[Deck] Nogoyf.dec (UW)

[pi4meterftw]

Hey all.

So Forbiddian and I were playing our "Tournament" format one day (Legacy Round Robin we each brought 3 decks.) We didn't play all 9 matches because one of the "rogue" decks I had brought blew all 3 of his choices out of the water, and we were playing best out of 9. It was a UW fish list, running wayfarers, ninjas, countermagic, draw, etc. It was pretty bad, back then, but with some edits, we arrived at a list that has stood hundreds, if not thousands of games of testing. We're college students and sometimes when I have an hour in between classes or need a study break, he and I just hop on MWS and test this. Before I proceed, here is the list:

1 island
2 plains
3 windswept heath
4 flooded strand
4 tundra
4 wasteland

4 weathered wayfarer
4 meddling mage
3 jotun grunt
4 serra avenger
3 epochrasite

4 brainstorm
4 swords to plowshares
3 ancestral vision
4 Force of will (Often boarded out versus aggro since there are better removal spells that do not waste card advantage.)
3 umezawa's jitte
2 daze
4 aether vial

sideboard:
1 jotun grunt
2 blue elemental blast
2 hydroblast
4 thorn of amethyst
2 aura of silence
2 mind harness
2 oblivion ring

Before I break down what the cards do in the context of the deck, the overwhelming strength of this deck is it's consistency. Notice the deck runs 1 and 2 casting cost, which makes it so that it rarely ever gets mana screwed. Being 2 colored makes avoidance of color screw very easy. Also, brainstorms aether vials, and weathered wayfarer act as fixers, and brainstorm can even fix the offhand mana flood.

Another point in general is that this deck is a bunch of timewalks plus a bunch of ticking clocks. Ancestral vision and epochrasite are both very good suspend spells. Umezawa's jitte takes time to build up. Serra avenger is a 2 drop, but it needs to wait until turn 4. Weathered wayfarer only activates once per turn, so the more turns it's in play, the closer the game is to over. That brings me to the card choices:

Wayfarer is an insane 1 drop. A strength of this deck is that it always gets 1 drops, and all the 1 drops (Ancestral visions, weathered wayfarer, aether vial, and sometimes swords) are insane starts. Wayfarer synergizes with daze quite well, as well as saclands. (Sac, retain priority, activate wayfarer.) and wasteland (same deal). But wastelands are good in another respect. Before they were added, wayfarer was a relatively harmless deck thinner and brainstorm powerer. But now, a deck that plays its second land before we do gets ravaged for both their lands because we EOT fetch a wasteland, our turn fetch a wasteland. Wasteland is a useful target because while wayfarer could grab 2-4 lands if not immediately removed, we only need 2, and our opening hand normally already has 1-2 land, plus maybe a vial. So we want a target that can actually be useful, and most decks require more than 1-2 land to function.

I won't cover the self-explanatory card choices, but epochrasite might have caught a few eyes. First let me say that when I noticed the synergy between it and aether vial (you vial it in as a 4/4) I was quite alarmed by the sheer power it seemed to promise. Well, it wasn't quite that good because it was a two card combo, but it was pretty close. Epochrasite in multiples is good also because they help to ensure that each other come into play. Epochrasite is often times a wall. (This deck often plays as the control deck.) It's easily the weakest card in the deck. We've been looking at options such as knight of meadowgrain, knight of the white orchid, but epochrasite just seems to be the best. If we could run a white tarmogoyf, epochrasite would be the first creature to go.

Lastly, Forbiddian runs a build that differs from mine by -1 FOW +1 daze. I think this weakens the TES matchup, but he thinks that it's worth it for the additional synergy with wayfarer and utility of daze.

In our sideboard, we have chosen 4 BEB effects (with the usual 2/2 split) todeal with goblins and red TES, and thorn of amethyst has been deemed better than ethersworn cannonist.

What follows is our testing results with approximate win percentages and the suggested sideboard plans:
threshold (red): 75%
-4 FOW
-1 daze
+1 grunt
+2 oblivion ring
+2 mind harness
This deck is strictly weaker than the white version against us because swords>lightning bolt, mystic enforcer is useful, and the white version also runs better other removal such as oblivion ring, and it sometimes sports the counterbalance lock. (By the way, counterbalance and chalice of the void look like formidable threats, but in our testing, it's rarely significant due to vial and countermagic.) Against the red build, a meddling mage naming lightning bolt usually means your creatures are here to stay, whereas against white, not only can you not name swords (because you play them) but they have other removal anyway. We win this matchup off of superior creatures (our creatures are better than theirs except goyf, which grunt trumps, and swords as well.) Also, jitte increases this board presence superiority. The card advantage we can reap off of wayfarer and ancestral visions is pretty great.
We have tested this matchup on quite a few occasions, but not as much as against white threshold where we have only about a 60% matchup:
same sideboard plan but -1 more daze, -1 epochrasite +2 aura of silence if they are running the counterbalance lock or threads/oring, and if not, just 1 aura of silence and don't remove the epochrasite.

Against TES, we basically board out everything irrelevant for everything relevant in our sideboard. This matchup is roughly 50%. Meddling mage and FOW maindeck, as well as daze are good, but you don't always outdraw their orim's chants.

Ichorid is approximately 40%. We only played 15 games here and won 6 of them, but we figured that was enough since there's good reason we should be slaughtered by ichorid considering that they make a lot of our cards insignificant. This is the matchup that we write off. The sideboarding plan is the rather self-evident +1 grunt -1 anything useless. Ichorid we could easily pick up by running more hate, like crypts and relic of the progenitus. But we choose to have strong other matches and just to lose ichorid. The 40% figure might be slightly inflated because I felt like I got a little lucky in my portion of the testing with this deck.

We slaughtered Faerie stompy because weathered wayfarer stops them cold, and approximately 40% of the games you already open with weathered wayfarer. The rest of the 60% we still win most of because we play a (roughly speaking) similar strategy as they but we have white and wasteland. Here we board out the force of wills for oblivion ring and aura (They run chalice and equipment, as well as other trinket mage targets.) We won about 75% of these games, and the testing was rather extensive. (I'd say at least 50 games.)

We beat goyf sligh (75%) and any other kind of R/X slighish kind of deck. The reason is, again, that our creatures are superior and mind harness from the sideboard is quite a temposwing also. We board out FOW, 2 epochrasite (or perhaps 2 dazes in some situations) for mind harness and all 4 BEB effects.

Goblins was about 60%. We have some troubles game 1, but game 2 when we board out our useless countermagic for 4 BEB, 2 mind harness, as well as weathered wayfarerx4 for 2 oblivion ring 2 aura of silence (You'll find that Goblins wins if and only if it gets an active vial against this deck.) You'll see that our game gets much better.

Team America: 80% (10-0 matches, which was rather unbelievable, but then we played some other games a random collection of sideboarded and not, and that was more believable.) It's hard for Team America to beat wayfarer. We win if we get wayfarer to stick, but we also win about 60-70% of the games where we don't because we run more creatures and Team America often starts the game at 10 life.

Aggro loam we beat because we run grunts, meddling mage, swords, and wayfarers. Wayfarers are often at roughly parity with their loam engine, but then while they twiddle their thumbs running their loam engine, our Ancestral visions, epochrasites, grunts, and jittes are ticking.

Again, the strength of this deck is that it comes out the gates right away with consistency, but it also has inevitability against basically everything. It's pretty shocking that an aggro control deck has longevity, but in fact, ours does because of wayfarers, ancestral visions, and jittes. Obviously, serra avenger jitte is quite a wrecker.

Lastly I mention that when I say games, we test sideboarded games and preboard games roughly equally.

[Fons]

what about a black splash for confident?

[Media314r8]

I fooled around with this on MWS, beating an eva green and thresh deck, both 2-0. The list I tested was:

// Lands
1 [10E] Island (1)
2 [OD] Plains (3)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [R] Tundra
3 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
4 [PS] Meddling Mage
4 [TSP] Serra Avenger
3 [FUT] Epochrasite
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt

// Spells
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
4 [TSP] Ancestral Vision
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [NE] Daze
4 [DS] AEther Vial
2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [R] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [IA] Hydroblast
SB: 2 [10E] Aura of Silence
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 [DK] Maze of Ith
SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus

Visions was MVP, and I cannot imagine this deck running less than 4, as you allways want this turn 1, and it loses power as the turns press on, eventually just being force-fodder. Thus, I cannot see the reasoning behind only running 3. Wayfarer was as insane as I'd imagined, fetching two wastes cut cut eva green off their splash. (though I miss-clicked once and after an upkeep fetch-> wayfarer waste -> resolve ancestral, accidentally clicked a tundra rather than the tutored waste) He also fetched maze against a GUw thresh deck to stop their beats until I could find swords/jitte to handle them. I also think daze should be at LEAST a three-of here, as the tempo loss is irrelevant as we play aether vial and a ton of good one drops. (and buying us time for Ancestral to give us supreme CA is never bad) It also saved my one colored tundra by dazing a sinkhole (though he waited until turn three to play it) by returning my island! Jitte does not need to be a 3-of, as we run 4 BS and 4 AV, and our role is control. Grunt was unimpressive, and I don't think he should ever be a three of. He was big, but the relics from the SB shrink goyf just fine without him, and he usually only beats for 4-8. Epoc was amazing, even without vial, as he gives us slow, but gradual CA if the opponent wastes removal on him, and moreover, he gives us inevitability. (much like jitte, but slower and more so) I think mother may warrant a spot in the deck, but I wouldn't play her as a 2-of in grunt's place, but she does everything we want a creature to do here: stalls into the mid-late game, turns on jitte, and protects our other guys. (like MM from removal) Serra was unreal as always, but even with her an epoc, I'm unsure if vial is necessary in this deck, as we play such a controlling role, and with mana denial, we can afford to lose tempo to early forces since we dominate the mid-late game with AV and waste fetching via wayfarer.

[The_Red_Panda]

list

16@ 1 mana
18@ 2 mana

How do you deal with a resolved Counterbalance, and doesn't EE@2 kill most if not all your resolved critters? Even with counter magic and vial, as you said, I find it difficult to believe that resolved CB isn't a game loss for you. Same goes for chalice.

[juventus]

16@ 1 mana
18@ 2 mana

How do you deal with a resolved Counterbalance, and doesn't EE@2 kill most if not all your resolved critters? Even with counter magic and vial, as you said, I find it difficult to believe that resolved CB isn't a game loss for you. Same goes for chalice.

I don't have any experience with the deck, but it seems like turn one aether vial negates top/counterbalance, and the deck also has 4 meddling mage and 7 counters to deal with the combo. So yea, chalice or CB/Top could be issues if resolved and there are no answers, but there are many answers in the deck to this, and many decks that don't play either chalice or counterbalance, so I don't think it's a huge problem.

[Phantom]

Indeed, plus the blue count is really low for Force. I agree that Grunt is iffy here. A deck running Jitte doesn't want creatures that kill themselves. I'd look into Stifle, Trinket Mage (plus EE), and/or maybe bounce (like Remand). I do like the simplicity of the decks focus, but there are some heavily played cards that are going to be huge problems.

[raharu]

Indeed, plus the blue count is really low for Force. I agree that Grunt is iffy here. A deck running Jitte doesn't want creatures that kill themselves. I'd look into Stifle, Trinket Mage (plus EE), and/or maybe bounce (like Remand). I do like the simplicity of the decks focus, but there are some heavily played cards that are going to be huge problems.

Hoofprints of the Stag?

[Forbiddian]

Indeed, plus the blue count is really low for Force. I agree that Grunt is iffy here. A deck running Jitte doesn't want creatures that kill themselves. I'd look into Stifle, Trinket Mage (plus EE), and/or maybe bounce (like Remand). I do like the simplicity of the decks focus, but there are some heavily played cards that are going to be huge problems.

@Grunt
Grunt usually doesn't kill itself until at least 3 turns in. When it does, it's often worth it just to get rid of Thresh for the opponent. Sometimes drawing two Grunts sucks a bit, but Grunt is definitely a strong card.

