Merfolk Update

I decided to finally post a decklist of Merfolk in its current state. It's pretty much what I've been talking about all along but with a few cards added in after Alara Reborn's release.

Merlark 2.0

Creatures:

3 x Cursecatcher

4 x Merrow Reejerey
3 x Reveillark
3 x Mirror Entity

4 x Silvergill Adept

2 x Sower of Temptation

3 x Stonybrook Banneret

3 x Meddling Mage
3 x Sygg, River Guide

Other Spells:

3 x Sage's Dousing
3 x Path to Exile

3 x Cryptic Command

Land:

4 x Adarkar Wastes

1 x Faerie Conclave

5 x Island

4 x Mutavault

3 x Mystic Gate

2 x Plains

4 x Wanderwine Hub

Sideboard:

2 x Flashfreeze

2 x Glen Elendra Archmage

2 x Jace Beleren

4 x Burrenton Forge-Tender

2 x Celestial Purge

3 x Wispmare

The main changes to the deck consist of the addition of three Meddling Mage and a little tweaking of the sideboard for the post-regionals meta. Since everybody and their mother seems to be running BW tokens lately I decided to add Wispmare to my sideboard because of the abundance of bitterblossoms and Glorious Anthems in the current meta. I also added a couple Flashfreeze to the side because of the ridiculous Bloodbraid Elf that is going to be making Jund decks much more powerful.

You may be asking yourself why I'm running Mirror Entity instead of Wake Thrasher. The answer is simple: It's BETTER!. Wake Thrasher is able to buff itself without using up any of your resources but the versatility of Mirror Entity is much better for a deck like this. Can a wake thrasher save your entire board from a Volcanic Fallout? Can Wake Thrasher make your entire team Merfolk? Can Wake Thrasher let you pump your entire team at the same time? I didn't think so.. It's true that Wake Thrasher is a good card, I'm just not convinced it's better than Mirror Entity. That's pretty much all I have to say about this deck that hasn't already been said. Let me know what you think!

(Links & pictures provided by Mtgfanatic and Wizards of the Coast Inc. respectively)

Silence Fools!!

I found myself looking at the Magic 2010 Core Set preview cards and one of the cards just floored me...


Silence is pretty awesome anyway you slice it. It can literally lock the game down for one side of the board if they can figure out a way to keep playing it. I was thinking about making a mono white control deck with 4 of these and for Isochron Scepters for the next Extended season. Check out the article about 2010 here.That could be fun. More on this after I get back from vacation!!

(Picture and links provided by Wizards of the Coast inc.)

Fixing Merfolk

Originally I built my merfolk deck along the same lines as my druid deck; quick to hit but little defense. When I decided to run this deck at last weeks Friday Night Magic tournament I added in some control and mill cards to give me more options mid and late game. I added 2 Remove Soul, 2 Negate, 2 Coordinated Barrage, 3 Drowner of Secrets. I kept 2 or 3 Judge of Currents in the main deck just in case and he was a welcome sight against several Red/Green Beatdown variants. I also added in 2 Silvergill Dousers to keep cards like Chameleon Colossus at bay until I could manage to overrun them with tokens or mill them out. A couple games I managed to mill my opponents deck down without the addition of Grimoire Thief (which I forgot to add in before leaving my apartment :S). Oblivion Ring seemed to be the card of the night and I spent most of my negates trying to keep my Drowners and Merrow Reejerey in play. All in all my favorite card of the night was Mirrorweave. It saved my hide countless times especially against aggro decks. I would just wait until they swung out with all of their 3/3s and bigger, Mirrorweave one of my tokens and wipe their side of the board by blocking with my tokens. A perfect example of how good this card really is happened during the last match of the night:

I have a ~5 1/1 tokens, a Douser, Drowner, and two Merrow Commerce out and I'm trying to mill my opponent before he has time to beat me down with red/green goblins. I'm staring down the business ends of two Boartusk Lieges and a Boggart Ram-Gang who looked mighty hungry and my Merfolk seemed to be on the menu. A quick check of my hand showed a shiny Mirrorweave and enough mana to play it. I checked my side of the board and then his. I did some mental math estimating I needed to stall him for just one more turn to be able to mill him out. As I figured he turns his board sideways declaring that he was attacking me with everything he had. I quickly tapped four and Mirrorweaved my Douser and tapped 3 of my creatures to reduce their enemy's power to zero. I then waited for him to finish his turn and for my creatures to return to normal. After untapping, tapping to mill, untapping for one of my Commerce, re-tapping to mill, untapping for the other Commerce, re-tapping to mill again I had just enough to mill him out.

To make a long story even longer adding control elements to the deck went a long way towards increasing its effectiveness and resilience. Even though my record wasn't the greatest (2 Wins-2 Losses-1 Tie) I was very pleased with the performance of the deck in it's current form and with my play throughout the night. I will add "before" and "after" decklists when I get home tonight!