{New Deck} U/w aggro-control

[Zeylon]

This thread is about why Fish has dropped off in the current meta and how it can be revived.

Contention 1: Last year's Fish primarily depended on the power of Null Rod and Wastelands to ride to victory. And it worked because the meta was at that time unprepared to deal with those bombs. But this is no longer the case. Stax started using Wasteland and Crucible lock forcing decks to up their basic land count or die off. Every deck has made adjustments to deal with null rod, even current Affinity builds cut out Artifact lands entirely to be able to cope with it and some Stax builds are so much more resilient to Null Rod now that they can afford to run it on their own.

Contention 2: Using a Null Rod/Wasteland mana denial strategy comes with certain weaknesses as well as strengths. Null Rod means you can't run Moxen of your own forcing your deck to settle for less explosive turns 1 and 2 when these have now become the fundamental turns for virtually every other deck. Using Wasteland plus Mishra's Factory means that you are forced to run 24 mana sources (nearly half your deck) meaning that even if your deck can play with five Ancestral Recalls, you're going to be drawing into a lot of unneccesary land mid game.

Bird $hit tries to cope with this meta shift by running bigger creatures while cutting out 80% of Fish's draw spells and also adopting a 17-19 mana source base that is far too vulnerable to mana screw. I believe there is a better alternative - cutting out Fish's mana denial elements entirely while greatly upping its counterbase and it's card drawing as well as it's opening turns' explosiveness. The old versions of Fish didn't exploit Fish's evasive creature base in order to draw an insane amounts of cards as much as they could have. This new version of Fish can outdraw every noncombo deck in type 1 and also runs the biggest counterbase in type 1 to protect it's card drawers and keep key threats off the table. It's also less resilient to color screw than previous versions of Fish while keeping it's spell base even higher and uses Jitte to great effect.

Here's the list I'm proposing - Feel free to post your modificationss

Viktory by Flight - Can't really be called fish anymore.

4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
2 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 LoA
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Curiosity
4 Mask of Memory
4 Brainstorm

2 Urijatwe's Jitte (Can play a SOFI in place of a Jitte here instead)
1 Enlightened Tutor
 
3 Mana Drain
3 Daze
4 FoW

4 Meddling Mage
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Cloud of Fairies
3 Flying Men

Sideboard
1 Urejatwe's Jitte
1 Tinker
1 Platinum Angel
1 Disenchant
2 Arcane Laboratory
2 Dust to Dust
3 Swords to Plowshore
4 Seal of Cleansing

Most current list

4 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Curiosity
4 Mask of Memory
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling/Flying Men
4 Meddling Mage
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
2 Ninja of Deep Hours

Sideboard:
4 Seal of Cleansing
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Withered Wretch
2 Arcane Laboratory (Or 1 Tinker/1 Platinum Angel)
1 Disenchant
1 Dust to Dust
1 Vedalken Shackles

Ninja of Deep Hours is definately a card that warrants more testing. The same applies to Swords to Plowshores. Both readily fit into the maindeck.

Possible modification...

-4 Spiketail
-4 Mana Drain
-1 Curiosity (not too synergetic with Ninja since you shouldn't bounce back a curious flying man)
+4 Flying Men
+4 Mana Leak
+1 Misdirection

[Luiggi]

Very interesting decklist, Zeylon. My main concern with it, however, is that you are running so many creature-boosting spells (Equipments + Curiosity) but not significantly more creatures.

In this decklist you have 11 creature-boosting spells and only 14 creatures, meaning that a lot of the time you'll be drawing multiple Jittes, Masks and Curiosities, but without enough creatures to make best use of them. This especially hurts with the Jittes, since they're Legendary (and we generally won't need to worry about winning the Jitte wars that you can see in formats like Standard or Kamigawa Block).

Obviously the benefit of running Equipments is that we can just have them in play ready to equip whatever creature we play, as opposed to Curiosity, but I'd rather be drawing more creatures than creature-boosters, and with this deck we have just about the same number of each. I just feel that a build with such a high ratio of creature-boosters to actual cratures will be weakening itself against any deck that can keep our creatures from resolving or can kill them before we can boost them. Thoughts?

