Eudemonia 4 Color Fish

[Anusien]

Dnine piloted the deck in question to 2nd at Eudemonia Lotus tourney recently, and I wanted to get some discussion going on the deck.

The list:

4 dark confidant
4 meddling mage
4 juton grunt
4 brainstorm
4 force of will
4 stifle
4 hide/seek
3 swords to plowshares
2 misdirection
2 ninja of the deep hour
1 timewalk
1 ancestral recall

4 polluted delta
4 flouded strand
3 tundra
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 island
1 swamp
1 plans
1 mox jet
1 mox pearl
1 mox sapphire
1 mox ruby
1 lotus pedal
1 black lotus

sd
4 kataki
3 true believer
2 sword of fire and ice
1 jitte
1 swords to plowshares
4 pithing needle

I was doing some limited testing and the deck definitely kicks Control Slaver in the nuts, and likely the Gifts build as well.  Hide//Seek makes the Tendrils kill extraordinarily unlikely, and removes Darksteel Colossus.  On the other side of the table, this deck just looks so menacing; early Meddling Mage on Tinker is problematic, and the rest of the deck provides a speedy clock.

There are some changes I would suggest.  The two Ninja of the Deeps Hours seem extremely random; they're at their best either reseting Jotun Grunt (who cares?) or off a Dark Confidant to draw a card.  The problem is, creature into creature + card is 4 mana, so Ninja of the Deep Hours is essentially a Striped Bears.  In its place, I recommend the third Misdirection (extremely good, especially since it helps win the counterwar versus PitchLong and IT), and Yawgmoth's Will.  I guess Will is kind of dubious, since you Grunt yourself fairly frequently, and you don't have a lot of bombs to replay.  I would suggest Tinker but you only have 6 artifacts; so I would consider something like a singleton Jitte as well.  I really like the list because it feels like SS with much more disruption and a faster clock.

I should be doing a report soon, but just so you know you are right on on the ninjas.  They suck in the deck and need to get cut for some other card advantage.  I wish I would have cut the 2 ninjas and one of the grunts for 3 tops or 2 tops and a tutor of some kind (demonic or vamp).  With 8 fetch lands top lets you see 3 new cards frequently.  cutpurse is also an option that I wanted to test. 

Will is pretty useless as the grunt eats your graveyard most of the time and the only spells worth willing for are ancest. and time walk.   

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

I'm curious how it takes the Fish mirror, and Stax. Both which are probably on the rise since the boom of Fish and Combo. U/W fish is more redundant and will probably beat this deck and I'm going to assume Stax will crush it. I think Daze might be a better call over Misdirection since Daze gives a bit better tempo and fits the play style better.

[BreathWeapon]

That's weird, I recently had a Fish player use a 5c manabase against me for Hide/Seek and Choke on MWS, the two lists have a lot in common.

I do however dislike particular things about this list, mainly the fulll acceleration, no Wasteland and Jotun Grunt instead of minimal acceleration, Wasteland and Kataki, War's Wage. Kataki, War's Wage isn't as good as Energy Flux is in the SB, so you should either run Energy Flux or MD Kataki, War's Wage and SB Jotun Grunt. Misdirection, Swords to Plowshares and Ninja of the Deep Hours are all bad. Misdirection is just worse than Duress in every match up, Swords to Plowshares and Hide/Seek is a ridiculous amount of MD removal, and Ninja of the Deep Hours has terrible synergy with Dark Confidant and Meddling Mage even if it has great synergy with Jotun Grunt.

I really don't think you can count on Hide/Seek stealing games from Long players forever, some of us run Burning Wish for Demonic Consultation in Long now, and post SB every one has access to a second Tendrils.  The same for Darksteel Colossus, Misdirection on Hide to retarget to one of your Moxes is an effective meens of protecting his threat. However, it is awesome to be able to send an Oath of Druids, Smokestack or Crucible of Worlds to the bottom of your opponent's library.

I don't think Jotun Grunt can take the place of Dimir Cutpurse or Voidmage Prodigy, his draw back is extremely tempermental, and you are putting alll of your chips into tempo as opposed to an Ancestral every turn or uncontested control of the stack.

So out Jotun Grunt for Kataki, War's Wage, out Swords to Plowshares for Duress, out Ninja  of the Deep Hours and Misdirection for either Dimir Cutpurse or Voidmage Prodigy, out Mox Ruby for Strip Mine and consider shaving the Dimir Cutpurse and Hide/Seek for a couple of Wastelands.

I would also make some use of Red Elemental Blast in the SB for control decks, Hide/Seek isn't all that great against Slaver.

Would anybody play Dimir Cutpurse over Dark Confidant?

Edit: Considering this deck is Keeper on legs, what about replacing half of those Fetch Lands with City of Brass? Artifact Mutation is always fun in the SB

[Anusien]

It seems like Jotun Grunt is bigger than anything else in the Fish mirror, although the rest of the deck can be sub-par there.
You're right about Stax being problematic, although I bet Kataki in the sideboard helps.  The deck is very obviously oriented to crush Drains though.

I think you're wrong about Grunt.  One of the traditional disadvantages of Fish was that it had a slow clock, and Grunt helps with that a lot while also giving Welders problems (and Crucible).  Once you have Meddling Mage on Tinker against CS or Gifts, one of the only ways they can beat you is with a nutty Will, which Grunt helps stop.  Wastelands actually seem sub-par since the mana is so bad, but the creatures are so good.

I don't know about Energy Flux versus Kataki, but Kataki does beat down, which can be extremely helpful.

You're right about Ninja of the Deep Hours being bad, but Misdirection is incredibly nutty, and Swords to Plowshares is relevant (only matchup it's dead against is combo).  The deck is full of ways to beat Colossus, which seems good for a MDG infested field (or even CS).

You don't need Hide/Seek to steal games from Long players on its own.  You don't have to remove Tendrils, although it's an option.  Taking Will is a strong play, as it naming Tendrils with Mage and taking bounce.  It also gains life which makes Tendrils more difficult.  You also have Misdirection for Ancestral and to help win counterwars since all the combo decks now run pitch magic.

[The Atog Lord]

I've tested this deck and I like it a lot. The deck certainly has quite a bit of room for improvement, but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised to see a large tournament won by a deck in this vein. My only gripe is that the lack of fetches make the stifles much worse. Against a standard stifle fish build, the opponent is left with a terrible choice. He can walk into Stifle. Or he can go for it and fetch. When he fetches, if he gets a Nonbasic, he's walking into Wasteland, and playing around both Stifle and Wasteland can really hurt a player's development. Against this deck, once a land gets into play it is safe. This means that a player can be more bold about fetching nonbasics, and this in turn makes Stifle worse. That being said, I like where this deck is going a lot.

[BreathWeapon]

This pitch magic nonsense is getting way out of hand, there is no way that Misdirection is better than Duress in Fish. Why fight a counter war when you can just discard the card? Which card would you rather have on the play vs Combo? Do you plan on having Force of Will, Misirection and 2 other blue cards against Pitch Long in a 4 color deck?

Swords to Plowshares on Darksteel Colossus is like countering the Donate, it only stops bad MDGifts players, IMO.

I think Jotun Grunt vs Voidmage Prodigy vs Dimir Cutpurse is going to come down to playstyle, Voidmage Prodigy makes certain that Yawgmoth's Will never resolves just as much as Jotun Grunt, if not better, and I would rather be countering spells and drawing and discarding cards than leaching life, but that's just me.

Here is the problem with Hide/Seek, they win the coin flip and play Xantid Swarm, your Stifle is now irrelevant and they are going to likely win on the next turn before you can Hide/Seek. Even if you do Hide/Seek of a Mox, you can't win if you pull the Tendrils and they have Burning Wish, and pulling the Yawgmoth's Will just meens they are going to win with Necropotence. So unless you can use that one turn window to resolve a Meddling Mage, and they can't just counter it with their sizable Necro hand, you are in really bad shape.

Maybe Wasteland is bad, but I would at least play with Strip Mine, that card is just way too good to cut.

You didn't answer my question about Dimir Cutpurse over Dark Confidant, which would you play if you could only play one?

Another thing is, what happens when control players get smart and start playing Gifts/Oath with Duress in order to answer all of the Fish running around in the metagame? Are you prepared for a Darksteel Colossus followed by an Oath for Reclamation and a Tendrils win on the next two turns?

[MaxxMatt]

This deck (as much as any other fish build ) is always tapped out after his second mainphase.
Mis-D#1 & #2 are FoW#5 &#6.
I would never cut them for Duresses in this deck.

You have to resolve critters with Pitch-Counters backup, instead of slowing down things losing time Duressing opponents.


I have to suggest Azorius Guildmage instead of Ninjas.
You have a good draw engine made by D.Confidants themselves and the BS/8Fethes trick.

Your creatures have to do nasty things.

Confidants draw cards
Grunts eat graves
Mages stop brokeness
..Azorius keep your total resources high during the midgame.


The deck seems one of the most interesting Fish.dec, by far.
I would test it more and see what can we do with it.

Maxx

[BreathWeapon]

Since when was Duress slowing down with Fish? And since when was resolving your creatures more important than disrupting your opponent? Long doesn't care whether or not you resolve a Dark Confidant or Jotun Grunt with Misdirection back up, it's going to explote all over your face before it is even relevant.

Last time I checked the best Fish esq deck, SS, was using a full set of Duress. Now all of a sudden this is the wrong way to go because a 4 color version got 2nd place at a Lotus tournament?

I call shananigans.

[Liek]

Misdirection is a spell that protects the caster's bombs. Fish doens't play bombs. Misdirection does not fit into a Fish deck's game plan.

What does fit into a Fish deck's game plan is mana denial. Without Chalice of the Void, Null Rod, Wasteland, Strip Mine, or even Kataki, War's Wage in the maindeck, your Stifles aren't going to cause much damage to thier mana production.

How is Seek better than Extract? Extract costs 1 mana and is Blue. Are you actually casting Hide? And since when is Extract or Seek playable?

It seems to me like you've taken the Fish archetype, added more colors and silly cards to make already good matchups better, while significantly weakening the deck against Workshops and Oaths of Druids. I don't get it.

[Engine_number_9]

@Duress vs Misd: Duress has great synergy with Meddling Mage. Duress makes turn 2 Meddling Mage a lot better (although one very often names tinker anyway). Furthermore Duress can not be countered by Misd, Misd can.

Have you considered running gorilla shaman. It is pretty broken in fish decks with full acceleration. It serves a lot of purposes making welder bad, tinker more difficult to cast, removes chalice and keeps your opponents low on mana.

[Anusien]

How is Seek better than Extract? Extract costs 1 mana and is Blue. Are you actually casting Hide? And since when is Extract or Seek playable?

Yes, you plan to play Hide.  Hide can remove DSC while still being relevant against stuff like Mindslaver, Triskelion and Smokestack.  The thing about Seek is it simultaneously removes DSC and makes the Tinker->other fatty or Tendrils plan weaker, since all of a sudden you're at 30 life.

The thing I don't understand is why Fish fundamentally has to be about mana denial.  It's not a good time for mana denial; decks are playing more accelerants and more basic lands and fetchlands.  What's to say a tempo-based approach that focuses on removing the opponent's outs and disrupting them is necessarily wrong?

I do think Misdirection is better than Duress.  #1) I can't count the number of test games I've won by Misdirecting Ancestral Recall, but it has to be at least half of them.  #2) Misdirection costs no mana, and can win counterwars even on turn 0.  #3) PitchLong and IT both run their own pitch countermagic, which Misdirection helps you match.

Gorilla Shaman is interesting, I'll have to look at that in the Ninja slot.

[Engine_number_9]

PitchLong and IT both run their own pitch countermagic, which Misdirection helps you match.

But so does duress. Duress is really much better versus combo. If you are stuck on turn 2 with a Misd and no FoW there is not much you can do to stop them from goldfishing (with Misd that is).

Against 5c Long and Stax Misd can do nothing. Duress can.

[wethepeople]

is the mana base on your current list any good? i cant see it doing well in a Waste heavy environment because it uses so few Underground Seas, and not even a full set of Tundras.

EDIT: my first question has already been discussed.

[pyr0ma5ta]

I've put in about 50 matches with this deck, with some minor personal tweaks.  I am going to share the results of my testing below:

1) Mox Emerald is terrible.  The list really does want all the colored mana, and the extra accel is just bad.  I added it and cut it about 2 matches later.
2) Hide/Seek is incredible.  It's never dead, except in the Fish mirror.  Removing Tendrils/Burning Wish forces your opponent to go for the DSC, which you can answer with STP, Hide, or Meddling Mage.  Hide/Seek really shines against Stax as well, where you can hide a problematic artifact such as Crucible or Stack, or proactively remove Balance or Tinker to stop their outs.
3) Jotun Grunt is AMAZING.  He's huge, he doesn't die to Clasm, Old Man, Massacre, or Red Blast, and he Tormod Crypt's people all day long.  The biggest thing you have to watch out for is to not put Ancestral back in your opponent's deck if he's playing MDG
4) Ninja is terrible.  I'm not sure what I want in his slot, but it might be Kataki.  I board him out just about every time.
5) You really don't want SoFI in the board.  Jitte is just better.
6) I'm not sure, but I think I might want Null Rods in the board.
7) Dimir Cutpurse would probably be bad in this deck.  You don't really want to spend 3 mana to get something Drained.
8) Wastelands against this deck are very strong.  The 3 basics help a ton, however.  I've won a bunch of games against Fish or Stax where I just sit on 3 basics and cast dudes while he wonders why he has 2 Wastes in play and why he doesn't have his colored mana to cast his blue cards.
9) The lack of Wastelands in this deck is slightly worrying, but you're really not looking to disrupt mana, you're looking to stop good spells from resolving.

