New Type 1 Player looking at UR Fish

[EvilSirMark]

I'm a new player to type 1, though I've been playing magic since revised. I've been reading the mana drain boards for several weeks now and I'm interested in playing some tournements with a UR fish deck.

Being new to type 1 I obviously don't have any power yet. I do however have cards like force of will and some dual lands.  I'm hoping to become good enough to begin winning into some power, that's my goal at least. However while reading these boards, I can't seem to find a good starting point for the UR Fish decks. They seem very similar to the Landstill decks but that is probably just the newbie in me talking.

After  comparing as many UR Fish - Gay/R lists I could find I've some up with the following list. My questions would be: Is this ia good starting point for an unknown metagame? I know fish is an adaptable deck that can change itself depending on the opposition it intends to face. However since I don't know what my opposition will be because I'm just starting out I need to try and make the deck middle of the road... so to speak. At least until I can figure out what decks I'll be facing.

// Fishies
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Gorilla Shaman

// Draw
4 Standstill
4 Curiosity

// Disruption
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
1 Misdirection
2 Stifle
3 Null Rod
2 Fire/Ice

// Mana Sources
1 Sol Ring
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Faerie Conclave
3 Island
3 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine

// Sideboard
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Fire/Ice
2 ?
1 Stifle
1 Misdirection

Any help here would be greatly appriciated.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I think the list you have is pretty solid, except for the manabase.  It looks pretty much like what PTW played in DC, except sporting fire/ice in the MD.  I'm surprised you mentioned having difficulties finding threads on this archetype, since I see threads on it all the time, mostly in the open t1 forum.

Here's what I'd change:

-1 Sol Ring

Although this may look like a good way to budgetize the mox/lotus, this deck is very intensive on colored mana, and hardly has any spells that require 2 colorless.  You could try lotus petal in order to get fast standstills, and have access to blue and red, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Also, you're only running 23 sources, which may be rather light.  I think 24 is the standard.  This means that you'll have to cut business spells.  The most expendable in my mind is the misdirection, since I love stifle and daze.

-1 Misdirection

Now you want to shore up the mana base, but its kind of a personal decision based on metagame, preference, and other considerations (SB & MD).  Your options are:

+2...

island - probably the least necessary since you already have three

mountain - this will help you to keep lavamancer online against 5strip.dec, but you may want to alter your fetchlands if you do run this

shivan reef - this will increase your access to colors, and also dodges choke...if thats an issue for you.

fetchland - this will give you better control of finding basics against non-basic land hate, thin your deck, and give fodder for lavamancers.  Again, if you choose to run a basic mountain, you may want to change to a 2 blue fetch/2 red fetch approach.

The sideboard looks ok, but I'd give some thought to anti-aggro cards (maze of ith, flametonque kavu, control magic) since thats typically one of fish's weaknesses.

[EvilSirMark]

Thanks Inquisitor I really appriciate your input here. When I said I couldn't find a starting point for fish, it's not that I couldn't find a deck list. The problem was they seem to pretty meta dependant, and I wasn't sure which ones were the "standard" build and which ones were people trying to meta certain cards for their areas.

I had given a little thought to the sideboard but to be honest I copied that one from a decklist on SCG's one for one. It looked to be pretty solid against a number of matches. To shore up the aggro in your opinion would I be able to run something like this:

3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Fire/Ice
2 Maze of Ith
2 Flametounge Kavu

I cut the single Stifle and Misdirections for 2 Flamgetongue Kavu's and made the ?'s into Maze of Ith. I already had two stifles main which made me think I could do without the third, and the misdirection as a singleton seems kinda useless without it's friend in the maindeck. I had thought about maybe making the Kavu's some number of lightning bolts, but I like the idea of getting a warm body from my removal.

[Squee]

When I said I couldn't find a starting point for fish, it's not that I couldn't find a deck list. The problem was they seem to pretty meta dependant, and I wasn't sure which ones were the "standard" build and which ones were people trying to meta certain cards for their areas.

