Not as glorious as Blue.
So what does all this babbling mean? Burrenton Forge-Tender, Deft Duelist, and Reveillark are all good against red. Sure, Glorious Anthem makes them better, but it's usually not necessary. Against red, the Anthem felt like a “win more” card. In fact, there weren't many matchups where it felt like the Anthem was a must to survive.
There was one game, against that same Black/Red Discard deck that I talked about last time, where I came out with a turn three Anthem, a turn four Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and a second Anthem on turn five. He ran two Blightnings at me that game, on turns three and four, but never had a chance. A 3/3 Soldier token every turn seems pretty good.
There was also one game where I played against this interesting Green/Red/Black deck that ran elves into Sprouting Thrinax and Mycoloth, and had Jund Charm maindecked, that the Anthem was pretty important. I had missed a two drop, but still swung with a Mutavault. Then, on turn three, I dropped the Anthem. On turn turn four, my opponent dropped a Sarkhan Vol, and it was good that my man-land, and the other 1/1s that I dropped on subsequent turns, were all one toughness larger and could force their way past his chump blockers. But still, he would've gotten dragons if it weren't for Cryptic Command bouncing Sarkhan when he got to six loyalty.
In the end, it was a second Cryptic Command that won that game, as well. Sure, without the Anthem, my guys wouldn't have been big enough to have been lethal, but what would I have had if Anthem wasn't in the deck? Probably a Sower of Temptation, which the white enchantment had pushed to the board. And a Sower would have been just as good in the late game, stealing the opponent's Thrinax, which would have kept that most dangerous of man-lands, Treetop Village, back. Of course, this is just speculation.
In the end, the Anthem was cool with my non-merfolk creatures, like the Forge-Tender, the Duelist, and especially the Faerie Conclave, but it never won a game for me that I didn't already have a shot at winning. I never thought, “I need to rip an Anthem if I want to win this game,” like I do with Cryptic Command, Reveillark, Sygg, River Guide, or even Pollen Lullaby. There were even times where I had to mull my hand away because, rather than creatures, I was holding counters and Anthems, which could be okay if I also had Duelists sideboarded in and was up against 5cc. But against something fast, like the Kithkin variants or Monored? A hand without early plays is already iffy. When the hand's first plays don't even impact the board, the hand is entirely unplayable.
All the talk has been leading up to this: I'm going to pull the Glorious Anthems. But if I already decided this, then why write about matches showcasing Glorious Anthem? I won't. In fact, this time around, I'm not going to write about any matches. For the past two FNMs, I've been getting paired up with red decks, red decks, and more red decks. And as much fun as it is to see how Merfolk does against red decks, I've illustrated that matchup so, so many times. So, instead, I'm going to focus a little more on the tweaks I've been making to the deck and wax Magic philosophical.
First order of business: If I'm yanking the Anthems out, what am I replacing them with? Perhaps more importantly, what's going in my maindeck specifically?
To answer this, I want to tell you a little anecote. Back when DVDs were still new technology, and The Matrix had just come out, some studios were still resistant to changing from VHS, and released their features in that medium. One such movie was Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Like any true Star Wars fan who still didn't realize the darkness that had crept into the franchise, I bought the VHS special edition, which came with this insert containing some of the concept art and an interview with one of the artists.
Who would want to be a Jedi, when you
could be like him?
So what does this mean to Merfolk? Well, I've been making tweaks to it for some time now, and the deck has actually begun to feel clunkier than it ever did. So it's time to back up to when the deck still felt good. Well, I definitely didn't feel good when the deck had two Duelists where the Anthems were, so I need to go back further. Two Sowers? I like the Sower. I feel like I have this constant war in me where I want Sowers in the main because they're freaking awesome, but I want something more aggressive in their spot because my deck is meant to be fast.
Sometimes I cave, and I run the Sowers, and they do awesome. Sometimes I find something that I feel serves the purpose of the deck better (like Elspeth), and the Sowers get pulled for a time. But it's only ever for a time. They always eventually make it back in. So what does that tell the logical part of me? Run the damn Sowers. All four of them.
Elspeth can't steal 2/2, first striking,
lifelinked Kithkin.
So, I've got my maindeck squared away, and I know what to do with Elspeth, but that still leaves me four spots open in my sideboard. Now, the last time my maindeck looked like this was at States, where I took second, losing to Faeries in the finals (ah, more fuel for the “you should just play Faeries at Kyoto” argument). My sideboard at that time vs. my current, incomplete sideboard looks like this:
Sideboard Then
Sideboard Now
Well, if I really want to go back in time, I could put the Pollen Lullabies back in. Really, that doesn't sound bad to me. Pollen Lullaby is really good against other aggro decks that aren't Monored Demigod (read: Kithkin), and even decent against Monored, as it can buy me a much needed turn. I have a friend who gave me crap for running what he felt was a newbie card at Regionals and States, but it won so many games for me at those events (and at countless FNMs) that I think it's proven itself.
But I don't think I need the three that I ran at States. Just two would be alright, and would up my Holy Day-esque effects from four to six (go go Cryptic Command ability three!). Seven such effects seems like a lot. And as the card that has come out of the main for it is Sage's Dousing, only running two Lullabies will leave me a pair of Sage's Dousings to hit Spectral Procession, Cloud-Goat Ranger, or anything that comes out from under a Windbrisk Heights.
Another reason for just two Lullabies is that, back at States, I started the day off with pulling three Dousings for three Lullabies, but towards the end of the Swiss, had changed it up to two Dousings and a Cursecatcher for the Lullabies. With only two Lullabies now, I won't have to board out the Catcher, who is a lot better against Kithkin than he seems at first blush.
Good against Kithkin? Really?
And, of course, multiple Cursecatchers stalls the Procession for extra turns. Sure, if they run it into the counter-folk, it looks like card disadvantage for them. But it prevents the opponent from gaining board advantage, which is vitally important in that matchup. Plus, if I find that four Catchers is too many against Kithkin, I can always pull one and keep a third Dousing in.
If I add the Pollen Lullabies, that leaves me with two more open spots. Now, part of the reason I added Anthems was to complete this epic quest of finding Infest's weakness (by the way, Infest is Merfolk's one weakness against the Fae). Faeries is a persistent threat in the metagame, and that's why the Duelists made the board originally (they can cut through hordes of tokens and can't be spot-removed). But that's now only half my problem with Faeries. Infest can sweep the Duelists away, and any critter sans shroud I drop afterwards gets an Agony Warp aimed at its fishy head. But I've got to make drops, because I've got to outrace Bitterblossom.
Best card in Standard?
Sure, he has white in his cost, but it's only one (it was the of Glorius Anthem that bogged me down). And he's a merfolk wizard, meaning the Stonybrook Banneret reduces his cost. Once the Entity comes down, all I need to do is keep three mana back, and all my guys will survive an Infest. Plus, he can turn my non-merfolk into merfolk, so they can enjoy the benefits of the species, such as Reejerey's pumping or Sygg's protection. But, he doesn't team up well with man-lands, as simply activating them and attacking reduces the Entity's potency.
So why Entity, which requires me to leave mana back, over Anthem, which doesn't? It only takes one Mirror Entity to counter an Infest, but as most merfolk are X/1, it takes two Anthems (or an Anthem and a Reejerey, or two Reejereys) to get my fishmen out of kill range. And, again, one white mana in the cost is way better than two. And as for leaving mana back, I'm willing to do that to counter an Infest with something more traditional, like Sage's Dousing or Cryptic Command, so why not Mirror Entity?
Of course, all this talk of counters brings another solution to mind for the Infest: actual counter spells. Negate gets there and is cheap. Plus, it's versatile and could be boarded in against 5cc. But, its cheapness is also a drawback, as Spellstutter Sprite can hit it pretty easily. Of course, that could be said for most cards in my deck, but a savvy Faerie player will let creatures slide if he knows he can force an Infest a little later with counter spell backup. Then again, they can't always have the nuts hand, right? And, they may not always want to do a 2-for-X that is an Infest forced by a Spellstutter Sprite (the Infest kills the faerie after the Sprite protects it; no loyalty from black, it seems).
Am I really talking about this card?
It's all food for thought, and if you have any advice at all, post it. I'd be glad for the help, though I do think that the best idea in all that is Negate. And yes, the advice that I should be playing Faeries has been noted...goobers.
But wait, that's not all I have for you. From time to time, I can get my wife, Kari, to go to FNM with me and play. Almost without fail, she puts up a 2-2 record. For the longest time, she ran this monogreen elf deck that tried to power out a turn two Talara's Battalion. The deck was alright, having really good game against aggro decks and Merfolk, as well as a decent game against Faeries. It's matchup against 5cc was terrible, but every deck has a bad matchup, right? Well, the last time she went, she wanted to try something new.
She had a few stipulations though. She wasn't entirely averse to a net deck, but she didn't want to run something that other people at the shop would be running. Also, she didn't want something too complicated. It's important to note that she won't run Faeries (which I built for her at one time as she likes the faerie creature type) because she feels it's too complicated. I think it's that Faeries changes its roll from an aggro deck to a control deck depending on the matchup, the draw, and the board. The deck is freaking awesome, but a newbie can't just pick it up and slaughter with it. Not that Kari is a newbie.
That said, we sat down that morning before FNM (it was vacation, and neither of us had to work) and worked on something new. We ran through all kinds of possibilities, like Monored and Kithkin Vengeant, which she vetoed as they were too popular at the shop, to Green/Red haste rush and a Warriors deck. Then, as we were just kind of mixing stuff together, we stumbled on something she started to get excited about.
Mike Flores voted it the best card
in Standard.
Before we left the house, we did a bit of playtesting and tweaking, and this was the decklist:
| My Wife's Planeswalker DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Land 4 Fire-lit Thicket 4 Jungle Shrine 4 Karplusan Forest 4 Reflecting Pool 4 Treetop Village 4 Wooded Bastion Creatures 4 Cloudthresher 4 Troll Ascetic 4 Woolly Thoctar | Other Spells 4 Ajani Vengeant 4 Fertile Ground 4 Firespout 4 Garruk Wildspeak 4 Lashout 2 Oblivion Ring 2 Pyroclasm | Sideboard 3 Gutteral Response 4 Magma Spray 2 Oblivion Ring 2 Sarkhan Vol 4 Wilt-Leaf Liege |
Turn one Raven's Crime? Hello!
Think about it: you've got no guys down, maybe no planeswalkers either, and three cards in hand, which is two Lieges and a land. Your opponent thinks about, asks how many cards in your hand, then plays the Ultimatum. Well, do its steps in order. Sacrifice a creature. Can't do it. Now discard. Oops, did those Lieges just go into play? Sorry, you say, I didn't mean to drop two 6/6s for free. Yeah, drain your five life from me, it's going away on my turn. I actually saw Kari walking someone towards that play when her opponent, playing 5cc with Cruel Ultimatum, tapped out. Well, she had a Sarkhan Vol in play, so she just dropped both Lieges, gave them haste and +1/+1 via Sarkhan, and crushed her opponent for 14 and the game. Whatever works, I guess.
Kari, who I mentioned goes 2-2 without fail, went 4-0 that night, beating out Faeries in the last round. I mean, with 10 maindeck sweepers on the bug-men, she's got really good game against the Fae. And with six normal sweepers, her game against Kithkin (and other weenie-ish decks) is solid. Really, her only tough matchup seems to be Monored, which drops Ashenmoor Gougers who are too tough to kill with Lash Outs or Firespouts. That's partly what O-Ring three and four are for. And Ajani can give her the extra tempo she needs in the form of life gain or even just keeping that Gouger or Demigod of Revenge from untapping.
She really liked the deck, and did the best she's ever done at FNM with it, so I thought I'd share. The next time you hear from me, it should be post-Grand Prix L.A., and hopefully I'll have some exciting Extended matches to tell you about.
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