Mysteries of the Deep

A Legacy Merfolk Primer

Last update: May 1, 2024

Author: Discord: pixeltamer, /u/PixelTamer

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Introduction

What kind of deck is this?

To distill Merfolk into three words, “Mono blue tempo.” We try to force our opponents to play fair and capitalize on the problems this causes for them, while our basic-heavy mana base lets us not worry so much about Wasteland. Combo decks and blue decks tend to be more favourable matches, while non-blue fair decks pose more of a challenge. Our only truly awful matchup is Elves, which is widely regarded in the Merfolk community as a free loss and time to get lunch during a paper tournament.

The 2018 Legacy primer has some fun history of the deck going back into the 90s and how we were overshadowed by Delver in the early 2010s.

The core game plan is to keep building a larger and larger board and win by turning creatures sideways, while disrupting the opponent just enough to get the job done. Winning or losing by one turn cycle is not uncommon.

The mainboard disruption suite includes taxing counterspells, the obligatory 4x Force of Will for any blue deck, Wasteland for mana denial, Thorn of Amethyst for more taxing, Tishana’s Tidebinder to deal with problematic triggered abilities, and Kitesail Larcenist to manage difficult permanents. I’ll go into how we use each of these tools later as I go into card-by-card explanations.

Deeproot Wayfinder and Cenote Scout have made UG Merfolk an exciting alternative which has yet to put up results. This variant hasn’t picked up much attention in the community yet.

But Merfolk is an aggro deck!

There seems to be a misconception in the broader M:tG community that Merfolk is an all-in aggro deck, both in Modern and Legacy, which leads to misunderstandings, deck-shaming, and “don’t tell anyone I split the grand prize with merfolk” type comments. This is tiresome to listen to but it does mean our opponents often underestimate us and make bad choices about how to attack us.

The Merfolk shell has enough metagame-dependent playable cards that we can adjust to be more aggressive or more controlling as needed. Sometimes we win by being blue stompy with a bunch of 4/4 islandwalkers, sometimes we win by sticking a Tishana’s Tidebinder and keeping the opponent off balance just long enough to get there. Sometimes it’s protecting a prison piece while attacking with a single Tide Shaper. More often it’s somewhere in the middle.

Decklists

Mono Blue

Last update: May 1, 2024

This list takes advantage of two potent interaction creatures added in Lost Caverns of Ixalan: Kitesail Larcenist and Tishana’s Tidebinder. In the interest of more consistent access to 3 mana on turn 3, the land count has increased to 22, using Horizon lands to mitigate flood by letting us turn extra lands into cards. We also lean harder into resource denial, using Reef Shaman as repeatable colour / utility land denial and Thorn of Amethyst to slow down creature-light decks. Blue Elemental Blast is present in the sideboard as a response to the prevalence of Goblins in the MTGO metagame.

View on Archidekt

This build performed well at a $1k tournament on Apr 28, 2024, placing 18th/64. The main change I plan to make is to swap the third Reef Shaman for a fourth Tide Shaper to add more pressure.

Tropical

Last update: Nov 18, 2023

Tropical Merfolk presents a slower clock to the opponent than traditional mono-blue, but in exchange has superior card selection and access to a wider range of sideboard cards. Deeproot Wayfinder helps in longer games, letting us recur utility lands, recover from opposing Wastelands, and use channel lands for mana after discarding them. Recurring a fetchland every turn presents a real thinning effect which can be worth it when against an opponent not pressuring your life total.

View on Archidekt

Tradeoffs between builds

Apr 17, 2024

Mono blue is currently better positioned than tropical. While the card selection offered by tropical is compelling, the tradeoff is fewer slots for key interaction creatures.

Mono blue:

• Runs a full suite of interactive creatures. Only the islandwalk lords are incapable of directly affecting the opponent.
• Has flexible land disruption opportunities with Reef Shaman, which acts as a sort of hybrid land denier, mana filter, and Urza’s Saga destroyer. It synergizes well with Tide Shaper, as Shaman can be active with a one-mana investment or Vialed in while Shaper must be cast with its kicker cost.
• Very stable mana, highly resistant to Wasteland.
• Is much easier on the wallet, with only Null Rod as the only Reserved List card and no fetchlands.

Tropical:

• Offers more card selection, using Cenote Scout and Deeproot Wayfinder to look for specific answers to problems.
• Gains more value out of utility lands due to Wayfinder’s ability to recur them. Likewise, an active Wayfinder dramatically reduces the value out of opposing Wastelands.

• A turn 3 Wasteland recursion loop can win games on the spot.

• Has access to powerful sideboard answers like Collector Ouphe and Force of Vigor, improving matchups against opponents relying on artifacts and enchantments. Ouphe being a 2-mana creature we can deploy using Vial matters.
• Is much more expensive in paper, requiring Tropical Islands and Misty Rainforests.

Which list you choose to play comes down to personal preference. Mono blue is the more approachable option for new players, with much safer mana and the ability to generate extra bodies with Pilgrimage.

Card Explanations

Lands

Nov 18, 2023

Like most Magic decks, Merfolk depend on lands on the battlefield to cast spells and try to win. Merfolk strongly wants to be able to produce  on turn 2. The vast majority of our aggression costs at least  so having it on turn 2 is key.

10-12 Islands is the right starting point for a new Merfolk player. In a Wasteland format, running many basic lands is an advantage which helps blank some of our opponents’ toolkits. It also hoses Blood Moon, but leaves us vulnerable to Choke. Many green decks are also blue right now so Choke seems to appear less frequently than it used to. Lastly, running so many islands lets opponents get free mana using Carpet of Spring. Accordingly, it’s sometimes better to keep a nonbasic-heavy hand against green decks.

Running this quantity of basic lands lets you play 4 Caverns, 4 Wastelands, and some additional utility lands while remaining resilient to said Wastelands. Most mono-blue builds run 10 Islands, generally considered the lowest count of basic lands to be safe. Some players are comfortable with more risk and go as low as 8 Islands. Next, let’s dive into the utility lands and why we play them.

Cavern of Souls lets creature spells of a chosen type become uncounterable and produces any colour of mana to cast them, but only produces colourless mana for spells which are not creatures of the chosen type. In other words, we can produce blue mana for a Creature - Merfolk with Cavern but not for an Instant. It does work for creatures with Changeling, as that ability means they have all creature types in all zones. It’s a nice synergy with Chalice of the Void, as it lets us play 1-mana creatures while suppressing the opponent’s 1-mana spells.

Otawara is a premium bounce effect. While it costs more than other go-tos like Brazen Borrower // Petty Theft, as an activated ability from a colourless source instead of a blue spell, it’s much easier to resolve. Of the effects commonly played in the format, only Stifle-like spells and ward triggers counter it. The 3/1 flying creature side of Borrower is nice, if you can resolve Petty Theft to begin with. Opponents usually want to keep the permanents we target to bounce, so they will counterspell if possible. Otawara lets us just avoid that problem.

Karakas is a metagame concession, to deal with powerful legendary creatures. Uro runs away with the game quickly, but repeatedly unsummoning it so they can’t attack gives us a much better chance of winning. They will keep gaining life and drawing cards as they recast it, but we won’t have to throw bodies in front of a 6/6 attacker. It’s a race we can win. Emrakul can’t attack and trigger annihilator off Sneak Attack, Griselbrand can’t regain the life spent to draw cards, etc. Most importantly, Boo can’t gain +1/+1 counters or be Flung at us if we unsummon the token with Karakas while Minsc’s ability is on the stack.

Waterlogged Grove is a UG painland with the ability to sacrifice itself to draw a card. The ongoing presence of Orcish Bowmasters reduces the utility of the latter, and it’s still useful to have the ability to turn extra land into cards. The tropical build gets more value out of Grove, using it as another green mana source as well as a recurrable draw engine with Deeproot Wayfinder.

Lords

May 1, 2024

Lords are how our deck full of small creatures can quickly overwhelm an opponent and run away with the game. All the ones we play give both +1/+1 and another useful ability

Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident are the classic islandwalk-granting lords. Historically running a full playset of each was mandatory and even after Vodalian Hexcatcher arrived, running at least six is considered standard. Each of the effects they provide are worth discussing individually:

Other merfolk have islandwalk. In a format where the top decks usually play Islands, making our creatures unblockable dramatically speeds up our clock. Having two different cards in the deck which grant this effect means we get more consistency without having to sacrifice threats for cantrips.

Other merfolk get +1/+1. While an individual 2/2 for  is unimpressive compared to something like Delver of Secrets or Dragon’s Rage Channeler, this effect snowballs quickly. Merfolk is a deck that likes to go wide, so the more creatures you have on the battlefield the more potent these cards are, and their effects. In combination with Aether Vial, these creatures can be combat tricks leading to blowouts.

Important! These creatures do not affect themselves. If you want your Master of the Pearl Trident to have islandwalk or be a 3/3, you need a second Master or a Lord on the battlefield as well.

Note that Lord of Atlantis benefits all other Merfolk on the battlefield, including those you do not control. The Merfolk mirror is rare in Legacy, so more often this matters for opposing Hullbreachers in Undoing combo and Emry in 8-cast shells.

Vodalian Hexcatcher is a lord with flash and a source of taxing counterspells. Once on the battlefield, its ability doesn’t care at all about opponents’ counterspells, we can use them to disrupt the opponent while their Forces of Will sit in hand doing nothing about it.

As a 2-mana flash spell, it lets us hold up mana and pose threats. Costing  means Island+Wasteland hands are more keepable, given most other playable 2-drops in our repertoire cost . If you still play Merfolk Trickster, it makes the opponent have to guess which card you’re threatening.

Like the classic lords, Hexcatcher gives other Merfolk +1/+1, though critically it’s a 1/1 itself. To get out of Bowmasters or Plague Engineer range, another lord is required to provide a buff. Flash is worth it, as is the ability to let all our Merfolk sacrifice themselves for a taxing counterspell, similar to Cursecatcher. A key difference with Cursecatcher’s ability is that Hexcatcher may target noncreature permanent spells instead of just instants and sorceries. Flash with Cavern of Souls makes this an uncounterable taxing effect. We can’t have it on turn 1, nor can we have both it and a 2-mana hate card on turn 2, so Cursecatcher still has relevance, but this card is overall stronger.

Deciding when to tax and when not to is hard to write out as a set of rules. I generally tax defensively, to protect my permanents and interaction. Cantrip-cartel decks have so many cantrips that it’s usually a waste to hit them unless it prevents something big from happening. Some examples: A player stuck on 1 mana due to our mana denial is desperately looking for a second land, or a player about to die to TNNs might be able to cast Plague Engineer if they find a B source off this spell.

Sacrificing a creature against a removal spell targeting it is sometimes a small blowout by itself. Unfamiliar opponents sometimes opponents pay the  even though the creature they’ve targeted is already in the graveyard. More importantly, it causes spells to fail to resolve if their only target is gone. This means an opposing Stomp won’t be coming back as Bonecrusher Giant, nor will Petty Theft come back as a Brazen Borrower. Often worth it!

Layers Matter

May 1, 2024

Layers are one of the more complicated parts of Magic’s rules engine. Many cards in the Merfolk shell interact with this system so understanding it is key to maximizing the value of these cards. The one-sentence version is, the layer system describes the order in which effects modify the properties of game objects, be they spells on the stack, creatures, tokens, whatever. Many players don’t understand how this part of the rules work. Don’t be one of those, use the power of layers to get wins people may not expect. Tide Shaper is a simple card, so let’s start there. It has two abilities.

Tide Shaper gets +1/+1 as long as an opponent controls an Island. This ability is continuously evaluated and doesn’t care why an opponent has an Island, only that they have an Island. Anything with the subtype Island counts here - basics, duals, Mystic Sanctuary, etc. Against blue decks, it’s common to cast this as 2/2 for .

When Tide Shaper enters the battlefield, if it was kicked, target land becomes an Island for as long as Tide Shaper remains on the battlefield. Kicker is an additional cost when casting a spell, so this is not relevant when dropping Shaper in via Aether Vial. If this ability goes on the stack and resolves, the targeted land loses all abilities granted by its rules text and all land types it has [305.7], then gains the ability to tap for blue. Here are some interactions to be aware of:

• Urza’s Saga loses all its chapter abilities and is still a Saga. Its controller immediately sacrifices it as it has zero or more lore counters on it, which is greater than its final chapter number of 0. [715.2d, 715.4]
• Dark Depths loses the activated ability to remove ice counters and the triggered ability to create Marit Lage. This does not stop the opponent from comboing off with Thespian’s Stage, as copy effects occur in layer 1 while the type-changing effect we have applied occurs in layer 4. The “right” thing to do here would be to turn Stage into an Island when they don’t have the mana to activate it.
• Urborg and Yavimaya stop changing other lands into Swamps and Forests respectively. Their abilities generate a type-changing effect which also occurs in layer 4. Ordinarily, effects in the same layer are processed from oldest to newest. There is what the rules call a dependency [613.8] between Tide Shaper’s ability and the ability of those two lands. Because changing these lands into Islands would remove their ability to make other lands Swamps or Forests, that effect is processed first.

• If one of these lands enters the battlefield after Tide Shaper, any land modified by Tide Shaper will become an Island Swamp (or Island Forest.)

• Any lands turned into Islands this way do not gain the supertype Basic. I have had opponents Wasteland their own Island to try to deny me islandwalk.

Tide Shaper generally does what we want it to, as long as we point it at the right target. Reef Shaman generally follows the same rules. It’s valuable because it can disrupt mana without being cast for a kicker cost and a targeted activated ability is very flexible. For example, it can let us use our Wastelands for blue mana, destroy an Urza’s Saga which entered the battlefield after the Shaman did, and it can deny blue mana to our opponents. Doing this has the cost of being unable to attack, so as always there are trade offs to consider.

The cards which change the abilities of other permanents have a few more asterisks. Take Merfolk Trickster:

When Merfolk Trickster enters the battlefield, tap target creature an opponent controls. It loses all abilities until end of turn. Removing abilities is not quite as simple as “pretend this creature has no rules text.” This effect happens in layer 6. Dependencies only operate in the same layer, so certain abilities “happen” before Trickster has an opportunity to remove them. For example:

• Clone effects happen in layer 1.
• Magus of the Moon turns nonbasic lands into Mountains in layer 4.
• Painter’s Servant adds additional colours to everything in layer 5.

Most other abilities do get removed, including those granted by other effects not printed on the card. If Batterskull is attached to a creature, targeting that creature with Merfolk Trickster will cause it to lose vigilance and lifelink. It will keep the +4/+4 as that is not an ability granted to the creature. Trickster does not prevent creatures from gaining abilities. Temur Battle Rage cast on a creature previously affected by Trickster will still grant it double strike (and trample, if applicable.) Here are some fun potential-blowout interactions:

• Dragon’s Rage Channeler becomes a 1/1 without flying or a triggered ability letting it surveil. Resolve a Trickster on an attacking DRC, then block and remove that annoying card advantage engine.
• There are a variety of abilities which produce rapidly growing Construct tokens. These are 0/0s with an ability in layer 7 which increases their power and toughness. Remove their ability with a Trickster in layer 6 and they are 0/0s with no abilities which promptly die.

• Similarly, Elvish Reclaimer, Knight of the Reliquary, and Tarmogoyf all revert to their base power/toughness of 1/2, 2/2, and 0/1.

• Trickster can turn off Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Once Merfolk Trickster is a creature, not a creature spell, Emrakul’s protection no longer applies. She does not have protection from triggered abilities from blue sources.
• Creatures with leaves-the-battlefield or death triggers do not trigger if Trickster resolves on them first.
• If all Allosaurus Shepherds your opponent controls are affected by Trickster, their spells can be countered. In practice they tend to have more Shepherds than we have Tricksters so this is not reliable.

At its worst, Trickster is a 2/2 with flash for . It gets better when you can gain tempo by tapping an opponent’s creature. It’s at its best when you can turn off something critical and get a blowout.

Tishana’s Tidebinder is full of utility and value. Legacy is dominated by repeatable value engines using abilities on the stack. Not only does Tidebinder Stifle those abilities, if the source of that ability is one of three permanent types it becomes a sort of hybrid Trickster / Banisher Priest. A creature, artifact, or planeswalker whose ability is countered by Tidebinder loses all its abilities until Tidebinder leaves the battlefield. Conveniently, as a 3 mana creature with 2 base toughness dodges a non-Revolt Fatal Push and a Bowmaster ping. Here is a far from comprehensive list of permanents which are neutered by Tidebinder:

• Teferi, Time Raveler loses its static ability along with its activated abilities if we can use Aether Vial to play Tidebinder in response to its ability. Proceed to wipe him out with creatures as soon as possible.
• Minsc is unable to create Boo on upkeep if we counter any of his abilities, and if we counter the entry trigger it can’t even do anything. As with Teferi, delete it with creatures ASAP.
• Countering an individual chapter ability of Urza’s Saga does not remove all abilities, being an enchantment land. Countering the chapter 2 triggered ability prevents it from gaining the ability to create Constructs at all, heavily reducing the power of the land. We can also counter the chapter 3 tutor to prevent them from finding their Shadowspear.
• Countering The One Ring’s ability means the opponent doesn’t get to keep drawing cards while Tidebinder is around. While you can stifle the first activation to draw a card, stifling the entry trigger to gain protection is more impactful, especially if the opponent tapped out to cast Ring.
• The value of many creatures lives in their triggered abilities. Removing those makes those cards quite bad for their controllers. Orcish Bowmasters can’t ping our creatures and grow its Army, Uro can’t draw+ramp+gain life, Sheoldred stops messing with life totals, Cephalid Illusionist stops milling, Stoneforge Mystic can’t find or deploy equipment, and so on. Remember, static abilities are removed too!

