Divert or Misdirection?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
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Divert or Misdirection?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
I prefer Kira over misdirection, as kira doesn't cost you a card and it makes AEther Vial stronger at three. Which is fine and dandy because of merrow reejerey and possibly merfolk sovereign.
Although, I just like having the ability to protect tarmogoyf with kira. Your able to benefit from submerge more with kira, especially if the zoo player plans on pathing your threat and shifting to the combat phase with their goyf and/or knight of the reliquary. However, I am sure misdirection could be useful in this situation as well but if your low on cards in hand, kira seems much stronger, imo.
I think Finn answered Seasinger better than I ever could. As you said about Licid, it's fairly mana intensive. Gilded Drake seems like a good card. Thanks, I'll test it now. Curfew has limited options due to the other player getting to chose what he wants to return. I can see it getting someone for game 2, but if it goes on, then I'm afraid they will go around it.Quote:
Originally Posted by menace13
As for AEther Spellbomb, it's definitely faster than Bouncer, in a metagame with alot of reanimator or survival, Iona. I was running this pre mystical tutor ban and would probably use this again if I didn't dedicate 5 slots to graveyard hate already.
I personally like bouncer for sideboard options because of the following:
-It can continuously slow the game until you can draw into a card you need. Cards like spare Aether Vials, standstills, dazes for later game, excess islands all provide merfolk with plenty of discard outlets to survive a few turns as long as you can handle the removal.
-It can be vialed in to avoid counterspells.
-It's blue, so it can be discarded for daze.
-It's a merfolk so when it's not needed you can use it to crash into the opponent.
-I may sub it in for other decks besides show and tell due to it's versitility and repeatable ability usage. The repeated usage gives me a greater incentive to use it on my own creatures against removal. That is, if they don't target the bouncer first.
-It can draw attention away from the lords against decks that may overestimate it's threat potential (great bluff tool).
I have used all three in a few tournaments, not all at the same time, but seperately. Singer is only good if they have Islands obv. Drake is good, but against anything other than cheat fatty into play.dek, I would stay with Sower.
Licid is the best out of the bunch, to me. It won't swing for more than 1 and will not protect your guys from removal, but does everything Bouncer would do in the above post. It is mana intensive, although it amounts to casting a Reej, which is doable. Licid also dodges removal where the others can not(bouncer can bounce himself) and can actually take the Goyf,Bob,goblin,Grim,Nacatl to beat face with. If Emrak is really that big of a deal then Spellbomb and Licid are the best options.
Black splash can include more than Perish and Plagues That does not pose the question why are you splashing for it.
In regards to evasion from self:Quote:
Originally Posted by menace13
Licid takes 3 mana to cast, one to uncast, and then another 3 to cast again.
Bouncer takes 2 mana to cast, 1 to bounce itself, and 2 to cast again.
Both are seemingly annoying and Licid probably has more aggressive potential. But spending 3 mana whenever you want to activate it seems rather costly. It means leaving 3 mana open when you want to bind, 4 if you want unbind then rebind. And since Coralhelm Commander already likes to eat up most of our spare mana these days, it makes leaving that much mana open less desirable. Also, because you can only level him during your turn, it means you have to leave more mana open during your opponent's turn if you don't want to suspectable to double removal before rebinding. One of merfolk's biggest problems is against removal. Ultimately, I feel like Bouncer is just cheaper (for merfolk) and more defensively versitile while Licid may have a greater immediate impact, but can slow down your ability to pump and place board position.
Good points, I agree on all of them and would love to try out the Bouncer, since you convinced me, but they aren't online yet. Bouncer is better in MUs where you want to bring in Jitte and equip as well as Pump Coralhelm and can still activate while leaving mana up for lords and Mutas. The tempo off Bouncer is much better.Quote:
Originally Posted by luckme10
i play on mtgo and magic league so the meta varies alot and changes when big tourney results pop up but my real problem matchup is goblins right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght
Goblins is just kind of *gonna be* a problem matchup if you're running mono-blue. Black for E Plague is probably the most direct way to make sure you beat the little buggers. Splashing white for maindeck point removal has also helped good bit in my testing. If you're running mono blue and want to try to improve your MU, you could always run 6-8 Hydroblast/BEB, but I'm not so sure this would make it favorable. Mind Harness is another option. Jitte is also good against them if you can get it online pretty early.Quote:
Originally Posted by nudude
Basically though, they're kind of like the rock to our scissors.
So if we're going to go to the trouble of splashing black in merfolk, I think Bob should be given some consideration in place of Silvergill Adept or Standstill. Yes we don't want to draw FoW, but everything else in the deck seems well in place along the sligh curve.
I kinda feel like since Bob is (a.) not a Merfolk, and (b.) deals us damage every turn, it makes him not ideal for this deck. Maybe testing will show him to be strong, but in my experience our life total is not a very "expendable" resource with this deck (at least in our most difficult match-ups.)
Basically, I think it would be crazy to cut Adept for Bob. I think you can make the argument for replacing Standstill with him, but I have the feeling it might not be right for the deck, or at the very least I think it would lean the strategy in a very different direction.
If you want to stay Mono Blue your best shot at beating Goblins probably is running the 16 lords + Kira build as it's very creature heavy and thus can cause problems for goblins because it is so agressive and doesn't have Standstill or Spell Pierce which is pretty bad in this particular matchup. For the Sideboard Jitte is probably your best card here in combination with some Blue Elemental Blasts. Propaganda has been underwhelming for me so far. Add some Submerge in the mix against Zoo / New Horizons and you are in a quite good position to take down quite some matches against them as well.
For an even of the past week end, my friend and I decided to build a mono U merfolk, inspirated by Saito's list.
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merrow Reejerey
1 Merfolk Sovereign
4 Aether Vial
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Standstill
3 Spell Pierce
12 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
SB:
4 Submerge
2 Hibernation
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Pithing Needle
3 Annul
The decks is really similar to Saito's. It has a card that is almost as good as perish (Hibernation) and has alternative to not so useful Eng. Plague and it has the advantage of being less vunerable to wasteland and stifle. Now that I think about it, I would probally remove the 3 annuls for 2 Umezawa's Jitte and 1 Spell Pierce. We've test this list a lot, and it was really good.
I couldn't attend the event, but my friend did. He made, 3-0 then did 2 draws to go to top 8. And he won his match up in top 8 for a top4 split.
It looks like a typical mono U build of merfolk. I only like standstill in the U/B build as I run snuff out to remove any of their creatures before I drop it. I agree about plague being too slow. I tried it and it didn't do what I wanted it to do. I don't really like perish in the board either as most people can easily play around it g3 or even g2 if they see a u/b build. I think deathmarks are just better overall.Quote:
Originally Posted by Raptor
Although i know that it will be insulted for this, i have to say that, after playing merfolk mono U for more than 2 years now, this archetype is almost dead.
Although i have tried UW version, i think that monoU is the best way to go, but in a Aggro/Aggrocontrol field-let's say the meta is composed almost by Gobbos, Zoo, Bant Aggro, Aggro Loam, Burn, R/RB sligh, Death n taxes, we have very little possibilities to reach T8.
And saying '' check last top8 results on deckcheck'' is not a valid argument, because Merfolks is maybe the most played deck (with very little changes) allover the world, so if you're lucky with the pairings you can easily access top8, and while most merfolk player will have to fight between gobbos and nacatls, someone more lucky will not, and so he can have better results. I don't think you can do good if your first pairing is zoo, the second is burn and the third is goblin.
Going to a local tournament to find that out of 30 players you'll find 1 burn, 4 goblins and 2 zoo and 1 death and taxes, means that there is almost no possibility to do good.I think this is frustrating, and this is the main reason why i left this archetype, keeping it as my pet deck, and moved to something more unexpected/fun as Aluren.
My 2 cents.
Peace
So go play TES in that meta. Here in the states merfolk is more than viable with people messing around more with blue based aggro/control. To go and call the archetype dead is... laughable.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiblast
(I have not seen aggro loam in a month, is it really that popular in europe?)
Maybe is only matter of different metagames, but i would not laugh at seeing burn-gobbo-zoo-bant aggro in a row as pairings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tammit67
I like it, Raptor. I am moving toward Spell Pierce in the main myself. I kinda wish you had a good way to handle Emrakul though. Seal of Removal is one possibility, but I don't know how good it really is.
What do you guys think of the U/B build? I've tried it and I feel that against most of the meta Mono U is better. I do miss running extirpate in the main which is still really good against many decks, but I just hated being subject to color screw and losing to decks I normally win against. Anyone else been play testing U/B?
i play 3 spell pierce+ 4 daze+4 Fow in maindeck and i'm really satisfied.Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
Against Emrakul i play all those counters to fight show and tell and sneak attack, plus a couple Beb and 2 waterfront bouncers.
mana screw imho is possible if you run exactly saito's manabase wich is:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tru3z3rox
land [21]
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Mutavault
1 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
in my opinion, we should really try to minimize Waste/stifle hate.So i'd play:
4 Island
1 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest- Scalding tarn- Flooded strand (combination of these)
3 Polluted Delta
2 Underground sea
3 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
Assuming that we only need one black mana source post-sb. I dont think is useful to play the full playset of Undergrounds+ 7 fetchland, when we only want to see 1 B mana. I think Saito's list is too mana redundant.
another thing: black splash gives us the best card to answer dredge/loam: Planar Void.