[Deck] Merfolk

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Originally Posted by Nightmare

[*]Force of Will
Goblins can't play it. Elves can't play it. Merfolk can. This gives us a leg up in the combo and control matches, as we have the ability to stop our opponent from hitting us where it traditionally hurts - sweepers and winning faster than us. In addition, we utilize Daze in the same fashion........

........But notice something else - Your team is now immune to two very relevant things: Pyroclasm and Volcanic Fallout. In the same situation, you may have had a Thrasher instead of the Sovereign. Let's assume you attack with the Cursecatcher, to prevent your LoA from walking into a trick. This means when you untap, you'll have a 6/6 Wake Thrasher, a 2/2 LoA, and a 2/2 Cursecatcher. Unless your opponent has a 2-damage sweeper, in which case, you lose the team. Sovereign (with his relevant ability of +1/+1) protects the team from the sweeper. LoA (with his relevant ability of +1/+1) protects the team from the sweeper. Even Cursecatcher (with his relevant ability of Daze) protects you by keeping them off Firespout mana for at least 1 more turn. It's the combination of relevant abilities that is important. That's what makes the Fish threatening, not the individual power of the threat.

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This (Force of Will) is the big thing.
All tribes can play 12lords, so all are equally* (*I'll get to that) capable of getting out of red sweeper range. The fact that you have a lord at 2mana isn't such a strong argument when you consider that the other two major tribes can cheat on mana more often.

The big difference is the fact that you have access to a disruption suit that is beyond any of the other tribes. They can splash for black and discard, but this slows them down and it usually has to be moved from SB to MD; weakening their gameplan somewhat. You, on the other hand, can generally play your disruption for free, which keeps the opponent on a clock and you in the lead. I'm a big believer in the whole tempo angle of Merfolk I alluded to earlier.

Just to clarify though, being able to stick down 2 lords is mute when they can kill one and then sweep the board. It's harder, but can be achieved (and it may delay them a turn which is all you need.....). If playing 12 Lords was the key, then Elves would have more success.
The difference is that Merfolk can totally avoid this by countering either of the spells. It doesn't matter if they play Volcanic Fallout; you just counter the other kill spell. This is the big difference between the three tribes.

I'm not dismissing the importance of 12 lords, it is the reason players should fear llanowar elves. I just think you overstate their importance when countering damage based removal, as I feel the disruption is more important.

Everything else, I concur with :-)

The point I'm making is that people are playing Wake Thrasher instead of Lords.

Every non-Lord beater you play has a net weakening effect on the rest of the creatures you play, when you compare it to playing the Lord instead. Specifically because the Lords make them better. For every guy you play where you could have played a Lord, you have to consider the effect the Lord would have had, but didn't.

Sure, if Wake Thrasher was actually a 6/6, it would be one thing. But he isn't. He's actually a 1/1, on the turns where it matters. Sure, Sovereign is a 2/2, but he actually helps your other guys stay alive on the relevant turns, rather than just attacking big. He also helps them attack bigger, too.

Having access to 12 lords is important. Actually playing them is the point I'm trying to drive home. Every creature you play that isn't a Lord had better have a damn good reason to be there - which is why Cursecatcher is better than Cosi's Trickster, and really better than Tidal Warrior, and why I'd cut Silvergill in a heartbeat if they gave us a more useful 2-drop that actually DID something.

Cool.

It seemed it was more why Merfolk were the best of the three tribes, rather than advocating the expulsion of Thrasher ;-)

As noted, I agree with you on the 12 lord setup.

I think it's worth noting that Merfolk's 12 Lords are significantly better as a whole than most other tribes 12 Lords. Elves, for example, have Imperious Perfect, whose token creating ability is excellent, and Elvish Archdruid, who is good for obvious reasons, but Elvish Champion is the weak link. Its ability can be relevant (Tropical Islands ftw) but it's still worse than LoA, by virtue of CC if nothing else. Goblins is even worse. Mad Auntie is unavailable in a version that doesn't splash Black, and Goblin King's ability is relevant even less often than Champion's. Goblin Chieftain is the standout there.

So, honestly, Merfolk is the standout tribe for Lordliness. The have the best one (LoA) and he has really, really good backup. I'm not saying that FoW isn't integral to the deck resisting damage-based sweepers or anything like that, but I am saying that it's disingenuous to assert that all tribes are created equal when it comes to their lords.

On a tangentially related side-note: Zombies has 16 Lords. Really. Soldiers have, as far as I know, the most expensive set of lords, clocking it at 3 (Field Marshal) 4 (Daru Warchief) and 6 (Captain of the Watch). That's assuming you don't count the Veteran 'smiths from M10, or Auriok Steelshaper, or any of the global/semi-global White pump enchantments. Or Aven Brigadier. Hehe, Aven Brigadier...I crack myself up sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Alecthar

I think it's worth noting that Merfolk's 12 Lords are significantly better as a whole than most other tribes 12 Lords. Elves, for example, have Imperious Perfect, whose token creating ability is excellent, and Elvish Archdruid, who is good for obvious reasons, but Elvish Champion is the weak link. Its ability can be relevant (Tropical Islands ftw) but it's still worse than LoA, by virtue of CC if nothing else. Goblins is even worse. Mad Auntie is unavailable in a version that doesn't splash Black, and Goblin King's ability is relevant even less often than Champion's. Goblin Chieftain is the standout there.

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Umm, how do you figure that comparing what you admit is the *worst* elven lord to what everyone knows is the *best* merfolk lord is fair. If anything, I might argue their worst lord is better than our worst (Sovereign).

This deck wins over other tribal decks not because of its lords, but in spite of them. It wins because of Daze, Standstill, and Force of Will. Basically, it wins because it can also play the control and card advantage game without using merfolk.

Nightmare, I will say I disagree with you here. I don't believe that Wake Thrasher is strictly inferior to Merfolk Sovereign. Thrasher is good because he's really the only creature in blue that you can have by himself on the board that still scares opponents. This is a huge advantage against (non-red) board sweepers.

That being said, what everyone is complaining about is that he can't block, is trumped by a bolt, and can be easily stopped (has no evasion). This is probably 100% horrible, but if people splash green for goyf, why not stay on color and just run Serendib? He's not a merfolk, which makes him much worse in a lot of ways, but he blocks as a 3/4, flies, and survives bolt. The damage he causes hurts a bit, but nowhere near as much as fetches would be my guess. Mind you, I don't think Serendib scares opponents anywhere near as much as Thrasher, but he blocks.

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Originally Posted by tivadar

Nightmare, I will say I disagree with you here. I don't believe that Wake Thrasher is strictly inferior to Merfolk Sovereign. Thrasher is good because he's really the only creature in blue that you can have by himself on the board that still scares opponents. This is a huge advantage against (non-red) board sweepers.

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Which non-red board sweepers? Explosives? Wrath? Deed? He dies as easily to them as Sovereign does. At the same time, the majority of the decks playing those sweepers are playing Islands, which means we're already ahead. I suppose I forgot to mention that in my diatribe - If your opponent is playing Islands, it's irrelevant (mostly) which guys you play, other than the 4 LoAs. In the situation where you have LoA + GuyX vs. Islands, it's obvious that your best possible man is Wake Thrasher. The point is, if you're sticking LoA against a blue deck, you're winning.

Therefore, you need to compare the cards as they fair against your negative matchups, in order to define which of the two (Sovereign or WT) is of more use in those - Again, you need to focus on winning the bad matchups, and letting the deck do what it already does against the good. That's where my discussions come into play. I won't go over them again, just read the last page.

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That being said, what everyone is complaining about is that he can't block, is trumped by a bolt, and can be easily stopped (has no evasion). This is probably 100% horrible, but if people splash green for goyf, why not stay on color and just run Serendib? He's not a merfolk, which makes him much worse in a lot of ways, but he blocks as a 3/4, flies, and survives bolt. The damage he causes hurts a bit, but nowhere near as much as fetches would be my guess. Mind you, I don't think Serendib scares opponents anywhere near as much as Thrasher, but he blocks.

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If you're trying to play a 3mana blue guy that isn't Goyf, it's either WT or Sovereign. I don't know why you'd choose to play a guy that isn't even a Merfolk over one of those two.

Edit - Except Kira. She's the nuts.

I actually run elves right now and I agree pretty much that that deck wins games through tempo. In fact, Merfolk decks that I have faced always had a hard time keeping up with elves when it comes to tempo even with their disruption package.

Anyways, back to Merfolk, I guess you cant have a more controlling Merfolk deck because its just not the merfolk way.

I just changed my deck so it resembles the current merfolk strategy. Heres my list:

13 Island
4 Wasteland
3 Mutavault

4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
3 Merfolk Sovereign
2 Wake Thrasher//Cold-Eyed Selkie

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle

4 Standstill
4 AEther Vial

Good enough? Missing important pieces? Please let me know

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Originally Posted by Nightmare

Which non-red board sweepers? Explosives? Wrath? Deed? He dies as easily to them as Sovereign does.

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Obviously thrasher dies just as easy to these. My point is that he can be a force on the board by himself, which means you don't need to overcommit/can recover with just 1 card in hand after a sweeper.

Looking at red burn decks for example, yes, you're probably right, Sovereign is better in many cases, as he is capable of putting you out of burn range. Looking at other targetted removal (white and black primarily), Thrasher is going to be better in many cases as even if they remove all your other creatures, Thrasher is still good.

To be honest, I myself have been leaning to the "more lords" approach, because I believe that in the current generic meta, it's more relevant. However, I just don't see Thrasher as being strictly weaker, and it would be highly dependent on specifically the decks that show up to a tournament.

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Originally Posted by arebennian

You should check the Gather updated text before you throw Eldamari up......His wording has been altered significantly. (...)To clarify, a shroud lord that doesn't grant shroud to itself but is in the colour blue would be better than an Elf or Goblin equivalent because it acts similarly to Kira while retaining the Merfolk extras. You can protect the shroud lord with counterspells and get the same sort of effect.

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I am aware that Eladamri doesn't protect himself (and ofcourse I am aware of the new wording, I'm just assuming everyone is); I am aware that the card as Nightmare suggested doesn't protect himself; I am aware that Scion of Oona doesn't protect himself.

Yes, blue could protect his little guy with counterspells, but we simply don't have as much counters as there is removal; or we have other things to counter. I'm not sure it would work. Kira might be better because she protects herself, except that she has a cmc 3 instead of 2, which is a big deal. I'd rather have Kira's effect than complete shroud on everyone but the lord; spot removal will go to the lord anyway.

About the red sweepers: most decks now run Firespout instead of Pyroclasm or Volcanic Fallout. Exactly because of the lord number. Not even 12 lords can normally tackle a Firespout. It's still rare to have 3+ lords on the table.

About Wake Thrasher/Sovereign: they're both good, but I think Wake Thrasher is better. There are times when you're stalled. Wake Thrasher breaks that stall. But I run both. I'm crazy. I run 12 lords and Wake Thrasher. But I might come back from that. And then I might cut Merrow Reejerey. Often, you Vial your men in to avoid counters. Merrow Reejerey does absolutely diddly-squad then, while Merfolk Sovereign makes huge-ass Wake Thrasher unblockable. Now that's something that sets a clock. So I might run something that looks like this:

4 LoA, Sovereign, Cursecatcher, Adept, Standstill, FoW, Daze, Mutavault, Wasteland, Aether Vial
3 Wake Thrasher
2 Merrow Reejerey, Kira
13 Island

That's pretty aggressive, isn't it? And it works too. You still have your 12 counters, your set of Standstills. But you have beatsticks with a bit of protection. Might be nice. The difference between my current list is that I run 4 Reejereys at the moment and no Kira's. I've found that Sovereign + Thrasher kicks ass, but Thrasher does need some protection.

And no. No crazy stuff like Cold-Eyed Selkie. GTFO.

Lately I've been standing behind the 24 creature build, running Thrasher and Sovereign side-by-side. I've been pretty pleased with the results. Thrasher beat Stax for me by himself (screw Ghostly Prison). And running 12 Lords is absolutely nuts.

But I'm going to have to cut my creatures down to 20-22 to keep up with my meta which is developing pretty quickly. Jitte or Kira (both?) are what I'm looking to put in. Right now 2 Thrashers is the easiest thing to drop. The other two would be the other Thrashers or 2 Sovereigns.

Thrasher's biggest weakness is that he is a 1/1. Against burn/sligh/zoo I feel I need 2 Lords+1 Kira/Lord to keep his ass out of trouble (sweepers and Bolt). It's just I don't think they're going to let me have all of those cards lol.

I'm much more afraid of Pyroclasm/Volcanic Fallout than I am Firespout, mostly because of Daze/Cursecatcher.

My conclusion is that because red decks are one of Merfolks biggest weaknesses, I'd drop some number of Thrashers before dropping any number of Sovereigns.

Whoa. With all this intelligent discussion, you'd think we actually had a new card for the deck that was playable.

There are a few things y'all have brought up that I wanted to put my two cents in on:

~Wake Thrasher vs. Merfolk Sovereign:
This might just be a symptom of my desire to be able to have things both ways, but I'm becoming more convinced that a split between these two is the way to run it. In my mind, they're just both too good to pass up; Sovereign because he lets you play more than 8 lords, and Thrasher because he can be a one-man wrecking crew, which is a role that none of our other creatures can perform in. Sovereign tends to be better against decks that run damage-based sweepers, Lightning Bolts, or Engineered Plagues, whereas Thrasher is better against decks that play Swords to Plowshares, Wrath, EE, Deed, etc. Obviously Thrasher dies to all the forms of removal I just listed, but the point is that he's the guy you drop after your opponent has managed to deal with your initial wave of threats.

Let's say you have Vial set at three, your opponent is at a low life total, and he plays Wrath of God (or something similar)... and you don't have a counter to stop it. Your team bites the dust and you're left with a low amount of cards in your hand to try to win with. In this situation, you Vial in Thrasher EOT and he says "Hi, I'm here to win the game as soon as my controller gets to untap." If it was Sovereign, it's pretty unlikely that you could still present a reasonable clock in this situation, unless you had a Mutavault in play.

They're both good cards, but neither one is without its faults. This is why, in my mind, I'd be quicker to run 2-3 copies of both of them than I would be to run either one of them as a 4-of. Between the two of them though, I wouldn't use up more than five slots in the deck.

I know all the arguments against a 2-2 (or 2-3) split: Basically you're less likely to get the one you want when you need it. I think this concern is outweighed though, because they're both good cards in this deck, and we don't want to clog our curve up at the three mana slot any more than necessary.


~In Defense of a Few Cards:
*Merrow Reejerey is awesome in this deck because he lets you both cheat on mana and also tap down blockers. If you have a decent hand size, he makes combat and mana math a bitch for your opponent, because he will be able to do busted things proportionate to the number of Mefolk you have in your hand.
@Skeggi: If you really like Sovereign that much, I would try doing a 3-3 split between him and Reejerey. I think going down to 2 Reejerey is absolutely crazy, unless your meta is like, nothing but Countertop and Mono Blue Control. In my mind, Reejerey is way better than Sovereign will ever be at breaking creature-based stalemates.

*Silvergill Adept: this card is probably my least favorite thing we run, since it's our only card that inherently has a disadvantage (unless you Vial it), but I still use four. Being a creature that cantrips really can't be under-rated in this deck. Whereas Goblins is a deck that can use card quality advantage, we have to rely on just being able to draw a lot of cards by means of Standstill and Adept.

*Standstill: I think knowing when to side out Standstill is one of the single most important things in this deck's sideboarding process, but I'm a little bewildered by the apparent lack of love people have for Standstill. Besides counterspells, I think it's one of the strongest reasons to play this style of deck in blue. It's an amazing tool for an aggro-control deck, because it allows us to do busted things with Aether Vial, apply additional pressure with relatively small amounts of damage on the table, draw into counterspells/more creatures, etc etc.

The thing about using Standstill, is you really have to test and ask yourself two questions:
*Could the deck I'm playing against put me in a situation where it's disadvantageous for me to cast Standstill, either by presenting creatures on the board as quickly as I do, or by using man-lands?
*Is the deck quick enough and/or disruptive enough that it can either win so quickly that Standstill won't matter, or just play through Standstill?

...Standstill is a very swingy card, in that it's either about the most busted thing in the whole deck, or it's a complete liability to you. Knowing the difference is crucial, and somehow I suspect that the people who don't like Standstill are still getting caught on the wrong end of it sometimes. Sideboarding with Merfolk is a little tricky sometimes.

the cards that you never side out in Merfolk:
Lord of Atlantis, Cursecatcher, Force of Will, and your lands. Other than that, I think all the other standard main-deck cards should be under consideration when you sideboard, although I'm sure people may disagree.

