| SCG Open Series | No. of Top 8 until St Louis (27th June 2010) |
| Merfolk | 13 |
| Zoo | 12 |
| Reanimator | 8 |
| Counter-top Goyf | 6 |
| Goblins | 5 |
| Blue Lands | 5 |
| Others | 31 |
| Total | 80 |
Merfolk has performed consistently well in the Star City Games Open Series, topping the chart with 13 top-8's in the past 10 events. Moreover, since it is mostly a mono-colored deck, the only cards worth more than $10 are Force of Will, Wasteland, Mutavault, and Aether Vial. These cards either are legacy staples or have casual appeal and their value will probably not drop in the long term (unless of course Hasbro goes bankrupt). This budget friendly concoction, together with its good matchups against almost all blue decks made it a very popular deck for tournaments. You'd better be prepared for it, as fishies are swimming everywhere!
Anatomy of the deck
Most decks running around 20 lands, you'll probably find these in all Merfolk decks:4 Mutavault
3-4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Aether Vial
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
This means there's 12 slots for you to work with. The contender for these slots are usually these:
2-4 Coralhelm Commander (beatdown)
2-4 Merfolk Sovereign (beatdown)
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (protection from plow/bolt)
2 Umezawa's Jitte (pseudo removal)
3-4 Standstill (draw)
3-4 Stifle (mana denial)
How the deck works
Step 1) Lay threats.
Step 2) Disrupt using free counterspells and Wasteland.
Step 3) Boost your creatures with lords and islandwalk.
Step 4) Profit!!!
In a more detailed manner, Merfolk's strengths lies in its ability of laying fast clocks while disrupting the opponent's with Force of Will, Daze, and Wasteland. Lord of Atlantis gives Merfolk the advantage over blue-based decks by giving your horde islandwalk. Merrow Reejerey acts both as an accelerant by untapping your land and Aether Vial, and as disruption by tapping opposing Maze of Ith and other blocking creatures. Silvergill Adept is surprisingly impressive as an attacker that draws a card, especially in a deck that lacks on card advantage.
Consider this series of play when going first:
Turn 1) Island, Cursecatcher.
Turn 2) Island, Silvergill Adept, draw a card. Attack for 1. Daze the opponent's Tarmogoyf.
Turn 3) Replay the Island, Lord of Atlantis. FoW opponent's removal. Attack for 5 unblockable damage.
Turn 4) Mutavault, Merrow Reejerey. Attack with Silvergill and Cursecatcher for 7 unblockable damage. Kill next turn.
Beats + disruption just wins games.
Monoblue 16-lord.dec
With the printing of Merfolk Sovereign in M10 (and M11) and Coralhelm Commander in Rise of the Eldrazi, we now have a chance to play with 16 lords. Amazingly, this 16-lord.dec build won the 498-persons Bazaar of Moxen IV in Europe AND placed 2nd place at the most recent SCG St Louis legacy event. It can and has beaten Zoo 3 times in a row, although that might be due to the player's skill in Jedi mind tricks.
Merfolk – Omar Rohner (Winner Bazaar of Moxen IV, 15th May 2010)
13 Island
4 Wasteland
4 Mutavault
1 Mishra's Factory
Beats (26)
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Merfolk Sovereign
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Disruption (8)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
Others (4)
4 Aether Vial
Sideboard (15)
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Mind Harness
3 Dispel
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Seasinger
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
Coralhelm Commander
1)It's at least a 3/3 flier the turn it attacks, not counting lord pumps.
2)It's a 4/4 flying lord the second/third turn it lands.
3)It fits the curve wonderfully, letting you keep vial at 2 for 12 creatures.
4)It wields Jittes and accumulates counters without dying to cats and goyfs on the ground.
5)It increases the threat density of the deck.
6)It has a huge “kill me” target on its head, right after Lord of Atlantis (and many decks have only 4 Swords to Plowshares).
7)It is the best top deck period.
Frankly, numbers 4 onwards are just ramifications of reasons 1 and 2. Just know that it's great, and test it before you dismiss it.
And you don't hear it alone from me: There's Others.
No Standstill?
First and foremost, it deviates slightly away from the strategy of Merfolk. Merfolk is a tempo deck. Ideally, it plays threats, topples you with free counters, timewalks with Wasteland, then kicks you when you're down by growing its threats with lords for the win. Although Standstill draws you disruption and beats, it works to your advantage only when you have board advantage. It is awkward to land a Standstill after Zoo's turn 1 cats and Goblins' Lackey, decks that are performing well recently. Moreover, the popular Lands.dec can just effectively ignore Standstill, with or without t1 Exploration/Manabond. With these 3 decks consisting ~25% of SCG open series top-8s, I don't really see Standstill worthy of a maindeck spot.
The lack of Standstill and thus card advantage is somewhat alleviated with the inclusion of more beats. As stated earlier, Coralhelm Commander is the best top deck Merfolk can have, and Merfolk Sovereign provides some form of reach with its pump and unblockable-giving ability. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner also helps out in a way by making your threats on board last longer, itself being a 2-for-1 before your more important lords get removed.
Others say the same thing about Standstill:
Other Merfolk Variations
Apart from the cheapest monoblue version, there are other Merfolk variants with splashes of white and green (fish love to splash). In addition to the core components, the white splash packs cards like:
Swords to Plowshares
Path to Exile
Sejiri Merfolk
and in older lists Sygg, River Guide.
The green splash packs:
Tarmogoyf
Tarmo
Goyf, and
TarmoGoofy.
Oh, and Krosan Grip in the sideboard for Counterbalance.
Examples of the white and green splashes can be found here and here.
How to beat Merfolk
First, do not lose. Against non-combo decks, Merfolk takes the aggressor role and it has to beat you down within the first few turns. The way it does this is via its lords, especially Lord of Atlantis against blue based decks. As much a possible, save your removal and counterspells for its lords and you'll be fine.
If you survive the early game and stabilized, Merfolk may begin to sandbag a few lords in his hand, waiting for an opportunity to sneak in the last few points of damage. Always remember that these lords have pseudo-haste, as they pump the creatures on board. In addition to being lords, Coralhelm Commander, Merrow Reejerey, and Merfolk Sovereign all offer ways to break a creature stand off. Finally, take note of the number of counters on Vial, as the Merfolk pilot can vial in a 2-cc lord end of turn, untap, and vial in a 3-cc lord during his turn. Take these into consideration when you face Merfolk.
One thing you do not have to worry too much about is the counterspells Merfolk packs. Most Merfolk decks have only 4 Force of Will and 4 Daze preboard, and probably at most 4 more Spell Snare/Spell Pierce post board. Daze is easily played around although it might cost you tempo when you wait a turn for a land drop. There's ~40% chance of opening a FoW in the opening hand, and it's easy to bait one out by playing a Counterbalance/Tarmogoyf/Exploration before playing that important Engineered Explosives/Grim Lavamancer/Intuition you need to stabilize. Lastly, Merfolk doesn't need a lot of lands, so he'll probably begin to consider holding up 1 or 2 islands as a bluff when he has 3 lands in play.
Budget Standard to Legacy
To build a budget Merfolk deck, you'll need to replace these cards: Force of Will, Wasteland, Mutavault, and Aether Vial. The rest are commons and uncommons, or mid range rares that are not too expensive, so you should get them for the best performing deck in legacy. If you have a couple of proxies to use, spend them on Force of Will, Aether Vial, Wasteland, and Mutavault in that order. FoW is one of your few answers against your opponent's disruption, and Vial is a threat that almost always must be answered. Wasteland give you valuable turns when you can colour screw your opponents. However, its effectiveness is reduced if you do not combine it with Stifle for fetchlands. Mutavault is nice if you can afford them, but the core attacking force remains in the lords, and sweepers are not frequently played in legacy. Here's how I would build a dirt cheap budget Merfolk deck if I'm a standard player itching to get into legacy.Dirt Cheap Monoblue Merfolk
22 Island
Beats (26)
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Merfolk Sovereign
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Disruption (12)
3 Spell Pierce
4 Dispel
3 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
Without Vial and FoW, the speed of Merfolk is reduced dramatically and you have to take on a more controllish pace. Your plan is to race while protecting your threats with counterspells in the early game. 22 lands might be too many, but this is because you have to leave 1-2 mana up for your counterspells while casting a lord. If you have proxies or some cash, use them on vials and leave mana up for countering threats and disruption, replacing Spell Pierce for Counterspell/Mana Leak.
Dirt Cheap Uw Merfolk
14 Island
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Plains
Beats (26)
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Merfolk Sovereign
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Disruption (8)
4 Path to Exile
2 Swords to Plowshares
4 Negate
2 Counterspell
This version of Uw Merfolk packs an impressive 6 plow effect to deal with creatures. The plan here is to to trade creatures and removals and save your counterspells for non-creature bombs such as sweepers, Counterbalance, and Natural Order. You should have more creatures than most decks and can attempt to fight an attrition war. Coralhelm Commander would be your star here.
More reading
MTG The Source Merfolk thread
SCG St Louis Merfolk performance breakdown Tweet this!
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