[Deck] Merfolk

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

Cunning wish in merfolks ???!?? WTF seriously ?

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This.

@Ankh: I do like the card and it does fit in the deck, the only problem is what do you take out. Well, that's not the only problem, the other problem is that of it hurting the deck where it already hurts. The lack of thinning and inability to manipulate our top deck are the biggest problems of the deck (others will say it's lack of removal too). The thing is, Ankh is terrible late game, and drawing it past turn 4 is a pretty much dead card. On top of that it isn't blue, so FoW gets hurt again (I know we have a lot of blue cards in here, but it always tears me up inside a little when I pitch LoA or Thrasher to a FoW). It puts us at 10 artifacts as well, which is just not that great.

Also, I think the other big point is that a lot of decks don't need many lands to run to begin with. Tombstalker, Goyf, Mongoose, Bob, and a lot of the other threats in this format are capable of coming down with 2 lands, so if you don't get this out quick, there's really no point in even playing it, since our manlands are better than their extra lands late game.

My bad, Phoenix, I meant that my comment was stupid. I was thinking he would have an easy time latching on to Kira twice in a turn for some reason. I replaced my gibberish with the words "stupid shackles comment" as to not derail the conversation. That didn't work so well.

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edit: Cunning Wish =/ Echoing Truth. Go my way and you can do better than bounce the hate.

Blue Elemental Blast
Sunder
Misdirection
Submerge
Mnemonic Nexus
Echoing Truth
Curfew
Thwart

Who knows which ones are the right choices, but you would have options. In my short list here we have:

1. GY hate (nexus)
2. a finisher (Sunder)
3. bounce (truth)
4. protection (misdirection)
5. nontargeting bounce (curfew - this card has a variety of uses including protection of your own guys with a kick and Silvergill functions)
6. hard counter (Thwart)

I have no idea if these are the right choices. But is there anyone who feels that we do not need maindeck preparation for variable hate and stuff we don't have answers for? There is nothing wrong with looking into other stuff right now except that this is certainly a big issue and we are currently completely unprepared. Graveyard hate is a must. Relic is clearly the best option, but unless somebody wants to suggest other cards to cut, we need to relegate it to sb in favor of more versatile defense. Frankly, I would love Cunning Wish and Relics in the main. But I can't imagine why Ankh is necessary. I like Basalt Monolith with Wakethrahser for infinite damage. But I am not about to try it in a deck as tight as this.

@Piceli: 4 Standstill works for me. I wish I could play 8. Cut something else.

I think I'm going with 3 MD echoing truth. I tried visions, wasn't as bad as you guys said it would be, and dreadnought. Dreadnought is a great threat but easily taken care of and you don't always have the stifle. Visons drew plenty. But what I think the deck needs is a utility to help with big creatures and all the BS things stacks drops on you. I see ALOT of Tombstalker lately and bouncing that guy is about as good as removal. Also I'm using Kira and love it MD 2. I think if you guys want more consistency against some of the tougher matchups thats the way to go. I don't however think relic should be MD. It simply is completely ineffective in many matches so I relegated it to SB.

I know you guys made a list of matches, just thought I would share my experience came to pretty much the same conclusion.

From my experience dragon stompy was a walk
storm combo needs extra SB
threshold is a decent match up
goblins was tough, even game 2 I got 3 chill out and a propaganda. He pinged me to death with sharpshooter off vial and an early Siege-Gang Commander off lackey :(

Overall the deck is great against a lot of the field. If I were going to Chicago I wouldn't hesitate to use it.

Im not sold on cunning wish but the idea of Curfew actually seems really strong.

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

Cunning wish in merfolks ???!?? WTF seriously ?
Hey guys, it seems to me that many of the ones who are posting in this late times are suggesting cards for maindeck that "slightly " go beyond - or doesn't fit at all, let's say it clearly- with the philosophy of this deck.
i mean, about selkie, there's has already been a discussion which has demonstrated why she doesn't fit this deck enoough; but unstable mutation?? It's a serious deck, cm'on.

there's only one point i'm not convinced of: do you find that standsill in 4x is the right quantity or it could be also 3x ? i'm just a little perplex about that, and still testing, maybe that slot could be used for a further relic, but that's all.

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Hey, I freely admitted that Unstable Mutation was a joke, like one post after I suggested it. (And if you'll look back, my tongue was kinda in my cheek when I said it.)

However, what makes me chuckle is that the Selkie advocates were the main ones to run with the idea, and bite my little red herring. Sorry for the charade, to all you more serious cats. :tongue:

As far as I'm concerned, there are still a few kinks to iron out in my main-deck. It's probably over-reaching, but I think I definitely want Sygg & Relic, along with definitely 3 Stifle, and perhaps 2 Echoing Truth if I can find the space... Ideally I'd play Kira in the main too, but space is tight, who am I fooling? The thing is, I'm trying to run a list with at least 24 creatures so I can beat down a little more consistently, but I find myself trying to squeeze too many tech cards into the main.

Stifle (at three-of) and Relic (at least as a two-of) are pretty much set in stone in my mind...

Sygg and E-Truth seem to me like they would help address a couple of the quirks of this deck. Sygg gives us a potential source of steady card advantage, thereby making all of our creatures more serious threats, and hopefully keeping our hand full in a way that Standstill can't accomplish on its lonesome, while being a Merfolk, with all the glory that entails. E-Truth is basically this deck's catch-all for unanswerable problems that Stifle doesn't catch, so I see no reason not to try to fit it into the main deck. In my mind, E-Truth and Relic are sort of in competition for the same slot, since they're both basically metagame calls... I'm not sure which is better. Relic cantrips and skullfucks 'Goyf, but E-Truth seems to have a wider range of applications... While E-Truth doesn't cycle itself, there is literally no deck that it doesn't have a relevant target against, since everyone plays permanents of some kind, even if it's just L.E.D. or whatever...

Kira seems the least worthwhile of a maindeck slot out of the five cards, and Stifle definitely stays. The rest is still undecided.

So... assuming Stifle = auto include, which I'm sold on... Would y'all give me your opinion on Sygg River Cutthroat, Relic, Echoing Truth, and maybe Kira as options for the main-deck? Sygg & Kira would be at two-of if included, Relic & E-Truth would be either a two- or a three-of, depending on how much space was available. Blargh. Can someone help me on this? Like, could I get y'all's best-to-worst list for those four cards as main-deck options?

I like the idea of curfew too. You bounce your tombstalker, I'll bounce and replay my silvergill adept. Or I'll bounce something, replay it, and tap something else with reejery. doesn't sound too bad, yeah?

However, as easyrider pointed out, any deck playing or natural ordering into progenitus will most likely have another creature in play to return to hand, so curfew may not be as strong if progenitus.dec turns into a contender. Hibernation really doesn't sound bad as an answer, though, and is flexible though also at the 3cc slot which is getting a little crowded.

On a different note, I find that I when I'm playing against another aggro deck that I can't island walk over, I get into ground stalls and end up in really close games where it seems like I'm short on creatures or short on answers. I know aquitect's will seems janky, but it cycles, pitches to force, reveals for silvergill, and lets you alpha strike right through blockers. I know it has been brought up before, but not for a while. It seems it got dumped around the same time as tideshaper mystic. Has anyone been testing this in the more recent decklists?

Also, I just had a strategy idea for the mirror match: if you land an early vial, try to avoid playing more than one island, so that later in the game you can daze your single island back to your hand and keep the opponent's merfolk from islandwalking all over you. Anyone think that that would be a viable strategy?

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

EDIT: @ Finn, Phoenix Ignition, Piceli89, Captain Hammer, Nekrataal, & Elof:
Can I get y'all to weigh in a little further on the Ankh of Mishra debate?

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I have three concerns with Ankh in Merfolk. Merfolk has a lot of solid cards to choose from. Merfolk has no means of playing Ankh of Mishra turn one. And Ankh makes for a horrible topdeck.

