Great video as always! Love the increase in production value as well. As you finish this series I suggest you do it for other highly played formats, pioneer specially.
This is a pretty solid intro to Merfolk. Although I am, as a Merfolk player who has been a part of the school since Modern's inception, naturally biased. I think calling them "unplayable" is selling the deck very short. We do have a very tough match up against 4 color Omnath, but with the right build we have very solid match ups against UR Murktide, Hammer, Burn, and Titan. Very good and very bad match ups aside, we're solidly 60/40 against just about everything else. The problem has always been which end of the ratio are we going to end up on. Being very skilled with the deck and knowledgeable about the format can tip the scales, but not much more than that 60. Traditionally, our worst match-ups have been Elves and Affinity. Though neither have improved much, Elves has largely vanished. The same cannot be said of Affinity, however, so if Robots are in your meta, watch out. I'm super impressed with this take overall, and I hope it leads to more people picking up the deck.
I agree, „unplayable“ is a very „only top meta can compete“ kinda view which is simply not true in modern. Of course Fury is strong against fish but cards like Subtlety have a pretty good recent record of being a perfect answer.
Nice video, love to see the representation! One thing however was kinda brushed over imo: one of the biggest strengths of Merfolk is its adaptability and ability to be perfectly finetuned to a local meta. The video mentions being mostly monoU restricting the deck of sideboard options. That is true in the sense that many sideboard staples reside in other colors. But in practice there‘s a lot of blue cards that help the Merfolk gameplan against almost any matchup (e.g. Stony Silence -> Hurkyll‘s Recall). That extensive toolbox and the fact that even the core of the main deck consists of like 12 cards (rather subjective, I know but people have been cutting Lord Of Atlantis a while back, which one would likely think of being an unnegotiable staple) makes Merfolk a very relevant threat, provided the meta and matchup knowledge.
Yet another well done video and instructive content. But I wonder if at the end you can give us May be YOUR chart (point of view) on winning rate against other decks. Why May be helpful, that way a player is prepared up on matches or meta or what stores players play the most. Doing a excellent job. Can’t wait for the next one.
I feel like the standard statement you're making about tribal decks being "unplayable" is too absolute, and also out of place in these videos. In my mind, Splinter Twin is "unplayable", tribal decks are merely not currently accepted as top decks in the meta. I think these videos should be created with the mindset that they are meant to be introductions to various deck archetypes, with some level of timelessness to them even if the minor individual cards or the meta changes down the line. Statements about them being bad, unfun to play or play against etc, feel very out of place and jarring, when the rest of the video is presented in a pleasant, "academic" style that I enjoy a lot.
Thanks for the feedback. I do want the videos to feel timeless. However, I also want to consider the perspective of someone who may be new to Modern and is unfamiliar with the power levels of various decks. I wouldn't want a newbie to build a Tribal deck based on these videos only to later learn that they're among the lower tier decks.
@@AmmiO2 if i could offer, maybe a “power rank/my thoughts at time of recording (date)” section at the end and then if someone is watching in like a year and something nutty got added you still have a disclaimer in there.
I think that thieving skymaster can steal both saga tokens and artifact lands if you pay one mana as it's kicker.
I should have clarified that it CAN steal those but you have to pay at least 1.
I like how all of the hyper efficient removal spells you mentioned were all out of MH2. I fucking hate what that set did to modern.
Format was removal spell.format before MH2
Great video as always! Love the increase in production value as well. As you finish this series I suggest you do it for other highly played formats, pioneer specially.
This is a pretty solid intro to Merfolk. Although I am, as a Merfolk player who has been a part of the school since Modern's inception, naturally biased.
I think calling them "unplayable" is selling the deck very short. We do have a very tough match up against 4 color Omnath, but with the right build we have very solid match ups against UR Murktide, Hammer, Burn, and Titan.
Very good and very bad match ups aside, we're solidly 60/40 against just about everything else. The problem has always been which end of the ratio are we going to end up on. Being very skilled with the deck and knowledgeable about the format can tip the scales, but not much more than that 60.
Traditionally, our worst match-ups have been Elves and Affinity. Though neither have improved much, Elves has largely vanished. The same cannot be said of Affinity, however, so if Robots are in your meta, watch out.
I'm super impressed with this take overall, and I hope it leads to more people picking up the deck.
I agree, „unplayable“ is a very „only top meta can compete“ kinda view which is simply not true in modern. Of course Fury is strong against fish but cards like Subtlety have a pretty good recent record of being a perfect answer.
Nice video, love to see the representation!
One thing however was kinda brushed over imo: one of the biggest strengths of Merfolk is its adaptability and ability to be perfectly finetuned to a local meta.
The video mentions being mostly monoU restricting the deck of sideboard options. That is true in the sense that many sideboard staples reside in other colors.
But in practice there‘s a lot of blue cards that help the Merfolk gameplan against almost any matchup (e.g. Stony Silence -> Hurkyll‘s Recall).
That extensive toolbox and the fact that even the core of the main deck consists of like 12 cards
(rather subjective, I know but people have been cutting Lord Of Atlantis a while back, which one would likely think of being an unnegotiable staple)
makes Merfolk a very relevant threat, provided the meta and matchup knowledge.
Spreading seas turning urzas saga into an island destroys it similar to the saga blood moon interaction
Nice smooth jams for Merfolk background music.
I've been waiting for merfolks!! Love these videos :)
Yet another well done video and instructive content.
But I wonder if at the end you can give us May be YOUR chart (point of view) on winning rate against other decks.
Why May be helpful, that way a player is prepared up on matches or meta or what stores players play the most.
Doing a excellent job. Can’t wait for the next one.
I plan to do a "Tier List" for current Modern and analyze matchups.
When E-tron?
It's highly requested so after Tribal Week.
Yayy it's my deck's turn
merfolk decktech with and unique presentation...? SUSCRIBED.
Gruul sagavan
Tribal week? I can dig it.
Tide shaper can kill urza's saga
I like the background and all but the cards are so small. Can you make them a bit more the focus of the picture
Will do.
Under the sea... life is
I feel like the standard statement you're making about tribal decks being "unplayable" is too absolute, and also out of place in these videos. In my mind, Splinter Twin is "unplayable", tribal decks are merely not currently accepted as top decks in the meta.
I think these videos should be created with the mindset that they are meant to be introductions to various deck archetypes, with some level of timelessness to them even if the minor individual cards or the meta changes down the line. Statements about them being bad, unfun to play or play against etc, feel very out of place and jarring, when the rest of the video is presented in a pleasant, "academic" style that I enjoy a lot.
Thanks for the feedback. I do want the videos to feel timeless. However, I also want to consider the perspective of someone who may be new to Modern and is unfamiliar with the power levels of various decks. I wouldn't want a newbie to build a Tribal deck based on these videos only to later learn that they're among the lower tier decks.
@@AmmiO2 if i could offer, maybe a “power rank/my thoughts at time of recording (date)” section at the end and then if someone is watching in like a year and something nutty got added you still have a disclaimer in there.
Can we have dredge please!
Where is he? I know he’s gonna be here, where is he?!