Tidebinder Mage

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Tidebinder Mage

Creature — Merfolk Wizard

When Tidebinder Mage enters the battlefield, tap target red or green creature an opponent controls. That creature doesn't untap during its controller's untap step for as long as you control Tidebinder Mage.

multimedia on Blue/white merfolk tribal deck

1 year ago

Hey, you're welcome.

If you're new to sideboarding then some advice is to start, build a sideboard of 15 cards that are good in broad matchups: control, midrange and aggro. These three archetypes can be considered super archetypes as most decks go into one of these. For control matchups more counterspells, noncreature removal, creature protection, Planeswalker hate. For midrange other creature removal, a creature board wipe. For aggro a bigger creature that's hard to remove, creature protection, some life gain.

You want to think about what strategies are going to be difficult for you to beat with Merfolk and use your sideboard to help against these strategies. You want to be attacking with Merfolk therefore opponent strategies that put a lot of creatures onto the battlefield as blockers especially token creatures can be difficult. Board wipes wreck little tribal creatures. Merfolk are small creatures, bigger creatures can be a problem. 4x Swords to Plowshares main deck helps a lot against big blockers, but some times you need an effect that removes more than one creature.

In your main deck you have several cards that I would consider sideboard cards, not cards that belong in the main deck because they're narrow. Wash Out is a hate card that belongs in the sideboard because you might be against a blue opponent and then it also bounces your Merfolk. However, it can be a game winning effect against a nonblue opponent who has a lot of blockers. Disenchant doesn't do anything if opponent isn't playing a problematic artifact or enchantment. Angelsong can deny a big swing of damage from attackers by opponent and then you swing back at them on your turn, but you don't need this effect main deck even with cycling.

If you know about the decks that you're against such as a playgroup of friends who you always battle then you can be much more specific in what cards go in the sideboard. Cards that are good against decks your opponents are playing. Cards in the sideboard can be much narrower for only certain matchups if you know of those matchups and are against that type of deck a lot.

If you can use some Merfolk as sideboard cards then that will help your strategy of tribal Merfolk. Tidebinder Mage is for against green or red midrange or aggro. Hullbreacher against control. Kopala, Warden of Waves can make it more difficult for opponent to target a Merfolk you control. Sygg, River Guide can protect from chosen color and make that Merfolk unblockable against that color. Master of Waves is great against red, having protection from red and against aggro it can create a token army of blockers. Judge of Currents can be a life gaining Merfolk to bring in against aggro.

Example of a budget tribal Merfolk sideboard:

Have you heard of the term "hate card"? A hate card is most of the time found in the sideboard because it's very good against a certain color/colors. The good hate cards are lower mana cost because then you're getting amazing value for the cost against that color. Tidebinder Mage is a Merfolk example of a hate card against green or red creatures, but you don't play it main deck because if you're not against an opponent who has a green or red creature then it doesn't do much and there's better two drop Merfolk to play. Blue Elemental Blast is an example of a powerful hate card against red. Celestial Purge is white's hate against black or red.

A hate card doesn't have to be against a certain color, you might want it to shut down an entire deck strategy. Grafdigger's Cage is hate against reanimation strategies where opponent is bringing any creature from their graveyard onto the battlefield. Pithing Needle can shut down a certain card such as a Planeswalker or anything nonland that has an activated ability. Echoing Truth can wreck tokens because all token creatures of the same types are the same name and when a token is bounced it ceases to exist in the game.

MagicMarc on None

3 years ago

Some of the top 8 decks run the following in their sideboards: Brazen Borrower, Force of Negation, Deprive, Tidebinder Mage, Aether Gust, Engineered Explosives, Mystical Dispute, and Entrancing Melody.

The most I saw on decklists were: Aether Gust, Engineered Explosives, and Mystical Dispute.

You can look here for current Modern top 8 Meta: mtgtop8.com

Yuri200X on blue

3 years ago

Augur of Bolas Mistcaller (SB) Quench Fae of Wishes (surprisingly at 0.19 tix atm) Harbinger of the Tides (also surprisingly cheap at 0.10 tix atm) Merfolk Trickster (in response to troublesome creatures) Naban, Dean of Iteration (if you got lotsa triggers) Tidebinder Mage SB against red and green Nimble Obstructionist Elite Arcanist + Dissolve

Yuri200X on blue

3 years ago

Augur of Bolas Mistcaller (SB) Quench Fae of Wishes (surprisingly at 0.19 tix atm) Harbinger of the Tides (also surprisingly cheap at 0.10 tix atm) Merfolk Trickster (in response to troublesome creatures) Naban, Dean of Iteration (if you got lotsa triggers) Tidebinder Mage SB against red and green Nimble Obstructionist Elite Arcanist + Dissolve

lagotripha on

3 years ago

Plan your sideboard alongside your first 60 cards- knowing all the tools you have available will help immensely. Knowing you have Tidebinder Mage for RDW or Deeproot Waters for control/midrange.

Bringing down the average CMC or upping the levels of interaction will do a lot;

In terms of 'raw power', Hardened Scales/The Ozolith offer the biggest boosts.

Jade Bearer, Kumena's Speaker, Brineborn Cutthroat, Harbinger of the Tides, Merfolk Trickster Mistcaller, Mist-Cloaked Herald/Triton Shorestalker, River Sneak, Silvergill Adept and Merfolk Skydiver will all let you operate at a lower CMC.

Lowering the curve also means you can run Neoform in place of evolution.

Traditionally merfolk is a tempo list using creatures that delay your opponent, then unblockability (previously islandwalk/flood effects) to finish them off. Its one of the few lists where a bounce effect is often just as effective as a kill spell. Its place in modern was defined by Blood Moon reslience from an all-island manabase combined with land disruption in Aquitect's Will, but that is not relevant in pioneer, so you will need to experiment to find a new nieche. It might be able to emulate affinity with ozolith support, with some luck and a favourable meta.

Augur of Bolas/Deeproot Champion offers a version of the list that wants to spellsling, but I can't say that I've thought through what that would look like.

triproberts12 on Mr. Sandman

3 years ago

If you're going to devote a deck to your favorite card (Nice choice, mine's Soulcatchers' Aerie), I would go all in. For example, in Dimir, Mana Skimmer is the Timeshifted version of Somnophore.

Time of Ice, Quiet Contemplation, Back to Basics, Dream Tides, Wrath of Marit Lage, Temporal Distortion, Neko-Te Thalakos Dreamsower, Wall of Stolen Identity, Frost Titan, Queen of Ice, Wall of Ice, Niblis of Frost, Guardian of Tazeem, Icefall Regent, Dungeon Geists, Mesmerizing Benthid, House Guildmage, Tidebinder Mage, Watertrap Weaver, Frost Lynx, Stitched Mangler, Fogwalker, and Vertigo Spawn would probably be my picks for "freeze" tribal.

Alternately, if you're not invested in Dimir, so much as in the creature itself, you could build a Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, or Empress Galina deck, since those commanders probably best represent what the card is doing.

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