[Deck] Merfolk

[Phoenix Ignition]

I give up on most of you. I've been discussing Whirlpool Rider for so long, just go read that. It's also in my gigantic post a couple pages back.

Now with my question, I dinnt have the chance to playtest the aggro-loam matchup and was wondering how it was? Anyone got experence with the MU?

Here's my sideboard since many people seem to be looking for inspiration there :

1 ET
3 Relic of p
3 Propaganda
3 back to basics
2 kira
3 Missdirection/divert

The missdirection/divert are the least side in cards and im toying with either annul or pithing needle for that slot.

Chill would also be nice but i dont beleive it's as crucial as the other possibilitys.

It's not a great matchup unless you have Relics Maindeck, and still I would call it slightly in their favor. You need fast hands and to be able to slow down their mana enough that they don't get an engine online. The problem with overextending into killing as much land as possible is that they have LftL and can stabilize. You just need to make sure they're dead before they can.

An active Relic game one is almost game over for them if you can empty their graveyard early. As for sideboard Echoing Truth is very good in this matchup, along with Hydroblast. B2B is another very good card against them if they don't see it coming, and marginally okay if they did, so I wouldn't rely heavily on it unless the Aggro Loam has a bad pilot.

The problem is when you have Aggro Loam decks that get Chalice for 1 out before you can get out a Relic, because then it's a very very tough match.

Chill really isn't good against Aggro Loam.

[Karrcinegin]

While it would be nice to have a way to shuffle away chaff midgame, I think that whirlpool rider is just too weak on its own. Pheonix and others have provided some good arguments in this vein several pages back. But it would be nice to have a little more deck manipulation.

How about running two ponder in the slot instead? It will help you find that second island, find the next threat, find a counterspell (though not in response to anything obv.), or shuffle away those three lands on the top of your deck. I think that as far as mid game card quality advantage, though it doesn't reveal to silvergill, ponder is a stronger card than whirlpool rider.

I would probably only run two because in early turns our mana is pretty tied up, but if testing proves them good, I may decide to go up to more.

[elof]

There's basicly nothing wrong with ponder but something in me just triggers when I see Ponder and no fetch and it makes me scream out NO WAY! for some reason. Also, I can't imagine a worse senario than seeing top 3 and one is a monster and the other two suck.

Also, I'm going to test this deck on sunday, will report after how it's gone. I'm not sure what to except so I think I will try a SB like this:
3 Pithing Needle
3 Annul (Mostly for testing, might go -1 Annul +1 Hydroblast if I see lots of red)
3 Echoing Truth
2 Propaganda
2 Hydroblast
2 Back to Basics

Any thoughts about it? Not sure about Propagande either...

[Finn]

Phoenix - deep breaths.

Look, man. I respect your ability just fine. There is a reason this site has the best development. If something isn't up to snuff, it is out. We need to be objective in order to get this right. So let's do it, and not get worked up about it. This deck was flabby a year ago, with all kinds of stuff that everybody has stopped using for good reason. If I had gotten hot under the collar about all the change I would be Cavius. Every last card had to be examined in the process. That's how we got here.

I have found that it was foolish for me to think I would never need a backup plan in the main. Through testing and conversation with all of you, I have determined how I plan to work around this latest weak spot. And now I feel comfortable that this is yet another area of the deck that is now maximized. The deck needs bounce to deal with problematic permanents because your opponents will occasionally have *gasp* counterspells too to force something through. Or maybe you got a slow draw. Or who knows? But that bounce had better not fail. I can't see how it can be that you don't ever have problematic permanents that prevent you from winning in game 1. And my saying so is not a personal attack. We all need to benefit from your experience here, so tell us. Have you really never wanted to bounce something in game 1? Convince me and you will have one less person questioning your position. I don't care who is right, I just want to get IT right.

@Aggro Loam: Yuck. This looks like a nightmare iff they ever start Loaming. My guess, and it is just a guess, is that you need to get ahead fast and stay there. I bet it is possible to keep them from Loaming long enough to kill 'em. Wakethrasher is probably your favorite wincon here. that would be my initial plan.

@Karcinnadian, Ponder is fine. But honestly, there is no room for all the stuff we already need. Note the discussions on solutions to this primary dilemma. Mine is 61 cards. Some others are foregoing bounce or GY hate in the main, or even Islands.

@Elof, I think you are thinking Ponder=Brainstorm. Not sure.

[elof]

@Finn: No, I don't think Ponder=Brainstorm but I do think Brainstorm > Ponder and also Brainstorm = Fetch. Ponder might be good, I admitt that. I have however played it all to much in meat hooks and I guess I have gotten greedy and excepting that I always will have the abillity to shuffle dead cards away. And personal, I never like knowing what I'm going to draw, unless I have top then I can live with it. Anyway, I will always see it as Ponder = Fetch.

Regarding bounce in main: Of course it happens that some pesky shit resolves and means it's a bad time for me, ex: Dreadnought, Humility, Bridge (are those I seen the most) and I do wish I had bounce in these situations. However, a Nought and Humility is not impossible to race and you could get lucky with bridge and breaking your own standstill. But, as you suspect, when this sort of things happen, there's usually not alot you can do. So I take the occasional loss and try to win the 2 after board games. You simply can't have answers to everything in the maindeck, it is impossible! I try to minimize my damages and so far, playing Kira maindeck has been better than maindeck Truth. I tried out Truth but found it lacking in main. Perhaps I should reconsider...

[sauce]

Kira is a crappy choice for the main deck, you should just main deck Wipe Away and Rushing River and put Kira in the board.

Watch your capitalization. Grammar and spelling are held to higher standards in DtB Posts
-TOOL

[elof]

Could you please elaborate why you think that? The only real problem with Kira SB is that you have so very few creatures MD already...

[Forbiddian]

@Karcinnadian, Ponder is fine. But honestly, there is no room for all the stuff we already need. Note the discussions on solutions to this primary dilemma. Mine is 61 cards. Some others are foregoing bounce or GY hate in the main, or even Islands.

61 cards is not a solution. It's specifically the lack of a solution.

Here's a joke post that has some element of truth (although I fucked up the Bayesian analysis, nobody called me on it, so w/e (but for truth I inflated the numbers by like an order of magnitude... Shhh)):

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...2&postcount=24

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

I give up on most of you. I've been discussing Whirlpool Rider for so long, just go read that. It's also in my gigantic post a couple pages back.

@Phoenix: Look dude, I know you hate me right now, but the whole reason I brought up Whirlpool Rider again is that there is still room for slight variations in this deck, for example some folks have as many as five or six main-deck slots to play with. (I don't, but some folks do)

Now, to be fair, in most blind meta-games, I'd advocate main-decking bounce spells or Relic waay before I'd suggest Rider (again), but I think some folks who know their metas pretty well have decided that, for example, they don't need Relic in the main, it's fine to have it in the sideboard... So they have more open slots to play with than I do myself,

Now, from my perspective, this deck's disruption suite is very strong, and its creature base is almost optimized perfectly. Personally, if I could design the ideal card to put in this deck (besides an artifact that sacrificed to either draw a card or destroy an artifact or enchantment, lol) what I would want to put in this deck is just one more awesome Merfolk creature... And I think why some people are struggling with this question, or finding Kira the best option available, is that we're already using all the best Merfolk available... There just basically isn't another one that's unquestionably worth our time right now. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to run this as a deck with 22-24 creatures in it.

I just thought I'd bring it back up, because although I heard an intelligent argument on the card from you, I wanted to hear a few other folks' opinions as well... As Finn said, "Deep breaths."

EDIT: Here's probably the craziest of all the crazy ideas I've suggested for this deck so far, but I think it could be cool. Juxtapose in the sideboard. (U3 for a sorcery that lets you trade your creature and artifact with the highest cmc for those of your opponent.) What do y'all think? My logic is that our creatures are pretty dependent on one another in order to be good, and we play artifacts (Vial and Relic) that are all-stars in some situations and basically dead cards in other situations.

Here's my take on it: Juxtapose just may be the game-reverser that we're looking for. (Or it may just be more of my lunacy-- please tell me if I'm smoking crack here) I think what excites me the most about it is that you wouldn't want to play it in any circumstance where you were already winning. Rather, this is the card that you can play from a situation where you're struggling to stay in the game, and it just may gain you the tempo boost to win the game you otherwise would have lost. The idea is, if our opponent gets ahead of us on tempo, then we can just try to exchange our tempo for his in order to get the win.

The most obvious points about Juxtapose that I would present as arguments against it, are that it costs four mana, and is thus higher than anything on our curve... And secondly, we would almost never want to play this card if we had Merrow Reejerey, Kira, or Wakethrasher as our most expensive cmc creature on the table. On the other hand, pretty much all of our two-drops would be fine to give away. This is because LoA still boosts my army even if my opponent controls him, and because if I give away Adept, I'm giving him a 2/1 which has already allowed me to draw a card.

I think against a fair amount of decks, Juxtapose would allow some pretty insane recovery plays. Imagine against Dreadstill if we could go "I'll trade my Lord of Atlantis and my Aether Vial for your Dreadnought and your Tarmogoyf." This also gives our deck a weasel-ish way of dealing with flying creatures: just stealing them in exchange for something cheaper and smaller.

*However, I wonder against how many decks Juxtapose' artifact-stealing ability would be relevant. For example, Stax doesn't care if we steal their shit (unless it's Crucible) because it has the same effect on the board no matter who controls it.

I'd really like to hear some discussion on Juxtapose, even if it's just to shoot down the idea, because I'm fairly certain it hasn't even been mentioned until now in this thread.

[elof]

Duke, don't take this personaly, but you keep repeating what we have already said before. If there where a better merfolk out there, we would have discussed it by now. We have been through them all. I myself have looked at all the 112 (depending on how you count, didn't count changelings but other "merfolk" spells) and the ones discussed here are the ones that we find interesting and so far, none has come up.


However, your doing a good job digging up old cards, unfortunaly none has been that great so far but it's always good to keep improving the deck, here is my suggestion:

Is Winter Orb something to consider? I think that it could be worth replacing btb?

[scrow213]

Duke, don't take this personaly, but you keep repeating what we have already said before. If there where a better merfolk out there, we would have discussed it by now. We have been through them all. I myself have looked at all the 112 (depending on how you count, didn't count changelings but other "merfolk" spells) and the ones discussed here are the ones that we find interesting and so far, none has come up.


However, your doing a good job digging up old cards, unfortunaly none has been that great so far but it's always good to keep improving the deck, here is my suggestion:

Is Winter Orb something to consider? I think that it could be worth replacing btb?

Wouldn't that be a bad plan, since you can't use your lands for spells (creatures) or Mutavaults? I mean B2B shuts off Mutavaults too, but still allows you to play your creatures every turn.

[elof]

Yes, I'm aware of this backdraw but there are some benefits, I'll try to list them:
A: Ofc, but with a Vial in play, it's AWESOME.
B: Yes, it does slow us down, however, we have a pretty low curve, seldom playing more then one spell a turn, and hopefully better cards then our opponent.
C: It makes Daze absolutly AWESOME since we get a fresh land to hand that we can replay.
D: Same as for btb, but merrow and untapping lands is a neat trick. Cursecatchers costs nothing.
E: I feel I can take a lite more risk in keeping my hands, having UUU/UUC (C = colorless) can be somewhat tricky when facing matchups where Waste wastes your opponenets and mutavaults gets wasted by your opponent. Having access to 2 is much more easy to have.


