[Deck] Merfolk

Glad to see another player picking up merfolk. Are you really okay with not having any equipments in the deck, or some way to take the opponent's creatures?

I asked coz the deck has problems fighting toe to toe vs aggro decks. There are alot of aggro decks in my area and most of them are just naturally bigger than ours, and packs relevant abilities (first strike, bushido, pumpable, regenerating), and the decks I play against just packs alot more threat density than ours. So I am very iffy with dropping the equipments. They help speed up our clock, and also fight off aggro decks.

I've been running simulations of this deck alot on MWS, and honestly, I am slowly disliking the Counterbalance + top in the deck. I am also starting to favor the inclusion of Aquitect's Will into the deck. Often times as our creatures get bigger, having to tap our 1cc merfolks to attack with a bunch of unblockables, I am starting to dislike. As that 1 creature actually makes a difference when it comes into a damage race. But I am against taking them out also, as they can also help screw your opponents mana, sometimes even buying us enough time for 1 massive attack.

Things I dont like to see are:
- Opponent drops a Aether Vial on the first turn.
- Opponent opens up with 2-3 creatures on turn 1 via dark ritual.
- Opponent constantly aiming pin point removal to our LoA's head.
- Seeing a Bayou/Overgrown Tomb coming down (Start becoming defensive due to worry of pernicious deed)

But from the 1st 3 things I mentioned, what I really am worried about at basically aggro decks that runs more threat density than us. We cant go toe to toe since their creatures are bigger, and they run more than we do, and we can't afford to just sit back and pray that we come across one of our lords.

So yes, propaganda is a must, and equipments are too.

I see that you run brainstorm, however, you also do not have a fetchland. Have you considered running ponder at this case, for that shuffle effect?

I am also begging to think that I should run Mutavault also, though I am hesitating due to the fact that we also run Back to Basics, and that majority of decks in legacy right now runs Wasteland. So instead of their wasteland becoming useless, we are actually giving them a target for it.

How much help has that Puresight Merrow give you? Merfolk deck since its new, has so many things we can play around and test.

Heres my current build I am playing around in MWS:

(4)[CARD]Flooded Strand[/CARD]
(8)[CARD]Snow-covered Island[/CARD]
(8)[CARD]Island[/CARD]

(4)[CARD]Tidal Warrior[/CARD]
(4)[CARD]Tideshaper Mystic[/CARD]
(4)[CARD]Silvergill Adept[/CARD]
(4)[CARD]Lord of Atlantis[/CARD]
(4)[CARD]Merrow Reejerey[/CARD]

(3)[CARD]Propaganda[/CARD]

(4)[CARD]Force of Will[/CARD]
(3)[CARD]Daze[/CARD]
(4)[CARD]Counterspell[/CARD]

(2)[CARD]Aquitect's Will[/CARD]
(4)[CARD]Sword of Fire and Ice[/CARD]


SB: (3)[CARD]Back to Basics[/CARD]
SB: (4)[CARD]Chill[/CARD]
SB: (3)[CARD]Energy Flux[/CARD]
SB: (1)[CARD]Proganda[/CARD]
SB: (4)[CARD]Stifle[/CARD]

Maindecked propaganda, as well as running 4 equipments to deal with aggro matchups. Nice form of card draw from Adept, Will, and SoFI.

@zappa:
To be sincere, the tournments where I brought Merfolks , there were dragon stompy, ichorid combo and WW, and threshold. Since i played against all of them and got multiple victories, I can tell you that it is better ( in my opinion and referring to my meta ) to increase the number of merfoks instead of equipments which are, of course, very useful, but i think they're not necessary, and they often slow down our race. If your meta is full of aggro and you can't manage to hold the race with their creatures, i suggest you to run seasinger ( which, although all, i personally dislike becuase of her slowness) or threads of disloyalty to steal goyfs and whatever else causes you problems. For what concerns "if LoA doesn't come early", I remember you that our deck runs also other 4 pumpers, the reeejereys, which are surely more slow , but they allow you to do nice tricks in order to tap oppo's creatures and swing. Ah, perhaps i never lost the damage race in spite of facing werebears , goyfs and mongooses for the fact that i also run echoing truth , which is amazing if played in the right moment. My list also runs heavy disruption, which allows me to arginate thier MAJOR threats and play in the "standstill mode " (with mutavault , vial and standstill to gain CA on the board).
Finally,I hadn't tested puresight merrow yet in a torunament, but in he goldfish mode i can assure you that it is useful manily in mid game to clean our draw; either way, it's always a 2/2 for UU which becomes big early, and i think that its ability is often more useful that the thief's one. Their only problems could be the specific cost UU, which is not always easy to get with mutavaults on board, but i have vial to front this problem.
Last thing: RUN MUTAVAULT. If you should ever decide to run standstll, run them; even if u shoulfn't do it, run them in any case. They're extremely useful , and often a 3/3-4/4 for 1 colorless mana is just violent beatdown.
I think that the deck should have a very aggro approach, mantaining the control part ( composed by counters ) at the same time, so i wouldn't recommend to run BtB MB.. i keep it in the sideboard only for certain matches ( landstill above all), and generally prefer to smash oppo's face with additive 'folks.
This is all, tell me your considerations.
Piceli

Given the aggro character of the deck and the range of casting costs (1-3, distributed pretty even), I think it could even support one or two disrupting Shoals...trying it out at the moment.

@ Piceli89

Do you have any Landstill players in your meta? I was wondering if you can post your match up Theres no one in my area that plays the deck, so I was wondering how it'll go. Granted that you do have counter magic of your own, as well as Aether Vial, but I am just imagining 1 resolved sweeper and its over. As far as the equipments, I guess it just depends on your comfort level, I guess. The thing that annoys me though is having to explain it to someone else that they also count as merfolks is a bit of a pain. But since I am playing alot of people in a card shop with it, I no longer need to explain.

On magic Workstation, however, its a different story all together.
In this game I my opening if I remmeber correctly was:

2 Island, Daze, Tidal Warrior, 2 Lord of atlantis, FOW.
Cant remember the draws but what was in play at the time was...

[Islands]
[Tideshaper Mystic] [LoA with SofI] [another LoA] [Propaganda]
I then drew a SoFI and equipped it to the LoA with SoFI already in it. (Dont remember what had happened to the Tidal Warrior, I think I pitched it to FOW)

which is when this took place...

[Zappa] Zappa plays Sword of Fire and Ice from Hand
[Zappa] Zappa taps Island
[Zappa] Zappa taps Island
[Zappa] Sword of Fire and Ice is enchanting Lord of Atlantis now
[Zappa] Zappa taps Tideshaper Mystic
[Zappa] Zappa taps Lord of Atlantis
[Zappa] It is now the Combat Phase, Beginning Of Combat Step
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> Wait!
[REaki] <REaki> no is a fucking merforld
[REaki] <REaki> no isladwalk
[Zappa] <Zappa> hes a merfolk
[REaki] <REaki> .......
[REaki] <REaki> is a LORD
[Zappa] <Zappa> look at the card
[REaki] <REaki> noob
[<System>] <System> Player Lost

Im confused on my screen it said "Merfolk Lord" do specific cards you put on MWS not really show up in their screen? Like if you decide to use Timespiral version, will they see a different version?

But yeah, anyways, unblockable merfolks with equiments are pretty evil.
I might consider running the mutavaults too, like you said, they can easily be a 3/3 for a mere mana. I am just worried though that I am going to make the opponent's wasteland relevant, than making it a dead card.

I am also beggining to think that propaganda is no longer needed. I think I'll play around with adding a few more equiments to the deck, since it really is the aggro deck I want to focus more into. The unblockable part of the deck makes it even more sweet. Surprised though that I haven't seen any green decks running [Vexing Shusher] yet, or atleast sideboard wise. Alot of people I know really wanted it.

For an aggro oriented meta, I think this is the build I would go for.
I know it may seem kinda overkill, but with the amount of removal other decks packs, as well as bigger creatures with relevant abilities, and a higher threat density. I feel comfortable with overkill.

Heres what I am thinking about going with:
Still waiting for my playset of Jitte, and beta version of LoA. *Yey beta!* ^_^

(4) Flooded Strand
(6) Snow-covered Islands
(6) Islands
(4) Mutavault

(4) Force of Will
(4) Daze
(4) Counterspell

(2) Aquitect's Will

(4) Tidal Warrior
(4) Tideshaper Mystic
(4) Silvergil Adept
(4) Lord of Alantis
(4) Merrow Reejerey

(3) Umezawa's Jitte
(3) Sword of Fire and Ice

The problem is, if I were to add the mutavault should Flooded Strand get taken out? Wouldn't Mutavault also start to cause some friction should Back to Basics get boarded in game 2? I am also worried of not being able to cast LoA turn 2, or not have UU on turn 2 (counterspell in hand) should I play "draw-go" on a few turns (happened to me a few times).



@ Goergjorge
Have you gotten a chance to play test the Disrupting Shoals? Between the FoW and Disrupting Shoal, did you ever have problems of losing a bit much cards? Since the deck has little card drawing as it is. If it showed positive results can you post the decklist youre using? What is your card drawing engine?

disrputing shoal is too specific for my taste, i wouldn't run it because it's too random.
@zappa: counterspell is not needed in this deck, if you decide to follow my advice and build an aggroer version. remember that we're an aggro deck, we must beat down and hold the race with our oppos, so counterspell would slow a lot our game keeping UU every time. I prefer to run mutavault and have a colorless mana ( this is generally not a problem , because i can drop vial on turn 1 or just make island -mutavault -standstill go) , and rarely i 've been wasted.. i remember you that my deck runs 3 stifles, though :tongue: , so it's easy for me to read oppo's intentions and make him waste a land. Finally, counterspell is more typical of a control deck which can support lots of lands, we usually drop up to 3-4 lands and cast our angry fishes. At least, I do so XD.
Propaganda is not needed, perhaps only in SB for extremely aggro deck , but it is just a metagame choice. For what cocnerns the landstill matchup, I just played yesterday with a landstill ( and several times on MWS against net opponents) and I managed fortunately to win in spite of lots of removals ( ghastly demise for example). however, if you fear so much mass removals or "sweepers", just run some stifles and protect them with a FoW while you beat your oppo's ass.
Ah , last thing: LoA is a MERFOLK LORD (wizard corrected this "errata"), so it wil get the bonus by another LoA or from a reejerey. I know that MWS is full of noobs.. I think at how many times i got player lost because my oppos couldn't remove 3 cards face down from the top of deck because of grimoire thief's ability..

I wonder how much sense it would make to run some type of transformational with the goal of going beatdown against control decks, and control against combo decks. It's easy to come up with good control cards that can fit into a Merfolk deck - FoW, Daze, Counterbalance, perhaps Counterspell or Disrupting Shoal, Umezawa's Jitte and I'm sure there are plenty of others. Similarly, there are anti-control cards that will fit - Aether Vial, Riptide Pilferer, Tidal Courier, and Fallowsage come to mind.

Yes propaganda doesnt seem like it is no longer needed. Or the deck doesnt even need, as usually the deck runs so many turn 1 drops. That's why I've decided to run more equipments on my merfolk deck to fight off aggro decks.

Maybe I should call the deck "Armed Merfolks", theyre armed and they are definitely angry. Ha ha just kidding. :laugh:

I am finally considering the inclusion of Aether Vial as to not worry about losing that 1 land from Wasteland, have an element of surprise for combat as well as being good vs control decks, and having the mana available to Counterspell. Leaving 2 Islands untapped while Aether Vial in on 2, and NO Coounterspell in hand, and simply just passing the turn, is a mind game all on its own.

The deck I'll be testing for now will be somethig like:

4 Flooded Strand
6 Snow-covered Island
6 Island
4 Mutavault

4 Aether Vial

4 Tidal Warrior
4 Tideshaper Mystic
4 Silvergil Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey

3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Counterspell
2 Stifle
4 Force of Will

SB: 4 Back to Basics
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Stifle
SB: 4 Chill
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt


@ Rufus
About the Counterspell thing, taking them out to me would lower my comfort level. Specially when playing against an unknown deck, 1 resolved sweeper and it can very much spell game. I know some will say that we can just drop another ones, but part of the problem is that the deck doesn't have a solid card draw. If you are running equipments to can acquire card advantage, but a solid card draw, is a different story all together.

