[Discussion] How good is Fish?

[Rico Suave]

I was reading over Smmenen's analysis of the Dual Lotus top 8, and came across this line:

Rich then attacked again for two damage.  I don't have much to say except that there is an obvious problem if Goblin Welder beatdown is dealing more damage than Fish is able to reciprocate.

At first it made me laugh, but it is actually quite true.  

Fish is a deck based on tempo, or establishing enough momentum to make your opponent's position an unrecoverable one.  It does this through many swarm attackers, countermagic, and mana denial.  

Frankly, the swarm attackers can get raced by just about anything, including Welder beatdown.  Obviously they aren't the reason the deck can win.

It also has mana denial, countermagic, and most importantly it has Null Rod.  I doubt Fish would even be playable without Null Rod.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see Fish being all that decent a deck.  It seems all of it's wins come from Force being all-around good and Null Rod being a good hoser, and whatever else gets added to the deck only leeches off those two cards being so good.

So why is Fish good?  Better yet, should it be good?

[Kowal]

PTW is a genius.  He built a fantastic deck (fabulouth!) deck that looks like complete garbage on paper.

It's comparable to suicide, except suicide's men are massive and put the opponent on a short clock, whereas fish's men have a strong element of utility, making it more of a midgame deck.  Likewise, it has a lot of cute synergies.

Fish should be good and quite clearly is--  Orlove's particular direction for it is interesting to say the least, but it doesn't really change the heart of the deck.  It just provides a very good beater by the name of River Boa, that just so happens to do more than just regenerate.

[TheRock]

While I agree with almost everything in your argument, I can't say that Fish relies solely on Null Rod and Force alone.  If that was the case, we would all be playing something else by now.

Fish also relies on card advantage, which is where I disagree from your original statement.  As you have defined it, tempo is "establishing enough momentum to make your opponent's position an unrecoverable one".  Not only does Fish have swarm attackers, countermagic, and mana denial, it has the ability to keep drawing those cards and put itself in a position where those cards can be even more effective.

Fish loses games when the creatures that it runs do not apply the correct kind of pressure to the opponent.  Attack power is not everything.  It wasn't that long ago when Rootwater Thief was a card to be feared.  But now, it doesn't apply enough pressure to be effective and thus has disappeared.  Other cards have arrived to the scene though.  For example, take Voidmage Prodigy.  This is a creature that not only does two damage per swing, but also assists with any countermagic duties.  This can apply all sorts of pressure to opposing players, but against some decks, Voidmage Prodigy is rather weak compared to other possibilites.

Proper preparation is mandatory for Fish's success.  I won't hide that fact.  A Fish deck that is not tuned to the metagame will suffer.

Why is Fish good?  It just wins games and that's the best way to put it.

Should Fish be good?  It just wins games and that's the best way to put it.

[dicemanx]

Fish is good because, as evidenced by recent metagame developments, drawing massive amounts of cards is key to victory. All the top level decks feature such copious amounts of card drawing, as well as featuring mass card advantage spells (like Null Rod, Blood Moon, Nevinyrral's Disk, etc). This is true not only of Slavery and Hulk, but even decks like O.Stompy, FCG, Fish, Landstill, and Dragon that have risen to prominence over the past 6 months or so. Fish is to Suicide as FCG is to Goblin Sligh - both have similar philosophies, but the former decks have powerful draw engines that can overwhelm and outbroken the opponent.

[Phele]

 It seems all of it's wins come from Force being all-around good and Null Rod being a good hoser, and whatever else gets added to the deck only leeches off those two cards being so good.

I think you missed the main enabler of the deck: Standstill. This card drawing machine is even good enough to build another top deck around it.

But the slow clock you're putting your opponent on is indeed a major problem fish has since PTW revealed his great Gay/r build. Lord of Atlantis gave the deck the final punch that it's somewhat missing now.

The recent discussions about fish were centered on the questions which creatures better fit the utility task - spiketail, firewalker, gorilla shaman, meddling mage - but maybe we should better watch out for creatures which do both: serve as utility AND deal as much damage as possible.

Orlove showed the direction with his U/G build - what I don't really like, because I'm missing the red utility too much - but there's no doubt that River Boa fullfills the task perfectly. Which critters fit either? Shadow ones maybe? The merfolk again? Savanah Lions? Nothing great comes to my mind, but I'm sure there are plenty of possible ones.

[Kowal]

One of the single funniest moments in history was when some guy thought he was the shit when he dropped a lavamancer in the fish mirror.

Orlove dropped a suq'ata firewalker, and the dude pooped on the spot.

Personally I think the green splash is the direction this deck wants to take to contend with the top decks of the current metagame.

[bebe]

Let me add my two cents. When Fish was developed we were looking for two components ... draw and denial. Them deck had good tempo and speed from the get go. The first renditions of Fish had Rods and Curiosity and the deck was called Curious Fish. It performed quite well as it had tempo and counters out the ying yang and decent draw. But it was not viewed as a highly competitive deck. This suited me fine as I took it to high finishes wherever i played the deck. Then PTW e-mailed me and asked if I had ever tried Standstill in the deck. I replied that I did not see the advantage as the deck already sported draw in Curiosity, Ancestral, LoA and Disrupt. In fact i wrote the first primer at thyat time without the inclusion of Standstills.
Yes, laugh now. The deck also had no man lands and relied on Wastelands and Strip as additional disruption.
Of course, PTW's build proved the superior of the two after a lot of renditions and constant tweaking. Now with the addition of red - an offshoot of one fish two fish - which I really liked and PTW picked up on - the deck has become a very competitive deck that has no real auto losses. The deck as it stands now has more disruption, as much tempo, and better draw than the early builds. Gone are Disrupts, Psionic Blasts, Lord, etc. for a much better tuned andf efficient build. Kudos to PTW.

[SpencerForHire]

I think Fish is one of the most respectable decks today.  It plays with the "big fish" so to speak.  And it despite not needing power can still just as easily go over half the decks in any given meta. I haven't seen many a tourney report missing a U/R fish build in the t8 listing.  I would definately like to see MonoU come back but this new UG build looks promising..

The main debate has been, Fish vs. Fish Out of Water.. and that isn't even a huge debate.

Fish is a great deck and it should remain that way for at least a year.

I don't believe much makes the deck besides the standstill though..
I think standstill itself hasn't met it's limit yet, the idea of it in Tog was promising as well as many other decks, and I look forward to seeing what happens with it next.

[Tijnie]

Fish also has the ability to cause a mayor land-screw. Null Rod, 5 Strips, Stifle (fetch? DON'T!), Spiketail Hatcheling and Daze. All these cards will do their best to make you pay to much mana for any spell. I think that's a very strong side of fish.

The deck (gay/R) is Red/Blue, giving it a great number of strong sidebord cards for any Meta, meaning you can go anywhere if you would just try to tweak it.

The fact that fish is can be played by budget players is just very cool   . Though I think thats also a bad side. If you finely have al the powercards availble (or most of them), you got everything you want and you can play all kind of superdecks like Dragon, Mud, Keeper, Tog..... Why would you even try fish out??

For the green splash, I don't really like it (yet). Yes Boa is great, but I don't like the Root Maze's. Like Orlove said, starting second really sucks.. Fish already doesn't like going second cause daze's, spiketails and rods should come out fast. This deck is making those matchúps even worse. and with al those artifact-decks coming up (slavery, Affiny maybe) I think you're better of with red. rack and Ruin, vandals and maybe even crash (witch I'm testing these days) are great cards to take with you.

The main questions answer, Fish has ownage.

[Jhaggs]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see Fish being all that decent a deck. It seems all of it's wins come from Force being all-around good and Null Rod being a good hoser, and whatever else gets added to the deck only leeches off those two cards being so good.

Good Topic Rico, I just want to add a couple of comments to the discussion.  

First, I think Fish's results speak for themselves.  It's clear that it is not a glamorous build like the other type 1 decks which are filled with brokenness, but no one can deny that this deck still wins and still consistantly appears in Top 8 lists.  For this reason alone its a decent deck.  I would compare the fish archtype to David Wells or John Kruk.  Both players are overweight, unshaven, and guzzle beer.  They clearly do not look like athletes, however they can play ball with the best of them.  Fish accentuates the areas in which it is good at; Denial, Draw, and small beats.  While it can't "just win" like other builds, it does maximize its strenths quite well.

Second, another reason why I think Fish is a worthy type one deck is that it is a much better verision of its "older brothers".  I could be way off the mark with this, but I have often viewed Fish as a more advanced model of BBS and/or U/Rphidian.  All three decks run denial & draw but Fish's beats kill faster than Morphling.  Also, Fish's draw (curiosity& standstill) is better than Ophidian.  BBS and U/Rphidian have routinely been in the meta in one fashion or another but now those players have dropped those decks in favor of Fish.

Third, any deck that can maximize quality hosers backed by FOW should always deserve some level of consideration.  I think players still do not even test against Fish builds when they prepare for tourny's despite the fact that it can control the board quite effectively.  Due to Fish still not even being on the radar of some players gives it that element of suprise.  Until people start giving Fish a more serious consideration, it will continue to catch people off guard...a true fish advantage.

Finally, I just would like to add that it took some great insight and forethought to run U/G Fish in a large powered tourny.  Props to Jacob for tech-ing out this archtype in a brand new fashion and winning with it.

[jpmeyer]

The strength of Fish is that it has good matchups against the two best decks in Tog and Slaver and is able to shore up its traditionally weak matchups against a lot of aggro decks by sideboarding Sword of Fire and Ice

[DEA]

that's a very funny point you brought up
i was talking to a fish player because i had a sneaky idea about how to sideboard against fish while playing suicide black
i was thinking that they'd sideboard out the null rods for something like the sofi, so i'd surprise them with something fun...
like soul foundry :lol:

but meh, no, he'd keep them in to stop powder kegs and masticores
which i don't sideboard
my fault for not following the decklists?

[Hi-Val]

When you play a deck full of bombs, you get broken effects.

When you play a deck with incredible synergy, you also get broken effects.

Fish can get away with budget brokenness because the entire deck feeds off itself. Every card in it has two uses, and from this incredible utility comes power. People tell me that Fish has a slow clock. When it gets going, Fish sets its own clock. With enough denial, you can swing with Conclave for the win. Any faster clock (Jackal Pup, maybe) slows the deck down because it is one-sided.

Fish is the anti-power deck. Think back to Trix extended, where you had Trix and Anti-Trix decks. Fish is the Anti-trix, but it screws every Tier 1 deck instead of just being hate for one. It has successful counters to any big plays (Wasteland, Stifle and Null Rod do most of the work).

I always hear people say that Fish is a metagame deck. In the past, yes. I disagree now. Fish can survive in just about any metagame, thanks to recent sideboard additions of Sword of Fire and Ice and Sigil of Sleep, both serving to shore up the weak dedicated aggro matchup.

[Rico Suave]

Firstly, I never said Fish couldn't win.  In fact, half the point of my post was saying it does win.  

Secondly, if you're going to bring Standstill into the mix, then you have to bring Landstill in too.  The reason I said Null Rod backed by Force is the only reason Fish wins is because Landstill does all that other stuff you guys mentioned, except it gets to do it with Mana Drains instead of 1/1 beatdown.  

So am I wrong?  What advantages does Fish have over Landstill aside from weenies (toss in Curiosity if you want), and Null Rod?  If it doesn't have any other advantages, are those good enough reasons to play Fish over Landstill?

[SpencerForHire]

Fish also, can't be hated by lands as easily ([card]Wasteland[/card], [card]Stripmine[/card])
Fish also has alot of utility creeps that make it alot easier to deal with many threats under a still via: [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card], [card]Suq Ata Firewalker[/card], [card]Spiketail Hatchling[/card].. Etc..
These cards allow for amore viable deck then Landstill which can be hated out heavily by strip sources and potentially can only drop one threat per turn.  It can only attack with a limited number of threats because it wants to keep mana for drains and such open while still paying for the swing.

[Rico Suave]

Fish also, can't be hated by lands as easily ([card]Wasteland[/card], [card]Stripmine[/card])

You're gonna have to explain this one.  Landstill's mana base is actually more stable, since it doesn't run Stiflable lands that Fish does.  

Fish also has alot of utility creeps that make it alot easier to deal with many threats under a still via: [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card], [card]Suq Ata Firewalker[/card], [card]Spiketail Hatchling[/card].. Etc..

Landstill has Nevinyrral's Disk.  That deals with a lot of threats too.  

It can only attack with a limited number of threats because it wants to keep mana for drains and such open while still paying for the swing.

So what?  That doesn't apply until the deck has seized control of the game, or in other words until it has virtually won.

