Splashing Black into Fish

[Rebel428]

As everyone has been saying for a week or so now, Duress is superior to Misdirection right now.  I have made an effort to apply this concept to Fish.  Let me start with a decklist.  Keep in mind that it's not tested; I just modified my mono-U decklist.

4 Manta Riders
4 Rootwater Thief
4 Lord of Atlanits
4 Cloud of Faeries

4 Standstill
4 Curiosity
1 Ancestral Recall

4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
4 Duress

1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Consultation

4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Faerie Conclave
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Underground Sea
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
5 Island

SB: 4 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 4 Stifle (Maybe Null Rod?)
SB: 4 Coffin Purge
SB: 3 Cabal Therapy/Annul/Flux/Sea Sprite

Most of it should be self-explanatory.  Some things I REALLY want to fit in are MD Stifle, the two additional Faerie Conclaves, and at least one more Misdirection.  I am also considering Flesh Reavers over Manta Riders.

Thoughts?

[Spizzard]

I posted this a while ago.  Decklist from the budget fish list.

Quote
//NAME: Ub Fish
// Mana
        4 Underground Sea
        4 Polluted Delta
        4 Mishra's Factory
        1 Mox Jet
        3 Faerie Conclave
        1 Library of Alexandria
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Flooded Strand
        3 Island
// Counters
        3 Misdirection
        4 Force of Will
        3 Duress
// Broken
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Time Walk
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Ancestral Recall
// Utility
        4 Standstill
        4 Curiosity
// Creatures
        4 Rootwater Thief
        4 Cloud of Faeries
        4 Manta Riders
        4 Lord of Atlantis
// Sideboard
SB:  2 Maze of Ith
SB:  2 Wasteland
SB:  3 Energy Flux
SB:  2 Diabolic Edict
SB:  2 Null Rod
SB:  4 Blue Elemental Blast

I think with the environment switching over to combo, something like this may be the way to go.  Maybe even sideboarded Cabal Therapies could be used.  It wouldn't be to hard to sac a fish to one.

Along with the therapies, I've been thinking of maindecking stifles.  However, I can see combo dieing down a little bit making stifle mainly a fetchland hoser.

[Iuewen]

the thing is, you don't want to pay for disruption with fish.. it needs to use all of its resources to go aggressive every turn. Plus, with that mana base, you arent going to be able to support 4x duress since really the only time they are useful is 1-2 turn, and you are going to end up not having black a lot of the time.

If unmask didnt need a black card removed, then it would be almost alright to replace misdirection with *sometimes*, but, misdirection drastically changes the course of games when it works, moreso in here than duress would. All in all, a black splash for duress+consult is not worth it.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

A blue/white build of gay fish took second place in the first T1 event on thursday at gencon.



And a mono blue build of gay fish WON the friday morning T1 event at gencon...i wonder who that could have been  



I tested the black splash heavily before gencon, and disliked it exactly for the reasons listed by Iuewen.  It become far less aggressive with the addition of duress, and the strain on the mana base caused by the fetchlands hurts much more than you might realize.  I found that by splashing a color through use of fetchlands, i didn't have enough mana to power my manlands AND cast spells.  I strongly recommend cutting a conclave or two in any build that splashes.