[Deck] URBana Fish

[mongrel12]

How do you deal with Darkblast when playing this deck? I ran across it in testing yesterday and got completely destroyed. Everything else about the deck is solid though--Remand is absolute gas every time i draw it.

[b-tings]

I think that URB is an intereting direction to take it, but I'm not really sure that it is better than an UWB build would be.

You basically get shaman, fire/ice, REB, and rack and ruin.  U/W fish lets you run meddling mage (over your only red creature, shaman, which I don't really see as that spectacular; mage is IMO far more disruptive not to mention harder to kill), swords to plowshares (better than fire/ice IMO simply because it is cheaper and can hit anything), stormscape apprentice over bouncer (I think it's nice to have another 1-drop that serves pretty much the same purpose against colossus and such.), you can run other artifact hate like serenity or energy flux.  Replace REBs with duresses as you suggested (which I think are much better against combo decks anyways) and I think you would have pretty much the same thing but better.

I also think that rod is just overall superior denial over chalice and monkey; even though the latter are one sided, rod takes out all of their artifact mana with one card (chalice doesn't hit all of it and stuff already on the table isn't affected; often it's only effective if one is on the play, and shaman takes mana to use and lets them still get at least one use out of each piece of mana), as well as shutting off stupid stuff like triskelion.

The only black card you mentioned in all of that was Duress. I understand that this deck started as an experiment to see how Confidant would work in Fish, but I wonder how important the black cards are to this deck, and if UWR Mox Fish might be stronger, because the key elements of this deck that keep getting talked about seem to be the moxes and the monkey/chalice set that allows for them.

Also, I was wondering what, if any, artifacts with activated abilities were tested. I know you said you didn't like Jitte, and I seem to remember something about SoFI; I suppose Vial wouldn't be very good, although it seems like it would be a beating in a UWR version, although, without the Confidant draw engine, it might be too much deadweight. *shrugs* just spitballing.

[ErkBek]

The only black card you mentioned in all of that was Duress. I understand that this deck started as an experiment to see how Confidant would work in Fish, but I wonder how important the black cards are to this deck, and if UWR Mox Fish might be stronger, because the key elements of this deck that keep getting talked about seem to be the moxes and the monkey/chalice set that allows for them.

I built this deck a few months before ravinca was released. At the time it was a UR fish deck insipired by 13Nova's idea of fish with 4 chalice, 4 shamans, and 0 null rods. After a getting in 5 games here and there for a few months I decided that the deck needed a way to deal with yawg will. I didn't want to run tcrypts for a number of reasons (my chalices, opposing needles, and shamans) so I felt planar void was the best card to hit will. Upon adding planar void to the SB, dark confidant turned out to be a perfect fit to boost the deck's draw engine. I originally only had 3 in my list, however I upped it to 4 after about 2 games. He is insane and is the primary reason to run black. After adding them, I felt the maindeck was fairly tight other than 2 spots that I have been playing around with (1 curiosity, 1 remand). I had tried crucible, sword of F/I, and even another favorite of mine, mask of memory, to fill these spaces. I really liked mask, however it was hard to get it through mana drains and was sometimes kinda slow to get going, both of which are strenghts of curiosity.  After starting this thread a number of people have said that I'm running too many dazes and they are probably right. So cutting 2 dazes frees up another 2 spaces, 4 all together from my posted list (1 remand, 1 curiosity, 2 daze). These spaces can be used to up the remands and duresses. I'd recommend 1 Remands and 3 Duress in those slots. This should help tie up the combo matchup a lot too.

One last thing, does anybody thing memory lapse would be better than remand?

Thanks for your help guys.

[Yare]

One last thing, does anybody thing memory lapse would be better than remand?

No, I don't.  Primarily because when they get the countered spell back, with Remand you will have drawn a "new" card by then.  With Memory Lapse, this is not true.  The cantrip in and of itself makes it better.

[Pitlord]

I definitly think that adding 3 duress and another remand is a good call. Daze is total crap a lot of time and slows you down, which is important when killing yourself with confidant.

I also think that remand is better than memory, at least in most circumstances. Against everything but storm combo, I would rather play remand beacuse most decks can only play 1 or 2 spells a turn anyways, plus you get a cantrip. Against storm though, remand is slightly worse, because they often have enough mana to just play it again, and then you are adding to storm count.

Overall though, i feel remand is slightly better, because is gets you a card now, which is a huge tempo boost, especially for a deck like this that needs to draw cards or it flops over and dies.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I think that URB is an intereting direction to take it, but I'm not really sure that it is better than an UWB build would be.

You basically get shaman, fire/ice, REB, and rack and ruin.  U/W fish lets you run meddling mage (over your only red creature, shaman, which I don't really see as that spectacular; mage is IMO far more disruptive not to mention harder to kill), swords to plowshares (better than fire/ice IMO simply because it is cheaper and can hit anything), stormscape apprentice over bouncer (I think it's nice to have another 1-drop that serves pretty much the same purpose against colossus and such.), you can run other artifact hate like serenity or energy flux.  Replace REBs with duresses as you suggested (which I think are much better against combo decks anyways) and I think you would have pretty much the same thing but better.

I also think that rod is just overall superior denial over chalice and monkey; even though the latter are one sided, rod takes out all of their artifact mana with one card (chalice doesn't hit all of it and stuff already on the table isn't affected; often it's only effective if one is on the play, and shaman takes mana to use and lets them still get at least one use out of each piece of mana), as well as shutting off stupid stuff like triskelion.

The only black card you mentioned in all of that was Duress. I understand that this deck started as an experiment to see how Confidant would work in Fish, but I wonder how important the black cards are to this deck, and if UWR Mox Fish might be stronger, because the key elements of this deck that keep getting talked about seem to be the moxes and the monkey/chalice set that allows for them.

Confident is amazing and worth the splash on it's own.  It's way stronger than shaman, IMO.  And planar void really is a beating; a friend of mine is actually maindecking those in his fish deck.

Moxes are certainly good; allowing one to cast a 2 drop on turn 1 is a significant tempo boost, but after turn 3 or so they become weaker and other decks abuse them much more than fish can.  I don't think that it's bad to use 1-2 moxes in the first couple turns and then drop a null rod after; the moxes have accelerated one's early creature drops and served their purpose, and the rod in most mathcups will affect the opponent a lot more significantly than it will the fish player, shutting off the abusive ability to chain draw effectively or play busted Wills and such.

[ErkBek]

Confident is amazing and worth the splash on it's own.  It's way stronger than shaman, IMO.  And planar void really is a beating; a friend of mine is actually maindecking those in his fish deck.

Moxes are certainly good; allowing one to cast a 2 drop on turn 1 is a significant tempo boost, but after turn 3 or so they become weaker and other decks abuse them much more than fish can.  I don't think that it's bad to use 1-2 moxes in the first couple turns and then drop a null rod after; the moxes have accelerated one's early creature drops and served their purpose, and the rod in most mathcups will affect the opponent a lot more significantly than it will the fish player, shutting off the abusive ability to chain draw effectively or play busted Wills and such.

I'm not sure you see the gorilla shaman + chalice @0 synergy. Shaman also eats sol rings, mana vaults, and the like all day. This package also keeps tinker targets at a minimum as well. It is very effective.

[Imsomniac101]

I built this deck a few months before ravinca was released. At the time it was a UR fish deck insipired by 13Nova's idea of fish with 4 chalice, 4 shamans, and 0 null rods.

Well, I hate to take credit away from 13Nova. No really, I do, he's a really nice guy. But the Chalice + Shaman tagteam has been out for ages, and has been in use for almost just as long. I recall Vegeta posting a UR Fish deck using this synergy, in the open forum somewhere. You will have to dig a few pages back. Whether or not the deck was any good is a different story.

I'm not sure you see the gorilla shaman + chalice @0 synergy. Shaman also eats sol rings, mana vaults, and the like all day. This package also keeps tinker targets at a minimum as well. It is very effective.

This is very true.

I see the direction you've taken the deck into. You made the deck as consistent as possible by adding all the cantrip effects and draw parts while avoiding dead cards. However, I feel that there isn't enough Mana Denial in the deck. That's probably just my style preference though.

And what is with the obsession over a T2 counterspell? Mana Leak in my mind is infinitely superior.

[Evenpence]

And what is with the obsession over a T2 counterspell? Mana Leak in my mind is infinitely superior.

This is funny.

Seriously though, Remand is okay.  Mana Leak actually counters the spell, while Remand allows you to create an enormous amount of tempo.  Getting in an extra attack phase, land drop, creature drop, etc, is huge.  Remand sometimes functions like a Time Walk - specifically in the early game against bad matchups.

Remand is really good.

[ZyklonB]

Remand? Come on. Casting costs are so low in T1 that this is a waste. Remand wants high cc spells, not 1 and 2 cc stuff.

Memory Lapse puts the card out of reach for a turn.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Remand? Come on. Casting costs are so low in T1 that this is a waste. Remand wants high cc spells, not 1 and 2 cc stuff.

Memory Lapse puts the card out of reach for a turn.

And Remanding Gifts or Yawgwill lets them replay it immediately?

[Gabethebabe]

I acknowledge that in my first post I made a pretty stupid example (Massacre), but I still stand firm that Mana Leak is better than Remand or Memory Lapse (in Fish. We are not talking about IT, where Remand is so very clearly superior)

I don´t want that Yawgmoth´s Will / Thirst for Knowledge / Tinker / Crucible / WhateverCard in their hand, nor on the top of their library, I want it in their graveyard. Since I play ManaDenial.dec, they really shouldn´t be able to pay .

Fish has few counters. So use them well. And don´t postpone your fate with Remand, when you can get rid of it with Leak. The card may come back next turn to your disadvantage.

[DoubleDrain]

Speaking of Type II counterspells, has anyone tested Disrupting Shoal in U/x fish?? 

It seems better than both misdirection and daze (which are sooo lame against stax, for example) and with a mana curve around 1-3, you should be able to counter many relevent cards.

Having 8x force of will in fish will allow it to be FAR more aggressive in the early game; now you can tap out turn 2 for that meddling mage, ninja, rod, etc. and still have counters up.

Just a thought...

[Harlequin]

Disrupting Shoal doesnt really improve your stax matchup... where 3cc would be where you want to be.  I think against shop daze and disrupting shoal are about equal.  But in other matchup's I think the daze would be superior.  Also against stax you only have ninja to counter Smoke stacks and uba mask.  I don't think its a valid solution to that matchup.

[ErkBek]

I guess people will have to test remand and mana leak to figure out which is better. IMO remand is best for hitting draw spells and gifts while leak hits tinker and will just sligthly better. Against fish you can only play so many spells thoughout the game. Remand is time walk in many situations.

[Pitlord]

I agree with Kobefan on that one. Mana leak and remand are personal preference, and meta-game calls. Remand serves as a time walk agaisnt draw spells and most stax lock pieces. If there is a game breaking spell though, leak is probaly a bit better.

As for the meta call, remand is obviously better when you expect lots of slaver, gifts, or stax. It also steals tempo in the fish mirror. Leak is better in a meta filled with combo and oath. Remand soesn't do enough in these matchs to really be worth playing.

[vroman]

If there is a game breaking spell though, leak is probaly a bit better.

tinker, costs 2 artifacts
yawg will, assuming they auto-break lotus to pay for it

[Pitlord]

Tinker does cost two artifacts, but it will still more than likely resolve, and probaly wreck you in massive ways. Leaking tinker makes them lose 1 artifact, and they don't get it to ever resolve. The same thing goes for will. Yes, it will time walk them, but it will eventually probably resolve, and when it does you no longer win. Remand is always a good time walk, no doubt, but I think that never having soemthing totally broken happen is a little better than playing time walk.

Both are good in their own ways, and I think that they are very close in lots of situations. Remand acting as an auto time walk is very good, but sometimes you really need something to not resolve ever. These times are less frequent, but do come up.


On another note about counterspells, was stifle ever tested in this slot? Stifle is very strong for building tempo, as well as stopping the combo match. It can buy huge tempo against almost any deck, by hitting a fetch or a soot counter or welder, or slaver, etc. It also only costs U, which is a plus, but on the negative side, it doesn't stop actual spells. I was just wondering if it was testing, or is even worth testing. It always seemed good infish for my, and am curious.

[Mantis]

How about Withered Wretch, it seems like an absolute house in todays meta where Stax, CS, Gifts and Long/IT are the topdecks. These decks are all vunerable to graveyard hate. I guess you might want to take out Rack and Ruin as I don't believe Stax is as big as it used to be. I'm unsure if the manabase can support it, but dropping a Wasteland or Volcanic for another Underground Sea (in case you take out the R&R ofcourse) seems to fit the bill.

This deck is very nice and has the most insane Time Walk turns with Dark Confidant and Ninja. Nice job.

EDIT: I do not like Remand actually and I think Mana Leak is way better for this reason: EOT cast Gifts Ungiven, I Remand, next mainphase; cast Gifts Ungiven. This way you do not get the chance to untap and counter it again in your counterchain. At least do a split between Mana Leak and Remand which seems reasonable. I think it's either Mana Leak or a split between Remand and Leak that is best.

[Pitlord]

Withered Wretch is amazing, but the mana base is very tight already. Having R turn 1, 1U/1B second turn, and BB/1U third turn is pretty hard. BB is amazingly hard to get, as Eric stated. Off color moxes are played for accel, and ramping into a black source and jet is hard. Also, this deck gets hit pretty hard by wasteland already. I think that in order to play wretch effectivly, you have to limit your colors to B/X.

[Wildcard006]

i think withered wretch would be an amazing addition, if u cut 1 volcanic and added and underground sea, RnR should be sideboard slot, im just saying this cause my local meta is heavy on combo and gifts\CS varients, few stax are showing.  I'm definitly going to playtest this change.

[b-tings]

Wretch would work if room could be made for Aether Vial, which would also probably make Remand a lot better, but like Eric said slots are tight. You'd probably have to cut off-colour moxen, and it would mean Confidant comes down on turn 3 instead of turn 1, which is two missed draws.

I think this is the wrong deck for him, and personally I've never been a fan of cards you need to keep mana open for in aggro, but if you wanted to play him, Aether Vial is the way to go.

[ErkBek]

I split for a sapphire today with this deck. I'll have a report up in a day or two.

[Mantis]

A lot of people say Daze should be cut and they might be right. But I'm really unsure if Daze should be cut for more 1cc spells like REB or Duress as this deck can reliably set a Chalice at 1 without much trouble. Only Shaman, Tutor and Recall get hitt. Perhaps we should cut 3 Dazes (so keep one in) and a Curiosity for #4 Chalice, #4 Leak/Remand and 2 Withered Wretches or a Wretch and a Bouncer. 1 Daze is a good number for the reason that if you happen to cast it people will play around it for the rest of the game while you don't even have Dazes left and you could side it out when having cast it G1, so your opponents will play around without reason.

Another point of attention might be Library of Alexandria. This deck is drawing such an insane amount of cards having 7 cards in your hand is really no exception. LoA is an easy Waste target but it should already have drawn you cards before your opponent has the abbility to Wasteland it and therefore net you cardadvantage!

[b-tings]

Yes, you're drawing a ton of cards, but you want them all on the table. This deck doesn't have a whole lot of cards it wants to hold; it wants to apply pressure right now. If you're trying to play wretches, LoA will make your manabase cry.

[Wildcard006]

yes i agree with the above statement, LOA doesn't not fit in this deck, while the card draw is POTENTIALLY insane, its an aggro deck and should not have 7 cards in hand.  Dropping 3 dazes seems like too much to me, but running 4 is at least 1 too many.  I'd vote drop 2 dazes and the curiosity and go with 3 duress, duress + shaman + chalice = gg.  dropping 3 dazes makes it extremely unlikely that it will serve its purpose of early-game protection.

[Pitlord]

Congrats on the spilt Eric!  But what happened to playing more busted piles like IT?

Anyways, I agree with the above statements regarding dazes. They are weak, but cutting down to 1 seems like more of a crappy gimick. Sure, once in a great while an opponent might play around it later, but most of the time you just end up with a shitty late game singleton.

LoA is also not a good card for this, or any fish deck. It stretches the already tight mana base, gets wasted, and doesn't draw that many cards. This deck can't afford to sit on turn 1 land, go. It will lose, even if the card replaces itself the next turn. With this deck, having a threat turn 1 is huge. If you don't, you lose a lot of tempo by basically giving your opponent a time walk in exchange for a cantrip. Yuck.

[AngryPheldagrif]

He's lucky I was feeling charitable at the tournament. Oath sideboarding Pithing Needle, Balance, Darkblast, etc is definitely rough beats versus this.

On a more serious note, I finally got to see the deck in action from a spectators perspective. It seemed competent if unimpressive, but I can't help but observe that the deck's success was due more to the skill of the player than the list's intrinsic strength. I'm curious as to how what you faced during the day, since your matchups appeared to be much more favorable than the metagame as a whole should have offered. Translation: there was a shitload of Oath and I didn't see you having to face it.

[Mantis]

Yeah, the LoA should probably not be played after all. Whilst I'm not really scared of Wasteland, LoA will indeed muck up your manabase. The point is you are basically never going to use it unless you are winning. It will lose you more games then it will win you.

Anyway, the arguments about not running 1 Daze are incorrec, I will stand by my decision to run only 1 Daze. Indeed Daze is a crappy lategame spell and running 2 will indeed improve you chances of seeing it early, but at the same time it will also increase the chance of seeing it late. The whole point is you NEVER want to see more than 1, as Daze is good because of the element of surprise. Daze is not like Oath of Druids for Oath. Your deck is not build around Daze, it's something that fills up some slots that could have been other cards as well. Diversity is key to outplaying your opponent. Really, I couldn't care less on consistency levels of unimportant cards like Daze. However dropping to 2 seems acceptable but more than 2 certainly is not as you NEVER EVER want to see more than 1 Daze (unless you are playing Storm combo or just a real idiot).

I've tested Wretch a bit and she's pretty hard on the manabase, as BB is not easy and you want to tap out every turn.  so using it becomes hard. Duress might indeed be the better call. 4 Chalice should be pretty natural as you can set the second at 1. If a third might come up, you might just have enough mana to set it to 3.

Why would Oath be such a hard matchup? They have 4 Oath and you have 3 Waterfront Bouncer which just makes Oath cry. You have a better drawengine and don't have to run crappy cards to find your Oath. Post board is unfavorable for Fish, but it's not unwinnable. The list is more powerful then you would expect it to be, once it gets rolling it will draw 2/3 cards per turn and not many decks can keep up.

[ErkBek]

The tournament report is up.  http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=28319.0

play withered wretch

I haven't tested this guy and I'm not gonna. All I can say is he will put way to much stress on the mana base.

play 0-1 Daze

I'm not sure if everyone understands the role of daze in this deck. Most of the time, I used daze to resolve my early threats through mana drain or FoW (ie bob, chalice, bouncer, etc). Daze is usually a poor late game draw, however at this point you shoud be drawing at least 2 cards a turn. I think daze should at least be a 2 or 3 of in the deck.

LOA

LoA is also not a good card for this, or any fish deck. It stretches the already tight mana base, gets wasted, and doesn't draw that many cards. This deck can't afford to sit on turn 1 land, go. It will lose, even if the card replaces itself the next turn. With this deck, having a threat turn 1 is huge. If you don't, you lose a lot of tempo by basically giving your opponent a time walk in exchange for a cantrip. Yuck.

QFT

Why would Oath be such a hard matchup? They have 4 Oath and you have 3 Waterfront Bouncer which just makes Oath cry. You have a better drawengine and don't have to run crappy cards to find your Oath. Post board is unfavorable for Fish, but it's not unwinnable. The list is more powerful then you would expect it to be, once it gets rolling it will draw 2/3 cards per turn and not many decks can keep up.

Oath is slightly favorable game 1 and slightly unfavorable post board. Dan's Darkblast tech may have proved to be a problem for my bouncers if we had played.

I see the direction you've taken the deck into. You made the deck as consistent as possible by adding all the cantrip effects and draw parts while avoiding dead cards. However, I feel that there isn't enough Mana Denial in the deck. That's probably just my style preference though.

Really? what else would you suggest for mana denial? This deck has more mana denial than almost every other build of fish.

He's lucky I was feeling charitable at the tournament. Oath sideboarding Pithing Needle, Balance, Darkblast, etc is definitely rough beats versus this.

On a more serious note, I finally got to see the deck in action from a spectators perspective. It seemed competent if unimpressive, but I can't help but observe that the deck's success was due more to the skill of the player than the list's intrinsic strength. I'm curious as to how what you faced during the day, since your matchups appeared to be much more favorable than the metagame as a whole should have offered. Translation: there was a shitload of Oath and I didn't see you having to face it.

I was more than happy to split at this point. I had just had 2 very intense matches and was ready to call it a day. I played against the following in the tournament.
oath
dawn of the dead
gifts
UW fishstill
IT

The tournament was one of the toughest I had played in for a while. I was very happy with how I played in all of my matches. I won a lot of very close games that could have gone either way.

The deck's SB is crucial to its sucess. I won both of my quarterfinals matches (vs. fishstill) due to winning the SB war. I'm still amazed that I beat IT game 2 as well.