One Fish Left, yet another U/r fish build

[Pern]

This got me top 8 in Waterbury.
It's exhausting to play it all day,
but I was pretty happy with the results.

One Fish Left

SOURCES (24)
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library Of Alexandria
1 Black Lotus (proxy)
1 Mox Sapphire (proxy)

MEN (13)
4 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Flying Men
3 Razorfin Hunter (the one fish left)
2 Suq'Ata Firewalker (my old sideboard tech is now maindeck)
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Gorilla Shaman

JUST SAY NO (8)
4 Force Of Will
3 Stifle
1 Misdirection

DRAW (9)
4 Curiosity
3 Standstill
1 Ancestral Recall (proxy)
1 Time Walk (borrowed)

ANSWERS (6)
3 Null Rod
2 Fire/Ice
1 Echoing Truth

SIDE (15)
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Maze Of Ith
2 Viashino Heretic
1 Gorilla Shaman (1 main)
1 Fire/Ice (2 main)
1 Wasteland (3 main)
1 Control Magic
1 Sigil Of Sleep
1 Black Vise

I'd like to discuss some of the choices I've made here.

I've never been a fan of Grim Lavamancer in U/r weenies,
because of his activation cost.
Razorfin Hunter comes live on turn three, same as Grim typically does,
and you never have to hold back nailing your opponent end of turn.
Losing your red source or running your graveyard dry are too easy.
Since Black became the new Green,
you no longer need to shoot Hyppies out of the sky.
The most dangerous weenies in T1 mostly have 1 on the butt.
I did find two reasons to run one copy, however.
I like having pingers at all three costs.
In one game, I faced Chalices for 1 and 2.
In another, it was 2 and 3.
This is the same reason I run 2 Shamans and 2 Heretics.
The other Grim benefit is that he eats my dead Lotus.
I'd been running Lotus Petal next to Black Lotus in playtesting,
but it was frequently unplayable because Welders could rotate it with my Null Rod.
Grim solved that problem for me twice on Saturday.

Black Lotus was huge.
One game I opened with land, Lotus, Null Rod, Razorfin.
That was essentially a turn one win,
considering I was facing Workshops and Welders.
Another game I got a turn one Heretic against Workshops.
A third game I got a turn one Suq'Ata with Ancestral against WTF.
In this case he had Force for the Firewalker and MisD for the Ancestral,
followed by his own Firewalker, and I got crushed,
but Jacob Orlove'll just happen to you sometimes.

I sided out the Standstills nearly every match.
I like them so much better in Landstill,
where you can clear the board midgame and then drop one.
If your opponent can put down an early threat,
Stills become just poor Force fodder in this deck.

My ambivalence over Standstill makes Cloud less appealing.
Cloud is only free if it resolves.
If you play it turn two, your opponent can fetch in response,
or you can lose a counter war over it.
Flying Men leaves Stifle mana open in the same situation,
and nobody ever counters it.
It also comes down turn one, and evades Chalice for 2.
Once they're on the table, there's little difference.

I playtested Daze for a while.
It just didn't work for me.

I sided in the fourth Wasteland and the third Fire more often than not.
In Hadley, decks have been becoming a little more Wasteland resistant,
so I only ran three maindeck, but it was the wrong call.
I'm going to move a Still to the side for the fourth Waste main.
That may make me mana heavy, in which case I'll drop an Island for a business spell.
I really, really like the three Islands and the Mountain, though.
Blood Moon just ain't so scary.
Back To Basics is moreso, but I can frequently deal.
I might tinker with the U to R fetch ratio.
Access to red is really important,
but a few times I fetched a Volcanic, putting my red at risk,
when all I needed was a blue source.

I sided in the Control Magic and the Black Vise several times.
I never saw either one.
Control Magic might want to be Gilded Drake,
but I'm concerned about having another 2 drop while facing Chalice.
I'm considering Domineer (UU1 Control Magic for artifact creatures)
since so many of the fat guys are artifacts right now,
but I really want to be able to take Mongrels, Boas, Togs and Welders, too.
Sigil was amazingly good, but I didn't want more than one.
Too many creature enchantments and not enough guys is a bad plan.

Two Mazes was perfect, as was the three REBs and two BEBs.

It's amusing watching a Workshop-toting opponent read Heretic's text.
It's even more amusing when they read the Curiosity I put on him.

[Meddling Mike]

Hey, I wanted to ask about what you thought of standstill, I noticed that you only ran 3. Although Jacob's build is quite different, judging by his tourney report he thinks standstill is supoptimal and said that he is considering testing without it.

[proGaming]

Stupid question, why is this deck still called Fish if you only have one of them?

[Dr. Sylvan]

Stupid question, why is this deck still called Fish if you only have one of them?

Name recognition for the deck's strategy, which is still the same as before.

[The Atog Lord]

Props to you for running Flying Man.

[Diakonov]

Stupid question, why is this deck still called Fish if you only have one of them?

Hence "One Fish Left."

Congrats on the strong finish Dan.

Also, I think Stifle is a great card and it came in handy (I ran Grostill at Waterbury for all those in question) but doesn't three seem a little heavy?  There were multiple games where it was utterly useless.  Have you considered another Mis'd?

[Pern]

Heh.

GroStill has very different objectives than Fish,
and I can see where Stifle wouldn't be quite as useful there.
Mindslaver simply must not happen to me, ever.
Half my deck kills the other half,
and all of it kills itself.
My Null Rods mean I can't run Tormod's Crypt,
so I usually have to beat Dragon on the stack.
I can't think of a deck I faced Saturday that didn't have good targets for it,
and I never considered siding them out.

There's no way I want fewer than three Stifles.
I've considered running a fourth.

[rmn]

What do you think of the Firestorms that one guy had in his top 8 fish deck at the vintage champs?  From StarCity:

1 Mox Sapphire
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
3 Null Rod
4 Standstill
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Rootwater Thief
3 Curiosity
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Firestorm
3 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Daze
1 Mountain
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
2 Faerie Conclave
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island

sideboard:
3 Seal of Removal
1 Stifle
1 Null Rod
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Arcane Laboratory
2 Tormod’s Crypt

Obviously a metagame call, but a really cool one.  What do you think?

[Pern]

Unmisdirectable point removal that can sweep the board or finish a player?
Sounds OK for R.
It's even got good art.

Didn't PTW run one in the side in DC?

You can't pitch it to Force, though,
and it'd cost you three additional cards
for it to be strictly better than Fire.
That's a lot of resources.

I can see running one.

[PandaPokemon]

Great Job.  I went 4-0 in the start then I lost the next 4 games.  (Well I threw away the last game once I was 4-3 since I knew I wouldn't make top 16 and the two packs weren't as appealing as testing out weird sideboarding techniques)

In retrospect I made a bad choice in the game versus you.  I had the masticore which could have killed your 1-1 creatures earlier but I was just afraid of bolt or fire and ice and I didn't watch my health.  You were at one health and I should have probably gone for killing the blockers =(.

Sigil of sleep was a great card.  I had a Juggie but I couldn't play it with your pinger.  And I should have played damping matrix in the third game so that your heretic couldn't blow up my triskelion and deal me 6 points of damage!  I am such a bad player =(  I changed too many cards in my deck without any testing (like Masticore) and my inexperience just showed horribly.

Oh and that 4/6 creature is Grid Monitor.  =P

[Pern]

I only saw one ping that you missed.
That might have done it, though,
depending on what you shot.

Right, Grid Monitor.
I'll fix that in the report.

[Machinus]

Why didn't you run ruby? You had two proxies left, correct?

[Pern]

3xNull Rod, and space.
I wouldn't want to cut one of the lands for it.

Up until Thursday, even the Sapphire was a Lotus Petal,
except the damned thing kept showing up
across from active Welders in playtesting.
That was before I put in the lone Grim.
I may actually go back to the Petal.
I really liked having access to both colors.
Turn one Razorfin or Spiketail or Null Rod,
turn one Flying Men or Shaman with Stifle open.
If only Mox Diamond wasn't so bad.

[BlkXplsn]

Pern,

I really like the direction
That this deck has taken.
Did you develop this by yourself
Or with others?

I remember playing a deck called
1 fish 2 fish (red fish blue fish),
What prompted the change of the deck
Aside from the updating it needs in the current environment?

I am also a big fan
Of the prose-like style
That you tend to write with.
Congrats on your strong finish.

[Machinus]

You know, you dont have to press Enter, the board will just word wrap the text when it gets to the end of the line. It makes it kind of easier to read if you do that.

[Pern]

@BlkXplsn - I've asked other people's advice,
and I ripped the parts I liked from PTW's Gay/r and so forth,
but I'd have to say it was my own thing.
I'm not aware of anybody else playing it.

I quit playing One Fish, Two Fish when Madness was everywhere,
along with the Solemn Simulacrum builds of TnT.
The deck had troubles with endless streams of castable fat.
Combo also became too fast for Rootwater Thief.
So basically, Ill Dawg killed my old deck.

Most of today's fat is Welder based, and I have a tool or two for them.
Learning the many applications of Stifle has helped with combo.
Ill Dawg's in Poland.

Decks have their metagames.
This is my attempt to bring my One Fish, Two Fish into this one.

@Machinustoeachhisownmyfriendifindthatwhenthewordsareallstrungtogetheritcanbedifficulttofollowtheflowofideas.

Bitesize chunks
may be easier
to digest.

[Machinus]

I guess I imagined that the manual line breaking made a big difference to people who don't run 1600 like myself. With such a high resolution, posts take up a lot less vertical space. Your posts are easy to read, but also have lots of empty gray off to the right : )

[DEA]

i prefer reading it pern's way
letting the board do it, it runs on and on irritates my sense of aesthetics  

[sparticus216]

right now I am testing online with all the differant pingers and wanted to know what seems to be the most effictive as far as i can see at this point there are some basic Pros/Cons that keep me from making a clear decession:

RazorFin Hunter: Never considerd this guy until i saw him in the Recent T8 at waterbury.
Pro: No Cost Ping, 2 mana
Con: Mana Heavy, with all the colorless sources and CIP lands its tough to get this out before turn 3/4

Suq'Ata
Pro: ProRed: Fire/Ice, Bolts etc., Free Ping
Con: 3cc, need to pay UU.

Lavamancer
Pro: Good First turn drop, 2 damage can take care of most threts
Con: Need Cards in graveyard...and an active red mana source, which if you only have volcanics is in clear danger of wastelands

not sure if i mised any...also i wanted to know how many fire/ice and null rods you sugest...right now i have
4 Fire/Ice
3 Null rod

Overkill????

[Pern]

Three Rods is right.
Four Fire/Ice may be right, depending on
how many weenies you face in a tournament.
Three's probably OK.
I ran two, and frequently sided in a third.
I also run six pingers, though, so I can get away with fewer.