[Deck] Merfolk

[Tammit67]

I've been tossing around the idea of splashing for Lightning Bolt for 2 years, yet never really tried it out. Would love to see someone actually explore this in a tournament setting.

As much as I can see it being useful, running dismember just seems better: Deals with bigger things without a splash.
The life loss is often irrelevant, since once this deck loses board position it is pretty much over, and reach is meh since tend to swing in huge chunks thanks to lord effects.

That being said, I am interested in trying it out, perhaps if spell pierce ever becomes less insane

[Koby]

I've been tossing around the idea of splashing for Lightning Bolt for 2 years, yet never really tried it out. Would love to see someone actually explore this in a tournament setting.

Ask, and you shall receive:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...=90&iddeck=827

Also, completely as an aside - Vengevine Survival > Tribal.

[KobeBryan]

Ask, and you shall receive:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...=90&iddeck=827

Also, completely as an aside - Vengevine Survival > Tribal.

You probably should get rid of the standstills now (use LOA 2.0) and up the daze/spell pierce count now.

[Malakai]

I splashed red for Grim Lavamancer in a couple tournaments. Grim Lavamancer was amazing, but Volcanic Island was terrible. Getting a blue source wasted once or twice really keys you into just how terrible the merfolk manabase really is.

[SupREME-10]

I have been toying with this build recently.

4 x AEther Vial
3 x Daze
2 x Dismember
4 x Force of Will
2 x Spell Pierce
1 x Umezawa's Jitte

3 x Coralhelm Commander
4 x Cursecatcher
4 x Lord of Atlantis
4 x Master of the Pearl Trident
2 x Phantasmal Image
4 x Silvergill Adept
3 x Merrow Reejerey

21 Land -- and the Cavern is good for when I don't have a Vial to start with. 13 islands works for me, but I am still testing to see if the Cavern does in fact do better in the long run than Mut & Waste #4's
2 x Cavern of Souls
3 x Mutavault
3 x Wasteland
13 x Island

Sideboard
2 x Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus both have their advantagous and I am still not set.
1 x Umezawa's Jitte
2 x Surgical Extraction
1 x Gilded Drake
2 x Hydroblast
2 x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 x Llawan, Cephalid Empress
3 x Submerge

Comments and suggestions appreciated as always.

[Ertai87]

@Supreme: 4 Reejerey is the correct number. Always. Do not go to 3. Read my previous post in this thread for an explanation of why. If you want to go down to 2 or 3 Coralhelm, I'd advise running the other 1-2 on the board; there are some matchups that are really terrible without Coralhelm, so you should have 4 in your 75, if not your 60.

As for your board, Surgical Extraction is terrible in decks that don't have access to Snapcaster Mage. If you want to split your gy hate, play Relic and Crypt or Relic and Cage or Crypt and Cage or all 3, or maybe some number of Leyline of the Void, or something (Leyline of the Void is actually awful; don't try it). In any case, Surgical is awful. Llawan is also bad right now; what, exactly, does Llawan do? There are 0 decks against which Llawan is a hard lock (Merfolk being "not a deck", despite the fact that we're talking about it). You might want more Gilded Drakes or Gilded Drake-type effects, if you can get them.

@All: Question: Regarding adding Brainstorm to the deck, what exactly is the issue? I understand the decklist is very tight, but is that the only reason we're not playing Brainstorm? I've noticed that there are many similarities between Fish and RU Delver, in particular that both are aggro-control/tempo decks. Where we play Lord of Atlantis for reach, they play Bolts and such, but the overarching idea is basically the same. Why can they play Brainstorm and Ponder and we can't even play one of the two? If I had to find room, I'd think to cut down on Dazes. The combo decks generally go off with extra mana, and good Maverick players will just play around it. I'm not entirely sure where Daze is even good right now.

[Ignithas_]

@All: Question: Regarding adding Brainstorm to the deck, what exactly is the issue? I understand the decklist is very tight, but is that the only reason we're not playing Brainstorm? I've noticed that there are many similarities between Fish and RU Delver, in particular that both are aggro-control/tempo decks. Where we play Lord of Atlantis for reach, they play Bolts and such, but the overarching idea is basically the same. Why can they play Brainstorm and Ponder and we can't even play one of the two? If I had to find room, I'd think to cut down on Dazes. The combo decks generally go off with extra mana, and good Maverick players will just play around it. I'm not entirely sure where Daze is even good right now.

Merfolk doesn't run enough shuffle effects (fetchlands) to have the full use out of BS.

[Ertai87]

Merfolk doesn't run enough shuffle effects (fetchlands) to have the full use out of BS.

Is there a reason why not? The deck functions fine off of 3 lands, 4 is optimal, and 5 is a flood. We're playing 12 (Islands) and we're immune to Wasteland. In theory, we can play up to 8 fetchlands without hurting ourselves substantially if we really wanted to. It makes the deck weaker to Stifle, but I don't think that's a big concern for us, since our deck is already so strong against Stifle anyway.

[karaxu]

I predict a re-surgence of Merfolk in the coming month (already seeing more merfolk in MWS, usually tagged as Legacy - M13 when they create a game), so maybe being ready for mirrors with Llawan is a good safety measure. Especially to those who will be competing in big tournaments with little information about the meta.

[Tammit67]

I predict a re-surgence of Merfolk in the coming month (already seeing more merfolk in MWS, usually tagged as Legacy - M13 when they create a game), so maybe being ready for mirrors with Llawan is a good safety measure. Especially to those who will be competing in big tournaments with little information about the meta.

Unless there are other decks with a bunch of blue creatures in the next month, just run jitte. Llawan is overkill

[SupREME-10]

@Supreme: 4 Reejerey is the correct number. Always. Do not go to 3. Read my previous post in this thread for an explanation of why. If you want to go down to 2 or 3 Coralhelm, I'd advise running the other 1-2 on the board; there are some matchups that are really terrible without Coralhelm, so you should have 4 in your 75, if not your 60.

As for your board, Surgical Extraction is terrible in decks that don't have access to Snapcaster Mage. If you want to split your gy hate, play Relic and Crypt or Relic and Cage or Crypt and Cage or all 3, or maybe some number of Leyline of the Void, or something (Leyline of the Void is actually awful; don't try it). In any case, Surgical is awful. Llawan is also bad right now; what, exactly, does Llawan do? There are 0 decks against which Llawan is a hard lock (Merfolk being "not a deck", despite the fact that we're talking about it). You might want more Gilded Drakes or Gilded Drake-type effects, if you can get them.

Thanks Ertai87:

I hear you on the Surgical's and I will adjust accordingly.
I actually did alter my SB a little; but for my meta I need Llawan as there are too mana other Merfolk (already). 2 Drakes are much better than 1; but it took me a while to snag that 2nd one.
Coralhelm is at 3 and will most likely stay there for now, (without #4 in SB) as I hear what yiour saying with the Reejerey and I do love him; but I can't go with only 2 Coralhelms maindeck and 2 slots used in the SB (due to needed Llawan, etc) so as my meta adjusts this is where I am at. When Llawan comes out then I will add 1 Reejerey to the main, and slide #3 and #4 coralhelm to the SB slots.

Thanks a lot as that is the kind of detailed discussion that actually helps me and I truely appreciate it - Ertai87

[TheyCallMeTim]

Unless there are other decks with a bunch of blue creatures in the next month, just run jitte. Llawan is overkill

And Jitte kills Mother of Runes.

[Justin]

And Jitte kills Mother of Runes.

Yeah, although only if it has counters on it and Mom can use her ability to keep counters off your Jitte. Unless, of course, you have evasion, in which case Mom isn't a problem for you anyway.

[Ertai87]

I actually did alter my SB a little; but for my meta I need Llawan as there are too mana other Merfolk (already). 2 Drakes are much better than 1; but it took me a while to snag that 2nd one.
Coralhelm is at 3 and will most likely stay there for now, (without #4 in SB) as I hear what yiour saying with the Reejerey and I do love him; but I can't go with only 2 Coralhelms maindeck and 2 slots used in the SB (due to needed Llawan, etc) so as my meta adjusts this is where I am at. When Llawan comes out then I will add 1 Reejerey to the main, and slide #3 and #4 coralhelm to the SB slots.

Thanks a lot as that is the kind of detailed discussion that actually helps me and I truely appreciate it - Ertai87

No problem. I'm pretty sure most people here are going to assume your meta is close to the "world" meta (i.e. the SCG/Legacy GP circuits) unless you specify otherwise; if your meta differs from those types of tournaments and we need that information to analyze your deck, please say so in the future.

Regarding Coralhelm: I definitely wouldn't want to go below 4 in the 75, but I can see an argument for going below 4 in the 60. Perhaps you can't cut Coralhelm to add Reejereys; is there anywhere else you can cut? Can you cut for the 4th Coralhelm and the 4th Reejerey? Personally, I'm not running any Dismembers, so that might be a place you could cut if you wanted to. I don't know if Dismember is still good or not, but it doesn't kill a Goose, doesn't kill anything if Mom is on the table, often doesn't kill a Goyf, doesn't kill anything out of Reanimator/Sneak/Show...you see where I'm going with this...

[TheyCallMeTim]

Yeah, although only if it has counters on it and Mom can use her ability to keep counters off your Jitte. Unless, of course, you have evasion, in which case Mom isn't a problem for you anyway.

Then let's just say it nullifies a late game Mom. Hopefully you keep the first one from hitting the board.

[SupREME-10]

Dismember is a flex slot for sure, so I will test Rejeerey & Coralhelms in those slots to see if it works better.

And my meta is close to the World Meta; but Merfolk has already had a resurgance as people prepare for MotPT... So they are testing out Merfolk a little too often I think, and actually I am sick of looking at crappy proxies for MotPT, so I will be glad when the real cards hit the stores (I did bag one through a trade in the opening weekend and mine are pre-ordered). The other deck that I seam to see a fair bit here is Izzet Delver and RUG with Delver's... Llawan sorts out Delver's, Snapcaster Mages, Vendilion Cliques, Geist of Saint Traft, and all the Merfolk. And so far Dismember has been able to handle the Goyfs most of the time, or after a block to add some beef.

Thanks again guys and I will test stuff out and get back to you after the weekend and my real MotPT are added.

[obituary 95]

I've been tossing around the idea of splashing for Lightning Bolt for 2 years, yet never really tried it out. Would love to see someone actually explore this in a tournament setting.

During my brief stint as a merfolk player a few years ago I tried out bolt. it was really clunky with the mana. and other than bolt red seemed to offer very little else

[FANAttIC]

I tested "new" merfolk deck against uw miracle and Eng Expl on 2 counters is really annoying without Reejerey in deck.
Reej brings different lvl of gameplay (no need for two blue, can fight Chalice on two, without saying everything else) to table and will stay 4 of in my deck.
Decklist is still under construction.

[cartoonist]

Comic Con Panel: Merfolk confirmed for RtR. The new leader of the Simic is a Merfolk. We may be getting some new toys for this deck. (Hopefully they all won't be BG.)

[FANAttIC]

Well, Selkie was allways cool and slow, so there could be Avacyn's Pilgrim like merfolk. We could have better one drop and ditch Vial
Important parts are: merfolk are center of the story, have guild leader and whole guild for themselves, those are great news and climbing to tier1 continues.