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Originally Posted by tivadar

Umm, how do you figure that comparing what you admit is the *worst* elven lord to what everyone knows is the *best* merfolk lord is fair. If anything, I might argue their worst lord is better than our worst (Sovereign).

This deck wins over other tribal decks not because of its lords, but in spite of them. It wins because of Daze, Standstill, and Force of Will. Basically, it wins because it can also play the control and card advantage game without using merfolk.

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Well, it's largely true that Merfolk Sovereign is better than Elvish Champion, but honestly I was simply categorizing them mentally in a different way. I tend to compare the lords to their contemporaries. For example, comparing Lord of Atlantis to Elvish Champion and Goblin King, given that these were all the first wave of Lords, if you will. Reejerey, Auntie, and Perfect are the Lorwyn Lords, and Sovereign, Chieftain and Archdruid are the M10 Lords.

And, frankly, this deck doesn't really beat other tribal decks, or at least not ones called Goblins.

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Originally Posted by Alecthar

And, frankly, this deck doesn't really beat other tribal decks, or at least not ones called Goblins.

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It wins against Goblins a lot more often if you run the white splash. Especially if you main-deck StP. I shit you not.

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

@Skeggi: If you really like Sovereign that much, I would try doing a 3-3 split between him and Reejerey. I think going down to 2 Reejerey is absolutely crazy, unless your meta is like, nothing but Countertop and Mono Blue Control. In my mind, Reejerey is way better than Sovereign will ever be at breaking creature-based stalemates.

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Actually, all MUC has vanished from my meta, and CounterTop isn't exactly where Sovereign+Wake Thrasher shines. It's match ups like Eva Green, The Rock and Aggro Loam, where there are big blockers where you can't get behind to get those last 8 points of damage in. If these decks ran blue, they'd have been buried 3 turns ago. When you're in a stalemate against them, a single tap from Reejerey isn't always going to cut it. They can still chumpblock Thrasher and live or topdeck for the win. Sovereign + Thrasher puts an end to this.

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

the cards that you never side out in Merfolk:
Lord of Atlantis, Cursecatcher, Force of Will, and your lands. Other than that, I think all the other standard main-deck cards should be under consideration when you sideboard, although I'm sure people may disagree.

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I disagree. Force of Will is something I agree on, but LoA and Cursecatcher are both possible options to side out. It depends on your sideboard ofcourse, but Lord of Atlantis isn't that good against stuff like The Rock, and Cursecatcher isn't that good against Landstill. There are ofcourse also other match-ups where you could side them out, but right now I can't think of any. It's early :wink:

Cursecatcher can be awful against Tribal. Goblins has a few cards to counter, the mirror has some, Elves have none unless it's running Natural Order. Any permanent based control, Cursecatcher is gonna shine less.

Reejerey is probably my favorite Lord in the deck. I think that LoA is good because he costs UU and randomly wins vs blue decks. Sovereign is probably the worst in my opinion unless you're in a ground lock or are using it to cheat Thrasher through.

White improves Merfolks poor matchups significantly. I'm still considering it and working on one that I feel comfortable playing.

In a meta that not really big with Fetchlands or Vials, would Spell Pierce shine there over Stifles?

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

In a meta that not really big with Fetchlands or Vials, would Spell Pierce shine there over Stifles?

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I think Spell Snare would probably be better, since it's a hard counter and it can nail Goyf, which is a problematic card to deal with if you're in mono blue. I just think the non-creature clause on Pierce is sort of a deal-breaker.

so im guessing sideboard at best?

On a different note, Silvergill Adept had been very conditional lately. With the addition of Merfolk Sovereign as another lord, is it possible to retest Riptide Pilferer as one of our 2 drops?

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

so im guessing sideboard at best?

On a different note, Silvergill Adept had been very conditional lately. With the addition of Merfolk Sovereign as another lord, is it possible to retest Riptide Pilferer as one of our 2 drops?

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Silvergill Adept is a good card that gives you card advantage. Yes i've exprienced that too especially if its a topdeck and with no vial set at 2.

Pilferer, Grirmore Theif, Rootwater Thief, etc. are are nice utility creatures but card draw is still better for me.

Isn't Standstill enough though? I'm actually rethinking about Grimoire Thief now too. We'll see how it goes.