Fish on the Brain

Up until Friday I was actually pretty excited to be going to Michigan for some Vintage tourney action, but come Saturday my attitude had gone from Whoo! to Meh.

Sounds like it wasn’t too big a loss, actually. According to Brian Demars, RIW only had 12 people show up. Even he didn’t go. Paul Nicolo (big surprise) won it with some non-blue aggro control. I’m sure it would have been fun, but, still, disappointing. Thanks to Randal oversleeping, I’m convinced we made the right choice.

The reason I really wanted to go was to test a few cards in my deck in preparation for SCG Chicago, which is coming up in, holy crap, two weeks!

Here’s the list I would have played:

4x Ninja of the Deep Hours
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Meddling Mage
3x Jotun Grunt
4x Aven Mindcensor
4x Hapless Researcher
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Misdirection
2x Echoing Truth
1x Time Walk
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus
3x Flooded Strand
2x Polluted Delta
3x Tundra
2x Island
1x Plains
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine

Sideboard
4x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Jotun Grunt
3x Pithing Needle
3x Waterfront Bouncer
2x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Umezawa's Jitte

Those of you with a keen eye—or more knowledge of me and my game than I think I’m comfortable with—would notice one maindeck change immediately: -4 Stifle, +2 Echoing Truth, +2 Misdirection.

Stifle is probably my favorite card of all time. Some people call it limited, but I’ve always found a use for it. It’s great against Stax and Combo for sure, but I even leave it in against aggro a lot of times, especially if I expect a lot of CIP effects. Obviously, it’s not for every deck, but I think it’s terrific in Fish.

I felt like I was limiting myself, though, by following that card choice blindly. Eric Becker made some interesting arguments for Misdirection in one of his posts on either UW Gush Fish or URBana Fish, and I wanted to try it out. There are a lot of decks whose gameplan is to get and play Ancestral, and Misdirection fits into that perfectly. Unfortunately, it’s all but dead against Stax. Echoing Truth was meant to shore up that eventuality along with giving me some answer to Empty the Warrens and Meloku tokens, to which I’ve recently lost multiple games.

Echoing Truth probably isn’t the best answer to Stax for me since it gets shut off by Chalice of the Void at two, but it’s still one of the better all-around bounce cards.

Oh, and I also cut Grand Arbiter Augustin IV for the fourth Ninja. I knew I wanted to have the fourth Ninja in the deck because it’s amazing. Like Dark Confidant in UB Fish, there’s a definite correlation between having active Ninja and winning the game. If GAAIV goes in the deck, he goes in place of one of the Aven Mindcensors, for sure.

Augustin I just can’t be too sure about. His effect is pretty good, but it’s pretty good before turn three, which is the earliest time I can expect to reasonably play him. Plus, he does nothing for a lot of my cards since I either don’t pay for them (Force of Will, Misdirection, Ninja) or they don’t have colorless manacosts (Swords, Stifle, Meddling Mage). My guess is that Augustin doesn’t make the cut. He gets credit for picking up a Sword of Fire and Ice and a Jitte and beating face on turn three, but that’s not going to be a regular occurrence.

As for Hapless Researcher, well, just deal with it. My feeling right now is that creatures are king. If I could put more in, I would. The competition for this spot right now is Sage of Epityr, and my testing has shown that guy sucks. Also, Happy sacrifices himself to blow up Bridges from Below.

Spellstutter Sprite is amazing. That is all.

I had some changes for the sideboard as well. Dropping the Echoing Truths seemed natural since they made the starting lineup. Those two spots opened me up for an extra Pithing Needle against some problem decks like Goblins, Stax, and Ichorid and the fourth Jotun Grunt, which seems like it could be good against aggro of all kinds and Ichorid.

I’ve actually wanted the extra Grunt in a lot of matches, even if he just comes in to block a Juggernaut and die. Plus, I play Grunts pretty aggressively, they might only be able to get a swing or two in before they die for sure, but that’s still a good chunk of life from an opponent. It’s like white Ball Lightning that blocks and doesn’t have haste, or something.

So that, or something like it, is what I’m playing. What about you?

If you want a chance to test your stuff before Star City, I recommend the Meandeck Open:

Prizes:  Depends on the turnout, but generally $120 to first, $60 to second, and $20 to third with an upward distribution over 15 players. 

Entry: $15 for unlimited proxies!

Where:
The Soldiery
4256 N. High St.
Columbus, Ohio 43214

When: Sunday, November 4, 2007

Registration starts at 12:30 p.m.  Tournament begins at 1 p.m., sharp.

I, unfortunately, can’t be there, but these are usually excellent tournaments with lots of good players and quite possibly the best post-tournament meal ever. Seriously, even though I really want to test for Star City, the thing I’ll miss most is a Thurmanbuger. That’s just how awesome these tournaments are.

Actually, you should go and play my deck. Let me know how it is and if I need to make any changes. I’d prefer you try it with the MisD-EchoingT configuration so I can hear how that goes, but if you’d rather have the Stifles, I understand completely. I’ll leave it up to you whether you play the Grand Arbiter or not and how many.

Seriously, I think this deck is solid, and I think my recent results have shown that.

Check it out! I think once you hit a first turn Brainstorm with a Spellstutter Sprite, you’ll be convinced.

And if not, you should at least go to play in Columbus.

And if not that, maybe I’ll see you in Chicago, at the College of DuPage.

If you're not going there, you should go to Sandusky and play in the Vintage tournament there. Dave and the Gamers Lounge are trying to build the local Vintage scene while all of the regular players are out of town, so anyone who shows up will be a great boon to them. Plus, I think you could have the opportunity to get some proxies and altered cards handmade by me and other artists. It could be really cool!

The Gamers Lounge
127 E. Market St.
Downtown Sandusky, OH
419-621-0282
www.theherozone.com

All tournaments are full-proxy, and everyone who enters will get a free premium card just for signing up!

November 10, 2007
Registration - 12 noon
Tournament - 1 pm
Cost - $15
Prize - Full cash payout of entry fees awarded to top four
1st: 50%
2nd: 30%
3rd: 10%
4th: 10%

Yeah! Vintage is the best because fun tournaments happen all the time.