Nice roundup. It's weird to see Goblins so dominant since it never seemed that popular before.
As for Vanguard, I played GW Mirri. I didn't write up an article because the PE was, frankly, boring. I played two Mirri mirrors, and I played one match where my opponent conceded as soon as he saw my avatar. Something is wrong with an avatar when you can make the semifinals and not have fun.
I can fill in half the top 8 though. caliban was playing Tamanoa Ashling; plastik6- MonoU Dakkon, Reaper-Doran Mirri; renappel-GB Jhoira. I would be stunned if cwllc did not play GW Mirri. Not sure about Mituliak or geneticfreak.
Thanks guys. This was a good learning experience for me, and hopefully useful for others. I guess the lesson to take from it is if you're in merfolk, draft/run the cards that will let you set up your synergeous little dudes.
I would just like to throw out there that the prices on mtgotraders are very excellent. In fact, the price to availability to convience is worth a lot more to me then say a few tix here and there.. and with all the discounts already i don't really notice the difference and the convience means more..
all that being said.. FOW kind of leveled off the last few weeks.. its been between 45-50 now.. it'll be interesting to see its price after V3 launches
Thanks for doing the draft, I appreciate the walk throughs....
Alot of this has been covered, but I will still put in my $0.02.
P2 Doran-Witches is the pick to win, but the tix for Doran justifies the pick. The goal is to draft for free(or at least on the cheap for as long as possible), while becoming a better player, Doran fits.
P3 Summon- I consider this a huge signal. Note a rare and common are missing(possible a foil) not much in Merfolk I would take over Summon.
P4 Harasser- Fine pickas he really holds the ground for Fairies, but note that 4 drop is getting full. Would be alright with Twig here also(possibly even K. Greatheart if you want to jump U/W early)
P10 Spiderwig-I would take Hillcomber here, as never been too impressed with Spiderwig.
P13 Tauntings-take Faultgrinder, at least he is playable in Elementals
*P19-Drowner-To me this is one of the critical picks, by picking Drowner you must commit more to Merfolk. The other possibility is to go with Witches and stick U/B Fairies. For me it could go either way, but as I prefer Fairies I would take Witches here.
P21 Nap-is fine, Net is not.
P22 T. Changling- Do not underestimate the power of Footbottom Feast. If still U/B I might take this.
P23 M. Harbinger-Yes!, needed tutor. you should be valuing U/w? merfolk even more now
P26 Scarblade-you will not play this, take the Wispmare for SB
*P31 Inversion-this is the other critical pick. Right now you are probally thinking U/B/w, when you should be U/W/b. in which case Crib Swap is better.
P33 Hub-Take the extract, Hub is not worth the Tix, and removal(esp non color committed) is needed.
P34 D. Merrow-again you are thinking U/B/w, Harrier is the pick
P35 Nap-Harrier again
P40 I. Divers- again I would consider the feast as you only have 1 Drowner, Judge and this gets them back. I don't know which is better, but in a control deck I would take Feast.
Build:
-1 Stroke
(pos. -1 Nap)
+1(2) Whelm
It seems from the description that there were probally some play errors. Anyway, keep them coming.
Yes, some trimming down will be coming. I'm not sure what/how/etc yet but I expect that this article is too big as it is. Looking at how much I write for each one and how much text is needed to go over each one it's probably well past time to figure out a better way to manage the information...
I hope I didn't upset you Heath with grabbing a card price from another bot chain. I've actually noticed that both dealers and the message board lag behind a few of the 'auto-update' bots in prices. It's not meant to be a knock against you (or any other dealer), just that for this exact purpose a bot that auto updates it's prices is giong to provide the best data for the tracking.
For pretty much all cards I think that most bots/dealers have the same, or very competitive prices. It's a rare occasion where one place has a large margin of difference. As I stated in the article, the price of yours with the paypal discount is about the same as what nova is charging in tix, so they come out about the same after all that. However, as I hadn't started the series following the paypal priced version but the tix version so I either had to redo everything (and I don't like modifiying already reported numbers) or use the version that was admittedly higher than it should be. And your reasons for justification make perfect sense. Again, I'm not knocking you or any other dealer, but I'm trying to make the article as accurate as possible for the readers.
Well BaCooN looks good again this week. If last week's deck has a weenie problem could replace the Barters with Innocent Blood.
Like the price quides though I must say that section is getting a little unweildy in terms of size/number of charts. Think triming it a bit might be a good thing.
Sometimes we have to artificially keep some of our prices high which is the case with Deed/FOW. We know that they will go back up and if we drop them we lose money so we have to wait out the period while they are cheaper on the boards and some bots. Once they go back up we have a good stock of them and we don't get nailed by hoarders. I know this isn't the idea situation for buyers but hopefully it explains how it works from my end and the lack of supply is the main reason why we can't move our prices as much as we would like on some cards. So I don't blame you for using another price source but to be even more accurate maybe you should use the message boards as they are usually the most fluid with prices. As for 99% of my other cards we do move them with the flow of supply/demand and we do not keep any cards artificially high other than deed/fow/chant that I can think of atm. Our prices are based upon sales from over 20 bots, my website and 2 other websites so the data that we have available to determine prices is much greater than any other dealer not in my circle could provide. I hope my little rant makes sense and let me know if you have more questions about pricing. I have nothing to hide and i'll tell you my profit margin on cards or anything else you want to know.
When he's attacking with Seedguide with the Kithkin guy active, you lose nothing by blocking with Benthicore and both Merfolk. This means even if he kills one, the Ash still dies.
Great input so far. Thanks to JX for cleaning it up some. I agree that I probably should've built (and drafted) the more controlling version, OR been using Whelm in the aggro version. I like the analysis.
I think the main problem with your draft was that thorughout you kept attempting a more aggresive stye of deck when the cards coming towards you gave you a very strong U/w/b control strategy. Most notably your choice of deeptread merrow of goldmeadow harrier (and glimmerdust nap over anohter harrier) when you already had a strong merfolk base as well as pack 17 choice of sentinels over either necksnap or the changling (who would benefit your mill win condition more...a good merfolk draft deck should rarely need to attack) Also i think you overvalue glimmerdust nap and scattering strobe and undervalue the whelms. The strobes cost too much mana, especially since it falls on your fundamental turn 4 where you deffnately dont want to leave mana open, and the glimmerdust naps as they fall off faar to easily in this format, and cost too much mana as compared to whirlpool whelms that buy you the tempo your deck needs (as you've said) . Furthermore, this is a format where agressive splashes are exceedingly necessary and as such mana fixing like the twig (and especially vivid lands) really cant be expected to come around often so should be taken earlier in order to ensure the vital splashes for removal decks lie yours needed. Lastly, judge of currents is exceedingly necessary for the merfolk archetype to work, as it gives merfolk the time they need to setup and puts them out of range once the engine is set up, and hence are without a doubt necessary. As long as you draft with a deck plan in mind (a variable one mind you but a plan none the less) then you shold be fine in this format.
C p1p7: Are you kidding? The Douser is possibly one of the strongest cards blue has. Always pick it if able, especially this late in the draft.
C p1p8: Fertile ground is tempting here, but I think the Sprite is the right choice, but at this point you should be hoping/praying for more Witches.
C p2p1: I think you’re sending a strong signal for green here by passing so many Fertile Grounds and the Packmaster and for red due to tarfire and the lash out, go all in on UB black and hope it pays off pack 3.
C p2p2: I think sentinels are a fine second pick.
C p2p3: Definetley, worthy of a first pick in many cases. Both pepper smoke and pestermite here should be strong signals to stay the course with UB faeries.
C p2p4: I don’t personally like the Drowner…just because I’ve never actually seen anyone win with it. It really only works with multiple judge of currents. Personally, I would have gone with the sentinel.
C p2p6: Never play zephyr net. Glimmerdust nap is the correct choice.
C p3p1: And your only white playable is the Summon. Nameless Inversion is definitely the correct choice; your deck really is missing removal.
C p1p3: Fallowsage is still a fine pick, I think you made the right choice.
I think you did okay, Doran may have thrown your draft off a bit, but I would have taken if the same. You were indeed right, Merfolk were quite open, but someone was cutting your faeries off. I think you may need to be a little more conscientious about your curve. In the end, you just didn’t get the cards that your deck really needed.
You didn’t get enough faeries, so you couldn’t win through the air, and you didn’t get any Architect’s Wills or Streambed Architects to give your Merfolk evasion. I would have taken out the naps, and replaced them with Whirlpool Whelms. The Nap just doesn’t work in UW Merfolk, as it’s a deck that wants to buy time, so it can set up later. The Whelm works as a time walk.
Your advice of 'buy buy buy' shocklands NOW neglects that they are eligible for reprinting in 11th edition. Unlike the orignal duals, not eligible for reprinting on the reserved list, shocklands can return. I don't want to spend a bunch of money on shocklands, only to see them reprinted later (and falling in price).
Sure. I meant the specifics of the deck becoming more combo-ish rather than the specific card's effect. Most Spore Cry players play the deck like an aggro deck even when they play versus control, and I think this is the incorrect strategy considering the number of instant-speed threats the deck has access to relative to the number of answers the control deck can present.
Changing the deck to include an alternate win strategy and gameplan should force players of the deck to consider the non-aggro approach more thoughtfully rather than just dropping all their spells out there at sorcery speed to get countered like fish in a barrel.
King in the Castle is a U/g/w deck with Counterbalance/Top, Vedalken Shackles, Loxodon Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, and a Trinket Mage toolbox. (This is why descriptive names, such as "Counter-Top Goyf", are often better unless they become as well known as "Zoo," "Trix," or "The Rock.")
sorry about the double post came up as an error, care to expand upon any of your reasonings, in particular i'm intrigued by why you think Distant Melodies will be so devestating against MUTC?
Sorry Gloin, that is exactly what I was referring to. The content, aside from its opinionated and therefore fundimentally flawed nature of course, is good, but the editing and formatting was unintentionally neglected due to a lack of understanding about what I was providing. Again, sorry for the roughness, hope it wasn't too much of an inconvenience for everyone.
Good article, shame some of the analysis seems a wee bit off... Distant Melody - ....... This threatens to be very dangerous to MUTC.
Urm Why? its a 4 mana sorcery against a deck that gasp plays counters, if the games hit the extent where your revolving a 4 mana sorcery against such a deck then you were probably in a damn good situation anyway.
P.S the grammar in places needs cleaning up. Khiareq is another well respected PDC'er had this to say sentences like that just appear sloppy.
unknown cards expands the challenges,using unfamiliar bombs and threats to shred your opponent,its a tough one rarely few have the ability to use those kind.A great player always win without those power cards.
i thought w,pair worked like...if i play a 2/2 i go get a 2/2...so how can you get the other card by playing wallo roots
Nice roundup. It's weird to see Goblins so dominant since it never seemed that popular before.
As for Vanguard, I played GW Mirri. I didn't write up an article because the PE was, frankly, boring. I played two Mirri mirrors, and I played one match where my opponent conceded as soon as he saw my avatar. Something is wrong with an avatar when you can make the semifinals and not have fun.
I can fill in half the top 8 though. caliban was playing Tamanoa Ashling; plastik6- MonoU Dakkon, Reaper-Doran Mirri; renappel-GB Jhoira. I would be stunned if cwllc did not play GW Mirri. Not sure about Mituliak or geneticfreak.
Thanks guys. This was a good learning experience for me, and hopefully useful for others. I guess the lesson to take from it is if you're in merfolk, draft/run the cards that will let you set up your synergeous little dudes.
I agree. He was a fun interview, and I hope he swims, my research my have been a bit off there.
COREY IS DA BOMB DIGIDY
Where would one find the Singleton and Tribal decklists?
I would just like to throw out there that the prices on mtgotraders are very excellent. In fact, the price to availability to convience is worth a lot more to me then say a few tix here and there.. and with all the discounts already i don't really notice the difference and the convience means more..
all that being said.. FOW kind of leveled off the last few weeks.. its been between 45-50 now.. it'll be interesting to see its price after V3 launches
Thanks for doing the draft, I appreciate the walk throughs....
Alot of this has been covered, but I will still put in my $0.02.
P2 Doran-Witches is the pick to win, but the tix for Doran justifies the pick. The goal is to draft for free(or at least on the cheap for as long as possible), while becoming a better player, Doran fits.
P3 Summon- I consider this a huge signal. Note a rare and common are missing(possible a foil) not much in Merfolk I would take over Summon.
P4 Harasser- Fine pickas he really holds the ground for Fairies, but note that 4 drop is getting full. Would be alright with Twig here also(possibly even K. Greatheart if you want to jump U/W early)
P10 Spiderwig-I would take Hillcomber here, as never been too impressed with Spiderwig.
P13 Tauntings-take Faultgrinder, at least he is playable in Elementals
*P19-Drowner-To me this is one of the critical picks, by picking Drowner you must commit more to Merfolk. The other possibility is to go with Witches and stick U/B Fairies. For me it could go either way, but as I prefer Fairies I would take Witches here.
P21 Nap-is fine, Net is not.
P22 T. Changling- Do not underestimate the power of Footbottom Feast. If still U/B I might take this.
P23 M. Harbinger-Yes!, needed tutor. you should be valuing U/w? merfolk even more now
P26 Scarblade-you will not play this, take the Wispmare for SB
*P31 Inversion-this is the other critical pick. Right now you are probally thinking U/B/w, when you should be U/W/b. in which case Crib Swap is better.
P33 Hub-Take the extract, Hub is not worth the Tix, and removal(esp non color committed) is needed.
P34 D. Merrow-again you are thinking U/B/w, Harrier is the pick
P35 Nap-Harrier again
P40 I. Divers- again I would consider the feast as you only have 1 Drowner, Judge and this gets them back. I don't know which is better, but in a control deck I would take Feast.
Build:
-1 Stroke
(pos. -1 Nap)
+1(2) Whelm
It seems from the description that there were probally some play errors. Anyway, keep them coming.
Regards
___heper_monkey on MTGO
Yes, some trimming down will be coming. I'm not sure what/how/etc yet but I expect that this article is too big as it is. Looking at how much I write for each one and how much text is needed to go over each one it's probably well past time to figure out a better way to manage the information...
Time to ponder, I guess.
I hope I didn't upset you Heath with grabbing a card price from another bot chain. I've actually noticed that both dealers and the message board lag behind a few of the 'auto-update' bots in prices. It's not meant to be a knock against you (or any other dealer), just that for this exact purpose a bot that auto updates it's prices is giong to provide the best data for the tracking.
For pretty much all cards I think that most bots/dealers have the same, or very competitive prices. It's a rare occasion where one place has a large margin of difference. As I stated in the article, the price of yours with the paypal discount is about the same as what nova is charging in tix, so they come out about the same after all that. However, as I hadn't started the series following the paypal priced version but the tix version so I either had to redo everything (and I don't like modifiying already reported numbers) or use the version that was admittedly higher than it should be. And your reasons for justification make perfect sense. Again, I'm not knocking you or any other dealer, but I'm trying to make the article as accurate as possible for the readers.
Well BaCooN looks good again this week. If last week's deck has a weenie problem could replace the Barters with Innocent Blood.
Like the price quides though I must say that section is getting a little unweildy in terms of size/number of charts. Think triming it a bit might be a good thing.
Sometimes we have to artificially keep some of our prices high which is the case with Deed/FOW. We know that they will go back up and if we drop them we lose money so we have to wait out the period while they are cheaper on the boards and some bots. Once they go back up we have a good stock of them and we don't get nailed by hoarders. I know this isn't the idea situation for buyers but hopefully it explains how it works from my end and the lack of supply is the main reason why we can't move our prices as much as we would like on some cards. So I don't blame you for using another price source but to be even more accurate maybe you should use the message boards as they are usually the most fluid with prices. As for 99% of my other cards we do move them with the flow of supply/demand and we do not keep any cards artificially high other than deed/fow/chant that I can think of atm. Our prices are based upon sales from over 20 bots, my website and 2 other websites so the data that we have available to determine prices is much greater than any other dealer not in my circle could provide. I hope my little rant makes sense and let me know if you have more questions about pricing. I have nothing to hide and i'll tell you my profit margin on cards or anything else you want to know.
funny catch. If they are reprinted in 11th, they'll still go up in value haha.
When he's attacking with Seedguide with the Kithkin guy active, you lose nothing by blocking with Benthicore and both Merfolk. This means even if he kills one, the Ash still dies.
Great input so far. Thanks to JX for cleaning it up some. I agree that I probably should've built (and drafted) the more controlling version, OR been using Whelm in the aggro version. I like the analysis.
I think the main problem with your draft was that thorughout you kept attempting a more aggresive stye of deck when the cards coming towards you gave you a very strong U/w/b control strategy. Most notably your choice of deeptread merrow of goldmeadow harrier (and glimmerdust nap over anohter harrier) when you already had a strong merfolk base as well as pack 17 choice of sentinels over either necksnap or the changling (who would benefit your mill win condition more...a good merfolk draft deck should rarely need to attack) Also i think you overvalue glimmerdust nap and scattering strobe and undervalue the whelms. The strobes cost too much mana, especially since it falls on your fundamental turn 4 where you deffnately dont want to leave mana open, and the glimmerdust naps as they fall off faar to easily in this format, and cost too much mana as compared to whirlpool whelms that buy you the tempo your deck needs (as you've said) . Furthermore, this is a format where agressive splashes are exceedingly necessary and as such mana fixing like the twig (and especially vivid lands) really cant be expected to come around often so should be taken earlier in order to ensure the vital splashes for removal decks lie yours needed. Lastly, judge of currents is exceedingly necessary for the merfolk archetype to work, as it gives merfolk the time they need to setup and puts them out of range once the engine is set up, and hence are without a doubt necessary. As long as you draft with a deck plan in mind (a variable one mind you but a plan none the less) then you shold be fine in this format.
