Wow, what a list! I'm definitely going to try that!
Btw, he posted the following erratum:
@ChannelFireball @xaerxess I mean PUT a jace main, it was outrageous against everything. and yeah any 8th edition foil asian language works
0 replies 0 retweets 1 favorite
There is almost no reason to run Psionic Blast over Dismember. Dismember costs 2 more life, but 2 less MANA, a very big deal especially since it can be colourless mana. It also gives -5/-5, not 4 damage. Indestructible? Too bad. Siege Rhino? Too bad. Tarmogoyf(usually)? Too bad.
The one and only thing this card has going for it is that it can hit a player, which does not even come close to making up for the other issues. This card should never be run before Dismember, and based on the number of people I have seen argue that Dismember is a bad idea (it isn't) then this card should simply never be run.
The only way Disrupting Shoal is playable is if you are expecting a lot of combo decks. Except the problem there is that it needs to counter cards with the same converted mana cost as the discarded card (the most common cards found in Merfolk decks have CMC of 2).
If then, you have a hand full of 2 drops, against Storm you can counter Pyromancer Ascension, and against Bloom Titan you can counter Summer Bloom, both of which are very strong plays and basically must-counter cards. But this card is FAR too specific in what it can do.
The other problem is the same problem Force of Will has, it is an automatic 2-4-1 in THIER favour. So unless it is some combo deck that will just combo off and win, this is generally a very bad idea. Force of Will is good because Legacy is so powerful a 0 mana counterspell on turn 0 is basically mandatory for a lot of decks to compete.
It would take a VERY combo heavy meta to consider this card more than just okay in a SB, and I cannot see this EVER being a good idea to Main Deck.
This is most certainly incorrect, much of the power of Force of Will is that it allows you to make plays and tap out while simultaneously countering whatever spells your opponent plays that matter. It might be card disadvantage but it's a spectacular tempo play. T1 wins don't happen as often as people like to claim in legacy, and while that's partly because people respect force of will from their opponents it's also because most decks can't do it. The prevalence of Force of Will in legacy is a combination of its ability to counterspell before the first turn and to allow blue decks to tap out without fear.
Modern Merfolk with Force of Will would be incredible, make no mistake. With cards that cycle like adept and spreading seas you should be fairly okay with throwing away one card for a tempo advantage. The problem with Disrupting Shoal is that you can't guarantee that you'll have a card with the appropriate CMC to counter your opponent's card, or if you do you're forced to exile one card in particular (like the only Master of Waves you might have in your hand) even if that card is crucial to your success in the match. With Force you can just pitch a redundant spreading seas or a useless cursecatcher to counter, sometimes shoal requires you to pitch your best card. That's why it's not good.
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Modern UMerfolk GBWMelira PodRIP GBW Abzan Midrange GBR Jund Midrange
The list is cute and showing off what he can get away with, I wouldn't mark it as some new meta for the deck. Not running vial doesn't honestly change much, we can play 10 full rounds and not see it once or draw it when we are already close to winning making it useless anyway. BUT the times we do get it the card pays off very well. Disrupting Shoal is a neat card I can't deny that, but when our curve caps out at 4 Shoal becomes a liability against certain cards. It is a fun little brew but in essence he cut vials for disrupting shoal and a Psi Blast. Dismember is all around a better card, but when you are running Shoal you will look pretty stupid with a hand of 3 dismembers and a Disrupting Shoal when you lose to Hive Mind.
In his list he is basically saying he would rather see a Shoal late game than a Vial, which is a good argument. But I would almost always take a vial turn 1 over a shoal.
Blast is also a 3-drop blue card that's a bit less annoying to pitch to shoal than reej or kira. In shoal merfolk I also really want to jam 3-4 MoW and Jace AoT main to have a decent supply of 4-drops as well. That might be one of Hatch's reasons why he want to move Jace maindeck. It's really hard to come back from countering the turn 4 play that they've spent the game playing towards.
Actually, now that I think about it, Disrupting Shoal MIGHT be really good against Bloom Titan because the Hive Mind copy of Shoal your opponent would be able to cast would not counter your own Shoal (Pact cards CMC=0, Shoal=2). This is different than using a regular counterspell like Swan Song or something against a Hive Minded Summoner's Pact.
I still would not play it, but if you are expecting Bloom Titan then maybe.
Blast is also a 3-drop blue card that's a bit less annoying to pitch to shoal than reej or kira. In shoal merfolk I also really want to jam 3-4 MoW and Jace AoT main to have a decent supply of 4-drops as well. That might be one of Hatch's reasons why he want to move Jace maindeck. It's really hard to come back from countering the turn 4 play that they've spent the game playing towards.
No, it is hard for you to come back after willingly subjecting yourself to a 2-4-1. This card is only good against combo decks that win out of nowhere. Twin, Bloom, Scapeshift, etc.
No, it is hard for you to come back after willingly subjecting yourself to a 2-4-1. This card is only good against combo decks that win out of nowhere. Twin, Bloom, Scapeshift, etc.
AKA the half of the format that's not Junk. Even against Junk it's still got some value against Rhino, Lily.
The ability to play "recklessly" should never be underestimated. Tempo means a lot more in Merfolk than just raw CA. I've very commonly won games with no cards in hand while my opponent with 2+ cards they never had a chance to use. Merfolk fundamentally wants to tap out every turn, but still not Just Die because of it. Shoal is the card that enables that play pattern.
There are better answers to combo decks than main decking card disadvantage.
Also, using this against any BGx deck is the absolute worst idea. Sure, counter Liliana with it, you just let them use the -1 ability twice this turn.
Our best advantage in those matches are cards like Spreading Seas and Silvergill because they replace themselves and our 15-20 cards beat their 7-12 cards. Card for card, we do not win. I always love it when someone uses Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize on game 1 turn 1 and takes away an Aether Vial rather than a Silvergill Adept. It shows they don't know how to play against Merfolk.
I have run 2 copies of shoal alongside 4 vials for the last year and a half and have been VERY impressed by the card, the only matchups where I didn't like it were BGx and UWR control. But not running any vials and running shoals with more creatures is definitely stronger against abzan. I have learned that with running shoal you definitely have to have a strong intuition when using the card.
Psionic blast is there mainly for Liliana I think.
Can I see your list, been trying to put in a few shoals and was never sure what to shave
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Storm and Burn all formats
MODERN GRIXIS FAERIES FISH NAYA BURN STANDARD RABBLE RED E D H OCEAN MASTER LORTHOS Daretti's House of Artifacts AND LAND DESTRUCTION SIDISI VALUE
Sword of War and Peace is a trap. I thought it could protect vs the #1 and #2 removal in the format, but, it doesn't work.
The problem is it costs 3. Then 2 to Equip on a 1/2 cc Guy. They just bolt/path in response to the equip and you out a HUGE amount of time/tempo. It feels horrible.
Sower is for Fae and it's way better there, again, same trap. You steal a guy, and they kill Sower (very easily). It's the same problem with Tidebinder. I tap your Rhino with Tidebinder for one turn, they kill it untap and you have done nothing basically (except the killed the worst card in your deck, which is awesome!). Hmm, lets run bad cards so they can save our good cards?! But Vialing in a Tidebinder vs Primetime seems so sweet. What's that? You run no removal in your deck?
Exhaustion was talked about ad nauseam, basically the conclusion was, it's an awesome card if everything works out 100% perfectly and even then you are possibly timewalking yourself.
If you are bringing in Unified Will vs Twin, then, don't. It's for combo decks and it acts as a hard counter with the drawback it costs 1 more than Swan Song but it hits everything (relevant vs Amulet Bloom).
Affinity came in second and there was a ton of it GP:Van, I am interested in knowing how the Mono-U version fared vs Affinity (or if they just got lucky and dodged them?)
The targets; Twin (good), Affinity (good if you are U/w), Infect (bad, but I could be swayed to say it's 60-40 them). Abzan, I think it's 55-60 40 for them. Sometimes we just stomp them into the ground though. It's not like the old Jund days where we can't kill Bob, and they used to run Anger. Abzan seems very easily beatable.
I would prefer Feast and Famine as being able to tap out to play dudes and then untap to have mana for control cards would be ideal. I have never been impressed with War and Peace since black is such a huge force in modern.
Sower is alright, but I prefer Threads of Disloyalty if I was gonna play those kind of cards. Hi there Tarmogoyf
Ratchetbomb is probably a meta call honestly, haven't heard it been talked about much
Exhaustion can be fun, but usually we would rather just Echoing Truth or just Vapor Snag instead at least until the meta becomes more green again
and Sower dies to bolt along with 90% of the removal in this format, more decks are unable to handle threads. It is by no means a perfect fix and depends on meta, I personally just find Threads a stronger card.
Okay, time for a very lengthy report for my tournament at GP Vancouver. I was pretty sold on my maindeck and was just undecided a bit on my sideboard. The deck I registered for the GP was as follows:
13 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Master of Waves
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Dismember
4 Spreading Seas
4 Æther Vial
2 Relic of Progenitus
SIDEBOARD
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Remand
3 Spell Pierce
2 Swan Song
2 Vapor Snag
3 Tectonic Edge
Originally I didn't want to play with Swan Song in favour of a 4th Chalice of the Void and Tectonic Edge. But the Trial tournaments showed a decent chunk of Storm, Martyr Lifegain, and Valakut decks (both RG and Scapeshift). It wasn't too much but it was enough to scare me into having a hard counter.
In retrospect (and maybe with enough playtesting) I should have made it -2 Swan Song +2 Merrow Reejerey. I thought that by taking out Merrow Reejerey I would only make my abzan match up slightly worse. But it also made my Burn, Affinity, or nay deck with pyroclasm effects worse.
For those that follow my videos you'll notice I put 2x Remand and 2x Vapour Snag in the sideboard. My whole deck was pretty watered down vs Twin. I noticed I would sideboard a lot of cards out and not so many important cards in (like Tectonic Edges and Swan Song). I knew Twin would be a big deck at the tournament and I wanted to be sure I would have that 80% edge I wanted. Hence I added +2 Vapour Snag (that combo will never happen) and 2x Remand (a good tempo/cycler card).
I played in 2 trials. In the first round of the first trial I lost to Martyr lifegain. They basically had everything and I had nothing. I played in a 2nd Trial where I beat 2x Junk, 1 Infect, 1 Burn, and 1 Eggs/Jeskai Ascendency. I won all the games fairly except the Eggs deck. He had Jeskai Ascendency in play and I had a Chalice on 1. With 7 cards in hand and maybe 12 mana available he passed the turn and lost. After the match I explained to him that even if Chalice counter's his 1cmc eggs he still gets the Ascendency trigger. I was very likely to lose that match.
After scouting the Trials for 4-5 hours it was clear to me that there were basically 5 archetypes at GP Vancouver:
Burn
Infect
Twin
Abzan
Affinity
Then a little bit of everything else.
During my 2 Byes I finished my sideboard guide for the event:
DAY 1
I didn't get much sleep the night before the tournament. At first I blamed it on the cold hotel room but then I realized that I was probably suffering from some jet lag. I usually wake up in the afternoon and I slowly woke up a littler earlier and earlier each day in preparation for the GP except I didn't take into account that Vancouver was 2 hours behind my time zone. Anyway, I was a bit tired.
Rd.3 UWR Delver 2-0 (x-0)
Someone is trying to keep Delver alive! It looked like a UWR Delver deck with Fairie Conclave. I won the games comfortably with Vial and Master of Waves.
Rd.4 Infect 0-2 (x-1)
I had a really good hand full of lords and a Vial. Unfortunately I could not interact at all with a flying Inkmoth Nexus and Noble Hierarch on board. I lost easily. The 2nd game was quite annoying. I had a very good hand with 2x Cursecatcher, Tidebinder Mage, Dismember, and Spell Pierce. However my opponent had no spells and just 3x Noble Hierarch and 3x Inkmoth Nexus! I opted to not play a turn 2 Tidebinder in favour of another cursecatcher to save Tidebinder for Glistener Elf while holding up mana to Spell Pierce Wild Defiance but this could be wrong. I would have a better clock if I just play Tidebinder and I still have Dismember for any creature he plays. Despite my hand being full of interaction I could not interact with this particular draw where Inkmoth was hitting for 4 a turn with 2 others sitting on the bench.
Rd.5 Podless Pod 2-1 (x-1)
Just imagine a Pod match up except without the pod! This is a mother match I would have appreciated Merrow Reejerey. Zealous Persecution is a ******* beating. Having extra lords in the deck make Cursecatcher and Silvergill Adept a little more useful as well when facing cards like Voice of Resurgence and Kitchen Finks. At first I sideboarded as if I was playing vs Pod but then for game 3 I reverted to how I played vs any Abzan deck. I don't remember the match very well except I had exactsies in game 1 otherwise I would lose.
Rd.6 Abzan 0-2 (x-2)
So in this game I make a massive blunder and play 2 Master of the Pearl Tridents instead of splitting the difference with a Lord of Atlantis. I was hit by Maelstrom Pulse and couldn't recover. In game 2 I was able to grind through 12 Lingering Souls Tokens and had the opponent down to 6 life but I couldn't find a Spreading Seas or Master of Waves to finish the game off. The game went super long as he held back more tokens, Tarmogoyfs and a Tasigur to ensure he didn't die. Eventually I draw Master of Waves and go for an alpha strike the next turn but he had a Path to Exile by then and I lost on the swing back.
Rd.7 UR Twin 2-0 (x-2)
So now I'm on my last life and have to go 3-0 to make day 2. I've done it many times before Finally I got to play vs Twin. It was flooded at the top tables and if I could have just won my earlier rounds I could keep playing the match. I won both games very easily with Aether Vials and patients. Relic was huge in both games as well. This was one of those match ups where the opponent mentioned "Maindeck Relic, huh?".
Rd.8 Abzan 2-0 (x-2)
All I remember is that my opponent had slow starts and couldn't keep up with my fast starts. I won the match without taking a point of damage.
Rd.9 Burn 2-0 (x-2)
Great... my win and in to day 2 needs to be against burn There is a bit of a story to this match. Game 1 my opponent started with Grim Lavamancer into Eidolon of the Great Revel. I thought I was in very hot soup but it turns out that my opponent forgot the Eidolon trigger 35% of the time for himself and myself. However I reminded him of his triggers every time. There was a point where my position was very close to hopeless but he was stuck on 2 lands. I decided to make a risky play by playing Spreading Seas on an untapped Stomping Grounds. My opponent said "yep" enchanted the land and then I asked if I could draw my card. At that point he realized that he no longer has an untapped mountain and that it is an untapped island and wanted to do something in response to the enchantment. I told him that he let my spell resolve and even enchanted the land. We called a judge and the judge ruled in favour of my opponent. I appealed and the head judge ruled in favour of me. So now his mountain was an island and he also missed the Eidolon trigger on my Spreading Seas XD. My opponent eventually locked himself out of the game by Bolting a creature of mine, taking another 2 damage from Eidolon bringing himself down to 1. he had already attacked me and I just had to swing back with a mutavault. Game 2 I played Chalice on 1 and then at 1 life I played Chalice on 2 and won the next turn.
DAY 2
So I got even worse sleep this night. Probably only 4.5 hours. At the time I didn't think I was playing too bad but in retrospect I was probably playing awful. While I really missed Merrow Reejerey in my sideboard I cannot blame my deck very much and only my play. You need to play Merfolk REALLY tight in order to reap the rewards it offers and I was just playing very poorly this day.
Rd.10 Scapeshift 2-0 (x-2)
I seem to have Aether Vial and Master of Waves at just the right times in game 1s In game 2 I had a very interactive hand and many lords with a Vial while my opponent was stuck on 3 lands. He got steamrolled.
Rd.11 Burn 0-2 (x-3)
So game 1 was certainly hopeless. I had a starting hand with 1 vial, a bunch of lords and 2 Dismember. A great hand vs a lot of decks but not this one I drew another Dismember and also got hit hard by 2 main deck Searing Bloods. Before I lost the game I asked the judge if this was really in my opponent's main deck. The judge said to play the match out and if the card wasn't in the main then my opponent would be disqualified. Unfortunately for me they were in the main Postboard I brought in Vapour Snags and Snagged a Goblin Guide on turn 1. Later on I forgot about this Goblin Guide in hand and attacked with an untapped Silvergill Adept. This cleared the road for his Goblin Guide that hit me for 2 damage. He had enough burn in hand later in the game to kill me. I really needed that 2 life earlier.
Rd.12 Abzan 1-2 (x-4)
I don't remember much about this match except that Choke got played in the 2nd game and I still made a real game out of it thanks to Minamo and Mutavault. It was a close match where tectonic edge screwed him out of White mana for maybe 10 turns in one of the games. In this game I recalled using Spreading Seas on a Gavony Township instead of Treetop Village. But I think if he drew white mana I would be dead anyway so I was much better of removing the Treetop Village. I'm pretty sure I got ruined once by Zealous Persecution. Oh Merrow Reejerey, where are you?
Rd.13 5-color Affinity 2-1 (x-4)
This is a deck using Tarmogoyf, Ensoul Artifact, Shrapnel Blast, and who knows what else. I get rolled in game 1, I win a close game 2 where I made the guy sac everything to a Ravager and then I dismembered the Ravager. In game 3 he Mulliganed to a poor 5 card hand and didn't do much.
Rd.14 Affinity 1-2 (x-5)
I stole game 1 because of a mulligan to 5 and raced a Vault Skirge in the air eventually to a win. I got rolled in the following 2 games. But I did stupid things like attack with a Mutavault when my opponent had Etched Champion on board that I could block.
Rd.15 Abzan 2-0 (x-5)
I won game 1 convincingly vs a 1 land hand. In game 2 there was a bit of a standstill but eventually I found some trump card to win the game.
So there you have it. Going forward I am definitely removing Swan Song for Merrow Reejerey and will accept a marginally worse match against Scapeshift and will hope to get lucky for Martyr of Sands decks
13 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Master of Waves
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Dismember
4 Spreading Seas
4 Æther Vial
2 Relic of Progenitus
SIDEBOARD
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Remand
3 Spell Pierce
2 Merrow Reejerey
2 Vapor Snag
3 Tectonic Edge
Thanks for Reading and I'll probably make a video about the event in a day or so.
Would you mind explaining to me your SB choices against Hatebear? What is Swan Song for? What about Ted Edge: why bring it against a 2 color deck with Vial and full of low drops? Why board out Tidebinders instead of, say, Cursecatchers?
Nikachu, how much do you feel Chalice adds to the deck vs not running it for some other control card? I've been on the fence for buying them and wanted to hear from you as you played a good number of games online and in person with them. Thanks in advance!
Don't you think, that Rejeereys Main and 2of that 4 Tidebinders in the Sideboard would make more sense?
How would you rate your Matchup vs.
Abzan,Burn,Infect, Bloom, Twin and LiegeAbzan?
I am finding that 8+ 3cmc+ spells is making the deck feel very clunky in a metagame that is forcing you to curve out fluidly. There are a lot of super fast combos decks and decks like abzan that force you to curve out or die to their threats.
I can't be certain what my actual match up is like but I'll give you what my results have been like (practical win%) vs what my heart thinks it should be like (objective win%).
Against decks like Burn and Infect they are picked up by very poor players (generally) and therefore my actual win% is very high. Twin is picked up by very skilled players but is still a VERY hard match up for them. Unfortunately Abzan has very few hard decisions except what cards to take with Thoughtsieze effects. So even poor players can't play poor enough to get a very real edge.
Would you mind explaining to me your SB choices against Hatebear? What is Swan Song for? What about Ted Edge: why bring it against a 2 color deck with Vial and full of low drops? Why board out Tidebinders instead of, say, Cursecatchers?
Maybe the picture isn't clear enough but I side in "snag" (Vapour Snag) and not Swan Song. Tectonic Edge is useful to kill their utility lands and Mutavaults. Tidebinder has no targets but I could totally see it in the main and take out Cursecatcher. To be honest I was following very old notes where tidebinder was in my sideboard and it stayed in my sideboard.
Nikachu, how much do you feel Chalice adds to the deck vs not running it for some other control card? I've been on the fence for buying them and wanted to hear from you as you played a good number of games online and in person with them. Thanks in advance!
Infect and Burn are Tier 1 and this card is good to great vs those decks. I wasn't sure if 4 was too excessive and I'm pretty happy with 3 for now. I could see 2 being a fine number too. The card also has utility vs Bloom Titan, Martyr of Sands, Affinity on the play, Boggles (also increasing in popularity). Modern right now is full of non interactive combo decks and they are generally weak to Chalice. Also consider your local metagame if these decks exist. otherwise you might not need Chalice so much.
Btw, he posted the following erratum:
@ChannelFireball @xaerxess I mean PUT a jace main, it was outrageous against everything. and yeah any 8th edition foil asian language works
0 replies 0 retweets 1 favorite
The one and only thing this card has going for it is that it can hit a player, which does not even come close to making up for the other issues. This card should never be run before Dismember, and based on the number of people I have seen argue that Dismember is a bad idea (it isn't) then this card should simply never be run.
Dismember specifically but Vapor Snag, Rapid Hybridization, Pongify, Gut Shot, etc are all better than this card.
If then, you have a hand full of 2 drops, against Storm you can counter Pyromancer Ascension, and against Bloom Titan you can counter Summer Bloom, both of which are very strong plays and basically must-counter cards. But this card is FAR too specific in what it can do.
The other problem is the same problem Force of Will has, it is an automatic 2-4-1 in THIER favour. So unless it is some combo deck that will just combo off and win, this is generally a very bad idea. Force of Will is good because Legacy is so powerful a 0 mana counterspell on turn 0 is basically mandatory for a lot of decks to compete.
It would take a VERY combo heavy meta to consider this card more than just okay in a SB, and I cannot see this EVER being a good idea to Main Deck.
Modern Merfolk with Force of Will would be incredible, make no mistake. With cards that cycle like adept and spreading seas you should be fairly okay with throwing away one card for a tempo advantage. The problem with Disrupting Shoal is that you can't guarantee that you'll have a card with the appropriate CMC to counter your opponent's card, or if you do you're forced to exile one card in particular (like the only Master of Waves you might have in your hand) even if that card is crucial to your success in the match. With Force you can just pitch a redundant spreading seas or a useless cursecatcher to counter, sometimes shoal requires you to pitch your best card. That's why it's not good.
UMerfolkGBW
Melira PodRIPGBW Abzan Midrange
GBR Jund Midrange
EDH
GBR Prossh
In his list he is basically saying he would rather see a Shoal late game than a Vial, which is a good argument. But I would almost always take a vial turn 1 over a shoal.
UMerfolkU
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RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB
Burn in mono blue merfolk? Yeah
Twitch channel
I still would not play it, but if you are expecting Bloom Titan then maybe.
No, it is hard for you to come back after willingly subjecting yourself to a 2-4-1. This card is only good against combo decks that win out of nowhere. Twin, Bloom, Scapeshift, etc.
AKA the half of the format that's not Junk. Even against Junk it's still got some value against Rhino, Lily.
The ability to play "recklessly" should never be underestimated. Tempo means a lot more in Merfolk than just raw CA. I've very commonly won games with no cards in hand while my opponent with 2+ cards they never had a chance to use. Merfolk fundamentally wants to tap out every turn, but still not Just Die because of it. Shoal is the card that enables that play pattern.
Twitch channel
Also, using this against any BGx deck is the absolute worst idea. Sure, counter Liliana with it, you just let them use the -1 ability twice this turn.
Our best advantage in those matches are cards like Spreading Seas and Silvergill because they replace themselves and our 15-20 cards beat their 7-12 cards. Card for card, we do not win. I always love it when someone uses Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize on game 1 turn 1 and takes away an Aether Vial rather than a Silvergill Adept. It shows they don't know how to play against Merfolk.
Can I see your list, been trying to put in a few shoals and was never sure what to shave
MODERN
STANDARD
E D H
The problem is it costs 3. Then 2 to Equip on a 1/2 cc Guy. They just bolt/path in response to the equip and you out a HUGE amount of time/tempo. It feels horrible.
Sower is for Fae and it's way better there, again, same trap. You steal a guy, and they kill Sower (very easily). It's the same problem with Tidebinder. I tap your Rhino with Tidebinder for one turn, they kill it untap and you have done nothing basically (except the killed the worst card in your deck, which is awesome!). Hmm, lets run bad cards so they can save our good cards?! But Vialing in a Tidebinder vs Primetime seems so sweet. What's that? You run no removal in your deck?
Exhaustion was talked about ad nauseam, basically the conclusion was, it's an awesome card if everything works out 100% perfectly and even then you are possibly timewalking yourself.
If you are bringing in Unified Will vs Twin, then, don't. It's for combo decks and it acts as a hard counter with the drawback it costs 1 more than Swan Song but it hits everything (relevant vs Amulet Bloom).
Affinity came in second and there was a ton of it GP:Van, I am interested in knowing how the Mono-U version fared vs Affinity (or if they just got lucky and dodged them?)
The targets; Twin (good), Affinity (good if you are U/w), Infect (bad, but I could be swayed to say it's 60-40 them). Abzan, I think it's 55-60 40 for them. Sometimes we just stomp them into the ground though. It's not like the old Jund days where we can't kill Bob, and they used to run Anger. Abzan seems very easily beatable.
Burn
Sower is alright, but I prefer Threads of Disloyalty if I was gonna play those kind of cards. Hi there Tarmogoyf
Ratchetbomb is probably a meta call honestly, haven't heard it been talked about much
Exhaustion can be fun, but usually we would rather just Echoing Truth or just Vapor Snag instead at least until the meta becomes more green again
UMerfolkU
Legacy
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Commander
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB
UMerfolkU
Legacy
UMerfolkU
Commander
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB
13 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Master of Waves
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Dismember
4 Spreading Seas
4 Æther Vial
2 Relic of Progenitus
SIDEBOARD
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Remand
3 Spell Pierce
2 Swan Song
2 Vapor Snag
3 Tectonic Edge
Originally I didn't want to play with Swan Song in favour of a 4th Chalice of the Void and Tectonic Edge. But the Trial tournaments showed a decent chunk of Storm, Martyr Lifegain, and Valakut decks (both RG and Scapeshift). It wasn't too much but it was enough to scare me into having a hard counter.
In retrospect (and maybe with enough playtesting) I should have made it -2 Swan Song +2 Merrow Reejerey. I thought that by taking out Merrow Reejerey I would only make my abzan match up slightly worse. But it also made my Burn, Affinity, or nay deck with pyroclasm effects worse.
For those that follow my videos you'll notice I put 2x Remand and 2x Vapour Snag in the sideboard. My whole deck was pretty watered down vs Twin. I noticed I would sideboard a lot of cards out and not so many important cards in (like Tectonic Edges and Swan Song). I knew Twin would be a big deck at the tournament and I wanted to be sure I would have that 80% edge I wanted. Hence I added +2 Vapour Snag (that combo will never happen) and 2x Remand (a good tempo/cycler card).
I played in 2 trials. In the first round of the first trial I lost to Martyr lifegain. They basically had everything and I had nothing. I played in a 2nd Trial where I beat 2x Junk, 1 Infect, 1 Burn, and 1 Eggs/Jeskai Ascendency. I won all the games fairly except the Eggs deck. He had Jeskai Ascendency in play and I had a Chalice on 1. With 7 cards in hand and maybe 12 mana available he passed the turn and lost. After the match I explained to him that even if Chalice counter's his 1cmc eggs he still gets the Ascendency trigger. I was very likely to lose that match.
After scouting the Trials for 4-5 hours it was clear to me that there were basically 5 archetypes at GP Vancouver:
Burn
Infect
Twin
Abzan
Affinity
Then a little bit of everything else.
During my 2 Byes I finished my sideboard guide for the event:
DAY 1
I didn't get much sleep the night before the tournament. At first I blamed it on the cold hotel room but then I realized that I was probably suffering from some jet lag. I usually wake up in the afternoon and I slowly woke up a littler earlier and earlier each day in preparation for the GP except I didn't take into account that Vancouver was 2 hours behind my time zone. Anyway, I was a bit tired.
Rd.3 UWR Delver 2-0 (x-0)
Someone is trying to keep Delver alive! It looked like a UWR Delver deck with Fairie Conclave. I won the games comfortably with Vial and Master of Waves.
Rd.4 Infect 0-2 (x-1)
I had a really good hand full of lords and a Vial. Unfortunately I could not interact at all with a flying Inkmoth Nexus and Noble Hierarch on board. I lost easily. The 2nd game was quite annoying. I had a very good hand with 2x Cursecatcher, Tidebinder Mage, Dismember, and Spell Pierce. However my opponent had no spells and just 3x Noble Hierarch and 3x Inkmoth Nexus! I opted to not play a turn 2 Tidebinder in favour of another cursecatcher to save Tidebinder for Glistener Elf while holding up mana to Spell Pierce Wild Defiance but this could be wrong. I would have a better clock if I just play Tidebinder and I still have Dismember for any creature he plays. Despite my hand being full of interaction I could not interact with this particular draw where Inkmoth was hitting for 4 a turn with 2 others sitting on the bench.
Rd.5 Podless Pod 2-1 (x-1)
Just imagine a Pod match up except without the pod! This is a mother match I would have appreciated Merrow Reejerey. Zealous Persecution is a ******* beating. Having extra lords in the deck make Cursecatcher and Silvergill Adept a little more useful as well when facing cards like Voice of Resurgence and Kitchen Finks. At first I sideboarded as if I was playing vs Pod but then for game 3 I reverted to how I played vs any Abzan deck. I don't remember the match very well except I had exactsies in game 1 otherwise I would lose.
Rd.6 Abzan 0-2 (x-2)
So in this game I make a massive blunder and play 2 Master of the Pearl Tridents instead of splitting the difference with a Lord of Atlantis. I was hit by Maelstrom Pulse and couldn't recover. In game 2 I was able to grind through 12 Lingering Souls Tokens and had the opponent down to 6 life but I couldn't find a Spreading Seas or Master of Waves to finish the game off. The game went super long as he held back more tokens, Tarmogoyfs and a Tasigur to ensure he didn't die. Eventually I draw Master of Waves and go for an alpha strike the next turn but he had a Path to Exile by then and I lost on the swing back.
Rd.7 UR Twin 2-0 (x-2)
So now I'm on my last life and have to go 3-0 to make day 2. I've done it many times before
Rd.8 Abzan 2-0 (x-2)
All I remember is that my opponent had slow starts and couldn't keep up with my fast starts. I won the match without taking a point of damage.
Rd.9 Burn 2-0 (x-2)
Great... my win and in to day 2 needs to be against burn
DAY 2
So I got even worse sleep this night. Probably only 4.5 hours. At the time I didn't think I was playing too bad but in retrospect I was probably playing awful. While I really missed Merrow Reejerey in my sideboard I cannot blame my deck very much and only my play. You need to play Merfolk REALLY tight in order to reap the rewards it offers and I was just playing very poorly this day.
Rd.10 Scapeshift 2-0 (x-2)
I seem to have Aether Vial and Master of Waves at just the right times in game 1s
Rd.11 Burn 0-2 (x-3)
So game 1 was certainly hopeless. I had a starting hand with 1 vial, a bunch of lords and 2 Dismember. A great hand vs a lot of decks but not this one
Rd.12 Abzan 1-2 (x-4)
I don't remember much about this match except that Choke got played in the 2nd game and I still made a real game out of it thanks to Minamo and Mutavault. It was a close match where tectonic edge screwed him out of White mana for maybe 10 turns in one of the games. In this game I recalled using Spreading Seas on a Gavony Township instead of Treetop Village. But I think if he drew white mana I would be dead anyway so I was much better of removing the Treetop Village. I'm pretty sure I got ruined once by Zealous Persecution. Oh Merrow Reejerey, where are you?
Rd.13 5-color Affinity 2-1 (x-4)
This is a deck using Tarmogoyf, Ensoul Artifact, Shrapnel Blast, and who knows what else. I get rolled in game 1, I win a close game 2 where I made the guy sac everything to a Ravager and then I dismembered the Ravager. In game 3 he Mulliganed to a poor 5 card hand and didn't do much.
Rd.14 Affinity 1-2 (x-5)
I stole game 1 because of a mulligan to 5 and raced a Vault Skirge in the air eventually to a win. I got rolled in the following 2 games. But I did stupid things like attack with a Mutavault when my opponent had Etched Champion on board that I could block.
Rd.15 Abzan 2-0 (x-5)
I won game 1 convincingly vs a 1 land hand. In game 2 there was a bit of a standstill but eventually I found some trump card to win the game.
So there you have it. Going forward I am definitely removing Swan Song for Merrow Reejerey and will accept a marginally worse match against Scapeshift and will hope to get lucky for Martyr of Sands decks
13 Island
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Master of Waves
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Dismember
4 Spreading Seas
4 Æther Vial
2 Relic of Progenitus
SIDEBOARD
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Remand
3 Spell Pierce
2 Merrow Reejerey
2 Vapor Snag
3 Tectonic Edge
Thanks for Reading and I'll probably make a video about the event in a day or so.
Nikachu
Would you mind explaining to me your SB choices against Hatebear? What is Swan Song for? What about Ted Edge: why bring it against a 2 color deck with Vial and full of low drops? Why board out Tidebinders instead of, say, Cursecatchers?
UMerfolkU
Legacy
UMerfolkU
Commander
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB
I am finding that 8+ 3cmc+ spells is making the deck feel very clunky in a metagame that is forcing you to curve out fluidly. There are a lot of super fast combos decks and decks like abzan that force you to curve out or die to their threats.
I can't be certain what my actual match up is like but I'll give you what my results have been like (practical win%) vs what my heart thinks it should be like (objective win%).
Objective W% Practical W%
Abzan 60 65
Burn 55 75
Infect 65 80
Bloom ?? 50
Twin 65 80
Pod-pod 65 65
Against decks like Burn and Infect they are picked up by very poor players (generally) and therefore my actual win% is very high. Twin is picked up by very skilled players but is still a VERY hard match up for them. Unfortunately Abzan has very few hard decisions except what cards to take with Thoughtsieze effects. So even poor players can't play poor enough to get a very real edge.
Maybe the picture isn't clear enough but I side in "snag" (Vapour Snag) and not Swan Song. Tectonic Edge is useful to kill their utility lands and Mutavaults. Tidebinder has no targets but I could totally see it in the main and take out Cursecatcher. To be honest I was following very old notes where tidebinder was in my sideboard and it stayed in my sideboard.
Infect and Burn are Tier 1 and this card is good to great vs those decks. I wasn't sure if 4 was too excessive and I'm pretty happy with 3 for now. I could see 2 being a fine number too. The card also has utility vs Bloom Titan, Martyr of Sands, Affinity on the play, Boggles (also increasing in popularity). Modern right now is full of non interactive combo decks and they are generally weak to Chalice. Also consider your local metagame if these decks exist. otherwise you might not need Chalice so much.
UMerfolkU
Legacy
UMerfolkU
Commander
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB