With Pro-Tour Hollywood just 7 Days away and regionals looming right around the corner, many of you are probably still looking for a deck to play for Standard, or trying to figure out which decks to include in your testing gauntlet. There are so many viable decks this season...from Faeries and Rogues, R/G variants including Big Mana and the Aggro builds, and Revelark Combo, just to name a few. Im here to tell you about my favorite deck this season, Merfolk. This is the build that I'm currently running on Magic Workstation.

// Lands
4 [MOR] Mutavault
18 [BD] Island (3)

// Creatures
4 [SHM] Cursecatcher
4 [U] Lord of Atlantis
4 [LRW] Merrow Reejerey
4 [LRW] Silvergill Adept
4 [MOR] Stonybrook Banneret

// Spells
4 [LRW] Ponder
2 [SHM] Mirrorweave
4 [CS] Rune Snag
4 [TSB] Psionic Blast
4 [LRW] Aquitect's Will

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [CS] Flashfreeze
SB: 4 [5E] Remove Soul
SB: 4 [LRW] Cryptic Command
SB: 3 [TSB] Prodigal Sorcerer

I've had alot of success testing this deck against many of the top tier decks, and definately feel its a strong contender for one of the top decks in standard. Its very versatile, very fast, and has great staying power for an aggro deck. For the first part of this 2 part article I'm going to give you a card for card analysis, letting you know why I choose to play the cards I do.

Cursecatcher- Pseudo-Force Spike that can attack...ok. Spiketail Hatchling was good for fish and this guy is great for this deck. He's amazing against faeries, allowing you to play past their Rune Snags on your turn 2 Bannerets, and with 8 Lord in the deck, he's never really that bad late game, unless you're already losing.

Lord of Atlantis- Makes your guys bigger and gives the Islandwalk, which is key to the decks success. Plus he allows for some crazy fun tricks with Mirrorweave..I'll explain those more in depth later.

Merrow Reejery- Also makes your guys bigger. His ability to tap or untap any permanent you wish is very helpful, breaking late-game stalls and allowing for explosive draws out of the gate with Banneret.

Silvergill Adept- Drawing cards is good. This guy makes Ponder so much more effective. I keep way to many explosive 1 land ponder adept hands because I really never have to worry about not drawing atleast 1 extra land in the 3+ cards that ponder lets me see.

Stonybrook Banneret- Makes all Merfolk and Wizards cost 1 less to play...'Nuff said.

Ponder- Alot of people ask why I use ponder instead of Ancestral Visions. Visions is just to slow in this format, plain and simple. With all of the aggro running around, you are usually dead before it has a chance to go off.

Mirrorweave- My favorite card in the deck. This card is gamebreaking nearly every time I play it. Opponent have 8 Creatures and you have 2, one of which being a Lord of Atlantis...NO PROBLEM! Just Mirrorweave the Lord of Atlantis and you have 16 power of Island walking goodness. Upkeep Mistbind Clique? Ok..just target one of your merfolk...no champion=no tapped lands. Also stops terror effects providing your opponent has an artifact or black creature.

Rune Snag- Just a counter, helps protect your key spells late game, played in alot of decks, so the cost to pay gets fast quick, which can be a disadvantage.

Psionic Blast- Great card. Kills large Faeries, Wilt-Leaf Lieges and Cavaliers, lots of large creatures that are commonly played, and are in the way of your fish, until you can establish Islandwalk. I haven't seen many builds run this card, and I just don't get it. It surprises alot of people, and helps steal games in which your opponent has stabalized.

Well...thats the main deck. Join me tommorow as I discuss matchups and sideboarding strategies, as well as the other variants of the deck. I hope everyone who reads this gets some good information out of it...until next time..thanks for reading!

Tags: Magic Merfolk The Gathering Swamp Island Mountain Plains Forest Type 2 Stan

Related to: Magic: the Gathering

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