Metagame Shifts: Debating the Future of Fish

[Smmenen]

Fish was undoubtedly the deck to play during the summer.  It had proved, time and again, that it was well equipped to beat anything that stood in its way.  

However, it wasn't until Gencon that people realized this - and metagamed as a result.

I played a deck that cannot lose to Fish: Mono blue.  Other people followed a similar line of reasoning and played The Man Show, 5/3 and TnT - all running over Fish at SCG Va and putting 4 Workshop aggro decks in the Gencon top 8.  

As if those matchups weren't horrible enough, Oath has now risen to the top and appears to be the premier control deck of the format.  Slaver variants remain strong, but Oath uses Ground Seal and Control Magic to hose it.  

I raise the question: Is Fish even remotely viable anymore?  Is it still tier two?  

What will people do if they can't play Fish?  Will the fact that it is possible to run it in a 5 proxy metagame keep it running?

[MIZEnhauer]

I don't think there can be a substitute to fish, but i think one deck that i've been testing that shows some parralels is oathstill.  Though the win condition is very different the game is still about tempo.  But more importantly the question you rose is is Fish still viable.  My answer is No but as long as it costs as much as it does, and plays the way it does I think budget players will always turn to Fish as their first choice.

[Smmenen]

But how can Landstill variants be strong when Crucible of Worlds seems so ominpresent?  Is the diversity of threats enough?

[MIZEnhauer]

the landstill i have been testing ran oath as an alternate win condition as oath under a standstill is quite good as i'm sure you have noticed, and after your and your teams performance at SCG 2  (by the way congrats) i really think that that may be a fairly decent deck.  Also Stephen as you noted in your other thread decks are running more basic lands, that could mean an decrease in Crucibles.  That could mean a chance for Landstill in some form(i would like it to play oaths) to return.  Because now is the time for Oath and i believe that standstill is very good in the Oath mirror giving you the edge.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

In the current metagame fish might not be able to achieve the status it saw in the summer, but with tweak it MIGHT be able to hold a position at tier2.

Fish is a force to be reckoned with in the hands of a player who not only is skillfull on his own, but whom also has the ability to tailor the fish MD and SB for the Metagame he is expecting.  No direct net deck wins will happen in this scenario.

[moses2k]

I'm not familiar with oathstill.dec.

Maybe you can just post a decklist to talk about...

Fish could beat tog and Workshop-Slaver, and was mainly played because it could beat them.

With the shift of the metagame it wasn't the deck to play anymore, so people added green for River Boa an stuff.

I think its just a matter of time until somebody gets a genius idea which will make it viable again and tune it towards the new meta.

I could imagine that it will be something mono-u with firewalker replacing lavamancer or smt like that.

Just like its called in the newer age -> "Back 2 the roots"

[Shikari]

I would say that Fish is still a pretty good deck to play and that it will always be good. It has forced decks to change certain components to suit the fish enviroment. As long as Fish evolves, it'll be up tp date with the other decks

[Smmenen]

I would say that Fish is still a pretty good deck to play and that it will always be good. It has forced decks to change certain components to suit the fish enviroment. As long as Fish evolves, it'll be up tp date with the other decks

How can you say that so confidently when deck after deck that emerges is designed specifically to beat Fish.  HOw many decks that beat fish will it take before Fish is no longer viable?

It's creator, the Phantom Tape Worm no longer plays it.  What does that tell you?

[Komatteru]

I played Fish for most of the summer.  I posted a decent record at the World Championship at Gencon, despite facing pretty much everything that was bad for me: Stax twice (both losses), Oshawa Stomy (draw, would have won if not for time), 4CC (draw, win), Parfait (win), Mono-blue (smackdown), and terrible.dec (win).  I faced a pretty diverse field there and had a rough time in a couple of those matches (O Stompy and one of the 4CC matches) pulling out what I did.

I understand the deck much better now than before I played it at Gencon.  However, despite this, I have put it aside and will not play it again anytime soon.  I merely kept it together for someone else to play when I'm like "Wanna play T1?  I have a deck for you."  I do not believe the deck is viable anymore.  There will be a few people dedicated to the deck that will continue to play it (PTW) and they will do well based on their playskill and desire to win.  However, people understand Fish really well now.  It took the better part of the summer for everyone to understand the deck and figure out how to crack it.  Fish cannot win based on surprise or unfamiliarity of opponents.

I wouldn't call Oath the premier control deck in the format just yet.  I attest its fantastic success at SCG II more to the skill of the players who piloted it than to the deck itself.  Don't get me wrong, it's good, but it takes more than one event to grab the title "Premier control deck," when Control Slaver won Gencon and Waterbury and has done well otherwise.  We need to see what happens at SCG III before we declare Oath the best control deck in the format.

In addition, there have been a couple developments that are horribly unfavorable toward Fish.  Before Gencon, Oshawa Stompy was really the only nightmare matchup for Fish (Stax is bad, but Fish can still win).  You have to be really good with Fish and get some luck to win the Stompy matchup.  However, Stompy is not a good deck and no one was going to play it just to beat Fish, no matter how represented Fish was in the meta.  However, there have been a couple developments since then.  Monoblue and now Oath are both good enough in that they don't beat Fish and lose to pretty much everything else (like Stompy).  Stax and Workshop aggro are horrible matchups for Fish.  Fish has a decent game against combo, but it really does take Fish's god-draw for it to win.  A decent combo player with desire and knowledge of his deck can easily play around Fish's threats and disruption spells.  Well that's pretty much the entire field right there.  Fish doesn't have a good matchup against anything right now, as the most popular version of the list stands.  Fish is a metagame deck.  It was desiged to beat the control decks (especially the mighty Hulk Smash) that were dominating the format this summer.  The meta has shifted.  The control decks to beat are not 4CC and Hulk anymore.  Now they're Control Slaver, Monoblue, and Oath.  All of which have huge bombs in them.  Fish needs to adapt if it wants to beat those.

As for what people will play in 5 proxy environments, there's always Madness.  While not as strong as Fish was during the summer, it's still not horrible.  Some consider it a step up from Fish and others consider it a step down.  FCG is always an option, no matter how terrible it is.  Monoblue can probably be adapted to be a budget deck as well (the removal of Mana Drain is going to hurt a lot though).  I wouldn't be surprised to see budget Oath decks surface as well.  However, none of these decks will be as good as the established budget decks.  Someone is going to have to sit down and build a new budget deck.  There is also the possibility that people won't play in the meantime--i.e., none of the 5 proxy decks are good enough, so they don't play in 5 proxy events.  The first SCG had over 150 people, while this one had 80.  The smaller attendance can be blamed partially on States being held the same day, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a decently significant number of people who didn't want to pony up the entrance fee to play Fish and get stomped.

-JD

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

@ Steve, I was about to mention PTW and him not playing it also.  :lol:

To reiterate what I said above, if it's played correctly and the right choice for your enviroment, go with it.  Im just saying its not going to work EVERYWHERE.

[MIZEnhauer]

to adress moses2k ill post one of my earlier lists is stephen permits me to do so.  I dont want to clog up his thread

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

If its RELEVANT for people in the discussion to know what land/oathstill is, I don't think anyone objects.

EDIT: Reworded my sentance

[MIZEnhauer]

well with permission from method here goes
3 Disk
3 Teferi's Responce
3 Crucible
4 FOW
4 Mana Drain
2 Misdirection
1 Time Walk
1 Recall
4 Standstill
4 Oath
1 Akroma
1 SOTN
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus
1 Saphire
1 Emerald
1 LoA
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Faerie Conclave
4 Tropical Island
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Island
I think this is the deck that most shows parallels to Fish.  This list may seem janky but thats because it has onky been through goldfishing.  And im pretty bad at testing so i need someone to help or do it for me. If you think the deck warrants its own discussion tell me and ill make a thread.

[Komatteru]

I think this is the deck that most shows parallels to Fish.  This list may seem janky but thats because it has onky been through goldfishing.  And im pretty bad at testing so i need someone to help or do it for me. If you think the deck warrants its own discussion tell me and ill make a thread.

This isn't a thread about improving a decklist, so I'll keep it brief, but this deck bears little resemblance to Fish.  Including some of the same cards does not make decks similar.  TPS and DeathLong are both broken based combo decks with half the cards in common, but they run completely different.  Fish is a tempo-based deck.  It wins because it does stuff like the following:

CS player: Thirst for Knowledge
Fish: Daze, untap, Cloud, Lavamancer, Standstill

Tempo.  Stop an opponent with Daze or Force, stifle a fetchland, Misdirect Deep Analysis, then follow with some efficient threats.  That's how it beat other control decks.  Control decks need to control the tempo of the game to win.  They have trouble with decks that regain tempo quickly unless they have a way to do the same thing.  The decklist you posted cannot do such a thing.  Mana Drain something into Crucible?  Disk?  That's not really much of a tempo swing.

Back to the original issue.  Fish's strategy is a sound one that is too good to die: mana denial, counterspells, efficient creatures, and the enormous strength of Null Rod.  The deck as it stands it not good in the current meta, but I'm sure someone can cook up a deck based on similar premises that will win.  However, that deck will not resemble Fish in the slightest (it might not even be the same colors).

Edit: As a side note, how much Fish was there at SCG VA II?  I'm rather curious to know.

[Jacob Orlove]

Fish's strategy is a sound one that is too good to die: mana denial, counterspells, efficient creatures, and the enormous strength of Null Rod.  

People can see how decklists are adapting to Crucible; why can't they see how lists are adapting to Rods? The only noncombo deck in the format that's worried about Rod is Control Slaver and not only do they stop caring postboard, but they have Mogg Salvage to Wish for game 1. If Fish is going to come back in the current meta, it's going to have to shift focus away from Null Rods.

[jpmeyer]

Another important thing to consider is whether or not many of the better decks now (Oath, various and sundry Workshop ones, etc.) are good even if they don't get matchups against Fish any more.

[KitzuneNinja]

Another important thing to consider is whether or not many of the better decks now (Oath, various and sundry Workshop ones, etc.) are good even if they don't get matchups against Fish any more.

Its a scary thought how much of an impact the current metagame has on the list of "Viable decks".

Say, like, Tog was an awesome deck and did very well on its own, unless it encountered something fishy (bleh) or something else mr. Atog was allergic to. So if Tog is viable (or even the deck to beat), its perfectly viable to play a "hate deck" (a deck that is not equally good on its own, but that has a handful of good matchups).

There will always be something solid, a core of decks that has decent matchups in whatever field you play in and thus never become more or
less viable IF NOT hate decks starting popping up in large numbers. I can truthfully say that there's lots of Workshop-based decks that I consider a part of this core os solid decks that will do just fine whatever the field look like (unless the field looks like it did for Hulk when it was top dog). So far, its too early to give a judgement if the Oath is a core-deck as it needs a bit more field-time in my opinion.

Defining the core-decks is something that has to be done :)

[Elric]

People will stop playing Fish.  Some of the decks that Fish was keeping in check will make a comeback.  The lack of Null Rods will bring back the cards that it hoses particularly well.  Fish may be able to make a return then.

If no one is playing Fish right now, then the good matchup against Fish is no reason to run a deck that beats Fish.  JP has a good point- if Workshop Aggro is good even without getting matched against Fish, Fish is less likely to make a comeback.

Any deck that has the success that Fish did for a while is bound to face a lot of decks designed to beat it.  When that happens, it can't be played in the same numbers as before.

[moses2k]

I don't want to spam the thread with decklists, but i throwed some ideas together and built a different "fish" build.

It isn't focussed on Rod anymore.

Dark fishes ;>

Creatures
  4 Spiketail Hatchling
  4 Cloud of Faeries
  3 Phyrexian Negator

Spells
  1 Time Walk
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Mox Sapphire
  1 Ancestral Recall
  4 Duress
  2 Diabolic Edict
  4 Curiosity
  3 Daze
  4 Standstill
  4 Force of Will
  4 Brainstorm

Lands
  2 Island
  4 Wasteland
  1 Strip Mine
  3 Underground Sea
  2 Swamp
  4 Polluted Delta
  3 Mishra's Factory
 

Sideboard

  3 Lose Hope
  2 Arcane Laboratory
  2 Null Rod
  1 Phyrexian Negator
  1 Diabolic Edict
  2 Blue Elemental Blast
  4 Energy Flux



Thats the list i'm toying around with @ the moment.

It has a better matchup against oath.

This are just my alpha thoughts, so dont kill me ;>

The current meta is dominated by combo and control, so negators seem to be invited for a comeback.

Any thoughts?

[Komatteru]

People can see how decklists are adapting to Crucible; why can't they see how lists are adapting to Rods? The only noncombo deck in the format that's worried about Rod is Control Slaver and not only do they stop caring postboard, but they have Mogg Salvage to Wish for game 1. If Fish is going to come back in the current meta, it's going to have to shift focus away from Null Rods.

The "too good to die" was an afterthought in my post, as I had just written "a sound one" and decided afterward that I wanted to emphasize that the general strategy of Fish was something that was still good.

