In a similar vein to Oboro and Minamo, has anyone run Darkslick Shores alongside maindeck Dismember? Shores gets around Choke and makes Dismember hurt less.
I've been having a great run of things with Merfolk lately, and I'm asking myself: what is keeping us from being a tier-one deck?
We do have a terrible match-up against Affinity, but otherwise there are decent sideboard answers for everything and two of the decks that are on the rise ( UR Delver and Burn ) are favorable matchups for us. I am not typically a tournament player, I'll admit, but I'd happily take Merfolk to a big tournament without feeling underpowered.
We're dead to resolved Pyromancer/Delver. Our removal suite is terrible and basically they can goldfish us. Our only hope is racing them with lots of Lords, but, it's never been an easy matchup.
The major issue with fish is that most of the flavor of the month decks that pop up have good match ups vs us, unless we shut them out quickly (boggles, soulsisters, usa tempo-y, delver, burn, etc)
This deck is quite powerful vs junk and jund type decks that are slower.
This deck is certainly not underpowered, it might be one of the strongest decks thats not truly t1.
The major thing holding us back is that we can't (or rarely can) safely win on turn 4. Holding onto mana for counters and removal/disruption slows down the damage we deal, and some decks, (ie pod/kiki) can force a win through more than one counter/kill spell, which makes it nearly impossible to kill them before they combo out.
What fish really needs is counters/removal that work really well in creature based blue decks and not very well outside of those decks.
Generally more playable fish (as most decks creature bases are very similar due to lack of options)
Alternatively (or additionally) A rise of more midrangy grindy decks. Bug is not really a deck in modern, and jund and junk are less than they used to be. In that regard, the meta is not super favorable to us.
All in all though, I think fish (and personally, especially blue-white fish) is easily capable of winning tournies, but with few pro-level players playing the deck, and without the benefit of playing a rogue, unknown deck, we're in an odd spot.
So went to a new place for FNM tonight since it's the only place to regularly do Modern for FNM. Four rounds.
R1 v BG crap stuff. 2-0
Mostly a standard deck, and a bad one at that. G1 over very quickly, g2 I discard 5 or 6 cards because of not finding my second land, still get there with 5 life in hand.
R2 v Boggles 2-1 (v person who is a pretty horrible human being, and who spent the first few minutes talking about how she'd destroy me. Nice.)
G1 She goes boggle, t2 rancor ethereal, t3 unflinching courage, I scoop.
G2 I go aether vial, t2 chalice for 1, she says wtf, she plays spirit dancer, I advance my board, then flash in spellskite to eat an enchantment, and she scoops in anger.
G3 I see a great seven card hand, but no sideboard, so I mull to 6. Find chalice and aether vial. She has no 1 drop, I get chalice and aether vial set up, she plays stoney silence, but the game is already over.
R3 Jeskai Ascendency 1-1 (v boyfriend of the girl from round before. They are a couple of nuts).
G1 I spell pierce ascendency. He plays some spell to put it back on top of his deck. I get greedy and don't leave mana for echoing truth open, wanting to win in a couple of turns. Lose.
G2 I keep a sick opener with lord, lord, swan song, spell pierce, hibernation, two islands. He has an ok start, but I spell pierce one ascendency, and keep bashing with double lord, he tries to go off on the final turn (and I have swan song in hand still) and eventually draws into nothin', and I kill him.
G3 Two minutes left to go, the guy plays fking slowly....anyway I only have one spell pierce, relic, cursecatcher, some aggro...start chipping away, stop his first ascendency, I get him down to 10 or so, we are in time already, he gets t5 to try and kill me, and he fails, getting stuck with three land and a treasure cruise after already using one and emptying his gy. Calls me the luckiest bastard ever. Ignoring the fact that he'd have died a few turns later had he not played such a slow game. Ban that crap.
R4 v Cruel Control 2-0
G1 he mulls to 6, I don't know what he's playing, I play out a pretty slow hand, no vials, but he misses his first land drop, once he gets it he misses his second land drop, I spell pierce an electrolyze, he is at 1 life, and delays the game two more turns with two cryptics, then scoops.
G2 I side as I would v uwr, although no bounce since i don't expect any kiki jiki resto angel crap, a single curse catcher dealt a lot of damage this game, I commit a lord to the board, he angers, I play a master, he angers, I bash away, he slaughter pacts, I play another master, he angers just to kill tokens, I play two lord and bash with the 4/3 master, and he is more or less dead to it.
In the end I come third behind the guy who played the ascendency, and another friend who went 4-0 with affinity (he played so many scrubby decks, no wonder people think fnm players are bad, sooooo many terrible players, and terrible decks at this venue). Merfolk is as good as ever imo, you need to sideboard a ton v ascendency and play v it the same way you would play v storm.
Today was the first time I sided in chalice and actually played it. And my god, it was absurdly good. Seems like a reasonable sideboard card as long as burn and ascendency are played. And still helps v infect, boggles, affinity, so not completely dead anyway. I did play two main spell pierce and one echoing truth in main as well, expecting trash boggles, burn, infect, ascendency decks, otherwise I'd have two remands and a relic of progenitus main in place of those.
EDIT: I also agree with the guy two posts above. Delver is like a bad version of UWR v us from what I have seen. Sometimes they have crazy good starts, but unless that happens, vapor snags make delvers look silly, and you can generally race pyromaster (again, snags are great here). Also t3 kira into t4 master of waves is pretty much the win here. This has more or less been the case v all ur delver variants I have played, though have not played tons v the new treasure cruise version. But I would not be scared sitting down across from it atm.
Tried a new game shop that's hosting a Friday Modern event. Literally half the players played Affinity... unsurprisingly, did not do too well, 1-2. I'm thinking of playing the white splash for the Affinity sideboard hate options on the days I play there.
For players who play white, what does your mana base look like? I'm thinking of something like:
As for white cards in the deck, sejiri is very good, path to exile, harms way, kataki, stony silence, rest in peace, leyline of sanctity, etc are all good choices.
Lands (20)
14X Islands
3x Cavern of Souls
3x Mutavault
Sideboard(15)
1x Dismember
2x Swan Song
2x negate
2x Sower of Temptation
3x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Relic of Progentius
1x Vedalken Shackles
2x Kira, the Glass Spinner
The major change I made was adding one more Phantasmal Image. I really do like this card. In regards to Merfolk, it really maximizes the effectiveness of our lords, like Reejery, Trident and Atlantis. Also, Phantasmal image can copy your opponents' creatures. He's copies everything from voice of resurgence to Tarmagoylf. With that said, I acknowledge Phantasmal's biggest weakness is that he is sacrificed when targeted. But his strongest asset is that he can copy creatures with enter the battlefield abilities. This is where we get into Snapcaster mage.
I understand there are plenty who are unconvinced that Snapcaster mage is useful in Merfolk. While I also shared this skepticism, I wished to test him out. Out of fifty matches of various deck, Snapcaster Mage is very powerful. The major reason is that he extends your tempo play. From what I have gathered, Tempo is very much like a beat of a drum. This rhythm has a purpose which is to do two things. One, is to disrupt the opponent's strategy and plays. And second, is to play stronger, more powerful effects. Our lords, more creatures and spells etc.
Snapcaster helps round out this goal. In terms of spells, Merfolk doesn't have the sheer variety as American or most control based decks. But Snapcaster helps us maximize the spells the deck currently have.
Vapor Snag, Remand and Cryptic are all viable targets. These spells can really throw off an opponent and disrupting them enough for the deck to swarm. Cryptic is especially powerful(I admit it is my favorite spell card in MTG) when combined with Snapcaster as it can disrupt plays. When considering the sideboard, Snapcaster does wonders. Cards like Hurkyl's Recall are further maximized by Snapcaster, as they can fully maximize the cards. This is especially apparent for combo decks like Storm, and scapeshift where having more counter magic is critical to impeding those deck's combo So in conclusion, Snapcaster aims to maximize the limited number of spells we have for the purpose of disruption and gaining advantage.
I think snapcaster is not good enough for this deck. There will be too many hands where he doesn't do that much, and I think adding cryptics to the deck just to improve the value of snapcaster is not the way to approach deck building. Makes it clunky, adds lots of hands that you don't want. Also, wanting to play snapcaster and then a spell from your gy means you need mana, and at 20 lands, and after cutting two seas (bad idea, wtf, I have won so many games just from cutting off mana, let alone the islandwalk), you will rarely get there. It just doesn't do enough, often enough. Also, three caverns makes your mana even worse for snapcaster shenanigans, and a spell like cryptic. So no. Not a fan. If it is working for you, then I am glad, but I think people should consider the above with a grain of salt. Or three.
I have tested vendillion as well, and although she seems better, especially since the three drop slot is always in contention, with reejery being good, but not mindblowing, and kira also being in there, but also did not love it. Phantasmal dies to a lot. I used to advocate playing three or four, I mean they ultimately are like more lords, or their goyfs, or their vendillions etc. But I have changed my mind, they are insanely vulnerable, so I think it's probably a meta choice, and I have been ok with just one phantasmal or none.
Is there any reason you're not running any Master of Waves? For me, Phantasmal Image has really excellent synergy if you land him the following turn, usually two mana for Phantasmal leave a vault and its mana open as well, ( or counterspells/removal as relevant ). I don't find Phantasmal's targeting issue that bad as typically the bolt or path or decay would have destroyed a Lord anyway, it's mostly worse because you can't "rescue" it with your own Vapor Snag, but I don't run more than two due to the risk of getting a handful.
I took a look at Sygg, River Guide, but I'm wondering if it's a worthwhile card given how rarely Merfolk has two mana open for the ability.
Really like this list! Azorius Charm is interesting. How has it been performing for you? I've also switched to UW short time ago and I don't see why not more people make the splash. UW seems so much better compared to straight U Merfolk. I've also been thinking about adding Sejiri Merfolk to the mix, but I don't know if we can mke sure it reliably gets the boost...
I've played U/W fish for a while, and even before fetchlands, you could fairly reliably have a plains out with sejiri. With fetches, it should only be easier.
On top of that sejiri merfolk is too powerful to ignore. Lifelinking for 4 or 5 when they can't block can sometimes nullify all of the damage they deal you in a turn.
I like the idea of sygg, but I agree, he's just not quite playable for us.
Honestly, I think you should keep kira's mainboard, and I have never been happy with counterspells like swan song in the sideboard. Azorius charm also seems somewhat useless. With 4 sejiri for lifelink, you don't want to pay 2 for 1 card, and the removal ability is only alright, it doesn't seem good enough for modern. You could also perhaps find room for tidebinders in your sideboard, unless you fairly play those types of decks.
Gut Shot is a house! I was having problems with the upcoming Delver hordes, and this card wrecks their plans. It kills Pyromancer, Delver. Monastery isn't as scary because she fights fair (on the ground).
Also it makes the Affinity matchup winnable. Their guys are x/1's and you are not 'wasting' board slots.
I've also been experimenting with Gut Shot in my sideboard and I agree that it is a great answer to all the cruise aggro decks running around. I'll have to try out harm's way but I think I prefer the phyrexian mana cost of gut shot. If I leave one white mana open on their turn they would be more likely to keep counter mana up to play around path.
Another card I've started running MD to combat delver cruise is Thalia. So far she has performed well and I believe is a solid addition. I honestly don't think Sejiri Merfolk is worth running, but I haven't actually tested him. In order to run him in my deck I would have to change my mana base up quite a bit and make it a lot more painful. In my opinion running anything less than 4 mutavaults is a mistake.
I profoundly disagree with your conjecture. I won't get into an extended debate, as I am quite busy, but if you wish to see my data(yes, I recorded my win loss ratio at my local FMNs and online), I can show you to rest my case.
lol it's not conjecture, it's common sense/logic and reason. You are allowed to disagree, and if your deck works for you, then who am I to stop you. All I am saying is that I would not play your list, and not recommend that people do, for the reasons that I mentioned. As for FNM and online stats, what do they mean? You can play just about anything at FNM and probably win. Seeing as this is the official merfolk thread, I figure we try and talk about decks that might succeed at higher competitive levels, GPs and the like. What that means right now is beating burn, jeskai ascendency, and the usual big players. Master of waves destroys burn, counter spells, echoing truths, and hibernations beat ascendency
EDIT: Gut shot is a pretty reasonable sideboard choice. Have not tried it, but I can see that it would work v a number of decks. I don't use it because it feels a bit narrow, but it seems like a fine choice.
Ultimately merfolk is not really an aggro or a tempo deck, but an anti meta deck. Imo.
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I've been having a great run of things with Merfolk lately, and I'm asking myself: what is keeping us from being a tier-one deck?
We do have a terrible match-up against Affinity, but otherwise there are decent sideboard answers for everything and two of the decks that are on the rise ( UR Delver and Burn ) are favorable matchups for us. I am not typically a tournament player, I'll admit, but I'd happily take Merfolk to a big tournament without feeling underpowered.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
However.. COTV for 1 = GG!!
1. Islands. ( I know, an obvious one, but it helps. )
2. Affinity swarms, Delver has a few threats, so our targeted removal is more relevant.
3. Chalice shuts 'em down.
4. Their threats all require some sort of back-up, e.g. Delver of Secrets needs the luck of the reveal and/or deck manipulation, Young Pyromancer and Monastery Swiftspear need a steady supply of instants and sorceries, Grim Lavamancer and Snapcaster Mage need stuff in the Graveyard. A top-decked threat needs support ( a big part of why Treasure Cruise has been so good for them ).
Delver is a great deck, I've played it in Modern myself, but I certainly don't find it an uphill battle like Affinity.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
This deck is quite powerful vs junk and jund type decks that are slower.
This deck is certainly not underpowered, it might be one of the strongest decks thats not truly t1.
The major thing holding us back is that we can't (or rarely can) safely win on turn 4. Holding onto mana for counters and removal/disruption slows down the damage we deal, and some decks, (ie pod/kiki) can force a win through more than one counter/kill spell, which makes it nearly impossible to kill them before they combo out.
What fish really needs is counters/removal that work really well in creature based blue decks and not very well outside of those decks.
Generally more playable fish (as most decks creature bases are very similar due to lack of options)
Alternatively (or additionally) A rise of more midrangy grindy decks. Bug is not really a deck in modern, and jund and junk are less than they used to be. In that regard, the meta is not super favorable to us.
All in all though, I think fish (and personally, especially blue-white fish) is easily capable of winning tournies, but with few pro-level players playing the deck, and without the benefit of playing a rogue, unknown deck, we're in an odd spot.
R1 v BG crap stuff. 2-0
Mostly a standard deck, and a bad one at that. G1 over very quickly, g2 I discard 5 or 6 cards because of not finding my second land, still get there with 5 life in hand.
R2 v Boggles 2-1 (v person who is a pretty horrible human being, and who spent the first few minutes talking about how she'd destroy me. Nice.)
G1 She goes boggle, t2 rancor ethereal, t3 unflinching courage, I scoop.
G2 I go aether vial, t2 chalice for 1, she says wtf, she plays spirit dancer, I advance my board, then flash in spellskite to eat an enchantment, and she scoops in anger.
G3 I see a great seven card hand, but no sideboard, so I mull to 6. Find chalice and aether vial. She has no 1 drop, I get chalice and aether vial set up, she plays stoney silence, but the game is already over.
R3 Jeskai Ascendency 1-1 (v boyfriend of the girl from round before. They are a couple of nuts).
G1 I spell pierce ascendency. He plays some spell to put it back on top of his deck. I get greedy and don't leave mana for echoing truth open, wanting to win in a couple of turns. Lose.
G2 I keep a sick opener with lord, lord, swan song, spell pierce, hibernation, two islands. He has an ok start, but I spell pierce one ascendency, and keep bashing with double lord, he tries to go off on the final turn (and I have swan song in hand still) and eventually draws into nothin', and I kill him.
G3 Two minutes left to go, the guy plays fking slowly....anyway I only have one spell pierce, relic, cursecatcher, some aggro...start chipping away, stop his first ascendency, I get him down to 10 or so, we are in time already, he gets t5 to try and kill me, and he fails, getting stuck with three land and a treasure cruise after already using one and emptying his gy. Calls me the luckiest bastard ever. Ignoring the fact that he'd have died a few turns later had he not played such a slow game. Ban that crap.
R4 v Cruel Control 2-0
G1 he mulls to 6, I don't know what he's playing, I play out a pretty slow hand, no vials, but he misses his first land drop, once he gets it he misses his second land drop, I spell pierce an electrolyze, he is at 1 life, and delays the game two more turns with two cryptics, then scoops.
G2 I side as I would v uwr, although no bounce since i don't expect any kiki jiki resto angel crap, a single curse catcher dealt a lot of damage this game, I commit a lord to the board, he angers, I play a master, he angers, I bash away, he slaughter pacts, I play another master, he angers just to kill tokens, I play two lord and bash with the 4/3 master, and he is more or less dead to it.
In the end I come third behind the guy who played the ascendency, and another friend who went 4-0 with affinity (he played so many scrubby decks, no wonder people think fnm players are bad, sooooo many terrible players, and terrible decks at this venue). Merfolk is as good as ever imo, you need to sideboard a ton v ascendency and play v it the same way you would play v storm.
Today was the first time I sided in chalice and actually played it. And my god, it was absurdly good. Seems like a reasonable sideboard card as long as burn and ascendency are played. And still helps v infect, boggles, affinity, so not completely dead anyway. I did play two main spell pierce and one echoing truth in main as well, expecting trash boggles, burn, infect, ascendency decks, otherwise I'd have two remands and a relic of progenitus main in place of those.
EDIT: I also agree with the guy two posts above. Delver is like a bad version of UWR v us from what I have seen. Sometimes they have crazy good starts, but unless that happens, vapor snags make delvers look silly, and you can generally race pyromaster (again, snags are great here). Also t3 kira into t4 master of waves is pretty much the win here. This has more or less been the case v all ur delver variants I have played, though have not played tons v the new treasure cruise version. But I would not be scared sitting down across from it atm.
Tried a new game shop that's hosting a Friday Modern event. Literally half the players played Affinity... unsurprisingly, did not do too well, 1-2. I'm thinking of playing the white splash for the Affinity sideboard hate options on the days I play there.
For players who play white, what does your mana base look like? I'm thinking of something like:
Any comments? I'm thinking of playing Sejiri Merfolk for sure.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
4 flooded strand
3 mutavault
4 wanderwine hub
4 island
1 plains
As for white cards in the deck, sejiri is very good, path to exile, harms way, kataki, stony silence, rest in peace, leyline of sanctity, etc are all good choices.
Creatures (25):
4X Cursecatcher
4X Master of the Pearl Trident
4X Lord of Atlantis
4x Merrow Reejery
4X Silvergill adept
3x Phantasmal Image
2x Snapcaster Mage
Artifacts(4)
4x Aether Vial
Enchantments(2)
x2 Spreading Seas
Instants and sorceries (9)
4x Vapor Snag
3x Remand
2x Cryptic Command
Lands (20)
14X Islands
3x Cavern of Souls
3x Mutavault
Sideboard(15)
1x Dismember
2x Swan Song
2x negate
2x Sower of Temptation
3x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Relic of Progentius
1x Vedalken Shackles
2x Kira, the Glass Spinner
The major change I made was adding one more Phantasmal Image. I really do like this card. In regards to Merfolk, it really maximizes the effectiveness of our lords, like Reejery, Trident and Atlantis. Also, Phantasmal image can copy your opponents' creatures. He's copies everything from voice of resurgence to Tarmagoylf. With that said, I acknowledge Phantasmal's biggest weakness is that he is sacrificed when targeted. But his strongest asset is that he can copy creatures with enter the battlefield abilities. This is where we get into Snapcaster mage.
I understand there are plenty who are unconvinced that Snapcaster mage is useful in Merfolk. While I also shared this skepticism, I wished to test him out. Out of fifty matches of various deck, Snapcaster Mage is very powerful. The major reason is that he extends your tempo play. From what I have gathered, Tempo is very much like a beat of a drum. This rhythm has a purpose which is to do two things. One, is to disrupt the opponent's strategy and plays. And second, is to play stronger, more powerful effects. Our lords, more creatures and spells etc.
Snapcaster helps round out this goal. In terms of spells, Merfolk doesn't have the sheer variety as American or most control based decks. But Snapcaster helps us maximize the spells the deck currently have.
Vapor Snag, Remand and Cryptic are all viable targets. These spells can really throw off an opponent and disrupting them enough for the deck to swarm. Cryptic is especially powerful(I admit it is my favorite spell card in MTG) when combined with Snapcaster as it can disrupt plays. When considering the sideboard, Snapcaster does wonders. Cards like Hurkyl's Recall are further maximized by Snapcaster, as they can fully maximize the cards. This is especially apparent for combo decks like Storm, and scapeshift where having more counter magic is critical to impeding those deck's combo So in conclusion, Snapcaster aims to maximize the limited number of spells we have for the purpose of disruption and gaining advantage.
I have tested vendillion as well, and although she seems better, especially since the three drop slot is always in contention, with reejery being good, but not mindblowing, and kira also being in there, but also did not love it. Phantasmal dies to a lot. I used to advocate playing three or four, I mean they ultimately are like more lords, or their goyfs, or their vendillions etc. But I have changed my mind, they are insanely vulnerable, so I think it's probably a meta choice, and I have been ok with just one phantasmal or none.
Is there any reason you're not running any Master of Waves? For me, Phantasmal Image has really excellent synergy if you land him the following turn, usually two mana for Phantasmal leave a vault and its mana open as well, ( or counterspells/removal as relevant ). I don't find Phantasmal's targeting issue that bad as typically the bolt or path or decay would have destroyed a Lord anyway, it's mostly worse because you can't "rescue" it with your own Vapor Snag, but I don't run more than two due to the risk of getting a handful.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
Here is my take on the white splash that I'm thinking of taking to the Affinity-heavy shop:
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord Of Atlantis
4 Master Of The Pearl Trident
4 Sejiri Merfolk
3 Merrow Reejerey
2 Master Of Waves
4 AEther Vial
4 Spreading Seas
4 Path To Exile
2 Spell Pierce
1 Azorius Charm
4 Wanderwine Hub
4 Flooded Strand
3 Mutavault
2 Island
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Plains
4 Stony Silence
1 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Leyline Of Sanctity
2 Rest In Peace
2 Chalice Of The Void
2 Swan Song
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Open to comments, criticism.
I took a look at Sygg, River Guide, but I'm wondering if it's a worthwhile card given how rarely Merfolk has two mana open for the ability.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
Really like this list! Azorius Charm is interesting. How has it been performing for you? I've also switched to UW short time ago and I don't see why not more people make the splash. UW seems so much better compared to straight U Merfolk. I've also been thinking about adding Sejiri Merfolk to the mix, but I don't know if we can mke sure it reliably gets the boost...
On top of that sejiri merfolk is too powerful to ignore. Lifelinking for 4 or 5 when they can't block can sometimes nullify all of the damage they deal you in a turn.
I like the idea of sygg, but I agree, he's just not quite playable for us.
Honestly, I think you should keep kira's mainboard, and I have never been happy with counterspells like swan song in the sideboard. Azorius charm also seems somewhat useless. With 4 sejiri for lifelink, you don't want to pay 2 for 1 card, and the removal ability is only alright, it doesn't seem good enough for modern. You could also perhaps find room for tidebinders in your sideboard, unless you fairly play those types of decks.
Also it makes the Affinity matchup winnable. Their guys are x/1's and you are not 'wasting' board slots.
If only whitening bolt was better.
Another card I've started running MD to combat delver cruise is Thalia. So far she has performed well and I believe is a solid addition. I honestly don't think Sejiri Merfolk is worth running, but I haven't actually tested him. In order to run him in my deck I would have to change my mana base up quite a bit and make it a lot more painful. In my opinion running anything less than 4 mutavaults is a mistake.
EDIT: Gut shot is a pretty reasonable sideboard choice. Have not tried it, but I can see that it would work v a number of decks. I don't use it because it feels a bit narrow, but it seems like a fine choice.
Ultimately merfolk is not really an aggro or a tempo deck, but an anti meta deck. Imo.