I have been sitting on this decklist for some time, but u...

[Tripps]

I haven't played against chalice(not set at the correct number anyway), but one would assume you either counter it, kill it with artifact hate, or play around it with 1 cc critters and manlands.

[panne]

I've tested this deck and have a question:

Is this the optimal build?

This is what I think must be included(unpowered):

Gays - 15
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Cloud of Faeries
7 X

Other - 21
4 FoW
4 Standstill
4 Curiosity
3 Misdirection
3 Daze
3 Null Rod

Mana - 24
1 Strip Mine
5 Fetch
4 Wasteland
4 Volcanic Island
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Faerie Conclave
3 Island

Here's the hard part. Which 7 creatures should be included?

Gorilla Shaman? (very good in a high powered meta and very gay)
Aquamoeba? (resonable beater, obv gay, flexible, high toughness, no evasion, synergy with mancer)
Spiketail Hatchling? (not very impressive imo, works good with shamans and wastelands though, synergy with mancer, pretty gay)
Voidmage Prodigy? ( 2 in power, costs UU which makes it hard to cast on turn 2, no evasion and you don't really wanna leave mana open.. I would'nt play this, he's gay though)
Flying men? (evasion, cc1.)
Rootwater Thief? (good abilites, higher thoughness pretty slow though.)
Better beaters like Pup or Cadets? (faster kill.. no abilites and not gay at all)

[Chaos Blade]

I have a relative same list but with 4 Island, and 2 Stifle. Stifle help the Keeper Long and random matchups alot. It also protects my man lands plus Volcanics. Spiketail has been good. also Flying men Might be a possiblity.

[Gaea]

@Panne: about your deck I think you've to cut 1/2 faerie conclave, they're slow and 3 of them can be a problem instead of a solution, you can put another fetch, is good food for lavamancer, now I'm playing a Uw version with 22 lands (with a mox and LOA), for your deck I think you can do something like this:

6 fetches
4 volcanic island
2 island
4 mishra's factory
1 faerie conclave
5 waste+strip
1 island/conclave

For the creatures I like a lot the spiketail hatchling + voidmage plan, about the other possibility I think gorilla shaman can be an interesting choice but you run 3 null rod so you can run some other things, aquameba is not a good creature, it gives food to mancer but if you have no card to discard is an awful 1/3 without control abilities...
Flying man is good but for 1 mana you've have lavamncers and they're better, rootwater is such a interesting creature you can put them instead of the prodigy cause both those need lots of mana untapped to use their abilities.
You don't need beaters, if you want to run them I think you should change the deck witth more red and some bolts to be aggressive.

P.S.
If you run 23 lands instead of 24 you can cut down a misdirection (3 are too much i think) to play 2 fire/ice they can be good, but it depends on your meta.

[Webster]

I seriously don't see how anyone would play daze over stifle.

Stifle works well against dragon, long, trix, and fetchland/wasteland heavy decks.

Daze, while having a surprise factor when compared with spiketail hatchling, reduces your tempo which is what this deck is about the last time I checked.

Gorilla shaman is amazing.

I wouldn't want to dip too deeply into red because it makes you more dependant on volcanic island, a highly wastelandable target, which is something that I do not like,\n\n

[Chaos Blade]

I think Gay Red un powered should be playing 2 Stifle 3 Daze and 1 Misdirection. Dazes are a Godsend they always work and force through my threats PLUS stop theirthreats. Voidmage hasnt been all that great so far. Maybe Senerib Djiin?

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Dragon and keeper are your best arguements for the inclusion of stifle maindeck.  The other two decks (trix and long) don't see enough play in most american IRL metagames to warrant the inclusion of stifle maindeck.

Dragon is rare IRL in most american metagames.  BTW stifle is _really_ good here.

Keeper (like most decks) is weak against turn 2 standstill, which daze often helps to resolve.  Given the choice between daze and standstill in this matchup, i'd take both.  

Against most other decks in the format stifle is just ok, and should probably be sided out.


That's not to say that stifle doesn't have a place in this deck at all mind you, I just prefer to keep them in the board.

About daze and tempo, with all the mana disruption in this deck daze is often very good well into the mid and even late game where missing a land drop hardly matters.  AND being able to stop a first turn smokestack from hitting play > stifling a soot counter, in other words stifle just doesn't do enough in every matchup whereas daze can always counter a spell.


If you're going to play this deck online perhaps stifle is the better choice though since online and IRL are totally different metagames (at least that's what i find).

[Chaos Blade]

Has anyone else tried playing both Dazes and Stifles? Its soo powerful taking control. But right now how many people are actually happy with Voidmages? I see to nto have enough mana to use its effect sometimes or just random cloggs.

[Phele]

After long testing, I just finished my first tournament in Hartum (Germany) with gay/r and the result was not very overwhelming. We were 19 people going for a mox sapphire, an ital. mana drain and an unlimited trop. island. We played 5 rounds swiss mode and i finished 2.3.0 coming in ... (i don't know)

My decklist was:

4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail hatchling
4 Grim Lavamancer
3 Voidmage Prodigy

4 Standstill
4 Curiousity
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Null Rod
2 Misdirection
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Mish. Fac.
4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Faerie Conclave

Thanks to PTW so far

The board differed a bit:

3 Maze of Ith
3 BEB
2 REB
2 Stifle
2 Fire/Ice
2 Energy Flux
1 Rack or Ruin


First round was against dragon (full powered):

Game 1 I see just two lands of him. Strip effects and standstill are enough for him. He scoops before i get any idea, what he's playing. Something blue/black. I don't board

Game 2 First mistake of many, many: I keep a hand with 5 lands, spitetail and ancestral. He duress ancestral, later on he got an bazaar in play, bringing him a verdant force in, which i, left without counters, can't disrupt.

Game 3 I side in the stifles, but never saw one. Running out of counters again, I'm again overruned by a horde of token lead by two forces. Nice guy by the way.

Second Round against scepter-tog-something (fp):

First game an early null rod is too much for him, standstill and counters following give him the rest.

Second game the null rods plus the mazes are even more too much for him ... easy. I liked it, when afte the games he obviously angry joked about my second class cards, and that they usually have not chance in type 1. Oh man, this is one of these taking magic too serious.

Third Round against non powered Mono-Blue:

First game the mana-denial-way totally fails, because he has no f.. non-basic land, not to talk about moxen. He gets out an earyl counter protected morphling and thats it. I saw a few unblockable somethings, so i sided in the mazes and the rebs.

Second game it becomes obvious that he has not enough draw-potential. I counter almost everything, thanks to library of alex., and mazes and grim take care of his unblockables (sorry forgot their names).

Third game see game two. He made so many mistakes, in a bigger tournament he would have get some warning for sure. But i don't care, because I'm usually the one failing   and he was funny and friendly. I gave him the hint to put in some wastelands, really feeling like a magic-master giving advices (lol).

Fourth Round against Scepter-Keeper (fp for sure):

Game one i dont find any null rod and he drew at least six mana drains. Men, he countered everything. Finally I'm slaughtered by a monkey.

Game two i side in the fluxes and the rebs. I go mana denial really succesfull, keeping him locked with two wastelands paying the upkeep for his sapphire, because of my energy flux. And then the lands where coming one after another. I drew just one counter   . Not enought for his big yag win protected by an force of will. That's it.

Fifth Round was the worst. A matchup I thought I could handle. I saw him before toying around with his workshops, so i expected something muddy. I was muddy (fp), but without any red, just thirty lands and the rest artifacts. He had four lands to get his lands back from the graveyard and four to untap any land, five strips, some rishadan ports, mish. facs ....

Game one and two i got never more than one mana to use. Energy Flux and Rack or Ruin, which i sided in, beside the stifles would have been great after, if I ever had the mana for them or drawn them. Null Rod neither showed up in the early game in both battles. No chance. At least I could try out my new charbelcher-parfait against his deck right after, against which his deck obviously lost horribly. But who cares, against all the other counter-rich decks, it would have probably seen no way to win with mono white.

Props:

- Grim fits well in the gay strategy, but he's not blue.
- Null Rod is a killer. Big mistake i didn't put the last one in the board.
- Stifle is great against many, many decks. At least I would put in a third one in the board. Thinking of putting them in main board

Slops:

-Voidmage needs too much blue mana, what doesn't work well with volcanics allways stripped away. I got him counter something one lonley time. Next time Thief again, that's for sure.
- Daze and Spiketail are really conditional. Sometimes they work, many times the opponents had enough mana. Pretty sure stifles next time
- Blue/Red is really vulnerable for the gay strategy. Grim and Kai suck without their needed mana. I saw mana dust bowls around - a horror for this deck.
- Myself making so many mulligan- and boarding mistakes (mazes work great against verdant force, but NOT against the tokens   ), but the tourney was fun anyway. Next time i go mono-blue fish or graveyard-hate-sui.

Chaos: I hope this was answer enough

By the way what do you all think about Thalakos Seer (not the worst target for curiousity or voidmage) in this deck. Could replace spiketail for example. At least we can call it then finally Gay Wizards. Sorry PTW, but this sounds better in my ears than gay/r. But I know that he would be much harder be cast with his double-blue-cost and as said before: I'm pretty unsure about Kai himself.

[Chaos Blade]

Well im loving Spiketail and Daze but I think maybe Voidmage might go to either a Theif or sumtin. Im still going to test

[Gaea]

Now we're testing a different version of gay, a UW, it's very good I think, this is a sample list:

degenerated fish (by barrin)
3 flying men
3 rootwater thief
4 meddling mage
4 cloud of fairies
3 daze
2 misdirection
4 force of will
3 standstill
4 curiosity
1 time walk
1 ancestral recall
3 swords to plowshares
3 null rod
3 flooded strand
4 tundra
3 island
1 Loa
1 mox sapphire
4 wasteland
1 strip mine
4 mishra's factory

Meddling mage are very pretty, they can give you turns to lay the table with your fishes and swords are just the best removal of ever

[Pest]

I have been Testing Gay Red for the past month or so and have found Kai very useful. I use his counter ability alot and he is the only guy in the deck (other than manlands) with 2 Power. Also the Morph ability makes him great too because when you Morph him in, it can confuse some people and they would never suspect it of being Kai so they will go on their merry way worrying about the morph thinking it's a crazy card. Not to mention they will never suspect you of Morphing it and countering a big threat or something. It's just so disruptive.

I have been testing against all types of decks from Long to Sui and I have been very happy with the results. This deck is VERY solid and nobody really SB's much tech against it. I love it, and PTW is my hero.

[Chaos Blade]

How do you guys playing the the Hulk or control Matchup?

[Gaea]

I've tested the deck against a "normal player" and I'm 21/9 maindeck and 17/13 after side, my friend has tested the deck with one of the nest player here in italy (lorenzo fedeli, IMothe best) and is near to 50%/50%

[Chaos Blade]

Thanks for the input. I am very anxious to hear hwat the UW verrsion can do.

[Phele]

Hulk matchup is easy: Too many counters, too many mazes after siding. Controll usually is easy too, but more just for the mono-blue one, cause strip-effects leave you really vulnerable, as said.

[Shaman]

As some of you must know, I do play this side:

4 chalice
4 maze
2 blast (red or blue, it depends on the meta)
4 stifle
1 null rod

With this side, I have found control matches to be very easy for me. Atog isn't a huge problem since you can side in 4 mazes and he/she has only one strip effect, or nothing. Not to mention all the counters and hate you have. What I fear most is: Zoo and Madness, and Chalice Black. Has anyone played against these decks?

[Chaos Blade]

Im playing this side for a diverse field

 Sideboard
SB:  2 Chalice of the Void
SB:  1 Arcane Laboratory
SB:  2 Maze of Ith
SB:  1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB:  2 Red Elemental Blast
SB:  2 Energy Flux
SB:  3 Rack and Ruin
SB:  2 Fire/Ice

The only thing im thinking about is Rack And Ruin and Energy Flux Slots and the number of those. I might drop a Arcane Lab.It depends.

[Pest]

the current Side I run is

3 Maze of Ith
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Fire/Ice
2 Stifle
2 Energy Flux
1 REB
1 BEB
1 Boomerang (Savage)
1 Null Rod

This SB has worked very well for me. There are alot of 1-ofs and 2-ofs in the SB, but they are very versitile and work very well against Several Match-ups. So I still end up sideing in alot of stuff anyways. Boomerang, believe it or not, goen in all the time. I love it, and it is so unexpected and ppl don't know what to think when I Bounce back big Threat or their only means of staying alive. I LOVE IT.

[TylerS]

Chaos: What UW build are you talking about? I play Uw for Meddling Mage, Swords, and Worship for the "crap metagame" ("sorta crap" anway-lots of Sui), but nobody cares 'cuz I can't play it in tournements.    

In my lower-powered meta, I really like UW more than UR. What do you do when Timmy plays his Verdant Force when you don't happen to have a counter handy? Curl up and die? Nope, just Chain/Mage it, or defend that Worship. Uw lets me beat Timmy without going to a 0/100% W/L record against good decks (though my build *is* weaker against Power than PTWs, by a lot)

Anyway, what are the cool kids running?

[Blommando]

After playing ~7 months monoU fish i decided to run this build in Helsinki metagame and it did fairly good in ~25 player tournament.
5 rounds, 3-2.
Encountered 3 suicides(2-1,2-0,0-2, ), rozetta's Bosh senior(1-2), pandeburst(2-0).
Top eighting me, but losing to fullpowered Madness.

I remember using voidmages ~5 times to save my ass from threaths i would have lost.
Lavamancers just owned in field full of suicide

My sideboard was :

1 REB
2 BEB
2 Rack & ruin
1 Flux
1 CotV
1 Null Rod
2 Fire/ice
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Maze of ith
1 Psionic Blast
1 Arcane lab

I felt like stifle wasnt needed during day and luckily i got paired against so many suicides

[Mellow D]

Quote (Phele @ Nov. 16 2003,18:43)By the way what do you all think about Thalakos Seer (not the worst target for curiousity or voidmage) in this deck. Could replace spiketail for example. At least we can call it then finally Gay Wizards. Sorry PTW, but this sounds better in my ears than gay/r. But I know that he would be much harder be cast with his double-blue-cost and as said before: I'm pretty unsure about Kai himself.

Escape Artist would be better than the Seer for the Spiketail slot, assuming you wanted to go all-Wizards of course.  The Seer's ability is one-shot, but the Artist's ability can be recursed.  Also, he has a much more manageable casting cost.

If you went Gay/Wizards, would you up the Kai's to 4?  What would you remove?

[Shaman]

Stifles are great at countering madness!

Why PsiBlast over a 3rd Fire/Ice? That's strange for a deck running red, anyway I recognize it can be a "surprise" tech, expecially if red mana sources are somewhat stripped away.

My general impression is that stifle is the perfect card for this deck: I am using stifles in the sideboard just because they can be dead against random decks...anyway I am always putting them in game 2 and 3. D'OH!

[Phele]

Mellow: For a Gay Wizards build i would put in the fourth kai for sure.

About the Escape Artist: I still like the Thalakos Seer more. Getting your creatures back on your hand is not exactly what you want with this build. You want to outdraw your opponent and getting the artist back on your hand might even let you lose a couriosity. Saccing the seer to kai might be great. There's nothing better than countering AND drawing cards.

About the double-blue casting cost: I would try a 1.5-Build or maybe add one more conclave instead of a mishra. For the fourth Kai i would probably cut one courisosity. I just ordered a set of seers for 1,30 Euro and will test the build the next week. I would appreciate more comments about the idea... Thanks for the input so far Mellow!

[PucktheCat]

Another option for a more Wizard-heavy build would be Fireslinger.  Evasion and removal in one.  Needs only one colorless.  Of course it can't be pitched to Force.

I don't think forcing the last creature slot to be a Wizard is what you want to be doing though, it has aesthetic appeal but in practice I think it is more important that your creatures be as good as possible on their own than that you have a complete lock on games where you have multiple creatures out and mana available.  The games where you have only one creature on the board are the ones you need help in.

Leo

[Phele]

You are completly right: No Wizards will be included, just for being a wizard, but the seer ist just a typicall gay man. Grim Lavamancer by the way is the better option instead of Fireslinger. I just wrote about an 1.5-Gay-Wizard-Version here. In Type 1, I gues, its too blue-mana-hungry, but we can try to build an classic-version.

[Misemaster]

Hey I was wondering how the dragon matchup has been going for you guys. I run 3 cyrpts and 2 stifles in the board but sometimes it does not seem like enough. Also, does anyone bring in anything for example fire/ice to deal with swarm or no?

[Sytupal]

Tapeworm ~ A question as arose from myself while i was looking through my collection of not so good common blue cards. ~ just for fun thinking i put some hatchlings in there.


What about the card Disruptive student instead of hatchlings?

Disruptive Student  2U

Summon Wizard

Tap: Counter target spell unless it's caster pays an additional 1.  Play this ability as an interrupt.

It's one mana more than the hatchling but there's less of a draw back for the counter ability. and hell.. sack him to voidmage late game.  

I haven't paytested and frankly i don't have time to as of right now but i feel it should be looked into.  ~ or not. Just a thought

-Richard

[Jacob Orlove]

Not only is one mana a lot, but that guy can't attack, unless you want to give up on countering stuff. Plus, he has no evasion. Being reuseable and being a wizard don't make up for his lack of tempo--which is what this deck is really all about.

[panne]

That whole wizard-thing-idea really sucks, don't play 'em.

I still think there is a better choice than Kai, too.

Another possible "3 of" is Waterfront bouncer.
Amazing with Standstill, good synergy with Grim, good vs most random creaturedecks, including monoB, can be pitched to mis-d or FoW AND can wreck dragon. No need for crypts with this guy.

I would play(depending on meta):

3 Bouncer
4 Spiketail
4 Faeries
4 Grim
or..
3 Mox Monkey
4 Spiketail
4 Faeries
4 Grim

Iv'e played the bouncer in monoU fish for a long time with very good results. At least give it a try, he's worth it.