[Deck] UW Tempo

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Originally Posted by pi4meterftw

I think I've tried to address this point before, but perhaps I wasn't clear in my explanations.

Basically, we assume that SOFI and SOLAS cost 2 because 2/3 of the time we draw them, we'll be able to SFM it into play, so just pretend it costs 2, and if we see that we wouldn't even run it then, then definitely at 3 we don't run it.

Well, at 2 its effect is still worse than jitte's. "But what about the legendary aspect" you ask? The thing about equipment is you only ever want one in play anyway, so whether or not jittes only interact via the legendary rule with themselves, you ought to regard all equipments as obeying a legendary rule with respect to each other. (This is also why we only run 2 equipment, 2 SFM.)

So it's just a comparison of effects then, since we assume for the benefit of SOFI, SOLAS that they cost 2, and we see that everything else is the same but their effects under this assumption.

SOFI is worse than SOLAS, so I'll just compare SOLAS with jitte. If it's worse than jitte, then SOFI will be also, obviously.

The main thing about SOLAS is it has to hit the opponent, and it doesn't grant protection from green. This means tarmogoyf actually disrupts it, whereas with jitte tarmogoyf becomes irrelevant after one charge-up. Also, it's nontrivial to get a creature in the graveyard in some cases, so you don't even always get the +1 off the SOLAS swing.

I mean SOLS isn't strictly worse than jitte, but in any reasonable metagame, it's evidently worse, so you should test for yourself if you're unconvinced to see which is better. One thing I'd like to drive home, though, is that SFM is not an opportunity to run a toolbox, because one equipment is best, and you only want one equipment, AND none of the equipments that aren't the best are particularly situational. (Except possibly for manriki gusari, which is pretty bad.)

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Well, I am not sure that Swords are definitely worse than Jitte. Or better put - that they are THAT worse.

The main roblem of these equipments is that the creature needs to hit the opponent to trigger its trigger. But with all our flyers and Mom:pro, we can get through most of the times. (This is partly similar to how Faerie Stompy works.) The additional protection granted by the Swords that makes our critters save from StP, Bolt, Smother, Fire/Ice, Lavamancer, Tombstalker, etc. is nothing to laugh at.

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

I had good times with the deck, and felt it's very strong. The only thing that preplexes me is that I absolutely sucked balls from some fun games against Merfolks, where 4 lords at a time was just too much and too fast for my lone Mother, despites having Seer, Vial and Jitte in hand. I'm beginning to think that this Matchups is way far from being 60-40 in our favour, or at least it depends on how fast they start and whether or not you draw an aggro hand that can sustain the board without islands in play. I don't know, but even on MWS, it seems I can't win that matchup that consistently.
I'm guessing if Wing shards could do a good work also in this MU: before doing the final, huge mass swing, they're used to drop some dudes to tap your blockers via Reejerey, or just go other Lords/beat. Making them sac at least 3 attackers should do the job. That's why I'm thinking of upping the Wing Shards count to 3, cutting a Meekstone (and not hoping to face Reanimator).

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I've actually had the same experience against merfolk. I don't know if it's the small sample size in testing or if I'm playing it wrong, but I've felt that just having 4 swords makes it fairly difficult to keep them off of lords. I've found wayfarer and even mother of runes to be pretty mediocre. Wayfarer can help to develop the manabase against stifle/waste and can fetch wastelands for mutavaults, but I always hemorrage lifepoints when I'm spending my turns fixing my manabase with Wayfarer. Mother of Runes is only relevent on defense when they don't have a mutavault or an evasion lord. Fathom Seer is a nice trick, but it actually doesn't stop them from attacking at all unless you have another big dude on your side, and it's very awkward when you turn on Daze and Cursecatcher just after you've hit 3 mana, which turns of your FoW post-combat if they choose to drop a Standstill or maybe even another lord.

I can't claim to be very experieced with the deck, but these are just some of the problems that i've come across in against Mono-U merfolk packing Jitte. I'm also confused about the claim that our guys outclass their guys; the only dudes that are of relevant size are Serra Avenger, Jotun Grunt, and Vexing Sphinx. Grunt doesn't stay in play that long in this MU, and Sphinx stays on the board for generally 2 turns. Avenger is okay, but 1 or 2 lords makes everything that they have just as large.

Path is obviously not synergistic with Wasteland, but I'm beginning to wonder if it wouldn't be of help in the Merfolk and Zoo MU's, where I tend to take the control role and don't have time (especially on the draw) to waste their lands.

Hello I have been following this forum for a few months now, and decided that I should start sharing my experiences with this deck. I have in the past few months entered into the exciting format of legacy, and have chosen this deck to be my first one. It's appeal for me was that it forced lots of interaction, and would therefore force me to come to know the decks I was playing against. So far it has worked very well in that aspect, after a few months of heavy play testing against most major decks I feel that I have a fairly good grasp on the various archetypes in legacy.
Anyways, last Wednesday I was able to make it over to SuperGames (Atlanta Georgia) to participate in their weekly legacy event. They have a a fantastic legacy event on Wednesdays with free entry, 100 dollar store credit for 1st place, and about 30 participants a week.
Other than a few play errors on account of sleep deprivation( darned finals week) , I felt it was a successful outing.

Round 1 Leonard, Dredge 2-0
I won the roll and took the play. Game 1 he had to mull to 4, and his deck more or less self destructed . For game 2 I bring in the dredge hate. He does not have a very fast start, and only catches one bridge from below. I stick a turn 2 wheel of sun and moon. He concedes.

Round 2 Daniel, Goblins 2-1
I knew he was playing goblins before the match, which made my Mom, Jitte, Serra Avenger opening hand really exciting. Mom stops his lackey in it's tracks, and Jitte shuts him out of the game.
-2 Spell Pierce +2 Ethersworn Canonist
Game 2 he gets an explosive start and runs me over.
Game 3 was a long and hard fought battle. He nearly had me, but Jitte came to the rescue. My Jitte equipped Grunt is able to mow down his goblins as fast as he can make them. I finally top deck and Ethersworn Canonist which makes it impossible for him to keep up.

Round 3 Owen Dark Bant Counter Top 0-2
Game one is a disaster due to my play errors. I forgot I had daze in hand, true story, so counterbalance resolved. Game 2 is almost as bad. He sticks an engineered plague naming clerics, while I have a hand of nothing but clerics .

Round 4 ANT 2-0
We were not able to split into top 8, and so we had to play it out. On game 1 He had to mull to 4 or 5. I was able to mount a fast offensive due to aether vial, a grunt, and 2 avengers. Game 2 was a bit more interesting. I got a decent offense going while he collected his combo pieces. I wasn't able to slow him too much, but when he ad naseumed he was at 10 or so life, and was not able to get any relevant draws off of it. I suppose I might have lucked out there.

Quarter Finals Eric GWB Rock 2-1
I forgot most of game 1 and 2. I just remember 1 of them involved a very one sided pernicious deed, which hurt pretty bad. Game 3 went very long. His variant of rock uses the hexmage Dark Depths combo, so I had to keep a wasteland ready at all times. Eventually he went into topdeck, while my fathom seers keep the cards coming. My Jitte was able to run the board, getting passed between my critters like a frisbee. Eventually I was able to come back from 3 life and win the match.

Top 4 decided to just split in the interest of time.

All in all I felt it was a very good outing. I am pretty excited to have made top 4 in my first 2 legacy nights( went to the same event but 2 weeks earlier and made top 4) . Thanks to all of those who have been contributing to this deck. You guy's hard work has made my entrance into the field of legacy so much more enjoyable.

@ newworldman: Welcome to MTS! Nice reading and congratulations and I hope you'll have another nice times with your deck!

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EDIT: Btw, where can I find a sb advice, please? Search function works really bad for me... :-/

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Originally Posted by Resist_Temptation

BRIDGE FROM BELOW

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Bridge from Below has an intervening "if" clause, which basically means the game checks for the existence of Bridges both when the creature dies AND when the ability resolves.

The bridges have to be present at both times to get the tokens, so that means Cursecatcher on their Cabal Therapy/Dread Return will stop the tokens from being generated (or a BFT or other creature sacrifice in response to the spell).

On the other hand, the owner of the BFB controls all BFT triggers. This means if an effect like Wrath of God or combat damage would put multiple creatures into the yard, the BFB owner can stack the triggers to get himself all the tokens. Hope that helps!

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Swords of Light/Shadow and Fire/Ice

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Testing showed they're worse. Not really much to talk about here.

2 SFMs and 2 Jitte has proven to be the best configuration. The next step is 1 more SFM and 1 SoLS, which is not as good. So 3 SFMs, 2 Jitte, 1 SoLS. Decks like White Weenie or Death and Taxes that don't have as many good cards and don't have draw spells to virtually guarantee seeing at least one jitte, but it's just not worth the room for us.

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I've actually had the same experience against merfolk. I don't know if it's the small sample size in testing or if I'm playing it wrong, but I've felt that just having 4 swords makes it fairly difficult to keep them off of lords. I've found wayfarer and even mother of runes to be pretty mediocre. Wayfarer can help to develop the manabase against stifle/waste and can fetch wastelands for mutavaults, but I always hemorrage lifepoints when I'm spending my turns fixing my manabase with Wayfarer. Mother of Runes is only relevent on defense when they don't have a mutavault or an evasion lord. Fathom Seer is a nice trick, but it actually doesn't stop them from attacking at all unless you have another big dude on your side, and it's very awkward when you turn on Daze and Cursecatcher just after you've hit 3 mana, which turns of your FoW post-combat if they choose to drop a Standstill or maybe even another lord.

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Honestly, I haven't had ANY of these problems and neither has Jeff. And I don't think many experienced players like Tinefol/Stuckpixel do, either given their win percentages. So judging by that, it's probably you and here's some advice that might help.


I think part of the problem is that you don't understand how to use Fathom Seer. Just the way that you're talking about it raises some eyebrows.

So you only bounce lands if it'll let you kill an enemy lord that's already attacking (or to live or something). You don't randomly pick your lands up so that you don't have enough mana later.

Also, you can tap your lands first, then bounce them. If you get to three lands, cast the Fathom Seer and untap with it, you're not going to run into Daze any more than you would have already. If you have another Plains/Wasteland, you can actually run your fourth turn with 4 lands and avoid playing out any islands.

But the main trick that you try to do is cast the Fathom Seer from four lands, not three lands. Fathom Seer is one of your best spells, since it's a guaranteed 3:1 play that's sometimes a lot better, especially if your opponent isn't sure what Fathom Seer is (which still happens occasionally). You don't want to run it into Daze. That means you have to think long-term and you want Plains, Wasteland (or Plains/Plains), Tundra, Tundra as your set of four lands (if possible). This is easy to set up with Wayfarer.


Because you have inevitability with the Jitte draws, you're the control deck in this matchup. That means you conserve life and really only crack in with Serra Avengers or if you have massive board control already. That means you can also examine the conditions they need to win.

They need multiple Lords out, usually 3 Lords is the turning point where they become better than you. Obviously you should have all Swords to Plowshares for their Lords. Most games really revolve around that Lord count, and since you have a lot more draw than they do, it's very very rare for them to dig out 3 Lords more than you have STPs (not to mention Dazes).
They need to keep Serra Avengers off the board, particularly Mom + Serra Avenger combo.
They need to keep Umezawa's Jitte off the board, since it can kill a Lord/turn and it makes your combat step ridiculous.
If you get a Jitte out, they need to alpha strike you, which means they need Lord of Atlantis.

They need to meet all of those conditions at some point in the game, so generally you can focus on one. Like if your hand has Vial, an Avenger, and a Mom, your main goal is going to be to keep their Lord count low and get in for the beatdown.

In this situation, almost all of your resources should go toward preventing them from having three or four lords on the board.

You put it as some kind of dream scenario. But when they get a turn 1 Vial things get hairy. They can apply pressure pretty quickly while you get puny 1/1's that don't shit because he has a bunch of Islands in play and some islandwalking creatures.

I just built the deck and did some heavy testing. My impressions are that the deck lacks some better beaters... I felt like I could only win in 3 cases:

- Multiple unanswered Serra Avengers
- Active Jitte (with Mom protection)
- Screwing my opponent and locking him out of the game

Other than that all I had was 1/1's, 1/2's and 1/3's there were miserable in combat. In some matches neither Jötun nor Sphinx stood long enough to get the job done. While I love utility creature like Mother or Wayfarer I just wanted some creatures that could finish the game faster or at least outclass something in combat.

Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm with fetchlands, they can't profit from Standstill most of the time, and like how many LoAs can they hit in, say a 20 turns game? 61% probability for 2, and only 23% probability for them to hit 3. You have 4 StP, 4 Fathom Seers (that bounce islands to your hands and draw into other answers), effectively 4 jittes (that generally dominate the game) and 4 Brainstorms to dig for these cards.

I've happened to win the game against Merfolk not even dropping a single Island on the table. Unless they have a 3-4+ lords (considering you run removal and jitte that amounts to some slim chance up to turn 15 or so), or LoA with you having islands (and if you know what you're doing with fathom seer - that's a rare case too), they can't profitably attack you. Jitte destroys them. Even without jitte, a single Avenger + Mom race them.

I've found the so called 'puny' 1/1s do everything in this match up. Wayfarer gets rid of their Mutavaults, and Mom blocks everything all day long.

Forbiddian has said much about what you should be aiming for. I'll just sum it up: I find Merfolk to be one of the easiest match ups, I'm 6-0 against it in tournament games. I only remember losing a game where THEY got a jitte and used a Merfolk Sovereign to make their guy unblockable. If you keep losing, you're not experienced with the deck and thus doing it wrong.

I just build this nice CB/TOP deck. It only seems to win when:

- I get cb/top lock and multiple goyfs and/or RWMs out.
- I cast NO into Progenitus early enough to have it matter
- Well, duh, what kind of skewed argument is that?

I think you'll find your big bad ass creatures in the ROE spoiler.

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Originally Posted by Tinefol

Merfolk doesn't run Brainstorm with fetchlands, they can't profit from Standstill most of the time, and like how many LoAs can they hit in, say a 20 turns game? 61% probability for 2, and only 23% probability for them to hit 3. You have 4 StP, 4 Fathom Seers (that bounce islands to your hands and draw into other answers), effectively 4 jittes (that generally dominate the game) and 4 Brainstorms to dig for these cards.

I've happened to win the game against Merfolk not even dropping a single Island on the table. Unless they have a 3-4+ lords (considering you run removal and jitte that amounts to some slim chance up to turn 15 or so), or LoA with you having islands (and if you know what you're doing with fathom seer - that's a rare case too), they can't profitably attack you. Jitte destroys them. Even without jitte, a single Avenger + Mom race them.

I've found the so called 'puny' 1/1s do everything in this match up. Wayfarer gets rid of their Mutavaults, and Mom blocks everything all day long.

Forbiddian has said much about what you should be aiming for. I'll just sum it up: I find Merfolk to be one of the easiest match ups, I'm 6-0 against it in tournament games. I only remember losing a game where THEY got a jitte and used a Merfolk Sovereign to make their guy unblockable. If you keep losing, you're not experienced with the deck and thus doing it wrong.

I just build this nice CB/TOP deck. It only seems to win when:

- I get cb/top lock and multiple goyfs and/or RWMs out.
- I cast NO into Progenitus early enough to have it matter
- Well, duh, what kind of skewed argument is that?

I think you'll find your big bad ass creatures in the ROE spoiler.

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Instead of sounding like an arrogant ass-because honestly that's what you sound, you can be good but that does not justify it- and say "oh lololol i'm 6-0 against Merfolks if you can't do it too you're weak in playing uw tempo", let's examine some points:
-Standstill is dangerous if you're not under your own vial or even if you have a Mother out, and they can play it out on turn 2 with Daze/cursecatcher protection. You should know that vial + Standstill, if you do not have an aggro creature out, is going to inevitabilly give them advantage.
-I don't know against whom you have played, but most of the recent Merfolks build run 12 lords, which mean that approximately 60% of the creatures they hit , is going to give them bonus. Plus, certain builds also run 2 Wake thrashers, which becoe huge quickly. You also have your own fatties, but differently from theirs, they have several restrictions, in lasting not very much (grunt and sphinx) or in requiring some times to be dropped (avenger).
-You point out that jitte is a safe win, but what you are forgetting is that they're playing Jitte, too. If one sticks for them , you're not going to be in a great shape too, given the huge number of x/1s this deck plays. Even a Jitted cursecatcher can give several problems, and most of all Mutavault+Jitte is a huge threat, since it can't be Mothered and, if blocked, it will kill the majority of your creatures, if not blocked, it's going to take your mothers and Wayfarers. And you don't always have wasteland for that matter. they can blank yours with the legendary rule; of course you can too, but their creatures tend to grow biggers and overwhelm yours even without jitte, if you don't manage to find a good number of Stps and they're not that bad to crush all their armies onto your Avenger+Mom.
Of course you have Wayfarer for Mutavaults. But sometimes you're undecided whether to Wasteland your own tundra to blanck lord of Atlantis, or waste their Mutavaults. And other times, activating Wayfarer without losing time and mana to be invested on your creatures seems impossible.
-Sovereign can hurt if it pushes one if dudes taking your last lives. This happened to me more that once, despites me having double Angel trying to recover their initial assault.
-Fathom Seer is golden in this matchup, but when you're on the draw sometimes he's just too slow, and eats Daze easily. I know that we shouldn't play it tapping out completely, but sometimes you can't wait and just take the risk of getting it countered, because Lord of Atlantis turning their guys unblockable makes it VERY easy for them to race you.
-4 Swords to Plowshares isn't always enough to face, as i was saying, 12 pump effects.

It will be unquestionable that you are better players than me and all the stuff, but despites your win streak, Merfolks is not really one of those "that easy" matchup, at least for me. I'd rather play against Pro Bant thatn face it. They have several dangerous cards, and sometimes you just open hands that are too slow or badly equipped to fight something like "t1 vial, t2 vial@1 dude, t3 vial@2 lord-swing, t4 vial@3 another dude swing vialing another lord, t4 vial in another lord, swing for massive damages bypassing your Wayfarer and your Mother".
It's ok that Forbiddian has posted videos on Youtube where he crushes Merfolk, but honestly, his opponent was making fucktons of mistakes. I tend to play against good people, without being unrespectful.

I'd appreciate every much if we could call an experienced Merfolk player (say, Tacosnape, I don't know), and record some videos with him playing a classic list (12 lords, 2 Jittes, 20-21 creatures) against UW tempo. I have the feeling things wouldn't go 6-0.

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

Instead of sounding like an arrogant ass-because honestly that's what you sound, you can be good but that does not justify it- and say "oh lololol i'm 6-0 against Merfolks if you can't do it too you're weak in playing uw tempo", let's examine some points:
-Standstill is dangerous if you're not under your own vial or even if you have a Mother out, and they can play it out on turn 2 with Daze/cursecatcher protection. You should know that vial + Standstill, if you do not have an aggro creature out, is going to inevitabilly give them advantage.
-I don't know against whom you have played, but most of the recent Merfolks build run 12 lords, which mean that approximately 60% of the creatures they hit , is going to give them bonus. Plus, certain builds also run 2 Wake thrashers, which becoe huge quickly. You also have your own fatties, but differently from theirs, they have several restrictions, in lasting not very much (grunt and sphinx) or in requiring some times to be dropped (avenger).
-You point out that jitte is a safe win, but what you are forgetting is that they're playing Jitte, too. If one sticks for them , you're not going to be in a great shape too, given the huge number of x/1s this deck plays. Even a Jitted cursecatcher can give several problems, and most of all Mutavault+Jitte is a huge threat, since it can't be Mothered and, if blocked, it will kill the majority of your creatures, if not blocked, it's going to take your mothers and Wayfarers. And you don't always have wasteland for that matter. they can blank yours with the legendary rule; of course you can too, but their creatures tend to grow biggers and overwhelm yours even without jitte, if you don't manage to find a good number of Stps and they're not that bad to crush all their armies onto your Avenger+Mom.
Of course you have Wayfarer for Mutavaults. But sometimes you're undecided whether to Wasteland your own tundra to blanck lord of Atlantis, or waste their Mutavaults. And other times, activating Wayfarer without losing time and mana to be invested on your creatures seems impossible.
-Sovereign can hurt if it pushes one if dudes taking your last lives. This happened to me more that once, despites me having double Angel trying to recover their initial assault.
-Fathom Seer is golden in this matchup, but when you're on the draw sometimes he's just too slow, and eats Daze easily. I know that we shouldn't play it tapping out completely, but sometimes you can't wait and just take the risk of getting it countered, because Lord of Atlantis turning their guys unblockable makes it VERY easy for them to race you.
-4 Swords to Plowshares isn't always enough to face, as i was saying, 12 pump effects.

It will be unquestionable that you are better players than me and all the stuff, but despites your win streak, Merfolks is not really one of those "that easy" matchup, at least for me. I'd rather play against Pro Bant thatn face it. They have several dangerous cards, and sometimes you just open hands that are too slow or badly equipped to fight something like "t1 vial, t2 vial@1 dude, t3 vial@2 lord-swing, t4 vial@3 another dude swing vialing another lord, t4 vial in another lord, swing for massive damages bypassing your Wayfarer and your Mother".
It's ok that Forbiddian has posted videos on Youtube where he crushes Merfolk, but honestly, his opponent was making fucktons of mistakes. I tend to play against good people, without being unrespectful.

I'd appreciate every much if we could call an experienced Merfolk player (say, Tacosnape, I don't know), and record some videos with him playing a classic list (12 lords, 2 Jittes, 20-21 creatures) against UW tempo. I have the feeling things wouldn't go 6-0.

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I actually managed to win through an opposing jitte by simply outdrawing it before. It's much harder, and I would say that merfolk is favored when they have jitte and you don't.

I almost never swords anything but LOA. Nothing else they have really matters. Obviously if I'm staring down 3 lords, and with one swords I can surprise them and own them in the red zone, then I'll do it, but usually games end more modestly than that, and it's only really necessary to swords LOA. Incidentally, I don't FOW vials, but I do daze them if it's not excessively inconvenient.

6-0 is obviously overstating the matchup, in the sense that it's obviously a statistical fluctuation. I don't think there exists a deck in the metagame that UWT has 100% against. I don't think there's even a deck where so far the empirical evidence shows it's 100%, even though tempo thresh comes close, I'll admit I've lost like a match against it. Indeed, merfolk is a favorable matchup (Because our deck is essentially strictly better), but I consider it to be one of the tougher ones, for precisely that reason. Decks that are not strictly worse than UWT are typically entirely different from it, so you don't get the really tough decisions that you do when both people are trying to do roughly the same strategy.

Merfolk's definitely good enough that it's not even surprising that two or three people get on a losing streak against it. But I would also say that with more practice, the probability of a losing streak decreases a lot.

@ Piceli89, you're completely missing the point.

Theorycrafting is cool, provided that the theory at least somewhat matches up with reality. UWT is 9-0-2 against Merfolk and that's only taking the people who did poorly (check out the OP for more info). If you have some explanation for why UWT should LOSE to Merfolk, you need to also explain how we got to 9-0-2 if we're supposed to be losing that matchup. Beyond that, all the experienced UWT players agree: Merfolk is a fucking easy matchup, definitely among the easiest tier 1 matchups and well over 80%.


Calling that fact arrogant doesn't make sense. It's like if you went into the Ad Nauseam thread and someone said, "Dude, Goblins is SUCH a tough matchup! I'm losing about half my matches to Goblins"

(It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. Keep in mind that UWT beats Merfolk MORE THAN Ad Nauseam beats Goblins.)

The natural response is, "LOL, YOU CAN'T BEAT GOBLINS WITH ANT, YOU SUCK!" But then the analogous person to Tinefol tunes that down and says, "Well, nobody else is having problems with Goblins. We all think it's an extremely easy matchup. For instance, I'm 6-0 games. The OP is 8-0 games. Total record is 9-0-2 on matches. It seems like the problem is probably mistakes on your end, so let's try to work on this."

And then the next guy after goes, "Looks like you're an arrogANT player!!!"


In some ways, the Merfolk match can be used to evaluate how good you are with UWT the same way that people use the Goblins/Zoo matchup to evaluate combo decks.

If you play it extremely tight, you will win 80% of your matches, even against very good Merfolk players, and you should win virtually every game where you don't have horribly bad luck (like mulligan to five or keep a bad hand and your opponent opens with 5 lords + vial land and he has more lords on top).

If you play it sloppy, missing opportunities to get lands, searching at the wrong time, walking into cursecatchers/dazes when you don't have to, walking critical spells into daze, using your countermagic at the wrong time, playing the wrong spells, bouncing lands at the wrong time, fetching the wrong lands, using a fetchland at the wrong time, poor red zone math, or just dicking around not maximizing your mana usage, then you're going to drop a lot of games.


There's a lot to do with the deck, and it's ok if you're missing some opportunities. But honestly if you can't beat Merfolk at least 65-70% of the time, you're definitely doing something drastically different than what everyone else is doing and it's not working out for you.



To address an actual point you made:

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sometimes you just open hands that are too slow or badly equipped to fight something like "t1 vial, t2 vial@1 dude, t3 vial@2 lord-swing, t4 vial@3 another dude swing vialing another lord, t4 vial in another lord, swing for massive damages bypassing your Wayfarer and your Mother"

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Ok, this situation NEVER happens. It's like calling Mountain Goats a bad matchup because, "What if I go: No land, mulligan, no land mulligan, no land mulligan, no land mulligan, keep my 3, don't draw a land for 15 turns, gg."

I know you're exaggerating, but this goes exactly to the bad assumptions that you make in your analysis. You're comparing the dream/god/never ever happened in the history of Magic Merfolk hand to a very weak UWT hand.


They only run 12 lords. The odds of them getting 3 Lords or more in 9 draws (so that's by turn 5, since we're assuming that they want 3 land to go along with those Lords) are just 25%, and only 7% to get 4 Lords by turn 5. And that's a far overestimation, since some of those hands are no-land or whatever. And in the meantime, you'll see at least 1 Swords to Plowshares 57% of the time, not counting the fact that you have more draw material than they do.

The odds that they actually get even 3 Lords into play over your Swords to Plowshares is like 10%, and that also doesn't count how a Jitte draw or countermagic draw trumps their Lord draw.

A more realistic situation is: You draw as many creatures as they draw. They can't attack because attacking is miserable (lol). But really, you can clog the board so easily... like Serra Avenger, Mom, Fathom Seer clogs the board against 2x Lord of Atlantis, Silvergill Adept, and Cursecatcher. In the meantime, you draw have more draw material and more countermagic and eventually you draw into a Jitte or a Serra Avenger and you beat them to death while they wonder why hoping to draw 4+ Lords wasn't a good plan.

To win, they need at least three Lords and even getting that happens once in a blue moon.

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It's ok that forbiddian has posted videos on Youtube where he crushes Merfolk, but honestly, his opponent was making fucktons of mistakes. I tend to play against good people, without being unrespectful.

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Yeah, the videos against Merfolk were pretty one-sided. I appreciate the effort behind all these videos, but there's so many mistakes and Forbiddian opens up monster hands with STP and Vial and draw into Stoneforge. I'm not trying to detract from the playmaking - just pointing out that games under standstill are much harder if you don't draw into one of the two Stoneforge Mystics when you have vial, or if you don't draw one of your 3 vials early.

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I think part of the problem is that you don't understand how to use Fathom Seer. Just the way that you're talking about it raises some eyebrows.

So you only bounce lands if it'll let you kill an enemy lord that's already attacking (or to live or something). You don't randomly pick your lands up so that you don't have enough mana later.

Also, you can tap your lands first, then bounce them. If you get to three lands, cast the Fathom Seer and untap with it, you're not going to run into Daze any more than you would have already. If you have another Plains/Wasteland, you can actually run your fourth turn with 4 lands and avoid playing out any islands.

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No, I completely understand this. I only pick up lands on their turn if they waste or if they swing with Lord of Atlantis. I'm talking about postcombat on their turn when they take advantage of the fact that I only have 1 land left (often a basic plains, which means I can't Daze or Spell Pierce) to turn on Daze and Cursecatcher. The decision in combat then becomes whether to block and kill the lord or to keep mana up to prevent a Standstill/Jitte. I think the correct play is to kill the lord, but I've lost to a subsequent Standstill/Jitte.

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But the main trick that you try to do is cast the Fathom Seer from four lands, not three lands. Fathom Seer is one of your best spells, since it's a guaranteed 3:1 play that's sometimes a lot better, especially if your opponent isn't sure what Fathom Seer is (which still happens occasionally). You don't want to run it into Daze. That means you have to think long-term and you want Plains, Wasteland (or Plains/Plains), Tundra, Tundra as your set of four lands (if possible). This is easy to set up with Wayfarer.

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U/W tempo runs 17 lands + 4 Brainstorms and 4 Wayfarer as pseudo-lands. It also has 3 wastelands, which I rarely want to see unless there's opposing Mutavaults (which merfolks players tend to sandbag against me). Considering I always want at least 1 basic plains, I'll need plains + Island/Tundra + Tundra to at least play and activate Fathom Seer, and 1 more land if I want to play around Daze. Against Stifle-waste, with the low land count, I get 3 untapped lands around turn 5 if I'm able to stick a Wayfarer and if they continue to play out their lands (often, when they have the Vial+stifle/Waste plan, they'll just sit on 1-2 lands). If i don't have a wayfarer (which is in about half of the games), it's hard to even get up to 3 mana before turn 6. I just feel behind on the board for most games, and Fathom Seer doesn't help the board that much.

I appreciate the response, and I'm sure some of my troubles has to do with familiarity with the deck. I'm just trying to point out some game situations that I haven't seen in the videos. I don't think I've been terribly misplaying, and I have gone over games with testing partners, but it's not obvious how differently I've been playing.

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Mom blocks everything all day long.

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This hasn't been the case for me at all. Mom doesn't block Mutavault. Mom doesn't block against LoA when they have another merfolk on the board. Mom doesn't block by itself against Reejery when they can cast another creature. Mom doesn't block against Sovereign. Mom doesn't live when they have Stifle.


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Theorycrafting is cool, provided that the theory at least somewhat matches up with reality.

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I don't think Piceli's and my issues are theorycrafting. These are results from test games.

I appreciated your answer, Forbiddian. But I swear that, when i started to play this deck (the build with the lone KotWo), beating Merfolk was really easy because the maximum thing that happened to me was facing 2 lords at the time 8as you suggested), which Mom+Angel could handle.
Now I play it, and I see my opponents costantly doing something like vial Lord of Atlantis, the turn after play Reejerey, vial another reejerey, the turn after play a Sovereign, untap/tap 2, mass swing with 5/5s. While I look at my poor Mother of runes and my Wayfarer on the field, stare at the Fathom Seer and the jitte which I never got to cast, and i ask to myself "Holy shit. I have a wasteland and a Tundra on the board. I can wasteland my tundra so that they lose islandwalk, but then what? i'll block 1 with mother and take the other 15, and the turn after i'm dead anyways".
It seems that it comes down whether or not I manage to draw a Stp for their Lord of Atlantis and if they're not siilly enough to attack with a LoA'ed Adept while I'm holding active mother, because anyone would understand that the trick is to sword the pump effect and then to block and pro:blue. of course, if you open something:
Island, Fathom Seer, Vial, Mother, Plains, Grunt, Fow (which is an average hand)
I don't now how much success you're going to have..

I'll carry on testing that matchup. if i can, i'll record some matches against merfolks so that you can point me out where i'm doing things wrongly.

I ninja edited my post above to explain the odds of them having a multiple Lord draw by turn 5-6 in the game.

If I lost every one of these games (which I don't... UWT is actually still the favorite against any random 3 lord draw), I would still have a much better than 50% matchup against Merfolk.

If your opponents are consistently getting these draws (or a four lord draw), they're cheating.

I actually think that this attitude from the creators of the deck where they just say "our deck beats everything, trust us" is hindering the development of the deck.

Saying the deck is 9-0-2 or that Merfolk has only a 10% chance to draw whatever is pointless when testing show otherwise. The results are especially nonsense as the sample is so small and the variables are so many, that I don't really know if they mean anything.

That's an interesting sentiment, alderon. Stubbornly refusing to see different points of view to your own can certainly prevent you from seeing things you might have missed. That said, I think the near universal attitude from the "respected" sourcers that this deck is jank despite multiple T8 finishes at SCGs and consistent winning finishes across local tourneys despite losing rogue status, combined with new players' insistence on repeatedly asking the same dumb questions that have already been answered every couple of pages in painstaking details by its creators, also hinders the development of the deck. If you would like to see progress, then ask our wonderful community to stop suggesting SoFI, SoLS, Aven Mimeomancer, Cursecatcher, Sea Drake, Serendib Efreet, Spellstutter Sprite, more Vials, less Vials, less MoMs and Path to Exile, just off the top of my head.

More on topic, the point UWT players are trying to make is that Merfolk is a heavily favored matchup. No, it probably won't beat a 4 or 5-lord draw off t1 vial with standstills chaining into each other unless you get equally good draws. But that's not statistically probable. By the (big, aggregate, multiple-digit) numbers, UWT is >50%. But, Merfolk is a tier 1 deck and tier 1 decks can win games and matches against decks they're not favored to beat. Smennen's stats from the SCGs show Zoo breaks even with ANT but somehow, everyone knows ANT is Zoo's nightmare matchup. Far be it from me to say, "you lost to Merfolk with UWT, therefore it's your fault because UWT always wins" but there's a lot to be said for, "well, maybe there's nothing you could have done, but maybe if you did these 4 things differently, the result would have been different given the cards you drew in hindsight."

I think that's enough for now.

The thing about the merfolk match is that you must identify the oponents deck VERY quickly which usualy isnt too hard considering they are very likly to island then vial. then you have to twist your mana in such a way you get the basic plains then tentivly play your island when you need them as oposed to automaticly depending on how well you can answer LOA with what is in your hand. if you do this MOM>Fish and jitte locks out the game for a very easy win. I personaly have attained a 7-1-1 against merfolk and it is true this is not a match-up that should be knocking you out too much.

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Originally Posted by Piceli89

Instead of sounding like an arrogant ass-because honestly that's what you sound, you can be good but that does not justify it- and say "oh lololol i'm 6-0 against Merfolks if you can't do it too you're weak in playing uw tempo", let's examine some points:

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Yes, I may sound like an arrogant ass, but I just get annoyed with wild claims. My record is of course more of a result fluctuation, but just can't imagine anybody going less than 50% in that match. And when somebody claims they do, I only can assume its their fault, not even a streak of awfully bad draws. I'll I'm trying to say, is that Merfolk is favorable match up, not the opposite.

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-Standstill is dangerous if you're not under your own vial or even if you have a Mother out, and they can play it out on turn 2 with Daze/cursecatcher protection. You should know that vial + Standstill, if you do not have an aggro creature out, is going to inevitabilly give them advantage.

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We do have a Vial of our own, and SP and Daze for Standstill of theirs. Also, I've rarely seen them dropping Standstill on a developed board position, because it'd be unfavorable for them. Most of the time I see Standstill used as a FoW fodder. I guess, the chance of them taking advantage of it are quire low. I assume all that to be true, because they always sideboard standstill out (and I would also do that) and that card is irrelevant g2+

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-I don't know against whom you have played, but most of the recent Merfolks build run 12 lords, which mean that approximately 60% of the creatures they hit , is going to give them bonus. Plus, certain builds also run 2 Wake thrashers, which becoe huge quickly. You also have your own fatties, but differently from theirs, they have several restrictions, in lasting not very much (grunt and sphinx) or in requiring some times to be dropped (avenger).

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You assume that it's easier to for them to make multiple lords hit the board, before you get at least a single Serra in? Unless they have a Vial+ton of lords hand, you have a zero remova hand, that's not close to be realistically probable. You've got a vial of your own too, you've got removal, and they may start without vial, where it's possible to stall their manabase (after all, Merfolk runs up to 8 nonbasic lands), so they don't even hit 3 lands (in fact, I had that happen quite often).

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-You point out that jitte is a safe win, but what you are forgetting is that they're playing Jitte, too. If one sticks for them , you're not going to be in a great shape too, given the huge number of x/1s this deck plays. Even a Jitted cursecatcher can give several problems, and most of all Mutavault+Jitte is a huge threat, since it can't be Mothered and, if blocked, it will kill the majority of your creatures, if not blocked, it's going to take your mothers and Wayfarers. And you don't always have wasteland for that matter. they can blank yours with the legendary rule; of course you can too, but their creatures tend to grow biggers and overwhelm yours even without jitte, if you don't manage to find a good number of Stps and they're not that bad to crush all their armies onto your Avenger+Mom.

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Not really, as most of the Merfolk I played with do run the Jitte. I've even lost a game to it. Most of the time their jitte did nothing because
1) I could block it with Mom
2) I had jitte of my own
3) I could counter it
Between two of their jittes, 4 of mine, and 4 moms, I'd say the chances of them getting advantage of it are quite small.

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Of course you have Wayfarer for Mutavaults. But sometimes you're undecided whether to Wasteland your own tundra to blanck lord of Atlantis, or waste their Mutavaults. And other times, activating Wayfarer without losing time and mana to be invested on your creatures seems impossible.

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I don't think I remember wasting my own tundras ever, usually a Seer is enough, but I could see that to be a necessary solution. Anyways, if you have a Wayfarer out, Mutavault is not a threat. That's also true about Wayfarer, but you can afford to lose some hit points in this match.

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-Sovereign can hurt if it pushes one if dudes taking your last lives. This happened to me more that once, despites me having double Angel trying to recover their initial assault.

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I can agree with that, Sovereign can be a pain in the ass.

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-Fathom Seer is golden in this matchup, but when you're on the draw sometimes he's just too slow, and eats Daze easily. I know that we shouldn't play it tapping out completely, but sometimes you can't wait and just take the risk of getting it countered, because Lord of Atlantis turning their guys unblockable makes it VERY easy for them to race you.

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Also agreed. Sometimes I do take that risk

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-4 Swords to Plowshares isn't always enough to face, as i was saying, 12 pump effects.

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I think you missed the point there. You don't really need to take care of 12 pump effects. In your average game, 3-4 is the more probable number. StP does just fine. That said, I wouldn't mind additional removal though, that's why I'm running Wing Shards.

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It will be unquestionable that you are better players than me and all the stuff, but despites your win streak, Merfolks is not really one of those "that easy" matchup, at least for me. I'd rather play against Pro Bant thatn face it. They have several dangerous cards, and sometimes you just open hands that are too slow or badly equipped to fight something like "t1 vial, t2 vial@1 dude, t3 vial@2 lord-swing, t4 vial@3 another dude swing vialing another lord, t4 vial in another lord, swing for massive damages bypassing your Wayfarer and your Mother".
It's ok that Forbiddian has posted videos on Youtube where he crushes Merfolk, but honestly, his opponent was making fucktons of mistakes. I tend to play against good people, without being unrespectful.

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As it been said, this is quite unlikely. What I was trying to say, I think that claiming Merfolk to be unfavorable match up is just plain wrong. I've been splitting games against Merfolk in testing at some point (you can look at my videos, they've been discussed there). After I've learned what I'm doing wrong, I've went up on winning percentage. It isn't 100% of course, but its enough to win the match, at least 2-1. I'd say I'd rather face Merfolk all day, than play with ProBant.

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I'd appreciate every much if we could call an experienced Merfolk player (say, Tacosnape, I don't know), and record some videos with him playing a classic list (12 lords, 2 Jittes, 20-21 creatures) against UW tempo. I have the feeling things wouldn't go 6-0.

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A good idea.

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Originally Posted by alderon666

Saying the deck is 9-0-2 or that Merfolk has only a 10% chance to draw whatever is pointless when testing show otherwise. The results are especially nonsense as the sample is so small and the variables are so many, that I don't really know if they mean anything.

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What testing results? Where did you see a credible UW Tempo player losing to Merfolk?

Also, 9-0-2 (if ~9-1) is 1% likely at p=0.5. It's small, but still big enough to prove at the 99% confidence interval that UWT beats Merfolk.

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People without Experience: "Sup dudes, I have no experience with this deck at all. Just let you know I got a 50% matchup vs. Merfolk. Kinda sucks."
People with Experience: "How did that happen? I never lose to Merfolk. Everyone with UWT beats the hell out of Merfolk. You're probably making mistakes."
People without Experience: "No, I'm not making mistakes, ur arrogant."
People with Experience: "Here's data showing that nobody else loses to Merfolk."
People without Experience: "Ur data is too small. Only 99% confidence interval. I want moar. Plz get 100% confidence interval. Also, too many variables in the Merfolk matchup [whatever that means]. Also the thread isn't productive. I wonder why that is...."

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Nobody who's losing to Merfolk has any testing results, games, tournament matches, or anything to report. Someone in the, "Merfolk is trouble" camp has offered to record his games and then post them, so I'll do analysis then. Also, nobody with experience on UWT has been able to replicate their results (namely: get a few losses to a Merfolk player). It seems like the most likely reason is that the people without any experience playing UWT are... guess what... having trouble with UWT. We can help with that, but you have to accept that you're making mistakes and change the way that you're playing.

People explaining why they're LOSING is not helpful, since it's basically meaningless. It's like someone explaining to a marathon runner how running a mile in under six minutes is impossible.

Clearly other people can do it. We showed that it can be done with the 9-0-2 record (99% confidence interval). We can even help you learn how to win as well, but the first thing I have to do is convince you that you can and SHOULD be beating Merfolk. You don't improve as a player if you accept that a matchup that is 80%+ for everyone else is "really a 50% matchup." I don't know how to make it more clear that that's a bad idea.

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Originally Posted by Forbiddian

I mean, to say that it's actually an 80% matchup or 70% matchup is fine, but the fact that you could take a non-biased sample of matches played by

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Are you seriously still doing this? Stop pretending any self reported data is non-biased and I'll stop trolling your thread. Not to mention you have failed to include at least 3 less than 50:50 performances (from "credible" sources) that I've seen reported here, meaning that your biased reporting results are biased by your selection.

The main thing here is that you're pairing player that are really good with UWT (the creators of the deck and people that play it non stop). Merfolk, on the other hand, is a deck that is played by a lot more people. Especially when looking at your videos it doesn't exactly seem like you're playing against the most competent players out there. Doesn't mean that this will make a difference in the actual statistics, does mean that if you actually want to prove something you need to play against people that have a clue about what they're doing.