Mono Blue Fish

[take_eacy]

A month ago, this deck was mentioned in SCG's Legacy's Allure column. Doug mentioned that Niklas Kläve took it to a 2nd place finish in a 35-person event.

What do you guys think of it?

16 Island
4 Mishra's Factory

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
4 Snap

3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Mistblade Shinobi
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Gilded Drake

3 Serum Visions

2 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard:
4 Echoing Truth
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Pithing Needle
3 Wasteland

I'd like to build a slightly cheaper version of it with what I have- 2 Vedalken Shackles instead of the Gilded Drakes, Counterspells instead of FOW, something to replace the Factories, and something to replace Umezawa's Jitte. Any suggestions? non merfolk please!

And keep in mind- I can spend a little money on cards, but barely any. <5$

[Zlatzman]

I'd try Faerie Conclave in the Factory-slot if you have them. If not they're a bit over your budget already. The "comes into play tapped" might be a dealbreaker though, and the same goes for the 1U activation cost, but I seem to recall them working o.k. in my old mono blue fish.

I haven't played this deck, so I'm not sure how much it relies on bouncing Gilded Drake. Snap, and to a certain degree Mistblade Shenobi, seem to lose some of their attractiveness without Drake, so it's possible they're cuttable. On the other hand they're your only removal apart from Shackles, so if they're cut you need some form of replacement.

My thoughts anyway.

[FoulQ]

I used to have a budget mono-blue fish deck, not necessarily for legacy but just for casual playing.

I found faerie conclave to be seriously lacking. Mainly because it takes up two blue mana to use, which can be a serious pain. Overall you will have to tap three lands just to attack, and playing only 20 lands and plenty of instants (well, some, don't forget shinobi) makes it seem ike a bad choice to me. The 1U activation cost is just killer for me in a deck with not a million lands. And of course coming into play tapped is bad but everyone is aware of that. Honestly I would rather just play 20 islands and back to basics to randomly win games.

If you are planning on playing this in legacy, I'm not sure how playable it is without: Drakes, FOW, Factories, Jitte. Those are all extremely important cards. The whole deck falls apart and you might as well build a list from scratch: for example, cloud of faeries...not as good when all it can do is attack for one, and you lose some good FOW fodder. A 1/1 with flying for free with no other cards in the deck to really make it strong (other than ninjustu) does not appeal to me.

[take_eacy]

sorry- yeah its meant to be casual.
i never really understood the snapping drake tech.
does it return back to our hand or the opponents hand when we bounce it?

[Zlatzman]

It returns to your hand, so you basically turn your bounce into creature-steal if you have a Gilded Drake in hand.