This is a pretty basic Modern merfolk deck.
It plays off the synergy between Merfolk, and their various abilities to gain tempo and swing with buffed up dudes.
Aether Vial is key to this deck as it allows you to hold up counter magic, drop uncounterable merfolk at instant speed, and activate mutavault and play a dude in the same turn. It also has a synergy with
Silvergill Adept
, where by you can drop it at instant speed, and draw a card without paying the cost. You rarely if ever want to tick Vial up to 3 counters, with the best spot being 2 counters, which lets us vial in 17 creatures.
Cursecatcher is one of our best early drops. It is a 1/1 for U who grows, and he can be sacrificed to save the other Merfolk. He is also able to be vialed in on turn 2 and with
Merrow Reejerey
he can become a Gigadowse when cast. The first card in any Merfolk deck.
Silvergill Adept
is tempo. A 2/1 for 2 who draws us a card. The body is nice and aggressive, and quickly gets big with lords out. It shares a mana cost with our lords too, so worth playing. Defiantly a core card. Another thing to note is because you play it off Vial, you don't have to reveal.
Lord of Atlantis and
Master of the Pearl Trident
are for all intents and purposes the same card in this deck. UU lords who give +1/+1 and islandwalk. Lord of Atlantis is only worse versus other Merfolk decks or Mutavaults, both of which are rare. Play both playsets easily.
Merrow Reejerey
is a 3 drop lord and provides some very interesting plays. He turns every Merfolk you cast into a tap spell, and you can abuse this. You can use him and Phantasmal Image to throw down together a stream of Merfolk lords, tap down a blocker, tap down a land to prevent a spell being countered or simply make all your merfolk cost less mana.
Mana Leak is better in the current format. Right now, a lot of the decks want to resolve big important spells such as Scapeshift, Splinter Twin or
Sphinx's Revelation
and simply Remanding the card only buys you a turn when you need to be able to grind out a win. It also kills Liliana of the Veil dead.
Spreading Seas is what makes this deck fantastic.
