Black Fish

[cssamerican]

I would think a small splash of blue for Time Walk would be an improvement. Getting another turn to attack can make a big difference in a lot of games for a deck like this. A couple of blue cards in the sideboard could give you possible solutions to artifact decks if the need arose, or give you access to Chill in the sideboard. Though I am not sure how much Chill would help in the FCG match-up, but it might be worth a shot.

Speaking of the FCG match-up, has anyone tried [card]Echoing Decay[/card]? It should be able to keep the Piledrivers from just crushing you until your Jitte can make some type of impact, and it would be pretty good versus Fish and WW if those deck turned out to be a problem. This isn't tested or anything, it just seemed like the most obvious solution to the FCG match-up, yet no one had mentioned it. So, I wasn't sure if people have overlooked this card or not.

Oh, if you want a fast clock for the other two drop slot don't forget Flesh Reaver. Of course if your playing against creature heavy decks the Reaver sucks, but against control and combo you won't find a faster creature in that slot.

[Disburden]

I was looking at flesh reaver today and I thought it was worth testing. The set back of him was kinda making me hesitate to try him out but now that other members are also thinking of it I think it might be worth a test or two. Right now im testing skittering skirge and he's been good, since he has flying. Even if he gets sacced later on he still does damage before hand, which always comes in handy with a deck like this.

[absolute]

3x Wretched Anurid
4x mesmeric fiend
4x negator
4x withered wretch

4x aether vial
4x chalice of the void
4x duress
4x night's whisper
3x umezawa's jitte
1 x vampiric tutor
1x demonic tutor
1x necropotence

1x sol ring
1x mox jet
1x black lotus
4x dark ritual
11x swamp
4x wasteland
1x strip mine

Sideboard-
3x Engineered Plague
3x Diabolic Edict
2x Chains
1x Jitte
4x Plague Spitter
2x Cabal Therapy

^ This is what I've been testing with, although I have found the Rotting Giant seems to be a very good substitute to the Anurid, as I usually have something in my graveyard by the time I play him. Only a bit more testing and I have gone 1-0 Verses Oath (Very Luckily I might add, dropping a Anurid under vial, and attaching a jitte and swinging before oath resolved, and making him a 7/7 for the rest of the game), and....

2-0 against control slaver, in which I dropped chalice for 0 both games, and drew and casted chalice for 1 the second, ending any chance of a comeback before my creatures ate away at his life. Wretch was key here and without welder becomming active in time, it allowed me to remove all threats.

2-0 against Birdshit... both games were pretty handily met... first game the mongoose got denied by wretch, second wretch was out too late, and a null rod came down rendering my THREE vials useless (that were at 2,1,1 counters respectively). Luckily Negator came down and evened the playing field, and giving me something to do with my 3 vials. 

2-1 against Dragon... all three games were extremely close, with the first going off second turn, after a first turn duress finding me nothing, as it was countered (if memory serves). Second game I managed to get an active wretch, which was answered with a cursed scroll, which was promptly answered by wastes keeping him at 2 mana and allowing me to win the game. The final game brought me a wretch my first turn off a dark ritual, along with a chalice, and the mana removing my ritual. From then on I built up mana and dropping a fiend to grab an intuition second turn (probably saving me the game), and finally a jitte with 4 mana leaving two open, which removed 2 dragons. This is by far the most suprising matchup so far... I would have assumed this to be much better, but it is a very close game.

Finally, ....

0-1 against Cerebral Assassin. This should be something as a lesson, although I dont think I was going to recover from duress being forced into ruby, crypt, lotus, thirst, and ancestrall dropping Sundering and animating off a Underground from the TFK. To add insult to injury I was faced with a second turn Will... Take it as a loss, but I was faced with almost impossible odds here.

I'll be testing with the other creatures mentioned, and so far I've been pretty happy with the deck. I've even stumbled accross the mirror, which I went 0-2.  :shock:

[normalbrains]

FCG: 0-4 - Omg this matchup was hard. Gempalms for your negators, their creatures are just better than yours and they can combo off. Jeez.

how about black night or another cheap first striker? also what about mutilate? are they killing you before turn four?

cerebal assassin: 2-0 - With the wretches and graverobbers, it is very hard for them to reanimate anything. The duresses, fiends and CotV are just icing.

Jacob Orlove's WTF: 1-4 - In theory, the matchup should be even but in reality it doesn't seem so. They have more draw than you and with vial set at 2, it makes it hard to swing with a negator having them vial out a mongrel and/or rootwaller gang (its happened more than once). Also, whispers are suboptimal in this matchup as well because it just makes the mongrel lethal that much more faster.

are you using perish in the SB? i think 2x chains of meph maindeck would help against so many decks.

oath: 1-2 - As soon as oath hits the tables, its gg. You definitely create a fast clock but if they oath up akroma, you might as well start scooping up the cards.

what about running 4x maze of ith in the SB for this matchup? would it be too hard to get 2 of them out to stop the beats? seems like it would neutralize the threat pretty easily

Sligh: 0-2 - Yea. This was bad. But I assume every deck packing burn sucks vs this deck like burning dryad and r/g beats.


Stax: 4-2 - This is definitely one of the better matchups. The only thing that sucks is big ole plats and sundering titan

my only other comment or suggestion is that night's whisper seems to be sub-optimal to me. paying two mana and two life for 1 net card gain at sorecery speed is lame.

[o]

I've been running this list:

3x skittering skirge
4x mesmeric fiend
4x negator
4x withered wretch

4x aether vial
4x chalice of the void
4x duress
1x cabal therapy
3x night's whisper
3x umezawa's jitte
1x vampiric tutor
1x demonic tutor
1x necropotence

1x sol ring
1x mox jet
1x black lotus
4x dark ritual
11x swamp
4x wasteland
1x strip mine

Sideboard-
3x Echoing Decay
4x Diabolic Edict
2x Chains
1x Jitte
3x Plague Spitter
2x Cabal Therapy

A few notes:

Skirges are excellent. Truly awesome.  The evasion is so great.  A jitte on a skirge is game over to soooo many decks.  Best creature I've ever run in that slot.

Necropotence has just been ass every time I've drew it.  I always have to tap out to cast it (if I can cast it), and I don't wanna draw cards at the end of turn; I want them now.  Definately could be something a lot better.

Artifact decks are probably your best matchup.  Upwards of 65% in your favor.  The worst thing they can do is tinker -> colossus, and you should have edicts in anyways.

Fish and WTF are really really hard.  Not unwinable, but they're creatures are a lot better than yours (WTF in particular).  For example, two games in a row I got off a quick Negator and mana denial and dropped my opponent down to 5, only to have a mongrel get in the way and sweep things up for him.  I want something better in the board than Echoing Decay and Plague Spitter to bring in against these decks (though Diabolic Edict is OK).

[garlick]

Fish and WTF are really really hard.  Not unwinable, but they're creatures are a lot better than yours (WTF in particular).  For example, two games in a row I got off a quick Negator and mana denial and dropped my opponent down to 5, only to have a mongrel get in the way and sweep things up for him.  I want something better in the board than Echoing Decay and Plague Spitter to bring in against these decks (though Diabolic Edict is OK).

Hi, I was probably your opponent on apprentice today with WTF, we played on mIRC

I was also interested in this deck and I want to compare it with other tempo-creatures decks, such as WTF. I confirm that Skirges are really good versus aggro for their evasion. Have you tested against combo? It seems that you have not good chances of winning. What can we side in? Any idea?

Bye

[Disburden]

Skirges are excellent. Truly awesome.  The evasion is so great.  A jitte on a skirge is game over to soooo many decks.  Best creature I've ever run in that slot.

Necropotence has just been ass every time I've drew it.  I always have to tap out to cast it (if I can cast it), and I don't wanna draw cards at the end of turn; I want them now.  Definately could be something a lot better.

After hearing the suggestion of skittering horror, skittering skirge came to mind right away. I'm glad I posted on it, now more people will see how great it is in this deck. I've been using it for 3 days now and I feel content with the slot we've been so trying to perfect since this thread started. EVERYONE, use the skirge, I'm telling you it's great!

As far as necropotence..It's one of my favorite cards ever, but you're right, it does sit in your hand way too often. This isn't combo after all. I've been able to cast it turn one a few times and do some neat things with it on turn three (takes a turn to get the cards, which sucks in this deck), but I would've been happy just vialing out a negator and slamming face inside out.

What to do about this slot?

[absolute]

Combo seems to have a decent matchup when you can cabal therapy, fiend, duress, chalice and run chains after the board. The only real combo that I've played is dragon, which is highy in your favor if you can drop a withered wretch and eliminate the dragons. I still had to dismantle combo pieces, but mulling into a good hand has helped that out.

Also, necropotence should probably be replaced with Night's Whisper since the card draw is a must, and being able to use that slot a turn earlier will be a good swap being that its disadvantage coincides with the advantage gained. Finally, the skirge I've only goldfished with, but it seems it isn't a bad card decision, and makes the Cabal Therapy that much easier after boarding, and can block Akroma's fat ass in a pinch, and stands a chance to kill her if a jitte becomes active.

[cssamerican]

Finally, the skirge I've only goldfished with, but it seems it isn't a bad card decision, and makes the Cabal Therapy that much easier after boarding, and can block Akroma's fat ass in a pinch, and stands a chance to kill her if a jitte becomes active.

Ackroma has protection from black.

[o]

Ok... after going through a list of possible answers to fish, I've come up with only a few good ideas.  Infest is a possibility in that it sweeps the board pretty clean, but doesn't do much more than that.

Howabout Bane of the Living?  It's a creature, which is a huge plus, and it can infest the board, OR even more than that. At an infest level, it also lives to tell the tale and is a sizeable 4/3.  So against fish I would...

-4 Chalice
-4 Negator
-1 Duress
+4 Diabolic Edict
+4 Bane of the Living
+1 Jitte

Well, it's at least a possibility.

[absolute]

Finally, the skirge I've only goldfished with, but it seems it isn't a bad card decision, and makes the Cabal Therapy that much easier after boarding, and can block Akroma's fat ass in a pinch, and stands a chance to kill her if a jitte becomes active.

Ackroma has protection from black.

Noted, actually I had forgotten to fix my post afterwards, in hindsight I was a little too tired at the time. Good catch I suppose... as for the bane, I will test it, but I highly doubt it will be a card that will prove to be useful in the long run. I feel that as a sideboard card, it is a somewhat narrow and situational card.

[Nastaboi]

Why is everyone playing Vampiric Tutor but no one has even mentioned Demonic Consultation? Since everything is 4- or 3-of in the deck, Consultation would hardly ever miss. It costs only one mana, gives the card immediately, and acts as 5th Chalice in your opening hand.

[Disburden]

Why is everyone playing Vampiric Tutor but no one has even mentioned Demonic Consultation? Since everything is 4- or 3-of in the deck, Consultation would hardly ever miss. It costs only one mana, gives the card immediately, and acts as 5th Chalice in your opening hand.

I was actually going to start testing this and post on it soon. I took out the Necropotence for this card and it might work really well. Necro sucks in this deck.

[Ender]

After hearing the suggestion of skittering horror, skittering skirge came to mind right away.

That's what I call teamwork ^^

Have you tested against combo? It seems that you have not good chances of winning. What can we side in?

I've tested this deck vs combo and honestly I'm not really THAT worried about the matchup. There are so many good combo hosers in black that I would see combo having a hard time going off. I.E. - Chains, Chalice, Nether Void and my new pet card, Oppression.

Howabout Bane of the Living? It's a creature, which is a huge plus, and it can infest the board, OR even more than that.

Bane of the Living definitely seems too slow. Its almost impossible, with this deck, to ramp up to 5+ mana to cast and flip in the same turn which makes it a bit slow. I was thinking more of mutilate but I feel its a bit slow too

Why is everyone playing Vampiric Tutor but no one has even mentioned Demonic Consultation? Since everything is 4- or 3-of in the deck, Consultation would hardly ever miss. It costs only one mana, gives the card immediately, and acts as 5th Chalice in your opening hand.

I dunno why but I've always hated Consultation. Its like how some people just refuse to play combo or control but does seem like an auto include.

[Disburden]

But what to run instead of Necro? Consultation seems good because it draws the cards you need, and another tutor can't possibly hurt right now. Necro is too slow and we're not racking up storm here. What is your suggestion other than Consultation? I can't see the harm in the third tutor unless you find it makes you lose too many cards to "Remove from the game".

[o]

But what to run instead of Necro? Consultation seems good because it draws the cards you need, and another tutor can't possibly hurt right now. Necro is too slow and we're not racking up storm here. What is your suggestion other than Consultation? I can't see the harm in the third tutor unless you find it makes you lose too many cards to "Remove from the game".

Yes, actually.  I am now running consultation in place of Necro and have never looked back.

Also, after spending like an hour on magiccards.info, I came up with another possibility for the fish matchup: Harbinger of Night.  It costs a lot less to use than Bane, is still a creature, and gets around mongrel and rootwalla pumping.  It might be a bit slow, but it's probably the best we'll find.

[Ender]

But what to run instead of Necro? Consultation seems good because it draws the cards you need, and another tutor can't possibly hurt right now. Necro is too slow and we're not racking up storm here. What is your suggestion other than Consultation? I can't see the harm in the third tutor unless you find it makes you lose too many cards to "Remove from the game".

I said it was an auto include but as a side comment I said I've always hated the card for unknown reasons. Just like how some people love to cast fatties, I hate casting consultation. Dunno why... consultation probably tried to steal my lunch money when I was 5.

Also, after spending like an hour on magiccards.info, I came up with another possibility for the fish matchup: Harbinger of Night. It costs a lot less to use than Bane, is still a creature, and gets around mongrel and rootwalla pumping. It might be a bit slow, but it's probably the best we'll find.

It is definitely an interesting card. But it gives itself the -1/-1 as well which makes it only stick for 3 turns. Wouldn't it be better just to run of a more "wrath" effect? I was thinking of massacre for UW fish but I can't find any good WTF hosers. The only thing I could find was Kagemaro, First to Suffer which sucks 100%

[o]

Ok, so I've been testing the deck against WTF a litte (thank you very much Garlik for the games), and am now something like 4 or 5 to 1 against it. Now that I understand the deck's plan, it really ain't a bad matchup at all.

Bane of the Living/Harbringer of Night have been pointless. Not necessarily bad; I mean, they do their job and all, but really I'd always rather have a Skittering Skirge than one of them.  Skittering Skirges are just crazy good against most fish.  You can often get Jitte superiority as well, since you run 3 MD and the last one SB.  For the SB you actually don't need that much, 1 more Skittering Skirge would be great, and then maybe two more creatures of some sort.  I'm thinking along the lines of Bone Shredder actually, as he offs opposing Mongrels and flys for a few points at least.  Anything flying + Jitte means you pretty much cannot lose.

I've been testing a little against some other decks as well, and since Chains has been so great against a lot of control decks, I'm gonna consider moving it up to a 3 of in the SB.

[trickydan]

Bone Shredder does not off a mongrel, as they just discard a card and change the mongrel's color to black. Slay would be an option in this matchup but fails for the same reason. Faceless Butcher is almost definately too slow. Duplicant is WAY too slow, Nekrataal is too slow AND can't kill a mongrel. Those are the CIP destroy creatures. Only faceless butcher seems even remotely playable, as he removes anything and can even get creatures like Darksteel Colossus. It would be funny to beat an unsuspecting gifts.dec player with a vial on 4 when he tried to double Time Walk and beat.

The answer seems to be either Smother or Devour In Shadow. Either will kill a mongrel or a welder; smother is easier to cast and doesnt hurt you, while devour in shadow is more flexible with the ability to kill cards like platinum angel. Obviously against a mongrel the devour in shadow could end up costing you a significant amount of life, but the increased flexibility leads me to suspect that it is better than smother.

Oddly, Pithing Needle also seems to be a decent and flexible answer to the mongrel. It isn't so scary as a pure grizzly bear.

[o]

Bone Shredder does not off a mongrel, as they just discard a card and change the mongrel's color to black. Slay would be an option in this matchup but fails for the same reason. Faceless Butcher is almost definately too slow. Duplicant is WAY too slow, Nekrataal is too slow AND can't kill a mongrel. Those are the CIP destroy creatures. Only faceless butcher seems even remotely playable, as he removes anything and can even get creatures like Darksteel Colossus. It would be funny to beat an unsuspecting gifts.dec player with a vial on 4 when he tried to double Time Walk and beat.

The answer seems to be either Smother or Devour In Shadow. Either will kill a mongrel or a welder; smother is easier to cast and doesnt hurt you, while devour in shadow is more flexible with the ability to kill cards like platinum angel. Obviously against a mongrel the devour in shadow could end up costing you a significant amount of life, but the increased flexibility leads me to suspect that it is better than smother.

Oddly, Pithing Needle also seems to be a decent and flexible answer to the mongrel. It isn't so scary as a pure grizzly bear.

Thanks for reminding me about Mongrel; I totally forgot about the second part of his ability.  It's true that there aren't any CIP critters that can hit him effectively in that case.

So if bringing in cheap removal is the answer, then the question we really have to ask is whether we can't just use Diabolic Edicts against fish, since they're in the SB all ready.  I think the Edicts would probably be fine, and only a little worse than Smother would've been.  Besides that, it frees up a lot of room in the sideboard.  What I have pretty much solid is:

4x Diabolic Edict
3x Chains of Meph
2x Cabal Therapy
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Skittering Skirge

which leaves 4 slots.  If you expect any FCG, than you probably want some Engineered Plagues to battle the hoardes of goblins, but I'm not positive about anything else being necessary to the SB.

EDIT: Hmmmmmmmmm.... Planar Void in combination with Diabolic Edict would probably be pretty good against Oath, huh?

[trickydan]

A solution for FCG could be found in a minimal red splash for a card that is most certainly bad but would solve the problem at hand and be strong against the other fish variants:

Fire Covenant
Instant
1RB
Pay X life: Fire Covenant deals X damage divided as you chose among any number of target creatures.

The mana cost is extremely low, probably the most efficiently-costed one-sided mass destruction in the game. Red would be easy to splash via bloodstained mires and badlands. This obviously either ties up a large portion of the board or makes you vulnerable to wasteland, so its a matter of compromise and metagame. Of import is that the paying of life is not a part of the casting cost and so any pumps to a mongrel would have to be done prior to such paying, unless I am reading a bad text of the card.

Edit: Incidentally, a red splash could also give access to some artifact destruction; rack and ruin or keldon vandals comes to mind. This is almost certainly taking the deck in a bad direction by adding a significant second color, but it is at least worth considering.

[o]

http://magiccards.info/ia/en/367/

no, the correct text is:
As an additional cost to play Fire Covenant, pay X life.
Fire Covenant deals X damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures.

And besides which it seems like a really really weak answer.  It's gonna cost a signifigant amount of life to do anything that great, and splashing reall just does not work for this deck.  I think Enginereed Plague is probably the best thing you're gonna find, as one slows them down considerably and two is essentially game-over.

[Ender]

Some more updates.

1 - 2 vs stax - nothing to say. he just got the better draw including 1 game where he went turn 1 smokestack, turn 2 smokestack, turn 3 crucible.
4 - 1 vs landstill - =/ anyway.. he definitely made some play errors in this game so the results might be off. highlight of the match, me playing 2 chains in 1 turn and him asking what they did. I explained to him as best I could (because of language barrier) and him deciding to play 2 standstills in a row and an ancestral targetting me effectively mind twisting away my hand and milling a bunch of cards from my deck.
4 - 0 vs SBB - surprisingly, this matchup was pretty easy. I don't know how much of the player's playskill was in effect during these games but it seemed very lopsided. It was like monoblue control vs sui black all over again.

EDIT: Hmmmmmmmmm.... Planar Void in combination with Diabolic Edict would probably be pretty good against Oath, huh?

It would be I guess but doesn't wretch have the same effect?

[Discozombie]

This is a deck list I have been toying with.  I don’t see how people are not running pithing needle main deck.  It is such a house.  Bazaar, welder, fetch lands, aether vial, and so much more.  I am running the spitter main deck as he does a lot to help out the problematic matches and he helps to increase the clock since he essentially swings for 3 every turn.  I was debateing adding unearth due to the skirges and the spitters but I have not had too many problems yet.  The spitters have been awesome so far and there is always the great suicide play of dropping double spitters to clear the board since they will deal 4 to everything on their way out.  Reaver has not been too bad with jitte and they are needed as a replacement to negator since the gator and the spitter do not play well together.  Chians has also been better for me than using whispers.

Creatures (16)
4x skittering skirge
4x plague spitter
4x withered wretch
4x fleshreaver

Disruptors (16)
4x chalice of the void
4x pithing needle
4x duress
4x chains of mephistopheles

Tools (5)
3x umezawa's jitte
1x demonic tutor
1x demonic consultation

Mana (23)
1x mox jet
1x black lotus
4x dark ritual
12x swamp
4x wasteland
1x strip mine

[Nastaboi]

I sleeved up o's version and took ten games against UBg Oath, and hardly won two of them. The problem is that you can't stop Oath from resolving, and when it resolves, there is nothing you can do as you cannot attack past Akroma nor Ancient Hydra shooting down you critters. Your only hope is to hit Oath in their opening hand, where they can easily hide it with Brainstorm or just tutor one up and play it on the same turn. You can board in Edicts, but it won't get much easier.

[Dozer]

I took out the Necropotence for this card and it might work really well. Necro sucks in this deck.

So you play Consultation. That is good. But I don't see why Necro sucks in this deck, especially since I do not see which version (there are a few in this thread) you are referring to. If you play Night's Whisper at all, I think that everyone here will agree that Necro is the superior card drawer. You can easily swap them one-on-one if you really have that much trouble fitting Necro in. There is interaction between Jitte and Necro, too, enabling you to go more aggressive with Necro than you otherwise would even in an aggro-match. In a pinch, Necro can even be a sacrificable permanent for Negator.

However fast your clock is, there will always be times when you get stuck. Necro enables you to refill in that situation. Also, Necro is a threat on its own, since it will keep your hand full at all times. You can draw into extra disruption, into extra Jittes in the Jitte mirror match (I'd never have thought that'd be important in Vintage), and of course into more threats and Rituals. Necro still is one tight package rolled into a very sexy card. You are mono-black, you need card-draw, and you tell us that "Necro sucks in this deck"? I don't see it. Please elaborate.

Other than that, I like this thread. Come Jitte, Mono-black Aggro/control becomes discussable again. Or, not to put too fine a point on it: Jitte makes even Sui good.

Dozer

[Astro]

I've been testing a little against some other decks as well, and since Chains has been so great against a lot of control decks, I'm gonna consider moving it up to a 3 of in the SB.

Don't forget Chains wrecks Combo as well, not to mention aggro control such as Fish.  IMO, the Chains should be main decked over Whispers.  It stops every deck in the field.  Like I said its the Null Rod of drawing cards.  Test it main, I have the results are outstanding.  And remember, it can always be sided out in the rare case your playing against a deck that doesn't draw cards.

[fatalist.remix]

Don't forget Chains wrecks Combo as well, not to mention aggro control such as Fish.

Chains gives Fish a new trick, as they can break their own Standstill to Chains you for three.

[urza23]

Hello, my name is Aron. Ive been playing black decks since I started playing magic.
Now what do you guys think of Emissary of Despair as a SB card.
Its a 2/1 for 1BB
Flying, When it deals damage to a player he or she loses 1 damage for each artifact they control. I was just thinking this could help out with the CS and Artifact heavy decks. What do you guys think?

[fatalist.remix]

Now what do you guys think of Emissary of Despair as a SB card.
Its a 2/1 for 1BB
Flying, When it deals damage to a player he or she loses 1 damage for each artifact they control. I was just thinking this could help out with the CS and Artifact heavy decks. What do you guys think?

I think, though I'm not an expert with Suicide Fish, that the CC is one too high (you really want your Vials at 2 unless you've shifted your gameplan against control to Vialing out Negators) and that Chalice for 0 and fast beats should be shoring up your CS matchup already.  It also dies to Lava Dart, which CS might bring in against you to make you sac permanents to Negator (Dart is card/board advantage with Negs out).  It might work against Shop Aggro, but Shop Aggro can block it with Platz.

I'd look elsewhere, though I haven't tested it.