{New Deck} U/w aggro-control

[M]

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

Just throw unneeded fecthes away with Mask of Memory.
Same with Standstill (which is also blue -> FoW).

And just to continue the trend of expressing complex views with the "<>" signs,

5 Mox + Lotus > Null Rod.

[warble]

5 Mox + Lotus > Null Rod.

That's from the age-old question, "would you rather be holding the counterspell or casting the win condition?"  rephrased as, "would you rather play to prevent the dominant strategy from executing, or be playing the dominant strategy yourself"

We've pretty much solidified the dominant strategy, and here this deck goes and shoots all that fine tuning and card choice in the foot.  It doesn't really get much more ridiculous then running full acceleration and 3 broken cards.  (do you have 3?  I don't even know that I counted THAT many)

Without running anything aside from counters, you need something (Null Rod would do it) to prevent the dominant strategy from executing.  If you aren't running something like that, and have less then 12 counters (we can include Duress here) then I'm not sure why you want to attempt to run the deck.  The metagame hate is just too minimal.

Ninja sword is attempting to run a bunch of metagame hate, you should take from his list at least a few of the items listed.  Otherwise, you're not even trying to tune to the current metagame, a HUGE no-no for aggro to ever commit.

[Zeylon]

An year and a half ago, I would be on your side, Null Rod is a must. And that Fish is better than this deck for that meta. But the way you're talking, it's sounds like you haven't tried playing Fish competitively for the past several months.

Now you can't afford to go Fairie Conclave go and waste a turn. You can't play a Null Rod second turn and expect to ride it to victory. Now, decks are prepared for Null Rods and Wastelands. Right now, Null Rod is little more than a tiny speed bump to most decks.

Drawing 2 cards off Mask of Memory second turn and every turn after that to keep your hand full of counters is a lot better than a card like Null Rod that slows them down for a turn or two. Esp. considering that by the very act of playing Null Rod in stead of power, you slowed yourself down by the same amount.

Now if a deck can't win by turn 3, it better be at a significantly better board position (and I'm not talking life totals) by then. That means running a comparable counterbase and still being able to outdraw the avg. control deck. This is why fish is dead. This is why decks like Ninja Swords and Bird $hit won't get very far without more tuning. None of these decks have a draw engine that justifies not being able to win by turn 3.

What I don't get is why people are getting hyped up over a hate deck with out a draw engine (Ninja Sword), when hate decks have always been destined to fail. Why are people getting hyped up over stompy with slightly bigger creatures and some counters without a draw engine (Bird $hit). If you're not playing a draw engine, you better be playing combo.

This deck isn't fish. It's better suited for the current environment, if you proxy it up and play it in a semicompetitive field you would see why I'm saying that.

[Khahan]

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

Just throw unneeded fecthes away with Mask of Memory.
Same with Standstill (which is also blue -> FoW).

That doesn't change the fact that they are dead cards. You are completely wasting a slot by going with that land base. Just because the dead can can be pitched to mask is meaningless. Another card could also be pitched to mask...or possibly you could get some  use out of it.  At least you have the option.

A) Who says you are going to draw it with mask?
B) why not at least give yourself the opportunity to have that drawn card be able to do something?

You might as well put [card]null rod[/card] in an artifact deck.

[Zeylon]

I can see where you are coming from. If this was your standard control deck, I would agree with you 100%. But I think you would understand and appreciate the mana base a great deal more, once you take the deck out for a spin. The deck by it's very nature has very little use for lands after the 3rd one or so, especially considering the artifact mana you play. You only play the lands that you do because you want to consistently get to 3 mana very fast, preferably by turn 2. Once you get to that point, lands aren't really that important. That dead card scenario only comes in place once you've played out all 6 of your lands (excluding the library - which is to be fair also a land). At this point, that 7th land you draw to play is a dead card, whether you play it or not, simply because it serves no purpose. So in reality, playing more fetches in this deck doesn't mean you're playing more dead cards, the land would have been worthless anyways.

This is precisely why the fetchlands are sooo important. Because they ensure that by the time that you get to the three or so lands that your deck actually wants to run well, you'll have filtered out enough lands with fetches that you would be drawing a lot more business spellls, which is a great thing. Had you not filtered them, and draw into lands that don't help you much if any at all, in place of a business spell, then you truly are playing with more dead cards. Also, the fetches are critical for smoothing out your manabase, without them, you would risk being mana screwed a lot more often.

And why am I still so insistent about this deck's power, could it just be me. Because I've had multiple, some close friends and some distant relavtives,  prairse me because of  how poerful the deck ended up beiing. It plays a lot more than it looks like on from the men

[Dralock]

Have you tried running brainstorm over standstill? Have you tried anything but putting your list together and just saying its the best?

I'll say this in both places so you can see it. You are playing the deck, and its easy for anyone to see that. Your beaters (the way you reduce their life total to 0) are insignificant and you rely solely on your ability to counter to win you the game.

You might as well have named this deck counterspell.deck, because that is your entire game plan.

I am not saying that traditional fish is going to be better than a fully powered deck. In fact, it was designed to beat fully powered decks on a very low budget. I will, however, say that the gameplan of fish was such that it could compete in its field because it did everything it needed to to survive. You are running crap creatures (yes, fish creatures are crap) for the amount of mana you can generate. You might as well run ophidian and mana drains and go for a good win instead of the counter-weenie setup you have.

Plusses I see in your deck:

Extreem card draw.
Meddling Mage
Artifact accell for your equipment
Good mana fixing

Minuses:

equipment (as a whole its expensive and slow even though its re-usable)
non-evasive creatures
3 decent removal spells instead of 4 sterling ones
no real game 1 win vs combo
7 fetches (5 is plenty - you want to have the land on the table to use in the long game which you are apparently planning to have)
No quick dig for early game establishment

---------

I believe equipment works well with man-lands, have you tried factories out? I would actually be much more convinced if you had evasion of some sort. Blinkmoth (ungh) and factories have carried fish in the past and it can definitely stay that way here, as you can drop a factory turn 1, play for your mask and equip it turn 2 and beat while putting down a cloud and playing curiosity on it. Are your flying men going to be able to do something like that? How do you handle budget people that run mono-red and plaguespitters? Sure, those aren't the most competitive decks in the format, but you always have to wade through them to get to the top 8.

Man-lands make standstill work better, make arcane labratory better, make good use of mid-game mana that you don't otherwise have to spend etc. You definitely have the accell to keep yourself with the mana you need (all of your counters are alternate CC) and you can equip them every turn for a more substantial evasive beat.

I understand you don't want to focus on the aggro side of the deck, and the creatures are just kinda there to do damage. But you have to be a threat if you are going to run a manabase that makes you a target.

What are you testing againsed? It would be interesting to see your results of testing a bit more so we can see some real-world examples of how you deck is supposed to play out. Your cards are very simple to read, yes, but what do you havfe in mind when you are playing each one out? This might get people over big hurdles that seem to pop up with new ideas for decks.

Lastly, would you try draw spells? Or are you keeping the deck draw to abilities instead on purpose? Thirst for Knowledge is an amazing draw and you have the mana for it. Plus you have the artifacts to pitch if needed.

[Khahan]

I can see where you are coming from. If this was your standard control deck, I would agree with you 100%. But I think you would understand and appreciate the mana base a great deal more, once you take the deck out for a spin.

Sorry Zelyon, but I don't see how you can justify running dead cards. Again, any card can be pitched to Mask.
Try Wastelands instead of a dead fetch, or a single strip. You'll actually get use out of it and it won't leave a 4th land on the table that you seem to feel is irrelevant. But at least you may end up disrupting your opponent.

Try more counterspells there. Even a bad counterspell is more worthwhile than a 100% guaranteed dead card.

There have been a ton of suggestions (that at least sound good in theory) to fill up an extra 1-3 slots (which you have once you admit that guaranteed dead cards are simply a bad idea and lead to game loses) .
[card]stifle[/card]
[card]counterspell[/card]/[card]mana drain[/card]  for more hard counters
[card]wasteland[/card]/[card]stripmine[/card] for disruption
[card]aether vial[/card]
a second [card]umezawa's jitte[/card] or [card]sword of fire and ice[/card] for more consistency since that's your only main deck creature removal
[card]chalice of the void[/card]
[card]gush[/card]
[card]ninja of the deep hours[/card]

Any one of those cards will be better than a card that you have absolutely nothing to do with but pitch to mask of memory.
But please, do not try and defend running a dead card slot. Running 7 fetches and only 6 lands you can get with them is paramount to running [card]demonic tutor[/card] with 0 black mana sources.

[cardiffgiant]

FWIW, I agree with Zeylon on having more fetches than fetchables. Unless you expect to play most your deck each game, it's unlikely you'll see more than half of the fetches or fetchables. The few cases you do, one more mana won't help.

[Khahan]

With the sheer amount of card draw he has, I'll bet you he hits dead fetch land at least one or two times a tournament.

Remember, if you draw 1 fetchable land you've got 2 dead cards and a higher likelyhood of drawing a dead card.
1 thing to consider is simply -1 fetch, +1 Sol Ring.
The Sol Ring seems like it would be great acceleration for the equipment in the deck.
With a Tundra on the board (and with -1 fetch, you still have 10 ways to draw tundra), you cast any of your 1 CC spells.
Other than that, the only card that Sol Ring won't help with is Meddling Mage.
Reduce the possibility of a dead card, accelerate your equipment is a nice trade off for that slot.
The chances of drawing that sol ring when you REALLY need a second colored mana for the mage are pretty slim. You should have no problem getting 2 land on the table.

[Zeylon]

One of my friends/team mates, the same one who cut standstill and a land for a brainstorm, reports strong results by cutting MisD and a Jitte for Mana Drain. I can attest that the deck can indeed support Mana Drains and depending on your playstyle and meta, you may have better luck using them over MisD.

That Standstill vs. Brainstorm question comes up a decent amount to the people I've had try this list out. It's rare to run into a situation where you don't have a flyer out with countermagic to protect it by turn 1 or 2 (when you want to play standstill). And standstill is great against many decks in the current meta. But if you play in a field with even some aggro, you may opt for Brainstorm.

Actually it's a pretty rare situation for this deck to run out of lands to fetch. Well before then, you've either won or lost (this is aggro control afterall). And considering the mana curve is soo incredibly low, and that each game, you draw 2-3 artifact mana too, can you even come up with a thoertical situation where you already have 6 lands and artifact mana out and actually want to be able to play more land. I've never ran into such a situation, I can't even think of one, and I've been playing this deck a lot.

There are several people I've given my deck out to try, and though a few brought up the fetchland issue before playing it not one of them has complained about the mana base after taking it for a spin. But others have commented that it some times feels you're drawing too much mana.

If I were to replace the fetchlands with countermagic as you're suggesting (and others have suggested as well), I'm opening up my deck to mana screw unless I'm willing to throw back a lot more hands. But I guess it's really up to your style of play. Some of my friends are comfortable running an 18 mana source base and throwing back a lot more hands. One of my friends opted to do that with this deck to run Brainstorms. Bird $hit's original list was built with that in mind. It's actually a fine strategy for aggro control since you run on such a low mana curve anyways so once you have two mana sources, you don't want many more.

So tell you what, cut a fetchland and an island, cut both Standstill, and throw in 4 Brainstorm, and let me know if the deck starts working better in your meta. (Brainstorm is definately better in a meta with even some aggro.) Just be willing to paris aggressively. You'll make up for lost cards the second you get your draw engine online.

Edit

After more extensive testing, we've found the alternate build, the one utilizing mana drain and brainstorm, stronger in some of the tougher matchups (Workshop Aggro running Chalices, Spheres, Stax, AND Tangle Wire) but slightly weaker against control (which still remains a strong matchup, Standstill was great against control). So the below build may be even better for this meta. Note: The deck now plays 18 counters instead of 17, giving as many if not more counters than any other control deck I know of supplanted by a more powerful draw engine than the vast majority of decks out there.

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

1 Urijatwe's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice (Can play a second 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

[alban]

I would still strongly consider playing Ninja of the deep hours. It delivers so much cardadvantage, it's just winning games   

[Freelancer]

Don't you see that your deck is drifting towards ninja sword only with different colors/creature base?

If you keep on testing I want to bet that you end up with a modified version off ninja sword that runs U/w instead off U/r/b.

I have three problems with your deck:
1) You run little creatures in comparison to your creature enhancers, if anybody kills 1/2 creatures your stuck with 10 dead cards.
2) Spiketail hatchling and daze are completely useless except in the very early game. This is another 7 dead cards.
3) This correllates with point 2, you actually have less counters in the mid/late game (where they matter) than most decks. Even fish has more counters (there spiketail hatchlings and dazes are still effective because off mana denial).

These two problems mean that your deck rolls over and dies to lava dart and most other removal. Opponent develops mana base, finds creature removal, kills your creatures and wins. This is how most games go in my testing.

The only games I actually won where because:
1) My opponent lost because off mana screw combined with hatchlings and dazes
2) My opponent kills himself because he tries to go off and fails (combo).
3) I get lucky and my opponent fails to deal with 2 creatures, or I topdeck recall in a stalemate.
4) I actually manage to get a creature to hit a opponent more than twice with a equipment and draw enough gas to (barely) win the game.

These kinda decks either need 4x drain 4x force 4x brainstorm with broken cards to win the game, or you need to be able to stall the opponent long enough to win the game. You try to do both and fail miserably in the process.

[Dralock]

I have been playing around with creature choices, and decided to throw in WU-TANG creatures to see how well they perform alongside equipment.  There are some decent results with it, though the removal is becoming the best part.   I also added in some swords, ah hell, I'll just post the list:

// Lands
    1 Strip Mine
    2 Island
    2 Wasteland
    4 Tundra
    1 Library of Alexandria
    4 Flooded Strand

// Creatures
    4 Meddling Mage
    4 Flying Men
    4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
    2 Icatian Javelineers

// Spells
    1 Enlightened Tutor
    4 Force of Will
    2 Daze
    1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Umezawa's Jitte
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Time Walk
    4 Curiosity
    3 Mask of Memory
    4 Brainstorm
    3 Swords to Plowshares
    2 Mana Leak

Addition of mana leak (could be drain if you want a harder counter, I like the leak's interaction with moxen), swords etc.  Took out faeries and hatchlings.  Added more men, though I don't like the loss of flying very much.  Deep hours can come out for faeries really, they are almost interchangeable considering the awesome interactions you get with faerie and library of alexandria.

[Disburden]

An year and a half ago, I would be on your side, Null Rod is a must. And that Fish is better than this deck for that meta. But the way you're talking, it's sounds like you haven't tried playing Fish competitively for the past several months.

You must find this statement not so true after Wu Tang Fish won Waterbury the other day 

I honestly can't say why this list would be better than that deck or the Shortbus Sword deck (Although needing some work).

[Zeylon]

I updated the original post. For reference, here was the original post info...

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
3 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 LoA
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Curiosity
4 Mask of Memory
2 Standstill/Brainstorm

2 Urijatwe's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Enlightened Tutor

2 Misdirection/Mana Drain
3 Daze
4 FoW

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

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

Standstill vs. Brainstorm question comes up a decent amount to the people I've had try this list out. Standstill is great against many decks in the current meta. But if you play in a field with even some aggro, you should definately opt for Brainstorm instead.

The mana base depends on your style of play. This deck has an extremely low mana curve. You rarely want more than 2-3 mana sources. Some people are comfortable running an 18 mana source base and throwing back a lot more hands. One of my friends opted to do that with this deck to run Brainstorms. This is actually a fine strategy for aggro control since you run on such a low mana curve anyways so once you have two mana sources, you don't want many more. Just be willing to paris aggressively. You'll make up for lost cards the second you get your draw engine online.

The same person who opted to cut standstill and a land for Brainstorm also opted to cut both MisD and a Jitte for 3 Mana Drains. It's largely personal preference, playstyle dependent and meta dependent which of these cards you use but I can attest that the deck can definately support 3 Mana Drains and they seem to work fairly well most of the time. So if you insist that you want a bigger hard counter base, I definately recommend trying out Mana Drain in the list.

The deck has a bigger counter base than Oath (counting Spiketail) for the first several turns before Dazes and Spiketails lose their efficacy. But thanks to the moxen and the invulnerability to mana screw, these few turns of being able to play threats is all you need. Drop a evasive creature, use it set up a solid recurring draw engine (or use Standstill to find one), and by turn 2-3, you are drawing so many cards that you'll almost always have a solid counter when you need one while you always have something to do with extra dazes whether pitching to the FoW or to Mask of Memory.

Urijatwe's Jitte is an absolute bomb that adds much needed versatility to Fish. It slaughters aggro decks, Welders, Fish mirrors and even Oathed up Akormas and Spirit of the Nights! Makes your deck resilient to annoying Lava Darts Also significantly speeds up your clock to that of Bird [Censored] level (BS has to wait to reach threshold afterall). Found them to be far more useful against far more decks than Swords to Plowshore and Grim Lavamancer combined which is eventually why I ended cutting all the Swords to the sideboard.

After more extensive testing, we've found the alternate build, the one utilizing mana drain and brainstorm, stronger in some of the tougher matchups (Workshop Aggro running Chalices, Spheres, Stax, AND Tangle Wire - The wire can really hurt if you haven't got your draw engine online yet) but slightly weaker against control (which still remains a strong matchup, Standstill was great against control though). So the below build may be even better for this meta.

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

1 Urijatwe's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice (Can play a second 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

I didn't really play post sideboard games as much since I wanted to spend my time on tweaking the main body of the deck before worrying about the sideboard. But the games I did play, the current sideboard seems to work well enough with plenty of tools against some of it's worser match ups. But the sideboard could probably use some work though.

I want to get a good sideboard discussion going...






--------------------------------Pre-edit reply to some of the criticisms below)----------------------------------

To the user who recommended Kowal's Ninja Sword. I proxied it up and tried the deck out a decent bit, and IMO, it seems like the deck has many serious weaknesses. Ninja Sword IMO tries to play far too many colors. It's also very vulnerable to crucible lock since it can only get out one island under it and can't play any of it's threats with it. Sure Vial can help smooth out the multicolored creature base, but I would rather not have to rely on one card to smooth this out. Also the creature base isn't very good either IMO. None of the creatures have evasion. So I don't see why Ninja of Deep Hours is even played since they're no guarnetee you can get a creature to go unblocked. Yes Withered Wretch is a bomb no question, and Shaman is sometimes very useful. But Old Man of the Sea is only worthwhile against a few decks, it's not worth maindecking and should be left in the sideboard. The same can be said for Gilded Drake. It's only reasonably useful against Oath. And even then, it only works some of the time. Say you steal their first Oathed creature, they'll Oath up their second one and the two will probably end up killing each other most of the time. So upon Oath's next activation, both cards get shuffled back into their library via Gaea's Blessing and you're right back where you were, but now you have a 3/3 flyer to worry about too. In addition, the deck's card draw pales in comparison to this. And the countermagic is also 1/3 of what you play. So the deck has card drawing, a worse counterbase, and most of the creatures are pretty situational anyways. It also doesn't kill any faster than this deck. So I can't see one reason why I would want to play Ninja Sword over this. If a normal forum user rather than Kowal posted that list, I would've bet that it would be moved to Vintage Newbie by the end of the day.

To the user who suggested that BBS is similar to this deck but better in every way. I played BBS, and that's simply not true in the least. This deck draws more cards, a heck of a lot more cards than simply any other control deck I've ever played.

More importantly, it starts drawing cards a few turns earlier than all other control decks. That's a huge strength against control. It means you can draw into more countermagic in time to counter their card drawing spells. Mana isn't the most effective resource to attack Control at if you can't kill them by midgame. Stopping control's card drawing has a far more devastating effect.

It's a mistake to think that this deck doesn't attack your opponent's resources. It doesn't attack your opponent's mana base, because that strategy while effective early on is useless by midgame and later. Also that wasteland you used up or that turn you took to play Null Rod could've been used to set up your draw engine to draw into counters. But it attacks each deck at it's achelles heel. It attacks controls card drawing by letting you get your card drawing online fast enough to find more counters to stop their card drawing. It attacks key combo cards with it's counterbase. It attacks aggro decks with counters to stop big threats and Jitte/SoFI to stop their creatures. And if a Workshop player can't stop your draw engine thru your initial counter wall fast enough, your card drawing will allow you to draw land and permanents faster than they can destroy them.

Yes it is dependent on creatures, and that is a weakness. But it's worth what you gain. Besides there are only 6 pure creatures which are insanely cheap/free, the rest function as countermagic themselves (Meddling Mage and Spiketail). U/R Fish rarely had too big of a problem keeping it's curious flyers in play, it just couldn't win fast enough. This deck plays a decent bit more countermagic counting Meddling Mage, 2 more evasive creatures, and a lot more card drawers (that are equipment too). It also plays equipment that protects its creatures. Protecting your creatures isn't too big of a problem.

Add it up, you're playing 19 counterspell, almost double the number of a lot of control decks. But for arguments sake I won't count Spiketail since its a creature and it sometimes must be used in combo with Daze to counter a spell. But to compensate I will count Daze as a hard counter though because it's always useful early on and when used with Spiketail almost never fails. So that's 15 hard counters you're running, 1/4 of your deck. So on average, you have two hard counters in your opening hand (or the turn after) and one more for every 4 cards you draw. Plus you starting drawing cards usually by turn 2 and at worst by turn 3. What control deck can boast that. By turn 5, you're drawing a ridiculous number of cards by the time most control decks are just starting their card drawing (excluding Brainstorm which technically doesn't draw any cards). By that time, you should be in a position to counter most of controls major draw spells. And that's a very good position to be in. As for making sure your draw engine resolves and can is up and running early, you're effectively playing with 19 counters to let you do that since both Daze and Spiketail are very effective early on.

Yes Chalice for 4 kills this deck. But if a chalice for 4 ever resolves against this deck, you almost certainly either kept a hand you shouldn't have or you seriously misplayed the hand.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Fish is a bad deck by any means, just that this may be a direction well worth exploring.

After more testing, we decided that a black splash for shadowmage infiltrator and broken stuff is worthwhile.

Here's the list we're toying around with...

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
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Curiosity
4 Mask of Memory
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spiketail Hatchling
4 Meddling Mage
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator

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

The deck now plays 12 hard counters (assuming you know how to use Meddling Mage properly). Plus it runs more and more resilient creatures as well as an even better card drawing engine. And to top it all of, it runs a ton of broken tutors. The Shadowmages can hold off weenies in a pinch long enough for Jitte to seal the deal and rape the board. I strongly urge trying this version out. In the late game, Will just outright wins.

Ninja of Deep Hours is definately a card that warrants more testing. The same applies to Swords to Plowshores. Both could easily be metagamed into the maindeck.

[Freelancer]

You don't seem to get it, but you can support 10 creature reliant spells with 12 (!) creatures. If the opponent has a decent hand consisting off force+dart you autolose at that point. (and yes dart is played a lot) You can substitute dart for almost any burn or removal spell and you hardly have a game.

For instance;

Turn 1 t/m 3 You play a critter, maybe keep drain mana open or play a equipment
Turn 1 t/m 3 Your opponent plays some draw and optimizes his.

Turn 4/5 You attempted to equip the critter, the opponent responds with a removal spell you counter with a pitch spell he counters back your critter dies and you have lost a lot off tempo.

Turn 5/6 Your opponent wins the game. Or casts a bunch off draw and is standing ready for your next threat and/or prepares to win next turn.


The only creature enhancing enchantments/equipments you shouled play is curiosity (cheap, hardly any tempo loss) and jitte (big impact on the game). The others are mostly a waste of tempo, and yes you need tempo to survive.

[Zeylon]

While that game anaylisis looks good on paper, it's actually such a rare scenario in real life. The number of problems with your analysis, I think would go away if you tried out the deck, and I'll explain why below...

I predict one of the main reasons for this mistake is that you seem to have misread my decklist and assumed that I only play 12 creatures, when in reality, I play 16. Thus I have on average 2 creatures in my opening hand, not 1. Secondly, you seem have a misconception of the deck. The vast majority of the time, you're playing a draw spell before your opponent. Whether or not it gets thru, I often find that in the long run the best strategy for you, is the counter their draw spells. That's how the best players play, prevent the opponent from getting card advantage thru their counters, and hope that their oppoent can't do the same. In that sense, this deck is far better off. Even if your opponent manages to resolve an early Ancestral (worst case scenario), it's still just a one shot 3 card draw spell. Any of the 12 cards (inc. Shadowmage but excluding all the broken draw stuff like Ancestral) that draw you cards, if they resolve, give you card advantage every turn. In two turns, Mask of Memory becomes superior to Ancestral Recall. You also seem to be seriously underestimate the brokenness of Mask of Memory. It effectively draws you not 1 but 2 cards each and every turn, because you're discarding crap cards in your hand that you don't need to play anyways. Two cards a turn is just nuts. Mask on Shadowmage is a Thirst for Knowledge, every single freaking turn. Just fathom for a moment how good that is.

Also importantly, it's very infrequent that your opponent has a creature removal spell early on. Cunning Wish makes up for this, but that card is very often played, a turn or two after you resolve a draw spell. Probably about the most maindeck creature removal you run into is 3c Control, which plays around three and usually needs a few turns to be able to search them out. The few hands where I do only have one creature, I usually have a. Sure, Meddling Mage doesn't have evasion. But if you haven't noticed, that doesn't really matter much in type 1, atleast against the majority of decks where having your creatures removed is a concern. The only exception is probably sligh. But you can beat sligh if you play smart.

This is why I say, try the deck out. A lot of your initial concerns disappear once you start playing the deck properly.

[Freelancer]

The problem in your entire answer is that I did try it out. I played 10 games pre-board with it against various decks, if I recall correctly I lost 7. Before you yell that I make playmistakes; I can say with quite a lot off certainty that I played more aggro/control than you did, I have been playing fish every day now for the past 3 months. And before that I played UG madness for about 3/4 months.


You know what the problem is with your deck, the opponent doesn't give a shit if you draw 4 cards and discard 2 cards with mask (if you get that far) because you have no fast way to kill them. All they really care about is:
4x meddling mage
4x force of will
4x mana drain

Almost all decks can power right through these in the early game when the equipments hardly matter, because they are designed to deal with force of will and mana drain (decks that can't handle these are not viable) and almost all deck are designed in such a way that meddling mage is annoying but it can be deal ed with (bounce, secondary win condition or cunning wish). Other decks with drain can (once drain resolved) effectively win in 1/2 turns, while you cast a equipment and a critter at best. Thats quite a difference. Fish had mana denial going for it, this allowed it to deal with threats pro-actively (they can't be cast so they are dealt with).

You keep saying 'extensive testing', give us a few highlights in games just to 'teach' us how to play.


Yeah there are 16 critters in here, it doesn't change the point though.

[Zeylon]

But that's precisely the point. In normal fish, it doesn't matter if you draw 4 cards etc b/c your spells are weak. This deck instead packs numerous hard counters, broken stuff will Recall and Time Walk, tutors for hard counters etc, and Yawgie's Win which completely swings games. In fact this deck, if you compare it to 3c control - which does fine against combo and a lot of aggro, has very similar broken cards (just sub in Jitte for 3c's creature control slots), plus this deck has a lot more card drawing, and tons of creatures which really annoy control, one of 3c's weaker matchups.

The deck just doesn't seem broken because the cards are somewhat rarely used in type 1. But if you consider that every Mask of Memory is almost a recurring Thirst for Knowledge etc., it starts to be more apparent. A great example of such a card is Jitte.

Jitte is also a powerhouse that absolutely hoses every aggro and every welder deck if you get it out. With all the tutoring, card drawing you do, it's not difficult to get it out in the early-midgame. And Jitte is a powerhouse against Welders, Fish, Tog and Artifact Aggro and pretty much all other creatures in the meta. I have on more than one occasion accumilated enough counters to be able to deter even Akorma from attacking or blocking the equipped creature, and then proceeded to accumilate enough counters to kill the Angel completely, or even more enjoyably, reduce it to a mere 1/1.

The sideboard is also especially good at compensating for the deck's worser matchups, like Oath.

The deck is also very flexible. Based on your meta, feel free to run MD Withered Wretch, Ninja of Deep Hours, Swords to Plowshore, Daze, or MisD. They're all great cards in the deck against certain metas.

Also, losing 7 out of 10 random games against the best decks in magic preboard, doesn't mean the deck is bad. 10 games is hardly indicative of the deck's general performance. You may have gotten some unlucky draws, or run into some of the deck's worser matchups, like Oath. I find that the deck has closer to a 45-50% win ratio against the top decks and very good players that understand your deck as well, which I consider pretty dang good for a rogue deck. The roguish nature of the deck, the fact that not every deck you run into is a top deck, and the fact that some of your opponents sometimes just plain suck, means that you stand a fair shot of doing pretty well in a competive environment if you play well.

In addition, keep in mind that this deck get's a lot stronger postboard since it packs tons of great hate, while most of the cunning wish decks out there are left with far fewer options. You would agree that losing about 5 out of 10 games against the best decks in magic post board would be considered pretty strong right. Or is there some deck that wins 7 out of 10 times against the top decks, because then I don't see why every single person wouldn't play that deck exclusively.

[Disburden]

I don't understand. Why would you post a deck idea and then when someone has a very valid point you get so offended that you can't even take what they said into consideration. you can't just run 12 creatures with all these creature enhancement spells, it's just WAY off balance.

Now you have another person telling you the same thing. Maybe you'll consider that we don't just say these things to bash your idea, but because what we're saying makes 100% total sense.

[Zeylon]

I don't understand. Why would you post a deck idea and then when someone has a very valid point you get so offended that you can't even take what they said into consideration. you can't just run 12 creatures with all these creature enhancement spells, it's just WAY off balance.

"12 creatures"

Please atleast read my decklist, or any of my posts, before posting about my decklist, and my posts. You clearly haven't if you think I run 12 creatures. Just posting what other people saying to me, without even reading my response, or my decklist, doesn't seem like a great approach.

Anyways, I have to head out of town for a few days. I'll respond to any posts when I get back.

[Freelancer]

"12 creatures"

Please atleast read my decklist, or any of my posts, before posting about my decklist, and my posts. You clearly haven't if you think I run 12 creatures. Just posting what other people saying to me, without even reading my response, or my decklist, doesn't seem like a great approach.

Anyways, I have to head out of town for a few days. I'll respond to any posts when I get back.

The point isn't much different for 16 creatures, you need at least 20 creatures to support a whopping 10 creature enhancers. In fish its debatable to run 4 (!) creature enhancers (curiosity) with 16 creatures, you run 2.5 times as much. Thats asking for trouble.

But that's precisely the point. In normal fish, it doesn't matter if you draw 4 cards etc b/c your spells are weak. This deck instead packs numerous hard counters, broken stuff will Recall and Time Walk, tutors for hard counters etc, and Yawgie's Win which completely swings games. In fact this deck, if you compare it to 3c control - which does fine against combo and a lot of aggro, has very similar broken cards (just sub in Jitte for 3c's creature control slots), plus this deck has a lot more card drawing, and tons of creatures which really annoy control, one of 3c's weaker matchups.

The deck just doesn't seem broken because the cards are somewhat rarely used in type 1. But if you consider that every Mask of Memory is almost a recurring Thirst for Knowledge etc., it starts to be more apparent. A great example of such a card is Jitte.

Jitte is also a powerhouse that absolutely hoses every aggro and every welder deck if you get it out. With all the tutoring, card drawing you do, it's not difficult to get it out in the early-midgame. And Jitte is a powerhouse against Welders, Fish, Tog and Artifact Aggro and pretty much all other creatures in the meta. I have on more than one occasion accumilated enough counters to be able to deter even Akorma from attacking or blocking the equipped creature, and then proceeded to accumilate enough counters to kill the Angel completely, or even more enjoyably, reduce it to a mere 1/1.

The sideboard is also especially good at compensating for the deck's worser matchups, like Oath.

The deck is also very flexible. Based on your meta, feel free to run MD Withered Wretch, Ninja of Deep Hours, Swords to Plowshore, Daze, or MisD. They're all great cards in the deck against certain metas.

Also, losing 7 out of 10 random games against the best decks in magic preboard, doesn't mean the deck is bad. 10 games is hardly indicative of the deck's general performance. You may have gotten some unlucky draws, or run into some of the deck's worser matchups, like Oath. I find that the deck has closer to a 45-50% win ratio against the top decks and very good players that understand your deck as well, which I consider pretty dang good for a rogue deck. The roguish nature of the deck, the fact that not every deck you run into is a top deck, and the fact that some of your opponents sometimes just plain suck, means that you stand a fair shot of doing pretty well in a competive environment if you play well.

In addition, keep in mind that this deck get's a lot stronger postboard since it packs tons of great hate, while most of the cunning wish decks out there are left with far fewer options. You would agree that losing about 5 out of 10 games against the best decks in magic post board would be considered pretty strong right. Or is there some deck that wins 7 out of 10 times against the top decks, because then I don't see why every single person wouldn't play that deck exclusively.

This does not answer my main concern in that you have way to many creature enhancers with to little creatures.

Also those 7 out of 10 games I played against the following decks; Control slaver, TPS and meandeck SX. This represents every type of fully powered deck pretty much in; control with a combo finish, control/combo and pure combo. So no I didn't specifically chose the bad matchups. My hands where not particularity bad either, some 7 card hands with nothing but lands and equipments (or curiosity) but that is to be expected.


One of the things that strikes me the most is:

The roguish nature of the deck, the fact that not every deck you run into is a top deck, and the fact that some of your opponents sometimes just plain suck, means that you stand a fair shot of doing pretty well in a competitive environment if you play well.

The fact that you rely on your opponents (or there decks) sucking says a lot about your trust in the deck. Actually every deck that has:

4x force
4x drain
P9
Correct mana base
Other goodies (tutors/will)
Some form of a win condition

All of these, you can expect to do 'pretty well' because of sheer brokenness. We are not looking for 'pretty well' here though, we need a deck that you can expect to win the tournament with. If the goal is not 'scrubbing out', than maybe this should be moved to the newbie forum. The goal should be winning the stupid tournament, one way to get there is at least to listen to other peoples arguments. You haven't even responded to my point about creature VS. creature enhancers ratio. You are mostly talking about draw this draw that, the problem is you need creatures in play without summoning sickness. Memory mask doesn't read;

memory mask
3
Artifact
During your upkeep draw 2 cards than discard a card.

You actually need creatures without summonings sickness to do anything. This is a crucial point, which should become painfully clear during testing. I often lost games because my opponent managed to block/kill my critter and I had 2 equipments laying on the field doing nothing, thats a pretty lousy position to be in because you need to draw a critter in the next few draws or your opponent overwhelms you. Not to mention that if you topdeck another equipment you have another dead card, it is if like the opponent gains +X virtual card advantage (X=number off equipments in play/hand) when he manages to kill or neutralize your creatures. Thats usually a pretty big swing card advantage wise.


Also you are comparing it to thirst for knowledge which is hardly relevant since;
A) Thirst is instant speed
B) Thirst draws a extra card
C) Thirst is blue
D) Thirst doesn't need a creature
The only resemblance is that both draw cards and both discard cards, if you want a functionally the same instant try catalog.


Oh and:

And Jitte is a powerhouse against Welders, Fish, Tog and Artifact Aggro and pretty much all other creatures in the meta. I have on more than one occasion accumilated enough counters to be able to deter even Akorma from attacking or blocking the equipped creature, and then proceeded to accumilate enough counters to kill the Angel completely, or even more enjoyably, reduce it to a mere 1/1.

Two things;
A) If you kill akroma it gets oathed back into the library ready for duty in 2 turns.
B) If you have enough counters to make angel a 1/1 you should be just attacking with one of your creatures, than if he blocks kill the angel with pumping this saves 3/4 counters on jitte. And if he doesn't block you can pump the critter and kill the opponent.

[Dralock]

Snip

So what do you suggest?  We have here the making of a decent deck, how can we make it better?

Speed is needed, curiosity + flying men is without a doubt the best this deck can hope for to power out draw early in the game. Mask comes out the next turn to get you drawing 3 and discarding 1, a total of +3 cards in a turn on turn 3. Thats not bad, but as you said before, lava dart becomes a concern. Also, do you want to be spending turn 2 casting a mask of memory? Or would you rather be casting mage?

I have said it before, and I'll say it here, I don't really like mana drain in the deck. Sure, its broken, you can have a lot of mana to use on your artifacts, but its also UU, and you don't get to kick your permanent advantage in to high gear when you need to hold back 2 blue sources, one of which (with the current manabase) is likely to get wasted away. Leak is just plain better. You can (with a little accel) cast curiosity turn 2 and still be able to have mana open for a leak through their turn. With the addition of daze and misdirection in your hand you can have a pretty good chance of making their turn 2 not-so-great.

So what happens after turn 2? You need to DO something with the deck, and drawing 3 cards turn 3 is broken enough to keep up the tempo, but it doesn't win the game. I would much rather throw down a jitte turn 2 than a mask of madness. I even like sword turn 2 if possible, as the game will go quickly once it is on the table.

Black is a good inclusion, but I don't think you need much of it.  Shadowmage is good enough in itself to run black (evasion kicks ass), and I like vampiric tutor over enlightened (your first tutor). I don't see anything else worth running besides possibly duress and demonic tutor. I definitely don't want to put enough black in the deck to run wretch, phyrexian furnace would do a much better job for cheaper. Will is out of the question, there is no need for it.

Swords needs to be IN the deck. I have yet to figure out how to handle mindslaver besides counter it and hope for the best. If they can slave you for one turn, they can draw up to 7 cards (assuming all is going well) and really fuck you over.  Hopefully they will be dead by then.

I think the deck needs a full complement of strips.  I haven' been able to work them in yet myself, but NO ONE runs unwasteable decks anymore, so at least 3 strip effects need to happen.

The inclusion of more creatures is an idea, but I think more business spells would be a better idea. Ninjas are nice, but there has to be something better out there to gain advanage.

[Zeylon]

Dralock, great post, I agree with much of what you said, and would be interested to hear the response to your question as well.

Don't misinterpret me. I never said that this deck can't win a tournament. It has almost as good if not just as good a shot at winning a tourney as any of the so called tier one decks. You can't expect this deck to win 60% of the time against every archeatype, you can't ask that of any deck. Every top tier deck has some good matchups and some bad matchups, on avg, they probably have a 50% chance of winning any match against another top tier deck, which my testing reveals is true for this deck as well if you play reasonably well (name the right cards with mage etc) and include postsideboard games. Thus, the winner of any tournament with top tier decks is decided by luck, and playskill more than anything. If you came in here looking for a deck that is very likely win you a tournament, you're out of luck, none of the decks do that. The main reason CS makes so many top 8s is b/c so many people play it. If just as many people played this deck, I guarentee you'll see it top 8 a lot more frequently too.

And no matter what you say, there's a world of difference between 16 creatures and 12.

16 is probably the most number of creatures any viable deck in vintage currently plays. It means you avg. 2 creatures per opening hand. Mask of Memory isn't the only card reliant on having a creature out, standstill, and ninja, both of which are often used in other decks in place of the Mask of Memory, are only decent if you have out a creature capable of attacking unblocked as well.

But like I said in my opening post, this is a very flexible deck. MDing Swords and Ninja of Deep Shadows is certainly a possible option.

So my current recommendation...

Swap out the 4 Spiketail Hatchling for 4 Flying Men
Cut 1 Yawgie's Will and 1 Mana Drain for 2 random creatures (I recommend Ninja of Deep Shadows but I that needs creatures to be good too)
Considering swapping the mana drains with mana leaks.

There, now the deck is a bit faster, and runs 18 creatures. But note that ninja only shines if you have noncurious flying man or a noncurious cloud of faries in play. That's why I originally didn't include the card. But WUTang has no problem supporting 4 Ninja so this deck should easily be able to handle 2.

Shadowmage is insanely good, just like Mask of Memory, I think he's greatly underrated.. He has 3 toughness and can deter attackers the turn he comes into play. He has evasion and is thus an excellent equipment target. Plus, he comes with a curiosity already. He can squeeze in past Exalted Angel, Akorma etc, rack up Jitte counters, and deal lethal damage while your flyers just sit there. He's just too good a card not to run.

While Mask of Memory (IMO, the best unrestricted card drawer in the game in any deck that can use it) and Jitte (the best antiaggro card in the game in any deck that can use it) are both incredible cards, I'm now considering a null rod variant of this. Instead of equipment it uses shadowmage, ninja, standstill and curiosity to draw cards, and daze, spiketails, nullrod, wastelands, cruicible, stifle, and vindicate (can destroy lands too!) to really put pressure on the opponents mana base. I'm even toying around with the notion of playing a few sinkhole since the strategy has proven to be very effective. I am trying to support as many manlands as possible bc of the standstill but am having trouble.

The build's main weakness seems to be against aggro, since Standstill isn't that great against aggro and Jitte was such a huge bomb against all forms of aggro.

I know vindicate seems like an odd choice. Yes, vindicate isn't the best at anything. Swords is better at creature kill, Sinkhole and Stifle are the best at land kill, Seal of Cleansing is the best at enchantment/artifact kill. But vindicate does the job of all of these cards, for only one more mana! I just thinks that's extremely versatile. If a timely stifle, null rod, and wastelands are putting pressure on their mana base, vindicate can add to it, if not, vindicate can be used to kill annoying stuff like Oath, chalice for 2, crucible to hurt your mana denial strategy, tog or exalted angel, or even goblin welder.

I have the build somewhat tuned in my head but don't want to post it b/c I haven't been able to test it, I'm still out of town, and I know the manabase isn't perfect yet, it's hard to play 3 colors, wastelands, factories, and all the business spells I mentioned above. I think I would have to cut factories, and some standstill to make room for everything.

I'm not sure if it can be as good as this deck, but I convinced that it'll be just as fun. So I would appreciate help tuning it. Thanks.

[mongrel12]

Why don't you just play ophidian--its pretty much objectively better than shadowmage, especially when you're running off color moxen--any creature that is going to block it (eg artifact fat--NOONE is going to block an ophidian with a Goblin Welder). Mask of Memory also strikes me as an incredibly weak choice--why do you need to tap out on turn 2 to set up a draw engine that usually only needs to cost U? Jitte is also objectively bad, as it is essentially weaker than SoFai against every deck. Sure, if aggro is a huge part of your metagame then you might consider it for a second, but closer examination reaveals that it is suboptimal for vintage in general. I honestly can't understand why this deck would be objectively a better choice than either Ninja Sword or UW Fish, because it sacrifices so much tempo and card advantage for a bunch of creature enhancers. I also cant really understand why you are running mask of memory+curiosity+Jitte, as if they simply counter or destroy a creature your draw engine is dead and you have a million dead cards in hand that arent going to do anything for several turns. The equipment also gets annhilated by Null Rod, which makes the fish matchup unfavorable as well.

[Zeylon]

How can you possibly complain about 16 creatures when Bird$hit ran and won with a grand total of 10 creatures and WUTang fish won with a grand total of 12 creatures that didn't need another creature in play already in order to be played? Neither of these decks had any way to win other than creature beats either. Nor did they have much card drawing. And much of their disruption/counterspells were only good in the early game. So basically, they had to win mostly with the creatures that they initially drew into and win fast. If they didn't, control would outdraw them, play a bomb and win. So that means, that while this deck only needs one creature to out draw the opponent and win, they needed to play enough creatures early on to bring the lifetotal down to 0, before they were outdrawn. They need more creatures in play than this deck does in order to win. And yet they still did so. That's because the number of creatures they ran were sufficient to keep one of them in play. So how can you argue that this deck, which plays 4 more, won't be able to.

Even Ninja Sword, only runs 13 creatures that don't need another creature already in play to be worth playing. And of those, the 2 gilded Drakes are extremely conditional and can't even be played in a lot of situations. And keep in mind that Vial is only good if you are consistently drawing and can thus play creatures for free while Mask needs only one creature in play to be worthwhile.

If all these decks are winning with so few creatures and you guys are still complaining that a deck that runs 4-6 more creatures than them isn't running enough, then that ought to tell you something about your understanding of aggro control or atleast how you're playing it..

Like I said, if you are worried about drawing only two creatures in your opening hand on avg. Cut a will and a mana leak and bring the count up to 18 if you want. That's more than any aggro control deck has ever ran. Heck that's even more than most pure aggro decks, including r/g beats have ever run.

Mongrel, Why don't you just play the deck-- or your statements wouldn't be so blatantly wrong.

If the only decks I expected to face were control and combo, I probably would run ophidian and wouldn't bother with Jitte. But my meta isn't that narrow. Not every player plays either Control Slaver, Oath, or Tendrils. And thank god for that, or that would be the most boring meta ever.

Even in competitive metas, people still do play some Workshop Aggro, Madness, R/G Beats, WW/u, etc. And when you run into those matchups and your Curious  (or Masked) Ophidian is facing down a Wild Mongrel or a juggernaut or something, you're going to be pissed that you took out Shadowmage. This deck does fairly well against aggro, it runs 2 Jitte, 2 tutors, and a crap load of card drawing so getting a Jitte when you need one isn't a problem. And Jitte singlehandedly wipes the floormat with any aggro deck. So... No, it's not a weak choice.

How the heck can you claim that a card that draws you two cards every single turn is an incredibly weak choice? In a deck like this with evasive creatures, it's the best unrestricted card drawer in the game, hands down.

And don't even get me started on your statement that a deck that draws on avg. 3-4 cards each turn is sacrificing card advantage.

I'm still on my trip, just posting from a lab, so I might not be able to post for a while. Keep the discussion going.

And dralock, keep up with the quality tech and testing.

[mongrel12]

And when you run into those matchups and your Curious  (or Masked) Ophidian is facing down a Wild Mongrel or a juggernaut or something, you're going to be pissed that you took out Shadowmage.

I'm not quite sure where you're coming from on this one, because I think it is blatantly clear that in both of these situation, Oph is actually better, as it didnt cause you to rape your manabase to play it (where i come from, both Mongrel, and Juggernaut can block a Shadowmage). Another somewhat factual error on your part--although it may appear otherwise, RG beatz is RG aggro-control.

This deck does fairly well against aggro, it runs 2 Jitte, 2 tutors, and a crap load of card drawing so getting a Jitte when you need one isn't a problem. And Jitte singlehandedly wipes the floormat with any aggro deck. So... No, it's not a weak choice.

Yes, Jitte is okay against aggro decks, but by no means is it any better than sofai, as it is a completely dead card against control, wheras SOFAI is not. Jitte is also absolutely terrible against any deck that runs null rod (which is EVERY aggro deck post-board, so it sucks there as well)

And don't even get me started on your statement that a deck that draws on avg. 3-4 cards each turn is sacrificing card advantage.

Except that it takes several turns to set up and hence is not online for several turns, in which all the drain combo decks that you are playing will have countered something and won the game. This deck has issues with sensei, belcher, and other fast combo, and is at a huge disadvantage against Null Rod decks, as it shuts down all of your equipment. I cant see how this deck can beat oath without some STP main.

How can you possibly complain about 16 creatures when Bird$hit ran and won with a grand total of 10 creatures and WUTang fish won with a grand total of 12 creatures that didn't need another creature in play already in order to be played? Neither of these decks had any way to win other than creature beats either. Nor did they have much card drawing. And much of their disruption/counterspells were only good in the early game. So basically, they had to win mostly with the creatures that they initially drew into and win fast. If they didn't, control would outdraw them, play a bomb and win.

I think you completely misunderstand how aggro-control fundamentally works. The way Fish works is that it uses "early game" counters (though i honestly have no idea what you're talking about except for maybe daze, and that would be a ridiculous assumption) to disrupt the opponents game plan while attacking their mana base with Null Rod, Wastes, Strip, and Stifle (which have huge synergy with their 'early game' counters), simultaneously, the deck draws cards through Standstill and Curiosity. Bird Sh*t works by disrupting the opponents early game plan and then beating down with Mongeese and Bears. Aggro-Control works by KEEPING the opponent in the early game, and foiling his deck, be it through counters, Null Rod, or Meddling Mage. Fish did not 'win fast' by any means--it won by constantly disrupting the opponents game plan and drawing cards. Talking to Marc Perez about Gay/r, i asked if he had any plan to win through a resolved Exalted Angel--he said that your plan is for it not to resolve. This deck loses just as badly (if not worse) to Angel or Tinker-Colossus. Birdshit won a little faster, but not by much. I honestly can't see how this deck is objectively better than any of those decks (or Ninja Sword for that matter). This deck tries to combine EBA and Fish, but just waters down both strategies.

That said, I think Vial is an auto-include for this deck, given the curve, the drains, and the equipment (lack of null rods). You might try running a few crucible as well.

[Zeylon]

Fair enough, but the statement still stands, against the majority of aggro decks that run rampant, r/g beats creatures, most madness creatures, ww/u, sligh etc. etc. Shadowmage is significantly better than Ophidian.

Jitte is better than just okay against aggro. It's practically an autowin in situations (Workshop Aggro, Madness, Threshold etc) where SOFI falls significantly short. And Jitte is no where near useless against control. It's a threat they must remove asap or they die. It comes out a turn earlier, which can often be the difference between whether or not they get a welder active. Test both cards better and then let me know if you feel the same way. As for Null Rod, yes, it's a card that you can't let them resolve, usually the only card you have to be concerned about when playing the majority of aggro since Jitte can deal with most everything else, hence why you have 12 cards that prevent them from playing it, and 4 more than prevent them from playing it early.

If you played this deck against combo, you would realize that combo is a great matchup. If you parised to a decent hand, you shouldn't lose unless they drew a god hand. Post board, the match just gets that much better.

I undestand perfectly how aggro control works. I also understand that this deck draws more cards, plays more creatures, and yet isn't really any more reliant on it's creatures to win than typical aggro control. I never said that this deck was objectively better than standard u/w fish, there's no such thing as objectively better. They're different decks, with their own strenghts and weaknesses for different metas. Now that so many decks are better prepared for null rod and nonbasic hate, I think this deck is a better choice, but that's playstyle and meta dependent. In certain metas, I would definately advocate standard u/w fish over this in a heartbeat.

I've tried vial, I didn't like it. It's reduces both the number of threats and the amount of disruption you can play. Plus vial isn't meant for decks that run fast, free/incredibly cheap creatures like cloud of faries or flying men. It belongs in a deck like ninja mask so that the deck can maindeck cards like withered wretch.

And I can't figure out why you posted the vial list you did. Are you honestly advocating running cards like dundan maindeck. Why does the deck even run vial, or cards like rootwater theif in this meta?

Like I said, I might not be able to post for a few days after tonight. If you guys get the chance, try out/lmk what you think the 3c mana denial version using null rod, stifle, wastes, and vindicate(extremely versatile and kills lands too if mana denial is working, else can take out creatures, oaths, chalicies etc).

[mongrel12]

And I can't figure out why you posted the vial list you did. Are you honestly advocating running cards like dundan maindeck. Why does the deck even run vial, or cards like rootwater theif in this meta?

Actually, I'm not advocating it--thats Meandeck's build of UW fish that placed in the top 16 at Waterbury. I guess given your views on the fact that Null Rod is "obsolete," a response like that could be a given.

I also understand that this deck draws more cards, plays more creatures, and yet isn't really any more reliant on it's creatures to win than typical aggro control.

Except for the fact that it runs 6 Equipment and 4 Enchant Creature--a control deck blowing up your creature generates massive tempo and card advantage for them because of the amount of mana and cards that you put into your creature. I don't think that the above statement can possibly hold water. REB>you creatures, F/I>your creatures, STP>your creatures.

I'm also not understanding exactly how Jitte is an autowin against Workshop Aggro, Madness or Threshold. Madness runs as many/more counters as you do, and runs Null Rod, as does Threshold, which also runs better creatures then you, as well as Swords to Plowshares. Nimble Mongoose>Jitte. In terms of the Workshop Aggro Matchup I can see it helping out somewhat, but they have more fat and gas then you can hope to deal with with Jitte. Have you tested these matchups? A resolved Null Rod essentially nullifies your deck strategy.

[Zeylon]

I guess given your views on the fact that Null Rod is "obsolete," a response like that could be a given.

Why don't you actually read what I said before you post. I never said that Null Rod is obsolete, just that it's not as powerful as it once was since more decks are ready for it. I never said that this was objectively better than u/w fish, just better in certain metas.

REB>you creatures, F/I>your creatures, STP>your creatures.

The same is true for all fish decks and pretty much all aggro control decks including the majority of which which run 4-6 fewer creatures than you. There is a reason you play so many counters, b/c control runs those cards in the sideboard. The reason they do is because they have a hard time against aggro control. Those are all sideboard cards anyways except for STP and STP trading one for one with one of your numerous creatures can sting a bit but is certainly not gameending.

I'm also not understanding exactly how Jitte is an autowin against Workshop Aggro, Madness or Threshold.

Then you need to play the deck more.

Madness runs as many/more counters as you do

No it doesn't. Most builds run 4 FoW and 3 Daze. You run 4 FoW, 4 Mana Leak/Drain, 4 Spiketail Hatchling, 4 Meddling Mage, 2 Tutors + Tons of card drawing to get you more cards.

Nimble Mongoose>Jitte.

Lol, that's funny. A 1/1 that becomes a 3/3 sometime around turn 5 (if you have a mental note handy) is somehow better than a card that with acceleration can usually kill off the 1/1 and something else on turn 3, or turn 4 at the latest, and doesn't even need to get thru to kill off your creatures. If I had to choose between facing 2 3/3 Mongoose with a Jitte equipped flyer or facing the Jitte equipped flyer with 2 Mongoose, I would choose the Jitte flyer in a heart beat. If you can't figure out why, you need to read the card more carefully.

A resolved Null Rod essentially nullifies your deck strategy.

Just like any resolved big creature nullifies most aggro control decks that don't play MD Jittes. The fact is, every deck has certain cards that it can't let the opponent resolve. There's a reason this deck play 12 hard counters, 4 soft ones, 2 Tutors, andso much card draw.