Why are Fish decks not winning tournaments?

[Vegeta2711]

It does not matter what turn you actually win on, if these "free wins" (which apparently means something completely subjective) were so prevelent and certain decks had more of them and others didn't then why wouldn't everyone try to maximize them?

Don't automatically jump to the extreme, or lump me in to that niche, with my statements. Gifts and Long are mainly what I'm talking about. Look at what you said, "why wouldn't everyone try to maximize them", um WE ARE. Look at all the work that's been done since the original iterations of decks like CS and Gifts came out. How are we not trying to maximize these decks win rates?

If you get 15% "free win" hands but 85% "cannot possibly win" hands then there is a problem, no?

Look at what you're saying:  Fish would be better off if it added a Channel and a Kaervek's Torch because then it could mise free wins.

Straw-man much? What deck does that? I'm talking about decks like Long and Gifts. Decks that get that "15% free win" and then normal hands the rest of the time (along with the obvious clunkers all decks get). As for the Torch thing, to quote you "I can't really help you if you can't see why there is an obvious tradeoff between consistancy and brokenness".

I can't really help you if you can't see why there is an obvious tradeoff between consistancy and brokenness (hint: this favors "Happy Medium" decks like Gifts)

Again, extreme positioning here. You make it seem as if I'm only referring to a deck like SX when I talk about free wins. Nearly every non-fish deck in Vintage has a number of hands that will just pound a hapless opponent into submissions.

And here's the reason I made it so bloody obvious in my rebuttal. Give me a reason why you'd rather play a deck over the course of a tourney that you have to fight to win every game versus something that would give you a couple of gimmies. Don't come back with the consistency argument, unless you want to try and tell me that every non-fish deck in Vintage is somehow inconsistent now.

I really think you're discrediting the power of answers too much.  DSC fell out of favor and was replaced by ETW in many decks because of the prevelance of bounce like Wipe Away etc... Or look at how hard Ichorid has to fight against cards like Leyline and Crypt. I'm not sure that putting all your eggs in one basket is really that good of an idea.

But ultimately your not going all-in. Gifts can fight through plenty of hate, I do it every time I play against Ichorid. Long doesn't roll to any one; or even pair of hate cards without back-up.

[o]

And here's the reason I made it so bloody obvious in my rebuttal. Give me a reason why you'd rather play a deck over the course of a tourney that you have to fight to win every game versus something that would give you a couple of gimmies. Don't come back with the consistency argument, unless you want to try and tell me that every non-fish deck in Vintage is somehow inconsistent now.

This is the core of why people don't like to play Fish, and it's completely understandable.  It's simply too much more work to play tight and fair than to play broken.  But this is also why I believe you can do well with fish; it would just require a hell of a lot of work.  Having to "fight to win every game" doesn't actually mean that you're more likely to lose.

[dicemanx]

there is an obvious tradeoff between consistancy and brokenness

Maybe here is the crux of the matter - Fish for the longest time was deemed more consistent, and was successful for it because it wasn't losing anything in the process - it was, in fact a trade-off that you describe, and a seemingly equal one at that given its successes in the past.

Now, things are different - you can push towards more brokenness (without going to the extreme like MeandeckSX does, for instance), without losing much in the way of consistency. In fact, because of the pressure that fast combo decks (Drain decks included) put on the opposition, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to contain the opponents with a Fish deck if you just cannot draw into or find enough relevant components in time. This isn't about playing for incremental gains anymore and winning small - it is more about trying to not get blown off the board in the initial turns, and then struggling for the remainder of the game to win. Fish can be successful in doing that - but it does feel like playing with a handicap. What would motivate someone then to pick up Fish in the first place, other than some slavish devotion? If you look at the numbers for major events, the popularity has decreased tremendously over the span of the past 2-3 years.

[Webster]

And here's the reason I made it so bloody obvious in my rebuttal. Give me a reason why you'd rather play a deck over the course of a tourney that you have to fight to win every game versus something that would give you a couple of gimmies. Don't come back with the consistency argument, unless you want to try and tell me that every non-fish deck in Vintage is somehow inconsistent now.

This is the core of why people don't like to play Fish, and it's completely understandable. It's simply too much more work to play tight and fair than to play broken. But this is also why I believe you can do well with fish; it would just require a hell of a lot of work. Having to "fight to win every game" doesn't actually mean that you're more likely to lose.

You make it sound like the people that choose to play decks that can have broken openings are commiting some sort of crime and are incapable of winning by attacking with isamaru & co.

What's the point in playing a deck that requires more work to achieve the objective when there's an alternative which is consistant, requires less work, and has a track record of performing better than the first option in the hands of a mediocre player which translates into a much larger advantage as the skill gap between you and your opponent increases in your favor?

There is no "play fair" in magic. It's win or lose. Use every choice in card and deck to your advantage. Period.

Some people do well with fish because they are good at magic; they could play any decent deck and perform well.


Web

[hitman]

Honestly, my questions were answered very early in this thread.  Fish can definitely win games against broken decks.  My question was answered in two parts.  There's a part of the tournament field that still plays underpowered decks that roll over Fish, like Goblins.  Also, decks that revolve around the restricted list can have broken plays that realistically aren't stoppable.  I think the first reason is the strongest not to play Fish unless you're confident in your metagame predictions.  The entire point of "Fish" decks are to negate the effect of broken plays so their "fairer" win conditions can win.  If the metagame is filled with "fairer" decks, the objectively stronger ones will win. 

Can everyone be honest and face up to the fact that type one is synonymous with broken decks?  Is there any real question as to whether they're at an advantage?  Those defending Fish so adamantly don't need to do so.  Reasonable people can understand that some people want to "outplay", "innovate", or just try something new.  Note:  I'm not putting the words outplay and innovate in quotation marks to be sarcastic. 

I think the reason Fish doesn't win as much as the other archetypes is that, though they may stop the early game threats, they can't stop those decks from countering, bouncing, etc. your win conditions long enough to topdeck/draw/tutor the win.

[Implacable]

Allow me to put it this way:

Most decks will win, no matter what, with about, oh, let's say 10% of the hands that they draw.  That small percentage of hand-type is just unbeatable; it covers anything from the Slaver draw that I outlined earlier to a PitchLong turn 1 with Force backup.  In the other 90% of the games that they play, they will have to work to win; that is where the skill element comes in.  That all changes if you play Fish.

If you play Fish, you have to work in 100% of the games that you play.  Even in games where your opponent draws poorly and gets screwed, you still have to play tightly, because of the potential power level of the cards that your opponent can draw by virtue of playing the cards that they play.  There are almost never freebies when you're playing Fish; there is a much smaller margin for error, and that problem is compounded by the fact that, if the small margin is violated, the consequences for making a mistake are force, e.g. you lose the game, rather than with Gifts, where a mistake may mean that you lose a counterwar.  Without that buffer, it is harder for Fish to succeed in tournaments, particularly in the unforgiving Top 8, where they must play against just-plain-stupid decks like Gifts and Long.

[madmanmike25]

There are four questions:

1) What is the definition of Fish -

*questions shortened in the interest of conserving space(not trying to take them out of context)-for the full question see pg. 3.  All questions will be shortened.

My opinion of Fish, is that it MUST include blue, mainly for the card FoW.  Force is needed to keep the opponent from going broken before you have even put a land into play.  I will go on the record as saying that a Fish-type deck that does not run FoW, Ancestral, and Time Walk are inferior to Fish decks that do.

What defines Fish??

Blue based?(would mono U with Thiefs/Ophidians/Ninjas/Bouncers be Fish?)
2 colors?(e.g. would SuiBlack/Ichorid be a Fish deck since its mono B?)
Use of the Attack phase?
Disruption?(again, what kind? Chalice is disruption, Null Rod is disruption)
Small creatures?(is Serendib 'small'?)
Big creatures?(Juggs off a workshop is very efficient, Angels from Oath isn't bad either)
Efficient/Effective creatures?(in terms of abilities)

Important: A unique superseding "theme" of the deck strongly disfavors the Fish label. (Suicide Black, Goblins, Affinity, Workshop Aggro, others)

I agree with this statement.  Oath decks are Oath decks, even though they may follow Fish-type strategies.  Ichorid is Ichorid, even though it runs Chalice and Therapies.  Workshop decks (can) run Null Rod and Chalice, and when cast off a Mishras Workshop, Juggernaut is pretty damn cost effective.  But, its not Fish.

Is there a Viable Aggro deck with ZERO disruption?  Methinks not.  Aggro must have disruption to be competitive in Vintage

However, TMWA in my opinion is NOT a Fish deck.  Does it not have it's own superseding theme?  Is that theme: (again) Disrupt and Attack?  That deck has changed sooo much since I first saw the decklist.  Personally, I do not feel that RED/Pyro Blast can ever take the place of FoW.

Decks like Gro-Atog are hybrids, but I still wouldn't call it Fish.  Dryads are very effective and can win the game without Tog, but the essence is still there

Again, I don't think decks like SuiBlack,Shop Aggro, TMWA, Oath, Goblins(with disruption), or Ichorid are Fish decks.  BUT, I do see how people could label them as such.  Without Blue for protection(FoW) Fish-type decks lose a lot of resilience, Ichorid excluded.

2) Is it meaningful for the term to encompass what are essentially radical approaches to the archetype in deciding question #3? For instance, does insight into the performance of SS in tourneys give validity to the idea that another "Fish" approach is top tier?

Kind of difficult to answer.  There is Slaver, and then there is Dry Slaver.  Yet, both are still Slaver decks with the same core.  There are several different versions of Oath, but essentially they perform the same way.  How many cards must a deck be different by to have it's own name? 1? 10?  I feel sorry for those at SCG who have to determine what category to put a deck in when posting tournament results.  Must be quite the headache.

But, I will say yes to the question if people are in agreement to what Fish decks really are.  But wait, I don't even consider B/U Fish(SS to some) to really be top tier(how is this defined?).  But it has the POTENTIAL to win. 

3) Is Fish a top tier choice in today's meta? The evidence presented thus far indicates that Gifts, CS, and Tendrils are far ahead of the pack. Is playing Fish essentially playing with an (unnecessary) handicap? Fish archetypes are viable - they can compete and they can win. Is that enough?

Good question.  My answer is no.  Is Fish fun?  Hell yeah.  Does it have a chance to top 8?  Certainly.  Is it consistent?  Usually so.  Does it have bad matchups against what I(and others) would call low-tier decks?  Yes.

What is Fish's most broken play turn 1???  Lotus, Recall, Timewalk, and a land drop?  That puts Fish in a very good lead, but the game is far from over.

4) Is it fair to point out that the best stats for a Fish deck, UW Rod Fish, are the doing of one person in the format?

Statistics can be interpreted many ways.  But, apparently this Feinstein(I don't know him) has done well with the deck.  But ask him, has he ever misplayed??  And still won?  I think that speaks more about the deck in question than the player.  If he used sub-optimal cards in his decks(which he does not) then I would agree that it is the player and not the deck that wins.  More emphasis should be on decklists.  A MTG savant might win with 60island.dec.(bluffing the whole time)

Would anyone disagree and say that Blue does not improve Fish decks?  Not saying it is a requirement to be labeled Fish,  but Fow, Recall, Walk, Stifle, Bounce, etc. bring a lot to the table.  Why play a sub-obtimal version of Fish without Blue?

p.s. glad to see things have calmed down.

[Gekoratel]

If the question at hand is labeling Fish decks so that we can accurately measure their performance I don't think it really matters what build of Fish is necessarily the best.  Some parts of your post seem at odds with one another.

My opinion of Fish, is that it MUST include blue, mainly for the card FoW

Would anyone disagree and say that Blue does not improve Fish decks?  Not saying it is a requirement to be labeled Fish,

Your first quote makes it seem that blue must be an integral part of the deck for it to be considered Fish but then in the 2nd quote when you are asking the opinions of others your view doesn't seem set in stone.  Personally I think the colors that go into making a Fish deck are largely irrelevant for labeling purposes.  I've seen B/W Fish decks that run efficient men like Savannah Lion, and Dark Confidant while disrupting with cards like Duress and Cabal Therapy.  Even though this deck does not run blue I still believe for our purposes that it is a fish deck.  All in all I like the definition the Brainpk set up of the previous page. 

Also even if you include decks that are on the fringe of being considered Fish (SS, GAT, etc.) the performance of Fish decks has still be underwhelming since the printing of EtW.  Fish builds can modify their deck to deal with Empty but they are then using slots to battle a single card that aren't optimal against the rest of the field.

[Smmenen]

This is not a debate I particularly care to get involved in, but I would like to state my view of a couple of points – some of which I’ve already stated in this thread before.  I’ll throw them out there for consideration.

First, I would contest the assumption that Fish decks are bad in performance terms.  While Gifts and Long decks did really well last year (and were miles ahead of other decks in making the finals), here is the actual tally (taken from my year in review article: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13428.html:

2006 Waterbury/SCG/Vintage Champs Top 8s:

Gifts (MDG/TFK-Gifts): 21
Slaver (CS/Burning Slaver): 19
Tendrils (Grimlong/Pitchlong/IT): 16
Fish (UW/URBana/SS): 15
Shop (Stax/UbaStax): 14
Bomberman : 8
Oath: 5
WGD: 3

Fish was the fourth most successful archetype in the vintage metagame last year, and only a HAIR behind Long decks.   If you take out Its, Fish actually did better than Long.   And either way, Fish did better than Stax.

I wonder Peter: would you tell people not to play Stax because its underpowered?  By this data, Stax appears to be weaker than Fish.

For the same events, here are the tallies for the 1st/2nd place finishers in 2006:

Gifts: 8
Tendrils: 5
CS: 4
Stax: 3
Fish: 2 (all SS variants)
Bomberman: 1 (BOB-erman – not genuine bomberman)

If you do not categorize SS as Fish and if you don’t count the strange Bobberman deck, the ONLY decks to make the finals at those events from the decks listed above were CS, Gifts, Long, and Stax followed by the two anamolous copies of SS.   

In other words, while Fish never made the finals, it still made top 8 with FAR more than enough frequency to be considered a great upper tier deck on par with Stax.   To say otherwise ignores the data.   

Second, while I agree that Fish can get overpowered, I don’t agree that Fish doesn’t have broken plays.  Null Rod is one of THE most powerful plays in Vintage, period.   Null Rod is, from a certain perspective, broken.   

Finally, I want to say that I think a lot of the criticism raised about Fish in this thread – particularly by Diceman, could be equally raised about Stax: about how containing the faster decks is harder and harder to do.   About how you would rather play the broken cards than the answers.    Stax has taken a nose dive in terms of performance.    But with Vroman’s showing at the Vintage champs – how much of that can be attributed directly to the deck and not the player base? 

[meadbert]

If you count SS and Worse than GAT as fish decks (which I do) then Fish actually won two major Tournaments last year.

[arik124]

I have to agree with the null rod comment.  I play in the NE so its Gifts all day long at tournaments here and nothing makes me happier than turn 1 null rod.  It just makes their lives so much harder,  especially when you start to back that up with waste, stifle, daze, and so forth.  It may not be gifts level broken but its very very strong. 

To add a little.  I've conversed with Feinstein of the famous feinstein fish and we both agree that fish is a great deck to take to a large tourney.  It rewards tight play, is relatively resilient, and every once in a while completely stymies the plans of your opponent.  Thus with a good player it will top 8.  (This can be said about almost any decent deck)  However Dave and I also agree that Fish has an incredibly tough time WINNING said tourneys because of its low powerlevel.  Its one thing to play tight against a so-so opponent and beat him because he isn't sure how play around stifle or wasteland....but its a completely different situation when facing a competent gifts player.  The disruption just looks much worse, and cards like null rod and duress only do so much.  Top8ing is actually not that difficult with fish, as is clearly recognized by data posted above.  Fish does that well.  Winning however is damn near impossible becuase you don't have access to the same broken plays...

Null rod may be relatively broken but at most a deck runs 4.  Beyond that...there's nothing quite like Yawgwill...(which may be why SS won some tourneys, as it has access to such brokeness)

[GrandpaBelcher]

My feeling is that a deck needs to play and support Force of Will and run at least 10 creatures to be called "Fish."  A deck might play like Fish, with the mana denial and hate on spellcasting in general (discard, Mage, whatever), but without blue and a threshold of creatures, it's just aggro-control.  So SS is borderline but usually counts (4 Bob, 4 Cutbag, 3 Erayo = 11), while GAT is usually not (too few creatures) and neither is TMWA (not enough blue) or Bomberman generally (too few creatures).

Whatever your definition of Fish, I think the question is valid for all decks that plan primarily on winning in the attack phase.  (So not Empty the Warrens or swinging with Darksteel/Titan rather than using Tendrils.)  Aggro-control's not bad, it's just not all Fish.

A lot of the deck's success come down to playskill and familiarity both with the deck and the Vintage format.  Many times the last few slots of a combo or Gifts deck come down to personal preference of one card over another or changing a bounce spell to beat EtW instead of Stax.  I'm not saying a deck that wins in Ohio would win next week in New Hampshire and the week after that in Illinois, but it would probably do well in all of those areas.  It will still get the insane opening hand periodically that will obliterate the opponent no matter what they're playing.

Since I play in Columbus, I usually plan to hate combo and Drains (which, luckily, have similar weaknesses).  And when the Clevelanders bring Stax, I can lose pretty hardcore.  Null Rod is still amazing, but when it's stuck in your hand it might as well be Burrowing.

Fish doesn't have the luxury a turn one kill, so the player has to prepare to win against specifics because the opponent usually has something big they'll want to do.  I've been playing Fish for a year now, and it wasn't until late last year that I really started having consistent success (no Moxes yet, but I keep getting closer).  I credit a lot of that to knowing the metagame better and having better experience with the deck, knowing what to counter and such.  My sideboarding has improved exponentially.

So, yeah, I know a lot of people pick up Fish (and I've recommended it) because it's probably the closest you can come to playing another format's deck.  They'll netdeck it for a handful of local tournaments a year and never get anything with it because they don't test and tune to win.  Only a few people (most notably Feinstein, but I know there are others) put the time and effort into Fish that other Vintage players put into playing Long, Gifts, Slaver, Stax, whatever.

I don't think I've ever shown up to two tournaments in a row with the same list, but I like to think it's improved every time.

Also, I agree that Stax is similarly underplayed right now

[AmbivalentDuck]

Without getting myself too far into the fish/not fish debate, SS gets "broken" opening hands.

Examples:
Turn 1 flipped Erayo (massive tempo+card advantage)
Turn 1 Cutpurse with FoW backup (Ancestral every turn)
Turn 1 Jet+Waste/Strip+Extirpate to remove a color/Workshops (Massive tempo advantage)

I'll probably take a bit for this one...but...
Turn 1 Confidant + any way to generate tempo (Massive card advantage)

Also, I saw some assertions earlier in this thread to the effect of EtW destroying Fish.  Playing SS with 3 maindeck Stifle, and 1x Echoing Truth, Echoing Decay, and Engineered Explosives, I had no problems with EtW at Urbana.  I have no reason to believe that ANY relevant version of Fish lacks the ability to run either Echoing Truth or Echoing Decay, and certainly all can play EE at zero.

[dicemanx]

Here is what I feel are definining characteristics of Fish archetype:

1. It must have a mana denial component. Specifically, this means either CotV, Null Rod, or both. It must also run some number of Wastelands and a Strip Mine.
2. It must only run utility creatures that double as beatdown and have either disruptive abilities (Meddling Mage, True Believer, Kataki, Jotun Grunt, Stormscape Apprentice, Withered Wretch, Gorilla Shaman etc) or positive effects (Confidant, which helps to draw into more disruption)

#1 would automatically exclude decks like SS, while #2 would exclude decks like ICBM Oath, Shop Aggro, and Ichorid; #1 and #2 would together eliminate Gro, GAT, EBA, and Bomberman. If there are creatures that are there purely for beatdown purposes, that is not in the "spirit" of Fish anymore; Fish is a prison deck, it isn't an aggro deck. Fish wants to absolutely load up on disruption effects to the maximum, with the added bonus of having some disruption elements as actual win conditions. Playing with something like Rootwalla or Wild Mongrel, or Gro creatures, means that you are *losing* disruption slots - they are replaced by more efficient and faster beatdown machines, but there is a trade-off - faster beatdown compensates for the lowered disruption count. This represents a shift in strategy, and is no longer Fish - it is aggro (or aggro-control, because there is no such thing as a pure aggro deck). Aggro strategies are no longer very successful - although there are some outliers (like WTG) winning, in the long run these decks will struggle because their primary strategy, beatdown backed by enough stall to make the beatdown plan successful, is not fast enough to beat the much faster control decks. Fish, on the other hand, has much greater firepower to stop opposing powered strategies; they can still struggle for the reasons cited earlier in this thread.

I wonder Peter: would you tell people not to play Stax because its underpowered?  By this data, Stax appears to be weaker than Fish.

Stax hasn't been too stellar either, and I'm not surprised. Both Fish and Stax are essentially prison decks that aggressively focus on mana and respource denial. The decks they have preyed upon in the past have adapted, became more streamlined, and even adopted a problematic win condition in EtW. It is also hard to imagine how Fish can improve - it is already running most of the elite disruption cards in the format, with CotV and Null Rod being at the top of the list. Maybe a good start might be the addition of that 4th Null rod that many have been inexplicably omitting?
 

[diopter]

Here is what I feel are definining characteristics of Fish archetype:

1. It must have a mana denial component. Specifically, this means either CotV, Null Rod, or both. It must also run some number of Wastelands and a Strip Mine.
2. It must only run utility creatures that double as beatdown and have either disruptive abilities (Meddling Mage, True Believer, Kataki, Jotun Grunt, Stormscape Apprentice, Withered Wretch, Gorilla Shaman etc) or positive effects (Confidant, which helps to draw into more disruption)

#1 - I can sort of see what you mean. Fish attacks the metagame, and the Vintage metagame is pretty much based on artifact mana to power out insane plays. You can do this in other ways than just CotV, Rod, and strip effects, though. SS ran the full boat of Stifles at one point, if I recall. If you're running Gorilla Shaman or Kataki (which is covered under #2), then you also have a mana denial component at that point.

#2 - this would eliminate U/W Fish using Savannah Lions and Isamaru. I think you would agree that U/W Fish is in fact, a Fish deck.

I think there is something to be said for having clocks in a Fish deck. It's been said time and again - you can overload your Fish deck on disruption, but if you're giving your opponent time by beating for 2 instead of 4, then chances are greater that he can just blow past all of your disruption.


...

You ask how Fish can improve. I think Fish needs to break out of its "underpowered" shell. There is tons of broken shit you can do even in the context of a creature deck in Vintage. Fish needs to become SS, retaining disruption while acquiring broken plays like first- or second-turn Erayo. Fish needs to hybridize into Bomberman, running dudes like Grunt, Meddling Mage and Trinket Mage->Chalice/Crypt paired with FoW/Duress while maintaining a small Auriok Salvagers combo finish.

[Smmenen]

Maybe a good start might be the addition of that 4th Null rod that many have been inexplicably omitting?
 

Agreed 100%.   Just as PTW incorrectly argued for the omission of Black Lotus (I finally convinced him it belonged in Fish), the omission of the 4th Rod is more a matter of convention than actual logic. 

[dicemanx]

#1 - I can sort of see what you mean. Fish attacks the metagame, and the Vintage metagame is pretty much based on artifact mana to power out insane plays. You can do this in other ways than just CotV, Rod, and strip effects, though. SS ran the full boat of Stifles at one point, if I recall. If you're running Gorilla Shaman or Kataki (which is covered under #2), then you also have a mana denial component at that point.

Sure, but few cards come close to the power of CotV or Null Rod. It's just really difficult to imagine a deck call itself Fish without one of these two.

#2 - this would eliminate U/W Fish using Savannah Lions and Isamaru. I think you would agree that U/W Fish is in fact, a Fish deck.

Using Lions or Isamaru is pushing the deck more towards the aggro-control archetype, but yes, it would be difficult to not qualify the deck as Fish on account of 4-5 pure aggro slots. Still, not all UW Fish decks have been using Lions/Isamaru, but maybe the pushing towards more aggro beatdown was what Fish needed to make it more competitive, even if it was still lagging behind.

I think there is something to be said for having clocks in a Fish deck. It's been said time and again - you can overload your Fish deck on disruption, but if you're giving your opponent time by beating for 2 instead of 4, then chances are greater that he can just blow past all of your disruption.

Indeed, although it could also work the other way too - top decking that Lion might break you as you're not drawing a disruption spell to stop your faster opponent. Either way it will be a trade-off instead of some net gain.

Just as PTW incorrectly argued for the omission of Black Lotus (I finally convinced him it belonged in Fish), the omission of the 4th Rod is more a matter of convention than actual logic.

I think that was a perfect illustration of how a strong player can skew perspectives when it comes to identifying "ideal" approaches to construction without even realizing it himself. It is too difficult to argue with success.

[brianpk80]

Maybe a good start might be the addition of that 4th Null rod that many have been inexplicably omitting?
 

Agreed 100%.   Just as PTW incorrectly argued for the omission of Black Lotus (I finally convinced him it belonged in Fish), the omission of the 4th Rod is more a matter of convention than actual logic. 

I think you're right here to stress how important Null Rod is to keeping Fish afloat admist other "Tier 1" decks, but there's more to the decision to run 3 Rods than a lapse of logic.  The reason I've found Fish players don't run 4x Null Rod standard is because (in ascending order of importance):

1. It's redundant but not cumulative.

2. As powerful as Null Rod is, getting two mana available is often a luxury that never materializes in the many storm match-ups towards which they're targeted, particularly when on the draw.  Running a fourth copy in place of a Stifle, Duress, or Daze for instance does little to alleviate this concern.

3. While it may arguably give a slight improvement in match-ups that Fish builds are generally consciously geared towards addressing already, that comes at the expense of having very dead weight in match-ups that are by no means easy wins.  For instance, the Fish mirror is incredibly challenging as well as very prevalent these days.  Therefore...

4. The fourth Null Rod is kept in the sideboard.  

And while we're discussing the role lock pieces in Fish's recent midrange results, I have very serious reservations about running maindeck Chalice of the Voids in Fish because, after running them in several different builds over the course of a year, I found:

1. They're far too hit and miss to justify maindeck space in a deck that wants to be as consistent as possible.  If you are on the play and your opponent is playing fully powered Slaver, Gifts, Long, or similar, you lay it @ 0 and this is the best it gets.  If you are on the draw, then there's a strong probability that you're going to see a Mox or two hit the table and your Chalice @ 0 will be too easy to work around, will have missed its opportunity, and will not contribute enough to the constriction your denial plan seeks to apply.  

2. A Chalice at any other number than @ 0 for Fish is usually too much of an obstruction to Fish's own functioning to be justified by whatever interference it has on an opponent's game plan.  Chalice @ 1 shuts off Duress, Brainstorm, Swords, Stifle, 1 CC beaters, Chain of Vapor and more while Chalice @ 2 shuts off most of your creatures, Echoing Truth, Daze, and others.  Fish laying Chalice @ 3 is a fluke that should only happen on the 12th turn or something where either A) your combo/Gifts opponent has already lost because they failed to defeat you in their 1-4 turn window or B) you're playing against an archetype not easily asymmetrically affected by your Chalice of the Void (ie Stax) and would have benefited from drawing a different card.  

3. Fish lacks the ability to manipulate its Chalice of the Void unlike Stax and Tyrant Oath where Chalice really shines.  Stax can Weld Chalices in and out of play when they become inconvenient (and they always do at some point) and Tyrant Oath can bounce them, even resetting them as necessary.  When you lay a Chalice of the Void as a Fish player, it's a more grave matter; you're stuck with it for better or for worse unless your opponent decides to do something to it.  Being in control able to vary which spells are Chaliced at will out is a nontrivial consideration and helps explain why I have found it excellent in Stax and Tyrant Oath but not so much in Fish.  Note also that those decks withstand Chalice @ 1 much more freely than Fish so they have greater liberty in maximizing its flexibility.  

4. Even in Vial Fish, the allure of "look, isn't this cute?  I can Vial my 1 CC creatures into play even though they're Chaliced out" isn't all that impressive (God forbid your Vial gets bounced).  It only infrequently occurs because it's vulnerable and hinges too much on interdependence to be reliable.  Plus it still cuts off whatever noncreature spells your Chalice prohibits so you're not achieving pure asymmetry.
  
5. Chalice is the least top-deck friendly disruption piece Fish can run.  If your opponent has several artifact mana sources on the table (or even a Mindslaver), Null Rod can stifle that.  If your opponent has a swollen graveyard and looks ready to go wild, Tormod's Crypt is a fine draw.  Where Chalice can only hope to contain an opponent through prevention, other disruption pieces both serve a preventative and an "after-the-fact" purpose that makes them comparatively stronger.  

6. Because Chalice @ 0 is the only desirable setting for most Fish builds, it's equally if not more weak against non Drain/Storm archetypes (Ichorid, Dragon, Fish Mirror, Any Junk Aggro) than Null Rod.  And even in the matches where Chalice should shine, it's utility is limited because if not lain on the play, its effect will be dramatically lesser (even while hitting the table a turn earlier) than a resolved Null Rod.  FWIW, it's also much easier to Repeal a Chalice than a Rod.  

So we're left a disruption piece that is occasionally excellent if it is in the opening hand (~40 something%), lain on the play (50%), if the opponent helms a Drain/Storm deck (variable%), if not easily answered (variable%) and ideally if coupled with Wastelands, Strip Mine, and Stifle (variable%).  The math is admittedly crude here but we're definitely looking at significantly under 10%.  Then Chalice is far less than great if lain on the draw or if lain against an archetype that will largely ignore it.  Aside from Chalice @ 0, you're looking at extremely risky gambits that will more often than not lock you out of the game more than it will obstruct your opponent.  And because it has no reparative function like Null Rod or Crypt, any Chalice seen beyond the opening hand at best is a mild nuisance and at worst, outright loses games in critical topdeck mode. 

In my opinion, that is far too unreliable for a Fish disruption piece so attributing any "failures" of the archetype to its decreased use of Chalices is misplaced.  

-BPK

[Phele]

Fish needs to hybridize into Bomberman, running dudes like Grunt, Meddling Mage and Trinket Mage->Chalice/Crypt paired with FoW/Duress while maintaining a small Auriok Salvagers combo finish.

I wouldn't completely agree that it is a must for Fish to hybridize into Bomberman, but I would say it gives you a lot of potential to widen the flexibility of the deck. This is what I played last weekend for a nice runner-up-finish in 21 men tourney:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=529

In my eyes this is a pretty balanced Aggro-Control-Combo-Deck and still Bomberman, but some people might call it Fish. Every creature in the deck is a utility one (some of the for sure more costy than regular Fish critter) and it even packs a little bit of mana denial by two Strips and one Explosives maindeck and three Chalice and Titan after Boarding. While doing so - obviously regular Fish does a better job in that - it keeps a strong draw engine by the usual Gifts draw tools, that can even be recycled in this deck thanks to the Grunts. It also has a reliant combo finish. After boarding against quicker decks like Long and Gifts it totally morphs to a Fish deck, when I board out the Salvagers for all the Meddling Mages, Chalices and the Titan. I wouldn't say that it is a transformational deck, as boarding plans vary a lot depending on the deck you are playing against.

What I want to say is, that it is pretty dificult to find a tight definition how Fish should look like (but I like the pretty open definition Diceman has given). My deck probably fails to cope with a tight definition because of all the strong control elements like Drains and expensive draw like Fact. But at least it shows what else can be imagined under the label Fish and in which direction the deck can develop.

[Thegreatgonzo]

@ Bkp : I've been toying with fish recently, And I got the exact same feeling about Chalice. Chalice of the void is extremely weak in this archetype.
But I also realised the urging need for turn 0/1 disruption, something null rod often fails to do. So I think Chalice belongs here.
Maybe it should be in the sideboard, wich should solve many of the problems you listed (It would still be easy to get rid of, but will "miss" less often)

About "the definition of fish" : Here is how I see it.
What caracterize fish, in my opinion, is the lack of a focused, streamlined plan. This means fish decks kill quite slowy.
On the other hand, they don't have to "do their thing" to win. They just have to beat with a couple of critters while stalling the game. They may have a synergistic plan, like recurring good stuff with a grunt, or create a Erayo lock of some sort, but this plan is not a “sine qua non” condition for the win, it’s just a bonus.

Vintage is often about extremely fast and powerful decks, with focused strategies. They have no more than 1 or 2 ways to kill their opponent.So their main weakness is the simple fact that if they fail to execute their plan, they can't win at all. Fish knows about this and try to exploit that particular weakness.

Last thing I wanted to say : We shouldn’t try to classify decks by asking “is it a control deck? Is it a combo deck? Aggro? Or stax?”
We should better ask ourselves “How close is it from control? How close is it from combo?...” and try to place it in the map limited by those extremes.

Thanks for reading.
The great gonzo

[madmanmike25]

If the question at hand is labeling Fish decks so that we can accurately measure their performance I don't think it really matters what build of Fish is necessarily the best.  Some parts of your post seem at odds with one another.

My opinion of Fish, is that it MUST include blue, mainly for the card FoW

Would anyone disagree and say that Blue does not improve Fish decks?  Not saying it is a requirement to be labeled Fish,

Your first quote makes it seem that blue must be an integral part of the deck for it to be considered Fish but then in the 2nd quote when you are asking the opinions of others your view doesn't seem set in stone. 

Basically, until I have the final word in defining 'Fish'(which I dont want), it is just my opinion and until then, people are still in disagreement about how to label 'Fish'.  Until that day, Blue IS NOT technically a requirement for a 'Fish' deck.  My opinion has not changed (Blue ftw) and sorry if that was unclear for you.  My opinion is solid, but that doesn't give me carte blanche on the naming game.

A Fish deck without Blue is like a Fish out of water.

edit:  I'm not sold on maindeck Chalice either.  Even though I love being able to cast Duress AND lay a Chalice on the play, Fish probably has better options for the maindeck.

[dicemanx]

But I also realised the urgent need for turn 0/1 disruption, something null rod often fails to do. So I think Chalice belongs here.

This I think perfectly encapsulates the problem with not only the archetype, but with the format in general - there is this "urgency" which is creating this growing distortion in the format and trimming the number of top tier options to a minimum. If you want to play Fish you need to be able to accumulate a critical mass of disruption spells within the first two turns, and CotV or Null Rod (or both) become requirements even though they might not be good enough for the archetype to perform consistently at a high level - the combo decks have the ability to overpower the strongest anti-combo cards (or archetypes) in the format with more regularity now.

[hitman]

@ DicemanX, is the use of Chalice/Rod a sign that the format is too fast or does Fish focus on the wrong things to attack?  If mana is so fast and reliable in type one, is it realistic to try to attack it?  Some of the format's most abusive cards are abusive because they turned a disadvantage into an advantage.  Vintage decks play out of the graveyard as much as they play out of the hand/library.  Why does Fish in general have no mainboard disruption for the graveyard, then.  Slaver and Bomberman ("Control" decks) have adapted by mainboarding Tormod's Crpyt with reliable ways of getting it and have boasted better matchups for it.  TheAtogLord said it was one of the reasons Slaver has a good matchup against Gifts.  If Gifts efficiently uses mana, cards in hand, and cards in the graveyard, are all these options being efficiently attacked by Fish?  These aren't qualities Gifts possesses by itself.  Duress, Null Rod, and Tormod's Crpyt hit enough competitive decks in the format to include them in the maindeck in correct numbers.  People keep bringing up the fact that SS is the most successful Fish variant and it doesn't even attack the mana.

I don't think Fish needs a great overhaul to adapt to the current environment.  It needs to shift focus a little to attack a common part of the game that Fish boards have been neglecting.  2 Mainboard T. Crypts, 1 or 2 E. Explosives and an Enlightened Tutor could be enough of a shift in the mainboard to fight off problematic matchups.

[GrandpaBelcher]

I'm honestly ignorant to this, so don't see this as an accusation of any kind:  Is SS still played successfully with any regularity anywhere?  I haven't heard a lot about the deck for a while except in debates about Fish and thought I remembered seeing criticism saying that the Erayo-Cutpurse lock was cute but ultimately able to be played around.  The deck's proponents meanwhile were saying that people needed to play the deck before making changes to it, etc.  Is this more or less accurate?  The deck fell out of popularity because people were tinkering with what didn't need to be fixed?

[hitman]

I honestly don't know if anyone's put any work into SS recently but my point was, at a time when Grim Long and early MD Gifts versions were played, it had success. 

[dicemanx]

Vintage decks play out of the graveyard as much as they play out of the hand/library.  Why does Fish in general have no mainboard disruption for the graveyard, then.  Slaver and Bomberman ("Control" decks) have adapted by mainboarding Tormod's Crpyt with reliable ways of getting it and have boasted better matchups for it.

Fish is more dependent on redundancy though - adding a couple of Crypts and a tutor isn't likely going to have results you desire if we were to agree the suggestion that Crypts should have a large enough impact in the Gifts/Tendrils match-ups (which they might not). Feinstein already talked about Trinket Mage as an unexplored option for Fish, but it would be tough to justify why one would not go for the actual combo with Salvagers (a deck that has put up very good results for the Montrealers) instead of keeping to the Fish Skeleton.

People keep bringing up the fact that SS is the most successful Fish variant and it doesn't even attack the mana.

Well, according to the definition I proposed SS is not a Fish deck. But nevermind the labels; maybe what is the issue here is that Null Rod and CotV in a Fish or Shop frame are just not part of a successful enough strategy, and that it is too difficult to be using a strategy of attacking the manabase and expect to have some consistent success. Maybe something like SS is the natural evolution away from Fish and more towards a flexible control archetype: use mana denial only via a card that simultaneously addresses storm (Stifle) beyond the Wasteland/Strip Mine complement, and focus on a more general disruption strategy (the combo of Erayo and Cutpurse) rather than pinpoint disruption (True Believer, Meddling Mage are examples of cards that target specific opposing cards).