Thats what makes fish such a strong deck, it's ability to easily be adapted to the metagame.  Of course if you don't know your metagame or it is a new tournament than you need a good starting place.  

PTW's build is probably the best choice here.  It did well at a very large tournament and is the most consistent of all the lists.  That would be the best starting place for a new fish(and type 1) player.

[EvilSirMark]

PTW's build is probably the best choice here.  It did well at a very large tournament and is the most consistent of all the lists.  That would be the best starting place for a new fish(and type 1) player.

I know this is going to sound ignorant but this is after all the newbie forum. However here goes... What is PTW's Build... if it's a specific person. How could I go about finding this build so I can compare it to my own.

This is going to be for a tournement, a 5 proxy if that matters. That was going to be the next question I asked. What 5 cards if any should I proxy in for this deck?

I really appriciate all the help you guys have been, being a new type one player it's nice to get such a nice reception for my first posts here.

[MooSE]

Someone else could probably answer this question better...but PTW's build is the build that Phantom Tape Worm (one of the people who made the deck) played at one of the TMD tournaments and won a lotus with.  I believe it was in the open t1 forum, so try searching there.  Maybe search for his name or something.

The five cards i would proxy would be.  Library of Alexandria, Mox Sapphire, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk then one other card you don't have for the deck.  Or, if you don't have some of the cards, say...duals, proxy them instead.

[Zerephel]

I have been playing Ur fish (Gay Fish) for a couple of months now, Revising it everyone now and then. Here is The first deck list I had:

Creatures: 15
4x Cloud of faeries
3x Rootwater Theif
4x Grim Lavamancer
4x Razorfin Hunter


Lands: 22
2x Islands
4x Volcanic Islands
4x Flooded Strand (Polluted Delta works to)
4x Mishra's Factory
2x Faerie Conclave
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Strip Mine
4x WasteLand


Artifacts: 4
3x Null Rod
1x Mox Saphire


Instans & sorcery: 11
4x Force of Will
1x Ancestrall Recall
2x Misdirection
3x Stifle
1x Time Walk

Enchantments: 8
4x Curiosity
4x StandStill


SideBoard:
3x Waterfront Bouncer
3x Gilded Drake
2x Misdirection
1x Stifle
3x Fire/Ice
1x Null Rod
2x Red Elemental Blast


There Are several options you have with this Layout:
1)Cut Razorfin Hunters for Flying men, Or spiketail, Flying men woudl be preferable.
2)Cut 1 Stifle, 1 null rod for 2 Daze. I tested it it out, works well but you will have to change the SB.
3)Instead of Razorfin Add Fireslinger
Those are some choices.


My Curret Ur Fish Deck list looks like this


Creatures: 14
4x Cloud of faeries
2x Rootwater Theif
4x Grim Lavamancer
4x Flying Men


Lands: 22
2x Islands
4x Volcanic Islands
4x Flooded Strand
4x Mishra's Factory
2x Faerie Conclave
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Strip Mine
4x WasteLand


Artifacts: 4
3x Null Rod
1x Mox Saphire


Instans & sorcery: 12
4x Force of Will
1x Ancestrall Recall
2x Misdirection
2x Stifle
1x Time Walk
2x Daze


Enchantments: 8
4x Curiosity
4x StandStill

SideBoard:
4x Sigil of Sleep
2x Misdirection
2x Stifle
3x Fire/Ice
2x Null Rod
2x Red Elemental Blast


As you can see not much of a change, but it works pretty well.
Hope I Helped  

[SpikeyMikey]

Now my question(mind that I've been out of the scene for a good 9 months now and just got back in about 3 weeks ago) is "what makes fish good?"

I had thought that it was kind of like old mono blue, winning on the strength of one hoser(in this case, null rod, instead of B2B), but your deck only 3 Zerephel.  I figured maybe it was just because it matched up so well against welder decks, but your current version doesn't have the razorfins any more, and no MD F/I.  Also, unlike fish decks back when I was still playing, there's no Lord of Atlantis in any of the builds I'm seeing any more, which leads me to view fish as more of the new Zoo than the new fish.  I mean, you only run 2 actual fish.

I guess the real question I'm trying to ask is what in the deck could be replaced?  Like I was thinking about running an aggro control deck on this scale with Meddling Mages and Patron Wizard, among other things.

What do you guys usually find being your MVP when playing with fish?  What are the bad matchups?

[EvilSirMark]

as far as I can tell, what makes the deck good is the fact that it controls tempo well. It's not a super explosive deck, but it likes to stay a step ahead of the decks it plays against. That's why it has such a hard time against aggro decks because they tend to be about fast beats, and the red ones pack burn for the mini creatures Fish runs.

*waits to be smacked by one of the real TMD members for being wrong*

[Zerephel]

You're not too far from the truth Evil, but aggro doesn't beat fish often.  As a matter of fact, I usually smash any aggro deck, siding in [card]Gilded Drake[/card] with [card]Waterfront Bouncer[/card]s, and they get shut down.

Spikey, the Reason why MD isn't played is because you don't have anything to spend the colorless on, and if you have to counter something big you'll most likely take a lot of burn.

And I too was going to create an aggro/control deck using [card]Meddling Mage[/card].  I guess great minds think alike.  

Edited for clarity.
- Kowal

[PucktheCat]

Spikey, the Reason why MD isn't played is because you don't have anything to spend the colorless on, and if you have to counter something big you'll most likely take a lot of burn.

If that was true wouldn't it play Counterspell like GAT sometimes did?  The fact is, the deck doesn't want counters that cost mana.  Even Stifle often feels too expensive.

"what makes fish good?"

I had thought that it was kind of like old mono blue, winning on the strength of one hoser(in this case, null rod, instead of B2B), but your deck only 3 Zerephel.

The main reason this deck wins is the same reason that Hulk wins: it makes beneficial trades between tempo and card advantage until it has a large advantage in both catagories and wins.  Hulk does this by giving up early tempo casting expensive draw spells then turning those cards into tempo (but often staying ahead on cards as well) by dropping lots of Moxen or a Psychatog.  Gay/r goes about things the other way, sacrificing card advantage early (in the form of 'subpar' creatures that generally wouldn't be counted as a full card) to get a tempo advantage then turns that tempo into more cards via Standstill or Curiosity (but hopefully keeps some of the tempo advantage).

All of this is a long way of saying that the Gay/Fish strategy is fundamentally sound.  Null Rod is an important card in the deck, but the deck isn't built around it.  Three is the most common number because they are useless in multiples.

Leo

[SpikeyMikey]

I'm sorry, MD was main deck, as in main deck fire/ice.  Seemed to have caused a little confusion there.  I threw together the wizards version I was thinking of last night and did a little testing v. control slaver.  You ever have an idea that seems good, and when you test it, you want to shoot yourself because it's so bad?  The mages were good, the patron wizards were not.  They force you to sit there with your creatures instead of attacking, which really isn't something you want to do.  So I went back to the more traditional fish build, with the mages still included.  To be honest, I was still only winning maybe 35-40% of the games against control slaver, it just seemed like there wasn't enough damage to finish him off before he got into infi slaver.  Rootwaters were good, and several games I took away his pentavus, only to get burned out by my own grim lavamancers.  It seems like TfK fuels the deck too well, I couldn't even come close to matching him on draw, even with the standstills, and the Yawg. Wills....  Eh, I dunno.

[gashole]

With so many of Vintage's finest berating any use of Standstill, I have to wonder if there's a better replacement for it.

Shoehorning an additional draw engine seems clunky, and I'm not sure what other counters the deck wants. More MisDs and Stifles would seem pretty craptacular. Maindecked Fire/Ice seem the most versatile, especially if there are going to be Welders around.

While I wouldn't advocate it as a maindeck choice, at the EC Vintage Championships I lost in the top 16 to the guy playing 3 Firestorm maindecked, which completely wrecked my U/G Madness. Maybe if you're expected tons of aggro?

[PucktheCat]

Standstill has two major weaknesses:

1. Opponents get to time your draw, meaning they can wait until your EOT so you have to discard down to 7.

2. Opponents can have the advantage on the board or gain it through Decree or man-lands.

These two weaknesses are enough to make the card questionable many decks that it has been forced into, however I think this deck circumvents the larger part of the problem because of one card: Grim Lavamancer.

Lavamancer deals with both weaknesses.  Because he is 1cc he reduces your hand size enough before Standstill resolves that you don't discard (7 cards minus 2 lands, Lavamancer and Standstill, plus one draw = 4 cards in hand).  If your opponent intends to wait for you to get to more cards in hand they may wait a while because the deck has 24 land.

His ping ability takes care of a good chunk of the second problem.  Things like Welder, Basking Rootwalla and so on, not to mention manlands, are easily dealt with by the Lavamancer

Basically, I think that as long as the deck has 4 Cloud of Faeries, 4 Grim Lavamancer and 6 manlands it can support Standstill.

Leo

[EvilSirMark]

Wow you guys are really helping me understand the fish deck alot better than I could have hoped. I really appriciate all the replies and the discussions here.

I took the advise posed in an earlier post and looked up PTW's build. I really liked it, it is very similar to the one I was working with, so i've changed it around a little. I liked the suggestion to put in a mountain to have an unwasteable (did I just make that word up? ) source of red mana, so I changed the lad around a little bit. added in the mountain, and dropped in some new fetchlands to reflect this.

Personally I really like Fire/Ice in the main deck, and I'm looking for a way to fit another into the main without detroying what's already there. Anyone have any ideas how to do this?

// Fishies - 15
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Gorilla Shaman

// Draw - 8
4 Standstill
4 Curiosity
1 Ancestral Recall

// Disruption - 13
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle
3 Null Rod
1 Fire/Ice
1 Time Walk

// Mana - 24
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra.s Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Island
1 Mountain
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Sapphire

Sideboard
3 Tormods Crypt
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Fire/Ice
2 Maze of Ith
1 Stifle
1 Misdirection

[SpikeyMikey]

I don't think the voidmages are any good.  I tried playing the deck in a similar fashion, with Patron Wizards, and I discovered that the deck really wants to use every ounce of tempo it can muster.  You don't want a creature sitting back, or mana untapped, at the end of any turn.  Hell, Sligh wasn't this tight with it's mana curve.  Not really liking Cloud either, but I understand the synergy with dropping turn 2 cloud and then untapping and dropping standstill.  I don't like it, but I could live with it.

[PucktheCat]

Mikey, glad we could help.

As for your suggestions:

Fire/Ice: The build you proposed is 61 cards (you have 9 draw, not 8).  I don't know if you have the power you listed in the build.  If you do, Fire/Ice pretty much has to go in one of the four flexible disruption slots.  PTW's build runs:

2 Daze
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle

You could cut any of these for Fire/Ice.  I would cut either the Misd or the Stifle because I like Daze, but I am not sure everyone would agree.

Obviously, if you don't have one or both of the listed blue power Fire/Ice can just replace that.

Mountain: I think your testing will find that this is unnecessary.  Most of the time Wastes go for your manlands.  If, after you test for a while you still like the Mountain, drop me a PM.  I am always interested in how new ideas fare in this deck.

Cutting Voidmage Prodigy: This is everyone's first reaction to this deck - and rightly so.  Voidmage is clearly the weakest creature in the deck.  That being said, the real question is what to replace him with.  The two power is nicer than it looks at first because it is so rare in this deck.  The ability isn't great, but when the deck's plan fails it provides a fall-back.  Some things that have been suggested for this slot include:

Razorfin Hunter
Thalkos Seer (worst of the lot IMO)
Goblin Vandal
Gorilla Shaman

I am not blown away by any of them, but you are free to test them.

Also, Cloud really is good in this deck.  He is great with Standstill and especially Curioisity.  Flying Men are also possible for this slot, but they are only better first turn when you don't have a Lavamancer.  In every other situation Clouds are better.

Leo

[Zerephel]

I've got a few questions and a few suggestions  about your current build of Ur Fish.
Fire/Ice Main?
Why one Fire/Ice main? I was Wondering about  it, the only thing I could come up with was maybe for mirror match? I would suggest running 3 side.
Gorilla Shaman
Why one Gorilla Shaman? Seems unnessessary because of null rod. Null Rod takes care of several problems with Dealing with Artifacts, and i've found that when playing against any heavy Artifact deck, null rod Protected by FoW, Misdirection, and Stifle can be a real pain. I would take out the Gorilla Shaman for another Viod Mage.
 Mountian
One mountian?  I can see the idea for it, but it is very unnessessary.It has also messed with your mana a bit. You Added 2 Different seach lands just for that 1 mountian.  On the up side you do have an "Unwastable" , but they can still strip it.
One Stifle!!
Stifle helps this deck extremely, because it Stops: Wasteland, Strip Mine, Powder keg, Deeds, And World Gorger Dragon just to name a few. By Uping the Stifle count, you don't need to throw in the single mountian and the different search lands.I would reconsider putting Stifle back in, and adding another Misdirection. Stifle also acts as a first turn land destruction spell, if you went first and they try to search, stifle.
Hope i Helped.  

[Jacob Orlove]

With so many of Vintage's finest berating any use of Standstill, I have to wonder if there's a better replacement for it.
 

I had a lot of success replacing them with brainstorms in U/g "fish", but no one seems to have tried that with U/r. It requires some fundamental rethinking of the deck, though, because clouds and conclaves become weaker.

I remember when I had the Litany sigged. Good times.

[Kowal]

I know Pern has tested it in One Fish Left, but I don't think he can chime in right now because he's on a road trip with his family.  All I really know is that he's been liking it but has not yet attained perfect zen.

[PucktheCat]

I've got a few questions and a few suggestions  about your current build of Ur Fish.
Fire/Ice Main?
Why one Fire/Ice main? I was Wondering about  it, the only thing I could come up with was maybe for mirror match? I would suggest running 3 side.

Goblin Welder is probably the best reason.

Gorilla Shaman
Why one Gorilla Shaman? Seems unnessessary because of null rod. Null Rod takes care of several problems with Dealing with Artifacts, and i've found that when playing against any heavy Artifact deck, null rod Protected by FoW, Misdirection, and Stifle can be a real pain. I would take out the Gorilla Shaman for another Viod Mage.

Chalice of the Void.

One Stifle!!
Stifle helps this deck extremely, because it Stops: Wasteland, Strip Mine, Powder keg, Deeds, And World Gorger Dragon just to name a few. By Uping the Stifle count, you don't need to throw in the single mountian and the different search lands.I would reconsider putting Stifle back in, and adding another Misdirection. Stifle also acts as a first turn land destruction spell, if you went first and they try to search, stifle.
Hope i Helped.  

Stifle costs mana and is easy to play around.  In certain (esp. Dragon heavy) metas it is a good call, but in other, more general, metas it is better to play a mix of disruption to force your opponent to choose between playing around it all and losing tempo or playing into all of it and losing tempo.

With so many of Vintage's finest berating any use of Standstill, I have to wonder if there's a better replacement for it.

I had a lot of success replacing them with brainstorms in U/g "fish", but no one seems to have tried that with U/r. It requires some fundamental rethinking of the deck, though, because clouds and conclaves become weaker.

I remember when I had the Litany sigged. Good times.

I tested them a bit in a 3 BS 3 Standstill configuration.  It was an unpowered version and I thought it was worth a shot.

Remember, though, U/g is a weaker Standstill deck than this one.  It has 3cc spells (Suq'ata), disruption that costs mana (Oxidize, Stifle) and most importantly, no Grim Lavamancer.  Grim keeps your hand size down and deals with most of the early creatures that cause problems with Standstill.

Leo