spudface

http://www.mtgvault.com/spudface/decks/specter-control/ Just a Specter control deck that I threw together for shits n gigs.

I'd suggest priest of titania over devoted druid. Its another elvish archdruid effect, plus she is also a druid (check the oracle text). Also Wirewood lodge is awesome for getting multiple triggers out of an archdruid or a priest for an even bigger genesis wave.

Oh sorry missed your modern tag

Control magic and corrupted conscience yo!

Honestly, Thassa should probably only be a one of in this deck, spreading seas tends to take care of the unblockable problem for you. Merfolk Sovereign is pretty meh. Your 3 drops need to be much more impactful, ie: Meerow Reejery. Silvergil adept is an absolute must, because card advantage is going to be none existent as this deck currently stands. I would also look into aquitect's will, as it is a built in silvergil effect and gives you islandwalk more efficiently than just relying on drawing your spreading seas. So my honest opinion would be to -2 Thassa. -4 Merfolk Sovereign, -2 Master of Waves, and go +4 Silvergil Adept, +1 Spreading Seas, +3 Aquitects Will, would also go -2 Mana Leak and go +2 Counterspell. Also, for even more efficient card draw, id go -2 Coralhem Commander and -1 Island for +3 Ponder. Coralhelm is going to be your least efficient Merfolk because you are very rarely going to be pumping him up to level 4, because you are more than likely not going to need it for lethal. If you've never played merfolk before, you will learn that most of your victories are going to come on turns 4 or 5. Once your opponent starts to hang around longer, the deck slows down considerably. So you wanna be able to set up your board within the first three turns and alpha strike for the win on turns 4 or 5.

You are trying to do a little bit too much with this deck. Sure having a ton of different zombies is fun and cool, but the thing you will learn when playing magic is that the more consistent your deck runs, the more enjoyment that you will get playing. You have the basic theme down, but there are certain cards/suggestions that you really shouldn't bother using that I've seen here so far in the comments. So that being said, I've thrown together a list of a similar deck I ran at one point for u/b zombies and have tried to incorporate some of the things you look like your're trying to do plus added some suggestions of my own. http://www.mtgvault.com/spudface/decks/ub-zombies-2/ you can totally throw in grimgrin into that list if you want, id prob only put a max of two, taking out maybe 1 dark ritual and 1 skaab ruminator. Remember consistencey is key, because above all else, playing magic is about having fun, and if youre playing consistent, you will have fun guaranteed.

Just throwing it out there, and not to diss the people that suggested standstill, but Ponder is better by a long shot. Being a one drop and the fact that you can shuffle if you don't like what you draw is always better. In regards to the lands, that's all great if you wanna go the nykthos route, but I'm not sure why you subbed out mutavault, its a must 4 of because its effectively another 4 creatures. I agree with the sac lands, however id prob only 4 as opposed to 6. But my main changes would be -4 standstill, +3 ponder, -1 spellpierce (since you are already running 3 cursecatcher, there are only so many Path to exiles you are going to be countering) and +2 Coralhelm commander, despite being the weakest of the merfolk, he is still a bomb late game if you can get him to lvl 4, even lvl 2 its nice to have early flying evasion if you don't have islandwalk. And on that note, you are pretty much relying on your opponent playing delver or Stoneblade based on the fact that you have no way of actually getting Islandwalk as it stands. If this is for an actual pro legacy deck you shouldn't need to worry since those will most likely be your opponents anyways, but if you are playing casually with your friends, and just feel like building a super pro deck, I would prob throw in either two or three spreading seas or aquitect's will. Spreading seas can really fuck with your opponent on turn two if you are turning one of their dual lands into an island. Plus its card draw. Aquitect's will will trigger merrow reejery since its a "merfolk" spell, and it nets you card draw assuming you have at least one merfolk on the field.

In all honesty it should be 4 Reejery, and 3 True-Name. You don't even need 22 land, most competive legacy merfolk decks run anywhere from 18-20. I would -1 wasteland, -2 island, +1 Cavern of souls, +1 Merrow Rejerey. True-name in itself is an incredibly powerful blue card, arguably one of the best. But in legacy merfolk Reejerey is still your star 3 drop.

This deck needs genesis wave and door of destinies badly

Ghoulcaller's chant would work really well in a deck like this. I'd also replace Moan of the Unhallowed with Sign in Blood. Without any card draw you are going to be top decking by turn 5. I'd suggest Undead Warchief, but most of your cards are either B or BB so he'd be kind of useless for that aspect, however +2/+1 for all zombies and 1 colourless less to cast is always nice.

Id sideboard Hexmage since its only reason benficial use is for removing planeswalkers, and I suppose the off chance that someone beefs up a creature with counters. Swap in 4 sign in blood. Card draw is what makes a deck like this win in 5-7 turns. 24 land is too much, with this type of curve id go down to 22, even 21 if you are confident. Kalastria Highborn/Vampire Nocturnus fit in really nicely here as well.

Kemba, ka regent would be amazing in this deck

This is ok, but elves is the fastest deck type aside from affinity and easily the most powerful of any combo deck out there! You wanna run cards like Ezuri, priest of titania, 2 more elvish archdruids, green sun's zeniths, and Genesis wave. The whole point of elves is to absolutely overwhelm your opponent by turn 5. http://www.mtgvault.com/spudface/decks/elves-elves-and-more-elves/ Thats a link to my elf deck that I run for shits n giggles at work just to piss people off or see peoples reaction. Its capable of swinging for upwards of 450 + trample damage by turn 5/6. Will your deck work, yea, it will. So yea, its not bad, but it could be much better.

to add to what the above guys are saying, dread slaver doesnt really fit too well in here. If you can find a way to add in varolz and corpsejack, they are pretty hilarious when combo'd together, then you can throw in creatures like death's shadow for B that way when he hits your GY you can scavenge for B and give something 13 +1/+1 counters, or if corpsejack is on the field, 26 counters. Or if you don't wanna go that route and just stick with the pure zombies, I would highly reccommend ghoulcallers chant. Really amazing 1 drop that can bring 2 zombies back from your GY to your hand. Other then that looks relatively solid. Undead Warchief is a pretty amazing zombie card and is almost a must in most zombie decks, but its not that cheap, so your call.

If milling them to do death is a win con why not rock some Tome Scours or Mind Sculpt? a steady three card mill is nice, but its going to take far too long to win. Maybe consider throwing in some Duskmantle guildmages, that way at least you can really hurt them by milling them, for 3 mana, and say a tome scour/mindsculpt combo, you can ding them for 12 dmg right then and there.

Id swap Pacifism for Journey to Nowhere. With pacifism they can still use activated abilities.

^ what this guy said, you aren't going to do very well snap caster beating your opponent to death, my suggestion for a deck like this would be to add in x2 or x3 of Talrand, Sky Summoner, and 2 favorable winds. Then at least you are on the right path with all those instants. That way at least will provide you with a 2/2 flyer per instant/sorcery. Tragic slip will be pointless in this deck because you likely will not be killing many creatures considering you only have 4 outright kill creature spells (dreadbore). I'd consider throwing in spells like mizzium mortars, pillar of flames, searing spear, etc etc. Something can either be board removal or DD to your opponent. As of now all you have is a shitton of counters and a small amount of creature removal. You won't win the game the game that way, You might have fun for 6, 7, maybe even 8 turns, but sooner or later you will run out of cards in your hand because you have no card draw. So for that reason id consider running spells like Brainstorm/Ponder (unless of course you only wanna run standard) otherwise your opponent is going to outlast you and beat you to death. and what will you have for defense? Allmighty snapcaster mage as a chump blocker lol wut? Vapor snag is a pro card in a deck like this as well.

swap myr enforcer for 4 master of etherium, and swap 4 island for 4 seat of the synod :) cranial plating and etched champion are also pretty amazing as well.