SCG Power Nine Type One Tournament Top 8 Analysis

[Smmenen]

SCG Power Nine Type One Tournament Top 8 Analysis

This list of 8 decks will be the most important 8 decks to reference for the next month.  I'm going to post them here in order of placement for easy reference.  Comments follow.

1st Place
Mike Panas
Modified 4-Color Control

3 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 City of Brass
1 Flood Strand
1 Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

2 Exalted Angel
1 Gorilla Shaman
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Decree of Justice
2 Skeletal Scrying
2 Fire / Ice
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Balance

Sideboard
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Gush
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Coffin Purge
1 Disenchant
1 Damping Matrix
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Blue Elemental Blast

----------------------------------------
2nd Place
Eric Miller
The Man Show

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine

4 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Black Lotus
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
4 Juggernaut
3 Su-Chi
2 Goblin Welder
2 Triskelion
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Duplicant
1 Karn, Silver Golem
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Burning Wish
1 Swords of Plowshares
1 Time Walk

Sideboard
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Damping Matrix
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Balance
1 Timetwister
1 Sundering Titan
1 Vindicate
1 Hull Breach
1 Dust to Dust
1 Artifact Mutation

---------------------------------------------------
3rd Place
Marc Perez
U/R Fish

4 Volcanic Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine

3 Null Rod
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Gorilla Shaman
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
4 Curiosity
2 Daze
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Sideboard
3 Rack and Ruin
2 Fire / Ice
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Maze of Ith
1 Stifle
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Energy Flux
1 Pyroblast
1 Null Rod
1 Crucible of Worlds

------------------------------------------
4th Place
Rich Herbert
U/R Fish

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Island
4 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
2 Faerie Conclave
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria

3 Null Rod
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Gorilla Shaman
2 Voidmage Prodigy
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
4 Curiosity
3 Daze
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Sideboard
4 Fire / Ice
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Energy Flux
3 Stifle
2 Maze of Ith

---------------------------------------------


5th Place
Scott Limoges
4-Color GroAtog

4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Strip Mine

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl

4 Quirion Dryad
2 Psychatog
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Night's Whisper
3 Cunning Wish
2 Duress
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fire/Ice
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mind Twist
1 Gush

Sideboard
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Fire / Ice
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Berserk
1 Smother
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Misdirection
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Naturalize
1 Oxidize

-----------------------------------------

6th Place
Chris Phillips
U/R Fish

4 Wasteland
4 Volcanic Island
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Island
2 Faerie Conclave
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria

3 Null Rod
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Gorilla Shaman
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Curiosity
3 Fire / Ice
2 Daze
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Sideboard
3 Rack and Ruin
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Maze of Ith
2 Stifle
2 Misdirection

------------------------------------
7th Place
Doug Linn
Meandeck's Titan

4 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Polluted Delta
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring

1 Mindslaver
4 Goblin Welder
2 Sundering Titan
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

Sideboard
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Flametongue Kavu
2 Tsabo's Web
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Fire / Ice
1 Platinum Angel

------------------------------------------

8th Place Matt Gronke
Landstill

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Faerie Conclave
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria

4 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Fire / Ice
3 Brainstorm
3 Annul
2 Stifle
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Counterspell
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth

Sideboard
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Oath of Druids
2 Darksteel Colossus
2 Hydroblast
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Gaea's Blessing

-----------------------------------

Well there it is.  3 Fish, 1 4CC, 1 GroAtog, 1 Landstill, 1 Aggro-Prison Workshop deck, and 1 Control Slaver Variant with Titan instead.  

With that placement, how well does that correlate with the decks that made top 8?  

The most popular deck according to SCG (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandevent.php?Article=7651) is 4CC and Fish tied with 14 players.  Mike Panas won the whole thing with it and one was placed around 12-13th.  Fish placed 3 players in the top 6 and very, very nearly won the whole thing (read Perez v. Panas: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandevent.php?Article=7664).

Mike only had to play agianst 1 fish deck in top 8 - but he did play against the best Fish player.  If Perez had won that match, he would have had to play Eric, but Eric admits that despite being a favorable matchup, he was afraid of Perez (as most people are).  

The truly great metagame deck of the day was Eric Miller’s “The Man Show.â€?  It basically does what 7/10 does but more effectively – which is partly what 7/10 didn’t place a single person in top 8 despite being third most popular deck.   13 people played it without putting a single person in Top 8.  Workshop aggro has always destroyed Fish and Eric’s deck uses Crucible and Chains of Mephistopholes (brilliant additions) to keep Tog out of contention.  Clearly though, 4 CC is a difficult matchup.  The reason The Man Show beats Tog is because the way Tog deals with the fast beats is Psychatog.  If you play Chains, then Tog can’t get big enough to deal with the threats.  Crucible also keeps Tog low on mana.  4 Color Control deals with the threats directly so that is less of an issue.  The Man Show beats Tog, Fish, and 7/10 but may not be able to deal with four Color Control as well as he’d like.  On the other hand, it may be able fine in that capacity.

Scott Limoges won the January Waterbury with GroAtog – a tournament that was the largest Type One tournament on the continent with 196 players.  Scott represented a deck that was tied for the 4th most popular deck and failed to place anyone else even remotely close to the top table.  Scott performed very well, but I’d write that off as anomalous given that Scott has such great experience with the deck and is a thoughtful player.  The fact is that Scott was playing in a nightmare top 8 and it started off with the most nightmare of matchups: The Man Show.  

Doug Linn thought of putting Titan in my team’s Control Slaver variant that we had been keeping secret for several months.  We tuned the Slaver variant on the strength of combing the two best draw engines in Type One.  We tuned it and then decided to store the deck away until the right moment.  Doug found that moment and did very well with it.  The deck goldfishes a full turn faster than Tog, but it probably can’t beat Fish.  Otherwise, it has no weak matchups.  Doug’s success can also partly be explained by the surprise value.  More than once, people were surprised that he wasn’t playing Tog or that he had Intuitions after playing Goblin Welder.  If people had seen anything like that before, they certainly did not expect Sundering Titan.

Finally, the Landstill deck was well metagamed to deal with the threats of the day, but it wasn’t poised to beat the best of the Fish players.  The SB plan of Oath and Darksteel Collossus is amazing and will continue to prove strong.  Also, the performance of Gronx was even more amazing in light of only three decks of this archetype being present.

It is important to note that Belcher had 8 players and one was very, very close to making top 8.  Same with Draw7.   I covered Belcher’s final attempt to make top 8: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandevent.php?Article=7658

Among the other most played decks, what Failed?  7/10, Tog, Food Chain, and old style Control Slaver miserably failed to put up despite their large, and in some cases, excessive numbers.  Tog can’t beat Fish, so that takes that archetype out.  Food Chain is outclassed and budget players are better off playing Fish.  If you can build Food Chain, you can build Fish three times over.  Control Slaver is better playing Titan over Slavers and just keep one Slaver in.  7/10 is probably better off hybridizing with The Man Show.  That, as they say, is that.

So what now? Looking at Gencon the metagame can go in a few directions.  It’s pretty clear that Fish is the center of the entire metagame and decks that flat out lose to Fish, like Tog, have to go away for a while.  Decks that have difficult matchups against Fish, such as 4color Control may survive if they load up on answers and have the capacity to deal with other decks like the Man Show.   However a shift in favor of Workshop based answers to Fish isn’t really viable because this is Gencon and no proxies are going to be allowed.  Therefore, people must play 4 Color Control instead, or, simply decide to play Fish.  The metagame doesn’t have much room to move radically, because despite Tog and Control Slaver being hated out by Fish, people will still bring them and they still have to be dealt with.  I personally am not sure what I’ll play – but you can bet that if I can’t find a deck that solidly beats Fish, I’ll probably be playing it.  If you are playing Fish, bone up on your Aggro-Workshop, Fish mirror, and 4CC matchups and you’re a favorite to win!

[thorme]

Among the other most played decks, what Failed?  7/10, Tog, Food Chain, and old style Control Slaver miserably failed to put up despite their large, and in some cases, excessive numbers.  

Pretty much right on.  I will point out that 2 copies of 7/10 also went 6-1-1, the record required for Top 8, but lost out due to tie-breakers and ended up 9th and 10th place.  If I'm right, a Food Chain deck also finished high in 11th or 12th place.

I think your analysis is spot-on though.

[cssamerican]

Smmenen, I fail to see how all Drain Slaver variants have bad match-ups versus Gay/R. The version played by Doug Linn has trouble with Gay/R because it uses three colors, and it doesn't run any proactive disruption or solutions in the main deck. While this strategy improves the deck's goldfish speed and raises the decks intrinsic power, it does make the deck vulnerable to the Gay/R strategies. However, U/R Drain Slaver variants that run main deck Fire/Ice and Blood Moon can be a very problematic match for Gay/R and 4cControl, the two apparent dominate strategies.

[Smmenen]

You'll just have to believe me that most control slaver players haven't played against upper tier Fish players.

[The Atog Lord]

Indeed, Fish is not a walk in the park for Control Slaver.

[nataz]

I agree with the atog lord
 

[Smmenen]

Even assuming that Control slaver doesn't have a distinctively unfavorable matchup against Fish, playing it in a field of Fish is enough to make one rethink their deck choice.

[The Grim Reaper]

It seems like whenever I try to play type 1 on MWS, its another fish deck I'm up against. (I'm also playing fish). The mirror match is extremely intense and usually comes down to who gets the first active lavamancer. A sideboard with Crucible, REB, and Fire/ice would deffinitely help against fish.

Wasn't fish once considered a Tier 2 deck? Well, It appears now is the time for it to shine until some other deck comes along to smash it.

[Hi-Val]

The version I chose to run was much like control slaver but also could crank out 7/10 walls that Fish has trouble dealing with. Thanks to proactive threats like this, I feel that it has a marginally better chance against Fish than vanilla Slaver. Also, being able to take a crap on their manabase, especially with Webs post-board, makes it a far from dismal match. My loss in the semifinals was due to seeing zero lands in both games.

[Shirow66]

It's nice to finally see some Accumulated Knowledge/Intuitions showing up in a Control Slaver build over in the U.S.A.
Over here in Sweden pretty much everyone plays AK/Intuition in Control Slaver and I've been puzzled as to why it's
been absent in the American builds. Without those cards the deck just feels so slow, random and topdeck dependant.
Intuition is so good in the deck and adding AK doesn't make them worse.

Removing the Pentavus for Titan also feels like the right move. Sure, infinite Mindslaver is nice, but it takes so many cards to set up,
and Titan just wins you the game directly.

I'd also like to see some discussion about why TriniStax has such crappy builds/results over there,
since I feel TriniStax is the most broken and hardest deck to beat.
Latest builds over here with Sundering Titan utterly demolish any opposition. Too bad I don't own Workshops myself...

[SliverKing]

The abundance of Hulk and Null Rod has kept TriniStax down here.
Variants are played, and do o-k.... but not dominating at all.

[Shirow66]

Null Rod doesn't hurt Stax that much and the Hulk matchup is highly favorable in my experience.

[SliverKing]

Null Rod doesn't hurt Stax that much and the Hulk matchup is highly favorable in my experience.

meaning no disrespect... but my experience is somewhat different.

[Lasse]

I would also say that Stax is a very bad matchup for Hulk, and gay fish dosen't have an easy game either..or..?

[Toad]

I would also say that Stax is a very bad matchup for Hulk

That is not what my playtesting cessions have shown.

[Saucemaster]

And for what it's worth, I agree with both Toad and SliverKing.

[Shirow66]

The disagreement on the matchup could be due to the build differences of stax or just plain playskill of the hulk players of course. For reference, here's a stax deck list that Kenny Öberg won the Danish Championships with, hope he doesn't mind me posting it.

1 Memory Jar
1 Sundering Titan
1 Karn Silver Golem
1 Triskelion
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Smokestack
4 Tangle Wire
4 Trinisphere
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Vault
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestrall Recall
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Goblin Welder

4 Wasteland
2 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
4 Volcanic Island
3 Shivan Reef
4 Mishras Workshop

Sideboard
2 Winter Orb
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Viashino Heretic
2 Tsabos Web
1 Triskelion
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Chalice of the Void

[Jacob Orlove]

This thread is full of one-line posts. If this continues, it'll have to be moved to newbie.

[rozetta]

The metagame wheel is swung pretty far over in the direction of blue-based control right now. This is probably due to:

a) the lack of decent aggro (or perhaps the fact that we've not been concentrating on it recently)
b) the potential of a decent turn 1 or 2 combo deck (belcher and draw7 are already pretty good and there's the potential for something new to come along)
c) constraints: to a degree, the fact that fish is the best budget deck right now

I imagine that, for Gencon we'll see one or more of the following:

a) the same metagame as we did for SCG (perhaps not so likey)
b) a rise in workshop aggro/control (a possibility)
c) as a gamble on b) happening, a rise in combo numbers (less of a possibility than b) due to increase in trinispheres, etc.)

The fact that Workshop-based decks have the problem of sometimes being a little inconsistent, coupled with the gamble that there will be a stronger combo showing makes the whole thing swing back to choice a)  (the play the most comfortable deck option) This feels like what might have happened at SCG, and it also makes the GenCon event a little unpredictable and exciting.

It would be interesting to know if people who attended were choosing between a couple of decks, which one they played and which others they could have played and also whether they feel they should have played one  of their other choices instead.

[MaxxMatt]

All the people that claim Fish is "THE Best Deck" of the moment, have not acknowledged that there are many cards that singlehandly can stop that deck.

All the ones that let you stabilize your mana base are really too strong to let fish easily win against a prepared opponent.

The opponent MUST be prepared and own some cards in his side/maindeck NOT because of Fish but because of Fish variants, control matchups of any kind, MUD, 7/10, TriniStax, Random-LD and Trinistax, and even TnT or other mana denial-based decks.Only incidentally these cards became really good agaisnt Fish too.

CoW is the best choice IMHO because it is relatively cheap and it is an artifact, but Sacred Ground and Stifle, among other things, could add consistency to you deck, can improve the Fish matchup and hopefully all the others against mana denial decks.

Fish has a good time against a lot of the modern decks around North America becuase they are both Powerful and Inconsistent.

-Tog sometimes had the foolish mana count of 22-23.
-Belcher and Draw7 are inconsistent in a long term game plan.
TPS with less than 14-15 lands can't easily win against a lot of decks, and none of you play it.
-Workshop Slavery and 7/10 have both MWs AND coloured spells. this produces a lot of inconsistency.
-FCG can be easily screwed up.

Fish play and win especially thanks to this extreme inconsistency, hoping to stop the opponent's powerful spells with a synergetic use of tricks. But Fish has just some 1/1s and 4 FoW from my 4c-c perspective. A lot of his other spells can be worked around and they simply disappeared among your "Box of Threats to fear".

Run more lands or protect them well and fish would not so easily win against too many decks.
 
Adding consistency to all the mentioned decks, could easily balance a lot of their bad matchups.

MaxxMatt

Edited for clarity. -DrS

[Smmenen]

All the people that claim Fish is "THE Best Deck" of the moment, have not acknowledged that there are many cards that singlehandly can stop that deck.

Actually that's precisely the problem.  There is no card that hoses Fish.  It's too redundant and has too terrible of a card pool to be stopped.

You are also wrong about your combo analysis.  There were 8 Belcher decks in that tournament alone making it the 6th most popular deck.  One nearly made top 8.  There were 4 Death Longs and 2 Draw7s too.

[VGB]

Actually that's precisely the problem.  There is no card that hoses Fish.  It's too redundant and has too terrible of a card pool to be stopped.

Slice and Dice seems to fit the bill, barring several maindecked Stifle.  I have no clue what would play it, though.

[Smmenen]

But that doesn't *hose* fish.  It is a very temporary solution.  I've seen it used in a Tog SB before with Starstorm and they are all very marginal.  Simoon, Plague Spitter, and Caltrops have similar effects.

[VGB]

But that doesn't *hose* fish.  It is a very temporary solution.  I've seen it used in a Tog SB before with Starstorm and they are all very marginal.  Simoon, Plague Spitter, and Caltrops have similar effects.

I thought of those, and here's why I mentioned S&D:

1) It doesn't break Standstill.
2) It's uncounterable (albeit stifleable).
3) It's no card disadvantage (barring having your own weenies axed), thus is rarely dead.
4) The only creatures in Fish it doesn't hit is Factory.

That makes it much superior to the other weenie/Fish hosers, besides outdated stuff like The Abyss.

Chains of Mephistopheles attacks the deck from a different and probably more critical angle, though - but to play Chains is to limit your own drawing ability, and possibly affect deck consistency.

[Phele]

Actually, Slice and Dice does hose Fish pretty enough, if played correctly. It's not the same as Simoon, Plague Spitter, and Caltrops for sure because it cycles, but I guess you know that.

Beside as Max correctly said, most of the Northamerican decks seem to be overpowered what just leeds to a lack of consistency. Examples exist enough: JP and Smmenen didn't stop to say just a few weeks ago sentences like "Why should I add a Strip Mine or a Pernicious Deed in my Tog Build, when Many Crypt helps me to kill faster." It's just an fictive, unprecise example, but I think the direction of deckbuilding in Northamerica got wrong, when a hate-deck like Fish is considered "The deck to beat", which is just hysteria.

Another point, which cannot be repeated enough, is the lack of good aggro builds in Northamerica, as Rozetta pointed out. I just never see decent Madness-Builds in your Top8s. Serge Metz's build, which won him the last Dülmen tournament, is just a great example for how to build a Madness-deck in a control-heavy metagame. I guess, every single fish build of the SCG tournament would have had problems with that.

[MaxxMatt]

Actually that's precisely the problem. There is no card that hoses Fish. It's too redundant and has too terrible of a card pool to be stopped.

All the cards that deny his own denial completely hose fish.
If they can't effectively screw you what remain to take care of?

Some 1/1s and 4 FoWs.

So, any good deck can take care of a "bad curious zoo", with more than 3 lands in play.

You are also wrong about your combo analysis. There were 8 Belcher decks in that tournament alone making it the 6th most popular deck. One nearly made top 8. There were 4 Death Longs and 2 Draw7s too.

Ok, you are right.
I didn't know about the number of decks played.
I'll expect some breakdown to be more analitic about this argument.

The only thing that I can add is that Belcher and Draw7 are the most inconstistent combo decks of magic the gathering.

Add consistency even to a combo deck ( = Play TPS instead of Belcher and Draw7!!! ) and you'll see a lot more combo decks make appearence in your the Top8.

On the other hand, if you play with an Extremely Explosive Decks ( Belcher and Draw7 ) that are totally lacking of consistency,  Fish & 4C-C will own you.

[Purple Hat]

Jhaggs13 and I have been expiramenting with Juntu Stakes.  It hoses fish pretty well and is also good against welders, togs, mutation tokens, and any other creature that is a natural 1/x with a use requiring a tap.

[VGB]

Jhaggs13 and I have been expiramenting with Juntu Stakes.  It hoses fish pretty well and is also good against welders, togs, mutation tokens, and any other creature that is a natural 1/x with a use requiring a tap.

I thought of Juntu Stakes as well as an anti-Fish card, but it is just about the flip side of Tsabo's Web without the cantripping.  It does nothing against Kai or man-lands.

Juntu Stakes stops Tog only while they can't counter it, wish for removal, pump 5 mana into a Shaman, or blow a Deed for 2.  Also, Tog only has to tap once to kill - but I will admit the Stakes would have surprise factor.

[Mixing Mike]

Aggro decks with bigger creatures beat Fish.  So go play TnT or Madness, or start playing Masticores again.  

I think we all know that Fish does extremely well in a highy powered metagame.  And what was the metagame at SCG?  I think we know why Fish did so well.

[Smmenen]

Ok, you are right.
I didn't know about the number of decks played.
I'll expect some breakdown to be more analitic about this argument.

The only thing that I can add is that Belcher and Draw7 are the most inconstistent combo decks of magic the gathering.

Add consistency even to a combo deck ( = Play TPS instead of Belcher and Draw7!!! ) and you'll see a lot more combo decks make appearence in your the Top8.

On the other hand, if you play with an Extremely Explosive Decks ( Belcher and Draw7 ) that are totally lacking of consistency,  Fish & 4C-C will own you.

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.