Rootwater Theif or Spiketail Hatchling in GayR Fish?

[Zeke]

I got tired of playing landstill (and tired of not being able to get mana drains) so I decided to convert the deck into GayR Fish.  When creating the decklist, my friend insisted on Rootwater Theif to be include, yet none of the current lists I saw ran the card.  They all ran a card he, on the other hand, didn't like: Spiketail Hatchling.

So, what are the arguements for and against each card?  Why is Spiketail being used, while Rootwater Theif, a former staple, not being utilized?

[colebert]

I would only use Rootwater Thief if you have a heavy combo metagame, but then again I think Spiketail Hatchling could be good gainst combo too. Basically in a more even meta the thief takes up too much mana to let you do what you want with the rest of the deck. You have to pay to give him flying and to steal a card, limiting your manland attacks and making it harder to draw. The hatchling on the other hand only requires the casting cost to be used. He can attack in the air for nothing and can still be sacked to make an opponent pay 1 more for their threat. This fits more inline with the decks mana denial and tempo strategy. So that is just my 2 cents

[rvs]

I totally agree with colebert. Hatchling has no further mana investement, while Thief takes up a big mana investment for it to do it's job. It used to be good against Rector Trix by removing their 1 Bargain, making it mad harder for them to go off. Against tier1 now, what are you going to remove? the 3 Togs? That takes 3 turns, a lot of mana, and you still have to hope they simply don't draw one. It's just way too slow.

[Swanky]

Though it's been mentioned in essence, this is the argument for Hatchling superiority:  It represents a degree of deterrence that affects your opponent's tempo.  Fish capitalizes on denying mana and slowing tempo.

Unless you are in a blue-heavy metagame wherein Mono-U merfolk fish would be a desirable option, run the Hatchling.

[skecreatoR]

Rootwater Thief is very good. There should really be no doubt about it, but the question if it fits YOUR Gay/R gameplan. Some decks play with a higher land count and less fetches and can have a stable land drop can utilize a Rootwater so much. The question is if you play such a mana heavy build. When I ran Rootwater I lost bunches of game because of choosing rather to activate a Rootwater instead of activating, say, a Factory and a Conclave. This can easily lead to gameloss.

On the other hand, Spiketail have, as said, no further mana investment needed, and can easily counter or alter opponents gameplan a lot.

I would go with the flow and say that Spiketail Hatchling is just plain better then Rootwater in the usual fish builds.

[M]

Spiketail Hatchling is strong if your game plan is working exactly like it should (many creatures for you, and no mana for opponent). In other situations he is all too easy to play around in my experience. A Daze effect is usually not very effective if your opponent knows you have it.

[theorigamist]

M, your point about broadcasting your Daze is a good one.  But what would you say about a build that uses Spiketails and Daze, forcing the opponent to slow down by two turns just in case?  Wouldn't that be better than any number of Rootwater Thieves?

[skecreatoR]

People play into a Spiketail all the bloody time, I would not really consider that an argument.

[M]

M, your point about broadcasting your Daze is a good one.  But what would you say about a build that uses Spiketails and Daze, forcing the opponent to slow down by two turns just in case?  Wouldn't that be better than any number of Rootwater Thieves?

Let's assume that you can achieve this rare situation:
1) Spiketail in play
2) Daze in hand
3) Island in play or 1U mana open
4) Opponent has exactly 1 mana open after playing a spell

In this situation you can make him pay 1 for the Spiketail, and then counter his spell with Daze. He loses one card (the spell he tries to cast), and 1 mana. You lose two cards (Spiketail + Daze). And if you paid for the Daze with its alternative cost, you lose a land drop as well.

In other situations it gets even worse. For example, if the Spiketail had Curiosity on, you lose three cards. The spell he tries to cast has to be pretty damn important for this to be worth it. And then if he has FoW or Misdirection, he might be able to force it through anyway.

[Roxas]

Let's assume that you can achieve this rare situation:
1) Spiketail in play
2) Daze in hand
3) Island in play or 1U mana open
4) Opponent has exactly 1 mana open after playing a spell

In this situation you can make him pay 1 for the Spiketail, and then counter his spell with Daze. He loses one card (the spell he tries to cast), and 1 mana. You lose two cards (Spiketail + Daze). And if you paid for the Daze with its alternative cost, you lose a land drop as well.

In the first case, it is very similar to  having used a Force of Will.  The island returning to hand usually isn't very harmful to the Fish deck.  Casting Curiosity on a Spiketail that you plan on sacrificing isn't terribly bright, but if you do happen to have one, it's still worth it if countering a key spell saves you.  Winning > -CA.

The point of Spiketail Hatchling isn't necessarily to actually counter spells, anyway; its presence alone can adversely affect the opponent's game plan.  Being forced to leave one mana untapped for key spells can seriously slow down many decks - and loss of tempo is very often lethal in this format.

[yodoblec]

Spiketail Hatchling is superior even though it seems like a worse card.

What does gay/r do? They run not so good cards, but they have so much synergy it creates a very strong deck. The slot that could fit Rootwater Thief is in Voidmage Prodigy. I would only do this if your meta was combo filled.

[rvs]

@M: the card disadvantage is irrelevant. Fish is more based on creating a tempo advantage, then on creating card advantage.

[M]

@M: the card disadvantage is irrelevant. Fish is more based on creating a tempo advantage, then on creating card advantage.

Fish is all about card advantage.
The tempo and mana denial aspects of fish are secondary.

[Roxas]

You obviously must never have played a fish deck in your life; the entire damn deck is based on gaining tempo advantage over the opponent.  The deck loses when it loses tempo, even if it is quite a bit ahead in card advantage, and can win when ahead in tempo but short on card advantage.

[rakso]

@M: the card disadvantage is irrelevant. Fish is more based on creating a tempo advantage, then on creating card advantage.

Fish is all about card advantage.
The tempo and mana denial aspects of fish are secondary.

REB IRC'd the above quote. Please read:

Beginner's Guide to Aggro-Control:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=4957

Beginner's Guide to Generic Fish:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=5000

[Zanetanos101]

I think that Rootwater Thief is entirely too cumbersome for Gay/R.  The mana investment to make it work is too high.  Spiketail Hatchling is probably the better choice for a number of reasons including the fact that a LOT (not all) Gay/r builds focus much of their attention on mana denial, and the hatchling is obviously very good with mana denial.  

Just my thoughts.

[M]

You obviously must never have played a fish deck in your life; the entire damn deck is based on gaining tempo advantage over the opponent.  The deck loses when it loses tempo, even if it is quite a bit ahead in card advantage, and can win when ahead in tempo but short on card advantage.

Actually I have played fish almost exclusively for more than a year, and I disagree with the basic assumption that this particular deck (lavamancer/fish) is based on gaining tempo advantage. It's based on card advantage, just like a classical blue control deck is. It's perfectly true that the deck can sometimes lose even when ahead in card advantage. But it's not true that it wins when ahead in tempo. Even if it gets ahead in tempo the first few turns, if it's unable to follow that tempo gain up with card advantage, then more often than not it still loses.

M wrote:   

Fish is all about card advantage.
The tempo and mana denial aspects of fish are secondary.   

REB IRC'd the above quote. Please read:

Beginner's Guide to Aggro-Control:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=4957

Beginner's Guide to Generic Fish:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=5000

Thanks for the links. I am a big fan of Robert Hahn's old ideas on tempo advantage. Your articles are well written with many good points.  However, I disagree with the classification of lavamancer/fish as aggro-control (by your definition). For two reasons. One: The deck's clock is too slow (the creatures are too small). Two: The decks uses a powerful draw engine to win.

Aggro-control is distinguished from control in many ways. The most important difference is that aggro-control does not emphasize the powerful card advantage elements that drive control decks.

This doesn't apply to a fish deck with 4 Standstill, 4 Curiosity, Ancestrall Recall, and sometimes Library of Alexandria. The draw engine is more powerful than that of aggro decks and aggro-control decks, it is even more powerful than that of many control decks (e.g. Landstill). You can't put this deck in the same category as aggro-control decks like U/G Madness (say) which has three or four random draw cards (plus Brainstorm, but that isn't draw that's tempo).
U/G Madness uses the first few turns to set up a fast clock for the opponent with large creatures and then steals turns with FoW and Circular Logic:

...it (the aggro control deck) can trade a Force of Will for an opponent's Swords to Plowshares and come out one card behind in card advantage, but effectively gain an additional attack phase, which it can use to put the opponent on an impossibly fast clock with an oversized creature like Dreadnought, Psychatog, or Dryad.

Fish cannot do this. Its clock is far too slow, it must generate card advantage in order to win. To further illustrate this point, look at some of the words you used to describe the control vs fish matchup in your second article:

That Ancestral Recall, however, still leaves him with a lot of steam.

He has four mana on the table, two attackers, and a Standstill to preserve his momentum

That is precisely what really makes this deck work: 'Steam' or 'preservation of momentum' from the powerful draw engine. Not the initial tempo gained by dropping a free 1/1 creature with evasion on turn two. The first few turns are always about tempo, this is true for any deck. But after that fish must succeed in setting up its draw engine. If it fails then it will not draw all the creatures necessary to make the kill, and it will not draw the disruption needed to survive and swing for 10+ turns.

A deck that loses whenever it fails to generate card advantage can't be classified as aggro-control in the way you define it.

[theorigamist]

M, if you've been playing Fish almost exclusively for a year, like you say, then you must realize I was talking about making the opponent wait two more turns than they should to cast anything when I mentioned Drake/Daze.  I don't mean can you or can you not effectively counter, because you've still got Force, among other things.  It just means you've slowed the opponent down, and they have to play two turns too slowly, and around Force, and in the face of creatures/Standstill that they have to deal with.

[yodoblec]

Fish is mainly about mana denial and tempo. Card advantage is just a plus with things like curiosity and standstill. The only reason Standsill is even playable is because that you have about 6-7 manlands.

[M]

M, if you've been playing Fish almost exclusively for a year, like you say, then you must realize I was talking about making the opponent wait two more turns than they should to cast anything when I mentioned Drake/Daze.  I don't mean can you or can you not effectively counter, because you've still got Force, among other things.  It just means you've slowed the opponent down, and they have to play two turns too slowly, and around Force, and in the face of creatures/Standstill that they have to deal with.

I know that is what you meant, and it can work like that in theory, but in my experience not very well in real play, because of the reasons I've already stated. A real opponent will not wait two turns, he will play the spell and leave 1 open. Then if you counter with Spiketail+Daze he loses the spell plus 1 mana plus the mana invested in the spell. You lose two cards plus an Island drop plus the two mana invested in the Spiketail. This is much worse for you than FoW, which he also didn't know if you had...

In theory Spiketail + Daze are very synergetic, but in my experience they are not the strongest choices. The more I have played the deck, the more I have come to prefer hard-counters like Stifle. I would not run more than 3 Daze now (if any at all), and I don't use Spiketails any more.
Others might have different experiences, I'm just telling you mine.

[rakso]

However, I disagree with the classification of lavamancer/fish as aggro-control (by your definition). For two reasons. One: The deck's clock is too slow (the creatures are too small). Two: The decks uses a powerful draw engine to win.

Mr. Spires, by your logic, Oshawa Stompy is as control as control gets. Same with pre-restriction Growing 'Tog, the way it could chain a couple of Gushes in a turn.

[Tijnie]

Fish is mainly about mana denial and tempo. Card advantage is just a plus with things like curiosity and standstill. The only reason Standsill is even playable is because that you have about 6-7 manlands.

don't forget the cloud of faeries and grims, they cn dropped before droppig that standstill too.

[Jacob Orlove]

Spiketail Hatchling is amazing in Fish. Test a bunch of games against a fish build with hatchlings, and a bunch against one with thiefs, and you'll see how good hatchling really is.

[yodoblec]

Having a Spiketail Hatchling on the board in sense does about the same thing as if you lay a Wasteland first turn. Do you sac your fetch there and then or do you wait or something?