Fish, good ol’ Fish. The last time I played Fish in the brainstorm era I did fairly well. Top 4’ed with it in Sacramento Jet tourney. But after playing Fish that tourney I decided to play with Gush + Merchant scroll + Yawg will just because they are powerful. I had a fair success with GAT earlier this year until Tyrant Oath came on to people’s attention (damn Euro XD). Top 8’ed with GAT at the last Eudo. Tourney but failed to write a report because I am still crying in the corner drawing circles after getting NUT’ed twice by a Flash player during quarterfinals.
So after gunning gush.dec in the Sacramento Time Walk tourney where I lost playing for top 4 against Workshop (h8 h8 h8, DI h8) Webster and I went to the shop where we first met (and was once a mecca for NorCal Type 1 scene) C&J’s for some major post banning testing. Luis, being the “Magician”that he is, has to attend some wimpy huge GP at the other coast and as a result isn’t available for testing, T_T.
Web made mono Brown, Trinket Control Slaver, Grim Long mainly to help me test what I wanted to play. I had “brewed” up a U/B Fish list that was inspired by Becker’s “Counter-Top Magus.” Becker described his deck as a better “Bomberman,” but I changed the deck to a Fish skeleton with Stifles and Waste Effects instead of going on a more control route.
The deck showed very good results, it consistently Control Slaver (piloted by Web obv obv obv) and if the deck can set up CB-Top against Grim Long then it is good. I had many games where I have a Grey Ogre (Trinket Mage) beating down for 6+ turns because of CB-Top. CB-Top isn’t just some legacy combo, it is pretty decent in type 1 too. It was roughly 40-60 to Grim Long's favor, forgot exact details, but it got games.
The U/B Fish basically have 4 Stifle, 4 Wastes, and 6 Duress effects, playing against it is very annoy. Oh, and of course, I went like 3-7 against Mono Brown (some record like that… maybe 2-7), it bends over to workshop game 1; we didn’t test sideboard. The U/B deck also got game against Ichorid as I have Needle + Crypt main along with 4x Leyline and 2x Jailer from the board. Basically I was very ready to play this deck, another easy way to describe it is like SS but instead of Erayo + Cutpurse, it is CB + Top.
Before I move on, for those of you that know me (like the number of you that knows NorCal magic scene, hopefully) know I loved U/W Fish. I had a huge amount of success with it last year and I just loved Null Rod. Null Rod is fucking sick, the backbone of Fish and the fair card used to fight against unfair decks. And prior making U/B Fish, I revamped a U/W Fish list and played 10 or so games against LSV playing Slaver, needless to say, Null Rod is a fucking beating against him. I had games where Null Rod + Dog (Isamaru) just went the distance. While testing with Web I made the comment about “Man, if there is Null Rod in play, it would be so good, against both you and me.” Just that every game we played I can make a comment about how backbreaking Null Rod is.
Seeing my weakness, Web, being the true gay Fish master he was when Fish first appeared in type 1 “BREWED” up a masterful list to test against me. Basically I am testing U/B Fish against Null Rod. Oh man, I got crushed DI. To make the testing “more accurate,” Web basically had the Null Rod EVERY GAME we played and proceed to crush me with it. The CB-Top engine was shut down, my Moxens went GG and life is sad for Fob. Well, to be fair, he just happened to drop Null Rod more than I dropped them (***envy*** XD). After teaching me a lesson my desire for hot sexy Null Rod reemerged. I KNOW I AM DESTINED TO PLAY NULL ROD IN MY NEXT TOURNEY. (Serious speaking, it is a race to see who can resolve their stuffs faster, Rod. Vs. CB-Top, but the U/W Fish is just so much more aggressive and Rod require only 1 piece ‘combo’ that make U/W Fish a much favorite.)
Oh, I am sure Web is going to talk something about the process about building the deck, so I will that up for him. But you guys remember WUTANG Fish? Oh yeah, it was almost exactly like the list Jason Zheng’s played back in…05? To include some details of Web’s “BREWING” process, I will include some quotes…
“Yeah, I made this list in like 10 min. going through my foil cards and take out whatever is ‘SWEET”
“It doesn’t have Jotun Grunts, I just forgot about those.”
There were more sweet quotes, but I forgot them XD XD XD
Basically Web’s list that he “brewed” is very similar to Jason Zheng’s list in 05’ but I honestly didn’t know that till I dug U/W Primer thread by Feinstein and some other Gay /r Thread in search function of TMD while tuning the deck. Web’s process of making the Fish basically took literally 10 minutes and the only source he had was his brain + his foil/foreign aka. sweet cards, no internet no nothing.
I fell in love with the deck, or aka: Null Rod. And I decide to run the following list.
2 Savanah Lion
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3 Icatian Javelineers
4 Meddling Mage
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Stifle
4 Standstill
3 Null Rod
2 Swords of Plowshares
2 Echoing Truth
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Plains
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Polluted Delta
BTW: This list was a mistake. I should had cut that Delta for either a 4th Factory or 4th Wasteland. This was an honest mistake because from the prior experience I had with Fish there I had more color source with Fetchlands. I know in my mind that I won’t be playing with 4x Waste and 4x Factory, so I ended up cutting a Factory for Delta. The original list Web made had only 3 Waste Effects to prove my worry about getting mana screwed. Of the 10 games that I played against Web, 2 games he lacked right color mana and once he was flooded. The mistake was made because I am no longer playing 4x brainstorm, this make Fetchlands less attractive and not needed as much, I honestly think that this deck can operate with 4x Factory and 5x Waste Effect as shown by Zhang’s success. This was the drawback from playing something that was payment despite we done DI testing. Well, Web and I took a little break on Friday and Saturday ^_^
The maindeck is not only sweet but also ran very smoothly. The only "problem" is that throughout the whole tourney I constantly thought to myself “what if this had been a wasteland or factory” when I draw my polluted Delta. The answer is 90% “Yes” after taking look at my graveyard post games. Again, more testing need to be done and it depends on your balls/comfort level.
I brewed the SB myself:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Energy Flux
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Spellsnare
2 Swords to Plowshares
The Leyline is there against Ichorid, although admittedly 4x Leyline is the bare minimum and is probably not enough, but I can’t just go down without a fight. 4 Flux was against Workshop obv, deck is very aggressive and Flux aren’t 2cc. Again, the interesting thing is that this deck doesn’t BEND over to Chalice @2… so Kataki may be good enough… Jitte is there to teach other Fish deck a lesson (**Cough** Campee/Campusano **Cough** ^_^) and as well as other aggro decks. I want to have 4x STP post board against again aggro but against Painter.dec + Painters.
The last inclusion was the spellsnares to battle drains and Oath. To be honest, I expected people to board out Drains post board but I had a fair share of Snaring Drains at the tourney. Spellsnare is also something I board in against CS to counter postboard Pyroclasm and Fire/Ice aside from the usual 2cc spells.
The SB was okay, but I felt like it can be improved. A lot of the cards I have sort of overlapped with each other, ie: Stp and snares are both options against Painter. I felt like SB need to have some gamebreaking/uber effect, but I didn’t feel like my post SB games were that much better. It can be that I am playing Fish, not the most powerful deck there is and that this SB needs some work. I felt like this SB needed some work.
I am probably going to start a thread on the Open Forums discussing possible builds of Fish… But my “experience
S” sort of giving me 2nd thoughts :-p I am sure I am not going to play any chromatic stars in my deck. (sorry mmmmbraskiiii) I will get it done after this ^^ Anyways, Null Rod is such a powerful card I am just surprised that not a lot of people really mentioned it (well they did, briefly in the thread) but didn’t make a deck out of it. And maybe this is why I suck at magic/vintage, I choose to play more “fair” decks. There are a number of very decent people on the forums whom probably will never play Fish because it is “fair.” Dark Rituals vs. Savannah Lions, com’on Fob!!!!!!!11111oneone… (k, I went bit ranting sorries).
Although I must admit, I was happy playing with Flash and GAT, and I did play both for a period of time, playing with broken cards were really nice and when I played Fish again I was like... Yawg. Will is so good... and eventually went back to play GAT again) <3 Contradict myself hahaha.
So it was decided, Fish it is. I even titled my deck name as, “Sigh! Fish.” Web ended up playing Grim Long which surprised me, but Web had been a fucking monster at these tourneys lately, whom am I to complain what he plays. And look, Grim Long is broken.
Last year’s Sapphire tourney was a very sweet one. GAT and Flash appeared the vintage scene and Web was piloting the less fruity one while I piloted the other at last year’s tourney. I had many turn 1/2 kills with counter back up running one side of the top 8 bracket while Web gushed DI at the other and we met in the finals. Hoping the exact same thing will repeat this year. Only it was harder for me because I am playing a fair deck -_-
Rd 1 John- U/R Painter (2-1)Game 1: I mulled to 6 on the draw. My 6 isn’t all that spectacular and his draw was much stronger than mine; he kind of went on autopilot. Losing the die roll sucked, it would had definitely changed the board situation of the game. My two standstills were REB’ed (Ouch T_T) and FoW’ed, so my draw engine was shut down. He then Mysticals for Tinker and I was facing a big tin man. The superior armed white man then trampled the Asian man fighting with sticks and rocks in no time. Cat + Dog can’t compete with Tin Man as it turns out…
Game 2: I mulled to 6 on the play. Again, my 6 wasn’t pressuring him at all, but I found a Null Rod + Cat off from the Standstill that he broke. And guess what, it went the fucking distance. Null Rod practically shut him down and boy, this isn’t the first time you will read this.
