Interesting idea, but less and less like Merfolk. A full third of your critters aren't even in the tribe! You only have 6 lords in the deck, so your men will never be big enough to compete with opposing threats. I have this feeling that you'll be chump blocking until a Dreadnought comes along. If you're moving in this direction, would it make sense to turn it into a Stiflenought deck with Kira? If you end up testing it, please let us know how it acts compared to more traditional lists.
First edit: I know Merfolk decks have been successful with maindeck Stiflenoughts, but the addition of Kira makes it seem less and less Merfolk. I wonder if it's reaching the point where you might as well ditch the merfolk altogether.
Second edit: The problem with this is much the same as my burn card survey: looking at cards in a vacuum only gets you so far. At some point the supposed benefits of adding a card is countered by adding or removing other cards. In other words, I'm not totally against having 3ish noughts and 5ish stifles in an otherwise vanilla Merfolk deck for the random win, but this is becoming less and less a Merfolk deck.
Most people blindly suggest new cards for decks. True contributors also suggest what to remove. It's not about what's good, but rather what's better than the current selections.
That seems like you might have trouble casting adept, with only 13 merfolk to reveal for each adept. How has your testing with it gone?
I have a question seeing as im not a merfolf player. How do people still play this deck with zoo decks running rampant, isnt it almost a scoop?
"Dreaded Merfolk" lists are nothing new, you can literally find this variant being discussed like a hundred pages ago.
If it's a route you want to go in, I think Shapesharer is a better maindeck enabler than Kira, since it's a Merfolk, it can replace the need to have Stifle in order to drop a 'Naught, etc. Kira in the sideboard seems good if you're running the 'Naught though.
If I recall, most of the people that tested Dreadnought seemed to like him best as a surprise sideboard option though... And no one really uses Dreadnought anymore anyways in this deck. The few times I tested it just played out awkwardly. Personally, I would much rather splash white, because it seems much more consistent (as long as you get thr mana base to work). But that's just me.
EDIT: I'll admit I don't know fuckall about playing Dreadstill. But it does seem like if you want a creature base with 4 Dreadnought 3 Kira, Dreadstill is a better shell to fit that into than Merfolk, actually... Gotta agree with my boy Kirby.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Lists like this havent been new. I have played Merfolk with StifleNuaght beginning of 2009 to improve the aggro matchup where Kira still was an common SB addition because of aggro as well. The problem always was that you cannot protect the Naught without a lucky Kira and you want to play Naught earlier and can't with Kira (UU). So in my games that I remember apart from a random and lucky Naught sometimes it wasn't worth loosing on the Merfolk theme in return. The white splash especially Absolute Law has made my Aggro matchup far more better and consistent than the additional of Naught and Kira ever had.
Dreaded Fish variants are winning like 71% of their matches against other T8 opponents. So if you tested it and rejected it, you probably fucked up.
Top 8ing has a lot more to do with player skill than the popularity of a deck. If you don't understand this basic concept then you really should not be having this discussion here. Take 1 real good player and 30 bad players and the good player will top 8 almost every time. This really isn't that hard of a concept. the only explanation I can see for you discounting player skill is that you never do well so you think it's all luck.
No reason to be mean. He's made some rather...interesting...choices, but there's no reason do be an asshole about it.Originally Posted by SJUD
I wouldn't run Dreadnought in the same deck as Kira though. That just seems like a big no. And Jitte is much stronger than Kira. I run at least 2 somewhere in my 75.
Has anyone looked into the card Sleep? Seems like it can be unfair in some scenarios. It's basically 2 free attack phases. I think I might run this over Hibernation (lots of Soldiers, Kithkin, Elves in my area). 4 mana is kind of expensive, but I'm seeing it as a kind of game winner to push through ridiculous amounts of damage. I just want to know if anyone else has tested it.
Sleep costs too much imo to be effective. If you're going to run a 4 mana spell like that wouldn't cryptic command be better?
What are you talking about? Do you mean Jitte and Kira?
Not according to the data....And Jitte is much stronger than Kira. I run at least 2 somewhere in my 75.
@chokin FYI, Dreadnought and Kira play well together. You target the trigger not the creature. I used to play Kira in my Dreadstill board.
Tusk up.
If you really want to further this argument, you need to think harder. Obviously people who are good are going to top 8 with a deck, even if it isn't the optimal deck. This doesn't help us. Why would we care about the statistics of a deck that only one person can pilot? One player can be great at something horrible, and that doesn't mean that everyone should play it. Obviously skill has a big thing to do with top 8ing, but once you get to the top 8, how you perform is closely linked to your matchups and deck.
The best goblins player in the world will still lose to a decently played Charbelcher. Once you make it to top 8, your deck and card choices significantly affect your outcome.
So, we can only gain anything by an analysis if it shows us the quality of a deck, and card choices, not the assumed playskill of someone we don't know. Now, this can be done fairly well by looking at how a deck performed once it reached the top 8. We can assume that the people who made it there are all good players, which may be flawed, but is the best assumption you can make (in opposed to trying to look up player ratings and correlating those with the decklist). Top 8 performance therefore is the best way to see how a deck's card choice helps it.
Even though the analysis has many variables that could hurt it, it still shows how some card choices are clearly superior to others.
Ok, seriously, to both Forbiddian and SJUD, stop with the personal attacks. Or at least move them to the personal boards. I will call a mod if I need to. We don't need people calling one another stupid idiots on a DTB forum.
There's basically no arguing against the validifyt of Forbiddian's analysis. And while it may have some holes/weaknesses/prejudices, that's certainly no reason to ignore it. *Any* decision on an analysis method is going to have weaknesses. You pick your poison. That's also not saying that an analysis of *all* decks rather than just T8 isn't perfectly valid as well (with its own set of weaknesses). But so far, I haven't seen that, so I'll take what I can get.
That being said. Let's not jump to the conclusion that "because x and y and z are good separately, x, y, z are good together". Obviously this is a synergy-based deck. And I agree, running 14 'folk with Silvergill seems bad.
My concern is since zoo is our worst matchup, how does running dreadnaught help? before sb they have 4 pridemages and 4 swords/paths. after sideboard they have more hate. Our only hope for the dread to stick is if we draw into kira and play her before they get an answer online.
? The only difference is Matt is logically correct, and SJUD is not. I don't see why you're treating their positions as morally equal. Perhaps the insults that fly around are blunt honesty, but I'd rather have an honest discussion of anything than to sit around and share purple bunnies and carebear stories about how MERFOLK IS TEH AWESOME LOLOLOL.
That being said, this deck concept is interesting. It can take a significant departure from the standard strategy of nogoyf by going for the kira+beats route. Also, Matt was proposing a natural evolution of the deck. If it so happens that it's not merfolky enough, then so be it. Running merfolks isn't intrinsically good; it's only good due to the difference between tribal benefits (lords) and tribal punishments (Engineered plague, pyroclasm effects)
I haven't thought about the list he proposed enough to deduce if it's good or not, but it seems like the most common argument is "there isn't enough merfolk." The only relevant question is if the deck's good. If it's not possible to build an optimal deck and have it be merfolk-filled at the same time, then so be it.
Player skill is very relevant when you are talking about how certain cards win more than others. You are ignoring things like player skills and matchups that have a much better determination of if a deck is going to win. Swapping out 4-8 cards in the deck is not going to produce a significant change in the outcome of matches. There are other factors to consider which you conveniently ignore in order to try and prove your point.
The deck concept is not interesting at all. It's a perfect example of why a 'best card' deck does not work in this game.
Removed unrelated flames. -J
Last edited by Jander78; 12-04-2009 at 06:32 PM.
The point is that if a player is good enough to consistently top 8 with a deck then they are more likely to be good enough to build a good a 75 with that same deck. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand. I'm sure the people who top8 real tournaments do a lot more testing and playing in high level competition than we do. It's the same reason I'd trust LSV over some random forum member when talking about deck construction.
I was satisfied enough but the changes just didn't help the rg matchup as much as I hoped. Kira also doesn't give Shroud which sometimes can be assumed from the comments. It is totally enough that they target with Lavamancer (which fizzles) and then play any spell they like. The white splash was definitely more satisfying for me fighting Goyfsligh, Goblins and Zoo.
Can't be the case you definitely messed it up yourself...
In all seriousness I don't think Dreadnought helps out in the Zoo and Goyf Sligh matches which is what the deck needs help with. Since I'm playing the mono blue version I've had success just bringing in 10 cards out of the board and winning games 2-3. Blast, Threads, and Kira help wa more than Dreadnought would.
Kira helps a little bit game one, but once they bring in Volcanic Fallout, she's a waste of mana I think. I've had it happen to me too many times to say that Kira is the right call in Merfolk.
I can see the appeal of splashing white for and improved game two and three, but I'm still having troubles finding how much I want to run and how that changes my mana base.
Dreadnought is not an ideal option for Merfolk. It's even worse than Kira, I'd say. And with Kira it's even worse.
A card I've been wanting to test is Waterfront Bouncer. He's a Merfolk now and even though it only answers creatures, it might be worth a test.
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