[Deck] Merfolk

Mirror Entity is much much better. Think about it this way, the only situation where either of them are going to be helpful is the late game. In the late game you have to find ways to tap your permanents (relatively easy) for Thrasher, while Mirror Entity just requires you to tapped your already played lands. Late game we have plenty of dead draws, so pumping all our mana into ME isn't usually a bad thing. So 1 vs. 1 they are about the same size, except Thrasher gets the Vial tapped bonus and ME gets the "doesn't need already tapped stuff to be good" bonus.

The parity is broken however, when you have more than one creature on the board. While ME negates your Mutavault, if you have even 1 other creature, say a Cursecatcher, for example, you can pump both ME and him up to a 5/5. This is much better than having a 7/7 Thrasher and a 2/2 Mutavault.

If you are cleared to islandwalk then the numbers get even more ridiculous. Not only does a StoP on Wakethrasher or LoA effectively stop your swing, but if they StoP ME, you just pump all your creatures in response. He makes your tiny Iraqi militia into a freaking US Special Forces. This is incredibly helpful, and much harder to chump block.

Also, usually late game the opponent is within 1-7 life. They can't let through a 7/7 Thrasher, but if you have ME and just one other creature out, they effectively have to block both of them, or drop to 0-2 life from just blocking one.

As for your problem of facing a metagame of not Tier 1/ blue decks, I think you need to go a super aggro route. My suggestion that I thought of while half asleep drooling on my humanities notes was:

Lands:20
6 Islands
1 Plains
6 Fetches
4 tundra
3 Mutavault


Spells: 19
4 Aether Vial
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Echoing Truth
2 Vedalken Shackles
3 S to P

Creatures: 21
2 Tidal Warrior
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill
4 LoA
4 Reejery
3 Mirror Entity

SB
3 B2B
3 Stifle
3 Seal of cleansing
3 Relic
3 Propaganda

Why?

No more relying on destroying lands, non-tier 1 decks usually don't care as much about it, but just in case you're packing 3 B2B. You can get around it with 7 basics, so don't worry about it. Vedalken Shackles beat bad decks, simple as that. I played a very similar deck to this before I found out mono blue was better, and Shackles won me every aggro match out there. No one sees it coming... plus it stopped goblins like none other.

Tidal Warrior helps with giving you an unblockable route, and if you're playing against zoo, which most people play if they aren't playing tier 1, then you can keep Nacatyl and the Ape small for a few turns.

No standstill? No. Against the decks you're expecting you should be siding them out anyway. This deck is probably much better adapted to facing the first few rounds of the GPC since it has more control. We give up tempo, but ME gives it back late game by making all of our people giants.

I'm by no means suggesting this is better than regular Merfolk, this is just an attempt to help out Duke

Also, ME + Lords gets your creatures till X+1. It's also riddiculus vs Slivers and Goblin King/other "Lord/Lordlike creature".

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Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

EDIT:


Well Finn, Forbiddian already took the time to write this great post about it. He does bring up some good reasons to actually run 61 cards. But overall the math is against you. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...2&postcount=24

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Originally Posted by Nihil Credo
Anyway, these are articles everyone interested in the subject will probably want to read:


61 Cards, Magic Russian Roulette
Innovations - Michigan States Report (Yeah, 66 Cards... What of it?)
Deep Analysis - The Real Deal on 61+

Don't forget to check out the forum threads, either (especially for the third article which has a few objective mistakes that get spotted).


Also,

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Damnit. I had to read them all. And ya know what -- it is as I remembered, all of those arguments are useless. Those authors all assume the following:

a: the deck began with 60 or was somehow useable at 60
b: the 60 you began with are correct in the first place
c: the mana was calculated to be correct at 60
d: you are definitely adding a nonland card
e: there are cards that you want to see more than others in every game, no matter what

None of these assumptions are true of this deck. I include the last card while others were cutting one of the following:

1 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Wakethrasher
either 2 Relic or 2 Wipe Away in favor of 1 of something else leaving the deck completely open to whatever that particular defense is there to hose

Every argument of probability could potentially be true iff you know what the deck would look like at 60, and that does not exist with this deck. And that is precisely why playing 61 is the least bad option. Anyway, I realize that what I am saying requires more analysis to evaluate than most people reading in here are willing to bother with. A person is far more likely to dismiss it than think it through (I would). But a person would be wrong to do so.

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@White Splash: maybe it is time for a new thread for that. It truly is the same things discussed over and over. And it continues to dilute the topic of this thread.

@ White splash: I would run Jötun Grunts over Relics SB.

@ Dreadnought version: I tested more matchups against GoyfSligh with +2 Trinket Mage -2 Thrasher as announced. It has been doing very well against GoyfSligh. Out of 16 pre-board games, 10 wins for Merfolk. List again: +4 Dreadnought, 4 Stifle (+1 Stifle one more than usual), + 2 Trinket Mage, +1 Trickbind, -3 Relics, -2 Kira, -2 Thrasher, -1 Standstill. Next thing on my list is to think about assembling either a solution to pack the above change into SB or start with it initially and then switch back to standard Merfolk Game 2 or vice versa. For 8 cards are needed I guess some have to be present main all the time. Probably Kira will loose its slot permanently to 2 Noughts and 4 Stifle will be needed which will lead to 1 less Relic main. That leaves 5 cards for the SB: 2 additional Noughts, 1 Trickbind, 2 Trinket Mages. Assuming that we have 2 free slot SB anyway that would eat up 3 reserved SB slots. I am undecided what will stay and what will go right now. I had Divert in mind as a candidate but then StfileNoughts Combo worsens our matchup against Discard (Swamps) and that is where Divert shines. So maybe 1 Needle less (I can eventually pull it out with a Trinket Mage to follow Dukes suggestion not sure here) ....

/EDIT/ Ah well after some thinking it came ozu pretty naturally ... please see below/EDIT/

Summary: Dreadnought has been awesome but it needs at least 8 additional cards to really work out. Current solution Merfolk + Dreadnought with hurting the merfolk shell as little as possible:

// Lands
12 [MR] Island (1)
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [MOR] Mutavault

// Creatures
4 [U] Lord of Atlantis
4 [LRW] Merrow Reejerey
4 [LRW] Silvergill Adept
4 [SHM] Cursecatcher
2 [EVE] Wake Thrasher
2 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
4 [SC] Stifle
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [OD] Standstill
3 [NE] Daze

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [TSP] Trickbind
SB: 2 [FD] Trinket Mage
SB: 2 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
SB: 2 [OD] Divert
SB: 1 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 2 [US] Back to Basics
SB: 3 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle

Boarding plan for the full Nought package is -2 Relics, -2 Thraser, -1 Standstill (I know this sucks :( but I havent a better solution), +2 Trinket mages, +2 Noughts, +1 Trickbind.

Additional note: Stifling fetchies with this list is a rather unlikely thing because you always want to spare it for a Dreadnought so this is a new findings to think about the mana denial package in this version :/

Additional note 2: I just checked the Dreadfolk list and saw that only 3 Noughts are played there. Maybe this could turn out sufficient for my list as well (of course still with Trinket Mage) and 4 Standstill could stay main. Apart from that the only difference is playing Shapesharer and 3 ET main.

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Originally Posted by Finn

Damnit. I had to read them all. And ya know what -- it is as I remembered, all of those arguments are useless. Those authors all assume the following:

a: the deck began with 60 or was somehow useable at 60
b: the 60 you began with are correct in the first place
c: the mana was calculated to be correct at 60
d: you are definitely adding a nonland card
e: there are cards that you want to see more than others in every game, no matter what

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a. Are you saying this deck isn't useable at 60 cards?? I have no idea what you mean by this.
b. It by no means meant that, in fact one of the articles stated that as long as you're cutting one of the worse cards it would still help you. As merfolk love hitting their lords (8) and FoW (4), diluting the deck would be heresy.
c. Again, I don't know if you read the same article. You can add in cards that help your mana instead of lands. Aether Vial for example counts towards your lands.
d. Also untrue, see c.
e. Lords? FoW? Opening hand Vial? No matter what I love seeing FoW.

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Originally Posted by Finn

Anyway, I realize that what I am saying requires more analysis to evaluate than most people reading in here are willing to bother with. A person is far more likely to dismiss it than think it through (I would). But a person would be wrong to do so.

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Please explain. It's great to use the argument "Well, most people here won't understand it anyway," but that proves absolute shit. If you don't back up your statements (for example linking 3 Articles and a well written post) but instead just pretend like you're right and the logic is far too difficult for the average person how does that help? Enlighten us?

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Originally Posted by Finn

@White Splash: maybe it is time for a new thread for that. It truly is the same things discussed over and over. And it continues to dilute the topic of this thread.

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I completely agree, I was only posting that for Duke as a 'run this in a tier 2+ meta' deck. It should have no place in the competitive DTB forum other than for that sole purpose.

From what im seing there's two deck being developped here, the mono-U who play like a blue slight and the Uw who play more like an aggro-control list. Both list got their pro and con and both seem pretty competitive.

So just a suggestion, iinstead of trying to find wich one is the "better option", lets just develop both list independently and lear from one and another.

On the mono-u list, I have been trying Annul in the sb and, without beiing "the tech", it's been good to me, im not sure if it's whorty of a permanent inclusion yet since it's narrow and another reactive answer, but definitly playable.

On teh dreagnougt list's : if we dont stiffle fetch anymore, why not abandon the mana denial altogether and drop the wasteland for additional island or manland to raise the threat count even more?

I like the idea of Annul against certan matchups, namly landstill (if they play Humility, EE and Deed), dreadstill (targets Standstill, Dreadnought, Top and CB) or stax (almost everything). That's pretty narrow yes, but you could also side it in against decks that you know packs both "painful card (EE/Deed)" + Plauge.

I like it, but no more than 2-3 copies.

Phoenix, this is a big, fascinating topic that we should probably relegate to PM if you want to continue at length, but briefly I believe that any purely mathematical analysis of a deck is inherently flawed. A person must consider a wide range of criteria, of which statistical analysis is an important one. But it is by no means the only one. If I were wrong, there would be no need to argue anything. We could just all plug into the master algorithm for any design. All of my arguments on this topic are predicated from that stance. If you wish to pick apart my reasoning you should keep this in mind.

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Lords? FoW? Opening hand Vial? No matter what I love seeing FoW.

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This is a flawed position to take. If you always want to see FoW, you should be playing 60-FoW.dec. Clearly that is not the best bet, so different cards must be needed. And opening hand Vial is really good. Turn 8 Vial is not good at all. So I see all the cards as equals at their current numbers. That is, I want to see a 1:1 ration of FoW to Silvergill. I want to see a 3:4 ratio of Stifle to Wasteland, etc. No statistic can change that.

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Originally Posted by Finn

If I were wrong, there would be no need to argue anything. We could just all plug into the master algorithm for any design. All of my arguments on this topic are predicated from that stance. If you wish to pick apart my reasoning you should keep this in mind.

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If people knew when they were wrong, they would realize it right away and stop being wrong. This, however, is never the case.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Finn

This is a flawed position to take. If you always want to see FoW, you should be playing 60-FoW.dec. Clearly that is not the best bet, so different cards must be needed.

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Yes, great analogy. Too bad FoW is illegal in more than 4. Islands on the other hand are not. I've heard you say you like seeing at least 1 island in your opening hand. You could get away with 60. The reason you don't run 60 islands is the reason you run 61 cards then? Because you want to diversify? This is even confusing me.

The point is draw percentages, not 1:1 ratios... Otherwise we don't even need playsets in the deck, lets just go play singleton.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Finn

That is, I want to see a 1:1 ration of FoW to Silvergill. I want to see a 3:4 ratio of Stifle to Wasteland, etc. No statistic can change that.

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I will cease my further argument. I really wish someone who you would actually believe would step in here, but as far as Merfolk are concerned, they see very little love from the veteran Sourcers.

*sigh* *Facepalm*

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I will cease my further argument.

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Honestly, you really haven't said anything about the actual topic I propose. You have selected portions of my statements and attacked them individually. It is easier to do that, and we all fall victim to it. But really, I am still waiting for you to controvert my central point. Cutting a single card from my list is damaging to the deck in a more substantial way than including a 61st card. I am not denying the fact that a 61 card deck is less likely to draw some specific card than one with 60. I am claiming that it is the least damaging solution. I do not prefer a 61 card deck, but I have not seen anything better. Note that my previous attempt was to use Cunning Wish to squeeze that last bit of diversity out of the defense. This did not work because the targets are meh.

Not one other person on this thread is making any attempt to combat this problem. Aren't you tired of wading through the morass of the same topics that we are in agreement about over and over? Let's not waste our energy nitpicking and instead find a solution. Right now, in the absence of an actual final solution, my draft uses the 61st card to patch the problem of getting the entire suite of this deck's benefits as well as shoring up the two major defensive issues that the primary disruption can not handle on its own:

1. graveyard hate
2. game-altering permanents

You want to use Kira? OK. You want to use Relic? Fine. I am sold on Relic, and moving toward Kira. Given the deck's constraints, however, I can not see her in the main. Even still, you have her in the two spots I am using for Wipe Away, so we have a 2 for 2 shuffle from main to sb. I don't even care that you prefer Echoing Truth or whatever. These are judgment calls with no definitive answer. We are so close to hammering this out. We just need to focus on the important parts.

Kira isn't your problem for having 61 cards. Take out the 4th Daze. 3 has proven to be completely efficient to almost everyone else in this thread, and just because you "refuse to run less than 4" isn't a good enough reason.

I don't want to find that post now... it's back like 20 pages though.

About my pet White Splash list that y'all have been helping on:

First of all: Thanks to all for the help, and for seeing why I wanted to deviate from the mono-U build just for this tournament...

However, I've hit a snag. I have access to borrowing four Tundra, but dude doesn't own any Flooded Strands to back them up (what?! that's like buying a blow-up doll and no lube).

So, basically, my goal is the same: Build a list to take this weekend that will help me against a "Tier 2+ metagame". However, my resources to do this with are severely limited (no Dreadnoughts, no fetch-lands), and I think the white splash isn't really viable without fetchies. I was wondering if there are any little tech things that I could include to beat scrub decks, while keeping it Mono Blue. Like, for instance, Vedalken Shackles seems like a pretty potent piece of scrub-insurance, probably taking Kira's slot due to the nonbo interaction between these two cards... Is there anything else that y'all could think of?

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

About my pet White Splash list that y'all have been helping on:

First of all: Thanks to all for the help, and for seeing why I wanted to deviate from the mono-U build just for this tournament...

However, I've hit a snag. I have access to borrowing four Tundra, but dude doesn't own any Flooded Strands to back them up (what?! that's like buying a blow-up doll and no lube).

So, basically, my goal is the same: Build a list to take this weekend that will help me against a "Tier 2+ metagame". However, my resources to do this with are severely limited (no Dreadnoughts, no fetch-lands), and I think the white splash isn't really viable without fetchies. I was wondering if there are any little tech things that I could include to beat scrub decks, while keeping it Mono Blue. Like, for instance, Vedalken Shackles seems like a pretty potent piece of scrub-insurance, probably taking Kira's slot due to the nonbo interaction between these two cards... Is there anything else that y'all could think of?

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Shackles is kind of limited-power in a deck packing 7 colorless lands on 19 , i.e. more than 1/3. If you want some techy cards to fight against tiers2+ metagame, I'd run tread of disloyalty in side, which actually can steal nought, goyf or confidant. But if you want to be really evil, pack the always interesting Mind Harness against all that danmed decks playing green abherrations ( TheRock, casually, come to mind.. stealing a doran is awesome in lategame). That would be enough, i'd even suggest you Control Magic, but it kinda sucks for being so slow.

Hi all,

I know she has been mentioned all over this thread but in a burn/spot removal heavy meta how many Kira would be appropriate in the MD/SB. I am thinking potentially 2 MD and 2 in the board? My thinking is that if she is in play then I am winning, and drawing another is OK because I can play it down after the first one is nuked (Kind of like playing 4 counterbalances). Does anyone have any experience in a mono-U build either way?

Also, in an unrelated note wouldn't she be ridiculously good in a dreadstill deck basically making dreadnaoughts immune to grip?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jazzykat

Hi all,

I know she has been mentioned all over this thread but in a burn/spot removal heavy meta how many Kira would be appropriate in the MD/SB. I am thinking potentially 2 MD and 2 in the board? My thinking is that if she is in play then I am winning, and drawing another is OK because I can play it down after the first one is nuked (Kind of like playing 4 counterbalances). Does anyone have any experience in a mono-U build either way?

Also, in an unrelated note wouldn't she be ridiculously good in a dreadstill deck basically making dreadnaoughts immune to grip?

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That's an amazing idea man, we should work with it :D.


EDIT: it would counter stifle i think =[

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Originally Posted by Roodmistah

EDIT: it would counter stifle i think =[

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Actually, it's a triggered ability that goes on the stack. Stifle doesn't target the creature, but the ability. I think we have our grip answer...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roodmistah

That's an amazing idea man, we should work with it :D.

EDIT: it would counter stifle i think =[

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oracle

Creatures you control have "Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability for the first time in a turn, counter that spell or ability."

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I think you still can, cause the Stifle is targeting the triggered ability, not the creature. Ala being able to Stifle Goblin Piledrivers pump even though he's pro-Blue, the ability you're targeting is not.

Wow, that is a really good idea then. Yeah you guys are correct.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roodmistah

That's an amazing idea man, we should work with it :D.


EDIT: it would counter stifle i think =[

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I don't think so, Stifle counters the ability which goes on the stack and doesn't " belong" to dreadnought, it should work in a similar way for which stifle does work on piledriver's pump effect.
It should be this way..

For the Kira issue in Merfolks, well, I'm not convinced yet about her utility ( and , most of all, about her role and the fact that she costs 3, meaning we have to cut a thrasher almost surely), but i really want to carry on in the monoU way and , at the same time, have a chance to stand TheRock, Burn (which strangely doesn't seem to me that terrible as TheRock is) and heavy-removals metagame, somehow. So , I ask the people who runs it maindeck how they have tuned the deck to support it well. Of course I'm refering myself to the experts, so PI, DDK or Elof, could you post a list? i'm curious.

EDIT: Ninja'ed about that ability explanation..you guys are lightning bolts !

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roodmistah

Wow, that is a really good idea then. Yeah you guys are correct.

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I have won enough tournaments with Dreadstill, it is about time that I gave something back to the archetype...