New Merfolk Synergy from Dominaria United!

Hi Patrons!

I hope you are having a great day as always. Dominaria United has been a loaded set so far with a little something for just about everyone, so why not also include a few new additions to the evergreen (blue? lol) Merfolk tribe.

In the midst of the great spoilers today, we were given a round of new tribal lords for the iconic tribes of Magic: Goblins, Elves, and Merfolk. And while each is great in its own regard, the Merfolk one jumped out. 

Vodalian Hexcatcher is extremely powerful all around. It bolsters the tribe for those islandwalk-enabled swings, and it turns token Merfolk into Force Spikes against noncreature spells for free.

Here are the two Merfolk Vodalian Hexcatcher just made super relevant:

Lullmage Mentor has wonderful synergy with the new Vodalian Hexcatcher since it effectively replaces the token once you successfully counter a spell, keeping the door open to do it again for free. This is probably not going to be powerful enough for the purposes of Constructed formats like Modern. In Commander, this will be a solid combo as it creates cloud-cover for your Merfolk team to assemble by forcing the pod to play behind by keeping up a couple extra mana when trying to cast board wipes or targeted removal. Both cards also standalone well which bodes well for them being included in any EDH build.

I went out and grabbed four foils of Lullmage Mentor from CardTrader Zero. I got three LP for $5/ea. and 1 NM for $5 as well. It looks like people have already identified this combo because foils have sold today off TCGPlayer as well.

I am less bullish on the non-foils largely because I am not positive this combo will gain enough traction in Constructed formats, and without that demand the movement won’t be strong enough to profit as a spec. That said, if you’re thinking you may build Merfolk tribal of any kind, there’s no harm in grabbing your copies now to avoid paying a little more later.

Deeproot Waters continues to be a bulk uncommon that I absolutely love if we end up revisiting Merfolk tribal for EDH purposes. This is a value-generating enchantment that works great with the new Dominaria United lord. As a passive token generator, the investment is minimal, and each cast trigger gets you a Merfolk token which can immediately be used to sacrifice to the Vodalian Hexcatcher to protect whatever Merfolk spell you’re trying to resolve. The combo gives some roundabout redundancy to Cavern of Souls which is a critical piece of Merfolk tribal decks.

I found eight foils for $0.75/ea. on CardTrader Zero, and it looks like they’re generally hovering around $1/ea. which seems fine. I wouldn’t pay anything more than that, though. Additionally, the non-foil isn’t really a spec unless this card ends up seeing play in 1+ Constructed formats (keep an eye out for any Merfolk breakthroughs in Pioneer or Modern following DMU’s release).

Overall, Deeproot Waters is a great card to bookmark if you are a player who is reconsidering Merfolk’s place in your EDH lineup. I don’t see foils going higher than $3-5, so just be mindful this is a low margin opportunity and thus this is a call focused more on players saving a little money than speculators being able to turn a profit.

Have a great day!

Chris