Tribal Warfare! Merfolk v. Goblins [Premium Article]

[Smmenen]

People asked for detailed matchup articles like the one I wrote for Lands v. Reanimator. Less fantasy theme, more detailed decision analysis. Plenty of polls to see what people are thinking.

Enjoy!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...in_Legacy.html

[menace13]

You would pick a match up where turn 1 Lackey is a blowout on the play or turn 1 Vial is probably also a blowout even if on draw oh and a 2 mana pro blue killing machine also sounds like a blowout, But i love your work so i'll read it anyway

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

As a sometimes Merfolk player, I don't need an SCG premium account to tell you what happens in this matchup about 80% of the time. When I'm running mono-blue Fish, I fear the Goblins probably more than the Zoo matchup.

[Bryant Cook]

The article didn't really intrigue me. However, I think how players can choose a thought process is interesting. You should continue to do this.

[Enigma]

While I'm a huge fan of this kind of article (though, a full series of matches like Ruel's Brothers are doing is maybe more representative), and sure that I want you to keep up with those. But there is a couple of interactions you missed, which leads me to think you could re-read you a little bit more.

First, while using the ability of reejerey is really interesting, at that moment you were not in the position to be able to use it, simply because you can't cast Silvergill from the 2 islands without revealing a merfolk from your hand (and it was the last card in your hand, right?). I'm pretty sure you are aware of that, and I agree that it doesn't really changes the fact you wanted to prove: Goblins has the edge pre-board against Merfolks.

But that analysis doesn't seem complete enough with what I'm used from what you usually do. Merfolk player has BEB, Jitte and possibly Control magic effects in the form of Sower or Mind Harness post-board. I've played Goblins for a while and I have to say that Jitte can really changes the MU by itself. I would also argue that the Mono Red version is more threatening for Merfolks than the one with more fragile manabase.

While I'm definitely not at your writer's level, I'd have some advises for future similar articles: -Being careful in the interactions of the cards (Silvergil restriction and the fact that you were wrong about Reejerey triggered ability (When you cast, not ETB)), -Having a more spread games analysis as Ruel's brothers are doing, -Taking the sideboard into consideration.

Thanks again for this article, hope you continue writing that much about Legacy. Your statistics from the SCG tournaments are really really useful to me and I greatly appreciate it!

P-M

[dyzzy]

1) First poll - should Merfolk keep this hand. Do I know I'm playing against Goblins? If so, then definitely no (slightly surprised I'm in the minority). I'm on the play, so I don't need t1 Catcher to block the Lackey, I just need something t2. And it does nothing else in this matchup. So 3 Cursecatchers is essentially 2-3 dead cards. However, if I'm on the draw or playing against an unknown opponent, I'd probably keep.

2) How does Merfolk vial in Reejerey and then play Silvergill off 2 lands and no Merfolk in hand?

Edit:
3) Alex Bertoncini and his snow islands.

[SlopeeJ]

Some mistakes in the article, but overall was a pretty good read. I personally don't think goblins would keep that hand unless they knew they were playing against Merfolk. Also the play with Silvergill Adept and Reejerey can't happen.You can't vial in Reejerey then play adept because you have no cards in had to reveal for Adept


Edit.... I'm a little late with my response but wanna say again was a good article

[xXxBretWeedxXx]

He still has Sovereign and Force of Will in hand. He reveals the Sovereign but I'm curious why the Merfolk player wouldn't Force the 5th Goblin that was Matroned for.

[dyzzy]

He still has Sovereign and Force of Will in hand. He reveals the Sovereign but I'm curious why the Merfolk player wouldn't Force the 5th Goblin that was Matroned for.

Nope, he forced Ringleader pitching Soverign the previous turn.

[Neuad]

Faced a guy in a GPT the other day, was 1-1 and g2/3 I sided in 1 KGrip on a whim and was hoping to outaggro him or draw into an early KGrip.

Drew into an early KGrip and turn 3 Gripped his Vial, and ruined his entire day.

Goblins vs Merfolk, I was Goblins.

He was so mad that I sided in KGrip and not Pyrokinesis. I don't know why I did it, like I said a whim.

[Aggro_zombies]

I'm not really sure why this article needed to be written. After all, if we look at the data from the 5ks so far this year, Goblins is the pretty clear favorite.

St Louis: Goblins 2-2-0
Seattle: Goblins 6-4-0
Philly: Goblins 7-3-0
Atlanta: Goblins 6-0-0
Orlando: Goblins 2-2-0
Indianapolis: Goblins 3-6-0
Richmond: Goblins 2-1-0
Dallas: Goblins 1-2-0 (equating "Fish" with "Merfolk")

For some reason, I wasn't able to find any data from L.A., but I'm sure it would support my conclusions.



This is a chart showing match overhead per tournament for Goblins: in other words, if Goblins and Merfolk both win the same number of matches against each other, it's 0, whereas if Goblins wins 6 matches and Merfolk wins 4, it's +2. As you can see from this graph, Goblins actually has a very comfortable margin on Merfolk, with the exception of Indianapolis; overhead this large does not suggest that the matchup is based on play skill. I mean, look at this:



This is a graph showing the percentage of time Goblins wins a match versus the time Merfolk wins the match. Goblins is just a tiny bit shy of being the 60% favorite in this matchup. The large number of matches played (49 in total) would seem to indicate that this is clearly a favorite for the Goblins player, not one where "the burden of play...is undoubtedly on the Goblins player."

Indeed, much like how the data show that Dredge is clearly a bad deck regardless of a pilot's knowledge of the matchup or ability to guess and pilot through the hate, the data here shows that Goblins is the clear favorite. So why bother writing about it, especially when the Merfolk player misplayed so badly by not trying to aggro out with all of the Cursecatchers in the first two turns?