9-0 day 1 is very impressive indeed. Unfortunately, in this link he missed a Chalice trigger which has probably turned his game 11 win into a draw.
Just saw that match. It wasn't "just" a Chalice trigger, he played Basics instead of Seas which shuts of his Mutavault, then he didn't even cycle that Seas to try and draw a Lord or something.
He was tilting at that moment, unfortunately. That was sad to watch.
I believe that something is going to be banned in legacy soon so I will wait for that without massive sideboard overhaul.
B2B is not worth it and Venser is probably going in as a solution to Delver and Omni/Show/Lands/Sword of Fire&Ice.
I managed to beat all bad matchups at GP and am having success beating Nic Fit at local level.
The only bad left is Elves and I am not sure how much more can I devote slots to it (main Chalice and Jitte, side Submerge and Dismember).
Round 1 vs Hate Bears, main deck chalice for 1 went to work followed up game 3 with True-Name weilding a Jitte. Game 2 I got stuck on only brown land. 1-0
Round 2 vs Enchantress, game 1 chalice for 1 and 2 put in work to keep him from being able to main Solitary Confinement effectively. Game 2 he killed me with Emrakul. Game 3 he was stuck on 1 land. 2-0
Round 3 vs 4 color control, game 1 just slowly paid dudes and fought over removal. Game 3 he got stuck on 1 land after brainstorm locking himself giving me time to set up and win. 3-0
Round 4 vs Deadguy Ale/Abzan Deathblade, game 1 he just played hymns and other discard so I couldn't get a board presence and did the same thing game 2. 3-1
I am curious how you guys might sideboard against Deadguy Ale, I'm posting my whole list below but I treated it like any other disruption list and took out vials for bigger threats. Game 2 force felt weak as well and thought about maybe having cut those as well or instead. Any advice would be great as I know how to sideboard against the other match up.
Against Hymn.dec set of FoW is the first to go out.
Then I try and see how much one cost spells he have for Chalice sideboarding.
Then I bring in 3 Relic, 2 Submerge and 2 Dismemeber because Confidant needs to die while Relic literally takes out the trash.
In your place I would consider sideing out these cards: Vial, Chalice, Force, Daze (depends on play/draw) and Jitte for Misdirection, Relic, Pierce, Basics, Submerge, Clique, Manriki, Needle.
Can't give exact numbers if I don't know exactly what he plays/what I saw so far in the match.
My guess is that I need cards for Mystic, Confidant, Deathrite, Goyf, Ooze, Equipment and Souls.
YAY! 150th page of Merfolk talk with another 300 on the Source. We could publish a book
Anyone still playing the Standstill version of the deck? I'm planning on going to the SCG Legacy tournament in DC on Aug 8-9. Is the Chalice version strictly better? The playtesting I've done against Omnitell, Lands, and Miracles has gone well. For reference here is my list, any advice is greatly appreciated.
I've been playing Standstill Merfolk in vintage for a while now and also play Merfolk in modern. I have more experience in those two formats than I do in Legacy. Any bit of direction would be awesome!
There's a guy on the source that's a die-hard proponent of Standstill builds. You can see Fanattic and myself debating with him in recent pages over there. I prefer Chalice myself, and Chalice seems to be doing quite well (see the Chalices in the top8 at Lille and Fanattic's Chalice Merfolk finishing at #20 there), but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's strictly better. Part of what makes a deck good is a pilot's familiarity with it. If you only have a few weeks before a large event, and you can't playtest extensively before then, definitely go with what you know. I'm not convinced the power levels of the two builds are different enough to outweigh your own experience with Standstill. If you're coming at it from a blanks slate or had plenty of time to practice though, I'd personally go Chalice. So that's not very helpful, is it?
I used to play a standstill build and I still like it, but having swapped to chalice I notice a huge improvement. It just lets you steal games against certain decks.
If you put down a vial turn 1 and then a standstill on turn 2, you better have a force in hand since those 3 cards are not guaranteed to be forces. Even then if they have force back up the standstill isn't really doing anything. I like the feeling of drawing 3 cards, don't get me wrong but it isn't always enough.
Chalice for 1 on turn 2 shuts off so much of the format and keeps them from getting a better hand which almost every other deck depends on in order to win. We can just play lords and dorky merfolk off the top and start turning sideways. RUG delver needs its cantrips and creatures. If you ever manage to get a chalice on 1 and 2 it is almsot always over since you can just attack with mutas and TNNs for the win while they sit with a ton of dead cards in their hand.
But like Curby said, if you are comfortable with Standstill keep that for now since nothing is worse than losing a match you were gonna win because of misplays or not knowing your deck well enough.
