That's great to hear. Please post your results :)
That's certainly true. However, copter is not a threat on its own and the most miserable merfolk experience is running out of gas after getting your board wiped. Course might help with that.
Copter is great for recovering from a wipe. You shouldn't overcommit into a wipe anyway and such have *something* left over in hand to start applying pressure immediately instead of having to wait a turn.
So I went to my local game store yesterday evening to test out my latest list for legacy Merfolk and I did only manage a 3-2 result, which is okay, but not great. The 4x Chart a Course worked just fine, they often helped me find interaction or additional creatures. They also helped me recover from mulligans.
The matches:
Round 1: Grixis Twin 2-1
Round 2: Czech Pile 0-2
Round 3: B/R Reanimator 2-1
Round 4: U/W Stoneblade with Terminus 1-2
Round 5: U/R Delver / Prowess 2-1
The list:
Lands: 20
12x Island
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Mutavault
Creatures: 24
4x Cursecatcher
4x Silvergill Adept
2x Phantasmal Image
2x Harbinger of the Tides
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x True-Name Nemesis
Artifacts: 8
4x Aether Vial
4x Chalice of the Void
Spells: 8
4x Chart a Course
4x Force of Will
Sideboard: 15
1x Surgical Extraction
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Flusterstorm
1x Sorcerous Spyglass
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Echoing Truth
2x Spreading Seas
1x Grip of Phyresis
1x Kopala, Warden of Waves
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Submerge
1x Misdirection
How did Chart a Course perform for you?
Well I'm playing Merfolks for a while and these are my impressions about the new cards from Ixalan...
I'd ratter try Kopala than Chart a Course (ChC). Card advantage is never bad, but keep in mind we are still a TEMPO deck, so an early ChC is a huge tempo disadvantage. This is emphasized because often we consider tempo advantage much more valuable than card advantage; and anyway, if you play the deck properly, unless you get very unlucky, card advantage shouldn't be a problem. Even with the addition of a card advantage card, you still lost the matchups were it should be a real deal, so from me is a big NO.
In the other side, however, playing against decks heavy on removal - like 4c Control and Jund - it's still tough. But in these cases they're playing with greedy mana bases what makes Back to Basics a great tool against them. When we are playing against decks with less removal, Chalice is more than enough to protect us from beeing disrupted. Have in mind that, since we aren't a Chalice deck in our soul, we should always consider prioritize tempo. What I mean, is that you might face situations where it's better to play Chalice plus uncouterable Lord turn 4, than risking to play a Chalice where it might get countered and make you fall too behind in tempo.
Maybe Kopala could fit into a build with a set of Wastelands and some Rishadan Ports? I sincerely don't know. We already have good tools to protect our guys, so I don't see how we could make good use of her in Legacy. So, it's a MAYBE. My final suggestion is cut ChC for cards like Daze or Harbinger, split the numbers with Copter... What fits better with your meta... Smuggler's Copter works much better in our deck. Because we acomplish almost the same thing as with ChC, but at the same time we progress our board, give our creatures pseudo haste and become very resilient to Sorcery speed removals.
I had great results in Legacy RS this year (a local monthly tournament here in south of Brasil), making, in six participations, 2 top 8s, 2 top4s and a top2 last weekend, this last with 37 players (lists will be posted in mtgtop8 soon). Surprisingly a card that's doing a great job for me is Daze. Even when I've played with Chalice (3md) I added at least two copies of Daze and it has done a great tempo job! In addition it's a easy sideboard slot (having expendable slots also helps you in situations where it's hard to side out things, and this could make you nervous, losing focus in the game).
Lastly, there's an Ixaland card that "came to stay" and it is Sorcerou's Spyglass. Spyglass opens the sideboard slot where once pithing needle was. The card is an huge upgrade compared to Needle: information by itself is great, it's not a nombo with challice and our choices will be wider (imagine the cenario where you see the same fetch land in your opponent's hand as that in their board)...
Merfolks is very strong in the meta right now guys! We only need tho avoid playing against Elves. I'm lucky to have a good presence of Reanimator in my field (Elves hates reanimator and combo in general) a good matchup for us. So I see no reason for Merfolks not to be spread all around in the future.
I predict that soon we'll be discussing alternatives for the mirror match.
Last edited by kleiton.lehnen; 11-22-2017 at 10:09 AM.
Copter is just better card than Chart, in our deck.
There will be very few times when we can attack with a creature profitably to enable Chart. Only 4 one-drop creatures means that CtC is rarely active until midgame.
Even turn 1 CC is completely blanked by ubiquitous DRS. That alone makes it 2-of max, for those who want to play it.
Copter blocks Delver, flyes over Elves, rumbles with D&T creatures, helps play around Terminus and million other things, including easier to cast with 4 Cavern, 4 Muta mana base.
For now, I am not seeing Kopala in Legacy, hard to justify him over Reej and Clique. With 4 TNN, adding more 3-drops is not easy. Chalice usually does the protection part, with TNN cleaning up.
I like Spyglass, fun card.
Agreed, there is no reason for Merfolk to not be played more, but that just isn't happening for some reason. Can't remember the last time I played mirror in Legacy.
Luckily, there is Legacy tournament this Sunday, my Copters are ready.
Nice results kleiton.lehnen! I have also had some fine results in the last 4 weeks with 2x 4-1 (one of them gave me first place at my local game store.).
I have moved away from Chart a Course the week after my last post, because it is a bit clunky. I have used both Kopala, Warden of Waves and Sorcerous Spyglass in the sideboard since. They have both worked out just fine and proved that they are worthy of a place in the Merfolk toolbox.
My current list:
Lands: 20
12x Island
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Mutavault
Creatures: 24
4x Cursecatcher
4x Silvergill Adept
2x Phantasmal Image
2x Harbinger of the Tides
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x True-Name Nemesis
Instants: 8
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
Artifacts: 8
4x Aether Vial
4x Chalice of the Void
Sideboard: 15
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Flusterstorm
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sorcerous Spyglass
1x Echoing Truth
2x Back to Basics
1x Kopala, Warden of Waves
1x Vendilion Clique
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Misdirection
I have actually seen more merfolk lately and currently there is 2-3 Merfolk players in my meta (including me) out of a meta of 25-45 players, so perhaps I should have a 1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress in my sideboard in the future.
Hahaha, the good old times... The Merfolk mirror match is... well, it feels the same as a coin flip. I'm lucky because in my meta there's just one more Merfolk, and we faced each other just once, a loooong time ago...
Nice to see your list! It's quite similar to what I'm running. When I made top2 (6-1... In fact, it ended in a 5-1-1 deal with me and a friend of mine last round, but we played it anyway with me winning),
this was, and is, my list:
So, comparing with yours, MD I cut:
-1 Chalice -2 Daze, for
+ 2 Copter (doing a great job!) +1 Jitte
and also
-1 Island -1 Cavern for
+1 Wasteland +1 Gemstone Caverns
This mana base is kinda greedy, but 14 colored sources proved to be the "stability limit" for our deck. The idea of Copter and Gemstone Caverns come from Tuxdev and Ehhh(hhh...?) and worth a try. These two cards are doing some good job in our deck.
SB - Is more meta dependent so
-2 Cage -1 Kopala -1 Venser, for
+1 Surgical +1 Wasteland +1 Negate +1 Dismember
* I was also playing my 4th Chalice here, but just because I couldn't get Misdirection in time (a card that I really missed, so, it's probably pretty good!)
Let's keep doing the good work!
Against what matchups do you board in Kopala, and what's your boarding strategy for those matchups? More generally, are there really so many spells that are targeting our creatures? As I think I've posted before, Kira seems to be the better choice most of the time.
Most people blindly suggest new cards for decks. True contributors also suggest what to remove. It's not about what's good, but rather what's better than the current selections.
Hey, new here. Just sleeved up the deck and took it for a test ride last night but I'm waiting for the last two TNNs to arrive in my mailbox.
Are there any updated primera and matchup/sideboard guides?
I lost to burn, 2-1, beat ANT 2-0 (had the counters, especially Flusterstorm, and he whiffed), and lost to lands 2-1. I had some misplays and bad draws one game, so I think I could have done much better.
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Thoughts on this list? S/O will be running it at an upcoming tournament.
Creatures:
4x True-Name Nemesis
1x Kopala, Warden of Waves
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Phantasmal Image
4x Silvergill Adept
4x Cursecatcher
Instants:
4x Force of Will
Artifacts:
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Aether Vial
2x Smuggler's Copter
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Lands:
4x Mutavault
3x Cavern of Souls
13x Island
Sideboard:
2x Back to Basics
2x Dismember
1x Threads of Disloyalty
3x Echoing Truth
1x Manriki-Gusari
2x Flusterstorm
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Relic of Progenitus
4 Image may be too many, but there's quite a bit of Reanimator and Depths at the venue we'll be at. May want to cut one for a 4th Cavern. Also, the 3rd Back to Basics may be better than the 1-of Threads, but I'm unsure.
Opinions on the bans, anyone?
I'm new(ish) to legacy merfolk so any advice is welcome!! :) I've watched Nikachu play it in his videos the past couple years and finally got the money to build it.
Current list I 3-0'd a small tournament with monday:
lands:
4 cavern of souls
12 island
4 mutavault
creatures:
4 cursecatcher
4 lord of atlantis
4 master of the pearl trident
4 silvergill adept
4 TNN
3 phantasmal image
2 harbinger of the tides
noncreatures:
4 chalice
4 FOW
4 vial
1 jitte
2 daze
sideboard:
3 relic of progenitus
3 dismember
2 cage
2 flusterstorm
2 venser
2 spyglass
1 manriki gusari
I played against RUG delver round 1, and it seems like it's an easy matchup for us. Round 2 was ad nauseam tendrils (chalice on 0 and 1 basically is a free win). Round 3 was against U/W Miracles, which was quite the grind.
I'm testing out 2 harbingers instead of copters because I wanted another way to interact with turbo depths, and I'm thinking that new goblin lord from m19 will make it easy for them to destroy copter. I'll see how it goes the next week or so.
We will have to see how the meta settles but imo we will have to prepare for combo - rea, show and ant - which isn't a problem. DnT and stoneblade will be strong too, thats where grip of phyresis shines.
I don't like relics in legacy, surgical is a much better choice. Relics are too slow against rea, goyf and lands can destroy them with krosan grip. What I like now is vendilion clique, will probably be playing 2 copies. Good against combo, stoneforge and terminus. Not sure about smuggler's copter now but it may be very good since kolaghan and strix won't be as omnipresent as before. And back to basics will be strong too, I have lost games against czech pile with b2b in play because with drs it was so easy for them to generate lots of mana anyway.
I will play merfolk in a legacy trial at MKM prague, curious how that will go.
Thank you for the advice!!
I scrapped the relics, and added a submerge and 2 tormod's crypt. I recall when I played in the local vintage league that we used 2-3 tormod's crypt in our sideboard so I'm not sure why that didn't translate over for legacy.
I went 2-1 tonight, but split in the final round. I won against two burn matches in a row and then lost to elves due to incorrect sideboarding. Since that matchup is a race, and my opponent agreed, I was told to do the following:
-4 FOW
+2 cage, +1 submerge, +1 dismember
The reason being is that I felt that force is a card disadvantage for that matchup due to having to exile a blue card in addition to casting it. Since they can draw multiple cards a turn off of symbiote + visionary we need to keep up with getting additional cards and using our visionary (silvergill adept).
Good luck at the trial! :)
I'm a sucker for hyperspecialization, and I came across an entire podcast dedicated to Merfolk, and it's an enjoyable listen. It sounds like they do Legacy episodes about once a month, and the last one came out a week ago.
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I’m going to be streaming legacy merfolk tonight. check out the channel tonight!
Merfolk was recently featured on Channel Fireball's 3k stream last weekend. Supposedly standing first after swiss and losing in the first round of the top 8 to storm on stream.
One of the commentators said he wasn't running FoW main and the 2 games he kept basically all creature hands. The two games he only ever showed creatures, 1 vial and 1 chalice.
There were over a hundred people at this tournament so even the first after swiss is impressive, anyone know anything else about his build?
Hi,
Is this new Merfolk playable in your decks ?
It's a new T1, can boost himself for 1U, and have a looting effect when you boost him !
Thoughts ?
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