Full Force is a weekly draft series built around testing the latest formats and our skills by forcing archetypes. This week, we (try again) take a look at UG Merfolk in Ixalan!

No more reveling for us this week. It was interesting to see how this draft supported a lot of what I talked about last week. We had a lot of continued problems with getting the tempo build we wanted. Despite cutting it early and hard, it seemed like everyone wanted to take the aggressive merfolk like River Sneak and Tishana’s Wayfinder. There just seems to be too much fighting over the archetype.

So how do you solve this? When is it OK to move in on Merfolk?

My suggestion would be to wait on drafting cards that require them, because you can’t expect them and instead simply try to draft “good stuff” cards like normal. Cards that don’t need the synergy to be playable; Tempest Caller, Watertrap Weaver, Merfolk Branchbender, Jade Guardian, etc. If you find yourself at 4-5 merfolk after a pack and a half, then look to switch into the actual synergy cards and try to hit River Heralds’ Boon, River Sneak, and other high impact merfolk matter cards. This all depends on your meta of course. If you’re not playing an Magic Online, pay attention to what your local players are drafting and if merfolk are being overdrafted, try to steer clear like I’m suggesting here.

Next week I’ll be traveling to TwitchCon, but you can still vote on what archetype we should look at next in the Twitter poll and we’ll be back in two weeks Until then, may all your drafts go swimmingly!

 

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