Finn is the first to have proposed a deck with Merfolks since Lorwyn on The Source. My remarks regarding this:
- I did not consult him to see his position about the fact he is the first who posted about a merfolk list after the Lorwyn spoiler. May be, I should.
- I think that my deck is from far different from his list. Apart from tarmo and confidant does not look light to me.
- I thought that he gave up the merfolk deck.
- I don't think that the first poster about a tribe should be the owner of the tribe. I mean that a blue splashed gob list is fair for the CaNDG contest. Tell me if I'm wrong.
Nota bene: the list is likely to evolve with the Morningtide announcements. I think the new wizard merfold is worth some try for instance, even if I am not sure it has its place:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/...viinkvz_EN.jpg
The list
// Lands
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [b] Island (2)
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [A] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [TSB] Lord of Atlantis
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [LOR] Silvergill Adept
4 [LOR] Merrow Reejerey
// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [SC] Stifle
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [FE] Seasinger
SB: 4 [EX] Propaganda
SB: 4 [5D] Engineered Explosives
SB: 4 [US] Planar Void
Explanation card by card
Colored mana
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [b] Island (2)
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [A] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
=> 13 colored mana lands ??? Am I crazy ? I'm not because I play 4*vial which can be considered quite as a multicolor land in this deck. Eventually, the deck plays 17 colored man producing cards a bit like threshold actually.
Mana denial
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
=> It's a goblin like mana denial. It has made its proof. The big difference is that merfolks have only a single way to cheat with mana: vial, when gob has 2. The other big difference is that merfolks don't need to cheat with mana to win.
Non-merfolk creatures:
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
=> The deck needed card advantage and I found 2 acceptable solutions: confidant and standstill. Standstill can be as good as it can be awful, depending on the MU and on the fact I have a vial into play or not. The dark confidant reqires a black splashm but actually, the black splash was already necessary for the sideboard. The fact that I can vial dark confidant is sexy too.
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
=> I know I splash green only for him but my mana base is not that fragile. With vial out, I barely need my lands to win. My opponents usely are more preoccupied by keeping their own mana base safe than by destroying mine. Apart from that, Tarmogoyf is not tribal, it's not a tool but it's exactly what every tribal deck miss the most: a creature that is good in itself.
The Merfolks
4 [TSB] Lord of Atlantis
4 [LOR] Silvergill Adept
4 [LOR] Merrow Reejerey
=> I kept only the best ones. Concerning the playability of silvergil adept, we can consider that I play 16 merfolks since vial cheats it too. Everybody knows that 20 blue cards are enough to play FoW. I think that 16 merfolks are enough to play silvergil adept but I admit that it can be stuck in hand several turns if I topdeck it. Like FoW it can be played for 5 too...
Lord of Atlantis is muscled and winged merfolk at the same time. Adept is the best cantrip creature and is one the best arguments for playing this tribal deck over another. Reejeray gives mana producing, pump, can give somehow evasion to your creatures too by tapping your opponent's creatures (even to goyf or confidant).
The best card of the deck
4 [DS] AEther Vial
=> I play 20 creatures. Enough to play it and cheat a lot.
Counterspells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
=> FoW is obvious. Daze is not. I'm still thinking about replacing it with spellsnare, stifle, brainstorm, etc... But the best thing with daze is that it's synergic with vial: the missing land drop is not a problem anymore and it's a very good protection to a first turn vial. Island on vial backed up with daze is our best first turn.Up to now, Daze is the first slot I'm not sure about.
4 [SC] Stifle
=> Definitely wins the storm combo MU. Can be useful against deeds, as a protection against wasteland. But the main use of it is to fulfill your mana disruption.
The card you would not even play in a standart deck and that I finally accepted to remove
4 [LOR] Aquitect's Will
=> Actually, it's good. I'm aware the target land keeps it's previous abilities, but it's not a mana denial spell. It's a cantrip that gives evasion to your merfolks (with reejerey or lord into play), it can also provide you your second blue mana producer to cast lord and that gives +2/+2 to your goyf. You may think it's useless with no merfolk into play and you play only 12 of them, but it's good with tarmogoyf into play too, it pitches to FoW and if confidant is in play, you're likely to draw something to use the acquitect's will.
The "tool"
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
=> It serves a lot of purposes: deals with creatures in aggro MU, wins the burn MU, can randomly give the match against ichorid, protects your creatures. For a long time the jitte was not MD and Seasinger used to take its place but I eventually did not like seasinger much because it's too random to wait your opponent for playing an island or for you to find a will. Jitte is almost always a good card compared to seasinger.
The Sideboard
SB: 3 [FE] Seasinger
=> Good against any blue deck except solidarity of course. I even recommand it against landstill. Stealing lands is fun. I don't want it against any other deck.
SB: 4 [EX] Propaganda
=> I used to play Engineered Plague instead. Tribal decks are our biggest weakness. It partially solves the problem. Against gob, it's not enough to make the MU favorable, but it can help you to steal some games. Against elves and slivers, it's more than nice. It can also deal with EtW tokens, Ichorid zombies or ichorid itself. Eventually some decks may pack several 1-toughness painful creatures such as mother of runes, grim lavamancer, nantuko shade, dark confidant. I sometimes side them in against such deckseven if it can also hit me too (grim is quite awful). But finally, I found that propaganda was better because it was supported with my mana disruption, because it is better against Ichorid/Zoo/Slivers even if it's worse against elves. Actually, that is the errata of Eladamri, Lord of Leaves that made me change my mind. I can't get rid of those annoying threats I named before, but hell, I play counterspells, Stifle and Jitte. That sounds enough.
SB: 4 [US] Planar Void
=> Against some unwinable MUs like Ichorid, Terrageddon. I'm sometimes tempted to enter it against thresholds too.
Why play this over similar decks?
Disclaimer: I don't pretend that the deck I propose is better than the archetypes I'll discuss. I basically show that it has some advantages on its brothers and I don't discuss about drawbacks in this section. You will understand them in the strengths/weaknesses section and in the matchup sections.
Why this and not threshold?
- it wins the mirror matchup
- because vial is a great against a lot of game plan (dodges counterspells and mana denial)
- when threshold plays the card quality and redundancy thanks to the cantrips, this deck plays a second game plan: the mana denial tribal.
- because chalice does not hurt the deck too much.
Why this and not sliver?
- because reejerey and lord are better than muscled and its planeshifted.
- because it's less tribal and consequently less dependant on the quantity of creatures you control. In some MU, you'll just play tarmogoyf or dark confidant and attack once each turn.
- because of the mana denial
- because the mana base is not that sick
Why this and not a monoU merfolk deck?
- because I can afford to play the 2 best creatures of legacy
- because the main mana base problem of the deck is to find a blue mana, not to find a splashed mana.
- because of the monoU SB.
- because the merfolks are very poor up to now (except the 3 ones I'm playing). The land transformers are bad because I noticed that in legacy, very few spells required a double mana (except for black) and because you can't prevent your opponent from dropping the land producing the color it needs.
Why this and not gob?
- because it does not fear hate as much as gob ( plague/pyroclasm)
- because FoW, Daze and stifle
- because it's not really or only a tribal deck
- because it beats threshold
Strengths
- goldfishes turn 5 or 6 very consistently which is fair for an aggro deck
- it has very powerful controlish elements such as FoW and daze.
- because it has a very favorable MU against the best deck in legacy (read threshold)
- it is very defavorable only against gob which sees less and less play
- it plays mana disruption
- it has several game plans which implies that it's more difficult to control
Weaknesses
- it has only 1 first turn: vial
- it's often too slow to deal with tribal decks
- gob is very very difficult: pre and post board.
- surely some more.. I'm thinking
Matchups
A few explanation of the protocole used for testing:
- first I play the MU a couple of times with no reporting in order to understand well the strategic points of the opposition.
- I play both decks with 2 opened instances of MWS.
- then I play at least 10 games in each of the four configurations: preboard on the play and on the draw and postboard on the play and on the draw.
- then I compute the overall percentage of win according to the numbers I got
- sometimes I can decide to make more 10 games when I find the results surprising. That's what I did when I found that the Ugw MU was highly positive.
The possible bias of my testing technique:
- I play the merfolk deck better than the gauntlet deck
- I don't take into account the fact that my opponent is facing a random deck. For instance it may happen that I win the first game without revealing any merfolk. I will make my opponent side in engineered plague anyway.
- I see both hands. I try to be objective but it's not always easy.
Ugw Threshold:
The list used for testing. It's the first list I picked from a french tourney report.
// Lands
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [U] Tropical Island
4 [R] Tundra
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
// Spells
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [BOK] Threads of Disloyalty
3 [SC] Stifle
3 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [FD] Serum Visions
4 [A] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [JU] Mental Note
3 [NE] Daze
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [BOK] Threads of Disloyalty
SB: 1 [SC] Stifle
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [DIS] Spell Snare
SB: 2 [IA] Hydroblast
SB: 1 [R] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
About the merfolk's list, the testing has been made with the reference list with the following change:
- the seasingers were main deck and the jitte in sideboard. The Aquitect's Will were MD and Stifle in SB, instead of Engineered Explosives. The experience of the tourney made me exchange the reference list.
Here are the results, I hope it's going to be readable :
................I play............I draw...............%
preside....8.........2........8..........6..........68,57%
postside...9........1.........4.........5
Total.......17.......3........12........11.........77,33%
77.33% is the probability that I win the 2/3 match, according to my testings. I call it very positive MU.
My SB against Thresh was -4 aquitect's will +4 stifle (remind that seasinger was MD during the testing). Not crazy neither but it's one more mana denial, which is important in order to protect ourselves from threads, explosives and countertop combo (countertop combo with no mana to activate top is not great...).
The Thresh SB I used to make was the following: -3 daze -1 mental note +2 spellsnare +1 Threads +1 Stifle. The Thresh SB is not easy because all their cards may be useful.
About the face to face strategy. Merfolk player must disrupt the mana base as much as possible along with vialing threats. All our creatures are very dangerous for thresh: dark confidant usually gives a decisive advantage, tarmogoyf enables me to stall the time I find a dark confidant, a seasinger or a lord of atlantis that makes my guys unblockable. The thresh player will try to control with underpowered explosives and threads that can't take control of the most gamebreaking creature: seasinger. The thresh player will eventually have some difficulties to have reliably 3 manas. Counterbalance lock can be efficient if there is no vial into play. But it's not that much likely.
Black splashed gob
// Lands
6 [ST] Mountain (2)
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
2 [ON] Wooded Foothills
2 [U] Badlands
// Creatures
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [AT] Mogg Fanatic
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [US] Goblin Matron
1 [ON] Skirk Prospector
1 [ON] Sparksmith
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
4 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
1 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
1 [LRW] Mad Auntie
1 [LRW] Wort, Boggart Auntie
// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
1 [LRW] Fodder Launch
// Sideboard
SB: 3 [US] Planar Void
SB: 3 [SC] Pyrostatic Pillar
SB: 1 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 3 [AT] Pyrokinesis
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 [LRW] Fodder Launch
The testing has been made with the reference list except that I was still playing Aquitect's Will instead of Stifle MD, and that Stifles were in SB instead of Engineered Explosives. Also the Propagandas took place of the Engineered Plagues in SB. The new changes should improve the MU.
I used to be very bad with MD seasingers and Aquitect's Will. Now that I play MD Stifle and Umezawa's Jitte. The MD matchup is positive, and remains the same post SB.
Here is where I am for the moment. The SBing is very difficult to tune.
................I play............I draw...............%
preside.....7.......3..........4.......6..........55%
postside...0........0..........0......0
Total.......x.......x........x........x.........X%
Preboard, the game plan is to mana deny them by countering lackey/vial with FoW/Daze and wasting/porting them out. Then you try to develop with tarmogoyf/dark confidant/jitte. One of the big problems is the fact that you don't get counters on jitte when a merfolk gets blocked by fanatic/pilly/SGC/Sharpy/Sparksmith or when Prospector is in play.
A proposition of SB:
-4 Merrow's Reejerey
+4 Propaganda
You may want too to enter Engineered explosives in order to deal with a first turn vial (or even a first turn lackey when you're on the play. In this case, depending on whether you play or draw, you would want to Sb out 4 FoW or 4 Daze.
Ugr Threshold
The list of Nikola Belev did 4/1 or 5/0 at worlds:
// Lands
2 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [PT] Island (4)
4 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [A] Tropical Island
4 [TE] Wasteland
// Creatures
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
// Spells
4 [LRW] Ponder
1 [OD] Predict
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [SC] Stifle
4 [A] Lightning Bolt
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [5E] Brainstorm
3 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [NE] Daze
3 [AP] Fire/Ice
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 2 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [PT] Pyroclasm
SB: 3 [R] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [BOK] Threads of Disloyalty
SB: 3 [CH] Tormod's Crypt
The testing has been made with the reference list except that I was still playing Aquitect's Will instead of Stifle MD, and that Stifles were in SB instead of Engineered Explosives. The new changes should improve the MU.
It looks tougher than Ugw. Slightly favorable. The strange thing is that it looks better not to play. The winner is usually the one that can mana deny the opponent. The needles are very strong against vial and port. Seasinger is not that hot in this MU because very fragile and easy to get rid of (3*pyroclam, 3*REB, 4*bolt, 3*fire/ice).
................I play............I draw...............%
preside....8.........7........9..........6..........57%
postside...6........9........11.........4
Total.......14.......16......20.........10.........60%
Dragon Stompy
I played 4 matches against a friend that I know being good. He was playing magus and bloodmoon MD. However, I was only randomly disturbed by the powerness of these "moons". Daze, Fow, fetches for island or vials were very nice. We did several games and I never sided anything as nothing was relevant ut it looked like I did not need it. I did not see a single equipment so I guess he did not run at all, which surprised me.
................I play............I draw...............%
preside....2.........1........1..........0..........83%
postside...2........0.........3.........1
Total........4........1.........4.........1...........96%
The probabilities are not relevant on such a few data, but it lights up the impression we both had. The match up looked quite easy for my deck. I'd like to do more testing and I'll complete the report.
The SB I did:
nothing, because I was not playing Explosives at that time.
The SB I would do now:
-4 Stifle (even if it can be good against chrome mox, that's approximately all, and it gets chaliced too easily)
+4 Explosives
The MU looks quite the same (or even better regarding Faerie Stompy and Seasinger) against other Stompy variants.
Landstill UW
I played a lot of Landstills on MWS and it was usually quite easy. The reasons are:
- Landstill hates mana disruption
- Landstill hates vial
- Seasinger is better than landstill
- I kill turn 5/6 in goldfish
- the lands can't chumpblock when Lord is on the table
- Dark Confidant makes Landstill players have nightmares
The main thing is to keep Crucible and Shackles off the board, and you have several ways to ensure that: mana dirsuption and free counterspells. Shackles are not that much played by Landstill players (it's more a MUC card, btw MUC matchup is far tougher because of its sound mana base, B2B, Shackles, ...). 4C landstill are usually very easy. Deed is a threat for sure, but the landstill player needs B and G to play it, which he is not likely to find early in the game. And at least you can stifle it and make your opponent lose 2 turns.
Against Landstill, the SB is usually (but it can vary, according to the build):
-3 Jitte
+3 Seasinger
As needle is probable to be sided in, you may want to play also some copies of engineered explosives instead of some reejereys.
Loam Decks
Well, there are a lot, and a bit like Landstill, I will not show figures, just an intuition. The MU is almost impossible MD, as your mana disruption is often useless and they play creatures that are too huge for you (terravore). You usually have no evasion (most loam decks are Terrageddon, 43-lands, CAL with or without confinement). You only chance is the aggro mode, and let me say that it's tricky. At least you have some protection for your mana base and if they try to mana disrupt you, they may go in a wrong way. Indeed, Stifle or vial will ensure you to be able to start a bit faster than the loam player does.
The SB is quite obvious:
+4 Planar Void
What to remove depends a bit of what you've seen on the first game. Simply never remove the tarmogoyfs, the draw engines or the vials. You can even try to remove 4*rishadan port, if not playing a deck packing tabernacle or maze.
Post SB, the Planar Voids + the permission will make the MU a bit at your advantage, but not enough to win the 2/3 games in most cases. The MU is overall defavorable.
Very fast Combos
Belcher and SI come to my mind. Your land disruption is almost useless here but you have the perfect anti fast combo answer MD: FoW, Daze and Stifle.
The SB:
+4 EE
+4 Propaganda
-4 Vial
-3 Jitte
-1 Port
My testing is not big enough to claim anything, but my good goldfish compared to Thresh and my MD disruption suite look far enough to ensure a positive MU.
TES
Their mana base is completely sick. However, I'm still not sure if I should stifle their fetches or keep them for the storm spell. I do it generally because Chant is a bitch and prevent them to get white mana is always performant.
I usually SB:
+4 EE
-3 Jitte
-1 Vial
Once more, I don't know well enough the MU (and it's very dependant on the skills of your opponent too). I think it's a bit harder than fast combo decks but it should remain quite reasonnable.
Solidarity
This archetype is not relevant anymore, but as I did a couple of games against, I can say that the MU is positive. The stifles are here first of all to deal with fetches. The dazes are here to prevent the settlement of the deck (impulse is the best target). Daze can also be good during the big turn, in response to the first high tide. Ports are golden too. And because ports are important, vial is important in order to keep a reasonable turn 6/7 kill.
The SB:
nothing relevant, even Jitte can help you kill 1 turn earlier.
The MU is positive.
Burn
It's a race. Try to goldfish, but if you notice a missing land drop or if you are overlanded, don't hesitate to port them for 2 reasons: the number of sorceries in burn decks can be important, and the burn players are often bad to worse and they may not understand they can play instant in resp to port activation. Stifle their suspended bolts, daze as soon as you can but keep fow for the big spells they keep for the end (Fireblasts and PoP).
The SB:
Nothing relevant.
I usually managed to win against my burn opponents, but I noticed it was often due to a lack of skills from my opponent. I think that if my opponent is skillfil, the MU is slightly unfavorable.
Ichorid
The first game is almost a bye for the Ichorid's player. You only chance is to have time to equipe Jitte and have counters on it before it starts creating tokens. If you manage that, then you have the game by killing your own creature as soon as a bridge goes to the yards and killing the Ichorids, when there is not Bridge anymore in the yard. But your SB is very powerful and you should win the 2nd and the 3rd quite easily, if you don't get too much unlucky.
The SB:
-4 Vial
-4 Reejerey
-4 Stifle
+4 EE
+4 Propaganda
+4 Planar Void
I can only say that the preboard MU is very very unfavorable and that the postboard MU is favorable. I don't know how much it balances for a whole MU.
See post 21 to see the following of the deck's explanation
