[Deck] Merfolk

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Originally Posted by AcidFiend

Fair enough - does this mean you've opted to spend more than 2 slots in the side for the mirror, or have instead focused on SB'ing for other decks?

Anyways on another topic, how bad is a resolved Jitte against us (by any aggro deck, not just Merfolk mirrors)? Assume you're running 10-12 Lords. I'm sure we've all read tournament reports where the writer has lost games solely due to Jitte. I understand Kira goes a way to slowing an opponents Jitte down, but if local meta was 10%-15% deck which packed Jitte in some form would you: a) not be worried, just counter/fight through it (b) pack your own Jittes to win with/blow theirs up (c) change decks.

Maybe I'm just fearing unnecessarily.

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I have taken out llawan entirely since other cards help more than just the specific matchup. I like putting in Spell Pierce to win the counter wars over the Jittes or Vials, as well as Propaganda. Those two cards are good sideboards against a lot of decks though.

Jitte is very scary, but it depends on your build for how frightened you should be. If you run Stifle you give yourself a turn or more of the opponent trying to equip the Jitte but failing, which buys you hopefully enough time to win. If you can keep 2 lords on the table at all times then they have to waste 2 combats trying to take out even your weakest guy. By the time they do that hopefully you have enough time to beat them. If they can both keep you low on creatures and land a Jitte, or overwhelm you with creatures while landing a jitte then you probably lose, but then again if someone had 1 card, 4 extra mana and could overwhelm you or keep you off lords you probably would have lost no matter what that card was. I'm not saying it's win more in every situation, but many games where you feel blown out by it were probably already sealed before it started getting counters. Jitte in the sideboard is a good mirror match tool, and can seal you victories if the opponent doesn't stop it, but again a lot of those games you most likely could have won anyway.

Trolling snipped---frogboy

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Have you not read the explanation on why this "1 has no purpose, 2 has no purpose, but 3 has a purpose, 4 has a purpose" fallacy is stupid?

In fact, 1 has the most purpose, by the property of diminishing returns. What matters isn't how much total % increase you get, but the marginal bang for your buck, and the first llawan obviously increases your chance to draw a llawan by more than any other llawan. This and other reasons already mentioned demonstrate your reasoning is flawed.

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Wait this is your rebuttal? How boring, you failed to read or interpret my post correctly. Not that this is surprising because you scour the Source waiting to troll my posts, but next time take a little longer and at least make the troll posts less pathetic.

I merely said it wasn't worth 2 slots dedicated to specifically fighting merfolk in my sideboard. A good analogy is putting 2 Mindbreak Traps in goblins sideboard. Sure your "total % increase you get" goes up with just 1 copy more than adding the 2nd or 3rd or 4th copy, but why wouldn't I just make my sideboard more redundant against other decks and not waste my time with a card that I would only ever board in against 1 deck, especially if I don't expect to find it in my metagame? If I really needed that much sideboard against a combo deck while playing goblins I wouldn't play goblins. Llawan is a card I would not run 2 of in my sideboard because if I believed it really warranted inclusion (i.e. my metagame was going to be full of merfolk) I would run 3 or more. Never 2 or 1.

I'm not the biggest fan of putting a 2-of in the board either, there is a number factors to weigh up though (this may not be all of them): how bad is drawing multiples vs. how badly do you need to see one to win vs. how many decks does this card come in against vs. by how much % does this card increase your win % in those matchups.

As an example of the above, consider Propaganda vs. Llawan. Propaganda is moderately useful against most Aggro decks, while being very useful against decks like Dredge. Llawan is only useful vs. Merfolk and to some extent Bant, however it is a huge boon in those matchups. I would probably call the 'multiples' argument a wash. Its true Propaganda is useful in multiples while having a Llawan stuck in your hand is 'dead'. That said, if you've already resolved a Llawan you should probably win very soon regardless. If they have somehow recovered through Vials, you could always play your second one, they'll both die but at least you get to bounce their guys for an alpha strike.

I'll admit I often do my head-in devising sideboard structures and plans.

For the record I'm pretty settled on: 2 Relic, 2 Crypt, 1 Pierce (3 MD), 3 Submerge, 2 Kira, 2 Llawan. Thats 3 slots spare. With that set I can side in some cards against most matchups, so I'm not sure what else I would add that I still have space to side in for. Possibly Snare, Hydroblast or Pithing Needle. I don't have Stifle MD so Back to Basics loses some strength out of the board.

More mirror questions: Has anyone tried siding out a LoA? Or do you keep 4 but possibly hold them back until its advantageous to drop and strike? Also how bad is ET in the mirror? The only reason I'd think to keep it in was to bounce opponents Jittes. Probably not a wide enough an application tho.

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Originally Posted by AcidFiend

More mirror questions: Has anyone tried siding out a LoA? Or do you keep 4 but possibly hold them back until its advantageous to drop and strike? Also how bad is ET in the mirror? The only reason I'd think to keep it in was to bounce opponents Jittes. Probably not a wide enough an application tho.

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I don't count myself an expert in the deck, but against the mirror I keep in all my LoAs and just drop one when I can swing for the win. Most of the time they drop their own LoA early which only benefits me (most of the time). I haven't drawn ET against the mirror before, but I'd imagine it's extremely useful to bounce their lords. If you're playing against the green splash, I'd probably swap out ET for Submerge though (this assuming you have ET MD and Submerge SB).

Seasingers are good in mirror matches since you can steal a reejerey, merfolk soveriegn or waketrasher to increase you armies power.

Jitte is nice agaisnt mirror aswell.

Clearly zoo is one of our worst matches. We have tried tons of side boarding tactics and changes in the MD to compete but still only seem to be able to get the matches close to 50/50 which in my experience is exaggerated. I’m still about 60/40 is favor of zoo clearly. One side boarding tactic I found to work very well was a turn 2 CotV at 1 with FoW backup for the Qasali. When play testing this there were games when my opponent literally had to scoop. But it was not consistent enough in my opinion to continue using.

What I want to know is if anyone has tried changing the merfolk deck a little in order to get Top in the main and counterbalance in the board? Being able to get this out early vs zoo is devastating for them. Also the curve in merfolk is very good and should make it work sufficiently. We would still be able to keep aprox 18-20 folks in the main and still keep the standard 8 counters. The rest of the slots would need to be changed a little I feel, but vial should make the list. Also playing countertop instead of CotV still allows us to pack 1 drops such as stifle for the qasali.

I plan on playtesting this ASAP but unfortunately probably wont be able to get a sufficient amount of playtesting in for 2 weeks. If anyone has tried this or has constructive advice let me know.

I think running counterbalance is an intruiging idea. Though if you are going to squeeze it in the sb, why not squeeze it in the maindeck instead? I think the logical conclusion would be cutting the standstills and something else in favor of counterbalance and tops. One of the downsides to this, is that you would have to put in some fetches, even if you are running mono-blue, to make the tops effective.

I could see a list going something like this perhapes?

4 curse catcher
4 silvergill adept
4 lord of atlantis
4 merfolk reejeray
2 wake thrasher / merfolk soveriegn

4 aether vial
4 sensei's divining top
4 counterbalance

4 force of will
4 daze
2 echoing truth

4 wasteland
3 mutavault
6 blue-fetchlands
7 islands

I don't know if running "13" islands would be enough to quickly get the double blue you need everytime though. You would want to hit that pretty quickly, specially against combo.

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Originally Posted by kkoie

I think running counterbalance is an intruiging idea.

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No it isn't.
You are playing a swarmaggro deck, which gets better the more creatures you have.
Playing top will consume mana you need to curve out. Playing counterbalance will not solve any of this decks problems.
Zoo is fast - Sligh is even faster and they still can kill all your dudes by playing just a shotgun mage before you have the lock on board.
Also qasali pridemage will just rape you when you give him even more targets.
You still do not play any removal so CB won't do shit against stuff that's already on the battlefield.

Of course you will have some success with the cbtop-lock but it will be due to the rogueness of merfolk playing cb
which will maybe surprise some zoo players and maybe catch them off guard.
Also the will probably bring in some red elemental blasts to counter your cb.

Also the sideboard slots you give up for the balances come to mind.
Will you play blasts besides cb?
What will you take out for 8 cards outta the maindeck?
Are the cards you take out really worse than the stuff you board in?

What about top as the md plan?
Does he utilizes this deck as good as other utility cards like stifle, bounce etc.?
Sure he will improve your draws but is this good and fast enough to warranty an inclusion?
I mean - your folks have no haste and when you are already low on creatures top will give you nothing.
Top is awesome to adapt to some situations , netting you utility stuff or finding needed lands but this swarmaggro
deck design isn't the right place for it.

In landstill he is a house but for merfolk the sdt-formula "He makes any deck that plays him better" does not apply.

A waste of md and sb slots imho.
You can could dedicate your slots to a playset of blasts and submerges and would be better off with it
as counterplays to zoo.

CBTop is just awesome when you build around it.
As a additional strategy it's just inferior to warrant 8 slots in any deck.

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Originally Posted by kkoie

I think running counterbalance is an intruiging idea. Though if you are going to squeeze it in the sb, why not squeeze it in the maindeck instead? I think the logical conclusion would be cutting the standstills and something else in favor of counterbalance and tops. One of the downsides to this, is that you would have to put in some fetches, even if you are running mono-blue, to make the tops effective.

I could see a list going something like this perhapes?

4 curse catcher
4 silvergill adept
4 lord of atlantis
4 merfolk reejeray
2 wake thrasher / merfolk soveriegn

4 aether vial
4 sensei's divining top
4 counterbalance

4 force of will
4 daze
2 echoing truth

4 wasteland
3 mutavault
6 blue-fetchlands
7 islands

I don't know if running "13" islands would be enough to quickly get the double blue you need everytime though. You would want to hit that pretty quickly, specially against combo.

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I tried this and failed miserably. I did not want to post my results here because of fear of getting trolled on.

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Originally Posted by EaD

No it isn't..

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I didn't say it was a great idea, I said it was intriguing. Anyway you make some valid points as to why it wouldn't work. I myself have never sleeved up counterbalance and tops into merfolk.

Would Essence Leak work out as alternatives to Submerge or Mind Harness? At least Essense Leak isnt just concentrated on creatures.

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

Would Essence Leak work out as alternatives to Submerge or Mind Harness? At least Essense Leak isnt just concentrated on creatures.

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I like the card, although I don't think that it would make much of an impact on the zoo player.
It has to be tested if the slowdown is high enough to make a difference in the matchup you want to board it in.
The 2 colorspectrum makes this card considerable, at least for testing I think.

I don't see what would make it better than Mind Harness... At least Harness has the potential to 2-for-1 them.

Fear of trolled on? In this thread? Poppycock!

Anyway, Mind Harness alone may not alter the match. Nor will any card. You need enough sb slots to turn this deck into another type of deck. Mind Harness is fine in that role - one of many such cards.

Im not worried about zoo anymore as for some reason, its on decline in my meta.

Although Enchantress and other aggro-neutering decks are starting to pop out. I guess i was just looking for a 'better' answer for a resolved non-creature problem but ETruth is doing its job.

Its fun to keep Survival of the Fittest out of operational status though.

Speaking of Survival, I saw a survival build that runs the Iona combo. How do you deal with a resolved Iona (Reanimators run the same formula). I was thinking that Vial would be good enough and just drop as many lords as you can but its hard to outrace a 7/7 body. I was thinking of Vialing in Shapesharer and copying Iona itself to Legendarily kill her. Would that work?

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

Im not worried about zoo anymore as for some reason, its on decline in my meta.

Although Enchantress and other aggro-neutering decks are starting to pop out. I guess i was just looking for a 'better' answer for a resolved non-creature problem but ETruth is doing its job.

Its fun to keep Survival of the Fittest out of operational status though.

Speaking of Survival, I saw a survival build that runs the Iona combo. How do you deal with a resolved Iona (Reanimators run the same formula). I was thinking that Vial would be good enough and just drop as many lords as you can but its hard to outrace a 7/7 body. I was thinking of Vialing in Shapesharer and copying Iona itself to Legendarily kill her. Would that work?

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I think shapesharer is a too narrow card to run just to get rid of Iona.
Did you try some stifles against them?
I think stifle is pretty awesome for a lot of reasons and think it belongs to the md.
(I don't want to start this debatte again though)

For reference here is my list:

13 Island
3 Mutavault
4 Wasteland

4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
2 Echoing Truth
3 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
1-2 Merfolk Sovereign
1-2 Meta Slots

Sideboard:

4 Elemental Blast
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Hibernation *
3 Meta Slots

For the Metaslots I use a combination of the following:
SB: 3 Spell Pierce, 3 Mindbreak Trap, 4th Stifle / 2nd Reejerey (md) , 4th Stifle / 2 Submerge (sb) , Propaganda
Mind Harness, Pithing Needle, Spell Snare, Waterfront Bouncer, Wake Thrasher, Rushing River, Legacys Allure, Back to Basics

Usually I like to pack a Wake Thrasher into the md and go with it but sometimes it becomes the 4th stifle.
Spell Pierce are my last 3 sb slots most of the time because storm combo is usually seen and spell pierce works overall is a great card.
When I play mind harness the hibernations are usually swapped for them because they don't combo all to well together.
Also hibernation is an awesome card since progenitus is seeing play in a lot of decks and wins you stalled games against non blue stuff like enchantress or survival or something.
I highly recommend testing it.

Did anyone ever realize how Merfolk is essentially a poorly shacked together attempt at Tribal Fish that happens to be successful? I mean, look at Goblins and the quality of creatures they have compared to us. I mean yeah. We can't play the Goblin game because of countermagic and such, but still...
Also, I really hate Wake Thrasher and would love an alternative. I keep wanting to try Sygg, River Guide and have never gotten around to it.

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

How do you deal with a resolved Iona (Reanimators run the same formula). I was thinking that Vial would be good enough and just drop as many lords as you can but its hard to outrace a 7/7 body. I was thinking of Vialing in Shapesharer and copying Iona itself to Legendarily kill her. Would that work?

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I've played a ton against Reanimator and in that matchup at least it's surprisingly easy to race against a resolved Iona... especially if you have Vial out. Heck, once I outraced her (and even killed her) with only a Cursecatcher, Mutavault, and Jitte. However, I imagine it's much harder when you're dealing with Bant because they have other threats and also have removal for your guys. Still, this guy makes it look really easy.

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Originally Posted by EaD

I think shapesharer is a too narrow card to run just to get rid of Iona.
Did you try some stifles against them?
I think stifle is pretty awesome for a lot of reasons and think it belongs to the md.
(I don't want to start this debatte again though)

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Unfortunately you cannot Stifle Iona's ETB effect as it is not a trigger, more like a condition as she enters the battlefield.

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

Unfortunately you cannot Stifle Iona's ETB effect as it is not a trigger, more like a condition as she enters the battlefield.

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I assume he means to Stifle the Loyal Retainers ability in regards to Bant.

I just got 7th place at the SCG Richmond 5k. Will write up a report when I'm not braindead.