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.
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?.
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.
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!
Last edited by syssc9; 07-11-2008 at 01:50 PM. Reason: Can't add.
You can't kill my Zombies - they're already dead!
Shoes for Industry!
Reality is for people who can't deal with Middle Earth.
Too much is never enough - I'm addicted to MORE!!!
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.
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!
You can't kill my Zombies - they're already dead!
Shoes for Industry!
Reality is for people who can't deal with Middle Earth.
Too much is never enough - I'm addicted to MORE!!!
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.
Illisius said this on the Adept forum a day or two ago:
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.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.
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.
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:
I added Stonybrook Banneret again and removed 4x Grimoire Thief and 3x Tidal Warrior (so +4 Wake Thrasher +3 Stonybrook Banneret)// 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
- 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)
"I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize!"
Hightower, you have a SB to go with that?
Interested in playtesting and perhaps even building the deck. It looks fun.
I sent you a PM with it, good luck with the deck! It is really fun to play in my opinion.
"I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize!"
Im really liking this deck, it seems very strong
Im just not sure what kind of sideboard i should be playing.
any tips?
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.
SummenSaugen: well, I use Chaos Orb, Animate Artifact, and Dance of Many to make the table we're playing on my chaos orb token
SummenSaugen: then I flip it over and crush my opponent
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
Last edited by Hightower; 07-14-2008 at 03:15 AM.
"I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize!"
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
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.
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?
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