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If you're going to splash, you should take advantage of the splash. I was specifically discussing Brainstorm with respect to the white splash. The decklist is not too cramped for the best card in Legacy. You might lose a few games off of tempo, but you'll win ten times that many on flushing away endgame floods and drawing yourself out of mana screws.Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght
So, has anyone actually had positive experiences using Kira? There's been a lot of general praise for the idea of using her, yet she never appears in the winning lists. There was one tourney report a few pages back but apparently Kira was always the FoW pitch, so that doesn't sound very positive.
I'm a little concerned with her ability clashing with those of Reejery and Sovereign. Also, she comes down turn three at the earliest, which gives them time to burn your guys and come in for half your life total. By the time your first Lord sticks, there's a cheap Spined Wurm barreling down at you. Does anyone actually have positive (or any) experience using her?
Personally I love her. She beats in the air and forces at the worst 2 removal spells just for her. And ive had minimal conflict with her and the 2 lords. Kira really shines against stuff like tempo thresh and zoo as it blanks alot of removal. However, if you are in white splash and not on a jihad against zoo like Nightmare, you probably have better options. but in mono-U, its good.Quote:
Originally Posted by kirbysdl
hahahaha "jihad against zoo like nightmare" just made me crack up. It's like me playing landstill on a jihad against tempo thresh. Anyway, I really agree with you (kruchkow) on Kira, even though I don't play her, obviously since i play landstill, but seeing her on the opposite side is always frustrating, especially when I have swords in hand and no sweepers. She plays a lot like humility plays for landstill, gives you enough time change the game state enough that theres no way for them to come back from it. I mean, not that many decks pack wrath of god..Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Kruchkow
What happens if your opponent is playing a list with only fetchlands and basics, and runs engineered explosives, pernicious deed, WOG, firespout? Also, don't you lose to moat? How do you beat zoo? Doesn't it always have a burn spell for every creature you have in play, so that jitte is dead and so is everything else in your deck? (Also literally)
Doesn't this deck lose to counterbalance if they can deal with your vial? Also, the deck seems to lose to blue hate and daze.
It also can't rack up a storm count and make your opponent lose 20 life the way ANT can. Goblins is extremely fast but this deck is not. Landstill has powerful endgame spells but this deck does not. Can someone describe a positive experience with this deck?
I see no opinions here... does it or does it not function well? What has testing shown? This isn't some opinionated issue, I believe we're dealing with facts here... I would hope?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Kruchkow
I cant think of a legacy deck that only runs fetches and basics outside of some mono color decks like solidarity. And if a deck is packing EE, Deed, WOG, and Spout we can still win by daze/catcher/force and get there fast. And yes mainboard for alot of merfolk scoops to moat. Its not like its an amazingly prevalent card and we do have counter magic. No we dont lose to blue hate. No we dont lose to daze. no the deck doesnt roll to CB top, in fact the ones without spout are quite easy.Quote:
Originally Posted by pi4meterftw
What the deck has over goblins and combo is a great disruption package, relevant clock, an amazing draw engine and the ability to beat most every blue deck.
@pi4meterftw: what would you drop for brainstorm? Im running 20 creatures and I still get hands with no dudes and that sucks. It could go in the stifle slot but it weakens the LD package that wins games and also if you splash white its usually swords. And adding fetches to mono U just opens us to blood moon and stifle which IMO isnt worth brainstorm. That and youd only use it late as you wanna tap out on the early turns.
This sounds very reasonable to me. It would be foolhardy to introduce 8 fetchlands to a blue deck and not at least try Brainstorm. I am interested in figuring out the details on which cards to cut for testing. And more importantly, the ratio of games lost to tempo versus the ones won due to card quality improvements.Quote:
If you're going to splash, you should take advantage of the splash. I was specifically discussing Brainstorm with respect to the white splash. The decklist is not too cramped for the best card in Legacy. You might lose a few games off of tempo, but you'll win ten times that many on flushing away endgame floods and drawing yourself out of mana screws.
This is going to take a huge amount of testing and discussion to do properly, so I have to ask: can some of the people who oppose diving headlong into splashing white please state a clear case why not. I, for one do not want to waste my time working on the minutia of a design that is wrong to begin with.
@DDK
-Pithing Needle - Actually, I forgot that we were discussing a deck that did not include Stifle. But then, I might prefer Stifle over Pithing Needle for those purposes anyway. Not sure about that.
-Seal vs. Disenchant - I have had good experiences with Seal against Counterbalance and Painter combo online. I may switch back though. I hate using mana proactively while holding a summon spell in my hand.
-8 fetchlands - Yeah. I have preferred extra fetchlands to extra Tundras generally. Are you concerned about the life or mana availability?
When I splash white with fetches, I typically do:
-1 Silvergill
-1 Standstill
-1 (Variable)
Here, you get rid of two draw spells, and 1-2 creatures to add 3 brainstorm. Also, the chance of you brainstorming into that creature or two you dropped is pretty good. Sure, it slows you down a bit early, but to call it a dead card early in the game isn't right either. If you have a fetch in hand it still provides card quality early.
Typically, my last card was 1x stifle, as it's also a one drop.
Then your doing it wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by tivadar
Then you're a winner. See, I can be uninformative as well!Quote:
Originally Posted by jimirynk
As far as I'm concerned, the *most* obvious drop choice is Silvergill. Sure, he gives you a card and provides a moderate body, but he's tempo slowing and can be rather bad if you're stuck without merfolk, which granted, is fairly rare. Care to explain *why* you wouldn't drop Silvergill?
I can see Brainstorm being useful in the early game as well, if you have enough shuffle effects to support it. In Meathooks I'd often Brainstorm in the early turns to get rid of extra Winged Slivers, unnecessary land, etc. It also helps get a Vial+Muta+Standstill going on turn 3. Only reason you can't do it on turn 2 is that you need a total of 4 mana to cast everything. =)
congrats to merfolk for sealing the worlds 2009 team title for china, beating ANT in the finals with cursecatcher on the board.
here's his list:
Main Deck
60 cards
12 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
20 lands
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Wake Thrasher
19 creatures
4 Aether Vial
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
4 Standstill
2 Stifle
2 Umezawa's Jitte
21 other spells
Sideboard
4 Hydroblast
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 Merfolk Sovereign
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Umezawa's Jitte
15 sideboard cards
I find that this deck looks pretty solid but with the exception that games against dredge look like they don't stand a chance. To have a consistent chance against dredge though most decks need to pack at least 2-3 specific graveyard cards, i guess he was just lucky to not have been paired with any of the countries bringing dredge. It looks to me like his board was crafted specifically to protect against bolts and other spot removal on his lords. Kira, hydroblast. And then he runs the standard mono-blue merfolk maindeck. But its no surprise merfolk would make it this far since a huge portion of players were playing it. Sort of like counterbalance-top last year, before it died out
At least if merfolk is going out, it's going out with a bang. Congrats China.
A pretty standard list indeed...
yup kuddos to team china for bringing merfs on top.
What I find a little surprising is, despite all the nay-saying that goes on around here regarding Sower and Jitte, people in Asia always seem to run them pretty successfully. They also seem to like Wake Thrasher, which reassures me because I still haven't given up on him.
It seems sorta strange to me that he has two Merfolk Sovereigns in the sideboard also. Not strange to use them, but kinda odd to have them in the board...
Jitte is very good against Ichorid, although a lot of people didn't bother testing it.
It's fast enough to overrun DDD plans or slow hands where you stop their first discard effect. It's also fast enough if Cursecatcher can trip them and buy you a turn.
I disagree with this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Kruchkow
"Relevant clock." Goblins has a very relevant, and more importantly surprise clock. It comes out of nowhere which will either trick bad players or force good players to be very cautious. Merfolk might have vial tricks but nowhere near what goblins has here in a surprise clock. And both have relevant clocks.
"Amazing draw engine." Standstill is much more conditional than ringleader + matron. They both have pretty amazing draw engines, except standstill requires you to be in a good position while ringleader is great pretty much anytime. And while you have 4 standstills, we get 7-8 ringleaders. Also, people seem to be able to play with standstill, but I see many players confuse their role and think they are on the defense when they have no draw engine to compare to goblins'.
"Favorable matchup against blue." Goblins has a favorable matchup against most blue decks as well. It beats merfolk, but it has a significantly worse % against landstill, but I would argue that in an average meta merfolk is much more popular than landstill. If the blue decks are comprised of primarily countertop and merfolk, goblins has the edge here again.
"Great disruption package." However, merfolk has a much better disruption package. That's not to say goblins doesn't have a minor one (waste + port), but it is definitely outclassed badly here. BUT we have to look deeper than "merfolk has disruption, goblins doesn't, score one for merfolk!" Except for the combo and landstill matchup, goblins doesn't really need FoW/Stifle/etc, because goblins forces the other player to answer them immediately. Merfolk does not require immediate answers as their clock is not as "surprising." Because of their lack of haste/piledrivers/lackeys, merfolk needs a disruption package to create tempo, while the philosophy behind the goblins deck in and of itself creates tempo with how the opponent is forced to play.
The only advantage I see merfolk having over goblins is the combo/landstill matchup, AKA force of will. Goblins is atrocious here, merfolk is not. Let's just look at the DTB:
Zoo: Merfolk has an atrocious matchup obviously. Goblins isn't great but it isn't as bad as people think, as goblins can recover from a mass sweeper pre-ringleader, unlike merfolk pre-standstill.
Merfolk: Merfolk will naturally be even, while I think it accepted here that Goblins has a positive matchup.
Goblins: Goblins will be even, Merfolk negative obviously.
ANT: Merfolk smashes goblins here.
Landstill: Merfolk beats goblins here as well.
Tempo Thresh: They both have even-to-bad matchups IMO.
Countertop: They both have even-to-good matchups IMO.
...But honestly, are people really still playing landstill that much? And combo seems to always be underplayed.
But the great thing about goblins in this day and age is that people metagame for it way less than they do for merfolk. Countertop decks in particular are going to have tools to destroy merfolk in their sideboard and these may or may not be relevant for the goblins player. An example of this is landstill playing preacher: great against merfolk, meh against goblins. Also, merfolk has a harder time against fringe decks, which is one area where goblins shines.
Yeah, me too. Can anyone explain these odd (from our PoV) choices? Lords in the board seem especially odd. Maybe additional fat against Bolts, Volcanic Fallout, etc? I wonder why they were concerned with point removal and damage-based removal yet relegated defenses to the board. If you're worried about removal, big targets like Thrasher should probably be replaced by more synergistic Merfs like the Sovereigns. In other words, pretty much what Nightmare had been saying.Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght
The only thing I can think of is that the maindeck is designed to to give you three good chances to beat difficult MUs, whereas the pilot is confident that for removal-heavy MUs, he can consistently win games 2,3 post-board with the defensive options there.
does anyone else think that Wall of Denial is nigh-unstoppable against all of our problem MU's?