U/R Fish(NAKED FISH) wins in Aarhus 10/10-04

[TheRealSuperman]

Hello people!

Prior to the Felix Mox Showdown-tournament, me and a friend of mine tested a version of U/R Fish
That would beat our current metagame, which is basically just:

Food Chain Goblins
SmmenenBlue
$tacks
TPS
Tog
Unpowered decks

My friend ended up winning the tournament, but that’s besides the point, cause he really didn’t think it was the correct build for the metagame. The deck that won the tournament was this:

NAKED FISH ver. 1

Maindeck:
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Voidmage Prodigy
1 Gorilla Shaman
4 Curiosity
4 Standstill
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Null Rod
1 Time Walk
 
4 Mishras Factory
2 Faerie Conclave
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
2 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
 
Sideboard:
 4 Fire/Ice
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Energy Flux
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

The first thing that comes to mind when looking at the decklist and the metagame is that Voidmage
Prodigy is bad, and we quickly decided to replace it with a more curiosity-friendly Goblin Vandal.
Almost all the other decklists of U/R Fish on the net play only 3 Null Rod, and we found that to be
the correct call also, and we also cut a Daze since it only really shines in the combo match-up’s which
aren’t that common in our metagame. In comes Crucible since it was sided in in almost every match
throughout the day of the tournament. We’ve also changed the sideboard to be a little more specific, now it hates SmmenenBlue through 6 blasts (and that is not the only match-up those are good in),
and all stax-related problems will be solved through the 4 Energy Flux and the newly submitted 2
Rack and Ruins, we filled the last 3 spots with Chill cause we felt that the Goblin Food Chain deck
needed some hate too. That sure was allot of red cards in the sideboard, so we felt that we needed
to fix the mana-base a bit, so here it is:

NAKED FISH v. 2

Maindeck:
4 x Grim Lavamancer
4 x Cloud of Faeries
4 x Spiketail Hatchling
2 x Goblin Vandal (NAKED)

4 x Force of Will
4 x Curiosity
4 x Standstill
3 x Daze
3 x Null Rod
2 x Crucible of Worlds
1 x Ancestral Recall
1 x Time Walk

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

SB:
2 x Rack and Ruin
2 x Pyroblast
3 x Chill
4 x Energy Flux
4 x Red Elemental Blast

The biggest problem with the deck is what to sideboard out in the match-up’s
and it is here we need some help.

Against Stax what should be taken out? We ended up with a solution called:
+ 4 Energy Flux, +2 Rack and Ruin
-3 Daze, -3 Curiosity (these are very debatable, but since we can only
answer Triskelion with Null Rod or Fow we felt Curiosity had to go, thoughts?)

Against Tog:
+4 Red Elemental Blast, +2 Pyroblast
-3 Daze, -3 Null Rod

Against SmmenenBlue:
+4 Red Elemental Blast, +2 Pyroblast
-3 Daze, -2 Crucible of Worlds, -1 ??

Against TPS:
+4 Red Elemental Blast, +2 Pyroblast
-4 Standstill (is this right?) -2 Crucible of Worlds

Against Goblin Food Chain:
+3 Chill
-3 Null Rod

Please tell us what you think of it so far!

[Raven Fire]

we quickly decided to replace it with a more curiosity-friendly Goblin Vandal.

If Curiosity is really a consideration, you'll probably want to run Mox Monkey instead.  It can still deal the damage needed to trigger the card draw while it's munching artifacts.

ps - Hi-Val advocated using Vandals in an SCG article over half a year ago.