Merfolk Tribal (EDH / Commander)

Welcome to my take on Kumena Merfolk Tribal. I will split this into three parts:

1. What does this deck want to accomplish?

2. How does it do that?

3. Possible Switches/certain card choices

4. Deckedits

5. What does this deck want to accomplish?
   The idea is to build up a strong merfolk/wizard board. Therefore I included all merfolks/wizards that interact well with the opponents. After doing that the deck is trying to either grind them out if they are trying to kill you or going aggressive since your board can easily grow pretty big. Kumena serves two purposes in this deck: Carddraw and pumping (shocking, I know). The killing part comes through usual combat damage, therefore we can find our all lord and savior Craterhoof Behemoth. Other smaller wincons are triumph of the Hordes and Beastmaster Ascension, both of which are also capable of killing a whole table. Be careful though: Every attacking creature can mean a missed opportunity to counter, draw or bounce (depending on your board).
   I decided to go for a pretty greedy untap/flash engine to do as much as I can during everyones turn. (Who doesn't love playing at the end of the opponents turn and make them hate you because of that?) After this engine is established the fun begins: We can tap our creatures for mana, counter sth, draw or bounce stuff, all depending on our board. We can completely lock our opponents out of the game and simply wait for the big green dude to show up. Paradox Engine and Intruder Alarm paired with mana Dorks or Cryptolith Rithe enables an "oops, I win"-Combo, where you can draw your entire deck, cast it and Upheaval your opponents.

6. How does it do that?
   The deck plays out in a similar fashion to Animar or other creature Combo Decks: It starts developing some creatures and occasionally turn them sideways. However, the real point is to go off in one storm-like turn. The biggest advantage over a usual storrm deck is that most of the cards that are used to get to the storm finish are also wincons (since they can be turned sideways). To go off, you usually need at least 3 Mana produced by creatures (done by dorks, enchantements or Kioras Follower / Merrow Reejerey + Nykthos) and something to untap them (Intruder Alarm / Paradox Engine). Once you have that, you can start chaining merfolks from your hand. Kumena ensures you are not running out of gas in the process. By going through the combo you usually find one of the wincons. Be careful though: If you vomit everything onto the board in one turn, the board doesn't have haste, so Craterhoof usually doesnt do the trick here. Why this is acceptable and better than a storm player ending with an Empty the Warrens you'll see in the following section.

2.1 How does it win without Hoof?
Very good question, the answer is: By having one of the follwing boards:

• Lullmage Mentor + Intruder Alarm + a crapload of merfolks: You tap 7 merfolks to counter a spell, Lullmage Mentor triggers and creates a token, Intruder Alarm triggers and untaps everything -> Profit
  In playtesting this was usually the board my opponents scooped to. It's actually quite easy to accomplish if you can go off
• Patron Wizard / Lullmage Mentor + Seedborn Muse / Quest for Renewal / Murkfiend Liege + a crapload of merfolks: basically the same board as above, although this is not a hardlock
  I only has to last for one turn though, because affter untapping you usually have enough combat damage. Or Galecaster Colossus.

2.2 Why do you even run the hoof and the other pump stuff then?
Another very good question, fellow imaginary reader of this primer. The answer is:
a) To make sure we have enough combat damage once we untap with our big board: In case we are not, we may have to hold some creatures back to still have counters.
Then the game gets dragged out where it should just be other. Noone likes that.
b) To kill someone midgame: Sometimes there is this one annoyying control/stax Player on the table and we can't go off as long as he is sitting there behind his Eidolon of Rhetoric, Damping Sphere, Rule of Law or whatever.
In this case we need the option to just play 6-7 dudes, play cast Hoof / Beastmaster Ascension / Triumph of the Hordes and overrun them. To cite a friend of mine when asked about his 0-removal-monogreen deck:
"If someone has an annoying permament, kill him. Then the permanent is gone!" We just embrace that here.

3. Possible Switches/certain card choices
   The cards in the sideboard are the most interesting ones to put back into this one. The maybeboard contains every single card I was considering while building this deck including every single merfolk out there I thought to be at least somewhat good. A few cards to cut if you feel so:

   • Empress Galina (yep, she's a merfolk): She's just as good as your opponents legendary permanents -> their generals.
   • Thada Adel (same reason for artifacts): I wouldn't recommend cutting her since everyone is running sol Ring at least
   • Rootwater Thief: Only needed if your playgroup plays combo. Since mine does, I run him.
   • Wanderwine Prophets: Your playgroup should be cool with you taking multiple extra turns in row. Usually untapping with prophet will win you game, although it might take a little.
   • Trygon Predator: look at Thada. Everyone has Sol ring. Killing Sol Rings is nice.

4. Deckedits
   26.04.2019
   +Kopala, Warden of Waves
   -Voidmage Prodigy
   I wanted to cut the mage for a little longer now since I never used his ability, so I figured I might as well replace a Wizard with a flavor text with a merfolk wizard that actually does stuff. Making your opponents removal cost 2 more unfortunately isn't as effective ind EDH as it is in Constructed since 90% of the time your entire Board gets wiped anyways. Still it's better than a random flavor text and Kopala is a merfolk wizard.

17.04.2019:
-Cyclonic Rift
-Rhystic Study
+Benthic Biomancer
+Earthcraft
I finally got my hands on earthcraft and at the same time I saw this little Merfolk Wizard lying around in my Binder, so I figured he would be perfect in the deck. The reason I cut the above two cards is part because I needed the cards in another deck and didn't want to proxy them and part because I honestly think they are not that great here since they don't really help accomplishing the gameplan.

02.09.2020
-Craterhoof Behemoth
+Thassas Oracle
A test to see wether an Oracle win is actually reliable. I never needed Hoof to close out a game so for now I'll replace it with Oracle. If that doesn't come up either I'll just throw in a random Merfolk.
-Disallow
3 Mana is too much for comfort for a counter
-Paradox Engine
-Fabricate
RIP Paradox Engine. You'll never be forgotten.
-Llanowar Elves
+Exploration
+Search for Tomorrow
+Utopia Sprawl
The deck is already soft to boardwipes, so the ramp should be in form of noncreatures. Also I wanted more ramp in total.
-Reliquary Tower
Colorless lands suck. And the upside is not enough on this one
+Tropical Island
+Waterlogged Grove
+Growing Rites of Itlimoc
With the addition of Exploration some additional lands should help. Also having a sudo Cradle is nice, especially if you can't/don't want to afford the ridicolously expensive the OG Cradle
-Sylvan Library
I felt like ramp is more important than draw. Really not sure about this one, might get added back in later