Of course is the new boogey man infect? Seriously. It is in Proven now. I am going to a PPTQ this weekend and am terrified to see it. Game 1 feels very hard. Game 2 at least I can sideboard. I am revamping my sideboard because I expect more infect now.
I am greatly concerned about infect. What is our gameplan? We lack enough removal to beat it and they kill very fast. With the Pro Tour results it is going to be on the rise for sure. I feel it needs lots of sideboard slots that we don't have.
Are you guys running three Kira main? I am, no regrets so far.
I am getting smarter vs. Junk. Instead of just trying to aggro out and jam a Lord on turn two I consider my hand and see if Kira is in there and play around removal with her, and play around Lily. Junk isn't very fast, if you have to wait a couple of turns to blank their cards that isn't so bad.
In a Junk meta I would be tempted to put an extra Kira and Mow in the sideboard. That is more brutal to them IMHO than Tidebinder Mage...
Blood moon is less a problem right now IMHO than affinity. If blood moon becomes a problem, I will reaccess, probably look at cutting caverns. That is if UW is the way to go, it is a very painful mana base.
Went 3-1 in a local tournament with Chalice Merfolk.
Round 1: UR Delver 2-0
Game 1 I won dice roll. He drops delver. Turn 2 I drop chalice. I negated his whole hand, I go onto win. Game 2 he starts, and always keeps an island open. I had chalice in my opening hand, and never play it. I instead drop 2 aether vials and just churn out lords. He never draws removal once - not once - and I overwhelm him with my uncounterable merfolk.
Round 2: Affinity 2-1
I actually won the game unfairly because I echoing truthed a manland of his in game 3 for the win, but I think I might have been able to win otherwise, I can't remember. Basically game 1 he dropped his hand along with a plating and wins handidly. Game 2 I am happy I brought 4 Hurkyl's Recall. I ended up dropping 2 chalices in this game. First one on 0, second on 2 (I had CoS to pump out my folk by this point) and I also recalled prior to dropping chalice for 2, basically stopping him from being able to play anything, and I won. Game 3 was tight but as I said it all came down to the final turn and I accidentally cheated, but I do think I could've won otherwise, he played ravager and ate all of his artifacts and put them on his manland to swing for the exact 7 he needed. I recalled in this game too, which bought me 2 turns. People say it is a T1 fog but if you play it right it stops them attacking for 2 turns.
Round 3: Infect 0-2
Brutal. In game 1 I managed to chalice for 1 and it just wasn't enough due to flying infect manlands, and me never drawing a spreading seas (I only put 3 in my deck). He even managed to destroy my chalice. Game 2 he played tonnes of 2-drop stuff and didn't care about my chalice, and unblockable infect destroyed me.
Round 4: Melira pod, 2-1
I've played very little against it so it was a fun match-up. Game 1 he combo's out on like, T4 with infinite life so I scoop. Game 2 he floods out and I just hammer him with dudes. Game 3 was the most interesting. With my limited disruption suite I hold him off all game. I did some fun things, like teasing him to block with Murderous Recap and then Phantasmal Imaging a copy of it targeting his Murderous Recap which already had a -1/-1 counter on it. I used two echoing truth's to bounce pod back to their hand to slow them down, which it did. Finally it was GG as I managed to push through enough damage (a spreading seas would've been GG much earlier though if I'd had one) despite madly flooding out, and he told me after I asked that he was just 1 turn off from comboing.
Don't really know what changes to make, other than bringing a decent sideboard, I forgot a bunch of cards that would've been nice and threw together my sideboard.
Thank you for a great write up! Really helpful. I was also wondering about spreading seas since there seems to be so much blue. What about running cards in that slot that would also double up as anti-green deck cards? Perhaps relic, Kira or Spellskite?
I am getting smarter vs. Junk. Instead of just trying to aggro out and jam a Lord on turn two I consider my hand and see if Kira is in there and play around removal with her, and play around Lily. Junk isn't very fast, if you have to wait a couple of turns to blank their cards that isn't so bad.
In a Junk meta I would be tempted to put an extra Kira and Mow in the sideboard. That is more brutal to them IMHO than Tidebinder Mage...
Blood moon is less a problem right now IMHO than affinity. If blood moon becomes a problem, I will reaccess, probably look at cutting caverns. That is if UW is the way to go, it is a very painful mana base.
What does the land base of a UW merfolk deck look like? And how does it fare against Goyf decks, which are also going to see a resurgence.
Round 1: UR Delver 2-0
Game 1 I won dice roll. He drops delver. Turn 2 I drop chalice. I negated his whole hand, I go onto win. Game 2 he starts, and always keeps an island open. I had chalice in my opening hand, and never play it. I instead drop 2 aether vials and just churn out lords. He never draws removal once - not once - and I overwhelm him with my uncounterable merfolk.
Round 2: Affinity 2-1
I actually won the game unfairly because I echoing truthed a manland of his in game 3 for the win, but I think I might have been able to win otherwise, I can't remember. Basically game 1 he dropped his hand along with a plating and wins handidly. Game 2 I am happy I brought 4 Hurkyl's Recall. I ended up dropping 2 chalices in this game. First one on 0, second on 2 (I had CoS to pump out my folk by this point) and I also recalled prior to dropping chalice for 2, basically stopping him from being able to play anything, and I won. Game 3 was tight but as I said it all came down to the final turn and I accidentally cheated, but I do think I could've won otherwise, he played ravager and ate all of his artifacts and put them on his manland to swing for the exact 7 he needed. I recalled in this game too, which bought me 2 turns. People say it is a T1 fog but if you play it right it stops them attacking for 2 turns.
Round 3: Infect 0-2
Brutal. In game 1 I managed to chalice for 1 and it just wasn't enough due to flying infect manlands, and me never drawing a spreading seas (I only put 3 in my deck). He even managed to destroy my chalice. Game 2 he played tonnes of 2-drop stuff and didn't care about my chalice, and unblockable infect destroyed me.
Round 4: Melira pod, 2-1
I've played very little against it so it was a fun match-up. Game 1 he combo's out on like, T4 with infinite life so I scoop. Game 2 he floods out and I just hammer him with dudes. Game 3 was the most interesting. With my limited disruption suite I hold him off all game. I did some fun things, like teasing him to block with Murderous Recap and then Phantasmal Imaging a copy of it targeting his Murderous Recap which already had a -1/-1 counter on it. I used two echoing truth's to bounce pod back to their hand to slow them down, which it did. Finally it was GG as I managed to push through enough damage (a spreading seas would've been GG much earlier though if I'd had one) despite madly flooding out, and he told me after I asked that he was just 1 turn off from comboing.
Don't really know what changes to make, other than bringing a decent sideboard, I forgot a bunch of cards that would've been nice and threw together my sideboard.