[Deck] Merfolk

[Rekk]

It is my personal opinion that you should TRY to keep the MD mono blue and if you MUST splash for something incredible run it as a 2-3 of max in the MD.

I also think the black splash is weakest and against zoo you HARDLY want to be thoughtseizing and helping them kill you. You generally want to try to stabalize and then out tempo them with control. Unfortunately FOW is bad against zoo and gobs as well. So I'd always board that out for some blasts and spell snares. Jitte is good against goblins, but as someone mentioned before it is very slow and denys you tempo. That being said it is very difficult to beat Zoo and Goblins. Perish vs a GOOD zoo player is pretty much wasted space. I've seen good zoo players board OUT green creatures and board in more removal. Back when I tried U/B I was running 2-3 Snuff outs in the main to keep tempo. It was good in landing a standstill if they had a turn 1 creature, but I would get mana screwed quite often. Mono blue is still the most resilient even though it has a tough match against green and red.

With the white splash path is a bad idea, because it makes daze pretty bad and helps your opponent regain tempo after wasteland. Swords is way better as you can recover that life gain pretty easily. Meddling mage is not that great of a card. I think White giving leyline of sanctity is way better.

Leyline shuts off:
Discard
Tendrils (with counter backup they cannot chain it)
Burn (no more burns to the face)
Belcher
Gatekeepers/Edicts

Hey could you give me a deck list of your mono u and if at all possible how you sideboard against zoo, goblins, and maybe affinity (some people still play this at my local store)

[Tru3z3rox]

Hey could you give me a deck list of your mono u and if at all possible how you sideboard against zoo, goblins, and maybe affinity (some people still play this at my local store)

Well I've not picked up folk for a while, so I can give you a rough list from what I remember:

Lands:
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
12 Island

Instants:
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Echoing Truth/Spell Snare/Stifle/Spell Pierce (depending on your meta)

Artifacts:
4 Aether Vial

Enchantments:
4 Standstill

Creatures:
4 Curse Catcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merrow Rejereey
4 Silvergill Adept

Sideboard:
3 Spell Pierce
2 Hydro Blast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
4 GY hate
2 Mind Harness
3 Submerge

[SlopeeJ]

there is no way you can run 19 lands with only 11 islands and 8 double blue spells. If you don't draw vial you just lose, I run 20 lands with only 3 mutavualts for 13 islands and I get mana screwed way to much. I think the 3 spot should be Kira or more lords

Edit just did the math and that is 59 cards, I assume you meant 12 islands for 20 lands.

[Tru3z3rox]

there is no way you can run 19 lands with only 11 islands and 8 double blue spells. If you don't draw vial you just lose, I run 20 lands with only 3 mutavualts for 13 islands and I get mana screwed way to much. I think the 3 spot should be Kira or more lords

Edit just did the math and that is 59 cards, I assume you meant 12 islands for 20 lands.

Yes sorry. But I've run 20 lands at times. Its not THAT bad. If you get blue screwed you can exchange a mutavault for an island. Anyway I prefer bounce just in case something scary resolves and it is a good answer to tokens. I prefer good control to supplement the merfolk tempo. Never really liked Sovereign and I only run Kira in a Zoo heavy meta. Like I said (Meta choice)

[Julian23]

Your list contains onyl 59 cards. My suggestion:

+1 Island
+2 Kira
-3 Echoing Truth/Spell Snare/Stifle/Spell Pierce

[Malakai]

In my experience Kira is only good against control. This may seem counter-intuitive, but keep it in mind next time you play with Kira.

[SlopeeJ]

In my experience Kira is only good against control. This may seem counter-intuitive, but keep it in mind next time you play with Kira.

I think that is false. Kira is good in every matchup that has targeted removal, esp in goblins, zoo, white vial decks, discard decks, etc the list goes on. When is Kira not good is the question that should be asked

[U.deck]

Black splash isn't really all that bad, I have also run smother on board in metas with heavy aggro. Where I play seems to be more control though hence my decklist on the previous page. Perish effects are generally replaced with smother.

[Julian23]

Even if Kira was only got against control, that's exactly the role Zoo occupies against us. I used to run 3 Spell Pierce main but in the face of our abyssal Zoo matchup that's something I'm willing to sacrifice.

[Tru3z3rox]

Kira IS awesome in a removal heavy meta, but like I said..it may not be. What if half of your matches are TES?

Also Kira is a bit slow. You don't want to wait until turn 3 to drop Kira to protect your dudes. Likely is the case that most of your dudes are gone by then anyway. I've always preferred stopping threats completely and getting through for just enough damage.

[Julian23]

You've got a point. Still I predict way more of my matchups to be Zoo and the like than TES; like on a 4:1 basis.

