Thank you for your comment. Ok then, I will try Dismember MD for a while!
And I guess one of our possible win paterns is their not having explosive hand and lands. I'll aim at the point!
Yes that's how I see at at least. It's hard to do anything if they have fast and explosives hands plus more of double mana producing lands. If they have only one you can Spreading Seas it and screw them but if they have more they will just play them and Spreading Seas on the previous one won't have that big effect anymore. I think we need hands with disruption (land hate mostly) combined with fast clock and hope at the same time that hey don't have their best draws. If this is all true then I think we have decent chances of winning the game (note that 50:50 is fine against them and I would be happy if this was my record against them).
I'm not sure hot others thoughts are here but I think Master of Waves is one of our better threats too as he gives big board presence allowing to close the game very fast after it landed if we manage to survive long enough (although Ratched Bomb is still a problem but if they don't find it I think MoW could help).
I don't agree with the point regarding Dismember. They're similar to us in that they can shrug off the loss of 1-2 creatures, and paying 4 life for the privilege of them shrugging it off doesn't seem very good. This is a race, and in a race you want to keep your life total up as high as you can. As others noted, Eldrazi Mimic has a "may" clause, so we can't even use Dismember as a Mimic-popping blowout. I much prefer the likes of Vapor Snag or Echoing Truth.
The point on Master of Waves, on the other hand, is a very good one. It rescued me from being behind more than once, and if they don't have Dismember or Ratchet Bomb for it, it tends to be game over.
Winning PTQ and MKM Series tournaments with 200 and 100 players is ok in my book. These are not Fnm level. Not random top8 with split, pure win.
DS from Germany is also consistent even if his tournaments are 50-60 players range. Do we have active players with better results?
Rietzl is not wasting his breath on Merfolk.
There is small number of Merfolk players who keep on crushing and I like hearing their thoughts. I can embrace or dismiss their advice by myself.
Yes its a race, but in case of dismember we usually come out with more life depite paying 4. In Addition to that, we don't really have options!
Pongify.... but how often do we take 3/6/9 damage from it? Or worse, we have to trade?
Who is DS in Germany?
I'd say that a tempo play is a fine substitute to Dismember, provided that you pair it with pressure of your own. Fortunately for us, that is something Merfolk does very well. I'm testing Echoing Truth against them in place of Dismember.
Hey guys. When will prices go down for modern cards? I want some vials but dont want to spend the money. Thanks
Don't expect Æther Vial to go down in price anytime soon. In fact, you might want to pick it up before it goes UP in price again. If Merfolk can hang with Eldrazi the way we're projecting, people will flock to it, plus decks like Death & Taxes seem to be doing well, and they use it too.
I have changed my deck to compete with our new Eldrazi overlords, what do you think about it? I might add 4x Chalice of the Void to the sideboard, if the seller on mcm honors the deal he made.
I really like where you're taking this - it's cool to see an another list with Painter's Servant. I had suggested it earlier, but I don't play online so my suggestion was based on theory-crafting instead of actual play. I'm curious as to why you'd play Graffdigger's Cage ?
Match 1 Jund: Match one I played 5 lords in a row and won. Sided out vial and chalice for Kira, relics, and tidebinders. Ended up losing game 2 and won game 3 when I played both relics and all he had was goyfs.
Match 2 Colorless Eldrazi: Won game one, don't remember how, and in games 2 and three I took out chalice for negate and both ghost quarters. I won game three by needing my opponent to make 2 misplays during combat and he ended up making three misplays.
Matches 3, 5, and 8 Storm: It was sure fun sitting around for 3 hours and watching my opponents play magic. For most of the games I sided out all four spreading seas for the relics, the chalice and the negate. I won 2 matches and was close but I misplayed quite a bit in game 3.
Match 4 Big Zoo: Started with a game loss for being late (oops) and my opponent beat me down.
Match 6 Affinity: Game one he beat me down to 4 life on his turn four and I swung back for 20 on turn five. Sided out the spreading seas for 2 ghost quarters and the hurkyll's. He was trying to kill me with slow infect so I held up harbinger with chalice and waited to play the ghost quarter so that he would waist a few turns. I ended up winning on my turn five again.
