let's build BWR Fish!

[ketchupgun]

ok...so I've alwasy had a soft spot for white weenie. I came into playing UR fish many moons ago, loved it at the time! Eventually, UW fish was developed, and for some reason, i just hated it...maybe it was the art on meddling mage, who knows, but it spurred me to get started on something in the same vein...white weenie + Disruption.

Trading blue counters for black discard, we came up with a great BW Fish, that split a local tourney.
Then Hide/Seek came out. So in the vein of URBana Fish....we now have a slew of efficient utlity creatures/weenies and some great threat removal, before it hits the table.


BWR Fish

Mana 23
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswpet Heath
2 Plains
1 Plateau
4 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Moxen
1 Black Lotus

Creatures 20
4 Samurai, Pale Curtain
1 Kataki
3 True Believer
3 Javlineers
4 Dark Confidant
3 Glowrider
2 Mesmeric Fiend

Draw/stuff 2
1 Demonic
1 Vampiric

Disruption 15
3 Null Rod
4 Duress
2 Cabal Theapry
2 Hide/Seek
4 StP



SB 15
4 Seal of cleansing
1 Aura of Silence
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Planar Void
3 Mother of Runes
2 Sacred Ground
2 Worship)

What do you guys think? Consider a fully powered, IT, Gifts, CS, Oath, meta.

(Consider that Jotun Grunt 4/4 for 1W with built in GY hate when Cold Snap comes out....!)

What do you guys think of the deck?

[Harlequin]

Well the first thing that jumps out at me, is that you run 1 red source for 1/2 of 2 cards... in the entire deck!  You should either develope red more (ie: Lavamancer over Javileneer, and vandal over kataki) or cut red all together. 

[ketchupgun]

yes, one red source for 2 1/2 cards. I know.
I figure it can't hurt. Seek just seems so0o0o good right now.

we could easily go 2 plateau 3 Scrubland and run the lavamancers and even mox monkey....+ ReBs and R&Rs in SB...?

[pyr0ma5ta]

yes, one red source for 2 1/2 cards. I know.
I figure it can't hurt. Seek just seems so0o0o good right now.

we could easily go 2 plateau 3 Scrubland and run the lavamancers and even mox monkey....+ ReBs and R&Rs in SB...?

Hide isn't too bad against Oath/Colossus either.

[Metman]

I like the idea of the deck and have been very interested in Hide/Seek.  The thing that stands out to me is the lack of focus in the deck and the shortage of red.  Red hates out artifacts like nothing else, so where are the Gorilla Shamans? I would run a minimum of two.  I don't like the Samurai and True Believer for the reason that it takes WW to resolve.  I like the soon to be new Solider coming out.  I would replace the ninja with the solider and the Believer with...I'm not sure.  The lone Kataki seems out of place.  It's awesome against Stax and Moxes but you run Null Rods and should be Shamans.  Put them in the side or cut them completely.  I also don't like the Javelineers.  You are already running 4 Swords why not beat some heads in with something bigger or you could up the Mesmeric Fiend count up to 4 and really hate out their hand. 

My creature base would look like this
4 Jotun Grunt or Phyrexian Negator
4 Glow Rider
4 Dark Confident
4 Mesmiric Fiend (This would be even sexier if you played Vials and cut the Null Rods, Damping Matrix or the like may need to replace it)
3 Gorilla Shaman

If you were to focus the deck more you could cut the two Tutors and make room for more utility.  Just a thought.  Right now Hide/Seek is pretty cool and Black is really strong.  Keep us informed on your trials.

[Disburden]

I really like the idea of building fish with Glowriders, Null Rod, and Hide/Seek. I don't think that running Mismeric Fiend with Vial is a good choice. Damping Matrix just plain sucks in comparison to Null Rod. The whole point of running Null Rod is to shit off moxen. Matrix won't do anything for the tempo plan Fish needs and Time Vault isn't around anymore so that's one less target for Damping Matrix to even be useful against. Also, Matrix shuts off Vial too, so I don't see the point in even mentioning it.  If you run Hide/Seek would you run Castigate too? B/w (with or without the splash) Fish seems good right now.

[Kieranwolf]

Whoah. The mana base seems pretty screwed up, here. There are some basics, I guess...but four moxen? Three sounds like the max. Maybe Petal or Diamond here instead of the off-color one?

You do need Null Rod on the board as early as possible, it's true. With no ESG or Ritual, artifacts may be the way to go.

When I look at Glowrider, I think 'big fat Drain target', but following disruption he could hit play. That means you'd need four mana to do it, though (BW2). Otherwise he's a Sphere of Resistance that beats, which is pretty cool. Just don't expect a chance to drop him against combo.

Why LoA? Wouldn't an on-color land be better for that slot?

Samurai seems pretty bad here. Why not Leyline instead, or Planar Void in the mb? Stopping Y. Will seems like good times to me.

Mesmeric Fiend has a perfect place in this deck. I also think Mox Monkey is a great way to go, since you need more slots to hate moxen.

Is White Knight good now that Ichorids are running around? Or would he be too slow?

[Nastaboi]

I have a creature base as

4 Confidant (cards)
4 Withered Wretch (grave)
4 Kami of Ancient Law (enchantmets)
4 Goblin Vandal (artifacts)
2 Genju of the Spires (finisher)

and manabase tuned accordingly, as like BRw /w 5-6 mountain cards to go with Genju.

Then I have full sets of Hide/Seeks and Therapys, StoPs on board, and Chalices to go with Null Rod.

I'd love to run Glowrider, but 3 mana for a 2/1 with no game-ending ability... just no. Wretch is so much better than Samurai, you'll just have to tune your manabase more black than white. I had TMWA as a base of my deck, so that may explain my preference of some creatures.

Demonic Consultation is the best tutor for a deck like this full of 4-offs and with no win condition to be removed by it. I also suggest Jittes on SB in place of crappy Mothers and/or Worships.

[Guli]

I am not going to be a spellbreaker by saying you should cut red (I only see hide/seek as a red spell and it is simply no worth it to splash red for this card)

So if we are not cutting red than at least add some red cuteness.

First lets see what cards should be added for sure for each color

White:

Swords to Plowshares, you definitly want this removal spell and i think everbody agrees on this one. 3 are a must.

For now i don't really want to add anything more. I don't know what gameplan this deck wants. But STP fills up a big weak spot. Tinker/DSC or an oath creatrue.

I always say don't try to do everything try to focus on 2 clear general gameplans. And with the rest of the slots fill up your weak spots. Does this deck want to play mana denial? How about a strong draw engine? I think the last is going to be hard cause for some reason we do not run Blue lol...

Black:

Without a very solid draw engine you really could use tutors so you can get what you exaclty need. And since our hand is going to be pretty low in amounts of cards Infernal Tutor sounds pretty strong.

I suggest this deck tries the next: Cast a lot of spells and fetch/Waste/strip so you can get your graveyard filled. Combine this with Tutor power and Jöten Grunt... This way graveyard hate is also added.

4 Swords to plowshares
4 Jöten Grunt
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
6 Fetch

Another powerfull spell that disrupts opponent and fills up graveyard and can be counted as a control card is Duress

4 Duress

This deck looks like it is going to be a hand/graveyard disruption while your creatures pound away the life of your opponent. Hand disruption should always be combined with anti grave cards anyway in Vintage.  Adding anti-welder cards in a deck is some kinda form of grave disruption. That is what welders do, abuse the graveyard.

2 Darkblast ( Note that Dredge would help a lot if we want to keep Jöten alive a little longer. )

With 5 tutors i would like specific bombs in the deck. How about balance? There is now room for situatonally strong cards.

Fire away opinions.

[Guli]

If you ask me i think UBW is a better 3 color combination.

You can use Extract and Bounce (Chain of Vapor, you can bounce back Jöten). The ancestral reall that can be abused with tutors and merchant scrolls with the 'drawback' of Jöten

[Tyler]

Right now, I'm testing this:



// Lands
    2  Windswept Heath
    2  Scrubland
    1  Mountain
    1  Swamp
    4  Bloodstained Mire
    3  Plateau
    1  Badlands
    5  Plains

// Creatures
    4  Thundersong Trumpeter
    4  Samurai of the Pale Curtain
    4  Gorilla Shaman (1)
    4  Dark Confidant
    3  Kataki, War's Wage

// Spells
    3  Umezawa's Jitte
    3  Blood Moon
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Demonic Tutor
    3  AEther Vial
    3  Hide/Seek
    1  Black Lotus
    3  Swords to Plowshares
    4  Duress

// Sideboard
SB: 3  Chalice of the Void
SB: 3  Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3  Pyroblast
SB: 3  Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3  Pyrostatic Pillar




I found the idea in this thread:
http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=589639#589639

Against random decks (black control with Nekrataal... random aggro) I had some problems...
But I just played against Gift and OWNED it Vialed out a turn 2 Gorilla Shaman which ate 2 moxens, then later played a Hide/Seek for Yawg Will in response to Gift Post board, the REB's are gold!

I'm going to test it some more.

[Neonico]

Ok, as our list has been published, i can speack of it.
The story of this deck is :
I and my team were preparing to attend the biggest french sanctionned event in paris. We felt that the metagame would be :
Alots of bazaar.decks, mainly :
Ichorid (because of the hype) : 4/83 shown
Madness (Allways played alot in france) : Around 5/83 shown
Dragon : i think 2-3 were played but none were well piloted

And alot of control decks
Slaver : think we got around 7-8/ 83 players
Oath : Around 10-12/83 players
Gift and all variants (Including Merchant.dec and so on) : Around 10 decks too

Everything else was combo but as expected, not alot were well piloted.
We built our pre dissension list with hide/seek in mind, because the tournament was before dissension became legal.

The list :
4 Thundersong Trumpeter
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Swords to plowshares
4 Blood Moon
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Kataki
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
4 True Believer
4 Gorilla Shaman
3 Aether Vial

4 Fetches
3 plateau
2 Sacred Foundry
Chrome Mox
Lotus Petal
9 Plain
1 Mountain

Then, dissension became legal and the list became :
 
4 Thundersong Trumpeter
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Swords to plowshares
3 Blood Moon
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
4 Gorilla Shaman
3 Aether Vial
4 Dark Confidant
3 Kataki
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mana Crypt
3 Hide/seek

4 Bloodstrained Mire
2 Windswept Heath
3 plateau
2 Scrubland
1 Badland
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
5 Plain
1 Mountain
1 Swamp

The tests against every expected decks in the tournament were very positive.
As Tyler stated it, every control matchup is so easy to win, well piloted or not, because we built the list with Slaver/Gift matchup in mind. Some unanswered bombs (Bloodmoon mainly, and hide//Seek in the new list) are allmost an autowin. The postboard REBs and shaman to deal with moxen (And eventually duress, even if not needed) improve it a lot.

The oath matchup is harder, but winnable because of disruption. (Even to favorable) All the removal has been thinking with the oath matchup in mind. Hide/seek is gold if it’s a tinker-> colossus version, Sword to deal with akroma, REBs because some frenchies tested the Tidespout tyran combo version.

Stax matchup : Not played a lot actually in France, we still thought of that. Shaman is gold for artefact mana acceleration and kataki, even if it doesn’t destroy the game, give you the huge tempo advantage you need to outplay stax decks. Ruba is easier than 5colors, even if both are winnable.

Aggro and aggro control matchups are all favorable.
Aggro control madness is so easily winable because of one card : bloodmoon. Once you slowed them, if jitte is resolved, its game.
Ichorid is the easier matchup of the deck thanx to Samurai / Jitte and Trumpeter. The only hard matchup seems to be SuiBlack but its totally unplayed in the high tables of a tournament.


The card by card analysis :
After we analysed the metagame, we included every cards we thought of to deal with win conditions in the format : Hide/seek (Tinker colossus, tendrils) Sword (Any creature is removable with it) Trumpeter (Deal with any creature win condition except akroma, that’s why swords are there), is great against Sundering (Deal with it without leaving it from the game)

The denial : After a long analysis of aggro control decks of the format (Mainly Fish) we noticed 2 points that seemed weak : The wasteland/Strip for lands and Chalice/rods for artefacts were all good solution but this was at the cost of a decent clock, mainly because jitte was unplayable with rods, and Chalice is ok but cant carry a jitte. That's why we choose Gorilla shaman. The bloodmoon is a viable solution, especially if it can comes online fast enough (Turn 2). Its also gold against power lands such as Workshop / Academy / Bazaar.

The other creatures choices are obvious. Confidant is good for the card advantage it provides (I think it was the missing part from the Boros only version), samurai is great against dragon/Ichorid, Trumpeter helps alots against fish, oath, Gift/Slaver's colossus.

The deck has been laught a lot here in france, but it took 3rd/83, with a 5-0-2 record in the swiss in one of the biggest paris event. Its damn fun to play and seems effective. As a friend said : playing RWb unpowered beatz deck for English drain and bazaar, im in every day.
Another way to build aggro control, and I think it’s a good one.

Last thing : The combo matchup is allmost unwinnable so be carrefull of your local metagame. Duress and Chalice seems to be good choices. So is mesmeric fiend, even if it can comes online too late. (But at least, it can carry the jitte). Its only true for really fast combo (In fact, it lost to 2 turn one kills from Gim long, played by Karsten Cotter) and seems more winnable when its against IT or TPS.

For all those who testing the deck, feel free to give me your feelings about it, especially for the cards we cutt, like duress. Thanx


Note : The deck is only 59 cards, you got one free spot. The tutors are also cuttable for something else. Perhaps maindeck REBs. Our actual list includes sol ring to speed up the bloodmoon/jitte equipement.

Note 2 : Toadimon tested it against gift/Slaver played by meadeckers and found opposite matchup results we found (We estimate it around 65-70/30-35). I'd like to get some other reults if people testing it.

[Purple Hat]

I have a feeling that if you're building a deck like this and not playing 4x chains of mephistopheles and 4x dark confidant you're doing something wrong notice how confidant says "reveal and put in your hand" not "draw".

[Neonico]

I have a feeling that if you're building a deck like this and not playing 4x chains of mephistopheles and 4x dark confidant you're doing something wrong notice how confidant says "reveal and put in your hand" not "draw".

They have been tested and werent included Because we couldnt find rooms for them. They first were in the sideboard. In fact, the matchups they help the most are allready positive so it's not the main change we thought of.
What are you suggesting to cut for them ? Perhaps its good as a 3of instead of tutors and 60th card.
The main problem with the deck is that we cant remove any creature because its the right number for aggro control.

[Purple Hat]

well....you're playing 3 hide seek and 4 swords, I'd look at maybe removing some of the swords, the majority of the time these are going to be removing the same creature, so you're playing 7 ways to deal with dsc...I'd tend to go much more heavily black than you did though and cut the pale curtain dudes for withering Wretch and then look at whether I couldn't get by with 1 less creature and think about cutting a trumpeter but maybe not.  I'd also look at playing chains and bloodmoon as having similar effects on the game.  Almost everything (not 5-c stax) that bloodmoon wrecks chains wrecks harder and doesn't cause you to give up as much.  Vs oath you have to play creatures anyway, so a resolved oath forces you into the removal plan anyway, everything else in the format needs to play spells that say draw on them to win the game so they get wrecked by chains and playing basics doesn't really help with that.

[Neonico]

The hide/seek + swords came from we expected alot of slaver. And in this particular matchup, bot are needed to deal with 2 different threats : Swords for welders, Hide/seek for artefacts (colossus, titan and so on) Both are needed in this particular matchup, same applies for oath. I will test chains again but i dont think they are necessary beside sideboards options.

In fact, the matchup you need to work the most is combo and chains doesnt really help against fast combo. But ill try it again. Thanx for the suggestion.

[Purple Hat]

chains makes draw 7's like the worst cards EVER they now read "discard your hand, mill yourself for 7"  how is that bad vs fast combo?  The only thing that combo can do to beat you if chains resolves is drop bargain and then will bargaining for a ton in response or just resolve will with a ton of stuff in their yard which you can't stop right now anyway....if their yard is full and they topdeck will you're gonna lose anyway, if you can keep them at 0 cards in hand it seems to me that this matchup is MUCH better. 

chains should also help your CS matchup as it makes brainstorm and TFK pretty bad for CS, you basically turn them into a tinker combo deck and mindslaver isn't very good vs you because all they can really do is use hide/seek to get rid of some of your redundant spells and then swing with whatever they've gotten out. Their drains are gonna be mostly dead because you don't play high cc spells and you can hide/seek whatever they would be tinkering for either before it gets out or after.

[Neonico]

Are you sure chains work that way ? I thought that its discard, draw discard draw discard draw for an ancestral. Am i wrong ?

[Purple Hat]

Chains is kinda confusing, but for ancestral if your opponent has cards in hand it is as you described, but all draw7's get rid of your hand before you draw, which invokes the second condition on chains "If a player would draw a card except the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step each turn, that player discards a card instead. If the player discards a card, he or she draws a card. If the player doesn’t discard a card, he or she puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard." 

if chains is out and wheel of fortune (for example) gets played both players discard their hand (wheel) and attempt to draw 7 cards.  since neither player has cards in hand this goes into chains as "player A attempts to draw a card" and comes out "player A must discard" since player A has no cards in hand he therefore tells chains "I can't" and chains says "mill yourself for 1" this is repeated a total of 7 times for each player.  Chains beats the HELL out of combo if it resolves.

brainstorm works like this: discard, draw, discard, draw, discard, draw, put two cards back...

Tfk: Discard, draw, discard, draw, discard, draw, discard 2 cards or an artifact

timetwister: both players put hands and graveyards in their libraries, shuffle, mill 7

Bazaar: discard, draw, discard, draw, discard, discard, discard

Jar: both players set aside their hands til end of turn and mill 7

I think that's enough cards to give anyone an idea of how chains works.  2x chains obviously causes the draw off the first chains to trigger the second one, and remember that instants played durring the opponent's draw step will allow the first draw unimpeeded.

[LordHomerCat]

Actually, I don't think the last part works, the 'playing spells in your opponent's draw step'.  I believe the oracle was changed, as you quoted in your post, to be "if a player would draw a card except the first one he or she draws in HIS OR HER DRAW STEP".  So, it seems there is no workaround there anymore.

[Purple Hat]

"his or her draw step EACH TURN" I'm going with the assumption that both players have the same draws step every turn and this wording is to get around the somewhat clunky "except the first card he or she would draw during any draw step"  I think players got confused about what happened if you drew and I drew a card in response with an instant.  I've never seen it ruled that you can't draw on your opponent's draw step, but I have seen it ruled that you can.

[LordHomerCat]

What I mean is, Chains used to be "the first card drawn in a draw step", which meant I could cast like Recall or something during your draw step, and get to draw my first card for free.  Now it says "the first card drawn during his or her draw step", which means I can't get a free, un-chained draw during my opponent's draw step anymore. 

[Purple Hat]

when did they reeratta that?  I've never seen it ruled that way.

[Dante]

when did they reeratta that?  I've never seen it ruled that way.

Awhile now.

The official rules text is:

If a player would draw a card except the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step each turn, that player discards a card instead. If the player discards a card, he or she draws a card. If the player doesn’t discard a card, he or she puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

Obviously since "the first one he or she draws in his or her draw step each turn" means you can't get a non-Chains card during the opponent's draw step anymore.

[Purple Hat]

has to have been within the last year, just curious

[LordHomerCat]

I also recall the during any draw step rules, I would think its been in the last 2 or 3 erratas (last time would make sense, with the other vintage changes they made).