[Modern] Fish Out Of Water

[Draco88]

Im trying to brew up a Merfolk Tribal deck utilizing counters that is both budget and somewhat competitive. It doesnt have to win the local FNM tourney overall, but Id like to get a few individual wins.

The main win con will be direct combat.
The general idea is to get the one drop unblockable creatures out quick to begin nipping at the opponent as soon as possible.
Turn them into larger threats by beefing them up with the various creatures, artifacts, and spells that grant +1/+1 and/or counters.
Hopefully, during this I can manage to get Simic Ascendancy out to take advantage of the counters created to establish a secondary win con.
Gavony Township and Vorel of the Hull Clade can greatly aid either win con, especially Simic Ascendancy.
Mana base is splashed with some white in order to activate Gavony Township and the flashback on Travel Preparations. 

A small collection of sideboard cards address threats present in both my playgroup and our local FNM meta: spot removal and board wipes (counterspell), mill strategies (gaea's blessing), and this decks general weakness to fliers (raking canopy).

I have not playtested this deck yet, but doing some quick run throughs with my kid, the deck seem to flow fairly well. Even with only 20 mana, I havent been starved for mana, although sometimes I end up having to play one of the dual lands tapped because I dont have a basic in my hand to reveal.

Any recommendations on this deck, or am I on the right track? Anything else I should address with the sideboard?
Be sure to include a why with any recommendations.

Edited: as I posted this, it occured to me to include some graveyard hate in the sideboard. Any recs on good cards fof that while Im off to research?

Edit2: added Return to Nature

Also, remember: this is supposed to be a budget build. I know, I know...budgets vary. My playgroup defines budget as a $1 average per card.
So, a sixty card deck should be $60 or less while a sixty card deck with a full sideboard should be $75 or less as measured by this sites reference to TCG on the decklist.

Thanks in advance!

Draco


Decklist

https://deckstats.net/decks/194830/3284776-fish-out-of-water

[DanyTheWarrior]

Hi! I'll give you some feedback:

-I would cut the white part of the deck. Travel Preparations and Gavony Township are great cards for the deck, but in an aggressive deck like this not being able to cast your spells on curve hurts a lot. I would stick to UG and have more duals of those colors, maybe the UG fastland fits in your budget.
-Simic Ascendancy is way too low impact for modern. I'm pretty sure you will never trigger the "win the game" clause, and if that's the case, I would swap it for another card, Vineshaper Mystic for example
-Did you consider Benthic Biomancer? Is on theme for counters and helps with card selection. Merfolk Skydiver seems more higher impact than other cards from your deck too.

[Draco88]

I appreciate your input, thank you.
I do agree with and have incorporated some of your suggestions

-Cut white from deck. Added a couple more UG lands and a couple basics to help with mana flow.
-Cut Travel Preparation. Added 1 River Heralds's Boon and 3 Vineshaper Mystic to maintain the immediate effect of two counters and provide a little more interaction with Deeproot Elite.
-Cut Simic Ascendancy. I see the point of it playing too slow, ESPECIALLY since I misread Vorel of the Hull Clade and I can not double the counters on Ascendancy.
-Added Benthic Biomancer for the looter effect.and more possible Deeproot Elite interaction.

[Draco88]

I dropped the raking canopy completely and stuck merfolk skydiver in the sideboard twmporarily.
Id love to fit it in the main board somewhere, but I dont know what to drop for that to occur.

I have an idea or two, but Im currently suffering from analysis paralysis. So, does anyone have any ideas on how to stuff four merfolk skydiver into the main board?