Rebuilding UW Fish

[AmbivalentDuck]

Maybe it's just me, but I think UW Fish now has a critical mass of mana denial components.  Here's my list:

5 Moxen
4 Island
2 Plains
2 Fetch
4 Tundra
5 Strip effects

4 Stifle
4 Shadow of Doubt
4 Force of Will

4 Suppression Field
4 Null Rod (yes I know I'm running 5 moxen, just wait.)
4 Back to Basics
1 Crucible of Worlds

4 Serendib Efreet
4 Meddling Mage
4 Icatian Javelineers

1 Ancestral Recall

SB:
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Jitte
3 Energy Flux
4 Swords to Plowshares

Reasoning:
Stifle, Shadow of Doubt, and Suppression Field all attack a key aspect of modern T1 decks: Fetchlands.  We're running fewer colored mana sources than ever because these cards let us get away with it.  This deck is designed to attack that.  Stifle and Shadow of Doubt can both counter fetches directly: one cheaply, the other providing card advantage.  That's good stuff.  And neither is a dead card when they don't have fetches.  You can counter everything from Storm to Tinker with these babies.

Suppression Field is a gem.  If it were an artifact, I wouldn't run it.  But few decks can deal easily with enchantments.  And this enchantment can mess up whole game plans if it comes down on turn 1.  It can mean that they can't pop fetches until turn 2-3.  That's huge tempo.

Null Rod: You know what it does.  I run it main because you can't rely on Chalice game 1.  Obviously, Chalice is much better when you know you'll be playing.

Back to Basics: Another cheap shot at their mana base.  If they can't topdeck basics, they lose.  Even when combined with only Suppression Field, it prevents them from finding their basics AND keeps their land tapped down.  And it's an enchantment.

Crucible: Duh

Meddling Mage: duh

Serendib:  Simply put, he's undercosted fat beats with evasion.  Game 2/3 he can carry Jitte home.  He's bigger than WTF creatures, he flies, and Trike/Razormane can't kill him alone.  Try him, you'll be a believer. This is true even in normal UW Fish builds.

Icatian Javelineer: Kills Welder.  No more, no less.  If you aren't a fan, run StP instead.

I think the sideboard is pretty obvious. 


Deck strengths: Chalice for 2 doesn't end the game, at all.  Strong mana denial.

Weaknesses: Takes FOREVER to kill. Seriously, Control Slaver of all things gives me fits just by dumping enough crap in its graveyard and waiting to draw a Welder and a Volcanic.  Then they just weld in something big, and boom.

[yespuhyren]

A bit heavy on some of the denial, but I like the overall idea you are going for. 

Shadow of doubt is great against Tinker, Tutors, Fetches, Jester's Cap, Food chain, etc.  Very useful card.  I don't know if you should be playing 4 B2b and 4 null rod WITH 4 stifle and 4 shadow.  The 4 suppression field is a good call, but then I would cut the javelineers for STP.

[Dralock]

This list is a mass of anti-synergy.

Your B2B kills your manabase
Suppression field kills your javalineers
You have no un-counterable beaters, and thus lose the tempo created by their inclusion
You are running 8 extreemly conditional cards (stifle and field)
Null Rod shuts down whatever mana B2B doesn't.
Your strip effects will leave you without mana to cast things under your lock components
Efreet kills you while its getting chumped and costs 2U

Otherwise, a good attempt at a prison type deck.

[Nastaboi]

I would not call a sideboard with such an unorthodox card choise as Energy Field "pretty obvious". What do you bring them in against? You list has few threats and no card draw aside that lone Ancestral, so it seems very dependant on its opening hand. You will draw hands with random denial components which lack synergy and hurt your own mana, too. You have far too little mana regardeless.

[AmbivalentDuck]

This list is a mass of anti-synergy.

Your B2B kills your manabase
Suppression field kills your javalineers
You have no un-counterable beaters, and thus lose the tempo created by their inclusion
You are running 8 extreemly conditional cards (stifle and field)
Null Rod shuts down whatever mana B2B doesn't.
Your strip effects will leave you without mana to cast things under your lock components
Efreet kills you while its getting chumped and costs 2U

Otherwise, a good attempt at a prison type deck.

In order:
-I'm running 6 basics.  Many Oath builds originally used it with 4 basics to great effect.
-Suppression Field does NOT stop me from activating Javelineers on turn 2 to kill a Welder.
-Who needs uncounterable beats?  If you're talking about Mishra's Factory, I do NOT fear opposing Fish.
-Stifle is completely unconditional.  It stops Strip effects, fetches, Welder activations, Storm, and Mana Drain mana.  Name a deck it doesn't affect.  Please.  Suppression Field is a metagame call.  In a field of pure Workshop control, sure it sucks.  It beats on Control Slaver, Fish, WTF, Food Chain, Salvagers, etc. 
-Basic Land...
-Um...that's the point.  It's a symetrical effect that my deck is built to deal with.
-What exactly can chump block the efreet?  It flies.  Unless CS has an active pentavus, this is kinda irrelevent.  If CS has an active pentavus I'm probably going to lose anyways.


The next set:

I would not call a sideboard with such an unorthodox card choise as Energy Field "pretty obvious". What do you bring them in against? You list has few threats and no card draw aside that lone Ancestral, so it seems very dependant on its opening hand. You will draw hands with random denial components which lack synergy and hurt your own mana, too. You have far too little mana regardeless.

Energy field was a mistype.  I meant Energy Flux.  That'll be fixed above.  In terms of draw, the goal is to simulatenously generate tempo AND card advantage off the Shadow of Doubt, Null Rod, and Suppression Field.  These are many to one answers.  In terms of lacking synergy, I had to include the Moxen to get lock components up before my opponent could go off.  Turn 1 Suppression Field >> Turn 2 Suppression Field.  The same is true of Null Rod and Back to Basics (turn 2>>3).  Game 2/3, Moxen and Chalice have long been considered friendly. 

[Dralock]

In order:
-I'm running 6 basics.  Many Oath builds originally used it with 4 basics to great effect.
-Suppression Field does NOT stop me from activating Javelineers on turn 2 to kill a Welder.
-Who needs uncounterable beats?  If you're talking about Mishra's Factory, I do NOT fear opposing Fish.
-Stifle is completely unconditional.  It stops Strip effects, fetches, Welder activations, Storm, and Mana Drain mana.  Name a deck it doesn't affect.  Please.  Suppression Field is a metagame call.  In a field of pure Workshop control, sure it sucks.  It beats on Control Slaver, Fish, WTF, Food Chain, Salvagers, etc. 
-Basic Land...
-Um...that's the point.  It's a symetrical effect that my deck is built to deal with.
-What exactly can chump block the efreet?  It flies.  Unless CS has an active pentavus, this is kinda irrelevent.  If CS has an active pentavus I'm probably going to lose anyways.

- Oath builds ran 4 basis and full non-null rodded power.
- This will never happen
- Tempo is what mana denial is all about. You have all the mana denial you need, now you need the tempo to seal the game. You already said it was too slow
- Stifle is completely conditional, though it is strong. I meant to say shadow of doubt and had field on my mind, I apologize.
- Again, having both null rod and b2b out is going to hinder you more than them if you don't pick up some other form of tempo, like man-lands.
- Shooting yourself in the foot and not having another to run on is not a good gameplan and if you disagree please see any basic land destruction deck.
- I can list plenty of creatures that can chump the efreets. This was a weak argument though and I will cede it to you.

[warble]

There's this card called BLACK LOTUS.  I hope it's absence is a typo.

As for null rod with moxen, it's agreed that on-color moxen (pearl and sapphire) can be run with null rod.  Off-color moxen, however, do not deserve a place in this deck.

To address the prevalence of 4-of's (shadow, stifle, B2B) I would suggest dropping one or two of these for more utility.  To attack an early game does not require 4 of certain cards, it requires a diverse disruption hand that has multiple attacks on each threat.  At least

+1 Swords to Plowshares
+1 Misdirection
+1 Daze

Also, your creatures do not offer the adequate draw engine that I am expecting from fish, and neither do your spells.  Therefore I expect at least one of the following to be included:

Landstill, Brainstorm, Ninja of the Deep Hours

Finally, the problem with your sideboard is the weakness when you leave null rod in the maindeck, against a deck such as CS or gifts.  Another weakness is concession of game 1 against aggro.  This should not be a concession, you need win conditions against all decks game 1, following suit of CS (Mindslaver has no problem beating all decks).

One other comment, the mana base is extremely unstable with only 2 fetchlands and 6 basics.  I would suggest upping the number of fetchlands to a minimum of 4, cutting the 3 off-color moxen, and using that extra slot for the missing Black Lotus.  There is no sufficient argument that can refute Black Lotus being dropped on turn 1 as the strongest play in magic.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Eh...Yeah.  I could cut an off-color Mox for the Lotus, but the others really help.  Don't underestimated the ability of a turn 1 suppression field to be annoying.  People treat fetchlands like real lands in their hand when they think about mulling.

Ninja of the Deep hours would be suboptimal here.  I'd rather just kill with the Serendib, or keep the Mage on the table.  And those Icatians are looking more and more like they should be StP.

Remember, fetches are the enemies.  This deck hates fetches on both sides.

Also, I do NOT concede against aggro.  FCG has a tough time when it loses its speed.  Individually, its creatures suck and Stifle/Shadow on a Recruiter is nasty.  Workshop aggro is tougher.  I'll admit I haven't test much against it.  The gauntlet I've been testing this on is FCG, Belcher (yeah, it's a die roll), Control Slaver, Meandeck Oath, Gifts, and Stax.  Stax eats it, Oath usually eats it, Slaver has issues with it, Gifts hates having its mana disrupted, and it's quite good against FCG. 

If this deck had a 5 turn clock instead of a 7-13 turn clock it'd be tier 1.

Also, I'm thinking of adding 4 Shahrazads.  Any suggestions on those?

[Moxlotus]

Also, I'm thinking of adding 4 Shahrazads.  Any suggestions on those?

I think you may have just killed the discussion about this deck with that statement.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Yeah, that was the intent.  I'm going to take this back to concept.  Mainly, this deck likely shouldn't use the Fish base.  It needs a late game combo kill that's hard to disrupt.  Maybe even drains to power out Decree of Justice tokens.  But I just played a few games that showed me that you can't play this deck like fish.

But if someone does want to take this to a tourney with 4 maindeck Shahrazard...

[Ripcord728]

Shahrazad actually has potential with 2 or 3 maindeck Tormod's Crypts.  Gifts, Slaver, Storm Combo, and other decks will scoop the sub-game immediately as opposed to have their key cards removed from the main game.  (Oath may also, depending on the build and on whether or not the Shahrazad deck runs Swords to Plowshares.)

The problem with Shahrazad is that the 10 life hit is irrelevant in many matchups, so it only works if the other cards in the deck can do 10 damage relatively quickly.  Could it work in a deck like Fish, Zoo, or TMWA?

[AmbivalentDuck]

You missed the point.  Shahrazad in a deck that can slow the game severely is just a nasty way of accumulating ties.  In small tournaments, you can get into the finals simply by having ties instead of losses.  This is a cheap and nasty tactic which pisses people off to no small end for good reason: subgames within subgames are just annoying.  This was a bad joke that was meant to recognize that Suppression Field would be better in a Stax engine than in the Fish engine.  I still stand by Stifle and possibly Shadow of Doubt as strong metagame options in Vial Fish to deal with Gifts' manabase, but I played a few Workshop aggro and Oshawa matches that made it clear that losing to both aggro (non-Food Chain) and Stax was not an option.

Let me make this perfectly clear, could a moderator please close this thread?

[BruiZar]

I haven´t really looked into the list that well but the first thing that caught my eye was that you are either running 4 or 1 card of each. Having 4 stifles AND 4 shadow of doubts looks like overkill to me. What will you do when they don´t run fetch. What happens when someone casts a first turn mox workshop juggernaut. That would kill you right there or are you going to wait untill you trade with serendib. I would remove ications and replace with 2 STP and put gush in the deck for starters. Why jittes in the sideboard, either play them or dont.

[dskippy0]

I agree with running this deck with a late game kill rather than fish's control critters. You want to lock the board down and then win. My suggested from you when you take the deck back to concept is that you don't over do it with the mana denial. You've got 4 Null rod, and they don't stack. 4 Stiffle and 4 Shadow of doubt is way too much. Sure they both nix stuff other than fetch, they'll wind up as dead cards a lot of the time. I'd go with Stifle over Doubt and maybe only 3. Put in some more card draw.

You need counter spells to make this deck work. You're doing a good job denial mana but there's just plain old no way to reliably keep them from doing anything at all. I'd curb the mana denial to a large degree and an add counter and draw. Personally I think the Drain/Decree kill is sweet.

-mike

p.s. I definitely think you should run Shahrazad. That's my favorite card.