Iranon
10-16-2007, 08:33 PM
Ever since I saw the Lorwyn faeries spoiled, I had thought there must be a way to use them in a tribal-based fish deck... unfortunately, it never seemed to work out too well. When I finally stopped thinking Faerie and started thinking Wizard, matters looked a lot more promising.
The Deck
//Lands (18)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Riptide Laboratory
//Artifacts (6)
4 Aether Vial
2 Sensei's Divining Top
//Enchantments (2)
2 Counterbalance
//Wizards (24)
4 Sage of Epityr
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Dark Confidant
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Patron Wizard
4 Sower of Temptation
//Spells (10)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
//Sideboard (15)
4 Stifle
3 Perish
3 Planar Void
2 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
General Ruminations
The current version toned down the tribal theme a little, playing only 5 godawful cards that happen to work well with an all-wizard creature base. The Sprites are in the best old-school Fish tradition, the draw suite is naturally the same as in Baseruption, and the light mana denial theme reminds of U/G Thresh. Why play this instead of other variants then?
- A very solid mana base, even with the low basic count (you usually fetch them first)
- Synergistic mana denial + soft counters, the combination keeps either from being dead in the late game
- Ridiculous amounts of card advantage.
- High creature count and Sowers being a 3-for-1 (ok, this is being generous) lets you apply a lot of pressure in the midgame
- No graveyard dependence
On the other hand, there are a few inherent weaknesses:
- A fairly steep mana curve for Dark Confidants
- A diminished potential for going aggro in the first few turns
- Being susceptible to Engineered Plagues
- No low-end creature control
Card-by-card analysis:
Coloured Lands: Enough duals to avoid colour screw, enough fetches for reliable shuffle effects, enough basics to avoid being locked out of the game by wasteland recursion.
Wasteland: They can randomly cripple decks with a fragile mana base/careless pilots and also make our soft counters more effective.
Riptide Laboratory: Saves any of our creatures, allows us to get multiple uses out of Spellstutter Sprites and randomly bounces opposing wizards. I'd really like more despite its ultra-jank status, but colour consistency becomes an issue.
Aether Vial: Circumvents opposing counters, allows us to churn out wizzies in the midgame at a disconcerting rate, allows surprise counters with Spellstutter sprite/Patron Wizard and gets around the latter's obscene colour requirements.
Sensei's Divining Top: Another replacement for traditional cantrips. Works wonders with Counterbalance, but we rarely want to see 2 and never more.
Counterbalance: A very useful tool for Stack and World Domination. Since we often have better things to do with our early turns and we run alternate means of ensuring that our opponent will never cast a meaningful spell again, 2 are enough.
Sage of Epityr: finds what we need, blocks Lackeys (not quite as important as it used to be) and is either a chump blocker or fuels Patron Wizard in the midgame. Hardly a strong card, but does many small things that make the deck run more smoothly.
Spellstutter Sprite: Counters the stuff that counts in a format with extremely low mana curves, another warm body, occasionally a recursive counterspell from hell.
Dark Confidant: Keeps them coming. Hurts quite a bit in a deck that usually doesn't start as the aggressor, but it's worth it.
Shadowmage Infiltrator: Secondary draw and another evasive goon to nibble at the opponent's life total.
Patron Wizard: He makes battles over the stack totally unfair: With him in the picture, the deck has the capacity of using each source independently to deny an opponent spells: Mana (Countertop), hand cards (Free counters) and creatures. Since he doesn't do anything specials in multiples and has atrocious colour demands, I really feel as if I should lower the count (probably for another Daze) but so far he has been excellent, much to my surprise.
Sower of Temptation: Gets us from setup/defense into arsekicking mode with one spell. A Control Magic with a free evasive beater thrown in? Sign me up. In a tarmogoyf-dominated format this will often result in a stalemate on the ground while our fearsome/flying weenies nibble the opponent to death.
Brainstorm: Still the best cantrip if you run fetch lands, and the only decent one that has full synergy with Counterbalance. I'll take 4.
Force of Will: Hard counters are good. Free Counters are better. Free hard counters are the best of all unless the drawbacks are crippling.
Daze: The emergency backup; the deck has better things to do with its mana than pay for counterspells, and having a Daze in hand allows us to play spells with more far-reaching effects while retaining the option to counter gamebreaking spells of our opponent.
Stifle handles storm spells and further punishes fetch-happy manabases. Perish is quite useful against most aggro/control decks these days. Threads of Disloyalty provides another way to kill the opponent with their own creatures. Planar Void is cheap and effective graveyard hate, with all the draw and dig in the deck I prefer it over Leyline; the lone Crypt gets rid of what's already there. Engineered Explosives kills tokens, chalices, artifact mana and random things I didn't think of.
What's not there:
Other cantrips: No synergy with Counterbalance (heck, even Sage can randomly be vialed out in response to the trigger) and 10 library manipulation cards seemed enough.
Azami, Lady of Scrolls or other high-end wizards: The deck doesn't get to 5 mana reliably, and for cards costing more than 3 I want an immediate effect on the gamestate.
Straightforward beaters: Either I have no need of them (opponent has no creatures, so my weenie horde will get the job done eventually) or Sower of Temptation will do a better job (he or she does).
Discard: I'd like to keep the splash light for consistency reasons. The deck is a little slower than others of its kind, so the inherent tempo disadvantage can matter.
Closing Words
I'm not sure how much potential the concept has, but my experiences so far were promising. By not depending on graveyards and big green beaters, the deck can sideboard in cards that ruin the day for people who do. There's a solid mix of free and sustained countermagic to have a solid defense throughout the game.
There are a few things the decks can't handle adequately at the moment (hordes of untargetable beaters a la Countersliver come to mind), but I think this has some game against most of the popular decks.
The Deck
//Lands (18)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Riptide Laboratory
//Artifacts (6)
4 Aether Vial
2 Sensei's Divining Top
//Enchantments (2)
2 Counterbalance
//Wizards (24)
4 Sage of Epityr
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Dark Confidant
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
4 Patron Wizard
4 Sower of Temptation
//Spells (10)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Daze
//Sideboard (15)
4 Stifle
3 Perish
3 Planar Void
2 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
General Ruminations
The current version toned down the tribal theme a little, playing only 5 godawful cards that happen to work well with an all-wizard creature base. The Sprites are in the best old-school Fish tradition, the draw suite is naturally the same as in Baseruption, and the light mana denial theme reminds of U/G Thresh. Why play this instead of other variants then?
- A very solid mana base, even with the low basic count (you usually fetch them first)
- Synergistic mana denial + soft counters, the combination keeps either from being dead in the late game
- Ridiculous amounts of card advantage.
- High creature count and Sowers being a 3-for-1 (ok, this is being generous) lets you apply a lot of pressure in the midgame
- No graveyard dependence
On the other hand, there are a few inherent weaknesses:
- A fairly steep mana curve for Dark Confidants
- A diminished potential for going aggro in the first few turns
- Being susceptible to Engineered Plagues
- No low-end creature control
Card-by-card analysis:
Coloured Lands: Enough duals to avoid colour screw, enough fetches for reliable shuffle effects, enough basics to avoid being locked out of the game by wasteland recursion.
Wasteland: They can randomly cripple decks with a fragile mana base/careless pilots and also make our soft counters more effective.
Riptide Laboratory: Saves any of our creatures, allows us to get multiple uses out of Spellstutter Sprites and randomly bounces opposing wizards. I'd really like more despite its ultra-jank status, but colour consistency becomes an issue.
Aether Vial: Circumvents opposing counters, allows us to churn out wizzies in the midgame at a disconcerting rate, allows surprise counters with Spellstutter sprite/Patron Wizard and gets around the latter's obscene colour requirements.
Sensei's Divining Top: Another replacement for traditional cantrips. Works wonders with Counterbalance, but we rarely want to see 2 and never more.
Counterbalance: A very useful tool for Stack and World Domination. Since we often have better things to do with our early turns and we run alternate means of ensuring that our opponent will never cast a meaningful spell again, 2 are enough.
Sage of Epityr: finds what we need, blocks Lackeys (not quite as important as it used to be) and is either a chump blocker or fuels Patron Wizard in the midgame. Hardly a strong card, but does many small things that make the deck run more smoothly.
Spellstutter Sprite: Counters the stuff that counts in a format with extremely low mana curves, another warm body, occasionally a recursive counterspell from hell.
Dark Confidant: Keeps them coming. Hurts quite a bit in a deck that usually doesn't start as the aggressor, but it's worth it.
Shadowmage Infiltrator: Secondary draw and another evasive goon to nibble at the opponent's life total.
Patron Wizard: He makes battles over the stack totally unfair: With him in the picture, the deck has the capacity of using each source independently to deny an opponent spells: Mana (Countertop), hand cards (Free counters) and creatures. Since he doesn't do anything specials in multiples and has atrocious colour demands, I really feel as if I should lower the count (probably for another Daze) but so far he has been excellent, much to my surprise.
Sower of Temptation: Gets us from setup/defense into arsekicking mode with one spell. A Control Magic with a free evasive beater thrown in? Sign me up. In a tarmogoyf-dominated format this will often result in a stalemate on the ground while our fearsome/flying weenies nibble the opponent to death.
Brainstorm: Still the best cantrip if you run fetch lands, and the only decent one that has full synergy with Counterbalance. I'll take 4.
Force of Will: Hard counters are good. Free Counters are better. Free hard counters are the best of all unless the drawbacks are crippling.
Daze: The emergency backup; the deck has better things to do with its mana than pay for counterspells, and having a Daze in hand allows us to play spells with more far-reaching effects while retaining the option to counter gamebreaking spells of our opponent.
Stifle handles storm spells and further punishes fetch-happy manabases. Perish is quite useful against most aggro/control decks these days. Threads of Disloyalty provides another way to kill the opponent with their own creatures. Planar Void is cheap and effective graveyard hate, with all the draw and dig in the deck I prefer it over Leyline; the lone Crypt gets rid of what's already there. Engineered Explosives kills tokens, chalices, artifact mana and random things I didn't think of.
What's not there:
Other cantrips: No synergy with Counterbalance (heck, even Sage can randomly be vialed out in response to the trigger) and 10 library manipulation cards seemed enough.
Azami, Lady of Scrolls or other high-end wizards: The deck doesn't get to 5 mana reliably, and for cards costing more than 3 I want an immediate effect on the gamestate.
Straightforward beaters: Either I have no need of them (opponent has no creatures, so my weenie horde will get the job done eventually) or Sower of Temptation will do a better job (he or she does).
Discard: I'd like to keep the splash light for consistency reasons. The deck is a little slower than others of its kind, so the inherent tempo disadvantage can matter.
Closing Words
I'm not sure how much potential the concept has, but my experiences so far were promising. By not depending on graveyards and big green beaters, the deck can sideboard in cards that ruin the day for people who do. There's a solid mix of free and sustained countermagic to have a solid defense throughout the game.
There are a few things the decks can't handle adequately at the moment (hordes of untargetable beaters a la Countersliver come to mind), but I think this has some game against most of the popular decks.