The first thing that comes to mind for me is that in that meta, Mistcaller seems like a better 1-drop than Cursecatcher. The 'Catcher would mostly just help in the Blue Moon and Jeskai matchups which aren't bad to begin with, and the 'Caller would make Bridgevine *loads* easier. I would also say your sideboard is ill-prepared for KCI. They can get around Relic and Surgical since the recursion is literally faster than instant speed and repeatable, and Dispel and Cage are useless, leaving you with just Negate, E-Truth, and Remand, the latter two of which only buy you a turn at best. Some other options off the top of my head are Ceremonious Rejection, Deprive, and Phyrexian Revoker. Finally, I don't think a mono-blue player should ever leave the house without 4 Mutavault sleeved up.
Has anyone ever tried Exhaustion in Merfolk? It is admittedly spending 3 mana to add nothing to the board, but it could be quite a tempo swing, and a Time Walk in ideal circumstances. Opponent swung out knowing they can survive one more attack? Control player tapped mana and was hoping to stabilize with a Wrath next turn? It opens up some silly possibilities with Merrow Reejerey as well if you have mana to cast a merfolk in the same turn, or when you flash in a Merfolk Trickster end of turn the turn before you cast it. Definitely seems situational, but I could see potential as a 2-of. If nothing else I'm sure nobody would see it coming!
Not exactly a Time Walk, since opponent still gets his turn to play a land and cast enchantments, sorceries, artifacts, or creatures. And that's in ideal circumstances. I'd rather have Tempest Caller, if anything. Sideboard at best.
Yeah, they get a turn, but in truly ideal circumstances, they will either miss a land drop and do nothing or hit it and get to maybe play something for 1 mana. It's also not exactly a good comparison to make with Tempest Caller. Yeah, they're very similar vs creature decks, but against combo and control, Caller is a very pretty 2/3 for 4 mana. Keeping lands tapped can delay sweepers or combo kills on a vital turn, which is very relevant. I would say, if anything, Exhaustion is somewhere between Caller and Unsubstantiate- you're either using it to delay a team of creatures for a turn, or you're delaying expensive spells (or large groups of cheap spells *cough* Storm *cough*) for a turn. I'm not sure it's necessarily going to work the way I'd hope in practice, but the power ceiling seems high, and it's flexible enough to do something relevant in many diverse matchups, which is valuable in itself (this is why Unsubstantiate is playable despite being generally worse than Vapor Snag and Remand at each mode).
Has anyone ever tried Exhaustion in Merfolk? It is admittedly spending 3 mana to add nothing to the board, but it could be quite a tempo swing, and a Time Walk in ideal circumstances. Opponent swung out knowing they can survive one more attack? Control player tapped mana and was hoping to stabilize with a Wrath next turn? It opens up some silly possibilities with Merrow Reejerey as well if you have mana to cast a merfolk in the same turn, or when you flash in a Merfolk Trickster end of turn the turn before you cast it. Definitely seems situational, but I could see potential as a 2-of. If nothing else I'm sure nobody would see it coming!
Honestly, I'm truly blessed to have such an amazing LGS. Less blessed that it's mostly control/midrange players, and I've only gotten to practice the Humans matchup twice in the last 3 months. But other than that still pretty lucky
Midnight Sun, I also live in a not-podunk town in a sizable metro area, where my modern FNMs are consistently 40 people, and I've never heard your phrasing. I don't doubt that you're being completely genuine here, and I don't doubt that that's what you've heard people saying in your area, but I presume that it's a local quirk of wherever it is you live. I promise that in general, people use the other meaning, and telling everyone else they're wrong despite whatever evidence they present because of your own anecdotal experience, rather than listening to others' input and reassessing the possibilities with this new information in mind, won't get you very far.
To quote Mark Rosewater, the head designer of Magic: the Gathering, in a 2016 article published on the official WOTC website: "Bear—The term for any 2/2 creature for two mana. It comes from the Limited Edition (Alpha) card Grizzly Bear. For example, "I think white needs another Bear.""
-https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/few-more-words-rd-2016-11-07
Another GP Detroit day 1 report ahead. My team was myself, Bogles, and Storm, and our final team result at time of drop was 4-3, with my personal result being 4-2. Going into the event, I expected a large amount of Humans, Tron, Burn, and UW Control, and moderate amounts of Spirits, Hollow One, KCI, Affinity, and Mardu. I also expected the majority of teams to favor the conventional wisdom of putting an aggro deck in the center seat, meaning I'd be seeing the more controlling decks at a bit higher rate (our Bogles player was our center seat, so I was one of the outside players). Decklist and what details I can remember below:
Round 1: 1-2 vs Tron
This is one of the matchups I expected to see the most, and as it's given me trouble in the past (especially without running Faerie Conclave), I have a total of 9 sideboard cards meant to help here. Game 1 I had a mull to 5 with a reasonable curve but no interaction. Turn 3 Tron quickly put me down. Game 2 he didn't get Tron til about turn 5, and I had plenty of sideboard disruption to keep him on the back foot. Venser, Shaper Savant shined here, letting me send back an early Oblivion Stone and simultaneously apply extra pressure. Game 3 he had turn 3 Tron again. I had all the answers, but there's very little one can do about an opponent topdecking 5 consecutive board wipes (functionally, counting Walking Ballista here once he had enough mana). Notably, Phyrexian Revoker almost got me back in the game naming Ballista, but good ol' OStone ended things, putting a Fate Counter on Ballista and sending my last cards packing.
Round 2: 2-0 vs UW Control
Game 1 I put on a lot of early pressure backed by Cursecatcher. By the time he finally landed a board wipe (Terminus hard cast, the Cursecatcher was very relevant in delaying this), he was low enough that additional threats Vialed/flashed in killed him the next turn. Game 2 was a real nailbiter. An early Stony Silence from him shut down my Vial, and he board wiped to stabilize at single digits. He then started turning the corner with Celestial Colonnade. After a couple turns of this, I used Venser (very glad I let my Storm teammate use Echoing Truth at this point ) to bounce Stony in his end step, and my recently released Vial to put down a Phyrexian Revoker at instant speed as well, all with Deprive held up as backup. One attack later he was at 3. He then castWrath of God, which I attempted to counter, but he used a counter of his own to push the wipe through. Two turns later, I used a topdecked Merfolk Trickster to stop a Collonade attack, and a topdecked Master of the Pearl Trident the next turn lets me attack for exactly lethal, and with islandwalk to get around the Ambush Viper- err, Snapcaster Mage- waiting in his hand, as he lacked the mana to actually flashback any spell due to Trickster having tapped his attacking Colonnade (Trickster is amazing as usual).
Round 3: 0-2 vs Tron
This was a lot like the 1st round, but worse. Game 1 he gets turn 3 natural Tron, and I get steamrolled. Game 2 is the first time I see a Spreading Seas in the tournament, and I have counter and Vendilion Clique support, so I feel confident. Unfortunately, the Spreading Seas did little, as he had even more than natural Tron, and I happened to pick a land he had extras of (the one he played turn 2, if anybody wants to theorycraft about which turn Tron players will play their most vulnerable pieces). An OStone only takes out double Silvergill, and Vendillion Clique prevents me from being board wiped again by taking an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, but Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Karn Liberated are more than enough against the limited pressure I was able to put on.
Round 4: 2-0 vs Burn
This one was easy. Game 1 Cursecatcher slows him down immensely, and I eventually close the door with triple Reejerey (thank you, Phantasmal Image), which combined with Merfolk Trickster let me tap down all his lands on his upkeep the turn before I attacked for lethal. Game 2 I put a Seas on each of his two lands, and he never saw a third.
Round 5: 2-1 vs Burn (unofficially)
This one was 1-1 when my teammates both lost, but we played it out anyway, since we figured our games don't take long. We might not have been playing as seriously the third game though. Game 1 Cursecatcher slowed him down a ton (honestly, I think this is the one matchup where Cursecatcher is more than okay, and actually the genuinely optimal choice- they rely on spells and have very few lands). A couple lords later and it was game over- though, with me at a tense 4 life. Game 2 I get him nearly as low, but a suboptimal attack later (I held back my two lords being overly cautious, allowing him to not block with his Grim Lavamancer and still live), and he is able to chump block with his Eidolon of the Great Revel, stabilize at 1 life, and take me from 11 to 0 life the following turn with the help of Grim Lavamancer. Game 3 he doesn't get a creature til turn 3 or 4, I'm able to lock him out of white mana with Seas, and Watertrap Weaver stabilizes on the ground before I turn the corner with Master of Waves.
Round 6: 2-0 vs Free Win Red
If you're as unfamiliar with this as my teammates, the idea of this deck is to use rituals to quickly put out hate cards (Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, Chalice of the Void) that often get "free wins" against a lot of the format, and back them up with board wipes and self contained wincons such as Goblin Rabblemaster and planeswalkers. Game 1 he uses rituals to get out some quick Rabblemasters, but a 2 toughness creature that makes 1/1s is easy for our fish to block profitably. He's able to get Chalice on 1 and 2, but not before I have a Vial to all but ignore them and double Seas to limit him to a single red mana, preventing him from casting his Koth of the Hammer. An average team of lords finishes the job. Game 2 he gets a turn 1 Chalice on 1 with Simian Spirit Guide, trapping my two Vials (three, after my very next topdeck) in hand. I play some Grizzly Bears on curve, and he plays a Bridge on turn 2. Needless to say I'm concerned. Turn 4 I get a Master of Waves, and because outside of rituals his cards are rather clunky, he's only been casting 1 a turn, and he's missed a land drop, he has two cards left stuck in his hand and I get one turn to attack with my army of 2/2s and 2/1s before Bridge locks me down for the forseeable future. This gets him to 4 life, and a topdecked Venser a couple turns later seals the deal (the Heart of the Cards was definitely guiding me that game!).
Round 7: 0-0 vs No Show Opponent
Our opponent didn't show up and I got some free planeswalker points. Still disappointing, since our day 2 hopes were dead after Round 5 and we were just there to play Magic. Not wanting to sit around for an hour and a half or so for the last round we dropped here.
Overall I had a great time, faced primarily what I expected to, and my deck performed pretty well for me (honestly, it's the most satisfied I've been with Fish in weeks). Tron still needs to be shored up, but I think any changes would be to the sideboard, as I'm pretty sure I'm too happy with my main 60 against the rest of the field right now (at least in a Unified context) to make significant changes. Actually, we all faced fairly solid matchups all event, and our losses were most attributable to our Bogles player, who had the worst record on our team thanks to getting into several unlucky mulligan situations (the biggest risk you take when you sleeve up Bogles).
Gonna add to the assent on the bear thing. Vanilla creatures with very fundamental P/T tend to use the name of their first, most iconic representative as a nickname. "Wind Drake" (not quite vanilla but close) referring to any 3 mana 2/2 flyer is another example.
Let it be known that I think Cursecatcher is a pretty bad card. That being said, I do think it plays an important role in the deck in the current meta. We need a 1 drop play, and it really needs to be a creature (Peek is interesting but not good enough- note that Nikachu's 5-0 Peek list *also* features Cursecatcher). The format is just too fast for us to not be building up our board from the 1st turn. Cursecatcher is a weak card, especially compared to other modern staple 1-drop creatures, but it's certainly better than straight garbage like Dakra Mystic. Control does tend not to miss land drops, but forcing them to play Lightning Helix or Wrath of God off curve can make all the difference. All the moreso when you realize they sometimes get stuck with Celestial Colonnade for their land drop, which, coming into play tapped, won't help them get around the tax. True, Cursecatcher will be absolutely dead in the lategame, but personally, my experience with control has been that if we reach the lategame and they aren't either dead or nearly dead (with an untapped Vial or some Mutavaults on board to threaten them), the game is gonna be very hard for us to win regardless. That being said I can definitely see other choices depending on the metagame you expect to see. Mistcaller is very good vs Collected Company decks and Bridgevine (whose best openers can be *very* hard to beat without it- I honestly like to see it as much as or more than Relic here), or as Midnight Sun mentioned, Triton Shorestalker and Mist-Cloaked Herald, which are pretty terrible most of the time, but can actually be decent vs creature decks like Humans that don't play Islands in the games where you don't draw a Spreading Seas.
Honestly, you'll board out Cursecatcher most in almost any meta. We don't play it because it's good in lots of matchups, we play it because it's okay in almost all of them, and that's really the best Merfolk can do in terms of one drops sadly.
I would say though that I think you and Rothgar are right, and Tropical is the way to go rn. You can try a more controlling style, and I did for a long time, but I found that you honestly still aren't doing anything busted vs the field. You just don't really have enough answers to be truly dominant vs more than a few matchups with that style. I never tried anything too crazy like mb Deprive though, but going that far just honestly feels horrendously slow.
I just don't get where people are saying we have so many good Merfolk to stuff in the main. Maybe it's just because my local meta is very skewed (way too much Jeskai, humans and burn underrepresented, practically no Hollow One), but I keep finding most of the non-core Merfolk to be very underwhelming. Cursecatcher is probably the single worst one drop of any tribal deck in the format (compare to Champion of the Parish, Mausoleum Wanderer, Goblin Guide, Heritage Druid, and the list goes on), and I really only play it begrudgingly because I need the extra speed. Mistcaller is no better, it's just dead in most matchups (and only meh vs things like Humans). Merrow Reejerey usually either dies on sight or doesn't speed me up enough to outrace the faster decks of the format. Harbinger of the Tides tends to be just a bear more often than not (and looks pretty sad compared to something like Reflector Mage). I usually just want to cast our islandwalk lords, Master of Waves, Silvergill Adept, and Merfolk Trickster... and that's why I've been loving Phantasmal Image. Gives me more speed and redundancy with the parts of my deck that actually give me a reason to sleeve up fish in the first place. It's awful vs Electrolyze and Izzet Staticaster for sure, but past that, there's quite little in the meta it dies to that wouldn't kill whatever it was copying too. I'm on 3 currently, and the only reason I don't play 4 is that opening hands with 2 of it and 1 or no other creatures are admittedly pretty bad most of the time.
It's also possible that the correct way to speed up the deck right now isn't to play Phimage and Cursecatcher, but is just to play Tropical Merfolk, but I've always missed the consistency of our manabase when I try it, so I haven't given that a shot again lately. Perhaps someone else has more useful input in this respect.
My issue with Reej is that it's great when you untap with it, but to get to that point you have to spend 3 mana, do something with very little immediate impact, and not have either yourself or it die before your next untap step. It's been wonderful against slower creature decks, but against anything with too much spot removal it's pretty meh, and against anything consistently capable of killing on turn 4 or sooner, it's been a big liability. Personally I've been back and forth on keeping it in as a 2-of, and I haven't come to a conclusive opinion on whether I really need it or not. I'd say it's probably a meta call, much like our other 3-drops.
Edit: To go back to the post that sparked this though, I definitely agree he's a house against Humans. Denying blockers, denying multiple attackers in combination with Trickster, and accelerating your whole hand out in a turn or two are all great plays that can help you outrace them. That's definitely the type of matchup where I like to have the Reej around.
Yeah, I like Deprive, the only possible issue being the two blue, hence Oboro. Hard counters are always good, and the more utility the better.
Ensnaring Bridge is a nice way to deal with big critters, but likely out of your price range. Otherwise, Trickster/Tidebinder/Harbinger and Echoing Truth are what you've got.
Since you can only bounce and replay Oboro during your own turn, at Sorcery speed, it's only minimally helpful in casting Deprive, or anything else that you'd rather cast at instant speed. You can use it to filter mana to cast another blue intensive spell during your turn leaving your other lands to cast Deprive (ie you have 2x Island, Oboro, Mutavault out at the start of your turn, and want to cast a Master of the Pearl Trident while also leaving mana up for Deprive), but that's about it.
Personally, I think Spell Pierce is probably the better maindeck card. It situationally gives another turn 1 play, and is much more mana efficient, making it easier to develop your board and still hold up some protection. I could see testing the mainboard Deprive if your meta is very combo or control heavy though.
As for bigger creatures, we have plenty of options. Dismember and Vapor Snag have been our go to removal for a long time for good reason. If your opponent's creatures blocking is the problem (rather than them just outracing you), adding some Sea's Claim can help you turn Islandwalk on more consistently. If you wanna go deeper, Sower of Temptation can also be a nice gotcha, provided the opposing deck is light enough on removal. I would not recommend Ensnaring Bridge, as the only way to stop it from preventing you from attacking as well is to play out your hand far too slowly.
It's been tried before as a finisher against grinder strategies. It hasn't been in favor in a very long time, though. It won't really work the way you want it to against most of the faster decks like Hollow One out there because they typically don't run enough removal to kill three creatures that quickly. And if you're chump blocking Gurmag Angler just to fill the graveyard so you can cast a wall, you're already losing (and would do much better with a Watertrap Weaver as your 3 cmc creature in hand, in that case). It's better against control decks and such, but 3 creatures is still hefty enough that you won't be casting it an absurd number of times (much less if your board is hit by Settle the Wreckage). It's not the worst in grindy matchups, but something like Thassa, God of the Sea or Monastery Siege would likely be better if you're looking for a 1 card value engine. Or just good ol' Master of Waves
8 mainboard counterspells definitely feels like you've slanted toward control matchups quite a bit. I would say to swap two Deprive for the two Harbingers in the board, but looking at it, with your full 20 blue sources it might not be as obscenely slow as I'm thinking. How have they been for you in your aggro matchups?
I'd also say you should acquire some Faerie Conclave, 2 copies at minimum. It won't hurt your tempo much if you don't run the full set, but having some amount of creature lands in your list will dramatically improve your resiliency to board wipes and closing power.
You also have very little in creature removal in the 75. If you face much midrange, Dismember is almost an essential card to have somewhere in your list. And it's quite good into an open meta (as opposed to something like Gut Shot that is only good vs a narrower selection of decks). You also might want some number of Echoing Truth for your sideboard. It's your best hope if there's any chance of seeing Ensnaring Bridge, and it's a fine piece of interaction vs aggro decks as well. Since you already have 8 counterspells mainboard, 2 Dispel and 3 Negate in the sideboard feels a little excessive unless you're quite sure you'll face mostly combo and control, I'd look to shave sideboard slots here.
Glad to hear you've been enjoying Merfolk though, and I wish you continued success
This is crazier than his normal for two reasons: There are exactly zero copies of Merfolk Trickster in this list, and in its place, we see a full set of Repeal. How crazy it feels to see zero Trickster these days aside, what do you all think of Repeal? It seems rather slow, but the ability to bounce nearly anything at instant speed and not lose any card advantage doing so is definitely appealing. Is the utility worth the costs in this meta?
Yeah, they get a turn, but in truly ideal circumstances, they will either miss a land drop and do nothing or hit it and get to maybe play something for 1 mana. It's also not exactly a good comparison to make with Tempest Caller. Yeah, they're very similar vs creature decks, but against combo and control, Caller is a very pretty 2/3 for 4 mana. Keeping lands tapped can delay sweepers or combo kills on a vital turn, which is very relevant. I would say, if anything, Exhaustion is somewhere between Caller and Unsubstantiate- you're either using it to delay a team of creatures for a turn, or you're delaying expensive spells (or large groups of cheap spells *cough* Storm *cough*) for a turn. I'm not sure it's necessarily going to work the way I'd hope in practice, but the power ceiling seems high, and it's flexible enough to do something relevant in many diverse matchups, which is valuable in itself (this is why Unsubstantiate is playable despite being generally worse than Vapor Snag and Remand at each mode).
To quote Mark Rosewater, the head designer of Magic: the Gathering, in a 2016 article published on the official WOTC website: "Bear—The term for any 2/2 creature for two mana. It comes from the Limited Edition (Alpha) card Grizzly Bear. For example, "I think white needs another Bear.""
-https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/few-more-words-rd-2016-11-07
4 Master of Waves
2 Merrow Reejerey
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Merfolk Trickster
3 Phantasmal Image
1 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Spreading Seas
4 Aether Vial
Lands:
13 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
4 Gut Shot
3 Deprive
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Watertrap Weaver
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Round 1: 1-2 vs Tron
This is one of the matchups I expected to see the most, and as it's given me trouble in the past (especially without running Faerie Conclave), I have a total of 9 sideboard cards meant to help here. Game 1 I had a mull to 5 with a reasonable curve but no interaction. Turn 3 Tron quickly put me down. Game 2 he didn't get Tron til about turn 5, and I had plenty of sideboard disruption to keep him on the back foot. Venser, Shaper Savant shined here, letting me send back an early Oblivion Stone and simultaneously apply extra pressure. Game 3 he had turn 3 Tron again. I had all the answers, but there's very little one can do about an opponent topdecking 5 consecutive board wipes (functionally, counting Walking Ballista here once he had enough mana). Notably, Phyrexian Revoker almost got me back in the game naming Ballista, but good ol' OStone ended things, putting a Fate Counter on Ballista and sending my last cards packing.
Round 2: 2-0 vs UW Control
Game 1 I put on a lot of early pressure backed by Cursecatcher. By the time he finally landed a board wipe (Terminus hard cast, the Cursecatcher was very relevant in delaying this), he was low enough that additional threats Vialed/flashed in killed him the next turn. Game 2 was a real nailbiter. An early Stony Silence from him shut down my Vial, and he board wiped to stabilize at single digits. He then started turning the corner with Celestial Colonnade. After a couple turns of this, I used Venser (very glad I let my Storm teammate use Echoing Truth at this point
Round 3: 0-2 vs Tron
This was a lot like the 1st round, but worse. Game 1 he gets turn 3 natural Tron, and I get steamrolled. Game 2 is the first time I see a Spreading Seas in the tournament, and I have counter and Vendilion Clique support, so I feel confident. Unfortunately, the Spreading Seas did little, as he had even more than natural Tron, and I happened to pick a land he had extras of (the one he played turn 2, if anybody wants to theorycraft about which turn Tron players will play their most vulnerable pieces). An OStone only takes out double Silvergill, and Vendillion Clique prevents me from being board wiped again by taking an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, but Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Karn Liberated are more than enough against the limited pressure I was able to put on.
Round 4: 2-0 vs Burn
This one was easy. Game 1 Cursecatcher slows him down immensely, and I eventually close the door with triple Reejerey (thank you, Phantasmal Image), which combined with Merfolk Trickster let me tap down all his lands on his upkeep the turn before I attacked for lethal. Game 2 I put a Seas on each of his two lands, and he never saw a third.
Round 5: 2-1 vs Burn (unofficially)
This one was 1-1 when my teammates both lost, but we played it out anyway, since we figured our games don't take long. We might not have been playing as seriously the third game though. Game 1 Cursecatcher slowed him down a ton (honestly, I think this is the one matchup where Cursecatcher is more than okay, and actually the genuinely optimal choice- they rely on spells and have very few lands). A couple lords later and it was game over- though, with me at a tense 4 life. Game 2 I get him nearly as low, but a suboptimal attack later (I held back my two lords being overly cautious, allowing him to not block with his Grim Lavamancer and still live), and he is able to chump block with his Eidolon of the Great Revel, stabilize at 1 life, and take me from 11 to 0 life the following turn with the help of Grim Lavamancer. Game 3 he doesn't get a creature til turn 3 or 4, I'm able to lock him out of white mana with Seas, and Watertrap Weaver stabilizes on the ground before I turn the corner with Master of Waves.
Round 6: 2-0 vs Free Win Red
If you're as unfamiliar with this as my teammates, the idea of this deck is to use rituals to quickly put out hate cards (Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, Chalice of the Void) that often get "free wins" against a lot of the format, and back them up with board wipes and self contained wincons such as Goblin Rabblemaster and planeswalkers. Game 1 he uses rituals to get out some quick Rabblemasters, but a 2 toughness creature that makes 1/1s is easy for our fish to block profitably. He's able to get Chalice on 1 and 2, but not before I have a Vial to all but ignore them and double Seas to limit him to a single red mana, preventing him from casting his Koth of the Hammer. An average team of lords finishes the job. Game 2 he gets a turn 1 Chalice on 1 with Simian Spirit Guide, trapping my two Vials (three, after my very next topdeck) in hand. I play some Grizzly Bears on curve, and he plays a Bridge on turn 2. Needless to say I'm concerned. Turn 4 I get a Master of Waves, and because outside of rituals his cards are rather clunky, he's only been casting 1 a turn, and he's missed a land drop, he has two cards left stuck in his hand and I get one turn to attack with my army of 2/2s and 2/1s before Bridge locks me down for the forseeable future. This gets him to 4 life, and a topdecked Venser a couple turns later seals the deal (the Heart of the Cards was definitely guiding me that game!).
Round 7: 0-0 vs No Show Opponent
Our opponent didn't show up and I got some free planeswalker points. Still disappointing, since our day 2 hopes were dead after Round 5 and we were just there to play Magic. Not wanting to sit around for an hour and a half or so for the last round we dropped here.
Overall I had a great time, faced primarily what I expected to, and my deck performed pretty well for me (honestly, it's the most satisfied I've been with Fish in weeks). Tron still needs to be shored up, but I think any changes would be to the sideboard, as I'm pretty sure I'm too happy with my main 60 against the rest of the field right now (at least in a Unified context) to make significant changes. Actually, we all faced fairly solid matchups all event, and our losses were most attributable to our Bogles player, who had the worst record on our team thanks to getting into several unlucky mulligan situations (the biggest risk you take when you sleeve up Bogles).
I would say though that I think you and Rothgar are right, and Tropical is the way to go rn. You can try a more controlling style, and I did for a long time, but I found that you honestly still aren't doing anything busted vs the field. You just don't really have enough answers to be truly dominant vs more than a few matchups with that style. I never tried anything too crazy like mb Deprive though, but going that far just honestly feels horrendously slow.
It's also possible that the correct way to speed up the deck right now isn't to play Phimage and Cursecatcher, but is just to play Tropical Merfolk, but I've always missed the consistency of our manabase when I try it, so I haven't given that a shot again lately. Perhaps someone else has more useful input in this respect.
Edit: To go back to the post that sparked this though, I definitely agree he's a house against Humans. Denying blockers, denying multiple attackers in combination with Trickster, and accelerating your whole hand out in a turn or two are all great plays that can help you outrace them. That's definitely the type of matchup where I like to have the Reej around.
Since you can only bounce and replay Oboro during your own turn, at Sorcery speed, it's only minimally helpful in casting Deprive, or anything else that you'd rather cast at instant speed. You can use it to filter mana to cast another blue intensive spell during your turn leaving your other lands to cast Deprive (ie you have 2x Island, Oboro, Mutavault out at the start of your turn, and want to cast a Master of the Pearl Trident while also leaving mana up for Deprive), but that's about it.
Personally, I think Spell Pierce is probably the better maindeck card. It situationally gives another turn 1 play, and is much more mana efficient, making it easier to develop your board and still hold up some protection. I could see testing the mainboard Deprive if your meta is very combo or control heavy though.
As for bigger creatures, we have plenty of options. Dismember and Vapor Snag have been our go to removal for a long time for good reason. If your opponent's creatures blocking is the problem (rather than them just outracing you), adding some Sea's Claim can help you turn Islandwalk on more consistently. If you wanna go deeper, Sower of Temptation can also be a nice gotcha, provided the opposing deck is light enough on removal. I would not recommend Ensnaring Bridge, as the only way to stop it from preventing you from attacking as well is to play out your hand far too slowly.
I'd also say you should acquire some Faerie Conclave, 2 copies at minimum. It won't hurt your tempo much if you don't run the full set, but having some amount of creature lands in your list will dramatically improve your resiliency to board wipes and closing power.
You also have very little in creature removal in the 75. If you face much midrange, Dismember is almost an essential card to have somewhere in your list. And it's quite good into an open meta (as opposed to something like Gut Shot that is only good vs a narrower selection of decks). You also might want some number of Echoing Truth for your sideboard. It's your best hope if there's any chance of seeing Ensnaring Bridge, and it's a fine piece of interaction vs aggro decks as well. Since you already have 8 counterspells mainboard, 2 Dispel and 3 Negate in the sideboard feels a little excessive unless you're quite sure you'll face mostly combo and control, I'd look to shave sideboard slots here.
Glad to hear you've been enjoying Merfolk though, and I wish you continued success
This is crazier than his normal for two reasons: There are exactly zero copies of Merfolk Trickster in this list, and in its place, we see a full set of Repeal. How crazy it feels to see zero Trickster these days aside, what do you all think of Repeal? It seems rather slow, but the ability to bounce nearly anything at instant speed and not lose any card advantage doing so is definitely appealing. Is the utility worth the costs in this meta?