the problem with Invisible stalker and question about possible future fixes

[Halewijn]

I'm going to test him out.

About the arcane zap: Pretty easy, don't use him vs a wizard. For the same reasons you probably don't use a bloodreaper vs a necromancer. You have to adapt every game.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I'm going to test him out.

About the arcane zap: Pretty easy, don't use him vs a wizard. For the same reasons you probably don't use a bloodreaper vs a necromancer. You have to adapt every game.

Wizard isn't the only one with quick ethereal attack spells.

The necromancer is a living creature, and bloodreaper's healing effect is not poison. The necromancer has just as much easy access to poisoned blood and deathlock as the warlock does.

[sIKE]

If your opponent is holding off until the Final Quickcast Phase so he can try to zap the Stalker and has to sit and do nothing with that QC marker cause your Stalker is still Invisible, I think you have won the battle there and have come out way ahead. When I was working though my first IS build, my goal was to put pressure on my opponent during his initiative phase (the one where I get the final creature actions) and try to get him to have both casts done before then and then use my Initiative phase more for development and positioning. You see the Jinx book of Hanma? This approach would be very disruptive to his plans, because of when he wants to cast that Jinx.

[Trent Magnus]

The Invisible Stalker is not a simple card to play, it takes skill. Many people forget the "Stalker" part of Invisible Stalker. It's not called the Invisible Bulldozer or the Invisible Berserker. Knowing when to strike and when to hold back and pass are key. The Invisible Stalker will mess with your opponents mind. I would gladly pay 1 mana per turn to tie-up my opponents quick cast and have them keep an unusable spell in their hand (plus, Psi-Orb should have you covered on the cost anyway). Strike when the time is right and pass when it is not. They are great for messing with infrastructure away from the main fight and they are great at delivering those last few points of damage for the win.

[V10lentray]

Just force hammer and jet stream it. It makes the stalker a big wussy - 

[coyotecloudchasr]

It's funny, as a new player I looked at this card and thought it looked way too expensive for what you got. Then when it's played against you, you go "oh crap, how do I deal with it?"  It seems any competitive deck already has either a way to kill it (mage staff, zap, jet stream, etc.) or a way to ignore it (e.g. Agony, Vine tokens) as part of their usual inventory.  I was surprised to see this card in TrentMagnus's GenCon deck as I considered it more of a casual card.

[iNano78]

I ran Invisible Stalker in my Forcemaster book for a long time (10+ matches?) and was undefeated over that time (although sometimes didn't play the Stalker in favour of focusing on Thoughtspores and non-creature spells).  Then on recommendations from here, I played around with the Necropian Vampiress instead of the Stalker and couldn't win with her... and then switched back (although I'm tempted to try a Devouring Jelly next time I play Forcemaster).  The thing with the Stalker is I play him very conservatively.  I always pass and move him last, so if/when he's visible, my opponent only has 1 full action and maybe their Quickcast to deal with him.  Often he goes after non-mage creatures and tries to stay out of range of Ethereal attacks.  Sometimes I don't even attack with him because I know my opponent is saving for an Ethereal spell (or 2).  I can't recall anyone ever killing him (maybe once?).

That said, today's spoiler means he can never be viable in Domination:
http://www.arcanewonders.com/arcane-wonders/dominate-the-arena-vtarrian-energy-wave
It's an Ethereal zone attack, so doesn't need to target the Stalker in order to hit him, which means it can even hit him while invisible!

But take my successes with the Stalker with a large grain of salt.  I don't play particularly competitive tournaments, and I'm sure my Stalker would get vapourized by a more experienced player.

*edit* Apparently I forgot that [mwcard=MW1A03]Electrify[/mwcard] is also an Ethereal Zone attack.  Good thing for the Stalker that nobody ever seems to play it...