UW FISH: Teh Primer!

[wethepeople]

I second the big fliers in the sideboard and just sticking with Null Rod rather than Jitte.  The sideboard space left open by skipping the Jittes leaves room for more True Believers.  Hooray, t-bags!

I wouldn't reccomend using True Believers, or "t-bags", because they won't even bother your opponent at all, since it is yet another x/2 to die to Massacre. Cards that don't get hit by the usual removal brougth in is best to use, like Rule of Law, because it is only hit by bounce. Other cards such as Orim's Chant get picked off by the usual Duress-check, or become useless via Xantid Swarm.

[salthecarp]

I often find myself naming Massacre with Meddling Mage post-board.  If opponents are boarding in 8 cards against you and diluting their main game plan with those extra cards, I feel it's OK to use one Meddling Mage to disrupt the hate rather than slow down their offense.  That being said, if you're running into both Pyroclasm and Massacre a lot, it may be better to give up that fight.

One thing I've been wondering about though.  Why Rule of Law over Arcane Laboratory?

[ashiXIII]

I often find myself naming Massacre with Meddling Mage post-board.  If opponents are boarding in 8 cards against you and diluting their main game plan with those extra cards, I feel it's OK to use one Meddling Mage to disrupt the hate rather than slow down their offense.  That being said, if you're running into both Pyroclasm and Massacre a lot, it may be better to give up that fight.

One thing I've been wondering about though.  Why Rule of Law over Arcane Laboratory?

REB

[apocalyp]

Have you looked at using curfew in sideboard for oath?    I remember using it last year when I was playing UW fish and it was awesome.    It returns a creature for both of you but you can normally re-cast your creatures fairly easily compared to oath.   Not to mention targeting a spirit token from your end of the table is fun on it's own.

I would replace some Stp for these because of SSS.   

[wethepeople]

Have you looked at using curfew in sideboard for oath?    I remember using it last year when I was playing UW fish and it was awesome.    It returns a creature for both of you but you can normally re-cast your creatures fairly easily compared to oath.   Not to mention targeting a spirit token from your end of the table is fun on it's own.

I would replace some Stp for these because of SSS.   

I don't see how that'd be any better than Echoing Truth, which does the same thing, and takes care of one of the largest threats to Fish in the format; Empty the Warrens.

Oath really isn't too popular lately, so main deck alterations aren't necessary right now. We can leave the sideboard for that.

[apocalyp]

Echoing truth is obviously a better choice and should be maindeck.     Curfew is 100 times better games 2-3 against oath once SSS is down because they don't target.

Granted if you don't expect to see oath you obviously don't play with it.

[BreathWeapon]

Do people SB Balance? That card answers ETW, DC, and it can either remove lands, cards or creatures in the Fish mirror, that seems a lot better than at least one of the other cards in the SB for the aggro-control mirror.

[the boogie man]

perhaps sword of fire//ice can act as a replacement to jitte? it packs removal, protections from bounce, draws cards, and pings. I'd say that they'd be decent against control, but null rods are main, and usually stay in.

[salthecarp]

Did anyone notice the Top 8 from the tournamnet in Spain on 3/24?  The winner of that 75-person tournament was playing UW Fish and there was another UW Fish player in the top 8.  It seems like it's been a good month or so for UW Fish.  Of note in the Spanish tourney, between the 2 Fish decks there were 7 Sages of Epityr.    I have also had some success with Sage of Epityr in UW Fish, getting 8th place in Milwaukee on 3/3 and splitting for 3rd/4th at the College of DuPage on 4/7.  Many people had a good laugh at me playing the little Sage.  My opponent in the semifinals was told he would have to sleep in the garage if he lost to me.  People were taking jabs at me and my wee friends from Epityr and talking about me in the third person when I was standing right next to them.  This didn't really bother me, I thought it was pretty funny actually and getting top 4 didn't exactly lower my spirits.
  Anyway, enough story time.  Why are people playing Sage of Epityr?  Here's my take on it.
1) I prefer to play up the control side of aggro-control.  It's just my personal playing style.  Sage of Epityr, while it hardly puts the opponent on much of a clock, greatly increases the chances that your next card will be a relevant piece of disruption, or a much needed mana source.
2) It has obvious synergy with Ninja of the Deep Hours.  If you are going to play Ninja, the Sage is probably the best choice of springboard for your sneaky, card-drawing friend.
3) It's blue.  Last time I checked, having dogs and cats in your hand does not help you cast Force of Will or Misdirection.  Nothing hurts more than your opponent dropping the bomb on you when you're holding Force with nothing to pitch it to.
4) As an added bonus, Sage of Epityr is a Wizard.  Voidmage Prodigy eats wizards!  Personally, I didn't run Voidmage Prodigy at either of my tournaments, but I@n suggested I try it, and it looks like it may have worked out well in Spain so I'm testing it now.
Fish on,
Peter Ambrose

[Nehptis]

Right now I'm playing Oath so I don't like helping out my Fishy friends.  But, this card does seem very interesting against the field if it is true.  Gifts and Glong will not be fans of this card, for sure.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=73228

[wethepeople]

EDIT: I have looked a little further into the rumored card, Aven Mindcensor, and have realized additional possibilities that such a creature can offer. I may look into trying to create a build utilizing the card to it's greatest potential.

[Webster]

Right now I'm playing Oath so I don't like helping out my Fishy friends.  But, this card does seem very interesting against the field if it is true.  Gifts and Glong will not be fans of this card, for sure.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=73228

I fail to see how this 3-cc spell will have the slightest impact in the GL matchup. Excluding the fish hands that have a mana accelerant, there will be very few games vs long where this spell is even announced.

[Nehptis]

Wow, so you're saying that Fish rolls over and dies to GL everygame by turn 3 or less.  I wonder if your Fishy friends would agree with that?

I think fish attempts to drawout the game with disruption and therefore could cast this by turn 3.  Then could proceed to prevent Combo from scultping their hand or fetching lands via this Bird, while all the while swinging for at least 2 per turn.

[Phele]

It's a perfect weapon for Bomberman against Gifts and Long, which plays enough quick mana and doesn't mind about another beater.

[hitman]

@ Nephtis - Unless you play 3-4 Duress, you won't be able to reliably stop them from already tutoring by the third turn.  Once Long's tutored, they should be able to beat your disruption and win.  

Sidenote:  I think Fish players should learn to play other decks.  If you don't understand the ins and outs of other decks, how can you expect to adequately disrupt them?  

A three casting cost creature with a mostly irrelevant ability by the time it comes down isn't worth playing against fast decks like Long and Gifts.  If you really want that kind of effect, why not play Shadow of Doubt?  It's cheaper and fast enough to do something when it's played.  Gifts has already Gifted or is going to by the third turn.  That means they have counter backup, too.  Are you going to Force the Ancestral second turn or protect your Aven Mindcensor third turn from your opponents Force?  These are likely plays that are fairly easy to accomplish with Gifts.  Long is even worse.  In general, they have even more acceleration and can Grim Tutor first turn.  

A lot of Long's bombs are draw 7s anyway.  This card won't even be a reliable way to stop them from winning.  What happens when you've invested 3 mana in a card that doesn't even do anything to the gamestate?  I think this card is way too narrow to play competitively.

[arik124]

it doesn't work that differently from meddling mage, as in they simply must go get a bounce spell, that being said....its much harder to get said bounce spell, but dropping it on turn 3 doesn't seem as spicy as dropping mage on turn 2

[Dxfiler]

