Is it right to keep in master of waves and bears like tidebinder to keep threats in the deck?
tidebinders should be cut
you can trim masters too if you want. they do have the potential to close the game out quick if you get one to stick. but you usually won't get many tokens as they are clearing your board and they are a PTE magnet. try to have a dispel or unified will ready before deploying him.
i leave the harbingers in because the instant speed EOT deployment can push in some extra damage.
usually in these matchups you will be chipping away slowly with 1 or 2 creatures at a time. victory usually comes when you realize suddenly they are at 3 or 4 life, you swing, they cast a removal spell, and you counter it.
Man. Rough set of pairings there. Lantern, Elves, and Affinity are all bad for us. I've had success against UW Control and Grixis Shadow, but neither is a freebie (though as Merfolk, what is? U-Tron?).
The U/W was actually a timewalk deck. I had him down to 1 life and he killed me with 9 seconds left on his clock. He kept tapping all my creatures and then casting whatever that spell is that prevents creatures/lands from untapping and vialling in creatures didn't help me against 3 Celestial Colonades flying in. I couldn't find Haringer and I didn't bring in Snag because those were the only real targets and I figured between Spreading Seas & Harbinger I should be OK. I was mistaken lol
I have a very good record vs. Jund Deaths Shadow, but the Grixis matchup has been giving me a lot of trouble. What's working for you? I feel like my hand get's picked to pieces every single time.
I actually had Vial, Spell Pierce & Cursecatcher in my opening hand. Played Cursecatcher 1st, sac'ed against Throughtseize. T2 I drop the vial and then Spell Pierced an IOK, holding 3 lords in hand. They all got picked to pieces anyway with removal. I just can't figure it out.
Vial comes out because it's an attrition matchup, and none of their countermagic hits creatures. Seas come out because it's a deck that has use for U. Dismember comes in because it can catch Tasigur/Angler. Echoing Truth and Relic of Progenitus are a house against them, and Kira can be handy. I've been pretty successful against them since I adopted this plan, though it admittedly took a bit of time to figure out.
I do admit that Nissa, Steward of Elements is pretty interesting planeswalker to come in the new set. I don't think that it will fit in our deck, even though it can get value for the 0 loyalty ability along with the +2 loyalty ability. Aether Vial is still the best way to get added value for our Merfolk. That being said, I can see some U/G brews try it out and see it can sustain it self.
Is unified will strictly better than negate on the SB?
Unified Will is "really" good in our deck for sure. At least most of the time against a matchup where our opponent isn't going wide as well. I wouldn't run Negate over Spell Pierce for that matter. If you had a choice it would be 1st choice - Unified Will, 2nd choice - Spell Pierce, 3rd choice - Negate or other 1-2 mana counter spells.
Best matchups are Burn and durdly decks like control. Shadow's not half bad either, once you get used to it. Worst matchups are Affinity and Lantern Control by far. Elves and Titanshift aren't great either.
I haven't had overly much trouble with either Shadow or UW Control, honestly. UW Control is a long, knock-down, drag-out slugfest, where you have to resist the urge to try and close the game quickly (they will always have an answer), and just chip away with 2-3 creatures (preferably with islandwalk). On the subject of Shadow... I agree, the best way to win is disrupting their tempo. I won a game in my latest match against Shadow by chaining together an Echoing Truth and 2 Vapor Snags in order to allow my Lords time to clock my opponent. I'm something like 15-8 against all Shadow variants with my latest sideboard plan on MTGO, so I'm feeling pretty confident in the matchup.
Hi all!
I'm about to buy this deck because I saw the possibility to do it and always wanted to play it so I just need to know a few thing first. Whats the best/worst matchups for this deck?
Thank you for your help
Spreading Seas and Sea's Claim is a winner against Death's Shadow Jund. Strangling our opponent on black mana is pretty much how we control the board. I agree with rothgar13, Affinity and Lantern Control is our hardest matchups by far. Something about so many artifacts on the field really hurts us along with the speed of Affinity and the controlling nature of Lantern Control. Everytime I have faced Elves I usually win, mainly I get there faster than my opponent. Shaman of the Pack does destroy us however. Decks that does take time to win and have to choose what to focus on like Burn and Tron is good for us. With Tron, we really need to starve them on actual tron setup and hope they do not drop an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon or Oblivion Stone.
I took over 20 pts of dmg from Shaman of the Pack on t3 the other day. Dude had crazy ramp into dual CoCo. Not a great matchup, but we do have side board options for it.
Overall burn is a fantastic matchup and i do very well against both regular bgx and jund deaths shadow.
Affinity is a bad matchup, but winnable with a bit of luck. Lantern is easily our worst matchup but rare enough its not really worth worrying about. Is what it is.
This past week I've been playing without MoW, instead running out Tidebinder and Harbinger. Its done pretty well, but needs more testing. Not having a haymaker hurts, but between Path/Push its felt more vulnerable and I've liked being able to get more low cost creatures on the board that can tempo.
Regular Tron we can race, especially with Seas, as long as walking balista doesn't hit the board. That's made the matchup a bit tougher.
Overall i think Eldrazi Tron is tougher because the land screw is less impactful with more ways to ramp and a lower curve. Displacer can be real nuisance.
The problem is we want snag vs. things like Deaths Shadow, but Dismember is a hard answer for some of these other decks and finding room for both is tough.
I've actually had a pretty easy time with Eldrazi Tron of late. The 8-Seas plan has gotten there a lot. I honestly feel it's been easier than Bant, especially since they've started preparing to face us by maindecking Engineered Explosives. Classic Tron is also pretty beatable when you're on the 8-Seas plan. As for Snag vs. Dismember... my current strategy has been to maindeck the Snag and side the Dismember in as needed. It's worked fairly well, though I have found myself wondering if they would be better off as Relic of Progenitus #3 and #4 (most of the targets I've been zapping with them are graveyard-based anyway).
It just hasn't been all that difficult to me. I've beaten them in a variety of ways - locked them out of their lands with Sea's Claim and Spreading Seas, out-tempo'd the crap out of them with Echoing Truth and Vapor Snag, or sometimes just gone wider than what they can handle with Master of Waves. The tools are all there.
tidebinders should be cut
you can trim masters too if you want. they do have the potential to close the game out quick if you get one to stick. but you usually won't get many tokens as they are clearing your board and they are a PTE magnet. try to have a dispel or unified will ready before deploying him.
i leave the harbingers in because the instant speed EOT deployment can push in some extra damage.
usually in these matchups you will be chipping away slowly with 1 or 2 creatures at a time. victory usually comes when you realize suddenly they are at 3 or 4 life, you swing, they cast a removal spell, and you counter it.
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
0-2 vs. Lantern Control
2-0 vs. Elves
0-2 vs. Grixis Deaths Shadow
1-2 vs. U/W Control
0-2 vs. Affinity
Not having a good day lol
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I have a very good record vs. Jund Deaths Shadow, but the Grixis matchup has been giving me a lot of trouble. What's working for you? I feel like my hand get's picked to pieces every single time.
I actually had Vial, Spell Pierce & Cursecatcher in my opening hand. Played Cursecatcher 1st, sac'ed against Throughtseize. T2 I drop the vial and then Spell Pierced an IOK, holding 3 lords in hand. They all got picked to pieces anyway with removal. I just can't figure it out.
-4 Aether Vial
-1 Merrow Reejerey
-4 Spreading Seas
+2 Dismember
+2 Dispel
+2 Echoing Truth
+1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
+2 Relic of Progenitus
Vial comes out because it's an attrition matchup, and none of their countermagic hits creatures. Seas come out because it's a deck that has use for U. Dismember comes in because it can catch Tasigur/Angler. Echoing Truth and Relic of Progenitus are a house against them, and Kira can be handy. I've been pretty successful against them since I adopted this plan, though it admittedly took a bit of time to figure out.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
WBC Eldrazi and Taxes
WCopter and Taxes
CVIAL is layf
you got pretty lucky to beat elves... should have been an 0-5 lol
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
it's USUALLY better (at least in the matchups we want it in) but obviously not "strictly" better.
U Merfolk U
WUBRGPeopleGRBUW
U Turbo Turns U
UB Fae BU
WBG Aristocrats GBW
Unified Will is "really" good in our deck for sure. At least most of the time against a matchup where our opponent isn't going wide as well. I wouldn't run Negate over Spell Pierce for that matter. If you had a choice it would be 1st choice - Unified Will, 2nd choice - Spell Pierce, 3rd choice - Negate or other 1-2 mana counter spells.
https://plus.google.com/photos/photo/113465937302805776157/6408151402771907906?icm=false
By Force is an amazing answer to one of our worst matchups, Affinity.
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:
Spreading Seas and Sea's Claim is a winner against Death's Shadow Jund. Strangling our opponent on black mana is pretty much how we control the board. I agree with rothgar13, Affinity and Lantern Control is our hardest matchups by far. Something about so many artifacts on the field really hurts us along with the speed of Affinity and the controlling nature of Lantern Control. Everytime I have faced Elves I usually win, mainly I get there faster than my opponent. Shaman of the Pack does destroy us however. Decks that does take time to win and have to choose what to focus on like Burn and Tron is good for us. With Tron, we really need to starve them on actual tron setup and hope they do not drop an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon or Oblivion Stone.
Overall burn is a fantastic matchup and i do very well against both regular bgx and jund deaths shadow.
Affinity is a bad matchup, but winnable with a bit of luck. Lantern is easily our worst matchup but rare enough its not really worth worrying about. Is what it is.
This past week I've been playing without MoW, instead running out Tidebinder and Harbinger. Its done pretty well, but needs more testing. Not having a haymaker hurts, but between Path/Push its felt more vulnerable and I've liked being able to get more low cost creatures on the board that can tempo.
Regular Tron we can race, especially with Seas, as long as walking balista doesn't hit the board. That's made the matchup a bit tougher.
Overall i think Eldrazi Tron is tougher because the land screw is less impactful with more ways to ramp and a lower curve. Displacer can be real nuisance.
The problem is we want snag vs. things like Deaths Shadow, but Dismember is a hard answer for some of these other decks and finding room for both is tough.
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: