Thinking about playing this for our league final
4 lord of Atlantis
4 vodalian hexcatcher
4 master of the pearl trident
4 silvergill adept
3 true name nemesis
1 svyelun of sea and sky
3 standstill
2 stifle
2 mistcaller
3 tideshaper
3 aether vial
1 force of negation
4 force of will
1 muddle the mixture
2 harbinger of the tides
4 wasteland
1 riptide laboratory
1 cavern of souls
1 tolaria west
2 otawara soaring city
4 prismatic vista
6 island
The Parfait Meta-Game
Well I finally got to play my list, certain there were some changes that I didn’t update… but it played well. Highlight play was easily thieving skydiver taking a one ring. I do think I’d like to get a sygg in the 75 somewhere. The deck needs that card draw and having different routes to get it seems important.
The Parfait Meta-Game
Do you have a more recent list?Originally Posted by Weapon X
Most more lists I've seen from time to time went basically all in on creatures.
Merfolk used to be my pet deck but it is so hard to make it work when you need 3 creatures to do anything while your opponent can outclass you with 1.
I do…
4 lord of Atlantis
3 vodalian hexcatcher
4 master of the pearl trident
3 silvergill adept
3 true name nemesis
2 svyelun of sea and sky
3 standstill
3 tideshaper
3 aether vial
1 echoing truth
4 force of will
1 muddle the mixture
2 harbinger of the tides
3 merfolk trickster
1 thieving skydiver
4 wasteland
1 riptide laboratory
1 cavern of souls
1 tolaria west
2 otawara soaring city
4 prismatic vista
7 island
Sideboard
1 gilded drake
1 force of negation
1 unlicensed hearse
1 umezawa’s jitte
3 hurkyl’s recall
2 blue elemental blast
1 hydroblast
2 damping sphere
2 surgical extraction
1 dismember
The Parfait Meta-Game
I've been out of legacy for a bit (when covid screwed my shop, duals doubled, etc, I sold out of most of it, except Merfolk, BR Reanimator, and a few others that are on the cheap side)
One thought I've been having is Did anyone try to make Merfolk a combo aggro deck?
While I've been brewing there's an easy T3 win with Puresight -> paradise mantle -> Thassa's Oracle
And it only requires Puresight + Mantle + Cantrip to win T3. It would be a "different deck", probably dropping Vials and TNNs (?); but the allure of just outright winning by dropping the grindy aspects has me doe-eyed enough to actually sign in and look like an idiot by posting it.
If it's non-obvious; Puresight + Paradise Mantle tutors any card in your deck, and can be online T3 (T2 if you ran petals or something.) Then you simply need a way to draw a card + cast Thassa's Oracle for 3 mana.
e.g
T1 Cursecatcher (or whatever) (Note: ponder or Brainstorm to get natural 3-card combo is better)
T2 Pursight Merrow
T3 Paradise Mantle, equip for 1, exile your library until you hit Oracle. Cantrip with land-mana to draw oracle. Exile your library. Cast oracle (this is the risky approach, since you lack an extra mana)
If you ponder/brainstorm/whatever into Oracle + Puresight + Mantle naturally, you instead cast Oracle and exile in response to its trigger.
___
While it's true that it involves playing bad cards (Puresight, arguably Oracle), you still have islandwalk lords to beat down most decks with while having a nuclear option available when it comes up. I think the Puresight plan could also be used for random other tutoring psuedo wins; e.g. finding another counter EoT v Storm.
It'd probably need its own thread if it actually has legs (as it adds the cantrip package, swaps good creatures and vial for garbage, etc); but I figured people educated in the ways of the 'Folk could tell me how bad it is :p
Thanks for listening to my jank.
People found out that playing Oracle in dedicated combo shells works much better than in a bad aggro shell in a way that loses to 1 removal.
Puresight and Oracle don't contribute to the beatdown plan, paradise mantle does nothing so you're just combining 2 weak plans which weaken each other even more.
You can't really play cantrips in Merfolk because Chalice is too important.
These are two very important concepts: merfolk is a lord deck and it values Chalice. If only there were a land that made dudes with lord-type text (like getting +1/+1 per artifact) which played Ancient Tomb and could make Chalice on turn 0 and funnel 2 colorless into pseudo-lord dudes.
Saga is the best merfolk; and the only one this tribe needs.
Essentially this. Saga replaced Merfolk with blue Artifacts/Emry Stompy/8cast as the new Fish deck. If you want to play scaleable beatdown backed by FoW and Chalice, that's now the deck to play.
Before that, there was an attempted Merfolk list with 4 Thassa's Oracle + 4 Paradigm Shift, but it turned out to be worse than just maxing out on lords and disruptive Merfolk or resolving a BBB sorcery.
Merfolk was already way in decline before saga, but it hasn't helped.
Requiring 3+ dudes and very little ways of generating card advantage merfolk just got out power creep'd.
Competing with Delver was already hard enough, now people can drop nonsense like Murktide without much setup and run actual spells.
I've been thinking a lot about Merfolk recently and wanted to share a few thoughts I had.
Most crucially, I think the lords are the weakest part of the deck because they are only good if you're already ahead but don't help you at all otherwise.
A lot of merfolk who actually do things cost 1UU which doesn't work in a stompy shell either.
Trying to be either a bad stompy or a bad eleves/gobos with FoW isn't going to get you anywhere.
With recent printings one niche Merfolk could occupy again is mana denial.
Rishadan Dockhand is obvious and Tide Shaper can act as a pseudo Blood Moon.
Given that the deck notoriously runs out of gas fast, mana disruption into Standstill with Aether Vial seems like the way to go.
Vodalian Hexcatcher really shines here as he can turn your creatures into emergency Cursecatchers.
I arrived at something like this:
4 Aether Vial
4 Tide Shaper/Cursecatcher
4 Rishadan Dockhand
4 Vodalian Hexcatcher
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Svyelun of Sea and Sky
3 Master of the Pearl Trident/split with other 2 mana 'folk
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
2 Suspend/Vapor Snag/Brazen Borrower
2 Daze
4 Wasteland
2 Mutavault
2 Rishadan Port
1 Otawara, Soaring City
11 Island
One of the big problems with Standstill is that you need to be able to draw something that can do something on the spot instead of an Island, a Vial and a useless dork.
That automatically leaves less space for dudes which is not that great either but probably still better than nothing.
The land base is a bit shaky as I think I want enough Islands for UU and Daze.
Force of Negation instead of Daze might be an option but I don't think we can afford the card disadvantage.
Spell Pierce might be ok depending on the available mana.
If 2 cmc lords are bad, I’m not sure you want to be playing merfolk at all. What is merfolk offering you over beaters + spell disruption (delver) or tribes with better hatebears (humans/spirits)?
I wouldn't say 2 CMC lords are bad, but they are slow. I think Merfolk is a decent choice when the format is slow.
A few thoughts about Merfolk:
* It's a blue deck that can comfortably play Cavern of Souls while having solid mana (I would drop Mutavault and play more basic Islands). Back to Basics is another card it could play. Delver is always going to be two or three colors. Delver is going to be better at velocity, and Merfolk should be better in a longer game.
* Humans has mana that's as rocky as Delver's is, or more so. Humans and Death & Taxes are going to have the best hatebears. I don't think Merfolk can compete there.
* Have people seriously brewed with Spirits? I think that tribe lacks depth and is almost always two colors.
I think Merfolk is pretty neglected.
The format isn't going to slow down and even if it did, Merfolk most likely wouldn't gain from it.
Most decks can win with 1 or 2 creatures or at least get a massive advantage.
Playing just lords leaves you with 1 grizzly or 2 watchwolves.
You can't just trade dudes for removal because you'll run out of steam quicker.
I would only play Mutavault if I was running Standstill.
To me Standstill seems like one of the few ways to refuel but in a meta with Urza's Saga and decks which can crack it easily in your EOT this might not be the right call.
Cavern is a meta call if you're not running Chalice.
You need enough Islands to get UU reliably and U to cast your sideboard cards.
B2B main might actually be a neat idea.
Spirits and Faeries for that matter have the advantage that everything has flash, allowing you to run more counter/removal which is nice.
However, I think they have neat tricks but also lack power to close out the game both early and quickly.
Spirits and faeries do have issues with closing speed and needing 2 colours. But Spirit of the Labrynth and Spellstutter sprite are great counters to the average legacy meta.
The 1/1 who explores could be really good for the deck.
This could be really good.
I saw this today and thought it was a reprint.
Why do I think it already exists?
E:
Deeproot Waters
Yeah the new one is better in a lot of ways.
You can go full jank and play fishsaysno.dec
This looks really good because it works with Vial.Tishana's Tidebinder
2U
Creature - Merfolk
Flash
When Tishana's Tidebinder enters the battlefield, counter up to one target activated or triggered ability. If an artifact, creature, or planeswalker's ability is countered this way, that permanent loses all abilities until Tishana's Tidebinder leaves the battlefield. (mana abilities can't be targeted)
Also stompy mana cost.
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