All this talk about red splash sounds interesting, especially Razorfin Hunter
But we do not need Blood Moon. When someone is playing against merfolk they expect Wastelands and fetch basics if they have them.
We always had our blue Moon in Back to Basics but I never put it to good use.
Blood Moon is vastly superior to B2B, but I understand your point.Originally Posted by FANAttIC
All this talk about red splash sounds interesting, especially Razorfin Hunter
But we do not need Blood Moon. When someone is playing against merfolk they expect Wastelands and fetch basics if they have them.
We always had our blue Moon in Back to Basics but I never put it to good use.
Well perhaps, but if you think about it Standstill costs 2 mana and draws a CONDITIONAL 3 cards. Mindspring would do the same thing for 5 mana, but has the potential for more and is not conditional. There is also read the runes if mana is tight. Draw cards to sacrifice excess lands/vials.
I never liked pulling rejereey, but I did and I put 1-2 Thassa in his place and I'm very happy about it. It is card quality on a beatstick and I've really enjoyed all of my dudes being unblockable. It helps push all of the last damage through.
There's a big difference between targeted removal like stp and razorfin hunter, and sweepers like sudden demise and perish. Merfolk needs sweepers much more then targeted removal. Sweepers can act as card advantage as well.
The biggest reason to run red over black though, is stoneforge. All the perishes, plagues, and dark confidants still will not normally beat stoneforge and suited up guys.
Cheers :)
Yes... with the fetchlands (would probably be what... on average a life loss of 2ish points?) combined with losing life on Bob makes it quite a risky plan as we have TNN who costs 3cc, and of course FOW which costs 5cc. My guess is Delver decks would get in too much damage and kill us before we can plausibly use Bobby.
Also: imho, red fixes every problem that Merfolk has, EXCEPT for card advantage, which was why this discussion took off in the first place. After card advantage, I'd say that yes, sweepers are what Merfolk wants. Whatever sweeper it was though, we'd want it to either be opponents creatures only, OR a 1 damage sweeper. It could be my inexperience, but I feel that we've already got good answers to equipment here with things like Carry Away. I usually don't encounter too many decks where I also want to side in direct artifact hate, besides maybe the occasional ensnaring bridge. I'd rather go black and double-up our discard as anti-equipment hate AND anti-combo hate.
I am so happy to see that Carry Away is playable right now!
If we are slashing a color, then we can just use brainstorm. If the new hate bear becomes commonly played, then we can switch it up. I am not opposed to the black splash. I have advocated for black and for dark confidant, on this very forum a while ago. I have even done well with dark fish, at few top 32s at Star city, and very well in my local meta. It's just you have to work around dark confidant. You can't play more then four 3 drops, and you shouldn't play with 4 forces in the main either. Since many of the sideboard cards are 3 drops, you need to play with 21 lands as well. I think red is slightly better right now, when paired with brainstorm, because it requires you to wrap your deck less.
That is actually a really good point. Since we would be playing fetchlands then we can just use brainstorm. Combined with silvergill the that is similar card advantage to many other decks.
So, what red cards would you play?
No need to play Brainstorm.
We don't run enough lands to hold in the hand to shuffle away with Brainstorm.
We don't run any removals to shuffle away with BS for combo decks.
Force of will is always good. The only card that we would shuffle away that would be a lousy top deck outside of turn 3 would be Daze and vial
For these 8 cards, no need to splash to play brainstorm. We need the extra space with the flex slots to address problems like card advantage, creature removal, or artifact and enchantment removal
I made that post, because the discussion here has shifted to splashing a color, thus there will be enough lands, cause you need to play around 21 of them, aether vials, dazes, and late game cursecatchers to shuffle away. Since we are talking about splashing that also means we have fetch lands for shuffling. I said forces should only be cut, only if you play dark confidant. We do need more artifact and enchantment removal, that's why I like the red splash more.
I wouldn't play any red cards in the main, but I would sideboard sudden demise, red blasts and smelt.
I have been splashing red for a long time now and I absolutely must say that running 4 bolts in the main is incredible. It gives you options outside of daze and force. Some turn 1 plays you just have to counter, but with bolt I don't have to set myself back so much and just take it down end of turn. I'm also really loving Thassa as a 1-2 of in the main for mid game CA.
It has also increased my tempo as I have many unblockable dudes and a damage spell that can end the game more quickly. Thassa and TNN for the mid-late game work wonders as they are both indestructible!
Those are my 2 cents.
So let's resume the different splashes.
The core of the deck : vial, master, lord, silvergill, force, nemesis, curse. And 3 flexibles slots : image, reejerey, coralhelm, standstill, chalice, dismember, daze, kira, spell pierce, brainstorm / ponder, careful study, jitte, spreading seas, clique...
Those slots can be used for splashes.
White
- main : mother of runes, stp, spirit of the labyrinth, stoneforge, geist of saint traft
- side : rest in peace, canonist, disenchant, detention shere, enlightening tutor, silence, meddling mage
Black
- main : dark confident, disfigure, go for the throat, thougtseize / inquisition, baleful strix
- side : perish, plague, dread of night, toxic deluge, chains of mephistopheles, phyrexian arena
Red
- main : bolt, fire ice, grim lavamancer, price of progress, sulfuric vortex, razorfin hunter
- side : blood moon / magus of the moon, ghastly demise, smash to smithereens, pyrostatic pillard, pyroblast / REB
Green
- main : sylvan library / mirri's guile, tarmogoyf, root maze, concordant crossroads, smic charm, lead the stampede
- side : krozan grip / naturalize / nature's claim, trygon predator, caller of the claw, fecundity, steely resolve, eternal witness
Make your choice !
Last edited by Heresia; 01-30-2014 at 12:04 PM.
You forgot Razorfin Hunter.
Guys, the last deck to splash successfully at a larger tournament only splashed it for the sideboard and it was back in the middle of 2012:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=2780&d=217988
The next one was 2011. I just don't feel like it's really super great to run. You open yourselves unnecessarily to:
Stifle
Wasteland
Inconsistency
Slower kills (and this is important because it gives the opponent more time to get answers AND get their deck/combo online.
I just don't see a reason to splash at this point since you need to outrace either TNN+Equip OR combo OR boardlock (lands, miracles, Etc). I love the consistency, I love non-land card essentially turning on Force of Will and I like that I don't typically need specific lands to play my cards. Consistency is the main reason I play Merfolk as often as I do. I love decks like TES and run it at smaller events often, but... yeah.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle".
- Albert Einstein
Who plays stifle nowdays ?
Wasteland hurts non basics ok... Muta, wastes and caverns are non basics too, and the are played. We talk about replacing one of those lands.
Ok we lose small consistency, but if this is the price for having solutions against hard situations for us, I pay it.
Yes, but them wasting Muta or Caverns doesn't leave us with potentially dead cards in our hands.
Edit: I'm not saying it's foolish to attempt or anything like that, I'm simply stating the reason why it's not something I'm looking into testing. I wish you guys the best of luck on the testing though if you choose to go for it and let me know how it works (:
If it ends up improving the deck well, kudos!
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle".
- Albert Einstein
Hi everyone!
I have just found out about this place, and it's a great to see so many discussion, I found it very helpful.
I came back to the game recently playing Merfolk (I used to play Blue Sky in standard back in the day). I played in at GP DC with some success, and I'd like to prepare for the SCG Open in Somerset NJ in two weeks. I wondered what people here thought about my current list (and the sideboard):
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergil Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
2 Merrow Reejerey
4 Phantasmal Image
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Aether Vial
4 Daze
1 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
12 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Wasteland
3 Cavern of Souls
There are only a few cards that are not in all lists. I have not tested extensively, but eventually I'm leaning towards Cavern instead of Wasteland if only because of Frank Karsten's frightening article on how many blue sources you need to reliably cast True-Name Nemesis on turn 3... (plus, I anticipate a lot of Delver decks). Jitte main is also a concession to the popularity of Stoneforge Mystic. I can definitely see the potential of Greg Hatch's approach that plays many more one-drops, but I'm still undecided. I think the most questionable card in the main is Spell Pierce. Do you think it should be a third Reejerey?
Sideboard:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Swan Song
1 Echoing Truth
3 Misdirection
2 Dismember
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
The sideboard is in progress, and I'd appreciate any comments you might have. It's currently based around the cards that worked well for me in DC (Swan Song, Pithing Needle and Dismember) and geared towards beating Stoneforge Mystic and Abrupt Decay, which I see as the two most common problematic strategies for Merfolk. My current view is that Manriki-Gusari (that can be fetched with Image) is a must given how popular blade decks are at the moment and how many more lists play Sword of Fire and Ice. Carry Away is nice, but my feeling is that it's weaker to Spell pierce and Thoughtseize, but I'm curious to see what you think. Dismember is not in all lists, but I think it helps in the Delver matchup to fight both quick Stoneforge or Delver, which is usually how I loose (it also helps against Death & Taxes and Elves).
I have a tentative sideboard plan, that I share below. Generally, I would greatly appreciate any input on particular matchups, as I have a limited number of games under my belt. (For simplicity, I didn't specify the Fow/Daze split sided in and out depending on whether we are on the draw or the play).
UWR Delver: +2 Dismember, +1 Manriki-Gusari, +1 Jitte, +1 Misdirection, -1 Spell Pierce, -4 Force of Will.
If I can't get a quick start, I feel copying TNN or Stoneforge Mystic is the way to win the long game. I also think Misdirection is better than Force here.
Stoneblade: +1 Manriki-Gusari, +1 Jitte, +2 Needle, -4 Force of Will.
I'm unsure if Needle is the best option here, but I think we need to prevent them from equipping True-Name.
Sneak & Show: +2 Needle, +3 Swan Song, +1 Echoing Truth, -2 Merrow Reejerey, -1 Jitte, -3 True-Name Nemesis.
I'm not sure how much we need to sideboard too much for this matchup.
Death and Taxes: +2 Dismember, +1 Manriki-Gusari, +1 Jitte, +2 Needle, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Misdirection, -4 Force of Will, -1 Daze, -1 Spell Pierce, -2 Cursecatcher.
I feel it's tough, but the plan is to attack with True-Name while keeping them off equipments themselves. I also found Serra Avenger to be problematic (I hope they cut it for Spirit of the Labyrinth!).
Storm: +3 Swan Song, +2 Relic of Progenitus, -2 Merrow Reejerey, -1 Jitte, -2 True-Name Nemesis.
Does that feel like it's enough? I don't think they have any side against us.
Elves: +3 Swan Song, +2 Dismember, +1 Jitte, +2 Needle, +1 Echoing Truth, -4 Daze, -1 Spell Pierce, -3 Cursecatcher, -1 Merrow Reejerey
I think this matchup is awful, so I'm reluctant to devote too much side to it (although there is a case to be made for Grafdigger's cage given the resurgence of Reanimator). My current plan is just to hope they are unlucky (they have only one "draw" spell, only one symbiote, etc...) and hope to stay alive long enough to stick a Jitte.
RUG Delver: +2 Relic of Progenitus, +1 Jitte, +1 Dismember, +1 Misdirection, -1 Spell Pierce, - 4 Force of Will.
Again, I think Misdirection is better than Force here. Is this enough?
BUG Delver: +2 Relic of Progenitus, +1 Jitte, +3 Misdirection, -1 Spell Pierce, -4 Force of Will, -1 Daze.
I found that Abrupt Decay and Hymn to Tourach are the easiest way to loose, so I think having access to Misdirection can really turn around some games.
Reanimator: +2 Relic of Progenitus, +3 Swan Song, +1 Echoing Truth, -1 Jitte, -4 True-Name Nemesis, -1 Aether Vial.
I wondered if that's enough. I think Entomb is what we really need to fight over, because they usually only play one Elesh Norm.
Lands/Jund Depths: +2 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Needle, +1 Echoing Truth, -4 Force of Will, -1 Spell Pierce.
I never played this matchup, so I might be off. How difficult is it actually?
Jund: +2 Relic of Progenitus, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Jitte, +3 Misdirection, -4 Force of Will, -1 Spell Pierce, -2 Daze.
I found this matchup super difficult, so again I think going all in on Misdirection (and hoping to draw TNN + Jitte
Miracles: +2 Needle, +3 Swan Song, +1 Echoing Truth, -1 Merrow Reejerey, -1 Jitte, -4 Daze.
I think this also a hard matchup, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Locking Top seems important to keep them off Terminus.
Thanks a lot! And sorry for the long post...
Hey there, I really enjoyed the write up and I don't have a lot of time to read through it all and respond at the moment, but how do you feel about running 3 copies of submerge in your sideboard?
Oh my god, of course, we can fetch for Manriki-Gusari by copying their SFM. That is genius and I wish I had thought of that, it will completely change my sideboard. That frees up 2 slots! Your other analysis was also very helpful. I think MY jitte is really slow though. Cheers
How did you not think of that...i added that card in the sideboard several hundred pages ago.
Its not that useful to stop equipment i can tell u that.
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