[Deck] Merfolk

[forsmark]

I am working on building my UW Merfolk list, and I came across a few cards that might be considered playable with the white splash. For your information I am gonna be running a list without Standstill and with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner and Swords to Plowshares.

* Sejiri Merfolk - To me he seems kinda solid actually, but I have no idea. I am going to do some testing with this. Thoughts?

* Sygg, River Guide - Maybe too mana intensive, but being a 2/2 for 2 mana and potentially stopping a swords/bolt seems interesting.

* Galina's Knight - Should be fairly good in the goblins matchup and somewhat okay in the zoo matchup. I dunno, maybe more sideboard material, but being in the white splash gives you access to Absolute Law which seems strictly superior.

Speaking or sideboard, what would you recommend against a meta of Zoo, Merfolk and Bant-variants? What I have come up with is:

Mind Harness
Submerge
Seasinger
Waterfront Bouncer
Absolute Law
Llawan, Cephalid Empress
Relic of Progenitus


Anything I missed?

- forsmark

PS. While I am sure it has been discussed several times, have Cosi's Trickster been tried? Sorry if I am repeating an old discussion.

[U.deck]

I like Sejiri in theory but that spot is already taken by silvergill... and I don't think he should get replaced.

Sygg... yeah too mana intensive

I run absolute law in the board... the only thing you should really be afraid of with that is quasali pridemage... he is a pain in the butt.

Trickester is ok... cursecatcher is just better in that spot though.

[Bahamut056]

threads of disloyalty is pretty decent in stealing tarmos and confidants...can't do anything against the knight tho

[4eak]

@ arebennian

Which match-ups and doesn't Coralhelm Commander eat up any excess mana?

Creature-based decks of almost any variety.

Coralhelm does not always eat up my excess mana, particularly if I get into the mid/late game against decks which have enough board control such that my normal tempo plan is exposed.


@ Nidd

Goblins.

Seriously, steal their Piledrivers or their Haste enablers.

In my last tournament with Folk I faced Goblins 3 times. Shackles was MVP. It doesn't make the matchup positive in general, but I wouldn't have won without it. Where I didn't win, I was able to force draws with it as well.


@ kingtk3

What your side does look like with the shackles? What's do you side out for bringing in the shackles?

4 Wasteland
16 Island

4 Aether Vial

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce

4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merfolk Sovereign

SB:
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Echoing Truth
3 Back to Basics

I've already explained my views on Standstill in this thread before -- I feel the card is good in matchups I'm not concerned about and terrible in matchups I'm worried about. Kira can also be worth running in this sort of build if you know more about the metagame you are facing. My sideboard is going to be better in this version than it will in others.

Some will consider Shackles and Jitte to be redundant. I think they aren't. Sometimes you'll bring both in, and sometimes you should side in one but not the other.

I generally side out some combination of Cursecatcher, Merfolk Sovereign, Daze, and Spell Pierce for Shackles. It depends on the deck I'm facing and whether I'm on the play or draw.


@ SlopeeJ

I have been playing with Sower of Temptation as a 2 of in my sb with some success. (I have 3 kira main) Shackles is a little slower costing 5 mana, but is harder to get rid of.

Cards which allow you to pay over time are a bit different. For example, Coralhelm commander has been dismissed for costing '6 mana', but this was in part a failure to understand the nature of cards that allow you to pay over time. A deck with only 20ish lands might be perfectly willing to pay 5 or 6 mana over time, but simply might not immediately have enough lands to pay that mana all at once. The nice part is that you can play these sorts of cards early, and continue to plays lands to improve them.

All that said, once you get later into the game, CCommander and Shackles are your best topdecks.

To me, 'that harder to get rid of' issue is a part of a larger difference in roles between what Shackles and Sower each promote. Sower is not a card which you can reliably expect to live (as you point out, even with 3 Kira), and thus you really want to win within a few turns after a Sower. Shackles isn't just harder to answer, but it is also re-usable. It sets up attrition battles and stabilizes boards that Sower simply can't. (Note that Sower can take things that Shackles can't, and vice versa for things like Piledriver).

I run 14 islands/21 lands and still get mana screwed, most lists run 12 islands.....

I run 16 Islands, and manascrew is fairly uncommon. and more is easy enough to hit. Results will vary with the number of Lands and Islands played.

Can you explain this a little? I would assume you are referring to the zoo/goblins matchups and it does seem really slow vs goblins, esp on the draw. I can see taking pile driver, but they can have 1-2 swings in before its active. and zoo as pridemages

Without FoW/Daze (which you won't always have), perfect Lackey/Removal hands are almost unbeatable no matter what you do. Otherwise, Goblins isn't necessarily too fast, but rather they have inevitability in this matchup. Vial, Matron, Ringleaders, and removal (of various sorts) let them dominate in the mid-late game. Even Piledriver supports this inevitability, for example, it is often used as a blocker until they choose to alpha-strike later in the game. Shackles can be very powerful in the 'winnable' games.

Shackles does not make the matchup positive (nor does it make Zoo positive). But, for 3 cards in my sideboard, it gets a lot of bang for its buck (BEB doesn't even come close).

QPM is the largest reason that MUC dropped off the map. MUC also relied upon Shackles far more than Merfolk. If they don't draw QPM, or you counter it, or you block it lethally, or they sac it for another target, or you remove it with an active Jitte, then Shackles becomes much more problematic for Zoo. Some of my games have basically been throwing out chump blockers until Shackles becomes active.

Shackles has a lot of applications; it does a bang-up job against many aggro-control decks and control decks which rely upon creature win-cons. For example, I handled a Rock deck (which would have crushed me otherwise) nicely because of Shackles in my last tourney as well. Admittedly, it isn't just useful in matchups I consider problematic, but even useful in some matchups that were already pretty decent, such as blue-based aggro control.

Shackles is a card which is surprising for your opponent, and also not fully understood by those who haven't played with and against it. Many opponents are not going to see all the implications to cards and won't play perfectly when faced with it. It stabilizes when you are down, forcing attrition wars and favorable trades. It puts you in the winning position when you were even, and when you up on your opponent, it puts you even further ahead. Its instant speed is often overlooked, but quite powerful in practice. I've won games of magic having casted Shackles as my only spell. I really appreciate the inevitability it provides to a deck that generally has none. When active, it becomes a source of card and tempo advantage.


peace,
4eak

[kingtk3]

...
@ kingtk3



4 Wasteland
16 Island

4 Aether Vial

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Pierce

4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merfolk Sovereign

SB:
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Echoing Truth
3 Back to Basics

I've already explained my views on Standstill in this thread before -- I feel the card is good in matchups I'm not concerned about and terrible in matchups I'm worried about. Kira can also be worth running in this sort of build if you know more about the metagame you are facing. My sideboard is going to be better in this version than it will in others.

Some will consider Shackles and Jitte to be redundant. I think they aren't. Sometimes you'll bring both in, and sometimes you should side in one but not the other.

I generally side out some combination of Cursecatcher, Merfolk Sovereign, Daze, and Spell Pierce for Shackles. It depends on the deck I'm facing and whether I'm on the play or draw.

...

I run 16 Islands, and manascrew is fairly uncommon. and more is easy enough to hit. Results will vary with the number of Lands and Islands played.

...

Shackles is a card which is surprising for your opponent, and also not fully understood by those who haven't played with and against it. Many opponents are not going to see all the implications to cards and won't play perfectly when faced with it. It stabilizes when you are down, forcing attrition wars and favorable trades. It puts you in the winning position when you were even, and when you up on your opponent, it puts you even further ahead. Its instant speed is often overlooked, but quite powerful in practice. I've won games of magic having casted Shackles as my only spell. I really appreciate the inevitability it provides to a deck that generally has none. When active, it becomes a source of card and tempo advantage.


peace,
4eak

I totally agree with you on Standstill: to me it's only a card that helps you win matches you are already supposed to win. In fact, seeing your build the first thing that comes to my eyes is the absence of Mutavault, which makes perfectly sense with the presence of Shackles in the side. Doesn't the deck lose too much in terms of aggro? Is this compensated by the Shackles? Do you notice your winning turn to shift more in the mid-game?

I agree on your considerations about QPM-Shackles too, and this bring me to another question: how do manage your matches against Big Zoo (my worst nightmare)? I suppose something like this:
- 4 FoW, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Daze
+ 4 Relics, 3 Jitte, 3 BtB, 2 Echoing Thruth/Shackles

Greetings.

[4eak]

In fact, seeing your build the first thing that comes to my eyes is the absence of Mutavault, which makes perfectly sense with the presence of Shackles in the side. Doesn't the deck lose too much in terms of aggro?

Standard lists run 24 theats. My build does as well. Instead of 4 Mutavaults, I'm running 4 more Lords. How does this affect the aggressiveness of the deck? I think it actually improves it. Stacking Lords is excellent. Given my higher Island count, I'm also more likely to reach my second Island earlier, which is necessary for playing Lords when you don't have a Vial available.

For those who are unwilling to go without Mutavault, I'd suggest removing 2 Islands and 2 Spell Pierce.

While they don't replace each other overall in the deck (keep this in mind), it is the major difference in aggressive qualities, so let me just generally compare Mutavault (MV) to Merfolk Sovereign (MS). These points are not equal.

• MV is usually immune to board sweeping where MS isn't (although, Spell pierce does a great deal to combat this).
• MV is immune to sorcery speed removal, unless you choose otherwise, while MS isn't; admittedly, most removal is instant speed.
• MV is usually stronger than MS against other tribal decks because of Changeling (there are a few cornercases when this isn't a good thing, however)
• MV is free to play, while MS costs 3 or a Vial usage.
• MV is amazing with Standstill, and MS isn't nearly as good.
• MV taps for mana (a lot goes into what this means for the deck), and MS doesn't.
• MV is such that: For 2 or less activations, it is mana efficient; For 3 or more activations, it is mana inefficient.
• MS actually provides synergy to other Merfolk cards, and MV doesn't.
• MV replaces some number of Islands, it doesn't tap for blue mana when you need it to (many effects of this).
• MV puts you in positions where you can either activate him or you can extend your board position, but not both.
• MS is immune to Wasteland/Port as removal, while MV is vulnerable.
• MS keep equipment, while for MV, equipment drops off at EoT.
• MS makes it more likely to stack lords, unlike MV, such that you'll be more immune to -x/-x or damage based removal.
• MS offers unblockable activations, which can win stalemates and other positions which require you to bypass blockers, MV can't.
• MS can be Vialed, and MV can't. With vial, there are huge differences in information advantages between these two cards (this is a very complex issue). With vial, MS can have instant speed (wins a lot of combat math), MV can't.
• MS activates Reejery, MV doesn't.
• MS reveals for Adept, MV doesn't.
• MS pitches to FoW, MV doesn't.
• MS is usually a better topdeck than MV

Is this compensated by the Shackles?

Shackles isn't there to compensate for a perceived lack of aggressiveness. That said, it can greatly improve your ground game against certain decks; however, against others, it does little or nothing (which is part of why it belongs in the sideboard rather than the main).

Shackles is there for board control against some decks and for inevitability against some others. Overall, it is meant to improve this deck when its primary gameplan (tempo) is not an overpowering strategy against an opponent. Again, Merfolk doesn't handle massive amounts of removal very well. Shackles mitigates the effectiveness of removal. Shackles is about as good of a mid-game card as you can get against opposing creature-based decks. It isn't a panacea though -- I think it is well worth the 3-slots in the sideboard for the value it adds.

Do you notice your winning turn to shift more in the mid-game?

Not from the main, no. G2 and 3, yes -- but that wasn't my choice, that was because my opponent is able to force us there. The difference is that I have gas for the mid and late game.

This deck does prefer different sorts of mid-games, however.


peace,
4eak

[SlopeeJ]

What matchups do you board in shackles?

[Julian23]

adding: MV blocks and kills Piledriver!

[4eak]

What matchups do you board in shackles?

I would board some number in against these, usually:

Goblins, Zoo, Merfolk, Aggro Elves (not combo), CBTop and Bant (w/out NOProg), Certain variants of Rock, Black-based aggro/control variants (excepting TA and some Faerie builds), DnT, Affinity, etc.

Heavy-dedicated control and combo decks are where you simply don't want Shackles.

adding: MV blocks and kills Piledriver!

True. Although, as I said, I was giving a "general" comparison. As a Goblins player, I've not found mutavault to be terribly problematic -- I will be gunning for it if I seek to alpha-strike with a piledriver, and incinerator, SGC (more often than you'd suspect), Wasteland, and port can all answer it quite effectively.


peace,
4eak

[kingtk3]

@4eak:
Maybe i didn't post clearly before, but I didn't mean to relate the absence of mutavaults with the presence of Sovereign: in fact I play both (4 MV and 3 MS), without Standstill.

What I was curious about was the difference between a build with MV and MS and a build with MS and more island and Shackles in the SB.
With this in mind, i think that your considerations in general are fine, especially having more Blue Mana to hardcast doubleU threats without vial (and out of this concern I'm thinking about dropping a MV for an Island).

If you weren't to use Shackles in the board, do you think you'd play MV Maindeck? or do you still prefer more U in the mana base?

Sometimes I'm getting trouble with the UU costs, but sovereign in often the first card a take out for sideboarding, hence having less UU costs.

Greetings.

[4eak]

Ah, I see. So you just want to know why I'd replace Mutavaults with Islands?

• It further breaks the symmetry of Back to basics
• It improves Shackles, which can be necessary if you wish to consistently take anything 3 power or greater in the early/mid game, and 5-6 power in the late.
• It further immunizes the deck to opposing mana-disruption
• It improves the consistency of my own mana-base, which has repercussions in terms of casting spells (or even combinations of spells -- Spell pierce, for example, is easier to wield when you have extra blue mana available).

You lose some aggressiveness in order to harden your mana-base, improve your artifact/enchantment bombs, and increase overall consistency.

As I said before, if I were to keep everything the same, but I wanted to fit Mutavaults in, I'd cut 2 SPierce and 2 Islands for the Mutavaults.

Certainly, there are times where I really miss having Mutavault. Given this configuration, more times I'm glad it is an Island.

If you weren't to use Shackles in the board, do you think you'd play MV Maindeck? or do you still prefer more U in the mana base?

Assuming I still wasn't using Standstill and I was still using Back to Basics, then yes, I'd still like to maximize my Islands. Obviously, without Shackles, I would have less of a reason not to use Mutavault.

Obviously, I've cross-pollinated MUC with Merfolk a bit more. I've just taken the historically bomby spells from the deck and adapted Merfolk a bit for them. Both Back to basics and Shackles can be nearly "I win" plays.


peace,
4eak

[SlopeeJ]

I agree with 4eak, mutavaults are not that great vs goblins with their 4 wastes/ports and tutors for gempalms. Actually casting your lords is better then getting mana screwed when you don't have vial. One of the main problems with Merfolk (besides pay 3 mana for a 2/2) is the mana base just sucks

[kingtk3]

...
One of the main problems with Merfolk (besides pay 3 mana for a 2/2) is the mana base just sucks

I have to disagree on this particular sentence, since I believe that Merfolk manabase, composed by 13-14 basic Island, is the best of the format in terms of resistance and resilience: I've always refused hybrid versions (Ub or Uw) for this reason.
However, as I stated before, it's not perfect and surely can be improved depending on the build (particullary, on the number of UU drops).

@4eak:
I see your points and I'm prone to drop 1-2 MV for Island(s), most of all for consistenly have UU on turn 2.
About the side, actually I run this gauntlet:

2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Submerge
2 Mind Harness
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Echoing Truth

with another jitte MD. You have already explained your plan for bringin' in the Shackles, now I would like to know against what deck you're siding in Back to Basics, since it take the slots i dedicated in my for Big Zoo (my very worst nightmare). My tipical side against them is

-4 FoW, -3 Daze (I play only 3), -3 Cursecatcher
+2 Jitte, +3 Submerge, +2 Mind Harness, +3 Relic of Progenitus

I would like to stress the importance of relic since it keeps in line goyf and KotR which are their biggest threats (i'm not afraid of 0/1's and 2/2's).

What would you side against them?

Greetings.

[SlopeeJ]

I have to disagree on this particular sentence, since I believe that Merfolk manabase,

composed by 13-14 basic Island

, is the best of the format in terms of resistance and resilience

Who runs that though? No one, the standard list is 20 lands with 8 colorless and 12 islands. Alex Bertoncini even ran 11 islands with 1 factory a couple of SCG tournaments ago. I play merfolk at least 1-2 times a week in my local meta trying out everything and I probably get mana screwed 1/3 games or I keep 1 land vial hands. (Not including bigger 25+ man tournaments 1-2 a month, testing with friends/magic workstation) A deck with no card draw/situation card draw (standstill) with no shuffle effects is going to get mana screwed/flooded. True we don't care about stifle but who runs that card anyways. By mana screw I mean flooded or not enough blue. You need blue mana

"To realistically have consistent chance of casting UU creatures on turn 2 without vial you need min 15 islands" Max McCall.... I fully agree with this

With all the control decks (at least in my meta) gunning for vial with needles, having blue mana is even more important... Now the 1 land vial or commander/lord/adept hands with island/muta/wasteland and no vial are just terrible hands.

Like 4eak said, your creature count is still the same/higher without mutavaults and you can actually cast your Lords.

Another big thing for me is having blue up after I cast a commander/etc for spell pierce. I was finding that I had uu with mutavault/wast and spell pierce was dead

My maindeck has
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Commander
3 Kira glass spinner, you need to run kira if you want to beat zoo. Jitte is not the answer
3 Merfolk Sovereign
Shackles won me my finals match tonight, winning me a force of will. Thinking about upping my sb from 2 to 3. Lost game 2 because I missed my 3rd land drop 2 turns in a row. I love mind harness but it really sucks when you have 1 island and jitte sucks when you can't cast/equip because your muta/wast get taken out.

[kingtk3]

Who runs that though? No one, the standard list is 20 lands with 8 colorless and 12 islands.
...
You need blue mana

"To realistically have consistent chance of casting UU creatures on turn 2 without vial you need min 15 islands" Max McCall.... I fully agree with this
...

Well, I cannot speak for others than myself, but I initially played 14 Island plus 8 colorless and at the last tournament dropped an island making the split 13-8, the reason being that i manaflooded too much.
Now sometimes i'm having trouble with the UU drops (the third U is not an issue for me since I don't run spell pierce), but I don't get manaflooded as before, so I'm thinking to a 14 Island - 4 Wasteland - 3 Mutavault split, leaving the land count at 21. For reference, my UU drops are

4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Coralhelm Commander
3 Merfolk Sovereign
2 Kira, great Glass-Spinner

Personally I think that who plays the 12-8 split is playing Standstill instead of Sovereign, thus decreasing the count of UU drops. Maybe your sentence lacks the context to be put in: are you saying that all the builds, apart 4eak's, have a 12-8 split without considering if they are running Standstill versus Sovereign, or are you referring to a particular build?

Apart from this, I agree with your considerations
Greetings.

[4eak]

@ kingtk3

You have already explained your plan for bringin' in the Shackles, now I would like to know against what deck you're siding in Back to Basics

I don't bring B2B in against Zoo (in fact, it isn't as impressive against KotR+QPM decks, period). I've won games doing it in testing, but I find it is usually far too slow to matter. Worse, Zoo will get basics as often as possible against Merfolk. They are perfectly happy to have and play off 3 land in play.

B2B is great against decks which usually seek to tap for more mana than they have basics during each turn (well, from untap to untap step, I mean). In this way, even when they fetch up basics, which many will do when facing wasteland, there is still a sizable tempo loss from what they would normally play. If you opponent is going for basics, they are often already slowing down their tempo and limiting their lines of play. In order to avoid this very problem, there are also those who will go for multiple dual lands to become immune to Wasteland cutting off a color (which is a very reasonable strategy against wasteland decks), and in these cases B2B becomes far more lethal. B2B is really a bomb that almost nobody sees coming, and its surprise factor also accounts for part of its value.

Any deck which will have its tempo substantially bottlenecked by B2B is a deck you should side it in (note how Zoo isn't one of those decks). So, then you'll ask, what is 'substantial'? I'm not sure. Obvious examples include decks like Landstill and many 3-4 color CBTop decks, but it also includes decks like Stax/Stompy/MUD, variants of Rock, Lands (obv is obv), and even some tempo decks (depending on how they are built).

I would like to stress the importance of relic since it keeps in line goyf and KotR which are their biggest threats (i'm not afraid of 0/1's and 2/2's).

What would you side against them?

Given your deck or mine?

Relic, Jitte are auto includes. For your deck, Harness & Submerge; and from mine, Shackles. I don't devote as much space as you, not because I think I've got the matchup in the bag, but because I don't think the cost of space in my sideboard is worth benefits I receive in this matchup.

Well, I cannot speak for others than myself, but I initially played 14 Island plus 8 colorless and at the last tournament dropped an island making the split 13-8, the reason being that i manaflooded too much.
Now sometimes i'm having trouble with the UU drops (the third U is not an issue for me since I don't run spell pierce), but I don't get manaflooded as before, so I'm thinking to a 14 Island - 4 Wasteland - 3 Mutavault split, leaving the land count at 21. For reference, my UU drops are

Having more Islands isn't just about being able to reach with greater consistency, but also about opening hands with at least 1 Island more often. You will mulligan less with more Islands in the deck. Obviously, you'll have to mulligan hands which are flooded, but I'm down to 20 lands to curb that issue as well.



peace,
4eak

[SlopeeJ]

// Lands
4 [TE] Wasteland
15 [ZEN] Island (3)
2 [MOR] Mutavault

// Creatures
3 [BOK] Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 [ROE] Coralhelm Commander
4 [LRW] Merrow Reejerey
4 [TSB] Lord of Atlantis
4 [LRW] Silvergill Adept
4 [SHM] Cursecatcher
2 [M11] Merfolk Sovereign

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 3 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 4 [NE] Submerge
SB: 2 [R] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
SB: 2 [SHM] Faerie Macabre


Here is the list I ran in our local 30$ tourney that draws out the better players. Usually around 25-30 show up, but only 21 this time. I got 3/4th and took home a force of will and karakas. First was a tabernacle and 2nd was 4 force of wills. I didn't take notes but will try to do a mini tourney report. I will mention what I did/didn't like about the deck.

I don't really like playing 21 lands, I think I will add the 3rd spell pierce main and 1 island. I don't ever wanna draw mutavaults, which is probably worse vs control.. But I have more lords and spell pierce main. ( I agree with what 4eak said above) I didn't want to run graveyard hate, but saw a couple in scouting so I added a loose 2 faeries. I feel Merfolk already has a good dredge,reanimator match, esp with 3 echoing truth in the sb. This way with the 3rd pierce main I can add the 3rd faerie. I didn't really miss standstills and I think 2 shackles is the right number, might be different without mutavaults though. Maybe I want 21 lands with 17 Islands, I love blue mana. I would like to add either another blue blast or a mind harness, but might stick with the 3 shackles.

Round 1 2/0 I face my friend who was playing show tell/natural order (the list that just did well at SCG) He ended up taking home the force of wills for 2nd
Round 2 2/1 Goblins I won the die roll, lost g2. Lords games 1/3. G1 2 Sovereigns let me swing in with 2 unblockables past his goblin team for the last 5. G3 2 Reejerey, lord swing in.
Round 3 2/1 Big Zoo G1 he gets punishing fire lock, g2 I get Kira Commander, g3 he mulls to 5 Kira dudes wasteland
Round 4 2/1 Dredge I win g1 Lords, g2 dredge his deck, g3 breakthrough with cursecatcher on the table, sac in response to bridges and spell pierce dread return. G3 I faerie 2 ichorids
Draw round 5

Top 8 Reanimater (I think its gonna make a comeback)
G1 He gets turn 2 reanimate Inkwell, I'm on the race plan but he thoughtseize my Lord of Atlantis away and I'm stuck with 3 drops. So I'm one turn short
G2 Cursecatcher and couple of dudes with counter backup. No fatties ever enter
G3 Same, he can't find a fatty.. Didn't see hate, but Cursecatcher is great

Top 4 vs Zoo wins the tourney
G1 Vial Kira Lords/Commander
G2 Bolts and cats. Play mistake he plays lavamancer bait, I force then he pridemages shackles. Needed to force pridemage
G3 I get shackles early but get stuck on 4 islands, mutavault while he is beating me with a 3/3cat and sword fire/ice. I get Kira and commander but with the damage from the sword Kira gets owned. Might have been different if I get the 5th island, Sword does 17 for the win. He even pathed his own goyf I took with shackles. I resided my echoing truths back out g3 which was a mistake.

Sucks to not lose a match till top 4 but was a good tourney. The list performed pretty well, didn't mulligan much. Didn't really get mana screwed and drew vial lots. I thought I was in trouble when I saw the lack of blue in the room, but Lords are good. We have lotus tournament coming up and I will play this list which some tweaks to the lands and sb. Might run risky with no graveyard hate for more cards against bad matchups

[mifme]

Hi all, just been following this thread and have just this second registered !

My merfolk list is pretty much the same as being discussed here except i don't run Muttavault but do run 4 wasteland and 4 ports in my build and find the extra disruption from the ports to be great. nyone else have thoughts on why/why not to run ports in this build ?

Regards

Mifme

[Justin]

In theory, Ports can be good in any deck that runs vial. The problem in Merfolk is that you want to make sure that you run enough blue lands. You can't run a set of Wasteland, Mutavaults, and Ports. So essentially, Port is competing with Mutavault for space in this deck. Mutavault is probably too good not to run in a Merfolk deck that runs 12-16 Lords. It can grow really huge and can islandwalk with a LoA. Also, it can tangle with cards that other Merfolk can't, such as Goblin Piledriver and Etched Champion.

Mutavault improves your matchup with aggro, while Port improves your matchup with combo and control. However, Merfolk already has a positive matchup with combo and control and doesn't need Port as badly as other vial decks do (i.e. Goblins). On the other hand, aggro is the toughest matchup for Merfolk. If you cut your Mutavaults, you are making it so much harder to beat aggro.

[mifme]

Thats a good point Justin, i guess some of it depends on your metagame though, for instance in my area the last legacy event i played around 90% of the field was combo/control which is probably why i liked the ports in my version and i kept the agro stuff in the board, but for a larger tournement or another tourny away from home i probably would have the mutavaults instead of the ports.