Living Wish?

[MaximumCDawg]

I'm wondering if anyone here has tried using a wishboard with Living Wish in Noble Fish.  It's on-color, and potentially gives you access to your key creatures pre-sideboard.  I figure, since it's a slow way to get creatures out, you'd want to have only bombs that could swing games from a bad situation.  So, nothing that needs to get out early or prior to threats to be effective, like Predator.  But, cards that shut things down, like Meddling Mage and Gaddock Teeg, seem reasonable.  Anyone have thoughts on this?

[Troy_Costisick]

Casting Living Wish is like casting Time Walk for your opponent.  If it were an instant, it would be different, but it's not.  It's better to spend that two mana on something disruptive rather than to go get something disruptive.

[tito del monte]

It's an interesting idea - I suppose I would say on a broader front, that as Wizards continues to make more and more disruptive creatures, there will no doubt be a point where there is such a critical mass of them, that the power of the largely unrestricted tutors for creatures becomes a significant factor in the metagame. I don't follow Legacy that closely, but I get the impression that that is what is already happening there with the dominacne of Survival of the Fittest.

If Living Wish could put the creature directly into play, at instand speed, then the plan would definitely be a goer.... as it is, I'm not sure it's the best answer to the question, which I think is "how does Noble Fish adpat to the new metagame?"  - I guess part of the answer is that like Fish decks of the past, it will have to wait and see how the metagame actually settles and then re-focus to attack it - rather than trying to diversify the quality of its disruption, via a toolbox approach, with say Living Wish.

Having said all that - perhaps if you did want more of a toolbox, Aether Vial is the way to go - dropping Null Rods from the maindeck...

Anyway - thinking out loud! Sorry if I didn't quite answer the question! :S

[Troy_Costisick]

Having said all that - perhaps if you did want more of a toolbox, Aether Vial is the way to go - dropping Null Rods from the maindeck...

Anyway - thinking out loud! Sorry if I didn't quite answer the question! :S

Actually, Aether Vial is a pretty decent suggestion.

[MaximumCDawg]

I can see an argument for vial to defeat aggro MUD, where you usually don't want Null Rod anyway.  But, in almost every other situation, I think I'd rather run Null Rod.  Vial helps you cheat your creatures into play, but doesn't accellerate you much, and doesn't help you find those creatures or otherwise generate card advantage.  My conception of a wish board is to have ways to get back into the game from a losing position.  I guess if you had wish AND vial, then you're grabbing and playing creatures at instant speed... but this is a pretty slow two card combo that doens't win on the spot, so I dunno.

So I guess Vial doesn't do what I'm thinking for Living Wish.  I'm gonna test out a singleton Wish in a Noble Fish deck tonight and see if I'm impressed or not.  My wishboard is gonna be Wasteland, Kataki, War's Wage, Gaddok Teeg, and Meddling Mage.  The idea is that each of these creature can come down late game to swing things.  Kataki can come out to nullify a board full of artifact mana.  Gaddock Teeg shuts down Empty, Belcher, and Tendrils, which a bunch of decks in my meta use to kill (might change to Ethersworn Canonist).  Mage shuts down any critical component I'm worried about (Helm of Obedience or Time Vault, for example). Wasteland is there so that Wish is never a dead card.

I'll report back on how happy I am with it.  

If I branched into black, Fleshbag Mauarder and Dark Confidant might also have a home in the wishboard.

The one big hole I see in using a wishboard is that it's gonna be crap for stopping dredge.  In the time it takes me to wish for Samurai of the Pale Curtain and then cast it, for example, they will have made a bagillion zombie tokens.

EDIT: Not much to report.  Played three matches: Dredge (loss), Random Blue Mill Deck (win) and Random Wierd Land Based Homebrew (win).  Never drew or used living wish.  Life from the Loam, however, is gangbusters.  So, I'll keep tinkering with this.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Casting Living Wish is like casting Time Walk for your opponent.  If it were an instant, it would be different, but it's not.  It's better to spend that two mana on something disruptive rather than to go get something disruptive.

This is only situationally true.  Would Noble Fish play Demonic Tutor if it cost ?  No, it would not.  True though that may be, if Demonic were reprinted tomorrow with Living Wish's mana cost we would be forced to abandon our understanding of what "Noble Fish" is and instead build around the new powerhouse.

This is the same situation.  In order to use Living Wish, you have to want Demonic Tutor.  And in order to want Demonic Tutor, you have to be reliably capable of producing 4+ mana in the early turns of the game.  This is hard to do without full acceleration, which runs
counter to the Null Rod-based mana denial strategy of the current builds.


Without opening the can of worms that is the question "What is Fish?," it is certainly a reliable observation that few decks to carry that name have run Demonic Tutor even when they contain black.

[tito del monte]

Again just thinking out loud because I really enjoyed Noble Fish and would like to see it succeed in the new meta, which I'm guessing is going to be pretty Workshop and Gush-combo heavy...

Null Rod already seems at a low ebb due to the prevelence of Workshop decks - but replacing it with vial might not be good enough against the rest of the field...so, is there something that could replace it and still give Noble Fish game against the rest of the Gush-y meta?

How about: Thorn of Amethyst? Would it be possible to retool the deck to be more creature heavy - and have the tools to fight the other annoying sphere effects form Lodestone/Sphere of Resistance'? I've been wondering for example if spell snare might be approaching playability in Vintage (think we're only going to see more and more Resistors, Cobras and Bobs). Could such a build also include Spellstutter Sprite to get round Thorn (countering Moxen, and cantrips in GAT) - or even Annul? The aforementioned Loam would also be a nice fit.

Anyway, I'm a fairly bad deck builder in a city with a non-existant vintage scene, but those are some hopefully helpful ideas after a long Friday!

[MaximumCDawg]

Again just thinking out loud because I really enjoyed Noble Fish and would like to see it succeed in the new meta, which I'm guessing is going to be pretty Workshop and Gush-combo heavy...

Null Rod already seems at a low ebb due to the prevelence of Workshop decks - but replacing it with vial might not be good enough against the rest of the field...so, is there something that could replace it and still give Noble Fish game against the rest of the Gush-y meta?

How about: Thorn of Amethyst? Would it be possible to retool the deck to be more creature heavy - and have the tools to fight the other annoying sphere effects form Lodestone/Sphere of Resistance'? I've been wondering for example if spell snare might be approaching playability in Vintage (think we're only going to see more and more Resistors, Cobras and Bobs). Could such a build also include Spellstutter Sprite to get round Thorn (countering Moxen, and cantrips in GAT) - or even Annul? The aforementioned Loam would also be a nice fit.

Anyway, I'm a fairly bad deck builder in a city with a non-existant vintage scene, but those are some hopefully helpful ideas after a long Friday!

That's not a bad idea against Storm Combo, but:

1. Two mana is actually a pretty hefty price; it uses up a whole turn for the fish player usually.
2. The additional one cost is potentially backbreaking for the fish player if you're running Daze or Spell Pierce (I do)
3. Given a 10 - 12 counter build, Stifle or Mindbreak Trap might be just better against Storm.

[limitedwhole]

As Troy said above, living wish is like casting time walk for your opponent (in an aggro deck).

You generally want your disruptive creatures maindeck.
if I was going try to use living wish in a disruptive aggro deck I would try the following
Make sure you have ample mana:  Wish needs to be easily castable along with what its casting. Moxen+Chromes
Move the kill creature (The one thats in there for its power) to the sideboard and use the wish to get the kill card after to play out your disruption.
Wish for toolbox cards and/or bullets to problem cards like oath of druids and bazaar of baghdad Chalice at 1.
Try to keep your wish targets as cheap as possible.  Mogg Fanatic, Goblin Welder, Elvish Lyricist etc.

This frees up deck slots to move MORE disruptive creatures main instead of to the board, and gives you four cards that fetch bullets for problem matchups. 

[MaximumCDawg]

@limitedwhole: I'm intrueged by your point that the Wish exists to grab the kill creature, not disruptive creatures.  That's actually a really clever point.  Since I run between 2 and 4 stifles in my Fish deck, I wonder if I could run a Dreadnought wish target?  I'm thinking Fish with a counter package like: 4 Fow, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Stifle plus 2 Living Wish.  Maybe a board including re-active answers to fetch for midgame threats, like Maze of Ith, Ghost Quarter, Phyrexian Tower, Bojuku Bog, Dreadnought?  You could then have something Fish does not traditionally have; a strong mid-game, game-ending combo, without having any wasted slots in your main deck.

Another card I've been loving in Fish is Life from the Loam.  The ability to get a Strip lock going is fantastic in a stifle-based Fish deck.  With all those land-based wish targets, the Loam engine gets better.  Except now you've got three draws (LtfL and Wish) that are not disruption or creatures in early game.  Hmm...

[Troy_Costisick]

@limitedwhole: I'm intrueged by your point that the Wish exists to grab the kill creature, not disruptive creatures.  That's actually a really clever point.  Since I run between 2 and 4 stifles in my Fish deck, I wonder if I could run a Dreadnought wish target?  I'm thinking Fish with a counter package like: 4 Fow, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Stifle plus 2 Living Wish. 

I don't want to steal limitedwhole's thunder, but I think that's actually a really cool idea.  What about Daze in the counterspell package, though?  Living Wish+Dreadnought+Stifle is awfully mana intensive.  Being able to bounce an Island to counter something would really be helpfull, I think.  Then again, playing Vial would work as well.  Cool thinking.

[MaximumCDawg]

I dunno.  If we go Daze over Spell Pierce, we can protect a turn 4 Wish-Dread-Stifle combo, but how often are we going to live to turn 4 if two of our cards are not interacting?  I see the kill card in the board as more of a way to end the game once things are under control, so speed isn't much of an issue.  That said, I can see advantages to having a counter on tap with only a few moxen or hierarchs out to protect a turn 2 Dreadnought if the situation presents itself.  Something like this?

Permission (14)
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Daze
3 Spell Pierce

Creatures (14)
4 Quasali Pridemage
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Cold-Eyed Selkie
3 Trygon Predator // Caustic Wasp

Other (12)
2 Living Wish
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Nature's Claim
1 Sensei's Top
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

Mana (20)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Savanna
4 Pearl / Sapphire / Emerald / Lotus
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains

So, with that in mind, here's some wishboard possibilities...

Maze of Ith (stop non-Inkwell tinker/oath/depths creatures; recur with LftL.  Seems good.)
Ghost Quarter (ensure LW can always at least destroy a land for 1G.  Seems good.)
Phyrexian Dreadnought (LW can combo out to end game.  Seems good.)
Wispmare (1GW answer to oath.  Seems good.)
Cloudchaser Kestrel, Durenger Hedge-Mage, Harmonic Sliver, Kami of Ancient Law, War Priest of Thune, and others (More expensive answers to oath.  Not so good compared to Wispmere.)
Uktabi Orangutan, Viridian Shaman and others (More expensive answer to artifacts; Nature's Claim does it better)
Aven Mindcensor (3GW to counter search spells?  Probably not worth it.)
Abu Ja'Far / Alaborn Zealot / Loyal Sentry (1GW answer to non-evasive beaters?  Probably not worth it.)
Thornweald Archer / Winged Coatl (2GG or 2GGU anwer to Inkwell, but we're using Islands, so...)
Cockatrice (4GGG answer to flying beaters! AWESOME)
Elvish Lyrcist / Druid Lyrcist (1GW for a summoning sick ench destruction?  Nature's claim sooo much better.)
Scavanger Folk / Elvish Scrapper (same as above for artifacts)
Magus of the Moat (3GWW to shut down ground aggro?  Gobbos will kill before you get this out.  Interesting, though)
Merfolk Assassin (1GUU answer to opposing Selkie! J/k)
Devout Witness / Nullmage Advocate (five mana for repeatable artifact/ench removal? Borderline, probably bad.)

[AmbivalentDuck]

If you waste 2 mana tutoring for something, you're looking for mid-late game brutal hate, not a spot answer.

True Believer against Oath, Llawan against big blue Tinker critters, Sower of Temptation, etc.

[nineisnoone]

if you are going to living wish for the kill why wouldn't you go for Dark Depths + Hexmage since both are tutorable via Wish?

[limitedwhole]

if you are going to living wish for the kill why wouldn't you go for Dark Depths + Hexmage since both are tutorable via Wish?

What combo with 4 Living Wish, 3 Hexmage, 3 Darkdepths main and 1 dark depths and 1 hexmage side?  You already have black tutors.
I was thinking of living wish in disruptive aggro as, I have some terrible matchups, so ill wish for something inthose.  In my other matchups wish is not great but at least passable as I didnt have to take any good disruption out to put them in.  Didn't say it would work, just said if I was going to try to use it then...

[smasher]

Eladamri's call isn't seeing play at instant speed so I don't think living wish has much chance at seeing play. I guess the main difference is adding white to the casting cost of eladmri's call. For this you gain instant speed and also white has plenty of targets to grab that slow the game down. In a fish/aggro deck it's comparable to D. Tutor at instant speed. You don't tie up sideboard space and you get to run 4of's instead of 3ofs with 1 of each in the board.