This is but a small sampling of the value we can deny with Tidebinder. Storm triggers, Cascade triggers, Thassa’s Oracle’s “win the game” trigger, the list can go on for pages. This small sampling hopefully inspires you to think about other ways you can deny opponents their shenanigans.

Kitesail Larcenist is not a Merfolk, but it fills relevant gaps in our toolbox and gets “honourary Merfolk” consideration. It flies, it answers permanents without returning them to an opponent’s hand, and it often generates card advantage due to its ward ability.

Flying, ward

When Kitesail Larcenist enters the battlefield, for each player, choose up to one other target artifact or creature that player controls. For as long as Kitesail Larcenist remains on the battlefield, the chosen permanents become Treasure artifacts with “{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color” and lose all other abilities.

Its ability affects layers 4 (type-changing) and 6 (ability-changing). Abilities are suppressed in the way Trickster does, except the duration is “until Larcenist leaves the battlefield” instead of “until end of turn.” Painter’s Servant continues to modify colours in layer 5 before its ability is replaced with a mana ability. Only card types and subtypes are changed, not supertypes. A legendary permanent turned into a Treasure is still a Treasure, even if it’s no longer whatever other types it previously had.

Other Creatures

Nov 18, 2023

Hullbreacher made its Legacy debut in Day’s Undoing control decks, where it played a critical role in wrecking opponents’ hands while getting the caster far ahead with a new hand and plenty of Treasure. Merfolk decks don’t use it that way. For us, it is another creature with flash that punishes opponents for card draw shenanigans like Brainstorm, enchantress effects, The One Ring, etc. An opponent who resolves Brainstorm with Hullbreacher on the battlefield puts two cards on the top of their library while we get three Treasure!

Hullbreacher is a replacement effect - the event “draw a card” is replaced with “create a Treasure token,” so having multiple Hullbreachers on the battlefield will not create double the Treasure. There is no “draw a card” event left for the second Hullbreacher to replace.

True-Name Nemesis needs little introduction. If we stick this card, the opponent now has to deal with a very resilient clock. A fast one, too, if we have any of our lords down. This is the bar all other 3 cost Merfolk are compared to in Legacy. Protection is an easy-to-misunderstand ability, so let’s talk about how this card actually works:

As True-Name Nemesis enters the battlefield, choose a player. This is a replacement effect [614] which modifies how the creature enters the battlefield. TNN’s controller chooses a player after the spell begins to resolve, before the creature enters the battlefield [614.12a]. The opponent normally has no opportunity to remove the creature before you can name them. There are some exceptions, such as Dress Down, which will be addressed later in this section.

• Make sure to clearly name the chosen player! In Competitive REL and above, not clearly stating you are choosing the opponent can lead to you being considered to have chosen nobody.

True-Name Nemesis has protection from the chosen player. As the reminder text indicates, TNN cannot be affected by many things. The exact definition of protection from a player is in [702.16k]. For all game objects that player controls, or uncontrolled objects that player owns:

• True-Name Nemesis cannot be targeted by that object.
• True-Name Nemesis cannot be enchanted, equipped, or fortified^[1] by that object.
• True-Name Nemesis cannot be blocked by that object.
• Prevent all damage which would be dealt to True-Name Nemesis by that object.

Protection does not grant indestructible, prevent reductions to power and toughness from non-targeted sources, or prevent us from being forced to sacrifice it. A short-hand for remembering what Protection protects against is DEBT (Damage, Enchant/Equip, Block, Target.)

The most common way opponents kill our TNN is with Dress Down. When the protection ability is removed, it becomes vulnerable to targeted removal and combat damage. Bear this in mind as a possibility when fighting other blue decks. Another way they can weaken TNN is by casting Dress Down while it is on the stack. TNN will enter the battlefield with no abilities, so there is no opportunity to choose a player to gain protection against.

A less-common interaction is like the Dress Down-block interaction, this time with Stomp. A painful blowout happens when after blocking something with TNN, an opponent Stomps some other target, causing TNN to take damage and be destroyed.

TNN is a powerful and very resilient threat, but it’s not as broken as some in the past have said. Be mindful of what answers your opponent could have and do what you can to protect your clock. Make them have the answer, or force them to try to combo off when it’s not guaranteed.

Instants

No blue deck is complete without a counterspell suite. Force of Will is the standard piece of countermagic in Legacy, costing no mana but instead requiring you to exile a blue card from your hand and pay 1 life. Turn 1 combos are common in this format, three such decks being:

• Reanimator, trying to get a Griselbrand or Archon of Cruelty onto the battlefield turn 1.
• Oops, all spells! Trying to get a Thassa’s Oracle win turn 1 off Undercity Informer and Dread Return.
• Ruby Storm, which uses both sides of Birgi to generate mana and cards before killing with the usual Storm win conditions. They are frequently able to go off on turn 1.

Force of Negation is additional insurance against combo decks, and easier to cast for mana. Be careful using this against artifacts when Karn, the Great Creator is in your opponent’s deck. I think the “get from exile” clause of the -2 was intended to be a cute interaction with Scion of Urza but the reality is, using Force of Negation against an artifact just means Karn can get it back and attempt to stick it again. Whether doing so is worth it is very situational. Absolutely do whatever you can to stop Mycosynth Lattice for example.

Blue Elemental Blast is half countermagic, half removal. It is a good swing against high-value red permanents like Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Legion Warboss / Goblin Rabblemaster, Reflection of Kiki-Jiki, and Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes. A 1-mana counter to Burning Wish can shut Storm right down. Hydroblast is, for most purposes^[2] we care about, the same as Blue Elemental Blast and can be treated as interchangeable.

Both mono blue and tropical have trouble killing things, but thankfully the first time Wizards printed Phyrexian mana, they gave us a good solution. In matchups where our life total is not as urgent as stopping an opponent’s value engine or combo, Dismember lets us kill many relevant creatures for 1 mana and 4 life. This is still a mana-value 3 spell, so it goes through Chalice just fine. Paying life to satisfy a Phyrexian mana cost technically isn’t spending mana, so Trinisphere applies. In such a situation, we’d have to pay  and 4 life.

• Initiative decks are one circumstance where we do care about our life total against another aggro deck, but want to stop them from having the initiative as much as possible which means killing their creatures.

Hurkyl’s Recall is our answer to opponents who depend on having many artifacts on the battlefield at once to win. The primary target is 8-cast, to wipe out their board, including their artifact lands, and buy us some critical tempo. This incidentally has value against Painter, Retrofitter Foundry decks, and Urza’s Saga in general. Removing 2-3 Constructs is sometimes enough on its own!

Surgical Extraction is premier graveyard disruption, brought to us by the same design mistakes that created Dismember. Unlike other targeted graveyard removal, Surgical can be up to a 4-for-1 as we remove all copies of a given card, then add the value of having perfect information on what is in your opponent’s deck and hand. Previous Merfolk builds shied away from Surgical due to Chalice, but with turn 2 Chalice non-viable in today’s metagame we can take further advantage of what Phyrexian mana has to offer.

Other Permanents

Nov 15, 2023

Aether Vial is a powerful value engine iconic to Merfolk in all formats it’s legal in, allowing us to place creatures directly onto the battlefield from our hand without casting them. This means they can’t be countered and additional costs (such as on Silvergill Adept) don’t have to be paid. The caveat is that the creature must have mana value equal to the number of charge counters on Aether Vial, and you may only add one on each of your upkeep steps. As the vast majority of our creatures are mana value 2, this is a limitation we can work with. A “nothing” turn 1 where we cast Vial quickly leads to being able to have an extra two-drop creature every turn while leaving our mana open for an assortment of purposes.

You choose and place a creature card as part of the resolution of Aether Vial’s ability, so opponents can’t wait to see what you want to deploy before deciding whether or not to interact. You can also choose not to put a card onto the battlefield, such as when an opponent has cast a Containment Priest in response to the activation. On top of all of this, as an activated ability, you can do this whenever you could cast an instant. Many blowouts have been achieved in the history of Merfolk by dropping in a lord or interaction creature during combat.

Deeproot Pilgrimage is a highly potent value engine which helps in most non-combo matchups. Though not a Merfolk itself, it produces token Merfolk with hexproof each time one or more of our nontoken Merfolk become tapped, such as by attacking, activating abilities with  in their cost, crewing Vehicles, etc. These tokens get all the usual lord bonuses, can be sacrificed to Hexcatcher, thrown in front of opposing creatures, etc. It is a powerful and flexible effect. That said, due to the “one or more” clause, tapping multiple Merfolk at once will only produce one token. It doesn’t matter how many creatures you attack with, each Pilgrimage produces only one token.

Some uses for this card:

• Creating blockers so your Svyelun or TNN can apply pressure without leaving yourself vulnerable. Trample is not common in this format and it’s hard for our opponents to remove a hexproof blocker.
• Getting more value out of Rishadan Dockhand by generating a creature when you tap an opponent’s land. A concern with the card before was that disrupting the opponent’s mana meant a turn off attacking - now we can do both with Pilgrimage generating a token on each activation.
• Getting value out of unused Mutavaults - we can activate a Mutavault to make it a Merfolk creature, then activate its mana ability (possibly to activate another Mutavault) and get a token out of the deal.

Artifacts are a strong source of sideboard answers to the metagame. Generally speaking, we only bring these in if they heavily swing a matchup in our favor. Think about whether the card is something the opponent has to answer to proceed with their game plan.

Grafdigger’s Cage does exactly what it says - if an effect would try to put a creature card in a graveyard or library onto the battlefield, it doesn’t. Spells from graveyards and libraries can’t be cast either. This mostly affects flashback and escape spells in practice.

• This is a fast, efficient wall against reanimation strategies.
• It’s also good against Green Sun’s Zenith by preventing creatures from entering the battlefield from the library. This includes Dryad Arbor. Knight of the Reliquary decks decks will just search for something else so it’s not really worth
• Against Elves, it arguably upgrades the matchup from “awful” to “terrible” by providing a speed bump against a Natural Order or Fiend Artisan win, but we can’t rely on this thanks to Boseiju.
• Storm decks sometimes run Past in Flames, otherwise Cage is not very effective against them.
• Uro decks tend to run Prismatic Ending or other artifact removal so Cage is more of a slowdown than a blocker.

Null Rod is presumably the inspiration for Karn, the Great Creator. Unlike Karn, Null Rod has deckbuilding considerations to consider as it affects all players. Most combo decks depend on 0 cost artifact mana in one way or another, so turning that off is a huge tempo swing for us. We also have Chalice on 0, Null Rod is extra defense.

• A fun-for-us interaction against 8-Cast, we can turn off their land. Artifact lands are affected too.
• It also disables Wishclaw Talisman, but if that card is on the battlefield we’re likely already about to lose anyway.

Tropical Merfolk

Last update: Nov 18, 2023

Cenote Scout is a value uncommon from Lost Caverns of Ixalan. It fills a very similar role to Silvergill Adept, digging into our library, but at one mana and not triggering Bowmasters. When it enters the battlefield, it explores. The possible outcomes from this (assuming 20 lands/40 spells in the deck) are:

• 33% of the time, you dig into your library by revealing a land card and putting it in your hand. Scout is a 1/1 and you are one card closer to the nonland card you want. This is not considered drawing a card.
• The rest of the time, you reveal a nonland card and put a +1/+1 counter on Scout. You have a 2/2 and can either put the nonland card in the graveyard or keep it on top. Either way, you have found or are closer to finding the card you want.

Deeproot Wayfinder has a potent ability, allowing us to surveil away bad draws, ramp, protect our mana, and aggressively attack opposing mana bases with Wasteland recursion! Any land it surveils away then brings back to the battlefield is effectively drawing a card, as we’d otherwise be playing it in a main phase next turn.

When Wayfinder’s ability resolves, you perform two actions. No player gets priority until you have fully completed these actions, so an opponent can’t try to mess with a card put into your graveyard with surveil before you have a chance to bring a land back. Likewise, if you want to recur a land currently on the battlefield, you must get it into the graveyard before this ability resolves.

1. Surveil 1.
2. You may return a land card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. This can be any land card in your graveyard, not only one which was put there by this ability.

Using Wayfinder to recur Wasteland is powerful against unprepared opponents. Against opponents with greedy mana bases, this is an easy way to lock them out of the game. Bringing back fetchlands lets us ramp and secure our colours, and we can easily recover from opposing Wastelands. We gain much flexibility with utility lands, as we can spend them for their effect and then get them back after Wayfinder connects. For example:

• Waterlogged Grove is an extra activation to draw a card every time you connect.
• Channel lands like Otawara and Boseiju can be used to produce mana after using their channel ability. Unfortunately, some of the most important artifacts to remove, The One Ring and Kaldra Comlpeat, are indestructible, so Boseiju is not a great value proposition. An exile effect would also be better when dealing with opponents who can recur their artifacts, like Painter.

Between Scout and Wayfinder, a green splash gives us access to 8 sources of card selection otherwise unavailable to us. Yes, it is strange to splash green for more card selection, but that is the world we live in. We also gain access to helpful sideboard options like Veil of Summer or Collector Ouphe. Being a green creature instead of a colourless artifact protects it from some removal and lets us deploy it as an instant via Aether Vial, all the better to meddle with an opponent’s plans. It’s also fewer Reserved List cards to worry about, though Null Rods tend to be an order of magnitude less expensive than Tropical Islands.

Combo Merfolk

Last update: Feb 1, 2023

Want to play Doomsday, but with fewer of those pesky Reserved List cards? The Shift/Oracle combo has been in a few shells since Oracle was printed, one of the more interesting versions used Thought Lash as another way to empty the library. Step Through was printed in Modern Horizons 2, which can wizardcycle to find Oracle or Spellseeker at instant speed. Spellseeker can in turn find Shift, and overall the deck is a lot less “bad Doomsday” than it was pre-MH2. Aegnor#0951 on the Discord has had success with it recently. Despite running many similar cards to tempo Merfolk, it is a different enough deck that I won’t be going into it in detail here.

Aegnor's list 

Recent Metagame Changes

Last update: Aug 3, 2023

Tales of Middle-Earth has shaken up the format in a huge way. Pre-release, the community widely expected The One Ring to take over the meta, due to easy access to fast mana and cheap untap effects in the format. WotC claims to have learned their lesson about powerful, generic-cost artifacts after Kaladesh block and this card shows they have not. Untap the Ring so you can draw more cards, repeat until you draw another One Ring, and cast that to reset the downside thanks to the legend rule.

Surprisingly, this has not taken over the format. While The One Ring often shows up in high-placing decklists, the real all-star of the set has been Orcish Bowmasters. This card is very aggressively costed and punishes blue decks hard due to its ability to deal direct damage and create a larger and larger Army token each time an opponent draws extra cards. Even against other decks, it removes 1-toughness creatures while leaving behind two bodies. The power of this card has shifted decks to favour black instead of white, reducing the prevalence of more annoying removal spells like Prismatic Ending and Supreme Verdict.

The format has generally slowed down since the set came out, which is good for Merfolk. Some things to consider in this new meta:

• Fewer white decks means fewer Endings. Null Rod is stickier and Back to Basics might be worth considering for the first time in many sets.

• More black decks means more Plague Engineers, so we’re trading one frustrating card for another.

• Silvergill Adept is poorly positioned. It is common for an opponent to flash in Bowmasters in response to Silvergill’s trigger, killing it and pinging something while getting a 2/2 token.

• Deeproot Wayfinder is an excellent alternative, if you have access to Tropical Islands.

• Graveyard combo decks are down. Consider moving your Mistcallers to the sideboard.

Stern Scolding is my spice for dealing with Bowmasters and an unexpectedly wide range of bothersome creatures. At 1 mana, and usually not needing it on turn 1, it’s a solid value.

Matchup quick tips

Last update: May 18, 2023

This section will give some brief advice on how to attack various decks in the metagame, with links to recent lists in the archetype.

Aggro + Tempo

UR Aggro: Delver of Secrets appears less and less in this shell. Dragon’s Rage Channeler is a must-kill threat due to the overpowering card selection it offers while ramping out Murktide Regent. Bring blue blasts. If using Dismember, make sure to play around Daze. Invasion of Tarkir is new, deadly if transformed, and dies to blasts.

Death and Taxes: A very hard matchup. True-Name Nemesis is key to victory, as is keeping them off Mother of Runes and their equipment. Their curve is steeper than ours so turning off artifacts is a viable option, stalling them until they find their mainboard removal or a tutor for it. We just have to keep them off balance long enough to get through. Most of their value comes from enters-the-battlefield triggered abilities, so disrupting that is also an option.

Control

UWx Control:

Lands:

Combo

Reanimator: Expect to have your hand shredded as they attempt to go off on turn 1. In games 2 and 3, try to get a hand which can interact with them twice to survive a Thoughtseize, Unmask, or Grief. Getting creatures into their graveyard is just as important as reanimating them, so countering a Faithless Looting or Entomb can be a good tempo play. Karakas cleanly answers Griselbrand, Iona, and Atraxa but not Emissary or Archon. We topdeck better than them, so stopping their initial attempt even at the cost of our hand is often enough.

R Painter: Trickster cannot interrupt their combo (see above) - Painter’s Servant must stay off the battlefield. Cage and Surgical are great here, as is turning off artifacts with Rod or Ouphe. Artifact-based hate is generally safe as Welder can’t touch it unless we have an artifact in our graveyard. It’s also a great copy option for Phantasmal Image to mess with them. Beware Chaos Defiler, in this matchup it is basically a recurrable Council’s Judgment.

Meta-dependent choices

Last update: May 10, 2023

Sometimes, all you need to do is get rid of a troublesome permanent for a turn or two. Or, against decks where our opponent is cheating expensive permanents into play (such as reanimator or Show and Tell), it’s enough to return it to their hand and force them to have another way to deploy their threat. Marit Lage is cleanly removed if unsummoned, Murktide Regent has to be recast, etc.

In recent years, the go-to card for this effect was Brazen Borrower. For , you can bounce any nonland permanent on your opponent’s board without any constraints. After it resolves, or if you just need a flying creature instead, you can flash it in for . Value, right? If you aren’t disrupted, sure. I found it difficult to use effectively at times since we can’t easily protect it from countermagic, and it costs mana. Otawara plays in a similar niche, but is much harder to interact with. As a colourless activated ability, it gets around text like “protection from blue” or “protection from coloured spells.” Borrower can happen two turns sooner though, so you might want to play in metas where you need to bounce a problem permanent quickly.

Harbinger is nice when your removal target is specifically a creature. It unsummons a tapped creature your opponent controls and can benefit from both Cavern of Souls and Aether Vial. It then leaves behind a 2/2 body to apply pressure with. When it works, it’s great, but your opponent won’t always tap the creature you want to remove. Trickster helps, but ideally the interaction we spend mana on doesn’t depend on other cards to make it work. Good in a creature-heavy metagame where you don’t want your opponents to recur ETB triggers.

Finally, Submerge. I have not played with this card personally and it’s about as meta-dependent as one can get. If your opponent is not playing green, this is functionally unplayable. Some nice things to do with this are bounce Allosaurus Shepherd so you can counter a key spell, or a Knight or Reclaimer in response to their search ability. It buys time against 4 colour control’s hamsters and Uros.

Chalice of the Void lets us force our opponents to “play fair” by countering all spells of a given mana value, cast by any player. Against decks which depend heavily on one-mana spells, such as Delver of Secrets, Dragon’s Rage Channeler, or the so-called cantrip cartel, we severely inhibit their game plan by rendering them unable to look for or cast their threats. Against combo decks relying on 0 cost artifact mana, we turn off their fast mana and force them to build up lands before they can attempt to win the game.

Against opposing Chalice, we generally don’t care. X=0 does literally nothing to us and X=1 only affects Aether Vial and some sideboard cards in mono blue. Decks where we want Cage usually don’t play Chalice and preventing us from casting Aether Vial isn’t that big of a deal. We can still cast creatures through it using Cavern of Souls. X=2 or higher is rare.

Unlike other Chalice decks, we can’t land a Chalice X=1 on turn 1. This is a significant drawback when opponents on the play can potentially resolve three 1-mana spells before we get a chance to cast Chalice, which is mutually exclusive with presenting a 2-mana creature on turn 2. Given how fast the various combo decks we’d want to target are, plus the extreme value Dragon’s Rage Channeler provides, it’s hard to justify the slots. A variant which comes on a Merfolk body would definitely be interesting.

Chalice of the Void relies on the opponent’s deckbuilding choices to be effective, being most effective against blue and/or combo decks. If your opponent isn’t running a critical mass of spells of the right mana value, sideboard it out. If your opponent ignores counterspells, sideboard it out. Usually, Chalice players don’t play many cards which we can hit with Chalice, so you can usually sideboard it out. The exceptions are Dragon Stompy and 8-Cast, which rely on artifact mana and are therefore weak to X=0.

Cursecatcher is underwhelming at a glance, being a 1/1 for , but plays an important role in protecting 2-mana hate cards. Turn 1 Cursecatcher makes turn 2 hate cards much stronger when you have a taxing ability available to protect it from counterspells. You can also use it in the early game to protect your more valuable creatures from interaction. After the first few turns, opponents usually have enough mana to cast what they want and pay for Cursecatcher, so its utility drops off sharply.

Daze is a favourite card in Delver-style decks which rely on lots of cheap spells. For them, unsummoning one land to tax is a low price since it doesn’t stop them from casting next turn. For Merfolk, delaying  or  is a significant tradeoff. For us, Daze is better when it stops a control or combo player’s turn to give us more time to do our thing. Merfolk is not known for playing Daze so we can use it to easily catch opponents off guard. Against aggro, the tempo loss from unsummoning an island can be too great to catch up from. Evaluate your meta and think about Daze when aggro is under-represented.

Faerie is a spell we are incapable of casting which can nevertheless win a game on the spot. Its activated ability lets us remove two key cards from our opponent’s graveyard without spending mana. Like Otawara, it’s much more likely to resolve due to being an activated ability instead of a spell. Consider it if your meta is high on graveyard shenanigans.

Relic of Progenitus may be our strongest card against Uro piles. While Unlicensed Hearse exiles more cards per turn, Relic responds to removal by eliminating all graveyards and replacing itself. It’s the “I need to remove the graveyard right now” button compared to Hearse’s “I want to repeatedly remove specific cards from my opponent’s graveyard.” If you know your opponent is on W, don’t tap out for this due to Prismatic Ending. Against non-W graveyard decks like Reanimator, this can also be quite powerful. Between Hearse, Grafdigger’s Cage, and Relic, I recommend choosing two.

Unlicensed Hearse is my favourite piece of graveyard hate. It’s a powerful, flexible card that even addresses some of the drawbacks of being mono colour. The ability to exile two target cards per turn cycle and be a large colourless creature when we need it is, frankly, great. Unfortunately, the current metagame needs immediate answers to specific cards which Hearse struggles with a 2-drop.

• Against URx decks, we can keep Dragon’s Rage Channeler off of Delirium and hinder Murktide Regent with good targeting.
• This is my preferred answer for Uro. Removing two cards from the opponent’s graveyard each turn hinders their ability to cast him from the graveyard and has a lasting effect even if it has been removed.
• Knight of the Reliquary and Elvish Reclaimer are much less threatening when we can keep the number of lands in their graveyard low. It doesn’t stop their combo win condition but it does let us pressure their life total by having safer attacks.
• Mother of Runes can’t save a creature from Hearse, nor can Goblin Piledriver evade it.
• Life from the Loam, Punishing Fire, and Hogaak are hard to recur when they have been exiled. Likewise Bridge from Below provides much less value.

The usefulness of Phantasmal Image is proportional to the power of creatures across the battlefield from us. The Initiative mechanic in particular has brought it back into the collective consciousness of the Merfolk community. While very vulnerable to removal, the metagame has shifted to the point where the card does have some use to us again. For , we can Clone any creature on the battlefield with the drawback of “whenever this creature is targeted by anything, it dies.” This can cause spells or abilities to be removed from the stack for lack of a legal target, hi Teferi -3!  Being the same mana cost as most of our creatures, we can bring this in off Vial to copy creatures at unexpected times.

Because the triggered sacrifice ability is independent of the effect which caused it once on the stack, Chalice and other counterspells can’t save it. So the obvious question is: When do we want a fragile clone of something? Broadly speaking:

• To get value,
• To disrupt an opponent, or
• When the drawback doesn’t matter.

Some examples of value: Copying a Renimator opponent’s Griselbrand so we can draw cards too, a Silvergill Adept to draw another card, or one of our lords to force our opponent to have answers or lose.

Disruption: Copying a Trickster to stall an opponent’s attack, an Initiative or Monarch creature to deny an opponent’s win condition, or a Marit Lage token to buy another turn win with a counterattack.

