This is my take on the deck, a straightforward aggro deck with multiple attack angles. Sram acts as Puresteel Paladins 5-6 wich helps in the quest of never losing gas.
Etched Champion is our True Name Nemesis, attach everything to it and swing or just use it as a perpetual blocker waiting to have enough Equipments to steal the game. You rarely need more than one each game, and having a great digging power I think 2 is the right number. 2 more from the sideboard are highly adviced vs grindier decks.
Every other creature is a 4 of, we have 8 Equipment Creatures wich gets immediatly buffed by our stone haven outfitters and can be fetched by stoneforge mystic, Giver of runes is a great 1-drop (wich the deck typically lacks as equipment-synergic creatures are usually lackluster) can assure our cranial plated creature connects and can protect our vital advantage pieces (sram, psp and sho). Busted card.
Dispatch over PtE cause I'm a cheap boy.
Cranial plating over bonesplitter because we play an Etched Champion/Giver of Runes list and more than fast aggro is a slower form of inevitable death strategy.
My results were great over the board except for the jund mu, Kolaghan Commands are just too strong.
Yeah, I've never tought Merfolk wasn't a viable option, but in the last year I struggled to see a reason to play my beloved pet-deck (from the legacy standstill era, something like 10 years ago) over other better positioned tribes (AKA Spirits).
Today with the canopies and the much needed card selection from benthic biomancer, we are less likely to flood and force of negation will be a premium tempo play; a play that Spirits will make less consistently for multiple reasons:
1) their lands don't double up as threats, while we can play up to 8 (unlikely, at the moment 5 to 6 seems to be the right number) cyclers and 4 manlands: a minus 1 in a spirit shell is much more punishing.
2) they play from 11 to 18 non-blue spells, and more lands, so the forces are less likely to be active.
Now the matter on the other premium tribe, humans, is much more complex
. They use to lose from spirits but have fairly good mups across the board, the fact is that they gain ALMOST nothing from the new set, except maybe from the pseudo kira changeling wich is surprisingly underwhelming in the nowadays field.
All these things together brought hope to my little shattered fish player's heart and might be the factors to a second merfolk rising.
After testing some Mh1 spirits I'm totally fond on Force of Negation. (In UW)
We GOT to play it as a 4-of.
It wins us the game instantly against Faithless Looting decks, Combo decks, it negates most of tron threats and is quite good since it can still be a cc3 negate.
The changeling is very good, it has many other application over the obvious cursecatching.
But it's good cause it adds consistency to what we do well yet, not as a standalone threat.
Acts as a second tax in human, this paired with Thalias or two of these or these plus phantasmal image is gonna hit hard storm and burn and discard based decks and valakut and karns and,you know, anything that's not a creature or a mass removal.
Is the fourth distruption piece for humans, and adds redundancy. Wich is good.
Unsettled Mariner seems good.
A pseudo Crystalline Sliver, human, that hoses burn, discards, storm, t3 Karns, New wastelands. both Teferi and Valakut, Both lilianas.
Maybe alone, as a protection, is not great. But in the human shell it generates redundancy.
Alongside thalia makes almost impossible to remove our board and helps at keeping our Meddling Mages and Kitesail Freebooters alive
4 Giver of Runes
4 Stone Haven Outfitter
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Puresteel Paladin
2 Sram, Senior Edificer
2 Etched Champion
4 Flayer Husk
4 Ancestral Blade
4 Cranial Plating
14 Plains
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
2 Horizon Canopy
This is my take on the deck, a straightforward aggro deck with multiple attack angles. Sram acts as Puresteel Paladins 5-6 wich helps in the quest of never losing gas.
Etched Champion is our True Name Nemesis, attach everything to it and swing or just use it as a perpetual blocker waiting to have enough Equipments to steal the game. You rarely need more than one each game, and having a great digging power I think 2 is the right number. 2 more from the sideboard are highly adviced vs grindier decks.
Every other creature is a 4 of, we have 8 Equipment Creatures wich gets immediatly buffed by our stone haven outfitters and can be fetched by stoneforge mystic, Giver of runes is a great 1-drop (wich the deck typically lacks as equipment-synergic creatures are usually lackluster) can assure our cranial plated creature connects and can protect our vital advantage pieces (sram, psp and sho). Busted card.
Dispatch over PtE cause I'm a cheap boy.
Cranial plating over bonesplitter because we play an Etched Champion/Giver of Runes list and more than fast aggro is a slower form of inevitable death strategy.
My results were great over the board except for the jund mu, Kolaghan Commands are just too strong.
Card Advantage, hasty. He seems cool and can block Spirits beaters. Seems a well rounded card, just pushed back a bit by RNG.
Eagle is just not a lord for thalia like our other lords and has a B1G 4S$.
Yes 3 cmc is a bit on the expensive side, but it is just as good as drogskol captain at accelerating our race, and protects himself better.
The flashy pirate, is instead a B0M8.
Today with the canopies and the much needed card selection from benthic biomancer, we are less likely to flood and force of negation will be a premium tempo play; a play that Spirits will make less consistently for multiple reasons:
1) their lands don't double up as threats, while we can play up to 8 (unlikely, at the moment 5 to 6 seems to be the right number) cyclers and 4 manlands: a minus 1 in a spirit shell is much more punishing.
2) they play from 11 to 18 non-blue spells, and more lands, so the forces are less likely to be active.
Now the matter on the other premium tribe, humans, is much more complex
. They use to lose from spirits but have fairly good mups across the board, the fact is that they gain ALMOST nothing from the new set, except maybe from the pseudo kira changeling wich is surprisingly underwhelming in the nowadays field.
All these things together brought hope to my little shattered fish player's heart and might be the factors to a second merfolk rising.
I'm sorry for my bad english.
We GOT to play it as a 4-of.
It wins us the game instantly against Faithless Looting decks, Combo decks, it negates most of tron threats and is quite good since it can still be a cc3 negate.
We now have interation while tapped out.
A basic 24 spirits shell is the way to go imho.
A rough draft of the deck could be
4 M Wanderer
4 Rattle
4 Selfless
4 Supreme
4 Queller
4 Drogskol
4 Vial
4 PtE
4 Force of Negation
4 Flex Spells
20 lands
Those flex spells could be a selection of remands, cryptic commands, archmage charms and Pierces, snares or any counter really.
We just need SOME spirits to win while grinding and while them protect each others. We got to play the real tempo game. I'm so excited guys
But it's good cause it adds consistency to what we do well yet, not as a standalone threat.
Is the fourth distruption piece for humans, and adds redundancy. Wich is good.
Unsettled Mariner seems good.
A pseudo Crystalline Sliver, human, that hoses burn, discards, storm, t3 Karns, New wastelands. both Teferi and Valakut, Both lilianas.
Maybe alone, as a protection, is not great. But in the human shell it generates redundancy.
Alongside thalia makes almost impossible to remove our board and helps at keeping our Meddling Mages and Kitesail Freebooters alive