Worse Than Fish 3.0

[Zirilian]

Hello,
this seems like a very fun and pretty strong deck too.
I'm thinking about taking it to a T1 tourney (I suspect the metagame will be very scrubby,a lot of budget (and bad) players)  but I'm a bit on a budget.

Could anyone post a decklist for an unpowered metagame please?

Thanks to anyone who does this,

Zirilian.

[the boogie man]

I would like to know more about the draw engine of the deck. I know that everybody is commenting on the assness of standstill, but how viable is ninja of the deep? it seems that it would put you way ahead in card advantage^(R), but what are everyone's thoughts on them? what would you remove?

the other thing is tinker collossus. this option seems very risky, as collossus is a very dead draw, and mystical seems to be very narrow, only grabbing ancestrall or tinker. the card disadvantage seems like it hurts a lot. would these slots be served better sideboard slots, rather than maindeck inclusions? maybe coming in against random aggro or foodchain and what not?

by removing tinker-collossus-mystical, you could add 3 ninjas without sacrificing threats, and you would be contributing to more blue cards *and* a draw engine.

also, though, the draw engine isn't as lacking as everyone says, because umezawa's jitte is pure card advantage on its own. too bad its legendary.

[KrA0nS]

Are chalices even any good in an unpowered meta? I mean they are ok but without moxen i would believe they aren't as good while spiketail hatchlings are better because of the same reasons.

Chalice is an extremely versatile card, I mean setting it for 0 is good but you can also set it for 1 against storm basesd combos that need stuff like Sensei's Diving Top and Dark Ritual to go off, well it helps a lot in hte case of Ritual, but Chalice is a very good card, don't doubt it.

[the boogie man]

I doubt that even came close to referencing an idea sprung from his question at all.

to answer your question, not really. but fish really doesn't shine in budget areas, it loves playing powered stuff, especially stuff like gifts and conrol slaver. for a heavy bugdet area, a deck like oath is usually much better. my reasoning behind this is because if they don't have moxen, then, cotv @ 0 is nigh useless, andat 1 it could do some damage, but by then you should already have been taking a beating from their crappy creatures.

edit: @ kowal: do you think that the singleton rushing river could go for a brainstorm, further utilitizing good card manipulation with fetches, and possibly shuffling away random collossi? if not, could you explain your reasoning?

[amidtownrocker]

Some seem to be forgetting that if you draw the Collusus, you have Wild Mongrels to discard him too. This gives you 4 ways to put him back in your deck, most decks that run Tinker/DSC have about 4 as well (Brainstorms).

In my testing it has never been a problem when I've drawn the DSC. He is just another card that is good to pitch to Mongrel.

On Mystical Tutor. It fetches out the Tinker, Ancestral, and Timewalk. If there is one thing this deck loves, its being able to Timewalk into lethal damage, or to Timewalk to up the counters on the Jitte. Mystical is never dead though and if it comes up and is, it pitches to Force of Will very well.

On Ninja of the Deep Hours. I am not sure why you would not run this card. He is one of the greatest threats in this deck. With him, your Rootwallas are even better because they lead into Ninjas. If you aren't running this guy I wouldnt expect you to beat heavy control decks. He allows you to draw tons of cards agasint MUC or Keeper variants and this allows you to constantly drop threats. That is the key to beating those decks.

[Marco]

I revised my deck list. I'm working on a sideboard:

4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Waterfront Bouncer

4 Gaea's Skyfolk

4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel

3 Flooded Strand
4 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

[amidtownrocker]

I revised my deck list. I'm working on a sideboard:

4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
2 Waterfront Bouncer

4 Gaea's Skyfolk

4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel

3 Flooded Strand
4 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
4 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland

I do not agree with Crucible of Worlds on this type of deck. I think COW belongs in decks that can truely abuse it. You WILL win random games when you get COW/Strip lock down but more often then not you will be sitting there with COW in hand and wish it was a blue card to pitch to Force.

U/W Fish uses the COW in mirror matches to get a creature advantage with Wasteland and Factories. But in this matchup you have bigger creatures and Jitte so you shouldn't be as worried as they are. In control matchups, U/W Fish uses COW to slow the control deck down long enough so their little men can swing for the win, but if you are playing WTF agasint control, you do not need to stall like this. A Mongrel and a Rootwalla will go the distance very quickly if not dealt with.

I also tend to run 4 Ninjas in all my Fish builds. You always want to see this guy, and if you see doubles sometimes its better but usually the second will get pitched to a Force of will.

You are also running just 22 mana sources. In most builds this is too little, especially when 18 of them can be hit by Wasteland. I feel much more comfortable running 23. That one extra DOES make a difference.

I also question your number of Jittes. With 3 Jittes main, your metagame must be extremely Aggro, or Welderbased. In a more generalized metagame I would def stick with two main and a third or forth in the board.

There has also been a ton of debate on Gaea's Skyfolk. I just have to stick my two cents in here and say i totally disagree with that. I would much rather have creatures that do something. Yes it is a good beater but you already have good beaters in the deck. Wild Mongrel is one of the best beaters of all time and is all you need. I would much rather run Bouncers or Rootwater Theives in the Skyfolk's slot. A lot of decks in Vintage do not want to see  Rootwater Theif swing 1 or 2 times.

Word of advice to all, if storm combo is popular in your area, I would not reccomend playing this deck, and if I were to play it, I would want some Arcane Labs side board. (AetheVial + Arcane Labs = Synergy.)


Rich Meyst

[HeXuS]

What does U/W do to help it's match against combo? Yes, it runs Labs post board, but we do that too. All I can see that it's got is Meddling Mage, but couldn't we splash for that? In a relatively light Fish meta, I think that the addition of 2 Tundra along with the Tropicals would enable us to splash white for Meddling Mage, making the build U/G/w. What do you think? Is there something I'm missing here? We run 4 Chalice main, and 4 Force. Yes, alot of lists don't run Daze now either, or Spiketail. Is that was really made the match go better?

I run Tinker/Colossus/Tutor in my list too, I've found that Colossus is never a dead card in my hand, unless I draw into it in opening hand. By the time you draw one, you usually have an out in the form of Brainstorm/Fetch, Mongrel, or just sheer hand size and discard phase.

Like Rich said, take out the 3rd Jitte and put it in sideboard. You do not like seeing them in multiples, because of their legendary status. If you're up against another deck that uses Jitte, or the mirror, or you're in an aggro heavy meta or your opponents like using Welders, board the 3rd one in. You have a good chance of seeing one in the course of a game, even with only 2 main.

[amidtownrocker]

UW Fish does have the Mages and that does help a lot but they also run Null Rod. Being able to shut off mana completely will do very good things for your combo match. Yes Chalice is WTFs answer to artifact mana accel, but a good combo player will drop their moxen quickly if they know a Chalice will come down. U/W also has Orim's Chant in the sideboard which is a graet way to fizzle them out and make them mana burn or just used as a PsuedoTimewalk.

Most U/W Fish builds also run Daze which def help when facing combo decks that always seem to have JUST enough mana. I am a huge fan of Daze. Yes people say they play around Daze all the time but you would be so surprised how many times Daze is effective.

I take back the point where I said Combo crushes WTF. WTF has a bad match up agasint Combo, but its not as horrible as I mentioned before. You just need time to be able to drop a Chalice on 1. But either way, I stand by what I said when I said in a combo metagame I would much rather be playing my U/W Fish build.


Rich Meyst

[the boogie man]

my current creature base is this:

4 mongrels
4 meddling mage
4 rootwalla
3 rootwater theif
3 ninja of the deep hour
4 mishras factory

where do you think the tinker collossus mystical combo goes, and would that be better than what we already have?

here are my thoughts:
mongrels and rootwallas are obvious
meddling mage MURKS all decks ever
theif wins games in its own right, removing key strategeries otherwise hard to get rid of, such as akroma, tendrils, whatever.
ninja provides a brutal draw engine and another blue creature, covering a covering all bases.

I also run a singleton brainstorm, but should that go for something else? rushing river, one of the three parts of the collossus combo, another draw spell, another ninja, or something else? that pygmy hippo looks pretty hot.

[amidtownrocker]

To fit in the Mystical/Tinker/DSC I cut Standstills. Too many times have my Standstills been broken and me draw three cards that are not threats. I would much rather have them be threats.

4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Ninja of the Deep Hour
3 Rootwater Theif
1 DSC

Thats a solid creature base. I don't think you can run both Mages and Theives effective. You are losing out on better cards to run more creatures. You need to disrupt and beat, not just beat.

[the boogie man]

I think mages+theif is great, your not sacrificing disruption, as mages themselves are awsome disruption. you are not sacrificing disruption at all.

[amidtownrocker]

They indeed are but you might be cutting down on some better disruption for them. Whats your full list looking like, because then I could make a better statement of how good both are.

[Greenebean]

What about Kira, Great-Glass Spinner. Granted thief is a bomb-shell MD, I have set him aside in the SB for good reason. For the most part like I have said earlier, it totally comes down to the surrounding meta game. I am running the following creature base:

4 Mongrel
4 Rootwalla
4 Mages
3 Kira's
1 DSC
4 Mishra's Factories

So far it seems to work. The Kira helps against Welders, Seasingers, Old Man, and not to mention Swords to Plowshares which were running rampant in Rochester. I mean its totally meta game call, but I think she makes up for the UU1 mana cost with what she brings to the table. But again, just a suggestion, and let me know what you think.

[thokash]

I entered into a Mox Ruby tournament today that only had 27 participants, but still managed to Top 8 (7th)

Creatures (14)
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Wild Mongrel
3x Meddling Mage
3x Ninja of the Deep Hours
1x Darksteel Colossus

Spells (23)
4x Aether Vial
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
2x Umezawa’s Jitte
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Tinker
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk

Mana (23)
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra’s Factory
3x Tropical Island
3x Polluted Delta
2x Tundra
2x Flooded Strand
1x Island
1x Strip Mine
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus

Sideboard (15)
3x Phyrexian Furnace
3x Oxidize
3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Ray of Revelation
2x Kira, Great-Glass Spinner
1x Tundra
1x Umezawa’s Jitte

A couple of choices I will explain.  I added Meddling Mage to stop annoying stuff, and it really was only decisive in one match today, which was Oath.  In the end, I can't find a better creature to run in the spot so I guess I will leave it there.

Brainstorm > Standstill.  The way this deck is run, Brainstorm is just SOOO much better than Standstill.  Being able to respond to your opponents moves at instant speed, even if your only searching for 4 FoW, will make them think twice next time they cast their match winning card.

Tinker/Tutor/Colossus.  Well this was a last minute decision to run, and I am very impressed.  There was never a time I couldn't Tinker in the Colossus, and truth be told, this guy saved me from so many matches I should never have won, and also just to win Turn 4 with Fish is fun.

Sideboard was pretty much a metagame choice so I won't go into it in too much detail, they are all cards we have seen before.

P.S.  Where's Jacob been lately?

[Meanee]

Congrats on your success.
I just write to tell you that Jacob is in Denmark...

And another thing: If I would like to build this deck "the budget way" (no power 9 except for the sapphire...) is there enough artifacts to run the tinker/colos thingy?

- meanee

[Edit] A last question - directly to thokash: Didn't you ever draw dead vials? I know you can discard them to mongrell, but still? Wouldn't a third jitte in the fourth vial's place be an idea?[/Edit]

[Jacob Orlove]

P.S.  Where's Jacob been lately?

Brussels. Without internet access, obviously. Anyway, I'm back now, so let's deal with stuff:

Brainstorm vs Standstill: everyone should know that I <3 <3 <3 Brainstorm and h8 h8 h8 Standstill. I'm up to 4 Brainstorms at this point, but I'll have to test the Tinker/Colossus plan to see if I like it better than the remaining Standstills. In any case, if you're running Tinker, you need Mystical.

On Pigmy Hippo: you have to choose between damage and mana. Otherwise, I probably would have been running it in earlier WTF builds, just like how everyone would have been using Jester's Mask forever if it didn't CIP tapped.

Random 1/1s for 2 with evasion are bad. Please use good creatures instead.

With the Fish mirror potentially becoming very important, I can see some definitely advantages to Meddling Mage (stop Mancer, Rod, etc), but it doesn't do much on the ground (everyone has Factories). Skyfolk dominates the air, where other fish decks are still fielding 1-power creatures. With that said, Bouncer may be necessary to combat increased Tinkering for Colossus. Kira is also a powerful flyer that shuts down removal, but its biggest foes usually lurk in the sideboard anyway (seasinger, old man, etc). Thief is good in some metagames, but overall I don't think it's as good as other options. You can win with a few Thief attacks, but you'll probably win more often and more quickly if you run a creature that compliments your "damage to the face" plan.

If you're running a budget build, you can almost certainly still run Tinker/Colossus. You still have 14+ artifacts, counting Factories. If the meta is so scrubby that you have to sideboard the Chalices, just run some other artifact, since Colossus is going to be even stronger in such a meta. I definitely wouldn't try to add expensive cards like Crucible, though--if you lose out on acceleration you should be minimizing casting costs. Also, please stop spamming up this thread with lists--if you want in-depth discussion of budget WTF, that belongs in a different thread.

If combo is an issue, Mage helps, as do actual SB cards for it. TPS is probably going to rely on Rebuild to stop Chalice, so enchantments or creatures are your best bet. Arcane Lab is good.

I'm still at 2 MD Jitte. The third one is never leaving my sideboard, though.

Gush seems fairly weak in this deck, since returning those lands before turn 4 or so is going to be very bad for you.

Hurkyl's Recall is definitely an option for the SB, although it deals with very different threats than Oxidize does.

Survival would be mana intensive and bad. It's only good when you're using it to cheat casting costs with Welder or Volrath's Shapeshifter.

23 mana sources has been working fine, especially with the 4 Brainstorms.

I wouldn't go down to 3 vials. Sure, you draw dead ones sometimes, but seeing that first one early is very good, especially with 4 Brainstorms to ditch extras.

Edit: I would definitely endorse running the tinker/colossus/mystical in the sideboard if you don't have it main. 

[thokash]

Well I think Jacob answered everything above, and I 100% agree with him.

I actually played against a WTF mirror today, but he ran Skyfolk and Standstill.  The decisive factor was ironically enough Tinker -> Colossus, which he wasn't running.  It definately gave me a better opinion on Skyfolk though, he got down an early Jitte and Skyfolk and almost took me to lethal. 

I agree that the Fish matches are very tight, but you basically just win if you can get a Jitte out and they aren't running it in their deck.  Being able to ping those annoying Bouncers and Lavamancers is just too strong, as well as doing damage every round.  I don't know if the flying evasion will be decisive in these kind of matches, I guess it depends on which variant you are playing against.

Rootwater Thief, although a sweet card, I just found too slow and clunky.  I would rather just pump Rootwalla's and attack with Factory's for damage.  I would suggest at least to run Tinker/Tutor/Collosus in the board, its only 3 slots, and its useful against almost any deck barring Welder.  As Jacob said, there are plenty of artifact sources, including Factory which is just fun to Tinker out

The metagame over here has no combo, in a field of 27 there was two Oath and a Doomsday.  Meddling Mage I didn't find useful at all in the mirrors (although I didn't play a U/R mirror, only white and green variants), so naming something unless late into the game can be difficult.

[the boogie man]

ok, so heres my current list for whoever asked:

4 mongrel
4 rootwalla
4 meddling mage
1 darksteel collossus
3 ninja of the deep

2 tundra
3 tropical island
2 island
3 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
4 wasteland
4 mishras factory
1 strip mine

4 chalice of the void
4 aether vial
2 umezawas jitte

1 mox emerald
1 mox sapphire
1 black lotus

4 force of will

1 ancestral recal
1 time walk
1 mystical tutor
1 tinker
2 brainstorm

side:

2 oxidize
2 kira, great glass spinner
2 rootwater theif
3 bebs
2 pithing needle
3 ray of revelation
1 umezawas jitte

what I want to do is put the tinker collossus into it. here are my thoughts:
-2 sacred ground from sb
+ 1 jitte
+ 1 (rootwater theif?)
- 1 jitte
-3 rootwater theif
+ collossus package
+ 1 brainstorm

what do you think? are a couple rootwater theifs good to be kept in the sideboard? I am not sure that they are very integral in the maindeck, but whatever. I think that something should be cut from the maindeck for more of the, but I don't know what to cut.


edit:
all right, I have finalized my list, and here it is^:

[amidtownrocker]

A card that I have run to some success in my local area for the Fish mirror believe it or not is Wonder. More often are than you think will you have lethal damage in a Fish mirror and he has those pesky Factories. So you just discard to mongrel and send the team. Currently I am not running the Skyfolk so I was dying to 1/1 beats from Faeries so I discarded a Wonder and let my dog eat some faeries! Wonder pitches to FOW as well. I am only running one as of now and would probably not increase that. Just a little good sometimes.

BTW, killing with a flying DSC is sweet.

[Negator13]

You only have 4 discard outlets, and 1 Wonder, so that just seems unneccesarily situational. You wanna win a creature war in the mirror, just run another Jitte in Wonder's place.

[vartemis]

Tolarian Enchanter   1U
Summon - Wizard [1/1]
Weatherlight

Whenever Tolarian Entrancer is blocked by any creature, gain control of that creature at end of combat.

Why is this better than any number of 1/1 creatures with evasion?  Escape Artist?

When you give your opponent a choice you have to assume she is going to choose in his own best interests, not yours.  In this case that means that you will only steal a creature when you would rather have not been blocked at all.  Look at the example you gave, for instance.

One game he had the jitte and became a 5/5.  My opponent blocked with a sundering titan as he was at 5.  Now I had a nice blocker that he couldn't weld out as a pinged it with the jitte during my first main phase.

If you had just had an Escape Artist instead of a Tolarian Enchanter you would have won the game that turn.  Instead you gave him an out.  Eventually someone will use the escape hatch you give him and win the game with it.

Notice that I am not advocating Escape Artist, however.  I am merely saying it is better than Tolarian Enchanter.  Spiketail Hatchling is better than either one.  If you want a creature that won't get blocked and costs two mana, run him.

Leo

You are absolutely right.  I dont know what I was thinking.  I have started trying out erayo instead and have found he is so easy to flip, especially dumping a rootwalla or two to up the spell count.  I guess everything is situational, and I will try to lay off the crack when trying to break cards.

j

[Dralock]

No one asked, but I've been playing around with the deck, and have put this post together on another board:

Playing with this deck is so amazingly fun. You have chalices, mages, and a few forces for combo, you have mages, jitte and mongrel for aggro, and you have the entire freaking deck for control.

Matchups so far:

Vs GiftsSalvagers w/wishes and tinker->darksteel.

This is an odd matchup. Theoretically, they should win with their superior silver bullet tech, engineered explosives, and amazing slavagers win condition.

In seven games w/no sideboarding I went 5-2. Mages are especially annoying when they are put in with vial. You spend your turns using up their counters, and have things like ancestral recall and ideas unbound to replentish your hand so you can play more threats. One game was particularly brutal when he tinker->DSC, I cast mage naming force of will and then plowed the DSC. I dropped a chalice for 0 as soon as I saw his pyrite spellbomb. My jitte equipped to a mishras (OMG 3 manaz!) every turn got me crazygonuts results. Vials were uberbroken every time I got them resolved, but they were always huge removal targets for his explosives. Overall, GiftsSalvagers is jank. If it was oath I would have been in a slightly worse situation.

Vs TPS

God I hate this matchup, but magic is magic so here I go. We played 6 games and went 3 - 3. I had to fight tooth and nail (not the card) for my victories, and his victories were a walk in the park. Naming tendrils of agony and mind's desire when he has no real creature removal outside of wishing (which I countered the hell out of) is tech. I boarded out my STP's game 2, but he brought in psychatog. FUCK. Tog wins vs fish without red when the white player stupidly boarded out the swords. Period. The rest of the games went back and forth like that with sideboards each time. It was fun, TPS is amazing, I have always loved it, and I'm glad to see that combo still has some sort of chane in the meta.

Vs Workshop Agro

Mike's Super-secret-tech-deck is really hush-hush. Its got beaters though, which makes the game interesting. All I can say is naming juggernaut or another fattie (even ones with removal) is a great way to make sure you can get counters on a jitte to take stuff out. We were 3 and 3 overall. Not bad for fish.

So this is my current decklist:

//Lands
2 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Island
1 Plains

// Creatures
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Meddling Mage

// Spells
4 AEther Vial
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Ideas Unbound
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald

[cryolyte]

Ideas Unbound, huh? How has that worked out for you? I see the obvious synergy with rootwalla, but aside from that how has it been treating you?

I have noticed that when things are going well you can easily unload your hand with this deck after a few turns (especially if you have had to force things), but I really don't see how this is better than brainstorm, or even standstill for that matter.   Plus it's a sorcery. Ew...

[Dralock]

Ideas, when used correctly with this particular set of creatures and the like, is ancestral recall #2. Many times I'll have a prohibitive chalice setting, or multiple vials in hand, or other such dead card situations that ideas will help overcome. You might say "then why run those cards?", but the truth of this deck is that it will shoot itself in the foot enough to keep control of the game that dead cards will happen. Also, with the higher non-permission card count in the deck, ideas lets you stay proactive.

All that being said, ideas is NOT a card to be played turn 2, unless you can lay out your entire hand, or swing for lethal damage with a mongrel.

[littlerabbit]

i wanted to know if someone as tryed
viridian zealot
he is 2/1 can kills lots of annoying artifacts or enchantment(oath future sight animate dead...)
beats for two like gaes skyfolk
i am trying it and i think he is a good choice
i have also thought of playing gilded drake+seal of removal or waterfront bouncer
(combo)aether vial+ gilded drake win you match against control
darksteell colossus..;
amazing against oath...
i have also tryed mistblade shinobi (don't laugh)
but i think it s not a good choice (even if it returns a colossus and can't be countered)
because opponent always go wishing for reb
it serves also against welder
he is obligated to return welder each turn and can't activate it
the cards which i think should be played are gilded drake and viridian zealot

[thokash]

I think Zealot is a pretty poor choice, even if it does have a neat special ability.  It is far too slow just to destroy artifacts/enchantments (ok, it costs the same as Naturalize IF you get to vial it out).  Gaea's Skyfolk has evasion over it, and doesn't die to one damage hits, and Zealot's major drawback of running it in the Skyfolk slot is that it isn't blue.  This really isn't a disruption/hate deck, its a fast tempo beatdown deck.

Gilded Drake is sideboard at best, and only if you see a stack of Oath or Tinker/Colossus

[cryolyte]

I have eschewed the 4x Gaea's Skyfolk for 2x Waterfront Bouncer and 2x Old Man of the Sea. Old man may not have evasion, but he can still beat if there is nothing to steal. I run 2 Gilded Drake in the sideboard and have stolen 2 DS Colossi now. With everyone and their brother running Tinker-Colossus the 2 Gilded Drake are staying put. They also are my Oath answers. I agree that Zealot isn't an optimal card for the reasons outlined by thokash.

[Sgt. Pepper]

Creatures (14)
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Wild Mongrel
3x Meddling Mage
3x Ninja of the Deep Hours
1x Darksteel Colossus

Spells (23)
4x Aether Vial
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
2x Umezawa’s Jitte
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Tinker
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk

Mana (23)
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra’s Factory
3x Tropical Island
3x Polluted Delta
2x Tundra
2x Flooded Strand
1x Island
1x Strip Mine
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus

Brainstorm > Standstill.  The way this deck is run, Brainstorm is just SOOO much better than Standstill.  Being able to respond to your opponents moves at instant speed, even if your only searching for 4 FoW, will make them think twice next time they cast their match winning card.

I have 3 questions for you:

- Why didn't you run a 4th Meddling Mage? Would you run one the next time you'll be playing WTF?

- With Brainstorm in the deck instead of Standstill, did you ever run out of gas or things to do? Was 5 fetchland and 1 Mystical enough to make Brainstorm good?

- How did the manabase workout for you? Did have any trouble getting the Mage into play? Did you have any troubles with Wasteland, Blood Moon or Back to Basics with only 1 Island?

[thokash]

- Why didn't you run a 4th Meddling Mage? Would you run one the next time you'll be playing WTF?

I would love more than anything to squeeze a 4th Mage in there, but my deck was packed to the max.  I guess the real reason I decided to stick with 3 was there is no real "meta" where I'm playing, so Tutor/Tinker/Colossus could handle a lot more of the random.decks, which I expected to see a lot more of than the combo decks that Mage typically hoses.

- With Brainstorm in the deck instead of Standstill, did you ever run out of gas or things to do? Was 5 fetchland and 1 Mystical enough to make Brainstorm good?

Brainstorm was nothing but good to me all day, and a much more proactivate approach than Standstill.  Countless times I could respond to a major threat of my opponent with Brainstorm to search for that Force (even if I didn't find it, my opponent would now know I had the ability to Brainstorm and might hold back until he has a counter backup himself), or just digging 3 cards and try to find my gamebreaking threat in Jitte or Tinker.  It even allowed me to keep not-so-great hands with maybe one blue source and a colourless Waste/Factory, and be able to try and find that next mana source.  The shuffle effects didn't play a major part, and I can't remember how much they helped, but normally if I get a resolved Jitte or Tinker from the Brainstorm its almost game so it didn't matter what I was topdecking.

- How did the manabase workout for you? Did have any trouble getting the Mage into play? Did you have any troubles with Wasteland, Blood Moon or Back to Basics with only 1 Island?

Well the manabase might look awful, and it probably is, but I can't stress enough how much Vial helps.  If I have a Vial out I can normally go ahead and search for that one island right off the bat so its a bit safer.  The only non-blue cards are the creatures, so I found myself mulliganing a lot towards a first turn Vial hand.  I would have only hardcast a creature maybe 1/4 times (ok, maybe a bit more with Rootwalla/Mongrel synergy with Ninja). Incidently I didn't see B2B or Blood Moon all day, and opponents saved their Wastes/Strips for my Factories or my Wastes themselves.

Hope this answers your questions!