This is my past experience with Ankh of Mishra...

I tried Ankh of Mishra in Fairie Stompy, a deck that is IMO better suited for the card. Fairie Stompy has numerous ways to play Ankh turn one. F. Stompy rarely needs more than two lands in play to operate, three lands is the most it ever needs. Plus it doesn't draw nearly as many cards midgame as this deck does (Standstill). So it has a lesser shot of being top decked in that deck. But it still just wasn't good enough. Ankh being a bad top deck just sucked too much.

But then again, fetchlands are even more popular now than they were back then. And Merfolk draws enough cards that maybe it can afford the occasional dead draw midgame.

So I really don't know. The only way to know for sure if Ankh of Mishra is worthwhile is to try it out.

I'm still working on getting together the cards to put this deck together. (I collected format staples, but I never thought that Merfolks would someday become staples LOL)

Playing 3 Echoing Truth/Cunning Wish maindeck means that you have to mulligan/lose all the games where you have 2 of these in hands. There is, as Piceli meantions, no way that you will get the mana to play 2 Cunning Wishes with targets. Also, 2 Truths in hand would be better with 1 truth + any other card most of the times. Don't forget we have to apply preasure here!

@Ankh: Ankh has the big downside of damaging us to. Sure, the opponent takes 5/fetch and I could probebly think of some senarios where it might be good, if you start Vial+Ankh, but other than that, I would rather play Stifle, dudes, Daze, Standstills and alot of other 1-3 cc spells. I can't seem to fit in Ankh there anywhere. And against burn, aggro... it's a dead card.

@Submerge/Duke: Did you confuse this card with Sunder? There seem to be something wrong with comparison Armageddon to a bounce... ?

Hola,
I'm pretty new to Legacy (and the forums as well) but I picked this deck up about 3 weeks ago to start my testing for GP Chicago and love it. The list I'm playing with currently is:


Creatures:
4x Silvergill Adept
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Cursecatcher
4x Merrow Reejerey
2x Wake Thrasher

Spells:
4x Aether Vial
4x Standstill
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
3x Stifle
2x Wipe Away
2x Relic of Progenitus

Land:
13x Island
3x Wasteland
3x Mutavault

Sideboard:
2x Kira
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Echoing Truth
3x Propaganda
3x Divert
3x Back to Basics


Any feedback or suggestions would be great, and if anyone is interested I wrote a fairly lengthy article on 'Folk in legacy here. Any comments, feedback, or even insults regarding that article would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

My list is the same except:
-2 Wipe Away
+2 Kira
-1 Daze
+1 Relic
-1 Island
+1 Wasteland

Do you have lots of/expect lots of Counterbalance in your meta? Maindeck Wipe Away sounds a bit mah, but it might acctually work. Sideboard sounds pretty straight forward but have you tried Pithing Needle? There really good...

it has a decent amount, but even if i'm not going against countertop i feel that wipe away is just a good combat trick in general and a good answer to resolved threats

3 relic mainboard seems a bit much, but if you're in a meta with a bunch of goyfs and threshold it seems good i guess.

has anyone read stephen menendian's most recent article on StarCityGames.com where he talks about the most prominent tribal decks in legacy right now, and of course 'Folk come up, but his list has mainboard Jitte's...thoughts?

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

So... assuming Stifle = auto include, which I'm sold on... Would y'all give me your opinion on Sygg River Cutthroat, Relic, Echoing Truth, and maybe Kira as options for the main-deck? Sygg & Kira would be at two-of if included, Relic & E-Truth would be either a two- or a three-of, depending on how much space was available. Blargh. Can someone help me on this? Like, could I get y'all's best-to-worst list for those four cards as main-deck options?

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Sure, read the thread more. I've answered this at least 10 times.

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Originally Posted by srsbsns

has anyone read stephen menendian's most recent article on StarCityGames.com where he talks about the most prominent tribal decks in legacy right now, and of course 'Folk come up, but his list has mainboard Jitte's...thoughts?

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See above comment

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Originally Posted by elof

@Submerge/Duke: Did you confuse this card with Sunder? There seem to be something wrong with comparison Armageddon to a bounce... ?

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Right you are. My bad there. :confused:

@Phoenix: Sincerely: Sorry to start getting on your nerves (again)... But it sorta seems like it would pretty much take an equal amount of effort to rate four cards best to worst in your opinion as it would to write your response telling me you've already answered this question...

Anyways, you've been a lot of help, sorry to double post, (however:) didn't realize I was doing it...

Can I at least get you to say a little more about what you think of Kira VS. Sygg for the main-deck? Please?

@ Elof: What's your logic for the 3/3 split on Relic/Daze? It seems to me that I'd rather see Daze more often, but have you been finding you have it when you want it only playing three? I'm looking for one or two four-ofs I could bump down to 3 comfortably...

Also, what do you think about Sygg, River Cutthroat as a possible candidate for Kira's slot? You ever consider/playtest him?

New Topic:

Let's assume for the sake of argument that I go with two main-deck Sygg instead of Kira, because I well might (2 foil Sygg is in the mail)... It seems to me that Umezawa's Jitte would then become a reasonably attractive card to use in the sideboard, instead of bumping two copies of Kira to the board. It hurts me to lose Kira, because I think she's pretty sexy, but it seems like Jitte would help ensure Sygg coming online, and it would be good against a fairly wide variety of matches, like the mirror match, Goblins, Thresh, Burn (to an extent: for the life-gain, or to race), The Rock, etc. Basically anything that tries to swarm or to play the midgame beaters plan gets hampered by Jitte, and I think if I can find two open sideboard slots, I should use it if I use Sygg in the main.

Does this seem logical? Basically, the way I figure, wanting to play main-deck Kira is the reason I had written off Jitte for the sideboard, so if she's gone in favor of Sygg, misewell throw a couple Jitte in the board, right?

Fair enough

Relic
Kira
Sygg
E truth

Relic, as I've been saying, is just too good right now. Kira saves us from everything but Deeds and EE. Sygg draws cards, but if you're already swinging for damage then you're already in a good position, if you cant swing for damage he's not that great.

E truth is very situational, but a better situation would be to know which deck you're playing against and counter the things that are going to most effect you. Merfolk are incredibly resilient to almost everything, but if you can't handle a moat, then save your counterspells for it. If Survival of the Fittest is in their deck, chances are that's the only thing you're going to want to counter because your merfolk should be able to handle the rest.. etc.

EDIT: I play 3 Daze, 3 Relic. Daze is a great card here, but you also don't want to be seeing it late game. You can keep them off of lands early with stifle, but in a lot of games you will see them have many more lands than you have Dazes, and as I'm sure you know, Daze is really good in the beginning, and not so much in the late game (except for FoW food). To play 4 means you draw them when you don't want them. Every deck that plays 4 Dazes has a way to shuffle and look at their library in some way. We don't, so 4 Daze hurt our late game.

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Originally Posted by Finn

My bad, Phoenix, I meant that my comment was stupid. I was thinking he would have an easy time latching on to Kira twice in a turn for some reason. I replaced my gibberish with the words "stupid shackles comment" as to not derail the conversation. That didn't work so well.

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edit: Cunning Wish =/ Echoing Truth. Go my way and you can do better than bounce the hate.

Blue Elemental Blast
Sunder
Misdirection
Submerge
Mnemonic Nexus
Echoing Truth
Curfew
Thwart

Who knows which ones are the right choices, but you would have options. In my short list here we have:

1. GY hate (nexus)
2. a finisher (Sunder)
3. bounce (truth)
4. protection (misdirection)
5. nontargeting bounce (curfew - this card has a variety of uses including protection of your own guys with a kick and Silvergill functions)
6. hard counter (Thwart)

I have no idea if these are the right choices. But is there anyone who feels that we do not need maindeck preparation for variable hate and stuff we don't have answers for? There is nothing wrong with looking into other stuff right now except that this is certainly a big issue and we are currently completely unprepared. Graveyard hate is a must. Relic is clearly the best option, but unless somebody wants to suggest other cards to cut, we need to relegate it to sb in favor of more versatile defense. Frankly, I would love Cunning Wish and Relics in the main. But I can't imagine why Ankh is necessary. I like Basalt Monolith with Wakethrahser for infinite damage. But I am not about to try it in a deck as tight as this.

@Piceli: 4 Standstill works for me. I wish I could play 8. Cut something else.

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OK I am getting the idea. Basically the wishboard could be made up of cards having an alternate cost so you can play it for 0 mana or maximum 1. Then I would include Ensnare. So you can wish for it with just the wish too pay for in form of mana ;) But then I still think the SB options are not very strong. Bouncing a Moat or any enchantment means you have to win in 1 turn before it comes back again.

OK I will pose a crazy idea myself but first let me resolve that Ankh issue. I dont like the card. I still think it is better to drop an Adept, Standstill whatever turn 2 can be played then dropping Ankh. Most decks can run on 3 Lands so Ankh doesnt do much, and fetchlands should get stifled so there is no good performance from Ankh here. Also I do not know what to cut because every card in the edck right now is far better then Ankh and if it is too bad for Faerie Stompy i guess it is far worse for Merfolk.

Now to that crazy SB idea I had. I checked what differs to a Dreadstill deck and the idea was, if we would run already 1-2 Dreadnaught main, we could dedicate our complete SB or most parts of it to turn Merfolk into Dreadstill plus a few folks. SO what does it take to create that transformation. We need some Trinket Mages, Spell Snares, additional Stifles or Trickbind, Counterbalance/Top, EE and maybe Brainstorm or better Ponder because we do not run fetchies plus additional land. OK EE is pretty useless with just Islands. We possibly would also like to keep SB slots for ET or Hydroblasts maybe Needle. So the following could be a first suggestion:

Main: 2 Dreadnaught in the slot of Kira, upping the amount of Stifle to 4, dropping maybe 1 Relique because Dreadnaught is increasing the matchups where also Relique shines in keeping Goys and Stalker small or off the table. Adding one more Islands and one Wasteland less.

SB: 1 Dreadnaught, 3 Trinket Mages, 3 CB, 2 Top, 1 Trickbind, 3 Ponder, 2 Spell Snares/Hydroblasts/ET

Which matchups are improved by that? But the question to ask before that is. What are the bad matchups? I would say it is R or/and G based aggro like GoyfSLigh, R/G Beats, maybe Boros/Zoo, Swarm decks like Goblins or Elves, Enchantress and maybe Board control like MBC or Parfait (I have never played MBC or MWC matchups but could image that they are bad). I think that the transformation improves all these matchups. Aggro seems pretty obvious and has been discussed before as "Dreadnaught in SB" idea. Swarm, because you have a very fast clock that you can protect against Disenchant or Viridian Zealot and alike solutions, only Krosan Grip is a major pain. Board control the same. Control like MUC of course is another thing but then you just do not transform ;)

OK the analysis is very very basic so looking into the details may prove me wrong, but I kinda like to try it out because it just sounds so kewl playing 2 in 1 ;)

I play 3 Relic/Daze for the same reasons Phoenix just said. Drawing Daze i mid/late game means a dead card. At least relic cycles for 2. And having just 2 Relics means I will never see them when I want to and always see them when I don't want to.

Perhaps I could do -1 Relic +1 Sygg.


Actually, Curfew sounds really intressting. Will consider that card and might even try it out...

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Originally Posted by Nekrataal

Now to that crazy SB idea I had. I checked what differs to a Dreadstill deck and the idea was, if we would run already 1-2 Dreadnaught main, we could dedicate our complete SB or most parts of it to turn Merfolk into Dreadstill plus a few folks.

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Finn is going to murder you for bringing this up. I did this in a tournament and crushed the 1 burn deck I played because of it. I lost to mono black control due to him top decking an Unmake to kill my already 1 swing in Dreadnaught (Unmake... seriously? Perfect card to hit at the time). I didn't put in the whole sideboard, just had 4 naughts and 4 Stifle available. It didn't work terribly, but I stopped discussing it here do to large hate I received from certain individuals.

I'm liking that idea more now that I think of putting Shapesharer in the sideboard to help against maybe Aggro Loam or something of that style. It's worth trying out again, but you can read how having 2 maindeck Phyrexian Dreadnaught and 3 maindeck Stifles went in my tournament report a while back.

For the Ankh of mishra issue: I'm really not convinced about that card, especially for the use it would have in this deck. If it's true that ankh would create a far larger disadvantage to the majority of our opponents than how much it would make to us, think about it: what would it be its really purpose ? to accelerate the damage race ? i think merfolks are already enough "offensive " to make it through without ankh. Really, i've seen matches where , after having gone far under a standstill, merfolk players have dropped an astonishing army of 'folks, something like "reejy, atlantis, untap, other atlntis, untap, ecc ecc.. then swing with my 10/10 thrasher". Why do i say this thing ? because i think that ankh of mishra, if considered as a MD inclusion, could only replace some controllish piece of the cards configuration we've arrived to, and since ankh needs at least a 3x slots to work reasonably IMO, we would have to cut.. what ? the vacant slots, of course.
But i prefer 1000 times relic, which pwns many tier1s alone.
But i prefer 100 times echoing truth, which is incredibly versatile and useful.
But i perfer 10 times even kira, at this point.
The concept is: ankh may help us to go off 1 turn before than usual, but it's not exactly what this deck has been build for. 'd rather have it a bit more slower, but with a major range of control against most of the archetypes thanks to the great universality of the card we have chosen so far.
And if we'd want to go through the "blue burn/sligh " route, at this point we 'd have to add psionic blast, and then the next step would be nearly to completely revolution the deck asset.

COmpliments to that guy who wrote that article, it has seemes enough self explanatory and straight to me.

EDIT: hey Duke, i don't want you to think that every time you propose something, i want to thrash you out, it's just a simple discussion for the most right choices for merfolks :-)

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Playing 3 Echoing Truth/Cunning Wish maindeck means that you have to mulligan/lose all the games where you have 2 of these in hands. There is, as Piceli meantions, no way that you will get the mana to play 2 Cunning Wishes with targets. Also, 2 Truths in hand would be better with 1 truth + any other card most of the times. Don't forget we have to apply preasure here!

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I don't think I agree with any of this. And then

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Originally Posted by Nekrataal

...Nought this again...

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Having one positive experience with a strategy does not make it a good one. All I am saying (and have written about in this forum at length) is that you guys consider how much of Dreadstill is designed to get this guy to work. And then look at what we have by comparison. The lack of design space devoted to this combo will result in a lot of dead cards visible only over time.

Frankly, I think I like the list srsbsns posted as the best compromise yet.

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Originally Posted by srsbsns

4x Silvergill Adept
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Cursecatcher
4x Merrow Reejerey
2x Wake Thrasher

Spells:
4x Aether Vial
4x Standstill
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
3x Stifle
2x Wipe Away
2x Relic of Progenitus

Land:
13x Island
3x Wasteland
3x Mutavault

Sideboard:
2x Kira
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Echoing Truth
3x Propaganda
3x Divert
3x Back to Basics

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I think I might go:
-1 Daze
+1 Wakethrasher or Wasteland
or perhaps not

But I would replace all of the Diverts with Misdirections for absolute certain.

This list has the fat trimmed off with all the important details covered. BTW, I loved your article.

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Originally Posted by Finn

But I would replace all of the Diverts with Misdirections for absolute certain.

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All of them? Have you actually tried this? I can't imagine the effect 7 pitching cards would have, but I can't imagine pitching a LoA or Reejery or other creature from your hand to turn around, say, a Thoughtseize or Sinkhole or burn. It's like they get what they want anyway, and now you have more RFG lords or Thrashers or what have you.

If you test it tell us how it does, but I really can't see this being good x3. 1x I would do in a second, but 3x is card suicide.