Learning the format - is Fish Viable in the current metagame?

[MkeMagic]

I am a judge/owner at a local store in Milwaukee. I want to start playing more vintage, and realize there are many preconceived ideas I need to banish from my head. This was proved when Lorescale Coatyl/Meditate won the Mox at the tournament this past Saturday, and I saw relevant plays at top tables with Sower of Temptation and Cryptic Command. It feels like dudes with relevant abilities are always good, but can they be a core of a deck in the current Vintage? Fish has the advantage of maindeck answers to most of the field, much like The Rock in extended. The question is can a basic fish deck get there, or does it have to be ultra tuned to the metagame?

My understanding of good fishy creatures depends on color (all u/x creatures found under the x listing).

U
Voidmage Prodigy (for Wizardfish)
Cursecatcher (against combo)
Trinket Mage (Tormod's Crypt, mana drops, slaver locks all seem good, and a wizard)

B
Dark Confidant (card drawing good, plus a wizard)
Yixlid Jailer (Hating Ichorid is necessary, there's always 2-3 running around)
Dimir Cutpurse (solid control card, but feels win more)

G
Lorescale Coatyl (outstanding with Brainstorm, TFK and Ancestral)
Goyf (is it ever bad?)

W
Meddling Mage (solid, but feels very reactionary)
Augury Adept (like cutpurse, but is three mana too much for a guy in vintage - exception being tinker DSC)

Based on the nature of control, anything more than 2 color fish feels like it hinders mana development and slows the game down too much.
Am I right to assume some colors automatically dictate some cards?

U/B seems more focused on the Duress suite and is the most aggro of the options.
U/W is the most control oriented and is the pinnacle of the long game.
U/G feels like the definition of mid range.

Assuming my assumptions above are correct, I would want to play a U/B fish. I will proxy and test, but I am curious, does TMD think this list is viable?

4 Dark Confidant
2 Yixlid Jailer
2 Dimir Cutpurse
4 Voidmage PRodigy
2 Trinket Mage (14)

1 Necropotence (15)

4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
1 Time Walk (22)

4 Force of Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Misdirection
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Intuition (33)

1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Executioner's Capsule (one maindeck answer to goyf, sower, archmage, MM, and others fetchable by Trinket Mage)
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers
4 Wasteland (46)
1 Strip Mine
4 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
4 Polluted Delta (56)
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Snow Covered Island

This is by no means optimal, and is making assumptions about the format based on one tournament.
Please open fire and broadside me, I seek the greater experience of the community. Please help dispel my preconeptions.

[JudasKilled]

doesnt seem to viable 2 me, 2 few countyers, no DSC/tinker, aggro will run u over, hmmmm some of its fine but i think u need a better win plan or a more streamlined attack focus with more disruption

[jaeppel]

It seems like a decent rough list that you have there, but i thought i would throw out my ideas.  

Four voidmage is way too many.  Its also the sort of card that really defines the deck, its not just a dood you throw into anything.  if you want to play it and use it you need UUUU, not something too easy to come by before a relevant turn.  Its the slowest card in the deck, and the last thing you really want to see is 2-3 in your opening hand.  Voidmage is an endgame play, and as such i dont think i would play more than 2.  Two wizards you could look into are spellstutter and cursecatcher.  These two alongside voidmage are a solid disruption suite.  4 catcher, 3 sprite, 2 voidmage plus 4 force one misd is a whopping 14 counterspells, so with such a setup you can usually put the last effect on the stack.

I reallly think you need more one drops in here, you never want to play land pass on turn one.  Four cursecatcher are pretty standard anymore, its simply the best dood for U ever printed.  The fact that its a wizard is gravy.  Trinket mage is a great wizard, but i think it really takes up alot of design space here.  Trink requires running targets to be any good, and those targets are most often artifacts with activated abilities.  This precludes running null rod, which is pretty much the strongest 'busted-hoser' out there.  90% of mirror matches against fish you will be playing against 4rod.dec, so cute trinket tricks are bye-bye.  I would cut the whole trinket package for null rods and black tutors.

Necropotence without dark ritual makes baby jesus cry.  and you might cry too when you are staring at that hugely busted card in your hand and thinking "damn, if i could only draw another swamp."  meanwhile your opponent's goyf swings for lethal.  I would cut necro, its a card for mono-black and combo, but doesnt really fit here.

Your manabase looks mostly solid, the change i would make is to swap out seat of the synod/vault of whispers for 2 mutavault.  Mana that beats and sacs to voidmage seems stronger than lands that die to mox hate.  also, i think watery grave would be better off as an additional fetchland.  with 4 seas already there, you dont really need a fifth swampisland.

Im a big fan of UB fish.  it was my first deck back in the day, but damn they have given us some amazing critters that just werent there back in 95...

[Troy_Costisick]

Hi There!

Welcome to the Mana Drain!   Fish is indeed a fun archetype.  If you're just getting into Vintage or exploring it deeper, I would really like to recoment this article:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/16958_So_Many_Insane_Plays_The_2009_Players_Guide_to_Vintage.html

I don't know if you were really wanting a bunch of stuff to read, but that article details the top decks in the format.  It's still fairly current.  The only significant printings since then were Inkwell Leviathan and Qasili Pridemage.  But if you read that article you'll get a good idea of what the top decks out there are and what Fish builds have met success.

Good luck to you!

Peace,

-Troy

[Stormanimagus]

If I were you I'd bring something a bit more tuned for today's metagame. here's the deck I've been using at tournaments to great success over the past 3 months:

Selkie-Slam

Land (17):
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
1 Island
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts (8):
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
4 Null Rod

Creatures (22):
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Meddling Mage
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie
3 Aven Mindcensor

Instants (12):
4 Force Of Will
4 Daze
1 Misdirection
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Hurkyl’s Recall

Sorceries (1):
1 Time Walk

SB
4 Relic Of Progenitus    (Ichorid)
2 Tormod’s Crypt         (Ichorid)
3 Trygon Predator      (Chalice @2 got ya down?)
1 Hurkyl’s Recall         (Extra help for Inkwell)
2 Umezawa’s Jitte       (Fish Mirror)
3 Swords To Plowshares (Fish Mirror and aggro stax perhaps?)

[zeus-online]

I agree with stromamingus, selkie fish is probably the way to go, here's the list i'd use:

Mana: (20)
3 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Strip mine
3 Polluted delta
2 Flooded strand
3 Tundra
3 Tropical island
1 Black lotus
1 Mox sapphire
1 Mox emerald
1 Mox pearl

Creatures: (19)
4 Meddling mage
4 Cold-eyed selkie
4 Noble hierach
4 Qasali pride-mage
3 Tarmogoyf

Disruption: (19)
4 Null rod
4 Force of will
4 Daze
3 Stifle
2 Hurkyl's recall
2 Misdirection

Other: (2)
1 Time walk
1 Ancestral recall

In my experience, selkie fish is the worst fish deck to face when playing Tez, it got 4 rods and 4 qasali's to stop vault/key, aswell as alot of counter back-up for it...There's also multiple answers to tinker, and selkie with exalted creatures is just nearly impossible to beat.

[MkeMagic]

Many thanks to all. I do have one question. In the nullrod.fish lists, why isn't there a Tinker/DSC or Tinker/Inkwell? To me it seems like an obv include, but I expect I'm missing something. Please continue to advise!

[zeus-online]

There aren't enough artifacts to properly support tinker, and it really sucks to draw darksteel or inkwell, and fish cannot afford to draw dead since the cards are already fairly weak compared to the cards in other decks.

[meadbert]

8 Artifacts is probably enough to support Tinker.  Menendian toped 8ed with a GAT list with far fewer.  Also a Dead Mox or redundant Null Rod can be Tinkered out for free.
Although Inkwell is sort of dead in hand, it does pitch to both Force and Misdirection so it is not totally dead.

Finally if Inkwell is stuck in hand, you can always Tinker out a Mox for Null Rod which is a strong play for Fish.

For all these reasons I actually encourage you to test Tinker->Leviathan and let us know how it goes.

[MkeMagic]

I tested Tinker-7/11 over the course of ten games (not a scientific sampling, I know). I had cut a Mis-D and a Daze for those two cards. Every time I had Tinker, it was useless to me. I was playing in a Fish mirror (the Trinket toolbox list that won a mox in recent weeks) and whereas I took the series 7-3 on maindecks, The toolbox deck better abused Tinker, because it ran a tutor suite to abuse it. With no tutors, a random Tinker is random, and doesn't help the slow consistency of this fish build.

And yes, with exalted and Cold-Eyed Selkie it was fun going, "swing, ancestral, swing, meditate, swing, yatzee!"

I need to test vs. Tez, Ichorid, and Tendrils now. Thanks to all.

[jaeppel]

I think if trinket mage is the way you want to go, the tinker plan just eats up space that could be used for trinket targets.  Instead of tinker, play another mage, and instead of inky play an additional target.  explosives, needle, chalice, crypt, relic, top.. and the list goes on.  Trinket mage does have alot of powerful and relevant cards to tutor for.  The big weakness is that then you arent playing with nullrod, so i would inlude at least one needle to partially fill that gap.

If i were to run fish with tinker i would start off with 4 chalice, 4 rod, 3-4 lomox, and maybe some of those nifty new blue artifact doods.  now you have all the cheap artifacts to support tinker, but they also directly contradict your trinket plan.  so its one or the other.

[LordHomerCat]

8 Artifacts is probably enough to support Tinker.  Menendian toped 8ed with a GAT list with far fewer.  Also a Dead Mox or redundant Null Rod can be Tinkered out for free.
Although Inkwell is sort of dead in hand, it does pitch to both Force and Misdirection so it is not totally dead.

Finally if Inkwell is stuck in hand, you can always Tinker out a Mox for Null Rod which is a strong play for Fish.

For all these reasons I actually encourage you to test Tinker->Leviathan and let us know how it goes.

Steve's Gro list with Tinker also ran every tutor and a bunch of draw spells.  It also had like 7 creatures compared to a million like this deck.  Finally, when I played the deck, I hated Tinker-Leviathan but Steve liked it.  Make of that what you will.

[elgrillo]

There aren't enough artifacts to properly support tinker, and it really sucks to draw darksteel or inkwell, and fish cannot afford to draw dead since the cards are already fairly weak compared to the cards in other decks.

I agree with Zeus-online. Fish is a tight deck. It doesnt have many strong cards so it's got to stick to its plan.
And tinker-Ink dilutes the main plan (disrupt/draw).

[MkeMagic]

One other issue has come up in goldfishing, ans it may be solved by the proverbial "shuffle better." I have mana problems. Not colored mana problems, but problems in shear quantity of mana. I am constantly mulliganing the deck. Granted, in game one testing the mirror (or other fish decks so far) I am winning more than I am losing by a 2-1 margin. However, I am constantly starting the game at 6 or 5. I am asking people to look at this mana base - does it need an increase and / or change?

3 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Strip mine
3 Polluted delta
2 Flooded strand
3 Tundra
3 Tropical island
1 Black lotus
1 Mox sapphire
1 Mox emerald
1 Mox pearl

20 Mana sources feels really light, and I wouldn't know what to cut to increase it, or what to add to it. Thoughts?

[zeus-online]

While i haven't had any problems with that, you could probably cut a misdirection and maybe a daze...I'd advise you to play it a little more to see if the poblem continues or if you where just unlucky. Meddling mage also comes to mind as a card you could cut.

[MkeMagic]

I have had to mulligan over mana in more than half of 25+ test games. I get there in some of those mulilgans, but constantly starting at 6 cards in vintage is a huge disadvantage. I will try going +2 mana and seeing what happens.

[Harlequin]

Remeber that Noble is also a mana source.  So the deck runs 4 additional mana sources that are conditional on having a trop.