You mentioned that Wasteland makes most of the permission spells better. Theoretically if one doesn't have Mutavaults, would you recommend Rishadan Ports on that slot?
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You mentioned that Wasteland makes most of the permission spells better. Theoretically if one doesn't have Mutavaults, would you recommend Rishadan Ports on that slot?
Port converts your mana advantage over the course of the game into tempo disruption, but Merfolk rarely has mana advantage, in my eyes (even with Vial). Ports belong in a deck which directly seeks the midgame/lategame. DnT, Goblins, Lands -- Outside of a few combo-hands, these decks play mana-denial and board control until they can drown their opponent. Port sucks in Merfolk because Merfolk doesn't want the midgame. That said, sometimes it isn't your choice to goto the midgame, and then you really need midgame bombs (like Shackles). Still, you aren't looking for cards which encourage getting you to the midgame.
peace,
4eak
I agree with 4eak, port seem slow and against most matchups you really don't want to be holding up port to tap..rather to counter OR to do other such things.
Also, i think 2 islands is strictly better for you that 2 ghost quarters.
I know i said i was dropping the 4 standstill, but i talked to some people and my meta seems to be actually more TES/ANT than anything.. in those matchups if i can drop a t2 Standstill..it seems i'm actually in a good place...but that's just me..and the 2 jitte and 2 sower i was thinking of are just blanks.
Swords seems good, i was tempted to try it because the goblins matchup is ridiculous.
only issue, if they bring out tinkerer from matron, it doesn't really matter what you get.
my quick thoughts, tomorrow = Legacy event for 4x Jace....here i come!
To be honest, without Vial first, T2 Standstill seems amazingly bad against Storm Combo. It gives them that much more time to sculpt a hand.
Vial or Mutavault, I think.Quote:
To be honest, without Vial first, T2 Standstill seems amazingly bad against Storm Combo. It gives them that much more time to sculpt a hand
They won't be 'sculpting' even remotely as well without their cantrips. They also don't get to 'setup' in any major sense, as they run a little more than half of the lands we do, which generally means we will end up with the tempo advantage at the end of a broken standstill. Additionally, each hit with Mutavault makes AdN worse.
peace,
4eak
Isn't a Standstill play bad anyways if you don't have board presence anyways, I usually hold Stills when unless I have 2-3 lords in play or Vial. Not even with just Mutavault board because of opposing Wastelands.
Although against Storm, I guess Vaults are fine.
I"ve really gone back and forth about the MD standstills.
From talking to people it seems there will be a lot of:
Metalworker.dek and TES/ANT
In games i played against my buddy playing ANT, if i got t1 vial, T2 standstill or even if he has a slower hand, and i have a mutavault out and get standstill, he Cracks and allows me to either draw an answer or just get far enough ahead.
Now obviously its the best case scenario.
We'll see.. I'll have a tourney report later or I'll see Tammit67 there and we can chit-chat about it.
So here's my poor ol' tourney report from this sunday's Legacy event in Philly:
6 rounds so need to go at MINIMUM 4-1-1 to T8
Notes: I played the 4 standstills, and boy did it rock...when i was ahead..
never saw a combo deck..great...
due to my "switch" back to 4x standstills in the deck..i actually screwed over my board and forgot to register a legal sideboard (sweet).
List is comparable to the one i presented from Edison.
On to the tourney:
R1 - i count my board..realize i have 14 cards and instead of trying to play it off like nothing is wrong..i called a judge on myself for illegal board..
I get game loss and its on the g2, i'm on the play.
G2 - t1 vial. he goes t1 vial with a wasteland. he shows me a red dual i see goblins and i wasteland away his colors..and get too far ahead for him to come back from..sometimes its good to be lucky!
G3 - i have awesome board control, i get rid of his piledrivers and i look like i'm about to take him down....but then he plays pyrokinesis (w/e the 4 damage instant for free spell is) and ruins my board..gets his fourth piledriver..and guess what? i don't see a mutavault to block with..seems good..
R2 - I play against some guy playing UW Thopter/Counterbalance i know this only because he went to time with the guy playing High Tide Combo. He sits down, all upset, and tells me he's gonna need a minute to de-sideboard and such. I shrug and continue to shuffle and get ready. Needless to say, i somehow rip the nutz and ruin him G1..mostly because i get a decisive counter on a Moat ftw.
G2 - he locks me down with ensnaring bridge..but i'm chilling with echoing truth..i just want to get enough guys to swing in for lethal (aka 1 more guy)..it just seems he has an answer to every card i play..go figure.
LUCKILY, this guy is exceptionally slow at playing his deck, and stalls us all the way to time..where upon he has no way of actually beating me in turns...and i get the 1-0 win (Lucky #2)
R3 One of the guys that works at the store (Adam Friedman) sits down across from me. We both laugh about how it sux that we had to play each other, especially knowing what each other is playing. He's playing Team America, which is nice for me.
G1 - I get t1 vial T2 standstill. The standstill gets me enough advantage for me to just rush through him..oh and Kira made nice too.
G2 - I have a good hand, but he seems to have all the answers. double tombstalker must be nice.
G3 - I get early beats. He throws a tarmogoyf into my Mind Harness. I try to attack with it next turn, and he snuff's it out. no worries. I have vial, and start playing some guys. Granted when he's at 9 i have 2 adept and Kira in play, and he has tombstalker. I can't attack favorably, and my hand is nothing but counters and i've drawn a few lands.
At this point i drop a standstill and we play draw go for like 6 turns.
I draw double lord and coralhelm commander with something like 7 lands in play. Vial is on 3 (go figure), so i can't vial in. I crack the standstill. He draws 3 (he told me he drew 3 lands instead) and double dazes..but i have the mana backup. i swing with my islandwalking now 3/2s
he's at 3, and i pass the turn. He draws, and scoops his cards up.
R4 Jack Wang with BGW Rock
Go figure i play against T8 SCG Edison player
G1 - on the draw i keep a hand with vial, some guys, a force and 2 land.
he plays sac land, and passes.
i play vial and pass
he plays another sac land, sacs both, gets swamp and dual, and tries for goyf. i force
i waste his dual
he is stuck on 2 land, and i just rush through ftw.
G2 - He goes runner runner hymn on me, i start getting guys down but he starts getting more goyfs than i could even imagine..and i can't seem to draw an answer. He then starts vindicating me..seems nice
G3 - see game 2..it happened in similar fashion..except this time he had Dark Confidant and got far far ahead.
I dropped after this, not because i wanted to, because i really was thinking of getting some more testing in. HOWEVER, my roommate was 0- 4 with ANT and wanted nothing more than to leave so i obliged. (he was a bit embarrassed that he punted his R1G1 to Mark Tocco..when he actually copied HIS deck list for the event)
Till next time
Can you post list you played ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Blade3142
Anyway, I tested version with more lords and no standstills, even playing it in local tournament.
It was pretty good, much better then I expected because I really like standstill, and thought I will miss it more :)
Some random, usually obvious thoughts about it:
- 16 Island, 4 Wasteland manabase is great. Pretty much always had UU or 1UU when I needed it. In addition, I really liked being immune to wastelands, even more then version with Mutavaults.
- I found myself with empty hand pretty often. Those moments I missed Standstill - I had board advantage so it was great moment to drop it. But later I realized I won most of those games anyway, but I just feel strange playing blue with empty hand.
- I played with 2 Spell Snare, 2 Echoing Truth instead of 4 Spell Pierce. Spell Snare was bad - this version is mana intensive, and I'm using all my mana in turns 1-3 (when snare is best) to play creatures. But Echoing Truth saved my life a couple of times - goblin tokens, returning opponent's Vials to gain tempo, even returning my own Commander to save him from Threads of Disloyalty. I think I'd play with 2 Spell Pierce, 2 Echoing Truth next time, with 2 more Spell Pierces in sideboard.
- Main problem against Goblins, even more then for versions with Standstills, is Piledriver. Once it's in, you can't do anything with it, and they can let you attack until they're on low life, casting their goblins, then attack with all they have, making Piledriver huge. I know Mutavault isn't great against Wastelands and Ports, but at least it's something. Also, BEB isn't great against Goblins here - you have no mana on turns 1-3 to use it to counter things, and killing most of goblins isn't worth it once they entered battlefield. I think Propaganda might be better choice here, as an answer to Piledriver.
- Having 8 lords with 3cc is nice against Countertop. They don't have many things with 3cc, so you have pretty good chance to play them, even with Counterbalance and Top active.
- You don't want to keep mana or counter heavy hands. Without Standstill to refill hand, you're running out of threats quite fast. 3 islands, Wasteland, counter and two guys wasn't great most of time - drawing another island or counter nearly killed me couple of times.
- When sideboarding in Kira, you don't want to take out any creatures, but might consider taking out dazes, even on play. With 10-11 3cc creatures, you want to get to 3 lands as quickly as possible.
I played 4eak's list in Firenze this weekend :) (the straight forward one, 16 land, 4 waste, alot of folks, vial, force, daze and pierce)
R1: 1-2 against Affinity. Side: -4 FoW, -4 Daze, -4 Pierce, +3 B2B, +4 Relic, +3 Jitte, +2 ET
R2: 2-0 against Dredge. Side: -4 Vial, -2 Daze, +4 Relic, +2 ET (easy)
R3: 2-1 against ThopterFoundry. Side: -4 Sovereign, -2 Daze, +4 Relic, +2 ET
R4: 2-1 against SuperDrazi. Side: -3 Sovereign, +3 B2B.
Had the best play of the tournament. He have 2 U.Sea and 1 Locus in play. He plays a Candelabra of Tawnos. I play a Spell Pierce. He pays two and smiles to his friend. My turn: untap, upkeep, draw, play B2B. In your face!
R5: 1-2 against ElvesVine. Side: -4 Daze, -3 Coralhelm, +4 Relic, +3 Jitte (mother of runes hate merfolks)
R6: 1-2 against Goblins. Side: -4 Pierce, -2 Sovereign, +3 Vedalken Shackles, +3 Jitte
So I went 3-3 and dropped the last 2 rounds because Italian food is the best :) I made some play mistakes, probably some boarding mistakes too. B2B was really worth it, great cards. Vedalken was good in the goblin matchup but not enough to get there. Ps. I sided in Relic 4 out of 6 matches.
Thanks 4eak for providing the decklist :) Maybe 2 U.Sea + some fetches could do good against gobbos...
For those that wonder what i ran:
4x silvergill adept
4x cursecatcher
4x Lord of Atlantis
3x Coralhelm Commander
4x Merfolk Reejerey
2x Kira, Great-Glass Spinner
4x Force of Will
3x Spell Pierce
4x Daze
4x Standstill
4x Aether Vial
4x Mutavault
3x Wasteland
13x Island
Board:
4x Hydroblast
2x Echoing Truth
2x Umezawa's Jitte
3x Mind Harness
3x Relic of Progenitus
1x Island (cuz i'm dumb..and deck reg'd wrong..)
Congrats to Alex Bertoncini for taking the Folk all the way to the bank!
In play, Curse Catcher makes opponent's step back for a whole turn on playing otherwise good cards. Its primary role, however is to be that "edge" you might need in control matchups (especially during counterspell fights). It helps against combo, rules the merfolk mirror if you run Jitte and can slam it down on turn 2 (assuming no one got vial) and you can trick him out with Vial as an unconterable Force Spike against combo.
Curse Catcher is good because the deck many-times needs a solid 1-drop and doesn't always start off with Vial. It also lets Vial do something when it only has 1 counter. And he's just better than Cosi's Trickster.
Some people have run Tidal Warrior in the past--something to do with Islandwalk and SeaSinger...meh.
cursecatcher says your opps have to pay 1 for an instant or sorcery. He shines in our good matchups (makes them good) by using his ability to help fight counter wars and he is good against combo decks. He doesn't surprise your opp really, but with merfolks clock, (lords) wasteland/daze package sometimes they can't play around him. He is also very good vs dredge to get rid of bridges.
Some situations would be you have vial turn 1 and then try to cast a turn 2 standstill, your opp tries to spell snare... You vial in cursecatcher, pay 1 or lose. Or making storm pay 1 for there rituals/tutors/etc. The list can go on, he is the best 1 drop creature we have
Cold-Eyed Selkie or Sygg, River Cutthroat?
Anybody ever tested them much?
i noticed everyone plays adepts, would it be a bad idea to play a combination of sovereign's and wake thrasher's instead?
yes adept draws a card and costs 2 mana?
Coastal Piracy?
K stop spamming bad cards, read the thread or test yourself. You really can't see why coastal piracy isn't played in merfolk? (iin magic for that matter)
Sorry about suggesting bad choices for card drawing… I have done some testing with each… Cold-Eyed Selkie (in Merfolk) and Coastal Piracy both suck… Sygg, River Cutthroat is not completely bad though…