Why are people cutting standstill?
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
No! says the man in Washington, It belongs to the poor.
No! says the man in the Vatican, It belongs to God.
No! says the man in Moscow, It belongs to everyone.
I rejected those answers; instead I chose something different.
I chose Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality!
With the sweat of your brow Rapture can become your city as well.
They say it's win more.
Standstill depends on having a positive board position, which is difficult against Zoo, one of our worst matchups. Getting rid of Standstill and adding lords seems to improve that matchup, so people are adopting it.
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.
Yep, Standstill is bad against bad matchups and win-more against good matchups. If your meta doesn't have a lot of Zoo or Goblins, you can argue keeping it in, but it's definitely not a necessity. (I was only running 3 even before people took them all out and I never regretted taking out the 4th.)
ゆっくりしていってね！！！
Then wouldn't it be a better option to play cold-eyed selkie? It adds damaging your opponent with drawing cards. Plus it has the capability of drawing more cards than standstill so you have a better chance of drawing answers. There was a small discussion about spreading seas in an earlier post; could that, tidal warrior, and back to basics be enough hate to at least let youy get the advantage?
I'd say:
-X Standstill (depending on how many you play)
-3 Merfolk Sovereign
+X Spreading Seas
+3 Tidal Warriors
This way, the creature converted mana cost is a bit lower, meaning easier vial usage and less mana consumption if hard casting. It allows your lords to basically make all your other merfolk unblockable and cuts them out of their duals.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
No! says the man in Washington, It belongs to the poor.
No! says the man in the Vatican, It belongs to God.
No! says the man in Moscow, It belongs to everyone.
I rejected those answers; instead I chose something different.
I chose Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality!
With the sweat of your brow Rapture can become your city as well.
So what else are you taking out for Selkie? The other problem is that you're taking out Lords for non-Lords, just to support Selkie (ok, and LoA) but overall I think the change weakens the deck. You might draw more guys, but the guys are weaker. Has this change seen positive testing against any MUs?
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.
What are some sideboard options for the mirror besides Llawan and Jitte?
Moar Jitte.Originally Posted by lotriderm
There really isn't much you can do. Spell Snare hits a lot of stuff in the deck, but I'm pretty sure it comes down to who gets more lords.
Also Cursecatcher protects against Force.
Merfolk Assassin is fun if you think you'll be in a meta with many merfolk.
Do you need more? I mean you could run 3 each each of Llawan and Jitte, and then you'd already be dedicating a lot of your board to this MU. I'd start to think that at some point space runs low and considering Zoo-hate, yard-hate, etc. would be at least as much of a concern.
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.
Very strong card in mirror is Echoing Truth (at least as long as you keep in mind, that it affects your cards as well :P ). It 'resets' Jitte and Vials, removes lords for a while (which is usually long enough ;) ), even may be used to bounce your own adepts if you both run out of options in the late game.
The problem is to find a place for it. Some people play one maindeck (in a Mishra's Factory slot, if we're talking about 16-lord version), what I don't like personally, as it's useless against ANT, lands or Thresh. Some try it in SB, but there's a lot of cards that are better answers for other MUs. But if your regional meta is full of merfolks, you should try to find a place for one or two.
Llawan is slightly stronger now (I mean after BoM), while fewer people play Stifle in their fish.
@Edit: It seems that black splash is the best right now. Keep fingers crossed for Tomoharu and his little blue guys now in top8 :)
Last edited by Endrju; 08-01-2010 at 06:47 PM.
And now first place :)
Well, black splash does deal with Zoo quite nicely; green just left it up to Tarmogoyf wars and white could only remove so much.
*Waiting for people to show up to explain in detail how bad Saito's list is. Just like his ANT in Madrid.
Saito's list was great. The maindeck was pretty much streamlined, with the only standout being his manabase. Perish seems like a great answer to Zoo, which can be useful in some other matchups. I'm not sure how good Engineered Plague was for him, since it's so narrow (Goblins hate).
Otherwise, his maindeck is perfect for smashing blue decks of all shapes and sizes (Spell Pierce + Standstill).
Could someone please post Saito's decklist for all those poor office workers with shitty internet filter?
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
Plague has a few other uses. Against Aluren (which got the 6th most players d2ing) it's an autowin unless they can kill it, as their deck doesn't do anything when Cavern Harpy can't gate. Survival can't Recruiter for Emrakul (obviously they can just fetch up something to kill the Plague, but if you have a good presence and/or a Vial the delay may be enough to take it. It also kills EtW tokens, though siding it in against the decks that run EtW presumably isn't going to happen.
Eq.firemind, here you are:
Lands [21]:
4x Mutavault
4x Wasteland
2x Island
2x Flooded Strand
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
2x Scalding Tarn
4x Underground Sea
Creatures [20]:
4x Coralhelm Commander
4x Cursecatcher
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Merrow Reejerey
4x Silvergill Adept
Other spells [19]:
4x Aether Vial
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
3x Spell Pierce
4x Standstill
Sideboard:
4x Engineered Plague
2x Nature's Ruin
1x Perish
3x Submerge
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Umezawa's Jitte
Its interesting that he went against the grain and ran more classic style list, albeit with a black splash SB. Congrats to him, shows Merfolk can adapt and shows the naysayers that Merfolk isn't dead.
Shame I don't own the U/B fetches/duals :(
Only the heroic and the mad follow mountain goat trails.
I have some issues with Saito's list, namely running all 4 Seas. I'd run 3 and an extra Island, since drawing them early-game basically screams, "Hey guys with Wasteland, come on in," which can ruin a curve if there's no Vial directly succeeding it. Also 7 fetches with 6 lands to fetch seems odd.
Although, I'll give him props for diversification of Fetches. I don't know why more 2-color decks where one is only represented in duals (Goblins) don't do this. It may not be a format-warping play, but I don't want to be there that one time out of a million my opponent names the fetch that comprises a full four slots in my deck with Needle.
Also, I would say that this solidifies running Pierce MD, but how much aggro did he face?
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