[Deck] Merfolk

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Originally Posted by Chronatog

Guys, how do you deal with Lands/12-Post/MUD and Cascade exploiting decks like Shardless Sultai and Jund?

My local metagame has changed dramatically during the last few months; I see less Miracles and Island containing decks and more combo-lands and cascade based decks. My build of Merfolk is not good against these decks for several reasons. First, Chalices don't work well against decks with a variety of cmc spells and Abrupt Decay. Second, Lands and 12-post run Choke in SB and this hurts too. Finally, Shardless Sultai and Jund overwhelm with card advantage and also run discard and remove key counter magic or bounce spell.

I added 3x Harbinger of the Tides to MB to take care of Indestructible 20/20 flyer, Primeval Titan or Wurmcoil Enginein addition to 3x Phantasmal Image and 2x Echoing Truth that I already had in my deck, but in many cases this just postpones inevitable.

My current list is below. It works pretty well against Miracles, cmc-1 heavy decks with Islands (e.g. Delvers), less efficient but still does well against Stoneforge with equipment and Maverik, and even Elves and Reanimator are not so bad. But Lands, 12-Post, Shardless, and Junds are just overwhelming. I my new meta I really miss Miracles a lot; even with Mentor it is winable.


3 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
3 Phantasmal Image
3 Harbinger of the Tides
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Æther Vial
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
2 Echoing Truth
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
13 Island

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Cursed Totem
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Manriki-Gusari
SB: 2 Daze
SB: 2 Trickbind

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For the big mana decks (lands, 12 post, MUD) the plan is to normally it's hit a few of their key pieces enough to buy some time and hopefully kill them before their big pieces come online. Just play a tempo game and try to kill them as soon as possible. I'd recommend running some amount of wastelands or back to basics if that is your meta. I don't think that Jund is very favorable (it's hard for a deck with no card advantage to beat a deck with 8 removal spells and a ton of card disadvantage). Shardless is usually favorable however they can have some draws that you just can't beat. For these decks you probably want to play some removal spells (dismember/submerge) to get rid of trouble permanents. Kira is also fantastic against Jund however she (it?) might be a little too slow.

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Originally Posted by Chronatog

Guys, how do you deal with Lands/12-Post/MUD and Cascade exploiting decks like Shardless Sultai and Jund?

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Lands/12-Post are disrupted by back to basics...wasteland...chalice for 1 still blocks gamble/crop rotation/top/brainstorm/ponder/needle so is not so bad...

MUD you need bounce spells...or Vendilion to remove key pieces...null rod might help stopping metalworker...wasteland helps too...and usually aggro style play...as they take a lot of damage from ancient tomb...be sure you keep a hand with force otd for their t1 trinisphere...

Shardless sultai/jund back to basics...chalice for zero/1 is ok...i personally play 2xmisdirection in my build...is good with decay...with counters and...with Ancestral Vision! Jund make sure you board graveyard hate for PF shaman goyf etc...and sumberge his creatures in response to a fetch...

If your meta is infested with these decks bring with you back to basics...is still good against 4c delver and few other decks...

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Hello...12 players tonight in Prague for our Monday legacy night...last one before new edition kicks in...is it the beginning of an Eldrazy Stompy era? Are we going to see crazy brews? Who knows...

I played same list as last report i wrote here

Metagame:
2 enchantress
1 burg delver
1 miracles mentor
1 lands
1 12posts
1 ant
1 merfolk
1 food chain
1 jund
1 team america
1 shardless bug

Round 1 got paired with Food Chain an is piloted by Adam who is a former pro player and writer for blackborder website
I don't remember much of the first 2 games but game 3 he has a coinflip choice...he has to choose if i have a bounce spell for his griffin or not...he has shaman active and has to choose between drain me for two or gaining 2 life...he choose to gain life and not die next turn...i have hibernation to bounce shaman and chalice for one on the table and I win by a miracle...

Round 2I got paired with UR Delver...game 1 he mulligans to 5...game two is my turn to go to 5...
Game three i keep a disputable hand quite slow but with potential but he cantrips/fetches into gurman angler and quickly finishes me while I struggle to find third land...

Round 3 against Punishing Jund...I did not realized I have been paired down...
In game one I have to "waste" two Fows on his confidants as that is a draw engine (paired with his removals) we cannot beat...he quickly dispatches me with double shaman and a goyf...clearing board with Pfire and double Grove.
In game two i keep another disputable hand (island, wasteland, double nemesis and back to basics force and clique) i lose poorly without drawing third land...
My opponent concede as he was 2-0 without any possibility to win prizes (only 3-1 and 4-0 get store credit)
I thank my opponent and I go to the...
Round 4 against 12posts...hard matchup...he has many ways to reset the game by fetching posts and gaining incremental lives...in both games he ramps faster than my lords and kills me very quickly...

An ugly 1-3 (2-2 on the paper...) for me tonight...
I look forward to test 2x warping wail next tournament!

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Originally Posted by CptHaddock

For the big mana decks (lands, 12 post, MUD) the plan is to normally it's hit a few of their key pieces enough to buy some time and hopefully kill them before their big pieces come online. Just play a tempo game and try to kill them as soon as possible. I'd recommend running some amount of wastelands or back to basics if that is your meta. I don't think that Jund is very favorable (it's hard for a deck with no card advantage to beat a deck with 8 removal spells and a ton of card disadvantage). Shardless is usually favorable however they can have some draws that you just can't beat. For these decks you probably want to play some removal spells (dismember/submerge) to get rid of trouble permanents. Kira is also fantastic against Jund however she (it?) might be a little too slow.

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Hope and reliance on SB are not very helpful here.

• Wastelands could help, but unfortunately there is not much space for four copies of them.
• Back to Basics looks good on the surface, but slow and hits our own lands, Mutavault and Cavern of Souls. In comparison, Blood Moon is more efficient and starts working immediately it enters into play.
• Dismember is painful and just helps your opponent. I plan to try Spatial Contortion, but not sure whether it will help much. Never tried Submerge, because am not sure in its efficiency in Merfolks; sending back Tarmogoyf or Primeval Titan to see them shortly again doesn't help much; only if you attack for lethal and with a lot of removal it is a low probability event.

In general, I have a feeling that Merfolks is not well positioned against my new metagame. In many situations Chalice doesn't help much and there are only a few counterspells in the deck to prevent something from happening, e.g. Toxic Deluge.

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Originally Posted by the_goat

Lands/12-Post are disrupted by back to basics...wasteland...chalice for 1 still blocks gamble/crop rotation/top/brainstorm/ponder/needle so is not so bad...

MUD you need bounce spells...or Vendilion to remove key pieces...null rod might help stopping metalworker...wasteland helps too...and usually aggro style play...as they take a lot of damage from ancient tomb...be sure you keep a hand with force otd for their t1 trinisphere...

Shardless sultai/jund back to basics...chalice for zero/1 is ok...i personally play 2xmisdirection in my build...is good with decay...with counters and...with Ancestral Vision! Jund make sure you board graveyard hate for PF shaman goyf etc...and sumberge his creatures in response to a fetch...

If your meta is infested with these decks bring with you back to basics...is still good against 4c delver and few other decks...

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Perhaps Misdirection is good against Ancestral Vision or Hymn to Tourach, but imo in many other situations it is a huge cards disadvantage.

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Originally Posted by Chronatog

Hope and reliance on SB are not very helpful here.

• Wastelands could help, but unfortunately there is not much space for four copies of them.
• Back to Basics looks good on the surface, but slow and hits our own lands, Mutavault and Cavern of Souls. In comparison, Blood Moon is more efficient and starts working immediately it enters into play.
• Dismember is painful and just helps your opponent. I plan to try Spatial Contortion, but not sure whether it will help much. Never tried Submerge, because am not sure in its efficiency in Merfolks; sending back Tarmogoyf or Primeval Titan to see them shortly again doesn't help much; only if you attack for lethal and with a lot of removal it is a low probability event.

In general, I have a feeling that Merfolks is not well positioned against my new metagame. In many situations Chalice doesn't help much and there are only a few counterspells in the deck to prevent something from happening, e.g. Toxic Deluge.

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you do not send back goyf/titan...you play submerge in response to a shuffle effect...like a fetch or the titan effect...to get rid of the card forever...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chronatog

Hope and reliance on SB are not very helpful here.

In general, I have a feeling that Merfolks is not well positioned against my new metagame. In many situations Chalice doesn't help much and there are only a few counterspells in the deck to prevent something from happening, e.g. Toxic Deluge.

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Huh? This is the entire purpose of having a sideboard. If you are just going to concede matchups where you still have a chance of winning with a few additional cards what is the point of even playing magic? Also just bear in mind that the chalice build of merfolk isn't the end all, be all. You might actually be better off in your current meta playing a build that doesn't play chalices main and instead plays dazes. This will open you up to a bunch of sideboard cards as well.

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Originally Posted by Chronatog

• Wastelands could help, but unfortunately there is not much space for four copies of them.

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Agreed, and I don't think that you have 4 of them. I think you can run 1-2 of them if you are running 4 caverns/4 mutavaults without significantly hurting your manabase.

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Originally Posted by Chronatog

• Back to Basics looks good on the surface, but slow and hits our own lands, Mutavault and Cavern of Souls. In comparison, Blood Moon is more efficient and starts working immediately it enters into play.

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Once again I agree and I don't think that anyone is going to argue otherwise with you that B2B is better than blood moon. The idea is essentially the same though; at least for decks that try to fairly play it. You let your opponent waste some of their resources on your other things and when they are low on resources you play it. Effectively stopping them from playing spells for the rest of the game. Obviously this hurts our game plan slightly since we are playing a fair bit of non basics now, but the idea is that it's hindering our opponent more than it is hindering us. Playing blood moon when your opponent isn't tapped out allowing them to float mana to destroy or just plain counter the blood moon doesn't do anything either.

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Originally Posted by Chronatog

• Dismember is painful and just helps your opponent. I plan to try Spatial Contortion, but not sure whether it will help much. Never tried Submerge, because am not sure in its efficiency in Merfolks; sending back Tarmogoyf or Primeval Titan to see them shortly again doesn't help much; only if you attack for lethal and with a lot of removal it is a low probability event.

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I think you are really undervaluing free/cheap removal spells in merfolk. Even something like vapor snag can provide temporary relief from a large creature that is trying to beat you down or plain just save your dude from a removal spell. I have not tested spatial contortion but it still doesn't kill cards that can become big threats for us i.e. kotr, zombie fish, goyf, forgemaster, etc. On top of that it costs 2 mana with 1 of the requirements being a strict uncolored land. Like I said if you don't like playing dismember you should play some amount of submerges. The life loss is mostly irrelevant, chances are a creature that would die to dismember would probably do the same if not more damage to you anyways. Like the_goat stated you can do things like submerge their creature in response to fetches. In some situations you can effectively "time walk" your opponent by just placing the creature on top of their library forcing them to play the same creature again. This gives you at least a turn to find a counter/swing in/whatever. Each removal spell that we play is going to come with downside, afterall we are a mono u deck with limited options.

Hello everyone!

I'm playing Merfolks for two months now (previously played ANT) and i'm still trying to fix my list to my chaotic field...

I was running a pretty straight forward build, with more creatures and only 4x FoW and 4x Chalice of The Void as "control" elements. I did well considering the horrible matches i faced, but i realized that not running Daze and Wastelands made some matchups more difficult that they should. This is the list i am working on now:


11 islands
3 Mutavaul
3 Waste
4 Cavern

8 lord
4 cursecatcher
4 tnn
2 harbringer
3 phantasmal
4 silvergil adept

3 daze
4 fow
4 aether vial
1 jitte
2 warping wail


Chalices would go for the SB...

What do you guys think? My field is pretty strange, we have Burn, Aluren, Mud, DnT, Goblins, Miracles, Jund, Junk and many others!

Has anyone tested Sea Gate Wreckage?

I've found Merfolk often runs out of gas, especially against the various Sultai/BUG decks running around.

In addition, Merfolk tends to get flooded, and Sea Gate Wreckage could help on both fronts, by providing card advantage and a way to use extra mana.

I plan on testing the following list, the next time I get to play a Legacy tournament:

20 Lands
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
1 Sea-Gate Wreckage
11 Island

26 Creatures
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Vendilion Clique

8 Artifacts
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void

6 Instants/Sorceries
4 Force of Will
2 Echoing Truth

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Dismember
1 Negate
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Manriki Gusari
2 Flusterstorm
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Wasteland

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VanHendrix

Hello everyone!

I'm playing Merfolks for two months now (previously played ANT) and i'm still trying to fix my list to my chaotic field...

I was running a pretty straight forward build, with more creatures and only 4x FoW and 4x Chalice of The Void as "control" elements. I did well considering the horrible matches i faced, but i realized that not running Daze and Wastelands made some matchups more difficult that they should. This is the list i am working on now:


11 islands
3 Mutavaul
3 Waste
4 Cavern

8 lord
4 cursecatcher
4 tnn
2 harbringer
3 phantasmal
4 silvergil adept

3 daze
4 fow
4 aether vial
1 jitte
2 warping wail


Chalices would go for the SB...

What do you guys think? My field is pretty strange, we have Burn, Aluren, Mud, DnT, Goblins, Miracles, Jund, Junk and many others!

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I sincerely would play another deck if I was in your shoes, because nearly all the deck you listed are bad news for merfolk...

If you still intend to play merfolk I would cut the dazes and 1 fow for more gas, because you don't want to 2-for-1-ing you nor to see counters which can easily be played around against midrange decks.

Instead I would play another Jitte, another Image and a couple of Kira: more creatures and proactive protection for them.

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=11391&f=LE

This guy is unstoppable and nobody knows him (from our pond)?!

Dominik Stuetzle always makes top8 in this tournament (second place most of times), but now he got first place :) . There are some videos on youtube here.

His list looks like the older lists with no COTV in the 75 or Wastelands. IMO, his MD is good, we can play without COTV, but we need at least 2 Wastelands to help against some decks.

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Originally Posted by FANAttIC

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=11391&f=LE

This guy is unstoppable and nobody knows him (from our pond)?!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by FANAttIC

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=11391&f=LE

This guy is unstoppable and nobody knows him (from our pond)?!

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I think I know 1/2 players from Germany that might know him...I will ask tomorrow as they are visiting Prague for an eternal weekend...plus I will ask other 2 friends on FB

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He appeared on Salvation Legacy forums, we are just having conversation.

44 players today in Prague for the Czech Legacy cup

I sleeved the 75 of the "German Merfolk-naut" yesterday evening but a quick round of scouting at the tournament made me go back to 4 chalice build

i played:
10 island
10 colourless (4c/4m/2w)

23 "usual suspects" (8 lords / 4 adept / 4 catcher / 4 nemesis / 3 images)
1 clique

4 vial
4 chalices
1 jitte

3 warping wail
4 fow

side:
2 flusterstorm
2 dismember
1 manriki-gusari
2 submerge
1 echoing truth
2 tormod's crypt
1 back to basics
1 harbinger of the tide
1 venser shaper savant
2 null rod

round 1 - lost to BUG delver 0-2
round 2 - won against shardless bug 2-0
round 3 - won against miracles 2-1
round 4 - won against BURG delver 2-0
round 5 - won against knightfall (coralhelm + kotr) 2-0
round 5 - ID with S&T

top8 lost to elves 2-1
i win quickly the first with t2 chalice
second game he wins comboing out natural order for monster
third game i mulligan to 6 a terrible hand and i kept muta/waste/vial/force/nemesis/submerge...i could draw many good cards (4chalices/10 island/3 wail) instead i draw cavern into silvergill into lord...he comboes out and kills me...i did not have guts to mulligan to 5 but was probably an easy mulligan

warping wail so far passed the test...in g1 against miracles he setup terminus on top i play second lord (in play there was lord + cursecatcher) and i swing for 6...he spin the top play terminus and i counter...the turn after i attack for 9...we can say this card dealt 15 damages :tongue:

will test it again...

Did you always had the Island for Submerge, Flusterstorm, Truth and Back to Basics?

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Originally Posted by FANAttIC

Did you always had the Island for Submerge, Flusterstorm, Truth and Back to Basics?

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If we exclude the awful keep in G3 in quartefinals of top8 where i kept submerge with muta+waste...yes...never had an issue before...
to be honest i side in b2b only on the play and only against certain decks...i did not side it in much this tournament...same thing for manriki gusari...i actually played with 14 sideboard cards as I did not side it in at all...

I am visiting my mom in Milan now...and tomorrow I will play MKM series...I am tempted to play same 75...but I will decide only tonight when I build the deck...

Peace of advice (if you choose to accept it): decide on your list and lock it in while there is still daylight.
Changing it at Midnight will not get better results. Been there.

I am sad that there won't be video coverage of MKM.
But good luck!

Usually I follow your approach...but yesterday I spent whole day visiting family and then dinner out + some pool with friends...now I am on my way to tournament venue and I still did not prepare decklist!!!

Fin(ger)s crossed!

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Hey guys, I'm almost done building folk and for most of the deck's duration I didn't run Daze. However I decided to test it yesterday and it seemed fairly strong but situational. What are you guys' thoughts on it? I'd be taking out 2 MD Harbingers and moving the Echoing Truth to the side (most likely) for it.