Gay decks, broken down and built up

[PucktheCat]

This started out as some notes to myself and grew.  I hope it is helpful to someone.  It is intended to emphasize the flexibility of the Gay engine/disruption component and get people to think about Gay decks like they are starting to think about Keeper – as a single archetype with various metagame answers that can be included and changed from tournament to tournament.

The question:  Is there another Gay deck out there that can have success in strong environments?

Anyone who has played any one of the various “Gay” decks knows that there is a distinct division between the core of the deck and the secondary components.  The core of card drawing and disruption changes very little between variations while the creature base changes from version to version.

So far there have been three particularly potent and successful versions of the deck that have gotten most of the attentions:  Gay Fish, Gay/r and WTF (Gay/g).  Each of these versions was tuned for a specific metagame and each has its own unique advantages.  It seems likely, however, that these are not the only possible Gay decks.  Several less popular decks with Gay draw engines have been discussed, including versions splashing white for Meddling Mage and Swords to Plowshares, Gay Mono-U decks without merfolk, and, recently, a Gay/g deck with some of the green madness creature base including Wild Mongrel and Arrogant Wurm.

Here is the core card set that all these decks share:

Creatures:
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Mishra’s Factory
11-12 other creatures (typically 1-2 cc, although some 3 cc men have been included recently)
(x Faerie Conclave; see below)

Disruption:
4 Force of Will
3 Null Rod
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3-4 Other disruption (Daze, Stifle, Oxidize, etc.  Almost always complementing a mana denial theme)

Draw:
4 Standstill
4 Curiosity
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Library of Alexandria

Mana:
1 Island
1 Mox Sapphire
~12 Other color sources (including the Faerie Conclaves mentioned above)

That breaks down like this:
33 slots are, in almost every current metagame, fixed
12 are needed for whatever colored mana the deck needs
= 45 fixed slots

11-12 slots are creatures
3-4 disruptions
= 15 decision slots

What cards can fill these 15 slots?  In a perfect world, at least half of them would be blue cards of some sort to make sure Force is as useful as possible.  These often come from the following list, but are strongly contingent on the choices made with the 15 slots in general:

Spiketail Hatchling
Voidmage Prodigy
Daze
Stifle
Misdirection

The remaining few cards (often around 6-8), and the sideboard are what determine the appropriate secondary color(s) for a Gay deck.  Most deck builders tend to try to solve a few very common problems with these cards, while maintaining the deck’s synergy.  To do this they generally think about some or all of the following questions:

1. Does this card take advantage of or promote the deck’s mana denial strategy?

2. Does this card facilitate having a board advantage early to power a Standstill?

3. Does this card work well with Curiosity?  Is it a creature with evasion?

4. Does this card efficiently deal with utility creatures like Welder?

5. Does this card offer the possibility of negating the advantage decks with large creatures typically have when facing Gay decks?

6. Can this card speed up the deck’s regrettably slow kill?

Here are some of the possibilities in each color, in a rough order of my initial impression of their potential.  I have also included some sideboard possibilities in these lists, particularly for the less explored colors.

Blue:
 (the Fish, generally treated as a block)
Manta Rider
Rootwater Thief
Lord of Atlantis
(non fish options)
Suq’ata Firewalker
Flying Men
Thalkos Seer
Psionic Blast

Blue was the original color to fill these slots.  The Fish creature base, in particular, is very good at staring down other weenie aggro like sligh and provides the possibility of a very fast kill.  Mono-U offers advantages in mana stability and lets you run 4 Faerie Conclave as well.  Despite these advantages it is generally thought that a secondary color is worthwhile.  Blue has few good answers to creatures.

Red:
Grim Lavamancer
Goblin Vandal
Gorilla Shaman
Razorfin Hunter
Fire/Ice
Rack and Ruin
Red Elemental Blast

Red was the first color (that I know of) to be added to the Fish decks.  It was also the color that first pushed the Fish out of a Gay deck and opened up the slots that we are looking at.    The card that did this was Grim Lavamancer.  All credit to Phatom Tape Worm for this critical innovation.  Grim Lavamancer is an incredible creature for this deck because he single-handedly provides a decent, evasive source of damage and solves the deck’s creature removal problem while fitting in the otherwise weak 1cc slot.  Some of his utility can be replaced by more conventional blue pingers (Suq’ata Firewalker) but the fact that some Gay decks are willing to pay 3 mana for very similar functionality simply shows how good he really is.  Other red cards, Rack and Ruin in particular, can be important in certain metagames, but Gay/r’s greatest virtue by far is Lavamancer.

Green:
River Boa
Oxidize
Naturalize
Root Maze
Ground Seal
Hidden Gorillas
Drop of Honey
Treetop Village
(Madness creature set, probably a block)
Wild Mongrel
Basking Rootwalla
Arrogant Wurm

This color choice has recently made a splash with Jacob Orlove’s recent WTF.dec.  River Boa and Oxidize are the major selling points of Jacob’s version.  The Boa is at his best against Psychatog, who he can both block and islandwalk around.  Oxidize is most likely the only maindeck worthy artifact removal for Gay decks because it is so efficient and fits into the mana denial theme very well.  The madness creatures, suggested by jpmeyer and kirdape3, are primarily a response to the relatively slow kill these decks have.  As kirdape3 said “I think that it's really the last obstacle that Fish has had to overcome to be a really solid deck - it's just so slow to kill with.”  Green doesn’t offer any great ways to handle utility creatures, so Suq’ata has been used in decks splashing green.

White:
Meddling Mage
Swords to Plowshares
Disenchant
Serenity
Seal of Cleansing

White has been suggested again and again as a splash color for Gay decks, but it has never been a component of the most high profile versions.  The two cards that make white interesting are Meddling Mage, which fits very well into the deck’s game plan (compare Meddling Mage with Voidmage Prodigy, for example) and Swords to Plowshares, which seems an ideal solution to the deck’s struggles against fat aggro.  The reason this splash never quite works seems to be that StP, while strong, is not critical maindeck in most metagames, and the improvement of the creature base from adding Meddling Mage, while noticeable, is simply not as compelling as that offered by either River Boa or Grim Lavamancer.  One of the Mage’s major strengths, that he can be pitched to Force, is not as relevant as it might be because there are few other white cards to maindeck anyway.  White might be an attractive alternative in a three color build, however.

Black:
Phyrexian Negator
Duress
Flesh Reaver
Coffin Purge
Planer Void
Black power (Demonic, Will)?

Black is by far the least explored color for this deck, and with good reason.  The creatures it offers have little evasion and huge drawbacks and black disruption does not complement the traditional Gay disruption suite as well as it might (Duress saves your opponent mana).  Planer Void addresses one traditional weakness of Gay decks, but it is still probably not enough to make black a strong choice.  Still, Phyrexian Negator would certainly speed up the deck’s kill.

Mana Base Issues:
In addition to the question of what cards give Gay decks the strongest creature base the issue of mana stability also needs to be considered.  Here is the classic Mono-U colored mana base:

4 Faerie Conclave
9 Island
1 Mox Sapphire

This mana base has several advantages.  It never has the wrong color of mana, it is highly resistant to non-basic land hate (Blood Moon and co. will still have their effect by shutting down man-lands, however) and it lets you safely play a full set of Faerie Conclaves.  Since the Conclaves avoid Standstill this can be a crucial advantage against Landstill, other Gay decks, or any deck that might try to wait out your Standstill.

In order to add a second color to the deck room needs to be made for fetchlands and duals.  This is commonly done by replacing islands and one or two of the four Conclaves.  Here is the original Gay/r mana base:

2 Faerie Conclave
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mox Sapphire

And here is the WTF mana base that was most recently posted:

3 Faerie Conclave
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald

As you can see, the WTF mana base goes down to 13 U-sources, presumably possible because it has no UU requirements to deal with.  It also replaces one fetchland with one Conclave, probably at least in part due to the increased popularity of Stifle.  Although the thinning effect of fetchlands can be quite noticeable in a deck that generally plays out many more turns that the average T1 deck it is not crippling to the mana base because the most mana hungry cards in the deck, the Conclaves, are cut to make room for them.

Is a three color Gay deck possible?
In certain metagames, particularly those with a relatively high proportion of combo and relatively few Wastelands it might be possible to play a Gay deck without Conclaves at all.  If this is the case a three color Gay deck is defiantly within the realm of possibility.  The following mana base is very solid:

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Blue/x Dual
3 Blue/y Dual
1 Island
1 Mox Sapphire

The disadvantages of such a mana base are obvious.  Without Conclaves your Standstills become easier to fight.  Decks like Landstill and Keeper with Decree will be more likely to try to wait you out.  This disadvantage is only partly compensated for by the added speed of a mana base without lands that come into play tapped.

The advantages of the mana base should be obvious as well.  In the combo metagame mentioned above, for example, Meddling Mage could be put into virtually any other two color Gay deck.  Likewise, Grim Lavamancer could come in place of Suq’ata in some Gay/g decks.  The side benefit of builds that run 3 colors instead of Conclaves is that Conclaves will lose you some games against combo and prison.

Edits:  grammer and added Treetop Village for green.

[wuaffiliate]

The question:  Is there another Gay deck out there that can have success in strong environments?

i like the thread for the fact that it tells those who have never played or never play the deck a little about their options.

but i believe your question has already been answered by the already many successes in strong environments. but basically ANY build running the manlands + standstill + curiosity + mana denial + lowcc evading men strategy will do well.

[PucktheCat]

basically ANY build running the manlands + standstill + curiosity + mana denial + lowcc evading men strategy will do well.

I think you are right.  That is why I want to emphasize how the difference between the core of the deck and the slots that rotate.  People need to start changing what they play in the open slots more aggressively to match their metagame.  Rather than chosing to play Gay/r and finding a list they should choose to play a Gay deck then decide what cards to fill it out with.

Obviously you know this archetype pretty well, so I presume when you go to a tournament you make choices about what cards to play.  It seems like a lot of people simply play one of the three popular builds (Gay/r, WTF, Gay Fish) without considering why they are choosing one over another or over another deck that has the same strategy but a slightly different creature base.

Leo

Edit:  See below.  What he said.

[Kushluk]

The question:  Is there another Gay deck out there that can have success in strong environments?

i like the thread for the fact that it tells those who have never played or never play the deck a little about their options.

but i believe your question has already been answered by the already many successes in strong environments. but basically ANY build running the manlands + standstill + curiosity + mana denial + lowcc evading men strategy will do well.

Yeah, but I think what he is saying, is if there is one that can do better. In other words, is there one that is superior for some specific metagame.

[Lord_Drazinus]

Nice thread. It was indeed a good read.

I am currently working on a new type of fish. It will include standstill, some man lands, disruption(in multiple forms), and low costed, quality creatures.

I do not plan on posting a list until after April 24th(the day of Waterbury) but in my tournament report for either it, or CC(I don't know which one I am going to...because I may have a ride to Waterbury and definitely have a ride to CC) I will include a list along with card-by-card analysis.

[-Draz-]

[M]

Just a few (controversial?) points of mine.

1) The deck's basic strategy is not mana denial, it's card advantage.
Sometimes card advantage and the maindeck Null Rods make mana denial possible, sometimes they don't.
Setting up the draw engine is key. Everything else is secondary, including the mana denial aspect.

2) To improve the stability of the mana base in two colored versions such as Redfish,
consider moving 1 or 2 Wasteland from main to sideboard.
Also consider dropping the Library and the Sapphire completely from your 'core' list.
I did that a while ago and I have never looked back.
The Mox is decent if you draw it in your opening hand, otherwise it's just horrible with the maindeck Rods.
The Wastelands are too slow if you draw them in chunks;
the point is they slow you down as well because you don't have acceleration (i.e. moxes).
Fourteen is minimum for blue mana sources (and no UU-spells).
Nine is a good maximum for non-blue mana sources.

This is a solid, reliable mana base for Redfish (with Lavamancers):

4 Volcanic Island
4 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
Sideboard: +1 Wasteland

3) Since you have no mana acceleration of your own, make sure you include many 1-drops (e.g. Stifle, Flying Men).
Fifteen is a good number (including the Conclaves).
Don't scrap the 1-drops because you think Spiketail or Voidmage are better creatures.
You must be actively playing on turn 1. Don't wait for the Mana Drain or Lackey to hit you on turn two.

[BreathWeapon]

Fish became a mana denial deck the moment people got off their ass and realized the power of Stifle in the T1 metagame. Also worthy of some mention is the increased stability in your own manabase as the # of Stifles are increased. Most of the people who have had serious problems with their manabases still use Daze almost exclusively

[Shaman]

I am still wondering why Nobody uses Viashino Heretic as a maindeck or sideboard option. Viashino Heretic is THE answer againt artifact, with 3/4 stifle you are supposed to save 3 mana to cast it and win the game.

[KrauserKrauser]

Well it does cost 3, and well that is alot for Gay decks.  Also 3 makes a silly drain target for tog, etc.  It's effect is definitely amazing but its cost means more than likely it won't be coming down on turn 3 because you are either under a standstill or attempting to be under a stnadstill.

[Raven Fire]

Fish became a mana denial deck the moment people got off their ass and realized the power of Stifle in the T1 metagame.

Yes, 5 Strips, 2 or 3 Stifles, and 3 or 4 Null Rods leads to some nice mana denial.  And let's face it, with the limited number of actual counters in the deck the ability to disrupt your opponent's mana base is essential.

Now, a heretical question:  How important are the faeries to the Gay decks?  Flying Men seems like a reasonable substitute for the Cloud and with more possible one drops (Lavamncers, Vandals, Stifles, Flying Men) the Conclave grows more frustrating in the openning hand.  Is it possible to stay Gay without our beloved faeries?

[xaos]

Fish became a mana denial deck the moment people got off their ass and realized the power of Stifle in the T1 metagame.

Yes, 5 Strips, 2 or 3 Stifles, and 3 or 4 Null Rods leads to some nice mana denial.  And let's face it, with the limited number of actual counters in the deck the ability to disrupt your opponent's mana base is essential.

Now, a heretical question:  How important are the faeries to the Gay decks?  Flying Men seems like a reasonable substitute for the Cloud and with more possible one drops (Lavamncers, Vandals, Stifles, Flying Men) the Conclave grows more frustrating in the openning hand.  Is it possible to stay Gay without our beloved faeries?

I don't think this is a good direction to be taking Gay decks...  yes, Flying Men have a lower CMC, but Cloud(if it resolves) is free.  Don't forget the totally STUPID things that get done with Library of Alexandria.  The Gay deck needs their tempo early and unrelenting, and the Faeries are there to keep kicking it up a notch.

[firebird365]

I have a question about playing Fish; I've been doing a little testing on MWS with Gay/r and I'm often faced with the 2-land Faerie Conclave/Volc. Island dilemma. These hands usually look like so:

x1 Volcanic Island
x1 Faerie Conclave
x1 Stifle
x1 Curiosity
x1 Cloud of Faeries
x1 Standstill
x1 Force of Will/Daze

Now, in my opinion, this is a sweet hand, but I'm unsure which land to lay first. If the Volc. goes down, I have the chance for Stifle or Daze, but I'm also sacrificing the second turn Cloud > Standstill or Cloud > Curiosity. Which is the better play?

[wuaffiliate]

the thing about gay decks is that you really need to be in tune with your metagame to win with them, you need to test alot of different creature and utility choices to know what works in what situation and vs what decks. i forgot to mention that the above obviously refers to EVERY deck in type1 but moreso for fish becase its a huge part of why it wins.

[Swanky]

Is a three color Gay deck possible?

When delving into trichromatic, blue-based aggro-control, you begin to find yourself drifting closer to EBA.  I've found it to be so, at least.  When trying out various color combinations, (U/r/g and U/w/b, to be precise.), I find myself gravitating toward a more aggressive deck that would be better off as R/G beats, or a more controllish deck that would be a bad version of EBA.  To maintain some semblance of efficiency, Fish needs a strong blue base with small color splashes for random utility.

I, though, am a mono-blue purist as my metagame typically holds a lot of blue, and giving your entire team Islandwalk is advantageous.  I shall now receive your hail of thrown stones graciously. ;)

I've tried going with a base-wizards build using Firewalker, Thalakos Seer, and Kai (coupled with random stuff like Hapless Wizard.), and was far from impressed.  Voidmage comes in handy occasionally; it depends on your metagame's speed.

[nataz]

@firebird

well, it depends on what you are playing against, but in a game where i have no outside information, and i am going first i would play the conclave first. followed by turn two faries, standstill and then holding force, daze back up.

with this you still have the option to counter something mean first turn with the force/curiosity, you have the option to uber counter durring you second turn with 2 counters (daze and force) and third turn you can start the tempo race under standstill forcing them to break into (hopefully) a counter or other goodness.

the only reason i would run it differently is if i was looking at a combo ( which would be volc - either stifle or daze)

[Raven Fire]

I have a question about playing Fish; I've been doing a little testing on MWS with Gay/r and I'm often faced with the 2-land Faerie Conclave/Volc. Island dilemma.

That's exactly why I'm questioning the auto inclusion of Cloud and Conclave.  With more 1 drops and basic lands, you end up with a 1/1 and Stanstill by the end of turn 2, but you got an extra attack phase.  Isn't that a tempo improvement?

[Swanky]

Faerie Conclave serves the same purpose as Mishra's Factory; it's a threat you can slip under Standstill.  Cloud of Faeries is decent in that it allows you to lay more than 1 threat for two mana, or have access to mana you can use in some other fashion (Such as laying a Standstill or suiting up a threat with Curiosity.).  Additionally, its oft-forgotten ability to cycle prevents it from being a dead card if worse comes to worse.

They're both very good cards to have, but don't let that prevent you from experimenting.  Prove the status quo wrong.

[Sandster]

I have contemplated on replacing Conclaves with, say Shivan Reef (or Yavimaya Coast for WTF) for the extra off-color mana, seeing as Conclaves never did anything for me.  Maybe I need to face Landstill to see its uses, but for the large part I never had trouble finding beats to put under Standstill, leaving the Conclave with just powering the cheaper Factories or leaving them open for Kai.

Having more than a few lands out signify that your opponent likely has them too, making the tempo counters extremely weak.  The goal is not to stall to ride Conclave for the win, but to use the mana for beats and disruption early on.  Gay/r already has many 1-drops, especially if you include the moxen.