Subject: History of Fish Date: Mon, 29 Dec 1997 23:07:52 GMT From: c s i v i l s @ h o t m a i l . c o m (Craig Sivils (csivils@hotmail.com)) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy The first in this series is a fish deck which gives me an excuse to post the history of fish. This is an attempt to chronical major developments in the realm of "Fish" decks: A name used to refer to tourney quality merfolk decks. Chapter 1 The original Fish Heads: (Late 96) The Earliest net evidence of a very successful "FISH" deck is one called "FISHHEADS" which was the creation of Jay Schneider. Here's the deck Jay Schneider came up with - (he's the guy who made the deck Paul Sligh made famous in April 96). Jay thought this deck is better than his mono-red "sligh" deck. FISHEADS - 96 T2 LEAGAL 1 Zuron Orb 4 Merfolk of the Pearled Trident 4 Brass Men 1 Black Vise 4 Lords of Atlantis 3 River Merfolk 4 Essence Flare 4 Aelopile 4 Enervate 2 Lat Nam's Legacy 2 Zurs Wierding 4 Force of Will 2 Sheltered Valley 1 Strip Mine 4 Mishra Factory 4 Svyeluntie Temple 14 Island Sideboard: 4 Control Magic 4 Energy Flux 2 Force Void 5 Elemental Blasts Chapter 2 The School of Fish (Nov96 - Nov 97) This section is based off of an article wrote by Craig Sivils during the early part of 97. Although fish decks were tourney leagal during most of 1997, the rotation of sets made them fade from being tourney viable the 2nd half of 1997. Disclaimer: Merfolk decks have been around for a long time, I am not trying to claim any kind of "credit" for inventing anything. I'm just trying to share my thoughts in the hopes that others will do the same. Several people have helped form this deck, this article is just a summary of what I have learned so far. The name "fish" was coined to avoid having to admit taking a "merfolk" deck to a tournament :) ---------------- The Fish School: ---------------- My first build of a "Fish" deck happened when I made a merfolk deck for my wife using the new mirage merfolk. Using these merfolk I set out to make a mono-blue weenie control deck. I was greatly suprised by how well the results worked out. In the type II environment, weenie control decks have been very successful. So far only 3 colors have seen wide tournament use in weenie control decks: White (with geddon control), Black (necro) and Red (Sligh). In the past green has not had the control aspect and blue have not had the weenies to be tournament class. Four things have happened which allow the possibility of blue weenie control. The first is the void left by Ice Age/FE. Without pump knights, the quality of weenie's drop allowing lesser quality weenies to move up and take their places. The second change is Force of Will. As demonstrated by tstasis, FOW allows blue to avoid having to choose between being reactive/slow or giving up the ability to counter. The third change is the banning of the restricted list, while the strip mine hurt mono-blue decks it was the vise that destroyed them. The final change is the addition of some amazing creatures into blue's arsenal of critters with mirage. The very nature of blue allows for excellent control over the environment of a duel. In the fish deck, the concept of don't counter what won't kill you is reversed to don't counter what won't save your opponent. The control is exercised in an offensive rather than defensive fashion. The advent of ripple disk allows the disk to be even more dangerous in a fish deck than in a necro since blue can protect the disk much more effeciently than black. I didn't have the disks in the original fish deck, but they are the element that pushed it from a good deck to true weenie control deck. In looking at the creature content of a fish deck, I'll start with the creature that most consider the "lynch pin", the Lord of Atlantis. Often when someone see's a merfolk deck their response is, "Kill the lord's and they loose". To gain proper appreciation of the LOA lets compare him to.... an iron claw orc. Both are 2/2, and the casting cost of the LOA is not significantly higher (cc vs 1c). The abilities of the LOA are very nice, but for deck consistancy he is just a 2/2 with nice abilities. For blue, a 2/2 with no drawbacks and useful abilities for UU is a very good deal. For the deck to work, every creature must be useful on their own. The LOA is useful alone, as are the other merfolk in the deck. The obvious compliment to the LOA would be merfolk. In the January 97 environment there are 6 type II leagal merfolk (I haven't done a search, I may be off by one or two). The alliance merfolk and the merfolk seer were weeded out for being too high a casting cost for a quick attack. The 3 cheaper mirage merfolk posess great abilities for their cost and the pearl trident is the only 1 casting cost merfolk (quite often the pearl's are used for quick attack in game 1 and sideboard space for games 2/3). The coral fighter adds an element of disruption to the creature attack. The coral fighter is like a weak hypnotic in that opponents must destroy this creature if they cannot get a blocker out. The sea scryer allows blue a bit of fast mana that can allow a 3rd turn disk/control magic or a 3rd turn creature with counter cover. And the merfolk raiders end up being way better in play than they look on paper. The phasing ability actually ends up to be a bonus when combined with ripple disk. In order to keep the preasure on in mid game I currently use 4 fetch lands to thin the deck (a subject of great debate on the sanity of this) and 2 excavations to help provide higher quality draws in the mid-end game. When all goes well, the game plan of a fish deck is to land a few quick creatures and then use counter magic to freeze an opponent while the creatures do their work. The mishra's are quite effective in supporting this role since they are quite often the 3rd creature which was dropped with no summoning cost. When things do not go well, disks and control magic's provide a method to turn things around. The only permenant which the disk cannot answer is a land. The example version of the fish deck does not have political trickeries in the main deck, but it is quite possible that they will have to be worked in to combat outposts and other mishra's since they seem to be quite popular in January 97 decks. Sample Fish Deck: 14 Island 2 Soldeovi Excavations 4 Mishra Factories 4 Flooded plains (UW fetch land) 4 Lord of Atlantis 4 Merfolk of the Pearl Trident 4 Merfolk Scryers 4 Coral Fighters 4 Merfolk Raiders 4 Force of Will 4 Counterspell 4 Nevienyrral's Disks 2 Control Magic's 2 Reality Ripple's Sideboard varies, but should cover Beb's, Dissipates, Political Trickeries, Mystical tutor's to help get them and perhaps sandbar Croc's to support ripple disk mode if needed. Two more controls probabbly aren't a bad idea either. Depending upon the environment, 2 plains to help power stolen outposts might be a very effective sideboard as well. Sea sprites might not be a bad addition in a counter hammer environment and/or meddle in a sligh environment. Chapter 3 Fresh Fish Fresh Fish is the creation of Andrew Johnson (A teammate of Craig Sivils). Fresh Fish is quite possibly the best Fish deck to date in terms of tournament Viability. In type 2 Andrew has gone 17-2-1 with Fresh Fish. Rather than a descendent from previous fish decks, fresh fish actually was inspired by cursed stompy. But as pointed out by Jamie Wakefield many times, anything green can do.... The Austin Knights helped tune the original version of fresh fish leading to the two following quotes: "Fresh Fish is the most abusive scroll deck to date" Brian Hubble "Why the !@#$ would you ever attack with a tim anyways" Brian Olgbe Fresh Fish - Nov 97 T2 Leagal 18 Islands 2 Winding Canyons 3 Manta Riders 3 Rootwater Diver 4 Lords of Atlantis 4 Sea Scryers 4 Man-O-War 2 Squata Firewalker 4 Tradewind Riders 2 Air Elementals 1 Waterspout Djinn 4 Cursed Scroll 2 Nivenyrral's Disk 3 Impulse 4 Counterspell Sideboard varries containing things such as steal enchantment, propaganda, blasts, chill, disrupt, extra disks, furnaces and dissipate. Fresh Fish is not a pure merfolk deck, the large flyers provide finishing power, the man-o-war is too good to leave out and the semi-pro red protection firewalker give it an edge over the merfolk tim. There are several things which have helped increase the power of Fresh Fish from past merfolk decks. Tempest provided 2 different 1 casting cost merfolk which actually both have useful abilities. The cursed scroll provides reuseable DD so that the fish deck now has both creature control and another path to victory. The tradewind rider gives the deck a powerful element of control in the mid-game, and finally the Fish deck gets an advantage against its former enemy (lots of heat) through chill in the sideboard. Andrew uses Impulses to let him run Fresh Fish a little shy on land and to let the deck get to the appropriate utility card for whatever situation is at hand. The Elementals/Djinn provide a bit of bigger punch to help finish opponents off. Fresh Fish is a much more aggressive style deck than previous fish decks. Fresh Fish also occupies a very strange metagame position being able to switch in mid/late game from a blitz style deck to a bounce style control deck. The biggest drawback to the fish deck remains the same: No-one ever respects a merfolk victory. Craig Any feedback/comments appreciated