I tried. It didn't seem to work. I might have used the wrong keywords though. The most recent result it gave me was back in 2013 :/
Dunno how helpful this is, but you want to probably look at about a month or 2 back (Specifically early September) because that's when Nikachu posted a video about it.
Now, you may notice I only have 14 cards in the sideboard there. That's because I showed up to the event late and had to register really fast, and in counting my sideboard for some reason I thought I counted 16 cards, so I cut one (there should be a Kira, Great Glass-Spinner). Turns out there were 15 to begin with and I just miscounted, so I played the event a card short in the side. I'm going off of memory for the match report, so it's not super detailed.
Round 1
Affinity
Game one is an auto loss. In my experience, this is pretty much always the case.
Sidebaording:
+ 2 Chalice
+3 Hurkyl's
+2 Dismember
+1 Master of Waves
- 1 Kira
- 4 Cursecatcher
-1 Spreading Seas
-2 Phantasmal Image
So the cuts got tough after the cursecatchers and Kira, but I really wanted the extra dismembers and the master of waves. If I were to do it again I might have swapped one more seas with an image to maintain threat density, but all in all I suppose it doesn't really matter. So game 2 I'm on the play, I drop t1 vial and chalice on 0 with hurkyl's recall sitting in hand. The rest of the game I pretty much just built up board power and let him smash me till I could recall and kill him in 2 turns. Game 3 I got the double reejery set up with 2 lords and a silvergill in hand. Went off the next turn and finished with hurkyl's to win.
match: 2-1
record: 1-0
Round 2
Taking turns (don't know the official name of this deck)
So for those of you who don't know what this deck is (I certainly didn't) it's mono-blue, and basically just runs 4 Dictate of Kruphix and ever extra turn card it can, and just delay with gigadrowse and Cryptic command until they can chain extra turn cards together and either mill you with Jace Beleren or kill you with Thassa, God of the Sea. I'm not going to force you to live through the boringness that was this matchup, but let's just say I got him to 5 or less both games before he went off.
Match: 0-2
record: 1-1
Round 3
Big Zoo (naya beats)
Homebrew deck, pretty much just rolled over this guy. It ran Wild Nacatls, Wooly Thoctars, and Wilt-leaf lieges. Both games islandwalk and dismsmber just rolled him.
sideboarding:
- 2 Spell pierce
- 3 Cursecatcher
+ 2 Dismember
+ 1 Master of Waves
+ 2 Spellskite
the matchup really isn't more interesting than I built up to Master of Waves for 5+ tokens both games and just stomped him.
Match: 2-0
Record: 2-1
Round 4
Slivers
So, this deck is literally just like merfolk but with less interaction (i.e. spell pierces and what not) and not as abusable with vial. game one he started off with the flying sliver and just built up too fast. He finished me of with CoCo (yes he ran CoCo and Vial) into haste sliver and first strike sliver which put the nail in the coffin.
Sideboarding:
- 1 Kira
- 2 Cursecatcher
+ 2 Dismember
+ 1 Master of Waves
Didn't really know what else to sideboard here. I knew he wasn't running removal, his gameplan was very all in. I thought about chalice but I only saw 2 or 3 one drops and figured that probably didn't warrant it over more threats. Game 2 i had the perfect curve from turn 1 vial into lord, lord, master of waves for the win. Game 3 was insane, but I'll speed you up to the crazy finale. he's at 24 and I'm at 4. I've got a couple lords. I play Phantasmal Image as a copy of his lifelink sliver, and swing with mutavault (who is getting the bonus from my two lords plus lifelink now) and a 3/3 cursecatcher to bring him to 17 and me to 8. I did the math, and with the lord I have in hand I have 17 islandwalk damage on board next turn. He plays a couple creatures, one of which is manaweft sliver, and uses his existing slivers to play more slivers. He has one non-sick creature (this will be relevant in a moment.) He also has vial on 4. he passes turn, I untap and play my lord, activate mutavault. So I now have 17 damage on board (2 4/4 lords, a 4/4 cursecatcher, and a 5/5 mutavault) as well as the lord I just played and the 2/2 lifelink sliver that phantasmal image is a copy of. He asks me to wait when I move to combat, and activates vial putting in a sliver (sorry I don't know the names) that has "slivers you control have [T]: tap target creature. So he has one non-sick creature, so he can tap one guy. All he has to do is tap any of the 4 viable attackers I mentioned above and I don't have lethal any longer. Instead, he targets the Image, which I happily sac and swing for the win. He just didn't do the math and didn't realize I had lethal that turn. In fairness, I probably would have one anyway, because by his own admission his next play was CoCo which, after we finished and he was just looking, would have completely whiffed. So, that was an exciting game 3.
Match: 2-1
Record: 3-1
Round 5
Jund
So, here is why I'm not in the top 8. Because Jund is a really good deck. Game one was a typical jund matchup. I made a crucial misplay not countering turn 1 thoughtseize with cursecatcher. My brain just froze and I didn't think of it, which was the beginning of the end of game one, as he took my only lord (I had mulled to a 5 card lord, cursecatcher, 3 land hand.)
Sideboard:
(this is the first match where I really felt not having that second Kira in my sideboard.)
- 4 Vials
- 2 Phantasmal Image
In case this isn't just accepted strategy at this point, I always side out vials versus Jund. I'm not trying to race them, they don't have counterspells, and playing things at instant speed has little benefit short of trying to be tricksy and dodge burn (not to mention, you want to be able to draw basically nothing but gas in this matchup, and the last thing you want to see mid-game when you're trying to apply pressure is a vial topdeck.)
game 2 I dropped a guy here or there and ended up eventually dropping Master of Waves into Master of Waves and that finished him. Game 3 I mulled to 5 and he had the absolute nuts. I think that even if I had kept a 7 card hand I probably wouldn't have beaten his hand. he immediately thoughtseized my spellskite, and then had a turn 2 goyf turn into a 5/6 by turn three that put a clock on me while he had endless removal for my creatures. There was just no winning that.
Match: 1-2
Record: 3-2
Round 6
RUG Delver?
So I actually never saw a delver, but that's the closest thing I can relate this deck to. It ran monastery Swiftspear and snapcaster and burn and probes, but it also had rancor (which was the only green spell I saw). Dismember and islandwalk did work here, as did master of waves.
Sideboarding:
- 4 Spreading Seas
- 2 Phantasmal Image
- 1 cursecatcher
+ 2 Spellskite
+ 2 Spell Pierce
+ 2 Chalice of the Void
+ 1 master of waves
Chalice of the void on 1 pretty much auto-won me game 2.
match: 2-0
record: 4-2
Last Round
Round 7
Affinity
So here was the final match of the night. The guy I was paired up against was pretty cool, we had talked earlier in the day, so he knew I was playing merfolk and I knew he was playing affinity. when I sat down, he kept saying "sorry man. God that sucks" when I asked why, he went on to explain to me how my deck physically cannot beat his deck, how it is just impossible. I told him I won against affinity round one, to which he replied "that guy was probably a bad magic player." That interaction makes the story that follows just SO much sweeter. So, like i said before, game one is an auto loss and this one was no different. But I played it out.
sideboarding:
- 4 Cursecatcher
- 1 Kira
- 2 Spreading Seas
+ 3 Hurkyl's
+ 2 Chalice
+ 2 dismember
holy ***** was this a wild ride. So game 2 was literally identical to game 2 from my round one match. on the play chalice on 0 with hurkyl's back up screwed him. Game three was insane. I mulled to 5 after getting two unkeepable hands (7 was 5 land, 6 was no land) and I kept the following hand on a prayer: Hurkyl's recall, Lord of Atlantis, Master of the Pearl Trident, Silvergill Adept, Island. I decided to keep because I figured that at worst I might draw the second land in a few turns at which point I can recall and hopefully recover. So I did my mulligan scry to reveal another lord on top which I put to the bottom. He had his usual turn one (something along the lines of land vault skirge, mox opal, go.) I topdecked Vial and played it and passed. he dropped a ton of stuff I can't remember and swung for 1 with skirge. I then topdecked a land and praised whatever deity that had chosen to favor me that day and played silvergill adept, which drew me a dismember. Long story short, through a crazy series of events he gets a ton of ***** out, gets me to 8 poison, folowing which I recall him returning his entire board to his hand and beat him down with my many lords and silvergill. The look on his face was wonderful.
Match: 2-1
Final record: 5-2
I love this list. I am noticing that I am often siding in the last master of Waves, so I might end up moving it back to mainboard, perhaps in place of Kira (so I'll just have 2 Kira in the side) let me know what you guys think and let me know if you have any questions for me!
Worship might be okay. There is a big difference between Worship and Master of Waves, we can Vial in the Master but not the Worship. That makes getting to 4 natural lands very difficult. I'm sure it's good vs some decks and I guess you can jam 2-3x in the sideboard of a UW Merfolk deck. Maindeck seems a bit silly.
Seemed to me like he was on the new Blue Jund Twin that has been going around. It only plays 2 counterspells (2 Remands maindeck) and it looks a lot like this: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10539&d=260316&f=MO
I guess your opponent didn't draw any discard spells though.
Jace doesn't scare me, since his activation walks right into Harbinger of the Tides or Vapor Snag for a huge tempo loss (only use your Dismembers if you have no other way of getting him). Even while flipped, he's at his best holding off a large singleton threat, which would be great against Tron or BGX, but no so much against us. If he only gets 1 flashback activation out of it at the most, I'd consider it about equivalent in impact to a Snapcaster Mage, and that one hasn't stopped us from being favored against every U-based deck out there.
We have enough ways to deal with Jace, but if we drew fairly poorly, Jace just rolls us. I lost to basically just Jace r1 of the GP because every draw step was a land and he'd just plus it every turn on my 1 guy. Also him flashing back discard can be problematic.
new modern player here and I picked up most of the cards to build fish. My question is about land choices. I see some decks run Wanderwine Hub with no white cards and the two blue legendary lands? Can someone please tell me what they are for?
They are blue sources of mana that don't get hosed by choke and boil
AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!!
When will people remember to say this!? Seriously.
Frankly I think that's bad news. Whilst they can't flip jace as quickly as the Thought Scour decks can, he is a card that has to be dealt with.
I completely agree. It's similar to Grim Lavamancer in that it taxes our resources. Instead of saving Dismembers for the combo or Vendillion Clique, we spend it on Jace.
I can confirm that Jace is bad news for fish. Let a friend play my merfolk deck while I was on grixis control. He had to spend is removal to get rid of more pressing threats and left Jace alone. One turn later Damnation gets cast and I flash it back later with the active Jace
Always check your opponents graveyard, unless you feel like having flashbacks of losing to them because you forgot what was in their yard.
Private Mod Note
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Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Twisted Image is a 1 cmc answer to jace, it's great against it (kills and draw a card for 1 mana), but it's use it very limited for this deck I guess (I'm not a merfolk player but I guess spellskite hasn't any use against this deck).
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I would say probably about 30-20 pages back, then work your way forwards.
Dunno how helpful this is, but you want to probably look at about a month or 2 back (Specifically early September) because that's when Nikachu posted a video about it.
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cursecatcher
3 Master of Waves
3 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Phantasmal Image
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Aether vial
4 Spreading Seas
2 Dismember
2 Spell Pierce
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Spell Pierce
2 Dismember
2 Spellskite
2 Hibernation
1 Master of Waves
Now, you may notice I only have 14 cards in the sideboard there. That's because I showed up to the event late and had to register really fast, and in counting my sideboard for some reason I thought I counted 16 cards, so I cut one (there should be a Kira, Great Glass-Spinner). Turns out there were 15 to begin with and I just miscounted, so I played the event a card short in the side. I'm going off of memory for the match report, so it's not super detailed.
Round 1
Affinity
Game one is an auto loss. In my experience, this is pretty much always the case.
Sidebaording:
+ 2 Chalice
+3 Hurkyl's
+2 Dismember
+1 Master of Waves
- 1 Kira
- 4 Cursecatcher
-1 Spreading Seas
-2 Phantasmal Image
So the cuts got tough after the cursecatchers and Kira, but I really wanted the extra dismembers and the master of waves. If I were to do it again I might have swapped one more seas with an image to maintain threat density, but all in all I suppose it doesn't really matter. So game 2 I'm on the play, I drop t1 vial and chalice on 0 with hurkyl's recall sitting in hand. The rest of the game I pretty much just built up board power and let him smash me till I could recall and kill him in 2 turns. Game 3 I got the double reejery set up with 2 lords and a silvergill in hand. Went off the next turn and finished with hurkyl's to win.
match: 2-1
record: 1-0
Round 2
Taking turns (don't know the official name of this deck)
So for those of you who don't know what this deck is (I certainly didn't) it's mono-blue, and basically just runs 4 Dictate of Kruphix and ever extra turn card it can, and just delay with gigadrowse and Cryptic command until they can chain extra turn cards together and either mill you with Jace Beleren or kill you with Thassa, God of the Sea. I'm not going to force you to live through the boringness that was this matchup, but let's just say I got him to 5 or less both games before he went off.
Match: 0-2
record: 1-1
Round 3
Big Zoo (naya beats)
Homebrew deck, pretty much just rolled over this guy. It ran Wild Nacatls, Wooly Thoctars, and Wilt-leaf lieges. Both games islandwalk and dismsmber just rolled him.
sideboarding:
- 2 Spell pierce
- 3 Cursecatcher
+ 2 Dismember
+ 1 Master of Waves
+ 2 Spellskite
the matchup really isn't more interesting than I built up to Master of Waves for 5+ tokens both games and just stomped him.
Match: 2-0
Record: 2-1
Round 4
Slivers
So, this deck is literally just like merfolk but with less interaction (i.e. spell pierces and what not) and not as abusable with vial. game one he started off with the flying sliver and just built up too fast. He finished me of with CoCo (yes he ran CoCo and Vial) into haste sliver and first strike sliver which put the nail in the coffin.
Sideboarding:
- 1 Kira
- 2 Cursecatcher
+ 2 Dismember
+ 1 Master of Waves
Didn't really know what else to sideboard here. I knew he wasn't running removal, his gameplan was very all in. I thought about chalice but I only saw 2 or 3 one drops and figured that probably didn't warrant it over more threats. Game 2 i had the perfect curve from turn 1 vial into lord, lord, master of waves for the win. Game 3 was insane, but I'll speed you up to the crazy finale. he's at 24 and I'm at 4. I've got a couple lords. I play Phantasmal Image as a copy of his lifelink sliver, and swing with mutavault (who is getting the bonus from my two lords plus lifelink now) and a 3/3 cursecatcher to bring him to 17 and me to 8. I did the math, and with the lord I have in hand I have 17 islandwalk damage on board next turn. He plays a couple creatures, one of which is manaweft sliver, and uses his existing slivers to play more slivers. He has one non-sick creature (this will be relevant in a moment.) He also has vial on 4. he passes turn, I untap and play my lord, activate mutavault. So I now have 17 damage on board (2 4/4 lords, a 4/4 cursecatcher, and a 5/5 mutavault) as well as the lord I just played and the 2/2 lifelink sliver that phantasmal image is a copy of. He asks me to wait when I move to combat, and activates vial putting in a sliver (sorry I don't know the names) that has "slivers you control have [T]: tap target creature. So he has one non-sick creature, so he can tap one guy. All he has to do is tap any of the 4 viable attackers I mentioned above and I don't have lethal any longer. Instead, he targets the Image, which I happily sac and swing for the win. He just didn't do the math and didn't realize I had lethal that turn. In fairness, I probably would have one anyway, because by his own admission his next play was CoCo which, after we finished and he was just looking, would have completely whiffed. So, that was an exciting game 3.
Match: 2-1
Record: 3-1
Round 5
Jund
So, here is why I'm not in the top 8. Because Jund is a really good deck. Game one was a typical jund matchup. I made a crucial misplay not countering turn 1 thoughtseize with cursecatcher. My brain just froze and I didn't think of it, which was the beginning of the end of game one, as he took my only lord (I had mulled to a 5 card lord, cursecatcher, 3 land hand.)
Sideboard:
(this is the first match where I really felt not having that second Kira in my sideboard.)
- 4 Vials
- 2 Phantasmal Image
+ 2 spellskite
+ 1 Master of Waves
+ 2 Spell Pierce
+ 1 Dismember
In case this isn't just accepted strategy at this point, I always side out vials versus Jund. I'm not trying to race them, they don't have counterspells, and playing things at instant speed has little benefit short of trying to be tricksy and dodge burn (not to mention, you want to be able to draw basically nothing but gas in this matchup, and the last thing you want to see mid-game when you're trying to apply pressure is a vial topdeck.)
game 2 I dropped a guy here or there and ended up eventually dropping Master of Waves into Master of Waves and that finished him. Game 3 I mulled to 5 and he had the absolute nuts. I think that even if I had kept a 7 card hand I probably wouldn't have beaten his hand. he immediately thoughtseized my spellskite, and then had a turn 2 goyf turn into a 5/6 by turn three that put a clock on me while he had endless removal for my creatures. There was just no winning that.
Match: 1-2
Record: 3-2
Round 6
RUG Delver?
So I actually never saw a delver, but that's the closest thing I can relate this deck to. It ran monastery Swiftspear and snapcaster and burn and probes, but it also had rancor (which was the only green spell I saw). Dismember and islandwalk did work here, as did master of waves.
Sideboarding:
- 4 Spreading Seas
- 2 Phantasmal Image
- 1 cursecatcher
+ 2 Spellskite
+ 2 Spell Pierce
+ 2 Chalice of the Void
+ 1 master of waves
Chalice of the void on 1 pretty much auto-won me game 2.
match: 2-0
record: 4-2
Last Round
Round 7
Affinity
So here was the final match of the night. The guy I was paired up against was pretty cool, we had talked earlier in the day, so he knew I was playing merfolk and I knew he was playing affinity. when I sat down, he kept saying "sorry man. God that sucks" when I asked why, he went on to explain to me how my deck physically cannot beat his deck, how it is just impossible. I told him I won against affinity round one, to which he replied "that guy was probably a bad magic player." That interaction makes the story that follows just SO much sweeter. So, like i said before, game one is an auto loss and this one was no different. But I played it out.
sideboarding:
- 4 Cursecatcher
- 1 Kira
- 2 Spreading Seas
+ 3 Hurkyl's
+ 2 Chalice
+ 2 dismember
holy ***** was this a wild ride. So game 2 was literally identical to game 2 from my round one match. on the play chalice on 0 with hurkyl's back up screwed him. Game three was insane. I mulled to 5 after getting two unkeepable hands (7 was 5 land, 6 was no land) and I kept the following hand on a prayer: Hurkyl's recall, Lord of Atlantis, Master of the Pearl Trident, Silvergill Adept, Island. I decided to keep because I figured that at worst I might draw the second land in a few turns at which point I can recall and hopefully recover. So I did my mulligan scry to reveal another lord on top which I put to the bottom. He had his usual turn one (something along the lines of land vault skirge, mox opal, go.) I topdecked Vial and played it and passed. he dropped a ton of stuff I can't remember and swung for 1 with skirge. I then topdecked a land and praised whatever deity that had chosen to favor me that day and played silvergill adept, which drew me a dismember. Long story short, through a crazy series of events he gets a ton of ***** out, gets me to 8 poison, folowing which I recall him returning his entire board to his hand and beat him down with my many lords and silvergill. The look on his face was wonderful.
Match: 2-1
Final record: 5-2
I love this list. I am noticing that I am often siding in the last master of Waves, so I might end up moving it back to mainboard, perhaps in place of Kira (so I'll just have 2 Kira in the side) let me know what you guys think and let me know if you have any questions for me!
Probably not for both
https://youtu.be/PYEIXyIiLwg
Seemed to me like he was on the new Blue Jund Twin that has been going around. It only plays 2 counterspells (2 Remands maindeck) and it looks a lot like this:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10539&d=260316&f=MO
I guess your opponent didn't draw any discard spells though.
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!! AND OPPOSING ISLANDWALK!!!
When will people remember to say this!? Seriously.
I completely agree. It's similar to Grim Lavamancer in that it taxes our resources. Instead of saving Dismembers for the combo or Vendillion Clique, we spend it on Jace.
Always check your opponents graveyard, unless you feel like having flashbacks of losing to them because you forgot what was in their yard.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas