MTG Salvation

So I am new to Merfolk, but I have the deck built and all the cards - no budget concessions, I have the cards for the deck.

But, after looking at decklists online, there seems to be two slightly different takes on the deck. They are:

(1) Be as aggro as possible. Your only noncreature spells are 4 Vapor Snag 4 Aether Vial and 4 Spreading Seas. One version, which won an MTGO premier event, is running Mothdust Changeling instead of Cursecatcher at the 1-drop slot. Mothdust is more aggressive because it can get flying, and it gets buffed by Master of Waves since it is every creature type.

(2) Be an aggro deck, but be slightly reactive. After all, we are a mono-blue deck - so we have access to tricks. One deck I saw, which placed 3rd in an MTGO premier event, was running 2 Tidebinder Mage and 2 Kira MAIN DECK. This person was also running 3 Spell Pierce. However, as a concession, this person was only running 10 Lords (4 Lord, 4 Master, 2 Merrow) and 25 creatures.

So the difference is self-explanatory. Either be more aggro-centric or be less aggressive but have access to more interaction and cards that are hard for your opponent to deal with. Which is better?

I tend to like the 2nd version (less aggressive with tricks). This is modern, not standard. Merfolk is NOT the strongest pure-aggro strategy on the block. If you try to pure race Zoo or Affinity, I have a spoiler alert for you - you're gonna lose. That seems to be my experience at least. Also, the control decks are packing enough fast hate to beat super-fast decks like Zoo and Affinity, so although our islandwalk is great against most control decks, they could just slow us down enough to take control. So, by conceding a little aggro in order to have a well-placed Spell Pierce or Kira, I think you have a better chance of beating pure aggro strategies and control-based decks with creature hate.

You've effectively explained the two different camps and their strengths. A lot of decks can't keep up with the aggro plan, especially T4-5 when things get nasty. We'll have to see how the answer cards shift with sweepers and wipes (as stated early) with Zoo and Faeries being potentially popular. Unfortunately its too early to really decide which will be a better meta pick (as well as not knowing what people you play against run locally). Both are strong lists for different reasons.

I'm going to be trying to playtest a lower creature count build--I think everyone is reinforcing sideboards and main to deal with zoo aggro which is also effective against us but we're slower and we won't steal as many wins by leaning aggro.

I would be interested in playing heavier counters and tricks and trying to get the threats to stick, trying out 4x reej and 4x merfolk sovereign on top of our staple 2 lords (don't derail too hard to talk about this please). Before I started cutting spells to play more creatures (partially the allure of new toys), I was playing grindy, often vial-less games successfully against the field. You have to work a little harder and sequence a lot of plays properly, but it works.

tdlr:don't fight the tide, flow with the meta.

Quote from BatHickey

I'm going to be trying to playtest a lower creature count build--I think everyone is reinforcing sideboards and main to deal with zoo aggro which is also effective against us but we're slower and we won't steal as many wins by leaning aggro.

I would be interested in playing heavier counters and tricks and trying to get the threats to stick, trying out 4x reej and 4x merfolk sovereign on top of our staple 2 lords (don't derail too hard to talk about this please). Before I started cutting spells to play more creatures (partially the allure of new toys), I was playing grindy, often vial-less games successfully against the field. You have to work a little harder and sequence a lot of plays properly, but it works.

tdlr:don't fight the tide, flow with the meta.

Well what we have on our side that zoo doesn't is mid-range capability through master of waves and thassa. Most long games can be won through a master of waves for any number.

I'm not quite sure I understand your reasoning, why are you playing 4-of sovereign and reejerey now that zoo is a thing? Reejerey I understand since he's a good merfolk lord with a relevant ability, but Sovereign? I thought sovereign was deemed unplayable a long time ago. I understand that she's not the worst card in the world but if you're talking about increasing the amount of disruption AND adding in sovereigns then I think you will end up replacing better creatures with her. What gets cut to make room for sovereign?

As for disruption, I agree that what we really need right now is some good, versatile disruption that warrants us playing merfolk rather than just zoo. The problem is there just isn't much that fits our gameplan right now. The obvious answer for a blue disruption card is some type of counterspell and unfortunately there just aren't any that work. Until we can get a 1-mana counter that's better than spell pierce I think we just have to sit tight on the heavy creature plan.

As for engineered explosives I don't think it really works in this deck. In mono-blue your only choices are 0 and 1 and I don't think that really gives us much to work with. That means the only matchups where you can bring it in at all are affinity, zoo, and tokens. Against affinity it's really not that effective since you have to wait until turn 2 to pop it, it's bad off the top, and there's no guarantee you'll get much value out of it in the first place. Against tokens it's not bad but it's basically just a glorified echoing truth, and this matchup is already pretty solid as soon as you get islandwalk anyways. Against zoo it's obviously insane, but only if they're playing a super-fast 1-drops only version and don't have a goyf on board. In comparison, threads of disloyalty is great against zoo and every other goyf deck in the format. I could be wrong but I think threads hates zoo about as much as EE and hates out a wider range of decks. And obviously if you're playing UW then setting to 2 is an option, but is basically shooting yourself in the foot.

And Faeries. If they get ridiculous with their bitterblossom-ing then it would definitely not be pleasant for them to see.


Having said that, I don't think that matchup is difficult in the first place.

please regard my list as a 'study' of sorts. I think one indicator of how much better this deck has gotten has been the difficulty in narrowing down the viable options of the deck--kinda cool. I don't think sovereign is a best choice, but it does lend itself to a super critical mass of lords which is cool and does allow for less spreading seas (less draw is fine because of Thassa).

Also has anyone else tried out snapcaster mages? I did some testing which ended up failing because I never drew the two I expected to at least occasionally see even though I did have targets every game I would have drawn them.

I'm not too worried about fae, but I've ran into trouble being chain cryptic'd--first turn on the play vial is pretty important to getting under them as it totally stops countermagic and mistbinds ruining your land, so I mull to vial/cavern in this matchup.

I really can't see Merfolk Sovereign on my deck since we got a lot of better cheaper options like Phantasmal Image which can copy a lord or even a Master of Waves on final of enemys turn with Æther Vial to end the game most times. If you are going more Control/Disruption each mana you can spare will be important.

I only like spellkite against stuff that is going to try and target my vials that doesn't run stony silence, or is slow with lots of removal where the 0 power doesn't affect a fast clock that I would need to win. I do bring it in against twin a lot though.

Modern Merfolk was the first non-kitchen table deck I built, and while I kind of see it as my "pet-deck", I have a genuine question:

Do you guys really think that Merfolk has what it takes to be a modern top tier deck?

The reason why I wonder is that a single merfolk is never good enough; you will always need multiple merfolk on the field before they become worthwhile, and apart from affinity no other modern deck needs that; goyf is fat on its own, kitchen finks is good on its own, Wild Nacatl is good on its own. A single lord however is just a bear. Because of this, creature removal basically becomes a one-and-a-half for one; it both kills one of our guys, and makes the others significantly worse. It's easy to say that merfolks can grow too large to be bolted, but that requires a whopping three lords on the field at the same time. Any clever opponent can easily play around this by bolting in response to a cast or a vial activation. Then of course you could argue that in return a clever merfolk player can play around that, but the fact remains that getting to that magical 4 toughness is prety difficult.

With the recent additions of MoW and Thassa there has been a huge spike in merfolk decks, but to be honest I think thi is just hype. MoW is a double edged sword; even with just one lord on the field he gives huge value, but it also forces merfolk to play more lands, giving for worse topdecks. Thassa on the other hand fixes topdecks, but is pretty much the personalisation of merfolks' issues in a card; five devotion to get her going is a lot in such a removal-heavy format, and without her being able to attack, scry 1 every turn and unblockability in a deck that already has plenty of that is pretty lousy on turn 3-4; if the deckplan works out you don't want to see much later than turn 6 anyways, giving you a lousy scry 3 for 3 mana.

Finally, I see Nacatl's unbanning as merfolk's nail in the coffin; why would you play merfolk over naya? Naya's creatures are above curve just like merfolks', but don't require you to have 3 or 4 on the field to still have value. Plus, it has tons of burn and better sideboard options. On top of that, if Naya becomes a thing, sideboard additions to counter it will hit Merfolk in the crossfire.

I love merfolk as a deck, I've played it a lot, but at the end of the day I think that a deck of which every card relies on other cards to be good can not function in a format with so much creature removal.

You have to realize as well though:
1. Zoo does a lot of self-inflicting damage in order to get that additional aggressive power.
2. They have an extremely fragile manabase. Spreading Seas is even more powerful now with Pod and Zoo an UWR being popular deck choices. We'll see how it ends up playing out, but I think the deck is still very solid. With Vapor Snag and taxing counter magic to hold off until they get to their win condition, it plays out very strong.

I guess we'll see how things shape up with this PT at this point though. I still think it's a decent choice.

all reasonable questions. When they banned the cat, it was in the name of aggro decks like merfolk to be able to breath (which it would have anyway).

getting to four toughness hasn't stopped the deck from winning, and it wont stop you from getting hit with supreme verdict, in fact its probably better to not hit four toughness because it means you overextended.

Thassa is great, and worth playing at the point in the game where its available to be cast to prevent flooding out. MOW while showing up in lists with four mana, doesn't need to be included as a 4x, time will dictate the right number and adding a land or two doesn't damn us to screw because we need to accommodate for a 4 drop. Honestly, if it wasn't talked about on the internet so much and someone dropped me into the format, I'd never come up with the 4-turn format analysis.

I am worried about the crossfire a bit too--good thing the cardpool is deep enough to adjust the deck to remain competitive in the meta.

While I fear for my baby as well, I don't expect to be top 8'ing any pro tours this weekend or next, so its ok if we're tier 1.5 to me.

On the bright side, if ppl start playing this "Blue Moon" deck, it seems like it'd be a fantastic matchup for merfolk. I've never played against it, but theoretically non-basic land hate and counterspells are not good against merfolk.

Well.. most of the PT Valencia Merfolk cutted some Reejery, no Sygg, botload of master of waves, and a lone Vendillion clique.

Also TidebinderMage Maindeck for all the zoo.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptbng14/moderndecks

Ctrl F for Lord will take you to the 3 decklist

From what i read, this wasn't a full modern constructed pro tour. I guess there was some draft involved?
There was one Merfolk deck that made top 16. Petr Sochurek. His deck is as follows:

Quote from Naugh-Tay

From what i read, this wasn't a full modern constructed pro tour. I guess there was some draft involved?
There was one Merfolk deck that made top 16. Petr Sochurek. His deck is as follows:

Petr Sochurek Pro Tour Born of the Gods 16th PlaceMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creatures 4 Cursecatcher 2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner 4 Lord of Atlantis 4 Master of the Pearl Trident 3 Master of Waves 2 Merrow Reejerey 1 Phantasmal Image 4 Silvergill Adept 2 Tidebinder Mage	Spells 4 AEther Vial 2 Remand 4 Spreading Seas 4 Vapor Snag Lands 16 Island 4 Mutavault	Sideboard 2 Dismember 1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner 2 Relic of Progenitus 1 Remand 2 Spell Pierce 1 Swan Song 2 Tectonic Edge 2 Threads of Disloyalty 2 Tidebinder Mage

Hm, not really sure how to feel about this list. Seems to have given up on winning the affinity matchup entirely. 2 maindeck tidebinders is pretty bold, but understandable. What are everyone else's thoughts?

at first glance it looks like zoo isn't really going to cut it at the top tables--day two the numbers of it showing up were slashed and UR decks were everywhere. that'd tell me to put the tidebinders in the side to get through day one, but after that they'd stay there and you wouldn't have to play all your game ones against splinter twin and draw a tidebinder.

the other merfolk lists are also really interesting and appear to have different ideas about how they expected the meta to shape up. I like the idea of nearly 1 of each of our singletons that everyone likes/doesn't like in the thread all showing up main. I sort of alluded to that as an idea in my last real list, and I wonder if the average of the three that we see is the way to go.

tidebinder is really good against both pod and zoo, so it was likely a metagame call and unless your LGS has a lot of pod and zoo i wouldn't play them maindeck.

Yeah I would say Tidebinder was a bold mainboard. Though I like this deck a lot because it makes use of Master of Waves and Phantasmal Image. I'm trying to think of a good replacement for the Tidebinder Mage in the mainboard. Maybe another Phantasmal Image and a Thassa, God of the Sea?

So after doing some testing I think cursecatcher really needs to just go. He just doesn't do enough for us I don't think to justify playing him at this point. The only matchup where he truly shines is living end. Against every other deck in the format he's basically a merfolk of the pearl trident with an occasional ability. The only reason to play him is the lack of other strong merfolk for 1-2 mana and playing another 3 drop really kills our curve. With that in mind I've done some testing and I think the two merfolk best set-up to replace him are tidebinder mage and maybe even augur of bolas in a build with a few more instants and sorceries than normal. He has a pretty decent body and acts almost as silvergill adepts 5+, which I think we can all agree is pretty much the best card in this deck in the first place. I tried him out in a build with 4 path to exiles and 3 remands and I managed to hit a spell with him with decent consistency. I dunno, augur of bolas might be just a pipe-dream but I honestly think cursecatcher needs to be replaced. I can't say what the meta looked like in the past, but in this current meta he's very weak. More often than not I'm disappointed to draw him.