I sincerely doubt that at this point anyone seeing blue source Aether Vial is going to think anything other than Merfolk. Since humans and allies are Naya typically the chance that your opponent sees Seachrome and thinks of either deck is low. I think the value of trying to hide that you’re on Merfolk is pretty minimal compared to hiding that I’m on UW rather than mono-U.

I can’t speak for Elliot, but when I see a tap out to attack with Bird when I’ve revealed a Lord of Atlantis, I can’t imagine anything other than a race scenario. Leaving Bird back makes me more likely to not attack my Adepts (I actually wouldn’t have attacked into open white in this situation) into his Seer and save him some life, so I can only envision an attack if the strategy is race as hard as possible and play for a Reality Smasher.

Merfolk vs. Eldrazi is a strange matchup. Bant has more interaction thanks to Eldrazi Displacer, but with Kira and Spreading Seas can make interaction difficult. It’s typically a matchup of fluid role evaluation and comes down to Merfolk attacking Eldrazi’s colored sources and sneaking under their fatties vs. Eldarzi’s bombs just crushing you. Eldazi absolutely has the draws to just crush you, they don’t even need to be that explosive just increasingly overpowering and playing an Island isn’t always relevant since they frequently want to swing every turn anyway.

I don’t think poking with a bird is showing desire to race. It’s just telling you he does not have any 1cmc spell he wishes to leave up or to even bluff. I don’t think bluffing spell snare or path there changes what merfolk does so he’s just getting in the 1 point because why not.

Not that familiar with bant eldrazi but I would like to know what his lines were to turn the game around on t4 and what you would do to play around them. From the article it sounds like the only card that mattered was path to exile – is that the match in a nutshell? Path lords to win otherwise lose? Kind of severely limits your strategic decisions if that’s really what the match is. Could he have an explosive enough start to beat the Avg merfolk draw? Or is it just a terrible matchup if you play an island?