I'm not usually too concerned about sitting on him, and if they wipe your board, he can just come ight.
I haven't play too many games (approximately 20 with him) but I've rarely been wanting to say him but been unable to.
I'm curious. What do you do when you don't have vial?
He's seen play in many merfolk builds in modern over the past couple of years. It's not an uncommon include as a big bomb that either distracts them and they focus on, or they run out of gas on handling the mob and it finishes them off.
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Current Decks:
Modern
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Legacy
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
sejiri merfolk is huge in white builds of merfolk, if you can get two more fountains, I would run him. (I run 19 lands, 4 hub, 4 fountain, 3 muta, 5 island, 3 plains, and sejiri is active most of the time when I want him to be)
In white you have access to cards like harm's way, rest in peace, stony silence, you might consider adding.
You have no kira, great glass-spinner in your list, any reason you cut it?
I would also suggest varying your affinity hate, as kataki is legendary, so 4 might be overkill. stony silence, steel sabotage, hurkyl's recall might be worthwhile.
I dont think polymorphist's jest is worth playing. Its amusing, but as a sideboard card, there are better cards vs aggro/affinity, and at three mana, its fairly obvious we're holding something if we arent dropping more dudes. Its not bad, but unless it overperforms expectations, I will pass.
Skaab is actually not bad... ive been testing him for a while against removal heavy decks as a 2 of in my sideboard. You pretty much hit the nail on the head Cody_x. He's not even worth thoughtseizing! lol He really is a headache for UWR unless they find a pte and jund hates him. Ive even tried him against zoo recently and he is a champ against hyper agrro decks... especially off aether vial.
What are peoples thoughts on Wake Thrasher? I know it was stated that he's pretty redundant now, but vialling him in eot, untapping half a dozen things and swinging for a whole bunch not only seems pretty cool, but could have the element of surprise now a lot of new modern players havent seen him run out.
Hes's painfully bad against UWR... maybe if electrolyze was never printed.
Also... i find myself facing a ridiculously fast nivmagus/ delver/ hopolite/ kiln feind deck. I pray this never catches on. Wins on turn 2 or 3 or something like that by pitching phryexian mana spells, assault strobe at the hopolite which gets bigger due to heroic... and eating them with the niv. It also runs pacts (negation, etc) suggestions for dealing with this abomination are welcome. I guess mulling to a chalice is correct but thinking about the matchup makes me sick... it races affinity, and infect with ease... Need to order 2 more CotV i guess.
Spellskite is fairly good vs the elemental shotgun deck ( there is post on it somewhere in modern deck creation), and echoing truth is good vs a lot of decks. That bejng said, chalice of the void is very powerful vs these hyper fast decks. Chalice and echoing truth sideboarded should do fairly well vs both those decks.
Wake thrasher is just not good vs any deck with removal.
Sejiri merfolk doesnt require fetches to play, I run 4 fountainsand 3 plains, but I wouldnt run less than that.
With all the UU cards in the deck I wouldn't want to run plains, our 3-4 mutavaults can already get in the way if you want to put down two lords on turn 4. And then there's also Kira who makes Cavern of souls troublesome once in a while
Personally, I like hibernation better as you don't need it in your opening hand for it to be good. Chalice you'd want in your opening hand with two mana on the play. On the draw its a little worse because they will get to two mana before you and probably already have a creature in play. I've switched to them and have not missed CotV.
What are peoples thoughts on the blue paragon that gives all our blue creatures +1/+1? It kind of fights over slots with MoW but it pumps his tokens so they don't die when he does.
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Evil Beware!....We have waffles.
"In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks." Calvin & Hobbes Quotes
Calvin : You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes : What mood is that?
Calvin : Last-minute panic.
Decks I'm playing:
Modern: U Merfolk
Standard: I dislike Standard ATM
I've been playing alot with a friend of mine against his burn deck and I've been finding Master of Waves is just too slow and by the time I get him out he just gets bolted, should I just swap him out with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner? Heres his deck list
Personally, I like hibernation better as you don't need it in your opening hand for it to be good. Chalice you'd want in your opening hand with two mana on the play. On the draw its a little worse because they will get to two mana before you and probably already have a creature in play. I've switched to them and have not missed CotV.
What are peoples thoughts on the blue paragon that gives all our blue creatures +1/+1? It kind of fights over slots with MoW but it pumps his tokens so they don't die when he does.
You don't really need to side specifically for boggles, it's such a niche deck. Run some counterspells and spellskite and it should be good. That aside, both Hibernation and Chalice are amazing versus bogles and affect other mor eimportant decks as well, so both could work.
As for that 4-drop, Merfolk Sovereign does exactly the same but better, and still doesn't make the cut. So no, it's not good enough.
I've been playing alot with a friend of mine against his burn deck and I've been finding Master of Waves is just too slow and by the time I get him out he just gets bolted
MoW has pro red, he can't get bolted. Which is exactly what makes him so strong versus RDW
I am running two coralhelms, and they won me some games yesterday. I liked them. Also, people often take it over a lord when they tseize you.
Anyway so PTQ yesterday, sadly only went 4-3. Lost to bw tokens, tarmo twin, pod (bs), beat two uwr, tarmo twin, goryo's vengeance.
I won all game 1s.
Vs bw tokens, I was an idiot in g3, and vomitted my hand onto the board on t4 (had the reejerey on board, played a second, then played 3 or 4 lords), got him down to 4, he uses damnation next turn, I swing him down to 2 with mutavault, then don't draw anything but land and lose. My fault.
Vs Tarmo Twin, won g1 comfortably, g2 and g3 mull to 5...in g3 should have just gone to 4, the mull to 5 was muta, spell pierce, vapor snag, silvergill, master of waves, never saw a second land.
Vs Pod, Won g1 comfortably, he got infinite life combo g2 when I had lethal on board. In game 3, play three spreading seas and three silvergills, 8 islands and 3 mutavaults, and aether vial. That's pretty much my game for a long time. He is down to 9 for about 5 or six consecutive turns, and every time he says "if you have a lord I scoop". I draw another Island. Then another. Everyone is watching us. I draw another, he develops his board. Then I draw a second aether vial. He has me on lethal now, I have one more draw step, and I draw a third aether vial for the game. So...yeah..my deck beat me pretty hard. I think I should have sided out the vials v pod.
Vs UWR Kira was both times as much of an all star as I thought. Also, I think I underestimated the value of cursecatcher and will prob go back up to four. Coralhelm at 2 atm, might go to 1 and add a second kira main, but not sure yet.
Vs the other twin deck I drew well, and had spell pierces and vapor snags when it mattered.
Vs Goryo's vengeance he hits me with emrakul on t3, I go to 5, and proceed to win the game. No surprise there, have tested v vengeance, and you almost never lose, even after an emrakul hit. G2 He has a slower start but so do I, get him down slowly, he through the breaches, I swan song, keep getting him down bit by bit, he attempts to through the breach Griselbrand, I have snag and echoing truth in hand..so yeah.
Overall I wish there had been more rounds, and that I had played v more pod, or any scapeshift and rg tron, the latter of which was pretty common. Also, I mulled to 5 four times, and to 6 six or seven times in 19 games, which you think doesn't seem bad, but imo was terrible. I mean 16 Island 4 mutavault still seems correct, but I think luck was just not on my side in terms of draws.
A BG rock deck won the event, with UB fairies coming second (good MU for us, almost can't lose to it, hope it picks up in popularity). Rest of top 8 was something like two pod, two tarmo twin, another bg rock, and one affinity deck, I think.
Personally, I like hibernation better as you don't need it in your opening hand for it to be good. Chalice you'd want in your opening hand with two mana on the play. On the draw its a little worse because they will get to two mana before you and probably already have a creature in play. I've switched to them and have not missed CotV.
What are peoples thoughts on the blue paragon that gives all our blue creatures +1/+1? It kind of fights over slots with MoW but it pumps his tokens so they don't die when he does.
You don't really need to side specifically for boggles, it's such a niche deck. Run some counterspells and spellskite and it should be good. That aside, both Hibernation and Chalice are amazing versus bogles and affect other mor eimportant decks as well, so both could work.
As for that 4-drop, Merfolk Sovereign does exactly the same but better, and still doesn't make the cut. So no, it's not good enough.
I've been playing alot with a friend of mine against his burn deck and I've been finding Master of Waves is just too slow and by the time I get him out he just gets bolted
MoW has pro red, he can't get bolted. Which is exactly what makes him so strong versus RDW
I like them because there is at least one boggles player at my store/ event I go to and I like having them for that MI. Plus as you mentioned, they are good in other MU's.
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Evil Beware!....We have waffles.
"In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks." Calvin & Hobbes Quotes
Calvin : You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes : What mood is that?
Calvin : Last-minute panic.
Decks I'm playing:
Modern: U Merfolk
Standard: I dislike Standard ATM
I've been playing alot with a friend of mine against his burn deck and I've been finding Master of Waves is just too slow and by the time I get him out he just gets bolted, should I just swap him out with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner? Heres his deck list
also I know this is in the wrong primer but he wants me to ask if adding black to his burn deck would be advantageous.
I don't think splashing black is a bad idea, even if it's just for Bump in the Night and some sideboard cards. The fetches required for splashing black would also enable Grim Lavamancer, one of the few really effective ways burn decks can have some inevitability if they fizzle out a bit. Also, you should tell your friend that Goblin Guide is one of the most important cards for Modern Burn. Unless he's restricted by budget, he should really find a way to fit in 4x Goblin Guide and 2x Grim Lavamancers if he's splashing back with fetches. If I had to pick something to drop for them, I'd say Spark Elemental and Vexing Devil are the weakest cards in his deck.
I road the Exhaustion hype train as far as it can go and sadly I can hype it no more. I have changed up my list however, as I've been finding the tempo-twin matchup to be particularly difficult (and popular). I just took down two Daily events on MTGO 4-0 with this current configuration. I'd really like to play this list at a PTQ, unfortunately I won't be able to attend one until late in August/September.
So, with the way I like my Merfolk lists run (12 lords + Image + 3 MoW + 4 Seas), I've found that there's a flex slot for a creature around 3 mana. Thassa has gone there, as has Kira in the past. I'm trying out Skaab Ruinator right now because I believe the meta is correct for it. In control matchups and red-based Tempo matchups it is incomparable. It is really hard to deal with (in that it can reanimate itself and it is hard to kill in the first place), it's a threat on its own, and our deck is capable of doing enough trading/bad attacks to hard cast it. Whether it is the optimal card in the flex slot, I'm not 100% sure, but I've been enjoying playing with it so far. It's possible that it should be a Merfolk Sovreign or a Coralhelm Commander instead, and that my rationale is wrong, but I've had good results, so I'm gonna make judgments based upon that.
I replaced a Vapor Snag with an Echoing Truth for two reasons: Echoing Truth is one of my favorite cards, and I have an increase in Chalices in the SB, which means I want a non-1CMC bounce spell somewhere in the 75. Plus I lost to Empty the Warren tokens recently, and I'd like to not have that happen again.
I used to run 3 Swan Song and I replaced them with 2 Flashfreeze and 1 Negate. So far Flashfreeze has been wonderful in a variety of matchups, as has Negate. I've been burned by the Swan token enough times to begin to feel iffy about it.
I upped the number of Chalices from 2 to 3. I find that in matchups where I REALLY want Chalice, I REAAAAAALLLLYYYYY want Chalice. So having an extra is nice. Plus, with removing the Swan Songs for Flashfreeze and Negate, I can now bring in Chalice against Storm and not be hurting myself as much.
Any thoughts? I know someone posted about Skaab Ruinator a few pages ago, so I'd really like to hear more about that.
Round 1: 2-0 vs American kiki-control (1-0)
Round 2: 2-1 vs Affinity (2-0)
Round 3: 0-2 vs B/G Rock (2-1)
Round 4: 2-0 vs 4c gifts (3-1)
Round 5: 2-0 vs Scapeshift (4-1)
Round 6: 2-0 vs B/G rock (5-1)
Round 7: 2-0 vs Tarmo twin (6-1)
Round 8: 2-1 vs Small zoo (7-1)
Round 9: 0-2 vs U/R twin (7-2)
My tiebreakers were bad and I was sitting at 8th place after 8 rounds and couldn't ID in. Got killed by exarch and kiki, with annul sitting in my hand.
I ended up finishing 12th. Not bad for my first Modern PTQ.
I haven't play too many games (approximately 20 with him) but I've rarely been wanting to say him but been unable to.
He's seen play in many merfolk builds in modern over the past couple of years. It's not an uncommon include as a big bomb that either distracts them and they focus on, or they run out of gas on handling the mob and it finishes them off.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
would post the link but not enough posts.
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Phantasmal Image
4 Merrow Reejery
2 Skaab Ruinator
2 Master of Waves
4 Spreading Seas
4 Path to Exile
2 Spell Pierce
1 Vapor Snag
4 Wanderwine Hub
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Hallowed Fountain
4 Mutavault
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Island
3 Swan Song
2 Spellskite
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Echoing Truth
In white you have access to cards like harm's way, rest in peace, stony silence, you might consider adding.
You have no kira, great glass-spinner in your list, any reason you cut it?
I would also suggest varying your affinity hate, as kataki is legendary, so 4 might be overkill. stony silence, steel sabotage, hurkyl's recall might be worthwhile.
I dont think polymorphist's jest is worth playing. Its amusing, but as a sideboard card, there are better cards vs aggro/affinity, and at three mana, its fairly obvious we're holding something if we arent dropping more dudes. Its not bad, but unless it overperforms expectations, I will pass.
I can recommend Sejiri Merfolk, but if you want to run it you will need 4 Hallowed Fountains and some fetches
Hes's painfully bad against UWR... maybe if electrolyze was never printed.
Also... i find myself facing a ridiculously fast nivmagus/ delver/ hopolite/ kiln feind deck. I pray this never catches on. Wins on turn 2 or 3 or something like that by pitching phryexian mana spells, assault strobe at the hopolite which gets bigger due to heroic... and eating them with the niv. It also runs pacts (negation, etc) suggestions for dealing with this abomination are welcome. I guess mulling to a chalice is correct but thinking about the matchup makes me sick... it races affinity, and infect with ease... Need to order 2 more CotV i guess.
Wake thrasher is just not good vs any deck with removal.
Sejiri merfolk doesnt require fetches to play, I run 4 fountainsand 3 plains, but I wouldnt run less than that.
Personally, I like hibernation better as you don't need it in your opening hand for it to be good. Chalice you'd want in your opening hand with two mana on the play. On the draw its a little worse because they will get to two mana before you and probably already have a creature in play. I've switched to them and have not missed CotV.
What are peoples thoughts on the blue paragon that gives all our blue creatures +1/+1? It kind of fights over slots with MoW but it pumps his tokens so they don't die when he does.
Evil Beware!....We have waffles.
"In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks." Calvin & Hobbes Quotes
Calvin : You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes : What mood is that?
Calvin : Last-minute panic.
Decks I'm playing:
Modern: U Merfolk
Standard: I dislike Standard ATM
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Vexing Devil
4 Rift Bolt
4 Shard volley
4 SkullCrack
4 HellSpark elemental
4 Magma jet
4 Lava spike
4 Spark elemental
4 Searing Blaze
4 Keldon Marauders
16 Mountain
also I know this is in the wrong primer but he wants me to ask if adding black to his burn deck would be advantageous.
You don't really need to side specifically for boggles, it's such a niche deck. Run some counterspells and spellskite and it should be good. That aside, both Hibernation and Chalice are amazing versus bogles and affect other mor eimportant decks as well, so both could work.
As for that 4-drop, Merfolk Sovereign does exactly the same but better, and still doesn't make the cut. So no, it's not good enough.
MoW has pro red, he can't get bolted. Which is exactly what makes him so strong versus RDW
WBB/W TokensWB
WUBAd NauseamWUB
- Commander
WG Captain Sisay's LegendsWG
Anyway so PTQ yesterday, sadly only went 4-3. Lost to bw tokens, tarmo twin, pod (bs), beat two uwr, tarmo twin, goryo's vengeance.
I won all game 1s.
Vs bw tokens, I was an idiot in g3, and vomitted my hand onto the board on t4 (had the reejerey on board, played a second, then played 3 or 4 lords), got him down to 4, he uses damnation next turn, I swing him down to 2 with mutavault, then don't draw anything but land and lose. My fault.
Vs Tarmo Twin, won g1 comfortably, g2 and g3 mull to 5...in g3 should have just gone to 4, the mull to 5 was muta, spell pierce, vapor snag, silvergill, master of waves, never saw a second land.
Vs Pod, Won g1 comfortably, he got infinite life combo g2 when I had lethal on board. In game 3, play three spreading seas and three silvergills, 8 islands and 3 mutavaults, and aether vial. That's pretty much my game for a long time. He is down to 9 for about 5 or six consecutive turns, and every time he says "if you have a lord I scoop". I draw another Island. Then another. Everyone is watching us. I draw another, he develops his board. Then I draw a second aether vial. He has me on lethal now, I have one more draw step, and I draw a third aether vial for the game. So...yeah..my deck beat me pretty hard. I think I should have sided out the vials v pod.
Vs UWR Kira was both times as much of an all star as I thought. Also, I think I underestimated the value of cursecatcher and will prob go back up to four. Coralhelm at 2 atm, might go to 1 and add a second kira main, but not sure yet.
Vs the other twin deck I drew well, and had spell pierces and vapor snags when it mattered.
Vs Goryo's vengeance he hits me with emrakul on t3, I go to 5, and proceed to win the game. No surprise there, have tested v vengeance, and you almost never lose, even after an emrakul hit. G2 He has a slower start but so do I, get him down slowly, he through the breaches, I swan song, keep getting him down bit by bit, he attempts to through the breach Griselbrand, I have snag and echoing truth in hand..so yeah.
Overall I wish there had been more rounds, and that I had played v more pod, or any scapeshift and rg tron, the latter of which was pretty common. Also, I mulled to 5 four times, and to 6 six or seven times in 19 games, which you think doesn't seem bad, but imo was terrible. I mean 16 Island 4 mutavault still seems correct, but I think luck was just not on my side in terms of draws.
A BG rock deck won the event, with UB fairies coming second (good MU for us, almost can't lose to it, hope it picks up in popularity). Rest of top 8 was something like two pod, two tarmo twin, another bg rock, and one affinity deck, I think.
I like them because there is at least one boggles player at my store/ event I go to and I like having them for that MI. Plus as you mentioned, they are good in other MU's.
Evil Beware!....We have waffles.
"In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks." Calvin & Hobbes Quotes
Calvin : You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
Hobbes : What mood is that?
Calvin : Last-minute panic.
Decks I'm playing:
Modern: U Merfolk
Standard: I dislike Standard ATM
I don't think splashing black is a bad idea, even if it's just for Bump in the Night and some sideboard cards. The fetches required for splashing black would also enable Grim Lavamancer, one of the few really effective ways burn decks can have some inevitability if they fizzle out a bit. Also, you should tell your friend that Goblin Guide is one of the most important cards for Modern Burn. Unless he's restricted by budget, he should really find a way to fit in 4x Goblin Guide and 2x Grim Lavamancers if he's splashing back with fetches. If I had to pick something to drop for them, I'd say Spark Elemental and Vexing Devil are the weakest cards in his deck.
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
13 Island
Spells
4 Aether Vial
2 Spell Pierce
3 Vapor Snag
1 Echoing Truth
4 Spreading Seas
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Tidebinder Mage
4 Merrow Reejerey
1 Skaab Ruinator
3 Master of Waves
2 Steel Sabotage
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Spellskite
2 Flashfreeze
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Negate
1 Skaab Ruinator
3 Chalice of the Void
So, with the way I like my Merfolk lists run (12 lords + Image + 3 MoW + 4 Seas), I've found that there's a flex slot for a creature around 3 mana. Thassa has gone there, as has Kira in the past. I'm trying out Skaab Ruinator right now because I believe the meta is correct for it. In control matchups and red-based Tempo matchups it is incomparable. It is really hard to deal with (in that it can reanimate itself and it is hard to kill in the first place), it's a threat on its own, and our deck is capable of doing enough trading/bad attacks to hard cast it. Whether it is the optimal card in the flex slot, I'm not 100% sure, but I've been enjoying playing with it so far. It's possible that it should be a Merfolk Sovreign or a Coralhelm Commander instead, and that my rationale is wrong, but I've had good results, so I'm gonna make judgments based upon that.
I replaced a Vapor Snag with an Echoing Truth for two reasons: Echoing Truth is one of my favorite cards, and I have an increase in Chalices in the SB, which means I want a non-1CMC bounce spell somewhere in the 75. Plus I lost to Empty the Warren tokens recently, and I'd like to not have that happen again.
I used to run 3 Swan Song and I replaced them with 2 Flashfreeze and 1 Negate. So far Flashfreeze has been wonderful in a variety of matchups, as has Negate. I've been burned by the Swan token enough times to begin to feel iffy about it.
I upped the number of Chalices from 2 to 3. I find that in matchups where I REALLY want Chalice, I REAAAAAALLLLYYYYY want Chalice. So having an extra is nice. Plus, with removing the Swan Songs for Flashfreeze and Negate, I can now bring in Chalice against Storm and not be hurting myself as much.
Any thoughts? I know someone posted about Skaab Ruinator a few pages ago, so I'd really like to hear more about that.
This is the decklist I ran with:
4 mutavault
14 island
4 aether vial
2 spell pierce
3 vapor snag
1 echoing truth
4 spreading seas
1 relic of progentius
4 lord of atlantis
4 master of the pearl trident
3 phantasmal image
4 merrow reejerey
2 tidebinder mage
3 master of waves
1 spellskite
2 swan song
1 spellskite
4 hurkyl's recall
1 annul
1 pithing needle
2 grafdigger's cage
1 relic of progenitus
Round 1: 2-0 vs American kiki-control (1-0)
Round 2: 2-1 vs Affinity (2-0)
Round 3: 0-2 vs B/G Rock (2-1)
Round 4: 2-0 vs 4c gifts (3-1)
Round 5: 2-0 vs Scapeshift (4-1)
Round 6: 2-0 vs B/G rock (5-1)
Round 7: 2-0 vs Tarmo twin (6-1)
Round 8: 2-1 vs Small zoo (7-1)
Round 9: 0-2 vs U/R twin (7-2)
My tiebreakers were bad and I was sitting at 8th place after 8 rounds and couldn't ID in. Got killed by exarch and kiki, with annul sitting in my hand.
I ended up finishing 12th. Not bad for my first Modern PTQ.