[Deck] Merfolk

Today: tourney in Milan (italy), about 70 ppl.
7 rounds of swiss+top8.
Pairings:
.... i couldn't ask for anything W O R S E
1)dark weenie-lost: tidehollow sculler +vindicate+figure of destiny+stp+JITTE hurt so much for merfolks.
2)white weenie:won, but he wasn't that experienced.
3)spring tide w/black splash:won, this deck hoses combo, just that.
4)THE ROCK: literally got ROLLED OUT. naah, they just have to accumulate mana, cast their bombs ( vindicate, goyf, hierarch, doran..).. and just outrace us. Well, i didn't draw well too ( 3 lands in a row).
5)THE ROCK ( again, yeah ! -.-): literally DEVASTATED. See above: disruption, mana + bombs= death for this deck. i dazeed 2 dorans, but removals just hurt us very much, and very few can be done against fatties with lonely merfolks.
6)Aggro Elves: well, the first one, after having endured to his speed, was won by two huges thrashers (13/13 each) which swung ftw.
the 2nd and the 3rd one were just pathetic, he cast something like 5-6 elves on turn 3 with some odd warrior-type pump effect and i'm stuck with an adept and a catcher. I manage to drop propaganda on turn 3 but he does some stuff with clash which reveals his top card: krosan grip -.-.
Of course, in a few turns i get pwned.
The third is really, really sad, i am stuck with 2 cursecatcher while his wren wanquisher and other dudes beat me to death.
7)Affinity: he drop his hand on turn 2 , an early Master of etherium really hurts you, especially when you are only able to draw shit. Same on the second game,when i do a mistake naming ravager instead of plating, of course ha has plating AND 2 ravagers AND a disciple, he attacks as a maniac with his plated dudes, i endure with reejereys and mutavault, we fuck our guys reciprocately, but of course he topdecks a frogmite , equips it and prepares ftw. i ropdeck a daze, and concede.

well, this tourney was absolute shit for me, i was paired against ALL- and i say A-L-L- the decks which merfolk suffers as a beast: bwg control 2 times, 2 fast aggros and 2 weenies. There were plenty of thresh, but ofc i didn't meet anyone of them -.-. The 2 relics were absolutely useless if not to cantrip in almost all games ( perhaps in 1 against the rock he kept goyf small for a bit, but then i had tp cantrip it since i was getting pwned by a doran and a hierarch), i swear i REALLY wished to have jitte in all matches, and i'm wondering if, when i'll take merfolk back in my hands ( now i'm just too deluded, and fear it doesn't really fit my metagame atm), the two relics will be replaced with something else.
Ah, it's sad to be said since i really love that card, but i must admit that everyone today was prepared for divert, and played around it. I guess it's quite known as sb tech, and against the rock, they just ramp mana and cast their removals when they have enough mana to cheat it: I'm really, really pondering if Misdirection can be a good inclusion for that disastrous MU. At least, it's a SURE 2 for 2, not a "cast it now or it will become useless" one.

Boh, perhaps I played bad, perhaps i was just very unlucky..But i really realized now that this deck terribly suffers these kinds of deck, lacking of removals and focusing on overextending (well, what's sure is that you CAN'T hope to carry on with 1-2 merfoks on the board alone) with many mefolks to obtain adequate powered-creatures. I'm really beginning to doubt if the " tribe of many" issue is better than " few creatures but opitmal ", which seems to dominate in legacy..
Well, i hope that elof has got more success than me.

EDIT: i played with the list Finn posted the first page, no changes i remind

@ mosaic - I was thinking of Shapesharer in a build with Dreadnought. It is very similar to crz87's except I don't have adept in there:
4 Wasteland
3 Mutavault
13 Island
4 Cursecatcher
4 Shapesharer
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejery
3 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Wake Thrasher
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
I completely agree with Phoenix on the fact that if you are tuning a list for the GP, you can leave nought out because he isn't needed against the better decks you will face in round 3 or 4 onward, but for my meta, I think he will be very good. I realize that cutting adept is horrible, but this I wanted to see if Shapesharer would be okay, and it has been. It lets me noth ahve to run Trickbind and Shapesharer tricks have won a small but significant amount of games in testing. Every matchup that I was worried about has gotten better, and the Kiras in my board are finally going to be removed I think.

@ Piceli - Sorry to hear about the bad tournament experience. These decks are just terrible matchups for us, and I think that these are concessions we have to make. Obviously if you got paired against Islands, you would have had a much easier time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by easyrider

@ Piceli - Sorry to hear about the bad tournament experience. These decks are just terrible matchups for us, and I think that these are concessions we have to make. Obviously if you got paired against Islands, you would have had a much easier time.

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*Personally, after having spent about $200 getting all the stuff I needed for this deck together, I'm beginning to wonder what Merfolk can do about its position in the metagame. I don't want to keep scrubbing out to other Aggro decks that are quicker than Merf and not very prone to our disruption. It doesn't matter that I have good match-ups against most of the decks in the Top 8, if I don't even make it to Top 8...

It seems to me, from what I've been hearing, and from what I've seen that we're very likely to do well against most of the Tier One decks in the format (since many of them use Islands, run non-basics, are fairly prone to well-applied disruption, etc.) but we have a really hard time against some of the Tier Two and lower decks

...This leads me to the following question: What can we do in order to keep from scrubbing out in the first rounds of Swiss tourneys? The GP Trial I went to yesterday was very small, and I got the impression that a fair amount of the folks there weren't playing their "number one" deck, because I saw a lot of Aggro decks, and heard from a fair amount of folks that they had just recently borrowed the cards to get their deck together. Like I said, Dreadstill won the tourney, and there were a few other decks there that I don't think would have been as bad to get matched up against as Burn proved to be (I'd definitely rather play against ANT, Survival, Dreadstill, or even Goblins than against Burn twice)...

But I was frustrated in my experience, because mostly people at the GP Trial I went to were playing a bunch of aggro decks; it seemed like most folks just wanted to get the third-round bye and had just slapped something together that they knew was relatively simple and had a fast clock.

Basically, in my mind, there are three options that I want to take in order to tweak this deck, and see how it affects our match-ups.

1.) Keep playing the mono-Blue disruption-Folk build and hope I see better match-ups in the future, doing what I can to get my sideboard more iron-clad against Aggro in particular. The success of this is contingent on really fine-tuning my list and eliminating any cards that are usually dead from the main-deck, and also, as I say, from having more luck in the match-ups I see. That's why I don't know if this will work, because it depends on having good luck in my match-ups.

2.) Find a way to get Dreadnoughts, and start playing around with them, either in the sideboard, or in something similar to what's in the Dreadfolk thread. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=12813)

3.) Drop some cheddar and buy duals/fetchies in order to splash a color.

I know that the color splashes have been dismissed by a fair amount of folks around here. But after seeing a fair amount of lists that splash one additional color getting a significant amount of good finishes in other tournaments, I'm curious about it... At least, curious enough to proxy up some dual-lands and such and see for myself how I like it.

Color Splashes I Would Consider:

Either White, or maybe Black, for removal/disruption. (Great... the two most expensive dual-lands in the game)

White Cards I Would Consider:
-Swords to Plowshares
-Armageddon (sideboard)
-Disenchant/Seal of Cleansing (sideboard)
-Orim's Chant (?) (probably not)
-Meddling Mage (?) (I wouldn't dismiss him too quickly)

Black Cards I Would Consider:
-Dark Confidant (I know, FoW = yikes! with Confidant, he's best w/ Divining Top, so might eat too many slots... However, Confidant might actually make Curfew playable for us)
-Merrow Bonegnawer (I'm actually serious about this one... provided the mana base is good enough to make him playable turn one... he's like a less-good Relic of Progenitus... except he's actually a Merfolk, and he's reasonably priced... and, holy shit, he's like a mini-Relic on a stick!)
-Some sort of removal (Smother? I can't think of any black removal spell that matches StP in efficiency...)
-Tombstalker (would require more of a commitment to Swamps, but damn, that's a fattie!)

*So, I already know the arguments against splashing a color: Getting color screwed, making ourselves vulnerable to non-basic hate, etc. On the other hand, I could see how removal would be pretty clutch, I think not being able to deal with resolved permanents is probably our biggest weakness...

*From where I'm sitting, the White splash looks more attractive (better removal), and easier to fit in (the only thing I'd put main is probably StP, maaaaybe Meddling Mage). The only black card that looks awesome for this deck so far is Merrow Bonegnawer, and that's just because he gives us another good one-drop creature... I'm sure folks are going to shoot him down as worse than Relic anyways.

So... I realize these comments are a little unorganized, but is there any train of thought there that someone wants to comment on, or perhaps even get on board with me on?

