[Deck] Merfolk

[Svenanole]

Coralhelm needs UU, Sovereign 1UU, Lord UU and Threads 1UU, so in my opinion I need 13 Island, my question is:
Should I play 3 Mutavault and 4 Wastelands or 4 Mutavault and 3 Wasteland?

Do you have any other suggestions?

Since your running stifle and somewhat of a mana denial package, I would play 4 wastelands and 3 mutavaults

[Avier]

3 lords != win. I don't know where you got that formula.

From playing the deck. The lord draw is one of the faster ways to win the game. If you have a few lords out, and keep vialing them out, your probably going to win.

[chysn]

it seems to me like Gilded Drake might be worth reevaluating, especially in versions of the deck that run a few bounce spells somewhere in their 75. Thoughts?

Empyrial Archangel and Inkwell Leviathan are immune, and Iona is somewhat resistant (Vial notwithstanding). Also, it's not unlikely that your opponent will have seen your hand, so he won't stumble into Blazing Archon or or Sphinx of the Steel Wind. Drake could be a good surprise, but there's also a lot it can't touch. It's a great EDH card.

[kremenchugskiy]

If you want to beat reanimator for sure, play 4 Faerie Macabre is sb.

However, Gilded Drake is something, that can improve games with zoo. For a long period I was playing mono-U faeries build, that included 2 GD + 3 Snap package (with 1 more GD in sideboard). Combined with Submerges, that was quite a beating for zoo after side. This could be something to consider for merfolk decks in creature-heavy metagame.

[Bahamut056]

Reanimator is a problem. I usually lose a counter war because they won't try to reanimate unless they have stuff to back it up. I think the best mono-blue answer for it is chalice on 1. They would have to stifle the chalice to get entomb off. Then you just save your counterspells for when they get Show and Tell.

Relic, Crypt, Macabre, and Leyline would work too I guess

[chysn]

I think the best mono-blue answer for it is chalice on 1. They would have to stifle the chalice to get entomb off.

With Chalice at 1 they're clearly not going to be casting Stifle on the Chalice trigger.

If Reanimator resolves Show and Tell, or Exhume, or Reanimate, Merfolk is just dead if Reanimator has any kind of life total left. The good news is, they only get a couple chances to wind it up. Spell Pierce and Faerie Macabre supplement your native disruption package of Cursecatcher/Daze/Force of Will. You can take out things like Jitte, Echoing Truth, and Standstill.

Faerie Macabre rocks because of the theoretically-possible Vial, and the immunity to Duress.

[Svenanole]

Call me a huge noob, but what are the reasons why we dont run brainstorm if we splash green for goyf?

[chysn]

Call me a huge noob, but what are the reasons why we dont run brainstorm if we splash green for goyf?

"Brainstorm with Fetches" is associated with control-style decks that need to dig for silver bullets. Merfolk is relatively homogeneous, so Brainstorm doesn't add tons of value.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

"Brainstorm with Fetches" is associated with control-style decks that need to dig for silver bullets. Merfolk is relatively homogeneous, so Brainstorm doesn't add tons of value.

This.

And also, playing a Tarmogoyf and following it with a Standstill has a lot more sex appeal than most any play you can make with Goyf + Brainstorm. And since enchantments are harder to get into the graveyard than instants, 'Still has a higher likelihood of pumping Goyf than 'Storm does.

Having said all that, I still think there are more reasons to splash white than green.

[Jon Stewart]

Having said all that, I still think there are more reasons to splash white than green.

Agreed. I think Merfolk has more to gain by splashing a color that gives it access to solid removal, than it has to gain by splashing a color that gives it another beater. I could even see splashing black for removal + confidant.

That said, staying with monoblue, have you guys given any thought to Ovinize as removal against creature heavy decks like Zoo. They attack or block with a 4/5 goyf, 5/4 Thoctor, or a 5/5 tombstalker or 12/12 dreadnought or whatever, you Ovinize and block it with Cursecatcher. I'm curious, is it possible to sometimes use Ovinize to save your own creatures from removal as well?

[Oceanus]

Anyone find they have a hard time with Preacher?

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Anyone find they have a hard time with Preacher?

I could definitely see him being a problem. However, you could always try to save a counter for that ish. Or splash white for removal. (although I tend to answer a lot of questions by suggesting that.)

@Jon Stewart: Ovinize would definitely be better than Snakeform in this deck actually. Because the 1 power can kill a good bit of our creatures sometimes, and two mana is easier to get than three in a deck that runs 20 lands. It seems decent, but I'm not entirely sure. Against Zoo or something like that, I'd rather hit it with Threads of Disloyalty or Mind Harness. And it doesn't work against a lot of the big baddies that Reanimator would drop against us, which is really too bad just because of how fucking hilarious that would be. I think it was suggested a long time ago, but I don't recall hearing anyone actually testing it.

[SlopeeJ]

K its official, I tried to give some of you guys the benefit of the doubt.... I ran some tests with the new commander and he is horrible. If you are running him you are just bad, he is way to slow. You tempo yourself right out of the game. I really hope all my local Merfolk players read this thread and take out their sovereigns for this guy. Can't wait for them to level up 4 times at sorcery speed so I can swords him.

I also hope they run the full set of stifles and spell pierce so I can drop lords and swing for the win. Along with serji Merfolk (sp) and all the other jank people are suggesting in this thread

Mike if I see that card in your deck we are not friends... :0)

[videogamer99]

So, I'm about to switch from Reanimator due to being unable to finish Reanimator. I used to play it a few months ago. So, this is the current list that I am planning on running.

Creatures
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergil Adept
2 Merfolk Soverign
2 Wake Thrasher

Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
4 Daze
2 Echoing Truth

Artifacts
4 AEther Vial
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands
12 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault

Sideboard
3 Hydroblast
3 Spell Pierce
3 Submerge
2 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod's Crypt

Two questions:

For the mana base, I know that most builds try to run 13 Island. Do you suggest 3 Waste and 4 Mutavault or 3 Mutavualt and 4 Waste?

Not many lists currently run Spell Snare. Would you suggest running it as a 3-of and do a bit more tweaking?

[chysn]

K its official, I tried to give some of you guys the benefit of the doubt.... I ran some tests with the new commander and he is horrible. If you are running him you are just bad, he is way to slow. You tempo yourself right out of the game.

I've found him promising so far. However: if you level him up when you could otherwise do something else (e.g., drop another creature), then you will tempo yourself right out of the game. The key is to treat him like a 2/2 and level him when you literally can't do anything else with the mana. Run some more tests playing him like that.

[dyzzy]

I have only tested about 4-5 games against Zoo but Coralhelm Commander has been really good for me so far. He regularly gets in for 10-15 damage just by himself. But like I said, this is from a really small sample size so I have no idea if this is normal.

At the very least, he eats removal for a lord. And yeah, never level him up in lieu of whatever else you were gonna do. But most of the time, if I'm leveling him up then I was really just gonna use vial to drop another dude and not actually use the mana anyway.

But I'm not sure if I like the fact that he doesn't get along well with Jitte and Spellstutter Sprite (although Sprite can just use vial I guess). (Yes I really like Sprite that much, it's gonna be hard to convince me to stop running it.)

My current list if anyone cares:

Land (20):
11x Island
4x Mutavault
3x Wasteland
2x Riptide Laboratory

Creature (24):
4x Cursecatcher
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Silvergill Adept
4x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Merrow Reejerey
2x Merfolk Sovereign
2x Coralhelm Commander

Spells (16):
4x Aether Vial
4x Daze
4x Standstill
4x Force of Will

SB:
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Relic of Progenitus
3x Hydroblast
3x Spell Snare
2x Echoing Truth
3x Submerge

I've been thinking about adding in Seal of Removal somewhere in the list, either cutting a couple of things MD or replacing Submerge in the side (since Seal fulfills the same purpose). Also thinking of cutting 1 Sprite for either another Island or another Coralhelm.

[TheSleeper]

I agree with chysn. If you only level when there is nothing else to spend the mana on, he is fine. Mid/late-game he's the guy I want to draw the most, as I might have 5 land sitting there being useless, and 4 mana (or 2 + vial @ 2) for a 3/3 (more with lords) flying merfolk is good.

[chysn]

But I'm not sure if I like the fact that he doesn't get along well with Jitte and Spellstutter Sprite

I don't run Spellstutter Sprite, but I do run Jitte; and Coralhelm Commander gets along just swell with Jitte. Others have mentioned this, but I don't see where the conflict is. Is it the crushing choice of having two things with activation costs? Given the choice, you usually equip. In most circumstances, you only level Commander when you have nothing else to do with the mana.

[Guevera59]

Coralhelm seems solid IMO. By himself he's a threat, with evasion. Someone mentioned that having flying is stupid when you have islandwalk; well, not all decks have islands my man. Also, you can't always rely on LoA to be in play considering he has the biggest target on his back of any creature in the deck.

Late game, a 4/4 flier can get there, especially since he's out of bolt range and pumps your Mutavaults. He's def worth a test.

And Ovinize won't save you from removal. Their P/T change, not the actual card so it wont fizzle.

Edit: and the fact that his level up cost is colorless is epic; makes Muatavault and Wasteland very happy.

[Raptor]

K its official, I tried to give some of you guys the benefit of the doubt.... I ran some tests with the new commander and he is horrible. If you are running him you are just bad, he is way to slow. You tempo yourself right out of the game. I really hope all my local Merfolk players read this thread and take out their sovereigns for this guy. Can't wait for them to level up 4 times at sorcery speed so I can swords him.

I also hope they run the full set of stifles and spell pierce so I can drop lords and swing for the win. Along with serji Merfolk (sp) and all the other jank people are suggesting in this thread

Mike if I see that card in your deck we are not friends... :0)

I've tested Sejiri, while it's not THAT good in a lot of situation, it's pretty nice versus goblins, merfolk and kitchen finks. I've only played it because of my metagames contains a lot of merfolks.

Personally, for merfolks, I'm leaning toward Crippled Fishes, which seems in a LOT of playtest the best version avalaible pour most of regular match ups. 4xSpellstuter Sprite, 2x Vendillion Clique and 1 Riptide laboratory is pretty good.