Spell pierce is the bee's knees against combo.
Printable View
Spell pierce is the bee's knees against combo.
Because of the extremely small sample size of large tournaments it is true that your method might prove more useful. Over the long run I think it would be better to look at the best performing decks that have had consistent results (such as Bertoncinis greeen splash). Of course we won't be able to get a lot of data because of the small amount of Legacy tournaments.
Also I havn't made any claims about what cards are better or worse in Merfolk yet. I've just said that you're discounting Top 8's and are not trying to explain why one of the premier Merfolk players chooses the green splash.
Your analysis is very good but there are other factors in play besides the cards. Player skill is a very big factor as you can hand a tier 1 deck to a bad player and they will 0-2 drop. I would like to know the amount of mono u and white vs green splashes at these SCG tournaments if you have the data.
Here's the list I've been using the past couple of months to great success. It's getting much harder to win now with the decline of cb/top in my meta and the increased presence of zoo, goblins, and burn. Merfolk is also a deck that shows up big or not at all at our tournaments.
Maindeck: (60 Cards)
13 Island
4 Wasteland
3 Mutavault
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
3 Echoing Truth
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejery
3 Wake Thrasher
Sideboard: (15 Cards)
4 Threads of Disloyalty
4 Hydroblast
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Echoing Truth
Best card in the deck is Echoing Truth and the worst card is Jitte. I've been thinking of swapping Jitte and Kira but havn't had much time to test lately. There's a tournament this weekend so I still have time to change some stuff around.
No, this hasn't actually ever happened, I still haven't given maindeck Spell Pierce a shot. I'm woefully behind in my testing duties. Anyhow, glad to hear it's better than I estimated it might be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
Your analysis is useless, regardless of the number of events, because looks mainly to the popularity of the deck, not how well the deck is actually doing. It's obvious that you don't understand this... or anything, perhaps.Quote:
Originally Posted by SJUD
I'm discounting Top 8s because the data are corrupted, not because I think the data could never be useful. The data are corrupted by the number of decks in the metagame. Popular decks are much more likely to make a top 8 than an unpopular deck. Popular card choices are much more likely to make a top 8 than unpopular card choices.
How is this not getting through to you?
If I had a full metagame breakdown, I'd obviously use a different method -- but I don't, so I'm using the best method available. Incidentally, even if I had a full metagame breakdown, I still wouldn't look at the number of top 8s or top 16s, I would look at the positions for all players available.
Nice dodge. Your analysis sucks. I pointed out exactly why it's useless theoretically, and even gave a real-life example where your analysis falls on its ass. And anyway, the whole POINT of this analysis is to evaluate which cards are better or worse. If you can't make a claim, you've completely failed.Quote:
Also I havn't made any claims about what cards are better or worse in Merfolk yet.
Just reporting the data: The green splash has been less effective than mono-blue and much less effective than Uw.Quote:
I've just said that you're discounting Top 8's and are not trying to explain why one of the premier Merfolk players chooses the green splash.
Feel free to speculate on the mental health of "one of the premier Merfolk players," and why he chooses to play a variant of Merfolk that is not successful, historically. Either way, if anything, having a good player trying out the green splash should systematically BENEFIT the green splash, and the data still show that it's worse.
Oh my god. I don't even know where to begin. Nothing in this paragraph is relevant at all to the discussion. I'm not claiming to look at player skill, so I didn't isolate that variable. I discussed, in my post and at-length, possible reasons why more-skillful players would favor certain cards and other confounding variables, but I didn't speculate as to the magnitude of that gain.Quote:
Your analysis is very good but there are other factors in play besides the cards. Player skill is a very big factor as you can hand a tier 1 deck to a bad player and they will 0-2 drop. I would like to know the amount of mono u and white vs green splashes at these SCG tournaments if you have the data.
The green splash is, according to my thinking and yours, systematically favored by more skillful players than the more accessible mono-blue variant, and yet it has still performed worse.
No, I don't have better data. I discussed that. If I did, I would obviously use a better meta-analysis (still not yours).
Actually by only considering Top 8, I think you remove some of the player skill bias. Presumably bad players, even with good decks, aren't going to T8. The players in the T8 at reasonably sized tournaments are all good players. Looking at how they perform once they're there seems like a good metric to me.
However, the one bias of this analysis is it's going to look primarily at how good decks do against other good decks in the format, and not against the field. Like it or not, to *get* to top 8, you have to go through... well, bad decks/random junk. Granted, this will typically be easier. However, this may bite you in some cases, where you have a highly meta-dependent deck.
So, does anyone remember my idea (a couple pages back) about trying out Engineered Explosives as a possible sideboard card for the Uw version of this deck?
I'll admit I haven't tried it out yet. (These days I read TheSource a lot more than I actually playtest, which is probably making my brain soft.)
But the line of reasoning is that, along with 4 StP and 4 PtE, Engineered Explosives could help us try to blow out the Zoo matchup. We could use our point removal and counterspells to try to make them overextend into playing a lot of their one drops, then blow them all up and swing into them with our army of two and three drops. The plan would be to side out Vial and leave in Cursecatcher, as far as our one drops. Catcher stays because he's good at saving us a little bit of tempo on their removal spells, and he's a warm body that can get big with lords in play. At the very least, he's a chump blocker. I don't know if anyone considers Aether Vial very important in the Zoo matchup, but I personally don't, it enables neat tricks but it just seems too slow compared to their clock. The first things I usually board out in this matchup are Vial and Standstill (but perhaps someone can convince me that taking out Vial is not correct).
So does anyone think this would work? I'm just looking for opinions, and I don't think anyone's responded to the idea yet...
At its best it can blow up 2 cost creatures for 4 mana or 1 cost creatures for 3 mana. If you'll read my post on why losing tempo in the race against zoo is bad, you'll see that this is horrible.
Furthermore, it's not an all-purpose board cleaner. You can't blow up their KotR's, and most of the time you have your own 1cc and 2cc shit to worry about. 2 for 1ing them doesn't happen much in the same cmc, as their creatures are spread very well across the 3 costs. If you do get a game where you can pull this off and actually get a 2 for 1 without blowing your own stuff up, chances are good they swung with those creatures and have your life to a point where you can just get burned out.
The reason white splash is good is because you trade 1 mana and 1 card for 1 creature who is equal to or greater than 1 mana investment for them. EE does not put up good figures here.
Zoo especially would be a terrible place for this sideboard card. They're a 2 pronged deck that has a ton of reach burn when their creatures don't go the distance. Stopping only one aspect of the deck is not enough to beat them unless you can do it really early. I would rather run Back to Basics and submerge against them than EE. EE could be good against stax or maybe combo or something, but against Zoo it seems just flat-out horrible.
How about Chalice of the Void for 1 on turn 2? Shuts down at least 16 spells of theirs, or almost half of their nonland deck. You've got counters for Pridemages. They can still Grip (if they side it in, but would they side it in when expecting only vials and standstills?), but it might buy you some time. Any thoughts?
Summary of Merfolk.thread:
1. Discussion on how to beat Zoo that inevitably leads to "Merfolk is dead."
2. Mindless statistics.
3. Discussion on splashes.
I'm eagerly awaiting any conversation topics on how to beat close matchups, because I'm feeling pretty good about Merfolk's ability to face anything that's not a Zoo/Sligh variant right now.
And for those of you who aren't splashing and aren't playing Echoing Truth, try this card out. I think it's often misplayed in the deck, being used overaggressively and not often enough as a one-time trap card designed to get a final swing through, and I like how many games it steals against every random matchup ever, from Stax to Enchantress to Landstill to Belcher.
So from your post:
1. We're dead against zoo/sligh.
2. We can be confident against everything not in 1.
3. We should talk anything not covered in 1. and 2., which leaves ... nothing?
What specific MUs do you want to talk about? We've been trying to come up with solutions to our problems, and Zoo's the largest one on that list.
Chalice has put up some decent placings in tournaments, if I recall my Deckcheck correctly. I think it's mostly been used as a tool against Storm combo, and I can't really speak to how well it works, but it has shown decent numbers in the past.Quote:
Originally Posted by kirbysdl
I could see Chalice being decent against Zoo if you're running a Mono-Blue list. Personally though, I think it's going to be better against combo decks. But the plain fact of the matter is, if you're using White, there's no way in hell that you're going to want to trade your ability to run 8 removal spells in game two for the chance that you might have a Chalice in your opening seven. Not against Zoo anyways.
@Phoenix: Yeah, you've convinced me EE isn't really right for this deck's sideboard... Not my best idea in a while.
Agreed, Echoing Truth is perhaps my favorite card in the deck. I've never played against Enchantress, Landstill, or Belcher, but the one time I played against Stax I only won because of Echoing Truth bouncing his prison effects for one final swing (and in one case, bouncing two O-Rings that were both holding Silvergill Adepts, that one was pretty fun). I really should fit in a third one into my list some time...Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
If it's being used in this capacity (which I agree it should be), wouldn't Rushing River get the nod over it? I don't see bouncing 3+ things with E-Truth coming up often (tokens aside), and being able to bounce two troublesome permanents regardless of whether or not they share a name seems a lot more useful than being able to bounce a horde of Goblins back to the warrens in the stray Belcher/TES matchup (which you should be beating handily anyways).Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
You won't often be bouncing 3+ things. But if you are, Echoing Truth is the only way to get there.Quote:
Originally Posted by KillemallCFH
If you're bouncing one thing, Echoing Truth costs less.
If you've bouncing two things that have different names, then Rushing River can do it but costs a hell of a lot more than 1U. So it really comes down to what's it worth to bounce two permanents with different names, and whether that's enough to overcome every other case in which Echoing Truth is superior. (Well, OK there's Spell Snare.)
Rushing River costs 3 though. That's a huge difference when you play Standstill. In all of my testing with Echoing Truth, one of it's best uses has been bouncing that Tarmogoyf (or other equally scary creature) at the end of their turn, and then dropping a Standstill on my turn. It pretty much forces their hand in giving you +3 cards. I think the biggest difference is that the 2 cost is just that much better when we play at such a fast tempo. It also does bounce double Goyfs more often than my opponents would like to admit, since every deck's strategy against us is to just lay down creatures to match or overrun ours.Quote:
Originally Posted by KillemallCFH
Edit: Ninja Ninja Ninja Ninja Ninja Ninja Ninja Ninja Ninja Ninja
Well, I'm not sure :1: can really be considered "a hell of a lot more" (though I'll admit that one mana certainly can be significant enough to make a big difference). We're discussing its use as an alpha-strike enabler, in which case losing a land is pretty irrelevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by kirbysdl
EDIT:
@Phoenix: Concerning a play with Standstill like you described, Echoing Truth is definitely a lot better. I was just discussing in terms of pushing through those final points, which admittedly might be too narrow a scope considering the many other times in which Echoing Truth is more useful.
The 1-mana difference for Echoing Truth is too huge. Echoing Truth just flows much better. And just because I -can- use Echoing Truth as an alpha strike enabler doesn't mean I always will want to. Sometimes I just need to bounce something fast. Sometimes I'm going to want that extra mana the same turn to drop something else, and sometimes I'm going to not want to lose the land. And sometimes I'm going to need to execute my bounce spell when I'm stuck at 2 lands either from not having drawn any more or from having lost Wastelands to use and/or Mutavaults to removal.
And the bouncing of a token horde can make all the difference in the world, as can being able to bounce a pair of obnoxious Tarmogoyfs for a mere 2 mana.
I've been playing with maindeck echoing truths and have really enjoyed them. My meta is more aggro so I feel a white splash would probably benefit me more (I plan on building and testing this later) but the echoing truths have been so helpful in bouncing those problem cards to get me that extra swing for damage or that extra turn. It has also help me by bouncing permanents early on or those bombs that I can't counter (I'm seeing a lot of reanimator recently so it helps there) to disrupt my opponent, or worse case scenario I can pitch it to force.
Please see my old post, it's been updated.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...postcount=2822
Here's a synthesized decklist based on the data I saw. It's all the best-performing cards mashed together.
I think you have to pick between Dreadnought, white splash, and green splash. I like how Kira and Dreadnought work together. Seems pretty broken to me. Then you bring in a bunch of diverts game 2 (or just open with them, who cares?). It seems like Merfolk are just a backdrop, though.
4x Cursecatcher
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Silvergill Adept
2x Merrow Reejerey
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
3x Kira, Glass Spinner
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Stifle
1x Trickbind
2x Echoing Truth
4x Aether Vial
12x Island
4x Mutavault
4x Wasteland
Sideboard:
4x Divert
3x Threads of Disloyalty
1x Jitte
3x Relic
3x Back to Basics
1x Mind Harness
Interesting idea, but less and less like Merfolk. A full third of your critters aren't even in the tribe! You only have 6 lords in the deck, so your men will never be big enough to compete with opposing threats. I have this feeling that you'll be chump blocking until a Dreadnought comes along. If you're moving in this direction, would it make sense to turn it into a Stiflenought deck with Kira? If you end up testing it, please let us know how it acts compared to more traditional lists.
First edit: I know Merfolk decks have been successful with maindeck Stiflenoughts, but the addition of Kira makes it seem less and less Merfolk. I wonder if it's reaching the point where you might as well ditch the merfolk altogether.
Second edit: The problem with this is much the same as my burn card survey: looking at cards in a vacuum only gets you so far. At some point the supposed benefits of adding a card is countered by adding or removing other cards. In other words, I'm not totally against having 3ish noughts and 5ish stifles in an otherwise vanilla Merfolk deck for the random win, but this is becoming less and less a Merfolk deck.
That seems like you might have trouble casting adept, with only 13 merfolk to reveal for each adept. How has your testing with it gone?
I have a question seeing as im not a merfolf player. How do people still play this deck with zoo decks running rampant, isnt it almost a scoop?
"Dreaded Merfolk" lists are nothing new, you can literally find this variant being discussed like a hundred pages ago.
If it's a route you want to go in, I think Shapesharer is a better maindeck enabler than Kira, since it's a Merfolk, it can replace the need to have Stifle in order to drop a 'Naught, etc. Kira in the sideboard seems good if you're running the 'Naught though.
If I recall, most of the people that tested Dreadnought seemed to like him best as a surprise sideboard option though... And no one really uses Dreadnought anymore anyways in this deck. The few times I tested it just played out awkwardly. Personally, I would much rather splash white, because it seems much more consistent (as long as you get thr mana base to work). But that's just me.
EDIT: I'll admit I don't know fuckall about playing Dreadstill. But it does seem like if you want a creature base with 4 Dreadnought 3 Kira, Dreadstill is a better shell to fit that into than Merfolk, actually... Gotta agree with my boy Kirby.
Lists like this havent been new. I have played Merfolk with StifleNuaght beginning of 2009 to improve the aggro matchup where Kira still was an common SB addition because of aggro as well. The problem always was that you cannot protect the Naught without a lucky Kira and you want to play Naught earlier and can't with Kira (UU). So in my games that I remember apart from a random and lucky Naught sometimes it wasn't worth loosing on the Merfolk theme in return. The white splash especially Absolute Law has made my Aggro matchup far more better and consistent than the additional of Naught and Kira ever had.
Dreaded Fish variants are winning like 71% of their matches against other T8 opponents. So if you tested it and rejected it, you probably fucked up.
Top 8ing has a lot more to do with player skill than the popularity of a deck. If you don't understand this basic concept then you really should not be having this discussion here. Take 1 real good player and 30 bad players and the good player will top 8 almost every time. This really isn't that hard of a concept. the only explanation I can see for you discounting player skill is that you never do well so you think it's all luck.
No reason to be mean. He's made some rather...interesting...choices, but there's no reason do be an asshole about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by SJUD
I wouldn't run Dreadnought in the same deck as Kira though. That just seems like a big no. And Jitte is much stronger than Kira. I run at least 2 somewhere in my 75.
Has anyone looked into the card Sleep? Seems like it can be unfair in some scenarios. It's basically 2 free attack phases. I think I might run this over Hibernation (lots of Soldiers, Kithkin, Elves in my area). 4 mana is kind of expensive, but I'm seeing it as a kind of game winner to push through ridiculous amounts of damage. I just want to know if anyone else has tested it.
Sleep costs too much imo to be effective. If you're going to run a 4 mana spell like that wouldn't cryptic command be better?Quote:
Originally Posted by chokin
What are you talking about? Do you mean Jitte and Kira?Quote:
Originally Posted by chokin
Not according to the data....Quote:
And Jitte is much stronger than Kira. I run at least 2 somewhere in my 75.
@chokin FYI, Dreadnought and Kira play well together. You target the trigger not the creature. I used to play Kira in my Dreadstill board.
If you really want to further this argument, you need to think harder. Obviously people who are good are going to top 8 with a deck, even if it isn't the optimal deck. This doesn't help us. Why would we care about the statistics of a deck that only one person can pilot? One player can be great at something horrible, and that doesn't mean that everyone should play it. Obviously skill has a big thing to do with top 8ing, but once you get to the top 8, how you perform is closely linked to your matchups and deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by SJUD
The best goblins player in the world will still lose to a decently played Charbelcher. Once you make it to top 8, your deck and card choices significantly affect your outcome.
So, we can only gain anything by an analysis if it shows us the quality of a deck, and card choices, not the assumed playskill of someone we don't know. Now, this can be done fairly well by looking at how a deck performed once it reached the top 8. We can assume that the people who made it there are all good players, which may be flawed, but is the best assumption you can make (in opposed to trying to look up player ratings and correlating those with the decklist). Top 8 performance therefore is the best way to see how a deck's card choice helps it.
Even though the analysis has many variables that could hurt it, it still shows how some card choices are clearly superior to others.
Ok, seriously, to both Forbiddian and SJUD, stop with the personal attacks. Or at least move them to the personal boards. I will call a mod if I need to. We don't need people calling one another stupid idiots on a DTB forum.
There's basically no arguing against the validifyt of Forbiddian's analysis. And while it may have some holes/weaknesses/prejudices, that's certainly no reason to ignore it. *Any* decision on an analysis method is going to have weaknesses. You pick your poison. That's also not saying that an analysis of *all* decks rather than just T8 isn't perfectly valid as well (with its own set of weaknesses). But so far, I haven't seen that, so I'll take what I can get.
That being said. Let's not jump to the conclusion that "because x and y and z are good separately, x, y, z are good together". Obviously this is a synergy-based deck. And I agree, running 14 'folk with Silvergill seems bad.
My concern is since zoo is our worst matchup, how does running dreadnaught help? before sb they have 4 pridemages and 4 swords/paths. after sideboard they have more hate. Our only hope for the dread to stick is if we draw into kira and play her before they get an answer online.
? The only difference is Matt is logically correct, and SJUD is not. I don't see why you're treating their positions as morally equal. Perhaps the insults that fly around are blunt honesty, but I'd rather have an honest discussion of anything than to sit around and share purple bunnies and carebear stories about how MERFOLK IS TEH AWESOME LOLOLOL.Quote:
Originally Posted by tivadar
That being said, this deck concept is interesting. It can take a significant departure from the standard strategy of nogoyf by going for the kira+beats route. Also, Matt was proposing a natural evolution of the deck. If it so happens that it's not merfolky enough, then so be it. Running merfolks isn't intrinsically good; it's only good due to the difference between tribal benefits (lords) and tribal punishments (Engineered plague, pyroclasm effects)
I haven't thought about the list he proposed enough to deduce if it's good or not, but it seems like the most common argument is "there isn't enough merfolk." The only relevant question is if the deck's good. If it's not possible to build an optimal deck and have it be merfolk-filled at the same time, then so be it.
Player skill is very relevant when you are talking about how certain cards win more than others. You are ignoring things like player skills and matchups that have a much better determination of if a deck is going to win. Swapping out 4-8 cards in the deck is not going to produce a significant change in the outcome of matches. There are other factors to consider which you conveniently ignore in order to try and prove your point.
The deck concept is not interesting at all. It's a perfect example of why a 'best card' deck does not work in this game.
Removed unrelated flames. -J
The point is that if a player is good enough to consistently top 8 with a deck then they are more likely to be good enough to build a good a 75 with that same deck. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand. I'm sure the people who top8 real tournaments do a lot more testing and playing in high level competition than we do. It's the same reason I'd trust LSV over some random forum member when talking about deck construction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
I was satisfied enough but the changes just didn't help the rg matchup as much as I hoped. Kira also doesn't give Shroud which sometimes can be assumed from the comments. It is totally enough that they target with Lavamancer (which fizzles) and then play any spell they like. The white splash was definitely more satisfying for me fighting Goyfsligh, Goblins and Zoo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Forbiddian
Can't be the case you definitely messed it up yourself...Quote:
Originally Posted by Nekrataal
In all seriousness I don't think Dreadnought helps out in the Zoo and Goyf Sligh matches which is what the deck needs help with. Since I'm playing the mono blue version I've had success just bringing in 10 cards out of the board and winning games 2-3. Blast, Threads, and Kira help wa more than Dreadnought would.
Kira helps a little bit game one, but once they bring in Volcanic Fallout, she's a waste of mana I think. I've had it happen to me too many times to say that Kira is the right call in Merfolk.
I can see the appeal of splashing white for and improved game two and three, but I'm still having troubles finding how much I want to run and how that changes my mana base.
Dreadnought is not an ideal option for Merfolk. It's even worse than Kira, I'd say. And with Kira it's even worse.
A card I've been wanting to test is Waterfront Bouncer. He's a Merfolk now and even though it only answers creatures, it might be worth a test.