Hey tuxdev, i actually really like the idea behind your list. Do you plan on streaming any modern matches with it? It would be cool to see it in action.
I just did a League and went 3-2, but I don't think I want to play any more modern on MODO until they fix Kira. I almost lost my M1G1 because my opponent path'd my Kira and it didn't get countered.
How is the misers Sea Gate Wreckage working out for you? Do you like it and in what matches have you put this to use so far?
Have you encountered any mana development problems by playing this land?
I had it game 1 vs UW but was flooded after turn 3 so it was always waiting for an empty hand. I had 3 lands in my hand that whole match, til the end.
Earlier (t4-t5) you use it and it can lead to more draws. I took Seas out and didn't miss the cantrips. But, you only get to use it once or twice. I did get Reejerey shenanigans late. Lol
I didn't have any U problems... but again, flooded g1 drew it late g3.
I only saw it in that one match. I may make it a side card. Because how often do we make it to 4 lands?
To be honest, when I play a white splash I play with 1-2 Ephara, God of the Polis side vs control, Jund. I went 6-0 vs Jund at one event because of it. I'm leaning more that way... Declaration of Stone, Path, best sideboard cards...
Hey tuxdev, i actually really like the idea behind your list. Do you plan on streaming any modern matches with it? It would be cool to see it in action.
Yes we have. Some want to jam a few in the SB for grindy matchups. I don't think it fits in the 75 at all. I'm complaining already about durdly Seas is, AV is that times 10.
Basically what tuxdev said. Ancestral Vision is not a card that plays nice with our aggro/tempo style. SB at best, and I think it doesn't belong in the 75 at all.
I watched the matches just now. Here's some unsolicited feedback about your list haha
I think Disrupting Shoal is a cool idea, but ultimately not really worth it. I don't think it's Modern's Force of Will for a couple of reasons:
1.) Force of Will is crucial in Legacy so you can blow out combo players. At least that's my perspective on it. I'm not a huge Legacy player but I watch videos all the time, and it seems that FoW is mainly in the deck to stop cards from resolving that would otherwise leave you in an unwinnable position, namely combo cards. Even though FoW is card disadvantage, countering those key cards in Legacy provides way more value than not countering them, sometimes winning you the game on the spot.
2.) In Modern, you don't have that many combo cards to deal with, and in the event that you are up against combo, the combos generally take more time to assemble in Modern than in Legacy. This should give you enough time to overrun your opponent and/or side in counterspells for those combo cards. In effect, the value of having Disrupting Shoal diminishes, because it generally won't blow out your opponent like it would in Legacy. Most combos in Modern are not "all in" combos, they are more midrangey, deploying some combination of removal + value creatures. Due to this, we can't dilute our main strategy of amassing a critical mass of lords to deal with whatever is on the other side of the board. I think in all cases, if we need to deal with combo, we should just be siding in counterspells specifically for those combo pieces, and letting our creatures take care of what's on the ground.
3.) Most Modern decks are midrange or Aggro, and pitching our creatures to Shoal against creature decks would severely diminish the effectiveness of our gameplan. Generally speaking, it's probably true that we outclass almost any other creature deck due to compounding effect of our Lords. Slowing that gameplan down means that we make ourselves vulnerable to whatever "value" creatures + removal that the opponent is using. Furthermore, we don't have TNN to slam down and brick wall our opponent. We need to preserve our ability to overrun our opponent, and that means we can't be pitching our creatures to counters.
In conclusion, I think it would be safe to say that Disrupting Shoal, as a result, is a much more narrow analogue to FoW. The card disadvantage in Modern would hurt us much more than in Legacy because we don't have brick walls that we can slam down like TNN, nor are we blowing out our opponent. In Modern, we rely much more on the critical mass of our creatures, and since the majority of decks in Modern are creature-based, we would more often than not find that it's not worth pitching creatures to Shoal, and instead, find more value in actually casting those creatures for the win.
Chalice of the Void on the other hand, can easily be played MD. I think it always provides value, especially if you run some number of Echoing Truth. Echoing Truth (bounce a creature, artifact, enchantment, etc) and then play Chalice on 1 or 2 could probably be a nice little combo to lock certain opponents out of the game.
Your thoughts on Spreading Seas are fair, but I still think that Spreading Seas provides a ton of value, and the cantrip alone makes it worth it. Spreading Seas basically reads "Your creatures are unblockable for the rest of the game. Draw a Card." I used to think it was clunky as well, and hell, I actually used to think MoW was clunky too. But Modern is sort of clunky all around, and clunky cards still work in Modern, much better than you expect them to.
Here's a more controlling variation of Merfolk that i've been wanting to try for a while. I too have taken inspiration from Legacy Merfolk, but I've made concessions for the Modern meta.
I think the emergence of U/W control decks + that toolbox combo deck necessitates Vendilion Clique over Kira. Vendilion can cycle away cards like Supreme Verdict which can absolutely blow us out. I also think running 4x Chalice in the main is somewhat of a substitute for Kira. We're usually getting hit by Path to Exile, Lightning Bolt, and Thoughtseize, and Chalice takes care of all three. Kira might be too late as she is usually only a 1-of or 2-of, but if we can hit Chalice turn 1 or 2, we're looking good.
Hurkyl's Recall is way too narrow for my liking. If we've got Chalice, Echoing Truth, and Harbinger of the Tides in the main, I think Hurkyl's becomes a wasted spot in the 75. Way too much redundancy there.
I think 4 copies of Spreading Seas is important in the 75, just for the cantrip, if not for the islandwalk. Not to mention we're shutting our opponents off colours, which lends itself well to our controlling gameplan with this build. Card advantage is also very crucial for Modern Merfolk, especially if we're playing a more controlling build with Echoing Truth + Chalice. We need to cycle into our creatures as fast as possible so that we always have gas, plus, running 19 lands means the card draw helps us hit our land drops if we miss any.
Anyways, these are just my thoughts and ideas. Let me know what you think, and if you've done any further testing.
^ Add Chalice of the void on 0 to the list to counter Ancestral Vision. Going to agree with the rest saying AV does not belong in this deck. We have no ways to cheat it and it is a bad topdeck(control players repeatedly say this). Although just placing it on 1 seems to be the best bet most the time.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
I watched the matches just now. Here's some unsolicited feedback about your list haha
Thanks for watching! I always appreciate feedback.
I think Disrupting Shoal is a cool idea, but ultimately not really worth it. I don't think it's Modern's Force of Will for a couple of reasons:
Force isn't in there just to counter Combo cards, but anything that will seriously stop us from winning. The cards I actually counter the most frequently with Force are Liliana, Toxic Deluge, and Stoneforge Mystic, not Show and Tell or Infernal Tutor. You're definitely right that Modern combos are less all-in and more midrange-y, but we still Just Lose if we allow those combos to happen, but we also lose if we don't keep up with the board. This is where the tempo of Shoal comes in, allowing us to use our mana to keep up on board without the risk of losing to the combo. Spell pierce is probably the next-best counter at enabling this style, but it's often not good enough. The 2 mana counters are as usual too expensive. I've too many times felt hamstrung by the dilemma between playing out another creature and risk Just Losing or potentially wasting 2 mana if our opponent doesn't play something I need to counter. Leaving 2 mana open and declining to attack with a mutavault all but puts the Negate face-up, so they're even less likely to play into it. Shoal is definitely terribly narrow (well, compared to Force) and pitching creatures hurts, but that tempo advantage should not be underestimated. The best Shoal is actually the one never cast, but available in hand to safely enable an all-out aggression style.
I've thought a bit more about Seas in the context of Shoal (and the miserableness of pitching creatures to it), and I think I probably could get away with running maybe 1-2 more without impacting the tempo the way I fear, as redundant copies are a very easy pitch to the Shoal.
Hurkyl's Recall is way too narrow for my liking. If we've got Chalice, Echoing Truth, and Harbinger in the main, I think Hurkyl's becomes a wasted spot in the 75. Way too much redundancy there.
I wish I could cut Recall too, but affinity is still plenty popular and we really do need all the help we can get in that matchup. Chalice actually is a reason to run Recall, not a reason against it. Chalice0+Recall is like that Echoing Truth synergy, but way splashier. Recall has also gotten a lot less narrow since people are trying to do the ThopterSword thing, and it's crucial to have a critical mass of interaction against Lantern.
I think 4 copies of Spreading Seas is important in the 75, just for the cantrip, if not for the islandwalk. Card advantage is so crucial for Modern Merfolk, especially if we're playing a more controlling build with Echoing Truth + Chalice. We need to cycle into our creatures as fast as possible so that we always have gas, plus, running 19 lands means the card draw helps us hit our land drops if we miss any.
Spreading Seas is not inherently CA. There's 2 (major) situations in which a Seas is CA:
1. Shutting off a manland or other relevant ability-land
2. Extra MoW token (this is actually a big reason why I still feel somewhat tempted to play more Seas despite my complaints, better recovery with MoW after a boardwipe)
Colorscrewing is also a way that Seas is CA, but that's a happy accident and you shouldn't really consider that case. Less a matter of Seas being good than our opponent getting unlucky.
The idea of "cycling into creatures" is highly problematic. Compare "drawing a Seas, casting it, cantriping lord, casting it" to "drawing a lord, casting it". Unless that Seas got you (or will very shortly get you) CA in one of the 2 major ways, effectively that lord cost *4* mana. I think everybody would agree that 4 mana for a lord is atrociously inefficient.
I'm bummed, but I probably won't play Modern on MTGO until they fix the Kira bug. She's pretty crucial to the operation of my build as a blue 3CMC. I could try using Thassa or Psi Blast instead for my extra 3s, I suppose. The mono-blue aggressive deck actually having some reach can be pretty disgusting, but not having Kira in a meta where she seems really really good is a real damper. That's a serious downgrade in power when I've already determined from previous times I've experimented with Psi Blast that it's a neat trick but not quite good enough. Any suggestions for really solid 3s? Maindeck V-cliques (lol)? hrmm.
The idea of "cycling into creatures" is highly problematic. Compare "drawing a Seas, casting it, cantriping lord, casting it" to "drawing a lord, casting it". Unless that Seas got you (or will very shortly get you) CA in one of the 2 major ways, effectively that lord cost *4* mana. I think everybody would agree that 4 mana for a lord is atrociously inefficient.
The same can be said for Remand, that 2nd counter spell or kill spell costs them 4 as they dig into something relevant. Our seas are not as good as a remand in terms of CA, but it can still slow down what the opponent is doing in a similar way. If we run our Silvergills out to block or just get killed by removal or wrath it is CA in the same way. It is incremental CA not to mention that Seas'ing into a Lord and then Vialing in that lord is still a pretty sweet deal.
The same can be said for Remand, that 2nd counter spell or kill spell costs them 4 as they dig into something relevant. Our seas are not as good as a remand in terms of CA, but it can still slow down what the opponent is doing in a similar way. If we run our Silvergills out to block or just get killed by removal or wrath it is CA in the same way. It is incremental CA not to mention that Seas'ing into a Lord and then Vialing in that lord is still a pretty sweet deal.
Remand isn't CA either, but crucially Remand is usually bouncing a spell that costs more than 2, netting a tempo advantage. Seas is the exact opposite. You spent 2 mana, they spent 0 mana. Maybe sometimes it colorscrews them, but that's too unreliable to put forth as a reason why Seas isn't inherent tempo loss or why it's actually CA. Silvergill Adept is actual CA because he *advances the board* while cantripping. Seas only immediately advances the board if it's played on a man-land/spell-land (the MoW value is delayed, so you very well might Just Die before you can get to see it).
