As I mentioned in my last report, I picked up the Merfolk vs. Goblins Duel Deck and used this as a base to build my newest EDH deck. I tried out said deck, and was impressed with how well Krenko and his mono-red Goblins did during our weekly game night. The first game I didn’t get to do much, and never did get my third land drop before I was eliminated. The next two games I played he came out fast and wasn’t stopped, and I feel it’s one of my more competent creations competitively speaking. I did find that the Isochron Scepter + Final Fortune + Sundial of the Infinite combo isn’t viable in the deck, so that’s been pulled and worked into my Kess deck that is still under construction. With that said, I was sitting on a 60 card Merfolk deck that wasn’t going to see play anytime soon. I started to think about things I’d want to do with them and finally broke open the deck to see what I could build.

A mono-blue merfolk deck isn’t in the cards. My roommate plays a deck that is basically mono-blue merfolk with a splash of black so he can run Sygg as his commander. My though was that since Ixalan brought about some new Green and Simic (Green/Blue) merfolk, I should build a Simic deck and keep it mostly tribal. I’ve been looking to build different color combinations here and there, and I have yet to do anything in blue/green so here we are. Apparently there were a few Simic merfolk already in existence, or those that use hybrid mana (one came with the pre-con), so it wasn’t difficult to find some great cards to play with. It did take me a while to decide what commander to use, but in the end I chose this one:

Some of the other options I have also included in the deck, as I felt that her abilities were the most fitting to my playstyle. Alone she isn’t fantastic, but having built-in “no max hand size” along with a card draw ETB effect isn’t bad. Plus she’s a variable power/toughness that will be huge if you have enough creatures on the battlefield and then utilize some X cost draw spells to help keep that going. Truth be told, there aren’t too many good green Merfolk. They’re mostly from Ixalan and none are great, but the mixed colored ones are nice and I get the added ramp and control from green as well. Plenty of blue and green card draw to boot. I’m feeling like the main goal will be to go wide but also to keep drawing cards and maintaining board control with counterspells and the like. I added a few cards that can function as win-cons, but I didn’t have a clear one in mind when I was building. I will want to play test this a bit to see what sort of theme forms or see if it works out as is. A rough draft of sorts. Let’s look at some of the creatures I included:

Lords:

There are several more lords for merfolk than there were for goblins. Some are a little more janky than others, but for the most part they each give +1/+1 to merfolk, oftentimes with an added benefit. The horror is one of the only off-theme creature in the deck, but gives +1/+1 to all blue AND all green creatures so my Simic merfolk get double bonus, plus all creatures untap each opponent’s untap step so I can utilize tap effects more often.

Utility:

The rest of the merfolk do something nifty, and I have redundancy so I’m only showing a few of the cards here. Some provide extra card draw, there is a merfolk tutor, one that provides an extra turn, makes my blue creatures unblockable, and the other off-theme creature is a shapeshifter that creates tokens each turn. I feel like ramp and card advantage are going to make a big difference in the deck, but I’ve provided similar spell support as well:

As I said, I tried to stay on theme to support the creatures I have included in the deck. I have added plenty of counterspells along with bits of removal to get rid of pesky spells or creatures that my opponents are casting. There is various card draw, and board removal if things get out of hand or I need to fight from behind. As far as win-conditions go, I’ve added Rite of Replication, Triumph of the Hordes, and Overwhelming Stampede. The first will allow me to make copies of a lord on the battlefield which can turn the tide of battle quickly.  The second two add power and trample to a going-wide swing, but Triumph of the Hordes also gives my creatures infect until end of turn, and that’s usually going to end the game for one player. I’m hoping that the synergy between all of the cards goes off the way I expect. I think I should be able to out ramp and out draw most decks, thereby always having open mana to cast spells and always having cards in hand. I will adjust as needed if this doesn’t work out as I expect it to.

I’ll report back later once I’ve built and tested this one.