When it doesn’t matter: Copying True-Name Nemesis mostly eliminates the drawback. Just don’t try to equip the Image-TNN or put +1/+1 counters on it, it will die. The drawback also doesn’t matter if you plan for the creature to die right away, such as by having it enter so you can use it to fuel Hexcatcher. Lastly, some decks just don’t have much targeted removal. In those cases, make Image a copy of whatever you need and go at it!

Image requires an understanding of your opponent’s deck to play effectively. If you need it as a creature and can’t protect it, you should probably sideboard it out.

Note: Image cannot copy another creature entering at the same time as it, such as via Show and Tell or Exhume. Ruling:
        2017/03/14: If Phantasmal Image somehow enters the battlefield at the same time as another creature, Phantasmal Image can't become a copy of that creature. You may choose only a creature that's already on the battlefield.

Silvergill Adept does not look exciting at a glance. It’s a 2/1 which cantrips when it enters the battlefield. It doesn’t interact with the opponent, it doesn’t make our board bigger, and it dies to Plague Engineer. Why play it? Value. Drawing cards is considered one of the best things you can do in Magic; this does that and leaves a 2/1 Merfolk body behind. It comes in off a Vial on 2 and most of the time can be cast for . It’s my preferred creature to sacrifice to Hexcatcher or chump block/trade with. So while Adept doesn’t do anything super splashy on its own, it grows with our lords and helps us dig for answers. Compare to:

• Baleful Strix
• Elvish Visionary
• Ice-Fang Coatl

Previous iterations of this primer have been negative on Mistcaller, comparing it to a oneshot Containment Priest effect opponents can easily play around. It is a useful tool in combo-heavy metagames relying on creature win conditions. Reanimator, Cephalid Breakfast, and to a lesser extent Painter are all prominent in today’s metagame and hindered by Mistcaller.

Activating its ability in response to an Animate Dead, Dread Return, Throne of the Dead Three trigger, or other such effects can lead to tempo swings of up to game-winning impact! Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls make it easy to get Mistcaller on the battlefield when we need it and once there, counterspells can’t do anything to it.

This is not a catch-all answer for “cheat a creature onto the battlefield” situations. Aether Vial has a “may” clause in its activated ability, Show and Tell can choose a noncreature card (or no card at all), or as a 1/1 it can simply be destroyed before we would activate it.

Rishadan Dockhand started its life as a “this doesn’t quite make the cut” card. A common criticism of it was that in order to use its activated ability, it can’t attack, and Merfolk decks want to attack. Now that Deeproot Pilgrimage exists, this card has caught many eyes within the community. Being able to generate a body to attack or block with after disrupting an opponent’s land is great value, and a 1/2 islandwalking body for  is not that bad either. It passes the Bowmasters test and in testing, it turns out that the flexibility of being an evasive attacker or a Rishadan Port is much better than many expected. Activate this in your opponent’s upkeep to deny them the colour or utility land you think they need most this turn!

Other interesting cards

Last updated: Apr 19, 2023

In formats with Karakas, the legendary supertype is a significant downside. In order for a legendary creature to see play, it has to provide so much value that having to replay it again and again is still worth it. The most common Karakas archetype, Death and Taxes, was all but wiped out during the Initiative meta but has since bounced back. Keep that in mind if you decide to try these cards.

Mihail joined the school with Dominaria United Commander and at first look seems like a great value engine. The Discord has been down on him due to weaknesses and anti-synergies that make him appear non-viable. These concerns are:

• No ability to protect himself, making him harder to keep on the board than the go-to 3 drop, True-Name Nemesis.
• Karakas makes his static abilities much less useful.
• His abilities don’t synergize with Aether Vial. Our land count is usually low enough that consistently having 1 mana to pay for this triggered ability is not guaranteed.

Suppose those issues are manageable, though. If we are able to cast a Merfolk from the library right after Mihail resolves, then at minimum it is a 2:1 in our favour as the opponent spends a removal spell on Mihail and we still get a card in the form of the creature we would have drawn next turn. The value increases if we can also make a token, as even a 1/1 body can become threatening if we have lords out. Or, it’s another creature we can sacrifice to Hexcatcher.

Svyelun (pronounced Svay-loon) is a powerhouse in Modern but struggles in Legacy. She does things we want - draw cards, deal damage, protect the rest of our board. She has greater protection than Mihail out-of-the-box, surviving Lightning Bolt unassisted and disregarding red blasts if there are two other Merfolk on your side of the battlefield. Unfortunately, in order to draw cards, she must attack. A single Karakas on your opponent’s board makes that all but impossible, as they can remove her any time on your turn before the declare attackers step. The current build can remove the Karakas with Wasteland or Tide Shaper, but we have to draw those cards first.

Both Mihail and Svyelun have made it onto mtgtop8, sometimes together but more often apart. In initial testing, Mihail flounders in the absence of top-of-library manipulation while an unanswered Svyelun can run away with the game. The next supposition to test is that Mihail is better in Tropical while Svyelun shines in mono blue. It is likely that the Discord has been too harsh in our past evaluations of these two.

When 8-cast was first coming onto the scene, the community looked at Energy Flux as an option to manage it. The heavy tax effect, including on some of their lands, was seen as a way to deny resources and keep Saga constructs small. This is fine against 8-cast, but does very little against combo decks that want to use their artifacts to win the same turn they cast them. For that reason, we are better served with Null Rod effects, disabling the abilities of artifacts. It’s not as strong against 8-cast, but it affects more of the metagame.

Ensnare is an option for go-wide creature decks. If Merfolk wanted to gain points against Elves, this is a strong contender. After they activate their Allosaurus Shepherd or tutor for Craterhoof, Ensnare during their start of combat stage to functionally Fog them, except for any Symbiote activations they might have available. This could have usefulness against other creature-heavy decks we struggle with, like Death and Taxes, if removing their blockers for a turn would allow us to get in for lethal. I hesitate to think about this for a matchup like red stompy or Delver, where unsummoning two islands in the face of red blasts or Daze would be a critical tempo loss.

Torpor Orb is an option to look at for decks with heavy enters-the-battlefield effects, like Death and Taxes, Elves, and Initiative. While it doesn’t stop Living Weapon triggers, it turns off Craterhoof, Visionary, Stoneforge’s tutor, taking the initiative, etc. This effect is symmetrical, so this affects our Silvergill Adept, Tide Shaper, and Trickster. It does not affect True-Name Nemesis, as choosing a player is an ability modifying how it enters the battlefield, not a triggered ability.

Obsoleted cards

Last updated: May 11, 2023

Merrow Reejerey used to see play in the deck, leveraging the Twiddle-like effect whenever we cast a Merfolk to flood the board or disrupt opponents. Some classic uses:

• Tap a creature when casting Harbinger of the Tides, then use its ETB effect to unsummon it. This reads much like : “unsummon target creature and leave behind a 2/2 Merfolk.”
• Dump your hand using Reejerey to untap your lands, acting like a  cost reduction effect. With multiple Reejerey on the battlefield, this can lead to free or even mana-negative creatures!
• Tap opposing blockers to swing for lethal. This was helpful in the days before Tide Shaper, when we could less reliably ensure islandwalk.

In today’s meta, removal is so strong that a 3 mana creature without protection needs to offer more value to be worthwhile. Reejerey needs another Merfolk in your hand to be able to produce its useful effect.

When activated abilities are strong in the meta, these cards have use. However, they’re also very easily removed for little deckbuilding cost through effects such as Boseiju, Brotherhood’s End, Prismatic Ending, etc. It’s also hard for Merfolk decks to draw the cards when we need them. Urza’s Saga decks have a much easier time and often mainboard 1 copy. For us, it’s generally better to directly answer the source of the activated ability.

Jitte is a powerful equipment, but 4 mana at sorcery speed plus combat damage to even begin to have an effect is a very high bar to clear. Death and Taxes can get away with it because they have Stoneforge Mystic to bypass some of the timing restrictions, Mother of Runes to help make sure the equipped creature connects at least once, and Flickerwisp off Vial to protect it from removal. It suffers from all of the same incidental artifact removal problems as Needle and Spyglass, so Merfolk takes a pass on it.

Venser is a very focused, highly effective answer to Show and Tell. When placed on the battlefield via that effect, it bounces Omniscience before the opponent can use it to cast their win condition. If they instead put their win condition onto the battlefield directly, we are able to unsummon it before they can attack with it. Force of Negation and Vodalian Hexcatcher mostly obviate the need for this card, able to stop the Show and Tell while having much broader applicability.

All of this assumes the Show and Tell opponent is not splashing green for Veil of Summer.

About the Author

I’ve been playing Merfolk in Legacy since I started playing the format, around 2015. I mostly played in my local area but started traveling for GPs right before the COVID-19 pandemic brought an end to large scale events. I’ve been playing on MTGO since then, following the various ups and downs. Particularly the Dark Times, where the best we could come up with to win was to be a bad Doomsday clone with the Oracle/Shift combo.

