[Deck] Merfolk

[bakofried]

Yeah, it is useless. But its early game advantage is such that its worth drawing late game.

[Einherjer]

Yeah, it is useless. But its early game advantage is such that its worth drawing late game.

Absolutely true- how are you going to race Maverick when you put ONE Lord per turn? Never my friend...I wouldnt take out Vials - never - its like taking out Progenitus at NO-RUG but keeping Natural Order...

[KobeBryan]

Absolutely true- how are you going to race Maverick when you put ONE Lord per turn? Never my friend...I wouldnt take out Vials - never - its like taking out Progenitus at NO-RUG but keeping Natural Order...

I'm not doubting you guys the power of vial. I like it, when its in my opening hand.

Even with vial, chances are that you will be dropping 1 lord per turn. True, you will have that god hand where you vial silvergil, draw a card, drop a lord, but that is the farthest extent it can go.

Merfolk doesn't have the ability to draw many many cards, then glimpse them in with cradle. Thats are biggest problem.

Keep in mind that there are 8 dead cards after turn 3 with this deck. 4 vials and 4 dazes. The decks we are playing against, team america, bant, rug, have cards that are useful throughout the game. Thats the main problem we are facing and conclusively, we are not winning against these decks.

I also tested with jace in the deck. His brainstorm ability actually helped me drop another lord faster than using silvergils ability.

I did lose against team america, but even with vial, i would not have won that game.

[RBS]

I'm not doubting you guys the power of vial. I like it, when its in my opening hand.

Even with vial, chances are that you will be dropping 1 lord per turn. True, you will have that god hand where you vial silvergil, draw a card, drop a lord, but that is the farthest extent it can go.

Merfolk doesn't have the ability to draw many many cards, then glimpse them in with cradle. Thats are biggest problem.

Keep in mind that there are 8 dead cards after turn 3 with this deck. 4 vials and 4 dazes. The decks we are playing against, team america, bant, rug, have cards that are useful throughout the game. Thats the main problem we are facing and conclusively, we are not winning against these decks.

I also tested with jace in the deck. His brainstorm ability actually helped me drop another lord faster than using silvergils ability.

I did lose against team america, but even with vial, i would not have won that game.

Hi,

I've seen many mistakes in this thread lately (Counterspell, Jace, the Mind Sculptor), seems some of you guys don't even understand the basic principles of this deck.
How do you think of cutting EVEN one Aether Vial from Merfolk??? It's insane

This deck is all about tempo. You say Vial is useless after 3 turns?
True. But so are Daze, Cursecatcher, Islands...

Aether Vial is our tool to gain tempo. You drop Vial, then you may cast Daze without paying its mana cost, and without the downside of bouncing your island, because that's it, you have a Vial.

What's the point to cut Vial, to add more critters? Critters which will not even enter the battlefield, because you are now too slow without Vial?

Against Team America you win because you are very aggressive and fast. You are aggressive and fast because you can drop many creatures in a few turns. You can do that not because you have many creatures in your deck, but because you can drop many at once.
All the while being able to counter (Daze, Force of Will) and eliminate blockers (Reejey triggers, Dismember).

[sadakiyo]

Hi,

I've seen many mistakes in this thread lately (Counterspell, Jace, the Mind Sculptor), seems some of you guys don't even understand the basic principles of this deck.
How do you think of cutting EVEN one Aether Vial from Merfolk??? It's insane

This deck is all about tempo. You say Vial is useless after 3 turns?
True. But so are Daze, Cursecatcher, Islands...

Aether Vial is our tool to gain tempo. You drop Vial, then you may cast Daze without paying its mana cost, and without the downside of bouncing your island, because that's it, you have a Vial.

What's the point to cut Vial, to add more critters? Critters which will not even enter the battlefield, because you are now too slow without Vial?

Against Team America you win because you are very aggressive and fast. You are aggressive and fast because you can drop many creatures in a few turns. You can do that not because you have many creatures in your deck, but because you can drop many at once.
All the while being able to counter (Daze, Force of Will) and eliminate blockers (Reejey triggers, Dismember).

I have to agree on this one, Merfolk is a tempo deck. You wanna kill ur opponent ASAP and try to avoid late game battle. After looking at some posts and tournament result, I am wondering why standstill is not used anymore, especially with the resurgence of combo and control decks.
I have 3 standstills in my MD and I am very satisfied on how it performs. With misstep gone, T1 vial followed by T2 Standstill is highly possible.

[SmallFish]

I don't know what you are smoking, but i've realized that vial after turn 3 is useless. I hate drawing into vial when its not in my opening hand. I think the main problem with fish right now is the ability to draw cards to fuel vial.

I'm also trying to test this deck. I took the 4 vials out, but 25 creatures, 3 swords to plowshares, and 3 jace the mind sculptor.

I'm not smoking anything, but thanks for the insult.

I've been playing alot of Merfolk over the last year and I know that Vial isn't ideal after turn one. It's value goes down significantly after turn one. However, it is not a useless card if you draw and play it turn three. There have been countless times where I play an Adept/some other creature on turn two and draw a Vial off the card or my next turn.
This is not a great situation, but I would say that more than a few games have been won through this. For example, I will be playing UW Blade or some other deck packing counters and I have a LOA in my hand. If it's turn three, I will play the Vial since running it out to be countered is not a great play when a single LOA resolved can win you the game. Again, I agree that the value of the card goes down immensely and alot of the time it is a pretty bad draw, but to say it's useless is just wrong (it will also depend on what type of deck you are playing against).

[KobeBryan]

I'm not smoking anything, but thanks for the insult.

I've been playing alot of Merfolk over the last year and I know that Vial isn't ideal after turn one. It's value goes down significantly after turn one. However, it is not a useless card if you draw and play it turn three. There have been countless times where I play an Adept/some other creature on turn two and draw a Vial off the card or my next turn.
This is not a great situation, but I would say that more than a few games have been won through this. For example, I will be playing UW Blade or some other deck packing counters and I have a LOA in my hand. If it's turn three, I will play the Vial since running it out to be countered is not a great play when a single LOA resolved can win you the game. Again, I agree that the value of the card goes down immensely and alot of the time it is a pretty bad draw, but to say it's useless is just wrong (it will also depend on what type of deck you are playing against).

Anyways. It was a simple test run to go vialless. To be honest, I feel that the deck is almost the same. You do get more threats each turn though. Of course I did not get the explosive turn 2 with vials. Also I do miss having some extra counters.

Jace annoyed the shit out of the opposing player.

[Kanadell~]

I've been testing without vial and with vial, I play this deck a lot and I think i'd cut the wastelands before cuting the vials. Sure, mana denial is awesome vs opponents with a poor mana base, and it can give you the game, but often those wastelands are forcing me to mulligan. I mean, hands like cursecatcher, LoA, Coralhelm, reejerey, island, wasteland, would become so much playable if the wasteland was an Island. So many hands would become playable if a non-basic land were another island.
And this has happened too often to me. I think it's more important to be able to develop my game than cutting opponent's plays. And hands with mutavault and wasteland are even worse.

What do u ppl think?

[Einherjer]

What I think? Well, I use an tactic all you would call me an idiot but Ive been doing this for quite awhile and it works out great.

I just add an 61st card to the deck, an Island.

[KobeBryan]

I've been testing without vial and with vial, I play this deck a lot and I think i'd cut the wastelands before cuting the vials. Sure, mana denial is awesome vs opponents with a poor mana base, and it can give you the game, but often those wastelands are forcing me to mulligan. I mean, hands like cursecatcher, LoA, Coralhelm, reejerey, island, wasteland, would become so much playable if the wasteland was an Island. So many hands would become playable if a non-basic land were another island.
And this has happened too often to me. I think it's more important to be able to develop my game than cutting opponent's plays. And hands with mutavault and wasteland are even worse.

What do u ppl think?

Without having a vial, I have been mana screwed countless times. On board, it would be wasteland, island, mutavault. I could not even cast my lord of atlantis or coralhelm commander.

This has annoyed me to no other. I was thinking cutting down on the mutavaults to run more islands because of this. I would not cut the wastelands since killing utility lands are far more important than attacking with a 2/2 mutavault.

I've also been screwed with phantasmal images. I ran three in the MD and there are times i have a silvergil and couldn't cast it because I have 2 images in hand. If you run kira as well, this just adds to you not being able to cast silvergil.

I'm thinking maybe drop the mutavaults to 3 and run an extra island to give you that extra UU, which is critical in fish.

[Fortunae]

I've been testing without vial and with vial, I play this deck a lot and I think i'd cut the wastelands before cuting the vials. Sure, mana denial is awesome vs opponents with a poor mana base, and it can give you the game, but often those wastelands are forcing me to mulligan. I mean, hands like cursecatcher, LoA, Coralhelm, reejerey, island, wasteland, would become so much playable if the wasteland was an Island. So many hands would become playable if a non-basic land were another island.
And this has happened too often to me. I think it's more important to be able to develop my game than cutting opponent's plays. And hands with mutavault and wasteland are even worse.

What do u ppl think?

Vial is the reason why this deck can justify running 8 colorless sources. Wastelands give your Dazes and Cursecatchers more life in addition to wrecking decks with a tenuous manabase. And then there are all of the problem lands that need to be dealt with or you just lose- like Cephalid Coliseum for example.

Wasteland is one of the best cards in legacy, and someone (I can't remember who-sorry!) on this forum said it best when they asserted that if you are playing without them, you need to have a very good reason for doing so.

I've had plenty of awkward hands/draws where I needed double blue but only had one or nothing at all, but you have to realize that since this is partially a game of chance, you are going to end up with bad hands and bad draws no matter what your deck's composition. Merfolk is a beautifully synergistic deck, with a core suite of cards that can't be removed without sacrificing the integrity of the deck as a whole.

If you do fiddle with Vial, Wasteland, or what have you, you will probably still win, and maybe even often enough that you think that it was the correct choice. But then you have to wonder how much better the deck would perform if its best cards hadn't been cut.

[MirrorMask]

Having only recently constructed my merfolk deck (missing 3 wastes, 4 mutavaults) I have to agree with you. Its so freaking annoying to have to mulligan and completely lose gas most of the times just to have the option of wasteland. It sucks imo. I also noticed that 21 creatures I play are maybe low? What about if they pack much removal?

Here my list and while not entirely optimal I somewhat like it:

Creatures (21)


4x Lord of atlantis
3x Coralhelm commander
4x Cursecatcher
4x Silvergill Adept
4x Merrow Reejerey
2x Phantasmal image

Spells (19)"> Spells (19)

4x force of will
4x daze
4x go for the throat
2x Umezawa's Jitte
4x aether vial
3x standstill

Lands (18)"> Lands (18)
3x polluted delta
4x misty rainforest
4x mutavault
3x underground sea
4x island

I haven't gone to a tournament with it yet as i don't have the mutavaults but so far it functions well. Setting aside the fact that it lacks some more creatures I think, as it is a bit slow for a creature deck (well, maybe 8 free counters do change your role a bit .Its not zoo anyway). What do you guys think? Sucks or not?

P.S a funny idea on combating goyf would be Vodalian Zombie !!!!!!!!
also how about Inkfathom Infiltrator ,Sygg, River Cutthroat and
Grimoire Thief as extra creatures if needed? Do you think that power wise they are ok?

[Humphrey]

for everybody plaing gut shot, play psychic purge instead

[Vandalize]

Lol, people trying to drop Vial and Wasteland from Merfolk...

Christ, Merfolk is a tempo deck, that focuses on killing your opponent in short order. And Vial and Wasteland makes a huge difference in the kill. The whole point of Merfolk's gameplan is to drop lords asap to make huge islandwalking fish, and disrupting (SOFTLY) your opponent on this process (via Cursecatcher, Counterspell, Wasteland).

If the game goes late against something like Stoneblade or BUGstill you will lose. The reason? Their decks are designed to win on the lategame, while disrupting the opponent's early (which is the whole principal of a control deck).

I'd say that there're two things that merfolk have trouble with: Non-Island decks, and Spot Removal. That's why this deck has a wonderful blue matchup, and a horrible GW Maverick, Zoo and Goblins matchup.

[KobeBryan]

What would you guys run right now?

3x stifles or 2 kira and a spell pierce?

I've decided to just punt the zoo matchup. What do you guys think has more utility right now.

Team america runs 8 spot removals (including snapcasters)

[FANAttIC]

Spell Snares for me. They are not expected and they deal with the best of legacy cards.
They can try and hide their Stoneforge, Goyf, Bob, Snapcaster, Hymn, Jitte and whatnot from Daze, Snare will still get the job done.

[KobeBryan]

Spell Snares for me. They are not expected and they deal with the best of legacy cards.
They can try and hide their Stoneforge, Goyf, Bob, Snapcaster, Hymn, Jitte and whatnot from Daze, Snare will still get the job done.

hmm that is a good idea actually. run spell snare in that spot over stifle and standstills

Well here is my list

creatures (22)
4 corelhelm commander
4 silvergil
4 cursecatcher
4 lord of atlantis
4 merrow reegerry
2 phantasmal image

instants (10)
3 swords to plowshares
4 force of will
4 daze

artifacts (4)
4 vials

lands (21)
4 wastelands
4 mutavaults
4 tundras
4 flooded strand
5 islands

sideboard
3 disenchant
1 path to exile
1 swords to plowshare
2 hibernation
2 relic of prog
1 tormod's crypt
3 spell pierce
2 ethersworn cannonist

I have 58 in maindeck. I'd like to go 61 cards. So the 3 remaining can be 1. 2 kira and 1 spell pierce; 2. 3 standstills. 3. 3 stifles or 4. 3 spell snares.

[Magic_Shortbus9]

for everybody plaing gut shot, play psychic purge instead

great suggestion. its in color and saves you paying 2 life for the same effect but being a sorcery hurts it and the random discard affect isn't worth it as you'll probably just cast it as so as you draw it.

[FANAttIC]

Blue already have small creature kill spells like Piracy Charm, but that is not a point.
Gut Shot is used vs Scryb Ranger (maverick), Dryad Arbor (no rug) when they fetch at the end of your turn in hope of Ordering random monster, Mother, Hierarch, Lackey, Lavamancer, Confidant, Clique... when you want to tap out for more important stuff. After all we play tempo deck.

[SlopeeJ]

purge def isn't a good suggestion over gut shot. I am not sure gut shot is playable, but psychic purge is not playable at all... Actually that card is pretty terrible.