Subject: What About Fish
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 22:04:50 GMT
From: Daniel DuBois <ddubois@ADKNOWLEDGE.COM>

This is what my Merfolk deck looked like when I played at KK's in
Pleasanton.  I lost to well-played CounterHammer fairly convincingly, and
to speed B/r beatdown (which I think I should have won, I just made a bad
mistake in game 1, and got manascrewed in game 2).  I beat two Sligh decks
2-0 each, and one B/G weenie deck.  This is the deck:

       3 Mana Leak
       4 Counterspell

       2 Legacy's Allure
       2 Propaganda
       4 Man-o'-War

       4 Manta Riders
       4 Tidal Warrior
       2 Merfolk Traders
       4 Lord of Atlantis

       4 Winter Orb
       2 Suq'Ata Firewalker
       2 Waterspout Djinn
       2 Disenchant

       2 Sea Scryer
       3 Undiscovered Paradise
       13 Island
       2 Thalakos Lowlands
       2 Adarkar Wastes

SB:  3 Chill
SB:  2 Suq'Ata Firewalker
SB:  2 Torture Chamber
SB:  2 Legacy's Allure
SB:  1 Light of Day
SB:  3 Disrupt
SB:  2 Disenchant

In my sideboarding against CounterHammer and ProspBloom after the
tournament, I realized I had too many dead cards: 2 Legacy's Allure, 2
Propagandas, 4 Man-O-War, and a surplus of weenie control in the sideboard.
Standard school of thought is that Winter Orb crushes CounterHammer, but I
couldn't get one onto the table and/or keep it there.  I think I need more
against control decks.  Extra counter-magic in the SB would help against
both combo decks and control decks, however, again Disrupts didn't seem to
work for me, because my deck doesn't build up mana quickly enough to have
the mana advantage, or even parity, that allows Disrupt to be effective
against another control deck (i.e., I can never seem to get to 5 mana in a
timely fashion that I need for Orb + 2cc counter + Disrupt to force an Orb
down, and 5 mana seems to be a big flashpoint for Disrupts being useful).
However, when I brought in the Disrupts against Sligh, they were quite
useful, because they don't run any more mana than I do, and they have to
tap down as much as I do to operate.

Here's how I'm thinking of changing the deck:

-1 Tidal Warrior
-1 Mana Leak
-1 Disenchant
-1 Man-o'-War
+3 Memory Lapse

Going down to 60 cards, with a change in SB like:

-2 Torture Chamber
-1 Disrupt
-1 Light of Day
+2 Armageddon
+2 Mana Leak

Giving me fewer dead cards to SB out against creatureless or combo decks,
while making me a tiny bit stronger against them in the first game.  I
still am at only 9 counterspells, where the standard # for Merfolk decks
appears to be 10.  The new deck:

       2 Mana Leak
       3 Memory Lapse
       4 Counterspell

       2 Legacy's Allure
       2 Propaganda
       3 Man-o'-War

       4 Manta Riders
       3 Tidal Warrior
       2 Merfolk Traders
       4 Lord of Atlantis

       4 Winter Orb
       2 Suq'Ata Firewalker
       2 Waterspout Djinn
       1 Disenchant

       2 Sea Scryer
      13 Island
       2 Thalakos Lowlands
       2 Adarkar Wastes
       3 Undiscovered Paradise

SB:  3 Chill
SB:  2 Armageddon
SB:  2 Suq'Ata Firewalker
SB:  2 Mana Leak
SB:  2 Disrupt
SB:  2 Disenchant
SB:  2 Legacy's Allure

Do you think I'm making movements in the right direction?

-----
Daniel DuBois                                           (650) 842-6540
AdKnowledge, Inc.                                    ddubois@pobox.com