i love that bowmaster isnt a may ability. So if both players have hexproof and no other creatures on the battlefield bowmaster just comes down and shoots himself in the face with an arrow lol
In my mind that looks like a very cartoony thing where they fire the arrow, it bounces from the opponent to several surfaces and things, bounces back to the bowmaster's caster and then finally bounces back right to the back of the head of the bowmasters.
Deep Root Pilgrimage + Cryptolith Rite/Song of Freyalise for incremental value. You can tap them individually for mana which means that you can create as many per turn as you have non-token merfolk on the board.
Downsides are a useful design tool. They used to use them far too often, on cards that would be merely decent or good without the downside. Now they probably use it too sparingly; too many Sheoldreds and Bowmasters hanging around. The One Ring's downside is not strong enough. Get Lost seems like a fairly good example of it, though.
I have a suggestion to make this much, much more disgusting. I would like to introduce you to Drowner of Secrets and Merrow Commerce from the Lorwyn block. Merrow Commerce alone gives you a ton of value, and it counts as a Merfolk on the field, even though it is an enchantment, so that can make the Svyelun Indestructible even if you don't have other creatures on the board.
I haven't played a lot of modern but my instinctive thought is that if Deeproot Pilgimage is to find play in the format it would be best in a Simic Merfolk list. Obviously this deck can run CoCo but it also adds the potential combo with Kiora's Follower, a 1-drop upgrade with Cenote Scout (also helps alleviate the increased strain on mana), and access to Kumena who can make multiple tokens each turn at instant speed, draw cards and generate value even in a stalled board.
@zacknair6202 Given CoCo is instant speed, you don't have to waste anythingOne of the main ways to use CoCo is to dig for a trick when you need it. I often do this when playing Pioneer Merfolk to dig for a Tishana's Tidebinder to stop the Amalia Combo going off. More than anything, though, the reason for going simic when playing a list with deeproot pilgrimage in is Kumena as he allows you to tap at instant speed when you can't attack
1st deck i saw you play was merfolk a number of years ago, and thanks to that was the 1st deck I made in paper that got me into MTG. Love your work sir
“OPPONENT!…” Thank you Seth for the Modern games and abundant lolz. Could we witness a trademark SaffronOlive M:tG t-shirt that simply reads “OPPONENT…” below a monochrome filled-in solid white silhouette of Seth complete with beard, headphones, and hair bun? New MTGGoldfish merch. That could be boss.
hey Seth what about leaning more into pilgrimage? maybe substituting the aether vials for springleaf drums or other cards that allow you to tap merfolk as soon as they hit the battlefield and 1 by 1 to get most value out of it??
TBH I think trickster is just objectively better than harbinger, 4 mana is way too much to pay for a conditional instant speed bounce effect (except when it's otawara XD)
I watched Nikachu's stream and there is more argument for Harbibger being better. Mainly the fact that there are a lot more things in the format that are better bounced (Rhino tokens, Karnstructs, Creativity summons)
@@eusebioalbertieri2248 ay! I know right I thought isn't that the force spike merfolk lord hahaha. If the ee is gonna clear them any way mite as well sac them to counter it. :). Funny the bottom line of text gets over looked alot on MTG cards these days lol
I never played modern or merfolk, and im finally dipping my toes, and going all in on this kind of build. Attending the secretlair showdown, and will be trying this. Any advice that yall can give. Please. Im all ears!
the way i've made deeproot pilgrimage great is with elven chorus. that combination feels a bit absurd. it's also very good with convoke cards in standard (artistic refusal for example). i'm not sure any of this is enough to make merfolk competitive, but they're certainly strong synergies with deeproot pilgrimage. and i'm a diehard merfolk fan, so you better believe i'm playing a ton of merfolk in historic, standard, and even alchemy.
I think trying to make a Simic merfolk deck with Kumena and maybe Intruder Alarm and playing as a combo/tempo deck is where Pilgrimage would shine but I don't know how likely that is to happen in modern.
