I am not sold 100% on Jace's playability but I think this post underestimates his utility.  Comparing Jace to sylvan library and skeltal scrying is like comparing toast to a shoe.  They do completely different things.  The tezzeret analogy is better but I think you play down the power of Jace too much in that context.  Tezzeret wins the game if he resolves doesn't get attacked to death, doesn't get his vault killed, doesn't see a null rod, doesn't face down a mindcensor, and genreally lives unmolested.  In most cases where Jace resolves and lives until another main phase he is going to show you 6 new cards and put you up at least two cards on your opponent.  That is quite close to winning the game.  He has a similar utility to Tez in that he can have immediate presence, he provides a win condition that still does other things, and he can be pitched to force when he is not an ideal play.  Externally he can also bounce friendly and opposing confidants which can make for interesting in play interactions.

The fact that Tez is "barely" playable means nothing, he is playable and therefore cards of comparable power level may also be playable.

I believe in the Fish matchup Jace is a considerably better card then Tez.  He is less expensive against mana denial, he can psuedo-deal with Tarmogoyf, and he is far from useless when staring at a null rod.  I would test him in place of Tez to see how the deck fared but I don't have the cards for Tez and I'm lazy.  If the statements you made were not conjecture based on assumption I'll yield to your superior testing results but I would say this card is far from a resounding NO! and belongs more in the Cautious maybe? camp.

Phele makes a strong point.  Neither ninja or cursecatcher seem to be particularly strong in the mirror.  It is possible that he got lucky in the fish matchups and was able to beat other decks easier with the ninja build.  I find it highly doubtful that ninja and cursecatcher actually make the GUW mirror much better.  As Deathknight said, the matchup revolves largely around goyf and jitte.   Neither card disrupts or facilitates goyf or jitte particularly well (I mean they both hold jittes just fine but there are better cards for that).

Obviously having goyf and jitte post board is the most effective answer to mirror strategies.  If the deck is looking for more cards to improve mirror matchups I think the best cards are sower of temptation and swords to plowshares.  Jitte plays considerably worse when you are fighting a heavy removal element and both of these spells answer goyf quite efficiently.  In addition to playing the typical role for mirror very well, sower and swords both heavily punish an opponent who is trying to run the ninja strategy.

Has it been decided that sphinx of lost truths isn't as good as cephalid sage?

Kowal, for your GW beats list, is there anything about Zendikar that would have you change the deck?  Specifically, I would run either the G/B or G/U fetch over the R/G one just to bluff a different deck.  That is mostly a jedi mind trick issue and is therefore minor but there is also a metagame shift whenever a set with this many playable cards comes out; would you adapt to that in any way?

Smmemen's list for GWB is also pre-Zendikar which is odd to me.  Kowal's point that the manabase hit of a third color is significant was rebuffed with "its easier now with zendikar fetches."  However, the list that was posted runs 14 green and 14 white sources to the initial list's 18 and 18.  His concern, then, is valid if the Zendikar lands do not move the permanent mana source counts up.  I know the consistency of 14 sources is often touted as ideal but Kowal made the point already that the change to 18 is "more significant than it seems on paper."

I know teams often like to keep a deck under wraps around metagame shifts but, smmemen, can we at least see what you are doing with the manabase in GWB with the new fetch contingency?

Also, as a personal curiosity, what does this mean?


If it is insignificantly better, doesn't that imply that both lists are equal in all relevant situations?  If that is the case I would be terribly surprised because these two decks have a lot of differences.  If it is not the case I would like to understand better what you meant.

Phele, did you try out that painter board you pitched earlier?  If so, how did it treat you?

I agree with your first point, fish does not want to play enlightened tutor.  My reasoning for why is that the cards in fish maindecks, on average, have less impact upon resolution than do cards in other decks (like key/vault, oath, tinker, dread return, triskellion).  The strength of the maindeck of Selkie lists, in my opinion, comes from playing many easy to resolve disruption pieces and keeping the opponent from resolving their high impact spells.  Because of the loss in CA and tempo that comes from casting enlightened tutor, I don't like it as a maindeck card in a deck with this strategy.  In every metagame, there will be matchups where either flux, jitte, or wheel will be blanks.  Because of the strategy of this deck I think it is especially hard for it to recover from drawing these blanks.

I believe I see your point, that maindeck tutors and super disruptive cards like the three we both keep mentioning add flexibility to the deck.  I personally believe that the marginal value of this flexibility as compared to the weakness of having maindeck dead draws is not as high as the marginal value of running more cards that are less good in every matchup.  Well that sentence was a minefield, my point is I don't think the flexibility of e-tutor outweighs the drawback heavily enough to warrant its inclusion over other cards.

My argument for having enlightened tutor in the sideboard is that if you are sideboarding in wheel of sun and moon, umezawa's jitte, or energy flux, you are playing with cards that do have high impact after game one.  The advantage of the tutors and the "bomb" level hate cards in the sideboard, as opposed to the main, is that you never have to see them in the matchups where they are blanks.  As with maindeck tutor packages, running an enlightened tutor board allows you to see your high power level specific cards more often than you would if you ran a board without the tutors at the cost of fewer slots.

The line "So, in games 2 and 3 I would prefer siding them out for cards with real impact and less downside." is very strange to me.  It is my understanding that in games 2 and 3 enlightened tutor has more real impact than it does in the first game, because now it has access to more niche and higher impact sideboard cards.  Based on the impact that I see the card gaining, I am okay with the downsides that it represents.

Key vault needs two cards where Jitte needs only one.  That sideboard slot is reserved for decks that pack a heavy creature contingency and they usually have almost as hard a time dealing with an active Jitte as an active time vault.

@RecklessEmbermage
If you run a board with these 10 slots
4 e-tutor
2 wheel of sun and moon
2 energy flux
2 umezawa's jitte

You allow yourself to have 6 bombs in the Stax, Fish, and Ichorid matchups.  I would only truly be worried about the case of drawing the third e-tutor/hate card, as then you have to blow the tutor on something dumb (like null rod or lotus against fish).  The tempo and CA loss of e-tutor in post board games can be outweighed by the heavy impact of the hate cards, in my opinion.  You don't need an early tempo advantage against stax if they are trying to play out from under a flux to win, same with wheel against ichorid or an active jitte against mirror strategies.


Which artifact and enchantments would you want to maindeck and which slots are you willing to yield?  My thoughts towards Jitte, Flux, and Wheel in an e-tutor board seem like terrible cards to bring maindeck.  Even if they are one-ofs they are still awful every time you draw them during game 1 against most decks.  If you are only running Null Rod as a tutor target E-tutor main seems truly lackluster.  I could imagine cards like seal of cleansing and ethersworn canonists as maindeck one-ofs but then there is the problem you were talking about, those cards lack the board smashing impact to make up for the CA and tempo loss of the tutor a lot of the time.

edit:
What you suggested of having wheel, flux, and jitte main seems like alot of slots that are bad in multiple matchups.  When you play against oath and see any of those cards it is very ugly.  The same is true for the wheel against Tez and jitte against an opponent that you need to land null rod against.

@Deathknight

To be clear on the enlighened tutor comment.  Do you suggest running it maindeck as additional null rods or do you suggest running it in the board to come in with other tutorable hate cards?  If you are suggesting the later I think you could play a psuedo-wishboard and run 4 sideboard tutors and one or two copies of your sideboard shut down spells.  That way you have basically 5 of your specific hate card game two with only 1 slot really devoted to the opposing deck.  I think the tutor is lack luster maindeck as you run only null rod as a tutor target (I guess you can get Lotus but blowing a tutor and a draw step on fast mana doesn't seem like a good fish strategy), but I like the potential of a 4 in the board idea.

Kowal have you considered going with maybe one Tropical Island or Tundra and just playing a couple of blue bombs.  One blue dual can give you upwards of 10 blue sources if you mess with the fetch counts and you shouldn't be too brokenhearted about choking off one land of your own (wasteland does that all the time).  Adding recall and time walk at the cost of some bad white or green cards seems pretty reasonable.  You don't have to play Force of Will just because you are playing blue, hell that card isn't even good (that's a joke for all you folks who read the fish strategy article so don't jump down my throat).

Steve, I think you misunderstood that post.  It wasn't targeted at you and I didn't feel a need to be responsive to your points.  In fact I conceded that I was wrong and you were probably right about the fish matchup in that Goyf does more then grunt.  Regardless of that, I would like to assert that Grunt is a better maindeck card than Goyf in this deck.  That was the point in the previous post.  My evidence was that Grunt is more disruptive, (not that Goyf isn't) in the Stax, TPS, Tez and Ichorid.    I prefaced with the idea that this deck has no catchall blue cards to protect cards without as much disruptive power and that the most disruptive creature is probably more deserving of the slot.  In my experience against Stax, with creature based disruption decks, Goyf is only a huge guy where Grunt is a huge guy who makes welder and crucible worse.  He also does something even when locked down by tangle wire.  In addition to all of my evidence, there is also Kowal's point that Goyf is sometimes just a crappy small guy that doesn't really do anything.

And just because my feathers are ruffled you have a tendency to say things that are either 1) condescending or 2) ad hominem attacks that distract from the point.

I think this deck's lack of blue makes it necessitate a more controlling role from its critters.  You might be right about the mirror, I haven't tested this against fish, but I think it is hard to argue that goyf is more disruptive than grunt against Stax, Tez, TPS, or Ichorid.  I have found that grunt plays a fine beater in those matchups (admittedly from a UWB fish shell), not that he plays as good of one as goyf but I don't think an extra toughness or one extra swing outweighs the disruptive potential of grunt's upkeep trigger.

The mirror match, I think, means other disruptive creature decks.  Fish is a matchup you can definitely expect to see from time to time.  Tarmogofy is quite powerful against that strategy of deck.  That is where he shines.  However, I think Grunt plays this role just as well. 

The comment about the sloth of grunt when fighting goyf is one that doesn't make alot of sense to me. When the two critters face off Grunt is usually a better fighter after one upkeep trigger.  If Goyf hits play first he will get one good swing in before he is shrunk by the grunt, after two upkeeps the goyf is likely a 1/2 or a 2/3.  If grunt hits play first goyf will often never get a chance to be more then elvish warrior or squire.

The sideboard is confusing me a little.  I had a couple questions about it.

Why do you run two samurai and two wheels as opposed to a full suite of one or the other? Also, I mentioned Baneslayer Angel as opposed to Exalted Angel to you personally.  You were in the middle of a match so you just brushed it off with "its not as good", do you have a a more thought out explanation than that?

I would also suggest at least one copy of Aura of Silence as a strong answer to chalice at 2.

When I asked to see a list I did not know what deck it was you were talking about.  I assumed what you were talking about was pertinent to the discussion.  I do not think the list you presented was pertinent to the discussion.  I still don't.  I don't see how talking about this deck with a completely different strategy will lead to any new or relevant ideas about the topic.

If you think that this "Enlightened Fish" list that you have contributes to the discussion of which of these controlling, creature based, mana denial decks is best primed to fight the metagame I would very much like to see how and why.

This "enlightened fish" deck that you submit plays very few cards that interact with the opponent.  In the main deck I believe it has these
Tormod's crypt
Aven Mindcensor
2 ethersworn canonist
4 quasali pridemage
2 goblin welder
3 vesxing shusher

That is 13 cards.  The point of this deck is not to disrupt, it is to win with a degenerate combo consistently.

The following list is an example of a BUG fish list already posted in this thread.


The cards that this deck plays which are reactive (and by that I mean with the capacity to directly impact the opponents cards) are as follows,
4 Duress
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Daze
4 Force Of Will
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Trygon Predator
4 Null Rod
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

That is 27 (edit: I wrote 26 initially); a full double the amount of cards in your "enlightened fish" deck which play that role.  Fish is defined by these reactive roles that it plays.  It is essential to note that these two decks are not even in a similar vein.  BUG, and in my opinion UWG and UWB, are designed to play control through and through.

Fish is based on disruption of the opposing strategy.  This list that you have presented is not.  Your strategy is to resolve time vault and voltaic key.  The cards that fish plays to disrupt its opponent (what I consider playing a reactive role) are the theme and the strategy of the deck.  The cards that "Enlightened Fish" plays which interact with its opponent (its cards with a reactive role) are played to facilitate the combo.  They do not play off each other gaining synergy as each successive piece resolves.  They act to make sure your goal of some degenerate win occurs.  The two strategies are almost completely opposite.

I do not mean to offend you or insult your list, I merely submit that Enlightened Fish has no place in the discussion of which of the three big fish ideas (UWG, BUG, and BUW) is best.

That is a fascinating deck list vroman, but I do not think that it qualifies as fish.  I would classify that as a modern update to EBA with a green splash.   Regardless of what I classify it as I don't think it functions with similar strategy to the three fish ideas that are currently most prominent (UWB, UWG, and BUG).  This deck is not based on mana disruption and some hassling critters.  It appears to be a deck built to hate on oath.  Perhaps it does that job well but it does not act like fish.  

There is no stifle, null rod or Force of Will which are cards in fish that define it as a deck.  I personally associate the name fish and the overall strategy with Stifle, Wasteland, Strip Mine, Force of Will, Null Rod (sometimes Chalice instead but always one of the two), and a creature based win condition.  I could imagine removing a single element from that list, or even multiple elements, but you have removed more then half of the cards that make fish what it is.  This comment is not meant to critique the power or the originality of the deck you have submitted.  However, I do not see it as being anywhere near what I consider fish to be.

I would also like to point out some things that I see to be large flaws in your deck.  

You run only one basic land and only 22 mana sources overall.  Most fish and Stax lists can make short work of that kind of mana base.  

You run 0 ways to deal with creatures outside of the combat phase.  Tarmogoyf and bob play havoc against you if they can make it past the 4 counters you play that can target them.  Welder resolves every time and is an issue for you on two fronts, in a long game he can work you over with multiple activations and he can prevent you from effectively running your short game by killing a vault/key piece.  

Tinker -> sphinx is a problem as you run only rebuild to deal with it.  

The largest problem that I see with this list is that when you play against tezzeret you are fighting them on their own terms, using cards that have less impact when they resolve.  Most fish decks get an advantage in the fight because they fight the manabase.  You sacrificed that role by removing null rod and stifle.  You choose to play a worse confidant game, run counters that do not give huge mana rewards, and you have less consistent access to vault/key.  In addition to running what I consider to be "strategy inferior" you use a less robust mana base to do it.  In this way you have sacrificed one of fish's famous claims to power, consistency.

I currently understand the vintage metagame to prominently feature Stax, Tezzeret, Oath, and Fish.  It is possible that this is only my area but it seems to line up pretty well with smmemen's most recent classification of the overall metagame.  This list seems to play a worse game then all three of the title fish lists against everything but oath in that metagame.

SadDubs, do you have a list for 5c fish from which to make these assertions?

I don't think any meaningful comments can be made on that deck without a list of at least 60 cards to look at.  I have in my head an idea for 5c fish but I have never seen anything like it perform in a top8 so I cannot say that it is established in any sense.  Were I to make my comments based on this list in my head I do not think that would be meaningful at all because it may differ widely from the idea in these posters' minds.

If there is new tech to be discussed and it is relevant to the discussion of which fish build is best I would like to see it.  These speculative comments on an idea for a deck are irrelevant and tangential to the discussion.

What deck are you talking about Brian?

I have never seen a fish build that wraps up the game "quickly enough that -2 or -3 life from a city of brass wouldn't be determinative."  Sometimes goyf gets there pretty fast but that is uncommon.  The idea of the deck is first disrupt, then play a guy (hopefully one that disrupts them), then disrupt some more, play another guy (if he disrupts as well you get two thumbs up) and try not to die with disruption before those two guys get there.  City asks for payment at every stage of that plan.

I don't like Force of Will.  Its an unpopular position.  I don't like the fact that you can't play it in a way that doesn't make the effect (counter a spell) not seem overcosted (five mana or two cards, they both are annoying to me).  The fact that it is the cheapest free counter (thwart and foil are needlessly harsh on their casters) makes it essential to fish.  Fish doesn't do anything busted to kill your opponent.  You have to not be dead early, then lay out creatures (who are by their very nature not that quick at killing people) without dying, then continue to not die all the way until your creatures kill the other guy.  Force of Will is important at every stage of this game because you can't afford to keep mana open for less costly counters every turn.  You have to disrupt all the time.

I have made black fish decks without Vamp before.  I would not imagine trying that in a deck that sports 5 colors.  Vamp makes up for everything that is bad about 5 color.  It solves inconsistency.  A five color control (I'd like to say reactive but I don't think that is serious enough for this forum) deck needs to hit the right answer in every game.  Vamp is the right answer every time you draw it.  Vamp can also answer what I think is the biggest problem with 5 color, a fragile mana base, by searching for the right mana card for the specific situation.

To speak a little more on that last point fish is a deck that gets its mana blown up all the time.  Fetches get stifled, wastelands get sacced, duals get wasted, and moxes get neutered by opposing chalices and rods from both sides.  If the deck is trying to rely on a consistent mana source to pump out its disruption it doesn't want City.  If it is the topdecked solution to one dead card in hand you are happy with it.  However, fish isn't usually one card that blows out the other guy (and if it is that card is Null Rod so city doesn't really help), it wants a bunch of cards that build incremental gain.  City steps on the whole strategy's toes.

I am making conjecture based comments here, though.  I am basing my ideas on fish decks that I understand (the three from the title) and I clearly do not understand this 4 or 5 color list.  Please show a list so we can see what it is you are talking about.

vroman, could we please see a list of this 4 color fish.  It is hard, at least for me personally, to wrap my head around a concept like this without seeing your actual plan. 

If you would like to keep team tech a secret, would you mind answering some of these questions that arise when you put a 4th color in the deck?
Do you still run a full waste, strip contingency?  Is your mana base 14 blue sources and 10 of each other color?  Do you have a basic of each type to challenge mirror and Stax?  How tough are you against stifle?  How is your blue count?  Do you have redundancy in mana denial aspects?  Have any maindeck answers to Chalice at 2?  Have any maindeck answers to sphinx?  Leviathan?


In my metagame Tez, mirror, and stax are much higher priority then oath at the moment.  Tez is already a strong matchup based on the strategies of the two decks.  Mirror and stax are matchups where a strong manabase are vital.  I think this is a metagame call and I would argue that in most metagames the three color mana base is going to lead to better tournament results.

@brianpk80
City of Brass is pretty weak in fish in my opinion because you don't want any more cards that potentially kill you in your own list.  Confidant, vamp, force, and fetches are already a pretty big hindrance.

I am sorry to post twice in a row but the subject of this post is drastically different from the subject of the previous post.

I have a problem with the stipulations of the theory that the original poster stated.

His definitions are as follows


he then stipulated


I believe that this stipulation is not true.  There is nothing that actually precludes that a card cannot play an active and a reactive role at the same time.  I think meddling mage is a good example of this.  When meddling mage is in play attacking a player with no blockers he is playing an active role.  If he has named a card in the opponent's hand he is playing a reactive role for his entire stint on the battlefield.  When Meddling mage is on the battlefield he plays both an active role, beating up the other guy without interacting with his cards, and a reactive role, interacting with the cards in the opponent's hand, at the same time.

I don't think this removes any value from the theory but I think it is important to note.  It seems to me that cards can play both roles simultaneously.

In this example both counters are reactive because they interact with opposing entities.  You say that the for the case of Player 1's Force of Will there is confusion because it "it didn't stop the opponent, as much as it did help you" but that isn't relevant to any of the theory in this thread.  Everything you do helps you or it is a misplay, this includes playing cards in reactive roles.  Player 1's Force of Will is causing an opponents spell to not do anything, therefore it is reactive.  This is a point of confusion I think, reactive cards do things that are helpful, that does not mean they aren't reactive.  If a card interacts with an opponent's entities it is playing a reactive role.


This I believe is an example that perfectly illustrates the relevance of this theory.  Cards can play active roles and reactive roles.  Some cards can only play reactive roles, like trinisphere.  Because of the existence of counterspells, however, pretty much every card can play a reactive role.  You have painted a beautiful picture of a situation where you have a game winning set of active cards.  To ensure that your most powerful play happens you play the tinker in an attempt to play a reactive role, the role of interacting with an opposing counterspell.  Deciding when to try to make your cards active and when to try to make them reactive is one strength of this theory and a valuable asset to any player.


It is a very rare case that duress is active.  Suppose you are playing duress against an opponent who has no cards in hand because you want one more storm or an extra card in your graveyard for cabal ritual.  In those cases duress plays an active role, it does not interact with opposing entities.  If you are playing duress in an effort to take a card from your opponent then you are using it to play a reactive role.

To illustrate why you this is the case we can explore your two part question.
When you play a turn 1 duress you are using it to take a card from your opponent.  You are using it to play a reactive role (interact with a card in the bad guys hand), or it is doing very little.  It makes them pitch a card, which is a reactive role, or they have no cards that it can make them discard and it does nothing (I mean it goes to your graveyard which can be good for some decks and it increases storm but meh).

When you play a duress to insure that another spell is going to resolve you are also using it to play a reactive role.  We can see this by exploring every possible case.

In all of these cases the goal is the same
Goal = unconditionally resolve another spell

Case 1, your opponent has a counterspell.
Every currently played counterspell, as per Smmemen's findings in his yearly reports and his "complete" list of vintage playable spells, can be duressed.  If you play duress and you want to make sure your spell resolves you can take your opponent's counterspell.  In this case, you have used a card to interact with an opponent's entity.  Because of that you have used it to play a reactive role.  If your opponent had only one counter your goal is accomplished.  Should your opponent have two playable counters your goal is not accomplished.

Case 2, your opponent has no counterspell but does have other cards duress can take.
In this case your opponent has no cards that can counter your other spell so your goal will be accomplished.  The duress, however, will still get to take a card from your opponent's hand.  Duress tells you to choose a card that is not a creature or a land so if they have a card it can take you must choose one for them to discard.  When you do this you have used duress to interact with your opponent's entity and therefore used it to play a reactive role.

Case 3, your opponent has no cards in his hand that duress can take.
Again, every currently played counterspell can be duressed.  Therefore in this case, your goal will be accomplished.  In this and only this case duress does not play a reactive role.  Duress interacts with no opposing entities and usually does nothing.  You usually don't care about that because your goal is accomplished and this weakness of duress (occasionally doing nothing) doesn't matter to you.

edit: i said active in the first sentence initially, that is 100% backwards
The definition of reactive, by this theory, is cards that interact with opposing entities.  Trinisphere interacts with opposing entities.  Trinisphere never does anything beyond its interaction with opposing entities.  Trinisphere is never active.  To the question you posed, I'd say no, Trinisphere is not active against anything ever.  The benefit of using such terminology is that you can make statements about reactive strategies and card roles without vagueness in your language.


Cards that play a reactive role are often better then cards that play an active role when they get to fight against their specific target entities.  This is reasonable because reactive cards are conditional by their very definition.  The fact that Force of Will is reactive against an almost universal strategy suggests that it is a powerful reactive tool.  Because people take the power of Force of Will into account when making a deck it does its own share of format warping.  The format remains defined, however, by its active cards.  

Every deck must play a way to win.  Any card that actually wins must play an active role.  Force of Will cannot play an active role.  The format is defined first by what people are using to win.  Reactive cards are useless in a vacuum.  Force of Will isn't that good against a format that is defined by dredge.  It is good in a format where the decks that preform best are fish, stax, and artifact combo based strategies.


I don't know if he can.  I think I can give a couple of examples.

When deciding whether or not to include Bazaar in Stax it can be valuable to note that it is never reactive in a deck based on reactive roles.  A good question to ask yourself when making this decision is "Is the power that my build gets out of bazaar enough to warrant running this card that cannot play a reactive role?"

Consider a situation where you arrive at a tournament with a TPS list that has no sideboard options for a no mana version of dredge.  Further consider that you play against that deck and lose game one.  When sideboarding for game two it is probably best to see if there are cards like hurkyl's recall or rebuild in your board which can play an active role in winning.  This is reasonable because the cards that play reactively in most TPS maindecks aren't strong against the dredge deck's active strategy and it would be best if they could be removed for cards that at least do something.

To go a little more vague, if you find a build of your pet deck is performing poorly this theory can help tell you where you need to shore things up.  If what is killing you consistently is reactive shut down cards like null rod and sphere effects you have many options.  You could try to make the deck more powerful actively in the hopes of killing an opponent before they have access to these cards.  That seems foolish because these cards are often available on turn one.  The best way to combat this is probably to add cards that can fight against these effects.  Selecting cards that play the reactive role of dealing with these shut down permanents is probably the best way to deal with the situation.    If you cannot find room for these cards without weakening your active strategy too much perhaps this deck can't be viable against a metagame where these shutdown cards are big players.

I don't think you make an argument against his theory here.  He does not say that reactive cards are not threatening.  Defining trinisphere as threatening has no bearing on the theory of active or reactive.  

Trinisphere acts as a dampening tool against decks that revolve around cards that cost three or less.  Contending that every deck in the format wants to do this doesn't actually change the fact that it is purely reactive.  Trinisphere never preformed in Standard because the cards that defined the format weren't that threatened by a trinishphere by the time it resolved.

A deck does not actually win games unless it plays cards that actively cause an end to a game.  Trinishpere is not one of these.  In any tournament, including worlds, no deck can even win a game unless it plays something or does something that actually kills the other guy.  Trinisphere cannot do this.  Therefore, it is never active, if my understanding of this theory is sound.  Trinisphere is playable in the format because it does something disruptive to a highly played vintage strategy, that of casting spells that cost less then 3 (that is an understatement of course).


It is true that tarmogofy can be placed in a deck as a reactive tool.  This writer is suggesting that that is not generally the purpose of goyf in a deck list.  I agree with him on this point.  Even if you don't agree, I don't believe that specific example actually fights against the theory of active or reactive card roles.  If you are playing goyf in a deck where he plays both reactive and active roles that does not actually mean anything in terms of the theory.  At some points the card is active.  At other points the card is reactive.  His explanation for cards like this seemed reasonable to me.  A card can play only one of those roles at any given moment.

My personal point of contention comes from cards such as sadistic sacrament and jester's cap.  They interact with both the "raw game state" and the opposing entities. Consider a case where I am playing a build of TPS with only sphinx and tendrils as cards that have the potential to kill an opponent.  Should you cast either of those spells this theory seems to break down.  The card you play is playing the role of an active spell because it will lead to me decking myself first in this game.  That same card is, at the same moment, reactively removing the future possibilities for my deck.

edit:
I have recently re-examined this situation and realized how foolish this is.  The strength of these cards is completely dependent on the opponent.  The fact that they can guarantee victory in some conditions is completely based upon the opponent's strategy and cards.  This situation is textbook reactive role playing and I was just unable to wrap my mind around reactive role playing guaranteeing wins because it is so rare.
end edit:

I dissent with zues' opinion that this theory is irrelevant.  I believe putting cards in categories, as this theory does, will help me personally have a lens with which to view which cards are best in certain decks.  When deciding whether or not to play Bazaar of Baghdad in a Stax list, I see that that the card is active unconditionally.  Because of this I can make an assessment of whether or not my specific list can afford to play any cards that cost a land drop and provide no reactive potential in my slow control deck.  It also provides a solid and accessible definition to a a term that often gets people emotionally charged.

Even if this theory is irrelevant to many people that does not mean it has no value.  I personally would like to refer to cards that interact with opponents cards and strategies.  I would also like to refer to cards that do not do this.  It would be nice if the community agreed on safe, non-vague, terms that can express this without a 4 page flame-war.

I apologize for making a tangential comment.  The discussion between me and Shop about Mono Red Stax most likely belongs elsewhere.

I have to agree with smmemen here.  Bazaar ain't that great, here.  You don't play a game winning combo like dragon, a silly engine like dredge, nor do you play a mitigator like squee.  This card taps for card disadvantage.

Of course Bazaar does something, that is why it is in any build of this deck.  I think it doesn't do enough to warrant a slot.  It is anti-synergetic with magus, which is obnoxious, it is a card that threatens no opposing strategy when it is on the board and does not actually move towards a victory without aide from a welder or a crucible.  I think its weak.


I would say that a build with Trike has a better shot of dealing with a tinker robot then Smokestack does.  Unless they played the tinker as a last ditch effort against you when you already had a stack out, most of the time they will sacrifice everything else and the robot will kill you first.  Magus is a card that actually takes your opponent to a place where he can't win (having 0 life).  Smokestack also does something of that effect (having no board against a field of spheres and such).  That is the comparison I wanted to be evident, perhaps it was not.

I believe the aspects of the deck that make it control are, Magus, Welder, Crucible lock, Spheres, Chalice, barbarian Ring, wasteland, and strip mine.  I would argue that Smokestack is an aggressive play in this deck, but someone would yell at me for using that word.  I think Smokestack is one of cards in the deck that is played as a finisher.  If it is your first disruptive play, that probably isn't that strong against a good majority of the field (yeah if your turn one is mox, then shop, then chalice, then Stack and the other guy has no force or wasteland you are probably doing something strong).



I cannot count the number of times I have beaten stacks when they had a smokestack out that didn't destroy my mana base.  I see your argument, I think it is fallacious.  When you move up to 12 beaters you seriously limit the amount of time the other guy has to get out of the situation.  If you go any higher you lose lock elements.  It is my opinion that Stack isn't really a lock element.  It is the the finisher; and it is a weak one.


When you play a shop on turn one, use it to play a sphere, then cast a chalice, and nothing gets countered that is a great opening.  When you follow it up with wire because they didn't waste your shop you are well on your way to winning.  If you play magus, welder, smokestack, triskellion, karn, or even mountain goat most of the time, this game is probably going your way.  That Smokestack is the game ender in your scenario but it could just as well be a slew of other game enders.  Admittedly, in this specific scenario, if you have no other gas, the stack will probably end the game best.  However, in pretty much any other scenario I'd rather have a card that does something before three turns from now (one turn blank, one turn where they sac one thing, the third time actually makes them lose some board position relative to you).

You haven't actually made a point regarding how welder and bazaar support this game plan that I can see.  That is not to say they don't.  My point is if you are running up against a wall of denial in the form of duress, Force of will, daze, spell pierce, quasali Pridemage, and/or mana drain that bazaar is maybe giving you gas, but it is doing so at the cost of inevitability should your gas get stymied.  Welder is fantastic and I don't think there is disagreement from anyone on that score, so yeah. Don't know why you even mentioned it.

I think the points Gandalf makes for why your build should be Black instead of red is valid.  Darkblast is not considerably less powerful then fire/ice in many matchups (in fact it is often far more powerful).  K grip is arguable better for you then grudge main because it hits vault unconditionally against tez and dodges 2 chalices against stax.  The fact that your deck plays no card advantage engine is another knock against it in this comparison.  If I were to implement these colors into fish I would start with the cards that AmbivalentDuck is talking about because they do something black can't do.

The mana denial of Gorrila shaman and magus teamed up with Tarmogoyf is one of the main strengths of the Christmas beats style decks. I think taking those three cards and incorporating them into a fish shell could make a hybrid deck that doesn't sacrifice very much of beats' speed but adds some of magics best disruption in the form of force and stifle.

A list will really help facilitate comments on the strategy.  The number you put chalice at is definitely a function of your curve, what you are playing against, what turn it is, and the mana base you are working with.  Vintage has a decent allegory to legacy stompy in Christmas beats.  Its a red/green deck based on killing with creatures and disrupting with null rod or chalice, gorilla shaman, magus of the moon, and strong artifact removal from magic's best hate card colors. 

If you want to talk about a new strategy or a new deck that plays a prominent Vintage strategy differently, maybe you should post a thread for your own list.  This will help the community be able to comment in a more meaningful way.  If all you want is a deck that is strong against vault/key (which is still prominent but not as completely dominant as a few months ago) try looking up a list for christmas beats or fish.

With only Welders and Crucibles as sources of graveyard recursion I don't think this deck wants Bazaar.  Those two cards are going to be powerful in this deck regardless of whether or not you have a bazaar out, and bazaar is going to be bad without them.  Smokestack also doesn't seem that strong to me.  The fact that I would cut both of them kind of undercuts this point, but they also don't have a terribly high amount of synergy (fewer cards means fewer permanents, and fewer permanents means worse stacks).

I think this list would benefit heavily from the removal of a crucible, 3 stax, and the bazaars.  In doing this the deck frees up space for 4 magus of the moon, 2 gorilla shaman and 2 triskellion.  Creatures are a much more logical call then smokestack in this deck because everything that the stack does a critter will often do better, for cheaper, while also providing additional abilities. 

The biggest thing about Smokestack is the inevitability it provides when it hits the table.  Magus provides the same thing in a different way, it reduces the number of permanents your opponent can play effectively.  Though the magus takes 10 turns to actually kill someone, whereas a stack can effectively kill the opponent in closer to 2 or 3, it has its impact the moment you play it.  In addition to the obvious impact of its ability the magus also blocks things which can be vital.

The strength of the magus was always the reason to play mono red in my mind.  It is a card that takes games by itself.  Trike loves to kill confidant almost as much as he likes being a fatty that can sometimes only take two land taps to cast.  He also plays "big man" better then karn in fish matchups because he fights like a 4/4 (unlike karn who does not have any capacity to a kill a fish player with a creature and a null rod).  Gorilla shaman, like smokestack, clears permanents off the board.  However, like the magus, its effect on the board is immediate.  The shaman also has obvious synergy with chalice.  He can kill your own chalice if you want to free up the power in your hand and he can stall the opponent into not playing their power until after you find a chalice

For reference my list for Mono Red Shop Control would look like this:

Land (19):
4 Mishra’s Workshop
5 Mountain
2 Barbarian Ring
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Scalding Tarn/Wooded Foothills/Arid Mesa/Bloodstained Mire

Artifacts (29):
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
4 Chalice Of The Void
4 Sphere Of Resistance
4 Thorn Of Amethyst
2 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Tangle Wire
1 Trinisphere

Creatures (12):
4 Goblin Welder
4 Magus of the Moon
2 Triskellion
2 Gorilla shaman

The side board is contentious based on your environment.

Zues, with the advent of spell pierce I have found canonist to occasionally be lack luster, due to a lack of synergy. 

It doesn't play the antithesis of vintage nearly as well as actual mana denial elements, in my experience.  And even when it does, the card has inherent lack of synergy with daze and spell pierce.  Meddling mage, however, can often play fantastically with those cards.  He can shut off mana drain or dark ritual or duress (duress is a stretch) which often allows the "unless they pay X" counters to do their thing better.  Also, the mage is blue which can be important (you can get down below 17 blue cards with force of will if you run too many non blue critters).

Although I don't think the chain of vapor analogy serves, I think that Kowal makes some strong points for Wheel.  

The main reason I see wheel being better though is that fish isn't as explosive as ichorid.

I think when you are playing fish you are always about to lose (ignore the fact that I'm using my signature to make a point please).  Give them a turn undisrupted and they kill you.  Ravenous trap is a very strong disruption tool while wheel changes the game completely.  With wheel in play you are going to win unless they deal with it.  It's like a leyline for white/green.  I know its slower but it isn't as obnoxious to draw later in the game.

edit:

Against Dragon it does a similar thing.  If you let them play their game they are going to kill you too fast.  If you play disruption good things happen but dragon only needs 2 mana to end you.  It is really hard to keep a deck from two mana.  When you cast a Wheel suddenly they need to get to two mana and assemble a combo that is a full card bigger (removal for the wheel).  

I think wheel is better against dragon because it does its job better then all your maindeck cards.  Ravenous trap is not as good as force of will because you can't counter other things; nor is it better than stifle because it doesn't remove all their permanents from the game.  Wheel is better then Meddling Mage, in play, because it stops all their enchantments at once.  It is better than pridemage because you don't need to keep mana up.