@White splash:
I have to say that Phoenix is right in most/all of the cases. Will try to elaborate.
@White Sygg:
Yes, he cost UW. Yes, you could vial him. Yes, you don't "have" to keep UW open. However, many times you will try to outsmart your opponent, leaving Vial at 2, hoping he will play removal so you could vial in Sygg and counter it! yay... Cute trick, doesn't work like that in real live though... The thing that White Sygg does is that it makes a double sphere of resistance on you. It's not good in the early game just like jitte is not good in the early game. Sygg is good when you have few cards in hand and plenty of land. Kira is in this aspect better because she/he/it comes down asap and does her thing. if you are going to play white sygg, play him as a 2/2 for 2 with islandwalk that sometimes has an extra abillity. I'm not saying it's a bad card and I would definitly like it if I where to play with as it is a merfolk and such, BUT I would not overrecommend him. He is NOT as good as he looks.
@Mirror Entity vs Wake Thrasher:
This sucks! You can't play both. NOPE! NO WAY! I tried this in the early days and attacked with a mirror, 11/11 Wake and a lord. My opponent blocked and I was going to use the mirror abillity and then... yeah, right... suddenly my wake was not so big anymore... the thing is, either you have an overpriced 1/1 in Wake Thrasher or you have an overpirced 1/1 Mirror Entity. Play white? Play Mirror!
@Other white cards:
I could see Plow beeing used against Piledriver. That is the only card I would fear except for early Noughts. Every other creature (might be missing someone) could just as easly be answered with E-Truth. However, if you are going to play white, you need at least 21 lands, as both Mirror and Sygg requiers more mana. This leads me on to the following...
@Forbiddian:
Your absolutly right. I went from 3 btb to 2 btb because the extra 1 cost just so much more. Spells we want to play should cost 0-2, or if they cost more be used very rarly. Jitte for example is a 4cc spell. However, I'm considering playing it in SB because it counters opponents jitte and sometimes it costs 2 less to play, altough rarly.
"Think of all we could learn from it! It's the chance of a lifetime! You must let me have it! It's a magnificent specimen!"
Scandinavian Master Legacy 2010
World champion 93/94 2013
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
A deck with 61 basic lands is strictly better than a deck with 60 basic lands.
Do I win the internet, yet?
Oh, forgot the list I played:
Creatures:
18 standard (you know which)
+1 Wake Thrasher
Spells:
4 Vial
4 FoW
3 Daze
3 Stifle
4 Standstill
2 Relic (yea, I didn't see any Loam and very few goyfs, figuered I could drop one for a Wake since it might surprise win alot of duels (and in fact, very few knew about the card))
2 Echoing Truth (I had only got 1 Kira in the post so i figuered it would be better to try out Truth again. Pleasantly surprised! Think I will keep playing these 2 instead of Kira for a while, it bounced alot of pain in the as cards and was really good all day)
Lands:
6 Island
6 Snow-Islands (yea, someone played Predict...)
3 Mutavaults
4 Wastelands
SB:
2 Annul (Will keep testing these)
3 Divert (Not sure about these)
2 Back to Basics
3 Hydroblast
1 Echoing Truth
3 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
Would like to try to fit in Jitte in the sideboard somewhere. And also, what do you think is the best way to "counter" opponents Pyro/Red Blasts? Is there any tech?
"Think of all we could learn from it! It's the chance of a lifetime! You must let me have it! It's a magnificent specimen!"
Scandinavian Master Legacy 2010
World champion 93/94 2013
Dammit. No one better bring that to the GP, since I'm going to bring out my secret tech 62basicland.dec Whenever I play against a real deck I'm going to just go "God damn this mana flood, no wonder why I lost all my games today..."
On a side note, I've been testing the list with Dreadnaughts and Shapesharer, and while I don't think it's better against tier 1 decks, all of you who don't have 2-3 byes in the GP should probably use it if you have the Dreadnaughts. It beats random crap decks much more easily and doesn't rely on the deck you're playing against to be fine tuned.
I think Merfolk are a lot like TA in the respect that they kind of require the opponent to be running a good deck in order to actually be really good.
EDIT:
Not that I've found. In fact adding in Blue/hydroblasts doesn't really improve your game any when they have red blasts. I have however considered running CotV sideboard @1, which would completely hurt burn decks and any pyroblast effects. It hurts us too though, and is a tad slow, so it may not be the best answer.
Yea, I know that my blasts only negates their blast but it's still the best thing we have... :/
I was looking at Prismwake Merrow for a sec but it does cost to much to be effective :( Nice trick to block Pildrivers thou...
"Think of all we could learn from it! It's the chance of a lifetime! You must let me have it! It's a magnificent specimen!"
Scandinavian Master Legacy 2010
World champion 93/94 2013
At the last tournament, a merfolk player divert'd my pyroblast that was a complete game changing. (I was countering a FOW, not killing a Merfolk)
So I guess BEB and Divert could be answer to it, even if BEB is a bit clunky to have in hand...
So I've read most of the pages, and have seen some comments on what are some of the bad match ups for merfolk.
I was hoping you guys could help me breakdown all the match ups in to 3 categories:
Good
50/50
Bad
This would be much appreciated as I am new to legacy and plan on playing this deck in Chicago.
@ Duke - I think that the white splash for just StP and Disenchant effects is good enough. I don't like Sygg, River Guide because I can't imagine using his effect multiple times in a turn. Also, I think that you shouldn't play any Basic Plains because turn 2 Lord is a large priority for us. Don't mind Phoenix. He goes out of his way to be an ass a lot of the time instead of just being decent.
@ Forbiddian - I agree completely about Kira. I would always to have a quick start so I didn't want to play Kira first, which completely ruins the point of playing her. She is just a 2/2 for 3 in way too many matchups. She was relegated to the board, but then she got dumped for other cards.
@ White Splash: ...the wheels on the bus go round and round. And again, if I were doing this, I would still rather use Kira than Sygg. I might even consider Mother of Runes over Sygg. UW is a rather high price to pay for his ability in this format, especially if you don't have a Vial. And are there really people willing to bring a deck with 7 white mana sources to a tournament with no Brainstorm in the deck? Even if you managed to get him and one of your white mana out at the same time, you'd never resolve him and use him on the same turn. So he would get zapped while you totally mangled your mana base to fit him. And lemme tell ya, the ones I saw you guys post are a mess. It's not personal. It is a fact. Now add to that the fact that a single opposing Wasteland or Stifle kicks you in the shins for all that pretty white removal as well, and it seems pretty clear to me. This deck can not pursue its current niche in the metagame in two colors. Try it and you get a completely inconsistent deck. BTW, I don't advocate using Kira either - not in the main.
@ 61 cards: Certainly adding cards past 60 can be a mistake, especially in the extreme case. But I say that in this particular case it is not for the reasons I already stated clearly. And Phoenix, I don't need your snark. I say that people have been blindly adhering to that idea out of fear of wearing a scarlet letter and that you are doing so right now (out of the side of your mouth no less). I defy you to prove that I am making a mathematical or strategic blunder by advocating 61 cards in this deck. Until you can do so, you are just making personal attacks that are unhelpful to say the least.
@matchups:
We really need to do this, but I am afraid that as long as there is infighting about the set of colors we are using, it can't be trusted. For me, I have seen no arguments on this thread recently to lead me away of what my own testing has revealed. I stand by what I have in the OP. I think we would be headed down a path to completion in time if I could get some people to consider weaknesses in that design or something very close instead of looking to reinvent the wheel at this point.So I've read most of the pages, and have seen some comments on what are some of the bad match ups for merfolk.
I was hoping you guys could help me breakdown all the match ups in to 3 categories:
Good
50/50
Bad
This would be much appreciated as I am new to legacy and plan on playing this deck in Chicago.
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"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
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Lol, fine. I'll spend my time on it because you don't want to spend yours. I'm busy right now, and easy math is going to get in the way of this quantum shit I have due tomorrow.
Is the word of the thread Snark? FFS I haven't heard that used in real life ever.
EDIT:
I agree with Elof's quick summary found below. But don't forget Ravager probably beats us too (plays all artifact lands).
@Finn+Mealing: This is a really good idéa. Can anyone name the decks that we want to know statistics for? It would be easier to define result then.
More or less you could summarise it basicly with:
Good - Opponents play Islands
50/50 - Swamps, Forest, Plains.
Bad - Mountains.
Not quite true but it could give you something to start with until we can categorize/summarize which decks we want to know about the matchups.
"Think of all we could learn from it! It's the chance of a lifetime! You must let me have it! It's a magnificent specimen!"
Scandinavian Master Legacy 2010
World champion 93/94 2013
There seems to be a second dimension tied to the number of damage sources the opponent plays. More damage sources tends to be less favorable. Decks that play lots of damage sources like Goblins, Zoo, and Burn are generally tougher matches than ones that play fewer.
Haha! After reading Mealings Post I had EXACTLY this answer in mind although when I think about it now I would rate it slightly different:
Good - Opponents play Islands
50/50 - Plains, Swamps, Forests (getting worse to the end of the list)
Bad - Mountains.
So the worst matchup you could possibly have is R/W in my opinion.
@Duke / Phoenix: You stated both but in a different way that Merfolk is good against "good" decks or against Tier-1 decks. That is exactly what my theory about merfolk is all about. If you can't make the first games your are stuck in swamp of Tier-2 decks Merfolk isn't really good at beating. If you win initially, you can swim with all the blue based decks on the top and give them hard times. Especially small touraments usually have a very thin Deck2Beat density so Merfolks are not very well prepared for a random Meta.
Congratz to U Elof ... and to Piceli ... I know how you feel I had the same bad matchups in my last real life tourney but it proves that once you are dragged down into the Tier-2 swamp it is hard to get out again ;) Survival Elves (someone else mentioned that), The Rock, Affinity and pure Aggro are 50/50 to bad matchups and basically elofs "Manamatrix" of matchups applies wonderfully.
Regarding the white splash: This is rather theoretical .... splashing W adds more flexibility at the cost of loosing focus. So matches against random opponents during the first games of a tourney will be improved slightly due to the extra flexibility but loosing focus will deny you the path to victory more often against Tier-1 (U based) decks up the ladder. In the end I'd rather hope for some initial good matches with Mono U Merfolks with the option to come out 1st than playing a Uw merfolk list with an eventually good start but loosing steam surely Top8.
Dreadnought: I have been testing a very basic list with Dreadnoughts because I did want to hurt the Merfolk shell as little as possible and without becoming a Dreadfolk list. The changes are: -2 Kira, -3 Relics, +4 Dreadnought, +1 Trickbind. Taking out Kira for Nought is pretty natural. Also taking out Relics feels quite good because you are loosing a reactive card that is played main to nullify or shrink the most dangerous and often played creatures these days (Stalker, Goyf). If not for these creatures I would happily play Relics SB. Dreadnought now is here for the same reason as relics are to have an option against those creatures except that Dreadnought is an offensive answer to outrace every creature existing in Magic history ;). Now Relics should be still in the SB because they are good in a lot of other matchups that depend heavily on graveyard shit. One extra stifle-effect is present main to be sure to have it available when a Nought is in hand (Trickbind).
I started out with 3 Dreadnought main but soon found out that this is still too random. Even with 4 main I usually can pull the trick only 45% of all games for the win (actually I had few games where I could have play Dreadnought but it was too late to matter). I tested around 12 games against my worst nightmare RG Beats aka Goyfsligh. Adding Noughts ramped up the matchup from felt 20/80 to about 45/55. I could just win randomly with a Dreadnought often trying to buy time against the bigger R/G creatures until I can play him with Stifle. Goyfsligh more or less is a placeholder here for a lot of tough matchups Merfolk has. To stress elofs "Manamatrix" of matchups again it is suberb against "Mountains" and quite good against "Forests". Usually I was able to protect the Naught at least once against removal (e.g. Tin Street Hooligan). This is sufficient because it just takes one swing maximum two to win. Note that I didn't play sideboarded matchups so nothing of that green split second spells that can spoil our fun. That has to be addressed if the initial Dreadnought tweak is working (well or is dropped)
Still Iam not satisfied with the randomness. I never was in need of Shapesharer because to copy a Dreadnought (and not just a Lord) you need to have one first, so either Merfolks gets better in buying time (which needs a more controlish shell like Dreadstill) or it finds Dreadnoughts more frequently and faster. So Trinket Mage would be the next best fit here. Unfortunately there are no cards anymore I would like to cut ... so maybe just for testing I will go -2 Wakethrasher +2 Trinket Mages.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
It's a bit out there, but with the 3 cc curve on the vial, and the other damage sources, it might be interesting to try Phyrexian Soulgorgers as extra dreadnoughts since most of the matchups that are problematic can be raced.
Mask of the Mimic seems like a card that could be interesting in the Aggro/burn matchup, especially in combination with Dreadnoughts. Sacking in front of destruction mitigates the x-for-1 factor on mask, and pulling out Silvergills or Lords with it isn't bad.
@ easyrider yeah, as I wrote 'at first' I tried just shapesharer without Dreadnought. Later games I just changed cards, Wake - out Dreadnought - in, and also I changed Stifle for Echoing Truth and results were much better, even though that I lost chance of having trick 2nd turn Dreadnought with Stifle. As crz87 posted, it is just surprise and we don't actully need it ftw. (I know that taking Stifle out might be wrong, but I wanted just to try it at least)
@ crz87 I would like to ask, what is your experience with Shapesharer + Mutavault. I found myself scraping my head, whether keep mana for Shapesharer or Mutavault ...
Well guys, I might be noob since I stopped playing Magic about 10 years ago and started again about year ago again (so I am pretty off), but even 10 years ago nobody tried (seriously) to run 61 cards decks. Back then for us was argument "why we can't have just 40cards decks :(" for obvious reasons enough. Magic has changed alot since then, but I am not convinced, that +1 card is any of help.
Exactly for reasons Piceli89 posted in his report I ask myslef what good white splash would be, and that's other reason why I chose Affinity to test against. (again I don't want to try beat this deck, just to be less 'frustrated')
Trinket Mage could be a good way to ensure you get Dreadnought online... But if you're going to pack Trinket Mage, I'd try to slip one Relic back into the main deck, in order to give him a little more utility...
You've hit the nail on the head though: It's getting more and more impossible to cut any cards from the main-deck... And taking out Thrasher for Trinket Mage definitely dulls our tribal synergy...
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
@Mealing: I guess it's one of my thousands of pet-peeves, but it bothers me when people ask for general match percentages. I guess it shouldn't, since we all secretly have fantasies about going Bayesian about a whole metagame with perfect numbers and formulating the best deck (at least I have those fantasies...), but it seems like they're somewhat cheating from my perspective: gauging up other people's play and then choosing which deck to build based on that rather than their own ability to choose a deck. Netdecking supreme.
But it's really, really hard to get exact match win percentages. Or even vague match win percentages. Even if you asked me for something very specific like, "What is Merfolk's win percentage against TES?" (Incidentally, Phoenix pointed out that I got TES and ANT confused in my strategic discussion... I guess better players can tell the difference, the way an enologist distinguishes between two different years of the same wine from the same industrialized vineyard -- it's all black storm or 24 proof to me). There's still a pretty big change in win percentage based on the strategy that you take and the strategy that your opponent takes.
Anyway, just based on statistics, it would take a large number of games played to resolve a decent match win percentage (like 60% +/- 5%). But say that you test 1000 games and get a 60% win ratio, but someone else tests and gets an 80% win ratio after 1000 games. Who's to say you're right and he's wrong? Obviously such a large difference reflects skill in some way. It could be that he's a tight player and scraped 20% more out of the matchup than you did just through clean play. It could be he found a strategy that works 20% better than your strategy. It could be that his deck composition is different enough to let him win more (or even change strategies completely). It could be that his opponent(s) had an inferior strategy or was a bad player(s) or a combination of these factors.
When you get down to the specifics like match win percentage, people ALWAYS call bullshit, some test the deck themselves, and those who do get worse results. Part of that is that people tend to inflate their own decks (and it really IS bullshit when people do that). But the other truth is that the people who have the insight to design competitive decks are going to be better with those decks. They know the ins and outs of the deck. They know all the justification for putting in card X or cutting card Y. They can play to their deck's strengths and dodge the weaknesses, and they can better judge those strengths and weaknesses in light of changing play.
You don't have to look far to see how much player skill destroys match win percentages: Every DTB beats Threshold and was designed to beat Threshold. Yet half the people play Threshold and it continues to put out good numbers, including a shocking >2:1 in T8 play for UGr thresh over the last 3 months according to Deckcheck.
I used to think everyone just had a big epeen, but if you sum up the match win percentages across every deck across all the threads, I'm sure you'll get to at least 120% ("My deck trounces your deck. 70% in my favor." is consensus in one thread, yet in the opposing war camp, "Yeah, it's a tough matchup, but it's 50%, we have the tools needed." gets unilateral support). Not that anybody is lying, just the people writing the match win percentages are the people willing to test the deck and they're likely much better MTG players than average.
So that's why I don't trust match win percentages spouted out by people on The Source or anywhere else.
BTW, here's the T8 match results for the 30 most recent Merfolk decks to make it to a top 8 on DC. This information is available to everyone anyway:
1st place: 8
2nd place: 4
3rd place: 4
Fourth place: 1
Fifth-Eighth place: 13
Median place: 3rd
Mode place: 1st
Record: 37-22
Win Ratio: 1.682 or p=0.627
Tournament Win Probability Given Top 8 Swiss: 0.267
More analysis reveals that Merfolk does better in the later rounds, supporting the belief that Merfolk does better against better decks. Its win ratio is 1.3 in the first round, but ramps up to 2.4 in the semifinals and 2.0 in finals.
Last edited by Forbiddian; 02-23-2009 at 07:01 PM. Reason: Added Analysis of Merfolk Performance
Well I didn't quite get your numbers here but whatever you figured out seems to fit with my personal impression how Merfolks are doing. So we have to tweak the deck to play better against random decks.
There is no space for Relic main. The deck is more agressive without it. Dreadnoughts fill part of the role Relics had before but in a more proactive way. I do not want a toolbox, I just what a Dreadnought asap. ;)
Yeah taking out Thrasher means taking away our biggest beater. But then we have 4 Dreadnought so this kind of compensates in terms of size. Synergy of course is not gained with Trinket Mage and sadly it is quite slow and lacks the surprise effect. Still there are more critters in the deck than before and loosing Thrasher is the only price you pay to have a Dreadnought online > 50% of the games. Thrasher kind of is the weakest link here. Often he just gets burned and all other Merfolks are more valuable for the overall strategy like Cursecatcher fro the denial package, Adept for extra drawing (into a Stifle or Nought) and so on.
I'll buy your logic that Thrasher is pretty much the only reasonable thing to cut in favor of Trinket Mage... It still gets a sad-face from me, because Thrasher makes me smile, but on the other hand, Trinket Mage would help you get a few things from the sideboard online more smoothly (like Needle and Relic, should you choose to run them)... So T-Mage already comes with a couple additional benefits besides just Nought-tutor if you deem these cards good in the sideboard... You may decide you don't need Relic, since 'Nought pwns 'Goyf anyways, but I'd still squeeze Relic in the SB if I were you because it's versatile against a lot of different decks.
On the other hand though, after my shitty luck at the PTQ this weekend, I'm considering going out of my way to make another one this coming weekend, and I want to clad my deck in armor against random scrubby Pure-Aggro decks... I don't have access to Dreadnoughts from anyone I know, but I know a dude who'd probably let me borrow some Tundras and Flooded Strands. I'm wondering if y'all think that running the White Splash for a relatively small GP Trial makes sense, so I can try to get myself bye rounds, and then run Mono-Blue Folk in Chicago, if I make it up there. Does that seem like it would help out, given that I mostly expect Aggro (Burn, Gobs, Zoo, Affinity, etc.) at the Trial based on what I saw at the last one?
I really would like to do well at this tournament, since I'm inconveniencing myself to even make it up there. Is the White Splash a viable way to deal with random scrub decks, or does Dreadnought just simply outshine every time?? Note I'm not asking which is the better deck, I just want to know what seems better against a random meta at a small-ish event.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
My tournament experience is very limited, so you should definitely make sure what I'm saying makes sense to you.I really would like to do well at this tournament, since I'm inconveniencing myself to even make it up there. Is the White Splash a viable way to deal with random scrub decks, or does Dreadnought just simply outshine every time?? Note I'm not asking which is the better deck, I just want to know what seems better against a random meta at a small-ish event.
Against a random field the more reliable, more proactive, and faster decks tend to do better. Reliability keeps you from losing to yourself. Being proactive means that you're less concerned about your opponent's game plan. And being faster means that you've got a better chance to outrun something that you didn't anticipate.
As it stands, Merfolk is something of a tripple-threat deck with control elements in the form of stifle, FoW, daze, wasteland and cursecatcher, aggro elemtents like the lords, and, sometimes, combo components like the dreadnought. Against an unfamiliar meta, I'd be looking to push the deck towards the aggro/combo end of things. Possibly even trading out a couple of islands for fetches and running brainstorms to improve the combo threat.
The white splash is Sygg, Disenchant, or STP. More control, which is not what I'd like to do for a random meta. Black and green splash for bob and 'goyf/grip respectively are
IMHO better for an unknown field.
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