Seems perhaps a bit greedy of a manabase. I prefer 21 total, especially if you're adding land outside Cavern/Wasteland/Mutavault that can't make blue. Note that Copter's pretty good at filtering away excess land mid-game, but you won't even get there if you're stuck on one Island after your Cavern gets wasted.
If you're adding Ruins to test it out, take a spell out to make it fit. Just my 2c.
EDIT: Most of those cards aren't so important that I really think you'd need Ruins though. This isn't old school control where you're recurring your Engineered Explosives as your primary gameplan. Remember that Ruins isn't actually card advantage, and you still need a good complement of non-artifact spells and creatures to be successful. I'd expect the intersection of those times you really want an artifact back and the times you actually have Ruins out is quite small. Could use testing, but as a 21st land.
Basically fully agree with Curby. If you're on the draw, and they destroy Vial on their turn 3 (which is the most common time-point, in my experience), by the time you recur it and rebuild it to enough counters to matter, you could have cast everything normally. You'd also be losing a draw and three extra mana over those turns recurring it. Not really worth it.
Vial's not worth returning with Ruins ever, but our other high-impact artifacts like Chalice are real options. The fundamental issue is that you're still spending 3 extra mana and a draw step on that artifact, but there's definitely times that is totally worth it. I still tend to think that our other utility land options are better but there's always value in trying any card out and seeing how it actually performs in practice.
Vial's not worth returning with Ruins ever, but our other high-impact artifacts like Chalice are real options. The fundamental issue is that you're still spending 3 extra mana and a draw step on that artifact, but there's definitely times that is totally worth it.
Sure, but good luck consistently lining up those situations with randomly drawing the 1-of Ruins. I bet it will be a hindrance to mana development more often than it will let get the game-winning artifact back. But as you say, testing's always good.
I like the idea of merfolk but I am finding it is unexpectedly slow. I'm using the traditional build in one of the OP posts except with 2-3 true-name nemesis. It definitely struggles against burn and can easily succumb to the mana acceleration of noble hierarch or birds of paradise.
Dismember can hit anything from Leo to Deathrite to Gurmag, and B2B is a massive bomb they can't do much about, especially if a Chalice on 1 gets to stick. Vial is real bad against an attrition deck that has minimal countermagic to begin with, and Clique matches up extremely poorly against Baleful Strix.
Well chalice seems counter productive. You have to hope you get both chalice AND aether vial so as to not counter your own creatures? Plus, there's plenty of 2-3 drop spells like eidolon and vortex, burn can still win with 0 one-mana spells.
Dismember can hit anything from Leo to Deathrite to Gurmag, and B2B is a massive bomb they can't do much about, especially if a Chalice on 1 gets to stick. Vial is real bad against an attrition deck that has minimal countermagic to begin with, and Clique matches up extremely poorly against Baleful Strix.
That is about how I SB as well, games seem to go long and seem 50/50 to me. Interesting that you are off of Phantasmal Image. I have been playing this deck for 2 years and always seem to get incredible value out of it. Either copying Adept for value, a Lord when it matters, a Cursecatcher against combo, or a TNN. Also, the opponent's creatures usually carry inherent value or bombiness as well as copying an opposing giant or even a Baleful Strix or Leovold, Emissary of Trest can swing a game. What about this metagame wants you to be off of it?
@mtgsalaccount: You have only one 1-drop - setting Chalice on 1 is not an issue. And as lord_darkview noted, you have Cavern of Souls to get around it (assuming you ever even need to). Chalice is a critical part of Merfolk as a deck in Legacy - if you don't run it, you're gimping yourself. This is a Chalice deck first and foremost - it's why we don't run Brainstorm or other powerful blue cantrips. Burn hardly even takes games off me, and Chalice is a big reason why. It also makes me strong against any blue fair deck (kills cantrips, Bolts, etc.) and Storm. I cannot stress it enough - if you want to play Merfolk in Legacy, you NEED Chalices.
@Kamikaze360: The major reasons why I'm down on it is that it's pretty bad against fair decks like Delver and Pile - it's a dead topdeck on an empty board, it's risky to copy anything that doesn't get you value on cast (like Silvergill Adept) or is untouchable (like True-Name Nemesis), and you can get blown out by removal if you try to jam it while having only one copy target on the board (and you're occasionally priced into trying to do that in order to stay ahead on tempo). You can copy Strix or Leo, but your opponent's Leo can shut the value aspect of that copy target down, so that's pretty hit-or-miss. I also found it to be pretty poor against combo decks that didn't involve casting a big fatty (and even Sneak & Show will typically put Omniscience down with Show and Tell, which is a feels-bad). Basically, if I wasn't copying a Stoneforge Mystic or a TNN, the card felt bad in my hand, and I'm not down with that sort of feast-or-famine outcome.
@mtgsalaccount: You have only one 1-drop - setting Chalice on 1 is not an issue. And as lord_darkview noted, you have Cavern of Souls to get around it (assuming you ever even need to). Chalice is a critical part of Merfolk as a deck in Legacy - if you don't run it, you're gimping yourself. This is a Chalice deck first and foremost - it's why we don't run Brainstorm or other powerful blue cantrips. Burn hardly even takes games off me, and Chalice is a big reason why. It also makes me strong against any blue fair deck (kills cantrips, Bolts, etc.) and Storm. I cannot stress it enough - if you want to play Merfolk in Legacy, you NEED Chalices.
You have two one-drops...curse catcher and aether vial. Where are you getting the mana ramp to instantly lay down a turn 1 chalice or even ever in time for a 2-counter chalice? And furthermore with everyone spamming chalice, a lot of the best decks don't rely heavily on one drops, you're really just focusing entirely on half of a burn deck and sort of part of a delver at the expense of most other decks.
...Surely, you can't be serious. Go look at this list and tell me again that Legacy is not a format defined by 1-drops. Better yet, grind some competitive Legacy leagues on MTGO or go to a Legacy tournament (like other seasoned players and I do), and take note of what you see. I'll tell you what you'll see - you'll see combo decks that use cantrips (1-drops) to find their key cards, and fast mana (0-drops) to cast them, you'll see fair blue decks with cantrips and efficient removal (1-drops galore), or you'll see Elves trying to spam out little dudes (1-drops yet again). Other Chalice decks or decks that don't care about Chalice (which are very rare - even the ones that aren't particularly affected by x=1 get tripped up by x=0 or x=2) are rare enough that you can sideboard for them as necessary. Chalice is the most powerful tool in your arsenal, period, full stop. 2nd best is True-Name Nemesis, and I am of the opinion we're the best True-Name deck in Legacy (since we can pump it, copy it, and make it uncounterable). Those two are the reasons to play this deck. Anything else is straight-up doing it wrong.
Well said rothgar! I play on cockatrice a ton and keep a log of all my matches. Most of them go like this:
Storm
1: Win; 2 games, Chalice too good
2: Win; 3 games, pressure, cheap counterspells and Chalice for 0.
Czech Pile
1: Win; 3 games, close and grindy. TNN plus islandwalking.
Chalice coming down on turn 2 sometimes is too late. But most often (I would say 75% of the time) its fine as the fast combo decks usually do a bit of work to set up and the blue cantrip/removal decks are looking to grind you out anyways.
...Surely, you can't be serious. Go look at this list and tell me again that Legacy is not a format defined by 1-drops. Better yet, grind some competitive Legacy leagues on MTGO or go to a Legacy tournament (like other seasoned players and I do), and take note of what you see. I'll tell you what you'll see - you'll see combo decks that use cantrips (1-drops) to find their key cards, and fast mana (0-drops) to cast them, you'll see fair blue decks with cantrips and efficient removal (1-drops galore), or you'll see Elves trying to spam out little dudes (1-drops yet again). Other Chalice decks or decks that don't care about Chalice (which are very rare - even the ones that aren't particularly affected by x=1 get tripped up by x=0 or x=2) are rare enough that you can sideboard for them as necessary. Chalice is the most powerful tool in your arsenal, period, full stop. 2nd best is True-Name Nemesis, and I am of the opinion we're the best True-Name deck in Legacy (since we can pump it, copy it, and make it uncounterable). Those two are the reasons to play this deck. Anything else is straight-up doing it wrong.
I've played multiple decks that run chalice and it's definitely overrated against most kinds decks, which are well constructed and versatile. Surely you can't be serious when it's blatantly obvious a majority of the cards on your list conform to only one single deck archetype. Go look on these forums and count how many non-delver decks there are, both established and experimental. Somehow this vastly greater number is bound to surprise you. How are you going to get the 4 mana to counter every tarmogoyf or every small pox or every stoneforge? How are you going to get the 6 mana to counter every knight of the reliquary or every Liliana? How are you going to get to 8 mana to stop every sneak attack or thought-knot seer or natural order? And those are just a select few of the many possible winning cards you'd be up against. Furthermore you have to use it over putting out an actual creature, and it doesn't even stop any kind of "put into play" ability and it doesn't stop any kind of "graveyard to battlefield" ability. You're nothing more than lucky that so many opponents happen to be so reliant on one-drops with one or maybe two predictable deck archetypes with apparently no sideboard and zero forethought into opponents with counter-spells. If it's so good, where are all the first place legacy decks containing mono-blue merfolk with chalice?
Lucky? No. I grind Merfolk on MTGO, I know what's out there. You don't play just Chalice, obviously - Daze and Force are prominent players as well. You just need Chalice so that you don't have to expend cards countering every random Bolt/ritual/what have you. And 4 mana for x=2 is eminently achievable, though admittedly hard. You want results? Here's my 5-0 from a few months ago to whet your appetite. I'm down on Copter and PhImage right now, but you can succeed with them. You know how many Merfolk results you'll find sans Chalice (start looking here)? Zero. None. Zip. Nada. The deck needs them. The deck as a whole is Tier 2 at best - the goodstuff decks in Legacy are so good, that synergy decks like ours have to battle even when we have our pieces put together. Nature of the beast.
Lucky? No. I grind Merfolk on MTGO, I know what's out there. You don't play just Chalice, obviously - Daze and Force are prominent players as well. You just need Chalice so that you don't have to expend cards countering every random Bolt/ritual/what have you. And 4 mana for x=2 is eminently achievable, though admittedly hard. You want results? Here's my 5-0 from a few months ago to whet your appetite. I'm down on Copter and PhImage right now, but you can succeed with them. You know how many Merfolk results you'll find sans Chalice (start looking here)? Zero. None. Zip. Nada. The deck needs them. The deck as a whole is Tier 2 at best - the goodstuff decks in Legacy are so good, that synergy decks like ours have to battle even when we have our pieces put together. Nature of the beast.
That doesn't mean anything when you've already gone to lengths to show that your opponents are almost always exactly the same every single game in the most predictable way. How is the deck worthy of being the best when there's tons of established decks and experimental decks that don't run delver or lightning bolt or even blue?
I'm not sure what you're saying here, but rothgar13 is correct in his assessment of the format. While there's tons of decks that don't run Bolt or Blue (DnT, Eldrazi for instance), 1-mana spells are lynchpins for the vast majority of decks in the format. Almost every single deck runs 8 or more 1-mana spells, which Chalice can shut down. For many of those decks, such spells are their only source of disruption and removal, or a critical part of their deck playing smoothly. You have FoW against things like LotV and TKS. If CotV is good against 75% of the format, it is a fair decision to play it in the main deck.
If this is not abundantly clear to you, then you have a really bizarre local meta that you play in.
I just think he's profoundly unfamiliar with the Legacy meta. The decks I mentioned are over 80% of the competitive format. Either way, I'm done discussing this with someone who doesn't seem to listen. Go play Merfolk without Chalice and see how you do. I predict it won't be pretty.
I just think he's profoundly unfamiliar with the Legacy meta. The decks I mentioned are over 80% of the competitive format. Either way, I'm done discussing this with someone who doesn't seem to listen. Go play Merfolk without Chalice and see how you do. I predict it won't be pretty.
The "decks" you mentioned? You don't even listen to yourself because the "cards" all conform to delver or close variations. You have to be profoundly unfamiliar with Legacy to think only beating one deck against predictable opponents means anything. How does this deck fair against all decks? How can it be worthy of winning international or even national tournaments being specifically solely tailored to your local delver? You don't seem to understand that I've already played merfolk and I know that it's dated because a 3/2 flier on turn one is faster than a 1/1 on turn 2 if you didn't use aether vial. Merfolk without chalice is easily more efficient against any kind of stompy deck and half of combo and control decks. At best there should be two mained and 2 side boarded, because if your mere 5 games can somehow be extrapolated to every game to predict a 100% win rate, all you need to do is insert those 2 remaining chalices and automatically win against any and all of that deck archetype.
If you're adding Ruins to test it out, take a spell out to make it fit. Just my 2c.
EDIT: Most of those cards aren't so important that I really think you'd need Ruins though. This isn't old school control where you're recurring your Engineered Explosives as your primary gameplan. Remember that Ruins isn't actually card advantage, and you still need a good complement of non-artifact spells and creatures to be successful. I'd expect the intersection of those times you really want an artifact back and the times you actually have Ruins out is quite small. Could use testing, but as a 21st land.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
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
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Sure, but good luck consistently lining up those situations with randomly drawing the 1-of Ruins. I bet it will be a hindrance to mana development more often than it will let get the game-winning artifact back. But as you say, testing's always good.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
In other news, this influx of grindy decks is really making me want to test Kopala, Warden of Waves alongside Daze. It feels a bit janky, but cards like Phantasmal Image and Vendilion Clique have been feeling pretty awful of late.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
@L0rdAceX: This is the sideboard plan I've been using to pretty good success:
+2 Back to Basics
+2 Dismember
+2 Relic of Progenitus
-4 Aether Vial
-2 Vendilion Clique
Dismember can hit anything from Leo to Deathrite to Gurmag, and B2B is a massive bomb they can't do much about, especially if a Chalice on 1 gets to stick. Vial is real bad against an attrition deck that has minimal countermagic to begin with, and Clique matches up extremely poorly against Baleful Strix.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
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 is about how I SB as well, games seem to go long and seem 50/50 to me. Interesting that you are off of Phantasmal Image. I have been playing this deck for 2 years and always seem to get incredible value out of it. Either copying Adept for value, a Lord when it matters, a Cursecatcher against combo, or a TNN. Also, the opponent's creatures usually carry inherent value or bombiness as well as copying an opposing giant or even a Baleful Strix or Leovold, Emissary of Trest can swing a game. What about this metagame wants you to be off of it?
@Kamikaze360: The major reasons why I'm down on it is that it's pretty bad against fair decks like Delver and Pile - it's a dead topdeck on an empty board, it's risky to copy anything that doesn't get you value on cast (like Silvergill Adept) or is untouchable (like True-Name Nemesis), and you can get blown out by removal if you try to jam it while having only one copy target on the board (and you're occasionally priced into trying to do that in order to stay ahead on tempo). You can copy Strix or Leo, but your opponent's Leo can shut the value aspect of that copy target down, so that's pretty hit-or-miss. I also found it to be pretty poor against combo decks that didn't involve casting a big fatty (and even Sneak & Show will typically put Omniscience down with Show and Tell, which is a feels-bad). Basically, if I wasn't copying a Stoneforge Mystic or a TNN, the card felt bad in my hand, and I'm not down with that sort of feast-or-famine outcome.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
You have two one-drops...curse catcher and aether vial. Where are you getting the mana ramp to instantly lay down a turn 1 chalice or even ever in time for a 2-counter chalice? And furthermore with everyone spamming chalice, a lot of the best decks don't rely heavily on one drops, you're really just focusing entirely on half of a burn deck and sort of part of a delver at the expense of most other decks.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Storm
1: Win; 2 games, Chalice too good
2: Win; 3 games, pressure, cheap counterspells and Chalice for 0.
Czech Pile
1: Win; 3 games, close and grindy. TNN plus islandwalking.
Chalice coming down on turn 2 sometimes is too late. But most often (I would say 75% of the time) its fine as the fast combo decks usually do a bit of work to set up and the blue cantrip/removal decks are looking to grind you out anyways.
I've played multiple decks that run chalice and it's definitely overrated against most kinds decks, which are well constructed and versatile. Surely you can't be serious when it's blatantly obvious a majority of the cards on your list conform to only one single deck archetype. Go look on these forums and count how many non-delver decks there are, both established and experimental. Somehow this vastly greater number is bound to surprise you. How are you going to get the 4 mana to counter every tarmogoyf or every small pox or every stoneforge? How are you going to get the 6 mana to counter every knight of the reliquary or every Liliana? How are you going to get to 8 mana to stop every sneak attack or thought-knot seer or natural order? And those are just a select few of the many possible winning cards you'd be up against. Furthermore you have to use it over putting out an actual creature, and it doesn't even stop any kind of "put into play" ability and it doesn't stop any kind of "graveyard to battlefield" ability. You're nothing more than lucky that so many opponents happen to be so reliant on one-drops with one or maybe two predictable deck archetypes with apparently no sideboard and zero forethought into opponents with counter-spells. If it's so good, where are all the first place legacy decks containing mono-blue merfolk with chalice?
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
That doesn't mean anything when you've already gone to lengths to show that your opponents are almost always exactly the same every single game in the most predictable way. How is the deck worthy of being the best when there's tons of established decks and experimental decks that don't run delver or lightning bolt or even blue?
I'm not sure what you're saying here, but rothgar13 is correct in his assessment of the format. While there's tons of decks that don't run Bolt or Blue (DnT, Eldrazi for instance), 1-mana spells are lynchpins for the vast majority of decks in the format. Almost every single deck runs 8 or more 1-mana spells, which Chalice can shut down. For many of those decks, such spells are their only source of disruption and removal, or a critical part of their deck playing smoothly. You have FoW against things like LotV and TKS. If CotV is good against 75% of the format, it is a fair decision to play it in the main deck.
If this is not abundantly clear to you, then you have a really bizarre local meta that you play in.
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
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
The "decks" you mentioned? You don't even listen to yourself because the "cards" all conform to delver or close variations. You have to be profoundly unfamiliar with Legacy to think only beating one deck against predictable opponents means anything. How does this deck fair against all decks? How can it be worthy of winning international or even national tournaments being specifically solely tailored to your local delver? You don't seem to understand that I've already played merfolk and I know that it's dated because a 3/2 flier on turn one is faster than a 1/1 on turn 2 if you didn't use aether vial. Merfolk without chalice is easily more efficient against any kind of stompy deck and half of combo and control decks. At best there should be two mained and 2 side boarded, because if your mere 5 games can somehow be extrapolated to every game to predict a 100% win rate, all you need to do is insert those 2 remaining chalices and automatically win against any and all of that deck archetype.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I'm liking the 2x Chart. 4x was too many and was clogging my early game with too much durdle.
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