@ Duke - I don't think you can improve your matchup against rock variants. You can't practically sideboard for their every angle. Burn and most agressive decks can't handle quick noughts, and right now, that seems to be the best answer for it to me. You shouldn't sideboard in noughts against such decks because they will have Grip or Grudge coming in for Vial and nought will just be another target. Also, nought will only eat up valuable sideboard slots.

If you are worried about smaller tournaments, then you should be able to figure out the metagame fairly quickly and then change your maindeck and sideboard accordingly. For any trial, I would main noughts and have some backup for bad aggro matchups in the side. We are already good against most of the other decks.

For the gp, if you have byes, then it's easy. Just run the conventional list with a normal sideboard. If you don't, you might gamble and play the same deck and play 3 straight aggro/burn decks or get lucky with matchups. Or you could gear your sideboard to more aggro decks or change around the main for nought to improve your chances in the early rounds. If I go, I would run the regular list with some more concessions to aggro in the board and gamble on not playing burn.

I think that some of you guys just need to make small changes for your metas and be aware that there isn't an absolutely "correct" list (not at you Piceli, you got screwed on matchups, I think). Tweak accordingly and there is absolutely no reason that Merfolk can't still perform at a reasonably high level.

Easyrider, my newest list is EXACTLY the same with -1 Shapesharer, -2 Wake Thrasher + 3 Sensei's Top. Filtering through the library for counters/stifle/Nought/Creatures is so important.

The weakness of Dreadfolk is the lack of Adepts, so SDT are included for more consistency. They've worked out well. Here's my testing last Saturday. I have to say that Merfolks do very well against any form of Blue deck. It SUCKS terribly against gobs since they have a more explosive turn 1, that kills our Standstill and hand after we FOW/daze off Vial/Lackey. Gobs have great recovery on Turn3 Matron, and it turns into a problem if we don't push fast enough. Getting 2 Lords online and racing them is crucial. I was wishing I had Echoing Truth in this matchup all long. I played against a mono-red Gob list that ran Threaten (unexpected) but it was really good on my dreadnought. He copied my threatened Nought with Kiki and humiliated my face lol.

But other than that, the deck played well. Vialing in Shapesharer in response to block surprises and makes your opponent lose out in attack/block phase. I managed to get 3-4 lords online on turn 5 thanks to shapesharer. I would highly suggest considering him in the game.

I was disappointed with Merfolks to be honest despite some experience with the deck (been playing it for 2 months on MWS). It trumps aggro-control, but loses to any non-blue aggro control, sweepers.dec etc. Not drawing dazes/FOW early game with Vial/Standstill is annoying since you can't offset the tempo lost from your counter. But I love and hate the deck because it sometimes just gives you golden hands: Vial, Standstill, Mutavaults, LoA, win.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by easyrider

@ Duke - I don't think you can improve your matchup against rock variants. You can't practically sideboard for their every angle. Burn and most agressive decks can't handle quick noughts, and right now, that seems to be the best answer for it to me. You shouldn't sideboard in noughts against such decks because they will have Grip or Grudge coming in for Vial and nought will just be another target. Also, nought will only eat up valuable sideboard slots.

If you are worried about smaller tournaments, then you should be able to figure out the metagame fairly quickly and then change your maindeck and sideboard accordingly. For any trial, I would main noughts and have some backup for bad aggro matchups in the side. We are already good against most of the other decks.

I think that some of you guys just need to make small changes for your metas and be aware that there isn't an absolutely "correct" list (not at you Piceli, you got screwed on matchups, I think). Tweak accordingly and there is absolutely no reason that Merfolk can't still perform at a reasonably high level.

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Yeah, I think a big part of my problem was that I was expecting a wider metagame than what I saw... Thank God I didn't play against Rock though, I could imagine that being pretty brutal, unless we were able to zerg rush their mana base and drop a lord in time to deal enough damage.

Back to the white splash though, despite how adding a color opens our mana base up to more hate, I think it would tighten up a lot of our weaknesses.

StP would be huge against a lot of the threat-light Aggro/Control decks floating around these days. I know that having the opponent gain 12 life from killing a Dreadnought would suck, but it gets a lot more bearable if they only pack 4 Dreadnoughts as their only significant kill card... Not to mention the flat-out utility of being able to drop their best threat as long as we have our splash online. (Force me into chumping your Goblin Piledriver with my Mutavault? I don't think so. Dead it as a response to you declaring your attack phase.)

Meddling Mage is such good disruption that I could see running two in Kira's slot, with maybe more in the sideboard...

Armageddon out of the sideboard would be huge against pretty much any deck that can't rival the board presence we get in turns one through three (and could even slow Burn down enough for us to scrape out a win -- haven't tested this yet.)

*I think in my mind, the real question of adding a splash (if testing deems it to be worthwhile) is how do we add a white splash and still retain all the advantages of our early game tempo, our tribal synergy, and our consistency in being able to drop threats while maintaining disruption?? If I added the splash, I would want to avoid turning this into just a typical Fish Deck...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

StP would be huge against a lot of the threat-light Aggro/Control decks floating around these days. I know that having the opponent gain 12 life from killing a Dreadnought would suck, but it gets a lot more bearable if they only pack 4 Dreadnoughts as their only significant kill card... Not to mention the flat-out utility of being able to drop their best threat as long as we have our splash online. (Force me into chumping your Goblin Piledriver with my Mutavault? I don't think so.)

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You mean the aggro control decks that we already beat? StoP doesn't beat goblins, ask a threshhold player.

Quote:

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Meddling Mage is such good disruption that I could see running two in Kira's slot, with maybe more in the sideboard...

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I don't know how to tell you this, but MM is not "such good disruption." Test it out. It's not even being played maindeck in decks that support it like Landstill. It's even being dropped out of the sideboards. It's the same thing as why Extirpate isn't used almost at all. Decks run enough ways to win that they don't have to rely on one card to win, or if they do, they have plenty of ways of getting through disruption.

Quote:

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Armageddon out of the sideboard would be huge against pretty much any deck that can't rival the board presence we get in turns one through three (and could even slow Burn down enough for us to scrape out a win -- haven't tested this yet.)

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Armageddon tech for burn decks... *sigh* How much mana do burn decks need to start burning you? 1. How many turns does it take to drop 1 land after you Armageddon?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

You mean the aggro control decks that we already beat? StoP doesn't beat goblins, ask a threshhold player.


I don't know how to tell you this, but MM is not "such good disruption." Test it out. It's not even being played maindeck in decks that support it like Landstill. It's even being dropped out of the sideboards. It's the same thing as why Extirpate isn't used almost at all. Decks run enough ways to win that they don't have to rely on one card to win, or if they do, they have plenty of ways of getting through disruption.


Armageddon tech for burn decks... *sigh* How much mana do burn decks need to start burning you? 1. How many turns does it take to drop 1 land after you Armageddon?

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Ok, you're right about Meddling Mage... Which is actually good that he's not worthwhile, because he's not a Merf, and we can use the space for something better. Honestly, the only reason I really want to splash is for Swords to Plowshares, and for Armageddon in decks that it would help against. You're also right that it wouldn't help at all against Burn. EDIT: I also would want either Disenchant or Seal of Cleansing in the SB, as either a three or a four-of.

Also, there's Galina's Knight, although I know a lot of folks consider him a waste of deck-space... I could see throwing him in the sideboard if testing shows me that he helps.

As far as ways to beat Burn, I'm thinking that the previous suggestion of Thorn of Amethyst could actually be pretty cool (I forget whose idea it was, or I'd give credit.) And I think it could actually help in a fair number of other match-ups: Control and Combo decks of pretty much every nature get slowed down significantly by it, and I think it could give us the tempo to pwn Burn, because it would make virtually every spell in their deck twice as expensive as it is, and they don't usually accumulate a lot of land in play. Keeping them on one spell per each of their untap phases could be pretty huge, and until they get four mana, that's all they'll get.

EDIT:
About the White splash, I think Mirror Entity is also pretty tight, especially off of a Vial activation after they've let through our attackers and/or tried to trade or kill our guys by blocking...(best-case scenario, I know...)

Also, don't forget that White already helps out against Burn just from StP in the main. It's not pretty, but StP on our own Wakethrasher (after he gets through for damage, ideally) would buy us a lot of time to race them.

I'm the big thorn guy although I'm sure its been thought of before. BTW your guys thoughts exactly where I am with this deck. I got to play thorn against storm combo and the guy is just "gg". So it completely hoses that match up apparently. its 1<chill against burn plus a little bit more because it effects your counterspells.

And I also wanted to make a comment here about the white splash cuz I played someone on MWS with it and they dominated. I felt it had a slight advantage. I thought Sygg, River Guide was actually really dope. It may be better then Kira. The islandwalk is sick. Also a thought we could run jitte with this guy unlike Kira. Kira DOES fly over moat and chump hippies though. But STP and O-rings are definitely great in the deck. Personally I like sticking with mono blue but it may be worth a splash. I may try it out can someone else try it out on here? I really like all the basics and not being prone to non-basic hate. But the advantages may outway it still I'm not sold. Now I know Finn says just play threshold instead and I see the point. But there are aspects of the deck which I like much more then thresh. the aether vial with standstill ontop with REAL card advantage. In addition to its non reliance on the graveyard. Both are big reasons to play it. Keep in mind we get Flooded Strand to fetch both basics too.

DukeDemonKn1ght: "-Disenchant/Seal of Cleansing (sideboard)"
I'm convinced seal of cleansing is superior in this current environment. Before enchantress lays down Sterling Grove and before countertop comes online basically.

Edit: Ya Mirror Entity sounds dope too. Ive played against him before that guy is brutal.

I see that I have alot of reading up to do... anyway, just wanted to tell you all that my tourney was a succes! Went 3-1-1 in swiss (only 18 people :/), and then proceeded to draw in the finals. I meet: round 1: Old school psycatog (Wtf?), 2-0 win round 2: Goblins, 1-2 loss :(, round 3: Threshold, 2-0 win, round 4: Goblins 2-0 win, round 5: Landstill draw (altough I won 2-0 when we played). Quater: Burn (yea, Burn!) 2-0 win, semi: Natural Order.dec, 2-0. Final same landstill so draw because of time.

Will update more as soon as I get time!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by memnarch

And I also wanted to make a comment here about the white splash cuz I played someone on MWS with it and they dominated. I felt it had a slight advantage. I thought Sygg, River Guide was actually really dope. It may be better then Kira. The islandwalk is sick. Also a thought we could run jitte with this guy unlike Kira. Kira DOES fly over moat and chump hippies though. But STP and O-rings are definitely great in the deck. Personally I like sticking with mono blue but it may be worth a splash. I may try it out can someone else try it out on here? I really like all the basics and not being prone to non-basic hate. But the advantages may outway it still I'm not sold. Now I know Finn says just play threshold instead and I see the point. But there are aspects of the deck which I like much more then thresh. the aether vial with standstill ontop with REAL card advantage. In addition to its non reliance on the graveyard. Both are big reasons to play it.

DukeDemonKn1ght: "-Disenchant/Seal of Cleansing (sideboard)"
I'm convinced seal of cleansing is superior in this current environment. Before enchantress lays down Sterling Grove and before countertop comes online basically.

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Hmm... I may need to reevaluate the UW Sygg. I'm currently trying out Jitte main-deck in the two slots where I previously had Kira, and I like your point that White Sygg lets us essentially have it both ways where Kira does not... although we only get his ability online if we leave mana open... so we need like four mana, including one white, if we want to attach Jitte and leave enough mana open to activate Sygg.... I guess that's not too much more pricey than trying to play Jitte + attach in the same turn though.

I'm right there with you on Seal of Cleansing. It fits in more with our plan to play out permanents during our turn, relying on the fact that our instants are either free (FoW, Daze) or mad-cheap (Stifle, StP in the White version, etc.)

As far as the mana base for the White splash, I think we could cheat it a little bit so we have more basic lands and still be all right. Something like 4 Flooded Strand, 2/3 Tundra, 1/2 Plains would pretty much cover our ass as far as getting the white splash online. With that, plus the seven non-basics we run de facto, we could have like... four or five basic Islands... It's not ideal, but I don't think it wouldn't be nearly as prone to non-basic hate as everyone seems to. Say goodbye to Back to Basics in the sideboard if we go white though.

Here's the way I figure it, as simply as I can put it: By splashing White, this deck would trade in its relative imperviousness to non-basic-land hate, in order to gain ways to deal with resolved permanents (Swords to Plowshares main, Seal of Cleansing in the SB). Only testing will tell me if it's worth it.

I'd like to start testing the White Splash, and the Dreadfolk variations on this deck so I can try before I buy, but I don't know how to install Magic Workstation. Can someone guide me through installing the free trial on a Mac? (Sorry to be a dumbass, but I really can't get it to work...)

*New Card Idea:
Inkfathom Infiltrator Before everyone shoots me down, consider that the main reason I want him is because he's awesome with Jitte. I know, I know, he requires double-blue mana, but I think his unblockability could function against a wide range of decks to force through damage. You know, the way Islandwalk works, except against decks that don't play Islands.

Has anyone tested this guy at all?? I'd probably only play him as a two-of, and only in a list with Jitte. But I can see some situations where he'd be pretty sweet.

EDIT: @Elof: Wow man... Well, I'm glad that Karma granted another Merfolk player some good match-ups to balance out my horrible match-up luck at my tourney yesterday (Tiny tournament, I went against Burn round 1 (0-2-0), MUC second round (2-0-0, naturally), and then Burn again round three (1-2-0)... Then for fourth round I got a bye because all the other lower-ranked players had already dropped, and I lost my third tie-breaker to some dude playing ANT who had my same match record, so I barely missed getting to play in the Top 8.

Congratulations elof! I have been having good success with the deck too. Question did you bring in B2B from the side for the landstill matchup? That match actually gives me trouble sometimes with all the sweepers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

As far as the mana base for the White splash, I think we could cheat it a little bit so we have more basic lands and still be all right. Something like 4 Flooded Strand, 2/3 Tundra, 1/2 Plains would pretty much cover our ass as far as getting the white splash online. With that, plus the seven non-basics we run de facto, we could have like... four or five basic Islands... It's not ideal, but I don't think it wouldn't be nearly as prone to non-basic hate as everyone seems to. Say goodbye to Back to Basics in the sideboard if we go white though.

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I totally agree we should still keep it very basic blue. Its just a splash we need. Although because of that I think we can still keep B2B. It does change the game plan slightly though however. Here is a quicklist Ill give it a try. Not saying this is a tested list guys. I had to compromise stifle to put in some of these goodies :( just want to try it all out. Mirror entity goes in for Wake Thrasher as the big beater. I think he is potentially bigger when you have creatures out, also you can pump in resp to burn so not as fragile.


land 18

3 mutavault
2 wasteland
4 flooded strand
2 tundra
6 island
1 plains

creatures 20

4 cursecatcher
4 silvergill adept
4 lord of atlantis
4 merrow reejerey
2 mirror entity
2 sygg, river guide

spells 22

4 FOW
3 daze
4 standstill
4 aether vial
4 STP
2 oblivion ring
1 Umezawa's Jitte

SB, kinda lost here wish I could fit stifle in here

4 relic of progenitus
2 propaganda
3 thorn of Amethst
2 back to basics
2 oblivion ring
2 worship

Quote:

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Originally Posted by memnarch

I totally agree we should still keep it very basic blue. Its just a splash we need. Although because of that I think we can still keep B2B. It does change the game plan slightly though however. Here is a quicklist Ill give it a try. Not saying this is a tested list guys. I had to compromise stifle to put in some of these goodies :( just want to try it all out. Mirror entity goes in for Wake Thrasher as the big beater. I think he is potentially bigger when you have creatures out, also you can pump in resp to burn so not as fragile.


land 18

3 mutavault
2 wasteland
4 flooded strand
2 tundra
6 island
1 plains

creatures 20

4 cursecatcher
4 silvergill adept
4 lord of atlantis
4 merrow reejerey
2 mirror entity
2 sygg, river guide

spells 22

4 FOW
3 daze
4 standstill
4 aether vial
4 STP
2 oblivion ring
1 Umezawa's Jitte

SB, kinda lost here wish I could fit stifle in here

4 relic of progenitus
2 propaganda
3 thorn of Amethst
2 back to basics
2 oblivion ring
2 worship

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This looks like pretty much what I would try as far as the White splash goes for the main-deck. I don't think Oblivion Ring should be in the main though (I'd try it in the SB), so I would probably cut those two cards in favor of +1 Tundra (or Wasteland, if the mana turns out to run smoothly with two), +1 Jitte. What I'd really like to do with the UW version though, is go for a Beatdown approach and try to find room for 2 Sygg River Guide, 2 Wake Thrasher, and 2 Mirror Entity. Imagine this: swing with the team, maxing out Mirror Entity's pump ability. Then, during the opponent's EOT, Vial in Wakethrasher now that you're all nice and tapped out. That would be a fucking stomping.

As far as the SB, I saw a list on DeckCheck that got first at a fifty-five man tourney a month ago in January. His sideboard was thusly:
3 Divert
3 Stifle
3 Armageddon
3 Chill
3 Relic of Progenitus

...I'm not really sure about Armageddon and Chill, but it seems like a pretty decent place to start for the White splash sideboard. If it were me, I might try some combination of Pithing Needle/Thorn of Amethyst/Seal of Cleansing/Oblivion Ring in these slots. Or maaaybe Back to Basics, but I'm not too convinced it doesn't hurt us too much, unless we side out Sygg for it. But even then, the only way we can get around it is to fetchie for our single Plains and hope it doesn't eat a Sinkhole or a Ghost Quarter.

So, not to be annoying, but I'm gonna keep asking until I get some help: Can someone assist me by telling me how to install Magic Work Station on a Power Mac?? Pretty please?:cry:

I'm sure this guy had Thorn of Amethyst before anybody else suggested it here:

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20349



Note how much the deck has improved in 4 months, so good job to the people working on it in a positive direction!

But maybe we can learn some lessons from the things that you have changed about the deck. Look carefully at the types of cards that used to be there (Back to Basics is in Franz's list, so is Tidings as a random 1-of... lost a bet mebbe?). In all the card changes, you can see a trend to lower CC, more flexible spells instead of high CC powerful cards. Take a minute to look through the old lists.

Also, the occasional Cryptic Command, etc. would show up. These are very powerful cards, but over time people have learned that consistency is far more important than the ability to occasionally, "Oops, I win" an opponent, particularly in Merfolk which lacks card filtration or ability to get rid of bad cards (other than FoW, I guess).


Although I'm all in favor of breaking trends, if you have a suggestion that costs more than about ~2 mana, you should probably take as many minutes to consider how often you could actually cast it, and maybe goldfish a game or two or just play one online. At the very least, you'll be able to present more honest pros and cons than, "It has an awesome ability for the price of 3U/2UU/1UU/2U. I think we [someone else] should look into this."


Pretty much every thread has these wild suggestions, but Merfolk seems particularly bogged down by unrealistic card suggestions. Other decks can afford a few high power, high CC cards, but Merfolk simply has zero slots for that high CC bomb. Endgame our mana goes to Manlands (if it has enough mana even for that) and early-midgame, we're busy winning with stuff that wins.

E.g. proven bad: Nobody plays the Merfolk Ringleader, and that card is amazing (amazing but totally unplayable). Any card trying to make the cut for 4cc would have to be noticeably better than "3U: draw 1-2 threats, stick a threat on the board" to get played. That's amazing endgame. Compare your suggestions to Ringleader. Or Sower of Temptation. Bombs, but not good enough for the price.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that people are working so hard on the deck and leaving no rock unturned before GP:C, but the search would be more profitable in the 1-2cc region, or if people took a minute to test the spells themselves.



For now: I turn to discussion of already-standard cards.


I really question why Kira sees so much play. She really hasn't been good for me. She costs 3. If you have him, you want to cast Lord turn 2. If your opponent has it, he'll want to Stop Lord then or during your next attack step. If you have Kira and you hold Lord, your opponent already took a big advantage (he's not guaranteed to even have Swords, but you just handed your opponent a turn of a suboptimal creature play).

Do you always hope to have Silvergill Adept two drop and a third land (two must be Islands) to segue into Kira? With that ramp, she's great, leading into a safe turn 4 lord and a 7 damage swing to lock in a turn 6 clock. Without that, she seems to clog up the system, either being a massive clog and slowing down my development or just being a shitty 2/2 for 3 (and not even a Merfolk at that... people complain about 1U for 1/1, but Kira is like 1UU for a 1/1).

Maybe it's just that when you cast Kira, you don't see the StP stuck in your opponent's hand, so you think it did nothing when it actually won the game. Still, I've been having problems getting her on the table before my lords and I'm lead to believe from the tempo problems I'm having that she's not helping me so much.

Or maybe it's that I get such a hard-on for stopping stop (+1!) that I forget Merfolk's gameplan and jump through hoops to resolve Kira only to lose board control. Even if that's true and it's my play mistake, I think Kira violates the aggressive, flexible swarm motif that Merfolk offers.


Also 300th post, thought I'd say something worth saying instead of my usual.



EDIT for example:

Quote:

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What I'd really like to do with the UW version though, is go for a Beatdown approach and try to find room for 2 Sygg River Guide, 2 Wake Thrasher, and 2 Mirror Entity. Imagine this: swing with the team, maxing out Mirror Entity's pump ability. Then, during the opponent's EOT, Vial in Wakethrasher now that you're all nice and tapped out. That would be a fucking stomping.

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Quintessential:
http://www.southparkclub.com/pix/character/timmy.gif

Tiebreakers don't go to the person who overextended the most.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

As far as the mana base for the White splash, I think we could cheat it a little bit so we have more basic lands and still be all right. Something like 4 Flooded Strand, 2/3 Tundra, 1/2 Plains would pretty much cover our ass as far as getting the white splash online. With that, plus the seven non-basics we run de facto, we could have like... four or five basic Islands... It's not ideal, but I don't think it wouldn't be nearly as prone to non-basic hate as everyone seems to.

---

Yes, turning our 13 basic lands into 4-6 basic lands sure sounds like it still would be impervious to non-basic hate. The virtual card advantage gained by staying mono colored makes it worth it by itself. Not to even mention if you are thinking of playing the white Sygg, you better have at least 4 mana, 2 of it being white or it isn't worth using him. Then when you play him you have to slow down a crapload so that you can just keep mana up to protect him. The only way you can even stay in the game is if you have a Vial, which you shouldn't be counting on to win.

Quote:

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*New Card Idea:
Inkfathom Infiltrator[/B] Before everyone shoots me down, consider that the main reason I want him is because he's awesome with Jitte. I know, I know, he requires double-blue mana, but I think his unblockability could function against a wide range of decks to force through damage. You know, the way Islandwalk works, except against decks that don't play Islands.

Has anyone tested this guy at all?? I'd probably only play him as a two-of, and only in a list with Jitte. But I can see some situations where he'd be pretty sweet.

---

Tried it, sometimes good, usually not. The lack of abilities other than evasion that this guy has make him not worth it. Think about every other creature in the deck and how they all have a secondary ability that helps us (aside from Thrasher, but his ability is to turn into the Blue Hulk). 2 for a 2/1 isn't worth it normally unless you have a lord. If you have a lord, you usually have your evasion already. Just not good enough IMO, and the fact that you can't even chump with him when you need to makes him a no go.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

What I'd really like to do with the UW version though, is go for a Beatdown approach and try to find room for 2 Sygg River Guide, 2 Wake Thrasher, and 2 Mirror Entity. Imagine this: swing with the team, maxing out Mirror Entity's pump ability. Then, during the opponent's EOT, Vial in Wakethrasher now that you're all nice and tapped out. That would be a fucking stomping.

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How do you figure?? So you vial in Thrasher, your guys and lands all untap and he's huge. You swing with all of your guys, tap out for Mirror Entity, and Thrasher becomes as big as the rest of them. This is horrible anti-synergy. Wake Thrasher and Mirror Entity are mutually exclusive, which is good because they both take up the 3cc slot.

Mirror Entity is huge in this deck and is in my opinion the main reason to splash white. But again, you lose so much trying to gain so little that it isn't worth it.

Quote:

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So, not to be annoying,

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Always a good start

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but I'm gonna keep asking until I get some help: Can someone assist me by telling me how to install Magic Work Station on a Power Mac?? Pretty please?

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Quote:

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:cry:

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There is a forum for this dude... and it isn't called the expletive deleted DTB forum.


EDIT:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Forbiddian

Maybe it's just that when you cast Kira, you don't see the StP stuck in your opponent's hand, so you think it did nothing when it actually won the game. Still, I've been having problems getting her on the table before my lords and I'm lead to believe from the tempo problems I'm having that she's not helping me so much.

Or maybe it's that I get such a hard-on for stopping stop (+1!) that I forget Merfolk's gameplan and jump through hoops to resolve Kira only to lose board control. Even if that's true and it's my play mistake, I think Kira violates the aggressive, flexible swarm motif that Merfolk offers.

---

I think you're forgetting the gameplan of merfolk, even while mentioning it. The swarm motif of merfolk only works if you have lords. Lords only stay on the table if the opponent doesn't play removal (name one aggro or control deck that doesn't have removal aside from MUC, who Kira dominates by herself), if the opponent plays instant removals, it's way more than stopping "(+1!)" It's effectively saving your entire team from running into a trap. Never underestimate the power of a spot removal on the guy that's letting all of your men walk through their defenses alone.
Merfolk are like slivers, crappy in 1s or 2s (Thrasher, you know I'm not talking about you honey) but when you get 3 or more it's effectively game over. So in response to Kira they use their last removal on your LoA. You now have a clear path to play as many unprotected lords as you want. Not to mention it shuts down Jitte's destructive powers for at least a turn.
I think you're running into another case of saying "____ card sucks because I haven't used it once in 10 games" where you haven't played against a deck that it completely dominates. Does that in itself scream that Kira should be sideboard? I'd say no because like I said, there is so much targeted removal in the format right now that you're better off having protection in the main deck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Forbiddian

Although I'm all in favor of breaking trends, if you have a suggestion that costs more than about ~2 mana, you should probably take as many minutes to consider how often you could actually cast it, and maybe goldfish a game or two or just play one online.

At the very least, you'll be able to present more honest pros and cons than, "It has an awesome ability for the price of 3U/2UU/1UU/2U. I think we [someone else] should look into this." It would have to be freaking amazing to justify costing 3 or 4.

Pretty much every thread has these wild suggestions, but Merfolk seems particularly bogged down by unrealistic card suggestions. Other decks can afford a few high power, high CC cards, but Merfolk simply has zero slots for that high CC bomb. Endgame its mana goes to Manlands (if it has any).


I really question why Kira sees so much play.

---

@Forbiddian: Your comment about people suggesting random overly expensive CMC cards seems sort of random... What suggestion are you responding to exactly? I haven't really seen any ridiculously over-priced suggestions around here recently, unless you're referring to how I've been talking about Armageddon... which I've come to the conclusion is not all that necessary, even if we splash White.

*Kira has also not been performing very well for me. I'm cutting her for Jitte, because all the Jitte-nay-sayers haven't really convinced me yet, and the arguments for Kira seem somewhat too situational... It's not like it's impossible to save a counterspell for their spot removal if it's really that much of an issue... Unless they play board-sweepers, in which case you're obviously better off letting them dead your creature and holding onto the counter for their mass-removal. During the tournament yesterday, about the best thing I was able to do with Kira is to trade her against a Sower of Temptation and get my Cursecatcher back...

*Anyways though, Forbiddian, do you have any comments on the White Splash version of the deck me and Memnarch have been talking about? Can you think of any other White cards we haven't mentioned, for example?

EDIT: @Phoenix Ignition's Evaluation of the White Splash: Again and as always, you make some valid points, but seriously, get off your high horse already.

*Wake Thrasher probably doesn't belong with Mirror Entity, you're correct. However, I don't see a huge problem with the play I listed as an example, since no one's holding a gun to your head to get you to activate Mirror Entity if you're already swinging with a 7/7 Wake Thrasher. Call me crazy, but I would just do the math after blockers were declared, and see if ME's activation would allow me to push through more damage... Honestly, since they're both auto-targets for your opponent if he has half a brain, it doesn't seem that nonsensical to just run both, since the opponent will maybe have removal for the first bomb you drop, but is less likely to be able to pick off your second powerhouse. Also, if you have to pick and choose between the two of them for your alpha strike, you're probably already winning.

*About UW Sygg: I don't think you need WW2 in order to play him effectively. Number one, about 1/4 of the time, you'll Vial him in, saving you the mana for his activation. And if you drop him turn two or three, paying his casting cost, and they use spot removal on him: Good. He did his job, which is to be a Merf creature (with natural Islandwalk and what passes for a fat ass in this deck, I might add), and to keep your opponent's spot removal pointed away from your bigger threats, like lords, Wake Thrasher, Mirror Entity, whatevas. I don't see how the example you listed goes anywhere close to proving "Sygg = suck." Especially since if you had played Kira (a full turn later), they could still use their spot removal by deading your best dude in response to Kira.

*As far as the mana base for the potential White splash: Well, this is one reason I'd like to test this version of the deck. Obviously we make ourselves more vulnerable to Wasteland, Back to Basics, and Blood Moon by splashing a color. However, these cards are definitely around in the meta-game, but it's not like they're everywhere from what I've seen so far. Not all decks pack mana disruption, and it's not like we're already impervious to it. Granted, we're safe from color screw with the Mono-Blue list, but having someone Waste a Mutavault (or even worse, one of our tapped Wastelands-- they do make mana after all, and sometimes we need it) already hurts. And hey, that's why we slip in a copy of basic Plains, plus the requisite fetchies. Waste on a fetchie does very little, although you have to wait for them to target it in order to resolve the fetchie... And Wasteland on a Plains does nuszing, Lebowski.

I looked on DeckCheck though, and the dude that got first place with the UW list I posted the link to played against a Top 8 where three other decks besides his were packing Wasteland. So I don't get the impression that winning is undoable for someone using the White splash, even facing mana disruption.

*As far as the White Splash "losing so much to gain so little," Swords to Plowshares and Seal of Cleansing hardly seem like insignificant gains to me. As far as I'm concerned, Mirror Entity is just icing on the cake (and bittersweet icing at that, if he forces me to cut Wake Thrasher, as you so kindly show us your reasoning on)

*As far as me asking for help with MWS: If wasting forum space really offends you that much, why don't you just PM all further criticisms of me and what I say and do to me, instead of eating up our precious, limited virtual cyberspace? Or you could even be a real nice guy and post a link to the MWS forum, so I can stop harassing folks for help...

Tiny update again, havn't gotten time to read through it still (I'm at work).

@Inkfanthom: I have looked at this guy from time to time (heck, I even got 2 foil ones), the only problem is a small body and impossible to cast. Good with Sygg perhaps in an more islandversion.

@Btb: Yes, boarded in 2 copies (the only one) vs Standstill. I also boarded in 2 Annul and 3 Pithing Needle. I don't think Landstill should be any problems at all regardless of all the sweepers. I boarded out 2 Relics (Didn't see any Loam before the tournament and only a few goyfs), 4 Standstill and 1 Wake.

Will reply more as I have the chance...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

I don't see how the example you listed goes anywhere close to proving "Sygg = suck."

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I don't think it's necessary to prove that a card that doesn't "suck" sucks. I argued that he slows down the deck and requires too many resources to be worth using properly. I "prove" he's worse than other cards, which should be sufficient for not playing him.

Quote:

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*As far as the mana base for the potential White splash: Well, this is one reason I'd like to test this version of the deck. Obviously we make ourselves more vulnerable to Wasteland, Back to Basics, and Blood Moon by splashing a color. However, these cards are definitely around in the meta-game, but it's not like they're everywhere from what I've seen so far. Not all decks pack mana disruption, and it's not like we're already impervious to it. Granted, we're safe from color screw with the Mono-Blue list, but having someone Waste a Mutavault (or even worse, one of our tapped Wastelands-- they do make mana after all, and sometimes we need it) already hurts. And hey, that's why we slip in a copy of basic Plains, plus the requisite fetchies

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I'd actually say that Stifle now rivals Wasteland in effectiveness of killing lands. And is used very widely. Pair this with Wasteland, Dust Bowl, B2B, and other decks that are specifically designed to screw over people running non-basics. Well you can do it if you want, again no one is forcing you to play anything. I'm just saying I've tried white splash, and even though I went 5-0 with it (the people at that tournament sucked) I still know that it isn't as effective as mono U.

Quote:

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I looked on DeckCheck though, and the dude that got first place with the UW list I posted the link to played against a Top 8 where three other decks besides his were packing Wasteland. So I don't get the impression that winning is undoable for someone using the White splash, even facing mana disruption.

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I dare 1 person to suggest that winning is undoable with any deck, even 60 basic lands. That person would be an idiot. The discussion here is to what is better! Only Sith deal in absolutes (or good ol' W. Bush amirite). Obviously decks with dual lands win!!!! Why did we all pay ~100$ per playset if they don't?!

Quote:

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If wasting forum space really offends you that much, why don't you just PM all further criticisms of me and what I say and do to me, instead of eating up our precious, limited virtual cyberspace? Or you could even be a real nice guy and post a link to the MWS forum, so I can stop harassing folks for help...

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Because the horrible thing about the internet is that the idiot who posts all the time (this is an analogy, if you feel like I'm talking about you then you're putting those words in my mouth) will be read more than the person who posts little and knows what he's talking about.

Not to compare either one of us to either one of those roles, but if people keep seeing posts like "61 cards is a good compromise" or "I think the deck should run Meddling Mage" they are going to A. Think that merfolk got to DTB by luck and only idiots make and run the deck, or B. Actually agree with retarded ideas and I just can't stand to see the deck that I've been defending for the past 5 months be subject to something that terrible.

Or you could go to the Computer Noobs forum, located at the bottom of The Source Forums for any of your MWS questions...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

Or you could go to the Computer Noobs forum, located at the bottom of The Source Forums for any of your MWS questions...

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Thanx. You've gotta be pulling off some sweet tech moves to be getting wins with that 60-basic-lands.dec though. Do you just wait until your opponent can no longer draw any cards, comfortable in the knowledge that your list literally has no bad top-deck draws? :wink:

On the other hand, I like how you say "I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about morons who say it might be ok to run 61 card decks and folks who don't know that Meddling Mage is no longer one of the cool kids..." When I'm sure you know full well it was me who told Finn that I can see worse ideas than running 61, and I was only just now trying to see what folks thought of Meddling Mage. That's kind of like saying "with all due respect" and then just going ahead and saying whatever you want to, to loosely quote Family Guy. :wink:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

On the other hand, I like how you say "I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about morons who say it might be ok to run 61 card decks and folks who don't know that Meddling Mage is no longer one of the cool kids..." When I'm sure you know full well it was me who told Finn that I can see worse ideas than running 61, and I was only just now trying to see what folks thought of Meddling Mage.

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Those were the only suggestions that came up off of the top of my head (or were on the page so I could just scroll down and find them *ahem* Meddling Mage). I also could name many more, but I don't actively want to offend you or Finn (bet you didn't see that coming).

Anyway, the point of it is, if someone doesn't step in and tell you to look at a suggestion like using 61 cards then people might start to accept it, and that's an awful statement about the deck itself.

@White splash:
I have to say that Phoenix is right in most/all of the cases. Will try to elaborate.

@White Sygg:
Yes, he cost UW. Yes, you could vial him. Yes, you don't "have" to keep UW open. However, many times you will try to outsmart your opponent, leaving Vial at 2, hoping he will play removal so you could vial in Sygg and counter it! yay... Cute trick, doesn't work like that in real live though... The thing that White Sygg does is that it makes a double sphere of resistance on you. It's not good in the early game just like jitte is not good in the early game. Sygg is good when you have few cards in hand and plenty of land. Kira is in this aspect better because she/he/it comes down asap and does her thing. if you are going to play white sygg, play him as a 2/2 for 2 with islandwalk that sometimes has an extra abillity. I'm not saying it's a bad card and I would definitly like it if I where to play with as it is a merfolk and such, BUT I would not overrecommend him. He is NOT as good as he looks.

@Mirror Entity vs Wake Thrasher:
This sucks! You can't play both. NOPE! NO WAY! I tried this in the early days and attacked with a mirror, 11/11 Wake and a lord. My opponent blocked and I was going to use the mirror abillity and then... yeah, right... suddenly my wake was not so big anymore... the thing is, either you have an overpriced 1/1 in Wake Thrasher or you have an overpirced 1/1 Mirror Entity. Play white? Play Mirror!

@Other white cards:
I could see Plow beeing used against Piledriver. That is the only card I would fear except for early Noughts. Every other creature (might be missing someone) could just as easly be answered with E-Truth. However, if you are going to play white, you need at least 21 lands, as both Mirror and Sygg requiers more mana. This leads me on to the following...

@Forbiddian:
Your absolutly right. I went from 3 btb to 2 btb because the extra 1 cost just so much more. Spells we want to play should cost 0-2, or if they cost more be used very rarly. Jitte for example is a 4cc spell. However, I'm considering playing it in SB because it counters opponents jitte and sometimes it costs 2 less to play, altough rarly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

I dare 1 person to suggest that winning is undoable with any deck, even 60 basic lands.

... if people keep seeing posts like "61 cards is a good compromise"

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A deck with 61 basic lands is strictly better than a deck with 60 basic lands.

Do I win the internet, yet?

Oh, forgot the list I played:
Creatures:
18 standard (you know which)
+1 Wake Thrasher

Spells:
4 Vial
4 FoW
3 Daze
3 Stifle
4 Standstill
2 Relic (yea, I didn't see any Loam and very few goyfs, figuered I could drop one for a Wake since it might surprise win alot of duels (and in fact, very few knew about the card))
2 Echoing Truth (I had only got 1 Kira in the post so i figuered it would be better to try out Truth again. Pleasantly surprised! Think I will keep playing these 2 instead of Kira for a while, it bounced alot of pain in the as cards and was really good all day)

Lands:
6 Island
6 Snow-Islands (yea, someone played Predict...)
3 Mutavaults
4 Wastelands

SB:
2 Annul (Will keep testing these)
3 Divert (Not sure about these)
2 Back to Basics
3 Hydroblast
1 Echoing Truth
3 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus

Would like to try to fit in Jitte in the sideboard somewhere. And also, what do you think is the best way to "counter" opponents Pyro/Red Blasts? Is there any tech?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Forbiddian

A deck with 61 basic lands is strictly better than a deck with 60 basic lands.

Do I win the internet, yet?

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Dammit. No one better bring that to the GP, since I'm going to bring out my secret tech 62basicland.dec Whenever I play against a real deck I'm going to just go "God damn this mana flood, no wonder why I lost all my games today..."


On a side note, I've been testing the list with Dreadnaughts and Shapesharer, and while I don't think it's better against tier 1 decks, all of you who don't have 2-3 byes in the GP should probably use it if you have the Dreadnaughts. It beats random crap decks much more easily and doesn't rely on the deck you're playing against to be fine tuned.

I think Merfolk are a lot like TA in the respect that they kind of require the opponent to be running a good deck in order to actually be really good.

EDIT:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elof

Would like to try to fit in Jitte in the sideboard somewhere. And also, what do you think is the best way to "counter" opponents Pyro/Red Blasts? Is there any tech?

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Not that I've found. In fact adding in Blue/hydroblasts doesn't really improve your game any when they have red blasts. I have however considered running CotV sideboard @1, which would completely hurt burn decks and any pyroblast effects. It hurts us too though, and is a tad slow, so it may not be the best answer.

Yea, I know that my blasts only negates their blast but it's still the best thing we have... :/

I was looking at Prismwake Merrow for a sec but it does cost to much to be effective :( Nice trick to block Pildrivers thou...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elof

Would like to try to fit in Jitte in the sideboard somewhere. And also, what do you think is the best way to "counter" opponents Pyro/Red Blasts? Is there any tech?

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At the last tournament, a merfolk player divert'd my pyroblast that was a complete game changing. (I was countering a FOW, not killing a Merfolk)

So I guess BEB and Divert could be answer to it, even if BEB is a bit clunky to have in hand...

So I've read most of the pages, and have seen some comments on what are some of the bad match ups for merfolk.

I was hoping you guys could help me breakdown all the match ups in to 3 categories:

Good
50/50
Bad


This would be much appreciated as I am new to legacy and plan on playing this deck in Chicago.

@ Duke - I think that the white splash for just StP and Disenchant effects is good enough. I don't like Sygg, River Guide because I can't imagine using his effect multiple times in a turn. Also, I think that you shouldn't play any Basic Plains because turn 2 Lord is a large priority for us. Don't mind Phoenix. He goes out of his way to be an ass a lot of the time instead of just being decent.

@ Forbiddian - I agree completely about Kira. I would always to have a quick start so I didn't want to play Kira first, which completely ruins the point of playing her. She is just a 2/2 for 3 in way too many matchups. She was relegated to the board, but then she got dumped for other cards.

@ White Splash: ...the wheels on the bus go round and round. And again, if I were doing this, I would still rather use Kira than Sygg. I might even consider Mother of Runes over Sygg. UW is a rather high price to pay for his ability in this format, especially if you don't have a Vial. And are there really people willing to bring a deck with 7 white mana sources to a tournament with no Brainstorm in the deck? Even if you managed to get him and one of your white mana out at the same time, you'd never resolve him and use him on the same turn. So he would get zapped while you totally mangled your mana base to fit him. And lemme tell ya, the ones I saw you guys post are a mess. It's not personal. It is a fact. Now add to that the fact that a single opposing Wasteland or Stifle kicks you in the shins for all that pretty white removal as well, and it seems pretty clear to me. This deck can not pursue its current niche in the metagame in two colors. Try it and you get a completely inconsistent deck. BTW, I don't advocate using Kira either - not in the main.

@ 61 cards: Certainly adding cards past 60 can be a mistake, especially in the extreme case. But I say that in this particular case it is not for the reasons I already stated clearly. And Phoenix, I don't need your snark. I say that people have been blindly adhering to that idea out of fear of wearing a scarlet letter and that you are doing so right now (out of the side of your mouth no less). I defy you to prove that I am making a mathematical or strategic blunder by advocating 61 cards in this deck. Until you can do so, you are just making personal attacks that are unhelpful to say the least.

@matchups:

Quote:

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So I've read most of the pages, and have seen some comments on what are some of the bad match ups for merfolk.

I was hoping you guys could help me breakdown all the match ups in to 3 categories:

Good
50/50
Bad


This would be much appreciated as I am new to legacy and plan on playing this deck in Chicago.

