Wondering if I should cut Smugglers Copter from my list. Its so good to me everytime, but lots of sucesful lists arent using them
A lot of successful lists DO run them. I had them printed on my decklist but swapped them out for Dismembers at the last minute because there was a bunch of Company decks and Kiki-Chord decks in the room.
Question: When Ixalan comes out, are you guys going to try any copy of Kopala in main deck ?
i am going to be trying Kopala for sure. I have a feeling she is going to make Phantasmal Image playable again. Image is such a nonbo with Kira but synergizes great with our new Legend.
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Wondering if I should cut Smugglers Copter from my list. Its so good to me everytime, but lots of sucesful lists arent using them
A lot of successful lists DO run them. I had them printed on my decklist but swapped them out for Dismembers at the last minute because there was a bunch of Company decks and Kiki-Chord decks in the room.
Question: When Ixalan comes out, are you guys going to try any copy of Kopala in main deck ?
i am going to be trying Kopala for sure. I have a feeling she is going to make Phantasmal Image playable again. Image is such a nonbo with Kira but synergizes great with our new Legend.
Agree, but a list with Phimage and Kopala cant handle Copters...I`ll miss them
If you're going to splash, that's how it ought to be done: replacing the marginal spells like Smuggler's Copter and Void Snag with Path to Exile, while still supporting most of the same core. I might have changed the land ratio slightly: while the mana base minimizes the possibility of having to bolt yourself, more fetches might help to support it in the face of Blood Moons.
I do find it interesting that he plays 3 Master of Wavesand 4 Merrow Reejerey like I do; I had thought that most people were ambivalent about the latter and felt the former was too good to not run a full set of, even at cmc=4.
phantasmal image can work with kira and kopala, because when it copes it doesn't target the creature it copies! (this means you can even copy a creature with shroud)
The same is true for smuggler's copter, the crew ability does not target.
In fact, i've always been a huge proponent of phantasmal image, even when there's no protection. Kill spells would kill any creature we own anyway, and phantasmal image can act as redundant copies of situational effects (like harbinger of the tides, which is good in some matchups and useless in others, i prefer to run only 3 copes of him and eventually one image), redundant copies of a lord, silvergill adept or of a master of waves, depending on the matchup!
BTW if you Echoing truth your own silvergill adepts, also the phantasmal image copying silvergill adept will bounce back to your hand. This can be useful when you run out of gas.
EDIT: by the way, here's a UW list that ended up 29th at Louisville's SCG open. this is how i think the white splash should be: 3 master of waves (because of seachrome coast), path in the main and then all the other spell are sideboard options. I'm not really sure Stony silence is enough against affinity, but if paired up with fragmentize and hurkyl's recall it might work, even if it shuts down vial. Maybe Kataki, war's wage could be better?
I like the list because it shows that the right way to splash a color (in my opinion) is the one that doesn't overturn the key elements of the deck, but only adds just enough to slightly shift some balances.
P.S. Obviously what's reported as harbinger of the hunt has to be harbinger of the tides! =)
That's not what i was talking about with Kira/Kopala and Phantasmal Image. I was referring to the fact that phantasmal image isnt protected by Kira but is protected by Kopala.
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My first impressions: I'm having slightly more problems of mulligan due to mana screw than flood, so I do think 20 lands is too little for the deck. Harbinger has been very hit or miss on game1. Sometimes it is a completely dead card, sometimes it is okay. It is rare that it is actually GOOD. When that happens usually I have a merrow reejerey on board. Speaking of Reejerey, he has felt a tad bit clunky, but it is the best 3-drop lord and I can't see mysefl cutting it ever. The rest of the deck configuration feels pretty good for game 1. I will test a list with 2 more lands and no harbingers, freeing 2 flex slots, which I think I will fill either with some sort of protection (like Kopala or Kira), or with some sort of removal(like dismember).
The sideboard has been tricky. The issue is that the meta on Cockatrice seems to have a preference for combo decks and control decks, with few creature decks. I also haven't faced burn or eldrazi tron. All that said, the best cards in the sideboard have been relic of progenitus, neutering dredge, storm, and even control decks with snapcaster and echoing truth, due to its flexibility. There were some B/W Gideon ~ Liliana style decks popping up, and this matchup feels very hard. Some incorporate red and young pyromancer, and their list is usually monoremoval.dec with planeswalkers to do the cleanup. That's when I felt the need for a better answer to the walkers and added pithing needle to the sideboard. It has been good. It works well against affinity and some combo decks.
What has felt bad: Kopala. Honestly, I wish the card was better, but everytime I had it I thought Kira would have done a better job. Ceremonius rejection has also been pretty bad, to be honest. It is eating up two sideboard slots and the only matchup I genuinely feel I want it is eldrazi tron or just tron. We usually don't have it in time for affinity or lantern. I've been think in cutting it altogether. Hurkyll's recall I've sideboarded a number of times but never draw it lol, so can't speak for its effectiveness yet, but I remember it used to be good.
The absence of red-based removal and creature decks in the cockatrice meta has made me not miss master of waves at all. Master is good when you need to go over the top in a board stall or present a difficult-to-answer threat. However, most of the removal my merfolk have been eating is either path or push, and I see almost no creature decks. The only matchups I actually missed a master were jund (that I actually won without the master) and mardu pyromancer (that was a bloodbath, I never had a chance). If this trend continues I might cut the kopalas and the ceremonius rejections from the side to put FOUR Kiras, but maybe that's a bit extreme.
Another thing I was wanting to incorporate mainboard is some way to turn lands into islands besides spreading seas. The islandwalk has been crucial in many matchups to break boardstalls. Unfortunately it is very annoying that there aren't that many good options, you have to play stuff like tideshaper mystic. Blergh. Alternatively, I was also thinking about going 4 chalice of the void maindeck in the place of the 4 harbingers. My goal in doing that is to stop 99% of the removal that have been hitting my creatures.
I really liked kumena's speaker and branchwalker in the deck, they make the deck feel stronger and also smoother. Branchwalker in particular has been pretty darn powerful. I also played a mirror match against an opponent using noble hierarchs and, presumably, CoCos, and I beat him 2x0, managing to tempo him out. The game felt as if the nobles really hindered his gameplan, so I'm glad I didn't went that route.
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If you need more islandwalk, try out Sea's Claim. That card works well against Tron variants, Valakut decks, and non blue 3 color decks. It's also pretty good against burn. Though when I ran it it was more for the ability to take opponents off colors rather than punch through damage.
Yes. Forget tideshaper mystic. Sea's Claim is the best option to add more spreading seas effects. I often run 3 in the side. People have been known to run 4 spreading seas and 4 seas claim in the main as well. It can wreck face in the right meta. I've done it when there is a lot of tron and burn around.
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Sea's Claim was the reason I won against Boggles yesterday. That deck is so unfair with stupid "can't touch this" thing (to be fair we do the same to "blocking") that I had to stop him from playing anything other than turn 1 dude.
@white splash and Path conversation, I would never run playset of Paths in the main, no matter how perfect my white splash is.
I hate giving my opponent lands and consider it huge detriment to our plan.
All it proves is that the core of our deck is great no matter what we do with our flex slots. When your matchups line up with your list you have a great chance to do well if you know what you're doing. I personally think your odds of having things line up go down as the number of colors you play goes up.
won't keep me from playing around with green a little bit when the new set comes out but i don't expect it to outperform monoU
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I wouldn't run PTE either. I think IF we splash for white (and that's a big if), I would only do it for the SB cards like RIP or Stony Silence. However we have good enough blue or colorless options and I don't feel like a splash is worth it.
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So, let's start by talking abou the oddball card: riptide pilferer. The meta on Cockatrice is so full of combo and control decks that I wanted a proactive way to attack their gameplan. This card was the best I could find. I wish I could say it was amazing, but in fact it was okay. It can't carry the game on his back, you need to give it some level of support. For instance, against storm, if you have a pilferer and a relic, you're probably locked to win the match. Still, I advise everyone that is facing a heavier control meta to slot in the pilferers. I wouldn't advise to do so in heavy creature metas.
Alright, past that. You will notice I also cut all 3 drops spells, including merrow reejerey. I feel like this made the deck better. It runs smoother now, applying pressure with multiple two-drop cards, and the fact that we're playing 12 one-drops now makes our third land drop not as awkward, because we can often play two spells instead of just one.
The goal of this deck is to kill the opponent with unblockable creatures, and the sea's claim are there to supplement the islandwalk effect, mostly (instead of disrupting the mana base). There are a surprinsing number of utility lands in modern, so it is not a completely dead card, but I still wanted something better. I would say the two phantasmal images are sort of flex slots that I've been testing. You obviously can consider the riptide pilferers a flex slot too, but I would recommend changing it for some 2CMC card or lower. Maybe Copter, see how that goes.
My biggest takeaways with this current list:
- It is entirely cold to ensnaring bridge decks game 1. I don't think the blue list fares much better here, but the red prison style decks and lantern control are horrendous matchups. You're just stone cold dead to bridge on game 1, and even with hurkyl's recall and echoing truth coming from the sideboard, you can't feel good about your chances.
- Counterspells are bad. Every counterspell I tested, from pierce to negate to rejection felt awful. They need to be drawn in a specific moment of the game to be relevant most of the time, and they usually aren't. When they are, they're hardly a blowout. I decided to move away from counterspells and into permanents that answer the board, like relic of progenitus and needle. They've been excellent. I can't stress how good those cards have been. The other option is bounce effects, which are okay. Sometimes they're bad, sometimes they're good, but they're the only way we have to deal with all sorts of problematic permanents. Kopala is better on this faster list than in the slower one, and I bring it against heavier removal decks, obviously. Fog is a small concession that I made to race other creature decks. It has won me a game, but I haven't seen many creature decks to truly speak for its effectiveness.
- Kumena's speaker felt as good as merfolk branchwalker, if not better. That might be for two reasons: 1) the meta I was playing against wasn't a heavy creature meta, and having the crucial early pressure on turn 1, where I usually have few options anyway, felt good, 2) branchwalker is having rough competition as a drop 2. It is still an excellent card and I have really liked its performance, but you usually play a silvergill adept or a lord before playing it.
- Vial has never been as good as it is in this deck. From all the merfolk lists I tinkered, vial set on 2 in this deck means you can play almost anything. If you have two lands and a vial on 2 the tempo advantage is usually enough to take you over the top.
- The mana has not been awkward, most of the time. There is still the odd game in which you have an island, a mutavault and green cards in hand, but it isn't nearly as problematic as I thought it might be.
- Mulligan might be a bad idea. I've had one land hands that I mulligan into oblivion due to the land count of the deck. Might be just anedoctal evidence, but I would be willing to try a hand with only one land and at least a single one drop. If the one drop is vial, it is a snap keep.
- Mainboard interaction is overrated. I ended up cutting the harbingers from my list, because they weren't pulling their weight (and adding pilferer instead, which is interatcion in another axis). Of course, maybe in a heavier creature meta, harbinger is better. However, the decks that we are usually not favored game 1 - like affinity, dredge, tron - would simply laugh at any interaction we present game 1. Even affinity, technically an aggro deck, shrugged at most of my harbingers, that were at best just buying me a turn or two. It is better to just focus on being as threat dense as possible and bring the cards that actually do something on the sideboard games. That means we usually have to suck it up to the bad matchups on game 1.
I think those are my most valuable takeaways. Comparing this list to the regular merfolk list, which one do I think is better? To be honest, I would say it depends. I think the monoblue list is better in a meta that is more 'fair': midrange decks butting against each other. Then master of waves can go over the top and harbinger can actually do something. However, if your opponent is on storm, dredge, some crazy reanimator build, you have a better shot game 1 by having a greater density of cheaper threats. Of course you're still not favored. Against all sorts of control though, I feel like this list is better. Branchwalker adds resilience to the deck and speaker adds pressure. The deck is notas clunky as the monoblue version and can run more effectively. In short, I would probably stick to the monoblue version in a heavier creature, midrangey meta, and go for this UG pseudo blitz version in a heavier combo-control meta.
EDIT: forgot to say - I very briefly tested a version of the UG list with CoCo, slotting more lords like reejerey and merfolk sovereign, and also kiora's speaker for ramp. I cut the vials and the spreading seas from the deck. It felt AWFUL, but I didn't test it enough, to be fair. Maybe there is a better CoCo list out there. I also tested wistful selkie as a sideboard against control in an earlier version and the triple color requirement was rough on our mana base of 4 mutavaults. Wouldn't recommend it.
EDIT2: one more thing I suppose it is fair to add - if you fall behind with this list, you're done. There is no catching up to do. Of course, it may take some sequence of bad things happening for you to fall truly behind, but - as it can be seen from the list - this deck doesn't run a 'master of waves' type of card to steal a game where you had fallen behind. I've lost a game with this deck after putting my opponent to 1. I just drew too many lands and he caught up and passed me, in a way I couldn't recover. It is important to keep this in mind.
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To be honest, Riptide Pilferer doesn't seem like a bad card. It's a bit weak in terms of rate, but a disruptive effect like a discard on combat damage is interesting.
Been grinding leagues lately and my SB seems particularly stretched. I'm at 3x Rejection, 2x Stroke 2x Negate 3x Dispel 3x Relic and 1x Dismember (2 MB). Thinking about going to a 4th rejection or possible 3rd Negate or maybe a singleton flashfreeze but am unsure. THoughts?
Been grinding leagues lately and my SB seems particularly stretched. I'm at 3x Rejection, 2x Stroke 2x Negate 3x Dispel 3x Relic and 1x Dismember (2 MB). Thinking about going to a 4th rejection or possible 3rd Negate or maybe a singleton flashfreeze but am unsure. THoughts?
10 counterspells seems like a lot, why do you think you need another?
also, in general, i'm not a big fan of a split between negate/stroke/unified will. i think it's best to pick one and run 3 or 4
Stroke is there for valakut but I like it against tron and eldrazi too. Negate is sort of an online card in that it counters random crap I see all the time . You are right I have too many counterspells but idk how to leverage against things without them. I've liked gut shot in the past so maybe I could consider cutting negate for it and running 3. That kills me for the burn matchup though. Perhaps I could circumvent that by running snag instead of dismember MB. I'm higher on snag than a lot of people anyway. I've tried unified will a lot but I think that card is just awful for us especially with all the spot removal nowadays.
Stroke is there for valakut but I like it against tron and eldrazi too. Negate is sort of an online card in that it counters random crap I see all the time . You are right I have too many counterspells but idk how to leverage against things without them. I've liked gut shot in the past so maybe I could consider cutting negate for it and running 3. That kills me for the burn matchup though. Perhaps I could circumvent that by running snag instead of dismember MB. I'm higher on snag than a lot of people anyway. I've tried unified will a lot but I think that card is just awful for us especially with all the spot removal nowadays.
unified will is fantastic...
you don't bring it in vs decks full of spot removal
It's better against valakut and tron than stroke is. it counters, literally, every spell in their decks, including anger and o-stone. it also has game against control decks to counter a counter/snapcaster/revelation/planeswalker (including gideon of the trials). it's live against storm as well.
3 rejections should be enough counters for eldrazi (plus you have all those dismembers)
Negate is very sub-par vs burn anyway. 2 mana is too much, you want dispel there.
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A lot of successful lists DO run them. I had them printed on my decklist but swapped them out for Dismembers at the last minute because there was a bunch of Company decks and Kiki-Chord decks in the room.
i am going to be trying Kopala for sure. I have a feeling she is going to make Phantasmal Image playable again. Image is such a nonbo with Kira but synergizes great with our new Legend.
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
Agree, but a list with Phimage and Kopala cant handle Copters...I`ll miss them
I do find it interesting that he plays 3 Master of Wavesand 4 Merrow Reejerey like I do; I had thought that most people were ambivalent about the latter and felt the former was too good to not run a full set of, even at cmc=4.
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
That's not what i was talking about with Kira/Kopala and Phantasmal Image. I was referring to the fact that phantasmal image isnt protected by Kira but is protected by Kopala.
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
// 4 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
// 32 Creature
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Merfolk Branchwalker
4 Kumena's Speaker
4 Spreading Seas
// 20 Land
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
4 Island
4 Unclaimed Territory
4 Botanical Sanctum
// 7 Artifact
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pithing Needle
// 2 Creature
2 Kopala, Warden of Waves
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Echoing Truth
My first impressions: I'm having slightly more problems of mulligan due to mana screw than flood, so I do think 20 lands is too little for the deck. Harbinger has been very hit or miss on game1. Sometimes it is a completely dead card, sometimes it is okay. It is rare that it is actually GOOD. When that happens usually I have a merrow reejerey on board. Speaking of Reejerey, he has felt a tad bit clunky, but it is the best 3-drop lord and I can't see mysefl cutting it ever. The rest of the deck configuration feels pretty good for game 1. I will test a list with 2 more lands and no harbingers, freeing 2 flex slots, which I think I will fill either with some sort of protection (like Kopala or Kira), or with some sort of removal(like dismember).
The sideboard has been tricky. The issue is that the meta on Cockatrice seems to have a preference for combo decks and control decks, with few creature decks. I also haven't faced burn or eldrazi tron. All that said, the best cards in the sideboard have been relic of progenitus, neutering dredge, storm, and even control decks with snapcaster and echoing truth, due to its flexibility. There were some B/W Gideon ~ Liliana style decks popping up, and this matchup feels very hard. Some incorporate red and young pyromancer, and their list is usually monoremoval.dec with planeswalkers to do the cleanup. That's when I felt the need for a better answer to the walkers and added pithing needle to the sideboard. It has been good. It works well against affinity and some combo decks.
What has felt bad: Kopala. Honestly, I wish the card was better, but everytime I had it I thought Kira would have done a better job. Ceremonius rejection has also been pretty bad, to be honest. It is eating up two sideboard slots and the only matchup I genuinely feel I want it is eldrazi tron or just tron. We usually don't have it in time for affinity or lantern. I've been think in cutting it altogether. Hurkyll's recall I've sideboarded a number of times but never draw it lol, so can't speak for its effectiveness yet, but I remember it used to be good.
The absence of red-based removal and creature decks in the cockatrice meta has made me not miss master of waves at all. Master is good when you need to go over the top in a board stall or present a difficult-to-answer threat. However, most of the removal my merfolk have been eating is either path or push, and I see almost no creature decks. The only matchups I actually missed a master were jund (that I actually won without the master) and mardu pyromancer (that was a bloodbath, I never had a chance). If this trend continues I might cut the kopalas and the ceremonius rejections from the side to put FOUR Kiras, but maybe that's a bit extreme.
Another thing I was wanting to incorporate mainboard is some way to turn lands into islands besides spreading seas. The islandwalk has been crucial in many matchups to break boardstalls. Unfortunately it is very annoying that there aren't that many good options, you have to play stuff like tideshaper mystic. Blergh. Alternatively, I was also thinking about going 4 chalice of the void maindeck in the place of the 4 harbingers. My goal in doing that is to stop 99% of the removal that have been hitting my creatures.
I really liked kumena's speaker and branchwalker in the deck, they make the deck feel stronger and also smoother. Branchwalker in particular has been pretty darn powerful. I also played a mirror match against an opponent using noble hierarchs and, presumably, CoCos, and I beat him 2x0, managing to tempo him out. The game felt as if the nobles really hindered his gameplan, so I'm glad I didn't went that route.
That's all I have to say for now.
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BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
@white splash and Path conversation, I would never run playset of Paths in the main, no matter how perfect my white splash is.
I hate giving my opponent lands and consider it huge detriment to our plan.
Run what works for you and your meta, not copying other successful decks.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
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—Radha, Keldon warlord
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
won't keep me from playing around with green a little bit when the new set comes out but i don't expect it to outperform monoU
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
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In line of the suggestions of some people here, I added sea's claim to my first decklist and modified it a bit more. This is what I came up with:
// 4 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
// 30 Creature
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merfolk Branchwalker
4 Kumena's Speaker
4 Riptide Pilferer
2 Phantasmal Image
// 6 Enchantment
4 Spreading Seas
2 Sea's Claim
4 Mutavault
6 Island
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Breeding Pool
4 Cavern of Souls
// 6 Artifact
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pithing Needle
// 3 Creature
3 Kopala, Warden of Waves
// 6 Instant
2 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Fog
Alright, past that. You will notice I also cut all 3 drops spells, including merrow reejerey. I feel like this made the deck better. It runs smoother now, applying pressure with multiple two-drop cards, and the fact that we're playing 12 one-drops now makes our third land drop not as awkward, because we can often play two spells instead of just one.
The goal of this deck is to kill the opponent with unblockable creatures, and the sea's claim are there to supplement the islandwalk effect, mostly (instead of disrupting the mana base). There are a surprinsing number of utility lands in modern, so it is not a completely dead card, but I still wanted something better. I would say the two phantasmal images are sort of flex slots that I've been testing. You obviously can consider the riptide pilferers a flex slot too, but I would recommend changing it for some 2CMC card or lower. Maybe Copter, see how that goes.
My biggest takeaways with this current list:
- It is entirely cold to ensnaring bridge decks game 1. I don't think the blue list fares much better here, but the red prison style decks and lantern control are horrendous matchups. You're just stone cold dead to bridge on game 1, and even with hurkyl's recall and echoing truth coming from the sideboard, you can't feel good about your chances.
- Counterspells are bad. Every counterspell I tested, from pierce to negate to rejection felt awful. They need to be drawn in a specific moment of the game to be relevant most of the time, and they usually aren't. When they are, they're hardly a blowout. I decided to move away from counterspells and into permanents that answer the board, like relic of progenitus and needle. They've been excellent. I can't stress how good those cards have been. The other option is bounce effects, which are okay. Sometimes they're bad, sometimes they're good, but they're the only way we have to deal with all sorts of problematic permanents. Kopala is better on this faster list than in the slower one, and I bring it against heavier removal decks, obviously. Fog is a small concession that I made to race other creature decks. It has won me a game, but I haven't seen many creature decks to truly speak for its effectiveness.
- Kumena's speaker felt as good as merfolk branchwalker, if not better. That might be for two reasons: 1) the meta I was playing against wasn't a heavy creature meta, and having the crucial early pressure on turn 1, where I usually have few options anyway, felt good, 2) branchwalker is having rough competition as a drop 2. It is still an excellent card and I have really liked its performance, but you usually play a silvergill adept or a lord before playing it.
- Vial has never been as good as it is in this deck. From all the merfolk lists I tinkered, vial set on 2 in this deck means you can play almost anything. If you have two lands and a vial on 2 the tempo advantage is usually enough to take you over the top.
- The mana has not been awkward, most of the time. There is still the odd game in which you have an island, a mutavault and green cards in hand, but it isn't nearly as problematic as I thought it might be.
- Mulligan might be a bad idea. I've had one land hands that I mulligan into oblivion due to the land count of the deck. Might be just anedoctal evidence, but I would be willing to try a hand with only one land and at least a single one drop. If the one drop is vial, it is a snap keep.
- Mainboard interaction is overrated. I ended up cutting the harbingers from my list, because they weren't pulling their weight (and adding pilferer instead, which is interatcion in another axis). Of course, maybe in a heavier creature meta, harbinger is better. However, the decks that we are usually not favored game 1 - like affinity, dredge, tron - would simply laugh at any interaction we present game 1. Even affinity, technically an aggro deck, shrugged at most of my harbingers, that were at best just buying me a turn or two. It is better to just focus on being as threat dense as possible and bring the cards that actually do something on the sideboard games. That means we usually have to suck it up to the bad matchups on game 1.
I think those are my most valuable takeaways. Comparing this list to the regular merfolk list, which one do I think is better? To be honest, I would say it depends. I think the monoblue list is better in a meta that is more 'fair': midrange decks butting against each other. Then master of waves can go over the top and harbinger can actually do something. However, if your opponent is on storm, dredge, some crazy reanimator build, you have a better shot game 1 by having a greater density of cheaper threats. Of course you're still not favored. Against all sorts of control though, I feel like this list is better. Branchwalker adds resilience to the deck and speaker adds pressure. The deck is notas clunky as the monoblue version and can run more effectively. In short, I would probably stick to the monoblue version in a heavier creature, midrangey meta, and go for this UG pseudo blitz version in a heavier combo-control meta.
EDIT: forgot to say - I very briefly tested a version of the UG list with CoCo, slotting more lords like reejerey and merfolk sovereign, and also kiora's speaker for ramp. I cut the vials and the spreading seas from the deck. It felt AWFUL, but I didn't test it enough, to be fair. Maybe there is a better CoCo list out there. I also tested wistful selkie as a sideboard against control in an earlier version and the triple color requirement was rough on our mana base of 4 mutavaults. Wouldn't recommend it.
EDIT2: one more thing I suppose it is fair to add - if you fall behind with this list, you're done. There is no catching up to do. Of course, it may take some sequence of bad things happening for you to fall truly behind, but - as it can be seen from the list - this deck doesn't run a 'master of waves' type of card to steal a game where you had fallen behind. I've lost a game with this deck after putting my opponent to 1. I just drew too many lands and he caught up and passed me, in a way I couldn't recover. It is important to keep this in mind.
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).
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
10 counterspells seems like a lot, why do you think you need another?
also, in general, i'm not a big fan of a split between negate/stroke/unified will. i think it's best to pick one and run 3 or 4
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
unified will is fantastic...
you don't bring it in vs decks full of spot removal
It's better against valakut and tron than stroke is. it counters, literally, every spell in their decks, including anger and o-stone. it also has game against control decks to counter a counter/snapcaster/revelation/planeswalker (including gideon of the trials). it's live against storm as well.
3 rejections should be enough counters for eldrazi (plus you have all those dismembers)
Negate is very sub-par vs burn anyway. 2 mana is too much, you want dispel there.
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW