Filling the sideboard with lands like Tectonic Edge can be ok in Modern. Legacy is too large for Wastelands to do the same.
Every side slot is a premium here and I would rather have "ugly" looking decklist with some Wastelands in the main.
Removing all artifacts is a mistake. They have 1 C. Judgment in the main and 1 Wear//Tear in the side as artifact removal.
It may look like a lot with 2 Snapcaster and 2 Dig but that is what (in my opinion) 3 Relic in the sideboard should deal with.
As you said, they still have 20-ish one drops for Chalice and sorcery speed removal like C. Judgment, S. Verdict, E. Explosives + counterspells to safely remove Vial.
If you insist on your plan at least leave one Jitte to be found with Image.
Filling the sideboard with lands like Tectonic Edge can be ok in Modern. Legacy is too large for Wastelands to do the same.
Every side slot is a premium here and I would rather have "ugly" looking decklist with some Wastelands in the main.
Removing all artifacts is a mistake. They have 1 C. Judgment in the main and 1 Wear//Tear in the side as artifact removal.
It may look like a lot with 2 Snapcaster and 2 Dig but that is what (in my opinion) 3 Relic in the sideboard should deal with.
As you said, they still have 20-ish one drops for Chalice and sorcery speed removal like C. Judgment, S. Verdict, E. Explosives + counterspells to safely remove Vial.
If you insist on your plan at least leave one Jitte to be found with Image.
In my previous session I had a Phantasmal Image every game my opponent played a Stoneforge and it was useless. It was close to impossible to get going because it requires a creature in play and even when getting in for damage it could not deal with True-Name or Batterskull that they fetched with their Stoneforge. It just felt very underwhelming and clunky. Maybe I'm wrong but does it really interact with them at all or is it just for lifegain? It had a similar effect as Aether Vial where you have this card sitting on the battlefield not doing anything. In the future I'll try Chalice again.
In regards to Wasteland I would rather have 4 in the 75. Either its great (which of course it is) or it's not.
3 Wasteland
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Mutavault
12 Island
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Harbinger of the Tides
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Aether Vial
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
I removed a Vial, Mutavault, and Cavern. But now I fear the mana might be awkward casting UU spells. Wasteland does slow games down a bit to help us draw out of mana screw though.
A really good question, Wasteland's power level has been chopped down thanks to delve, how good is for us? Against what match ups does it shine?
Wasteland is good mostly as an out to Glacial Chasm, Grove of the Burnwillows and delaying Marit Lage against Lands. Not much else at the moment.
It's not easy manascrewing D&T, Miracles, S&T, Omni, Elves, Ant, Tes, Goblins, mirror, Enchantress, Reanimator, Dredge, All Spells, Belcher, Grindstone, High Tide, Loam decks...
Good against Delver variants, but I would rather resolve Chalice and have Jitte going.
If this is your plan then I would suggest -1 Wasteland, +1 Cavern or Island. We have enough power now to not waste (pun intended) our time disrupting them rather then progressing our board.
At least this is my opinion.
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Harbinger of the Tides
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
Sideboard:
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Flusterstorm
3 Swan Song
3 Wasteland
2 Dismember
I like how pretty the mainboard is The sideboard is still way up in the air.
Just an update, I played 5-6 fresh new games vs Jeskai Stoneblade today. The match was way closer, I was not steamrolled at all or I ground out wins. The sample is super small of course but I'll explain the strategy:
I sided out all the artifacts this time around:
-4 Chalice of the Void (probably okay but removing all artifacts made his artifact removal dead in his deck)
-4 Aether Vial (just dead in this attrition match up)
-2 Umezawa's Jitte (Hard to get online when he's killing each creature one at a time. Also mana intensive)
In:
+2 Relic of Progenitus (you can crack in response to removal)
+2 Dismember
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Swan Song
+3 Wastelands (The most unexpected game changer. Either he plays duals, which in unavoidable sometimes, or he fetches basics. The Basics made my opponent's entire game plan way less flexible. For example U,U,W,R cannot even cast Supreme Verdict but he'll want double blue for Dig Through Time or casting multiple cantrips in the same turn. Wastelanding lands helped prevent him from hard casting Batterskull or Supreme Verdict. The threat of being Wastelanded slowed my opponent's game plan to our speed.)
I could be wrong about removing Chalice as he's still playing Pyroblast, Swords to Plowshares, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Bolt. It just felt so bad when he had an answer to it every game, or could Dig Through Time for one. Therefore I preferred to leave my opponent with dead cards in the deck.
Just throwing it out there for critique. Plus maybe people can give me some better sideboard ideas. My sideboard for example might not be balanced overall for the Legacy metagame for all I know. I'm also coming around to trying out Echoing Truth but it needs to be a 2x or I'm not going to bother with it
Glad to see you're getting more involved in Legacy
Some comments on your sideboard:
- with sneak and show gone, flusterstorm is much better than swan song. Easy swap IMO.
- given how the metagame evolved in the past year, I would also replace 1 cage by the 3rd relic. Relic is great agains DRS/goyf and Lands and better against Storm, and you want to draw as many copies as possible. Cage is only better against Elves and Dredge, and I feel that has become too narrow.
- i have to agree with fanattic, I don't think all these wasteland are worth it in the SB. I think the effect is powerful enough to deserve a couple of slots in the MD, but it's really just a tool to beat some cards, not an alternative plan. If you play 4 vial main, you can afford to play 2 wastelands out of your 21 lands (hmm, actually if you play that many harbinger, maybe you can afford to play only one...)
Given you build, I'd play 4 Cavern, 4 mutavault, 1 wasteland and 12 islands. And 4 vials please with all these harbingers :)!
I personally really like to fit 2 cliques in the 75: it's great against stoneforge, it's greats against show and tell, and it's great against miracles. This card is just so much better in Legacy than in Modern.
My two cents on how to SB vs stoneblade:
- I think you are over-boarding. I would keep all four chalice, I like it much better than swan song or flusterstorm. I would board out 1 image, 1 force for 2 dismember, and 1 jitte for 1 relic (maybe a second, but 3 feels like to much for me with chalice). Good sideboard cards in this matchup are cliques and venser: threats + distruption is exactly what they don't want to see.
Also, in Legacy, you want to keep Vial much more often post board than in Modern (I sometimes board out 1, max 2 in extreme circumstances - boarding out all of them is completely out of the question). It's because, relative to other decks, our deck is SO MUCH MORE clunky in this format. Even against control decks like stoneblade, we need vial to keep up with their flurry of one mana spells. Vial is our chance to play more than 1 spell per turn. Again, play four in the maindeck...
How about some mix of Lord of Atlantis and Cursecatchers for 1x Pithing Needle and 2 Dismember? This is what I would do, but I'm new to Legacy. Is that terrible?
I think Needle is a clean answer to Sword of Fire and Ice, but I don't think Stoneblade would run that. I'm always on the fence with regards to needle, sometimes it's the best draw, sometimes it's the worst.
I would definitely keep lords and cursecatcher. I think image and harbinger are cleary worse in this matchups.
How about some mix of Lord of Atlantis and Cursecatchers for 1x Pithing Needle and 2 Dismember? This is what I would do, but I'm new to Legacy. Is that terrible?
Your main target is Stoneforge with this plan? I wouldn't dilute my deck for that as long as they don't have SoF&I in 75. Batterskull is dealt with TNN and we also have Jitte for their copy, but we have 7 TNN and they have 1 or 2. Maybe that is easy to say since I also have 2 Vendillion in the main for their equipment.
I agree with the comment on swan song vs. flusterstorm. With the Chalice build and the reduction in enchantment-based decks in the meta, swan song just feels so terrible. Last legacy night I got crushed by omnitell. G1 he T3 SnT with protection for my force (oh well, that happens). G2 I had both swan song and chalice in hand, decided to play the chalice (because I usually expect them to need to cantrip harder), and lost to another T3 SnT that I couldn't stop with the useless swan song in hand. Might not have Just Died had that been a flusterstorm.
I'll reiterate my recommendation to pack 2x null rod in the sideboard. It's one of the most disruptive things we can have at our disposal against SFM and SDT decks. When I did run pithing needle, I was most often naming some artifact *anyway*. Again, I don't like bringing in Relic against UWr stoneblade in the first place, especially if you've got null rods. It's not really impactful enough. In practice, null rod and vial don't play against each other nearly as much as you might expect from just reading the cards, because it's not too difficult to time the null rod until after you've gotten most of the value from vial. Also, it's almost guaranteed that whatever artifact your opponnent has is way way better than our vials.
Yeah, Chalice is huge vs. Delver and good against nearly all other blue decks. It's also very good against Burn and Elves. It's not so great against decks like D&T.
If D&T is really that big in your meta, maybe you could consider maindeck slots for Dismember and Umezawa's Jitte?
I used to play Dismember main but moved it to SB to try out Chalice, but I think I'll switch back. I have always played at least one Jitte main. One thing I did want to try to get around the DnT that is very heavily represented in my meta was a black splash for Virtue's Ruin out of the board (Also provides Perish v Elves/Jund, Thoughtseize) but it feels a bit clunky. I also don't want to buy underground seas - which admittedly isn't an issue as I can easily borrow them/play Urborg instead.
Edit: Didn't see this whole new page
Wasteland is just so insanely good. The 3/3/3 split is perfect and I recommend everybody tries it out. It is great against DnT as it can keep them off Karakas/Cavern tricks, it is amazing against Delver as it ruins their mana and forces them to use extremely limited manabases. Wasteland won me the match this week against Stoneblade - I wasted two Tundras, she had no white mana and three Swords to Plowshares in hand. It is the most aggressive tempo card in the deck, aside from Daze.
Glad to see you're getting more involved in Legacy
Some comments on your sideboard:
- with sneak and show gone, flusterstorm is much better than swan song. Easy swap IMO.
- given how the metagame evolved in the past year, I would also replace 1 cage by the 3rd relic. Relic is great agains DRS/goyf and Lands and better against Storm, and you want to draw as many copies as possible. Cage is only better against Elves and Dredge, and I feel that has become too narrow.
- i have to agree with fanattic, I don't think all these wasteland are worth it in the SB. I think the effect is powerful enough to deserve a couple of slots in the MD, but it's really just a tool to beat some cards, not an alternative plan. If you play 4 vial main, you can afford to play 2 wastelands out of your 21 lands (hmm, actually if you play that many harbinger, maybe you can afford to play only one...)
Given you build, I'd play 4 Cavern, 4 mutavault, 1 wasteland and 12 islands. And 4 vials please with all these harbingers :)!
I personally really like to fit 2 cliques in the 75: it's great against stoneforge, it's greats against show and tell, and it's great against miracles. This card is just so much better in Legacy than in Modern.
My two cents on how to SB vs stoneblade:
- I think you are over-boarding. I would keep all four chalice, I like it much better than swan song or flusterstorm. I would board out 1 image, 1 force for 2 dismember, and 1 jitte for 1 relic (maybe a second, but 3 feels like to much for me with chalice). Good sideboard cards in this matchup are cliques and venser: threats + distruption is exactly what they don't want to see.
Also, in Legacy, you want to keep Vial much more often post board than in Modern (I sometimes board out 1, max 2 in extreme circumstances - boarding out all of them is completely out of the question). It's because, relative to other decks, our deck is SO MUCH MORE clunky in this format. Even against control decks like stoneblade, we need vial to keep up with their flurry of one mana spells. Vial is our chance to play more than 1 spell per turn. Again, play four in the maindeck...
The stoneblade deck felt like a slow attrition battle where I didn't need Vial at all. Permanents that could attack (Jitte is not one of them) were the most effective ways to win. For example my opponent can just ignore the Jitte and kill only the creatures and make me feel like I'm a card down. Even if I got the Jitte for free off of copying a Stoneforge Mystic I wasted my Clone effect for this 1/2 creature that I cannot even equip anything to.
