MTG Salvation

Last summer, I was working summer school and Magic had become a major part of the events. Many of my students played or wanted to play Magic, some of them owned some cards legal in various formats and those who didn’t were all given welcome decks. A problem began to arise through out the summer though, the kids who had more cards then the welcome decks always won against the welcome deck only kids. So, I brought in a bunch of my bulk cards and began giving out big chunks of them as rewards for whatever good thing I could call them out on. The next problem arose when there were uneven numbers of kids who wanted to play and some kids who were uncomfortable initiating with other students asking them to play with them and as such were never asked. So, I found a chunk of legendary creatures, made them classroom rewards and built this merfolk deck (Which is, incidentally, my first built from scratch commander deck) with a bunch of stuff I had on hand (to be fair, I had a lot of merfolk stuff to begin with) and I really liked it. I played with some friends and it seemed like it had some solid potential (my other EDH deck is Ur-Dragon and she tends to get targeted real quick) so I’ve been slowly tinkering with it over the past several months… Here’s a brief run down but I will likely eventually come up with some kinda more in-depth break down.



Kumena has several things going for him as a commander. He’s cheap, if he gets killed it’s not unreasonable to get him back out (probably more than once). He’s a U/G merfolk, and there are a lot of great cards for U/G merfolk. His abilities are all super useful in commander. What’s not to love about this guy?

So, in building this deck I’ve realized there are a lot of great cards that could (and some that probably will at some point wind up in, the deck is a constant work in progress) fit in to this deck. One of the “problems” faced constructing this deck is the conscious decision to not want to go “all in” with any potential angle while still maintaining some kinda actual focus... or something like that. This deck is based around the commander and it is first and foremost a Merfolk tribal deck. It uses tap mechanics and runs with the ideas of evasion, card advantage and counters, most of this deck is dedicated to (sometimes, rarely, in the most vague sense) these ideas. That said, that’s a really wide net and there are a lot of great options to do those things in these colors.

The basic idea is that this deck aims towards in most games is to build a board state full of big, nasty, evasive merfolk while maintaining a massive hand. While the deck isn’t combo-centric it is made to function with high synergy. The last major change I really made with this involved ditching some counter magic for land ramp cards. While part of me still second guesses this my basic thought behind it was that even with more counter spells the deck wanted to be more aggressive. By adding a bit of land ramp I’m helping myself achieve the goal of building a “machine” out of enchantments, artifacts and synergistic creatures by giving myself the resources to do so sooner. This also seemed like a good idea because I’m already not running a whole lot of lands and doing a bit of land ramp would allow me to dig out the lands I need to fuel to fire while also increasing the fire to fuel ratio left in the deck.

At this point there’s a number of cards (some low hanging fruit Murkfiend Liege and Metallic Mimic both seem like great ideas, there’s not a lot of non merfolk in this deck but the ones are are pretty handy so Arcane Adaptation seems like it could be useful, Collected Company seems like it might not suck here) that I think may work well with the other cards here but part of the problem is what replaces what and if it is really worth it to make the exchange at all. Anyhow, what do you guys think about what I’ve got going on here so far, any suggestions?

Bounty of the Luxa seems awkward IMO. I'm not sure what that really does in your list. Seedborn Muse is a strong and relatively cheap option. I think if you want to have your lands untap a lot Seedborn does that alongside a few others:

• Wilderness Reclamation
  
• Nature's Will
  
• Bear Umbra
  
• Intruder Alarm
  

Which are all pretty close in CMC for that slot.

Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep also jumps out as an oddity. I see the usage, but it's expensive. River's Rebuke is a better option IMO because it's a localized Rift

Awakening could also be a good consideration. It is untapping for everyone but given your commander gives you tap into effects you should abuse it more than opponents by a good margin.

Assuming you get either Murkfiend Liege or Seedborn Muse (or both) I think that Green Sun's Zenith is an amazing and versatile card that would give you more flexability and redundancy to get them. Chord of Calling into a mass untapper creature is also a really nice move in that it has convoke and then the thing you go and get will untap your creatures to use them for abuse.

Some cards that stand out to me that I think could be improved.

• Kodama's Reach / Cultivate - I am not a huge fan in part because your curve with a lot of the merfolk is kind of quick and your commander is a three drop. They are good cards but I found as I got better at commander I included these cards less and less especially when they conflict with the timing of your commander. You would probably get more milage out of faster tempo ramp or even going to 4 mana ramp like Skyshroud Claim. My personal feelings for this commander is that I think that tempo ramp like say Explore / Exploration / Gemstone Caverns / Mox Diamond / Chrome Mox are more appropriate for this style of deck.
• Walking Ballista - it feels out of place in that the only time I think I like it would be when you might have something to untap your lands every turn. I just think it could be a better card fit. Even shifting to something like Kefnet the Mindful would give you potentially a flying blocker as well as the same kind of mana dump. Its not really more on theme but Walking Ballista really isn't the MVP here that it is in modern.
• Library of Leng - not a big fan myself. If you find yourself swimming in draw then you are probably already doing fine. Its kind of a winmore card if you ask me.
• Bounty of the Luxa - as serberus said, its kinda not great. Its slow and the value it gives isn't that impressive.
• Stormtide Leviathan I see the idea of giving your guys islandwalk and slamming this guy but my issue is that if you don't have mass islandwalk it seems like a big liability.

As a fellow Kumena player, it's nice to still see someone else pursue the commander now that the hype has faded away. Murkfiend Liege style effects are ridiculously good, I consider my deck having "come online" when I land one with 3+ fish kicking around. I've had good success going for somewhat derpy 1-2 cmc fish recently, spending the first three turns curving out and then tapping the creatures to draw a card is pretty decent. Another class of spells I've found works well for me is mass indestructibility, think Heroic Intervention. This is pretty good protection against a lot of removal, and can lead to some massive blowouts if you're the only one with dudes after a wipe. I'd recommend cutting the Vivid lands, in a two colour shell they're strictly worse guildgates.

Thanks for the input folks, I updated my list slightly when I happened into a local shop doing some commander games and happened to have my deck on me. My current build:



A few future upgrades that I have my eye on are replacing library of leng with thought vessel. Murkfiend Liege, Exploration , Metallic Mimic and Doubling Season all seem like they want to be in this deck some day as well.

The current addition that I question the most is Arcane Adaptation, the floor for this card (like Panharmonicon) is terrible (a 3 mana enchantment to turn your merfolk into merfolk) but the ceiling is amazingly high (like Panharmonicon) when combined with a number of (most) other cards. This deck isn't exactly swimming with non merfolk (I totally intended that pun...) creatures but there are a lot of reasons why it's amazing to have those few non-merfolk also be merfolk that tends to pile on each other the way this deck does. Sure, Seahunter is great... but it's really great when you get to tutor for Seahunter, lord it out of range for most sorts of removal,cheat out a merfolk (any other creature) of your choice for 3, make it cost two more for your opponents to interact with and then untap it at the end of your turn to use it again. Yes, that is an extreme case but that's just one of ... a lot... of amazing lines of play.

If you question Walking Ballista I wouldn't suggest going out and getting it but if you happen to have one, I would highly suggest giving it a try in this deck. Most of the times when it shows up it performs amazing for me. There's often a lot of manna floating around to pump into it and a number of ways to search up a Vorel of the Hull Clade and make things crazy.