Nancy Boy
02-08-2014, 07:33 AM
Dear Community,
first of all, excuse my bad English. I am a German player and reader of this website.
Since UR Fish had been my Team's pet-deck in the beginnings of the "new" Legacy, we tried to make it playable around the years 2006-2007.
At that time, we failed. UR Landstill was the better choice back then since Goblin-aggro and fat creatures were too dominant.
In today's meta, the only competitive UR Aggro-Control seems to be UR Delver. Especially in the more "controllish" version with Stifle and TNN, it has tendencies towards boardcontrol. In the end, however, it is still a protective beatdown in my opinion.
I believe that in a meta, where most of the decks to play and decks to beat are either using few mana sources or depending on the combination of different cards, there is room for a strong and focused Boardcontrol-Deck that beats Combo and low creature count. The fundament of the Deck will be a modified version of the old UR "Fish" without fishes:
Note: some choices may seem QUITE odd, but I will explain them in detail if you are kind enough to scroll down ;)
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Spiketail Hatchling
3 Curiosity
3 Sigil of Sleep
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Stifle
4 Standstill
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Mountain
SB:
4 Submerge
4 REB
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Fire/Ice or Jace's Phantasm
1. What makes this Deck playable? Why should you try it?
- the fact that a Mancer, protected by 10 Counterspells (Sprite, Daze, FoW) wins games against small Critters alone
- the fact that it can tempo-down the opponent and randomly win by stifeling and wasting lands, using and abusing one of the core problems in MTG: Manascrew
(4 Daze, 3 Stifle, 3 Hatchling)
- the fact that our creatures, even though their bodies are weak, all have the potential to create either card- or tempoadvantage
(4 Grim Lavamancer, 4 Cloud of Faeries, 3 Hatchling, 4 Sprite)
- the fact that it has incredibly strong draw
(3 Curiosity, 4 Standstill)
- the fact that it can change very quickly from control to beatdown
(Imagine the following situation: the opponent has 13 life and you have 14. In play are a factory, 2 Volcanics, a Spellstutter Sprite and a Mancer. Opponent has Tarmogoyf and Shaman and 3 cards in hand. Your hand: Daze and Lightning bolt. It looks bad, doesn't it? But if you shoot EOT for 2 and draw another Bolt, you can shoot again and bolt him twice. Even if he can counter or get life, you still have a flying 1/1 and a 2/2 waiting)
- the fact that it can also handle fatsos
(Grim + Bolt or the really strong Sigil + any creature in the Deck, SB: Submerge and Jace's Phantasm)
- the fact that it has a good Esperblade matchup
- the fact that it has an awesome Combo-Matchup (10 counters, 3 Stifle, Disruption and Red/Blue Sideboard)
- the very flexible Sideboard (you can switch from creature-based to more controllish or, especially against monocolored Decks, to more aggro)
- the fact that it has a decent matchup against most Decks to Beat
2. Why Sigil of Sleep and Cloud of Faeries? Those are crap! Why Curiosity over Brainstorm? Why no Delver of Secrets? Why not at least Ninjas you casualplayer asshole?
- this is a boardcontrol Deck that doesn't need to kill quickly
- because Enchantments are good and repetitive if you play them well - which means only under protection or the turn you attack or the opponent is outtapped
- because Sigil beats not only Goyf, but also certain 20/20 flying Elementas when played on Mancer or 5/5 Demons, even when played after he attacked you for 5 with his only flying Blocker
- because we don't play enough instants and sorcerys and we need the utility of EVERY creature in the Deck
- because Cloud is good with nearly every other card in the Deck: Standstill, Sprite, Curiosity, Sigil, Factory
- because Ninjas suck - imagine you attack a Goofy-player with a Hatchling and ninjitsu-in the Mistblade Shinobi. He returns, then you recast Hatchling. His turn: recast Goofy. You just payed 3 Mana and attacked just to give him summoning sickness... Sigil can stall him much better
3. Have you really playtested this rogue pile?
Yes sir, and it worked well, at least in the MWS environment. So far, I went
16 wins, 4 losses, 1 draw due to Disconnection. Let's check the Matchups:
3 Lands.dec ( 2 wins, 1 loss because I blocked stupidly, 1 loss because he played an awesome version with Gamble)
50/50 - especially post-board you chances grow. The good thing is that you are able to slow him down extremely in the first 3-5 turns. By then, you should have made enough damage to be able to kill him before he can stabilize with recurring burn.
1 UR Delver (win)
65/35 you can ignore his burn, all you need to do is kill his creatures. Since Spellstutter gives you an awesome advantage (even alone), it can sometimes help to block Delver with two Faeries. You have to be smart enough to realize when you have to swith to beatdown. Factory has to be used very aggressively sometimes.
2 Mono Black (win)
65/35 Smallpox does seldomly really hurt you, as does the discard. You usually win as soon as you resolve Standstill. Therefore, aggressively counter his Discard.
2 Burn (1 win, 1 loss, the list I won against was suboptimal)
20/60 same shit as with every other Aggrocontrol except Spellstutter saves the day and it is easier to handle things like Goblin Guide and Vexing Devil
1 UW Control (win)
70/30 you are faster, this is where the tempo-element of the Deck is incredibly strong; Hatchling and Daze are the stars of those matchups
1 Esperblade (win)
60/40 because it is relatively easy to handle his Critters and post-board, you have good hate against his counters
1 Show and Tell Reanimator Mix (win)
65/35 because you are usually able to collect enough Counterspells very quickly and have excellent Sideboard-options supporting you
2 Reanimator (2 win) quite similar
2 The Rock (1 sadly the disconnect, 1 win)
55/45 you need a strong start here, in the best case a Standstill. The most important thing is to handle the fatties. Often you can disrupt him completely by shooting the Dryads and Manaproducers in addition to Wasteland and/or Stifle
1 Canadian Thresholt (win)
can't really remember this one
1 Staxx (win)
65/35 Explosive starts, lots of (Man)Lands, disruption against his Double-Lands and free counters make this a good matchup.
3 random piles, Zombie-Stuff, Elves etc. (3 win)
1 Team America (loss)
I drew extremely bad and boarded stupidly, so I can't really make a statement here. Looks like 40/60 to me due to his high amount of Protection for extremely huge creatures.
What do you guys think? I would love to playtest via MWS with anyone.
first of all, excuse my bad English. I am a German player and reader of this website.
Since UR Fish had been my Team's pet-deck in the beginnings of the "new" Legacy, we tried to make it playable around the years 2006-2007.
At that time, we failed. UR Landstill was the better choice back then since Goblin-aggro and fat creatures were too dominant.
In today's meta, the only competitive UR Aggro-Control seems to be UR Delver. Especially in the more "controllish" version with Stifle and TNN, it has tendencies towards boardcontrol. In the end, however, it is still a protective beatdown in my opinion.
I believe that in a meta, where most of the decks to play and decks to beat are either using few mana sources or depending on the combination of different cards, there is room for a strong and focused Boardcontrol-Deck that beats Combo and low creature count. The fundament of the Deck will be a modified version of the old UR "Fish" without fishes:
Note: some choices may seem QUITE odd, but I will explain them in detail if you are kind enough to scroll down ;)
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Spiketail Hatchling
3 Curiosity
3 Sigil of Sleep
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Stifle
4 Standstill
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Mountain
SB:
4 Submerge
4 REB
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Fire/Ice or Jace's Phantasm
1. What makes this Deck playable? Why should you try it?
- the fact that a Mancer, protected by 10 Counterspells (Sprite, Daze, FoW) wins games against small Critters alone
- the fact that it can tempo-down the opponent and randomly win by stifeling and wasting lands, using and abusing one of the core problems in MTG: Manascrew
(4 Daze, 3 Stifle, 3 Hatchling)
- the fact that our creatures, even though their bodies are weak, all have the potential to create either card- or tempoadvantage
(4 Grim Lavamancer, 4 Cloud of Faeries, 3 Hatchling, 4 Sprite)
- the fact that it has incredibly strong draw
(3 Curiosity, 4 Standstill)
- the fact that it can change very quickly from control to beatdown
(Imagine the following situation: the opponent has 13 life and you have 14. In play are a factory, 2 Volcanics, a Spellstutter Sprite and a Mancer. Opponent has Tarmogoyf and Shaman and 3 cards in hand. Your hand: Daze and Lightning bolt. It looks bad, doesn't it? But if you shoot EOT for 2 and draw another Bolt, you can shoot again and bolt him twice. Even if he can counter or get life, you still have a flying 1/1 and a 2/2 waiting)
- the fact that it can also handle fatsos
(Grim + Bolt or the really strong Sigil + any creature in the Deck, SB: Submerge and Jace's Phantasm)
- the fact that it has a good Esperblade matchup
- the fact that it has an awesome Combo-Matchup (10 counters, 3 Stifle, Disruption and Red/Blue Sideboard)
- the very flexible Sideboard (you can switch from creature-based to more controllish or, especially against monocolored Decks, to more aggro)
- the fact that it has a decent matchup against most Decks to Beat
2. Why Sigil of Sleep and Cloud of Faeries? Those are crap! Why Curiosity over Brainstorm? Why no Delver of Secrets? Why not at least Ninjas you casualplayer asshole?
- this is a boardcontrol Deck that doesn't need to kill quickly
- because Enchantments are good and repetitive if you play them well - which means only under protection or the turn you attack or the opponent is outtapped
- because Sigil beats not only Goyf, but also certain 20/20 flying Elementas when played on Mancer or 5/5 Demons, even when played after he attacked you for 5 with his only flying Blocker
- because we don't play enough instants and sorcerys and we need the utility of EVERY creature in the Deck
- because Cloud is good with nearly every other card in the Deck: Standstill, Sprite, Curiosity, Sigil, Factory
- because Ninjas suck - imagine you attack a Goofy-player with a Hatchling and ninjitsu-in the Mistblade Shinobi. He returns, then you recast Hatchling. His turn: recast Goofy. You just payed 3 Mana and attacked just to give him summoning sickness... Sigil can stall him much better
3. Have you really playtested this rogue pile?
Yes sir, and it worked well, at least in the MWS environment. So far, I went
16 wins, 4 losses, 1 draw due to Disconnection. Let's check the Matchups:
3 Lands.dec ( 2 wins, 1 loss because I blocked stupidly, 1 loss because he played an awesome version with Gamble)
50/50 - especially post-board you chances grow. The good thing is that you are able to slow him down extremely in the first 3-5 turns. By then, you should have made enough damage to be able to kill him before he can stabilize with recurring burn.
1 UR Delver (win)
65/35 you can ignore his burn, all you need to do is kill his creatures. Since Spellstutter gives you an awesome advantage (even alone), it can sometimes help to block Delver with two Faeries. You have to be smart enough to realize when you have to swith to beatdown. Factory has to be used very aggressively sometimes.
2 Mono Black (win)
65/35 Smallpox does seldomly really hurt you, as does the discard. You usually win as soon as you resolve Standstill. Therefore, aggressively counter his Discard.
2 Burn (1 win, 1 loss, the list I won against was suboptimal)
20/60 same shit as with every other Aggrocontrol except Spellstutter saves the day and it is easier to handle things like Goblin Guide and Vexing Devil
1 UW Control (win)
70/30 you are faster, this is where the tempo-element of the Deck is incredibly strong; Hatchling and Daze are the stars of those matchups
1 Esperblade (win)
60/40 because it is relatively easy to handle his Critters and post-board, you have good hate against his counters
1 Show and Tell Reanimator Mix (win)
65/35 because you are usually able to collect enough Counterspells very quickly and have excellent Sideboard-options supporting you
2 Reanimator (2 win) quite similar
2 The Rock (1 sadly the disconnect, 1 win)
55/45 you need a strong start here, in the best case a Standstill. The most important thing is to handle the fatties. Often you can disrupt him completely by shooting the Dryads and Manaproducers in addition to Wasteland and/or Stifle
1 Canadian Thresholt (win)
can't really remember this one
1 Staxx (win)
65/35 Explosive starts, lots of (Man)Lands, disruption against his Double-Lands and free counters make this a good matchup.
3 random piles, Zombie-Stuff, Elves etc. (3 win)
1 Team America (loss)
I drew extremely bad and boarded stupidly, so I can't really make a statement here. Looks like 40/60 to me due to his high amount of Protection for extremely huge creatures.
What do you guys think? I would love to playtest via MWS with anyone.