[Deck] Merfolk

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Originally Posted by Greatest Gargadon

Jitte is so much better than dismember IMO, helps against the mirror and really helps us vs decks like maverick and goblins.

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I like the idea of putting the Jittes on mainboard, cause they are always useful.

Maybe I could play 2 pierces and 2 Jittes with other 2 pierces sideboard instead of 4 Pierces mainboard.

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Originally Posted by Greatest Gargadon

I also believe cutting Standstill is a mistake, its just so good, it pseudo protects our fish and refills our hand.

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The main reason I cut them was after I considered their usefulness in the Burn matchups.
Theoretically Standstill should be a bomb here, but I realized they just make it pop, let us draw 3 cards, then simply proceed to win. They don't care at all about our 3 card advantage when they are a few more burn spells to kill us, cause we can't out-counter them forever. Instead, they are happy we tapped out without casting a threat or leaving mana open for a pierce.
Standstill simply slows us down in that matchup, and I really think a Spell pierce is just better than it.

And in the RUG matchup?
It's pretty useless as well, since they have more denial than us and their board state will probably be better than ours when we should cast Standstill.

Against combo we can play 12 counters and we have a pretty fast clock, so we should be in a good spot also without Standstills.


I feel Standstill right now is in most cases just a waste of 2 mana, which could be used to cast a Lord or to keep that mana open for a counter.

Since I cut standstill to play more counters/creatures my matchups have improved a lot, so I don't think I'll look back for them.

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Originally Posted by Greatest Gargadon

Though a friend who is really good with Fish suggested I cut the reejereys and instead add 3 phantasmal image and 1 extra coralhelm commander.
His reasoning was that the vial can be kept at 2, (which is great considering every creature can be vialed in) and the image would become the best creature on the board. Reejerey's 3cmc makes him awkward with the vial (tick it up to 3 to bring him in only to have a dead vial afterwards) and casting him is hard because we want that mana open for mutavaults and standstill, spell pierce, paying for daze etc.

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I think Reejereys are still very good, but maybe 4 copies are too many in some cases.
I wouldn't cut them completely, cause 3 Images would be too many (what if we have only them in hand with nothing to copy?) and also 3 Commanders are not the right number imho, 2 is great for both of them.

Reejerey should be 3 or 4 imho, not less cause we have no valid substitutes and we don't want to lower our creature count.

Trying to keep the OP accurate...

Has Dismember fallen out of favor for some reason?

Well it costs 4 life to avoid getting beaten by a creature dealing 2-4 damage. I never liked dismember for this reason.
- It's terrible vs burn
- It puts us in a bad position against goblins and the mirror, and maverick can just hide behind their mommies.
- The go-to creature in most control decks now a days is batterskull. Dismembering a germ token is just..it feels bad, man, they return batterskull, and then cast it again. I know i know, that we shouldn't be letting stoneforge resolve but lets be real, we won't always have the counter and there will be times where we have to bend backwards to deal with it or just straight up race.
- It is 100% useless vs combo.

I look at Umezawa's Jitte, and it:
- keeps me out of burn range
- pops goblins since their dudes are 1/1s
- is better in the mirror
- Mom can't protect her crap-faced hierarchs from jitte =P
- it is a better "worst-case scenario" against a resolved batterskull.
- you don't lose more life than an unblocked attacker would do.
- it is a headache for combo. You can stay out of tendrils range and you can pump your creatures to speed up the clock.

Jitte is a one-way ticket to value town and we're riding there in first class with those fancy towels for your head.

So I played a 24 player tournament today. Final standing 3:2. The 2 lost games were goblins. I lost both games 2:1 I've no idea what to play in sideboard against them. Any suggestions?

I have most of the pieces of this deck from last year. Everyone thinks I don't have the pieces anymore. I'm planning on bringing this deck as a surprise factor (my meta currently is Miracles/Stoneblade/Engine Combo (AnT/Spiral Tide/Elves)). Graveyard decks currently are doing bad since a couple of people are running Rest in Peace and the graveyard deck players are scared (they've switched with Storm).

With this meta, what is the best list to pilot? Should I go with Standstill? Also, I don't have two Jittes (only one). Would Sword of Fire and Ice be a good alternative? Thanks in advance!

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

With this meta, what is the best list to pilot? Should I go with Standstill? Also, I don't have two Jittes (only one). Would Sword of Fire and Ice be a good alternative? Thanks in advance!

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I think MD Stifle would be nice in the Meta, although I have no experience with Standstill. I would like to hear the debate between them. 1-of Jitte is definitely fine and the Sword is quite weak in Merfolk. SB Envelop is very powerful in this meta.

I've never heard of people using swords in Fish, you're in some uncharted territory. It could be good, but I'm a little skeptical. The power of jitte is the ability to keep the board relatively clear, the other swords don't accomplish that as well as jitte.
If burn is giving you trouble, use chill. It's like a swift punch to the jaw for red.


As for standstill, I think people are looking at it in the wrong light. I don't think we should look at it as a bomb, or some game changing thing. It is simply another part of our deck that helps us get stuff. Our creatures don't do much except pump, we don't have crazy exalted, tutoring, library manipulating, land fetching creatures. We need standstill for gas.

- It draws us cards, drawing three cards is always useful, even if you draw three lands off it, you just saved yourself three
turns of disappointment.
- If your opponent breaks it, you're 3 cards ahead, no matter what he broke it with, you now have more resources to deal with
it
- there is almost no draw back to resolved standstill when you have vial out. (T1: Island, vial. T2: land, standstill) That is just
bad news for combo and weenie decks like zoo that need to get their beats in quickly.
- You can pitch it to FOW =P

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Originally Posted by Greatest Gargadon

- there is almost no draw back to resolved standstill when you have vial out. (T1: Island, vial. T2: land, standstill)

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Of course playing Standstill after Vial is a bomb, but having a resolved Vial out 1st turn doesn't happen that often.
If you are on the draw they can Duress it or Spell pierce/Daze it, if you are on play they can Force it (if they are smart enough), and sometimes you just don't see it.

And when you have no Vial out, imho in most situation you prefer to cast a Lord instead of Standstill.

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Originally Posted by Greatest Gargadon

- You can pitch it to FOW =P

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As any other non-land, non-vial card in our deck :D

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Originally Posted by Greatest Gargadon

I used to run four, but I found myself pitching more forces to forces or pitching fish to force, and I didn't like it.
I haven't missed the 4th force yet and I've faced my share of combo. And force is only worth the card disadvantage against decks that have crucial pieces. Against heavy aggro and burn decks, they usually get sided out. It's the age-old "just how good is force" debate.
At any rate, with the standstills and silvergills, I draw what I need when I need it.

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I once ran only 3 Forces in a different deck ( which had a nice mixture of other counters and discard ) and I never had the force when I needed it. Like seriously, I decreased my chances of responding to broken stuff by 25% and I suffered from it. Never ever again I will go under 4 maindeck force in any given blue deck again - having it in the opener is just so important. Otherwise you will throw away percentages against garbage like Belcher, and who really wants that?
Also, I think you underestimate the role of Force in Merfolk. Tapping out while countering spells is the sole reason this deck is as good as it is. The only deck I can think of were I would take out more than 1 Force is Goblins ( maybe against GW as well ) and I can tell you that it def is a mistake to take them out against burn. You even play standstill, which is a perfect example for why you need to play 4 Force: Either you have an abundance of cards thanks to drawing 3 and can easily pitch something, or you will never have the time or boardstate to play standstill and can pitch the useless card to counter the opponents shenanigans.
Also, Terminus. I've heard a 1 mana wrath easily gets around the taxcounters...


Regarding 3 mana equipment ( aka swords of bla and blubb ): I don't think the deck can afford to play a 3 mana noncreature card. 21 lands without cantrips make it unlikely to consistent draw the lands in time, also some of them will waste something or get wasted. Then let's think about against which decks you would want to bring in equip: it most likely creature decks and control decks. Against creature decks Jitte should be more versatile. Against control I could see the swords shining though - they make every donk a serious threat and either get around Jace or Stop / tokens. Of course the game shouldn't go that far that you would actually need a card like that, but reality is not the magicial dream land and some games end really awkward. There are probably better tools to fight control, but boarding in swords doesn't sound that weird.

Why do people still play Merfolk?
It has an incredibly hard time against Goblins, a lesser tough time against Maverick, and most often loses to Terminus. That's 60% of the DTB forum right there.

