Noble Fish: GUW variants here!

Stormanimagus

Basic User

Posts: 1290

Noble Fish: GUW variants here!

« on: January 26, 2009, 07:19:43 pm »

This thread needs to be updated! Yikes it has been too long. I'm going to provide the community with my most up-to-date Noble Fish list with a match-up analysis and card choice explanations to follow soon. Here we go:

Noble Fish 2K12
(Stone-Cold Edition)

Land (18):
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
1 Island
1 Forest
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts (7):
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
3 Stony Silence

Creatures (17):
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Meddling Mage
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Trygon Predator
1 Cold-Eyed Selkie

Instants (16):
4 Force Of Will
3 Daze
3 Steel Sabotage
3 Mental Misstep
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Ancestral Recall

Sorceries (2):
1 Time Walk
1 Green Sun’s Zenith

Sideboard
4 Ravenous Trap
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Trygon Predator
3 Flusterstorm
1 Cold-Eyed Selkie
1 Swords To Plowshares

BELOW HERE IS PRE-2011 CONTENT ABOUT NOBLE FISH

Hey Vintage Community. So I'm going to try to update this first post a bit to make it more reflective of the current list while still discussing the evolution of this deck I love so much. I want to preface this by saying that this deck originally came into my mind as a spin-off an earlier deck I stole/innovated on called "Pony Express" and that deck was a response to the masses of Tyrant Oath and Gush-Bond Gro decks that existed before the restriction of Brainstorm, Ponder, Merchant Scroll, Flash, and Gush. That deck looked a little something like this:

"Pony Express"
Land (18):
4 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
3 Tundra
2 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
2 Plains
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts (5):
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald

Creatures (23):
4 Meddling Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Ronom Unicorn
4 Glowrider
4 Aven Mindcensor
3 Gaddock Teeg

Instants (9):
4 Swords To Plowshares
4 Stifle
1 Ancestral Recall

Sorceries (1):
1 Time Walk

Artifacts (4):
4 Skullclamp

SB
4 Thorn Of Amethyst
3 Oxidize
3 Kami Of Ancient Law
2 Runed Halo
3 Wheel Of Sun And Moon

When one examines this deck is clear that it was appropriate for the time I considered playing it. It ran plenty of answers for Oath between the MD and SB. Gaddock Teeg was an ideal answer to Gush Decks overall and 8 Sphere effects that do nothing to your creatures between MD and SB was another huge boon to the deck. What frustrated me about this deck and ultimately why I never brought it to a tournament was a lack of draw engine. I could have run 4 Brainstorm at the time, and that might, indeed, have fitted better into the deck than the list I have here, but I was determined to have a real "draw engine" and Skullclamp seemed like the best choice as Null Rod was not nearly as big at the time. Still, Skullclamp was underwhelming for me and it was often too slow to be effective. Also, I didn't WANT to nuke my creatures so Skullclamp really started to seem like a bad idea. The more I look at this list, the more I realize that Skullclamp is a really poor choice, but, at the time, it seemed like the only one I could think of. Then along came Shards of Alara and Fish's god-send:

Noble Hierarch

This little Birds Of Paradise on steroids offered me a way to break a card I had wanted to break for some time in Vintage: Cold-Eyed Selkie. I had tried to build little UG beats decks with Selkie + Rancor ever since its printing, but the decks ran a lot of dead cards that didn't work by themselves without the combo out. Now I saw my opportunity. Cold-Eyed Selkie + Noble Hierarch meant +2 Cards against any deck running Islands. When Noble was printed just over a year ago it took me a little while to see this card's potential with my beloved Selkie, but when I chatted a bit more about it with Jeff Carpenter of team RnD I quickly realized that this was the synergy Fish had been looking for for a long time. Jeff told me of his old "Curiosity + Flying Men" lists of long ago and how they always fell prey to crazy 2-for-1's as well as a lack of raw attack power. Noble Hierarch seems to solve both these problems at once. In a simple 2 card combo you are getting:

1. more than +1 Card Advantage in one turn of keeping the combo online
2. more than +1 Damage in 1 turn of Keeping the combo online
3. +1 Mana of any relevant color for turns where the combo is or isn't online.

Noble Hierarch allows a beat-down deck to run a card advantage engine without wasting slots on sub-optimal cards like Brainstorm or Ponder. It allows the deck to streamline its game plan and never waste a turn on idle cantrips. What it really allowed, was a deck that could support a robust mana-denial package because now it had other roles filled by only a couple 4-ofs that were pulling double-duty. I must credit Jeff (Harlequin for those of you who know him as such on the Drain) for waking me up to the usefulness of Daze in the deck. When I placed 6th at the TMD open with the deck last March I credit most of my wins to the power of this effective free counterspell. The synergies of Daze with Noble Hierarch and the Mana-Denial plan as a whole were just astounding. It seems that most every deck in Vintage (save Ichorid) has problems with 5 Waste/Strip + 4 Null Rod + 4 Stifle + 4 Daze. Who knew that mana-denial was so universally effective right *sarcasm intended* ? Heck, in that earlier iteration of the deck I even ran 3 Cursecatcher.

When Wizards printed Qasali Pride-mage in the next expansion of Shards Block I had to ask myself: Are they just trying to make this deck that much better? It was another god-send to the deck as it gave it x4 more ways to enable Selkie's exalted synergy while being a walking Seal Of Primordium to boot. This where I will leave you with what I consider to be the most updated, and probably close to best, version of the deck. If you are just joining the discussion on this deck I highly recommend that you read all of this post and the most recent page or so. There is important information about how the deck plays out here + there. I also encourage you to ask Harlequin questions on the deck as he is a pretty smart Vintage Adept I hear. So, anyway, without further ado. I give you:

Noble Fish a.k.a Selkie-Strike

Land (17):
4 Misty Rainforest {U}

Fetch Land
1 Flooded Strand {U}

Fetch Land
3 Tropical Island {U}

Dual Land
2 Tundra {U}

Dual Land
1 Island {U}

1 Forest

4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts (8):
1 Black Lotus {0}

1 Mox Emerald {0}

1 Mox Sapphire {0}

1 Mox Pearl {0}

4 Null Rod {2}

Creatures (18):
4 Noble Hierarch {G}

4 Meddling Mage {U}

4 Qasali Pridemage {G}

3 Tarmogoyf {1}

4 Cold-Eyed Selkie {1}

[

][

]

Instants (15):
4 Force Of Will {3}

3 Daze

3 Spell Pierce {U}

4 Stifle

1 Ancestral Recall {U}

Sorceries (1):
1 Time Walk {1}

Side Board
3 Wheel Of Sun And Moon [ {G}

][

]
2 Ravenous Trap {2}

3 Pithing Needle {1}

3 Trygon Predator {1}

4 Swords To Plowshares {W}

I think this SB still might need some work, but I'm trying to address as many match-ups as possible with it. I'm also never going to underestimate Dredge again after my loss to it in the top 8 of the TMD open so I consider the 7 SB slots here the bare minimum to devote to it and I'd almost consider upping the hate to 8 total. I'd say that STP can probably come in in that match-up as well as it can be important to remove Ichorids and such.

If you have any questions or comments on this list you can post them in this thread or PM me. I also have AIM and my SN is maestrosmith55.

Hope you enjoy this deck as much as I have.

All Right! So I have some statistical analysis for y'all! It's 2010 and it's been quite the inaugural year for Noble Fish/Selkie-Strike. Here's some interesting data about the deck lists that have Top 8ed over the past year. Enjoy!

NOTE: Here's the original post to give you all perspective of where this deck has been in its evolution.

Hey guys. I couldn't find a recent forum discussing possible GUW fish variants so I figured I'd give it a stab. My interest in making a good GUW fish deck has really come from a new card spoiled from Conflux:

Noble Hierarch

Creature-Human Druid

Exalted
{Tap}Add , or to your mana pool.

This guys seems like he could be great with Cold-Eyed Selkie as you can draw 2 cards and swing for 2 with just one Hierarch out and then draw 3 cards and swing for 3 with 2 Hierarch out. Hierarch can also wield a Jitte and that is a nice perk in case you are in a bind and only have Hierarch on the table. Exalted may seem like an inconsequential ability, but slapped on top of the birds of paradise ability of Hierarch Exalted makes him playable I think.

I could be totally off on this guys, but I always like trying to innovate on existing strategies with some new tech so here it is. I give you:

Selkie-Strike

Land (18):
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Tundra
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Library Of Alexandria

Artifacts (12):
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
4 Chalice of The Void
3 Umezawa’s Jitte

Creatures (20):
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Cursecatcher
4 Meddling Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie

Instants (9):
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force Of Will
4 Stifle

Sorceries (1):
1 Time Walk

SB
4 Thorn Of Amethyst
3 Cephalid Constable
4 Wheel Of Sun And Moon
4 Swords To Plowshares

It seems like this deck will have serious problems with Oath. STP and Constable out of the SB are supposed to help a bit, but I'm still not sure that's enough.

Thoughts?Comments?

Should The Selkie be Constable in the MD?


« Last Edit: November 28, 2011, 03:18:38 am by Stormanimagus »	Logged

"To light a candle is to cast a shadow. . ."

—Ursula K. Leguin

theLastGnu

Basic User

Posts: 96

Scrub