The State of Modern: Quick Hit on Merfolk, with Nicholas Bradley
When it comes to tribal aggro decks in Modern, it’s hard to beat Merfolk.
The deck fluctuates between Tier 1.5ish 
and an afterthought depending on the overall meta of the format, but in the hands of a skilled pilot, it can wreck your day without breathing hard. Thanks to a pile of lord effects, efficient removal, card advantage and the ability to abuse Aether Vial, opponents can quickly find themselves buried under a pile of little blue mermen.
But it’s not just a dump your hand and turn dudes sideways deck. Learning the ins and outs can be tricky, because optimizing the damage involved with a deck that runs so many different pump effects can be tricky.
In April, Nicholas Bradley won the first individual Nerd Rage Gaming Championship Series CTQ with Merfolk. I reached out to him to get some insight on the deck and its ins and outs.
“If you want a decent but not too complicated deck, Merfolk is probably a good choice since it’s somewhat like Jund in today’s modern metagame,” Nicholas says.
With an assist from Nicholas, here’s a breakdown of what makes the deck dangerous.
The Deck
We’ll use Nicholas’s decklist as the jumping-off point:
Nicholas Bradley, Merfolk, 1st place, NRG CTQ, 4/29/17
What the deck wants to do is lead off with a turn 1 Aether Vial, then use it as an instant-speed combat trick, a way to advance your board, or — eventually — an end-of-turn way to cheat in Master of Waves. In between, the focus is on deciding between exposing your lords to potential removal or simply playing out other creatures to advance your board state before being able to swing in for lethal or close to it.
The Untouchables
4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Spreading Seas
4 Aether Vial
4 Mutavault
3 Master of Waves
Aether Vial fuels the most explosive starts and can turn combat into a blowout by flashing in a lord. By being usable at instant speed, it helps dodge removal for your creatures and allows for plays such as flashing in a lord at end of turn, untapping, then Vialing in another lord to pump your team. It also plays very nicely with Mutavault because it doesn’t cost mana to activate, allowing you to activate a Mutavault, attack, and get a lord effect before damage even if you only have one other land.
As for the creatures, Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident grant both a +1/+1 bonus and Islandwalk, which makes your team unblockable as long as your opponent has an Island in play. Merrow Reejerey pumps the team, but does not grant Islandwalk. Reejery does allow you to tap or untap permanents when you play Merfolk spells, so it’s great for shutting down a blocker or helping to cast multiple creatures in one turn.
Cursecatcher can shut down removal as well as being another turn 1 play. Cursecatcher-lord-lord adds up to a lot of damage very quickly. Master of Waves brings along a bunch of friends while dodging Lightning Bolt and Anger of the Gods. Unfortunately, the tokens Master creates are Elementals, so they don’t get pumped by the lords.
Harbinger of the Tides is a great way to clear out a pesky attacking creature and is always at least a 2/2 Merfolk for two mana. Silvergill Adept always replaces itself, and almost always can be cast for two mana. Two power for two mana is the bar for most of the creatures in the deck, because they usually grow beyond that pretty quickly.
With a bunch of efficient beaters and lord effects are great, Spreading Seas is what moves Merfolk to the head of the class. Shutting an opponent off of a color or a Tron land is great; drawing a card while doing so is really great; and making your creatures unblockable by giving your opponent an island is really great.
The flex spots
Phantasmal Image
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Dismember
Phantasmal Image can be lords 13-15, 
more Masters of Waves, or more card draw by copying Silvergill Adept. But its drawback is real, so it’s a card that requires careful sequencing to get the most out of.
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner is very effective at protecting your creatures from spot removal, but could be replaced by something else if you’re expecting a lot of sweepers instead. It’s also not a merfolk, so it doesn’t get any bonuses from any of the lords. It is very good against Death’s Shadow, though, so it’s necessary if you expect a lot of that.
Dismember is the best removal spell available for mono-blue versions of Merfolk, but could potentially be replaced by something like Vapor Snag if you’re worried about the loss of life. Dismember hits almost everything you’re really worried about or can shrink something like a Titan enough to make it lose in combat to one of your creatures.
The deck is tuned pretty well, but Nicholas says there is room for some flexibility in the sideboard.
“I would consider Vendilion Clique, as it gives the deck a little more interaction and it’s always a 3/1 even if the other Lords die,” Nicholas says. “Plus, Clique can block other flyers which my deck has a hard time doing. I would also consider Vapor Snag, but the one thing that I always disliked is the fact that on the next turn the creature would just be re-casted and I would be back to square one. That’s why I run Dismember because it’s one mana, but it kills most creatures in the format even if I have to take some damage, so it’s typically worth it.”
The manabase
Mutavault is mandatory, because it’s simply the best creatureland ever printed for tribal decks. It gets the pumps and islandwalk off of the lords and it only costs one to activate, which is a big deal for an aggro deck.
Wanderwine Hub’s main purpose is to counteract Choke. With 27 Merfolk in this build, you don’t have to worry about it coming in tapped in the early turns.
With Hub giving you access to white mana, it is possible to splash white for something like Path to Exile by adding some fetches and/or Hallowed Fountains. But Nicholas strongly recommends against doing so.
“I don’t feel it is all that great of a version,” he says. “When I first started building the deck I asked several people about the different versions of Merfolk, and Blue White was not recommended. It makes you take damage and makes you vulnerable to Blood Moon, which we typically are not.”
Speaking of Blood Moon, basic Island casts every card in the deck and doesn’t care in the slightest about Blood Moon.
Gameplay
Merfolk is an aggro deck,
but it’s not a kill quickly or not at all deck. Spreading Seas and Silvergill Adept help keep your hand reasonably full, and Aether Vial allows for patience in playing out your creatures to dodge removal. With Aether Vial letting you play creatures for free, you can spend your mana on holding up removal or casting Spreading Seas without losing the ability to advance your board state. Merfolk wins on the margins, so Aether Vial helps ensure that you can get ahead on board.
Master of Waves allows the deck to play a midrange game more effectively by generating tokens to serve as blockers or to set up for an alpha strike. Even having just a Lord of Atlantis in play when you cast a Master of Waves gives you 11 power in play thanks to the Master getting pumped and three 2/1 Elementals being created.
Ultimately, Merfolk is an aggro deck with disruptive and midrange elements, which allows it to adapt to a number of different roles depending on the matchup.
Sideboarding
While being mono-blue limits your sideboard options, there are still a lot of good choices available. Relic of Progenitus (or Grafdigger’s Cage) can protect against graveyard shenanigans, and Surgical Extraction could be an option in that slot as well.
Countermagic is the advantage that blue offers, and both Spell Pierce and Negate are good choices to stop removal. With only 20 lands, more expensive counters like Cryptic Command aren’t really an option, but Spell Pierce and Negate do the trick against most of the things you’re concerned about. Essence Scatter could be an option in a really creature-heavy meta.
Sea’s Claim allows for more mana denial effects against big mana decks or decks with complicated color demands. You don’t get to draw a card off of it, but it only costs one. Turn 1 Sea’s Claim into Turn 2 Spreading Seas can be game over against a lot of Modern decks.
As far as other sideboard options go, effects that bounce creatures/troublesome permanents are always an option. Vapor Snag is good against creatures and Echoing Truth is very good against tokens. Echoing Truth can also hit other nonland permanents as well.
Good matchups
We’ll let Nicholas handle the good and bad matchups:
“Merfolk’s good matchups are Shadow, Tron and a lot of midrange decks,” says Nicholas. “Most of those matchups are 50/50, but with those I am a little favored pre-board and most of the times post-board. These are solid matchups because I beat their one-for-one plan, and Spreading Seas is just very good. Also, Shadow already has islands so getting Islandwalk is not an issue.”
Bad matchups
“My worst matchups are Afinity and Lantern Control, by far,” says Nicholas. “Affinity is terrible, even post board, because it has tons of flyers which I can’t block, and they are really fast. Let alone the fact that they have Etched Champion, which is just an overall bad matchup.
“Lantern is terrible because of Ensnaring Bridge. I have very few ways to deal with that, (and) they can just take it away from me with a hand disruption spell.”
Wrap-Up
Merfolk may not ever be at the top of the heap of Modern decks, but it’s hard to come up with another tribal strategy that’s better. With the ability to play aggro, midrange or disruption, it offers a lot of flexibility and can switch gears effortlessly depending on the matchup.
Nicholas Bradley won an NRG CTQ with Merfolk in April. Casey Laughman is editor of Nerd Rage Gaming. Email comments and questions to claughman@gmail.com.
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