He's right, and it's been said in this thread maybe 50 times or so. I've been thinking about this. If you *want* to run merfolk and win against goblins, I think you have to do the following:Originally Posted by DCTopTeam
1. Drop the land destruction in the form of wasteland. It doesn't work well against them anyways. The way to beat them is straight-up aggro.
2. Find a way to play heavier white. Def have StP maindeck.
3. Find a way to get Tivadar's Crusade/Tivadar in the sideboard. The second is a bit easier than the first (thanks to vial), but the first has a bigger impact.
However, if you're doing all these things, I'm not sure how merfolky your deck really is anymore...
Hi, im thinking about making this deck, more excactly the following md list:
12#Island
4#Merfolk Sovereign
4#Stifle
4#Wasteland
4#Ęther Vial
4#Cursecatcher
4#Lord of Atlantis
4#Merrow Reejerey
4#Silvergill Adept
4#Standstill
4#Daze
4#Mutavault
4#Force of Will
Sideboard is something i still have to figure out, someone got a nice sb for mono U that i can test?
Thoughts??
~Maarten
Sorry to go back to black, but this weekend I'm expecting to see at least 1 Elves, 1 Faeries (not Faestill or Faerie Stompy, but a homebrew), 1 Goblins, and several Zoo. I'm thinking in this situation, splashing black for E Plague and Perish might be a good idea.
Alternatively, play a different deck.
Considering that Merfolk is a deck played best against blue decks, I think you may want to consider switching in that meta full of bad matchups.
Honestly, sounds like Combo would be good in that meta :)
If they don't see it coming, Bloodghast Dredge might just wreck everything except for the Zoo.
Storm would do you good, too.
Well, I'm not going by baseless speculation here, I have actually been testing it and it is working out for me. I dig it. I'm just not sure if I want it in the Standstill spot.
If you're going to be like that, let me plug my own shameless self-aggrandizement: Man, you really should try Forbid + Ophidian combo. Man that shit is off DA HOOK!
Wow, he's got a really strongly anti-aggro (and anti-merfolk) build there. It might be your brother is a prick and he's just trying to dominate against you.
If that's the case, then in a wide-open metagame, you should do much better than he will on average, even though you won't beat him very often head-to-head. There's not much you can do about that, but he might change decks when he consistently goes 1-3 and you go 3-1.
If, however, your metagame really has so much aggro that a Goblins player can run 11 removal spells, then you're definitely playing the wrong deck.
Merfolk are at least flavorful. They're good fighting against Islands, bad fighting in the Mountains.
Aggro matchups are generally under 50% and blue-based decks are typically over 50%. If your metagame has a lot of aggro, you are better off playing a different deck, almost certainly.
Splashing white and maindeck Jitte help.
Thanks for all the feedback! Actually there are only a couple of decks in our meta that runs blue, which is supposed to be the best match-up, and more of Aggro. Will try to revise the build and even change deck. Will post results soon!
nobody?Hi, im thinking about making this deck, more excactly the following md list:
12#Island
4#Merfolk Sovereign
4#Stifle
4#Wasteland
4#Ęther Vial
4#Cursecatcher
4#Lord of Atlantis
4#Merrow Reejerey
4#Silvergill Adept
4#Standstill
4#Daze
4#Mutavault
4#Force of Will
Sideboard is something i still have to figure out, someone got a nice sb for mono U that i can test?
Thoughts??
~Maarten
I really would like to get your thoughts on the 4 Stifles, maybe i move them to sb but what to play in those spots.
~Maarten
Your list seems pretty standard. 4 Stifles might be a bit much, I'd say maybe 3 at most. If you want, try putting in a Wake Thrasher or two. Jitte and Echoing Truth are also good choices. Alternatively, if you know anything about your meta, you can try maindecking one or two cards to specifically deal with it.nobody?
I really would like to get your thoughts on the 4 Stifles, maybe i move them to sb but what to play in those spots.
~Maarten
I know we have been through this before, but I am saying it again due to all the new blood around here.
Jitte has never worked well for me. The biggest problems Merfolk have are associated with decks that have bountiful removal; both spot and mass. Any Landstill or Rock player with half a brain will gladly let Jitte resolve and simply never let it become useful by depriving it of a creature to wield it until it can be swept away with mass removal.
Against aggro decks like Gobs, Zoo, and Goyf-Sligh, it is hard to use for much the same reason. You can't seem to connect with it. Their spot removal is cheaper than the cost to play it and equip. So consequently, by the time you have summoned enough Merfolk to get past that (if you ever get this far), you are chump blocking to save your life with the same fish you want to hold the Jitte.
It is actually fabulous against Threshold and its ilk, and not as bad as you might assume against Tendrils decks. But then these are the decks we beat anyway.
Leave the Jittes at home.
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I'll second what Finn said. Honestly, Kira strikes me as a much better option as he acts both as another creature along with preventing targetted removal. He also flies over goblins. If you're not splashing, and can't run Absolute Law, and are having problems with removal, give Kira a shot.
I will agree with this once again due to new people here.
I'll add though that even if you do get a swing in with it against a zoo type deck (which probably will come after 3-5 turns of equipping it to a creature that gets insta-killed, thus wasting your mana), chances are they have a Nacatl or something waiting to just block it and take out your creature that is holding it.
If you ever amass enough control that the creature you swing in with that gets killed didn't matter, or you have that critical turn where you pump jitte and then control the game, chances are you were doing well enough already, without the jitte.
I would use Kira GGS over it any day. It's not a widely accepted creature in the deck, but I absolutely love it. Makes all of your guys incredibly hard to remove (except to mass sweepers), and absolutely wins you top-decking games.
On a side note, has anyone tried Spell Pierce as a 2-4 of main? Seems like a kick-ass way to stop sweepers, enchantments, or artifacts that could become problems. Even 1 for 1ing a removal spell seems pretty good, especially with Cursecatcher/Wastelands to make sure it's always relevant.
I understand what you guys are saying and I too agree that Jitte is not good against Zoo or Goblins; however I think it's generally a good card to have against quite a few other decks (like the mirror). Whether or not it's good enough for inclusion is entirely up to you though.
What matchups does it help you win that you were probably going to lose to begin with? The only one or two I can think of are the mirror and elves. I just think there are better cards to be had.
Which slot would I use for him though?
right now i have
11 island, 4 wasteland, 3 vault, 1 minamo
4x cursecatcher, s. adept, LoA, Reejerey, Sovereign
2 Wakethrasher
4x FoW, daze, standstill, vial
3 stifle
Maybe on Stifle's slot? But Stifle has been really good for me lately.
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
That's the hard part. I would justify cutting 1 or possibly even 2 Dazes (since they are functionally the same, it would make sense to not overload on the same type of effect, but still Daze is really good since it protects 1st turn Vial).
Wakethrasher is the first thing I can see that bears cutting. To justify it, we look at what Wakethrasher himself really helps against. The answer is that he's awesome against board sweepers, or heavy control effects (double ghostly prison or something still doesn't stop you). Spell Pierce does a lot to stop sweepers and Enchant/artifacts so I think the best option in your case is to:
-1 Daze
-2 Wakethrasher
+3 Spell Pierce.
I'm really just advocating the test of the card though, I have no results to back me on how good it is. It may end up being a good sideboard for Mono-blue (definitely takes the place of Annul if anyone still played that).
People are having exactly the opposite experience to what I've been having with Jitte.
Perhaps you're playing it differently than I am?
Ok, let's imagine a hypothetical Zoo opponent. You're imagining that he can land a burn spell for every single creature you have in play, and therefore Jitte is dead. What would you rather have Jitte be, in that situation?
What's your regular game plan against Zoo, I'm really curious? I mean, you're assuming that he just burns every single creature you have. So you just lose no matter what?
EDIT: Hmm, I thought about this again. Are you playing Jitte on like turn 2? Jitte is an endgame card, for precisely the reason you seem to be explaining, you CAN'T play it out early. You're simply not going to connect with it in the first few turns, especially if you cast it over two different turns, giving your opponent a chance to see your windup and make sure he has an answer ready. The point is that when you survive to the midgame/endgame, if you have a Jitte, you can win the game from a much lower life total, against more opposing board presence than you could with any other card.
You still can't walk yourself into getting out-tempo'd in the early game. Jitte costs a lot, but has the potential for massive card advantage.
Fair enough, but again, what's your gameplan against The Rock and Landstill? It seems like they can kill everything you own and then mass removal everything. Jitte or not, you'd lose, so I don't know why you're blaming Jitte for being a bad card in a "They can destroy everything we have"-type situation.
I think you're presenting unrealistic situations. I certainly wouldn't consider Landstill to capable of removing all of my guys easily.
At least that's more specific, but I can hardly consider Jitte to be a win-more against a deck that packs game-ending burn. Any time that you're sitting on less than 10 life, you have to try to end the game immediately. If you get a Jitte out, to win the game, all you need to do is equip it. The four-life a turn is too much to handle. Even if they're slow-rolling burn, I'd much rather they blow out my weakest creature than save it up for a headshot (or burn out my strongest Merfolk).
If you don't have Jitte out, to win the game, you need to beat them down to 0 before they draw enough burn to kill you.
I guess I can't speak for your metagames/how you've been playing Umezawa's Jitte in Merfolk. I can say that I've found it to be good --> great (not great against Zoo, I'll admit) in a lot of the matchups you think it's terrible in, and in the situations you've presented, I have no idea how any other card would have been objectively better than Jitte. The situations were basically: Your opponent has a vindicate for every card in your hand and enough lands to play all of them freely.
Outside of the strict aggro matches, it's also quite the house. The improvement on the Merfolk Mirror alone should give a lot of people reason enough to try it out.
EDIT #2:Why are you restricting your evaluation to looking at sub-500 matchups? I'd gladly tank Goblins by 5% if it let me move Landstill from 65% to 70% and Ichorid from 70% to 75%. Not saying this card does exactly that, but what's the obsession with making every matchup over 50%? And at any rate Merfolk is certainly not the deck to go >500 against the field, it's a borderline metadeck.
But since you asked: Jitte is outstanding against Goblins. Goblins really lacks the spot removal to take advantage of Jitte and runs tons of juicy 1/1 targets. If they happen to run Piledriver, that's just one more reason. It's great against Rock variants using Birds and Bob or that 0/1 guy. Great against every deck that runs opposing Jittes. Not sure how many of those are <500, but certainly Jitte is going to be one of their only outs and you can burn it.
You're confusing "Burn every creature" with "Burn a creature a turn for long enough that the tempo swing of wasting most of your mana every turn has lost you the game." Your burn opponent could have 2-3 burn spells in hand, and you still lose enough tempo by wasted turns that you'll lose to his goyf. Or he could have a Grim Lavamancer to take out your entire field. At least if you had Kira GGS he would be forced to race, and since you have more creatures, you have more chump blockers and stand a chance. Reejery is too great a threat to his big fatty waiting to kill your attackers, so he is forced to attack (yes, this assumes you have a Reejery or will top deck one, but it is a very real threat).
Depends, exponential lord dropping is the only way I've beat zoo. Yes I've done plenty of testing with jitte.What's your regular game plan against Zoo, I'm really curious? I mean, you're assuming that he just burns every single creature you have. So you just lose no matter what?
Actually I think everyone who disagrees with Jitte runs Stifle, which stops much of the mass removal in Rock and Landstill. The exception would be WoG, which Cursecatcher/Daze/Wasteland can usually take care of.Fair enough, but again, what's your gameplan against The Rock and Landstill? It seems like they can kill everything you own and then mass removal everything. Jitte or not, you'd lose, so I don't know why you're blaming Jitte for being a bad card in a "They can destroy everything we have"-type situation.
But if they take out your weakest creature, you still spent precious time equipping that creature and wasting your turn. This means they get more swings in with their huge 3/3s, 4/5s, KotRs, etc. The important turns are in the beginning against zoo, when you still have a full hand of things to play.At least that's more specific, but I can hardly consider Jitte to be a win-more against a deck that packs game-ending burn. Any time that you're sitting on less than 10 life, you have to try to end the game immediately. If you get a Jitte out, to win the game, all you need to do is equip it. The four-life a turn is too much to handle. Even if they're slow-rolling burn, I'd much rather they blow out my weakest creature than save it up for a headshot (or burn out my strongest Merfolk).
This is true, but it is better in my experience to race them than to try to control them. Aggro control decks are starting to become infamous in losing to Zoo. Even if you get that jitte out there, Q Pridemage is dastardly good at blowing it up. They don't even need to sideboard Jitte hate in!If you don't have Jitte out, to win the game, you need to beat them down to 0 before they draw enough burn to kill you.
Spell Pierce might be an answer (more answers to Fallout and point removal at your lords at least, and 1 for 1ing their removal isn't bad when it's aimed at the guys who are pumping your team enough to answer their damage). Also, I've always appreciated KGGS.I guess I can't speak for your metagames/how you've been playing Umezawa's Jitte in Merfolk. I can say that I've found it to be good --> great (not great against Zoo, I'll admit) in a lot of the matchups you think it's terrible in, and in the situations you've presented, I have no idea how any other card would have been objectively better than Jitte in those situations.
I also do not want Jitte in the main or in the board. Jitte needs a crit for it to be used. Without a crit its a sitting duck! Rather have an Echoing Truth in its place.
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