Today we are going to be focusing on the Mermail archetype, and I have a special article from a good friend of mine Luke Symthe. So without prolonging this anymore, here we go;
So let’s talk about Mermail.
I'm sure you've seen the Aqua Spirit Xyz
build that took both Bobby Barone and Sorosh Saberian into the Top Cut of YCS
Toronto (With Saberian barely missing out on the crown
itself) and is very quickly becoming the standard Mermail build for Tier 2
Events.
Are we likely to see this version of the
deck take down the format? Probably not – the deck handles a resolved Crimson
Blader quite poorly, though not for the reasons you might expect (more on that
later) and simply isn’t well enough equipped to deal with a stream of resources
that is (for all intents and purposes) endless…
Does that mean that Mermail won’t win
any events along the way? Not at all. In fact, I’m of the opinion that the only
Matchup in which Dragon Ruler is superior to Mermail is Dragon Ruler. That’s
right, I’d rather be playing the Mermail deck in EVERY other matchup (well,
except maybe Infernity Game 1, but that’s always a bit of a coin toss).
Let me explain what I mean:
Mermail’s
versatility is unmatched
The Dragon Ruler deck tends to start all
its moves in the same way, and they all tend to take the same form (Summon a
Dragon or Two, swing, end/Dracossack – maybe Debris Dragon on a particularly
inventive turn).By comparison, Mermail can start from effectively any monster
with Mermail in its name and go literally anywhere their controller wants to. This
makes Dragon Ruler relatively linear when compared to Mermail. That in of
itself should speak worlds for Mermail, since Dragon Ruler is one of the most
adaptive and versatile decks ever devised...
Be it Abysslinde making a suicide
attack, the Normal Summon of Abysspike or the activation of Abyssteus, the
Mermail deck performs in the gear that its player wants it to at all times, and
shifts between those gears flawlessly when ready to dish out massive damage,
break an opposing lock, or simply put the game in a position that’s impossible
to come back from.
What does that mean for the rest of the
Meta? Simply that the Mermail deck is incredibly difficult to mitigate without
its direct counters (Graveyard prevention). Mind Drain preventing Abyssteus and
Abyssmegalo in the hand? Abysspike -> Atlantean Heavy Infantry. Relying on
those Spell/Trap cards to get you through? Atlantean Marksman says you’d better
hope they’re chainable. They are? Abysslinde thinks the damage step is a
different story.
Your field is never safe against
Mermail. Not ever. The more cards you put onto the field, the more cards you
stand to lose.
While the Atlanteans are the main reason
behind this, it’s the Mermail monsters, specifically Abysslinde, pulling the
strings from the background.
Abysslinde creates a situation in which
a player might be physically able to attack, but they’re actually prevented
from doing so by a face-down Abysslinde. Why? Because a set Abysslinde is an
implied Abysspike, which in turn is an implied activation of Atlantean Heavy
Infantry or Atlantean Marksman. At best it’s an implied 2700ATK monster, and
between the 2 there are Abyssgundes and Tidals that just generally prevent you
from gaining anything out of an attack.
Did you set something that you should
really have saved for later? Too bad, now if you attack you leave it vulnerable
to Marksman. Your failure to be
efficient with your cards has cost you your battle phase not only this turn,
but every turn until you’re able to deal with Abysslinde.
Your opponent has a Spell/Trap card?
Same situation – can you deal with a surprise Abysslinde during the battle
phase? If you can’t then your attack will force you to choose - lose your set
card or be unable to set Spells/Traps this turn.
And that’s without even mentioning Abyss-Sphere
or Tidal (by name, anyway…). I could write entire articles - maybe even a
Thesis - on why Abyss-Sphere is such a fantastic card. How its interaction with
both players not only defines how the Mermail deck is played and played
against, but changes the way those players look at and play the game as a
result. Cards like that don’t come about very often, and maybe one of these
days I’ll write that article.
Mermail’s
Dragon Ruler does what only Dragoons could do better
However, right now we need to look at
Tidal, because it’s the main reason that Mermail stands head and shoulders
above all non-Dragon Ruler decks. A simple quote from Patrick Hoban explains
this better than I can with an essay:
“Activating Traps costs you cards.
Dragon Rulers don’t cost you cards”
Tidal is a completely free
Special-Summonable Level 7 monster in a deck full of easily Special-Summonable
Level 7 monsters. Look no further than Dragon Ruler to see how ridiculous that
is. It provides the Mermail decks with not only the kind of semi-endless
resource that non-Dragon Ruler decks can only dream of (in the form of a
2600ATK stick no less), but a way to turn a used Abyssteus or Abyssmegalo into
Mermail Abyssgaios or Dracossack.
This gives the Mermail deck an element
of the endless resource benefit that the Dragon Ruler deck has, with an added
bonus – Tidal’s WATER attribute makes it a high-class discard for any Mermail
that needs that particular cost (i.e. virtually all of them). The ability to
discard Tidal to another card’s effect and then special summon it back from the
Graveyard is reminiscent of the Baby Dragons of last format. That makes every
Mermail monster the same kind of effect as Stream, Dragon Ruler of Droplets.
Can you imagine if Tidal had Blaster or
Redox’s secondary abilities? By which I mean the “Discard this card and a
FIRE/EARTH monster to do X” abilities. Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?
Redox’s is the most ridiculous, since it would effectively read [Discard
this card and 1 “Mermail Abyssgunde”: Target 2 “Mermail” monsters in your
Graveyard; Special Summon them.] Take a moment to think about that,
I’ll wait… How about if another WATER Dragon-Type monster with a relevant effect
existed?
This is why Tidal had to be the worst
Dragon Ruler in a vacuum.
Mermail’s
threat to end the game is ever-present
While the Dragon Ruler deck rarely runs
out of resources, it doesn’t usually inflict lethal damage in a single turn
(barring Return from the Different Dimension). The loss of Speed from the
banning of the Baby Dragons means that it’s not that easy to assemble 8 Dragons
to remove for a huge swing, and often not a good idea if you can - remember
that Dragon Ruler only plays 17 Dragons, so removing 8 of them uses up nearly
half its Dragon ruler summons for the game (with the exception of Redox, who
can munch on Maxx “C” and Card Trooper).
What this means is that you usually get
a turn of preparation before you have to face the draconic horde, a turn to set
traps and summon monsters to keep it at bay.
Mermail isn’t interested in giving you
that turn of preparation – a normal summoned Abysspike may well be a
thinly-veiled threat to end you right now in a flurry of Sea Serpents (and
maybe the odd Dragon…)
While the Mermail deck is fantastic at
playing the control game - with its Atlanteans making profitable trades and its
Mermail monsters controlling the board - it can just outright win the game from
virtually any position if you give it even a hint of a weakness in your
defence.
That intrinsic, constant threat that you
may simply lose the game on any given turn is a huge part of why Mermail is
what it is.
Abyssocea has added to this ability in a
huge way. It’s not quite the same as the Atlantean Marksman-Atlantean Dragoons relationship
that governed the Pre-Tachyon format, but it still means that Abyssteus and any
WATER monster can put as much as 4200 damage on the table. That leaves the
Mermail player 4 cards to find the other 3800.
Add Tidal to this mix and you’d better
hope that they can’t feed him a Level 4 monster…
The deck may not even wait until its own
turn to deal with opposing Spells/Traps/Problem monsters. An Abyss-Sphere at
the end of the Main phase puts the Mermail deck in a position to special summon
both Abysspike and Abyssturge at the end of the opposing turn (Assuming one or
the other is in the Graveyard and Abyssgunde is in hand) and also destroy an
opposing Spell/Trap card.
That scenario trades Abyss-Sphere for an
opposing card and 2 monsters totalling 3300ATK, netting +2 in the opponent’s
End Phase and setting up for a turn of unimpeded Mermail shenanigans.
So with all its fantastic matchups, why
isn’t Mermail ruling the game? Well, like I said earlier, the problem rests
with Dragon Ruler having endless resources that take the form of large Dragons.
There’s another reason though, so let’s look at that.
The
Problem of Crimson Blader
Yeah, this guy.
Remember earlier, when I said that this
deck doesn’t recover well from Crimson Blader? There are a number of reasons
for that, but oddly enough the stopping of Level 5 or higher (Specifically
Level 7) monsters isn’t the main one. The issue is that Crimson Blader’s effect
starts a chain.
What that means is that simply setting
an Abysslinde isn’t an answer to Crimson Blader. Under normal circumstances
you’d have access to Atlantean Heavy Infantry, which would mean that either of
Abysslinde or Abyss-Sphere can get rid of any monster your opponent controls –
Abysslinde fetches Abysspike or Abyssturge, which discards the Heavy Infantry
to remove the threat from the board.
This does not work with Crimson Blader…
Why? Because Crimson Blader’s effect is
a mandatory Trigger Effect, While Abysslinde is an optional Trigger Effect.
That makes Crimson Blader link 1 in any chain that results from it destroying Abysslinde
in battle (regardless of which monster is attacking), which in turn means that
an Abysspike summoned from Abysslinde will not be able to activate. Crimson
Blader not only cuts off the top end of the Mermail deck, it also prevents the
deck from using its standard method to search for outs. This twin-pronged
attack on the deck’s problem-solving engine is the real issue that Crimson
Blader presents.
The
Maxx “C” Achilles Heel
Wow this little guy hurts a lot.
While the Dragon Ruler deck tends to shrug
off Maxx “C” by simply summoning Blaster or Redox first, the Mermail deck
doesn’t have it so easy. While Tidal can help to lure the insect out early, the
best players will hold it for the best case scenario if they have a choice.
That scenario is that you just discarded
Abyssgunde for Abyssmegalo - not only will Maxx “C” replace itself from the
Abyssmegalo summon, but you’ll be forced into one of 4 horrible plays:
1.
Just end, leaving Abyssmegalo
vulnerable to attack and wasting Abyssgunde.
2.
Trigger Abyssgunde to give your
opponent an extra card, and leave both Abyssmegalo and the Abyssgunde target
vulnerable.
3.
Make Abyssgaios, giving your
opponent 3 draws, but removing your attack vulnerability.
4.
Try to swing for the game. If
you fail you will likely lose.
None of those is a great play,
especially with Dragons threatening Crimson Blader on the next turn.
The fact is that the Dragon deck’s
monsters are generally so much less vulnerable to battle than Mermails are, and
its ability to both handle the insects better and dish them out itself is a
pivotal reason why the Dragon matchup is so poor for Mermail.
The
Future
So how does the deck go forward from
here? Finding a way to deal with Dragons that doesn’t hurt your game plan
against other decks would be best, but that’s easier said than done.
I’m not sure Hand-Traps are the way to
go with this. As we’ve already discussed, Dragons have a level of
invulnerability to Hand-Traps that makes it hard to find a correct time to use
one.
Hand-Traps also tend to create hands
that don’t contain enough Water monsters to make a reasonable push. In Game 1
Mermail wants all its cards to be pushing its game plan forward. That means
less reactive cards/defensive cards, and more cards that make Mermail do what
Mermail is meant to do.
Not forgetting of course that with all
the different decks that see play this format, a Hand-Trap is not going to be
useful the majority of the time. Think about the number of decks that people
play at YCS Events:
Dragon Ruler
Dragunity
Mermail
Prophecy
Fire fist
Evilswam
Constellar
Infernity
Geargia
Herald
STUN
Blackwing
Madolche
Inzektor
Chain Strike Burn
How many of these decks is Maxx “C”
useful against? Half? Less?
How about Effect Veiler?
Even the Dragon Ruler decks nowadays are
starting to move to less hand Hand-Trap and more hard-counters like Vanity’s
Emptiness and Skill Drain. It remains to be seen whether this will continue as
we approach the final 3 YCS Events of 2013 in San Mateo, London and Turin.
The Mermail deck is more than capable of
playing hard counters in the maindeck too (Torrential Tribute is already quite
common). Finding which ones work best is the issue.
We may see Deep Sea Diva return to play,
since it’s an excellent way round an already resolved Crimson Blader – simply
search for Abyssleed from the Abysslinde that was destroyed, then drop Diva for
Armory Arm and Equip. You’ll even get 3700 damage out of the equation.
Realistically, Armory Arm is almost a
good enough reason to play Diva on its own, since surprise damage wins so many
games nowadays. Access to Armades just cements the deal further – giving you a
way to deal with problematic monsters unopposed or simply to force opposing
Lances for no value.
Let’s not forget Armades’ impact on the
mirror… That out to Abysslinde you were looking for? Look no further.
Whether Dragon Ruler will rule the meta
or not, Mermail is still a hell of a deck, and is definitely worth a play for
anyone that wants to understand Chain and End Phase mechanics better, or just
wants to have a go at something new.
Beware though, that with Atlantean
Dragoons and Deep Sea Diva limited you’ll not be getting any Abyssmegalo/Atlantean
Dragoons auto-win hands.
Nowadays this deck is as good as its
player makes it.
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