[Deck] U/G fish viable again (ok, its really WUg)

[brianpk80]

No.  Fish, is the controller.  The permissor means it will attempt to out-counter Fish.  Gifts is the best control deck in the environment.  Steve stated this.  Fish wants powered decks to play it's game.   

You're arguing a semantic point about the difference between the permissor and the controller.  In today's extraordinarily fast-paced metagame, the two concepts by and large are merged.  We have Fish and Stax on the north pole (control/permit) and Pitch Long/Dragon/Gifts on the other (shoot first, ask questions later).  If you want to examine those terms more on a more microscopic level, then yes, Fish's role fits the old theme of "controller" more than "permissor."  However, I find the distinction to be moot in today's metagame.  And at any rate, they are both a far cry from the "aggressor" role you previously suggested.     

Ok.  Let's go with this.  Fish needs to:

1. Stop/Neutralize Tinker
2. Stop Neutralize Yawgmoth's Will

...

This deck does neither very efficiently.  You can name all the cards that can potentially stifle Gifts from getting Colossus or going broken with Will.  But, when you name all creatures, which Gifts can easily deal with.  Furthemore, none of these creatures stop Gifts from getting to critical mass, they are just hiccups.

Zarathustra, you may recall that your criticism expanded beyond this deck and targeted all Fish builds without Wastelands, specifically my own UW/b Fish list.  The second paragraph of my last response identified the goals of Fish v. Gifts in general, not whether this particular UW/g list is accomplishing that.  If anything, the suggestions I've made here have been pretty cognizant of Yawgmoth's Will and Tinker-DSC: replacing Misdirection with a more all-purpose counter, adding Children of Korlis to buy time or negate Tendrils, considering AEther Spellbomb + Auriok Salvagers, adding Root Maze, adding another Tormod's Crypt, and so forth.     

This was no insult.  Have you even tested this deck against Gifts?  Because, I would like to know what the results are. 

This is a significant retreat from your much broader original statement of "Do you guys even play against Gifts...  Like at all?"
I test against Gifts all the time with my list. 

My arguments are rooted in the fact that I've tested against Fish a lot.  I know what I fear in the deck.  When I see those cards absent from the list, I see real way Gifts can lose 35%-60% against this deck.  Also, I stated that game TWO, Gifts just wrecks Fish.  That's with Null Rod and Wasteland.  There's no way.  You may be a friend of Khahan, but to tell me you think he's tested against Gifts doesn't mean he has. 

Fair enough.  I think it's a pretty strong assumption that in his Magic experience, he's played against Gifts at some if not many points (which was your initial inquiry), but until he confirms that, it's just reasonable speculation. 

The point is, you're giving the Gifts player the ability to cast one spell before they have to go off.  With spells like Null Rod, you need to find a Chain or a Hurkyl's, then deal with whatever creatures are on the board, if need be.  With very few tempo based threats, all I need to find is a Massacre or a Pyroclasm and then go broken. 

While Chain & Hurkyl's are very strong v. Null Rod/Chalice Fish, they're largely moot v. a well designed Vial build.  For instance, when a card like Waterfront Bouncer, Gilded Drake, or Stern Proctor creeps out of a Vial at EoT, the damage has already been done and nothing short of Eureka or Yawgmoth's Will/Recoup on Tinker again (post-Brainstorm) will be bringing the Iron Man back out anytime soon.  Good luck winning this game vis-a-vis any Tormod's Crypts that (surprisingly) don't actually seem to bother you very much.  It won't matter if you kill the Bouncer or Proctor with Massacre.  It won't matter that you have an Underground Sea and 2 Volcanic Islands that haven't been Wasted.  It won't matter that you have 3 Mana Drains in your hand unless you seriously envision yourself getting to the point where you're hardcasting DSC every turn. When Tinker and Yawgmoth's Will are negated, Gifts has lost. 

How you reach that point is where Null Rod Fish and Vial Fish diverge.  Null Rod Fish likes to sever your mana line and prevent the two big 3-CC spells from being played.  Vial Fish on the other hand invites you to overextend and throws the fruits of your effort back in your face, with something like an instant uncounterable Voidmage Prodigy, True Believer, Azorious Guildmage, Gorilla Shaman, Gilded Drake, or Children of Korlis.  These are two equally legitimate methods of combating uber-brokenness, and I have yet to see any serious points that justify the knee-jerk opposition the latter strategy has endured.  If I had to guess I would say that lack of familiarity with modern Vial Fish is the main reason it has come under so much scrutiny, while Null Rod Fish is everywhere and players are accustomed to what they know.   

Old news or not, they are still threats that wreck everything but Grunt.

If you resolve Massacre or Pyroclasm against a good Vial Fish player, you've probably killed one or two creatures, and maybe an additional Confidant or Ninja that's already more than made up for its departure in terms of draw. 

People are so certain that Crypt just wrecks Gifts.  If this were the case, Gifts would have been chased out of the metagame months ago. 

It does wreck Gifts, Meandeck Gifts in particular.  Earlier incarnations of Gifts Ungiven were more control-oriented, like Brassman Gifts with its ensemble of maindeck Pithing Needles and Thirsts for Knowledge.  These variants were a lot better equipped to address hate like Tormod's Crypt and their similarity to Slaver gave them a much better Vial Fish match-up.  By contrast, a resolved Crypt v. Meandeck Gifts forces all of its eggs into one basket, the much less reliable Tinker-DSC plan.  This places Gifts into the unenviable position where a resolved Swords to Plowshares, Force of Will, Chain of Vapor, Hurkyl's Recall, and so forth ends the game, not to mention the fact that you lose Gifts Ungiven as a means of acquiring the Tinker.  While we can cook up theoretical or fanciful possible plays, there is no realistic recovery for a Meandeck Gifts deck that has lost both its Colossus and its graveyard.  The fact that Tormod's hasn't chased Meandeck Gifts out of the metagame is no more telling on its strength than the fact that Energy Flux never chased Stax out of competition last year.  Massacre hasn't ended Fish, Leyline of the Void hasn't killed Ichorid/Dragon, and Goblin Bombardment hasn't obliterated Oath of Druids.  All of these cards are nonetheless effective strategy hosers and your cavalier dismissal of Tormod's Crypt does call into question your practical experience v. the card.   

There is better hate than Crypt.    

Really, there isn't.  Not against Meandeck Gifts and certainly not for its price, . 

Gifts often does draw other lands besides fetches and Islands.  So, when they do, having Wasteland/Strip to keep them off a color or to stop them from reaching critical mass, it's good.  Again, it's about tempo.  I don't see why you're missing the whole idea of tempo.  I'm fully aware that when any deck goes broken, Wasteland doesn't help.  Wasteland can even be relevant in a PL match.   

You might want to try reading Jacob Orlove's article on tempo, "Putting It All Together," which is availble in the sticky Useful Articles thread in the Vintage Open Forum.  He has a pretty thoughtful exposition on the concept and I find there are many additional viable (and for me, preferable) ways of generating tempo, congruent with those principles, than with a Wasteland. 

I've been reading up on your other thread and half the comments I've read seem to go along the same lines as I do.  Said person has not offered any advice on this deck, so you honestly don't know what his comments are on this particular deck.  My real world testing does give me some idea how this deck would do, I can't see how this deck can beat Gifts.

I'm glad you've been following the thread.  Not everyone agrees with the all of the finer points in my build, but I am the one who has seen both it and its ancestor lists in action for months now and have no complaints.  If I thought I would beat Gifts, Long, and the rest of the field more often with Null Rods and Wastelands, then (surprise, surprise) I'd be running them. 

-Brian (BPK)

[Methuselahn]

Re: Uwg fish.

A quirky idea came up on the reflection boards involving Hermit Druid and Jotun Grunt.

Basically, you dump your library with druid then return time walk and ancestral repeatedly every turn.  There is catastrophic failure risks involved and ultimately we gave up on it because the're better decks available.  However, it's the same colors as the deck involved here and may be something worth considering.  The idea deviates from fish theory by splashing a combo element, this is the biggest hurdle, imo, that making druid work, has.

I've never understood brainstorm in fish, why waste tempo on brainstorm when you wont be seeing any real bombs, just more dorks.  Have you considered Merchant Scroll with Grunts?  The two are very powerful together.

Merchant Scroll for Ancestral.  cast Ancestral.  Put Ancestral back into the deck with Grunt.  Merchant Scroll for Ancestral again.  OMG.

[Zarathustra]

I've never understood brainstorm in fish, why waste tempo on brainstorm when you wont be seeing any real bombs, just more dorks.  Have you considered Merchant Scroll with Grunts?  The two are very powerful together.

Merchant Scroll for Ancestral.  cast Ancestral.  Put Ancestral back into the deck with Grunt.  Merchant Scroll for Ancestral again.  OMG.

I see two problems with this:

1. Merchant Scroll is a 1U sorcery that takes tempo away from Fish.  That turn could be spent laying a Null Rod or any assortment of creature, which Fish still wants to do.  Brainstorm might not be great, but you can still go it EOT and use your mana more efficiently.

2. Merchant Scroll ----> Ancestral seems like a win more card in Fish.  You have no real bombs in this deck.  I could see doing this in a combo deck, if I had a ton of mana.  In a deck that has precious resources, I don't see it being that good.  Another thing, if you have Grunt out, why would you want to remove your graveyard?  There are plenty of decks in this format that are graveyard dependant, so trying to disrupt them seems better.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I've never understood brainstorm in fish, why waste tempo on brainstorm when you wont be seeing any real bombs, just more dorks. 

It helps fix mana flooding/screw which is about the same as making tempo.  Also, some builds use "conditional" bombs.  For example...True Believer is pretty useless against Stax but owns a Gifts/Combo meta.  Getting rid of or finding conditional bombs can also effectively make tempo.

Both of these arguments vary in quality based on the deck being referenced.

[brianpk80]

No.  Fish, is the controller.  The permissor means it will attempt to out-counter Fish.  Gifts is the best control deck in the environment.  Steve stated this.  Fish wants powered decks to play it's game.   

You're arguing a semantic point about the difference between the permissor and the controller.  In today's extraordinarily fast-paced metagame, the two concepts by and large are merged.  We have Fish and Stax on the north pole (control/permit) and Pitch Long/Dragon/Gifts on the other (shoot first, ask questions later).  If you want to examine those terms more on a more microscopic level, then yes, Fish's role fits the old theme of "controller" more than "permissor."  However, I find the distinction to be moot in today's metagame.  And at any rate, they are both a far cry from the "aggressor" role you previously suggested.     

Ok.  Let's go with this.  Fish needs to:

1. Stop/Neutralize Tinker
2. Stop Neutralize Yawgmoth's Will

...

This deck does neither very efficiently.  You can name all the cards that can potentially stifle Gifts from getting Colossus or going broken with Will.  But, when you name all creatures, which Gifts can easily deal with.  Furthemore, none of these creatures stop Gifts from getting to critical mass, they are just hiccups.

Zarathustra, you may recall that your criticism expanded beyond this deck and targeted all Fish builds without Wastelands, specifically my own UW/b Fish list.  The second paragraph of my last response identified the goals of Fish v. Gifts in general, not whether this particular UW/g list is accomplishing that.  If anything, the suggestions I've made here have been pretty cognizant of Yawgmoth's Will and Tinker-DSC: replacing Misdirection with a more all-purpose counter, adding Children of Korlis to buy time or negate Tendrils, considering AEther Spellbomb + Auriok Salvagers, adding Root Maze, adding another Tormod's Crypt, and so forth.     

This was no insult.  Have you even tested this deck against Gifts?  Because, I would like to know what the results are. 

This is a significant retreat from your much broader original statement of "Do you guys even play against Gifts...  Like at all?"
I test against Gifts all the time with my list. 

My arguments are rooted in the fact that I've tested against Fish a lot.  I know what I fear in the deck.  When I see those cards absent from the list, I see real way Gifts can lose 35%-60% against this deck.  Also, I stated that game TWO, Gifts just wrecks Fish.  That's with Null Rod and Wasteland.  There's no way.  You may be a friend of Khahan, but to tell me you think he's tested against Gifts doesn't mean he has. 

Fair enough.  I think it's a pretty strong assumption that in his Magic experience, he's played against Gifts at some if not many points (which was your initial inquiry), but until he confirms that, it's just reasonable speculation. 

The point is, you're giving the Gifts player the ability to cast one spell before they have to go off.  With spells like Null Rod, you need to find a Chain or a Hurkyl's, then deal with whatever creatures are on the board, if need be.  With very few tempo based threats, all I need to find is a Massacre or a Pyroclasm and then go broken. 

While Chain & Hurkyl's are very strong v. Null Rod/Chalice Fish, they're largely moot v. a well designed Vial build.  For instance, when a card like Waterfront Bouncer, Gilded Drake, or Stern Proctor creeps out of a Vial at EoT, the damage has already been done and nothing short of Eureka or Yawgmoth's Will/Recoup on Tinker again (post-Brainstorm) will be bringing the Iron Man back out anytime soon.  Good luck winning this game vis-a-vis any Tormod's Crypts that (surprisingly) don't actually seem to bother you very much.  It won't matter if you kill the Bouncer or Proctor with Massacre.  It won't matter that you have an Underground Sea and 2 Volcanic Islands that haven't been Wasted.  It won't matter that you have 3 Mana Drains in your hand unless you seriously envision yourself getting to the point where you're hardcasting DSC every turn. When Tinker and Yawgmoth's Will are negated, Gifts has lost. 

How you reach that point is where Null Rod Fish and Vial Fish diverge.  Null Rod Fish likes to sever your mana line and prevent the two big 3-CC spells from being played.  Vial Fish on the other hand invites you to overextend and throws the fruits of your effort back in your face, with something like an instant uncounterable Voidmage Prodigy, True Believer, Azorious Guildmage, Gorilla Shaman, Gilded Drake, or Children of Korlis.  These are two equally legitimate methods of combating uber-brokenness, and I have yet to see any serious points that justify the knee-jerk opposition the latter strategy has endured.  If I had to guess I would say that lack of familiarity with modern Vial Fish is the main reason it has come under so much scrutiny, while Null Rod Fish is everywhere and players are accustomed to what they know.   

Old news or not, they are still threats that wreck everything but Grunt.

If you resolve Massacre or Pyroclasm against a good Vial Fish player, you've probably killed one or two creatures, and maybe an additional Confidant or Ninja that's already more than made up for its departure in terms of draw. 

People are so certain that Crypt just wrecks Gifts.  If this were the case, Gifts would have been chased out of the metagame months ago. 

It does wreck Gifts, Meandeck Gifts in particular.  Earlier incarnations of Gifts Ungiven were more control-oriented, like Brassman Gifts with its ensemble of maindeck Pithing Needles and Thirsts for Knowledge.  These variants were a lot better equipped to address hate like Tormod's Crypt and their similarity to Slaver gave them a much better Vial Fish match-up.  By contrast, a resolved Crypt v. Meandeck Gifts forces all of its eggs into one basket, the much less reliable Tinker-DSC plan.  This places Gifts into the unenviable position where a resolved Swords to Plowshares, Force of Will, Chain of Vapor, Hurkyl's Recall, and so forth ends the game, not to mention the fact that you lose Gifts Ungiven as a means of acquiring the Tinker.  While we can cook up theoretical or fanciful possible plays, there is no realistic recovery for a Meandeck Gifts deck that has lost both its Colossus and its graveyard.  The fact that Tormod's hasn't chased Meandeck Gifts out of the metagame is no more telling on its strength than the fact that Energy Flux never chased Stax out of competition last year.  Massacre hasn't ended Fish, Leyline of the Void hasn't killed Ichorid/Dragon, and Goblin Bombardment hasn't obliterated Oath of Druids.  All of these cards are nonetheless effective strategy hosers and your cavalier dismissal of Tormod's Crypt does call into question your practical experience v. the card.   

There is better hate than Crypt.     

Really, there isn't.  Not against Meandeck Gifts and certainly not for its price, . 

Gifts often does draw other lands besides fetches and Islands.  So, when they do, having Wasteland/Strip to keep them off a color or to stop them from reaching critical mass, it's good.  Again, it's about tempo.  I don't see why you're missing the whole idea of tempo.  I'm fully aware that when any deck goes broken, Wasteland doesn't help.  Wasteland can even be relevant in a PL match.   

You might want to try reading Jacob Orlove's article on tempo, "Putting It All Together," which is availble in the sticky Useful Articles thread in the Vintage Open Forum.  He has a pretty thoughtful exposition on the concept and I find there are many additional viable (and for me, preferable) ways of generating tempo, congruent with those principles, than with a Wasteland. 

I've been reading up on your other thread and half the comments I've read seem to go along the same lines as I do.  Said person has not offered any advice on this deck, so you honestly don't know what his comments are on this particular deck.  My real world testing does give me some idea how this deck would do, I can't see how this deck can beat Gifts.

I'm glad you've been following the thread.  Not everyone agrees with the all of the finer points in my build, but I am the one who has seen both it and its ancestor lists in action for months now and have no complaints.  If I thought I would beat Gifts, Long, and the rest of the field more often with Null Rods and Wastelands, then (surprise, surprise) I'd be running them. 

-Brian (BPK)

[Methuselahn]

I've never understood brainstorm in fish, why waste tempo on brainstorm when you wont be seeing any real bombs, just more dorks.  Have you considered Merchant Scroll with Grunts?  The two are very powerful together.

Merchant Scroll for Ancestral.  cast Ancestral.  Put Ancestral back into the deck with Grunt.  Merchant Scroll for Ancestral again.  OMG.

I see two problems with this:

1. Merchant Scroll is a 1U sorcery that takes tempo away from Fish.  That turn could be spent laying a Null Rod or any assortment of creature, which Fish still wants to do.  Brainstorm might not be great, but you can still go it EOT and use your mana more efficiently.

2. Merchant Scroll ----> Ancestral seems like a win more card in Fish.  You have no real bombs in this deck.  I could see doing this in a combo deck, if I had a ton of mana.  In a deck that has precious resources, I don't see it being that good.  Another thing, if you have Grunt out, why would you want to remove your graveyard?  There are plenty of decks in this format that are graveyard dependant, so trying to disrupt them seems better.

You know, the more I think about it and the more I look at the first post I believe more and more that this is a fish deck about as much as Bomberman is.  Notice the Mana Drains and lack of strip effects here.  So, I may be off in my assessment of Brainstorm.  Merchant Scroll is still strong.  Especially with Grunt.  Why 'remove' your graveyard you ask?  Well, like I tried to explain before.  The key is Scroll up Ancestral, then put Ancestral on the bottom of your library only to fetch it with another Merchant Scroll.

[Zarathustra]

You're arguing a semantic point about the difference between the permissor and the controller.  In today's extraordinarily fast-paced metagame, the two concepts by and large are merged.  We have Fish and Stax on the north pole (control/permit) and Pitch Long/Dragon/Gifts on the other (shoot first, ask questions later).  If you want to examine those terms more on a more microscopic level, then yes, Fish's role fits the old theme of "controller" more than "permissor."  However, I find the distinction to be moot in today's metagame.  And at any rate, they are both a far cry from the "aggressor" role you previously suggested.

Stax and Fish are pretty much of the same ilk.  Lock the board or slow the game rate down to a crawl.  Once they do, they win the slow game.

I fail to see how you feel control and permissor are merged.  Controlling the game can mean a lot more than allowing spells to resolve.  Fish should be able to control Gifts mana production.  It cannot be the permissor, because, as I've said, Gifts is much better at it.

Zarathustra, you may recall that your criticism expanded beyond this deck and targeted all Fish builds without Wastelands, specifically my own UW/b Fish list.  The second paragraph of my last response identified the goals of Fish v. Gifts in general, not whether this particular UW/g list is accomplishing that.  If anything, the suggestions I've made here have been pretty cognizant of Yawgmoth's Will and Tinker-DSC: replacing Misdirection with a more all-purpose counter, adding Children of Korlis to buy time or negate Tendrils, considering AEther Spellbomb + Auriok Salvagers, adding Root Maze, adding another Tormod's Crypt, and so forth.

The point is, you're defending a deck that is severely lacking in combating both points you hit on.  You can go on about how your deck might accomplish that, but as far as this point is concerned, the deck is lacking.       

While Chain & Hurkyl's are very strong v. Null Rod/Chalice Fish, they're largely moot v. a well designed Vial build.  For instance, when a card like Waterfront Bouncer, Gilded Drake, or Stern Proctor creeps out of a Vial at EoT, the damage has already been done and nothing short of Eureka or Yawgmoth's Will/Recoup on Tinker again (post-Brainstorm) will be bringing the Iron Man back out anytime soon.  Good luck winning this game vis-a-vis any Tormod's Crypts that (surprisingly) don't actually seem to bother you very much.  It won't matter if you kill the Bouncer or Proctor with Massacre.  It won't matter that you have an Underground Sea and 2 Volcanic Islands that haven't been Wasted.  It won't matter that you have 3 Mana Drains in your hand unless you seriously envision yourself getting to the point where you're hardcasting DSC every turn. When Tinker and Yawgmoth's Will are negated, Gifts has lost.

You're basing this whole point on the fact that you have Vial + up to two counters + an actual creature to use it.  I'm hardly worried about half a threat.  Null Rod is a threat to worry about and must be dealt with.  Vial does nothing on it's own, so I could just as easily go off without it. 

How you reach that point is where Null Rod Fish and Vial Fish diverge.  Null Rod Fish likes to sever your mana line and prevent the two big 3-CC spells from being played.  Vial Fish on the other hand invites you to overextend and throws the fruits of your effort back in your face, with something like an instant uncounterable Voidmage Prodigy, True Believer, Azorious Guildmage, Gorilla Shaman, Gilded Drake, or Children of Korlis.  These are two equally legitimate methods of combating uber-brokenness, and I have yet to see any serious points that justify the knee-jerk opposition the latter strategy has endured.  If I had to guess I would say that lack of familiarity with modern Vial Fish is the main reason it has come under so much scrutiny, while Null Rod Fish is everywhere and players are accustomed to what they know.

Null Rod is a threat all on it's own.  Vial is merely one half of a threat.  And honestly, even if you have Vial out with 2 counters, I will attempt to combo out anyways.  If you have a threat, I lose, otherwise I win.  I like those odds, they are in my favor.  Since I would have drawn more cards and have more mana.

With Null Rod, I'm forced to find an answer before I can even consider going off.  I don't see how these are equal in any sense of the word.   

If you resolve Massacre or Pyroclasm against a good Vial Fish player, you've probably killed one or two creatures, and maybe an additional Confidant or Ninja that's already more than made up for its departure in terms of draw.

If I'm casting Massacre, I'm going off.  Since you have a Vial and possibly another thread, I still have a very likely chance of going off unhindered.  Gifts couldn't care less about Confidant or Ninja.  They are of no concern to the combo player. 

...By contrast, a resolved Crypt v. Meandeck Gifts forces all of its eggs into one basket, the much less reliable Tinker-DSC plan.  This places Gifts into the unenviable position where a resolved Swords to Plowshares, Force of Will, Chain of Vapor, Hurkyl's Recall, and so forth ends the game, not to mention the fact that you lose Gifts Ungiven as a means of acquiring the Tinker.  While we can cook up theoretical or fanciful possible plays, there is no realistic recovery for a Meandeck Gifts deck that has lost both its Colossus and its graveyard.  The fact that Tormod's hasn't chased Meandeck Gifts out of the metagame is no more telling on its strength than the fact that Energy Flux never chased Stax out of competition last year.  Massacre hasn't ended Fish, Leyline of the Void hasn't killed Ichorid/Dragon, and Goblin Bombardment hasn't obliterated Oath of Druids.  All of these cards are nonetheless effective strategy hosers and your cavalier dismissal of Tormod's Crypt does call into question your practical experience v. the card.

This is exactly the reason Gifts has TWO possible ways to win.  I also don't see how you can possibly call Tinker/Colossus "unenviable", when your only out is in fact Swords to Plowshares.

And yet, you seem to think that Gifts can easily lose both of it's win conditions.  No, hardly.

I've played many a game against Stax where Flux came down and did nothing.  Stax hardly auto-loses to Flux, just as much as Gifts hardly auto-loses to Crypt.

People highly overrate 'hate' cards aimed at certain decks.  Seeing how games 2 and 3, the game swings in Gifts favor, I'm not entirely worried about Crypt.  I've won against the card plenty of times.

- DShell   

[Khahan]

Ok, so its a fish deck, its not a fish deck.
I look at fish as a deck that has disruptive control elements and efficient weenies to beat down.
So maybe we call this psuedo-fish, whatever, I couldn't care less about the name that so many people seem so caught up with.
I understand that categorizing it helps some people identify how it accomplishes its goal. 

If I take fish out of the title, will you stop suggesting cards just because you believe they belong in a fish deck?

Don't get me wrong. I've learned quite a bit from reading this thread. I've also taken a number of the ideas posted in this thread (whether they were based on, 'fish needs this card.' or not) and am testing them or incorporating them.  For those of you that are actively participating and offering ideas, "Thank you very much."  Its been a great  help and I've gotten everything out of this thread I had hoped for and more.  But please, lets leave the talk of semantics to the wayside.


As for the deck itself, I've incorported 2 wastelands, 1 strip and 1 crucible into the deck for -4 mana drains.

I'm not certain what to think. The deck is now working differently than when it had drains. Not better, not worse, just differently.  My early game has suddenly become very strong, but by about turn 5, I'm often finding I really need a hard counter in hand.  My next step is to try a hybrid of the early control vs mid-control and go 1 strip, 1 wasteland, 2 mana drains.  Until I find a hard counter, the drains stay. I did occassionally burn from the drain mana. But I could usually accelerate 1 or 2 spells or sink it into a guildmage or chalice.

I'm not a big fan of remand in this deck. I really don't want to put yawg will or tinker or time walk back into my opponents hands. As noted, this deck runs w/out any big bombs. Sometimes that 1 turn stall is effective. But often its just a delay.

If I find I have problems w/ the drain mana, I will simply try a plain old counterspell or mana leak.  The dazes are iffy. But they help shore up the late game.  If the strip/waste/2 mana drain dilutes things too much, I'll move the dazes for wastes.

[brianpk80]

Zarathustra,

While I generally eschew giving very harsh criticism to other users, something has gone awry here.  What began as a few open suggestions for an otherwise casual deck has been commandeered as a soapbox for you to vent your frustrations at an entire sub-archetype that you appear to understand only minimally.  I find you ignore the majority of my input and instead grasp at staws to conjure up a trivial point of contention: devolving the debate into a battle of semantics, attributing positions to me that I never adopted, and attempting to contradict me with statements with which I already agree.   

For the sake of debate, I'll answer your latest round of charges but I think we're reaching an impasse here. 

...
We have Fish and Stax on the north pole (control/permit) and Pitch Long/Dragon/Gifts on the other (shoot first, ask questions later). 
...

Stax and Fish are pretty much of the same ilk.  Lock the board or slow the game rate down to a crawl.  Once they do, they win the slow game.
I fail to see how you feel control and permissor are merged.  Controlling the game can mean a lot more than allowing spells to resolve.  Fish should be able to control Gifts mana production.  It cannot be the permissor, because, as I've said, Gifts is much better at it.

One final time, the role of permissor and controller are merged because the defining partition of the metagame is between decks that want to kill explosively, suddenly, and violently, and decks that aim to control and contain those fireworks.  Whether the latter types use mana denial, discard, graveyard hate, or counterspells to control the former type is irrelevant to the fact that they uniformly identify as what many of us would call "counter-Enigma" strategies.  Meandeck Gifts is neither a control deck nor a permission deck in today's cosmic Vintage scheme; it is an aggressive "Enigma" strategy that, like Pitch Long, incorporates permissive elements for the sole purpose of forcing through and powering out its own threats.  The lone exception here is the Meandeck Gifts v. Long match-up where it is necessary for Gifts to adopt the permissive/controlling role in order to survive.  Otherwise, Meandeck Gifts is invariably the aggressor.  Compare Meandeck Gifts to Control Slaver or even Brassman Gifts and you might have a better understanding of what this means.   

The point is, you're defending a deck that is severely lacking in combating both points you hit on.  You can go on about how your deck might accomplish that, but as far as this point is concerned, the deck is lacking.       

You have no real point here because I never defended the strength of this UW/g list v. Gifts.  If anything, I think this list is lacking a resilient answer to a resolved Colossus and see that as problematic. 

You're basing this whole point on the fact that you have Vial + up to two counters + an actual creature to use it.  I'm hardly worried about half a threat.  Null Rod is a threat to worry about and must be dealt with.  Vial does nothing on it's own, so I could just as easily go off without it. 

I'm having a hard time understanding why you think it's so diffucult to resolve a (4-of) one casting cost artifact and keep it on the table for a turn or two with a creature to support it, when your passage below suggests you find it easy to find and resolve Tinker without using Gifts Ungiven, protect the Tinker (from counterspells, Voidmage Prodigies, and Meddling Mages), protect the Colossus (from bounce, removal, Gilded Drakes, Bouncers, Stern Proctors, and the Vials that make them uncounterable), and ride it to victory v. an archetype renowed for its Colossus-hate.  There's a big difference between "theoretically possible" and "realistically likely" that you are overlooking here.     

Null Rod is a threat all on it's own.  Vial is merely one half of a threat.  And honestly, even if you have Vial out with 2 counters, I will attempt to combo out anyways.  If you have a threat, I lose, otherwise I win.  I like those odds, they are in my favor.  Since I would have drawn more cards and have more mana.

Given that you openly disavow attempting to contain Ninjas and Dark Confidants, I'm not sure what makes you take it so for granted that with 1 Ancestral Recall, some card disadvantage tutors & Scrolls for it, a possible Fact or Fiction, and some Gifts that you'll be significantly "[outdrawing]" Vial Fish.   

With Null Rod, I'm forced to find an answer before I can even consider going off.  I don't see how these are equal in any sense of the word.   

With Tormod's Crypt, you won't be going off, period.  When you bounce a Null Rod, everything is sunny and your artifacts are happy again.  By contrast, if/when you bounce a Tormod's Crypt you lose your graveyard and if/when you bounce a Vial the damage has usually already been done.  Vial and Crypt also hit the table reliably on turn one when drawn, unlike Null Rod which, absent acceleration, usually gives the Gifts player time to get Mana Drain online before letting it slip by early defenses.   

If I'm casting Massacre, I'm going off.  Since you have a Vial and possibly another thread, I still have a very likely chance of going off unhindered.  Gifts couldn't[/color] care less about Confidant or Ninja.  They are of no concern to the combo player. 

If I have a Vial in play, why would I ever fetch a Tundra v. a deck running black post-sideboard?  Massacre is going to run you 2BB half the time so you're better off with Pyroclasm.  Gifts should care about Dark Confidant more than Pitch Long because Gifts generally gives Fish more turns to mine for answers (which Fish will find fairly quickly) than Pitch Long.  Pitch Long shoudn't bat an eye at a Dark Confidant, and I've said that over and over in my thread in the Vintage Forum that you claim to be reading.  Again, you confront me with statements with which I largely agree.   

This is exactly the reason Gifts has TWO possible ways to win.  I also don't see how you can possibly call Tinker/Colossus "unenviable", when your only out is in fact Swords to Plowshares.

Forcing Gifts to rely on Tinker/Colossus, especially when its deactivated graveyard nullifies Gifts Ungiven as a means to acquire the Tinker, is an unenviable position for many reasons.  If you're as familiar with Gifts as you present yourself to be (and I believe you are very familiar with it), you probably know that the Tendrils kill is regarded as a lot more resilient than the Tinker kill.  Gifts players tend to prefer the Tendrils kill v. Fish because of Fish's wide reputation for hating out Darksteel Colossus.  Without your graveyard, Plan B becomes your only remaining option and this places your deck in a suboptimal position.  There's really no plausible way of denying that. 

And yet, you seem to think that Gifts can easily lose both of it's win conditions.  No, hardly.

Against a deck whose cardinal premise is to neutralize both of those win conditions, yes. 

I've played many a game against Stax where Flux came down and did nothing.  Stax hardly auto-loses to Flux, just as much as Gifts hardly auto-loses to Crypt.

You've taken my position of "hate cards don't drive popular decks out of the metagame" and misconstrued it as "major Vintage decks auto-lose to hate cards."  This warrants no response.     

People highly overrate 'hate' cards aimed at certain decks.  Seeing how games 2 and 3, the game swings in Gifts favor, I'm not entirely worried about Crypt.  I've won against the card plenty of times.

We've all won games from time to time against individual cards that hose our main strategies.  I've won several games after a resolved Massacre or Pyroclasm.  I don't see what that proves about the strength of those hosers, except that they are manageable.  Was that your point?

-Brian

[Zarathustra]

One final time, the role of permissor and controller are merged because the defining partition of the metagame is between decks that want to kill explosively, suddenly, and violently, and decks that aim to control and contain those fireworks.  Whether the latter types use mana denial, discard, graveyard hate, or counterspells to control the former type is irrelevant to the fact that they uniformly identify as what many of us would call "counter-Enigma" strategies.  Meandeck Gifts is neither a control deck nor a permission deck in today's cosmic Vintage scheme; it is an aggressive "Enigma" strategy that, like Pitch Long, incorporates permissive elements for the sole purpose of forcing through and powering out its own threats.  The lone exception here is the Meandeck Gifts v. Long match-up where it is necessary for Gifts to adopt the permissive/controlling role in order to survive.  Otherwise, Meandeck Gifts is invariably the aggressor.  Compare Meandeck Gifts to Control Slaver or even Brassman Gifts and you might have a better understanding of what this means.

Fine, I'll concede this point to you.  But, the biggest point I'm trying to get across is the idea that with no Null Rods or Wastelands and a bare amount of tempo boosters in the deck, Fish would be forced to play the role of countering Gifts spells.  Which, honestly, it cannot not do well enough.  If Fish has a way to bottleneck Gifts mana more effectively, then it can out-counter them, because Gifts has less resources(mana, cards, etc), than Fish.   

You have no real point here because I never defended the strength of this UW/g list v. Gifts.  If anything, I think this list is lacking a resilient answer to a resolved Colossus and see that as problematic.

And yet, you say this Fish deck beats Gifts.  I see this list has more problems than just a way to deal with Colossus.  This is why I'm trying to help. 

I'm having a hard time understanding why you think it's so diffucult to resolve a (4-of) one casting cost artifact and keep it on the table for a turn or two with a creature to support it, when your passage below suggests you find it easy to find and resolve Tinker without using Gifts Ungiven, protect the Tinker (from counterspells, Voidmage Prodigies, and Meddling Mages), protect the Colossus (from bounce, removal, Gilded Drakes, Bouncers, Stern Proctors, and the Vials that make them uncounterable), and ride it to victory v. an archetype renowed for its Colossus-hate.  There's a big difference between "theoretically possible" and "realistically likely" that you are overlooking here.

You're assuming way too much here.  First, you're only gonna get a Vial about 40% of the time on turn 1.  Second, you have to have a creature equal to the number of counters it on for it to be a threat.  Honestly, even with a Crypt in play it's not hard to find a Tinker.  I'm not gonna just sit there and wait around for you to pop Crypt.  There are ways to force you to pop it, or I could just draw cards off other spells.  Thirst for Knowledge, Skeletal Scrying(which against Crypt is a catch-22 for you), Fact...       

Given that you openly disavow attempting to contain Ninjas and Dark Confidants, I'm not sure what makes you take it so for granted that with 1 Ancestral Recall, some card disadvantage tutors & Scrolls for it, a possible Fact or Fiction, and some Gifts that you'll be significantly "[outdrawing]" Vial Fish.

Ninja's only draw's you cards.  It does nothing to slow the gamestate down.  Confidants are ~2-3 life for a card that I get to see.  Bob also does nothing to bottleneck my mana.  He does however, allow me to see what cards I should be afraid of.  I will still go off in the face of him or Ninja with next to no worries.

The deck has way more than 1 Ancestral Recall.  It has like FIVE.  If I do resolve a turn 1 Recall without any resistance, I'm way ahead.  This is what Gifts does the best - out-draw, out-mana, out-counter.  There is no significant hate to stop those three things in this deck or your Vial Fish.   

With Tormod's Crypt, you won't be going off, period.  When you bounce a Null Rod, everything is sunny and your artifacts are happy again.  By contrast, if/when you bounce a Tormod's Crypt you lose your graveyard and if/when you bounce a Vial the damage has usually already been done.  Vial and Crypt also hit the table reliably on turn one when drawn, unlike Null Rod which, absent acceleration, usually gives the Gifts player time to get Mana Drain online before letting it slip by early defenses.

Why would I even consider bouncing Crypt or Vial?  First, I know bouncing Crypt is futile.  Vial isn't a threat on it's own, so my best bet is to probably bounce the creature and go off in the face of Vial.

Almost everytime Null Rod comes down, the Gifts player will attempt to counter it, if he can't he'll go from around 4-5 mana, to about 2.  Not even considering what he's holding or what he'll draw.  Crypt and Vial only hurt one half of the combo and the deck can still draw cards and produce mana under Crypt and Vial.  Not so under Rod.   

If I have a Vial in play, why would I ever fetch a Tundra v. a deck running black post-sideboard?  Massacre is going to run you 2BB half the time so you're better off with Pyroclasm.  Gifts should care about Dark Confidant more than Pitch Long because Gifts generally gives Fish more turns to mine for answers (which Fish will find fairly quickly) than Pitch Long.  Pitch Long shoudn't bat an eye at a Dark Confidant, and I've said that over and over in my thread in the Vintage Forum that you claim to be reading.  Again, you confront me with statements with which I largely agree.

Ok, ya got me.  I'll Pyroclasm, whatever, I can still go off.  Again, Confidant costs you ~2-3 life a turn and I get to see all the cards you draw.  Furthermore, the card provides no real hinderance to my mana development or card drawing.  Even with drawing cards off Confidant, left to my own accord, Gifts develops much more rapidly.   

Forcing Gifts to rely on Tinker/Colossus, especially when its deactivated graveyard nullifies Gifts Ungiven as a means to acquire the Tinker, is an unenviable position for many reasons.  If you're as familiar with Gifts as you present yourself to be (and I believe you are very familiar with it), you probably know that the Tendrils kill is regarded as a lot more resilient than the Tinker kill.  Gifts players tend to prefer the Tendrils kill v. Fish because of Fish's wide reputation for hating out Darksteel Colossus.  Without your graveyard, Plan B becomes your only remaining option and this places your deck in a suboptimal position.  There's really no plausible way of denying that.

What I don't understand is Crypt is but one piece of the puzzle.  With only Crypt to worry with, I can just force you to pop it early and then still win.  I can still feasibly Gifts after a Crypt and still win.  I've won before with only 4-5 cards in my graveyard. 

Against a deck whose cardinal premise is to neutralize both of those win conditions, yes.

Yet, these deck don't truly neutralize the development of Gifts.  Merely, you suggest that they neutralize the win conditions, this is very different than stopping them from going off. 

You've taken my position of "hate cards don't drive popular decks out of the metagame" and misconstrued it as "major Vintage decks auto-lose to hate cards."  This warrants no response.

Hate cards are only as good as the deck they are in.  If you really think that you're gonna win on the back of hate, as opposed to winning on the back of pre-emptively beating them.  That is taking them out of the game.     

We've all won games from time to time against individual cards that hose our main strategies.  I've won several games after a resolved Massacre or Pyroclasm.  I don't see what that proves about the strength of those hosers, except that they are manageable.  Was that your point?

If Gifts cast Massacre/Pyroclasm, Gifts should very well win that turn.  That's my point.

[Implacable]

I have two things to say here.  While, as I said, I generally agree with Z', I urge both of you to tone down your posts in terms of hostility towards one another.  While anyone, including myself, can get easily frustrated in an argument, flames are not conducive to intellectual discourse.  Secondly, I would like to point out to Brian that he is ignoring the fact that when Z' talks about drawing cards, what he means is card advantage.  It must be remembered that Gifts itself is card-advantage in the extreme; while it is technically only 2-for-1, it also produces tempo by making the cards that you get in the future better draws (assuming that with your tutors, you can 'draw into' Will). 

[Engine_number_9]

As for the deck itself, I've incorported 2 wastelands, 1 strip and 1 crucible into the deck for -4 mana drains.

Would'nt Life of the Loam be a better choice than Crucible? It costs less and it is harder to counter. The drawback of lossing a draw should'nt matter when you are destroying a land a turn.

[Khahan]

I'm not really big on LftL unless I can ABUSE the graveyard. This deck doesn't do that. It has a whole 3 cards which are gy dependant. I think the cards I'd lose to dredging from Life are going to be more important.  There are no bombs. I need to draw my meddling mages, forces and predators to stop my opponents bombs. I cannot afford to lose them to the 'yard.

[brianpk80]

Zarathustra,  I encourage you to reconsider the preface to my earlier response and contemplate the three techniques I've identified in your debating style that weaken your credibility, because I find your latest response to be again littered with them.  Once again, they are: attributing quotes/arguments/positions to me that I never made, attempting to contradict me with statements with which I agree, and unduly focusing on semantics rather than substance (which is not the problem this time).     

But, the biggest point I'm trying to get across is the idea that with no Null Rods or Wastelands and a bare amount of tempo boosters in the deck, Fish would be forced to play the role of countering Gifts spells. 

Again, I'd invite you to either define what you mean by "tempo" or consider how cards other than Wasteland and Null Rod generate tempo in this match-up congruent with the principles in the article I directed you to earlier.   

You have no real point here because I never defended the strength of this UW/g list v. Gifts.  If anything, I think this list is lacking a resilient answer to a resolved Colossus and see that as problematic.

And yet, you say this Fish deck beats Gifts.  I see this list has more problems than just a way to deal with Colossus.  This is why I'm trying to help. 

(emphasis added)

I am disheartened to see you write this yet again, because I never defended this UW/g list as a threat to Meandeck Gifts. 

I'm having a hard time understanding why you think it's so diffucult to resolve a (4-of) one casting cost artifact and keep it on the table for a turn or two with a creature to support it, when your passage below suggests you find it easy to find and resolve Tinker without using Gifts Ungiven, protect the Tinker (from counterspells, Voidmage Prodigies, and Meddling Mages), protect the Colossus (from bounce, removal, Gilded Drakes, Bouncers, Stern Proctors, and the Vials that make them uncounterable), and ride it to victory v. an archetype renowed for its Colossus-hate.  There's a big difference between "theoretically possible" and "realistically likely" that you are overlooking here.

You're assuming way too much here.  First, you're only gonna get a Vial about 40% of the time on turn 1.  Second, you have to have a creature equal to the number of counters it on for it to be a threat.  Honestly, even with a Crypt in play it's not hard to find a Tinker.  I'm not gonna just sit there and wait around for you to pop Crypt.  There are ways to force you to pop it, or I could just draw cards off other spells.  Thirst for Knowledge, Skeletal Scrying(which against Crypt is a catch-22 for you), Fact...       

Unfortunately, I didn't assume anything.  I said "how is it any easier to to beat [my] Vial Fish with Colossus [without your graveyard as a Gifts-search resource] than it is for me to resolve and maintain a simple AEther Vial?"  You haven't answered that. 

Secondly, if you're running Thirst for Knowledge and Skeletal Scrying, then you are not playing Meandeck Gifts.  Finally, while I regret having to point out your rules error, Skeletal Scrying cannot be prevented with a Tormod's Crypt because removing the cards in your graveyard are part of its cost; just like Tinker's automatic loss of an artifact, the cards are gone before Scrying resolves. 

Given that you openly disavow attempting to contain Ninjas and Dark Confidants, I'm not sure what makes you take it so for granted that with 1 Ancestral Recall, some card disadvantage tutors & Scrolls for it, a possible Fact or Fiction, and some Gifts that you'll be significantly "[outdrawing]" Vial Fish.

(emphasis added)

The deck has way more than 1 Ancestral Recall.  It has like FIVE. 

This is an instance of attempting to contradict me with a statement that I've already acknowledged. 

Further, ignoring Ninjas and Confidants is about as reasonable as Gifts ignoring Library of Alexandria in the Slaver match-up.  It's never a good thing for your controlling opponent to start the game with a one-sided Howling Mine, even if your goal is to kill as soon as possible.

Why would I even consider bouncing Crypt or Vial?  First, I know bouncing Crypt is futile. 

You wouldn't always bounce either, but bouncing them at the right moment is occasionally the correct play.  This is why I wrote "if/when you bounce..." rather than "when you bounce..."

Vial isn't a threat on it's own, so my best bet is to probably bounce the creature and go off in the face of Vial.

Unfortunately, this underscores a fundamental misunderstanding of how Vial Fish works.  You don't Vial out a creature like True Believer before an opponent goes off; you hold it in your hand until the opponent tries to Tendrils you for 18 or cast Gifts Ungiven.  And at the risk of stating the obvious, what is the point of "bounc[ing]" a disruptive creature when there's a Vial in play?  Are you forgetting that the Vial can throw the creature back out at instant speed and that it cannot be countered?  One of the primary reasons Fish players run Vial is to negate bounce... 

Almost everytime Null Rod comes down, the Gifts player will attempt to counter it, if he can't he'll go from around 4-5 mana, to about 2.  Not even considering what he's holding or what he'll draw.  Crypt and Vial only hurt one half of the combo and the deck can still draw cards and produce mana under Crypt and Vial.  Not so under Rod.   

You missed my point.  That point was while Null Rod's effect is immediate and discomforting for the Gifts player, its effect is only as durable as the time it takes for the Gifts player to bounce it.  Tormod's Crypt and AEther Vial, on the other hand, hit the table sooner and their effects are permanent; they cannot be undone with a Chain of Vapor. 

What I don't understand is Crypt is but one piece of the puzzle.  With only Crypt to worry with, I can just force you to pop it early and then still win.  I can still feasibly Gifts after a Crypt and still win.  I've won before with only 4-5 cards in my graveyard. 

Nonsense.  Whatever successes you've had baiting Crypt with other players don't apply to me, and you shouldn't assume they do.  The only time I'd pop a Crypt would be if you bounced it, cast Yawgmoth's Will, or cast Recoup on Tinker.  That's it.  Well... ok, if you did something ridiculous post-sideboard like threw in Bazaar, Dragon, and Animate Dead, I'd Crypt you then too.   

Hate cards are only as good as the deck they are in.  If you really think that you're gonna win on the back of hate, as opposed to winning on the back of pre-emptively beating them.  That is taking them out of the game. 

Null Rod is hate.  Tormod's Crypt is hate.  Meddling Mage is hate.  Smokestack is hate.  In the Eye of Chaos is hate.  Cabal Therapy is hate.  Gorilla Shaman is hate.  Triskelion is hate.  Players win "on the back of hate" all the time.     

I have two things to say here.  While, as I said, I generally agree with Z', I urge both of you to tone down your posts in terms of hostility towards one another.  While anyone, including myself, can get easily frustrated in an argument, flames are not conducive to intellectual discourse.  Secondly, I would like to point out to Brian that he is ignoring the fact that when Z' talks about drawing cards, what he means is card advantage.  It must be remembered that Gifts itself is card-advantage in the extreme; while it is technically only 2-for-1, it also produces tempo by making the cards that you get in the future better draws (assuming that with your tutors, you can 'draw into' Will). 

This would be a nice interjection in an actual flame war.  Fortunately, the exchanges here have been civil and based entirely on the substance of raised arguments.  Significantly, they lack the crude ad hominem attacks, spelling/grammar nitpicks, and foul language that tend to accompany those types of illbred battles.  Even more importantly, it seems we have largely been supporting/explaining our conclusions with facts and ideas that (sometimes) logically connect to them.  Compare:

"You don't know what you're talking about, you've obviously never played against this f$%*)ng deck!"

to

"You're assuming way too much here.  First, you're only gonna get a Vial about 40% of the time on turn 1.  Second, you have to have a creature equal to the number of counters it on for it to be a threat.  Honestly, even with a Crypt in play it's not hard to find a Tinker.  I'm not gonna just sit there and wait around for you to pop Crypt.  There are ways to force you to pop it, or I could just draw cards off other spells.  Thirst for Knowledge, Skeletal Scrying(which against Crypt is a catch-22 for you), Fact...  " (by Zarathustra)     

This may help to illustrate that, while there have been fierce disagreements, this has been a healthy debate overall. 

Civility and constructive, insightful, quasi-academic discourse are the hallmarks of The Mana Drain's excellent reputation.  I encourage everyone to engage each other with respect.  That said, this is not a forum where anyone can expect to be coddled for making unsubstantiated claims or using dishonest debating techniques.  Pointing out the flaws in both debate and merits helps all parties grow in terms of substantive learning and ability to contribute more positively now and in the future. 

Finally, I already acknowledged Gifts Ungiven itself as a yielder of card-advantage and am well aware of its card-quality factor.   

Thanks for the input,

-Brian

[Implacable]

This would be a nice interjection in an actual flame war.  Fortunately, the exchanges here have been civil and based entirely on the substance of raised arguments.  Significantly, they lack the crude ad hominem attacks, spelling/grammar nitpicks, and foul language that tend to accompany those types of illbred battles.  Even more importantly, it seems we have largely been supporting/explaining our conclusions with facts and ideas that (sometimes) logically connect to them. 

What began as a few open suggestions for an otherwise casual deck has been commandeered as a soapbox for you to vent your frustrations at an entire sub-archetype that you appear to understand only minimally.

The second quote belies the first one.  It is simply a thinking man's flame.  I encourage you to, as I did, look over your previous posts and think about how they might be emotionally construed.


 

[brianpk80]

The second quote belies the first one.  It is simply a thinking man's flame.  I encourage you to, as I did, look over your previous posts and think about how they might be emotionally construed.

If you have to mine hundreds of lines of dialogue to find a single line of accurate criticism that "might be emotionally construed" as a "thinking man's flame" then you're dealing with something quite distinct from the illusion of an empty flame-war you are ardently striving to paint here.  If you have any further concerns, please bring them to my attention via private message.   

Nevertheless, kudos to you for trying to do what you believe is best for the community,

-Brian

[Zarathustra]

Again, I'd invite you to either define what you mean by "tempo" or consider how cards other than Wasteland and Null Rod generate tempo in this match-up congruent with the principles in the article I directed you to earlier.

I've read the article before.  Tempo is simple.  Tempo is gained through mana development, out-drawing an opponent, or even through time advantage.  Combo's tempo is mostly about all of these.  Through Wasteland and Null Rod, Fish basically combats this tempo.  You stop the mana, you stop the drawing, and you inevitably slow the game down.  This is when Fish wins.

I would love to hear how Crypt and Vial create tempo.     

I am disheartened to see you write this yet again, because I never defended this UW/g list as a threat to Meandeck Gifts.

Then, it might help for you to give some tips to make this deck better, rather than trying to prove me wrong about the tempo aspect. 

Unfortunately, I didn't assume anything.  I said "how is it any easier to to beat [my] Vial Fish with Colossus [without your graveyard as a Gifts-search resource] than it is for me to resolve and maintain a simple AEther Vial?"  You haven't answered that.

You've missed my point, again.  Given the fact that Vial produces no tempo gain alone, I still draw more cards and gain more mana faster.  I also have way more tutors than you.  Gifts is the name of the deck, but I can win without casting it. 

Secondly, if you're running Thirst for Knowledge and Skeletal Scrying, then you are not playing Meandeck Gifts.  Finally, while I regret having to point out your rules error, Skeletal Scrying cannot be prevented with a Tormod's Crypt because removing the cards in your graveyard are part of its cost; just like Tinker's automatic loss of an artifact, the cards are gone before Scrying resolves.

I believe I've been saying Gifts.  Not, Meandeck Gifts.  Then I regret having to point out that I have tremendous card advantage over you.  At which point, Crypt hardly matters. 

Further, ignoring Ninjas and Confidants is about as reasonable as Gifts ignoring Library of Alexandria in the Slaver match-up.  It's never a good thing for your controlling opponent to start the game with a one-sided Howling Mine, even if your goal is to kill as soon as possible.

Confidant hardly compares to Library in Slaver.  Confidant costs you life and I see the cards.  I have no idea how that even compares to Library, which is clearly broken. 
 

Unfortunately, this underscores a fundamental misunderstanding of how Vial Fish works.  You don't Vial out a creature like True Believer before an opponent goes off; you hold it in your hand until the opponent tries to Tendrils you for 18 or cast Gifts Ungiven.  And at the risk of stating the obvious, what is the point of "bounc[ing]" a disruptive creature when there's a Vial in play?  Are you forgetting that the Vial can throw the creature back out at instant speed and that it cannot be countered?  One of the primary reasons Fish players run Vial is to negate bounce...

Honestly, what pertinence does my understanding of Vial Fish have to do with this thread?  You speak as if this deck actually features Vial.  Yet it does not.  However, you still are adamantly upholding the fact that Vial is a threat.  Here’s a situation.  Gifts has won the die roll and chooses to play first.

The Gifts player plays: Land, Mox Sapphire, Mox Emerald.  Taps Land, Emerald for Merchant Scroll, fetch Recall, go.

Fish draws, plays: Land, Mox, Vial.

Both players have had their turns, Gifts is clearly on top.  Now, Vial has no counters, therefore, no relevance.  Yet, the Gifts player clearly is a mana away from being able to cast Gifts and will be able to cast Recall at the end of you turn.

There’s a number of spells that would grant the Fish player some tempo in this situation. 

Null Rod is hate.  Tormod's Crypt is hate.  Meddling Mage is hate.  Smokestack is hate.  In the Eye of Chaos is hate.  Cabal Therapy is hate.  Gorilla Shaman is hate.  Triskelion is hate.  Players win "on the back of hate" all the time.

Null Rod and Meddling Mage are integral parts to a deck strategy.  Same as Smokestack.  Without the other parts of Stax, Smokestack doesn’t apply the kind of pressure Stax wants.  In the Eye is mostly good against control, along with the other lock pieces.  Therapy is discard, thus a strategy and not hate.  Shaman is also a tempo piece.  Not entirely sure what makes you think Trike is hate.  It’s a kill condition, along with a way to combat aggro.

I fail to see how these compare to Crypt.


Honestly, this whole thread has turned into you trying to defend Vials and Crypts.  And Khahan’s deck doesn’t even feature Vials.  So, I’m honestly done arguing over this.  You seem to be hellbent on proving that your idea of Fish is correct, all the while not even trying to help Khahan.  If you want to prove Vial’s are good, then prove it on your own thread.

You wanted me to read “Putting it all Together”, yet you give me no reason how Vial alone is a threat.  Or even how Vial along produces tempo.

[brianpk80]

I've read the article before.  Tempo is simple.  Tempo is gained through mana development, out-drawing an opponent, or even through time advantage.  Combo's tempo is mostly about all of these.  Through Wasteland and Null Rod, Fish basically combats this tempo.  You stop the mana, you stop the drawing, and you inevitably slow the game down.  This is when Fish wins.

I would love to hear how Crypt and Vial create tempo.     

"Tempo is an increase in the value of your future turn-limited resources, relative to your opponent." (Jacob Orlove, "Putting It All Together")

Those future turn-limited resources are: the untap phase, draw, the land drop, and the attack phase.  Because of its relative nature, anything that denies any of the above to the opponent likewise generates "tempo."  Null Rod and Wasteland generate tempo, for sure.  So do about 5,000 other cards in the game.  Under this definition, "tempo" contemplates an investment in a future pay-off.  If you can't figure out how AEther Vial and Tormod's Crypt generate tempo on your own, then we shouldn't be having this discussion. 

I am disheartened to see you write this yet again, because I never defended this UW/g list as a threat to Meandeck Gifts.

Then, it might help for you to give some tips to make this deck better, rather than trying to prove me wrong about the tempo aspect. 

Hmmm, I've already given two rounds of tips, many of which have been adopted...
And again, it might have been in your best interest to have avoided pretending that I ever suggested this build would beat Gifts.   

You've missed my point, again.  Given the fact that Vial produces no tempo gain alone, I still draw more cards and gain more mana faster.  I also have way more tutors than you.  Gifts is the name of the deck, but I can win without casting it. 

See above on tempo and AEther Vial. 

I believe I've been saying Gifts.  Not, Meandeck Gifts. 

You should have clarified that from the onset. 

Confidant hardly compares to Library in Slaver.  Confidant costs you life and I see the cards.  I have no idea how that even compares to Library, which is clearly broken. 

Nonsense.  Dark Confidant is about 500% more prevalent in today's metagame than Library of Alexandria because only a handful of decks can abuse the latter.  Usually, you want to get your blue mana set up as early as possible and sacfiricing mana development for an early Library isn't the bomb today that it was in the much slower 1990's.   

The Confidant is a walking Library that doesn't hog your early land drops, doesn't require seven cards in hand, and swings for two every turn.  The drawback of life loss and revealing the card are very minimal.  Why would anyone care that an opponent sees a creature or land during upkeep that is going to be played five seconds later on main phase anyway?  And finally, if you have an active Vial in play and are revealing creatures with a Dark Confidant, if anything the reveal is a psychological advantage.  Why, you may ask?  No one in their right might would play Tinker knowing the opponent has an uncounterable instant-speed bounce-creature or Gilded Drake in hand.  That would be a horrible misplay.  Likewise an opponent knowing you have at least one Force of Will in hand is going to think twice about... well, everything.

Honestly, what pertinence does my understanding of Vial Fish have to do with this thread?  You speak as if this deck actually features Vial.  Yet it does not.  However, you still are adamantly upholding the fact that Vial is a threat. 

Your understanding of Vial Fish is critical here because you were in fact the one who brought my Vial Fish build into this thread (do you not remember that?).  You then proceeded to criticize it without having ever seen it in play.  Now you claim that your understanding of the Vial Fish build you brought up should have no pertinence in this thread.  If you can't defend your points, you shouldn't make them.  This is a cardinal rule of The Mana Drain and I hope you will become more acclimated to that guideline in the future. 

Here’s a situation.  Gifts has won the die roll and chooses to play first.

The Gifts player plays: Land, Mox Sapphire, Mox Emerald.  Taps Land, Emerald for Merchant Scroll, fetch Recall, go.

Fish draws, plays: Land, Mox, Vial.

Both players have had their turns, Gifts is clearly on top.  Now, Vial has no counters, therefore, no relevance.  Yet, the Gifts player clearly is a mana away from being able to cast Gifts and will be able to cast Recall at the end of you turn.

I'm not going to bother explaining to you why Vial Fish is actually in a better position here because, based on your prior responses, I don't think it would penetrate.  Before your criticism went off the deep end, I extended you an offer to play test this match so you would gain some valuable insight on the mechanics of how it plays out.  You neglected to take me up on that offer, so my advice for you would be to find a testing partner who knows how to pilot Vial Fish (it's much harder than Null Rod Fish so you're going to need an experienced expert) and interact with him/her for your own benefit.  
 

Null Rod and Meddling Mage are integral parts to a deck strategy.  Same as Smokestack.  Without the other parts of Stax, Smokestack doesn’t apply the kind of pressure Stax wants.  In the Eye is mostly good against control, along with the other lock pieces.  Therapy is discard, thus a strategy and not hate.  Shaman is also a tempo piece.  Not entirely sure what makes you think Trike is hate.  It’s a kill condition, along with a way to combat aggro.

I suppose it might be beneficial for me to explain why these cards qualify as hate.  For the fourth time, the defining divide of the metagame is between lightning speed power-card-abusing decks and decks that combat them with discard, graveyard hate, removal, counters, and mana disruption.  Anything outside of counterspells in the latter category are regarded as instruments of hate-strategies.  It couldn't be any simpler. 

Honestly, this whole thread has turned into you trying to defend Vials and Crypts.  And Khahan’s deck doesn’t even feature Vials.  So, I’m honestly done arguing over this.  You seem to be hellbent on proving that your idea of Fish is correct, all the while not even trying to help Khahan.  If you want to prove Vial’s are good, then prove it on your own thread.

I don't have a thread on AEther Vial and we don't need one because experienced Vintage players have known how and why AEther Vial is good for years now.

You wanted me to read “Putting it all Together”, yet you give me no reason how Vial alone is a threat.  Or even how Vial along produces tempo.

 
This is hopeless.

-BPK

[Zarathustra]

I've read the article before.  Tempo is simple.  Tempo is gained through mana development, out-drawing an opponent, or even through time advantage.  Combo's tempo is mostly about all of these.  Through Wasteland and Null Rod, Fish basically combats this tempo.  You stop the mana, you stop the drawing, and you inevitably slow the game down.  This is when Fish wins.

I would love to hear how Crypt and Vial create tempo.     

"Tempo is an increase in the value of your future turn-limited resources, relative to your opponent." (Jacob Orlove, "Putting It All Together")

Those future turn-limited resources are: the untap phase, draw, the land drop, and the attack phase.  Because of its relative nature, anything that denies any of the above to the opponent likewise generates "tempo."  Null Rod and Wasteland generate tempo, for sure.  So do about 5,000 other cards in the game.  Under this definition, "tempo" contemplates an investment in a future pay-off.  If you can't figure out how AEther Vial and Tormod's Crypt generate tempo on your own, then we shouldn't be having this discussion.

Thank you for summarizing what I said above.  I've asked you plain and simple how Vial and Crypt stunt Gifts mana production, card drawing, and time advantage.

Don't insult me by saying "if you don't know this, then we shouldn't be talking."   

Hmmm, I've already given two rounds of tips, many of which have been adopted...
And again, it might have been in your best interest to have avoided pretending that I ever suggested this build would beat Gifts.

Exactly, this list cannot beat Gifts.  So, how are my points off?  You seem to think I'm wrong on almost every point I've made, yet you seem to agree this list doesn't beat Gifts.     

See above on tempo and AEther Vial.

You don't have to hold my hand.  I've explained tempo.  Yet, you seem to not be able to explain how Vial creates said tempo. 

You should have clarified that from the onset.

All my previous posts have said "Gifts", you keep on saying "Meandeck Gifts".  Read back to my first post that even mentioned Gifts.  Either way, the strategy is the same for beating Gifts, which this deck cannot do.  I'm glad we finally agree. 

Nonsense.  Dark Confidant is about 500% more prevalent in today's metagame than Library of Alexandria because only a handful of decks can abuse the latter.  Usually, you want to get your blue mana set up as early as possible and sacfiricing mana development for an early Library isn't the bomb today that it was in the much slower 1990's.   

The Confidant is a walking Library that doesn't hog your early land drops, doesn't require seven cards in hand, and swings for two every turn.  The drawback of life loss and revealing the card are very minimal.  Why would anyone care that an opponent sees a creature or land during upkeep that is going to be played five seconds later on main phase anyway?  And finally, if you have an active Vial in play and are revealing creatures with a Dark Confidant, if anything the reveal is a psychological advantage.  Why, you may ask?  No one in their right might would play Tinker knowing the opponent has an uncounterable instant-speed bounce-creature or Gilded Drake in hand.  That would be a horrible misplay.  Likewise an opponent knowing you have at least one Force of Will in hand is going to think twice about... well, everything.

The mere fact that I get to see what you have in your hand and you take life is what makes Confidant a lot less strong against a fast deck.  Unless you have a way to stop what Gifts does with the cards drawn, Confidant doesn't do much for Fish.

Your understanding of Vial Fish is critical here because you were in fact the one who brought my Vial Fish build into this thread (do you not remember that?).  You then proceeded to criticize it without having ever seen it in play.  Now you claim that your understanding of the Vial Fish build you brought up should have no pertinence in this thread.  If you can't defend your points, you shouldn't make them.  This is a cardinal rule of The Mana Drain and I hope you will become more acclimated to that guideline in the future.

I do remember.  But, do remember all the times I've asked how Vial creates tempo?  What makes you think I have to test every deck in order to understand it? 

Please, don't try to moderate me. 

I'm not going to bother explaining to you why Vial Fish is actually in a better position here because, based on your prior responses, I don't think it would penetrate.  Before your criticism went off the deep end, I extended you an offer to play test this match so you would gain some valuable insight on the mechanics of how it plays out.  You neglected to take me up on that offer, so my advice for you would be to find a testing partner who knows how to pilot Vial Fish (it's much harder than Null Rod Fish so you're going to need an experienced expert) and interact with him/her for your own benefit.

You just keep going in circles.  I feel like this whole post is attacking me.  I state a good example.  In that example, a turn 1 Null Rod or Wasteland sets up the Fish player pretty well.  Null Rod, pretty much negates the card advantage gained off Ancestral Recall.  Not to mention, the Gifts player will certainly have dead draws, further negating their card advantage.  This is what I mean.  Null Rod IS perfect for Fish.  You stop the mana, you stop the card advantage, ultimately stopping the clock.

Yet, in this response, you tell me that without having played against Vial Fish, I miss it's tempo.  How?  An explaination as to how Fish playing -  Land, Mox, Vial against Land, Mox Sapphire, Mox Emerald, Merch Scroll for Ancestral - creates tempo would be great.  Because, I see at least two full turns in which you have very few outs in the way of stopping Gifts.

Now, I am finally done with this thread.  You've done a real good job attacking me this thread.  I asked quiet simply HOW tempo is created by a turn 1 Vial against Gifts.  If you can't even describe this to me, then I have nothing more to say.

Maybe Khahan wants to chime in.  I'll be more than happy to help him with anything further with this deck.  
 

[GrandpaBelcher]

Aether Vial is a tempo boost because, played early, it effectively gives you two turns' worth of mana.  For example, if you play the Vial on turn one, second turn you have two lands to use and one "mana" from the Aether Vial to play a creature.  Effectively, you're on turn three (or, more accurately, turns one and two simultaneously).  The next turn, you'll have three lands and two "mana" from the Aether Vial, putting you on turn five.  You're not slowing down your opponent, your speeding yourself up, the same way Moxes, Mana Crypt, Black Lotus, etc. allow you to.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Aether Vial because I hate losing that first turn to play a relatively fragile artifact, even if I'll theoretically make it up later.  I'm much more a fan of spell-based disruption like Stifle and would rather save my mana for that and drop a creature next turn.  Also, I much prefer Null Rod.

That said, Dark Confidant is amazing, and his "drawback" of revealing cards to my opponent rarely is a drawback.  Even if I flip a Force of Will with Confidant, I'm likely to win.  My opponent is more cautious about walking into the counter, and, hey, I'm holding Force of Will in my hand, which makes me happy.  Confidant does tons for Fish because every card in Fish should act as a threat or disruption, so getting multiple cards per turn is what makes you win.  I've bobbed Force of Will eight times in a tournament, and the only time I've lost to that play is once when I was playing against URB Fish (knowing I'd probably side Forces out for game 2) or when I did it twice in a row to two Confidants in play and was at 10 life.

Neither Aether Vial nor Confidant is a direct threat.  Aether Vial does nothing without an appropriate creature in hand to use it.  And with nothing else going on, Confidant is just a 2/1 black guy who might hopefully equalize the life he takes during your upkeep step by dealing damage during the combat step.  Either one left unchecked, though, will push Fish closer and closer to winning.

With all that out of the way.  This thread has gotten into ridiculous bickering.

I assert that UG Fish or UWG Fish would be excellent metagame choices where everyone else is playing UW Fish or some  lesser form of Fish (UB anyone?).  The ability to play bigger, more damaging creatures like Mongrel and his sidekick the BRootwalla, Jotun Grunt, heck, maybe even  River Boa makes it very strong against aggro-disruption decks.  Unfortunately, its strengths against other Fish decks make it weak against more aggressive combo builds like Gifts and PitchLong.  Except for white cards like Jotun Grunt, Meddling Mage, and True Believer (which put you into an already solid UW build), you get no more real disruption from green.  Therefore, UG or UWG Fish, like all Fish builds, will succeed or fail based on the decks they oppose.

[brianpk80]

I would love to hear how Crypt and Vial create tempo.     

AEther Vial creates tempo by increasing the value of Fish's untap phase, granting it an additional renewable resource every turn to cheat mana costs.  It increases the future value of Fish's land drops by enabling Fish to dedicate its mana base to other spells and land drops to Strip Mine, Library of Alexandria, and even Bazaar of Baghdad in some builds.  It increases the value of Fish's future draws that are creatures because with a Vial in play they are free to cast and immune from countermagic and bounce.  Finally, by fortifying the resilience of the creatures themselves, Vial enables Fish to increase the future value of its attack phase.  You'll note that these points of tempo relate directly to the criteria in Orlove's article, not the simplified definition proposed earlier.  That is why I posted his definition here.     

Conversely, AEther Vial weakens the value of Gifts' future draws by weakening the value of Gifts' Mana Drains, Force of Wills, and Misdirection.  A resolved Vial means the Fish player does not have to cast another spell to win.  For the rest of the game, he/she can and will exploit the Vial instead.  Hence, each counter drawn by Gifts will be moot.  Then by fortifying creatures like Voidmage Prodigy, Gilded Drake, Stern Proctor, and Waterfront Bouncer (immunizing them from countermagic and enabling them to enter play at instant speed), Vial detracts from the value of Tinker and all future draws, spells, and mana expended to resolve it.  Likewise, by fortifying Meddling Mage, Children of Korlis, again Voidmage Prodigy, and True Believer, AEther Vial weakens the value of Yawgmoth's Will, its Tendrils culmination, and any draw spells and mana expended to execute the kill.  By weakening the value of Gifts' future draws, AEther Vial increases the relative value of Fish's future draws thus generating tempo for the Fish player.

Tormod's Crypt creates negative tempo by negating the value of all future draws (including draw spells, tutors, lands, acceleration) and mana expended in pursuit of graveyard abuse.  The negative effect on the opponent increases the relative future value of Fish's draws. 

Unless you have a way to stop what Gifts does with the cards drawn, Confidant doesn't do much for Fish.

What makes you think I have to test every deck in order to understand it? 

You're on your own with these.

Since the discussion here seems to be drawing to a close, in conclusion I have a note to add.  While there have been some heated disagreements over card choices and match-ups, I respect and acknowledge that you've kept your posts clean of profanity, direct ad hominem attacks, and have tried to reinforce your conclusions with supporting arguments.  I hope you were able to learn something about alternate theories of Fish and encourage you to continue exploring the many different avenues it employs to disrupt decks like the one you are currently piloting.

All the best,

-Brian