Since I am running a bit of artifacts now, with the inclusion of vial and jitte, I was wondering wether or not [Thirst for Knowledge] might see a fit, especially if I add 4 of [Seat of Synod], the artifact land. But doing so will just seem plain silly as we do run Back to Basics in the sideboard.

Maybe Fact of Fiction? But the card is four mana to cast.
Oh well, I am going to play test this version and see how it turns out.

Anyone here have MWS and would like to play test with me?

You guys are losing an awful lot of disruption when you exchange Wastes and Ports for Mutavaults and a stack of equipment. Are you sure you want to do this? The aspect of the deck that gives it such a big leg up on Thresh has been its ability to keep disrupting while it cheats creatures into play. These proposed versions I see have lost much of the disruption and some of cheat ability as well. Have the changes granted some other advantages that more than offset what is lost in this very common scenario?

What do you do with the Mutavaults when B2B comes in? Actually don't bother, I think I know this one.

Someone somewhere tell me what Tideshaper Mystic is doing in this deck.

@finn: i decided to cut out the ports and the wastes just because they slowed the deck alot for me. I play a very aggro deck , combined with the traditional elements of control 8see FoW, daze, stifles.. ) , so i don't want to keep my oppo tangled in my mana denial-very randomic happening, which is not always valid because they often play only basics . I have tested rishadan port and I don't like it because I must keep 2 manas open, and I prefer to play something different which makes more pressure. I know that yo could say that we win by cutting tha mana of the oponent, but for me it's more solid to add merfolks and prepare a hard beatdown. And ifyou watn to know if I lose again threshold, I can tell you that i rarely do. If you play smartly by countering the right things (see: burn spells on our creatures ) and manage to vial in the right moment, you will dominate the match. Tarmogoyf doesn't scare me. Mutavault is a solid choice in this deck which runs 8 pumpers, particularly in min,e bcause it fits well with the landstill "part " and often becomes very big.
For what concerns tideshaper mystic, I don't like it too: it just works with LoA, but doesn't give occasional manadenying because its ability can be played only in our turn. If you,zappa, want to play drops 1 -merfolks, play changeling, whose ability is nice, or cursecathcer ( which, I think, isn't that strong in legacy, though). However, i will try to add some equipments and run less merfolks.. let's seehow things change.

I am playing Tideshaper vs reef shaman for 1 thing, that extra power. I'd rather have the power of one vs power of zero. In an outright damage race, that extra damage helps. It is why I tried Aquitect's Will with the previous builds. Since having to tap one merfolk to let the others get trough can be a bit of a set back.

EDIT: I use them to swing those early turns if opponent does't drop any creatures yet, when he drops something relevant but not counter-worthy, I use them to open the path for my other merfolks.

Run Ports and Wastelands? We're a pseudo aggro deck, but runs no where near as much threat density as goblins. 8 colorless land in the deck that runs only 20 lands, can often be a mulligan if Aether Vial is not on sight. I'd much rather have the blue mana available for either Stifle or Counterspell.
Equipments? That is just my preference, like piceli has his own, and other people has their own. Just like how other decks out there runs other card choices, color combinations and etc, while maintaining the concept. I have not lost sight of that, I am merely focusing on helping the creature vs creature match up, with the help of equipments.

The previous builds lacks card drawing and card advantage. Yes, you may have fetchland to shuffle the deck and silvergil adept, that's so minor of an effect. Equipment's when facing aggro decks, is pretty much card advantage on its own. Kill other cards with Jitte and sword of fire and ice, and SoFI also draws you cards. Helps your creature vs creature combat, card advantage over time, card drawing from SoFI, helps speed up your clock as well.

Why worry about getting affected with Back to Basics? It is in your sideboard, if you need to use it then use it, 4 cards in the deck that it'll affect shouldn't stop you from using it.

It seems like there are two versions of this deck, disruption based vs aggro based. And I think it is probablty a meta game call.
I've tried disruption based version with B2B and Winter Orb, And I find that while B2B is very strong vs decks with 3 or more color, more and more decks are edging toward running basic lands in my area.
There are some advantages in using winter orb. While it is less powerful compared to B2B vs decks that uses mostly nonbasic, winter orb costs 1 less mana, and generally more versatile against unknown decks.

Here is the decklist I used

Lands/Mana (17)
4x Wasteland
11x Island
2x Chrome Mox

Creatures (20)
CORE:
4x Tidal Warrior
4x Loa
4x Silvergil Adept
TESTING:
3x Stonybrook Banneret
4x Merrow Reejerey
1x Seasinger

Artifacts(5)
2x Winter Orb //best used midgame to lategame
3x Aether Vial

Counters(10)
4x FoW
3x Daze
3x Stifle

Utility(8)
3x Serum Visions
3x Standstill
2x Echoing Truth

SB:
Core:
3x Chill (switching with winterorb)
3x Annul
1x Seasinger
8x Undecided

Note on Creatures
This deck usually requires no more than 2 mana to function, 3 if no aethervial or stonybrook bannert are present. However, choices of creatures are far from final. I've considered the new spiketail merfolk from shadowmoor but I have not got time to test it.

This deck has some problems against aggro decks, such as white weenie and goblin, but performs amazingly against combo and control.

Ok. A lot of lists have been posted these last days or weeks and all of them seem really awful to my point of view. Instead of explaining what is bad in every list, I'll try to explain what is absolutely necessary in the merfolk deck.

4 vials: the best cheater. Cheats mana and cheats counterspells. Enables also sometimes combat tricks.
13+ blue mana providers: I found out that 13 was enough because we play vial and finally blue is not that much necessary as long as you can play your creatures. Moreover, as your CA is provided by creatures, you will be helped by them into finding a blue source. They can be 13 islands or fetches and bilands if you splash or again you may want to add some copies of faerie conclave if you want to.
4 wasteland + 4 rishadan port: the deck is based on tempo, you need to win within 5/10 turns. The mana denial enables you to control your opponent's development in the early and middle game. Back to Basics or Winter Orb are middle and late game control elements. They seem unfitted to the aggroness of Merfolks. Ask to gob players why they play those lands.
4 stifle: they complete the mana denial suite, as well as being an anti combo card and being a solution to the awful pernicious deed or engineered explosives.
4 daze: the best tempo card of magic. When you are aggro you force your opponent to play fast. When you are aggro and mana denying him, dazes are efficient until turn 10. Daze can be discussed into thresh because it is far more control than merfolks and because they don't play (or play less) mana denial then merfolk. In merfolk it's definitely 4.
4 Fow: well I think that noone was crazy enough to discuss it.
4 LOA/Reejerey/Silvergil: they are the main reasons to play merfolk. Every body plays them too so I won't overextend on this.
4 Shapesharer: it answers all the needs of the deck. You hardly have to activate it. Just being able to do it makes it strong. I tried it and it solves all the weaknesses of the deck: it faces every creature in the format and it often enables to kill one turn ealier by copying you merfolk pumpers. It's your 9-12 +1/+1 guy.

According ot me these 53 cards are absolutely needed. The deck needs a way to make CA too. If you decide to splash black, dark confidant is clearly the best. If you remain monoU, then you may want to play standstill (even if it's a bit counterproductive with the tempo approach). Here are 3 lists. The 2 first have been extensively tested. I prefer the Ub, because confidant is just crazy. The third one has not been tested and is quite different. I sacrificed the stifles in order to have a very effective standstill/sygg draw.

Ub:
Mana : 25
4*port
4*wasteland
3*underground sea
6*fetches
4*island
4*vial

Disruption : 12
4*Daze
4*Stifle
4*FoW

Creatures : 20
4*Dark Confidant
4*Merrow Reejerey
4*Lord of Atlantis
4*Silvergil Adept
4*Shapesharer

Divers : 3
3*Umezawa's Jitte

SB :
4*Propaganda
4*Tormod's Crypt
4*Rushing River
3*Mind Harness

monoU :
Mana : 26
4*port
4*wasteland
11*island
3*Faerie Conclave
4*vial

Disruption : 12
4*Daze
4*Stifle
4*FoW

Creatures : 16
4*Merrow Reejerey
4*Lord of Atlantis
4*Silvergil Adept
4*Shapesharer

Divers: 6
3*Standstill
3*Jitte

SB :
4*Rushing River
4*Propaganda
4*Tormod's crypt
3*Mind Harness


monoU experimental:
Mana : 26
4*port
4*wasteland
11*island
3*Faerie Conclave
4*vial

Disruption : 8
4*Daze
4*FoW

Creatures : 20
4*Merrow Reejerey
4*Lord of Atlantis
4*Silvergil Adept
4*Shapesharer
3/4*Sygg

Pioche : 4
3/4*Standstill

Bounce : 3/4
0/2*Rushing River
1/3*Snapback

SB :
3*Jitte
3*Propaganda
4*Tormod's crypt
3*Stifle
2*Rushing River

My god ! 22 mana for an aggro control deck ! And those faerie conclave in here are just as the most horrible you could choose ? nd you would say that "some lists in here are really awful to me " ?? Shapesharer is a good variant, ok, but with 8 colorless mana and 3 lands which come into play tapped i really fear that without a vial in initial hand, we're not put very well...
And mutavault is the best card you can exploit with stadstill and vial, believe me.. nah.. i really don't like your list. 4 ports and 4 wastes are just too much, even if i understand that your own plan is the one to disrupt opponen'ts mana.

Yeah 4 wastelands and 4 ports are too much for gobs too. Go and tell them.

And their 22/23-lands + 4 vials + 4 lackeys is goddamn awful for their aggro game plan too.

The perfect deck is surely a list with random singletons as yours.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maveric78f

Yeah 4 wastelands and 4 ports are too much for gobs too. Go and tell them.

And their 22/23-lands + 4 vials + 4 lackeys is goddamn awful for their aggro game plan too.

The perfect deck is surely a list with random singletons as yours.

---

mine will be a random list, but I've played against almost every deck anda have beaten them , while i seriously doubt that yours will be able to stop deck such as a good threshold or wahtever else, just for the fact that it is too slow.
If I get you on mws, i'll demonstrate you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maveric78f

Yeah 4 wastelands and 4 ports are too much for gobs too. Go and tell them.

And their 22/23-lands + 4 vials + 4 lackeys is goddamn awful for their aggro game plan too.

The perfect deck is surely a list with random singletons as yours.

---

Are goblins trying to come up with RR turn two? The merfolks want UU turn 2 pretty consistently, 8 colorless lands could hinder this.

They also have lackey as an alternative method of cheating creatures into play, meaning they have 8 1cc methods of skirting mana issues. This deck has 4.

That being said, you could just drop ports and have wastes/stifles MD for your mana disruption. 2 ports could also be acceptible, especially with something like brainstorm.

Picely89, you're right mothdust changeling hits far stronger than shapesharer. You have absolutely nothing more aggroish than my list. I could make a whole page showing that your list is really awful. 3 vials for instance is a complete nonsense. Vials is always 4 or 0, because you want it turn 1 or never. You state that my deck is slow on a supposingly analyse that you don't argument. In aggro decks, mana denying is a tempo strategy that endeavours to slow down the opponents so that you can kill him before he recovers. By the way threshold has never been a difficult MU for merfolks since merfolks are more aggro and pack as well better disruption for the MU.

CalebD: I really don't know what you're talking about. I never want UU on my turn2. UU is only needed for lord witch I would NEVER play on turn2. I prefer by far to rishadan port my opponent, the time for me to put a counter on vial or to play some CA cards (silvergil/dark confidant/standstill). You are right when you say that gob has 8 ways of cheating and merfolk only 4. But merfolk has 12 ways to disrupt the opponent mana base and 4 daze to take high advantage from it.

Port + Waste is great if you get turn one Vial, but not so great without. Wasting your opponents first dual is not tempo at all, and Wasting your opponents third land after you have played Merfolk turn one and two is not going to matter so much against many decks because mana curves are so low. Stifle complements them fine, but you don't get so many opportunities to Stifle a fetch in the first two turns overall (because you play second and they already cracked it, they play two duals as their first lands etc).

So, my argument is that Merfolk with LD effects is not necessarily better than without, as those effects for the most parts don't give you tempo advantage. Not having four Lackey makes all the difference compared to Goblins, so please stop using that as a "killer argument" in every post. Tempo effects are needed, but they might just as well be bounce or additional free counters (Shoal). And if if you don't use Port + Waste (which I don't), Vial becomes less attractive too, and maybe expendable (because you need lots of Merfolk in your hand to really abuse it).

I don't agree with Maverick about certain things, but he is spot-on with his approach to this deck IMO. I would really love to get Mutavaults involved in here, but they don't pitch to FoW, they don't help with Daze, and they don't make blue mana. That's a lot of strikes against. Frankly, I would be in favor of trying out two of them with two Rishadan Ports. There is no particular benefit in having more than one in play at a time anyway.

Also, keep in mind that he and I put a lot of hours into testing different approaches before independently coming to the same conclusions on direction. It seems like a waste of time to backtrack the conversation for folks who need to find out for themselves. Maybe Mav is not right. But his point of view is based on experience. Just keep it in mind.

Again, I want to know - Is the more aggressive approach winning as much against Thresh as the disruption-oriented one?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Finn

I don't agree with Maverick about certain things, but he is spot-on with his approach to this deck IMO. I would really love to get Mutavaults involved in here, but they don't pitch to FoW, they don't help with Daze, and they don't make blue mana. That's a lot of strikes against. Frankly, I would be in favor of trying out two of them with two Rishadan Ports. There is no particular benefit in having more than one in play at a time anyway.

Also, keep in mind that he and I put a lot of hours into testing different approaches before independently coming to the same conclusions on direction. It seems like a waste of time to backtrack the conversation for folks who need to find out for themselves. Maybe Mav is not right. But his point of view is based on experience. Just keep it in mind.

Again, I want to know - Is the more aggressive approach winning as much against Thresh as the disruption-oriented one?

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Even my point of view is strictly based on lots of hours playtesting different approaches. I'vre benn working on this deck since this thread was opened, and tried ever possible solution and splashing to obtain the best solution. I started me too with the disrpution-oriented version, but I didn't really like it because a) it happened several times that ports drawn in mid game were a waste of energy b) in many situations i prefered having an island rather than 2 colorless mana open c) playing only with drop 2 or 3 merfolks, despites seming to be a trascurable feature, slow you pretty consistently.
And so, after having splashed white, I came to my personal list. Surely, there's few of disruption, but the aggro exploiting can cover this lack. And it is not true that if you have put lots of time playtesting you have reached the best solution, because I have worked on this deck for 2 months every day and my list satisfies me a lot, and the results clearly speak for my advantage, but i certainly don't think that this is perfect, just because a perfect deck doesn't exist, fortunately.
I don't want to put in discussion that your list can be a great deck, too: but I just tested it before and often i didn't reach the right mana or it was just too slow, only that, even with the disruption. So , my dear maveric, don't tell me that i support my adfirmations with no proofs, because I tested it and didn't like it at all. This, of course, doesn't want to mean that your list can't be a very great deck.
Last thing: i play 3 vial instead of 4 just because i can afford to keep mana open and play merfolks or instans, differently from you that have to keep mana open to rishadan port the opponent, thing that may be succesfully in the first turns, but going to mid game loses its efficay. And , as someone wrote previously, having 2 ports in play is useless because you should keep 4 mana opej to exploit them, and this won't happen easily. I would rather use 2-3 of them and some mutavaults..

Vial is a card that can be played only as 4-of or 0-of. Because it's a card that is needed on first turn or never. Plus, don't say that you can use your lands for mana, when we always can, even with rishadan port, and far more than you since we play 21/22 lands when you play only 18...

The thing I'd want you to explain more clearly is "how can your deck be more aggressive than my Ub one", for instance. You play less creatures, mutavaults apart and no equipment.

@maveric

Yes and as if others too has not spent hours playing with this deck. Run rishadan ports and wastelands? I don't know what kind of decks that you've been playing but I wouldn't mind having UU on turn 2. Running 8 colorless sources limits that from happening. Sure those lands works for goblins, but we run half of the amount of creatures goblin decks play.

I board sweeper and it is game. We do not have the same threat density as goblin's, they can recover at a rapid rate from a board sweeper unlike merfolks, and have more ways to get more.

Sure you can disrupt them all you want, and try to be cute with your wasteland + rishadan ports. But you said so your self, you want aether vial on turn 1 or never. So what? You'll agressively mulligan to find it? Especially with the drawing power that the deck lacks?

You still have not adressed the major problem the deck faces, aggro decks. Yet you're so quick to disregard other people's hours of play test, and simply try to say that your god awful decklist is better than ours? You do realize that aggro decks could care less about your wastelands and rishadans right?

It is all about the metagame, I focused more against the aggro matchups, piceli made his own adjustments based on what he/she plays. Do not be so quick on disregarding other people's opinions especially when they have been backed up with hours of play testing as well.

As a matter of fact, you we so quick to disregard one of my early builds (which yes, I can say due to its early form its lacking alot of things), but did not even pay attention to what was included. "Shapesharer" comes to mind?

Merfolks are new and needs alot of play testing. Were are not here to bash other people's decks, like what you've been doing. If you do not like the deck, keep in mind that it is designed on their own particular meta. If some cards seems questionable, ask why it is being run, and what result is it producing, and then ask for why would it be better to be run compared to so and so cards.

It is not set in stone, its is a new deck, and it has may challenges ahead of itself.



@ Piceli
Do you have AIM and or MSN messenger so we can play test different versions of the deck? Send me a PM if you're interested.

Ok. I first of all wanted to start a discussion. I don't want to bash Piceli particularly, but as I said, his deck is really badly built. About Zappa's deck, I think that it goes the wrong way (for instance, counterspells in a non full control deck is bad, because you don't want to keep UU opened), but at least it does not play random cards and it is quite consistent.

About the UU requirement, it's really the least of my problems. I only play lord of atlantis with this requirement, and it is a creature/card I want to play as late as possible. I admit that sometimes I may lack U on my third turn (I want to play a creature and keep U open for stifle), but it is usually not that much a problem. By the way Piceli plays only 1 additionnal blue provider with a far more U intensive build.

Something about board sweepers: they are usually expensive (and colour requiring) and can be disrupted by stifle. I eventually have 12 counterspells against them and I have 12 ways to prevent my opponent to find the mana. And as my build kills before turn 8, it's usually enough. If it's not the CA provided by confidant/silvergil may help to recover and to find the 4/5 dmgs that lack to kill my opponent. Once more, landstill is one of the best MUs of the deck, because LOA makes your guys unblocable, because often their mana bases are awful (easily disruptable) and because landstill is plain useless against merfolk. Actually I would play some if I could.

I don't aggressively mulligan to find vial. I just mean that a topdecked vial is a bad topdeck. I simply aggressively mulligan to find vial or a blue mana provider.

Against aggro decks, my strategy is jitte+propaganda (which are far better when you play 21 lands and 12 mana denials). But actually, I don't see the point. Gob is the only valuable aggro deck that could race merfolk (mostly because of problue of that damn mother****** pilly who can block the time to make an army and then make a single attack kill, still remember that you can stifle the +2X/+0 of pilly), and it's declining now. You may want to raise the goyfsligh MU. I'll be honnest, I did not test it, but I did not encounter any problem on MWS (even if I know that most players does not have the tournament level). Against stompy decks (FS and DS). They are very easy MUs. Because they need 2 resolved chalices (@1 and 2) to slow me down and because they are very sensible to mana denial. These MUs have been tested.

I missed shapesharer. I know you talked about it, and I've seen it only afterwards. I mentionned it if you did not notice. This card is exactly what needed the deck. At some point I even splashed green just to include tarmogoyf and to have a big guy on itself. Shapesharer can take the form of a big guy or can be used as another pumper. It's really one of the best creatures of the deck.

I don't state that 4 ports are absolutely needed, but they are often better than wasteland (against crucible/life from the loam for instance). I'm sticking with them. Those ports are not the only originality of my list.

Merfolk are not new to me. That may be the difference between us.

Ps: Finn, I deeply regret that you don't contribute more to the thread. Did you finally abandon the folks?

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Originally Posted by Maveric78f

Ok. A lot of lists have been posted these last days or weeks and all of them seem really awful to my point of view. Instead of explaining what is bad in every list, I'll try to explain what is absolutely necessary in the merfolk deck.
<stuff>

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Originally Posted by Finn

I don't agree with Maverick about certain things, but he is spot-on with his approach to this deck IMO. I would really love to get Mutavaults involved in here, but they don't pitch to FoW, they don't help with Daze, and they don't make blue mana. That's a lot of strikes against. Frankly, I would be in favor of trying out two of them with two Rishadan Ports. There is no particular benefit in having more than one in play at a time anyway.

Also, keep in mind that he and I put a lot of hours into testing different approaches before independently coming to the same conclusions on direction. It seems like a waste of time to backtrack the conversation for folks who need to find out for themselves. Maybe Mav is not right. But his point of view is based on experience. Just keep it in mind.

Again, I want to know - Is the more aggressive approach winning as much against Thresh as the disruption-oriented one?

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While I certainly agree that some of the recent lists in this thread have been suboptimal, and that your approach is perfectly viable, it certainly is not the only and best way to go. You say that you both tested a lot and independently came to the same conclusion. Well, Corrupted Angel and I also did a lot of testing (well, at least I did a lot of testing; I can't speak for him) and independently reached the same conclusion on the deck, that being one the eschews Vial, Port, and Stifle (He does run Waste; I don't) for CB/Top and B2B.

Think of it as the difference between Moon Thresh and Tempo Thresh. One just tries to disrupt the opponent and get in there for 20; the other plays the most powerful cards it has access to (Moon and CB/Top in its case, B2B and CB/Top in my case) to control the game and then finish it quickly with efficient beaters.

KillemallCFH > I completely agree with what you say. I guess that if we compare our MUs, your aggro control may be even better than it is already (it's alreayd very good with my list) but your control MUs should suffer a lot. If I look at your list though, I'm quite sure that some merfolks you play are bad: tidal warrior, probably cursecatcher too, seasinger, etc... Shapesharer would be good also for you as far as I can see, even if the instant power of vial makes it even more powerful. It looks like you may miss also some CA in your list, and as you want to play B2B, you can't splash black or play manlands/vials to play standstill. Maybe it's your main issue. Finally, I don't like the fact that you are exposed a lot to chalice@1.

I have to disagree having UU open while having Aether Vial in play, is very mind boggling for the opponent. The mind game that it plays does factor in, even if you do not have a counterspell in hand.

I strongly disagree with a splash of another color (confidant?). As one you open yourself up more for wasteland, and if not (if youre using polluted delta to fetch for swamp) adding a non-merfolk in a merfolk deck, thats easily killed due to its 1 toughness, is not even worth it. You'll also have less of a card to reveal for silvergil adept.

I chose to run mono blue with Mutavaults being the only colorless mana producing land. yes, I see that you do run propaganda, atleast sideboard to take care of aggro matchups. But I wouldn't could out goblins, not even close. Yes their numbers, may have dropped a little, but youre still very likely to come across them. That doesn't stop there, theres so many aggro decks that could care less for your wasteland + port.

X-land stompy, Suicide black, mono black aggro, golblins (already mentioned), mono white (ranging from weenie to sno-white), decks running goyf, counter sliver. Thinking about it now I'd also like to add affinity and ichorid in those lists, as those can be pretty fast and explosive.

I used to run propagandas as well but I find equipments to solve that problem, as well as the card draw from SoFI helps with our lack of card drawing.

In "my" meta I face alot of creature heavy decks, thats why I went with the build that I felt comfortable with. With a few control decks here and there, there was a combo player before but he rarely plays anymore. I find that SoFI and Jitte just wrecks those decks, much better than I did with propaganda + jitte out. It speeds up my clock so that they have little time to find for an answer. They also make my 1 drop merfolks relevant as I'll have little to fear on taking thier creatures head on or push them in the red zone... with or without the lords.

I never ever want to bash anyones builds as it can pretty much be a meta game, but at times some cards does seem questionable, but not to the point of utterly disregarding thier whole deck. Like with piceli I asked how did his thief help in his testing. Its a matter of play style.

You guys are comfortable with the disruption suit, denying them of thier mana sources (except this part is very irrelevant in my meta, thats why I do not run it). Some people feels comfortable on a controlling build. I just focus on dropping a creature, equip it and swing for the win with counter magic backing it up.

I am mainly focused on my aggro matchups, with some tools to fend of control, if I do bad against combo, then so be it. You can't win them all, thinking that you can, is just ridiculous.

You talked about board sweepers, and how you kept them from their mana. Which deck did you play against and which version? certain versions are more suited to handling certain match ups, so I'd like to know which. Landstill (Which combination)? Truffle Shuffle? Funkbrew?

Wasteland is one land for one land. And most of the time, I'm happy that someone wastes my lands (with no recursion of course), because I will probably be the one who will take the more advantage of the tempo. If your strategy is to land 1 creature, equip and swing, then you should not play tribal and play good creatures like serendib/tarmogoyf. I did that deck and it was awesome.

Maveric, considering that your list is almost wizard tribal, do you think Sage's Dousing has any potential at all?

I never counsidered it because I did not know the card. I'm not sure I'm gonna test it though because it requires to keep the mana openened.

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Originally Posted by Maveric78f

Wasteland is one land for one land. And most of the time, I'm happy that someone wastes my lands (with no recursion of course), because I will probably be the one who will take the more advantage of the tempo. If your strategy is to land 1 creature, equip and swing, then you should not play tribal and play good creatures like serendib/tarmogoyf. I did that deck and it was awesome.

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yeah and considering you like to try to mimic things that the deck isnt and doesnt have the same capabilities, go play goblins. You can play your little little disruption suite as much as you'd like. I am sure youll enjoy it as well. Its a fun deck also.

Jitte and SoFI nets you card advatage, as well as having a great effect on the board. Speeds up your clock and makes your little guys relevant.

If you did not notice, I play jitte in all my deck (MD or SB). I know it's strong. But my game plan is rarely to play 1 creature at a time. Jitte is another way to get around fat guys, to get rid of annoying creature (dark confidant, MoR, grim lavamancer) and to gain life (against burn for instance). Swords are by far inferior to jitte in that kind of builds to my opinion, because they are not as much versatile.

Ps: Don't you think that my deck is different to gob? Looks like the only thing you see is rishadan port in my builds.

maveric, i was wondering: how do you face a turn 1 lackey if you don't hit a force of will in initial hand ? I thought it after having played with you. However, i noticed that the manlands and wastelands+ standstill is awesome, while i hadn't the occasion to see rishadan port much in action. I'm still curious to see how your deck works against tier1 decks, so i will try a bit your list.

Well, gob is a bad MU. I don't pretend the contrary. The most important is to mana deny them (with propaganda it's easier). You absolutely need to force their mana cheaters or you'll be dead. I think it's the same for your lists, since one can never rely on a 1 defense body to stop a lackey (fanatic/weirding/gempalm). So if I'm on the draw, I pray. If I'm on the play, I have quite a lot of answers (stifle on their fetches, daze, FoW, and any 2CC creature). Note that the jitte crazyness can work only if the gob player does not have already a piledriver into play (I will never repeat it enough, pilly a lame for my merfolk decks). In order to use jitte even with pilly out, I have shapesharer, confidant, faerie conclave, depending on the version. If gob is in your metagame, you definitely should not play merfolks but rather the fish version based on the same mana base.

When is the title going to be fixed? =P (Morningtide, not Monrningtide)

I wish I could contribute more to this discussion, but I haven't played the deck alot after SHM.. but I went T8 in a 23 people tournament, 22nd of March with this list: [I think it's mentioned earlier in this thread, but didn't get any feedback] I also added my thoughts.

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Main: (60)

16 Island
4 Wasteland - wasn't as gamebreaking as they should be, I would like to try 4 Mutavault here, and go all in on the "aggro approach"

4 Silvergill Adept
4 Tidal Warrior
4 Grimoire Thief
4 Stonybrook Banneret - probably 3 Sygg, River Cutthroat (even tho I don't like his 1 power) and 1 extra land maybe
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Tidal Courier
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Daze - I would try 4 Cursecatcher here, not sure about this but I want Cursecatcher in this deck
4 Force of Will
4 AEther Vial

Sideboard: (15)

4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Back to Basics - they didn't help me much, would rather have Pithing Needle to help vs Cephalid Breakfast / Belcher / other combo, Deeds and jank - (I really hate losing to combo)
2 Blue Elemental Blast - out
2 Hydroblast - also out, and add 4 Chill (since I like it better in the curve, I don't need to keep mana open, and it hoses Burn/Goyfsligh)
3 Seasinger - would change these to Stifle to hate Deeds, which hoses this deck more then Goyfs

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As you can see my version is very aggroish.. Don't know if it's the best direction, but I like the feeling of playing 'Gobs' with FoWs, hehe

- Any of you people (hi Finn and Maverick78f) have any IRL / tournament experience with Merfolks they would like to share? =)

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Originally Posted by zappa

You talked about board sweepers, and how you kept them from their mana. Which deck did you play against and which version? certain versions are more suited to handling certain match ups, so I'd like to know which. Landstill (Which combination)? Truffle Shuffle? Funkbrew?

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I think I have 3 Stifle, 3 Port, and 4 Wasteland in my current build. I have kept 4-color Landstill off a color often enough that I consider it the primary path to virctory there in that matchup. I also routinely keep Threshold from playing any green spells for an entire game (well, except for Grip - the rest are all sorcery and prone to Ports).

Yeah, against thresh, the tech is to port the green producers and to waste the splash colour producers (white/black or red).

I did only 1 tourney with merfolks (it was in october I think) and I finished 10th on 45 people with a 4-2 record against very difficult MUs: solidarity (W, probably with luck), aggroloam (L, I completely screwed up in this match, doing 4/5 misplays), burn (W, with no problem), gob (L, even against a very weak opponent that did not draw after gempalms for instance, but with a good build that he borrowed), some random bad sliver deck (W) and ichorid (W). At this time my deck was really weaker than now (for instance, I was playing MD seasingers, aquitect's wills and tarmos).

