MTG Salvation

http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD11745W/
Interesting list in the first place. He ditched useless Lords for extreme interaction. When opponent taps mana this deck perks up and thinks how to thwart their plan.

Pretty far from Merfolk in classic sense but it has Adepts and that passes main filter.

Without playing I can't be sure how good it is vs how much opponents were confused every turn, but fun factor is present.

Same conclusions.

That said, I took a break from Architect/Ballista version to play "regular" version today.
4 tournaments at the same time, Standard, Modern and 2 Drafts.
I took the relevant format, 4 Spell Pierces and went to battle.

R1 vs Skred Red
Spell Pierce on Mind Stone, Adept and Spell Pierce on Chandra, Waves...
Game 2 opponent played 2 Angers into Dragon. My naked Waves could not race it in time.
Game 3 first Waves fell to Dismember, second and third did not.
Love playing against this deck, always fun until the Master arrives.

R2 vs UR Pyromancer
Won game 1 with Waves (who knew?...), lost game 2 by being stuck on Island, Mutavault the whole game while Vial took Abrade on the chin. Had 3 Adepts but they went into Remand grind. Game 3 I mulled to 5 but drew Cavern which negated his hand full of counterspells. When 2 Waves started forcefully showing up on the battlefield it was over quick.

R3 vs RG Ponza
Pierce on Stone Rain, Harbinger on Bird, Adept, Waves, Waves...
In game 2 he played Choke which wasn't a problem (2 Island, Cavern, Oboro, Minamo) so that was finally a chance for Legendary land duo to shine. Unfortunately, he played dorks into Sword of Fire&Ice (killed Lord, Tidebinder and Master of Waves) and I had no way to quickly dump my hand out and race it.
Game 3 was curving out, including Gut Shot on Bird and Pierce on Anger.

R4 vs Abzan Company
We both mulled but he had the Vizier/Druid combo turn 3.
Then we both mulled again (to 5 for me) and he resolved Worship with 6 mana so my Pierce was not relevant. Quick check the sideboard, Truth is there so scoop.

3:1, so many small creatures, Ballista would have a field day if it wasn't benched.
I had 4 Tricksters and they did absolutely nothing, but there are other tournaments in the future.

When I need slots, maybe I have too much stuff against Lantern like Rejections, Relics, Negates, Pierces, or in Legacy against Reanimator (Cages, Relics, Flusters, Vensers, Truths...), and random Lord is not relevant there.

Have you ever sided out Adepts? Of course not, every other card you mentioned, even Lords, went to bench at some point. There is a reason for that.

We are trying to have competitive conversation on this subforum, casual cards like Anticipate or Grip are not helping win tournaments.

I wonder who will agree with you.

Quote from Midnight Sun »

Quote from FANAttIC »

Brewing with Selkie has to start on healthy grounds, and ditching Silvergills and few Mutavaults for UUU creature is not recommended.
Selkie could be at home in Noble Hierarch/CoCo build but even that is optimistic.

UU1, actually. Or, to be more specific, (U/G)(U/G)1. And who said anything about pulling mutas?

I mixed Wistful Selkie with Cold-Eyed Selkie, but point stands anyway, Adept is not a flex slot by being the best card we have.

Brewing with Selkie has to start on healthy grounds, and ditching Silvergills and few Mutavaults for UUU creature is not recommended.
Selkie could be at home in Noble Hierarch/CoCo build but even that is optimistic.

Speaking of optimistic, our future looks more promising after Dominaria and even Nikachu decided to whip some pros:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXW5BKT_azI

Shell is far from perfect but there are a lot of synergies, like Architect saving Copter from 3 dmg spells or saving Elementals or obv bff with Ballista.
Copter and Ballista package never lost me a match to Affinity so far
Faults are being clunkier, less Merfolk explosions and being vulnerable to Stony Silence.
But fun is there and opponents are never sure what to expect.

Ballista was the reason I won vs Lantern game 1. Opp had everything but way to discard it from my hand, he even had Legendary land to up his life to 26 but my endless supply of do-nothing creatures under Bridge taped themselves for giant Robotic God, many clicks later opp was sideboarding.
Game 2 he was manascrewed, but I somehow didn't shed a tear.

I am not claiming my Copter-Architect-Ballista package shoehorned into Fish concoction is better than regular deck, just different.

Koth never lived more than 1 turn, he can't protect itself, but ok, everyone has different experience.

Skred Red is slow Moon deck. How is that 65-35 over Merfolk? I have 4 MoW and I won 6-1 in games in the last 3 matches (deck is rare so not many chances to play more against it).
Ultra slow walkers which can be easily killed, pronotblue dragons and useless Moons in game1.
They have removal but they have no pressure to win before MoW comes and our counters still work.
Am I alone in this?

I had small pause from Modern (a month or so) but returned today for Modern League (paper).
5 rounds, no top8. I expected lots of Affinity, Lantern and other creature decks so I wanted Ballista package to mow (not MoW) them down.

Mulled to 4 against GR haste deck, then drew 8 lands in game 2 but my 3/3 Ballista and other fish got mass removed, which was not expected from small creature beatdown deck. Luckily, he gave me the win because he had better things to do 0:2 2:0

R2 vs Jund
He accidentally dropped BBE and Swamp (the odds...) so I knew to keep the one lander, I got there because I had more material. Nice play was when he -2 Liliana my only dude on turn 3, turn 4 there is Ballista with 2 counters 1 counter
Then triple Seas into Kira sealed his fate. 2:0

Hollow one dumped his hand on turn2 for 12 power, which is just stupid.
I kept one lander and started with Cursecatcher, countered his Looting, but I had no second land on turn2 for my Relic which just watched him Looting 2 Bloodghasts, cycle Street Wraith into 2 Hollow Ones... I guess there is a reason why H One is legal? 0:2

Living End in round 4 was fun. I applied just enough pressure to make him do it while keeping gas in hand. He Ended then I traded with his creatures just enough to have some attackers and still have dead dudes if he decides to End again. Vial is important in all that. Won game1 and kept funny hand (onelander, triple Vial, Relic, Cursecatcher, Lord). I expected his Ingot Chewer to destroy the first Vial so other artifacts have more chance to do stuff. But he didn't have it so Pierce, 2 Cursecatchers, Negate and Relic stopped him from comboing of. 2:0

RG Ponza had slow start so I cast 2 Waves which are more or less indestructible, he died with 5 lands and 2 red Titans in hand.
Game2 I kept noVial, twolander. 2 Adepts drew nothing and I got Choked. After discarding 3 Waves eot I managed to draw Vial, play it with Oboro (mvp obv) and populate the board. He drew lands. 2:0

4:1, I was 12th out of 94 players in the League, probably moving up after today, 7 more tournaments until Masters and Invitational (new one on the menu).
I have to make space for Tricksters but there is time until next Modern.

Merfolk top8-ed another GP and we are ignoring it?
http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD44750S/

The list is... I don't know where to start

I smashed Merfolk and Blue Steel into one deck and beat Sodeq (15 trophies) in Comp League today for 4:0.
Unfortunately shuffler decided to say ENOUGH! and I mulled to 5 and they lived on 1 life.
Then kept seven but after 8 lands and 3 Vials out and 1 land in hand I had to throw in the towel.
It would be nice to get featured by Wizards playing my own list

We have many options for improving our hand: Chart the Course, Military Intelligence, S. Copter, Bident of Thassa, Glint-Nest Crane, Sword of Fire&Ice...
Altar and Staff are not it.