Hey Fish Fam

Historic Arena GU (Simic) Merfolk

loricatuslupus

Creature (34)

• 2x Kumena's Speaker
• 4x Merfolk Windrobber
• 4x Shoreline Scout
• 4x Master of the Pearl Trident
• 2x Merfolk Mistbinder
• 4x Merfolk Trickster
• 2x Silvergill Adept
• 2x Vodalian Hexcatcher
• 3x Brazen Borrower
• 2x Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca
• 2x Merrow Reejerey
• 2x Svyelun of Sea and Sky

Land (19)

• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 4x Botanical Sanctum
• 4x Breeding Pool
• 1x Castle Vantress
• 1x Forest
• 4x Hinterland Harbor
• 3x Island
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City

Instant (7)

• 1x Jwari Disruption  ^Flip
• 4x Wizard's Retort
• 2x Collected Company

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Sideboard

Artifact (6)

• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 3x Relic of Progenitus
• 1x Sorcerous Spyglass
• 1x The Immortal Sun

Planeswalker (3)

• 2x Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

Creature (2)

• 2x Mistcaller

Instant (4)

• 4x Mystical Dispute

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Maybeboard

Instant (5)

• 1x Blossoming Defense
• 1x Dive Down
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Negate

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Shapers' Sanctuary
• 1x Deeproot Waters

Creature (10)

• 4x Benthic Biomancer
• 4x Deeproot Elite
• 1x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
• 1x Kopala, Warden of Waves

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Repudiate / Replicate

Land (5)

• 2x Barkchannel Pathway  ^Flip
• 2x Field of Ruin
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary

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I'm used to playing this in Modern (Green at the Gills) and after the release of Historic Horizons it actually doesn't feel much different online now. The main game plan of BASHING PEOPLE WITH FISH remains the same but we do it in a slightly different way. Right at the beginning, when the card pool was smaller, I did try playing with Umori, the Collector but it forced all interaction to be creature-based; with only sets of Frilled Mystics and some faeries as back-up. While always having access to a creature with a decent toughness and a mana reducer was decent I kept not being able to cast Frilled Mystic at crucial moments and the lack of non-creature spells was too prohibitive so I gave up on that pretty quickly.

The deck is very aggressive so the early drops are important: Kumena's Speaker and Shoreline Scout both get in for three with a turn two lord, with the latter also offering mana fixing. A couple of Merfolk Windrobbers provide some much-needed flying pressure and the mill is occasionally relevant. These get followed up by lords and Kumena/Svyelun, seeking to push through as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time. 2CMC is a slot in which I was tempted to try Deeproot Elite, who would synergise well with Benthic Biomancer and shore up - if you'll pardon the pun - one of Merfolk's vulnerabilities: individually weak creatures. Making blockers that don't die immediately and being able to grow lords out of burn range seems strong but now we have Master of the Pearl Trident and that's usually just going to be strictly better. We also have a coupke of Silvergill Adepts to make sure we don't run out of cards (though it is noticeably worse without Aether Vial) and Merfolk Trickster, who helps punch through damage by tapping blockers and is a general pest. With quite a few of our Merfolk also being Wizards Wizard's Retort is often a straight Counterspell, and Collected Company is a format staple for a reason so will probably craft another two. Brazen Borrower is a great tempo play that can be flashed in to deal with planeswalkers by flying over blockers and makes bluffing a counterspell feel safer too. On that note I also highly rate the singleton Jwari Disruption  . It's unexpected and can be easily sided out after the first game, but has won me games countering Teferis etc when the opponent assumes two open mana can only represent a Trickster or Petty Theft. The drawback of the land side entering tapped is negligible as I'm not running a playset of Glasspool Mimic  s, finding two to be enough to give me options without adversely impacting the manabase. Not much to say on that front, and I don't foresee any real changes there unless Mutavault gets added to Arena.

As we can already race lots of other aggro builds the sideboard is mainly for control/anti-combo options with permission spells and graveyard hate. Ashiok does serious work against a lot of decks, and I bring them in more often than anything else.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	1 year
Exclude colors	B
Legality	This deck is Historic legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 1 Mythic Rares 25 - 4 Rares 23 - 7 Uncommons 2 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.20
Folders	Arena