I have played with gut shot in the past and the only deck where it felt great out of the sideboard was actually affinity. It is a clean answer to Kataki with a bit of an extra upside against other decks with x/1s. Actually, it's one of the only good answers, if not the only good one against the hate bear. Outside of that, I'm not sure there are too many good places to put it.
I seem to be in the minority here in that I have cut nykthos from my list. The 5th colorless land has messed with me more than it has helped as the color requirements for this deck are quite strict. In devotion lists not looking to go way over the top (ex, green devotion), it's not worth it. The only true mana sink we have is Thassa and it's rare that we need a ton of extra mana to push through with her.
I've been playing online with 21 islands and 4 mutavaults for the last two weeks or so (KITTEH online) and have not been regretting it.
Clockwork, I think you may want a couple more black sources in your list to consistently cast discard t1...I might go as far as to add an underground river or two as that's the only other untapped dual for ub in modern and it wouldn't be too bad here.
Sideboarded cursecatcher feels strange. They're only very high impact in a couple matchups and I wouldn't really want to bring them in against uwr (though I do like them in the main against them). If you cut them, you free up 4 more spaces for say, affinity hate.
Bob, I'd go with at least 19 lands, preferably 20 as you are running MoW.
Remand is especially poor in the lower land-count lists (and I dislike it in the first place in any merfolk list as 1cmc counters are much better with 2-drops) as well.
Coralhelm is one of the better late-game threats we have but it's not necessary by any means. I like 2, but that's me.
RDW is an unfavorable matchup as we're either a little bit slower than them or they have enough interaction versus our lords that we run out of gas. Sometimes they just whiff so the matchup is around 35-65 or 40-60 against us.
Master of Waves is good against fair decks...I'm unlikely to cut him unless the format becomes 100% degenerate, but it's certainly an option at times.
Against ad nauseum, redirect is...poor. There are 0 good targets (aside from perhaps discard) pre-nauseum, and then after their namesake spell has resolved, they tend to have access to multiple pact of negations. Even if they somehow are out of pacts, it only will work against Conflagrate which is less popular than Lightning Storm which it would not work against. Just a note for the future there. Against them, cursecatcher is extremely good. Also, watch out for phyrexian unlife as it can fog for a turn before the infect damage starts to add up.
Relic of Progenitus is actually pretty useless against them...the only time they actually interact with the graveyard is if they discard a conflagrate (which has certainly fallen out of favor) pre-combo. I wouldn't mind it for the cantrip though.
Luckily enough, you faced the budget mono green infect which is, in my opinion, significantly worse than the multi-colored versions. Gu/Bug are MUCH harder matchups as they have disruption and a couple different ways to protect versus our bounce spells. They're also significantly faster than us.
Yay for dodging affinity.
Declaration is a bit of a strange card...it does not contribute to our gameplan and can be useless unless our opponent needs to resolve one specific spell (and even then, we have to keep up a blue mana on our already taxed manabase). I think I'd only want it against decks which are completely locked out by it. It could have marginal value versus scapeshift if they're on the non-primeval titan plan, but there they do have cryptic to get out from under it. Ad nauseum would be an interesting place to have it but that's only half of a real deck right now. It's not great against any of the other combo decks in the format as well.
I still am strongly against spellskite main because of the lovely small 0 for its power, especially in the decks which aren't going higher up the curve with MoW.
However, reejery can certainly be 100% cut at times. It's often the worst card in the deck (aside from cursecatcher, 3cmc + not always an immidiate impact) and, as spec's opponent said, is often a win-more.
Yeah, you don't always get there. Even with affinity being the worst matchup for merfolk, I tend to win around 30% of the time or so.
In the past, I have advocated for cutting reejereys. I played with 0 for a while, then 1 in the board (for coming in when some of my other 3-drops weren't effective), to currently 2 in the main as I want the additional lord effect and they're better than soveirgns. They're not 100% necessary, but they're useful at times.
Your match against merfolk is in affinity's favor. As in, it's our worst matchup by far. It sounds like you perhaps kept some slow hands and the punt didn't help.
By the people talking about the pod matchup in this thread, it sounds like either I have a sub-optimal build for it or there are sample size issues on some end. I'm willing to believe that because I don't have card hibernation (grafdigger's isn't as much of a blowout as it seems, I play 2 because of storm), I'm losing more often than others are.
