Pack rat is insane. If your opponent isn't running verdict or detention sphere. You can just go off on it. People say pack rat is bad due to verdict. I actually like it against verdict. It works well with whip by that if they verdict the rat away early, you can whip it back. Make a token and now it require another verdict or detention sphere. It also let us make use of some of our useless game 1 cards vs control such as doom blade. Against aggressive decks, it comes down early to trade/chump. Late game I use it with whip+underworld connection to gain lots of life while making tons of big creatures creatures.
I don't like it as a 4-of but a 1-of or 2-of is the perfect number.
As for splash, if people are having trouble against uw/x sphinx control decks, I suggest people play a small blue splash. It has a huge upside. I already play 4 u/b scry lands and add another 4 watery graves. Now I get to play 3 notion thief in the sideboard as well as upgrade devour flash to far/away.
I boughta playset of master last night on mtgo and made liek 30+ tix on the profit. Only could find 1 thassa at 8 last night so had to pick 3 of them at 15 each today. kinda sad.
Ill be honest in proxied standard decks that I been testing. Ember beast is pretty good. Main reason is the 5 toughness. Survives all red based removal.
Master of Waves is obviously not needed in merfolks, but I think Thassa could be interesting - first of all, it's not easy to kill, it only takes two lords to make her 5/5 indestructible creature, but what I love is the Scry 1 every turn. I think that the biggest problem this deck has against all the midrange/attrition decks (jund, junk, bg, bug and even some controls) is that when they are able to kill our first wave of creatures, they can keep up with us for the rest of the game, because we have a lot of dead draws: counterspells, Spreading Seas (i know you draw another card), Vials and lands. That is why I personaly like to have 26-27 creatures (they are basically the only things you want late).
Now with Thessa in play - you can take all those dead draws and put it on the bottom which is why I think it might be a good sideboard card (basically against midrange and control decks)
What do you think?
That is why I actually took out spreading seas and counterspells maindeck cause I realized most of the time I use counterspell against removal to protect my lords so I might as well have another lord such that if they don't have removal I kill them faster.
My deck is basically 32 creatures, 4 vapor snags, and 4 aether vials. Lots of consistency.
As for thessa, I actually don't like it a lot. I might removal a vapor snag to put 1 in. So for merfolk, if a deck can't remove our lords, then we win anyways. If a deck is good at removing lords, then thessa won't be active so its kinda useless. A 3 mana scry 1 isn't very relevant. The indestructible part also isn't very relevant in modern with liliana and path being so popular.
after about 2 months of relative success in local tours,i made some slight changes in my original list, i increased slightly the cost of my counterspells and included Spreading Seas and the result was 3/3 in 6 rounds (usually i go 5/1)
oh,forgot to mention that i was unlucky in plenty of the games i played,only 2 times i opened with Aether Vial in 6 rounds! also i mulled to 5 3 times,so i'm not cetain that my changes were wrong
so in this occasion a player of some reknown in my area saw my list and said that he believes that i don't have enough merfolks in my deck,(i had 24 not counting Mutavault)
so what's your opinion is 24 a good number or do i need more?
also what do you think abour Kira, Great Glass-Spinner is her protection relevant or shes comes into play after your lords have been fried? is she worth a couple of spots MB?
24 is pretty standard so it should be fine. I tried kira is fine what I dont like is you cant use with vial as a counterspell. I also hqve limited board space so I use spellskites.
How do you find the tidebenders? I have Dismember in the board for problem creatures, it works pretty well, but I've been considering trying out tidebender as well.
I also used to run 4x tidebinder. They are alright but not great. Their best use is against kibler g/w deck due to low number of removal. Against most other decks, you generally pair them with spellskites to protect them. After a while I realized they just aren't as good as threads.
Decks you want tidebinders against:
g/w vial(best place)
burn(if its the more creature heavy version with keldon marauders and grim lavamancer)
g/b and jund(quite meh in this matchup deals with gofy and ooze) but very weak to removal thus you need spellskite as well and diluting your deck.
Out of the 3 decks, the most popular by a large margin is g/b and jund. I actually haven't seen burn or g/w vial for a while in modern dailies.
Threads of disloyalty on the other hand just completely crush the two really popular decks atm: jund and g/b. All their good creatures are two drops(confidant, gofy, and ooze). I stolen 8/8 ooze many times as well as forced them to liliana their own confidant. They generally can't come back if you draw 2 threads.
I tried to run dismember then I realize they just aren't worth it.
Problematic creatures against merfolk are:
Dark confidant(generally in g/b/x decks and lets them draw more removal than our lord count)
Grim lavamancer
I already run 4x spellskites for lavamancer in sb which are also really good against so many other decks.
Dark confidant gets owned by threads. Stealing one then drawing feels so satisfying.
I 100% agree. The current direction I feel Merfolk needs to go in is what Phagocytosis mentioned above me - aggo.
Phagocytosis seems dead set on winning round 1 as fast as possible via tapping lords. I plan going in this direction, because we do two things well - pump and draw. Tempo seems to just get in the way in an aggro approach, but I wont discount it because it might be needed win round 2 and/or 3 via SB.
Leaving the remaining issue - SB. Mana splashes boost SB options, but hamper constancy and speed; thus, most of us are sticking to blue now leaving us with a limited SB. Here are some of my thoughts on an overlapping SB for merfolk. :/
This is exactly what I was talking about a few pages back. Snag is doing everything I want remand to do only better and cheaper.
I had spell pierce main but I cut it recently for relics.
In terms of match ups. I found that Tron is totally fine and mono u Tron is a cakewalk. I however run 4 tec edges like a baus.
Affinity is a major issue for me. It feels completely unwinnable. I've only beaten affinity when they have totally awful draws. I'm sure Hurkyll's recall would help. I only have steel sabotage which is fine but not enough. It is good however vs Tron as well.
I feel like affinity matchup is even and in our favor afterboard. I honest never lost to affinity unless they go cranial on inkmoth or T2 overseer on the play.
My affinity record in torny as been like 6-1 atm. Mainly cause I run 4 recall sideboard. I guess with 4 tec edge main tron gets better I run 0 since I want my double blue on turn 2. Recall is much better than sabotage because recall deals with the only other draw i tend to lose to which is turn 2 oversteel with them on the play. I actually completely abandon'd my tron matchup by removing spreading sea and steel sabotage altogether from my list.
Also I feel like merfolk is modern is a lot different from merfolk in legacy. In legacy, the free counterspells lets merfolk play a tempo game. In modern, unless I open Vial, I rarely have mana to spend on counterspells. I started my list with 4 remand and 4 pierce and ended up dropping all of them(pierce did go to sideboard for the u/w/r and 4 color jund matchup). I rather play another lord or activate mutavault or pump my coralhelm than hold mana to counter. My list litterally is me trying to rush out 4 creature(all lords) then kill them on turn 4.
I have a question about sideboarding, and what you end up bringing in and taking out against the top decks, so Esper, Bant, UWR Midrange, Jund, Junk, Naya, R/x Aggro etc. I'm asking for a friend who has the deck built but struggles with sideboarding and I'm not familiar with R/x so I dont' know.
So lets say the deck is this list (pretty close to what they play I think):
Can someone tell me a good way to sideboard? I think instead of Domri Rade they have Traitorous Instinct. And I'm actually more interested in what to take out vs what to put back in because it's kind of obvious what matchups the sideboard cards are good against.
against esper:
-3 ghor-clan rampager, -1 pillar, -1 reckoner
these spells are really bad. They have u/w charm, devour flesh and much more to deal with rampager's bloodrush. You aren't dueling any creature so reckoner is meh at best. Pillar is a bad shock and you only want 3 damage burn spells.
against naya blitz:
-4 rakdos cackler, -1 rampager
We are the control deck in this matchup. We have to remove all their creatures then finish with random 4 drop or reckoner. Trading 1 for 1 is fine. Their deck is only strong if they keep their threat on board for multiple turns(captain or exp. one) or gets critical mass(multiple creatures to trigger battalion). Trying to be an aggro deck just doesn't work since Nearheath Pilgrim is such a beating in a race.
red mirror-ish decks:
On the draw: board into control deck(-cackler and some rampagers, + burns)
On the play: board into aggro deck(depending on their removal suits, but I generally remove some hellrider since they are a bit slow and gets killed by searing spear.)
junk reanimation:
-1 pillar, - 2 burn spells(for me, I like to take out plunder since searing can be cast off BTE).
+3 skullcrack
Dont board in cage. Half the time they are just hardcasting their threats with so many mana elves. Cage is really only good against the combo reanimation.
These are just my opinion. Been testing a lot online. My decklist is very similar to yours except I took out the pillar and added in an extra rampager while replacing a mountain with a temple garden.
I realize every good card in this format is basically 4 mana or more(restoration angel, thragtusk, huntmaster, olivia, jace, surpreme verdict, aristocrat). Everything else can be removed via pillar or searing spear.
I don't like it as a 4-of but a 1-of or 2-of is the perfect number.
As for splash, if people are having trouble against uw/x sphinx control decks, I suggest people play a small blue splash. It has a huge upside. I already play 4 u/b scry lands and add another 4 watery graves. Now I get to play 3 notion thief in the sideboard as well as upgrade devour flash to far/away.
That is why I actually took out spreading seas and counterspells maindeck cause I realized most of the time I use counterspell against removal to protect my lords so I might as well have another lord such that if they don't have removal I kill them faster.
My deck is basically 32 creatures, 4 vapor snags, and 4 aether vials. Lots of consistency.
As for thessa, I actually don't like it a lot. I might removal a vapor snag to put 1 in. So for merfolk, if a deck can't remove our lords, then we win anyways. If a deck is good at removing lords, then thessa won't be active so its kinda useless. A 3 mana scry 1 isn't very relevant. The indestructible part also isn't very relevant in modern with liliana and path being so popular.
As for t
This deck contains a lot of 2 drops already. Adding boomerrang does make much sense
24 is pretty standard so it should be fine. I tried kira is fine what I dont like is you cant use with vial as a counterspell. I also hqve limited board space so I use spellskites.
I also used to run 4x tidebinder. They are alright but not great. Their best use is against kibler g/w deck due to low number of removal. Against most other decks, you generally pair them with spellskites to protect them. After a while I realized they just aren't as good as threads.
Decks you want tidebinders against:
g/w vial(best place)
burn(if its the more creature heavy version with keldon marauders and grim lavamancer)
g/b and jund(quite meh in this matchup deals with gofy and ooze) but very weak to removal thus you need spellskite as well and diluting your deck.
Out of the 3 decks, the most popular by a large margin is g/b and jund. I actually haven't seen burn or g/w vial for a while in modern dailies.
Threads of disloyalty on the other hand just completely crush the two really popular decks atm: jund and g/b. All their good creatures are two drops(confidant, gofy, and ooze). I stolen 8/8 ooze many times as well as forced them to liliana their own confidant. They generally can't come back if you draw 2 threads.
I tried to run dismember then I realize they just aren't worth it.
Problematic creatures against merfolk are:
Dark confidant(generally in g/b/x decks and lets them draw more removal than our lord count)
Grim lavamancer
I already run 4x spellskites for lavamancer in sb which are also really good against so many other decks.
Dark confidant gets owned by threads. Stealing one then drawing feels so satisfying.
My sideboard atm is 4 recall 4 threads 3 pierce and 4 spellskite
Im thinking about cutting pierce for torpor orbs to crush the pod matchup.
My sideboard idea is that every card in it if you cast it should put you really far ahead or just win you the game.
I feel like affinity matchup is even and in our favor afterboard. I honest never lost to affinity unless they go cranial on inkmoth or T2 overseer on the play.
My affinity record in torny as been like 6-1 atm. Mainly cause I run 4 recall sideboard. I guess with 4 tec edge main tron gets better I run 0 since I want my double blue on turn 2. Recall is much better than sabotage because recall deals with the only other draw i tend to lose to which is turn 2 oversteel with them on the play. I actually completely abandon'd my tron matchup by removing spreading sea and steel sabotage altogether from my list.
Also I feel like merfolk is modern is a lot different from merfolk in legacy. In legacy, the free counterspells lets merfolk play a tempo game. In modern, unless I open Vial, I rarely have mana to spend on counterspells. I started my list with 4 remand and 4 pierce and ended up dropping all of them(pierce did go to sideboard for the u/w/r and 4 color jund matchup). I rather play another lord or activate mutavault or pump my coralhelm than hold mana to counter. My list litterally is me trying to rush out 4 creature(all lords) then kill them on turn 4.
uwr is horrid. lightning bolts. path, electroyze then snapcaster them back. Maindeck spell snare also hurt a lot if you dont run cavern.
Tron is also really bad.
G/R tron-you want to play around pyroclasm but if you do play around pyroclasm. You give them time to setup oblivion stone.
U tron is also bad if its the varient with ratchet bomb. I been locked out of games by ratchet+academy.
against esper:
-3 ghor-clan rampager, -1 pillar, -1 reckoner
these spells are really bad. They have u/w charm, devour flesh and much more to deal with rampager's bloodrush. You aren't dueling any creature so reckoner is meh at best. Pillar is a bad shock and you only want 3 damage burn spells.
against naya blitz:
-4 rakdos cackler, -1 rampager
We are the control deck in this matchup. We have to remove all their creatures then finish with random 4 drop or reckoner. Trading 1 for 1 is fine. Their deck is only strong if they keep their threat on board for multiple turns(captain or exp. one) or gets critical mass(multiple creatures to trigger battalion). Trying to be an aggro deck just doesn't work since Nearheath Pilgrim is such a beating in a race.
red mirror-ish decks:
On the draw: board into control deck(-cackler and some rampagers, + burns)
On the play: board into aggro deck(depending on their removal suits, but I generally remove some hellrider since they are a bit slow and gets killed by searing spear.)
junk reanimation:
-1 pillar, - 2 burn spells(for me, I like to take out plunder since searing can be cast off BTE).
+3 skullcrack
Dont board in cage. Half the time they are just hardcasting their threats with so many mana elves. Cage is really only good against the combo reanimation.
These are just my opinion. Been testing a lot online. My decklist is very similar to yours except I took out the pillar and added in an extra rampager while replacing a mountain with a temple garden.
basically rdw but with bigger creatures and mana sink generally running 4 thundermaw hellkite and 4 stonewright.
I realize every good card in this format is basically 4 mana or more(restoration angel, thragtusk, huntmaster, olivia, jace, surpreme verdict, aristocrat). Everything else can be removed via pillar or searing spear.