Swordfish

[kingcrown]

Hello there,

I'm Erol Nallayici and I'm new at MD.com
I really need your advice to improve my deck



Swordfish (U/R/W wish) by Erol Nallayici

mana (23)
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
5 Waste
5 BlueFetch
4 Mishra's factory
1 Island

Draw (7)
4 Curiosity
3 Brainstorm

Counter (12)
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
4 Spiketail Hatchling
2 Voidmage Prodigy

Other
3 Meddling Mage
3 Null Rod
1 Enlightning Tutor
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Fire/Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Grim Lavamancer


SB
3 REB
3 BEB
3 Stifle
2 Rack and Ruin
2 Gorilla Shaman
2 Echoing Truth


I think all of you knows what fish is, so I'm not going to explain that
But I will explain why I've choses URW and not URG or just UR.

I"ve played URg for a long time, it was nice but again Oath I've been beaten too many times. I thought white was a great way to cover my weakness

-> Meddling Mage - This is a great card against combo decks, not many people expects this card, it works amazing!

-> Swords to Plowshares - I think this card is clear enough, no explenation nedded

-> Enlightning Tutor - You can search for null rod of Crucible, I think this card is good enought for its only one white mana

-> Fire/ice - this card is very good again agrro ect, but shall i play it SB?



I Hope some of you will give me some advice.
Greetz ,
Erol

[bmueller]

Fire/Ice is a great card, but the StP should be all you need.  Go ahead and move them to the SB.  I think 2 Annul might be more useful maindeck.  I also don't know about the Enlightened Tutor... you only have 2 targets.  You might as well just add a second Crucible in its place.

[kingcrown]

thx pal

[martyr]

First off, play power.

Second off, play Mystical Tutor to get power.

Third, play another Crucible to cover your ass/screw with opponent's mana.

Lastly, I have never been anything but soundly dissapointed with Voidmage Prodigy. I would much prefer Waterfront Bounce in his stead, OR Razorfin Hunter, which would really allow you to run Sigil of Sleep in the board, too. That, combined with 'Mancer, combined with Bouncer, gives you a really good game against Oath. The Meddling Mages, early disruption, and Null Rods will help against Combo, the Swords/Cheap bounce will be golden against Workshop Aggro, and splashing white means you get to play with Serenity in the board, which is patent hotness.

[kingcrown]

@ your first point i have only en Mox emerald...If i had the power, i prob played it.. so not a quitte usefull point

I think I Will play another crucible and cut the Enlightning

The Voidmages are not that great that's right..
but what is the best chose?

[J J P]

Hm, just a stupid idea... But as the main reason for the white splash is StP because of UR Fish's incapability of dealing with creatures bigger than 2 - has someone ever tried out Crushing Pain? Theoretically this allows you to get rid of most of the bigger pets. So the deck can stay UR. StP of course is much faster and efficient, but playing fish I had quite a few close wins because it took so long to get the opponent's life to zero. And StP's drawback isn't making this better for the fish player.

[kingcrown]

@ JJP

Crushing Pain does not work against darksteel colossus, akroma,ect
so I still can't win against Oath...I agree that STP has a very big drawback in fish..But meddling mage is also an important reason for splashing white..

[J J P]

Ok, the mage is a big point for white. But as I am fixed on not adding another color splash to my deck, if it is to win against oath - why not rely on bouncing their creatures? Is oath very likely to successfully hardcast a DC, Akroma or Spirit of the Night?

[kingcrown]

hmm that's right, I also could use bouncer..
but the point is that meddling is usefull against a lot of decks
and harcasting colossus most times with mana drain is not that impossible..

but thanks for your advise

[Enrik]

I have been reading this thread so far and was wondering if u had considered  Rootwater Thief for your deck. This would allow u to keep the deck U/R so u can have access to the artifact and creature removal, would also allow for a less fragile mana base, against oath or any other deck for that matter would allow u to remove key cards from your opponents deck and u can give it an evasion ability if needed. If u feel that this may be to slow for your meta then i apologize for wasting your time.

[Mark_Story]

There are a couple of problems that I can see with this deck. Your mana base is going to get totally owned by crucible/waste or titan.  So if you're in a workshop filled meta I would be very cautious of running that many duals and so few basics.  A resolved B2B or blood moon is basically the end of your game with only one basic.  

Have you thought of adding aether vial to the deck?  It adds some trickery to the plan as you can vial out a hatchling in response, or at EOT vial out lavamancers, or prodigy's.

[TheFram]

A 3 color deck is hard to support wastes and manlands without some other kind of mana smoothing. For URW Fish I would reccomend Aether Vial.

Preliminary List

// Engine Stuff - 8+
4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
X Curiosity
X Brainstorm

// Men - 12+
4 Meddling Mage
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Spikestail Hatchling
X Voidmage Prodigy
X Gorilla Shaman

// Permission/Broken 4-6+
4 Force of Will
1 Ancestral Recall (If you can)
1 Time Walk (If you can)
X Daze
X Misdirection

// Meta Calls
X Fire/Ice
X STP
X Seal of Cleansing
X Rack and Ruin

// Mana - 18+
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
4 Mishra's Factory
5 Waste
1 Mox Sapphire (If you can)
X Island
X Blue Fetch

Make calls on X labeled cards as you see fit.

Null Rod is worthless to fish at this point because the killer match-up is 5/3. Null rod does nothing to Juggernaut or Workshop. Aether Vial really ties the mana base together, allows for cool synergies with Spiketail, Gorilla Shaman, Voidmage, and Meddling Mage (can counter madness, and you can anticipate what an upcoming spell is by what was just played). With Vial tying the mana together, you can shore up problem matches by using your new access to new colors, and broadening the SB.

[kingcrown]

HI there

I"ve player Vial-Fish about 4 months ago, every bbody called me crazy..( at the time I played something like WTf but much worser), I Cut the vial beacuae of null rod, but i was very happy with vial in my first turn...

I will make a new decklist, and i will test it

I haven't a mox sapphire anymore..
I have i Mox Emerald.. and i thing it doen't work very well..

[Aaron]

Hello,

I have also been testing out URW Fish, and I think I can help you out here. First of all, you should realize that Brainstorm is terrible in Fish. It doesn't build tempo, and is basically a waste of U that could have gone towards a Curiosity or Standstill, which is a much better plan. Here is my current list:

URW Fish by Aaron

4 Volcanic Island
2 Tundra
2 Plains
2 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
1 Strip Mine

4 Standstill
4 Curiosity
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Null Rod
1 Stifle
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mox Sapphire

4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Cloud of Faeries
3 Meddling Mage
----Total = 60

Sideboard:
4 Maze of Ith
2 Energy Flux
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Seal of Cleansing
2 Fire/Ice
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Stifle

This is somewhat different than your average Fish.

Cards that don't make the cut:

Faerie Conclave - Comes into play tapped? Costs 1U to activate? Sorry, but this is contrary to your overall strategy. Not necessary.

Library of Alexandria - You will not have 7 cards in hand. Period.

Voidmage Prodigy - Too difficult to have UU open during your opponent's turn. Not good for beating either, as it will probably be blocked and die before you can use it's ability. Not good.

Gorilla Shaman - A great card, but there's only room for maybe 1, and with 1, you probably won't draw it in time to make it count, so it goes.

Daze - A good card, but extremely dead in the mid-late game. With the Mages and STP, you probably won't need this.

Misdirection - Actually quite amazing when you can Mis-D an Ancestral or something along those lines. This got cut in favor of other cards, but not bad at all.

Sideboard

In the sideboard, I have 4 Maze of Ith. I believe in the current meta, these are almost universally a lifesaver. Perhaps 3 would be better, but it depends on what kind of decks you're playing. Against decks like 5/3, the Mazes will help you stop all kinds of nasty creatures, you can't really go wrong.

Crucible is obviously there to help you in the Workshop match, and the Seals are good against a variety of decks (Workshop, Oath, etc). The other cards are pretty self-explanatory.

I also cut REB and BEB, as they seem to be at an all-time low usefulness, and there's not much to board out for them.

I hope this helps you a little bit and gives you some new ideas.

Also, I would tend to disagree with the user who said that Mystical Tutor is necessary to fetch power. The only fetchable power would be Time Walk or Ancestral Recall, both of which would be pretty terrible to fetch and draw the next turn! Fetching Recall is not so hot. With your beginning of turn draw combined with drawing from Curiosity/Standstill, you probably will get all of the cards the Ancestral would have given you in any case.

Waiting a turn to cast Time Walk is also rather goofy, you are trading a turn to get a turn. IMO the power cards are there to topdeck, and you will tend to receive them randomly, and they will help you that way.

Just my 2 cents. If anybody agrees or disagree, please reply  

[J J P]

I like your list, it looks really focused on the important things and I absolutly agree on putting in some basic lands so your mana base can't be wasted completly. Your cuts are reasonable, I always wondered why someone would want to play with conclave and voidmage at all.
Sad that there is no room for aether vial, it really has cool synergies with hatchling, mage and standstill. But it unfortunatly does not work together with null rod and it exists really no place to fit it in.
Maybe cloud of fearies could be cut in favor of some other creature that is more than a flying 1/1 with no abilities once it has hit the board. On the other hand dropping clouds and a standstill on turn two or e.g. untapping a factory that has been tapped for attacking in your turn to have an additional blocker is just perfect.

[J J P]

Double post.