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Originally Posted by dunkle_stille

I once ran only 3 Forces in a different deck ( which had a nice mixture of other counters and discard ) and I never had the force when I needed it. Like seriously, I decreased my chances of responding to broken stuff by 25% and I suffered from it. Never ever again I will go under 4 maindeck force in any given blue deck again - having it in the opener is just so important. Otherwise you will throw away percentages against garbage like Belcher, and who really wants that?
Also, I think you underestimate the role of Force in Merfolk. Tapping out while countering spells is the sole reason this deck is as good as it is. The only deck I can think of were I would take out more than 1 Force is Goblins ( maybe against GW as well ) and I can tell you that it def is a mistake to take them out against burn. You even play standstill, which is a perfect example for why you need to play 4 Force: Either you have an abundance of cards thanks to drawing 3 and can easily pitch something, or you will never have the time or boardstate to play standstill and can pitch the useless card to counter the opponents shenanigans.
Also, Terminus. I've heard a 1 mana wrath easily gets around the taxcounters...

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That's a pretty strong argument. I'll cut a spell pierce down to 2, and up the force count to 4. I haven't been liking it too much lately.
I've never been too worried against burn because I keep an abundance of Chill in my sideboard. But I see what you're getting at, and I'm going to take your advice when I play this week.

What do you guys think of Propaganda for the goblin matchup? They can't deal with enchantments like that, it should keep them from beating us down until we can get some coralhelms up in the air.

Red decks have the best sideboard cards in format: Red Elemental Blast and/or Pyroblast for stuff like Chill, Propaganda, Jace, Counterbalance...

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Originally Posted by FANAttIC

Red decks have the best sideboard cards in format: Red Elemental Blast and/or Pyroblast for stuff like Chill, Propaganda, Jace, Counterbalance...

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But with a resolved chill it costs them 3 mana, in a deck that runs 20ish lands, and 12 don't produce colors, and we have counters to make sure it resolves.
Its a lot better than saying "owell" and praying to not get roflstomped.

hello

first of all, sorry for my english!

i play form some monthes, merfolk ur,
and i think this deck need red, for don t lose almost all time against goblin or elves, and maverick too

i play just 2-3 volcanic, and i tried main bolt, and really nice, but now i paly main 3x fire-ice, and i must say, that this card is really strong, because is good for kill maybe 2 creatures, but is strong for draw 1card too,

and is very good play red, for sideboard,
i play 4x piroclasm,
piroclasm kills all goblin, elves, and mother,ranger,thalia,noble,

i think with ur,the good match up of deck, are the same, but go much better, against goblin, elves, and in general aggro!!

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Originally Posted by subzero

hello

first of all, sorry for my english!

i play form some monthes, merfolk ur,
and i think this deck need red, for don t lose almost all time against goblin or elves, and maverick too

i play just 2-3 volcanic, and i tried main bolt, and really nice, but now i paly main 3x fire-ice, and i must say, that this card is really strong, because is good for kill maybe 2 creatures, but is strong for draw 1card too,

and is very good play red, for sideboard,
i play 4x piroclasm,
piroclasm kills all goblin, elves, and mother,ranger,thalia,noble,

i think with ur,the good match up of deck, are the same, but go much better, against goblin, elves, and in general aggro!!

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I agree with you that Merfolk can really use the additional burn/removal. Then I start to wonder, since I'm going UR anyways, would I be better off just playing UR Delver-Burn instead of 'Folk? Answer; probably.

Did anybody tried carry away against stoneforge?

This is probably a question that's been answered a lot before, but I haven't found a satisfactory answer in the thread yet. Why doesn't this deck play fetchlands, just like Goblins? You don't have any way to filter out excess lands (Brainstorm mainly), and your draw spells are pretty set, making excess lands drawn at the end of the game pretty bad. Goblins would play fetchlands almost exclusively to thin the deck back in the day. Why doesn't Merfolk? Is Stifle really something that you're worried about?

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

Why doesn't this deck play fetchlands, just like Goblins?

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We don't do this.

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Originally Posted by ScatmanX

We don't do this.

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...Thanks for your well thought-out and measured response. I was specifically asking what the reason might be for not doing it, as other tribal decks (Goblins, Elves) feel that the benefits involved in deck-thinning outweigh the potential downsides of getting a land Stifled. They did this long before they even splashed any colors.

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Originally Posted by benthetenor

...Thanks for your well thought-out and measured response. I was specifically asking what the reason might be for not doing it, as other tribal decks (Goblins, Elves) feel that the benefits involved in deck-thinning outweigh the potential downsides of getting a land Stifled. They did this long before they even splashed any colors.

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The deck thinning property of fetchlands is a fallacy. At best, and over the course of a long game, you're only going to see 2% improvement on your draws. Goblins play fetchlands for splashes, and those are justified here too when splashing black / red. The base blue build does not want nor need fetchlands.