SCG Power Nine Type One Tournament Top 8 Analysis

[Phele]

I'm sorry dude, but TPS is barely more consistent than Draw7 and it is MUCH slower.  Trading marginal consistency (if any) for 1-2 turns slower is also death against Fish.

Well, I rarely saw Draw7 reaching Top8s. But I saw many, many well build UB TPS ones reaching Top8s in Italy, where Fish seem to be one of the most famous decks too. But they do play good aggro decks either.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

This just goes back to the highly powered metagame thing.  If the field was comprised of more FGC and U/G madness, fish would have died horribly.  But, no one plays those if they have power, anyways.  They play combo or control or workshop decks and get pwned by jank running cloud of faeries, etc.

Also a note: Most of the fish hosers mentioned are artifacts, so would be relatively weak against builds with maindeck mox monkeys or WTF/WTF/r which packs oxidise.

[Whatever Works]

First off, Am i the only person who found the 4cControl list running 3 wastelands to be rather odd??? Its the first deck list for 4cControl that actually won with less then 5 strip effects...

Now back to topic, I believe that Fish will be hated out of the metagame but will still remain tier 1. This is because you cant hate fish out easily (what you going to side in realistically besides Tsabo's web or slice and dice?)

What might happen is a resurgence of decks that werent viable in the metagame for a variety of reasons... I believe Madness will be a big suprise, because with hulk/FCG out of the metagame (or less common) madness has its worst matchups eliminated, and has its better matchups (Fish) being now overplayed.

The changes in sideboards to deal with fish also mean that something will have to give? What will people remove from their sideboard? I am assuming that it will most likely be combo hate that gets the axe. All the maindeck null rods arent a combo players friend, but if metagames are based for beating fish i can see combo players having a field day. Or if people dump the graveyard hate the new salvagers.dec could suprise people sinse we all know that its the secret tech deck of the major teams (true or not deck lists exist... none extremely impressive, but nothing incredibly impressive will be seen till after GenCon is over.)

[Alfred]

How many dragon decks were there at the tournament? In my experience, dragon fares quite well against Fish (except for stifle).

[Kushluk]

Now back to topic, I believe that Fish will be hated out of the metagame but will still remain tier 1. This is because you cant hate fish out easily (what you going to side in realistically besides Tsabo's web or slice and dice?)

Crucibile of Worlds. Gay Dwarf even (or dwarven blastminer).

Lotus Petal might be a better mana accelerant than Sol Ring in 4 Colour Control in a world where Gay/R is Teir one also. It allows you to go for turn 1 Mana Drains, or at least to threaten them. I've been testing that card along with a few others.

I don't think 4CC has fully evolved itself for the new Gay/r centered meta, if that's what you want to call it, meaning all the tech hasn't been discovered yet.

[rozetta]

First off, Am i the only person who found the 4cControl list running 3 wastelands to be rather odd??? Its the first deck list for 4cControl that actually won with less then 5 strip effects...

Here's my theory:

In a field full of decks running the full 5 strip effects, this is probably a better way to go, since you have more chance of getting double blue or the needed off-colored mana early. Plus, with lots of stifles flying around (which was to be expected with all the fish), wasteland becomes a little less effective and having that extra colored land allows you to not get screwed if a fetch is stifled. Finally, with Keeper nowadays running only 26 mana, there's one too few blue sources if you run 5 strips.

Before I stopped working on Keeper, I had gone down to 3 wastes and a strip  and found it helped mana consistency a little, especially against things like Fish.

[Dozer]

First off, Am i the only person who found the 4cControl list running 3 wastelands to be rather odd??? Its the first deck list for 4cControl that actually won with less then 5 strip effects...

I've already posted on the SCG forum thread. I'm going to quote myself for an easier reading:

I don't really like the winning list. Maybe you can't argue with success, but it has only 3 Wastelands and 2 Scryings, for a basic Island and an additional Fire/Ice. Even for a predicted Fish-heavy metagame, this is a wrong choice. The MD Fire/Ice is fair, but the deck definitely wants 5 Strips. The basic Island is not a bad idea, but should definitely not take the place of a Wasteland. If anything, it should replace a City of Brass or become the 61st card. Wastelands are crucial to any matchup, especially in a Workshop-Manland-heavy field like the one at SCG.

