1st place FNM Merfolk

Standard FNM GU (Simic) Merfolk Tempo

DaZa

Instant (5)

• 1x Blossoming Defense
• 2x Spell Pierce
• 2x Wizard's Retort

Sorcery (2)

• 2x Sleep

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Deeproot Waters

Creature (29)

• 1x Kopala, Warden of Waves
• 4x Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca
• 4x Kumena's Speaker
• 4x Merfolk Branchwalker
• 4x Merfolk Mistbinder
• 4x Merfolk Trickster
• 4x Silvergill Adept
• 2x Swift Warden
• 2x Watertrap Weaver

Land (23)

• 4x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 1x Forest
• 3x Hashep Oasis
• 4x Hinterland Harbor
• 6x Island
• 4x Unclaimed Territory

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Sideboard

Instant (9)

• 1x Blossoming Defense
• 2x Naturalize
• 2x Negate
• 2x Spell Pierce
• 2x Wizard's Retort

Sorcery (1)

• 1x River's Rebuke

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Deeproot Waters

Artifact (2)

• 2x Sorcerous Spyglass

Creature (2)

• 1x Kopala, Warden of Waves
• 1x Seafloor Oracle

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This deck is fun and can win you a FNM.

A bit of history on how I got to this deck : I haven't played magic for last month and a bit due to work but I really wanted to play with some of the cards before they rotate out. I'll be honest I initially didn't plan on playing merfolk as I didn't feel they were putting up much of a fight. I planned out my white-blue control deck and it did well in my play testing on the night before FNM but I didn't enjoy the play-style and with so many mirror matches some games were very grindy.

Through this play testing I saw a few weaknesses of a lot of the popular decks catering for either heavy control or red-black aggro match-ups so I figured there is some room for tempo to fit in and merfolk have some great tools, I thought it was a good opportunity to try . Just so all of you know I am merfolk mad and I really can't stop thinking about ways to make them work. So I scrapped my blue and white plan and started strategizing on a merfolk deck that could get under control and tempo out red-black. I went through a few merfolk decks with the usual unsummon and spell piece but nothing hit until I starting playing with Sleep. This card blew my mind, on how effective it worked, against red black if you were racing them, playing a Sleep followed by a Trickster to keep their creatures tapped was gaming winning. This also worked very well on the big green decks with hexproof as sleep targets the player not the creature. Allowing you to slam in 20 points of damage in 2 turns. Pretty much a one side mass sudo removal.

I played around with the a few merfolk cards before I got to the list below. Some of the card numbers (eg one ofs) will seem odd to you guys but after testing it felt awkward to have two of some of the card in my hand at any point so I reduced their number to one to ensure I never get a clunky hand.

Give it a try and let me know how it worked out for you.

Some tips when playing:

1. Try be aggressive as possible but try keep up one mana for spell piece or if you can cast Wizard's Retort with a trickster backup. Counter a harmful spell or if they do nothing play the trickster at the end of their turn to keep pressure high especially against control.

2. Against other aggro matches try tempo them out with trickster and Watertrap Weaver then win the game with a sleep and beat them down.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 9 - 7 Rares 32 - 4 Uncommons 8 - 4 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.24
Tokens	Merfolk 1/1 U w/ Hexproof
Folders	Standard, Merfolk
Based on	Bant Merfolk Value town DaZa STD