Fish! (?)

[ZoneSeek]

I'm definitely planning on taking Fish to Origins, and you'll all hear about it in tournament reports if I do any decent. I play a fairly standard mono-blue build. I found the red splash to be completely unnecessary. I have no problem investing mana if it involves sending guys sideways.

Cunning Wish really is far too slow for Fish. Merchant Scroll, on the other hand, has been really sexy in preliminary testing, especially if I bring in quirky things from the sideboard. Annul, Blue Elemental Blast, Disrupt, and Stifle are all great spells to bring in. I wouldn't dream of cutting Blue Elemental Blast - it pops Welders and Blood Moons above all, and lord knows they give Fish fits. Boarding in enough Annuls and Blue Elemental Blasts is the key to winning the horrid TnT matchup.

[pernicious dude]

TnT is one deck I just never had trouble beating.
Maindeck I had
Psi Blast for the Su-Chi,
Fire for the Welders,
Null Rod for the Triskelion/ Masticore,
Maze of Ith for everybody,
and Viashino Heretic on the side for increased scoopage.
Blood Moon makes it easier to play my red-based hate.

DuckTape, on the other hand, flat out owned me.
That's pretty much when I set the deck aside.
Do the blue artifact answers sufficiently help the DuckTape matchup?

I like Suq-Ata Firewalker over Chill for several reasons.
It can kill your opponent,
doesn't die to a top-decked Red Elemental Blast,
makes a perfect Curiosity target,
and is good in other weenie matchups.

I've won more games than I've lost under both Blood Moon and Back To Basics,
without any Blasts of either sex, side or main.
Just get a Basic Island on the table.

[Moxlotus]

I am testing Fish for an expected GenCon meta.  Here is a list which is fairly similar to others with a few modifications that I have been testing:

Dudes:
4-LoA
4-Mike Long
4-Manta Rider
4-Cloud of Fairies

Spells:
4-Fow
2-Mis'D
1-Ancestral
1-Time Walk
4-Curiosity
3-Standstill
2-Psionic Blast
2-Stifle  
3-Fire/Ice

Land:
6-Island
4-Volcanic Island
4-Fetch
4-Mishra's Factory
1-Library
1-Strip

Board:
4-REB(Anything with blue)
3-Annul (could become energy flux)
3-Gilded Drake(Hulk, Mask)
3-Chill(Sligh)
2-Stifle(Trix, utility card whenever something in the deck totally sucks)

So far in my testing I have concluded that Cloud of Fairies is one of the most underrated cards in the deck, which is why i have chosen it over the R/U tim. I originally had 2 Merchant Scroll, but I cut those for 2 Islands as I was getting mana screwed too often. I find that Null Rod was too useless in too many matches and was sided out almost all of the time.

Also, Stifle is a house. It can target so many things. Rectors, Illusions come and leave play ability, Wastes, Deeds, Kegs, Fetches, Masticores, and Welders(for a turn, but it may be enough).

Testing so far has been limited to only a few hours but here are some primary conclusions:

Keeper: it is pretty even. After boarding, even with REBs, Keeper has between 6-8 spot removal between StP and REBs. But all you really need is to hit 2 times with Mike Long to take his Morphlings/whatever win condition is being run. You can even use the tag team of Stifle and Psi Blast to take down a Superman if only 1 blue is left untapped (and you get definite style points for taking down the best creature ever with a T2 card  ) . Lord can help you islandwalk past the Morphling if that's his only line of defense

Trix: Again, Stifle can be a severe pain in the ass, stopping anything from fetch, Rector, keep you from dying to Illusions or used to stop his 20 lifegain if he's in range or needs it to abuse Bargain. The only thing Trix can really bring in is a few Abeyance. All you have to do is keep the Bargain off the table. Again, Lord can islandwalk your guys over the Rector. Even without, all of the other creatures can fly.

TNT: I get assraped pretty much every time. I've been using Annul, but it seems that Energy Flux would end be able to practically win the game, or at the very least make it much harder for him to keep multiple FAT on the table. Of course, I havent tested against Stax yet, so Annul may be necessary.

Suicide: Pure ownage. Unless they get first AND second turn negator the game is pretty easy.

I havent tested against Sligh or Hulk yet. Sligh CAN bring in an additional 8 target removal, key word can. I dont know if it has 8 cards worth taking out for all of them. I suspect good news against Hulk as islandwalk and/or flying can get around Dr. Teeth. From the board comes 4 REBs and 3 Gilded Drakes. I will update as testing shows results.

[Rico Suave]

Quote (Moxlotus @ June 22 2003,01:43)The only thing Trix can really bring in is a few Abeyance.

Who boards in Abeyance, especially in the face of Misdirection?

I bring in the Abyss against Fish.  That and Balance.  Those two are quite the house.

[Moxlotus]

When your opponent has 4 FoW, 4 REB and 4 Stifle, I would definitely board in Abeyance, regardless of a few Mis'D. I forgot about Balance, that does sweep the board if it gets through.

[Rico Suave]

REB is weak.  Misdirection is better than REB against Trix.

And the deck has plenty of disruption for the other cards.  Taking away already good cards for some moredisruption which now backfires on you is just not good.  When I face Fish, I board in Abyss and Balance.  That's it.  The maindeck is too precious to be boarding in overkill.

[Magimaster]

Quote (Rico Suave @ June 22 2003,14:58)REB is weak.  Misdirection is better than REB against Trix.

I'm trying, but I can't find a reason why this should be.

REB kills Illusions, counters Donate, and counters FoW, in addition to the blue goodness.

MisD can nail FoW, a Cabal Therapy (which is irrelevant because it wants to be in the graveyard anyways) and a Non-kicked Rushing River, as well as the usual Timewalk/Ancestral stuff.

Based on this, I can't see why MisD would be better than REB against Trix.

[Rico Suave]

Quote (Magimaster @ June 22 2003,18:14)REB kills Illusions, counters Donate, and counters FoW, in addition to the blue goodness.

With Bargain out, it's very rare that somebody would actually lose a battle over Illusions or Donate.  

REB hits FoW, Ancestral, and Time Walk (nobody counters Brainstorm).  Mis-D hits all those but Time Walk, except it does a much better job against Ancestral.  It's about even in that respect (and don't underestimate Misdirecting Therapy.  Losing Mis-D to Therapy is much better than losing Force of Will).  Or a player can bring in Abeyance like you see above and Mis-D will own them.

The real reason Mis-D is better is because it's so much better for the deck as a whole.  It gives a stronger tempo swing when used, since the Fish player wins by putting out a clock and stalling while it runs out.  That clock is considerably slower when the deck needs mana untapped for REB.

Either way, neither card is stellar in the match.  I would board out all of them if possible.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Wow.  I am glad to see so much interest about the faggoty fishes lately.  And perhaps i'm entering a bit late into this discussion, but i would like to bring up a few points.

With the increasing interest in type 1 and a dci sanctioned "world championship" approaching, budget players interested in the adult format (aka type 1) will be looking for decks that are capable of winning without power.  Of the established archetypes listed by smmennen only sligh, R/g beatz, sui, and fish lose little without p10 (or expensive legends rares).  And i would expect many unpowered players interested in a slightly less "opening hand + topdeck mode" oriented game to give fish a shot.

I think it is fair to say that it is finally time for people to take fish seriously as a threat, weak as it looks at first glance.

That said, in my opinion, fish was at its strongest when keeper was in power.  Back when people were calling for morphling's restriction and challenging aggro players to build a deck that could compete with control.  Right now, since the july metagame is still unknown I can only say that fish is a strong and flexible deck that has a lot in common with sui in terms of when it is good.  


As far as tuning it to the anticpated metagame...

I recently tried a U/r variant, akin to what moxlotus has presented, but with 4 conclaves and obviously without stifle (not legal yet).  I opted for this configuration because I expected to play both stax and tnt.  Maindeck i ran 3 fire/ice, and in the board were 4 of what i consider to be the real reason for splashing red: rack and ruin.  This card is really very strong against TnT, much stronger than psi blast and actually gives fish a fighting chance in the matchup.  And this is of course a good thing.

