- Kumlekar
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Mar 4, 2014Kumlekar posted a message on Off Topic: The Fungus TribeThere actually are cross tribe synergistic cards. The problem is that the powerlevel has to be quite pushed for them to be good. They work best in limited, and fairly poorly in constructed.Posted in: Articles
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Feb 28, 2014Kumlekar posted a message on Casual Castle: Day of the Dragonso.O a magic article about 60 card with legacy card pool and awesome card interactions? I'm sold. I do wish there was a little more about the testing though.Posted in: Articles
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Mono blue Tempo - This is the legacy build. It usually starts with 4x Lord of Atlantis, 4x Master of the Pearl Trident, 4x Cursecatcher, 4x Silvergill adept. In legacy this is an Aether Vial deck to free up mana and make more use out of lands. Free counterspells provide the disruption to win against faster decks. In terms of the creatures, the main builds either stop at 2cmc and leave vial there, or add in Merrow Reejerey + True-Name Nemesis. Reejerey allows additional vial activations, and true-name is just insanely hard to deal with.
UG Aggro - This is the builds coming out of Ixalan block. I don't know a huge amount about these, but green allows for some super efficient beaters. This can probably be slightly faster than the mono blue tempo build, but losing the disruption will hurt.
Now we're getting to the slower strategies. From here on most of these decks should be including 4x Seahunter for consistency.
Millfolk - This is usually based on Drowner of Secrets and if including white, Summon the School. Merrow Commerce and Merrow reejerey provide additional activations, and there are enough bodies that Lullmage Mentor may be relevant. This is a slower casual strategy.
Wanderwine Prophets combo - Wanderwine Prophets, if made unblockable, closes out the game extremely fast. This deck would prefer to play Merfolk Sovereign over other lords for this reason. Resolving a seahunter + wanderwine prophet is usually game because the seahunter can tutor the merfolk for wanderwine to sacrifice.
Lullmage Mentor control - Lullmage Mentor is a strange card. Unlike other merfolk, it doesn't play well with tribal buffs or evasion. If you go in on this card, the deck is going to want token generation (Summon the School), and tons of control pieces. If you are running enough merfolk, Silvergill Adept and Deeproot waters will be excellent here.
Now for your deck. Without making an assumption about your overall strategy, I would say that Stormtide Leviathan and Archetype of Imagination are a waste. They aren't merfolk, and have extremely high mana costs without doing much that you couldn't do with your tribal cards.
Steambed Aquitects is also probably not worth running just because it's low impact. If you like Rootwater Matriarch, I would look into Seasinger. If I were to build a version of this I might try something like this:
2x Merfolk Soverign
4x Cursecatcher
2x Seasinger
4x Aquitect's Will
4x Deeproot Waters
4x Lullmage Mentor
3x Wanderwine Prophets
1x Rootwater Matriarch
1x Cold-Eyed Selkie
4x Counterspell
3x Mana Leak
20x Island
4x Mutavault
With this design I'm really trying to play around seahunter. Cursecatcher is a threat at instant speed off of seahunter, and a number of key cards can drop in quantity because seahunter is available. Deeproot Waters plays nicely with Lullmage mentor. I'm not sure if this is enough to get mentor online, but some testing is required. Now for my, "I wish I could play this" build for lullmage.
4x Seahunter
4x Deeproot Waters
4x Nether Void
4x Cursecatcher
4x Aethervial
3x Dakra Mystic
3x Mistcaller
4x Chalice of the Void
2x Amulet of Safekeeping
2x Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
4x Cavern of Souls
12x Island
8x Swamp
I wish I could afford Nether Void
I looked up decks playing 4x Jadelight Ranger on mtg goldfish, and the vast majority are goldari followed by sultai. I only skimmed the list, but I haven't encountered a mono-green list yet. Most are playing at least 1 Massacre Girl I assume because of the synergies with explore setting up a wipe. Here's the link if you want to dig: https://tinyurl.com/y3d4yyzd
One of these is not like the others...
Gatherer Search
1 Zombie Infestation
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
4 Blood Artist
4 Deathgreeter
8 Undying creatures
4 Lotus Petal
The rest of the slots would mostly be fast mana, discard, and card draw/tutors. Basically you land two undying creatures with yawgmoth. Sacrificing one allows you to remove the +1/+1 counter from the other effectively giving you a Yawgmoth's Bargain. From there you are hoping to find a card that has lifegain when a creature dies to stabilize. The zombie infestation, lotus petal, and kozilek are a bit "win more" but they allow you go infinite with the combo (draw a ton of cards, discard to infestation, cast and sacrifice a lotus petal, discard kozilek and do it again). This also allows you to loop any of the removal that you pack into the deck.
If you want a more traditional build, I used to love playing Birthing Pod when it was in standard. Chaining Young Wolf into Strangleroot Geist, into Geralf's Messenger is very strong against most decks. Throwing in a token generator at the top of the curve lets you restart the pod chain.
For Marchesa, Flayer of the hatebound is probably better than warstorm surge. I usually think of this as a commander deck though. Playing it in 60 card seems a bit clunky considering the cord cards are all 4cmc or higher. Maybe Energy Tapcould help with playing the top end?
Now for your design. Is there a card interaction that you are interested in? You've got a bunch of deathtouch creatures that are mostly irrelevant, and some life gain, mostly at high mana. Vampire Nighthawk is probably the best card listed here, as it plays well on both offense and defense. As a flier, 3 toughness lets it survive combat with most things.
If you want to play with lifegain and deathtouch, you might look at a deck based on the following:
Support cards could come in the form of
For your rules question, some replace the original ability while others have a triggered mana ability, and some have replacement effects. You'll have to read the card to determine which it is. Abundant growth grants a new tap ability that you may use. Because of this it's relatively useless for this purpose. Remember to apply replacement effects first, then triggers, so with Mana Reflection out, a Scorched Ruins with Fertile Ground on it taps for 8 colorless and 1 mana of any color.
Enchantments - Aura
Enchantments - Global
Nonenchantment
Also, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad might be a decent upgrade for the planeswalker slot, especially with captivating.
9 Island
10 Plains
4 Tranquil Cove
//Spells
4 Angelsong
1 Dread Return
2 Holy Day
4 Shelter
//Creatures
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Cephalid Illusionist
4 Compulsive Research
4 Hapless Researcher
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Narcomoeba
4 Nomads en-Kor
4 Omenspeaker
2 Wall of Glare