Without having played Chalice in Merfolk in Legacy I knew even before Lille that it is mandatory. Anyone is an idiot to not play chalice. It's the single biggest hosing card in the format that Merfolk can comfortably play alongside it's gameplay. I still criticize anyone who leaves the 4th Chalice in the sideboard. As the most powerful hosing card in the format, why would you leave value there? If it's there in the sideboard then clearly it's coming in for match ups so why not just main it? Especially when its applicable to like 95% of the decks?
2 Crappy Aggro decks made top 8 in Lille playing Chalice main. Did they leave the 4th Chalice in the side?
Additionally an important aspect of Fanatic's list was that it didn't include Daze which meant it more or less gets around the brown mana problem that Legacy decks had. This allowed the deck to play more Cavern of Souls and Wastelands comfortably.
I can only agree with Chalice comments, but familiarity is also important.
Fighting against Standstill is mostly done (if you have to break it) at the end of opponent's turn by playing Brainstorm when he has 7 cards already.
With more instant cards like Harbinger and Clique maybe it is possible to have a good Standstill build without having to discard like at that mentioned scenario.
Additionally, I think Chalice's spot in legacy is too good and any possible Standstill slot should come from some other card. It is possible to play both, but it won't be me who breaks it.
Chalice owns the Legacy and isn't played more just because most decks are locked under it, simple.
I haven't played any Daze for two reasons: people play around it and I have a top heavy list (4 TNN + 2 Reej/Clique + 2 Jitte) so returning a land is detrimental to my plan. In general, I have 12 Islands just like most Merfolk lists, so brown mana wasn't the reason at all. Maybe it should be there to ensure Chalice resolving, but I can't find slots for every deserving card. Each of us has to decide that for themselves.
@Conburnmadman, if you are "at home" with Standstill, by all means, play it in tournaments and inform us how it goes. More data, more stuff to talk about. Just be sure to also test Chalice.
If your testing against those three decks is great than don't change anything and use these 3 weeks to learn everything there is to learn about your deck and legacy meta.
IMO, your main looks ok for Standstill version and your sideboard could probably be changed in Kira (you don't need it in Legacy, Nemesis and Image are our Batman and Robin for special assignments, the rest of our guys are Star Trek red-shirts) and Swan Song (Flusterstorm is maybe better card) slots.
Went 1-2 today (Only 8 players)
I think I played near perfectly against DnT, but he was able to pull it out game 3 with Jitte and was able to race my 2 TrueNames with fliers and Jitte. :\ I lost to DnT 2 weeks ago and the week before and my sideboard plan isn't really help shoring it up (my side looks very similar to FANAttic's, but I didn't play Relics). It really does feel like the only way to beat this matchup is either them not having any Plows or having multiple TrueNames. Yuck. Anyone have a surefire way to beat this deck? I seem to play against it every week.
I also got annihilated by Manaless Dredge. Guess I should have played Relic I obviously got destroyed game 1 and game 2 I had to mulligan poor hands to 4 and consequently still found no sideboard cards. This one seems rough too. Maindeck Chalices do very little against this deck too, darn lol
I beat Storm 2-0 pretty handily though. Maindeck Chalices of course put in a lot of work. Game 1 he had to go for the Empty the Warrens for 10 Goblins, but Merfolk easily beats that and game 2 I just had Chalice for both 1 and 0 with Flusterstorm backup.
Overall, I'm happy with how I played, but I guess my sideboard can be different.
Went 1-2 today (Only 8 players)
I think I played near perfectly against DnT, but he was able to pull it out game 3 with Jitte and was able to race my 2 TrueNames with fliers and Jitte. :\ I lost to DnT 2 weeks ago and the week before and my sideboard plan isn't really help shoring it up (my side looks very similar to FANAttic's, but I didn't play Relics). It really does feel like the only way to beat this matchup is either them not having any Plows or having multiple TrueNames. Yuck. Anyone have a surefire way to beat this deck? I seem to play against it every week.
Sadly, there isn't really one. You just have to be really careful with your counters, play TNNs and hope they get bad hands. I have played against DnT at least twenty times and I've won maybe twice. Unfortunately it is just a bad matchup - at least in my experience.
edit - I might be a bit late to the discussion but I am a huge supporter of Wastelands in this deck. I have always played a 3/3/3 split of Cavern/Wasteland/Mutavault with 11-13 Islands, and it has always been fantastic.
I've always found the tough matches to be DnT, Jund, and Elves. Does that sound about right to you, FANAttIC? Everything else doesn't give me too much trouble unless I get very unlucky. Jund just has way too much removal, and Elves is too hard to interact with consistenty while they set up their winning board state. Having Chalices does help vs. Elves but generally I feel it is an unfavorable matchup. Nic Fit is also bad, and is starting to gain a bit more traction in my meta but I managed to beat it the last time it popped up.
