I don't know if I'm more mad about Sprite Noble or Heritage Druid. I mean come on! Cursecatcher is just an all around good card, he doesn't need tribal strategies in draft. He is a force spike with legs, there was no good reason to leave him out. I can understand Lord or other tribal Merfolk but Cursecatcher and True Name are good on their own. They print Sink Hole and Enlightened Tutor, but we are stuck with Merfolk Looter.
Both are bears some of the time, but harbinger at least can be more than a bear at flash speed to bounce any creature shoring up some of his weakness if drawn in the late game. Sometimes tidebinder will always be a bear, Harbinger at least has that potential in the odd match ups.
A 3-1 finish for me
Infect: 1-2, just barely lost. He spell pierced my chalice on 1 game 3 and I was 1 draw late on getting a kira to block a nexus otherwise I could have won.
Mill: 2-0 got lords
Mono white humans: 2-1 rough game 1 but games 2-3 he brought in thalia when i just got lords and no spells so i was more effecient
Infect 2-1, lost game 1 and didnt lose game 2 or 3 because of chalice.
There continues to be very little Abzan Company or Jund at the store so while I'm tempted to try some of the GP LA lists I dont think they would be good in my meta with all the random combo decks and burn being the most played deck.
Went 3-1 thanks to rothgar13's suggestions, I trimmed a 4th tidebinder for a Echoing Truth as a friend of mine started playing B/W tokens and I saw a few other odd ball decks floating around.
I also am running 2 Harbingers and 3 Vapor Snags in the main now, the snags were great the whole event.
Round 1 Burn 2-1 master of waves and chalice
Round 2 Burn 1-2 he had the revelry for my chalice on 1 game 3
Round 3 Scapeshift 2-0 missed land drops game 2
Round 4 Bushwacker Zoo 2-0 tons of lords and tidebinders
My recalls never came in but I saw 2 affinity, lantern control and thopters so they would have done work if I played any of those decks.
I keep 2 relics with 1 grafdiggers since you still need to shrink gofys, cut off lavamancers, etc...the cage is important but it isnt a 2 of yet for me. That cage has been there in awhile to battle Podless Pod and Goryo's
We are aggro primary. We can board into or adjust our gameplay to be midrange or tempo since we almost always bring in control cards to stall the game out against the faster aggro or combo decks. We can just as easily vomit lords onto the table and win on turn 4-5 by turning our dorks sideways. Zoo is aggro, it isn't midrange. We are just blue zoo. Bolt is an aggro, tempo, and control card but no one calls Burn a control deck. We win by attacking as fast as possible for as much as possible, that is aggro. We aren't trying to do chip damage while waiting a few turns to play our win condition or big dumb dork. We aren't trading 1 for 1 with all of our opponents threats like a real tempo deck (but shoal counts as this). The core static merfolk deck is aggro first and foremost.
My sideboard is almost exactly what you said only I run Swan Song over Dispel to catch Bogles and Scapeshift as well as other random cards that I cant always have 2 mana to negate. I have been playing Pierce main along with dismember, when I used to play Snag and Dismember but I can try out Snag and Spell Pierce. I'll put the Chalice back in and go from there, its nice to have a 2nd opinion on things rather than just thinking in a vacuum.
Turn 1 we want to cast vial or cursecatcher, 99.9% of the time so we can get off to the races. IF we dont have a vial what are we gonna do with those 3 creatures we drew? We aren't casting all of them on turn 5 thats for sure. We already have seas and adept to draw out more lords and keep us going, we dont need to lose tempo turn one to get pretend tempo on turn 5
1-3 Burn
1 Bushwacker Zoo
1 Thopter Reanimator
1 Mill
1 W/R Soul Sisters
1 Elves
1 Podless Pod
1 Tron
1 Grisleshoal
1 Infect
1 U/W control
1 Scapeshift
1-2 U/R Storm
1 Bogles
1-2 Living End
1-2 Affinity
1 Lantern Control
Infect and U/W Control came back this week with Tron and Lantern coming back the week before, and my meta is fairly diverse...but I keep getting paired against Elves or Scapeshift or other rough Match Ups. Chalice aren't in my sideboard anymore since I have to combat Tron, Scapeshift, and the like. Jund, Value Abzan, conventional zoo, eldrazi, poof gone. I also am playing Recall against because of Thopters and Lantern, the affinity players have been there but 1-2 decks wasnt enough for it now I more or less have to. I can post the list I used, but its pretty conventional otherwise.
And Visions being draw 3 for 1 mana is a lie. That is why i used the Concentate analogy, it is actually WORSE than concentrate since you can at least cast that turn 4 and get value not wait a turn after or god forbid have it redirected.
I've been going 2-2 at best at my local store for the past few events, been feeling the pressure of these fast decks and combo decks. The shoal list is interesting but $10 each to try out a card...I'm very skeptical. I can see the applications, but I'm just glad people are moving away from the $50 Concentrate
If you are really worried about CoCo just play Grafdigger's Cage, sure they have abrupt decay but it can hold them off enough turns for you to win while they spend all their resources trying to get that. If you bring in relic too then you are basically fine.
Cage has been in my sideboard for awhile now, but the problem with Needle and Cage is Podless Pod still just runs Abrupt Decay. They can get set up for a win, decay whatever disruption we have and win. We can't interact with their decay and have to try and double up on distruption to make it harder while still racing them. We prey on their weak hands and unlucky companies, but given enough abrupt decays there is very little we can do to stop them.
Infect: 1-2, just barely lost. He spell pierced my chalice on 1 game 3 and I was 1 draw late on getting a kira to block a nexus otherwise I could have won.
Mill: 2-0 got lords
Mono white humans: 2-1 rough game 1 but games 2-3 he brought in thalia when i just got lords and no spells so i was more effecient
Infect 2-1, lost game 1 and didnt lose game 2 or 3 because of chalice.
There continues to be very little Abzan Company or Jund at the store so while I'm tempted to try some of the GP LA lists I dont think they would be good in my meta with all the random combo decks and burn being the most played deck.
I also am running 2 Harbingers and 3 Vapor Snags in the main now, the snags were great the whole event.
Round 1 Burn 2-1 master of waves and chalice
Round 2 Burn 1-2 he had the revelry for my chalice on 1 game 3
Round 3 Scapeshift 2-0 missed land drops game 2
Round 4 Bushwacker Zoo 2-0 tons of lords and tidebinders
My recalls never came in but I saw 2 affinity, lantern control and thopters so they would have done work if I played any of those decks.
We are aggro primary. We can board into or adjust our gameplay to be midrange or tempo since we almost always bring in control cards to stall the game out against the faster aggro or combo decks. We can just as easily vomit lords onto the table and win on turn 4-5 by turning our dorks sideways. Zoo is aggro, it isn't midrange. We are just blue zoo. Bolt is an aggro, tempo, and control card but no one calls Burn a control deck. We win by attacking as fast as possible for as much as possible, that is aggro. We aren't trying to do chip damage while waiting a few turns to play our win condition or big dumb dork. We aren't trading 1 for 1 with all of our opponents threats like a real tempo deck (but shoal counts as this). The core static merfolk deck is aggro first and foremost.
1 Bushwacker Zoo
1 Thopter Reanimator
1 Mill
1 W/R Soul Sisters
1 Elves
1 Podless Pod
1 Tron
1 Grisleshoal
1 Infect
1 U/W control
1 Scapeshift
1-2 U/R Storm
1 Bogles
1-2 Living End
1-2 Affinity
1 Lantern Control
Infect and U/W Control came back this week with Tron and Lantern coming back the week before, and my meta is fairly diverse...but I keep getting paired against Elves or Scapeshift or other rough Match Ups. Chalice aren't in my sideboard anymore since I have to combat Tron, Scapeshift, and the like. Jund, Value Abzan, conventional zoo, eldrazi, poof gone. I also am playing Recall against because of Thopters and Lantern, the affinity players have been there but 1-2 decks wasnt enough for it now I more or less have to. I can post the list I used, but its pretty conventional otherwise.
And Visions being draw 3 for 1 mana is a lie. That is why i used the Concentate analogy, it is actually WORSE than concentrate since you can at least cast that turn 4 and get value not wait a turn after or god forbid have it redirected.