MTG Salvation

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.

E-Truth should have definitely come in, yes. With your 75, I'm probably looking at something like -4 Spreading Seas, -2 PhImage, +2 Sphere, +2 Relic, +1 Surgical, +1 E-Truth. You could mayyyyybe talk me into a 1-of Venser over the 3rd Master of Waves, but I do like Master a lot in the matchup.

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.

Reporting is something I play by ear, to be honest. Some tournaments I have really detailed notes and can really do a play-by-play of what happened, others I'm kind of where you are. I usually scribble down how I sideboarded after the match on the notepad I use to keep track of my life total, though.

Hey eternechaos, I was the guy at the tournament thanking you for doing well with merfollk and waiting to see your list when you top 8'd. Sorry to hear about that ending in the top 8 but i really like your decklist and goldfishing it has been awesome! Especially against the UR pheonix decks with permanent removal like blast it just hits them outta nowhere. Do you live in the Knoxville area or were you and your teammate down from somewhere?
Oh and one quick question did you ever feel like 4 chalices was too many?

Hey Team,
I was wondering if I could have some opinions on how to sideboard against Storm w/ my current list. My maindeck is pretty standard except that I still keep Cursecatcher's in:

Maindeck:
4 Cursecatcher
4 Harbinger
4 Trickster
4 LoA
4 MoPT
4 Silvergil
4 Spreading Seas
4 Aether Vial
4 Deprive
2 Spell Pierce
4 MoW
1 Oboro
1 Minamo
4 Mutavault
Islands

Sideboard:
2 Tidebinder
2 Wizards Retort
4 Relic
4 Echoing Truths
1 Spell Pierce
2 Dismember

I played Azorious Control over the weekend and went 12-0 (every player kept forgetting that I could sac Cursecatcher to stop Cryptics and also that I could activate a Mutavault (buffed by Lords and MoW) during my Begin Combat step after they used Cryptic to tap down my board at the beginning of the step) and I did fine against Jund. I saw no Phoenix decks, and I did OK against Hardened Scales but without a Chalice or a Hurkyl it was tough). But then I came up against Storm and I got smoked. Every time.

I swapped Spreading Seas for Echoing Truth. That seems right. But beyond that, it's not clear to me what else I can do.

Does anyone have advice on how I should sideboard against Storm given my sideboard and main deck? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

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.

Top 8ed Regionals in Orlando using Merfolk Joe's list and sideboard guide except i switched the 2 main deck spell pierce to vapor snag at the last minute because of how much UR Phoenix I saw in the room.

7-1 in swiss

Matchups were

Bogles
Titanshift
Dredge
Sultai Reclamation
4c Kiki
UR Phoenix
Martyr proc
GDS

QuarterFinal
Amulet Titan


I got multiple comments from opponents and spectators each round about how they hadn't seen Merfolk in forever. Nobody plays fish in Florida?

Good job, bud. Strong showing.

@Shoebaccha: Sorry I didn't get to this earlier. I'd sideboard as follows with your list against Storm:

-4 Harbinger
-4 Seas
-4 Master of Waves

+4 Relic
+3 E-Truth
+2 Dismember
+2 Retort
+1 Pierce

My rationale being that Harbinger/Seas are duds, whereas Master is nice but a bit too slow. E-Truth beats Empty the Warrens, Relic usually slows them down while going off, and countermagic is something you try to line up with Gifts Ungiven or cost reducers as best you can.

Hi everyone, just wanted to say that I have finished the Matchups and Sideboarding section. Let me know what you guys think!

I run kind of a bant version of the deck and my mana base is 4x wanderwine hub, 4x breeding pool, 4x mutavault, 1x cavern of souls, and 7x islands. I agree with some of the above comments in that good counter magic is hard to come by nowadays and even the control decks play a bunch of 1 and 2 of a bunch of different counters so 2+ caverns is pretty unnecessary until you start playing legacy Merfolk then I’d recommend 4 for sure. I also run 4x CoCo mainboard and it’s actually fun in game 1 when you stick on on your opponents end step. I’m also using the green sources for kumenas speaker to kind of speed things up early. I use the white splash for hate cards out of the sideboard. Currently I have 2 Rest In Peace but in my old meta I was running 2 stony silence which I get is a complete nonbo with my vial but so long as I had a little bit of a board state I was ok and could usually back up the lack of vial use with a CoCo. I’ve debated on rec sage but I believe in those matchups hurkyls recall will still suffice. Even if you’re bouncing their vial that’s on 2 or 3 it resets it and buys you time.
Here’s a link to my list for those that would like to take a look.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/10186-merfolk

So close to be the merfolk we need....

http://mythicspoiler.com/war/cards/silentsubmarine.html

"Silent Submarine"
UU
Artifact - Vehicle
Whenever Silent Submarine deals combat damage to a player or planeswalker, draw a card.

Crew 2 (Tap any number of creatures you control with total power 2 or more. This Vehicle becomes an artifact creature until end of turn.)

"Need" is a strong word. We're always in the market for upgrades, but the deck has been doing pretty well lately in terms of results.

I do agree that word is strong. However, having a source of stable/constant draw is always been something I believe our archetype needs to really push to the highest tiers.

I mean, that same vehicle with islandwalk or a Merfolk subtype...

There is also the need of a strictly better Deprive, but we're most likely getting that in June

Does everyone play with playset Benthic Biomancer and Deprive in main?

I think some folks have been experimenting with Cryptic Command of late, but Benthic Biomancer is pretty stock at the moment.

I didn't even try Biomancer coz didn't play magic in last two months. Last week i went on fnm but with GDS.

My best result on "big(29 people)" tournament was second place (wrote report but don't exist anymore coz my post are deleted. Deprive was sideboard mvp card. So maybe playset in main isn't that bad idea.

Rothgar I see you’re still on Venser instead of cryptic. Is that because you’d rather have vial as an option to cast venser?

Yep. I've been increasingly skeptical of my ability to hit 4 lands on curve (so much so that I'm currently testing Merrow Reejerey over Master of Waves in the current Bolt-light environment), and Cryptic doesn't do you much good if you can't cast it. There are some other corner-case concerns in favor of Venser - for example, Supreme Verdict out of UWX Control.

Any opinions/tests on Ashiok? I'm really tempted to replace 1-2 relics with him.