Sweeter deal than Seas->vial->lord: vial->lord->muta activation
Round 1 vs. Boros (2-0)
Newer player I rolled last week too. Not much to say; game 1 I went wide and overran her. She got off both Nahiri and Avacyn, but I completely ignored the planeswalker and ETruthed the angel off the board. Game 2 she kept a 1 land hand. When I saw the missed land drop I immediately changed strategies and Sea's it. She top decked a Mountain... which I also Spreading Seas. A turn later she scooped.
Round 2 vs. Goblins (2-1)
Game 1 was a little more grindy than I would have expected. Mogg Fanatic, Goblin Grenades and Bolts slowed me down, but eventually MoW got there.
Game 2 -2 Phimage, -1 Reejery, +2 Negate, +1 Dispel: Struggled with the burn, including forked bolt. Overrun by tokens.
Game 3 I decided to go wide again, including Phimage; +2 Phimage, +2 Tidebinder, +1 ETruth, -2 Spell Pierce, -2 Negate, -1 Dispel. 2 early Spreading Seas slowed him down enough that with Rejeery and Cursecather on board I was able to flash in Phimage and clone him, then proceeded to drop 2 Lords & 2 Harbingers for free followed by a MoW for 13. The next turn I swung in for 71 damage.
Round 3 vs. Jund (0-2)
Game 1 I got wrecked. A pair of early IOK's pretty much destroyed my hand, followed by removal kept me from ever establishing board presence.
Game 2 +2 Negate, +1 Dispel, +1 ETruth, -4 Vial. Had a great opening hand and kept drawing lords. Played 5 in a row. 5 times in a row they got killed by spot removal. Little disheartening, but oh well.
Round 4 vs. Grixis Control (2-1)
Game 1 a turn 3 Spell Pierce kept Lily off the board and I was able to pressure him early. MoW for the win.
Game 2 -2 Phimage, -4 Spreading Seas, +1 Pithing Needle, +2 Negate, +2 Relic, +1 ETruth. Jace, Anger & Thing in the Ice did work. Lost the attrition battle.
Game 3 Had a pair of Vials at 2 and drew into 3 Silvergills for some nice tempo. At end of turn I ETruthed my own Silvergills, flashed 1 back in and then followed that up by Vialing the other 2 back in on my turn. Hit the land drop I needed for MoW and with my opponent flooding out I was able to seal the deal the following turn.
First time facing Thing in the Ice. Wasn't super scary considering how easy it is to replay our hands and in 1 instance I was able to flash back in the Harbinger he bounced. But I like the card and will run in Standard. Jund on the other hand continues to be the bane of my existence. For whatever reason I cannot beat that deck no matter what I do. The combination of hand-disruption and removal picks me apart every time. I feel like I should be able to flood the board with more creatures than they have removal, but it never works that way for me.
I think it's a combination of bad luck and not having creatures to side in. I bring 4 Tidebinder Mages to the table every time I face Jund, and that seems to work pretty well.
In a grind match against Jund or some such deck, getting your singleton Spreading SeasAbrupt Decayed (mid combat even!) will make you very sorry you don't have more than 1.
Round 3 vs. Jund (0-2)
Game 1 I got wrecked. A pair of early IOK's pretty much destroyed my hand, followed by removal kept me from ever establishing board presence.
Game 2 +2 Negate, +1 Dispel, +1 ETruth, -4 Vial. Had a great opening hand and kept drawing lords. Played 5 in a row. 5 times in a row they got killed by spot removal. Little disheartening, but oh well.
This is a pretty typical example of how Jund plays out. Jund's fundamental game plan against us is "kill everything that moves". Spreading Seas, by contrast.. doesn't move. I've said earlier that Seas doesn't really advance the board but enable it. Well, you actually need a board to enable. With Twin gone, Jund can specialize much more into anti-creature than it used to be able to. That makes things much much tougher for us.
I think it's really against Junk CoCo and Naya Chord where my scrimping on Seas hurts the most. As they're pretty light on removal the ground can get real clogged up, and that's the situation where Seas shines. With Jund, especially with how it's adapting, I think we're probably just gonna have to accept "bad matchup is bad" for the most part. Can we do some kind of aggressive sideboarding vs. Jund the way we can vs. Affinity? I don't really know. Maybe AV actually is the answer here, if you really want to go there.
I think it's just a question of them getting the removal nuthand or not. My experiences against Jund have been pretty positive overall, and that's the consensus among pros and most other players on this forum. Some hands they will blow up everything you play (which is why we're slightly favored as opposed to overwhelmingly favored), but more often than not you'll be able to hang in, peck away at their resources, and surge ahead with the likes of Master of Waves and Mutavault. As long as you can keep the likes of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Liliana of the Veil under control, you'll be fine.
I thought about running Chalice of the Void in the sideboard, even mainboard similar to it's legacy cousin, but the more and more I saw it and how it goes with our deck I don't think it's that needed in the modern version.
I decided to go with Stubborn Denial in the sideboard over Spell Pierce mainly because we can manage to have four or more power on board by the time we see real non-creature spell; the value for just one U.
I traded out the Spellskite's for Tidebinder Mage's because merely for the synergy and it is an answer that can present a threat where Spellskite cannot.
Here is the version of the deck I will be running:
Huh, I've always had the impression that the Jund matchup was slightly unfavorable at best. At least whenever I played against it (and with a stock build, btw), I might be able to get 1 game in, but they were just too efficient at blowing everything up in the other games.
Twitch channel
I had it game 1 vs UW but was flooded after turn 3 so it was always waiting for an empty hand. I had 3 lands in my hand that whole match, til the end.
Earlier (t4-t5) you use it and it can lead to more draws. I took Seas out and didn't miss the cantrips. But, you only get to use it once or twice. I did get Reejerey shenanigans late. Lol
I didn't have any U problems... but again, flooded g1 drew it late g3.
I only saw it in that one match. I may make it a side card. Because how often do we make it to 4 lands?
To be honest, when I play a white splash I play with 1-2 Ephara, God of the Polis side vs control, Jund. I went 6-0 vs Jund at one event because of it. I'm leaning more that way... Declaration of Stone, Path, best sideboard cards...
Second that.
I remember, the guy I knew played serum visions and disrupting shoal.
Dredge
Twitch channel
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I think Disrupting Shoal is a cool idea, but ultimately not really worth it. I don't think it's Modern's Force of Will for a couple of reasons:
1.) Force of Will is crucial in Legacy so you can blow out combo players. At least that's my perspective on it. I'm not a huge Legacy player but I watch videos all the time, and it seems that FoW is mainly in the deck to stop cards from resolving that would otherwise leave you in an unwinnable position, namely combo cards. Even though FoW is card disadvantage, countering those key cards in Legacy provides way more value than not countering them, sometimes winning you the game on the spot.
2.) In Modern, you don't have that many combo cards to deal with, and in the event that you are up against combo, the combos generally take more time to assemble in Modern than in Legacy. This should give you enough time to overrun your opponent and/or side in counterspells for those combo cards. In effect, the value of having Disrupting Shoal diminishes, because it generally won't blow out your opponent like it would in Legacy. Most combos in Modern are not "all in" combos, they are more midrangey, deploying some combination of removal + value creatures. Due to this, we can't dilute our main strategy of amassing a critical mass of lords to deal with whatever is on the other side of the board. I think in all cases, if we need to deal with combo, we should just be siding in counterspells specifically for those combo pieces, and letting our creatures take care of what's on the ground.
3.) Most Modern decks are midrange or Aggro, and pitching our creatures to Shoal against creature decks would severely diminish the effectiveness of our gameplan. Generally speaking, it's probably true that we outclass almost any other creature deck due to compounding effect of our Lords. Slowing that gameplan down means that we make ourselves vulnerable to whatever "value" creatures + removal that the opponent is using. Furthermore, we don't have TNN to slam down and brick wall our opponent. We need to preserve our ability to overrun our opponent, and that means we can't be pitching our creatures to counters.
In conclusion, I think it would be safe to say that Disrupting Shoal, as a result, is a much more narrow analogue to FoW. The card disadvantage in Modern would hurt us much more than in Legacy because we don't have brick walls that we can slam down like TNN, nor are we blowing out our opponent. In Modern, we rely much more on the critical mass of our creatures, and since the majority of decks in Modern are creature-based, we would more often than not find that it's not worth pitching creatures to Shoal, and instead, find more value in actually casting those creatures for the win.
Chalice of the Void on the other hand, can easily be played MD. I think it always provides value, especially if you run some number of Echoing Truth. Echoing Truth (bounce a creature, artifact, enchantment, etc) and then play Chalice on 1 or 2 could probably be a nice little combo to lock certain opponents out of the game.
Your thoughts on Spreading Seas are fair, but I still think that Spreading Seas provides a ton of value, and the cantrip alone makes it worth it. Spreading Seas basically reads "Your creatures are unblockable for the rest of the game. Draw a Card." I used to think it was clunky as well, and hell, I actually used to think MoW was clunky too. But Modern is sort of clunky all around, and clunky cards still work in Modern, much better than you expect them to.
Here's a more controlling variation of Merfolk that i've been wanting to try for a while. I too have taken inspiration from Legacy Merfolk, but I've made concessions for the Modern meta.
4x Cursecatcher
4x Silvergill Adept
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
3x Harbinger of the Tides
3x Merrow Reejerey
3x Phantasmal Image
2x Master of Waves
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Echoing Truth
3x Spreading Seas
Mana
4x Aether Vial
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Mutavault
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
9x Island
1x Master of Waves
1x Spreading Seas
2x Vendilion Clique
3x Vapor Snag
2x Dismember
2x Spell Pierce
2x Negate
2x Relic of Progenitus
I think the emergence of U/W control decks + that toolbox combo deck necessitates Vendilion Clique over Kira. Vendilion can cycle away cards like Supreme Verdict which can absolutely blow us out. I also think running 4x Chalice in the main is somewhat of a substitute for Kira. We're usually getting hit by Path to Exile, Lightning Bolt, and Thoughtseize, and Chalice takes care of all three. Kira might be too late as she is usually only a 1-of or 2-of, but if we can hit Chalice turn 1 or 2, we're looking good.
Hurkyl's Recall is way too narrow for my liking. If we've got Chalice, Echoing Truth, and Harbinger of the Tides in the main, I think Hurkyl's becomes a wasted spot in the 75. Way too much redundancy there.
I think 4 copies of Spreading Seas is important in the 75, just for the cantrip, if not for the islandwalk. Not to mention we're shutting our opponents off colours, which lends itself well to our controlling gameplan with this build. Card advantage is also very crucial for Modern Merfolk, especially if we're playing a more controlling build with Echoing Truth + Chalice. We need to cycle into our creatures as fast as possible so that we always have gas, plus, running 19 lands means the card draw helps us hit our land drops if we miss any.
Anyways, these are just my thoughts and ideas. Let me know what you think, and if you've done any further testing.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Thanks for watching! I always appreciate feedback.
Force isn't in there just to counter Combo cards, but anything that will seriously stop us from winning. The cards I actually counter the most frequently with Force are Liliana, Toxic Deluge, and Stoneforge Mystic, not Show and Tell or Infernal Tutor. You're definitely right that Modern combos are less all-in and more midrange-y, but we still Just Lose if we allow those combos to happen, but we also lose if we don't keep up with the board. This is where the tempo of Shoal comes in, allowing us to use our mana to keep up on board without the risk of losing to the combo. Spell pierce is probably the next-best counter at enabling this style, but it's often not good enough. The 2 mana counters are as usual too expensive. I've too many times felt hamstrung by the dilemma between playing out another creature and risk Just Losing or potentially wasting 2 mana if our opponent doesn't play something I need to counter. Leaving 2 mana open and declining to attack with a mutavault all but puts the Negate face-up, so they're even less likely to play into it. Shoal is definitely terribly narrow (well, compared to Force) and pitching creatures hurts, but that tempo advantage should not be underestimated. The best Shoal is actually the one never cast, but available in hand to safely enable an all-out aggression style.
I've thought a bit more about Seas in the context of Shoal (and the miserableness of pitching creatures to it), and I think I probably could get away with running maybe 1-2 more without impacting the tempo the way I fear, as redundant copies are a very easy pitch to the Shoal.
I wish I could cut Recall too, but affinity is still plenty popular and we really do need all the help we can get in that matchup. Chalice actually is a reason to run Recall, not a reason against it. Chalice0+Recall is like that Echoing Truth synergy, but way splashier. Recall has also gotten a lot less narrow since people are trying to do the ThopterSword thing, and it's crucial to have a critical mass of interaction against Lantern.
Spreading Seas is not inherently CA. There's 2 (major) situations in which a Seas is CA:
1. Shutting off a manland or other relevant ability-land
2. Extra MoW token (this is actually a big reason why I still feel somewhat tempted to play more Seas despite my complaints, better recovery with MoW after a boardwipe)
Colorscrewing is also a way that Seas is CA, but that's a happy accident and you shouldn't really consider that case. Less a matter of Seas being good than our opponent getting unlucky.
The idea of "cycling into creatures" is highly problematic. Compare "drawing a Seas, casting it, cantriping lord, casting it" to "drawing a lord, casting it". Unless that Seas got you (or will very shortly get you) CA in one of the 2 major ways, effectively that lord cost *4* mana. I think everybody would agree that 4 mana for a lord is atrociously inefficient.
I'm bummed, but I probably won't play Modern on MTGO until they fix the Kira bug. She's pretty crucial to the operation of my build as a blue 3CMC. I could try using Thassa or Psi Blast instead for my extra 3s, I suppose. The mono-blue aggressive deck actually having some reach can be pretty disgusting, but not having Kira in a meta where she seems really really good is a real damper. That's a serious downgrade in power when I've already determined from previous times I've experimented with Psi Blast that it's a neat trick but not quite good enough. Any suggestions for really solid 3s? Maindeck V-cliques (lol)? hrmm.
Twitch channel
The same can be said for Remand, that 2nd counter spell or kill spell costs them 4 as they dig into something relevant. Our seas are not as good as a remand in terms of CA, but it can still slow down what the opponent is doing in a similar way. If we run our Silvergills out to block or just get killed by removal or wrath it is CA in the same way. It is incremental CA not to mention that Seas'ing into a Lord and then Vialing in that lord is still a pretty sweet deal.
UMerfolkU
Legacy
UMerfolkU
Commander
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB
Remand isn't CA either, but crucially Remand is usually bouncing a spell that costs more than 2, netting a tempo advantage. Seas is the exact opposite. You spent 2 mana, they spent 0 mana. Maybe sometimes it colorscrews them, but that's too unreliable to put forth as a reason why Seas isn't inherent tempo loss or why it's actually CA. Silvergill Adept is actual CA because he *advances the board* while cantripping. Seas only immediately advances the board if it's played on a man-land/spell-land (the MoW value is delayed, so you very well might Just Die before you can get to see it).
Sweeter deal than Seas->vial->lord: vial->lord->muta activation
Twitch channel
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
Round 1 vs. Boros (2-0)
Newer player I rolled last week too. Not much to say; game 1 I went wide and overran her. She got off both Nahiri and Avacyn, but I completely ignored the planeswalker and ETruthed the angel off the board. Game 2 she kept a 1 land hand. When I saw the missed land drop I immediately changed strategies and Sea's it. She top decked a Mountain... which I also Spreading Seas. A turn later she scooped.
Round 2 vs. Goblins (2-1)
Game 1 was a little more grindy than I would have expected. Mogg Fanatic, Goblin Grenades and Bolts slowed me down, but eventually MoW got there.
Game 2 -2 Phimage, -1 Reejery, +2 Negate, +1 Dispel: Struggled with the burn, including forked bolt. Overrun by tokens.
Game 3 I decided to go wide again, including Phimage; +2 Phimage, +2 Tidebinder, +1 ETruth, -2 Spell Pierce, -2 Negate, -1 Dispel. 2 early Spreading Seas slowed him down enough that with Rejeery and Cursecather on board I was able to flash in Phimage and clone him, then proceeded to drop 2 Lords & 2 Harbingers for free followed by a MoW for 13. The next turn I swung in for 71 damage.
Round 3 vs. Jund (0-2)
Game 1 I got wrecked. A pair of early IOK's pretty much destroyed my hand, followed by removal kept me from ever establishing board presence.
Game 2 +2 Negate, +1 Dispel, +1 ETruth, -4 Vial. Had a great opening hand and kept drawing lords. Played 5 in a row. 5 times in a row they got killed by spot removal. Little disheartening, but oh well.
Round 4 vs. Grixis Control (2-1)
Game 1 a turn 3 Spell Pierce kept Lily off the board and I was able to pressure him early. MoW for the win.
Game 2 -2 Phimage, -4 Spreading Seas, +1 Pithing Needle, +2 Negate, +2 Relic, +1 ETruth. Jace, Anger & Thing in the Ice did work. Lost the attrition battle.
Game 3 Had a pair of Vials at 2 and drew into 3 Silvergills for some nice tempo. At end of turn I ETruthed my own Silvergills, flashed 1 back in and then followed that up by Vialing the other 2 back in on my turn. Hit the land drop I needed for MoW and with my opponent flooding out I was able to seal the deal the following turn.
First time facing Thing in the Ice. Wasn't super scary considering how easy it is to replay our hands and in 1 instance I was able to flash back in the Harbinger he bounced. But I like the card and will run in Standard. Jund on the other hand continues to be the bane of my existence. For whatever reason I cannot beat that deck no matter what I do. The combination of hand-disruption and removal picks me apart every time. I feel like I should be able to flood the board with more creatures than they have removal, but it never works that way for me.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
This is a pretty typical example of how Jund plays out. Jund's fundamental game plan against us is "kill everything that moves". Spreading Seas, by contrast.. doesn't move. I've said earlier that Seas doesn't really advance the board but enable it. Well, you actually need a board to enable. With Twin gone, Jund can specialize much more into anti-creature than it used to be able to. That makes things much much tougher for us.
I think it's really against Junk CoCo and Naya Chord where my scrimping on Seas hurts the most. As they're pretty light on removal the ground can get real clogged up, and that's the situation where Seas shines. With Jund, especially with how it's adapting, I think we're probably just gonna have to accept "bad matchup is bad" for the most part. Can we do some kind of aggressive sideboarding vs. Jund the way we can vs. Affinity? I don't really know. Maybe AV actually is the answer here, if you really want to go there.
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Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I decided to go with Stubborn Denial in the sideboard over Spell Pierce mainly because we can manage to have four or more power on board by the time we see real non-creature spell; the value for just one U.
I traded out the Spellskite's for Tidebinder Mage's because merely for the synergy and it is an answer that can present a threat where Spellskite cannot.
Here is the version of the deck I will be running:
4x Cursecatcher
4x Harbinger of the Tides
1x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x Master of Waves
3x Merrow Reejerey
2x Phantasmal Image
4x Silvergill Adept
4x Æther Vial
Enchantments (5):
1x Sea's Claim
4x Spreading Seas
Instants (2):
2x Vapor Snag
Lands (19):
2x Cavern of Souls
11x Island
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4x Mutavault
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
2x Dispel
2x Echoing Truth
4x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Pithing Needle
2x Relic of Progenitus
1x Stubborn Denial
2x Tidebinder Mage
Let me know what you all think, critiques?
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