I'm not exactly sure why you want to play White over black. Since you don't have a way to sac Academy Rector, you probably just be better served running another Mind over Matter. I guess you really want to run Seal of Cleansing for board control? Cleansing answers Null Rods, Oaths, and various shop cards, but Black gives you Thoughtseize, Demonic, Vamp, and Yawg Will. I'd think 4 Repeals are a pretty decent start to the board control you want.

You definitely should be playing Vault-Key in the deck. Mind over Matter + Time Vault wins too. I'd start with a list like:

24 Mana (similar to yours above, but another land over Mana Vault)

Control 13
4 FoW
2 Drain
2 Spell Pierce
4 Thoughtseize
1 Hurkyl's Recall

Engine 7
4 Mystic Remora
3 Repeal

Restricted Cards 9
2 Brainstorm / Ancestral
4 Demonic / Vamp / Mystical / Scroll
1 Walk
1 Yawg Will
1 Gifts

Win 7
2 Time Vault / Key
2 Tinker / DSC
1 Bell
1 Mind over Matter

Dark Confidant instead of Repeals might be worth a look too. I'd play black though, you get all sorts of free wins from broken plays and Thoughseize keeps you from falling behind on the board (thus, less of a need for Seals).

Against Brassman in the top 8 of an SCG, I convinced myself that Necropotence was in my opening hand. After about 20 seconds, I confidently announced "Keep." Necropotence wasn't in my hand....and I didn't have any lands either. My hand was so bad that I lead with Lotus Petal -> Imperial Seal for Island. I don't remember how, but I somehow managed to locate that Necropotence and resolve it, blowing Yawg Willl, Lotus, and all my good cards in the process. I eventually cranked out a Desire for 5 or 6 with ~20 cards left in my deck , which deservedly fizzled.

That game was just a total nightmare. The problems kept snowballing, but Andy's lackluster draw steps weren't finishing me off, so the game just dragged on. The judge was all over me for slow play and I kept finding myself in unfamiliar circumstances. Eventually, we get to the point where I have ~13 cards in my hand from Necro, nearly half my deck RFG'd, and I'm facing down a board of various Wastelands and lock components. That's when the judge said "you have 15 seconds to finish your turn." I was so happy when I lost and the game was over.

FTY

Thanks Iron Chef. Hope Saito listens.

I totally agree with Duck on Pierce vs. Seize.

Sorry about any confusion with the decklist. Fixed.

I haven't been on TMD in a long time. I figured I'd check out what people thought of Worldquake cards and I stumbled across this thread. I was kinda surprised that I was name dropped in the article, nowadays the only time I read about myself is when I'm getting blamed for something at work.  

When I stopped playing T1 ~6 months ago, I thought ANT was very under represented in the metagame. The only real bad matchup my list had was BUG Fish. I credited this largely to the lack of highly competent pilots playing the deck (or maybe well know pilots). That's kind of how Storm always is though....

After good amount of testing, I eventually decided to cut Tinker-Jar. Tinker-Jar was in the deck for 2 reasons. (1) Increase threat density (2) provide alternate ways to win without using life as the primary resource. While (1) was still valid, early builds of ANT lacked threat density (mine didn't), (2) wasn't panning out. Often times decks that got some beats in were packing Null Rods and/or Stifles, so Tinker just wasn't so reliable. I tried out Sensei's Top instead of Tinker-Jar and was very impressed. Basically, if you've got a Sensei's Top going then you're probably casting Duress or a bomb every turn. I never really gave Dark Confidant much of a shot, because Top was so good. The only times I wanted Dark Confidant over Sensei's Top was against Null Rod decks (technically vs. Chalice @1's on the play they're better too, but I probably wasn't going to win regardless in those games). Cutting Tinker-Jar actually does a lot for going deeper with Ad Naus, since flipping tops instead of Tinker/Jar is a savings on average of 3 life.

For the record, I thought Necropotence was still very good in the deck, definitely worth playing. Just cause Ad Nauseum generally wins now, doesn't mean necro isn't worth playing. It's not like I don't play Brainstorm because Ancestral is better. It goes back to that whole, threat density thing. Necro isn't quite the "I win" card that it was in IT or PL, but you still win almost every time you get to untap. Necro'ing in here is a little different than normal because you're trying to assemble only Yawg Will kills or 2x Duress + Mini-Tendrils hands. AN obv sucks when you've got a Necro going, Twister isn't the safest play either because the blind 7 can be a bad when AN is dead, but the sheer drawing power of Necro can't be overlooked!

I don't want to bog up this thread with decklists, but here is what I was playing 6 months ago:

Land 12
4 Delta
2 Mire
3 Usea
2 Swamp
1 Island

Accel 16
4 Dark Rit
1 Cabal Rit
3 Chrome Mox
3 Mox
5 Lotus-Crypt-Petal-Sol Ring-Vault

Protection 12
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
1 Hurkyls
3 Chain of Vapor

Kill 2
2 Tendrils

Business 18
4 DT / VT / MT / Iseal
4 Ad Nauseam
1 Necro
1 Twister
1 Yawg Will
3 Ponder / BS / Ancestral
3 Sensei’s Top
1 Time Walk

SB
4 Extirpate (for hitting Cabal Therapy or Nacros)
1 Tormod's Crypt

2 Island
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Engineered Explosives

1 Tinker
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
3 Spell Snare

Vs. Drains probably no boarding would be done. Bounce Spells can be really useful against their Tinker plans or storming up.

Vs. Dredge we'd board out all the Duress for 5 hate cards, EE, and 2 Islands.

Vs. Shops -5 Duress, +5 good cards

Vs. Null Rod Fish +2 Island, +3 Snare, +2 Tinker/Dude, -1 Ad Nauseam, -1 Mana Crypt, -2 Sensei Top, -2 Duress, -1 Ponder


Thoughtseize was way better than Pact of Negation in my testing. PoN was only good vs. Drains. Thoughtseize was not only great vs. Drains, but it did something vs. other decks. With Sensei's Tops, it gave me the Duress or bomb every turn line of play too. Thoughtseize also prevents you from Pacting yourself to death vs. double counterspell.

I cut D Consult because it lost me an unacceptable amount of games that I was winning. You can do the numbers all day to determine if Tendrils is still in the deck after Consult,but sometimes RFGing a substantial portion of your library costs you too. Maybe it's just bad luck, but my losses due to consult have generally come in pairs.

Cutting Consult let me drop to 2 Tendrils and 1 Time Walk for the kill. Time Walk is almost always lethal off an AN, because it leads into Yawg Will kills with a topdeck tutor.

3 Sensei's Tops felt like 1 too many, but I couldn't figure out what to run in place of the 3rd.

I never got to test my Fish board, but Spell Pierce seems better than Snare.  


Lodestone Golem is stupid vs. ANT, since he hits your ability to combo in 2 ways. He's yet another reason to play Thoutghseize over PoN.

I've got to go. GL with the deck and nice article.

Playing Mystical for a card and mulliganning is definitely not the same thing, even when the card is on the stack. I haven't played T1 in a while, but back in the day, starts involving a Mystical Tutor for Ancestral often signal a weak hand that may be bottlenecked on mana. I'd be much more inclined to counter Ancestral when my opponent signaled this with a Mystical Tutor into Ancestral. If the happen to be bottlenecked on mana, countering the Ancestral will be crippling. If they FoW back, the opponent will also have fewer choices on which card to pitch.

Knowing what an opponent drew for the turn is kind of important too. Given a series of plays leading up to the casting of Ancestral, you may be able to deduce other things about their hand. If I Mystical for Ancestral with 3 mana available, I've signaled that I probably don't have Thirst for Knowledge or Intuition in hand, because I'd rather cast those with my mana with less cards invested (maybe after drawing some more cards I'll be able to Mystical into a winner instead of 3 random cards).


Let's say the only card that beats you is Yawg Will and you've got lethal next turn. Your opponent untaps, draws for turn and casts Ancestral, holding mystery card and 3+ mana. You don't want to counter that Ancestral and lose to a sandbagged Yawg Will. Sometimes countering the Ancestral is the play though, you've got to examine all the information you've been given. If your opponent has already cast 3 FOW's the odds of your opponent assembling FoW, Blue Card, and Yawg Will between mystery card and 3 new ones isn't very high. By holding back on the FoW you don't lose to a mystery card of Mana Drain and a topdecked Yawg Will.


I think you're oversimplifying. Mystical Tutor has given the opponent information. The information can impact the decision.

BPK, Serenity should be somewhere in the main or board. It's a great Enlightened Tutor target.

How is Steppe Lynx better than Tarmogoyf?

If you're running creatures in Landstill, they probably should be disruptive too. Outside of Tarmogoyf, Vendilion Clique and Aven Mindcensor are the only 2 creatures I could ever imagine running in Landstill.

Bloodghast should only be dying if you have skullclamp. Bazaar + Strip + Loam has been around for a while and hasn't done all that much. I don't think Bloodghast changes that drastically either. All it does is speed up your kill after you're engine is running. Furthermore, relying on Strip Loam makes you even more vunerable to post board graveyard hate. Regardless, that's an different strategy entirely and would warrent a different thread for further discussion.

Just a thought, a Ancient Grudge or 2 in the main might be worth considering if you ever up it to 4 Bazaars. You could splash red with in a single Badlands pretty easily. The card that'd be on the cutting block is Sacrament, which in theory kinda serve the same function vs. Vault-Key.

Looks like you're off to a good start, but I've got to agree with the above posters on the 1's, 2's, and 3 of's. I also don't see the need for Red in the deck when you could just fully combo out with Fastbond + Tendrils. Yeah, I get that Warrens also combo's with Skullclamp, but if you're at the point of casting a large ETW you could probably just finish them off with Tendrils (and hasty Bloodghast). Tendrils can also be used as a Lava Axe when going aggro.

One thing that I'd strongly advise on from experience is making sure you're not too vulnerable to GY hate. Leyline of the Void is amazing vs. Skullclamp, Bloodghast, and Bazaar (it's decent vs. Tarmogoyf too). Planar Void is pretty decent too. When building your maindeck, you're going to want to keep in mind your sideboard given the effectiveness of hate vs. your deck. You'll definitely want postboard a strategy that involves playing through it rather than destroying it (otherwise you're better off playing Dredge). This will probably involve boarding down on Bloodghast, Skullclamp, and Bazaars for Null Rods and a more traditional Sui cards. You don't have to cut all 12 every time when boarding, just something to keep in mind. Also, considering post boarded games makes you weigh the advantages of playing Therapy over Duress. Personally, I'd start this list off with 4 Thoughtseize and 4 Duress, then work from there.

One card that is particularly effective at fighting threw sideboard hate is Necropotence. I'd highly recommend you try it since you're running Rituals. If you do play Tendrils, you can assemble Storm combo kills too.

Xantid Swarm and Bitterblossom are pretty solid sideboard cards that combo with Skullclamp. I'm guessing Xantid doesn't belong, but it's synergy seems cute. Bitterblossom is great vs. a lot of things and is insane with Clamp. I'd try a list more along these lines:

Disruption: 10
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
2 Sacrament

Creatures: 16
4 Confidant
4 Bloodghast
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Gatekeeper
1 Dryad Arbor

Draw/Tutor: 9
3 Bazaar
4 Clamp
1 DT
1 VT
(4 Dark Confidants)

Broken: 3
1 Yawg Will
1 Tendrils
1 Fastbond

Mana: 22
1 Lotus
1 Jet
1 Emerald
1 Sapphire
1 Crypt
4 Dark Ritual
3 Urborg
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Bayou
1 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Sideboard:
1 Necropotence
2 Gatekeeper
4 Bitterblossom
4 Null Rod
4 Hymn

This list might be a little low on mana, but you get the idea. I might be relying a little heavily on Urborg, if so you could cut a the Wastes or something. Good Luck!

Couple things.

17 blue cards is real low. You need more.

@ Life Loss: It seems kinda odd to play Cephalid Coliseum if life is an issue. I get it combos with Loam, but it just doesn't seem worth it.

Mystical Tutor and Merchant Scroll are both very good for maintaining your life total. By playing more tutors, you get more solutions to resolved threats. You also get the insane life preserving play of Mystical Tutor for Brainstorm.

MTGChicago has been reported to the Google gods. Let's hope they ban this bastard from the internetz!!!....or something like that.

How do I go about doing this?

I agree completely. This thread and the last one have both been very interesting and I enjoy reading up on some of your rogue decks. While I agree with the shift to 96/32, I don't get why there's so many haters in this thread. Yes, upper tier decks like Tez aren't always tooled to beat rogue decks, but there's still a lot of useful data here. Bert's ridiculous testing sessions keep identifying new, powerful strategies that are relatively unexplored. Manaless Ichorid and Arcane combo-control are both serious competitors. Hermit Vault looks much better than people want to give it credit for.

you plan to leave in duress against workshops and gw hate?

seriously. storm struggles against disruptive perms followed up by a single counterspell.

I agree. People are underestimating Baubles. Baubles let you play like a Yawg Will combo deck, which you don't see much of these days (without Brainstorms, Yawg Will in Drain has lost some oomph). I had a lot of games where I'd cast Will for 3 baubles, a random good card, and recast the tutor that found Will. At that point I would be really far ahead. Since this was often happening on turn 3 alot, I started calling the deck TurboBert. 

Hey Bert. Have tried Spell Snares main or SB? I know you like MisD's, but Snares cover problematic matches better. They're also pretty solid in outside of Fish and Stax.

EDIT: Can we just call this deck TurboBert?

Duress and Thoughtseize are awesome in Fish now that Brainstorm is gone. We all know that Duress takes their best card and gives you info to play optimally, but consistantly having turn 1 plays that do something to disrupt the opponent and/or allow you to implement your game plan is crucial towards building consistancy.**

Duress effects just solve so many potential problems. Instead of having to maindeck 4-5 bounce spells / tutors, Duress allows you to play 1 bounce spell + 2-3 tutors and you'll actually lose less to Tinker.

The only problem with Duress is it's not blue. Between Null Rods, Confidants, Tutors, and Tarmogoyfs/Mindcensors you usually only have 3-6 slots that you can run non-blue cards in.

**If you're playing Ninja of the Deep Hours, Duress might not be worth playing since you should have several one-drop creatures.

You've got to remember Fish decks are usually running 5 colorless sources (Strips), so 3-4 colors doesn't always work out. If you're running more than 3 colors, you probably have to play City of Brass and maybe Gemstones to support it. In T1 you can't rely on manabases that look like 5 color zoo in Extended b/c wasteland exists.

Bobs and Ninjas puts you right into URBana fish. To support Ninja you need 6-7 one-drops and 5-7 two-drops (with off-color moxen). Tarmogoyf and Null Rod being currently better than Chalice + Shaman is why the deck is currently obsolete.

Agreed. Don't count on playing budget decks at Gencon, there are very few.


A properly built fish deck shouldn't be concerned about Extirpating their counterspells. Extirpate on counters is for decks that win the game by resolving their bombs. Fish incrementally builds advantage via tempo. You should be concerned about stopping your opponent from winning, not their counterspells. Besides, Duress effects are far superior at keeping your opponents off counters. Only thing I like about Extirpate in the main is that you can Extirpate duals after you waste them.

If you're going to run Cursecatcher, you need to play more mana denial. It sounds like Cursecatcher isn't worth it these days, since shop and aggro decks are picking up a little.

Your blue count is really low, and it'll probably drop after boarding.

That's looking a little better. The Stifles seem nice for providing some extra disruption. You need to play 4 Null Rods though.

8 3-drops is a few too many. 8-10 lords is plenty.

Games where you don't land Null Rod seem like they'd be tough to win.

An off color mox seems better than Lotus Petal.

You mentioned a couple times about being a turn 5-6 kill, what about fitting in 4 Remands for Time Walking? (-3 Merfolk Sovereign, -1 Echoing Truth)

I never noticed Inkwell has trample.....

Guess I'll have to rethink that. I can't think of any lands outside of Glacial Chasm that can deal with Inkwell, and Chasm won't work out in here. Need to change around a lot of cards to adjust for that.

Fastbond seems like a good option. I'll keep that in mind.

I probably could have been more descriptive than "Duress + Crop Rotation = Good."  

I know this probably will sound cliche, but the information you gain off Duress in this deck would be highly valuable with Crop Rotation. Playing Duress turn 1 let's you determine how you need to play the rest of the game, specifically the mana denial aspect. Let's say you Duress Turn 1 and see 3 lands, a mox, and 3 other cards. You've got a Crop Rotation in hand. You can choose their Mox, then Strip their land. Or you can decide that decide that you need to take their counter, bomb, Voltaic Key, etc. Maybe you should hold back on Crop Rotation for a while and cast Bob next turn. Duress puts you in total control of the game allowing you to make optimal plays in a decision-heavy denial strategy, meanwhile taking their best card.



I'd rather not run Entomb. It doesn't have an immediate impact on the game, is card disadvantage, and makes you even more GY dependent (so you'll always want to board it out).

Knight of the Reliquary is a great idea, good enough to warrant going 3 colors (Crop Rotation and Strip Mine gives us game vs. Wastelands). Even though it’s 3 mana, Knight is just a huge threat that can play beatdown or disruption. Probably would only want to run 2-3 though. Going into white gives us Balance and STP’s for the SB.

I think running a single Crucible is worthwhile. There are some games were you’d probably rather just tutor up Crucible for Strip Locks rather than playing Loam every turn. Also, the answer to Inkwell is Mishra's Factory blockage. If they attack every turn and force you to recur factory every turn, hopefully you've got something else going (ie: attacking them with Goyf or Bob, etc).

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

4 Goyf
4 Bob
3 Kinght

3 Loam
1 Crucible
3 Crop Rotation
1 Vamp
1 DT

4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Null Rod

3 Bazaar
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mishra's Factory / Mutavault
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland

1 Riftstone Portal
1 Urborg
4 Windswept Heath
2 RG Fetchland
1 Forest
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland

1 Lotus
1 Emerald
1 Jet
1 Pearl
1 Off-color (4 mox, 1 off-color has proven optimal in Null Rod fish decks I've built)

1 Open slot

Duress and Crop Rotation seem really good together. Duress can clear the way for Cropper very efficiently, while being a highly versatile card that gets even better with blue losing more draw spells. I don’t forsee Workshop-Crucible being workable into a deck that starts like:

4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
3 Crop Rotation
1 DT
1 VT

However, Life from the Loam could be highly synergistic since Bazaar would be a definite inclusion in a deck with multiple Crop Rotations.

1+ Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Life From the Loam

Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and Null Rod all play very well together.

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Null Rod

Answers to various threats could be built into a land toolbox, something like:

1 Maze of Ith / Mishra’s Factory (Maze if vs. DSC / Titan, Factory for Inkwell)
1 Tabernacle of Pendrelvale / Cabal Pit

Not sure what else you’d want to run to round out the last few slots, but seems like the deck would be pretty solid. Could go Dawn of Dead style and run Zombie Infestation, but I think ZI is win more. Loam-Crime is real slow and Cabal Therapy doesn’t work so well when the only unrestricted cards are FoW and Drain….Probably 4 Bazaars would be a good start on rounding things out.

Thoughts on this shell? Ideas on where to take the deck?

Land Grant isn't nearly as good as it used to be without Brainstorm, the same could be said for using fetchlands over Gemstone/City. Back in the days of 4 Brainstorm, I highly preferred a fetchland manabase in real games over the Land Grant manabase. Even though the fetches didn't up the storm count, they helped significantly since they didn't give the opponent free wins.

If you're running Rite of Flame and Manamorph, Owen's City/Gemstone manabase is probably best since it enables better mana startups (eliminating the need for 8 Chromatics). I don't think you're looking to do that though, since you're running Chromatics to power up Academy.

I think you want to run 3-4 Cabal Rituals since they synergize nicely with Crop Rotation, providing profitable plays even when you don’t have a ton of Artifacts on the board. Fetchland + Crop Rotation is 3 cards in the grave, you’re almost half way to achieving Threshold already. Definitely would rather play Cabal Rits over Pact/ESG.

I think running some number of Spoils of the Vault is a necessary evil, but I could be mistaken. I vaguely recall cutting them entirely for a while and fizzling out too much because I couldn’t find my Tendrils, since all I was doing was cantriping. My win ratios were higher with them in the deck. I believe I settled on 3. Reliance on Spoils fades if you’re running cards like Necro, Vamp, and Wheel. Potentially, you could cut Spoils completely if you add these 3 bombs.

I know I’ve suggested adding a bunch of cards, here’s what I’m thinking you need to cut to make space for them:

-4 Land Grant
+4 Fetchlands

-1 ESG
-1 Green Pact
+2 Cabal Ritual

-1 Crop Rotation
-1 Blue Pact
-1 Chromatic Sphere/Star/Mana Morph
+1 Necro
+1 Wheel
+1 Vamp

As for the SB. The 4 Xantids are definite inclusions. I think EE + Chain better addresses the Shop matchup than FoW + Chain, but never tested EE since 9sphere didn’t exist yet. Not sure what matches you’re looking to bring in Thoughseizes or Leylines, since racing is your best weapon in combo and Dredge matches.

If you're playing Recoup, cutting Deep Analysis makes a lot of sense. The logic behind playing any flashback cards is to give you more flexible Intuitions.

I'm not sure if Academy should be in the deck or not. I eventually cut it even though I was running 10 artifact mana. If you do decide to play Academy, you should try a Sensei's Top over the FoF. Like I said earlier, I've never liked FoF in here, it's just a really big clunky spell that you're trying to cast that doesn't win on the spot.

Not sure about a 3rd Drain in here. 2 Drains are nice b/c they become really difficult to play around. I'd think in a highly competitive metagame another Duress would be better, but if you're getting to Drain lots of spells, then go with the 3rd!

Varies a lot with the deck.

In fish, 90% of the time you've got other things you can cast with 2 mana in the early game. You hold off on Walk until turn 3-5 and use it to push your advantage (ie draw extra cards with Confidant, get 2 attack steps, etc).

Back in the days of Grim Long, I would cast Walk when it was apparent I wasn't going to assemble a Threat + Walk turn (Walk on turn 1 is an exception). This way you can assemble series of plays along the lines of: Time Walk then bomb (countered), untap into Yawg Will, etc.

Can't comment much in terms of the how Walk should be played in Drains.

Totally agree with all that's been said here. Back in college, I'd proxy the cheap stuff that I didn't feel like picking up and played real power. Now days, I don't own power, so I buy/borrow the cheap stuff and proxy the power. Vintage is a convenient format.

It sounds like the solution lies with the TO's. Instead of always giving out FoW's or duals as 3rd and 4th place prizes, they could give out Needles, Thoughtseizes, or Goyfs. Tolarian Academies make great prizes for 5th-8th in mid sized tournaments.

Time Vault has functionally replaced Timetwister as the 9th piece of power. TO's shouldn't bother with Twister, give out Time Vaults.

On tempo -- Spell Snare doesn't always "gain you tempo," but it prevents your opponent from gaining tempo.

Tez is not a Tempo deck. Since the format has become more tempo based, something is needed to combat that. Thus, Spell Snare.