MTG Salvation

Perhaps all the mass removal/sheer quantities of removal is just something I've run into, but I've played with a lot of different people in the past year, and this has been a trend.

You says just hold mana up for counters, but you run 2, which is two more than a lot of people run. You can't rely on something you are rarely going to see.

Generally the strategy against grixis is not to just overrun them, and its to commit less against the board. In my testing, its much more effective, and if you look at a lot of the sideboard guides posted here, theres reasons they often side out a lot of creatures. (Sometimes too many, but that's another discussion.)

Hive mind was just a example, as spell pierce does not counter prime time, but often times bloom players will play around counters, or hold up mana on bloom. Hive mind is often a more realistic target because they won't always have mana beyond the 6 it costs. While actual gameplay may vary, two counterspells is not exactly something I'd phone home about when you speak of them not drawing the right cards either.

I'm not the biggest fan of chalice against affinity for a number of reasons, but no matter how well it plays for you, its still a less powerful lockout than stony silence, hands down. I'm surprised you find affinity to even be 50/50, which seems very optimistic to me, but I honestly do not think that white being a better choice against affinity is even an argument.

Grixis is a blue deck, but its also black and red. Most lists are playing 14+ pieces of removal, some of them multi target. Thats enough to keep significant threats off the table for you. Against grixis, cards like cursecatcher and silvergill adept are useful, but they aren't the gas you're looking for after turns of your dudes being killed.

You can not always trade cards for life against burn. Often times, they'll be able to throw a lot more at your face than you might like them to. We have enough creatures that more or less "don't matter" to them, and generally the ones that do matter are not significant without numbers. Blocking swiftspears unless you're way ahead is a dangerous choice at best. Cards like grim lavamancer almost completely ruin our chances of evenly trading. Yes, playing a turn 4 master of waves into a turn 5 attack for potentially lethal is great against burn, but as great if they can just burn you out turn 4, which is not exactly an impossible task.

At this point, I think the discussion has devolved more to opinions on metagames than on actual deck construction choices. I'm willing to continue this if you'd like, but I think we've gotten rather far away from our original point.

I'm not sure I agree with the "ration out your forces and side out creatures" plan against Grixis, to be honest. Most of my success against Grixis is when I drop early creatures (especially Cursecatcher) and bumrush them, because they either can't get the 1-for-1s they want (aka the ones that cost me tempo), or they can't get enough of them to stabilize. Furthermore, if I get the Spellskite and/or Kira, Great Glass-Spinner combination on the table post-board, the matchup is dramatically less challenging. Because of this, I've never had much difficulty with Grixis Control.

I agree that the "hold up counters" plan for combo is not always available, but in that event I've found that proactive use of Spreading Seas has been enough to slow most of those decks down (and if you don't get either, pray that they don't go off before you kill them, I guess). In the case of Bloom, Spell Pierce might not have game against Primeval Titan... but Vapor Snag does. Game 1 is always a bit dicey because your answers have to line up with their avenue of attack, but it's not impossible to win. Their deck isn't consistent, and you have answers in your mainboard that can stop them dead.

It's also true that you can't always trade cards for life with burn - but in that event, their hand has to be perfect for them to kill you before you kill them (so a combination of 7 direct damage spells and 3 lands in their first 10, and they'll probably need Searing Blaze and/or Lightning Helix to be among them), and even then a Cursecatcher or a Spell Pierce can save your bacon. And if their hand is anything other than that nut scenario I just described, I give us a marked advantage.

And last but not least, I'm not going to argue WU being better vs. Affinity - you're right, it is better. Stony Silence is beautiful against them, as is Kataki, War's Wage. However, what I will argue is that mono-U can hold its own post-board, and has more game against the field because of its greater internal consistency, and that is why I question the choice to go WU (to drag this all back on topic).

With anything less than something like double curse, or a great curve vs grixis, you are generally not going to be fast enough for it to be rushing you.
Whether or not its a good plan or not is one thing, but a very large amount of the accomplished players on this forum advocate the slower gameplan, and I think that says something.

Spellskite is a mediocre card, though I agree that skite/kira/sygg are easily our most important cards in the matchup (and I have been told as much many times).

Spreading seas is a difficult card to take into account in theory, because sometimes it gives you free wins, and sometimes it does very very little.

Snag is alright against titans, but slayer's stronghold as a haste-enabler makes it a lot less effective. This is another point for path, as even dismember can lead to awkward situations against 3/1 haste, vigilance, doublestrike titan still beats a lot of your creatures.

I think that people in general underestimate burn as a deck. Its a top tier deck, and they can play with a hell of a lot less than perfect and still end the game on turn 4. Especially if they go first, but even if they don't, we have somewhat limited interaction against them, as cursecatcher can't trade with any of their creatures (unless they attack with lavamancer..). I honestly feel that burn is really a 50/50 against us. Sometimes we have hands they can't beat, sometimes they have hands we can't beat, but most of the "fair" games end up with the winner dead after the next untap. Sejiri, in worst case, buys you atleast 2 life, and almost always 3+. If they can't/don't answer him quickly, he will just end the game for you. Harm's way is another white card thats almost always fantastic against burn. Often a two for one, at worst, saves a dude/your face and quickens your clock.

While mono-u can put up a fight, its certainly not an even fight. The issue with affinity is that if they go first g1, they have a tremendously high chance to win the match. If they go second, g1 is still such a wash for them we're still in a *****ty spot.

Another matchup I failed to mention is infect, which I believe is also about 50/50, unless you pack a lot of hate (I would not consider <=2 spellskites a lot of hate). Sejiri and harms way are both strong cards against them, and you don't sacrifice any/much of the utility you might have in mono-u.

The major selling points for white here is that you lose very little consistency (as white offers reasonable creatures to play, and allows us to swap snags/dismems for path, in generally the same numbers) while giving you several very strong tools against our hardest matchups, barring elves (unless you're into suppression fields, but I would advise against it).
If you don't see a lot of these decks, then white is likely not a worthwhile choice. If you do, I would highly suggest playing white.

I think Hunter Nance's match against Tom Ross that one time showed that we can beat even high-level Infect with the stuff we have in the mainboard, and my experience jives with that. I think we are slightly favored in the matchup because of the self-harm they tend to engage in, and all the disruption in Fish.

I guess now is when I should note that I was actually a WU proponent for a long time - I was enthralled with Kataki, Sygg, Path, Stony, Rest in Peace, and Harm's Way, so I ran that build for quite a while. I eventually returned to mono-U because of the consistency issues (uncommon, but they do happen), and that move has worked out great, so I'm not looking back.

I've played almost the exact same mana base for all the time i've played u/w.
I did not have more problems with it than I do with my regular mono-u manabase.

Yes, infect is not an auto-lose for fish. Its a perfectly winnable matchup.
I do not like "perfectly winnable matchups" if I can help it. I like "free win matchups" a hell of a lot more.

I do admit, I do not play u/w fish right now. Thats almost entirely for meta reasons (ok, and also because I'm using the fetchs and shocks in another deck, but I can move them if I wanted).
U/w fish a meta call. If you expect affinity, and you can't or won't switch from fish, then u/w is going to win a lot more than mono-u.

Again, all of you guys seem to push the wanderwine hub, seachrome coast, glacial fortress manabase, and then complain about consistency. Maybe thats not the best manabase. Nearly every deck in modern deals damage to itself, and while sometimes its nice to be the only ones who aren't, scapeshift is no longer the force that it once was, and U/w has a good matchup against burn already. On top of that, I feel that many of you/people overstate the amount of life lost from lands, or the importance of that life.
I would rather pay some life and play my game then deal with more inconsistency, and if you get to play as many autowin buttons as white gives you, you're much more safer to do so.

Again, white is not strictly better than regular mono colored, but I will fight to grave that its not any worse, and as a metagaming decision, its a very good choice.

I'll concede that there may be a bit of a skill gap between me and some of my opponents - though I wasn't a regular on the forums until very recently, I've been playing Merfolk for a long time at this point, and I feel like I have most of my lines of play down, so I'm feeling confident even when staring down Affinity or any other bad matchup (let alone the 50:50 or better ones). I also have rather little control over who I get to play against, given that my MTG experience has been less paper and more online these days.

And you're right - Merfolk is similar to Jund on the matchup perspective in that you have a fighting chance against a lot of other decks, and it's up to you to put the deck over the top. However, I do stand by most of the lines of play I've described, and I also do feel that we are very slightly favored over Burn. One of my best friends is a Burn player, and I feel he's every bit as good a Magic player as I am (if not a bit better). We tested the matchup pretty comprehensively, and both of us were at a consensus that I was winning about 55% of the matches (with sideboarding really turning things my way). Not a huge edge, but an edge.

Quote from bill_zagoudis »

Worship seriously?

apart from the fact that many decks can destroy/bounce it or win through it

have you considered how terrible this card looks in your hand and how this deck is not designed to reliably hit 4 lands?

sometimes new people and new ideas are good, sometimes they just recycle solved problems

as for elves the SB card is already there Hibernation that's the best there is and it happes to work wonders vs Boggles too, i could see it as a 1 of in the SB, still there's no way to make this match-up good and it's not important either.

Hm, well your attitude is quite acidic; perhaps you could try playing with the card before you speak as if you know anything about it? As mentioned by Cody_X, it is a good card for U/W. Also, you realize merfolk runs Master of Waves, 20 lands, and 8 card draw effects, right..? What you said could not be more off base, we are literally built to get to 4 mana and drop Master of Waves.. Either way you could do a bit better than spewing your negativity about a simple suggestion on a game forum... Do you feel good about yourself after a post like that?

Hibernation is pretty good, also I do like Displacement Wave as it hits Affinity AND Elves.

I am also a Legacy and Modern Burn player for years now, and I agree with you Rothgar13 about the Burn matchup (and a lot of others on that note) being 50/50. It is truly dice roll and skill, with some allowance given for the list. For example Burn gets tougher if, for some reason, they run 4x Searing Blaze or something but in almost every circumstance Burn vs Fish is even.

I also would like to reiterate for everyone that I am well aware of the perceived shortcomings of playing White (or any other splash color) in Fish. It seems like it might not be as consistent as Mono Blue, I believed this before you guys started going off about it again, and I still believe it now. I acknowledged that in the beginning of the discussion, so any points being made about these matters are irrelevant and unnecessarily reductive and prevent a true, open dialogue from occurring. The culture of this thread is getting cannibalistic and weakens all of our development. If you don't like UW Fish, that is totally your opinion, feel free to ignore the discussion of it. If anyone wishes to contribute positively to the discussion with results, ideas, etc, that is great and I appreciate your feedback.

You could talk me into Worship in WU Merfolk, but it's definitely coming in off the sideboard as a silver bullet for a matchup that can't deal with it. I don't know whether it'd be all that good against Burn, because my expectation is that it will eat a Destructive Revelry that they brought in to deal with your Æther Vial, Spellskite, or Spreading Seas. Definitely excellent against Elves or Bogles, though I would use it in addition to Hibernation as opposed to as a substitute.

Worship is one of those cards that is often seen as a sideboard card, but if you're playing fnms and you have a good grasp of what people are playing, its a very mainboardable card.

People play relics mainboard all the time, and it does major work if all you play against is grixis and gbx.
Worhip is the same way. Sure, its good in the sideboard, but if you can realistically play it main, atleast for 1 night, your winrate will skyrocket just because a lot of people can't deal with it.

About the matchups, I think this is exactly where u/w and u differ. U has a lot of even-ish matchups, while adding white swings you out a bit more, giving you better matchups against some decks, and worse against other (your matchups are less clustered around 50%s, and you have more 70/30% or 60/40%s, one way or the other).

I think that as many points as are raised about u/w, its reasonable to expect counter arguments. If there weren't, discussion would slow down immensely, and at the very least, this gives us something to talk about.

Another sideboard card against elves is engineered explosives. If you're playing white, you even get the option to put it on x=2 (if the situation is dire).

You're all welcome to keep talking about what he looks like, but hes a 15cent card, go buy some, and play with them.

Master is a good card against burn, thats true, but you aren't cutting him for reejerey. The list I posted as an example had two, (my mono-u list bounces between two and three) and you could easily change that if you wanted.

Tidebinder is a sideboard card, in my opinion. I've never mainboarded him, and while some do, thats another discussion.

Reejerey is not the greatest against burn. He is often too slow to fully take advantage of, and offers rather little until you can.
While reejerey does synergize with harbinger, goblin guide will almost always be tapped from attacking. It has haste, so bouncing it is mediocre.
Tapping lavamancer doesn't stop them from being able to use him that turn, unless they were tapped out/empty yard, but then they would'nt have used him anyways.

Even looking at tidebinder, you play him, tap down a swiftspear, he gets bolted. He just gained you 3 life you didn't take from the bolt. Silvergill adept doesn't do that. He is rarely bolted.
Sejiri, worse case, eats a bolt that could have been thrown to your face or to a lord. Thats pretty much just as good as tidebinder in worse case.
Tidebinder may gain you 2 life a turn (by tapping down a guide), while sejiri gains you 2 life a turn, plus more from any lords you happen to have, while being a good combat trick off vial from the first strike.

On top of that, sejiri is reasonable against other decks. A 2/1 first strike, or 3/2 first strike, can be very potent against most creature based decks. Look at thalia for an example, a 2/1 first strike is actually a very powerful body.

I think my major point here is that harbinger is good, so we have 4. Master is good, so we have 2, which is what I normally play. Tidebinder is good, and I play him sideboard, where I feel he belongs. I do not think reejerey is a very good card against burn, or even a very good card in general. With no better options, he's fine, but I would always rather see sejiri against creature based decks, such as infect, zoo, burn, or hatebears.

I've gone all-in on Master of Waves, and I think he's a must-have in the deck. I'm running 4 in mono-U, and I think WU should run as many as possible. And you already know my thoughts on Reejerey.

Your argument for Sejiri Merfolk over Merrow Reejerey, on the other hand, is unconvincing. Sure, it can be a 2/1 with first strike and lifelink for 1U if you have a Plains out. That's actually not a very good rate. I think Sejiri really needs pump to be good, because there is a WORLD of difference between a 2/1 with first strike and a 3/2 with first strike or bigger. Getting it to 5/4, while difficult, basically means that the only commonly played Modern creature that can beat him 1-on-1 is a Wurmcoil Engine, and that's what you have Path to Exile for (plus they can't even trade him for one of their guys and a Bolt). Because of that, I think you need to be running as many Lords as possible to ensure that you get your card slot's worth out of the guy. That points me toward Reejerey, not away from him. I could see a test run where I'd trim Master of Waves to 2 instead of my customary 4 in WU to test Sejiri Merfolk, but I'm not tossing Lords for him. No sir.

Master of Waves is just BONKERS in a lot of matchups. I'm playing 4 and i never looked back

My question is whether this mana base could support white sideboard cards:

4 Mutavault
4 Wanderwine Hub
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
5 Islands

I would want the white sources for Kataki, RIP, Stony Silence, and maybe Leyline of Sanctity. I have no interest in changing the mono blue creature base or spells mainboard.

You would probably be fine. You might have slight issues with hardcasting leyline, but otherwise you should be ok.

That being said, not changing the maindeck cards while also splashing white is questionable in my mind.

I would hope to find Leyline in opening hand. I agree, that casting cost is a little out of my hands otherwise. Would give me the time I need against burn and/or G/Bx decks hopefully.

I'm not sure if anyone would be interested but I'm set up to record MTGO. If you guys would like to see another player pilot Fish I would be happy to share some games with you.

In my experience 11 sources is minimum for splash color if you want it on second turn (Kataki, Stony).

11-12 sources sounds about right. I think I'd go for 4 Wanderwine Hub, 4 Flooded Strand, 2 Hallowed Fountain, and 2 Seachrome Coast.

I'm still running Harbinger/Rejeerey/MoW at 3/3/3. I can't seem to bring myself to cut anything to make them 4's and I'm already down to 19 land.

I guess I could look at removing Phantasmal Images, but as it stands I like playing Images as a "Situational Lord" that can also clone anything else on the board if it needs to.