Kiki-pod has been easier from my perspective as their mana base is more fragile and or creature-based interaction is better against them. As in, fewer creatures with particularly detrimental etb abilities + it's easier to break up their combo chain. They also do more damage to themselves than melira does on average.
The thing about storm is that you do not want them to have an ascension 100% of the time. This is one of the places where md echoing truth would be very good and post-board, I'd rather hold up t1 swan song on the draw than play vial (the only other place I wouldn't play vial on the draw t1 is against affinity w/ steel sabotage in hand).
Scapeshift has been around 50/50 or so for me with the games all being very close. When they win, they're usually facing down lethal on the next turn and have perhaps stalled with a cryptic. I don't believe we have much to make the matchup significantly better but they can make out lives miserable if they so choose to (firespout, anger, etc).
Aside from affinity, those decks are fringe contenders right now and not worth the sideboard slots. I'm also not sure that it's worth mulling to when it can't necessarily lock out a matchup 100% (unlike, say, rest in peace vs legacy manaless dredge).
In my experience, our bad matchups are affinity (dedicated sideboard hate worthy), and then unfavorable for melira pod, storm (dependant on the number of counters you run, when I last faces it I ran a total of 4), and then short of those, we're 50/50 or 60/40 against other decks. We're a fair deck doing fair things but in an efficient manner, meaning we won't crush many matchups.
On another note, I may be putting a vendillion clique back into the deck. I played with a pair in the deck pre-master of waves and they were excellent. They're good disruption vs combo and a reasonable clock on their own.
Belsambar, don't worry about the tone, it's hard to have a light touch when refuting someone's opinions on the internet.
My experience with pod is mainly in the online world and without hibernation. There is certainly a chance that card turns the matchup around quite a bit.
As far as their manabase is concerned, it's significantly less fragile than it's made out to be, to the point where some other people I respect (in this case, Jeff Hoogland) have advised against sideboarding even massive nonbasic hate such as blood moon against them (but of course, we still want seas). They have mana dorks + a colorless source of advantage so, yes, it's good, but it's certainly not as good as against, say, jund.
Reasonable on Oboro, I just feel like the upsides don't outweigh the downsides (minor on both parts).
Yes, running cavern may be common sense, but it's also not necessarily something I want/need. Online, it's not necessary. I only really would want it against uwr in a game going long or if spell snare is picking up in popularity (which it does seem to be from my last 3 days online so I may put in one copy and go back to 22 lands). It certainly does have a large upside in some metagames and a marginal downside, but I feel it is not 100% necessary. I just hope I don't see people running it as a 4-of (without reason of course).
I'm still not convinced on chalice. The decks which it is great against are either already good matchups for us or are marginal enough that I do not want to spend sideboard space on them. This is ignoring the opening hand + first 2 or so draws clause which is essentially tacked onto it.
Spellskite is a metagame call to me. The decks which it 100% wrecks are not common enough online (with the exception of burn) and against a number of reasonable twin players, it's a non-issue, especially with twisted image picking up a lot of popularity right now. It's certainly good, but not great.
I've talked with a few scapeshift players I respect and they like it when the opponent brings in spellskite a lot of the time. I'm skeptical of it just off of that.
Dakra mystic is basically just another 1-drop merfolk with utility. It's okay just for being a 1 mana creature to pump and the ability sometimes comes in handy...but it's about on the same level as cursecatcher and trickster.
Your reasoning for most of the post is sound to me...aside from my two particular dislikes in spellskite and chalice. Spellskite is only excellent against two decks, burn and auras (and even then, the auras deck doesn't show up often enough to be considered a priority anymore, at least online). It is good against uwr. It is a non-attacking creature everywhere else. I can certainly get behind playing it in a local metagame infested with such decks, but not against an open field.
My reasoning against chalice is a couple posts up from here. Basically, it doesn't do enough unless you have it in your opener, on the play, and you feel like you don't need to add pressure to the board. I feel like merfolk is a deck of cumulative pressure with a smattering of disruption, not a deck which wants a mediocre lock piece.
I'm also surprised you're running 2 oboros. 1 I can easily enough understand, but the chance to draw a 2nd should outweigh the small benefit of having one. Then again, I play a variant with 0 caverns as they, frankly, are not necessary and only hinder the casting of noncreature spells.
Oh, also, our matchup against pod isn't all that great. They have plenty of ways to out-value us and an engine which is operable even with spreading seas interactions. Yes, we have some good cards against them, but aside from hibernation (hibernation is pretty ridiculous and can turn the game on its head), our plan just doesn't stack up well against their's. We're trying to win with creatures. They're trying to win with creatures with value.
I've played the matchup plenty of times online before. Less so against the newer melira-less configurations, but I feel like we're still going to be the underdog as it's essentially the same deck.
Okay, I guess you guys convinced me on Oboro. Blanked for a moment on it being protected from land destruction.
Perhaps in theory for edge...in practice, I found it to be unreliable, but that's my experience. I'll try to keep track of how often the ghost quarter in my deck would be better as an edge for the next week or two.
Bearscape, Thank you for thinking of edges as stone rains...I still feel they're unnecessary. What matchup do they turn around? What do they actually do to shift those matchups? Scapeshift has enough ramp that they can usually power through it. UWR can operate off of 3 lands until we're both out of gas. Tron is not where you want edge. I've played with a couple in the past and discarded them...I liked the targeted land destruction effect though so I tried out a ghost quarter and haven't looked back. The 4-land clause is a bit much for the decks you actually feel the need to have land destruction for.
Remand still doesn't do much to advance your game-plan. If there were higher cmc'd spells out there, then sure, it would be great there. It's very good against the people trying to cast wurmcoil along with the people trying to cryptic your spells late-game. Against most of the field, I find it underwhelming though.
Name, Tempo and Aggro are closer than you may think. Merfolk is a velocity-based deck with a large number of lords. We win by putting creature after creature onto the table in most matchups, overwhelming the opponents with larger things than they can block (or slipping right past them). Our main plan is to kill our opponent while offering just enough resistance to win, hence a smattering of counters which protect your gameplan.
Personally, I strongly dislike spellskite because it does not advance our plan of aggression but that is a rant for another day.
That still does not keep chalice from being very bad on the draw. It's okay on the play against some decks if you have it in your opening 7. Do you really want to draw a chalice on turn 5? Other sideboard options keep you on a proactive plan while not being dead after turn 2.
Yes, we can certainly race zoo, especially since you're packing tidebinders. I've done so 3 times in the last 2 days. Tribal Zoo is easier to race than the mono-1-drop variant because of their higher curve at least.
Cursecatcher I feel is a necessary evil. It is not a reliable counter but it is a 1-drop merfolk with a little bit of utility. Its utility shows on the play against discard decks, against decks with a large amount of removal (setting them back a turn, letting us get in chip damage), and against fringe combo decks such as living end and ad nauseum. It's certainly not great, but it's not horrible either.
I'd suggest adding a dismember or two to your board by the by. It's useful versus goyf decks and something I always want against creature-combo decks such as twin.
Chalice doesn't support our main plan which is actually killing the opponent. It's also only good if you have it in your opening hand and on the play in those matchups as well. Do you really want to have a chalice on the draw vs affinity when they already drop all their 0 drops on t1? Against bogles, they'll already have a guy down and a lot of the auras also cost 2. Vs zoo, you're taking a turn away from your ability to race while barely limiting their's when they already have a creature or two down at 1 or 2. It might be a consideration against burn, but they have plenty of 2 cmc spells as well. Vs infect, it depends on their build, but it could be okay. Against tron, their critical 1cmc spell in expedition map gets underneath it. Soul sisters' power is in either the martyr + ascendant combo which can get underneath chalice or in their 2-drops. 8-rack isn't a thing. It might be good against living end, but we already have a ridiculously positive matchup against them. Vs storm, they include bounce spells for hate...it wouldn't be horrible, but it doesn't keep them from comboing off as most of their things are 2cmc+. You'd only really counter bolt as a meaningful spell out of delver.
On the play, all of these scenarios are a little bit better, but not necessarily much better. Without the ability to t1 a chalice, I don't feel it's worth it, especially in a format which doesn't rely on its 1-drops as much as legacy does.
