Turning Legacy, Modern and other decks from other formats into Pauper has been my recent passion. My newest challenge is to make Pauper Merfolk.
All Merfolk decks have a balance of aggro swarm with tempo. In pauper, this is very challenging, as there are NO lords in Blue. At least, no major or good ones. We have to settle for targeted pump and evasion.
CREATURES
To start out, we have one of the hidden merfolk gems, Stonybrook Banneret. This is close to Aether Vial as we are going to get, and making our merfolk cost 1-2 mana is very important.
Streambed Aquitects is as close to a lord as we are going to get. Unless he is alone, you will tapping for the first ability every turn. Have Banneret out, and he costs as much as a Counterspell.
Our beaters start with Enclave Elite. A simple mana sink, and Islandwalk is also very nice. After that is Skywatcher Adept.
There are a few more tempo-y cards in this deck. First is Merfolk Looter, which is just for extra card draw and discarding dead cards and late lands. After that, there is Silvergill Douser, which shuts off huge threats like Gurmag Angler.
Spells
There are 8 card-draw spells which turn your opponents lands into Islands for Islandwalk, and these are Spreading Seas, and Aquitect's Will.
For tempo and control, the counters are Mana Leak, and Daze, and bounce tech is Vapor Snag.
Preordain lets you dig for answers.
Lands12 Island4 Halimar Depths for Ponder on a stick.
Sideboard
Stadard sideboards include the usual Counterspell and Hydroblast.
However, the rest of the deck is aimed to emergency life gain. You do this with splashing white. Judge of Currents will save your hide against things like Tron decks.