Red gives us some answers to TnT and stax on games 2 and 3, but of course those solutions do create a problem: a new found vulnerability to non basic hate which is much harder to play around.  To me this is kind of a toss up, since i've seen many decks just scoop to a resolved blood moon, PoP, or B2B.  When deciding which way to go, red splash or mono u, the thing you must keep in mind is the frequency with which you expect to see mishra's workshop in a given metagame.  This seems obvious, but we know workshops are hard to get while non basic hate on the other hand is cheap, brutally effective in this format and widely used.  If we are talking about metagaming for a really big tourney like origins or gencon i'd probably weaken my matchup vs the occasional workshop.dec to strengthen my matchup against the more common nonbasichate.dec.


But let's assume that we do opt to splash red, how do we do it?  While i certainly respect pernicious dude's build with u/r tim, i don't know that i would go that route.  It does provide a bit more board control, but it lacks the finesse and tempo of faeries/standstill that was critical to the original design.  In fact, from "gay fish" i would only change the manabase, and perhaps add fire/ice to the main in place of...possibly psi blast and one manta rider    i shall miss you psi blast.

I would construct the mana base like this:

1 basic island
4 flooded strands
4 volcanic islands
4 cloud of faeries
4 mishra's factories
1 strip mine
2 wastelands
1 library of alexandria
1 mox sapphire
total: 22

No ruby since game 1 it's really just a source of colorless mana of which we have plenty already.

The sideboard is the most important part of course, since IMHO it is the reason to splash red to begin with.

I would start with:
4 rack and ruin- we are trying to improve our anti artifact game for both tnt and stax, and an instant speed 2 for 1 does that job perfectly.  In this matchup we will be siding out our 3 misd's and a creature.

2 REB- we now require this as an anti b2b measure, but among otherthings it serves us well against decks that we already had decent matchups against, ie. blue based control/combo.  Generally you'll want to side out 2 fire/ice, unless you expect plague bearer or peacekeeper from the sideboards of these decks.

The remaining slots can be devoted to choices like:

Maze of ith
black vise
disrupt
boomerang
BEB
chill
suq'ata firewalker

I'd like to suggest pyrostatic pillar in the face of some of the new combo decks that are beginning to emerge, but i don't know that it is necessarily the right call....we shall see.

[Rico Suave]

Is there really a point to using red when blue has Energy Flux?  Have you guys not been satisfied with it or something?

[LoA]

Play versus Tangle Wire and you'll see the difference between the two.

I wonder if Mogg Salvage could work in this deck as an anti-Stax card.  I doubt I could reliably get Mountains, but it might be worth looking into.

[xrobx]

in a monoU version of fish, would it not be more beneficial not to run fetchlands?? I'm thinking something like this:

Creatures:
4x Manta Riders
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Rootwater Thief
4x Lord of Atlantis

Draw/Counter/Spells:
4x Curiosity
4x Standstill
1x Coastal Piracy
4x FoW
3x Misdirection
1x Black Vise

Lands (15 U sources):

11x Island
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Faerie Conclave
1x Stripmine
4x Wasteland

with 3 maindeck spots open...i'm thinking maybe stifle or something?? or i could always cut the wasteland count to 3 and run those silly fetchlands...although like i mentioned, i don't see the need for fetchlands in a monoU build..correct me if i'm wrong??

[Gnu]

Let's get this topic going again

I was just thinking (yes, it actually does happen!) - how about adding Brainstorms to the deck, that would be a nice addition to the fetches.

At the moment I'm testing the following build:

6x Island
4x Flooded Strand
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Strip Mine
4x Volcanic Island
2x Wasteland
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Manta Riders
4x Razorfin Hunter
4x Rootwater Thief
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Curiosity
4x Fire/Ice
4x Force of Will
2x Misdirection
2x Psionic Blast
2x Null Rod
3x Brainstorm

And I'd like to fit in some Faerie Conclaves - but at the moment I haven't figured out what to pull out!

Give me some response

[Os-Vegeta]

Well, after some testing I've come to a couple conclusions:

1) The red splash really doesn't accomplish a whole lot, unless you're in an aggro-heavy metagame.  Otherwise, the red splash just isn't needed, even against TnT and Stax.  Rack and Ruin can help, but monoblue really has all the tools it needs to handle those matchups post-board.  

2) I still hate Conclaves, so I'm running fetchlands instead for deck thinning.  With the fetchlands, I see the amount of Islands I want to be seeing, and the "deck thinning" and shuffle effects from fetchlands really do work well with the deck.  I actually find these effects quite useful right before Standstill locks are broken.  In addition to this, they have allowed me to draw into threats and counters more often.  

3) I tested Merchant Scroll, and it was okay.  Nimrod suggested I test Mystical Tutor, and I'm loving it.  Curiosity negates the tutor's drawback completely, making it all the better.  

4) The sideboard is almost perfected, but there still needs to be some more testing until I'm truly happy with it.  I'm making the sideboard to prepare for the general metagame, as I prepare every deck I build as if it's going into a highly powered metagame like Origins.  

Anyway, here's the list I've come up with:

        4 Flooded Strand
        4 Polluted Delta
        8 Island
        1 Mox Sapphire
        2 Wasteland
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Mishra's Factory
        4 Lord of Atlantis
        4 Manta Riders
        4 Rootwater Thief
        4 Cloud of Faeries
        4 Curiosity
        1 Time Walk
        4 Force of Will
        2 Misdirection
        4 Standstill
        1 Mystical Tutor
        3 Psionic Blast
        1 Ancestral Recall

      Sideboard:    
        3 Annul
        3 Null Rod
        3 Gilded Drake
        3 Stifle
        3 Chill

[Gnu]

Just played Os-Vegeta's mono-U version and I'm impressed! I played a bunch of games vs. a zoo-deck and suicide and didn't lost a single game.

The only thing I miss is the Null Rods, Scroll and Powder Kegs are a bitch!

The more I play Fish the less I miss the Conclaves - they're just too mana-heavy, I'd choose the Delta's over them any day!

Also I haven't tried Mystical in the deck before, but it's just pure evilness, no doubt!!!

I'm going to test a few Brainstorms in the mono-U version too... I'll be back  

[Spizzard]

I don't know if I could ever drop Conclaves.  Sure they may suck up mana, but most of the time I use them is under a Standstill.  They have evasion, so unlike factory, they can most of the time, fly over blockers.  Under a standstill, I don't really know where else you would want to put the mana.

How are you liking 8 fetches?  That seems a little much to me.  I'd at least drop 2 and up the Wasteland count to 4.

[Os-Vegeta]

Quote The only thing I miss is the Null Rods, Scroll and Powder Kegs are a bitch!

Well, you have Null Rod in the side to bring in for Keg, and Chill should be enough against RG Beats and Sligh, meaning you can easily counter Scroll.  

Quote I'm going to test a few Brainstorms in the mono-U version too... I'll be back

I tested Brainstorms a while back, and I found them to be not nearly as useful as one would think.  Fish is aggro-control, yes, but it's really more aggro than control.  From my experiences, I've found that Brainstorm not only isn't right for the deck, but it's inferior card drawing in this deck since Curiosity will net you more cards and Standstill nets you 3 cards with no drawback.  

Quote How are you liking 8 fetches?  That seems a little much to me.  I'd at least drop 2 and up the Wasteland count to 4.

I'm liking the 8 fetches just fine.  I tried 6 fetches, and I found that they just weren't enough.  I ended up drawing fetches AND Islands too often yet, and even at 6 fetches I really wanted to see more blue cards than lands.  Going up to 8 seems like the most comfortable number for me.

[Gnu]

I like 8 fetches too! I'm not going to lower that count, that's for sure! It's deckthinning when it's best  

I'm having problems finding room for brainstorms - like Os-Vegeta said, both Curiosity and Standstills are (often) just plainly better. So I'll probably end up leaving them out as well.

Strangely enough I'm actually doing better with my deck after I removed the red part against aggro. Seems a bit strange on paper, but it's the truth (and nothing but the truth).

[suicide_slushy]

To whoever is still running Coastal Piracy I strongly urge you to cut it.  It took me forever to realise that at 4cc I was always committing so much of my mana to activating abilities that it never hit the board, I've long since ditched and never looked back.  

I haven't tested the 8 fetchland configuration, but in today's meta-game (stax, trix, keeper, etc.) I would rather have a full set of strips then deck thining.  

On the issue on conclaves I could see cutting down to maybe 2, but I'd be hesitant to cut them completely as first turn canclave second turn standstill is still as savage as it's always been.