[Deck] Merfolk

[Finn]

Merfolk is a tempo deck that takes advantage of the natural tendencies of decks in Legacy. Many of the cards have changed since Llorwyn (when we got enough good Merfolk to make the deck seem possible), but it still follows the same principles I began with back then. It punishes decks that are based in blue and decks that use too few lands, or even too few basic lands.


Sample Deck: updated 6/5/14
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
1 Coralhelm Commander
4 True-Name Nemesis
3 Phantasmal Image

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Standstill

4 Aether Vial

13 Islands
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault

Sample generic sideboard:

3 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
3 Submerge
2 Misdirection
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Some of the most popular other cards that are currently being used by some players (but not all) include:


Merrow Rejerrey
Llawan, Cephalid Empress
Sower of Temptation
Gilded Drake
Blue Elemental Blast
Hydroblast
Stifle



Merfolk is best against any deck that has blue cards, including all combo and control decks. But the deck also really hates to see Stoneforge Mystic, so blue Stoneblade decks have a decent game against Merfolk. It is also bad against Zoo, Maverick, and to some degree Goblins.

===========
Approach:
Merfolk is the very definition of a tempo deck. Ideally, you will be landing at least one threat each turn while having disruption available on the opponent's turn. Aether Vial helps this tremendously as do your "free" spells. As an aggro-control player, you must quickly surmise what your opponent is playing so you can determine your own role. The deck certainly has the capability to disrupt, but really you want to assemble a lethal offense before your opponent can effectively get in the game. In a sense, this deck is part Goblins and part Canadian Threshold (RUG). Merfolk wants to see a variety of its spells in a game. Multiples of a card in the first few turns of a game are almost always not as good as seeing something else.

For example, you want to land creatures every turn against Tempo Threshold which is unlikely to have a sweeper. Your counters and bounce are mostly for his creatures and postboard hate. You are playing a modified control role since you have inevitability.

Against ANT, you are playing a modified control role as well, but your counters, Stifles, and postboard hate are the keys here. Practice this one plenty, as the proper defense for you is not obvious in every game. You must learn to be fluid with your responses depending on the situation.

Versus Miracles your counters are for protecting the Vial and preventing his big plays. You want the game to end quickly, so you are aggro here.

Versus something like Zoo you are mostly playing control. You want to field enough lords to keep your guys buffed to 4/4 or above and your counters are to prevent his removal. These kinds of decks are quite uncommon these days, so your role is usually aggro.

================

Key Strategies:
1. Aether Vial makes the gameplan come together. If you open with turn 1 Island, Aether Vial - holding Daze, Wasteland, Standstill, Stifle, Silvergill or some combination of any of these, you are likely to be ahead on board development and card advantage quickly. That is where you want to be.

2. Turns 1 and 2 are where you are in charge. If you have another creature to cast next turn, don't be afraid to sacrifice your turn 1 Cursecatcher for something like CounterThresh's turn 1 Brainstorm. You have to retard his development this way to win.

3. Submerge in response to an opponent's fetchland is about as good a removal spell as you could ask for. Remember that you need not target green creatures. And be sure not to Wasteland his only Forest before your spell.

4. If your opponent has Force of Will in his deck, play Standstill against an empty board with near impunity. Your opponent does not know that you are not holding a Mutavault. It's good bluff that isn't necessarily a bluff.

5. Keep in mind that Coralhelm Commander can easily be much bigger than any other Merfolk. And he flies. That is going to come in handy since most dedicated hate strategies your opponents will employ will be for dealing with swarms while Commanders can be effective on their own.

=================

[freakish777]

Wouldn't Jitte shore up some of your aggro matches? Particularly Goblins?

I'm not surprised Darting Merfolk isn't making the cut, but if you have a control heavy meta, Darting Merfolk merits mention as a creature to consider.

[Tosh]

May I recommend Riptide Pilferer? That card is a house against combo and control (esp. when you get him islandwalk). I've also found that Tidal Warrior isn't that spectacular and it is a possible card for Riptide Pilferer to replace.

Instead of Rishadan Ports, I usually use Back to Basics in the main.

EDIT (Instead of posting again I'll just edit this one): Lego is right, LED's ability is a mana ability. The funky wording is so that you can't declare a spell (from your hand) then sacrifice LED to pay for the cost of the spell therefore not discarding it to LED before you can play it.

[Lego]

Remember that you can repeal a Charbelcher in response to Lion's Eye Diamond activation due to the funky wording on it.

No you can't. LED can only be activated any time you could play an Instant, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a mana ability, and therefor does not use the stack, so it can't be responded to.

[Finn]

Yep. Lazy me. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

[GreenOne]

Solidarity: Slightly unfavorable before you board, about even after. Any game you have Aether vial, you are in good shape, so expect the opponent to FoW it if he can. Repeal from the board is everything. Take out the Couriers for it.
You are control.


You're kidding, right?
Boarding Repeal vs a deck with 0 (Zero) permanents seems not a great tech. Spell snare at least counters reset, impulse and remand... seems better. Why are you the control deck? Aren't you trying to bet his face while he tries to take the time to make as many land drops as possible?

[Tosh]

I'd say that the Solidarity matchup is much easier if you just put a clock on them and Riptide Pilferers (if you run them) are a house. I've won some games on the back of a Riptide Pilferer on several occasions (other times on counter-top because I ran them).

[Finn]

You're kidding, right?
Yikes! I originally wrote that when Stifle was in the sideboard. It said Stifle. Lemme quickchange that one. Thanks, GreenOne.

Klaan, Riptide Pilferer comes with very high ability. I have used it and liked it. Giving them islandwalk is nuckin futs. The only problem I have is that I can't afford to put something like that in the main (though if the deck went up to 28 Merfolk, I almost definitely would include a couple) and the other sb slots are for really important problems. He solves a problem the deck does not have. It's almost win-more

[Tacosnape]

So let me get this straight. You're an aggro deck of the least aggressive color in magic, and have absolutely no means in your maindeck to get rid of a creature?

This doesn't strike me as a fantastic plan for winning damage races.

EDIT: Oh, and, good decks run good cards, to quote the motto of Card Quality Advantage. There is absolutely no reason there shouldn't be 3-4 Jittes in Sideboard at least, if not maindeck.

[Mental]

Run Back to Basics and more islands. You're monoblue, for christs sake.

[technogeek5000]

I would go with mental and run B2B and i would try out jitte for creature removal. Also i have a question. Does banneret make creatures that are wizards and merfolk cost 2 less to play?

[Mental]

I would go with mental and run B2B and i would try out jitte for creature removal. Also i have a question. Does banneret make creatures that are wizards and merfolk cost 2 less to play?

I think yes.

[Slay]

Soooooo... how does this deck do against a resolved Goyf?
-Slay

[Mental]

Soooooo... how does this deck do against a resolved Goyf?
-Slay

Stifle it?

In all seriousness, it appears right now that it cries. That's why I would run B2B. You STEAMROLL thresh in that case, and 4c Landstill is also a joke.
I also hear that Jitte isn't bad against goyf.

[Isamaru]

I think yes.

No, it still only reduces it by {1} since it is written in one line. (See Augustine)

Also, good write-up Finn.

[Finn]

Soooooo... how does this deck do against a resolved Goyf?Quite well, thank you.

Oh, you want specifics.

Game two, you have Repeal and especially Seasinger for him. Game one, you are dealing damage faster than Threshold mostly. In my testing I was the Thresh player facing off against Alex playing this. When I got a Goyf in early, I could usually get enough hits in to make a good game of it. When I did not get my licks in early, the Merfolk came on too fast. Honestly, I had a hard time getting green mana on my main phase in a lot of games, and that was enough to keep me off my return fire.

Him:tap the Tropical during upkeep with Port
Me: Play Polluted Delta
Me: sac Polluted Delta for...
Him: Stifle
Me: FoW
Him: Daze

This kind of crap.

This delay leads to the problem that you can't count on being able to block them since its so easy for them to get islandwalk or tap your blocker. And the merfolk player can easily drop 4 of them on about turn 5. So you are on clock. Yeah, Tarmogoyf was usually the biggest guy out there. But even in the games when I got to pound with him (seeing a Seasinger vialed in at eot after I play him is depressing), it was rarely as much damage as was coming back.

I played UGr for the tests. I think that UG Threshold would have done better.


I would go with mental and run B2B and i would try out jitte for creature removal. Also i have a question. Does banneret make creatures that are wizards and merfolk cost 2 less to play?

B2B is an idea that has been floated a lot. But I can't force it through early unless I play Chrome Mox. Now that isn't a terrible idea, but then my good matchups - the really good ones now, are the same ones that B2B is going to hose. Only I am not using any cards to accomplish this. Stifle, Port, Wasteland, Tidal Warrior all do something else as well. Landstill is the exception. B2B would beat on that hard. But where do you fit that card in such a tight deck? Do I change the mana base to suit it, and stick it in the sb? That's a terrible plan. Nope, all things being equal, I will take my licks from Landstill (which is still a pretty good matchup, mind you), and keep the consistency against everyone else.

Oh, and Banneret does not reduce the cost by 1 for each creature type mentioned, not that it matters here.


So let me get this straight. You're an aggro deck of the least aggressive color in magic, and have absolutely no means in your maindeck to get rid of a creature?

This doesn't strike me as a fantastic plan for winning damage races.

EDIT: Oh, and, good decks run good cards, to quote the motto of Card Quality Advantage. There is absolutely no reason there shouldn't be 3-4 Jittes in Sideboard at least, if not maindeck.
Yes, an aggro deck of the least aggressive color. The fact is that Seasinger could effortlessly be placed in the main deck. Or Waterfront Bouncer. But if the creature I fear is more expensive than about 3 mana, my opponents are going to have a hard time resolving it before the game is out of hand. Now, Tarmos still get played, but the two decks that I played in testing that ran Tarmos were both really good matchups anyway. Lackey was a big problem, and I admit that freely. And I can see where Mangara could be. Seasinger and repeal got moved to the side because they weren't necessary. The common win scenario of turn 5 explosion has been doing the work. Hey, I could be wrong in the end. God knows I hate not having outs, but against the decks I have seen so far, this is the best setup IMO.

3-4 Jittes in the board is quite reasonable. Spell Snares come out..I guess. I want more time to find out the strong and weak matchups before deciding.

[Maveric78f]

I would definitely not go the way you are taking Finn with Morningtide. The first thing I'm not sure about is the real ability of the Banneret. The cards that are cheaper aren't the ones that are both wizard and merfolk? The wording you use is not the one I've used to see (for some reason mtgsalvation is down at this moment and I cannot check myself). I remember something like that:
Stonybrook Banneret
1u
Creature - Merfolk Wizard
Common
Islandwalk
Merfolk and Wizard spells you play cost 1 less to play.
#51/150
1/1
If you are right, I'm sorry to announce the definite death of the merfolk adventure (mine and yours), because it means that the analog goblin one is simply a cheaper warchief, that perfectly fits in the goblin curve (2cc has always been the weakest link of gobs).
If you are wrong then this Banneret is a crap, so tidal courier is. The real good merfolk according to me are the sage of fables and maybe the "jester merfolk" if confirmed (and even though, I fear it's too slow for legacy).

This guy is good. It's almost a +1/+1 and it makes card advantage.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/mtgcom/products/Morningtide/vviinkvz_EN.jpg

[Maëlig]

Well Maveric, I'm pretty sure the wording "Merfolk spells and Wizard spells" is correct (that's what it says on MTGS anyways), and I really don't see why they would make it different from the goblins one.
Sage of fables, a good merfolk? Sorry, can you say that again? You realize of course it says "Wizard", and not "merfolk". So let's see, how many good merfolks are conveniently also wizards... I only see one, and that is silvergill adept (which would be played one turn earlier than the sages anyways).
Other than that Finn, I like this new concept. I think how well you do really depends on your starting hand, but I'm sure you can do some pretty awesome plays (reejerey + banneret is sick). Since you play so many creatures (like goblins), maybe distant melody could be a way to refill your hand (other than courrier). I think goblins would certainly play it if it was red... Also, opposition could be fun. But I guess that if you've managed to put a bunch of creatures into play, you're already winning, so it's a bit win-more (applies also a bit to melody).

[APriestOfGix]

It's slower than Goblins, and Weaker than thresh...

Why play it?

[Maveric78f]

About banneret I checked the scans and yes it's a cheap warchief. My biggest concern is that it's a very strong card foк goblins, which implies the raise of gob players (it's a very bad MU for merfolks) and also the raise of anti-trial cards (plague/pyroclasm/etc...) which is also an issue.


Sorry, can you say that again? You realize of course it says "Wizard", and not "merfolk". So let's see, how many good merfolks are conveniently also wizards... I only see one, and that is silvergill adept (which would be played one turn earlier than the sages anyways)

I always thought that confidant was the best merfolk, err sorry, I mean the best card in the merfolk decks. By the way, are you confirming that banneret is bad?


It's slower than Goblins, and Weaker than thresh...

Why play it?

Because it's stronger than goblin and faster then thresh?

If you want real arguments (I mean not as fake as yours) in favor of merfolks follow the link => http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8097

[Cabal-kun]

This guy is good. It's almost a +1/+1 and it makes card advantage.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/mtgcom/products/Morningtide/vviinkvz_EN.jpg

Not so much. With the list in the opening post, there are only 8 wizards. Note that Sage of Fables says Wizards, not Merfolk.

[Kenderleech]

Piracy Charm can Also kill lackey, grant islandwalk, and in a pinch, discard on someone.

[zeus-online]

If you have enough wizards you may want to try out Patron Wizard, it's quite annoying when coupled with 1+ wizards.

Is there any reason not to splash a color? The only real good reason for mono blue is B2B imho.

/Zeus

[Maveric78f]

Not so much. With the list in the opening post, there are only 8 wizards. Note that Sage of Fables says Wizards, not Merfolk.

I count 12 : sage of fables, silvergil and banneret.

B2B is bad in a deck playing 4 wastes and 4 ports imo. For the lovers of splash in merfolks:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8097

[Curby]

I count 12 : sage of fables, silvergil and banneret.



http://ww2.wizards.com/Gatherer/index.aspx?term=merfolk%20wizard&Field_Type=on

Among the playable ones are Sygg for the white splash and perhaps Tideshaper Mystic over Tidal Warrior. On that note, how often do you tap Tidal Warrior on their turn? Might be nice for EOT Seasinger tricks, but for Islandwalk madness you'd want to do it on your turn.

4 Stonybrook Banneret*
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept*
4 Tideshaper Mystic*
4 Sage of Fables*

* Merfolk Wizard

Instead of using Courier to draw, we now use Sage of Fables. It's worse for drawing because we need to have Sage enter play then wait for other Merfolk to do so, but at least it pumps critters in the meantime, and we get to keep whatever Counterspells and lands we draw. If the deck can stretch a bit, we could add Courier back in for massive draws, but I'm not sure that the deck needs even more drawing.

[Maveric78f]

If you splash white, play meddling mage. If I were playing Sage of Fable, dark confidant is a must too. I would maybe even push the sin to include sage of epityr.

I would like to see such a list, but it would abandon mana disruption, I guess. A lot of creatures plus some permission and jitte of course. Tide shaper is bad by the way. Being both merfolk and wizard does not excuse everything.

17 lands
4 vials

28 creatures
12 pumps
4 Banneret
4 Silvergil
4 Dark confidant
4 Sage of Epityr

11 Spells
4 FoW
4 Daze
3 Jitte

[chmoddity]

Were you guys under the impression that Sage of Fables said "...when another Merfolk comes into play under your control..."?

It only works with Wizards.

Decisions, decisions. It seems to me that you guys are going against land denial. With only 17 lands, you can't fit stuff like Wasteland and Port. Atleast not as many. That and the cut Stifle add up to removing that facet from the deck. It is one of the best features.

Kill creatures or kill lands. Which gets the nod?

After testing, I would like to see some creature kill but I didn't need it in my games very much. With the amount of creatures this deck can draw and play quickly, I don't think I would have wanted to use much mana on removal. Most of the time you can either tap potential blockers or island walk past them. It was a very successful deck for me. I have now played it enough to see that Tidal Warrior is only good if there is more land denial happening as well. But he is pretty good (not very) when it is. What I liked about him was how simple it was to switch gears. After tapping on the opponent's upkeep for a few turns, you can include him in the attack once he is a 3/3 or so.

[rufus]

Well, there's potential for a silly combos involving Arctic Merfolk or Mothdust Changeling + Surgespanner , and multiples of Merrow Reejery, and Storrybrook Banneret ...

The drawing ability of the Sage of Fables works with any creature - so Arctic Merfolk or Paperfin Rascal would work with that even though they're not wizards.

Lord of Atlantis is nice, but the UU in the casting cost isn't a perfect fit with the Banneret's ability which only removes colorless costs.

Shapesharer looks like a card with potential since it can allow you to deal with a variety of problem critters, and is a merfolk wizard. (BTW: Can anyone tell me what happens if an instant spell - like wings of velis veil - on the stack or in the graveyard becomes a copy of a creature?)

Multavault seems like it deserves discussion in tribal decks with stable mana bases.

[Happy Gilmore]

This deck needs a lot more Tarmogoyf.

At least 8x.

[Barook]

Multavault seems like it deserves discussion in tribal decks with stable mana bases.
It seems interesting, especially with 8 pumpers in the deck. But: Would that be better than the mana denial plan?

[Finn]

Yes, Mutavault does seem interesting. I am assuming that you keep it when it is revealed with Tidal Courier. I don't have the card memorized. Is it all creature types?

If so, that really deserves some consideration. Good call.

Gilmore, your statement is stale, dude. See Maveric78's thread to see where that direction goes. It is amusing.

[Belgareth]

Nope mutavault doesn't have changeling and is only given all types when activated.
So you wouldn't keep it, but it would be a merfolk when you activated it.

[Finn]

Thanks, Bel. I would not play it then. The disruption is probably much more important. BTW, I did not mean to disparage Mav with my last post. I meant it was amusing that he did in 2 months what Vintage did in several years.

[rufus]

I find myself looking at Merrow Rejerry, and thinking, "this is a guy that wants to be played with city of traitors and ancient tomb."

Something like:
4x City of Traitors
4x Ancient Tomb
4x Island
4x Fetch
4x Chrome Mox

4x Silvergill Adept
4x Stonybrook Banneret
4x Shapesharer (This wants to be replaced...)
4x Merrow Rejerry
4x Tidal Courier
4x Fallowsage

4x Thorn of Amethyst
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Force of Will

[Maveric78f]

Rufus, your stompy shell could have been a good idea BUT:
- no fetch in such a deck
- no banneret in such a deck
- the moerfolks are too bad to play that

[chmoddity]

@Finn have you noticed that Daze and Tidal Warrior suck together? I don't think it is enough to take either of them out, but I wanted to say it anyway.

Also, has anyone tried Jittes. I see that a lot of people discussed it, but no results. I am going with three in my sb tonight.

Well, I am taking this to our local scene tonight. They should have Morningtide available for the Bannerets. I have been testing it a lot recently and I am cautiously optimistic about making top 8.

[Curby]

Daze slows them down by requiring that they have more mana. Warrior slows them down by denying them a color.

Let's say they have Taiga and Tropical Island in play:

1) They have Scab-Clan Mauler in hand: Either Warrior or Daze would stop their spell.

2) They have a Tarmogoyf in hand: Warrior does nothing, Daze stops the spell.

3) They have Chain Lightning in hand: Warrior stops the spell, Daze does nothing.

4) They have Giant Growth in hand: neither Warrior nor Daze does anything.

These are simplistic examples, but the reasoning holds. If they have enough mana to play a spell anyway after you deny them a color, either Daze wouldn't have helped anyway (fourth case above) or Daze alone would have helped (second case above) and you tapped Warrior for nothing. Having both together gives you options to stop more spells than having either alone.

Anyway, I think this deck is fun, and the fact that it's U or Uw means it's built into serious control colors. My problem is that Merfolk just aren't as broken as the other tribes. Slivers are the most highly synergistic and can be made to run with a curve of 1-2. Goblins abuse the library (and now the graveyard post-Lorwyn), and can attack your land base while they beat your face in. Elves are arguably even more explosive than Goblins, and have a lot of ways to combo off to go infinite. :rolleyes:

[Maveric78f]

You right in all you're saying. But the fact that merfolk can go the route to land denial (better than gobs by the way) AND brokenness of blue free counterspells. Goblins cannot because their tribality requires a lot of gobs in the deck and Slivers cannot their multicolor requirement prevent them from playing wasteland/port.

And daze + 12 land disruption (waste.port.stifle) is simply over strong. Warrior is poor because it only prevents your opponent from playing double color sorcery speed spells. The 3/ point is not really true because a smart opponent would keep the taiga in hand the time to find something to play with it. Daze may force him to want to play his lands though. Si it's not that much antisynergic. I just think that warrior is real crap as you have 1 turn to wait before being able to take advantage of islandwalk or seasinger (which is its primary utility).

[tatt2dfreak]

This is my list, I don't have Ports yet... they are o9n the way... I went 3-1 friday night... losing only to Sliver... But Volt, who is Sliver is pretty damn good and knows his deck...lol


Deck
Critters (24)
4 Stonybrook Banneret
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Tidal Warrior
4 Tidal Courier

Instants (11)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Stifle

Artifact (7)
3 Jitte
4 Aether Vial

Land (16)
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
8 Island

Side (15)
1 Stifle
3 Seasinger
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Gromoire Theif
3 Pithing Needle
2 Noll Rod

[Maveric78f]

You have no reason to play fetches in a monocoloured deck that dont manipulate the library. By the way, can you explain why you play null rod in SB?

12 blue mana producers + 4*vial is not enough.

[chmoddity]

:smile:
Tournament Report from Friday Night @ Trader J's

Triton's Minions
\deck
4 Tidal Warrior
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Stonybrook Banneret
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Tidal Courier
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Stifle
4 Aether Vial
4 Wasteland
4 Rishidan Port
15 Island

\sb
3 Repeal
3 Spell Snare
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Seasinger

I have been waiting to play this deck since the Cang started, and I am really stoked about Morningtide FINALLY coming out. I got there early and traded for some Bannerets. But I did not show my deck to anyone except Kai, the owner's son.

rd 1 vs. Benny with Ubg Landstill
Game one I win the coin flip, mulligan, resolve a vial, and did not cast another spell the entire game. I killed him on something like turn 8 with 4 merfolk islandwalking past two Mishra's and a Standstill that had been in play since turn 2.
Game two, I lose to foolishly overextending into a Pernicious Deed. I got him to 4 life but blew it.
Game three I again play vial on turn one, but he Forces, I Daze, he Forces again, I Force. I drew savage land destruction with a Stifle on the fetch, 2 Wastelands, a Port and a Tidal Warrior keeping him off of Black and/or Green during his main phase the entire game. When I kill him he shows me two Deeds.
1-0

rd 2 vs. Roo with Uwgb Landstill
Game one, I lose to play errors combined with bleh. With Countertop up and running, I scooped before he even had a threat (because it's Landstill after all).
Game two, the threats just kept coming. He Deeded away 4 Merfolk, and I still won.
Game three, the Dr. Pepper stains on my notes indicate that I cast Fireball for 8 to win, I think. Or perhaps that's not what it says. Anyway, I Stifled a Deed, and Forced his Force as a flying Courier flew over a Monastery for the win.
2-0

rd 3 vs Ally with Bwg Control
I beat her both games by denying her green. Sorry Ally, I lust after you, but I still don't want to lose.
3-0

rd 3.5 vs a Whopper combo meal and a Snickers. I won this one with greasy fingers and a ketchup stain on my shirt to prove it.

rd 4 vs Kevin with UGwThreshold - No show
So I'm in.
4-0

rd 5 vs Xiang with Dragon Stompy
Game one he comes out big with City of Traitors, Mox, Magus, Song, and Chalice on turn one. I have no counters, and I look at my Stifle and consider siding in Repeal and then think about how inept they both are at handling Chalice at one. He was behind on cards and lands from that point with another City of Traitors before his first Mountain. As it turned out I got a steady supply of guys while he got some equipment. I Forced a Sword, and tapped a big Jitte-equipped Raider with Reejerey on the last turn.
Game two he again comes out swinging with a turn one Pit Dragon. I Force of Will, and follow up with Wasteland on his Ancient Tomb. And then I did something cool when my vial got to four counters. With Reejerey and Banneret in play, I vialed in a Courier (whiffed), played another Banneret, untapped the vial, vialed in another Courier, played Lord, Silvergill, Silvergill, Lord. That's SEVEN MERFOLK IN A SINGLE TURN. He untapped and drew for his turn. Then he scooped with 20 life.
5-0

Finals vs. Ronny w/ Belcher
In hindsight, I think maybe I should have played him, but I was pissed that I took out the fourth Stifle and Ronny is really good.

There were 2 Goblin decks I did not want to see, so I guess I got kinda lucky. I did wish there was a Vindicate in blue, though. I don't see a good solution for Countertop or Chalice, and that shit is everywhere. Jitte was a nonfactor. Of course I did face a steady stream of control all night. So you can forget me commenting on whether the deck needs it after a single day.

[TeKo]

Why you dont play Back To Basics, when you only play Basics?

[Isamaru]

Well done, especially against landstill.

The closest blue gets to Vindicate is Reality Acid. I guess that's not too bad for taking out Counterbalance...?

[Maveric78f]

Nice. All the MUs you faced are positive on the paper. The missing stifle may have been critical though against deed decks.

By the way Benny looks like an horrible player. Play a standstill with an opposing vial is plain stupid.

Why do you want a solution for chalice? Chalice does not hurt you at all: @1 it stops only vial and stifle and @2 is stops only daze since vial is effective.

[Finn]

Why you dont play Back To Basics, when you only play Basics?Back to basics takes upa slot. Ports and Wastelands do not.

[Finn]

I am going to be updating the opening post with more info.

[Jourdelune]

Finn:
How many game do you win with Port + Waste?

Either on your mono-blue or your mono-white deck, you used them.

Actually, I wonder how B2B could help improved your winning.

In which MU Port + Waste is a must for you?

With Dragon Stompy, or Loam LD deck or MUC with B2B, port is a waste...

Playing on MWS meta is harder in my opinion, so many peoples do some land control, it's so worse that I had put sacred ground in my D+T SB. ;) (but even with that B2B or BloodMoon effect, my guess is the port become an annoying factor. In those MU, a white splash with swords (tarmo is everywhere) and the merfolk that protect your guyz (all the shit that kill yours in legacy) i think, the white splash should be better against B2B or Blood Moon. Terramophic Expanse + Flooded Strand + 2 plains ;)).

Please show me why Wasteland and Ports are greater than the white splash in that case.

Jourdelune

[Mooglar]

Your list has 62 cards in it MB is that right?

EDIT:
Playing on MWS meta is harder in my opinion, so many peoples do some land control, it's so worse that I had put sacred ground in my D+T SB. ;) (but even with that B2B or BloodMoon effect, my guess is the port become an annoying factor. In those MU, a white splash with swords (tarmo is everywhere) and the merfolk that protect your guyz (all the shit that kill yours in legacy) i think, the white splash should be better against B2B or Blood Moon. Terramophic Expanse + Flooded Strand + 2 plains ;)).

WHAT?! are u saying mwsplay is good to test against...

Also is stifle good instead of another merfolk? tidal courier needs more merfolk...
What about rootwater thief, although not as good as in vintage fish but at the same time you will know what their hand consists off, something my friend pointed out to me

[Maveric78f]

The 62-cards list should play 1 or 2 less island. And Tidal Warrior is really bad. Instead of it I would play 1*stifle and 3*the bouncer merfolk (kind of comboing with courier and reeejerey in order to remove blockers, in addition to be a nice way to get rid of opponent's creatures)

[Mooglar]

Bouncer Merfolk? Tidal warrior is the total nuts ^.^,

Are you talking about waterfront bouncer?

[Maveric78f]

Yes.

[Jourdelune]

The 62-cards list should play 1 or 2 less island. And Tidal Warrior is really bad. Instead of it I would play 1*stifle and 3*the bouncer merfolk (kind of comboing with courier and reeejerey in order to remove blockers, in addition to be a nice way to get rid of opponent's creatures)

In case you didn't see it, the Tidal Warrior is the man that permits to all out attack with islandwalk from the Merfolk Lords.

That combo win more game by itself than any other card in the deck ;).

You should SB them when you face a blue deck.



Quote:
Playing on MWS meta is harder in my opinion, so many peoples do some land control, it's so worse that I had put sacred ground in my D+T SB. ;) (but even with that B2B or BloodMoon effect, my guess is the port become an annoying factor. In those MU, a white splash with swords (tarmo is everywhere) and the merfolk that protect your guyz (all the shit that kill yours in legacy) i think, the white splash should be better against B2B or Blood Moon. Terramophic Expanse + Flooded Strand + 2 plains ;)).

WHAT?! are u saying mwsplay is good to test against...


Lol!

mwsplay is the only place I play magic from my home. Some elitist prick, some noobs, some impolite, some trickster, some big ego, but a lot of good players also. If we can get a reliable server, (not one that flush all games constantly) the mwsplay community should be larger and much more better! (hint: The Source should get his Legacy server for mws!!!!)

And yes, mwsplay meta is filled with LD deck (Pikula, Pox, loam, stacks, landstill...) or mana disruption deck (dragon stompy, MUC).

And while I play there, I had the chance to meet Finn on mwsplay when he was working his merfolk deck at the beginning of December. And I had meet Alex, the day before... both time I played Death + Taxes + twists. (i hate playing exact copy of a deck, trying to figure out some optimization on the go)

While any magic deck should work toward the actual meta, mwsplay give a lot of struggling compare to any local tourney.

I didn't say it's good to test against... I did say that if you play in that heretic meta, do the Port + Waste worth trading against the WU protection merfolk and swords to plowshare? ;)

I want to know more about the power of Port + Waste, know why Finn put them in the two last deck it at work at. I know goblin used them, I know aggro/control mono color want to have them, but do the powerful splash of protecting merfolk and swording Tarmo worth more than port + waste on mws meta? ;)

Jourdelune

p.s. english is not my native language, I do pretty good considering that aspect ;)

[Mooglar]

I play D&T all the time and port + wasteland to me is irreplaceable.. id run that any day vs swords besides we have evasion via tida warrior + lords, not only that but Merfolk also has big creatures

I run rootwater thief in my maindeck instead of stifle cause i want more merfolk for courier and hes actually pretty good cause i can make guesses on what my opponent has in his hand and remove goyf/stp's from decks, he also has evasion via flying

[Jourdelune]

To add for the Tidal Warrior:

Synergy with port+waste for mana denial.
Use with seasigner on none-blue deck based.


For D+T:
Port + Waste + Mana Tithe + Glowrider + Mangara eating lands + thorn when need + cataclysm when we start land race against.
(glowrider had messed me so much to play cataclysm or any 2 drops+ none creature, that I had changed it to suit my need and remove mana disruption in favor of spot removal - O Ring + Vindicate, but it is just me. I had put a special tech that permits to do 2 mangara effect straight at EoT without waiting for sickness... and that tech is another 3 drop none-creature. On mwsplay meta, all the crucible of worlds deck win the race even with the mana restriction of D+t, all the loam deck too and all the deck that got land disruption with blood moon effect or B2B effect, and the mana disruption of D+T is not really effective against rifter cycling effect- except for Aven MindCensor - but that Aven had disappear from the list if I remember well )

For Triton Merfolk:
Port + Waste + Tidal Warrior + Daze

The mana disruption package is much more weak on Triton than D+T. Anyway, we are all free to change what we work best for our play style and meta, but I want to know why they are irreplaceable. Saying so without arguments and match-up analysis is like throwing a rock and missing the goal.

Jourdelune

[Finn]

I'm going to weigh in here.

I don't really think anything in the deck is beyond replacement. The fact of the matter is that when we make a deck, it reflects the strategies we are fond of at the time. The last deck I worked on seriously was Death and Taxes. I found the mana denial aspect of it to be vital against many opponents after trying a LOT of different approaches to first make Mangara work, and then make the white weenie shell around him perform better than the other stuff I had seen. That way I could take advantage of Mangara as far as I could push it. That took a very long time, and a lot of testing, and had plenty of input from a lot of people.

If we are comparing my decks to each other I only think it is fair to stress that that is not the case here. I am fresh off of that project, and so I am leaning heavily on what I have found to work in the recent past. Now, I make no bones about the fact that I think Stifle is the most versatile disruption card in the format. I saw a deck idea that I thought could make the most of it, so I have plunged headlong to following that course to its natural conclusion. Is this the only direction for Merfolk? Naturally not. The best direction? I don't know since it is the first one I am following. Monoblue aggro has some very glaring deficiencies, just ask Eldariel. But the deck is consistent, difficult to pin down, and can kill nearly without warning. It has reasonable matchups against enough of the expected meta. In short, it seems to be working.

I have not used Back to Basics as more than a blind sideboard card in more than a decade. But I can tell you that in a deck with Tidal Courier in it, I am disinclined to start from scratch to rework this deck to support it. Ther just isn't room in such a design for a single-purpose card like that. I HAVE seen the effect of Wasteland, Port, and Stifle. Having them together has been nothing short of huge for me. Tidal Warrior is the sad little brother of the bunch when it is alone. He is TERRIBLE alongside Daze since the once useless island now has a very definite purpose in the same early turns that Daze is at its strongest. He eats crap against Tabernacle effects. He sucked when I wanted a dead Faerie Conclave across from me. And he annoyed me when I was trying to keep a Dryad Arbor from being a creature. But the guy does a lot of other things as well so I am not ready to consider him for cutting. This deck wants a critter in that spot badly, and the other choices are far less desirable.

This is where Maverick and I disagree. While he only sees a 1/1 with a small effect, I see guy who is one more tool to keep the opponent down early, and who enables several key elements of the deck later on. You have to like that kind of extensibility on a 1/1 for 1 which, by the way, is a Merfolk. If that is not testament, consider that my playtest partner began to use Swords to Plowshares on them the moment he saw them after just a few games. I will take that. Wouldn't you?

[Maveric78f]

Clearly the strength of merfolk compared to gobs is the mana denial package (waste/port/stifle) and the counterspell suite (stifle/FoW/daze). All these cards are absolutely 4-of. Then the rest whould be islands (or conclaves), vial or merfolks (maybe jitte and/or standstill too).

According to me, the only reason to play this deck is not the merfolk suite because apart from 3 of them, they suck very much (courier could be good if there were more good merfolks). It's the mana denial + counterspell shell. My testings showed it and I even splashed black for confidant (and SB options) and green for tarmogoyf with the same shell but only the 3 good merfolks. That's my CANGD entry (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8097). Now I'm even playing the same deck with no merfolk because I think that serendib efreet or sea drakes are better.

[Hightower]

I'm starting to like the folks' but my approach is more aggro with Grimoire Thief instead of Stifle and I don't run Ports.. 1st because I think they interfere with my fast clock I really dont want to not be able to play Lord of Atlantis or Thief turn 2 because of 1 Island 1 Colorless - 2nd I run 4 Back to Basics which are huge against landstill and many other decks I've met.
I run 4x Tidal Warrior as well, he's helped me win a few games with his nifty ability.

Here's something I've gotten a couple of times while playing on MWS:


Hightower plays Merrow Reejerey from Hand
Merrow Reejerey is now 3/3
Merrow Reejerey is now 4/4
Lord of Atlantis is now 4/4
Silvergill Adept is now 5/4
Stonybrook Banneret is now 4/4
Tidal Courier is now 4/5
Lord of Atlantis is now 4/4
<Nightfall <GER>> gg
<Hightower> :)
Hightower taps Island
Hightower taps Island
Hightower taps Island
Hightower taps Island
<Nightfall <GER>> didnt believe in merfolk :)
Hightower plays Tidal Courier from Hand
<Nightfall <GER>> now i do
<Hightower> hehe
<Nightfall <GER>> tnx for playing
<System> Player Lost

Makes me happy.

[Jourdelune]

I know for D+T its done.

For merfolk, the goblin MU is HARD. So, Syyg + Sword would give edge for that MU. What can be removed that will not affect the thresh MU and will bring the goblin MU in better shape?

The thing is, at any tournament with more than 50 peoples, the odds to see goblins are high.

Anyway, I loves playing merfolk when I feel depress about my aggro-control homebrew deck get pawn here and there.

Jourdelune

[Maveric78f]

Syyg would not help against gob. Your merfolks still can't block pilly which is the main threat in gob. Propaganda is far better, and it's blue!

[Curby]

If you can play Sygg, you can play all manner of Piledriver-stoppers, most notably Swords to Plowshares.

Hightower: How well is Grimoire Thief working out? Can you please post (or PM) your list? Its counters still cost 1, and it needs to hit a few times before it can reliably counter a spell. (However, it'd sure be fun to remove a MUC deck's 2-4 finishers.) In my casual meta the mana denial package actually does very little, so I'm thinking of using more creature control (e.g. Jitte, maindeck Seasinger) and more creatures (e.g. Grimoire Thief, Riptide Pilferer). Since there's not a lot of nonbasic hate in my meta, I'm also having fun with Reejery+Banneret+Soldevi Excavations, so I can do Faerie-Stompy-like tricks.

[chmoddity]

Played this again this past weekend. I lost in top 4 because I am a dumbass. In game three, facing ********, I pretty much had the game in hand. But then I decided to vial out a Seasinger with only two Rishadan Ports in play. The Islands I topdecked the next two turns made it burn that much harder as I got beat down by a Mongoose and a Tarmo.

It wasn't all bad though. I still went 4-2, and I am genuinely happy with my build. I had been toying with a white splash for Swords to plowshares, Sygg, and Mirror Entity. Ehh. Monoblue works better for me.

Excavations is a good idea.

[Jourdelune]

"It wasn't all bad though. I still went 4-2, and I am genuinely happy with my build. I had been toying with a white splash for Swords to plowshares, Sygg, and Mirror Entity. Ehh. Monoblue works better for me."

What have you remove to fit those?

ME is slow... slow... slow... my testing teach me that ME need some kind of outrageous mana for nothing. Merfolk pumps are good enough without him.

If you need some kind of pumping effect against big critters deck, think about the door of destinies (2x for late game used only)... a better Coat of arms (1 less mana, more pump just for you).

Jourdelune

[Kevdog]

My buddy (who admits she is a mediocre magic player) played all 5 color combos of merfolk post morningtide and the UB panned out to be the best with the UU and UG a close second. UW and UR were underpowered in comparison. The mix of free counters, vial, and 7 lords gives the deck a surprising amount of pressure vs. both aggro and control with the control match up being a little easier due to islandwalking.

Mono Blue Merfolk (61 cards)
Spells
4x force of will
4x ponder
3x daze
2x stifle

Enchantments
3x standstill

Artifacts
2x vedalkin shackles
4x aether vial

Creatures
4x mothdust changeling (synergies with grimoire thief and can fly)
4x silvergill adept
4x grimoire thief
4x lord of atlantis
3x merfolk rejery
2x tidal courier
2x rootwater thief

Lands
4x polluted delta
4x mutavault
8x island

Sideboard
3x chill
3x back to basics
3x nix (counters all 0 mana artifacts and opposing force of wills)
3x annul (counters artifacts and random enchantments- survival/humility...)
3x tormod's crypt

The black version:
-2x stifle
-2x vedalkin shackles
-1x tidal courier
-2x rootwater thief
-4x mothdust changeling
-4x island
+4x dark confidant
+3x shriekmaw
+4x nameless inversion
+4x underground sea

The green version:
-2x tidal courier
-2x rootwater thief
-4x mothdust changeling
-4x island
+4x gaea's skyfolk
+4x tarmogoyf
+4x tropical island

The white version:
-1x stifle
-2x vedalkin shackles
-2x tidal courier
-2x rootwater thief
-4x mothdust changeling
-4x polluted delta
-4x island
+4x galina's knight
+3x sygg, river guide
+4x swords to plowshares
+4x flooded strand
+4x tundra

The red version (only 1 tourney with this):
-1x stifle
-2x vedalkin shackles
-2x tidal courier
-2x rootwater thief
-4x mothdust changeling
-4x island
+4x lightning bolt
+3x fire//ice
+4x razorfin hunter
+4x volcanic island

The random one-of stifle in certain versions is present because she is the kind that sees the ones-ofs all the time and loves playing them. Overall the deck tends to hinge upon the vial or the lord of atlantis (depending on the match up) but can win without them, it just takes a little longer.

[Finn]

Does anyone know why so many people are putting Standstill in a deck that is not faster than most of the decks it is hoping to collect against?

Does this actually work?

[idraleo]

are Tidal Warrior really better than Reef Shaman for this deck? shaman chumpblocks as much Lakey as you want and basically don't die by a single Mogg Fanatic. I think that starts Island>Reef Shaman against Goblin is a great deal, and means that his Goblin Lackey won't be useful since he doesn't use a StP or a Pyrokinesis.

And do you really prefer run Stifles maindeck instead of Spell Snare? Snare is a great threat, why don't play it directly by main and set Stifles on sideboard?

[Elfrago]

Tidal Warrior actually -trades- with Lackey. And thats better than blocking it all day long with Reef Shaman.

IMHO stifle is better than snare, simply becouse this deck focuses on mana denial. And stifling a fetchland is good.

[Finn]

I have been fooling with Soldiers recently. But that is neither here nor there. The long and short of it is that I really friggin' like Nameless Inversion. My version right now -I'm actually going to a tournament tonight- has a black splash just for that card. But I am wondering, sort of 11th hour, what else I should alter with this change.

[electrolyze]

in the black splash try out vodalian zombie, hes kinda cool against tarmogoyf:laugh: what's your new list with black?

[Finn]

Itty bitty tournament report.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=214414#post214414

[AngryTroll]

I've been following the deck since you posted it, Finn...I've got a soft spot for the Merfolk.

In the version running black, did you try Vodalian Zombie? His cost isn't reduced by the Bannerett, and he's only a 2/2 for 2, but when I played with him, his Pro Green was always amazing. Is Seasinger in the sideboard (or the main) just a stronger option than a Pro Green creature that is usually too small to kill Goyf?

[idraleo]

i look your decklist on your report, but mana leak don't seems to be the right card. I think you should run Annull, to get a cheap counterspell to put on Plagues, Moat and it is perfect for Counterbalance, cause he avoids at the same time Spell Snare and Daze if you start first. And moreover, it improves a lot against Stax-based and enchantress. Have you ever tryed it on your sb?

[Finn]

Mana Leak probably is not the right card. Spell Snare was in that spot long enough for me to hate it though. I am beginning to think it could stand to be a good old fashioned Counterspell. I mean, Cabal Therapy or Duress might be a fine choice, but I have ideas about what happens to a deck when only Daze and Force of Will are in it. The short explanation is that I believe it weakens it against particularly smart opponents.

Vodalian Zombie seems like righteous tech against Tarmos, especially Thresh, but that matchup is already very strong.


From your list, I really don't understand your SB. I don't think you need more disruption as you have MD (except the stifle, but it should be MD I think). But you need heavy answers to grave dependant decks, like leyline of planar void. I would also play anti aggro cards, the best one being propaganda, as you have a mana denial strategy. Eventually engineered explosives is also a very useful card in a lot of MUs. Rifter is still a bad MU. Jitte is quite good at winning it (it has to be effective quite early though).This is at the heart of the matter. Even more than Threshold, the disruption for this deck is extremely narrow. My recent sb was particularly so - graveyard, creature, and combo hate only. So Rifter got the better of me. I'm not saying that the deck needs Rifter hate. Rather, I am complaining about the lack of Merfolk with useful abilities attached. Most of my Merfolk don't actually do anything except enable each other to swarm. We need a Tin-Street Merfolk and a Merfolk Fanatic or something. Nameless Inversion is as close as I can see, and it was oh, so bad. I only hope that night was a fluke.

[idraleo]

i don't think that ******** is a worst mu if they haven't a countertop on board. You got to do 2 or 3 critters, than swing throught blockers thanks to islandwalk ability. I don' think that if you need some cool ability or utility black is the best splash. White gives you plaowshares, Sygg and disenchant effects; and running white, you might think to Mirror Entity, and a more efficent sideboard, something looking like this:

4 tormod's crypt
3-4 Aegis of honor
2-3 disenchant effect like Seal of cleansing-disenchant
2-3 ghostly prison > better than propaganda, it avoids REB's


and some viable metaslot, like Galina's Knight, Tivadar's Crusade, Tempest of Light, Morningtide and more others.

[Maveric78f]

He never meant that threshold was a bad MU to my opinion. He compared the deck with threshold.

Aegis of honor => why would you play that as you are supposed to already race burn ?
Seal of cleansing-disenchant => I played a green splashed version and I never wanted disenchant effects, explosives is all that you need and far less anrrow.
ghostly prison > better than propaganda => wrong because propaganda pitches to FoW. But I would admit that having propaganda n°5-8 can be interesting in some MUs (goblins particularly but also ichorid if you can slow it down enough)
Galina's Knight => completely crappy as it can't block piledriver.
Tivadar's Crusade => you can't afford WW
Tempest of Light => way too narrow and inefficient againt enchentress
Morningtide => seriously ??? Don't you think that tormod is far better ?

From the list of Finn, I don't think that the black splash is worth. The best card for the deck in black is probably dark confidant (and planar void in SB), and in white, it's armageddon (for the SB). If you want to make a heavy merfolk deck, I would recommend to keep to monoblue versions and use bounces to get rid of annoying permanents (annul is also correct), tormod for the yard, and jitte and control magics for creatures (seasinger/mind harness/control magic). For lands, you still have wastelands and ports.

[Hightower]

I went T8 with Merfolk yesterday at a monthly Legacy event, we were 23 players I think..

[Lost to Belcher 1st opponent in T8, I beat him 2-1 earlier. But this time he went turn1 kill first game - he won dice roll - with me sitting with 2 Daze :p second game I had 1 FoW and I lead with Vial then he went went 2x Petal 2x Tinder Wall 3x Rite of Flame -> Empty the Warrens 18 tokens, no way to prevent it with only single FoW]

My conclusion from this tourney/meta: I probably needed to add Stifle.. lost to Deed 2 games and 1 ETW

[Maëlig]

A friend of mine and myself are currently testing a slightly different version. We've cut all the mana-denial aspect of the deck (I already see some people outraged...). The reason for this is that I had the impression it makes the deck more unstable (if you have no fetches to stifle, no non-basic to waste or even a vial on the other side what do you do?). Also, since blood moon is widely played (sometimes even 8x MD) the metagame has adapted to it and it's much harder to mana screw your opponent. Finally, you often don't need mana-denial AND counters, I'd rather cut one of these two for extra draw or tempo (and I'm not prepared to take the free counters out).
We've put the accent on an other aspect of the deck : the great synergy with mutavault / vial and standstill. I admit running standstill in a build with only vial is a bit risky, but with mutavault and a decent clock (faster than the mana-denial version for obvious reasons), it's quite nice.
Here's the list :

16 island
4 mutavault

4 tidal warrior (not so good as in the mana-denial version oc, but is still correct and can save mutavault from wasteland)
4 silvergill adept
4 lord of atlantis
4 merrow reejerey
3 seasinger (bit of a weak spot but haven't find smt better)

4 daze
4 fow
2 spellsnare
4 vial
4 standstill
3 aquitect's will

Side :
4 chill
4 beb
4 tormod's crypt
3 piracy charm

The side is still largely improvable I think, but at least this version is prepared to face goblins and dragon stompy.
Your opinion?

[Willoe]

Main: (60)

16 Island

4 Wasteland

4 Silvergill Adept

4 Tidal Warrior

4 Grimoire Thief

4 Stonybrook Banneret

4 Lord of Atlantis

4 Tidal Courier

4 Merrow Reejerey

4 Daze

4 Force of Will

4 AEther Vial

Sideboard: (15)

4 Tormod's Crypt

4 Back to Basics

2 Blue Elemental Blast

2 Hydroblast

3 Seasinger

This was a list that went top8 in a 23 man tourney. He went 3-1-1 in match (obv.)

What differs from Maëlig's list is Tidal Courier mainboard, which I'm a big fan of. Not that I play Merfolk myself, but I do have some insight. And he's a win condition against a resolves moat. Thumbs up. What do you think about the deck? (I don't know if he has an account here on the Source, as this list and report which can be found here if anyone understand Danish, but if he has, he could maybe explain about his card choices)
http://faraos.dk/magic/index.phtml?page=10&sub=3&news=476

[Hightower]

That's my list willoe =D I'm Hightower on faraos.dk aswell..

[Grollub]

That's my list willoe =D I'm Hightower on faraos.dk aswell..

Aww. Just read the report, you got really unlucky in the T8 against belcher. But very nice list, I love the "goblins with counters" approach. Have you considered Echoing Truth, it seems like it'd help immensely against the weak matchups - ie. troublesome tokens.

[KillemallCFH]

I've been testing Merfolk for the past couple of weeks now, and this is the list I've arrived on:

3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
13 Island

4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejery
4 Silvergil Adept
4 Tidal Warrior
1 Reef Shaman
2 Seasinger

4 Force of Will
4 Daze

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Counterbalance
3 Back to Basics
2 Open*

The SB contains some mix of Threads of Disloyalty, Pithing Needle, Umezawa's Jitte, Stifle, Tormod's Crypt, and/or Counterbalance, depending on that open slot.

I really feel this list is pretty strong. The only thing I need to decide on is those 2 open slots. My current options are:

2 Pithing Needle (Mainly for Deed, which butchers this deck. Also great against a variety of other things: Manlands, Survival, Belcher, etc.)
2 Jitte (Helps a lot against Aggro, especially Goblins, which is a pretty poor matchup. Gives some form of removal in mono-blue.)
2 Bounce (Probably 1 Rushing River and 1 Wipe Away a la UGr Thrash. Most versatile of my choices. Only answer to troublesome enchantments like Moat, Humility, Confinement, etc. Allows me to bounce blockers and alpha strike. Hits opposing CBs.)
2 Psionic Blast (Gives me some creature removal in mono-blue. More importantly, helps the control matchup by giving me reach. Never really a dead card.)
3rd CB + something else (CB/Top is obviously very strong, but too often have I had CB with no top and had what was essentially a dead card. Due to the curve being pretty evenly spread out from 0 to 3, CB/Top is immensely strong; however, with this more spread out curve, CB without Top becomes significantly weaker. Still the 3rd one might warrant inclusion [I used to run 3 but cut it to 2 for the reasons mentioned].)
Ultimately, it is probably a metagame decision. However, the Massachusetts meta is fairly random. That in mind, what do you feel is the best use of that slot?

[mrb4b00]

Has anyone tried using winter orb instead of ports? I would love to hear the results :)

[KillemallCFH]

Has anyone tried using winter orb instead of ports? I would love to hear the results :)Why would you run Winter Orb when you could just as easily run Back to Basics? I suppose if you are splashing a color then Winter Orb might be better, but as mono-blue B2B is almost always the superior choice. Almost every deck that you really want Orb against is usually more crippled by B2B (MUC is the only exception I can think of). Running Orbs also severely limits your ability to have explosive turns.

[insertnamehere]

There is an infinite combo using drowner of secrets/stonybrook schoolmaster and Intruder Alarm that is pretty fast. Oh, and Back to basics is 100 times better that winter Orb

[Thehunter820]

You could also consider using Rushing Rivers, it could help some of your aggro matches.

[rufus]

I've been testing Merfolk for the past couple of weeks now, and this is the list I've arrived on:
...


Puresight Merrow and Counterbalance belong in the same deck together...

[KillemallCFH]

Puresight Merrow and Counterbalance belong in the same deck together...He's a bear with an ability that's mostly irrelevant unless I have CB out. Plus I have no reliable way to tap him apart from sending him into the red zone, which is often implausible if I'm staring down a Goyf.

Sure, he can do some cute things with CB, but I would always rather have a Top with CB than him. I think I'll pass.

[rufus]

He's a bear with an ability that's mostly irrelevant unless I have CB out. Plus I have no reliable way to tap him apart from sending him into the red zone, which is often implausible if I'm staring down a Goyf.

Sure, he can do some cute things with CB, but I would always rather have a Top with CB than him. I think I'll pass.

You're right. I'm basically thinking of a different approach that uses
Paradise Mantle, and Mothdust Changeling.

[Barook]

Cursecatcher :u:
Creature- Merfolk Wizard (U)
Sacrifice Cursecatcher: Counter target instant or sorcery spell unless its controller pays :1:.
1/1

How is this card going to influence the deck?

[Hightower]

He's going to replace Daze in my list I think.. he creates tempo and adds disruption. I have big expectations to him.

[b4r0n]

I would think that you'd want him in the deck in addition to Daze, if at all. I think the more important question is whether he's better than Tidal Warrior.

[KillemallCFH]

At first glance he looks to be a valuable asset. However, the list (or at least mine) is very tight, and there really is no room. Tidal Warrior is a necessity that I would not cut. Daze is miles better than this card and I would never cut it for a more conditional more costly Merfolk. I could squeeze 2-3 of them in, but I'm not convinced it is better than what I currently play in those slots (2 Needle and a Reef Shaman [Tidal Warrior #5]).

[Agro Beats]

why do so many of you run the tidal warrior??

I have never had a problem needing the island walk. If you have a Lord your guys are most likely 3/3's if you have a reejery as well they are 4/4 that is bigger than most everything but goyf. You most likey have more creatures in play than your opponent as well. If your rejerry is in play, you use his ability to tap their fatty and you swing through anyway.

Honestly, You guys should consider cutting it for a better merfolk.

[Spectör]

The thing about Tidal Warrior is that he can be mana disruption against non-blue decks in addition to wastelands and ports and that makes him so good in the mana denial-lists.

[freakish777]

Tidal Warrior is a necessity that I would not cut.

This seems so terribly wrong.


Cursecatcher is basically the best 1 drop Merfolk ever printed. The fact that he compounds the "play around Daze or don't" dilemma just makes him even better. Would you play 8 Daze if you could? That's essentially what he is. This guy allows you to be winning on the board, basically you shouldn't ever be behind.

In comparison, Tidal Warrior is only good with a Lord (he's not even good as color-screwing your opponent, they're either already playing blue, in which case Cursecatcher is always better, will Bolt/StP him with the land you're trying to screw them on, or are playing combo and have artifact mana to make up for it).

The decks you're playing the beatdown against already pack blue (where Cursecatcher is better [or the don't really run creatures? Trainwreck? Cursecatcher is better]). The decks you're playing the control role against, would you rather have another potential counterspell, or a 1/1 with a mostly irrelevant ability (if you've gotten to the point where you can Island Walk in, you've essentially already won and should be able to grind the game out, if you're color screwing your opponent, they should have already lost).

[KillemallCFH]

why do so many of you run the tidal warrior??

I have never had a problem needing the island walk. If you have a Lord your guys are most likely 3/3's if you have a reejery as well they are 4/4 that is bigger than most everything but goyf. You most likey have more creatures in play than your opponent as well. If your rejerry is in play, you use his ability to tap their fatty and you swing through anyway.

Honestly, You guys should consider cutting it for a better merfolk.First of all, saying "bigger than most everything but goyf" means that they are only bigger than about 50% of the creatures played in this format. If your guys are smaller than a Goyf, you won't be swinging with them any time soon, because chances are the opposing deck will have a Goyf. Islandwalk is very relevant and often needed to win. Also, the "tap a guy with reej" plan doesn't always work. With only 19 merfolk (in my list, anyways), and Reej being the most expensive one, there will often be times when you won't have any merfolk to play to activate his ability. Also, their ability to manascrew the opponent is often relevant. Finally, I run MD Seasinger, and I don't like playing 1UU for vanilla 0/1s. Tidal Warrior/Reef Shaman make sure this doesn't happen.

EDIT: @ Freakish: I run Seasinger. I feel that this card is powerful enough in the current environment to warrant MD inclusion, which is only made possible by Tidal Warrior, whose other uses I have outlined above. Also, don't underestimate his ability to manascrew. Even if the opponent is playing blue, keeping Thresh off of Goyf mana can be highly relevant. Still, the more I look at Dazefolk, the more I feel he does warrant inclusion. I just don't feel that he should replace Seasinger/Tidal Warrior. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

[Maveric78f]

why do so many of you run the tidal warrior??

I have never had a problem needing the island walk. If you have a Lord your guys are most likely 3/3's if you have a reejery as well they are 4/4 that is bigger than most everything but goyf. You most likey have more creatures in play than your opponent as well. If your rejerry is in play, you use his ability to tap their fatty and you swing through anyway.

Honestly, You guys should consider cutting it for a better merfolk.

The first idea about tidal warrior was to color deny the opponent. It obviously was a poor tech since most legacy cards need only 1 colored mana and as a consequence, the opponent just had to play a land to get the colored mana and he could playt his spell.

The second idea was to enable the play of seasinger (MD or SB). But seasinger appeared to be too fragile to be a reliable way to deal with annoying creatures.

The thirs idea and the worst of the three is to give the evasion thanks to the lord. It's poor because half of the decks in legacy play blue (islands to be clear) and another half does not play creatures.

When I was still thinking that the deck needed a way to make my opponent control islands, I found out that Aquitect's Will was the best way because it cantripped and most of all it was definitive.

Now I definitely think that it's not needed but a lot of people did not understand it yet.

With Shadowmoore the deck got a very good new merfolk (if not 2).



Cursecatcher %U
Creature - Merfolk Wizard
Sacrifice Cursecatcher : Counter target instant or sorcery spell unless its controller pays .
#34/301 1/1

Puresight Merrow* (W/U)(W/U)
Creature - Merfolk Wizard
(W/U), untap : Look at the top card of your library. You may remove that card from the game.
Illus. Carl Critchlow #146/301 2/2

Sygg, River Cutthroat (U/B)(U/B)
Legendary Creature - Merfolk Rogue
At end of turn, if an opponent lost 3 or more life this turn, you may draw a card. (Damage causes loss of life.)
Illus. Jeremy Enecio #176/301 1/3



The merfolk wizards are better and better.

I could play a deck like this one :


Mana : 25
4*port
4*wasteland
4*underground sea
6*fetches
3*island
4*vial

Disruption : 8 (FoW in SB only against combo, because the deck should win on the tempo aspect)
4*Daze
4*Stifle

Coffee Maker : 3
3*Umezawa's Jitte => may be cut for FoW (+1 random creature)

Creatures : 24
4*Dark Confidant (W)
4*Merrow Reejerey (M)
4*Lord of Atlantis (M)
4*Sage of Fables (W/M)
4*Cursecatcher (W/M)
4*Silvergil Adept (W/M)
4*Puresight Merrow (W/M) => probably the one to cut to reach the 24 creatures only requirement

SB :
4*FoW (or 4*Jitte)
4*EE (universal removal, may justify a tundra MD in order to get rid of really annoying 3CC spells)
4*Anti graveyard (tormod, planar void, leyline)
3*Mind Harness (awesome in that meta)

[Hightower]

I don't understand why you wouldn't run Stonybrook Banneret in that list? He's awesome...

[Maveric78f]

I don't understand why you wouldn't run Stonybrook Banneret in that list? He's awesome...

Because it's almost a 1/1 vanilla for 2.

Because I have 8 lands that produce colorless mana.

Because among the creatures I play, 8 are not affected by stonybrook.

Most of all because there is no room for him (and not even for Sygg, River Cutthroat or Puresight Merrow which both look better in the deck).

[freakish777]

@KillemallCFH:

I had misread Dazefolk. I thought they actually were a Daze/Force Spike on Legs, and missed the "instant or sorcery" part. This makes them substantially worse than I thought, however with your following list:

3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
13 Island

4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejery
4 Silvergil Adept
4 Tidal Warrior
1 Reef Shaman
2 Seasinger

4 Force of Will
4 Daze

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Counterbalance
3 Back to Basics
2 Open*

How about:

-2 Open
-1 Reef Shaman
+3 Dazefolk

?

Reef Shaman doesn't seem worthwhile without any power (as the saying goes, the Good Vintage Players don't mana burn off Mana Drain, the Best remember that Goblin Welder swings for 1), then if the Dazefolk turn out to be a beating and you never miss the Reef Shaman, you can make the last -1 Tidal Warrior, +1 Dazefolk.

[Finn]

I am suspicious of the Daze guy one because the decks that this one tends to lose to are creature heavy. Threshold and storm combo (where Cursecatcher shines) are its best matchups already. It stills merits substantial testing even to the point of radically changing the rest of the deck simply because I am damned sick of Tidal Warrior's anti-synergy with Daze.

[KillemallCFH]

@KillemallCFH:

I had misread Dazefolk. I thought they actually were a Daze/Force Spike on Legs, and missed the "instant or sorcery" part. This makes them substantially worse than I thought, however with your following list:

<list>

How about:

-2 Open
-1 Reef Shaman
+3 Dazefolk

?

Reef Shaman doesn't seem worthwhile without any power (as the saying goes, the Good Vintage Players don't mana burn off Mana Drain, the Best remember that Goblin Welder swings for 1), then if the Dazefolk turn out to be a beating and you never miss the Reef Shaman, you can make the last -1 Tidal Warrior, +1 Dazefolk.That is actually exactly what I was planning on testing. The 2 open slots are currently occupied by Pithing Needle, which can easily be relegated to the board. (I'd be more wary of doing this if Deed was a real meta concern, since that is primarily what Needle is in there for, but it isn't in my meta, so I should be fine.)

[Maveric78f]

wee taps Nimble Mongoose
wee taps Nimble Mongoose
Maveric78f taps AEther Vial
Maveric78f plays Sage of Fables from Hand
Maveric78f's life total is now 15 (-1)
Maveric78f's life total is now 14 (-1)
Maveric78f's life total is now 13 (-1)
<wee> omg fucking randoms...
It is now the Postcombat Main Phase
<wee> End my turn
It is now turn 12 (Maveric78f)
It is now the Beginning Phase, Untap Step
Maveric78f untaps his/her permanents
It is now the Beginning Phase, Upkeep Step
Maveric78f puts Rishadan Port into play from Library
Maveric78f puts Rishadan Port to Hand from Play
It is now the Beginning Phase, Draw Step
Maveric78f draws a card
It is now the Precombat Main Phase
Maveric78f plays Wasteland from Hand
Maveric78f taps Wasteland
wee sacrifices Breeding Pool
Maveric78f puts Wasteland to Graveyard from Play
Maveric78f taps AEther Vial
Maveric78f plays Merrow Reejerey from Hand
Sage of Fables is now 3/3
It is now the Combat Phase, Declare Attackers Step
Maveric78f taps Dark Confidant
Maveric78f taps Sage of Fables
Maveric78f taps Dark Confidant
Maveric78f taps Sage of Fables
<wee> ok enough crap
<wee> get lost
<System> Player Lost

Of course he had game lost when he decided that my deck was too random for his Ug thresh. Maybe he would have preferred that my deck was less random and that I vialled in a serendib on his mongoose attack ?

[Zappa]

Hi Finn! Just got to say thanks for getting me a new deck to play around in MWS. Its pretty fun deck to play with, and can be quite disruptive too. However, I made some changes to the list. The current build I am running is as follows:


8X Snow-Covered Island
8X Island
4X Wasteland

4X Cursecatcher
4X Silvergill Adept
4X Grimoire Thief
4X Lord of Atlantis
4X Merrow Reejerey

4X Counter Balance
3X Sensei's Divining Top

4X Force of Will
2X Stifle
4X Daze

3X Sword of Fire and Ice


The deck is a 20/20/20 split as the deck has a fairly low casting cost, and stonybrook helps out with the mana some more also. Some explanations to my choices:

Cursecatcher Fairly evil card I might say, well not really evil just annoying. Its a 1st turn drop that can block lackey. Otherwise most of the time, if he cant get trough, he will just sit there while opponent plays around him.

Silvergill Adept It was stonybrook at first, but I feel like with her there wasnt really much to benefit from. I also prefer Silvergill's extra punch for a faster kill. Additional card drawing isnt bad either.

Grimoire Thief Has a nice synergy with Merrow Reejerey. 2 mana for a 2/2 isnt too bad either.

Sensei's Divining Top + Counterbalance
Pretty self explanatory, I do love being able to controll or atleast have much more of a selection on my card drawing thanks to the top.

Sword of Fire and Ice This was a tough one to decide for me.
It was this vs Jitte, but I felt that having more card draw as well as having extra protection is pretty nice, that and the store I go to doesn't carry any jitte (Cries). But making our merfolks have a good sized body is pretty nice on its own.


Some things I am wondering about is:

1) How do you feel about Cunning Wish?
Being able to wish for answers is pretty nice too.

2) The mana base, do you think doing a 50/50 split between islands, and snow-covered islands will be smart? In case opponent runs some predicts? Granted that card is very very rarely played, but I dont think having a 50/50 split of islands and snow-covered, will have any negative effect on the deck.

3) Between the FoW, Daze, Counterbalances, and stifles. Its pretty disruptive, but with cursecatcher as well as grimoire thief, I wonder if I am being too cautious. If I take out the Grimoire Thief and Cursecatcher, I would run Tidal Warrior as well as Tideshaper Mystic to go with an unblockable route. Atleast this way I will have 12 answers to a first turn lackey (16 if I went first: Daze).

So with number 3 in mind the deck will look like this:

8X Snow-Covered Island
8X Island
4X Wasteland

4X Tidal Warrior
4X Tideshaper Mystic
4X Silvergill Adept
4X Lord of Atlantis
4X Merrow Reejerey

4X Counter Balance
3X Sensei's Divining Top

4X Force of Will
2X Stifle
4X Daze

3X Sword of Fire and Ice



4) Since Damnations, Pernicious Deeds, Wrath of God, Engineered Explosives, and Powder Kegs, sees alot of play. Do you think that adding perhaps two Faerie Conclave will help, in case something bad happens and the board got sweeped?

5)What is your opinion on Shapesharer Its a 1/1 Changeling for 2 mana. Can act as another Merrow Reejerey or Lord of Atlantis, or perhaps copy one of their legendary creatures and take out each other *Waves at Akroma* or perhaps copy other things like Tarmogoyf? Perhaps 1-2 could be useful?

6) Do you think that running diffrent numbers of those 1cc land changing creatures be a smarter play? Like perhaps 3/3/2 split between Tidal Warror, Tideshaper Mystic, and Reef Shaman be a smarter play to avoid being too prone to Pithing Needle?

7) The question with the land changing creatures is, just how many do we really need? I was thinking of maybe going something like:
4X Cursecatcher
1X Reef Shaman
1X Tideshaper Mystic
1X Tidal Warrior
1X Something?

I added the Cursecatcher in the list of possibilities since granted there is no element of surprise, the opponent will, however, try to play around the card. Thus buying you more time to drop more critters, or drop a Counterbalance. If they do decide to play around the creature, shouldn't it benefit us since they are sacrificing tempo? We can just have it basically just stay there with no porpose of ever sacrificing it and just beat them up with it, if they are trying to play around it. Just thought he/she/it may have some potential.



Which build seems more viable?
The first one thats more disruptive but slower.
Or the second one that has more first turn drops, as well as the ability to have an unblockable route.

Sorry for so many questions, I really like the deck so I was wondering about so many stuff. ^_^

[Maveric78f]

I am tempted to answer your questions, but as you are talking to Finn and I am not Finn, I won't. I'm wondering myself why you did not mp him directly.

By the way, your deck is awful and you make abstraction of all that has been said since the beginning of the thread (and the one before).

[Finn]

I think that without Seasinger, I certainly would not use Tidal Warrior. Cursecatcher may be good for that role, but my concerns about it not affecting creatures stands. The deck needs anti creature cards more than anything else.

I don't like Grimoire Thief in this deck. The deck is very disruptive without it, and its ability is pretty clunky. Again, it doesn't do much against creatures.

Counter-Top seems like a good fit iff the opponent is not able to land an attacker before it comes online.

A lot of the cool cards like Counterbalance, Vedalken Shackles, Psionic Blast, etc. I have not tried out simply because I have been using Tidal Courier, and there is never room for that stuff. If you are not using that card, use Brainstorm for sure. That brings me to fetchlands - use them in any deck with Divining Tops if at all possible. That opens the door to a second color fairly wide. I like white here for our original problem answered - creatures.

[Maveric78f]

I did a recent discovery, when trying different options for the monoU build:
- shapesharer

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/lw/85.jpg

I wonder how I could miss it before. I'm too lazy to make a scan (mmm just did it and saw that Zappa talked about it in the same page, I don't know why I've missed this card) to see if it was proposed by somebody else. The advantages of this card in the merfolk deck are manyfold:
1/ it is able to face any opponent's big guys and this is what tribal decks fail at usually.
2/ it's merfolkf AND wizard. Great in my list.
3/ can copy the lord, the reejerey and it's a very good kill.
4/ the ability is more dissuasion (is it english?) than anything else. Indeed as our deck is one of the aggroest ones of the metagame, even if we are fulltap, the opponent will keep his guys in defense, fearing that we would kill him on our turn, copying his big guy. That way, you never have to pay for 3, not even keep 3 open, because the threat is usually on your next turn, after your untap.
5/ even greater when you get a sage of fables counter on him (your tarmo is +1/+1 than opponent's, the same for terravore).


My list:
// Lands
13 [B] Island (2)
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [MM] Rishadan Port

// Creatures
4 [TSB] Lord of Atlantis
4 [LOR] Silvergill Adept
4 [LOR] Merrow Reejerey
4 [LOR] Shapesharer
3 [MOR] Sage of Fables
4 [SHM] Cursecatcher

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 4 [MI] Mind Harness
SB: 4 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 4 [CH] Tormod's Crypt

[Waikiki]

Thats a very nice list maveric. I do actually mis a way to gain some caddrawwing. Has this been a problem for you during testing?

[KillemallCFH]

Shapesharer is an interesting find, as an answer to big dudes if nothing else. I don't know if there is really any room in my list, though.

Here's is my current list:
// Lands
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
14 [US] Island (4)
2 [ON] Polluted Delta

// Creatures
3 [SHM] Cursecatcher
4 [SH] Tidal Warrior
4 [LRW] Silvergill Adept
4 [6E] Lord of Atlantis
2 [FE] Seasinger
4 [LRW] Merrow Reejerey

// Spells
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [NE] Daze
3 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [US] Back to Basics
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [US] Annul
SB: 3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 2 [BOK] Threads of Disloyalty
SB: 1 [US] Back to Basics

I switched up the B2B/CB numbers from my previous list, as well added Cursecatcher. They are pretty much what I expected, not fantastic, but a decent one-drop that will occasionally help you win a counter war. I'm also trying some new tech in Annul in the SB. It counters Deed, Plague, Moat, Humility, Solitary Confinement, Standstill, Survival, most of Enchantress, most of Affinity, equipment, Vial, Counterbalance, Belcher, etc, most of which are must-counters for this deck.

@Splashing a color (specifically, white): I strongly considered this, but opted for the power of B2B instead. I could run white and B2B alongside each other, but that might be dangerous. I really don't know if StP is better than B2B + being hit by Waste/Moon/etc.

@Mind Harness: When making my SB, I kinda forgot about that card and opted for Threads instead. Now I'm thinking Harness might be better, though I'm not sure, as cumulative upkeep + not being able to steal things like Dark Confidant can be a substantial drawback. Also, since my list is a bit less aggro/tempo than other lists, should Shackles be considered in that slot, or is it just too slow?

[Maveric78f]

Thats a very nice list maveric. I do actually mis a way to gain some caddrawwing. Has this been a problem for you during testing?

You got one point. This is the big shortcoming for dropping b (which was essentially for dark confidant). I tested a lot with 4 sages and 3 shapesharer and I never really was on topdeck mode. I think that 1 shift should not change that too much. The fact is that the deck plays a lot on the tempo, waste/rishadan/stifle/daze, during this first part of the game, you don't play a lot of your threats. You keep developing while you slow down your opponent. Once vial is raised @2, or once you miss fuel on mana denial, you can start dropping your guys and usually the opponent is dead before you empty your hand.

KillemallCFH > your deck does not have the same strategy as mine, mine is much aggroer and more tempo-based. I don't have a lot of advises to give to you. I just feel that you play too many cool things. About shapesharer, I would say that you should choose between seasinger and him. Seasinger is cool but it's useless against non-creature decks and it needs an island which you can't rely on. That's why I would remove your tidal warriors and seasingers for them.

[Sims]

I like shackles a lot as a supplement to Seasinger. My list is very close to your slightly older list except i dropped the reef shaman to add in CB 3 and then added in 2 Shackles in the open slots. Having 8 cards that run 3CC for CB is amazing, plus it gives you variety in what you're able to jack. It might be better off as one or the other, but I like being able to steal chump blockers with the shackles without my opponent being forced to have an island (or me having tidal warrior)... On the flip side, having seasinger is great for hijacking fucillo huge Goyfs.

Jus my opinion.

[Willoe]

Actually, Shapesharer's Pretty good. Even though it's a VERY sucky Merfolk of the Pearl Trident against creatureless decks, he's brutal when facing i.e. an Akroma cookie deck. And in small tournaments, random jank (ref. mav's MWS log :P) occur often. Shapesharer can only be a solid choice. Nevertheless, he also copies your dudes which can get two lord of atlantis out of lightning bolt range.

I'll switch him with Seasinger. Plus, I start test the deck today.

All what I just said comes from theory, but I've of course seen the deck perform and I have a bit of know-how at least. Just so you know.

[KillemallCFH]

Just went 3-1 at a small local tourney, splitting top4. My list was my most previously posted one -3 Cursecatcher (couldn't get them, as SHM was just released yesterday) -1 Island, +3 Ponder, +1 Wipe Away. Brief report:

Round 1 vs Jared (Jaynel) w/ SI
G1: I see a hand of 6 lands, send it back, see a hand of no lands, send it back, and keep a hand of one land and no 1-drops. I do nothing. He does nothing. I do nothing. He goes off.
(SB: -2 B2B, +2 Annul)
G2: I play an island and say go. He goes off turn 1 in the face of Daze. /shrug

(0-1, 0-2)

Round 2 vs my brother, Scott (VsTheWorld) w/ Ichorid
G1: Ichorid does its thing and I can't stop it.
(SB: -2 B2B, -3 CB, -1 Wipe Away, +4 Crypt, +2 Jitte)
G2: I lead with Crypt. He does something. I play some dudes and eventually get another Crypt. He can't get around them.
G3: I FoW his first turn Chalice @ 0, and drop a crypt on my turn. Merfolk beat him down before he gets anything going.

(1-1, 2-3)

Round 3 vs Ben (from Cairo) w/ UWb Cunning Landstill
G1: I drop a first turn Tidal Warrior. He plays a land. I drop a LoA, he FoWs, I FoW back, he FoWs back. I land a B2B next turn and beat him down with 'folk.
(SB: -2 Seasinger, -1 Ponder, +3 Annul)
G2: I play some cantrip-folk. He plays some removal. I get a board. He WoGs. I drop a B2B. I win.

(2-1, 4-3)

Round 4 vs Roddy (RoddyVR) w/ 5c Survival Slivers
G1: We both play our respective tribe-members, but mine islandwalk. We get in a race and triple LoA seal the deal.
(SB: -2 Tidal Warrior, -1 Ponder, -1 Wipe Away, +2 Threads of Disloyalty, +2 Pithing Needle)
G2: I counter an early Pump-Sliver, he lands a Crystalline, due to the blue I gave him by Tidal Warrior-ing his Plateau. Whoops. After that he proceeds to play 3 Harmonics, killing my CB and Top (due to Vial shenanigans). However, he can't get much going and LoA + Tidal Warrior + Silvergill Adept means an unblockable 3/2 every turn that wins me the game.

(3-1, 6-3)

We split Top 4, get some Thai food, and play some Type 4. Anyways, here are some thoughts on the deck:
Ponder is awesome, and may be the best use of that slot. I had more than one hand throughout the day that was only keepable because of Ponder, and it just all around made the deck run more smoothly. There is a good chance that even once I'm able to obtain Cursecatchers, I'm going to stick with Ponder. Tidal Warrior is solid. He makes guys unblockable. He gets rid of Factories. He makes Seasinger playable. He beats with lord(s) on the board. And if all else fails, he pitches to FoW. Back to Basics, especially when backed up by a clock (unlike in MUC), is a bomb in this format. I have no conclusive results as far as the usefulness of Wipe Away. I'm going to do some more testing with it, but in theory it seems solid. Merfolk pwn.

[Curby]

Congrats on the win. It seemed odd to side in control magic effects against slivers. With many decks running both Crystalline and Hibernation, it seems like they'd be dead more often. Did you put them in to get more 3-CMC spells for Counterbalance?

I wish you could have gotten Cursecatchers in time. I think they're an interesting addition for sure and serious testing results would have been nice.

[Zappa]

While this deck can be pretty fast and quite disruptive with its counte magic, other weenie decks just simply gives it problems. Some cards I would like to address if it can be worthy of inclusion are the following:

Wings of Velis Vel -
It's a changeling so it also benefits Silvergill Adept, making our merfolk 4/4 is nice to fight against other weenie decks, and helps protects our Lord of Atlantisand Merrow Reejerey from burns. Speaking of Merrow Reejerey, its can be a nice surpirse to the opponent too. Porposely tap out either from your attack phase, or their phase by using the 1 drop merfolks to change their lands. They try to attack since were either tapped out or they think we wouldnt block with our Merrow Reejerey. Cast it, on one of the tapped merfolks, and since it is a merfolk spell, untap the one we just casted it on, now we have a nice 4/4 blocker as a surprise. I think its a nice surprise card and helps with our aggro matches.

Vedalken Shackles -
Were running mono blue, prehaps this artifact can also help with our aggro matches? Plus it can also be a card advatage. Maybe a nice combination of Vedalken Shackles and Seasinger may help, especially if opponent is running either vial.

Psionic Blast -
If were fighting against combo decks, perhaps these cards would be nice to speed up our clock. Or is it better to just run more stifles and countermagic main deck?

Speaking of sideboard, can Spell Snare find a place in the sideboard slot?


I've been playing this deck, I must say that if you choose to run Counterbalance + top in the deck, I really think that we should ditch the Wasteland. Since we run a mere 20 land, you gotta have access on two blue mana on turn two. To either drop counterbalance or Lord of Atlantis early on. As turn 3 will either be reserved for Merrow Reejerey, Seasinger (if youre running it), Sword of Fire and Ice (if youre running it), or top if you didnt drop it on turn 1.

[Sims]

I'm confused.... If you guys are discussing Killemall's latest list, he's not running Wasteland and he does run 4x Brainstorms... Anyways. I've been running a list that I came up with pretty similar to his, excepting that I had Wastelands and Vedalken Shackles in the list. I'll give ponder a whirl, but I like Shackles. With the amount of basic islands, later in the game it's a bomb and can take damn near anything, but early on especially seasinger is amazing at stealing goyfs or even just kidnapping chumpers to thwart other attacks. It's just that sometimes Seasinger blows cause you can't find or keep a Tidal Warrior alive, and then Shackles shines even moreso. I haven't tested Psionic or any of the changelings. Hell, I haven't even tested Cursecatcher at all yet.

[Curby]

While this deck can be pretty fast and quite disruptive with its counte magic, other weenie decks just simply gives it problems. Some cards I would like to address if it can be worthy of inclusion are the following:

Wings of Velis Vel -

Vedalken Shackles -
Were running mono blue, prehaps this artifact can also help with our aggro matches?


I can't help but mentally compare it to CounterSliver, which seems to do alright against aggro. It can run combat tricks a-la Hibernation Sliver, it has 4 Swords main, and it can side in Engineered Plague. If you've the lands for it, you might try a splash to see if such removal helps you out. I use Wings in my aggro build, but it's probably not so good in an aggro-control situation. For example, Shackles are probably better (and note you don't need to be monoblue to use Shackles. Just make sure your multicolor land count as Islands.)

(Heh, I was just reading mtgsalvation and I saw this exact post there too. :tongue: )

[KillemallCFH]

Congrats on the win. It seemed odd to side in control magic effects against slivers. With many decks running both Crystalline and Hibernation, it seems like they'd be dead more often. Did you put them in to get more 3-CMC spells for Counterbalance?Well, if I am able to steal a Sinew/Muscle, it is amazing. If they get a Crystalline/Hibernation it is dead. *shrug* I figured I would just not let the latter resolve so I could steal the former. I actually ended up having 2 of them in my hand G2 when he had a Crystalline, but at that point it didn't matter.

@Aggro Matchup: Jitte basically solves every problem you have here. If Aggro is really prevalent in you meta, run 'em main. If not, run 'em SB.

@Psi Blast: I would basically only run this if control is a big concern, as it can give you much-needed reach. Aside from that, it seems pretty underwhelming. It you're concerned about creatures, just run Shackles instead.

[Zappa]

I was wondering if I can get some opinion on just how to improve my aggro match. That is the only thing I really care about at the moment. As there is just 1 player in my meta I want to crush with this deck.

A bit of history:
This guy hates everything that is blue, he's just like every other player that I have played that talks so much crap just because I use cards like Counterspell and Force of Will. I also swear there are times when them whining gets really aggrevating, saying thing like "figures" to "thats so (insert swear word here) cheap". The players in my area thats like that usually plays a fast weenie deck.


I have just been play testing this deck in Magic Workstation, doing test runs on how it plays in the early turns and what so ever. I have not played the person at all yet. That guy I am trying to gear it to plays a white weenie with Aether Vial, Swords to Plowshares and Condemn. His creature base is alot and casting cost ranges from only 1 to 2 casting cost. I usually see cards like:
Savannah Lions, Isamaru, Serra Avenger, Whitemane Lion, Samurai of the Pale Curtain, and a bunch of other 2cc creatures, Disenchant and the enchantment Crusade... and etc.

His creatures as I can see so far are just plain bigger compared to my merfolk, and he does outnumber me in creature base. I have already bought the cards for this deck, however the problem is getting the 4X Jitte. the two card shops I went to (both so far away) carries only Sword of Fire and Ice. So thats what I had bought instead.

Currently heres my list and I am hoping I could get a little help tweaking it to face against that decks player that talks so much crap when someone uses blue.. I guess you can call it a grudge match.

Currently heres my list:

(4) Flooded Strand
8 Snow-covered Island
8 Island

(3) Tidal Warrior
(3) Tideshaper Mystic
(2) Reef Shaman
(4) Silvergill Adept
(4) Lord of Atlantis
(4) Merrow Reejerey

(3) Counter Balance
(3) Sensei's Divining Top

(4) Force of Will
(2) Stifle
(4) Daze

(4) Sword of Fire and Ice


I understand that not having the Umezawa's Jitte can hurt, bust since the stores I go to doesn't carry it I was wondering if Sword of Fire and Ice can be a decent subtitue instead. Against fast Aggro matchups should I just use card like [Propaganda] instead?

Currently my Sideboard is still a little empty, I have only currently decided on a few cards:

SB: (4) Propaganda
SB: (4) Back to Basics

It's something I am still trying to work on on what I really need against my meta. Which is pretty much ranging from: Goblins, White Weenie (Blue hater), X Land stompy, Suicide Black (Blue hater), B/W confidant (Blue hater), UGR Threshold, UG Madness, Pure Burn. There is also a person that plays with a combo deck that wins with Tendrils or Agony, but he rarely plays.

Is there any other counter measure I can use isntead of propaganda in a Mono U deck, or is that pretty much my main answer against a quick rush of creatures?

Has anyone also tested Aquitect's Will? I am curious on what your opinion about it, coz I have been in a few cases where I wish my merfolk could have been attacking to deal that extra damage instead of having to tap to make the others unblockable. Its a cantrip that does what alot of our merfolks already give, but atleast when Lord of Atlantis do come down, they can push for that extra unblockable damage.

With Silvergill Adept, Sword of Fire and Ice, if I were to add a few Aquitects Will as well, then there would be a nice amount of card drawing.

But can anyone give me some advise for aggro match up? Mainly on that white version (grudge match).

[Sek'Kuar]

I have been testing Aquitect's Will in place of Reef Shaman/Tidal warrior and I have found it to be very effective. One of my favorite things that happened was when I "islandified" my red death-playing opponent and he sinkholed himself so he could block. then i willed him again. Vial is priceless, and the counter-suite is great, although i cant bring myself to use counter-top.

[Piceli89]

hi all ! This is my first post in legacy. Some times ago, staring at the infinite number of tritons that lorwyn block has given us, I decided to build a solid t1,5 merfolk aggro-control deck, exploring all the possibile variants nad pairings of colour. I came to the conclusion that mono U IS JUST THE BEST CHOICE WE CAN ADOPT, and so i built a deck that -i thought- could be quite competitive.
The results were extremely surprising: testing the deck often in MWS, I simply realized that this deck was extremely strong, and could race both control decks (even 4c landstill, despites pernicious deeds and/or , generally, mass removals) and aggroer ones . I often won to goblins, 4c landstill itself, threshold and even with comboes such as dredge, enchantress. I have rarely lost these matches, mainly because of slightly crappy hands or too much hate ( see: rebs, stp,bolts all at once ).
I think that i had reach one of the best ( if not the best, i can assure you) versions that merfolks could offer: this deck is extremely aggro ( i often won the match by savagely beating my oppo's face with 5/5s ) as well as it can assume a control philoshophy. Daze, FoW, stifles help us a lot against every deck, and, well , this is proven by everyone, i think :smile: .
As you can see, there are also 3 standstills, which abuses of their sinergy with vial, forcing our opponent to break t his enchantment and gaining huge card advantage, or simple forcing him to wait until our angry fishes are vialed on the board and they begin to smash his a**. Furthermore, the deck can also exploit standstill for the fact that it runs 4 mutavault, which are IMO the best choices for such tribal decks: they receive tribal benefits from LoA and reejerey so they pump, but they are also synergic with vial and standstil itself.
About the "pumpers ", Lord Of Atlantis is a broken card: it allows you to do interesting tricks with vial, and giving +1/+1 and MOST OF ALL islandwalk is an amzing thing. I think that it isn't always needed to combo out with him and tidal warrior and/or tideshaper mystic (which is horrible), so i run only 1 tidal warrior, also to have a cc1/1 merfolk more.
One thing about the critters : mothdust changeling is amazing. Believe me. Not only for the sinergy with thief which is not a thing to die for, but for its ability to fly and fetch strategical damage when , for example, the match is stalled. Furthermore, it works very well with the new 2/2 critter for UU, puresight merrow ( in the list there's only 1 copy but perhaps i add more of them because they're more useful than thief..), who can clean our draw, do nice trick combats and perform a little combo with changeling in midgame when we want to draw a resolutive card. we can tap , untap, tap, untap, digging the deck until ( we hpe, soon :laugh: ) we find the solution for the situation.
After this presentation, i pass to the list:

lands -18
14 islands
4 mutavault

creatures - 19
4 LoA
4 reejerey
2 thief
1 puresight merrow
1 tidal warrior
3 mothdust changeling
4 silvergil adept

spells-23
4 FoW
4 Daze
2 Stifle
1 Trickbind
3 Vial
4 Brainstorm
3 Standstill
2 Echoing truth

SIdeboard : (mine depending on my metagame)
3 Back to Basics
3 Tormod's crypt
3 Propaganda
3 Chill
3 Pithing Needle


Even if some choices may seem odd ( the mono trickbind, 3 vials instead of 4 ) , this is mainly because trickbind is an addictive protection which often, acting as the 3rd stifle but incounterable, lets us protect our merfolks against EE, deeds , ecc ecc, especially against landstill; i added 3 vials because 4 are too heavy, and this decks relies on them , but they 're not "vitals " for our gameplanning -- i often won without dropping a vial, because our merfolks are just incredibly fast-- even exploiting reejerey's ability to untap lands and opponent's threats in order to drop an entire army in one turn and smash face. Jittes aren't compulsory, just because merfolks become huge in a very short time, so i never felt their necessity.
2 echoing truth are simply A-M-A-Z-I-N-G : they can resolve bad situations, and, in addition, they are nice when combined to standstill ( read: vial on board, i echoing your goyf EOT, cast standstill (possibly protected by fow and daze) in mine, and wait to vial the world or to attack you by mutavault). They also act against Etw tokens, multiple fattiesm etc etc.
I know you could be a little diffident abut this list, but i assure you that it is very worth to be tested. Ah, BTW, I won my first 2 torunaments with this list,always winning 2-0 except in the second final where i scored 2-1.
Merfolks are incredible, trust me.
Piceli89

[Zappa]

Glad to see another player picking up merfolk. Are you really okay with not having any equipments in the deck, or some way to take the opponent's creatures?

I asked coz the deck has problems fighting toe to toe vs aggro decks. There are alot of aggro decks in my area and most of them are just naturally bigger than ours, and packs relevant abilities (first strike, bushido, pumpable, regenerating), and the decks I play against just packs alot more threat density than ours. So I am very iffy with dropping the equipments. They help speed up our clock, and also fight off aggro decks.

I've been running simulations of this deck alot on MWS, and honestly, I am slowly disliking the Counterbalance + top in the deck. I am also starting to favor the inclusion of Aquitect's Will into the deck. Often times as our creatures get bigger, having to tap our 1cc merfolks to attack with a bunch of unblockables, I am starting to dislike. As that 1 creature actually makes a difference when it comes into a damage race. But I am against taking them out also, as they can also help screw your opponents mana, sometimes even buying us enough time for 1 massive attack.

Things I dont like to see are:
- Opponent drops a Aether Vial on the first turn.
- Opponent opens up with 2-3 creatures on turn 1 via dark ritual.
- Opponent constantly aiming pin point removal to our LoA's head.
- Seeing a Bayou/Overgrown Tomb coming down (Start becoming defensive due to worry of pernicious deed)

But from the 1st 3 things I mentioned, what I really am worried about at basically aggro decks that runs more threat density than us. We cant go toe to toe since their creatures are bigger, and they run more than we do, and we can't afford to just sit back and pray that we come across one of our lords.

So yes, propaganda is a must, and equipments are too.

I see that you run brainstorm, however, you also do not have a fetchland. Have you considered running ponder at this case, for that shuffle effect?

I am also begging to think that I should run Mutavault also, though I am hesitating due to the fact that we also run Back to Basics, and that majority of decks in legacy right now runs Wasteland. So instead of their wasteland becoming useless, we are actually giving them a target for it.

How much help has that Puresight Merrow give you? Merfolk deck since its new, has so many things we can play around and test.

Heres my current build I am playing around in MWS:

(4)Flooded Strand
(8)Snow-covered Island
(8)Island

(4)Tidal Warrior
(4)Tideshaper Mystic
(4)Silvergill Adept
(4)Lord of Atlantis
(4)Merrow Reejerey

(3)Propaganda

(4)Force of Will
(3)Daze
(4)Counterspell

(2)Aquitect's Will
(4)Sword of Fire and Ice


SB: (3)Back to Basics
SB: (4)Chill
SB: (3)Energy Flux
SB: (1)Proganda
SB: (4)Stifle

Maindecked propaganda, as well as running 4 equipments to deal with aggro matchups. Nice form of card draw from Adept, Will, and SoFI.

[Piceli89]

@zappa:
To be sincere, the tournments where I brought Merfolks , there were dragon stompy, ichorid combo and WW, and threshold. Since i played against all of them and got multiple victories, I can tell you that it is better ( in my opinion and referring to my meta ) to increase the number of merfoks instead of equipments which are, of course, very useful, but i think they're not necessary, and they often slow down our race. If your meta is full of aggro and you can't manage to hold the race with their creatures, i suggest you to run seasinger ( which, although all, i personally dislike becuase of her slowness) or threads of disloyalty to steal goyfs and whatever else causes you problems. For what concerns "if LoA doesn't come early", I remember you that our deck runs also other 4 pumpers, the reeejereys, which are surely more slow , but they allow you to do nice tricks in order to tap oppo's creatures and swing. Ah, perhaps i never lost the damage race in spite of facing werebears , goyfs and mongooses for the fact that i also run echoing truth , which is amazing if played in the right moment. My list also runs heavy disruption, which allows me to arginate thier MAJOR threats and play in the "standstill mode " (with mutavault , vial and standstill to gain CA on the board).
Finally,I hadn't tested puresight merrow yet in a torunament, but in he goldfish mode i can assure you that it is useful manily in mid game to clean our draw; either way, it's always a 2/2 for UU which becomes big early, and i think that its ability is often more useful that the thief's one. Their only problems could be the specific cost UU, which is not always easy to get with mutavaults on board, but i have vial to front this problem.
Last thing: RUN MUTAVAULT. If you should ever decide to run standstll, run them; even if u shoulfn't do it, run them in any case. They're extremely useful , and often a 3/3-4/4 for 1 colorless mana is just violent beatdown.
I think that the deck should have a very aggro approach, mantaining the control part ( composed by counters ) at the same time, so i wouldn't recommend to run BtB MB.. i keep it in the sideboard only for certain matches ( landstill above all), and generally prefer to smash oppo's face with additive 'folks.
This is all, tell me your considerations.
Piceli

[georgjorge]

Given the aggro character of the deck and the range of casting costs (1-3, distributed pretty even), I think it could even support one or two disrupting Shoals...trying it out at the moment.

[Zappa]

@ Piceli89

Do you have any Landstill players in your meta? I was wondering if you can post your match up Theres no one in my area that plays the deck, so I was wondering how it'll go. Granted that you do have counter magic of your own, as well as Aether Vial, but I am just imagining 1 resolved sweeper and its over. As far as the equipments, I guess it just depends on your comfort level, I guess. The thing that annoys me though is having to explain it to someone else that they also count as merfolks is a bit of a pain. But since I am playing alot of people in a card shop with it, I no longer need to explain.

On magic Workstation, however, its a different story all together.
In this game I my opening if I remmeber correctly was:

2 Island, Daze, Tidal Warrior, 2 Lord of atlantis, FOW.
Cant remember the draws but what was in play at the time was...

[Islands]
[Tideshaper Mystic] [LoA with SofI] [another LoA] [Propaganda]
I then drew a SoFI and equipped it to the LoA with SoFI already in it. (Dont remember what had happened to the Tidal Warrior, I think I pitched it to FOW)

which is when this took place...

[Zappa] Zappa plays Sword of Fire and Ice from Hand
[Zappa] Zappa taps Island
[Zappa] Zappa taps Island
[Zappa] Sword of Fire and Ice is enchanting Lord of Atlantis now
[Zappa] Zappa taps Tideshaper Mystic
[Zappa] Zappa taps Lord of Atlantis
[Zappa] It is now the Combat Phase, Beginning Of Combat Step
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> no is a fucking merforld
[REaki] <REaki> no isladwalk
[Zappa] <Zappa> hes a merfolk
[REaki] <REaki> .......
[REaki] <REaki> is a LORD
[Zappa] <Zappa> look at the card
[REaki] <REaki> noob
[<System>] <System> Player Lost

Im confused on my screen it said "Merfolk Lord" do specific cards you put on MWS not really show up in their screen? Like if you decide to use Timespiral version, will they see a different version?

But yeah, anyways, unblockable merfolks with equiments are pretty evil.
I might consider running the mutavaults too, like you said, they can easily be a 3/3 for a mere mana. I am just worried though that I am going to make the opponent's wasteland relevant, than making it a dead card.

I am also beggining to think that propaganda is no longer needed. I think I'll play around with adding a few more equiments to the deck, since it really is the aggro deck I want to focus more into. The unblockable part of the deck makes it even more sweet. Surprised though that I haven't seen any green decks running [Vexing Shusher] yet, or atleast sideboard wise. Alot of people I know really wanted it.

For an aggro oriented meta, I think this is the build I would go for.
I know it may seem kinda overkill, but with the amount of removal other decks packs, as well as bigger creatures with relevant abilities, and a higher threat density. I feel comfortable with overkill.

Heres what I am thinking about going with:
Still waiting for my playset of Jitte, and beta version of LoA. *Yey beta!* ^_^

(4) Flooded Strand
(6) Snow-covered Islands
(6) Islands
(4) Mutavault

(4) Force of Will
(4) Daze
(4) Counterspell

(2) Aquitect's Will

(4) Tidal Warrior
(4) Tideshaper Mystic
(4) Silvergil Adept
(4) Lord of Alantis
(4) Merrow Reejerey

(3) Umezawa's Jitte
(3) Sword of Fire and Ice

The problem is, if I were to add the mutavault should Flooded Strand get taken out? Wouldn't Mutavault also start to cause some friction should Back to Basics get boarded in game 2? I am also worried of not being able to cast LoA turn 2, or not have UU on turn 2 (counterspell in hand) should I play "draw-go" on a few turns (happened to me a few times).



@ Goergjorge
Have you gotten a chance to play test the Disrupting Shoals? Between the FoW and Disrupting Shoal, did you ever have problems of losing a bit much cards? Since the deck has little card drawing as it is. If it showed positive results can you post the decklist youre using? What is your card drawing engine?

[Piceli89]

disrputing shoal is too specific for my taste, i wouldn't run it because it's too random.
@zappa: counterspell is not needed in this deck, if you decide to follow my advice and build an aggroer version. remember that we're an aggro deck, we must beat down and hold the race with our oppos, so counterspell would slow a lot our game keeping UU every time. I prefer to run mutavault and have a colorless mana ( this is generally not a problem , because i can drop vial on turn 1 or just make island -mutavault -standstill go) , and rarely i 've been wasted.. i remember you that my deck runs 3 stifles, though :tongue: , so it's easy for me to read oppo's intentions and make him waste a land. Finally, counterspell is more typical of a control deck which can support lots of lands, we usually drop up to 3-4 lands and cast our angry fishes. At least, I do so XD.
Propaganda is not needed, perhaps only in SB for extremely aggro deck , but it is just a metagame choice. For what cocnerns the landstill matchup, I just played yesterday with a landstill ( and several times on MWS against net opponents) and I managed fortunately to win in spite of lots of removals ( ghastly demise for example). however, if you fear so much mass removals or "sweepers", just run some stifles and protect them with a FoW while you beat your oppo's ass.
Ah , last thing: LoA is a MERFOLK LORD (wizard corrected this "errata"), so it wil get the bonus by another LoA or from a reejerey. I know that MWS is full of noobs.. I think at how many times i got player lost because my oppos couldn't remove 3 cards face down from the top of deck because of grimoire thief's ability..

[rufus]

I wonder how much sense it would make to run some type of transformational with the goal of going beatdown against control decks, and control against combo decks. It's easy to come up with good control cards that can fit into a Merfolk deck - FoW, Daze, Counterbalance, perhaps Counterspell or Disrupting Shoal, Umezawa's Jitte and I'm sure there are plenty of others. Similarly, there are anti-control cards that will fit - Aether Vial, Riptide Pilferer, Tidal Courier, and Fallowsage come to mind.

[Zappa]

Yes propaganda doesnt seem like it is no longer needed. Or the deck doesnt even need, as usually the deck runs so many turn 1 drops. That's why I've decided to run more equipments on my merfolk deck to fight off aggro decks.

Maybe I should call the deck "Armed Merfolks", theyre armed and they are definitely angry. Ha ha just kidding. :laugh:

I am finally considering the inclusion of Aether Vial as to not worry about losing that 1 land from Wasteland, have an element of surprise for combat as well as being good vs control decks, and having the mana available to Counterspell. Leaving 2 Islands untapped while Aether Vial in on 2, and NO Coounterspell in hand, and simply just passing the turn, is a mind game all on its own.

The deck I'll be testing for now will be somethig like:

4 Flooded Strand
6 Snow-covered Island
6 Island
4 Mutavault

4 Aether Vial

4 Tidal Warrior
4 Tideshaper Mystic
4 Silvergil Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey

3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Counterspell
2 Stifle
4 Force of Will

SB: 4 Back to Basics
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Stifle
SB: 4 Chill
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt


@ Rufus
About the Counterspell thing, taking them out to me would lower my comfort level. Specially when playing against an unknown deck, 1 resolved sweeper and it can very much spell game. I know some will say that we can just drop another ones, but part of the problem is that the deck doesn't have a solid card draw. If you are running equipments to can acquire card advantage, but a solid card draw, is a different story all together.

Since I am running a bit of artifacts now, with the inclusion of vial and jitte, I was wondering wether or not [Thirst for Knowledge] might see a fit, especially if I add 4 of [Seat of Synod], the artifact land. But doing so will just seem plain silly as we do run Back to Basics in the sideboard.

Maybe Fact of Fiction? But the card is four mana to cast.
Oh well, I am going to play test this version and see how it turns out.

Anyone here have MWS and would like to play test with me?

[Finn]

You guys are losing an awful lot of disruption when you exchange Wastes and Ports for Mutavaults and a stack of equipment. Are you sure you want to do this? The aspect of the deck that gives it such a big leg up on Thresh has been its ability to keep disrupting while it cheats creatures into play. These proposed versions I see have lost much of the disruption and some of cheat ability as well. Have the changes granted some other advantages that more than offset what is lost in this very common scenario?

What do you do with the Mutavaults when B2B comes in? Actually don't bother, I think I know this one.

Someone somewhere tell me what Tideshaper Mystic is doing in this deck.

[Piceli89]

@finn: i decided to cut out the ports and the wastes just because they slowed the deck alot for me. I play a very aggro deck , combined with the traditional elements of control 8see FoW, daze, stifles.. ) , so i don't want to keep my oppo tangled in my mana denial-very randomic happening, which is not always valid because they often play only basics . I have tested rishadan port and I don't like it because I must keep 2 manas open, and I prefer to play something different which makes more pressure. I know that yo could say that we win by cutting tha mana of the oponent, but for me it's more solid to add merfolks and prepare a hard beatdown. And ifyou watn to know if I lose again threshold, I can tell you that i rarely do. If you play smartly by countering the right things (see: burn spells on our creatures ) and manage to vial in the right moment, you will dominate the match. Tarmogoyf doesn't scare me. Mutavault is a solid choice in this deck which runs 8 pumpers, particularly in min,e bcause it fits well with the landstill "part " and often becomes very big.
For what concerns tideshaper mystic, I don't like it too: it just works with LoA, but doesn't give occasional manadenying because its ability can be played only in our turn. If you,zappa, want to play drops 1 -merfolks, play changeling, whose ability is nice, or cursecathcer ( which, I think, isn't that strong in legacy, though). However, i will try to add some equipments and run less merfolks.. let's seehow things change.

[Zappa]

I am playing Tideshaper vs reef shaman for 1 thing, that extra power. I'd rather have the power of one vs power of zero. In an outright damage race, that extra damage helps. It is why I tried Aquitect's Will with the previous builds. Since having to tap one merfolk to let the others get trough can be a bit of a set back.

EDIT: I use them to swing those early turns if opponent does't drop any creatures yet, when he drops something relevant but not counter-worthy, I use them to open the path for my other merfolks.

Run Ports and Wastelands? We're a pseudo aggro deck, but runs no where near as much threat density as goblins. 8 colorless land in the deck that runs only 20 lands, can often be a mulligan if Aether Vial is not on sight. I'd much rather have the blue mana available for either Stifle or Counterspell.
Equipments? That is just my preference, like piceli has his own, and other people has their own. Just like how other decks out there runs other card choices, color combinations and etc, while maintaining the concept. I have not lost sight of that, I am merely focusing on helping the creature vs creature match up, with the help of equipments.

The previous builds lacks card drawing and card advantage. Yes, you may have fetchland to shuffle the deck and silvergil adept, that's so minor of an effect. Equipment's when facing aggro decks, is pretty much card advantage on its own. Kill other cards with Jitte and sword of fire and ice, and SoFI also draws you cards. Helps your creature vs creature combat, card advantage over time, card drawing from SoFI, helps speed up your clock as well.

Why worry about getting affected with Back to Basics? It is in your sideboard, if you need to use it then use it, 4 cards in the deck that it'll affect shouldn't stop you from using it.

[mrb4b00]

It seems like there are two versions of this deck, disruption based vs aggro based. And I think it is probablty a meta game call.
I've tried disruption based version with B2B and Winter Orb, And I find that while B2B is very strong vs decks with 3 or more color, more and more decks are edging toward running basic lands in my area.
There are some advantages in using winter orb. While it is less powerful compared to B2B vs decks that uses mostly nonbasic, winter orb costs 1 less mana, and generally more versatile against unknown decks.

Here is the decklist I used

Lands/Mana (17)
4x Wasteland
11x Island
2x Chrome Mox

Creatures (20)
CORE:
4x Tidal Warrior
4x Loa
4x Silvergil Adept
TESTING:
3x Stonybrook Banneret
4x Merrow Reejerey
1x Seasinger

Artifacts(5)
2x Winter Orb //best used midgame to lategame
3x Aether Vial

Counters(10)
4x FoW
3x Daze
3x Stifle

Utility(8)
3x Serum Visions
3x Standstill
2x Echoing Truth

SB:
Core:
3x Chill (switching with winterorb)
3x Annul
1x Seasinger
8x Undecided

Note on Creatures
This deck usually requires no more than 2 mana to function, 3 if no aethervial or stonybrook bannert are present. However, choices of creatures are far from final. I've considered the new spiketail merfolk from shadowmoor but I have not got time to test it.

This deck has some problems against aggro decks, such as white weenie and goblin, but performs amazingly against combo and control.

[Maveric78f]

Ok. A lot of lists have been posted these last days or weeks and all of them seem really awful to my point of view. Instead of explaining what is bad in every list, I'll try to explain what is absolutely necessary in the merfolk deck.

4 vials: the best cheater. Cheats mana and cheats counterspells. Enables also sometimes combat tricks.
13+ blue mana providers: I found out that 13 was enough because we play vial and finally blue is not that much necessary as long as you can play your creatures. Moreover, as your CA is provided by creatures, you will be helped by them into finding a blue source. They can be 13 islands or fetches and bilands if you splash or again you may want to add some copies of faerie conclave if you want to.
4 wasteland + 4 rishadan port: the deck is based on tempo, you need to win within 5/10 turns. The mana denial enables you to control your opponent's development in the early and middle game. Back to Basics or Winter Orb are middle and late game control elements. They seem unfitted to the aggroness of Merfolks. Ask to gob players why they play those lands.
4 stifle: they complete the mana denial suite, as well as being an anti combo card and being a solution to the awful pernicious deed or engineered explosives.
4 daze: the best tempo card of magic. When you are aggro you force your opponent to play fast. When you are aggro and mana denying him, dazes are efficient until turn 10. Daze can be discussed into thresh because it is far more control than merfolks and because they don't play (or play less) mana denial then merfolk. In merfolk it's definitely 4.
4 Fow: well I think that noone was crazy enough to discuss it.
4 LOA/Reejerey/Silvergil: they are the main reasons to play merfolk. Every body plays them too so I won't overextend on this.
4 Shapesharer: it answers all the needs of the deck. You hardly have to activate it. Just being able to do it makes it strong. I tried it and it solves all the weaknesses of the deck: it faces every creature in the format and it often enables to kill one turn ealier by copying you merfolk pumpers. It's your 9-12 +1/+1 guy.

According ot me these 53 cards are absolutely needed. The deck needs a way to make CA too. If you decide to splash black, dark confidant is clearly the best. If you remain monoU, then you may want to play standstill (even if it's a bit counterproductive with the tempo approach). Here are 3 lists. The 2 first have been extensively tested. I prefer the Ub, because confidant is just crazy. The third one has not been tested and is quite different. I sacrificed the stifles in order to have a very effective standstill/sygg draw.

Ub:
Mana : 25
4*port
4*wasteland
3*underground sea
6*fetches
4*island
4*vial

Disruption : 12
4*Daze
4*Stifle
4*FoW

Creatures : 20
4*Dark Confidant
4*Merrow Reejerey
4*Lord of Atlantis
4*Silvergil Adept
4*Shapesharer

Divers : 3
3*Umezawa's Jitte

SB :
4*Propaganda
4*Tormod's Crypt
4*Rushing River
3*Mind Harness

monoU :
Mana : 26
4*port
4*wasteland
11*island
3*Faerie Conclave
4*vial

Disruption : 12
4*Daze
4*Stifle
4*FoW

Creatures : 16
4*Merrow Reejerey
4*Lord of Atlantis
4*Silvergil Adept
4*Shapesharer

Divers: 6
3*Standstill
3*Jitte

SB :
4*Rushing River
4*Propaganda
4*Tormod's crypt
3*Mind Harness


monoU experimental:
Mana : 26
4*port
4*wasteland
11*island
3*Faerie Conclave
4*vial

Disruption : 8
4*Daze
4*FoW

Creatures : 20
4*Merrow Reejerey
4*Lord of Atlantis
4*Silvergil Adept
4*Shapesharer
3/4*Sygg

Pioche : 4
3/4*Standstill

Bounce : 3/4
0/2*Rushing River
1/3*Snapback

SB :
3*Jitte
3*Propaganda
4*Tormod's crypt
3*Stifle
2*Rushing River

[Piceli89]

My god ! 22 mana for an aggro control deck ! And those faerie conclave in here are just as the most horrible you could choose ? nd you would say that "some lists in here are really awful to me " ?? Shapesharer is a good variant, ok, but with 8 colorless mana and 3 lands which come into play tapped i really fear that without a vial in initial hand, we're not put very well...
And mutavault is the best card you can exploit with stadstill and vial, believe me.. nah.. i really don't like your list. 4 ports and 4 wastes are just too much, even if i understand that your own plan is the one to disrupt opponen'ts mana.

[Maveric78f]

Yeah 4 wastelands and 4 ports are too much for gobs too. Go and tell them.

And their 22/23-lands + 4 vials + 4 lackeys is goddamn awful for their aggro game plan too.

The perfect deck is surely a list with random singletons as yours.

[Piceli89]

Yeah 4 wastelands and 4 ports are too much for gobs too. Go and tell them.

And their 22/23-lands + 4 vials + 4 lackeys is goddamn awful for their aggro game plan too.

The perfect deck is surely a list with random singletons as yours.

mine will be a random list, but I've played against almost every deck anda have beaten them , while i seriously doubt that yours will be able to stop deck such as a good threshold or wahtever else, just for the fact that it is too slow.
If I get you on mws, i'll demonstrate you.

[CalebD]

Yeah 4 wastelands and 4 ports are too much for gobs too. Go and tell them.

And their 22/23-lands + 4 vials + 4 lackeys is goddamn awful for their aggro game plan too.

The perfect deck is surely a list with random singletons as yours.

Are goblins trying to come up with RR turn two? The merfolks want UU turn 2 pretty consistently, 8 colorless lands could hinder this.

They also have lackey as an alternative method of cheating creatures into play, meaning they have 8 1cc methods of skirting mana issues. This deck has 4.

That being said, you could just drop ports and have wastes/stifles MD for your mana disruption. 2 ports could also be acceptible, especially with something like brainstorm.

[Maveric78f]

Picely89, you're right mothdust changeling hits far stronger than shapesharer. You have absolutely nothing more aggroish than my list. I could make a whole page showing that your list is really awful. 3 vials for instance is a complete nonsense. Vials is always 4 or 0, because you want it turn 1 or never. You state that my deck is slow on a supposingly analyse that you don't argument. In aggro decks, mana denying is a tempo strategy that endeavours to slow down the opponents so that you can kill him before he recovers. By the way threshold has never been a difficult MU for merfolks since merfolks are more aggro and pack as well better disruption for the MU.

CalebD: I really don't know what you're talking about. I never want UU on my turn2. UU is only needed for lord witch I would NEVER play on turn2. I prefer by far to rishadan port my opponent, the time for me to put a counter on vial or to play some CA cards (silvergil/dark confidant/standstill). You are right when you say that gob has 8 ways of cheating and merfolk only 4. But merfolk has 12 ways to disrupt the opponent mana base and 4 daze to take high advantage from it.

[georgjorge]

Port + Waste is great if you get turn one Vial, but not so great without. Wasting your opponents first dual is not tempo at all, and Wasting your opponents third land after you have played Merfolk turn one and two is not going to matter so much against many decks because mana curves are so low. Stifle complements them fine, but you don't get so many opportunities to Stifle a fetch in the first two turns overall (because you play second and they already cracked it, they play two duals as their first lands etc).

So, my argument is that Merfolk with LD effects is not necessarily better than without, as those effects for the most parts don't give you tempo advantage. Not having four Lackey makes all the difference compared to Goblins, so please stop using that as a "killer argument" in every post. Tempo effects are needed, but they might just as well be bounce or additional free counters (Shoal). And if if you don't use Port + Waste (which I don't), Vial becomes less attractive too, and maybe expendable (because you need lots of Merfolk in your hand to really abuse it).

[Finn]

I don't agree with Maverick about certain things, but he is spot-on with his approach to this deck IMO. I would really love to get Mutavaults involved in here, but they don't pitch to FoW, they don't help with Daze, and they don't make blue mana. That's a lot of strikes against. Frankly, I would be in favor of trying out two of them with two Rishadan Ports. There is no particular benefit in having more than one in play at a time anyway.

Also, keep in mind that he and I put a lot of hours into testing different approaches before independently coming to the same conclusions on direction. It seems like a waste of time to backtrack the conversation for folks who need to find out for themselves. Maybe Mav is not right. But his point of view is based on experience. Just keep it in mind.

Again, I want to know - Is the more aggressive approach winning as much against Thresh as the disruption-oriented one?

[Piceli89]

I don't agree with Maverick about certain things, but he is spot-on with his approach to this deck IMO. I would really love to get Mutavaults involved in here, but they don't pitch to FoW, they don't help with Daze, and they don't make blue mana. That's a lot of strikes against. Frankly, I would be in favor of trying out two of them with two Rishadan Ports. There is no particular benefit in having more than one in play at a time anyway.

Also, keep in mind that he and I put a lot of hours into testing different approaches before independently coming to the same conclusions on direction. It seems like a waste of time to backtrack the conversation for folks who need to find out for themselves. Maybe Mav is not right. But his point of view is based on experience. Just keep it in mind.

Again, I want to know - Is the more aggressive approach winning as much against Thresh as the disruption-oriented one?

Even my point of view is strictly based on lots of hours playtesting different approaches. I'vre benn working on this deck since this thread was opened, and tried ever possible solution and splashing to obtain the best solution. I started me too with the disrpution-oriented version, but I didn't really like it because a) it happened several times that ports drawn in mid game were a waste of energy b) in many situations i prefered having an island rather than 2 colorless mana open c) playing only with drop 2 or 3 merfolks, despites seming to be a trascurable feature, slow you pretty consistently.
And so, after having splashed white, I came to my personal list. Surely, there's few of disruption, but the aggro exploiting can cover this lack. And it is not true that if you have put lots of time playtesting you have reached the best solution, because I have worked on this deck for 2 months every day and my list satisfies me a lot, and the results clearly speak for my advantage, but i certainly don't think that this is perfect, just because a perfect deck doesn't exist, fortunately.
I don't want to put in discussion that your list can be a great deck, too: but I just tested it before and often i didn't reach the right mana or it was just too slow, only that, even with the disruption. So , my dear maveric, don't tell me that i support my adfirmations with no proofs, because I tested it and didn't like it at all. This, of course, doesn't want to mean that your list can't be a very great deck.
Last thing: i play 3 vial instead of 4 just because i can afford to keep mana open and play merfolks or instans, differently from you that have to keep mana open to rishadan port the opponent, thing that may be succesfully in the first turns, but going to mid game loses its efficay. And , as someone wrote previously, having 2 ports in play is useless because you should keep 4 mana opej to exploit them, and this won't happen easily. I would rather use 2-3 of them and some mutavaults..

[Maveric78f]

Vial is a card that can be played only as 4-of or 0-of. Because it's a card that is needed on first turn or never. Plus, don't say that you can use your lands for mana, when we always can, even with rishadan port, and far more than you since we play 21/22 lands when you play only 18...

The thing I'd want you to explain more clearly is "how can your deck be more aggressive than my Ub one", for instance. You play less creatures, mutavaults apart and no equipment.

[Zappa]

@maveric

Yes and as if others too has not spent hours playing with this deck. Run rishadan ports and wastelands? I don't know what kind of decks that you've been playing but I wouldn't mind having UU on turn 2. Running 8 colorless sources limits that from happening. Sure those lands works for goblins, but we run half of the amount of creatures goblin decks play.

I board sweeper and it is game. We do not have the same threat density as goblin's, they can recover at a rapid rate from a board sweeper unlike merfolks, and have more ways to get more.

Sure you can disrupt them all you want, and try to be cute with your wasteland + rishadan ports. But you said so your self, you want aether vial on turn 1 or never. So what? You'll agressively mulligan to find it? Especially with the drawing power that the deck lacks?

You still have not adressed the major problem the deck faces, aggro decks. Yet you're so quick to disregard other people's hours of play test, and simply try to say that your god awful decklist is better than ours? You do realize that aggro decks could care less about your wastelands and rishadans right?

It is all about the metagame, I focused more against the aggro matchups, piceli made his own adjustments based on what he/she plays. Do not be so quick on disregarding other people's opinions especially when they have been backed up with hours of play testing as well.

As a matter of fact, you we so quick to disregard one of my early builds (which yes, I can say due to its early form its lacking alot of things), but did not even pay attention to what was included. "Shapesharer" comes to mind?

Merfolks are new and needs alot of play testing. Were are not here to bash other people's decks, like what you've been doing. If you do not like the deck, keep in mind that it is designed on their own particular meta. If some cards seems questionable, ask why it is being run, and what result is it producing, and then ask for why would it be better to be run compared to so and so cards.

It is not set in stone, its is a new deck, and it has may challenges ahead of itself.



@ Piceli
Do you have AIM and or MSN messenger so we can play test different versions of the deck? Send me a PM if you're interested.

[Maveric78f]

Ok. I first of all wanted to start a discussion. I don't want to bash Piceli particularly, but as I said, his deck is really badly built. About Zappa's deck, I think that it goes the wrong way (for instance, counterspells in a non full control deck is bad, because you don't want to keep UU opened), but at least it does not play random cards and it is quite consistent.

About the UU requirement, it's really the least of my problems. I only play lord of atlantis with this requirement, and it is a creature/card I want to play as late as possible. I admit that sometimes I may lack U on my third turn (I want to play a creature and keep U open for stifle), but it is usually not that much a problem. By the way Piceli plays only 1 additionnal blue provider with a far more U intensive build.

Something about board sweepers: they are usually expensive (and colour requiring) and can be disrupted by stifle. I eventually have 12 counterspells against them and I have 12 ways to prevent my opponent to find the mana. And as my build kills before turn 8, it's usually enough. If it's not the CA provided by confidant/silvergil may help to recover and to find the 4/5 dmgs that lack to kill my opponent. Once more, landstill is one of the best MUs of the deck, because LOA makes your guys unblocable, because often their mana bases are awful (easily disruptable) and because landstill is plain useless against merfolk. Actually I would play some if I could.

I don't aggressively mulligan to find vial. I just mean that a topdecked vial is a bad topdeck. I simply aggressively mulligan to find vial or a blue mana provider.

Against aggro decks, my strategy is jitte+propaganda (which are far better when you play 21 lands and 12 mana denials). But actually, I don't see the point. Gob is the only valuable aggro deck that could race merfolk (mostly because of problue of that damn mother****** pilly who can block the time to make an army and then make a single attack kill, still remember that you can stifle the +2X/+0 of pilly), and it's declining now. You may want to raise the goyfsligh MU. I'll be honnest, I did not test it, but I did not encounter any problem on MWS (even if I know that most players does not have the tournament level). Against stompy decks (FS and DS). They are very easy MUs. Because they need 2 resolved chalices (@1 and 2) to slow me down and because they are very sensible to mana denial. These MUs have been tested.

I missed shapesharer. I know you talked about it, and I've seen it only afterwards. I mentionned it if you did not notice. This card is exactly what needed the deck. At some point I even splashed green just to include tarmogoyf and to have a big guy on itself. Shapesharer can take the form of a big guy or can be used as another pumper. It's really one of the best creatures of the deck.

I don't state that 4 ports are absolutely needed, but they are often better than wasteland (against crucible/life from the loam for instance). I'm sticking with them. Those ports are not the only originality of my list.

Merfolk are not new to me. That may be the difference between us.

Ps: Finn, I deeply regret that you don't contribute more to the thread. Did you finally abandon the folks?

[KillemallCFH]

Ok. A lot of lists have been posted these last days or weeks and all of them seem really awful to my point of view. Instead of explaining what is bad in every list, I'll try to explain what is absolutely necessary in the merfolk deck.
<stuff>
I don't agree with Maverick about certain things, but he is spot-on with his approach to this deck IMO. I would really love to get Mutavaults involved in here, but they don't pitch to FoW, they don't help with Daze, and they don't make blue mana. That's a lot of strikes against. Frankly, I would be in favor of trying out two of them with two Rishadan Ports. There is no particular benefit in having more than one in play at a time anyway.

Also, keep in mind that he and I put a lot of hours into testing different approaches before independently coming to the same conclusions on direction. It seems like a waste of time to backtrack the conversation for folks who need to find out for themselves. Maybe Mav is not right. But his point of view is based on experience. Just keep it in mind.

Again, I want to know - Is the more aggressive approach winning as much against Thresh as the disruption-oriented one?While I certainly agree that some of the recent lists in this thread have been suboptimal, and that your approach is perfectly viable, it certainly is not the only and best way to go. You say that you both tested a lot and independently came to the same conclusion. Well, Corrupted Angel and I also did a lot of testing (well, at least I did a lot of testing; I can't speak for him) and independently reached the same conclusion on the deck, that being one the eschews Vial, Port, and Stifle (He does run Waste; I don't) for CB/Top and B2B.

Think of it as the difference between Moon Thresh and Tempo Thresh. One just tries to disrupt the opponent and get in there for 20; the other plays the most powerful cards it has access to (Moon and CB/Top in its case, B2B and CB/Top in my case) to control the game and then finish it quickly with efficient beaters.

[Maveric78f]

KillemallCFH > I completely agree with what you say. I guess that if we compare our MUs, your aggro control may be even better than it is already (it's alreayd very good with my list) but your control MUs should suffer a lot. If I look at your list though, I'm quite sure that some merfolks you play are bad: tidal warrior, probably cursecatcher too, seasinger, etc... Shapesharer would be good also for you as far as I can see, even if the instant power of vial makes it even more powerful. It looks like you may miss also some CA in your list, and as you want to play B2B, you can't splash black or play manlands/vials to play standstill. Maybe it's your main issue. Finally, I don't like the fact that you are exposed a lot to chalice@1.

[Zappa]

I have to disagree having UU open while having Aether Vial in play, is very mind boggling for the opponent. The mind game that it plays does factor in, even if you do not have a counterspell in hand.

I strongly disagree with a splash of another color (confidant?). As one you open yourself up more for wasteland, and if not (if youre using polluted delta to fetch for swamp) adding a non-merfolk in a merfolk deck, thats easily killed due to its 1 toughness, is not even worth it. You'll also have less of a card to reveal for silvergil adept.

I chose to run mono blue with Mutavaults being the only colorless mana producing land. yes, I see that you do run propaganda, atleast sideboard to take care of aggro matchups. But I wouldn't could out goblins, not even close. Yes their numbers, may have dropped a little, but youre still very likely to come across them. That doesn't stop there, theres so many aggro decks that could care less for your wasteland + port.

X-land stompy, Suicide black, mono black aggro, golblins (already mentioned), mono white (ranging from weenie to sno-white), decks running goyf, counter sliver. Thinking about it now I'd also like to add affinity and ichorid in those lists, as those can be pretty fast and explosive.

I used to run propagandas as well but I find equipments to solve that problem, as well as the card draw from SoFI helps with our lack of card drawing.

In "my" meta I face alot of creature heavy decks, thats why I went with the build that I felt comfortable with. With a few control decks here and there, there was a combo player before but he rarely plays anymore. I find that SoFI and Jitte just wrecks those decks, much better than I did with propaganda + jitte out. It speeds up my clock so that they have little time to find for an answer. They also make my 1 drop merfolks relevant as I'll have little to fear on taking thier creatures head on or push them in the red zone... with or without the lords.

I never ever want to bash anyones builds as it can pretty much be a meta game, but at times some cards does seem questionable, but not to the point of utterly disregarding thier whole deck. Like with piceli I asked how did his thief help in his testing. Its a matter of play style.

You guys are comfortable with the disruption suit, denying them of thier mana sources (except this part is very irrelevant in my meta, thats why I do not run it). Some people feels comfortable on a controlling build. I just focus on dropping a creature, equip it and swing for the win with counter magic backing it up.

I am mainly focused on my aggro matchups, with some tools to fend of control, if I do bad against combo, then so be it. You can't win them all, thinking that you can, is just ridiculous.

You talked about board sweepers, and how you kept them from their mana. Which deck did you play against and which version? certain versions are more suited to handling certain match ups, so I'd like to know which. Landstill (Which combination)? Truffle Shuffle? Funkbrew?

[Maveric78f]

Wasteland is one land for one land. And most of the time, I'm happy that someone wastes my lands (with no recursion of course), because I will probably be the one who will take the more advantage of the tempo. If your strategy is to land 1 creature, equip and swing, then you should not play tribal and play good creatures like serendib/tarmogoyf. I did that deck and it was awesome.

[rufus]

Maveric, considering that your list is almost wizard tribal, do you think Sage's Dousing has any potential at all?

[Maveric78f]

I never counsidered it because I did not know the card. I'm not sure I'm gonna test it though because it requires to keep the mana openened.

[Zappa]

Wasteland is one land for one land. And most of the time, I'm happy that someone wastes my lands (with no recursion of course), because I will probably be the one who will take the more advantage of the tempo. If your strategy is to land 1 creature, equip and swing, then you should not play tribal and play good creatures like serendib/tarmogoyf. I did that deck and it was awesome.

yeah and considering you like to try to mimic things that the deck isnt and doesnt have the same capabilities, go play goblins. You can play your little little disruption suite as much as you'd like. I am sure youll enjoy it as well. Its a fun deck also.

Jitte and SoFI nets you card advatage, as well as having a great effect on the board. Speeds up your clock and makes your little guys relevant.

[Maveric78f]

If you did not notice, I play jitte in all my deck (MD or SB). I know it's strong. But my game plan is rarely to play 1 creature at a time. Jitte is another way to get around fat guys, to get rid of annoying creature (dark confidant, MoR, grim lavamancer) and to gain life (against burn for instance). Swords are by far inferior to jitte in that kind of builds to my opinion, because they are not as much versatile.

Ps: Don't you think that my deck is different to gob? Looks like the only thing you see is rishadan port in my builds.

[Piceli89]

maveric, i was wondering: how do you face a turn 1 lackey if you don't hit a force of will in initial hand ? I thought it after having played with you. However, i noticed that the manlands and wastelands+ standstill is awesome, while i hadn't the occasion to see rishadan port much in action. I'm still curious to see how your deck works against tier1 decks, so i will try a bit your list.

[Maveric78f]

Well, gob is a bad MU. I don't pretend the contrary. The most important is to mana deny them (with propaganda it's easier). You absolutely need to force their mana cheaters or you'll be dead. I think it's the same for your lists, since one can never rely on a 1 defense body to stop a lackey (fanatic/weirding/gempalm). So if I'm on the draw, I pray. If I'm on the play, I have quite a lot of answers (stifle on their fetches, daze, FoW, and any 2CC creature). Note that the jitte crazyness can work only if the gob player does not have already a piledriver into play (I will never repeat it enough, pilly a lame for my merfolk decks). In order to use jitte even with pilly out, I have shapesharer, confidant, faerie conclave, depending on the version. If gob is in your metagame, you definitely should not play merfolks but rather the fish version based on the same mana base.

[Hightower]

When is the title going to be fixed? =P (Morningtide, not Monrningtide)

I wish I could contribute more to this discussion, but I haven't played the deck alot after SHM.. but I went T8 in a 23 people tournament, 22nd of March with this list: [I think it's mentioned earlier in this thread, but didn't get any feedback] I also added my thoughts.


Main: (60)

16 Island
4 Wasteland - wasn't as gamebreaking as they should be, I would like to try 4 Mutavault here, and go all in on the "aggro approach"

4 Silvergill Adept
4 Tidal Warrior
4 Grimoire Thief
4 Stonybrook Banneret - probably 3 Sygg, River Cutthroat (even tho I don't like his 1 power) and 1 extra land maybe
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Tidal Courier
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Daze - I would try 4 Cursecatcher here, not sure about this but I want Cursecatcher in this deck
4 Force of Will
4 AEther Vial

Sideboard: (15)

4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Back to Basics - they didn't help me much, would rather have Pithing Needle to help vs Cephalid Breakfast / Belcher / other combo, Deeds and jank - (I really hate losing to combo)
2 Blue Elemental Blast - out
2 Hydroblast - also out, and add 4 Chill (since I like it better in the curve, I don't need to keep mana open, and it hoses Burn/Goyfsligh)
3 Seasinger - would change these to Stifle to hate Deeds, which hoses this deck more then Goyfs


As you can see my version is very aggroish.. Don't know if it's the best direction, but I like the feeling of playing 'Gobs' with FoWs, hehe

- Any of you people (hi Finn and Maverick78f) have any IRL / tournament experience with Merfolks they would like to share? =)

[Finn]

You talked about board sweepers, and how you kept them from their mana. Which deck did you play against and which version? certain versions are more suited to handling certain match ups, so I'd like to know which. Landstill (Which combination)? Truffle Shuffle? Funkbrew?I think I have 3 Stifle, 3 Port, and 4 Wasteland in my current build. I have kept 4-color Landstill off a color often enough that I consider it the primary path to virctory there in that matchup. I also routinely keep Threshold from playing any green spells for an entire game (well, except for Grip - the rest are all sorcery and prone to Ports).

[Maveric78f]

Yeah, against thresh, the tech is to port the green producers and to waste the splash colour producers (white/black or red).

I did only 1 tourney with merfolks (it was in october I think) and I finished 10th on 45 people with a 4-2 record against very difficult MUs: solidarity (W, probably with luck), aggroloam (L, I completely screwed up in this match, doing 4/5 misplays), burn (W, with no problem), gob (L, even against a very weak opponent that did not draw after gempalms for instance, but with a good build that he borrowed), some random bad sliver deck (W) and ichorid (W). At this time my deck was really weaker than now (for instance, I was playing MD seasingers, aquitect's wills and tarmos).

[georgjorge]

I've been testing a straight speed version (no Vials, no LD, no CBalance+Top) and liking it...some comments:

Chrome Mox is nice in such a version, not sure if it's worth the disadvantage, but starting with a Lord is good.

Why haven't I seen people play Inkfathom Infiltrator so far ? Being unblockable even without Islands is crucial !

When not playing CBalance+Top, some additional anti-combo measure might be needed in the side. I'm trying out Thorn of Amethyst so far...

[cloudstrife7]

I've been fooling around a lot with this version of the deck:

4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Shapesharer
4 Merrow Reejerey

4 Aether Vial
4 Disrupting Shoal (obviously these will become FOWs as I raise money)
4 Daze
4 Echoing Truth
3 Rushing River

21 Island

SB
6 Hydroblast / BEB
3 Seasinger
2 Swords
4 Heap Doll

After testing it, I found that card advantage is sorely needed, and I plan to cut an Echoing truth and a Reejerey for 3 Pulse of the Grid (singleton has performed brilliantly with Aether vial in play), and figure out what the last cut should be later.

People who have argued Shapesharer's case deserve props. It is a fundamentally weak method of solving all the decks problems, spending 5 mana to gain parity with 1,2,and 3 mana threats (dreadnought, goyf, and crusher/vore), but it solves them nonetheless.

I like having a lot of bounce because there are many permanents that hurt this deck. Actually, I don't understand how any deck can justify eschewing all forms of dealing with resolved permanents, as it is impossible to counter everything and naively arrogant to assume that your dudes can outclass theirs every time. Also, I have an irrational fear of combo decks, and echoing truth houses all the decks that make hordes of tokens, while Rushing River gives the deck 7 outs to CB/top, which is a lot better than 4. That being said, I'm definitely considering dropping to 5 or 6 bounce instead of 7 in order to fit in some card advantage.

People have called Cursecatcher bad, but I don't understand why. I understand that he misses Deed and explosives, which makes him worse than in standard, where the premier sweeper is wrath/damn, but there are other reasons to have him. The first is mana curves, with all 2 mana creatures, the deck feels very slow, especially when you play Vial. Given that I believe this is largely a tempo deck, having bad early game tempo seems like a poor choice. Also, Cursecatcher gives you a big advantage in counter wars, and it makes Daze better, which I like. One question I have, can you sac him for no reason, ie to kill some bridge from belows?

I dropped tidal warriors because tapping a dude to give your other dudes a free pass is weak. It's a 3 card combo that does maybe 3 damage a turn. It can be devastating with 4-5 creatures in play, but in that case it's just a win-more card. What makes tidal warrior good is color-screwing opponents. I think that there is probably a perfectly decent mana-denial deck to be made using tidal warrior, Cursecatcher, port and wasteland (maybe even going overboard for ghost quarter too), B2B, Daze, and cheap dudes, and maybe a black splash for stuff like recoil and sinkhole, but this isn't it.

Riptide pilferer is great, but is definitely the 4th best 2 drop merfolk, meaning she doesn't quite make the grade. Better than Silvergill adept and shapesharer against combo though.

The deck obviously suffers somewhat from a low budget (nice manabase right?), there isn't much i can do about that in the next two weeks, but I'll work on it over time.

[Piceli89]

mm your list seems a bit too overnumbered in merfolks and the lands cannot be just islands. I would sugegst to cut 6 islands to put 4 wasteland, which are amazing, and 2 mutavaults ( even more if u can afford them), because with our 8 pumpers they become very big. Also, if you use manlands and wastes a great CA engine is standstill, seriously. I play that list and always have a hand of 5-6 cards at least. Don't forget that standstill is also nuts with vial!
Merfolks, as i was saying, are too much. I think that reejerey-LoA-silvergill are compulsory, but the other... it's true that shapesharer can handle ppo's largest creatures, but it always cost 3 to do it ( and can be stifled, killed in response, ecc ecc ) , so i would recommend 3, not 4.
Echoing truths are reaaly good ( also for ETW combos), if you like 4 you're welcome. For the 1cc drops, instead, instead of the dazefolk i would suggest stifle, which is the strongest multiuse card: can do everything, coffee included, but most of all can stop oppos fetches from the first turns and give you advantage in tempo to charge vial, develop your game and whatsoever.
Ah, for raising CA the B/U Sygg is very good, i play it in 2 copies and he's pretty good ( no more than 2 cause he's legendary and doesn't die so easily.. well, for what happens to me :D ).

..All in my opinion, obv.

[Maveric78f]

cloudstrife7, don't take it bad. I appreciate the fact that some people understand that merfolk is very good deck.

The problem is that you can't play a low budget version of this deck. FoW and the mana denial are absolutely unavoidable. Another thing is that we cannot keep a track for each deck built with the available cards in each player's pool. If you want to play budget, just play ichorid. It's maybe the best deck deck apart from merfolk and random fish ;-)

In such a thread, there should never be budget consideration. If you don't have the cards take it as a theory and then make yourself the practical projection into your card pool.

Cursecatcher is bad, because it's 1 for 1 and it's never a surprise (or you'll bluff with a 1-counter vial which is suboptimal for the game strategy).

As far as I came here is what I believe to be an optimal list :

Folks: 16
4 Lords
4 Reejereys
4 Silvergil
4 Shapesharer

Mana : 25
4*port
4*wasteland
10/11*island
2/3*Faerie Conclave
4*vial

Disruption : 12
4*Daze
4*FoW
4*Stifle

Draw: 4
4*Standstill

Bounce : 3
3*Rushing River

SB :
3*Jitte
4*Propaganda
4*Tormod's crypt
1*Rushing River
3*Mind Harness

The synergies :
Vial+standstill
standstill + 8*anti-lands lands + 2/3*conclave=kill
creatures+standstill
rushing river+standstill (end of turn3 bounce 1 or 2 opponent's threats and play standstill)
12 land disruption+daze
land disruption+ fast aggro clock
etc...

The deck has the following nice properties:
-chalice/counterbalance resilience
-moon effect resiliency
-very good deed protection (mana/colour denying, stifle, counterspells)
-standstill immunity
-shackles/humility bypass (evasion provided by lord/reejerey for shackles, evasion of conclave for the second)

[Piceli89]

Mm I thought that you had abandoned merfolks, Maveric :smile: .
What about including 1-2 sygg ? they could increase the CA ( even more than what standstill offers) and be occasional blockers ( they often become 2/4 or 3/5). Well, i know that you will always disagree me , but just a humble consideration...:laugh:

[Hightower]

I went T8 with Merfolk at a 23-people tournament last week btw (I'm still playing Tidal Courier) I'm hoping for some decent Merfolks in Eventide tho..

[Piceli89]

i guess than , playing courier, you play an aggroish version also with bannerets. can you post it ?

[Hightower]

Actually I cut Banneret for Grimoire Thief, which I haven't regret. Here's my "wannabe goblins"-list I'm using atm.


// Lands (21)
17 Island
4 Wasteland

// Creatures (27)
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cursecatcher
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Tidal Courier
4 Grimoire Thief
3 Tidal Warrior
4 Lord of Atlantis

// Spells (12)
4 Force of Will
4 AEther Vial
4 Daze

I play 4 Stifle SB

[Piceli89]

why don't you play stifle MD, seriously? there are too much cards that stifle can be useful ( if not essential ) against: pernicious deed and EE above all, but also combo bombs ( EtW, tendrils, freezes)...
I can't see how you can play couriers without bannerets: they cost 4 , and unless you have vial charged a 4 ( which is slow and almost useless), it will cost you at least 4 turns.. i'd play something else , maybe stifles or some equips ( jitte, to become even more aggro).

[Hightower]

I don't have room for Stifle in my version, and Vial @ 4 isnt too slow at all - (Goblins do it all the time), atleast it hasn't been a problem for me.

[cloudstrife7]

In such a thread, there should never be budget consideration. If you don't have the cards take it as a theory and then make yourself the practical projection into your card pool.

Cursecatcher is bad, because it's 1 for 1 and it's never a surprise (or you'll bluff with a 1-counter vial which is suboptimal for the game strategy).


Theorizing and then personally budget projecting makes sense, I just figured since I would work towards aquiring any necessary un-budget things that it wouldn't matter, though I guess I would have had to explicitly state that to expect anyone to know what i meant. I'll correct the mistake in future lists.

Obviously Cursecatcher is not strong in his own right, but allow me to defend him for a moment: The first issue is mana curve. Running catcher gives you 8 turn 1 plays instead of 4. This is essential against combo, where you often have to daze on the first turn, seriously stunting your growth. Obviously Vial takes care of the problem if you draw it, but 4 is a small number as far as getting into a 7 card hand out of 60 cards is concerned. If i were to replace catcher I would probably want another turn 1 play. The second issue is synergy. They also make all your pumping merfolk slightly better, as without him, they must wait a number of turns for their effects to really be felt Catcher. Along with the Wastelands i will run when munny allows, Cursecatcher makes Daze a lot better. It isn't that catcher is a surprise, it's that many of the cards he hits are very bad when they must play around him. Dark ritual isn't very good when it nets 1 mana instead of 2, and rite of flame is even worse. Looking back, 2/3 of those reasons revolved around combo, so I suppose i can understand leaving him out if you expect more traditional metagames.

It seems that maverick's deck is more of a midrange deck, with a slightly worse combo matchup but with a significantly better ability to grasp initiative and keep it than traditional aggro-control decks in legacy. I would say my current list is definitely a tempo deck, rather than aggro-control.

@hightower: Do you still feel that your list runs like "goblins with FOW"? I think I like that as a concept. Also, did you feel that your lack of bounce every hurt you, or was your army able to run over most of the threats you encountered.

I'm trying to figure out what everyone agrees on, to gain some insight as to what make fishypeople worth playing. Looking at lists, these elements seem pretty universal:

4 Lord of atlantis
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Vial

4 Wasteland

Allowing 18 slots for debate

Would you guys agree?

[Hightower]

4 Lord of atlantis
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Vial

4 Wasteland

Allowing 18 slots for debate

Would you guys agree?

I agree, now we just need another Merfolk "staple" from Eventide, to add to that list.

- And I still like my "Gobfolks" approach, I don't know if it's the best, but it's working for me.

[cloudstrife7]

now we just need another Merfolk "staple" from Eventide, to add to that list.

If only merrow harbinger or sage of fables had been a teensy bit better, the deck could use a great 3-drop. We definitely missed out quality-wise on two key tribal cycles. At this point I really doubt we'll be getting anything really solid to work with in Eventide, I hear the tribes are going to dry up somewhat in favor of weirder things.

[fourleafedmonkey]

I have a few questions.
I dont really want to go the land destruction route because it is a tad too expensive, therefore, I was thinking a more aggro control route.

Here is my list.

4 Silvergill Adept
4 Grimoire Thief
4 Lord Of Atlantis
4 Tidal Courier
4 Merrow Reejery
4 Cursecatcher
3 Sygg, River Cutthroat/ Inkfathom Infiltrator

4 Daze
4 Force Of Will
2 Remand/ Psionic Blast/ B2B

4 Aether Vial

4 Mutavault
15 Island


I think it is more of a tempo based version that could really benefit from the Cursecatchers and the the Syggs.
Also, I think remand is a good card that has yet to be mentioned.
It can act as a time walk that draws a card.
I have also thought psionic blast because of the reach, the crature destruction and the synergy with Sygg.

[fourleafedmonkey]

Also, any thoughts on Saprazzan Heir?

[Piceli89]

useless, oppo won't block a 1/1 to make you draw 3 cards. It is just a 1/1 for 2 mana, in a word: useless. Way better standstill in this deck, really.

[Piceli89]

I have a few questions.
I dont really want to go the land destruction route because it is a tad too expensive, therefore, I was thinking a more aggro control route.

Here is my list.

4 Silvergill Adept
4 Grimoire Thief
4 Lord Of Atlantis
4 Tidal Courier
4 Merrow Reejery
4 Cursecatcher
3 Sygg, River Cutthroat/ Inkfathom Infiltrator

4 Daze
4 Force Of Will
2 Remand/ Psionic Blast/ B2B

4 Aether Vial

4 Mutavault
15 Island

(Sorry for the double post)
I think it is more of a tempo based version that could really benefit from the Cursecatchers and the the Syggs.
Also, I think remand is a good card that has yet to be mentioned.
It can act as a time walk that draws a card.
I have also thought psionic blast because of the reach, the crature destruction and the synergy with Sygg.


well, if land destruction is expensive, what are mutavaults then ? :tongue:
To make a more aggro-controlish version, you could pack the counterbalance + top engine, put 3 BtB, way less merfolks, add standstill and stifle, in order to keep only the good 'folks, courier is very meh if you can't be enough fast to exploit it ( 4 mana means at least 4th turn, we 're not goblins).. thief in my opinion isn't that great, i would recommend 2-3 puresight merrow instead, they can clean yur draw sometimes.
I like psionic blast, but do you find comfortable with the remands ? being aggro means that you can't always keep 2 mana open to remand a spell... daes and fows cheat mana, so are way better...

[fourleafedmonkey]

The Mutavaults are in there in hopes that the price will go down after the rotation, lol.

I completely agree with you on the Remand, so I think I will go for the Psionic Blasts.

And if the Courier is too slow at 4 mana, what should be used instead?

[Piceli89]

The Mutavaults are in there in hopes that the price will go down after the rotation, lol.

I completely agree with you on the Remand, so I think I will go for the Psionic Blasts.

And if the Courier is too slow at 4 mana, what should be used instead?

the last question : STIFLE... that card is God. It reduces the number of merfolks ( 20 are enough), can be mana denial, stops mass revals ( dedd, EE), stop wasting your vaults.. does the coffee.
Another folk to run as an alternative ? Shapesharer.. in 3 copies IMO.. fantastic with our 8 pumpers (LoA+ reejerey), also huge in copying oppo's shits (goyfs) and whateverelse.

I also pack Mutavaults, but the price won't go down easily, until at least 1 year when that fucking piece of shit of T2 will change sets to play with.Ah, back to basics are a bit antysingergic with mutavaults.. better to use them as SB bombs against landstill etc etc.. unless your meta is full of Non basics.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't have room for Stifle in my version, and Vial @ 4 isnt too slow at all - (Goblins do it all the time), atleast it hasn't been a problem for me.

Vial @ 4 defeats half the purpose of Vial, which is to cheat a lot of your critters into play uncounterably and at the point that you really want them to land.

Vial decks that stretch a Vial out to 4 are essentially over-committing to the board, which is just as bad as laying out too many critters in front of a potential sweeper.

I'm not saying it's not a play that you might make occasionally, but it definitely weakens the board position when you do it.

[Windux]

I would cut the couriers and put in Confidants and/or Syggs.

You don't want a Vial with 4 counters and you don't want to pay 4 mana either.

That's the list I would play:

4 Silvergill Adept
4 Grimoire Thief
4 Lord Of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejery
3 Dark Confidant
2 Sygg, River Cutthroat
3 Shapesharer


4 Daze
4 Force Of Will
3 Stifle
4 Aether Vial
2 Back to Basics


4 Mutavault
15 Island

[Maveric78f]

3 confidant and no way to play them, omg this thread is becoming worse and worse.

[Joon]

Vial is pretty tech, you know.

But I'd definitely play Fetches + USeas.

[Windux]

"Someone made a mistake, let's spam!"

Omg I just c/p'ed a list from above instead of tipping my list completly new.

Just put 3 U-Seas and 5 Fetchies in...

[Piceli89]

we know your mistake, but evidently someone considers himself too superior for us poor noobs and says that this tread is becoming " more and more worse", uh ?:confused:

[Maveric78f]

Vial is pretty tech, you know.

Not to play confidants, I have to say.

Yeah, I've been anticipating that.


I dont really want to go the land destruction route because it is a tad too expensive, therefore, I was thinking a more aggro control route.

Just put 3 U-Seas and 5 Fetchies in...

That sounds very clever, Windux.

Plus I've said not farther than 1 page ago, that one could not post a deck for every budget (50€-100€-150€ etc...). We don't care what every people can afford, we are not your bank. The discussion is about the merfolk deck, which is NOT a budget deck. If you want to play budget (and competitive) play Ichorid or even burn. Merfolk cannot be budget (even if tribal).


In such a thread, there should never be budget consideration. If you don't have the cards take it as a theory and then make yourself the practical projection into your card pool.

[fourleafedmonkey]

That was unnecessary.
I was not asking for a budget deck.
I was simply stating that I dont want to go the direction of land destruction, I dont believe LD is as viable as it once once because of everything in almost every deck costing 3 or less.
I guess I will phrase my question a little differently then.

What would be a good aggro-control, tribal version of this deck?

I really think Sygg, River Cutthroat and Psionic Blast could be extra CA and reach.

Also, which do you think is better: Puresight Merrow or Inkfathom Infiltrator?

[Elfrago]

http://www.starcitygames.com/images/article/07032008stevensonspoiler1.jpg
Good enough?

[Maveric78f]

Elfrago: it looks very bad, does not block (except for chump block), looks a lot like a win more card.

fourleafedmonkey:
- the LD route is good because :
...- it protects you from the spells that hurt (humility, deed, wrath, disk, ...)
...- the fact that decks play little CC cards implies that the decks play few lands, which implies that it is easier to disrupt (against threshold : 18 lands against 12 mana denials, is it easy to play 2CC cards with 6 land? btw, I know they play cantrip and search for their lands, but anyway...).
...- the mana denial enable you to play standstill at any moment because you don't fear anymore to face a mishra or wastelands.
...- playing a lot of mana denial lands implies also that you play a lot of lands which implies that you can play rushing river at its best.

By the way, can you explain me this sentence if it was not a cost consideration?

I dont really want to go the land destruction route because it is a tad too expensive, therefore, I was thinking a more aggro control route.

I think that threshold is not good enough now to be played (ichorid/aggro loam/chalice decks are better than threshold). So I don't think that copypasting the threshold strategy is the way to go. I've also noticed that all the people who tried it don't believe in merfolks anymore.

[hugh1130]

really its is going to average out to be a 4/4 or a 5/5 attacking the turns after it just came down

if we could find away to land an oppisition, it becomes a house

[Maveric78f]

Cold-Eyed Selkie 1 U/G U/G
Creature - Merfolk Rogue
Islandwalk
Whenever Cold-Eyed Selkie deals combat damage to a player, you may draw that many cards.
Illus. Jaime Jones #149/180 1/1

This one is clearly worth playing with a pumper into play it's clearly a house.

[Hightower]

But... without one it's ass.

1/1 for 3.. I'd rather play Shadowmage Infiltrator then, atleast he doesn't die to Mogg Fanatic.

[Maveric78f]

You mean that with no pumper it's bad ??? It's simply a bit worse than shadowmage infiltrator, which is a quite good card no ? The main question is : is it better than standstill. I'm not sure it's playable in addition to standstill, because we are missing slots. But removing standstill enables to play 1 land less (no conclave anymore) which frees at least 5 slots. The following list would be playable:

Folks: 22
4 Lords
4 Reejereys
4 Silvergil
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie
3 Wake Thrasher or 3 Jitte (yeah I changed my mind a bit about this card)
3 Shapesharer

Mana : 24
4*port
4*wasteland
12*island
4*vial

Disruption : 12
4*Daze
4*FoW
4*Stifle

Bounce : 2
2*Rushing River

SB :
3*Jitte
4*Propaganda
4*Tormod's crypt
2*Rushing River
2*Mind Harness

[Hightower]

But who plays Shadowmage Infiltrator in Legacy? (noone) because it isn't good enough.

Anyways, I'm definately going to test the Selkie and Wake Thrasher - but I'm not impressed by either...

[Illissius]

Unless you have B2B, I'd add at least a Pendelhaven to go with that guy. All the "your opponent now controls an Island" effects also got more attractive.

[Curby]

Random thoughts, mostly to Hightower and others with a more aggro interest:

If you're running Grimoire Thief, what about Mothdust Changeling? It's evasive and helps tap your Thief. I'm not sure that it can replace Cursecatcher in the 1-drop slot though.

Can we run under a Winter Orb? We can use Reejery to untap our lands or tap theirs, we can use Vial to get around Orb, and we can use Banneret to reduce our costs. B2B is better for most metas but people tend to use basics around here.

I thought the general consensus is that Vial slows down aggro by making you lose a turn, so why do you (Hightower et. al.) play it? Is it worth it to get around countermagic?

If you play Standstill, seriously consider Waterfront Bouncer. It's now a Merfolk, and it can bounce their dudes from underneath Standstill. Bouncer's also great for recurring Couriers.

I'm increasingly tempted to ditch Courier for another option (Selkie, Sygg, Curiosity) because Courier doesn't let me draw a lot of useful stuff like FoW, Jitte, Standstill, Vial, and I think my deck is leaning towards using fewer merfolk (in favor of those cards and others). Which among Dark Sygg, Selkie, and Curiosity are the most playable in your opinions?

Pendelhaven's pretty interesting because of all our 1/1s. Unfortunately, playing it early when we're trying to develop UU is not good, especially when we also have Mutavaults, Wastelands, and possibly Ports that don't produce U. If only there were a blue Urborg.

[Finn]

This is interesting. All of a sudden there are a lot of cool Merfolk to consider.

Wistful Selkie
Creature - Merfolk Wizard {ug}{ug}{ug}
Uncommon 2/2
When Wistful Selkie comes into play, draw a card.

With our current very good manabase, this guy probably isn't playable. But his ability is so good, he may be worth adjusting lands for.

and the aforementiened:

Cold-Eyed Selkie
Creature - Merfolk Rogue 1{ug}{ug}
Rare 1/1
Islandwalk
Whenever Cold-Eyed Selkie deals combat damage to a player, you may draw that many cards.

I think this plays a lot differently than Infiltrator. Infiltrator is commonly a sole target in a deck that is essentially a control shell. This guy will be part of an aggro deck. And will rarely be a 1/1. If you have a 2/2 Selkie and a 7/7 Thrasher coming at you, which do you block? Either way, it's going to hurt.

and I really like this one that Mav is talking about:

Wake Thrasher
Creature - Merfolk Soldier 2U
Rare 1/1
Whenever a permanent you control becomes untapped, Wake Thrasher gets +1/+1 until end of turn.

Wake Thrasher seems like it can get very, very big. Even without any special stuff at all, he will probably be a 5/5 or a 6/6 when he attacks on turn 4. I big independent bitch is precisely what this deck has always needed. And unlike something like Threshold, where Tarmos don't have any evasion, this guy can easily get Islandwalk or see some tapped opponents via Reejerey. Speaking of Reejerey, those untap effects will be nice here too to say nothing of the pump.

But mostly what I like about the new Merfolk you guys mentioned is that they both have targets on their heads, unlike pretty much all of the additions we have bandied about up until now.

[Hightower]

I wrote a really long reply, but Internet Explorer decided to fuck me up.. so I lost all the text

In short: Vial = must include (in my opinion) dodge counters/counterbalance etc.

Tidal Courier = not good, but the best thing available unless you want to take the deck a different direction (cut Merfolks for spells) Maybe he can indeed be cut for the new Folks

I will have to see what the 2 Eventide Merfolk (Thrasher, Selkie) can do in my aggro version. Hopefully my first assumption of them can be shown to be wrong.

[Finn]

Hightower, I think I am finally ready to quit Tidal Courier. Between the Selkie and Silvergill, there should be plenty of draw power. And Maverick, after quite a bit of time, you and I are on the same wavelength.

4 Wasteland
3 Rishidan Port
14 Island

4 Aether Vial
3 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Daze
4 FoW
4 Stifle

4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie
3 Wake Thrasher

I really, I mean really wish there was a way to fit Brainstorm in here. There aren't enough turn 1 plays.

[Illissius]

Brainstorm isn't at its best as a turn one play, anyways. But I've no idea what you would cut to add Cursecatcher and Brainstorm.

EDIT - There's also, of course, Ancestral Vision.

And with all the more expensive but powerful Merfolk -- Selkie and Thrasher in addition to Reejerey -- Stonybrook Banneret might merit a second look.

[Curby]

I really, I mean really wish there was a way to fit Brainstorm in here. There aren't enough turn 1 plays.

Psst, you've got room for 1 copy of Brainstorm. :tongue:

I'm a bit surprised at the total lack of Island-makers though. Perhaps we could drop some spells to 3-ofs to make room for Tidal Warriors? Selkie really wants to connect.

[Maveric78f]

Hightower, I think I am finally ready to quit Tidal Courier. Between the Selkie and Silvergill, there should be plenty of draw power. And Maverick, after quite a bit of time, you and I are on the same wavelength.

4 Wasteland
3 Rishidan Port
14 Island

4 Aether Vial
3 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Daze
4 FoW
4 Stifle

4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie
3 Wake Thrasher

I really, I mean really wish there was a way to fit Brainstorm in here. There aren't enough turn 1 plays.

The same with :
-1 island
+1 rishadan
-3 jitte
+3 shapesharer

And here you are. I'm still not convinced it's better than standstill merfolks.

[Piceli89]

mmm.....
I tested the deck with new eventide folks yesterday and after some games, i sincerely asked myself: are these new entries worth the change ? I mean, i realized that trasher is really strong, but in oppo's turns is just a 1/1 which can be killed by everything.. and in any case, he doesn't have trample... and for what reguards me he never became more than 6/6... bah... The only way t use it very rightly would be to vial it oppo's EOT when he's tapped out, but... meh... this almost never happens.
I don't like cold eyed at all, sincerely. Why to play an ugly copy of shadowmage infiltrator ( which i consider to be a not-so-strong card in any case, btw) when we can keep more Card Advantage just with standstill, which is faster ? And these merfolks would make us play with lots of more 3.drops, so we should take the deck into a VERY more controllish optic in order to abuse our "heavy-cost"Folks..
... To be brief, I concluded that I like way more my old merfolks list.. mybe shapesharer could be substitued by 1-2 trashers, but I'm more keen on keeping my folks CC curve @2 and abuse of vial, surely, but not so much, instead of playing lots of 3-drops and relying (almost) exclusively on vial..

I still prefer "Landstill Merfolks", in conclusion. Trasher can be appealing, cold -eyed No at all.. to my eyes.

[Curby]

@Piceli:

Valid points, but I think it depends on how you add them. Islandwalk trumps both Fear and Trample, but it means you need to be able to give them Islands. Infiltrator isn't used because he can only draw 1, requires Black, and isn't a Merfolk. I know the 1 toughness of these guys all suck, but like Finn said, it's coming to the point where pretty much everything is a must-kill in this deck. And regarding the casting costs, there is always the Banneret (which itself walks :cool: ).

[Maveric78f]

If you really need to give islands to your opponent, I recommend aquitect's will which cantrips, is immediate and definitive (when the land type changing creatures do it only after 1 turn and only until end of turn).

However giving islands to your opponent is a real weakness that did not have the previous versions. So it would be really an argument against these new eventide guys.

[rufus]

If you really need to give islands to your opponent, I recommend aquitect's will which cantrips, is immediate and definitive (when the land type changing creatures do it only after 1 turn and only until end of turn).

However giving islands to your opponent is a real weakness that did not have the previous versions. So it would be really an argument against these new eventide guys.

This suggests that cold-eyed and seasinger might find homes in the same decks.

[cloudstrife7]

This suggests that cold-eyed and seasinger might find homes in the same decks.

Perhaps in a control deck somewhat like this:
4 Tidal Warrior
4 Lord of Atlantis (seems pointless here, maybe Stonybrook Banneret, or Silvergill Adept instead)
4 Cold-eyed Selkie
4 Seasinger

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Aquitect's Will
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Chrome Mox

4 Wasteland, 4 Port, 13 Island

I'm not going to lie, this deck seems plain old bad. Bad enough to tempt me to delete the post just so I won't be associated with it. However, the list is very instructive. Once you commit to the "giving people islands" route, you get some pretty ugly requirements.

@Finn and Maveric78f, I think you guys are closing in on a very good route for the deck, (though I still think running 0 bounce is asking for random auto-losses, it is really only a minor adjustment) but it seems like your lack of turn 1 plays would require you to run chrome mox. Otherwise I just don't see the deck winning against opponents who are exploding into game-winning positions while we are finally starting to rev our engines a bit. Also, I think standstill is probably better than selkie. Guarunteed 3 for 2 for 2 mana vs. a 1/1 total crapshoot for 3 mana. Obviously I haven't played with the selkie, so I shouldn't snap-judge, but with both Mox vs no-mox and selkie vs still, Why play fair when you don't have to?.

[rufus]

I'm not going to lie, this deck seems plain old bad. Bad enough to tempt me to delete the post just so I won't be associated with it. However, the list is very instructive. Once you commit to the "giving people islands" route, you get some pretty ugly requirements.

Well, there are alternative methods of evasion:
Merfolk Reejerey's ability can tap a potential blocker.
Waterfront Bouncer
Vodalian Illusionist

Or, with a white splash.
Sygg, River Guide

[Finn]

I have been wanting to try out Chrome Mox as well - and for all the same reasons. It's so tempting. But I still have not done so. I think that ultimately I would be pissed that I can't Daze often enough for lack of Islands. It would not be immediately apparent. Oh no, consistency issues are a pain to judge. But I don't want to be in the same boat that stuff like Mucho-Color-Landstill and company are where some games they are dynamite and some games their opponents have Stifle, Wasteland, and Port.

I still think that squeezing in four Brainstorms with some fetchlands is the best path.

[syssc9]

I’ve been reading this thread with interest since it began. A Merfolk deck took 2nd place at the very first tournament I attended back during Fallen Empires. We lacked all of these fantastic new Merfolk, but since T1 and/or T2 did not exist yet we had other goodies available (like Drain and Ancestral!) Kirbysdl is dead-on, unblockable damage can be a terrible bitch and does indeed Trump many other abilities.

I have been doing some serious thinking about Merflok (<--hey, that’s an unintentional misspelling, but since I keep doing it, I’m sticking with it!) Both Maveric78f’s and finn’s lists are good examples of an agro-control concept. Earlier in this thread the idea of pseudo-goblins was discussed and discarded, but with all these new possibilities perhaps it should be revisited. I dumped what I think are all the best little fishy guys together in a spread sheet, stirred vigorously, and this is the result:

Merflok
4 Aether Vial
3 Reef Shaman
3 Tidal Warrior (or Aquitect’s Will if Tidal Courier is not used)
4 Stonybrook Bannerette
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Wake Thrasher
4 Cold-eyed Selkie
4 Wistful Selkie
4 Tidal Courier/Merrow Harbinger/Rootwater Thief/Riptide Pilferer/Deeptread Merrow/

4 Wasteland
4 Port
10 Island

Very Goblin- esque. We exchange Haste for Landwalk as the most basic difference. We also lack the creature based creature kill of Incinerator, but since he is most often used to eliminate blockers, perhaps we can get along without him. Thrasher acts as our Piledriver surrogate and Bannerette is a cheaper Warchief.

The deck has 12 creatures with native Islandwalk (no need to wait for the Lords to start walking) and 6 ways to make islands. If we swap out the Couriers for Harbingers we get 4 more native walkers and some delayed tutoring capability. Since we have 12 other creatures that draw for us, the Courier may be superfluous.

If Courier is replaced, non-merfolk cards become much more attractive. My top choices, would be Jitte (to get some creature kill back in the deck) and Unstable Mutation to speed things up. Don’t laugh at Unstable, it works.

This is strictly a thought exercise at this point. I have tested nothing. I am collecting the cards as availability allows and will be building some form of this deck, even if it’s only for fun. Merflok are fun!

[Piceli89]

I’ve been reading this thread with interest since it began. A Merfolk deck took 2nd place at the very first tournament I attended back during Fallen Empires. We lacked all of these fantastic new Merfolk, but since T1 and/or T2 did not exist yet we had other goodies available (like Drain and Ancestral!) Kirbysdl is dead-on, unblockable damage can be a terrible bitch and does indeed Trump many other abilities.

I have been doing some serious thinking about Merflok (<--hey, that’s an unintentional misspelling, but since I keep doing it, I’m sticking with it!) Both Maveric78f’s and finn’s lists are good examples of an agro-control concept. Earlier in this thread the idea of pseudo-goblins was discussed and discarded, but with all these new possibilities perhaps it should be revisited. I dumped what I think are all the best little fishy guys together in a spread sheet, stirred vigorously, and this is the result:

Merflok
4 Aether Vial
3 Reef Shaman
3 Tidal Warrior (or Aquitect’s Will if Tidal Courier is not used)
4 Stonybrook Bannerette
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Wake Thrasher
4 Cold-eyed Selkie
4 Wistful Selkie
4 Tidal Courier/Merrow Harbinger/Rootwater Thief/Riptide Pilferer/Deeptread Merrow/

4 Wasteland
4 Port
10 Island

Very Goblin- esque. We exchange Haste for Landwalk as the most basic difference. We also lack the creature based creature kill of Incinerator, but since he is most often used to eliminate blockers, perhaps we can get along without him. Thrasher acts as our Piledriver surrogate and Bannerette is a cheaper Warchief.

The deck has 12 creatures with native Islandwalk (no need to wait for the Lords to start walking) and 6 ways to make islands. If we swap out the Couriers for Harbingers we get 4 more native walkers and some delayed tutoring capability. Since we have 12 other creatures that draw for us, the Courier may be superfluous.

If Courier is replaced, non-merfolk cards become much more attractive. My top choices, would be Jitte (to get some creature kill back in the deck) and Unstable Mutation to speed things up. Don’t laugh at Unstable, it works.

This is strictly a thought exercise at this point. I have tested nothing. I am collecting the cards as availability allows and will be building some form of this deck, even if it’s only for fun. Merflok are fun!

Merfolks are fun, but i think- and i seriously trust- that they can become a competitive deck in legacy, really. Since we writers have different approaches towards the game and so consequently different lists, it's obvious that someone prefers this over that... but I ask you: can be really merfolks compared to goblins ? Gobbos are way faster and " lethaler", while merfolks are less "overnumbered", but more good in combinating, have a great weapon to use ( i talk about LoA, obv) and most of all they're blue , so we can abuse some cards named force , stifle and daze. And trasher is really hot, but piledriver just overclasses it in strength and speed....
Chrome mox is awful, come on. Why to lose a card in hand and, as Finn said, sometimes can't be able to play daze ? Maybe it would be cute if we 'd play an aggro -folks with immediate and angry beating, but most of the lists ( and the goodest, ones, i suppose) focus on denial and THEN to aggro...naaaa.
Perhaps to begin porting @turn 1 , but...


About the "trasform the world into islands " plan: aren't seasinger and cold eyed too fragile to be held ? I read a list above and seriously asked to myself: how can we rely only on LoA to pump our folks, play that tidal warrior ( which is very... bah).. and really suck against a single eng. plague ? I know that the "stealing creatures -drawing-cheating" plan is cool, but we should also be somehow.. fast and at least solid... and that list didn't appeared so. I think it would be burned in speed by gobbos, easily broken by landstill and maybe it could do something against threshold.. but seasinger.. is just really slow.

Aquitect will's cute, but really worth 3-4 slots ? way better the "old but always good" brainstorm..
However, only testing will show us the "best " list, if it is correct to use this term.

[syssc9]

In my Merflok post above, the pivotal card is Tidal Courier. Not the most important, mind you, but like Ringleader in goblins, if Courier is included he dictates that the deck must be mostly (nearly exclusively!) of his tribe in order for him to be effective. I am undecided whether to allow the deck to be bound by this constraint. It seems, at least on paper, to be a reasonable restriction if your intention is to flock your opponent. His starring role is, of course, to refill an empty hand, or to provide recovery after a sweeper. OTOH, I really appreciate Merrow Harbinger’s ability to pull Lords out of the deck when I need ‘em. Has Islandwalk, too.

I was worried about the seeming lack of disruption in the Merflok concept, but hey, there’s 14 different mana disruption cards – that ought to play hob with nearly any opponents plans. I also keep looking at the truly nasty abilities of Riptide Pilferer and Rootwater Thief. I keep thinking 2 of each would be great, but where to put them? I also keep thinking how susceptible this all is to Counter-Top or Chalice. 4 Tropical Island, 4 fetch and some Grips in the sideboard, I guess.

All these many possibilities, deck concepts and card choice conundrums are all WotC’s fault! After what seems like a very long hiatus, they have finally dumped a great load of new Merfolk on us, and I for one, am ecstatic – thanks WotC!

[Barook]

Don't you think that Silvergill Adept and Cold-Eyed Selkie, backed up with massive disruption, isn't enough draw for the deck? Is devoting the deck to Tidal Courier really worth giving up that much disruption? I'm going to test this list:

3 Curse Catcher
4 Tidal Warrior
4 Stonybrook Bannerette
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Cold-Eyed Selkie

3 Stifle
4 Daze
4 FoW

4 Aether Vial

4 Wasteland
4 Port
10 Island

Maybe I'm cutting down on the colorless lands to add more Islands.

[cloudstrife7]

Illisius said this on the Adept forum a day or two ago:

The trouble with Merfolk is there's something like 60 nonland cards and 20 nonbasic lands you want to play in the deck, and which ~40 and ~8 are better than the rest is not nearly as obvious as with an established deck like Goblins. It's well possible that there's multiple configurations of Merfolk which play quite differently yet are similarly good -- and it's also not yet clear whether any of them can clear the threshold of viability.
It is SO true. There are a million playable role-player cards without any truly defining men that send the tribe over the top. On the upside, Merfolk would be a sweet singelton deck. I've got to build a Sygg EDH deck stat.

syssc9: I think that the "blue goblins" strategy is definitely a legitimate avenue to take. I think though that you really have to include 4 force of will and 4 cursecatcher in that deck, to make up for the relatively slow clock for an aggro deck. I'm also inclined to say you need more like 21 lands. I also think that rootwater thief and riptide pilferer are both better than wistful selkie. making that replacement ups you from 16 must kill dudes (cold-eye, thrasher, LOA, and reej) to 20.

Chrome Mox: Does not stop you from using daze. You don't just replace lands with moxen, you take out 2 lands and 2 spells for 4 moxen. It may in fact make Daze better, this is because often early dazes come at the expense of your development, making it actually a poor decision during the only turns of the game when Daze is effective. Mox ensures that your development is strong no matter what, so you can daze with impunity. The card disadvantage is fairly insignificant when it gives you an entire turn of tempo. The deckbuilding limitation that comes with running 4 mox and 4 fow is including greater commitments to CA than just having 4 silvergill adepts, but to be honest that is something we should be doing anyway.

[Hightower]

I think I was wrong about Wake Thrasher. He is insane.. (remember everything is relative), just played some games on MWS, and even against Burn he shined...

So for everyone reading: Get 4x Wake Thrasher! =P

This is the 0,1 Post-Eventide build of my "Goblins with FoW" list that I'm using:



// Lands
14 Island
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port

// Creatures
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cursecatcher
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Tidal Courier
4 Lord of Atlantis
3 Stonybrook Banneret (should probably be 4x and then -1 Daze)
4 Wake Thrasher

// Spells
4 Force of Will
4 AEther Vial
4 Daze

I added Stonybrook Banneret again and removed 4x Grimoire Thief and 3x Tidal Warrior (so +4 Wake Thrasher +3 Stonybrook Banneret)

- Banneret is now good again, because it helps 19 cards get reduced mana cost (it might be changed to something else later, but so far it's been working for me)

[Elficidium]

Hightower, you have a SB to go with that?

Interested in playtesting and perhaps even building the deck. It looks fun.

[Hightower]

I sent you a PM with it, good luck with the deck! It is really fun to play in my opinion.

[Drac]

Im really liking this deck, it seems very strong

Im just not sure what kind of sideboard i should be playing.

any tips?

[Joon]

Seasinger, Back to Basucks, Jitte, Crypt, Stifle (if you don't Maindeck it obv.), random Redhate (Blue Blasts, Chill...), Propaganda,...

[Illissius]

That Goblins-esque list looks very close to what I had sketched -- difference being that I had Ancestral Vision instead of Daze. I'm not sure whether running 4 Vials plus 4 Vision would more often result in being happy because you always have a powerful play to make on turn one, or in being pissed because you drew both of them but can only play one, but I think it's worth trying. The reason I added it was because there aren't really any turn one plays you want to play besides Vial and Cursecatcher, so why not use that otherwise idle turn to invest in an Ancestral Vision a few turns down the line? Together with Courier, you could really overwhelm some decks with card advantage (...and together with Vial, Reejerey, and Banneret, this could get quite disgusting).

As for Daze, while it is great with the mana denial subtheme and goes well with an active Vial, I think it might set you back too much in developing your board when you don't have Vial active, which is actually most of the time. Your mana curve doesn't top out at two mana like Threshold's does.

Finally, I am concerned with the complete lack of any way to deal with a resolved permanent in the maindeck, though Force of Will obviously helps. I like Waterfront Bouncer, but adding some would require cutting other cards, which is always the hard part and especially so here.

[Hightower]

Yeah, I share your concern Illissius about the 1-drop - but I run 8x so the chance of getting one on turn 1 is "ok" (I can't remember the math, could someone PM it to me? or write it here)
But you need the 4x FoW and 4x Daze in my opinion (though I might test Visions and see if it works, it's Card Advantage vs Disruption tough choice)

Also the thing about reolved permanents is true. I have tried Waterfront Bouncer in the past, without much sucess. It was very situational. almost as much as as Seasinger - sometimes he shined, but most of the times he didn't work for me. I guess I can share some of my SB thoughts here.. I'm trying 4x Echoing Truth SB, they've worked decent so far, bounce Moat/Humility swing for the kill. Plus they give you more edge vs ETW tokens / Ichorid's Zombies etc.


- Like I have written earlier in this thread, my prior version of the deck (with 4x Grimoire Thief 3x Tidal Warrior) has gone into top8 two times at 23+ people tournaments and it won one 20 people tournament here in Denmark [and yes there was plenty of tier1 decks], and that's based on the 4x times I have taken it to tournaments. So I think it's more then just a casual deck (to all of you doubters reading) =P

[Piceli89]

Sure it's not casual , they are The Great Merfolks !
bout the cc1 frops: i use brainstorm and it never deludes me, really. Obviously, it's far superior than ancestral vision ( too slow in my opinion in an aggro control deck, maybe with standstill or a control-shell -see MUC- packed it could be rilevant) .
Would you like to compare the efficacity of a turn 1 draw cleaner that allows you immediately to search for counters or to develop in the right way your gameplan ? There 's no comparison! And as everyone knows, with fetches it becomes an optimal card filter, which fucks away all the "mislucky draws " ( too lands, useless cards... ).
If you pack also stifle, multi efficient , the cc1 count could be increased also to 10-11, and this would " regularize " the mana curve or just avoid wasting the first turn (which sometimes happens).
For the Daze: it is true that sometimes, being played too early to must-counter something , it denies our gameplaning development, but in the same way it is the most efficient free counter we could ask for in an aggro purpose, no doubt about it. FoW alone aren't always enough, and IMo merfolks can't support keeping mana open for counterspell or , sometimes, even just spell snare ( even it could seem to be a tempting choice). Maybe to "balance " this weakness we could fit the 3x, even if it hasn't much sense for me , and play more echoing truths ( i played ith 2 and never got problems), which are awesome even against combos as Hightower said.

Waterbouncer is horrible, too slow, too randomic, its ability too intensive, in one word mm... a bit crappy ? :D

[Finn]

I have a lot of thoughts about Brainstorm. I was all prepared to rattle off the reasons for using it no matter what. But then I put together the deck in my mind and remembered why I am given pause. A lot of pause. By using that card, the deck makes a big commitment to following a path already taken by Threshold et al. You need fetchlands. Brainstorm breakdown follows

pro:
1. smooths out the draws
2. makes splashing a color more attractive (read this as Swords to Plowshares)
3. provides something the deck cuurently lacks - instant speed library manipulation

con:
1. requires fetchlands meaning
...a...Moon decks now own your soul
...b...you take a bit more damage
...c...stifle hurts


I am really unsure what the best path here is.

[Elficidium]

I'd honestly only consider Brainstorm of I was splashing or running Countertop. But since we're discussing the goblinesque mono-U list neither is applicable.
So far i've been quite happy with Cursecatcher/vial as one-drops and 3 Dazes (cutting 1 for a Banneret). Only thing I might consider is going back to 3 banneret/4 Daze.

What has been seriously bothering me is that the deck could use something against aggro. Has anyone tried Jitte in the SB?

[Hightower]

Depends.. on the aggro deck. If it's Goblins, then it's not a good matchup, but you have BEB/Chill post board.

- If it's non-red you should win anyways (I know this is pretty generalizing), but what kind of aggro decks do you have problems with?

The main reason I like "Aggro Merfolk" (the version I play) is the fact that it's an aggro[and a little control] deck that doesn't scoop to Combo (like Goblins..) It has a decent Control macthup and a relative decent Aggro matchup.

[idraleo]

JUst a thought on a different path...

// Lands
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
10 [CS] Snow-Covered Island

// Creatures
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Leech Bonder
4 Wake Thrasher
4 Tidal Courier
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Stonybrook Banneret

// Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Trinisphere

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Propaganda
SB: 4 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Back to Basics
SB: 4 Pithing Needle


This became a stompy deck wich abuse from the tribal sinergy, with Leech Bonder that became a good way to have simoultaneously a good body and a little spot removal other than Jitte, it also interacts well with Reejerey and became a permanent way to pump down opponent's Tarmogoyf...

[Curby]

Banneret and 3sphere don't really get along... everything will still cost 3.

If I wanted more removal, I'd probably look to Seasinger or Vedalken Shackles. Leech Bonder looks pretty bad. Jitte tears up weenies anyway, not to mention Chalice and 3sphere will slow down a weenie horde.

[Elficidium]

IF you play the Stompy lands, Banneret and Lord of Atlantis become annoying to cast. And you can't land a Chalice@2 (Wicked play vs Aggro Loam). This combined with the bannerets effect being unwanted and negated by the Trini would make me automatically dismiss this build.

On another subject: what would you guys run in terms of SB in a Combo-heavy meta? (I have 4 Ichorids, 3 Belcher, 2 TES, 1 Painter and 1 SI in my Meta)

[Maveric78f]

idraleo, as the other posters said, your proposed deck has a lot of dyssynergy:
- FoW and 3sphere
- banneret and 3Sphere
- banneret and stompy lands
- lord and stompy lands

[electrolyze]

i'm thinking to build this deck but i dont know what the best build is, the land disruption build, countertop build, vialstill build, or just an really aggroish build.

i'm testing a countertop build with back to basics now and it works really good to me:

4xcursecatcher
4xlord of atlantis
4xmerrow reejery
4xsilvergill adept
3xwake trasher

3xcounterbalance
3xback to bascis

3xtop
2xjitte

4xforce of will
4xdaze
4xbrainstorm

3xdelta
3xflooded strans
12xisland

side, depends on meta

this build has worked out really good for me now, its good against control decks like landstill. thanks to countertop aggroloam, combo, thresh, deadguy all become better i think. and against aggro decks i can race and use jitte.

i'm not totally sure about the jitte, wake trahser and the amount of back to basics. maybe i want to add some lands to the list so i have to cut something.

can somebody give me some advise to this list?

and i like to know what the best lists are for the other types of the deck(like land disruption, vialstill, etc..) my meta consists out of many combo decks, deadguy, thresh and random decks, whats the best list for that meta?(or is my list good for that meta?).

[jazzykat]

i'm thinking to build this deck but i dont know what the best build is, the land disruption build, countertop build, vialstill build, or just an really aggroish build.

i'm testing a countertop build with back to basics now and it works really good to me:

4xcursecatcher
4xlord of atlantis
4xmerrow reejery
4xsilvergill adept
3xwake trasher

3xcounterbalance
3xback to bascis

3xtop
2xjitte

4xforce of will
4xdaze
4xbrainstorm

3xdelta
3xflooded strans
12xisland

side, depends on meta

this build has worked out really good for me now, its good against control decks like landstill. thanks to countertop aggroloam, combo, thresh, deadguy all become better i think. and against aggro decks i can race and use jitte.

i'm not totally sure about the jitte, wake trahser and the amount of back to basics. maybe i want to add some lands to the list so i have to cut something.

can somebody give me some advise to this list?

and i like to know what the best lists are for the other types of the deck(like land disruption, vialstill, etc..) my meta consists out of many combo decks, deadguy, thresh and random decks, whats the best list for that meta?(or is my list good for that meta?).

I played against a similiar version to your deck as far as the creature base goes. However, it had ports, wasteland, and some more merfolk instead of lock pieces and BtB . It played scarily like goblins with the ports, and wastes but the wake thrasher ate my lunch continuously when playing angel stax against it.

I think if that fellow puts vials into his deck, then it will be like goblins with FOW and insanely pumped creatures thanks to the 8 lord effects.

[Hightower]

I played against a similiar version to your deck as far as the creature base goes. However, it had ports, wasteland, and some more merfolk instead of lock pieces and BtB . It played scarily like goblins with the ports, and wastes but the wake thrasher ate my lunch continuously when playing angel stax against it.

Hey jazzykat, it was me you met =)

[jazzykat]

Hey jazzykat, it was me, you met =)

Hmmm...I looked back in the thread and there it was in your post... ~"goblins with merfolk". While I have not faced the other versions of this deck, I can safely attest to effectiveness.

The question...how do you do vs. a counterbalance/top?

That has to cause you a fair amount of problems right?

Hmmm...all this tribal makes me want to revive nobody beats the wiz

[Hightower]

Hmm.. Countertop can be problematic if you don't have an active Vial. But usually it's not since you play 8x 3cc spells (4x Wake Thrasher 4 Merrow Reejerey) and 4x 4cc spells (Tidal Courier) makes it alot less scary.

But Deed or recurring Engineered Explosives can ruin your fun.. [hence Stifle main or SB is a must in my opinion]

[Curby]

@Hightower: you seem to be the sort of guy that would have tried out Selkie over Courier, but you seem to be keeping Courier. Does Selkie not work as well as we all had hoped? What sort of things is it stronger or weaker against? Drawing several cards a turn with an unblockable attacker seems really sexy.

[djeyjey]

Anyone thinking about Saprazzan Legate ?

With Reef Shaman and Tideshaper Mystic, this guy would be nice…

[syssc9]

@ djeveiv - Saprazzan Legate seems overcosted. Flying is mostly superfluous in a landwalk deck. I would rather he had native Islandwalk than flying. That way you don’t have to wait around for a Lord. Also, Tidal Warrior > Tideshaper Mystic. Warrior’s ability can be used at any time, not just on your turn. My $0.02.

[djeyjey]

@ djeveiv - Saprazzan Legate seems overcosted. Flying is mostly superfluous in a landwalk deck. I would rather he had native Islandwalk than flying. That way you don’t have to wait around for a Lord. Also, Tidal Warrior > Tideshaper Mystic. Warrior’s ability can be used at any time, not just on your turn. My $0.02.

My point is that with Tideshaper Mystic and Reef Shaman (which I think is better T1), you can drop Saprazzan Legates for free any time (well… any time you could play it)

[syssc9]

Oh, OK - thanks for the explanation. Color me dense. It does seem a wee bit contrived, however. Cool, but contrived. I wonder if this falls into the category of "danger of of cool stuff." I am usually a sucker for such stuff, but this seems a bit much even for me. But hey, what do I know? Go ahead and goldfish a 100 games and let us know how many times you get this to work by turn 5 or so.

If that silly Legate just had Islandwalk...

[Curby]

My point is that with Tideshaper Mystic and Reef Shaman (which I think is better T1), you can drop Saprazzan Legates for free any time (well… any time you could play it)

Oftentimes, the problem is not that a card is inherently bad (though this card is truly mediocre for our theme and goals), but rather there's not enough space in the deck to fit it. The combination of mediocre card and no inferior card to take out means that no, it probably doesn't have a place.

If you're going to evade, Islandwalk is much better. Use Cold-Eyed Selkie with those same enablers to do infinitely more (even though it costs three) or use the Banneret to walk in for the same damage while making other merfs cost less.

If you're going to fly, I'd look at Manta Riders and Mothdust Changeling first.

Remember that between Reejery, Banneret, and Aether Vial, we can do a lot of cheating, so casting free low-power creatures is not that enticing. We would rather cast something for greater cost, and have it do better in combat (Wake Thrasher) or enhance the deck outside of combat (Tidal Courier, Cold-Eyed Selkie).

In conclusion and in general, ask not what you'd put in, but rather what you'd take out for it. It helps you avoid the cool things trap. =)

[Sims]

So, I'm sure you guys knew this already, but I'd just like to say that Wake Thrasher is amazing. I haven't decided if I like the VialFolk (goblins) approach better than the tempo approach with b2b and counter/top... but I do know that if you untap with Wake Thrasher in play, Rejoice! For very bad things are about to happen....

[Xurcks]

Wake Thrasher is the nuts! I'm testing a Faerie Stompyesque version with Tritons , and first turn Wake Thrasher with Chrome Mox , Tomb\City and CoTV for 0 is amazing play against combo. Better with equip on second turn or FOW backup. It is at least promising.

[Finn]

Yeah, Wake Thrasher seems to be living up to its promise. My question is whether or not it will be good enough to take some of the heat off Selkies long enough to make them any good.

Wake Thrasher is the nuts! I'm testing a Faerie Stompyesque version with Tritons , and first turn Wake Thrasher with Chrome Mox , Tomb\City and CoTV for 0 is amazing play against combo. Better with equip on second turn or FOW backup. It is at least promising.The problems I have regarding that approach are with the lack of untapping things. You get one less land if you use City of Traitors. And then there is the problems with one being sacrificed afterward. And the equipment does not untap either. Is it good enough to see play in Faerie Stompy and the like despite these things? I don't know. I guess that discussion can be found there.

[Piceli89]

meh, to exploit Trasher at its best the stompy-esque version seems to be a bit too unstable for my tastes, and the 2-mana land are effectively risky.
I was wonderig about a strange sinergy to get the beast from thisc ard: if we assemble a more controllish shell, putting Counterbalance + top, trasher could be really nuts. Furthermore, CB+ Top could offer us a solid way to endure all the removals ( Bolt, Stp, even Vendetta... ) which Trashy is weak against, and just tap our flooding islands to pump it next turn. :laugh: ( i Know is a crappy sinergy, but it works and has given me games ). Furthermore, trashy and merfolks seem to get a lot of benefit from a great game- slowdown, which could be offered by Back To Basics MAINDECK. I know that pors and wastes are really useful, but i can assure than a right BtB in the right clock can put KO several decks ( stax, stompies also, rock and , most of all, landstill).
I found a list on deckcheck.com which i'm testing and gets me satisfaction:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=17687
It's created by Nihil, but i would cut some things. First of all, tidal warrior doesn't seem to be really that useful, so -4 of them and +4 vial; seasinger out for +3 trasherm and ponder and wipe away leave room to echoing truths and shapesharer. I came to this list:

lands (18)
4 polluted (maybe more fetches here )
14 islands

creatures (17)
3 wake trahser
4 loA
4 reejerey
4 Adept
2 Shapesharer

spells (25)
3 brainstorm ( I can't fit the 4th ! )
4 Fow
4 daze
2 BtB
3 Top
3 CBalance
2 Echoing truth
4 Vials

Side(15)
1 BtB
2 stifle
3 Mind Harness
4 Crypt
2 Needles
3 Chill

Maybe it could be an interesting variation towards more controllish route than the usual "aggro -control" or " blue goblinesque " ones.

[Sims]

I'd like to point out, it's "Thrasher" not "Trasher" or "Trahser." I know, Spelling errors are not exactly the biggest of concerns, but it pains me to see that get typoed all the time. On to your list, I don't really like vial in the deck, it's not accelerating anything when you have no one drops, so it sits dead on your table for the turn you cast it and a full turn after. I'm not a fan of dead drops. That SHOULD be either Cursecatcher or Tidal Warrior in that list. It's not too far off from what I played this past friday at the first (!!!) tournament that I know that's taken place in Albany in many moons. With that in mind... MINI REPORT!

So myself and a few friends arrive at Science and Hobby to do some casual gaming and building and realize, holy crap, there's actually 9 people here instead of like...3. So we say screw it and run a pathetic excuse at 4 rounds, cut to top 4 with cash payout. Everyone scrambles at the last minute to get a deck and sideboard together cause no one was expecting a tournament. I played the following list:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
13 [10E] Island (1)
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Flooded Strand

// Creatures
4 [TSB] Lord of Atlantis
4 [LRW] Silvergill Adept
4 [LRW] Merrow Reejerey
4 [EVE] Wake Thrasher
4 [SHM] Cursecatcher

// Spells
3 [US] Back to Basics
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [NE] Daze
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [IA] BrainstormI cobjobbed my sideboard out of Echoing Truth, Vedalken Shackles, Rootwater Thieves, and Propagandas because I really had nothing else to put into the board. Proved for a fun tournament.

Round 1: Steve N (Braves54321) with UG Madness.
There isn't much to say about this match other than game 1 I had more counters and an islandwalking Wake Thrasher. Game 2 was more him getting screwed on land while my fish were thriving.

Round 2: Jim P (MathMan) with W/u Jim Angel Stompy.
Game 1 consisted of some fetching and counterspelling Epochrasite's on my part while laying Lord and Thrasher early. Mom and Serra Avenger start making pro Blue blockers for my thrasher. Reej and another thrasher are met by Story Circle and an E.Angel ruins my day as I couldn't draw countermagic past the first daze and FoW.

Game 2: This game is rather fast. Turn 1 catcher, turn 2 adept, swinging in through an STP. I think I stopped taking notes at this point cause i just see his life total going down and it's not large enough drops to be Thrasher.

Game 3: Yeah, we drew. Suffice it to say, with me at 17 and him at 2, I had multiple Propagandas and an army (3 thrashers!), and he had a small army with a Mother of Runes and a Story Circle on blue. I missed my win a few times by forgetting that Reej could tap creatures, and didn't play out the cursecatchers/adepts in my hand aggressively enough to tap his army and swing through Story Circle for the win. Go me.

Round 3: Bre (B is for Big Job) with a cob-jobbed Goblin list.

A brief aside, he threw this together last minute with some questionable cardchoices that included maindeck shushers, and chokes from the board. I never stood a chance. Game 1 he killed my lackey blocker (LoA) while I was on the play, game 2 I literally drew 5 islands straight while he was building his army and had Chokes. I never stood a chance.

Round 4: Jake with a B/w Orhzov Aggro-Controlish deck.

Game 1: I don't have enough threats and draw nothing but lands, he easily swarms me with creatures I haven't seen since drafting ravnica block.

Game 2: More like it. Multiple Dazes and a FoW backup turn 2 LoA, turn 3 Thrasher, turn 4 thrasher. Cake walk.

Game 3: See game 2.

Final standing: 2-1-1. Fail.


Conclusion: There were quite a few times throughout the day that I wished Cursecatcher was a Tidal Warrior just so I could Islandwalk past blockers, but I agree that Warrior is kinda weak in the deck. The card that got boarded out the most was Back to Basics, because there really were no non-basics being played at this event as it was so spur of the moment. It got dropped for Propaganda most often, or Vedalken Shackles. I kept feeling like I wanted more threats/pressure, so I've been toying with Cold-Eyed Selkie in the back to basics spot but we'll see how that goes. Another thing I felt was that I didn't have enough draw. I could filter and dig a bit with Brainstorm and Top, but I didn't feel like there was enough raw Draw power. I'm not quite sure how to rectify that, but maybe actually playing a few more threats (Selkie since it draws, Waterfront bouncer as temporary maindeck bounce) will satisfy that lack of drawing power.

[rufus]

Did you find that Cursecatcher did well as a 1-drop for you?

With Countertop and Thrasher both in the deck, you could consider a shift like:
Cursecatcher -> Mothdust Changeling
B2B -> Prismwake Merrow

[Sims]

In the environement presented, I only sac'd Cursecatcher once. However, it did come in handy as a few opponents held back spells until they could pay off daze + catcher which gave me time to rail in. I could have probably made due with Tidal Warrior instead of Catcher and probably not noticed the difference except for getting in for more damage (thank you islandwalk.)

[Shimster]

@ CorruptedAngel:

Regarding your list, I'd say cut a Daze in favour of a 4th Counterbalance. Seven free counters are the right number (as Hanni already pointed out in the former DAT thread), while you cannot have enough 'balances at any time. At least in the aggro control mirror.

What do you think of Riptide Pilferer and Threads of Disloyalty as sideboard options?

[Hightower]

Great to see so many pick up the deck! =D

It is really fun to play (if you like aggro decks), go go "minions" spread the Merfolk to all of Europe and the US.

[Piceli89]

Great to see so many pick up the deck! =D

It is really fun to play (if you like aggro decks), go go "minions" spread the Merfolk to all of Europe and the US.

Yeah, let's spread the 'Folks !

@corruptedangel: I explain you why i play vial. I know that it may seem strange in my configuration which is full of 3 drops ( 7 ), but vial is really useful in this deck. I mean, the possibility to cast a turn 1-2 vial allowas us to "save " mana for the following turns and drop our bombs to slow down the game and control it. Imagine a turn 1 vial followed by counterbalance/ top, and some good drawing filters ( brainstorm and top above all): we can search for the creatures we need, trick the opponents in counters, and, in the while, to gain sufficient tempo to grow our Merfolks army. By the way, vial is also very synergic with Adept ( tap and draw without revealing anything, which sometimes is a problem...), to make our folks uncounterable, to do nice combat tricks ( vial LoA or reejerey after blockers decl. ), and somehow it is also good for THrasher itself ( vialing him EOT with a tapped out oppo midgame would assure us that he won't be killed so easy,while casting it at sorcery speed will surely meet a removal from a wise opponent). But i guess that you already knew these things...:smile:
If you allow me , i would recommend to fit some draw, even if you don't want to play vial ( it's difficult to rely only on adepts, unles you play the standstil version, but that relies on vial , :laugh:), and i ask you: do you really find cursecatcher to be that useful: i also played with him, but in a meta full of creatures ( or , in any case,of cheap instants/sorceries) like legacy, he doesn't seem to me to be great, while i think he'd have a more improtant role in vintage. Maybe he could be useful if he offers a "surprise effect " ( for example, vialing him ( sorry, i can't think without vial at this point :laugh: ) in resp to a removal ).
Tell me your viewpoint, please.

[Elficidium]

Cursecatcher is a 1-drop that can be sacced to bug Ichorid and be used to win counter-wars in combination with port and daze. Cursecatcher isn't worth playing without Daze and Port, imho, because it's together that they really shine.



What do you think of Riptide Pilferer and Threads of Disloyalty as sideboard options?
I'd pick seasinger over Threads, since it's a merfolk. But both are inferior to stuff like Blasts/crypts/echoing truth, because those are the kind of cards that drastically change the game post-board.

[Piceli89]

Cursecatcher is a 1-drop that can be sacced to bug Ichorid and be used to win counter-wars in combination with port and daze. Cursecatcher isn't worth playing without Daze and Port, imho, because it's together that they really shine.


I'd pick seasinger over Threads, since it's a merfolk. But both are inferior to stuff like Blasts/crypts/echoing truth, because those are the kind of cards that drastically change the game post-board.

He asked for pilferer, tho one who discards the cards, not for seasinger... the force of habits :laugh: However, you are right, echoing truth is extremely useful against lots of deck (Ichorid and EtW combos above all). I play them MD and thery 've been always very useful in the drastic situations ( it comes to my mind when I face threats like deed or Moat and I have to save some of my folks from mass destruction or make my Non-fliers able to win...)

[Finn]

Somebody please explain to me why having a lot of Merfolk that cost 3 is an argument in favor of dropping Aether Vial? For me, the fact that I can set my Vials to 3 and confidently leave it there is exactly what I want. It has always been to my annoyance with Goblins that if the opponent manages to survive your first blitz, and your vial got to 4 or 5, it may sit unused for the rest of the game.

One more thing: precisely which decks do you want Back to Basics against? What do you expect it to do?

[Piceli89]

Somebody please explain to me why having a lot of Merfolk that cost 3 is an argument in favor of dropping Aether Vial? For me, the fact that I can set my Vials to 3 and confidently leave it there is exactly what I want. It has always been to my annoyance with Goblins that if the opponent manages to survive your first blitz, and your vial got to 4 or 5, it may sit unused for the rest of the game.

One more thing: precisely which decks do you want Back to Basics against? What do you expect it to do?

In fact i'm not among the ones who think that charging vial @3 is a bad thing, even because the deck tends to have a controllish/disrupting approach in the early phases, so it's not true that vial makes us lose two turns because of the lack of 1-drops: in that turns we can go something else ( for example, the manadenial plan contempts to waste/stifle/port, and stifle costs 1, while the more particular version plays SDT, and CB, and brainstorm). Another thing: daze is useful, but also sometimes controproductive towards our game development; and here , vial is an efficient mate, because having an island undo can be balanced by "manaless " creatures, while , in the vial-less version, if you should play high costs merfolk ( reejerey and thrasher) and have to daze a concrete threat, you would lose the possibility to cast them the next turn.

I took Back to Basics MD especially to face those decks against which i felt merfolk to be particularrly weak: landstill above all, where a protected BtB can win the game ( along with a counterbalance always kept with a 3 cmc on the top if you fear Kgrip). Merfolk tends to be aggressive, but not like the ultra-aggro power of goblins, and so landstill somehow manages to catch us. I know that you could adfirm that the manadenial plan wrecks landstill in a more effective way, but A wise player can avoid stifles and, sometimes, fetch the ( few) basics at the right time ( at least, this is what I always saw.. :smile: ).
BtB seems to me to be a more " definitive " card.

Another two decks I noticed BtB is essential against are Aggro loam and The rock. Aggro loam wants to gain a huge land amount, and denying their mana is just amazing, it blocks most of the lftl engine and also aid a bad Devastating dreams to come ( which can be easily dazed/forced when his manabase is fucked and he has few resoures left to spend ).
About the Rock, well, the overnumber of mass removals (PDeed) and/or discarders and single removals ( Stp, Smother, vendetta, vindicate...) requires a varied manabase, so dual lands. I always found that the goal against those types of decks should be the one to deny their dangerous creatures early turns ( goyf, confidant), drop the CB ( which shines here) and afterwards begin to play our folks, when we are sure that they can be protected decently. Finally, just make them vindicate or spending mana on something, and Btb them.
Of course these are my considerations ( but they often worked against these decks) if you want to contest something you're welcome.