I'm not saying it's the best shit ever printed but it's worth a discussion at least. I think we have gotten to the point where we need to consider new SB cards.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Yes, I'm aware of this backdraw but there are some benefits, I'll try to list them:
A: Ofc, but with a Vial in play, it's AWESOME.
B: Yes, it does slow us down, however, we have a pretty low curve, seldom playing more then one spell a turn, and hopefully better cards then our opponent.
C: It makes Daze absolutly AWESOME since we get a fresh land to hand that we can replay.
D: Same as for btb, but merrow and untapping lands is a neat trick. Cursecatchers costs nothing.
E: I feel I can take a lite more risk in keeping my hands, having UUU/UUC (C = colorless) can be somewhat tricky when facing matchups where Waste wastes your opponenets and mutavaults gets wasted by your opponent. Having access to 2 is much more easy to have.


I'm not saying it's the best shit ever printed but it's worth a discussion at least. I think we have gotten to the point where we need to consider new SB cards.

Winter Orb is kind of cool, but I feel that it would push us back towards using Rishadan Ports, in order to maximize its effectiveness.

Sorry I've been so long-winded around here, I'll try to restrain myself a bit.

However, please read my suggestion about Juxtapose above and tell me what you think. I'm not sure if it addresses our problematic match-ups or not, but I think Juxtapose could absolutely crush some decks.

[elof]

Juxtapose is cool! However, it costs 4 and by then you could be dead already. Not quite sure, but if you don't own an artifact or creature, do you still trade? I think not, but want it confirmed. However, Threads does all that except it can't steal Progenitus (that we don't know if it will be played yet...) and Tombstalker (better to bounce anyway). Gold against gofy, nought, etc.

And the differeance between 2cc, 3cc and 4cc in this deck is quite huge. 1-2 is okey, but reaching 3 or 4 mana can take longer since we play alot of wastelands and wasteable lands and the lands we have don't come in huge number.

[kilukru]

If I where to play a 4cc solution I would play sower of temptation, but then again, I dont think i would actully play a 4cc answer in this deck.

I run 19 land (13Island, 3muta, 3waste) and just hitting the 3 mana mark can be quite troublesome sometime, so i wont even try to hit 4 on a reliable basis with this deck.

Dreagnouth and Stalker are dealt with bounce in this deck, get used to it, I dont see any change comming for those guy.

As for threat, I would see this comming in if we where aiming at a more controlish game, witch we are not, goyf is already being taken care off(figure of speach) by relic and most deck that run goyf run blue (I know gofl slight and zoo) so we can usuly swarn them pretty badly, the place i would see threat shine the most is agains bob's, but decks that run bob arent the most troublesome matchup.

Welcome to monocolored deck! Lot's of raw power, evident weakness's, talk to goblin, he know's! (even if he isnnt monocolored anymore)

[rockout]

I was thinking meekstone might actually be good against the little blue men. In the testing I did, plague was much better.

Sorry for trolling.

[memnarch]

Plague seems pretty good against Merfolk. But not as bad as goblins because the lords pump the smaller guys. I'm willing to bet well be seeing more of that in sides as the deck inevitably grows in popularity. But thats why we run bounce right guys?

[Phoenix Ignition]

I have found that it was foolish for me to think I would never need a backup plan in the main. Through testing and conversation with all of you, I have determined how I plan to work around this latest weak spot. And now I feel comfortable that this is yet another area of the deck that is now maximized. The deck needs bounce to deal with problematic permanents because your opponents will occasionally have *gasp* counterspells too to force something through.

I think we're thinking on a completely different level. Like I've said (with backup from elof) cards like Humility that the opponent forces through are going to come out late enough that they usually don't win the opponent the game. Name one deck that runs FoW+Jitte... The only one I can think of is Faerie Stompy, where the only spells you need to worry about are their equipment. I start with this example because this is the only time I see Wipe Away being effective. That's 1 deck out of maybe 100 that you ever see, since Sea Drake is too expensive.

Which other decks support both Jitte and can force it through? Mono black usually can do a decent job of it through hand control, but that isn't played very often. Also, they lack the ability to race us, because even Phyrexian Negator isn't worth running anymore. Not even decks like Eva Green run Jitte.

A lot of the cards you say we have problems with are run in decks that we easily beat. I'm not saying at all that every time I've played against these cards I've won, but I am saying that they far from make the game unwinnable. Knowing our weakness is the best way to know when to counter spells.

We do not need a maindeck answer to these cards.

I can't see how it can be that you don't ever have problematic permanents that prevent you from winning in game 1. And my saying so is not a personal attack. We all need to benefit from your experience here, so tell us. Have you really never wanted to bounce something in game 1?

Everyone has wanted to have a certain card maindeck that they don't at some point. But no, I very rarely need a bounce spell maindeck to win the game. It might be the icing on the cake, but I like plain cake too. Sometimes games look unwinnable (resolved Avatar of Woe against me) but we still pull out the win out of no where (vial Wakethrasher in, swing for 7 taking 1 point of mana burn to tap out, leaving me at 1 and him at 0). I think it would help if you named the specific cards that you need bounce against, and then individually list how merfolk's playing style differs against their deck.

You suggest Counterbalance as an example of why we need bounce? Personally my favorite deck to be playing against is thresh, which is the most common deck to play it. They have to resolve CB + Top before we resolve a LoA or a Vial. Even then I've been able to win with Wakethrasher or tapping stuff with Reejerys (doesn't matter if they counter whatever it is, we still get the tap).


@Engineered Plague/Meekstone: I've considered running Meekstone in our sideboard in case Progenitus gets big. Why were you going to side it against us. Unless we get a lot of lords out, we still can islandwalk through (I don't know what deck you play though so maybe not) for 2 damage.

I've won probably 80% of the games I've played against a resolved E Plague. It usually comes out around turn 4 to get around the Daze, but the major problem with this card is that it doesn't stop our lords. I've won so many times because I'm still able to play a lord even under EP. This statistic could be because people kept bad hands when they saw EP though, overestimating how good it is. I've never really been afraid of the card unless it comes in 2s, but I'm sure you could find a better sideboard card that would beat us if you had 2 (propaganda ghostly prison?).

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

I've won probably 80% of the games I've played against a resolved E Plague. It usually comes out around turn 4 to get around the Daze, but the major problem with this card is that it doesn't stop our lords. I've won so many times because I'm still able to play a lord even under EP. This statistic could be because people kept bad hands when they saw EP though, overestimating how good it is. I've never really been afraid of the card unless it comes in 2s, but I'm sure you could find a better sideboard card that would beat us if you had 2 (propaganda ghostly prison?).

This is why I'm happy I have two Propagandas in my sideboard, I'm actually sort of hoping that I see the mirror match tomorrow at the tournament, I think it could be sort of fun.

Anyways, here's my sideboard, as I think I'm going to take it to the tournament tomorrow:

3 Echoing Truth
2 Wipe Away
3 Back to Basics
3 Pithing Needle
2 Propaganda
2 Threads of Disloyalty

Does this seem good to y'all? I was going to run Jitte in the SB in the slot where I have Threads now, but I figured I shouldn't bother, as I'm going with Kira in the main and I don't want to make sideboarding decisions more complicated on myself than they have to be. Does this seem good? Do y'all think I should I go with 2 Divert, 2 Chill, 2 Threads, or 2 Jitte in that contested slot? Or even maybe Mind Harness or Hydroblast??

@Elof: No, unfortunately Juxtapose does not trade what you don't have... Which pretty much makes it jank in this deck, at least at four mana. If they were to print it for a casting cost of three, then woo-woo, but I don't think it's good enough as is... I think I'm going to wait a while before I suggest any more cards, until I'm sure that they're amazing for us. (Unless of course how I advocate playing Unstable Mutation )

[elof]

Hmm, I might consider replacing my Propagandas with Threads. Ichorid shouldn't be that bad of a matchup anyway (3 ET, 3 Relics, 4 Cursecatcher). Threads seems more nice against goblins since I can now chumpblock/kill Piledriver easier, and he is my only big scare (yes, I know I can stifle him and I have mutavaults, but still)