Hey necrosomega1! The top8 match was still close though, sadly it just wasn't my day. No, I'm not from Knoxville, we had to drive a few hours to get there. I don't think I ever thought that I had too many chalices, at least as far as game 1 is concerned. They at least did something for that game, except for the match with the other chalice deck, mono-w prison control.
Hey shoebaccha! I think you want the relics and dismembers against storm. A relic on board forces storm to look for a gap where they think they can go off. Just make sure you leave mana up to crack the relic when needed though. The dismembers are painful but it's necessary to stop their mana dorks. I'd shave on MoW and Harbinger for those cards, probably -4 MoW and -2 Harbinger.
I see. Well, at the very least, it wasn't that too far of a difference. Thanks a lot for the input. I'll try to take better notes at the next event I end up going to. Do you have any advice about that? Just to make it easier for analysis' sake because I usually end up winging it when it comes to things like this.
Thanks rothgar13! In that specific matchup, with my 75, how would you have sideboarded? Should I have brought in the extra echoing truth and some of the deprives? I remember seeing a crackling drake I had to psionic blast in game 1, along with snapcaster mages, assuming that's relevant.
Round 2: Amulet Titan (2-1)
Game 1:
He was able to put down a turn 1 Amulet of Vigor while I had a turn 1 Aether Vial. I played a turn 2 Chalice of the Void on 0 and I used Psionic Blast on his Azusa, Lost but Seeking with the amulet trigger still on the stack to cut off extra land drops. He was able to bounce and replay Kabira Crossroads a few times to get to 24 life. I managed to use multiple Merfolk Trickster to stop his Primeval Titan from attacking. I was able to make an alpha swing for 11 damage coupled with a few earlier chips at his life total to win the game.
Game 2: +2 Tidebinder Mage, +2 Dismember and -2 Phantasmal Image, -2 Spreading Seas
This game was a quick loss. He was able to get 2 Amulet of Vigor down and swing in with 18 damage in one turn.
Game 3: No changes
This game I got an Aether Vial on turn 1 as well as a Chalice of the Void on 0 and he got his Amulet of Vigor. I then played a Chalice of the Void on 1 on turn 2 and then used Echoing truth on the already in play Amulet of Vigor. I want to say that the rest of the match was clinical, but I missed a few chalice triggers causing the game to go a bit longer than I, or everyone watching, expected.
I draw the next 2 rounds and end the swiss with a record of (7-0-2). I finally get something to eat at 1 of 2 available places still open that night and proceed to my quarterfinals match.
Q-Final: UR Phoenix (1-2)
Game 1:
The first game was him just using his draw spells while discarding irrelevant cards. I win with average beats after taking out a Crackling Drake with Psionic Blast and using Echoing Truth on 2 Snapcaster Mage to get in some more non-islandwalk damage before the lethal swing.
Game 2: +1 Surgical Extraction, +2 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Damping Sphere and -4 Spreading Seas, -1 Master of Waves
I realize far too late that I sideboarded wrongly. I'm on the draw against a fast deck, I shouldn't have put in Damping Sphere and maybe should've gone down a few Chalice of the Void. Turn 2 double Arclight Phoenix was enough to whittle my life down to 0.
Game 3: No changes
I don't see any phoenixes but instead I had to face down 2 Thing in the Ice. I get in as much damage as possible using my 2 Aether Vial on 2 and multiple lords then I try to setup a win scenario where I can win on the crackback if he doesn't have any targeted removal. He flips the second Awoken Horror and bounces all my lords back to hand. He attacks with 2 Awoken Horror while I'm at 13 life and I vial in Phantasmal Image to copy it and it dies to a bolt. If he didn't have removal I could've won with my Awoken Horror image and a Mutavault swinging in while he was at 8 life.
That ends my report. There may be a few discrepancies but this should be the gist of the matches as I remember them. I was and still am fairly tired but all in all, I was pretty happy ending the swiss rounds as 1 of 2 undeafeated people in a group of 230+ people.
As a side note, I kind of went crazy with the card code thingy. If I wasn't supposed to do that to ALL the cards I mentioned, let me know and I'll edit it when I can.
Edit: Just adding to a few matches as I recall more from the event.
@pabloduque32: I actually run a similar list and I've gotten a few top8 PPTQ finishes with the list so I can say that I'm quite comfortable with it. Just note that it was +1 Harbinger, -1 Kopala before Ixalan.
Anyway, I just wanted to post here again to let you guys know of my appreciation for all the info I've found on this forum. I've played with Merfolk for just a bit over a year ever since I got back into Magic and I'm happy with the deck and how it performs. Plus the fact that I couldn't for the life of me figure out my twitch account.
I'm probably going to pick up a few copies of Delay to test out as a replacement for Negate. It seems like it ought to do the trick in a lot of matches.
Thanks for the input guys. I suppose the best you can do with it is to use it as a 1-of during some event, then it'd be rendered useless right after since it's relatively easy to play around.
Hey there guys, I'm not sure if it was ever discussed here but I wanted to get your thoughts on Diminish. It looks like a decent pseudo-removal card especially when merfolk has a lot of combat tricks to begin with and it only costs U.
I like committing to one piece, be it land hate (which is what I would recommend in this meta), creature disruption, or countermagic, and then filling out gaps from there. As an example, I'm jamming 8-Seas right now, so I started with my 4 Sea's Claim. Then, I wanted some stuff against aggro and combo decks, so I put in Dispel, Echoing Truth, and Unified Will. Dismember helps against midrange, tempo, and some types of aggro. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner and Relic of Progenitus are good against combo, control, and midrange.
So you generally start out with what certain cards do then build from there? Instead of building around specific match-ups, which is what I feel like I'm doing. Thanks for the advice, pretty sure it would help since I've been having trouble trying to build a sideboard with an auto 4 slots on Sea's Claim.
Merrow Reejerey is a crucial card in my deck. I play with a full set of them because it's hard to stop Merfolk if they land two Reejerey's out with two lands untapped and/or a Cursecatcher in hand to untap two lands play lords infinitely (as much as the hand allows haha!)
Reejerey comes in handy to tap my opponent's creatures/lands/Vials and on top of all that...IT'S A LORD! 12 lords in the mainboard is inherently better than 8 with a possibility of 10. I would imagine getting around Anger of the Gods was especially difficult with only 10 possible lords.
Image is still good and all, but I just don't think it's worth bringing to a big tournament like a GP or Regionals.
My local meta has a lot of aggro including Slivers, Tooth and Nail, Spirits, and Elves just to name a few. I've counteracted that by playing with 28 mainboard creatures and 2 mainboard removal spells in Dismember to make for at least 30 usable cards in Game 1 guaranteed.
Here is the list I got to Top 8 with in Raleigh at Regionals this year for any kind of reference: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=111522
Did you see much Merfolk around in your Regionals? Where were you? I saw at least a handful of Merfolk floating around, many different versions too with W/U, B/U, and 8-seas version along with my heavy-aggro version.
Oh, congrats on your top8! I was in San Diego, the only regionals over on the west coast.
I saw a few Merfolk players, I saw a U/W and 8-seas, but I only saw them before the event started. I'm not sure how they did in the swiss.
About Merrow Reejerey, I just felt that they were very awkward plays in my local meta. I'm sure it'll fair better in a more diverse meta but I just ran the Phantasmal Image in this event since it was the version I was most comfortable with at the time.
I know it's a bit late but I just finished understanding a few things about my matchups at the scg regionals. Overall, I went 5-4 ending up at 69th place out of about 240 people.
The meta was pretty diverse but I went up against a few Tron builds.
Tron Eldrazi - 2-1 (1-0)
BUG Control? - 0-2 (1-1)
R/G Tron - 0-2 (1-2)
R/G Tron - 2-0 (2-2)
Unknown - 2-0 (3-2)
Goryo's Vengeance - 1-2 (3-3)
Tooth and Nail - 2-1 (4-3)
Naya Burn - 2-1 (5-3)
Affinity - 0-2 (5-4)
I wasn't sure about some of the cards I saw at the time so it took me a while to remember and then look them up. Sadly, I wasn't able to dodge the Affinity match-up.
The BUG deck really threw me off since I was essentially facing a Zoo deck with some control. With Fatal Push, Tarmagoyf and Grim Flayer early on in both games, I found it hard to even build up threats.
The first R/G Tron I went up against was pretty lucky to get natural tron both games even with Spreading Seas on the board.
The Unknown deck was a strange match, since he scooped on turn 2 on game 1 with Spreading Seas on the board and then scooped again on turn 3/4 on game 2 with Tidebinder Mage and Phantasmal Image tapping down his Voice of Resurgence and Scavenging Ooze. I think this was a strange Nahiri build of some sort, only because I saw it when he put his hand down.
I didn't know I was facing a Goryo's Vengeance Deck until game 2, and then I lost game 3 flooding out with 10 Islands.
Tooth and Nail was new to me as well. He got a turn 3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Xenagos, God of Revels in game 2.
For those wondering why I cut off Reejerey from the deck completely, the local meta I usually play with are full of aggro decks. I decided to bring in the images to lower the curve, add that to the fact that it's rather fun to have. I just decided to run it at this event as well since it was what I was comfortable with.
This was my first event on such a level so it was a good experience. I'll switch up my sideboard and bring in Sea's Claims as well as probably bring back a few Merrow Reejereys before GP Vegas.
On that note actually, how exactly do you build sideboards against blind metas? All my sideboard iterations go wide, and more often than not, too wide.
In that metagame you're describing, I'd pack more Tidebinder Mage and Dispel. They'll make your life easier against Burn and Infect, and the Tidebinders help out against Abzan. To do so, I'd trim Tectonic Edge (only good against Abzan) and a Gut Shot (which I like, but not as much as Dispel). I think your sideboard is in a pretty good place against the rest.
As far as the mainboard goes, 2 Kira is certainly a thing people do, but I've always been of the opinion it's a bit clunky. I like it as a 1-of.
Thanks! Feels good to be back.
As a replacement for Kira, would a 3rd Vapor Snag in the mainboard do? I was actually thinking about getting a Phantasmal Image too. I'm just not sure how relevant it'll be towards the meta I'm playing at right now.
Thanks for the input, especially since I find Infect and RW lockdown the most troublesome to deal with at the moment. I'll try the changes out tonight and later this week. Hopefully it'll have more of an impact.
Hi there guys. I'm sort of a returning player to magic. The last thing I've seen while I was actively playing is the Kamigawa block so yes, it's been quite some time.
I decided to try my hand at the 'new' Modern format and Merfolk really appealed to me.
Here's what I've been running for a month at local events:
I know the sideboard is all over the place but I made it like that since I wasn't sure what I was getting into. I have some sort of understanding of the meta around the places I go to now. There are RW lockdown, Naya Burn, Bant Eldrazi, Abzan Mid, and Infect decks. There are rare encounters like Amulet Scout or some shift deck, not sure if Titan or Scape.
Anyway, I'm here to ask for some help with this specific meta since I've been playing very averagely (ending with 1-2 or 2-2). I know I'll probably have to change my sideboard at least so I have a list for my maybeboard.
Hey shoebaccha! I think you want the relics and dismembers against storm. A relic on board forces storm to look for a gap where they think they can go off. Just make sure you leave mana up to crack the relic when needed though. The dismembers are painful but it's necessary to stop their mana dorks. I'd shave on MoW and Harbinger for those cards, probably -4 MoW and -2 Harbinger.
I'm just here reporting about the SCG Regionals event I attended yesterday. First off, here's my list:
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merfolk Trickster
3 Harbinger of the Tides
3 Master of Waves
2 Phantasmal Image
4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Echoing Truth
2 Psionic Blast
4 Mutavault
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Wanderwine Hub
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Damping Sphere
1 Echoing Truth
4 Deprive
2 Tidebinder Mage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Dismember
Sadly, I wasn't more thorough with my sideboarding notes or who started on the play/draw so there may be a few things off on those points.
Round 1: Turbo Vizier Combo? (2-0)
Game 1:
This was a weird deck for me to see. The first game started with him putting Hall of the Bandit Lord turn 1, then he gets a Vizier of Remedies down on turn 2. I just slowly whittled away at his life total while he was digging for something with Adventurous Impulse and Oath of Nissa but all he saw were lands.
Game 2: +2 Dismember, +3 Deprive and -3 Master of Waves, -2 Phantasmal Image
This game was more orthodox. I used Psionic Blast to kill his Devoted Druid while swinging in with a Silvergill Adept. At one point he used Postmortem Lunge to bring back the Devoted Druid, which I then used Merfolk Trickster in response to a Vizier of Remedies.
Round 2: Amulet Titan (2-1)
Game 1:
He was able to put down a turn 1 Amulet of Vigor while I had a turn 1 Aether Vial. I played a turn 2 Chalice of the Void on 0 and I used Psionic Blast on his Azusa, Lost but Seeking with the amulet trigger still on the stack to cut off extra land drops. He was able to bounce and replay Kabira Crossroads a few times to get to 24 life. I managed to use multiple Merfolk Trickster to stop his Primeval Titan from attacking. I was able to make an alpha swing for 11 damage coupled with a few earlier chips at his life total to win the game.
Game 2: +2 Tidebinder Mage, +2 Dismember and -2 Phantasmal Image, -2 Spreading Seas
This game was a quick loss. He was able to get 2 Amulet of Vigor down and swing in with 18 damage in one turn.
Game 3: No changes
This game I got an Aether Vial on turn 1 as well as a Chalice of the Void on 0 and he got his Amulet of Vigor. I then played a Chalice of the Void on 1 on turn 2 and then used Echoing truth on the already in play Amulet of Vigor. I want to say that the rest of the match was clinical, but I missed a few chalice triggers causing the game to go a bit longer than I, or everyone watching, expected.
Round 3: Mono-W Prison Control (2-1)
Game 1:
He was on a slow start, only making land drops and passing for his first 4 turns. I attacked in for a bit of damage then made a swing for 18 damage with 9 creatures thanks to Master of Waves only to get Settle the Wreckage. At that moment in time, I forgot that that card existed. Thankfully I still had another Master of Waves and a Phantasmal Image in hand with 2 Spreading Seas on the board for the win on the next turn.
Game 2: +1 Echoing Truth, +2 Deprive, +1 Venser, Shaper Savant and -1 Harbinger of the Tides, -1 Master of Waves, -2 Phantasmal Image
This game wasn't as slow for my opponent with him cycling a Cast Out and using Journey to Nowhere on one of my lords. He then played a Chalice of the Void on 2 and I was mostly locked out without my Cavern of Souls or Aether Vial. He then casts 4-drop Gideon, Ally of Zendikar into 5-drop Gideon Jura and finished it off with an Archangel Avacyn. I thought only the Boros Prison Variant used Chalice but I found out that I was very wrong.
Game 3: +1 Harbinger of the Tides, +1 Master of Waves, +2 Phantasmal Image and -4 Chalice of the Void
This game went better when I was able to use Venser, Shaper Savant to bounce his Chalice of the Void on 2 to then get under with 3 lords on the next turn while holding up vial on 2 for a Phantasmal Image to copy Venser if needed.
Round 4: Dredge (2-1)
Game 1:
The first game went poorly with me on the backfoot almost immediately. I tried to stem the bleeding with Harbinger of the Tides bouncing Prized Amalgam a few times but he was able to put 13 power on the board in a single turn and that was the end.
Game 2: +1 Surgical Extraction +2 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Deprive and -1 Master of Waves, -2 Chalice of the Void, -2 Spreading Seas
This game was relatively easy because he got stuck on 1 land which I would of course use Spreading Seas on.
Game 3: +2 Deprive and -2 Chalice of the Void
This went pretty fast with a turn 1 Aether Vial and a turn 2 and 3 Relic of Progenitus. Who would've thought 2 relics on the board would do so much damage to an opposing graveyard?
Round 5: Bant Spirits (2-1)
Game 1:
This game ended up as a simple race. Not much interaction from either side but he had 2 Mausoleum Wanderer which gets extra big thanks to its own trigger with their spirit lord that came in after it on each of the turns. I lost to flying hexproof things.
Game 2: +2 Dismember, +2 Deprive and -4 Spreading Seas
Turn 1 Dismember their Noble Hierarch was enough of a tempo swing for me to islandwalk in for the win.
Game 3: +1 Echoing Truth, +2 Deprive, +1 Venser, Shaper Savant and -4 Chalice of the Void
This game was close. Echoing Truth on Drogskol Captain to Harbinger of the Tides bounce the Mausoleum Wanderer just to keep me from pedaling too far into the back. The last turn ended with me drawing a Phantasmal Image with a lord in hand. Phantasmal Image copying Merfolk Trickster to tap their last blocker and Lord of Atlantis to get enough for lethal after he tied down 2 of my Harbinger of the Tides with a Runed Halo.
Round 6: G-Tron (2-1)
Game 1:
This game ended relatively quickly. I got hit twice by a Walking Ballista on 1 and I scoop after a resolved Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. My early turn Spreading Seas on Urza's Power Plant wasn't able to do anything since he had a second copy in hand.
Game 2: +4 Deprive, +2 Damping Sphere and -3 Harbinger of the Tides, -2 Phantasmal Image, -1 Master of Waves
Nature's Claim on my turn 1 Aether Vial in response to a Turn 2 Chalice of the Void on 1 was a decent start to this game. With the opponent locked out of any 1-drops, merfolk easily takes this one.
Game 3: No Changes
Spreading Seas and 2 lords get in for quite a bit of damage but that all ends when an All is Dust is resolved even with a Damping Sphere already in play. I play a Master of the Pearl Trident and pass then he plays an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and upticks to bolt my lord. He's at 6 life, and tapped out. I then proceed to win the game with my Mutavault and a Psionic Blast to the face.
Round 7: BG Rock (2-0)
Game 1:
Turn 1 Thoughtseize gets rid of my Spreading Seas and then he gets a Scavenging Ooze into play. I get a Chalice of the Void on 1 down and I start racing the scooze with a Merfolk Trickster and lords to beef her up. I end up using a Psionic Blast on the Scavenging Ooze before it becomes too big to deal with and another Spreading Seas allowed me to swing in for 8 damage and set up lethal next turn.
Game 2: +2 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Tidebinder Mage, +4 Deprive and -4 Aether Vial, -4 Chalice of the Void
He starts the game off using Inquisition of Kozilek to take my Silvergill Adept. I start with a Turn 1 Relic of Progenitus off the top of my deck. He gets a Kitchen Finks down and I manage to Tidebinder Mage it down for a while. The beats go back and forth with him resolving 2 Liliana of the Veil and me resolving 2 Master of Waves for 1-2 tokens. Fatal Push was able to deal with most of my board while my Relic of Progenitus and a Mutavault kept his Tarmogoyf in check. I end my turn not attacking into his Dark Confidant and Liliana of the Veil and he flips a Collective Brutality to the trigger while he's at 1 life.
I draw the next 2 rounds and end the swiss with a record of (7-0-2). I finally get something to eat at 1 of 2 available places still open that night and proceed to my quarterfinals match.
Q-Final: UR Phoenix (1-2)
Game 1:
The first game was him just using his draw spells while discarding irrelevant cards. I win with average beats after taking out a Crackling Drake with Psionic Blast and using Echoing Truth on 2 Snapcaster Mage to get in some more non-islandwalk damage before the lethal swing.
Game 2: +1 Surgical Extraction, +2 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Damping Sphere and -4 Spreading Seas, -1 Master of Waves
I realize far too late that I sideboarded wrongly. I'm on the draw against a fast deck, I shouldn't have put in Damping Sphere and maybe should've gone down a few Chalice of the Void. Turn 2 double Arclight Phoenix was enough to whittle my life down to 0.
Game 3: No changes
I don't see any phoenixes but instead I had to face down 2 Thing in the Ice. I get in as much damage as possible using my 2 Aether Vial on 2 and multiple lords then I try to setup a win scenario where I can win on the crackback if he doesn't have any targeted removal. He flips the second Awoken Horror and bounces all my lords back to hand. He attacks with 2 Awoken Horror while I'm at 13 life and I vial in Phantasmal Image to copy it and it dies to a bolt. If he didn't have removal I could've won with my Awoken Horror image and a Mutavault swinging in while he was at 8 life.
That ends my report. There may be a few discrepancies but this should be the gist of the matches as I remember them. I was and still am fairly tired but all in all, I was pretty happy ending the swiss rounds as 1 of 2 undeafeated people in a group of 230+ people.
As a side note, I kind of went crazy with the card code thingy. If I wasn't supposed to do that to ALL the cards I mentioned, let me know and I'll edit it when I can.
Edit: Just adding to a few matches as I recall more from the event.
My actual list:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
2 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Merrow Reejerey
2 Master of Waves
1 Kira, Great Glass-spinner
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Kopala, Warden of Waves
4 Spreading Seas
2 Smuggler's Copter
2 Vapor Snag
1 Dismember
10 Island
2 Wanderwine Hub
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4 Mutavault
3 Sea's Claim
3 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Negate
2 Echoing Truth
2 Tidebinder Mage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Relic of Progenitus
Anyway, I just wanted to post here again to let you guys know of my appreciation for all the info I've found on this forum. I've played with Merfolk for just a bit over a year ever since I got back into Magic and I'm happy with the deck and how it performs.
Plus the fact that I couldn't for the life of me figure out my twitch account.I'm probably going to pick up a few copies of Delay to test out as a replacement for Negate. It seems like it ought to do the trick in a lot of matches.
So you generally start out with what certain cards do then build from there? Instead of building around specific match-ups, which is what I feel like I'm doing. Thanks for the advice, pretty sure it would help since I've been having trouble trying to build a sideboard with an auto 4 slots on Sea's Claim.
Oh, congrats on your top8! I was in San Diego, the only regionals over on the west coast.
I saw a few Merfolk players, I saw a U/W and 8-seas, but I only saw them before the event started. I'm not sure how they did in the swiss.
About Merrow Reejerey, I just felt that they were very awkward plays in my local meta. I'm sure it'll fair better in a more diverse meta but I just ran the Phantasmal Image in this event since it was the version I was most comfortable with at the time.
I know it's a bit late but I just finished understanding a few things about my matchups at the scg regionals. Overall, I went 5-4 ending up at 69th place out of about 240 people.
Anyway, here's the list I brought.
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of Waves
1 Kira, Great Glass-spinner
2 Phantasmal Image
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
4 Mutavault
2 Spellpierce
2 Vapor Snag
1 Dismember
4 Spreading Seas
4 Aether Vial
2 Dispel
2 Unified Will
2 Echoing Truth
2 Tidebinder Mage
2 Hibernation
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Spellskite
The meta was pretty diverse but I went up against a few Tron builds.
Tron Eldrazi - 2-1 (1-0)
BUG Control? - 0-2 (1-1)
R/G Tron - 0-2 (1-2)
R/G Tron - 2-0 (2-2)
Unknown - 2-0 (3-2)
Goryo's Vengeance - 1-2 (3-3)
Tooth and Nail - 2-1 (4-3)
Naya Burn - 2-1 (5-3)
Affinity - 0-2 (5-4)
I wasn't sure about some of the cards I saw at the time so it took me a while to remember and then look them up. Sadly, I wasn't able to dodge the Affinity match-up.
The BUG deck really threw me off since I was essentially facing a Zoo deck with some control. With Fatal Push, Tarmagoyf and Grim Flayer early on in both games, I found it hard to even build up threats.
The first R/G Tron I went up against was pretty lucky to get natural tron both games even with Spreading Seas on the board.
The Unknown deck was a strange match, since he scooped on turn 2 on game 1 with Spreading Seas on the board and then scooped again on turn 3/4 on game 2 with Tidebinder Mage and Phantasmal Image tapping down his Voice of Resurgence and Scavenging Ooze. I think this was a strange Nahiri build of some sort, only because I saw it when he put his hand down.
I didn't know I was facing a Goryo's Vengeance Deck until game 2, and then I lost game 3 flooding out with 10 Islands.
Tooth and Nail was new to me as well. He got a turn 3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Xenagos, God of Revels in game 2.
For those wondering why I cut off Reejerey from the deck completely, the local meta I usually play with are full of aggro decks. I decided to bring in the images to lower the curve, add that to the fact that it's rather fun to have. I just decided to run it at this event as well since it was what I was comfortable with.
This was my first event on such a level so it was a good experience. I'll switch up my sideboard and bring in Sea's Claims as well as probably bring back a few Merrow Reejereys before GP Vegas.
On that note actually, how exactly do you build sideboards against blind metas? All my sideboard iterations go wide, and more often than not, too wide.
Thanks! Feels good to be back.
As a replacement for Kira, would a 3rd Vapor Snag in the mainboard do? I was actually thinking about getting a Phantasmal Image too. I'm just not sure how relevant it'll be towards the meta I'm playing at right now.
Thanks for the input, especially since I find Infect and RW lockdown the most troublesome to deal with at the moment. I'll try the changes out tonight and later this week. Hopefully it'll have more of an impact.
I decided to try my hand at the 'new' Modern format and Merfolk really appealed to me.
Here's what I've been running for a month at local events:
4 Mutavault
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
4 Harbinger of the Tides
2 Vapor Snag
4 Spreading Seas
1 Dispel
2 Gutshot
2 Echoing Truth
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Tidebinder Mage
2 Remand
2 Hurkyl's Recall
I know the sideboard is all over the place but I made it like that since I wasn't sure what I was getting into. I have some sort of understanding of the meta around the places I go to now. There are RW lockdown, Naya Burn, Bant Eldrazi, Abzan Mid, and Infect decks. There are rare encounters like Amulet Scout or some shift deck, not sure if Titan or Scape.
Anyway, I'm here to ask for some help with this specific meta since I've been playing very averagely (ending with 1-2 or 2-2). I know I'll probably have to change my sideboard at least so I have a list for my maybeboard.
2 Vapor Snag
2 Tidebinder Mage
4 Sea's Claim
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Unified Will
2 Negate
2 Gutshot
2 Spellpierce
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Dimember
Any help would be appreciated, since I'm having trouble finding a sort of balance to my cards.