Luiggi

[Zeylon]

That was a concern I had too. I orginally started playing 4 Flying Men but ended up cutting 2 for better cards. It doesn't prove to be too bad off a problem though. As long as you have a creature in your opening hand you're good, you have tons of cards to protect your creatures, Dazes etc. Also Meddling Mages get thru fine in vintage since the only creatures most people play are 1/1s. I have no problem playing multiple pieces of equipment along with curiosity on just one creature. If they do kill the creature, you lose curiosity but usually have a new body to put equipment on. But usually they have a hard time killing your creatures with the amount of disruption you play. Jitte is great at saving creatures too. And the number of cards you draw off them by mid game is just nuts.

The one main problem is that the low creature count sometimes deters you from saccing spiketail hatchling except when absolutely neccesary. But usually, it still functions fine as a one sided sphere of resistence. If you have any recommendations on what to cut, I would love to try it.

[hellfire1134]

This is going to sound strange but maybe cutting LoA might help you with adding in evasion creatures.  Really your draw engine works well enouhg without it.  Also I think two Jittes is enough.  So I would suggested cutting LoA and 1 Jitte for 2 Flying men.  Also since you dont run manlands is standstill working out for you.  i would think it wouldnt be half as good without manlands.  I would think to cut them for something more cut out for this deck.

[Luiggi]

Have you considered putting Aether Vials into the deck? Besides the obvious synergy they have with Standstills they make sure our key creatures come into play and allow all sorts of nasty tricks. Since you've abandoned Fish's Null Rods I think it would be a good idea to try and abuse Aether Vial, much like ShortBus' Ninja Sword tried to do, but with a more solid two-color manabase. This way you could additionally put in some other good 2cc creatures. Cards that come to mind are Samurai of the Pale Curtain and Voidmage Prodigy. If we were using Aether Vials I think even something like Gilded Drake would be good, just because of how good it is vs. Oath, (though it might be better left to the SB).

As good as Jitte is, the question is whether or not it's better than Sword of Fire and Ice. Jitte comes down faster and equips for the same, but is Legendary, and actually requires our guy to get through in order to start getting counters. The creature-kill portion of Jitte is primarily used on opposing Welders, I'm assuming, and Sword does just as good a job of killing them, because of the Pro:Red and Pro:Blue that the Sword gives our dude, letting him damage our opponent unimpeded, draw us a card and off their Welder. I think the fact that it's not Legendary is also important, since drawing multiples ceases to be a problem.

Mask of Memory I like, but honestly I think just running something like 4 Curiosity and 3-4 Sword would leave us better off, freeing up spaces to add something like Aether Vial, if you wanted to give that a shot, or more creatures.

Regarding the mana base: I don't think there should be 8 fetchlands and only 6 fetchable lands, especially with no Brainstorms in the deck. I think in place of 3-4 of those fetches you could run some amount of Wastelands and Strip Mine, or even add some Underground Seas and Duress to the deck, though that might be drifting too far away from what you were trying to accomplish with the decklist. Ditto with re-adding Grim Lavamancer and making room for some Volcanic Islands...

Luiggi

[kirdape3]

Umezawa's Jitte gains counters on combat damage, not combat damage to a player.  The guy just needs to hit SOMETHING in order to get counters.

[Zeylon]

Lots of great ideas floating around. Thanks for the great input guys.

I don't see much point in cutting LoA. You can easily stay at 7 cards with all your card drawers so LoA usually gets you an extra card. But every card you draw helps a ton. This deck takes it's time to kill. Meanwhile, it wants countermagic handy at all times to completely stop threats like CotV and Crucible.

Jitte does more than kill Welders, it can deal with Workshop Aggros creatures, Bird $hits creatures etc. If you can build up counters fast enough, it can even deal with Oathed up Akormas. If you get it on the board with an evasive creature, you can cast standstill with ease regardless of how many weenies your opponent has in play. It also comes out earlier which is nice. But it is legendary, so I can see why you may want to cut it to 2. It makes sense to play some SoFI and cut some card drawing, be it Standstill or Mask of Memory. I'll definately try it out.

What specifically do you reccomend? I'm considering...
2 Jitte
3 SOFI
3 Mask of Memory
3 Standstill

With that much equipment and a mana base that can so readily access blue mana sources, the deck can potentially even play mana drains, if there was room that is.

The 14 creature base seems too light to make good use of Aether Vial. You need evasive creatures to draw tons of cards. Vial works best with nonevasive stuff like Voidmage Prodigy etc. Cutting card drawing or countermagic for more creatures seems like a bad idea. Having countermagic handy at all times is critical in the current meta. And the nutty number of cards this deck can draw by midgame is how it wins. In short, adding Aether Vial takes the deck in a direction that I'm sure this deck was ever meant to go. Gilded Drake is usually dead except against Oath. And this deck actually has a pretty good matchup against Oath, especially post board. It draws more cards, has more countermagic all the way thru the early game by which time the card drawing should kick in.

What exactly does stealing one oath creature accomplish, unless its Akorma, they can Oath up another one, they kill each other and then their library reshuffles in w/ Gaea's Blessing so they can Oath up another creature again..

The idea is good, it's just a very different deck from this one. I have considered adding back in some striplands but I can only play two at most, and I'm not sure that's worth it. It's nice always drawing into colored mana sources so you can consistently drop Meddling Mages down on turn one or two before they can play oath or combo out or something.

[Vegeta2711]

I believe there is a better alternative - cutting out Fish's mana denial elements entirely while greatly upping its counterbase and it's card drawing as well as it's opening turns' explosiveness.

If you go this route, what's the advantage over say BBS? Since the clock you have is still incredibly slow, you won't be killing at a much faster pace and you lack far more counters than the average BBS runs. Not to mention they can also run COTV to help against combo and Shackles to lock down aggro far better than your deck can. You run 8-10 card drawing slots that are completely dependent on keeping a creature in play and the other 4 (Standstill) are also heavily reliant on having a decent amount of power in play. This is pretty bad considering you only run 14-16 guys and they're all 2/2's or smaller. It means any sort of early game removal has the distinct chance of screwing you. Also while BS may run less draw on the whole, none of it is anywhere near as situational as the Fish draw your running. BBS as well, has no such limitation when picking draw spells.

Jitte is the only thing I like, but it only truly shines against aggro and slow combo matches.

By eliminating the mana-denial, you cut out a key point in the Fish strategy and part of the reason why it's traditionally done so well. In fact once you cut all of the mana denial from the deck, why not play GAT? Once again you gain a less situational draw engine, far better creatures and more counters.

[coop]

My concern with this deck is how do you gain tempo, you aren't attacking there resources in anyway, card draw is great but right now your strategy is to attack with 1/1's and 2/2's for something like 5-6 turns in order to win.  The orginal fish could gain a great deal of tempo because of situations like this:

Your opponent is sitting there unable to do anything because he can't cast his thrist for knowledge, that he needs to get going, because his mana crypt is sitting useless on the table from null rod and your spiketail hatchling is forcing him to find that 4th land to play it, all of this while you are developing your board position, and drawing cards with curiosity.  

This list can't use that strategy and resource denial is why fish won most of its game back when it was one of the top decks.

What I'm trying to say is that the equipment cards are not as effective as null rod and mana denial.  The moxen you are adding you are not able to abuse as well as the other decks in the format simply due to the power level of your cards.  

I don't see any reason why I would pick this up over birdshit, there clock is faster, they have fatter creatures which provide a faster clock, and are packing mana denial, with more counters.

I don't think that you can afford to run more than 2 jittes seeing as they are as pointed out earlier legendary, and drawing an extra will just clog up your hand.  How about sword of fire and ice replacing one of those slots.  

The other problem I see is that your dazes are alot weaker here than in the original fish since then you were cutting off there moxen with null rods and wastelands.  It would seem that perhaps mana leak could replace one or two of them since they look pretty useless in this list outside of the first turn or two.

Maybe I am wrong but it would seem to me like TPS would just steam roll through your counter wall, and they will have all of there mana available to commit to finding an answer to arcane lab and meddling mage your clock probably isn't quick enough to put enough real presure on them to prevent them from finding a way to go off.  


Please don't take this as a flame because I like what your trying to do in working with fish in trying to make it playable again but I think you may be on the wrong path.  I like the idea of playing with equipment but its probably not what fish is missing to push it to playable again.  

[HuntedWumpus]

I think that you are heading down a road that with the current state of the metagame is destined for failure. However another deck similar to fish has been suggested by Kowal in this thread.

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=22581.0

The original purpose of this deck, aside from using Ninjas and Swords, was to be an aggro control deck similar to fish but with relevant disruptive creatures.  Spiketail Hatchling just plain sucks.

The quote above sum's up why Ninja Sword is better constructed to face the current meta. Perhaps you should focus on a deck similar to the above employing creatures that pose a threat to your opponent rather than garbage such as Spiketail Hatchling.

[Matt]

Samaurai of Pale Curtain - Graveyard disruption is great in the meta cutting off tons of card drawing mechics, welder tricks, and forcing combos to not rely on Will to get to the storm count. A bomb against Welder, Threshold, Lavamancer, Tog, Various Combos (Dragon DD etc), Deep Anaylisis, Goblin Nabob/Bazzar, Will, Skeletal Scyring, Accumilated Knowledge etc.

I think you need to read this card a little more closely. Especially the word "permanent".

[Luiggi]

The more I think about it the more I find myself agreeing with HuntedWumpus... I think Ninja Sword is a better example of what this deck should be trying to accomplish. Having said that, I'm not sure the list Kowal gave us is the best, and there was debate in other topics over whether or not creatures like Gorilla Shaman were ideal, and whether something like Meddling Mage might not be better.

Just to illustrate the point I made about having too many creature boosters: the Ninja Sword decklist runs 16 maindeck creatures, yet it only runs 3 Sword of Fire and Ice as ways to pump them up. He also uses Ninjas as a way of virtually having Curiosity in his deck, but without having it eat up valuable slots. I feel that construction is better, just because you have less slots that are reliant upon having a creature in play to actually do something...

I think it would be interesting to try and blend the Ninja Sword design with what's been discussed here, possibly adding Meddling Mage instead of/in addition to the Gorilla Shamans, and adding Tundras instead of Volcanic Island. The main problem with taking out the Shamans is that it leaves us without 1cc creatures, but I'm not sure that's such a huge problem. Thoughts?

Luiggi

[MrZuccinniHead]

isn't your creature base still vulnerable to Lava Dart?

[Luiggi]

Another good reason to run Sword of Fire and Ice, .

Luiggi

[Malhavoc]

Taking mana denial out of fish means you are no longer playing fish. Do not misenderstand, I'm not saying that any build similar to fish but without mana denial is bad, just that it's no longer fish, and needs to be played in a totally different way. That's why I really don't see the reason to run in your deck cards like daze and spiketail. They can do something in the very first turns, but you do not win in the first turns anyway, and if your opponent just stays careful about daze, in a couple of turns your 3 daze are just pitches to force, and your spiketail is just a 1/1 flyer.

I've tried something similr for some degrees to NinjaSword/Fish too: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=22717.0
Cunnings are questionables, and drains are a choice that lead the deck in a particular way (main problem being the choice without vial in play to cast a creature or keep mana open for drain on your second turn, depending on cards in hands and opponent's deck), but the rest is IMHO an interesting choice that's worth considering.

I think that running evil creatures is something vital to make something like this work. You have prefered evasive abilities to make better use of mask and jitte, but they are not enough incisive IMHO.

[Zeylon]

Thanks for all the great input guys. Keep it coming.

Regarding Ninja Mask, read my initial post, I added to it.

I agree with you. This is no longer Fish. But I don't see the Dazes and Spiketails as being nearly as useless as you make them out to be. You admit that they're awesome early on. Well that's all that matters. True you don't win early on but you don't need to. You just need to have a significant draw engine up and running by the time Dazes and Spiketails start losing their potency, well before other control decks start drawing cards. This you can do easily. And by then, with this draw engine up and running, you are drawing enough hard counters that Daze and Spiketail cease to be nearly as important.

And btw, as for the deck you posted, I do like it, a lot more than Ninja Sword definately. I still prefer drawing large amounts of cards to Vial tricks though. I see that as being more fundamental to your midgame. But what you're proposing is a great possible direction to try out for fish too.

Also, what three cards do you think I should cut?

[Zeylon]

Most would consider Meddling Mage proactive. But you have a good point, Mal's deck may be too reactive for a deck that can't draw many cards. I liked Mal's deck because I liked his creature base more. Grim vs. Gorilla Shaman is kind of a toss up IMO. I think Shaman is a bit better especially thanks to vial but it Mal can easily substitute it in for Grim. Withered Wretch is an incredible creature no question. I find the BB it needs when you don't have Vial a bit prohibitory and think it opens your deck up to color screw with all the Wastelands running around, but it could well be worth the price. But neither Old Man nor Gilded Drake belong in the main deck. Old Man can be useless a lot of games and costs a prohibitive amount. Meddling Mage on the other hand is a fine creature, as is Voidmage (when used with Vial).

Also I want to ask Kowal how well he tested against Oath. Drake may be useful, but only if the creature you steal can block their other oathed creature infinately and not die, ie. they play Akorma and Spirit of the Night and either get out Akorma first or overextend and Oath out both cards. Other wise, their next oathed up creature will trade with the creature you stole and both get shuffled back into their library (unless you also topdeck Withered Wretch with the drake but that's asking a lot) with blessing you're left back at square one only they now have a 3/3 flyer as well. Post sideboard, if they side out one of the two creatures for something else, you're screwed. Even if you successfully steal Akorma, you can still never attack with it or it will get double blocked by Drake and something else and wind up in their graveyard. I would guess Kowal's Oath match is absolutely terrible. And Oath is common enough that it should be a must do atleast decent against type deck.

So unless I'm missing something, Drake is pretty much useless, even as a sideboard card, much less a maindeck card. And that's why I think Mal has a better deck (if he subs the lavamancers with shaman).

[M]

I have been playing Fish decks w/o Null Rod and w/o manlands for almost a year. Mask of Memory is underrated. Your deck can do very well in a metagame dominated by control and kombo, but will have a harder time against aggro and workshops. Also, this deck has more potential than the pile reffered to as 'ninja sword'. Unlike that deck, your deck can generate real card advantage, which also makes it a true Fish deck. Fish has always been about card advantage, tempo/mana denial is only one way to play out the card advantage, other forms of resource control can work just as well. That said, I think you should include 1 strip mine + 2 wastelands if you can. They way you are taking the deck now (lot's of artifact destruction in the sideboard) seems to imply that you might want to play U/R over U/W. Maindeck you would lose only Meddling Mage, you would gain Grim Lavamancer and Gorilla Shaman. This might be worth it, considering that your matchup is already good against combo. The biggest loss would be StP of course (but you would have Lavamancers, and you would still have the Jitte). You would gain REB and Rack and Ruin, but would need some other way to deal with Oath post SB.

[Luiggi]

I posted this in the Ninja Sword topic, but I figured I'd copy it here too, to address Zeylon's point:

Re: Gilded Drake and Akroma: your opponent won't be able to double-block with Gilded Drake + Spirit of the Night/Ancient Hydra (the two most common creatures that accompany Akroma in the Oath creature-suite) because of Akroma's pro-Red and pro-Black, meaning that on your first attack you'll kill the Gilded Drake you gave them and trample over for 3 damage. Not a bad deal...

If they put Akroma into play with their first Oath activation then they're pretty much screwed, since by stealing it with Drake you can trump any other creature in their deck. If they're not running something like StP to remove the Akroma from the game you should have sealed up the game right there.

In Games 2 and 3 a stolen Akroma can still trump any other creature they play, since even if they Oath up a Pristine/Iridiscent Angel you can trample over for some damage. Akroma also handily beats Iridiscent Angel in a damage race, and ditto for Pristine Angel if they run out of instants to make it untap and block Akroma.

Being able to attack and block with her, because of her Vigilance, is also really nice, since you can swing for 6 each turn and still prevent them from swinging with their Spirit of the Night or Ancient Hydra.

All this is assuming you hold your Drake to steal their Akroma and not something like Spirit of the Night, since in that case they can Oath out Akroma and own you, .

If they happen to double-block with Gilded Drake + Iridiscent/Pristine Angel in Games 2 and 3, you can use Akroma's first strike damage to kill the Drake before it assigns its damage to Akroma, and while that turn we won't be able to trample any damage over with Akroma, she'll live to fight another day, and they will have lost the Drake we gave them.

Luiggi

[Zeylon]

To all nonbelievers, play a few games with this deck. I guarentee you'll be convinced.

M, great post. That's exactly what my testing showed. This deck draws tons of cards and has a better game against control than previous Fish decks. Aggro isn't a bad matchup either though. You draw and play so many threats, just counter any realy big fat they play until you can get a Jitte. Post board Tinker and Plat helps a lot too.

I don't want to go U/R though. Meddling Mage is too much of a bomb against control (always name Mana Drain) and combo. Lavamancer doesn't do much against a lot of the newer fatter aggro anyways. Jitte and Swords are better.

Still Drake's usefulness against oath seems kinda of conditional. You either need a swords and be able to resolve it too or have to steal a creature that won't die (what if they play Akorma and the 11/11 and you steal Akorma expecting the next card to be Spirit). And correct me if I'm wrong, but Ninja Sword doesn't play White and thus Swords anyways.

[Luiggi]

I haven't seen any successful Oath decklists running Darksteel Colossus, for reasons that Steve Menendian outlined pretty well in his Oath anaylsis from a few months ago on StarCity. The creatures they have been using in the maindeck are Akroma, Ancient Hydra, Spirit of the Night and sometimes Platinum Angel. I'm sure some people do use the Colossus, but it's not a common choice by any means.

Also, why would we need an StP for our Gilded Drake to be good against Oath?

I won't keep hammering the point, but just as you said that we'd be convinced after trying your deck out for a few games, if you played vs. Oath with Gilded Drake for a few games I guarantee you'd be convinced too,  .

Luiggi

[warble]

My biggest critique of the deck you have designed is that it doesn't have enough hard counters.  When I look at your deck lategame I see a bunch of big creatures, a hand full of more creatures, artifacts, perhaps extra mana sources, and NOTHING to disrupt the lategame strategy.  In terms of counters you have:

2 Misdirection
3 Daze
4 FoW

Recently posted by Kowal would be the Ninja Sword counter base of:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain

As a critique here, you have one more early-game "counter" but that trades off with the fact that you run 2 misdirection, so in fact you're running one LESS counter then NINJA sword.  I think there is a major flaw in that your deck not only loses control relatively quickly (you don't disrupt the mana base OR run duress), but doesn't make up for that with any significant cards.

To speak in play-terms I would say the best way to play against your deck is to start dropping bombs as instants on turn 2, and to keep dropping them until your counter base runs dry.  As an example I will site the relatively un-fun matchup of Control Slaver.  Beginning turn 1 you drop the lowly welder to milk whatever daze may have been pulled by your Flying Men deck.  If you choose to daze, your deck is stuck at 1 mana again, and either way just passing turn 2 is a given.  The choice here is to mana drain the threat dropped by flying men (option 1) or to cast Thirst/Intuition/Gifts/etc at an EOT, following it by the BOMB drop on turn 3.  Even given that flying men may be able to win this counter war, for a deck like Control Slaver, losing Thirst/Intuition/Gifts is inconsequential because it is commonly followed up by another Gifts/Thirst/Intuition, and in the event that you were really toying with flying men, yawgmoth's will comes out with force backup (the most frequent reason you are milking counters in the first place).  There are just SO many BOMBS in Control Slaver that a metagame choice of only 4 hard counters is, to be blunt, choosing to lose EVERY game that goes the distance.  The reason fish gained prominence initially was not only speed, MASSIVE amounts of disruption, and answers to almost every metagame question, but the fact that decks at that time did not run the BOMB base that has become common.

To defeat a deck with 4x Psychatog with early disruption was relatively easy because tog can't climb back into a match once it decides to expend resources forcing through a Psychatog.  The problem with Control Slaver is the sacrifice is no longer to empty your hand, with massive draw power (Intuition slaver's problem), but to drop bomb after bomb on your opponent's head until they allow one through.  This change is a direct result of "a game winning scenario" changing from multiple cards to a single card in most instances.  Because there are a good 12 spells in CS that do the same as Psychatog+Berzerk+full graveyard, it is no longer adequate to simply control the early game, laying enough beats down that you can survive with minimal disruption and massive card drawing late in the game.  There are simply too many bombs that will fall on your head after turn 3 that you cannot afford to run no mana denial and only 4 hard counters.

As an aside, Meddling Mage is reason enough to try blue/white fish, but backing up a mage with a buttload of equipment (you have a buttload of equipment man...AND curiosity nonetheless), the disruption creatures from fish most likely will cry that they are not enough, and no matter what you draw, be it 10 cards or 20, your 4 hard counters JUST are NOT enough.

