Agree with pretty much everything here. 19 lands might be tough, but it might not be too bad with 12 Islands (IMO never go below 12 Islands). I'd probably cut a Waste before a Vault, it's just too good not to run 4.Originally Posted by Raptor
Spell Pierce main is a little weird, but doable if your meta doesn't have much aggro. Maybe even very good if it's mostly combo. But you should be winning against combo even without those main. Definitely try to get a second Jitte if you can, maybe you can do a 2/3 E Truth/Stifle split like I mentioned before if you really want to run Stifles.
I don't think you should run Stifle in the side, either main or not at all. There aren't many times when you want to bring in Stifle g2/3 if it wasn't already in your deck g1. B2B doesn't really hurt you as you should only bring it in against Lands.dec and maybe Landstill like above poster said. And you don't need Vault to swing in against them. Actually I would just take out B2B if no one in your meta even plays Lands.
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There's a problem with the idea that stifle should not be in the side, either main or not at all. It is true that the mathematical nature of sideboard cards is different than maindeck cards because they play a role that's not identical to maindeck cards. What I'm disputing is "main or not at all."
The card either deserves maindeck slots, or it doesn't. Nobody has choices. Also, unless you're preparing for a local tournament where you know the metagame with nearly full certainty, there's also not even such a thing as "depends on your metagame."
In any case, I never advocate stifle. I don't know enough about E truth to know if it's good or not, because as you know, the deck I play plays white in it so running E truth is kind of pointless.
Cards like stifle and spell snare aren't intended to be tempo cards because you have to stay open to use them, which accumulates over time. I can't think of a conceivable situation where stifle goes more than 1:1 either, which it would have to do to be good. If it's not tempo, and not card advantage (and in fact, usually card disadvantage) then what is it?
Well one thing it shouldn't be is in your 75. The only saving grace for stifle is that it's blue, so that you can pitch it to FOW. If you count stifle as -1 as soon as you draw it, then you could count FOW as a 1:1.
Yeah, the only land destruction card that does not let your opponent tap for mana first, and it is not tempo. If you are deciding to leave a mana open to play Stifle "just in case", you are doing it wrong.Cards like stifle and spell snare aren't intended to be tempo cards because you have to stay open to use them, which accumulates over time. I can't think of a conceivable situation where stifle goes more than 1:1 either, which it would have to do to be good. If it's not tempo, and not card advantage (and in fact, usually card disadvantage) then what is it?
Well one thing it shouldn't be is in your 75. The only saving grace for stifle is that it's blue, so that you can pitch it to FOW. If you count stifle as -1 as soon as you draw it, then you could count FOW as a 1:1.
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I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. I'm probably reading it wrong but to me it sounds like you said the same thing I did. Can you explain it more clearly?
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I got to wondering something: Has anyone tried replacing Standstill with Brainstorm in a Merfolk deck that splashes a color?
Don't get me wrong, Standstill is a fine card on the whole, but it really is close to a main-deck dead card in some matchups. Especially since the metagame is becoming more aggressive on the whole, Standstill just seems like an increasingly poor choice in this deck. Brainstorm might not provide the raw card advantage, but combined with fetch-lands, I think it could provide enough consistency for the deck to use it to get there in the same way we use the raw "draw 3" power of Standstill. You just wouldn't have to side it out against Zoo and Goblins and in the mirror and whatnot... And it would lower the curve a bit, which is usually a good thing for us.
Just food for thought. Personally, I don't know if it would be as good as Standstill, but I think it's important to consider it from the broad perspective: Standstill is awesome, provided you can fulfill its requirement of having a good board position. Brainstorm however, is only very good, not awesome... But if you're already splashing and thereby running fetch-lands, Brainstorm is very good nearly all the time. I'm interested what people think of the idea.
EDIT: I thought of perhaps a better way to phrase the question: Since Standstill is only good when we have superior board position (or a completely neutral board position)... does that make it a 'win-more' card?
Last edited by DukeDemonKn1ght; 03-22-2010 at 01:40 AM. Reason: thought of a conversation starter type of question
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Why is spell pierce a bad MD choice? It is solid against many decks and can help to protect your lords from removal. It can be seen as not being needed because it improves good matchups and hurts bad matchups, but honestly, if you in a heavy aggro meta merfolk wont do well no matter what you do (I say this only thinking of mono blue folk decks since there shouldnt be room for these utility spell slots in white splash folk).
you answered your own question. Spell pierce is a good card for control/tempo decks which Merfolk is not. Seems horrible in Merfolk. Some one said it is good vs combo decks, but I don't see how its the right choice to keep mana open vs tendrils or any deck tbh. You need to get fish down swinging fast as possible with counter back up to slow them down. Ad Nauseam isn't so scary when they are down around 10 life
Standstill isn't just good when you have superior or neutral board position. It is at its best when that is the case. Standstill is in the deck because it plays nice with mutavault/vial. You want standstill turn 2I thought of perhaps a better way to phrase the question: Since Standstill is only good when we have superior board position (or a completely neutral board position)... does that make it a 'win-more' card?
I want to test this out when I finally have a chance to try out my white splash.
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Honestly I don't understand why this question is still being asked, but for the sake of humoring it.
With any symmetrical card like Standstill (or Stasis, Smokestacks, Chalice of the Void, etc.) the deck playing it needs to have a very good reason to play it, which is mostly just that it can exploit or get around the card better than almost every deck out there. Decks playing 4 Bitterblossoms may have the edge on the deck playing Smokestacks in terms of getting out non-essential permanents, but in general Stax decks with Crucible of Worlds will do better. The same is true for Standstill in merfolk.
Just because it doesn't pull you out of a losing situation doesn't make a card "win-more" as you put it. In fact I wonder if you know what that means in the word's normal usage. There are plenty of cards that won't win you the game or even really help you from less than neutral board positions, but let's first touch on the fact that a neutral board position does not even need to happen for Standstill to be good.
The fact that this deck runs 4 Wasteland and 3-4 Mutavault put it ahead of most decks in terms of just dropping a cold Standstill on a field of a few lands with no creatures. Most decks need to play spells to win, and you don't because you play Mutavault, so you already have the edge if the deck you're playing against is a normal Thresh, zoo, rock, stax, etc deck. Running Aether Vial makes Standstill that much better, if you get a first turn Vial second turn Standstill you will win a very high percentage of the time because you cheat spells into play that the opponent can't. You may not even have creatures but everyone knows that they will have to crack Standstill or lose to a swarm. So in general you don't need to be in a winning board position for Standstill to be good (though it will often lock the victory), you don't even really need to be in a neutral board position, you just need to not be on a fast clock or be overwhelmed by the opponent's creatures (goyf). This can be a great stall tactic in Top-deck games where they have a small beater (such as Noble Hierarch, Dark Confidant, Mishra's Factory, etc), drop a Standstill and try to topdeck into a manland in a situation you would otherwise lose to them dropping more creatures than you.
Against decks that don't have a superior number of creatures it is almost always going to net you 3 cards. If a deck doesn't have board presence, like burn or Aggro Loam, you can play Standstill for most of the game and know that it will net you 3 cards. It is only bad against decks that have a faster clock than you do, such as Zoo (or Ichorid I would side it out). But even against these decks you can just outdraw them and have a better first 2 turns than them, setting up a perfect Standstill opportunity. The beauty of Standstill is if your first 2 turns are better than the opponents, you get to draw extra cards. This means that decks that normally would outclass us in the lategame are going to have troubles with it, due to card advantage.
Finally, I don't remember ever losing a game where I got to chain Standstills. Chaining Brainstorms in this deck (or any) rarely guaruntees victory, but with Standstill things can get ridiculous fast.
So in summary:
1. We easily break the symmetry of Standstill, so it is good.
2. If your first 2 turns are better than the opponents, you can freely draw cards.
3. In semi-late game dropping a Standstill can stall long enough to find answers.
4. If more than 1 work in your favor you win.
Ok, seriously, I've played this deck before. You don't have to tell me how good Standstill is when it works, as if you were telling a small child about the Easter Bunny or some shit... I've done my fair share of testing with this deck. I know that when you are in a position where you want to play Standstill, it's not very hard to have it come out in your favor. What I'm trying to get at are the times when it doesn't work, and you're just left holding it in your hand because your opponent got a faster start than you did. In these scenarios, which do happen relatively often, it would potentially be nice to be able to use a Brainstorm to try to find an answer, and recover from the inferior board position. But using Standstill just leaves you stuck holding a dead card in these scenarios.
You don't even seem to be arguing with my assessment of the card on a fundamental level: It's good when your board presence > your opponent's board presence (ie basically if it goes down to a race with what's currently on the board you're favored to win, or you have a Vial in play and more threats in hand, etc), or when the board position is essentially neutral (ie, a few lands and no creatures on either side, or creatures of roughly equal value on both sides of the table, or no clear favorite if it goes down to a race with what's currently on the board). Phoenix, I don't think you and I are even in disagreement on this subject.
All I'm asking is this, really: Is Standstill being awesome some of the time better than Brainstorm being very good all of the time? Or rather, are there any gains to be made in consistency by replacing Standstill with Brainstorm (particularly in a color-splashed version of Merfolk, since they're the ones with a reason to run fetch-lands in the first place)?
I'm perfectly willing to believe that Standstill might still be the better card for this deck, no matter if you are already using fetch-lands or not. But I thought a little discussion might lead to, you know, developing the deck. Then again, it might not. But let's not kill the conversation quite yet, shall we?
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Personally I see folk as being able to play a tempo role. We dont do it every game but with quick creatures via vial, wastes, and dazes Ive been able to tempo ppl out and get very aggressive for wins. The argument is always made that you need your lands to tap down and play creatures. This is true but I personally find many times to find an open mana slot because the deck doesnt always draw out into a perfect curve. And a vial in play allows you to keep mana open easier while playing your creatures.
I mean a basic list Ive like is a 20/20/20 split of land/folk/spells. After you put in your vials, stills, forces and dazes what is there to put in those last 4ish slots?
-bounch
-snare
-pierce
-stifle
-jitte
I personally dont like stifle. Good players can play around it imo and once again it requires you to keep mana open and guess they will drop/crack fetches. It has other uses too but imo its just a narrow card that never grew on me. And Jitte is a bomb but it slows us down a lot and loses us tempo a lot. I personally have been running 2/2 slpit of echo/pierce MD and like it. Echo gets rid of problems while pierce can usually find a juicy target or pitch to force. I do understand where your coming from with saying you need to use your mana for folk but every spell cant be free. The one mana isnt always there but it is quite a bit for me at least. Another threat stopper makes me happy.
I think the biggest question is, if you're in an metagame where standstill isn't going to be able to be utilized more often than not so that brainstorm would be more fitting, would decking merfolk be the best option in the first place?
Because of standstill's raw explosiveness, I've watched countersliver trying to fit standstill in since the emergence of merfolk as a top contentor.
In landstill, despite it's namesake, they side out standstill against merfolk. This is a testimony to the synergy of standstill in merfolk.
Despite running multiple colors in several variants, I'm still not sure i'd be ready to eliminate standstill entirely; although perhaps a split of the two would be worth considering.
I think the problem is that this question has been brought up lots and if people read the previous posts (or play Merfolk) you will see why brainstorm isn't used. If your on the play vs zoo, you drop a vial turn one and they drop a money or cat then turn 2 you drop a mutavault standstill it still seems pretty good.
So as long as you have vial, standstill is almost always going to be good. Brainstorm would be about as good as spell pierce.....
sdefreit8
I'm not saying every spell has to be free. When is pierce at its best? The first 1-4 turns, which you should be tapping out and attacking with fish. Can it be good yes, is it best for Merfolk? No.... Just like stifle can you get a fetch here and there or stifle something important? Yes sometimes you can, but its better to tap out and play creatures/vial standstill. You especially don't want to keep mana open when you've had to daze. Mono blue needs echoing truth maindeck because they have no removal.... Jitte wins games and for me its always a 4 mana spell.
Why is that hard to understand?
Just wanted to add that most people trying Pierce main are replacing Snare with it; so all those arguments about 'leaving one mana open etc' are moot (or should have been applied for Snare, which I haven't seen much of). I've been playing with Pierce for weeks now and have loved it. I mapped out my local metagame, saw I was bringing in Pierce in most matches, and therefore moved it main. Its main drawback is it doens't stop Goyf, but: (1) my meta is not infested with them, (2) I have ET and (3) Submerge in SB also. I have countered my fair share of Force of Wills, Planeswalkers, Humility, Trinisphere, Aether Vial, Seismic Assault, Swords, Reanimate as well as common early 2cc plays like Counterbalance & Hymn with it.
If you are using this slot for another card thats working for you thats fine too - the card is not part of the decks core and can be played with. Just sharing my experiences.
Playing: Merfolk, Dredge
Working on: G/W Aggro, MBC
Learning: Pact SI
In storage: Enchantress
This
Pierce has worked very well and does what you just said. Helps counter wars and gives more counter support for nasty spells. The last few spell slots have various options and im not trying to say pierce is a must have, but its not the piece of junk you make it sound like slope. The 1cc counters (pierce and snare) are good choices imo since they are cheap and counter bad things while we continue to swing.
First of all, when ever did I say pierce was junk? I said it is a great card for tempo/control decks such as countertop/thresh decks, but it doesn't fit in Merfolks plan (or at least my Merfolk list)..... Sure Acid Fiend came up with some cards its good vs, Awesome. I can come up with just as many times where it sucks. Actually if you want I can come up with scenarios where cards like Psionic Blast and Serendib Efreet are great, why are those cards not being used in Merfolk? I can even come up with good and bad scenarios for brainstorm also..... At least Acidfiend has a plan on what he is doing. You just saying that pierce and snare are good since they are cheap makes no sense at all. Snare is even worse for a Merfolk deck.
here is what my Merfolk deck does when things are going well....
turn 1 via/cc (daze or force back up) Pierce not so good
turn 2 standstill, lord, adept (daze force backup) Pierce not so good
turn 3 Lords (daze force backup) Pierce not so good
Can Spell Pierce be good? Yes it can, but when it really matters which is the first turns it isn't that great. When everything goes right for Merfolk it can win around turn 5
Sure you can keep a mana open for Pierce and it could be great, BUT the best play is to caste the things I have mentioned and counter anything that stops you from swinging for the win with force and daze. Sure using pierce on countertop is good, but I'm pretty sure dropping a creature or standstill is better when you run cards like force of will and daze. Force, daze and cursecatcher win counter wars not spell pierce.
Why would you need to have spell pierce vs countertop anyways? My Merfolk sb is there to help the matches I am weak against, not bringing in cards vs matches that I am good against.
More lords would be better then Spell Pierce. Some people disagree and that's fine, the argument is just as valid whether its Spell Pierce, stifle or Spell snare keeping mana open in the early turns of the game is wrong. If spell pierce has been working well for you keep it up then
Random question: Has anyone tried 3 ET main? How well does it work? I'm a huge fan of ET and was thinking about bumping it up to 3 in my deck.
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Following on from the whole 1cc instant discussion, the fact I do run 3 1cc spells sometimes gives me a quandry on turn 2 (assume no FoW in hand). Do I play my Lord/Standstill/Adept and potentially walk into an opposing Daze, or wait another turn so I can pay 1 mana /Pierce/Snare opposing counter-magic? Do I play my Lord/Standstill/Adept and let an opponent resolve a Counterbalance/Hymn/Goyf/Devastating Dreams etc?
If I cut the 1-cc magics altogether it would reduce the decisions I have to make, for better or worse. So far as I said my testing has been ok, but potentially thats because I'm playing against averagely-skilled opponents that I have been able to outplay on occasion. Maybe when I play higher-level competition these extra decisions I need to make would backfire on me.
Also I'd say a majority of the games I lose are because I don't happen to draw enough creatures. Cutting the 1cc spell slot could make space for more dudes.
This is not a backflip to say I haven't liked Pierce - but I think I just convinced myself to test a more creature heavy-build just to compare how they play out.
Playing: Merfolk, Dredge
Working on: G/W Aggro, MBC
Learning: Pact SI
In storage: Enchantress
Following on from the whole 1cc instant discussion, the fact I do run 3 1cc spells sometimes gives me a quandry on turn 2 (assume no FoW in hand). Do I play my Lord/Standstill/Adept and potentially walk into an opposing Daze, or wait another turn so I can pay 1 mana /Pierce/Snare opposing counter-magic? Do I play my Lord/Standstill/Adept and let an opponent resolve a Counterbalance/Hymn/Goyf/Devastating Dreams etc?
If I cut the 1-cc magics altogether it would reduce the decisions I have to make, for better or worse. So far as I said my testing has been ok, but potentially thats because I'm playing against averagely-skilled opponents that I have been able to outplay on occasion. Maybe when I play higher-level competition these extra decisions I need to make would backfire on me.
Also I'd say a majority of the games I lose are because I don't happen to draw enough creatures. Cutting the 1cc spell slot could make space for more dudes.
This is not a backflip to say I haven't liked Pierce - but I think I just convinced myself to test a more creature heavy-build just to compare how they play out.
Playing: Merfolk, Dredge
Working on: G/W Aggro, MBC
Learning: Pact SI
In storage: Enchantress
For mono blue: If you run a lot of fetches in mono blue Brainstorm might be more consistent/better than a straight up "Draw 3 cards" card, but I would probably throw in new jace if you're going that route as he is a powerhouse. Either way I don't do it in my mono blue.
For white splash: Honestly I am surprised white splash is still being considered good. From tournament results green splash looks to do better roughly all of the time, but I don't really consider either to be worth it.
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