[Deck discussion] Stripless Fish - Noble Cobra

[beder]

Hi all,

I start this thread with some contextual thoughts regarding the format.

1)even before gush unrestriction - I felt like strip effects were less and less efficent.
- Shop decks have a too strong mana base for them to be really disrupted by a strip effect,
- Tezz decks are pretty good at fetching island,
- Oath decks just need   ,
- Storm decks have a solid manabase made of basics,
- ...

2) ... and at the same time, gush has been unrestricted which means 2 things :
1- it should be even more difficult to get full value from a waste effect,
2- this is a pretty efficent draw engine in a deck that plays low CC spells, especially if that deck could rely on "non land" mana producers in order not to be too dependant of fastbond.

3) ... null rod still seems very good : against almost every deck, it stops at least 6 cards, generally pretty important ones,

4) ... jace still seems very good : even if less people are talking about it since gush unrestriction, let's not forget it was the key card just a month ago,

5) ... recent sets have provided non artifact mana accelerants that are pretty efficent (noble hierarch and lotus cobra).

As a consequence, I feel like this may be a good time to rethink the Rod/Aggro strategy, with a different approach from the existing one for many years meaning "I start my deck with 3-4 rods and 4-5 strip effect".

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the question : "What if we try putting in the same deck :
- Null rod,
- Gush,
- and Jace"?

... the glue of all this being : noble hierarch and lotus cobra....
... the win condition being for instance that lovely creature that has still not found its place in magic world : Lorescale coatl

At first glance, it may seem odd. When testing the deck, it becomes a lot more relevant.

So here is a starting point, for those who could be interested in that approach.

---------------------------------Noble Cobra V1.0---------------------------------
// Lands
    4 Misty Rainforest
    3 Flooded Strand
    3 Tropical Island
    2 Tundra
    2 Island

// Creatures
    4 Noble Hierarch
    4 Qasali Pridemage
    4 Lotus Cobra
    3 Lorescale Coatl

// Spells
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Sapphire
    4 Null Rod

    4 Gush
    4 Force of Will
    4 Spell Pierce

    3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Mystical Tutor
    1 Merchant Scroll
    1 Time Walk
    1 Hurkyl's Recall
    1 Thirst for Knowledge

    1 Fastbond

------------------------------------------------------------------

Some card's explanation :
- Why no forest? Well, this is one of this build weakness. Sure, one forest would be nice to safely play noble hierarch. But it would also be a liability regarding the gush engine.
- Why merchant scroll? Because with noble and cobra, it is and easy card to play. And with gush, it is a necessary card to play.
- Why Thirst for Knowledge? Again, with noble and cobra, being able to play thirst is pretty easy. It allows to discard extra null rod, or useless moxes, and it pumps lorescale. That's excellent.
- Why no trygon? Well, null rod and quasali are already a good solution to artifact. Merchant+Hurkyll's provide an out to very fast aggro artifact decks. And, let's keep in mind that with this draw engine - Jace+Gush - lorescale coatl may very quickly be big enough to handle almost any artifact creatures.
But sure, Trygon is a very strong option : 2 of them could be added in place of one rod and one quasali for instance.

Feel free to react!

Cheers

Nicolas

[WhiteWolf]

I don’t want to hijack your thread with my list but I’ve been toying around with the same idea for a few weeks. Maybe I can give you some ideas or opinions.

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie
4 Trygon Predator
3 Sower of Temptation

1 Time Walk

1 Merchant Scroll

1 Ancestral Recall

4 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
4 Force of Will

3 Nature’s Claim
2 Hurkyl’s Recall

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
2 Flooded Strand
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Polluted Delta
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
5 Mox

Sideboard

4 Pithing Needle
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Echoing Truth
3 Old Man of the Sea
2 Mindbreak Trap

My list is on the one hand pretty different from yours but on the other hand uses some of the same ideas. The list has not been tested extensively but the first results aren’t bad. I think the idea of Stripless Fish can have merit.

I dropped Rod mostly because I dropped Wastes. I would play them both OR none of them in a Fish list.

Gush could replace Selkie but I haven’t tested it and I’m not sure it would be better for this list.

I’ve considered Lorescale but at the moment every critter has some utility. I would probably play Tarmogoyf before Lorescale. I understand however Lorescale can be pretty powerful with Gush. If I would replace Selkie with Gush, Sower could become Lorescale (Lorescale answers the big hitters but Sower also takes care of stuff like Welder and Confidant).

Cobra is great in Fish decks because it enables you to play out threats while maintaining mana to play Pierce or Leak.

3 Sowers may seem like a lot but they have proven very useful. Stealing a Welder, Golem, Confidant, … while nibbling away at your opponents life-total is nice.

No Jaces because … I simply don’t own them. Not really a valid reason I know. If I had them, they would probably replace Sowers.

[Delha]

@ Beder: Interesting. How has it been working out in testing? It feels light on permission at first, but I'd much rather trust actual results than my armchair guesses.

[beder]

@ Beder: Interesting. How has it been working out in testing? It feels light on permission at first, but I'd much rather trust actual results than my armchair guesses.

Delha,

I tested the deck but still not sufficently to provide definitive conclusion.
Rigth now, my feelings are that :
- It definitely has some potential : this is robust, efficent and pretty fast,
- The engine of the deck works well,
- The disruption seems to be sufficent (even if it could need some tuning, especially the number of spell pierce) : in addition to the counter package, quasali and null rod have to be considered as part of the disruption package. Given that  the deck has an efficent aggro mode, this looks like sufficent.
- I am still not sure about some few cards : ponder has to be added, some cards have to be removed. I don't know if I have a sufficently high number of threats/bombs to get full value from the huge volume of mana that can be produced by this deck

[xouman]

The problem with cobra is that fish wants to trouble opponent's development while putting a significant clock. So, leonin arbiter, gaddock, meddling, qasali, kataki, trygon are cards intended to trouble, while few cards as tarmogoyf and selkie do not disturb (but at the gain of fast clock/lots of cards). Cobra *could* be compared to selkie, because it's a gain of resources, but the difference is that you want selkie when the game is *under control*, while cobra is best at turn 1/2, and so-so at midgame. The problem is that playing a cobra is a *dead* turn for fish, and has to rely on fow/daze as the only defense.

[znoyes]

Hi, I like your idea but would take it in another direction (this post is relevant).
The problem I see with GAT now is that it runs out of gas without merchant scroll, ponder, and brainstorm and leaves you with a so-so dryad.
Try cutting the preordains and something else in GAT and add Jace and Lotus Cobra. I found that jace's brainstorming each turn gave me all the gas my dryad needed.

[Stormanimagus]

Has anyone attempted to build this deck with 4 Exploration? I think Exploration could increase the power of Cobra and Gush a great deal by basically allowing you to use Gush defensively vs. Wasteland far more often with an active Cobra.

Here's an idea I had for such a list:

Land (15):
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
1 Breeding Pool
3 Island
1 Forest

Artifacts (6):
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Null Rod

Enchantments (5):
4 Exploration
1 Fastbond

Planeswalkers (3):
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

Creatures (14):
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Trygon Predator
3 Sower Of Temptation

Instants (16):
4 Force Of Will
4 Gush
4 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
1 Ancestral Recall

Soceries (1):
1 Time Walk

SB
3 Energy Flux
2 Nature's Claim
2 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Mindbreak Trap

This is a very rough list and I havn't really thought out the SB much at all, but this seems like it could be effective in theory.

-Storm

[beder]

Hi storm,

I did try exploration for a stasis build presented in this thread http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=41366.0.

After testing this build, I tested another version using the same kind of engine :
 
// Explore a cobra V1.0

// Lands
    4 Misty Rainforest
    2 Flooded Strand
    2 Polluted Delta
    4 Tropical Island
    5 Island

// Creatures
    4 Lotus Cobra
    4 Lorescale Coatl

// Spells
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Emerald
    
    4 Gush
    4 Force of Will
    4 Spell Pierce
    4 Thwart
    4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    
    2 Preordain
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Mystical Tutor
    1 Ponder
    1 Time Walk
    
    4 Exploration
    1 Fastbond

There are a lot of space for improvement in this build but the main idea is to try abuse the following core engine :
- 17-18 lands
- Lotus Cobra
- Fastbond and Exploration
- Jace
- Gush
- Twart

What is working :
- the core engine works well with 17 islands and 2 pre ordain. It draws cards and create mana efficently, being at the same time resistant and consistant.

What is still under discussion :
- The disruption package. I am not sure that spellpierce is the best option in this build. I would like to be able to add some thoughseize. I feel like a package made of 4 fow, 3-4 twart and 4 thoughseize could be pretty interesting
- The use of lorescale. Some other options could perhaps be better...
- The numbers of Jace (3 or 4) and Twart (3 or 4)