I've been testing a straight speed version (no Vials, no LD, no CBalance+Top) and liking it...some comments:

Chrome Mox is nice in such a version, not sure if it's worth the disadvantage, but starting with a Lord is good.

Why haven't I seen people play Inkfathom Infiltrator so far ? Being unblockable even without Islands is crucial !

When not playing CBalance+Top, some additional anti-combo measure might be needed in the side. I'm trying out Thorn of Amethyst so far...

I've been fooling around a lot with this version of the deck:

4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Shapesharer
4 Merrow Reejerey

4 Aether Vial
4 Disrupting Shoal (obviously these will become FOWs as I raise money)
4 Daze
4 Echoing Truth
3 Rushing River

21 Island

SB
6 Hydroblast / BEB
3 Seasinger
2 Swords
4 Heap Doll

After testing it, I found that card advantage is sorely needed, and I plan to cut an Echoing truth and a Reejerey for 3 Pulse of the Grid (singleton has performed brilliantly with Aether vial in play), and figure out what the last cut should be later.

People who have argued Shapesharer's case deserve props. It is a fundamentally weak method of solving all the decks problems, spending 5 mana to gain parity with 1,2,and 3 mana threats (dreadnought, goyf, and crusher/vore), but it solves them nonetheless.

I like having a lot of bounce because there are many permanents that hurt this deck. Actually, I don't understand how any deck can justify eschewing all forms of dealing with resolved permanents, as it is impossible to counter everything and naively arrogant to assume that your dudes can outclass theirs every time. Also, I have an irrational fear of combo decks, and echoing truth houses all the decks that make hordes of tokens, while Rushing River gives the deck 7 outs to CB/top, which is a lot better than 4. That being said, I'm definitely considering dropping to 5 or 6 bounce instead of 7 in order to fit in some card advantage.

People have called Cursecatcher bad, but I don't understand why. I understand that he misses Deed and explosives, which makes him worse than in standard, where the premier sweeper is wrath/damn, but there are other reasons to have him. The first is mana curves, with all 2 mana creatures, the deck feels very slow, especially when you play Vial. Given that I believe this is largely a tempo deck, having bad early game tempo seems like a poor choice. Also, Cursecatcher gives you a big advantage in counter wars, and it makes Daze better, which I like. One question I have, can you sac him for no reason, ie to kill some bridge from belows?

I dropped tidal warriors because tapping a dude to give your other dudes a free pass is weak. It's a 3 card combo that does maybe 3 damage a turn. It can be devastating with 4-5 creatures in play, but in that case it's just a win-more card. What makes tidal warrior good is color-screwing opponents. I think that there is probably a perfectly decent mana-denial deck to be made using tidal warrior, Cursecatcher, port and wasteland (maybe even going overboard for ghost quarter too), B2B, Daze, and cheap dudes, and maybe a black splash for stuff like recoil and sinkhole, but this isn't it.

Riptide pilferer is great, but is definitely the 4th best 2 drop merfolk, meaning she doesn't quite make the grade. Better than Silvergill adept and shapesharer against combo though.

The deck obviously suffers somewhat from a low budget (nice manabase right?), there isn't much i can do about that in the next two weeks, but I'll work on it over time.

mm your list seems a bit too overnumbered in merfolks and the lands cannot be just islands. I would sugegst to cut 6 islands to put 4 wasteland, which are amazing, and 2 mutavaults ( even more if u can afford them), because with our 8 pumpers they become very big. Also, if you use manlands and wastes a great CA engine is standstill, seriously. I play that list and always have a hand of 5-6 cards at least. Don't forget that standstill is also nuts with vial!
Merfolks, as i was saying, are too much. I think that reejerey-LoA-silvergill are compulsory, but the other... it's true that shapesharer can handle ppo's largest creatures, but it always cost 3 to do it ( and can be stifled, killed in response, ecc ecc ) , so i would recommend 3, not 4.
Echoing truths are reaaly good ( also for ETW combos), if you like 4 you're welcome. For the 1cc drops, instead, instead of the dazefolk i would suggest stifle, which is the strongest multiuse card: can do everything, coffee included, but most of all can stop oppos fetches from the first turns and give you advantage in tempo to charge vial, develop your game and whatsoever.
Ah, for raising CA the B/U Sygg is very good, i play it in 2 copies and he's pretty good ( no more than 2 cause he's legendary and doesn't die so easily.. well, for what happens to me :D ).

..All in my opinion, obv.

cloudstrife7, don't take it bad. I appreciate the fact that some people understand that merfolk is very good deck.

The problem is that you can't play a low budget version of this deck. FoW and the mana denial are absolutely unavoidable. Another thing is that we cannot keep a track for each deck built with the available cards in each player's pool. If you want to play budget, just play ichorid. It's maybe the best deck deck apart from merfolk and random fish ;-)

In such a thread, there should never be budget consideration. If you don't have the cards take it as a theory and then make yourself the practical projection into your card pool.

Cursecatcher is bad, because it's 1 for 1 and it's never a surprise (or you'll bluff with a 1-counter vial which is suboptimal for the game strategy).

As far as I came here is what I believe to be an optimal list :

Folks: 16
4 Lords
4 Reejereys
4 Silvergil
4 Shapesharer

Mana : 25
4*port
4*wasteland
10/11*island
2/3*Faerie Conclave
4*vial

Disruption : 12
4*Daze
4*FoW
4*Stifle

Draw: 4
4*Standstill

Bounce : 3
3*Rushing River

SB :
3*Jitte
4*Propaganda
4*Tormod's crypt
1*Rushing River
3*Mind Harness

The synergies :
Vial+standstill
standstill + 8*anti-lands lands + 2/3*conclave=kill
creatures+standstill
rushing river+standstill (end of turn3 bounce 1 or 2 opponent's threats and play standstill)
12 land disruption+daze
land disruption+ fast aggro clock
etc...

The deck has the following nice properties:
-chalice/counterbalance resilience
-moon effect resiliency
-very good deed protection (mana/colour denying, stifle, counterspells)
-standstill immunity
-shackles/humility bypass (evasion provided by lord/reejerey for shackles, evasion of conclave for the second)