Noble Fish
Table of Contents
- I. The Name and Legacy Origin
- II. The Deck
- III. The Plan
- IV. The Cards
- V. The Match Ups
- VI. The Sideboarding
- VII. The Results
I. The Name
The name "Noble Fish" originates from vintage. Where Mike Noble came up with a Bant colored "Fish" deck that uses small disruptive creatures to beatdown and disrupt the opponents gameplan. This deck featured no actual merfolk, but it did feature 4 Noble Hierarchs.
In one of my streams I decided that I wanted to build a Legacy deck to utilize Edric, Spymaster of Trest because the ability of drawing cards when you deal damage is inherently powerful and it shouldn't be too hard to abuse such an ability. More on how I build the deck in the section IV. The Cards. It was pointed out in that stream that the deck was similar to the vintage deck "Noble Fish" and also similar to the Vintage deck "BUG Fish" that took 1st in the Bazaar of Moxen 8 and that actually played 1 copy of Edric, Spymaster of Trest. So it seemed obvious to name the deck "Noble Fish".
II. The Deck
The original decklist as played to a record of 14-2 through 4 daily events on Magic Online
Lands (20):
4x Flooded Strand
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Wasteland
3x Tundra
2x Tropical Island
1x Savannah
1x Forest
1x Island
Creatures (21):
4x Judge's Familiar
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Edric, Spymaster of Trest
2x Looter il-Kor
2x True-Name Nemesis
2x Mother of Runes
Non-creature spells (19):
4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Batterskull
Sideboard:
3x Envelop
2x Spell Pierce
2x Enlightened Tutor
2x Rest in Peace
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Manriki-Gusari
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Arcane Laboratory
III. The Plan
You're looking to play a tempo game. Like a Delver deck you're looking to pressure your opponent enough early that they are forced to play into your soft counterspells, unlike a Delver deck you're not looking to pressure your opponents life total early, instead you're applying pressure on the card advantage axis. You're threatening to bury your opponent in card advantage, be it with raw card advantage engines Edric, Spymaster of Trest and/or Sword of Fire and Ice or a different kind of card advantage, with Umezawa's Jitte counters. So you get ahead early with acceleration in the form of Noble Hierarch or simply just play cheaper threats than the opponent. Then find your spot to land Edric, Spymaster of Trest and take over the game from there. The extra cards drawn from Edric, Spymaster of Trest allows you to overpower and bury your opponent with cheap threats, soft counterspells and removal.
IV. The Cards
4 Judge's Familiar
So this guy has won 2x Pro tours already, albeit in a slightly less powerful format this guy is to be taken seriously. What this card offers is that it provides cheap disruption, setting your opponent back a turn on instants and sorceries is already decent. It flies, helping us get through with Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice which can be hard against certain decks like Elves and Death and Taxes. The evasion also means that once Edric, Spymaster of Trest is on the board this guy is going to be drawing an extra card a turn.
All these arguments might seem weak when you look at the actual card: 1/1 flyer for 1 that sacs to counter an insant or sorcery unless its controller pays 1. So lets look at an important example of where this guy can potentially win the game.
Your turn 1 play is Judge's Familiar, opponent goes land + Delver. It's your turn 2 now you can resolve any spell through 1 Daze or 1 Force of Will. Resolving a game winning Stoneforge Mystic is a common way to take advantage of this.
Judge's Familiar means that if your opponent ever taps out all his free counterspells are essentially dead and you're free to do whatever you want, and not tapping out is usually not something a common legacy deck can afford to if it's to keep track with your board development.
Against dredge Judge's Familiar is basically a hard counter to whatever they're casting. This is most obviously true against manaless dredge, but with 4x Wastelands and LED dredge playing Gemstone Mine, it'll be a hard counter vs. them most of the time as well. When you consider that Judge's Familiar sacrifices as part of the cost, it means that you always have an out to Bridge from Below and you get to remove all the Bridge from Below in response to a Dread Return before the Zombie Tokens would enter play, resulting in 0 Zombies for the dredge player.
These are some examples of Judge's Familiar being truly great, and this is examples where only the sacrifice ability was relevant! Add to it that it carries Jitte and draws cards with Edric and we have a very solid role player for the deck.
The only downsides with Judge's Familiar is the obvious anti-synergy between Daze and Judge's Familiar. If your opponent is already playing around the Familiar, the daze you have in hand is not going to be good. That being said, most of the time this will make your opponent play their creatures/enchantments/artifacts into daze instead. But the anti-synergy is still there and it is significant.
Looter il-Kor
This might seem like an odd include but it is there for many of the same reasons as the Judge's Familiar, mainly that it carries equipment so well. In many match ups Looter il-Kor will be a 2 mana True-Name Nemesis that also draws you a card when it connects. In legacy the quality of your cards depends so much on the match up that a continuous loot effect will provide a great advantage in very short time. This is also just extremely powerful with Edric. Your opponent has to deal with this threat or the virtual card advantage is going to overwhelm them.
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
This is the build around card of this deck. If Edric, Spymaster of Trest ever sticks, you're going to be so far ahead that there's no coming back for your opponent. The early plays of Mother of Runes, Judge's Familiar, Looter il-Kor means that you'll be drawing cards immediately after this guy hits the board. Is Edric, Spymaster of Trest brickwalled by a Tarmogoyf? Well your opponent can't attack with that tarmogoyf or we'll start drawing extra cards and our deck has no shortage of ways to beat a Tarmogoyf.
Why is this card not in the deck?
Tarmogoyf
Tarmogoyf is a vanilla beater. It's an efficient beater, but it has no real synergy with what the rest of the deck is trying to do. When you also consider that we want to be a good Rest in Peace deck, there's just no way that Tarmogoyf makes the cut.
Knight of the Reliquary
For much of the same reason I don't want Tarmogoyf, I don't want Knight of the Reliquary either.
Ponder
Ponder is great at finding the card you need in a specific situation, it increases the consistency of your deck (except if you start cutting lands for it) and it helps flipping Delvers. But playing cantrips is a huge tempo loss for a deck looking to curve out as much as this deck is. We also have no delvers to flip so we don't have to play a large amount of instants/sorceries to allow the Delver to flip. Ponder is still a card that can be included but it will decrease the power level of the deck.
Green Sun's Zenith
I don't have the necessary green creatures to actually be running Green Sun's Zenith. I have a green mana dork, and Green Sun's Zenith would let me find my card draw engine, but it doesn't find a creature to actually get through with. Coupled with the fact that it's also an expensive spell to run in a 20 land deck, it's rarely going to be very good. The deck is trying to be extremely mana efficient, and you want to keep extra lands in hand for brainstorm or to discard to Looter il-Kor.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Jace, the Mind Sculptor is hard to deal with for removal heavy decks, it's a finisher and it's a card draw engine. You can definitely sideboard Jace, the Mind Sculptor against decks that's going to overload on -1/-1 effects, but with 20 lands it is not easy to cast.
Benevolent Bodyguard
Even though it might not seem like it, because I'm playing cards like Judge's Familiar, I want my cards to be individually powerful. Benevolent Bodyguard is in most cases better than Mother of Runes with Edric, Spymaster of Trest but Mother of Runes is better alone, as it can hold back a batterskull, force through Jitte, and protect a turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic.
Why not cut Noble Hierarch for Deathrite Shaman and Edric for Dark Confidant?
Noble Hierarch is more consistent at what it does than Deathrite Shaman, it also makes it so that we win the Germ vs. Germ fight, the exalted is in general very relevant. We also want to be a very effective Rest in Peace deck, and Noble Hierarch supports that plan better. Dark Confidant is very suspect in a deck with five 5 CMC cards. Dark Confidant also does not draw cards the turn it comes into play making it not-at-all suitable as a surprise blowout play. The clock this deck typically represents is also very slow, so Dark Confidant would cause unreasonable large amounts of life loss in this deck.
V. The Match Ups
VS. Delver Decks
Your role varies depending on you're on the play or draw, and depending on which kind of hand you have. Usually you come out of the gate approximately equally fast, but you're looking to play the control role. Remove their creatures and then establish a threat with an equipment like a Germ with a Batterskull, or a True-Name Nemesis with an Umezawa's Jitte. Generally speaking RUG Delver is more aggressive than you, BUG Delver is about the same, and Patriot Delver is slower than you. Against Patriot you want to overload their removal and make them deal with each threat on their own, usually by having equipment in play. If you can trade some damage for some cards with a Judge's familiar and an Edric, Spymaster of Trest holding back/racing a Tarmogoyf don't be afraid to do that. The card advantage will help you find a Rest in Peace or a Swords to Plowshares for the Tarmogoyf. Or even chump blockers to help keep the card advantage flowing while you maintain a healthy life total.
VS. Elves
You play the removal game until you can get Umezawa's Jitte online. This match up resembles the Death and Taxes vs. Elves match up except that you now have cheap counterspells which puts you over the top and turn you into an actual favourite in this match up. Mother of Runes helps keep your Edric, Spymaster of Trest alive post board and also lets you hit through Qurion Ranger + Dryad Arbor and Wirewood Symbiote + any elf so don't board it out! Board out Daze instead and replace it with Grafdigger's Cage and Ethersworn Canonist.
vs. Death & Taxes
... Coming Soon
UWR Miracles
... Coming Soon
Omnitell
Play out your creatures and hope for the best. Emphasize drawing as many cards as possible in the shortest amount of time, to dig for your Daze/Force of Wills and Judge's Familiar.
Grixis Control
... Coming Soon
VI. The Sideboarding
Sideboards will change over time depending on the meta game, and even the main deck will change. So it will not be possible to give exact sideboard guides, but here's some general guidelines.
Try not to sideboard out too many creatures. The deck is synergy based, which means that there's individually weak cards that are fantastic together. Versus fair decks such as delver and D&T you want to sideboard out your Counterspells if you have enough sideboard cards to bring in. Start by cutting Daze.
Versus most combo decks Mother of runes seem lackluster, but it protects your haymakers (such as Ethersworn Canonist) from Abrupt Decay and Pyroclasm. So most often you want to sideboard out your most expensive creatures, such as True-Name Nemesis and a few copies of Edric, Spymaster of Trest. And the obvious cards such as Swords to Plowshares and Umezawa's Jitte goes to the sideboard as well, vs. the combo decks.
VII. The Results
Being a relatively new deck in legacy and played only by a few people. This deck does not have many results as of yet.
9th at SCG New Jersey
Last edited by Bahra; 06-24-2015 at 03:29 PM.
The deck looks really interesting to me. I'd love to see it work. However the first thing I thought when I looked at it was Why not 4 Dark confidants and 4 Deathrites instead of the Edrics and Hierarch's?
I imagine Exalted is important to help the small creatures. But is it so important? Those are the only green cards you're running if I'm not mistaken. Why not black instead? Is Edric that powerful here?
I'm kind of in love with this deck right now, what are you thinking of adding vs. dismissed already?
I have a soft spot for any fish deck because they were the first decks I played in Vintage, but I also can't help but think this deck gets better as soon as you cut Noble Hierarch and Edric, Spymaster of Trest for Deathrite Shaman and Dark Confident because you only need 1 Tropical Island to support Deathrite Shaman's second ability vs any graveyard deck and Dark Confident is a draw engine without any conditions.
I think you kind of need Tarmogoyf to justify green, but it looks fun regardless.
Have you tried Invisible Stalker at all?
Before suggesting Bob and Deathrite again, can we all just remember that Hierach enables all of the 1/1s sans equipment and RiP out of the board? Edric isn't even a clear downgrade from Bob in this slot.
What seems off to me is the lack of Ponder. This kind of deck depends on card selection pretty heavily even if it doesn't have Delvers to flip. Mom looks like the weakest slot off the bat with the 3rd equipment (to the board) and 20th land as good candidates for the set.
Wanted to add that cutting land #20 removes Karakas from consideration, which is playable here, but the added selection can help keep that stuff off the table.
Last edited by IsThisACatInAHat?; 04-06-2014 at 12:03 PM. Reason: additional content
Great success!
-2 mom
-2 looter
-1 sofi (to board)
+4 ponder
+1 tnn
I think this will make it better, honestly..
I'd cut Batterskull to the board before I cut SoFaI. SoFaI works MUCH better than BSkull in your main gameplan. And if you drop mom you have less ways to protect SFM to get it active for BSkull.
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Question about the sideboard:
What's the purpose of the split 2x Enlightened Tutor + 1x Relic of Progenitus? Relic for cantripping when you already have RiP in play?
In match ups like Jund, Shardless BUG and BUG Delver you don't want Enlightened Tutor but you do want Rest in Peace/Relic of Progenitus. And from my experience with playing Death and Taxes, I've found 3 Rest in Peace to be too many. You really want to draw 1 but you hate drawing 2 (unless they deal with the first one immediately). So Relic of Progenitus is like a 3rd Rest in Peace that replaces itself if it's unnecessary, it's also better against Abrupt Decay.
I will admit that the sideboard definitely needs work, I'm just not sure what to add yet. I have a ton of combo hate so far, but I'm also a little weak to combo game 1. That being said I think I want some things to bring in against Deathblade, UWR delver and the likes, I'm just not sure exactly what I want.
I think if you are saying that Giant Growth is better than Stoneforge Mystic, you really need to play more Legacy.
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
by no means is giant growth better than stoneforge mystic, i was simply implying that alot of times stoneforge feels out of place when you are trying go * tempo* mode.
I played D&T for 2 years straight, i know pretty well what hes capable of doing lol :D.
on an oter note, i played a local tournament this friday for a playset of tropical island. Finished 3rd and lost in the semis vs dark bant :(. im pretty sold on this deck and theres still alot of room for testing since the deck is realy young. Might try to go back to edric if i try and put more creatures in the deck.
Took this deck to a 44-man tournament and split the finals against 4-color loam (we were both tired and my ride had been waiting for the whole top-8)
Round 1
GW Vial Maverick
Game 1:
He starts off with a Weathered Wayfarer and I start off with a mother of runes, he never gets to activate the wayfarer, I get a Jitte out and finish off with a batterskull.
Game 2:
Turn 1 Hierarch into turn 2 Stoneforge for Jitte sealed the deal rather early
1-0 matches, 2-0 games
Round 2:
Enchantress
Game 1:
Enchantress player didn't manage to do much relevant in this game and I landed Edric and some equipment
Game 2:
He got an early Elephant Grass that stalled into double Energy Field and a Rest in Peace. I HAD managed to get him down to 6 but I couldn't get rid of both Energy Fields =(. Mirri's Guile did heavy work for him this game
Game 3:
He again stalled with Elephant Grass and I just built up a huge board for when he had to sac it (he was stuck on 2-3 mana) and swung for a whole bunch.
2-0 matches, 4-1 games
Round 3
BG Goblins
Game 1:
I had a Familiar with exalted that beat on him for a few turns, he got a Piledriver online but at that point I'd gotten some equipment and a TNN so it was curtains for game 1
Game 2:
I got double hierarch and a TNN early, he Pyrokinesis'd my hierarchs and used Warren's Wierding to get rid of my TNN, I wasn't able to recover.
Game 3:
Managed to counter his relevant stuff and get through with my own, I got a Jitte going and managed to keep his threat density low. One HUGE mistake I did was when I just assumed his Tarfire was uncounterable due to Cavern of Souls, causing me to lose a stoneforge AND a Mother of Runes due to a sharpshooter. Edric drew me like 10 cards this game.
3-0 in matches, 6-2 in games
Round 4
UWR Miracles
Game 1:
Landed an early Stoneforge, Familiar and an Edric, he couldn't find the Terminus.
Game 2:
Got some light beatdown with a familiar, he then landed a one-off Izzet Staticaster he was trying out. Cue complete breakdown of deck.
Game 3:
I landed some early threats but held back a hierarch and a stoneforge for the inevitable terminus. It came and I followed up with an exalted Batterskull that he couldn't remove.
4-0 in matches, 8-3 in games
At this point I double-drew into top-8 as 1st seed but played round 5 for fun
Round 5
UG Food-Chain
Game 1:
He combos early and had FoWs for my FoWs
Game 2:
Here and in Game 3 we both make dumb mistakes. I get a turn 1 needle for Food-Chain and none of us realize it doesn't work, I blame the fact that we had already agreed to draw the match so we played sloppy. Without the combo I can get the Edric draws going and he has problems doing anything relevant against my draws and equipment.
Game 3:
Slow and grindy, the needle comes down again and he even exiles the food-chains to thin the deck and draw a card. Looter il-Kor does heavy lifting.
Top-8:
Quarter-Finals
Elves
I've always had problems with elves, not just with this deck but in general. I just think it's hard to combat.
Game 1:
he turn 2 glimpses and just pukes up a gazillion elves into a turn 3 NO. I die horribly.
Game 2:
REALLY close game, I get a batterskull online, he Viridian Shamans it, I bounce, play it, he bounces and play shaman. Rinse and Repeat for 3-4 turns until I get 7 mana and play and re-equip to Looter il-Kor for a big hit as I had 2 Hierarchs out. He the wrecks it on his turn and I finish him with two more hits from the looter.
Game 3:
He tries to get an early NO which I stop, then we stall out for a bit. I land a playset of Hierarchs and a Looter equipped with a Sword of Fire & Ice and a Batterskull, that's when it ends.
off to semis
Semi-Finals
BUG Delver
Game 1:
He never manages to get a good board presence and I beat him with a Judge's Familiar backed up by a Mother of Runes and a Noble Hierarch. We both spent our early game wastelanding and dazing eachother's stuff so I was just able to salvage my board more easily thanks to smoother draws I guess.
Game 2:
He lands a Tarmogoyf that ends up irrelevant as I had a Jitte and stuff, he tries to put a Tombstalker in the way of my familiar but I had the plow, it was just the kind of game where I had all the answers and he didnt.
When the second semi finishes I asked the winner if he wanted to split, which - he also being tired - he wanted. He was on 4-color loam and sounded a bit regretful of drawing when he found out what deck I played as he thought it was a good matchup. I don't doubt him as I don't know what I'd do against Punishing Fire. We ended up splitting 2 Modern fetch and a playset of FoWs, me getting the Scalding Tarn and the two FoWs in worse condition.
It was the first time I played the deck and I was very pleased with its performance, the Looters and the TNNs felt very vital as ways to definitely get damage through for Edric and equipments. I think I might try to put the mothers in the SB as they weren't very useful. I also had some bad times where I had an Edric and a bunch of Hierarchs against an empty board and couldn't capitalize on it.
I had two Council's Judgement in the board and was quite happy with that, otherwise the list was pretty stock.
What was the name of this tournament and is there a full top 8? I'd like to add it to my data collection for June. Congrats on the finish, are you just using the stock list?
Thanks for the report! I was the guy that you split with, good times with two new/fringe decks in the finals.
We are still waiting for the organizers to put the top8 on some site.
But until then, the tournament was listed as 'Storlegacy' (which means Big Legacy in swedish) and was played at the venue Dragon's Lair in Stockholm, Sweden.
The top8 looked like this, I think:
Quarter-finals:
4 Color Loam vs. UW Stoneblade
Noble Fish vs. Elves
Shardless BUG vs. Food Chain
BUG Delver vs. Zoo
Semi-finals:
4 Color Loam vs. Shardless BUG
Noble Fish vs. BUG Delver
Final:
Noble Fish vs. 4 Color Loam (split)
Hey Tenbin, sweet performance.
From what you stated - does your list look a little something like this:
4 Noble
4 SFM
3 Looter
3 TNN
3 J's familiar
2 Qasali Pridemage
(19)
1 Skull
1 Jitte
1 Sofi
(3)
4 STP
4 BS
3 Ponder
4 FoW
3 Daze
(18)
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
3 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Plains
4 Wasteland
(19)
SB:
4 Flusterstorm
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Rest in Peace
2 Council's Judgement
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Engineered Explosives
What's different? What would you change? Why?
I like the maindeck Pridemages rather than Mother of Runes, but I'd take 3 Edric before 3 Ponder any day. I like the SB as well =).
@Kobe, I agree with your assessment about it dying to TNN hate, in the tournament I didn't face any hate, but I did face the one-off Izzet Staticaster that the miracle player was trying out. it REALLY ripped the deck apart.
I feel that it's worth trying Deathrite. The 2 toughness helps, being able to attack as a swarm with Edric would also help. I realize Deathrite would cause the deck to rely a bit on the graveyard but it might help more than it detracts; will test.
Probe is better with an action spell behind it (Mage, Stifle, Therapy). I think unless we main Mages or Stifles (not a terrible idea, IMO) probe won't be worth the inclusion otherwise
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
Yeah, I meant adding Probe alongside the Mages in particular, sorry if I wasn't clear. Stifle/Pierce or even Revokers seem good too.
I've been switching between this and Shardless Thopters as of late and was wondering if anyone has experimented with Thopter Sword in the board? I'm testing out 3 Thopter Foundry and 1 SotM along with the one E tutor I already run. This would be for grindy match ups where we might not have the velocity to win.
I had some good results in the past playing Noble Fish and I was thinking of trying this list. Anybody have any thoughts or feedback?
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Looter Il-Kor
1 Snapcaster Mage
3 Spell Queller
2 Edric
4 StP
4 FoW
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Spell Pierce
3 Daze
1 Smuggler’s Copter
1 Tamiyo
4 Wasteland
2 Tundra
3 Trop
1 Savannah
1 Island
9 Fetch
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