Friday –
Earlier in the week I had promised the wife
that I would pick us up some homemade Italian pasta at some point. Luckily for
me as Friday rolled around I remembered to swing past Fabio’s Trattoria to pick
some up. As usual I was not disappointed – One tupperware of Fettucine with
black pepper and a tub of freshly made pasta sauce with cheese, tomato and
basil. I have no idea what the sauce is called but it is the most tasty and
delicious thing ever. Thank you Italy!
Saturday-
I desperately wanted to play something new and/or
different. I had been on a DNT and RUG kick for the last several months and
hadn’t played much of anything else. After poring over lists on – The Source,
TC Decks and Happy MTG, I couldn’t find anything to get my creative juices
flowing. Ultimately, this is why I usually end up playing RUG or DNT. That and
I have them pre-built, pre-sleeved and mostly miscut/misprint and foreign. I
then decided that I wanted to play a deck with 4 TNN. This then quickly
deteriorated into a quick brainstorming session of how I could play with as
many TNN’ as possible.
I also briefly thought about sleeving up
something starting with the following:
X4 Phantasmal Image
X4 Stoneforge Mystic
X4 True-Name Nemesis
As much as I (still) love the idea I think
this deck idea needs a little more work. Hopefully this is something that we
can revisit at some point in the future.
To date I have only played decks utilizing
a maximum of 3 TNN so I had to open one of my sealed mindsezies. After holding
my breath in the hope that the whole thing was miscut - it wasn’t - I quickly
found the TNN and started to sleeve up the mer-men.
It has been a while since I have brought
trident’s to battle in legacy.
The list:
Creatures (30)
- 3 Cosi's Trickster
- 1 Tidal Warrior
- 4 Cursecatcher
- 4 Lord of Atlantis
- 4 Master of the Pearl Trident
- 4 Phantasmal Image
- 4 Silvergill Adept
- 4 True-Name Nemesis
- 1 Sygg, River Cutthroat
- 1 Merrow Reejery
Lands (20)
- 12 Island
- 4 Cavern of Souls
- 4 Mutavault
Spells (10)
- 4 Daze
- 4 Force of Will
- 2 Spell Pierce
Sideboard (15)
- 1 Grafdigger's Cage
- 1 Pithing Needle
- 3 Relic of Progenitus
- 1 Divert
- 4 Swan Song
- 1 Flusterstorm
- 2 Umezawa's Jitte
- 1 Manriki-Gusari
- 1 Reality Ripple
The
Cards (you see):
Island / Cavern of Soul’s
This combination is a very good reason to
be playing Merfolk right now. The “combo” of not being vulnerable to wasteland
and having uncountable threats is particularly powerful when the current most
popular deck is UWR and a large part of their game plan is Wateland + Daze.
Tip: Slow roll-your cavern of souls to play
around your opponents wastelands. This is worth doing even if you open up some
of your merfolk get countered but then you land TNN.
Mutavault
Mutavault adds a lot of offensive power to
your board and gives you some more play against control decks which can be
rough matchups. It also provides even more offensive power in a race situation.
True-name Nemesis
You get to play all 4 TNN and if you have a
cavern they are uncounterable.
Phantasmal Image
Sorry did I say 4 TNN? Image does
everything and is the best creature in almost every situation – v. Combo and
light on disruption, take another cursecatcher, need to draw cards? Become another
silvergill adept, need to race your opponent have some more lords.
Cosi’s Trickster
This guy is quite tricky… He comes down as
an innocuous one drop that nobody wants to counter or kill but almost every
single deck in the format will help you out by putting at least 1 counter on
him. After that he is just a lord away from being a one blue mana wild nacatal.
He really shines against the combo decks (though he is no cursecatcher) as he
add a lot of offensive power to your board very quickly while they are busy
fetching and playing cantrips to find their combo.
Tidal Warrior
One blue mana. Check. Power and Toughness.
Check. Ok so this guy looks bad on paper…he probably is bad but he lets you
make some really funny/cute plays.
Imagine the following opener:
Cavern of Souls, Mutavault, Tidal Warrior,
Lord of Atlantis, Daze, Merrow Reejery, Spell Pierce
Turn 1: Cavern, Tidal Warrior
Turn 2: (Draw Master of the Pearl Trident)
Mutavault, turn Mutavault into an island with Tidal Warrior then cast a Lord of
Atlantis.
Sygg the River Cutthroat
The last time I played merfolk I was trying
to cast turn 1 Island - Aether Vial, Turn 2 Mutavault – Standstill. This was
merfolks draw engine other than silvergill adept as well as additional
insurance versus combo. I am sans standstill primarily because of a lack of vial
and secondarily because as legacy has developed it has gotten worse as a card
(more people know how to play around standstill nowadays).