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We really need to do this, but I am afraid that as long as there is infighting about the set of colors we are using, it can't be trusted. For me, I have seen no arguments on this thread recently to lead me away of what my own testing has revealed. I stand by what I have in the OP. I think we would be headed down a path to completion in time if I could get some people to consider weaknesses in that design or something very close instead of looking to reinvent the wheel at this point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Finn

@ 61 cards: Certainly adding cards past 60 can be a mistake, especially in the extreme case. But I say that in this particular case it is not for the reasons I already stated clearly. And Phoenix, I don't need your snark. I say that people have been blindly adhering to that idea out of fear of wearing a scarlet letter and that you are doing so right now (out of the side of your mouth no less). I defy you to prove that I am making a mathematical or strategic blunder by advocating 61 cards in this deck. Until you can do so, you are just making personal attacks that are unhelpful to say the least.

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Lol, fine. I'll spend my time on it because you don't want to spend yours. I'm busy right now, and easy math is going to get in the way of this quantum shit I have due tomorrow.

Is the word of the thread Snark? FFS I haven't heard that used in real life ever.

EDIT:

I agree with Elof's quick summary found below. But don't forget Ravager probably beats us too (plays all artifact lands).

@Finn+Mealing: This is a really good idéa. Can anyone name the decks that we want to know statistics for? It would be easier to define result then.

More or less you could summarise it basicly with:
Good - Opponents play Islands
50/50 - Swamps, Forest, Plains.
Bad - Mountains.

Not quite true but it could give you something to start with until we can categorize/summarize which decks we want to know about the matchups.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elof

@Finn+Mealing: This is a really good idéa. Can anyone name the decks that we want to know statistics for? It would be easier to define result then.

More or less you could summarise it basicly with:
Good - Opponents play Islands
50/50 - Swamps, Forest, Plains.
Bad - Mountains.

Not quite true but it could give you something to start with until we can categorize/summarize which decks we want to know about the matchups.

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There seems to be a second dimension tied to the number of damage sources the opponent plays. More damage sources tends to be less favorable. Decks that play lots of damage sources like Goblins, Zoo, and Burn are generally tougher matches than ones that play fewer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elof

@Finn+Mealing: This is a really good idéa. Can anyone name the decks that we want to know statistics for? It would be easier to define result then.

More or less you could summarise it basicly with:
Good - Opponents play Islands
50/50 - Swamps, Forest, Plains.
Bad - Mountains.

Not quite true but it could give you something to start with until we can categorize/summarize which decks we want to know about the matchups.

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Haha! After reading Mealings Post I had EXACTLY this answer in mind although when I think about it now I would rate it slightly different:

Good - Opponents play Islands
50/50 - Plains, Swamps, Forests (getting worse to the end of the list)
Bad - Mountains.

So the worst matchup you could possibly have is R/W in my opinion.
@Duke / Phoenix: You stated both but in a different way that Merfolk is good against "good" decks or against Tier-1 decks. That is exactly what my theory about merfolk is all about. If you can't make the first games your are stuck in swamp of Tier-2 decks Merfolk isn't really good at beating. If you win initially, you can swim with all the blue based decks on the top and give them hard times. Especially small touraments usually have a very thin Deck2Beat density so Merfolks are not very well prepared for a random Meta.

Congratz to U Elof ... and to Piceli ... I know how you feel I had the same bad matchups in my last real life tourney but it proves that once you are dragged down into the Tier-2 swamp it is hard to get out again ;) Survival Elves (someone else mentioned that), The Rock, Affinity and pure Aggro are 50/50 to bad matchups and basically elofs "Manamatrix" of matchups applies wonderfully.

Regarding the white splash: This is rather theoretical .... splashing W adds more flexibility at the cost of loosing focus. So matches against random opponents during the first games of a tourney will be improved slightly due to the extra flexibility but loosing focus will deny you the path to victory more often against Tier-1 (U based) decks up the ladder. In the end I'd rather hope for some initial good matches with Mono U Merfolks with the option to come out 1st than playing a Uw merfolk list with an eventually good start but loosing steam surely Top8.

Dreadnought: I have been testing a very basic list with Dreadnoughts because I did want to hurt the Merfolk shell as little as possible and without becoming a Dreadfolk list. The changes are: -2 Kira, -3 Relics, +4 Dreadnought, +1 Trickbind. Taking out Kira for Nought is pretty natural. Also taking out Relics feels quite good because you are loosing a reactive card that is played main to nullify or shrink the most dangerous and often played creatures these days (Stalker, Goyf). If not for these creatures I would happily play Relics SB. Dreadnought now is here for the same reason as relics are to have an option against those creatures except that Dreadnought is an offensive answer to outrace every creature existing in Magic history ;). Now Relics should be still in the SB because they are good in a lot of other matchups that depend heavily on graveyard shit. One extra stifle-effect is present main to be sure to have it available when a Nought is in hand (Trickbind).
I started out with 3 Dreadnought main but soon found out that this is still too random. Even with 4 main I usually can pull the trick only 45% of all games for the win (actually I had few games where I could have play Dreadnought but it was too late to matter). I tested around 12 games against my worst nightmare RG Beats aka Goyfsligh. Adding Noughts ramped up the matchup from felt 20/80 to about 45/55. I could just win randomly with a Dreadnought often trying to buy time against the bigger R/G creatures until I can play him with Stifle. Goyfsligh more or less is a placeholder here for a lot of tough matchups Merfolk has. To stress elofs "Manamatrix" of matchups again it is suberb against "Mountains" and quite good against "Forests". Usually I was able to protect the Naught at least once against removal (e.g. Tin Street Hooligan). This is sufficient because it just takes one swing maximum two to win. Note that I didn't play sideboarded matchups so nothing of that green split second spells that can spoil our fun. That has to be addressed if the initial Dreadnought tweak is working (well or is dropped)
Still Iam not satisfied with the randomness. I never was in need of Shapesharer because to copy a Dreadnought (and not just a Lord) you need to have one first, so either Merfolks gets better in buying time (which needs a more controlish shell like Dreadstill) or it finds Dreadnoughts more frequently and faster. So Trinket Mage would be the next best fit here. Unfortunately there are no cards anymore I would like to cut ... so maybe just for testing I will go -2 Wakethrasher +2 Trinket Mages.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

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Originally Posted by Nekrataal

Any thoughts or suggestions?

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It's a bit out there, but with the 3 cc curve on the vial, and the other damage sources, it might be interesting to try Phyrexian Soulgorgers as extra dreadnoughts since most of the matchups that are problematic can be raced.

Mask of the Mimic seems like a card that could be interesting in the Aggro/burn matchup, especially in combination with Dreadnoughts. Sacking in front of destruction mitigates the x-for-1 factor on mask, and pulling out Silvergills or Lords with it isn't bad.

@ easyrider yeah, as I wrote 'at first' I tried just shapesharer without Dreadnought. Later games I just changed cards, Wake - out Dreadnought - in, and also I changed Stifle for Echoing Truth and results were much better, even though that I lost chance of having trick 2nd turn Dreadnought with Stifle. As crz87 posted, it is just surprise and we don't actully need it ftw. (I know that taking Stifle out might be wrong, but I wanted just to try it at least)

@ crz87 I would like to ask, what is your experience with Shapesharer + Mutavault. I found myself scraping my head, whether keep mana for Shapesharer or Mutavault ...

Well guys, I might be noob since I stopped playing Magic about 10 years ago and started again about year ago again (so I am pretty off), but even 10 years ago nobody tried (seriously) to run 61 cards decks. Back then for us was argument "why we can't have just 40cards decks :(" for obvious reasons enough. Magic has changed alot since then, but I am not convinced, that +1 card is any of help.

Exactly for reasons Piceli89 posted in his report I ask myslef what good white splash would be, and that's other reason why I chose Affinity to test against. (again I don't want to try beat this deck, just to be less 'frustrated')

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nekrataal

Dreadnought: I have been testing a very basic list with Dreadnoughts because I did want to hurt the Merfolk shell as little as possible and without becoming a Dreadfolk list. The changes are: -2 Kira, -3 Relics, +4 Dreadnought, +1 Trickbind.

I started out with 3 Dreadnought main but soon found out that this is still too random.

Still Iam not satisfied with the randomness. I never was in need of Shapesharer because to copy a Dreadnought (and not just a Lord) you need to have one first, so either Merfolks gets better in buying time (which needs a more controlish shell like Dreadstill) or it finds Dreadnoughts more frequently and faster. So Trinket Mage would be the next best fit here. Unfortunately there are no cards anymore I would like to cut ... so maybe just for testing I will go -2 Wakethrasher +2 Trinket Mages.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

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Trinket Mage could be a good way to ensure you get Dreadnought online... But if you're going to pack Trinket Mage, I'd try to slip one Relic back into the main deck, in order to give him a little more utility...

You've hit the nail on the head though: It's getting more and more impossible to cut any cards from the main-deck... And taking out Thrasher for Trinket Mage definitely dulls our tribal synergy...

@Mealing: I guess it's one of my thousands of pet-peeves, but it bothers me when people ask for general match percentages. I guess it shouldn't, since we all secretly have fantasies about going Bayesian about a whole metagame with perfect numbers and formulating the best deck (at least I have those fantasies...), but it seems like they're somewhat cheating from my perspective: gauging up other people's play and then choosing which deck to build based on that rather than their own ability to choose a deck. Netdecking supreme.

But it's really, really hard to get exact match win percentages. Or even vague match win percentages. Even if you asked me for something very specific like, "What is Merfolk's win percentage against TES?" (Incidentally, Phoenix pointed out that I got TES and ANT confused in my strategic discussion... I guess better players can tell the difference, the way an enologist distinguishes between two different years of the same wine from the same industrialized vineyard -- it's all black storm or 24 proof to me). There's still a pretty big change in win percentage based on the strategy that you take and the strategy that your opponent takes.

Anyway, just based on statistics, it would take a large number of games played to resolve a decent match win percentage (like 60% +/- 5%). But say that you test 1000 games and get a 60% win ratio, but someone else tests and gets an 80% win ratio after 1000 games. Who's to say you're right and he's wrong? Obviously such a large difference reflects skill in some way. It could be that he's a tight player and scraped 20% more out of the matchup than you did just through clean play. It could be he found a strategy that works 20% better than your strategy. It could be that his deck composition is different enough to let him win more (or even change strategies completely). It could be that his opponent(s) had an inferior strategy or was a bad player(s) or a combination of these factors.


When you get down to the specifics like match win percentage, people ALWAYS call bullshit, some test the deck themselves, and those who do get worse results. Part of that is that people tend to inflate their own decks (and it really IS bullshit when people do that). But the other truth is that the people who have the insight to design competitive decks are going to be better with those decks. They know the ins and outs of the deck. They know all the justification for putting in card X or cutting card Y. They can play to their deck's strengths and dodge the weaknesses, and they can better judge those strengths and weaknesses in light of changing play.

You don't have to look far to see how much player skill destroys match win percentages: Every DTB beats Threshold and was designed to beat Threshold. Yet half the people play Threshold and it continues to put out good numbers, including a shocking >2:1 in T8 play for UGr thresh over the last 3 months according to Deckcheck.

I used to think everyone just had a big epeen, but if you sum up the match win percentages across every deck across all the threads, I'm sure you'll get to at least 120% ("My deck trounces your deck. 70% in my favor." is consensus in one thread, yet in the opposing war camp, "Yeah, it's a tough matchup, but it's 50%, we have the tools needed." gets unilateral support). Not that anybody is lying, just the people writing the match win percentages are the people willing to test the deck and they're likely much better MTG players than average.


So that's why I don't trust match win percentages spouted out by people on The Source or anywhere else.



BTW, here's the T8 match results for the 30 most recent Merfolk decks to make it to a top 8 on DC. This information is available to everyone anyway:

1st place: 8
2nd place: 4
3rd place: 4
Fourth place: 1
Fifth-Eighth place: 13

Median place: 3rd
Mode place: 1st

Record: 37-22
Win Ratio: 1.682 or p=0.627
Tournament Win Probability Given Top 8 Swiss: 0.267

More analysis reveals that Merfolk does better in the later rounds, supporting the belief that Merfolk does better against better decks. Its win ratio is 1.3 in the first round, but ramps up to 2.4 in the semifinals and 2.0 in finals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Forbiddian

BTW, here's the T8 match results for the 30 most recent Merfolk decks to make it to a top 8 on DC. This information is available to everyone anyway:

1st place: 8
2nd place: 4
3rd place: 4
Fourth place: 1
Fifth-Eighth place: 13

Median place: 3rd
Mode place: 1st

Record: 37-22
Win Ratio: 1.682 or p=0.627
Tournament Win Probability Given Top 8 Swiss: 0.267

More analysis reveals that Merfolk does better in the later rounds, supporting the belief that Merfolk does better against better decks. Its win ratio is 1.3 in the first round, but ramps up to 2.4 in the semifinals and 2.0 in finals.

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Well I didn't quite get your numbers here but whatever you figured out seems to fit with my personal impression how Merfolks are doing. So we have to tweak the deck to play better against random decks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

Trinket Mage could be a good way to ensure you get Dreadnought online... But if you're going to pack Trinket Mage, I'd try to slip one Relic back into the main deck, in order to give him a little more utility...

You've hit the nail on the head though: It's getting more and more impossible to cut any cards from the main-deck... And taking out Thrasher for Trinket Mage definitely dulls our tribal synergy...

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There is no space for Relic main. The deck is more agressive without it. Dreadnoughts fill part of the role Relics had before but in a more proactive way. I do not want a toolbox, I just what a Dreadnought asap. ;)

Yeah taking out Thrasher means taking away our biggest beater. But then we have 4 Dreadnought so this kind of compensates in terms of size. Synergy of course is not gained with Trinket Mage and sadly it is quite slow and lacks the surprise effect. Still there are more critters in the deck than before and loosing Thrasher is the only price you pay to have a Dreadnought online > 50% of the games. Thrasher kind of is the weakest link here. Often he just gets burned and all other Merfolks are more valuable for the overall strategy like Cursecatcher fro the denial package, Adept for extra drawing (into a Stifle or Nought) and so on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nekrataal

Well I didn't quite get your numbers here but whatever you figured out seems to fit with my personal impression how Merfolks are doing. So we have to tweak the deck to play better against random decks.



There is no space for Relic main. The deck is more agressive without it. Dreadnoughts fill part of the role Relics had before but in a more proactive way. I do not want a toolbox, I just what a Dreadnought asap. ;)

Yeah taking out Thrasher means taking away our biggest beater. But then we have 4 Dreadnought so this kind of compensates in terms of size. Synergy of course is not gained with Trinket Mage and sadly it is quite slow and lacks the surprise effect. Still there are more critters in the deck than before and loosing Thrasher is the only price you pay to have a Dreadnought online > 50% of the games. Thrasher kind of is the weakest link here. Often he just gets burned and all other Merfolks are more valuable for the overall strategy like Cursecatcher fro the denial package, Adept for extra drawing (into a Stifle or Nought) and so on.

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I'll buy your logic that Thrasher is pretty much the only reasonable thing to cut in favor of Trinket Mage... It still gets a sad-face from me, because Thrasher makes me smile, but on the other hand, Trinket Mage would help you get a few things from the sideboard online more smoothly (like Needle and Relic, should you choose to run them)... So T-Mage already comes with a couple additional benefits besides just Nought-tutor if you deem these cards good in the sideboard... You may decide you don't need Relic, since 'Nought pwns 'Goyf anyways, but I'd still squeeze Relic in the SB if I were you because it's versatile against a lot of different decks.

On the other hand though, after my shitty luck at the PTQ this weekend, I'm considering going out of my way to make another one this coming weekend, and I want to clad my deck in armor against random scrubby Pure-Aggro decks... I don't have access to Dreadnoughts from anyone I know, but I know a dude who'd probably let me borrow some Tundras and Flooded Strands. I'm wondering if y'all think that running the White Splash for a relatively small GP Trial makes sense, so I can try to get myself bye rounds, and then run Mono-Blue Folk in Chicago, if I make it up there. Does that seem like it would help out, given that I mostly expect Aggro (Burn, Gobs, Zoo, Affinity, etc.) at the Trial based on what I saw at the last one?

I really would like to do well at this tournament, since I'm inconveniencing myself to even make it up there. Is the White Splash a viable way to deal with random scrub decks, or does Dreadnought just simply outshine every time?? Note I'm not asking which is the better deck, I just want to know what seems better against a random meta at a small-ish event. :confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

I really would like to do well at this tournament, since I'm inconveniencing myself to even make it up there. Is the White Splash a viable way to deal with random scrub decks, or does Dreadnought just simply outshine every time?? Note I'm not asking which is the better deck, I just want to know what seems better against a random meta at a small-ish event. :confused:

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My tournament experience is very limited, so you should definitely make sure what I'm saying makes sense to you.

Against a random field the more reliable, more proactive, and faster decks tend to do better. Reliability keeps you from losing to yourself. Being proactive means that you're less concerned about your opponent's game plan. And being faster means that you've got a better chance to outrun something that you didn't anticipate.

As it stands, Merfolk is something of a tripple-threat deck with control elements in the form of stifle, FoW, daze, wasteland and cursecatcher, aggro elemtents like the lords, and, sometimes, combo components like the dreadnought. Against an unfamiliar meta, I'd be looking to push the deck towards the aggro/combo end of things. Possibly even trading out a couple of islands for fetches and running brainstorms to improve the combo threat.

The white splash is Sygg, Disenchant, or STP. More control, which is not what I'd like to do for a random meta. Black and green splash for bob and 'goyf/grip respectively are
IMHO better for an unknown field.