Nice, congrats!
Some questions:
1. How was Standstill performing?
2. Did you always have an Island for 4 Dazes?
tnx
Wait, 700 players IQ. That can't be right.
Hell yeah man repping the merfolkstill! Anyways I would be certainly interested in your report, i'm playing a list very similar right now. Maverick (depending on the build) and D&T are pretty bad matchups, and elves can swing either way (atleast if you're playing the standstill version). Also I think that it was a 200-250 person event and not a 700 person event,.Originally Posted by dinosaurus
Thanks! indeed the Open was 700, I got confused for some reason...
I'll elaborate a bit more on this when I post my report (probably tomorrow), but let me answer that:
1. In the games I played, Standstill was good but not amazing. I don't think it's that easy to play (unless you have the nuts) and I got punished once for playing it too early, I have to improve on that. It really shines against fair decks on the play, but I boarded them out (or wished I had something to board in instead) often. My current view is that it'd the first card to cut to make room for something. I still like it overall, as it goes very well with the rest of the deck and drawing three is so much more powerful now that TC is banned. There are matchups were it does very little but that's true with almost all other cards in the deck....
2. I never had issue casting Daze, with two caveats: (i) I played a lot of fair decks so I boarded a number of them very frequently, (ii) I mulliganed one hand where Daze was my only piece of interaction but I had no island. I can't remember exactly what it was but I think I would have kept with an Island. I was really skeptical whether I'd be able to cast it often enough, and I even cut a factory last minute for an extra island, but it worked out. I was always able to daze turn one or two when I had it (in fact, I did it much more often than I expected and the card definitely overperformed when I drew it, even against fair decks). I think the odds of having one of your 11 islands in your opening hands is about 75% (but may a Frank Karsten here correct me).
I shared some of your skepticism about these two cards, so I was eager to try it out. I was pleasantly surprised, but I'll see how the next event goes. This list aimed to maximize synergies and attack from a number of angles, and many times I felt I was doing much more powerful things than my opponents.
What matchups were boarding your standstills out in? I think it's interesting that you were boarding them out so often. That's probably the card that I board out the least oftenks. I think the only matchups where it's instantly gone are against other aether vial decks, lands and zoo (do people even play this anymore?).
Hey team, thought I'd share with you the list I was running to a 1st place finish in a Power9 tournament held at GOTTACON on Vancouver Island.
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Tident
4 Merrow Reejery
4 True Name Nemisis
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Aether Vial
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
12 Island
Side Board:
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Echoing Truth
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
2 Submerge
1 Dismember
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Null Rod
Round 1 vs homebrew mono white list.
Sideboarded -1 Daze + 1 Jitte
Won in 2
Round 2 vs. Jund
Sideboard: -3 Catcher -2 Daze -2 FOW + 2 Submerge +2 Relic +2 Pithing Needle +1 Dismember
Lost in 3
Round 3 vs. Burn
Sideboard: -2 FOW -1 Daze + 2 Chalice OTV + 1 Jitte
Won in 2
Round 4 vs. Shardless BUG
Sideboard: - 4 Cursecatcher -2 Daze +2 Pithing Needle + 2 Submerge + 2 Relics
Won in 3 really close games
Round 5 vs. Miracles
Sideboard: -4 Cursecatchers - 2 Merrow Reejery + 1 Chalice + 1 Null Rod + 2 Echoing Truth +2 Pithing needles
Won in 3
Round 6 vs. Food Chain
I could have drawn into the Top8 and offered the draw, but he needed the win and in so we played.
Sideboard: G2: (on the Play)- 2 Force + 2 Submerge G3: (On the Draw)+2 Force of Will -2 Daze
Won in 3
Finish Swiss 5-1 and in Second place
Top 8:
Semi Finals vs. OmniTell
I'm on the play and he has the turn 3.
Sideboard: - 2 TNN + 2 Chalice
G2: Both have a slow start and then I get a Chalice on 1 with counter back up and we move to G3
G3: He Mulligans to 4 and I kept a 1 land 6 with Chalice I eventually got the second land played the chalice then a bunch of fish and took it.
Quarters vs. Elves!
He hoofed me g1 real quick
Sideboard: -4 Catcher - 2 Daze + 2 Chalice + 2 Grafdigger's Cage + 2 Echoing Truth
Turns out chalice on 1 against Elves! paired with a cage is quite good.
Finals vs. RW Painter Combo
G1 I squeak it out with enough pressure and counter backup to stop his combo
Sideboard: - 4 Cursecatcher - 2 Reejery + 1 Null Rod +2 Pithing Needle + 1 Echoing Truth +2 Chalice
G2 He got down some ensnaring bridges and I got down Null Rod which shut down both sides, when I found my Echoing Truth he had a pyroblast and for what ever reason I only brought in the one so I scooped having no other outs to the Bridges
G3 + 1 Echoing Truth - 1 TNN
Same stalemate for a long time of Null Rod and Pithing Needle naming Grindstone vs. 2 ensnaring bridges. Eventually I found the Truth and was holding out for counter backup before casting it. Unfortunately for him he had 3 Game Rule Violations in this game which caused him the game loss, but once I showed him I had the Truth and he revealed he didn't have any pyroblasts he was not sour. I was pretty pumped though!!
So I came in First!
The prize was a blind pick of Blue Power, and I took home an Unlimited Time Walk!
Congrats!!!! That is some amazing report and great playing it seems. I'm truly encouraged to see Merfolk still competitive in this meta.
Questions, were you okay with no creature outs like snag or dismember?
Didn't you miss Jitte main?
Finally, what would you suggest I run for Grand Prix Kyoto?
Gratz, Kayds!
On your way to making vintage merfolk eh?
So coralhelm commander is becoming a thing here in Japan. Good mana sink for late game and can beat delver, beefy by itself. What do people think in this forum?
Abrupt decay laughs at it. Maybe a meta choice, e.g. against Moat.
I hear they got twisters miles wide in the Midwest.
Doesn't decay laugh at all our Merfolk?
It's more about mana/tempo loss for us. Since you play in JP, you may have better insight, but I hear that combo is pretty popular there, so maybe Decay is less of a worry.
A book about the dark side of Legacy: "Magic: The Addiction" // Conversations with Magic players: "Humans of Magic"
True, combo and blue control are quite the thing.
Tempo loss is quite a drag, I agree. Perhaps it's better really late game when you have nothing to do with mana anyway? Good top deck in other words.
Yeah, agree, it's the classic "do I run 4-of so I see it early vs. 1-of for late game and never see it" dilemma.
Abrupt Decay changed everything
A book about the dark side of Legacy: "Magic: The Addiction" // Conversations with Magic players: "Humans of Magic"
I feel like the removal I play in the board is more than enough. (2 Echoing Truth, 2 Submerge, 1 dismember) is plenty of removal. Sometimes I feel like it's a bit too much, but it's a necessary evil. I never miss having a jitte main and I actually rarely bring it in anymore because my meta has really shifted away from Stoneforge decks (phantasmal image copying SFM) .
Re what you should play in Kyoto, these are the decks that I bring chalic in for : elves!, miracles, burn and combo so if you expect to be playing those mostly I can't fault you for wanting to play the chalic version, however, I'm partial to the classic list that I run with out the chalices main, I feel like because it's (my list) not seen as commonly anymore then people aren't nessecarly teched against it. I'm also partial to it because you can have super explosive hands and really have an element of suprise against people.
No matter what list you go with I look forward to reading your report.
I will be posting another report shortly
I feel like in most cases decay is just a 2 mana uncounterable sword
Hasn't it always been sort of a thing in merfolk? I remember people running 1-2 of him before TNN was printed. Everytime he's played I feel like he's mostly just a bear.
So back onto the chalice discussion. There seems to be quite a bit of players who disregard Jitte main and add two chalices, running with vials. At first I was skeptical, but they convinced me, stating that it hits many more decks. Thinking of it, it does make sense. Chalice hits so many more of opponents cards than do ours and quite cripplingly so. Even if we have dead draws late game (vial) it is dead anyway with or without chalice. Plus, protecting our dudes from swirds is much more effective than having counters on jitte. The line of reasoning was that we are a "sworm deck" not a individual creature holding a jitte deck. Makes sense to me. Thoughts? Jitte is in the side btw.
I agree with CotV in the main, the card is brutal.
But that doesn't stop me from playing 1 Jitte also.
Yeah I don't understand why we are comparing the 2 cards. They're both for completely different matchups with the only exception being something like elves.
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