[Deck] Triton's Minions

Arguably the most overrated card I've found in this archetype in order,

1) Aether Vial, I'd play with Merrow Reejerey before I cut Merrow Reejerey for his dissynergy with Aether Vial. Aether Vial is the card that has dissynergy with Merrower Reejerey and not the other way around, and I haven't found a reason to "cheat" costs on a flat curve when hard casting Merfolk with a Merrow Reejerey on the board can untap a land and "cheat" costs that way.

2) Standstill, with out Aether Vial and Mishra's Factory, Standstill is awful.

3) Curiosity, just splash for Dark Confidant instead.

4) Rishadan Port, the deck has enough mana denial with Wasteland, Stifle and Merrow Reejerey as it is, and I'd rather sit back on Counterspell mana than fiddle with my opponent's lands.

5) Reef Shaman and Tidal Warriors, while they're very synergistic, they're also very unnecessary. You can do a lot of damage to the opponent with just Wasteland and Stifle, and as long as you are playing Umezawa's Jitte to establish a clock or Counterspell to protect your board, you can bring the game home against control. Against aggro, you want to take them on toe to toe with 8 pump creatures and Sygg, River Guide instead of racing with evasion. You aren't faster than other aggro decks, so racing is often a moot point.

6) Ponder, frankly, you don't want to drop your guard with Stifle, Spellsnare or Counterspell for a tempo sink in a tempo deck.

7) Balance/Top, with out 8+ cantrips and/or Trinket Mage it's inconsistent against aggro-control and worthless against aggro, which is where you need the most help.

8) Mono-U, you can easily afford to splash a color and both white and black have a lot to offer.

@Finn: Looks pretty solid. I haven't done enough testing to perfect the number of everything but 3 Port/Stifle/Ponder seems solid as they can clog an opening hand.

@Breathweapon: I appreciate the response and would always prefer opinions over waffling that doesn't help at all. That being said, let's tangle, lol:

1) I disagree. I do agree that talk of cutting Merrow Reejerey is just crazy. Even without the Twiddle ability, he's a crusade on a stick that we need to pump our teeny fellas. That being said you CANNOT compare their acceleration abilities. Vial lets you cheat an insane amount of mana while keeping your lands open for Stifles, Porting, and even the occasional counter hardcast (or just casting another Merfolk or more dig). Plus, I don't really see a dis-synergy here as Vial lets you choose if you want the twiddle effect or not (by just hardcasting it) and Vial lets you do insane things like play uncounterable creatures for no mana at instant speed. I've actually been against Vial in most Fish builds, but I really think it fits well here.

2) I'm with you on this that Standstill needs manlands like in Blue Skies and I'm not ready to drop Waste or Port for Factories yet. Without manlands we are asking to get caught with a Standstill down and no board advantage, which can really suck as it makes our dig worthless with the other deck sculpts a perfect hand (which is especially bad news against combo).

3) Did someone suggest Curiosity? After I search I found out it was you. And you suggested Standstill. I'm confused... Anyway, I think I need to start a thread called "Why Curiosity isn't playable in Legacy" so clearly I agree with your latest sentiment.

4) I'm against you on this one. Decks in the current meta were built to withstand 8 mana denial effects. I love Port against Thresh as it lets me limit their access to green mana for their sorcery speed creatures (often this makes their green source useful once). This is even better when combined with stifling their fetches to go get green mana as they often run very few green producing lands, and even less that are non wasteable. I also am in love with the synergy Port has with Vial. I particularly love tapping down Thresh's removal color and dropping a Lord of Atlantis to make my army bigger and unblockable for at least a turn. Lastly, Port is a fantastic card against Landstill.

5) I wouldn't replace either of these guys, but if I were going to it would probably be with a 1cc fella to keep the curve solid. I personally like their incredible synergy with the deck (especially Seasinger). Counterspell seems like a terrible idea in the current meta (too slow vs. Combo and too mana intensive for even Thresh to run which has a lower curve and no Port to manage), and while I like Spell Snare, I think Daze and Force are better here. Sygg, River Guide is an interesting idea, but completely unplayable without Vial. With Vial it might fall under the danger of cool things, and doesn't help us with our sweeper problem, but Vialing this guy in and giving something protection in response to things makes me salivate.

6) No one is running Snare or CSpell that I can tell, but it is a solid point. Frankly, I don't care because the amount of starting hands with both Ponder and Stifle (currently 3 ofs) are going to be minuscule, and Pondering turn 2 isn't the end of the world. Plus, with fetches being blown later than turn one Ponder can actually help you find useful Stifles. That said, I wouldn't argue too much with anyone that cut Ponder, but right now I'm liking it.

7) I'm with you here. It's tough to rule out Countertop completely because of it's sheer power though.

8) I'm still on the fence here. A lot of decks have jumped on the Stifle + Waste bandwagon and splashing opens us up to that. Black or white seem the most obvious and helpful, although I think Confidant loses some of his appeal without Jitte.

Anyway, would love to hear some more thoughts from anyone.

Yes, I suggested both Standstill and Curiosity, since both cards call back to the days of PTW's Fish decks. I had to play with both of them before I could dismiss them, and while I think Standstill still has some potential, Curiosity just sucks period.

If you are going for the heavier mana denial theme, I think you want either Rishadan Port or Reef Shamans but not necessarily both. I usually just use mana denial as a transitional tool into Counterspell, but play styles are going to differ here.

Sygg, River Guide isn't completely unviable with out Aether Vial, if all Sygg, River Guide does is absorb Swords to Plowshares he's done his job. I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree on Aether Vial, I think you can play the deck either way, but if I were going to play Aether Vial I would want to play it with Standstill and Mishra's Factory to absolutely break it.

Yesterday, I tried a white splash (clearly the best imo) in order to play a good goblin SB, as it's the main bad MU. My SB became filling slots of MD (1*stifle, 2*seasinger, 1*daze, 2*reejerey) and 9 items for goblin MU (3*propaganda, 3*ghostly prison, 3*galina knight). I did not have the opportunity to test against goblins, but actually, my main concern was to decide if the other MUs were still good. I played several fish decks (no green as far as I could see) and monoblack control decks (there are a lot of them on MWS, I just wonder why). Both are still very positive, as vial cheats the first and nothing is as good as stealing an opponent's dark confidant and as standstill completely negates the discard of the second.
It's true that I only randomly succeed in manashorting my opponent, but even when I fail (for instance against MBC), I still have such a card advantage that I overwhelm my opponent.
By the way, I included 3*faerie conclave in order to improve the range of use of standstill.
It appeared also in my testing that Reejerey is also very important in order to take advantage of a weak standstill (ie without vial in play and an opponent deciding to stall). Indeed when stalling you lose the benefit of your mana disruption but 2*reejerey enables you to play all your creatures in hand as soon as you have 6+available mana and you can be quite confidant in attacking for the win on the turn after if you can protect your guys (or play another standstill).

My testing was done with this :

Creatures :
Critters
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
2 Merrow Reejerey
4 Reef Shaman
2 Seasinger

Other blue stuff
3 Daze
3 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will

Artifacts
4 Aether Vial

Land
4 Rishidan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Island
2 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Faerie conclave
1 Plains (maybe another tundra is better)
1 Tundra

SB
3 Propaganda
2 Seasinger
2 Reejerey
1 Stifle
1 Daze
3 Ghostly Prison
3 Galina's Knight

The changes I would do from this list :
-1 conclave
-1 plains
+1 tundra
+1 Reejerey

The things I'll try next :
-3 daze
-4 reef shaman
+3 Steambed Aquitects (in order to have islands for seasinger)
+3 Vodalian Illusionnist
+1 Reejerey

OK boys. I got around to doing some real testing. Here is my analysis.

deck used:

4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Reef Shaman
2 Seasinger
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Stifle
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Aether Vial
3 Rishidan Port
4 Wasteland
6 Island
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand

SB
3 Pongify
3 Propaganda
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Rootwater Thief
1 Stifle

The High Tide, Belcher and TES matchups are all predictably excellent. I have Belcher made, and played this one the most. I was able to stymie my opponent in the vast majority of games. Biggest problem with this matchup: holding a sorcery speed effect on turn 1 AND a Stifle, AND no countermagic. This is not a problem if you know the deck you are facing, since you can simply wait a turn (though you have now done nothing on turn 1 if he doesn't go off). It comes up only occasionally, but it is annoying. Otherwise, you have all the tools you could ask for.

The matchup versus board control is not quite as good. The land destruction is at its best here. Hands with a Stifle and a Wasteland are golden. If you land an early Reef Shaman as well, you will be way ahead on tempo, and can usually ride that to victory with only a few creatures. Force of Will is a bit weak here, and I was wishing for more card advantage in every game I lost. Daze, is similarly bad later in the game. The deck could use something like Ancestral Vision (Not Standstill) IMO to strengthen this matchup.

The matchup versus graveyard stuff like Ichy and Breakfast have been good, but not great. Actually, I have not lost to Ichy yet. But the games have been hard-fought. Breakfast has been hard as well. A resolved Seasinger is essentially game, but damnit if they don't get plenty of disruption before that time.

The aggro matchup is atrocious. BGW aggro and even zoo, and Elves have all been disappointing. Bleedin' Dark Confidant is a killer. Jitte hurts so bad. I played against Death and Taxes online, MY OWN DAMNED DECK, and he stomped me. I kept feeling like I was not getting the good stuff from the deck. But I know what that really means. The deck is having trouble with opposing aggro, plain and simple. And it kills me to have to make adjustments for these archetypes since I know many of them will not make it to top8 very often. So what should be done?

The good:
Reef Shaman is a better choice than Tidal Warrior in most cases. Keep him.

The Land Destruction suite is fantastic in general. Best part of the deck.

Reejerey is just fine with Vial. As often as you wish you could vial in a guy to untap something, you get to play a dude and untap the Vial for buttloads of mana. A word on this...This deck seems to be slow out of the box, but then on turn 4 or 5, it explodes with creatures - big ones. My opponents tend to be unprepared for 9 damage unblockable. It really helps. Reejerey is a big reason why.

The bad:
Rootwater Thief was almost completely insignificant. One time I went looking for Haunting Echoes to nail down a victory. But that was all.

Ponder is very good. But I want more cards! I say we go with Ancestral Vision over Ponder in the main.

The deck is missing something. I get bottled up by stupid situations too often. It isn't as frustrating as Thresh, and not fast enough to keep the opponents playing catch-up.

I too have found the aggro matchups very very lacking. This has been a fairly glaring issue in my testing, seeing as most of my testing is on MWS where everyone is using an aggro deck. I'm seriously considering maindecking threads of disloyalty, seeing as its a HUGE tempo boost and will stall this deck into all the pump it needs.

Strange. I found that except for goblins because of protected blue pilly, the aggro MU was very good and the reasons were that my creatures are very quickly as big if not bigger than my opponent's, and that my creatures will eventually get an evasion and I'll be able to alpha strike more efficiently than my opponent.

i played yesterday with my casual merfolk deck that is really not as good as this one, against goblins and won 2 games out of 4 so i think this deck has a decent aggro mu. the only thing you have to do is pump your merfolk and beat harder then your opponent.

Your curve seems varied enough to support Engineered Explosives somewhere on the list. If you are exploring splashes, there's always green for Krosan Grip, and uh... tarmogoyf...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by electrolyze

i played yesterday with my casual merfolk deck that is really not as good as this one, against goblins and won 2 games out of 4 so i think this deck has a decent aggro mu. the only thing you have to do is pump your merfolk and beat harder then your opponent.

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pump your merfolk and beat faster than them??? Vs Goblins and PILEDRIVER?!?! Unless you're playing jitte (which you should be) racing goblins with mono-blue (non-faerie stompy) seems utterly impossible. Pics or it didn't happen.

i was indeed playing jitte:laugh:

I have been playing Ancestral Vision in this deck as I suggested. I like it a lot so far, but I have found that I am wanting creature removal even moreso now since the card advantage comes after the point of countering said spell. The splash is looking inevitable.

I tested a lot the splashes and I never wanted any removal or even bouncers. I don't like ancestral vision, it can be stifled or counterspelled 4 turns later. Standstill is so huge in this deck. It's one of the rare decks where standstill can be played efficiently on turn 2 (turn1 vial, turn2 stifle is already game against most of the field, only lackey ruins it).

Has anyone tried Mask of Memory. It's quite cheap and quite hard to kill( as in untouched by creature removal.) I could see this list with 3 Masks and a Sword of Fire and Ice.
Dunno, maybe it's the carddraw your looking for, if not ... ignore this post:tongue:

BB

Wow. Maveric, I can't believe you and I are playing with the same cards. We disagree on many of the major points here. I am seeing opposing critters as a problem. In particular, Mangara, Dark Confidant and Grim Lavamancer have been hard on me. And I have not been able to jump ahead of opponents like you seem to be. My offense, when not aided by Vial, has been slow. This is the reason I liked Vision over Standstill. I never seem to be ahead until I have the card count to pull it off. Reejerey has been stellar for me, but you don't seem to like it. He lets me explode after I have disrupted the opponent fr a few turns. This doesn't add up.

I'm very unconvinced about adding additional techs to the deck.

Half the deck consists of tribal synergies, meaning we want to run as many playable merfolk as possible.

The other half, apart from the obligatory Forces, consists of Mana Denial from Hell. Wasteland, Port, Stifle and Reef Shaman all in one deck is downright cruel. Daze is a Sinkhole you don't have to pay for if your opponent tries to play around it, and an efficient catch-all answer if they don't.

Sure, it would be possible to make room for Jittes, a 2+2 Countertop, Standstills, removal or whatever... but at the expense of the things that make the deck work in the first place. If we wanted those techs, I feel this is the wrong shell.

I think you have to use Umezawa's Jitte, it's the only card that really puts you over the top against other aggro decks, and it's just god damn brutal against aggro-control and control.

4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Silvergail Adept
4 Reef Shaman
2 Seasinger
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Aether Vial
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
7 Islands

This is holding up well, free counters backed with mana disruption will carry the deck into the mid or even the late game and Aether Vial will let the deck cast its creatures and equip an Umezawa's Jitte by turn 3. Rishadan Port and Ponder aren't good enough, don't bother.

I'd just like to add that this list top8ed Ancient Memory Convention No. 29 Legacy Tournament Akihabara, Japan October 28, 2007

#8 Shirasawa Yuday
Main:
20 Snow-Covered Island

3 Tideshaper Mystic
4 Tidal Warrior
4 Manta Riders
1 Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Sunken City
4 Unstable Mutation
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Will


Sideboard:
4 Threads of Disloyalty
4 Null Rod
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Back to Basics
2 Chill


But if you take a look at the winner's deck...it was the most weird sligh list I've ever seen.
Sorry for my crappy english :smile:


(Decklists from the event: http://f18.aaa.livedoor.jp/~nameless...MC_29th_E.html)

has anyone tried running some bounce with this deck? I think that a couple boomerangs might help to act as temporary creature removal, and still fits in with the whole theme of disrupting mana-base/tempo.

You also wouldn't have to splash a color either. just wondering

I'd run Waterfront Bouncer. What about swapping the whole mana denial package for a set of Back to Basics (awesome Reejerey synergy), freeing up room for other things?