Dismember is not dead against a good portion of the meta. It's a bad card against burn and that's about it. I didn't cut the green cards because I was basing it off your build and opinions on Harbinger being so-so. I cut a Harbinger because we agreed that it's hit or miss and I cut a Rejeery to keep the curve low. Also, redundancy is a factor here. All three of these cards have the ability to remove a creature from the board, Dismember just happens to do it permanently.
Dispel against Cryptic is a nice trade up in mana and I didn't argue for Dispel against Lantern or Liliana. I said run both Negate and Dispel for different purposes. I argued for Dispel against Coco decks to hit Coco and Chord which is a much better answer than your suggestion of Spell Pierce. Negate is going to be good against lantern, Eldrazi tron, Valakut and so on. I would argue against any counters at all against Liliana decks.
Measuring threats against sweepers is a bad suggestion? You think you're going to get a turn 3 or turn 4 kill before they can deploy anger or supreme verdict? That doesn't make sense at all. You beat control by putting a few threats down and chipping away at damage forcing them to use verdict or anger while you still have threats to deploy in hand. Obviously Verdict has no place in an argument about what counter to use, but if you are playing against anger there is no way I'm unloading my hand only to get swept up. You aren't going to beat 20 life in a race against anger of the gods. You deploy a threat or two, chip away and show them that they have to deal with your board. This allows both sides to make land drops which will make Spell Pierce worthless and the extra mana that negate costs negligible.
Casting your blue spells is exactly why skewing your mana base is an issue. What good is any interaction at all going to be if your land base is Cavern, Unclaimed, and a Mutavault. And branchwalker is only a cantrip for land which is not an answer to anything, or it scrys 1. It's card parity at best, not card advantage.
If you think Vial is more powerful than Coco you're mistaken. Vial is great on turn one and diminishes every turn after. Coco is a card I'd be happy to see at any point in the game. Why do you think GW versions of hatebears in modern don't run Vial? If you're splashing green Coco is the more powerful choice.
The dies to doom blade argument isn't valid against Master. They can simply push a Branchwalker if that's what you're replacing MoW with and the only thing Bushwalker got you is a land in hand or an unwanted card out of the way. Master of waves is much more difficult to deal with than Branchwalker if that's the argument you're going with. At least MoW forces them to have a snap and a fetch to trigger revolt if that's the line their taking. And if they can't deal master, a push on the token still leaves a 2/1 behind rather than nothing like Branchwalker would.
No one is disregarding these cards. You came here with an opinion and some of us have a different opinion. Test them out and prove us otherwise just like any other science experiment. I specifically said that the card deserve testing, but they are really going to have to wow me to earn a spot in the deck. I just don't see the green splash adding anything to the deck that does something better than we already do now.
Dismember is bad against burn and dead or virtually dead against living end, dredge, tron, ad nauseam, scapeshift decks, etc. Measuring threats against sweepers is bad because you're not playing against just sweepers. Slowing your clock down gives the opponent more time to find answers, and the late game advantage is theirs. We only measure threats if we can afford it, overall I don't think trying to do that is good advice. That is why spell pierce is good, you're trying to close the game quicker and pierce is insurance against early sweepers when you draw it. You didn't address my full response where I said that if the mana base is such a problem for the sideboard plan we can tinker with it and see how it goes. Right now, I assume you agree it is rock solid for game 1 and that maybe it will be a problem for the sideboard, only maybe. I'm not comparing CoCo and vial in this sense, they are very different cards. I think Vial is better for the aggro-tempo gameplay I'm trying to perform here, and it doesn't make sense if I say that I want to cut master because of CMC considerations and then I add CoCo. It is certainly possible that a list where you play CoCo with the Ixalan merfolk is better than my list, sure, but right now I wanna go without it. I also think that suggestions given here regarding the use of kiora's follower and hierarch might be worth looking into if you're playing CoCo, but once again, that's not what my list is doing. It is not a simple 'dies to doomblade' argument. If opponent kills master with anything fewer than 4 lands they are at tempo-advantge, if they do so with snapcaster even worse because it is a clear 2-for-1. If they kill branchwalker it is much better because, worst case scenario for us, they spent a one mana spell, a small tempo advantage, and we got at least card selection for the deal. If we draw a land we're at an actual advantage, so I don't see how your comparison holds.
No one is disregarding the cards? Someone here said that they wouldn't play the cards even if they were blue and that 'just because wizards printed new cards doesn't mean we should play it'. Rogarth categorically stated that the splash is not good and that I will lose more games because of it despite never ever having played with the cards. I understand people might discard blatantly bad ideas, but some people here are acting as if I suggested to slot prime speaker zegana in the deck. That type of reaction is extremly frustrating, and I can see it being discouraging for newer players that want to come here and give suggestions. That is just my opinion.
I play mostly Elves and Mefolk as my second go to deck, so im not a expert on the deck as most of the others here. But my biggest thing on the land base you posted is that you are so very vulnerable to blood moon. Like to the point that I think you almost lose to it if its resolves turn two or three. And I don't think its a card you can completely ignore in modern. Burn and Affinty variations are even playing with it currently.
You are correct, we are softer to blood moon. We will see how problematic that is. As I said, there is room for change and maybe improvement in the mana base.
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Out of the decks you listed, Valakut decks are the only decks I'm seeing putting up any kind of consistent results so I can't really take your point seriously. I mean I don't think any card has a 100% useful rate if you dig deep enough in the metagame, but you just aren't talking about serious decks in the meta right now. Eldrazi Tron has really taken the place of traditional tron and Dismember is good there. Living End, Dredge, Ad Nauseam are ones you may see pop up here and there, but if you take a look at the serious contenders, tier 1 decks that most people are on, Dismember lines up pretty well.
I guess we just play differently against control. I usually play assuming they always have the turn 3 anger or turn 4 Verdict so I don't empty my hand and get blown out. I know the game is going to go long because those types of decks are equipped to take it there. If you keep your threats coming, you force them to have it. It is perfectly reasonable to apply a certain amount of pressure to force them to spend their cards and still have the ability to keep pressure coming. It's not an all or nothing game. It's why Mutavault is such a key card in these match ups. It allows you to apply pressure without committing to the board.
I don't see how your comparison holds with Branchwalker and Master of Waves. Ideally in the late game, if you've been pacing your threats, one of them is going to stick. I'd rather have two 2/1s than a single Branchwalker. And that's worst cast scenario, assuming you have no spreading seas in play and no other merfolk on the board. The way I see you describing it is Branchwalker is more powerful than MoW and thats wrong.
Fine. Rothgar is disregarding the cards, but this conversation is between us. You can argue with him on his opinion, but I've said multiple times now, go ahead and test them. Prove us wrong. I'd love to be proven wrong, but these cards are nothing exciting to me. Why is it frustrating though? Are we all supposed to agree with you and love the idea of a splash? Many of us have tried splashing multiple colors and most of us have agreed it's not that great. Green isn't offering anything to me that really excites me and I'm telling you why. If your testing puts up consistent results on Mtgo or SCG or a GP or a pro tour, I'd be happy to say you were right and I was wrong. What I'm saying now to any new players who may be discouraged by my talk is, try out the green splash, play with the new Ixalan cards and let us know of your success stories. Follow Ashiok's starting point for a green splash shell if you think you'll find success, but if you find your self failing, don't be discouraged and look at the reasons why you may be failing. I'm posting some of the reasons why I think the green splash might fail.
Your skepticism (and rogarth's): I'm actually a bit saddened to see how repellent some people from this thread are to the idea of testing new cards and new possibilities. The absolute disregard that I received from some of the members here because I was trying to make the deck better is just astonishing and disappointing. Especially given the certainty that some people have that cards that we never played before just are not going to be good. Remember that Master of Waves and Harbinger, cards that are so incredibly beloved at the moment, were also question marks in regards to their competitive viability in our deck. It is super ironical that people can't see that this might happen again with Ixalan Merfolk just because they have a green mana symbol on the casting cost. The splash might not work. In that case, we lose absolutely nothing, the deck just stay as is. If it works, we have much to gain to make the deck better, and maybe even tier 1. That's all that I have to say, besides thanking you again for this back and forth.
Gonna level with you, bud - I truly, honestly do not care if you got miffed by my dismissiveness. My goal for this thread is to make sure that people make informed decisions about their Merfolk decks, and that they play the best possible version of the deck. I have ample reason to believe that the splashes are sub-optimal, and I have explained why. I had reason to believe your deck had construction flaws, and I explained why. Doing so is not only for your benefit, but for the benefit of newer players that might not be able to tell the difference between an experimental, untested list, and the tried-and-true variant that has taken down Grand Prix and generally been one of Modern's more successful decks. Don't like that? Prove me wrong. You always have that option. Results will always change my mind (as they did on Clique, Copter, Rejection, and countless other cards). Right now, your deck is better than it was when you first posted it, and that's what I care about.
According to mtgtop8 in the last 2 months: UW control has 6% of the metagame (dismember is bad against it), Valakut decks have 8%, dredge,urzatron,adnauseam and lantern combined share 9% of the metagame. So, I don't think they are as rare as you said. I disagree about not having 100% mainboard cards that are useful game 1. In the current configuration of my last decklist, all our spells are useful. The possible worst ones in terms of being dead is spreading seas, that at least cantrips, and harbinger, that at least attacks for damage. What you're saying is the opportunity cost of playing dismember mainboard is worth the moments where it will be a dead card on your hand. I disagree because I think dismember is only stellar against creature-combo decks. Against Shadow we have plenty of mainboard tricks, and dismember is a target for their stubborn denials (which they are much more likely to find than we are likely to find the dismember), and we have equally good tools to face eldrazi tron, not to mention a sideboard that is incidentally tailored for the matchup.
I understand your strategy against control, I just think you can't always do that. If you have enough cantrip merfolks (branchwalker increases your chances of having one, btw) and enough pressure on board, then sure. Sometimes you have 2 creatures on board and adding a third will not increase the clock by a turn. Sure, you can then think 'well, I shouldn't overextend', and that might be correct, you keep that creature in your hand. Other possibility is that the opponent uses a removal spell in one of the two and your clock goes up because you didn't play the creature that would keep it the same. The consequence is opponent draws more cards, finds more answers, etc. What is the usual recomendation in this thread? I'm asking because I'm curious. Do people try to play the late game with control, aggro them out, or it depends?
Branchwalker is there to add redundancy and speed to our deck, not to be compared with master of waves. I agree with you 100% that master is the best late game threat, my issue is how often having him in your hand will not just cost you a good early game and, therefore, the game. If you have branchwalker on your opening you can cast it, apply pressure with it, having it be remove, sure. If you have master you're waiting for the 4th land, not pressuring the opponent and, once such land arrives, if master is killed it did nothing. Just died. Branchwalker at least net you something. Master is a greater payoff spell if it lives, branchwalker has a smaller payoff, but it is much more guaranteed to be good and do something most games (due to difference in mana cost and etb trigger).
Sure, I can try to 'prove people wrong'. That is not my objective here though. I don't mind being met with criticism and suggestions to improve, but I don't agree with the 'prove me wrong attitude', because you are already starting from a stance of discrediting the strategy, as if you know better, only that you're admitting you're willing to change your mind in face of evidence. I'm not talking about you in particular, but about the general impression this attitude passes. Question my choices, ask why I changed this or that, offer advice, sure, no problem, I just don't like the frankly arrogant attitude of acting as if you know how things will turn out when nobody actually does, because the cards are new. Even if you wanted to have an educated opinion and compare with other green splashes you just can't do that, because no green merfolk did what these two do, and people who splashed green in merfolk did so for different reasons. There never was a one-drop aggressive merfolk like speaker, and a value merfolk like branchwalker that we could play alongside silvergill. So why do people assume they know how things will turn out? Beats me.
Gonna level with you, bud - I truly, honestly do not care if you got miffed by my dismissiveness. My goal for this thread is to make sure that people make informed decisions about their Merfolk decks, and that they play the best possible version of the deck. I have ample reason to believe that the splashes are sub-optimal, and I have explained why. I had reason to believe your deck had construction flaws, and I explained why. Doing so is not only for your benefit, but for the benefit of newer players that might not be able to tell the difference between an experimental, untested list, and the tried-and-true variant that has taken down Grand Prix and generally been one of Modern's more successful decks. Don't like that? Prove me wrong. You always have that option. Results will always change my mind (as they did on Clique, Copter, Rejection, and countless other cards). Right now, your deck is better than it was when you first posted it, and that's what I care about.
You can achieve the goal of your thread without acting as if you know better than other people. I understand, you played a lot with the deck, you have thousands of matches, experience, etc. I accepted some of your suggestions like having harbinger, less lands and more green sources based on such experience, but you could have provided the exact same advice without the skeptical and arrogant attitude, where you staunchly predict that my deck will be worse because of the green cards. What's more: you say you made the deck better, but in truth you, just like me, have no way to know that. Maybe it was better in the first configuration. We never played with the cards, tested the lists, compared the results. My untested list that is different from the tried and true variant is using cards that never existed before. Never. Therefore, it doesn't matter how long the classic variant has been around, that doesn't mean the new list with the green splash will not just be better. Before master of waves came to exist and turn into a staple of merfolk decks there was a tried and true list that was not using it.
See, I'm a spike too. I play competitive commander, mainly. The difference is that my attitude towards new cards that I can use is of excitement and desire to experiment. I understand it might not work. That doesn't mean I will act as if I know it won't. Regarding the prove me wrong stuff, read my answer to driemer above.
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That's just not how Turbo Xerox theory works. The more ways you have to find lands, the fewer actual lands you need, especially when you have little to no ways to use them efficiently once you're hellbent (and you don't - none of us do). I'll take Frank Karsten's math over SaffronOlive's any day, and according to him 20 lands is just right for this deck (you might even be able to get away with 19, thanks to the cantrips). As a Merfolk pilot with thousands of matches of sanctioned competitive matches on MTGO (and God-only-knows how many on paper), I can tell you that going over 20 lands will almost certainly result in having more lands than you can actually do productive things with in the midgame, which is how Merfolk loses.
First, that turbo xerox theory is talking about decks with mainly cantrips and way to find lands. All our cards that search other cards cost TWO mana, not ONE. That is a huge difference from a deck with brainstorms, ponders and gitaxian probes, even if the xerox rule also applies to two-mana cards. I agree that with vial we might get away with playing fewer lands, but you're missing my point. If we have more lands we increase the chance of having lands on top of our deck and having Branchwalker be actual card advantage (and not merely card selection). That land that you would draw and 'flood' you is now on your hand, and you will draw a real card the next time. Not only that, but regarding Frank Karsten's article, I will just quote this part:
20 1.12-1.44 Low-curve deck – You need 2 lands on turn 2 (98.3%) but would like 3 lands on turn 3 (79.6%) for some 3-drops
21 1.44-1.76 Aggro deck – You need 2 lands on turn 2 every game (98.8%) but would like 3 lands on turn 3 (82.3%) for several 3-drops
22 1.76-2.08 Aggro deck – You need 2 lands on turn 2 every game (99.2%) but would like 3 lands on turn 3 (84.7%) for several 3-drop
First, notice how his math is not different from the article I sent you. Our deck was in the 1.8 range of CMC, so we SHOULD be playing 22 lands according to this. Now, notice also the difference between needing 2 lands EVERY game and just 'needing' two lands. We need every game. Now, you might say the difference between hitting 2 lands by turn 2 with 20 and 22 is small. I agree. The difference between hitting 3 lands on turn 3, however, is not small at all. Why we might need 3 lands though? Playing only 6 3-mana spells? Simple, we have more one drops now, and we can double spell more often. Hitting 3 lands helps our tempo plan. Hitting 4 is also not bad because we can double lord or lord + merfolk cantrip or any variation of stuff. The difference of hitting 4 lands on turn 4 with 20 (65.8% / 55.2% - draw/play) and 22 (73.9% / 63.7% - draw/play) lands in your deck is gigantic. Playing more than one spell a turn is essential for tempo decks. Yes, you played thousands of matchups. How many did you play with branchwalker and speaker? Zero, I assume.
Dismember is bad against Burn, certainly, but thanks to cards like Harbinger of the Tides (which bottlenecks their mana if cast at sorcery speed, or erases attacks if Vialed/flashed in) and Master of Waves (which often wins the game on the spot), our Game 1 against the deck is good enough to get away with a dead card, which you will obviously side out. These are the dangers of cutting the cards you did - you have fundamentally changed how the deck functions, and not for the better. Against Affinity, Dismember is painful, but it beats taking lethal infect damage or 10+ regular damage from a loaded-up flyer, and it certainly beats letting your opponent untap Steel Overseer or Master of Etherium. Harbinger is important against Affinity because it provides a body to pressure the opponent with in addition to buying you time. These are all well-established things that have borne out by the testing of hundreds of Merfolk players. You can try to race those decks if you want. You will lose.
The point about being supposed to be faster than other creature decks simply isn't true - we're a medium-speed, high-power, high-resilience creature deck. We can't match up to the raw velocity of Affinity, Elves, Goblins, or Zoo, and we likely never will. What we have is the ability to interact, and the ability to defend ourselves against interaction. That's our competitive advantage.
I don't get your point about dismember. It is bad against burn. We already have 5 sideboard slots for affinity, 6 if you want to include echoing truth. Why do you need dismember again? You should be able to counter all of affinity's payoff spells with a ceremonius rejection on 1, even on the draw, unless they have a crazy opening involving mox opals. Regarding Harbinger: what does it do against Tron? Storm? Living End? Dredge? Control decks? I can see it being good against eldrazi and death's shadow, and situationally good against affinity. It is definitely mediocre against burn. By the time it hits the board on 2 you already got hit by a hasty creature at least once, and the cost to replay the creature is very small, smaller than harbinger himself. He is neat with vial, sure, but that's about it. I think harbinger is a clear metacall. Sure, if you want, you can cut the Kopalas and 2 lands and have a list with Harbingers, no problem. I'm willing to see how that goes. But I think you are grossly overestimating the value of such a situational card. You have no idea if I will lose or win because the cards in my deck simply never existed before lol. The fact that you so confidently say that is astonishing.
Yes, I think it's bad, because tempo is important for this deck, and unreliable mana is the quickest way to fall behind on tempo. Speaker's effectiveness in particular wanes the longer you wait to cast it (Branchwalker, on the other hand, holds steady value more or less throughout the game). However, if your goal is to curve out and kill on Turn 4 (and if you don't, you are strictly worse than the classic Merfolk list), your mana needs to be as smooth and efficient as possible.
Okay, I will add the sanctuns then, problem solved.
Everything you said about Hibernation can be done better by Echoing Truth - costs less mana to hold up, has 0 friendly fire issues, buys you the turn you need against the threat in question, and is better against the field. The proposal to take out green creatures to make Hibernation work is particularly bewildering, given that most non-dork green creatures in CoCo decks have useful ETB effects that you don't want to give them a redo on, and that you're going to need to pressure them in order to win (and all of your green creatures are early drops meant to pressure the opponent). You combat CoCo decks by disrupting early then aggroing hard - those Spell Pierces need to be Negates (because their ability to ramp makes "tax" counterspells bad), and Ceremonious Rejection needs to be prominently involved in your sideboard for Affinity/Eldrazi/Tron.
Sure, so we play echoing truth instead of hibernation, problem solved for CoCo decks, maybe against elves too. I absolutely disagree with spell pierce vs negate. We are a tempodeck, you said yourself, the difference between two mana for a hard counter and one for a soft one is enourmous. If the opponent wants to wait until having SIX mana sources to cast CoCo around spell pierce, then be my guest. By that time we should have pressured him enough that he won't have such a chance. Negate is muuuch clunkier than pierce in our deck, just seems like a bad card overall, I would only consider for the tron matchup, but we now have rejections for that.
As for your comments on the splash... please see Nikachu's video series on splashing colors in Merfolk (I'm specifically linking the one for G, but he did one for every color). If that's not enough for you, check out Corbin Hosler's stab at it. This is well-trod ground, and we know that all of the splashes are sub-optimal from the testimonials of players who have tried it and found wanting. Also, adding a couple of 1-drops does not inherently make the deck significantly faster - Merfolk's T4 kills come from double/triple Lord and 1-2 other attackers. That can be anything from a Cursecatcher to a Silvergill Adept to a Harbinger of the Tides. Your deck looks more like a Zoo deck than theirs, and I don't mean that as a compliment - Zoo is gone from the competitive meta, in part because vanilla beaters are something this metagame is well-tuned to beat.
My God. You know that the splashes and links that you sent are from fundamentally different decks, right? Having green mana symbols on your cards don't make all the splashes the same. Nikachu is playing with CoCos and noble hierarchs, nowhere to be seen on my list. NOBODY has EVER played with Ixalan merfolks, do you realize how crazy it is to call this splash bad without testing it first? What's worse, calling it bad on the grounds that a fundamentally different deck did worse than the 'classical' version of the list. How many merfolk players can give you testimonials of their matches using kumena speaker and branchwalker? I will tell you - zero. Because the cards weren't released yet. There NEVER was a one-drop two-power merfolk ever printed, and branchwalker can work as pseudo-4-extra copies of our best card - silvergill adept. How can you say that the splash will be bad? You have no way to know.
I also think you massively underestimate Master of Waves - it's very difficult for many decks to remove, especially with a Kira, Great Glass-Spinner on the battlefield. It usually wins the game on the spot against Burn, and the likes of Shadow need to basically find a Revolted Fatal Push on the spot or die (spoiler: they usually don't, because otherwise they would have died to your other creatures earlier in the game).
My conclusison is that you're inexperienced in the format, and that is leading you to draw erroneous conclusions as to what the deck does and does not need. Commander experience in particular translates poorly over to 60-card constructed. You can test your deck if you like, but I think you'll find that you won't be any faster, and thus your deck will be strictly worse than the classic shell (which is classic for a reason).
I've been playing magic since Onslaugh, not only commander. Merfolk is the modern deck I have played the most with, I merely pointed out that modern isn't my primary format of choice. You are now sketching specific scenarios where master of waves is good. I don't disagree it is a good card. AS SOON as it came out on Theros I tested a list with 4 copies of it, and I did like it, but the format is not only faster, but the answers are different. Master of Waves, no matter how you try to slice it, still is a 4-mana spell that can be clunky in our hand. I much rather test a list without it than with it and see how it goes.
All that said, here is a list that adapted to some of your criticism (not always constructive):
Mate - the white splash is better then this hodgepodge of laughable cards and UW merfolk is still woeful - not sure how you get off bashing rothgar for providing you with critique. Anyway dude - if you think your pile is so great go out and prove it and get some 5-0's on MTGO then we can talk..
I use to play UG merfolk for a long time like a posted here some months ago.
The only difference between my deck list for a MonoU is that I play with 3 Coco, 3 Vial, No MoW and 2 Cosis Tricters. I play with 4 fetchs and 2 breeding pool too (a play with anothers UG landa that you dont lose life too).
I remove the MoW from my dexk because the current meta dont use bolt any more and they replaced it for fatal push, the second reason is that he dont have sinergy with Coco.
Because of the green splah, I can use some cool things in mu SB like Heroic Untervention and Natural state.
In a burm matchup, I have a very good result (10-1) even with the fetchs, you just need to manege your choices.
Even I already played qith Green, I'm not exeting with the new green merfolks. The Cosi trickters is better than the new 1 deop green merfolk because he always be a 2/2 at the second turn, because your opponent will fecth at least 95% of the matchs, and he dont need any interation with another land/merfolk.
The other green merfolk that have "explores" dont ahow any reason that I want to try it, all the other 2 drops merfolk are better in my opniom but I will test him.
In conclusion, the green splash have better results tham the monoU version for me, its a kind different to play and I think that is the reason that thw monoU players have some bad results and didnt test it anymore.
I am not a american guy, so sorry about if i didnt write something very clear.
According to mtgtop8 in the last 2 months: UW control has 6% of the metagame (dismember is bad against it), Valakut decks have 8%, dredge,urzatron,adnauseam and lantern combined share 9% of the metagame. So, I don't think they are as rare as you said. I disagree about not having 100% mainboard cards that are useful game 1. In the current configuration of my last decklist, all our spells are useful. The possible worst ones in terms of being dead is spreading seas, that at least cantrips, and harbinger, that at least attacks for damage. What you're saying is the opportunity cost of playing dismember mainboard is worth the moments where it will be a dead card on your hand. I disagree because I think dismember is only stellar against creature-combo decks. Against Shadow we have plenty of mainboard tricks, and dismember is a target for their stubborn denials (which they are much more likely to find than we are likely to find the dismember), and we have equally good tools to face eldrazi tron, not to mention a sideboard that is incidentally tailored for the matchup.
I understand your strategy against control, I just think you can't always do that. If you have enough cantrip merfolks (branchwalker increases your chances of having one, btw) and enough pressure on board, then sure. Sometimes you have 2 creatures on board and adding a third will not increase the clock by a turn. Sure, you can then think 'well, I shouldn't overextend', and that might be correct, you keep that creature in your hand. Other possibility is that the opponent uses a removal spell in one of the two and your clock goes up because you didn't play the creature that would keep it the same. The consequence is opponent draws more cards, finds more answers, etc. What is the usual recomendation in this thread? I'm asking because I'm curious. Do people try to play the late game with control, aggro them out, or it depends?
Branchwalker is there to add redundancy and speed to our deck, not to be compared with master of waves. I agree with you 100% that master is the best late game threat, my issue is how often having him in your hand will not just cost you a good early game and, therefore, the game. If you have branchwalker on your opening you can cast it, apply pressure with it, having it be remove, sure. If you have master you're waiting for the 4th land, not pressuring the opponent and, once such land arrives, if master is killed it did nothing. Just died. Branchwalker at least net you something. Master is a greater payoff spell if it lives, branchwalker has a smaller payoff, but it is much more guaranteed to be good and do something most games (due to difference in mana cost and etb trigger).
Sure, I can try to 'prove people wrong'. That is not my objective here though. I don't mind being met with criticism and suggestions to improve, but I don't agree with the 'prove me wrong attitude', because you are already starting from a stance of discrediting the strategy, as if you know better, only that you're admitting you're willing to change your mind in face of evidence. I'm not talking about you in particular, but about the general impression this attitude passes. Question my choices, ask why I changed this or that, offer advice, sure, no problem, I just don't like the frankly arrogant attitude of acting as if you know how things will turn out when nobody actually does, because the cards are new. Even if you wanted to have an educated opinion and compare with other green splashes you just can't do that, because no green merfolk did what these two do, and people who splashed green in merfolk did so for different reasons. There never was a one-drop aggressive merfolk like speaker, and a value merfolk like branchwalker that we could play alongside silvergill. So why do people assume they know how things will turn out? Beats me.
The stats you list add up to 23% and if you add in burn its 29%. So you won't run dismember main because its only good against 71% of the field? Those seem like pretty good odds to hedge your main deck in a certain direction.
It'll be impossible for me to explain every scenario against any deck, but I know there is a time to get aggressive against control and more often a time to hold back, and I think Merfolk as is is set up pretty well to do that. I think it's also set up better to play a longer game than your list. I'd take MoW late game over Branchwalker and I'd rather run some flex cards like Kira, Clique, or Copter than the vanilla 2/2.
As far as taking criticism, but not the prove me wrong kind? I don't think you are taking it well like you say. What if you ignore the "prove me wrong" portion? Then it just becomes regular criticism right? How about this... I don't think the green cards add anything of value to the deck that is better than what we already do. I'd rather play some flex cards over a 1 mana 2/2, and I like the threat that Master of Waves offers as well as the consistency of a mono blue mana base. This is my criticism of the green splash. Now the problem here is that the version of the deck I play puts up regular results. Obviously we can't play your version yet, but when the cards are released I'm sure plenty of people here are going to test them out, but since the critics have the weight of a successful deck behind them, it IS your job to prove us wrong.
*edit* I just want to make it clear that you don't mistake skepticism and criticism for people not trying the cards out. I feel like you think people are just going to throw the new cards in the dumpster with no testing. This community is pretty good about trying new cards. It's how we came in to copter, clique, and rejection in spite of Rothgar's initial skepticism of the cards.
Exactly. The burden of proof is on the G splash to prove that it's not yet another of the failed splash attempts we have seen over the years. What seems to have been lost in this argument is that mono-U Merfolk is a very successful deck, and thus a high bar for any potential variant to clear. As for "knowing better"... I wouldn't say that, but I do have experience and Magic history on my side. A no-frills aggro deck with a bit of card advantage has never been successful - you either need to interact or you need to be blazing-fast in order to be successful. In Modern, blazing-fast means being capable of the occasional Turn 3 kill if left unimpeded. Merfolk simply isn't capable of that, so it has to interact.
I like the Spyglass more than I do Pithing Needle - peeking at the hand is pretty powerful stuff. I'm not sure how I'm going to sneak it into the 75, but I'll find a way to test it at some point.
That looks like that was a pretty amazing game haha
lol
he pretty much went t1 tron land, t2 tron land, t3 tron land + wurmcoil, then another then another... it looked bad until twin masters hit the table
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Modern UMerfolkU WUBRGPeopleGRBUW U Turbo Turns U UB Fae BU WBG Aristocrats GBW
"Wow... I came to see discussions about the viability of a green splash and I see terms like "hodgepodge of laughable cards" and "go 5-0".
I guess that's how you improve an archetype."
Well that is exactly what it is - a mess of cards. Some ppl on here (usually ppl new to the deck and new to modern) don't understand what it costs the deck to splash and what you need to get back to make it worth it.
There is a long history of failed attempts of splashing different colours in the deck. Arguably the best splash is white splash as you get some strong sideboard cards. However, even that splash has never put up any results.
The green splash provides much worse options and indeed the U merfolk you are taking out for the green ones are far better to begin with. Thus you end up with a worse manabase and a worse spell suite. UG merfolk makes no sense - thus you get the reactions that you get from ppl experienced with the archetype.
If you feel you can innovate the deck with objectively worse cards - go ahead - but as others have stated the burden of proof is on you. If - and this has an infinitesimally small chance of happening - WOTC prints additional highly powerful cards on the level of TNN - then maybe you have something but right now there is nothing in the new set that improves the merfolk archetype in non-rotating formats.
CoCo I think will do very well with the right fish deck, but again we need some really good G fish that helps with the tempo without it being something that happens to come in with an additional power since we are capable of swinging for 15+ out of nowhere already.
Problem running a very heavy creature deck is that you are going against a meta that is VERY efficient in removal, hand disruption, graveyard usage and as such, it doesn't need a lot of creatures to win. To combat this, we need to 1)go very fast, 2) have a way to protect our creatures and 3) have some hi jinks with enter the battlefield, such as harbinger, etc.
Ask yourself if splashing a color REALLY affects the deck and its ability to interact with the meta. Does it really give us better speed? Protection? What are we losing in the 40 non land cards by splashing? We would need some CRAZY creatures in other colors...and while Ixalan isn't spoiled yet...I'm doubting we're going to see it this expansion. I've been toying with phantasmal image again...yeah it's as flimsy as a syrafoam airplane, but it does help increase the clock, and let's face it, most removal will blow up anything on our board anyways, so I'm looking to keep vial on two and see how I can copy both lords, master of waves and beaters on the opponent's side.
First of all, I'm going to introduce myself for further comments/questions in this thread. I'm mostly modern player. I love control decks, but I love blue color more. That being said, Merfolks ain't my pet deck but I play it from time to time, so I know a few things about it. I hope we can generate discussion, as I love theorycrafting in this game
About the splash, I think rothgar and Dreimer stated some fair points, and I think it's the best feedback you can get in this thread. Like everything in life, if you wanna try to change something stablished, you gotta bring results to the skeptical people. Try the cards, test them and post your results. They are encouraging you to do so.
Dispel: What instant spells are you keen to counter from the control deck? Path? Bolt? Cryptic command to tap-bounce? That we can beat with sheer threat density. Not to mention we have vial to play around anger already. Bridge and Liliana are example of cards that pierce hits and dispel does not. There are a multitude of other cards (discard spells, planeswalkers in general, sorcery-based removal such as dreadbore, damnation, etc. etc. etc.). The argument here is pierce has more available targets and versatility than dispel, hence why I choose pierce.
Negate: your suggestion of measuring the pace of our threats against anger seems particularly bad. Of both decks, the one that has the advantage late game is always the control deck, we do not. Trying to sandbag cards can only be done effectively in particular situations, so I don't 'measure' my threats, I dump them and ask to the opponent 'do you have a way to deal with that? Else, you die'. Pierce is useful here because if you have it it is guaranteed extra-protection and security for a cheaper cost. Trying to brawl on the late game with control decks is not a desirable scenario. Not to mention many U/W/x control decks just play supreme verdict, which laughs at the face of the negate we're holding up at a higher tempo-cost.
What I can give you insight is from counter magic, as an experienced blue color user. What you are stating falls in the eternal struggle of hard vs soft counters. As a creature-based deck, you can't run situational answers in your SIDEBOARD, because what you are expecting is to bring a card that will solve you an specific problem at ANY moment of the game. Control decks can afford to run Mana Leak and Spell Pierce because their game plan allows them to choose how to interact most of the time. Yes we would dream to have Stubborn Denial like Grixis Death's Shadow, because is a cheap hard counter almost all the time, but we don't have it.
I do understand your straight-foward gameplan, with all its trade offs, but even with that your gameplan can't run situational answers. Turn 5 isn't that late game, but you can Negate in response of a cascading Living End and probably win, or Spell Pierce, fail and lose the game. You can Dispel a top-deck Lava Spike when you are at 3 life, buy some time and win, or Spell Pierce, he taps for 3 of mana and lose. Titanshift needs 6-7 lands to combo you off, Scapeshift costs 4, so he will probably going to pay your Spell Pierce, but he won't be able to answer your hard Negate. Yes, you can cite me scenarios where Spell Pierce is a better card than Dispel and Negate combo, because of that this struggle still exists in Magic. What I'm trying to point out is that even if your deck gets worse as turns pass by, it doesn't mean you can't win in the mid-game or late-game. I'm sure you will be more happy to top deck an useful hard counter (that's why you know how to board it in, to hit a potential threat of your opponet), rather than a sometimes useful, sometimes useless soft counter (even in your opening hand, trust me).
Now that I brought all these points to newer pages, this is why I believe Unified Will is better than Thassa's Rebuff on this deck. Both needs creatures to counter obviously, and Thassa's Rebuff has the advantage that it uses Spreading Seas devotion, but the fact that even with a deployed board it could still fail, makes it a worse counter.
See, I'm a spike too. I play competitive commander, mainly. The difference is that my attitude towards new cards that I can use is of excitement and desire to experiment. I understand it might not work. That doesn't mean I will act as if I know it won't. Regarding the prove me wrong stuff, read my answer to driemer above.
As a not-at-all-serious comment, there is not such thing as Competitive Commander haha. Commander here it's kinda like what Mcgregor tried to do challenging Mayweather in boxing
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Mostly Modern Player RBridgevineB RGR/G EldraziX UBlue MoonR UU/W TronW
Countermagic: the way I see most games in modern, the early turns are the deciding factor of how the game is gonna go. Yes, topdecking a negate later is much better than topdecking a spell pierce later. However, I'm trying to play a tempo game versus my opponent, and being able to play a spell and have a counter up is incredibly valuable. If the game goes late and I draw a negate and my board is still decent, then I will be happy. If I'm going with my plan of rushing to damage my opponent early, he/she kills every creature and wipes my board, it won't matter. If I'm rushing the board an can manage to leave one mana up to protect my threats in a crucial tempo play, I may win the game.
To be honest, I think it is just more what you believe you should do against the control deck that influences your pick for a counterspell. If you believe you can pressure them without commiting too much to the board and play the card advantage game, then board in negate. If you play like me, more aggressive, spell pierce is a better option.
Regarding commander: there are actually four different types of competitive commander formats, two of which are more proeminent. I play one of those two, I play duel commander.
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Would you like to read Commander stories? Check my latest stories, coming from Lorwyn and Innistrad: Ghoulcaller Gisa and Doran, The Siege Tower! If you like my writing, ask me to write something for your commander as well!
First of all, I'm going to introduce myself for further comments/questions in this thread. I'm mostly modern player. I love control decks, but I love blue color more. That being said, Merfolks ain't my pet deck but I play it from time to time, so I know a few things about it. I hope we can generate discussion, as I love theorycrafting in this game
About the splash, I think rothgar and Dreimer stated some fair points, and I think it's the best feedback you can get in this thread. Like everything in life, if you wanna try to change something stablished, you gotta bring results to the skeptical people. Try the cards, test them and post your results. They are encouraging you to do so.
Dispel: What instant spells are you keen to counter from the control deck? Path? Bolt? Cryptic command to tap-bounce? That we can beat with sheer threat density. Not to mention we have vial to play around anger already. Bridge and Liliana are example of cards that pierce hits and dispel does not. There are a multitude of other cards (discard spells, planeswalkers in general, sorcery-based removal such as dreadbore, damnation, etc. etc. etc.). The argument here is pierce has more available targets and versatility than dispel, hence why I choose pierce.
Negate: your suggestion of measuring the pace of our threats against anger seems particularly bad. Of both decks, the one that has the advantage late game is always the control deck, we do not. Trying to sandbag cards can only be done effectively in particular situations, so I don't 'measure' my threats, I dump them and ask to the opponent 'do you have a way to deal with that? Else, you die'. Pierce is useful here because if you have it it is guaranteed extra-protection and security for a cheaper cost. Trying to brawl on the late game with control decks is not a desirable scenario. Not to mention many U/W/x control decks just play supreme verdict, which laughs at the face of the negate we're holding up at a higher tempo-cost.
What I can give you insight is from counter magic, as an experienced blue color user. What you are stating falls in the eternal struggle of hard vs soft counters. As a creature-based deck, you can't run situational answers in your SIDEBOARD, because what you are expecting is to bring a card that will solve you an specific problem at ANY moment of the game. Control decks can afford to run Mana Leak and Spell Pierce because their game plan allows them to choose how to interact most of the time. Yes we would dream to have Stubborn Denial like Grixis Death's Shadow, because is a cheap hard counter almost all the time, but we don't have it.
I do understand your straight-foward gameplan, with all its trade offs, but even with that your gameplan can't run situational answers. Turn 5 isn't that late game, but you can Negate in response of a cascading Living End and probably win, or Spell Pierce, fail and lose the game. You can Dispel a top-deck Lava Spike when you are at 3 life, buy some time and win, or Spell Pierce, he taps for 3 of mana and lose. Titanshift needs 6-7 lands to combo you off, Scapeshift costs 4, so he will probably going to pay your Spell Pierce, but he won't be able to answer your hard Negate. Yes, you can cite me scenarios where Spell Pierce is a better card than Dispel and Negate combo, because of that this struggle still exists in Magic. What I'm trying to point out is that even if your deck gets worse as turns pass by, it doesn't mean you can't win in the mid-game or late-game. I'm sure you will be more happy to top deck an useful hard counter (that's why you know how to board it in, to hit a potential threat of your opponet), rather than a sometimes useful, sometimes useless soft counter (even in your opening hand, trust me).
Now that I brought all these points to newer pages, this is why I believe Unified Will is better than Thassa's Rebuff on this deck. Both needs creatures to counter obviously, and Thassa's Rebuff has the advantage that it uses Spreading Seas devotion, but the fact that even with a deployed board it could still fail, makes it a worse counter.
See, I'm a spike too. I play competitive commander, mainly. The difference is that my attitude towards new cards that I can use is of excitement and desire to experiment. I understand it might not work. That doesn't mean I will act as if I know it won't. Regarding the prove me wrong stuff, read my answer to driemer above.
As a not-at-all-serious comment, there is not such thing as Competitive Commander haha. Commander here it's kinda like what Mcgregor tried to do challenging Mayweather in boxing
One of the things I've been forced to conclude is that we don't have a single counterspell that works for all possible purposes, and those that come closest are at 2 mana. I don't see myself devoting 8 cards to addressing these decks. Lately, I've been drifting back to the idea of playing Swan Song instead: it may not answer Ugin and Primeval Titan, but it does address many of the other spells we might find threatening (Scapeshift, Living End, Wrath of God, and so on). It's not simply that it's cheaper, but that it addresses a swath of possibilities almost as broad as Negate while being less likely to interrupt our offense, which is our primary way to win anyway (ie: end the game fast enough to not face the things we can't handle).
As for Commander: I got into it a bit, but I've lately hit the realization that it is actually a terrible excuse for people to play big Vintage decks. If I wanted to play vintage, I'd just play vintage.
Dispel against Cryptic is a nice trade up in mana and I didn't argue for Dispel against Lantern or Liliana. I said run both Negate and Dispel for different purposes. I argued for Dispel against Coco decks to hit Coco and Chord which is a much better answer than your suggestion of Spell Pierce. Negate is going to be good against lantern, Eldrazi tron, Valakut and so on. I would argue against any counters at all against Liliana decks.
Measuring threats against sweepers is a bad suggestion? You think you're going to get a turn 3 or turn 4 kill before they can deploy anger or supreme verdict? That doesn't make sense at all. You beat control by putting a few threats down and chipping away at damage forcing them to use verdict or anger while you still have threats to deploy in hand. Obviously Verdict has no place in an argument about what counter to use, but if you are playing against anger there is no way I'm unloading my hand only to get swept up. You aren't going to beat 20 life in a race against anger of the gods. You deploy a threat or two, chip away and show them that they have to deal with your board. This allows both sides to make land drops which will make Spell Pierce worthless and the extra mana that negate costs negligible.
Casting your blue spells is exactly why skewing your mana base is an issue. What good is any interaction at all going to be if your land base is Cavern, Unclaimed, and a Mutavault. And branchwalker is only a cantrip for land which is not an answer to anything, or it scrys 1. It's card parity at best, not card advantage.
If you think Vial is more powerful than Coco you're mistaken. Vial is great on turn one and diminishes every turn after. Coco is a card I'd be happy to see at any point in the game. Why do you think GW versions of hatebears in modern don't run Vial? If you're splashing green Coco is the more powerful choice.
The dies to doom blade argument isn't valid against Master. They can simply push a Branchwalker if that's what you're replacing MoW with and the only thing Bushwalker got you is a land in hand or an unwanted card out of the way. Master of waves is much more difficult to deal with than Branchwalker if that's the argument you're going with. At least MoW forces them to have a snap and a fetch to trigger revolt if that's the line their taking. And if they can't deal master, a push on the token still leaves a 2/1 behind rather than nothing like Branchwalker would.
No one is disregarding these cards. You came here with an opinion and some of us have a different opinion. Test them out and prove us otherwise just like any other science experiment. I specifically said that the card deserve testing, but they are really going to have to wow me to earn a spot in the deck. I just don't see the green splash adding anything to the deck that does something better than we already do now.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
Dismember is bad against burn and dead or virtually dead against living end, dredge, tron, ad nauseam, scapeshift decks, etc. Measuring threats against sweepers is bad because you're not playing against just sweepers. Slowing your clock down gives the opponent more time to find answers, and the late game advantage is theirs. We only measure threats if we can afford it, overall I don't think trying to do that is good advice. That is why spell pierce is good, you're trying to close the game quicker and pierce is insurance against early sweepers when you draw it. You didn't address my full response where I said that if the mana base is such a problem for the sideboard plan we can tinker with it and see how it goes. Right now, I assume you agree it is rock solid for game 1 and that maybe it will be a problem for the sideboard, only maybe. I'm not comparing CoCo and vial in this sense, they are very different cards. I think Vial is better for the aggro-tempo gameplay I'm trying to perform here, and it doesn't make sense if I say that I want to cut master because of CMC considerations and then I add CoCo. It is certainly possible that a list where you play CoCo with the Ixalan merfolk is better than my list, sure, but right now I wanna go without it. I also think that suggestions given here regarding the use of kiora's follower and hierarch might be worth looking into if you're playing CoCo, but once again, that's not what my list is doing. It is not a simple 'dies to doomblade' argument. If opponent kills master with anything fewer than 4 lands they are at tempo-advantge, if they do so with snapcaster even worse because it is a clear 2-for-1. If they kill branchwalker it is much better because, worst case scenario for us, they spent a one mana spell, a small tempo advantage, and we got at least card selection for the deal. If we draw a land we're at an actual advantage, so I don't see how your comparison holds.
No one is disregarding the cards? Someone here said that they wouldn't play the cards even if they were blue and that 'just because wizards printed new cards doesn't mean we should play it'. Rogarth categorically stated that the splash is not good and that I will lose more games because of it despite never ever having played with the cards. I understand people might discard blatantly bad ideas, but some people here are acting as if I suggested to slot prime speaker zegana in the deck. That type of reaction is extremly frustrating, and I can see it being discouraging for newer players that want to come here and give suggestions. That is just my opinion.You are correct, we are softer to blood moon. We will see how problematic that is. As I said, there is room for change and maybe improvement in the mana base.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
I guess we just play differently against control. I usually play assuming they always have the turn 3 anger or turn 4 Verdict so I don't empty my hand and get blown out. I know the game is going to go long because those types of decks are equipped to take it there. If you keep your threats coming, you force them to have it. It is perfectly reasonable to apply a certain amount of pressure to force them to spend their cards and still have the ability to keep pressure coming. It's not an all or nothing game. It's why Mutavault is such a key card in these match ups. It allows you to apply pressure without committing to the board.
I don't see how your comparison holds with Branchwalker and Master of Waves. Ideally in the late game, if you've been pacing your threats, one of them is going to stick. I'd rather have two 2/1s than a single Branchwalker. And that's worst cast scenario, assuming you have no spreading seas in play and no other merfolk on the board. The way I see you describing it is Branchwalker is more powerful than MoW and thats wrong.
Fine. Rothgar is disregarding the cards, but this conversation is between us. You can argue with him on his opinion, but I've said multiple times now, go ahead and test them. Prove us wrong. I'd love to be proven wrong, but these cards are nothing exciting to me. Why is it frustrating though? Are we all supposed to agree with you and love the idea of a splash? Many of us have tried splashing multiple colors and most of us have agreed it's not that great. Green isn't offering anything to me that really excites me and I'm telling you why. If your testing puts up consistent results on Mtgo or SCG or a GP or a pro tour, I'd be happy to say you were right and I was wrong. What I'm saying now to any new players who may be discouraged by my talk is, try out the green splash, play with the new Ixalan cards and let us know of your success stories. Follow Ashiok's starting point for a green splash shell if you think you'll find success, but if you find your self failing, don't be discouraged and look at the reasons why you may be failing. I'm posting some of the reasons why I think the green splash might fail.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
Gonna level with you, bud - I truly, honestly do not care if you got miffed by my dismissiveness. My goal for this thread is to make sure that people make informed decisions about their Merfolk decks, and that they play the best possible version of the deck. I have ample reason to believe that the splashes are sub-optimal, and I have explained why. I had reason to believe your deck had construction flaws, and I explained why. Doing so is not only for your benefit, but for the benefit of newer players that might not be able to tell the difference between an experimental, untested list, and the tried-and-true variant that has taken down Grand Prix and generally been one of Modern's more successful decks. Don't like that? Prove me wrong. You always have that option. Results will always change my mind (as they did on Clique, Copter, Rejection, and countless other cards). Right now, your deck is better than it was when you first posted it, and that's what I care about.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
According to mtgtop8 in the last 2 months: UW control has 6% of the metagame (dismember is bad against it), Valakut decks have 8%, dredge,urzatron,adnauseam and lantern combined share 9% of the metagame. So, I don't think they are as rare as you said. I disagree about not having 100% mainboard cards that are useful game 1. In the current configuration of my last decklist, all our spells are useful. The possible worst ones in terms of being dead is spreading seas, that at least cantrips, and harbinger, that at least attacks for damage. What you're saying is the opportunity cost of playing dismember mainboard is worth the moments where it will be a dead card on your hand. I disagree because I think dismember is only stellar against creature-combo decks. Against Shadow we have plenty of mainboard tricks, and dismember is a target for their stubborn denials (which they are much more likely to find than we are likely to find the dismember), and we have equally good tools to face eldrazi tron, not to mention a sideboard that is incidentally tailored for the matchup.
I understand your strategy against control, I just think you can't always do that. If you have enough cantrip merfolks (branchwalker increases your chances of having one, btw) and enough pressure on board, then sure. Sometimes you have 2 creatures on board and adding a third will not increase the clock by a turn. Sure, you can then think 'well, I shouldn't overextend', and that might be correct, you keep that creature in your hand. Other possibility is that the opponent uses a removal spell in one of the two and your clock goes up because you didn't play the creature that would keep it the same. The consequence is opponent draws more cards, finds more answers, etc. What is the usual recomendation in this thread? I'm asking because I'm curious. Do people try to play the late game with control, aggro them out, or it depends?
Branchwalker is there to add redundancy and speed to our deck, not to be compared with master of waves. I agree with you 100% that master is the best late game threat, my issue is how often having him in your hand will not just cost you a good early game and, therefore, the game. If you have branchwalker on your opening you can cast it, apply pressure with it, having it be remove, sure. If you have master you're waiting for the 4th land, not pressuring the opponent and, once such land arrives, if master is killed it did nothing. Just died. Branchwalker at least net you something. Master is a greater payoff spell if it lives, branchwalker has a smaller payoff, but it is much more guaranteed to be good and do something most games (due to difference in mana cost and etb trigger).
Sure, I can try to 'prove people wrong'. That is not my objective here though. I don't mind being met with criticism and suggestions to improve, but I don't agree with the 'prove me wrong attitude', because you are already starting from a stance of discrediting the strategy, as if you know better, only that you're admitting you're willing to change your mind in face of evidence. I'm not talking about you in particular, but about the general impression this attitude passes. Question my choices, ask why I changed this or that, offer advice, sure, no problem, I just don't like the frankly arrogant attitude of acting as if you know how things will turn out when nobody actually does, because the cards are new. Even if you wanted to have an educated opinion and compare with other green splashes you just can't do that, because no green merfolk did what these two do, and people who splashed green in merfolk did so for different reasons. There never was a one-drop aggressive merfolk like speaker, and a value merfolk like branchwalker that we could play alongside silvergill. So why do people assume they know how things will turn out? Beats me.You can achieve the goal of your thread without acting as if you know better than other people. I understand, you played a lot with the deck, you have thousands of matches, experience, etc. I accepted some of your suggestions like having harbinger, less lands and more green sources based on such experience, but you could have provided the exact same advice without the skeptical and arrogant attitude, where you staunchly predict that my deck will be worse because of the green cards. What's more: you say you made the deck better, but in truth you, just like me, have no way to know that. Maybe it was better in the first configuration. We never played with the cards, tested the lists, compared the results. My untested list that is different from the tried and true variant is using cards that never existed before. Never. Therefore, it doesn't matter how long the classic variant has been around, that doesn't mean the new list with the green splash will not just be better. Before master of waves came to exist and turn into a staple of merfolk decks there was a tried and true list that was not using it.
See, I'm a spike too. I play competitive commander, mainly. The difference is that my attitude towards new cards that I can use is of excitement and desire to experiment. I understand it might not work. That doesn't mean I will act as if I know it won't. Regarding the prove me wrong stuff, read my answer to driemer above.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
Mate - the white splash is better then this hodgepodge of laughable cards and UW merfolk is still woeful - not sure how you get off bashing rothgar for providing you with critique. Anyway dude - if you think your pile is so great go out and prove it and get some 5-0's on MTGO then we can talk..
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
I use to play UG merfolk for a long time like a posted here some months ago.
The only difference between my deck list for a MonoU is that I play with 3 Coco, 3 Vial, No MoW and 2 Cosis Tricters. I play with 4 fetchs and 2 breeding pool too (a play with anothers UG landa that you dont lose life too).
I remove the MoW from my dexk because the current meta dont use bolt any more and they replaced it for fatal push, the second reason is that he dont have sinergy with Coco.
Because of the green splah, I can use some cool things in mu SB like Heroic Untervention and Natural state.
In a burm matchup, I have a very good result (10-1) even with the fetchs, you just need to manege your choices.
Even I already played qith Green, I'm not exeting with the new green merfolks. The Cosi trickters is better than the new 1 deop green merfolk because he always be a 2/2 at the second turn, because your opponent will fecth at least 95% of the matchs, and he dont need any interation with another land/merfolk.
The other green merfolk that have "explores" dont ahow any reason that I want to try it, all the other 2 drops merfolk are better in my opniom but I will test him.
In conclusion, the green splash have better results tham the monoU version for me, its a kind different to play and I think that is the reason that thw monoU players have some bad results and didnt test it anymore.
I am not a american guy, so sorry about if i didnt write something very clear.
The stats you list add up to 23% and if you add in burn its 29%. So you won't run dismember main because its only good against 71% of the field? Those seem like pretty good odds to hedge your main deck in a certain direction.
It'll be impossible for me to explain every scenario against any deck, but I know there is a time to get aggressive against control and more often a time to hold back, and I think Merfolk as is is set up pretty well to do that. I think it's also set up better to play a longer game than your list. I'd take MoW late game over Branchwalker and I'd rather run some flex cards like Kira, Clique, or Copter than the vanilla 2/2.
As far as taking criticism, but not the prove me wrong kind? I don't think you are taking it well like you say. What if you ignore the "prove me wrong" portion? Then it just becomes regular criticism right? How about this... I don't think the green cards add anything of value to the deck that is better than what we already do. I'd rather play some flex cards over a 1 mana 2/2, and I like the threat that Master of Waves offers as well as the consistency of a mono blue mana base. This is my criticism of the green splash. Now the problem here is that the version of the deck I play puts up regular results. Obviously we can't play your version yet, but when the cards are released I'm sure plenty of people here are going to test them out, but since the critics have the weight of a successful deck behind them, it IS your job to prove us wrong.
*edit* I just want to make it clear that you don't mistake skepticism and criticism for people not trying the cards out. I feel like you think people are just going to throw the new cards in the dumpster with no testing. This community is pretty good about trying new cards. It's how we came in to copter, clique, and rejection in spite of Rothgar's initial skepticism of the cards.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
lol
he pretty much went t1 tron land, t2 tron land, t3 tron land + wurmcoil, then another then another... it looked bad until twin masters hit the table
U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
I guess that's how you improve an archetype."
Well that is exactly what it is - a mess of cards. Some ppl on here (usually ppl new to the deck and new to modern) don't understand what it costs the deck to splash and what you need to get back to make it worth it.
There is a long history of failed attempts of splashing different colours in the deck. Arguably the best splash is white splash as you get some strong sideboard cards. However, even that splash has never put up any results.
The green splash provides much worse options and indeed the U merfolk you are taking out for the green ones are far better to begin with. Thus you end up with a worse manabase and a worse spell suite. UG merfolk makes no sense - thus you get the reactions that you get from ppl experienced with the archetype.
If you feel you can innovate the deck with objectively worse cards - go ahead - but as others have stated the burden of proof is on you. If - and this has an infinitesimally small chance of happening - WOTC prints additional highly powerful cards on the level of TNN - then maybe you have something but right now there is nothing in the new set that improves the merfolk archetype in non-rotating formats.
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
- Merfolk gets their own Reclamation Sage.
- Master of Waves somehow becomes really bad.
CoCo I think will do very well with the right fish deck, but again we need some really good G fish that helps with the tempo without it being something that happens to come in with an additional power since we are capable of swinging for 15+ out of nowhere already.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
titan shift runs 8 creatures.
death's shadow runs 16 creatures.
gifts storm runs 7 creatures.
Eldrazi tron runs 20 creatures.
Burn runs around 13 creatures.
Abzan runs 13 creatures.
We run almost 30 creatures.
Problem running a very heavy creature deck is that you are going against a meta that is VERY efficient in removal, hand disruption, graveyard usage and as such, it doesn't need a lot of creatures to win. To combat this, we need to 1)go very fast, 2) have a way to protect our creatures and 3) have some hi jinks with enter the battlefield, such as harbinger, etc.
Ask yourself if splashing a color REALLY affects the deck and its ability to interact with the meta. Does it really give us better speed? Protection? What are we losing in the 40 non land cards by splashing? We would need some CRAZY creatures in other colors...and while Ixalan isn't spoiled yet...I'm doubting we're going to see it this expansion. I've been toying with phantasmal image again...yeah it's as flimsy as a syrafoam airplane, but it does help increase the clock, and let's face it, most removal will blow up anything on our board anyways, so I'm looking to keep vial on two and see how I can copy both lords, master of waves and beaters on the opponent's side.
—Radha, Keldon warlord
About the splash, I think rothgar and Dreimer stated some fair points, and I think it's the best feedback you can get in this thread. Like everything in life, if you wanna try to change something stablished, you gotta bring results to the skeptical people. Try the cards, test them and post your results. They are encouraging you to do so.
What I can give you insight is from counter magic, as an experienced blue color user. What you are stating falls in the eternal struggle of hard vs soft counters. As a creature-based deck, you can't run situational answers in your SIDEBOARD, because what you are expecting is to bring a card that will solve you an specific problem at ANY moment of the game. Control decks can afford to run Mana Leak and Spell Pierce because their game plan allows them to choose how to interact most of the time. Yes we would dream to have Stubborn Denial like Grixis Death's Shadow, because is a cheap hard counter almost all the time, but we don't have it.
I do understand your straight-foward gameplan, with all its trade offs, but even with that your gameplan can't run situational answers. Turn 5 isn't that late game, but you can Negate in response of a cascading Living End and probably win, or Spell Pierce, fail and lose the game. You can Dispel a top-deck Lava Spike when you are at 3 life, buy some time and win, or Spell Pierce, he taps for 3 of mana and lose. Titanshift needs 6-7 lands to combo you off, Scapeshift costs 4, so he will probably going to pay your Spell Pierce, but he won't be able to answer your hard Negate. Yes, you can cite me scenarios where Spell Pierce is a better card than Dispel and Negate combo, because of that this struggle still exists in Magic. What I'm trying to point out is that even if your deck gets worse as turns pass by, it doesn't mean you can't win in the mid-game or late-game. I'm sure you will be more happy to top deck an useful hard counter (that's why you know how to board it in, to hit a potential threat of your opponet), rather than a sometimes useful, sometimes useless soft counter (even in your opening hand, trust me).
Now that I brought all these points to newer pages, this is why I believe Unified Will is better than Thassa's Rebuff on this deck. Both needs creatures to counter obviously, and Thassa's Rebuff has the advantage that it uses Spreading Seas devotion, but the fact that even with a deployed board it could still fail, makes it a worse counter.
As a not-at-all-serious comment, there is not such thing as Competitive Commander haha. Commander here it's kinda like what Mcgregor tried to do challenging Mayweather in boxing
RBridgevineB
RGR/G EldraziX
UBlue MoonR
UU/W TronW
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Countermagic: the way I see most games in modern, the early turns are the deciding factor of how the game is gonna go. Yes, topdecking a negate later is much better than topdecking a spell pierce later. However, I'm trying to play a tempo game versus my opponent, and being able to play a spell and have a counter up is incredibly valuable. If the game goes late and I draw a negate and my board is still decent, then I will be happy. If I'm going with my plan of rushing to damage my opponent early, he/she kills every creature and wipes my board, it won't matter. If I'm rushing the board an can manage to leave one mana up to protect my threats in a crucial tempo play, I may win the game.
To be honest, I think it is just more what you believe you should do against the control deck that influences your pick for a counterspell. If you believe you can pressure them without commiting too much to the board and play the card advantage game, then board in negate. If you play like me, more aggressive, spell pierce is a better option.
Regarding commander: there are actually four different types of competitive commander formats, two of which are more proeminent. I play one of those two, I play duel commander.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
One of the things I've been forced to conclude is that we don't have a single counterspell that works for all possible purposes, and those that come closest are at 2 mana. I don't see myself devoting 8 cards to addressing these decks. Lately, I've been drifting back to the idea of playing Swan Song instead: it may not answer Ugin and Primeval Titan, but it does address many of the other spells we might find threatening (Scapeshift, Living End, Wrath of God, and so on). It's not simply that it's cheaper, but that it addresses a swath of possibilities almost as broad as Negate while being less likely to interrupt our offense, which is our primary way to win anyway (ie: end the game fast enough to not face the things we can't handle).
As for Commander: I got into it a bit, but I've lately hit the realization that it is actually a terrible excuse for people to play big Vintage decks. If I wanted to play vintage, I'd just play vintage.
Modern: Merfolk UU // Green Devotion GG // SkRed Red RR
Legacy: Death & Taxes WW // Burn RR // Death's Shadow Delver UB
Commander: Brago UW // Karlov WB