MTG Salvation

@Nikachu_

Hey thanks for putting in the time with Merfolk! Thinking about building it myself.
Anyway, my brother plays merfolk religiously and we have a pptq coming in May. Do you mind sharing your current Merfolk list so that I can show him it? Thanks!

Here is another brilliant idea: if we have Darkslick Shores (as Choke protection) to help pay for Dismembers, we could play Tasigur.
It puts a stop sign to burn creatures, zoo creatures and junk creatures (all big stuff like Goyf, Tasigur and Rhino), it is pretty easy splash, it draws a card(s), it shrinks Goyf, has protection from Bolt, Helix, Anger, Decay and all the manlands...
Too stupid?

Id imagine one issue would be consistency. If you have four copies of dark-slick shores and these are your only sources - you'll likely have Tasigur stuck in your hand quite a bit...Even if you can cast it - I bet half the time you wish it was a Lord..

Yeah, it would be inconsistent with only 4 Shores. I was thinking about 4 Delta and 1 Grave extra to help filling the graveyard and cast him sooner.
Awkwardly, even Cavern can do it.

I think your idea has a lot of merit. Personally though I'm pretty reluctant to mess with my mana base in this way and currently not running any Cavern's - certainly couldnt see myself ever going to as many copies as I once ran - I love smooth mana. Furthermore which cards are you cutting? I suppose some number of Merrow - for me though Im pretty happy with my team of Merfolk and I'm always trying to find ways to squeeze in a 4th Master of Waves, a third protective creature (ie. kira) or 1-2 Phantasmal Image's into the mainboard...

I understand the importance of stable manabase and what Ruinator can do, I am just unsatisfied with my current build (unlike legacy one, which is the best build of any deck I ever built in my 14 years playing).
This is why I pitch random ideas.

My problem with Ruinator was that I have to keep Vial against attrition decks (like jund and junk) and if they play Ooze I am not casting it normally. Even Path to Exile deals with him or not destroying its victims to enable it. The other problem is that Ruinator build have to have more creatures to enable him, which is less interaction spells, which is a bad idea if Twin, Bloom and Affinity rule the roost. Not sure.

Those who splash white, did you consider a couple of Colonnade?

Quote from CoBTyrannon »

But hell, if you can make the manabase work and test it, please report back, i'd love to see a working Blacksplash. I thought a lot about how good it would be to play Handdisruption and black removal in Merfolk.

This was all the rage about a year ago. I believe it was Brad Nelson who popularized the list, and then it appeared a lot in Dailys. In fact, here is his list: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1169490


FANAttIC, perhaps it is inappropriate for you to post your legacy list in this forum, but would you mind sharing it, say in the Legacy Merfolk forum or in PM?

I have long fooled around with Cold-Eyed Selkie because of that natural island walk and ability to draw multiple cards. It is so good against decks lacking spot removal, like tron, and it has more merit than Wake Thrasher since it has UU for devotion and natural evasion. If I could I would make Selkie playable, sadly being a 1/1 for three just isn't good enough...I'll still throw it in sometimes at my LGS to see what it can do for fun.

3 Plains?? Please, don't. Seachrome Coast.

Those 3 Plains will kill you more than Blood Moon those who play Coast.
Deck with so many UU spells can't work with 1 Plains, let alone 3.

You'd be better off running more Flooded Strand and dropping to a single Plains if you're that worried about Blood Moon. Running 1 Plains and the all four Mutavault just seems better.

Modern is a hate format. You sideboard into hate to crush matchups. The mono-blue Merfolk has a weak sideboard vs everyone's strong sideboard plans. They SB into EE/Anger/combust/choke(!) etc. What do we sideboard? As Mono-U, it's pretty pathetic.

Usually relying on artifacts (Chalice is great and Relic is great). But the actual Blue cards except Flashfreeze and Hibernation are pretty horrible. In fact, they are downright awful. That's why you see so many 'random' Merfolk sideboards (Meerow in the sideboard is pretty laughable! or Tidebinders!). Yes, let's bring in awful hate bears to get a .01% edge. No thanks.

Most of the hate cards are 1W (Stony Silence, Blind Obedience, RIP, Suppression Field) They shut down entire decks.

It doesn't make any sense to go into a tournament knowing you're going to auto lose to Affinity. Eventually people will either come around to U/w or just continue to get sub-optimal results with an already Tier II deck.

Im a bit confused by your suggestion that almost all of Merfolks SB cards are weak - but then point to narrow cards like Hibernation and Flashfreeze as the great ones while ragging on Tidebinder Mage. Tidebinder Mage is also somewhat narrow but is far superior to Hibernation and Flashfreeze. I think we have some pretty solid choices for our SB - counterspells for combo, tidebinders for Junk/Zoo/I also like them for Burn. We then round it out with artifacts that most other decks use - relic, skite, etc.

I agree that Affinity is a terrible match-up and Stony Silence will help a lot - however you have to provide 4x slots for Stony Silence to be a reliable draw. Further, to this you have to give up smooth mana and play white. I'm not sure that Affinity is the menace that everyone, including myself thought it might be - its about 5-8% of the meta and almost every deck in Modern has a bad match-up - Affinity is ours. I've gotten over it and am happy to be favoured against Junk and have decent match-up against Twin (at least post-board).

Quote from SaintA »

It doesn't make any sense to go into a tournament knowing you're going to auto lose to Affinity.

Hah, that's funny. I've NEVER lost a round to affinity. I used to run 3 Hurkyl's Recall in the side, but now with chalice its 2 and 2 for both. I would never splash white just to beat affinity when Recall is 100 times better. Stony Silence whiffs pretty freaking hard against Master of Etherium and Etched Champion

Hurkyl's literally lets you steal games from affinity players.

You are clearly playing terrible players then - that is not even remotely possible against good players..

BUG control is about 80 - 20 over Merfolk or most creature based strategies. There was the rise of Jund, Hugo basically went undefeated until Top 8. He crushed anything creature based. EE + Anger of the Gods is pretty tough from the board.

Merfolk can sideboard in super secret Technology though! It's called Hopes and Dreams.

So...Ojutai's Command is no Cryptic, but it would allowing something for those that splashed white. Thoughts? Reanimating a lord isn't that bad, plus being able to counter a turn 4 tasigur or siege rhino is also pretty nice. The 4 life is largely irrelevant...but would this card make enough of an impact to make splashing white actually give you more than just meh sideboard cards and Path to exile?