Anyway, good point.  At the time Fish was created, Null Rod was huge.  Now, Null Rod is not so huge.  So, perhaps I really meant to say "mana denial, counterspells, efficient creatures, and a bomb [in the current environment]."  Really, the fact that Null Rod used to be that bomb is largely irrelevant.  Fish relied on land mana denial, countermagic, and efficient creatures something really strong to back it up.  It's similiar how the Crucible/Wasteland lock relies on Trinisphere to back it up.  It used to be Sphere of Resistance, but now it's Trinisphere.  One bomb replaces the other.  If all playable removal cost 2 and there were no Moxes, you could just lock down your opponent as much as possible with Crucible/Wasteland and beat down with a Juggernaut.  In any case, the same thing is acccomplished: you have control of the game while your opponent is unable to build up enough land to do anything. It's like how old school Keeper used to control the game and then drop a Morphling for the win.  Morphling was the best creature at the time and was that bomb.  In "The Deck," that bomb was Serra Angel, who was equally unkillable in her time.  Morphling got replaced with Exalted Angel because the environment changed again.  One bomb to the next.  They all do the exact same thing (same effect on the game), just have different names.  The "next Fish" has to find something that accomplishes something huge, like Null Rod did.  That effect may or may not look anything like Null Rod's, but it will be huge and something everyone needs to watch out for.  That's where we were with Null Rod 3 months ago.

I think it's harder to figure out that a deck is adapting to Null Rod than Crucible.  The addition of more basics is a pretty easy thing to see.  When a deck still includes Moxes (vulnerable to Null Rod), it's a lot more difficult to see how it relies less on those Moxes on paper.

[firebird365]

The problem is you will not have a game vs. Workshops. They're really permeating throughout most metagames, and you HAVE to take them into consideration if you're trying to build a top tier deck.

[Ric_Flair]

Two things make me think that Steve is on to something.  First, the role of Fish was that of spoiler, as a metagame deck.  As the metagame shifted it lost its role.  But that is more of a cutesy explanation than anything substantive.  I personally think that the big issue with the deck is that its philosophy of tempo and 1 ofs is no longer acceptable.  In a metagame with decks like 4cc and Tog where there are a good number of 1 and 2 ofs, the ability to matchup with those 1 and 2 ofs with 1 and 2 ofs of your own is huge.  Couple this extremely efficient use of deck slots with tempo and it is easy to see why Fish's unusual deck list can hold off Tog and Angel juggernauts.  This is the true story of why Fish has fallen.  One only needs to look at the decks that have arisen as foils for Fish--5/3, Mono U, and Oath--to see that the way to beat the 1 and 2 ofs tempo tangle is to run a HUGE number of highly redundant threats.  That is exactly what the anti-Fish decks do.  The original thing that stymied so many people was that Fish could not be "teched" out of the metagame because the traditional method of doing this was adding a few cards in one's SB to use as bullets.  So often the fear of the random 1 of or the actual use of a 1 of, couple with the tempo advantages of the deck rendered these silver bullets ineffective.  It took a change in deck design, not just SB design, to beat Fish.  And I think that given the decks winning right now we have seen that.  Only Control Slaver is a deck that beat Fish by using the silver bullet strategy and this has to do with the fact that it really is redundant too (the Welders giving the deck psuedo redundancy).  Redundancy overcomes 1 and 2 ofs and tempo.  The metagame figured that out and Fish is likely relegated to a small spot in the format.

[An_American_Heart]

I honestly don't see fish really dying in the meta.  I just see it being very weaker.   If you look at it, they could do two things to stop Oath.  Annul's mainboard, and then up the maze of ith count.   Leonin bola is a card that is rather cheap that could actually dominate against oath, and it's a card that isn't expected.  

there are many other options available just to hose oath, but the fact still remains that fish will die.

maybe fish will become landstill?

[moses2k]

fish won't become landstill, the amount of crucible/wasteland prevents that.

And Landstill with crucible doesn't work as we all have seen..

Fish needs an universal hatecard(as da bomb), that hurts  a huge field of the meta.

The only card that could do do that at the moment is imo chains of mephistopheles...

This would shift away from cards like curiosity standstill brainstorm n stuff, towards impulse and duress.

of course u would have to add black.

Then the deck looks like handcard denial instead of mana denial.

any suggestions?

[MrZuccinniHead]

Fish's strategy is a sound one that is too good to die: mana denial, counterspells, efficient creatures, and the enormous strength of Null Rod.  

People can see how decklists are adapting to Crucible; why can't they see how lists are adapting to Rods? The only noncombo deck in the format that's worried about Rod is Control Slaver and not only do they stop caring postboard, but they have Mogg Salvage to Wish for game 1. If Fish is going to come back in the current meta, it's going to have to shift focus away from Null Rods.

I was thinking that Gorilla Shamans or CotV would both be easy replacements, but was leaning towards Shamans simply because it's another weenie that fits in fish.

[Covetous]

Fish proliferated in a field of multi-color control, which it was most effective against.  Now, the field is NOT multi-color control, and thus Fish is weaker.  The best decks in the format are some of Fish's worst matchups (I'm talking here about 5/3, Oath and CSlaver with Old Man).  Since those decks are not really metagame decks, Fish will need to wait for another favorable metagame shift to be successful again.  Fish is the quintissential metagame deck, being only as strong as its favorable matchups are popular.  It has no true power of its own aside from a sound game strategy--it does not use brokenness to win like most every other successful deck in type 1 (think about it).  

Ric_Flair's 1-of, 2-of theory is interesting but I'm not sure if I follow it or agree with it.  Whether or not a deck has 1- or 2-of's doesn't seem to me to be as relevant as whether or not a deck is susceptible to Fish's hate strategy and whether or not the deck has cards of its own that hose fish.  Cards like crucible, oath, basic lands, fat creatures and old man of the sea all serve to put the smack down on fish, whether a deck runs 4x of everything or not.  

Fish's strategy is so beautiful--keep the opponent from winning for just long enough to win yourself.  Slow them down with mana denial, a few counters and standstill while they take a few points of damage a turn until they die.  Fish was based around wasteland and null rod in the sense that mana denial was the most effective strategy it possessed.  Ironically, fish has the worst manabase EVER (okay maybe not ever but it's still awful), so its own strategy can be used against it by other decks.  Now that many successful decks incorporate some form of mana-denial into their strategy (or have become less vulnerable to such hate), Fish is weaker.  Decks have adapted to be Fish-proof (or at least Fish-resistant) by using more basics and fewer artifacts that require activation to be useful (i.e. control slaver as opposed to gilded lotus slaver).

[zero]

It seems as though fish has run into big_creatures.decs, which have always been a problem matchup for it. If you want to improve that  matchup, you'll have to scour the blue and red spell list for cards that help you defeat it or complement maze of ith. Cards such as annul,seal of removal, sigil of sleep, extract/rootwater thief should be tested to see if they are viable as s/b cards. Hell, even crucible of worlds may allow you to recur emergency blockers (faerie conclave) long enough to win before the trample damage does you in. I'm not saying these ideas are going to rejuvenate fish, but I don't necesarily think that it is ready to be relegated to the dustbin of history.

[Dakid195]

Well I have been playing Fish(wierd version and I will post it if you want) and I have been facing just random fat and stuff.  I have been able to race big creatures and stuff because of Fire/Ice and also another big thing in the SB i was thinking of is B2B running no wastelands and stuff.  Like right now in 1.5 I have been runnign no wastelands at all and have shyed away from Null Rod to deal with the big fat in 1.5.  I think that is the probably you guys are having.  You need to be able to beat the fat that is coming your way.

[An_American_Heart]

one thing that really wrecks face against fish would definitely be DarkSteel Colossus.  another fun one would be 7/10.  First turn tinker into one of those is just like saying "die fishy die".

it's like throwing a grenade in a fish tank.

[Ric_Flair]

Ric_Flair's 1-of, 2-of theory is interesting but I'm not sure if I follow it or agree with it. Whether or not a deck has 1- or 2-of's doesn't seem to me to be as relevant as whether or not a deck is susceptible to Fish's hate strategy and whether or not the deck has cards of its own that hose fish. Cards like crucible, oath, basic lands, fat creatures and old man of the sea all serve to put the smack down on fish, whether a deck runs 4x of everything or not.

The idea that I was getting at was that the 1 and 2 of set up of Fish, coupled with the mana denial strategy was JUST ENOUGH to keep other decks using 1 and 2 ofs off balance.  What if he Stifles my Deed?  What if he MisDs my Ancestral?  So on and so forth.  This threat of a card coupled with Null Rod and nb hate was effective against multi color control decks that ran 1 and 2 ofs of their own.  Think about this:  both Suicide and Anhk Sligh ran Null Rod and without the power of blue and the singleton threats (and perceived threats) of Fish are what made it different and this difference made the deck successful.  That is all I meant.