Pithing Needle does stop the combo outright - Devoted Druid's untapping effect is an activated ability. Echoing Truth is less powerful in this regard, but a turns is often all you need, at least in my experience.
I'm honestly very surprised your list hasn't gotten color-screwed - 8 W sources is barely enough for a Limited deck.
Pithing Needle is actually a fantastic idea. Shuts down a wide range of decks.
The UWCosi's Trickster shell has been tried a few times - it never works out, because Cosi's Trickster is actually not that good. Given that Modern decks are operating on tighter margins than ever before, Cursecatcher's stock is trending up, not down.
As for the 8 W sources... I refer to Frank Karsten's seminal article on how many colored sources you need to consistently (read: 90% or more of the time, on curve) cast your spells. Merfolk usually spends Turns 1-2 developing its board, so usually the earliest you would want to cast a Path is Turn 3. That requires 12 W soures. You have 8. That's why I don't like the manabase. I don't like Psionic Blast, either - a default Merfolk shell is pretty good against Shadow (especially Grixis Shadow, which gifts you the islandwalk for free), and it's a horrible rate. Phantasmal Image is also about as bad as it's ever been - the grindier the opposition, the more dead a card that requires other creatures to be on the battlefield is. There's no True-Name Nemesis to paper over its flaws in this format.
Cosi's Trickster is something that I don't think is so black and white. Though with removal no longer caring about toughness I do think it's lost a bit of it's value since push and path kill it equally. If bolt was still around it might not be so bad once you get it to 4/4 but even then you're still probably not trading with goyf so it it really what you want? Meanwhile Cursecatcher is pretty much just as useless late game unless you're trying to delay scapeshift and can't ever get bigger than 1/1 on his own. I still go with Cursecatcher (even with his nonbo with Path to Exile) just because he can delay those cards that say "if this resolves you lose".
That's why Psionic Blast is in the sideboard, there are times when you just need extra unblockable damage. It's not a mainboardable card by any means, but it's a cute way of surprising opponents and can lead to them misplaying G3 if they see it in G2. Discounting cards because they haven't seen tournament results is how you end up with stale meta's. No one was playing Death's Shadow until one guy built a deck around it. Lantern Control is a pile of unplayable garbage until you put it all together. One thing blue lacks is direct damage and hard removal, Blast does both those things.
Phantasmal Image right now is in a better position than it's been in a long time to take over games. Lightning Bolt is being played in record low #s so they can't kill it for 1 mana regardless of the copy target. Path is going to remove it no matter what you copy so who cares, you're still down a guy. Depending what you copy though it might completely dodge Fatal Push making it immune to the most prevalent removal in the format (assuming you copy something big enough). If you're facing a super grindy deck what you want is a higher creature count that does something, if grixis is staring you down with nothing on the board who cares, we're more likely to draw into creatures before they do; and if they play something that you copy and they remove your guy that's still fine, less removal for lords. I thought the "dies to removal" argument faded away a while ago. With Splinter Twin out of the picture there's no tap effects to worry about. Don't forget it can also copy Mutavault ramp and a creature that cannot be Supreme Verdicted or Liliana of the Veiled.
Fatal Push always kills Image, unless Image copies something with Hexproof or Pro Black.
Path kills Image without giving us a land, which is not great.
Psionic Blast is expensive dmg spell for 3 mana and isn't hard removal, 4 dmg will probably not kill relevant stuff.
I would max out on Snag, Dismember, Pongify and Path before touching Blast.
Started very very happy with 2-0 at LGS, beating Grixis DS and Jeskai Control. And the last 2 round was LOSS to LANTERN and a silly mono red control (blood moon, chalices, angers. everything). Im so pissed 2-2 =(
Honestly people seem to heavily underrate not taking damage from your lands.
One of the big appeals of mono blue is not only it being much more consistent, but the fact that you take no damage from your lands making it possible to race the decks that are faster than you.
The splash just really isn't worth it for that.
Psionic Blast could work as a fun card, but if you are looking to make your deck as good as possible, it shouldn't make the cut.
Merfolk is a good deck because it is very streamlined.
I'm a big fan of just running as many 4 ofs in the main as possible. It served me well at the GP.
I don't have anything for bogles, because that deck barely pops up at anything relevant. But if it is a problem at your local shop, bring som hibernations, or hope they don't have lifelink.
Cosi's Trickster is something that I don't think is so black and white. Though with removal no longer caring about toughness I do think it's lost a bit of it's value since push and path kill it equally. If bolt was still around it might not be so bad once you get it to 4/4 but even then you're still probably not trading with goyf so it it really what you want? Meanwhile Cursecatcher is pretty much just as useless late game unless you're trying to delay scapeshift and can't ever get bigger than 1/1 on his own. I still go with Cursecatcher (even with his nonbo with Path to Exile) just because he can delay those cards that say "if this resolves you lose".
That's why Psionic Blast is in the sideboard, there are times when you just need extra unblockable damage. It's not a mainboardable card by any means, but it's a cute way of surprising opponents and can lead to them misplaying G3 if they see it in G2. Discounting cards because they haven't seen tournament results is how you end up with stale meta's. No one was playing Death's Shadow until one guy built a deck around it. Lantern Control is a pile of unplayable garbage until you put it all together. One thing blue lacks is direct damage and hard removal, Blast does both those things.
Phantasmal Image right now is in a better position than it's been in a long time to take over games. Lightning Bolt is being played in record low #s so they can't kill it for 1 mana regardless of the copy target. Path is going to remove it no matter what you copy so who cares, you're still down a guy. Depending what you copy though it might completely dodge Fatal Push making it immune to the most prevalent removal in the format (assuming you copy something big enough). If you're facing a super grindy deck what you want is a higher creature count that does something, if grixis is staring you down with nothing on the board who cares, we're more likely to draw into creatures before they do; and if they play something that you copy and they remove your guy that's still fine, less removal for lords. I thought the "dies to removal" argument faded away a while ago. With Splinter Twin out of the picture there's no tap effects to worry about. Don't forget it can also copy Mutavault ramp and a creature that cannot be Supreme Verdicted or Liliana of the Veiled.
There are several misconceptions in this post. The first is that Phantasmal Image dies to Fatal Push regardless of copy target, as FANAttIC noted - the spell can target anything, it will just not have any effect if it targets a creature outside the CMC range. Unfortunately, that does not apply to our Phantasmal Image, so it will indeed die to the most commonly played pieces of CMC1 removal. That's a large part of why it's bad right now. Furthermore, my argument is more than Image just "dies to removal" - it's that I consider it bad against grindy decks in general. Given the metagame share of grindy decks in the format, you can see why this is a problem. Ditto for Cosi's Trickster - relying on it to stack up counters and become a threat is a fool's errand when Push will kill it regardless.
As for the debate about cards and stale metas... I invite you to put up results to prove me wrong. Until then, the card's rate is just too inefficient to merit serious consideration. 3 mana is too much.
@Kizzel: I've found that the best answers for Bogles card Echoing Truth and Sea's Claim. E-Truth can strip important enchantments and lead the Bogle into the waiting arms of your blockers, and Claim can cut them off colors and make it hard for them to cast spells.
@Conde16: Depending on your meta and what the rest of your sideboard is composed of, I'd also add Ceremonious Rejection into consideration. It's been doing well for me. As for which of the two that you mentioned I prefer, it's definitely Sea's Claim. That card served me well.
Given that the new vizier/Druid combo deck is gaining popular and it can be a pretty bad matchup do you all think it's time to put some pitching needles in the sideboard?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
Death & Taxes
Fish
EDH
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Roon of the Hidden Realm
Xenagos, God of Revels
I took this list: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=23563&iddeck=183449 to a fifth Modern League tournament today.
Main was the same, side was: +2 Rejection, +1 Dismember, +1 Relic; -2 Dispel, -1 Threads, -1 Kira.
The deck is full of things I am not fond of, like 4 Waves in 19 lands deck, Clique that isn't needed in Modern (for me), Image is poorly positioned, only 1 Cavern, only 2 Relics, zero Rejections, zero Dismembers, zero Claims, zero Copters, but STILL won 120 people tournament?!
I had to see what is going on.
30 people showed up, 4 Merfolk decks among us.
R1 vs Mirror, obv.
He won the die roll, pure race, he was smashing me with Copter (I have some influence on our Merfolk scene :)) and lack of Harbingers killed me.
Raced him game 2.
Mulled to 5 in game 3, but weird things happened. Played Vial into Lord, he Dismembered the Lord but Vialed CC saved him, then my opponent untaped and double Gut Shoted it, falling to 12. I had 2 Atlantises but he was so low on life and without further interaction that I attacked for exactsies.
Phew, 2:1
R2 vs Grixis Shadow
I believe that I drew enough cyclers while he didn't drew pressure so it was over soon since he and I were trying everything to kill him
I started Game 2 with 2 Relics and was attacking with few creatures playing around Anger, then took his Anger with Clique and killed him with double Waves.
2:0
R3 vs Eldrazi Tron
He drew all four Temples but no big stuff.
Game 2, 2 Ratchet Bombs destroyed several creatures but I sandbagged Seas and killed him when he tapped out for Wurmcoil.
2:0
R4 vs Naya Burn
This was just a stomping with Cursecatcher into Harbinger into Harbinger into Waves.
Game 2 is Vial into Seas into Seas into Waves while he had Eidolon, which killed him.
2:0
R5 vs UWR Geist
Turn 3 he plays Geist, I up Vial counters to 2 and draw... Image (loled really hard, standard memories 5-6 years ago...). I stomped him with Angel tokens
Game 2 he started with 2 UR duals so I waited for white mana, then double Seased his UW duals so Verdict wasn't a factor, Relic was destroying Snappy food and I just attacked and Islanwalked all over him. I saw many reports where people remove Seas against Verdict decks, I could not disagree more, Verdict is a card, just like Colonnade, no need to enable them.
2:0
I expected to mull a lot and I did, something like 8-9 times today, but hand was always loaded with gas.
This was close to the easiest tournament I won and I found it annoying since it happened without Copters.
Merfolk finished 1st, 4th, 5th and somewhere on the bottom. Tier3 my ***
Good stuff, Airvent. List looks pretty solid from top to bottom. I'm happy to hear Spell Pierce continues to perform for you - I like the card a lot, though I've had to move on from it in the MTGO meta (was siding it out far too much).
Good stuff, Airvent. List looks pretty solid from top to bottom. I'm happy to hear Spell Pierce continues to perform for you - I like the card a lot, though I've had to move on from it in the MTGO meta (was siding it out far too much).
I personally run 2 Kira main. Love love love love Kira. Whenever it hits the field, the opponent always growns. Music to my ears.
@Kizzel: I've found that the best answers for Bogles card Echoing Truth and Sea's Claim. E-Truth can strip important enchantments and lead the Bogle into the waiting arms of your blockers, and Claim can cut them off colors and make it hard for them to cast spells.
I've had terrible results with Sea's Claim. They can do an awful lot with out a lot of mana and 1 land drop has them up and running. E-Truth and Spell Pierce are legit, but as I said before this is a pretty poor matchup. If you are cutting cards and have nothing else to bring it I guess it can't hurt, but it's not a plan I would feel particularly good about.
So, my LGS has decided to not allow pre-FNM free play anymore (Seems dumb. Don't ask), so I am thinking I may want to try picking up a 1v1 constructed format again. Paired with the terrible premonition I had a while back that either the next Commander set or Iconic Masters is going to finally give us the Lord of Atlantis reprint with new art that some of us have been dying for, I may put Merfolk back together... again... for the third time. >.<
Anyway, my question is, how well does the deck stack up now? I've considered returning to it in the past, but then I remember things like Fatal Push have been made and it makes me die a little inside. The deck lists that I've seen on the past few posts and from popping in every now and then seem to be about the same as when I left...
So, my LGS has decided to not allow pre-FNM free play anymore (Seems dumb. Don't ask), so I am thinking I may want to try picking up a 1v1 constructed format again. Paired with the terrible premonition I had a while back that either the next Commander set or Iconic Masters is going to finally give us the Lord of Atlantis reprint with new art that some of us have been dying for, I may put Merfolk back together... again... for the third time. >.<
Anyway, my question is, how well does the deck stack up now? I've considered returning to it in the past, but then I remember things like Fatal Push have been made and it makes me die a little inside. The deck lists that I've seen on the past few posts and from popping in every now and then seem to be about the same as when I left...
IMO Fish has consistently been the equivalent of a solid tier 1.5-2 deck for quite a while. It's actual ranking has as much to do with the number of people piloting the deck (ie; popularity) as it does it's potency, which is why you see it move up or move down within the rankings. Despite it's popularity (or lack there of) it remains consistent within the format because there is a lot of room to react to the meta without having to change what is fundamentally the core of the deck.
It is true that with cards like Push, Collective Brutality, Lilly of the Last Hope & Walking Balista that MoW feels a bit more vulnerable than it has in the past. That said, we have the tools to match up reasonable well with decks like Grixis Shadow and our sideboard seems to be actively evolving to deal with the new Counters Company deck which continues to gain popularity.
We still have our bad matchups; Lantern, Affinity, Elves etc., but I think we stack up relatively well against the field. As always, how well you know your deck and how well you pilot it matters as much if not more than what you are actually reaching for. Pick a deck you enjoy and play it well, fish or otherwise.
Pithing Needle is actually a fantastic idea. Shuts down a wide range of decks.
As for the 8 W sources... I refer to Frank Karsten's seminal article on how many colored sources you need to consistently (read: 90% or more of the time, on curve) cast your spells. Merfolk usually spends Turns 1-2 developing its board, so usually the earliest you would want to cast a Path is Turn 3. That requires 12 W soures. You have 8. That's why I don't like the manabase. I don't like Psionic Blast, either - a default Merfolk shell is pretty good against Shadow (especially Grixis Shadow, which gifts you the islandwalk for free), and it's a horrible rate. Phantasmal Image is also about as bad as it's ever been - the grindier the opposition, the more dead a card that requires other creatures to be on the battlefield is. There's no True-Name Nemesis to paper over its flaws in this format.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
That's why Psionic Blast is in the sideboard, there are times when you just need extra unblockable damage. It's not a mainboardable card by any means, but it's a cute way of surprising opponents and can lead to them misplaying G3 if they see it in G2. Discounting cards because they haven't seen tournament results is how you end up with stale meta's. No one was playing Death's Shadow until one guy built a deck around it. Lantern Control is a pile of unplayable garbage until you put it all together. One thing blue lacks is direct damage and hard removal, Blast does both those things.
Phantasmal Image right now is in a better position than it's been in a long time to take over games. Lightning Bolt is being played in record low #s so they can't kill it for 1 mana regardless of the copy target. Path is going to remove it no matter what you copy so who cares, you're still down a guy. Depending what you copy though it might completely dodge Fatal Push making it immune to the most prevalent removal in the format (assuming you copy something big enough). If you're facing a super grindy deck what you want is a higher creature count that does something, if grixis is staring you down with nothing on the board who cares, we're more likely to draw into creatures before they do; and if they play something that you copy and they remove your guy that's still fine, less removal for lords. I thought the "dies to removal" argument faded away a while ago. With Splinter Twin out of the picture there's no tap effects to worry about. Don't forget it can also copy Mutavault ramp and a creature that cannot be Supreme Verdicted or Liliana of the Veiled.
Path kills Image without giving us a land, which is not great.
Psionic Blast is expensive dmg spell for 3 mana and isn't hard removal, 4 dmg will probably not kill relevant stuff.
I would max out on Snag, Dismember, Pongify and Path before touching Blast.
One of the big appeals of mono blue is not only it being much more consistent, but the fact that you take no damage from your lands making it possible to race the decks that are faster than you.
The splash just really isn't worth it for that.
Psionic Blast could work as a fun card, but if you are looking to make your deck as good as possible, it shouldn't make the cut.
Merfolk is a good deck because it is very streamlined.
I'm a big fan of just running as many 4 ofs in the main as possible. It served me well at the GP.
I don't have anything for bogles, because that deck barely pops up at anything relevant. But if it is a problem at your local shop, bring som hibernations, or hope they don't have lifelink.
Sea's Claim
I'm a big advocate of 8 Seas in the 75. It just Mana screws so many decks.
Boggles is a bad matchup, but not one worth worrying about unless you see a lot of it at your LGS.
Seas > Tec atm.
Psionic Blast had some success as a 1 of in somebodies deck like a year ago. I forget who, but it never really took off with the community.
There are several misconceptions in this post. The first is that Phantasmal Image dies to Fatal Push regardless of copy target, as FANAttIC noted - the spell can target anything, it will just not have any effect if it targets a creature outside the CMC range. Unfortunately, that does not apply to our Phantasmal Image, so it will indeed die to the most commonly played pieces of CMC1 removal. That's a large part of why it's bad right now. Furthermore, my argument is more than Image just "dies to removal" - it's that I consider it bad against grindy decks in general. Given the metagame share of grindy decks in the format, you can see why this is a problem. Ditto for Cosi's Trickster - relying on it to stack up counters and become a threat is a fool's errand when Push will kill it regardless.
As for the debate about cards and stale metas... I invite you to put up results to prove me wrong. Until then, the card's rate is just too inefficient to merit serious consideration. 3 mana is too much.
@Kizzel: I've found that the best answers for Bogles card Echoing Truth and Sea's Claim. E-Truth can strip important enchantments and lead the Bogle into the waiting arms of your blockers, and Claim can cut them off colors and make it hard for them to cast spells.
@Conde16: Depending on your meta and what the rest of your sideboard is composed of, I'd also add Ceremonious Rejection into consideration. It's been doing well for me. As for which of the two that you mentioned I prefer, it's definitely Sea's Claim. That card served me well.
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
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Main was the same, side was: +2 Rejection, +1 Dismember, +1 Relic; -2 Dispel, -1 Threads, -1 Kira.
The deck is full of things I am not fond of, like 4 Waves in 19 lands deck, Clique that isn't needed in Modern (for me), Image is poorly positioned, only 1 Cavern, only 2 Relics, zero Rejections, zero Dismembers, zero Claims, zero Copters, but STILL won 120 people tournament?!
I had to see what is going on.
30 people showed up, 4 Merfolk decks among us.
R1 vs Mirror, obv.
He won the die roll, pure race, he was smashing me with Copter (I have some influence on our Merfolk scene :)) and lack of Harbingers killed me.
Raced him game 2.
Mulled to 5 in game 3, but weird things happened. Played Vial into Lord, he Dismembered the Lord but Vialed CC saved him, then my opponent untaped and double Gut Shoted it, falling to 12. I had 2 Atlantises but he was so low on life and without further interaction that I attacked for exactsies.
Phew, 2:1
R2 vs Grixis Shadow
I believe that I drew enough cyclers while he didn't drew pressure so it was over soon since he and I were trying everything to kill him
I started Game 2 with 2 Relics and was attacking with few creatures playing around Anger, then took his Anger with Clique and killed him with double Waves.
2:0
R3 vs Eldrazi Tron
He drew all four Temples but no big stuff.
Game 2, 2 Ratchet Bombs destroyed several creatures but I sandbagged Seas and killed him when he tapped out for Wurmcoil.
2:0
R4 vs Naya Burn
This was just a stomping with Cursecatcher into Harbinger into Harbinger into Waves.
Game 2 is Vial into Seas into Seas into Waves while he had Eidolon, which killed him.
2:0
R5 vs UWR Geist
Turn 3 he plays Geist, I up Vial counters to 2 and draw... Image (loled really hard, standard memories 5-6 years ago...). I stomped him with Angel tokens
Game 2 he started with 2 UR duals so I waited for white mana, then double Seased his UW duals so Verdict wasn't a factor, Relic was destroying Snappy food and I just attacked and Islanwalked all over him. I saw many reports where people remove Seas against Verdict decks, I could not disagree more, Verdict is a card, just like Colonnade, no need to enable them.
2:0
I expected to mull a lot and I did, something like 8-9 times today, but hand was always loaded with gas.
This was close to the easiest tournament I won and I found it annoying since it happened without Copters.
Merfolk finished 1st, 4th, 5th and somewhere on the bottom. Tier3 my ***
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I personally run 2 Kira main. Love love love love Kira. Whenever it hits the field, the opponent always growns. Music to my ears.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
So, my LGS has decided to not allow pre-FNM free play anymore (Seems dumb. Don't ask), so I am thinking I may want to try picking up a 1v1 constructed format again. Paired with the terrible premonition I had a while back that either the next Commander set or Iconic Masters is going to finally give us the Lord of Atlantis reprint with new art that some of us have been dying for, I may put Merfolk back together... again... for the third time. >.<
Anyway, my question is, how well does the deck stack up now? I've considered returning to it in the past, but then I remember things like Fatal Push have been made and it makes me die a little inside. The deck lists that I've seen on the past few posts and from popping in every now and then seem to be about the same as when I left...
It is true that with cards like Push, Collective Brutality, Lilly of the Last Hope & Walking Balista that MoW feels a bit more vulnerable than it has in the past. That said, we have the tools to match up reasonable well with decks like Grixis Shadow and our sideboard seems to be actively evolving to deal with the new Counters Company deck which continues to gain popularity.
We still have our bad matchups; Lantern, Affinity, Elves etc., but I think we stack up relatively well against the field. As always, how well you know your deck and how well you pilot it matters as much if not more than what you are actually reaching for. Pick a deck you enjoy and play it well, fish or otherwise.