I suppose that the above goes the same for the ideal play of  of lotus, petal, eureka, ward too...

I have tinkered with fish off and on since a little before invasion. I really think that there is no "right call" with a lot of decklists, as its success is VERY meta dependent. Sometimes I have seen it come down to matchups. I have been testing a very retro (all merfolk) version of fish lately and stomping a good amount of face with it locally. We have such a small group down here, those results are more than likely skewed, though.

I am just of the opinion that the framework of the deck allows for a lot of great cards. Knowing which cards will be relevant on which day makes fish, for me, like flipping a coin sometimes. That's okay. I like the ability to tweak a deck to my liking and still keep it competitive.

after soaking it up for a bit, I agree. Pity, though - vintage was probably the only place for it.

WARD OF BONES 6 (R)
Artifact
Each opponent who controls more creatures than you can't play creature cards. The same is true for artifacts, enchantments and lands.
Mages dare not attempt magic in its grotesque presence.
174/180 David Martin

This reminds me of a combination of Balance and Land equilibrium - it looks like the card was made for type one. Once played, there are not a whole lot of ways out of it - instants being the primary one I see. Exactly how abusable is this card ? My first thoughts were if something like this would be good in Belcher. Perhaps a custom deck with tinker, welder and other mana accelerators like dark rituals and spirit guides that dodge this card.

However after thinking it over for a bit, It might not stop enough of ichorid or without blanket removal, it might not be relevant late game. I just see a power that blatantly strong and can't help to think how much it would suck to be on the other side of one.

I think that in order for this to be successful, you will need to power it out early or have a devastating board sweeping effect right before you play it - like upheaval.

Do any of you have some thoughts ?

George, I would be up to ride up to this with you, but I believe that March 8th is a close friend's wedding that I can't really miss. I will let you know if I am mistaken, (which I hope)

Josh

Well put haunted - the pitchability of leyline is not a concern to me since it would only be sided in for certain matchups anyway. I am still testing with black - will post my latest results soon. 

well, goldeyes - the my initial response would be that at least one of those lands would be a Red mana source and a few of those artifacts already in play would be moxes -this would let you hit your opponent with a Kaervek's torch for 20 life.

The bigger issue would be that if you have a academy setup to produce that much mana, storm cauldron may not be the best option. Many decks in type one do not use cards like storm cauldron because of two fundamental reasons :

1) It costs 5 mana. In type one, you better be ending the game with that kind of mana. Off the top of my head, the only 5 mana cards I can recall are Force of Will and Misdirection - and you will not see people pay 5 mana for even these cards very often. 

2) It does nothing on its own. Sure, it allows a new rule that can make for cute tricks, but it does not get the game any closer to being over after being cast. Also, your plan relies heavily on a strategy of tapping a land in an environment of wastelands.


Don't let this discourage you, though - my advice for someone new to type one is "Go For It"
That's right - go ahead and build the deck, experiment with different card combinations - look at other decks for reference and build something you enjoy playing. Once you become familiar enough with a deck, it becomes easier to determine how to fine tune and optimize it. I would keep in mind though, that when you propose a new deck, many people will shoot it down. Build the deck and test it first to make up your own mind on it before posting here - This way, you will have more than an idea - but a background and a decklist and a goal to shoot for.

Thanks for the input, haunted. I always knew leyline of the void was a stronger card - and with black mana in for duress, The answer on the leyline question is clear. I will be to testing and revise my list a little more to take all of these suggestions into account.

I have always loved mana vortex. Even with a crucible to keep it alive, I think that most decks could play around it by time it makes it way out.

Haunted - my build does run Vials right now. I had the same feeling about stifles - they are narrow, drawn late can sometimes useless. Both Duress and stifle are amazing early but stifle's power wanes as the game goes on. I will try to fit the Duress in. We run in a proxy metagame, but we own everything - at least all the old valuable stuff, so duals are no problem.

I had been advised by our local TO, a friend and someone who has consistently kept up with the meta for years about Ichorid - he suggested leyline of singularity.

MY standard setup was 2 bouncers + 3 swords main decked. Would a stronger setup be to look to a broader effect like moat or propaganda ? It is slower, granted - but if I can power a propaganda out versus Ichorid, it would fare much better than a bouncer. 

I had initially wanted to keep this mono blue. Do you think that a 3 Mis-D, 4 FOW, 4 Stifle & 4 Daze, 3 rootwater & 4 grimoire  package is not enough disruption ? I would love to fit in duress, but a three color manabase was something I wanted to avoid - could we replace the Swords with anything even close in black ?

Morphling - I appreciate your input and am positive that insight that deep can only come from hours of rigorous testing and research.
I do not think anyone here is misleading themselves about the deck - We are posting in the vintage improvement forum, after all. What I simply tried to add was to determine what tools and strategy a deck like this would need in order to compete. If I thought this deck could roll GaT and ichorid and not lose, (to paraphrase you) then I would have posted it in the vintage open forum. My goal is to develop a stockpile of options for merfolk through previous decks that have proven themselves in tourneys

This is what I have been testing lately - I had quite a bit of wins when fish had merfolk - I would love to see it come full circle.

Lands                 14
4 Strand
3 Delta
3 Tundra
4 Island

Creatures             17
4 Lord Of Atlantis
4 Grimoire Thief
3 Rootwater Thief
2 Waterfront Bouncer
4 Silvergill Adept
 


Spells                   29     
3 Aether Vial
1 Lotus
1 Sapphire
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 MisDirection
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Daze

// Sideboard
SB: 2  Echoing Truth
SB: 2  Propaganda
SB: 2  Disenchant
SB: 3  Energy Flux
SB: 4  Leyline Singul.   
SB: 2  Umezawa's Jitte
 

I like the way it rolls right now - It still needs extensive testing, though. I have found that reejereys come too late to be effective in here.
The silvergills are strictly ok - they do assist with drawing and very seldomly cost more than 1U.

I want to test with even more manabase disruption - I like the idea of wastes/stripmines and even Sea's Claim to try to wreak havoc and enable the walking.

I will experiment with swapping out silvergills for tidal warriors and determine the results - and maybe toying with the daze/stifle/Mis-d to see if I can allow room for strip effects. 


Again - this deck is in the works and I am really hoping to see some new, Vintage worthy merfolk in Shadowmoor.

Spacebalzz - I feel that grimoire thief is a great addition for the deck. It is a little reassuring to see results like that in a huge field. It seems that the meta has shifted to more aggro since then - fish has tools for that, so it is reasonable to think it can adapt. I like vials since tog is so prevalent right now. The only anti-creature element I see is a lone echoing truth. I would love to get this to mono blue if possible, but I really think that swords will prove too useful to cut right now.

Have you built this deck up ? I am unsure if you need the three off color moxen - there is not much to cast with colorless in this deck

Diabolic Intent I am not a fan of this card - it is a sorcery, and you have to sacrifice a creature - so its real cost to play is more like 1BUU & discard a card. 

Merfolk Traders These guys do very little for you - they basically cycle a card. If you want this type of effect, replace them with merfolk looter. A lord of atlantis would not be a bad call for this slot, either.

The tutors in general - you devote a lot of space to them, but have very little for them to find. Sure, you can get another merfolk - but there are not many good cards in there to get you out of tight situations. I find that if I go the tutor route, I need a lot of juicy cards to try to find to shut my opponent down ASAP.

Mana Vault - again like the moxes, you have very little to play with the mana from this card.

Timetwister - My general rule of thumb is that If I am not playing combo, it probably helps my opponent more than me.

Your build is also a little black heavy to consistently expect your FOW's to counter.

I suggest to build a version of the deck - play it on Magic Work Station or test it with friends or just goldfish it a couple of times to see what isn't working.

have you looked at living death as an alternate win condition for this deck ? That would lower your mana count needed if you just had a ton of guys in the yard - it also gives you the bonus of stopping an aggro deck if you can power it out early with rituals and songs.

I forgot to welcome you to type 1 and to the Mana Drain, Dirk-jan.

Your feedback is appreciated and is very helpful. Let me make a few comments on your insights -
Mask of the mimic - That is a card that I hadn't thought of and could prove useful but very risky.
Apathy is quick and cheap - It may work in fields with more random aggro, but for decks like ichorid, we need a different solution - proposed blue leylines and several propagandas. Additionally, if your sideboard cards for aggro are only cards that attempt to let you race them, a better sideboard strategy may need to be considered. This is doubly important if so much of the field you played was aggro.

My research shows two things concerning what you mention
1) merchant scrolls were too slow for my tastes. I need to be disrupting and playing threats
2) Grimoire Thief has proven to be nothing less than a house for me. I wish I could run twelve - snagging many good cards when she taps. The only drawback is that she can become such a mind game for your opponent, that the cards she takes could singlehandedly win it for you without them knowing. I am unsure of the rulings of what kinds of information you can share and bluff about - but I am sure a skilled player can absolutely make the most of her.   

 

Dirk-jan :    Thanks for the input. The choices are not what I would initially play, but it appears you did OK.

Let us know a little more about how you fared in the tournament -
   What matches were good ?
   What matches were bad ?
   Was the tourney a proxy tourney ?
   What sideboard cards did you use a lot ?
   What sideboard/main cards did you not use ?
   Do you wish at any time that some cards were other cards ?
   What would you change for next time ?

This will further develop our knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the deck.

Let me chime in on merfolk - I do not post very much on the boards here, but for quite a period of time myself and Phantom Tape Worm worked a lot on merfolk in T1 after Oddessey block, I believe. Things have changed a good bit with merfolk now - mostly for the better even though the deck has a lot to currently overcome. Having moderate regional success in the southeast with the archetype for a little while back then, I was able to test quite a few variations. I was excited to see, upon my return  - that Lord of Atlantis had been given Errata to make him better as well as the bouncer being a merfolk now too.  However, from my testing, the bouncers really seem useful in small quantities - four is probably two too many.

A lot has changed in the metagame since then, and even though these minor advancements had looked a little brighter for the 'folk, it wasn't until I saw the Grimoire Thief that I wanted to play merfolk again. When I was winning with merfolk, they had a distinct game plan - one different than the one in play now. Back then, merfolk were aggro, plain and simple. They were slow aggro with card draw and disruption - and you have to buckle in and hope that you had enough draw and disruption to find the Lords in time to win. Reguardless, they were still played like aggro.

Some of the matchups you oversimplify -  and I believe you have a shell of a deck that needs some intensive reconstruction. My current build was based on the core of the wizards deck seen here - http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=34694.0 . New merfolk will operate drastically different than the wizard deck - at least my testing has proven so so far. The new merfolk will probably need to have a three-pronged game plan (not unlike the tridents they commonly use):
 
  1) pro-actively remove threats from decks before opponent can draw/tutor/play them    (rootwater & grimoire thieves)
  2) provide enough disruption to prevent decks from "doing what they do", even if it is only for one or two turns  (FOW, Mis-D, Stifle, Daze, E.flux, etc)
  3) Be able to provide enough creature utility (abilities) on a low manacount (early game) while staying aggressive  ( careful play and vials aid this)

When my testing yields productive results, I will supply decklists - It appears that as of right now, Shadowmoor will probably contain merfolk also (they are on the packaging). This could like give us the last crucial piece we need for a truly competitive deck.


Sextiger : Your analysis on merfolk may be quite shoddy. Type 1 merfolk are more varied than the three you described. Historically Fish has played Lords, Rootwater Thieves, Manta riders, even razorfin hunters and other metagame calls. Since those times, card selection has gone up quite a bit - doing a quick gatherer search for merfolk yields quite a few new options for the toolbox - including changelings. Meddling Mage and confidant are everywhere right now - they work well in wizards also, but realize that both of the wizard builds seen lately do not even use the confidant. The hypothetical deck posted above would probably not fare very well after being put through the wringer. But I posit that a skilled (and long-experienced) Fish player could soon build the first pile of fish that works since the turn of the millennium.

TopSecret - to answer your question - 'Folk may indeed be viable, but it will take greater research, different card selection and more playtime than what you have put in this far.

Everrid - Shahrazad is banned in legacy and vintage now.

I tried hard too, to break that card - but I never quite could.

I always wanted to build an Ill-Gotten-Gains / Leyline of the Void deck. It just never seemed to perform fast enough when I was testing it.

Chromatic Star                  1
   
Artifact
1,{T}, Sacrifice Chromatic Star: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
When Chromatic Star is put into a graveyard from play, draw a card.

I know what I thought when I read this... wait, isn't that a chromatic sphere ?
well in case you don't feel like looking, the difference is the sphere gives you card after activating.

Granted, It has been awhile since I last played welders, but will this card's graveyard ability to draw a card when welded cause people to test them in any welder-based deck ? Also, it serves as chromatic sphere 5 - 8 for any deck that could possibly need them. (Do any ?) It seems to me that if the deck had a few slots to spare, I would try it in any welder deck to test this possibility.

Or perhaps this heralds the genesis of some second or lower tier deck that runs these like the egg decks - I see something with a helm of awakening and a storm card, maybe ?

I guess I am excited about TS and am really hoping the game doesn't jump the shark with this one.

I noticed this also. Thanks Mr. Shakey. This strikes me as a card that will fit in a new archetype about 1 or 2 years down the line. I can see it now, it will be almost forgotten, then find the perfect home in "Gingerbread Palace" (the deck that will be banned into non-existence in 2008).

What if wizards was testing a mechanic for one or two blocks down the road ? What if the mention of time vault came up and they decided to "fix it" like the rest of the cards that have the timevault mechanic in block X. This would be the only conceiveable reason to change the card that I can think of.

Well with Type one not being sanctioned and most of the tournaments I have played in without so much as even a designated judge - that is, in a sense what we are doing.
Quote Fixed. -Klep

who really said we have to play by their rules. I know If I ran type 1 tourneys I would say to my players " Yeahh... y'know that thing they did to time vault.. they really didn't.." What is wizards to do ? Stop sanctioning T1 events ? *snicker* The game is ours, guys - not theirs. If they do this to many more cards, a declaration of type one independence may need to be drafted. We are the ones who play the game, we should have the largest part in setting the rules.

I would at first thought, say that it would tighten up proliferation of bazaars and workshops at least. 

Ghost Quarter
Land
: Add to your mana pool.
, Sacrifice Ghost Quarter: Destroy target land. Its controller may search his or her library for a basic land card, put it into play, then shuffle his or her library.

source : judge FAQ

This looks like, if it goes unrestricted, would shake things up a LOT. I am unsure if the "search for a basic" clause will keep it out of the restricted bin or not.

All I know at the time is they will probably be played in most formats for a long time, like ports were. Now we have all the other standard and extended players to compete with for foil chinese ones.

We should probably move this discussion to the deck's own forum. I am currently playing one time twister in over one nights whisper. It works great goldfishing but would be terrible in a control-heavy field, methinks. I have found that Infernal tutors work well but are not the busted element that makes this deck run. They greatly help it, but I could only imagine how great they would have been if LED was unrestricted.

yeah. I really love this deck right now. It seems to have the resilience to user mistakes like tog did. I also enjoy the relatively short games. It gives me plenty of times to grab a snack in-between games. What lets me down though is out of the 100 goldfishes I have played, 8 of them I have lost due to nothing hands mulling into nothing. If this deck has to take a hand with all mana and no "finders" It becomes luck of the draw.

goldfishing this thing on mws makes it seem incredibly fast. Land Grant is huge in this thing.  I am concerned though about how easily disruptable it is early on. I like this build and  I plan on continuing testing it. Infernal tutor is tremendous in this thing and I am really looking forward to stocking up on them asap.