I haven’t played much MtG recently, but fired up Merfolk tonight. I thought UB Fairies would be a good matchup but it went to 3 games.
I had one game where I had a Mutavault and Aether Vial in my draw, which I kept. I went on to not draw a single blue source of mana the whole game.
Another game I didn’t see a single land until I drew 4 cards, and that hand was 3 lands, 1 Vapor Snag. I kept that hand.
So I did win one of those games, which was it?
Tonight I was playing Merfolk against GW Eldrazi when Ghost Quarter ruined me.
Game 1 I had a single Spreading Seas on his Eldrazi Temple or whatever it was and lethal with Islandwalk. Go to attack, He GQ’s his own Temple, removing his island, allowing him to block and kill me on the swingback.
Game 2 We’ve got a pretty close to a stalemate at something like 4 and 5 life. Him with 3 creatures, Me with 2 lords and a Mutavault. He goes for the all out attack. I could block just enough to keep myself at 1 life, and keep enough power to kill him next turn. Nope GQ on the mutavault and I’m dead.
I thought was going to get to 4-0 in league for the first time. I have to go find a Ghost Quarter to rip up now….
I started a Modern friendly league with my current Merfolk deck tonight. This is what it looks like:
Main:
4 Cursecatcher
2 Phantasmal Image
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Master of Waves
2 Vapor Snag
2 Dismember
4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
16 Island
4 Mutavault
Sideboard:
2 Dispel
4 Echoing Truth
2 Essence Scatter
2 Negate
2 Tidebinder Mage
2 Relic of Progenitus
Match 1 vs 4 color Zoo
I start game 1 with 2x Spreading Seas, Lord of Atlantis, Master of Waves, Aether Vial, 2x Islands. T1 Aether Vial, T2 Spreading Seas, T3 Spreading Seas + Cursecatcher + Lord of Atlantis, T4 Master of the Pearl Trident + Master of Waves for 8 tokens and the win! They only got 2 small creatures out and managed to Become Immense on a Monastery Swiftspear for some damage, but other than that, this game was an easy win.
For some reason I decided to take out Dismember and brought in Tidebinder Mage.
In game 2 I found out they had black for IoK and Thoughtsieze. They took a Lord of Atlantis and Phantasmal Image from my hand leaving me with no plays until turn 4, when I played the Master of Waves into an empty board. I got to cast another Master of Waves on T5. I got to cast yet another Master of Waves on T6 for the win!
1-0, go fish!
I’ve been playing some modern Merfolk lately. Last night I came up against Lantern Control, yikes!
Game 1 they get all the important pieces in place to lock me out of doing anything, and I die a slow painful death.
Luckily I have 4 Echoing Truth in my sideboard, so they all come in.
The plan is just to build up an army big enough for one lethal swing, then send their Ensnaring Bridge back to their hand, and win. Good plan right?
The games goes about how I expect, I get a large enough army, but can’t attack. He is doing his thing, but can’t see the top of the libraries yet. I’m getting pretty annoyed seeing a couple of Echoing Truths getting removed from the top of my library while I keep drawing other crap that I don’t need. I’m in a rut of pushing F4 and being disappointed.
Eventually I push F4 on what I thought was my opponent’s turn. Before I could react, I noticed that I had pushed F4 on my turn, drawn an Echoing Truth, and already skipped past my combat phase before I could F3 to stop things. I was quite annoyed but figured my opponent will just mill some more cards from my library and pass the turn.
On their turn they played whatever card it was that reveals the tops of libraries, ensuring that I will never draw anything good again. Then they played Duress. I quit before it resolved and shut my computer off.
Lesson learned I guess. Take it easy with the F4 button.
I managed to lose to this group of characters, after taking the first game. I don’t know what happened, I thought it was going to be an easy match. Game 1 was pretty easy. Game 3 opponent was able to Ghost Quarter his own land which was Spreading Seas’d to prevent a lethal attack. Once the Geist of Saint Traft became a flyer, I wasn’t able to do anything. I just couldn’t draw another Dismember.
En
snaring Bridge on turn 2 in a Burn deck is pretty frustrating. I conceded game 1 pretty quickly. Game 2 I decide to build up some Merfolk and see what happened. There didn’t seem to be a ton of burn, so maybe the bridge was gonna go away sometime, somehow. Wishful thinking.
I built up a pretty nice army of 6/6 Merfolk along with a ton of MoW Elementals. For some reason, there was a single turn where my opponent had 2 cards in hand. My Elementals could attack! I only had 9 so I couldn’t kill, but I was able to take out 2 Planeswalkers. Then we went back to the same crap – draw go.
I though maybe there was a small small chance I could use enough counterspells to go through our whole decks and win because I had more cards in my library, but a Koth the Hammer hit the field and eventually his emblem allowed each mountain to do direct damage to me.
Merfolk is 1-2. I am sad.
My old pal Primeval Titan decided to show up and fight the Merfolk tonight. Like usual, The Giant came out ahead. But this time it was close at least.
I started making mistakes right away in game 1. I was on the play and really not liking my keep decision. I was so wrapped up in my keep decision that I played an Island and passed the turn without playing my Cursecatcher.
Then on turn 2 I played Spreading Seas on a Gemstone Mine. That was promptly taken back into their hand and just replayed, without the Seas this time of course. Spreading Seas seems like a really bad card in this matchup.
I continued to not do much while my opponent cast Titan after Titan with Haste, Vigilance, and even Double Strike. Awesome, I was dead before I even felt like I had started.
Game 2 was a lot better. I was able to counter a couple of early turns spells, had the perfect amount of Islands/Merfolk, and ended up hitting pretty big for the kill on turn 6 with a whole bunch of Elemental tokens.
Game 3 was going very well it felt. I started with Aether Vial and didn’t have much interaction except for a Negate that stopped an Ancient Stirrings. I don’t know if that was a bad idea, I really need to learn more about this deck so I know what to use my counters on.
At one point I attacked and was up 20-7 with 2 Cursecatcher, Lord of Atlantis, Master of Waves, and 5 Elemental tokens (19 power) on the field, looking across at a few lands and a pair of Amulet of Vigor. A ton of lands flew in and out, another Titan showed up, and a couple turns later I was dead.
Someday I’m gonna beat this damn deck.
I lose the die roll and am on the draw. Opponent leads with a Darkslick Shores and Hedron Crab. I haven’t seen this opening before.
I play an Island and nothing else because I have kept Lord of Atlantis, 3x Islands, Silvergill, Spreading Seas, and Master of Waves, and then drawn another Lord of Atlantis.
Turn 2 another Hedron crab joins the party and I’ve already got 8 cards in my graveyard. I play Silvergill, Draw Mutavault.
Turn 3 Mesmeric Orb is played and my graveyard is filling up really fast. Then I get hit with Surgical Extraction to take not one but two Lord of Atlantis out of my hand.
I end up with no cards left in my library when I would have been drawing on turn 4. I’m down 0-1
I felt pretty confident with my sideboard strategy. – 4 Spreading Seas, -2 Kira, +2 Dispel, +3 Negate, +1 Dismember.
Games 2 and 3 were totally different. I was patient and kept up counter-spell mana in the early rounds and it payed off. I won both games to take this match 2-1!
I’m 1-0 in Modern League with Merfolk.
MtG Newb 