Thank you for the good start of our new primer!
It's extremely useful to have one to rely on while building merfolk main and sideboard.
And it's great to have such competent feedback like we have here! This makes sure our primer will keep getting closer and closer to an absolutely perfect one.
Gladly!
It's confusing, drawn out and doesn't convey the important information efficiently enough.
The information is there, but it doesn't stand out, because it gets overwhelmed by the unnecessary or less necessary information.
Primers are for the new people primarily.
I completely agree with this. I appreciate the effort going into a new primer but at just a glance it feels immediately out of date. For example, none of the splashes actually work. I see Sea's Claim versions of the deck succeeding more than UW Merfolk, and of course people are trying the splashes. So many dubious cards are mentioned though there is no trace of them succeeding in the most currently successful versions of the deck. Like, Wake Thrasher? This card was NEVER good. New players will get exceptionally confused by all this.
There is less content on the cards that matter than on the cards that don't.
Some more primer suggestions (I hope Im not being too intrusive)
-Do not bother with color coding matchups on difficulty. As we can already see it's very up to debate how good a matchup is, and it adds very little useful information; it's much better to focus on the strategy of beating the deck than praising or dooming the player before the match even starts. You could briefly mention it for decks like affinity where there is a definite outlier but trying to categorise matchups by difficulty is a waste of time.
-Some creatures in additional options should not be in there. Merfolk Sovereign, Sygg Cutthroat and Wake Thrasher (Coralhelm to a lesser extend) do not see play, and while some people might like to experiment with running them, a primer should focus on the tried and true core of the deck which these creatures definitely are not. I'd earlier put them in a "not to play" paragraph than an options paragraph. Mothdust Changeling is only for budget variants (and even then Judge's Familiar is better), and Spellskite should be a Sideboard card (where it is still questionable)
-Card suggestions in general should be split into mainboard and sideboard categories, especially the instants category. Splitting for mainboard and sideboard is much more useful than splitting for card types; people do not come to this thread to learn that mana leak is an instant, they want to know whether to mainboard or sideboard it. On that subject, the primer could use a paragraph on why 2 mana counterspells are generally clunky in Merfolk.
-It is not apparent in the current list that Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge are almost exclusively sideboard cards. You're also putting personal preference before results here with "tec edge is 'still' a good sideboard card (but honestly just run ghost quarter)" whilst the vast majority of experienced players and top8 results show that Tectonic Edge is prefered. Make the primer represent what the results represent, not what you personally prefer.
-Cavern of Souls needs a piece about why only running 1-2 is preferred and why more is generally wrong. The cards downsides aren't always as apparent to new players.
-Serum Visions and Aquitect's Will should not be mentioned at all.
-I'm sorry but the splash category is just really bad. It should not just be a list of cards that are that splash's color. The splash category should primarily tell what that color brings and why you might want to splash it (white for sideboard and because it's the only valid one, black for hand disruption, red for reach and green because you really really like simic). After that it should give some noteworthy card suggestions and why to run it; You mention Nameless Inversion, explain why it serves no purpose and is bad, then suggest to run 2? I'm being really critical here but it's in good intent, if you want I'd be willing to rewrite the splash summary myself.
EDIT: CoBTyrannon hits the nail on the head. The primer should be much more straightforward "play this" and go much more in-depth instead of mentioning all these very questionable options. A primer functions to give a solid baseline for new players, not as a brew discussion ground for experienced players.
-Card suggestions in general should be split into mainboard and sideboard categories, especially the instants category. Splitting for mainboard and sideboard is much more useful than splitting for card types; people do not come to this thread to learn that mana leak is an instant, they want to know whether to mainboard or sideboard it. On that subject, the primer could use a paragraph on why 2 mana counterspells are generally clunky in Merfolk.
I liked everything you said except this. The reason Merfolk is so flexible is because a lot of cards in the sideboard are maindeckable given change in a metagame. Spell Pierce, Remand, Tidebinder Mage, Relic of Progenitus, x #Master of Waves, Kira Great Glass Spinner, Spreading Sea's, Chalice of the Void, and so many other cards can change numbers between main and sideboard depending on the meta. It just feels awkward to say Kira or Relic of Progenitus is definitely a sideboard card. A lot of players will have narrow local metagames and their merfolk maindeck should reflect it.
-Card suggestions in general should be split into mainboard and sideboard categories, especially the instants category. Splitting for mainboard and sideboard is much more useful than splitting for card types; people do not come to this thread to learn that mana leak is an instant, they want to know whether to mainboard or sideboard it. On that subject, the primer could use a paragraph on why 2 mana counterspells are generally clunky in Merfolk.
I liked everything you said except this. The reason Merfolk is so flexible is because a lot of cards in the sideboard are maindeckable given change in a metagame. Spell Pierce, Remand, Tidebinder Mage, Relic of Progenitus, x #Master of Waves, Kira Great Glass Spinner, Spreading Sea's, Chalice of the Void, and so many other cards can change numbers between main and sideboard depending on the meta. It just feels awkward to say Kira or Relic of Progenitus is definitely a sideboard card. A lot of players will have narrow local metagames and their merfolk maindeck should reflect it.
Good point, there are a lot of cards in merfolk that are both playable mainboard and sideboard. I'd still like to see a better format than rafflign everything off by card type, but main/sideboard might not be the best option either.
I firmly believe that 4 Master of Waves will make the deck less efficient. I prefer 1-2 MoW in maindeck then add 1-2 spellskites for protection from spot removals.
On the other hand, I never thought splashing black for totsiz distruption can make the merfolk strategy better.
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Love, hope, prosperity, abundance and perfect health shall follow me all the rest of my life.
By the way, I think ("firmly believe") that main deck Spell Skite is too much (in other words, too weak). Is your meta filled with Twin or Infect? Otherwise, Kira is better for protection from spot removal.
Jund is NOT our very favorable match up like RG Tron, but enough winable.
If those 2 Master of Waves are exchanged for 2 Spellskites, we will have slower game because Skite have no power and he will try to protect 2/2s.
Master has protection of its own while shortening the game by a lot.
I also thought Master should not be a playset. I was wrong.
The best advice about playing modern merfolk I've ever received was that, in general, every play and decision you make should be based around resolving Master of Waves at the most advantageous and optimal time. It truly is a game swinger and should always be played as a 3-4 of in the main.
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Modern UMerfolk WDeath and Taxes BRBliztkrieg GStompy
- - -
"Rock is overpowered. Paper is fine."
-Scissors
Thanks for all the great feedback, guys! Let me respond to your comments first, then I'll put together a plan on how I plan to address the issues raised.
I agree with this. I mostly train aginst my friends Jundlist. At the start, when i knew what i was doing and he didn't, i crushed him hard. 9 out of 10 Bo3s were mine. NOW however, he learned to play against me. It took him some time, but i don't see any flaws in his play anymore, he makes the right decisions and well, what can i say. No matter how prepared i am for this matchup i can barely reach 50:50. If i even take one or two cards of my Jundhate out of my deck, i lose a lot of Win%.
A lot of this matchup is drawdependant, diceroll dependant and the thing you can influence the most: Riskmanagement.
To beat Jund consistently, you have to take calculated risks. You can't always play around everything or you get behind. But you can't walk into every blowout either.
This matchup is definitely winnable, but NOT favoured. It's even!
Of course this depends on individual decklists, but neither my friend nor myself is willing to commit more cards to the matchup than this. There are other decks out there that we want to beat too.
This seems to be a contentious opinion. Some people (and the large-scale match data from MTGGoldfish) have come out in support of it being favorable, others have it pegged as more 50:50. I'll have to think about how to address this section going forward.
Gladly!
It's confusing, drawn out and doesn't convey the important information efficiently enough.
The information is there, but it doesn't stand out, because it gets overwhelmed by the unnecessary or less necessary information.
Primers are for the new people primarily.
Don't give them choice, tell them what to do.
Tell them what the deck does. The different types, strengths and weaknesses of the decklists. When(Metas) to play them and most importantly how to play them. Go into the core cards, explain interactions of those core cards. What to look out for.
Even the matchups and how to play them should come after that.
Focus on the important stuff.
AFTERWARDS, you can add all the possible cards that are out there. But then be strict, and explain them why cards XY are BAD and should not be played at the moment. When some cards are good and how you best use said cards.
At this point listing over 100 cards is just bla bla. You can write that stuff for people that want to dig deeper but hide it from plain sight for the newbies. Use the spoilertags.
This is very good advice. I'll make some changes to make the primer more directed and newbie-friendly.
To be honest, i offered to write this primer too, but i didn't just do it, because i didn't feel confident enough to be able to do it. I have a whole Primer for myself in Paper, but there are so many Questionmarks in it, i'm uncomfortable writing it up.
I just can't measure up to the standards i expect the new Primer to have. And up to now, the new Primer is by no means better than the old One. It's just the same superficial bla bla.
It is definitely more recent, but that's pretty much it.
Not sure what this is supposed to contribute, to be honest. You have such high standards that you can't meet them yourself? Doesn't sound like this will lead to productive discussion (though on the other hand you've had some very good comments).
And to make it more constructive i give you one specific card:
Aether Vial!
This card should get an entire chapter on its own. How do i use it, how do the triggers work. Tricks like jumping from 2 to 4 or that you don't have to place a creature in(announce it before). Newbies don't know this kind of thing. And that is, what you should teach them.
Pretty much the absolute MUST KNOW for effective Merfolkplay.
This is a huge suggestion. HUGE. I need to write a section on how to use Vial appropriately.
And i honestly hate it if a new Merfolkplayer, maybe playing the deck for 2-3 months tells others his oppinions like it is a fact. When its not more than an unproven hypothesis, based on his very limited time of playing the deck. At least with a good Primer i can assume he knows and uses the cards to full effect. His comments get more credibility.
I'm not saying you can't get there, but i think you are in over your head.
I hope you raise to the occasion.
This comment confuses me. Are you referring to new players spouting off on the thread? Or are you referring to me? Because I've been playing Merfolk for quite a while. I might not have been on this particular forum until recently, but I have a pretty good amount of reps with the deck. As for the last part... thanks for the condescension, bro. Really helpful.
Gladly!
It's confusing, drawn out and doesn't convey the important information efficiently enough.
The information is there, but it doesn't stand out, because it gets overwhelmed by the unnecessary or less necessary information.
Primers are for the new people primarily.
I completely agree with this. I appreciate the effort going into a new primer but at just a glance it feels immediately out of date. For example, none of the splashes actually work. I see Sea's Claim versions of the deck succeeding more than UW Merfolk, and of course people are trying the splashes. So many dubious cards are mentioned though there is no trace of them succeeding in the most currently successful versions of the deck. Like, Wake Thrasher? This card was NEVER good. New players will get exceptionally confused by all this.
There is less content on the cards that matter than on the cards that don't.
Duly noted, I'll put some work in to refine the primer into something more directed.
Some more primer suggestions (I hope Im not being too intrusive)
-Do not bother with color coding matchups on difficulty. As we can already see it's very up to debate how good a matchup is, and it adds very little useful information; it's much better to focus on the strategy of beating the deck than praising or dooming the player before the match even starts. You could briefly mention it for decks like affinity where there is a definite outlier but trying to categorise matchups by difficulty is a waste of time.
Yeah, it doesn't look like those are being well-received. I think I'll cut them.
-Some creatures in additional options should not be in there. Merfolk Sovereign, Sygg Cutthroat and Wake Thrasher (Coralhelm to a lesser extend) do not see play, and while some people might like to experiment with running them, a primer should focus on the tried and true core of the deck which these creatures definitely are not. I'd earlier put them in a "not to play" paragraph than an options paragraph. Mothdust Changeling is only for budget variants (and even then Judge's Familiar is better), and Spellskite should be a Sideboard card (where it is still questionable)
Fair. Blurting out all of the options hasn't been well-received, either.
-Card suggestions in general should be split into mainboard and sideboard categories, especially the instants category. Splitting for mainboard and sideboard is much more useful than splitting for card types; people do not come to this thread to learn that mana leak is an instant, they want to know whether to mainboard or sideboard it. On that subject, the primer could use a paragraph on why 2 mana counterspells are generally clunky in Merfolk.
As Nikachu_ mentioned, a lot of these cards are main or sideboard worthy depending on context. I'll have to think about how I want to organize this, but
-It is not apparent in the current list that Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge are almost exclusively sideboard cards. You're also putting personal preference before results here with "tec edge is 'still' a good sideboard card (but honestly just run ghost quarter)" whilst the vast majority of experienced players and top8 results show that Tectonic Edge is prefered. Make the primer represent what the results represent, not what you personally prefer.
Very fair. I'll try to present more of an unbiased look at that sort of thing.
-Cavern of Souls needs a piece about why only running 1-2 is preferred and why more is generally wrong. The cards downsides aren't always as apparent to new players.
Strong suggestion here, though I'm in the "run 4 Caverns" camp. It goes back to presenting a more unbiased look at the deck.
-Serum Visions and Aquitect's Will should not be mentioned at all.
I mentioned them because they were brought up in the old thread's discussion recurrently, but I guess that's not being well received either. Fair enough.
-I'm sorry but the splash category is just really bad. It should not just be a list of cards that are that splash's color. The splash category should primarily tell what that color brings and why you might want to splash it (white for sideboard and because it's the only valid one, black for hand disruption, red for reach and green because you really really like simic). After that it should give some noteworthy card suggestions and why to run it; You mention Nameless Inversion, explain why it serves no purpose and is bad, then suggest to run 2? I'm being really critical here but it's in good intent, if you want I'd be willing to rewrite the splash summary myself.
I see what you're saying here - I'll try to reinforce the fact that mono-U is the most competitive version of the deck, and try to streamline the list of suggested cards.
EDIT: CoBTyrannon hits the nail on the head. The primer should be much more straightforward "play this" and go much more in-depth instead of mentioning all these very questionable options. A primer functions to give a solid baseline for new players, not as a brew discussion ground for experienced players.
Probably true. I likely spread myself too thin by trying to address potential answers before the questions themselves came.
I just want to say thanks to rothgar13 since this is a lot of work.
There was advice that we should not give new players choices but strongly direct at what must be done (or something like that).
I disagree. rothgar13 did a lot of work to show what posibilities exist and finished with lists that did something.
So if fresh fish want to experiment, it is on them and their money. They will collect experience either way and they can always choose proven stuff after.
Talking about meta when they don't even know meaning of the word is not productive.
Different lists for different metas would require that rothgar13 frequently updates the primer (things change weekly), while new players must know about 20 viable Modern decks.
Not realistic.
Æther Vial deserves its own section but that is more wall of text. If no one have something to add to Nikachu_'s Youtube video about Vial, we should just link people to it.
In other news, my new local has our first FNM tomorrow. It will likely be turned into a meet & greet / trade event because we've had to pull the gaming room apart (An over-looked piping problem when they put it together initially has resulted in the room being unsuitable for public use) but I think they're going to try and run an 8 man event if they have enough people interested.
If I manage to play a tournament/few games with Fish I'll write up a tournament report.
Also thanks Rothgar13 for updating the Primer. It looks good so far. (:
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Modern UMerfolkU Legacy UFishU "I Want To Believe"
Just a few thoughts about MoW and jund:
Jund, in my opinion is favorable. If you are prepared, its something like 60~55. However, the games will almost never be close. It will probably be a struggle, but the fish player comes out on top more often than not. Perhaps this is just by experience, but often times jund is a very finely tuned machine and one spreading seas, or one spell pierce, or one unremovalable creature (ala MoW, kira(not unremovable, but similar), etc) can really make them stumble.
As for MoW in general, I think its telling that often times you'll ask yourself "what is the one card I could draw here that would let me win" and the answer is often MoW. Hes difficult to kill, he puts a lot of bodies in play to block, attack, whatever. Running 1-2 means too often you won't see any when thats the card you really need to see. Depending on your list, you might be able to get away with 2, but 3~4 is generally recommended for a reason.
I've never been a fan of them in the sideboard, but if thats the only place you can find room for them, it might be better than nothing.
I think Master of Waves is a must-have 3-4 of in the 75, and I prefer to have mine mainboard. However, I can understand putting 1-2 in the side if you're running a bit lower to the ground (like 8-Seas does, for example).
Also, just wanted to say that I've made some pretty extensive editing based on the feedback I've received. Some things are still under construction (notably the section for budget alternatives and how to use Æther Vial), but I'd like to know what you guys think of the new layout.
I've been a long-time lurker of the old primer, and excited to see all of the merfolk goodness in the last little while. I've been playing Merfolk almost exclusively since before Bloodbraid Elf was banned. I've tried other decks, but it was like wearing someone else's shoes. They fit fine, but just didn't feel right. But I gave up on those other decks (mostly Takin' Turns and Norin the Wary Soul Sisters) That's my Merfolk pedigree (unfortunately not a lot of results to speak of, as Modern just doesn't exist in South Western Ontario ). First off, great start rothgar13. You've obviously put in a lot of work. You'll get a lot of feedback, as longtime Merfolk players are very protective our our little fish
A lot of great suggestions on what direction people want to see this primer take. Really, as someone suggested earlier, as far as Aether Vial, yes, rothgar13 can add a wall of text, or a quick link to Nikachu_'s Aether Vial primer video.
Okie Dokie, keep the momentum of Merfolk going strong. Hope to see the field get hit in the face by a school of fish this weekend in Pittsburgh.
I always have this problem in my Main Board between Master of Waves, Harbinger of the Tides, and Merrow Reejerey. I usually end up one card over 60 (I like to run 5 "Other Spells" as opposed to 4) and outside of the main core I naturally have to take one of these 3 cards down to 3 from 4. At the minute I'm taking down Harbinger to 3. But I'm still not sure which I prefer. Master to 3 lets me run closer to the ground, but at the same time he's just that good. Eh'. That's my thoughts on the matter though. May put Harbinger to 4, Waves to 3 but I guess it depends on my meta at that point. We'll see.
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Modern UMerfolkU Legacy UFishU "I Want To Believe"
I like the inclusion of different options, though they can maybe be organized into a "rogue" category or something. Making sure they know that mono-U is the strongest version is important, but don't cut them off completely from experimentation. When I first started with the deck, I was trying different possibilities (Cryptic Merfolk, dat textless though!), and that is what engrossed me with the deck. This could just be me though.
Also, finally some love for the Greg Staples LoA!
Also, looks like I won't be playing in the GP this weekend player cap was hit before I could register. But I plan on doing some side events, so I will try and report back with some results!
I'm sort of under the impression that we are either a slight dog to Jund or that it is 50/50. The things that tilt the match dramatically in either direction will be the construction of the 75 for both sides and of course skill levels of both players.
I can thrash every poor Jund player I play. The good players play very differently and sideboard correctly. The cards I fear the most are Inquisition, Thoughtseize, and Bobby. A lot of Jund players side these cards out because they argue Inquisition is dead lategame or that Bob will kill them because they are up against an "aggro" deck.
How either deck's construction matters. Do we play dismemebers? Do we main Tidebinder Mage? Are they playing many copies of abrupt decay? Do they play darkblast or Olivia Voldaren?
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
Thank you for the good start of our new primer!
It's extremely useful to have one to rely on while building merfolk main and sideboard.
And it's great to have such competent feedback like we have here! This makes sure our primer will keep getting closer and closer to an absolutely perfect one.
I completely agree with this. I appreciate the effort going into a new primer but at just a glance it feels immediately out of date. For example, none of the splashes actually work. I see Sea's Claim versions of the deck succeeding more than UW Merfolk, and of course people are trying the splashes. So many dubious cards are mentioned though there is no trace of them succeeding in the most currently successful versions of the deck. Like, Wake Thrasher? This card was NEVER good. New players will get exceptionally confused by all this.
There is less content on the cards that matter than on the cards that don't.
-Do not bother with color coding matchups on difficulty. As we can already see it's very up to debate how good a matchup is, and it adds very little useful information; it's much better to focus on the strategy of beating the deck than praising or dooming the player before the match even starts. You could briefly mention it for decks like affinity where there is a definite outlier but trying to categorise matchups by difficulty is a waste of time.
-Some creatures in additional options should not be in there. Merfolk Sovereign, Sygg Cutthroat and Wake Thrasher (Coralhelm to a lesser extend) do not see play, and while some people might like to experiment with running them, a primer should focus on the tried and true core of the deck which these creatures definitely are not. I'd earlier put them in a "not to play" paragraph than an options paragraph. Mothdust Changeling is only for budget variants (and even then Judge's Familiar is better), and Spellskite should be a Sideboard card (where it is still questionable)
-Card suggestions in general should be split into mainboard and sideboard categories, especially the instants category. Splitting for mainboard and sideboard is much more useful than splitting for card types; people do not come to this thread to learn that mana leak is an instant, they want to know whether to mainboard or sideboard it. On that subject, the primer could use a paragraph on why 2 mana counterspells are generally clunky in Merfolk.
-It is not apparent in the current list that Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge are almost exclusively sideboard cards. You're also putting personal preference before results here with "tec edge is 'still' a good sideboard card (but honestly just run ghost quarter)" whilst the vast majority of experienced players and top8 results show that Tectonic Edge is prefered. Make the primer represent what the results represent, not what you personally prefer.
-Cavern of Souls needs a piece about why only running 1-2 is preferred and why more is generally wrong. The cards downsides aren't always as apparent to new players.
-Serum Visions and Aquitect's Will should not be mentioned at all.
-I'm sorry but the splash category is just really bad. It should not just be a list of cards that are that splash's color. The splash category should primarily tell what that color brings and why you might want to splash it (white for sideboard and because it's the only valid one, black for hand disruption, red for reach and green because you really really like simic). After that it should give some noteworthy card suggestions and why to run it; You mention Nameless Inversion, explain why it serves no purpose and is bad, then suggest to run 2? I'm being really critical here but it's in good intent, if you want I'd be willing to rewrite the splash summary myself.
EDIT: CoBTyrannon hits the nail on the head. The primer should be much more straightforward "play this" and go much more in-depth instead of mentioning all these very questionable options. A primer functions to give a solid baseline for new players, not as a brew discussion ground for experienced players.
I liked everything you said except this. The reason Merfolk is so flexible is because a lot of cards in the sideboard are maindeckable given change in a metagame. Spell Pierce, Remand, Tidebinder Mage, Relic of Progenitus, x #Master of Waves, Kira Great Glass Spinner, Spreading Sea's, Chalice of the Void, and so many other cards can change numbers between main and sideboard depending on the meta. It just feels awkward to say Kira or Relic of Progenitus is definitely a sideboard card. A lot of players will have narrow local metagames and their merfolk maindeck should reflect it.
Good point, there are a lot of cards in merfolk that are both playable mainboard and sideboard. I'd still like to see a better format than rafflign everything off by card type, but main/sideboard might not be the best option either.
On the other hand, I never thought splashing black for totsiz distruption can make the merfolk strategy better.
By the way, I think ("firmly believe") that main deck Spell Skite is too much (in other words, too weak). Is your meta filled with Twin or Infect? Otherwise, Kira is better for protection from spot removal.
Jund is NOT our very favorable match up like RG Tron, but enough winable.
UMerfolkU
BWBW TokensBW
Master has protection of its own while shortening the game by a lot.
I also thought Master should not be a playset. I was wrong.
UMerfolk
WDeath and Taxes
BRBliztkrieg
GStompy
- - -
"Rock is overpowered. Paper is fine."
-Scissors
That's a good point, I'll pull some art from the Internet to try and break up the wall.
Thanks for the link, I'll put you up on the list on the first page.
This seems to be a contentious opinion. Some people (and the large-scale match data from MTGGoldfish) have come out in support of it being favorable, others have it pegged as more 50:50. I'll have to think about how to address this section going forward.
This is very good advice. I'll make some changes to make the primer more directed and newbie-friendly.
Not sure what this is supposed to contribute, to be honest. You have such high standards that you can't meet them yourself? Doesn't sound like this will lead to productive discussion (though on the other hand you've had some very good comments).
This is a huge suggestion. HUGE. I need to write a section on how to use Vial appropriately.
This comment confuses me. Are you referring to new players spouting off on the thread? Or are you referring to me? Because I've been playing Merfolk for quite a while. I might not have been on this particular forum until recently, but I have a pretty good amount of reps with the deck. As for the last part... thanks for the condescension, bro. Really helpful.
Duly noted, I'll put some work in to refine the primer into something more directed.
Yeah, it doesn't look like those are being well-received. I think I'll cut them.
Fair. Blurting out all of the options hasn't been well-received, either.
As Nikachu_ mentioned, a lot of these cards are main or sideboard worthy depending on context. I'll have to think about how I want to organize this, but
Very fair. I'll try to present more of an unbiased look at that sort of thing.
Strong suggestion here, though I'm in the "run 4 Caverns" camp. It goes back to presenting a more unbiased look at the deck.
I mentioned them because they were brought up in the old thread's discussion recurrently, but I guess that's not being well received either. Fair enough.
I see what you're saying here - I'll try to reinforce the fact that mono-U is the most competitive version of the deck, and try to streamline the list of suggested cards.
Probably true. I likely spread myself too thin by trying to address potential answers before the questions themselves came.
Thanks, very helpful.
Based on what I've seen here, I'm thinking I'll address the feedback in the following ways:
This might take a bit of time, but I'll get to work on it as soon as I can. Thanks for the feedback, everyone.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
There was advice that we should not give new players choices but strongly direct at what must be done (or something like that).
I disagree. rothgar13 did a lot of work to show what posibilities exist and finished with lists that did something.
So if fresh fish want to experiment, it is on them and their money. They will collect experience either way and they can always choose proven stuff after.
Talking about meta when they don't even know meaning of the word is not productive.
Different lists for different metas would require that rothgar13 frequently updates the primer (things change weekly), while new players must know about 20 viable Modern decks.
Not realistic.
Æther Vial deserves its own section but that is more wall of text. If no one have something to add to Nikachu_'s Youtube video about Vial, we should just link people to it.
In other news, my new local has our first FNM tomorrow. It will likely be turned into a meet & greet / trade event because we've had to pull the gaming room apart (An over-looked piping problem when they put it together initially has resulted in the room being unsuitable for public use) but I think they're going to try and run an 8 man event if they have enough people interested.
If I manage to play a tournament/few games with Fish I'll write up a tournament report.
Also thanks Rothgar13 for updating the Primer. It looks good so far. (:
U Merfolk U
Legacy
U Fish U
"I Want To Believe"
Jund, in my opinion is favorable. If you are prepared, its something like 60~55. However, the games will almost never be close. It will probably be a struggle, but the fish player comes out on top more often than not. Perhaps this is just by experience, but often times jund is a very finely tuned machine and one spreading seas, or one spell pierce, or one unremovalable creature (ala MoW, kira(not unremovable, but similar), etc) can really make them stumble.
As for MoW in general, I think its telling that often times you'll ask yourself "what is the one card I could draw here that would let me win" and the answer is often MoW. Hes difficult to kill, he puts a lot of bodies in play to block, attack, whatever. Running 1-2 means too often you won't see any when thats the card you really need to see. Depending on your list, you might be able to get away with 2, but 3~4 is generally recommended for a reason.
I've never been a fan of them in the sideboard, but if thats the only place you can find room for them, it might be better than nothing.
Also, just wanted to say that I've made some pretty extensive editing based on the feedback I've received. Some things are still under construction (notably the section for budget alternatives and how to use Æther Vial), but I'd like to know what you guys think of the new layout.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
A lot of great suggestions on what direction people want to see this primer take. Really, as someone suggested earlier, as far as Aether Vial, yes, rothgar13 can add a wall of text, or a quick link to Nikachu_'s Aether Vial primer video.
Okie Dokie, keep the momentum of Merfolk going strong. Hope to see the field get hit in the face by a school of fish this weekend in Pittsburgh.
Until then,
#JustKeepSwimming
U Merfolk U
Legacy
U Fish U
"I Want To Believe"
Also, finally some love for the Greg Staples LoA!
Also, looks like I won't be playing in the GP this weekend player cap was hit before I could register. But I plan on doing some side events, so I will try and report back with some results!
I can thrash every poor Jund player I play. The good players play very differently and sideboard correctly. The cards I fear the most are Inquisition, Thoughtseize, and Bobby. A lot of Jund players side these cards out because they argue Inquisition is dead lategame or that Bob will kill them because they are up against an "aggro" deck.
How either deck's construction matters. Do we play dismemebers? Do we main Tidebinder Mage? Are they playing many copies of abrupt decay? Do they play darkblast or Olivia Voldaren?