Chronmaster
09-06-2009, 01:09 AM
Here's a tournament report that I wrote but was not published anywhere. Enjoy.
(A bit of an Introduction. My name is Peter Johnson. I am a decent Magic player from Cleveland, Ohio. I'm 19, and I go to school in Cincinnati. I do well on occasion, but have never made Top 8 of a PTQ, or anything other than an MSS. I would love to play on the Pro Tour, if only once. My favorite part of Magic is tournaments, cube drafts, and meeting new players.)
I love Legacy, it’s probably my favorite constructed format. I think that Wizards has done a remarkable job with their selection of card bannings. Every type of deck is viable: aggro has Goblins, Zoo, Burn; control has Counterbalance decks and lock decks; midrange has Tempo Threshold and Merfolk; Combo has Storm and Ichorid. Plus, there are those kooky decks that can work like Enchantress and 43 Lands. Heck, I saw a Stasis deck that started off in the X-0 bracket for a few rounds, and there was a Helldozer deck doing very well. There’s something for everybody in the format, yet all of the decks seems very fair and beatable.
For this tournament, I chose to play Merfolk. I played Merfolk at GP Chicago, and finished 6-3 (no byes) after losing to my opponent with one life, playing for Day 2.
Merfolk is an awesome deck; it provides a quick clock with agressive creatures, while using counterspells and mana denial to disrupt opponents' plans. In addition, your land base is very resilient since it plays so many basic lands, which is unique among most decks in Legacy. Playing a ton of basic lands gives you an edge over any deck that takes advantage of Legacy manabases, like Dragon Stompy, or any decks that also pack Wasteland and Stifle. Plus, you get to play Aether Vial, which is absurd.
Here’s the list I registered:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
3 Wake Thrasher
4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Stifle
2 Echoing Truth
12 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
Sideboard
3 Back to Basics
3 Propaganda
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Hydroblast
A few notes about the decklist:
- The Wake Thrashers should probably be Merfolk Sovereigns, or at least a 2-1 split. Wake Thrasher is good, but it is often sided out, and the cases in which it is better than Merfolk Sovereign is probably fewer than the cases in which the extra lords are better. That being said, the Merfolk Sovereigns do cost double-blue. I don't think that the manabase would have to be fiddled with to accomodate the extra lords, but it is something I have not tested.
- Some people are taking Stifles out of the deck in favor of more Merfolk, or other utility cards (like Jitte, Misdirection, etc.). I am a pretty big fan of Stifle. Cutting it seems to weaken your mana denial plan, which can win games by itself. Plus, it's a nice answer to random triggers like Aether Vial, Survival, Charbelcher, Manabond, etc. I Stifled a point of damage from a Keldon Marauders in this tournament. Not the best use of the card, but it just shows that it is rarely dead.
- Echoing Truth is sort of a catch-all bounce spell. I would highly recommend playing two maindeck bounce spells, whether it's Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, or Rushing River. It can bounce an annoying artifact or enchantment than gets through your counters, and it is also a great tempo tool to get your attackers through unmolested. It's also a random "out" to Ichorid and sometimes Engineered Plague. I rarely boarded them out.
- I am also a proponent of the full four Mutavault and Wasteland. Playing four Wastelands maximizes your mana denial strategy, and it will almost always have a nice target in Legacy. Mutavault is also awesome. This is a creature deck, and Mutavault is essentially four more creatures that you get to play. Playing the full four maximizes aggressiveness and makes your Standstills that much better.
- The sideboard was pretty good for me, except for Back to Basics. It was very hit-or-miss during the tournament. I usually only board it against Lands and Counterbalance, and it is not even that great against 3-color versions of the deck. I will look for some sort of replacement to this in the future, I am thinking Spell Snare.
Now, let's get to the action, shall we?
Round 1 vs. Dustin Patton, playing UGBW Counterbalance. Generally, the Counterbalance matchups are pretty good for Merfolk, and they are one of the reasons to play the deck. Versions with a black splash are worse, since they have access to more spot removal and Engineered Plague. I've found that the four-color version is pretty easy to beat since your mana denial plan is very effective.
Game 1: I resolve a turn 1 Aether Vial with a Daze, and spend two of my next three turns Wastelanding his land drops and Stifling a fetch land. Cursecatcher, Lord of Atlantis and Mutavault take him down quickly while he tries to find mana.
SB: +3 Back to Basics, -3 Wake Thrasher. Wake Thrasher (or Merfolk Sovereign) is probably the card you board out most. He is generally your weakest creature, and the rest of your Merfolk can usually provide enough pressure to get the job done. I bring in Back to Basics here since he has a maximum of two basics in his deck.
Game 2: I keep a creature-light hand, and after my Lord of Atlantis goes farming, I stall out on creatures except for a lone Cursecatcher. He is on nine life, but his Dark Confidant stops dealing him damage after he gets Top, and starts beating with a Goyf. Another Goyf joins the party and smash me quickly.
Game 3: I mull to six, and have a turn 1 Cursecatcher, followed by a turn 2 Standstill. He immediately breaks the Standstill with a Brainstorm, so I have a full hand. I stifle two more fetches this game, and start slowly beating with Cursecatcher. In the meantime, I resolve a Back to Basics, locking down two of his lands. Later in the game, I play Merrow Reejerey to quicken my clock. He fetches for a fourth land to play a Rhox War Monk with one mana up. I let it resolve, and hit it with a end of turn Echoing Truth, and he packs them in.
