in what, in dailies? In premier events? I was worried about not getting my creatures when I was playing 18 or so. I'll test your list, will see for myself. But I am somewhat worried.
I think some of these lists have terribly low creature counts, and for the ones not playing massive burn suites, the creatures are pretty essential. I also think this deck might struggle in a meta where many decks play either lifegain, graveyard recursion, burn, or tokens, or md answers like drown and mr. 4/6 give -1/-1 to your team....
So am not sure if I will play my ptq this w/e, and if yes, whether to run this or not. I want to play jeskai tokens but don't know if it's worth it, seeing as I have had almost no practice with it. If I play this deck, I think md searing blood, maybe even as a 3 or 4 of, would do a ton of work. I am also not sure, but might like md eidolons. I think against many decks a t2 or t3 eidolon is a lot of pain for them, and they'll have to use something like a hero's downfall or lightning strike to kill it, and take damage in the process..after that, not too much has to change, I guess, though I'd play a burn heavy version, though maybe with 18 or so creatures rather than the scary low numbers some of you are advocating..
hmm looks like some decent midrange presence, so I think I'll delegate the chalices to the sideboard, and put spreading seas back in. Lost the win and in at the GPT I was playing at to kiki pod, and lost the round before that to one of those junk decks with resto angels, siege rhinos and the like, and feel like it would have all been a lot easier with spreading seas and more bounce/removal/remands in the main. Faced 0 UR delver or burn or infect or boggle lists, and the affinity deck I beat 2-0 I did so without chalices, just one hurkyl's in g2. So eh.
Kikurek what matchups do the timely reinforcements come in? And how do they play out? Everything else seems very self explanatory. Good job on the 4-0, I'll be borrowing heavily from your list this Sat
Mm blood moon is a little bit of a concern for me, we have a few blue moon players, and I expect to play some people with md blood moons, and the affinity players here also have blood moons in the board. So it's def a problem card. If they are on the play, t3 blood moon can be pretty painful. Not saying white can't work, and if the splash works for people, I'm not arguing. But yeah, happy to stick to mono U for now, in part because I have a fair bit of play experience with it, and it hasn't felt like it lacked anything.
Played a bit with chalices in the main (though a mono U list, none of that white splash crap for me :P), though testing involved playing 13 games v affinity, because people did not show for the modern tournament. Went 7-6, and 2-1 in the games before sideboarding. Chalice at 0 and 1 was powerful, and I still have hurkyl's in the sideboard, so that works pretty well with chalices, especially at 0. Master of Waves as insane as ever at 4. Really really want to be able to test v other decks, but I guess I'll have to wait until the GPT this Saturday to see how that will go :/
Mm Mo-Town, that's pretty much what I ran recently, except I played spell pierces instead of remands because I wanted cheap pseudo hard counters v infect, boggles, ascendency, burn. But I like the list, though needs more MoW
Since affinity isn't going away, I have actually felt that spell pierce has become better v them, seeing as they play their bs "make a 5/5 scissor" card to get cranial platings 5-8.
On a separate note, always surprised to see more than two reejereys in lists. I mean it's a fine card, but is generally the slot where we want to consider more anti meta cards, so kiras atm, maybe tidebinders. Pretty keen to test kikurek's list, albeit with a few small changes to the main and sb.
dasher just looks so bad, has he not been? War-name looks ok but seems like sideboard. Anyone experienced it differently? I think akroan is still very much part of the core deck, good one drop, good thing to put a hammerhand one, good thing to chuck a lot of stuff on, and stoke the flames is still a thing, so those tokens are pretty good, aside from just pushing through damage.
I think I might want to md an eidolon or two, and then side in two more where relevant, and easily side them out when not.
Eh vial is still one of the best cards in the deck. It lets you drop so many creatures so quickly, and also lets you play them safely, at instant speed, through counter magic...it's a really good card. It's also a card people sideboard for, so in some MUs it's good to side it out on the draw, adopting the control role, and also having them side in dead artifact removal. Jund is one of those Mus where you side out vials on the draw. It should be a pretty decent match up.
Selkie seems slow and clunky? Wouldn't a sygg, river cut throat just be better?
woah woah byaku sounds like he is trolling. Just a massive troll post, and poor card assessment. Or maybe you just don't like constructive criticism. I don't know. If the list works for you, and anyone else, then good. I'll leave it at that rather than address that meaningless wall of text.
@SaintA
As for remand in the md, remand is not good atm (imo), it's good v treasure cruise, but bad v affinity, boggles, infect, burn, ascendency, because all their spells are cheap, and you don't gain enough from the card you draw, esp when they just replay whatever 1 mana spell they just tried to play.
Dismember is a bit weaker atm because you generally play decks with lots of creatures, or hexproof creatures, or v decks that deal a lot of damage (like burn), so the lifeloss from casting dismember is actually painful and relevant.
Relic is still fine, though as goyfs and snapcasters are disappearing it really just removes gys for treasure cruise, and fringe reanimator decks, hence I moved mine to the side.
So whilst I had all of these in the md until last weekend, I'll leave them out until midrange strategies inc deck like pod, bg rock, and twin are doing well again
Am interested to see how white splashes work out for people.
I think this is what I would run right now if I were to go to an event. Tempted to try chalice in the main but unless someone else puts up good results cutting vial for chalice, I'd rather stick with the usual. If jund, bg rock, melira etc get back on top the remands, relic, dismembers go back in the main in place of spell pierces, echoing truth, and a vapor snag.
EDIT: I'd try to squeeze spellskite into the sideboard if I could. Love that card.
lol it's not conjecture, it's common sense/logic and reason. You are allowed to disagree, and if your deck works for you, then who am I to stop you. All I am saying is that I would not play your list, and not recommend that people do, for the reasons that I mentioned. As for FNM and online stats, what do they mean? You can play just about anything at FNM and probably win. Seeing as this is the official merfolk thread, I figure we try and talk about decks that might succeed at higher competitive levels, GPs and the like. What that means right now is beating burn, jeskai ascendency, and the usual big players. Master of waves destroys burn, counter spells, echoing truths, and hibernations beat ascendency
EDIT: Gut shot is a pretty reasonable sideboard choice. Have not tried it, but I can see that it would work v a number of decks. I don't use it because it feels a bit narrow, but it seems like a fine choice.
Ultimately merfolk is not really an aggro or a tempo deck, but an anti meta deck. Imo.
I think snapcaster is not good enough for this deck. There will be too many hands where he doesn't do that much, and I think adding cryptics to the deck just to improve the value of snapcaster is not the way to approach deck building. Makes it clunky, adds lots of hands that you don't want. Also, wanting to play snapcaster and then a spell from your gy means you need mana, and at 20 lands, and after cutting two seas (bad idea, wtf, I have won so many games just from cutting off mana, let alone the islandwalk), you will rarely get there. It just doesn't do enough, often enough. Also, three caverns makes your mana even worse for snapcaster shenanigans, and a spell like cryptic. So no. Not a fan. If it is working for you, then I am glad, but I think people should consider the above with a grain of salt. Or three.
I have tested vendillion as well, and although she seems better, especially since the three drop slot is always in contention, with reejery being good, but not mindblowing, and kira also being in there, but also did not love it. Phantasmal dies to a lot. I used to advocate playing three or four, I mean they ultimately are like more lords, or their goyfs, or their vendillions etc. But I have changed my mind, they are insanely vulnerable, so I think it's probably a meta choice, and I have been ok with just one phantasmal or none.
So went to a new place for FNM tonight since it's the only place to regularly do Modern for FNM. Four rounds.
R1 v BG crap stuff. 2-0
Mostly a standard deck, and a bad one at that. G1 over very quickly, g2 I discard 5 or 6 cards because of not finding my second land, still get there with 5 life in hand.
R2 v Boggles 2-1 (v person who is a pretty horrible human being, and who spent the first few minutes talking about how she'd destroy me. Nice.)
G1 She goes boggle, t2 rancor ethereal, t3 unflinching courage, I scoop.
G2 I go aether vial, t2 chalice for 1, she says wtf, she plays spirit dancer, I advance my board, then flash in spellskite to eat an enchantment, and she scoops in anger.
G3 I see a great seven card hand, but no sideboard, so I mull to 6. Find chalice and aether vial. She has no 1 drop, I get chalice and aether vial set up, she plays stoney silence, but the game is already over.
R3 Jeskai Ascendency 1-1 (v boyfriend of the girl from round before. They are a couple of nuts).
G1 I spell pierce ascendency. He plays some spell to put it back on top of his deck. I get greedy and don't leave mana for echoing truth open, wanting to win in a couple of turns. Lose.
G2 I keep a sick opener with lord, lord, swan song, spell pierce, hibernation, two islands. He has an ok start, but I spell pierce one ascendency, and keep bashing with double lord, he tries to go off on the final turn (and I have swan song in hand still) and eventually draws into nothin', and I kill him.
G3 Two minutes left to go, the guy plays fking slowly....anyway I only have one spell pierce, relic, cursecatcher, some aggro...start chipping away, stop his first ascendency, I get him down to 10 or so, we are in time already, he gets t5 to try and kill me, and he fails, getting stuck with three land and a treasure cruise after already using one and emptying his gy. Calls me the luckiest bastard ever. Ignoring the fact that he'd have died a few turns later had he not played such a slow game. Ban that crap.
R4 v Cruel Control 2-0
G1 he mulls to 6, I don't know what he's playing, I play out a pretty slow hand, no vials, but he misses his first land drop, once he gets it he misses his second land drop, I spell pierce an electrolyze, he is at 1 life, and delays the game two more turns with two cryptics, then scoops.
G2 I side as I would v uwr, although no bounce since i don't expect any kiki jiki resto angel crap, a single curse catcher dealt a lot of damage this game, I commit a lord to the board, he angers, I play a master, he angers, I bash away, he slaughter pacts, I play another master, he angers just to kill tokens, I play two lord and bash with the 4/3 master, and he is more or less dead to it.
In the end I come third behind the guy who played the ascendency, and another friend who went 4-0 with affinity (he played so many scrubby decks, no wonder people think fnm players are bad, sooooo many terrible players, and terrible decks at this venue). Merfolk is as good as ever imo, you need to sideboard a ton v ascendency and play v it the same way you would play v storm.
Today was the first time I sided in chalice and actually played it. And my god, it was absurdly good. Seems like a reasonable sideboard card as long as burn and ascendency are played. And still helps v infect, boggles, affinity, so not completely dead anyway. I did play two main spell pierce and one echoing truth in main as well, expecting trash boggles, burn, infect, ascendency decks, otherwise I'd have two remands and a relic of progenitus main in place of those.
EDIT: I also agree with the guy two posts above. Delver is like a bad version of UWR v us from what I have seen. Sometimes they have crazy good starts, but unless that happens, vapor snags make delvers look silly, and you can generally race pyromaster (again, snags are great here). Also t3 kira into t4 master of waves is pretty much the win here. This has more or less been the case v all ur delver variants I have played, though have not played tons v the new treasure cruise version. But I would not be scared sitting down across from it atm.
So am not sure if I will play my ptq this w/e, and if yes, whether to run this or not. I want to play jeskai tokens but don't know if it's worth it, seeing as I have had almost no practice with it. If I play this deck, I think md searing blood, maybe even as a 3 or 4 of, would do a ton of work. I am also not sure, but might like md eidolons. I think against many decks a t2 or t3 eidolon is a lot of pain for them, and they'll have to use something like a hero's downfall or lightning strike to kill it, and take damage in the process..after that, not too much has to change, I guess, though I'd play a burn heavy version, though maybe with 18 or so creatures rather than the scary low numbers some of you are advocating..
GPT this Saturday, will see how that goes
Since affinity isn't going away, I have actually felt that spell pierce has become better v them, seeing as they play their bs "make a 5/5 scissor" card to get cranial platings 5-8.
On a separate note, always surprised to see more than two reejereys in lists. I mean it's a fine card, but is generally the slot where we want to consider more anti meta cards, so kiras atm, maybe tidebinders. Pretty keen to test kikurek's list, albeit with a few small changes to the main and sb.
I think I might want to md an eidolon or two, and then side in two more where relevant, and easily side them out when not.
Selkie seems slow and clunky? Wouldn't a sygg, river cut throat just be better?
@SaintA
As for remand in the md, remand is not good atm (imo), it's good v treasure cruise, but bad v affinity, boggles, infect, burn, ascendency, because all their spells are cheap, and you don't gain enough from the card you draw, esp when they just replay whatever 1 mana spell they just tried to play.
Dismember is a bit weaker atm because you generally play decks with lots of creatures, or hexproof creatures, or v decks that deal a lot of damage (like burn), so the lifeloss from casting dismember is actually painful and relevant.
Relic is still fine, though as goyfs and snapcasters are disappearing it really just removes gys for treasure cruise, and fringe reanimator decks, hence I moved mine to the side.
So whilst I had all of these in the md until last weekend, I'll leave them out until midrange strategies inc deck like pod, bg rock, and twin are doing well again
Am interested to see how white splashes work out for people.
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord Of Atlantis
4 Master Of The Pearl Trident
2 Kira, Great Glass Spinner
2 Merrow Reejerey
3 Master Of Waves
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Spreading Seas
4 Vapor Snag
1 Echoing Truth
3 Spell Pierce
4 Mutavault
16 Island
2 Gutshot
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Hibernation
4 Chalice Of The Void
2 Swan Song
2 Tidebinder Mage
I think this is what I would run right now if I were to go to an event. Tempted to try chalice in the main but unless someone else puts up good results cutting vial for chalice, I'd rather stick with the usual. If jund, bg rock, melira etc get back on top the remands, relic, dismembers go back in the main in place of spell pierces, echoing truth, and a vapor snag.
EDIT: I'd try to squeeze spellskite into the sideboard if I could. Love that card.
EDIT: Gut shot is a pretty reasonable sideboard choice. Have not tried it, but I can see that it would work v a number of decks. I don't use it because it feels a bit narrow, but it seems like a fine choice.
Ultimately merfolk is not really an aggro or a tempo deck, but an anti meta deck. Imo.
I have tested vendillion as well, and although she seems better, especially since the three drop slot is always in contention, with reejery being good, but not mindblowing, and kira also being in there, but also did not love it. Phantasmal dies to a lot. I used to advocate playing three or four, I mean they ultimately are like more lords, or their goyfs, or their vendillions etc. But I have changed my mind, they are insanely vulnerable, so I think it's probably a meta choice, and I have been ok with just one phantasmal or none.
R1 v BG crap stuff. 2-0
Mostly a standard deck, and a bad one at that. G1 over very quickly, g2 I discard 5 or 6 cards because of not finding my second land, still get there with 5 life in hand.
R2 v Boggles 2-1 (v person who is a pretty horrible human being, and who spent the first few minutes talking about how she'd destroy me. Nice.)
G1 She goes boggle, t2 rancor ethereal, t3 unflinching courage, I scoop.
G2 I go aether vial, t2 chalice for 1, she says wtf, she plays spirit dancer, I advance my board, then flash in spellskite to eat an enchantment, and she scoops in anger.
G3 I see a great seven card hand, but no sideboard, so I mull to 6. Find chalice and aether vial. She has no 1 drop, I get chalice and aether vial set up, she plays stoney silence, but the game is already over.
R3 Jeskai Ascendency 1-1 (v boyfriend of the girl from round before. They are a couple of nuts).
G1 I spell pierce ascendency. He plays some spell to put it back on top of his deck. I get greedy and don't leave mana for echoing truth open, wanting to win in a couple of turns. Lose.
G2 I keep a sick opener with lord, lord, swan song, spell pierce, hibernation, two islands. He has an ok start, but I spell pierce one ascendency, and keep bashing with double lord, he tries to go off on the final turn (and I have swan song in hand still) and eventually draws into nothin', and I kill him.
G3 Two minutes left to go, the guy plays fking slowly....anyway I only have one spell pierce, relic, cursecatcher, some aggro...start chipping away, stop his first ascendency, I get him down to 10 or so, we are in time already, he gets t5 to try and kill me, and he fails, getting stuck with three land and a treasure cruise after already using one and emptying his gy. Calls me the luckiest bastard ever. Ignoring the fact that he'd have died a few turns later had he not played such a slow game. Ban that crap.
R4 v Cruel Control 2-0
G1 he mulls to 6, I don't know what he's playing, I play out a pretty slow hand, no vials, but he misses his first land drop, once he gets it he misses his second land drop, I spell pierce an electrolyze, he is at 1 life, and delays the game two more turns with two cryptics, then scoops.
G2 I side as I would v uwr, although no bounce since i don't expect any kiki jiki resto angel crap, a single curse catcher dealt a lot of damage this game, I commit a lord to the board, he angers, I play a master, he angers, I bash away, he slaughter pacts, I play another master, he angers just to kill tokens, I play two lord and bash with the 4/3 master, and he is more or less dead to it.
In the end I come third behind the guy who played the ascendency, and another friend who went 4-0 with affinity (he played so many scrubby decks, no wonder people think fnm players are bad, sooooo many terrible players, and terrible decks at this venue). Merfolk is as good as ever imo, you need to sideboard a ton v ascendency and play v it the same way you would play v storm.
Today was the first time I sided in chalice and actually played it. And my god, it was absurdly good. Seems like a reasonable sideboard card as long as burn and ascendency are played. And still helps v infect, boggles, affinity, so not completely dead anyway. I did play two main spell pierce and one echoing truth in main as well, expecting trash boggles, burn, infect, ascendency decks, otherwise I'd have two remands and a relic of progenitus main in place of those.
EDIT: I also agree with the guy two posts above. Delver is like a bad version of UWR v us from what I have seen. Sometimes they have crazy good starts, but unless that happens, vapor snags make delvers look silly, and you can generally race pyromaster (again, snags are great here). Also t3 kira into t4 master of waves is pretty much the win here. This has more or less been the case v all ur delver variants I have played, though have not played tons v the new treasure cruise version. But I would not be scared sitting down across from it atm.