This a legacy deck built on a budget. Meaning i have not access to FOW, TNN or Mutavault. The deck list allows for pretty decent aggro and a little control and swarm with 10+ creatures around turn 4-6.
The deck:
Artifacts
4 Aether Vials
Creature
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Wistful Silkie
2 Phantasmal Image
Spells
4 Daze
4 Preordain
4 Standstill
2 Acquitect's will
Land
17 Island
Silvergill and Merrow Reejerey allows the deck to combo out a lot of merfolks. Preordain stops land flooding. Standstill for even more card draw.
What I want to know is if there is a need to have both Preordain and standstill together? Are there better options to increase kill speed? Any suggestion is welcome. Thanks.
I really don't think standstill should be in here. Really, you only want it when you have access to manlands. If Mishra's factory was in here I would think it was fine. So yeah, Either find a playset of them and add them in, or take out standstill for something else.
Aquitect's Will seems iffy. You are not doing too much by spending your mana on it. Most opponents in legacy will have islands anyways, and those that don't will be opponents that you want to be doing other things to. I would take them out, as well as the preordains, for some more counter magic. Spell Pierce is probably your best bet. Counterspell could be used too.
Wistful Silkie should probably be replaced. Cold-Eyed Selkie is a better option that serves the same purpose. Cosi's trickster is a great aggressive one drop.
finally, I think you probably want a few more lands. You only have 8 1-drops in the whole deck. 19-20 lands would probably work better for you. It would allow you to play more creatures and get to that key 3 mana more often. This is especially important for a budget merfolk deck, as you will not have force of will to protect yourself when you tap out. You need open mana constantly.
Looks pretty good and you've got all the pricier cards that aren't FoW, Mutavault or TNN which is great. Are you having any issues with not enough mana? If your Vials get FoW'd, sure looks like you could be up a certain creek. One thing I'm not sure about Standstill in a build without Mutavault. It's much more difficult to set yourself up profitably without manlands. You could consider using Mishra's Factory as a budget replacement. It's not as good as Mutavault, but still another creature when needed.
Suggestions:
+3 Island or Cavern of Souls (pretty light on mana for the 3 mana merfolk)
+3 Counterspell
+1 Merrow Reejerey
-2 Acquitect's Will (legacy has a lot of islands already, might be a better sideboard card)
-4 Preordain (since so many of these cards are essentially interchangeable, probably no need to filter)
-1 Wistful Selkie
I'd also consider cutting the 4 Standstill for some bounce or removal like 2 Vapor Snag / Dismember, and probably a 4th Counterspell and your Selkie back in again. But if Standstill is working well for you then perhaps not!
Thanks guys! I'm new to the forum so I'm pretty impressed by the community already. I see now that standstill is used for mutavault which provide mana early on and prevents mana flooding later. That causes preordian to be less useful and by removing it the whole deck more efficient. I have another question which is I have heard that standstill vs brainstorm merfolk are totally different. Why?
Brainstorm is used in legacy in combination with fetchlands to renew your hand. You draw 3 cards, put 2 back that you dont want, and then shuffle them away with a fetch land. This makes brainstorm essentially an ancestral recall. Merfolk can't do that becuase they don't play fetches, so instead, they play standstill and Silvergill Adept. Standstill has the added benefit of "drawing" you cards for every turn your opponent just passes without doing anything, afraid to break it.
Due to the lack of shuffle effects (fetch lands primarily), and the the huge amount of essentially duplicate cards (one merfolk lord is a lot like the other), brainstorm is probably sub par. Put another way, you want to be playing creatures, attacking, and leaving mana open to counterspell anything that interferes with that plan. Leaving leaving mana open to to filter cards at instant speed and then just draw them again isn't really an ideal use of cards.
Sygg, River Cutthroat might also be worth considering for a card draw option as a one or 2 of, it's cheaper and has more toughness than Cold-Eyed Selkie.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy: WRDeath and Taxes UWRMiracles UBTezzerator GTrinity GBWRLoam URLandstill
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
From playing Merfolk standstill seems like a win more card and is only good if you are running mutavault or can pump creatures faster or an active vial. Side board is pretty basic. Graveyard hate for dredge and submerge and jitteswan songfor combo elves and combo decks such as TES and show and tell. Another weak match up is death and taxes but if you have true-name nemesis it should be your win. Running diverts or misdirection should be high win rate against delver. Against counterbalance you should not even have to worry. Pretty much death and taxes and elves are your worst match up. Death and taxes don't let him get his jitte running (u can stop him with true name unless he brings out a flyer like serra angel.) Battle skull, just vapor snag. You are the aggro where they are the control here. Phantasmal Image can bring out your own jitte to counter theirs. Against elves you want to get an jitte out. You lose when he combos of so make sure you counter his glimpse of nature, destroy his sentinel nettle, womboite symboite (I spelt it wrong, just google check). Submerge works apparently but i never used it so i don't know what to target on.
Only if your meta is loaded with fetches, SFM, etc. In a more budget meta the trickster might be less effective. I've also been a fan of Triton Shorestalker lately.
Private Mod Note
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Legacy: WRDeath and Taxes UWRMiracles UBTezzerator GTrinity GBWRLoam URLandstill
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
I would go to 18 or 19 lands and add a few Counterspell and one of the Boomerang, Vapor Snag, Echoing Truth cards. It would be nice to have a bounce card when Reanimator drops an early big creature or Echoing Truth for those army of Elves or bouncing an killer Equipment like Batterskull or Swords.
Any idea what the single Fow is for or just budget and cannot afford more? What do you think about using foil, disrupting shoal andmisdirection? How important is Fow in merfolk?
What do you mean by extra turn? I never had any experience with Fow and the like but wouldn't foil be better because you can counter opposing Fow and discard your extra island and Aether vial and daze? (All dead cards later on). Against combo it will probably set back but once you can get a land down you can continue to counter with swan song. Now Shoal seems unstable becuase the only one drop blue we are running is curse catcher or preordain. It's can counter cmc 2 easily but not abrupt decay. Misdirection is very good but for some matchups (abrupt decay and hymn to tourach).
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The deck:
Artifacts
4 Aether Vials
Creature
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Wistful Silkie
2 Phantasmal Image
Spells
4 Daze
4 Preordain
4 Standstill
2 Acquitect's will
Land
17 Island
Silvergill and Merrow Reejerey allows the deck to combo out a lot of merfolks. Preordain stops land flooding. Standstill for even more card draw.
What I want to know is if there is a need to have both Preordain and standstill together? Are there better options to increase kill speed? Any suggestion is welcome. Thanks.
Aquitect's Will seems iffy. You are not doing too much by spending your mana on it. Most opponents in legacy will have islands anyways, and those that don't will be opponents that you want to be doing other things to. I would take them out, as well as the preordains, for some more counter magic. Spell Pierce is probably your best bet. Counterspell could be used too.
Wistful Silkie should probably be replaced. Cold-Eyed Selkie is a better option that serves the same purpose. Cosi's trickster is a great aggressive one drop.
finally, I think you probably want a few more lands. You only have 8 1-drops in the whole deck. 19-20 lands would probably work better for you. It would allow you to play more creatures and get to that key 3 mana more often. This is especially important for a budget merfolk deck, as you will not have force of will to protect yourself when you tap out. You need open mana constantly.
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Suggestions:
+3 Island or Cavern of Souls (pretty light on mana for the 3 mana merfolk)
+3 Counterspell
+1 Merrow Reejerey
-2 Acquitect's Will (legacy has a lot of islands already, might be a better sideboard card)
-4 Preordain (since so many of these cards are essentially interchangeable, probably no need to filter)
-1 Wistful Selkie
I'd also consider cutting the 4 Standstill for some bounce or removal like 2 Vapor Snag / Dismember, and probably a 4th Counterspell and your Selkie back in again. But if Standstill is working well for you then perhaps not!
Other suggestions:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/articles/15122-squandered-resources-blue-and-budget-legacy
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
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Getting Started in Legacy and Legacy Budget Primer 5!
Special thanks to Bornnover for the banner used in those articles.
Sygg, River Cutthroat might also be worth considering for a card draw option as a one or 2 of, it's cheaper and has more toughness than Cold-Eyed Selkie.
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
Also I have updated the deck + sideboard which works much better.
4 AEther Vial
Creature
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Phantasmal Image
3 Daze
4 Preordain
3 Standstill
3 Vapor Snag
3 Divert
Lands
18 Island
3 Chalice of the void
3 Swan Song
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Back to Basics
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Propaganda