Urw-Fish Discussion

[Irenicus]

The last tournament I played in, I was running an Urbana-Fish-Deck (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=20137) and got 2nd (sanctioned tournament, about 30 people, no T8 cut, about 25 people with power). I really liked the deck in general but thought about switching from Black to White for the following cards:

Meddling Mage (great in my metagame, because there is alot of Gifts and Drain-Decks in general)
Jotun Grunt (quick beater and pritty good in any matchup)
StP (imo better answer to big creatures than Waterfrontbouncer)
Orim's Chant (good SB-Material vs. Combo-Decks)
[to some degree] Gush (because I didn't want to run him in the same deck as D. Confidant)

Then I took a look at the cards which you loose when you cut Black:

Dark Confidant (great 1st Turn play, draw-engine on its own => Nr.1 Reason to play Black)
Duress (cheap disruption and gets information)
some SB-cards like Planar Void and/or Darkblast

Therefore I dediced that it was worth a try and started "my" URW-Project. The latest version is this:

Maindeck (60):

Lands (20):
    4  Volcanic Island
    4  Tundra
    1  Island
    4  Wasteland
    1  Strip Mine
    3  Flooded Strand
    3  Polluted Delta
Creatures (17):
    4  Meddling Mage
    4  Ninja of the Deep Hours
    4  Gorilla Shaman (1)
    3  Grim Lavamancer
    2  Jotun Grunt
Spells (23):
    1  Ancestral Recall
    2  Remand
    3  Swords to Plowshares
    1  Gush
    4  Brainstorm
    1  Time Walk
    1  Mox Pearl
    3  Daze
    4  Force of Will
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Ruby

Sideboard (15):

SB: 1  Swords to Plowshares
SB: 3  Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3  Orim's Chant
SB: 4  Flametongue Kavu
SB: 4  Rack and Ruin

Random thoughts about the deck:

- I like CotV in some matchups, but needed to replace Dark Confidant with other "drawing-cards" (Brainstorm). Therefore I cut CotV, because in this deck I don't wont to play it for 1.
- Because I dropped CotV and Dark Confidant, I cut the off-colored Moxes which made it easier to get the right colors.
- Daze really shines, if combined with Mox Monkey and wasteeffects.
- FTK from the board hits later, because I dropped 2 Moxes, but they still win the Aggro-Matchups quite often.
- Remand with Meddling Mage and NotDH is sometimes really nice (read: Remand a spell, bounce MM via NotDH and replay MM naming the remanded card).
- StP gets online earlier than W. Bouncer but can't be played before your opponent is going to tinker.
- From testing Drain- and Combomatchups are solid, but you need to find a "tempo-hand". Slow hands (like no Fow, Daze or Mox) just lose to current Drain-Decks.
- Stax can be ugly, but 4 Rack and Ruin help and in my meta (mainly Drain- and Combodecks) the number of good Stax-Players decreases constantly.

Some cards which didn't make the cut but maybe should have:
- Misdirection (can be played instead of Remands)
- Tormod's Crypt (I like Orim's Chant more and here in this part of Germany there are only very few (0-2 per tournament) Ichorid-Decks)
- Fire/Ice (great vs. Aggro and pitchable)
- Kataki (good vs. manahungry decks, but imo not needed in addition to 4 Mox Monkeys)
- Sacred Ground (SB-Card vs. other Fish-Decks and Stax)
- maindeck Blast (sometimes a good surprise, cheap)
- Bounce (vs. ETW, but it hasn't got seen much play here, maybe that changes due to Brassmans Win)

I hope this can be a good starting point for a discussion about Urw-Fish.

[wethepeople]

I have played this deck, and yes, it was good, however, the only reason I chose not to run it is that I soon realized, why run this over say, UWb Fish?

The only real advantage that Red has are things like Red Elemental Blast, simply because things like Gorilla Shaman and Lavamancers can be replaced by cards of their near equivalent, and you still are able to use all the spells that black has to offer.

Gorrila Shaman easily can be replaced by Chalice of the Void/Null Rod.

Grim Lavamancer can replaced by, like, fifty different things that are either white or blue, however I don't believe I can think of any in the black category.

However, in order for me to be sure about all of this it is important to know what your up against, because I may be making completely incorrect assumptions of your metagame. I see that you pointed out your reasoning for chosen sideboard cards, but have you done any scouting of any sort to be sure of your environment?

According to both your SB and MD it looks like you designed the deck for:

Stax
CS
Combo
Other aggro.

Is that correct?

[Irenicus]

I have played this deck, and yes, it was good, however, the only reason I chose not to run it is that I soon realized, why run this over say, UWb Fish?

Which deck did you run? Urw or Urb and which version?

The only real advantage that Red has are things like Red Elemental Blast, simply because things like Gorilla Shaman and Lavamancers can be replaced by cards of their near equivalent, and you still are able to use all the spells that black has to offer.

Gorrila Shaman easily can be replaced by Chalice of the Void/Null Rod.

Grim Lavamancer can replaced by, like, fifty different things that are either white or blue, however I don't believe I can think of any in the black category.

First off all, yes you are right, red is only played for a few cards. But how many black cards do you play in all the Ubx Fish-Decks? Normally only Dark Condiant and Duress!
Secondly in a deck with Ninja, playing Shaman can be better than playing things like CotV or Rod. Shaman still attacks and blocks if needed.
In general I don't get your whole replace-stuff thing. It is normal, that some cards can handle the same problem and that you can replace many cards with others. But I don't see any good maindeckworthy replacement for Lavamancer (he is a creature, removal for Welder, Dark Confidant and nearly all creatures played by any Fish-Deck and costs just R).
Last but not least red offers great SB-material with FTK, Rack and Ruin in addition to REB or Pyroblast.

However, in order for me to be sure about all of this it is important to know what your up against, because I may be making completely incorrect assumptions of your metagame. I see that you pointed out your reasoning for chosen sideboard cards, but have you done any scouting of any sort to be sure of your environment?

According to both your SB and MD it looks like you designed the deck for:

Stax
CS
Combo
Other aggro.

Is that correct?

I thought that I had mentioned my meta in my first post enough, but anyway it mainly consists of: Gifts, other Drain-Control Decks, Combo (mainly TPS), Fish- Decks and Stax. The reason that I know my meta that well, is, that we have 2 tournaments every month where alot of the same people participate and our meta doesn't change that fast. To sum it up, this deck should be built to have a good Drain and Combo-Matchup but still needs to be able to beat Fish-Decks and Stax (therefore I play 4 Rack and Ruin in my board). And yes, I know that you can't have only positive matchups and that your deck doesn't get better after boarding vs. every deck.

General thoughts:
What I really like about a Urw-Deck is, that you don't play any cards which change your deckbuilding ( Dark Confidant, CotV). Therefore you can play cards like Brainstorm, Gush or Misdirections.
Secondly the SB really works. Red offers great choices which trade 2-1 (FTK, R&R).

After playtesting some more vs. Gifts and Stax I am thinking about cutting one manasource and adding a 3rd Grunt. Maybe I cut 1 Tundra and 1 Volcanic Island for a 7th fetchland and the 3rd Grunt. The 7th fetchland would be good with Lavamancer, Brainstorm and Grunt and vs. stripeefects.

[wethepeople]

To answer your question, I played both a UWr Fish deck, and more recently, a WUb build, that can be found in my thread. The UWr build I put together was actually for much of the metagame you described. I did much of the same things in my sideboard and MD.

I ran REB's main  and SB for Drain decks, which were common for me to face. Stax wasn't much different than the UW matchup because I only brought in my Volcanic Islands when I needed them, and since I had so many fetches MD, this wasn't too hard. My sideboard however was where I took advantage, because I ran a combination of Energy Fluxes and Sacred Grounds, a couple Rack and Ruins, and if I am not mistaken, Hurkyl's Recall.

My Fish matchup was great because I had access to everything they did, plus more. I had three or four STP's MD, which personally I would never consider doing again, and a Fire/Ice, also. In my SB, I had three FTK's, Lightning Dart, and Jitte.

But in sum, I mainly designed the deck for Gifts, CS, and Stax, with the Fish mirror in mind also. I don't know what I would need to do to tune it to my current metagame, but the changes are probably fairly minor.
---

The reason I suggested running UWb is that I was only making assumptions of your metagame, and in this situation UWb seems best because it has proved to have fairly good matchups versus many common decks. Although, once I learned that you really tuned it properly rather than just playing with a red splash for the hell of it, I understood your card decisions.

[Fortifitakitors]

HEllo!! I have run this deck and went to a tournament with it at Mr. Robillard's (I think I spelled it right) Roland Chang's magical rejuvination tournament at the Beanie Exchange. First what I would like to say is that meddling mage is a pain in the bottom to get out in three color fish, I believe the reason that it worked in UBW fish is because of its synergy with semi-mana fixer Aether Vial. I never ran it again, I stuck to Kataki for random Stax decks, Gorilla Shaman for Moxes/mana denial, 3/4 Jotun Grunts for Combo/Ichorid/Dragon/Slaver(Welder Shenigans), I had 2/3 Grim Lavamancer but cut it to 2 permanently because I found that aren't a whole lot of targets that are susceptible to succumbing to its ability plus Jotun Grunt was counteracted with that ability. I found that a Jotun Grunt based deck was more appropiate to a Dragon/PitchLong/Gifts/Slaver/Stax environment and that it didn't get annihillated to single removal that combo uses for weenies; Massacre, Pyroclasm. Even if they do that to destroy your other non-Grunt creatures it would be more food for the grunt when you are finished depleting their graveyard of fodder. That said I would also like to stress the importance of Null Rod. Null Rod is Fishes best mana denial to combo. 5 moxes Black Lotus Sol Ring Mana Crypt, Lotus Petal, Mana Vault. That 8-10 mana sources in Slaver 25 Mana sources/ Gifts 25 mana sources/Long 21-22 mana sources/Stax 25+ mana sources... What I am saying that you can shut off a 1/3 to 1/2 of several of the top tier decks mana sources and sometimes you can beat them down with weenies while they're mana screwed. Even if the do recover and bounce/destroy your Null Rod it could already be too late. Also Null Rod can ruin slavers day if they don't find an answer to it and Pitchlong/Gifts has to bounce it, Stax can weld/Destroy, but all in all it can dramatically throw off the tempo at which each decks flows by, especially Bomberman which has been making numerous appearances in top 8's all around the world. Also, I would like to point out the obvious ubiquity of blue spells in top tier decks; Gifts 26-28+/Long 16-18/Slaver 20-23/Bomberman 27!!!!!!!! Blue sources..... That is why Main deck blasts are absolutely neccessary. I would do at least two one pyroblast and red elemental blast or 2-3 Pyroblast so you can put it in the graveyard regardless the spell is blue or not for more Grunt fodder.

That is all for now.

[wethepeople]

HEllo!! I have run this deck and went to a tournament with it at Mr. Robillard's (I think I spelled it right) Roland Chang's magical rejuvination tournament at the Beanie Exchange. First what I would like to say is that meddling mage is a pain in the bottom to get out in three color fish, I believe the reason that it worked in UBW fish is because of its synergy with semi-mana fixer Aether Vial. I never ran it again, I stuck to Kataki for random Stax decks, Gorilla Shaman for Moxes/mana denial, 3/4 Jotun Grunts for Combo/Ichorid/Dragon/Slaver(Welder Shenigans), I had 2/3 Grim Lavamancer but cut it to 2 permanently because I found that aren't a whole lot of targets that are susceptible to succumbing to its ability plus Jotun Grunt was counteracted with that ability. I found that a Jotun Grunt based deck was more appropiate to a Dragon/PitchLong/Gifts/Slaver/Stax environment and that it didn't get annihillated to single removal that combo uses for weenies; Massacre, Pyroclasm. Even if they do that to destroy your other non-Grunt creatures it would be more food for the grunt when you are finished depleting their graveyard of fodder. That said I would also like to stress the importance of Null Rod. Null Rod is Fishes best mana denial to combo. 5 moxes Black Lotus Sol Ring Mana Crypt, Lotus Petal, Mana Vault. That 8-10 mana sources in Slaver 25 Mana sources/ Gifts 25 mana sources/Long 21-22 mana sources/Stax 25+ mana sources... What I am saying that you can shut off a 1/3 to 1/2 of several of the top tier decks mana sources and sometimes you can beat them down with weenies while they're mana screwed. Even if the do recover and bounce/destroy your Null Rod it could already be too late. Also Null Rod can ruin slavers day if they don't find an answer to it and Pitchlong/Gifts has to bounce it, Stax can weld/Destroy, but all in all it can dramatically throw off the tempo at which each decks flows by, especially Bomberman which has been making numerous appearances in top 8's all around the world. Also, I would like to point out the obvious ubiquity of blue spells in top tier decks; Gifts 26-28+/Long 16-18/Slaver 20-23/Bomberman 27!!!!!!!! Blue sources..... That is why Main deck blasts are absolutely neccessary. I would do at least two one pyroblast and red elemental blast or 2-3 Pyroblast so you can put it in the graveyard regardless the spell is blue or not for more Grunt fodder.

That is all for now.

I personally don't think the Pyroblasts are any better, regardless of the fact that you can dump them to the GY for Grunt-food. Pyroblast can get Misdirected into anything, so it doesn't help so much versus Gifts or PL. The fact that it can be pitched for Grunt is very minor, because rarely are you relying on just one card to pay the CU.

Meddling Mage is not hard to cast in almost any three color builds. The way that I played the deck was play UW unless you NEED a Volc. for something like REB or Gorilla. If you use fetches, it is easy to aqquire whichever color you are looking for early game. I honestly can't believe you would cut Meddling Mage because aside from Grunt, that's got to be the strongest card in any UW Fish variation.

It is no different than casting it in UWb, because the mana bases are practically the same, just one uses Underground Seas and the other uses Volcanic Islands. You certainly don't need Aether Vial to get it out there, because no one even runs the card in Vintage anymore. I played this deck for quite some time, and never did I have trouble getting Mage off, except that is, versus a heavy mana denial-based deck such as Stax.