Flush out the Mermail

Disclaimer : Everything mentioned is personal opinion and really if you think it doesn't make sense then you can show me all that Mermail crushing goodness you have.

Not gonna bore you with details like Lamby always does.

Mermail is essentially a toolbox deck, that wins by out resourcing the opponent and responding to their commitments on the board with the Atlanteans.

Sniper, or Marksman destroys set cards. Your typical Mermail deck plays 3 and it is the main target for the Pike search. When Pike searches this, the Mermail player is likely to have some sort of WATER discard outlet, or your field is naked and he's gonna rape you with this card.

As the Mermail player, Sniper is a card you should attempt to fully utilise to press damage, as it is essentially 3200 attacker. After all, you hold that board for 2 turns you gonna win by jus utter beatdown.

Using this as a Mermail player perspective, it is unwise to leave the backrow empty in fear of Sniper drops, honestly, if you have the backrow you will force a 1 for 1 trade as the Sniper is non recyclable by the decks standard engines. IF YOU DON'T have the backrow, the Sniper is going to net a plus 1.

Now on to understanding the deck's engine.

Abyss-sphere is one of the engine cards in the deck that some deem that if used properly, honestly, can't be stopped. We all know the "wait for activation then MST" trick, but the utility of the card allows the user to
1. Call Pike for immediate drop, or provide Level 4
2. Call Linde to bait Bottomless and possibly chain a Torrential
3. Just call Megalo for a 2400 beater.

The good news is, when playing against a good Mermail player who utilises the Sphere as said above, his hand becomes more predictable.

Bottomless on Linde is not always wise as a chain Torretital could make that play totally not worthwihle and many good Mermail players are wary of the threat of removal on Linde.

As the deck is mainly a tutoring deck in the early to mid game, Mind Crush becomes extremely potent. However, similar to Dark Armed, Moulinglace needs be treated with similar caution. What makes it more unpredictable is the usage of Salvage to tutor it. Hence my personal opinion of a safe number is 9 or 4.

MOST IMPORTANT
This is getting kinda long, so I'll just say this.
Most of the deck's engine requires:
1. 1 WATER discard enabler
2. 1 Atlantean

This means:
Without at least 4 hand cards, it is very unlikely they will have a fully optimal play.

I would elaborate, maybe I will, but I need to LoL.
:)
Later

lalalala