Under the Sea (Legacy Merfolk Deck 02/15/14)

I decided to stick with Merfolk again this week and take it for another spin.

I updated the list a little by cutting Sygg, the River Cutthroat for a second Merrow Reejery. Sygg, the River Cutthroat was pretty good in every game that I played him but I figured that the extra damage provided by a lord would be almost as good as the extra couple of cards.  I also trimmed a Cosi's trickster to add an extra land to the deck. The decision was between Wasteland and Mishra's Factory. I decided I would get more free wins off of Wasteland so I went with that.

Current List:

Creatures (30)

 

• 2 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


• 2 Merrow Reejery

 Lands (21)

• 12 Island


• 4 Cavern of Souls


• 4 Mutavault


• 1 Wasteland

Spells (10)

• 4 Daze


• 4 Force of Will


• 2 Spell Pierce

Sideboard (15)

• 1 Grafdigger's Cage


• 1 Pithing Needle


• 1 Relic of Progenitus


• 1 Divert


• 4 Swan Song


• 2 Submerge


• 2 Umezawa's Jitte


• 1 Manriki-Gusari


• 1 Reality Ripple  

R1 Affinity (Win 2-1)–

I usually play a lot of RUG Delver and Affinity is a joke matchup because you have Lightning Bolts and a quick clock. Sure Stifle isn’t too hot (though sometimes they never get to equip their cranial plating) but your main deck is pretty well setup against them and it only gets better G2/G3 as you get to bring in at least 1 Ancient Grudge at a minimum. Merfolk on the other hand doesn’t have a really good way to interact with the little robots, so we are simply off to the races!

 

I brought Jitte and Manriki - Gusari in since they are running SFM. This gives my Phantasmal Images some additional utility.

R2 Elves (Win 2-1) –

Ugh another matchup where I have very little interaction with my opponent game 1. Game 2 and 3 isn’t much better either… Submerge and Grafdigger’s cage are pretty much all we have as well as some copies of swan song to replace the weak spell pierces.

R3 Lands (Loss 1-2) –

Game 1 – I play turn 1 Cursecatcher. He plays turn 1 Tabernacle….

Game 2 – I play turn 1 Cosi’s Trickster. He plays turn 2 Tabernacle…

Bad matchup number 3! We are rocking and rolling today. To win this matchup you really need to curve out and have a couple of counters to keep them off balance. Cursecatcher is awkward because it isn’t amazing like it is v. combo but it is almost a necessary evil.

Well those were quick games. These are the only games where I really miss having extra Wasteland in the 75.

R4 Mono Red (Win 2-1) –

 

Wait what?!?!? Are these matches fixed? While none of these decks are super rogue it is a pretty unlucky cross section of the metagame to come up against.

Game 1 – This game is quite interesting. We both start racing and he has me at 10 when he plays Sulfuric Vortex. I have 3 Merfolk on board (Cursecatcher, Lord, a TNN) and a Mutavault in play. In my hand I have x2 Cavern of Souls, a Force of Will and a Lord of Atlantis. I can put him to 2 after the Sulfuric Vortex trigger and I will be at 8. I can make an argument for either play but I thought having him almost dead on board would better. He had the flame rift + fireblast to get me for 8. While I just had a FOW left in hand.

Game 2 – I play turn 1 curse catcher, he suspends rift bolt. I play another Cursecatcher and attack for one. He unsuspends rift bolt and I divert it to him. After this I just play a couple of lords and race.

Game 3 – I Phantasmal Image a Cursecatcher in the early game and win the game by double daze + curscatcher on a lethal fireblast.

 

The deck handled itself surprisingly well today in spite of playing against solely rogue decks.

 

-Cheers-