Merfolk

[Chubby Rain]

The legacy decks don't expect to power out 3 and 4cc spells using moxes and lotus's though. So there are more cards at 2-4 that you need answers to in vintage.

Yeah, it's a trade off. Null Rod shuts down all Moxen. Chalice only does it on the play. Delver cares much more about Chalice at 1 than Null Rod - otherwise, it's going to be rough beating an endless stream of lightning bolts, REBs, preordains, delvers, probes, all going for a boat ride. The previous discussion after all was about how Delver was a difficult matchup and I merely chimed in.

[ben_berry]

So it's not a 4 of main deck like you can in Legacy. Turn 1 cursecatcher into turn two chalice @1 is so strong in legacy.

[thecrav]

I played merfolk at a local event last weekend. We ended up not getting enough people to fire so we just jammed games which provided some really interesting results.

While all Merolk lists are pretty similar, I'll go ahead and post what I played for reference: (Or in picture form for those who prefer)

11 Island
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus

4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cursecatcher
4 True Name Nemesis

2 Null Rod
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Treasure Cruise
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
2 Daze
1 Spell Pierce
2 Echoing Truth

Side:
4 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Steel Sabotage
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Dismember
2 Flusterstorm
1 Null Rod

My thoughts:

Land - I think I could get away with one fewer Island. With so few ways to draw or filter cards, I really only ever wanted one or two of them across the full length of a game. The only time that this was not the case was the one time that I hardcast Force of Will

Echoing Truth - I expected to play at least 25% Mentor/Pyromancer decks. I was torn between Truth to bounce tokens and Waterfront Bouncer. Truth ended up being a total house. Every time I cast Truth against the token decks, I won in the next couple turns. Having two also meant that when I targeted tokens and my opponent responded, I once had a backup truth to cleanup the newly-grown Mentors.

Truth also had some nice side effects against Workshops. I Truthed:
* Kuldotha Forgemaster to buy one more turn without a giant robot, which was enough to win
* Sphere of Resistance at end of turn to allow me to untap and dump my hand
* Precursor Golem to clear the way for a lethal attack. My opponent was also very sad when he realized how that worked.

Waterfront Bouncer - While making my decision, I wondered whether Waterfront Bouncer would be able to put enough cards in the graveyard to warrant playing Dig Through Time in addition to the one-of Treasure Cruise. While it may be worth exploring, I think that the lack of card draw and selection will result in running out of gas to power this "engine" rather quickly. That could be offset by bouncing your own Silvergill Adept, but 3 mana to see 1 extra cards is pretty terrible. I don't think I'll even be trying it but I wanted to include it in case anyone else has some ideas of how to make that work.

True Name Nemesis - I'm conflicted here. Against non-Blue decks, I'd say 4 of is almost required as otherwise, you're getting blocked all day. However, that's not much of the format, so Islandwalk could be enough to get there over the course of a tournament. On the other hand, removing their biggest creature from combat can come in handy if a Mentor has gotten extra buff. I'll cut this down to 2 or 3 next time just to see.

Phantasmal Image - Based on knowing who was coming, I was expecting at most 1 oath player, so I wasn't extremely worried about making copies of my opponent's creatures. I'd rather cast Lords off Caverns than have this guy just in case given the expected meta.

Matchups:
I only got to play against MUD and Mentor :/

MUD:
This matchup went better than anyone expected. I lost 1 out of ~10 games preboarded. Many of those games were won by allowing/forcing the shops player to lock themselves out, such as Wasting their Workshop after they played a 3sphere or playing a Null Rod when they kept an artifact-mana heavy hand. Thorn of Amethyst only affects them. Chalice is only really useful on 2 and Cavern gets around it.

I almost felt bad for the people I was testing against when I brought in several sideboard cards after already having beaten them so thoroughly. I may change the sideboard to only be pulling out the missteps to better secure other matchups

Mentor:
Again, only lost one game. Still, this matchup felt a lot more like a coin flip. Whoever began amassing their army earlier had a very distinct advantage. The only times I beat large monk armies were when I'd already secured victory through a large army of my own or when I Truthed away theirs.

[msg67183]

I played merfolk at a local event last weekend. We ended up not getting enough people to fire so we just jammed games which provided some really interesting results.

While all Merolk lists are pretty similar, I'll go ahead and post what I played for reference: (Or in picture form for those who prefer)

11 Island
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus

4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Cursecatcher
4 True Name Nemesis

2 Null Rod
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Treasure Cruise
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
2 Daze
1 Spell Pierce
2 Echoing Truth

Side:
4 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Steel Sabotage
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Dismember
2 Flusterstorm
1 Null Rod

My thoughts:

Land - I think I could get away with one fewer Island. With so few ways to draw or filter cards, I really only ever wanted one or two of them across the full length of a game. The only time that this was not the case was the one time that I hardcast Force of Will

Echoing Truth - I expected to play at least 25% Mentor/Pyromancer decks. I was torn between Truth to bounce tokens and Waterfront Bouncer. Truth ended up being a total house. Every time I cast Truth against the token decks, I won in the next couple turns. Having two also meant that when I targeted tokens and my opponent responded, I once had a backup truth to cleanup the newly-grown Mentors.

Truth also had some nice side effects against Workshops. I Truthed:
* Kuldotha Forgemaster to buy one more turn without a giant robot, which was enough to win
* Sphere of Resistance at end of turn to allow me to untap and dump my hand
* Precursor Golem to clear the way for a lethal attack. My opponent was also very sad when he realized how that worked.

Waterfront Bouncer - While making my decision, I wondered whether Waterfront Bouncer would be able to put enough cards in the graveyard to warrant playing Dig Through Time in addition to the one-of Treasure Cruise. While it may be worth exploring, I think that the lack of card draw and selection will result in running out of gas to power this "engine" rather quickly. That could be offset by bouncing your own Silvergill Adept, but 3 mana to see 1 extra cards is pretty terrible. I don't think I'll even be trying it but I wanted to include it in case anyone else has some ideas of how to make that work.

True Name Nemesis - I'm conflicted here. Against non-Blue decks, I'd say 4 of is almost required as otherwise, you're getting blocked all day. However, that's not much of the format, so Islandwalk could be enough to get there over the course of a tournament. On the other hand, removing their biggest creature from combat can come in handy if a Mentor has gotten extra buff. I'll cut this down to 2 or 3 next time just to see.

Phantasmal Image - Based on knowing who was coming, I was expecting at most 1 oath player, so I wasn't extremely worried about making copies of my opponent's creatures. I'd rather cast Lords off Caverns than have this guy just in case given the expected meta.

Matchups:
I only got to play against MUD and Mentor :/

MUD:
This matchup went better than anyone expected. I lost 1 out of ~10 games preboarded. Many of those games were won by allowing/forcing the shops player to lock themselves out, such as Wasting their Workshop after they played a 3sphere or playing a Null Rod when they kept an artifact-mana heavy hand. Thorn of Amethyst only affects them. Chalice is only really useful on 2 and Cavern gets around it.

I almost felt bad for the people I was testing against when I brought in several sideboard cards after already having beaten them so thoroughly. I may change the sideboard to only be pulling out the missteps to better secure other matchups

Mentor:
Again, only lost one game. Still, this matchup felt a lot more like a coin flip. Whoever began amassing their army earlier had a very distinct advantage. The only times I beat large monk armies were when I'd already secured victory through a large army of my own or when I Truthed away theirs.

I haven't had a lot of testing with it, but Chalice of the Void IN Merfolk is spectacular, with that in mind I have also cut Mental Misstep in favor of 2 Flusterstorm (since you can Flusterstorm through a Chalice at 1) and 2 Misdirection (since it's pretty great at stealing an Ancestral, making them Bolt/Swords their own dude, etc)

I think 4 True Name is a must if you expect decks like Delver and Mentor, the ability to beat them in combat, even if they Gush their lands away, also combined with sideboard Umezawa's Jitte seems too good to pass up.

[Naixin]

Opinions of merfolk in the current metagame?

[Naixin]

I've been testing various non-mainstream merfolk builds in my attempt to make it somewhat viable and here is a current test list. It's basically a standstill/vial list. It's not close to being optimal or top tier, but I feel like it has potential. This deck trades null rod for vial (not sure if correct or not, I just feel like a lot of the meta decks can ignore null rod right now). Vial is also pretty good against shops (atleast compared to traditional merfolk builds). And standstill is an ok draw engine. With this list, it's basically a worst standstill deck than landstill and a worse aggro deck than merfolks, but it has more flexibility. Opinions?

Lands: 20
3 Cavern of Souls
7 Island
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Riptide Laboratory
4 Mutavault

Artifacts: 7
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
4 AEther Vial

Creatures: 19
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
3 True-Name Nemesis

Instants: 9
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep

Sorceries: 1
1 Time Walk

Enchantments: 4
4 Standstill

SB: 15
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 3 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Dismember
SB: 3 Steel Sabotage
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Propaganda

[xouman]

Weird: I think that since the restriction of COTV, storm is growing in numbers and so null rod is better than it has been for years. I like Riptide Laboratory, but in this deck it seems poor (I used it with spellstutters and vendillions, along with merfolks, lots of years ago), 4th cavern seems better.

[Naixin]

The issue I have with Null Rod is that if i'm on the draw, It feels too slow against the decks that you are trying to beat.

Aether Vial + Standstill though is a great way to grind out people, and with a single lord, your manlands are bigger than the manlands of Landstill or Shops.

I guess i'm just trying to test out new ideas since I feel like Merfolk isn't in a super viable place in the meta right now. I've tried to play the standard lists, but I always ran into several problems.
1. Deciding between dropping a threat or wastelanding.
2. Getting locked out by Lodestone Golem
3. Not having enough card draw

So I feel like Aether vial helps with 1 and 2, where as standstill helps with problem 3.

Hmm, hopefully someone more experienced can chime in and give me feedback on what theyd play in a relatively diverse field of Shops, Storm, Gush, and Oath.

[msg67183]

Since you don't have Null Rod, what about Jitte in the board to combat Shops, Dredge, Mentor, etc?

[xouman]

The issue I have with Null Rod is that if i'm on the draw, It feels too slow against the decks that you are trying to beat.

On the draw, Aether Vial + Standstill feel way slower than null rod.

Aether Vial + Standstill though is a great way to grind out people, and with a single lord, your manlands are bigger than the manlands of Landstill or Shops.

true

I guess i'm just trying to test out new ideas since I feel like Merfolk isn't in a super viable place in the meta right now. I've tried to play the standard lists, but I always ran into several problems.
1. Deciding between dropping a threat or wastelanding.
2. Getting locked out by Lodestone Golem
3. Not having enough card draw

So I feel like Aether vial helps with 1 and 2, where as standstill helps with problem 3.
[/quote]
In fact, playing aether vial is not playing a threat neither wastelanding, but making a small invest in order to save mana in the future.
If golem if the problem, vial is not the answer. Against a golem, vial has to slowly grow while LSG attacks. But of course vial is good against tangle and other spheres, in fact it's great.

Hmm, hopefully someone more experienced can chime in and give me feedback on what theyd play in a relatively diverse field of Shops, Storm, Gush, and Oath.

Having so many playable decks makes it hard to choose an optimum build...

[Naixin]

Hmm. Thank you for your feedback!

The issue i've come across with from merfolks is that if you try to go aggro, the "control decks" like pyromancer or mentor can simply race you. Plus playing 1 fish a turn seemed a little too fair. I was hoping that the initial investment of vial plus card advantage of standtill can make merfolk a little more "unfair".

I guess I need to test out my idea more and work with the numbers. Right now, I think the classic builds of straight 20 lands, 4 caverns, and lots of fish is the better build. I'm hoping to eventually come across a spicer build that can compare or even surpass the standard.

On the bright side, I think adding mutavault/aethervial/standstill has yielded better results in a version I tested earlier with Stifle/Daze/Sygg lol

[TheMonadNomad]

I played Merfolk locally recently (a list pretty close to the Champs winning list from a few years back) just to get a feel for the deck and I got pummeled.  The Null Rods helped G1 vs Storm but G2/3 were bad losses (cheap artifact removal from the board plus main deck defense grids did me in as i got TEN DRILLED for bunches).  Shops match up was even worse (hit two of those that night).  Resisters just slow you down way too much and getting 3 balled with no FOW = GG.  Final game was against a Mentor build that just basically "stormed on board", quickly having superior board presence.

Hopefully you have better results with your AEther Vial build - best of luck!

[Ozymandias]

I've had a lot of success with Disrupting Shoal as extra Forces versus combo decks. They're also fine on the draw versus shops. Something like:

5 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Null Rod
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Cursecatcher
4 True-name nemesis
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
//Sideboard
2 Disrupting Shoal
3 Dismember
3 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Pithing Needle

[Naixin]

Aight so. After more testing, I got wrecked by vault/key like 8 times. I think Null Rod is needed. have to decide now if there is any way to make it so I'm still better against shops.

[msg67183]

Aight so. After more testing, I got wrecked by vault/key like 8 times. I think Null Rod is needed. have to decide now if there is any way to make it so I'm still better against shops.

Null Rod is still strong against Shops. I never had an issue with Workshops when I played Merfolk. Maybe instead of Null Rod, we fit in Revokers to go with Aether Vial to hit Vault Key or other shenanigans?

[Naixin]

Aight so. After more testing, I got wrecked by vault/key like 8 times. I think Null Rod is needed. have to decide now if there is any way to make it so I'm still better against shops.

Null Rod is still strong against Shops. I never had an issue with Workshops when I played Merfolk. Maybe instead of Null Rod, we fit in Revokers to go with Aether Vial to hit Vault Key or other shenanigans?

Well, right now in testing, I have Vial/Standstill in the MD and null rod in the SB now. Whenever I switch in Null Rods, I take out vials+standstill.

[xouman]

depending on the deck you face (lots of  cases where you want null rod), standstill is still powerful. Any non-aggro deck is going to crack it before you, specially if you play mutavaults.

[Naixin]

depending on the deck you face (lots of  cases where you want null rod), standstill is still powerful. Any non-aggro deck is going to crack it before you, specially if you play mutavaults.

I discussed this with antoniss some more and it seems that both vial and null rod has their uses. However, the issue is which one has MORE uses.

Right now, I feel like Vial helps so much with G1 against Shops. Null Rod helps so much against Storm and Vault Key. I think depending on the meta, the numbers can change, but right now I am leaning towards maindecking Vials and SBing Null Rods. And you are correct. Standstill is great against many decks.

My current list:

Artifacts: 7
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lotus Petal
4 Aether Vial

Creatures: 19
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
3 True-Name Nemesis

Instants: 9
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep

Sorceries:1
1 Time Walk

Enchantments:4
4 Standstill

Lands:20
3 Cavern of Souls
7 Island
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Riptide Laboratory
4 Mutavault

SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 3 Steel Sabotage
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Null Rod
SB: 1 Propaganda

[TheWhiteDragon]

I still suggest 2-3 phantasmal image instead of a TNN and a couple Silvergils.  They are better vs MUD, Oath, Mentor, BSC...and at worst they are extra lords.  Any removal in Vintage is going to kill a creature (even bolt kills a Silvergil with 2 lords out), so the drawback of image is negligible.