Fish
All the other fish from the sea (LoA + Master,
Curse, Silvergill, etc)
Spell Pierce
I don’t like to lose to combo and sometimes
you just need to protect your fish from Lightning bolt, swords to plowshares,
et al.
The
Cards (you don’t see):
Aether Vial
Turn 1 Island, Aether Vial. There are not
many better starts than that, right? So why did I refrain from casting any
vials? Vial may be the absolute worst card to draw after turn 3. Oh yeah and
guess what, I am already running a quasi aether vial in the deck (cavern of
souls). Cavern of Souls doesn’t take a spell slot and cannot be stifled. Sure
it means I don’t get to make sweet instant speed plays like flashing in lords
to protect my guys, etc. However, it lets me play more fish! FISH! FISH! FISH!
Wasteland
While building the deck I realised I was
going to hit a land constraint. I used to play merfolk a lot and I know that at
a minimum I need to have 12 Island’s in order to cast my spells and in order to
play Daze. The next 4 lands were going to be cavern of souls. This would give
us an even more robust manabase with which to cast our turn two UU spells. As
for the last slot. Do we go mutavault or wasteland? Ulitmately, I decided that
the offensive power of Mutavault would allow me to get some more play against
control decks which I deem as bad matchups. In addition, there are a few
matchups where you have to just race your opponent and nothing helps to race
your opponentbetter than “free” creatures. It also makes your lords marginally stronger
and gives you some more play around edict effects which are important when you
are playing TNN.
Merrow Reejery (2, 3 & 4)
Oh yeah so TNN is a card and it is 100%
wrong to play less than 4 TNN. This means that the 3 slot is quite packed so
some Reejery’s have to get the axe.
Sideboard:
Swan Song
I played the full 4 of these because it is
super powerful and I wanted to see just how good this card is (so I wanted to
draw it). You probably never bring this in against anyone that isn’t running
Islands so you don’t really care about the “drawback.”
Divert
This is a way to - deal with opposing TNN’s,
protect your lords, “countering” abrupt decay, making players hymn or
thoughtseize themselves, and being an additional spell pierce in a counter war.
R1
– Reanimator (Budget build base black)
Game 1 – I play a turn one trickster and I
have a daze in hand to deal with anyone trying to do any shenanigans on turn 1.
I then play Silvergill adept into Curse Catcher, into a lord to put him on a
very quick clock with just enough disruption.
Side In: +2 Relic of Progenitus, +1
Grafdiggers Cage.
Side Out: -2 True-Name Nemesis, -1 Tidal Warrior
Game 2 – Daze’s just stop him dead in his
tracks. From there the little fish beat down.
R2
- RUG
Game 1 – He plays turn 1 delver, I play
turn 1 Cosi’s Trickster. He doesn’t flip delver. He plays a Ponder and he
shuffles J (trigger Trickster). Then I just play a cavern of souls and jam
merfolk every turn until he is dead. He tried to race with Delver but Island
walk is really good and mutavault gave me an extra attacker.
Game 2 – He leads off with a ponder and I
just start jamming mer-men until he is dead. He has goyf but I play a TNN and
just keep attacking.
R3
– BUG
Game 1 – I curve out and just overpower him with Island walkers.
Game 2 – Mis-sequence my plays to protect
Cavern from Wasteland but it puts me really behind on board when he plays a
golgari charm. I should have just started laying lords down but I was playing
around daze as well. Sometimes you need to just play your game and not worry
too much about what your opponent has. He had the abrupt decay and the golgari
charm so it probably doesn’t change the outcome of the game but I should have
used my mana more efficiently each turn.
Game 3 – We both slow down a bit for this game but I leverage being on the play and get TNN into play ASAP and try to play around golgari charm as much as possible.
R4
– Miracles
Game 1 – He leads with top. I lead with
Cosi’s Trickster. I play a silvergill adept and start beating down. I try not
to overcommit to the board and have a mutavault for after his first terminus. I
eventually kill him with a mutavault + TNN (he has swords in hand).
Game 2 – I refrain to counter a
counterbalance because I don’t think it is relevant (I have cavern of souls in
play but I have a swan song, fow and a blue card in hand). I end up losing when
he counters my FOW with his counterbalance (me trying to FOW his Terminus).
Game 3 – I lay a couple of threats and use
my counter magic to protect them.
In conclusion - here is why fish is quite
powerful:
Island’s + Cavern of Souls + True Name
Nemesis + Counter Magic
-Cheers-
