The French Vintage Cup saw Selkie-based decks dominate the tournament, and 3 of 4 top 4 finishes were Selkie decks.
I think it's fair to say that atm, Selkie-based decks are the best Fish decks out there.

Interestingly, the winner had a few new ideas, which I think are worth mentioning.

Here is the decklist for reference:

1: Camille Fenet (Selkie Ninjas)

// Lands
    4  Tropical Island
    2  Tundra
    3  Wasteland
    1  Strip Mine
    2  Windswept Heath
    2  Polluted Delta
    2  Flooded Strand

// Creatures
    4 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
    4  Cold-Eyed Selkie
    4  Noble Hierarch
    4  Ninja of the Deep Hours
    3  Cursecatcher

// Spells
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Hurkyl's Recall
    3  Spell Snare
    4  Force of Will
    4  Daze
    1  Misdirection
    1  Mystical Tutor
    1  Regrowth
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Pearl
    3  Null Rod
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Time Walk
    1  Brainstorm

// Sideboard
SB: 3  Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4  Tarmogoyf
SB: 2  Kataki, War's Wage
SB: 1  Seal of Primordium
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1  Energy Flux
SB: 3  Swords to Plowshares

Ninja of the Deep Hours and Cursecatcher maindecked are quite interesting.
I've tested a bit with this build, and Ninja is a pretty decent card allowing for even more card advantage. Cursecatcher has also been great in the earlier phases of the game.

What do you think of this build? I must admit that I've never been a huge fan of Trygon Predator as it just seems too slow.

I don't undestand why it doesn't see any more play myself. The fact that Leyline comes in for free some of the times and really messes with many strategies is a great bonus. The drawback, of course, is that without Leyline for free, the combo costs 7 .

Does anyone have any input on the lists posted?

Hello everyone.

I've been toying around with a list using the Leyline/Helm combo for a while now, and I'd like some input. I'm aware that it might not be as competative as Vault/Key combo, but I've made up my mind to build a deck using another win condition, and this one seems pretty fun and and has some nice synergies.

I've come up with two builds so far, one using Confidant and one without. I've been looking quite a bit at the possibility to use Ill-Gotten Gains as a "mini" Will and it also works well with Leyline.


Build 1: Without Confidant

// Spells  
1   Ancestral Recall    
1   Brainstorm    
4   Dark Ritual    
1   Demonic Consultation    
1   Demonic Tutor      
4   Duress      
1   Echoing Truth    
1   Hurkyl's Recall      
3   Ill-Gotten Gains      
1   Merchant Scroll      
1   Mystical Tutor    
3   Night's Whisper    
2   Tendrils of Agony    
3   Thoughtseize      
1   Time Walk      
1   Tinker      
1   Vampiric Tutor    
1   Yawgmoth's Will      

// Enchantments  
4   Leyline of the Void    
1   Necropotence      

// Artifacts  
1   Black Lotus    
1   Helm of Obedience    
1   Lion's Eye Diamond      
1   Lotus Petal      
1   Mana Crypt    
1   Memory Jar  
1   Mox Jet      
1   Mox Sapphire    
1   Sol Ring      

// Lands  
2   Ancient Tomb    
3   Bloodstained Mire    
3   Polluted Delta      
3   Swamp    
4   Underground Sea  


Build 2: With Confidant

// Creatures  
4   Dark Confidant    

// Spells  
1   Ancestral Recall    
4   Dark Ritual    
1   Demonic Consultation    
1   Demonic Tutor      
4   Duress    
1   Echoing Truth    
1   Hurkyl's Recall    
1   Ill-Gotten Gains    
1   Merchant Scroll    
1   Mystical Tutor    
3   Night's Whisper    
1   Tendrils of Agony      
4   Thoughtseize    
1   Time Walk      
1   Tinker  
1   Vampiric Tutor      
1   Yawgmoth's Will    

// Enchantments  
4   Leyline of the Void      
1   Necropotence    

// Artifacts  
1   Black Lotus    
1   Helm of Obedience      
1   Lotus Petal     
1   Mana Crypt      
1   Mox Jet    
1   Mox Sapphire    
1   Sol Ring      

// Lands  
1   Ancient Tomb      
3   Bloodstained Mire      
3   Polluted Delta      
1   Strip Mine      
3   Swamp     
4   Underground Sea    
1   Wasteland      
  

I'd really like to hear some input on how to improve the builds or some general criticism - would it ever be competitive? I'm really thinking about bringing something similar to a tournament at some point, so I'd like to get some feedback

Well, then I'd just play a Guilded Drake....

This is such a misunderstood subject.

Yeah, and all of these cards see a lot of play....

There's a solution to everything. Naming 5 cards that destroys this combo doesn't mean that it won't work. I could name the first 50 cards that destroys artifacts, does that mean that Vault + Key doesn't work?

@smasher:

Yeah I've actually been wondering if Survival is the weakest part of the deck as well. The logical reasoning would be to take it out or include more creatures which also fits the theme of the deck.

Another thing you mention is the disruptive part, which I admit this deck is lacking, but hey, I guess that's why I decided to post here to get some input

Hello everyone!

This is a deck I've been working for the last many days. I've been thinking a lot about how to really make the deck work, as I'm sure it must be possible to really do some wicked stuff with a build like this, but I just need some help

Well first off here's the (uncomplete) core of the decklist I'm building around so far.

Creatures (11):

3 Bloodghast
3 Goblin Welder
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Platinum Angel
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion

Spells (11):

1 Crop Rotation
1 Darkblast
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Intuition
2 Life from the Loam
1 Regrowth (probably that new Zen card, allowing you to return a creature and a land insted)
1 Tinker
1 Vampiric Tutor

Enchantments (3):

3 Survival of the Fittest

Artifacts (11):

1 Black Lotus
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring

Lands (16):

3 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Strip Mine
3 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Wasteland

Total: 52 cards.

Now let me explain a bit about the build. I got the idea from the Skullclamp + Bloodghast engine and then adding Intuition, and then I started playing around with some ideas.

Basically the deck resolves around 3 engines:

1) Skullclamp + Bloodghast for card advantage. This works awesome with Gemstone Mine and Undiscovered Paradise and then Life from the Loam was an automatic include, atleast alongside Wasteland + Strip Mine

2) The Dredge + Bazaar engine. Once Loam or Darkblast is in the graveyard, you can get a lot of cards in the graveyard (Bloodghast or artifact creatures recurable with Goblin Welder).

3) The Survival of the Fittest + Squee + Welder engine. This just seems to fit very nicely into the deck, and have great synergy with the other engines.

Dryad Arbor I've included because it seems awesome in this deck. Pitchable to Survival, recurable with Loam and a target for Skullclamp.

I've been playing around with some other cards in the deck: Fastbond, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Ancient Grudge, Cabal Therapy, Dakmor Salvage etc., but I just haven't completely figures out how to make this deck as competative as possible, so if you have any ideas, please let me know.

Let the brainstorming begin

Here's another list I've been working on the last couple of days. It works really nice, as it's much like a regular ANT deck, but with the inclusion of Hexmage + DD, which randomly pops up once in a while or you can cast Ad Nauseam and drawing 4-6 cards and drawing into this combo.

Creatures
3   Vampire Hexmage     

Spells 
4   Ad Nauseam     
1   Ancestral Recall     
1   Brainstorm     
3   Cabal Ritual     
2   Crop Rotation     
4   Dark Ritual   
1   Demonic Consultation     
1   Demonic Tutor   
4   Duress     
1   Hurkyl's Recall   
1   Imperial Seal     
1   Mystical Tutor     
1   Ponder     
3   Tendrils of Agony   
4   Thoughtseize     
1   Vampiric Tutor     
1   Yawgmoth's Will   

Artifacts 
1   Black Lotus     
4   Chrome Mox     
1   Lotus Petal     
1   Mana Crypt   
1   Mox Jet     
1   Mox Sapphire     
1   Sol Ring     

Lands 
1   Bayou     
2   Dark Depths   
1   Island   
4   Polluted Delta     
1   Swamp     
1   Tolarian Academy     
1   Tropical Island     
2   Underground Sea 

Well, I've actually posted two (rough) lists earlier in this thread. I don't see what good Vial does in getting out a combo piece.
I'm not saying my lists are near perfect or anything, but the way I see it, the deck should lean towards combo rather than creatures with Vial, and running Vial with a quite low creature count, seems way off for me anyway

I really, really, really cannot see Aether Vial being a good card in a combo deck like this.
Also, Pithing Needle isn't really needed in my opinion.

1) I don't get why you'd want to wait a couple of turns getting counters on Vial, when you could get Hexmage out faster and use the time to harass your opponent with disruption instead of making room for Vial in the deck?

2) Why would you ever want to play Dark Depths before playing Hexmage?

Bitterblossom is awesome against Fish, especially in a deck running Negator.
Once you've taken out their Goyfs with Sadistic Sacrament, the matchup is way easier.

Atleast that's the experience I've had, but it's only against a GWB build. Thinking the BuG will be harder.

I will definately be testing out Dimir Cutpurse, but atm I really like the clock Negator provides.

@stormanimagus:

Like your build. It's a bit (well a lot) different than mine, seeing that you are heading more towards a combo deck.

I've been paytesting my aforementioned list quite a bit the last couple of days (except -1 Necropotence, -1 Demonic Consultation, -1 Mana Vault, +1 Ancestral Recall, +1 Time Walk, +1 Mox Sapphire and some minor changes to the mana base) and I'm actually quite surprised as to how powerful the deck is. I'm not claiming it will se a lot of play, but it's a fun build that's quite competative.

I've played against a numerous different builds, and here are my thoughts (note: we played without SB in all games):

1) Against a GWB fish build, running Aven Mindcensor, Gaddock Teeg, Qasali Pridemage, Goyf, Dark Confidant etc: 4-1 win

This was actually a matchup I had feared, as Negator usually aren't that good against Fish builds, and there's a lot of "dead" cards in the deck: Null Rod, Duress. However, I ended up winning 4 og 5 games. Sadistic Sacrament and Hymn to Tourach were awesome in this matchup. I mixed between taking his Goyfs (mainly) and his Dark Confidants. Once his Goyfs were gone from the deck, he had no chance competing against Negator and my Goyfs and with some card advantage due to Hymn and Confidant he never really got close to winning.
His only win were when I mulled to 4 and had to keep a mediocre hand.

2) Against TPS: 3-2 win

This was a matchup I had expected this deck to do very well against, and as it turned out, it did.
Basically I dropped too many bombs for him to handle and once Sadistic Sacrament resolved, he scooped which happened in 2 games. He won both games he started, though, and in both games I never really got started with the discarding.

3) Against Tezz: 2-3 loss

I never expected to do well, and it was hard to do anything against this deck. He kept bouncing and countering and finally resolving his combo pieces. I won one match after resolving a Sadistic Sacrament and another just beating down with a turn 1 Negator.

Then I've played a couple of matches against builds like Landstill and Goblins, and those haven't been a problem at all. Goblins can't handle Goyf and Negator and Hymn often does a good job. The Landstill build was one with Phyrexian Dreadnought and Stifle, and I lost one match where I mulled to 4 on the draw and he resolved a turn 2 Dreadnought after topdecking a Stifle after which I just conceded.

As mentioned, it's quite powerful and really fun to play with.

Some notes:

- The deck can quite quickly run out of gas if your Confidants are killed or countered, which can be a problem. The deck doesn't really have any major "bombs" to dig for so a good, fast start is almost always required.
- Something like Bitterblossom might be pretty good in the sideboard for the Fish and Stax matchups. Other than that, I don't really know what to side in, but I'm thinking about Krosan Grip as an option against both Stax and Tezz builds.

Have anyone else been testing the card out?

Here's another list I've been toying around with. It's pretty quickly made, and obviously it's still rough, but none the less is it another shell to work with.

Creatures  
4   Vampire Hexmage

Spells  
1   Ancestral Recall
1   Brainstorm    
3   Crop Rotation  
4   Daze    
1   Demonic Tutor    
1   Echoing Truth  
4   Force of Will
1   Merchant Scroll  
1   Misdirection    
1   Mystical Tutor    
3   Night's Whisper
1   Ponder  
1   Regrowth  
4   Thoughtseize  
1   Time Walk    
1   Vampiric Tutor    
1   Yawgmoth's Will  
 
Artifacts  
1   Black Lotus    
1   Lotus Petal    
1   Mox Emerald    
1   Mox Jet    
1   Mox Sapphire  

Lands  
3   Bayou
3   Bloodstained Mire  
2   Dark Depths    
1   Island    
4   Polluted Delta    
1   Strip Mine    
1   Swamp Buy    
1   Tropical Island    
4   Underground Sea  
1   Wasteland
 
On a different note, I really like the Ad Nauseam idea as it gives the deck some other options (random drawing into Hexmage + Dark Depths or just drawing 4-5 cards off Ad Nauseum and finding those combo pieces).

I agree.
This card actually makes mono black suicide (or atleast  almost mono black) playable, although not that competative.
I've always loved playing suicide and I'm currently making up some lists and playtesting a bit.

How does your list look like?

The list I've been testing looks like this:

Creatures:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Phyrexian Negator

Disruption:
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Thoughtseize
3 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Extirpate
4 Null Rod

Draw/tutor:
1 Necropotence
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation

Mana:
4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Bayou
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp

It's just a pretty simple list, but Mana Crypt is a mistake - it should be Lotus Petal instead.

Things I want to try out:

1) Adding blue for Time Walk + Ancestral Recall (probably in place of Demonic Consultation and Extirpate or Necropotence) and maybe a Mox Sapphire instead of Mana Crypt which actually doesn't really help.
2) An additional win condition in Tendrils + Yawgmoth's Will added to the list.

Well I like the idea of Sadistic Sacrament in a deck like this as the deck is easily capable of producing the BBB it requires (don't know if it should be a 4-of, though), but I think the deck should be even more combo orientated. I would cut out the Goyfs (good SB addition, though), Hymn (replaced by Duress) and Gatekeeper.
I'd much rather have Tendrils as an alternate win condition than creature beatdown.

I'm currently goldfishing a list that looks like this:

Draw:

4 Dark Confidant
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Night's Whisper
1 Necropotence

Tutoring:

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
3 Grim Tutor
2 Crop Rotation

Disruption:

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Hurkyll's Recall

Win:

1 Time Walk
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Dark Depths
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Mana:

4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal
1 Bayou
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Swamp

I've actually thought of this myself, but it just seems pretty clumpsy to be honest.
Then you would "have" to have 2 specific lands in play for it to work.

Right now I'm testing a quickly made list including Crop Rotation, Grim Tutor, Cabal Therapy etc with Tendrils as an alternate win condition. It seems pretty good although I'm only goldfishing.

I actually agree that this could be, if not better, than on level with Oath decks.

Advantages over Oath:

1) As mentioned you don't have to wait a turn where you're opponent could disrupt your combo, and generally it's probably more resilent to hate.
2) Potentially faster kill than Oath (2nd turn)
3) Vampire Hexmage is usefull on it's own (as mentioned in this thread, it can be put to good use against a lot of cards)
4) You don't get "dead" draws as you can get with Oath drawing a creature.

Some other thoughts:

1) This build could take better advantage of Dark Confidant (not risking a lot of damage from flipping a big creature)
2) Seeing that some Oath builds have started using Remora, this is even better in this deck as Hexmage can reset your Remora.

This card is actually very good against a number of cards:

Gemstone Mine
Triskellion
Arcbound Ravager
Smokestack
Chalice of the Void
Tezzeret
Tangle Wire

Edit: nevermind.

Of course everyone should know of this deck by now, I just need some suggestions on this particular build, as I'm attending a tournament in some days.

I've decided to switch from the Key/Vault win condition to 3 x Lorescale Coatl because I'm having quite a few problems against aggro/fish decks, and Lorescale actually helps a lot in this situation.
I does get a little slower and a bit more unstable, but I think it might be a good choice. However, I'm tempted to switch back again if I can get some suggestions for what the sideboard should look like - so that's another subject for discussion, and actually a quite important one: what would your sideboard look like assuming a unknown meta?

First off, here's the decklist:

Creatures:
1   Inkwell Leviathan     
3   Lorescale Coatl     

Spells 
1   Ancestral Recall     
1   Brainstorm     
3   Commandeer     
1   Demonic Tutor     
1   Echoing Truth     
4   Force of Will     
1   Gush       
4   Mana Drain   
4   Meditate   
1   Misdirection     
1   Ponder     
1   Regrowth
1   Repeal     
1   Time Walk     
1   Tinker
1   Vampiric Tutor   
1   Yawgmoth's Will

Enchantments 
1   Fastbond   
4   Mystic Remora   

Artifacts 
1   Black Lotus 
1   Mox Emerald   
1   Mox Jet   
1   Mox Pearl 
1   Mox Ruby   
1   Mox Sapphire   
1   Sol Ring 

Lands 
2   Flooded Strand
5   Island
1   Library of Alexandria   
3   Polluted Delta     
2   Tropical Island   
3   Underground Sea 


Some card explanations:

1 Inkwell Leviathan: still in here as another win condition, and is of course irreplaceable.

1 Echoing Truth / 1 Repeal: at the moment I like this combination. Repeal is great with Coatl and is mostly used on Remora, while ETruth also can be used on opponents DSC/Inkwell etc.

1 Gush: might seem a bit off, but has proven really good in the deck with Fastbond.

1 Regrowth: as I've added green to the deck, this has become a very potent card. However I'm open for suggestions as to replacements.

1 Fastbond: adding green gave the option to include this badboy, and I think it's been a gamebreaker at times (which of course it should be!)

So basically - any suggestions? New ideas I haven't hear of? And also some suggestions for sideboard are very much appreciated!