So, I’ve been tinkering with Merfolk as a standard deck for the last month or so. I was having a fair amount of success with my U/W/B Reveillark deck prior to the M10 rotation until the deck lost Wrath of God, Windborn Muse and a couple of other cards. It was really having trouble beating aggro decks when the Wrath-like effect had to be a turn later. I liked the idea of Merfolk because it could play an aggro game backed up by counter magic, thereby making it a seemingly better choice than say Kithkin. Basically Merfolk gives more opportunity to out-play the opponent than most aggressive decks. Anyway, Steve Tuck and I have been working on the deck and playtesting it intermittently over the last few weeks, concluding with some testing on Friday evening.

Saturday morning saw Damien and I driving into the city to try our chances at winning an invite to the next Pro Tour. The tournament was at Good Games in Melbourne and 80 hopeful players turned up. Below is the final list I played on the day. It’s slightly different even to the final version we had on Friday — for some reason I made a snap decision while registering my deck to replace Ethersworn Canonist and Sleep in my sideboard with Meddling Mage and Glen Elendra Archmage. This turned out to be lucky as both of these were useful sideboard cards on the day.

[cardlist title=Merfolk (by Michael Wybrow and Steve Tuck)]
[Creatures]
4 Stonybrook Banneret
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Sygg, River Guide
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Merfolk Sovereign
3 Wake Thrasher
3 Sower of Temptation
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Sage’s Dousing
4 Cryptic Command
3 Harm’s Way
2 Path to Exile
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Wanderwine Hub
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Mystic Gate
7 Island
1 Plains
4 Mutavault
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Path to Exile
1 Harm’s Way
3 Meddling Mage
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
2 Reveillark
[/Sideboard]
[/cardlist]

Round 1 — Michael with U/W Baneslayer

Michael is playing a U/W control deck with Baneslayer Angel, borderposts, Knight of the White Orchid, Kitchen Finks, Mulldrifter, Vendilion Clique, Path to Exile and Glen Elendra Archmage.

I get in a bunch of damage while he lays borderposts, and then finish him off with unblockable Islandwalkers. A nice play he makes is to use Cryptic Command to bounce his only Island before blockers at some point and eat a couple of my Stonybrook Bannerets.

Game two goes similarly. I beat him down early. Then I take his Baneslayer Angel with a Sower of Temptation with Path to Exile and Sages Dousing backup. He’s done. I’m on 25 life.

Michael is a bit unhappy to have this matchup in the first round when it’s probably his worst. Anyway, he goes on the win the next five round and then draw into top 8 anyway. So, he was right that his deck was a good choice.

Result: Win, 2-0

Match record: 1-0

Round 2 — Joe with Kithkin

Joe and I get deck-checked at the start of this round. Both our decks are fine, but we start about 8 minutes after everyone else. It doesn’t help that we didn’t present our decks to each other for the first five minutes because Joe was de-sideboarding from the last round at the start of this round!

We finally start. I’m not looking too forward to this matchup since Kithkin can be difficult if they get a fast start or one or more Honor of the Pure. Joe has a slowish start. I notice he is shaking. I’m not sure if this is nevousness, though he is not happy to see Merfolk even though I think this is an okay (if a little draw-dependant) matchup for him. We race, not really trading. We both get to around 7 life and Cryptic Command taps all his guys, stopping them from attacking and allowing me to win by attacking the following turn. That’s why you play aggro with control backup!

Game 2, he takes a looong time to sideboard. I get a one land hand. Twice. I start this game on five cards and proceed to draw lands. *sigh* I die pretty quickly to two Knight of Meadowgrain.

Game 3. He gets a pretty good hand. Goes Goldmeadow Stalwart revealing Figure of Destiny. Turn 2 Wizened Cenn. Turn 3 Honor of the Pure. I’m at 12 life and it’s turn three. I’m a bit flooded but Stillmoon Cavalier helps hold off the assault. I’m aware we have a crowd at this point, because the round finished for most people 5 minutes ago. I make some attack and I miscalculate a stupid play with Harms Way and manage to lose a Mutavault and a Merrow Reejerey where I meant to lose nothing. I’m flooded again here and can only seem to draw lands. I stop trying to look for a win and try and find a draw. I’m still very behind and the Stillmoon Cavalier can’t eat anything because he has 3 Honor of the Pure on the board. Turn three of overtime, his turn after the attack, I’m left with a lone Stillmoon Cavalier. He has two attackers, both huge due to him laying the 4th Honor of the Pure! Turn four of overtime, my upkeep, he plays a sideboard Silence to stop me laying a creature. I draw… a Mutavault. Thank goodness for drawing lands (that are creatures), this is literally the only thing I could have drawn here not to lose. Very lucky. He could have been attacking more, but somehow thought I was the more aggressive deck. I think this misassignment of roles, as Mike Flores would class it, is the reason I draw here instead of lose. Read Who’s the Beatdown if you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s seminal Magic Theory!

Result: Draw, 1-1-1

Match record: 1-0-1

Round 3 — Rohan with Sanity Grinding

Game 1, I mulligan a one land hand. I play a guy, he plays Jace Beleren, +2 we both draw a card. I attack Jace with my small guy. His turn we both draw a card. He plays Time Warp, and takes another turn. +2 to Jace, we both draw a card. He plays Time Warp and takes another turn. +2 to Jace, plays Time Warp and takes ANOTHER turn. There might be a Twincast on one of these Time Warps. I can’t quite remember, but I do know that Jace’s ultimate has gone off, and then Shelldock Isle before I can do anything. I run out of cards with him at 18 life. Seems like a pretty unlikely game. I side in Meddling Mage and Glen Elendra Archmage.

Game 2, I mulligan twice, on the play. But I hit a second turn Meddling Mage naming Jace Beleren, I get out a Stonybrook Banneret and then a Glen Elendra Archmage. This is after him playing Broken Ambitions on my first couple of plays. He gets off a single Sanity Grinding (off of two Twincasts) through my counter magic before I kill him.

Game 3, I get an okay aggro draw. I think I manage to get a little excited in the game and lay a Silvergill Adept, and draw a card from it) before realising I didn’t reveal a Merfolk (and didn’t have one to reveal). As I wait for the judge I’m looking at the board thinking there is no way known I can lose this match but I may be about to due to a misplay. The judge examine the board and says I can still afford to pay the full price, so he taps my lands I get a warning for a procedural error for not paying for the spell properly. Rohan is pretty unhappy here, obviously wanting me to get a game lose. He lays down a Godhead of Awe. I wait around until I have something big enough to live, which involves several lords and a Mutavault (Mutavault becomes a 2/2 rather than a 1/1 when activated). He never blocks with it though and I win maybe eight turns later. He is able to Sanity Grinding me twice in total this game, but it still leaves me with 20+ cards in library. I actually think if he had just attacked with Godhead of Awe, he might have been able to win this one.

Result: Win, 2-1

Match record: 2-0-1

Round 4 — Marcus with U/W/B Faeries

Marcus is playing a Faeries deck with Path to Exile and maybe Baneslayer Angel. Game one he gets manascrewed. I hurt him more by countering things and bouncing Vivid Creek-type lands with Cryptic Command. I beat him down pretty quick.

Second game he has a pretty nuts draw. It starts with Mutavault, double Broken Ambitions, Bitterblossom and then three upkeeps in a row of mine he plays Mistbind Clique. I have Cryptic Command the first two but things get out of hand after that and I die with him at 9 life.

Game three, I get an aggro draw, with some counter backup. Perfect. I play out some threats, protect them and have Harms Way or Path to Exile for blockers. Sower of Temptation steals his Kitchen Finks and they start attacking him. I kill him with me on 20 life.

At some point in this game I get another warning. I play a Merfolk, meaning to untap a land but don’t declare it explicitly. He responds with a Vendilion Clique, and I have a hand with Path to Exile, so Path it in response to it’s comes-into-play ability. This all resolves and I say about untapping the land, feeling I was never given the chance for the ability. He calls a judge. I’m happy to forfeit the activation since it’s a “may” ability but I get a warning for something-or-other. Mental note: better be more careful about those triggered abilities.

Result: Win, 2-1

Match record: 3-0-1

Round 5 — Ho Bun with 5-Colour Control

Ah ha, first turn Vivid land. I’m happy with this. Any deck with a slow start is bad against my deck. I lay a Merrow Reejerey and a Wake Thrasher. On his turn four he plays the Volcanic Fallout that I am expecting and I Harms Way it with my one open mana and prevent one of the damage to each of the creatures and redirect it to him, they both live. I attack. Next turn I attack again. He plays Plumeveil, and I Path to Exile it before blockers. Like a well orchestrated script, he’s dead. Textbook!

Game two I get out Meddling Mage naming Plumeveil. Then I follow with a Merrow Reejerey and a Merfolk Sovereign and then just attack until he’s dead with counter magic up to stop any kind of board sweeper.

Result: WIn, 2-0

Match record: 4-0-1

Round 6 — Michael with Merfolk

Michael’s deck is a quite different build with Cursecatchers and no Sower of Temptation in it. He starts with one of these and soon gets down a Sygg, RIver Guide. I sort of stall until I can get some value and use my Sygg as removal for his. I get in some with Islandwalk and just slowly gain incremental advantage. I win this at 9 life.

Game two I get a Banneret. I Sower of Temptation his Wake Thrasher with counter backup and he never really recovers after this. I remove his second Wake Thrasher with a Path to Exile.

Result: Win, 2-0

Match record: 5-0-1

Round 7 — Nick with U/W Reveillark

At this point, I am second in the standings but they are not showing us any tiebreakers. I figure a ID in the last round is fine, and even a loss is probably still okay. My opponent asks me to scoop to him. He is close to getting into Worlds on rating apparently and the win would tip him over the edge since this event has a K-value of 32 (up to 32 points for a win). I know there are 5 people on 13 points and I’m on 16, so if three of them win, I’m going to be battling with them for a top 8 slot. I probably have better tiebreakers but I’m not certain and don’t want to scoop myself out of the top 8 based on someone else’s bad advice. I don’t know this guy and the worst thing that can happen by playing is that I lose and get what he offered me. I feel a little bad but I offer him the draw and he has such a high opinion of me (the unheard of player with the lower ranking) that he says he’ll lose rating points drawing to me so we should play. I’m also okay with this because he will be in the top 8 and this is a match where I get information without too much cost. I guess he gets information too.

Turns out he also knew what I was playing and that it would be a bad matchup for him. Game 1 he mulligans to 4, and loses pretty quickly. Game 2 he mulligans once, plays a borderpost, misses a land drop. Plays a Knight of the White Orchid fetching a plains, which he returns with a borderpost and then doesn’t replay (The plains from the Knight doesn’t count as as his land drop for the turn). I counter something and Cryptic Command a borderpost back to his hand.

He doesn’t touch my life total in either game. Not quite what I expected from the seventh round match against someone with a World’s level rating who had won nearly every other round. Still, maybe his heart wasn’t in the match… and it was a pretty bad matchup. It’s easy to beat U/W control with Merfolk. Makes me a little more confidant about the top 8, let’s hope I get paired against him again!

Result: Win, 2-0

Match record: 6-0-1 (and top of the standings going into top 8!)

The top 8 was (I’m pretty sure) Merfolk, 5CC, Kithkin, Jund, Naya aggro, U/W Baneslayer and 2x U/W Reveillark.

Quarterfinals — Ben with U/W Reveillark

This is a different U/W build with Meddling Mage maindeck, and no borderposts / Knight of the White Orchid package. I stick an early Wake Thrasher. He drops a Meddling Mage naming Sages Dousing. I have the Cryptic Command in hand so the game it over pretty quickly after that.

Game 2, I take some of his early guys with Sower of Temptation. He plays Knight of the White Orchid and Kitchen Finks so this slows me down a bit, I get him to 3 life before he destroys enough to stabilise. At this point he taps out and plays a Sower of Temptation and steals my Merrow Reejerey. A fine play except that it allows me to untap, animate Mutavault, tap my Merfolk Sovereign (that he should have stolen instead) to make the Mutavault unblockable and attack for the win. “Oh, I should have taken that instead!” I agree with him.

Match result: Win, 2-0

Semifinals — Nick with U/W Reveillark

Nick jokes he doesn’t trust my dice. He asks one of the judges for a die. The judge looks at me and asks if he can borrow a die to lend to Nick!

Game one goes like the earlier matches. I play guys, attack before he can do much and then remove, counter or take anything significant. I end this game on 20 life.

Game two he keeps. I mulligan twice to find hands that don’t have just one land or two Mutavaults and no other land in them. He says “gee, why can’t this happen to you in Game 3” Huh? Oh, his hand is so good that he has this one sown up. This is pretty much true. I keep a hand with three land and two Sower of Temptation. I think he plays Knight of White Orchid after a previous turn borderpost. Then a Kitchen Finks the following turn. I play a Merrow Reejeerey that I have drawn into. He plays Sower of Temptation on it and attacks. I play a Sower of Temptation and steal his Sower of Temptation (he won’t attack with anything but the Reejerey because I will block, trade and get my Reejerey back. Unfortunately he plays a Sower of Temptation to get back his own Sower. At this point I have my second sower in hand as my only play, and it’s going to be targeting a Sower. I called the head judge because this is about to get complicated. He gets pieces of paper and names each of the Sowers. This really is the stupidest game of Magic ever — and several of the spectators say so! My next draw is my third (and final) Sower of Temptation. At this point Nick starts drawing multiple Path to Exiles and I draw land and it is over for me very quickly.

Game 3 is more like how the other games and the matchup should go. I win quickly with Sygg, River Guide protected Wake Thrasher and co.

Match result: Win, 2-1

Finals — Steven with Kithkin

Kithkin, huh? I am for some reason very calm at this point. It helps that Russell places a box of M10 and a sheet of paper on the table next to us. One of us gets the box of M10, one of us the plane ticket and the golden ticket to the pro tour. We chat while shuffling. Steven (really nice guy) is a computer science doctoral student at RMIT, studying search engine optimisation. We chat about upcoming trips. I have no idea why this is so relaxed, but it is. Probably we are both just so tired from 9 rounds of playing.

Anyway, he starts slow in this game. A couple of Windbrisk Heights and not much else until Elspeth, Knight Errant. He creates a couple of tokens. He plays something significant and I counter and bounce Elspeth with a Cryptic Command. Next turn I counter Ajani Goldmane. From there I just control the board and win with Wake Thrasher and Sygg, River Guide.

Game two he has an awesome hand and I die in about five turns. Goldmeadow Stalwart, Wizened Cenn, Honor of the Pure + Figure of Destiny, Ajani Goldmane, Spectral Procession, Game! I got him to 14 life before I died. Oblivion Ring had hit my Reejerey and I couldn’t find enough mana to bounce it and get back into the game.

Game three, I play first and am the aggressor. I have two Bannerets and draw several Sages Dousing. I counter (for just one U mana) and gain card advantage off all his scary plays like Ajani, Unmake, and finally a Mirrorweave that would turn his Spirit tokens into Wizened Cenns and allow them to attack for 20 life combined. I end up taking the 5 life instead and finish him off with me on 15 life.

Match result: Win, 2-1

Merfolk was definitely a good choice of deck to play on the day and in the current metagame. While it can be a bit tricky to manage and play optimally (I’m sure I could have played many of the games better), it is also tricky to play against since it can pretty well play both the roles of control or aggro. This give it a lot of versatility. It has lots of tricks, often has answers needed to get out of difficult situations and can push through a lot of damage with unblockable Wake Thrashers very quickly. About the only change I would want to make to the deck at this point would be to fit in a third Sygg, River Guide in the main deck.

Overall result: Going to Austin to play on the Pro Tour, baby!
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