10 islands is unthinkable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipp802
You need 13...either go 21 lands, or go 20 by cutting a mutavault or a wasteland
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10 islands is unthinkable.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipp802
You need 13...either go 21 lands, or go 20 by cutting a mutavault or a wasteland
21 is definitely the way to goQuote:
Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow
I don't even understand why people are thinking of using Cavern of souls. Having your creatures countered was never an issue.
Using cavern actually makes you wastelandable, unable to use daze, running 10 non-basic lands.
I don't understand why you wouldn't want to play caverns, do you know how awesome it is to not have to be set back a turn waiting for vial. For example instead of doing nothing turn 2 with vial on one you play can cast silvergill and beat a hand full of counters.
daze is an offensive weapon to protect creatures
Do you guys still have problems with maverick?
Post-SB Aquitect's Will and Submerge is pulling its weight. But it's still a very hard matchup. Mom, Swords to Plowshares and Maze of Ith (and sometimes Scryb Ranger) really rains on our parade. To a lesser extent, Jitte is also very troublesome and their Knights grow really fast. Moreover, they can side in Choke.Quote:
Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow
It's not hopeless like Zoo, but definetely not positive.
Yea, 14 Blue sources and 7 colorless has felt pretty solid. I dropped a Wasteland favoring 4 Mutavault. I have some hands that struggle to hit :u: :u:, but it works pretty well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow
Having your creatures countered was never an issue? Are you serious?!Quote:
Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow
Let's take a look at a few points here.
1. Force of Will is everywhere in this format.
2. Daze is everywhere in this format.
3. Other counters exist in lesser amounts. Counterbalance has been showing up a bit recently, Chalice pops up from time to time, and Spell Snare still exists, even if it's not the new sexy card.
4. If you don't draw an Aether Vial, any non-combo deck has almost no other viable targets to counter except your creatures.
5. If you -do- get an Aether Vial out, this takes out most of the drawback of your lands being Wastelandable.
6. Wasteland might suck, but it, random Blood Moons, and occasional dissynergy with Daze and activating Waterfront Bouncer are the only drawbacks.
7. It has bonuses, also. Choke doesn't shut off Cavern of Souls, and in one mirror match I managed to draw three Caverns, and even after getting one Wastelanded, managed to win the match because they couldn't Force my guys and my guys were unblockable and his weren't (No Island.)
Obviously, you still want to draw an Island every game for a leadoff land on non-catcher hands and for Daze, so you need to probably run at the very least 11 (I run 12).
This past Saturday, we had a local legacy tournament and on Sunday my friends and I went to SCG: Buffalo. I couldn't figure out what to play as everything seemed pretty meh. Found Saito's latest merfolk list which looked very interesting and a friend thought it was very interesting and encouraged me to play it. I changed a card in the main deck and retooled the sideboard as I thought Saito's original sideboard felt really narrow. Here's the list I played on Saturday:
12 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
4 Cursecatcher
4 Cosi's Trickster
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Merrow Reejerey
1 Tidal Warrior
4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Pithing Needle
2 Phantasmal Image
1 Tidal Warrior
4 Spell Pierce
3 Submerge
3 Tormod's Crypt
There was around 25 players. So five rounds it is. Here's the quick and dirty results.
Round 1: Will - Goblins. Loss (0-2).
Nothing I can do here, I was hoping to dodge this matchup as I was prepared to lose to it. The hands where I had counters, he had turn 1 Cavern of Souls to make those hands useless.
Round 2: Braden - RUG Delver. Win (2-0).
Nothing much to say here, he didn't deal any damage to me in either game. From my notes, it looks like he just died from islandwalkers in game 1. Game 2 was interesting in that I landed a turn 1 Cosi's Trickster and from then on, he didn't play a single fetchland. it was a really weird game where he kept on drawing pithing needles and his sideboard cards and I couldn't draw any creatures so i was on the Trickster beatdown for like 4 turns and then it was joined by a Cursecatcher for another 3 turns before he fire/ice both my dudes. Then I started drawing lords and he died.
Round 3: James - ANT. Win (2-0)
Put significant pressure on him in game 1 with multiple cursecatchers and had daze and force in hand and just kept on casting creatures for the beatdown. Game 2, I chained 3 standstills together but was only able to draw 5 counters counting cursecatchers which was really scary. I ended up winning since he miscounted the mana at the end and after the game, he realized there was another line of play that could have won him that game. That always happens when you're playing TES or ANT.
Round 4: Cameron - Sneak/Show. Win (2-0)
Had a couple of counters in my hand in game 1 and beatdown really fast with multiple lords. Game 2 was a slow affair as I only had a cursecatcher for pressure and was slightly colorscrewed. I was able to drop multiple standstills to try to slow the game down and that did the trick. It seemed like he wasn't willing to wait until he sculpted a good hand since he kept on running into my cursecatchers or didn't think I drew counterspells with the standstills.
Round 5: Lam - U/W Miracles. ID
Top 8: Raymond - Maverick. Loss (0-2)
Game 1, i didn't have much of a chance. Started too slow and didn't have a force for a GSZ for 1 for an Ulvenwald Tracker which basically just mauled my team as he had a bigger Knight than all my lords combined and he was able to pick off one lord at a time. Game 2, he was at 1 life for a couple of turns but I wasn't able to capitalize and he was able to stabilize with a scryb ranger + tarmogoyf so he had pseudo vigilence and I couldn't draw a 3rd creature to alpha strike for the win. Game 1 had some funny moments where I played a turn 1 Cosi's Trickster and he didn't seem to care until he saw that it would grow when he fetched, activated Knight and resolved GSZ and it actually slowed him down quite a bit which is pretty useful for a 1/1 for U.
Realized that my sideboard wasn't the greatest as all I did was side in Spell Pierces the majority of the time. I wanted to side in more stuff but it just felt like there's not enough stuff to take out. Decided to give Saito's sideboard a try for the SCG. Here's the "revised" sideboard:
4 Dismember
4 Submerge
4 Spell Pierce
3 Tormod's Crypt
Legacy open at SCG: Buffalo had around 200+ people so 8 rounds.
Round 1: Shane - RUG Delver. Win (2-1).
Game 1 I mull to 5 and proceed to win because he played a volcanic on turn 1 not doing anything and I ended up wasting that land. He lost that game drawing no fetches and he had 2 lightning bolts and a forked bolt in hand. I lose game 2 because RUG does what it's supposed to do, blind flip turn 1 delver and he stopped all attempts at me racing it. Game 3, I mull to six and for some reason, he plays a volcanic and says go. I decide to waste it, play a threat. Next turn he doesn't make a land drop and then on my turn I play a standstill even though my only threat's a cursecatcher. I end up wasting all of the lands that he played and that was pretty much it.
Round 2: Bryant - TES. Win (2-1)
I feel kind of nervous playing against the creater of TES since I know he will know of every out possible so it won't be easy playing against him. Nothing much to say about game 1 other than that he killed me on turn 2. I could have forced a rite of flame on turn 2 and then played a standstill on turn 3 but who knows if that will get me anywhere. Games 2 and 3 I play extremely conservatively leaving an island open every time I have a Spell Pierce in hand so the early game has a lot of draw, land, go as I do not want to tap out to attack with a mutavault or cast a cursecatcher with no blue open. I was able to force when he played xantid swarms and got lucky topdecking wastelands to constrict his mana and I just kept on countering his mana sources. I guess to the people watching the game, it might have felt like I had the game totally under control but I know that TES can just explode and win out of nowhere so all three games were pretty tense.
Round 3: Eli - Sneak/Show. Loss (0-2)
And here's where the wheel fell off for me. I basically threw both games away. Game 1, I have lethal on board and i've got 8 permanents in play with another permanent in my hand so if he show and tells, i'll have 9 permanents in play which is still lethal damage on board if he emrakuls me somehow. Then for some reason, when he show and tells, I decide to daze for no good reason when he's got two mana open. He pays and I've got no other counters so he puts a sneak attack into play while I put something else in play so i still have 8 permanents in play. He has an emrakul and attacks me and i'm forced to leave 2 lords in play. He's at 7 and I can only attack for 6 on my turn so I put him down to 1. I shuffle his library from the emrakul trigger and i tell him that i always give the opponent what they need to win. He doesn't really believe me but when he draws, he shows me the emrakul. Surprise, surprise!! Game 2's even worse. I have minor pressure and my hand is 3 force of will, 2 blue cards. I draw and it's a lord. For some reason, instead of keeping the lord in hand so I can pitch 3 forces if I really need it, I decide i want to speed up my clock so I cast the lord.
Next turn, he casts Sneak Attack. I force, he pierces, I force again, he forces back and i'm looking at the force in my hand in frustration. Sneak attack resolves, he emrakuls me. I draw my next card and it's a freaking standstill. So if i had kept the lord, I would have been able to counter his sneak attack and then play standstill next turn. *sigh*
Round 4: Hugo - RUG Delver. Loss (1-2)
I actually drove Hugo to the tournament so we were both like WTF, playing against each other so soon. His RUG delver is the version that top 4 the Bazaar of Moxen earlier this year so he's playing Kird Ape and Grim Lavamancers and has 4 lightning bolts, 4 fire/ice, 2 chain lightning maindeck. It's virtually made to kill the merfolk deck. I steal game 1 at one life when he tries to fire me to death when I was at two life and I have the force plus daze backup and I had 10+ power worth of islandwalkers lethal next turn. Game 2 i keep a poor hand and couldn't draw a second island to save
my life and end up having to standstill at a poor position and that's it. Game 3 was a fiasco and probably happened because we're friends but I tried to submerge his kird ape when he cracked a fetch and had NO LANDS in play and we both fought a force battle over it. Kird ape got shuffled in his deck and then after that a spectator was wondering how I cast submerge. Called a judge over and apparently too much info was revealed so there's no way of rewinding game state as he had already drawn for his turn. Anyways, it ended up not mattering as I made more poor plays as I felt like I
should have lost from doing that bad play.
Round 5: Robert - Maverick. Loss (0-2)
He wins game 1 like how he's supposed to. Game 2, again I make a poor play where on turn 2 he plays a horizon canopy, and a hierarch. I decide to waste his canopy on my turn and for some reason don't dismember his hierarch because I felt like it would be better to dismember a knight. Well, on his turn, he rips a Cavern of Souls naming Spirits and casts a Geist of Saint Traft. From then on, I'm put to the backfoot as i ahve to try to gang block the geist to kill it and that was it. Too much disadvantage.
Round 6: Evan - Goblin. Loss (0-2)
It's goblins. Need I say more? Game 1, we're at a standstill until he casts a ringleader and it reveals 3 goblins including a matron. I end up having to try to alpha strike to make him make poor blocks as he already has a piledriver in play so if he matrons in another piledriver i'm dead. He ends up going to 7 and on his turn, he plays enough goblins and attacks for exactly 20 damage. Game 2, he has no Cavern of Souls or vial so he's tapping out to cast goblins every turn and I have like 3 dazes in my hand but no islands. I end up not drawing an island until like turn 6 which is way too late and he overwhelms me like crazy.
I end up dropping at 2-4 cause i'm officially out of top 64 and wondered what went wrong. Figured out that I'm losing a lot of good matchups because I'm siding out Forces and putting in Pierces but all day long, people were playing around Pierces whether they realized it or not. I realized that if those were Forces, then all the key spells would be countered for sure and I'd have a better game and it's not really that bad to pitch a merfolk to a force as i'm bound to draw another one. Also, the deck has 36 blue cards so I shouldn't be afraid of using forces. I was also leaving standstills in
against decks like maverick and realized that was bad since they can put down more guys than me and I usually win via a comeback so standstills are bad. They're also not as good when i'm on the draw. I had never played with standstills before so these things are new to me. Sue me. So I'm just relaxing after I figured these things out and a friend comes up and tells me the legacy win a box is just missing one guy. I go up and register. No changes at all to maindeck or sideboard.
Round 1: Brennan - U/R Delver. Win (2-0)
Game 1, i'm not even sure what he was playing as he didn't really do anything and his life totals went from 20-19-18-13-3-dead. Game 2, he drops the turn 1 goblin guide and starts attacking uncontested. I'm trying to stabilize in the early game but he's bolting all of my blockers every time I play one so I can't block the goblin guide. When I'm at 8, I finally run him out of bolts and I was able to play enough merfolk that he couldn't attack with the guide. Then his life totals went from 18-15-3-dead. What can I say, islandwalk is fun.
Round 2: Bobby - RUG Delver. Win (2-0)
Game 1, I mull to five and he has a turn 1 delver that blind flipped on turn 2 and i figure that i'm dead. Except some how I draw a bunch of lords and have a vial at 2 and 2 islands in play and when I was at 8 life his life totals went from 15 to 2. He attacked me down to 5 on my turn and only had one volcanic in play so there's no way he can bolt me to death. Wow. Game 2, I mull to 6 and again he flips a turn 1 delver plus he dazes my turn 1 vial. I manage to resolve a turn 2 vial. Again, it was similar to last game and when I was at 5, his life totals went from 18 to 8. On his last turn,
he attacked me to 2 and conceded as his 4 card hand had no bolts, brainstorms or ponders. OH MY.
Round 3: Josh - Maverick. Win (2-1)
These games were extremely drawn out and very grindy. It felt like our 3 games took over 1.5hrs since in each of the games, the board situation was totally clogged. Game 1, I had him down to one life but I just couldn't finish him off. He managed to clog the board with a scavenging ooze, scryb ranger, mom, knight, jitte and he just kept on hovering between 1-3 life but I just couldn't attack through his army. Very frustrating so I conceded as I had no way of breaking the stalemate pre-board since he killed my Tidal Warrior early on. Game 2 was pretty epic as I was down to 3 life and he was
at 22 but then I started to stabilize as he had an extremely small knight and the rest of his creatures couldn't kill my lords in combat. I managed to get a reejerey, master and two lord of atlantis in play so all my dudes were 5/5s. On one of my turns, I called that I would draw a Lord of Atlantis and I did. Cast it, triggered reejerey, tapped the knight. After he did his knight shenannigans, attacked with four 6/6s. He went down to 12 from that and then he started growing his knight like crazy but he couldn't attack me as I could double block his knight. we both played draw go for a while. He ended up casting another knight but I had drawn a submerge so when he activated knight, I submerged it so he only had one in play still. A couple of turns later, I drew a merfolk,
triggered reejerey, tapped down the knight again, and attacked with five 6/6s and that was it for that game. None of my friends thought I could win that game but sometimes you just gotta believe. Game 3, I dismembered his tracker, made a misplay by not submerging his mom on my turn and so his mom got active but then he played Thalia and didn't have much action. I was able to assemble 3 merfolk along with 2 mutavaults and 2 islands and his life totals went from 20-19-11-dead after I dismembered his mom when he gave Thalia pro blue in the middle of combat.
Wow, can't believe that happened. Won a box of M13. Wohoo. When I drove back with my friends, I realized that all of us made money. One guy was 3rd in standard and 30+ in legacy. another guy was 23rd in legacy open and the last guy was 63rd in legacy open. And I redeemed myself by winning a box. Not as good as money but it's better than nothing.
Everybody was like wtf when I played Cosi's Trickster but it actually forced people to fetch at odd times. I had one guy who was scared when i had a vial at one and he had a fetchland and he's like Tricker's going to blow me out! Other than that, I think Trickster's good because it's probably the best one drop other than Cursecatcher and if it gets to 2/2 and manages to trade with a x/2 creature, it's done it's job. It also makes your curve better as now you have 12 one drops.
I never missed the Commander all day. It probably would have gotten bolted/plowed during the level up process and then that becomes mana wasted that you could leave up for stuff like mutavault attacks casting lords that trigger off reejerey. Anyways, sorry for the long read, hope it was enjoyable.
Do you not miss coralhelm commandeR?Quote:
Originally Posted by pocari79
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avatar of Shadow
:rolleyes:Quote:
I never missed the Commander all day. It probably would have gotten bolted/plowed during the level up process and then that becomes mana wasted that you could leave up for stuff like mutavault attacks casting lords that trigger off reejerey. Anyways, sorry for the long read, hope it was enjoyable.
Personally i think that 8 1-drops are fine especially if combined with Dismember/Spellpierce.
Coralhelm is your ONLY out against moat...not that moat is really played, but it does happen, especially with UW control being rampant.Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackStarDeceiver
Well, if you know your opponent has a moat, you just have to save your counters for it. I mean, even if you did play a coralhelm commander when they have moat, you still need counters in case they plow it. In this situation, you have to rely on counters with or without coralhelm commanders.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacemindbreak
this is the same argument as "but it dies to removal"Quote:
Originally Posted by pocari79
really vs UW you have only to preserve counters for Terminus, Moat or Bridge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacemindbreak
Any other card (spot removal too) are useless if we play standstill.
It's realistic that you have more counters than your opponent when he try to resolve one of these.
Played a pretty Standard list without Standstill at my weekly Legacy tonight with 19 players, finishing 2-2 and missing top 8 on breakers.
My losses were to the mirror, where I drew poorly and couldn't find Llawan, and Esper Thopters, where I was missing Echoing Truth from my board and got Ensnaring Bridged out both games.
My overall impression of the deck is pretty good, I think it just needs to be tuned. Possible options include cutting Wastelands to fit in more lords/blue sources, trying Standstill, trying Waterfront Bouncer, and trying Cavern. Despite how appealing these changes seem, I think I'm going to stick with a pretty classic list until I get proved differently. Here it is for reference:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Coralhelm Commander
3 Merrow Rejeery
3 Dismember
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Aether Vial
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
14 Island
The list looks fine for the most part, I would make the following adjustmentsQuote:
Originally Posted by 1337erhosen
-1 Dismember
-1 Daze
-1 Coralhelm Commander
-2 Island
+1 Merrow Reejerey
+2 Phantasmal Image (these 3 creatures could be Standstill x3 but I am not such a huge fan of that at this time).
+2 Spell Pierce
Put Coralhelm Commander #4 in your Sideboard though as he is incredible in some matches.
I don't think you should play with the mana base much, simply cut those 2 Islands as I mentioned and go with 20 lands total (21 is the max for me). I have tested Cavern of Souls a fair bit and honestly I don't see it making such a great difference. You want the Wastelands more often and you would be near insane to cut Mutavaults; you also need 12 Islands for the stability factor, feeding Daze, etc.
Good luck with your deck and thanks for the report/synopsis.
How come some are suddenly suggesting standstill again?
I don't think that card is good enough anymore, it's just really hard to reliably meet conditions where you can drop it. So many other creatures outclass merfolk ones that you just can't drop it easily barring a vial or commanding board position.
And even when it works it's just draw 3 for 2, good but not that fantastic considering the low amount of counters you actually run. Good chance you only draw into one counter of it, letting off pressure in the meantime.
Against many combo decks i'd rather be laying down more pressure to give them less time and possible even islandwalk/race past their wincondition then laying a standstill hoping i can counter their critical play. Tapping out for it often isn't ideal either when the combo deck protects itself with spell pierces etc.
The creature quality is so high now that I think you're better off playing a high creature count and less flex slots. Daze/fow are still mandatory but all other options are a bit weak in the main, dismember is pretty bad at racing, doesn''t kill many important guys and is virtually dead against many decks. I'd rather run some spell pierces giving you more game against combo without ever being dead, your worse creature matchup can be fixed a little through the sideboard then. Pierce isn't even that bad against some creature decks anyway.
As far as dismember goes, I'd rather have something to shore up my weaker match ups as opposed to bolstering my already favorable combo match up. As for standstill, mutavault, cursecatcher, and vial all make for favorable first turn plays for a set up (cosi's trickster as well if you play those.) As for what makes it better in this meta? Honestly I'm not sure. I played folk a lot back in the day and it seemed as if standstill went out of style roughly around the time that misstep hit. I don't know if that's related or not. Honestly the only first turn play that I fear under a standstill is a delver... Maybe a llanowar. I'm sure I'm missing something but you get the point.
Greetings All!
It has been about a year since I have played Merfolk. Seems like it might be about time to dust off the fishies. I am hoping some of you guys could post your sideboards. I have a maindeck that I am pretty happy with. I would like to see a few sideboards though to get an idea of what people are working with these days. Thanks!