[Deck] Merfolk

Won a small tournament with this today. 2-0 against Landstill, Rock, Sligh, and Mono-Black Train Wreck. My list was as follows.

13 Island
4 Mutavault
3 Wasteland

4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Wake Thrasher

4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Misdirection

SB:
4 Hydroblast
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Submerge
3 Pithing Needle

Some brief notes:

Against Landstill, game 1, my turn four play was as follows: Vial out a Reejerey, play a Lord, untap Vial, Vial out another Reejerey, play Cursecatcher, untap Vial, Vial out a Thrasher. I won next turn with a Force backup.

Misdirection was really good. Misdirected a Force, a Hymn, and two burn spells, one of which was game-saving against Sligh (The other it didn't matter a whole lot, as chaining three Standstills early won this one. I love that between it and Jitte I don't have to ever keep mana open for anything except the postboard Hydroblasts on occasion.

Regrettably, The Thrasher vs. Sovereign thing never really came up much. I kept looking for it. I never once wanted Thrasher to be Soveriegn, but on the flipside it only mattered that it was Thrasher once in all the eight games, so I didn't learn much here. I'm leaning towards the assertion that Thrasher's better in control metagames and Soveriegn's better in aggro.

Wasn't a fan of Submerge. I really haven't been since I stuck it in. I keep wanting it to do a little more. I'm contemplating trying Threads or just flat out Control Magic/Sower to deal with higher CMC guys. Also contemplating Hibernation just for its strength against Elves, Progenitus, Garruk, etc. Might also be more Red hate in the form of Chill, which might be good with all the Cursecatcher/Daze stuff. Whichever.

I think we can agree that Thrasher is better against Control and Sovereign is better against aggro. So the issue becomes which matchup can afford to give a bit of ground, and which one needs the help? For me, Sovereign has been making more sense. For something like Goyf Sligh (a really bad matchup), he pretty well has to burn every lord or risk them getting out of range for everything except Red Blasts. I figure that Vial becomes a real problem for him in this case, as you can pump your dudes on the spot.

Also, I have always been happy with Chill. It's just not for every metagame.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Finn

For something like Goyf Sligh (a really bad matchup), he pretty well has to burn every lord or risk them getting out of range for everything except Red Blasts.

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I see your point, but doesn't he also have to burn wakethrasher? Typically thrasher ends the game in a swing or two. Obviously the new lord is better against things like pyroclasm, however.

Quote:

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I see your point, but doesn't he also have to burn wakethrasher?

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Yes, he does. But if you haven't seen how this plays out yet, just walk through the scenario in your head. The opponent can choose not to burn Thrasher right away. He can't really do that with lords though. He is in trouble once you have three lords in play. Then he has to spend two bolts or something similar to kill off any of your creatures. And pray you don't have counters. Thrasher can be chump blocked and killed the next turn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Finn

Yes, he does. But if you haven't seen how this plays out yet, just walk through the scenario in your head. The opponent can choose not to burn Thrasher right away. He can't really do that with lords though. He is in trouble once you have three lords in play. Then he has to spend two bolts or something similar to kill off any of your creatures. And pray you don't have counters. Thrasher can be chump blocked and killed the next turn.

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Just as a point? Your opponent chumping Thrasher and then burning him next turn is just as good as your opponent spending two burn spells on a Soveriegn. You get two cards for one either way.

Yeah, except he is not dead meat if he can continue to burn your other stuff. Lords prevent that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Finn

I think we can agree that Thrasher is better against Control and Sovereign is better against aggro. So the issue becomes which matchup can afford to give a bit of ground, and which one needs the help? For me, Sovereign has been making more sense. For something like Goyf Sligh (a really bad matchup), he pretty well has to burn every lord or risk them getting out of range for everything except Red Blasts. I figure that Vial becomes a real problem for him in this case, as you can pump your dudes on the spot.

Also, I have always been happy with Chill. It's just not for every metagame.

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I think you've hit the spot on the Thrasher vs Sovereign issue. Generally control decks have boardsweeper and spot removals. Those anti creature cards can easily kill all our creatures expect for red and black sweepers (expect for damnation).

So in the sweeper issue generally Sovereign would be a better choice since it could boost your survivability but when your playing Sovereign you need to over commit do deal good damage as compared to Thrasher he alone could swing big thus conserving your creatures if he gets hit by a spot removal or boardsweeper.

Now analyzing on how merfolk runs..
We are a aggro/light control deck our general game plan is to cast and attack. Both sovereign and thrasher have 3cc generally the 3 curve is 10-12 in a 20-22 creature count setup. In that setup 12 of your creatures are almost sure inclussion (4 cursecatcher, 4 loa & 4 slivergill = 12)

If we follow that numbers it would say that the chances of us casting 3cc creatures over 1cc or 2cc is 40% abit high but still we could see the margin of casting X creatures before we could cast 3cc.

Now lets use the following creature drop as a typical routine drop.
SCENE 1
LORD EFFECT (sovereign)
1st turn
1 island casting cursecatcher
2nd turn
2 island casting loa, swing cusercatcher = 2pts of dmg
3rd turn
2 island 1 mutavualt casting sovereign, swing loa and curse = 6pts of dmg
4th turn
2 island 1 mutavualt casting standstill or casting none, swing all your creatures (mutavualt + curse + loa + sovereign) = 13pts of dmg

TOTAL DMG = 21pts of dmg

THRASHER EFFECT
1st turn
1 island casting cursecatcher
2nd turn
2 island casting loa, swing cusercatcher = 2pts of dmg
3rd turn
2 island 1 mutavualt casting thrasher, swing loa and curse = 4pts of dmg
4th turn
2 island 1 mutavualt casting standstill or casting none, swing all your creatures (2island + 1mutavualt untapping = 4/4 thrasher dmg + mutavualt + curse + loa) = 11pts of dmg

TOTAL DMG = 17pts of dmg

SCENE 2
LORD EFFECT (sovereign)
1st turn
1 island casting aether vial
2nd turn
1 counter on vial, 1 island 1 wasteland, casting standstill, eot vial out cursecatcher
3rd turn
2 counter on vial, 2 island 1 wasteland, swing (cursecatcher + vial out loa, opponents cracks open standstill targeting loa by swords to plowshares, you let STP resolve) = 1pt of damage + 3 cards
4th turn
3 counter on vial, 2 island 1 wasteland, casting sovereign, swing (curse + vial out reejerey) = 3pts of damage
5th turn
3 counter on vial, 3 island 1 wasteland, swing (curse + sovereign + reejerey) = 9pts of damage
6th turn
3 counter on vial, 3 island 1 wasteland, swing (curse + sovereign + reejerey) = 9pts of damage

TOTAL DAMAGE = 22pts of dmg

THRASHER EFFECT
1st turn
1 island casting aether vial
2nd turn
1 counter on vial, 1 island 1 wasteland, casting standstill, eot vial out cursecatcher
3rd turn
2 counter on vial, 2 island 1 wasteland, swing (cursecatcher + vial out loa, opponents cracks open standstill targeting loa by swords to plowshares, you let STP resolve) = 1pt of damage + 3 cards
4th turn
3 counter on vial, 2 island 1 wasteland, casting thrasher, swing (curse + vial out reejerey) = 2pts of damage
5th turn
3 counter on vial, 3 island 1 wasteland, swing (curse + thrasher (+5dmg) + reejerey) = 10pts of damage
6th turn
3 counter on vial, 3 island 1 wasteland, swing (curse + thrasher (+8dmg) + reejerey) = 13pts of damage

TOTAL DAMAGE = 26pts of dmg

Assuming we follow that creature deployment will see that both of them can deal almost the same amount of damage. If non of your creature gets killed.

I guess it will boils down to the player's preference if he/she will use thrasher or go sovereign. But in order to follow that curve i still believe we need to boost the 2 curve more to have a consistent creature drop on the 2nd or 3rd turn.

Both of them are permanent dependent to deal bigger damage. In order to that we add hard to kill permanents like relic etc for thrasher, creatures for the sovereign. The problem with having lesser creature is that if your opponent's deck has only a limited number of creature removal he/she will just kill your thrasher.

As for me im going to playtest the build with no thrashers and adding more 2cc creatures.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by _erbs_

THRASHER EFFECT
1st turn
1 island casting cursecatcher
2nd turn
2 island casting loa, swing cusercatcher = 2pts of dmg
3rd turn
2 island 1 mutavualt casting thrasher, swing loa and curse = 4pts of dmg
4th turn
2 island 1 mutavualt casting standstill or casting none, swing all your creatures (2island + 1mutavualt untapping +cursecarcher +loa = 6/6 thrasher dmg + mutavualt + curse + loa) = 13pts of dmg

TOTAL DMG = 19pts of dmg

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Fixed that for you :wink:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by _erbs_

3 counter on vial, 3 island 1 wasteland, swing (curse + thrasher (+5dmg) + reejerey) = 11pts of damage
6th turn
3 counter on vial, 3 island 1 wasteland, swing (curse + thrasher (+8dmg) + reejerey) = 14pts of damage

TOTAL DAMAGE = 28pts of dmg

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Another fix.

I think a major factor is whether your opponent can block or not. What if you opponent happens to have a 4/5 Tarmogoyf and no islands? Wake Thrasher instantly becomes a whole lot better. With all due respect, I think this is a very bad analysis of the situation which gives 0 value of insight. It's worthless because there aren't any games where your opponent does nothing, and there are only a few games where your opponent can cast only a Swords to Plowshares. I understand you want to keep it simple, but it's not. It's in fact far more complex to boil down to such a simple analysis. The proper way to tackle the problem, is to test both decks in a gauntlet.

Hello,
Thanks for the corrections, yes they aren't 100% actual game play it was just a simple example. And i made the sample scenario since im guessing 40-50% of control decks uses island thus making your creatures almost auto damage if you have loa in play.

But for the burn + black sweepers i think Sovereign has the upper edge. Normally your opponent will put in sweepers overspot removals.

Other issues that i think needs some sort of discussion are the following:
• Is creature removal (threads / snakeform) needed maindeck ?
Be it 12 lords or thrasher build the deck still has 12 creatures that has 3cc and not being able to cast a vial early and getting it on 3 counters or good early land drops the deck will be very slow in deploying its creatures. thus opponents can easily overwhelm you.

If your 8-12lords don't come out merfolk are weak in creature combat except maybe for thrasher on the offensive side, as compared to other (knights, elves, etc)

• Do boosting the 2 curve make the deck faster and provide a better matchup against other decks ?

For me merfolks be it 12 lord or thrasher build has already abit of advantage to control decks that uses island while against stompy and burn decks its almost a one sided match if you dont get the right disruption and creature drop each turn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by _erbs_

And i made the sample scenario since im guessing 40-50% of control decks uses island thus making your creatures almost auto damage if you have loa in play.

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The point is that 100% of the control decks won't let you bash away like that. They have outs in the form of Engineered Explosives, Pernicious Deeds, Wrath of God, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile and so on and so forth. Each of these cards does something slightly different that makes alot of difference in the eventual outcome. Engineered Explosives will probably be set to 2 to blow up your LoA, but will also blow up your Adept if you have it. Deeds may come too late to blow up for 3, so has to go at 2, you don't know. Humility can really screw you and so can Moat. There are just too many factors to take into calculation. A Wake Thrasher is alot better topdeck after a boardsweeper than a Merfolk Sovereign. That's why Finn said that Wake Thrasher is better against Control and Sovereign better against Aggro. You could back it up with a hundred different scenario's, but what matters is what occurs most in your meta. It may even be the same handful of scenarios over and over again.

Your question whether creature removal is needed maindeck is a meta call. If your meta is half Control and half Combo, no you won't need it. If your meta has alot of Zoo, Merfolk, Eva Green, The Rock, Faerie Stompy etcetera, yes, creature removal or creature control would come in handy. But it also depends on what form is the best. I myself think Snakeform is too situational and often doing too little to waste 3 mana on. My personal preference lies with Threads of Disloyalty or Sower of Temptation, you may even opt for the good ol' Control Magic, if your aggro meta is slower, with decks like The Rock or Aggro Loam.

About boosting the 2 converted mana cost slot in the deck: yes, keeping mana costs low is a thing we all want. But you have to realize that we already are playing all the efficient Merfolk at cmc2 ever printed: Lord of Atlantis and Silvergill Adept. There are simply no other good options. Perhaps Merfolk Assassin for the mirror, but that's it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by _erbs_
Yes moat, slihana ledge walker, etc can give the deck a hard time but the percentage in which they are seen in current meta is quite low , thats why i didn't bother to bring that up. Moat costs alot in our place ($100 each)

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The only thing you can do against them is countering it, thrasher nor 12 lords will not help you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skeggi
Your question whether creature removal is needed maindeck is a meta call. If your meta is half Control and half Combo, no you won't need it. If your meta has alot of Zoo, Merfolk, Eva Green, The Rock, Faerie Stompy etcetera, yes, creature removal or creature control would come in handy. But it also depends on what form is the best. I myself think Snakeform is too situational and often doing too little to waste 3 mana on. My personal preference lies with Threads of Disloyalty or Sower of Temptation, you may even opt for the good ol' Control Magic, if your aggro meta is slower, with decks like The Rock or Aggro Loam.

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Your the one who mentioned that pridemage or other enchantment / artifact hate are common right now in the meta thats why you stayed away from the stiflenought combo though it seems your leaning towards its inconsistency over opponents destroying the combo.

So threads or control magic isn't that nice..., as for sower its nice but slow and can be hit by stifle and once it gets killed your back to square one.

Rhox wark monk is really a pain when your up against him..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skeggi
About boosting the 2 converted mana cost slot in the deck: yes, keeping mana costs low is a thing we all want. But you have to realize that we already are playing all the efficient Merfolk at cmc2 ever printed: Lord of Atlantis and Silvergill Adept. There are simply no other good options. Perhaps Merfolk Assassin for the mirror, but that's it.

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Maybe Grimoire Theif would be nice..., 2/2 beater with a decent ability.

Also lets not run the risk of thinking we need "removal for every situation". First off, goblins can play just fine through a lot of enchantment hate, which it frequently doesn't have removal for. On top of that, we run countermagic, whose whole purpose is to keep pesky things off the board. Yes, our opponent might be able to drop the occasional Moat through out counters, but that doesn't mean we need to put something to deal with it in the board.

Secondly, as for Threads, I mainly like it because not only is it creature removal, but it's also card advantage and tempo advantage. For 3 mana, they lose a 2cc creature and you gain it. They just wasted a turn to play that creature, and you essentially spent a turn to get rid of a creature and remove theirs. While enchantment hate is somewhat present, creature hate is even more prevalent, which is why I *don't* like sower. Plust that 1 extra mana can be a killer and you basically never want to set vial at 4.

Hello,
Just want to share my short playtesting inputs on Grimoire Theif.

He's quite better than i expected especially when you could drop him early on and your opponent has no creatures early on or just let him through.

The cards that he removes sometimes are good spells that might be bad for your matchup and your opponent wouldn't know it. But i've only faced eva green so i wouldn't know how will he fair against other decks.

I removed stifle in my list to accomodate him and added another jitte. Standstill worked well aswell in my creature setup. Eventhough im just using 3 mandlands i could drop standstill on the 3rd turn when i have it in my hand. The added 2 curve made the deck abit faster and i have a good chance that i could establish early board position. but again i just faced eva green.

I might try to bump him into 4 and drop 1 merfolk sovereign or 1 jitte, i still can't decide, jitte is just so good in creature matchups.

The list i ran was...
Lands [19]
13 islands
3 mutavualt
3 wasteland

Creatures [23]
4 cursecatcher
4 lord of atlantis
4 silvergill adepth
3 grimoire theif
4 merrow reejerey
4 merfolk sovereign

Utilities [18]
4 aether vial
3 umezawa's jitte
4 force of will
3 daze
4 standstill

There are two main things I don't like about Grimoire Thief:

1. He doesn't do anything immediately when he hits play. The rest of our guys (except Wake Thrasher) do--the Lords can be vial'd in for combat tricks or just played first-main to get the boost. This means he has to wait around for at least a turn before he does anything.

2. Without a way to reliably tap him artificially (can't count on using reejerey for this), he has to attack and survive to be useful. To me, this seems like a card that you are using to intentionally misassign your role in the game (control vs. beatdown). You will not use him to attack into something bigger just to get the ability, because then he'd just die and all you'd get is to mill three. If you can attack with him unblocked then you should be playing the beatdown anyway and relying on the rest of your counters. If you're using a Lord to get him through then Wake Thrasher would be better anyway, either as a singleton attacker with Sovereign's unblockability or as a huge mob attacking with LoA. In this scenerio, you have gotten a threat and a Lord to stick, which means your board position should automatically improve itself without having to rely on Grimoire Thief to unreliably do it for you.

And Cold-Eye Selkie in a 10+lords build? Isn't it better than Standstill in many situations? Isn't it worth in addition to standstill? I see questionnable slots such as Misdirection, Grimoire Thief, etc...

What about a non manadenying list:
15 islands
4 mutavaults
4 vials
=23

3 SS
4 FoW
4 Misdi
2 Jittes
=13

12 lords
4 cursecatchers
4 adepts
4 Cold-Eyed
=24

It's aggro, with a lot of CA, a lot of card disadvantage to have free powerful spells to take advantage quickly of the CA.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thesilentpyro

There are two main things I don't like about Grimoire Thief:

1. He doesn't do anything immediately when he hits play. The rest of our guys (except Wake Thrasher) do--the Lords can be vial'd in for combat tricks or just played first-main to get the boost. This means he has to wait around for at least a turn before he does anything.

2. Without a way to reliably tap him artificially (can't count on using reejerey for this), he has to attack and survive to be useful. To me, this seems like a card that you are using to intentionally misassign your role in the game (control vs. beatdown). You will not use him to attack into something bigger just to get the ability, because then he'd just die and all you'd get is to mill three. If you can attack with him unblocked then you should be playing the beatdown anyway and relying on the rest of your counters. If you're using a Lord to get him through then Wake Thrasher would be better anyway, either as a singleton attacker with Sovereign's unblockability or as a huge mob attacking with LoA. In this scenerio, you have gotten a threat and a Lord to stick, which means your board position should automatically improve itself without having to rely on Grimoire Thief to unreliably do it for you.

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Yes he has no combat tricks of somesort, yes you can't maximize his ability when he hits the board, but for me i want an early threat the 8 2cc count for me is not enough to have a good chance in dropping a 2nd turn creature.

I picked grimoire thief since he has decent ability for a :u::u: 2/2 beater.

For me you can't compare him to thrasher they don't have the same role. Thrasher hands down is an excellent offensive machine, while the thief gives some sort of disruption like stifle in away, thats why i removed stifle in its place.

I tried the 12 lords + 2 thrasher build before, thrasher was even more empressive in that setup and the vials was easily set to 3 rather than contemplating if you'll go 3 or 2. But for me it felt like the deck was slow and gaining tempo is a must so that you could deploy your 3cc creatures on time before your opponents overwhelm you with his/her armies. When faced with faster aggro decks i felt like its easily overwhelmed aswell.

The 2-4 wakethrasher + 12 lords build for me felt like it needs somesort of removal be it bounce or creature kill mainboard.

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Originally Posted by _erbs_

The 2-4 wakethrasher + 12 lords build for me felt like it needs somesort of removal be it bounce or creature kill mainboard.

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I understand that (I don't run Thrasher in my 11-lord build atm). I don't understand why Grimoire Thief doesn't need the same bounce or creature kill--it has to live through an attack to do anything useful. If anything, Thrasher needs less, as it's usually chump blocked. Grimoire Thief is much more often outclassed in combat than Thrasher.

As for the two not being comparable, I would argue that they're fighting for the same slot--in a 12-lord build, if people want thrashers, the first thing they cut is Stifle. They may not serve the same role, but that is because Thrasher has a role it fills--it's the finisher. Thief doesn't have a concrete role--you have to be on the beatdown to use its ability (where you'd rather have Thrasher to end it quicker) and when you're control you can't get it active most of the time due to it dying if you ever attack with it.

Selkie sure seems like it deserves another look with more lords. That's interesting. Mav, I don't know what you have gained with removing Wastelands, though. You could easily still play them.

If you are going to play sans Standstill, one of the key reasons to play Mutavault is removed. That seems like even more reason to play mana denial.

Just the same, I can't see any reason to stop with the direction we are going. Sovereign makes Mutavaults just that much better. And Standstill has been nothing short of amazing for me even against Landstill. Why cut it?

If Selkie costed 2, I'd be all over him, but the fact is that you run into the same problem that Thrasher gives you with the 12 lord setup, too many 3cc creatures.

Except that thrasher is only aggro while Selkie is aggro (because if you let him connect once or twice, then you've probably lost) and control (because even if it's alone, without overextending, it's very good in many control MUs).$

Ps : the reason why I wanted to remove the wastes was to be able to play the UU critters without vial quite reliably.
PPs : in my list SS was standstill and not spell snare, so I kept them as 3-of only.
PPPs : my list was untested. It's just a questioning about the way to go.
PPPPs : we still play less 3CC cards than gob. Ok, we don't have lackey, but anyway...