Merfolk Brawl

Standard Brawl* Counters GU (Simic) Merfolk Tribal

SkaarjSlayer

Creature (18)

• 1x Deeproot Champion
• 1x Deeproot Elite
• 1x Forerunner of the Heralds
• 1x Herald of Secret Streams
• 1x Jadelight Ranger
• 1x Kopala, Warden of Waves
• 1x Merfolk Branchwalker
• 1x Merfolk Mistbinder
• 1x Metallic Mimic
• 1x Mist-Cloaked Herald
• 1x River Sneak
• 1x Seafloor Oracle
• 1x Shapers of Nature
• 1x Silvergill Adept
• 1x Storm Sculptor
• 1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1x Tishana's Wayfinder
• 1x Wildgrowth Walker

Land (25)

• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 12x Forest
• 9x Island
• 1x Unclaimed Territory

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Broken Bond
• 1x Crashing Tide
• 1x Enter the Unknown
• 1x Harvest Season
• 1x Hunt the Weak
• 1x Nature's Way

Instant (3)

• 1x Lifecrafter's Gift
• 1x Naturalize
• 1x River Heralds' Boon

Artifact (2)

• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Strider Harness

Commander (1)

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Aquatic Incursion
• 1x Deeproot Waters
• 1x Hadana's Climb  ^Flip
• 1x Path of Discovery
• 1x Shapers' Sanctuary

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First attempt at a Brawl deck, going with tribal merfolk. The focus of the deck is, of course, counter generation, merfolk support, and evasion with some elements that you'd find in typical Commander decks (some removal, some access to draw, etc.) as best as I could find for Simic in Standard legality. Here are some of them:

Commander

Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca is a great merfolk utility commander and will hopefully work well with the amount of creatures I have. Although the counter gen Kumena provides is kind of "expensive" it at least gives me access to draw and a guaranteed unblockable attacker.

Boots

Strider Harness is good for attaching to your unblockable commander or any creature that enters with good counters from explore or other cards, and it's probably the closest thing you're going to get to a Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots without the benefit of shroud/hexproof. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything in Standard (yet) that gives a permanent hexproof keyword for Simic. If there was, I'd attach it to Herald of Secret Streams and watch the light die from my opponents' eyes.

Ramp

This deck is mostly low-cmc, and I didn't feel huge pressure to put a ton of ramp into it considering that I use a lot of explore. That being said, I do have a Harvest Season because I figured if I'm tapping merfolk anyways with my Commander then maybe it'll be good.

Draw

Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Shapers' Sanctuary, and Seafloor Oracle are pretty much it. If I find I'm still lacking in draw I may add in Chart a Course.

Removal

Since I'm generating so many counters and trying to be aggro, I figured to stay away from counterspells and focus on fight removal with Hunt the Weak and Nature's Way. Then I threw in a cheap Naturalize, a merfolk-synergy Crashing Tide, and Field of Ruin as a Ghost Quarter substitute and called it a day.

Other Notes

Wildgrowth Walker is the only non-tribal guy in there because with a bunch of explore creatures and Path of Discovery, his ability is actually bananas.

Since Brawl is a format with planeswalker commanders, I figured Sorcerous Spyglass would be a very good card to have in order to shut them down.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	6 years
Exclude colors	WBR
Legality	This deck is not Standard Brawl legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 13 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.77
Tokens	Merfolk 1/1 U w/ Hexproof
Folders	Brawl