[Hi-Val]

Landstill and Gay Red are almost the same deck. I have found that Landstill is better against control thanks to the extra Drains and uncounterable threats. Gay Red dismantles combo though with Daze, Spiketail, Standstill, Force and Null Rod. Landstill also has the edge against aggro.

Playing one against the other is basically the mirror match. Whoever gets the Wastelands or Stifles first wins the game.

[SpencerForHire]

Gimbles wrote:
Fish also, can't be hated by lands as easily (Wasteland, Stripmine)


You're gonna have to explain this one. Landstill's mana base is actually more stable, since it doesn't run Stiflable lands that Fish does.

I don't mean the mana base as much as the threats themselves can be stripped.. Where as only about a 1/4 of Fish's can be hit with the identical popularly run cards.

Quote:
Fish also has alot of utility creeps that make it alot easier to deal with many threats under a still via: Grim Lavamancer, Suq Ata Firewalker, Spiketail Hatchling.. Etc..


Landstill has Nevinyrral's Disk. That deals with a lot of threats too.

That can hit board cards, Fish has the ability to hit more cards as they are being played and such, I think it's mostly the synergy that makes Fish's control stronger a grip on the meta then Landstill's.

Quote:
It can only attack with a limited number of threats because it wants to keep mana for drains and such open while still paying for the swing.


So what? That doesn't apply until the deck has seized control of the game, or in other words until it has virtually won.

True. You have a point.

[Thissa]

Fish is just scary-good.

Try to think about it this way.

Fish, I would say, has a larger number of threats than any other aggro deck (Maybe a bit less than Big-O, but I think it's more). Fish will usually have 20+ creatures including manlands. Fish also has INSANE card draw. This allows it to draw tons and tons of creatures, which it can play at a steady rate, while also allowing the deck to have answers to gamebreakers (Null Rod, Counters, etc). Fish can stop gamebreakers, Fish will always have a ton of threats in hand/in play. It's all in the draw engine. That's one reason why Oshawa Stompy is so good as well, because it has a draw engine and hate cards/answers too. That's also why decks like Sligh and 10-Land Stompy aren't really good for the meta.  The huge number of threats that Fish has is why it is not just a suboptimal landstill. Landstill is waaay different because it has just a few threats.

Of course one could still argue that the great hate cards Fish has make it good, but Fish requires the very solid and consistent base of creatures and card draw to effectively use those hate cards. They're just specialized and metagame tuned answers that stop gamebreakers. They're part of what make Fish an aggro-control deck. I'm almost ready to call Oshawa Stompy sort of an aggro-control deck...

[ZoneSeek]

When you play a deck full of bombs, you get broken effects.

When you play a deck with incredible synergy, you also get broken effects.

Fish can get away with budget brokenness because the entire deck feeds off itself. Every card in it has two uses, and from this incredible utility comes power. People tell me that Fish has a slow clock. When it gets going, Fish sets its own clock. With enough denial, you can swing with Conclave for the win. Any faster clock (Jackal Pup, maybe) slows the deck down because it is one-sided.

Fish is the anti-power deck. Think back to Trix extended, where you had Trix and Anti-Trix decks. Fish is the Anti-trix, but it screws every Tier 1 deck instead of just being hate for one. It has successful counters to any big plays (Wasteland, Stifle and Null Rod do most of the work).

I always hear people say that Fish is a metagame deck. In the past, yes. I disagree now. Fish can survive in just about any metagame, thanks to recent sideboard additions of Sword of Fire and Ice and Sigil of Sleep, both serving to shore up the weak dedicated aggro matchup.

I simply couldn't agree more.

I have been on a six month haitus from Magic - it's given me a long time to think about game theory and the deck I love. I am confident to this day that the "gay / fish" archetype can survive in any metagame given a decent player to back it and sufficient metagame analysis / knowledge.

If you go to a tourney with a sideboard tweaked for a general metagame - I would think you would do fairly well. If you did the right thing and scouted the area before the tourney ... I'd say your odds would increase.

The reason I've always preferred those lousy 1/1s to Mana Drain is simple - I consider 1/1s to be far more of a threat than Mana Drain. Mana Drain isn't a threat ... per se - it's an answer. If you're lucky, you can garner a threat out of the result of the counter. I recall conversing with Phantom Tape Worm about how good of a deck Landstill is, but I feel the threat density of Fish is why I will stick with it. Sometimes, believe it or not folks, you simply crap out too many dorks for them to handle, and win.

It is the versity of threats, the access to heavy card draw, and the fair amount of permission that binds the deck together and makes it successful.

[bebe]

I do not think that it is fair to compare Fish with Landstill. Because they both use one card does not make them the same beast at all. Landstill is a control variant. It waits to clear the board of threats and beats slowly with a man land. Fish is aggro with permission. I would compare Fish to r/g before I compared it to Landstill. Although it can kill ewith man lands it has a lot more threats in its arsenal and I've won with a Cloud of Faeries.

So what is the summation?

1) Fish has always been flexible. It can be tweaked for your meta and has a variety of answers for the current power arch types. I said this earlier - it has no auto losses. With thought you can create a sideboard that beats aggro, tog, fcg, workshop and combo.
2) Fish uses Rods and permission as well as any deck out there and this creates problems for a number of decks. For an aggro tempo deck it packs a lot of permission and this is a tough combimnation.
3) Fish can play against combo - this is not mentioned enough. It competes well with all the current combo decks something that aggro has difficulty with.
4) Fish is forgiving. You can slam out dorks and overpower your opponent even after a few play errors ( although it is less forgiving agaionst combo).
5) Fish can be competitive even as a budget deck. The first Fish decks back in BD days were budget alternatives even though we had power versions. Fish still plays well without power.

Fish appears in many top eights for a number of reasons. First it is always the deck that people recommend to newcomers as a good budget deck to break into Type 1. Second, Fish has been around long enough to feed of its own reputation. Because it is played widely it garners good finishes here and there and thus is played more widely.

[wuaffiliate]

thanks to recent sideboard additions of Sword of Fire and Ice and Sigil of Sleep, both serving to shore up the weak dedicated aggro matchup.

About time people realize that sigil is sick, ive been playing it for months.

Another great thing about fish is how it can be molded to fit any metagame. Ur gives all the tools you will ever need to deal with any metagame.

[Phantom Tape Worm]

Fish is a bad deck; don't play it.

Why is fish bad?  WOW, let's count all the bad cards:

At least 2 - 4 lands that come into play tapped = horrible
At least 12 - 16 creatures in this deck are absolutely terrible
4 creature enchantments: wtf?!
0-3 daze, WHAT IS DAZE?????

This adds up to somewhere between 30%-45% of the deck.  So much here is bad too, let's take a look at what is left now that we've factored out all that garbage, maybe we can build a better deck.

4 Force of will
0-3 Misdirection
0-3 stifle
4 standstill
3 null rod
4 mishra's factory
1 ancestral recall
1 time walk
1 mox sapphire
0-1 library of alexandria
4 wasteland
1 stripmine
8-12 playable blue lands (islands, fetches, duals)


OK, where to begin...well let's start by trying to accomodate the most discriminating spell: standstill.  In order to abuse this VERY SITUATIONAL draw spell best, we need to be able to remove its drawback ie. we need to be able to cast it at nearly any time. Hrm...we have 4 mishras already, but I very much doubt that we will be able to rely soley on 4 mishras factories to really remove the drawback of standstill, especially with so many wastelands in the environment.  I know, we'll increase the number of manlands in the deck!  Ok, opening apprentice...looking for manlands...hrm, the blue one isn't too bad i guess, it flys and deals 2 damage and produces blue which is probably good since i'm running a lot of blue cards already.  Ewww, "comes into play tapped".  Isn't there anything else?  Man, that sucks.  Oh well, i guess it'll have to do.

+ 2-4 faerie conclave

Ok, that's a good start, standstill should be good most of the time now.  I'll be able to drop it on turn 2 even if I don't have anything on my side of the board...HEY, now there's an idea!  What if i could drop standstill on turn 2 AND have something going on my side of the board!  Then my opponent HAS to break standstill!  And that way he can't like wait around until i've drawn back up to 7 and then break it during my end step because i haven't put him on a significant clock with just 1 man land poking at him.  SO, Manland + low cc beatings creatures that can come down before standstill will work better than just man lands for abusing standstill.  WOW, this is great, i'm so smart!  Ok, now let's find some good blue beatings creatures.  Opening apprentice again...searching for little blue beatings creatures...hrm, this is really bad...hey, what's this guy? "cloud of faeries" free on turn 2 eh? Well, i guess that fits the prerequisite.  Cycling, hey that doesn't trigger standstill, interesting.  Ok, i guess she makes the cut.

+4 bad blue beatings creatures

Well, I guess this is going to be a beatdown deck now.  4 creatures seems a bit low for a beat down.  Let's look at some other decks as models...sui has 16, sligh has 12-16, white weenie has 16-20...ok, i guess i have to add more bad blue beatings creatures.  16 seems to be the average for successful beatdown archetypes, guess that'll work.  What do we have here that's at least somewhat playable?
rootwater thief
lord of atlantis
spiketail hatchling
waterfront bouncer
gilded drake
flying men
voidmage prodigy
suqatah fire walker
serendib efreet

well, i guess a good mix of those guys will have to do.  Certain mixes will no doubt be better than others, i'll worry about specifics later.

+8-12 more bad blue beatings creatures


Ok, this is going nicely.  Now i've got a nice little counter-beatdown deck here.  I really like this whole drawing cards thing that good decks do.  Standstill is solid and i think i can really abuse it now, but it still feels like i need something else too.  Hulk has deep anal to support its ak engine...still feels like i need more draw.  Ok, let's see, i can't support ak intuition or any other mana intensive draw spells because i chose to run null rod and that means no fast mana on my side.  See, if i had moxen on my side of the board in the first couple turns, then i could probably run a great high mana secondary draw engine...all i'm gonna have are these bad blue beatings creatures.  Well, guess i'll be checking apprentice again.  Hey now, curiosity.  1 mana?? OMFG that's perfect!!  And because my doods are all blue they mostly all fly or have some kind of evasion so they can drop the bombs on your moms!  Oh man, this is great!

+4 curiosity



Ok, now lets take a look at the deck we've come up with starting with the list of good cards we added:
+ 2-4 faerie conclave (bad come into play tapped lands)
+ 12-16 bad blue beatings creatures
+ 4 curiosity (creatures enchantments?!?!?!)

*i didn't bother explaining why you would want daze since i believe the inclusion of daze is contingent upon spiketail hatchling, since i did not delve into creature selection we cannot assume spiketail hatchling is in the deck


Where did we go wrong????  We are still playing a deck with 45% bad cards.

The answer is nowhere.  We wanted to maximize our ability to abuse standstill and rightly so, it is VERY powerful, and this was the end result.  The power of 5 ancestral recalls, good blue spells, and null rod, allows bad blue beatings creatures, CitP tapped lands, and creature enchantments to be effective.  I'll be the first to admit there are a lot of S'y cards in this deck, but they were necessary for 5 ancestral recalls to be available to begin with.  Does the deck rely heavily on the strength of its good cards?  Absolutely.  But it couldn't run its good cards if it didn't have its bad cards that enable them.

[The Atog Lord]

I'm not sure that it is possible to declare Fish dead based on a single game. Jacob's starting hand wasn't amazing, and mine was very good. In the first turn, Jacob dropped a pair of Moxes and a Null Rod, so he started down by two cards. I drew, and had a Library. As for a lack of threats, post-board, I had four Fire/Ice, three Red Elemental Blasts, and an Echoing Truth, and used quite a bit of that removal in the game.

Jacob's second place with Fish, I think, shows that the deck is still viable; his unique build indicates that the deck has room for growth.

[Tijnie]

thanks to recent sideboard additions of Sword of Fire and Ice and Sigil of Sleep, both serving to shore up the weak dedicated aggro matchup.

About time people realize that sigil is sick, ive been playing it for months.

Another great thing about fish is how it can be molded to fit any metagame. Ur gives all the tools you will ever need to deal with any metagame.

You're so right, Sigil is great. People can tell you such great things about it, but still you won't destroy any threath rightt?? you just bounce them and you can't keep bouncing forever...  can you?? YES WE CAN!!. Since we're fucking up you're mana-base with enough strips, rods and stifle's you can't get out so many threaths a turn. and if you're going to try it, we'l have to give you permission to do that so no way there'll be a nice threath on the board for you.

I don't like Sofai that much, I think very few people REALLY tested this. It slows down this deck so much. that mana-cost just doesn't de the trick, 5 mana that means you're busy 2 turns only trying to equip it, and unless you hava a fearie there will be no threath on your side to put it on anyway. so turn 4 you can block something finely and you didn't played anything else. Sigil will start working turn 3 and can be in play turn 2. Meanwhile, you can go play wastelands, rods, standstill or whatever. this is Fishy, Sofai is NOT Fishy. And Sofai say no to your curiosity's and rods.. it just sucks for fish. nice on paper, bad on board. Don't believe me?? try it!  

Need more cards for aggro?? you must have a crappy meta dude , Fire/Ice and/or maze of Ith can often help out nice to. Fire/Ice can stop 2 cheap threaths. he tried so hard to have a few mana and drop threaths and you play 1 card and both are gone... Life's a Biatch. maze just paralyses a creatue, you fly so you don't care if he has a non-flying threath on the board and with several maze's on board you can have so much fun on the long game. Attack with two mishra's. one gets blocked, I untap to pump my other mishra and do the same again (same target) to pump it again. Same idea goes for attacking Lavamancers that can shoot twice that turn.

@PTW, nice story and so true. though with darkstweel coming, we DO have a new man-land so you're not 100% right   .

[Rico Suave]

Many of you are misunderstanding me.  I'm not saying Fish is a bad deck, or that it can't win.  Any deck with blue in T1 can win solely on the fact it has blue cards in it.

I'm just talking about the other cards that fill out the rest of the deck.  Are weenies really optimal?  Landstill is a totally different deck, but it uses the same skeleton of cards but fills out the 1/1 wimps with things like Mana Drain.

That can hit board cards, Fish has the ability to hit more cards as they are being played and such, I think it's mostly the synergy that makes Fish's control stronger a grip on the meta then Landstill's.

To be fair, Mana Drain does a lot better job at stopping things as they're being played than Spiketail Hatchling.  

The reason I've always preferred those lousy 1/1s to Mana Drain is simple - I consider 1/1s to be far more of a threat than Mana Drain.

That's what I don't get.  Swarming somebody with 1/1's in T1?  Could you imagine if people adjusted their SB's and actually cared about beating Fish?  

The answer is nowhere. We wanted to maximize our ability to abuse standstill and rightly so, it is VERY powerful, and this was the end result. The power of 5 ancestral recalls, good blue spells, and null rod, allows bad blue beatings creatures, CitP tapped lands, and creature enchantments to be effective. I'll be the first to admit there are a lot of S'y cards in this deck, but they were necessary for 5 ancestral recalls to be available to begin with. Does the deck rely heavily on the strength of its good cards? Absolutely. But it couldn't run its good cards if it didn't have its bad cards that enable them.

So what about Landstill?  It runs those same good cards except for Null Rod, and it gets to replace all those "bad cards" with more dangerous things.  

I'm not sure that it is possible to declare Fish dead based on a single game. Jacob's starting hand wasn't amazing, and mine was very good. In the first turn, Jacob dropped a pair of Moxes and a Null Rod, so he started down by two cards. I drew, and had a Library. As for a lack of threats, post-board, I had four Fire/Ice, three Red Elemental Blasts, and an Echoing Truth, and used quite a bit of that removal in the game.

I wasn't declaring it dead, I was using a quote as something that sparked my thought process.  

Jacob's second place with Fish, I think, shows that the deck is still viable; his unique build indicates that the deck has room for growth.

So is WW viable too, with it's strong finishes?

So anyway, perhaps some more of you people would like to chime in and say why somebody should play Landstill over Fish - unless of course 1/1 beatdown is better than what Landstill can offer.

[Hi-Val]

I like to double-dip and play Gay/R as well as Landstill. Hey, they share a significant cardpool, right? : )

I faced Kevin Cron (CHAIN5) playing Stax, and he removed his Karns and just used Welder beatdown to kill with his deck. Ballsy, yes. But he was on to something. Take that 1/1, maybe add one or two more, and instead of a hard lock, put in a soft lock such as Fish's, and you can see how the strategies are similar. You can win with a few insignificant threats if you stall your opponent out long enough, and that's what Fish is good at.

I'll boil down Fish's strengths to two good points:

1. As Bebe said, Fish has no dead matchups. This is crucial. There are many good decks that will just roll to another deck that pops up (Think combo against Fish : ) )

2. Nobody sideboards against it. Rico had a good point here. If you sideboard against Fish, you weaken your matchups against decks that give you more trouble. The most you'll face as a Fish player is Fire/Ice and Trikes. Both strong threats, but both can be dealt with. It is just about impossible to fully hate against Fish. Bring in REBs? Factories and Grims beat the damage. Bring in direct damage and the deck can still choke out one or two threats that dodge through. Bring in anything more than that and get flamed on TMD for hating a crap deck and not worrying about the real matchups!

As for Landstill vs. Gay/R, I find that Gay/R is stronger against combo and Landstill is better against workshop-based control. The reasons fall to two cards: Disk and Null Rod. You cannot run both, and either artifact changes the deck up a lot. It's really a metagame decision; both decks are meant to abuse Standstill, they just approach it differently.

*A note: I use Fish and Gay/R interchangably in this, but they both mean the latter. I personally feel that monoblue fish is dead.

[TheRock]

It isn't the fact that the creature is a 1/1 with some kind of evasion that makes it worth a slot over, say, Lightning Bolt.  It's the fact that the creature has some sort of game-altering ability that allows the Fish player to have a threat on the table that is different from said Null Rod and/or Disk that makes those creatures worth playing.  It is indeed a soft-lock feel.

I remember when I was playing combo and you yourself were killing me with a Gorilla Shaman and nothing else.  You had a soft-lock against the cards I needed to go off with that I wasn't able to recover from.  All of Fish's creatures can do that very same thing: provide another form of damage.

Mana Drain, Lightning Bolt, Nevinyyral's Disk, and having a high number of Misdirection aren't automatically "more dangerous", that's certainly not correct.  If that was the case then Fish would be nothing more than a memory by now.  The overall synergy of every single card in the deck should be analyzed to actually prove this, I understand, but that would be enough to write a book.

Let us analyze Lightning Bolt and Spiketail Hatchling.  One Landstill card, one Fish card.  U/R Landstill and Gay Red are similar enough to make a comparison without needing other measures.  Lightning Bolt does three damage to one creature or player for one mana.  Simple and easy.  Spiketail Hatchling is a 1/1 flyer for two mana with a Daze effect attached.  It has the "potential" to do 20 damage or more, and it has the "potential" to provide a soft-lock feel with the Daze effect.  But sometimes, it can't come close to doing either.

So, which one is better?   You tell me if you can.  If you think Lightning Bolt is always better (which it's not), then you should always be playing Landstill.  If you think Spiketail Hatchling is always better (which it's not), then you should always be playing Fish.

Why does PTW's Gay Red and Jacob Orlove's U/G Fish (if you have a specific name then doesn't hesitate to tell me) builds have so much success?  Forget the matchup stuff for a minute.  The threats of their creatures might be more valuable then the simple "I Bolt you for three" tactics.  But I'm not a pro and I can't read minds because it could easily be a matter of personal choice.  But it could be because one deck will perform better than the other, and that's where the difference in every card choice lies.

[Meddling Mike]

I don't think you should really be bashing the deck because you think it's not viable without cards like Null Rod and FOW, Hulk wouldn't be viable without tog, does that make it a weak deck? Long wouldn't have been viable w/o Mind's Desire or Tendrils of Agony, Dragon wouldn't be viable without Worldgorger Dragon. I think you can remove a few powerful cards most decks in the format and they would no longer be viable. And what would you propose be used instead of weenies if you feel that using weenies is sub optimal? The whole game plan of the deck is to drop some very early guys, not big, but often with a nice ability, then work like hell to establish card advantage and a control lock while the little men kick ass. Dropping a grim lavamancer turn 1 and standstill turn two is often a welcome sight for the fish player. Of course Fish is a deck designed to beat a metagame, most aggro type II decks would probably run all over fish. Fortunately for TAL, his deck strikes me as being a good matchup against fish, if he's able to welder a pentavus in play that makes it near impossible for the fish player to win, and his abundance of fire/ice in his match against Jacob certainly accounts for his ability to squeeze in 18 points of welder damage by contintually clearing Jacob's team out of the way, and as TAL mentioned, Jacob's hand wasn't exceptional.

[Rico Suave]

Meddling Mage:

I'm not going to respond to you, because:
1) I know how Fish works.
2) You need to read.  

TheRock:

Lightning Bolt is passe in Landstill.  

Hi-Val:

People should've followed your example the first time you posted.  Thank you.