Worse Than Fish: part 2

[TheRock]

After reading a few discussion about Standstill (maybe a lot of discussions might be more appropriate), Brainstorm has come up quite a bit.

I'm not was never thrilled about Standstill in Worse Than Fish, but after more than a year of success in Gay Red and Mono-U, I was not convinced that the card needed to go.

Well, times change and things happen.  Other than some reports by Hi-Val, Jacob Orlove, PTW, Pern, and a few other members about their countless successes (to which I have not had yet), there hasn't been much else.  

While I'm certainly no "innovator", this new list for Worse Than Fish might be a step in the right direction.  I have posted the list here since I do not feel that it is up to par with the other threads, but I would be honored if somebody moved it anyway.

Here is my list:

Creatures ( 14 )
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 River Boa
3 Flying Men
3 Suq' Ata Firewalker

Draw ( 11 )
4 Curiosity
4 Brainstorm
1 Sylvan Library
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall

I Don't Think So ( 6 )
4 Force of Will
2 Stifle

No Artifacts ( 5 )
3 Null Rod
2 Oxidize

Lands ( 24 )
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Polluted Delta
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Forest
2 Island

Sideboard ( 15 ) (please laugh, it's bad)
3 Drop of Honey
2 Naturalize
2 Magus of the Unseen
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Hidden Guerillas (a card I don't like)
1 Oxidize
1 Sylvan Library
1 Black Vise
1 Stifle

Changes:
-2 Faerie Conclave    +1 Island    +1 Forest
-1 Yavimaya Coast    +1 Wooded Foothills


First off, you will notice that there is NO Standstill in here.  We have Brainstorm in there now.  Just keep that in mind.  Brainstorm is a great engine for this deck since it is extremely versatile compared to Standstill.  Combined with a fetchland, it is even better.

Cloud of Faeries isn't around anymore.  We don't need to carry out the Standstill plan anymore and we don't need to go running into a wall with Chalice either.  Flying Men now consume three of those four slots, and we will discuss the fourth in a second.

Sylvan Library is also a card that we couldn't really use with Standstill around.  This card is the fourth Cloud slot since I don't feel that we need 15 creatures with this buttload of draw/search that we now possess.  Sylvan just adds on to the already dangerous theme of Brainstorm, while being able to give us a ton of cards in certain matchups.

One drawback, though, is that I only have 6 slots for answer cards because I want to utilize Oxidize.  This means that I have to run 2 Stifle, which just doesn't feel right.  Stifle does so much that you should feel somewhat naked by only having two in the deck.


Now, for that re-fixed mana base.  There are now five fetchlands in here, which is what I've wanted.  But, the mana base is not very friendly to turn one plays, so we are almost back at square one.


There is still three Firewalkers in here.  Welders are a major pain and they need to be hosed.  In addition, I get to stop Lavamancer and Hunter dead in their tracks, and that means a harder time playing Standstill and Curiosity for them.

Oxidize is good.  Ties right in with the mana denial theme and snaps any artifact that you want.


Now for that sideboard mess.

Even though Tormod's Crypt has horrible synergy with Null Rod, I feel naked not having it.  One is just too few, and I refuse to give Hulk a surge of cards when they get Tog and many more hard counters than me.

The third Stifle is there for Brainstorm/fetchland and the combo matchups.  I can rip your mana base apart, but if you hit a strong Brainstorm, all my work can be for naught in an awful hurry.

Sylvan Library is just so good in certain matchups that I want more of it.  Gay Red sides out some of their draw, but I side some in.  GREEN draw, might I add.

Well that's it from my end.  Any questions?

[Dr. Sylvan]

I'm interested what advantages you think this deck has over UG Madness.

[Jacob Orlove]

The idea behind my list was to see if there's another possibly direction for these colors to go--one that includes curiosity.

edit: preliminary testing shows that sylvan library is pretty bad. I'm thinking of cutting it for a MD drop of honey.

For the mana base, now that we don't have cloud or standstill, we don't need conclaves. That gives you room to make the following changes:

Lands ( 24 )
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Polluted Delta
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Island
1 Forest (so amazing)

[jpmeyer]

Actually, we were running Curiosity in U/G Madness for a while, but it made the deck much more vulnerable to Deed and removal.

[TheRock]

I never really liked the Conclaves in this deck, and more testing proved this quite quickly.  Without the Conclaves there, I've changed the mana base around.  There is no Yavimaya Coast in there anymore either, but I'm not sure that it is very Brainstorm friendly.  More testing is needed.

Dr. Sylvan:  Without Standstill clogging the works at very important times, everything in this deck has incredible synergy.  Every creature in this deck is a wonderful Curiosity and SoFaI target, unlike Gay Red, mono-U, and U/G Madness which have some creatures with no evasion at all.  

At the same time, we have so much maindeck mana denial that it is scary.  The best part is that we can just keep it coming because of the buttload of draw and search.  We don't need to win games incredibly fast if our opponents can do near nothing to harm us.

Edit:  There is also the possibility of getting a few new cards to test out for this deck, so there is plenty to watch for at this point.

[kirdape3]

Wonder is a fair bit of evasion, I hear.  But it's not all that amazing to drop a Curiosity on something since some jackass playing Tog will wipe your board out with a Deed then mash you.

[TheRock]

Wonder is a fair bit of evasion, I hear.  But it's not all that amazing to drop a Curiosity on something since some jackass playing Tog will wipe your board out with a Deed then mash you.

Wonder makes evasion, but other than that, only Arrogant Wurm has any self-evasion.

We do have Stifle for the Deed plan on top of Force, so we are definitely not defenseless against it.