If I can think of other insights, I'll post it here.

[BreathWeapon]

How is Seek better than Extract? Extract costs 1 mana and is Blue. Are you actually casting Hide? And since when is Extract or Seek playable?

The thing I don't understand is why Fish fundamentally has to be about mana denial.  It's not a good time for mana denial; decks are playing more accelerants and more basic lands and fetchlands.  What's to say a tempo-based approach that focuses on removing the opponent's outs and disrupting them is necessarily wrong?

I think I'm in the right about Duress, if all you are doing is stealing Ancestral Recall to win games, then people need to stop playing Ancestral Recall into Misdirection with out back up.

As far as Mana Denial vs "Out Denial?" the problem is that your argument is something of a misnomer, more basic lands, more fetch lands and more acceleration doesn't meen that mana denial is worse, it meens that the relative strength of mana denial is shifting in between its components. As fetch lands increase Stifle becomes better and Wasteland becomes worse, as accelerants increase Null Rod becomes better and Stifle and Wasteland become worse, as basic lands increase Strip Mine becomes better and Stifle, Wasteland and Null Rod become worse; however, as basic lands increase you marginally gain an advantage against the opponent by defacto because he has less colored sources in his deck.

Also, all decks have manabases, while not all decks have a "lose to Extract" base. If the metagame continues to progress towards this tutor based and one or two threat based paradigm, then the guy who brings Control Slaver is in really great shape if the hate shifts from the manabase to meet this environment.

Speaking of which, I have become an avid supporter of Shadow of a Doubt. Altho' it doesn't target Wasteland like Stifle, it serves as a hard counter against; Gifts Ungiven, Intuition, Merchant Scroll, Tinker, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Grim Tutor, Imperial Seal, Demonic Consultation, Crop Rotation and Hermit Druid. Despite not being able to counter activated abilities, which hurts against Worldgorger Dragon, Bazaar of Baghdad, Mindslaver, Goblin Welder, Memory Jar, Tendrils of Agony*, Smokestack etc. it always replaces itself and is very difficult to Misdirect in a counter war involving a tutor. It still Time Walks against Oath of Druids, and the fact that it doesn't counter storm isn't that relevant, because it counters a tutor, which is far more important in Long.

[paavo3]

Speaking of which, I have become an avid supporter of Shadow of a Doubt. Altho' it doesn't target Wasteland like Stifle, it serves as a hard counter against; Gifts Ungiven, Intuition, Merchant Scroll, Tinker, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Grim Tutor, Imperial Seal, Demonic Consultation, Crop Rotation and Hermit Druid. Despite not being able to counter activated abilities, which hurts against Worldgorger Dragon, Bazaar of Baghdad, Mindslaver, Goblin Welder, Memory Jar, Tendrils of Agony*, Smokestack etc. it always replaces itself and is very difficult to Misdirect in a counter war involving a tutor. It still Time Walks against Oath of Druids, and the fact that it doesn't counter storm isn't that relevant, because it counters a tutor, which is far more important in Long.

Except it doesn't time walk against Oath of Druids, or 'counter' demonic consultation or hermit druid by any means.
Other than that, you managed to point out the obvious, Shadow of Doubt does indeed 'counter' most, or should I say all of the 'search library' effects, and cantrips, like the rules text on the card would suggest.

[TopSecret]

     This deck seems very solid.
Coincidently, I have been testing and playing a very similar list for a little while.
Now this thread is up, so I guess I'll post my list since they share so many similarities:

4 Joten Grunt
4 Dark Confidant
4 Meddling Mage
4 Hide // Seek
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Duress
4 Pyroblast
4 Fire // Ice
4 Shattering Spree (This slot was Suppression Field.)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Non-green Moxes
1 Lotus Petal (This may be better as an Emerald or land.)
1 Black Lotus
2 Flooded Strand
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Plateau
1 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 City of Brass
4 Non-Green Basic Lands (lol!)

     Just like anything else, my list could use some tweaking.
It has pretty solid game against most everything, and it has been a blast to play.
I won't go into my logic for some unorthodox card choices or omissions,
unless somebody really wants to know.

     The way I went about building it, I just adopted a 4-color mana base,
and added a bunch of good cards that could balance out the matchups.
I like that 4-color can include almost any card necessary.
I'm always a little annoyed when I have to settle for subpar cards in an aggro deck
because the colors of the deck do not hold a good answer for Tinker,
or some other common scenerario.

TopSecret

[McBain]

This deck is a house, one major flaw is the fact that chalice @ 2 is GG.
Grunt is amazing, the amount of fetchs is good for fueling him sometimes. I have changed out the ninjas for Az guildmage which has been amazing, winning games with DSC on the table, or stopping a huge M.jar bust or mindslaver. I imagine its good vs oath as well..
I also added dazes which are amazing for tempo, and the fact that u only ever need 2 mana helps too.
I reduced the stifle count a bit and tried to run null rod, with mixed results, however...rod is rod and usually causes huge problems over the whole game that a single stifle cannot provide.
I dont think that misd are even needed and are more of just a waste card, 3 daze is much more powerful.
For sideboard, mabye cutting the swords, adding 2-3 more jittes (which are amazing in aggro matchups..duh). The kataki's are so-so, flux is better, but again the fact that it doesnt turn sideways is a major minus. True Believer is nice, but the WW can be a pain sometimes. Pithing needle can be run as a 3-4of and can be boarded in vs tons of decks, crippling welders and bazaars. Crypts arnt needed, because of Super grunt of doom. One creature that could be a good fit would be Negator, this can provide an amazing clock if aggro isnt a huge worry of yours. D-Blast can mabye be a one of in the SB.

Overall my changes from the Orginal decklist:

+1 myst tutor  (finds time walk, recall, SB darkblast, and its BLUE)
+3 daze
-1 hide and seek
-2 misd
-1 stifle

Sb:
3 jitte
4 kataki
3 true believer
1 darkblast
1 stifle
3 pithing needle

Overall, amazing deck needs some fine tunning

[Mith]

Is Hide/Seek even worth creating such a fragile mana-base? Without the inclusion of red, the deck is so much more stable.

Also, why run Kataki when you can just shut down everything with Null Rod?

I've been experimenting with a U/B/W build using Duress, and have so far had rather good luck with it. Grunt, Meddle, and Confidant are more than enought for creatures, and Stifle/Duress/Null Rod provide significant disruption. While I won't argue the benefit of being able to seek out a colossus or tendrils, I just don't think it's worth the space and mana.

On a side-note, simplifying down to even just U/W for fish is quite impressive as well. While you lose the draw of Confidant (Ninjas aren't nearly as good), you lend youself the ability to further streamline the deck. Oh, and Azorius Guildmage is a serious mid-game beating

[yangtze34]

Kataki and nullrod provide the deck with redundancy, which is good.  Oh yes, hide and seek is very worth running.  I played gifts against this deck and hide-seek was wrecking me throughout the match.  Pre-emptive seek to get rid of one-ofs and hide to deal with man-lands, dsc, trike, titan blah blah blah and hide to to get rid of dsc/titan/trike/smokestack blah blah already on the board.  I also played TMWA and got my butt wrecked game 2 and game 3. 

[Dnine]

Just wanted to jump in here and say a few things since this was my deck.  First off I think it's great that it is getting discussed, also I'd like to point out that I did a full report and posted it in the report submission section a few weeks ago.  I was hoping that it would get moved to the regular forum, but it never did.  A lot of the questions asked are discussed in the report. 

As for the mana base something to keep in mind is that this is basically a 3 color deck with the red for the hide side of hide/seek only.  I originally tried to go with more red, but found it stretched is way to thin.  The plan was to run it as a 3 color deck and only fetch out the volcanic if it was needed.  The increase in fetches made this work pretty well.  The mana base worked well for me all day and I didn't see anything that made me want to change it.  The needles were also in the board to help agianst waste heavy decks. 

[BreathWeapon]

Also, why run Kataki when you can just shut down everything with Null Rod?

Kataki, War's Wage is a serious problem for Stax and 5/3, Null Rod is not. Kataki, War's Wage also turns side ways for two points of damage a turn, and he also lets you play with Tormod's Crypt. Null Rod is the better card against combo, where you stop them from using their Moxen pre-emptively, or in the SB against control decks that SB in creature removal.

[Henkka]

Is there some good reason why eny of these decks doesn't include Gush? To me it seems like it would be perfect.. considering you don't need more than 3 mana on table ever.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Kataki and nullrod provide the deck with redundancy, which is good.  Oh yes, hide and seek is very worth running.  I played gifts against this deck and hide-seek was wrecking me throughout the match.  Pre-emptive seek to get rid of one-ofs and hide to deal with man-lands, dsc, trike, titan blah blah blah and hide to to get rid of dsc/titan/trike/smokestack blah blah already on the board.  I also played TMWA and got my butt wrecked game 2 and game 3. 

Heh, that was me.  Jitte is some good out of the board, isn't it?

Hide/Seek is an extremely versatile card that can be used in any number of ways.  The most effective use depends on the deck matchup and board configuration, but it's only dead against random aggro and other Fish.  It's great to nab Tinker or Colossus, Yawgwill, Tendrils, and that kind of stuff.  It's also great against Stax, where you can hide their Crucible/Stack/whatever, making their Welder look dumb.  It's actually the one card I want to draw multiples of against Stax, because you can clean up the board if you're behind, or Seek away stuff that wrecks you like Balance or Tinker/Trike/Titan, etc.  It's awesome sauce against Oath, too.

The biggest problem the deck has, apart from Wasteland, is Chalice 2.  I'm still working on that one, but RNR might be a possible solution.  I've also replaced the Ninjas with Katakis and love it.

[Dxfiler]

I've been testing the hell out of this particular version, and it's not bad.  I don't know if I like it better than standard UW fish because of both stax and the mirror being significantly tougher for this deck.  One thing I am sure of in this particular version of fish:

Duress is infinitely better than misdirection in this deck.  The biggest reason why in my book, and I'm shocked no one has mentioned this yet, is that duress flipping over from dark confidant is one damage... misdirection is five damage.  Between ninjas, forces, and hide/seeks (4 damage when flipped off confidant) you're already risking dying off confidant... playing with misdirection makes the bobs infinitely more riskier than it should be.  The absolute worst feeling in the world is having a game locked up with confidants only to die from too many unfortunate flips.

I have to say the deck has potential.  There are plenty of holes, but it's definitely a good base to start with.

- Dave Feinstein 

[LotusHead]

Duress is infinitely better than misdirection in this deck. 

I have been testing a BW version of this deck with Negators.

This is my first time ever playing anything fish-like.  On purpose.

When I saw either of the Eudemonia Grunt Decks play their matches out, it was like the Grunt had NO Draw Back except "Fading 1 if played on turn 1".  Any other time, the Grunt just smashed face until the opponent was forced to deal with it.

As to the quote, my version has Exalted Angels which flips for 6 Damage (OUCH!!!).  That bitch may need to be Jitte or Null Rod.

[BreathWeapon]

Is there a ruling that has been posted on the converted mana cost for the purposes of Dark Confidant? I have to agree with Dave tho', this deck takes more damage to the face than any other Fish deck I have seen thanks to all of the pitch magic and the "4" cc Hide/Seek.

I think a more aggressive version of this deck with Phyrexian Negator supporting Jotun Grunt could be amazing, Fish isn't suppose to have a 5 and 4 turn clock, savage cheats 

[The Atog Lord]

I asked a level II judge about this. He said that Confidant hits you for 4 off a Hide and Seek.

[JACO]

Is there a ruling that has been posted on the converted mana cost for the purposes of Dark Confidant? I have to agree with Dave tho', this deck takes more damage to the face than any other Fish deck I have seen thanks to all of the pitch magic and the "4" cc Hide/Seek.

I think a more aggressive version of this deck with Phyrexian Negator supporting Jotun Grunt could be amazing, Fish isn't suppose to have a 5 and 4 turn clock, savage cheats 

Yes, there are consinstent rulings for split cards. For all you ever wanted to know about Split Cards, click the link and carefully read this article, titled The Truth About Split Cards:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/af116

Of note regarding this topic:

Example F: Dark Confidant

Q: You flip up a Hit // Run with Bob. How much life do you lose?

A: The Converted Mana Cost of the card is 3 and 5, so you lose three and five life, which totals eight. Ouch.

[Dnine]

getting hit with 4 from hide/seek isn't that bad as you will usually recoup the life when you cast it.  You also have swords if things get really bad.  In my top 8 I actually had to swords my bob to stay alive against an aggro deck.  The average CC of the deck is still really low.  only the 6 pitch counters cost 5 and the 4 hide/seeks cost 4.  everything else is 2 or less.