Congratulations on your finish at GP Lille, it is encouraging to see the deck doing so well!
Only changes I have made to the MB since I made top 8 of Australian Eternal Masters last year was moving Dismember to the sideboard, and I'm testing Master of Waves and Thassa. Both have overperformed so far. I think I need to shore up the SB a little bit, but it seems to be working. Would like an extra graveyard-hate card and another Chalice in there, though.
IMO, before Lille I was concerned about D&T, Elves and Lands. Goblins and Nic Fit are also bad matchups, but not many people play that (and I even won against the latter three times in a row at a local tournament, copying stuff like Magister of Worth, Grave Titan and other b***hit while dodging Deed can be fun to a point). Goblins mostly died out so that is good. Dodged Elves luckilly.
I managed to dismantle two Lands and two D&T because my list was more aggro oriented and I had all solutions in the world against Lands (Pithing Needle, Echoing Truth, Submerge, Relic, TNN) so Lands is off that list.
Echoing an equipped Sword of Fire&Ice in the middle of combat is major shift against D&T. Connecting once with a Jitte means a massacre against all those one toughness creatures. Still not good but I like our position in meta when mostly fringe decks are bad for us.
CharlieD, could you please give a link to that Masters event? I want to see the top8 lists.
2 questions, how did you found the room for Waves, Thassa, 4 Daze (only 11 Islands), 3 Reej, Siege, Misdirection, Crypt, Seas?
And when do you side in Crypts and Misdirections?
Relic of Progenitus eats Jund for breakfast (Goyf, Ooze, Punishing Fire, Lavamancer, Deathrite Shaman, whatever they play is destroyed by my favorite card. I am not saying Jund is a cakewalk, just not a deck to put in a bad matchups list (we have or can have any number of Relic, Submerge and Dismember to fight them).
Having 0 Relics and only 2 Chalices in the side is my biggest concern.
I am most likely going to switch back to Relic, but Crypt was in because of a huge surge in Reanimator decks in my meta over the last few weeks. It paid off, as last week I played against two in rounds 3 and 4. Spreading Seas is also a new thing I'm trying out as I used to run Aquitect's Will instead as a way of getting around DnT and Elves (Just rolling over them for lethal because they don't really interact) but it doesn't work great due to Flickerwisp and the multiple Elf land-bounce creatures.
I love Merrow Reejerey but it does tend to be the first thing I sideboard out. I find if I have one down I usually win the game within a turn of it coming down, though. It does so much work.
Master of Waves and Thassa were Dismember, as Delver was a huge thing in my local meta last year and I wanted to have ways of dealing with it for game 1. There is a lot of RDW in my meta, too, so Misdirections are for that. 4 Daze is just what I've always played, never really had a problem with them at all.
Unfortunately no lists were posted for the top 8 of the Legacy event, only the Vintage event, and I was super annoyed about it! Top 8 was, from what I can remember, a Bant midrange deck, a few UR Delver decks, a BUG Delver deck and a sweet mono-R Sneak Attack brew. I beat BUG Delver in the QFs then lost to UR Delver in the semis. My run that day was 2-0 BUG Delver, 1-2 UR Delver, 2-0 OmniShow, 2-0 Sneak and Show, 2-0 RDW, 2-0 UR Delver.
I do like the Echoing Truth, would Chain of Vapor be easier to cast? I would also be running Flusterstorm over Spell Pierce if I had them, but the exchange rate in Australia to the USD is so garbage right now, it isn't a good idea for me to buy them.
I have gone with three Chalice main and added a reejerey main in place of the standstills. I've also dropped swan song to a one of in the side and increased relic to a three of in the board.
My next question is whether I should keep the one pierce main or replace it with either another reejerey or jitte. I like all three because I feel like they all have their places. I like reejerey letting me go up to 26 creatures and I also like jitte because of what it can do against a lot of decks and what it does to SFM. Not sure what I'll end up doing with that slot. In my experience as a player pierce has always done awesome work.
Is there a place where I can find meta breakdowns and information about decks in the format? Looking to digest as much as I can before the tourney. Legacy is something I want to start playing a lot more of in the future. Seems like a fun format plus, I get to play Merfolk!
@CharlieD
From what you said about your meta Chalices in the main would be brutal.
By the time you need to cast the Truth one or two mana is not that important, while Truth saves you from 14 Goblins on the first turn, all the Dredge crap like Narcomoeba, Ichorid or zombie tokens, Lingering Souls tokens, Entreat tokens, saving multiple of your guys from mass removal (it can save TNNs against -x/-x effects) and all of that through Chalice on 1 if you decide to play it.
