Just got back in on the deck having played it years back. Have had one match so far, beat Affinity and went something like: + 3 Annul, +2 Hydroblast, +3 Curse of Chains // -1 Ninja of the Deep Hours, -2 Daze, -2 Ponder, -2 Preordain, -1 Brainstorm
Why 6 hard counters for colorless spells? Seems like some Unified Will or other more versatile counters would help? Your counter suite covers some areas but is fairly weak to RG Valakut (2 Negate & 2 Flashfreeze), and very weak to Ad Nauseam & Gifts Storm (2 Negate? I guess I'd side in some of the colorless counters for Ad Naus's artifacts - anything I can pack to interact with them I'll take.)
Your list seems fairly soft to Death Shadow, having just Harbinger and Vapor Snag to interact with their creatures and a few Relics to bring in. Maybe the matchup is easier than I've had it, but without packing a bunch of removal it's felt incredibly rough. How's it been for you?
We've all had our blunders. I think my brain would just assume islandwalk is live in the Merfolk mirror. Live & learn and don't sweat it.
Anyone have any idea what we should do against the new Gifts Storm deck?
I'm 10-1 or something crazy against them on Magic online. Side in as much disruption as possible for their graveyard, spells, and creatures. Aim to apply pressure while keeping disruption up. Never tap out while they have a creature or more than a couple lands in play. Counter Gifts and think hard on how best to sort the piles if they resolve one. Usually I keep them off additional card draw if given the opportunity but tally their available Mana to see if nixing rituals is better.
I haven't tried those but agree that our deck could benefit from a looting effect. I think the better options are Smuggler's Copter, Monastery Siege, or Thassa, God of the Sea. I've tried all of these and like them well enough. I tend to play Thassa if I'm on a heavier devotion list (8 seas main) and almost always pack Siege in the sideboard. Both are very good against attrition decks.
I haven't tried Cryptic. I've thought about it a little but just don't think it's that great. There are tons of cards we potentially have available, I just don't think Cryptic is where we want to be.
Edit to add: We'd absolutely benefit by having more brewers. If you still think these might be good I encourage you to try them out and report back how it went!
Anywhere from 0-3 Caverns is fine. I like 3 when I can pack them since I'd been running into a lot of blue counter decks online and I like being able to comfortably side out my Vials against them. One to two is more common. I always try to go with 2-3 unless I'm straining my mana base with a splash color.
Sea Gate Wreckage is fine. It's good in the matchups where you want it. I endorse trying it out to see if you like it, I've only used it mildly myself. I found it to be inconsistent but the matchups I wanted it against were attrition decks (UW control for example) and were packing Ghost Quarter as well so it didn't feel great but that's results based thinking.
You need 13 sources (at least 11 given our 8 cantrips) to have a 90% chance to land the splash color on turn 2. This might not be necessary depending on what you're doing with it. But if you want to play Stony Silence for example, or Rest in Peace against Dredge - you need to be able to land it early consistently.
I'm on a white splash for 4 Detention Sphere and 4 Path to Exile. I've tried Stony but it hurts siding out Vials since we often need them to race the decks we bring Stony in against if we don't open with it. I think Seachrome is ok but I'm currently going with 4 Wanderwine, 6 Fetch, 1 Hallowed Fountain.
And yes, the White cards help a ton in the DS matchup. I'm 2-0 against DS variants with the splash.
They're attrition heavy, threat light, and have a greedy mana base (most lists are 18-19 land and 2 basics.) I think the best strategies are to mess with their creatures or lands while putting up our usual game plan of trying to apply pressure to the board. In mono blue I would be looking to either go 8 seas and stick to our usual game plan otherwise or pack removal that can actually hit their creatures. I was going with 3-4 Ratchet Bombs in the side since in my head these would also help miscellaneous other matchups we have trouble with (Affinity & Elves.) I'm not sure they were enough to do that, but they do work well against Death's Shadow. If you want to go the creature interaction route some other options I haven't tried yet that I think would work well are enchantment based removal (Curse of Chains, Claustrophobia, etc) since they have trouble removing enchantments (1-2 Abrupt Decay only I think?) of course Threads is probably better for this but potentially narrower against the field.) I was also thinking of trying Reality Shift. Others have discussed Pongify which I think would work fine too. We can deal with creatures on the board just not a 5/6 or 8/8 backed by disruption.
Whatever you go with make sure to pack a lot of it. Their discard package means the plan is likely to be topdecking these answers.
My latest plan is trying a White splash for 4 Path to Exile and 4 Detention Sphere. I'm 2-0 against Death Shadow with it (faced Esper once and the traditional Jund.) I still was crushed by Affinity though (these may be the right tools there but might not be enough), thinking I still want to explore options that deal with this and help against the field.
The areas you want to consider are creature, spell, graveyard, & land interaction. You definitely want to cover spell and graveyard and the others are personal preference.
Most configurations are:
2-4 graveyard interaction (primarily Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger's Cage is also an option or Stony Silence if you decide to splash white)
4-6 spell interaction (many lists are on 4 Unified Will, Negate is often included as well and Spell Pierce though that's often in the main instead - really there's a ton of options here but you want to have something - we are not as fast as Ad Naueam, Gifts Storm, Scapeshift, Tron stabilizes quickly, etc. - we need answers!)
2-4 creature interaction (Dismember is the most common followed by Vapor Snag, as Rothgar said these can be mained as well; Echoing Truth is another consideration as well as Tidebinder Mage)
0-4 land interaction (Sea's Claim, Tectonic Edge, Ghost Quarter)
Some more narrow things folks may like to include [Hurkyl's Recall etc.]
On top of that I want to have a good answer to Death's Shadow. Most people are just bouncing it but I want something that kills it. We don't have a tried and true answer here yet but things I've been working with are Ratchet Bomb, White splash for Path to Exile & Detention Sphere. Have also been considering Blue Enchantment answers like Narcolepsy since they have trouble answering enchantments but haven't gone so far as to actually run them yet.
I should note another approach to the Death Shadow matchup is to Sea's Claim & Spreading Seas their lands, which is a fine plan as well.
With all of this you also need to consider what bases are already covered by the flex slots in your main deck, and what your overall plan & expected metagame look like.
Giraffe 5-0 played Delay a pretty spicy card.
what you guys think of Delay
I think it's pretty good.
My reasoning for it is primarily for a game 1 plan against spell decks that are faster than us (Ad Nauseam, RG Valakut.) I also think it's funny that it blanks X spells but haven't had that come up yet (Conflagrate, Walking Ballista, Engineered Explosives are some spicy potential targets.)
It also can help race creature decks (I won game one against Affinity yesterday when they had an awkward start especially when I Delayed their turn 2 Steel Overseer, luckily I was on the play.) And it might even help close out the game vs Attrition.
That all said it's not perfect. It's not really where you want to be against the attrition decks since the game is likely to go long anyhow. But I put it in for a reason and it performed well that league at least.
Edit to add: My list here was pretty poor, primarily the mana base and the oddball one of tech edge in the side. Though I suppose it's fine to side in at least one extra land when bringing out vials vs attrition. Anyhow, I think there's some things that worked well here but I absolutely wouldn't run this back as is. Just throwing that out there in case a newer fish happens to read our conversation.
I feel Master of Waves is weak to the increased spot removal. Glen Elandra can counter two spells from the attrition deck and gives us main deck interaction for Scapeshift, Ad Nauseam, etc. Though I do feel it's a bit slow but wanted to try it out.
Edit: Here's the details I shared on Facebook
After finishing the Friendly League with the oddball Trinket Mage package it took me a long while to decide how to frame up my list for the next competitive league.
Flex slots (16): 2 Relic of Progenitus, 4 Sea's Claim, 3 Merrow Reejerey, 2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, 1 Vendilion Clique, 1 Thassa, God of the Sea, 3 Glen Elandra Archmage
Looking at the top decks I decided to go big on land disruption and attrition with a spell interaction sub theme. I'm also following Nikachu MTG (Jonathon Zaczek)'s 2 Relics main. I'm giving Glen Elandra Archmage a run over Master of Waves and decided to skip her right past the friendly queues and let her prove her worth in competitive. I followed Nikachu's lead on nixing Harbinger from the main as well though I feel Tidebinder Mage is similarly weak so am skipping on those as well. I've liked Thassa a lot, especially in 7-8 seas lists. And with the attrition based meta out there right now I feel she's especially good. 2 Kira (tons of spot removal out there) & Clique round out the flex cards.
I won the first round 2-0 vs. Blue White control. Luckily I was able to land all of my attrition cards.
I debated on whether to keep in Vial but at least I have two Caverns though one showed up late. I think most of their counters were sided out anyhow. A Stony Silence showed up late into game two and could have been disastrous had I been on 4 Relics and 4 Vials.
I did have one 'blunder' in the second game where I opted to run out a creature late game ahead of playing Relic of Progenitus (before Stony was live) and it was countered by Ojutai's Command which also brought back a Wall of Omens from the yard, yuck.
I think it's a fine choice and am on 8 seas for a competitive League. Trying some other odd stuff like 3 Glen Elandra Archmage over Master of Waves. I just shared the list to the Merfolk Facebook page if you're on there.
Have you considered editing the videos down to get rid of the dead time when your opponent is googling you and gets to watching a match you played vs their deck? (Or, you know, is just having connection issues.)
I think parsing these down to be more quickly watched while keeping the core game play would be a gift to your audience. You could even just set the match to record, play it out, then commentate it after while snipping the dead time out. What's your stance on it?
How many Brainstorm / Ponder / Preordain, if any, can be shaved?
16 Island
Creatures (21)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Faerie Miscreant
4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Augur of Bolas
1 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Spire Golem
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Brainstorm
4 Vapor Snag
2 Daze
4 Counterspell
3 Gush
2 Gut Shot
3 Annul
2 Hydroblast
2 Dispel
3 Curse of Chains
3 Stormbound Geist
Just got back in on the deck having played it years back. Have had one match so far, beat Affinity and went something like: + 3 Annul, +2 Hydroblast, +3 Curse of Chains // -1 Ninja of the Deep Hours, -2 Daze, -2 Ponder, -2 Preordain, -1 Brainstorm
Your list seems fairly soft to Death Shadow, having just Harbinger and Vapor Snag to interact with their creatures and a few Relics to bring in. Maybe the matchup is easier than I've had it, but without packing a bunch of removal it's felt incredibly rough. How's it been for you?
We've all had our blunders. I think my brain would just assume islandwalk is live in the Merfolk mirror. Live & learn and don't sweat it.
I'm 10-1 or something crazy against them on Magic online. Side in as much disruption as possible for their graveyard, spells, and creatures. Aim to apply pressure while keeping disruption up. Never tap out while they have a creature or more than a couple lands in play. Counter Gifts and think hard on how best to sort the piles if they resolve one. Usually I keep them off additional card draw if given the opportunity but tally their available Mana to see if nixing rituals is better.
I haven't tried those but agree that our deck could benefit from a looting effect. I think the better options are Smuggler's Copter, Monastery Siege, or Thassa, God of the Sea. I've tried all of these and like them well enough. I tend to play Thassa if I'm on a heavier devotion list (8 seas main) and almost always pack Siege in the sideboard. Both are very good against attrition decks.
I haven't tried Cryptic. I've thought about it a little but just don't think it's that great. There are tons of cards we potentially have available, I just don't think Cryptic is where we want to be.
Edit to add: We'd absolutely benefit by having more brewers. If you still think these might be good I encourage you to try them out and report back how it went!
Sea Gate Wreckage is fine. It's good in the matchups where you want it. I endorse trying it out to see if you like it, I've only used it mildly myself. I found it to be inconsistent but the matchups I wanted it against were attrition decks (UW control for example) and were packing Ghost Quarter as well so it didn't feel great but that's results based thinking.
Source: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/
And yes, the White cards help a ton in the DS matchup. I'm 2-0 against DS variants with the splash.
Whatever you go with make sure to pack a lot of it. Their discard package means the plan is likely to be topdecking these answers.
My latest plan is trying a White splash for 4 Path to Exile and 4 Detention Sphere. I'm 2-0 against Death Shadow with it (faced Esper once and the traditional Jund.) I still was crushed by Affinity though (these may be the right tools there but might not be enough), thinking I still want to explore options that deal with this and help against the field.
Most configurations are:
On top of that I want to have a good answer to Death's Shadow. Most people are just bouncing it but I want something that kills it. We don't have a tried and true answer here yet but things I've been working with are Ratchet Bomb, White splash for Path to Exile & Detention Sphere. Have also been considering Blue Enchantment answers like Narcolepsy since they have trouble answering enchantments but haven't gone so far as to actually run them yet.
I should note another approach to the Death Shadow matchup is to Sea's Claim & Spreading Seas their lands, which is a fine plan as well.
With all of this you also need to consider what bases are already covered by the flex slots in your main deck, and what your overall plan & expected metagame look like.
My reasoning for it is primarily for a game 1 plan against spell decks that are faster than us (Ad Nauseam, RG Valakut.) I also think it's funny that it blanks X spells but haven't had that come up yet (Conflagrate, Walking Ballista, Engineered Explosives are some spicy potential targets.)
It also can help race creature decks (I won game one against Affinity yesterday when they had an awkward start especially when I Delayed their turn 2 Steel Overseer, luckily I was on the play.) And it might even help close out the game vs Attrition.
That all said it's not perfect. It's not really where you want to be against the attrition decks since the game is likely to go long anyhow. But I put it in for a reason and it performed well that league at least.
Edit to add: My list here was pretty poor, primarily the mana base and the oddball one of tech edge in the side. Though I suppose it's fine to side in at least one extra land when bringing out vials vs attrition. Anyhow, I think there's some things that worked well here but I absolutely wouldn't run this back as is. Just throwing that out there in case a newer fish happens to read our conversation.
Edit: Here's the details I shared on Facebook
After finishing the Friendly League with the oddball Trinket Mage package it took me a long while to decide how to frame up my list for the next competitive league.
Flex slots (16): 2 Relic of Progenitus, 4 Sea's Claim, 3 Merrow Reejerey, 2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, 1 Vendilion Clique, 1 Thassa, God of the Sea, 3 Glen Elandra Archmage
Looking at the top decks I decided to go big on land disruption and attrition with a spell interaction sub theme. I'm also following Nikachu MTG (Jonathon Zaczek)'s 2 Relics main. I'm giving Glen Elandra Archmage a run over Master of Waves and decided to skip her right past the friendly queues and let her prove her worth in competitive. I followed Nikachu's lead on nixing Harbinger from the main as well though I feel Tidebinder Mage is similarly weak so am skipping on those as well. I've liked Thassa a lot, especially in 7-8 seas lists. And with the attrition based meta out there right now I feel she's especially good. 2 Kira (tons of spot removal out there) & Clique round out the flex cards.
I won the first round 2-0 vs. Blue White control. Luckily I was able to land all of my attrition cards.
I debated on whether to keep in Vial but at least I have two Caverns though one showed up late. I think most of their counters were sided out anyhow. A Stony Silence showed up late into game two and could have been disastrous had I been on 4 Relics and 4 Vials.
I did have one 'blunder' in the second game where I opted to run out a creature late game ahead of playing Relic of Progenitus (before Stony was live) and it was countered by Ojutai's Command which also brought back a Wall of Omens from the yard, yuck.
IN: 2 Relic of Progenitus, 1 Dispel, 3 Negate, 3 Unified Will, 1 Monastery Siege // OUT: 4 Aether Vial, 4 Sea's Claim, 2 Merrow Reejerey
For everyone else: http://imgur.com/a/x12Pg
Have you considered editing the videos down to get rid of the dead time when your opponent is googling you and gets to watching a match you played vs their deck?
I think parsing these down to be more quickly watched while keeping the core game play would be a gift to your audience. You could even just set the match to record, play it out, then commentate it after while snipping the dead time out. What's your stance on it?