Some of your sideboard advice is a bit awkward for me. Like we want more Relics but we can't side them in vs decks that Chalice is good against, or Relic is great vs Storm but Storm is already a match up we can't lose given all our disruption and Chalice. I want sideboard cards vs common match ups we are closer to 50/50 or worse.
So lets start some important discussions. Sideboards are a very delicate thing in any format: Standard, Modern, or Legacy. Some rules: I don't like 1 ofs in Merfolk. We don't have access to Ponder or Brainstorm and therefore we have to get lucky to naturally draw such cards (some exceptions exist like that Equipment destroying Equipment). Of course we want our sideboard cards to overlap over as many archetypes as possible. Lets Identify a few things if anyone wants to give their opinion:
1) Most Common decks. Our sideboard should be robust for dealing with the most common decks. We are going to play vs these things over and over and over again. Therefore I don't care about sideboard cards to deal with fringe decks that add up to 5% of the meta (unless they deal with very common decks). I don't care about some Ensnaring Bridge Tezzeret deck because we aren't running into it very often. If we do, then we'll just have to hope things go our way. We always have Force of Will no matter how bad some decks look From the most common decks we will target our sideboard towards:
2) Match ups we are 50/50 or worse. These are the main decks we want support so that we can turn unfavourable or close match ups to winning.
3) Impossible match ups. Ignore them, hope to dodge it. Unless sideboard cards from the common decks overlap to these bad match ups, I don't care to waste sideboard slots. We're just going to have to try to get lucky. If the impossible match ups are too large of a percentage of the metagame then that's a sign to change decks.
Based on mtgtop8.com, the most common (or at least commonly successful) decks appear to be:
Delver (grixis, bug, rug, UR)
Burn (wah?)
Merfolk
MUD
Infect
Death and Taxes
Stoneblade (deathblade, UW, UWR, etc)
Miracles
Grixis Pyromancer
Lands
BGx (Abzan or Jund)
Show and Tell
Reanimator
Elves
I plucked decks that were 2% or more of the meta. Of course our strength vs these decks may change depending on our builds but if everyone gave their opinions what was:
a) a good match up
b) 50/50 match up
c) poor match up
d) impossible match up (30% or worse)
Then maybe we can get an idea where the holes need to be filled for Merfolk's sideboard. All I know is that storm is a great match up and requires very little support.
Hi all, I'm a brand new Merfolk player. I've been playing Death and Taxes for several years now and I wanted to branch out into a different style of deck, but there are aspects of DnT that I really like that it shares with Merfolk: Vial; creature-based disruption; neither a combo deck (I HATE combo decks, both playing and playing against) nor a Brainstorm deck, as much as that card is very skill intensive.
I also had a specific goal, which was to be able to play a deck across multiple formats and Merfolk is viable in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage, so it lets me explore those formats more, while getting some (and only some) continuity in play style across formats and learning more about a tempo style of play. I tried that with DnT, but it's a weaker prison deck in Vintage and lacking essential tools for both prison and finishing in Modern. Merfolk seems solid (if not always Tier 1) in all three.
Hmm..
Delver: 50/50
Burn: Good
MUD: Poor
Infect: Poor
Death and Taxes: Impossible
Stoneblade: 50/50
Miracles: Good
Pyromancer: Good
Lands: 50/50
BGx: 50/50
Show and Tell: Poor
Reanimator: Good
Elves: Poor
My sense of things is a bit outdated, as I'm far more experienced with Daze builds than Chalice builds.
Hmm..
Delver: 50/50
Burn: Good
MUD: Poor
Infect: Poor
Death and Taxes: Impossible
Stoneblade: 50/50
Miracles: Good
Pyromancer: Good
Lands: 50/50
BGx: 50/50
Show and Tell: Poor
Reanimator: Good
Elves: Poor
My sense of things is a bit outdated, as I'm far more experienced with Daze builds than Chalice builds.
Not sure why you think D&T is impossible - my record against this match up is positive. One True Name is all we really need. It can be a bit tough to race if they equip a Sword of Fire and Ice, but that's why I always run one copy of Manriki in the side. Copy their Stoneforge with Image to fetch up Manriki usually prevents them from playing any equipment from that point on.
Tuxdev says their experience is a little old, and it's true that the D&T matchup used to be very poor, but it's gotten a lot better for Merfolk since TNN. You can read back a few pages both here and on the D&T thread, where we've talked specifically about this matchup in the recent past. One TNN can usually be raced, but Merfolk has access to many. Whoever wins seems mostly a die roll, with player skill and the luck of the draw affecting outcomes more than general archetype strength.
Arguably DnT's best card against Merfolk is Cataclysm, unless they are running Ratchet Bomb. Otherwise, Merfolk can swarm very effectively and the lords get out of hand, especially with TNN.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard
Tempo Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
I used to play against this awesome guy nearly every week for about a year and a half, and I lost almost every match. I would usually manage to get 1 game off, though. Both merfolk and DnT are vial creature decks, but DnT has a lot of very important edges. His vials were always better than mine. He has a better mana disruption plan. He has better removal. Also, he had huge trumps in stoneforge, SoFaI, serra avenger, moat, and meekstone. My counterspells were mostly useless. He's also the reason for my big advocacy of Null Rod. It's the only thing that disrupted his game plan enough to give me half a chance at winning the match.
Side note: Most people fetch batterskull by default with SFM. After playing me a bunch and some discussion, we determined that was wrong in a world of TNN and it was better to fetch SoFaI by default instead, which is what he did during that SCG.
More recently I did crush an inexperienced DnT player, but he kept bad hands and completely mis-sideboarded, so I don't really count that towards much of anything. I'm tending to think that most DnT players just either aren't good or aren't experienced in the matchup, whereas Colin was an exceptionally good and experienced DnT player. Playing him so much really forced me to learn merfolk extremely thoroughly.
Moat, Meekstone, Ghostly Prison, Ensnaring Bridge, and other combat impediments have all been discussed over on the D&T thread, and depending on meta are certainly things you may face. It's worth noting that Moat, Prison, and Meekstone do effectively nothing against Emrakul, so they are unlikely to see play as long as Omnitell is a major force. Most D&T decks don't run any of these, and they can all be bounced with Echoing Decay.
Their Sunlances, Paths, and Swords can be blocked by a Chalice on 1.
The last few posts have provided wildly differing takes on the matchup. Whenever that happens, I believe even more strongly in what I wrote earlier:
Play lands and you'll often go to time if you aren't really quick (i.e. experienced). Play Storm and it will more often be a die roll. Play Merfolk for more consistency (I'm not talking raw power). I'd personally go with the last option, but I bet if you posted in Lands and ANT threads they'd support their decks too.
Ultimately though, the deck's gotta jive with your play style, preferences, etc. It's odd that you're considering varying archetypes like combo, combo-control, and aggro-control. Figure out the sort of game you want to play, and then find decks that fill those roles. Good luck!
I believe Merfolk is strictly better in Legacy than Modern and the best positioned deck in Legacy.
If you intimately know the format and how to play the fish then this is the choice.
Random pro said today that Grixis Delver, Omnitell and Miracles Mentor are the best decks in legacy and we beat all of them...
Chalice wrecks half the format and you still have a rogue factor.
Good choice! I'm still missing Flusterstorms, but I don't really "main" Merfolk and it's a sideboard card so I haven't cared too much. Thankfully you only need 1-2 Jittes and 2-3 Wastelands depending on how you want to build it.
Every side slot is a premium here and I would rather have "ugly" looking decklist with some Wastelands in the main.
Removing all artifacts is a mistake. They have 1 C. Judgment in the main and 1 Wear//Tear in the side as artifact removal.
It may look like a lot with 2 Snapcaster and 2 Dig but that is what (in my opinion) 3 Relic in the sideboard should deal with.
As you said, they still have 20-ish one drops for Chalice and sorcery speed removal like C. Judgment, S. Verdict, E. Explosives + counterspells to safely remove Vial.
If you insist on your plan at least leave one Jitte to be found with Image.
In my previous session I had a Phantasmal Image every game my opponent played a Stoneforge and it was useless. It was close to impossible to get going because it requires a creature in play and even when getting in for damage it could not deal with True-Name or Batterskull that they fetched with their Stoneforge. It just felt very underwhelming and clunky. Maybe I'm wrong but does it really interact with them at all or is it just for lifegain? It had a similar effect as Aether Vial where you have this card sitting on the battlefield not doing anything. In the future I'll try Chalice again.
In regards to Wasteland I would rather have 4 in the 75. Either its great (which of course it is) or it's not.
3 Wasteland
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Mutavault
12 Island
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Harbinger of the Tides
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Aether Vial
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
I removed a Vial, Mutavault, and Cavern. But now I fear the mana might be awkward casting UU spells. Wasteland does slow games down a bit to help us draw out of mana screw though.
A really good question, Wasteland's power level has been chopped down thanks to delve, how good is for us? Against what match ups does it shine?
It's not easy manascrewing D&T, Miracles, S&T, Omni, Elves, Ant, Tes, Goblins, mirror, Enchantress, Reanimator, Dredge, All Spells, Belcher, Grindstone, High Tide, Loam decks...
Good against Delver variants, but I would rather resolve Chalice and have Jitte going.
If this is your plan then I would suggest -1 Wasteland, +1 Cavern or Island. We have enough power now to not waste (pun intended) our time disrupting them rather then progressing our board.
At least this is my opinion.
Glad to see you're getting more involved in Legacy
Some comments on your sideboard:
- with sneak and show gone, flusterstorm is much better than swan song. Easy swap IMO.
- given how the metagame evolved in the past year, I would also replace 1 cage by the 3rd relic. Relic is great agains DRS/goyf and Lands and better against Storm, and you want to draw as many copies as possible. Cage is only better against Elves and Dredge, and I feel that has become too narrow.
- i have to agree with fanattic, I don't think all these wasteland are worth it in the SB. I think the effect is powerful enough to deserve a couple of slots in the MD, but it's really just a tool to beat some cards, not an alternative plan. If you play 4 vial main, you can afford to play 2 wastelands out of your 21 lands (hmm, actually if you play that many harbinger, maybe you can afford to play only one...)
Given you build, I'd play 4 Cavern, 4 mutavault, 1 wasteland and 12 islands. And 4 vials please with all these harbingers :)!
I personally really like to fit 2 cliques in the 75: it's great against stoneforge, it's greats against show and tell, and it's great against miracles. This card is just so much better in Legacy than in Modern.
My two cents on how to SB vs stoneblade:
- I think you are over-boarding. I would keep all four chalice, I like it much better than swan song or flusterstorm. I would board out 1 image, 1 force for 2 dismember, and 1 jitte for 1 relic (maybe a second, but 3 feels like to much for me with chalice). Good sideboard cards in this matchup are cliques and venser: threats + distruption is exactly what they don't want to see.
Also, in Legacy, you want to keep Vial much more often post board than in Modern (I sometimes board out 1, max 2 in extreme circumstances - boarding out all of them is completely out of the question). It's because, relative to other decks, our deck is SO MUCH MORE clunky in this format. Even against control decks like stoneblade, we need vial to keep up with their flurry of one mana spells. Vial is our chance to play more than 1 spell per turn. Again, play four in the maindeck...
I would definitely keep lords and cursecatcher. I think image and harbinger are cleary worse in this matchups.
Your main target is Stoneforge with this plan? I wouldn't dilute my deck for that as long as they don't have SoF&I in 75. Batterskull is dealt with TNN and we also have Jitte for their copy, but we have 7 TNN and they have 1 or 2. Maybe that is easy to say since I also have 2 Vendillion in the main for their equipment.
I'll reiterate my recommendation to pack 2x null rod in the sideboard. It's one of the most disruptive things we can have at our disposal against SFM and SDT decks. When I did run pithing needle, I was most often naming some artifact *anyway*. Again, I don't like bringing in Relic against UWr stoneblade in the first place, especially if you've got null rods. It's not really impactful enough. In practice, null rod and vial don't play against each other nearly as much as you might expect from just reading the cards, because it's not too difficult to time the null rod until after you've gotten most of the value from vial. Also, it's almost guaranteed that whatever artifact your opponnent has is way way better than our vials.
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I used to play Dismember main but moved it to SB to try out Chalice, but I think I'll switch back. I have always played at least one Jitte main. One thing I did want to try to get around the DnT that is very heavily represented in my meta was a black splash for Virtue's Ruin out of the board (Also provides Perish v Elves/Jund, Thoughtseize) but it feels a bit clunky. I also don't want to buy underground seas - which admittedly isn't an issue as I can easily borrow them/play Urborg instead.
Edit: Didn't see this whole new page
Wasteland is just so insanely good. The 3/3/3 split is perfect and I recommend everybody tries it out. It is great against DnT as it can keep them off Karakas/Cavern tricks, it is amazing against Delver as it ruins their mana and forces them to use extremely limited manabases. Wasteland won me the match this week against Stoneblade - I wasted two Tundras, she had no white mana and three Swords to Plowshares in hand. It is the most aggressive tempo card in the deck, aside from Daze.
The stoneblade deck felt like a slow attrition battle where I didn't need Vial at all. Permanents that could attack (Jitte is not one of them) were the most effective ways to win. For example my opponent can just ignore the Jitte and kill only the creatures and make me feel like I'm a card down. Even if I got the Jitte for free off of copying a Stoneforge Mystic I wasted my Clone effect for this 1/2 creature that I cannot even equip anything to.
Some of your sideboard advice is a bit awkward for me. Like we want more Relics but we can't side them in vs decks that Chalice is good against, or Relic is great vs Storm but Storm is already a match up we can't lose given all our disruption and Chalice. I want sideboard cards vs common match ups we are closer to 50/50 or worse.
So lets start some important discussions. Sideboards are a very delicate thing in any format: Standard, Modern, or Legacy. Some rules: I don't like 1 ofs in Merfolk. We don't have access to Ponder or Brainstorm and therefore we have to get lucky to naturally draw such cards (some exceptions exist like that Equipment destroying Equipment). Of course we want our sideboard cards to overlap over as many archetypes as possible. Lets Identify a few things if anyone wants to give their opinion:
1) Most Common decks. Our sideboard should be robust for dealing with the most common decks. We are going to play vs these things over and over and over again. Therefore I don't care about sideboard cards to deal with fringe decks that add up to 5% of the meta (unless they deal with very common decks). I don't care about some Ensnaring Bridge Tezzeret deck because we aren't running into it very often. If we do, then we'll just have to hope things go our way. We always have Force of Will no matter how bad some decks look From the most common decks we will target our sideboard towards:
2) Match ups we are 50/50 or worse. These are the main decks we want support so that we can turn unfavourable or close match ups to winning.
3) Impossible match ups. Ignore them, hope to dodge it. Unless sideboard cards from the common decks overlap to these bad match ups, I don't care to waste sideboard slots. We're just going to have to try to get lucky. If the impossible match ups are too large of a percentage of the metagame then that's a sign to change decks.
Based on mtgtop8.com, the most common (or at least commonly successful) decks appear to be:
Delver (grixis, bug, rug, UR)
Burn (wah?)
Merfolk
MUD
Infect
Death and Taxes
Stoneblade (deathblade, UW, UWR, etc)
Miracles
Grixis Pyromancer
Lands
BGx (Abzan or Jund)
Show and Tell
Reanimator
Elves
I plucked decks that were 2% or more of the meta. Of course our strength vs these decks may change depending on our builds but if everyone gave their opinions what was:
a) a good match up
b) 50/50 match up
c) poor match up
d) impossible match up (30% or worse)
Then maybe we can get an idea where the holes need to be filled for Merfolk's sideboard. All I know is that storm is a great match up and requires very little support.
I also had a specific goal, which was to be able to play a deck across multiple formats and Merfolk is viable in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage, so it lets me explore those formats more, while getting some (and only some) continuity in play style across formats and learning more about a tempo style of play. I tried that with DnT, but it's a weaker prison deck in Vintage and lacking essential tools for both prison and finishing in Modern. Merfolk seems solid (if not always Tier 1) in all three.
My base build for Legacy is this:
4x Cursecatcher
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x Silvergill Adept
4x True-Name Nemesis
3x Phantasmal Image
Spells 15
4x Æther Vial
1x Echoing Truth
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Force of Will
2x Day's Undoing
4x Cavern of Souls
11x Island
3x Wasteland
4x Mutavault
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Flusterstorm
2x Back to Basics
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Manriki-Gusari
1x Cursed Totem
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
Thought about 2 Harbinger of the Tides or 2 Merrow Reejerey, but not sure. Day's Undoing is a straight refill of our hand and it also empties the graveyards, which doesn't hurt us.
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
Delver: 50/50
Burn: Good
MUD: Poor
Infect: Poor
Death and Taxes: Impossible
Stoneblade: 50/50
Miracles: Good
Pyromancer: Good
Lands: 50/50
BGx: 50/50
Show and Tell: Poor
Reanimator: Good
Elves: Poor
My sense of things is a bit outdated, as I'm far more experienced with Daze builds than Chalice builds.
Twitch channel
Not sure why you think D&T is impossible - my record against this match up is positive. One True Name is all we really need. It can be a bit tough to race if they equip a Sword of Fire and Ice, but that's why I always run one copy of Manriki in the side. Copy their Stoneforge with Image to fetch up Manriki usually prevents them from playing any equipment from that point on.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
Side note: Most people fetch batterskull by default with SFM. After playing me a bunch and some discussion, we determined that was wrong in a world of TNN and it was better to fetch SoFaI by default instead, which is what he did during that SCG.
More recently I did crush an inexperienced DnT player, but he kept bad hands and completely mis-sideboarded, so I don't really count that towards much of anything. I'm tending to think that most DnT players just either aren't good or aren't experienced in the matchup, whereas Colin was an exceptionally good and experienced DnT player. Playing him so much really forced me to learn merfolk extremely thoroughly.
Twitch channel
Their Sunlances, Paths, and Swords can be blocked by a Chalice on 1.
The last few posts have provided wildly differing takes on the matchup. Whenever that happens, I believe even more strongly in what I wrote earlier:
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
QF at 5:34:00 http://www.twitch.tv/southfloridamagic/v/14734159
The rest from the start http://www.twitch.tv/southfloridamagic/v/14792742
The commentators were completely unprepared for Merfolk, no idea what most cards in the deck do.
Game 4 against Miracles was hilarious. Congrats to Lydia!
just divided between Lands, Storm and Merfolk to get inside Legacy =(
thanks !
Ultimately though, the deck's gotta jive with your play style, preferences, etc. It's odd that you're considering varying archetypes like combo, combo-control, and aggro-control. Figure out the sort of game you want to play, and then find decks that fill those roles. Good luck!
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 intimately know the format and how to play the fish then this is the choice.
Random pro said today that Grixis Delver, Omnitell and Miracles Mentor are the best decks in legacy and we beat all of them...
Chalice wrecks half the format and you still have a rogue factor.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Just will start with Fnattic or SCG Sommerset base list and will see how it goes.
Lot of elves, omni,and miracles, UWR. Than rising BUG and DnT.
lets see how will be against this field.
Elves is a worst matchup, DnT is not good, the rest is great.