Hello everyone! I have been playing fish in paper modern for about a year and have enjoyed the deck so much more than I thought would, having originally thought this would be a good ‘get my feet wet’ deck. I’ve been fortunate in having good runs in the three modern GPs I attended before this, going 10-5 at GP Pittsburgh, 11-4 at GP Detroit and then 9-6 at GP Los Angeles. I was a little nervous with this meta, as I was expecting a lot of infect, affinity and death’s shadow, which can be tough matchups. However, I think the deck is a good choice for GPs because it is such a strong base deck with really powerful options available to us in both our flex spots and sideboard. I don't consider myself to be a true expert, but hopefully this rambling writeup can help some people understand some matchups a little better!
Last season I was able to get enough planeswalker points to get 2 byes for this season. Frankly, byes are just so insanely good, and I highly recommend that if you are close to a bye level in planeswalker points to grind for it. You get to sleep in an extra couple hours and you dodge potential rogue brews that can throw a wrench into your plans. It also helps a lot in later rounds when you might be fresher mentally than your opponents who have had to play more rounds than you..
Round 3 vs Grayson on Naya Burn (Won 2-0, 3-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: In my experience, if they don’t have a lavamancer early, or an eidolon when we don’t have vial, we are slightly favored. After a couple turns, our board is usually too strong for them to attack into profitably and they have to finish us off with burn. Master of Waves is of course absolutely huge against them, but watch for Skullcrack if you are blocking with it. It’s almost always better to just throw a token under the bus then to risk losing our win-con against them.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Negate
+2 Tidebinder
+3 Chalice - Unlike most matchups, I bring this in on the play or on the draw. They have so many 1-drops, and don’t spit them out fast enough. Plus, harbinger-ing a 1 drop creature when you have a vial down is crazy value.
-3 Merrow Reejeray - We don’t need our guys to be huge P/T against burn, and this guy just ends up being a little slow.
-2 Dismember
-2 Spell Pierce - This could be wrong (and probably is), but it conflicts with Chalice and I am generally using all of my mana against burn anyways until I can comfortably sit back with counterspells, and negate ensures they cannot cast that last bolt with 3 mana up to kill me.
Game 1: He had a very strong start until I was able to stabilize at 6 life with a strong board. I landed a Master of Waves and he burned me down to 1, then had one draw step to draw a bolt, and got a land.
Game 2: He against had a good start, but I had vial on turn 1 and chalice for 1 on turn 2. He was able to use his existing board and 2 mana burn spells to get me to 6, but then was out of gas.
Round 4 vs Brian on Elves (Won 2-0, 4-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This is super bad for us. They go far wider than us, it is difficult to disrupt their combo, and with their combo it doesn’t really matter if we have a bunch of 4/4s when they swing with 10 5/5s with trample. In general, their deck has to fail them for us to win. Maybe 30% match win rate against elves.
Sideboard Plan:
+3 Chalice - A ton of their deck is 1 drops, and if they have to burn a chord on a Reclamation Sage, I will take that every time
+2 Tidebinder - Early tap-downs on dorks and for archdruids
+2 Negate - Chord and CoCo
-3 Merrow Reejeray - I will admit, this is my go-to to remove. Just a bit clunky and they usually combo the turn after
-2 Spell Pierce - they have tons of mana up, unless they are careless and tap out completely for chord, this doesn’t do much
-2 Kira - They aren’t targeting our guys
Game 1: He kept an odd hand with mostly boreal druids and didn’t really get an explosive start. I dismembered his turn 1 boreal druid and developed a decent board. Finally he got his hand cleared of elves and had a good setup with heritage druid and the usual suspects. When he cast lead the stampede, I thought I was done for, but he almost completely whiffed and only got a single elf whose name was not ezuri. I was able to run him over with my stronger and bigger board after that.
Game 2: This time the elf deck did elf things and dropped a huge board. I had vial and was able to get a strong one myself with multiple lords, but then he was able to find an ezuri. He pumped and swung, but luckily I had a harbinger come in off a vial and was able to live with 1 health, then win off the crackback. Insanely lucky, I cannot remember the last time I 2-0ed an elf player.
Round 5 vs Carter on Death’s Shadow (Lost 1-2, 4-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: A very difficult deck that requires careful piloting to win against. They hurt themselves a lot, but we normally end up needing to chump to stay alive. We need to build a small board to crack back with, as they are normally hurting themselves down to 6-8 life when they try to win. Harbinger is huge here.
Sideboard Plan:
+3 Chalice of the Void (only on the play)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Nacatls, Swiftspears)
-2 Dismember (I find it doesn’t do enough, and taking 4 seems horrible against them - that said, put them back in on the draw, sometimes you can get them with it on your turn)
-2 Kira (They usually aren’t killing our guys)
-1 Merrow Reejeray (Slow, clunky) (put back in on the draw)
Game 1: I mulled to 5 and kept 3 land and 2 spell pierce, because if I go to 4 I just cannot see ever winning. I also was hoping to face a control or midrange deck, where maybe the pierces can do work. Instead he just ran me over.
Game 2: I had a vial start and was able to build a strong board, where I called his bluff and threw all of my guys in front of his when he went for a big attack. He had some pumps, but I had an extra lord come in off vial, and in the end his board was clear while I had 1 lord left. I followed that up with a Master of Waves and was able to take the game.
Game 3: He started with 3x git probe, fetched and shocked to 11, played death’s shadow. I played a vial. He played swiftspear and death’s shadow, took a bunch more damage, and I got destroyed.
Round 6 vs Jadine on Jund (Won 2-0, 5-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Jund is always a tough fight with all of the removal and card advantage they can bring to bear against us. It also is difficult because as over-committing means maybe playing into a board wipe, but not putting enough pressure on is a sure recipe for defeat, as a goyf can end the game real fast for us. Read the board and try to navigate your way through. In addition, the prevalence of Kalitas in Jund lists is actually incredibly hard to deal with. It is an enormous value engine for them, and keeps them in the game with lifelink. However, if we get to slam Master of Waves early on and if you get to untap with it not being maelstrom pulsed we tend to win. That being said, I’ve been seeing Jund play mono-black removal like doom blade and slaughter pact recently, so even that isn’t as much of an “I win” card as it used to be.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 AEther Vial (K-Command)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Reej is fine game 1 when we try to full out aggro them, but I like taking a more tempo-control route post-board)
-1 Cursecatcher (Everything else is so good against them - some might say harbinger, but I value more bouncing their threats and/or playing around sorcery speed removal)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Lock down their main creature threats)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Scooze and Goyf)
+2 Negate (Mainly for Liliana, Damnation and Anger)
+3 Tectonic Edge (3 color deck and they come in when vials go out)
Game 1: Really not much to say for these games. I actually felt really bad for my opponent, I had the absolute nuts hand. Cursecatcher into Lord into Kira into Master of Waves. She was able to deal with Kira, but then I played my 2nd one right after. Just ran her over.
Game 2: She kept a hand with mainly creatures and I kept a hand with two tidebinders. Tapped down a finks and a goyf as they came down and kept swinging hard, also ended very quickly. Was done with the match with only about 15 minutes off the clock.
Round 7 vs James on RG Tron (Lost 1-2, 5-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: We all know this matchup. We have to disrupt their lands and kill them before they tron out Ugin or Ulamog or OStone. Not fun, but very winnable.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Although one time I did win a game by double dismembering an Ulamog, I don’t recommend relying on that game plan)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Same as always)
-3 Cursecatcher (It’s fine, but not always very good, and often just doesn’t do enough)
+2 Negate (Stops everything good they do but wurmcoil)
+3 Chalice of the Void (Stops like 50% of their deck from working, absolutely love this card in this matchup)
+3 Tectonic Edge
Game 1: I kept a hand with no land hate, he had tron on 3, played karn, then followed up with ugin. Yup.
Game 2: A kind of weird game where I had lots of vials and spreading seas and he had lots of nature’s claims. I was able to consistently disrupt him off tron, even though I got 3x nature’s claimed, and developed enough of a board to win when I was at 32 life. Not sure if I’ve ever been that high on life with merfolk.
Game 3: A very close, very long game. I had a bunch of disruption, but he had a lot of answers. In the end, it came down to a choice. Do I tec edge the single power plant or the single mine? I chose power plant, he topdecked another one and was able to start playing his threats. Lost on turn 4 of turns when he was able to go world breaker into ulamog.
Round 8 vs Luke on Affinity (Lost 1-2, 5-3 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Another hated matchup which honestly is becoming less hated for me personally. While it is a bad matchup, it isn’t elves, and I’ve had some success against affinity lately. Harbinger does work in helping us sneak in Game 1 wins and our sideboard plan is fantastic against them.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 Cursecatcher (I don’t think it does enough work in this matchup, though having a one drop can be important in trying to race them)
-2 Spell Pierce (Ditto to above. If ravager was a spell, then sure, but not worth the chance of it sitting in your hand doing nothing)
+3 Chalice (I put this in only on the play, not on the draw. Drop it for 0 on your turn 1 on the play and see your opponent (hopefully) go pale. When I am on the draw I put cursecatcher back in)
+3 Hurkyl’s Recall (Obvious reasons)
Game 1: This was a great game for me. He had a slow start and I had a bunch of lords with a spreading seas to disrupt his manland. Game 1 is just a pure race, and I was lucky to just have the faster hand.
Game 2: I had an okay but slow 7, and mulled into a mediocre 6, which I kept. He dumped his hand on turn 1 and got me when I was just too slow to compete. Didn’t see Hurkyls, which might have kept me in it, but I didn’t really have much of a board anyways.
Game 3: Again I mulled to 6 from a very mediocre 7, trying to find Chalice or Hurkyls. Kept an awkward 6 that had the potential to be good, but he dropped 5 0-drops on his first turn, then I topdecked a chalice. The feelbads. He was just too fast again, and I completely bricked every draw step. Just how it goes sometimes. I was pretty worried at this point, going from 5-1 to 5-3. Was hoping for a good matchup so I could at least get back to Day 2.
Round 9 vs Alex on GW Humans (Won 2-0, 6-3 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: This was a sweet deck that had like 4x Champion of the Parish, 4x Thalia’s Lieutenant, 4x Mayor of Avabruck, 4x Noble Hierarch etc. However, we tend to get bigger a bit faster than them, and spreading seas wrecks their plans to do any blocking.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Tidebinder
-2 Spell Pierce
Game 1 & 2: Both games just had a bunch of lords and a spreading seas to swing uncontested. He was a good sport, and the deck was fun to see - it definitely does have some explosive draws. However, this is the type of deck we are built to prey upon, and both games were fairly one-sided.
Round 10 vs Anthony on Bant Eldrazi (Won 2-0, 7-3 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: This deck can be difficult to deal with if they have a very strong start and get a couple smashers out. Also, even though it’s bant, they tend to only have 1 hallowed fountain, and won’t usually fetch it up for us to have islandwalk. That said, if they are somewhat slow, we can generally get a strong enough board to run them over and use spreading seas to slow down their mana or cut them off a color.
-2 Spell Pierce (They tend to have too much mana for this to be great)
Game 1: We both mulled to 6, but he flooded, only getting a smasher out when I dropped a Master of Waves and he scooped.
Game 2: This was a more competitive game, as he was able to take my Master of Waves that would have closed out the game on turn 3 with a Thought-Knot. The deck gods were with me that day though, and I top decked another and was able to get a bunch of tokens. He didn’t have path and that was that.
Round 11 vs Lucas on RG Scapeshift (not through the breach) (Lost 0-2, 7-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: I liked it a lot more when people were playing the RUG and BTL versions, as they were far easier. These are races where we also absolutely have to keep up disruption. They run maindeck anger and it just wrecks us because we can’t take our foot off the gas and we can easily get blown out by it. Try to keep up pierce early, cursecatchers are great early, seas their mountains (assuming it’s through the breach scapeshift where they can’t scapeshift away the seased mountains).
Sideboard Plan:
-3 Harbinger (Don’t want to bounce prime times)
-2 Dismember (Doesn’t do anything)
-2 Merrow Reejeray (Yes, it’s a race, but everything else is too important)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Prevent prime time from getting attack triggers)
+2 Negate (Anger, Through the Breach and Scapeshift)
+3 Tectonic Edge (Slows them for a turn)
Game 1: I had what I thought was a very strong start with cursecatcher, vial, silvergill and multiple lords. Unfortunately, he was running both pyroclasm and anger, and I played right into a pyroclasm as I was trying to set up enough lords on field to get out of anger range, which 3-for-1ed me. I was actually recovering, and was able to vial in a lord in response to an anger, making my field 4/4s, but then he scapeshifted the same turn and burned a lord, wiping my board.
Game 2: I had disruption with a bunch of spreading seas and tec edges but no clock, as I drew into 3 Master of Waves. Which is great, but not without vial. I tapped out for Master of Waves with a Negate in hand because I simply needed threats, and he comboed off that turn.
Round 12 vs Jay on Bant Eldrazi (Won 2-1, 8-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: See Round 10
Sideboard Plan: See Round 10
Game 1: He had a slow start, and I ran him over before he could develop true threats.
Game 2: I brought in tec edges, and I really didn’t like it. They aren’t super ramping, and yes, hitting a temple feels great, but generally they have already used it for a smasher already, and they feel just a little too slow and clunky to really do work. I drew multiple edges and seas, and was able to disrupt him, but he was able to develop a board that was just strong than mine, and swung for the win.
Game 3: I took out the tec edges. I had the sickest mull, where I was looking at a mediocre but very playable 7 and decided I needed a faster clock, and got an insane hand with 2 lands, 2 silvergills and 2 lords. Drew into even more gas and it was quickly over.
Round 13 vs Michael on Jund (Won 2-0, 9-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: See Round 6
Sideboard Plan: See Round 6
Game 1: He mulled to 5, kept a hand with a bunch of removal, and I played Kira on turn 3. Quick match for me.
Game 2: This was a hard grind, as I drew my tidebinders but he brought in Thrun, which just stood there as a brick wall, as I didn’t draw any seas. I had a good start, but ran out of gas when he was at 1 life. He had 2 goyfs and the thrun, plus a new Liliana on his side. While I did have one of his lands seased by then, I had no lords - just a harbinger that was permanently plused on by liliana and a mutavault. He was going to swing for the win, but on my last turn, I got a lord, and he didn’t have the removal for it, and I got to islandwalk past him for the last point of damage.
Round 14 vs Erik on Bant Eldrazi (Won 2-0, 10-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: See Round 10
Sideboard Plan: See Round 10
Game 1: He mulled to 5 and I had a super fast clock. From my notes, I killed him in 2 hits.
Game 2: This was much closer, and he almost had a sick blowout against me. I drew into 3 vials and didn’t have much gas, but I did have a seas out and was able to get in some chip damage. He swung out and I took it, going to 7, then I was able to EOT two lords, presenting lethal damage. When I swung, he attempted to path, but I had the negate. He then cast blessed alliance, making me sac an attacker and he gained 4 life. If I didn’t have the negate for the path, I would have lost islandwalk for my other lord, and he would have used the untap creature part of blessed alliance to untap a smasher and eat my other lord. Thankfully I had another creature to play in main phase 2 so he couldn’t swing out again to kill me, and killed him on the next turn.
Round 15 vs Matthew on Dredge (Won 2-1, 11-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: This is hard to judge yet, as I’ve only tested and played against dredge a dozen times or so, but from what i can tell, we are slightly favored because we can seas them when they don’t play many lands and they can’t chump like they want for value. Also, Harbinger is huge against them - they often cannot recast their guys if you bounce them. Their deck can sometimes lose to itself or mulligan a lot also, which is a bonus!
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+3 Chalice of the Void (on the play)
-2 Dismember
-3 Merrow Reejeray (on the play)
Game 1: While he did dredge things, with only mediocre hits, I got out 4 lords and was able to just swing with 5/5s and kill him.
Game 2: I made a mistake and brought in chalices on the draw. They were wayyyy too slow, even though I had one in my opening hand, he already played three very relevant 1-drops before I could cast it on my turn 2. Just ended up being very awkward and slow and he ran me over.
Game 3: This game was definitely one of the easiest I had all tournament. I had vial into spreading seas his only land, then got to vial in two harbingers to put amalgams into his hand and play a Master of Waves for 8 devotion on turn 4. Was not even close.
Wrap-up
I finished in 110th place (out of 1983) with my 11-4 finish and I was very pleased with my overall performance and the deck. I definitely got a little lucky here and there, but you kind of need to have some luck to go deep. I was obviously much happier with all of the mid-range I played on Day 2, as those are the decks we have serious game against. Day 1 being almost all pure aggro was tough.
Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions please let me know!
Thanks for sharing! I noted that you didn't comment on how your sideboard performed for you overall. Any edits going forward?
I liked my side board for the most part. I am still weighing ancestral visions and echoing truth. Truth is a good catchall but isn't amazing except against tokens. Visions is great against Jund and Abzan midrange, but is too slow against many decks and doesn't line up great against blue decks that have a lot of card draw themselves. Thinking of going to 3 tectonic edges instead, but still very much undecided.
Hello all! I played at GP LA and ended up getting to Day 2 again, but unfortunately went a disappointing 2-4 after going 7-2 on Day 1. I made some notes on the matches, which hopefully can help others in this thread!
BYEs are the best wins. I highly recommend that if you are close to the first bye level in planeswalker points to grind for it. You get to sleep in an extra two hours and you dodge a potential rogue brew that can throw a wrench into your plans.
Round 2 vs Anna on Mardu Burn (Won 2-0, 2-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: I don’t mind getting matched up against burn, though they of course have the chance to do huge blowouts with Atarka’s Command and if they keep a creature heavy hand or drop an Eidolon before we have a vial, it can be very difficult to win. That said, they have a low land count, so often spreading seas does a number on them, as does tidebinder and harbinger, slowing down their damage. Ideally you want to force them to have to do 12+ damage to you with spells and stonewall their creatures with larger fish. With Mardu burn, I believe they are slightly more spell heavy than creature heavy, running bump in the night as an extra bolt.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Don’t want to hurt yourself)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Too slow, just doesn’t do enough)
-2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (You want to incentivize them to point burn at your dudes, not your face, this could be wrong but I also don’t think a 2/2 for 3 is good enough vs burn, and flying is not relevant in this matchup)
+3 Chalice (Chalice on 1 locks them down hard in most cases)
+2 Negate (Stops them from finishing you with burn)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Locks down all of their creatures)
Game 1: I started GP LA by getting blown out. I mulled to 6 and she kept 7, and she was on the play. She dropped a goblin guide turn 1, then another guide and swiftspear turn 2, then searing blazed my only fish turn 3. Ouch.
Game 2: I again had to mull to 6 but kept a hand with a chalice, she kept 7. On turn 2 I dropped it for 1 and she just straight up lost the game - she told me after she had 5 1-drops in hand when she conceded.
Game 3: We both kept 7. I had a turn 1 vial this time, which was extremely lucky with her dropping a turn 2 eidolon. I played almost no spells, just playing off vial, then played a Master of Waves on turn 4 to close out the game.
Round 3 vs Spencer on WB Eldrazi Hatebears (Won 2-0, 3-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Hatebears is a weird matchup for us, and I think it is very good. We don’t search our library, we don’t run that many lands, and our creatures are normally significantly bigger than theirs. Path sucks of course, but they don’t have that much removal.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Don’t really care about their creatures, though thinking about it may want this for Eldrazi Displacer. They don’t really have the time to setup multiple displacer activations though.)
+2 Negate (Zealous Persecution and Path to Exile protection mainly, though some lists run random planeswalkers or other annoying spells)
Game 1: I played turn 3 reejeray into turn 4 play 2nd reejeray into dumping my hand and attacking for lethal on turn 5. His board could not keep up.
Game 2: This game played out similarly, but just played out four lords and got too big for him to handle and ran him over.
Round 4 vs Paolo on Abzan Company (Lost 1-2, 3-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: We have a strong tempo gameplan against them, but it isn’t the easiest to pull off with their disruption and life gain. Also, it always feels like they can go infinite at any time. We need to kick it into high gear in Game 1 and then try to get a clock while holding answers post-board.
Sideboard Plan:
Honestly not sure about this, but at the time I didn’t want to be bouncing finks, and I didn’t think it did enough to really disrupt their game plan.
-3 Harbinger of the Tides (Not really any great bounce targets)
-3 Merrow Reejerey (A bit slow/unneeded)
+2 Negate (Chord and Coco)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Stops the combo)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Taps down finks that want to block, early mana dorks)
Game 1: This was a super hard grind where we were just trading resources, but before I could close it out, he went infinite.
Game 2: This time the tempo gameplan worked very well and I dropped a huge board very quickly and ran him over before he could find his combo.
Game 3: This one was setup to be another grind, but I ended up having a large board and had lethal next turn, with spell pierce and negate in hand to stop two chords or CoCos or whatever he had. I thought I was all set, as he had two incomplete combos on board - just the Spike Feeder for angel combo and was missing two pieces from the finks combo - until he topdecked his Archangel of Thune and went infinite. Ugh. Really thought I had that one. I learned after he is one of the better players in LA, and I saw him around the top tables on Day 2.
Round 5 vs Matt on GR Tron (Won 2-1, 4-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: We all know this matchup. We have to kill them before they tron out Ugin or Ulamog or OStone. Not fun, but very winnable.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Although one time I did win a game by double dismembering an Ulamog, I don’t recommend relying on that game plan)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Just too slow, doesn’t do enough)
+2 Negate (Stops everything good they do but wurmcoil)
+3 Chalice of the Void (Stops like 50% of their deck from working, absolutely love this card in this matchup)
Game 1: He was on the play and had natural tron. Wurmcoil on turn 3 into Ugin on turn 5 into me conceding.
Game 2: I had a super fast hand and banked hard on my single spell pierce in hand to protect it long enough to win. The turn before he died he tried to resolve an ugin and spell pierce got it. Whew! I have heard some people say to take out pierce in this matchup, but I still really like it both for early disruption and forcing them to use more mana than planned. For example, even if he had O-Stoned, a spell pierce would have made him use enough mana that he couldn’t pop it.
Game 3: He kept a one-lander with a bunch of eggs and stirrings etc., but I had a turn 2 chalice for 1 and he never played another card until he died. Chalice MVP!
Round 6 vs Sal on Affinity (Won 2-1, 5-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Another hated matchup which honestly is becoming less hated for me personally. While it is a bad matchup, it isn’t elves, and I’ve had success against affinity lately. Harbinger does work in helping us sneak in Game 1 wins and our sideboard plan is fantastic against them.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 Cursecatcher (I don’t think it does enough work in this matchup, though having a one drop can be important in trying to race them)
-2 Spell Pierce (Ditto to above. If ravager was a spell, then sure, but not worth the chance of it sitting in your hand doing nothing)
-1 Merrow Reejeray (A bit slow)
+3 Chalice (I put this in only on the play, not on the draw. Drop it for 0 on your turn 1 on the play and see your opponent (hopefully) go pale. When I am on the draw I put pierce and reejeray back in)
+1 Echoing Truth (I really like bouncing things in this matchup)
+3 Hurkyl’s Recall (Obvious reasons)
Game 1: Turn 1 vault skirge, turn 2 plating into swinging for a ton of lifelink a turn. GG.
Game 2: This one was crazy. I played a chalice on 0 on my turn 1 and he just straight up conceded before he even saw his turn. Well okay then! Never seen that before.
Game 3: I didn’t have the fastest clock, but he got mana screwed when I spreading seased his glimmervoid and he had a ton of colored spells stuck in hand. Like 4+ colored spells if I recall correctly when he showed me after the game.
Round 7 vs Corey Burkhart on Grixis Control (Lost 1-2, 5-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Including Corey’s full name because yes, this is the same guy who made top 8 and also played against Simon ****sky on camera in round 13. Very good player. Anyways, Grixis Control is a matchup that I think we are heavily favored in. They have counterspells which often do nothing and they play islands. They also tend not to have a super fast clock. However, don’t put down your guard, against a good player, or a player who draws a lot of K-Commands, this is an extremely tough match.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 Vial (K-Command blowouts)
-3 Spreading Seas (Keeping one in to hit manlands is fine)
+2 Ancestral Visions (Grindy matchup)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (They rely heavily on the graveyard for card advantage and tasigur)
+1 Echoing Truth (Bouncing tasigur when they have no graveyard can be good, also for engineered explosives. I would probably not put this in after further thought)
+2 Negate (All of their bad things)
Game 1: This game took up a ton of our clock, and I cast three Master of Waves and still lost. He told me after he was very surprised he won this one, as even one Master of Waves normally seals the game for him. Unfortunately, he had a ton of removal and snapcasters and kept my devotion super low. He was just able to grind me out, casting I believe 5 K-Commands over the course of the game. Rough times.
Game 2: I mulled to 6 but showed why this tends to be a good matchup for us. I just had a bunch of lords, his removal couldn’t keep up, and I islandwalked over to kill him extremely quickly.
Game 3: This one I think I misplayed. He was able to get out a turn 2 tasigur and I thought it would be great to bounce it with echoing truth and maybe he couldn’t replay it quickly. I was very wrong and should have just developed my board, because he replayed it on turn 3 and turned a fast clock on me before I could establish a foothold on the board.
Round 8 vs Chris on Affinity (Won 2-1, 6-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: See Round 6
Sideboard Plan: See Round 6
Game 1: Like many Game 1s against Affinity, this was a blowout for him with another vault skirge with a cranial plating leading the charge.
Game 2: However in this Game I cast not 1 but 2 Hurkyl’s, leading to a fairly easy win.
Game 3: He started with a pithing needle for my vial, which was slightly concerning considering vial is an important piece in racing them. However, I found a hurykls and waited until he had a good board, then was able to bounce his board and free my vial for a turn, letting me get just enough damage on the board to win.
Locked for Day 2 off a win over affinity!
Round 9 vs Zach on BTL Scapeshift (Won 2-1, 7-2 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: BTL Scapeshift is maybe a little scarier than RUG, as it can BTL for board wipes, but not as scary (imo) as Titanshift, which can be just faster than us. Establish a fast clock, spreading seas their lands that let them tap for non-RUG colors, and keep up spell disruption for key spells of theirs.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (No real targets)
+2 Negate (Stops everything important)
Game 1: He was able to ramp quickly and scapeshifted not to kill me, but to clear my board (I would have killed for a Kira!), then slowly pinged me to death and any merfolk I played out.
Game 2: I was able to build a fast clock and had a negate for his anger of the gods.
Game 3: He mulled to 5 and just didn’t really do anything. Unfortunate for him.
A win here got me to 7-2 going into Day 2 and I was quite happy. I had also been sitting at 7-2 after Day 1 in Pittsburgh and Detroit, and had been seeing a good amount of decks playing Islands near me, so I was quite hopeful for Day 2 in LA.
Round 10 vs Henry on Affinity (Lost 0-2, 7-3 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: See Round 6
Sideboard Plan: See Round 6
Game 1: Even though I said I didn’t hate affinity as much as I used to, I still strongly dislike seeing it, especially to start the day off. This was a super close race where I got him to 5, but he killed me with an unblockable signal pest with a bunch of ravager counters on him.
Game 2: Again I had him down to 5 when he found a cranial plating for his inkmoth and killed me in one swing. Screw you robots!
Round 11 vs Marcus on Jund (Lost 1-2, 7-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: Jund is always a tough fight with all of the removal and card advantage they can bring to bear against us. It seems that many have kept the board wipes they put in during Eldrazi winter and that really puts us in a tough spot, as over-committing means maybe playing into a board wipe, but not putting enough pressure on is a sure recipe for defeat, as a tarmo can end the game real fast for us. Read the board and try to navigate your way through. In addition, the prevalence of Kalitas in Jund lists is actually incredibly hard to deal with. It is an enormous value engine for them, and keeps them in the game with lifelink. However, if we get to slam Master of Waves early on and if you get to untap with it not being maelstrom pulsed we tend to win. That being said, I’ve been seeing Jund play mono-black removal like doom blade and slaughter pact recently, so even that isn’t as much of an “I win” card as it used to be.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 AEther Vial (K-Command)
-4 Cursecatcher (This is likely incorrect, but I felt like it just wasn’t powerful enough in this matchup at the time)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Lock down their main creature threats)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Scooze and Goyf)
+2 Negate (Mainly for Liliana, Damnation and Anger)
+2 Ancestral Visions (We need to outvalue them)
Game 1: I had a strong start and knocked him down to 7 before he found a Kalitas and enough removal to keep my board low and freed his Kalitas up to swing and gained him back 9 life, which I couldn’t outrace.
Game 2: I started with a turn one Ancestral Visions and when it resolved, I dropped too many fish for his removal to deal with. Rode the value train to victory.
Game 3: This played out very similar to game 1, where I got him down to 11 before Kalitas hit the board and gained him enough life to keep me from being able to close out the game.
Round 12 vs Evan on RUG Scapeshift (Won 2-1, 8-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: Unless the RUG player has multiple Cryptic Commands and snapcasters, I feel like we are pretty favored here, especially in game 1 before all of the angers and such come in. We goldfish a little faster than RUG Scapeshift does, and the counters they are counting on to slow down the clock doesn’t do much to us.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (No targets)
-2 Harbinger of the Tides (No targets)
+2 Negate (Everything good)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Stops snapcasters)
Game 1: I was just too fast here and aggroed him out.
Game 2: He had an insane amount of ramp and very quickly went off when I had no counters in hand to kill me.
Game 3: This was maybe the weirdest game I played. We both had very slow hands. I played out 3 cursecatchers and beat him down with just those creatures, because he was ready to go off at any point if I tapped out and it wasn’t lethal. As such, I had to keep both spell pierce and negate up to make sure I didn’t die, and I only found 4 lands. On the last turn I played a couple lords to ensure lethal and swung for the win.
Round 13 vs David on Naya 4-Whack (Lost 1-2, 8-5 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: I feel like we are disfavored here unless we run Tidebinders main. They have a lot of fast, hasty dudes that flood the board. As we don’t have board wipes, we have to try to compete against them where they are heavily favored, at least for the first few turns.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Don’t want the life loss)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Slow)
+2 Tidebinder Mage
+3 Chalice of the Void
Game 1: We both mulled to 6 and I kept a horrible hand on the play, which only got worse as I drew both my dismembers. I went to 12 when I double dismembered two attackers, then had no real follow-up. His guys ran me over.
Game 2: I had a great hand with at least one Tidebinder and a fast clock. Tidebinder essentially time walked one of his turns and I was able to build a bigger board and take the game.
Game 3: This was a frustrating game where I thought I had secured a victory but then got blown out. I had a relatively small board but so did he. I double blocked one of his guys with Atarka’s Command in mind, but then he showed me a Ghor-Clan Rampager and killed both of my guys and kept his guy. I could not recover from that and quickly lost after. It has been a few years since I have been blown out by a Ghor-Clan. Still feels just as bad.
Round 14 vs Alex on UG Infect (Lost 0-2, 8-6 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: This match is very tough, though it often comes down to if they have Apostle’s Blessing to protect their infector from a Harbinger or Dismember. Glistener Elf isn’t so bad but I truly hate to see a Blighted Angent. We face the challenge of putting on a fast clock and still disrupting them from their faster clock. I often lose one turn before they would die.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 Master of Waves (too slow)
-4 Spreading Seas (you don’t really want to take a turn off from developing your board to cancel one of their lands, even if it is an inkmoth)
-2 Merrow Reejeray (too slow)
+1 Echoing Truth (bounce infectors!)
+2 Tidebinder (Hope they have glistener elves, not blighted agents)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Only because so much is useless against them, and can stop Become Immense)
+3 Chalice of the Void (this can be a superstar)
+2 Negate (Stop the pump! #NeverPump)
Game 1: He went turn 1 noble hierarch, turn 2 blighted agent, turn 3 triple Might of Old Krosa. I didn’t have a Harbinger or Dismember, and could only spell pierce one Might, so he got in for exactsies.
Game 2: I was happy because I found a Chalice for turn 3, but as soon as I played it on 1, he just played Become Immense on his Blighted Agent and won on his turn 3. Ugh. Sometimes that is just how this matchup goes.
Round 15 vs Matt on UW Flash Control (Won 2-0, 9-6 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: Finally, FINALLY, a control deck with islands. This was a pretty sweet deck, but seems to be an auto-win for Merfolk. The point of the deck is to play flash creatures and control spells to dominate the board and get a bunch of value/make your opponent play scared. However, I don’t particularly care about flashed in blockers when I have islandwalk.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Not really needed)
-4 Spreading Seas (Celestial Colonnades are not really that big of a deal, they play islands otherwise)
+2 Negate (Any removal)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Snapcasters)
+2 Ancestral Visions (could be grindy)
Game 1/2: Both of these were basically the same game. It got a little grindy, but I just didn’t overextend into board wipes and kept picking away at him. With his blockers essentially unable to block, I was about to fairly easily take both games. He did play a sweet card I had never seen before as I think a 2-of, Stonecloaker, which he said had been causing value blowouts for both days, either to save creatures from removal or to take away snapcaster targets or to exile Emrakul with Emrakul’s graveyard trigger on the stack. Neat!
Wrap-up
I finished in 319th place (out of 2241) with my 9-6 record and while I was disappointed at the time with going 2-4 on Day 2, I am now pretty pleased with my overall performance and the deck. I faced some rough matchups on Day 2 and didn’t hit any of the decks I really wanted to, as in the Nahiri control decks, and the record could have easily been reversed. Not saying they would be a cakewalk, but I like my chances against them. Plus, I need to remind myself that hitting Day 2 used to be a goal of mine, and I should be happy to continue hitting that milestone at recent GPs.
With the planeswalker points from GP LA I have secured my 2nd bye for the next season and look forward to my next Merfolk showing at a major event.
Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions please let me know!
Speaking of splashing, I really liked the idea of running Silumgar in a mainly G/B shell that appeared on two of the higher-ranked Pro Tour lists. I modified their versions slightly and it was testing so well, I took it to a PPTQ today and won it!
The deck felt really great, where it can sometimes beatdown or sit back and slowly land threats. If you like the G/B shell, I highly recommend trying out Silumgar. He's a great tutor target and I was stealing tons of great stuff like Chandra, Kalitas, and Linvalas every round. I run Seasons Past in the board for the grindy matches but would like to add a Dark Petition so I have access to the combo. Has anyone else tried blue splash?
So last night I posted in the fish subreddit what I thought was a somewhat silly question about how to deal with not revealing information to opponents at competitive and above REL. It quickly became about the ethics of doing so. I'd love to get the two cents of people here about this. How do you feel about not revealing info and how do you approach that conversation?
So last night I posted in the fish subreddit what I thought was a somewhat silly question about how to deal with not revealing information to opponents at competitive and above REL. It quickly became about the ethics of doing so. I'd love to get the two cents of people here about this. How do you feel about not revealing info and how do you approach that conversation?
Hello everyone! I played at GP Detroit this weekend and ended up going 11-4. I made some notes on the matches, which hopefully can help others in this thread! I must give credit to Nikachu, as I was planning on running a more threat-dense build, but after he posted his list last week, I incorporated many of his ideas in my final list.
A hard fought match, but I won. Being able to sleep in and avoid the player’s meeting/first round is fantastic, if you can grind some of the higher planeswalker point multiplier events in your area, it’s well worth the time invested.
Round 2 vs Colton on UWR Control (Won 2-0, 2-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown:
While we are favored against UWR Control due to Cavern of Souls, Mutavault and Aether Vial, this matchup is definitely one where you really need to read the situation to make the right play. If Merfolk over-commits to the board, or doesn’t play around Path to Exile, you can get blown out to the point where it is difficult to recover. The key is to play out a few threats to chip away at them and only throw a haymaker when you are confident you have the kill. Their sorcery speed board wipes are deadly. Adept also shines here, as you are able to relatively freely commit them to the board to force answers while you hold back other threats.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Negate (Everything they do)
+2 Dispel (Mainly to protect Master of Waves from Path)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Snapcasters)
-2 Harbinger of the Tides
-2 Merrow Reejerey
-2 Gut Shot
Game 1: Won this one solely off the back of mutavaults, as I flooded out and he was able to answer my lords with removal. Luckily, he was stuck on lands and wasn’t able to play anything to race my mutavaults.
Game 2: I mulled to 5 and he mulled to 6. Again he had tons of early removal but I was able to land a double master of waves which finished him off. This will be a trend through the day.
Round 3 vs Johnathan on Mardu Tokens (Won 2-1, 3-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This deck wants to stall out a board with tons of removal and tokens to chump until they run you out of resources with Ajani and Liliana. Really cool deck, however a spreading seas tends to take out a big part of their plan of chumping with tokens. This is kind of a fringe deck so not super familiar with the matchup.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Lingering Souls)
+2 Negate (Everything they do)
+1 Echoing Truth (Kill every token)
-2 Dismember (Taking 4 to kill a token is not a great plan)
-3 AEther Vial (K Command is a nearly automatic 2-for-1)
Game 1: We both mulled to 6. I was completely dead to his massive amounts of removal, as well as him resolving a K-Command on turn 3 to kill a Lord and my Vial, until I was able to hit runner runner Master of Waves, which his deck is nearly dead to, outside of Path. He didn’t have the answer and my tokens beat his.
Game 2: I kept a promising 7 but ended up drawing no lands and died with a bunch of 3 and 4 drops in hand. By the time I found a 3rd he had Ajani out tapping down one of my lands permanently.
Game 3: Super grindy game as I didn’t find a spreading seas, but he was always on the back foot forced to chump with tokens and only getting to use Liliana as an edict before I killed her on the next turn. Eventually I grinded him out to the point we were both out of resources and took the win.
Round 4 vs Greg on Jund (Won 2-1, 4-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: A familiar matchup to most fish players, but be warned, many are now running 2-3 Damnations mainboard to deal with Eldrazi. It puts us in a tough spot, as over-committing means maybe playing into a board wipe, but not putting enough pressure on is a sure recipe for defeat, as a tarmo can end the game real fast for us. Read the board and try to navigate your way through. Alternatively, slam Master of Waves and pray, usually if you get to untap with it not being maelstrom pulsed you win.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Lock down their main creature threats)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Scooze and Goyf)
+2 Negate (Mainly for Liliana, Damnation and Anger)
-4 AEther Vial (K-Command)
-2 Gut Shot (Yes, it can kill Bob, but nothing else. I’d rather just take 4 and also be able to kill Scoozes and early Goyfs)
Game 1: We both mulled to 6. I had a strong start but he was able to start grinding away at my fish thanks to an early Bob, and all the while a goyf was swinging away. I had to take the hits and pray I got there, as chumping would lead to a for sure defeat, but could only get him to 2 before he was able to finish me off.
Game 2: Vapor snag showed up big time for me, as he was much more creature heavy than removal heavy, and I was able to snag away his main blocker for a big lethal swing after getting in some chip damage earlier.
Game 3: One of my closest games of the tournament, where he had mainly removal without much in the way of threats, aside from a couple finks relegated to chumping duty. I was able to get past around 6 health of healing and chip away at him for a few points of damage each turn with a small board to get the win.
Round 5 vs Willam on Abzan Company (Won 2-1, 5-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: We have a strong tempo gameplan against them, but it is always nerve-wracking because it feels like they can go infinite at any time. Having maindeck gut shot for Seer is great though, and can be a blowout if they don’t play him last. We need to kick it into high gear in Game 1 and then try to get a clock while holding answers post-board.
Sideboard Plan:
Honestly not sure about this, but at the time I didn’t want to be bouncing finks, and I didn’t think it did enough to really disrupt their game plan.
2x Vapor Snag
2x Harbinger of the Tides
2x Merrow Reejerey (A bit slow/unneeded)
2x Dispel (Chord and Coco)
2x Relic of Progenitus (Stops the combo)
2x Tidebinder Mage (Taps down finks that want to block, early mana dorks)
Game 1: I just went too big against him, spitting out my hand and running him over before he could find much of anything.
Game 2: I tried to play the control route, and it went fairly well, but my board and clock simply wasn’t fast enough, and he was beating me back with Exalted triggers. I went for a Master of Waves to close out the game, and when I swung for the win, he resolved a CoCo. He unfortunately found a Fiend Hunter, which exiled my Master and poof went all my tokens. He won on the backswing.
Game 3: This was another grindy game where we were both trading hits, and he had answers for a lot of my creatures. I ended up needing to topdeck a lord or I would lose, and thankfully a lord showed up for me.
Round 6 vs Devon on Mono-White Soul Sisters (Lost 1-2, 5-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This match tends to be very favored for us, as gaining even ~20 health doesn’t tend to matter when we are free to build a board and start swinging for 20+ a turn, but I highly recommend not relying on that, because they can get very big very quickly.
Sideboard Plan:
2x Dismember (It’s a bit of a hefty price tag to kill a 1/1. Maybe should take out snag though, dismember can kill a soul sister.)
1x Harbinger of the Tides (Can kill a token but doesn’t tend to do much)
2x Negate (All of their spells)
1x Echoing Truth (Board wipe for tokens)
Game 1: He was able to turn 1 a sister, then ran out honor of the pure and then made 3 fliers. I didn’t have the fastest clock, and he was up to almost 30 life. I had only 2 cards in hand, a dismember and a Master of Waves, with 4 lands on the field. I could either dismember the sister and prevent any further life gain, or play Master, let him gain a bunch, but gain a super fast clock. I went for the Master. Unfortunately, he was able to land more tokens, which pushed him out of a 2 turn clock range for me, then killed me in the air with 6 2/2 fliers. If I had dismembered, then played Master the next turn, I probably would have been able to get there.
Game 2: This game is how it is supposed to be. I had a super fast clock of lords, his 1/1s had to chump, and I ran him over.
Game 3: He had a turn 1 sister, and I felt amazing because I was able to turn 0 a gut shot on the sister. However, he had plenty of gas left and played more sisters, tokens and, fatally, two Ajani Pridemates. I had a decent amount of fish, but low amount of Lords. I resolved a Master of Waves, which would have been great if not for the Ajani Pridemates which quickly ended up being 20/20s. I chumped with Master of Waves tokens for a while while building up a board, and the game came down to another crucial decision. He had 40 life and finally found a Serra Ascendant where I didn’t have Kira to block. I was at 3 life. If I let him stay above 30 life, the Serra would be a 6/6 flier and kill me. I could knock him down to 26 if I swung with everything but my Master of Waves tokens, of which I still had plenty to chump. Or I could knock him down to 29 if I kept back mutavault, which would also allow me to keep up Negate. He had one card in hand. If it was a spell, I had to keep up Negate, if it was a creature he would go back above 30 life and kill me with Serra Ascendant. I decided it was more likely he would be able to play a creature and swung, not having enough mana left to Negate. His card was a path to exile and he was able to swing for the win.
Round 7 vs Jesse on Blue Moon (Lost 1-2, 5-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This is supposed to be another favorable matchup for us, but certain things can be killers. Batterskull can race us very well if we don’t have enough of a clock, and anger out of the board can wreck us as well. Importantly, some builds are also running Shackles, so resolve a Kira early if you can!
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Harbinger of the Tides (Don’t want to bounce his creatures, doesn’t stop batterskull long enough)
-2 Gut Shot (Prefer to have Dismember for Pia and Kiran)
+2 Negate (Dispel doesn’t hit enough relevant things, Negate stops batterskull, angers, etc.)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Snapcasters)
Game 1: I mulled to 5 and he resolved an early batterskull. Nothing much to say here.
Game 2: This was a close game where he had another early batterskull and raced me very well, even though I had a decent board. What saved me was that he played Shackles and took a Lord of Atlantis, which was my only lord left, but didn’t know it still buffed my guys and I was able to swing for lethal.
Game 3: Unfortunately he learned his lesson and resolved an early Shackles. I never found the Kira to counter it, and his batterskull finished the game for him.
Round 8 vs Nicholas on UWR Control (Won 2-0, 6-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: See Round 2.
Sideboard Plan: See Round 2.
Game 1: This game went pretty standard, he was able to repeatedly kill my board while I snuck in damage. Eventually I was really low on resources with two useless gut shots in my hand and he had killed off my mutavaults. I was worried until I was able to ‘get’ him with a vapor snag to save a lord from a supreme verdict. He was at 5, so I flashed in a harbinger at his end of turn, replayed Lord on my turn, swung for 3, then double gut shot him to win the game. Crazy stuff!
Game 2: Never found a board wipe, I ran him over. Locked Day Two!
Round 9 vs Eric on GR Eldrazi (Won 2-0, 7-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Finally hit an Eldrazi player! Okay, so in my opinion, the plan here is to race them, bounce anything you can and pray they don’t hit a Thought-Knot. We can be faster than them with the help of our friend the Master of Waves.
Sideboard Plan:
Almost everything in the mainboard is already setup to hate on Eldrazi, so not much to do. I do like Echoing Truth to kill Scions and if you ever get to bounce more than one Eldrazi, it feels great.
-1 Merrow Reejerey
+1 Echoing Truth
Game 1: Triple seas effects slowed him down enormously as I was able to build a massive board and run him over.
Game 2: This was a pure, full out race. Multiple Lords got me there though, and I had just enough to chump a Reality Smasher and leave me at 1 health the turn before I killed him on the backswing.
Round 10 vs Jason on Ad Nauseam (Lost 0-2, 7-3 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: The pre-board can be quite bad for us, as we need a clock and multiple cursecatchers to really have a chance. Post-board it comes down to if we have the disruption. Just a straight up combo matchup.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Gut Shot (See below)
-2 Vapor Snag (Rather have Dismember if they are on the Lab Maniac plan)
-2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (Nothing to counter)
-2 Harbinger of the Tides (Nothing to bounce)
+3 Chalice of the Void (Put on 0 to stop Pact of Negation)
+2 Dispel (Stop combo)
+2 Negate (Stop combo)
+1 Echoing Truth (Phyrexian Unlife)
Game 1: I mulled to five, had barely any clock, he just straight up annihilated me.
Game 2: I am an idiot. I mulled to 6, but drew 7. He got to look at my hand and take something. He took my dispel, and he knew I had an Echoing Truth to get his Phyrexian Unlife. I flooded and he killed me with Angel’s Grace and Ad Naus.
Round 11 vs Andrew on Elves (Lost 0-2, 7-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This is real bad for us. They can just go off, our small disruption rarely actually stops them unless their deck kinda fails. Look for a chance to dismember an Ezuri when they don’t have mana up. Otherwise, try to race them.
Sideboard Plan: This is probably horribly wrong, but I just want to make my clock easy to cast while having whatever disruption I can.
4x Master of Waves (Slow)
2x Merrow Reejerey (Slow)
2x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (They aren’t killing you)
3x Chalice of the Void (Put it on 1 and pray)
2x Dispel (Stops Coco/Chord)
1x Echoing Truth (Hope they have a lot of the same elf)
2x Tidebinder Mage (Tap an early mana dork and pray, or an Archdruid later on)
Game 1: I had a decent clock but he ended up going off when I had him down to 5 and killed me with multiple lord effects.
Game 2: Turn 2 2x Nettle and a Heritage into dumping 10+ elves and killing me with multiple Shaman of the Packs. Ugh.
