nullrod in the mirror match, but I'd honestly rather bring in Jittes.

First off, let me start by saying that English is not my native language, so expect a certain amount of errors.

With the ever-increasing popularity of welder based decks the introduction of Energy flux has been mentioned as a possibly devastating board solution. I've tried playing it myself, and it has often stalled the opponent enough to where I could manage to recover or gain tempo and finish the game off. However, it has rarely been enough on its own. Players play around it, maintain threats, and generally manage to keep pressure on control decks, while flux is in play. I've had to combine it with B2B and/or Null Rod to prevent the players from managing to use artifacts to pay for themselves, or keep a pesky Academy from nullifying EF's effect.

My query is two-fold:

- Are there certain guidelines to follow on when to drop energy flux? Too early, and the oponent can play around it and change their game plan to incorporate the threat, and keep up. Too late in the game, and its effect seems to be minimal, and lacks that game-beaking consequences I would hope for.

- Are there any better answers than Energy Flux for blue-based control decks?