Well, he did get 8th place in an 84 man tournament.
I don't even like Jace. Like, period, not just in Merfolk. I did think it was interesting that people were trying to replace Standstill though.
As far as Mutavault, I assume he just wanted Wasteland to be a dead card. Could also explain Stifle being 2.
Originally Posted by iamfrightenedtoo
Yeah, Jace just seems... well... bad. I'd sooner run ancestral visions or perhaps the thirst for knowledge equivalent that's sorcery speed and makes you drop a land rather than artifact...
I wrote a tournament report where I used this deck.
Check it out: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...434#post378434
Great report man, was a fun/informative read
For the experienced legacy fish/ merfolk player, what side board tech do you find hoses you the most?
Mountains. Engineered Plague. Vedalken Shackles and Moat, although no one really runs those as SB cards, they're maindeck. Mostly though, I just hope no one sides in Mountains, that shit is savage tech.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Red Elemental Blast.
Really? With so many threats I can't believe shackles could really be that bad or the worst? Moat yea but hardly played and with all the double lord pumps a plague that is not early would not be that bad especially with the 3 casting cost and all that counter back up. Moon effects would be pretty bad but really only played in dragon stompy.Mountains. Engineered Plague. Vedalken Shackles and Moat, although no one really runs those as SB cards, they're maindeck. Mostly though, I just hope no one sides in Mountains, that shit is savage tech.
REB is a given but truly is it the worst opposing tech to play against?
It can be used to both either kill your best permanent or to force through their best spell. It also only takes one red to cast. It's certainly annoying.
I still get caught off guard by EP sometimes. One game I had about 4 weeks ago was against Mono Black Control. It was game 2, and he led off with a turn 1 EP followed by a turn 3 EP. I scooped.
But yeah, any deck with Mountains is pretty savage. Kira helps, but Pyroclasm doesn't. Chill usually does the job if they aren't packing REB but it's still not a hard lock.
On Friday I tested Uw Merfolk for STP maindecked and 3x Disenchant, 3 Absolute Law but I hated it. I removed Wasteland for 4 fetch and 3 Islands for 3 Tundras. It was a really last minute call as I got there late, but my mana felt really inconsistent. I lost a game by having 3 cards that needed white but no white mana. Then the games where I got flooded by fetch and Tundras was against Blue Staxx. Luckily I stomped that match though.
I've come to the conclusion that everyone else has: Mono Blue Merfolk is the way to go. But I'm adding bounce somewhere to the board because I refuse to lose to EP or Moat.
On the sideboard issue, the problem isn't so much that there are things that completely ruin Merfolk in other peoples' sideboards. The problem is that there are some decks that it's just pretty difficult for Merfolk to beat, flat-out. Anything that focuses heavily on cheap threats is a little hard for us, especially if they combine that with a decent amount of removal. Also, board sweepers are hard for us to deal with, if we don't manage to counter them that is.
The single best card to side against Merfolk is obviously Engineered Plague though, it just attacks this deck's main weakness more effectively than anything available. But the ironic thing is, as a Merf player, I actually fear Plague and the decks that tend to use it way less than I fear the decks that run Mountains plus cheap and/or oversized creatures.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Engineered Plague, Volcanic Fallout, and Jitte come to mind.
Hello,
Common in the MainboardOriginally Posted by Thoughtseizer
For the experienced legacy fish/ merfolk player, what side board tech do you find hoses you the most?
1. Jitte
2. Engineered Explosives
3. Pernicious Deed
SB
1. Red Elemental Blast
2. Engineered Plauge
3. Pyroclasym / Firespout
4. Choke
5. Ghostly Prison / Propaganda
6. Pyrokenysis
7. Wrath of God / Damnation
8. Humility
9. Moat
Add would like to add on the old topic which discussed several pages about merfolk being a meta deck, I hate to admit it but that was the case in our recent 10k legacy tournament in where 50 players participated.
Their was 7-8 players who played merfolk (several builds) all failed to make it to top 8 the best record for the merfolk decks was a 3-3 win-loss record which isn't good enough and a bit disapointing.
I guess the meta in our place had really adjusted to it. I was so shocked when i saw so many merfolk decks running in the tourny but the general meta was:
1. Red Heavy (goblins, burn, borros & zoo)
2. Black (rock & sui)
3. Merfolk
4. Faeries
5. Meathooks
6. Combo (ANT & Dredge)
The weird thing is that only 2-3 players used thresh.. unlike before their was 20+ players using thresh.. haha
I was really shocked on how poor all the merfolk decks performed or maybe all us merfolk users had bad luck hahaha....
The list a run was
LANDS [19]
3 Mutavaults
3 Wasteland
13 Islands
CREATURES [20]
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merfolk Sovereign
4 Merrow Reejerey
Utilities [21]
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Mana Leak
1 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rushing River
4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
SB [15]
3 Hydroblast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Ecohing Truth
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Mana Leak
2 Thorn of Amethyst
I finished so poorly 1-4-1 the 5 red sb i guess is not enough i got my assed burned all day..
Round 1 vs BG Control Aggro = 0-1
Hypnotic Specter / Nyxthatid & jitte was too much
Round 2 vs Red Burn = 0-2
Burned all my critters and lavamancer for the win
Round 3 vs Dredge = 0-2-1
Draw
Round 4 vs Almost Borros = 0-3-1
Burned all my critters and lavamancer for the win
Round 5 vs Red Burn = 1-3-1
Win i drew 4 of my Bebs and countered all his burn and was able to establish several critter and gave me my 1st win for the event.... very dipressing..
Round 6 vs WGB Rock = 1-4-1
Too much tarmo and knight of the reliquary and can't do anything with his discard & creature removal.
I guess it wasn't my day and as for the other merfolk players aswell hahaha
Most decks I encounter that have Moat (Landstill, Stax, Quin) have it maindeck. I have yet to see it come from a sideboard.
That being said, lately Firespout has been bothering me. I would be bothered by Volcanic Fallout (or Pyroclasm), but most people seem to have dropped it for Firespout, which is a good thing because it gives us a chance to counter. However decks that run Firespout are usually UGWr Thresh, Canadian Thresh and Dreadstill: they have counters themselves. In fact, Dreadstill and UGWr Thresh tend to run them maindeck.
I didn't like Engineered Plague either. Nor did I like Pernicious Deed. But these come from decks (The Rock, Eva Green) that are pretty difficult to begin with. After boarding you have to be extra careful in these match-ups.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably delicious.
Team ADHD-To resist is to piss in the wind. Anyone who does will end up smelling.
I would recommend playing around with other things in these slots. For example, if you want the additional counterspells, I would probably just max out on Spell Snare, since it seems like the strongest choice of those three cards.
But to be honest, I'm not sure if more counterspells is really the best use of those slots. Some other things you could play with: Wake Thrasher, Jitte, main-deck Back to Basics, main-deck Relic of Progenitus, more Wasteland/Mutavault, Stifle, Vendillion Clique, or even freakin' Tidal Warrior.
Anyhow, it seems to me that times are getting tougher for us Merfolk players. I think the meta is just shifting to a position that's a bit more prepared to play against our game-plan.
Here's hoping that Zendikar gives us the resources to power up this deck in a significant way.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
No offense, but this is a pretty atypical, and in my opinion horrible, Uw list. You ran 4 fetches and 3 tundras? Of course you were stuck with dead white cards! You took out wasteland? Typically if you're running white, you're going with 21 or so lands:
6-7 fetch
3-4 Tundras
4 Wasteland
3 Mutavault
4 Island
Has anyone tested the Trinket Mage/ Chalice of the void mess from the SB of the u/g list that won the duals tournament?
we've been discussing it getting ready for the charlotte 5k and it seems REALLY good.
Chalice for 0 on turn 1 wrecks ANT and if you follow that up for a chalice for 1 on turn 2, they scoop.
Chalice for 1 also shuts down a majority of the thresh deck and zoo also.
it also hoses their REB's that they side in against us.
Chalice for 1 vs zoo stops..
Figure of destiny
Grim Lavamancer
Kird Ape
Path to exile
Lightning bolt
chain lightning
wild nactal
sure they play pridemage but if you keep him off the board even for 3-4 turns after a chalice for 1 you should win.
thresh loses
Nimble Mongoose
lightning bolt
brainstorm
ponder
spell snare
stifle
and for the record... Jitte main is a necessity.. we've found that it increases your zoo and burn match up quite considerably.. not to mention the mirror with a sovereign out.. its a beating and a half.
Is anyone else attending the Charlotte 5k? If so, what do you think the meta will be?
we're planning on seeing a LOT of Zoo and a lot of counterbalance decks.
with a nice side helping of merfolk, ant, bant and lands.dec
If anyone wants to get a few games in or trade some, ill have a NY Yankees shirt on with MANTLE on the back of it on Sunday so hit me up.(its been a lucky shirt for me apparently)
Dropped Wasteland because in Tucson, few people play nonbasics that are not Terramorphic Expanse. Luckily, this is changing...slowly. It used to be 3 people out of 15 played any nonbasics, about a month ago it was 6/35 but it's growing. It's just not something I'm used to.
You're right about the fetch though. I just didn't feel comfortable running too many because of my buddies who run Survival and a couple Magus of the Moon (it hoses some of the nonobasic players). It was my lack of experience with the splash that probably led to the poor experience, but I really haven't seen a lot of Uw lists being developed either.
Basically, I have to show up prepared with a list that is tuned for the splash, or stick to the Mono Blue version which I am comfortable with.
This isn't quite a fully tuned list, but here's what I would start with if I were to run the U/w version, based on testing on MWS (which I admittedly haven't gotten the chance to do in several months.)
U/w Merfs
4 Cursecatcher
4 Adept
4 LoA
4 Reejerey
2 Wake Thrasher
2 Merfolk Sovereign
4 Vial
4 Standstill
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest (because I dig the stripper-name vibe, and as a Goyf fake-out)
3 Wasteland (or one more Mutavault and 2 more Island if your meta is really devoid of non-basics)
3 Mutavault
4 Island
SIDEBOARD:
3 Absolute Law
2 Seal of Cleansing (the thought being that they're better vs Counterbalance)
1 Disenchant
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Chalice of the Void (not sure about this, but between Thresh, combo, and Zoo, this seems pretty good right now)
*So, obviously this list needs some testing; also feel free to critique. I hope this works as a starting place for what the white splash could look like these days.
Last edited by DukeDemonKn1ght; 09-08-2009 at 04:12 AM. Reason: Realized enchantment removal in SB lessens need for bounce spells
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
DDK, I have been turned off from Jitte. What opponents is it helping you with in particular?
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