Furthermore, playing 2 Scryings and 3 Wishes is a bad call, IMO. 3 Wishes + 4 removal is more than enough. Another Scrying gives you as good a chance to draw one of your removal spells, and makes the deck overall more flexible and enables you to win card-advantage battles. Since one of the Wishes most certainly always goes for a Scrying, I'd have replaced the 3rd with the 4th Scrying. Especially since you have so much removal MD that you are almost guaranteed to draw some with the Scryings.

Still, he won, so I'll stop now. This shows, though, that brokenness overpowers optimal deckbuilding very often. Remember, just because your deck can go broken and win, it is not necessarily a good build.

Now on to rozetta's point:

In a field full of decks running the full 5 strip effects, this is probably a better way to go, since you have more chance of getting double blue or the needed off-colored mana early. Plus, with lots of stifles flying around (which was to be expected with all the fish), wasteland becomes a little less effective and having that extra colored land allows you to not get screwed if a fetch is stifled.

I remember that back on the old Drain or even BD, this was discussed in length. It is true to a point that another source for blue mana instead of a source for colorless mana improves your mana base and the consistency of it.
It is not true, however, that having less Wastelands is more effective with Stifles around, as you seem to indicate. The less Wastelands you play, the lower are your chances to get one through. If you have only 3 Wastes, it becomes less and less likely that even one Wasteland will come through. Of course, you can argue that your Fetchlands draw all the Stifles and your Wastelands come through, but you don't want that to happen anyway.

As I said in my above quote, I believe that the disruption that a full complement of Strips offers is more important than further stabilizing your manabase (which is already stable, see below). Also of note is that Mike Panas chose not to run Crucible SB, which is one of the best measures in the current meta both against Workshops and Fish and which requires 5 Strips for maximum effectiveness, as you rarely want a Crucible without a Strip.

Finally, with 4cControl nowadays running only 26 mana, there's one too few blue sources if you run 5 strips.

Not counting jewelry, the number of sources for U is 10 + 4 Fetchies or 9 + 5 Fetchies both in the German and Zherbus' build. Mike Panas ran 11 + 4 Fetchies. The important difference is that the Germans usually run 61 cards and 27 mana sources, which is a slightly higher mana percentage. But even in those builds, as I can reliably tell from my own experience, getting the right mana consistently was not a problem. Both Zherbus' and the German builds run fine with 15 blue sources (Duals, Fetchies, Cities, Mox) + Lotus.

This consistency might become slightly improved by cutting a Wasteland for another blue source. However, as the deck already works fine with 5 Wastelands, I think that the additional disruption warrants giving up an even higher consistency.

Lotus Petal might be a better mana accelerant than Sol Ring in 4 Colour Control in a world where Gay/R is Teir one also. It allows you to go for turn 1 Mana Drains, or at least to threaten them.

I don't think so. You want faster threats of your own, not faster answers. The way to go is Mox Emerald or Mana Crypt, not Lotus Petal, because other than enabling Mana Drain, Lotus Petal is not going to accelerate you but rather stifle your own development, playing into Fish's hands. What would you rather have on your second turn against Fish: two blue Duals and a Sol Ring w/ Drain in hand, or two blue Duals and 1 Mana Drain mana w/o Drain in hand?
Fish's first turn is not explosive enough to warrant including a bad accelerant like Lotus Petal in a control deck.

----

As for the rest of the discussion, I completely agree that Fish is currently over-hyped. It might be a good deck, but it is only so as long as it slips under people's radar. Fish reduces Gorilla Shaman's general effectiveness for attacking mana bases, so people switch to Crucible. Likewise, anything that can also play the tempo game is bad for Fish. Be it big, fast creatures, or Trinisphere or even Echoing Truth, if the other decks in the metagame return to the classical "X-for-1"-philosophy of deckbuilding instead of "trade 1-for-1 until I can beat you", their card advantage (virtual or not) will be able to offset Fish's tempo advantage.

I believe, btw, that this is the reason Tog loses to Fish. Tog has only one answer, and that is Tog itself (or sometimes Cunning Wish). Tog offers no way to adequately deal with a board position combined with tempo offset, which 4cControl and its predecessors have been doing forever. Real card advantage, which Tog is extremely capable of, does not deal with a board position if you have no card in your deck which does that.
X-for-1-removal has long been a staple in Keeper/4cControl, be it Balance, Moat, Abyss, Masticore, Fire/Ice, FTK or Engineered Explosives and is a possible key against Fish.

I am also counting Crucible here, although Crucibles on both sides do cancel out each other. If Crucible is actually hate for Fish remains to be seen, because Fish has Crucibles of its own, effectively canceling out the opposing Crucible. Whoever gets out Crucible first or has an effective countermeasure will win the Crucible fight. It will be a difficult metagame decision if to board Crucible or not, since if you don't, the opponent's Crucible hate will be dead.
This situation actually reminds me of Chalice of the Void's first weeks. Everybody packed it, everybody else hate-boarded it, and then it slowly found an equilibrium between decks that really can use it (Workshop) and decks that hate it via splash damage (amost anything else).
Crucible will undergo a similar process, only with more decks being able to (ab-)use it.

Dozer

[Smmenen]

Dozer, your opinion is why Fish continues to do well.  It will only stop doing well when people realize it is probably the best deck in the format.  You don't beleive because there are so few tier one fish players becuase it is also, probably, the hardest deck to play perfectly becuase there are a million gay options every turn.

[DEA]

as long as people prepare to play against fish, it'll be hard for fish to win
a lot of the time, people dismiss fish as a pile of random cards and don't think it's necessary to pack hate against it

in my old metagame, there were 2 fish players ramming us upside down with their gay fliers
there was a tournament where a mask deck beat out fish for first place
the sideboard : goblin sharpshooters, genesis and dwarven miners :shock:
the good thing is the cards work against other decks, like 4cc and even gobbos, so they're not only for that matchup
you should have seen tom's face when the dwarven miner hit the table :lol:

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Quote:

Finally, with 4cControl nowadays running only 26 mana, there's one too few blue sources if you run 5 strips.

Not counting jewelry, the number of sources for U is 10 + 4 Fetchies or 9 + 5 Fetchies both in the German and Zherbus' build. Mike Panas ran 11 + 4 Fetchies. The important difference is that the Germans usually run 61 cards and 27 mana sources, which is a slightly higher mana percentage. But even in those builds, as I can reliably tell from my own experience, getting the right mana consistently was not a problem. Both Zherbus' and the German builds run fine with 15 blue sources (Duals, Fetchies, Cities, Mox) + Lotus.  This consistency might become slightly improved by cutting a Wasteland for another blue source. However, as the deck already works fine with 5 Wastelands, I think that the additional disruption warrants giving up an even higher consistency.

Actually, Wompi and me are running 9 Duals + 1 City + 5 Fetches, giving me 15 U-sources outside of jewelery. Remember that only Kim and you changed to the 5 Mox-built, with the rest of us still opting for the good manabase.

Dozer, your opinion is why Fish continues to do well. It will only stop doing well when people realize it is probably the best deck in the format. You don't beleive because there are so few tier one fish players becuase it is also, probably, the hardest deck to play perfectly becuase there are a million gay options every turn.

I managed to finally bring a Fish-player with experience to Dülmen. You can watch his decklist in the t8 coverage . That being said, after testing the 4CC vs Fish matchup, I don't think Fish is clearly the best deck in the format.
It is a very good deck (that looks like a Pile) and, like all other really good decks, will force us to devote some SB space to the matchup. But even with my current non-adjusted listing, I don't feel the matchup to be harder than 50:50 for 4CC (I haven't really tested against anything else yet). Yes, Angels are THAT good.

[Klep]

It is a very good deck (that looks like a Pile) and, like all other really good decks, will force us to devote some SB space to the matchup. But even with my current non-adjusted listing, I don't feel the matchup to be harder than 50:50 for 4CC (I haven't really tested against anything else yet). Yes, Angels are THAT good.

THANK you.  Nobody seems to believe me on this.

[Whatever Works]

It is a very good deck (that looks like a Pile) and, like all other really good decks, will force us to devote some SB space to the matchup. But even with my current non-adjusted listing, I don't feel the matchup to be harder than 50:50 for 4CC (I haven't really tested against anything else yet). Yes, Angels are THAT good.

THANK you.  Nobody seems to believe me on this.

I have to agree with you as well. I believe that the matchup of 4CC vs. Fish is extremely close pre-board. I have won more then i have lost against fish using 4CC, but then again i dont know how experienced my opponents were with fish. Crucible of Worlds is amazing vs. fish, but by now most people probably know that. My 4CC build had 1 sideboarded but might go up to two for consistency. If an angel resolves against fish off a drain targeting an early standstill/null rod etc. its almost an auto-win.

[Whatever Works]

It is a very good deck (that looks like a Pile) and, like all other really good decks, will force us to devote some SB space to the matchup. But even with my current non-adjusted listing, I don't feel the matchup to be harder than 50:50 for 4CC (I haven't really tested against anything else yet). Yes, Angels are THAT good.

THANK you.  Nobody seems to believe me on this.

I have to agree with you as well. I believe that the matchup of 4CC vs. Fish is extremely close pre-board. I have won more then i have lost against fish using 4CC, but then again i dont know how experienced my opponents were with fish. Crucible of Worlds is amazing vs. fish, but by now most people probably know that. My 4CC build had 1 sideboarded but might go up to two for consistency. If an angel resolves against fish off a drain targeting an early standstill/null rod etc. its almost an auto-win.

[Dozer]

Dozer, your opinion is why Fish continues to do well.  It will only stop doing well when people realize it is probably the best deck in the format.

I stand corrected on my claim that "It might be a good deck, but it is only so as long as it slips under people's radar." This was misleading, making it sound as if I'd totally underestimate Fish. Let me clarify that I think Fish is definitely a serious contender. It is clearly one of the decks to beat.

But it is not *the* deck to beat. (There is no single one deck to beat.)

You are most likely correct when you say that the low number of Fish decks in T8s must be attributed to (lack of) playskill. Few have come to the mastery that PTW shows with the deck, and not many will in the next few weeks. Given that the deck gains in popularity, we will most likely see increasing numbers in the next months. And most likely, the metagame will shape around it (how, that remains to be seen).

On the other hand, you admit that it can "stop doing well". And once the realization that you speak of kicks in, people will prepare, as your statement implies. At that point, we've come full circle: I say "once people are prepared, Fish will not dominate", and you say "once Fish dominates, people will prepare". If I got this relation right, the main thing we disagree on is the time when people will prepare -- before or after Fish becomes a dominating deck.*

I also still don't fully understand why you actually consider Fish the best deck. What is the rationale behind that besides "Fish is the current best tempo-denial deck in a tempo-defined format"? Is that it?**

Dozer

*Since a huge part of this preparation is splash damage from Crucible, I conclude that total domination will not occur.

**For me, it isn't, as you might have guessed. Fish is so narrow that once the game plan of tempo-stealing fails, Fish is stuck with little creatures and no efficient card drawing.


P.S.: I feel some of this might come across as a flame. I assure you it is not meant to be. My sole intention is to probe the claim "xxx is the best deck" in depth, because I feel that the proof is not there yet. This is mainly due to a lack of sheer numbers, which might or might not be coming yet. If anybody feels personally offended, please PM me.

[Smmenen]

I consider Fish the best deck becuase it is the most successful deck in the format at this very moment.  That could very easily change.  In some ways it is unfortunate that the Mana Drain fiasco occurred becuase if PTW had won that tournament, as he probably could have had he decided to contest what Panas had said, then I don't think there would be a doubt in anyone's mind.  Had things gone that way, and had PTW beat Eric as Eric was afraid of, then PTW would have won the three largest T1 tournaments in the US in the last three months: GP DC (aka the East Coast Championship, the CCC, and the SCG P9 tourney).  Additionally, 4CC was dropping all day to Fish.  Fish had one less contender in the tournament, and three times as much representation in the top 8 - and placed all in the top 6.  That doesn't mean 4cc isn't likely very close to as good as Fish, it just means that if Marc hadn't have caved on that play, then the results would look very different to everyone reading this as Fish would have made 1st, 3rd-4th, and 6th and people would be more focused on Fish's success.  

I think it was a true test of Fish's strength becuase it was being hyped up before hand by players like myself - i.e. hate was brought.  We'll see if Fish can survive even more hate.  I think it likely will.

[jpmeyer]

From what I have found, 4CC only beats Fish (assuming equal skill) if both players are at expert level of skill with their decks.  At low to intermediate level, Fish usually beats 4CC.

[Dr. Sylvan]

I think it was a true test of Fish's strength becuase it was being hyped up before hand by players like myself - i.e. hate was brought. We'll see if Fish can survive even more hate. I think it likely will.

This is an overestimate of the impact of short-term hype. Spending a few days mentioning that Fish is awesome will not have an impact. Players that do playtest will still make decisions based mostly on playtesting, and players that do not test will choose based on their personal preference and their perception of the power level that they need to do decently--which is only Fish if they can't afford something else, because Fish makes you work for your wins, as opposed to handing them to you on a Lotus-laden silver platter.

Long-term hype is different because it affects what people playtest with, and causes more than one person to talk about how great a deck is. With Fish, the long-term hype source is PTW, and I suspect his statements (and budgetary considerations) drove most Fish players to their choice, as opposed to the belated Smmenen stamp of approval.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

@the Mana Drain issue: As long as both players were aware that Drain had resolved, nothing would have changed, even if that Drain wasn't countered. Looking at the coverage, the actions Mike Panas took and Marc Perez agreeing to his stated order of events, as well as the spells that were played, it sounds very probable that everything worked out correctly.  
 

I think it was a true test of Fish's strength becuase it was being hyped up before hand by players like myself - i.e. hate was brought.  We'll see if Fish can survive even more hate.  I think it likely will.

I don't see anyone but Marc Perez, Doug Linn and possibly Matt Gronke (Oaths) with SB-cards aimed specificly at Fish looking at the t8. Doesn't look like to many people took your advice seriousd enough. Let's see what happens if more people SB against it specifically.

From what I have found, 4CC only beats Fish (assuming equal skill) if both players are at expert level of skill with their decks. At low to intermediate level, Fish usually beats 4CC.

Sound quite true. (actually, comparing results with teammembers, who are newer to 4CC than me, is giving me a similar impression)

oh, and @Klep: Your welcome

[Vegeta2711]

With Fish, the long-term hype source is PTW, and I suspect his statements (and budgetary considerations) drove most Fish players to their choice, as opposed to the belated Smmenen stamp of approval.

So true, PTW consistently smashing face with Gay/R as far as I know, is the main reason a lot of people took Fish semi-seriously or seriously. And I mean for a long period of time, not just days before this tourney.

About the whole mana drain thing, from how I read it in the coverage and from IRC w/ Knut. PTW was completely sunk anyways unless Panas forgot about the Drain mana in his pool for whatever reason, the only thing that disputing the series of events would've done is made that even more obvious.

[Smmenen]

Which still doesn't take away the fact that Fish was far more successful as a block than any other deck in the whole tournament.  Additionally, no disrespect to 4cc players, but 4cc is rather easy to play and Fish is not.  The threshold for playing 4cc perfectly is not terribly high, whereas playing Fish perfectly is almost impossible without alot of experience.

That is, there is almost no way to determine, in game, what the correct Fish play is.  The difference between playing a Conclave on turn one or a Fetchland may not seem like alot, but as an example, Marc Perez knows which is correct in which matchup and in which game.  That literally makes the difference between winning and losing with Fish.  It takes a ton of experience to learn the correct players based upon results.

With 4CC, the correct play is generally obvious.  And if it isn't, a bit of thought can make it clear.  You consider what might happen if you make play X, what is likely to happen, and what the effect of play x might be.  Then you can come to a reasonably certain play even with imperfect information.  With Fish, things are rarely as clear as they seem.

I speak for Team Meandeck when I say this.  We have been testing Fish for something like 5 months now.  That is, it is on our guantlet.  We had recorded dozens of games with Tog winning/tying, Belcher winning, and all other manner of decks performing well or at least not poorly.  Our results were completely worthless.  We assumed that like most decks, our play skill would help carry the small but vital decisions.  We were wrong.  You can just sit down and play Fish and have those test games count for shit.  Even by a great player.  

I'm not saying that 4cc doesn't beat fish 50-50 or that it can't be beat.  I'm just saying that with Fish, things are not what they seem.  The deck plays a game so unlike other decks in this format that it deserves a serious second look.  And anyone who claims otherwise has Marc laughing his guts out right now becuase he knows I'm right, but he'd never tell you all.

Whatever the case may be as to why people take Fish seriously, there was more Fish centered hate at the SCG than any tournament I've been to, and the results bear out the effect of it.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I do think that Fish is the awesomeness against 4cc, but I have to disagree with Smemenen that fish is harder to pilot than 4cc.  From watching the SliverKing in all his years of playing keeper (and 4cc has many similar aspects) I have found that the timing and tutor decisions of 4cc are essential to success.  It takes a lot of skill to win with 4cc and has many complicated combos/choices that fish does not.  Fish has a lot of choices too, but they are not always as complex as 4cc decisions.  I think fish has a more difficult SB choice to make than 4cc, but 4cc is no easy deck to pilot against a broad gauntlet and is more complex in general.

[jpmeyer]

Furthermore, as we kept testing, the results kept getting worse and worse.  We'd have Tog or Belcher or whatever winning the matchup like 6-4 or something in the beginning, but then like a few weeks before the tourney after building up more experience with the deck, it was down to Fish winning like 9-1.  The skill needed to play Fish is that high.  It's also because Fish is using a lot of cards like Cloud of Faeries rather say, Yawgmoth's Will so you can't play poorly for 8 turns and then randomly crap out a win off a lucky topdeck.

[Smmenen]

Well, it's possible that I can't judge the difficultly level well since I have so much experience with the archetype.  My first powered deck was a U/W control deck in 1995 that wasn't more than 8 cards MD difference from Weissman's The Deck, and basically becuase I was playing straight U/W at the time with a Mahamoti Djinn.  I played The Deck until 2001.  

However, I don't think that is the case.  I think my point stands that Fish is difficult to play becuase determining the correct play in-game without experience with the deck is almost impossible unless it is something stupid-obvious like Force of Will a Trinisphere.  In fact, there is widespread disagreement about how to play against Fish as well.  

There appears to be a widespread, yet mistaken assumption that one should Mana Drain Cloud of Faeries .  This is generally not correct.  UR Fish has over 15 cards that cast on two mana.  If the Fish players goes turn one Conclave, turn two Volcanic Island Faeri, Draining it is not correct.  The only time you Drain a Cloud is if they play Wasteland, Cloud.  That way you slow down their Wasteland a turn.  Or if they have Active LoA, or if they are going to beat with Factory.  If they play a second Cloud, then Draining it becomes more of a correct play becuase it decreases the chance that they will play another 2cc spell.  The worst case scenario is that they play Grim Lavamancer or Curiosity.  If they do that, then they are ineffeciently using their mana unless they have other 1cc spells in hand like Stifle.  More likely, however, they had turn one opportunity to play Grim Lavamancer and it seems to me that playing Curiosity the turn you attack is more optimal.  The more likely follow up to a Cloud is Spiketail Hatchling priming for turn two Null Rod + Wasteland.  Alternatively, they may just play Null Rod or Standstill.  Although Standstill is not strong unless they have at least one manland in play or in hand.  Either one of those Drain targets is more effective and likely to occur.  Same with Voidmage.  The other possibility is that they are holding Daze to hardcast, but that is also unlikely.

EDIT:

I'm possibly giving away Marc's secrets here, but one thing that I learned the hard way about Fish is that it is also trying to play probabilities.  Let me explain, becuase this goes along way to explaining why Fish is difficult to play without going into game examples.

Fish is one of the decks where it range of potential play, like JP said, is quite narrow.  Tog can get the utter nuts and combo out on turn two, but that is extremely rare.  Both decks are consistent, but Fish is more so.  In other words, as Marc puts it, its game is 40-60% on a scale defined by Belcher, a deck that is 0-100%.  That is, Belcher will get hands that win no matter what you do, and can't win no matter what Belcher does becuase it is so inconsistent.  Fish is a deck which wins yet doesn't play good cards.  Therefore play experience is extremely important.  Let me explain some more.

When Marc sits down, aside from his "aura of power" he is playing probabilities.  In any given matchup there is a very sleight chance that Fish will win without knowing anything.  Therefore, it is the Fish players job to maximize those chances with each and every little play.  This is why Fish sbs one or two cards instead of multiple cards.  Fish is increasing its probability of winning by merely a few percentage points.  That's also why SBing is hard with it.  If you don't know what those points are and how to maximize them, then you probably aren't making the right decisions.

[Whatever Works]

Additionally, no disrespect to 4cc players, but 4cc is rather easy to play and Fish is not.  The threshold for playing 4cc perfectly is not terribly high, whereas playing Fish perfectly is almost impossible without alot of experience.

Fish is difficult to play, but saying that 4cc is not a hard deck to play is way off. I agree that to play Fish perfectly is harder than playing 4cc perfectly, because there are alot of very minor details with fish that no other deck in the format has. Fish has more details, but unlike 4cc you can sometimes make an error here and there and still win, because fish is such a stable consistent deck. 4cc doesnt have the same room for error, and is often put in a early game situation of, "stabalize the board NOW or lose," and alot of inexperienced players with deck just lose.

However, 4cc is one of the most difficult decks to play, and this can be seen in tournement results. You do not find players who are unskilled with 4cc hitting the top 8, or I have not seen it happen at all in NE.

[Smmenen]

I don't disagree with your reasoning.  But your reasoning doesn't actually support your conclusion.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I have to agree with steve on this one.  I have been playing WTF for a while now, as well as having some experience with 4cc.  In 4cc, the correct play in any given situation can be deteremined by most good players who think it through.  In WTF (which is quite similar to fish), many decisions arn't as clear-cut.

Oh and the deck is also a pain to sb with because taking out a great deal of things or the incorrect things can result in completely screwing it up.

Another key to fish is how difficult it is to play around.  With random stuff like any number of daze/stifle/mis-d, your opponent usually ends up walking into things or playing around them too much.  (in fact, sometimes they will even play around cards you have sided out )

[Dr. Sylvan]

I'll add in another voice of Fish being way harder. With 4CC, the problem to solve in order to play correctly is to know what your deck can still give you, and how you can get to it. With Fish, because you don't tutor, your central problem is the order of your actions. One is a matter of knowing the decklist and playing whichever powerful card maximizes the number of other powerful cards you'll have access to. The other is a matter of thinking further ahead in the game and incorporating a huge number of potential opponent actions into each decision.

Each time I've played Fish, I've stumbled over timing decisions. I don't feel comfortable playing Faerie Conclave because I am never sure how to work around the drawback. I hesitate over whether to Waste now or use the mana for a creature. I overcommit easily because I feel like I don't have enough power on the board. Curiosity now risks card disadvantage, but waiting to next turn might make me unable to play a spell or activate a manland. I get completely lost, because I haven't played it enough to learn it.

4CC has its share of things to screw up, but it's easier to get to the "C+" level of competence. Fish consistently gives me an "F".

[bebe]

Another key to fish is how difficult it is to play around. With random stuff like any number of daze/stifle/mis-d, your opponent usually ends up walking into things or playing around them too much. (in fact, sometimes they will even play around cards you have sided out

This really is the key to Fish's success. I've played Fish from the beginning when Marc and I worked on the first monoblue builds. When I first played Fish my opponents walked into every trap I layed but once they new the deck it became a game of jedi mind tricks. Wu and Petko in Toronto are particularly good this type of game and consequently always do well with Fish.
As to your chances against a good player - I have had very good results playing against Fish because I played it myself for a long time. That really is the key. You need to play Fish for a while to prepare to play against it.
We have a large Vintage tournament coming up in September and I will bring a deck to handle the Fish match up. Fish has a number of awful match ups ( Madness, TriniTnT and others - which will remain nameless for now). I just hope I do not run into to much combo.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I will agree that 4cc can come back from play mistakes that fish can't because it is more broken, however I feel that making the right calls the first time around is what counts, and this isn't always easy with 4cc.  FoWing a trini may not always be the right call given the hand you have, though it commonly is.  Things as such depend on what you have and what you can fetch in your deck.
I think bot decks are the same difficulty level to play, but fish demands the right call right away because it can't pull out of a wrong decision made earlier as well as 4cc can.  But good players all know that good decisions need to be made on every play and come-from-behind choices, when that position is made possible by the player's prior choices, is the mark of a bad player.
In short, neither deck is easy to pilot, and the skill needed to have success with both is equal IMO.  Making a bad call with fish can lead to a loss where it is not necessarily so with 4cc, but that doesn't mean making the right choice the first time around is any more easy for either deck, just more crucial for fish's ability to win.  A good player should always make the right choice in either deck.