Hope this helped and wasn't too long winded.
C p1p7: Are you kidding? The Douser is possibly one of the strongest cards blue has. Always pick it if able, especially this late in the draft.
C p1p8: Fertile ground is tempting here, but I think the Sprite is the right choice, but at this point you should be hoping/praying for more Witches.
C p2p1: I think you’re sending a strong signal for green here by passing so many Fertile Grounds and the Packmaster and for red due to tarfire and the lash out, go all in on UB black and hope it pays off pack 3.
C p2p2: I think sentinels are a fine second pick.
C p2p3: Definetley, worthy of a first pick in many cases. Both pepper smoke and pestermite here should be strong signals to stay the course with UB faeries.
C p2p4: I don’t personally like the Drowner…just because I’ve never actually seen anyone win with it. It really only works with multiple judge of currents. Personally, I would have gone with the sentinel.
C p2p6: Never play zephyr net. Glimmerdust nap is the correct choice.
C p3p1: And your only white playable is the Summon. Nameless Inversion is definitely the correct choice; your deck really is missing removal.
C p1p3: Fallowsage is still a fine pick, I think you made the right choice.
I think you did okay, Doran may have thrown your draft off a bit, but I would have taken if the same. You were indeed right, Merfolk were quite open, but someone was cutting your faeries off. I think you may need to be a little more conscientious about your curve. In the end, you just didn’t get the cards that your deck really needed.
You didn’t get enough faeries, so you couldn’t win through the air, and you didn’t get any Architect’s Wills or Streambed Architects to give your Merfolk evasion. I would have taken out the naps, and replaced them with Whirlpool Whelms. The Nap just doesn’t work in UW Merfolk, as it’s a deck that wants to buy time, so it can set up later. The Whelm works as a time walk.
Your advice of 'buy buy buy' shocklands NOW neglects that they are eligible for reprinting in 11th edition. Unlike the orignal duals, not eligible for reprinting on the reserved list, shocklands can return. I don't want to spend a bunch of money on shocklands, only to see them reprinted later (and falling in price).
Sure. I meant the specifics of the deck becoming more combo-ish rather than the specific card's effect. Most Spore Cry players play the deck like an aggro deck even when they play versus control, and I think this is the incorrect strategy considering the number of instant-speed threats the deck has access to relative to the number of answers the control deck can present.
Changing the deck to include an alternate win strategy and gameplan should force players of the deck to consider the non-aggro approach more thoughtfully rather than just dropping all their spells out there at sorcery speed to get countered like fish in a barrel.
when you give the dollar values for cards is that cash or tickets? because i know tickets go for less than $1 if you buy privately.
King in the Castle is a U/g/w deck with Counterbalance/Top, Vedalken Shackles, Loxodon Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, and a Trinket Mage toolbox. (This is why descriptive names, such as "Counter-Top Goyf", are often better unless they become as well known as "Zoo," "Trix," or "The Rock.")
sorry about the double post came up as an error, care to expand upon any of your reasonings, in particular i'm intrigued by why you think Distant Melodies will be so devestating against MUTC?
Sorry Gloin, that is exactly what I was referring to. The content, aside from its opinionated and therefore fundimentally flawed nature of course, is good, but the editing and formatting was unintentionally neglected due to a lack of understanding about what I was providing. Again, sorry for the roughness, hope it wasn't too much of an inconvenience for everyone.
Good article, shame some of the analysis seems a wee bit off... Distant Melody - ....... This threatens to be very dangerous to MUTC.
Urm Why? its a 4 mana sorcery against a deck that gasp plays counters, if the games hit the extent where your revolving a 4 mana sorcery against such a deck then you were probably in a damn good situation anyway.
P.S the grammar in places needs cleaning up. Khiareq is another well respected PDC'er had this to say sentences like that just appear sloppy.
unknown cards expands the challenges,using unfamiliar bombs and threats to shred your opponent,its a tough one rarely few have the ability to use those kind.A great player always win without those power cards.