Alternately, Bomberman can be viewed as another direction that Fish can take successfully - focus on an combo finish which kills immediately while one of your creatures functions as a tutor for pinpoint disruption (Trinket mage) and gives you the flexibility that a Fish deck otherwise doesn't possess.
Ichorid does this to an extreme as well: the disruption now serves the purpose of buying enough time for a combo-like kill via the red-zone; it represents an extreme of what an aggro-control deck attempts to do when combining efficient creatures and disruption. However, it appears that aggro-control strategies  are not very consistent and reliable because of the pressure put on such decks by the much faster Gifts and Tendrils archetypes. If you want to push aggro-control to an extreme to bridge the speed gap by using Ichorid, you expose yourself to very damaging disruption (almost any graveyard hate card, or Needles) that makes it very difficult to generate consistent performances.

I mention all of these things to establish some sort of classification:

Fish represents very specific forms of disruption that attempt to work together to reach a unified goal, which is primarily mana disruption and pinpoint removal of specific opposing cards - a prison archetype. Stax, Uba Stax, and ICBM Oath are decks I would add to this category; their mana denial elements strongly contribute to their strategic goals. ICBM Oath and Fish blur the lines of prison and aggro-control and are thus more aggressive than Stax.

One departure is to convert specific disruption cards for more general, all encompassing disruption - SS exemplifies this approach.

Another departure is to give the deck a combo option to end games immediately, relying on the synergy of the combo pieces that can add to the redundancy of disruption (Trinket mage and EE) - Bomberman does this.

Another departure is to make the focus of the deck aggro, using the disruption to buy enough time to push through 20 damage. Decks like Madness, WTG, Birdshit, WW, or EBA try to do this, along with decks like Shop Aggro, Ravager, and Goblins. Ichorid represents the extreme because it is the fastest of them all, but also the most vulnerable.


The classifications are a work in progress, but this is roughly how I view Fish's position in the grand scheme of things.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I'm only here to keep people honest about SS because it looks like it's a turning point in the thread.

SS is a resource denial deck that goes broken by creating a resource disparity.  Mana is only *one* of the resources it can attack.  Stifle, Wasteland, and Extirpate all can clearly attack a mana base and thereby create a huge disparity in ability to play spells.  It does *not* significantly disrupt the opponent's game plan.  I mean...Extirpate, Stifle, FoW, and Duress as a *disruption suite?*  It's only slightly more disruptive than Grim Long.

SS is about resource denial, *not* generalized disruption.  By attacking game fundamentals (mana, hand, ability to play spells) rather than specific cards and strategies (though it attacks the fundamentals by gunning at certain cards), SS gets around Fish's usual no-bad-threat, many-bad-answers dilemma.

[dicemanx]

SS is about resource denial, *not* generalized disruption.  By attacking game fundamentals (mana, hand, ability to play spells) rather than specific cards and strategies (though it attacks the fundamentals by gunning at certain cards), SS gets around Fish's usual no-bad-threat, many-bad-answers dilemma.

Your second sentence does state it perfectly, but your first sentence needs to be corrected to: "SS is about resource denial accomplished by using generalized disruption". For instance, Cutpurse and Erayo would be general or non-specific resource denial, while Meddling mage or True Believer would be examples of specific resource denial.

[Smmenen]

For me, something that is very important in identifying "Fish" is the presence of Null Rod.   In the absence of Null Rod, I have a very difficult time calling something Fish unless it also has Chalice of the Void maindeck.   Null Rod has heavily influenced my view of the Fish deck since it first emerged in Vintage in the big summer of 2004 where Marc Perez won tons of power using his UR Fish list. 

[Shock Wave]

For me, something that is very important in identifying "Fish" is the presence of Null Rod.   In the absence of Null Rod, I have a very difficult time calling something Fish unless it also has Chalice of the Void maindeck.   Null Rod has heavily influenced my view of the Fish deck since it first emerged in Vintage in the big summer of 2004 where Marc Perez won tons of power using his UR Fish list. 

I absolutely agree, although I assume you meant Null Rod + creatures = Fish. I wasn't planning in adding my 2 cents in this thread, since it is pretty much all over the place, but I'm having trouble understanding why Fish is a bad deck simply because it hasn't put up the numbers outside of one great player's results. In my experiences with Fish, it is a deck that has to fight tooth and nail to win almost every match. However, it is also a deck that has a decent chance at beating almost any relevant archetype. Now, I don't know about you guys, but a deck that has a roughly 50-50 chance of beating anything is a pretty damn good deck where I come from. No, you don't get any free wins, but I'm not buying this argument that "free wins" come without a cost. The cost is consistency in performance, and decks that have the privilege of dealing themselves the odd free win are the same decks that have to mulligan more often or have to keep riskier hands. Fish doesn't have this problem, because it is consistently mediocre, as opposed to having combo-ish hands that are all over the power level spectrum.

When you put a well-built Fish deck into the hands of a skilled player, it is as just as potent a weapon as any other viable archetype. Unfortunately, a lot of awful players play fish (my opinion), so it generally does very poorly. Peter, I'm very surprised that you've arrived at the conclusion you have, considering that we play in a metagame that was essentially raped by Ontario's own "OFM" in years past, and even proved it's worth in US SCG events. Not only was OFM a very tightly built deck, but it did well *despite* the fact that it was played by a weaker set of players. Who remembers SCG Rochester "Shooting Stars" back in 2004? There was a pro player who made T8 (forget the name) who just picked up the deck and mowed through the field. Being an connoisseur of other formats, he had a skillset that was very compatible with the fish gameplan: win small, understand the combat phase, contain your opponent. This is what the deck is designed to do! If you're not able to perform with fish, it comes down to one of the following possibilities: You're a poor player, your opponent is just better than you, you've built your deck poorly, you've metagamed incorrectly, or you're playing in a sealed deck event.

Considering that when a great player picks up this deck, it performs very well, I don't really understand how there can be any argument that the fish gameplan is inadequate or that the deck is a poor choice. What are we trying to say here?