Game 3: I had a good draw with Lotus. And thank god I didn’t mull too 6. I was able to drop a Mage naming something I forgot and Null Rod turn 1. And again, Null Rod shut his mana base down a lot, along with stifles and wastelands. I had a sick brainstorm where I brainstormed into Time Walk + FoW, and the white weenies went the distance along with the Null Rod.
Rd 2 Junior Cervantes- Ritual Combo (2-1)Game 1: Junior named his deck “Fob Crusher,” and beat me at Sacramento’s Time Walk tourney, so time for some revenge. It wasn’t looking so good for me when he went Mox, Sol Ring, Land, and Tinker… But instead of facing Tin Man, he got Jar, must be… My hand was: Time Walk, Stifle, Null Rod, Factory, Tundra, Stripmine, Dog, it was a legit 7. I draw into echoing Truth ^^”, and I went mox + tundra, Time Walk. Drawing a Delta (Factory or Wasteland would had been fine here) then played factory turn 2 casting Null Rod with Stifle up. I left Stifle up instead of playing the Stripmine was because this way I can shut down more if his mana source. Null Rod handles the onboard Sol Ring + Moxen he topdecks, and Stifle can own his Fetchlands. I ended up stifling his fetch and strip his land and he failed to cough up lands and I went the distance.
Game 2: This games shows that my SB need some improvement as I didn’t have much for him, I ended up bringing some spellsnares and took out StP/Echoing truth because he played with cabal rituals. He could had potentially board in Bob, but I am not so sure. And speaking of the game, I wasn’t able to put much pressure on him and didn’t resolve a Null Rod. Junior went down to 14 from my beatings and stormed DI and tendril me for 20+.
Game 3: I had a very similar hand to game 1 and the result of the game looks like game 1. I landed early Null Rod, Waste/Stifle effect back up and my animal and its tamer went pecked him to death.
So, of the 4 games I won, it was off from Null Rod. I would just like to point it out, and this was exactly what came out of testing with Web, “if there is Rod in this situation, oh boy oh boy…”
Rd 3 Dan Messineo- UR PainterGame 1: Painter seems like a powerful strategy. I was actually doing somewhat decent in the beginning as I stifle + waste his land, but I drew 3 lands in a row (and yes, Polluted Delta was drawn TWICE in this game) and he topdecked a Lotus and went nuts with 2x Trinket Mages to clog up the ground. After I got rid of them it was a couple turns later where a Painter stuck. It turns out Lumengrid Warden is good at fending off Cat/Dog/Jav. After he REB’ed my Mage on Tinker, he tinkered Grindstone and grinded my ass into pieces.
Game 2: He mulled to 5. I dropped early Null Rod. Justice. Justice = Null Rod. I then dropped 2x Jav. and drew a Dog next turn and they went in. Yeah, Dan’s hand was just bad, my luck.
Game 3: He mulled to 6, so did I. He turn 1 Welder, I FoW. Then he UNLOAD his hand, mox, crypt, academy, TRIKE! I was unfazed and played Mage naming Trinket Mage and Dog. We are in a top decking war, and I lost as he ripped Duplicant the very next draw. Duped by Mage, and the Trike. pwnzed me. I was bit frustrated, but I the Dollar Curry filled up my stomach and while ranting to Web about my loss he told me “Dot Fobz…. Win~~~~~” So I am like, “aight, see you in top 8 sir.”
Rd 4 Galen- Drain TendrilsGame 1: I played guys, they bashed. I didn’t really even Ninja in my dorks because my dorks were dealing 2 damages. I did Ninja in returning a Jav. though, because Jav. doesn’t do 2 damages. I think Galen resolved a Yawg. Will this game, but he wasn’t able to abuse it all that much. And oh yeah, I dazed a FoF, and it was… sweet.
Game 2: I def. should had Mull’ed this hand, but I punted. I literally just punted. My hand was wasteland, tundra, POLLUTED DELTA (god!), Flooded Strand, Stifle, Spellsnare, and Ancestral. This hand didn’t really have much business other than the ancestral, but unprotected. Maybe I was thinking I can stifle + waste his lands while I developed my hand, however, he could had drop Moxen. Of course, my deck punished me by coughing up more lands and Galen Accumulated Knowledge for 4, Ancestraled himself, and just outdrew me DI. Eventually he just killed me hard.
Game 3: During game 2 I realized his deck is actually hard to combo off, he can’t go really broken. His Yawg. Will plays are just… subpar, no rituals, and if he has to go broken, he got to have Lotus with it. With that said, his deck can draw a lot of cards, so I know I have to keep aggressive hand. And well, Mox + Tundra = Mage on Drain certainly served his purpose. Named Drain so I can resolve my Null Rod or Cat next turn as I didn’t have Snares. I led off with Cat next turn and he was thinking FoW and ultimately let it go. And his Fow was used at the Null Rod which I tried to resolve. He got a top out, and started spinning. But I had a lot of pressure on board already so I didn’t even cast anything, kept the Ninja in my hand for FoW. He tried to Mystical for Yawg. Will which I let resolve because my draw step was very kind for me and gave me FoW. Again, his Yawg. Will is going to net him more cards, it was hard for him to tendril me out, his best chance is probably Tinkering out a guy, but I had that covered as I had echoing truth in my hand as well.
Web beat Marco at end of the Round and it was sweet times
Both of us in the T8. But it wasn’t really meant to be as Web got paired down because his TB was low >< Webster worked his magic to the top 8 nevertheless XD
Rd 5- Belcher- IDQuarterfinal Morgan Brewer Control Slaver. –Got featured matched.Game 1: Morgan was aspired by the NE results and played CS. He won the die roll. Went turn 1 TfK off from 2x Mox. I had an unexcited play of turn 1 Jav. which awe everyone watching the match. He went land, and played 2nd TfK, sad time for me as the Daze in my hand stares at me. I went turn 2 Mage naming Drains (which he obv. had XD). He then went for another TfK!!! He was up on so many cards on me and I was just… sad. He then tried to resolve a slaver I think which I Dazed, yeehaw~~ Then I had to FoW pitching standstill on another spell. And there goes my hand.
Next turn he played a welder.. signaling he had another one in his hand and it wasn’t looking good because he got 2 mox from his turn1 play and with slaver in yard. After my Jav. killed the 3rd Welder of the day and switched to a Ninja, my deck failed to cough up answers to Welder. And he proceeds to slave me. But my hand was crap, had nothing but dorks. Well, he topdecked a Standstill at my slaved turn, so unfortunate.... so he ancestral himself and I thought I am so dead because he is going to slave me again. He did exactly that and forced me to Ninja my Mage on Drain and then Echoing Truth my 2x on board Ninja back to my hand and made my Jav. shot himself in the foot. He then played a 4th Tfk. I was like...
Then I started replaying my guys again, couple of them got drained of course, but despite drawing DI, his deck failed to cough up more artifacts and robots. I then slowly crawled back in the game removing the Welder and played dorks. And slowly, I ran him over with dorks. On his last ditch effort he drained two of my spells and needed to topdeck something good, but he drew a mystical and that was that. This game was insane as he drew off from 4x TfK + 1 Standstill and still can’t kill me.
Game 2: Unfortunately I don’t remember minor details of the game. I know that I was beating him down with a dork + factory and he wasn’t able to draw much stuff. I had Snare, stifle, and daze in my hand while applying pressure. I am unsure if I resolved a Null Rod this game, and if I did, that could had just been it. I am going to check the feature match report when it comes out.
Semifinals Stan Gin- Manaless Ichorid.Game 1: Stan haven't played magic in a while, he was just happy to be here playing. He was playing Ichorid, a very bad match up for U/W Fish, but I know what I had to do. I have two plans. Plan A: him mulling DI. Well, he kept his 6, that plan didn’t work. Plan B: Win die row, get stifle + wasteland in my opener or set up for it. I won my die roll
My opener was very nice as it contain the two proxy card that we didn’t win over the last year. I led off with Lotus, Ancestral, but failed to draw into stifle, so I played turn 1 Mage naming Emerald Charm because I know he ran 4 of those. It was stupid by me because I should have name Cabal Therapy or Dread Return, just… yeah… I am a dumbfuck and I just thought I am about to lose the game because Plan A and B both failed.
He started with Leyline, to my surprise, he didn’t discard any dredgers; he discarded 2x Ichorid and BfB I think.... Oh wow, Plan B sort of worked so I immediately wasted his land and start bashing. And the ladyluck was on my side as I drew Stifle turn 2 with Strip in my hand. I started bashing him and he just drew and pass the turn and got to the point of discarding. However, he didn’t have any dredgers and it was looking bad for him. He eventually discard another Ichorid and brought it back so he can Cabal Therapy me off from the City he played. I couldn’t had stifle his Ichorid because there were 2 >< And I was thinking shooting my Jav. himself in the foot to “remove” the BfB. Btw: there was Leyline on his side. But I didn’t do that as I Ninja’ed in a dork to deal even number of damage. So yeah, I was pretty rusty at my Fish play (or just plays in general), definitely not as sharp as before. His 2x Token just traded with 2 of my dorks but I still have 2 more 2-powered dorks in the form of Factory + Cat. I got the unbelievable game 1.
Game 2: Game 2 I got 3 plans. The first 2 plans are the same. The third plan is to play Leyline and protect it with Daze/Fow. Well, he serum powered and Plan A was looking good, then he powdered again and I am like “YAUS.” But then he kept his hand so Plan A went bye bye. MY OPENER WAS “SICK!” FOW, 2x Mages, Mox, Fetch, Factory, and Daze. Basically it was a decent hand, but not against Ichorid. So I mulled. I mulled into Leyline + Daze + Tundra + Jav + Ninja + Stifle. Oh wow, Plan C, coming alive!
And boy, this game was so odd. I led off with Leyline and he activated Bazaar digging for answer. I played turn 1 Jav drawing a FoW. He played a City so my Daze plan is still okay till he played a petrified field turn 3. I topdecked a Lotus so I hardcast the Ninja in my hands and he went Contagion on my dorks. At this point I could had FoW to save my guys but I ultimately decided not to because I think it was being too greedy; turns out greed would had got me there. But my logic was that Daze is no longer useful, and I need to find another FoW or Waste Effect, which there would be 7 left. I don’t know, it was a close call I think. But I just decide to went safe route.
After contagion he played Thug, which I Dazed. He then play another land and played Stinky Imp! He played another one after that! I know where this is going, but I know if he want to go beatdown on me I have way more guys than him. So he started pecking me but I drew Factory and Dog. Anytime I drew a 2nd Ninja I can Ninja him out of my contagion Ninja, I know I was in good shape. I also have StP to draw and echoing Truth as well. It turns out he didn’t draw a leyline removal during the creature fights, I got more dorks than him and overwhelmed him.
So yeah, I 2-0’ed Ichorid, which is something I never though I would do with U/W Fish. It is just…. wow. I turned over to Web, asking what game he was on, he sighed heavily and said g3 and asked me the same question. I replied, “Waiting for you.”
And the wait was over after Web went all-in turn 1 kill that would get boned by FoW as it turns out.
I would like to spend a minute here to support my buddies. There are a ton of people, esp. when I was playing in the quarterfinals (I think, and generally just throughout the whole day) complaining about how lucky Web and LSV is. How that they always draw the nuts against them and etc. etc. etc. I must admit, they do draw the nuts at times, BUT SO DO WE. There are also two things to keep in mind. They are constantly playing a broken deck and more importantly their PRECISION and LOGIC. I have played Magic with these 2 players for a long time, late 2002/early 2003. I have played magic with Luis before his so called “breakout” with Cheon. I have not seen much players playing at their logic and thinking level. Trust me, I definitely cried DI times about how “lucksack” they are. Constant results show something and it is time to stop crying foul.
Yes, Web had made the finals of last couple NorCal tourneys. Yes, Web definitely got lucky in some of his match because of various reasons. YES, Web lost a round in the swiss in the last two tourneys; he even scooped to LSV in the Pearl I think.
I can also mention about Brainstorm, but I think I will leave that out. But Brainstorm was a card that they abused more than any other players.
Despite top 4 and top 8’ing and was playing for top 8 constantly at these tourneys, I didn’t really go out there and win it. It is nice to have buddies, but I would like to contribute more. This tourney I not only did that but did it with a deck I loved, U/W Fish. Going broken is good, but if Null Rod sticks, then life can be tough at times. Overall, I am just happy that I did very well with a deck that I <3.
History repeated itself as Web and I split in the finals of a Sapphire tourney. Afterwards we got rid of the Mox and went to Thai food next door because being the Asian I am, I wanted rice. I then went back to Davis and played PIU (Pump It Up) 5-paneled dancing game and proceed to beat some high scores, it must had been my day.
Thanks for reading this and please excuse my grammar. If there are any mistakes in the games and details, please point it out and I will change it. And sorry for any mistakes I made.