1-0, 2-1
Round 2 vs. Brendon playing Eva Green. Merfolk's matchup against agressive black decks is pretty bad. They have lots of disruption with their discard spells, and too many threats for your hard counters. Additionally, they generally have enough removal so that you cannot race them. In a nutshell, they have too many must-counters and their creatures outclass yours.
Game 1: I win the roll and start with a Cursecatcher. On his turn 2, he plays Dark Ritual and plays Hypnotic Specter. Ouch. I try for a Lord of Atlantis to race, but he Snuffs Out that plan. Hippie hits me 5 times, while I proceed to draw no more creatures. He plays Tarmogoyf and Nantuko Shade to make me scoop faster.
SB: +3 Propaganda, +3 Relic of Progenitus, -3 Stifle, -3 Wake Thrasher. Looking back, I probably should have sided in Jitte over the Relics. The Relics are only really good for shrinking Tarmogoyfs, while Jitte can kill his Shades and Hippies. I sided in Propaganda to try to stop his aggression, allowing him only one attack per turn.
Game 2: I get a few early beats in after he Thoughtsiezes a Daze from me. He drops double Nantuko Shade, then an Engineered Plague to kill two Silvergills and a Cursecatcher. His second Plague comes down the next turn to really seal the deal.
1-1, 2-3
Round 3 vs. Zach Gray with Lands. I haven't played much against this deck, but the key is to be very agressive before they can assemble some kind of lock. Make sure you use your Wastelands for maximum effectiveness, since they have about 40 targets for them in their deck. Post board it is easier, as you have access to Back to Basics and Graveyard hate, but remember, they are probably boarding in Krosan Grips and Ancient Grudges, so be careful.
Game 1: He mulligans to six. I get a good start with an Aether Vial. He Gambles for a Loam on turn 1, and plays it on turn 2, while I start Vialing in Cursecatcher and Silvergill Adept to start the beats. He dredges and plays Loam, and I Force it, and add a Lord or Atlantis end of turn. I swing in for a bunch of damage, play a Standstill, draw three when he plays a Seismic Assualt, and Force it to win.
SB: +3 Back to Basics, +3 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Tormod's Crypt, -3 Stifle, -3 Wakethrasher, -2 Echoing Truth. Lands is a very graveyard-based deck, with Life from the Loam, fetch lands, Gamble, and some running Intuition. I knew that the Lands deck was going to be well-represented, so I made sure I had a bunch of graveyard hate. Back to Basics is pretty obviously good here. The Stifles can be useful against things like Maze of Ith and Manabond, but are not as good as the SB cards. I would probably board out Standstills against most decks like this, but I did not see any man-lands Game 1.
Game 2: I mulligan to six and start with a Vial into Cursecatcher and Silvergill Adept. He plays Exploration, and I land a Relic of Progenitus to nip away a Life from the Loam and some cycling lands after that. He stops playing lands after he gets 3 or 4 in play. I slowly beat with my two Merfolk. At some point he Gambles, and with 6 cards in hand, he discards Burning Wish. I can't be certain, but I am pretty sure I got lucky there. Eventually, I stick a Back to Basics, which doesn't really matter since he's not really doing anything. As he draws nearer to sleeping with the fishes (see what I did there?), he plays Glacial Chasm, pays for it once, them packs them in, having no action apparently.
2-1, 4-3
Round 4 vs. Kyle Stewart with Mono-Red Burn. This matchup is swingy. The keys to the matchup are controlling their early creatures, then assembling a quick clock to beat them to death before they throw enough burn at your face. Creature-light hands will be punished.
Game 1: I mulligan to six. He suspends Rift Bolt, and nails me for three after I play a Vial.
He plays a Keldon Marauders. I ramp Vial and play another land. I take a Marauders swing, and he plays another. The next turn, I vial in a Silvergill to chump block, but it eats a Magma Jet. On my turn, I vial in another Silvergill, then play a Lord of Atlantis to start some beats of my own. He combos Flame Javelin with my life total, putting me to seven. I Vial in a Reejery then play another Lord of Atlantis, and attack him to two. He has two cards in hand, and Fireblasts me. I Force, and he scoops.
SB: +2 Umezawa's Jitte, +2 Hydroblast, -3 Stifle, -1 Wakethrasher. The Stifles are useless here, while Jitte can gain me life and keep the equipped creature out of burn range, and Hydroblast for obvious reasons.
Game 2: The same start occurs, with him playing Keldon Marauders on turns 2 and 3. I have a Vial, but this time I am able to play a Silvergill on turn 2 to chump the Marauder. I play another Silvergill and vial in a Lord, but Lord eats a red blast. I let the Marauders hit me. I vial in a Wake Thrasher and start beating face. He Magma Jets me, then Flame Javelins me down to seven. He then Incinerates my Wake Thrasher the turn before he would die to it. Fortunately, I have a Cursecatcher and another lord to play. He topdecks a Fireblast, meaning that if he would have Incinerated me, he would have gotten game 2, since I did not have a Force.
3-1, 6-3
Round 5 vs. Jon Oaks playing Dragon Stompy. This matchup is pretty easy for Merfolk. You can usually tell if your going to win by turn 2. The only way they can beat you is with Trinishpere and Chalice. Other than that, they have inferior creatures, seven or eight Blood Moon effects that are generally useless against you, and their all-in strategy is bad against Daze and Force. Post board, it can get harder as they can board in Red Blasts and sweepers like Pyroclasm and Pyrokinesis.
Game 1: I lose the roll and he mulligans to six. He looks pretty unhappy when he has to mulligan and with the six he keeps. I usually am happy to mulligan, since it usually means I am making a correct decision when given one, less so that I am down a card. One of the keys to this matchup is Trinisphere. If that card resolves, they basically have a three turn window to crush you before you can even put up a defense. I open with a Force, but I don't need it as he has no turn 1 play. I play a Vial. He drops a Jitte on Turn 2 and another Ancient Tomb. I play two Silvergills, and basically beat him to death with no actions from him. After playing a third Ancient Tomb and dropping two Jittes from his hand onto the table, he concedes.
SB: +2 Umezawa's Jitte, +2 Hydroblast, -3 Stifle, -1 Wake Thrasher. You could probably board in Back to Basics for some more Merfolk, if you wanted. Hydroblast comes in against their sweepers, and Jitte can either remove theirs or keep your creatures in command.
Game 2: I keep a Force-less hand with a Vial. He plays an Ancient Tomb, removes Spirit Guide and plays... a morph. Whew. I play my Vial and take a hit from the morph, and then a second. On his third attack, I vial in Silvergill Adept. He pitches to morph up Gathan Raiders, and I Hydroblast it. I get two Reejerys into play, along with a Wake Thrasher, and he only hinders me by blasting my Thrasher. This is a situation where the Merfolk Sovereign would have been better. If I had gotten two Reejereys and a Sovereign into play, he would need at least two sweepers to touch anything on my board, whereas Wake Thrasher just gets in for a few more points of damage.
4-1, 8-3
Round 6 vs. Joseph Cruz playing Ichorid. Like most matches with Ichorid, you have a pretty terrible Game 1. Your only hope game 1 is to counter their early discard outlets, assemble a quick clock, and hope to remove their Bridge from Belows with Cursecatcher. It's by no means impossible, but it's tricky.
Game 1: I win the roll and play a land. He plays a Careful Study on Turn 1, I am holding Daze and Force. I make a misplay by Forcing it instead of Dazing it. I think I wanted to rip a land and play Silvergill Adept to get some pressure going, but that is quite greedy, and it makes my Daze bad if he gets another land. Justice prevails, and I dont draw a land, and he has a second Careful Study after playing his second land. He goes nuts over the next few turns and easily kills me.
SB: +3 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Propaganda, -3 Stifle, -3 Wake Thrasher, -1 Merrow Reejerey. The artifacts come in for obvious reasons. Propaganda is also quite good in this matchup, I probably should have boarded in the third. Ichorid players generally sideboard in artifact hate, but little or no enchantment hate. With Propaganda, they need to assemble two lands (which can be tough given your Wastelands) to attack you with one creature.
Game 2: He mulligans to five and I have a turn 1 Cursecatcher. I Daze his Careful Study, then waste his City of Brass. He doesn't have another land, but I don't have pressure. I beat with cursecatcher until he gets to eight cards and pitches a Golgari Thug. Thankfully, Lord of Atlantis joins the party to beat enough damage in before his graveyard shenanagans get going.
Unfortunately, my opponent was given a game loss for insufficient randomization while mulliganing game 3. He was riffle shuffling with the card faces towards himself. Even though he was looking away and clearly not cheating, the judges gave him a game loss. I saw this happen a few times at GenCon. Make sure you always shuffle face down multiple times before presenting.
5-1, 10-4
Round 7 vs. Lee Bower playing Merfolk. The mirror is an interesting beast. Aether Vial is the card you most want in play, as it allows you to quickly assemble board position, and allows for instant-speed lord shenanagans. This is another matchup where Sovereign is better than Wake Thrasher, in most cases. Try to make sure you have more creatures than they do.
Game 1: I lose the roll. He goes for turn 1 Vial, I Force. My turn 1 Vial resolves. I guess I'm just good. He plays the first creature in the form of Lord of Atlantis. Fortunately, that gives my Silvergill Adept and Wake Thrasher that I vial in +1/+1 and cakewalk.
SB: +2 Umezawa's Jitte, +2 Propaganda, -3 Stifle, -1 Standstill. Jittes come in since this is creature mirror. Stifle only really gets Vial and Wasteland, and I board out one Standstill since there's a chance it can be a dead draw.
Game 2: We have a nice game of creature combat, swinging back and forth with merfolk. I have a slight edge on creatures and life. On three lands, he plays Jitte, with three cards in hand. I am holding Double Daze. The situation on the board is that I can probably win the game if the Jitte does not get equipped this turn. For some reason, I convince myself that he is holding a land, and Daze the Jitte. He Dazes back, picking up an untapped land. I Daze back, if only to make him sacrifice his Cursecatcher. He drops in his land he picked up, equips, and kills one of my lords. Nice punt, Pete. Threads of Disloyalty on my Cursecatcher seals it.
Game 3: I get far ahead on creatures with my Vial, and start beating down. He stabilizes a bit through some creature trading. I gain an upper edge by wasting a Mutavault when I had one of my own in play. I draw a Jitte, play and equip it. I am a bit light on mana and creatures, so I can't attack with Mutavault and have to trade my Silvergill with Jitte for a Sovereign. I equip my Cursecatcher the next turn with Jitte and tap out to attack with Mutavault and the Cursecatcher into an open board. Jitte gets Echoing Truthed, but my Cursecatcher becomes a 5/5 and takes him down to 3. He impressively plays two blockers the next turn, but I pluck a Lord of Atlantis off the top and Vial it in for the win.
6-1, 12-5
Afterwards, I talk with Lee about boarding out Lord of Atlantis in the mirror. He says that he boarded all of his out, since the card can obviously help out your opponent more than it can help you. I am of the mind that in the mirror you simply want more Merfolk in your deck than your opponent. If you have more creatures than them, Lord is always better for you. Ben Wienburg (who split the prizes in this event, nice job!) tells me I'm an idiot and should board out two of them. In my defense, I don't really have anything else to board into the mirror. Propaganda isn't really that great, but Jittes are obviously insane.
After Round 7, I was very much hoping to be able to draw into the finals. unfortunatlely, there were about 11 people at X-1 or better, and I was in eigth after seven rounds, so I had to play it out.
Round 8 vs. UGB Counterbalance. This deck is the worst matchup of the Counterbalance decks, but still not too bad. Their manabase is more stable, and they have more removal. You need to beat them down quickly before their Dark Confidants and Tarmogoyfs stop you.
Game 1: I get the nuts by Forcing through my T1 Vial, and follow it up with a T2 Standstill. My vial puts plenty of creatures into play, and his Dark Confidant can't catch him up.
SB: -3 Wake Thrasher, +3 Back to Basics. This is a mistake. His version of Counterbalance was very stable on mana, as could be seen by his Wastelands. I should have simply stuck to my maindeck, or at most boarded Jittes. Back to Basics is good against the four-color Counterbalance decks and a few other things, but Spell Snare might just be better against more things.
Game 2: I get a nice start again with a Vial, and start smashing face. As he is getting low on life, he finds a Smother for my Lord of Atlantis, and I can't find any other creatures. I was told by my opponent after the match that I missed a Mutavault attack, which may have cost me the game since he ended the game at 3 life. His Dark Confidant found two Tarmogoyfs to end me quickly.
Game 3: I keep a very mediocre hand, and my double Back to Basics are dead cards. I can't find creatures once again, and Tarmogoyfs knock me right out of Top 8 contention. This game wasn't close.
6-2, 13-7
13th place.
Overall, I was pretty happy with my performance. Merfolk is insane, and I would play the deck again in my next Legacy event without hesitation. In my opinion the deck is Tier 1, and can go toe-to-toe with pretty much any deck. The only matchup in which Merfolk felt like a dog was the GB matchup. I think that with a little tweaking, and avoiding those obvious misplays I talked about, I can do very well with this deck.
SUPER BONUS: Post-tournament happenings.
After that, I evacuated the building for the GenCon fire alarm. I heard there was a bomb threat, some Yu-gi-Oh players prank pulled it, and that an oven somewhere was smoking. After the mass nerd Exodus, I collected my sweet Top 16 prize of a Chinese Portal: Three Kingdoms pack, an Italian Legends Pack, and an Italian Revised Pack. More on that to come.
I moved back into the TCG hall to watch the Top 8 of the PTQ with some friends from Columbus. We talked about bad beat stories, Vintage, and absurd trades. My friend from Cincinnati Mike Belfatto was playing 5-Color Control and Rich from Columbus was playing Baneslayer combo in the Top 8. I was told that the combo is that when one of your Baneslayers dies, you play another one, thus comboing out. Furthermore, Baneslayer combos with your opponent's face, by not only removing five of their life points, but also adding five to yours. Now THAT'S synergy.
Shortly afterwards, we got a 3v3 cube draft going with some of my friends from Cleveland and two of the guys from Columbus. I draft a pretty nutty UBGR deck with all kinds of platinum hits like Pernicious Deed, Broodmate Dragon, Puppeteer Clique, and Profane Command. I beat Rich's UW deck, although his Calciderm beats my face in game 1. I play Andrew next, who has an insane UB reanimator deck, making the best use of Compulsion I have ever seen. Game 1 isn't close, as he draws about 10 cards off of a Mulldrifter with Spitting Image and proceeds to Yosei me twice. I get game two with some Puppeteer Clique action and Lavalanching for the win. I get lucky game 3 as he can't find blue. I play against a GBW midrange deck in Round 3, and easily win 2-0. Game 2 went very long, and my opponent activated Library of Alexandria about 9 times. At one point, he swing with Genesis, and I block with a 3/2 Puppeteer Clique, and get back his Reveillark (he has Teneb in the graveyard, and I have Vesuvan Shapeshifter in mine). I flashback by Strangling Soot to kill the Reveillark. Seeing what is about to happen, he kills my Puppeteer Clique. Boo! I don't know about you, but killing my Reveillark to reanimate a Shapeshifter to get a Teneb to hit him the next turn to get back his Reveillark again seemed fun. Don't worry though, I had Profane Command to kill him.
Teammate extraordinare Aaron Wyant won a single game in three matches with his GRw Zoo deck. He even proved my prediction true of Cascading a Wurm into a 0/0 Apocalypse Hydra. Fortunately, my friend Brian was able to put together a 2-1 record with three Moxen, Tezzeret, and a bunch of Dragons, propelling us to victory at about 4 in the morning.
The next day, I shopped around my packs to the dealers. As I was only able to get about $15 a pack for them, I decided to just bust them. I continued my hot streak and got an Imperial Recruiter out of the Portal pack. The other two were duds, the Revised containing Millstone and the Legends Pack containing some God-forsaken rare; it was either a Kobold or something to do with Banding, and the uncommons had nothing to do with countering a spell and then adding mana during your next precombat main phase. After complaining out loud about dealers paying $50 for a card that they were selling for $100 and more, I got a free business lesson from Gerry Thompson and Cedric Phillips regarding dealers. Apparently, these dealers are trying to turn a profit to pay for the absurd cost of a booth at GenCon, and to feed their families, or whatever. Luckily, I was able to find a gentleman to pay me $75 for the Recruiter.
GenCon was absolutely awesome, I had a blast. I met some awesome Magic players, played a new format (Vintage), did well in Legacy, and got some sweet stories for the good-story-basket.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Thanks for reading.
(A bit of an Introduction. My name is Peter Johnson. I am a decent Magic player from Cleveland, Ohio. I'm 19, and I go to school in Cincinnati. I do well on occasion, but have never made Top 8 of a PTQ, or anything other than an MSS. I would love to play on the Pro Tour, if only once. My favorite part of Magic is tournaments, cube drafts, and meeting new players.)
I love Legacy, it’s probably my favorite constructed format. I think that Wizards has done a remarkable job with their selection of card bannings. Every type of deck is viable: aggro has Goblins, Zoo, Burn; control has Counterbalance decks and lock decks; midrange has Tempo Threshold and Merfolk; Combo has Storm and Ichorid. Plus, there are those kooky decks that can work like Enchantress and 43 Lands. Heck, I saw a Stasis deck that started off in the X-0 bracket for a few rounds, and there was a Helldozer deck doing very well. There’s something for everybody in the format, yet all of the decks seems very fair and beatable.
For this tournament, I chose to play Merfolk. I played Merfolk at GP Chicago, and finished 6-3 (no byes) after losing to my opponent with one life, playing for Day 2.
Merfolk is an awesome deck; it provides a quick clock with agressive creatures, while using counterspells and mana denial to disrupt opponents' plans. In addition, your land base is very resilient since it plays so many basic lands, which is unique among most decks in Legacy. Playing a ton of basic lands gives you an edge over any deck that takes advantage of Legacy manabases, like Dragon Stompy, or any decks that also pack Wasteland and Stifle. Plus, you get to play Aether Vial, which is absurd.
Here’s the list I registered:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
3 Wake Thrasher
4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Stifle
2 Echoing Truth
12 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
Sideboard
3 Back to Basics
3 Propaganda
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Hydroblast
A few notes about the decklist:
- The Wake Thrashers should probably be Merfolk Sovereigns, or at least a 2-1 split. Wake Thrasher is good, but it is often sided out, and the cases in which it is better than Merfolk Sovereign is probably fewer than the cases in which the extra lords are better. That being said, the Merfolk Sovereigns do cost double-blue. I don't think that the manabase would have to be fiddled with to accomodate the extra lords, but it is something I have not tested.
- Some people are taking Stifles out of the deck in favor of more Merfolk, or other utility cards (like Jitte, Misdirection, etc.). I am a pretty big fan of Stifle. Cutting it seems to weaken your mana denial plan, which can win games by itself. Plus, it's a nice answer to random triggers like Aether Vial, Survival, Charbelcher, Manabond, etc. I Stifled a point of damage from a Keldon Marauders in this tournament. Not the best use of the card, but it just shows that it is rarely dead.
- Echoing Truth is sort of a catch-all bounce spell. I would highly recommend playing two maindeck bounce spells, whether it's Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, or Rushing River. It can bounce an annoying artifact or enchantment than gets through your counters, and it is also a great tempo tool to get your attackers through unmolested. It's also a random "out" to Ichorid and sometimes Engineered Plague. I rarely boarded them out.
- I am also a proponent of the full four Mutavault and Wasteland. Playing four Wastelands maximizes your mana denial strategy, and it will almost always have a nice target in Legacy. Mutavault is also awesome. This is a creature deck, and Mutavault is essentially four more creatures that you get to play. Playing the full four maximizes aggressiveness and makes your Standstills that much better.
- The sideboard was pretty good for me, except for Back to Basics. It was very hit-or-miss during the tournament. I usually only board it against Lands and Counterbalance, and it is not even that great against 3-color versions of the deck. I will look for some sort of replacement to this in the future, I am thinking Spell Snare.
Now, let's get to the action, shall we?
Round 1 vs. Dustin Patton, playing UGBW Counterbalance. Generally, the Counterbalance matchups are pretty good for Merfolk, and they are one of the reasons to play the deck. Versions with a black splash are worse, since they have access to more spot removal and Engineered Plague. I've found that the four-color version is pretty easy to beat since your mana denial plan is very effective.
Game 1: I resolve a turn 1 Aether Vial with a Daze, and spend two of my next three turns Wastelanding his land drops and Stifling a fetch land. Cursecatcher, Lord of Atlantis and Mutavault take him down quickly while he tries to find mana.
SB: +3 Back to Basics, -3 Wake Thrasher. Wake Thrasher (or Merfolk Sovereign) is probably the card you board out most. He is generally your weakest creature, and the rest of your Merfolk can usually provide enough pressure to get the job done. I bring in Back to Basics here since he has a maximum of two basics in his deck.
Game 2: I keep a creature-light hand, and after my Lord of Atlantis goes farming, I stall out on creatures except for a lone Cursecatcher. He is on nine life, but his Dark Confidant stops dealing him damage after he gets Top, and starts beating with a Goyf. Another Goyf joins the party and smash me quickly.
Game 3: I mull to six, and have a turn 1 Cursecatcher, followed by a turn 2 Standstill. He immediately breaks the Standstill with a Brainstorm, so I have a full hand. I stifle two more fetches this game, and start slowly beating with Cursecatcher. In the meantime, I resolve a Back to Basics, locking down two of his lands. Later in the game, I play Merrow Reejerey to quicken my clock. He fetches for a fourth land to play a Rhox War Monk with one mana up. I let it resolve, and hit it with a end of turn Echoing Truth, and he packs them in.
1-0, 2-1
Round 2 vs. Brendon playing Eva Green. Merfolk's matchup against agressive black decks is pretty bad. They have lots of disruption with their discard spells, and too many threats for your hard counters. Additionally, they generally have enough removal so that you cannot race them. In a nutshell, they have too many must-counters and their creatures outclass yours.
Game 1: I win the roll and start with a Cursecatcher. On his turn 2, he plays Dark Ritual and plays Hypnotic Specter. Ouch. I try for a Lord of Atlantis to race, but he Snuffs Out that plan. Hippie hits me 5 times, while I proceed to draw no more creatures. He plays Tarmogoyf and Nantuko Shade to make me scoop faster.
SB: +3 Propaganda, +3 Relic of Progenitus, -3 Stifle, -3 Wake Thrasher. Looking back, I probably should have sided in Jitte over the Relics. The Relics are only really good for shrinking Tarmogoyfs, while Jitte can kill his Shades and Hippies. I sided in Propaganda to try to stop his aggression, allowing him only one attack per turn.
Game 2: I get a few early beats in after he Thoughtsiezes a Daze from me. He drops double Nantuko Shade, then an Engineered Plague to kill two Silvergills and a Cursecatcher. His second Plague comes down the next turn to really seal the deal.
1-1, 2-3
Round 3 vs. Zach Gray with Lands. I haven't played much against this deck, but the key is to be very agressive before they can assemble some kind of lock. Make sure you use your Wastelands for maximum effectiveness, since they have about 40 targets for them in their deck. Post board it is easier, as you have access to Back to Basics and Graveyard hate, but remember, they are probably boarding in Krosan Grips and Ancient Grudges, so be careful.
Game 1: He mulligans to six. I get a good start with an Aether Vial. He Gambles for a Loam on turn 1, and plays it on turn 2, while I start Vialing in Cursecatcher and Silvergill Adept to start the beats. He dredges and plays Loam, and I Force it, and add a Lord or Atlantis end of turn. I swing in for a bunch of damage, play a Standstill, draw three when he plays a Seismic Assualt, and Force it to win.
SB: +3 Back to Basics, +3 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Tormod's Crypt, -3 Stifle, -3 Wakethrasher, -2 Echoing Truth. Lands is a very graveyard-based deck, with Life from the Loam, fetch lands, Gamble, and some running Intuition. I knew that the Lands deck was going to be well-represented, so I made sure I had a bunch of graveyard hate. Back to Basics is pretty obviously good here. The Stifles can be useful against things like Maze of Ith and Manabond, but are not as good as the SB cards. I would probably board out Standstills against most decks like this, but I did not see any man-lands Game 1.
Game 2: I mulligan to six and start with a Vial into Cursecatcher and Silvergill Adept. He plays Exploration, and I land a Relic of Progenitus to nip away a Life from the Loam and some cycling lands after that. He stops playing lands after he gets 3 or 4 in play. I slowly beat with my two Merfolk. At some point he Gambles, and with 6 cards in hand, he discards Burning Wish. I can't be certain, but I am pretty sure I got lucky there. Eventually, I stick a Back to Basics, which doesn't really matter since he's not really doing anything. As he draws nearer to sleeping with the fishes (see what I did there?), he plays Glacial Chasm, pays for it once, them packs them in, having no action apparently.
2-1, 4-3
Round 4 vs. Kyle Stewart with Mono-Red Burn. This matchup is swingy. The keys to the matchup are controlling their early creatures, then assembling a quick clock to beat them to death before they throw enough burn at your face. Creature-light hands will be punished.
Game 1: I mulligan to six. He suspends Rift Bolt, and nails me for three after I play a Vial.
He plays a Keldon Marauders. I ramp Vial and play another land. I take a Marauders swing, and he plays another. The next turn, I vial in a Silvergill to chump block, but it eats a Magma Jet. On my turn, I vial in another Silvergill, then play a Lord of Atlantis to start some beats of my own. He combos Flame Javelin with my life total, putting me to seven. I Vial in a Reejery then play another Lord of Atlantis, and attack him to two. He has two cards in hand, and Fireblasts me. I Force, and he scoops.
SB: +2 Umezawa's Jitte, +2 Hydroblast, -3 Stifle, -1 Wakethrasher. The Stifles are useless here, while Jitte can gain me life and keep the equipped creature out of burn range, and Hydroblast for obvious reasons.
Game 2: The same start occurs, with him playing Keldon Marauders on turns 2 and 3. I have a Vial, but this time I am able to play a Silvergill on turn 2 to chump the Marauder. I play another Silvergill and vial in a Lord, but Lord eats a red blast. I let the Marauders hit me. I vial in a Wake Thrasher and start beating face. He Magma Jets me, then Flame Javelins me down to seven. He then Incinerates my Wake Thrasher the turn before he would die to it. Fortunately, I have a Cursecatcher and another lord to play. He topdecks a Fireblast, meaning that if he would have Incinerated me, he would have gotten game 2, since I did not have a Force.
3-1, 6-3
Round 5 vs. Jon Oaks playing Dragon Stompy. This matchup is pretty easy for Merfolk. You can usually tell if your going to win by turn 2. The only way they can beat you is with Trinishpere and Chalice. Other than that, they have inferior creatures, seven or eight Blood Moon effects that are generally useless against you, and their all-in strategy is bad against Daze and Force. Post board, it can get harder as they can board in Red Blasts and sweepers like Pyroclasm and Pyrokinesis.
Game 1: I lose the roll and he mulligans to six. He looks pretty unhappy when he has to mulligan and with the six he keeps. I usually am happy to mulligan, since it usually means I am making a correct decision when given one, less so that I am down a card. One of the keys to this matchup is Trinisphere. If that card resolves, they basically have a three turn window to crush you before you can even put up a defense. I open with a Force, but I don't need it as he has no turn 1 play. I play a Vial. He drops a Jitte on Turn 2 and another Ancient Tomb. I play two Silvergills, and basically beat him to death with no actions from him. After playing a third Ancient Tomb and dropping two Jittes from his hand onto the table, he concedes.
SB: +2 Umezawa's Jitte, +2 Hydroblast, -3 Stifle, -1 Wake Thrasher. You could probably board in Back to Basics for some more Merfolk, if you wanted. Hydroblast comes in against their sweepers, and Jitte can either remove theirs or keep your creatures in command.
Game 2: I keep a Force-less hand with a Vial. He plays an Ancient Tomb, removes Spirit Guide and plays... a morph. Whew. I play my Vial and take a hit from the morph, and then a second. On his third attack, I vial in Silvergill Adept. He pitches to morph up Gathan Raiders, and I Hydroblast it. I get two Reejerys into play, along with a Wake Thrasher, and he only hinders me by blasting my Thrasher. This is a situation where the Merfolk Sovereign would have been better. If I had gotten two Reejereys and a Sovereign into play, he would need at least two sweepers to touch anything on my board, whereas Wake Thrasher just gets in for a few more points of damage.
4-1, 8-3
Round 6 vs. Joseph Cruz playing Ichorid. Like most matches with Ichorid, you have a pretty terrible Game 1. Your only hope game 1 is to counter their early discard outlets, assemble a quick clock, and hope to remove their Bridge from Belows with Cursecatcher. It's by no means impossible, but it's tricky.
Game 1: I win the roll and play a land. He plays a Careful Study on Turn 1, I am holding Daze and Force. I make a misplay by Forcing it instead of Dazing it. I think I wanted to rip a land and play Silvergill Adept to get some pressure going, but that is quite greedy, and it makes my Daze bad if he gets another land. Justice prevails, and I dont draw a land, and he has a second Careful Study after playing his second land. He goes nuts over the next few turns and easily kills me.
SB: +3 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Tormod's Crypt, +2 Propaganda, -3 Stifle, -3 Wake Thrasher, -1 Merrow Reejerey. The artifacts come in for obvious reasons. Propaganda is also quite good in this matchup, I probably should have boarded in the third. Ichorid players generally sideboard in artifact hate, but little or no enchantment hate. With Propaganda, they need to assemble two lands (which can be tough given your Wastelands) to attack you with one creature.
Game 2: He mulligans to five and I have a turn 1 Cursecatcher. I Daze his Careful Study, then waste his City of Brass. He doesn't have another land, but I don't have pressure. I beat with cursecatcher until he gets to eight cards and pitches a Golgari Thug. Thankfully, Lord of Atlantis joins the party to beat enough damage in before his graveyard shenanagans get going.
Unfortunately, my opponent was given a game loss for insufficient randomization while mulliganing game 3. He was riffle shuffling with the card faces towards himself. Even though he was looking away and clearly not cheating, the judges gave him a game loss. I saw this happen a few times at GenCon. Make sure you always shuffle face down multiple times before presenting.
5-1, 10-4
Round 7 vs. Lee Bower playing Merfolk. The mirror is an interesting beast. Aether Vial is the card you most want in play, as it allows you to quickly assemble board position, and allows for instant-speed lord shenanagans. This is another matchup where Sovereign is better than Wake Thrasher, in most cases. Try to make sure you have more creatures than they do.
Game 1: I lose the roll. He goes for turn 1 Vial, I Force. My turn 1 Vial resolves. I guess I'm just good. He plays the first creature in the form of Lord of Atlantis. Fortunately, that gives my Silvergill Adept and Wake Thrasher that I vial in +1/+1 and cakewalk.
SB: +2 Umezawa's Jitte, +2 Propaganda, -3 Stifle, -1 Standstill. Jittes come in since this is creature mirror. Stifle only really gets Vial and Wasteland, and I board out one Standstill since there's a chance it can be a dead draw.
Game 2: We have a nice game of creature combat, swinging back and forth with merfolk. I have a slight edge on creatures and life. On three lands, he plays Jitte, with three cards in hand. I am holding Double Daze. The situation on the board is that I can probably win the game if the Jitte does not get equipped this turn. For some reason, I convince myself that he is holding a land, and Daze the Jitte. He Dazes back, picking up an untapped land. I Daze back, if only to make him sacrifice his Cursecatcher. He drops in his land he picked up, equips, and kills one of my lords. Nice punt, Pete. Threads of Disloyalty on my Cursecatcher seals it.
Game 3: I get far ahead on creatures with my Vial, and start beating down. He stabilizes a bit through some creature trading. I gain an upper edge by wasting a Mutavault when I had one of my own in play. I draw a Jitte, play and equip it. I am a bit light on mana and creatures, so I can't attack with Mutavault and have to trade my Silvergill with Jitte for a Sovereign. I equip my Cursecatcher the next turn with Jitte and tap out to attack with Mutavault and the Cursecatcher into an open board. Jitte gets Echoing Truthed, but my Cursecatcher becomes a 5/5 and takes him down to 3. He impressively plays two blockers the next turn, but I pluck a Lord of Atlantis off the top and Vial it in for the win.
6-1, 12-5
Afterwards, I talk with Lee about boarding out Lord of Atlantis in the mirror. He says that he boarded all of his out, since the card can obviously help out your opponent more than it can help you. I am of the mind that in the mirror you simply want more Merfolk in your deck than your opponent. If you have more creatures than them, Lord is always better for you. Ben Wienburg (who split the prizes in this event, nice job!) tells me I'm an idiot and should board out two of them. In my defense, I don't really have anything else to board into the mirror. Propaganda isn't really that great, but Jittes are obviously insane.
After Round 7, I was very much hoping to be able to draw into the finals. unfortunatlely, there were about 11 people at X-1 or better, and I was in eigth after seven rounds, so I had to play it out.
Round 8 vs. UGB Counterbalance. This deck is the worst matchup of the Counterbalance decks, but still not too bad. Their manabase is more stable, and they have more removal. You need to beat them down quickly before their Dark Confidants and Tarmogoyfs stop you.
Game 1: I get the nuts by Forcing through my T1 Vial, and follow it up with a T2 Standstill. My vial puts plenty of creatures into play, and his Dark Confidant can't catch him up.
SB: -3 Wake Thrasher, +3 Back to Basics. This is a mistake. His version of Counterbalance was very stable on mana, as could be seen by his Wastelands. I should have simply stuck to my maindeck, or at most boarded Jittes. Back to Basics is good against the four-color Counterbalance decks and a few other things, but Spell Snare might just be better against more things.
Game 2: I get a nice start again with a Vial, and start smashing face. As he is getting low on life, he finds a Smother for my Lord of Atlantis, and I can't find any other creatures. I was told by my opponent after the match that I missed a Mutavault attack, which may have cost me the game since he ended the game at 3 life. His Dark Confidant found two Tarmogoyfs to end me quickly.
Game 3: I keep a very mediocre hand, and my double Back to Basics are dead cards. I can't find creatures once again, and Tarmogoyfs knock me right out of Top 8 contention. This game wasn't close.
6-2, 13-7
13th place.
Overall, I was pretty happy with my performance. Merfolk is insane, and I would play the deck again in my next Legacy event without hesitation. In my opinion the deck is Tier 1, and can go toe-to-toe with pretty much any deck. The only matchup in which Merfolk felt like a dog was the GB matchup. I think that with a little tweaking, and avoiding those obvious misplays I talked about, I can do very well with this deck.
SUPER BONUS: Post-tournament happenings.
After that, I evacuated the building for the GenCon fire alarm. I heard there was a bomb threat, some Yu-gi-Oh players prank pulled it, and that an oven somewhere was smoking. After the mass nerd Exodus, I collected my sweet Top 16 prize of a Chinese Portal: Three Kingdoms pack, an Italian Legends Pack, and an Italian Revised Pack. More on that to come.
I moved back into the TCG hall to watch the Top 8 of the PTQ with some friends from Columbus. We talked about bad beat stories, Vintage, and absurd trades. My friend from Cincinnati Mike Belfatto was playing 5-Color Control and Rich from Columbus was playing Baneslayer combo in the Top 8. I was told that the combo is that when one of your Baneslayers dies, you play another one, thus comboing out. Furthermore, Baneslayer combos with your opponent's face, by not only removing five of their life points, but also adding five to yours. Now THAT'S synergy.
Shortly afterwards, we got a 3v3 cube draft going with some of my friends from Cleveland and two of the guys from Columbus. I draft a pretty nutty UBGR deck with all kinds of platinum hits like Pernicious Deed, Broodmate Dragon, Puppeteer Clique, and Profane Command. I beat Rich's UW deck, although his Calciderm beats my face in game 1. I play Andrew next, who has an insane UB reanimator deck, making the best use of Compulsion I have ever seen. Game 1 isn't close, as he draws about 10 cards off of a Mulldrifter with Spitting Image and proceeds to Yosei me twice. I get game two with some Puppeteer Clique action and Lavalanching for the win. I get lucky game 3 as he can't find blue. I play against a GBW midrange deck in Round 3, and easily win 2-0. Game 2 went very long, and my opponent activated Library of Alexandria about 9 times. At one point, he swing with Genesis, and I block with a 3/2 Puppeteer Clique, and get back his Reveillark (he has Teneb in the graveyard, and I have Vesuvan Shapeshifter in mine). I flashback by Strangling Soot to kill the Reveillark. Seeing what is about to happen, he kills my Puppeteer Clique. Boo! I don't know about you, but killing my Reveillark to reanimate a Shapeshifter to get a Teneb to hit him the next turn to get back his Reveillark again seemed fun. Don't worry though, I had Profane Command to kill him.
Teammate extraordinare Aaron Wyant won a single game in three matches with his GRw Zoo deck. He even proved my prediction true of Cascading a Wurm into a 0/0 Apocalypse Hydra. Fortunately, my friend Brian was able to put together a 2-1 record with three Moxen, Tezzeret, and a bunch of Dragons, propelling us to victory at about 4 in the morning.
The next day, I shopped around my packs to the dealers. As I was only able to get about $15 a pack for them, I decided to just bust them. I continued my hot streak and got an Imperial Recruiter out of the Portal pack. The other two were duds, the Revised containing Millstone and the Legends Pack containing some God-forsaken rare; it was either a Kobold or something to do with Banding, and the uncommons had nothing to do with countering a spell and then adding mana during your next precombat main phase. After complaining out loud about dealers paying $50 for a card that they were selling for $100 and more, I got a free business lesson from Gerry Thompson and Cedric Phillips regarding dealers. Apparently, these dealers are trying to turn a profit to pay for the absurd cost of a booth at GenCon, and to feed their families, or whatever. Luckily, I was able to find a gentleman to pay me $75 for the Recruiter.
GenCon was absolutely awesome, I had a blast. I met some awesome Magic players, played a new format (Vintage), did well in Legacy, and got some sweet stories for the good-story-basket.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Thanks for reading.