We're definitely favored against BGX, though I will point out Snag is not always great there. I'm not sure why players are struggling with the matchup. The games take forever, but we win most of them (or at least, that's been my experience combined with the large-scale data that we've seen on the subject). I usually don't bother with protection creatures like Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, because I find it to be clunky and stymying to my aggro plan. Instead, I just side out Vials, stuff the deck full of bodies, and run at them.
As for Take into Custody... I'll freely admit that the card may not be good enough to crack our rotation. I just thought it'd be an interesting card to look at for matchups where Snag isn't good and Dismember life loss is painful (or the creature is bigger than a 5/5). It might be worth experimenting with as a sideboard card.
Yeah, against BGx I'm taking out Vial and bringing in Tidebinder & Relic. Basically just trying to stay as creature dense as possible until I can land a MoW.
I've definitely made similar observations. When my opponent knows and understands whats important in that matchup, its a LOT worse for me. Is there any reliable way to counteract this though?
Side Note: Smuggler's Copter to tap all our guys then untap with Wake Thrasher seems interesting
Wake Thrasher is garbage. It dies to anything pre-triggers, it doesn't help our team at all, and it doesn't play defense.
As for the MTGO players point... MTGO has the most reliably solid player pool in the world. Of course there are weaker players, but it's head and shoulders above any "regular" meta. Only large tournaments like GPs and SCG Opens are going to reliably bring out a more seasoned playerbase, and MTGO has some tournaments of its own as well. If MTGO says that the Merfolk results over BGX are good (and it does), I believe it.
Has anyone had any experience against 5 color good stuff? I always have trouble beating that deck. Any tips? They always seem to have a more explosive board state and spell queller is just overkill.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
Death & Taxes
Fish
EDH
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Xenagos, God of Revels
That's the case for any deck - the more seasoned the pilot, the harder it is to beat. I fail to see how player skill impacts the conversation all that much, beyond having the baseline of being competent enough with the deck to pilot it without making major gaffes. Assuming that rudimentary skill level on both sides, I would consider Merfolk to be favored against any BGX deck. Our redundancy just lines up well against their 1-for-1 answer suite, and we have plenty of tools to hurt their gameplan postboard.
As for the 5-color goodstuff matchup... that's really not a player in the metagame, so I'll have to take a couple of guesses based on the lists I've seen before. The best advice is generally to favor your aggro plan, and attack the manabase with Spreading Seas and make them prove they can cast their spells when you're cutting them off colors. Most lists I've seen are running lots of green creatures, so Tidebinder Mage looks good coming in off the sideboard. That's about all I can say. I personally haven't struggled with the matchup on the rare occasions I have run into it, so I haven't really thought about it much.
Trap to me only seems good against dredge decks and also storm? Am I missing something? I had always thought the relic being important for corralling goyfs and for the cantrip. But I guess TBM does a good enough job holding goyfs at bay.
Yes, Relic is important for holding Goyfs, Grim Flayers, and Snapcasters at bay in addition to its dedicated graveyard deck hate abilities. But no graveyard hate card available to us replicates that functionality, so it's a moot point given its unavailability for you in this team challenge. Hopefully, you can keep their yard clean and draw some timely Tidebinder Mages to keep them held down.
What follows isn't remotely useful from a practical standpoint. But it might help us at least be clearer in our discussion of winrates:
I think that there are essentially two winrates: "real" and "theoretical."
But we can never know the true theoretical winrate, since no player makes no error.
And I'd argue that the "relevant" winrate is the winrate that one achieves in a meta that has an aggregate skill-level equal to whatever pool of players I care about.
For instance, if my goal is to win a GP, then I care about my winrate against a pool of players reflective of the pool of players I would expect to see at a GP. If I have other goals, then I care about other pools of players.
I care about the real winrate and not the theoretical winrate because imperfect play against a deck can actually be used to a decks advantage. How? Some decks are harder to play against that other: some decks invite mistakes because the opponent must play extremely tightly to avoid a loss; others are new and not fully understood by most players; still others rely on interactions that are easy to miss or to forget to play around, etc.
A winrate that looks only to perfect play against perfect play ignores this human element. And that human element can be beneficial to real-world results.
Thus I do think we should care about "real" winrates instead of "theoretical" ones. Sure, maybe the pool of players you care about (say the finals at a GP) plays close to perfect. In that case, your "real" winrate would approach the "theoretical" one. But you should nonetheless care about the real winrate.
The five color deck I went up against ran spell queller, birds of paradise, qasali pridemage, noble hierarch, voice of resurgence, seige rhino and I'm sure they had mantis riders. Removal was path and abrupt decay. And land base was mostly green/white land and the lands that let you tap for any color.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
Death & Taxes
Fish
EDH
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Xenagos, God of Revels
But we can never know the true theoretical winrate, since no player makes no error.
I wonder if you could simulate, with computer players that had perfect information. Simulating sideboards would be very difficult.
I just don't think it is quite like chess (and that's what makes it so interesting). Maybe I'm wrong, but there are many viable and defensible lines in this game--making it a a bit like poker--that make simulation tough.
And as you note, the sideboard game is an entirely different variable.
First of all grats !! And a question: With Blood Moon running around, isnt safer to do not run that my white non basic sources ? I mean, if you have trouble with permanents like Worship and Bridge, why not run Echo Truth?
in my opinion its a 50/50 match up ! I usually win when I have a spreading seas and few lords on play...otherwise Eldrazi and Taxes going to start to do their thing and beat us very easily
Took this deck to Masters tournament today. After 12 tournaments through 2016., 20 best players qualified for final one.
Beat UW Ctrl 2:1 (I mulled to five and never drew second land), Affinity 2:0 (he tried all in when I had bounce) and Living End 2:0 (as you can see, my build is hateful for that deck, wasn’t even close), double draw into top8 in first place. Unfortunately, that means I have to play against Affinity again (in 8th place). But a series of Sabotage, Rejection, Gut Shot, Snag and Harbinger dismantled his board left and right. I won 2:1.
He showed me 2 Stubborn Denial after match that would destroy my Recalls, should I played them. In my experience every Affinity player have something to stop Hurkyls, so I have 0 in 75.
Tron in SF. I had only curve without Seas but that was enough to win g1. Mulled to five and got dismantled by 5/7 Eldrazi into Wurmcoil into Kozilek. In game 3 still no Seas but he is durdling trying to assemble Tron while I beat him down. His Karn walked into Spell Pierce and Wurmcoil into Rejection. 2:1
Finals against Bant Eldrazi. He had Thought Knot Seer taking my Waves two games in a row and I had no gas left to block all the monsters. 0:2
Had to settle with Snapcaster, 2 Eternal Masters boosters, 4 Lightning Helix and 2 foil Roasts.
Ceremonius Rejections were MVP (2 Affinity, Tron and Eldrazi today), it is so nice having U open, CR in hand and Tron casting anything big.
Next League starts at the end of February so I can have a rest from Modern for a while.
Any thoughts on running Fragmentize over Dissenchant if splashing white? Its Sorcery speed, but don't see that really being a problem and at 1cmc it deals with blood moon, bridge, worship, EE and Obliv stone.
Yeah, this takes some of the pressure off of our deckbuilding. We don't have to worry quite as much about beating fast linears, because there will either be fewer of them, or they won't be as strong. I will say that I don't expect Dredge to go away, though - Golgari Thug is a significant downgrade from Golgari Grave-Troll, but the deck is still playable. I do expect decks like Suicide Zoo and UR Prowess to take a big hit, though.
The general ethos the current version of the deck abides by is "help the school or get expelled". Every one of our cards has immediate impact. We rely on that fact rather heavily. I can't see how a card that breaks that cardinal rule will help us.
Side Note: Smuggler's Copter to tap all our guys then untap with Wake Thrasher seems interesting
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
As for the MTGO players point... MTGO has the most reliably solid player pool in the world. Of course there are weaker players, but it's head and shoulders above any "regular" meta. Only large tournaments like GPs and SCG Opens are going to reliably bring out a more seasoned playerbase, and MTGO has some tournaments of its own as well. If MTGO says that the Merfolk results over BGX are good (and it does), I believe it.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Death & Taxes
Fish
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Xenagos, God of Revels
As for the 5-color goodstuff matchup... that's really not a player in the metagame, so I'll have to take a couple of guesses based on the lists I've seen before. The best advice is generally to favor your aggro plan, and attack the manabase with Spreading Seas and make them prove they can cast their spells when you're cutting them off colors. Most lists I've seen are running lots of green creatures, so Tidebinder Mage looks good coming in off the sideboard. That's about all I can say. I personally haven't struggled with the matchup on the rare occasions I have run into it, so I haven't really thought about it much.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I think that there are essentially two winrates: "real" and "theoretical."
But we can never know the true theoretical winrate, since no player makes no error.
And I'd argue that the "relevant" winrate is the winrate that one achieves in a meta that has an aggregate skill-level equal to whatever pool of players I care about.
For instance, if my goal is to win a GP, then I care about my winrate against a pool of players reflective of the pool of players I would expect to see at a GP. If I have other goals, then I care about other pools of players.
I care about the real winrate and not the theoretical winrate because imperfect play against a deck can actually be used to a decks advantage. How? Some decks are harder to play against that other: some decks invite mistakes because the opponent must play extremely tightly to avoid a loss; others are new and not fully understood by most players; still others rely on interactions that are easy to miss or to forget to play around, etc.
A winrate that looks only to perfect play against perfect play ignores this human element. And that human element can be beneficial to real-world results.
Thus I do think we should care about "real" winrates instead of "theoretical" ones. Sure, maybe the pool of players you care about (say the finals at a GP) plays close to perfect. In that case, your "real" winrate would approach the "theoretical" one. But you should nonetheless care about the real winrate.
U Merfolk U
WGU Eldrazi WGU
R Goblins R
U Merfolk U
WGU Eldrazi WGU
Death & Taxes
Fish
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Xenagos, God of Revels
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I wonder if you could simulate, with computer players that had perfect information. Simulating sideboards would be very difficult.
I just don't think it is quite like chess (and that's what makes it so interesting). Maybe I'm wrong, but there are many viable and defensible lines in this game--making it a a bit like poker--that make simulation tough.
And as you note, the sideboard game is an entirely different variable.
U Merfolk U
WGU Eldrazi WGU
R Goblins R
U Merfolk U
WGU Eldrazi WGU
First of all grats !! And a question: With Blood Moon running around, isnt safer to do not run that my white non basic sources ? I mean, if you have trouble with permanents like Worship and Bridge, why not run Echo Truth?
11 Island
4 Mutavault
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Wanderwine Hub
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
4 Spreading Seas
2 Spell Pierce
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Vapor Snag
2 Flashfreeze
2 Gut Shot
2 Negate
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
2 Steel Sabotage
2 Ceremonius Rejection
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Took this deck to Masters tournament today. After 12 tournaments through 2016., 20 best players qualified for final one.
Beat UW Ctrl 2:1 (I mulled to five and never drew second land), Affinity 2:0 (he tried all in when I had bounce) and Living End 2:0 (as you can see, my build is hateful for that deck, wasn’t even close), double draw into top8 in first place. Unfortunately, that means I have to play against Affinity again (in 8th place). But a series of Sabotage, Rejection, Gut Shot, Snag and Harbinger dismantled his board left and right. I won 2:1.
He showed me 2 Stubborn Denial after match that would destroy my Recalls, should I played them. In my experience every Affinity player have something to stop Hurkyls, so I have 0 in 75.
Tron in SF. I had only curve without Seas but that was enough to win g1. Mulled to five and got dismantled by 5/7 Eldrazi into Wurmcoil into Kozilek. In game 3 still no Seas but he is durdling trying to assemble Tron while I beat him down. His Karn walked into Spell Pierce and Wurmcoil into Rejection. 2:1
Finals against Bant Eldrazi. He had Thought Knot Seer taking my Waves two games in a row and I had no gas left to block all the monsters. 0:2
Had to settle with Snapcaster, 2 Eternal Masters boosters, 4 Lightning Helix and 2 foil Roasts.
Ceremonius Rejections were MVP (2 Affinity, Tron and Eldrazi today), it is so nice having U open, CR in hand and Tron casting anything big.
Next League starts at the end of February so I can have a rest from Modern for a while.
Just a thought.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPzcXT2lOK8
Dredge may have been hated out of mtgo, but my local meta was still going strong. This definitely helps me.
I would have liked to see phyexian mana banned entirely (or at least mutagenetic growth), but hard to be too upset about it just being Probe.
Both of these are big wins for the field.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers: