MTG Salvation

Chris Materewicz - Top 8 for Noble Fish at the Philly Open last Saturday, 82 players:



My only loss in the Swiss was to Chris.

Quote from voltron00x

Chris Materewicz - Top 8 for Noble Fish at the Philly Open last Saturday, 82 players:

"Noble Fish"Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
3 Wasteland 3 Tundra 3 Tropical Island 1 Strip Mine 3 Misty Rainforest 2 Flooded Strand 1 Forest 1 Island 3 Thada Adel, Acquisator 1 Mystical Tutor 1 Time Walk 2 Swords to Plowshares 3 Spell Pierce 1 Hurkyl’s Recall 4 Force of Will 3 Daze 1 Ancestral Recall 3 Trygon Predator 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Qasali Pridemage 4 Noble Hierarch 2 Meddling Mage 3 Null Rod 1 Mox Sapphire 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mox Emerald 1 Black Lotus	Sideboard: 1 Null Rod 2 Pithing Needle 2 Tormod’s Crypt 1 Trygon Predator 1 Krosan Grip 1 Nature’s Claim 3 Ravenous Trap 2 Kataki, War’s Wage 2 Swords to Plowshares

My only loss in the Swiss was to Chris.

Care to give a rundown of how it played?

I have a very similar build (above) but I don't play MD hurkyl's or Mystical Tutor. I have never found the tutor to be that useful, really. It just put a counter in my hand more often than not but it took me a turn to get it.

I also noticed that this build is not running full waste suite. Is there a reason for this? I have noticed more and more builds running 2 or 3 wasteland, only.

Lastly, was the hurky'ls really that relevant, from what you saw?

I plan on tweaking my SB before the next tournament on the 21st, but I feel my MD (listed above) is largely going to stay the same.
I am open to making some changes, but would like to hear about them before I fully commit.

EDIT: No brainstorm in this build?
Strikes me as curious.
Not sure that this is the first card that I would personally remove.





Here is a deck that took top 8 in Pittsburgh 2/20:

source: http://morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=1227

There were only 22 players at this event.

I see that people are moving away from meddling mage. I wouldn't mind running kataki in her spot, but am afraid of bringing down the count of blue cards in the deck to pitch to FoW. For that reason, I am still running 3 mages.

I'm a little curious about Thada Adel in this. What purpose does she serve?

Quote from Starkiller2

I'm a little curious about Thada Adel in this. What purpose does she serve?

Against what deck?

She exiles tinker targets.

She steals vault/key.

She takes crucible from wastelock decks.

She islandwalks.

Quote from S.M.

And she just isn't as good as the Cold-Eyed Selkie for the overall picture I feel after my own share of testing. I mean I do like this creature for what she "can" do, but the selkie is a complete package with regards to TEMPO. I can see slicing the Mages down...but not the heart {stats show dropping the selkie is a bad idea if you're planing on winning that day} of the deck.
S.M.

Statistics "show" that Thada didn't exist until recently.

Show me a winning fish build in the US in the last month or so with an event over 45 players.

If you look at the recent Philly build, 3 Thada was ran over Selkie. I personally agree with this decision, especially since my meta is infested with shop and tez decks.

I have NEVER had anyone scoop to a selkie.

Scooping to Thada is a regular occurance.

Quote from quicksilvervii

I have NEVER had anyone scoop to a selkie.

Scooping to Thada is a regular occurance.

I can attest to this statement for sure.

Quote from S.M.

Now I know this creature is awesome, and I don't think I ever bashed it in any way or manner.
Losing the tempo that Cold-Eye provides just seems to much to lose if you have to cut {altogether!!!} him in order to get the new creature in is all my concern
S.M.

I've playtested with quicksilver both when he played Selkies and when he shifted to Thada. For sure Selkie can provide backbreaking card advantage that will most likely win the game. However, I found it easier to deal with a selkie because their are times where I could keep the board clear of exalted guys in the early game. With Thada, she is a win condition all by herself. I have had so much more trouble dealing with Thada alone than Selkie alone. I myself play a Keeper style deck with Key Vault win, and I could just tutor up something like tinker and just win through a selkie sometimes. Thada though eats my robot and also the rest of my combo. She is so powerful versus many popular decks that she should see the maindeck in my opinion. If you want selkies so bad, just play both, they are both great creatures.

Quote from S.M.

Now I know this creature is awesome, and I don't think I ever bashed it in any way or manner.
Losing the tempo that Cold-Eye provides just seems to much to lose if you have to cut {altogether!!!} him in order to get the new creature in is all my concern.

I understand your trepidation, but your initial assertion of the new creature sounded extremely condescending.

Quote from S.M.

Hmm it appears some posters are getting kind of snappy as of late like each reply needs a war, so I will go on the record and share we're in this together for results {I think}....I do like this new creature member!!!....I just enjoy and feel assured with Cold-Eyes seeing the results are consistant.

Don't be offended that I asked you to back up your claims with data.
The simple fact of the matter is, this deck has not won anything in the US lately, with OR without Selkie.
Not even bashing the deck, this is what I play and I think it is good, just there isn't anything backing it up recently in terms of bringing home the top spot.

Quote from S.M.

As for your other statement I don't think a event needs to be 45 part to matter. I have seen and played in events with 17 that showed a stronger meta then 45. All events hold some truth in showing archtypes advancing and being showcased....and don't forget how many events that are under 25 that still give away power like the one of recent that Tha Gunslinga held......I don't think the ones there played any different seeing it was under 25 then a player at a 45 man event. This is still vintage nomatter how many show up I suppose.
I will surely keep testing in the long haul.
S.M.

Even so, you will not find Noble Fish winning anything in the last 60+ days here in the states. If you do, I haven't seen it.

Also note, that Ben's tournament was a Gush meta. It brought in 11 players, none of them played fish because most of the cards were not legal in that "house" format (flash was legal, gush was unrestricted, no cards were allowed post shadowmoor, and vault+key had the old rules errata where the infinite turn combo was not in effect).

Obviously, selkie has not been getting the job done lately, and we are just trying to make changes to the deck to see it on top of the podium.

That being said, I think that you should try it with thada. Though it does not give you the same card advantage, she deals with a lot of problems that fish traditionally struggles with (like tinker).
Also, it is great to look through a deck and see how many force of wills are left (who runs less than 4?!) and whether or not they hold a tinker in hand, or a vault+key in their hand already. It also makes your meddling mages THAT much better.

I personally think that 3 Thada and 3 Trygon is the way to go here. I do not think that the deck can support more than 6 3-drops. If you MUST keep selkie in, try her in place of a trygon or 2 - my bet is that you will not be disappointed.

Edit:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=40120.0
Sounds like this may finally be a winner.
However, I am unable to locate a list.

Matt, it looks like you faced Karl in Top 8. Did you get a chance to look at his list or take note of his creature/SB choices?

Second Edit:
Here is the list:

I let a friend of mine borrow my deck at yesterday's tournament, and he placed second.

You can see the top 8 here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=40174.0

He lost to Ben Carp (Oath) in the finals.

I will be adding Ray of Revelation to the SB over Echoing Truth.

Noble Fish has really come on strong over the past 30 days in the mid-Atlantic. It's won in NY, PA, and MD over the course of 4 weekends. It's pushing the meta here away from Oath and towards Storm combo. The tournaments that Fish isn't winning are being won by decks with Tendrils in them.

So i have decided to jump into vintage to play some more magic (Yey ME!)

I have decided that this is the easiest deck for me to get into because i come from countertop prog (since its mostly the same cards) i figure why not.

I will end up running something very similar to Chirs M's list and swap out a tarmo for a meddling mage MB. I have no effing clue about the sideboard though because i dont know much about the format other then tinker, vault and key and oath

hi all i am new to this deck type played vintage magic for a good amount of time before they restitched brainstorm after that i took a long good brake form vintage magic but this deck dose look cool in quicksilvervii deck list question WHY NO MANA DRIAN??? its the 2 best counterspell ever besides FOW so why no useing it??

what do you all thinnk about the manlands in here like Mutavault Mishra's Factory Stalking Stones Stirring Wildwood Celestial Colonnade Faerie Conclave Treetop Village i know theres some more pages to the topic but i was woundering what you all thought about them in here please let me know what you all think about them do thay not belong in this type of a deck or do thay again just kind of finding out about this deck type i know about fish but i remimber is the old blue white one in t1.5 nouthing in t1..bye all thanks for takeing the time to hear this some what old magic player out...

i'm pretty new to this deck currently playing a rather common build. at my store the meta is pretty stax intense and i have my problems with beating the deck. on the play spell pierce has proven to be pretty good and i try to keep hands which are pretty counter heavy. but on the draw i feel like stax is a pretty hard matchup.

so what's the strategy against stax? i assume we try to counter their early spell and then drop a Trygon Predator or a Qasali Pridemage eventually. i'm thinking about running Annul sideboard or even main. anybody ever tried them? seems like they could be useful against oath also.

but then again i'm pretty new to the deck. so let me know what you think about the stax matchup and Annul.

Quote from silversurfer5400

i'm pretty new to this deck currently playing a rather common build. at my store the meta is pretty stax intense and i have my problems with beating the deck. on the play spell pierce has proven to be pretty good and i try to keep hands which are pretty counter heavy. but on the draw i feel like stax is a pretty hard matchup.

so what's the strategy against stax? i assume we try to counter their early spell and then drop a Trygon Predator or a Qasali Pridemage eventually. i'm thinking about running Annul sideboard or even main. anybody ever tried them? seems like they could be useful against oath also.

but then again i'm pretty new to the deck. so let me know what you think about the stax matchup and Annul.

This all depends on what you are playing MainDeck.
I personally play 3 Trygon Predators and 4 Qasali Pridemage.

My board holds a Kataki, War's Wage and 2 Energy Flux. Those usually do the trick once they resolve.

Also, if you aren't playing StP, you should be. They are great against Lodestone Golems and Goblin Welders.

Annul seems unnecessary to me. I think if you wanted 1 mana artifact answers you should play Nature's Claim. Those are good against oath as well, and can be fetched up with Mystical Tutor in a pinch, should you need the removal.

Quote from S.M.

I'm not here to nit pick about the "Oh SiZe" of the events I post/share, but only give the facts about the events I post/share

Noble-Goyf Slaughtered them all with ease
S.M.

LOL.

Though I actually like that you post the results of small events, and that you consistently post European results. They really are the driving force in vintage right now, so big ups for both of those.

Hey all. I'm new to vintage and felt that this was the easiest deck to build. Here's the list I'm planning on running, as well as my specific concerns:



Concerns/questions:
- Fit in one basic Island? Maybe in the place of the Savannah
- Should there be more draw/draw fixing? Like Brainstorm, Ponder, Gush (which are restricted, not banned, right?)
- Should Aven Mindcensor be in the SB?
- How's my # Kataki's vs # Hurkyl's in the board?
- Enough GY hate in the SB?
- Is there something I'm clearly forgetting to SB against? (Maybe Tezz.dec)
-Vendilion Clique in the 75?

So are we going to play Gush and what are we going to do against Gush decks.....???