I tried Petr list and was very good, except for Remand. Remand was in the beste scenario, OK for me. Everytime I had to use Remand I would love a Negate instead, maybe Im just unlucky
I felt the same way. Loved his main deck and board, but I switched the remands main for spell pierce and the remands in the board for a pair of tectonic edge. With only 19 land the two mana counters were a little taxing. And games 2 and 3 in match ups where vials come out, I wasn't comfortable with the lower land count.
I'm glad we're finding some consensus on this. Are people running 19 lands when they swap out the Remands? Doing so with 8 cantrips as opposed to 10 feels a tad dicey when you have 4 Master of Waves. Also, are you not missing Tidebinder Mage at all? Petr runs 0 in his 75, but I find that difficult to fathom in my case, to be honest.
I've been testing Unsubstantiate, and it has been very good so far. The flexibility of it is incredible and the single turn of delay has straight-up won me games. I've been running 4 copies whilst testing but I'm pretty comfortable settling for this list for now:
Interesting. Snag + Remand has always sounded pretty good. And I'm glad someone is getting good results with Unsubstantiate - I look forward to testing that one out for myself.
Sadly, my small amount of testing has, so far, made Unsubstantiate seem a little too clunky for my tastes. I've grown quite fond of my maindeck removal combination, with two Dismembers and one Echoing Truth. The two Dismembers are flexible and can be cast off even colorless mana, and when I draw the Echoing Truth, I know I won't be drawing any more 2-mana interactive spells for the rest of the game.
The modes on Unsubstantiate make it a very flexible card, but to be effective it seems to want to be run in multiples, and I think its casting cost is asking too much for that.
Sadly, my small amount of testing has, so far, made Unsubstantiate seem a little too clunky for my tastes. I've grown quite fond of my maindeck removal combination, with two Dismembers and one Echoing Truth. The two Dismembers are flexible and can be cast off even colorless mana, and when I draw the Echoing Truth, I know I won't be drawing any more 2-mana interactive spells for the rest of the game.
The modes on Unsubstantiate make it a very flexible card, but to be effective it seems to want to be run in multiples, and I think its casting cost is asking too much for that.
That doesn't make any sense. "I don't want to run it as a 4-of THUS I don't want to run it as a 2-of"? You're not running Echoing Truths as a 4-of either and the only reason to run that over Vapor Snag is flexibility just as well. I'd also argue that wanting to bounce a spell is a much more common occurrence than bouncing a nonland, noncreature permanent
I'm glad we're finding some consensus on this. Are people running 19 lands when they swap out the Remands? Doing so with 8 cantrips as opposed to 10 feels a tad dicey when you have 4 Master of Waves. Also, are you not missing Tidebinder Mage at all? Petr runs 0 in his 75, but I find that difficult to fathom in my case, to be honest.
I kept 19 lands after taking out the Remands. Maybe it's a catch 22 though. Less lands wants more cantrips, but two mana counters felt a little expensive with the lower land count.
I wish I had more games in though, because Remand felt great at certain points in the game, but early on when you are trying to establish a board or simply stuck on 3 lands I wish I had Spell Pierce.
I didn't mind the deck without Tidebinder. The list feels aggressive enough that a few bounces with Harbinger/Vapor Snag was usually enough to put the game away. I think that is the reasoning behind playing Remand too. All you have to do is slow the opponent down a turn or two while maintaining your own momentum and you should end up on top.
I'm glad we're finding some consensus on this. Are people running 19 lands when they swap out the Remands? Doing so with 8 cantrips as opposed to 10 feels a tad dicey when you have 4 Master of Waves. Also, are you not missing Tidebinder Mage at all? Petr runs 0 in his 75, but I find that difficult to fathom in my case, to be honest.
I did an analysis on the subject here. Long story short: 19 land matters very little versus 20. Play 19, 1-mana disruption, and be conservative in deciding whether to mulligan.
Sadly, my small amount of testing has, so far, made Unsubstantiate seem a little too clunky for my tastes. I've grown quite fond of my maindeck removal combination, with two Dismembers and one Echoing Truth. The two Dismembers are flexible and can be cast off even colorless mana, and when I draw the Echoing Truth, I know I won't be drawing any more 2-mana interactive spells for the rest of the game.
The modes on Unsubstantiate make it a very flexible card, but to be effective it seems to want to be run in multiples, and I think its casting cost is asking too much for that.
That doesn't make any sense. "I don't want to run it as a 4-of THUS I don't want to run it as a 2-of"? You're not running Echoing Truths as a 4-of either and the only reason to run that over Vapor Snag is flexibility just as well. I'd also argue that wanting to bounce a spell is a much more common occurrence than bouncing a nonland, noncreature permanent
I'm going to put it another way: I can't see any meta where Echoing Truth is the card I want in the MD. It's good in a lot of cases, but for most of those there is something better. And for those that it really is the best choice, those decks are infrequent enough that I'd rather this be in the SB.
In fact, I think in most metas where I'd be temped to run ET, Unsub is the card I want in the MD instead. Still, as I said above, mana matters.
Whoa (Bearscape), relax. What I said does makes sense, but perhaps I was unclear. I was a huge fan of Unsubstantiate when it was spoiled, but I simply didn't enjoy playing with it. It wasn't contributing effectively to games.
First, I failed to mention that, in my testing, I started with a straight swap of the 3 spells I currently run (2 Dismembers and 1 Echoing Truth). At 3 copies, I found I was drawing it far too often. And I do mean far too often. Drawing two of them in a game was just annoying. So the only options, in my view, are to run 2 or 1. And running 2 of a spell is much different than running 1 (ie, you draw it exactly twice as often). After testing with 3, and hating drawing 2 as much as I did, I didn't like the idea of running 2, because the possibility of hitting both in one game still exists (I don't run two Kiras for the same reason).
And the card just seems bad as a singleton - it's not a big out to anything in particular. Singletons are something you should be happy to see late in a long, drawn-out game, because that's when you're most likely to see them (because you're drawing further into your deck). However, very late in a game, our opponent is going to have enough mana to simply recast the spell or creature that we bounce.
You can argue that "wanting to bounce a spell is a much more common occurrence than bouncing a nonland, noncreature permanent" if you'd like, but that position ignores a few important things:
First, the spell-bouncing mode requires us to pass the turn while leaving two lands untapped. As you and everyone else on this forum knows, this is not an easy thing to do, often even with Aether Vial on the board. Tempo decks want to make the most efficient use of their mana possible, and passing the turn with two mana up in the hopes the opponent will play something we might be able to soft-counter is not something I found myself wanting to do very often. Rather, I want to be playing spells or attacking with Mutavault. If I'm leaving mana up for countermagic, it's going to be for Negate of Dispel, something that will actually permanently deal with a spell I'm concerned with.
Second, the upside of Echoing Truth over, say, Vapor Snag or Unsubstantiate, is not limited to being able to hit nonland, noncreature permanents. It also hits multiples, which is a very powerful effect (see Maelstrom Pulse, Declaration in Stone).
Third, when running these spells as singletons or 2-ofs, you can't rely on having them in hand at any given moment. The reason I run the singleton Echoing Truth is (on top of being able to bounce creatures, obviously) to have an out to troublesome nonland permanents, particularly prison effects like Ensnaring Bridge. Unsubstantiate is obviously worthless against spells like this. The opponent can put down as many bridges as they want, but they're all coming up when I draw my Echoing Truth.
Fourth, Echoing Truth can save multiple of my creatures in response to a board wipe.
So, obviously, "flexibility" is not an identical quality across different cards. Unsubstantiate is flexible in a very different way from Echoing Truth. I have very particular reasons for running Echoing Truth as a singleton, and very particular reasons for NOT running Unsubstantiate as a singleton (or in any quantity for the foreseeable future).
And Echoing Truth as a singleton, in my view, is not a meta-dependent call. As the third "removal" spell, its flexibility has proven itself time and again in my matches. It's a more proactive choice than Unsubstantiate, as, if I'm going to leave mana up on the opponent's turn for Echoing Truth, I know for a fact that I'm going to be able to use that mana.
I don't need to relax, I just said why what you said was wrong. There are definitely reasons to not run Unsubstantiate, mostly mana efficiency compared to Vapor Snag and Spell Pierce, but "4-of or none-of" isn't one. If you say Echoing Truth is simply better, I will disagree but that is a valid argument.
Saying something is wrong doesn't make it wrong. I explained the reasoning behind not wanting to run it at any quantity in the deck. You can disagree with my opinion, but saying it is wrong is just typical childish, knee-jerk, non-productive discussion. Which is why I asked you to relax.
Based on everything I said in my wall of text, you can very safely assume I think Echoing Truth is better for our deck. I knew it was a valid opinion before I typed it, and didn't (and don't) need you to validate it, or any of my other opinions. Check yourself.
PS - For the record, I don't consider myself any kind of authority on anything having to do with Merfolk or Magic. I'm just a guy trying to share my opinions. I'm happy to read and discuss your opinions. But I (like you) do not appreciate excessive negativity. Warning for flaming ~Lantern
I am not currently running ET, but I do like the card and consider it to be a fine choice as a 1 of or in SB. I tend to use it more when I'm in an Affinity-lite meta and I can drop my Hurkyl's. I mostly just stopped playing it when I stopped seeing Worship, but the flexibility is still nice. It can occasionally be a quasi 2-for-1 or be used to save a Phimage on top of hitting things like Blood Moon, Tokens etc.
I have yet to test out Unsubtantiate but your review is pretty much in line with what I thought of the card when spoiled. I strongly favor Spell Pierce and Snag/Dismember in main for the cost and when going to board I am looking for a hard answer, not a flexible but soft card.
As for Remand, I think it actually plays better with fewer creatures, not fewer lands. If I'm running Remand I'm probably leaning a bit heavier on the control/tempo side of things. Maybe I'm splashing white or running a few extra counters/kill spells. If all I'm doing is timewalking to play a Lord I probably could have just played the lord in the first place or trotted out Probe to thin my deck. In situations where it "buys you a turn" to swing you would have gotten the same thing out of a hard counter geared more towards the particular problem card.
That's actually not what Petr or most of us recommend. The TecEdges are alongside the Recalls in Petr's board. And Simon ****sky earned his GP win on the back of Recall in the finals, so I'm going to champion them to anyone who'll listen. Even though Affinity has been down for a bit (by its standards), it showed some signs of revival at the WMCQs, so I'm loath to cut my Recalls just yet (especially with a couple of random decks featuring Ensnaring Bridge).
I really like 2x ET on SB...theres always something trick and hard to remove (artifacts and/or enchantments) running around, and do not have an awnser to it means game loss very easily
I'm glad we're finding some consensus on this. Are people running 19 lands when they swap out the Remands? Doing so with 8 cantrips as opposed to 10 feels a tad dicey when you have 4 Master of Waves. Also, are you not missing Tidebinder Mage at all? Petr runs 0 in his 75, but I find that difficult to fathom in my case, to be honest.
I did an analysis on the subject here. Long story short: 19 land matters very little versus 20. Play 19, 1-mana disruption, and be conservative in deciding whether to mulligan.
And here is the counter-argument. I'd say a n of 100 is fairly representative, and it clearly indicates 20 as the more consistent option. Granted, the impact is probably smallish either way, but I think 20 is more optimal.
It seems like I'm after Joe now but I feel inclined to say this; although that video gives some good data on Seagate Wreckage, it says very little about landcount and I think Joe jumped to conclusions somewhat:
For the landcount, that the 20th land is SGW does not matter; it could just as well be an island with a smileyface drawn on it to differentiate from the other lands in the deck. But the calculation does differentiate that 20th land from all other lands in the deck and thus says "When I draw this exact land, is it good or bad?". All 70 games where SGW wasn't drawn are counted as neutral, regardless of whether mana screw or mana flood occurred during those games. Saying both occurred equally and cancelled each other out is incorrect. Essentially it discards all 70 games where SGW wasn't drawn, giving it a sample size of 30, and then tries to convert the SGW-ratings into random-land ratings which is also questionable as the scoring system for SGW wasn't directly related to mana flood or screw. Tangentially yes, but not directly.
Finally, mana screw and mana flood aren't equally bad nor consistently as bad; being stuck on 2 mana for several turns can be bad but is somewhat mediated if you can still cast multiple two-drops, or you can be stuck on 3 with 2 master of waves in hand. Mana flood is fine if you have two mutavaults to activate, or can just leave you with nothing to do (minor point as well; SGW drawing a card is not independent from mana flood and mana screw). Leaving statistics behind and generally speaking, mana flood is worse than mana screw.
I felt the same way. Loved his main deck and board, but I switched the remands main for spell pierce and the remands in the board for a pair of tectonic edge. With only 19 land the two mana counters were a little taxing. And games 2 and 3 in match ups where vials come out, I wasn't comfortable with the lower land count.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Master of Waves
2 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Tidebinder Mage
Spells
2 Dismember
2 Unsubstantiate
4 Spreading Seas
4 AEther Vial
4 Mutavault
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Wanderwine Hub
10 Island
1 Tectonic Edge
3 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Tectonic Edge
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Tidebinder Mage
2 Negate
2 Relic of Progenitus
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
The modes on Unsubstantiate make it a very flexible card, but to be effective it seems to want to be run in multiples, and I think its casting cost is asking too much for that.
Death's Shadow Aggro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIVE8nfZYug
Storm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T52QelCBMCo
Mardu Soulfire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YQ7xik2l0
Scapeshift (Bring to Light)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo9zJ4SKdBM
UR Delver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNyxQo3fQ7Q
RG Land Destruction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg0DjhaQujA
That doesn't make any sense. "I don't want to run it as a 4-of THUS I don't want to run it as a 2-of"? You're not running Echoing Truths as a 4-of either and the only reason to run that over Vapor Snag is flexibility just as well. I'd also argue that wanting to bounce a spell is a much more common occurrence than bouncing a nonland, noncreature permanent
I kept 19 lands after taking out the Remands. Maybe it's a catch 22 though. Less lands wants more cantrips, but two mana counters felt a little expensive with the lower land count.
I wish I had more games in though, because Remand felt great at certain points in the game, but early on when you are trying to establish a board or simply stuck on 3 lands I wish I had Spell Pierce.
I didn't mind the deck without Tidebinder. The list feels aggressive enough that a few bounces with Harbinger/Vapor Snag was usually enough to put the game away. I think that is the reasoning behind playing Remand too. All you have to do is slow the opponent down a turn or two while maintaining your own momentum and you should end up on top.
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
I did an analysis on the subject here. Long story short: 19 land matters very little versus 20. Play 19, 1-mana disruption, and be conservative in deciding whether to mulligan.
I'm going to put it another way: I can't see any meta where Echoing Truth is the card I want in the MD. It's good in a lot of cases, but for most of those there is something better. And for those that it really is the best choice, those decks are infrequent enough that I'd rather this be in the SB.
In fact, I think in most metas where I'd be temped to run ET, Unsub is the card I want in the MD instead. Still, as I said above, mana matters.
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
First, I failed to mention that, in my testing, I started with a straight swap of the 3 spells I currently run (2 Dismembers and 1 Echoing Truth). At 3 copies, I found I was drawing it far too often. And I do mean far too often. Drawing two of them in a game was just annoying. So the only options, in my view, are to run 2 or 1. And running 2 of a spell is much different than running 1 (ie, you draw it exactly twice as often). After testing with 3, and hating drawing 2 as much as I did, I didn't like the idea of running 2, because the possibility of hitting both in one game still exists (I don't run two Kiras for the same reason).
And the card just seems bad as a singleton - it's not a big out to anything in particular. Singletons are something you should be happy to see late in a long, drawn-out game, because that's when you're most likely to see them (because you're drawing further into your deck). However, very late in a game, our opponent is going to have enough mana to simply recast the spell or creature that we bounce.
You can argue that "wanting to bounce a spell is a much more common occurrence than bouncing a nonland, noncreature permanent" if you'd like, but that position ignores a few important things:
First, the spell-bouncing mode requires us to pass the turn while leaving two lands untapped. As you and everyone else on this forum knows, this is not an easy thing to do, often even with Aether Vial on the board. Tempo decks want to make the most efficient use of their mana possible, and passing the turn with two mana up in the hopes the opponent will play something we might be able to soft-counter is not something I found myself wanting to do very often. Rather, I want to be playing spells or attacking with Mutavault. If I'm leaving mana up for countermagic, it's going to be for Negate of Dispel, something that will actually permanently deal with a spell I'm concerned with.
Second, the upside of Echoing Truth over, say, Vapor Snag or Unsubstantiate, is not limited to being able to hit nonland, noncreature permanents. It also hits multiples, which is a very powerful effect (see Maelstrom Pulse, Declaration in Stone).
Third, when running these spells as singletons or 2-ofs, you can't rely on having them in hand at any given moment. The reason I run the singleton Echoing Truth is (on top of being able to bounce creatures, obviously) to have an out to troublesome nonland permanents, particularly prison effects like Ensnaring Bridge. Unsubstantiate is obviously worthless against spells like this. The opponent can put down as many bridges as they want, but they're all coming up when I draw my Echoing Truth.
Fourth, Echoing Truth can save multiple of my creatures in response to a board wipe.
So, obviously, "flexibility" is not an identical quality across different cards. Unsubstantiate is flexible in a very different way from Echoing Truth. I have very particular reasons for running Echoing Truth as a singleton, and very particular reasons for NOT running Unsubstantiate as a singleton (or in any quantity for the foreseeable future).
Based on everything I said in my wall of text, you can very safely assume I think Echoing Truth is better for our deck. I knew it was a valid opinion before I typed it, and didn't (and don't) need you to validate it, or any of my other opinions. Check yourself.
PS - For the record, I don't consider myself any kind of authority on anything having to do with Merfolk or Magic. I'm just a guy trying to share my opinions. I'm happy to read and discuss your opinions. But I (like you) do not appreciate excessive negativity.
Warning for flaming ~Lantern
I have yet to test out Unsubtantiate but your review is pretty much in line with what I thought of the card when spoiled. I strongly favor Spell Pierce and Snag/Dismember in main for the cost and when going to board I am looking for a hard answer, not a flexible but soft card.
As for Remand, I think it actually plays better with fewer creatures, not fewer lands. If I'm running Remand I'm probably leaning a bit heavier on the control/tempo side of things. Maybe I'm splashing white or running a few extra counters/kill spells. If all I'm doing is timewalking to play a Lord I probably could have just played the lord in the first place or trotted out Probe to thin my deck. In situations where it "buys you a turn" to swing you would have gotten the same thing out of a hard counter geared more towards the particular problem card.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
ET is very flexible imo, almost never a dead card
And here is the counter-argument. I'd say a n of 100 is fairly representative, and it clearly indicates 20 as the more consistent option. Granted, the impact is probably smallish either way, but I think 20 is more optimal.
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:
For the landcount, that the 20th land is SGW does not matter; it could just as well be an island with a smileyface drawn on it to differentiate from the other lands in the deck. But the calculation does differentiate that 20th land from all other lands in the deck and thus says "When I draw this exact land, is it good or bad?". All 70 games where SGW wasn't drawn are counted as neutral, regardless of whether mana screw or mana flood occurred during those games. Saying both occurred equally and cancelled each other out is incorrect. Essentially it discards all 70 games where SGW wasn't drawn, giving it a sample size of 30, and then tries to convert the SGW-ratings into random-land ratings which is also questionable as the scoring system for SGW wasn't directly related to mana flood or screw. Tangentially yes, but not directly.
Finally, mana screw and mana flood aren't equally bad nor consistently as bad; being stuck on 2 mana for several turns can be bad but is somewhat mediated if you can still cast multiple two-drops, or you can be stuck on 3 with 2 master of waves in hand. Mana flood is fine if you have two mutavaults to activate, or can just leave you with nothing to do (minor point as well; SGW drawing a card is not independent from mana flood and mana screw). Leaving statistics behind and generally speaking, mana flood is worse than mana screw.
And it goes fairly well with my analysis and experience.
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