With so many Eldrazi decks and Tron getting so much stronger post Twin ban I'm going to be pushing 8 seas big time. I've half-heartedly tried it a handful of times and dismissed it over and over but I think now is a great time to give it a real chance.
As a side note... if anyone can find a single 9th edition FOIL Sea's Claim for sale online I would be extremely impressed. It apparently exists only in theory.
A lot of people are saying the same thing about the Eldrazi, but over the last 3 weeks i've played against it about 30 times online. it's just a matter of time before someone figures out the optimum list and it only gets better when the new set comes out.
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A lot of people are saying the same thing about the Eldrazi, but over the last 3 weeks i've played against it about 30 times online. it's just a matter of time before someone figures out the optimum list and it only gets better when the new set comes out.
I disagree about the latter statement.
Imo the new set does almost nothing for the eldrazi processors deck (the one that started all the hype to begin with)
Unless you are talking about the more recent Heartless eldrazi lists that have been popping up, those do gain a lot but are also a quite different deck with a quite different role in the meta and none of the benefits of the mainboard graveyard hate.
Imo the new set will most likely spawn a quite different form of eldrazi decks wich won´t have that much in common with the original thing (eldrazi processors)
i'm talking about whichever list rises to the top. i don't think anyone has quite figured it out yet. there's BW, BR, mono-B, processors/or not, and i've even played against BG and Jund versions. eventually people are going to figure out how to make it work.
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I got absolutely wrecked today on MODO against mono red goblins, I played the same guy 3 matches in a row and went 0-6 in games. I only had one game where I stabilized when he had a slow hand and still lost. It really feels like this deck is a full turn ahead of us out the gates and it has faster acceleration, easily going way wide by turn 4.
I brought in chalice but never saw it, and its hard to justify keeping up mana for counters because 80% of their threats are creatures... Also goblin grenade is a sorcery, so dispel doesn't help there.
Any suggestions? I'm afraid we don't have many answers for this archetype.
With so many Eldrazi decks and Tron getting so much stronger post Twin ban I'm going to be pushing 8 seas big time. I've half-heartedly tried it a handful of times and dismissed it over and over but I think now is a great time to give it a real chance.
As a side note... if anyone can find a single 9th edition FOIL Sea's Claim for sale online I would be extremely impressed. It apparently exists only in theory.
6 Seas effects has worked out just great for me, along with 3-4 Ghost Quaters in the Sideboard. Playing with 8 felt really overkill to me.
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Modern UMerfolk WDeath and Taxes BRBliztkrieg GStompy
- - -
"Rock is overpowered. Paper is fine."
-Scissors
I have a question for the Merfolk veterans here
Can you count Aether Vial as 2 coloured sources?
Based on this article: "Frank Analysis – How Many Colored Mana Sources Do You Need to Consistently Cast Your Spells?" I would assume that we need 20 coloured sources to reliably have 2 coloured mana and cast lords as well as Harbinger/Tidebinder on turn 2.
The 8 fairly cheap cantrips in the main deck (Adept/Spreading Seas) means we have approximately 2 more mana sources (each cantrip = 0.25 mana). We therefore want to have another 18 mana from our lands. If aether vial could be counted as 2 coloured sources, this means we can run 4 mutavault and 16 lands (Islands or equivalent) in the main, which matches most successful Merfolk deck out there.
This means that if we side out aether vial or aether vial is, in fact, not equal to 2 coloured mana sources, we would need to have 2 additional lands in the deck for the sake of consistency.
Furthermore, if we want to splash white for example, we only need 10 more W coloured sources, which seems fairly easy due to Wanderwine Hub and Seachrome Coast (if MoW becomes clunky in the new meta) and maybe 2 Hallowed fountain.
So far the games have been fantastic, though I think I want Chalice in the SB (maybe for Spellskite) or perhaps Warping Wail (which I think will help against Blighted Agent, Scapeshift, block Etched Champion, and stop Damnation). Quick round summary:
BW Eldrazi Opening with Ghost Quarter, Sea's Claim, and Spreading Seas was the quickest G1 ever. G2 I brought in the 3rd GQ, 2 Negate and 2 Spellskite (need to survive the Wasteland Strangler) and took out Cursecatchers and a Master. This went Sea's Claim - Lord - Lord - Lord and it was over before he got anything on the board.
UG "Undying This was an interesting deck full of undying creatures. G1 was a bit back and forth because he landed an Isochron Scepter with a Simic Charm and continued to bounce my creatures til I reached critical mass of Lords and won. G2 I tidebindered his creatures down twice, then landed a Reejery and Image (also a Reejery) and killed him.
The Mirror He got more lords out first, both times. :-(
RG Stompy-ish? This deck played elves, Kitchen Finks, and Craterhoof Behemoth. G1 he Behemothed me with his mana dorks. G2 I brought in Dismember, Ghost Quarter, and Tidebinder Mage and took out Master, Kira, a Spell Pierce, and a Cursecatcher. This game went a lot better - I cast an early Sea's Claim on his forest, quartered his Nykthos, and was able to get Tidebinder and two Lords out to swing through for the win. He told me he was salty and then conceded.
While none of these games is very telling, I've been mulliganing a lot less than normal and the plays/curve overall have felt smoother. Looking forward to trying something like this out in a league.
With Twin being banned, I'm going to play merfolk more often than I have the past little bit. Slivers has been my main deck, but it's been a while and now I have to play Merfolk again, I miss it!
Doesn't look like there are any big changes over the past couple of months since the new primer went up. It'll be interesting to see what direction the meta goes in.
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Nothing about it is wrong, I think.
That being said, aether vial does make the math a bit harder. I myself have always had better luck making mana bases by winging it and testing. Some things feel good/bad, and often times playing a couple games or goldfishing a bit will parrot that.
Why people are using (and Nikachu recomended also) to use 1 more Merrow Reejery after this Twin Ban ?
I simply suggested it because after a banning it's hard to tell what direction the meta might end up, so to be safe it's better to be proactive. Plus I think it's one of the better cards vs Tron and Eldrazi.
No aether vial, 2MoW and 3 Seas are my critical points for the maindeck. 2 Spellskite for the sideboard.
I want more creatures overall right now. I also want Vial to come back from the draw against aggro and i definitely don't want to lose strength against Jund. Spellskite just seems less useful atm.
Is your comment that you DO or DON'T want vial? And would you run more MoW?
Spellskite definitely hasn't helped much, in any of my matches.
Just a random thought... Twin might be done for but I'm not sure if Amulet Bloom is. It rarely had super busted starts anyway. I would imagine they could realistically replace Summer Bloom with Explore. Its worst match up was Twin which is banned now. Amulet could still be thing. Which is good for us since I like that match up
Wow guys, I go off for one weekend and I came back to a lot of material! Let me chime in with some opinions:
Regarding cutting Harbinger of the Tides or Master of Waves to make room for Phantasmal Image: first of all, cutting Harbinger of the Tides in general strikes me as a poor decision. You can't on the one hand say that you expect more Affinity and on the other say that Harbinger's outlived its usefulness as a 4-of - it's one of the big reasons we have a chance on Game 1 in the first place! That stays a 4-of if you ask me. I could be persuaded to trim my Master of Waves count, but I'd advise to hold off on that for now - we don't know how BGX is going to react to the changing meta, and as long as Burn and Jund are major players (and they are until further notice), the Master is a 3-4 of if you ask me.
Regarding the W splash: again, uncertain meta. I expect to see more land hate, which is a disincentive to splashing (it feels bad to get your Seachrome Coasts and Wanderwine Hubs hit by Blood Moon or Fulminator Mage, especially when you need them to cast Path to Exile), and the marginal gains against Affinity and Tron may not be worth it.
Regarding Merrow Reejerey: Now, I've been on this train for a long time, since I run 4 mainboard, but I agree with this. An uncertain metagame favors proactivity in Modern, and the Reej gives us more of that.
Regarding what land hate to run... I think 8-Seas should be at least considered. There will be less U decks in the meta than there were pre-ban (I can all but guarantee it), which means that Sea's Claim and Spreading Seas are more potent than before. Furthermore, decks like Affinity, Eldrazi, Infect, and Tron present plenty of targets. I don't know if it will do better or not, but it's worth a try. I'm also advocating for Ghost Quarter over Tectonic Edge because it costs us less tempo and has more range of application (but what else is new?).
Last but not least, a quick word on Spellskite: it seems that Chalice of the Void on x=1 now hits all the decks the Skite wanted to hit (Bogles, Burn, Infect), and does other things as well (Affinity on 0 or 1, Living End on 0, etc.). If you have access to Chalices, I'd experiment moving on from it.
I think Harbinger still has a place, especially against Abzan, CoCo, Jund, and Infect, just not so much against Eldrazi. I'm excited to mix things up a bit and see what sticks.
Extra Seas and Ghost Quarter are really appealing, but what do you cut for them?
I think Harbinger still has a place, especially against Abzan, CoCo, Jund, and Infect
I think Harbinger is excellent vs Infect, good vs Coco, but useless vs the BGx decks. Those are not tempo match-ups, they are attrition match ups. Whatever you bounce will come back (exception being a Lingering Souls Token but can we call that solid value?) and in the end all you have is a 2/2 grizzly bear. It's also very hard to bounce their creatures because those decks sit on defense until they wipe out your board and everything in your hand before they start attacking.
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As a side note... if anyone can find a single 9th edition FOIL Sea's Claim for sale online I would be extremely impressed. It apparently exists only in theory.
U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
GU Infect | x Affinity | RWG Naya Burn | W Death and Taxes | U Merfolk | BURG BTL Scapeshift | WUUW Titan | R Goblins | BURGW Suicide Zoo
i'm talking about whichever list rises to the top. i don't think anyone has quite figured it out yet. there's BW, BR, mono-B, processors/or not, and i've even played against BG and Jund versions. eventually people are going to figure out how to make it work.
U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
I brought in chalice but never saw it, and its hard to justify keeping up mana for counters because 80% of their threats are creatures... Also goblin grenade is a sorcery, so dispel doesn't help there.
Any suggestions? I'm afraid we don't have many answers for this archetype.
BW Eldrazi - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bw-eldrazi-proc/
U Merfolk - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/fishmode/
UMerfolk
WDeath and Taxes
BRBliztkrieg
GStompy
- - -
"Rock is overpowered. Paper is fine."
-Scissors
Finally !!! Thank you very much
Can you count Aether Vial as 2 coloured sources?
Based on this article: "Frank Analysis – How Many Colored Mana Sources Do You Need to Consistently Cast Your Spells?" I would assume that we need 20 coloured sources to reliably have 2 coloured mana and cast lords as well as Harbinger/Tidebinder on turn 2.
The 8 fairly cheap cantrips in the main deck (Adept/Spreading Seas) means we have approximately 2 more mana sources (each cantrip = 0.25 mana). We therefore want to have another 18 mana from our lands. If aether vial could be counted as 2 coloured sources, this means we can run 4 mutavault and 16 lands (Islands or equivalent) in the main, which matches most successful Merfolk deck out there.
This means that if we side out aether vial or aether vial is, in fact, not equal to 2 coloured mana sources, we would need to have 2 additional lands in the deck for the sake of consistency.
Furthermore, if we want to splash white for example, we only need 10 more W coloured sources, which seems fairly easy due to Wanderwine Hub and Seachrome Coast (if MoW becomes clunky in the new meta) and maybe 2 Hallowed fountain.
Is this a sound reasoning? Thanks for your time.
UMerfolkU
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wxXtmjT0T1o3dcgqpJWkKNqcfkIobksJFA2rkK7Gf9o/edit?usp=sharing
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Silvergil Adept
4 Meerow Reejery
2 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Master of Waves
2 Vapor Snag
3 Spreading Seas
3 Sea's Claim
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Mutavault
10 Island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
2 Wanderwine Hub
2 Negate
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spellskite
2 Dismember
3 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Tidebinder Mage
1 Ghost Quarter
So far the games have been fantastic, though I think I want Chalice in the SB (maybe for Spellskite) or perhaps Warping Wail (which I think will help against Blighted Agent, Scapeshift, block Etched Champion, and stop Damnation). Quick round summary:
BW Eldrazi Opening with Ghost Quarter, Sea's Claim, and Spreading Seas was the quickest G1 ever. G2 I brought in the 3rd GQ, 2 Negate and 2 Spellskite (need to survive the Wasteland Strangler) and took out Cursecatchers and a Master. This went Sea's Claim - Lord - Lord - Lord and it was over before he got anything on the board.
UG "Undying This was an interesting deck full of undying creatures. G1 was a bit back and forth because he landed an Isochron Scepter with a Simic Charm and continued to bounce my creatures til I reached critical mass of Lords and won. G2 I tidebindered his creatures down twice, then landed a Reejery and Image (also a Reejery) and killed him.
The Mirror He got more lords out first, both times. :-(
RG Stompy-ish? This deck played elves, Kitchen Finks, and Craterhoof Behemoth. G1 he Behemothed me with his mana dorks. G2 I brought in Dismember, Ghost Quarter, and Tidebinder Mage and took out Master, Kira, a Spell Pierce, and a Cursecatcher. This game went a lot better - I cast an early Sea's Claim on his forest, quartered his Nykthos, and was able to get Tidebinder and two Lords out to swing through for the win. He told me he was salty and then conceded.
While none of these games is very telling, I've been mulliganing a lot less than normal and the plays/curve overall have felt smoother. Looking forward to trying something like this out in a league.
With Twin being banned, I'm going to play merfolk more often than I have the past little bit. Slivers has been my main deck, but it's been a while and now I have to play Merfolk again, I miss it!
Doesn't look like there are any big changes over the past couple of months since the new primer went up. It'll be interesting to see what direction the meta goes in.
That being said, aether vial does make the math a bit harder. I myself have always had better luck making mana bases by winging it and testing. Some things feel good/bad, and often times playing a couple games or goldfishing a bit will parrot that.
Is your comment that you DO or DON'T want vial? And would you run more MoW?
Spellskite definitely hasn't helped much, in any of my matches.
Regarding cutting Harbinger of the Tides or Master of Waves to make room for Phantasmal Image: first of all, cutting Harbinger of the Tides in general strikes me as a poor decision. You can't on the one hand say that you expect more Affinity and on the other say that Harbinger's outlived its usefulness as a 4-of - it's one of the big reasons we have a chance on Game 1 in the first place! That stays a 4-of if you ask me. I could be persuaded to trim my Master of Waves count, but I'd advise to hold off on that for now - we don't know how BGX is going to react to the changing meta, and as long as Burn and Jund are major players (and they are until further notice), the Master is a 3-4 of if you ask me.
Regarding the W splash: again, uncertain meta. I expect to see more land hate, which is a disincentive to splashing (it feels bad to get your Seachrome Coasts and Wanderwine Hubs hit by Blood Moon or Fulminator Mage, especially when you need them to cast Path to Exile), and the marginal gains against Affinity and Tron may not be worth it.
Regarding Merrow Reejerey: Now, I've been on this train for a long time, since I run 4 mainboard, but I agree with this. An uncertain metagame favors proactivity in Modern, and the Reej gives us more of that.
Regarding what land hate to run... I think 8-Seas should be at least considered. There will be less U decks in the meta than there were pre-ban (I can all but guarantee it), which means that Sea's Claim and Spreading Seas are more potent than before. Furthermore, decks like Affinity, Eldrazi, Infect, and Tron present plenty of targets. I don't know if it will do better or not, but it's worth a try. I'm also advocating for Ghost Quarter over Tectonic Edge because it costs us less tempo and has more range of application (but what else is new?).
Last but not least, a quick word on Spellskite: it seems that Chalice of the Void on x=1 now hits all the decks the Skite wanted to hit (Bogles, Burn, Infect), and does other things as well (Affinity on 0 or 1, Living End on 0, etc.). If you have access to Chalices, I'd experiment moving on from it.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Extra Seas and Ghost Quarter are really appealing, but what do you cut for them?
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers: