Modern FNM
Round 1: Tron, lost 0-2
Round 2: Mill, won 2-1
Round 3: Bushwacker Zoo, won 2-1
Round 4: Scapeshift, lost 0-2
If I see the players who ran the Tron and Scapeshift again I'm putting tec edge or ghost quarter back in my side. Game 2 against tron I got her to 1 and just couldn't punch thru ugin+karn+O-Stone. Scapeshift I lost game 2 with a negate in my hand when he just played Prime Times while game 1 I lost to natural scapeshift. I hate just sitting around doing nothing, I would probably cut my Chalice of the Void for Tec Edge if I have to since they only came in against mill. I still prefer Chalice, but I dont want a dead card in my sideboard. On the plus side my 1 of Unified Will countered a Wurmcoil engine as the highlight of its performance at the tournament so its another week of testing for that card since it was relevant everytime I saw it. Infect has almost completely disappeared from my store so I probably need chalice a lot less
On the "derived information" topic, I don't say anything unless asked at REL. When I go to combat I just say "attack" and let them figure it out, I always count in my head before I attack to know what the answer is and how blocks will happen. If they ask you if Lord of Atlantis pumps himself, the least you can say is that he is a merfolk. I've blocked more than my fair share of Etched Champions and similar creatures because it is a colorless non-artifact creature and they didn't bother to read or ask beyond its creature types.
As someone pointed out in Nikachu's youtube comments Concentrate is a way better Ancestral Vision, you even get to draw 1 turn earlier! It can't be redirected or Nixed, this is the card blue decks should be playing for card draw over that meh visions. If the game goes long you could even resolve 2 of them in the same turn to draw a new hand. Plus it is a great budget consideration
If I had to guess it is because he is running a creature heavy build so he is using them as fun 1 ofs to draw off Seas or Adept. I wouldn't know for sure, but it still placed fairly well and we do often go with a creature and land only draw to a win. I'm not advocating for this build, just saying that I can see it working. Personally I would cut a land and one of the 1 ofs to be 2 for either spell (probably snag and dismember) but even then it isn't a huge departure from our list.
Our deck always perform well in Modern Classic and Modern 2-day events so I wouldn't worry too much about the Invitational. I have a feeling a good amount of merfolk players just don't play standard because of results like this...it isn't like our deck is suddenly bad against standard players.
We are talking about Seige Rhino Abzan rather than Abzan Company correct? Because I have seen the two lumped together into just Abzan which is dangerous thinking. Regular old value Abzan usually feels a lot like Jund except if they path one of our guys we can play a Master of Waves turn 3. I haven't played against it all that much, but the same kind of play strategies feel like they work.
Abzan Company aka Podless Pod is an entirely other beast, you have to race them super fast or sideboard into cards that keep them from winning. I personally hate this match up and its why Grafdigger's Cage isn't leaving my sideboard anytime soon...I'm just sick of sitting there with no interaction while they combo off.
In my experience it also depends on build, the most recent version with Kitchen Finks is easily 60-40 while the build from a few months ago that had more kill and the like always felt super hard. For whatever reasons the finks version feels so much easier. I played a very good Jund player for months, I could never beat him on the old build of the deck no matter what I tried. As soon as he swapped to the Finks version I 2'0'd him at two different tournaments without changing my list for jund specifically. I know this is anecdotal, but from Jund widening their deck to handle more threats it got easier for us. They might swap back now that Eldrazi are weakened, but we will see.
I had played other people who had jund, but the player I mentioned always showed up to play the deck so I had a lot of games against him to try all sorts of angles and analogies. He was the only jund player I could never beat.
The idea of "cycling into creatures" is highly problematic. Compare "drawing a Seas, casting it, cantriping lord, casting it" to "drawing a lord, casting it". Unless that Seas got you (or will very shortly get you) CA in one of the 2 major ways, effectively that lord cost *4* mana. I think everybody would agree that 4 mana for a lord is atrociously inefficient.
The same can be said for Remand, that 2nd counter spell or kill spell costs them 4 as they dig into something relevant. Our seas are not as good as a remand in terms of CA, but it can still slow down what the opponent is doing in a similar way. If we run our Silvergills out to block or just get killed by removal or wrath it is CA in the same way. It is incremental CA not to mention that Seas'ing into a Lord and then Vialing in that lord is still a pretty sweet deal.
Honestly playing chalice mainboard kinda terrifies me Drawing a cursecatcher, vial, or vapor snag the turn after I play one would suck so so bad. Vial is hard core of the deck and cursecatcher gives us some turns against the control decks. I realize the main deck can be tweaked to allow this, but as a 4 chalice in place of 4 seas I just find that terrible. We don't have the luxury of playing 4 Caverns in Modern or being able to run on as little mana as possible thanks to Force of Will.
Chalice have never never left my sideboard. I have kept 3 there for well over a year now with great results. I have never brought them in on every round in the tournament and I have never sided out Spreading Seas every round of the tournament. In some cases Seas is a remand, it replaces itself and keeps our opponents from playing the spell they want for 1 whole turn. At worse it is a Train of Thought against decks that already run islands.
I agree with Rothgar in that seeing more than 1 chalice sucks worse than seeing more than 1 of anything else in our deck. I get mad at myself post board when I have 2 chalice in hand or god forbid I see all 3 that game. Seeing more than 2 seas is frustrating, but they at least get you 1 card deeper and not just sit awkwardly in your hand. I will continue to run both cards, but the meta will have to shift wildly or more/better merfolk cards will have to be printed before I move the Chalice to the main.
To weigh in on this, if your store have a lot of Grixis Delver, Storm, Goryo's, or god forbid mono-u turns...I can see cutting down or not playing any Spreading Seas. It depends on what kind of decks are out there.
While 4 seas is very important to our deck, I think testing less than 4 can be fine. 2-3 is still what I would consider a safe number as 1 just feels too weak personally. Even as a cantrip it can be useful or the super awkward times we have to Seas our own land to get double blue.
If you have more than 1 seas in your hand I have no problem with "throwing away" one on turn 2 to give myself a draw and maybe slow my opponent down, especially if their board is empty at that moment. I would rather not run a lord into a path or a bolt for no value if I could help it.
Shoal is also more of a control card while Seas itself is aggro/tempo since it gives our guys unblockability and keeps the gas going as we empty our hand. For a more controlling build where you just counter any blockers or something like that I can see a low number of seas as an option as you would need more room for remands and similar cards.
I personally would not play a deck like that, I like aggros decks and as a rule I never play a deck that can go to time which is what control can turn into in certain match ups. I mean I wouldn't play the U/W version of the deck unless my store was 50% affinity or more, but other people still play it and advocate for it. I am a harsh opponent of both remand and tec edge, but I still have results as do the people that run those cards. Now if someone is running less than 4 silvergills that is something I will jump on them for ;p
I just dislike how slow tec edge is, we can block or Harbinger any man lands. Trons lands are the real problem which need to be dealt with before they hit 4 and just slam that Ugin. I would still prefer ghost quarter
Round 1: Tron, lost 0-2
Round 2: Mill, won 2-1
Round 3: Bushwacker Zoo, won 2-1
Round 4: Scapeshift, lost 0-2
If I see the players who ran the Tron and Scapeshift again I'm putting tec edge or ghost quarter back in my side. Game 2 against tron I got her to 1 and just couldn't punch thru ugin+karn+O-Stone. Scapeshift I lost game 2 with a negate in my hand when he just played Prime Times while game 1 I lost to natural scapeshift. I hate just sitting around doing nothing, I would probably cut my Chalice of the Void for Tec Edge if I have to since they only came in against mill. I still prefer Chalice, but I dont want a dead card in my sideboard. On the plus side my 1 of Unified Will countered a Wurmcoil engine as the highlight of its performance at the tournament so its another week of testing for that card since it was relevant everytime I saw it. Infect has almost completely disappeared from my store so I probably need chalice a lot less
I still consider Spellskite inferior, not vastly, but being able to block fliers (like those pesky Nexus and Vault Skirge) can save you from losing.
On the Chalice question; Burn, Zoo, Infect, Bogles, Affinity, Living End, Delver decks, Soul Sisters...basically any deck with a ton of 1 or 0 drops.
Abzan Company aka Podless Pod is an entirely other beast, you have to race them super fast or sideboard into cards that keep them from winning. I personally hate this match up and its why Grafdigger's Cage isn't leaving my sideboard anytime soon...I'm just sick of sitting there with no interaction while they combo off.
I had played other people who had jund, but the player I mentioned always showed up to play the deck so I had a lot of games against him to try all sorts of angles and analogies. He was the only jund player I could never beat.
The same can be said for Remand, that 2nd counter spell or kill spell costs them 4 as they dig into something relevant. Our seas are not as good as a remand in terms of CA, but it can still slow down what the opponent is doing in a similar way. If we run our Silvergills out to block or just get killed by removal or wrath it is CA in the same way. It is incremental CA not to mention that Seas'ing into a Lord and then Vialing in that lord is still a pretty sweet deal.
Chalice have never never left my sideboard. I have kept 3 there for well over a year now with great results. I have never brought them in on every round in the tournament and I have never sided out Spreading Seas every round of the tournament. In some cases Seas is a remand, it replaces itself and keeps our opponents from playing the spell they want for 1 whole turn. At worse it is a Train of Thought against decks that already run islands.
I agree with Rothgar in that seeing more than 1 chalice sucks worse than seeing more than 1 of anything else in our deck. I get mad at myself post board when I have 2 chalice in hand or god forbid I see all 3 that game. Seeing more than 2 seas is frustrating, but they at least get you 1 card deeper and not just sit awkwardly in your hand. I will continue to run both cards, but the meta will have to shift wildly or more/better merfolk cards will have to be printed before I move the Chalice to the main.
While 4 seas is very important to our deck, I think testing less than 4 can be fine. 2-3 is still what I would consider a safe number as 1 just feels too weak personally. Even as a cantrip it can be useful or the super awkward times we have to Seas our own land to get double blue.
If you have more than 1 seas in your hand I have no problem with "throwing away" one on turn 2 to give myself a draw and maybe slow my opponent down, especially if their board is empty at that moment. I would rather not run a lord into a path or a bolt for no value if I could help it.
Shoal is also more of a control card while Seas itself is aggro/tempo since it gives our guys unblockability and keeps the gas going as we empty our hand. For a more controlling build where you just counter any blockers or something like that I can see a low number of seas as an option as you would need more room for remands and similar cards.
I personally would not play a deck like that, I like aggros decks and as a rule I never play a deck that can go to time which is what control can turn into in certain match ups. I mean I wouldn't play the U/W version of the deck unless my store was 50% affinity or more, but other people still play it and advocate for it. I am a harsh opponent of both remand and tec edge, but I still have results as do the people that run those cards. Now if someone is running less than 4 silvergills that is something I will jump on them for ;p