Don’t just think of Phantasmal Image as lords 2-4. He’s far more versatile. Copy their Voice of Resurgence: now he can’t be removed without giving you a token. Copy Geist of St Traft: now you have a hexproof image. Copy Kitchen Finks: now you can gain life which merfolk couldn’t do on its own and you can recur him when he does top copy something else. PI i think is a key part of disruption: remove him or else, leaving your lords alone.

1. If I had to put in a longshot bet for aggro, I think it’s Affinity right now. There just aren’t a lot of top-tier decks that have white as a primary color anymore, which means the scariest sideboard hate isn’t really an issue. K-Command and Grudge are still everywhere, but Affinity is so resilient to those cards in practice (especially with the added Welding Jars we are seeing). The issue with Merfolk now is the same issue it’s had for years: the deck is just a little too fair. Affinity has these explosive turn 4 wins even through removal and the possibility for turn 3 wins with risky Ravager/Inkmoth shennanigans. Merfolk, however, is about as fair a turn 4 aggro deck as you can get, and it’s really more a turn 5-6 aggro deck when facing removal. Although it compensates for this with strong interaction, I still think the experienced Affinity pilots are best positioned to leverage their deck right now.

2. I don’t think I’d add more lords, although I do like the shift to more Master of the Waves: that was a card many players derided in Modern Merfolk when it was first spoiled, and a few of us knew right away this was going to be a big hit. I do think we are going to see Merfolk decks stay heavy on their interactive, utility creatures (Cursecatcher, TIdebinder), and not sacrifice those slots for a more aggressive approach. Merfolk is too fair to go totally linear, so it needs those disruptive options.

3. I love Jordan’s deck. If I thought it was a pile, I never would have let him post those articles, and i think he’s really onto something special and interesting with it. But if there’s any deck I don’t want to have a bad matchup against, it’s Jund/Abzan. And from what I’ve seen of testing the deck myself, his writeups, forum threads, and his GP experience, that deck has a REALLY bad Jund/Abzan matchup. Once that gets to at least 40-60 or 45-55, then the deck will be much better. I think it can definitely get there though, and the shift to Huntmaster in the board and Charm in the maindeck is a good step in that direction.

4. Ojutai actually strikes me as a reactive threat, not a proactive one. You can’t tap out on turn 5 in Modern against a lot of decks, and he doesn’t have flash. That said, I absolutely love Teferi as a control vs. control threat. Dropped on turn 5 at EOT, that guy proactively closes out the game in a hurry. For UWR Control to get some viable proactive threats, I’d look to Geist again (UWR never had an issue with removing creatures), Lingering Souls (ala 4C Control), or just more V. Cliques.

That would be awesome. In that spirit, I tried a terrible Immortal Coil deck that exiled the graveyard with the usual suspects of Leyline/Relic/Spellbomb, donating the Coil with Bazaar Trader and Puca’s Mischief. Desperately needed Donate and the deck was pretty terrible, but boy it was a lot of fun!

I definitely agree with your assertions regarding what makes up the core of the Merfolk deck, but I just don’t think that Phantasmal Image is a good card in this spot removal-heavy meta. It’s too difficult to protect (Kira and Vapor Snag can’t save it, for example), and even something like Monastery Siege only delays the inevitable. I also don’t feel really compelled to save sideboard space by putting Tidebinders in my mainboard, and I don’t think that Kira or Spellskite contribute more than a real Lord does, since the whole point of tribal pump aggro is to reach a “critical mass” of size, and 16 real Lords do that better than 12 real Lords and 2-4 Images.

My spin on the deck has 28 creatures (thanks to 4 Merfolk Sovereign and 4 Master of Waves), and it does very well even in the face of large amounts of spot removal, thanks to its Burn-esque redundancy. I’ve been debating adding Dismember to the mix, but frankly Vapor Snag has been able to do the job, and this improves my aggro mirror matchup, because I don’t deal myself any damage at all.

Again, I don’t think you need to… but it’s definitely possible. What used to be Batterskull can easily be Ojutai now, especially in a post-Kolaghan’s Command world. And Keranos has been historically run alongside our favourite battering ram as well. So yea, it’s definitely possible.

Oops, got the lord count wrong in two places and can’t figure out how to edit. 8 2-mana lords + 4 reejerey + 2 phantasmal image = 14, so 10-14 lords is what I usually shoot for.

Regarding #2, I think there is a careful balance between number of lords you run and your removal/permission package, as you do need to protect yourself from your opponent’s combo or a wipe effect.

It does feel like 26 creatures is the sweet spot for the deck. However, Merfolk Sovereign doesn’t usually make the cut for me. The core of mono-blue Merfolk is the 8 2 mana lords, 4 Cursecatcher, 4 Silvergill Adepts, 4 aether vial, 4 spreading seas, and 20 lands (44 cards total). I usually like to include 4-6 pieces of disruption/permission, as you really do want some maindeck ways to interact with your opponent, particularly for a deck like Twin. So that leaves 10-12 flex slots. Usually I spend those on some combination of Merrow Reejerey (2-4), Master of Waves (2-4), Phantasmal Image (0-2), Tidebinder (0-4), depending on how much I feel like I need to free up slots in my sideboard), Kira (0-2), Spellskite (0-2), and going up to the full 6 disruption/permission (vapor snag, spell pierce, or dismember).

Reejerey definitely feels like the 3rd best lord, as its effect can either help you ramp or do neat combat tricks like tap down a blocker or really tricky stuff like tap down an O-Stone, forcing your opponent to trigger it to wipe the board before your lord enters play, as we saw in the invitational. Once I’ve got 14-16 lords, throwing in a couple phantasmal images feels safe, as they are likely to have a good target.

That leaves me with 10-16 lords if you count phantasmal image as a virtual lord. 10 lords is definitely on the light side, but on the other hand, if you’re slamming down a Master of Waves with 3-6 elementals by turn 4 and tapping down their Tarmogoyfs with Tidebinder that still packs quite a punch.

Post sideboard, the lord count usually takes a hit, as I might have to take out some number of Phantasmal Images and Reejereys to become more responsive.

Ooh, Keranos is a great idea, thanks! And the Minamo-Ojutai interaction is also a good call. Would it be too greedy to try and run both Keranos and Ojutai? Because I’m thinking that may be an option as well.

I can’t tell you about Ojutai in a UWR Control-style deck, but he is a really good finisher in the Esper builds. The thing with UWR is that they don’t really need a finisher card in the first place, especially one at 5 mana. The Bolt-Helix-Snapcaster win condition is perfectly fine on it’s own and if the game goes late you have Colonnade(s). You can be a lot more efficient with your mana in those colours, just like Grixis is right now (ok maybe not on THAT level, but you get the idea). For that big of an investment in Modern you really have to get a lot of bang out of your buck and something that can get easily killed once it taps is not it (Terminate, Path, Cut, Dismember).

If you want to be playing with a finisher, it has to be near impossible to remove and preferably end the game on the spot. Keranos has that function against the URx decks… or Uxx decks in general. I know, it’s not the greatest against the green decks or combo… but it’s just an example.

Oh, and if you really want to be playing Ojutai, which is not the worse place to be, by all accounts, don’t forget to run Minamo.

1. I think what aggro deck is best positioned in the meta going forward is still up for some debate (with Burn, Affinity, Elves, and Merfolk all having at least some degree of validity to their claim), but I’m going to go ahead and side with Merfolk over Affinity and Elves given the popularity of Kolaghan’s Command. A 2-damage removal spell is less effective against Merfolk than against any of the other decks mentioned thanks to all of those Lords, and the “destroy target artifact” clause hits Affinity harder than virtually anyone else.

2. Speaking of Lords, I am of the opinion that some Merfolk decks don’t quite carry enough (their overall creature counts feel low to me – 26+ is where I like to be as aggro). The universal disruption you mentioned is useful and it makes sure you can finish the job, but the global pump effects are the bedrock upon which the deck is built. Do you think some players will double down on this strategy and start including even more Lords (like Merfolk Sovereign) over disruption/utility cards in order to increase their consistency? It’s been working quite well for me, and you can always bring in disruption from the board if need be.

3. Does the success of Grixis Control and the (relatively) lackluster results posted by Grixis Delver signal a potential shift toward the Temur brand of Delving? I think Jordan’s deck is quite good, and once he or someone else can figure out a couple of ways to make the BGx matchup at least palatable, it will be a consistent presence at tourneys. What say you?

4. I wholeheartedly agree with your point that Blue control must be proactive, so I wanted to ask what you thought of Dragonlord Ojutai as a finisher in the Jeskai builds. It’s very likely you get at least one swing out of it, it gets you cards when you connect, and even when not hexproof, he dodges most varieties of removal (including the important ones in Bolt and Decay). Thoughts?