Since Modern Horizons 2 I’ve found much more success, culminating in a top 2 split at Puget Sound Battleground 4’s Legacy 5k. I now feel confident enough about Legacy Merfolk to write a guide. I also have some placements in MTGO challenges:

• 2023/11/19, Tropical build (31st)
• 2023/07/30, Tropical build (32nd)

• 2023/02/12, Traditional build (29th)
• 2022/12/18, Traditional build (11th)
• 2022/03/27, Glasspool Mimic build (31st)
• 2022/02/21, Glasspool Mimic build (17th)
• 2021/04/18, Tropical build (26th)
• 2020/07/19, Paradigm Shift combo (11th)
• 2020/06/14, Sea-Dasher Octopus build (17th)

Revision History

Appendix A: Old matchup writeups

Last updated: Mar 21, 2023

At the rate I work on this primer, the meta shifts too quickly to consistently maintain detailed “these are the top archetypes and what to watch out for” writeups. These writeups remain for posterity and no further updates are planned.

Painter

Painter is a combo deck relying on the interaction of Painter’s Servant and Grindstone to mill opponents in one turn. Urza’s Saga and Goblin Engineer help it consistently find its pieces and assemble the combo through countermagic. They’re very strong against us, with mainboard Blasts to fight our interaction while Bolts and Fury fight our creatures. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is strong here, providing blockers, card filtering, artifacts to sacrifice for recursion, and the ability to recur ETBs once transformed.

Note: If for some reason your opponent chooses blue on Servant instead of red, you can cast Forces pitching lands and unneeded artifacts. Most opponents only make this mistake once.

IMPORTANT: Merfolk Trickster cannot interrupt the combo. Trickster in response to Grindstone activation does not stop you from losing the game. See Layers Matter in the Card Explanations section for more details. To avoid being milled out, you must remove Painter’s Servant from the battlefield.

To defeat Painter, we must keep them off their combo. This means preventing them from having Painter’s Servant, Grindstone, and 3 available mana at the same time. Keeping Servant off the battlefield, preventing Grindstone’s activation, and applying overwhelming aggro pressure are all ways to do this. Hurkyl’s Recall and Null Rod are the standout cards from our sideboard, setting them back on tempo or preventing Grindstone’s activation entirely. They generally don’t have good artifact removal, so the most likely way they’ll try to remove it is by using Goblin Welder to target it and an artifact in your graveyard. Try to keep your graveyard clear of artifacts and you’ll be fine. Likewise you can use Goblin Welder against them by copying it with Phantasmal Image. Once copied, Image cannot be removed with Red Elemental Blast as it is an invalid target. They’d have to use Pyroblast (since any spell or permanent is a legal target) or direct damage.

Unlicensed Hearse can be worth keeping in, exiling their recursion targets before they come back to the battlefield. Chalice, x=1, is fine here in a defensive role. Instead of turning off their game plan, it protects ours. Dismember is a bad answer to Servant since they have so much recursion.

Chaos Defiler from Warhammer 40k Commander is a dangerous new threat. In 1v1, it’s a Council’s Judgment effect they can easily slot into the existing shell and recur. The first time I ran into it, I immediately lost my lock then quickly lost to a large, trampling creature.

Shrapnel Slinger from Phyrexia: All Will be One slots nicely into the Painter shell and may increase the value of Grafdigger’s Cage to stop recursion. More data is needed.

Note: There is a blue-based version of Painter, much less common than the traditional red builds. This looks like a mix of the red build and 8-Cast.

Show & Tell

Show & Tell is a combo deck which uses the sorcery Show and Tell to cheat mana costs with the goal of deploying a threat which can either win the game on the spot or produce such insurmountable advantage that victory is all but assured. Usually UR, there are two variants of the deck. The first focuses on Omniscience as a S&T play and the other uses Sneak Attack as an additional way to cheat creatures onto the battlefield and start swinging. The usual win conditions are Archon of Cruelty, Emrakul, Griselbrand, and new with Phyrexia: All Will be One, Atraxa.

This deck isn’t as fast as something like Reanimator, where the game can be decided on turn 1. Instead, with access to blue draw spells and countermagic they can try to answer our disruption with their own. Expect to see Boseiju, Who Shelters All and red blasts post-sideboard to make our life more difficult.

Merfolk historically has a good matchup here. With our many counterspells and the threat of our creatures, it can be enough to counter the first Show, protect a Chalice, and win with whatever creature we have on the board. That said, here are some things you should know:

• Sneak Attack’s activated ability is not casting a spell. Emrakul will not take an extra turn.
• Merfolk Trickster is especially good at saving us should they get a big creature down. It can prevent the creature they’ve cheated in from attacking by tapping it during the beginning of combat step. If the creature was brought in using Sneak Attack, they still have to sacrifice it at the end of the turn as it is a delayed trigger from Sneak Attack’s ability, not an ability of the creature itself.
• Merfolk Trickster works on Emrakul. Emrakul has protection from spells which are one or more colours. A triggered ability like Trickster’s ETB is not a spell.

If Show & Tell is prevalent in your local meta and causing you trouble, consider Venser, Shaper Savant as a sideboard card. If he and Omniscience are put onto the battlefield at the same time, you can return Omniscience to your opponent’s hand before they have a chance to cast sorcery-speed spells.

A new variant is emerging which uses green for Natural Order (and infrequently Eureka). Neither of those spells meaningfully impact our game plan, but the protection green adds to the deck is another story. Veil of Summer, if it resolves, turns off most of our disruption. Forcing Veil feels bad, and some opponents will cast Veil even when they don’t have the combo to bait counterspells. The mind games are strong with this card. Chalice is even more important than normal to mitigate the threat of Veil, and taxing it with Hexcatcher activations can be enough to let them have Veil but not the mana to cast their game-winning spell.

Remember: Phantasmal Image cannot copy a creature which enters the battlefield at the same time as it, so placing it with Show and Tell cannot give you a copy of the card they’re placing. Ruling:
        2017/03/14: If Phantasmal Image somehow enters the battlefield at the same time as another creature, Phantasmal Image can't become a copy of that creature. You may choose only a creature that's already on the battlefield.

UR Aggro

NOTE Mar 7, 2023: Yesterday, Expressive Iteration was banned. The below text does not reflect this development.

Previously known as UR Delver, this deck is consistently near or at the top of the Legacy metagame. Relying on cheap, powerful threats like Delver of Secrets and Dragon’s Rage Channeler, it can apply intense pressure to opponents while using powerful card selection to find the answer they need to maintain tempo. Their big finisher is Murktide Regent, a bulky flier which adds even more value to the cheap instant and sorcery spells this deck relies on. This in turn can be fueled by DRC, a powerful card filtering engine which also becomes a hyper-efficient attacker.

Our creatures are of similar size to their one-drops once we’ve had some setup turns. Murktide Regent tends to end the game one way or another, as we either lock it down and out-race them or lose to a very large dragon.

Things to remember when facing Delver:

• Their deck is very heavily skewed towards 1-drop spells and so are extremely weak against Chalice of the Void. Sticking a turn 2 Chalice can win the game outright, which they will try to stop with Daze and Force of Will. Expect Meltdown from the sideboard.
• Merfolk Trickster is MVP for dealing with their small creatures. It can strip Flying from an Insectile Aberration so it can be blocked and killed, or turn an active DRC into a 1/1. In the latter case, sometimes the right play is to do this on their upkeep to turn off card selection / graveyard filling, which can delay the critical Murktide.
• Turn 3 True-Name Nemesis is one of the strongest plays we have here. They have no answer to a resolved TNN so it puts them on a clock.
• Respect Wasteland. Prefer to keep hands with either two Islands. Aether Vial helps if you can stick and protect it; always start with at least 1 Island in hand.

When sideboarding, I add the 4th Chalice and both Unlicensed Hearses. Hearse lets us control DRC / Murktide and sometimes becomes a large creature for that lethal attack. Chalice just shuts down the deck, so sticking and protecting one is very powerful. Force of Will is less useful as they often have countermagic of their own to protect the Force. Phantasmal Image can be worthwhile, just be mindful that it dies to their removal through Chalice unless copying TNN. Only use it to copy another creature if you really need an extra ETB or it puts them in a must-answer situation.

Before the Initiative metagame, Cursecatcher as a 2-of was very helpful for protecting turn 2 Chalice / Hearse.

Sailors’ Bane is a card they might be interested in running. Data is limited as it is unavailable on MTGO.

Reanimator

Reanimator is the classic “Force check” combo deck, with heavy hand disruption and a potentially game-ending turn 1 combo. The general conceit of the deck is to get a powerful creature like Griselbrand or Archon of Cruelty into the graveyard then get it onto the battlefield with Animate Dead, Exhume, or Reanimate. Griselbrand draws a ton of cards and maintains their life total, almost guaranteeing an insurmountable advantage. Archon, on the other hand, provides an immediate impact to the board with its triggered ability, removing one of our creatures and making us discard possible answers. In both cases, it’s very difficult to come back against one of these creatures on the battlefield.

How do they get creatures into their graveyard? Usually by discarding them to Faithless Looting or tutoring them there with Entomb. To reanimate on the same turn, they use one-shot mana like Lotus Petal and Dark Ritual to get ahead of the curve, and to make sure they can succeed at their combo they will use Grief, Thoughtseize, and Unmask to find and remove interaction. Grief, conveniently, can also be reanimated after it dies to its Evoke trigger to further disrupt our hand.

Game 1, especially blind, is a coin toss. Do you have Force when they have their reanimation spell? Games 2 and 3 are more interesting. Post-sideboard, the game becomes much more about sticking any creature at all to pressure their life total while keeping them from resolving a reanimation spell. This is a classic “protect the prison and hit them with Silvergill” scenario.

Force of Negation and Grafdigger’s Cage provide interaction on turns 0 and 1 - a resolved Cage can be difficult to work around for them unless they sided in artifact hate. Unlicensed Hearse lets us repeatedly remove reanimation targets from the graveyard, while some pilots use Surgical Extraction in its place for faster interaction. I typically remove True-Name Nemesis as they run very little creature interaction, and Chalice usually comes out too. Especially on the draw, a turn 2 Chalice does too little too late.

Beware Iona, Shield of Emeria. It turns off most of our deck. Ways we can remove her and attempt to come back online are Otawara (lands are colourless and activated abilities are not spells) and Karakas.

4+ Colour Control

NOTE Mar 7, 2023: Yesterday, Expressive Iteration was banned. The below text does not reflect this development.

This broad archetype tends to be resilient to Chalice of the Void. Their general game plan is to keep us off balance until they reach Uro, then overwhelm us with life gain and card draw while coming in with a hard-to-remove 6/6. Sometimes they do this with Swords to Plowshares and Prismatic Ending, sometimes with Supreme Verdict, sometimes a mix. Whether or not Uro stays on the battlefield is usually the deciding factor in this matchup.

Often I find myself in a feels-bad situation, having to choose between overcommitting to the board and risking a Verdict blowout or holding things back and miss the kill before Uro comes online. Opinion in the Merfolk community leans toward “force them to have the Verdict.”

As a cantrip-heavy blue deck, it’s easy for them to fill their graveyard and pay Uro’s escape cost. It’s also very easy for them to have Prismatic Ending or Teferi, Time Raveler to remove our permanent-based interaction and bring Uro forth. Exiling cards from the graveyard is good, as is unsummoning Uro after they’ve paid their escape costs. If Uro is a consistent problem in your metagame, consider Karakas as a mitigation strategy. It can’t be targeted by most removal and repeatedly unsummons him. Force of Will on Uro from hand is almost always a losing proposition; it’s much better to counter it when Escaping as that at least costs them resources.

Battle for Baldur’s Gate introduced miniature giant space hamsters to the format. Minsc and Boo is a powerful and flexible card, creating powerful threats, growing them, or flinging them to remove threats and draw cards. This is much easier for us to deal with than Uro, and it’s still a must-answer threat. Some important interactions to be aware of:

• On the +1 ability, if the targeted creature loses its abilities (such as due to Trickster), it becomes an invalid target and does not gain +1/+1 counters.
• Sacrificing a creature is not a cost of the -2 ability. It happens on resolution of the ability, which then creates a triggered ability to deal damage (and draw cards, if the sacrificed creature was a Hamster). Unsummoning Boo before the activated ability resolves will usually prevent them from drawing cards.

A sub-archetype, 4+ Colour Zenith, relies on Green Sun’s Zenith and a suite of toolbox creatures to control the board with permanents rather than spells. These builds run hate creatures like Knight of Autumn and Plague Engineer alongside value engines like Omnath and Primeval Titan. Grafdigger’s Cage goes up dramatically in value against this variant, making it harder for them to find their engines.

Elves

Elves have a history of being the hardest matchup for Merfolk. The cards they’ve gained in recent years have made this so heavily unfavoured that sentiment in the community is often “don’t bother building for them, take the 0-2 quickly and go get lunch.” Winning is very unlikely but not impossible. This is one of those times where our low meta percentage is advantageous, as opponents might not understand how best to deal with our interaction.

Elves are a resilient combo deck with mainboard hate against us and so much mana generation our taxes are ineffective. Skilled opponents often make attacking difficult by using Wirewood Symbiote after declaring blockers to unsummon their creature before damage is dealt.

The dinosaur in the room, though, is Allosaurus Shepherd. This card from Jumpstart is unprecedented in Magic’s history. There is no comparable card which provides such blanket protection and an additional win condition at such a low mana cost. Not only is it immune to counterspells, it makes the rest of their deck immune to counterspells as every spell they play is at least green. All for . A blue mage’s worst nightmare. They can then end the game quickly with the built-in overrun effect or combo off with impunity. This card is hard to interact with, but there is some hope:

• Dismember kills it, if they don’t have a Wirewood Symbiote available to unsummon it. That unsummon is an activation cost and can’t be responded to, so it doesn’t matter if you have more than one.
• Merfolk Trickster suppresses its abilities, so if all Allosaurus Shepherds on the battlefield have been affected this turn you can counter their key spell. Don’t rely on being able to do this.

Unfortunately, between Green Sun’s Zenith and Once Upon a Time it’s very easy for them to find a turn 1 Shepherd or a replacement should we deal with the first.

The “classic” win condition for Elves is Natural Order to find an unstoppable threat like Craterhoof Behemoth or Progenitus. Grafdigger’s Cage answers this and their Zeniths by preventing them from putting a creature from their library onto the battlefield, but is vulnerable to Boseiju. We can’t counter activated abilities without adding Stifle to the list so our disruption is as good as gone.

If they can’t search up their win condition, they can just draw their deck to find it instead. Glimpse of Nature makes all of their creatures cantrip. When combined with Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid it’s easy for them to flood the board while drawing many cards and gaining mana overall. They also play Gaea’s Cradle, which is our #1 Wasteland / Tide Shaper target. Lands which produce more than 1 mana are dangerous and easily broken. This is especially so with Elvish Reclaimer builds. On their combo turn they can maximize their mana production by fetching additional Cradles, or they can blank our disruption by sacrificing our Wasteland target, or turn off evasion by sacrificing a Tide Shaper target after attackers are declared.

If Shepherd is ever banned we might have a meaningful chance against Elves again but for now the best thing to do is hope you don’t get paired against them.

Initiative

NOTE Mar 7, 2023: Yesterday, White Plume Adventurer was banned. The below text does not reflect this development.

Initiative is the new hotness and it looks like it’s here to stay. A new mechanic in Baldur’s Gate, initiative is the child of venture and monarch with a large injection of power. Initiative lets players access a new dungeon, Undercity. In addition to the powerful effects of Undercity in general, Initiative lets players advance through the dungeon without additional card expenditure - as long as a player has initiative, they venture at the start of their upkeep. Additionally, initiative is passed around like monarch and whenever a player takes initiative (even if they already have it), they get to venture.

Initiative decks frequently use Sol lands and fast artifact mana to power out an Initiative creature on turn 1. They might also deploy a turn 1 Elite Spellbinder or Anointed Peacekeeper to disrupt our disruption. Force of Will would be a great counter, spending two cards to stop three or more of their cards used to power out a creature, except this is also a Cavern of Souls deck - usually naming Cleric. They also use Touch the Spirit Realm, both as removal and as an instant flicker to protect their creatures, take the initiative, or even keep an evoked Solitude as a creature.

So how can we beat it? We have to take the lead on initiative and prevent them from retaking it. Use their own broken engine against them. We can remove creatures with Dismember, preventing their ability to reclaim the initiative once we take it, or we can copy their triggered abilities and steal it using Phantasmal Image. Vialing in Image to copy Dungeoneer or White Plume on their end step results in two Undercity triggers for us. Sometimes this is enough, sometimes not.

Null Rod is too slow, especially on the draw. Chalice on 0 is fine on the play, but Dismember and high creature density is what wins this for us. They have no answer for True-Name Nemesis and their removal is all 1:1s or worse. If we can flood the board and stay ahead that will get us the win. Either way this matchup is hard, thanks to the size of their creatures and the advantage generated by having the initiative.