Match 7 BG Eldrazi: I had no idea how to play against it and ended up playing right into a damnation game 2 and lost.
Match 9 Scapeshift: 4 caverns is pretty good against scapeshift and in game one I just played lords and won very quickly. Game 2 I sided in the Reejeries and the Negate and sided out the chalices. I kept a 1 lander with two vials and he destroyed both but I ended up playing Rejeery and imaged it. On the final turn of the game I played 2 silvergils, 2 lords, and image on another lord with the Rejeery combo and swung for lethal with the Reejeries and a mutavault.
Overall the chalices were alright against storm but it was a bit of an anomaly to match up against 3 out of 4 of the Storm players in a room of 309 people. : /
Congrats to the guy who got 5th at the regionals I went to!
Winning PTQ and MKM Series tournaments with 200 and 100 players is ok in my book. These are not Fnm level. Not random top8 with split, pure win.
DS from Germany is also consistent even if his tournaments are 50-60 players range. Do we have active players with better results?
Rietzl is not wasting his breath on Merfolk.
There is small number of Merfolk players who keep on crushing and I like hearing their thoughts. I can embrace or dismiss their advice by myself.
I am not trying to say "who is this clown and you guys shouldn't waste time talking about him!!1!", simply just would like to know, and would like other Merfolk players to know, if there is more relevant data than a single isolated event (relevant = within last 12 months, more specifically post-Harbinger of the Tides) for this (or any other!) individual, which apparently there is not. Not saying he isn't a great player, I couldn't possibly know that, but what I can see is the data and all that he has is last weekend's result. If he continues to perform well then I will definitely afford more weight to his build and suggestions. For now, I just wanted to clarify and be logical in our thinking, rather than encourage the typical Modern player's overreaction mindset i.e. "Ban eye of Ugin now!! Twin was fine!! We need Jace and BBE unbanned ASAP!!"
I would hope you would be able to entertain other players' advice without accepting it, that is a prerequisite for success and an admirable trait.
My (slight) aversion to us taking this list too seriously stems from both the fact that I haven't heard or seen anything relevant from him, and after I was linked his MTGTOP8 results I find only one entry in the last year, MKM Milan. I do not see any PTQ Wins, and asked any respondents (including yourself!) to give details on other wins he has had.. On that note, can you provide some sort of evidence he won a relevant PTQ aka which PTQ, when was it, what list, etc? Also, can you provide a link for the German player DS you mention? I am very interested in some solid data to work with but I don't wish to waste anyone's time or mental energy on baseless hype.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"It's not a matter of deserving. It's a matter of strength. The power to hold versus the power to take."
-Sygg, River Cutthroat
Dominik Stuetzle, but he plays the format you hate so who cares http://mtgtop8.com/search
Just type in Dominik St in search because his name was butchered in some places. Never saw this level of consistency.
I understand why you Spreading Seas the Eldrazi Temple, but why not Spreading Seas the Ghost Quarter instead to cut off the Quarter's ability in general?
I understand why you Spreading Seas the Eldrazi Temple, but why not Spreading Seas the Ghost Quarter instead to cut off the Quarter's ability in general?
He was able to 2 for 1 them by hitting the temple (he had to sac quarter and destroy his own land, plus you cantrip). Typically you should try and hold the Seas effect for Eye or Temple. The one game I lost to Eldrazi last week was because I wasted a Spreading Seas on a dumb land.
I see little mention of any ModernNexus merfolk builds. I don't love the builds themselves, but I do like ModernNexus as a whole and their analysis is worth a read.
I understand why you Spreading Seas the Eldrazi Temple, but why not Spreading Seas the Ghost Quarter instead to cut off the Quarter's ability in general?
He was able to 2 for 1 them by hitting the temple (he had to sac quarter and destroy his own land, plus you cantrip). Typically you should try and hold the Seas effect for Eye or Temple. The one game I lost to Eldrazi last week was because I wasted a Spreading Seas on a dumb land.
I understand that, but based on the board state, the Eldrazi player was free to remove Nikachu's Islandwalk any time he pleased.
Winning PTQ and MKM Series tournaments with 200 and 100 players is ok in my book. These are not Fnm level. Not random top8 with split, pure win.
DS from Germany is also consistent even if his tournaments are 50-60 players range. Do we have active players with better results?
Rietzl is not wasting his breath on Merfolk.
There is small number of Merfolk players who keep on crushing and I like hearing their thoughts. I can embrace or dismiss their advice by myself.
So, I've been working non-stop and haven't had time to post about it, but I went 8-2 at the regionals in Baltimore. I basically ran Nikachu's list except I replaced one harbinger with a vapor snag (couldn't find my fourth harbinger at the last second) and I managed to work 3 chalice into the sideboard. My two losses were to Tron (didn't see a single spreading sea's in 3 games) and to a homebrew R/W deck running stuff like resto-kiki and hero of bladehold (got land screwed one game, land flooded the next and he had two great hands)
These were my matches though:
rd1: Anafenza Company 2-0
rd 2: Junk 2-0
rd 3: Kiki-Company 2-0
rd 4: RW homebrew 0-2
rd 5: Junk 2-1
rd 6: Tron 1-2
rd 7: Mardu Land destruction (homebrew) 2-0
rd 8: Boggles 2-1 (dude miscounted dmg game 1 and scooped even though I was 2 damage short of lethal, gm 3 chalice on 1 sealed it.)
rd 9: Mirror 2-0
rd 10: Jeskai ascendancy: 2-1 (turns out he can't beat chalice on 1 both games.)
I cut off more mana if I sea the temple. He goes down to 3 mana, far from playing scary things like reality smasher or Obligator. So he has 3 mana sources. If he wants to use his ghost quarter on his temple he'll go down to 2 mana sources. If I seas his ghost quarter he won't care and have 4 mana sources.
Winning PTQ and MKM Series tournaments with 200 and 100 players is ok in my book. These are not Fnm level. Not random top8 with split, pure win.
DS from Germany is also consistent even if his tournaments are 50-60 players range. Do we have active players with better results?
Rietzl is not wasting his breath on Merfolk.
There is small number of Merfolk players who keep on crushing and I like hearing their thoughts. I can embrace or dismiss their advice by myself.
My (slight) aversion to us taking this list too seriously stems from both the fact that I haven't heard or seen anything relevant from him, and after I was linked his MTGTOP8 results I find only one entry in the last year, MKM Milan. I do not see any PTQ Wins, and asked any respondents (including yourself!) to give details on other wins he has had.. On that note, can you provide some sort of evidence he won a relevant PTQ aka which PTQ, when was it, what list, etc? Also, can you provide a link for the German player DS you mention? I am very interested in some solid data to work with but I don't wish to waste anyone's time or mental energy on baseless hype.
I apologize, switched Ovino tournament with PTQ.
Easy mistake because Italian Modern and Legacy scene is great and their PTQs are always huge. They both attract hundreds.
Winning PTQ and MKM Series tournaments with 200 and 100 players is ok in my book. These are not Fnm level. Not random top8 with split, pure win.
DS from Germany is also consistent even if his tournaments are 50-60 players range. Do we have active players with better results?
Rietzl is not wasting his breath on Merfolk.
There is small number of Merfolk players who keep on crushing and I like hearing their thoughts. I can embrace or dismiss their advice by myself.
My (slight) aversion to us taking this list too seriously stems from both the fact that I haven't heard or seen anything relevant from him, and after I was linked his MTGTOP8 results I find only one entry in the last year, MKM Milan. I do not see any PTQ Wins, and asked any respondents (including yourself!) to give details on other wins he has had.. On that note, can you provide some sort of evidence he won a relevant PTQ aka which PTQ, when was it, what list, etc? Also, can you provide a link for the German player DS you mention? I am very interested in some solid data to work with but I don't wish to waste anyone's time or mental energy on baseless hype.
I apologize, switched Ovino tournament with PTQ.
Easy mistake because Italian Modern and Legacy scene is great and their PTQs are always huge. They both attract hundreds.
So I'm made a push to champ mutavaults. When they come in I'll have a playset of foil M14 mutavaults if anyone is looking to foil out. I also have 12 theros islands, you know which ones lol!
So I'm made a push to champ mutavaults. When they come in I'll have a playset of foil M14 mutavaults if anyone is looking to foil out. I also have 12 theros islands, you know which ones lol!
Jesus. Champs mutavaults? Props sir. My wife would have my balls in a grinder :/
Hey guys, I've tested a few more matches against UR Eldrazi, and while I still think we could use a couple more Seas effects, I'm pretty confident in our normal 75's ability to hang with them now. As it turns out, I was making a sideboarding mistake (Cursecatcher should stay in as early pressure, Spell Pierce hits 3 cards and should be sided out), and that has tipped the scales in our favor. I think that with 2 or so Sea's Claim in the sideboard, this matchup will at least be bearable. For reference, here's how my matches against it went (first 3 were with old SB plan, latter 3 were with new plan).
UR Eldrazi Aggro: 3-3
Match 1 (02/08/2016): 2-0
- G1 (draw) stabilize with Master of Waves at 3 life; opponent misplays and plays a Steam Vents allowing me to attack for lethal
- G2 (draw) force opponent to seach for an Island with a T2 Ghost Quarter on Eye of Ugin; assemble islandwalking force and attack for lethal
Match 2 (02/08/2016): 0-2
- G1 (draw) mull to 6 and run out of gas after trading with Reality Smasher and 4/4 Endless One; landed 2x Ghost Quarters to slow him down, 0 Spreading Seas
- G2 (play) mull to 6 and get overwhelmed by huge Eldrazi; 0 Spreading Seas
Match 3 (02/08/2016): 0-2
- G1 (draw) I mull to 6 but opponent mulls to 5; get stuck on 1 land and opponent Thought-Knot Seer takes my Harbinger; land Master of Waves which dies to Dismember; misplay by attacking with Lords
- G2 (play) I attack lands early but opponent recovers and pressures me with huge Eldrazi
Match 4 (02/09/2016): 2-0
- G1 (draw) opponent mulls to 5 and I shut down Eldrazi Temple with Spreading Seas; land 4 Lords with Reejerey and Vial
- G2 (draw) opponent mulls to 6 and I Lord rush for the win; Echoing Truth bounced a Ratchet Bomb
Match 5 (02/09/2016): 1-2
- G1 (play) get overwhelmed by a Drowner of Hope that landed through a Ghost Quarter
- G2 (play) land 4x Lord thanks to 2x Reejerey and attack for lethal in one big turn
- G3 (draw) mull to 5 and opponent lands T2 Thought-Knot Seer; misplay on Lord sequencing
Match 6 (02/09/2016): 2-0
- G1 (play) opponent mulls to 6 and I curve into Lord of Atlantis and Merrow Reejerey; Spell Pierce stuffs a critical Dismember
- G2 (draw) land a T1 Vial and tempo opponent with 2x Vapor Snag, then land 3x Reejerey for lethal
I don't agree with the point regarding Dismember. They're similar to us in that they can shrug off the loss of 1-2 creatures, and paying 4 life for the privilege of them shrugging it off doesn't seem very good. This is a race, and in a race you want to keep your life total up as high as you can. As others noted, Eldrazi Mimic has a "may" clause, so we can't even use Dismember as a Mimic-popping blowout. I much prefer the likes of Vapor Snag or Echoing Truth.
The point on Master of Waves, on the other hand, is a very good one. It rescued me from being behind more than once, and if they don't have Dismember or Ratchet Bomb for it, it tends to be game over.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
DS from Germany is also consistent even if his tournaments are 50-60 players range. Do we have active players with better results?
Rietzl is not wasting his breath on Merfolk.
There is small number of Merfolk players who keep on crushing and I like hearing their thoughts. I can embrace or dismiss their advice by myself.
I'd say that a tempo play is a fine substitute to Dismember, provided that you pair it with pressure of your own. Fortunately for us, that is something Merfolk does very well. I'm testing Echoing Truth against them in place of Dismember.
Don't expect Æther Vial to go down in price anytime soon. In fact, you might want to pick it up before it goes UP in price again. If Merfolk can hang with Eldrazi the way we're projecting, people will flock to it, plus decks like Death & Taxes seem to be doing well, and they use it too.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I really like where you're taking this - it's cool to see an another list with Painter's Servant. I had suggested it earlier, but I don't play online so my suggestion was based on theory-crafting instead of actual play. I'm curious as to why you'd play Graffdigger's Cage ?
Match 2 Colorless Eldrazi: Won game one, don't remember how, and in games 2 and three I took out chalice for negate and both ghost quarters. I won game three by needing my opponent to make 2 misplays during combat and he ended up making three misplays.
Matches 3, 5, and 8 Storm: It was sure fun sitting around for 3 hours and watching my opponents play magic. For most of the games I sided out all four spreading seas for the relics, the chalice and the negate. I won 2 matches and was close but I misplayed quite a bit in game 3.
Match 4 Big Zoo: Started with a game loss for being late (oops) and my opponent beat me down.
Match 6 Affinity: Game one he beat me down to 4 life on his turn four and I swung back for 20 on turn five. Sided out the spreading seas for 2 ghost quarters and the hurkyll's. He was trying to kill me with slow infect so I held up harbinger with chalice and waited to play the ghost quarter so that he would waist a few turns. I ended up winning on my turn five again.
Match 7 BG Eldrazi: I had no idea how to play against it and ended up playing right into a damnation game 2 and lost.
Match 9 Scapeshift: 4 caverns is pretty good against scapeshift and in game one I just played lords and won very quickly. Game 2 I sided in the Reejeries and the Negate and sided out the chalices. I kept a 1 lander with two vials and he destroyed both but I ended up playing Rejeery and imaged it. On the final turn of the game I played 2 silvergils, 2 lords, and image on another lord with the Rejeery combo and swung for lethal with the Reejeries and a mutavault.
Congrats to the guy who got 5th at the regionals I went to!
Game 1 we had a bit of a brawl, after some handy tempo plays I managed to delay him getting to his big threats enough that I eventually won.
Game 2 I opened literally all my sidebboard pieces that wrecked him and just kept him off doing anything.
This was Round 1 of an Open in England, I couldn't quite believe it.
U Merfolk U
Legacy
U Fish U
"I Want To Believe"
I am not trying to say "who is this clown and you guys shouldn't waste time talking about him!!1!", simply just would like to know, and would like other Merfolk players to know, if there is more relevant data than a single isolated event (relevant = within last 12 months, more specifically post-Harbinger of the Tides) for this (or any other!) individual, which apparently there is not. Not saying he isn't a great player, I couldn't possibly know that, but what I can see is the data and all that he has is last weekend's result. If he continues to perform well then I will definitely afford more weight to his build and suggestions. For now, I just wanted to clarify and be logical in our thinking, rather than encourage the typical Modern player's overreaction mindset i.e. "Ban eye of Ugin now!! Twin was fine!! We need Jace and BBE unbanned ASAP!!"
I would hope you would be able to entertain other players' advice without accepting it, that is a prerequisite for success and an admirable trait.
My (slight) aversion to us taking this list too seriously stems from both the fact that I haven't heard or seen anything relevant from him, and after I was linked his MTGTOP8 results I find only one entry in the last year, MKM Milan. I do not see any PTQ Wins, and asked any respondents (including yourself!) to give details on other wins he has had.. On that note, can you provide some sort of evidence he won a relevant PTQ aka which PTQ, when was it, what list, etc? Also, can you provide a link for the German player DS you mention? I am very interested in some solid data to work with but I don't wish to waste anyone's time or mental energy on baseless hype.
-Sygg, River Cutthroat
I play all Cavern of Souls decks
http://mtgtop8.com/search
Just type in Dominik St in search because his name was butchered in some places. Never saw this level of consistency.
I understand why you Spreading Seas the Eldrazi Temple, but why not Spreading Seas the Ghost Quarter instead to cut off the Quarter's ability in general?
He was able to 2 for 1 them by hitting the temple (he had to sac quarter and destroy his own land, plus you cantrip). Typically you should try and hold the Seas effect for Eye or Temple. The one game I lost to Eldrazi last week was because I wasted a Spreading Seas on a dumb land.
David Erenwein sure loves his UW Fish.
http://modernnexus.com/ill-take-it-scg-regionals-report/
-Sygg, River Cutthroat
I play all Cavern of Souls decks
I understand that, but based on the board state, the Eldrazi player was free to remove Nikachu's Islandwalk any time he pleased.
So, I've been working non-stop and haven't had time to post about it, but I went 8-2 at the regionals in Baltimore. I basically ran Nikachu's list except I replaced one harbinger with a vapor snag (couldn't find my fourth harbinger at the last second) and I managed to work 3 chalice into the sideboard. My two losses were to Tron (didn't see a single spreading sea's in 3 games) and to a homebrew R/W deck running stuff like resto-kiki and hero of bladehold (got land screwed one game, land flooded the next and he had two great hands)
These were my matches though:
rd1: Anafenza Company 2-0
rd 2: Junk 2-0
rd 3: Kiki-Company 2-0
rd 4: RW homebrew 0-2
rd 5: Junk 2-1
rd 6: Tron 1-2
rd 7: Mardu Land destruction (homebrew) 2-0
rd 8: Boggles 2-1 (dude miscounted dmg game 1 and scooped even though I was 2 damage short of lethal, gm 3 chalice on 1 sealed it.)
rd 9: Mirror 2-0
rd 10: Jeskai ascendancy: 2-1 (turns out he can't beat chalice on 1 both games.)
Easy mistake because Italian Modern and Legacy scene is great and their PTQs are always huge. They both attract hundreds.
This is Ovino if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojBWq39KTfc&feature=share (THIS is how you do a trailer for Mtg tournament :)).
https://www.facebook.com/Ovinogeddon/
Truly, it is a great video. That tournament looks like lots of fun as well!
UMerfolk
WDeath and Taxes
BRBliztkrieg
GStompy
- - -
"Rock is overpowered. Paper is fine."
-Scissors
Jesus. Champs mutavaults? Props sir. My wife would have my balls in a grinder :/
UR Eldrazi Aggro: 3-3
Match 1 (02/08/2016): 2-0
- G1 (draw) stabilize with Master of Waves at 3 life; opponent misplays and plays a Steam Vents allowing me to attack for lethal
- G2 (draw) force opponent to seach for an Island with a T2 Ghost Quarter on Eye of Ugin; assemble islandwalking force and attack for lethal
Match 2 (02/08/2016): 0-2
- G1 (draw) mull to 6 and run out of gas after trading with Reality Smasher and 4/4 Endless One; landed 2x Ghost Quarters to slow him down, 0 Spreading Seas
- G2 (play) mull to 6 and get overwhelmed by huge Eldrazi; 0 Spreading Seas
Match 3 (02/08/2016): 0-2
- G1 (draw) I mull to 6 but opponent mulls to 5; get stuck on 1 land and opponent Thought-Knot Seer takes my Harbinger; land Master of Waves which dies to Dismember; misplay by attacking with Lords
- G2 (play) I attack lands early but opponent recovers and pressures me with huge Eldrazi
Match 4 (02/09/2016): 2-0
- G1 (draw) opponent mulls to 5 and I shut down Eldrazi Temple with Spreading Seas; land 4 Lords with Reejerey and Vial
- G2 (draw) opponent mulls to 6 and I Lord rush for the win; Echoing Truth bounced a Ratchet Bomb
Match 5 (02/09/2016): 1-2
- G1 (play) get overwhelmed by a Drowner of Hope that landed through a Ghost Quarter
- G2 (play) land 4x Lord thanks to 2x Reejerey and attack for lethal in one big turn
- G3 (draw) mull to 5 and opponent lands T2 Thought-Knot Seer; misplay on Lord sequencing
Match 6 (02/09/2016): 2-0
- G1 (play) opponent mulls to 6 and I curve into Lord of Atlantis and Merrow Reejerey; Spell Pierce stuffs a critical Dismember
- G2 (draw) land a T1 Vial and tempo opponent with 2x Vapor Snag, then land 3x Reejerey for lethal
SB:
+2 Echoing Truth
-2 Spell Pierce
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers: