twitch.tv/ehhhhhhh
Hi i'm new to Merfolk in Legacy come in and help me find the perfect build for GP Vegas
my list:
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Cursecatcher
4 Force of Will
1 Daze
3 Tidal Warrior
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Mutavault
12 Island
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Back to Basics
2 Echoing Truth
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Flusterstorm
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction
I don't like the maindeck Tidal Warriors, to be honest. I also prefer to have 2 Jittes and 2 Dazes maindeck, to improve the odds of actually seeing them. You may also want to sneak in a Dismember or two, though that is far from required.
twitch.tv/ehhhhhhh
Hi i'm new to Merfolk in Legacy come in and help me find the perfect build for GP Vegas
my list:
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Cursecatcher
4 Force of Will
1 Daze
3 Tidal Warrior
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Mutavault
12 Island
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Back to Basics
2 Echoing Truth
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Flusterstorm
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction
The moment he put 3 Copters in the main I had no doubt 5:0 is in the future, the card has too much in power level to ignore.
I am between 3 or 4 copies at this moment.
The moment he put 3 Copters in the main I had no doubt 5:0 is in the future, the card has too much in power level to ignore.
I am between 3 or 4 copies at this moment.
With only 4 1-drops, 4 copies of Copter is probably pushing it. If you're running Tidal Warriors, perhaps, although I don't really know how to find the space for 3 Tidal Warriors + 4 Copters. There aren't enough flex slots unless you cut Chalices to 3 (bad decision in this meta IMO) and don't run any spells other than the 4 Force of Will.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the Copter is amazing. Extra loot is fantastic in a deck like ours, since we don't have cantrips. But I'm between 2 or 3 copies, and leaning towards 2 (it's between a 4th Image and a 3rd Copter for me at the moment).
I've pretty much only played Merfolk casually in pre-board games. Does anyone have or know of a sideboarding or matchup guide? I don't need a card-for-card mapping, but would like a general sense of what cards are strongest or weakest in a given matchup. I'm likely going to run with 2-3 Copters and 2 Warriors main.
The moment he put 3 Copters in the main I had no doubt 5:0 is in the future, the card has too much in power level to ignore.
I am between 3 or 4 copies at this moment.
With only 4 1-drops, 4 copies of Copter is probably pushing it. If you're running Tidal Warriors, perhaps, although I don't really know how to find the space for 3 Tidal Warriors + 4 Copters. There aren't enough flex slots unless you cut Chalices to 3 (bad decision in this meta IMO) and don't run any spells other than the 4 Force of Will.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the Copter is amazing. Extra loot is fantastic in a deck like ours, since we don't have cantrips. But I'm between 2 or 3 copies, and leaning towards 2 (it's between a 4th Image and a 3rd Copter for me at the moment).
I have 3 Tidals but that is not important.
People with regular versions don't have only 4 1-drops, Cursecatcher and Vial makes that 8.
There are two routes to have Copter active on the second turn: Catcher into Copter or Vial into Copter (where Vial is now on first counter, threatening Cursecatcher). But even that is not important, other than opponent going first, playing Delver with immediate flip, there is no reason to have Copter on block duty on the second turn (Burn is the second example, not much else; my version with 3 Tidal, 4 Catcher and 3 Vial has 10 ways to help second turn Copter block and that did happened against Goblin Guide and Swiftspear in GP sideevent).
And past that, SC will be active for the rest of the game.
It is easy to see that 4 Copters is pushing for you since you have 4 Image, they are both utility while not being Merfolk themselves, our lists are different.
Yeah, I don't think having Tidal or not really effects whether 2 or 3 copter are better. We have just so many dudes that crewing it isn't usually much of a problem.
Wow, you're also on a Gemstone Caverns? I'm totally mystified by this choice. Can you explain why it's helpful?
Any singleton you're expecting to do cool things in your opening hand will happen less than 12% of the time (sometimes you'll open on it and not want to exile anything), and in the late game it's pretty clearly worse than a Island with all the Moon effects and other nonbasic hate running around.
Also, have you tried Tidal Warrior in the topless meta and decided against it, or just never felt the need for it? In the latest video you faced a bunch of Blue decks, but I have to imagine that doesn't always happen.
Gemstone Caverns: It's a very experimental card, so I'm not totally sure it's even good, but initial results look positive. Why is it helpful? Consider the makeup of our deck vs. most of the decks in the format. We're pretty much mono-2-drops, while everybody else is reliant on 1-drops. This of course allows us to leverage Chalice to punish the meta, but since we don't use Sol lands, we're stuck playing a turn behind on the play.. and *2 turns* behind on the draw. This 2-turn disadvantage is of course alleviated if we're lucky enough to actually open with one of our 1-drops on the draw, but even better is if we can steal back the play. You can kind of think of it as an extra 1-drop in the situation you need a 1-drop the most, but we get to spend a "free" land slot instead of a more valuable nonland slot.
I'm still playing 11 basic islands like I have for a long time now, the mana is still overall quite resilient to wasteland and blood moon, but wasteland does matter a tad bit more now. The biggest issue is that we'd never willingly play a nonbasic as our first land drop because of wasteland, but as Joe Lossett describes, even in that situation the end result is that both us and our opponent is down a card, but we're on the play instead of them, which is still a pretty good situation for us as long as we've still got enough land in hand to function. It's only a really big problem if we're very land light and only have one other land in hand. The power of being on the play is likely worth that risk, though.
Tidal Warrior: It's always been somewhat a meta call for nonblue decks that happens to be just useful enough in blue matchups and from a curve perspective to be worth maindecking, but this top-less meta has gotten way way more blue now, so the power of Tidal has gone down significantly. Copter has replaced those slots by both being overall more powerful and by having less polarized utility. That is, copter is not quite as good as Tidal vs. nonblue, but it's much much much better than Tidal vs. blue. I did try Tidal a bit in the top-less meta myself however most of my current feel for the meta and how effective Tidal is currently comes from being in Ehhh's peanut gallery all last week.
Gemstone Caverns: It's a very experimental card, so I'm not totally sure it's even good, but initial results look positive. Why is it helpful? Consider the makeup of our deck vs. most of the decks in the format. We're pretty much mono-2-drops, while everybody else is reliant on 1-drops. This of course allows us to leverage Chalice to punish the meta, but since we don't use Sol lands, we're stuck playing a turn behind on the play.. and *2 turns* behind on the draw. This 2-turn disadvantage is of course alleviated if we're lucky enough to actually open with one of our 1-drops on the draw, but even better is if we can steal back the play. You can kind of think of it as an extra 1-drop in the situation you need a 1-drop the most, but we get to spend a "free" land slot instead of a more valuable nonland slot.
EDIT: Link fixed in quote above.
Thanks, that's a useful explanation. If I can attempt to summarize, we have a lot of powerful 2-drops, and this card can potentially let us pull ahead or to parity by having a more powerful first-turn spell even when on the draw. With that understanding, I have a followup question.
If it's really that great, why not play more copies? 3 Mutavaults, 3 Cavern of Souls, 4 Gemstones, and 11 Islands could enable its benefits in many more cases, and in some matchups you might even choose to be on the draw to really power out that turn-one Chalice or turn-zero Flusterstorm. This could be the blue Spirit Guide that we've always wanted. My admittedly-cynical guess is that the few times it shines stick out more clearly than all the little edges it loses you when it's simply a worse Island, and that the suggestion of playing more copies makes those rough patches all the more obvious.
I watched your awesome 5-0 video (contrats btw!) and I think it was only ever played as a colorless land. That's consistent with my expectations of running a singleton you want to see only in the opener and only when on the draw, but I'm happy you're trying new things and would love to know your later thoughts once you have more games with it.
I'm pretty worried about Gemstone being Legendary. The first copy is pretty much free (besides the "is it really better than island/wasteland/whatever?"), but the copies after have real deckbuilding costs to them. Joe in his Reanimator deck tech talked about how playing 4 gemstone forces 3 lands in the sideboard, which is a limitation I'd rather not have to work around.
I played a 25-players EE trial event last weekend, playing Legacy for the first time this year (I have just moved to a NYC).
I played a very streamlined list, with Copters and Harbinger filling in the flex spots. I didn't want try to predict the meta for an event of this size, so I preferred not to play any 1-ofs.
I squeezed in the top 8 at 8th place, lost to Infect in the quarterfinals. In the swiss, I beat Grixis Delver, Big Red and BR reanimator, losing to Aluren and Grixis Delver. Overall, I thought the deck was well positioned, althouhg I could have played some games better.
Not sure how good the sideboard was, of course I only played 6 matches.
Copters were good at beating down, I was happy enough with them that I'll keep playing them. Given the match-ups I faced, Harbinger were very solid, I will keep them in for now.
The list:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergil adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 True Name Nemesis
3 Phantasmal Image
3 Harbinger of the tide
4 Aether vial
4 Force of will
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Smugglers's Copter
I was very happy with playing so many islands (to fight wasteland and blood moon) and keeping wasteland in the SB was fine. I would add a fourth cavern though, was one of the cards I wanted to see most. Personally, I really want a manabase that can ensure a turn 3 TNN as often as possible.
Hi i'm new to Merfolk in Legacy come in and help me find the perfect build for GP Vegas
my list:
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Cursecatcher
4 Force of Will
1 Daze
3 Tidal Warrior
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Mutavault
12 Island
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Back to Basics
2 Echoing Truth
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Flusterstorm
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
This must have been you. Good work!
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/663426#paper
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
I am between 3 or 4 copies at this moment.
He cut it down to 2 copies today and went 5-0 again:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-legacy-constructed-league-2017-06-04
With only 4 1-drops, 4 copies of Copter is probably pushing it. If you're running Tidal Warriors, perhaps, although I don't really know how to find the space for 3 Tidal Warriors + 4 Copters. There aren't enough flex slots unless you cut Chalices to 3 (bad decision in this meta IMO) and don't run any spells other than the 4 Force of Will.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that the Copter is amazing. Extra loot is fantastic in a deck like ours, since we don't have cantrips. But I'm between 2 or 3 copies, and leaning towards 2 (it's between a 4th Image and a 3rd Copter for me at the moment).
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
I have 3 Tidals but that is not important.
People with regular versions don't have only 4 1-drops, Cursecatcher and Vial makes that 8.
There are two routes to have Copter active on the second turn: Catcher into Copter or Vial into Copter (where Vial is now on first counter, threatening Cursecatcher). But even that is not important, other than opponent going first, playing Delver with immediate flip, there is no reason to have Copter on block duty on the second turn (Burn is the second example, not much else; my version with 3 Tidal, 4 Catcher and 3 Vial has 10 ways to help second turn Copter block and that did happened against Goblin Guide and Swiftspear in GP sideevent).
And past that, SC will be active for the rest of the game.
It is easy to see that 4 Copters is pushing for you since you have 4 Image, they are both utility while not being Merfolk themselves, our lists are different.
Yeah, I don't think having Tidal or not really effects whether 2 or 3 copter are better. We have just so many dudes that crewing it isn't usually much of a problem.
Twitch channel
Any singleton you're expecting to do cool things in your opening hand will happen less than 12% of the time (sometimes you'll open on it and not want to exile anything), and in the late game it's pretty clearly worse than a Island with all the Moon effects and other nonbasic hate running around.
Also, have you tried Tidal Warrior in the topless meta and decided against it, or just never felt the need for it? In the latest video you faced a bunch of Blue decks, but I have to imagine that doesn't always happen.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I'm still playing 11 basic islands like I have for a long time now, the mana is still overall quite resilient to wasteland and blood moon, but wasteland does matter a tad bit more now. The biggest issue is that we'd never willingly play a nonbasic as our first land drop because of wasteland, but as Joe Lossett describes, even in that situation the end result is that both us and our opponent is down a card, but we're on the play instead of them, which is still a pretty good situation for us as long as we've still got enough land in hand to function. It's only a really big problem if we're very land light and only have one other land in hand. The power of being on the play is likely worth that risk, though.
Tidal Warrior: It's always been somewhat a meta call for nonblue decks that happens to be just useful enough in blue matchups and from a curve perspective to be worth maindecking, but this top-less meta has gotten way way more blue now, so the power of Tidal has gone down significantly. Copter has replaced those slots by both being overall more powerful and by having less polarized utility. That is, copter is not quite as good as Tidal vs. nonblue, but it's much much much better than Tidal vs. blue. I did try Tidal a bit in the top-less meta myself however most of my current feel for the meta and how effective Tidal is currently comes from being in Ehhh's peanut gallery all last week.
Twitch channel
EDIT: Link fixed in quote above.
Thanks, that's a useful explanation. If I can attempt to summarize, we have a lot of powerful 2-drops, and this card can potentially let us pull ahead or to parity by having a more powerful first-turn spell even when on the draw. With that understanding, I have a followup question.
If it's really that great, why not play more copies? 3 Mutavaults, 3 Cavern of Souls, 4 Gemstones, and 11 Islands could enable its benefits in many more cases, and in some matchups you might even choose to be on the draw to really power out that turn-one Chalice or turn-zero Flusterstorm. This could be the blue Spirit Guide that we've always wanted. My admittedly-cynical guess is that the few times it shines stick out more clearly than all the little edges it loses you when it's simply a worse Island, and that the suggestion of playing more copies makes those rough patches all the more obvious.
I watched your awesome 5-0 video (contrats btw!) and I think it was only ever played as a colorless land. That's consistent with my expectations of running a singleton you want to see only in the opener and only when on the draw, but I'm happy you're trying new things and would love to know your later thoughts once you have more games with it.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Twitch channel
I played a 25-players EE trial event last weekend, playing Legacy for the first time this year (I have just moved to a NYC).
I played a very streamlined list, with Copters and Harbinger filling in the flex spots. I didn't want try to predict the meta for an event of this size, so I preferred not to play any 1-ofs.
I squeezed in the top 8 at 8th place, lost to Infect in the quarterfinals. In the swiss, I beat Grixis Delver, Big Red and BR reanimator, losing to Aluren and Grixis Delver. Overall, I thought the deck was well positioned, althouhg I could have played some games better.
Not sure how good the sideboard was, of course I only played 6 matches.
Copters were good at beating down, I was happy enough with them that I'll keep playing them. Given the match-ups I faced, Harbinger were very solid, I will keep them in for now.
The list:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergil adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 True Name Nemesis
3 Phantasmal Image
3 Harbinger of the tide
4 Aether vial
4 Force of will
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Smugglers's Copter
4 Mutavault
3 Cavern of Souls
13 Islands
SB: 2 Relic, 2 cage, 2 dismember, 1 echoing truth, 2 vendilion clique, 2 wasteland, 1 surgical extraction, 2 umezawa's jitte, 1 pithing needle
I was very happy with playing so many islands (to fight wasteland and blood moon) and keeping wasteland in the SB was fine. I would add a fourth cavern though, was one of the cards I wanted to see most. Personally, I really want a manabase that can ensure a turn 3 TNN as often as possible.
Thanks, this thread is great!
Nothing else.
we had 2 Fish players at 7:0 so maybe someone is swimming under the radar.
Twitch channel
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.