MTG Salvation

Fetches!

I will be splashing black once ONSe Fetches are in Modern. Merfolk has become really boring for me (as I play it online) and adding Thoughtsieze, Dark Confidant and real black removal (Smother?!) will hopefully spark something again for THE deck.

As it stands, it's basically a Tier 2 deck that has not placed a Top 8 in Modern, though it did hit Top 16 at Kobe. The interesting tidbit of technology was Redirect. It gives us an 'out' to Abrupt Decay/TS vs Jund.

Also instead of Kira, I've been playing Clique. VERY good addition considering how many combo decks are in my area and it stops alot of the nonsense since we are so counter light. Kira is pretty horrible right now with all the Abrupt Decays running around. I'm HOPING Burn is played more to take care of Jund. We basically NEVER lose to Burn with Chalice in the board. Cotv for 1, GG??

I've tested the black splash. Personally, I really did not care for it as it does not fit my style. It may be different for different people, but I don't like it.

So I added a 1-of Hurkyl's Recall to my sideboard on Wednesday at a tiny local tournament. I hadn't intended to attend, and I couldn't find one of the cards I had intended to include, so i just yolo'd and added the Hurkyl's Recall that was sitting on my desk. Sure enough, I get paired against Affinity round 1, and though it was close, he poisons me out the turn before I kill him. I wasn't optimistic about my chances, but I end up drawing Hurkyl's Recall both of the sideboard games, and I crush him. With a Hurkyl's and a halfway decent clock it felt like I couldn't lose. So my point is, do we think that adding 3 Hurkyl's t the board can solve the affinity matchup? There are many sideboard cards that I want, but if 3 Hurkyl's can turn the affinity matchup from 15% TO 55-60% then it feels worth the slots.

You basically got lucky drawing it. If you're going to add them, add 4 or none (Or get lucky I guess).

I think Dark Confidant is the best creature in Modern, the problem is, there is SOO much removal that he's almost a dead draw (in Jund). But in Merfolk, we have big targets on our guys (Lords), so you can play it so they get removed and hopefully you can stick. I know he's not 'good synergy', but Merfolk is the best drawing deck in Modern (Silvergill, Seas, Remand) and I want to get greedy and ADD MORE!

It's for fun, the deck is getting pretty boring and hopefully with new fetches more decks pop up to play. Plus post PTQ lull...

hi---new to the site and wanted feedback on a fish brew---I'm new to modern and really liked playing merfolk when I was a kid


I hate using the budget word-but subtracting off 4 aether vials is the world I live in now....I love restoration angel and it can do fun stuff like bounce svergill for an extra card or bounce master of waves for more dudes

Am I crazy wanting to add restoration angel? It seems to me after the first vial, the rest are 'sad to see' cards

You need to fix the spacing on that deck there.
Merfolk without aether vial has to focus more on all in, I think.
Are you able to run mutavaults/kiras/U/W lands/etc?
Adding fountains and now fetches will make the u/w version not cheap either. That being said, I don't think restoration angel is good enough. It just costs way too much mana, and there isnt enough to flicker. Master of waves kills all the tokens, being 1/0s without him, (I believe), silvergill adept draws 1 card, and you can save your dudes from things, but its just not at all in tune with the rest of the deck.
PLaying mono blue aggressive might be a better option, but aether vials are quite important in the modern version of the deck (less for legacy, but still used.)

Quote from Cody_X »

You need to fix the spacing on that deck there.
Merfolk without aether vial has to focus more on all in, I think.
Are you able to run mutavaults/kiras/U/W lands/etc?
Adding fountains and now fetches will make the u/w version not cheap either. That being said, I don't think restoration angel is good enough. It just costs way too much mana, and there isnt enough to flicker. Master of waves kills all the tokens, being 1/0s without him, (I believe), silvergill adept draws 1 card, and you can save your dudes from things, but its just not at all in tune with the rest of the deck.
PLaying mono blue aggressive might be a better option, but aether vials are quite important in the modern version of the deck (less for legacy, but still used.)

A creature with 0 toughness dies only right before players can cast instants. The tokens will survive for the same reason a living weapon's 0/0 token will survive to have the equipment attached to it.

No need to play fetches in uw merfolk.
Seachrome, Hub and 2-3 Fountains are enough for painless manabase.
It is important to not dip to 18 life vs Scapeshift.

You have it backwards. Merfolk WITHOUT Vials becomes controlly. You can't go all in because you just don't have the free mana via Vial.

It's like playing vs Jund, you side the Vials out and go for the end game (run them out of removal, and stick a Master of Waves). I like the Restoration Angels (assuming; to save your Lords).

Yea, the idea is to save your lords and value bounce things if you can...it also serves as an alt method of attack...plus, it's not expensive and the mana base is friendly enough

....aether vial is amazing but not after the first one (and sometimes the second one)...just image for a moment, turn 8....close game...mana available...what would you rather draw, vial or angel?...it provides a serious late game presence

I guess what you lose is that surprise combat math by vialing in a lord...but I dunno, could you learn to play around it?

I also love azorius charm...need a card? Need some life? Need to give yourself time to set something up?

Still tinkering with the sideboard and the 21st land could be cut I am just not sure as for what. I'm considering 4 Maindeck Swansong and 4 Vapor Snag in an hyper aggressive build and I also run a blue white list if you guys are interested. Suggestions are[/deck] welcomed.

Yea post the u/w list - looking for off kilter ideas and inspiration

Also a black archetype Ive been meaning to test out

[deck]Creatures
4 Cursecatcher
4 Dark Confidant
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
2 Phantasmal Image
3 Merrow Reejery

Artifacts
4 AEther Vial

Sorceries
4 Thoughtseize

Instants
4 Dismember

Enchantments
3 Spreading Seas

Lands
4 Darkslick Shores
1 River of Tears
1 Watery Grave
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Mutavault
6 Island

Sideboard
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Extirpate
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Chalice of the Void



Thoughts?

how does everyone think merfolk is positioned in the meta right now? is it still as strong as it was/

Quote from opterown »

how does everyone think merfolk is positioned in the meta right now? is it still as strong as it was/

It is strong because people don't test against it, if merfolk player knows what he's doing, and it is very consistent.
Still not the best (obv, since we didn't win anything relevant) because we lack some power cards (no combo finish) and have no second angle of attack, which makes it easy to hate out.

Creatures
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
2 Phantasmal Image
4 Merrow Reejery
1 Spellskite
1 Kira
1 Skaab Ruinator

4 AEther Vial
1 Dismember
3 Vapor Snag
1 Echoing Truth
4 Spreading Seas
2 Spell Pierce

Lands
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Tectonic Edge
4 Mutavault
13 Island

Sideboard
3 Hurkyl's Recall
1 KIra
1 Spellskite
3 Tidebinder Mage
1 Echoing Truth
2 Hibernation
2 Swan Song
2 Relic Of Progenitus

Went 3-2 after swiss out of 18 players, on local GPT for shanghai last saturday; and finished 1st after top 8, only loss to storm 1st round and b/w tokens on 3rd round, won against Mono U tron, packrats, White Devo Enchantments home brew, scapeshift, G/R tron, tempo twin

same list but with 1 coralhelm, later it was replaced by 1 vapor snag because of its underperformance, won a local fnm a week before the gpt, went 3-0 beat zombies, junk, jund

Most people don't know to untap AEther Vialal with Reejery, this deck requiresvery tight play.The slightest margins are the difference of winning and losing for Merfolk. Most Folk players make many tiny errors constantly and aren't sure when to play Master of Waves aggressively, when to hold him and when to keep.building him up.

Hey guys, haven't posted here in a while.

IMO the meta doesn't look very good for merfolk right now. Rock (+souls, but we don't care about that) is a pretty harsh matchup, and much harder to mana disrupt than Jund and they play more Abrupt Decays. Burn has also greatly increased because it has a good MU vs Rock, which is also a bad matchup if you don't run Chalice.

Personally I'm thinking of maybe cutting a Kira since UWr seems to be slowly disappearing and she dies to AD, and the Tecs sideboard is already incredibly powerful against them. Cavern of Souls has become larely useless as well. Phantasmal Image on the other hand has become a bit more playable since twin has been going down a bit, but getting it Slaughter Pacted sucks hard.

Creatures have become even more important so so I'm probably gonna run more removal and less counterspells. Next to more BGx decks, Pod is still as strong as ever and even some affinity decks run Tarmogoyf now so Tidebinder is very good. I'm gonna keep using chalice becaue it wrecks burn, but next to that there isn't much important stuff it hits right now. Also If you've ever even remotely considered running Relic mainboard, do it now.

Chalice wrecks a lot of things and I've been considering going up to 3 SB.

Infect/Chalice for 1
Burn/Chalice for 1
Affinity/Only on the play board it Chalice for 0
Storm or Eggs/Chalice for 1
8Rack/Chalice for 1

I can probably keep going. Chalice for me has and always will be one of the sickest sideboard cards.Especially since it doesn't really effect us at all. Tidebinder is solid, it's game winning tempo against aggro zoo type decks, it's not.bad vs Jund or Pod either. Even RDW letting them resolve a Vexing.Devil because you have Tidebinder can be a game winner or Vialing it in to catch a Hellspark even.

I've done well on MTGO with Merfolk but I've been playing it forever, I won City Champs in standard with it. I don't like counters maindeck in Modern Merfolk they are just so clunky so much of the time, I initially ran remands but leaving 2 Mana up was never an easy feat and it lost it's tempo later on in the game often anyways. Pierce was a little too narrow so I balanced it out with 3 Snag 2 Dismember main and Image and Kira are tricks off Vial and utility cards. Snags 3x because drawing more than 1 dismember is painful, too painful but 2 is a fitting number.

I play Swan Song like a mad man. Vs Jund when you know they typically board in 3x sweepers, it's still worth it vs spot removal often enough also. It's one of our best options vs Scapeshift/Storm/Combo in general. Affinity is obviously hard but I do find Recall often good enough and their deck loses to itself a bit so is being 1-2 turns slower isn't always bad as we are much more consistent.

Someone earlier asked for a U/W list, so I will oblige.
I've been playing U/W merfolk since I made the deck, as I honestly think it is stronger.

deck is a bit loose right now. Echoing truths and spell pierces are flex right now, harm's way and other counters unified will, mana leak, spell snare have made appearances.
In the sideboard, I'm not sure how much I like dismember. Depending on your meta, those might not belong. Echoing truths belong somewhere in the 75, i think, and threads of disloyalty isnt bad either. as others have mentioned, chalice is good as well.
Once khans is out, im cutting two of each basics for 4 flooded strands.
I kinda miss having only 8 lords, but corralhelm is slightly out of reach for this deck.