MTG Salvation

Quote from Bearscape »

If youre gonna run Blood Moon you gotta cut the Mutavaults and Caverns, we're too blue intensive to risk getting stuck with UR even if you can use Vial. I'd also suggest going the full Blue Moon strat and run 4 Seas main, maybe 4 seas 2 blood moon main and 2 blood moon in the side? Also definitely a playset of bolts and maybe a singleton Sygg Cutthroat because the Sygg-bolt combo is too good to pass up. Also side a lot of hate versus Twin because all that mana disruption is going to be dead against them

I think that if you want a UR tempo deck, you might be better off playing Blue Moon or a Delver variant. Bearscape makes a good point - Blood Moon in Merfolk is rough on your mana. The anti-synergy with Cavern is unfortunate, but not every build runs that, so it's a reasonable trade off. Mutavault, on the other hand, is so core to the deck's functioning that I'm not sure the build will be any good without it. But if you leave them in, you're you're potentially cutting yourself off from blue very hard as soon as Blood Moon lands.

Granted, Aether Vial alleviates this problem to an extent, but you won't have vial every game and there are plenty of situations where you need to dump threats onto the board faster than a vial allows. I suspect that that by trying to include more "good stuff" in the deck, you'll be ruining the tight curve and heavy synergy that makes Merfolk such a powerful deck. Rather than jamming in Blood Moon, you'd be better off building a deck (and, more importantly, a mana base) around the Blood Moon and seeing where that takes you.

I'm not a big fan of Blood Moon in Merfolk, mostly because turning off your Mutavaults is a pretty big deal. But I would suggest cutting Spreading Seas from your build - Blood Moon already does that job, and better. That'll let you go up to 4 bolts, which is half the reason you'd splash red in a merfolk deck anyway. You might also try a 2 of Electrolyze in your board for affinity - it's very potent in that matchup, more so than vandal blast, since getting to 5 mana against affinity is unlikely. The game will almost certainly be decided at that point already.

I think it comes down to player preference, to be honest. I've seen lists running 1 drop merfolk do really well, and I've been winning most of my games lately running 4 images (which, I confess, occasionally force mulligans because your hand has no other creatures). Mulligan issues aside, I've never had trouble getting 2-1'ed, mostly because having 4 mutavaults in the deck means you pretty much always have something to copy. But again, I think that's a preference issue - they're certainly not mandatory as a 4 of in the deck.

And of course, turn 1 aether vial is always going to be our best play. I meant to convey that our turn 1 isn't necessarily dead even if we don't have a vial to play. Sometimes snagging a mana dork is wrong, granted - it depends on your hand and if you think you can tempo them out before they set up their combo.

I'm planning to tinker with my list, but I think the non-1-drop list works for me. I've yet to drop a match with this variant at my local FNM, and I'm modestly comfortable with my placement at the Philadelphia PTQ. I think it speaks to the strength of the deck that you can have builds with such different mana curves perform equally well, which is rare to see in other aggro decks.

I've tested it pretty extensively both ways. At GP Richmond I was using 4 Cursecatcher and he always felt underwhelming. Partly, this is because his active is relevant in very few matchups. Control decks are all packing 1 and 2 mana removal, and can play around it pretty easily by the time you're putting down threats. The sweepers of choice in modern are verdict and anger, and while catcher is pretty sweet against the former, I'm not sure that that merits his inclusion in the deck. Trickster and Mystic are the other two people have been testing with, largely because of how infrequently catcher's active is worthwhile, but I think the question some of us have arrived at isn't which 1 drop to play but whether we need to play 1 drop creatures at all in order for the deck to be effective.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate why decks like Zoo go heavy on 1 drops - it's an important timing to hit, no question. But Zoo presents turn 1 2/3 or 3/3's, and Merfolk doesn't have that option. Of course, no merfolk is going to be a 1/1 for long because of the number of lords the deck plays, but the problem arises when you drop a catcher, then put in a lord, and they play their second land and bolt your lord. UWx control, Jund, and other decks packing heavy removal will be able to do that every game, and you're left with a 1/1 that will occasionally be able to attack for 2. While the few extra damage and limited utility are nice, I'm of the opinion that they aren't worth it.

In its place, you can afford to run more reejeries and images (which are either lords or silvergills, at worst), and the threat level of the cards in your deck smooths out substantially. Nobody can afford to ignore 2 or 3 damage a turn, even if they're able to keep you to one creature on the table, whereas that 1 point is something they can wait out. The other thing to consider is that in many matchups, it's nice to have that 1 mana available - though, to be fair, playing a 1 drop 2/1 would probably be superior. Aether vial doesn't fit into this case, because it still allows you to drop a turn 2 cursecatcher without slowing your curve, but vapor snagging a turn 1 creature against pod, hatebear, or affinity can be huge, as can spell piercing a Cranial Plating or an Expedition Map.

Basically, I agree with you that 1 drops are a really big deal, but I think that they're only a big deal when they're 2/1 or bigger on their own. If Khans has a 2/1 vanilla merfolk, I'd almost certainly make room for 4 of them. But cursecatcher isn't strong enough, and trickster isn't reliable enough for them to sufficiently relevant. Yes, it means you have to have a good hand and 2 reejeries in play to pick up a turn 4 kill, but the deck has such excellent finishing power despite its lack of 1 drops that I think we're better off without them.

Kikurek,

I agree, 4 mutavaults is all the colorless sources the deck can handle mainboard, even with vial to smooth things out. I'm curious why you don't play with Cavern, though - with how counter heavy the meta has been recently, it seems very strong, at least for the games I've played.

I went to GP Richmond without them and lost two matches because I didn't draw turn one vial and couldn't handle the counter magic. It's pretty rare that I'm short on blue sources for non-creature spells, even running two kira and 4 image. Do you find the deck to just be more consistent without cavern of souls, or is it something you haven't tested with?

I played in the PTQ in Philadelphia this weekend. Ended up taking 9th with a 7-2 record, so I was fairly pleased but a little salty at having gotten so close to top 8. This is the list I ran with. My two losses were to GR Tron and UWR Gifts Rites. The first one I didn't see spreading seas over three games, and the second one I think was a bad matchup that I wasn't ready for - Elesh Norn is pretty brutal against a deck full of 2/2's, and I couldn't develop my board heavily because I had to play around sweepers. Overall, I think the build is really strong. I'm considering cutting Thass for a third Master of Waves, since she was pretty underwhelming when I drew her. I'm also debating cutting Chalice from the board - I feel like we already have very strong matchups against the decks we bring it in for, and those decks aren't heavily played to begin with.