What are the most played/scariest creatures in the format? Tarmogoyf, Dreadnought, Tombstalker Zombie Tokens, Mystic Enforcer, Terravore, Nimble Mongoose, Bob, Piledriver/Ringleader, random 2/2s.

Bob, Piledriver, and Dreadnought don't rely on the Graveyard. Every other card is wrecked by having Grunt out. Note that a fast Tombstalker hurts your Grunt, but it's quite easy to resolve Grunt in time to lock Tombstalker in your opponent's hand.

Even against decks without any creature support at all and no reliance on the graveyard, Grunt goes in for 8-12 damage early-midgame and 12-16 late game. Also, there is nothing in the card pool that could remotely fill the niche of "large beater with graveyard hate" that NoGoyf so desperately needs to fill.

@"there are some heavily played cards that are going to be huge problems"
I guess we don't see eye to eye. The deck runs many ways to get around the standard cards. I'll recap the main solutions:

Basically anything that costs 3 or more is an unreliable answer to this deck (because this deck can lock you down to just 1-2 mana potentially off of Wayfarer). Also, this deck runs a fair amount of countermagic and Mages and Ancestral Vision-driven Card Advantage, so reliance on a single bomb going 2:1 will certainly not get the job done against this deck, especially if Epochrasite just pops back up.

[Forbiddian]

Visions was MVP, and I cannot imagine this deck running less than 4, as you allways want this turn 1, and it loses power as the turns press on, eventually just being force-fodder. Thus, I cannot see the reasoning behind only running 3. Wayfarer was as insane as I'd imagined, fetching two wastes cut cut eva green off their splash. (though I miss-clicked once and after an upkeep fetch-> wayfarer waste -> resolve ancestral, accidentally clicked a tundra rather than the tutored waste) He also fetched maze against a GUw thresh deck to stop their beats until I could find swords/jitte to handle them. I also think daze should be at LEAST a three-of here, as the tempo loss is irrelevant as we play aether vial and a ton of good one drops. (and buying us time for Ancestral to give us supreme CA is never bad) It also saved my one colored tundra by dazing a sinkhole (though he waited until turn three to play it) by returning my island! Jitte does not need to be a 3-of, as we run 4 BS and 4 AV, and our role is control. Grunt was unimpressive, and I don't think he should ever be a three of. He was big, but the relics from the SB shrink goyf just fine without him, and he usually only beats for 4-8. Epoc was amazing, even without vial, as he gives us slow, but gradual CA if the opponent wastes removal on him, and moreover, he gives us inevitability. (much like jitte, but slower and more so) I think mother may warrant a spot in the deck, but I wouldn't play her as a 2-of in grunt's place, but she does everything we want a creature to do here: stalls into the mid-late game, turns on jitte, and protects our other guys. (like MM from removal) Serra was unreal as always, but even with her an epoc, I'm unsure if vial is necessary in this deck, as we play such a controlling role, and with mana denial, we can afford to lose tempo to early forces since we dominate the mid-late game with AV and waste fetching via wayfarer.

I noticed some very good points. I'll first off point out that you didn't test all the matchups that we did (obviously there's more to the meta than Eva Green and Thresh), so I'll try to indicate why we made some of our choices.

About Grunt: He doesn't have negative synergy with Relic if you don't run Relic. Why would you run Tormod's Crypt and why on Earth do you run Relic over Crypt? If you're worried about Goyf and think that he's dangerous, take another look at Jotun Grunt.

About Jitte: Jitte is the MVP against Goblins. Goblins is a tough matchup, it's very common, and Jitte is pretty much our only out against them (and it's so solid against them). There aren't very many decks where Jitte is not solid. Obviously you don't need three against like Eva Green (especially with the landkill so it's rare to get to the critical 4 land), but if you play the Goblins MU a bunch of times, you'll see it's pretty necessary.

Also as a similar effect, Jitte is absolutely dominant against random-ass aggro which seems to plague the world. There are a lot of Extended/Type 2 decks that are reasonably solid against creature strategies like ours but don't even have a prayer against Jitte. As evidenced by some recent thread somewhere, a lot of decks metagamed themselves to deal with the Tier 1 and Tier 2 opponents so much that their Tier 3 matchups really dipped down. They're still winning matchups, but you want to be able to site down against Boros Deck Wins from Type 2 with a lot of confidence. Keeping the Jitte count high is a big part of why this deck is so solid in all metagames.


Mother of Runes: I tested Mom a bit. I wasn't very impressed. First, she's ANOTHER 1-drop. We have like 15 and they're bumping into each other already (part of the reason I don't run 4 AV although I'd definitely like to, it's one of my problems with the current deck design). Secondly, pretty much each deck only runs one type of removal. Swords, Snuff Out, Bolt are popular. She stops one of those. She has the added benefit of stopping Tarmogoyfs, but only if you leave her untapped.

Here's a riddle: what else could stop Snuff Out or Swords or Bolt or Tarmogoyf only do it better by being bigger and able to attack? Here's a hint: He costs WU, he was a former invitational champion, he's a 2/2.... Of course being worse than Pikula isn't that bad, it's just this:

Turn 1 Mom.
Turn 2 Don't Swing with Mom. Already red flags should be going off that she sucks. Oh yeah, she can't both protect herself from Swords and attack. So she sits there like a 0/1 Pikula with greatly limited abilities. And she'll probably just stay untapped until she walks into Deed half the time anyway.

Everything that I would possible want to cut for her is much better than that. I really can't think of any matchups where I'd realy want her. Even Goblins runs too many copies of Warren Weirding for her to make too much impact.

[Media314r8]

Swords, Snuff Out, Bolt are popular. She stops one of those. She has the added benefit of stopping Tarmogoyfs, but only if you leave her untapped.

This doesn't really make any sense. Allt he listed cards are colored... and all are instants. Protection not only saves her from lethal damage from a source of the chosen color, but also means she cannot be the target of spells or abilities of the given color: thus snuff out or swords will still fizzle as she would be an illegal target upon resolution. If ghostflame or astroble was played, perhaps you could argue that she cannot give herself pro: arts or pro:colorless. She does generally well stalling the game, and this is what you want. You will eventually land a jitte or avenger, and she can protect whichever of those will win you the game. (while she can't block AND protect herself from swords, ect, my experience over the years with mom is that your opponent generally doesn't attack into her, for fear of jitte+equip next turn and they have no defender, ect. She also blocks lackey, making us have 12 T1 solutions to lackey, which is never bad. She also protects MM, which is my big point, not that she should be run in PLACE of him, but in addition to him. If you can land him and name wierding, you only have to worry about incinerators and your plummeting health total. If she is involved, you only have to worry about one of those situations. (either block and pro-red to knock of a goblin at a time, or hold for possible incinerators until you get jitte online)

I would also really want her in the wildfire+bombs MU. until you get jitte or force active, she can withstand wildfires all day, and if needed, protect MM if he's naming wildfire/ravages of war from the other.

She might not fit the deck, but she's hardly as poor as you claim.

[f|i[p]]

Looks like a promising deck.

I never liked jotun grunt as a 3 of. Because as 2 of, I clearly remember that I always had problems trying to keep him in play after 2-3 turns.

Have you ever tried mana maze as a sideboard for the combo match up? It can be used at times against control decks as well.


Not to be a dick, but why is this in the established decks forum?

[Forbiddian]

This doesn't really make any sense. Allt he listed cards are colored... and all are instants. Protection not only saves her from lethal damage from a source of the chosen color, but also means she cannot be the target of spells or abilities of the given color: thus snuff out or swords will still fizzle as she would be an illegal target upon resolution. If ghostflame or astroble was played, perhaps you could argue that she cannot give herself pro: arts or pro:colorless. She does generally well stalling the game, and this is what you want. You will eventually land a jitte or avenger, and she can protect whichever of those will win you the game. (while she can't block AND protect herself from swords, ect, my experience over the years with mom is that your opponent generally doesn't attack into her, for fear of jitte+equip next turn and they have no defender, ect. She also blocks lackey, making us have 12 T1 solutions to lackey, which is never bad. She also protects MM, which is my big point, not that she should be run in PLACE of him, but in addition to him. If you can land him and name wierding, you only have to worry about incinerators and your plummeting health total. If she is involved, you only have to worry about one of those situations. (either block and pro-red to knock of a goblin at a time, or hold for possible incinerators until you get jitte online)

I would also really want her in the wildfire+bombs MU. until you get jitte or force active, she can withstand wildfires all day, and if needed, protect MM if he's naming wildfire/ravages of war from the other.

She might not fit the deck, but she's hardly as poor as you claim.

I think you misinterpreted my statement.

Say your opponent runs Snuff Out. She prevents your opponent from casting Snuff Out. Say your opponent runs Swords. She prevents your opponent from casting Swords (well, he could cast two to get one kill, which seems silly). Since very few decks run two types of targeted removal (I can't think of any), she runs the same role as a Meddling Mage naming the spot removal. I believe I said, "She prevents one of those." I guess I should have said, "She prevents one of those at a time."

But anyway she can't do the things that we want Meddling Mage to do (like naming Ad Nauseum) other than stopping spot removal.

She also has problems with some of the usual anti-creature suspects. Wrath of God (less played now but still possible), Moat, Deed, Dreadnought/Factory. Our general answer to targeted removal is to shrug and lay down another dude (we run lots). Mother of Runes is similar only we have to preemptively lay down another dude, which encourages us to overextend. I shouldn't say "encourages" because that implies that we have the choice NOT to make a play error. With Mother of Runes beating in for 1 at a time, it's pretty hard to formulate any type of scary clock without overextending.

Feel free to test it, it's not like I hate on Mother of Runes, but one of this deck's strengths is that the beaters put your opponent on a clock and Mom doesn't fit that bill. I also wouldn't really have a suggestion on what to cut. Maybe cut a few Grunts or Epochrasites if you wanted to test it. I think that's what I cut when I tried it out.


Can a mod move this to N&D?

I think this can stay in Established for the time being. The deck appears sufficiently tested; the opening post is decent and features "a thorough writeup including card choices, strategy, and matchup descriptions". And we currently don't have a straight U/W Fish thread in Established anyway.

- Nihil Credo

(That said, I am incredibly sceptical of the matchup numbers that have been posted and wish someone double-checked them - trouncing everything but TES and Ichorid, seriously? I like UW Fish, but I'd be extremely surprised if that were the case.)



Cool, I thought with all that red I was gonna get banned for douchebaggery.

[pi4meterftw]

This is in the established decks forum because it shares some elements with fish, and there is a decks to beat forum for the tier 1 decks you seem to be thinking about. Forbiddian has basically made all the points I wanted to, and I agree with his comment about mother of runes. The reason it can only block or prevent a removal spell is because we presume most opponents will understand the mechanics of the game well enough to remove MOM in response to blocking if she's protecting herself, or whatever else. It is true, though, that she stops both for sorceries. In any case, she's still not very good because when we pay 1 mana for something, we like it to be a game breaker. Wayfarer is a game breaker. AV is a game breaker. Vial is a game breaker. Swords makes us go from losing to not losing anymore against goyf, bob, tombstalker, etc.

Playing Mom is not game over, though she is good. Also, it's because there are so many on-color runner-ups that it doesn't make sense to splash any more colors. One of this deck's main strengths is consistency, even in the face of disruption to colors/mana, like wasteland.

Also, we don't lose to deed because you just don't play 5 permanents. If you're desperate, you can force their hand with 2 bombs, but I usually just wait around with 1 since this deck benefits from waiting anyway. 1 4/4 isn't worth getting hit in the face by too many times. You don't play deed with a wayfarer in play and wait for me to drop more creatures. You kill the wayfarer. Every threat is quite sufficient on its own. Also, if we accidentally play a couple more permanents, the card advantage this deck offers is more than enough to overpower the deed anyway.

[BlindMage]

Looks like a promising deck.

I never liked jotun grunt as a 3 of. Because as 2 of, I clearly remember that I always had problems trying to keep him in play after 2-3 turns.

People seem to have an interesting attitude about Jotun Grunt. They acknowledge that he's a giant house against a lot of heavily played and powerful cards, but then say, "Well, he can be tough to keep in play, so that means we should play less of him." This seems backwards to me. If it's a powerful card, but hard to keep in play, I think you should play MORE of it. That way, when you start to feel the squeeze of his CU, you can just not pay it, and drop another one. I played an aggro-control deck at GenCon this year that played 4 grunts as its main 2-drop slot AND played 3 Grim Lavamancer. It was a deck with a lot of spells, but it was uncommon to run into major problems feeding those two. Seriously, I think people get scared off by the CU and don't play enough grunts when just biting it and playing 4 could really improve their Ichord/Dredge matchup, for example.

On a side note, Kitchen Finks is one of the best creatures ever printed, especially for aggro-control. He creates card and/or tempo advantage, and is aggressively costed.

[Ceridan]

I wanted to make a similar deck with Trinkets, finks and Momentary Blink. Momentary blink also makes you epochrasite a 4/4 if you don´t got any vial in play. There are other good creatures with nice comes into play-effects that could also benefit the deck.

The grunts are house against most legacy decks, people will try to counter it, use their removals etc. Running 3 should never be a problem.

[Arsenal]

I'm surprised at the matchup numbers, as historically, Fish (all variants, Hanni, etc) have had excellent control and combo matchups (due to it's disruptive nature), but have lacked in the aggro and aggro-control dept. I mean, when I see stuff like, "we beat Gofy Sligh, because our creatures are superior" just raises doubt in my mind; REALLY? You have creatures better than Goyf in your deck?

I don't see how/why this deck would be played over Hanni Fish, and even then, Hanni Fish is rarely played.

[Mirrislegend]

There are only two items in this deck that are actually innovative. Weathered Wayfarer and Ancestral Visions. We've seen everything else before.

That being said, these two additions has clearly leveraged this build of Fish up and over any past build. But why? They're both sources of card advantage, but that doesn't really explain it sufficiently as past Fish designs have had multiple sources of card advantage. So what is it about these two cards? Or is it one moreso than the other? I think if we can answer those questions, then we can just take these newly rediscovered cards and use them in generally better decks.

EDIT:
Oh, and wtf @ Wayfarer and no utility lands?

[Swing4Five]

I am definately on the bandwagon of moar Daze & Stifle to increase the deck to insane mana-disruption levels.

edit: and yeah, those matchup numbers seem fairly uncircumspect.

[pi4meterftw]

None of our creatures are singly better than goyf (Although Grunt trumps goyf, which has a slightly different meaning.) But even if you don't take into account that grunt trumps goyf, one sees that we still have other formibidable creature tricks to which goyf sligh does not have access to (Jitte, sizable flyers, epochrasite, swords.) Also, speaking numerically, decks with burn seem to be able to just finish you off. How often do you burn a player out still holding 10 damage of burn in your hand? As such, being able to counter spells and gain life using jitte, or force them to burn our creatures also helps. Swords is a big deal though.

I tend to believe that my testing versus forbiddian is credible because I know him irl and he is a rather logical person. However, I'd be interested in testing versus more opponents and in the mean time that may shed some light for me or you as far as what the "true" matchups are. Granted we may not be able to play more than 2-4 games in a given session and so that's hardly any information, at least it might reveal if what I'm saying the deck does is really what happens in practice. (It has been in my experience of course or else I wouldn't be posting here.)

Also, I am not claiming to blow everything out of the water. W thresh and Goblins at 60% is hardly a domination, and those are two of the most common decks in the format. Also, I may have forgotten some matchups. For instance, we have not even tested versus Wombat, which looks to be quite horrible for us. It may not be possible to dominate a significant majority of the decks people might play, but if not, we at least choose to lose to the less common decks. Also, be wary of the psychological factors. It seems like 60% as I said is being interpretted as a domination, whereas it seems almost like if I reported a 49% win percentage, one would be tempted to count it as a loss. The only matchups I go into "expecting" to win are those with about 75% or higher. (Like when I go into Goblins, I think of it as a tossup, albeit a slightly weighted tossup.)

[puppektion]

So... What does this deck do against say... Any chalice stompy (especially Dragon Stompy)? I ask this to most "new" decks I see because it's a valid threat in the current metagame.

Combination of Chalice and Moon effects... seems like a good way to make this deck bend over