Rug Fish - A compromise that can hold it's own against aggro

[Master]

I've tried U/R Fish and it's performance was too poor against aggro decks to be considered a well rounded deck.

WTF/r performed somewhat better against aggro but tended to stall out far too often.

The absence of standstill from WTF/r is a mistake in my opinion. Fish thrives on card drawing. Even with River Boa, Call of the Herd or Quirion Dryad, the threats simply aren't powerful enough to make something like brainstorm worthwhile. And WTF can deliver beats faster than U/R Fish making standstill more potent than ever.

So this is what I've arrived at, a compromise between both builds that keeps the best aspects of each.

//NAME: Fish on RUGs
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        4 Curiosity
        4 Standstill

        4 Force of Will
        1 Misdirection
        1 Stifle
        1 Daze
        3 Null Rod

        4 Grim Lavamancer
        4 Cloud of Faeries
        4 Spiketail Hatchling
        4 Quirion Dryad or River Boa
       
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Library of Alexandria
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Wasteland
        4 Mishra's Factory
        4 Polluted Delta
        3 Flooded Strand
        3 Tropical Island
        3 Volcanic Island

SB:  1 Stifle
SB:  1 Gorilla Shaman
SB:  1 Null Rod
SB:  1 Artifact Mutation
SB:  1 Rack and Ruin
SB:  1 Pyroblast
SB:  1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB:  2 Maze of Ith
SB:  2 Fire / Ice
SB:  2 Oxidize
SB:  2 Red Elemental Blast

It's pretty much a standard fish deck except for a green splash to replace the voidmage prodigy.

Voidmage Prodigy is just not a very good threat. It dies to just about anything making it worthless against aggro. It's disruption is too slow to effect combo. It helps a bit against control, but that's a matchup that fish already does well against.

Replacing it with a creature that actually helps fish against aggro, and at the same time poses a real threat to control decks, was a very lucrative option.

Between lavamancer, factories and either dryad or river boa, the deck performs pretty well against solid aggro decks like FCG, r/g beats and madness. I'm not claiming that these matchups are favorable, but they are easily winnable. Against FCG, if you can keep the Food Chains of the table, you're essentially dealing with gobvantage with numerous viable blockers of your own and in the case of Dryad, an ever growing threat.

I've had quite a hard time deciding between quirion dryad and river boa. In testing, I've continously gone back and forth. River Boa is in general a more versatile creature. But Quirion Dryad made aggro a winnable matchup, and wasn't poor against control either.

I'm sure most WTF players are already aware of just how potent a threat river boa is. So allow me to explain the advantages of Quirion Dryad...

The dryad is usually a 3/3 the turn after I play him, and by next turn gets big enough that almost none of the aggro critters can attack and i can play my standstill. A 3/3 that keeps getting bigger is a great target for curiosity as well against the many deck that don't play any way to remove the dryad or any really large creatures.

Dryad does suck in topdeck mode if you don't already have a curiosity or standstill draw engine set up. But in every other situation, I've never regretted seeing it.

Dryad makes standstill better. Where as before, you couldn't play standstill against a weenie aggro deck that plays multiple weenies early on (r/g beats). Now you can, simply by playing a Dryad, some other spell next turn (curiosity, cloud of fairies, lavamancer, one of the many free or cheap disruption spells) followed up with the standstill. Now, none of their guys can attack while your 3/3 is on the table but all your flying critters can. And when they break standstill and you draw three more spells, dryad starts to get obnoxiously big.

Having a big threat IS tempo. You can simply play a dryad then play fish as usual while he just keeps getting bigger and gaining more and more tempo. Decks that previously play the waiting game with fish till they have the mana for their powerful bombs now have something they need to deal with asap. At worst, dryad saves your curious fairie from being swordsed because they are forced to use it on the dryad instead.

River Boa is by no means a bad creature. But it does require that you leave a green mana source open at all times to protect it or to be able to chump block aggro decks. Leaving mana open is something that fish does NOT like to do.

The 1/1/1 configuration for Misd/Daze/Stifle has been working out very well. The opponents never know what to expect or prepare for and all three cards can have game swinging effects.

The mana base is solid since I removed the Fairie Conclaves. The conclaves were slowing me down by a turn every time I draw them in my opening hand. Even mid game, I rarely have the mana to use them effectively as I always need mana for the spells I keep drawing, for lavamancer, to regenerate boa, or to pump mishra's factory. Tapping three lands to attack for 2 just isn't very viable anyways.

The sideboard is pretty standard and has been working out very well. But if someone requests, I can go into specifics on sideboarding. One mistake I urge you not to make is don't fall too low on threat density when sideboarding, you need them for your draw engine to work. And also, be wary of siding out curiosity, they're essential to not stalling out.

Note: Currently, I am running river boa in Fish on RUGs. I'm simply suggesting that dryad is a very viable alternative as well.

[orgcandman]

I don't see how fish can support a 3rd color. Its pretty committed to it's gameplan of creature control and aggro through pinging, and fast beats. The third color doesn't seem to add anything that the deck is missing and rather just helps to screw up the mana base. You also lose some creature control/card draw in the form of no fire/ice maindecked.
Consider this opening hand:

Mox Sapphire, Fetch, Cloud of fairies, Grim Lavamancer, Quirion Dryad, Force of Will, Daze

What do you fetch for? Volcanic or Tropical? This doesn't seem to me like it's an auto-go-for-volcanic or an auto-go-for-tropical. I dunno...maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like all you've done is made fish a shade slower without any significant advances.

[Master]

WTF/r (the fish variant using brainstorm) supports three colors just fine.

The mana base works. I dislike using brainstorm and that's why I don't use it.

So does U/R/W Fish (the one that splashes for meddling mage and swords).

I tried this a bit as well. Meddling Mage wasn't very good IMO. It's not as useful as often as people seem to think it is. Plus you have to protect it if it is to have affected the game at all.

Swords is great. But there are many situations where it just sits in your hand doing nothing.

River Boa is great against aggro, whether chump blocking or working with lavamancer or mishra's factory to take out fatties. It's a great curiosity target. It's a great threat as well especially under standstill. It's never a dead card.

The same can be said of Quirion Dryad. It's even better than dryad against aggro, great under curiosity, great at taking out fat and is a sweet threat.

If you have any questions about the mana base, try the deck out yourself (the build I posted). You can almost always draw two fetches or a dual and a fetch or something in the first few turns.

Consider this opening hand:

Mox Sapphire, Fetch, Cloud of fairies, Grim Lavamancer, Quirion Dryad, Force of Will, Daze

In the situation you listed, I would fetch tropical, play sapphire, play dryad turn one. Daze their next spell.

Next turn, play factory, cloud, play another threat if you drew one and attack with a 3/3 dryad or 4/4 dryad turn two. FoW whatever they try to play the next turn if it's a solid threat.

By now, you should've drawn another fetch for lavamancer, or another threat, or a curiosity or standstill or something. Play it, attack with a 5/5 or 6/6 dryad, a mishra's factory, another threat if you played one last turn and a clouds. Note: I probably would only over extend myself like this against certain match ups. There are a few match ups where I would slow play, never having more than 2 or 3 threats in play at once.

They're now at 5-9 life on a very fast clock with essentially nothing on the board (thanks to the disruption you played so far) facing numerous threats. They'll likely die next turn or atleat in two turns unless they do something big and you can't disrupt it (and you probably can).

[Sandster]

WTF/r (the fish variant using brainstorm) supports three colors just fine.

The mana base works. I dislike using brainstorm and that's why I don't use it.

Have you tested this thing?  You will get something along Orgcandman's hand very often, except the Sapphire might be a manland or strip.  You actually mentioned why the mana base in WTF/r is BARELY passable while yours does not - Brainstorm.  Standstill does not smooth your mana base.

[Master]

Yes standstill does great smoothing out my mana base.

If I draw a standstill (the thing taking up brainstorm's slots) with the hand provided in the above situation, I would be able to play it turn two.

Turn one fetch for tropical, sapphire, Quirion Dryad. Daze (or FoW) their spell next turn.

Turn two, mishra's factory, cloud of faires, standstill. Attack with 4/4 dryad

You'll be beating down with a 4/4 dryad, a 2/2 factory and 1/1 flyer each turn till they break the standstill.

The three cards you draw will fix the mana base the same as Brainstorm. But the fact that you actually drew the cards instead of just shuffling around your hand for a few turns is HUGE.

Where as with brainstorm, you'll only have one card left in your hand. With standstill, you'll have three.

Even if the sapphire was a wasteland or factory.

First turn mishra's factory.

Second turn fetch for tropical island, dryad, daze and/or FoW discarding cloud their turn

Third turn replay tropical cloud (if not discarded for fow), standstill, attack with 4/4 dryad.

Fourth turn second mishra's factory or wasteland, attack with 4/4 dryad, 1/1 cloud, 3/3 factory or a 2/2 factory + waste a land.

They'll have to break standstill asap (and you FoW whichever spell they used to break it if it's important). You'll get the fetch or volcanic you need (to play lavamancer) if you would have gotten it with brainstorm, only you also get two other cards with which to refuel your hand and pump the dryad up to a 7/7! Plus they hadn't been able to resolve a spell since turn one.

Standstill is perfect for smoothing your manabase and works better with dryad since it not only works well with a decent sized dryad under it but also provides more spells to play and pump dryad up.

There are very few situations where brainstorm is better than standstill.

And to answer your first question. I've been playing this deck regularly for the past month or so against just about every archeatype out there. I think that qualifies as testing.

I still haven't been able to decide between quirion dryad and river boa. An early dryad won me so many games that it feels wrong not to play it. But river boa is a LOT better in top deck mode if you don't have a draw engine going. Plus it's harder to kill.

This is why I would like to hear some honest, sensible, or well tested reasons on why one should opt for either the quirion dryad or river boa.

[Raven Fire]

I find it a poor idea to further stress Fish mana bases just because you don't like VMP (most decks only run 2 anyway).  In doing, so you've also reduced your man-land threats to less than your opponent's Strip count. What I'd like to know is: Which decks does this provide a significant advantage against?  For example, I don't think it's enough to help vs. FCG and it isn't really needed against Ravager decks, but it would likely be helpful against U/G Madness.

[orgcandman]

The real problem is, fish has trouble supporting a 2-color manabase. Unless your new 3c build tests well to improve some lacking matchups without detracting from existing favorable matchups, I don't see the reason to run it. The problem is that fish uses standstill for a draw engine. And if one wants to consistently drop threats through standstill, one runs manlands. and if one is running manlands, one is tapping out during their turn and is unable to keep counter mana up. I see 3color exacerbating this problem in that instead of being able to keep counter mana up in the early game, you're busy trying to develop your manabase. And I'm sorry to say, fish needs an immediate stable manabase in order to go with the mana denial plan. I just don't see 3 color fish as viable, but I guess only testing can prove or disprove that.

[Master]

Ravenfire and Orgcandman...

I didn't cut the fairie conclaves to support a splash. I cut them because they absolutely sucked and weren't needed for standstill to be effective. Early on they tie up a whole turn needlessly. They require you to tap three mana sources to use as a 2/1 flyer in a deck that needs its mana for lavamancer, other man lands, disruption, and to waste the opponents lands. They're just very poor cards. And that's why they were cut.

Standstill runs fine without fairie conclaves. It has cloud, it has lavamancer, it has 4 mishra's factory and now it has a playset of creatures (either boa or dryad) that can both attack and make it impossible for your opponent to attack back. I've never yet had a problem with standstill being dead in my hand. I can always find a use for it, at worst pitching it to FoW.

Frankly I'm done with the whole standstill vs. brainstorm debate. Standstill is just plain better, end of story. And it certainly doesn't need fairie conclaves to work.

Splashing green wasn't done just because I disliked Voidmage Prodigy. Against decks that play a decent amount of removal, stuff like r/g beats and even 4c control, I've always found standard fish to be short on creatures.

You will lose your flyers and often your lavamancer (it's not a good curiosity target anyways) to removal. Spiketail often sacs itself to stop a key spell. The deck often ends up with curiosity and no targets for it. Voidmage Prodigy is a horrid target. He can't even attack when something like Gorilla Shaman or Metalworker is on the table.

Every single aggro matchup has improved dramatically since I splashed green for boa/dryad. Yes, that includes FCG. And it hasn't hurt any of fish's other matchups. The extra attackers have proven to be very helpful against control. And voidmage never had much impact on combo decks anyways. We all know that aggro is the one matchup that fish needed help with before it could be considered a tier one deck.

The mana base isn't as bad as people seem to think it is. It runs 10 ways to get red, 10 ways to get green, and 14 solid blue sources. It only needs either a volcanic or a tropical early on. It rarely needs both to be effective as I showed in the example above. But it also doesn't have much problem getting both. It certainly doesn't tie up it's manlands or strip effects in order to do so. I don't know where you got that idea. The casting costs are the same as standard fish. Only, since the fairie conclaves were cut, your development is a full turn faster. And one thing that people forget to mention. You need two solid blue sources to cast voidmage. If you can get two blue sources, it's a very high probability that you could have just as easily gotten a triopical and a volcanic island.

Something like what Orgcanmann is about the worst hand you get in terms of mana, and as I already showed, you can easily play around it and have a very strong disruptive opening.

[orgcandman]

Actually, you didn't show how to 'play' around that hand. You added a factory from no where, then dropped your cloud of fairies, then "another threat... [you]...would have drawn" on turn 2. You then proceeded to attack with a 3/3 dryad (most likely would be stp'd, bolted, or chumpblocked) then fow'd without a blue source in your hand to pitch having dazed their turn 1 spell. I've done some quick goldfish hands using mindless automation, and frequently get sub-par hands with non-intuitive decisions regarding the correct play of mana. It's not stable. Even 2 color fish is not terribly stable as evidenced by the plethora of threads regarding the inclusion of lotus petal, mox ruby, and the correct number of fetches. Adding a third color weakens this further and diminishes your ability to do one of the things fish does best: mana denial. Please do more real world testing and post actual results such as, "After X goldfish hands the frequency of getting a fetchland and a non-blue source of mana was Y. This made turn 1 play decisions difficult because of cards [tau], [theta], and [gamma]," rather than posting something like "I can hope to draw factories and such to make the deck work."

[Master]

The factory was a mistake, I thought I read it. Ravenfire replaced the sapphire with a factory any ways so the hand still works out the same, only slightly slower. I illustrated how it would play out without the sapphire and with a factory already.

The factory isn't even relevent. It didn't make the dryad any bigger. The dryad got to be such a large and deadly threat so fast all by itself. Do you think the hand would be better if I ran voidmage prodigy? I wouldn't have been able to cast it (unless you let me keep the sapphire instead of replacing it with a stripmine or wasteland). And even if I had, what would it have accomplished. It probably couldn't have attacked since any blocker can kill it. The dryad is what made the hand even playable. Had it been a voidmage prodigy in place of the dryad, you probably would have had to mulligan.

The dryad was a 3/3 because of daze plus the clouds. If I drew another threat, it would be a 4/4, but I played it out as if I hadn't as well. If they had played a chump blocker big enough to take down the dryad (wild mongrel or something) second turn, you would have dazed him, if they left a mana open simply waiting to swords or bolt you, you daze the swords, or bolt. If they FoW it, you can likely FoW right back and have the dryad get even bigger. At the very worst, you attack with a 3/3. If they had a chump blocker left over from turn one, there's no chance it could take down a 3/3.

Any way you look at it, you're left in a very strong position thanks to the Dryad.

As for brainstorm smoothing out manabases. If you had a standstill (where ever the brainstorm would be). You're in a very strong position to use it, and at the same time have an even bigger dryad. You don't need to draw a factory for standstill to be usable. Any of your threats work just fine. If you drew a conclave instead, you would likely be in a worse position right now, as you would have wasted a turn. When they break the standstill, you'll have a smooth mana base and likely more threats and/or disruption.

A few quick goldfish isn't the best way to judge if a mana base works. Try actually playing the deck instead. You'll see that the deck is very solid as is. You don't always have to be able to play the lavamancer immediately. You likely can't even use the lavamancer's abilities for a few turns anyways. It's okay if you don't cast it till turn three or four as long as you've been doing things and disrupting them up till then as well.

[jpmeyer]

"Just try it" is not considered a valid defense.

[Master]

It does when the only offense is based on a couple of goldfishes.

Besides, it's not my only defense.

I illustrated and explained how the deck works and how it plays as well as the reason for each of the card choices several times.

If you wish, attack my reasons for why I play dryad and river boa, show how they don't work for fish.

Besides Jacob, this is the mana base you run in your WTF/r deck...

4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta (could just as easily be strand or foothills, or a mix)
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald

You essentially have 9 cards that can get you a green source and 9 cards that can get you a red source. My deck runs 10 ways to get out each.

Yet your deck is even more dependent on having both red and green than mine since you run far fewer blue spells and you run lavamancer along with oxidize and call of the herd along with your boas.

I've already explained how standstill is just as good at smoothing the manabase as brainstorm since you can lay down a threat and standstill and draw the lands you need.

So how is it that you can back his claim (a claim he makes without any playing with this deck mind you) that my mana base doesn't work, when your mana base has far fewer blue spells and is even more dependent on green than mine and yet has less ways to get out either blue or red mana sources.

Note, I've never claimed that the deck is invulnerable to mana disruption (name one deck in competitive vintage that is). I merely claimed that the deck works well and is competitive.

[Jacob Orlove]

You got me confused with JP, and addressed some comments to me, so I'll answer them: I switched to a 6 fetch/6 dual configuration, giving me 10 red, 10 green, and 13 blue sources. With only 5-6 spells of each color, it's not necessarily even an issue, since I won't always even draw red and green cards (although I have to be careful with the color mix when I SB).

Also, I run one more mana source than you do, which may make a difference. With that said, this kind of mana base tends to be more stable than it looks, at least from my experience. Wastelands aren't usually a problem, because they stunt your opponent's mana development--which is what you wanted to begin with. With 15-16 colored mana sources, you draw about 2 in the average opening 8 cards, and about 3 by turn 3/4--so even if they waste you once, you should be fine. Plus, some decks have to waste the factories instead. If they have double waste, then they either are short on mana themselves, or they won't have much in terms of threats.

Generally, since the deck runs so few nonblue spells, you'll be pretty much fine on one colored source most of the time--and you'll usually end up with both anyway.

Obviously, this deck won't be too happy against some kind of triple waste/ancestral/lotus into exalted angel draw, but regular fish loses to that too.

Consider this opening hand:

Mox Sapphire, Fetch, Cloud of fairies, Grim Lavamancer, Quirion Dryad, Force of Will, Daze

Against any deck with 5 strips, that hand is probably a mulligan. It doesn't even have any card drawing or mana disruption.

After some fixing up of posts, I'm reopening this thread. Let's stay away from unfounded attacks.

[monstre]

I'm glad this thread was reopened, thank you Jacob. I've been playing around with this deck since it was first posted and I have to agree that the mana base isn't as bad as it looks. A typical opening hand will contain a red or a green card, but rarely both although it does happen. You can get by with two colors early on, so the deck isn't much more unstable than the red/blue version. I'm not denying that it is more likely to be color-screwed, but it's a trade-off that is worth considering if it makes for an otherwise better deck.

Regarding the choice of boa or dryad, I'm leaning towards the latter as I don't like how the snake ties up your mana. I would very much like to hear from Master as soon as he decides to settle the matter either way. Perhaps Jacob could shed some light on this since WTF/r is a pretty similar deck. Why did you decide on boas rather than dryads ?

I hope this discussion can remain civil because I think this deck takes fish in an interesting direction.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I am definately an advocate of boa.  As you said, boa is far better is topdeck mode.  

Not only does it have this advanttage, however, but it is usualy unblockable, making it a much better curiosity target that dryad (even if the dryad is big, it can still be blocked, and the purpose of curiosity is to draw as many cards as possible).  

Also,  it can regenerate and chump block any thing from sundering titans (assuming u have a green source ) to (insert random fatty).

The regenerating capabiliy makes it a house against any U/R fish build, because they can't remove it.

It doesn't always have to tie up your mana either.  The regeneration is more of a bonus because it is only needed in certain matchups, mainly just U/R fish because it's only removal is fire/ice and lavamancer.

Also, call of the heard seems like it would be great against aggro.

edit: Dunno how I forgot about arrogant wurms trampling.

[Alfred]

Arrogant wurms cannot be chump blocked, as they have trample. But I agree with everything else in your post. This is fish, and in this deck, you spend less time worrying about cantripping, and more time worrying about keeping threats on the board and disrupting your opponent. River Boa fits better into this strategy. Unless dryad comes down early, it can't grow enough, and it is horrible when topdecking. Speaking of tying up mana, dryad also needs you to spend mana, i.e. when you are casting the cantrips to make it grow.

[Master]

Thank you for reopening the thread jacob. Sorry i mixed you up with JP meyer.

I haven't had many problems with the mana base. I'm not saying it's as good as u/r fish. But it's never the less very stable. And I think the trade of is well worth it as this version does do better against aggro decks.

I know that the aggro matchup is also the reason people play u/w fish. But I personally think this version is more versatile. Swords is a great card. But against certain matchups, it doesn't do anything. You can't play curiosity on swords. And swords doesn't give you a threat to play under standstill. Both dryad and boa serve the purpose of killing off weenies, chump blocking big aggro critteers (or in the case of dryad growing bigger than them), all while providing nice targets for curiosity or a nice threat for under standstill against control decks.

As a bonus, green contributes so many great cards to the sideboard (more than white). I know that some versions of u/w fish also play meddling mage, but I've had poor luck with the card.

It doesn't always hit a card that they would've drawn and played that turn anyways (in fact, it usually only has about a 50% chance of doing so unless you're playing a combo deck with only one specific win conditon an no removal). And even so, it's just a easy to remove vanilla 2/2 that's neither a decent blocker, nor has the evasion to make it a decent curiostiy target.



Swords is a better way to take out creatures. But it can only take out one creature at a time. Dryad can get big enough fast enough that several of your opponent's creatures can no longer attack. Eventually, he gets big enough that nothing in your opponents entire deck can attack you while you outdraw them and ping them to death with your 1/1 curious flyers.

Plus, unlike swords, there is no matchup where he is useless. You can always use him. He is always a threat that gives your opponent a very hard time, and provides a great body for a curiosity target or a great creature under standstill, or at the very least a threat that your opponent  has to target instead of the curios faries that you also have on board.

In the dryad versus boa debate, I'm starting to lean back towards dryad. I went back to using the dryad version this weekend and I haven't looked back since.

It's nice not having to leave a mana to regenerate boa. And about half the games I played, I've been able to draw and play dryad by second turn. And by the time I emptied my hand and was in topdeck mode, it was almost always a nice juicy 5/5 or so that gave any aggro deck I faced a very hard time.

Even the third of the time or so that the dryad was topdecked, I usually had a draw engine setup and the dryad atleast became a 2/2 or 3/3 by the turn after I cast it, big enough to deter an attack from some of their smaller threats. And after several turns (aggro decks aren't hard to stall out), the dryad becomes big enough that none of their creatures can attack while your curious flyers keep getting you more threats.

I usually managed to FoW and/or Daze/Spiketail Hatchling a couple of threats from their opening hand so that I had quite a few turns before they were able to put any real pressure on me. By then, the dryad was always big enough that they couldn't attack me for fear of losing their creatures. Stifling their regenerators and misdirecting their burn was a lot of fun as well.

I know from past experience that u/r fish has a tough time against aggro. The matchups aren't nearly as bad for this deck.

If you're interested, the aggro decks I played against are... r/g beats, a gobvantage deck, a madness deck and a surprisingly well tuned elf deck (yes, i know it sounds scrubby but the deck is very strong with skullclamps and eight of those annoying critters that gives a 1/1 token every time they play a creature). I even sided out the null rods against the elf deck at the request of my opponent since his deck was designed to abuse skullclamp. (We were just playing for fun.)

Sadly, I didn't have enough time to play any of the control or combo decks there (I really wanted to gauge how useful dryad was against aggro.) But I have little reason to believe that this deck is much if any worse against combo or control. It basically cuts a daze, a shaman, and two voidmage from ptw's fish to make room for the dryad. In the past games I've played against control, the dryad was a very nice threat against control or atleast saved my curious faries from swords.

I think dryad vs. river boa is strictly a metagame choice. If you face a decent bit of aggro (and not weenie aggro decks that fish already beats like 10 land stompy or sligh but fat aggro decks like madness and r/g beats), I would definately recommend the quirion dryad. If your meta is mostly control with little combo or fat aggro, I would recommend the river boa. But if you play in such a meta, u/r fish does fine as well.

I designed this deck to be as versatile as possible. Fish already does well against control and combo. With this splash, it loses very little against these matchups but does pretty well against aggro decks too.

I imagine that quirion dryad isn't as good in WTF/r since it replaces some blues spells with maindeck green spells like oxidize and call of the herd. Dryad is best when it's the only green card maindecked.

But boa has more than it's share of advantages as well. It's certainly not an inferior choice, just one better suited for certain metas.

Call of the herd is a great threat as well. But I simply can't make room for it by cutting clouds like WTF/r since standstill is such a house in this deck. Also call of the herd rarely makes it under a standstill. And no, I have no desire to switch to WTF/r. I tried the deck and call it a personal bias if you wish, but I simply don't think brainstorm can ever compete with standstill.

[Master]

I know there are a lot of people who think fish can't support three colors.

And I know that JP Meyer will say just try it is not a good defense.

But many people here including me posted several reasons and examples of how and why the mana base works.

So I do urge all fish players to try the deck out. Throw together the dryad into your fish build, adjust the mana base to the one above, and take it for a spin to your local type 1 scene. I especially urge you to try it against aggro decks, including decks like r/g beats, madness, and fcg that fish generally has a very veyr hard time against. Come back here and post your conclusions.

[wuaffiliate]

no thank you.

you know what will make your aggro matchup better?
learn to play gayr correctly and very well.
the more you play, the more you know how to deal with aggro.
sideboarding is also important, but the main thing is playskill.

i dont believe you need to splash another colour into gayr
red and blue have all you need to deal with creatures.

learn the deck, tweak to your metagame, win.


[all the above is mainly toward those who want to play gayr in their semi-nooblar environments, i suggest something else for random environments, keep gayr for true tourney play, where its best]

[Master]

uh huh, right.

Gay/r has a favorable match up against madness, fcg, oshawa stompy, r/g beats and the various competitive aggro decks you run across. I'm just a bad player and that's the only reason I have trobule against these match ups.

[wuaffiliate]

Dont be taking what i say out of context asshat. i never said they were favourable, i said they were not unfavourable. meaning they are close to even matches with the correct play and build.

FCG is not favourable as i said, but if you play and SB correctly you should be able to win 2-1. in general FCG players are terrible and play shitty lists, in this case they are EZ. you need to play flawlessly to beat fcg.

madness? UG madness? noone plays that shit.

ostpmpy is suckness, ive not had a problem with it at all, infact ive lost to gayr in a tourney the first large tourney ostompy was EVER played in. gayr has alot of ways to deal with a mana light deck like ostompy.

rg beatz? wtf try dealing with decks that matter. do you metagame vs pox too?

those decks you pointed out are not usually in the later rounds with you, if you can pull enough wins in the early rounds you are fine. ive done it so very very often, if you have an aggro filled metagame its a terrible idea to play gayr anyhow play tog.

[Zherbus]

Rancor/Centroles strikes again.[/color]