Round 12 vs Mitchell on Esper Control (Won 2-1, 8-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Not gonna lie, I was happy to see Islands as I was not happy with starting Day Two 0-2 and falling out of money contention. This is similar to UWR Control, but they have more stuff that can kill Master of Waves, which is real bad for us. Mitchell was also running at least one Slaughter Pact, which can cause insane blowouts.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Negate (Everything they do)
+2 Dispel (Hits all their removal)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Snapcasters)
-2 Harbinger of the Tides
-2 Merrow Reejerey
-2 Gut Shot
Game 1: This felt much like just playing against UWR Control, where I ended up with too many guys for him to remove and ran him over. I knew post-board it would be tougher and was glad to win Game 1.
Game 2: He hit a lot of removal here and had some clutch Timely Reinforcements. On the turn I went for the win, he hit me with a Slaughter Pact out of nowhere and blew me out.
Game 3: Another game where I felt I was run almost out of resources. Thankfully on my lethal turn, I had a dispel for his doom blade and a cursecatcher to counter his path on my Master of Waves.
Round 13 vs Joey on UW Eldrazi (Won 2-1, 9-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: See Round 9, but we need to be careful of Displacers nullifying attacking creatures.
Sideboard Plan: See Round 9.
Game 1: I was able to win the die roll, which seems more important here than anything else than maybe infect. This allowed me to turn 1 Aether Vial, then spreading seas his turn 1 Eldrazi Temple. I followed this up with 4 Lords and 2 Master of Waves, where he scooped as soon as I played the 2nd Master of Waves.
Game 2: This was my only loss to Eldrazi the whole tournament, and I mulled to 6. I didn’t have enough pressure and he outraced me.
Game 3: Clock and tempo is the name of the game here. I established an early board, then echoing truthed two of his Skyspawners to swing with enough for the win.
Round 14 vs Kevin on UW Eldrazi (Won 2-1, 10-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: See above.
Sideboard Plan: See above.
Game 1/2: I was pretty braindead at this point and my notes are sloppy, but from my notes, we both just raced each other with no mulligans and I was able to solidly win the race both times. If I recall correctly, Master of Waves was the blowout both times.
Round 15 vs Joseph on Jund (Won 2-1, 11-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Of course my longest and grindiest match is my last Round, where we went to time. See Round 4 for Rundown.
Sideboard Plan: See Round 4
Game 1: He mulled to 6, and I feel in this matchup any mull is bad, as you are almost trading one-for-one resources. He got a goyf out backed up by some removal, but I was able to get in quickly before he found any 2-for-1s or Bobs to regain card advantage.
Game 2: I never found a Spreading Seas and he was able to remove/block enough of my guys to get ahead and finish me off.
Game 3: We had insane, enormous boards, and I didn’t have spreading seas. I’m talking like he had 4-5 creatures, including two finks he got full value from and a hand full of removal spells, I had 4-5 fish, around 6 or 7 Master of Waves tokens, and most importantly, a Kira. I was able to win off the back of having runner runner Negates, which I used to counter his Damnation, then countered his second spell he tried to use to kill Kira. After that, we continue with the board stall until Turn 0 of Turns, where I found a Lord that would allow my guys to get big enough to swing for just barely lethal.
Wrap-up
I finished in 126th place (out of 2555) with my 11-4 record and I was very pleased with my overall performance and the deck. The only card I am iffy on is Gut Shot in the main. It was either amazing or did nothing, and I personally don’t love that type of card. I might go back up to 3x Reej and 3x Harbinger, just for consistency.
As far as how Merfolk sits in the meta, I feel like we are in a decent spot right now, even though every match is tough, and there are a million Paths and Dismembers out there to kill our Master of Waves. Control is a good matchup if played correctly, and we are okay against Eldrazi if they don’t hit the nuts.
Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions please let me know!
Congrats to everyone else who made day two this weekend! I am happy to report that I also day twoed at Detroit, going 7-2 on day one and 4-2 on day two to finish 11-4. Unfortunately didn't make the money, but finished 126th. I was running a slightly modified version of Nikachu's list and will post a report probably tomorrow night. Quick version: Beat up UW eldrazi 6-1 on overall games, my four losses were to: soul sisters 1-2 (my misplays + honor of the pure), blue moon 1-2 (ved shackles), elves 0-2 (got annihilated), and ad nauseam 0-2 (mull to five + drawing a card by accident and he got to look at my hand and take my dispel).
I favor negate because it is unconditional and it stops the vast majority of what we want to stop. Creatures normally do not concern us that much, we mainly worry about combo pieces like twin or living end or phyexian unlife, or board wipes like oblivion stone or anger of the gods, or troublesome planeswalkers like ugin, karn or lili.
In your tron example, the only thing UWill really hits extra is wurmcoil, which we can normally swing through and outrace. While I can think of other creatures in other matchups that I want to counter, I would vastly prefer the reliability of negate.
Hey all! I recently played at SCG Cincinnati and ended up with a 6-3 record. I took some notes while I was playing and thought I'd share them, even though I unfortunately didn't make Day 2. I took almost the same deck that I played to Day 2 GP Pittsburgh, except I bumped my Cavern of Souls to 2 and cut a basic Island.
Round 1 vs Henry on Merfolk (Won 2-0, 1-0 Overall)
Not a huge fan of starting out with the mirror match because of how unpredictable it can be. Unfortunately for my opponent, he was new to the deck, and was not aware his Lord of Atlantis buffed my guys also. I took Game 1 easily off the backs of multiple Reejerays spitting out a lot of merfolk, and getting buffed by reejs + his Lord of Atlantis. Game 2 was much closer, but unfortunately for Henry, I drew Master of the Pearl Trident and he again had Lord of Atlantis. This one was actually super close, where if he had another lord (or if my MotPT was a LoA) he would have taken the game.
I don’t sideboard anything, but if you have extra fish in your board, bring in as many bodies as possible. I don't really mind having spreading seas to turn off opposing mutavaults or to enable islandwalk if they are being crafty and not playing islands. It is not ideal though, I will admit.
Round 2 vs Heath on Lantern Control (Won 2-0, 2-0 Overall)
This deck can be challenging for us, especially pre-board, unless we have a spell pierce for their bridge. If they land a bridge it’s just time to pack it up and go to game 2. However, Game 1 was very odd, where I had a single mutavault and 2 vials all game, but was able to slowly get there, as he was stuck on 2 mana as well. He misplayed big by playing pithing needle and naming mutavault instead of aether vial. If he did that it would likely have been an easy win for him. I count myself very lucky to steal a pre-board game from lantern.
However, post-board I think we’re very favored.
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (put it on 1 and they can’t play a large part of their deck)
3x Hurkyl's Recall (for bridges we can’t get with counter magic)
2x Negate (for bridges)
2x Relic of Progenitus (to prevent recursion of bridges (or other annoying things) with academy ruins)
Out:
1x Kira
3x Master of Waves (too slow)
2x Dismember
4x Spreading Seas
In Game 2 I had both pierce and recall in hand and just always kept pierce mana open as I played out fish. He never found a bridge but even if he did, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Round 3 vs Tony on RG Tron (Won 2-0, 3-0 Overall)
This game was pretty crazy, mainly for my winning play. I kept a fairly normal hand, but didnt have double lord and got blown out by a pyroclasm on turn 3. I did not have any spreading seas, and just played out dudes while he tried to find a threat. I was able to rebuild my board to the point where I had a Master of Waves, two Lords and a Cursecatcher out. I have a Dismember in hand. His last card is a Newalmog from his Eye of Ugin. He casts it, killing a lord and the Master, leaving just a Lord and a Cursecatcher. I draw for turn and am super disappointed. It’s my second Dismember. But wait! Can I? Holy *****, I can! I double dismember Ulamog, kill it, and swing for the last 4 points of life my opponent has. I was trying so hard not to lose my ***** while sideboarding, but I went and told everyone I even barely know after. I still cannot believe I won by double dismembering a freaking Ulamog, what an insane line.
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (Putting this on 1 stops 16 cards of theirs)
2x Negate (Stops Ugin/Karn/board wipes)
3x Tectonic Edge (Obviously)
Out:
2x Dismember (I understand the irony, but they do almost nothing)
4x Harbinger of the Tides (I used to keep these in to bounce wurmcoils, but I don't seem to be facing many wurmcoils recently, so these guys tend to just be bears. I also don't really relish the idea of bouncing Newlamog)
1x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (No targeted removal, no fliers need blocking)
Game 2:
This was a super grindy game, where I kept spreading seasing his lands and he kept finding replacements. I fought through two o-stones by playing out just enough to force him to blow them (adepts are MVPs here), and was able to eventually run him out of ways to fetch more lands, while he had a Newalmog stuck in hand with only 6 mana on the field.
Round 4 vs Jeffrey on Jund (Lost 1-2, 3-1 Overall)
Game 1:
One of those games where spreading seas is a free win, he keeps two lands, I spreading seas one, he is left with a basic of some sort, I just run him over.
In:
2x Relic of Progenitus (Mainly for tarmos and scoozes but can also prevent delving for tasigur early on)
2x Tectonic Edge (I really like bringing in 2 tec edges against 3 color decks. Could just be wrong, but I’ve found it can really disrupt them when combined with spreading seas.
Out:
4x AEther Vial (Kolaghan’s Command)
Game 2:
This dude had lifegain coming out of every card. It was crazy. Turn 3 kitchen finks, turn 4 huntmaster. Huntmaster can be a real house against us if we don’t have double lords, which we often don’t against Jund and all their removal, as it is easy to flip huntmaster back and forth. Regardless, I made a huge misplay and tried to end the game quickly by tapping out for a Master of Waves on my turn 4, because I wanted to quickly break the board stall, even though I had a spell pierce in hand. Turn 5 he plays Damnation and wipes everything but his Kitchen Finks. I can’t rebuild fast enough before his creatures take over the game and finish me. If I had just played out another fish, I still would have had a good board state, even if it was stalled, and I could have waited one turn to play Master of Waves with pierce backup.
Game 3:
Finks and huntmaster again, combined with heavy single target removal and discard and my mulligan to 6 keeps his hp up and my guys dead. Huntmaster flips multiple times. Unfortunate.
Round 5 vs Floyd on Affinity (Lost 0-2, 3-2 Overall)
Both games played out very similarly. He got 1-2 Vault Skirges out and pumped them to the point where I couldn’t race. In game 1 I got blown out by a spell pierce when I tried to dismember his skirge. The worst part? He didn’t have an opal or drum, he used an inkmoth I had turned into an island with spreading seas. Ugh. Be careful of the new trend of running 1 mana counterspells in affinity.
For the record, I SB like this:
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (on 0 usually - I often take these back out if I am on the draw, but I think it could be right to leave them in to prevent more 0 drops even if they drop a ton on turn 1. Not sure tbh.)
3x Hurkyl's Recall
Out: We tend to be one turn too slow against affinity, so I want to reduce my curve as much as possible
3x Master of Waves
3x Merrow Reejerey
Round 6 vs Michael on Infect (Won 2-1, 4-2 Overall)
I really dislike the infect matchup for us, especially mainboard. Harbingers, dismembers, Cursecatchers and spell pierces are the most important things for us to have, and the last two can be essentially cancelled out if they have a bunch of Heirarchs. We face the challenge of putting on a fast clock and still disrupting almost everything they do. In Game 1 I got lucky and he did not get a Blighted Agent or Inkmoth, so I was able to block. I slowly beat him down while keeping up spell pierce, which did end up blowing him out one turn. Whew.
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (set on 1)
2x Negate
2x Relic of Progenitus (prevents Become Immense)
Out: Everything slow
3x Master of Waves
4x Meerow Reejeray
Note: I leave in Kira to block Inkmoths.
Game 2 I thought I had it locked up with a harbinger, but he had a turn 2 Blighted Agent and the apostle’s blessing for my flashed in harbinger when he swung for the kill.
Game 3 he mulled to 6, tanked for a while and kept his 6. His only land was a Dryad Arbor, and when he tapped it for mana on his turn 2, I bounced it on my turn 3 with my harbinger. He quickly conceded after that.
Round 7 vs Anthony on U/R Twin (Won 2-0, 5-2 Overall)
I was so freaking happy to finally see a player playing Islands, as I hadn’t really seen them since Round 1 in the mirror. Both of these games played out exactly the same. I played fish 1 turn behind curve, keeping a spell pierce open. In both games I just beat him down and he couldn’t really do anything. In Game 2 I spell pierced an Anger that would have board wiped me, and won on the turn after.
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (This is kind of an experiment, but it stops Spell Snare, Dispel (protects twin from our counters), Bolt (kills our clock), and Serum Visions (sets up their combo)
2x Negate (Obvious reasons)
2x Relic of Progenitus (They play snaps)
Round 8 vs Bob on Jund (Lost 1-2, 5-3 Overall)
Easily one of the most intense matches I’ve ever played in modern. Every game was a grindy slog, and we finished game 3 with ~2 minutes left on the clock. I won Game 1 thanks to a clutch Master of Waves that I top decked to clogging the board when he had a bunch of dudes out, any of which would be lethal. I was helped out enormously from his own Bob flipping a Tasigur - I don’t think I would have taken Game 1 without that 6 damage.
Similarly to the previous Jund player, he had lots of life gain in the board. I do not like this trend. In Game 2 he just had all of the answers and 1-for-1ed me while healing a bunch from finks. Game 3 was interesting because I drew then played 4 reejerays in a row. He killed the first 2, but then I got the last 2 to stick, and used the reej combo to empty my hand (lord, silvergill, harbinger). So I had ~20 power on board, but he had multiple blockers and I had no spreading seas. I drew and played a spreading seas and had to decide if I should go for it. He had one card in hand and had just gotten runner runner runner removal. I went for it, he killed my islandwalk lord, blocked two of my guys, and I knocked him down to 2 hp. He killed me on the crackback. Rough go, but he agreed that was the right play. What I took from this game is that when it looks like I have a game locked up, but have reejs on the field and only one source of islandwalk (either from a lord or a seas), I should keep a fish in my hand to use reej tap down triggers on the turn I want to kill him. If I hadn’t played out even just one of my guys, I could have tapped down his blockers and guaranteed my win.
Round 9 vs Dalton on UW Tron Gifts (Won 2-1, 6-3 Overall)
This matchup really just comes down to if they can Rites an Elesh Norn early on. Not much to write home about this one, in Game 1 I just beat him down before he could do anything, in Game 2 he had the Gifts/Rites combo when I only had 1 Lord on the field, and in Game 3 I outraced that combo.
In:
2x Negate (Obvious reasons)
2x Relic of Progenitus (Counters gifts, they play snaps)
3x Tectonic Edge (Tron lands/Colonnades)
Out:
2x Dismember (Not gonna do anything)
4x Harbinger of the Tides (No creatures we want to bounce. Maybe Iona? Still think this is right)
1x Kira (Not enough single target removal to worry, a bit slow)
I was fairly pleased with the deck’s performance, though the misplay against Jund in Round 4 where I could have countered the Damnation smarts a little bit. Also, if this was any other SCG event, or any GP from now on, I would have been able to make Day 2 with a 6-3 record. Ah well, I still finished in 118th place out of almost 1100 players, I only had one 0-2 loss and a bunch of 2-0 wins, and I’ll happy with those stats. Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions please let me know!
TL;DR: Beat Fish, Lantern, RG Tron, UW Tron, Infect & U/R Twin. Lost to Jund x2 & Affinity.
I'm a huge fan of Chalice. Like someone mentioned I've never lost a game whenever it resolves on the number I want to it be.
Absolutely agree, but I wouldn't run less than the 3 that I do right now in the board. Hell, I've been thinking about going up to 4. When you want them, you REALLY want them.
I only have 1 atm, just took out a remand in side i didnt like. so i was thinking chalice, or a singlee unified will , to switch it up, with 2x negate, 1x dispel and 1x pierce
I would not run a single chalice. I would go with negate or dispel.
3x Harbinger of the Tides
2x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x Master of Waves
3x Merrow Reejerey
4x Silvergill Adept
4x AEther Vial
2x Dismember
2x Spell Pierce
4x Spreading Seas
1x Ghost Quarter
9x Island
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4x Mutavault
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
2x Wanderwine Hub
2x Negate
3x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Tectonic Edge
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Tidebinder Mage
Round 1 vs BYE (1-0 Overall)
Round 2 vs BYE (2-0 Overall)
Last season I was able to get enough planeswalker points to get 2 byes for this season. Frankly, byes are just so insanely good, and I highly recommend that if you are close to a bye level in planeswalker points to grind for it. You get to sleep in an extra couple hours and you dodge potential rogue brews that can throw a wrench into your plans. It also helps a lot in later rounds when you might be fresher mentally than your opponents who have had to play more rounds than you..
Round 3 vs Grayson on Naya Burn (Won 2-0, 3-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: In my experience, if they don’t have a lavamancer early, or an eidolon when we don’t have vial, we are slightly favored. After a couple turns, our board is usually too strong for them to attack into profitably and they have to finish us off with burn. Master of Waves is of course absolutely huge against them, but watch for Skullcrack if you are blocking with it. It’s almost always better to just throw a token under the bus then to risk losing our win-con against them.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Negate
+2 Tidebinder
+3 Chalice - Unlike most matchups, I bring this in on the play or on the draw. They have so many 1-drops, and don’t spit them out fast enough. Plus, harbinger-ing a 1 drop creature when you have a vial down is crazy value.
-3 Merrow Reejeray - We don’t need our guys to be huge P/T against burn, and this guy just ends up being a little slow.
-2 Dismember
-2 Spell Pierce - This could be wrong (and probably is), but it conflicts with Chalice and I am generally using all of my mana against burn anyways until I can comfortably sit back with counterspells, and negate ensures they cannot cast that last bolt with 3 mana up to kill me.
Game 1: He had a very strong start until I was able to stabilize at 6 life with a strong board. I landed a Master of Waves and he burned me down to 1, then had one draw step to draw a bolt, and got a land.
Game 2: He against had a good start, but I had vial on turn 1 and chalice for 1 on turn 2. He was able to use his existing board and 2 mana burn spells to get me to 6, but then was out of gas.
Round 4 vs Brian on Elves (Won 2-0, 4-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This is super bad for us. They go far wider than us, it is difficult to disrupt their combo, and with their combo it doesn’t really matter if we have a bunch of 4/4s when they swing with 10 5/5s with trample. In general, their deck has to fail them for us to win. Maybe 30% match win rate against elves.
Sideboard Plan:
+3 Chalice - A ton of their deck is 1 drops, and if they have to burn a chord on a Reclamation Sage, I will take that every time
+2 Tidebinder - Early tap-downs on dorks and for archdruids
+2 Negate - Chord and CoCo
-3 Merrow Reejeray - I will admit, this is my go-to to remove. Just a bit clunky and they usually combo the turn after
-2 Spell Pierce - they have tons of mana up, unless they are careless and tap out completely for chord, this doesn’t do much
-2 Kira - They aren’t targeting our guys
Game 1: He kept an odd hand with mostly boreal druids and didn’t really get an explosive start. I dismembered his turn 1 boreal druid and developed a decent board. Finally he got his hand cleared of elves and had a good setup with heritage druid and the usual suspects. When he cast lead the stampede, I thought I was done for, but he almost completely whiffed and only got a single elf whose name was not ezuri. I was able to run him over with my stronger and bigger board after that.
Game 2: This time the elf deck did elf things and dropped a huge board. I had vial and was able to get a strong one myself with multiple lords, but then he was able to find an ezuri. He pumped and swung, but luckily I had a harbinger come in off a vial and was able to live with 1 health, then win off the crackback. Insanely lucky, I cannot remember the last time I 2-0ed an elf player.
Round 5 vs Carter on Death’s Shadow (Lost 1-2, 4-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: A very difficult deck that requires careful piloting to win against. They hurt themselves a lot, but we normally end up needing to chump to stay alive. We need to build a small board to crack back with, as they are normally hurting themselves down to 6-8 life when they try to win. Harbinger is huge here.
Sideboard Plan:
+3 Chalice of the Void (only on the play)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Nacatls, Swiftspears)
-2 Dismember (I find it doesn’t do enough, and taking 4 seems horrible against them - that said, put them back in on the draw, sometimes you can get them with it on your turn)
-2 Kira (They usually aren’t killing our guys)
-1 Merrow Reejeray (Slow, clunky) (put back in on the draw)
Game 1: I mulled to 5 and kept 3 land and 2 spell pierce, because if I go to 4 I just cannot see ever winning. I also was hoping to face a control or midrange deck, where maybe the pierces can do work. Instead he just ran me over.
Game 2: I had a vial start and was able to build a strong board, where I called his bluff and threw all of my guys in front of his when he went for a big attack. He had some pumps, but I had an extra lord come in off vial, and in the end his board was clear while I had 1 lord left. I followed that up with a Master of Waves and was able to take the game.
Game 3: He started with 3x git probe, fetched and shocked to 11, played death’s shadow. I played a vial. He played swiftspear and death’s shadow, took a bunch more damage, and I got destroyed.
Round 6 vs Jadine on Jund (Won 2-0, 5-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Jund is always a tough fight with all of the removal and card advantage they can bring to bear against us. It also is difficult because as over-committing means maybe playing into a board wipe, but not putting enough pressure on is a sure recipe for defeat, as a goyf can end the game real fast for us. Read the board and try to navigate your way through. In addition, the prevalence of Kalitas in Jund lists is actually incredibly hard to deal with. It is an enormous value engine for them, and keeps them in the game with lifelink. However, if we get to slam Master of Waves early on and if you get to untap with it not being maelstrom pulsed we tend to win. That being said, I’ve been seeing Jund play mono-black removal like doom blade and slaughter pact recently, so even that isn’t as much of an “I win” card as it used to be.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 AEther Vial (K-Command)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Reej is fine game 1 when we try to full out aggro them, but I like taking a more tempo-control route post-board)
-1 Cursecatcher (Everything else is so good against them - some might say harbinger, but I value more bouncing their threats and/or playing around sorcery speed removal)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Lock down their main creature threats)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Scooze and Goyf)
+2 Negate (Mainly for Liliana, Damnation and Anger)
+3 Tectonic Edge (3 color deck and they come in when vials go out)
Game 1: Really not much to say for these games. I actually felt really bad for my opponent, I had the absolute nuts hand. Cursecatcher into Lord into Kira into Master of Waves. She was able to deal with Kira, but then I played my 2nd one right after. Just ran her over.
Game 2: She kept a hand with mainly creatures and I kept a hand with two tidebinders. Tapped down a finks and a goyf as they came down and kept swinging hard, also ended very quickly. Was done with the match with only about 15 minutes off the clock.
Round 7 vs James on RG Tron (Lost 1-2, 5-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: We all know this matchup. We have to disrupt their lands and kill them before they tron out Ugin or Ulamog or OStone. Not fun, but very winnable.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Although one time I did win a game by double dismembering an Ulamog, I don’t recommend relying on that game plan)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Same as always)
-3 Cursecatcher (It’s fine, but not always very good, and often just doesn’t do enough)
+2 Negate (Stops everything good they do but wurmcoil)
+3 Chalice of the Void (Stops like 50% of their deck from working, absolutely love this card in this matchup)
+3 Tectonic Edge
Game 1: I kept a hand with no land hate, he had tron on 3, played karn, then followed up with ugin. Yup.
Game 2: A kind of weird game where I had lots of vials and spreading seas and he had lots of nature’s claims. I was able to consistently disrupt him off tron, even though I got 3x nature’s claimed, and developed enough of a board to win when I was at 32 life. Not sure if I’ve ever been that high on life with merfolk.
Game 3: A very close, very long game. I had a bunch of disruption, but he had a lot of answers. In the end, it came down to a choice. Do I tec edge the single power plant or the single mine? I chose power plant, he topdecked another one and was able to start playing his threats. Lost on turn 4 of turns when he was able to go world breaker into ulamog.
Round 8 vs Luke on Affinity (Lost 1-2, 5-3 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Another hated matchup which honestly is becoming less hated for me personally. While it is a bad matchup, it isn’t elves, and I’ve had some success against affinity lately. Harbinger does work in helping us sneak in Game 1 wins and our sideboard plan is fantastic against them.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 Cursecatcher (I don’t think it does enough work in this matchup, though having a one drop can be important in trying to race them)
-2 Spell Pierce (Ditto to above. If ravager was a spell, then sure, but not worth the chance of it sitting in your hand doing nothing)
+3 Chalice (I put this in only on the play, not on the draw. Drop it for 0 on your turn 1 on the play and see your opponent (hopefully) go pale. When I am on the draw I put cursecatcher back in)
+3 Hurkyl’s Recall (Obvious reasons)
Game 1: This was a great game for me. He had a slow start and I had a bunch of lords with a spreading seas to disrupt his manland. Game 1 is just a pure race, and I was lucky to just have the faster hand.
Game 2: I had an okay but slow 7, and mulled into a mediocre 6, which I kept. He dumped his hand on turn 1 and got me when I was just too slow to compete. Didn’t see Hurkyls, which might have kept me in it, but I didn’t really have much of a board anyways.
Game 3: Again I mulled to 6 from a very mediocre 7, trying to find Chalice or Hurkyls. Kept an awkward 6 that had the potential to be good, but he dropped 5 0-drops on his first turn, then I topdecked a chalice. The feelbads. He was just too fast again, and I completely bricked every draw step. Just how it goes sometimes. I was pretty worried at this point, going from 5-1 to 5-3. Was hoping for a good matchup so I could at least get back to Day 2.
Round 9 vs Alex on GW Humans (Won 2-0, 6-3 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: This was a sweet deck that had like 4x Champion of the Parish, 4x Thalia’s Lieutenant, 4x Mayor of Avabruck, 4x Noble Hierarch etc. However, we tend to get bigger a bit faster than them, and spreading seas wrecks their plans to do any blocking.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Tidebinder
-2 Spell Pierce
Game 1 & 2: Both games just had a bunch of lords and a spreading seas to swing uncontested. He was a good sport, and the deck was fun to see - it definitely does have some explosive draws. However, this is the type of deck we are built to prey upon, and both games were fairly one-sided.
Round 10 vs Anthony on Bant Eldrazi (Won 2-0, 7-3 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: This deck can be difficult to deal with if they have a very strong start and get a couple smashers out. Also, even though it’s bant, they tend to only have 1 hallowed fountain, and won’t usually fetch it up for us to have islandwalk. That said, if they are somewhat slow, we can generally get a strong enough board to run them over and use spreading seas to slow down their mana or cut them off a color.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Negate (Engineered explosives, path, blessed alliance)
-2 Spell Pierce (They tend to have too much mana for this to be great)
Game 1: We both mulled to 6, but he flooded, only getting a smasher out when I dropped a Master of Waves and he scooped.
Game 2: This was a more competitive game, as he was able to take my Master of Waves that would have closed out the game on turn 3 with a Thought-Knot. The deck gods were with me that day though, and I top decked another and was able to get a bunch of tokens. He didn’t have path and that was that.
Round 11 vs Lucas on RG Scapeshift (not through the breach) (Lost 0-2, 7-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: I liked it a lot more when people were playing the RUG and BTL versions, as they were far easier. These are races where we also absolutely have to keep up disruption. They run maindeck anger and it just wrecks us because we can’t take our foot off the gas and we can easily get blown out by it. Try to keep up pierce early, cursecatchers are great early, seas their mountains (assuming it’s through the breach scapeshift where they can’t scapeshift away the seased mountains).
Sideboard Plan:
-3 Harbinger (Don’t want to bounce prime times)
-2 Dismember (Doesn’t do anything)
-2 Merrow Reejeray (Yes, it’s a race, but everything else is too important)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Prevent prime time from getting attack triggers)
+2 Negate (Anger, Through the Breach and Scapeshift)
+3 Tectonic Edge (Slows them for a turn)
Game 1: I had what I thought was a very strong start with cursecatcher, vial, silvergill and multiple lords. Unfortunately, he was running both pyroclasm and anger, and I played right into a pyroclasm as I was trying to set up enough lords on field to get out of anger range, which 3-for-1ed me. I was actually recovering, and was able to vial in a lord in response to an anger, making my field 4/4s, but then he scapeshifted the same turn and burned a lord, wiping my board.
Game 2: I had disruption with a bunch of spreading seas and tec edges but no clock, as I drew into 3 Master of Waves. Which is great, but not without vial. I tapped out for Master of Waves with a Negate in hand because I simply needed threats, and he comboed off that turn.
Round 12 vs Jay on Bant Eldrazi (Won 2-1, 8-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: See Round 10
Sideboard Plan: See Round 10
Game 1: He had a slow start, and I ran him over before he could develop true threats.
Game 2: I brought in tec edges, and I really didn’t like it. They aren’t super ramping, and yes, hitting a temple feels great, but generally they have already used it for a smasher already, and they feel just a little too slow and clunky to really do work. I drew multiple edges and seas, and was able to disrupt him, but he was able to develop a board that was just strong than mine, and swung for the win.
Game 3: I took out the tec edges. I had the sickest mull, where I was looking at a mediocre but very playable 7 and decided I needed a faster clock, and got an insane hand with 2 lands, 2 silvergills and 2 lords. Drew into even more gas and it was quickly over.
Round 13 vs Michael on Jund (Won 2-0, 9-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: See Round 6
Sideboard Plan: See Round 6
Game 1: He mulled to 5, kept a hand with a bunch of removal, and I played Kira on turn 3. Quick match for me.
Game 2: This was a hard grind, as I drew my tidebinders but he brought in Thrun, which just stood there as a brick wall, as I didn’t draw any seas. I had a good start, but ran out of gas when he was at 1 life. He had 2 goyfs and the thrun, plus a new Liliana on his side. While I did have one of his lands seased by then, I had no lords - just a harbinger that was permanently plused on by liliana and a mutavault. He was going to swing for the win, but on my last turn, I got a lord, and he didn’t have the removal for it, and I got to islandwalk past him for the last point of damage.
Round 14 vs Erik on Bant Eldrazi (Won 2-0, 10-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: See Round 10
Sideboard Plan: See Round 10
Game 1: He mulled to 5 and I had a super fast clock. From my notes, I killed him in 2 hits.
Game 2: This was much closer, and he almost had a sick blowout against me. I drew into 3 vials and didn’t have much gas, but I did have a seas out and was able to get in some chip damage. He swung out and I took it, going to 7, then I was able to EOT two lords, presenting lethal damage. When I swung, he attempted to path, but I had the negate. He then cast blessed alliance, making me sac an attacker and he gained 4 life. If I didn’t have the negate for the path, I would have lost islandwalk for my other lord, and he would have used the untap creature part of blessed alliance to untap a smasher and eat my other lord. Thankfully I had another creature to play in main phase 2 so he couldn’t swing out again to kill me, and killed him on the next turn.
Round 15 vs Matthew on Dredge (Won 2-1, 11-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: This is hard to judge yet, as I’ve only tested and played against dredge a dozen times or so, but from what i can tell, we are slightly favored because we can seas them when they don’t play many lands and they can’t chump like they want for value. Also, Harbinger is huge against them - they often cannot recast their guys if you bounce them. Their deck can sometimes lose to itself or mulligan a lot also, which is a bonus!
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+3 Chalice of the Void (on the play)
-2 Dismember
-3 Merrow Reejeray (on the play)
Game 1: While he did dredge things, with only mediocre hits, I got out 4 lords and was able to just swing with 5/5s and kill him.
Game 2: I made a mistake and brought in chalices on the draw. They were wayyyy too slow, even though I had one in my opening hand, he already played three very relevant 1-drops before I could cast it on my turn 2. Just ended up being very awkward and slow and he ran me over.
Game 3: This game was definitely one of the easiest I had all tournament. I had vial into spreading seas his only land, then got to vial in two harbingers to put amalgams into his hand and play a Master of Waves for 8 devotion on turn 4. Was not even close.
Wrap-up
I finished in 110th place (out of 1983) with my 11-4 finish and I was very pleased with my overall performance and the deck. I definitely got a little lucky here and there, but you kind of need to have some luck to go deep. I was obviously much happier with all of the mid-range I played on Day 2, as those are the decks we have serious game against. Day 1 being almost all pure aggro was tough.
Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions please let me know!
I liked my side board for the most part. I am still weighing ancestral visions and echoing truth. Truth is a good catchall but isn't amazing except against tokens. Visions is great against Jund and Abzan midrange, but is too slow against many decks and doesn't line up great against blue decks that have a lot of card draw themselves. Thinking of going to 3 tectonic edges instead, but still very much undecided.
3x Harbinger of the Tides
2x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x Master of Waves
3x Merrow Reejerey
4x Silvergill Adept
4x AEther Vial
2x Dismember
2x Spell Pierce
4x Spreading Seas
2x Cavern of Souls
1x Ghost Quarter
9x Island
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4x Mutavault
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
2x Wanderwine Hub
2x Negate
1x Echoing Truth
3x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Ancestral Visions
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Tidebinder Mage
Round 1 vs BYE (1-0 Overall)
BYEs are the best wins. I highly recommend that if you are close to the first bye level in planeswalker points to grind for it. You get to sleep in an extra two hours and you dodge a potential rogue brew that can throw a wrench into your plans.
Round 2 vs Anna on Mardu Burn (Won 2-0, 2-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: I don’t mind getting matched up against burn, though they of course have the chance to do huge blowouts with Atarka’s Command and if they keep a creature heavy hand or drop an Eidolon before we have a vial, it can be very difficult to win. That said, they have a low land count, so often spreading seas does a number on them, as does tidebinder and harbinger, slowing down their damage. Ideally you want to force them to have to do 12+ damage to you with spells and stonewall their creatures with larger fish. With Mardu burn, I believe they are slightly more spell heavy than creature heavy, running bump in the night as an extra bolt.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Don’t want to hurt yourself)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Too slow, just doesn’t do enough)
-2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (You want to incentivize them to point burn at your dudes, not your face, this could be wrong but I also don’t think a 2/2 for 3 is good enough vs burn, and flying is not relevant in this matchup)
+3 Chalice (Chalice on 1 locks them down hard in most cases)
+2 Negate (Stops them from finishing you with burn)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Locks down all of their creatures)
Game 1: I started GP LA by getting blown out. I mulled to 6 and she kept 7, and she was on the play. She dropped a goblin guide turn 1, then another guide and swiftspear turn 2, then searing blazed my only fish turn 3. Ouch.
Game 2: I again had to mull to 6 but kept a hand with a chalice, she kept 7. On turn 2 I dropped it for 1 and she just straight up lost the game - she told me after she had 5 1-drops in hand when she conceded.
Game 3: We both kept 7. I had a turn 1 vial this time, which was extremely lucky with her dropping a turn 2 eidolon. I played almost no spells, just playing off vial, then played a Master of Waves on turn 4 to close out the game.
Round 3 vs Spencer on WB Eldrazi Hatebears (Won 2-0, 3-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Hatebears is a weird matchup for us, and I think it is very good. We don’t search our library, we don’t run that many lands, and our creatures are normally significantly bigger than theirs. Path sucks of course, but they don’t have that much removal.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Don’t really care about their creatures, though thinking about it may want this for Eldrazi Displacer. They don’t really have the time to setup multiple displacer activations though.)
+2 Negate (Zealous Persecution and Path to Exile protection mainly, though some lists run random planeswalkers or other annoying spells)
Game 1: I played turn 3 reejeray into turn 4 play 2nd reejeray into dumping my hand and attacking for lethal on turn 5. His board could not keep up.
Game 2: This game played out similarly, but just played out four lords and got too big for him to handle and ran him over.
Round 4 vs Paolo on Abzan Company (Lost 1-2, 3-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: We have a strong tempo gameplan against them, but it isn’t the easiest to pull off with their disruption and life gain. Also, it always feels like they can go infinite at any time. We need to kick it into high gear in Game 1 and then try to get a clock while holding answers post-board.
Sideboard Plan:
Honestly not sure about this, but at the time I didn’t want to be bouncing finks, and I didn’t think it did enough to really disrupt their game plan.
-3 Harbinger of the Tides (Not really any great bounce targets)
-3 Merrow Reejerey (A bit slow/unneeded)
+2 Negate (Chord and Coco)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Stops the combo)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Taps down finks that want to block, early mana dorks)
Game 1: This was a super hard grind where we were just trading resources, but before I could close it out, he went infinite.
Game 2: This time the tempo gameplan worked very well and I dropped a huge board very quickly and ran him over before he could find his combo.
Game 3: This one was setup to be another grind, but I ended up having a large board and had lethal next turn, with spell pierce and negate in hand to stop two chords or CoCos or whatever he had. I thought I was all set, as he had two incomplete combos on board - just the Spike Feeder for angel combo and was missing two pieces from the finks combo - until he topdecked his Archangel of Thune and went infinite. Ugh. Really thought I had that one. I learned after he is one of the better players in LA, and I saw him around the top tables on Day 2.
Round 5 vs Matt on GR Tron (Won 2-1, 4-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: We all know this matchup. We have to kill them before they tron out Ugin or Ulamog or OStone. Not fun, but very winnable.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Although one time I did win a game by double dismembering an Ulamog, I don’t recommend relying on that game plan)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Just too slow, doesn’t do enough)
+2 Negate (Stops everything good they do but wurmcoil)
+3 Chalice of the Void (Stops like 50% of their deck from working, absolutely love this card in this matchup)
Game 1: He was on the play and had natural tron. Wurmcoil on turn 3 into Ugin on turn 5 into me conceding.
Game 2: I had a super fast hand and banked hard on my single spell pierce in hand to protect it long enough to win. The turn before he died he tried to resolve an ugin and spell pierce got it. Whew! I have heard some people say to take out pierce in this matchup, but I still really like it both for early disruption and forcing them to use more mana than planned. For example, even if he had O-Stoned, a spell pierce would have made him use enough mana that he couldn’t pop it.
Game 3: He kept a one-lander with a bunch of eggs and stirrings etc., but I had a turn 2 chalice for 1 and he never played another card until he died. Chalice MVP!
Round 6 vs Sal on Affinity (Won 2-1, 5-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Another hated matchup which honestly is becoming less hated for me personally. While it is a bad matchup, it isn’t elves, and I’ve had success against affinity lately. Harbinger does work in helping us sneak in Game 1 wins and our sideboard plan is fantastic against them.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 Cursecatcher (I don’t think it does enough work in this matchup, though having a one drop can be important in trying to race them)
-2 Spell Pierce (Ditto to above. If ravager was a spell, then sure, but not worth the chance of it sitting in your hand doing nothing)
-1 Merrow Reejeray (A bit slow)
+3 Chalice (I put this in only on the play, not on the draw. Drop it for 0 on your turn 1 on the play and see your opponent (hopefully) go pale. When I am on the draw I put pierce and reejeray back in)
+1 Echoing Truth (I really like bouncing things in this matchup)
+3 Hurkyl’s Recall (Obvious reasons)
Game 1: Turn 1 vault skirge, turn 2 plating into swinging for a ton of lifelink a turn. GG.
Game 2: This one was crazy. I played a chalice on 0 on my turn 1 and he just straight up conceded before he even saw his turn. Well okay then! Never seen that before.
Game 3: I didn’t have the fastest clock, but he got mana screwed when I spreading seased his glimmervoid and he had a ton of colored spells stuck in hand. Like 4+ colored spells if I recall correctly when he showed me after the game.
Round 7 vs Corey Burkhart on Grixis Control (Lost 1-2, 5-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Including Corey’s full name because yes, this is the same guy who made top 8 and also played against Simon ****sky on camera in round 13. Very good player. Anyways, Grixis Control is a matchup that I think we are heavily favored in. They have counterspells which often do nothing and they play islands. They also tend not to have a super fast clock. However, don’t put down your guard, against a good player, or a player who draws a lot of K-Commands, this is an extremely tough match.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 Vial (K-Command blowouts)
-3 Spreading Seas (Keeping one in to hit manlands is fine)
+2 Ancestral Visions (Grindy matchup)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (They rely heavily on the graveyard for card advantage and tasigur)
+1 Echoing Truth (Bouncing tasigur when they have no graveyard can be good, also for engineered explosives. I would probably not put this in after further thought)
+2 Negate (All of their bad things)
Game 1: This game took up a ton of our clock, and I cast three Master of Waves and still lost. He told me after he was very surprised he won this one, as even one Master of Waves normally seals the game for him. Unfortunately, he had a ton of removal and snapcasters and kept my devotion super low. He was just able to grind me out, casting I believe 5 K-Commands over the course of the game. Rough times.
Game 2: I mulled to 6 but showed why this tends to be a good matchup for us. I just had a bunch of lords, his removal couldn’t keep up, and I islandwalked over to kill him extremely quickly.
Game 3: This one I think I misplayed. He was able to get out a turn 2 tasigur and I thought it would be great to bounce it with echoing truth and maybe he couldn’t replay it quickly. I was very wrong and should have just developed my board, because he replayed it on turn 3 and turned a fast clock on me before I could establish a foothold on the board.
Round 8 vs Chris on Affinity (Won 2-1, 6-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: See Round 6
Sideboard Plan: See Round 6
Game 1: Like many Game 1s against Affinity, this was a blowout for him with another vault skirge with a cranial plating leading the charge.
Game 2: However in this Game I cast not 1 but 2 Hurkyl’s, leading to a fairly easy win.
Game 3: He started with a pithing needle for my vial, which was slightly concerning considering vial is an important piece in racing them. However, I found a hurykls and waited until he had a good board, then was able to bounce his board and free my vial for a turn, letting me get just enough damage on the board to win.
Locked for Day 2 off a win over affinity!
Round 9 vs Zach on BTL Scapeshift (Won 2-1, 7-2 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: BTL Scapeshift is maybe a little scarier than RUG, as it can BTL for board wipes, but not as scary (imo) as Titanshift, which can be just faster than us. Establish a fast clock, spreading seas their lands that let them tap for non-RUG colors, and keep up spell disruption for key spells of theirs.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (No real targets)
+2 Negate (Stops everything important)
Game 1: He was able to ramp quickly and scapeshifted not to kill me, but to clear my board (I would have killed for a Kira!), then slowly pinged me to death and any merfolk I played out.
Game 2: I was able to build a fast clock and had a negate for his anger of the gods.
Game 3: He mulled to 5 and just didn’t really do anything. Unfortunate for him.
A win here got me to 7-2 going into Day 2 and I was quite happy. I had also been sitting at 7-2 after Day 1 in Pittsburgh and Detroit, and had been seeing a good amount of decks playing Islands near me, so I was quite hopeful for Day 2 in LA.
Round 10 vs Henry on Affinity (Lost 0-2, 7-3 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: See Round 6
Sideboard Plan: See Round 6
Game 1: Even though I said I didn’t hate affinity as much as I used to, I still strongly dislike seeing it, especially to start the day off. This was a super close race where I got him to 5, but he killed me with an unblockable signal pest with a bunch of ravager counters on him.
Game 2: Again I had him down to 5 when he found a cranial plating for his inkmoth and killed me in one swing. Screw you robots!
Round 11 vs Marcus on Jund (Lost 1-2, 7-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: Jund is always a tough fight with all of the removal and card advantage they can bring to bear against us. It seems that many have kept the board wipes they put in during Eldrazi winter and that really puts us in a tough spot, as over-committing means maybe playing into a board wipe, but not putting enough pressure on is a sure recipe for defeat, as a tarmo can end the game real fast for us. Read the board and try to navigate your way through. In addition, the prevalence of Kalitas in Jund lists is actually incredibly hard to deal with. It is an enormous value engine for them, and keeps them in the game with lifelink. However, if we get to slam Master of Waves early on and if you get to untap with it not being maelstrom pulsed we tend to win. That being said, I’ve been seeing Jund play mono-black removal like doom blade and slaughter pact recently, so even that isn’t as much of an “I win” card as it used to be.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 AEther Vial (K-Command)
-4 Cursecatcher (This is likely incorrect, but I felt like it just wasn’t powerful enough in this matchup at the time)
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Lock down their main creature threats)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Scooze and Goyf)
+2 Negate (Mainly for Liliana, Damnation and Anger)
+2 Ancestral Visions (We need to outvalue them)
Game 1: I had a strong start and knocked him down to 7 before he found a Kalitas and enough removal to keep my board low and freed his Kalitas up to swing and gained him back 9 life, which I couldn’t outrace.
Game 2: I started with a turn one Ancestral Visions and when it resolved, I dropped too many fish for his removal to deal with. Rode the value train to victory.
Game 3: This played out very similar to game 1, where I got him down to 11 before Kalitas hit the board and gained him enough life to keep me from being able to close out the game.
Round 12 vs Evan on RUG Scapeshift (Won 2-1, 8-4 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: Unless the RUG player has multiple Cryptic Commands and snapcasters, I feel like we are pretty favored here, especially in game 1 before all of the angers and such come in. We goldfish a little faster than RUG Scapeshift does, and the counters they are counting on to slow down the clock doesn’t do much to us.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (No targets)
-2 Harbinger of the Tides (No targets)
+2 Negate (Everything good)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Stops snapcasters)
Game 1: I was just too fast here and aggroed him out.
Game 2: He had an insane amount of ramp and very quickly went off when I had no counters in hand to kill me.
Game 3: This was maybe the weirdest game I played. We both had very slow hands. I played out 3 cursecatchers and beat him down with just those creatures, because he was ready to go off at any point if I tapped out and it wasn’t lethal. As such, I had to keep both spell pierce and negate up to make sure I didn’t die, and I only found 4 lands. On the last turn I played a couple lords to ensure lethal and swung for the win.
Round 13 vs David on Naya 4-Whack (Lost 1-2, 8-5 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: I feel like we are disfavored here unless we run Tidebinders main. They have a lot of fast, hasty dudes that flood the board. As we don’t have board wipes, we have to try to compete against them where they are heavily favored, at least for the first few turns.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Don’t want the life loss)
-3 Merrow Reejeray (Slow)
+2 Tidebinder Mage
+3 Chalice of the Void
Game 1: We both mulled to 6 and I kept a horrible hand on the play, which only got worse as I drew both my dismembers. I went to 12 when I double dismembered two attackers, then had no real follow-up. His guys ran me over.
Game 2: I had a great hand with at least one Tidebinder and a fast clock. Tidebinder essentially time walked one of his turns and I was able to build a bigger board and take the game.
Game 3: This was a frustrating game where I thought I had secured a victory but then got blown out. I had a relatively small board but so did he. I double blocked one of his guys with Atarka’s Command in mind, but then he showed me a Ghor-Clan Rampager and killed both of my guys and kept his guy. I could not recover from that and quickly lost after. It has been a few years since I have been blown out by a Ghor-Clan. Still feels just as bad.
Round 14 vs Alex on UG Infect (Lost 0-2, 8-6 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: This match is very tough, though it often comes down to if they have Apostle’s Blessing to protect their infector from a Harbinger or Dismember. Glistener Elf isn’t so bad but I truly hate to see a Blighted Angent. We face the challenge of putting on a fast clock and still disrupting them from their faster clock. I often lose one turn before they would die.
Sideboard Plan:
-4 Master of Waves (too slow)
-4 Spreading Seas (you don’t really want to take a turn off from developing your board to cancel one of their lands, even if it is an inkmoth)
-2 Merrow Reejeray (too slow)
+1 Echoing Truth (bounce infectors!)
+2 Tidebinder (Hope they have glistener elves, not blighted agents)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Only because so much is useless against them, and can stop Become Immense)
+3 Chalice of the Void (this can be a superstar)
+2 Negate (Stop the pump! #NeverPump)
Game 1: He went turn 1 noble hierarch, turn 2 blighted agent, turn 3 triple Might of Old Krosa. I didn’t have a Harbinger or Dismember, and could only spell pierce one Might, so he got in for exactsies.
Game 2: I was happy because I found a Chalice for turn 3, but as soon as I played it on 1, he just played Become Immense on his Blighted Agent and won on his turn 3. Ugh. Sometimes that is just how this matchup goes.
Round 15 vs Matt on UW Flash Control (Won 2-0, 9-6 Overall))
Matchup Rundown: Finally, FINALLY, a control deck with islands. This was a pretty sweet deck, but seems to be an auto-win for Merfolk. The point of the deck is to play flash creatures and control spells to dominate the board and get a bunch of value/make your opponent play scared. However, I don’t particularly care about flashed in blockers when I have islandwalk.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Dismember (Not really needed)
-4 Spreading Seas (Celestial Colonnades are not really that big of a deal, they play islands otherwise)
+2 Negate (Any removal)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Snapcasters)
+2 Ancestral Visions (could be grindy)
Game 1/2: Both of these were basically the same game. It got a little grindy, but I just didn’t overextend into board wipes and kept picking away at him. With his blockers essentially unable to block, I was about to fairly easily take both games. He did play a sweet card I had never seen before as I think a 2-of, Stonecloaker, which he said had been causing value blowouts for both days, either to save creatures from removal or to take away snapcaster targets or to exile Emrakul with Emrakul’s graveyard trigger on the stack. Neat!
Wrap-up
I finished in 319th place (out of 2241) with my 9-6 record and while I was disappointed at the time with going 2-4 on Day 2, I am now pretty pleased with my overall performance and the deck. I faced some rough matchups on Day 2 and didn’t hit any of the decks I really wanted to, as in the Nahiri control decks, and the record could have easily been reversed. Not saying they would be a cakewalk, but I like my chances against them. Plus, I need to remind myself that hitting Day 2 used to be a goal of mine, and I should be happy to continue hitting that milestone at recent GPs.
With the planeswalker points from GP LA I have secured my 2nd bye for the next season and look forward to my next Merfolk showing at a major event.
Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions please let me know!
2x Dragonlord Silumgar
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
4x Sylvan Advocate
3x Tireless Tracker
2x Dead Weight
4x Grasp of Darkness
3x Languish
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited
2x Read the Bones
2x Ruinous Path
2x Transgress the Mind
3x Traverse the Ulvenwald
2x Ultimate Price
4x Evolving Wilds
4x Forest
1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
4x Hissing Quagmire
1x Island
4x Llanowar Wastes
1x Lumbering Falls
1x Sunken Hollow
3x Swamp
1x Yavimaya Coast
1x Gilt-Leaf Winnower
2x Infinite Obliteration
1x Languish
2x Negate
2x Root Out
1x Seasons Past
2x Ultimate Price
2x Virulent Plague
The deck felt really great, where it can sometimes beatdown or sit back and slowly land threats. If you like the G/B shell, I highly recommend trying out Silumgar. He's a great tutor target and I was stealing tons of great stuff like Chandra, Kalitas, and Linvalas every round. I run Seasons Past in the board for the grindy matches but would like to add a Dark Petition so I have access to the combo. Has anyone else tried blue splash?
https://www.reddit.com/r/FishMTG/comments/4gphgc/politest_way_to_tell_someone_to_screw_off_and_do/
https://www.reddit.com/r/FishMTG/comments/4gphgc/politest_way_to_tell_someone_to_screw_off_and_do/
2x Harbinger of the Tides
2x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4x Lord of Atlantis
4x Master of the Pearl Trident
4x Master of Waves
2x Merrow Reejerey
4x Silvergill Adept
4x AEther Vial
2x Dismember
2x Gut Shot
2x Vapor Snag
2x Dispel
1x Echoing Truth
3x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Negate
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Tidebinder Mage
Round 1 vs BYE (1-0 Overall)
A hard fought match, but I won. Being able to sleep in and avoid the player’s meeting/first round is fantastic, if you can grind some of the higher planeswalker point multiplier events in your area, it’s well worth the time invested.
Round 2 vs Colton on UWR Control (Won 2-0, 2-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown:
While we are favored against UWR Control due to Cavern of Souls, Mutavault and Aether Vial, this matchup is definitely one where you really need to read the situation to make the right play. If Merfolk over-commits to the board, or doesn’t play around Path to Exile, you can get blown out to the point where it is difficult to recover. The key is to play out a few threats to chip away at them and only throw a haymaker when you are confident you have the kill. Their sorcery speed board wipes are deadly. Adept also shines here, as you are able to relatively freely commit them to the board to force answers while you hold back other threats.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Negate (Everything they do)
+2 Dispel (Mainly to protect Master of Waves from Path)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Snapcasters)
-2 Harbinger of the Tides
-2 Merrow Reejerey
-2 Gut Shot
Game 1: Won this one solely off the back of mutavaults, as I flooded out and he was able to answer my lords with removal. Luckily, he was stuck on lands and wasn’t able to play anything to race my mutavaults.
Game 2: I mulled to 5 and he mulled to 6. Again he had tons of early removal but I was able to land a double master of waves which finished him off. This will be a trend through the day.
Round 3 vs Johnathan on Mardu Tokens (Won 2-1, 3-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This deck wants to stall out a board with tons of removal and tokens to chump until they run you out of resources with Ajani and Liliana. Really cool deck, however a spreading seas tends to take out a big part of their plan of chumping with tokens. This is kind of a fringe deck so not super familiar with the matchup.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Lingering Souls)
+2 Negate (Everything they do)
+1 Echoing Truth (Kill every token)
-2 Dismember (Taking 4 to kill a token is not a great plan)
-3 AEther Vial (K Command is a nearly automatic 2-for-1)
Game 1: We both mulled to 6. I was completely dead to his massive amounts of removal, as well as him resolving a K-Command on turn 3 to kill a Lord and my Vial, until I was able to hit runner runner Master of Waves, which his deck is nearly dead to, outside of Path. He didn’t have the answer and my tokens beat his.
Game 2: I kept a promising 7 but ended up drawing no lands and died with a bunch of 3 and 4 drops in hand. By the time I found a 3rd he had Ajani out tapping down one of my lands permanently.
Game 3: Super grindy game as I didn’t find a spreading seas, but he was always on the back foot forced to chump with tokens and only getting to use Liliana as an edict before I killed her on the next turn. Eventually I grinded him out to the point we were both out of resources and took the win.
Round 4 vs Greg on Jund (Won 2-1, 4-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: A familiar matchup to most fish players, but be warned, many are now running 2-3 Damnations mainboard to deal with Eldrazi. It puts us in a tough spot, as over-committing means maybe playing into a board wipe, but not putting enough pressure on is a sure recipe for defeat, as a tarmo can end the game real fast for us. Read the board and try to navigate your way through. Alternatively, slam Master of Waves and pray, usually if you get to untap with it not being maelstrom pulsed you win.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Tidebinder Mage (Lock down their main creature threats)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Scooze and Goyf)
+2 Negate (Mainly for Liliana, Damnation and Anger)
-4 AEther Vial (K-Command)
-2 Gut Shot (Yes, it can kill Bob, but nothing else. I’d rather just take 4 and also be able to kill Scoozes and early Goyfs)
Game 1: We both mulled to 6. I had a strong start but he was able to start grinding away at my fish thanks to an early Bob, and all the while a goyf was swinging away. I had to take the hits and pray I got there, as chumping would lead to a for sure defeat, but could only get him to 2 before he was able to finish me off.
Game 2: Vapor snag showed up big time for me, as he was much more creature heavy than removal heavy, and I was able to snag away his main blocker for a big lethal swing after getting in some chip damage earlier.
Game 3: One of my closest games of the tournament, where he had mainly removal without much in the way of threats, aside from a couple finks relegated to chumping duty. I was able to get past around 6 health of healing and chip away at him for a few points of damage each turn with a small board to get the win.
Round 5 vs Willam on Abzan Company (Won 2-1, 5-0 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: We have a strong tempo gameplan against them, but it is always nerve-wracking because it feels like they can go infinite at any time. Having maindeck gut shot for Seer is great though, and can be a blowout if they don’t play him last. We need to kick it into high gear in Game 1 and then try to get a clock while holding answers post-board.
Sideboard Plan:
Honestly not sure about this, but at the time I didn’t want to be bouncing finks, and I didn’t think it did enough to really disrupt their game plan.
2x Vapor Snag
2x Harbinger of the Tides
2x Merrow Reejerey (A bit slow/unneeded)
2x Dispel (Chord and Coco)
2x Relic of Progenitus (Stops the combo)
2x Tidebinder Mage (Taps down finks that want to block, early mana dorks)
Game 1: I just went too big against him, spitting out my hand and running him over before he could find much of anything.
Game 2: I tried to play the control route, and it went fairly well, but my board and clock simply wasn’t fast enough, and he was beating me back with Exalted triggers. I went for a Master of Waves to close out the game, and when I swung for the win, he resolved a CoCo. He unfortunately found a Fiend Hunter, which exiled my Master and poof went all my tokens. He won on the backswing.
Game 3: This was another grindy game where we were both trading hits, and he had answers for a lot of my creatures. I ended up needing to topdeck a lord or I would lose, and thankfully a lord showed up for me.
Round 6 vs Devon on Mono-White Soul Sisters (Lost 1-2, 5-1 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This match tends to be very favored for us, as gaining even ~20 health doesn’t tend to matter when we are free to build a board and start swinging for 20+ a turn, but I highly recommend not relying on that, because they can get very big very quickly.
Sideboard Plan:
2x Dismember (It’s a bit of a hefty price tag to kill a 1/1. Maybe should take out snag though, dismember can kill a soul sister.)
1x Harbinger of the Tides (Can kill a token but doesn’t tend to do much)
2x Negate (All of their spells)
1x Echoing Truth (Board wipe for tokens)
Game 1: He was able to turn 1 a sister, then ran out honor of the pure and then made 3 fliers. I didn’t have the fastest clock, and he was up to almost 30 life. I had only 2 cards in hand, a dismember and a Master of Waves, with 4 lands on the field. I could either dismember the sister and prevent any further life gain, or play Master, let him gain a bunch, but gain a super fast clock. I went for the Master. Unfortunately, he was able to land more tokens, which pushed him out of a 2 turn clock range for me, then killed me in the air with 6 2/2 fliers. If I had dismembered, then played Master the next turn, I probably would have been able to get there.
Game 2: This game is how it is supposed to be. I had a super fast clock of lords, his 1/1s had to chump, and I ran him over.
Game 3: He had a turn 1 sister, and I felt amazing because I was able to turn 0 a gut shot on the sister. However, he had plenty of gas left and played more sisters, tokens and, fatally, two Ajani Pridemates. I had a decent amount of fish, but low amount of Lords. I resolved a Master of Waves, which would have been great if not for the Ajani Pridemates which quickly ended up being 20/20s. I chumped with Master of Waves tokens for a while while building up a board, and the game came down to another crucial decision. He had 40 life and finally found a Serra Ascendant where I didn’t have Kira to block. I was at 3 life. If I let him stay above 30 life, the Serra would be a 6/6 flier and kill me. I could knock him down to 26 if I swung with everything but my Master of Waves tokens, of which I still had plenty to chump. Or I could knock him down to 29 if I kept back mutavault, which would also allow me to keep up Negate. He had one card in hand. If it was a spell, I had to keep up Negate, if it was a creature he would go back above 30 life and kill me with Serra Ascendant. I decided it was more likely he would be able to play a creature and swung, not having enough mana left to Negate. His card was a path to exile and he was able to swing for the win.
Round 7 vs Jesse on Blue Moon (Lost 1-2, 5-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This is supposed to be another favorable matchup for us, but certain things can be killers. Batterskull can race us very well if we don’t have enough of a clock, and anger out of the board can wreck us as well. Importantly, some builds are also running Shackles, so resolve a Kira early if you can!
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Harbinger of the Tides (Don’t want to bounce his creatures, doesn’t stop batterskull long enough)
-2 Gut Shot (Prefer to have Dismember for Pia and Kiran)
+2 Negate (Dispel doesn’t hit enough relevant things, Negate stops batterskull, angers, etc.)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Snapcasters)
Game 1: I mulled to 5 and he resolved an early batterskull. Nothing much to say here.
Game 2: This was a close game where he had another early batterskull and raced me very well, even though I had a decent board. What saved me was that he played Shackles and took a Lord of Atlantis, which was my only lord left, but didn’t know it still buffed my guys and I was able to swing for lethal.
Game 3: Unfortunately he learned his lesson and resolved an early Shackles. I never found the Kira to counter it, and his batterskull finished the game for him.
Round 8 vs Nicholas on UWR Control (Won 2-0, 6-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: See Round 2.
Sideboard Plan: See Round 2.
Game 1: This game went pretty standard, he was able to repeatedly kill my board while I snuck in damage. Eventually I was really low on resources with two useless gut shots in my hand and he had killed off my mutavaults. I was worried until I was able to ‘get’ him with a vapor snag to save a lord from a supreme verdict. He was at 5, so I flashed in a harbinger at his end of turn, replayed Lord on my turn, swung for 3, then double gut shot him to win the game. Crazy stuff!
Game 2: Never found a board wipe, I ran him over. Locked Day Two!
Round 9 vs Eric on GR Eldrazi (Won 2-0, 7-2 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Finally hit an Eldrazi player! Okay, so in my opinion, the plan here is to race them, bounce anything you can and pray they don’t hit a Thought-Knot. We can be faster than them with the help of our friend the Master of Waves.
Sideboard Plan:
Almost everything in the mainboard is already setup to hate on Eldrazi, so not much to do. I do like Echoing Truth to kill Scions and if you ever get to bounce more than one Eldrazi, it feels great.
-1 Merrow Reejerey
+1 Echoing Truth
Game 1: Triple seas effects slowed him down enormously as I was able to build a massive board and run him over.
Game 2: This was a pure, full out race. Multiple Lords got me there though, and I had just enough to chump a Reality Smasher and leave me at 1 health the turn before I killed him on the backswing.
Round 10 vs Jason on Ad Nauseam (Lost 0-2, 7-3 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: The pre-board can be quite bad for us, as we need a clock and multiple cursecatchers to really have a chance. Post-board it comes down to if we have the disruption. Just a straight up combo matchup.
Sideboard Plan:
-2 Gut Shot (See below)
-2 Vapor Snag (Rather have Dismember if they are on the Lab Maniac plan)
-2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (Nothing to counter)
-2 Harbinger of the Tides (Nothing to bounce)
+3 Chalice of the Void (Put on 0 to stop Pact of Negation)
+2 Dispel (Stop combo)
+2 Negate (Stop combo)
+1 Echoing Truth (Phyrexian Unlife)
Game 1: I mulled to five, had barely any clock, he just straight up annihilated me.
Game 2: I am an idiot. I mulled to 6, but drew 7. He got to look at my hand and take something. He took my dispel, and he knew I had an Echoing Truth to get his Phyrexian Unlife. I flooded and he killed me with Angel’s Grace and Ad Naus.
Round 11 vs Andrew on Elves (Lost 0-2, 7-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: This is real bad for us. They can just go off, our small disruption rarely actually stops them unless their deck kinda fails. Look for a chance to dismember an Ezuri when they don’t have mana up. Otherwise, try to race them.
Sideboard Plan: This is probably horribly wrong, but I just want to make my clock easy to cast while having whatever disruption I can.
4x Master of Waves (Slow)
2x Merrow Reejerey (Slow)
2x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (They aren’t killing you)
3x Chalice of the Void (Put it on 1 and pray)
2x Dispel (Stops Coco/Chord)
1x Echoing Truth (Hope they have a lot of the same elf)
2x Tidebinder Mage (Tap an early mana dork and pray, or an Archdruid later on)
Game 1: I had a decent clock but he ended up going off when I had him down to 5 and killed me with multiple lord effects.
Game 2: Turn 2 2x Nettle and a Heritage into dumping 10+ elves and killing me with multiple Shaman of the Packs. Ugh.
Round 12 vs Mitchell on Esper Control (Won 2-1, 8-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Not gonna lie, I was happy to see Islands as I was not happy with starting Day Two 0-2 and falling out of money contention. This is similar to UWR Control, but they have more stuff that can kill Master of Waves, which is real bad for us. Mitchell was also running at least one Slaughter Pact, which can cause insane blowouts.
Sideboard Plan:
+2 Negate (Everything they do)
+2 Dispel (Hits all their removal)
+2 Relic of Progenitus (Snapcasters)
-2 Harbinger of the Tides
-2 Merrow Reejerey
-2 Gut Shot
Game 1: This felt much like just playing against UWR Control, where I ended up with too many guys for him to remove and ran him over. I knew post-board it would be tougher and was glad to win Game 1.
Game 2: He hit a lot of removal here and had some clutch Timely Reinforcements. On the turn I went for the win, he hit me with a Slaughter Pact out of nowhere and blew me out.
Game 3: Another game where I felt I was run almost out of resources. Thankfully on my lethal turn, I had a dispel for his doom blade and a cursecatcher to counter his path on my Master of Waves.
Round 13 vs Joey on UW Eldrazi (Won 2-1, 9-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: See Round 9, but we need to be careful of Displacers nullifying attacking creatures.
Sideboard Plan: See Round 9.
Game 1: I was able to win the die roll, which seems more important here than anything else than maybe infect. This allowed me to turn 1 Aether Vial, then spreading seas his turn 1 Eldrazi Temple. I followed this up with 4 Lords and 2 Master of Waves, where he scooped as soon as I played the 2nd Master of Waves.
Game 2: This was my only loss to Eldrazi the whole tournament, and I mulled to 6. I didn’t have enough pressure and he outraced me.
Game 3: Clock and tempo is the name of the game here. I established an early board, then echoing truthed two of his Skyspawners to swing with enough for the win.
Round 14 vs Kevin on UW Eldrazi (Won 2-1, 10-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: See above.
Sideboard Plan: See above.
Game 1/2: I was pretty braindead at this point and my notes are sloppy, but from my notes, we both just raced each other with no mulligans and I was able to solidly win the race both times. If I recall correctly, Master of Waves was the blowout both times.
Round 15 vs Joseph on Jund (Won 2-1, 11-4 Overall)
Matchup Rundown: Of course my longest and grindiest match is my last Round, where we went to time. See Round 4 for Rundown.
Sideboard Plan: See Round 4
Game 1: He mulled to 6, and I feel in this matchup any mull is bad, as you are almost trading one-for-one resources. He got a goyf out backed up by some removal, but I was able to get in quickly before he found any 2-for-1s or Bobs to regain card advantage.
Game 2: I never found a Spreading Seas and he was able to remove/block enough of my guys to get ahead and finish me off.
Game 3: We had insane, enormous boards, and I didn’t have spreading seas. I’m talking like he had 4-5 creatures, including two finks he got full value from and a hand full of removal spells, I had 4-5 fish, around 6 or 7 Master of Waves tokens, and most importantly, a Kira. I was able to win off the back of having runner runner Negates, which I used to counter his Damnation, then countered his second spell he tried to use to kill Kira. After that, we continue with the board stall until Turn 0 of Turns, where I found a Lord that would allow my guys to get big enough to swing for just barely lethal.
Wrap-up
I finished in 126th place (out of 2555) with my 11-4 record and I was very pleased with my overall performance and the deck. The only card I am iffy on is Gut Shot in the main. It was either amazing or did nothing, and I personally don’t love that type of card. I might go back up to 3x Reej and 3x Harbinger, just for consistency.
As far as how Merfolk sits in the meta, I feel like we are in a decent spot right now, even though every match is tough, and there are a million Paths and Dismembers out there to kill our Master of Waves. Control is a good matchup if played correctly, and we are okay against Eldrazi if they don’t hit the nuts.
Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions please let me know!
In your tron example, the only thing UWill really hits extra is wurmcoil, which we can normally swing through and outrace. While I can think of other creatures in other matchups that I want to counter, I would vastly prefer the reliability of negate.
4 Harbinger of the Tides
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
3 Master of Waves
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Dismember
2 Spell Pierce
4 Spreading Seas
4 AEther Vial
9 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
3 Wanderwine Hub
2 Hibernation
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Negate
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Tectonic Edge
Round 1 vs Henry on Merfolk (Won 2-0, 1-0 Overall)
Not a huge fan of starting out with the mirror match because of how unpredictable it can be. Unfortunately for my opponent, he was new to the deck, and was not aware his Lord of Atlantis buffed my guys also. I took Game 1 easily off the backs of multiple Reejerays spitting out a lot of merfolk, and getting buffed by reejs + his Lord of Atlantis. Game 2 was much closer, but unfortunately for Henry, I drew Master of the Pearl Trident and he again had Lord of Atlantis. This one was actually super close, where if he had another lord (or if my MotPT was a LoA) he would have taken the game.
I don’t sideboard anything, but if you have extra fish in your board, bring in as many bodies as possible. I don't really mind having spreading seas to turn off opposing mutavaults or to enable islandwalk if they are being crafty and not playing islands. It is not ideal though, I will admit.
Round 2 vs Heath on Lantern Control (Won 2-0, 2-0 Overall)
This deck can be challenging for us, especially pre-board, unless we have a spell pierce for their bridge. If they land a bridge it’s just time to pack it up and go to game 2. However, Game 1 was very odd, where I had a single mutavault and 2 vials all game, but was able to slowly get there, as he was stuck on 2 mana as well. He misplayed big by playing pithing needle and naming mutavault instead of aether vial. If he did that it would likely have been an easy win for him. I count myself very lucky to steal a pre-board game from lantern.
However, post-board I think we’re very favored.
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (put it on 1 and they can’t play a large part of their deck)
3x Hurkyl's Recall (for bridges we can’t get with counter magic)
2x Negate (for bridges)
2x Relic of Progenitus (to prevent recursion of bridges (or other annoying things) with academy ruins)
Out:
1x Kira
3x Master of Waves (too slow)
2x Dismember
4x Spreading Seas
In Game 2 I had both pierce and recall in hand and just always kept pierce mana open as I played out fish. He never found a bridge but even if he did, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Round 3 vs Tony on RG Tron (Won 2-0, 3-0 Overall)
This game was pretty crazy, mainly for my winning play. I kept a fairly normal hand, but didnt have double lord and got blown out by a pyroclasm on turn 3. I did not have any spreading seas, and just played out dudes while he tried to find a threat. I was able to rebuild my board to the point where I had a Master of Waves, two Lords and a Cursecatcher out. I have a Dismember in hand. His last card is a Newalmog from his Eye of Ugin. He casts it, killing a lord and the Master, leaving just a Lord and a Cursecatcher. I draw for turn and am super disappointed. It’s my second Dismember. But wait! Can I? Holy *****, I can! I double dismember Ulamog, kill it, and swing for the last 4 points of life my opponent has. I was trying so hard not to lose my ***** while sideboarding, but I went and told everyone I even barely know after. I still cannot believe I won by double dismembering a freaking Ulamog, what an insane line.
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (Putting this on 1 stops 16 cards of theirs)
2x Negate (Stops Ugin/Karn/board wipes)
3x Tectonic Edge (Obviously)
Out:
2x Dismember (I understand the irony, but they do almost nothing)
4x Harbinger of the Tides (I used to keep these in to bounce wurmcoils, but I don't seem to be facing many wurmcoils recently, so these guys tend to just be bears. I also don't really relish the idea of bouncing Newlamog)
1x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (No targeted removal, no fliers need blocking)
Game 2:
This was a super grindy game, where I kept spreading seasing his lands and he kept finding replacements. I fought through two o-stones by playing out just enough to force him to blow them (adepts are MVPs here), and was able to eventually run him out of ways to fetch more lands, while he had a Newalmog stuck in hand with only 6 mana on the field.
Round 4 vs Jeffrey on Jund (Lost 1-2, 3-1 Overall)
Game 1:
One of those games where spreading seas is a free win, he keeps two lands, I spreading seas one, he is left with a basic of some sort, I just run him over.
In:
2x Relic of Progenitus (Mainly for tarmos and scoozes but can also prevent delving for tasigur early on)
2x Tectonic Edge (I really like bringing in 2 tec edges against 3 color decks. Could just be wrong, but I’ve found it can really disrupt them when combined with spreading seas.
Out:
4x AEther Vial (Kolaghan’s Command)
Game 2:
This dude had lifegain coming out of every card. It was crazy. Turn 3 kitchen finks, turn 4 huntmaster. Huntmaster can be a real house against us if we don’t have double lords, which we often don’t against Jund and all their removal, as it is easy to flip huntmaster back and forth. Regardless, I made a huge misplay and tried to end the game quickly by tapping out for a Master of Waves on my turn 4, because I wanted to quickly break the board stall, even though I had a spell pierce in hand. Turn 5 he plays Damnation and wipes everything but his Kitchen Finks. I can’t rebuild fast enough before his creatures take over the game and finish me. If I had just played out another fish, I still would have had a good board state, even if it was stalled, and I could have waited one turn to play Master of Waves with pierce backup.
Game 3:
Finks and huntmaster again, combined with heavy single target removal and discard and my mulligan to 6 keeps his hp up and my guys dead. Huntmaster flips multiple times. Unfortunate.
Round 5 vs Floyd on Affinity (Lost 0-2, 3-2 Overall)
Both games played out very similarly. He got 1-2 Vault Skirges out and pumped them to the point where I couldn’t race. In game 1 I got blown out by a spell pierce when I tried to dismember his skirge. The worst part? He didn’t have an opal or drum, he used an inkmoth I had turned into an island with spreading seas. Ugh. Be careful of the new trend of running 1 mana counterspells in affinity.
For the record, I SB like this:
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (on 0 usually - I often take these back out if I am on the draw, but I think it could be right to leave them in to prevent more 0 drops even if they drop a ton on turn 1. Not sure tbh.)
3x Hurkyl's Recall
Out: We tend to be one turn too slow against affinity, so I want to reduce my curve as much as possible
3x Master of Waves
3x Merrow Reejerey
Round 6 vs Michael on Infect (Won 2-1, 4-2 Overall)
I really dislike the infect matchup for us, especially mainboard. Harbingers, dismembers, Cursecatchers and spell pierces are the most important things for us to have, and the last two can be essentially cancelled out if they have a bunch of Heirarchs. We face the challenge of putting on a fast clock and still disrupting almost everything they do. In Game 1 I got lucky and he did not get a Blighted Agent or Inkmoth, so I was able to block. I slowly beat him down while keeping up spell pierce, which did end up blowing him out one turn. Whew.
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (set on 1)
2x Negate
2x Relic of Progenitus (prevents Become Immense)
Out: Everything slow
3x Master of Waves
4x Meerow Reejeray
Note: I leave in Kira to block Inkmoths.
Game 2 I thought I had it locked up with a harbinger, but he had a turn 2 Blighted Agent and the apostle’s blessing for my flashed in harbinger when he swung for the kill.
Game 3 he mulled to 6, tanked for a while and kept his 6. His only land was a Dryad Arbor, and when he tapped it for mana on his turn 2, I bounced it on my turn 3 with my harbinger. He quickly conceded after that.
Round 7 vs Anthony on U/R Twin (Won 2-0, 5-2 Overall)
I was so freaking happy to finally see a player playing Islands, as I hadn’t really seen them since Round 1 in the mirror. Both of these games played out exactly the same. I played fish 1 turn behind curve, keeping a spell pierce open. In both games I just beat him down and he couldn’t really do anything. In Game 2 I spell pierced an Anger that would have board wiped me, and won on the turn after.
In:
3x Chalice of the Void (This is kind of an experiment, but it stops Spell Snare, Dispel (protects twin from our counters), Bolt (kills our clock), and Serum Visions (sets up their combo)
2x Negate (Obvious reasons)
2x Relic of Progenitus (They play snaps)
Round 8 vs Bob on Jund (Lost 1-2, 5-3 Overall)
Easily one of the most intense matches I’ve ever played in modern. Every game was a grindy slog, and we finished game 3 with ~2 minutes left on the clock. I won Game 1 thanks to a clutch Master of Waves that I top decked to clogging the board when he had a bunch of dudes out, any of which would be lethal. I was helped out enormously from his own Bob flipping a Tasigur - I don’t think I would have taken Game 1 without that 6 damage.
In:
2x Relic of Progenitus (Tarmos/scoozes/delve dudes)
2x Tectonic Edge (Color screw)
Out:
4x AEther Vial (Kolaghan’s Command)
Games 2/3
Similarly to the previous Jund player, he had lots of life gain in the board. I do not like this trend. In Game 2 he just had all of the answers and 1-for-1ed me while healing a bunch from finks. Game 3 was interesting because I drew then played 4 reejerays in a row. He killed the first 2, but then I got the last 2 to stick, and used the reej combo to empty my hand (lord, silvergill, harbinger). So I had ~20 power on board, but he had multiple blockers and I had no spreading seas. I drew and played a spreading seas and had to decide if I should go for it. He had one card in hand and had just gotten runner runner runner removal. I went for it, he killed my islandwalk lord, blocked two of my guys, and I knocked him down to 2 hp. He killed me on the crackback. Rough go, but he agreed that was the right play. What I took from this game is that when it looks like I have a game locked up, but have reejs on the field and only one source of islandwalk (either from a lord or a seas), I should keep a fish in my hand to use reej tap down triggers on the turn I want to kill him. If I hadn’t played out even just one of my guys, I could have tapped down his blockers and guaranteed my win.
Round 9 vs Dalton on UW Tron Gifts (Won 2-1, 6-3 Overall)
This matchup really just comes down to if they can Rites an Elesh Norn early on. Not much to write home about this one, in Game 1 I just beat him down before he could do anything, in Game 2 he had the Gifts/Rites combo when I only had 1 Lord on the field, and in Game 3 I outraced that combo.
In:
2x Negate (Obvious reasons)
2x Relic of Progenitus (Counters gifts, they play snaps)
3x Tectonic Edge (Tron lands/Colonnades)
Out:
2x Dismember (Not gonna do anything)
4x Harbinger of the Tides (No creatures we want to bounce. Maybe Iona? Still think this is right)
1x Kira (Not enough single target removal to worry, a bit slow)
I was fairly pleased with the deck’s performance, though the misplay against Jund in Round 4 where I could have countered the Damnation smarts a little bit. Also, if this was any other SCG event, or any GP from now on, I would have been able to make Day 2 with a 6-3 record. Ah well, I still finished in 118th place out of almost 1100 players, I only had one 0-2 loss and a bunch of 2-0 wins, and I’ll happy with those stats. Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions please let me know!
TL;DR: Beat Fish, Lantern, RG Tron, UW Tron, Infect & U/R Twin. Lost to Jund x2 & Affinity.
Absolutely agree, but I wouldn't run less than the 3 that I do right now in the board. Hell, I've been thinking about going up to 4. When you want them, you REALLY want them.
I would not run a single chalice. I would go with negate or dispel.
Wait, why would anyone play this guy in fish? Am I missing something? Looting is fine but we have few spells to flash back. Seems not good.