UWG Vial Control Fish

[iamjimpaine]

Long-time lurker, first time poster.  Hope that this is well enough written to not be nerfed.  I'll start with the decklist and explain my pile after.

UGW Vial Fish:

Mana base:
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
2 Island
1 Plains
4 UGW mox/Lotus

Disruptive beatz:
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Meddling Mage
4 Cursecatcher
3 Gaddock Teeg
3 Trygon Predator
2 Sower of Temptation

Nuts and Bolts:
4 Force of Will
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

First issue is that the deck is a little husky at sixty-two cards.  I know that this is a point of much contention, however, I justify it to myself based on the redundancy of the deck and its lack of reliance on singletons.  I know that Toad has put forth the Euro-idea of the 61st card as an extra silver bullet, so I'm just expanding on the idea.

I think the mana base seems pretty self-explanatory.  Six fetches makes pretty sure that I get the colors I need really consistently and twenty-two mana sources works extremely well with this deck, expecially in consideration of Aether Vial, which allows for cheating on mana cost for your dudes.  Wastelands always have been and always will be a house.  Wastes, as we all know, take out the dangerous cards like forbidden orchards, which is relevant when an oath player needs the orchard to make green for oath, or workshops, or duals (which every deck plays).  I chose three as an arbitrary number when deck-building, but after playing it for a while three seems to work out well, letting you hit them with wastes enough to shake them up while minimizing dead draws in mid/late game.

As far as the creature base goes, Spellstutter Sprite and Cursecatcher are real gems.  In conjunction with vial, both can wreck havoc on an opponent throughout the game.  Cursecatcher acts like a walking force spike.  Early in the game, a one-counter vial can zap him into play when an opponent is tapped out for an uncounterable counter.  He works great as protection against force of will, which players will count on as protection when they've tapped all of their resources.  He is also a one-drop, which enables a turn two ninja.  Spellstutter Sprite works in much the same vein, as has been detailed in many other posts.  Sprite can hit important utility cards such as moxen, brainstorm, rituals, and on occasion swords to plowshares.  Sprite can also be played EOT as an evasion creature for a next turn ninja.  Ninja and sprite work masterfully well together, allowing repeat sprite counters and ninja enabling.

Ninjas let you draw cards and are hard to keep from coming in to play.  Both of which are awesome.

Trygon predator is a sickhouse against everything except for maaaaaybe the mirror, and even then it pretty much rocks.  The casting cost sets a lot of people off, but between vials and the six-fetch mana base, it isn't bad getting it into play.  Trygon predator eats tons of threats, including but not limited to: Oath, Fastbond, Wire, Stacks, Metalworkers, and a smorgasbord of others.  Vialing it in on an opponent's EOT will wreck a lot of gameplans.  Even as a creature, Trygon Predator is pretty solid.  It has three toughness, which makes it live through most other fish encounters and it flies, which can come in handy as a ninja enabler there are no juicy targets for its ability on the board.

Meddling Mage named at things like gush, flash, oath, ritual, tendrils, brainstorm, dread return (maybe a reach), etc will slow a strategy down while your opponent digs for bounce or removal and you have time to start building up your forces.  Meddling Mage is the quintessential fish d00d because he messes up your opponents clock while giving you an efficient beater that is easily castable and easily vialed in.  Naming Flash or Oath will greatly diminish the speed of those decks and force their pilots to dig for answers.  Naming brainstorm and gush is extremely efficient in decks like TOG that need them to filter and fuel the decks engine.

The only downside of Gaddock Teeg is that he shuts off your force of will.  Teeg is a destroyer against stax, stopping many of their more potent artifacts and shuts off much of Oath and Flash's defensive suite.  Like Meddling Mage, this deck's mana base allows Teeg to be both easily cast and vialed in.  He is also great ninja material with the proper timing.  Teeg is legendary, so I play three because I don't want him showing up in my hand all the time, but he is a card I'm happy to see every game.  He also shuts down dread-return. 

Sower of Temptation is great because nobody ever sees it coming.  Hardcast or vialed in, Sower can wreck a lot of gameplans, grabbing all of the Oath creatures, Tog, Dryads, Welders, Karns, Goyfs, Confidants, and whatever else it takes to mess up your opponents gameplan.  I play two, due to the prohibitively high mana cost and the fact that it isn't a creature I want to see all the time.  Vialing it in after someone just tinkered in a DSC or Oathed up something monstrous will wreck someone else's day and it will come straight out of left field.  Ramp up the vial to four and they will assume it is ninja.

Vials, Force of Will, Walk, and Ancestral are fairly self-explanatory, I feel.

Swords to plowshares wrecks a lot of decks that are being heavily played these days, blasting oath creatures, pulling flash creatures out of the combo, and generally dealing with enemy guys quickly and efficiently.  Best removal spell ever in a very creature rich environment. 

Finally, the two crypts are very solid utility.  Beyond Ichorid defense, they also stop wills, flash and many other combo decks, lots of oath tricks, bomberman, welders, and things like intuition AK engines.

A lot of this deck comes down to what hand to keep.  I won't keep anything that doesn't have either two mana sources or two vials.  This deck is about slowing down your opponent until you can enact your gameplan (swing for head), so you need to make sure you have early resources.

I won't pretend to have tested this against a million decks a million times.  I have played it a bunch on MWS, however, and it does extremely well against oath, tog, naught, and random shop aggro.  Or maybe I just played a bunch of lousy players.

The sideboard for this pile is still a work in progress but it'll probably be the standard set of Leylines and other hate.  Hope this is a decent enough first post.

[zeus-online]

I hate to be "That guy" ...but why no tarmogoyf? True he dosn't disrupt, but for fish he's pretty much the king of beats.

Have you tried daze? and if so, why did you cut it?

Oh and please, atleast cut it down to 61 cards

/Zeus

[iamjimpaine]

<quote>I hate to be "That guy" ...but why no tarmogoyf? True he dosn't disrupt, but for fish he's pretty much the king of beats.</quote>

The only reason I don't have 'goyf is that he isn't in theme with the whole "toolbox creature" aspect.  All of my guys keep things from hitting the table, which I think is more effective than slapping down a non-effect meatstick.  Against something like oath or GAT I would rather have things like mage (naming oath and gush, respectively) and cursecatcher/sprite to protect it.  Ninjas and sprites can stop a lot of brainstorms and STPS when used in conjunction with one another.  I love the idea of 'goyf.  Big dude smacking face in; but in practice I would much rather have utility creatures that provide small beats but hold off the opponents bombs.

<quote>Have you tried daze? and if so, why did you cut it?</quote>

I have two beefs with daze.  First is that it is a momentum loss.  For an early game counter it is entirely too much cost zipping two islands back to my hand, especially when so many of my creatures have multiple color CCs.  Second is my creature base.  If I am playing something fast and ritual based, I have cursecatcher, which will be my automatic turn-one drop.  If I'm going into any match blind, I will drop a vial first turn every time, with the rare caveat that I have mox-land-sprite, especially if there is also a ninja in my hand.  Vial is a house at stopping a lot of things.  If I have a mage in hand and a vial at two, which from my not-so-intensive MWS testing is a pretty common occurrence, and someone starts going off with rituals and tutors, dropping a mage naming tendrils midway through can pay off big and set them off huge.

<quote>Oh and please, atleast cut it down to 61 cards Wink

/Zeus</quote>

Ha.  Remove a fetch, I guess.  It was at 61 but I added another crypt for the silver bullet factor and I haven't noticed a difference in the way the deck played in the dozen or so games I've played with it since, beyond that crypt comes up more often and I don't lose to ichorid nearly as often as I used to.  I was actually thinking of adding 184 cards and four copies of battle of wits (/joke)

[MadManiac21]

The thing that makes fish good is that it's a tempo deck. Most of the cards you have here don't start creating tempo until turn 3+.

That's too slow in the current Type 1 Meta.

You also have no early draw, no stifle, no goyf (you are running green). Cursecatcher is pretty terrible; hatchling has evasion and can be cast at everything. 62 cards is heinous.

[iamjimpaine]

Cursecatcher, as a turn one drop, disrupts many of the biggest early threats to this deck.  It'll stop rituals, scrolls, brainstorms, tutors, FOWs, and many of the other mainstays of hand-fixing and quick mana.  It drops at one and can turn into a ninja on turn two.  I'd play it over hatchling or flying men any day.  How many other one-drops are there that can compare to cursecatcher in sheer utility?  Sure there are things with more power (lions, hounds) or with evasion (flying men) but none of those will stop a combo player from chaining rituals and tutors into a terminal yawg-will kill.

Ninjas drop turn two, giving one-sided draw and damage.  Pretty well-established tech.  Dropping either a cursecatcher or a sprite first turn is pretty consistent, as is dropping a first turn vial.  Don't underestimate the threat of a turn one vial allowing you to drop what are essentially uncounterable counters on subsequent turns.  And I don't know of any other fish deck that has more first turn draw than a singleton ancestral, not counting brainstorm (as it is no net CA), which I am not playing based on good deck redundancy and a desire for higher threat density.

Going back and forth on how many cards to have in the deck is really a no-win situation.  My logic for it is that I added another Tormod's Crypt and liked the way it played better than with a singleton.  If I wasn't stuck going to school in the Caribbean (no joke.), I would sleeve it up with sixty-two cards and play happily.  Making the deck sixty-one or even sixty cards is really easy; remove one or more crypts.  I like the two of them in there.  I like wrecking wills, nerfing Gaea's Blessing, slowing up fatal Togs, weakening their 'goyfs (because I clearly don't play them), and eating Ichorid alive. 

[Outlaw]

The thing that makes fish good is that it's a tempo deck. Most of the cards you have here don't start creating tempo until turn 3+.

That's too slow in the current Type 1 Meta.

You also have no early draw, no stifle, no goyf (you are running green). Cursecatcher is pretty terrible; hatchling has evasion and can be cast at everything. 62 cards is heinous.

I wouldnt necessarily say that Cursecatcher is worse than Hatchling, I would use it in this list because of potential for turn 2 ninjas.  Caleb is right, 62 cards is bunt.  Sower is not require in the main, I dont think 4 ninjas is needed, 3 would do fine.  You have too many creatures and not enough goyfs, goyfs tool box is that he makes the game end quickly.  I also dont think Trygon Predator needs to be main either, I would try and fit in braintorm somewhere because you have draw as 1 ancestral and 4 ninjas.  I would also try and fit in 4 Chalice in here, Fish relies so heavily on tempo and a turn 1 chalices for 0 on the play is huge. 

[Negator13]

Yeah it's easy to dismiss Tarmogoyf because he doesn't do anything but beat, and vanilla creatures are historically terrible in Vintage. However there is a point at which pure efficiency outweighs utility, and it is important not to underestimate such a powerful undercosted creature's value simply to put the opponent on a very short clock. Think of Tarmogoyf as a creature that reads something like: "1G, your opponent has three-four turns to either win, or somehow deal with this creature." In combination with your other, less powerful but more disruptive creatures you can see that this is as much a valuable ability as Meddling Mage's, or Trygon's, or anything else you're currently running. You can't always rely on permalocking your opponent and winning at your leisure, and especially in a format as swingy and as broken as Vintage you really need to give your opponent as short a time frame as possible to break out of it. The ideal fish deck would be one that finds the perfect mix of locks and clocks to both put your opponent on a short clock while making it as difficult as possible for them to do anything about it before they're dead. The fact is that Tarmogoyf is simply a creature that does his one job so well, he almost automatically deserves a spot over other less powerful but more disruptive creatures for a similar cost, because he's such an efficient creature, his stats are almost another lock component in themselves.

[Liek]

The first thing I immediately noticed is that you have a Plains and six fetchlands, but 3 of them don't get the Plains. Make one Delta a Strand.

Not playing with Brainstorm can only be justified if you plan on Meddling Maging it, which I enjoyed doing when I used to uw fish at vintage tournaments.

Also, for whatever reason, you have 3 Wasteland and zero Strip Mine.

Chalice of the Void is very very good with Aether Vial.

I actually wouldn't want Tarmogoyf in a deck like this, for the same reason I never played Isamaru in fish; your cards all have to be disruptive, there's no room for cards that don't actively stop the opponent from doing what they want to do. I'd either sideboard it or not play it at all.

[iamjimpaine]

Trygon predator is one card that I don't think I would ever cut from this deck, as it is one of the mainstays of what I designed the deck to do (eliminate/negate threats through efficient utility creatures that can be vialed in).  Predator is a beater for two with an evasion ability that destroys a fastbond or sphere or oath every turn.  In absence of having a target for the Trygon ability, I've used predators to ninja in ninjas.

Really good point about three wastelands and no strip.  Switching a wasteland for a strip would be easy and sensible.

Sower is a lot of gray area.  It lays somewhere in between great utility and win-more.  In creature heavy metagames, Sower can do work.  Against TOG a lot of games go long enough to ramp a vial up to four and then vial in Sower against a fatal tog.  Sower also gets Oath creatures, which is a huge tempo swing, and it'll grab DSC or any ridiculousness that a shop-aggro deck can power out.

Shifting the balance of fetchlands to 4:2 makes sense.

[pierce]

if you're planning on running maindeck tormod's crypt, perhaps you should look into a full trinket mage package. something like this:
-2 sower (just to get down to 60)
-4 Ninja (he's a good man, but too slow in the current meta)
-1 crypt

+1 sensei's diving top
+1 EE/needle
+3 Trinket Mage

[iamjimpaine]

If I dropped the ninjas there would be no draw to the deck at all (which is the gripe I've been getting most frequently).  I'd disagree with you completely about ninja being too slow in the meta.  Uncounterable cards and damage on turn two, in combination with the disruption package is a house.  Combine ninjas with fairies and you get redundant draw and counter suite.  Crypt isn't something I want to see all the time, however, given the number of decks that have a primary strategy directly involving the graveyard, two crypts gets it into my hand enough to be relevant, but not so much as to be dead. 

I like sowers.

[iamjimpaine]

This is the sideboard I worked out:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Null Rod
1 Trygon Predator
2 Faerie Macabre
4 Pithing Needle

Leylines and faeries against combo and ichorid.  Rods against MUD and shop variants.  Predator against anything that has problematic artifacts and enchantments that need destroyifying.  Needle against things like bomberman, slaver, belcher, bazaar.dec.

[madmanmike25]

Fish really doesn't want 62 cards.  Once you cross that '60' mark you could even justify going to 63-65 and that is something you simply should not do.  Less is more, quality over quantity, and blah blah blah etc.

Keep the Ninjas in.  You have flyers and STP to make sure they hit.  You run Vials to offset the drawback of bouncing your creatures.  All the while they chip away at the opponents life total and create actual card advantage.  Brainstorm can't do that.

Mike

[iamjimpaine]

Sixty-two cards.  Bane of my existence.  I figure that the two cards I added were both free and incredibly effective (the two crypts) and that the benefit they added to the deck was worth the dilution that an extra two cards would cause.  The rest of the deck is incredibly redundant, with the only singletons being power, so my probabilities of drawing anything in the deck is minimally diminished by the watered down deck size.  As a tempo deck, the extra crypts give fish more threats at a lower cost, which I deemed worth having more than the gold standard of sixty cards.

[Outlaw]

Sixty-two cards.  Bane of my existence.  I figure that the two cards I added were both free and incredibly effective (the two crypts) and that the benefit they added to the deck was worth the dilution that an extra two cards would cause.  The rest of the deck is incredibly redundant, with the only singletons being power, so my probabilities of drawing anything in the deck is minimally diminished by the watered down deck size.  As a tempo deck, the extra crypts give fish more threats at a lower cost, which I deemed worth having more than the gold standard of sixty cards.

The tormods crypts are not actually free because they set you back 2 cards virtually from that card that you need to draw to be winning or pulling yourself out of a losing position.  Their benefit is not worth the dilution of the deck.  If you would like to have better chances at swinging tempo, i'd really suggest going down to 60 cards.  Think about how it affects your ability to draw X when it could be X + 2 cards away.....

[iamjimpaine]

What do you think about dropping an island and a delta?  Currently the deck is running 22 mana sources, which I feel might be a little heavy when running a full complement of vials.