As a card, I don't see how Aether Vial can be justified in Fish.

[Zeylon]

From what I can tell, traditional fish ran on average...

4 Factories, 14 creatures and 3 Null Rod

Vial fish is forced to run...

4 Factories, 12 creatures, 4 Aether Vial, 4 Chalice of the Void, -3 Business Spells found in Rod fish.

This just isn't worth it for the following reasons...

Null Rod is far superior to Chalice of the Void because Chalice of the Void is a dead card unless you're going first, and have it in the opening hand. Any other situation, it's close to worthless. Fish plays too many 1 drops and 2 drops to get a significant advantage by setting Chalice to anything but 0.

Fish's creatures traditionally suck. Your opponent is more concerned about your Force of Wills and even Dazes countering his key board clearers and card draweres than he is about your creatures. I can see how Ninja Stax maybe able to justify Vial though the deck isn't anything great IMO, but to play crappy creatures like Flying Men, Spiketail Hatchling, Cloud of Fairies, Icatian Javenleers, Weathered Wayfarer, how can anyone justify playing Vial? And no, a 1/1 that becomes a 3/3 after the fifth turn or so if you're lucky isn't much better. Countering key spells (and mana denial) is how Fish wins games, those 1/1s could be replaced with any generic win condition for all I care.

As you can see above, in Vial fish, you're only running ~12 creatures (not counting Factories since they can't be vialed out). That means that in your opening hand, you'll see maybe one creature. And eventually, over the course of several more turns, you may see 2 more creatures or so. Why in gods name would playing a crappy cheap creature every 3rd turn or so justify Vial in a deck that has nothing else to do with it's mana anyways?

If fish ran some 20+ creatures, or if it ran a lot of cards that use up mana forcing you to have to play your creatures for free, Vial maybe justified. As it is, it's not.

If you're really worried about your 1/1 flyer "threats" being countered, those 3 business spells you're cutting could be replaced with free counterspells (stuff like Misdirection, Daze or even Disrupting Shoals) to outcounter your opponent. And no, 1/1s and 2/2s that may become 3/3s and 4/4s after the fifth turn or so if you're lucky are still crappy creatures.

Ninja of the Deep Hours is one of the best fish creatures printed in a while. But it can't be played with Vial, so the only way to run it is to cut the number of creatures that can be vialed out, to an even lower number, like 10 or something. It just seems dumb to devote 4 slots to a card that makes 10 cards in your deck marginally better.

Fish's problem wasn't having it's threats countered. Fish's problem has always been having it's threats Lava Darted, or Fire/Iced, or Old Man of the Seaed (yes, those are verbs :p). Vial does nothing to address these problems. You're adding a solution to a problem that wasn't a big concern (having threats countered) by cutting business spells (free counterspells) that did address the bigger concern (cards like Fire/Ice and Old Man of the Sea)

In short, you're cutting your threats to an insanely low number, to the point where some hands you crap out and don't draw any threats, and even those hands that you do, you stand a good chance of having your one or two threats Fire/Iced or Swordsed or something because Vial does nothing in those situations. And you're also cutting business spells, just for a card that after a turn or two lets you play more than one creature a turn in those ever so rare hands where you actually draw more than one creature at a time. Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

So what am I missing? Are all these good players advocating the use of Vial a part of some secret unified attempt to bring down Fish because they are sick of having there $3000 decks lose to a crappy $30 deck?

[Grand Inquisitor]

Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

You're not alone.  When I think about Fish I house it inside of null rod decks which includes variations of fish, and other aggro-control decks like U/G madness and even Gro-Stilll (cough).  The point is, these decks (and Fish) seem relevant to me simply because null rod is a huge brick house against the T1 format in general.  I, like you, can't understand why people choose to give up the strongest card in their deck for uncounterability and cute tricks.  The only thing that irks me, is that people are winning with these decks.  However, the people I've seen do well with vial based decks are really pretty good players, like Method and Orlove.

This makes me think one of two things: either these guys know how to play aggro-control really well and could win no matter what variation they played, or they've put in the testing and know something you and I don't.

That being said, I always feel relieved when my opponent opens with'land, vial go'.

[Freelancer]

Your post seems to have all kind of misconceptions about fish.

First off you said several times that creatures that turn into 3/3's and 4/4's are still crappy, ah um thats birdsh*t your talking about. A completely different deck, fishies have always been 1/1's and 2/2's birdsh*t is a deck based around the same filosofie but with a completely different approach.

Next up is that you say crappy creatures and than sum up; Javeleneers, wayfarer, cloud and flying men. Not one build with aether vial is running these. Where did you get that from? Wu TANG fish maybe? That is again a completely different deck.

About the business cards; Most builds I have seen with vials have cutted 4x curiosity and added 4x ninja removing other creatures, this means that often a ninja and a random other creature is more than enough to keep vial busy and generate 4+ mana over several turns not to mention when a ninja draws into more creatures. Also you can count vial as a additional mana source (it often functions as such) which prevents mana screw.

So far most builds that run chalice can also set it at 1 because they cutted most of the 1 mana costing spells with the exception of vial.


The advantages of vial:
1) Is a mana source that can generate over the course of the game 4+ mana (the equivalent of 2 creatures)
2) Keeps your mana open to drop chalice (for 1) and standstill
3) Has insane synergy with standstill and man-lands (allows for more man-land activations)
4) Works very well with ninja of the deep hours and the ninja also has excellent synergy with meddling mage.
5) Your creatures are uncounterable, this is actually relevant for creatures like meddling mage.

The disadvantages of vial:
1) You can't run null rod with it
2) It sucks in multiples
3) It gets increasingly worse the longer the game progresses when you draw it. (ie. no vial in play, you hate drawing one on turn 2)

Thats quite a lot of things working for it I would say.


As an aside; I have yet to experience problems that I have a vial set at 2 but no creature to play, this is actually quite rare. If I have a vial set at 2 and no creature this either means; A) I should've mulliganed or B) I've dropped a chalice first turn and am busy activating man-lands or dropping standstills. This means that I don't really mind a vial with 2 counters in play, it simply means that every creature that I draw for the rest of the game (with the exception of ninja of the deep hours) is free and uncounterable. I hardly view that as a problem.


This is just my view of the point, I have decent experience with playing fish. And although vial has occasionally let me down in that I draw multiples or draw copies later in the game this was always offset by the advantages it has.

[Ivantheterrible]

  This is just my view of the point, I have decent experience with playing fish. And although vial has occasionally let me down in that I draw multiples or draw copies later in the game this was always offset by the advantages it has.

I'm going have to go ahead and kinda disagree with you there. You list 5 advantages and 3 disadvantages. Let me tell you something your disadvantages will add up to many more game losses than your advantages will add up to game wins. I have played fish a bit myself and a lot on the other side of the table. And I can assure you the card that I worried about the most when sitting acrosse from fish was Null Rod. The second most scary card is alittle 1 casting cost guy that everyones forgotten about. I'll give you a hint he's red and his meals are quite expensive. Between these two cards my opponet would eat my face.
I'll give you some examples. When I was playing slaver against fish without shamen I won alittle more than half my games. And the only card I lost to was null rod. When I played against another fish opponet who had shamen I only won about 50% of the games I played. If I were to play agianst U/W vial fish with slaver I think I would be extreamly happy. When I was playing fish myslef against Sensei Sensei I won the game by wastelanding lands stifiling a fetchland, playing null rod and eating his helms with my shamen.

Fish used to win by mana denial and that was a good way to win. Now, people seem to think that in type one they are somehow going to be able to race their opponet with equipment and vial. I dont think so. Jacob orlove is a good player but overall i think Starcity was a bit of a fluke I mean look at what won it.

Bottom line is if you dont run Null rod then your fish deck is suboptimal.

[carlossb]

This is the list of one of the most famous fish players,Marc Perez, who finished 34th at the last SCGTournament:

4 Aether Vial
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Mox Sapphire

4 Meddling Mage
2 Ninja Of The Deep Hours
4 Rootwater Thief
3 Voidmage Prodigy
3 Waterfront Bouncer

1 Seal Of Cleansing
4 Standstill

1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force Of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Time Walk

3 Island
3 Flooded Strand
1 Library Of Alexandria
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Old Man Of The Sea
1 Seal Of Cleansing
3 Serenity
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
1 Stifle
4 Swords To Plowshares

Note that he anticipated a great number of artifact decks (both Meandeck and TSB members played them), and included several Seals and Serenities in the SB.
It seems that the strategy of Chalices is superior to the Null Rod´s one.

[Revvik]

Are all these good players advocating the use of Vial a part of some secret unified attempt to bring down Fish because they are sick of having there $3000 decks lose to a crappy $30 deck?

Seconded. 
Although a Mox under Null Rod can still be welded out or Tinker'd for a threat that Fish can't deal with.  Hence, Chalice of the Void (used in some of the more recent Oath decks as well, although I hardly see people questioning that one).

carlossb: is pointing out that one of the most famous fish players (Marc Perez) finished in 34th place supporting or denouncing Zeylon's claim?

[Freelancer]

Chalice of the void serves as the main replacement of null rod, its essentially a 0 mana null rod turn 1. Besides you name control slaver as a match up that gets worse without lavamancer, well yeah obviously. But what has that to do with running vial or not? We are comparing the advantages and the disadvantages of vial here, not the advantages and disadvantages of Uw Fish VS Ur Fish. Thats a completely different discussion.

What disadvantages will cost me games? I can tell you that I won plenty of games on the backs of turn 1 vial turn 2 standstill. The biggest disadvantage it has in Fish builds is that you can not run null rod, this is partially offset by the fact that every vial build of fish I have seen so far has been running chalice of the void.

Bottom line is if you dont run Null rod then your fish deck is suboptimal.

Why? You name a couple of matchups, but really chalice of the void is a very strong replacement for null rod. And it will win you games just like null rod did.

It seems that the strategy of Chalices is superior to the Null Rod´s one.

No it does not, it merely proves that the best fish player in the world thinks it is. (which is a big point nonetheless)


As an aside: How can players EVER say a certain top 8 sucks? The players that won managed to beat the opposition, give them some credit. This is both for the American players that mock the France championships and the people that mock the SCG tournament. These people deserved what they got, they plowed through the opposition with solid decks for that metagame. Top 8 decks really do represent the field pretty damn good.


Ps. I edited my original post because I forgot a huge point, you can ignore mana drain and not cast a single spell besides aether vial while at the same time disrupting with your forces/dazes and creatures. Yes I won games because of that against competent control slaver players, they simply couldn't get there engine going. Null rod has the disadvantage in that when its drained and something ridiculous gets played (it happens a lot) you have often lost the game on the spot. Aether vial and chalice of the void come down turn 1 and avoid mana drain (even when they managed to get drain up turn 1 it hardly matters when they drain a vial or a chalice because they don't get more than 1 mana out of it). This will also win games.

[Jacob Orlove]

You can't vial out a ninja, but so what? You can use vial to replay the creature that the ninja bounced.

Freelancer is correct that Curiosities are the cards getting cut for Vials, if you compare the lists side by side. That's fine, because you have ninjas for draw, and not needing evasion lets you play good creatures, instead of 1/1 flyers for 2 mana. Vial is an absurdly good card--just look at other formats, where people were briefly calling for it to be banned (not just Standard, but Extended too). It's that good.

Chalice 0 is unbelievably strong even on the draw. It's not as good as on the play, but it's by no means "useless". Frankly, while Null Rod is amazing, it just isn't fast enough or effective enough anymore. You couldn't pay me to play a Null Rod fish deck in this metagame--Chalice is the only way to go.

Here's a novel idea: test the decks out. It seems like all the people arguing against Vial/Chalice fish are doing so based on theory, not practice.

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

Jacob and I started with the concept of chalice/vial then our team realized together how truly insane it.  Shortbus and other players have been telling me for weeks how insane it has been for them in testing.

Thats besides the point.

You really can't compare both lists because they play fundamentally different while their goal is the same.  As most of you know already the goal of a fish deck is to limit the ability of your opponent to play spells.  Rod fish achieves that through a combination of mana denial and countermagic.  Rod limits their mana while hatchling forces them to keep mana open.  They can then walk into daze or a force.  Along with strip affects the deck severly cripples your opponent ability to cast spells because they won't have the mana.

My fish decks goal is the same.  It tries to limit it's opponents ability to play spells.  The difference is my deck doesn't soley congregate around one strategy where as it adapts multiple strategies to win the game.  I try to disrupt my opponents tempo a LITTLE bit so my men like meddling mage and thief can remove the problem cards making them not an issue anymore. Jacob sticks a spike in his opponents tempo long enough for him to stick jitte to a green man and swings.  I've adapted this strategy over the traditional fish strategy because there are many instances where the ROD fish can be crippled by a good-awsome vintage hand, or can be easily dealt with sideboard cards (moreso in this format becacuse of the cardpool) then other formats.  They would lose if a suicide tinker resolved, or if welder stayed in play too long, or the game dragged on long enough where your opponent could steal back some of the lost tempo and swing the game with broken cards. Even though are builds are slightly different Jacob and I wanted to be able to address our issues in our decks.

Vial is a great card in my opinion because it gets around countermagic.  It makes every creature in my deck more of a threat because they are GA RUN TEE 'd to come out.  And because of this we can afford to run a better creature base. You can also still use your strip affects, attack with factory, cast standstill (which is insane with vial btw), and use SB cards while still being able to drop a dork on your turn or on your opponents EOT. 

Its fine if you want to discuss the viability and merits of a vial/chalice fish deck.  But it isn't right to compare it to other fish decks because though they look similar, they play very differently.

I hope ive elaborated a little bit, but theres still a TON more that i want to say so expect me to continue my post later on.

[Whatever Works]

.
The advantages of vial:
1) Is a mana source that can generate over the course of the game 4+ mana (the equivalent of 2 creatures)
2) Keeps your mana open to drop chalice (for 1) and standstill
3) Has insane synergy with standstill and man-lands (allows for more man-land activations)
4) Works very well with ninja of the deep hours and the ninja also has excellent synergy with meddling mage.
5) Your creatures are uncounterable, this is actually relevant for creatures like meddling mage.

The disadvantages of vial:
1) You can't run null rod with it
2) It sucks in multiples
3) It gets increasingly worse the longer the game progresses when you draw it. (ie. no vial in play, you hate drawing one on turn 2)

First off, I dont think Vial is worth running in fish, but i do respect the success of Method and Orlove with the deck. I do have a problem with the advantages/disadvantages comment, because  this argument for why vial is good to me is a much better display of why it is not.

Vial as a mana source advantage I dont buy for a second. Mana is rarely an issue, and tapping out with fish (or tapping partially out) is NEVER an issue. Its not like the deck runs Drains etc. Almost all of its counters are free.
The arguement about leaving mana open to chalice for 1 I think is a misconception first of all, but is chalice for 1 even that god like for fish? I know the card was great in mono blue, but dropping chalice for 1 does not help the deck gain any incredibly tempo boost (key word tempo) that other cards do. I think chalice goes completly against the whole principle of the deck, and chalice for 1 makes vial uncastable.

I have heard the arguement a billion times that it has insane synergy under standstill w/manlands etc. My question is doesnt the deck already have pretty good synergy under standstill w/o Vial??? Isnt running ninja of the deep hour and manlands enough??? Oh! and isnt it well known that good players usually immediatly break standstill, because playing draw go with fish under standstill will never ever win you the game unless your breaking at EoT to force them to discard???

The creatures uncounterable arguement is the 1 that I have the most issues with. It is incredibly unlikely that your opponent will counter all of your creatures, (you can give these perfect situational arguments all you want). The end result is that the opponent usually wants to counter the standstill, and try to win before whatever creatures hit the board get him to low. Vial #1 doesnt speed up the kill, and #2 is card disadvantage that could be used more approprietly in a form of denial that would likely make the creatures resolve easier OR keep them on the table.

Now the drawbacks listed is what makes the vial question so 1 sided to me. Running Vial means no null rod!!! The only reason most people fear fish is because of null rod. As an SSB player against fish I can say that I would feel pretty confident knowing that I dont have to worry about Null Rod, hell as a player of almost any tier 1 deck in type 1 right now i would be ecstatic to know that i wouldnt have to worry about Null Rod. Null Rod Is card advantage in that it can turn easily 3+ cards in an opponents opening hand into dead cards in the blink of an eye. While a first turn vial basically says I got 5 cards in hand... And you better be scared because if you dont have something by turn 3 I might play something. Personally, I would rather just play something turn 1-2 considering the deck doesnt need to be untapped to be effective like say Tog.

What i dislike the most about it is the card disadvantage, and how easily it can be shut down. Also running vial in any kind of mirror match vs. a fish deck that runs null rod usually means your going to lose the round or have an unfavorable matchup. Besides the fact that the deck will get run over by any kind of workshop aggro, and that most of the best hate provided to the deck in forms of serenity, etc. completly conflict with vial.

Bottom line is if you dont run Null rod then your fish deck is suboptimal.

Why? You name a couple of matchups, but really chalice of the void is a very strong replacement for null rod. And it will win you games just like null rod did.

I cant disagree more. There is a reason that there is an entire archtype of decks that are classified practicallly alone as "Null Rod Decks". Thats pretty high regard for a general hate/denial card. I have trouble even reffering to null rod as a hate card because its good against almost everydeck so to me its just a bomb.

As an aside: How can players EVER say a certain top 8 sucks? The players that won managed to beat the opposition, give them some credit. This is both for the American players that mock the France championships and the people that mock the SCG tournament. These people deserved what they got, they plowed through the opposition with solid decks for that metagame. Top 8 decks really do represent the field pretty damn good.

They can say a top 8 sucks because it is true. Also concerning SCG that was very misrepresented if you look at the people who finished 9th-16th... If you took 8 random decks from the top 16 the top 8 would look like your average top 8 for that designated metagame, but sometimes tiebreakers dont always go peoples way.

Kyle

[Whatever Works]

Its fine if you want to discuss the viability and merits of a vial/chalice fish deck.  But it isn't right to compare it to other fish decks because though they look similar, they play very differently

I cant agree more with this statement. The more I think about it (and test) it becomes incredibly evident that Vial Fish really plays NOTHING like fish. They have completly different strategies, and feel so different when you switch between them. This being said I think both are good, but which 1 you play should be based more on metagame. Though I feel that Null Rod is good in any metagame, and I cant say that about vial.

[Nantuko Rice]

Hopefully I'll have something new to add:

First of all, the original poster has several misconceptions:

Zeylon, you're mixing up several different decks...

Deck Name (misc, null rod or vial, creature base, draw engine)
Birdshit (fishlike but not fish, Null Rod, Threshold Beats, Mental Note)
Traditional Fish (Null Rod, horrible two drops, curiosity)
Ninja Fish aka Wu Tang Fish (Null Rod, one drops which enable ninja)
Vial Fish (Still lots of testing, Vial + Chalice, two drops, less card draw)
*All decks run standstill and a large degree of free counters

I believe the most important things to a fish deck are it's free counters coupled with mana denial and card draw to enable fish to actively draw into more free counters, more mana denial, and more small threats

I like the idea of Vial Fish, you gain alot of cute tricks and stuff, but I am still a firm believer in Null Rod Fish, not the traditional Rod Fish, but Ninja Rod Fish.

Ninja Fish vs Vial Fish
Standstill Synergy: A turn one flying man or turn one vial both have very good synergy with a turn two standstill. In the short run, turn one flying man will have the greatest advantage but in the long run turn one vial will have the advantage. But who is dumb enough to break standstill later in the game? Standstill is best broken immediately.
Mana: Both decks have a very low mana curve.
Counters: Ninja Fish never worries about having it's creatures countered. Mana Drain my one drop? Sure. Force of Will my first turn one drop? Good. I can then follow up with a real threat in the form of Null Rod or Meddling Mage. Vial Fish also doesn't have as many free counters. I wrote in an earlier post how I feel Daze is one of the best counterspells currently for an aggro-control deck and Vial Fish doesn't run any. Nor does it run misdirection. Misdirection and Daze let your creatures resolve.

Vial Fish and Ninja Fish may both be good against the field of other decks, but what will happen when they run into each other? Which will win?

I'm not slamming Vial Fish, I actually tried it earlier, but wasn't liking results. I feel that Null Rod is still superior to the combination of Vial and Chalice. Running Null Rod frees up 5 card slots. (3 null rod VS 4 vial and 4 chalice). It is suboptimal to run less than 4 of vial/challice because those are cards you really want in your opening hand, where as Null Rod isn't as important.

[Toad]

I've been playtesting my Gifts deck against both "Aether Vial + Chalice of the Void" Fish and Null Rod Fish. Based on that playtesting, I would say the Vial/Chalice build are far better against Gifts, for a couple reasons :

* Null Rod prevents you from using your Moxen, but does not prevent you from playing them. Since my basic game plan against Fish is to resolve a fast Tinker, not allowing the opponent to resolve Moxen is better there. I've won multiple games with Null Rod on the board I would have lost if that Null Rod had been a Chalice of the Void for 0.

* Aether Vial shuts down the Mana Drain engine. My basic game plan is to Mana Drain something that costs 2 by turn 2, if possible, even if that spell is totally irrelevant to my game plan. A first turn Aether Vial denies me that turn 2 Mana Drain, and the deck has serious issues working efficiently afterwards.

[Freelancer]

Vial as a mana source advantage I dont buy for a second. Mana is rarely an issue, and tapping out with fish (or tapping partially out) is NEVER an issue. Its not like the deck runs Drains etc. Almost all of its counters are free.
The arguement about leaving mana open to chalice for 1 I think is a misconception first of all, but is chalice for 1 even that god like for fish? I know the card was great in mono blue, but dropping chalice for 1 does not help the deck gain any incredibly tempo boost (key word tempo) that other cards do. I think chalice goes completly against the whole principle of the deck, and chalice for 1 makes vial uncastable.

Vial is a mana source in that it makes your creatures free, how can you argue with that? Instead of having to pay 2 mana for a creature you now get one for free every turn for the rest of the game. You can however argue that it isn't relevant as a mana source. Tempo: Mana advantage, vial is a card that gives you lots of mana advantage. Why do you think people play with cloud of faeries? Because its free and thus tempo advantage. Vial does this for all of your creatures. And you do need the mana to activate the man-lands, cast multiple creatures a turn or ninja out a creature. Or maybe cast a chalice for 1 if the situation warrants it. The chalice for 1 and a standstill where merely examples of what you could do with the mana you gained.
Chalice for 1 can only be dropped turn 2, aether vial comes into play turn 1. Spot the difference? A aether vial turn 2+ isn't very good at all. So most of the time you don't really care if you can't cast it.

I have heard the arguement a billion times that it has insane synergy under standstill w/manlands etc. My question is doesnt the deck already have pretty good synergy under standstill w/o Vial??? Isnt running ninja of the deep hour and manlands enough??? Oh! and isnt it well known that good players usually immediatly break standstill, because playing draw go with fish under standstill will never ever win you the game unless your breaking at EoT to force them to discard???

Against opposing fish decks or landstill a aether vial under a standstill is very strong, because your man-lands will be mostly shut down because of opposing wastelands and man-lands. A standstill could even backfire on you.
But besides that being able to drop on the third turn and on creatures under a standstill is still very strong, immediatley breaking the standstill the turn it comes into play is fine with me. I just gained a big advantage, if they don't and trie to screw me over wastelands while building up a strong hand than aether vial will give me the needed advantage. Not to mention that there will be times you draw a standstill with no man-lands and you have to wait a turn or more (depending if you want to cast a null rod or not).

The creatures uncounterable arguement is the 1 that I have the most issues with. It is incredibly unlikely that your opponent will counter all of your creatures, (you can give these perfect situational arguments all you want). The end result is that the opponent usually wants to counter the standstill, and try to win before whatever creatures hit the board get him to low. Vial #1 doesnt speed up the kill, and #2 is card disadvantage that could be used more approprietly in a form of denial that would likely make the creatures resolve easier OR keep them on the table.

People tend to counter a meddling mage pretty damn fast, they generally don't like it if there welders/tendrills/oath/whatever can't be played. Ditto for thief. Your creature are threats they don't want to have resolved. And a vial does speed up your kill, you can either drop more creatures on your second and third turn (when you have a creature heavy hand) or activate your man-lands while at the same time dropping creatures. Often times with regular fish you would have to first cast your critters and beat for 1 or 2 damage a turn and than start activating your man-lands, this was painfully slow. Now you get to drop creatures and activate man-lands, this can often mean twice the damage than usually.
I don't get the part about card disadvantage, are you talking here about virtual card disadvantage (which it is not either)? Because really a artifact that does something and progresses your strategy is not card disadvantage, read some articles on card advantage. They all refer to card drawing or trading 1 for 2+X, a resolved vial doesn't do any of those for your opponent. So explain.

Now the drawbacks listed is what makes the vial question so 1 sided to me. Running Vial means no null rod!!! The only reason most people fear fish is because of null rod. As an SSB player against fish I can say that I would feel pretty confident knowing that I dont have to worry about Null Rod, hell as a player of almost any tier 1 deck in type 1 right now i would be ecstatic to know that i wouldnt have to worry about Null Rod. Null Rod Is card advantage in that it can turn easily 3+ cards in an opponents opening hand into dead cards in the blink of an eye. While a first turn vial basically says I got 5 cards in hand... And you better be scared because if you dont have something by turn 3 I might play something. Personally, I would rather just play something turn 1-2 considering the deck doesnt need to be untapped to be effective like say Tog.

Again every deckt that runs a aether vial is also running chalice of the void, which serves a very similar function as null rod. It just gets dropped for zero ZERO mana. A 2 mana difference is in such a fast metagame quite significant.
A null rod is never card advantage, it can be virtual card advantage. If you want to use these terms know what they mean.

What i dislike the most about it is the card disadvantage, and how easily it can be shut down. Also running vial in any kind of mirror match vs. a fish deck that runs null rod usually means your going to lose the round or have an unfavorable matchup. Besides the fact that the deck will get run over by any kind of workshop aggro, and that most of the best hate provided to the deck in forms of serenity, etc. completly conflict with vial.

Actually vial fish has a advantage in the mirror, because the opponent has to shut down the vial with a 2 mana artifact that does nothing else. If they don't you gain so much tempo advantage that often you will simply overrun them.
Oh and I don't mind to trade there entire board position for my vial and my serinity. Do you? Besides one of there most potent non-creature weapons against fish gets shut down by vial (talking about chalice of the void).

I cant disagree more. There is a reason that there is an entire archtype of decks that are classified practicallly alone as "Null Rod Decks". Thats pretty high regard for a general hate/denial card. I have trouble even reffering to null rod as a hate card because its good against almost everydeck so to me its just a bomb.

Where did I ever classified null rod as a general hate/denial card?

They can say a top 8 sucks because it is true. Also concerning SCG that was very misrepresented if you look at the people who finished 9th-16th... If you took 8 random decks from the top 16 the top 8 would look like your average top 8 for that designated metagame, but sometimes tiebreakers dont always go peoples way.

Getting into a top 16 of a large tournament is a accomplishment in and of itself. Tie breakers are the best way to determine the top 8, it might be a bit random from time to time but there really isn't anything that can replace it. Unless ofcourse you have a better idea? Apparantly the top 8 played against better opponents, so yeah most of them deserved to get a spot in the top 8. For the other 8 players tough luck, better luck next time.

Its fine if you want to discuss the viability and merits of a vial/chalice fish deck.  But it isn't right to compare it to other fish decks because though they look similar, they play very differently.

Agreed

[Whatever Works]

A null rod is never card advantage, it can be virtual card advantage. If you want to use these terms know what they mean.

Calling me on Card advantage vs. Virtual card advantage is pretty technical, and I am pretty sure I know what they mean. However, How i stated my arguement it can be clearly assumed what I was reffering to. Null Rod generates card advantage (not through actual draw), but by nullifying multiple cards by just itself.

Also almost none of the the arguements about chalice hold up if the deck is on the draw. While if you draw null rod turn 5 its just as good as it would be turn 2, and that can clearly not be said about chalice. Vial does create a mana advantage as you said, but the question is who cares??? Almost all the spells are cheap anyway... Faeries lets you untap... Ninjitsu costs 2... I just dont see this advantage your stating to be all that important.

[jpmeyer]

A turn 5 Null Rod is nowhere near as good as a turn 2 Null Rod.  That means that your opponent got to have a mana advantage against you for 3 extra turns!  That's a lot of time.

Just because the turn 5 Null Rod will still technically make the Moxes that are in play useless is irrelevent if the opponent already got the use that he needed out of them.

[J J P]

While a Null Rod that hits the board on turn 5 is obviously not as good as a turn 2 Null Rod if Moxen are already in play a Chalice would be a completly dead card in this situation. Null Rod also stops many other stuff (even if he is played later than turn 2) that isn't affected by Chalice at all. IMO Chalice is a way more situational card than Null Rod in Fish and AEther Vial may allow for cool tricks but these are again very situational and not useful enough to justify Vial+Chalice instead of Null Rod.

As mentioned earlier IMHO Vial+Chalice is worse than Null Rod and takes up more slots. Vial and Chalice do have their uses but definitly not in a Fish deck that is incapable of abusing their advantages.

[Nantuko Rice]

I've been playtesting my Gifts deck against both "Aether Vial + Chalice of the Void" Fish and Null Rod Fish. Based on that playtesting, I would say the Vial/Chalice build are far better against Gifts, for a couple reasons :

Toad, are you playing against Traditional Null Rod Fish or Ninja Rod Fish? In my last post, I compared Vial Fish and Ninja Rod Fish as the two current most viable fish decks, because the traditional null rod fish builds play bad creatures (cloud of faeries). Ninja Rod Fish plays turn one drops, turn two must counters backed by daze whereas traditional fish wastes the first turn and tries to play something stupid on turn two like cloud of faeries.. Tinker for Colossus can also be answered by Meddling Mage or Swords. I'm not scared to name restricted cards with Meddling Mage.

[Toad]

I have no clue about what you call "Ninja Rod Fish". I've been playing against UW Fish, with Meddling Mages, Swords to Plowshares, Null Rods, Rootwater Thieves, Ninja of the Deep Hours, Standstills and some other standard UW Fish cards. I've also been playtesting against UGw Threshold, which has a far faster clock than UW Fish thanks to the Green thresholded creatures, and there again Null Rod is less dangerous than Chalice of the Void. No Cloud of Faeries in these decks.

[Discozombie]

Instead of Null Rod or Chalice how about Pithing Needle?  Seems to have great synergy with Meddling Mage.  Has anyone tried running True Believers...

[Nantuko Rice]

Toad: When I say "Ninja Rod Fish" I mean "Wu Tang Fish", which doesn't have many two drops that you can drain, and the two drops that it plays will be backed by a counterwall. I'm guessing that UGw Threshold is aka Birdshit, which has a mana base ripe for wastelanding. Decks with terrible manabases shouldn't exist in a diverse metagame because of the chance of running into a deck packing wastelands (how many decks play wasteland? every workshop and aggro/aggro-control deck, which is becoming quite popular again).

Discozombie: Pithing Needle doesn't do any of the things that Chalice and Null Rod do. Chalice and Null Rod are included in Fish to shut off mana acceleration. Pithing Needle doesn't do this.

[Toad]

The mana base problems UGw Threshold might encounter when facing multiple Wastelands is hardly an issue against Gifts because of the 0 Wastelands. This deck has approximatively the same disruption elements than UW Fish (Force of Wills, Null Rods, Dazes, Misdirections, Wastelands) but a far faster clock (1/1 1-drops and 2/2 2-drops vs. 3/3 1-drops and 4/4 2-drops). And I've hardly had problems against Threshold because of the heavy counter base, the maindeck Duresses, the 4 basic lands + 4 fetchlands configuration I'm running maindeck. Post board, I tend to run 3 Flametongue Kavus and a couple of REB/Pyroblast, which make the matchup even better, especially when they start naming Tinker or Gifts Ungiven with Meddling Mages. Game 1, Null Rod is a minor annoyance (the biggest problem are the dead Phyrexian Furnaces), and game 2 and 3 I don't really care about It since my biggest threats are the Kavus and the Furnace are boarded out.

I've browsed for your Ninja Rod Fish lists from Waterbury. I had been playtesting against similar decklists designed by a friend in April, and never had serious issues with beating them, especially with the boarding configuration I described above. Game 1 was pretty even, but game 2 and 3 were strongly to my advantage because of the strategic superiority of my boarding plan and my threat diversity for resiliency to Meddling Mage. Lots of games 1 are won through tutoring for Burning Wish grabbing the 1R Wrath of God, aka Pyroclasm. Most of the games I lost were due to Rootwater Thief, which he was running. Most of the other creatures cards are usually irrelevant.

[Moxlotus]

Do the people who are saying that Chalice+Vial are bad basing this on theory or testing results?  A lot of that side's arguments seem to be based on theory.

The amount of times where turn 5 null Rod>turn 5 Chalice wins you the game is significantly less than turn 1 Chalice would be better than turn 2 Null Rod.  Besides, most of the time Null Rod reads "allow opponent to cast Gifts Ungiven of 1U or Intuition for U during his next mainphase."

[Freelancer]

The amount of times where turn 5 null Rod>turn 5 Chalice wins you the game is significantly less than turn 1 Chalice would be better than turn 2 Null Rod.  Besides, most of the time Null Rod reads "allow opponent to cast Gifts Ungiven of 1U or Intuition for U during his next mainphase."

Precisely, the biggest problem I encountered against the decks that null rod is best against (drain slaver/sensei sensei) was that they simply went turn 1 brainstorm, turn 2 mana drain than turn 3 brokenness way to often on me (or some other variation thereoff). Chalice and 1 drops (vial) nicely evade this problem.

[Jacob Orlove]

Oh, another advantage to Chalice 0 is that it nullifies library. If they're on the play, they hold back artifacts and walk into the Chalice, and you smile. Once Chalice is out, they can't use free artifacts to regain the tempo library costs them, so you can exploit that short term advantage.

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

chalice on one stops a lot of the cards fish doesn't like to see, stp, reb, welder, grim lavamancer, lava dart, etc.  And my countermagic is defense because my creatures are offensive. thats why there are no dazes. there is also no daze because in the land of 2 drops returning 1 to your hand early on isn't fun times.

[Imsomniac101]

Null Rod is just plain superior to Chalice of the Void + Aether Vial because Vial +Chalice takes up 6-8 spaces in the main deck as opposed to just 3. This is a bit like the Intuition + AK vs Scrying argument. Also, Null Rod affects moxen already on the table whereas Chalice is little good outside the turn one window.

Null Rod walking into drain is pretty stupid. Any decent Fish or Birdshit deck should be able to win counter wars vs control.

@ Orlove:
that example with Library is pretty narrow. If I were playing control (I assume your playing control if you play Library), I would much rather play Land, Duress first to find out what the opponent is playing and also as disruption. And if you knew that you were up against Fish you wouldn't drop Library first, in fear of wastes.

[Toad]

Null Rod is just plain superior to Chalice of the Void + Aether Vial because Vial +Chalice takes up 6-8 spaces in the main deck as opposed to just 3.

Your comparison is flawed. Why would you ever compare Aether Vial and Null Rod? These have nothing in common. The only thing you can compare here is Chalice of the Void vs. Null Rod. And Chalice of the void takes 4 slots, Null Rod 3 (usually).

Aether Vial is just a card you run when you choose to go Chalice of the Void because you can run It, and It's very good.

Furthermore, as It has already been said, a mid game Null Rod is not really good because your opponent has already been able to abuse his mana acceleration.

Jacob and Ashok have not decided to run Aether Vial and Chalice of the Void because It's cool. They based their choice on playtesting, and their playtesting cessions have shown that this setup was better than the standard Null Rod one. This is not a theoretical choice. The fact that Marc Perez also used this setup speaks by itself.

[Vegeta2711]

Null Rod is just plain superior to Chalice of the Void + Aether Vial because Vial +Chalice takes up 6-8 spaces in the main deck as opposed to just 3. This is a bit like the Intuition + AK vs Scrying argument. Also, Null Rod affects moxen already on the table whereas Chalice is little good outside the turn one window.

Null Rod walking into drain is pretty stupid. Any decent Fish or Birdshit deck should be able to win counter wars vs control.

I'm sorry, your logic fails on infinity levels.

First off, I can't think of how the Intuition + AK analogy holds up at all. Let's ponder this for a moment, Accumulated Knowledge is a sub-par cantrip by itself and NEEDS Intuition to be worthwhile. Chalice of the Void is good by itself and Aether Vial is good by itself. If you didn't want too, you don't need to play the cards togheter (Why you'd want too, I can't imagine) and they won't lose effectiveness.

And yes, Chalice isn't as effective if your opponent can drop artifact mana on the table. The key to the card is you can still play it on 0 for free and stop future artifact mana or play it on 1 if you want to stop other annoying spells. Null Rod is also going to come down on turn 2 typically, which means they still typically get a usage out of their moxen as one-shots. Plus they stay in play to be abused by Tinker or Welder even after Rod is on the table.

Obviously walking a exposed Null Rod into a Drain is stupid, but shockingly enough you can't always force through an early game Null Rod. Or even if you do, you had to expend so many resources on it, it ends up not being worth it. Playing Null Rod early is good, but sometimes it's not an optimal play and other times if you try to force it early you'll walk into Drain.

Fish with Aether Vial and Chalice of the Void is good, it's proven itself to be better than Null Rod Fish in testing (Damn, Meandeck, Shortbus and Reflection all agree on something), has tourney results and even in basic theory it's an effective combination whether it be JOrlove's WTF (UG Fish) or Method's Daring DanDan's (UW Fish) using the setup. Hell here's a hint, try using this kind of setup in other decks like UG / UGw Thresh or replacing Null Rod in UG Madness with cards that actually DO THINGS. Yes Null Rod is good, no it doesn't magically suck now, but when decks upgraded and Fish disruption stayed mostly the same this has proven to be more effective. Let the stigma of Null Rod being the end-all be-all go away now. These new aggro-control decks aren't just 53 bad cards, 4 Force of Will and 3 Null Rod anymore.

 Of course after people finally accept using this set it'll take another 3-4 months before anyone bothers to try something new. Again. 

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

yea vial is insane on its own.

Its insane in a lot of aggro strategies, go try some out.