[Deck] UWb Fish

[C-Aleric]

I don't know if I'd remove Stifle from your Combo matchup. The problem with getting rid of something that slaps storm in the face, is that you're just allowing them to say, cast tendrils, or cast brainfreeze, and you can't do anything about the storm. You're much better off removing something else from the main, than your stifles. If you mage against High tide, and you're holding a stifle, they'll have to have one sickening hand to go off against you. Assuming they can deal with mage, and or deal with stifle, or both. Then you deserve to lose that game.

But, stifle should really not be taken out of your list, for any reason in Legacy. It just is too versitile in a meta full of Fetchlands, and storm cards.

[Hanni]

But, stifle should really not be taken out of your list, for any reason in Legacy. It just is too versitile in a meta full of Fetchlands, and storm cards.

And other cards that sac and trigger like Pernicious Deed, Wasteland... and other cards that trigger like Ringleader and Gamekeeper... or your own Grunts... and it goes on and on...

[C-Aleric]

Agreed. I've come to the conclusing that Stifle is probably the most under-rated blue card that Legacy has to offer. People who run a full suite of blue counter magic, and don't run Stifle, are a little crazy. It's the counter to the things you can't counter. Situations where stifle is game breaking are countless. You play a tundra and pass the turn against goblins, and they're scared to hell, that you're going to stifle one of the two fetches they have in their hand. If you hit one, and have a hand that's not terrible, you'll more than likely win. Same against High tide. If you can stifle an early fetch after brainstorm for them, they almost have to force if they only have seen 2-3 lands so far. Then you gain some of the all important card advantage against the deck that is designed to have card advantage against you. And if gives you turn 3, out of remand range. The card is absolutely incredible. I can't say enough good things about it.

I like how as soon as I saw EBA, it was like, hmmm. This could be better. Then build it, then find out Hanni has a list almost identical, and now, finally have some people to discuss how to make it as best as it can be.

Props to UWb Fish.

[Volt]

Agreed. I've come to the conclusing that Stifle is probably the most under-rated blue card that Legacy has to offer. People who run a full suite of blue counter magic, and don't run Stifle, are a little crazy. It's the counter to the things you can't counter. Situations where stifle is game breaking are countless. You play a tundra and pass the turn against goblins, and they're scared to hell, that you're going to stifle one of the two fetches they have in their hand. If you hit one, and have a hand that's not terrible, you'll more than likely win. Same against High tide. If you can stifle an early fetch after brainstorm for them, they almost have to force if they only have seen 2-3 lands so far. Then you gain some of the all important card advantage against the deck that is designed to have card advantage against you. And if gives you turn 3, out of remand range. The card is absolutely incredible. I can't say enough good things about it.

Agreed that Stifle is underrated, although it seems to be seeing a bit of a resurgence. Btw, I think some of the credit for that resurgence goes to Mav & Pinder, for their work on CounterSliver. Although CounterSliver hasn't really caught on yet, I think some of the ideas have cross-pollinated. But I digress. It's hard for me to imagine a Legacy metagame where Stifle is not good. It would have to be a metagame devoid of Goblins, Solidarity, Iggy Pop, Affinity (stifling modular is awesome!), fetch lands, and wastelands.

I'm already on record as saying this, but I'll repeat it... Overall, Stifle is superior to Daze. If I had to choose between the two in a fish-style deck, I would pick Stifle.

[Hanni]

I don't know, I like Daze alot. It gives me early game tempo advantages, which is why I like it. It's isn't necessarily always useless late game if you can manipulate it with cantrip or pitch it to Force of Will. It's free countermagic and I really like to be able to keep my creatures in play. It has other uses too, like stopping turn 1 Chalices and such. It gives the deck a 7 Force of Will effect for the early game but they also synergize with eachother since Daze pitches to FoW. It's a blue-based countermagic suite picked off from Threshold... but that's because it's free countermagic. That's one of the reasons of love this format actually...

Stifle is amazing. It provides reach in other areas. Being able to stop cycling, sacrificing, and triggered effects that seem to be in almost every deck is nice... but I really love the synergy that it has naturally with the deck by also being useful on Jotun Grunt upkeeps. Stifle makes Jotun Grunt a monster... he can agress sooner in the game and he can also last longer. Jotun Grunt has been a very good creature for me. Against aggro/control, it helps me outsize or match their threats (Mongoose, Werebear) but can also make them littler at the same time. I think Wizard's printed Jotun Grunt on purpose... but anyway, Stifle makes him much better. I don't like running dead cards and Stifle is almost always useful. It, much like Daze, provides tempo boosts for this deck. It's kinda like a Dark Ritual feeling or a High Tide feeling in speed just less extreme and more controllish. But with aggro.

Alot of people seem to not run Duress but Duress just does so much for this deck. It's one of the reasons I decided to splash black, aside from Confidant maindeck and Engineered Plagues sideboard. I run 3 maindeck 1 sideboard. It's really only dead against Goblins and it's not even so bad with the manipulation to toss it back. It comes out games 2 and 3 for Plagues, which go very nicely into that spot. My amount of black cards and sources are still in proportion. It strengthens every other matchup though and has so much innate synergy within the deck that it makes it flow better. It's still a tempo booster, just a different kind of tempo.

Tempo sometimes seems like a difficult topic to discuss but I personally just think it's a "time" advantage, which can mean a number of things. Time simply means total resource development, including card advantage, whether that be actual cards in hand or cards in play. Cards in the graveyard too sometimes, for decks that need it. Cards like Ancient Tomb create time advantage. Free countermagic creates time advantage. But so does Pernicious Deeds. If you play 3 permanents only to have them blown to hell by Deeds, the Deeds opponent gains time advantage... a significant one. It's not a tempo boost in the terms of quickly developing... rather, it's a tempo boost of "un"-developing your opponent's set-up. Aggro/control, in this case Fish, likes to undevelop it's opponent's setup while it set's up to gain lots of card advantage and win based on tempo elements. Tempo and control. Of course I don't run Pernicious Deeds in this deck but I was using it as an analogy to explain something.

Duress furthers the control aspect too... and almost everything in this deck adds to an element of control. It's something I focused on when I designed the deck. It still furthers tempo though. Being 1cc is really nice, it allows me to cast a Duress and a cantrip turn 2 if I can't play a Dark Confidant on turn two. I don't really like to casts threats that I can't backup, so Duress makes a nice cushion so I don't lose my Confidant to a Bolt or something. Losing Dark Confidant is a bad tempo loss and I like to be able to keep my guys around. It also nicely sets up a turn 3 Meddling Mage turn 4 Serra Avenger. It's really nice when I play a turn 1 Mother of Runes that sucessfully resolves, but that doesn't always happen. It dumps in the yard easily to fill grunt up, stops bombs that may drastically effect the game like Jitte or Parallax Wave or something, savage Mage targets and alot more synergy.

Another thing I was touching with Duress is that with Meddling Mage it creates serious card disadvantage, which undevelops my opponent's setup. It puts them in a very tough spot early game and countermagic can sometimes answer there recovery cards... and then end the game. It's still built on the same premise as the cantrip, just reverse. Cantrip is trying to make my hand better so that I can play better threats and develop better. Duress makes my opponent play worse threats and develop disfunctionally from their gameplan. Same basic idea, just in opposite directions. I like the split, it gives me much more reach. Card Advantage/Quality is another large aspect to the deck. I like to out-resource my opponent's. The blend of 8 cantrip 4 Dark Confidant just seems like the perfect fit to be honest... you only really need so much cantrip. Too much cantrip means that you are playing less business spells. In fact, if you don't know how to play the deck correctly, you can over-cantrip and lose large amounts of tempo. Playing Fish can be very tricky. I really think that more than 8 is unecessary and much better that those extra cantrip sources should be Duresses... they make your opponent's set up worse. And at cost. 1cc quality advantage cards are nice. Duress is card quality differential.

The turn 1 black source seems to be a big reason why people don't like Duress. If that's the problem, you can always play Duress turn 2 with another 1cc drop... you get to cast 2 spells that turn. It's another tempo boost. If you fear Wasteland, don't make an Undeground Sea your first fetch. Grab an Island or a Plains, that's why their in there. If your only good play in hand is Duress, mulligan. You don't need to lead with the black source. You still need it, for Dark Confidant, so it's not bad to grab it sometime anyway. Turn 2 or turn 3, whenever. I fetch for a Scrubland when I got a blue source out and I want to cast an Avenger soon. Otherwise, it's not bad to just grab an Undeground Sea to retain the blue sources. Grabbing a Tundra isn't bad either if you don't need to black source... Fetchlands are very versatile, I love them. I love the tempo boost than turn 1 Stifle a fetch can give when you draw into that opening. It requires a good hand to not be useless tempo though... not every time boost is going to be useful. Stifling a Wasteland can be critical though, depleting their land resources at the expense of my hand resources is nice protection against Wasteland. It's a huge tempo boost.

Fetch wisely, plan your Stifle's out correctly, or mulligan aggressively into blue sources to be able to cantrip your way out of land screw.

I'm kinda buzzed and I'm just rabbling on so I'm just gonna end this post on that...

... so what do you guys think?
Duress or no Duress?

[Phantom]

I think I can actually speak reasonably well about the deck, even though I've never played it. The deck I'm working on over at the E.r.a. thread has morphed into a list much like this one that trades in black for red.

Anyway, here's my thoughts on the two cards in question:

1) Daze vs. Stifle - I'm thinking about actually running a split. I like both of the cards immensly, and I find the mental advantage of playing them about as large as the actual advantage. A lot of this debate depends on play style too. The only thing that I would say is not to replace either of these cards with non-blue cards.

2) Duress - Tough call here. I vote against it in a tight one. Duress is a great card, but it does have some shortcomings. It is pretty poor against the most played and best deck in the format, is a terrible card if you have bad board position, and is usually a terrible topdeck. Now, the reason I'm not nuts about it here, at least mainboard, is because of matchups. I think duress is incredible against combo, very good against ag-con, ok against control, and pretty bad against good aggro decks.

Now, what matchups are good for UWb fish, and what matchups are problematic? According to the opening post, combo and Thresh are two of the decks best matchups while aggro like Goblins, FS, AS, and Affinity are problematic to some degree for the deck (the opening post makes no mention of control decks, but I would imagine since decks like Truffle Shuffle crush Thresh, they might do similar here). So why would you run Duress mainboard here? Note that this last question was one of the resons I decided to drop black and go red. I wanted to beat aggro. No, to crush aggro, so i figured I would build a deck like this that already handles combo and ag-con well, and mainboard a few cards that simply wreck aggro (I went with 4 pyroclasms and never looked back). This actually brings me to my last point:

3) Meddling mage - Another card that is great in the matchups UWb is already going to win, and merely ok to bad in the tossups. I've been running a 2/2 split between main and side over at E.r.a. and I've been liking it a lot. I feel this type of deck runs enough dig to hit a 2 of fairly often before Solidarity goes off, and if it doesn't, you're still running Fows, Dazes, Stifles, and Duress'. Even if they get through round one, you board in the rest of the mages, mulligan aggresivly, and breeze to a victory. I mean, you have more combo hate at your fingertips than even White Thresh, do you need it all mainboard at the cost of improving your aggro matchup?

[Kirika]

I think Duress maindeck really depends on your metagame your playing in. If your facing alot of Goblins and aggro duress isn't very good maindeck cause you wiff alot and you do not want to fetch an early sea against aggro with wastelands. If your playing control and combo alot then duress is pretty good maindeck. I play against alot of aggro at my local shop so duress maindeck is bad for me.

[Hanni]

Duress is a great card against opposing aggro decks... just not Goblins. The only deck where Duress isn't very good against is Goblins. It makes FS and AS better, it makes B/r Sui and B/w Deadguy better, it makes G/R Beats and Survival better, it makes Control matchups better, and I can go on and on. If you think it sucks vs random aggro, then you should really playtest those matchups with Duress first. Drawing out the opponent's removal and equipment is pretty amazing... not as quick with tempo as FoW or Daze, but it's more accurate than Daze and it doesn't create card disadvantage like FoW.

As for the Stifle and Daze thing, I've been running a 3/3 split of them for a while. Actually, I run a split with Duress too, so it's 3/3/3.

See, the reason this deck has such a good Threshold and Combo matchup is because of cards like Meddling Mage. I want to make sure I win 90% of the time against 2/3 of the top tier (the 90% is just a random number thrown out so don't flame for that). Besides, my deck is built entirely around these things... removing cards like Meddling Mage starts to unwind the synergy. Mother of Runes makes Confidant and Mage solid aggro, somewhat comparable to Silver Knight. Duress makes Meddling Mage huge card advantage for me... not only because when I draw Meddling Mage it's like drawing 2 cards (cause he's utility on a stick), but because my opponen't now has dead cards.

[Phantom]

See, I always found Duress to merely be ok against fast aggro like the Stompys. It's pretty nice in your opening grip when you're on the play, but every turn after that it gets significantly worse until they get into top deck mode and it is downright useless.

See, the reason this deck has such a good Threshold and Combo matchup is because of cards like Meddling Mage. I want to make sure I win 90% of the time against 2/3 of the top tier (the 90% is just a random number thrown out so don't flame for that).

See, I think this is where the difference in styles comes in. I would much rather go 75% against all tier one than 90/10, 90/10, 50/50. And if I were going to choose one tier one deck to have my best matchup against, it would certainly be Goblins.

[Hanni]

Goblins isn't really that bad of a matchup after sideboarding, some people think it's an autoloss but it's not. Engineered Plague is an extremely powerful card and so is Umezawa's Jitte. With Needle and Stifle, it makes the matchup much easier. I'd rather run Duress maindeck and Plague sideboard.

Duress can often be very good mid-game but I can cantrip it away if it's dead. I don't think having only 1 deck where Duress is bad is enough to exclude it. But I guess that's just me.

[C-Aleric]

I run the 3/3/3 split Hanni is refering to as well.

I can't bring myself to drop Duress from the MD just for the sake of it's uncanny synergy with Meddling Mage.

And even if you're on the play against Goblins, Duress isn't the worst turn one play of all time. If you manage to snag a vial, or a bolt/kinesis, you're in good shape, and now you know what sort of crap you're going to have to deal with over the next 3 turns. On the draw in game one, it becomes slightly less useful. Though against goblins, you have to have one nutty draw to beat goblins. You have to have a beat stick fast, and you need to draw an answer to them every turn, or you basically just get toasted.

Duress aside from the matchup where it's bad, is just incredible in almost every other matchup. Against stupid decks like IGGy Pop, turn 1 duress can just win the game. Against solidarity, if you can resolve a mage, post duress, you're laughing. Since it seems important to make a deck that beats the tier decks at the moment, I'd say this deck is probably most likely to show up as the most dominant of the non tier decks at the moment. I've never done badly in a tournament with this deck.

[Tosh]

Just to throw this out there, I have been running a list similar to this (this is how it is currently) and I have done quite well in my meta (which, I admit, is a little scrubbish).

CREATURES
4x Meddling Mage
3x Dark Confidant
4x Jotun Grunt
3x Serra Avenger
2x Mother of Runes (Testing but its not looking good)

COUNTERS
4x Daze
4x Force of Will

CANTRIP
4x Brainstorm
4x Serum Visions

OTHER
3x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x AEther Vial (this has really grown on me, at first I wasn't a fan but after further testing it has done wonders for this deck)

LAND
3x Tundra
3x Underground Sea
1x Scrubland
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Plains
3x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand

SIDEBOARD
4x Engineered Plague
3x Leyline of the Void
2x Pithing Needle (would play more if I had them)
3x Disenchant
3x Chalice of the Void (maybe suboptimal... I'm testing it ATM - works well with my vials)

[C-Aleric]

Looks like a pretty solid list. It's pretty much standard looking.

I'm curious what your meta is though, because there are a few staples this deck seems to enjoy a lot which you've seemed to leave out of your build.

I'm not convinced on the idea of running 4 J-Grunts in this deck either. I can see how if your meta is massively graveyard dependant, that J-Grunt is a 4 of, or could be. And AEther Vial has been a large topic of discussion for this deck before, and it didn't really seem to add to the deck as much as it appeared to take away. The problem with AEther Vial is that it's not such a hott card to get late into the game. The thing is that it only speeds up avenger by one turn, and I can see how it would be useful for matchups like solidarity, where they may be forced to go off in response to an activation. Even then you need one in your opening hand, and you only run three, so it's a bit of a gamble.

I just find that the more buisness spells you jam into this deck, the better. Mother of Runes is ridiculously good in a lot of matchups. The fact that she can protect from spot removal, or block a massive creature with no real drawback is incredible. And has been vital in this deck many times from what I've experienced.

4 Dark Confidants seems like another thing this deck should always be running. Card advantage is a massive tool in MTG, and if it can be taken advantage of, your opponent will always be on their heels. Especially when they see blue mana sources hit the table. They know they have to be careful, or their going to walk into a game breaking counterspell, and that'll be the end of the game.

Also, I see that you've left out Stifle from your deck list. Me, personally, would never leave out stifle. I'd rather see it as a 4-of than not in the deck at all. If your meta plays goblins, survival, and pernicious deed related deck, fetchlands, powder keg, EE, etc... Stifle is your best friend. It also has great synergy with J-Grunt, as it can keep him in play, when your opponent is banking on him dying.

4 Dazes and 4 Serum Visions, I don't think are completely necessary. You could maybe drop one card from these 8, and perhaps squeeze in the 4th D-Confidant. But, yes. It's a pretty standard build. The general skeleton is pretty much the same.

It would be nice to know what sort of things are in your meta though, so your card choices were a little more apparent, though they are all rather solid, considering at the end of the day, there still aren't bad cards in the deck. You also probably don't need to run 3x UG Sea's for the simple fact you aren't desparate for black mana. You only fun 3 black spells in your whole deck, and 7 post baord. I would perhaps cut a UG Sea for another Tundra, just because you aren't running Duress.

Anyway. Good to hear your doing well with this build :)

[Tosh]

So far (as far as I can remember) These are the decks that are in my meta (don't even ask me to remember how i've done against them tho):

• Vial Gobs
• The Rock
• Discard
• Friggorid
• MeatHooks
• Landstill (multiple variants)
• Affinity
• 2-land Belcher
• Truffle Shuffle
• 9-land Stompy
• UGw Thresh
• Zilla Stompy
• UW Tog
• WG Slide
• Burn
• Sligh
• Enchantress
• Life
• UG Madness
• and various precon-ish type decks

As you can see, my meta is varied WAY too much to dedicate many slots to a particular type of deck.

I'm not convinced on the idea of running 4 J-Grunts in this deck either. I can see how if your meta is massively graveyard dependant, that J-Grunt is a 4 of, or could be.

Grunt is a house and 4/4 for 2 no matter the GY dependance is good and in most cases I have been able to support it myself.

The problem with AEther Vial is that it's not such a hott card to get late into the game. The thing is that it only speeds up avenger by one turn, and I can see how it would be useful for matchups like solidarity, where they may be forced to go off in response to an activation. Even then you need one in your opening hand, and you only run three, so it's a bit of a gamble.

My reasoning for AEther Vial comes in three parts: 1) Helps when mana is a bit tight 2) I can actually play stuff when I get a lot of card advantage 3) Combat Tricks These have won me games that I wouldn't otherwise. When I have, say, 2 white mana opena nd I don't drop an Avenger the opponent tends to think that I don't have one and sends in an alpha strike in which one of theirs dies and I get to freely swing in with the Avenger (possibly others) along with a free Jitte hit.

I just find that the more buisness spells you jam into this deck, the better. Mother of Runes is ridiculously good in a lot of matchups. The fact that she can protect from spot removal, or block a massive creature with no real drawback is incredible. And has been vital in this deck many times from what I've experienced.

The problem that I mostly have is not surviving an attack by a big creature (Grunt can do that) but more in the overwhelming number of creatures that most decks play.

4 Dark Confidants seems like another thing this deck should always be running. Card advantage is a massive tool in MTG, and if it can be taken advantage of, your opponent will always be on their heels. Especially when they see blue mana sources hit the table. They know they have to be careful, or their going to walk into a game breaking counterspell, and that'll be the end of the game.

reasoning:
1 Confidant = Great
2 Confidants = Bad
This is mostly because the life loss due to the Confidants can get pretty high with not many cantrips.

Also, I see that you've left out Stifle from your deck list. Me, personally, would never leave out stifle. I'd rather see it as a 4-of than not in the deck at all. If your meta plays goblins, survival, and pernicious deed related deck, fetchlands, powder keg, EE, etc... Stifle is your best friend. It also has great synergy with J-Grunt, as it can keep him in play, when your opponent is banking on him dying.

Ever since seeing it's capabilities in MeatHooks I have been contemplating putting them in here but I am a little hesitent because I am afraid the things that I would have to drop for them would unbalance the deck. Less creatures would be bad as the deck has few threats anyway. Dropping Daze would be a shame (dropping FoW is out of the question) because it has been so useful as a free soft counter which in many cases (even up to late-game) can be game breaking. Dropping cantrips is also our of the qestion because of the 3 Confidants which aren't supportable without 8 full cantrips.

It would be nice to know what sort of things are in your meta though, so your card choices were a little more apparent, though they are all rather solid, considering at the end of the day, there still aren't bad cards in the deck. You also probably don't need to run 3x UG Sea's for the simple fact you aren't desparate for black mana. You only fun 3 black spells in your whole deck, and 7 post baord. I would perhaps cut a UG Sea for another Tundra, just because you aren't running Duress.

At one point in time I was using Hymn to Tourach to see if its card advantage through discard and Duress would improve some match-ups but all in all wasn't spectacular because I would often be torn between dropping an Avenger or Hymn-ing (this choice mainly happens when I'm deciding what to fetch and when Wastelands are present it is difficult to fetch a Swamp over an Island early game). I haven't been having too much trouble at this point in terms of land and therefore didn't have much of a reason to change it but it makes sense now that I think about it.

[Citrus-God]

So far (as far as I can remember) These are the decks that are in my meta (don't even ask me to remember how i've done against them tho):

• Vial Gobs
• The Rock
• Discard
• Friggorid
• MeatHooks
• Landstill (multiple variants)
• Affinity
• 2-land Belcher
• Truffle Shuffle
• 9-land Stompy
• UGw Thresh
• Zilla Stompy
• UW Tog
• WG Slide
• Burn
• Sligh
• Enchantress
• Life
• UG Madness
• and various precon-ish type decks

As you can see, my meta is varied WAY too much to dedicate many slots to a particular type of deck.

Let's see...

Burn, UB Tog, Landstill, WG Slide, Truffle Shuffle, The Rock, and Zilla Stompy are all fine decks to board Armageddon against.

Enchantress, and Affinity are good to board Serenity in.

The rest of the decks you can beat with ease, even without help from your SB.

[C-Aleric]

I can see why you would get angry seeing 2 Confidants down on the board. The thing is, generally they are killed. Immediately. Letting a confidant resolve in this deck is sickening. And there is no reason to play the second. When you're playing a control-type deck, sitting there with a card in your hand, and keeping a confident look on your face is all it takes to fake people out a lot of the time.

And how long can you keep multiple grunts around?
I mean, 2 cards, then 4 cards, then 6 cards, then 8 cards. If you play it on turn 4, you'll be extremely lucky to keep one around for the next 4 turns. I find that 3 is average most of the time. This said, having two of them just seems unmanagable to mount any type of long-lasting threat. Also, stifle works very well with stifling the cumulative upkeep. Surprises your opponents who are expecting to see him die.

And I suppose combat tricks are useful for Vial, I'm still not sold on it though. From my experience, if you're playing against a good player, and you have an untapped vial, they'll make the right play. If you're playing against some people who don't really analyze the situation, then you'll probably be okay sneaking avenger in front of a massive assult.

Also, if you're going to play Avenger with vial, and you're going to block something, you might as well play it, and equip the jitte before they attack anyway, so you get the two counters. Instead of waiting until their next turn and swinging for 3 with avenger, where it could have been 7.

As for Stifle, I doubt you will be disappointed with it. It's pretty much my favorite card in the whole deck. If you get turn 1 stifle on a fetchland, a lot of the time, you just win the game. Several decks can't play their first 3-4 turns on one land. And if they keep a two land hand, and you stifle the opening fetch. That's pretty much the game, if you can apply any pressure at all. Plus, they know you're holding brainstorm ( "know" ), so having an uptapped blue source for the brainstorm isn't a rare thing to see at all. So, generally they won't even think about your untapped land, and they'll just let you savagely murder their land. And then you ride their induced mana-screw to the victory. It's also funny when goblins is banking on that last card in their hand (Ringleader) to refill their hand so they never have to get into topdeck mode. Then, you throw stifle on the board, and laugh, because you have 4 cards in your hand, and a kitte on the table, and their hand is empty, because you once again abused the ridiculousness of Stifle in Legacy. Legacy's overall meta is just begging for this card.

"I stifle Charbelcher", "I stifle your Nev-Disk", "I stifle your modular effect".

It's just like throwing a monkey wrench into a engine, and getting it good and stuck inside. Such a kick in the teeth.

[Phantom]

I have to agree with C-Aleric here. Multiple Confidants are great. There's no need to drop all of them, and it just assured you that one will live, which is a crippling blow to the opponent.

Also, I agree that 3 seems like the max number of Grunts Fish can really support, unless you're playing against Thresh, in which case it would be nice to run 9.

I've actually been a detractor of Moms, but I love her in Fish. Play her, protect her with counters till summoning sickness wears off, then all your creatures are damn near unkillable.

I can't specifically comment on Stifle, since i haven't started running it yet, but it seems great in theory.

[Tosh]

Many good points in your post, Aleric, and the only thing I can really respond to is this...

And how long can you keep multiple grunts around?
I mean, 2 cards, then 4 cards, then 6 cards, then 8 cards. If you play it on turn 4, you'll be extremely lucky to keep one around for the next 4 turns. I find that 3 is average most of the time. This said, having two of them just seems unmanagable to mount any type of long-lasting threat. Also, stifle works very well with stifling the cumulative upkeep. Surprises your opponents who are expecting to see him die.

I really don't put 2 grunts down unless one will die but I can support the other. The main point of having 4 is so I have lay one, keep it for 2-3 turns then lay another so I can keep a grunt prepetually on the table.

[C-Aleric]

It's good that you can manage to support them, though I'm pretty surprised you can. I have a hard enough time managing to keep one of my three around for 3 turns. Generally after he leaves play, there might be 2-4 cards left in all graveyards. So, playing the next one just doesn't seem like a good option if I happen to have two. Which is why I never want to have two. Which is why I choose to run only 2 in the version that I play. I always want one. And I generally see a lot of my deck. I still can't let my 2/2/2 split of creatures go.

I run a 2/2/2 of Avengers/Grunt/Ninja of Deep.

The reason why I insist on Ninja, is because in a lot of situations, he just returns grunt to my hand, to keep it around, instead of just being another creature, then I get to keep grunt longer. And, with mother, and jitte, he is a drawing engine, as well as massive beater. Also, he gets around chalice for 2, which has caused me to fold before I put them into this deck. Now, a lot of the time I can wait to resolve one, and win the occasional game I shouldn't.

Ninja also works well with Bob late game. Because when you're getting low on life (5-7 range), some opponents will let Bob through, because they think he'll be detrimental to your life total, and then you can pull the quick switch with Ninja, and you're good to go. Again, card advantage in this deck seems to be one of its more important aspects, so the more of it I can jam in, I will. And Ninja is just something else to pitch to force earlier on, so you can keep you cantrips, and such. Or aren't pitching a daze to force, negating the glory of the tapout-daze which pisses of so many players on turns 2-4.

[Hanni]

Actually... Ninja of the Deep Hours does seem pretty good. It gives the deck extra bodies against Goblins, which can really be helpful for committing a threat to the table against the R/w version, and it acts as extra draw. The synergy it has with Grunt is nice, and he can have evasion from Mother of Runes.

I'm mainly looking at how it's going to help my Goblins matchup though. With my current deck, I really like how my matchups are against everything else. Duress is dead against Goblins but it really helps against everything else. Since Control isn't very big in the format right now, moving Duress to the sideboard to make the Goblins matchup may not be a bad idea. If NotDH helps my other matchups enough to justify moving Duress to the sideboard I'd do the swap. I'll test it when I get the chance to see how it works out.

This is what the list would look like:

UWb Fish

Lands (17)
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Plains

Creatures (18)
2 Ninja of the Deep Hours
3 Mother of Runes
3 Jotun Grunt
2 Serra Avenger
4 Dark Confidant
4 Meddling Mage

Spells (25)
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
3 Stifle
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard (15)
2 Serenity
3 Duress
4 Engineered Plague
1 Perish
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Pithing Needle

I dropped all 3 MD Duress for 2 NotDH and 1 Jitte. I think that would strengthen my Goblins matchup. Not sure how detrimental losing Duress will be though, but at least the replacement cards provide card advantage. I dropped 1 Perish in the sideboard for the 3rd Duress slot, since it was the weakest board option.