Good point on Oboro vs Choke. That would make sense. There isn't much choke running around online though so I don't feel the need to add it...I've run into the card (and its cousin boil) 4 times or so in the last two times I've picked up the deck, meaning 200+ matches. Online, right now, it feels like it may give another land which tectonic edge could hit which is marginal, but potentially significant.
I literally go -1 snag, -1 reejery, +1 unified will, +1 Kira.
Don't play tectonic edge. Seriously, it is not necessary, especially against a deck such as UWR. Yes, it can kill a colonnade. No it won't win you the game or prevent them from doing anything they wouldn't already be able to do on 3 mana or less. The only other deck I can think of potentially wanting it against is tron...except that karn comes down off of 3 lands and it's close to useless in that situation.
Also, there's not real need to bring in relic here. Yes, it may keep a snapcaster from activating. No, it's not worth diluting your aggressive deck for.
Reejery is fine, but not great against them. It's certainly worse than the other lords, but it's still a lord. I only cut a copy because my other cards are better against them (okay, maybe except cursecatcher, I may start cutting one of them instead now that I think of it).
Looking at the rest of your list, why Oboro?
Split up H.Recalls and Steel Sabotages in the sb if you think you'll face any tron variant. If it's mono affinity, keep it as is I think or maybe go 3 recall/ 1 sabotage.
I've ranted about how much I dislike remand before, probably around 70-90 pages ago but I'm not going to go looking for it. The crux of my argument is that we're an aggro deck who won't usually have 2 mana open on the crucial turns to be slowing our opponent down (t2, 3) and we don't have enough lands for it to be super useful vs control in remanding our own spell. It also doesn't stop removal which is one of the main things we'd want to blank.
As far as chalice is concerned, please don't play it in merfolk. There are better options. It's only good on the play and takes up a turn which you would otherwise be pressuring a combo opponent (which is generally more useful as lock pieces/counters don't win the game on their own, lock/counters + pressure does).
I've been playing online with 21 islands and 4 mutavaults for the last two weeks or so (KITTEH online) and have not been regretting it.
Sideboarded cursecatcher feels strange. They're only very high impact in a couple matchups and I wouldn't really want to bring them in against uwr (though I do like them in the main against them). If you cut them, you free up 4 more spaces for say, affinity hate.
Bob, I'd go with at least 19 lands, preferably 20 as you are running MoW.
Remand is especially poor in the lower land-count lists (and I dislike it in the first place in any merfolk list as 1cmc counters are much better with 2-drops) as well.
Coralhelm is one of the better late-game threats we have but it's not necessary by any means. I like 2, but that's me.
RDW is an unfavorable matchup as we're either a little bit slower than them or they have enough interaction versus our lords that we run out of gas. Sometimes they just whiff so the matchup is around 35-65 or 40-60 against us.
Against ad nauseum, redirect is...poor. There are 0 good targets (aside from perhaps discard) pre-nauseum, and then after their namesake spell has resolved, they tend to have access to multiple pact of negations. Even if they somehow are out of pacts, it only will work against Conflagrate which is less popular than Lightning Storm which it would not work against. Just a note for the future there. Against them, cursecatcher is extremely good. Also, watch out for phyrexian unlife as it can fog for a turn before the infect damage starts to add up.
Relic of Progenitus is actually pretty useless against them...the only time they actually interact with the graveyard is if they discard a conflagrate (which has certainly fallen out of favor) pre-combo. I wouldn't mind it for the cantrip though.
Luckily enough, you faced the budget mono green infect which is, in my opinion, significantly worse than the multi-colored versions. Gu/Bug are MUCH harder matchups as they have disruption and a couple different ways to protect versus our bounce spells. They're also significantly faster than us.
Yay for dodging affinity.
Declaration is a bit of a strange card...it does not contribute to our gameplan and can be useless unless our opponent needs to resolve one specific spell (and even then, we have to keep up a blue mana on our already taxed manabase). I think I'd only want it against decks which are completely locked out by it. It could have marginal value versus scapeshift if they're on the non-primeval titan plan, but there they do have cryptic to get out from under it. Ad nauseum would be an interesting place to have it but that's only half of a real deck right now. It's not great against any of the other combo decks in the format as well.
I still am strongly against spellskite main because of the lovely small 0 for its power, especially in the decks which aren't going higher up the curve with MoW.
Nice job Mo-town.
If you think tron of any form will be a thing, then I'd suggest a split between recall and steel sabotage but that's up to what you expect.
However, reejery can certainly be 100% cut at times. It's often the worst card in the deck (aside from cursecatcher, 3cmc + not always an immidiate impact) and, as spec's opponent said, is often a win-more.
Yeah, you don't always get there. Even with affinity being the worst matchup for merfolk, I tend to win around 30% of the time or so.
Your match against merfolk is in affinity's favor. As in, it's our worst matchup by far. It sounds like you perhaps kept some slow hands and the punt didn't help.
Kiki-pod has been easier from my perspective as their mana base is more fragile and or creature-based interaction is better against them. As in, fewer creatures with particularly detrimental etb abilities + it's easier to break up their combo chain. They also do more damage to themselves than melira does on average.
The thing about storm is that you do not want them to have an ascension 100% of the time. This is one of the places where md echoing truth would be very good and post-board, I'd rather hold up t1 swan song on the draw than play vial (the only other place I wouldn't play vial on the draw t1 is against affinity w/ steel sabotage in hand).
Scapeshift has been around 50/50 or so for me with the games all being very close. When they win, they're usually facing down lethal on the next turn and have perhaps stalled with a cryptic. I don't believe we have much to make the matchup significantly better but they can make out lives miserable if they so choose to (firespout, anger, etc).
In my experience, our bad matchups are affinity (dedicated sideboard hate worthy), and then unfavorable for melira pod, storm (dependant on the number of counters you run, when I last faces it I ran a total of 4), and then short of those, we're 50/50 or 60/40 against other decks. We're a fair deck doing fair things but in an efficient manner, meaning we won't crush many matchups.
On another note, I may be putting a vendillion clique back into the deck. I played with a pair in the deck pre-master of waves and they were excellent. They're good disruption vs combo and a reasonable clock on their own.
My experience with pod is mainly in the online world and without hibernation. There is certainly a chance that card turns the matchup around quite a bit.
As far as their manabase is concerned, it's significantly less fragile than it's made out to be, to the point where some other people I respect (in this case, Jeff Hoogland) have advised against sideboarding even massive nonbasic hate such as blood moon against them (but of course, we still want seas). They have mana dorks + a colorless source of advantage so, yes, it's good, but it's certainly not as good as against, say, jund.
Reasonable on Oboro, I just feel like the upsides don't outweigh the downsides (minor on both parts).
Yes, running cavern may be common sense, but it's also not necessarily something I want/need. Online, it's not necessary. I only really would want it against uwr in a game going long or if spell snare is picking up in popularity (which it does seem to be from my last 3 days online so I may put in one copy and go back to 22 lands). It certainly does have a large upside in some metagames and a marginal downside, but I feel it is not 100% necessary. I just hope I don't see people running it as a 4-of (without reason of course).
I'm still not convinced on chalice. The decks which it is great against are either already good matchups for us or are marginal enough that I do not want to spend sideboard space on them. This is ignoring the opening hand + first 2 or so draws clause which is essentially tacked onto it.
Spellskite is a metagame call to me. The decks which it 100% wrecks are not common enough online (with the exception of burn) and against a number of reasonable twin players, it's a non-issue, especially with twisted image picking up a lot of popularity right now. It's certainly good, but not great.
I've talked with a few scapeshift players I respect and they like it when the opponent brings in spellskite a lot of the time. I'm skeptical of it just off of that.
Dakra mystic is basically just another 1-drop merfolk with utility. It's okay just for being a 1 mana creature to pump and the ability sometimes comes in handy...but it's about on the same level as cursecatcher and trickster.
My reasoning against chalice is a couple posts up from here. Basically, it doesn't do enough unless you have it in your opener, on the play, and you feel like you don't need to add pressure to the board. I feel like merfolk is a deck of cumulative pressure with a smattering of disruption, not a deck which wants a mediocre lock piece.
I'm also surprised you're running 2 oboros. 1 I can easily enough understand, but the chance to draw a 2nd should outweigh the small benefit of having one. Then again, I play a variant with 0 caverns as they, frankly, are not necessary and only hinder the casting of noncreature spells.
Oh, also, our matchup against pod isn't all that great. They have plenty of ways to out-value us and an engine which is operable even with spreading seas interactions. Yes, we have some good cards against them, but aside from hibernation (hibernation is pretty ridiculous and can turn the game on its head), our plan just doesn't stack up well against their's. We're trying to win with creatures. They're trying to win with creatures with value.
I've played the matchup plenty of times online before. Less so against the newer melira-less configurations, but I feel like we're still going to be the underdog as it's essentially the same deck.
Perhaps in theory for edge...in practice, I found it to be unreliable, but that's my experience. I'll try to keep track of how often the ghost quarter in my deck would be better as an edge for the next week or two.
Remand still doesn't do much to advance your game-plan. If there were higher cmc'd spells out there, then sure, it would be great there. It's very good against the people trying to cast wurmcoil along with the people trying to cryptic your spells late-game. Against most of the field, I find it underwhelming though.
Name, Tempo and Aggro are closer than you may think. Merfolk is a velocity-based deck with a large number of lords. We win by putting creature after creature onto the table in most matchups, overwhelming the opponents with larger things than they can block (or slipping right past them). Our main plan is to kill our opponent while offering just enough resistance to win, hence a smattering of counters which protect your gameplan.
Personally, I strongly dislike spellskite because it does not advance our plan of aggression but that is a rant for another day.
That still does not keep chalice from being very bad on the draw. It's okay on the play against some decks if you have it in your opening 7. Do you really want to draw a chalice on turn 5? Other sideboard options keep you on a proactive plan while not being dead after turn 2.
Yes, we can certainly race zoo, especially since you're packing tidebinders. I've done so 3 times in the last 2 days. Tribal Zoo is easier to race than the mono-1-drop variant because of their higher curve at least.
Cursecatcher I feel is a necessary evil. It is not a reliable counter but it is a 1-drop merfolk with a little bit of utility. Its utility shows on the play against discard decks, against decks with a large amount of removal (setting them back a turn, letting us get in chip damage), and against fringe combo decks such as living end and ad nauseum. It's certainly not great, but it's not horrible either.
I'd suggest adding a dismember or two to your board by the by. It's useful versus goyf decks and something I always want against creature-combo decks such as twin.
On the play, all of these scenarios are a little bit better, but not necessarily much better. Without the ability to t1 a chalice, I don't feel it's worth it, especially in a format which doesn't rely on its 1-drops as much as legacy does.
Good point on Oboro vs Choke. That would make sense. There isn't much choke running around online though so I don't feel the need to add it...I've run into the card (and its cousin boil) 4 times or so in the last two times I've picked up the deck, meaning 200+ matches. Online, right now, it feels like it may give another land which tectonic edge could hit which is marginal, but potentially significant.
Don't play tectonic edge. Seriously, it is not necessary, especially against a deck such as UWR. Yes, it can kill a colonnade. No it won't win you the game or prevent them from doing anything they wouldn't already be able to do on 3 mana or less. The only other deck I can think of potentially wanting it against is tron...except that karn comes down off of 3 lands and it's close to useless in that situation.
Also, there's not real need to bring in relic here. Yes, it may keep a snapcaster from activating. No, it's not worth diluting your aggressive deck for.
Reejery is fine, but not great against them. It's certainly worse than the other lords, but it's still a lord. I only cut a copy because my other cards are better against them (okay, maybe except cursecatcher, I may start cutting one of them instead now that I think of it).
Looking at the rest of your list, why Oboro?
Split up H.Recalls and Steel Sabotages in the sb if you think you'll face any tron variant. If it's mono affinity, keep it as is I think or maybe go 3 recall/ 1 sabotage.
I've ranted about how much I dislike remand before, probably around 70-90 pages ago but I'm not going to go looking for it. The crux of my argument is that we're an aggro deck who won't usually have 2 mana open on the crucial turns to be slowing our opponent down (t2, 3) and we don't have enough lands for it to be super useful vs control in remanding our own spell. It also doesn't stop removal which is one of the main things we'd want to blank.
As far as chalice is concerned, please don't play it in merfolk. There are better options. It's only good on the play and takes up a turn which you would otherwise be pressuring a combo opponent (which is generally more useful as lock pieces/counters don't win the game on their own, lock/counters + pressure does).