Pretty simple stuff. Lots of land hate, lots of beef, and just enough interaction to make it all stick. If your meta is looking heavy on the BGx, Burn, and Tron, give this a spin.
I'm currently a bit down on Harbinger - lots of decks have creatures with good enters-the-battlefield effects (and control is ascendant), so a creature bounce isn't quite what it was in previous metagames. You also have too few lands to reliably curve out, even with Copter (which I've never been a fan of in Modern).
How's Merfolk these days? I'm getting back into Modern and trying to use them as one of my three decks. Most of them are still in the mail though, so right now I'm bringing Death & Taxes to my FNM in a hour.
Still feels good. The recent uptick in Burn pilots is good news for the mono-U build, since it is pretty clearly favored against that deck.
Sweet. I've played CoCo Slivers so hopefully this shouldn't be too hard of a transition. On a random note, why would someone choose Merfolk or Elves? I've heard that Elves play like an aggro-combo deck, and I've read through the very well-written and self-explanatory Merfolk primer (shoutout); I'm just curious. Taking a break from Modern kind of scrambled all my archetype and matchup knowledge. :/
Elves is more of a "gotta go fast" aggro-combo deck that interacts minimally with the opponent. Generally, that means you'll crush decks that are slower than you and can't interact with you properly, but struggle to address sweepers or decks with ways to generate card advantage along with lots of spot removal, and will have to resort to racing combo opponents. Merfolk is much more of a role-shifting aggro-control deck, whose gameplan in any given match is dictated to some degree by the opponent. Against control and midrange, we are the clear aggressor; against aggro and combo, we are generally the control deck. What that generally results in is that your matchup profile is less polarized; most matchups are 50/50 or close, so pilot skill plays a larger role. The downside is that you rarely get one-sided wins, and that even good matchups can be lost by bad draws or bad plays.
How's Merfolk these days? I'm getting back into Modern and trying to use them as one of my three decks. Most of them are still in the mail though, so right now I'm bringing Death & Taxes to my FNM in a hour.
Still feels good. The recent uptick in Burn pilots is good news for the mono-U build, since it is pretty clearly favored against that deck.
Because the UG variant is looking for T4 kills. Those combinations usually requires early Lords. If you're not expecting bunches of removal, gunning for the T4 kill is generally the way to go.
What specifically are you looking for? Sideboarding? General playstyle? In case you're wondering, I generally jam Lords before Silvergills unless I'm facing an attrition deck, and that I like a mix of Relic, Shapers', and Deprive (siding out Seas and Tricksters) against control.
Hey Rothgar if I wanted to adapt your UG list to play Collected Company in the sideboard instead of Shapers' Sanctuary, not necesarily as a 4 of, but maybe a 2 or 3 of. Would you bump the land count up to 20? or risk it with 18/19 lands? And what would you add? I was thinking maybe +1 Fetch and +1 Mutavault, or just 1 extra fetchland in detriment of some of the one drops. I just happen to have only the cocos in paper.
Truth be told, a Merfolk list using CoCo would look completely different. My list is not meant to cast 4-mana spells.
Cursecatcher is narrow?? UW is everywhere now especially in paper. Cursecatcher we need 100%
Except that UW Control is seldom short on mana and any player worth their snuff is going to play around Cursecatcher, since it has to be on the board to be used. All it might do is slow them down a very little.
Playing around them is not always a luxury they can afford. Mono-U is slower, so it might have a bit of a harder time, but my UG list crushes UW Control, and Cursecatcher plays a big role in that.
Sure thing, bud. Good luck out there! Report back on how you do. I'd love to get your thoughts on how the deck runs for you. Right now, my decklist is very personalized to my tastes.
Have you thought about running another 2 cmc creature like Harbinger of the tides instead? I feel like mistcaller is really good against CoCo decks but everything else it's just a 1 drop 1/1. Or do you prefer having them to curve better?
Curve is critically important, yes. The benefit of extra Lords doesn't mean much unless you have bodies to project the buffs on.
Hit or miss. I currently like it vs. UW Control, Burn, and sometimes Storm and Tron, but that's a relatively narrow band of decks. If you want to test Mistcaller in that spot, I think it's worth a try.
Elves, on the other hand, are faster than us, so I'm looking to play a bit more defense. The E-Truth and Dismember still come in, but they are joined by Deprive, and the cuts are generally Merrow Reejerey and Kumena's Speaker, since the goldfish hand usually loses to their goldfish hand.
I was wondering if the tropical fish can do well without vial? Through watching various people play, vial is key in mono blue, but not sure if we can get away without it in tropical
Most definitely not. Tropical has a greater need to start fast and 2 colors of mana to juggle, and Vial is critical on both those fronts. I haven't really thought about how to budgetize my Tropical list, but it figures to be a challenge because of the deck's increased reliance of Vial as compared to mono-U.
Elves, on the other hand, are faster than us, so I'm looking to play a bit more defense. The E-Truth and Dismember still come in, but they are joined by Deprive, and the cuts are generally Merrow Reejerey and Kumena's Speaker, since the goldfish hand usually loses to their goldfish hand.
I was wondering if the tropical fish can do well without vial? Through watching various people play, vial is key in mono blue, but not sure if we can get away without it in tropical
Most definitely not. Tropical has a greater need to start fast and 2 colors of mana to juggle, and Vial is critical on both those fronts. I haven't really thought about how to budgetize my Tropical list, but it figures to be a challenge because of the deck's increased reliance of Vial as compared to mono-U.
So far, quite good. I generally judge decks by their winrate after 100 matches (as I described in this article some months ago), and we're starting to close in on that threshold with Tropical Fish. The deck is currently performing at a 68% winrate on MTGO leagues, which is a bit above my expectations given my previous history as a player (I have generally been in the 60-63% range with other versions of Merfolk, barring stretches where I run hot), which suggests that the deck is either better positioned or has a higher inherent power level than some of the lists I've previously been on. The fact that it has sustained such a high winrate (which I normally associate with MtG pros and high-level grinders) as long as it has is one of the reasons I think of it as my default version of the deck going forward.
Tropical is what I've been jamming of late to very good success, yes. The extra speed from having 16 Lords and 8 1-drops is very helpful. In fact, I think that if I ever do go back to mono-U (which is unlikely barring a paradigm-shifting addition; Tropical is proving to simply be more efficient in my hands), I'll probably jam Mistcaller alongside Cursecatcher in an effort to start a little more smoothly.
Just wanted to pop in and report that I've had some success with a list going really heavy on the land hate, as follows:
4 Aether Vial
Creatures (28)
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Master of Waves
4 Merfolk Trickster
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Sea's Claim
4 Spreading Seas
Lands (20)
16 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Deprive
2 Echoing Truth
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
Pretty simple stuff. Lots of land hate, lots of beef, and just enough interaction to make it all stick. If your meta is looking heavy on the BGx, Burn, and Tron, give this a spin.
Elves is more of a "gotta go fast" aggro-combo deck that interacts minimally with the opponent. Generally, that means you'll crush decks that are slower than you and can't interact with you properly, but struggle to address sweepers or decks with ways to generate card advantage along with lots of spot removal, and will have to resort to racing combo opponents. Merfolk is much more of a role-shifting aggro-control deck, whose gameplan in any given match is dictated to some degree by the opponent. Against control and midrange, we are the clear aggressor; against aggro and combo, we are generally the control deck. What that generally results in is that your matchup profile is less polarized; most matchups are 50/50 or close, so pilot skill plays a larger role. The downside is that you rarely get one-sided wins, and that even good matchups can be lost by bad draws or bad plays.
Still feels good. The recent uptick in Burn pilots is good news for the mono-U build, since it is pretty clearly favored against that deck.
Truth be told, a Merfolk list using CoCo would look completely different. My list is not meant to cast 4-mana spells.
Playing around them is not always a luxury they can afford. Mono-U is slower, so it might have a bit of a harder time, but my UG list crushes UW Control, and Cursecatcher plays a big role in that.
Curve is critically important, yes. The benefit of extra Lords doesn't mean much unless you have bodies to project the buffs on.
2 different approaches for these. With Humans, I feel I'm a bit faster generally, so I'm shaving Cursecatchers and cutting Spell Pierces in order to jam Dismember and Echoing Truth.
Elves, on the other hand, are faster than us, so I'm looking to play a bit more defense. The E-Truth and Dismember still come in, but they are joined by Deprive, and the cuts are generally Merrow Reejerey and Kumena's Speaker, since the goldfish hand usually loses to their goldfish hand.
Most definitely not. Tropical has a greater need to start fast and 2 colors of mana to juggle, and Vial is critical on both those fronts. I haven't really thought about how to budgetize my Tropical list, but it figures to be a challenge because of the deck's increased reliance of Vial as compared to mono-U.
2 different approaches for these. With Humans, I feel I'm a bit faster generally, so I'm shaving Cursecatchers and cutting Spell Pierces in order to jam Dismember and Echoing Truth.
Elves, on the other hand, are faster than us, so I'm looking to play a bit more defense. The E-Truth and Dismember still come in, but they are joined by Deprive, and the cuts are generally Merrow Reejerey and Kumena's Speaker, since the goldfish hand usually loses to their goldfish hand.
Most definitely not. Tropical has a greater need to start fast and 2 colors of mana to juggle, and Vial is critical on both those fronts. I haven't really thought about how to budgetize my Tropical list, but it figures to be a challenge because of the deck's increased reliance of Vial as compared to mono-U.
I most certainly do! You can find it in the Sample Decklists section of the primer (which is always kept up-to-date), my signature, or here.