Merfolk Bdg

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The owner of this deck hasn't added a sideboard, they probably should...

It's been a while and as I follow the modern meta, a Merfolk Deck has won a tournament #1 I added here some time ago so I wanted to write another primer on Merfolk Budget as the tribe seems to be vanisched completely from the focus.
Because there are already decks that cost the income of a month, I wanted to make another version of this as a budget one.

First, what makes a good merfolk deck as same as every other tribal is synergy between the cards and merfolk at its own has the benefits of having a wide range of synergy not only as an aggro kind of deck but also as mill, control, weeni, even token spitting is one of the facettes playing merfolk has. I will go fo an aggro deck here because it is most common in Modern.

The most important card is the, yeah expensive, Aether Vial. One may argue for Cavern of Souls but I have played well without it and also didn't saw it so far in the meta anymore for several years but Aether Vial is still pretty standard and expensive like hell so we must offset it anyways. Its main benefits is to bring creatures on the board for free so we need something that could at least boost our creature outcome a little. I have to options that might be get a thought on

Springleaf Drum -> This card costs as much as Vial and generates one mana when used. The downside is that you need already a creature on the board to use it but a benefit is that you could use it also to make casting counter spells more easy.

Pyramid of the Pantheon -> This card costs as much as Vial but is bit tricky to use. You need to power it first before you could use it but at the point it is completely powered you benefit from 3 extra mana per use so might give it a try. Powering costs 1 mana effectively because you will get one mana back for its first ability so you might could consider use it when you have mana left (for example cast a counter spell for 2 in Turn 3).

Anything else seems to expensive in mana or to unreliable to me so I would tend to try the Pyramid option for vial.

Cursecatcher was also an important card to merfolk anyways, while it controls early game you have it grown up in the late game to help beating down your opponent. It has been replaced in many lists for Benthic Biomancer because you always have the option to increase it's power and benefit from the effect of giving you some fresh cards into hand. Another reason we drop Cursecatcher here is stated below.

Lords are the core party of a Merfolk aggro deck. They give you the power to boost your troops and getting game. There are Lord of Atlantis, Master of the Pearl Tridant as the expensive ones but also Coralhelm Commander, Merrow Reejerey and Merfolk Sovereign as cheaper more mana costing ones but when playing with a lot of wizard subtypes like Cursecatcher, Sovereign and Silvergill Adept you could also use such cards as Sage of Fables. This passes a +1/+1 counter on each wizard that enters the battlefield or Vineshaper Mystic from Ixalan also putting counters on your creatures.
Finally I decided to go for Master of the Pearl Trident here because as of I write this primer, it costs only 2$ each.

Silvergill Adept is also a standard card used as a free drop because it gives you an extra card when playing (not entering the battlefield) and its 2/1 hit okay in early game.

So know we have the base just take a look at some extra drops. A good synergy card and propably budget replacement for Kira, Great Glass Spinner is Kopala, Warden of Waves from Ixalan. Spells and abilities will cost an extra 2 when targeting one of your merfolk cards in play. It is not an instand counter as from Kira but Kopala is also a merfolk so will benefit from your lords too. With Modern Horizons another player has entered our party, Unsettled Mariner. It requires a white splash but has several advantages against Kopala we shouldn't miss so far. It is just CMC 2 so an early game hitter and also protects us and our party from opponents spells and abilities. As it is non-legendary opposed to Kira and Kopala, we can always play a full playset and it's ability is also stacking.

Technically Unsettled Mariner isn't a Merfolk but it's Changeling Ability lets it be as good as a real Merfolk.

Some non-merfolk drops are Spreading Seas and Sea's Claim where I'm going to run not more than 2 copies of either or in my main decks while most modern competitive decks go with blue or blue splash so it might not be needed that much. Primary target was having a target for your lords to take a benefit from Islandwalk but are also able to impact on your opponents lands (when not playing for mono blue) and make non-baiscs to islands too (and islands have no abilities :D )

Now splashing; as a budget deck you would need any support you could get so splash for White or Green has additionally benefits- Sygg, River Guide is one of my favourite Merfolk legends for white because it not only protects against removal spells but also can make your Merfolk unblockable (by creatures of the choosen color). She has often won a tournament for me just because the opponent wasn't able to remove her from the board and/or block her even in a non-blue deck.

Spalshing for white also lets us play Dovin's Veto that is a better Negate because it can't be countered so keep it in your back and you'll have a weapon against any nasty spell your opponents try to cast, even if they keep mana or a Force of Negation open for answering you must not fear.

I added Spear of Heliod for another power boosting of our creatures secondary and primary it's ability to destroy whatever hits us. You can survive the smashing fists of an Eldrazi as long as it dosen't hit twice.

Green has such cards as Collected Company that helps fire more Merfolks on the board but also Ixalan and Ravnica carrie some green Merfolk benefitters like Kumena, Zegana, Utopia Speaker.

So far from my site, feel free to leave any comment or suggestions

• Modern
• Merfolk
• Budget
• Blue
• White
• Primer