"Fishless Fish" VERY COMPLETE primer and deck discussion

[pierce]

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of taking a weekend off from my studies, and playing in the largest North American vintage event of 2009. Day one was a hard fought affair, with my finishing a distant 12th. Day two I vowed to win, and did so with an updated deck of my own design. Being unable to attend Gencon, having instead to present my summer research finding the day of Vintage Worlds, I would love to see someone take my list and do well with it. In order to understand how to play it however, one must first look at the evolution of the deck, from it's first design.

It is important to note that the deck was just designed for a friend, so that he could win an ancestral recall at a tournament in CO. After he did just that, I was inspired to update it and play it in Chicago. For the sake of showing each step in how the deck evolved, I will be including all discussion leading up to that winning list.

Yes, this is going to be very long. But you will be able to see it's evolution from first draft to winning decklist, and from there to where it needs to adapt. Interlaced in this will be card choice discussion.

First, I must prelude all of this by stating that I almost always play as the control player. Rarely, if ever am I the beatdown deck. For reference see:  http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=3692

Secondly, that due to the uniqueness of the text I am about to present, I must actually use the bold and italics options. Bold font refers to the speaking parties, and who they are speaking to. These messages were copy/pasted, then checked for spelling (but not grammer). THey are presented in italics to keep them seperate from the current, present-time author.

Here we go.

golenda, to conely woods:

4 force of will
4 stifle (so good in the format)
1 vamp
1 curfew (inkwell, with value)
1 brainstorm
1 ancestral
1 time walk
1 Engineered Explosives
1 tormods cyrpt/ relic
1 pithing needle
1 divining top
3 duress
1 black lotus
1 mox jet
1 mox sapphire

4 dark confidant
4 spellstutter sprite
3 vendillion clique
3 trinket mage
1 12/12
2 ninja of the deep hours (great with all the CIP, helps if i woul die to bob)

4 wasteland
1 strip mine
4 polluted delta
4 underground sea
2 island
2 swamp
2 duals to splash a third sb color (prob red)
1 flooded strand

sb options include:

mike longs invitatinal card (blanking on name) as most decks only run 1-2 win conditions. extract may be as good, i dunno.
reb/pyroblast
goblin welder
dimir cutpurse
fire/ice
rack and ruin
flametounge kavu (fish decks w/teeg are your worst matchup)
more toolbox stuffs.

so far, the deck is amazing vs ichorid, ad nas, and tezz. decent vs tps too. those are the main decks in the format, minus stax, which is easy to board for.

if i could play this at the ancestral tourny, i would.

After some thought, I came up with this list:

golenda, to cwoods:
here is the updated list, I can explain card choices another time. sunburnt and going to bed. but seriously, its a monster. tezz, ichorid, and ad nas are your best matchups. they are alos the most popular in boulder

2 thoughtseize
2 duress
3 stifle
4 bob
4 spellstutter sprite
3 vendillion clique
3 trinket mage
1 sower of temptation
4 force of will
demonic tutor
vampiric tutor
divining top
brainstorm
black lotus
3 mox
fire/ice
Engineered Explosives
Relic
pithing needle
curfew
ancestral
time walk

volc island
badlands
4 polluted delta
island
swamp
4 underground sea
4 wasteland
1 strip mine
1 bloodstained mire
1 ? land (muta, riptide lab, or 2nd mire)

sb:
2 firespout (fish, kill them and not your dudes)
curfew (oath/inkwell)
2 chalice of the void (ad nas)
2 jailer (obv, but how busted is it you only need 2 cards?)
2 reb (tezz/ravanger)
1 pyroblast (same)
3 Bitterblossom (STAX/Standstill)
1 engergy flux (ravanger/Stax)
1 sower (anytthing with tarmogoyf)

ok. most of these cards are counterintuitive, regardless of your magic IQ, so I'll explain.

this list is designed to win the ancestral event, and that event only. I have cards in there for specific play situations against single players in the meta, in the chance that you would play them. For example, the energy flux gives you game vs the 1-2 ravanger players. rebs/pyro come in there to nuke master of etherium too. you prob need firespout and sower too though. try to avoid that, its the worst matchup, followed by goblins (spout/sower) and oath (curfew/sower). anyway here are the sb thoughts I have:

vs tezz: you only have a couple bad MD cards, which depend on their build. no bobs, means fire/ice sucks. no DSC, instead they run inkwell, then sower sucks. tezz has a lot of forms. but the 2 rebs and pyro come in no matter what, and if they have inkwell, then curfew over sower.

