Healex, how was Misstep for you? How was it against you? And well did your expected mirror match plan work out?
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Is Merfolk the current Tier 1 deck to beat ever since MMS got printed? It can hose other Aether Vials, drop Standstill, has a quick clock, beats on blue decks, can stall combo, and it's only relative weakness is Zoo.
Is that all correct?
Look how many have been in the top 16's the last couple of tournies.. It has been all blue and Merfolk still hasn't won.
This may be true. However I would like to point out that Merfolk could have beat the MUC deck in its featured match at the SCG Legacy Open. However the pilot of the deck did not read Energy Field and subsequently made a major play error. He had lethal between his hand and board position, while his opponent had 3 islands, a fetch land, and an energy field. The merfolk player could have wastelanded and forced the MUC player to fetch, which would have allowed for a win because this would have broken energy field. Yet he chose not to read the card, animated his mutavault, and wasted it. He must have thought this would break energy field. This all brings me to the point I am about to make.Originally Posted by SlopeeJ
Since the overall meta has been in flux, many people have been going to their standby decks (merfolk) or are homebrewing/testing. Many of these people do not know how to correctly pilot the deck and just play it because it is a good deck or has mostly favorable match ups. And still others just don't read cards that their opponents play. I am not claiming to be a pro or awesome at playing this deck, but damn, you probably should read your opponents cards, especially if you don't know what they do. Just a thought.
Legacy
Grixis Delver
Vintage
Mono Mentor
Team Leovold
The only other deck that can come close to Merfolk post Misstep top 8 numbers (in the past 2 5ks and BoM5) is Team America, but Merfolk also has more top 16s as well. Wouldn't be too far a stretch to say it is the Deck To Beat.
All the statements refers to your sideboard.
For the mirror I will bring in 3 Llawan and 2 Jitte for 4 Lord of Atlantis and 1 Cursecatcher if I'm on the play, otherwise 1 Daze if I'm on the draw.
Against Zoo i'd bring 2 Jitte, 3 Misdirection, 1 Echoing Truth and 2 Submerge for 4 FoW and 4 Daze (maybe I would refrain from Misdirection and Truth, in favor of daze, if I'm on the play)
Against Counterop I would bring 3 spell snare and 1 Echoing Truth for 4 daze.
Same for Team America.
Against NO-Prog +3 LLawan, + 2 Submerge, -2 Kira, -1 Sovereign, -1 Daze, -1 Misstep
Against Spiral Tide +3 Misdirection, -2 Kira, -1 Sovereign
What I would like to discuss is our match up against Death and Taxes and, more generally, against decks that packs the Stoneforge package (Jitte + Sword of Fire and Ice). I feel that if a stoneforge resolves we would be in a difficult situation.
What do you think would be right to sideboard (in general, not restricted by stickpiano's side) against them? I'm tempted by Carry Away but it feels so narrow...
Actually my sideboard is:
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Energy Flux
2 Echoing Truth
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Submerge
3 Relic Of Progenitus
but I'm trying to figure the right configuration for an 80 people tournament for this weekend. The first option would probably be to cut the Energy Flux, but it is great against MUD and Affinity.
Any thoughts will be appreciated.
Greetings
Last edited by kingtk3; 05-25-2011 at 05:19 PM.
I've been finding jitte to underperform more and more recently. I actually cut it completely from my 75. But I still play 3 standstills main so maybe that makes a difference. I think stickpiano's sb seems pretty good. I think just choosing to punt the Dredge matchup is the right call because 1 relic probably won't be enough and so that's 3 wasted sb slots. The best thing to do is game 1 force their discard and waste their land and you should be set. Game 2 they will try for draw, discard, dredge and echoing truth can probably steal some wins. That still makes it sound a lot easier than it is but you probably need 4-6 pieces of grave hate and/or good card selection to have an effective sb for Dredge and I don't think its worth it.
I'm surprised there isn't more love for dismember. Honestly I think it brings more to the deck than misstep. I started off with 2 in my board but I switch between 3 and 4. I think a 3/2 split of dismember and submerge is the best "removal" package. Dismember is also pretty good vs the stoneforge/bob decks. I think carry away is far too narrow. I'm tempted to suggest Phyrexian metamorph but that's probably just as cute. Still, that guy seems like he could be pretty good maybe in the place of a sovereign or something. I've never tested him though. Honestly the SFM/bob decks haven't been giving me much trouble at all but if they're really a problem for you pack spell snares (which happen to be good against a lot of other things too). My current sb is:
3x energy flux
3x dismember
2x submerge
2x llawan
1x kira
2x beb
2x spell snare
If anyone's interested I'll post my list and some guidelines tomorrow.
Has anyone tried Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Feast and Famine? I used them before getting the Jitte and actually preferred them sometimes, especially for the guaranteed card draw with SoFaI and protections.
I would say that color swords are exceptionally powerful when you can fetch them with a Mystic, and that Jitte is the way to go when you can not.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
I find myself torn. Should I run the list that Top 8'ed at Bazaar of Moxen (fairly stock Standstill list, 20 lands) or cut the Standstills for 2 lands+2 threats?
I played my UB merfolk deck for the first time in the past 5 months. I came in top 4 out of 25 players at getyourgameon. I find Dark Confidant to be very good in this deck! I also think jitte should be in mainboard! I did not have to much trouble with wasteland, The only time it was relevant was when I top deck a underground sea. I think a splash build is better than mono blue in the current metagame.
here is my list
2 Coralhelm Commander
3 Cursecatcher
4 Dark Confidant
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
4 AEther Vial
3 Daze
1 Dismember
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
2 jitte
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
3 wasteland
4 Mutavault
3 misty rainforest
1 scalding tarn
4 Underground Sea
matchups
first round bye lol
Second round mono blue merfolk 0-2 worst luck ever! mana screwed creature screwed! I mean really saw only one creature the whole second game.
dredge 2-1
RUG 2-1
Top 8 I played Chris walton who is ranked number 2 in the state. Chris played mono blue control. Long match but I finally beat him! I only have beat Chris walton twic so that made my day!
It looks like you had no bad matchups, and only seeing one creature in the mirror makes me question your mulliganing decisions. If I had to put confidant main, which I don't believe to be necessary (what does it really help against?) I wouldn't cut coralhelm and i'd try to stick closer to 21 lands minimum. Jitte, confidant, kira, and dismember main seems like a lot of different directions that really seem to detract for some the consistancy that a more stock list has to offer.
I'm not trying to discredit you in any way, but it is rather surprising to me that you came in 4th. Have you tried this at perhaps a larger tournament?
Matt Bevenour in real life
Dark confidant helps in a lot of control matchups. Dismember is one of the only removal spells for merfolk decks. Kira is in the deck to protect your creatures of course. But kira makes jitte useless! So I might cut a jitte and go back down to 60 cards. I don't know what you call a bad matchup but RUG I think is. He had a total of 11 one drop cards that destroy my cards, Not to mention goyf beating me in the face.
Dredge is not the best matchup either. And I have no good SB hate for merfolk. My merfolk build just opens more options then the mono blue build. No I have not tried this current build at a big tourney. It was the weekly tourney at GYGO. Normal weekly tourney turnout is 20-30 players. GYGO is a very competitive environment! I really like BOB in the deck! BOB did a lot more help then bad. I did reveal a FOW off of BOB, I guess it's a good thing that happend in the matchup against dredge. lol
RUG thresh can be difficult, but they don't always have the threats they need to seal the deal. Sure burn and lavamancer are bad, but vial and kira work wonders. Confidant may be great in control matchups, but the entire deck is good in control matchups! That is specifically the corner of the meta it preys on, and it got a big boost with coralhelm, since it now has a standalone threat. Dredge has a hard time with cursecatcher and misstep, and merfolk has a fast enough clock that the discard, dredge, discard plan isn't too effective. The general consensus is merfolk is favored.
I'm not saying any of your maindeck inclusions are wrong, I'm saying all of them at once is stretching the core a bit thin IMO. Regardless, congrats on your placement!
Matt Bevenour in real life
Just a crazy thought I had the other day, but does anyone else think that Wake Thrasher could find a way back into the list as a 1 or 2 of? I used to run him a long time ago, and I honestly liked him, but I ended up cutting him since he died very hard to removal. In theory he should be easier to protect now with misstep and his biggest plus is no doubt that he is fantastic in the mirror, which is also a larger factor now.
I was thinking of maybe cutting a single commander for him. Don't get me wrong, I love commander, but when I draw more than one the second one will usually just sit around being a bear.
Took first-split at local with the following try-out list:
13 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
4 Aether Vial
4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merrow Reejerey
2 Merfolk Sovereign
1 Sower of Temptation
SB:
3 Dismember
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Spell Pierce
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 Energy Flux
2 Standstill
I cut Submerge figuring green would be barely present (And was right) and I cut Jitte because I wanted to see if Standstill in board helped in control/aggro control matchups (It does, but probably not by enough)
I beat Suicide Black w/ Obliterators, Metalworker, Mono Blue Control, and UB Reanimator in the regular rounds, then beat UWB Painter Stone and split w/ Reanimator in the top 4.
What I learned was this:
1. Dismember is SO GOOD. One colorless to deal with all the problem cards Merfolk never wants to see is fantastic. I will never run less than three of this card in board again. I'm a bit scared to run four from the life loss, but I might do it anyway.
2. Spell Pierce is also really good. There's a surge of blue-based combo decks in the format recently that get to pack 8-12 counters to back their shit up. In these matches, more counters >> more threats. Plus, it was a monster against MUD.
3. UB Reanimator is a real deck. Mental Misstep makes it a contender. So I advise keeping your yard hate handy. That was one of my closest matchups of the night, and I got destroyed game one.
4. Energy Flux is better than Null Rod if Metalworker is the format's artifact deck and not Affinity (Though I wished I had Null Rod against Painter Stone.) Being cheaper and shutting of mana be damned. Energy Flux saved me from a scary Hellkite/Forgemaster combination game three against MUD.
5. Aether Vial's even -better- with Mental Misstep in the format, not worse. Sticking one is just huge.
6. Something blue needs to be banned, but I don't know what. Four times today there were insane counter wars on turn one or two, the best involving me and Reanimator losing three cards over him trying to stop a Cursecatcher from resolving. He stopped it, but then I dropped a Crypt.:)
What I didn't learn was this:
1. How good Llawan is. I've never ever once drawn a Llawan in a game ever. This didn't change against MUC.
2. If Merfolk Sovereign and Sower of Temptation really suck as bad as they did, or if it had to do with the fact that they only showed up in matches where I didn't need them. Sovereign got boarded out pretty much every match, I think.
3. If I really didn't miss Umezawa's Jitte. Dismember seemed to have things under control, but given how much I love Jitte, I'm pretty sure it'll go back in for Standstill.
Nice list, I still don't see how people can get away without echoing truths.. 3 have been a staple in my sb since forever. I must have the only meta with assholes playing peace keeper, bridge and other stuff... I guess dismember beats peace keeper now, but still echoing truth is so good. I'm actually thinking about trading in truths for wipe away..
@Tacosnape: Did you ever miss Kira? With Team America on the rise (featuring removals as Go for the Troath, smoother, Snuff out, Maelstrom Pulse or Pernicious Deed) I have the feeling that Mental Misstep could not be enough to keep our lords alive.
I'm particurlary concerned with Deed, since one could destroy all our field: maybe revoker or pithing needle can be answers.
I'll be running Merfolk this weekend in a 80 person event and I'm doubtful about 4 flex slot in the main (now occupied by 2 Kira and 2 Sovereign) and about the sideboard which is currently this:
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Energy Flux
2 Blue elemental Blast
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Echoing Truth
2 Submerge
Since Goblin is less relevant I'm thinking of cutting 2 blasts for 2 Lawan.
I agree with you that reanimator is now a problem and I've already switched my relics of progenitus (also good against goyf and knights) for crypts.
Jitte are here mostly for the mirror and against rogue decks.
Flux is against MUD and Affinity and, partially, painter.
Truth is a catch all against moat/ensnaring bridge/humilty
I think I'll cut Submerge for Dismember.
But I would really like to fit some revokers/needles.
What do you think?
Greetings
I've played with sovereigns before and never liked them. I would only play them if they I was rocking something like cold-eyed selkie. Sower seems odd. 4 mana seems too high and putting a vial to 4 kind of ruins it. Also, isn't dismember awesome? I love that card so much. It sounds like you made a good meta call by cutting the submerges but in the average meta I think some mix of dismember and submerge is right (I use a 3/2 split). I agree about flux vs null rod. Also flux is back breaking anytime where null rod loses value every turn.
There's an Alex in the Top 8 of GP Providence. It is not the Alex were accustomed to, however
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