what is the best way to stick goyf in fish?

[the boogie man]

  I have tried for a while, but it seems really difficult to stick goyf into a ubg fish build. Without white, you lose stp and mage, both of which are very solid. One of the more prominent problems I've been having is finding solid creatures besides confidant and goofy.

  One creature that may fit is spellstutter sprite. It's a counterspell and a threat, albeit a small one. It does fly, though. This makes me want to run equipment, which isn't necessarily a terrible idea. A couple of jittes would go a long way. As long as counterspell creatures go, what  about grimoire theif or voidmage prodigy?

   The other issue is actual draw engine. Gush could work, and as long as all of the creatures cost 2 mana, aether vial could be played. Not only would that alleviate a lot of the drawback of not having land in play, but you could do a lot of other stuff instead of cast creatures, especially if you play with the sprites. Root maze also looks great here. If the gush engine just won't jive, I'd be very comfortable running sword of fire/ice as a one-or-two of, because it would seem you could not reliably pay for it, especially if you skimped on mana because of vial.

   I really like what rootmaze does, especially in conjunction with stifle and wasteland. Fetchlands are slowed to a crawl, which buys time for goyf and friends to beat face. Also, vial really helps make rootmaze much more one-sided. plus, with rootmaze out, shop players can't just toss out blockers.

  As far as disruption goes, force is mandatory, as is a certain number of duress. Maybe a split heavier in thoughtseize's favor considering you no longer have stp. jittes also help for critter control. Chalice is always a favorite, but I don't know if it is needed with rootmaze there. What can replace the stps, though? darkblast, ghastly demise, or something like engineered explosives? i really like explosives, but I'd be worried about blowing up a ton of my own permanents.

Here is a decklist for starters:

4 goyf
4 bob
4 sprite

2 jitte

4 force
4 rootmaze
3 seize
2 duress
1 echoing truth

4 brainstorm
4 vial
2 ancestral walk
2 demonic vamp
1 ponder

4 polluted delta
1 strand
3 underground sea
3 tropical
1 basics
3 strip effects
1 mishras factory

3 lotus, mox, mox
(maybe another mox, or maybe a lotus petal)

this is still a very new idea, and I could be going about this all wrong.

   Here are a couple of cards that float in and out of my head:
bitterblossom, waterfront bouncer, zombie fest, trygon predator, and extirpate. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Lemnear]

Fish is basically a deck that is based on cheap disruption in order to slow the opponent down an beat him with few tool-creatures like meddling mage etc. The problem is that this will cause a lack of speed that hurts against almost any aggro deck. To add green makes it more aggro like Legacys Threshold. So a few of my mates who have no access to power do so and created various 3c and 4c builds.

Simply they grab a Legacy Theshold an realize what to beat in Vintage ... Tyrant Oath, Flash, Staxx, GaT, maybe various Storm-combo ... so the deck changes a bit due to the metagame. Few of them I want to show here.

Take a look on the colors. Most of my comunity decide to run 4c that often results in a very ... lets say ... interesting mana base, that do the job. But not well. I think that 3 colors is pretty good. The descision is that color to drop. Loosing StoP and Meddling Mage hurts but green gives you access to Goyf and LftL. Goyf gives you aggro and Life from the Loam a softlock via Wasteland. Some things I really can't understand is for example why you want to run Gush without fastbond. Moreover you run black but dismiss Vamp. and Dem. Tutor to grab your essential spells like Ancestral or echoing truth. ET is useless if you have to topdeck it, facing a mob of EtW-Tokens. I also miss Stifle, a control-element due to the mass of Fetchlands, EE, Strom-spells etc. At last you reduce your Duress-effects to add vial. You are not that aggro that you have the quantity or quality of beaters to simply overrun any opponent ... you always write that you want to get rid of creatures/threads of your opponent. Duress/Thoughtseize do this pretty cheap/fast (won't miss it if you face Flash). Rootmaze is nice because is slows the opponent down, but you have to ask yourself if Nullrod isn't simply the best. Finally a word to EE. You will not clear your own field if you play it right. Clear the field and then go for gold with your creatures ... please not the other way round  It will help you also with the named EtW, Goyfs, Dryads even Oath of druids.

Sorry if this post seems a bit harsh but I think you should basically decide if you want to play fish Or playing GaT with Bob (which is simply stupid because of all the expensive spells a la FoW, Misd. or Gush). With your access to power I would prefer playing GaT anyway.

[the boogie man]

   Leaving vamp and demonic and fastbond are things that should be in there, I typed this very late last night. I'll edit my first post to include things that should be in there. Another duress effect could be a good choice, too.

   Maybe gush isn't the way to go. It really is a robust, easy to abuse card advantage engine, but bob doesn't jive with the mana cost, and cutting it could mean another fetch and possibly a factory.

   Also, I tried real hard, but where can stifle go? I really like the vials, but they are the only things I can think to cut. This would make sprites suck a lot more, but they could potentially be cut for other threats. Maybe chopping a wasteland and adding another 1 or two factories would increase threat density enough. But what could replace the sprites?

[hauntedechos]

Not to derail this thread, but the same issue has been brought up in the Open forums.  The thread is older and undoubtedly will become more indepth.  Certainly carry on here, but you might get more out of it in the Open thread.

[AmbivalentDuck]

It is worth pointing out that Root Maze is only strong when it's asymmetrical.  Using something like Spirit Guides to guarantee a turn 2 *threat* is important.

Also, check out Dawn of the Dead: it's a fishy build that runs Goyfs.

[Lemnear]

@Duck
As I can remember Dawn of the Dead runs Bazaar?! I'm trying to build around fish not changing the deck in the basement by involving a completely different machanic in it.

@boogie
I asked my mates 'bout the other creatures in the deck and Confident + Goyf seems to be the best choice. But actually a third creature is bit difficult. Some play Moongoose (seems too legacy to me), others expand their drawengine by using ponder/ancestral vision to grab them (they told me, that with all the duress, stilfe, daze and Forces they run you'll have the time to wait for Vision) and at least the Trinket Mage + Counterbalance tech is involved in their fishy meta. But the last one will call for Dradnought and that too changes the deck.

So I agree with echoes ... take a look on the thread in the open forum. Guess it helps much more than starting a new, pointing out the same problems.