The biggest problem with downsides is that card designers often fail to see the bigger picture and in eternal formats people find crazy ways to take advantage of the downside that the designers never ever though about.
I have been using Deeproot Pilgrimage with Kumena and Rejery to tap merfolk down and untap them making multiple tokens a turn. Somewhat successful deck already and I am sure someone else can make it better.
It just depends on the format. Arena doesn't have Modern, so if I play a Modern deck it's on Magic Online. For formats that are on Arena (like Standard, Historic and now (mostly) Pioneer) we play on Arena.
Why don't you bring in dismember against creativity? If you kill the token with creativity on the stack the spell doesn't do anything right ? Am i missing something
Silvergill Adept is quite bad in a world of Bowmasters, but Deeproot Pilgrimage is a hilariously bad card. So yeah, I'd say run the Adept first. A card that's usually bad but sometimes works is better than a card that's always trash.
It would be really fun to watch you play a version of this deck but with white for the lifegain merfolk and some more removal. How about jamming some more old merfolk and seeing what happens like Merrow Rejeree or Drowner of Secrets? How about that one with Champion a Merfolk and it lets you sac one to take an extra turn when it connects?
Silly Vanilla Seven Lynn Several End He can't pronounce Svay-Loon for shit. WotC told us how to pronounce it over two damn years ago. He has to be doing the shit on purpose.
How about Simic Merfolk? Gives you a few different 1 drops and neat aggro stuff like deep root elite that can make lots of power with the pilgrimage tokens.
Seth "well I certainly can't beat a wurmcoil using my indestructible merfolk legend, or deck that is designed around islandwalk and pumping out merfolk tokens" olive
So I'm gonna say this, and call it bragging if you will, but Deeproot Pilgrimage only shines in Simic. I love Monoblue Fish they are my life blood but we need our honorary Merfolk: counter spell in this slot.. Also we a narrower window to make our value go off whereas Simic Merfolk with testing actually worked in Modern and I even got a win in Timeless with them finding how shockingly they can counter Grixis Thoracle thanks to Tide Binder which is not for nothing I think. I'm going to be making my own list very soon but I owe a friend a jank Dimir Zombies list but hey look for, Seth! I think you'd like playing it more than Monoblue Fish.
Not the intro being a Prof reference lmfaoooo
What did Prof do? I thought it was just because they reuse it for a short, and I kinda hate that
just that he loves merfolk
LMAO I didn’t even notice that
Sort od
That game 1 win against Living End was seriously impressive. The stifle to survive at 1 was insanely clutch
Also pretty sure he could have stifled boseju blowing up mutavault for the w as well
31:12 Boseiju to dash our hopes into “hexcatcher😅” into “wow wow wow wow”
Funny call out to Prof's Merfolk. Great video as always Seth, ty!
Looking back at it, you clicked attack with all creatures at Karn. Or at least that what it looked like.
The opening speech is -chef- *professor kiss
Cmon Seth you gotta lead with "Many magic players ask the question..." for a MERFOLK video no less!
i love that bowmaster isnt a may ability. So if both players have hexproof and no other creatures on the battlefield bowmaster just comes down and shoots himself in the face with an arrow lol
In my mind that looks like a very cartoony thing where they fire the arrow, it bounces from the opponent to several surfaces and things, bounces back to the bowmaster's caster and then finally bounces back right to the back of the head of the bowmasters.
@@SilverAlex92it’s like rolling a nat 1 lol
if both players have hexproof you can still target yourself, hexproof only stops opponents from targetting.
@@zackestin1368 damnit you’re right. Gunna have to break out the Ivory Masks and True Believers.
I love the intro's little 'reference' to the Professor. I'm sure he'll love this video!
He does love his Merfolk :)
Really glad to see how much tidebinder has powered up Merfolk, it's crazy what a well placed stifle can do
Turns out stifle is a good effect, who would have thought. It's a really cool card
Make sure to tap Mutavault mana as a creature with Deeproot Pilgrimage!
Came here to mention this too. 8 self tappers that make a hexproof bodies seems pretty good imo.
My local meta has had a merfolk player for a while, one of the fastest decks in our meta
Deep Root Pilgrimage + Cryptolith Rite/Song of Freyalise for incremental value. You can tap them individually for mana which means that you can create as many per turn as you have non-token merfolk on the board.
Kumena might be worth a look as well.
Two kioras followers to infinitely tap to untap the other gets infinite tokens.
Deeproot Pilgrimage, Intruder Alarm, and Mothdust Changeling or Drowner of Secrets. Infinite folk.
You could just do it with mutavault. Animate and tap itself for mana
Nice Prof plug in the intro 😂
U know mutavault works with deeproot pilgrimage
Downsides are a useful design tool. They used to use them far too often, on cards that would be merely decent or good without the downside. Now they probably use it too sparingly; too many Sheoldreds and Bowmasters hanging around. The One Ring's downside is not strong enough. Get Lost seems like a fairly good example of it, though.
Man how much i love this tribe ! So happy u did this video
shoutout to prof in the intro NICE
I have a suggestion to make this much, much more disgusting. I would like to introduce you to Drowner of Secrets and Merrow Commerce from the Lorwyn block. Merrow Commerce alone gives you a ton of value, and it counts as a Merfolk on the field, even though it is an enchantment, so that can make the Svyelun Indestructible even if you don't have other creatures on the board.
I haven't played a lot of modern but my instinctive thought is that if Deeproot Pilgimage is to find play in the format it would be best in a Simic Merfolk list. Obviously this deck can run CoCo but it also adds the potential combo with Kiora's Follower, a 1-drop upgrade with Cenote Scout (also helps alleviate the increased strain on mana), and access to Kumena who can make multiple tokens each turn at instant speed, draw cards and generate value even in a stalled board.
4 mama coco in merfolk feels like a stretch. It’d be so painful wasting merfolk etb tricks as well.
@zacknair6202 Given CoCo is instant speed, you don't have to waste anythingOne of the main ways to use CoCo is to dig for a trick when you need it. I often do this when playing Pioneer Merfolk to dig for a Tishana's Tidebinder to stop the Amalia Combo going off. More than anything, though, the reason for going simic when playing a list with deeproot pilgrimage in is Kumena as he allows you to tap at instant speed when you can't attack
1st deck i saw you play was merfolk a number of years ago, and thanks to that was the 1st deck I made in paper that got me into MTG.
Love your work sir
31:15 You do realize you also had tidebinder in hand with a vial on 3 right?
I'd love for you to play the list again, more fish content to test additional modern matches
Many Magic the Gathering players will appreciate this video 🙃
“OPPONENT!…”
Thank you Seth for the Modern games and abundant lolz.
Could we witness a trademark SaffronOlive M:tG t-shirt that simply reads “OPPONENT…” below a monochrome filled-in solid white silhouette of Seth complete with beard, headphones, and hair bun? New MTGGoldfish merch. That could be boss.
seth doing professors into made me do a doubletake
16:15 you could have sacrificed 2+ tokens to counter Karn, ez win
That Hurkyl's Recall was backbreaking
hey Seth what about leaning more into pilgrimage? maybe substituting the aether vials for springleaf drums or other cards that allow you to tap merfolk as soon as they hit the battlefield and 1 by 1 to get most value out of it??
Love the intro bit. 😹
31:00 couldnt you have tidebinder'd the boseiju
That's what i was expecting, either way though
"otowara is the only out there" meanwhile harbinger of the tides, a 4 of that would also be an out there bc he had 4 mana to flash it:
also keeping lord of atlantis in during the merfolk mirror is really not a good idea most of the time.
We learned that the ahrd way.
Game 1 against living end, I think you could have stifled the Boseiju with the tidebinder because channel is an ability.
Deeproot Pilgrimage would work well with a Merfolk/Vehicle deck. Smuggler's Copter, tap your merfolk to crew, get more crewers.
Smuggler's Copter could be sweet. Having a way to tap all our creatures one by one would power up Pilgrimage for sure.
Imagine if Tidal Warrior and Opposition were modern legal hahah
Kinda hard to tell if the enchantment is any good when you refuse to play it. It may as well not even be in your deck.
Nice you put your lands to the left too
Match 3 game 3 was your win. you have lord of atlantis which gives your Tishana and 2 mutavauls island walk and swing in for 10? @ 38:30
TBH I think trickster is just objectively better than harbinger, 4 mana is way too much to pay for a conditional instant speed bounce effect (except when it's otawara XD)
I watched Nikachu's stream and there is more argument for Harbibger being better.
Mainly the fact that there are a lot more things in the format that are better bounced (Rhino tokens, Karnstructs, Creativity summons)
Question, couldn't he have vialed in tidebinder to stifle the boseiju as an alternate way to in game 1 against living end?
In game 1 why didn't you sacrifice the merfolk tokens to counter the explosives ?
Glad im not the only one noticed it😅
@@eusebioalbertieri2248 ay! I know right I thought isn't that the force spike merfolk lord hahaha. If the ee is gonna clear them any way mite as well sac them to counter it. :). Funny the bottom line of text gets over looked alot on MTG cards these days lol
Yeah, that would have been better. We would have ended up +1 Merfolk token. Oops.
Always love to see a win for the Never Scoop Crew
The way he pronounces "svyelun" makes me think of something my medic would prescribe me for a flu.
I never played modern or merfolk, and im finally dipping my toes, and going all in on this kind of build. Attending the secretlair showdown, and will be trying this. Any advice that yall can give. Please. Im all ears!
Also im def. Going to do pilgrim as a sideboard forreal, and adding subtley for sure. Not doing this one, but more like one you vs'ed
Is nobody going to mention how the opening line from Seth is a shout out to TCC? XD made me smile.
Can't talk about merlfolk without at least one Prof impression...
tidebinder looks so strong here holy moly
pilgrimage is best with kumena as you can then turn all your non token merfolk into tokens at will, instead of once per turn when you attack
the way i've made deeproot pilgrimage great is with elven chorus. that combination feels a bit absurd. it's also very good with convoke cards in standard (artistic refusal for example). i'm not sure any of this is enough to make merfolk competitive, but they're certainly strong synergies with deeproot pilgrimage. and i'm a diehard merfolk fan, so you better believe i'm playing a ton of merfolk in historic, standard, and even alchemy.
Yeah, just throwing deeproot into merfolk doesn't feel amazing to me? Unless you plan on adding some other ways to get tap triggers
Please play more Modern Seth
i think you do run deeproot mainboard but not x4. Id run a One of with 3 sideboard.
Tide Shaper gives me hope for a 12 Sea build 💙💙💙
Gotta do elves next !
How do you get Sev-U-Lin out of Svyelun?
I think trying to make a Simic merfolk deck with Kumena and maybe Intruder Alarm and playing as a combo/tempo deck is where Pilgrimage would shine but I don't know how likely that is to happen in modern.
The biggest problem with downsides is that card designers often fail to see the bigger picture and in eternal formats people find crazy ways to take advantage of the downside that the designers never ever though about.
Good on opponent for scooping even though the life glitch.
I think deep root pilgrimage is sweet. Possibly not good enough for modern but in Kumena brawl or commander decks it’s a powerhouse
How many years of early scoops and it took till the end of 2023 and a resilient fish deck for Seth to learn.
I agree that deeproot pilgrimage is quite situational. I agree that you should keep it in the sideboard, but not put it in the main deck
I have been using Deeproot Pilgrimage with Kumena and Rejery to tap merfolk down and untap them making multiple tokens a turn. Somewhat successful deck already and I am sure someone else can make it better.
Ugh these misplays with vodalian hexcatcher are too hard to watch
Question, why do you play on this sometimes instead of arena?
He plays Magic Online for formats that are not on Magic Arena, such as modern in this video.
It just depends on the format. Arena doesn't have Modern, so if I play a Modern deck it's on Magic Online. For formats that are on Arena (like Standard, Historic and now (mostly) Pioneer) we play on Arena.
Still upset we don't have Tide Shaper on Arena.
Yeah, it's one of the more important Merfolk. They really should add it.
Merfolk ain't looking too bad
Man I really hope everyone understood that intro
Even people at the very bottom of the comment section understood it, surprisingly.
I think Pilgrimage (to me) is still best as a weird combo piece with Intruder Alarm and a {t}-Merfolk. Infinite Tokens go BRRR.
Seth not saccing merfolk tokens to tax spells while he has the lord on board, especially with engineered explosives coming down smh
Now do it with merfolks long time rival, elves!
Why don't you bring in dismember against creativity? If you kill the token with creativity on the stack the spell doesn't do anything right ? Am i missing something
Free us from the sirenoids...bright side
Silvergill Adept is quite bad in a world of Bowmasters, but Deeproot Pilgrimage is a hilariously bad card. So yeah, I'd say run the Adept first. A card that's usually bad but sometimes works is better than a card that's always trash.
Seth when he has an excuse to play merfolk:
Never scoop!!!
It would be really fun to watch you play a version of this deck but with white for the lifegain merfolk and some more removal. How about jamming some more old merfolk and seeing what happens like Merrow Rejeree or Drowner of Secrets? How about that one with Champion a Merfolk and it lets you sac one to take an extra turn when it connects?
MTGO needs night mode on the deck screen
I’m not sure why yoh wouldn’t sacrifice 3 merfolk tokens to Hexcatcher to counter Explosives
just commenting to help the algo for modern magic
Morefolk
Turned on the video and was wondering why prof sounded so different.. and when i clicked on a TCC video
Svyellun, Sevyellun, Potato, Tomato.
Silly Vanilla
Seven Lynn
Several End
He can't pronounce Svay-Loon for shit. WotC told us how to pronounce it over two damn years ago. He has to be doing the shit on purpose.
31:04
Just counter that a ability with TiTi
Hahaha, having some fun? 😁
"Merfolk make more folk"
I’m not seeing anyone mention this, but cascade is in fact a triggered ability and can be countered by tidebinder!
Pls Play klassik Aggro Goblins !
How about Simic Merfolk? Gives you a few different 1 drops and neat aggro stuff like deep root elite that can make lots of power with the pilgrimage tokens.
The bloody Prof intro caught me off guard
game two match one should have play a 2/2 lord first agains the bowmaster deck
Day 1 of asking for an Against the Odds deck built around Omnispell Adept
Save your Lord of Atlantis for your final alpha strike to win the game. Probably better to keep it in post-sideboard for that reason.
Deeproot pilgrimage is better in simic
This was a really ejoyable modern video to watch. I can’t remember when I last saw a modern video and enjoyed it… Before modern horizons 1 probably. 😅
Deep root seems more like a possible sideboard than a main board. Yay merefolk and Prof can be somewhat happy because merefolk is somewhat back.
Prof. is, indeed, the only merfolk player for myriad reasons
Seth "well I certainly can't beat a wurmcoil using my indestructible merfolk legend, or deck that is designed around islandwalk and pumping out merfolk tokens" olive
Even them gaining 6 a turn would have been backbreaking
FISH!
Seth I love you but it's pronounced SVEY-LOON. 😂
Ouphe counter the engineered explosives by sacing tokens and svyelun is pronounced SVA-LOON lol
So I'm gonna say this, and call it bragging if you will, but Deeproot Pilgrimage only shines in Simic. I love Monoblue Fish they are my life blood but we need our honorary Merfolk: counter spell in this slot.. Also we a narrower window to make our value go off whereas Simic Merfolk with testing actually worked in Modern and I even got a win in Timeless with them finding how shockingly they can counter Grixis Thoracle thanks to Tide Binder which is not for nothing I think. I'm going to be making my own list very soon but I owe a friend a jank Dimir Zombies list but hey look for, Seth! I think you'd like playing it more than Monoblue Fish.
Without pilgrimage dockhand is just a bad card