[Hanni]

Even if Kira was only got against control, that's exactly the role Zoo occupies against us. I used to run 3 Spell Pierce main but in the face of our abyssal Zoo matchup that's something I'm willing to sacrifice.

Spell Pierce IS good against Zoo, though. Especially in combination with Wasteland, Spell Pierce is a hard counter against their removal. Kira is great because she requires the opponent to spend two removal spells on her to turn their removal back on, but she also costs 1UU. The biggest difference is, Spell Pierce is universally good against most matchups.

[Julian23]

Spell Pierce IS good against Zoo, though. Especially in combination with Wasteland, Spell Pierce is a hard counter against their removal. Kira is great because she requires the opponent to spend two removal spells on her to turn their removal back on, but she also costs 1UU. The biggest difference is, Spell Pierce is universally good against most matchups.

What configuration do you suggest to actually combat Zoo? Especially when it comes to sideboarding, Hanni? I'm still kinda new to the deck but it feels this matchup is too common to not commit quite a lot of sb space to it.

[Hanni]

What configuration do you suggest to actually combat Zoo? Especially when it comes to sideboarding, Hanni? I'm still kinda new to the deck but it feels this matchup is too common to not commit quite a lot of sb space to it.

If I'm playing Merfolk's, I really like what Saito did with the deck (black splash). Personally, I'm not a fan of Standstill, since it improves matchups that are already good, and is bad in matchups that are already bad. So for me, I'd go with a 4/4/3 split of countermagic, run the normal Merfolk shell (w/ Coralhelm and Soverign), and run Perish (and maybe E Plague) in the sideboard.

However, I'd rather play Vial Bant than Merfolks, but that's just my preference.

[Julian23]

The first thing when I picked this deck up was replacing Standstill as well. Not increasing the aggression (this is a tempo deck after all) in exchange for card advantage seems diametral to what this deck really wants. My intuition tells me Standstill's best replacement would be another tempo-oriented counter like Force of Will. From my experience more than often all your need is to buy just 1-2 turns to win, neglecting mid-term card advantage. That's why I think Rushing River could be good in this deck although I wouldn't run it instead of Standstill. The only other spell that fits those requiremients I can think of is Foil which is kinda bad; needless to say, this deck really wants to drop all the Islands it draws. So Spell Pierce is the call?

[Hanni]

So Spell Pierce is the call?

If you want my opinion? Yes.

[ccccck]

If you want my opinion? Yes.

Sad to tell you that spell pierce is not enough to beat Zoo. My deck use 2 spell pierce maindeck and the chance to win Zoo is low. The version of Zoo using the ugly 0/1 cat is the worse match up. The problem is when I set up 2 or more lords at turn 3, my life is already down to ~10 and I have to use the merfolks to defend, the zoo player can kill me easily by burning my face.

In fact, I still cannot find any good way using merfolk to beat Zoo....

[sadakiyo]

@cccck: Zoo is a bad matchup for us and spell pierce is quite useless in this mU. My version of merfolk is mono U and I always side out spell pierce and replace them with BEB. I have the same problem as yours. That's why I pack so many anti-green SB(2 mind harness, 3 submerge), and still, the MU is not completely winnable. We still need luck aven after SB-ing.
If you concerned so much about zoo MU, why don't you try the UB version with perish, or UW version with stp or pte? I personally would try those version if my budget allow.

I went to a small tourney yesterday and got my merfolk ass beaten by Deadguy ale. This matchup was so horrible. The only card that was helping was kira. My opponent had to waste 2-3 spells to kill my lord. But still, that didn't win me the game. He had dark confidant online and he was drawing cards like crazy. SOFI killed me easily.
My SB strategy for this matchup was -4 daze, - 1 standstill, + 2 jitte and +3 spell pierce.
What is a good sideboard card against this matchup?

[honestabe]

As a former zoo player, the cards I want to see resolved the least against me are Kira, and Jitte.

Just Sayin'

[arebennian]

U/W Merfolk

4 Cursecatcher
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Rejeery

4 Aether Vial
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Islands
4 Wasteland
3 Mutavault
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra

SIDEBOARD
3 Absolute Law
4 Spell Pierce
2 Jitte
3 Path to Exile
3 Crypt

Boarding Plans
*ZOO* (-4 FOW, -4 Daze, +3 Absolute Law, +3 Path to Exile, +2 Jitte)
*GOBLINS* (-4 Standstill, -2 Daze, +3 Absolute Law, +1 Path to Exile, +2 Jitte)

- Keep the Standstills in for Zoo because your removal can create a clear board.
- Not so easy with goblins due to the higher creature ratio. That, and cycling gempalms are no fun.
- Considering some sort of dienchant effect in the SB somehow.