vs ad nas: I dont know if ad nas can win lol. Its a pretty good matchup. fire/ice stays in as they will board either Confidant or Xantid. Curfew sucks, and so does sower. Relic is not the best, but helps vs critical graves in case of Y-Will. Explosives is fine vs both bob and xantid.
-curfew -sower
+2 COTV. when set to zero, they get really screwed. Vclique is huge in this matchup, as they resolve ad nas, and only flip a couple buisiness spells to go with their mana. responding to their chrome mox or d rit by nuking their game plan is huge.

vs ichorid: g1, know that phil, brett, and lou are on ichorid. dont know who else is for sure on it, but mull to a waste effect. stifle is a timewalk vs them on bazaar. g1 is winnable. really, you only have just a few dead cards after board, as hand disruption gets better after sb to stop their answers to jailer/pithing needle/relic. you dont have to run jailers, you could run pithing needle in that slot, but in the off chacne you get paired vs goblins, i like to side in more blockers, so i put in jailers. -curfew-sower
fire/ice is fine, as killing your guys is always an option. v clique just helps you dig, but in some random scenarios its ok to clique them, even though its a free dredge.

vs oath: nightmare. newest lists run just inkwell, progenitus, and hellkite overlord. your gameplan invovles curfew, stifling the oath trigger, and using sower on hellkite in an attempt to race.

now on to the firespouts. they are there vs primarily shaun and misty's decks, as other fish decks pose a problem for you. i used to run jitte and threads of disloyatly, but i expect both players to add pridemages to their decks. i had pryoclasm in the slot, until i realized wild nactal and most of my men fly.
misty's deck you should be familiar with, so i wont talk about that one. watch out for aven mindcensor vs fetches i guess.
but shauns, found here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=37167.msg517047#msg517047
g1, you try to kill off teeg then use explosives to blow him out. stifle is huge in the matchup, vs the fiends/scullers, but also his fragile manabase. your line of attack should include wastelands and stifles to keep him off colors. piting needle on vial should be huge, as you are going to need to protect your spouts (dont fetch until you are going to cast it obv, wasteland). vt and top are both great.
sower is good agianst both decks obv.
these two decks are the reason for a 2/2 split on seizes and duress. -2 duress, -curfew +2 spout, +sower.
you could run 4 tseize, but with bob its a little too much life loss for me.
also, relic randomly is good vs goyf. vs misty i'm sure you can donk out a win with it midcombat. tarmogoyf is a huge threat vs you, but sower helps.


finally, stax is a rough matchup. thankfully, only bad stax players exist in this state. but the cards smokestax and tangle wire are just too good vs you. enter bitterblossom, which is great vs both. i'd cut curfew, and a couple sprites. fire/ice, relic, and needle are all very good vs welder.

Cwoods, to golenda:

Lol when you said ancestral event, I was trying to figure out what you meant and wondering why the fuck you werent running misdirection if that was the case. As though,"the ancestral event" was just the first casting of ancestral recall by a player

Are the 8 counterspells really enough? That was the most pressing issue I saw.

In addition, if Inkwell is the primary reason for running curfew, wouldnt something like rebuild or hurkylls recall be better? I realize it doesnt hit other oath targets and is worse against aggro, but is better against stax and tezzeret as well as randomly blowing out ad nauseum if you draw your chalices later than you would like. or maybe a 1/1 split with curfew in the main but a rebuild in the board? It also is sick against Ravager if the matchup really is that bad.

I like the idea of Bitterblossom, seems liek ti could be good against other fish decks as well... no? assuming they don't have Pridemages, maybe to bring in as a 1 of and blank their bobs etc?

Is Cabal Therapy just not good enough? It seems like with Sower, Bobs at low life, and Cliques both because of information and because you want to play a second one but its legendary, therapy could be sick as a 1 or 2 of... thoughts? Keep in mind that I am good enough to not play that card like an idiot...

golenda, to cwoods:

bitterblossom could be fine, as spout lets them all live. was thinking bob plus bitterblossom plus combat dmg and force of will/fetches as too much.

the counterspells are enough. you really dont need to counter that much. the duress effects, stifle and clique are enough. previous versions of fish i've won money with only ran FOW. its just to stop gamebreaking things. the only matchup where its not enough is vs tezz, hence 3 more counters coming in.
besides only daze fits in this type of deck, which is just too easy to play around after g1. on that note, i often feel good about siding out a stifle when i cant figure what to take out, because its always a g1 blowout on a fetch, but after that, players dont run into it.

curfew does come out a lot, its true. the reason I'm running it over anything else is due to the value it gives. it isnt better vs tezz, as the only artifacts that will be in play will be either win conditions (big robots, curfew is better against) and mana.

i'd never run rebuild over recall in this deck. you run too many artifacts you want to keep in play. you could run one over the energy flux though.

i have always hated cabal therapy in the format. so many one ofs you'd rather take with duress. rarely will you get a two for one with it. too often you miss on the first attempt

bob killing you doesnt happen that much, thnx to suicide attacks plus curfew (!) plus top. ninja was poor in testing btw.

if you stay out of the 0-1 bracket i doubt you will every play vs oath or ravanger. ideally you hit a good matchup rd 1, and from there running the tables should be easy.

actually against combo, therapy seems fine. but in the expected meta I see, there are just not enough combo players.

a more controlling build could be built with mana drain, draining into glen archmage. since tezz's latest evolution is with spell snare main, drains get worse vs them, and I want the deck to be better vs it.

for the recall/rebuild thing, in a normal metagame, w/o shitty ravanger, I would run rack and ruin and board it in vs tezz and stax

your notes helped me thing a way to retune it to an average meta. thnx.

golenda, to cwoods:

thought about bitterblossom. i imagine engineered explosives needs to get used vs fish decks, usually at two. so, probably still no.

shaun is in hawaii. I doubt anyone will play his deck. you may get away with running one spout.

i've been bored in pueblo the last few days, allowing me a lot of time to work on the list. i'll be driving tomorrow, so dont expect any thoughts or discussion till friday. cutting it close, i know, but you'll do fine.

with cabal therapy, you could run it in the chalice slot, but you cant tutor for therapy. in an open meta, such as the midwest, I will run therapy over chalice.

with the new restrictions/unrestrictions:

thirst is a non issue. it doesnt really change tezz's overall power, just makes the deck a little less consistant. until they run 3 e tutor in those lost slots.

wasteland got both better and worse, better in that crop rotation for a singleton tabernacle at pendrall vale could become a stable play, and wasteland is an out. Worse in the same way that gush was good vs wasteland, but removing the waste target. gotta play waste better now.

entomb means for more welders. darkblast in the board is now a must. at least one.

grim monolith sucks balls. enlightened tutor could mean for some serious problems though. red may no longer be the correct splash, although REB/Pryoblast was just the nuts splash from the board. White for aven mindcensor just got very good. A tutor fish build may be cool too.

Now I have to just keep you on this build, and not trying to play with crop rotation

cwoods, to golenda

But I love Crop Rotation How abotu Mindcensor in the main? This hoses both E tutor and Crop Rotation as well as Fetches etc...

cwoods, to golenda

What do you think about the following list, I wanted to add Mindcensors to the main, which meant cutting red. Mindcensor gives you mroe outs to tinker, fetches, tutors, crop rot, Tezzeret, and I think it is really strong right now.

2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Stifle (Mindcensor nails fetches so I think you can go down 1 of these, it also helps agaisnt combos tutors meaning stifling a storm spell is less relevant, I could have cut Needle instead but I thought stifle was a safe cut)
4 Spellstutter Sprite (We are just playign this to counter 1s and 0s right?)
3 Vendillion Clique
4 Dark Confidant
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Trinket Mage
4 Force of Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Senseis Divining Top
1 Brainstorm
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
1 Curfew
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timewalk
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland
1 Stripmine
1 Ghost Quarter (a 6th Strip effect and with Mindcensor out it should be basically stripmine, this can also be riptide lab, another Usea or something else but I like the idea of Ghost Quarter)

SB:
1 Darkblast
1 Energy Flux
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Hurkyll's Recall (I like this better than a second curfew)
2 Yixlid Jailor
1 Wrath of God (Good against everything from Oath to Affinity, to Goblins)
2 Swords to Plowshares (My new spot removal, good catch all)
3 Bitterblossom
1 Perish (Replaces Sower agaisnt Goyf Decks)
1 Seal of Cleansing (Helps against Tezz which your matchup is already better agaisnt thanks to Censor, Stax, Affinity, Oath etc)

golenda, to cwoods

crop rotation/ etutor dont actually get good till the week after the event . . .


sprite also tends to hit two cc stuffs later on, after vendillion clique and the first sprite. the list has too many 3 drops for my taste. Cut a trinket mage for an enlightened tutor, as it gets very good post board too if you're bringing in seal, bb, cotv, flux . . .


as for post rotation, consider the strong synergy between both crop rotation and e tutor and oath. even in a e tutor deck, a simple sb plan could be one oath and a few crop rotations and one token making land

cwoods, to golenda

Updates! Wrath is going to be a Damnation for mana reasons (doubs black is easier), Ghost Quarter is going to be a Sol Ring because I love that card and it is good in the deck now with more 2C mana costs and sideboard stuff.

In addition, I don't want to take out a Mage for ETutor as that would drop me to 19 blue spells for FoW which I understand is acceptable, but I would like to keep my count high if possible, and with the 2 cards being so similar id rather stick to the Mage.

I am willing to add ETutor, just not for a blue card, but I can't see what to cut. Mystical tutor for mage is an acceptable swap as then I could make the Seal a Disenchant and you keep the same functionality as ETutor, grabbing H Recall instead of Flux, Disenchant, Wrath etc...

cwoods, to golenda

More Thoughts, Ethersworn Cannonist seems like it could be better than Chalice against Storm, I think the effect is similar (one shuts off spells, the other Moxes, but Cannonist attacks and makes any countermagic I have much more potent as it counters the only spell they play for the turn.

golenda, to cwoods

see thats the slipperly slope of white in fish . . . cannotist, sculler, med mage . . . how can you justify not playing med mage? hmm?

path to exile is much better than stp in the deck btw. your dudes are all small, it would take 3-4 turns to make up for the 11 life they gained from a DSC.

sol ring makes sense with all the 3 drops. I was thinking about the fourth mox to increase the liklihood of having spellstutter open turn one.

now the one thing about your board is that it is no loner tuned properly. that is, for every matchup, i had the board figured out. every dead card main was able to swap out for a card in the board. thats why i had two duress/two tseize etc. you will need to address the fact that many of the cards you've added are activley bad in many matchups against popular boulder archtypes (mainly mindcesnors against ichorid stax ad nas). you now need more board spots vs ichorid, for starters.
After all that, we come to this list:

Conley Woods ---Not Another Faeries List -- 1st Place

4 Wasteland               1 Mox Sapphire        4 Spellstutter Sprite    1 Engineered Explosives
1 Stripmine                1 Mox Pearl              3 Vendillion Clique       1 Diabolic Edict
1 Island                     1 Sol Ring                3 Trinket Mage
3 Undergrround Sea    4 Force of Will          3 Aven Mindcensor              SIDEBOARD:
2 Tundra                   1 Ancestral Recall      2 Duress                            3 Yixlid Jailer
1 Scrubland                1 Time Walk            2 Thoughtseize                   3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Polluted Delta          1 Brainstorm            2 Stifle                               2 Swords to Plowshare
2 Flooded Strand         1 Vampiric Tutor     1 Relic of Progenitus             1 Darkblast
1 Black Lotus              1 Demonic Tutor     1 Pithing Needle                   1 Damnation
1 Mox Jet                   4 Dark Confidant     1 Sensei's Divining Top          2 Bitterblossom
                                                                                                     1 Hurkyl's Recall
                                                                                                     1 Energy Flux
                                                                                                      1 Seal of Cleansing


EDIT: Everything! Christ, I didn't think to re-read the nonsense we'd pmed each other about before just throwing it up here for the sake of completeness. Now it's close to readable, though half the things we say clearly show we don't really play vintage enough. I guess I sacrifice some image points in order to show my development process, which included overanalyzing things like enlightened tutor.

[pierce]

Too long! New post to finish.  We pick up with my descision to cut a bob from the main. This happened away from the message inbox tool of facebook, and in the instant messanger section. Sadly, I don't have a log of those, as many cards and play scenarios were discussed at great length. I know, after all this 'for the sake of completeness' method crap, I tell you it's actually not complete. Sad face. I tried my best.

cwoods, to golenda
I didn't have too many problems with the mana, but with you deciding to cut a bob I don't know if I would cut another land. I never got around to writing in on the thread for the warp because Ive been redic busy but you should send your list again so we can go over some last minute changes. I really liked both Faeries all day btw, and I don't know how you went without 4 bobs.. how was that?

golenda, to cwoods

afraid to die to them, plus they are surprisingly bad vs 5c stax. never want to draw two. dont like tapping out early . . . want the 4th mindcensor . . . really badly! I also expect all the tezz decks to side in sower of temptation and massacre. vs both, a second mindcensor would be sweet, and a second bob a little less than good, although not terrible. (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17742_The_Long_Winding_Road_The_Vintage_Gauntlet_and_M10_Sealed.html)

the maindeck is solid still. i took out the two stifles for two PTE, which are needed md for a stax heavy meta. this is why i want to add in another blue card, for the FOW count, because I am going to be boarding out SSS and a v clique against stax, and dont want to drop too far below the minimum 17 blue cards. another reason I want to keep curfew over edict. plus my irrational fear of oath.

mystical tutor has my attention, as its blue, and easily swapped for an etutor after boarding. then again, as often as I board the e tutor in, why not just run one main over a trinket? The blue card count is the only reason I can think of.

so minimal changes tot he main. but my board is radically different due to the difference in metagame. I'm not sure if bb #3 is better than e flux. I just cant see myself not tutoring for an e flux if i get a chance to vs them.

e tutor
darkblast
damnation
2x seal of cleansing
worship
2 bitterblossom
energy flux
cannonist
2 cabal therapy
2 EXTRACT
tcrypt

the extracts are my oath cards. fuck dealing with progenitus, I'll just remove it.

This was the last message before the Xtreme ICBM Open. Conely needed to focus on nationals, which he then proceeded to dominate. I was left to my own thoughts, which lead me to:

4 Force of will
3 bob
4 spellstutter sprite
3 vendillion clique
4 aven mindcensor
2 thoughtseize
2 duress
ancestral
time walk
2 trinket mage
pithing needle
relic
Explosives
Vampiric tutor
Demonic tutor
hurkyls recall
2 Path to Exile
brainstorm
top
mystical tutor


3 wasteland
strip
3 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
island
swamp
plains
2 underground sea
scrubland
2 tundra
sol ring
black lotus
3moxen

sb:
e tutor
darkblast
perish
2 seal of cleansing
worship
2 bitterblossom
2 cannonist
2 cabal therapy
tcrypt
jitte
e flux

Having not played a game of magic since PT Honololu, I was very rusty. Moreover, since I had not actually tested for the event, relying on conley's results vicacriously instead, I was pretty unprepared. The deck did ok, but I was very disapointed with it. The vendillion cliques were amazing, and so were the aven mindcensors. I won many matches between just them and wasteland.

Showing all the different decks also shows that each list plays radically differently, despite just being a few cards off. Once I got rid of the trinket mages and the whole package, I wound up with this list:

4 Null Rod
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Aven Mindcensor
4 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Swords to Plowshares
3 Dark Confidant
4 Force of Will
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland

SB:
1 Wasteland
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Sacred Ground
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Darkblast
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Perish
2 Yixlid Jailer

I would explain how to sideboard with the deck, but that wouldnt do you much good. The sb was pretty bad. The MD was fine, the sculler and cannonists were not impressive.

I changed path to exile to swords to plowshares because of the null rod plan. Mana denial would be very important in many matchups, so I didn;t want to give people lands. However, in any list that didnt play null rod, I would always play path over swords. Life gain randomly matters, and I found the shuffle effect particularly intersting vs topdeck tutors and cards like brainstorm.

I refused to share the updated decklist before the Pittsburg weekend. I played this day one of the event:


4 Null Rod
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Aven Mindcensor
4 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Swords to Plowshares
4 Dark Confidant
4 Force of Will
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
1 Swamp
1 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Plains
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

SB:
2 Relic
1 disenchant
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Darkblast
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Perish
2 extripate
2 Vodalian Zombie
1 Zombie Outlander


So tuned!! I'm very proud of this list. It was sweet. Disenchant is fetchable with mystical tutor in addition to the other tutors. Extripate gets this same nod over other forms of ichorid hate, and nukes peoples darkblasts while showing me how they boarded for me. The pro green guys were half because people would sideboard into tarmogoyfs, and half the result of a demoralizing serious of testing with Mennendian and his G/W/B beats deck.

I lost round 1, as game one I mulled to five on the play vs BUG fish (brain fischer gets his revenge!). game three, I tried to hold off tarmagofs with pro green guys, but he had threads to take my guy and let the goyf bash me to death. Yeah. Goyf is a huge boner vs you. Its just bigger than all your guys. Bummer.

I then lost a very, very close set of three games vs Jaco. I let him resolve a Demonic Tutor, when I could have Forced ed it, and he got darkblast (FUCK!). My mind was focused on protecting my tinker, which I planned on winning the game with. I might have, had I found an artifact at any point that game. Instead, darkblast held me off while he eventually finished me off with goyfs. Another bummer.

At 0-2, I could still play three rounds to tune the deck some more. When paired vs Mennendian, I knew I had to scoop, beacuse he was paired down at 1-1. I won the match, on turn four of turns, and with lethal damage about to go through (I almost let it stack, would have been a fatal misplay! Stupid M10) I scooped. He has a chance to t8, I don't. Standard play.
Knowing that Steve will have a nicely presented turn by turn for everyone to read next week, I rip off my sheet of paper with my notes from the round to assist him.
Completely demoralized, I didnt take any more notes, and didn't play the deck for day two--opting to play combo instead.

At the current time, I am still happy with 3 bobs. I played four this past weekend, and the fourth was fairly marginal. The core of this deck wants to play the control route, and always leave mana up unless casting duress or null rod. Or at least, it did.

With the latest trends in the metagame, I would play an entirely different list for GenCon.

I would play this:

4 Null Rod
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Aven Mindcensor
4 Meddling mage
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Tinker
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Dark Confidant
4 Force of Will
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Daze
4 Duress/Thoughtseize
1 Swamp
1 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Plains
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

SB:
2 Relic
1 disenchant
2 Seal of Cleansing
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Darkblast
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Perish
2 extripate
open slots. I tend to walk around before an tournament to gather what the meta actually looks like, and build my board at the very last minute. I do like having one more swords in the board though, as a general rule.

Spellstutter sprite was strong before people expected it from my deck. Now, it's too easy to both play around and to bait. Moerover, it counters so few things vs Stax it's pathetic. While flash is huge vs them strategically, I'm fine with just tapping out main phase to cast meddling mage. I'm sick of triskelion hitting the battlefield.

Meddling mage is now a must, as people have started to maindeck both darkblast and ancient grudge to beat decks like this. It is the only card I can think of that is playable to stop both cards from hosing you.
Plus, it stops fucking tarmogoyf. Sick of that guy.

As for the three bob debate, feel free to play a fourth. If you do, I would have you consider cutting the demonic tutor for it. Both cards cost the same, and play at the same speed. I prefer the tutor, because it wins so many games as a mid to late game topdeck, to find time walk or a timely swords. Once or twice, it's gotten me tinker.

But I would want to lead with Meddling Mage or Null Rod on my second turn. From there it varies by game, but rarely do I drop a bob early, unless it's turn one and I havent figured out what I'm playing against. The deck wants to slow the tempo of the game down to a grinding halt, establish control, and win from there. Bob is good in the establishing control and winning phases, but not he first. In such, I chose the fourth mage over the fourth bob.

With more mainphases tapped out to play dudes, I have opted to play less duress effects. In the place of the spellstutter sprite I have dazes. Daze still lets you tap out to play a game changing card, like meddling mage or null rod, while having some semblence of countermagic up. Moreover, I have yet to find a vintage player who plays around daze game one, other than myself. People have led with black lotus or moxen against me before playing lands! It's time to punish these people. Daze is the way to do it.

Until they learn. Then you have to adapt again. With fish, the goal is not the break the format, like most vintage decks try to do. The goal is to solve it. You create a Red Queen effect by playing fish and doing well with it.

Two weeks ago, spellstutter sprite was good enough. So were all the x/1 creatures. But, for a deck in vintage right now, the Red Queen Principle is very much in effect. The theory is that "In an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with."
see more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen

This is why I did not care to share my list before the pittsburg events. Now that I will not be playing vintage untill september 13th (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38397.0) I can freely discuss the deck at length. As such, I will freely answer any questions or comments to the best of my ability.

Hope you enjoyed it. Hope the 30 or so people that read the first post before the second went up get the whole message


EDIT: EVERYTHING AGAIN!! Also, I lied. I totally played four bobs for the steel city event. Mennendian convinced me at the last minute that three was wrong, and I had forgotten when I first posted the list.

[Vegeta2711]

This is practically unreadable. Please clean it up, stop writing steam of consciousness and cut down on how many random lists are in your posts. HTH

[Yare]

I personally would like to see the card names spelled out in deck lists instead of having abbreviations, but maybe it just irks me more than others. I feel like primers need to be slightly more on the formal side.

[pierce]

hey guys. I decided to do this on a whim. I was unprepared at the start for both the length and the technical problems. Having complteted the above, I then went for dinner.

Now that I am back, I am actually editing the thing. Going to put past messages leading to the deck design in italics, to keep the seperate from the current lists. I will probably fix the numerous spelling issues, since I had previously copy/pasted them.

I can fix the card names too. Thats no problem. In an hour or so, check back and it wont be a mess.

[Doomsday]

Thanks for posting, it's especially interesting to see the back-and-forth and justification for the meta-specific choices.

[JewLightning]

This is practically unreadable. Please clean it up, stop writing steam of consciousness and cut down on how many random lists are in your posts. HTH

Don't listen to this guy, Steve. It's written fine he's just being a dick.

[pierce]

This is practically unreadable. Please clean it up, stop writing steam of consciousness and cut down on how many random lists are in your posts. HTH

Don't listen to this guy, Steve. It's written fine he's just being a dick.

that was my first reaction too. Then I realized he doesnt know woods and I. So our random bullshit might be confusing when I type something like "but bb is nutz vs bobjew". You understand that I said that bob yu cant beat bitterblossom, but he doesnt. Thats not to say that bob yu cant beat bitterblossom. Bob Yu can't beat anything, because he doesnt play.

Anyway, I tried to make it as presentable as possible for all. I should have done so on my first post, but wasn't realizing the density of the actual text, or how to shift between past I and present I.

[Vegeta2711]

This is practically unreadable. Please clean it up, stop writing steam of consciousness and cut down on how many random lists are in your posts. HTH

Don't listen to this guy, Steve. It's written fine he's just being a dick.

Yes, I certainly wouldn't know how to write anything.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/archive.php?Article=Josh+Silvestri
http://strategy.channelfireball.com/tag/josh-silvestri/
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=15231.0

God forbid I dislike something because I find it doesn't come across very well. Effective communication is definitely all on the reader and not on the writer. :lol:

[Phoenix888]

Don't listen to that guy Vegeta, he's just being a double dick.

[pierce]

away from  the subject of penises, and back to cards . . .

extripate in the board can now become jailer. . .  forgot about the strong synergy of meddling mage protecting jailer from contaigion and chain of vapor. i might run one extripate still, just to board into when I know people are boarding in darkblast. mystical tutoring to see an entire decklist g2 is a fine play if you are up a game and about to lose. it lets you use meddling mage better for the final game.

[pierce]

the primary question, then, becomes what meddiling mage hits vs decks. ideally, both clique and duress help establish the correct card to name. realistically, the uwb mage will have to blindly name cards vs decks.

I propose the following g1 targets, by archetype.

Vs BUG fish, really only tarmogoyf poses a problem. Always name it, and never attack into 1UU up, as flash creatures might wreck you.
vs Tezz, it depends on the pilot. Jaco has started maindecking darkblast, so I would name that vs him. Vs Owen T, he has a MD ancient grude that poses problems to the null rod plan. Vs soly, its probably tinker. tezzeret is rarely the correct card to name, as you can always attack it rather than your opponnent.

vs stax, typically you should name triskelion. Against 5c stax, the first meddling mage may be used against smokestax, since they do not always run the 4 trike. the second vs them should be on balance.

many players misplay their mages by not understanding that they should be naming the same card with the second mage. consider jerry yang's stax list. in addition to his trikes, he has cabal pit and barbarian ring. Since these are not cast, all your mages should be on trike. Though sometimes they might prove wasted, as with welder plus bazzar online, this is not reason enough to discount his recurring lands.

vs ichorid its clearly dread return. but wasteland is the key card vs them, not mage.

vs painter, your null rods stop their grindstone plan. put your mages on red elemental blast, then pyroblast. if a third appears, you can protect your rods vs ancient grudge.

post board targets soon.

[the_lord_shaper]

    Thanks for your posts and threads so far, they have all been pretty great to read. I really like the fish deck that you built here, and seeing its gradual evolution is pretty neat-o. Rarely do players put up how to aptly play their decks, let alone the thought process that went into making the deck too. And man is clique not freaking awesome or what?

[MirariKnight]

I've always been skeptical of Clique since they get to draw another card anyway. Am I the only one worried about this? Obviously it's powerful but the drawback to that seems pretty risky (although nice if you do it on yourself I guess).

[pierce]

clique is MVP #1. instant speed is so insane, he's a quickish clock, and he puts inkwell back in your deck so you can tinker for it.

the other card is marginal. you dont have to give them one, its optional. and its always worth it to see their hand, and get rid of the best card.

[JewLightning]

This is practically unreadable. Please clean it up, stop writing steam of consciousness and cut down on how many random lists are in your posts. HTH

Don't listen to this guy, Steve. It's written fine he's just being a dick.

Yes, I certainly wouldn't know how to write anything.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/archive.php?Article=Josh+Silvestri
http://strategy.channelfireball.com/tag/josh-silvestri/
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=15231.0

God forbid I dislike something because I find it doesn't come across very well. Effective communication is definitely all on the reader and not on the writer. :lol:

MTG writing isn't real writing everybody knows that.

[mike_bergeron]

This is practically unreadable. Please clean it up, stop writing steam of consciousness and cut down on how many random lists are in your posts. HTH

Don't listen to this guy, Steve. It's written fine he's just being a dick.

Yes, I certainly wouldn't know how to write anything.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/archive.php?Article=Josh+Silvestri
http://strategy.channelfireball.com/tag/josh-silvestri/
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=15231.0

God forbid I dislike something because I find it doesn't come across very well. Effective communication is definitely all on the reader and not on the writer. :lol:

MTG writing isn't real writing everybody knows that.

Come on, I think you are just trying to bait him.  You may not like what Vegata is saying, but his primer on Food Chain Goblins is one of the best things on this site, imo.  I've read most of his star city stuff, and it is pretty good too.  

This crap is simply wasting thread space for an interesting deck.  

Edit: Shoot, I forgot to ask if you have ever thought about Encroach against Ichorid?  It seems like the main is already built to fight tezz hard...and you have sideboard to stax as well. 

[pierce]

encroach seems too narrow. its only good turn one, on the play, to take their bazzaar. I'd rather fight them by mulliganing to wasteland, to slow them to one dredge a turn. Then, unless they flip the nuts, you should have enough time to find your hate.

meddling mage on trike vs b/r stax is wrong. I misread their lists, they have trikes in the board for you. Put those on smokestax instead. In multiples, due to cabal pit.

[TwOnEight_Magic]

Hmm, I run a similar version, with a few tweaks here and there... (mostly BuG).

What's your thoughts on Trygon Predator vs Dimir Cutpurse? I love Trygon, but he rarely lands, and if he does, he's not enough of a difference maker. Whereas Dimir always seems useful, and presents lots of CA alongside Bob.