[Deck] Mono Blue/Fish Hybrid

[BennyR502]

Here's the decklist
Standstill x4
Ophidian x4
Tradewind Rider x3
Cloud of Faeries x4
Spiketail Hatchling x4

Mana Drain x4
Force of Will x4
Mana Leak x4
Back to Basics x2
Ancestral Recall x1
Time Walk x1

SoLoMoxen x7
Fetchland x5
Island x7
LoA x1
Wasteland x4
Strip Mine x1

Sideboard:
Back to basics x2
BEB x4

up for discussion

Choices
I wanted to build fish but I wanted to be able to utilize back to basics and standstill, and possibly chalice thus this is what came out.
Tradewind Rider:  This was the main reason I wanted to make the deck, I've always been a Tradewind fan but I realized if I wanted to make the deck halfway competitive, thus I needed the mana accel of the moxen and drains.  I thought it would work wonders with standstill too.
Spiketail Hatchling:  Pretty solid first turn with a mox, land also works with tradewind
Cloud of Faeries:  Free creature, synergistic with tradewind
Ophidian (vs. Curiosity):  Ophidian is a creature, making him tappable (sp?) and doing almost the same thing as curiosity.
Standstill: Like I said, this is a fish hybrid, beside the spikes and clouds, if you have an active tradewind down it might as well read draw 3 cards.
Mana Leak: Solid counter with the solomoxen

I think most other cards in here are self explanatory

Cards I'd like to think of adding
Powder keg (the deck doesn't have alot to deal with welder besides the T-wind or force)
chalice of the void- so strong but I just couldn't find things I wanted to drop for it
Stasis! - the old prison player in me has always loved this card, wouldn't be terrible with a tradewind down.
I'm also a little sketchy on the manabase, the lack of impulse could make UU hard to come up with
Any comments would be appreciated

[Raven Fire]

Fish = Null Rod.dec
It throws the opponent off balance for a few turns with Null Rods, Wastelands, and free Counters so that it can overwhelm them with a weenie swarm.  You ruin the tempo of the deck by increasing the casting cost of the creatures and running Counters you actually have to pay mana for.  Pick one style or the other; your hybrid becomes less than the sum of its parts.

ps - People already debate the quality of Standstill.  I like it, but would never consider it for a deck that doesn't have a single reliable turn 1 creature and runs zero man-lands.

[Sammy]

Heres what I think:

I dont think Tradewind is all that good here, what you really need is Old Man of the Sea! Instead of forcing yourself to have 3 untapped creatures (Tradewind included) you can just Tap your Old man to permanently gain control of something like a Welder. Also he costs 1 less which is very important.

I also think Crucible would be very good in this deck. So here are the main deck changes I'm thinking of:

-3 Tradwind Riders
-1 Fetch
-1 Mana Leak

+2 Old Man's
+3 Crucible

Or switch those to 3 and 2, whatever works better for your meta.

Also for your SB you  should probably ad excess Crucible and Old Men there. Along with some Control Magic and maybe Echoing Truth so you can answer a collosus with something that doesnt cost 4 (Control Magic).

Hope I helped!

EDIT: OH YEAH! Raven is complety right you diffently need to fit Rod in there somewhere!

[MIZEnhauer]

is it really worth running null rodd if your playing 5 moxes and a lotus and a sol ring.  I really dont think it fits

[Covetous]

Consider running beefy creatures if you are going to run higher CC creatures.  Juggernaut isn't good in just workshop decks, and serendib efreet stomps all over fish's creatures.  Of the fish creatures, voidmage has potential in non-fish decks because he's an un-counterable counter.  I would consider running red and blood moon instead of B2B--sure, B2B is a stronger card when it hits, but red is soo good--grim and R&R to name two reasons.

[Raven Fire]

is it really worth running null rodd if your playing 5 moxes and a lotus and a sol ring.  I really dont think it fits

You've got it all backwards.  It's not worth playing the Solomoxen because you should be running Null Rods in any sort of Fish deck.  Because you shouldn't be using all that artifact mana, you won't want to run higher cc cards like Ophidian, Tradewind Rider, Mana Leak, etc.  Thus, the entire deck implodes because its foundation is flawed.  As I said above: either play Fish or play mono-blue control; don't try and play both at the same time.

[Plognark]

Speaking of fish/mono U.....
I tried this at the last waterbury tournament. Didn't do so hot, but it was interesting, and old man was a brute. Not having man-lands hurt, but I really wanted to pack back to basics. Oddly this thing ate a food-chains deck alive, which was highly unexpected. I thought piledriver would own me, but the sword of fire and ice turned out to be a highly effective goblin killer.

4 Spiketail Hatching
4 Flying Men
3 Old man of the sea
3 Suq'Ata firewalker
(14)

4 Curiosity
3 mana Drain
4 Force of will
4 Standstill
2 Cunning Wish
(17)

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timewalk
3 Back to Basics
2 Sword of fire and ice
(7)

1 Black Lotus
1 Sol ring
1 mox Sapphire

4 Wasteland
1 Stripmine
6 Fetchland (3 polluted Delta/3 flooded strand)
8 Islands
(22)

SB:
2 Gilded Drake
1 Old Man
1 Suq'Ata
3 Sigil of sleep

4 Null rod
1 Back to Basics

and some other stuff I can't remember because I never sided it in. Probably a stifle, a manadrain, and a chain of vapors. They were wish targets, but I don't think I ever had a chance to wish in the entire tournament.


4cc killed me by cycling through standstill a few times, but it wasn't a total beatdown. Some sort of slavery build sans slavers was a draw; gilded drake stole a platinum angel there. I also used it to steal an exalted later.

I came expecting workshop decks, just like everyone else, and got owned because of misreading the meta.

A U/R oldschool counter-burn deck slaughtered me. My counter was too light and my creatures too wimpy to handle it. I also got clobbered by white weenie...his crusade made his critters too big for my old men to steal

If this had been U/R fish I would have won all the games I lost, honestly. I missed the grim lavamancers terribly.


That's what I get for going all creative the night before the tourney and not play testing enough

Edited to add: Forgot the point of my post:

Mono U seems to work because of superheavy counter and hosers like BtB and Control magic.

U/R Fish seems to work because of laying small but numerous threats down fast and hard and drawing massive amounts of cards to compensate for the lack of strong counter.

Fish/Mono U removes the heavy counter present in straight mono U and ditches the null rod hosers, and in the process adds more counter to U/R fish and takes out the hard hitting critters like lavamancers.

It seems like it would be a good combo, but it takes the weaker aspects of both decks and tries to mash them together.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done, just not quite like this.

[Toad]

Lots of sorceries and counterspells that requires mana during the opponent's turn seems bad synergy to me.

turn 1, Island, Mox, Mana Leak or Flying Men?
turn 2, Mana Drain or Spiketail Hatchling?
turn 3, Old Man of the Sea or Mana Drain?

etc etc etc

[Special K]

Why the hard counters? just use Force of will Misdirection and daze full set of null rods and 3-4 btb not only are you locking the lands down you lock acceleration down. and stifle is still good to stop fetching buying you time at 1 U.

[Plognark]

Lots of sorceries and counterspells that requires mana during the opponent's turn seems bad synergy to me.

turn 1, Island, Mox, Mana Leak or Flying Men?
turn 2, Mana Drain or Spiketail Hatchling?
turn 3, Old Man of the Sea or Mana Drain?

etc etc etc

Exactly, that's one of the reasons the deck fared poorly. Too many conflicting play-styles were introduced from the card choices. (too bad I didn't realize that at 11:30 at night when I decided to make the pile).

I'm presenting my deck as more of an example of what NOT to do if you're going to try to do a fish/mono U blend  

[Jacob Orlove]

This is classic newbie material.

[PipOC]

I think Tradewind is a serious flaw in the deck since your creature count is 15 and your draw engine is based primarily on a creature that has to attack to get you cards(read tap), it will be hard to keep up the bouncing.

I do like the concept of denying your opponent mana under a standstill though, but a deck based around this wouldn't have enough counter magic to compete in the ruthless Type 1 environment.  So if you want this to stay somewhat competitive I think you should go with what others have been suggesting and drop him for the creepy old guy.