I'm sure this has been covered here before, but the primer doesn't go into enough depth; how the hell do you sideboard the mirror? I just got matched against another merfolk, and we had completely different sideboard strategies, and I need to know what we're supposed to do. Do spreading seas come out because they have primarily islands already, or do they stay in to cantrip and hit mutas? LoAs, in? out? or are we better off just switching in a generic 2/2 body in the form of tidebinder? Primer says counters are bad, but I left in pierces and hit vial with it...which is pretty relevant.
While it would be convenient to see a decklist, I'll attempt to answer your question anyway.
The most useless cards in the Merfolk Mirror are first the Sea's effects (Sea's Claim/Spreading Sea's) because our opponent already has islands. I would leave 2 spreading sea's in (or more if your sideboard is empty) if my opponent shows me Wanderwine Hub and Cavern of Souls. Their list will indicate few islands and we could use a random sea's effect to get islandwalk.
Next, Counterspells are incredibly situational or downright dead. For that reason I try to side them all out. If I'm desperate to side something back in I might have 1 Dispel/ Swan song to counter a timely Dismember or Vapor Snag which should be expected in any Merfolk list.
Your PRIORITY is to side in anything that interacts with permanents (vapor snag/dismember/gut shot) or is a permanent that can attack. For that matter, side in Tidebinder Mages, Kiras, or any other creatures in the board (maybe not spellskite).
1 or 2 Tectonic Edges or Ghost Quarters are fine too if you have the space but they are not mandatory.
Lord of Atlantis should never be sided out. You still need lords that grant islandwalk for the kill. Treat him as a 4 drop instead of a 2 drop and you should be fine. Otherwise, I've won games with an early Lord of Atlantis if I had a lot of tempo cards like Vapor Snag and Dismember in hand and my opponent didn't have vial to catch up.
Some food for thought:
If your opponent keeps a 7 card hand, try to mulligan aggressively for something playable. I try hard to imagine how a game could play out from my opening hand and ask myself if it really has a chance in hell of beating a normal merfolk curve. Remember, LoA is basically a 4 drop so if you have a hand of 3 lands, 2x LoA and 2x MoW, you probably ship for something better.
If you happen to have a Lord of Atlantis on the table, consider suiciding it into your opponent's creatures. He can never block anything, you might get in damage you otherwise wouldn't, if he dies it can slow your opponent's clock down. Remember that a 2/2 LoA trades with their 3/3 creatures. If you have a removal spell in hand then you might be able to trade with a 4/4 creature.
Be careful casting Spreading Sea's early on an opponent's Mutavault. We are usually choked on blue mana, you might be fixing their manabase. On a board of Island Mutavault they might not have a 2nd island to cast lords! 3x island is far better (cast UU creature + snag/cursecatcher) than 2x island + Mutavault, Mutavault's brown mana cuts down on their options and their curve. The same applies once they reach UUUU vs UUUC. Of course if you're on turn 2 and you desperately need to draw cards, cast it because you gotta do what you gotta do. Also consider just casting it on their Minamo instead of the Mutavault.
You can play around Harbinger of the Tides by using Reejerey's trigger ability to tap the Vial on 2 pre combat.
Look for opportunities to bluff. If your opponent has islandwalk and 3/3 lords, try attacking with a naked 2/1 Silvergill if you can credibly represent a post combat Snag/dismember or Harbinger of the Tides on a tapped lord. Be very careful what kind of opponents you do this against (they need to be smart enough to rationalize a blow out by a combat trick), but every little bit of damage you can squeeze can make the difference.
Life matters a lot, use dismember early before creatures get free shots in on you.
Bouncing anything with Harbinger on early turns is usually amazing.
If you play with Phantasmal Image, consider keeping him back to play around Harbinger of the Tides.
Phantasmal Image copies casting cost. He will have a casting cost of UU when he is a Master of the Pearl Trident, this is relevant when you resolve Master of Waves for elemental tokens.
Every so often some idiot copies my Kira with their Phantasmal image, blow it up with Minamo.
Hold back your islands if it doesn't impede your ability to curve out too much (like you have aether Vial or a lot of Wanderwine Hubs). Otherwise just play the islands and curve out.
Don't resign until your opponent has swung for lethal (should be applicable to all matches anyway). With open mana or a vial on 2, your opponent can play around cards you're not thinking of or playing in your deck (like Echoing Truth perhaps) and make a passive attack in fear of being blown out.
With regards to the new counterspell, I'll say what I said on reddit:
This is hilariously terrible in comparison to Hurkyl's aggainst affinity. By the time we can reasonably hold up a counter against affinity there's a good chance they've spewed their hand. Hurkyl's allows us to establish a board state the first 2-3 turns and then completely reset theirs and put them under a quick clock and take the game. With any sort of clock Hurkyl's is a game winning spell against affinity, this is at best a mild improvement to our normal gameplan against them.
If you want *more* affinity hate it might be somewhat okay, but even that seems iffy and would need some testing. Aside from affinity it only hits Tron and a couple fringe decks effectively (remember eldrazi runs 4 caverns which would make the card entirely dead the majority of the time, it'd be questionable to even bring it in against them). I don't think we can affort to run that many narrow cards in the board. It also can't really take our counterspell slot because it doesn't hit the decks we want those against (control and especially combo). Incredibly unlikely this even comes close to making the cut.
The difference between Recall and the new Counterspell is the flexibilty of the sideboardcard. Lets be honest, Recall was only good in Lantern and Affinity. The Counterspell however does things against other Matchups as well. holding up a single blue in Tron is a lot easier than holding up 2mana. Having a cmc1 counter against Thoughtknot or Smasher sound nice too. I just love to see a cmc1 counter that can handle creatures/planeswalkers.
My issue with this argument is that I'm not at all convinced this helps against Eldrazi with their 4 maindeck caverns. Even if it does it's incredibly minor at best there considering how solid our maindeck cards already are in the matchup (aside from possibly some mainboard spell pierce). So what do we get by trading one of these for a Hurkyl's?
A huge loss against affinity (this card is okay at best against them and not even close to the game changer that Hurkyl's is - it's basically a worse steel sabotage against them and steel sabotage doesn't come close to getting the job done).
A loss against lantern (hard to say here but I think I'd prefer Hurkyl's, our game against them revolves around ensnaring bridge and I'd rather be able to retroactively answer it than need the counter while it's coming down - lantern controls your draws quite a bit, which makes this closer, but a single Hurkyl's can also deal with multiple bridges and this can't so I think Hurkyl's has a distinct edge here).
A significant gain against tron, though not as huge as the loss against affinity. The card is good against them but not nearly as good as Hurkyl's is against affinity in comparison to this.
So where does that leave us? Let's even say that we do want this card against eldrazi (if we are running mainboard spell pierce for example). Let's even say that wanting it balances out the difference between Hurkyl's and this against lantern (probably reasonable if we do want it against eldrazi, due to the prevalence difference between the decks). Even with those assumptions in favor of the card, we are still simply trading off a gain against Tron for a more significant loss against affinity. Considering that affinity is our worst matchup and we're already pretty solid against tron without this card, that's far from a decent tradeoff. Even in a meta that's something like 50% tron, we still have better options available to deal with it (sea's claim/tec edge). The only time I could justify it's conclusion would be in some kind of incredibly warped meta where affinity and tron specifically are the top two decks and are something insane like more than half the metagame combined. In that case you'd just want this in addition to the Hurkyl's rather than instead of it. And at that point its specific enough a metagame that it isn't worthwhile in considering for whether the card will generally be viable for the deck.
With this mismatched list i played in a pptq , obtaining the following result: 2-2-1
Round 1 : Jund 2-Merfolk 0 (everything i played got blasted)
Round 2 : Naya 2( with Nacatl) 0 vs Merfolk 0
Round 3 : Naya Burn 0 Vs merfolk 2 (he didn't draw a treat the whole game)
Round 4 : Bant eldrazi 1 Vs Merfolk 1 (1 game i had too many merfolk out there also 12 Master of waves tokens, 2nd game he rushed and won, 3rd game he played worship(didn't side vapor snag) so i played till we drew
Round 5 : Extra turns 0-Merfolk 2 (Nothing eventful happened)
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From Supernatural:
Sam: a demon summoning spell ? why?
Lucifer: to summon a demon (auto censorship here)
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The Wizard of Oz: A juvenile delinquent runs away from home, kills the first person she meets in a foreign land, robs her corpse, then promptly forms a gang with three complete strangers in order to kill again.
====
My opponent attack me with 2 SilverGill Adept, if I Vial in a Lord of Atlantis to block one of them, when Vial resolves my Lord going to give them Islandwalk or I can block?
My opponent attack me with 2 SilverGill Adept, if I Vial in a Lord of Atlantis to block one of them, when Vial resolves my Lord going to give them Islandwalk or I can block?
You'll be able to block if you don't have Islands. You will not if you do have Island. Lord of Atlantis grants Islandwalk to each other Merfolk, this includes opposing Merfolks. Master of the Pearl Trident only gives your team of Merfolk Islandwalk.
This is generally why you want to hold off dropping a Lord of Atlantis into play in the mirror until you swing for lethal.
Yep, like I imagined. My doubt was if the declaration of blockers was before than his "islandwalk trigger".
So with red blue fast lands coming anyone else thought of splashing red for Lightning bolt? I've been pondering trying it out, but given the merfolk curve there are disadvantages to running that style of land due to tempo.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
In all honest, this is probably worth consideration. Between Tarns, Vents, and the new fastlands, one should feasibly be able to support a set of Bolts while still reliably getting blue mana.
I'm not sure if it's worth the life loss and increased susceptibility to nonbasic hate, but the option is there.
My hunch is no. Then again, red does offer some other answers to problems like Affinity that could be worth consideration. Those answers are worse than white's, but they don't include access to Bolt.
I think bolt is way better than path and it's not close. Bolt has reach to your opponent's face and giving your opponent a land with path is a crippling disadvantage.
I think bolt is way better than path and it's not close. Bolt has reach to your opponent's face and giving your opponent a land with path is a crippling disadvantage.
Isnt it meta dependent? I mean, my meta is full of problematic creatures, like Goyf, Kalithas, Wurmcoil, Tasigur, Finks, TKS, Reality Smashers....and Path is a permanent solution for them
Has anyone done much testing with Unsubstantiate? I ran it at a PPTQ this weekend and found moderate success with it in an Eldrazi, Jund, and Control heavy meta.
I think bolt is way better than path and it's not close. Bolt has reach to your opponent's face and giving your opponent a land with path is a crippling disadvantage.
Isnt it meta dependent? I mean, my meta is full of problematic creatures, like Goyf, Kalithas, Wurmcoil, Tasigur, Finks, TKS, Reality Smashers....and Path is a permanent solution for them
As I wrote a few pages ago (or was it on facebook? Anyways) I really did splash for white to get Stoney Silence and RIP and Path to Exile. I did it through Wanderwine Hub and Seachrome Coast so the mana base was not that ***** up. But I had the feeling like Nikachu said that you give your advantage away. It's all about having tempo in modern, especially in Merfolk. You wann flood the board and overwhelm your opponent, but in a nice way. It's not like the all-in of Goblin decks, you are kinda wearing them down most of the time. BUT especially when you are on the the draw and already a land behind ... if you give them another land oh my lord. This is so ugly. I feel that even Swords to Plowshares if it were legal would be better than [cardPath toExile[/card].
I have the feeling through having cards like Remand (which is the best interactive card for Merfolk as it replaces itself) and in some way Spell Pierce and others (maybe also Unsubstantiate) we can turn the tides just that little bit to win. Merfolk does not want to have answers. The deck wants to be just a little more resilient than the other decks.
My 2cents. As a new player that may be bull****. Sorry.
Main
14 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4 Cursecatcher
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
4 Sea's Claim
The new plan is to try to dodge Dredge! Alternatively you could swap the sea's claims for vapor snags if you have a more balanced meta. The only thing I didn't see coming was how well positioned infect was. I never saw it once in my playtesting, somehow I figured BGx would eat it up but upon second thought I no longer think that's the case.
How would you deal with Grixis or Nahiri decks without Kira? Kira forces so many 2-for-1s
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Cunning Spark Mage? $0.10
Basilisk Collar? $5.00
Shooting down a baneslayer angel? Priceless
A new shop near me has Modern on Tuesdays. I've never played there before but I was talking with someone who played last week and they told me a few of the decks that were there last week: Naya Ally's, Elves, Mono-Red Burn, Kiki-Chord (which is running Caldera Hellion), 5 Color Gifts, and another Merfolk deck. I'm currently thinking of playing this list
Still pretty iffy on the SB. I would play a second Cage in the SB but I only have the one. I've also thought about doing a 3/3 Split on Harbingers and Tidebinders in the MD and playing 2 Vapor Snag/2 Dismember instead of the 4 Vapor Snag. I didn't hear anything about Affinity so I'm keeping the Recalls in my binder for now.
Whoa, lots of stuff to catch up on. Let's try to go point by point:
1. I'm somewhat excited about Ceremonious Dismissal, but I would never consider it a substitute for Hurkyl's Recall. Instead, it's more of an option to double down with if you need Affinity/Eldrazi/Tron/random artifact hate (I'd say it competes with cards such as Dispel and Gut Shot). Of those matchups, I'd say Affinity's the most important - we did pretty well against Eldrazi when they were busted, and our matchup is even better now that their manabase is something they lean on so hard.
2. As for the fastlands... I still wouldn't consider the R splash (or any splash) a legitimate option - Bolt is great and all, but it's not worth diluting your consistency, and even if you wanted to, the manabase is a Wanderwine Hub equivalent away from truly being optimal. However, the existence of those lands might help decks that we're favored against have a smoother manabase, which indirectly helps us.
3. You'd be surprised at how much of a luxury Kira is. Even without her, we handle decks like Grixis/Jeskai/Jund just fine. I've been leaving her at home since Eldrazi Winter, and my records against those decks are not any worse for wear. It reduces your margin for error, but you already were convincingly favored to begin with. Additionally, given the current metagame landscape, I'll reiterate that Priority 1 is fending off linears. You can worry about interactive decks once you've finalized a gameplan against them.
Main
14 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4 Cursecatcher
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
4 Sea's Claim
The new plan is to try to dodge Dredge! Alternatively you could swap the sea's claims for vapor snags if you have a more balanced meta. The only thing I didn't see coming was how well positioned infect was. I never saw it once in my playtesting, somehow I figured BGx would eat it up but upon second thought I no longer think that's the case.
How would you deal with Grixis or Nahiri decks without Kira? Kira forces so many 2-for-1s
If you expect control decks, don't play the 8 seas version. This is to be played in a non-blue metagame.
Some quick notes on the list. I basically used Petr Sochurek's list with some tweaks to the board. I was worried about Dredge and split the Recalls in half to add two cages. I also added the echoing truth rather than the unsummon for the added flexibility of getting rid of non-creature permanents. Finally, I have two caverns of souls and don't have Oboro so I decided to run what I had.
Round 1 - 2-1 against Bant Eldrazi (by eventual winner Thomas Smiley)
Game 1 - I get off to a quick start and he matches pace. He casts a turn 3 reality smasher which is pumped up by hierarch. I cast phantasmal image on his tapped reality smasher and swing it to drop him low. He holds it back next turn and then I vapor snagged it to clear the way.
Game 2 he tore my hand apart with Thought Knot Seers and it was over quick.
Game 3 I’ve got three fish (2 lords) and play a master of waves for 6. He emerges Elder Deep Fiend (sac'ing his hierarch) to tap down my lords but I have enough elementals that he can't attack in and dies the next turn.
Round 2 - 2-1 against Grixis Delver. (2-0 overall)
Game 1 he lives the 3x Delver dream and I cannot recover. The next two games I got had triple lords and had islandwalk
Round 3 - 1-2 against Bant Eldrazi. (2-1 overall)
Game 1 had us building up our boards without any profitable attacks. I drop a MoW making 10 tokens and earning a concession.
Game 2 and 3 played out the same way except he had engineered explosives and that’s pretty good against a bunch of two mana lords and spreading seas. Unfortunately I didn’t have the sideboard cards to bounce my guys back to my hand.
Round 4 - 2-1 against Scapeshift vs Ed Demicco (SCG Worchester Legacy Open winner) (3-1 overall)
Game 1 he remands me into oblivion and combos easily
Game 2 I played lord, lord, 2x lord and he scooped
Game 3 is long and drawn out procedure. I spreading seas his green sources so he can’t go off and then land a tec edge which I pair with an island for remand/destroying a land of his. I whittle him down as he bolts my lords and then he hits 9 lands and goes for it. I remand his scapeshift, he recasts and I sac a cursecatcher ftw
Round 5 - 1-2 against RG Tron (3-2 overall)
Game 1 he had a turn 3 Karn and I had kept a 1-lander with vial.
Game 2 was a quick beatdown as I landed a cursecatcher t1, then lord t2 and then cursecatcher + lord for the turn 4 win.
Game 3 I couldn't get out of Anger of the Gods range and died to a Ugin/Ulamog pair.
Round 6 - 1-2 vs Jeskai Thing in the Ice vs Dan Jessup (3-3)
Game 1 he was able to bounce my board and I couldn’t rebuild in time.
Game 2 he never saw a TITI and couldn't bolt my guys fast enough.
Game 3 was a back and forth with me bouncing things to buy some time. I called the judge to get an oracle text ruling for his Korean Awoken Horror as I hoped it had haste because I had a Phantasmal Image which could've closed it out but it does not.
Despite being knocked out, I wanted to keep playing to grind some points for Worlds next year (I'm a father and rarely get out to play more than once a month if that)
Round 7 - BYE (4-3 overall)
Round 8 - 0-2 vs Bogles (4-4)
Is this match up ridiculously bad? I felt completely powerless to do anything but die. Both games he had a turn 1 bogle and then turn 2 2x aura and then I was dead.
Round 9 - ID
We were both hoping to mise some free points so we decided to split.
Overall I was very happy with the deck. I normally run Mardu/Naya burn but my last effort was 6-3 at GP Pittsburgh (pre-Eldrazi winter) and wanted to try something new. I have a PPTQ coming up followed the next day by the WMCQ so I wanted to get some reps in before potentially using it there. I definitely learned a lot about the deck - I missed some Reejerey triggers and I made some sequencing errors - and I look forward to learning more. Still not sure what I'm playing at the PPTQ/WMCQ as the format is so different. Might trot burn out to get a feel for it at the PPTQ and then decide what to play the next day.
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I am usually posting from my phone. I will usually be brief and there may be typos.
12/1/2004: Yes, you're allowed to have a deck consisting of sixty Relentless Rats and nothing else.
So Mogis is in the middle of a guitar solo, and then Phenax jumps in with
"I like big butts and I cannot lie..."
Decks:
BFZ Standard
Nothing yet Modern RBWMardu BurnWBR Legacy UUUPTSD NoughtUUU EDH WUDaxos VoltronUW UBRJeleva - Oops all your spellsRBU UBUVela, the Ninja Clad (retired)UBU
Our UR and UG-based opponents having better mana is not objectively better for us, no, but having more of them around (as opposed to the Affinity/Dredge/Infect/Zooicide linear morass that is popular at the moment) certainly is. Spreading Seas usually comes out against those decks anyway, so we're not as heavy on the mana denial plan at that point.
As far as the spoilers go, I'm unconvinced Vehicles will make the leap into Modern, and if they do, they're a few Ancient Grudges away from being hated out. The Orrery and Panharmonicon don't strike me as Modern-caliber cards either. Æther Tradewinds looks interesting, though (as was mentioned) the 2U cost is a bit pricey.
The most useless cards in the Merfolk Mirror are first the Sea's effects (Sea's Claim/Spreading Sea's) because our opponent already has islands. I would leave 2 spreading sea's in (or more if your sideboard is empty) if my opponent shows me Wanderwine Hub and Cavern of Souls. Their list will indicate few islands and we could use a random sea's effect to get islandwalk.
Next, Counterspells are incredibly situational or downright dead. For that reason I try to side them all out. If I'm desperate to side something back in I might have 1 Dispel/ Swan song to counter a timely Dismember or Vapor Snag which should be expected in any Merfolk list.
Your PRIORITY is to side in anything that interacts with permanents (vapor snag/dismember/gut shot) or is a permanent that can attack. For that matter, side in Tidebinder Mages, Kiras, or any other creatures in the board (maybe not spellskite).
1 or 2 Tectonic Edges or Ghost Quarters are fine too if you have the space but they are not mandatory.
Lord of Atlantis should never be sided out. You still need lords that grant islandwalk for the kill. Treat him as a 4 drop instead of a 2 drop and you should be fine. Otherwise, I've won games with an early Lord of Atlantis if I had a lot of tempo cards like Vapor Snag and Dismember in hand and my opponent didn't have vial to catch up.
Some food for thought:
If your opponent keeps a 7 card hand, try to mulligan aggressively for something playable. I try hard to imagine how a game could play out from my opening hand and ask myself if it really has a chance in hell of beating a normal merfolk curve. Remember, LoA is basically a 4 drop so if you have a hand of 3 lands, 2x LoA and 2x MoW, you probably ship for something better.
If you happen to have a Lord of Atlantis on the table, consider suiciding it into your opponent's creatures. He can never block anything, you might get in damage you otherwise wouldn't, if he dies it can slow your opponent's clock down. Remember that a 2/2 LoA trades with their 3/3 creatures. If you have a removal spell in hand then you might be able to trade with a 4/4 creature.
Be careful casting Spreading Sea's early on an opponent's Mutavault. We are usually choked on blue mana, you might be fixing their manabase. On a board of Island Mutavault they might not have a 2nd island to cast lords! 3x island is far better (cast UU creature + snag/cursecatcher) than 2x island + Mutavault, Mutavault's brown mana cuts down on their options and their curve. The same applies once they reach UUUU vs UUUC. Of course if you're on turn 2 and you desperately need to draw cards, cast it because you gotta do what you gotta do. Also consider just casting it on their Minamo instead of the Mutavault.
You can play around Harbinger of the Tides by using Reejerey's trigger ability to tap the Vial on 2 pre combat.
Look for opportunities to bluff. If your opponent has islandwalk and 3/3 lords, try attacking with a naked 2/1 Silvergill if you can credibly represent a post combat Snag/dismember or Harbinger of the Tides on a tapped lord. Be very careful what kind of opponents you do this against (they need to be smart enough to rationalize a blow out by a combat trick), but every little bit of damage you can squeeze can make the difference.
Life matters a lot, use dismember early before creatures get free shots in on you.
Bouncing anything with Harbinger on early turns is usually amazing.
If you play with Phantasmal Image, consider keeping him back to play around Harbinger of the Tides.
Phantasmal Image copies casting cost. He will have a casting cost of UU when he is a Master of the Pearl Trident, this is relevant when you resolve Master of Waves for elemental tokens.
Every so often some idiot copies my Kira with their Phantasmal image, blow it up with Minamo.
Hold back your islands if it doesn't impede your ability to curve out too much (like you have aether Vial or a lot of Wanderwine Hubs). Otherwise just play the islands and curve out.
Don't resign until your opponent has swung for lethal (should be applicable to all matches anyway). With open mana or a vial on 2, your opponent can play around cards you're not thinking of or playing in your deck (like Echoing Truth perhaps) and make a passive attack in fear of being blown out.
Mother 3 was a satisfying sequel.
My issue with this argument is that I'm not at all convinced this helps against Eldrazi with their 4 maindeck caverns. Even if it does it's incredibly minor at best there considering how solid our maindeck cards already are in the matchup (aside from possibly some mainboard spell pierce). So what do we get by trading one of these for a Hurkyl's?
12 Island
4 Mutavault
2 Cavern of souls
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Master of Waves
3 Harbinger of the Tides
3 Merrow Reejerey
2 Kira , the great glass spinner
4 Spreading Seas
4 Sea’s Claim
4 Vapor Snag
3 Dispel
2 Tidebinder mage(2/3 bgx)
1 Hurkyl's Recall(i own only one)
1 Steel Sabotage(had nothing else)
With this mismatched list i played in a pptq , obtaining the following result: 2-2-1
Round 1 : Jund 2-Merfolk 0 (everything i played got blasted)
Round 2 : Naya 2( with Nacatl) 0 vs Merfolk 0
Round 3 : Naya Burn 0 Vs merfolk 2 (he didn't draw a treat the whole game)
Round 4 : Bant eldrazi 1 Vs Merfolk 1 (1 game i had too many merfolk out there also 12 Master of waves tokens, 2nd game he rushed and won, 3rd game he played worship(didn't side vapor snag) so i played till we drew
Round 5 : Extra turns 0-Merfolk 2 (Nothing eventful happened)
Sam: a demon summoning spell ? why?
Lucifer: to summon a demon (auto censorship here)
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The Wizard of Oz: A juvenile delinquent runs away from home, kills the first person she meets in a foreign land, robs her corpse, then promptly forms a gang with three complete strangers in order to kill again.
====
with R i'll burn you and with B youll'be maimed
My opponent attack me with 2 SilverGill Adept, if I Vial in a Lord of Atlantis to block one of them, when Vial resolves my Lord going to give them Islandwalk or I can block?
Yep, like I imagined. My doubt was if the declaration of blockers was before than his "islandwalk trigger".
Thank you Motto
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm not sure if it's worth the life loss and increased susceptibility to nonbasic hate, but the option is there.
My hunch is no. Then again, red does offer some other answers to problems like Affinity that could be worth consideration. Those answers are worse than white's, but they don't include access to Bolt.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB
Isnt it meta dependent? I mean, my meta is full of problematic creatures, like Goyf, Kalithas, Wurmcoil, Tasigur, Finks, TKS, Reality Smashers....and Path is a permanent solution for them
As I wrote a few pages ago (or was it on facebook? Anyways) I really did splash for white to get Stoney Silence and RIP and Path to Exile. I did it through Wanderwine Hub and Seachrome Coast so the mana base was not that ***** up. But I had the feeling like Nikachu said that you give your advantage away. It's all about having tempo in modern, especially in Merfolk. You wann flood the board and overwhelm your opponent, but in a nice way. It's not like the all-in of Goblin decks, you are kinda wearing them down most of the time. BUT especially when you are on the the draw and already a land behind ... if you give them another land oh my lord. This is so ugly. I feel that even Swords to Plowshares if it were legal would be better than [cardPath toExile[/card].
I have the feeling through having cards like Remand (which is the best interactive card for Merfolk as it replaces itself) and in some way Spell Pierce and others (maybe also Unsubstantiate) we can turn the tides just that little bit to win. Merfolk does not want to have answers. The deck wants to be just a little more resilient than the other decks.
My 2cents. As a new player that may be bull****. Sorry.
King.
UWRWorking on: Pyromancer AscensionUR
How would you deal with Grixis or Nahiri decks without Kira? Kira forces so many 2-for-1s
Basilisk Collar? $5.00
Shooting down a baneslayer angel? Priceless
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palce in the Clouds
4 Wanderwine Hub
10 Island
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Tidebinder Mage
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
2 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
4 Aether Vial
4 Vapor Snag
4 Spreading Seas
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Dispel
2 Negate
2 Remand
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
2 Hibernation
2 Dismember
Still pretty iffy on the SB. I would play a second Cage in the SB but I only have the one. I've also thought about doing a 3/3 Split on Harbingers and Tidebinders in the MD and playing 2 Vapor Snag/2 Dismember instead of the 4 Vapor Snag. I didn't hear anything about Affinity so I'm keeping the Recalls in my binder for now.
1. I'm somewhat excited about Ceremonious Dismissal, but I would never consider it a substitute for Hurkyl's Recall. Instead, it's more of an option to double down with if you need Affinity/Eldrazi/Tron/random artifact hate (I'd say it competes with cards such as Dispel and Gut Shot). Of those matchups, I'd say Affinity's the most important - we did pretty well against Eldrazi when they were busted, and our matchup is even better now that their manabase is something they lean on so hard.
2. As for the fastlands... I still wouldn't consider the R splash (or any splash) a legitimate option - Bolt is great and all, but it's not worth diluting your consistency, and even if you wanted to, the manabase is a Wanderwine Hub equivalent away from truly being optimal. However, the existence of those lands might help decks that we're favored against have a smoother manabase, which indirectly helps us.
3. You'd be surprised at how much of a luxury Kira is. Even without her, we handle decks like Grixis/Jeskai/Jund just fine. I've been leaving her at home since Eldrazi Winter, and my records against those decks are not any worse for wear. It reduces your margin for error, but you already were convincingly favored to begin with. Additionally, given the current metagame landscape, I'll reiterate that Priority 1 is fending off linears. You can worry about interactive decks once you've finalized a gameplan against them.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I went and played the SCG Modern Open alongside the invitational with the following list and went 4-4-1 my first time on the deck
4 Mutavault
14 Island
2 Cavern of Souls
Creatures
3 Master of Waves
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
3 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Cursecatcher
4 Spreading Seas
4 Æther Vial
4 Vapor Snag
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
3 Remand
1 Echoing Truth
2 Tidebinder Mage
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Dispel
2 Tectonic Edge
Some quick notes on the list. I basically used Petr Sochurek's list with some tweaks to the board. I was worried about Dredge and split the Recalls in half to add two cages. I also added the echoing truth rather than the unsummon for the added flexibility of getting rid of non-creature permanents. Finally, I have two caverns of souls and don't have Oboro so I decided to run what I had.
Round 1 - 2-1 against Bant Eldrazi (by eventual winner Thomas Smiley)
Game 1 - I get off to a quick start and he matches pace. He casts a turn 3 reality smasher which is pumped up by hierarch. I cast phantasmal image on his tapped reality smasher and swing it to drop him low. He holds it back next turn and then I vapor snagged it to clear the way.
Game 2 he tore my hand apart with Thought Knot Seers and it was over quick.
Game 3 I’ve got three fish (2 lords) and play a master of waves for 6. He emerges Elder Deep Fiend (sac'ing his hierarch) to tap down my lords but I have enough elementals that he can't attack in and dies the next turn.
Round 2 - 2-1 against Grixis Delver. (2-0 overall)
Game 1 he lives the 3x Delver dream and I cannot recover. The next two games I got had triple lords and had islandwalk
Round 3 - 1-2 against Bant Eldrazi. (2-1 overall)
Game 1 had us building up our boards without any profitable attacks. I drop a MoW making 10 tokens and earning a concession.
Game 2 and 3 played out the same way except he had engineered explosives and that’s pretty good against a bunch of two mana lords and spreading seas. Unfortunately I didn’t have the sideboard cards to bounce my guys back to my hand.
Round 4 - 2-1 against Scapeshift vs Ed Demicco (SCG Worchester Legacy Open winner) (3-1 overall)
Game 1 he remands me into oblivion and combos easily
Game 2 I played lord, lord, 2x lord and he scooped
Game 3 is long and drawn out procedure. I spreading seas his green sources so he can’t go off and then land a tec edge which I pair with an island for remand/destroying a land of his. I whittle him down as he bolts my lords and then he hits 9 lands and goes for it. I remand his scapeshift, he recasts and I sac a cursecatcher ftw
Round 5 - 1-2 against RG Tron (3-2 overall)
Game 1 he had a turn 3 Karn and I had kept a 1-lander with vial.
Game 2 was a quick beatdown as I landed a cursecatcher t1, then lord t2 and then cursecatcher + lord for the turn 4 win.
Game 3 I couldn't get out of Anger of the Gods range and died to a Ugin/Ulamog pair.
Round 6 - 1-2 vs Jeskai Thing in the Ice vs Dan Jessup (3-3)
Game 1 he was able to bounce my board and I couldn’t rebuild in time.
Game 2 he never saw a TITI and couldn't bolt my guys fast enough.
Game 3 was a back and forth with me bouncing things to buy some time. I called the judge to get an oracle text ruling for his Korean Awoken Horror as I hoped it had haste because I had a Phantasmal Image which could've closed it out but it does not.
Despite being knocked out, I wanted to keep playing to grind some points for Worlds next year (I'm a father and rarely get out to play more than once a month if that)
Round 7 - BYE (4-3 overall)
Round 8 - 0-2 vs Bogles (4-4)
Is this match up ridiculously bad? I felt completely powerless to do anything but die. Both games he had a turn 1 bogle and then turn 2 2x aura and then I was dead.
Round 9 - ID
We were both hoping to mise some free points so we decided to split.
Overall I was very happy with the deck. I normally run Mardu/Naya burn but my last effort was 6-3 at GP Pittsburgh (pre-Eldrazi winter) and wanted to try something new. I have a PPTQ coming up followed the next day by the WMCQ so I wanted to get some reps in before potentially using it there. I definitely learned a lot about the deck - I missed some Reejerey triggers and I made some sequencing errors - and I look forward to learning more. Still not sure what I'm playing at the PPTQ/WMCQ as the format is so different. Might trot burn out to get a feel for it at the PPTQ and then decide what to play the next day.
Decks:
BFZ Standard
Nothing yet
Modern
RBWMardu BurnWBR
Legacy
UUUPTSD NoughtUUU
EDH
WUDaxos VoltronUW
UBRJeleva - Oops all your spellsRBU
UBUVela, the Ninja Clad (retired)UBU
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As far as the spoilers go, I'm unconvinced Vehicles will make the leap into Modern, and if they do, they're a few Ancient Grudges away from being hated out. The Orrery and Panharmonicon don't strike me as Modern-caliber cards either. Æther Tradewinds looks interesting, though (as was mentioned) the 2U cost is a bit pricey.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers: