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valor
10-23-2006, 08:51 PM
This started out as something like the U/W/b Fish in proven but I made a couple changes. Explanations at the end:

Land: 19
4 Tundra
6 Fetch (Both blue ones get all the land, but probably 3/3 for Needle)
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory (Probably needs to go down to 3 for another Island)
1 Island (I'm the only one here that runs Wastes somehow)

Creatures: 15
4 Meddling Mage
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Mother of Runes
2 Serra Avenger
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours

Control: 16
4 FoW (26 blue if you dont want to count)
2 Counterspell
3 Daze
3 Stifle (Sick mana denial esp. w/ Wastes)
4 Swords to Plowshares

Other Spells: 10
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard:
2-3 Serenity (Affinity kid scoops to this every time lol)
2 Pithing Needle
1 Stifle
3 Icatian Javelineers (Replaces Mom vs. Stax)
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Exalted Angel (Vs. Control can open up the game but probably shouldnt be here but I want to use one lol)
2-3 Armageddon/Echoing Truth/Worship/Tivadar's Crusade

Card Choices:
Mana Base:
I know that someones gonna say it looks atrocious and thats because it does. First thing I would probably do is trade an island for a Factory. Lack of basics is because somehow no one plays Wastes (until now at least lol)

Creatures:
Mom: Best blocker ever, also has synergy with the entire deck and format, works great with Meddling Mage, Ninja (unblockable). Sucks in multiples though, hence 3
Ninja: Card advantage. Works pretty well with Factories and Mom. 4 was just overkill and I never would have much rather had the Counters of whatever came in for him.
Serra Avenger: It was either this or Serendib Efreet, but on 4th turn when it comes down I'd rather drop this and have either Jitte or Counter mana rather than only having 1 open (at lot of the deck is at 2 mana)
Meddling Mage: Self explanatory 4 of.
Jotun Grunt: A lot of stuff gets in the graves with this deck, plus he helps out with probably 90% of the matches with his ability anyway. Makes this deck imo, but only 3 because you never want 2 out.

Control:
StP: Kills just about every deck.
FoW/Daze/Counterspell: the 4/3/2 setup has been proven over and over, and I found it worked best for my needs as well. 26 blue for FoW is more than enough to reliably cast it, especially with Brainstorm.
Stifle: Mana Denial along with Wastes can be a real dick, saves my ass countless times. Once I Stifled the lifegain on an Exatled ftw. True story lol.

Brainstorm/Serum Visions: Brainstorm + Fetches is self explanatory, Serum Visions lets you go with the low land and low colored mana count more reliably.
Jitte: GG

Sideboard:
Serenity: This one kid refuses to play anything but Affinity and his face when he reads this makes this deck worth playing.
Needle: Moving on
Stifle: Cant get more Needles lol.
Explosives: Although its not 3 colors, I never used it at 3 anyway. Pretty solid card.
Javelineers: A lot of deck here run of 1/1 guys with cool abilities. Welder, Goblins although I dont see them too much (I know I'm lucky, Sharpshooter, even BoP, Bob, etc)
Angel: This game is about fun too, no? lol
Geddon/Crusade/Echoing Truth/Worship/Jitte: I'm still up in the air on this. I doubt I need the truths, and I dont see Goblins but I'm still afraid of them, thus Crusade and Jitte. Well timed Geddons are pretty brutal. Worship+Mom=GG.

Other options:
Glowrider/True Believer - I probably have a good enough combo matchup to ignore it in the SB though.

Now the questions: Why is this better than Thresh/the black Fish:
Why is it better than thresh? It's not. I won the local Tournament with White thresh last week and I want something different, especially something that the grave hate doesnt hit hard. Also, it is build with a Wasteless, Goblinless meta in mind (how lucky am I lol). Biggest reason though: It has a lot of the strenghts of Thresh without sacrificing that much card quality, and doesnt die to Grunt/Crypt etc.
Why is it better than the Black build? Again this is a meta call. Personally these type of decks are exactly my thing. The black deck is awesome, don't get me wrong. Bob is amazing, but I personally dont feel its worth splashing for that and Duress (the combo match is fine anyway Duress isnt that necessary although it is cool w/ Mage). A big discussion on the other thread was about Wastes/Stifles or not. I feel that they go perfectly with this decks strategy. With the black splash, I felt that the mana base was stretched WAY too thin with them. Now sure they have more colored sources in that deck, but that was becasuae I included Factories which I feel are worth it. The double costed things are: Serra Avenger, Counterspel and a few boaded thingsl. Both I dont have to worry about until turn 3-4, which especialy with the cantrips, I should be albe to provide. (Daze, Stifle, Wastes and FoW can hold off until I get UU up). As for the things in the board, I will be playing the game completely different when I board them in, so again hitting the 2 Tundras in time will not be a problem. Dropping the Factory for an Island is probably a good idea though. With the 3 color deck you want U/W turn 1 (or with Duress U/B). By turn 2 and at latest 3 youll NEED U/W/B which imo was the decks big vulnerability.

Matchups:
I dont test against the normal gauntlet seeing as I dont see much of it, but I'd imagine its like this:
Gobbos: Probably kill me 1st game. A lot of board slots could be given to this matchup if its a prevalent deck.
Thresh: Similar strategies. We run Grunt, Jitte and Flyers. Probably fairly even.
Solidarity: I've never actually had to play against this deck but I'd imagine that with all the counters and Mage you could tear it a new asshole game 1 and hopefully postboard.
IGGy: See Solidarity.


Questions to answer:
1. Is the mana base good? Factory for Island swap? More colored sources/more/less land?
2. Creature base - Is it solid enough to support Nijnja/Jitte?
3. Does losing Duress hurt the combo matchup horribly? Is Mage/Counters enough?
4. How much better is Bob than Ninja? Is it a worthwhile tradeoff?
5. Is the overall synergy of the deck still intact?
6. How solid is the mana denial plan?
7. How can this be changed to fit your meta?
8. Why is this better/worse than the similar decks (Fish, thresh)
9. Something I havent seen (pretty likely)
I could keep going on and on, I love discussing these types of decks, but I'll post this now becasue I doubt anyone will read it

If you really want to know, yes I copy/pasted this from TMD but its an essay lol you want me to type it again?

insertnamehere
10-23-2006, 11:40 PM
I like the build excpet for the counterbase. I would run trickbind for its split second and maybe 2 more counterspells. Otherwise it looks like it has the makings for a good deck.

valor
10-24-2006, 12:15 AM
I like the build excpet for the counterbase. I would run trickbind for its split second and maybe 2 more counterspells. Otherwise it looks like it has the makings for a good deck.

Trickbind is an interesting card, the only reason to run Stifle over it is becasue it comes online turn 1 as part of the mana denial. On the other hand, I really do not like Daze in this deck, especially since it is such a land light deck. I could go with some combination of Counterspell and Trickbind out of the Dazes, which is probably worth testing.

Eldariel
10-24-2006, 09:53 AM
You only have 11 blue sources total. That seems like a damn high chance of seeing a grand total of 0 in your opening hand. Cantrips are all fine and dandy, but if you never have the lands to cast them to begin with, they seem to do very little. For the record, Faerie Stompy has some issues hitting the single blue it needs with 14 blue sources.

valor
10-24-2006, 02:40 PM
You only have 11 blue sources total. That seems like a damn high chance of seeing a grand total of 0 in your opening hand. Cantrips are all fine and dandy, but if you never have the lands to cast them to begin with, they seem to do very little. For the record, Faerie Stompy has some issues hitting the single blue it needs with 14 blue sources.

I was thinking the exact same thing, I am definately taking out a factory for an Island, and I was going to try taking out some of the Serum Visions for more land, since as Sorceries they do not help with the plan, while adding more blue sources will essentially do the same thing as the Serum Visions in regards to finding land. It's not the best option but its the first thing I'd cut.

Hanni
10-24-2006, 04:17 PM
You need to choose between Factories and Wastelands and fill the other spot with colored sources.

You also need more evasion for the Ninja's, 2 Avengers won't cut it. I'd suggest 4 Spiketail Hatchling and probably 3 Isamaru.

The way your mana sources are right now, you can't support Avenger or Counterspell. Consider using Serendib Efreet in the Avengers spots and dropping the Counterspells altogether.

If your going to run Mishra's Factories, drop the Serum Visions for Standstills.

Everything else looks fine.

valor
10-24-2006, 07:11 PM
You need to choose between Factories and Wastelands and fill the other spot with colored sources.

You also need more evasion for the Ninja's, 2 Avengers won't cut it. I'd suggest 4 Spiketail Hatchling and probably 3 Isamaru.

The way your mana sources are right now, you can't support Avenger or Counterspell. Consider using Serendib Efreet in the Avengers spots and dropping the Counterspells altogether.

If your going to run Mishra's Factories, drop the Serum Visions for Standstills.

Everything else looks fine.

I came to the same conclusion, I took out the Factories for Islands. I took out the Ninjas for Looter il-Kor and I'm surprised at how well he worked for me in testing. I also dropped the Serum Visions for Aether Vial, which considering all my creatures except Mom cost 2 has been pretty good for me, and I havent had any problem supporting Avenger this way (I also found room for a basic plains in there).
I have been really happy with how it turned out with these changes, the only issue I forsee is lack of some kind of draw engine, which I have been working on fixing up.

btw Hanni I love your U/W/b version and were it anywhere besides my local tournament I would be running something more similar to that.

Hanni
10-25-2006, 12:08 AM
I actually liked the Ninja's in your decklist because of their natural synergy with Jotun Grunt. They also work nicely for removing Confidant's when your low on life or returning Mages so you can name a different spell. I'd run 2 at the least for synergy purposes, plus it's card advantage anyway.

I'm not really sure about AEther Vial in here either. The deck only runs 15 creatures, meaning that a large majority of what you draw/play is not going to be a creature. The deck is also not mana hungry like Goblins, which is basically what makes Vial shine... being able to play multiple threats in a turn. It provides nice combat tricks and things like that but I really don't think it's needed in this kind of deck. Basically, if your having mana issues, either run more land or more cantrip/draw.


btw Hanni I love your U/W/b version and were it anywhere besides my local tournament I would be running something more similar to that.

Thanks.

MysticBlue
10-28-2006, 01:40 PM
sage of epityr to replace brainstorm or serum visions?

Citrus-God
10-28-2006, 07:10 PM
I actually liked the Ninja's in your decklist because of their natural synergy with Jotun Grunt. They also work nicely for removing Confidant's when your low on life or returning Mages so you can name a different spell. I'd run 2 at the least for synergy purposes, plus it's card advantage anyway.

I'm not really sure about AEther Vial in here either. The deck only runs 15 creatures, meaning that a large majority of what you draw/play is not going to be a creature. The deck is also not mana hungry like Goblins, which is basically what makes Vial shine... being able to play multiple threats in a turn. It provides nice combat tricks and things like that but I really don't think it's needed in this kind of deck. Basically, if your having mana issues, either run more land or more cantrip/draw.

Ninja sucks. It's not a curiosity, and it just plain sucks. Yes, Ninja is a win condition, but the evasion sucks. It's a creature format, and theres removal all over the place. This slot is better replaced by Dark Confidant, since Bob is a Ophidian without the need of combat.

Vials should go in the SB. If you play side it in Game 2 versus Thresh, you should be able to sneak under the counter radar. So Vials do belong in this deck somewhat as a metagame choice.

lukatron2
11-17-2006, 09:21 PM
I was working on a build similar to this exept I use actual card advantage as upposed to cantrips. my build looks something like this...

land

4 flooded strand
4 tundra
4 wasteland (could be a 3 of to make room for more blue sources)
4 mishras factory (could be a 3 of to make room for more blue sources)
3 island
1 plains

creatures

3 mother of ruins
4 meddling mage
2 jotun grunt
2 serendib efreet
1 mystic enforcer

other spells
4 force of will
4 daze
2 counterspell
3 stifle
4 swords to plowshares
4 brainstorm
4 standstill
2 ummezawa's jitte
1 crucible of worlds

it can play like a control or aggro-control deck. for example: turn 1 island, go. stifle or force something. turn 2 drop mishras factory, drop standstill go....it can also play the aggro role by dropping early beats and using the counter-magic as back up...I included the 1 crucible as a mid-late game mana fetcher/reusible factories/wastelock. Its kind of like a mix between fish and landstill. I know some people might say that I should get rid of the waste/factory and run like 17 or 18 land. but this build of fish isnt supposed to be like ubw OR threshold. it is a completely (though very similar) deck.

xsockmonkeyx
11-17-2006, 10:04 PM
4 flooded strand
4 tundra
4 wasteland (could be a 3 of to make room for more blue sources)
4 mishras factory (could be a 3 of to make room for more blue sources)
3 island
1 plains
...

1 mystic enforcer



Ummm, how do you cast Enforcer without green mana?:confused:

lukatron2
11-18-2006, 02:30 AM
OMG i'm an idiot..lol..I think that is supposed to be exhalted angel or eternal dragon or something...I dunno HOW/WHY I had mystic enforcer (lol)..oops..