Is Sorcerous Spyglass really that much better than Pithing Needle? I mean, yeah, we don't have to guess, but it is a higher mana cost.
Re: Counterspell: I wish they'd just bite the bullet and reprint it in a Modern-legal way somehow. It would hurt literally nothing. It's not going to turn us into Legacy... that format doesn't even play the card. /endrant
I think spyglass is definitely WORSE than Pithing Needle
if you're bringing in Needle, you know what you're naming. i don't think looking at their hand is worth 1 more mana.
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Modern UMerfolkU WUBRGPeopleGRBUW U Turbo Turns U UB Fae BU WBG Aristocrats GBW
While the extra 1 mana hurts a lot, I like Spyglass for a set up for a following turn. When we don't draw it in the openning hand and have to play it later (or better scenario: when we draw a redundant copy), peeking the hand can tell us if it's clear to drop Master of Waves or our other Lords, or if there is a Push we need to try and bait out first. I think that might make it at least testable.
So I've been piecing together merfolk for a whole now. I'm almost done, however kira the glass spinner I haven't pulled the trigger on yet. What's the story on the new legendary merfolk. Better than kira or should I spring for her glassy-ness
How would you and everyone in general feel about a retry for remand . It might have pretty good game against valakut as I often feel just a turn off from killing them.
Don't forget that while Kopala's protection is usually not quite as good as Kira's, Kopala is getting pumped by all of your lords and triggers Reejerey which puts more pressure on and hopefully kills faster.
True but it also can't fly which is relevant sometimes on a stalled board or dealing with affinity game 1. I'm so excited to with play both on the board next week though !
I posted this in the Merfolk subreddit, but I know not everyone visits both places, so I thought I'd post it here too. I'd love to hear any thoughts and ideas, thanks!
I came away from last night's Ixalan pre-release with 2x Kopala (https://m.imgur.com/h3liXqy), so I'm going to start testing it in my Modern Merfolk deck. I know that most have already judged it to be unworthy, but I'm curious so I'm going to give it a shot. I was wondering if anyone else was going to do any testing, and if so what kind of list you're planning to try. Here's what I've been thinking so far...
I know it's blasphemous to cut Master of Waves and relegate him to only 2x in the sideboard, but at least in my local meta, he hasn't been able to stick on the board for quite a while now. With the introduction of Fatal Push, and the move away from Bolt as one of the most relied upon forms of spot removal, he seems to get taken out the minute he lands in many games. I know how strong he can be, so I want to have the option to bring him in after sideboarding, but while I test Kopala I'm going to demote him.
Cutting the powerful 4 drop streamlines the deck and lets me run 19 lands more comfortably. I've replaced the playset of MoW with 2x Copter and 2x Kopala which keeps the Game 1 curve topper at 3cmc. This should also make managing Aether Vials more straightforward, as you'll really only want to tick it up to 2 or 3 depending on cards in hand.
I'm not set on the sideboard, so this could be adjusted a good bit, but the current list feels like it handles most of the decks I see regularly. I'm tempted to drop 1x Echoing Truth to the side to allow me to run the full playset of Merrow Reejerey, and also up my creature count to 28 for Vial targets. I could also drop both ETs to the sideboard and bump up to the more standard 20 lands if that seems more worthwhile.
The inclusion of Kopala gives additional protection on top of Kira, while also keeping the Merfolk count high for the various tribal tricks of the deck. Many have said that Kopala isn't better than Kira and should not replace her, but running him alongside her could create a difficult puzzle for opponents to solve. At least in my own local meta where seemingly every deck runs some combination of Path, Push, Dismember, and still occasionally Bolt, forcing them to use a second spell to get around Kira or make their very efficient removal much less so with Kopala seems like a good idea going forward.
Anyway, I'm not trying to say this plan is the wave of the future, but just something I want to give a shot. If you're planning to test Kopala, how are you going to go about it? Any thoughts on how I could adjust or modify the deck would be appreciated. Or if you think it's just a bad plan, that's fine too. Thanks!
Isn't it too risky running Gemstone Caverns with 19 lands only?
Yeah, probably! LOL! I just got my copy in the mail a few days ago, so I dropped it in my list, but haven't played with it yet. Should likely take that out while I test other things.
Looking to hear any reports on Kopala testing in the near future. I just purchased my copies on MTGO, so I'll be testing with them soon. I really couldn't find anything I wanted to cut for them, so I decided to test them in the Kira spot. I'm well aware that this may not be the card whose spot it ends up taking (if any), but I think it's a good place to start.
Game 1: My opponent sticks an early Gideon of the Trials that we tussle over during the subsequent combat steps. As they sense they are getting behind, they decide to wipe the board and attack with Gids, only to have it succumb to a well-timed Dismember. My follow-up creatures easily finish the job.
Game 2: I start aggressively, and my opponent puts down a Wall of Omens and a Gideon of the Trials to try and slow me down. As my Lords threaten the Gideon, my opponent slaps down a Detention Sphere to try and keep the Lords at bay. Undeterred, I E-Truth away the Sphere and hold up Negate to catch it on the way down. My opponent capitulates soon after.
Sideboarding: +2 Echoing Truth, +4 Negate, +4 Relic of Progenitus; -2 Dismember, -4 Harbinger of the Tides, -4 Spreading Seas
Round 2: Mardu Tempo (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent Inquisitions away my Kopala, and is thus able to pick off my creatures one by one. I attempt to stabilize with Master of Waves, but my opponent finds running Bedlam Revelers and has too much gas.
Game 2: I open with a Relic, and control their graveyard for the first few turns. My T3 Reejerey eats a Kolaghan's Command (as does the Relic), but I slam a Master of Waves on the following Turn and ride that to victory.
Game 3: My opponent has an aggressive start with Grim Lavamancer into double Young Pyromancer, but only has 2 lands. Unfortunately for them, I have Kopala, which means that neither the Lavaman nor any of the Bolts can target my team. Combine that with a Master of Waves that followed the Kopala, and this was a very easy victory. It's notable that Kira would not have been able to serve the same purpose, as they had multiple 1-mana spells, and Kopala became a big body after some Lords hit the table.
Game 1: My opponent has a hot ramp start, but a perfect curve of Cursecatcher into Lord into Kopala into double Master of Waves puts too many bodies on the table for a Kitchen Finks and a Wurmcoil Engine to deal with.
Game 2: Both of us start slowly, which is to my opponent's advantage as they are able to slam back-to-back Huntmaster of the Fells as I am left staring at some useless Negates. A Master of Waves helps me hang in there, but Inferno Titan eventually arrives to finish me off.
Game 3: My opponent keeps a 1-lander off a mull to 5 with Utopia Sprawl and 2 Arbor Elves, which I systematically destroy by slapping a Seas on their land, then bouncing their Elves with Echoing Truth. The latter prompted a rapid concession.
Game 1: I start fast and knock my opponent's life total low before they are able to gum up the ground with Bob and Thought-Knot Seer. After a couple of painful flips on my opponent's part, I am able to gather up enough creatures to alpha strike them for lethal while countering their maindeck Settle the Wreckage.
Game 2: A total non-game, I never find a Vial or a blue source and get run over.
Game 3: I start strong with Vial into Silvergill (which eats a Collective Brutality), then follow it with Reejerey and an islandwalk Lord. My opponent's Thought-Knot Seer is faced with a no-win choice between a Master of Waves and a Harbinger of the Tides - they choose the former, and the latter lets me get ahead enough on tempo to win.
Sideboarding: +2 Echoing Truth; -2 Harbinger of the Tides
Round 5: RG Ponza (2-1)
Game 1: I begin this game very aggressively. My opponent attempts to stabilize behind a Stormbreath Dragon and a Bonfire of the Damned, but double Master of Waves (with the second being Vialed in after the Bonfire) finishes them off.
Game 2: I foolishly neglect to hold up a T2 Negate in favor of playing a Lord (after I had played a T1 Vial), and am harshly punished by a Mwonvuli Acid-Moss which enables a cavalcade of fatties to hit the table. I beat the first Inferno Titan and a Stormbreath Dragon with Dismembers, but the second Titan and a Thragtusk finish me off.
Game 3: My opponent opens with a Utopia Sprawl, which I promptly Seas out of existence. I develop a bit of a board state, only to have it Miracle-Bonfired away. However, my Mutavaults are busy hacking away at their life total, and that combined with a well-timed Echoing Truth for their Wurmcoil Engine seals the deal.
Thoughts and Impressions:
The list runs well, as usual, so not much new to report there. In terms of the new addition, Kopala won me a game that Kira would have been subpar in by taxing my opponent out of being able to interact with my board, and was a beefier attacker/blocker overall. That said, this was very preliminary testing, so more of it needs to be done before any conclusive statements can be offered. However, it was a good start. Keep swimming!
Awesome review! What are your thoughts on running a 1-1 copies between Kopala and Kira? I also thought that running Kopala might as well let us add Vendilion Clique in main, as I've read before (and confirmed myself) that we can only run a maximum of 2 non-merfolk creatures in the deck. Also Kopala can protect Phantasmal Image like some said before. Might be worth testing. I'll post some results later if I have the chance to test it before you guys.
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Mostly Modern Player RBridgevineB RGR/G EldraziX UBlue MoonR UU/W TronW
ill be running list similar to yours tomorrow at fnm. the difference is gonna be -1 kopala, -1 MoW -1 reejeree +2 smugglers thopter +1kira. we will see how it goes.
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Re: Counterspell: I wish they'd just bite the bullet and reprint it in a Modern-legal way somehow. It would hurt literally nothing. It's not going to turn us into Legacy... that format doesn't even play the card. /endrant
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
if you're bringing in Needle, you know what you're naming. i don't think looking at their hand is worth 1 more mana.
U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
well it's better in some instances and worse in a lot of instances.
for example it's better vs abrupt decay and is better at protecting a phantasmal image
U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
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
i dont see how we have space in our list for 2 kira + 2 kopala without cutting lords or interaction.
I`m using 2x Copters main deck...I could cut them to try it. Lets see
I came away from last night's Ixalan pre-release with 2x Kopala (https://m.imgur.com/h3liXqy), so I'm going to start testing it in my Modern Merfolk deck. I know that most have already judged it to be unworthy, but I'm curious so I'm going to give it a shot. I was wondering if anyone else was going to do any testing, and if so what kind of list you're planning to try. Here's what I've been thinking so far...
4x Cursecatcher
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x Harbinger of the Tides
4x Silvergill Adept
3x Merrow Reejerey
2x Kopala, Warden of Waves
2x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Spells (14)
4x Aether Vial
4x Spreading Seas
2x Smuggler's Copter
2x Dismember
2x Echoing Truth
11x Island
4x Mutavault
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1x Wanderwine Hub
1x Gemstone Caverns
2x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Dispel
2x Gut Shot
2x Disdainful Stroke
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Sea's Claim
2x Master of Waves
I know it's blasphemous to cut Master of Waves and relegate him to only 2x in the sideboard, but at least in my local meta, he hasn't been able to stick on the board for quite a while now. With the introduction of Fatal Push, and the move away from Bolt as one of the most relied upon forms of spot removal, he seems to get taken out the minute he lands in many games. I know how strong he can be, so I want to have the option to bring him in after sideboarding, but while I test Kopala I'm going to demote him.
Cutting the powerful 4 drop streamlines the deck and lets me run 19 lands more comfortably. I've replaced the playset of MoW with 2x Copter and 2x Kopala which keeps the Game 1 curve topper at 3cmc. This should also make managing Aether Vials more straightforward, as you'll really only want to tick it up to 2 or 3 depending on cards in hand.
I'm not set on the sideboard, so this could be adjusted a good bit, but the current list feels like it handles most of the decks I see regularly. I'm tempted to drop 1x Echoing Truth to the side to allow me to run the full playset of Merrow Reejerey, and also up my creature count to 28 for Vial targets. I could also drop both ETs to the sideboard and bump up to the more standard 20 lands if that seems more worthwhile.
The inclusion of Kopala gives additional protection on top of Kira, while also keeping the Merfolk count high for the various tribal tricks of the deck. Many have said that Kopala isn't better than Kira and should not replace her, but running him alongside her could create a difficult puzzle for opponents to solve. At least in my own local meta where seemingly every deck runs some combination of Path, Push, Dismember, and still occasionally Bolt, forcing them to use a second spell to get around Kira or make their very efficient removal much less so with Kopala seems like a good idea going forward.
Anyway, I'm not trying to say this plan is the wave of the future, but just something I want to give a shot. If you're planning to test Kopala, how are you going to go about it? Any thoughts on how I could adjust or modify the deck would be appreciated. Or if you think it's just a bad plan, that's fine too. Thanks!
Yeah, probably! LOL! I just got my copy in the mail a few days ago, so I dropped it in my list, but haven't played with it yet. Should likely take that out while I test other things.
Looking to hear any reports on Kopala testing in the near future. I just purchased my copies on MTGO, so I'll be testing with them soon. I really couldn't find anything I wanted to cut for them, so I decided to test them in the Kira spot. I'm well aware that this may not be the card whose spot it ends up taking (if any), but I think it's a good place to start.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
List here.
Round 1: UW Emeria (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent sticks an early Gideon of the Trials that we tussle over during the subsequent combat steps. As they sense they are getting behind, they decide to wipe the board and attack with Gids, only to have it succumb to a well-timed Dismember. My follow-up creatures easily finish the job.
Game 2: I start aggressively, and my opponent puts down a Wall of Omens and a Gideon of the Trials to try and slow me down. As my Lords threaten the Gideon, my opponent slaps down a Detention Sphere to try and keep the Lords at bay. Undeterred, I E-Truth away the Sphere and hold up Negate to catch it on the way down. My opponent capitulates soon after.
Sideboarding: +2 Echoing Truth, +4 Negate, +4 Relic of Progenitus; -2 Dismember, -4 Harbinger of the Tides, -4 Spreading Seas
Round 2: Mardu Tempo (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent Inquisitions away my Kopala, and is thus able to pick off my creatures one by one. I attempt to stabilize with Master of Waves, but my opponent finds running Bedlam Revelers and has too much gas.
Game 2: I open with a Relic, and control their graveyard for the first few turns. My T3 Reejerey eats a Kolaghan's Command (as does the Relic), but I slam a Master of Waves on the following Turn and ride that to victory.
Game 3: My opponent has an aggressive start with Grim Lavamancer into double Young Pyromancer, but only has 2 lands. Unfortunately for them, I have Kopala, which means that neither the Lavaman nor any of the Bolts can target my team. Combine that with a Master of Waves that followed the Kopala, and this was a very easy victory. It's notable that Kira would not have been able to serve the same purpose, as they had multiple 1-mana spells, and Kopala became a big body after some Lords hit the table.
Sideboarding: +2 Echoing Truth, +4 Relic of Progenitus; -4 Aether Vial, -2 Dismember
Round 3: RG Ponza (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent has a hot ramp start, but a perfect curve of Cursecatcher into Lord into Kopala into double Master of Waves puts too many bodies on the table for a Kitchen Finks and a Wurmcoil Engine to deal with.
Game 2: Both of us start slowly, which is to my opponent's advantage as they are able to slam back-to-back Huntmaster of the Fells as I am left staring at some useless Negates. A Master of Waves helps me hang in there, but Inferno Titan eventually arrives to finish me off.
Game 3: My opponent keeps a 1-lander off a mull to 5 with Utopia Sprawl and 2 Arbor Elves, which I systematically destroy by slapping a Seas on their land, then bouncing their Elves with Echoing Truth. The latter prompted a rapid concession.
Sideboarding:+2 Echoing Truth, +2 Negate; -4 Cursecatcher
Round 4: Eldrazi and Taxes (2-1)
Game 1: I start fast and knock my opponent's life total low before they are able to gum up the ground with Bob and Thought-Knot Seer. After a couple of painful flips on my opponent's part, I am able to gather up enough creatures to alpha strike them for lethal while countering their maindeck Settle the Wreckage.
Game 2: A total non-game, I never find a Vial or a blue source and get run over.
Game 3: I start strong with Vial into Silvergill (which eats a Collective Brutality), then follow it with Reejerey and an islandwalk Lord. My opponent's Thought-Knot Seer is faced with a no-win choice between a Master of Waves and a Harbinger of the Tides - they choose the former, and the latter lets me get ahead enough on tempo to win.
Sideboarding: +2 Echoing Truth; -2 Harbinger of the Tides
Round 5: RG Ponza (2-1)
Game 1: I begin this game very aggressively. My opponent attempts to stabilize behind a Stormbreath Dragon and a Bonfire of the Damned, but double Master of Waves (with the second being Vialed in after the Bonfire) finishes them off.
Game 2: I foolishly neglect to hold up a T2 Negate in favor of playing a Lord (after I had played a T1 Vial), and am harshly punished by a Mwonvuli Acid-Moss which enables a cavalcade of fatties to hit the table. I beat the first Inferno Titan and a Stormbreath Dragon with Dismembers, but the second Titan and a Thragtusk finish me off.
Game 3: My opponent opens with a Utopia Sprawl, which I promptly Seas out of existence. I develop a bit of a board state, only to have it Miracle-Bonfired away. However, my Mutavaults are busy hacking away at their life total, and that combined with a well-timed Echoing Truth for their Wurmcoil Engine seals the deal.
Sideboarding: +2 Echoing Truth, +2 Negate; -4 Cursecatcher
Thoughts and Impressions:
The list runs well, as usual, so not much new to report there. In terms of the new addition, Kopala won me a game that Kira would have been subpar in by taxing my opponent out of being able to interact with my board, and was a beefier attacker/blocker overall. That said, this was very preliminary testing, so more of it needs to be done before any conclusive statements can be offered. However, it was a good start. Keep swimming!
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
RBridgevineB
RGR/G EldraziX
UBlue MoonR
UU/W TronW