What changes does fish need for the new meta?

[AmbivalentDuck]

I love fish.  It's a great deck in the right meta.  I like the way it feels, I like the way it plays.  And unfortunately, it just doesn't seem like the deck to play right now.  Workshops are good and that's bad for control strategies not based on Mana Drain.  Since the prior winning builds no longer succeed...we can always just maindeck hate.  So...what's best?

Options (assuming that non-creature slots are not available):

Samurai of the Pale Curtain
-Advantages
--Shuts down Welder
--Can help to shut down Gifts
--Combined with bounce can really mess up Oath
--Can trade with a Juggernaut/undercosted
-Disadvantages
--WW in the casting cost is rough, even with vial

Magus of the Unseen
-Advantages
--Easy to cast/pitches to FoW
--Fills most of Waterfront Bouncer's non-Oath roles (who else will be using Akroma or the like?)
--Can create card advantage if some sort of sacrificing ability is added (Arcbound Ravager?)
-Disadvantages
--No haste
--Ability has a mana cost

Kataki, War's Wage
-Advantages
--Annoying
--Easy to cast
-Disadvantages
--Legendary
--It's annoying, but without the ability to have multiples out...it's only annoying


Any other options?
I'm leaning towards the Magus...but without some way to sacrifice the artifacts...it's just good...not dominating.

[TheStu]

Magus is good enough without a sacrifice outlet.

It trumps the tinker win plan in gifts.

It steals Stax's lock parts, which you then sacrifice to the Smokestack itself, as well as its win conditions.

It messes up combat with Workshop Aggro.

Steals CS's stuff too.

If you're playing WTF, I suggest filling that ever so present "4 Blue Creature" slot that was originally Gaea's Skyfolk with 2 Rootwater Thief and 2 Magus, with 2 Bouncer in board to trade with the magus' for the Oath matchup.

[prosbloom225]

Fish has to be able to beat aggroshop, stax, and be more consistent versus drain decks.  In that light u/w fish seems to be the route to take.  Having meddling mage and stp around make the deck much better than wtf.  With fish you dont need the extra damage from creatures, you just have to take down key spells and gain card advantage, wtf is subpar at these things.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Let's focus this a bit.  Deck list pulled from some top 8:

3 Rootwater Thief
3 Waterfront Bouncer
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Meddling Mage
(4 Mishra's Factory)

4 Standstill
3 Jitte
4 Aether Vial
4 FoW
4 Chalice
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk

4 Island
4 Tundra
4 Fetch
5 Strips
4 Mishra's Factory

So...I don't think Swords is a maindeck option.  I realize that you want it there against Welder and Colossus, but we theoretically have the same answer to both: Chalice for 0.  If it's not an answer unless it's in our opening hand, unless we go first, etc....maybe we shouldn't be running it?

And why do we don't we run Balance?

[tidal kraken]

we(or I anyway) don't run balance because usually I will have more creatures in play than the opponent.

I, personally, run Magus, because in my scrubby meta, it steals ravagers, enforcers, and a few other things. When I get more than one out, I generally win.
I've also begun to run it in WTF in place of skyfolk.

[prosbloom225]

Not running balance is less about having more creatures, its mostly because fish usually has such a mad card advantage.

[ChazzyChaz]

May I suggest Pithing Needle as an option for the U/W build.  Welder is so common as we all know and its probably the decks biggest nemesis.  Pithing Needle is by far the best "Goblin Welder" hate card in existence.  It only costs 1 colorless mana and it can stop Welder before the come out, once it come out and it nullifies all subsequent welders.  It also is very useful for U/W because against the WTF you can stop vial, Jitte, and of course the horrendously deadly Wild Mongrel.  This card also stops Bazaar of Baghdad (for UBA and DARGON).  For those that use the Null rod version of U/W (yay null rod) pithing needle may seem to be redundant in a sense but the only real thing that it is redundant with is icatian javelineers and stp.  The Needle is truly for Goblin Welder and can be sided out when necessary but when you consider what matchups one is to expect in the top levels of any tournament.  The appropriate number is 3 IMO. 

Magnus is very clutch as a sideboard card  although there is something to be said for the speed and versatility of seal of cleansing.  Not to say that Mangus is not a bomb but there are many times where summoning sickness and the frailty of a creature can doom you when you need it the most.  Lava Dart, REB, Triskellion, RAzormane  etc. are all cards that a sb'ed Shop deck will unleash if your plan is simply bomb with the Mangus you can easily get stuck!  Beware!