Did anyone notice the Top 8 from the tournamnet in Spain on 3/24?  The winner of that 75-person tournament was playing UW Fish and there was another UW Fish player in the top 8.  It seems like it's been a good month or so for UW Fish.  Of note in the Spanish tourney, between the 2 Fish decks there were 7 Sages of Epityr.    I have also had some success with Sage of Epityr in UW Fish, getting 8th place in Milwaukee on 3/3 and splitting for 3rd/4th at the College of DuPage on 4/7.  Many people had a good laugh at me playing the little Sage.  My opponent in the semifinals was told he would have to sleep in the garage if he lost to me.  People were taking jabs at me and my wee friends from Epityr and talking about me in the third person when I was standing right next to them.  This didn't really bother me, I thought it was pretty funny actually and getting top 4 didn't exactly lower my spirits.
  Anyway, enough story time.  Why are people playing Sage of Epityr?  Here's my take on it.
1) I prefer to play up the control side of aggro-control.  It's just my personal playing style.  Sage of Epityr, while it hardly puts the opponent on much of a clock, greatly increases the chances that your next card will be a relevant piece of disruption, or a much needed mana source.
2) It has obvious synergy with Ninja of the Deep Hours.  If you are going to play Ninja, the Sage is probably the best choice of springboard for your sneaky, card-drawing friend.
3) It's blue.  Last time I checked, having dogs and cats in your hand does not help you cast Force of Will or Misdirection.  Nothing hurts more than your opponent dropping the bomb on you when you're holding Force with nothing to pitch it to.
4) As an added bonus, Sage of Epityr is a Wizard.  Voidmage Prodigy eats wizards!  Personally, I didn't run Voidmage Prodigy at either of my tournaments, but I@n suggested I try it, and it looks like it may have worked out well in Spain so I'm testing it now.
Fish on,
Peter Ambrose

It has been a while since I've posted in here.  Hello :p 

I agree that UW fish has had some fantastic showings in the past month and a half.  It's nice to be able to counteract the 'why fish can't win tourneys' people by actually winning tourneys.  The Spain list that won the 75 person tourney absolutely blew my mind.  I honestly didn't think a build around wizards without a black splash (confidant being a wiz) could be effective.  I was wrong.  First, an examination of this list:

1st - Sergio Pérez- U/W Fish

Lands

4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
3 Tundra
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath

creatures

3 Jötun Grunt
4 Meddling Mage
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Sage of Epityr
2 Voidmage Prodigy

Other Stuff

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Black Lotus
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
2 Echoing Truth
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Null Rod
3 Stifle
1 Time Walk

Sideboard:
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
1 Echoing Truth
3 Seal of Cleansing
1 Stifle
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Trickbind
2 Umezawa’s Jitte

The fact that two of this specific build top 8'd a 75 person tourney indicates that this version of UW is very competitive.  Am I sold on it personally?  Not yet, but I'm also biased towards certain other versions of the deck :p

Anyway, back to analysis.  This version eschews cats and dogs for sages, ninjas and voidmages.  Everything else is functionally still intact in comparison to the cat/dog version.  All the spells pretty much stayed the same.  The version that won only plays 2 voidmage, while the one that got 8th plays none.  It seems like if you're on the wizard plan, you want to go all out in voidmages.  Maybe not 4, due to their double-blue ness, but I would think at least 3.  With voidmage, you're packing around 10-12 wizards if playing full complements of sage and meddling mage.  The wizard package seems fine, but sage in particular does not strike me as necessary.  The 8th place version of this deck ran 3 sage and 3 stormscape apprentice.  Long time readers of this thread know that I'm not crazy about stormscape, but I think in this particular version he's quite good.  I don't seed the need for sage, even with hot ninja action, when you already have manipulation off fetches/brainstorm. 

Now library manipulation can certainly help you continue the plan of disrupting your opponent because it sets up future turns, but it doesn't help the present game state (unless holding brainstorm or ancestral).  Stormscape affects the present game state against anything that isn't combo.  His tapping ability is at a premium versus anything else with legs.  I'd much rather be tapping my opoonent's grunts and swinging than manipulating my library to draw a card that will potentially deal with grunt down the line.  For me, fish is about keeping relentless pressure on and that's what stormscape does.  So for now, I'm in the camp of stormscape over sage of epityr if I have to choose just one.  I feel right now there is only space for one.

Moving on, neither of these lists played lotus.  I don't know if that's because it was no proxy and the pilots didn't have them... or they just felt that lotus was un-ncessary.  Although the first place version has no plows maindeck, potentially leaving itself open to welder game one, I'm pretty sure you want lotus in any version of UW fish ever.  Especially with voidmages, since the mana becomes slightly tricikier to consistently drop an early one every time you draw him.  Plus, it's lotus :p  Fish can't come up with alot of god draws, but any possible ones all involve having a black lotus opening hand.  Why deny yourself the chance of a  nut draw?

Neither wizard list packs old man or threads, which makes me shed a tear.  I think with the obvious rise in the popularity of fish, not having either old man or threads in your sideboard just sets you up for much tougher matches.  Plow is fine, and if you don't main it then certainly it belongs in the sideboard, but having additional slots in old man or threads seems necessary right now.   Jitte is a fine, fine card for creature battles, but it is very expected these days and between seals and echoing truths, it's very easy to work around if you see it coming.  I'm still a fan of running the card in the sideboard, but I like 1-2 as opposed to the 3 that I've previously endorsed.

Annul and spellsnare appearing in these sideboards is techy, but I don't believe either one are truly necessary.  I'd like to see more anti combo cards in those slots, like trickbinds or orim's chants.  But again, that's just me personally.  Annul is nice against oath and decent against stax.  Spellsnare hits a ton of cards but seems to particularly shine in the mirror.

I plan on doing some extensive testing with UW wizards which i'll keep you posted on, but right now the deck seems very solid.  I think it could be tweaked to better-ness (thats a word :p), but as is it seems like a serious contender.

Now onto other comments:

perhaps sword of fire//ice can act as a replacement to jitte? it packs removal, protections from bounce, draws cards, and pings. I'd say that they'd be decent against control, but null rods are main, and usually stay in.

Swords are just too clunky.  I've tried them thinking they'd be nice against something like slaver, but more often than not the time you use to cast and try to equip on a guy is time that the opponent has to do whatever they want.  As a rule of thumb I try to never bring in equipment against a non-creature deck because it doesn't put enough pressure on, and against a creature deck I'm pretty sure I'd want jitte over sword every time. 

There's been some discussion on this preview card:


Aven Mindcensor

Creature - Bird Wizard
Flash
Flying
If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.
2/1
Uncommon.

Let me throw my two cents in by saying...

MEH.

I don't think this card does enough at 3 mana to really warrant inclusion in uw.  There are just better cards at cheaper costs that have immediate impact.  Orim's Chant makes the opponent answer it or they can't go off.  Trickbind is similar.  This bird guy (although he IS a wizard :p) just makes your opponent think a little more before they combo off on you.  Sometimes the library manipulation is actually better for them than searching would have been.  If your opponent was going to tutor for massacre and instead has massacre on top plus some other danger cards, like yawg will, he can simply put them in whatever order he needs to instead of searching for the massacre and having yawg will be stranded somewhere else in the deck.

It is early to completely pass judgment on this card, but at the moment I am not at all excited about the prospects of this making it into the sideboard of any version of UW fish.  He just seems too...

<crowd>
... CLUNKY!!!! 
<applause...confetti drops from the ceiling>

Oh man it's getting late :p 

One more quote I wanted to extensively address...

Have you looked at using curfew in sideboard for oath?

No.

Thanks again for all the thoughts and commentary.  I hope mine helped, even if only a little bit.

- Dave Feinstein

[[FtN|FH] Negator]

There's been some discussion on this preview card:


Aven Mindcensor

Creature - Bird Wizard
Flash
Flying
If an opponent would search a library, that player searches the top four cards of that library instead.
2/1
Uncommon.

Let me throw my two cents in by saying...

MEH.

I don't think this card does enough at 3 mana to really warrant inclusion in uw.  There are just better cards at cheaper costs that have immediate impact.  Orim's Chant makes the opponent answer it or they can't go off.  Trickbind is similar.  This bird guy (although he IS a wizard :p) just makes your opponent think a little more before they combo off on you.  Sometimes the library manipulation is actually better for them than searching would have been.  If your opponent was going to tutor for massacre and instead has massacre on top plus some other danger cards, like yawg will, he can simply put them in whatever order he needs to instead of searching for the massacre and having yawg will be stranded somewhere else in the deck.

It is early to completely pass judgment on this card, but at the moment I am not at all excited about the prospects of this making it into the sideboard of any version of UW fish.  He just seems too...

<crowd>
... CLUNKY!!!! 
<applause...confetti drops from the ceiling>

Oh man it's getting late :p 

One more quote I wanted to extensively address...

Have you looked at using curfew in sideboard for oath?

No.

Thanks again for all the thoughts and commentary.  I hope mine helped, even if only a little bit.

- Dave Feinstein

From my point of view three mana is just to much for the effect. You don't want to keep this mana open all time.

EDIT: You have to shuffle your entire library afterwards.

[paavo3]

Though this card isn't confirmed, or rather the wording isn't set in stone, according to the current wording, player X would still shuffle his/her entire library, not just the top 4 if using a Demonic Tutor/fetchland.

[Webster]

From my point of view three mana is just to much for the effect. You don't want to keep this mana open all time.

Just because this guy has flash doesn't mean you necessarily should try to play him like a pseudo mystic snake, because that's not the mindset that the fish player should be thinking in. Leaving three mana open constantly is a luxury that no tempo deck can afford. If you were playing with the aven versus gifts, you wouldn't try to slow-roll him waiting for your opponent to play some search effect; you'd try to get him into play as quickly as you could in order to minimize the likelyhood of being caught with your pants down against a mana drain. Against grim long, if for some reason you have the capacity to cast him, you could try to slow-roll the aven for a half a turn to see if they go: grim tutor-->x, pass. Whatever the outcome of that turn may be, if the turn is shipped back to you, the aven will be in play at the start of your turn regardless of what they did because it attacks for two (unless you're playing around massacre and don't have a guy in hand besides the aven, possibly).

The story of some epic match, where in game three of the PSA 10 alpha lotus tournament, which is won by making your opponent play into the aven isn't going to happen, ever. As much as someone's ego would like to claim ownership to that story, the only truth in it is that it is a story, a fairy tale, which certainly won't happen in or near the single elimination rounds of any serious tournament.

[andrewpate]

@paavo3
This actually makes sense.  They obviously don't want the opponent to be able to use Demonic Tutor as a mini-Diabolic Vision, and what else are they going to put, "If an opponent would search a library and then shuffle that library, that player searches the top four cards of that library and then shuffles those cards instead." ?  I can't recall any replacement effects for contingent or two-part actions before.  I would be very surprised if it's anything but Demonic Tutor = Impulse + R&D's Secret Lair.

@Webster
I couldn't agree more.  The flash is good because it allows you to do something like leave Stifle mana open and then cast the Aven eot if you don't need it.  If, in the course of doing that, they cast Grim Tutor right into it, then of course you go ahead and play it in response.  Often, that will be a great play.  But you don't ever pass the turn expecting to do that.  Chad Ellis says that Cool Things are dangerous.

[wethepeople]

You shuffle the entire deck after "searching", regardless of how many cards you got to see. Fetchlands tell you to shuffle afterwards, and a library is a library, so shuffling the full deck is still required.

I don't see why the Flash is so important, aside from catching your opponent off-guard when they need the Tutor most. I would cast it one turn, furthermore making it more difficult for your opponent to answer it, by limiting their Tutors to just the top four cards. This also allows you to continue playing your game, as Fish would normally do.

Turn three (provided that you have exactly 3 mana open by then), is when you would usually be looking to cast this. Rather than casting it on your turn, I would wait until they cast an EOT-Instant-Speed Tutor (Mystical, Vamp, etc), or go through their turn waiting for a Sorcery-speed one, such as Grim, or Demonic. If however, they do not cast a tutor during this given period, I would still prefer to cast it at the end of their turn, so I don't put all that mana to waste.

[wethepeople]

Concerning sideboarding versus Combo, I have returned to Rule of Law. Orim's Chant is going to be terrible now, because it will just get countered with the new card from Future Sight- Pact of Negation. I am going to continue to test Aven Mindsensor because it is strong, swings, and can disrupt so many decks, all for the same cost of Rule of Law. The problem is that he also gets taken down by Massacre, as does True Believer.

[Dxfiler]

ok, I missed the fact that you still have to shuffle after.  Still, I'm not crazy about this card.  For three mana I'd really want a card that just stops combo in its tracks, like Arcane lab or rule of law.  Mindcensor also can fall to massacre, which doesn't really delight me.  The card has potential, but it just seems that there are better options if you're going to be playing 3 mana spells, which is actually a concern for this deck.

- Dave Feinstein

[King_minos]

IMO mindsenscer is great. Unlike arcane lab or rule of law, it doesn't completely stop combo in it's tracks. However, in order to win, they have to deal with this card (provided they aren't holding recall, twister, or their entire combo already). Also, it is probably easier for gifts and long to deal with labs because they go EOT instant speed tutor, mainphase removal. But for them to deal with mindscenscor, they can't tutor for an answer most of the time. It is easier to remove because of pyro/massacre, but it takes far more of their resources to play those cards than it would to bounce labs.

However, the cc is a downside and with combo becoming faster and faster, the game may often not last long enough for this to hit the board. with stifle's, their gameplan is slowed down because their fetches come slower, but some other form of disruption would have to slow them down more the next turn (meddling mage, null rod, tbag). If those hit the board turn two, they have to deal with those threats immediately. I agree that this will be great in bomberman, but playtesting will tell for fish.

[uwfish2000]

Hi All, i'm a player from Indonesia. I like u/w fish alot and i never splice it with black. Thanks to Dave, Jeff Huang, and Sergio Perez that wins with u/w fish. In my country no one plays combo deck, so which deck live in my country is :

1. Control Slaver
2. MUD
3. Stax Variants
4. TMWA
5. Psychatog
6. Burn
7. Ravager
8. Manaless Ichorid & Mana Ichorid
9. Bomberman
10. ELF!
11. U/W Fish
12. Oath

And this is my Latest Build :

Land (18):
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windsweaptheat
3 Tundra
3 Island
1 Plain
4 Wasteland
1 Stripmine


Creature (18):
1 Savannah Lion
1 Isamaru
3 Stormcape
3 Jotun
3 Kataki
4 Meddling Mage
3 Ninja

Spell (19):
3 Brainstorm
4 Force of will
3 Daze
3 Stifle
2 Echoing Truth
3 STP
1 Recall

Artifact (5):
2 Null Rod
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl


Sideboard :
3 Jitte
2 Seal of cleansing
1 Kami of ancient Law
1 Ronom Unicorn
1 kataki
1 null rod
1 Echoing truth
1 jotun
2 BEB
2 Hibernation

I want All comment for my built and thx for read my post.

Hello, and welcome to The Mana Drain!  While we appreciate new users offering their decklists for evaluation or improvement, we ask that all posters adhere to the forum rules, which include a minimum content requirement for all posts.  Unfortunately, posts which are limited to decklists fall short of this minimum standard.  Also, please note that while we understand that not everyone in the world is a native English speaker, we ask that all posters avoid using netspeak abbreviations whenever possible.  Please take a moment to review our site rules before making additional posts to avoid these problems in the future.  We look forward to your future contributions. -DA

[jeffthefob]

So yeah, I really have been reading this, but just too lazy to type.  But a short conversation with Webster made me jumped to the "reply" butto right away.

Web: http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=556
Me: Oh, that guy? Yeah, the u/w fish with mages instead of dog and cats (prove that I still read the forum ^^)
Me: Oh wait, what the ****? this is ANOTHER tourney
Web: Yea.
Web: i have 2 x foil sage of epityr for you.
Me: (*&#()*(()$Y^!@)#($)_*@()$

At first (and now) I am still not too sold on it.  Here are some of my random thoughts...

Looking at his updated list, no **voidmage!** I mean... then epityr is just a 1/1 beater? why not play stormscape then? To bluff you have voidmage in your deck and create a psychological effect? Isn't dog and cats lot better then? Dog and cats too, can disguise themselves as a ninja of the deep hours.  I don't know, by comparing his two lists I am just getting confused more and more.  But I guess I am not too bright sometimes... so I don't know... result speaks for itself.  The main deck change is Kataki for Voidmage, I approve! But I think I may approve even more when some wizards come out for dog and cats XD

Maybe just to elaborate on it a little more on "no voidmage."  One of the huge distinction between the "wizard" version from the "cat and dogs" version is voidmage's ability to counter spell.  And just the exclusion of it in his updated version just... doesn't make sense for my simple head.  Sort of contradict the reason to play the deck in a way. (if you read the analysis of it in the prevoius post by Dxfiler, I did some editing, here is the quote:

It seems like if you're on the wizard plan, you want to go all out in voidmages.  Maybe not 4, due to their double-blue ness, but I would think at least 3.  With voidmage, you're packing around 10-12 wizards if playing full complements of sage and meddling mage.  The wizard package seems fine, but sage in particular does not strike me as necessary. 

Also, I dislike ninja of the deep hours.  It makes REB and Pyroblasts time walks.  I had been on receiving end of turn 1 dork, turn 2 ninja and my opponent REB'ed it.  Losing DI tempo and that put you so behind.  I still played it back then because it was a blue card for FoW and it is still good if it gets working (and Coldsnap wasn't released yet^^).  But to me, the cost is greater than the benefit, so as an economics major, I don't like it though it is a fine card.

I just think 2 powered animals are too important for u/w.  Just me though.  If I don't have one out in turn 1, then my hand better be a hand kept for specific match up reasons.  (Ie: null rods/fow against belcher, Kataki against Stax, and ancestral recalls ^_^) The reason why the dorks are so good in turn one is because they make you other plays a lot better.  Most notably, the null rods.  I think I wrote about my thoughts on turn 1 dorks on my first tourney report, so I am going to stop on this issue.

Some of the stuffs other people had brought up about the deck (mainly Dxfiler).  First, Swords to Plowshares (StP), I got to have some in my deck, they are great against creature decks and clean up 11/11 Tramplers sometimes.  I got to have 4 after board, but I guess this is a metagame call.  StP give you solutions to many things (Welder as he pointed out) I think I won't see myself reducing the number of StP in my deck.  Two, I love Old Man of the Sea, period (see my 2nd tourney report for my lust for him -.-)

Nevertheless, this deck top 8'ed twice in a 7 round Swiss tourney with top 8.  So, the result is there, and I can't deny that.  All I can say is there are probably something I didn't see.  Testing and tweaking can make probably make me like this deck more.  But for me, I love the dog and cats, I ain't making room for wizards...... yet :-p

Regarding the card that this thread had been talking about... Aven Mindcensor... I think by now it is obvious when it comes to my take on the fish.  One drops, pressure, pressure, and disrution through null rods and the counters.  Tempo, tempo, and tight plays.  I think this guy is just a cute Stifle.  (a card I don't play *heh*) I want to use my 3 mana to do something else, this guy is just... I don't know... clunky? Besides, what to take out for this guy? When I do changes I want to see what goes out? Right now, I am extremely happy with where my deck is (or am I? heh), I just don't see any cards going out for it.  Of course, that being all said, one day I might put him in my deck because he may just be super amazing and I would been regretting me typing all these.  Right now, it isn't just that moment yet ^^"

In short:
1) the fish with wizards: not convinced yet, I am stubborn and biased perhaps. 
2) Mindcensor: I don't like it.  But, I might be wrong (though a lot sure that I am more confident saying this than the comments regarding 'wizard' fish)

-Jeff

oh heh, I hope my post reads okay and make sense.  I should had just slept and post this another day.  But the result of the fish just strike me too much, maybe I am secretly trying to convince myself like this version of fish :-p  peace ^^

[Prometheon]

It seems like Children of Korlis is getting better and better. Being able to sacrifice it against Ichorid before it generate a ton fo zombies and attacks them is very powerful, and it still provides the small speedbump against fast storm combo, as well as being a quick body for Ninja (if you run both. Most people run neither.)

The increasing prevalence of Dark Confidant, and the possibility of encountering Belcher (which runs Welder) is also making Javelineers look like an attractive option again, and I feel that these two creatures may need to be re examined a little in the context of the current metagame (though the Children moreso than javelin man.)

[soto]

Hey, I'm new to these forums.  Nice to meet you all.
So i grabbed a few decklists from here and there and i was wondering what works best in a combo environment: the voidmage build or the cat/dog build?  Imo the voidmage, but at the same time the cat/dog puts on a fast clock.  I've just started playing Fish so i would rly like some advice.

Thanks.

P.S I'm from Montreal if anyone wants to know.

[islanderboi10]

Hey, I'm new to these forums.  Nice to meet you all.
So i grabbed a few decklists from here and there and i was wondering what works best in a combo environment: the voidmage build or the cat/dog build?  Imo the voidmage, but at the same time the cat/dog puts on a fast clock.  I've just started playing Fish so i would rly like some advice.

Thanks.

P.S I'm from Montreal if anyone wants to know.

I'm no fish expert, but since you do live in a combo heavy environment, that means they run EtW correct?

I would probably run the Null Rod build as it can stop combo pretty well.
But again, I am no fish expert.