You are welcome. This list is the ***** right now, Worship is winning me games in which I would be screwed otherwise, PtE is still a great choice against almost anything, you have enough counters and also some trick in your sleeve for the sideboard. It is a bit tricky to play the list correctly but trust me when I say it is worth it.
You are welcome. This list is the ***** right now, Worship is winning me games in which I would be screwed otherwise, PtE is still a great choice against almost anything, you have enough counters and also some trick in your sleeve for the sideboard. It is a bit tricky to play the list correctly but trust me when I say it is worth it.
That's the best reason to play it. It just wins you games you have no business winning, specifically our slightly difficult to very worst matchups without losing too much potency on the good matchups. I noticed you run only Kataki, no Stony Silence. I assume this is due to it being A)You can Vial it in, and B) it doesn't stop your own vial. Am I correct?
For anyone else on here interested in UW Fish, Leyart has a link on his signature you can follow to get his initial build. I would advise you guys to go from there, edit to fit your meta a bit, and report back with results. I truly believe that right now our best option is to begin using White to gain better options on our worst matches, without too heavy of a splash to dilute our gameplan so that we weaken our good areas. If nothing else, this type of paradigm shift keeps us fresh, preventing opponents from knowing all of our lines, and makes us better players as a whole.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"It's not a matter of deserving. It's a matter of strength. The power to hold versus the power to take."
-Sygg, River Cutthroat
I really am not sold on playing Worship in the Fish shell. You have to dilute your manabase into white for a clunky 4 mana enchantment. Master of Waves is already clunky, but at least he wins me the game. I also never liked UW Merfolk to begin with after tinkering with it a bunch because I thought Path and marginally better sideboard options wasn't a good enough reason to splash White for *shrug*
I guess it's a "don't knock it till you try it" kind of thing, but I guess you guys who want to try it can everyone else how it worked out for you.
IMO, Just play the monoblue version, learn its matchups and tweak for your meta, win games.
That's fair, though I/We are not trying to replace Mono U as much as offer an additional viable option for those who run into too much affinity, elves, etc.
There are two points you bring up that I would like to shine a light on, though. On Master of Waves you said "..but at least he wins me the game." I would add that this is precisely the reason Worship is workable here; it's a 4 drop that wins you the game, should you have other creatures as Devotion comes from them, as well as they turn on Worship. I can't imagine many g1 situations likely to prop up where you drop a Worship and lose the game, that card is effectively a wincon while it doesn't win the game itself, it almost always functions as "you can't lose the game"
Also the point of "marginally better sideboard options" doesn't quite register with me.. Marginally being the operative word here. White is definitely bringing in immense SB benefits, things a mono U list couldn't ever do. I guess your perception of added the versatility would be it isn't worthwhile, and that is fine, but personally I can't imagine how all of the great things W has to offer are characterized as a merely marginal benefit. Food for thought. I'm sure you will hear about our experiences soon enough and we can go from there.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"It's not a matter of deserving. It's a matter of strength. The power to hold versus the power to take."
-Sygg, River Cutthroat
So I faced a Troll Worship deck today (in case you haven't heard of it: it's centered around Hexproof creatures like Sylvan Caryatid and Troll Ascetic + Worship), and my sideboard is ill-suited to handle it. Given that I probably would have beaten the deck if I had a bit more general bounce and counterspells, how do you guys feel about swapping out Hurkyl's Recall for Echoing Truth or Annul? I'm also considering adding a few more copies of Spell Pierce, because I feel like I'm a bit soft to combo decks like Amulet Bloom (which is everywhere right now). For reference, here's my list.
I noticed you run only Kataki, no Stony Silence. I assume this is due to it being A)You can Vial it in, and B) it doesn't stop your own vial. Am I correct?.
It is even more important than that: not only you can sneak vial him in, but it is also much more relevant than stony silence after turn 2. Stony silence on an already equipped cranial plating does nothing, while Kataki force the opponent to use heir resources on something or sacrifice their permanent against the affinity setup. Thanks to Path to Exile, Monoblue and/or RG tron is a problem no more.
I really am not sold on playing Worship in the Fish shell. You have to dilute your manabase into white for a clunky 4 mana enchantment.
IMO, Just play the monoblue version, learn its matchups and tweak for your meta, win games.
What does "dilute" manabase means? You are not diluting your manabase in any way. Every single card you are using in place of an island has blue in itself. Wanderwine even saves you against chokes. The advantage of using UW instead of monoblue are:
1) Not losing 4 lifes by using dismember
2) Being able to manage the mirror much better
3) Using PtE on *****ty things like Wurmcoil (that has always been a huge problem to deal with for me with MonoU merfolks), while being able to kill also bigger threats.
A landed worship may gain you a dozen of turns if the opponent is not able to counteract it in a proper way, which is not something to underestimate if the match went in a wrong direction. (e.g. damnation, oblivion stones, engineered explosives...)
This list has been tuned for two years and has won me several tournaments at our local stores and even bigger events. You can always try it instead of just complaining with statements like "MonoU is just better".
I have been playing fish for 6 years now.
So I faced a Troll Worship deck today (in case you haven't heard of it: it's centered around Hexproof creatures like Sylvan Caryatid and Troll Ascetic + Worship), and my sideboard is ill-suited to handle it. Given that I probably would have beaten the deck if I had a bit more general bounce and counterspells, how do you guys feel about swapping out Hurkyl's Recall for Echoing Truth or Annul? I'm also considering adding a few more copies of Spell Pierce, because I feel like I'm a bit soft to combo decks like Amulet Bloom (which is everywhere right now). For reference, here's my list.
Have you thought about Kiora's Dismissal? I know it does not hit artifacts, but it can hit enchantments after they have already hit the field, and it has saved me in the Boggle match up in the past.
I am going to be buying into Merfolk here in the next week or so. Is cursecatcher super important or can I get away with not buying a 15 dollar uncommon? The two wanderwine hub will get turned into the legendary lands sometime in the near future. Is there something that I am desperately missing or numbers you think I need to tweak? Any help would be much appreciated.
Cursecatcher is rather good. Significantly better than cosi's trickster/triton shorestalker, w/e other replacements. You want them. That being said, maybe you want them last.
There is no reason not to play 4 mutas (well there are reasons, but its still worth it).
You can reasonably play 2 legendary lands and 4 hubs and cut on the islands.
3 Cavern of souls is a lot-ish. You can get away with it, but 2 is likely plenty.
It might be worthwhile playing counterspells main. Consider -2 snag +2 spell pierce. Its alright to have them side, but often times you want something main.
You have neither tectonic edge nor tidebinder mage in your sideboard. Depending on what you expect to see, both are potentially very good choices.
If you add pierce main, you could consider -1 echoing truth and -3 spell pierce for +2 tidebinder and +2 tect edge.
Some of us also play 19 lands. Experiment, and if you don't see a downside, you've got room for one more dude. (or non-dude, up to you).
Hello. Im new in the forum but was reading all your post sice.... 2012? Not sure.
Anyway i am a merfolk player, a devotion merfolk player¡ And in 7 days i will go to Lyon; i allways play merfolk deck (usually strange versions) and i am very afraid of my mana base.
My deck
Lands: 20
10 Island
2 Tec edge
2 Cavern of souls
4 Mutavault
1 Minamo
1 Oboro
Im not sure if 2 tec + 2 cavern is too much; usually 2 tec + 1 cavern is fine to me (better vs tron/3cdecks) but maybe 2+2 is excesive
Creatures
4 Silvergill
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of pearl trident
2 Phantasmal image
2 Meerrow Reejerey
4 Harbringer of the tides
3 Master of waves
2 Kira, great glass spinner
2 Spellskite
Other spells
2 vapor snag
2 dismember
1 spellpierce
4 Aether vial
4 Spreading seas
Well... 1) You will notice that i dont play Coursecatcher. Ok, i dont have it and i dont like it. Im not sure if im crazy to not play it... so im here to run out of dudes
2) 2 Spellskite + 2 Kira: I really love they, Kira is a must vs WRx Decks or everything with W or R; and spellkite is simillar AND improve our matchups vs (Twin, Bloom, Infect and Bogels). Maybe 2+2 is too much, so if i am doing something wrong, discuss (I know that 2 kira with my manabase is something... potentially bad)
One cool thing about this interaction is say you have 2 Silvergill and a Mutavault and a land to activate and suspect cryptic you can move to combat they have to respond with a cryptic you can let cryptic resolve and then you have priority before moving to comba again and can activate Mutavault and swing in.
You really want to play Cursecatcher. He does a lot in combo matchups and also against control. I wouldn't play Merfolk without them. His ability is very good in the right situations, maybe he doesn't look that good on the paper but he really shines in some matchups. That said I can see not playing him or go lower with his numbers in aggro infested meta but as soon as your meta has combo and control you should play it.
My meta is:
2x GR Tron
1x MonoU Tron
1x Twin
1x Wur Control
2x Affinity
2x Burn
1x Elves
1x Jund
1x PodlessPod CoCo
1x Infect
Random decks
So combo is a little Meh. In a GP things can be differents
Sideboard
3x stony silence
2x Kira great glass spinner
2x dispel
2x spell pierce
1x swan song
1x unified will
1x rest in peace
1x relic of progenitus
1x echoing truth
1x threads of disloyalty
Sideboard
3x stony silence
2x Kira great glass spinner
2x dispel
2x spell pierce
1x swan song
1x unified will
1x rest in peace
1x relic of progenitus
1x echoing truth
1x threads of disloyalty
I'm also very interested in this build! Please let us know how it performs!
One question though. Do you really need the third shockland in your manabase? Wouldn't it be better to put one more island or a cavern instead?
On a tangent... I posted this on the Fish_MTG subreddit, but I think that it's worth reposting here:
I come to you with a bit of a speculative question. For the last few months, I've been employing Kira, Great Glass-Spinner as well as Spellskite in my sideboard, mainly in order to thwart decks relying on removal. That's been working pretty solidly, but I find that it has made my sideboard a bit one-dimensional (since I'm selling out to stop Affinity with Hurkyl's Recall and Chalice of the Void, and have Tidebinder Mage in order to fight off green and red decks), so I would like to try and include some more counterspells or bounce effects. However, I'm not sure whether I would replace Kira or the Kite. Here's the breakdown of how I see things:
Kira Positives
Flying (we struggle to block fliers)
Great against decks looking to gain incremental advantages, like Grixis and BGX
2 power
Does not die to artifact hate
Kira Negatives
2 toughness (so it dies to every sweeper out there)
Great against decks with lots of targeted effects, removal or otherwise (e.g. Bogles and Affinity - steals Auras and modular)
Spellskite Negatives
0 power
Dies to artifact hate (though it often saves Æther Vial in the process)
Doesn't prevent the effects of the targeted effect (e.g. blocks Terminate, but dies in the process)
Sometimes costs life
I think it's pretty close, but I'm going to give Spellskite a slight edge. Now I turn to you guys and ask: do you think removing either of these from my sideboard is a good idea? If so, what would you replace them with? More Spell Pierce? Unified Will? Annul? Swan Song? Echoing Truth? Hibernation? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Spellskite is so good he is bad. No really, all decks that are weak to skite (twin, infect and especially bogles) have sideboard AND mainboard options to deal with him in some way to a point where the card isn't very good against them anymore. The main reason I will always pick kira over skite however is that a topdecked kira bashes in for 2 flying a turn whilst a topdecked spellskite makes you look a bit silly.
As for Worship, I think it's a really strong strategy that will win you games and is totally worth the white splash. But I'm not going to play it mostly because I simply don't like the card much from a gameplay perspective and also because Worship becomes bad the moment it becomes popular.
Worship means that affinity can only win through infect damage(I believe).
If jund can't answer it (and usually their answers are 1 maelstrom pulse and discard spells) then they lose. Its not possible for jund to win without dealing damage (barring milling you out, which is incredibly unlikely).
We only need to keep a creature out, and especially with mutavault, this is rather easy. How many games have you been sitting in a standstill waiting to draw a spreading seas as to safely attack? Its probably happened. Worship gives you as many turns as you need to draw whatever you need.
Pod is no longer a modern deck, but melira combo is not greatly effected by worship.
I can see how UWWorship Tuna makes Burn, a traditionally even match-up all that more winnable, but how does it fair against our toughest match-ups, like Pod and Affinity?
Hm, for one I find it interesting how you consider Pod ( I assume you mean Podless Pod AKA Anafenza Collected Company) to be a tough match up.. I never really struggle against them, frankly I can count on one hand how many times I've lost, my brother has the deck and I have played against it a ton.
Secondly, the past few pages have had many specific details about the White splash improving our Affinity match up specifically.. If you don't understand the concept right away then you should read through the last few pages.. It is a very straightforward and solid plan against them.
Bearscape, I do agree with Worship getting worse the more popular it gets, although the same can be said for pretty much any card/strategy. I do thank you for holding off so we can sneak in with it though lol
Delverofthemany, I like that build a lot. I would probably run some number of Chalice of the Void in the sb, but that's just me. Please post results asap, I'll be playing tonight as well and will do the same.
Leyart, Oh okay, I see what you're getting at. That is good, my thoughts were more in the vein of "What if they can just pay 1 or 2 to keep the plating & creature?" but it makes sense. I will likely go for a split between the two, I'm unsure if I want to see more than 1 Kataki in a hand, but one of him and one of stony wouldn't be too bad at all.
Landcronomicon
That's the best reason to play it. It just wins you games you have no business winning, specifically our slightly difficult to very worst matchups without losing too much potency on the good matchups. I noticed you run only Kataki, no Stony Silence. I assume this is due to it being A)You can Vial it in, and B) it doesn't stop your own vial. Am I correct?
For anyone else on here interested in UW Fish, Leyart has a link on his signature you can follow to get his initial build. I would advise you guys to go from there, edit to fit your meta a bit, and report back with results. I truly believe that right now our best option is to begin using White to gain better options on our worst matches, without too heavy of a splash to dilute our gameplan so that we weaken our good areas. If nothing else, this type of paradigm shift keeps us fresh, preventing opponents from knowing all of our lines, and makes us better players as a whole.
-Sygg, River Cutthroat
I play all Cavern of Souls decks
I guess it's a "don't knock it till you try it" kind of thing, but I guess you guys who want to try it can everyone else how it worked out for you.
IMO, Just play the monoblue version, learn its matchups and tweak for your meta, win games.
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
There are two points you bring up that I would like to shine a light on, though. On Master of Waves you said "..but at least he wins me the game." I would add that this is precisely the reason Worship is workable here; it's a 4 drop that wins you the game, should you have other creatures as Devotion comes from them, as well as they turn on Worship. I can't imagine many g1 situations likely to prop up where you drop a Worship and lose the game, that card is effectively a wincon while it doesn't win the game itself, it almost always functions as "you can't lose the game"
Also the point of "marginally better sideboard options" doesn't quite register with me.. Marginally being the operative word here. White is definitely bringing in immense SB benefits, things a mono U list couldn't ever do. I guess your perception of added the versatility would be it isn't worthwhile, and that is fine, but personally I can't imagine how all of the great things W has to offer are characterized as a merely marginal benefit. Food for thought. I'm sure you will hear about our experiences soon enough and we can go from there.
-Sygg, River Cutthroat
I play all Cavern of Souls decks
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
It is even more important than that: not only you can sneak vial him in, but it is also much more relevant than stony silence after turn 2. Stony silence on an already equipped cranial plating does nothing, while Kataki force the opponent to use heir resources on something or sacrifice their permanent against the affinity setup. Thanks to Path to Exile, Monoblue and/or RG tron is a problem no more.
What does "dilute" manabase means? You are not diluting your manabase in any way. Every single card you are using in place of an island has blue in itself. Wanderwine even saves you against chokes. The advantage of using UW instead of monoblue are:
1) Not losing 4 lifes by using dismember
2) Being able to manage the mirror much better
3) Using PtE on *****ty things like Wurmcoil (that has always been a huge problem to deal with for me with MonoU merfolks), while being able to kill also bigger threats.
A landed worship may gain you a dozen of turns if the opponent is not able to counteract it in a proper way, which is not something to underestimate if the match went in a wrong direction. (e.g. damnation, oblivion stones, engineered explosives...)
This list has been tuned for two years and has won me several tournaments at our local stores and even bigger events. You can always try it instead of just complaining with statements like "MonoU is just better".
I have been playing fish for 6 years now.
Landcronomicon
Have you thought about Kiora's Dismissal? I know it does not hit artifacts, but it can hit enchantments after they have already hit the field, and it has saved me in the Boggle match up in the past.
4x Cosi's Trickster
4x Harbinger of the Tides
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
3x Master of Waves
3x Merrow Reejerey
4x Silvergill Adept
3x Cavern of Souls
12x Island
3x Mutavault
2x Wanderwine Hub
Instant (6)
2x Dismember
4x Vapor Snag
Artifact (4)
4x AEther Vial
4x Spreading Seas
3x Echoing Truth
2x Hibernation
3x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2x Relic of Progenitus
3x Spell Pierce
I am going to be buying into Merfolk here in the next week or so. Is cursecatcher super important or can I get away with not buying a 15 dollar uncommon? The two wanderwine hub will get turned into the legendary lands sometime in the near future. Is there something that I am desperately missing or numbers you think I need to tweak? Any help would be much appreciated.
There is no reason not to play 4 mutas (well there are reasons, but its still worth it).
You can reasonably play 2 legendary lands and 4 hubs and cut on the islands.
3 Cavern of souls is a lot-ish. You can get away with it, but 2 is likely plenty.
It might be worthwhile playing counterspells main. Consider -2 snag +2 spell pierce. Its alright to have them side, but often times you want something main.
You have neither tectonic edge nor tidebinder mage in your sideboard. Depending on what you expect to see, both are potentially very good choices.
If you add pierce main, you could consider -1 echoing truth and -3 spell pierce for +2 tidebinder and +2 tect edge.
Some of us also play 19 lands. Experiment, and if you don't see a downside, you've got room for one more dude. (or non-dude, up to you).
Anyway i am a merfolk player, a devotion merfolk player¡ And in 7 days i will go to Lyon; i allways play merfolk deck (usually strange versions) and i am very afraid of my mana base.
My deck
Lands: 20
10 Island
2 Tec edge
2 Cavern of souls
4 Mutavault
1 Minamo
1 Oboro
Im not sure if 2 tec + 2 cavern is too much; usually 2 tec + 1 cavern is fine to me (better vs tron/3cdecks) but maybe 2+2 is excesive
Creatures
4 Silvergill
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of pearl trident
2 Phantasmal image
2 Meerrow Reejerey
4 Harbringer of the tides
3 Master of waves
2 Kira, great glass spinner
2 Spellskite
Other spells
2 vapor snag
2 dismember
1 spellpierce
4 Aether vial
4 Spreading seas
Well... 1) You will notice that i dont play Coursecatcher. Ok, i dont have it and i dont like it. Im not sure if im crazy to not play it... so im here to run out of dudes
2) 2 Spellskite + 2 Kira: I really love they, Kira is a must vs WRx Decks or everything with W or R; and spellkite is simillar AND improve our matchups vs (Twin, Bloom, Infect and Bogels). Maybe 2+2 is too much, so if i am doing something wrong, discuss (I know that 2 kira with my manabase is something... potentially bad)
Nun-creature spells its Ok
4 spreading: Check
4 Vial: Check
2 vapor snag + 2 dismember rules but.... 1 spellpierce??? Humfpffpfpfpfpf
SIDEBOARD---------------
I am under construction, but looks like this
4 Hurkylls fkngarobots recall
2 Hybernation
2 Tidebinder
3 Chalice of the void
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Dispell
1 Graffdigers cage
Ok. Lest the battle begins¡¡¡
NOTE: Im my meta, im undefeated since 2 months wining all FNM modern events and the league.... but in one week i am gong to LYON. And im scared
THANKS MY MERFOLKS FRIENDS
(Sorry my lenguage)
EDIT:wayyyyy late to the party oops
My meta is:
2x GR Tron
1x MonoU Tron
1x Twin
1x Wur Control
2x Affinity
2x Burn
1x Elves
1x Jund
1x PodlessPod CoCo
1x Infect
Random decks
So combo is a little Meh. In a GP things can be differents
4x cursecatcher
4x silvergill adept
4x lord of Atlantis
4x master of the pearl trident
4x harbinger of tides
4x merrow reejerey
2x master of waves
4x aether vial
4x spreading seas
4x path to exile
2x worship
5x island
4x flooded strand
4x wanderwine hub
4x mutavault
3x hollowed fountain
Sideboard
3x stony silence
2x Kira great glass spinner
2x dispel
2x spell pierce
1x swan song
1x unified will
1x rest in peace
1x relic of progenitus
1x echoing truth
1x threads of disloyalty
UMerfolk
WDeath and Taxes
BRBliztkrieg
GStompy
- - -
"Rock is overpowered. Paper is fine."
-Scissors
I'm also very interested in this build! Please let us know how it performs!
One question though. Do you really need the third shockland in your manabase? Wouldn't it be better to put one more island or a cavern instead?
On a tangent... I posted this on the Fish_MTG subreddit, but I think that it's worth reposting here:
I come to you with a bit of a speculative question. For the last few months, I've been employing Kira, Great Glass-Spinner as well as Spellskite in my sideboard, mainly in order to thwart decks relying on removal. That's been working pretty solidly, but I find that it has made my sideboard a bit one-dimensional (since I'm selling out to stop Affinity with Hurkyl's Recall and Chalice of the Void, and have Tidebinder Mage in order to fight off green and red decks), so I would like to try and include some more counterspells or bounce effects. However, I'm not sure whether I would replace Kira or the Kite. Here's the breakdown of how I see things:
Kira Positives
Spellskite Positives
I think it's pretty close, but I'm going to give Spellskite a slight edge. Now I turn to you guys and ask: do you think removing either of these from my sideboard is a good idea? If so, what would you replace them with? More Spell Pierce? Unified Will? Annul? Swan Song? Echoing Truth? Hibernation? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
As for Worship, I think it's a really strong strategy that will win you games and is totally worth the white splash. But I'm not going to play it mostly because I simply don't like the card much from a gameplay perspective and also because Worship becomes bad the moment it becomes popular.
If jund can't answer it (and usually their answers are 1 maelstrom pulse and discard spells) then they lose. Its not possible for jund to win without dealing damage (barring milling you out, which is incredibly unlikely).
We only need to keep a creature out, and especially with mutavault, this is rather easy. How many games have you been sitting in a standstill waiting to draw a spreading seas as to safely attack? Its probably happened. Worship gives you as many turns as you need to draw whatever you need.
Pod is no longer a modern deck, but melira combo is not greatly effected by worship.
Hm, for one I find it interesting how you consider Pod ( I assume you mean Podless Pod AKA Anafenza Collected Company) to be a tough match up.. I never really struggle against them, frankly I can count on one hand how many times I've lost, my brother has the deck and I have played against it a ton.
Secondly, the past few pages have had many specific details about the White splash improving our Affinity match up specifically.. If you don't understand the concept right away then you should read through the last few pages.. It is a very straightforward and solid plan against them.
Bearscape, I do agree with Worship getting worse the more popular it gets, although the same can be said for pretty much any card/strategy. I do thank you for holding off so we can sneak in with it though lol
Delverofthemany, I like that build a lot. I would probably run some number of Chalice of the Void in the sb, but that's just me. Please post results asap, I'll be playing tonight as well and will do the same.
Leyart, Oh okay, I see what you're getting at. That is good, my thoughts were more in the vein of "What if they can just pay 1 or 2 to keep the plating & creature?" but it makes sense. I will likely go for a split between the two, I'm unsure if I want to see more than 1 Kataki in a hand, but one of him and one of stony wouldn't be too bad at all.
-Sygg, River Cutthroat
I play all Cavern of Souls decks