[Deck] Vial/Fish WITH mana denial

[Guli]

This post is an illustration that vial fish designs can put a lot pressure on the mana base of the opponent without the use of Null Rod. The first part of this article goes through the motives behind the creature base. After that the mana base, which is an unique approach in this specific case, is elaborated. Finally you can read through general remarks about other card choices and match ups. The goal is to present this approach in a clear and simple way and provoke readers to get into the discussion. I advise to quickly look at the list at the end of the thread and then read through the text. Everything will make more sense that way.

1. Creature base

1.1 Mana denial

Gorilla Shaman:
This deck likes Shaman a lot because of turn 1 vial followed by turn 2 vial/shaman and eat moxes while being able to either duress or waste. The plan is to delay and deny mana. For two reasons, first you want to disrupt their game plan and second you want to buy time to get vial up to 2. Shaman will make your Leonin arbiter stronger. An early Leonin arbiter will buy time but with Shaman you have strong mid game plan alongside your strip effects.

Leonin Arbiter:
Arbiter is the mana denial against blue based control or combo. It is not trying to stop things like mystical, vampiric or fetchlands but it is trying to deny mana. It does effectively stop Tinker and it makes it damn hard to cast demonic or scroll. The tricks involved with Ghost Quarter are nice and welcome.

Kataki, War's Wage:
Kataki is your game winning bomb against shop. The reason behind this is the combination of strip effects and kataki's ability. You need Vial thought. But thing is vial enables the win, Kataki actually makes them scoop. Kataki is also nice when you are having a field day against their land/moxes. To add some humor, I once killed Inkwell with Kataki because I stripped/wasted/ghost/shamaned all available mana. The downside of Kataki with Vial is compensated by Vial's ability to generate mana.

1.2 Control & Capitalize

Dark Confidant:
An important card in the deck to generate card advantage. Nothing costs more than 2 mana in the deck. City of brass could look ugly with confidant but all this is an illusion. Confidant will not kill you in this deck.

Tarmogoyf:
And Tarmogoyf is one of the reasons you will not die from Confidants or pain lands. This deck does not wait all day to make the kill. Quickly after the heavy mana denial and duress effects Tarm will start beating down. Just like in those G/W beats with seals to make Tarm bigger, this deck also has all kinds of ways to feed Tarmogoyf into fatness.

1.3 Conclusion
If you glance through the creature base you won't find any bad creature. Nothing fancy, only effective bears proven strong before. Still it is a configuration and a design choice. Possibilities are there. The deck could support another 1 drop that makes sense. Note that all creatures besides Arbiter are good or bomb against workshop. More on the match up later on the article. Point is, the deck doesn't need more tools to fight off Workshop, it already has a good solid plan. The 1 drop that COULD join the list must fill up the weak parts of the deck. Has to be good against combo-control and at the same time against maybe fish OR dredge. Cursecatcher could be decent to be good against all three of these decks. Also interesting might be Grim Lavamancer because a lot control decks use Dark Confidant and Lotus Cobra. Mogg Fanatic seems decent in this regard too. Right now the list only holds the creatures mentioned above. But it is wise to keep an open mind and keep looking for improvements.

2. Mana base
The mana base is unique. Vial is the reason behind the use of such a mana base. The list contains 9 strip effects to ensure you have game against Workshop and Bazaar and to deny mana against everything else too. Thing is you don't need a lot of colored mana even if it is 5 color. Their are no hybrid or multicolored cards in the deck. Everything needs just 1 color and rest colorless. On top of that you have vial to make your creatures colorless. The eight colored lands are City of Brass and Tarnished Citadel. Tarnished Citadel looks ugly on paper but remember that you will use the colorless more often than you think and only tap for color if you need it. Vial is colorless, shaman only needs colorless to activate.

Isn't your mana base vulnerable against wasteland.dec? Sure it is, but this is not one sided. If the opponents start a wasteland war, my deck is prepared to race it with vials. So eventually their wastelands will make my cities and citadels also wastelands. If they combine wasteland with null rod this can cause problems. That is why Kataki and Nature's Claim are important against null rod.

So the idea is to play extremely aggressive after what looks to be a slow and passive start with turn 1 land/vial/pass the turn.

3. General remarks and match ups

This deck is designed to beat workshop but can handle almost any match up game 1. The plan against workshop.dec (doesn't matter what version) is to get vial in and start the wasteland war. Most likely you will get 1 chance to cast either Swords to Plowshares or Nature's Claim. These are in the deck to specifically destroy the Golem which will take a swing or two before dying. Kataki will clear up the rest of the board. Side in Trygons and Recalls. Arbiter goes out of course...

Against blue control you want to get in  Arbiter in. Wasting and eating a mox here and there are important to keep their mana low. On a general note they will feel the mana denial pressure for sure while losing their lands, moxes and key spells to Thoughtseize. Against Oath you have Thoughtseize and claim as key spells. The matches against blue are pretty even and intensive, which is very nice if you enjoy tight games. Additional duress and recalls to answer Tinker are in SB. If you play Ywill.dec get in the Leylines.

The tools to beat dredge are their. Strip lands, Leylines and Yilid in SB. It works.

If you play null rod fish, don't side out claim's and bring in Predators. You want to destroy null rod to keep your vials active. Arbiter is good against their fetchlands. You side in Thoughtseize and hold ground. Tarmogoyf is key to break them. STP helps. Usually you win the mana denial war and they end up dead in the water. Still, the match is not hugely favoring this deck.

Demonic consultation is an amazing card in this deck next to ancestral recall. Their is no reason not to add these 2 cards. They are BOMBS.

Referred list

9 Strip,waste,Quarter
8 City of Brass, Tarnished Citadel
5 Black lotus, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Emerald, Lotus Petal
4 Aether Vial

4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Nature's Claim
2 Ancestral Recall, Demonic Consultation

4 Kataki
4 Leonin
4 Gorilla Shaman
4 Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf

Sideboard:
3 Duress
3 Trygon Predator
2 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Yilid Jailer

I want to conclude with an interesting but risky card I have been thinking with all the life loss: Death's Shadow
Secretly testing Death's Shadow with the following changes:
-1 Kataki
-1 Nature's Claim
-1 Swords to Plowshares
+3 Death's Shadow !!

It looks very promising with City, Citadels, Thoughtseize and Confidants pumping the black 1 drop!!

[nineisnoone]

I wonder if Vial is really the best option here.  Your creature base is mostly 2CC meaning turn 3 Vials if you play it on turn 1.  Though generally I like Vial and I generally dislike Simian Spirit Guide, I believe that SSG might be the better alternative.  Sure, you lose some strength later on but with such a focus on mana denial you want that up ASAP.  You could also go for ESG if you want to focus on Nature's Claim over Gorilla Shaman, it would also help you cast your sideboard Predators.

Ghost Quarter in the main deck seems a bit extreme.  I would say more about the mana base as I am skeptical, but I'm not really sure on alternatives.

[MaximumCDawg]

I wonder if Vial is really the best option here.  Your creature base is mostly 2CC meaning turn 3 Vials if you play it on turn 1.  

This has always been my experience with Vial in vintage.  It seems great on paper, until you remember that half of the archetypes out there can kill you in the first two turns if left unmolested.  While mana denial is nice, it's only one pressure point - it does not prevent explosive one-turn plays.  It doesn't do much against a TPS player who holds onto his moxen and goes off on turn 3.  When I was playing around with Liquid Termites, I found something to stop explosive plays an absolute, absolute necessity.  Root Maze did a pretty good job.  Ethersworn Canonist might do so as well.

So, if you're trying to leverage vial, I think your deck has to do a few critical things:
(1) Control the game turns 1 and 2 while Vial charges up. (Pitch cards, mostly.  Unmask, FoW, Daze, etc)
(2) Stop explosive turns. (Maze, Canonist, Chalice)

If you can accomplish these things seamlessly while leveraging vial to get around shop and countermagic, you're in good shape.  But I've never seen a list that accomplishes this well enough.

Secretly testing Death's Shadow with the following changes:
-1 Kataki
-1 Nature's Claim
-1 Swords to Plowshares
+3 Death's Shadow !!

It looks very promising with City, Citadels, Thoughtseize and Confidants pumping the black 1 drop!!

Seems really, really bad in a format where 1/4 of the decks are packing Tendrils of Agony.

NINJA EDIT

Along the lines I spoke about earlier:

-- Vial and Pals (24)

4 Aether Vial

3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Leonin Arbiter
2 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Dark Confidant

-- Permission (12)

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Spell Pierce

-- Removal (3)

3 Swords to Plowshares

-- Search (2)

1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor

-- Mana (19)

4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands

Mana base is shaky and the deck is neutered if it does not have a t1 vial, but see what I changed here?  This version is trying to ensure: (1) It has countermagic at the ready on turns 1 and 2 while vial gets to 2; (2) It packs a way to stop explosive turns (canonist plus two ways to tutor for it); and (3) Once Vial gets to 2, every creature in the deck becomes a potential threat.  Leonin, Canonist, and Spellstutter are virtual counterspells in alot of situations.  Tinkerer nukes artifacts, but admittedly must be swapped in at end step to be able to do so.  Cloud allows you to explode your mana production if you need to.  Confidant is, well, confidant.

I make no promises about the effectiveness of this build, but I think it shows a little bit of the additional thinking that needs to go into a vial build.

[RecklessEmbermage]

Thanks for the brilliant primer!

What would happen if you swapped thoughtseize for root maze and cut 2 stps for 2 ESGs?

-You would accomplish what CDawg asks of you: To tie down the opponent until vial is active.

-You stabilize the mana: From a somewhat sketchy 11 sources of each colour (which is actually impressive with vial and 9 strips and a 4.5 colour build, just for having said that) you would have 13 sources for 8 of 12 non-creature spells, thereby reducing the risk of manascrew considerably.

-The deck becomes completely one-dimensional (heh): It now only cares about one zone, the battlefield (heheh). Thoughtseize only has synergy with mana denial first turn on the draw, if you happen to have a black source, while root maze is an easy-to play early enough strengthening of your only strategy.

.......

More about your list there: I love 4 maindeck kataki, love the 4 maindeck claims, am still unsure on arbiter (but I have some in the mail and will start testing them very soon), like that you dropped welder since your last list and truly enjoy your effort at composing a functional 5-colour manabase. It is even solid against disruption. The only thing that screws it over completely is a moon-effect.

And yes, death's shadow does not belong. Mogg fanatic might though. If you squeeze in 2-3 of them either main or side (depending on meta), you would strenghten vial, strengthen various important blue match-ups and free up sideboard slots (gamble on less dredge hate. Your 9 wastes already help quite a bit and if you swap thoughtseize with root maze, they get even better). Lavamancer is good against all these decks and shops, but I don't think your manabase would support it.

[Guli]

I must admit, I am intrigued by the suggestion of Root Maze. When I theorize in my mind what kind of scenario's might pop up with Vial I actually like it. Root Maze also works very nicely when your own mana base is 'fetchless'. Note that Arbiter and Root Maze are superb together. The downside with root maze would be the 9 strips, and these are non negotiable for me. The whole idea behind this 5 color deck is the unique mana base with 9 strips and 8 city/citadels with vial support. The problem I see with root maze is it won't really stop those very early explosive openings unless you have it in your hand and you are on the play. I think letting go is key here. It is ok to play turn 1 vial and pass. Like I described, a lot of strong turn 2 possibilities with shaman/strips/duress/thoughtseize/claim/stp/... What I would like is not to lose the game, and then eat all those acceleration. Maybe Mindbreak Trap would be good in this vial list, just to stop those key spells turn 1.

Thougthseize is very very important for turn 1 or turn 2. If anything I would up the count of duress effects.

I like the idea of ESG to have additional 'petals' in the deck. Adding 2 extra free mana sources would accelerate the deck a lot. Will work on this! In fact the count of STP and CLAIM are going up and down. I never went down to 2 for neither card and I believe 3xSTP/3xClaim is the correct number (Consultation being number 4-5 for everything when really needed). This potentially makes room for 2 ESG.

Death's Shadow seems really, really bad in a format where 1/4 of the decks are packing Tendrils of Agony.

Death's Shadow has been surprisingly strong and fast. I noted that against Workshop you will need to swallow 10+ damage before you can punch back with force. Let's face it, this deck is trading life to be able to cast strong disruption in combination with 9 strips and vial. The deck already accepts a low life total and shuts down storm decks by a strong disruption package. Death's Shadow isn't causing more life loss, it actually makes use of that fact. I hope you see your argument is flawed. Death's Shadow is not a response to storm decks specifically, it strives in a suicide type of deck. In this deck with city and citadels, Death's Shadow seems like the correct clock to capitalize on your window. Death's Shadow is especially dangerous when your life total is 7-8 which is about the stage of the game were you want to end the game. Death's Shadow is a 5/5 or 6/6 for 1 black and believe me I haven't build the deck around the card, it just friggin fits and I found Death's Shadow while I was looking for another 1 drop that made sense and felt right. Against aggressive creature decks that tend to force this deck into a more controlling role you can rely on another fatty next to Tarm that actually becomes fatter the more they attack you. Death's Shadow is a card that I am testing in a deck that is designed with a lot of creative thinking. Time and testing will tell me if it is worth the slots or not. Like I said it looks promising.

You don't need to use things like Daze to make Vial work. Force of Will asks too much from a 5 color creature deck in my opinion. All those slots you are dedicating to counters and blue could be something else. And you need enough blue etc etc...
Gorilla Shaman is worth the red slot because he eats mox for colorless mana and you can vial him in the next turn for free and as a surprise. People tend to drop their mox turn 1 and you can eat them easily. This translates into a time walk and this means you have successfully stalled enough time for vial. But it is not just stalling. They lost important mana sources and need to work with less for the duration of the game. Not an easy thing to do when your lands are also being Stripped/Quartered with Leonin on the table. Duress and/or Thoughtseize are your second pressure point! Your third pressure point is Confidant and Tarmogoyf.

If Workshop wasn't present in the meta like it is now, I would not use Kataki. But right now I feel really comfortable with the Vial and Kataki plan. I also like it that almost all the rest of the cards in the pile are solid against shop. This is not an easy thing to do when designing.

EDIT:

Here is a more flexible version, for reference, with more mana sources and Death's Shadow as a clock instead of Tarmogoyf. I could not make space for Tarmogoyf maindeck. The logic behind Death's Shadow is that you want to start with the disruption and then come down with a fat monster. Shadow will be bigger than Tarmogoyf and if unblocked your cities and citadels not only deliver pain to you but also your opponent. (interesting isn't it?) So I added more Duress effects, 6 total, to have a stronger chance of nailing the fuel of combo/control early on. Kataki and Vial are still your main weapons against Shop.

The sideboard changed, I am giving Root Maze a shot against those explosive decks with or without Gush. Might also be solid against shop but I consider it as splash damage.  Predator is good against 2 match ups too, Oath and Shop. Shop seems to be getting the most pain from this deck.

9 Strip,waste,Quarter
8 City of Brass, Tarnished Citadel
5 Black lotus, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Emerald, Lotus Petal
4 Aether Vial
2 Elvish Spirit Guide

3 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Nature's Claim
2 Ancestral Recall, Demonic Consultation

4 Kataki
4 Leonin
4 Confidant
3 Gorilla Shaman
3 Death's Shadow (experiment, could be Tarmogoyf)

Sideboard:
3 Root Maze
3 Trygon Predator
1 Nature's Claim
1 Swords to Plowshares
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Yilid Jailer

[katakis]

Next Weekend I'm going to play a similar deck. It's only 3 colors (UWr) ... but it still follows the same strategy.

Creatures:
4 Curse Catcher
3 Grim Lava Mancer
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Sage of Epityr
2 Aven Mind Censor
2 Vendillion Clique

4 Aether Vial

Counters:
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Spell Snare
2 Spell Pierce

Card Draw:
3 Standstill

Lands:
4 Wasteland
4 Ghostquarter
1 Strip Mine
4 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra

Sideboard:
3 Sword to Plowshares
4 Ingot Chewer
... rest is undecided yet (maybe 2 Jötun Grunt, 2 Red Blast, 2 True Believer, 2 Relics)

Didn't have the opportunity for excessive testing, yet. But so far I'm really surprised how stable the mana base performs. And so far my (few) testing results indicate a quite good MUD matchup. (Quite often it was sufficent to resolve a vial in the first 2 turns, in order to drop some creatures while countering all relevant beaters or destroying the manabase.)

Any suggestions? Anybody still working on a similar list?

[MaximumCDawg]

I wish you the best of luck and look forward to seeing your report!

I wonder if it makes sense to play with creatures spread over 1, 2, and 3 mana like that with Vial.  Might it make more sense to cluster your threats at one mana cost, so that your vial threatens everything in your deck?  Something like this maybe:

Vial Package (18)

4x Aether Vial

4x Spellstutter Sprite (active vial = counterspell)
2x Cloud of Faeries (active vial = 2 mana, plus assists sprite)
3x Leonin Arbiter (active vial = search spells cost 2 more)
4x Quasali Pridemage (active vial + 1 = disenchant)
1x Gilded Drake (active vial = control magic)

And then round out the deck with early game disruption (FoW, daze, etc) to ensure you reach vial at 2?

[katakis]

I wonder if it makes sense to play with creatures spread over 1, 2, and 3 mana like that with Vial.  Might it make more sense to cluster your threats at one mana cost, so that your vial threatens everything in your deck?

...

And then round out the deck with early game disruption (FoW, daze, etc) to ensure you reach vial at 2?

Of course Vial becomes less predictive and therefore more dangerous if all my creatures cost the same. However, in this case im left with 2 choices:
focus on cmc 1... obivously that won't work as Arbiter (and Mindcensor) are a must.
focus on cmc 2 or higher... then the deck is absolutely relying on Vial and isn't really doing anything threatening until turn 3. Especially vs. MUD this deck would lose without vial.

So I'm left with the option to spread the cmc's. On the plus side, this makes Vial a "faster" thread, as it is possible to put a creature into play every turn while charging up.

But you hit a weak spot nevertheless. Another cmc2 critter besides arbiter would be nice for vial. Qasali Pridemage would be fantastic... but it's in the wrong colors (at least for my build). Spellstutter Spriter seems to be the next best option. I think Lavamancer needs to make room for the fae. (*sniff*... Lavamancer is such a house in the fish-mirror. But in a lot of matchups he is the weakest cmc1 critter.)

Currently I would play these critters:

4 Curse Catcher
3 Gorilla Shaman
3 Sage of Epityr
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Spell Stutter Sprite
2 Aven Mindcensor
2 Vendillion Clique

3 Ninja of the deep hours (Instead of Standstill as suggested today by a friend of mine. This makes Sage even better than it already is in this deck.)

Thats 10x cmc1, 8x cmc2, 4x cmc3. Which I like much more than before.

Now if I only could squeeze Lightning Bolt into the deck... but I don't know what to cut.

[MaximumCDawg]

I wonder if it makes sense to play with creatures spread over 1, 2, and 3 mana like that with Vial.  Might it make more sense to cluster your threats at one mana cost, so that your vial threatens everything in your deck?

...

And then round out the deck with early game disruption (FoW, daze, etc) to ensure you reach vial at 2?

Of course Vial becomes less predictive and therefore more dangerous if all my creatures cost the same. However, in this case im left with 2 choices:
focus on cmc 1... obivously that won't work as Arbiter (and Mindcensor) are a must.
focus on cmc 2 or higher... then the deck is absolutely relying on Vial and isn't really doing anything threatening until turn 3. Especially vs. MUD this deck would lose without vial.

So I'm left with the option to spread the cmc's. On the plus side, this makes Vial a "faster" thread, as it is possible to put a creature into play every turn while charging up.

But you hit a weak spot nevertheless. Another cmc2 critter besides arbiter would be nice for vial. Qasali Pridemage would be fantastic... but it's in the wrong colors (at least for my build). Spellstutter Spriter seems to be the next best option. I think Lavamancer needs to make room for the fae. (*sniff*... Lavamancer is such a house in the fish-mirror. But in a lot of matchups he is the weakest cmc1 critter.)

Currently I would play these critters:

4 Curse Catcher
3 Gorilla Shaman
3 Sage of Epityr
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Spell Stutter Sprite
2 Aven Mindcensor
2 Vendillion Clique

3 Ninja of the deep hours (Instead of Standstill as suggested today by a friend of mine. This makes Sage even better than it already is in this deck.)

Thats 10x cmc1, 8x cmc2, 4x cmc3. Which I like much more than before.

Now if I only could squeeze Lightning Bolt into the deck... but I don't know what to cut.

Re: Sage of Epityr - Is it really good enough?  It helps you dig for your second turn draw, but beyond that it's just a vanilla.  If your deck is going to be threat-dense (and it looks like it will be), wouldn't a disruptive creature like Gorilla or Cursecatcher be better?  What about Vedalken Certarch?

Re: Quasli Pridemage - Vial doesn't care about color, so there's that at least.

What about Eldrami's Call as a way to access your creature toolbox?