MTG Salvation

I'm being preemptive I know but I got some ideas of some decks I've seen floating around. This will be rusty but it's for the sake of ideation.

I'm thinking of a short end curve that can leave us room for protection turns 3 and 4 with a turn 5 win? I bet Kumena might show her face with what we haven't seen yet.

3 Shaper's Sanctuary
3 Opt
3 Blossoming Defense
3 Spell Snare
4 kumena's Omenspeaker
3 metallic mimic
4 deep root shaman
3 Kopala, Warden of the Waves
3 Shapers of Nature
4 Herald of Secret Streams
4 Verdurous Gearhulk

2 Botanical Sanctum
10 forest
11 island

Sideboard

3 sorcerous spyglass
3 deep root waters
3 disallow

Still a bit sticky but its meant to aggro down the enemy with an unblockable army fed counters by the gearhulk god they follow or the metallic mimic that feeds them. You could also just punch with Deeproot Shaman. Make it hard to hate with Kopala and spell Snare and blossoming defense are very good protection early game.

This is a rough idea I know we still have some cards yet to see.
Per Standard Forum Rules and Regulations, until the full spoiler is released, "Discussion of spoiled cards must be confined to the Standard New Card Discussion subforum." Moving - hoser2

The Deck is shaping up, I'm just worried we need more playable merfolk. I'm REAL close to stuffing in Jace's Sentinel.

What do you think about several copies of Deeproot Waters in this deck?

I'm thinking a midrange deck that uses +1/+1 counters to push through.



Ridgescale Tusker is also a budget option to the gearhulk

I think a GBu build of winding constrictor will be what merfolk will drift towards. The energy cards like long tusk cub, attune with the aether, and aether hub are all really good for this style of build. Mimic drops out because of the creature type variety.

The unblockable guy can help force through giant cubs or gearhulks. walking ballista is going to give red and pirates an issue putting you on the ack foot if they don't keep the battlefield clean.

I think explore is going to be potent here and merfolk have some explore stuff.

river sneak is practically begging for rishkar/gearhulk to load her up on tokens.

nissa, steward of elements can continue to smooth out the draws. Black also gives you access to removal, duress, etc to keep your board up.

Merfolk by itself it going to be weaker to red because of the seeepers like sweltering suns or hour of devestation I think. Black shores that up very well.

Thinking something like:



Sideboard will be something like
2 fatal push or harsh scrutiny - for creature decks like temur
2 bone picker or duress - deal with vehicles
4 scarab feast - any GY deck
1 bontu's last reckoning - vs wide strats
2 blossoming defense - vs control
1 aethersphere harvester - vs red
2 vraska's contempt - vs red and midrange
1 flex spot - probably lifegain or control card for week 1 to deal with aggro

Rough sketch but the sneak is the synergy. Ballista gives me reach. Gearhulk and the two four drop merfolk give me a way to push damage through. Plenty of mana fixing and ramp via rishkar and attune. Could probably use a 3rd lifegain card in the main.

Basic Tribal list going the +1/+1 counter route.

Also I think this is a better mana base for U/G these other lists run too many basics. Woodland Stream isn't that bad, standard mana fixing in lands is going to be slow.

Gerry Thompson posted a Merfolk ramp deck with Different mana sinks and Growing Rites of itlimoc. It looks pretty spicy.

I like gearhulk as one of the flex cards over Snek. Snek forces out black splash to be a lot bigger and the gearhulk is just in our colors and an atl win con on its own.

Rishkar, Peema Renegade can turn Merfolk into mana sources

Does anyone else think Ornamental Courage might be a good trick to have? Between Herald of Secret Streams and River Sneak we'll be attacking with impunity.. so why not this card that'll give you a surprise blocker with a big butt for G

So here's a question. Why are we making the Merfolk deck UG?

There are really only 2 cards I would want blue for in a Merfolk list:
Herald of Secret Streams
Kopala, Warden of Waves

Outside of those 2 creatures, I see most of the Merfolk creatures as pretty trash. Most of the power behind the Merfolk tribal list is going to be in green. This is because the Merfolk are focused on being +1/+1 counter focused, and +1/+1 counters are primarily in green's section of the colour pie.

Wait a minute, +1/+1 counters? There are two other creatures in Standard that care about +1/+1 counters. Let's see what we can do with this....



I just put this list together super quick and it is probably terrible, but I figured I'd throw it out there to see if anyone were interested and wanted to improve on it.