Flusterstorm is the same thing. Cheap counterspell that work even if Chalice is out and Show&Tell player is armed with multiple counters.
I didn't even know that Flusterstorms are so expensive. Bought them awhile back from dealers at GP when they were "only" 14 euros.
@Conburnmadman
I am not saying you are making a mistake for playing Standstill over Chalice, just stating my opinion on what works for me. Maybe you have different playstyle and enough experience with it so that you should run it.
You know your sitation best.
If you switched to Chalice for sure than maybe Pierce should go for 1 Jitte. You will play against Mystic and then you will be glad to have a search target. Not like having 1 Jitte is bad plan in general. It can even help in killing Monastery Mentor that new Miracles are packing.
@FANAttIC by no means was I taking your comments to mean that I was doing anything wrong. The comments about free wins is what swayed my thinking. Coming from a mostly modern background I know how cards that give free wins, ie Blood Moon, can be a huge advantage. Because of the way Merfolk is setup, it only make sense that a card that hoses 1cmc spells in a format where 85% of cards are 1cmc would be good. Our curve lets us play a spell that doesn't hurt us but crushes other decks...seems like a no brainer to me. I'll check those sites out and soak up as much info as I can. I watched the videos of that german player, D.S., and learned a bunch.
It's interesting to hear the MU analysis with D&T. D&T is my main deck, though I have a lot of love for Merfs as well. The MU used to be highly in D&T's favor, back when it ran maindeck Cataclysms and Merfolk didn't have TNN. Now it's actually swung heavily back towards center, and Merfolk can be slightly advantaged depending on builds (and draw luck). The number of TNN copies you can field determines whether you'll win or lose. D&T only runs 1-2 Council's Judgment, and only in games 2-3. Make sure you have enough Lords to prevent a sideboarded Holy Light from wiping you out. It's partially because of Merfolk that I'm considering Ghostly Prison (or Moat if I can find one cheap) in the side.
It's interesting to hear the MU analysis with D&T. D&T is my main deck, though I have a lot of love for Merfs as well. The MU used to be highly in D&T's favor, back when it ran maindeck Cataclysms and Merfolk didn't have TNN. Now it's actually swung heavily back towards center, and Merfolk can be slightly advantaged depending on builds (and draw luck). The number of TNN copies you can field determines whether you'll win or lose. D&T only runs 1-2 Council's Judgment, and only in games 2-3. Make sure you have enough Lords to prevent a sideboarded Holy Light from wiping you out. It's partially because of Merfolk that I'm considering Ghostly Prison (or Moat if I can find one cheap) in the side.
I've played vs DnT quite a bit and that's fine, but the main problem is our only true hope in the matchup is True Name (and Image copying TrueNames) and the occasional win you'll get with Jitte. The fact is they have more ways to beat the rest of our deck (In other words, our actual relevant threat density is lower than theirs). I played a game yesterday where I had a ton of Silvergills in my opener to hope to draw into some TrueNames, but it didn't happen: Instead I draw a lot of Lords and Cursecatchers, which were quickly mowed down by SoFi and Jitte: I'm almost certain I would have beaten any other deck with that hand. Their fliers are really hard to interact with, They have SoFi (which is searchable; they only really need to get one or two hits in to devastate us), on top of Council's Judgment and Jitte.
Another note: I've had Image copy Stoneforge to get Manriki-Gusari and tried that a few times, but it was always too slow because the Stoneforge already grabbed the Sword or Jitte and it came down quicker and annihilated my creatures before I could even attach it. Your only hope at that point would be to have a TrueName, but that's really mana and card intensive isn't it? I'm wanting to try Tower of the Magistrate next, but who knows how effective that will be with all the Ports and Wastelands that deck runs. I might have to accept that as a 15-20% matchup. Maybe, I'm just unlucky, but my opponents ALWAYS have Mom turn 1 so I'm starting to doubt the effectiveness of Dismember in the board too.
Yeah, seems very swingy and draw-dependent, which isn't too surprising given that neither deck plays Brainstorm, Ponder, and Dig. Perhaps the unpredictability adds to the varying analyses on the MU. I mostly wanted to note that it doesn't necessarily seem thoroughly positive from the D&T perspective either, judging from both my own as well as other players' experiences. Weird.
Yeah, seems very swingy and draw-dependent, which isn't too surprising given that neither deck plays Brainstorm, Ponder, and Dig. Perhaps the unpredictability adds to the varying analyses on the MU. I mostly wanted to note that it doesn't necessarily seem thoroughly positive from the D&T perspective either, judging from both my own as well as other players' experiences. Weird.
I can definitely agree with that. I can also definitely say we always put up a fight in the matchup.
We have 7 Progenituses, they have 4 Stoneforges. They don't always draw one to have 85-15 matchup.
When they do they have to resolve the Mystic and do all other operations to connect.
Even then we are not sitting idly and waiting to be killed. Mutavault can take one for the team if they have ground creature equipped with SoF&I. Well placed Echoing Truth can win us the time. Image can copy Flickerwisp inside combat and remove SoF&I from equation.
All of this is enough distraction to pile up on Lords on the table and do something.
They are also greedy with their monocolor manabase, Ports and Wastes don't help casting stuff and Karakas can be wasted.
This is not comparable to Owling Mine vs Zoo and it will never be.
We have 7 Progenituses, they have 4 Stoneforges. They don't always draw one to have 85-15 matchup.
When they do they have to resolve the Mystic and do all other operations to connect.
Even then we are not sitting idly and waiting to be killed. Mutavault can take one for the team if they have ground creature equipped with SoF&I. Well placed Echoing Truth can win us the time. Image can copy Flickerwisp inside combat and remove SoF&I from equation.
All of this is enough distraction to pile up on Lords on the table and do something.
They are also greedy with their monocolor manabase, Ports and Wastes don't help casting stuff and Karakas can be wasted.
This is not comparable to Owling Mine vs Zoo and it will never be.
I treat Image as running half of every creature in our deck because it will only be a specific creature when you need it to be and you won't always have the creature you need it to be. As such, we only have 6 plus the Jitte(s). It isn't just about them having Stoneforge, they have fliers and Jitte and SoFi as relevant threats whereas many of our Merfolk are duds in the face of Mother of Runes. They have more relevant threats than us.
Echoing Truth is also a one-of and we certainly can't rely on it. I didn't draw my copy yesterday but I definitely wish I did. Image can also only copy in Combat if you have a Vial out. This also doesn't factor in their 4 Swords to Plowshares. This matchup is REALLY hard lol
Also you can argue our manabase is somewhat greedy too with all of the Wastelands, Mutavaults, and Caverns.
All this being said, I'm pretty sure its winnable, just very hard and often a toss up (Example being the opponent had Jitte AND Fliers game 3. If he did not, he most certainly WOULD NOT have won).
I am also curious about Standstill in my metagame. Maybe I'll try a list with some of those again next week. I wasn't disappointed with it in the past, but I ultimately took them out for Chalice of the Voids (and the Chalices haven't exactly overperformed in my specific metagame; That being said I'd play Chalice 100% of the time at a bigger event).
Just saw that match. It wasn't "just" a Chalice trigger, he played Basics instead of Seas which shuts of his Mutavault, then he didn't even cycle that Seas to try and draw a Lord or something.
He was tilting at that moment, unfortunately. That was sad to watch.
B2B is not worth it and Venser is probably going in as a solution to Delver and Omni/Show/Lands/Sword of Fire&Ice.
I managed to beat all bad matchups at GP and am having success beating Nic Fit at local level.
The only bad left is Elves and I am not sure how much more can I devote slots to it (main Chalice and Jitte, side Submerge and Dismember).
Round 1 vs Hate Bears, main deck chalice for 1 went to work followed up game 3 with True-Name weilding a Jitte. Game 2 I got stuck on only brown land. 1-0
Round 2 vs Enchantress, game 1 chalice for 1 and 2 put in work to keep him from being able to main Solitary Confinement effectively. Game 2 he killed me with Emrakul. Game 3 he was stuck on 1 land. 2-0
Round 3 vs 4 color control, game 1 just slowly paid dudes and fought over removal. Game 3 he got stuck on 1 land after brainstorm locking himself giving me time to set up and win. 3-0
Round 4 vs Deadguy Ale/Abzan Deathblade, game 1 he just played hymns and other discard so I couldn't get a board presence and did the same thing game 2. 3-1
I am curious how you guys might sideboard against Deadguy Ale, I'm posting my whole list below but I treated it like any other disruption list and took out vials for bigger threats. Game 2 force felt weak as well and thought about maybe having cut those as well or instead. Any advice would be great as I know how to sideboard against the other match up.
1 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
12 Island
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cursecatcher
4 True-Name Nemesis
3 Phantasmal Image
2 Merrow Reejerey
4 Aether Vial
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Echoing Truth
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
1 Back to Basics
1 Cursed Totem
1 Hydroblast
1 Submerge
1 Ensnare
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Pithing Needle
1 Echoing Truth
I am likely cutting the hydroblast for a 4th chalice in the side, I know my list is kind of all over the place
UMerfolkU
Legacy
UMerfolkU
Commander
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB
Then I try and see how much one cost spells he have for Chalice sideboarding.
Then I bring in 3 Relic, 2 Submerge and 2 Dismemeber because Confidant needs to die while Relic literally takes out the trash.
In your place I would consider sideing out these cards: Vial, Chalice, Force, Daze (depends on play/draw) and Jitte for Misdirection, Relic, Pierce, Basics, Submerge, Clique, Manriki, Needle.
Can't give exact numbers if I don't know exactly what he plays/what I saw so far in the match.
My guess is that I need cards for Mystic, Confidant, Deathrite, Goyf, Ooze, Equipment and Souls.
YAY! 150th page of Merfolk talk with another 300 on the Source. We could publish a book
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Silvergill Adept
4 True-Name Nemesis
Enchantment (4)
4 Standstill
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Spell Pierce
Land (20)
3 Cavern of Souls
13 Island
4 Mutavault
Artifact (4)
4 AEther Vial
2 Dismember
2 Echoing Truth
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Submerge
2 Swan Song
1 Umezawa's Jitte
I've been playing Standstill Merfolk in vintage for a while now and also play Merfolk in modern. I have more experience in those two formats than I do in Legacy. Any bit of direction would be awesome!
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
If you put down a vial turn 1 and then a standstill on turn 2, you better have a force in hand since those 3 cards are not guaranteed to be forces. Even then if they have force back up the standstill isn't really doing anything. I like the feeling of drawing 3 cards, don't get me wrong but it isn't always enough.
Chalice for 1 on turn 2 shuts off so much of the format and keeps them from getting a better hand which almost every other deck depends on in order to win. We can just play lords and dorky merfolk off the top and start turning sideways. RUG delver needs its cantrips and creatures. If you ever manage to get a chalice on 1 and 2 it is almsot always over since you can just attack with mutas and TNNs for the win while they sit with a ton of dead cards in their hand.
But like Curby said, if you are comfortable with Standstill keep that for now since nothing is worse than losing a match you were gonna win because of misplays or not knowing your deck well enough.
UMerfolkU
Legacy
UMerfolkU
Commander
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB
2 Crappy Aggro decks made top 8 in Lille playing Chalice main. Did they leave the 4th Chalice in the side?
Additionally an important aspect of Fanatic's list was that it didn't include Daze which meant it more or less gets around the brown mana problem that Legacy decks had. This allowed the deck to play more Cavern of Souls and Wastelands comfortably.
Fighting against Standstill is mostly done (if you have to break it) at the end of opponent's turn by playing Brainstorm when he has 7 cards already.
With more instant cards like Harbinger and Clique maybe it is possible to have a good Standstill build without having to discard like at that mentioned scenario.
Additionally, I think Chalice's spot in legacy is too good and any possible Standstill slot should come from some other card. It is possible to play both, but it won't be me who breaks it.
Chalice owns the Legacy and isn't played more just because most decks are locked under it, simple.
I haven't played any Daze for two reasons: people play around it and I have a top heavy list (4 TNN + 2 Reej/Clique + 2 Jitte) so returning a land is detrimental to my plan. In general, I have 12 Islands just like most Merfolk lists, so brown mana wasn't the reason at all. Maybe it should be there to ensure Chalice resolving, but I can't find slots for every deserving card. Each of us has to decide that for themselves.
@Conburnmadman, if you are "at home" with Standstill, by all means, play it in tournaments and inform us how it goes. More data, more stuff to talk about. Just be sure to also test Chalice.
If your testing against those three decks is great than don't change anything and use these 3 weeks to learn everything there is to learn about your deck and legacy meta.
IMO, your main looks ok for Standstill version and your sideboard could probably be changed in Kira (you don't need it in Legacy, Nemesis and Image are our Batman and Robin for special assignments, the rest of our guys are Star Trek red-shirts) and Swan Song (Flusterstorm is maybe better card) slots.
I think I played near perfectly against DnT, but he was able to pull it out game 3 with Jitte and was able to race my 2 TrueNames with fliers and Jitte. :\ I lost to DnT 2 weeks ago and the week before and my sideboard plan isn't really help shoring it up (my side looks very similar to FANAttic's, but I didn't play Relics). It really does feel like the only way to beat this matchup is either them not having any Plows or having multiple TrueNames. Yuck. Anyone have a surefire way to beat this deck? I seem to play against it every week.
I also got annihilated by Manaless Dredge. Guess I should have played Relic I obviously got destroyed game 1 and game 2 I had to mulligan poor hands to 4 and consequently still found no sideboard cards. This one seems rough too. Maindeck Chalices do very little against this deck too, darn lol
I beat Storm 2-0 pretty handily though. Maindeck Chalices of course put in a lot of work. Game 1 he had to go for the Empty the Warrens for 10 Goblins, but Merfolk easily beats that and game 2 I just had Chalice for both 1 and 0 with Flusterstorm backup.
Overall, I'm happy with how I played, but I guess my sideboard can be different.
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
Sadly, there isn't really one. You just have to be really careful with your counters, play TNNs and hope they get bad hands. I have played against DnT at least twenty times and I've won maybe twice. Unfortunately it is just a bad matchup - at least in my experience.
edit - I might be a bit late to the discussion but I am a huge supporter of Wastelands in this deck. I have always played a 3/3/3 split of Cavern/Wasteland/Mutavault with 11-13 Islands, and it has always been fantastic.
Congratulations on your finish at GP Lille, it is encouraging to see the deck doing so well!
My current list:
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Wasteland
11 Island
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 True-Name Nemesis
3 Phantasmal Image
3 Merrow Reejerey
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Master of Waves
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Echoing Truth
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
2 Dismember
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Monastery Seige
1 Pithing Needle
Only changes I have made to the MB since I made top 8 of Australian Eternal Masters last year was moving Dismember to the sideboard, and I'm testing Master of Waves and Thassa. Both have overperformed so far. I think I need to shore up the SB a little bit, but it seems to be working. Would like an extra graveyard-hate card and another Chalice in there, though.
IMO, before Lille I was concerned about D&T, Elves and Lands. Goblins and Nic Fit are also bad matchups, but not many people play that (and I even won against the latter three times in a row at a local tournament, copying stuff like Magister of Worth, Grave Titan and other b***hit while dodging Deed can be fun to a point). Goblins mostly died out so that is good. Dodged Elves luckilly.
I managed to dismantle two Lands and two D&T because my list was more aggro oriented and I had all solutions in the world against Lands (Pithing Needle, Echoing Truth, Submerge, Relic, TNN) so Lands is off that list.
Echoing an equipped Sword of Fire&Ice in the middle of combat is major shift against D&T. Connecting once with a Jitte means a massacre against all those one toughness creatures. Still not good but I like our position in meta when mostly fringe decks are bad for us.
CharlieD, could you please give a link to that Masters event? I want to see the top8 lists.
2 questions, how did you found the room for Waves, Thassa, 4 Daze (only 11 Islands), 3 Reej, Siege, Misdirection, Crypt, Seas?
And when do you side in Crypts and Misdirections?
Relic of Progenitus eats Jund for breakfast (Goyf, Ooze, Punishing Fire, Lavamancer, Deathrite Shaman, whatever they play is destroyed by my favorite card. I am not saying Jund is a cakewalk, just not a deck to put in a bad matchups list (we have or can have any number of Relic, Submerge and Dismember to fight them).
Having 0 Relics and only 2 Chalices in the side is my biggest concern.
I love Merrow Reejerey but it does tend to be the first thing I sideboard out. I find if I have one down I usually win the game within a turn of it coming down, though. It does so much work.
Master of Waves and Thassa were Dismember, as Delver was a huge thing in my local meta last year and I wanted to have ways of dealing with it for game 1. There is a lot of RDW in my meta, too, so Misdirections are for that. 4 Daze is just what I've always played, never really had a problem with them at all.
Unfortunately no lists were posted for the top 8 of the Legacy event, only the Vintage event, and I was super annoyed about it! Top 8 was, from what I can remember, a Bant midrange deck, a few UR Delver decks, a BUG Delver deck and a sweet mono-R Sneak Attack brew. I beat BUG Delver in the QFs then lost to UR Delver in the semis. My run that day was 2-0 BUG Delver, 1-2 UR Delver, 2-0 OmniShow, 2-0 Sneak and Show, 2-0 RDW, 2-0 UR Delver.
I do like the Echoing Truth, would Chain of Vapor be easier to cast? I would also be running Flusterstorm over Spell Pierce if I had them, but the exchange rate in Australia to the USD is so garbage right now, it isn't a good idea for me to buy them.
My next question is whether I should keep the one pierce main or replace it with either another reejerey or jitte. I like all three because I feel like they all have their places. I like reejerey letting me go up to 26 creatures and I also like jitte because of what it can do against a lot of decks and what it does to SFM. Not sure what I'll end up doing with that slot. In my experience as a player pierce has always done awesome work.
Is there a place where I can find meta breakdowns and information about decks in the format? Looking to digest as much as I can before the tourney. Legacy is something I want to start playing a lot more of in the future. Seems like a fun format plus, I get to play Merfolk!
From what you said about your meta Chalices in the main would be brutal.
By the time you need to cast the Truth one or two mana is not that important, while Truth saves you from 14 Goblins on the first turn, all the Dredge crap like Narcomoeba, Ichorid or zombie tokens, Lingering Souls tokens, Entreat tokens, saving multiple of your guys from mass removal (it can save TNNs against -x/-x effects) and all of that through Chalice on 1 if you decide to play it.
Flusterstorm is the same thing. Cheap counterspell that work even if Chalice is out and Show&Tell player is armed with multiple counters.
I didn't even know that Flusterstorms are so expensive. Bought them awhile back from dealers at GP when they were "only" 14 euros.
@Conburnmadman
I am not saying you are making a mistake for playing Standstill over Chalice, just stating my opinion on what works for me. Maybe you have different playstyle and enough experience with it so that you should run it.
You know your sitation best.
If you switched to Chalice for sure than maybe Pierce should go for 1 Jitte. You will play against Mystic and then you will be glad to have a search target. Not like having 1 Jitte is bad plan in general. It can even help in killing Monastery Mentor that new Miracles are packing.
These three have a wide range of covered events:
http://www.mtgpulse.com/events-legacy
http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE
http://tcdecks.net/
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
I've played vs DnT quite a bit and that's fine, but the main problem is our only true hope in the matchup is True Name (and Image copying TrueNames) and the occasional win you'll get with Jitte. The fact is they have more ways to beat the rest of our deck (In other words, our actual relevant threat density is lower than theirs). I played a game yesterday where I had a ton of Silvergills in my opener to hope to draw into some TrueNames, but it didn't happen: Instead I draw a lot of Lords and Cursecatchers, which were quickly mowed down by SoFi and Jitte: I'm almost certain I would have beaten any other deck with that hand. Their fliers are really hard to interact with, They have SoFi (which is searchable; they only really need to get one or two hits in to devastate us), on top of Council's Judgment and Jitte.
Another note: I've had Image copy Stoneforge to get Manriki-Gusari and tried that a few times, but it was always too slow because the Stoneforge already grabbed the Sword or Jitte and it came down quicker and annihilated my creatures before I could even attach it. Your only hope at that point would be to have a TrueName, but that's really mana and card intensive isn't it? I'm wanting to try Tower of the Magistrate next, but who knows how effective that will be with all the Ports and Wastelands that deck runs. I might have to accept that as a 15-20% matchup. Maybe, I'm just unlucky, but my opponents ALWAYS have Mom turn 1 so I'm starting to doubt the effectiveness of Dismember in the board too.
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
I can definitely agree with that. I can also definitely say we always put up a fight in the matchup.
What are everyone's thoughts on Waterfront Bouncer? I noticed one in this list:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10055&d=257990&f=LE
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
When they do they have to resolve the Mystic and do all other operations to connect.
Even then we are not sitting idly and waiting to be killed. Mutavault can take one for the team if they have ground creature equipped with SoF&I. Well placed Echoing Truth can win us the time. Image can copy Flickerwisp inside combat and remove SoF&I from equation.
All of this is enough distraction to pile up on Lords on the table and do something.
They are also greedy with their monocolor manabase, Ports and Wastes don't help casting stuff and Karakas can be wasted.
This is not comparable to Owling Mine vs Zoo and it will never be.
I treat Image as running half of every creature in our deck because it will only be a specific creature when you need it to be and you won't always have the creature you need it to be. As such, we only have 6 plus the Jitte(s). It isn't just about them having Stoneforge, they have fliers and Jitte and SoFi as relevant threats whereas many of our Merfolk are duds in the face of Mother of Runes. They have more relevant threats than us.
Echoing Truth is also a one-of and we certainly can't rely on it. I didn't draw my copy yesterday but I definitely wish I did. Image can also only copy in Combat if you have a Vial out. This also doesn't factor in their 4 Swords to Plowshares. This matchup is REALLY hard lol
Also you can argue our manabase is somewhat greedy too with all of the Wastelands, Mutavaults, and Caverns.
All this being said, I'm pretty sure its winnable, just very hard and often a toss up (Example being the opponent had Jitte AND Fliers game 3. If he did not, he most certainly WOULD NOT have won).
I am also curious about Standstill in my metagame. Maybe I'll try a list with some of those again next week. I wasn't disappointed with it in the past, but I ultimately took them out for Chalice of the Voids (and the Chalices haven't exactly overperformed in my specific metagame; That being said I'd play Chalice 100% of the time at a bigger event).
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX