Black Fish

[waSP]

The biggest problem you have with the deck is Tinker->Colossus.  If you aren't running Colossus removal, you're not coming up with a viable list.  Okay.

Also, let me makes something more clear.  Vial isn't about speed, it's about resource advantage.  You use your mana for better things in the early game.  Turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Chains of Mephistopheles.  Turn 1 Vial, Duress.  Vial let's you do things like activate Withered Wretch or equip Umezawa's Jitte immediately.

Start running Blue.  It is excellent.  Waterfront Bouncer, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, and that new U/B, U/B card that counters fetches and Tinker.  That'll make Vial a much better card.

[twiggy]

I tested out the version I posted above and found it to be very fun but very inconsistent.  Sometimes there would be amazingly explosive starts and sometimes I would be dead before I did anything relevant.
As cheap as everything is it still seems to want more acceleration.  I toyed around with taking out some of the swamps for other moxen but it got a bit touchy with a lot of the BB costs.  Then I toyed around with taking out some strips for moxen but then it couldn't stop the other decks from gaining as much momentum.
It often feels like it should be working and just falls short.

[lordmayhem]

Just a random thought but has anyone thought about Plaguebearer as a way to deal with Welders, Still's man-lands, Gorilla-Shaman, DoJ tokens......etc ? Seems like a decent utility creature in my opinion.

I like Needles for a variety of reasons. Suffice to say, it shuts down decks long enough to lead to victory and as such I think that they need to stay.

[twiggy]

There were some posts a few pages back in the thread talking about plaguebearers.  While I really like the card (mainly for multiplayer) it ddidn'tquite seem to fit right.  I was trying to use engineered plague the SB as a facsimile. 

After testing my SB was about as bad as i expected.  And the loss of negator beef is a real downer.  I may end up trying to take out the skirges and swap them in?  Maybe take out 4 skirges for 3 negators and an edict?  Tough call for me because the list felt pretty tight and the skirges were the only form of evasion.

Admittedly my testing is stunted.  Goldfishing only goes so far and trying to play both sides of the table is a mess. My play group mostly consists of people that I have tought and have  smaller card pools.  I live in Richmond, so I would love to take the deck to try out this weekend....   If confidant were legal...  If the SB was functional... 

Edit : I can't spell for shit.

[lordmayhem]

Engineered Plague is a tried and tested enchantment that owns face, however Plaguebearer can be Vialed in since its only 2 mana and thus won't be drained.

Skirge is definitely great, seeing as its the only creature with flying, netting you those Jitte counters. Dauthi Slayer and Foul Imp would probably be good too, just for the evasion.

I would probably go

-2 Swamp
-1 Snow Swamp
+1 Bayou
+1 Delta
+1 Mire

in the maindeck and cut the Bayou's from the SB. You'd be making up for non-basic hate by running more fetches and clearing up the sideboard for some good cards.

Would Deed be worthy of consideration twiggy?

[twiggy]

Ah... plaguebearer, sorry, i was thinking of plague spitter. 

I think you might be looking at a different decklist.  Mine is in reply #173 on page 6.  Deed would be a bit difficult with my list with the low curve it has.

[lordmayhem]

Sorry about the mixup. I was looking at Boltbait's list 

EDIT: I like your list actually, with the exception of Imperial Seal. I think Pithing Needle should definitely be fitted in. Oh and I REALLY love Confidant in that build. Great with Chains. 

[twiggy]

Yeah, the seal was a bad call.  Swapped out for Dem. Consult.

What would you suggest swapping out for the needles?   Maybe swap out the oppressions for needles in the SB?

[Das_Boot]

Here is my list:

Creatures (16)
4x Dark Confidant
4x Phyrexian Negator
4x Mesmeric Fiend
4x Withered Wretch

Disruption (19)
4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Chains of Mephistopheles
3x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Chalice of the Void

Mana (25)
4x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
4x Dark Ritual
7x Swamp
4x Fetches

SB:
4x Shadow of Doubt
4x Pithing Needle
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Null Rod
2x open

This is what I am playing right now.  I think that 4 Chalice maindeck are necessities, because turn 1 Chalice on the play is just so so so good.  Cabal Therapy provides another one-srop targeted discard spell, and it has great synergy with Fiend and Duress.  Negator I would never play as anything less than a 4-of, because it is that important to get pressure on the opponent.  That is a major part of why Jitte is so good too.

Tutors are mostly bad.  Consultation is ok because of its instant speed and no card disadvantage, but Seal and Vamp and Demonic just aren't good in the deck.

Confidant allows you to outdraw really any deck, and sets up for vicious turns 2 and 3.

The three cards that I would entertain ideas about cutting are Jitte, Chalice, and maybe Cabal Therapy, and I could only see myself doing that to move one of my SB cards maindeck (Shadow of Doubt?) or to add Blue.

Vial is good, but what do you cut for it?  This deck, with the exception of Negator, really is far more control than aggro, so you need to deal with your opponent more than they need to deal with you.  Vial, if you cut Moxen for it, severely hurts this because your turn one becomes much less effective in controlling them, and they can mostly ignore your Vial, since Tinker is their real plan here, and Vial doesn't affect that.  If you add it in addition to Moxen, your deck has about 28-29 mana sources, far too many.

Cards like Plaguebearer and Skittering Skirge are unnecessary, because the deck already has far better disruption and far better clocks.

[BruiZar]

Hunted horror seems like an infinitely better choice than negator as it is

Vialable on 2 counters instead of 3, which makes oh so much difference with negator. Remember, negator is about speed, vial is about resources. If you upgrade your vial to 3 you will lose resources because all the creatures with 2CC are not vialable anymore.

If you play a turn 4 Negator, expect to either be dead, or remove all your permanents due to a trisk or a sundering titan, DSC trampling all over you.

Besides that, waterfront bouncer should definately be in there, along with cabal therapy or deep analysis, i´d prefer therapy so you can keep playing dark confident.

Why sideboard Shadow of Doubt. All decks at this point have some form of library searching, be it fetch, tinker, demonic, vampiric, seal, gamble, intuition, gifts, survival.. At it´s worst it will read, cycling 2, otherwise it will read instantspeed sinkhole draw a card opponent loses 1 life OR instantspeed DSC answer OR gifts answer.

Do you know any deck that sideboards out its fetch or tutors because i dont. So there is no reason not to play it since its so mainstream. Heck you can even kill recruiter and matron with it. What deck do you expect to be invulnurable from shadow of doubt because that will be a rogue deck. I´d rather sideboard it out then sideboard it in.

[twiggy]

4 moxen and 4 cotv? Do you have problems with those working against each other a little and providing dead draws?

Tutors are mostly bad.  Consultation is ok because of its instant speed and no card disadvantage, but Seal and Vamp and Demonic just aren't good in the deck.

Maybe it's personal tasted but I cant think of any black deck I have ever built that didn't want demonic tutor in it.  Hell, I want to put it in my t2 decks.  I prefer it to dem. consult.  but they both have their advantages.

[TheWayOfNoWay]

Yawgmoth's Will?

This post violates several of our forum rules. It lacks content, and (possibly worse) the issue you bring up has already been adressed in this very same thread. Consider this a verbal warning.   - Bram

[Ozymandias]

The problem with running Will is that you don't really have too many broken Sac-ables. Whereas in gifts you'll be able to go Will, lotus, ancestral, time walk, Tinker pretty easily, in Here the bes't you'll get is like ritual, duress, whisper.

Why's nobody running Necro, though? If it comes down, your opponent is pretty screwed. It's also amazing under Chains.

Also, is Colossus hosing necessary maindeck?

[Boltbait]

Necro always seemed like an auto include, but I hated it every time it came out. It just doesn't seem to fit well in the deck.

Das Boot: How have you fared w/o running vials? Are you in a metagame where you don't see much control? Even with discard, it seems like you need vial for tempo and to get through decks with hordes of countermagic.

[Arvid]

@Das_Boot:

How do you play Shadow of Doubt? Only with Mox Sapphire and Black Lotus? You should at least put 1 Underground Sea in between main and sideboard, and while you're at it add 1 Ancestral Recall and 1 Time Walk aswell.

[Boltbait]

Shadow of Doubt can be played with a CC of

BB
UU
BU.

He's just paying BB.

[Arvid]

Sorry, my mistake. Didn't read nor remember the card properly.

[Jacob Orlove]

This thread is degenerating. If people want to continue discussing this archetype, start a new thread with all the relevant information in one post, rather than scattered across a half dozen pages.

Closed.