To advance the deck evolution, I would suggest cutting both the hatchlings, curiosity, and the flying men.  If you want a slot of unblockable, go with white's truly unblockable.  I would maindeck either 3x Wasteland + Strip OR Drains, take the mana curve even lower, and start playing like a fish player (you mulligan what was it, every other hand you draw or something ridiculous and yet somehow remain effective?)  This means isolating the early game, controlling it, and MAINTAINING the game state to be unfavorable to your opponent.  Key in Fish was the Null Rod control, the early game control, and most notably the ability to maintain a low mana curve for both fish AND fish's opponent.  Without Null Rod, and also without Waste+Strip, there is no reason to ever think that fish is competitive.  Because a deck can seem glorious in the early game doesn't mean that a consistent tinker or yawg's will will somehow fizzle.  When you draw/tutor as effectively as EVERY deck you'll play in a tournament will, there is no room for error.  Every spell from CS/TPS "could" end the game, and may be backed up by Duress as well, so removing/denying the mana from CS with effective board play, key disruption (Stifle) and isolation of the early game against those decks MUST be present, and is almost required from aggro decks that do not combo out like Food Chain Goblins.  I say almost because fish can and will evolve to control the midgame, but not with flying men, 1/1 flying dazes, no stifle, and 4 hard counters in the whole deck.  And probably not with 20 or 22 mana sources, because drawing too many lands has lost more fish games then any other circumstance known to man.

[cardiffgiant]

My criticism is similar to warbles. Mid game, unless Prodigy is on the table or you draw into FoW, breaking Standstill at the end of your turn will have little if any impact on your opponent. You are most likely to draw into creatures or creature modifiers that you can't play until the next turn. You need more cheap disruption maindeck like Chain of Vapor or Stifle or Orim's Chant or something to ruin your opponents turn. None of them are biggies but most of the time they can at least make you opponent's life a little miserable and force him/her to play more cautiously. If your creatures had more utility, Aether Vial could help with this.

Vial set to two and untapped, opponent breaks standstill. You draw Prodigy or Meddling Mage, or True Believer, or Samurai of the Pale curtain, or Whirlpool Rider or whatever. His turn now sucks because even Duress won't necessarily help him.

FWIW

[M]

warble has a point about the deck lacking hard counters in its current form. Misdirection is especially weak in Fish because the only thing that spell really counters is another counter, which is something Fish does not want to use its disruption for, it wants to disrupt BOMBS. Correct. However, warble does not do Flying Men justice. That is probably because he only sees it as a weak creature, when it is in fact a draw engine component. Fish has no creatures. It has only draw engine and disruption, and it kills with card advantage.

[warble]

Fish had one thing that you're forgetting :

NULL ROD

Without mana denial, Fish is just like a dumb aggro deck that's gonna get slaughtered.

I would call Ninja Sword more of an Aggro/Control variant then Fish variant because it runs a startling 22 mana and acceleration.

[Zeylon]

You make it sound like every single card control slaver is an absolute bomb that must be countered, like every single game, the player is going to open with Welder, Thirst, Thirst, Gifts. That's simply not the case. In reality, counting draw spells, there are maybe 9-10 bombs that you should probably counter. But even if some of them get thru, it's certainly not the end of the game for you. In fact, if you just keep Welder off the table, you are probably in a solid position. Doin't take my word for it, try the match up yourself. CS is a great deck, but your example makes it sound it runs 40 bombs and 20 land b/c that's the only way you're going to consistenly have 4 bombs in every opening hand.

The thread title is misleading (edit: a mod seems to have edited the title, thank you), by now, I've abandoned trying to calling this a Fish deck. This is a very different deck all it's own. I don't about Fish, but this deck is a control deck more than an aggro deck. It uses creatures mainly as a draw engine. Fish needed mana denial (which already loses it's efficacy with each passing turn) but the metagame adjusted and this denial was no longer as effective. Simply put, Fish started sucking by the mid-late game. This deck is a very different story.

The number of hard counters was a concern for me to (if you recall i originally posted a 62 card list with 2 mana drain). After extensively playing the deck though, I've become convinced that it has just a few more than it needs. The reason is that you seriously can't comprehend how many cards you actually end up drawing by midgame if you learn to play the deck properly. The soft counters are awesome early on, by midgame, if you played properly and kept a good hand, you'll have drawn so many cards that you'll usually have a counter whenever you need one. Just remember to name Mana Drain with your Meddling Mages.

But me telling you isn't going to change your mind, the only way you'll be convinced is if you proxy up the list and try it yourself.

So just try the deck against Oath, Stax, Slaver and whichever other matchups you're concerned about, and I am can virtually guarentee you'll be pleased with the list.

For every suggesting I take out the equipment in favor of null rod and cut spells to make room for wasteland. You want to play a fish deck, you're welcome to. See how far you get in the current meta. Then come back and give this list a try.

[Zeylon]

I updated the decklist just a tiny bit more.

Any doubts you have about the deck will be assauded the moment you proxy up a list and take it for a spin. I guarentee it. Plus, it's a blast to play. Just try it out. And then post how you did here.

[Khahan]

I have 1 question: Why do you run 7 fetch lands but only 6 lands that they can fetch up?

That is guaranteed 1 dead card in the best case scenario. More than likely, you'll draw into 1 or 2 of your islands or tundras, meaning you have 2-3 dead cards. If you happen to draw 3 or those lands, you now have 4 dead cards in your deck.  Absolutely no use other than, Pay 1 life: shuffle your deck.

I would cut 2-3 of the fetches and add in either Island/plains/plains or strip/waste/waste.

[Dralock]

I want to chime in here.  We have been discussing this on the wizards boards as well.  There isn't enough mana denail here to keep up with the speed of most decks.  At the least I believe mana drains are needed to cope with the super-heavy equipment costs that the deck brings to the table.  You also said there that the deck can draw a lot of cards and "go broken."  Thats nice, here is my response:

The reason bird **** does better than regular u/w aggro-control is that it has not only efficient beaters, but the synergy with those beaters and the giant mill that happens with the deck. There are also broken cards that you do not list in your deck that give it the ability to swing the entire game in its favor in one turn. These cards include:

Regrowth
Gush
Werebear
Stifle
Wasteland

The biggest on that list are the first two as you can go broken and play:

Gush, time walk, recall, beat, discard, turn 2 regrowth, walk, beat (with threshold most likely), turn 3 beat.

This does require a god-hand. But it is possible on account of the broken cards in the deck and is clearly a broken play.

On top of this, I still believe you do not have enough threats to support standstill.  If you play againsed mishra's affinity suprise or guilded claw style workshop aggro decks, you will find yourself fighting them back the whole game instead of being able to beat under standstill and draw cards.

And I will STILL stand by my statement that curiosity > mask of madness and null rod > this deck.

[warble]

And I will STILL stand by my statement that curiosity > mask of madness and null rod > this deck.

I think that this comment really clarifies why Fish became so dominant.  When you run full mana acceleration, mask of madness is about a billion times better then curiosity.  However, fish is not able to run full acceleration (5Mox+Lotus) because fish is playing a denial strategy with null rod.  Additionally, curiosity is SO low on the mana curve that fish is allowed to run it, an enchantment that draws you a card the turn you play it almost 99% of the time.

The reason that we've got such a dilemma with this decklist is that we are suddenly able to run mask of madness and a billion other items because of the mana curve increase.  It's a drastic change to go from a weenie beatdown deck with null rod and no acceleration to a weenie beatdown deck with full mana acceleration.  The usual method to win with THIS is disciple, affinity ,and barfing your entire hand on turn 1 or 2.  Facing the fact that we still want control of the game, we have full acceleration with a bunch of "semi-denial, semi-useless" cards.  An example is, "would you rather hardcast gush or pay the alternative casting cost?"  This shouldn't be a question posed to an aggro deck that is barfing out it's hand, but it becomes a logical question for any deck that seeks to maintain both board advantage, hand advantage, and hold counters into the late game.

So although Null Rod > this deck (I would agree here), it is really a question of what the appropriate mana curve for this deck is, and how we can best utilize the 2-3 cost spells we have in a world without Null Rod.

I would really like to note that a deck with

4xWasteland
Strip Mine
4x Null Rod

seems to just rip this deck a new one.  I'm not sure how you can say that Null Rod < Mask of Madness.  If I had to choose which one to resolve in the early game (Which one is going to buy me an extra 2 turns of "whew I didn't lose") I don't see how ANYONE could pick Mask of Madness.  Just my thoughts on the matter.  Maybe you are testing against too much aggro and not enough combo.

But here we are discussing a fully powered weenie deck.  And it's not affinity.  Who knew we'd even try such ridiculousness!  If I was trying it (and I would go affinity before this deck in a split second) I would definitely put in Ninja of the Deep Hours.  Although previously I may have said that an extra 1 damage is not significant, for an uncounterable creature that draws a card every time it hits, it really IS significant.  2/2 with built in curiosity or 2/2 with built in graveyard hate beats the crud out of a flying man on a carpet.