sideboard for u/w fish

[capnproton]

Hi everyone... I'm new to posting on this forum but it seemed the right place to ask the question.  I just came back from the first day of the p9 tourney in Richmond.  I was playing a slightly modified version of the u/w fish build that got 15th at waterbury.  I got 9th but I found that my sideboard was probably the thing that held me back.  I ended up sideboarding 9 cards total over the 8 rounds.  luckily a little Argo with some back up goes a long way.  so for reference here is the waterbury list.
   
U/W Fish by Matt Denham
Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Null Rod

Creatures
4 Meddling Mage
4 Savannah Lions
3 Stormscape Apprentice

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Force Of Will
3 Swords To Plowshares

Legendary Creatures
4 Isamaru, Hound Of Konda
4 Kataki, War's Wage

Sorceries
1 Time Walk

Basic Lands
2 Island
2 Plains

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Strip Mine
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland
2 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:
3 Pithing Needle
3 Exalted Angel
3 Old Man Of The Sea
1 Arcane Laboratory
4 Seal Of Cleansing
1 Swords To Plowshares

we only made a few changes to the main deck.  first of all we found the chalice just never was good except on turn 1 on the play for 0 and even then it wasn't great.  Also you cant really play it for anything else, 1 and 2 you hurt yourself alot and you never get the mana to set it to 3.  also running 4 of the Legendary Creatures just is unsettling to me so we cut 1 of each.  and we cut one plains and 2 heaths cuz we wanted to make room for the adds.  I didn't want to run only 4 counters so I told them that I am running 2 counterspells no matter what they say.  we added 3 ninja of the deep hours because Eric Darland loves them.... I mean loves them and they beat and draw you into more dudes and answers so I was not opposed.  then because I am very bad at mana bases after cutting the 3 lands we added 4 factorys. making the final product this. oh and its 61 cards from making it about 5 minutes before last call for registration.

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Null Rod

Creatures
4 Meddling Mage
4 Savannah Lions
3 Stormscape Apprentice
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Force Of Will
3 Swords To Plowshares
2 Counterspell

Legendary Creatures
3 Isamaru, Hound Of Konda
3 Kataki, War's Wage

Sorceries
1 Time Walk

Basic Lands
2 Island
1 Plains

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Strip Mine
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

I am not the best fish builder or player so if you have any suggestions for the main they would be appreciated too.  The mana defiantly needs to be fixed
OK and now the sideboard that we put to gether in about 1 second and finished right before the deck lists where taken up.

Sideboard:
3 Exalted Angel
4 Pithing Needle
4 Seal Of Cleansing
4 Stifle

I never used the needles and I only brought in 3 seals vs flame vault, 3 stifles vs gifts with tendrils (I don't really know decks that well), and 3 Angels for the mirror.

while the angles where stellar in the mirror.  After I got crushed in round 7 I ask the meandecker across from me what he thought should be in the board.  He said the disrupt could be really good vs all the combo or control decks.  I think some Tormod's Crypts would be great in dealing with Ichorid and with welder and with Yawgmoth's Will using combo decks.  but I am always worried about getting stuck under my own null rod.  The crazy thought we had on the way home was Shadow of Doubt to stop the attempts for those decks to go off.  could Orim's Chant work there.... it would be amazing in responce to will.  sooo maybe something like this

3 Exalted Angel
4 Tormod's crypt
4 Disrupt
4 Shadow of Doubt

But I would really apprecate input on this I think I could do even better if I one tested the deck more.  Had a sideboard that did something.  And didn't build it drunk the morning of the tourney.

[Moxlotus]

Counterspells seem really really bad.  You want to play guys and activate factories, not keep UU open.  Your new SB seems like it won't be too bad, I can't see any reason why it would be but I'm not a fish player.

And cut it down to 60 cards.  61 cards is pretty much always suboptimal.

[Lydonius]

There is probably  abetter creature to Maindeck in this kind of deck than Isamaru or Savannah Lions : Icatian Javelineers ,who can be useful against Welder Decks and reusable with Ninja of DeepHours trick.
And with 2/3 Daze/Misdirection in the other 3 slots it's a build played alot here in Italy with good results , just give it a try.    

[[FtN|FH] Negator]

Like Moxlotus said, you never want to leave UU open for a counterspell. I suggest trying daze or misdirection instead. Maybe even Stifel maindeck is an idea to try out. U is far easier to spare than UU.
-2 Counterspell
+2 Daze/Stifle/Misdirection

An onther thing that is problematic in my eyes is the manabase.
Cards that can use colorless mana are:
3x Ninja of the Deep Hours
3x Kataki
3x Null Rod
1x Time Walk
That are only 10 cards. If you count the factorys itself 14. And beside 4 factorys there are already 4 wastelands + 1 strip mine in the deck.
This is not like it should be. What about cutting the 4 factorys and play 3 more Fetchlands instead? That way you are down to 60 cards and fetchlands help to avoid unneeded lands in mid/lategame.
-4 Mishras Factory
+3 Fetchlands

[Nastaboi]

I play 2 Serendibs and 3 Jittes sideboard, but my metagame sucks. Disrupt I like and am going to test. Tormod's Crypt I'd love to run, but they conflict with Rods and Chalices (which you should run) too much. Pithing Needle is okay against Ichorid as well, even better if they have prepared for Crypts with Rods and Chalices of their own.

Shadow of doubt ask too much for your mana. You should do like [FtN|FH] Negator proposed and cut factories. And even then I doubt you will ever have mana open to play Shadow of Doubt - and your opponent to play on it. It's a bit too narrow.

I run True Believer main in place of Kataki for metagame reasons. You should give it a thought on your SB. With four Seal of Cleansings I definitely agree.

[capnproton]

thanks guys.

yea the whole 61 card thing was a mistake that happended during the 3 mins I had before the tournament started.  I don't know how good of an idea cutting all the factory's would be because they are very efficient beaters that don't get drained.  but I will agree all day that I need more colored mana I had lot of problems with it all day and I will see how much I like them when I have correctly colored mana.  I dislike daze as a card especially with deep hours.  I want to keep the land in play so I can go turn 1 guy and then hours it.  But I need to test it before I can say anything besides I dislike it.  Counterspell turned out amazing all day.  I would be on about turn 3 with 2 or 3 guys down and then was able to hold up Mana for them without any problems.  Also when I stopped the drain decks attempts to draw cards they were usefull when they had built up a huge mana base.  I'm not sold on misdirection or stifle.  I had the stifles in board and they did basically nothing.  I could have countered a fetch and thats about it.  Misdirection would have only worked on recall and counters and I didn't really mind the counters.

In the shower this morning I tough of another possibility for a sideboard.  Extract! It can cut out one of the 2 cards the won the game against me.  I only lost when eather yagmoths will was cast or when tinker for darksteel was cast with counter back up.  it lets me aggressively counter those spells then mage the other.  And if my memory isn't completely shot (which it might be) those where the only things I lost too.  I wonder what you all think.

I have a chance to test today so I will try out the daze and such thanks for the suggestions and keep em commin.

[korangar]

Hello all, it's my first post.

My suggestions are very simple:

- A Fish build needs 23 mana sources, exactly those you have, no more, no less.
- The Isamura isn't great in multiples. If you want effective creatures, use Icatian Javelineers. They cost the same, have a nice ability (vs. Welders / Confidants) an are reusable with the Ninja.
- I don't like the Brainstorms. This card is used in Control decks, that want to adjust their hand. This deck relies on redundancy. I suggest Curiosity instead.
- Although you my like the counterspells, I don't see how you manage to keep UU open. Fish is mana intensive, you drop threats every turn, and if mana open, attack with the Mishra's Factory!! My suggestion is, as noted by Negator, Daze.

For the Sideboard, it depends on your meta, but here in Spain (land of Workshops, CS, Storm Combo ang Goblins) I use:
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Arcene Lab
3 True Beliver / Orim's Chant
3 Annul
2 Energy Flux
3 Hydroblast

[god_of_war]

just a suggestion...why not try running standstill?

its great when you've got mishra's in play which you will almost always have.

also,try umezawa's jitte in the sideboard. it will win you games against random aggro decks.

just my humble opinion

[sundering jerk]

you should take out a angel and throw in a swords to plow. and as far as Disrupt goes you just shouldn't be running it you have a proactive deck, not a reactive.

[Harlequin]

For our WU fish deck we have the following ont he Board:

3 Extract
3 Sacred Ground
2 Disenchant
2 Energy Flux
1 Kataki (with 3 main deck)
2 Umezawa's Jite
1 Old Man of the sea (1 main deck)
+1 Jite or Oldman ... Not 100% decided on this slot - Could go back to being 4th extract.


Our maindeck is the standard Core WU Fish package
Maindeck choices:
4 Flying men, 4 Ninjas, 3 Curiosity, 1 Old man of the Sea
3 Daze, 3 Stifle, 4 Swords, 3 Null rods
only 3 Mishrahs factory (No crucible)
No "just beater" creatures like Isamaru or Savana Lions.

Stax can be an issue for Fish, Esp the UBA variaty, most of your creatures are at the mercy of barbarian ring, and your Flux is vaunerable to Reb.  Stax beats Fish with Crucible... You need to have iether targeted crucible destruction + welder hate (like javlineers)... or Sacred ground.  Sacred ground cuts off 2 major lock commonents of Stax in a single card.  Stifle improves your odds dramtically against stax as well, it limit's there ability to play around Flux/Kataki by halting welds.  If you are against Jite because of null rod, Silver Knight is a good Substitution.  WU fish has a relatively weak game against other aggro style decks.  Old man of the Sea improves this, and Jite Clinches the game.  There is basically no matchup where you need both Jite's aggro-hate slot + Null Rod... It's a good In/Out for fish against beats.

[FishyFellow]

Stax can be an issue for Fish, Esp the UBA variaty,

I recently won a Time Walk tournament with UW Fish facing Stax 4 times including the semi-finals and finals.  My finals opponent was 5 color Stax, while the rest were Uba.  I went a total of 4-0 (8-2) against the Stax builds.

This is my sideboard and the 10 cards I bring in against UbaStax marked in parenthesis:
Tinker x1 (1)
Darksteel Colossus x1 (1)
Maze of Ith x2
Blue Elemental Blast x1 (1)
Disenchant x1 (1)
Old Man of the Sea x2 (1)
Chain of Vapor x1 (1)
Kira, The Great Glass Spinner x1 (1)
Null Rod x1
Serenity x2 (2)
Enlightened Tutor x1 (1)

My first note is that I always name chalice of the void with meddling mage, because if chalice for 2 hits the table, I am in really tough shape, while I have ways of dealing with everything else.

• Serenity is obviously a bomb against stax and I often find that players will over-extend to get permanents on the table, not thinking about the possibility of mass removal.  In play testing, I did find that 4 were too many, and I replaced 2 with Enlightend Tutor and a Crucible, because there are points in the game where you are better off with a crucible or even a null rod.

• Old man is a great anti-welder card and it is also Barbarian Ring proof.  The drawback that I have found is that the 2 blue and 1 can be hard to get to against stax.

• Kira has the same problem, but protects all of your creatures against ring.  Both are more in the sideboard for the mirror and aggro matches, but replace lesser quality maindeck cards.

• Chain of vapor, along with maindeck mistical tutor, give me two outs against an early chalice for 2.

• Tinker colossus is also an alternate win with chalice for 2 on the board, and it is simply great against Uba if you can avoid a duplicant (which some players actually boarded out against me).  The best trick is that you can tinker out a factory and your colossus is welder proof.

• Blue blast and disenchant are nice for the obvious reasons.

Maindeck curiosities were also a great card in my stax matchups, allowing me to keep up in the permanent war.

My tournament report is on the Child board (possibly to be moved soon), if anyone want's more details about my deck.
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=27644.0

[brianpk80]

Maindeck curiosities were also a great card in my stax matchups, allowing me to keep up in the permanent war.

My tournament report is on the Child board (possibly to be moved soon), if anyone want's more details about my deck.
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=27644.0

Thanks for the report.
How would you rate the Rootwater Thieves?
I play U/W/r Fish sometimes and have mixed feelings on them.  At times,
they seal a game by taking out some limited win conditions and occasionally
they are fantastic simply because I need a flier.  But at other times, they
are mana hogs that don't really justify the resources.  What are your
thoughts?

-Brian

[FishyFellow]

How would you rate the Rootwater Thieves?

I don't consider the thieves to be the key to the deck, but they are a good utility creature with some nice qualities.
#1.  They are key against gifts, or any other deck that has few win conditions.  They put those players on a much quicker clock than aggro alone.
#2.  They are a nice target for curiosity, with 2 toughness and the ability to fly when necessary.
#3.  There are blue, so worst case, they can be pitched to force or disrupting shoal.

I don't run ninjas, so I'm not necessarilly looking for utility one drops, and as far as abilities for 2 casting cost creatures go, they have seemed like the best value after meddling mage and kataki.

Your point about them being mana hogs has been an occasional issue for me, but you can choose not to use the abilities if you need the mana for other things, while you will choose to use the abilities when they can win the game.  I would also note that I am only playing free counter spells, so I can usually afford to use all of my recources on my turn.

I find that I typically keep the thieves in against drain decks and the katakis in against workshop decks.  The other is substituted for better sideboard options.

[Implacable]

I used to play Thieves quite a bit, and frankly, they are overrated.  The problem with them is that they are so mana-intensive; I would rather cast a creature than hit with an extract.  Ninja of the Deep Hours has a much more powerful on-hit ability.  I would recommend that you use Voidmage Prodigies in lieu of your Thieves.  They give you an instant-speed counterspell with Vial, and they beat face.  What more can you ask for?

[FishyFellow]

I used to play Thieves quite a bit, and frankly, they are overrated. The problem with them is that they are so mana-intensive; I would rather cast a creature than hit with an extract. Ninja of the Deep Hours has a much more powerful on-hit ability. I would recommend that you use Voidmage Prodigies in lieu of your Thieves. They give you an instant-speed counterspell with Vial, and they beat face. What more can you ask for?

This is getting a little off topic for this thread, but thank you for your suggestions.  I think if you view my tournament report with my entire decklist you will see that I am running a non-standard fish build with only eight creatures, no Vial, and a lot more counters, disruption, and removal.  I see it as much more control fish than aggro fish, and I do believe that the thieves fit a specific purpose in my build.  With my creature base and mana base, along with no vial, Ninja of the Deep Hours and Voidmage Prodigies are weak inclusions.  With my 4 mages, I include two Katakis for my workshop matchups and two Thieves for my control matchups.  The Thieves speed up my clock considerably against control, which usually has very few win conditions.  I agree that they would not be as good as ninjas or voidmages in capnproton's build, but he has many key elements that have synergy with these two creatures that are missing from my deck.

[Implacable]

I apologize that you thought me off-topic; I believe that you stated you would be open to some advice on the maindeck.  I am aware that you run a variant version of Fish and, although your argument is sound, I still disagree with the choice to run the Thieves.  While they might be good against control, I just don't feel that they add enough to enough of your matchups.  Shouldn't Fish be good enough against a control deck as it is?  In my experience, and I apologize if this sound mildly retarded, Fish has more trouble with quicker decks, like GrimLong.

[Brapp]

True Believer is an amazing sideboard card. In testing, I had 4 sideboard for matchups against Storm Combo, Gifts Ungiven (counters Gifts), Ichorid and other decks running black disruption. It's also useful against Mindslaver and Jester's Cap.

Really, I considered him for the maindeck because his applications were so broad.

Be careful, though. Ancestral Recall doesn't work too well under him.

[vartemis]

I play a similar copy to the deck that finished first day 2 with a few number tweaks.  Rather than break it down by card type, I'm gonna do it by CC is fish is a tempo/curve deck and this will help you see where I get it from, and then I will compare my choices to yours and tell you why I agree or disagree.

0CC
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection

1CC
4 Flying Men
3 Extract
3 Sword to Plowshares
3 Curiosity
3 Daze (2CC, but I count it as 1 because you need 1 island in play to cast it alternately)
1 Ancestral Recall

2CC
4 Meddling Mage
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours (4CC, but 99.9% of the time he is ninjiutsued in)
2 Kataki, War's Wage
4 Null Rod
1 Time Walk

Mana
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Island
1 Plains
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Sideboard
3 Stifle
3 Disenchant
3 Energy Flux
3 Silver Knight
2 Sacred Ground
1 Misdirection

Fishy Creatures

Flying Men are one of the best 1 drops available to fish.  I would take flying men over javelineers, lions, hounds, or anything else.  You could use one of the white hawks if you wanted, but the blue is better for FOW pitching.  A turn one flying man easily turns into a turn 2 ninja.  The evasion that he has outweighs the extra toughness or abilities of the previously mentioned. 

I have also never been a user of Stormscape Apprentice.  He has a neat ability, but ideally would be suited to sideboard rather than maindeck if I was gonna use him IMHO.  For the same casting cost, you can extract the creature you were going to tap out.

Kataki, War's Wage is a great card for fish, but I think 4 maindecked is too much.  With little to no artifacts, he likely won't hurt you nearly as much as your opponent.  Remember though he is a legend, so seeing multiples is never usually a good thing.  Having 1 in your hand as backup incase he is removed is fine, but when you have 2 in your hand you know you have a problem.  I run 2  for decks that pack heavy creature removal and artifacts, but sometimes side out 1.

Lions and Hounds are good creatures, but in vintage, good isnt good enough.  You need great creatures.  Vanilla ground bound creatures will rarely hit more than a couple of times.  The hound is a difficult choice.  He is a great one drop, but to increase consistency of getting it first turn you need to up the count to 3 or 4, BUT in doing so you increase the number you will draw later which you will wish were something else.  You have to ask yourself if you think the benefit will outweigh the drawback.  I say no, but to each his own. These creatures imply an aggro direction for the deck, but fish is not aggro.  You usually cannot win in the beatdown role alone.  Workshop aggro is better, oath will be able to out "aggro" you once a creature is online, anything with a karn will make your life hell.

Meddling Mage is a given.  If you are running UW fish and not using mage you have no idea what you are doing.

Rootwater theif is a metagame call.  He is great in combo infested areas.  If you expect combo, put him in the SB.  He is not MD material by any means, but can be a godsend in the right situation.  I believe 3 would be the right call.  If I was expecting a lot of combo, I would likely take out my 3 Knights for them.  I would rather have him than True Believer for combo.

Draw

Card advantage in fish has taken many forms.  Standstill for a time was a staple, but if went against fish's idea of tempo.  Why would you want to cast a spell that stops you from playing spells, when essentially you want to and should be playing a spell or creature (or both) every turn.  Standstill has decreased in numbers, and I personally have not seen it played anywhere in months.

Ancestral is obvious, but his baby brother brainstorm is an interesting choice.  What motivated you to choose it?  It provides no card advantage.  It give you better selection at times, but what are you shuffling back, lands?  Every card in your deck wants to be played, and sending them back can be a pain, especially when you don't have a fetch and you have just plow undered yourself.  I would reccomend standstill over brainstorm, and i still dont feel that is the optimal card.  It can stop you from playing spells for a couple of turns, but if you just put 2 lands on top of your library with no fetch, then you aren't playing anything anytime soon anyways.

Curiosity I feel is the best draw spell available for this deck right now.  If you have a creature with some sort of evasion, or if they have no blockers, you are drawing another card EVERY turn.  With a ninja out and a curious creature, you could be drawing up to 3 cards a turn, surely giving you something to cast*.

* On a side note, I never cast anything before declaring an attack, unless it will impact my attack.  This may be a given for people involved in this thread, but for the unitiated fish players poking their noses in this is important.  Save your mana until after you have gotten your draws from the ninja and curiosity (or anything else you may use in its place).  Nothing sucks more than being 1 mana short of casting a game tipping spell you drew off a ninja because you decided to play something earlier.

Ninja is an obvious draw ability, so no need to go into that.

Time Walk (it gives you a draw, doesn't it?) is a staple too.

Counter/Control

Swords to plowshares should be a minimum of 3 with a possible 1 in the side or maindecked.  Right now I am running 3 and a misdirection, but sometimes swap the misdirection out for the 4th if I am not expecting any combo.

Force of Will is obvious.  Same thing goes as Meddling Mage

Counterspell is a subpar counter.  You are not playing the deck right if you have not tapped out as much as you can every turn with what you have.  Although it may be a good psychological play to leave 2 blue open, your opponent will know you are not playing drains, and leaving 2 blue open could have  cast something else.

Daze allows you to tap out and still have a counter besides FOW available.  Mana in vintage is tight, and we often find ourselves tapping out to make the most of our turn. Never underestimate making your opponent pay 1 more for a spell because they usually can't.

Misdirection can be a great card, sometime not.  I take one out for Swords sometimes, and sometimes I SB a null rod and run 2.  Purely a metagame call.  There is almost nothing sweeter than misdirecting an Ancestral.

Artifacts

Null Rod is pretty much the only artifact piece that will work well in fish.  It affects you less than your opponent, and can shut them right down in some cases.  4 or 3 with 1 SB is the right choice.

Chalice of the Void.  Without workshops, you will only be getting them for 0, 1, and 2 at most.  while casting it at 0 is great, it does nothing for the moxes in play.  You will also do more damage to yourself with them at 1 or 2.  Chalice is only good if you want to build an Aether Vial version of fish.

Mana

Lotus and Moxes are obvious.

4 Fetches is the right number.  I assume you run 6 due to brainstorms, but you do this at the expense of basic lands.  That is not worth it IMO.

4 Tundra.  Um yeah duh.

Basic land is one of the great things about this deck.  You can only loose them to strip and titans.  I play with 1 plains in the event that i know a tundra wont be around long enough for me to swords on my opponent's turn, or i cant seem to cast a mage.

4 wastes and strip are pure tempo cards.  You can survive with few mana sources... most decks cant.

3 Mishra's are the perfect number.  You dont want them in an opening hand ideally, so thats why I stay away from 4.

The Red Herring...

Many people ask why I maindeck my Extracts.  Extract is likely my favorite blue counterspell, and it only costs U to play.  Counterspell you say?  Yes, its a 1 for 1 card exchange that stops a spell from being played.  And the spell can't be willed back either; only wished for (if they have wishes).  My favorite play is a turn 1 extract followed by a turn 2 Mage after knowing exactly what my opponent is playing.  Since most decks are very similar in their construction, it can also act as a peek without the cantrip as well, letting me know how to play out my hand.  It also lets me know what deck I am playing against without having to play blindly for a couple of turns. If useless, they can always be sided out for one of my 3 blocks.

Sideboards

What you run:
Why pithing needle?  What can it do that you cant do with something else?  Welders -> Swords,  Bazaar -> waste/strip

I feel exalted angel is overkill and eats too much mana.  Unless you have a playset of the judge foils, there is no reason to use them.

Old men of the sea are great if you are expecting a mirror, and are better against welders than needle.  I use them when needed as well.

1 Arcane is useless.  The odds of you seeing it are not very good.  Yes I know I am a hypocrit and only run 1 misdirection maindecked, but I dont rely on it, and if i think i really need it, I have an extra in the side.

Seals of cleansing and/or disenchants should be staples of all fish sideboards.  I do think that Disnenchant is the better choice.  The advantage of seals is that you can cast it with extra unused mana and just have it waiting, but a disenchant can be cast as an instant which can be very usefull, such as when stuck under a tanglewire.  Once again... to each his own.

An extra swords never hurt anyone.

Why I run:
Stifle used to be maindecked and extracts sided, but i found that they worked better the other way around.  Stifle can be a mana tempo card by stifling a fetch, it can stop a tendrils, it can buy you a turn against a bazaar deck...  its an all around utility card.

Energy flux can ruin combos mana excell, especially under a null rod.  It also ruins stax's day.

Silver knights are there against FCG and if I feel a need a bit of a faster clock. I really love them now that Friggorid is picking up.  If I thought that red burn was dissapearing (fire/bolt) i would consider switching them over to black knights, but the first strike helps either way.  the first strike is also great against fish (RU version especially).

Sacred Ground is against stax, or anything that tries to get a strip lock.

Sorry for the long winded post, but i keep my fish deck in high rotation and love to talk about the archetypes evolution as a whole.  Best of luck with your deck, and please feel free to answer the questions I asked throughout this post.

j

[Mantis]

Lions and Hounds are good creatures, but in vintage, good isnt good enough.  You need great creatures.  Vanilla ground bound creatures will rarely hit more than a couple of times.  The hound is a difficult choice.  He is a great one drop, but to increase consistency of getting it first turn you need to up the count to 3 or 4, BUT in doing so you increase the number you will draw later which you will wish were something else.  You have to ask yourself if you think the benefit will outweigh the drawback.  I say no, but to each his own. These creatures imply an aggro direction for the deck, but fish is not aggro.  You usually cannot win in the beatdown role alone.  Workshop aggro is better, oath will be able to out "aggro" you once a creature is online, anything with a karn will make your life hell.

How is Flying Men a great creature? He is a 1/1 creature with no interesting abbilities. Stormscape Apprentice on the other hand is a great creature in fact.
How is Flying Men any better than Apprentice? He has evasion which is handy with Curiosity. Apprentice can just tap the opposing blockers down to clear the path for you. But Apprentice can tap down that mighty 11/11 Indestructible and also remember that we still have a deck called Oath.

Flying Men does little to improve your matchups in most matches, while Apprentice forces your opponent to go into Tendrills gameplan which gives you more time to Extract or kill your opponent (gifts matchup). In Stax they both are irrelevant. Oath is obvious. CS is obviously Apprentice, tapping down Pentavus and Trike when you have your Null Rod down. FCG and Fish; even in aggro matchups I would pick Apprentice over Flying Men as he can tap down scary creatures while Flying Men chumps them...

[Harlequin]

I'm gunna go out on a limb and pull the "Success" card. 

It seems like any fish decks putting up results lately have all opted to cut Stormscape for Flying men.  vartemis runs a deck very similar to the deck I run.  I run 3 stifles main, and 3 extract sided... and I run 4 swords over any misdirrection.  But the core of the deck is identical (right down to the 3 manlands).  I do support the 3 swords 3 extract if thats how you want to run the deck (3 and 4 is overkill on the removal).  However I <3 stifle, and would never take it out of the main deck.   But again its all preferance.   

The board is slightly different,  but then again... Fish Boards even when played by the same PLAYER differ from tournement to tournement. 

@Vartemis. With the recent sucess and popularity of IT and/or Grim Long.  Any thoughts about Orims Chant as a sideboard tool to combat storm?  I particularly like the Complement of Stifle and Orims (as in if they go off you use stifle, if they duress you before they go off you orims in response).

Any testing to this reguard?

[Mantis]

I tried the SCG decklist finder for Vintage on UW Fish that T16-ed from 2005-09-25 till now and only 1 out of 6 of the Fish decks opted to run Flying Men over Stormscape Apprentice. The other 5 all ran 3 Stormscape Apprentice mainboard. Please check the facts before you make the statement.

In my opinion Flying Men has not brought UW Fish a lot of success and it's not going to any time soon. Why not play Stormscape Apprentice over Flying Men and Dark Confidant over Curiosity? Your threatdensity increases and you will run better cards. Allthough this would probably require you to run Aether Vial and that means no Null Rod .

What's up with Ninja of the Deep Hours? I thought the whole purpose of this card was to play a Standstill; Ninjitsu him in and Vial your other dude in back again. Curiosity and Ninjitsu also don't work together, you will lose your enchantment when you ninja your dude out. My point is that Fish decks can not go broken and they will require perfect synergy to win you the match. You will not get any 'oops I win' games like Gifts and Stax do. This is why Paul Nicolo's UW Fish is so frigging good (although it will put your playskill to the limit); every card in his deck works together well with the other cards.

I must say I really like Null Rod and getting it on the table means good luck with Y. Will. Especially if you WOULD run Stormscape Apprentice, your opponent can not go the Colossus route and all your cards are build to stop them from pulling of a broken Will.

[Harlequin]

6 months is alot of time.  Also Fish is not really a "Big tournement" Deck.  So doing a SSG Search over the past 6 months is not really that great of a probe into the meta either.  I'm just going by the decklists that I have read in Tournement report forum in perhapse the past 1 to 2 months.  These tend to be focused on smaller 20-40 person tournements where Fish thrives.  I don't nessisarily have hard numbers or Query results to back this, but I do read most tourny summaries and tourny reports that cruise by.  Also I have a fairly large testing background for the deck.  I have never ever liked Stormscape.  And I have never liked Standstill either.

Lastly Curiosity and Ninja don't nessiarily have automatic bad synergy.  In fact haveing both in a hand with flying man is great.  It gives you many Scenario's... wich exclude the play:  "flying man with curiosity and then ninja him up."  That just poor planing. 

[vartemis]

How is Flying Men a great creature? He is a 1/1 creature with no interesting abilities. Stormscape Apprentice on the other hand is a great creature in fact.
How is Flying Men any better than Apprentice? He has evasion which is handy with Curiosity. Apprentice can just tap the opposing blockers down to clear the path for you. But Apprentice can tap down that mighty 11/11 Indestructible and also remember that we still have a deck called Oath.

Flying Men does little to improve your matchups in most matches, while Apprentice forces your opponent to go into Tendrils gameplan which gives you more time to Extract or kill your opponent (gifts matchup). In Stax they both are irrelevant. Oath is obvious. CS is obviously Apprentice, tapping down Pentavus and Trike when you have your Null Rod down. FCG and Fish; even in aggro matchups I would pick Apprentice over Flying Men as he can tap down scary creatures while Flying Men chumps them...

I do not consider Flying Men a vanilla creature because flying essentially makes him unblockable for the first couple of turns, especially turn 2 because it leads to a turn 2 extra draw, either by curiosity or through a ninja. Card advantage wins games.  That extra draw will end up getting you the swords, extract, or to a lesser extent stifle (for oath) you need to take care of the cards that you would use the apprentice for.  You should ideally be swinging every turn, even if its suicide. 1 for 1 creature trade is nothing to laugh at.  Eventually they will have to block with their welders.  You don't have a fancy combo you can sit back and wait to assemble.  Every point counts.

Extract can remove any large creature before they hit play.  You can only tap down a creature so long before your opponent finds an answer.  If extract is countered, the same counter could have been used on your apprentice.  Between the 3 extracts and 3 swords, you should be able to deal with oath's creatures.  Extract 1 pre-oath, and 1 can be swords.  Ideally oath should not even be hitting the table, but that's another story.

In FCG and the Mirror, I would rather have my knights and/or old men.  With a knight I can block anything on par and come out unscathed, and against FCG I can attack right through.  Old men can steal anything I need, providing permanent advantage, other than piledrivers which is the reason I run knights.

Apprentice is not a bad creature, I just think he doesn't deserve a maindeck slot.  Turn 1 you drop either.  Turn 2, you will swing with a flying man and get some draw and a bit of damage. Will you swing with an apprentice, or leave him sitting back and leave a tundra untapped in the event that an angel or colossus comes swinging? That is a waste of tempo.  If you are attached to him, put him in the SB.  If I was going to SB him, I would likely take out a couple of Fluxes.  The card advantage that flying men gets you outweighs the tapping ability of apprentice.

It seems like any fish decks putting up results lately have all opted to cut Stormscape for Flying men. Vartemis runs a deck very similar to the deck I run. I run 3 stifles main, and 3 extract sided... and I run 4 swords over any misdirection. But the core of the deck is identical (right down to the 3 manlands). I do support the 3 swords 3 extract if that’s how you want to run the deck (3 and 4 is overkill on the removal). However I <3 stifle, and would never take it out of the main deck. But again it’s all preference.

The board is slightly different, but then again... Fish Boards even when played by the same PLAYER differ from tournament to tournament.

@Vartemis. With the recent success and popularity of IT and/or Grim Long. Any thoughts about Orim's Chant as a sideboard tool to combat storm? I particularly like the Complement of Stifle and Orim’s (as in if they go off you use stifle, if they duress you before they go off you Orim's in response).

Any testing to this regard?

I have actually been testing removing the misdirections entirely.  I have tried running an extra swords or  daze, but I am not content with my testing to post it.  The deck I posted is what I have "written in stone" for now.  I used to run stifle MD and the extracts SB, but after testing I found that the extracts MD were much better for me.  Almost everything you can use stifle for you can use an extract (extracting a time vault (used to), colossus, or recoup in gifts for example).  I also liked the added versatility of knowing what my opponent is playing turn 1 game 1, coupled with a turn 2 mage naming a key spell.

My SB has stayed relatively the same for a couple of months (except for testing), other than a few tweaks in numbers.  I like the blocks of 3 that can easily be pulled in and out as they are needed.

Regarding Orim's Chant, yes I have been testing it (when I have the time), and do like it.  I have been removing 2 Fluxes and the 1 Misdirection from the board to make room for 3.  I have also been trying Abeyance as well.  Overall I think Orim's chant might be the better choice, but I am still testing.  Card wise they are identical for the purpose they are being used right now regarding IT and Long.  Abeyance will allow them to cast creatures, but IT, Gifts and Longs don’t have any creatures to hardcast.  The extra mana can be problematic, but if we take a given that most of these decks will be going off turn 3, 4, or 5 with our resistance, we should be able to spare the 1 or 2 mana.  Orim's Chant allows you to stop the mirror and FCG from attacking later in the game when you should be able to have WW up.  For a similar cost, Abeyance does not stop creatures, but stops any non-mana activated abilities.  Against a welded in belcher, you can cast it to stop the activation and buy you a turn. It was also great in response to Fusillade, but I will have to see if the extra mana merits itself anymore.  Abeyance also replaces itself, which is a bonus.

j

[vartemis]

I tried the SCG decklist finder for Vintage on UW Fish that T16-ed from 2005-09-25 till now and only 1 out of 6 of the Fish decks opted to run Flying Men over Stormscape Apprentice. The other 5 all ran 3 Stormscape Apprentice mainboard. Please check the facts before you make the statement.

Fish can drastically change for month to month, so a decklist from february 2006 could be considered outdated to a point.  Fish is the common cold of vintage.  It adapts constantly to deal with what is thrown at it, and exploits the weaknesses of other decks.  Not bragging by any means, but living in SW Ontario I see my fair share of fishy decks.  Word gets around about ideas and stuff locally.  When I stop off at shops in Toronto, I can almost guarantee at least 3 people will be playing fish at the tables, tournament or competive casual for testing.

In my opinion Flying Men has not brought UW Fish a lot of success and it's not going to any time soon. Why not play Stormscape Apprentice over Flying Men and Dark Confidant over Curiosity? Your threatdensity increases and you will run better cards. Allthough this would probably require you to run Aether Vial and that means no Null Rod .

Running dark confidant is for UB fish  and usually does replace the curiosities to some extent.  I would still not run apprentice in that deck.  I would run waterfront bouncers.  Aether Vial fish was tried, but I think the general consensus is that it failed.  As stated, vial means no nrod, which is then replaced with a chalice.  chalice for 0 is useless after turn 2 for the most part, and any other chalice just fill up your hand.

If I was going that route, I would run something like this:

4 Vials
3 Confidants
4 Bouncers
4 Chalices
4 M Fiends

Confidants are great because your average cost is low, but a FOW can hurt.  Bouncers put the creatures into your opponent's hand, and for gifts and oath that is a major pain.  Fiends offers control, and extra chalices can be dumped to the bouncer.  A great play would be to vial in the fiend on your opponent's draw, stack his CIP, bounce him with the bouncer, stack the leaves play, and your opponent looses the card permanently.

What's up with Ninja of the Deep Hours? I thought the whole purpose of this card was to play a Standstill; Ninjitsu him in and Vial your other dude in back again. Curiosity and Ninjitsu also don't work together, you will lose your enchantment when you ninja your dude out. My point is that Fish decks can not go broken and they will require perfect synergy to win you the match. You will not get any 'oops I win' games like Gifts and Stax do. This is why Paul Nicolo's UW Fish is so frigging good (although it will put your playskill to the limit); every card in his deck works together well with the other cards.

As said above, vial is pretty much dead, and so is standstill.  Turn 1 drop a FMen, turn 2 swing, return the Fmen and play ninja.  Turn 3 cast fMen and Mage, or leave mana open for swords or whatever else you need.  Turn 4 play a curiosity on fmen and whatever else you need to do.

I must say I really like Null Rod and getting it on the table means good luck with Y. Will. Especially if you WOULD run Stormscape Apprentice, your opponent can not go the Colossus route and all your cards are build to stop them from pulling of a broken Will.

Stifle and extract stop yawgs will.  Swords and extract stop colossus.  Meddling mage stop both.  Why do you need overkill for it?  Why not draw more creatures with a curious Fmen?

j

[Vegeta2711]

I do not consider Flying Men a vanilla creature because flying essentially makes him unblockable for the first couple of turns

I'm sorry, but when did Vintage start running BLOCKERS? What the hell are you worried about if you drop a 2/2 or 2/1 vs. a 1/1 flyer? Oh man, somebody is going to make a terrible trade and block with Goblin Welder or Dark Confidant?

I mean c'mon now, at least make an actual argument.

[vartemis]

I do not consider Flying Men a vanilla creature because flying essentially makes him unblockable for the first couple of turns

I'm sorry, but when did Vintage start running BLOCKERS? What the hell are you worried about if you drop a 2/2 or 2/1 vs. a 1/1 flyer? Oh man, somebody is going to make a terrible trade and block with Goblin Welder or Dark Confidant?

I mean c'mon now, at least make an actual argument.

Juggs, Heritics, goblins,  UG Weenie (madness, Wtf, threshold), Friggorid,  the mirror match?  There are plenty of decks that can drop turn 1 or 2 blockers.

j

[Imsomniac101]

I do not consider Flying Men a vanilla creature because flying essentially makes him unblockable for the first couple of turns

I'm sorry, but when did Vintage start running BLOCKERS? What the hell are you worried about if you drop a 2/2 or 2/1 vs. a 1/1 flyer? Oh man, somebody is going to make a terrible trade and block with Goblin Welder or Dark Confidant?

I mean c'mon now, at least make an actual argument.

Juggs, Heritics, goblins,  UG Weenie (madness, Wtf, threshold), Friggorid,  the mirror match?  There are plenty of decks that can drop turn 1 or 2 blockers.

If that's the case then Ninja is a horrible play anyway.

[Vegeta2711]

I do not consider Flying Men a vanilla creature because flying essentially makes him unblockable for the first couple of turns

I'm sorry, but when did Vintage start running BLOCKERS? What the hell are you worried about if you drop a 2/2 or 2/1 vs. a 1/1 flyer? Oh man, somebody is going to make a terrible trade and block with Goblin Welder or Dark Confidant?

I mean c'mon now, at least make an actual argument.

Juggs, Heritics, goblins,  UG Weenie (madness, Wtf, threshold), Friggorid,  the mirror match?  There are plenty of decks that can drop turn 1 or 2 blockers.

Not only do Goblins and UG crap barely see play, but Goblins would rion you no matter WHAT creature base you used. Same with Workshop Aggro until post-board. Heretics game 1 vs Fish? Please. Maybe games 2 and 3, but odds are they won't be coming out turn 1 anyway.

Same with the whole Friggorid thing. You can't win that match without them having a terrible draw or running 3-4 crypt. They also only really have 4 one drop creatures anyway.

I mean in crap.meta, your right, it's not a good choice. But in that metagame Fish is a lousy choice.

[Harlequin]

Mishrah's Factory is the biggest reason to run Flying men over Stormscape, im surprised no one has called that one out.  There are not many blockers in type 1, but decks that don't have blockers are "good" to "great" match-ups for you anyway.  Reguardless of your disruption package, you should be giveing them some sort of savage pwning one way or another.  But WU fish has an issue with small stompy, and fish style aggro.   that is where you need to focus the intent of your deck.  Giveing yourself a flyer in that matchup is critical.  In that match your dealing 1 extra damage each turn, and more importantly OUT drawing them.  If you have stormscape your going 1 for 1 each turn, and spending a each turn to maintain it.

As far as stifle goes, I Like playing the mana game with my opponent.  So Stifle really fits what I want to accomplish.  As Ive said before, I agree that MD extracts are totally playable.  But I just think Stifle gives you more main deck mana denial, and more main deck Stacks control.  I'm less concerned with DSC and oath of druids... But if that is where you need to focus, Extract for the win! 

as far as Orim's or Abayance.  I think that extra little makes abayance just too weak.  You need to hold mana each turn until they make the storm attempt.  Setting asside a single Tundra to give me stife OR orim depending on what they do... Is easier to stomache than setting asside Tundra + extra land.  I don't side In Orim's against Stompy, so the I have never payed the kicker on Orim's ever... Abayance Is nice if you expect alot of slaver I would guess, but as an answer for storm I think the mana cost is extremely important to consider.

[Mantis]

Stormscape Apprentice can tap down Juggernaut and therefore it is better than Flying Men in the Workshop aggro matchup. In the Goblins matchup (which you will lose regardless anyway) both won't help you much anyway. Doing one damage per turn is not going to stop Goblins onslaught.

Stormscape Apprentice also protects you from 11 damage a turn and is therefore better than a dude that deals 1 damage per turn. If you play a Stormscape Apprentice on turn one it will protect you from Darksteel Colossus for the rest of the game. StP will get countered anyway, for that matter I would even run Stormscape Apprentice over StP.

I can't think of one matchup where Flying Men would be better than Stormscape Apprentice. Not even one in which he would be better than Lions/Hounds or even Icatian Javilineers (who has great synergy with Curiosity as well).

How is Mishra's Factory a reason to run Flying Men over Stormscape Apprentice? Fish runs Wasteland AND StP for your information.