I think that is a fair assessment of where fish is. We have solid, albeit grindy match-ups, against much of the top decks: Dredge, Phoenix, Tron, and Shadow are all pretty good for Merfolk.

In my opinion merfolk is solid but it’s just… Meta dependant version of humans/spirits.

Combo meta you want spirits
Scalpel meta (where singular cards dominate, think deaths shadow, ad nauseum) humans is King
In a grindier meta merfolk has the edge.

I think Biomancer is the best one-drop the deck has ever had, so that definitely helps. But I doubt Merfolk crawls out of Tier 2 anytime soon with so many similar high-performing options available (Humans, Spirits) and those decks not doing so well at the moment regardless.

The thing with the As Foretold/Goryos/Living End deck is that when resolving a Living End means you usually win the game on the spot, having another route of casting it, even if it is card disadvantage seems alright

This deck has existed for almost a year, just without Electro: http://quietspeculation.com/video-series-with-ryland-goryos-as-foretold/

I’m actually surprised the new red card is injecting life into these decks since it also puts pilots down a card and needs to combo with something else, but I guess they just needed a bit of consistency!