How do you play Meddling Mage?

[Sgt. Pepper]

I've been playing Fish for a couple of days on mws lately, finally getting some sort of playtesting done, and what struck me was how much I hated Meddling Mage. Against an unknown opponent I had no idea what to name. I would sometimes get hands like:

1 Savannah Lions
1 Wasteland
1 Plains
1 Meddling Mage
1 Black Lotus/Mox x
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Swords to Plowshares

which would be great if I knew what I'm up against, but would probably mulligan against an unknown opponent. In games without a turn 1 Mage it was still difficult to get a read om my opponent when he played stuff like a mox, fetchland, man drain and brainstorm in the first couple of turns. You he it's not Stax or Fish, but it could very well be Oath, Gifts, CS or some combo deck with Drains in it. When I did know what I was up against it was sometimes too late, like when my opponent had already played out his Oath of Druids or Smokestack. My questions to you guys is:

how do you play Meddling Mage against an unknown opponent? Do you slow-play it or do you just name a card like Tinker or something? Would you even consider a turn 1 Mage? Would you mulligan the hand above?

Hope some of you can give me some pointers on how to be a better player.

[kirdape3]

If you see that hand, praise whatever deity you believe in.  That's one of the best openers you have if that's a Sapphire or Lotus.

That Meddling Mage against a Drain deck is always Brainstorm on the play.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Brainstorm?  While attacking their flexibility is certainly solid...naming Drain attacks their tempo.  At least game 1.  Naming Brainstorm makes it harder for your opponent to find answers and buys you 1-2 turns due to slower win condition set up.  Naming Drain is more effective because it buys you more tempo than naming Brainstorm.  Most current Drain decks are so "answer light" that their most effective answer to Fish is just winning faster.  3cc, Gifts, etc tend to be mana hungry when they try to win in a way that doesn't involve Tinker->DSC.  Given that you run at least 4-5 bounce spells/StP/Waterfront Bouncer/Gilded Drake, Mage naming Drain removes half of their answers to your answers.  If you run 4 Duress in addition to above 4-5 answers, you can effectively stop both their mana-hungry (Decree of Justice, Tendrils kill) and Tinker games.

Game 2 on the play, I name Brainstorm just to hedge against their drawing into whatever they boarded in against me, otherwise it's situational because you can't count on him sticking around.

[kirdape3]

Mana Drain is largely ineffective against LionFish and should probably be boarded out for whatever board control elements you have.  Most Vintage decks have roughly 15 lands, so making sure they can't play mana sources is far more effective with a Chalice 0.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Hmm...  While I agree that Mana Drain is suboptimal in that matchup, a Null Rod, Kataki, or True Believer getting Drained would still cause a huge tempo swing.  Maybe enough to fuel a combo win.  Theoretically, you could play around that by just dropping Lions/Isamaru/etc and holding CC>=2 spells back, though.  Of course, that means creating "dead cards" in your hand...

[Harkius]

I will answer the same way that I answered on Star City the question of how to play Pithing Needles...

You scout. Period. In real competition, like it or not, you should take every ethical advantage that you can get. Scouting is allowed. It is not considered particularly gentlemanly, but it is something that falls into the category of questionable, but necessary.

Cheers,
Harkius

[nataz]

Hmm...  While I agree that Mana Drain is suboptimal in that matchup, a Null Rod, Kataki, or True Believer getting Drained would still cause a huge tempo swing.  Maybe enough to fuel a combo win. 

I dunno about that, w/ anything >3 mana drain isnt netting any mana in return. All they did was trade card for card, which is something they can not afford to do when WW/u has about infiny threats, and they have 8 counter spells.

With the above hand, I'd def name Brainstorm, heres why.

You aren't worried about counter spells. Let them burn a Drain on lions or whatever, it just doenst matter. Not to mention they actualy have to get 2 islands up to be able to drain in the first place. By that time, you should have had 3 unmolested turns. Chalice + STP will take care of tinker problems. Chalice + wasteland will ensure that they are mana light for at least two turns, while you should have out a 1st turn mage, second turn lions w/ disruption. If you only play one more beater on turn 3, your opponent is near death on turn 5. Your goal is to stall out your opponent for 5 turns, and Brainstorm is the card that is the most likely to find him an answer. 

[zeus-online]

Actually some people will mana drain force of will
I've seen people start of counter wars with force, even when they had UU open, just to get those 5 colorless.

But other then that, getting 1-2 colorless of a drain is hardly game-ending.

/Zeus

[Guli]

if you don't know against what deck you are playing and you are going first don't play the mage. Wait untill you see some cards played and then figure out what deck it is. In my U/W fish i run brainstorm aswell and I really wanna play it when it comes it helps a lot. It it simple, it depends on the matchup. You can name Welder,Oath,Mana Drain,TFK,Will,Darkblast,Deathspark,...

How do you play Meddling Mage? You can not find a water proof answer for this on a forum. You have to analyse the situation in your game and make a decision.

[Sgt. Pepper]

@kirdape3: I agree that my example hand is amazing if you know what (type of) deck you're playing against, or even good if that's a Mox Sapphire and you're up against an unknown opponent (that choice was actually a mistake, it should have been just the Lotus). However, I think it becomes a though decision if it's Lotus AND you're playing a random guy round 1 of a tournament. You have 1 mana source that will only last a turn, and 1 disruption card that has a high chance of naming nothing relevant. Would you just name Brainstorm anyway, seeing how it's a widely played card in tons of decks?

Offtopic (somewhat): I am interested if you have some other standard mage targets like the ' brainstorm against drain.deck on the play' one, and if you'd be willing to share them.

@ Harkius: while scouting can certainly help, it's hard to do if you don't know you're opponents by face and/or if they don't work with any matchslips and/or if it's a big tournament. It's defiantly usefull later in the tournament though when you're only interested in the winning decks.

@Guli: the problem with slowplaying a Mage is that's it's hard to identify a deck when someone plays a fetchland, island or brainstorm in the first couple of turns. It can also be too late against an Oath/Shop/combo deck. I agree though that it's probably impossible to find a definitive play on this, but I'd thought it would be usefull just to hear other peoples thoughts about a skilltesting and popular card like Meddling Mage.

[JayC]

It usually depends on the reaction of the player. I've thrown down a first turn Meddling Mage quite often, and I've tried to gauge reactions and make wild guesses based on that. Weak players whose deck is very vulnerable to Meddling Mage often get shook up, and that's usually the opportunity to name things like Oath of Druids or Dark Ritual.

Most of the time, however, it's best to name brainstorm or mana drain and generally hope for the best.

In my metagame, however, it's really easy to tell who is playing what, as people rarely change their decks, so meddling mages get better and better.

[Liek]

Why are you all suggesting that Brainstorm should be named? Aren't all of your Fish lists playing the card? Don't you all play it over Standstill?

Anyways, I'd rather Vial out the Mage than cast it, like after they Mystical for Recall/Tinker or end step a Gifts. It's far more savage that way.

Here are situations where I'd run turn one Mage on the play:

1. I have Ninja of the Deep Hours in hand and no other way of getting him in there (In this case I'll always name Oath of Druids.)
2. They showed me thier deck while shuffling.
3. I scouted them.
4. I know what cards they have in thier hand.
5. It's top 8 and I played against the same person in the Swiss.

I almost never name Mana Drain, simply because I should never lose to Mana Drain. I might name it if I want Time Walk to resolve and I have a Ninja to change what the Mage has names, or something like that, but besides that naming a Drain deck's draw spells always hurts them more.

[Harlequin]

There are a couple additional things that no one has touched on that would factor in with what to name.

I would likely name drain given the hand above... but the chalice makes that a questionable name, but I would most likely still go with drain.  Heres why.

Lets assume you you manas, play mage, It resolves you name Drain, then play Chalice for 0.  The main focus of nameing drain IS to protect your spells in hand.  This means your cutting out 1/3(give or take) of the counterspells in oath, and 1/2 of the counterspells in Gifts.  Not to shabby seeings as how your really want to make good on that STP in hand.   It also makes you better equiped for defending your chalice for 0, In that now they run the same number of counterspells as you (im not sure, but lion fish only runs 4 FOW?)  At any rate heres your opponents outs:

Oath -> doesnt really care about the chalice, and WILL give you a chance to rifle out that STP (if they plan on attempting to win the game).  you have cut out a third of the counters they run.

Gifts -> This is dependant on the build, so not every gifts deck will have ALL of these outs.
#1 - Resolve a 1cc artifact (needle, vault, ring) and tinker.  you answer with swords
#2 - Find a bounce spell, so they can bounce the chalice so they can have enough mana to go for an alternate win (flamevault, wish/tendrils, etc etc). 
#3 - Go straight for the win, either tutor for vault and play it or tinker -> vault, then cast fusilade and win.  Your running null rod, so in theory you should be able to find a one 3of artifact before they find 4 lands, and two 1of cards.

Basically The chalice for 0 makes the drain name rather undisputable.  The only way gifts is going to pull out of a chalice for 0 is with plenty of mana.  you've got chalice choaking out 7 major mana sources now drop the mage to choak out 4 more.


On a final note, There is rarely (dare I say never) a "100% correct mage."  With mages, as long as your nameing something that #1 they preferably run 4 of, #2 Need to cast to win the game, or #3 you know they have in hand (thank you, duress, landgrant, dredge, FOF, Gifts, and mirrage tutors).   They you haven't named a "bad" mage.  So the final note is, never think about meddling mage for more than 4 seconds.  never.  It doesn't matter!  As long as your nameing anything that falls under one or two of the three catagories above, then you didnt screw up.  With an early mage you've got about a 10% chance of being right and a 90% chance of your mage not being any good (unless you know they are playing 20 lands and 40 ravenous rats).  The simple matter of fact is that every deck can play around mage, so mage is needed to stall them.  nameing drian could stall them, or it could do nothing ... name brainstorm could stall them, or it could do nothing,  nameing something crazy like thirst or burning wish or even sol ring! could stall the game longer than any other name... but you have no way of knowing that.  The worst thing you can do in a tourny is spend 30secs or more thinking about what is the optimal name.  you need to concede to your self that ultimately your looking at around a 10-20% chance that the card you name on the mage will eventually cause you to win that game.  On the flip side, even though there is no "right" card to name, there are PLENTY of wrong cards to name.  But generaly you'd be suprised how often your gut instinct is right.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Pretty sure that Mana drain Oath is dead.  Oath has nothing to drain into, and it shouldn't be playing Drain in the first place.

If you have ninjas in the deck, being able to reset your Mage to something that's relevant is helpful.

Here's a list of cards that are relevant in each matchup, in relative order:
Gifts
Old Man (after board)
Gifts Ungiven (obv only if you don't have a true believer down)
Mana Drain
Tinker
Yawg
Burning Wish (pyroclasm/rolling earthquake is always in the board)
Thirst for knowledge

Slaver
Old Man (after board)
Drain
Yawg
Welder
Thirst for knowledge

Oath
Oath
Rushing River/Echoing Truth/Chain of Vapor, whichever he's playing

Stax (Uba)
Welder (if no swords in hand)
Tangle Wire
Smokestack
Duplicant

[vartemis]

I dont play much fish anymore, but when I did, I used to play with maindecked extracts.  They were great for siding out later, but a first turn resolved extract followed by a turn 2 or turn 1 mage can 1) tell you exactly what your opponent is playing and 2)severely irritate oath and gifts.

j

[wardo]

With that hand going first, I would just lay the mana sources, then play Lion, then Chalice 0. If they lay a blue source, naming brainstorm is absolutely great. If they lead with shops of bazaar you still have a good idea of what to name, and you have Wasteland (in that scenario atleast).

There's not much more to do if you play the Mage on turn 1 than randomly guessing, which is bad. You don't know what your opponent is playing, period. No pros or whatever are ever gonna tell you some trick if you have no idea of what they play.

[Largent]

i think people are missing the topic a little bit, hes asking what is a good choice for a first turn mage without knowing the opposing deck

how do you play Meddling Mage against an unknown opponent? Do you slow-play it or do you just name a card like Tinker or something? Would you even consider a turn 1 Mage? Would you mulligan the hand above?

[pyr0ma5ta]

You don't lay the mage on turn 1, because it may or may not be a bomb.  If you're on the play, you drop lions, lotus, chalice 0, and pass.  You look to see what your opponent is playing, and name something accordingly.  Brainstorm is a safe bet if he lays a blue land, or Oath if you're afraid of that.  If he drops a welder off a mountain or 5c land, you might want to name a stax lock piece after swordsing the silly joblin.  Playing a blind mage is making sure that you are paying UW for a 2/2, which is suboptimal last time I checked.

[Gabethebabe]

You lay down 4 power creatures turn 1, chalice=0 and have a Wasteland. That´s a good turn. I´d never consider to mulligan.
Also if I would play the Mage turn 1 I would never consider Mana Drain. That is just plain retarded. Your opponent isn´t getting out of this situation by draining something, unless you are stupid. Drains in his hand are a liability. Naming Brainstorm is soooo much better, as it restricts them in finding a solution to their board problem.

But as the others say, the best is probably to lay your jewelry, Chalice=0 and Lion and play your Mage turn 2.