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View Full Version : UG Meek Fish--A New Take on Aggro-Control?



Goaswerfraiejen
11-01-2007, 12:32 AM
I'll begin by saying that this is a crazy, crazy idea. I haven't yet had time to test it out due to an excessive workload (and I used up my break to think of it), but it looks like it could actually be quite good. I'll not lie: I had the idea when I was looking for 3cb ideas for MOTL's round, and I came across Sheltering Ancient (1G, 5/5, Trample, Cumulative upkeep: Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature an opponent controls.).

The general idea is to use Meekstone to bypass the need for the big guns altogether, and thus to make a deck that's relatively easy on the wallet and hard on the metagame. Essentially, we're returning to the origin of the moniker "fish", which basically meant a bunch of crappy cards tossed together into some semblance of a surprisingly good (often general-metagame) deck.

Now, let's move on to the list, and then I can explain some choices and how I see things playing out:

4 Wasteland
4 Tropical Island
2 Breeding Pool
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
3 Island
2 Forest

4 Sheltering Ancient
4 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 Trinket Mage
3 Looter Il-Kor
2 River Boa
1 Mire Boa

4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Gigadrowse
2 Mind Games
2 Mana Leak

3 Meekstone
3 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Engineered Explosives

VERY Rough SB:

3 Krosan Grip
3 Pithing Needle
3 Daze
3 Pongify
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Mana Leak


The basic idea is aggro-control with a focus on the control aspect, obviously. The one difference is that maybe it's got a more pro-active base than usual, hence the thread's title. The metagame is currently saturated with excessively large beatsticks, and the idea is to nullify them as much as possible. The main "combo" is obviously Meekstone + Sheltering Ancient to keep away whatever pesky creatures make it under the radar, and the strategy is complemented by a number of (useful) evasive creatures that will hopefully get equipped with a Jitte, as well as a few tapping spells.

Now, remember that this list is completely untuned, even if that isn't my usual style. At a glance, it probably suffers from a number of problems, chief among them super-aggro strategies such as Goblins. My hope is that the control elements will, in testing, prove a significant hindrance to Goblins, but that's wishful thinking that remains to be seen. Certainly, at a glance it looks like it should have strong matchups against most of the format's creature-oriented strategies. At a glance, however, it's also lacking in draw-power (notably Top).

Is it any better than TrinketFish/Angel? Honestly, without testing, I can't say. It certainly seems like it has the potential to be a viable alternative, however.

So... anybody interested enough in the general idea to tinker away at it with me?

paps
11-01-2007, 12:43 AM
If you need to Trinket Mage for Meekstone, and the earliest you can do it is turn 3 (playing the stone on turn 4), you're pretty much screwed. I mean, you can play control for a bit, using Gigadrowse and Mind Games to try to stay alive, but that's just weak and unreliable. You need to be doing things turn 1-2 besides "staying alive".

Anyway, Sheltering Ancient and Meekstone together is good, but it's not great. It doesn't get around Nimble Mongoose, and is easily hated out. You say this deck will have a favorable match-up against the formats creature oriented strategies. It won't. It's not fast enough and it's creatures suck too much. Sure, they won't die and can't be blocked a lot of the time. That doesn't stop them from being 1/1s mainly, and you're running only Jitte to pump them. Against the majority of decks, even with Meekstone, Sheltering Ancient will only hurt more than it will help. Just think about it. Do you really want to give that Tarmagoyf +4/+4, even if it won't untap? It can still beat you for a bunch, once. Are you willing to pay 8 life to incapacitate a creature?

I don't understand how this decks gameplan is a good one. Fish at least isn't running janky combos that are semi-useless. Anyways, what happens if you get stuck with a Sheltering Ancient in your hand, but no Trinket Mage or Meekstone?

If you want to destroy large beatsticks, this isn't the deck to do it with.

Granted, this is just at a glance. But I don't see this deck being viable.

Goaswerfraiejen
11-01-2007, 01:00 AM
I don't want to really respond without having done any testing at all, but I do want to correct one error:



It doesn't get around Nimble Mongoose, and is easily hated out.


Mongoose has a power of 3, meaning that it stays tapped under Meekstone. Sheltering Ancient can also hit it, since its cumulative upkeep doesn't target.

paps
11-01-2007, 01:02 AM
Still, what do you do between turn 2 and 4 when you have an Ancient in play, but are still don't have meekstone of Trinket Mage?

EDIT: Because one line posts suck: How do you deal with combo?

Ninj4
11-01-2007, 01:07 AM
this doesn't seem like a bad idea, but the quality of creatures seems lacking...

wouldn't this be better with creatures like dark confidant, Yixlid Jailer, Meddling Mage, Aven Mindcensor, etc etc etc?

biggest problem before with that was that it lost to big beats and goblins... one of which is solved by meekstone, and hte other sovled by board hate... just a thought.

Media314r8
11-01-2007, 08:20 AM
please, PLEASE take sheltering Ancient off the list. If you want a huge dude to block with and sometimes attack, play goyf, he comes down a turn earlier and is bigger without a drawback. Meekstone should probably be a one-of target for a meddling mage alongside such arts as chalice, top, (possibly with balance) EE (definatly) and pithing needle. It should be a 'nice to have,' and daze or another free counter should be included if you lan on resolving your threats. Ditch silhana for a better creature, possible more boas, as they block goyf and survive deed. If meekstone would make that mcuh of an impact on your opponent, he'll just counter it. (or ancient grudge it post boards) You need ways of dealing with combo, (EtW and Tendrils) and a better win condition than 'slap jitte on an evasion guy and go.'

Deck needs work. This will probably end up like the Uwb fish deck on N&D. Bleh.

Jaynel
11-01-2007, 10:11 AM
please, PLEASE take sheltering Ancient off the list. If you want a huge dude to block with and sometimes attack, play goyf, he comes down a turn earlier and is bigger without a drawback.

The drawback isn't actually a drawback; it's really nice synergy with Meekstone. Sheltering Ancient makes small guys big, and consequently not untap. You can keep dumping counters onto a tapped guy while swinging in with evasion dudes.

paps
11-01-2007, 11:23 AM
The drawback isn't actually a drawback; it's really nice synergy with Meekstone. Sheltering Ancient makes small guys big, and consequently not untap. You can keep dumping counters onto a tapped guy while swinging in with evasion dudes.

That is, unless your combo goes wrong, or they destroy your meekstone and you're staring down a bunch of 12/12 Goblin Piledrivers.

Media314r8
11-01-2007, 01:06 PM
That is, unless your combo goes wrong, or they destroy your meekstone and you're staring down a bunch of 12/12 Goblin Piledrivers.

I fin' LOL'd! My point exactly. YEs, in an ideal situation you get both combo pieces and slowly beat face with a 1/1 evasion critter while your opponents amass counters on their huge friggin guy. (In which case you still lose if thier guy has trample or they can kill the blockers and swing in with mr. inf/inf and you have no gigadrowse, ect (more cards that do nothing by themselves)) In real life, cards get countered/destroyed, and your 'combo' pieces become mediocre, or in the case of ancient, have a terrible drawback. If you want a deck that works off of two key card interactions, may I suggest visiting the time vault rings thread and you can discuss 'what if's all day long while you both lose to burn decks. You have failed to adress the issue of why Ancient is in your deck when meekstone is NOT in play.

Goaswerfraiejen
11-01-2007, 02:05 PM
I fin' LOL'd! My point exactly. YEs, in an ideal situation you get both combo pieces and slowly beat face with a 1/1 evasion critter while your opponents amass counters on their huge friggin guy. (In which case you still lose if thier guy has trample or they can kill the blockers and swing in with mr. inf/inf and you have no gigadrowse, ect (more cards that do nothing by themselves)) In real life, cards get countered/destroyed, and your 'combo' pieces become mediocre, or in the case of ancient, have a terrible drawback. If you want a deck that works off of two key card interactions, may I suggest visiting the time vault rings thread and you can discuss 'what if's all day long while you both lose to burn decks. You have failed to adress the issue of why Ancient is in your deck when meekstone is NOT in play.

I think that you need to get off your high horse, Media314r8. I find this post offensive, and it sounds like an attack on my intelligence. If I were making any claims about the deck being amazing and finely tuned, that would be one thing. As it is, I've merely thrown out a possible concept, acknowledged that it has some significant problems, and asked if it would be worth exploring as a concept--and, consequently, shoring up those weaknesses. You have some valid points in your first post, but seriously: calm down.

Now, to address those valid points:



please, PLEASE take sheltering Ancient off the list. If you want a huge dude to block with and sometimes attack, play goyf, he comes down a turn earlier and is bigger without a drawback.

Yes, Sheltering Ancient is pretty bad without Meekstone. On the other hand, Tarmogoyf is absolutely horrendous with Meekstone, and without much to put into the graveyard. You asked me to ask myself what SA would do without Meekstone; why not ask yourself what Tarmogoyf would do with it? Since the concept I'm trying to work with is a much more heavily "Meekstone-control" concept, Tarmogoyf is simply not an acceptable replacement for Sheltering Ancient.



Meekstone should probably be a one-of target for a meddling mage alongside such arts as chalice, top, (possibly with balance) EE (definatly) and pithing needle.

The mana structure won't support Chalice, and I don't think that the deck should even be trying to use Chalice as a primary strategy. Without mana acceleration and with a number of low-cc spells, Chalice will almost always be counter-productive.

One question that needs to be asked is whether or not a Top/Balance core is a good idea. Personally, I don't think so, for the simple reason that it requires a lot of building around it, and other decks are simply going to do it better than this one can. Trinket Mage is there to ensure that you can find Meekstones, not to do cool things.


It should be a 'nice to have,' and daze or another free counter should be included if you lan on resolving your threats.

I agree that "nice to have" makes for strong overall deck concepts. And yes, one of the problems that the list currently suffers from is an overdependence on too many factors. We have to be careful not to abandon the concept too much, however, because if we do then it's clear that other decks will do similar things much better already.

As for Daze, as things stand, the tempo loss is going to be too severe to risk unless you're playing against combo. As the deck stands, it NEEDS to cast Meekstone/Ancient/Tappers/Some kind of win condition ASAP, and losing a land drop in the early game is just going to slow it down even more.



Ditch silhana for a better creature, possible more boas, as they block goyf and survive deed.

After a few testing matches, I agree. It's too inconsequential, and I wind up losing against single weenies.


If meekstone would make that mcuh of an impact on your opponent, he'll just counter it. (or ancient grudge it post boards)

Same goes for Tarmogoyf. Why bother running it?

No, seriously, that's why you pack your own control suite. One point that I'll concede, however, is that the dependence on Meekstone is currently so high that not having one in play is basically a game loss. That's definitely something to fix, but the solution isn't to nix Meekstone. Rather, it's to solidify the rest of the deck.


You need ways of dealing with combo, (EtW and Tendrils) and a better win condition than 'slap jitte on an evasion guy and go.'

The main problem with combo at the moment is not surviving the combo (after all, there's a pretty high combo-survival package if you count the sideboard). The problem is delivering a killing blow afterwards. Fixing that is a part of solidifying the deck.


Deck needs work. This will probably end up like the Uwb fish deck on N&D. Bleh.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious. I DID say that it was a ridiculous idea, however, and that it looked like a decent concept but needed a great deal of work beyond the rough outline that I came up with. It might well be that ultimately, it's not a concept worth pursuing because other decks do it better. Could be; it's still worth checking out, though.



Some of the things I noted in my limited testing that will need to be redressed:

1.) Silhana sucks without any way to pump her beyond Jitte. She's actually lost me games that I had under control. For the moment, I've replaced her with Boas, but really I think that solidifying the deck is going to mean placing a more solid card in this slot, rather than simply upping the Boas.

2.) There's a real hankering for a draw engine. Once Looter il-Kor goes online, things tend to go well. Without it, however, the deck suffers. One obvious possibility is Top. Alternately, it could be a typical cantrip suite or, if we delve into black, Bob and company.

3.) There's something to be said about tapping effects, but the problem is that they tend to last only one turn. There might be room to expand on this theme with Winter Orb (and acceleration), or something similar.

4.) Black looks like the most interesting splash because it has a stronger overall control suite than green, and because a number of its creatures can fly under Meekstone's radar. Green doesn't really add much beyond Sheltering Ancient (which is probably ultimately just a cool thing). The most essential part of the concept is Meekstone, not Sheltering Ancient, and black could easily facilitate Meekstone interactions/protection/etc. Perhaps the key to strengthening the deck overall in to go UB. I'll come up with some sort of template and see how it goes.

Happy Gilmore
11-01-2007, 02:29 PM
Doran + meekstone is the hotness :eek: :tongue: