While it’s easy to forget, what with all the Universes Beyond news flying about right now, today, July 25th, marks the 2025 Standard rotation date for paper Magic. Five sets are on their way out, leaving a big void for the likes of Edge of Eternities to fill. Before the tides of change sweep all we know away, however, some players are giving their pet decks one last ride. In a recent MTG Standard Store Championship, an intrepid player went undefeated with Azorius Merfolk.
Merfolk, like Goblins, actually has a ton of support in Standard right now. It’s never quite managed to break out competitively, but it’s certainly not for want of Wizards trying. Now, at the eleventh hour, it’s putting in some results. While this is encouraging news for the future of the archetype, rotation takes away one of the deck’s best cards, leaving things uncertain going forward.
Azorius Merfolk In MTG Standard
Azorius Merfolk comes to us via MTG player Beale, who took to X to celebrate their flawless victory at their Standard Store Championship. At its heart, this is a pretty simple deck. It runs a ton of Merfolk, and aims to capitalize on Merfolk synergies to pursue an Aggro/Tempo win.
The deck gets going early with a strong pair of Merfolk one-drops. Mistway Spy is a simple on-type 1/1 Flier, helping you get in chip damage early. It also synergizes with some of the deck’s key draw pieces, most notably Enduring Curiosity. Mindspring Merfolk is much juicier, serving as a scaling card draw spell and an anthem effect for your Merfolk. In a pinch, you can just pay two blue with this to buff your board, which will often feel great.
The rest of the Merfolk in the deck are all about the instant-speed plays. Floodpits Drowner lets you tap down opposing creatures, and even shuffle them off the board if you have four mana available. Vodalian Hexcatcher is a classic lord effect, and one that also lets you turn your Merfolk into pseudo-Force Spikes, to throw off your opponent’s plays. This is definitely one of the best cards in the deck. As Tim Hughes put it on X: “Unsure if Vodalian Hexcatcher is a beatable card when your opponent is on the play.”
Rounding things out Merfolk-wise, Beale includes full playsets of Tishana’s Tidebinder and Deeproot Pilgrimage. The former gives you more instant-speed shenanigans to work with, shutting down problematic abilities as they appear. The latter is probably one of the scariest cards in the deck, letting you go wide effortlessly as your Merfolk swing in each turn.
Making A Splash
With all of the deck’s Merfolk support being available in Mono-Blue, one has to question why Beale would opt to go Azorius here. In fact, some in the comments on X did exactly that. The white cards included here, while small in number, are high in impact.
Voyager Glidecar is a particularly sneaky inclusion. It comes down early for just one white mana, and can be Crewed for only one. This makes it a very easy way to trigger your Deeproot Pilgrimage on turns where you lack safe Merfolk attacks. If you manage to go wide, as this deck often can, you can start using that first ability to turn Glidecar into a scaling evasive threat. In grindy games, this is fantastic. That ability can be used on your opponent’s turn, too, which opens up a ton of options. In the comments, Beale calls it “one of the most important cards in the deck.”
Split Up is the only other white card in the main deck, and it’s another banger. With Glidecar in the mix, it’s pretty easy to tap your whole board down and make this a one-sided wrath. You can do the same even easier on turns when your opponent goes all-in on a combat step. Tempo decks like this are typically unable to play wraths, but Split Up, by virtue of its low cost and potential for blowouts, makes the cut here.
The white splash also lets Beale run Rest in Peace out of the sideboard, which is brutal against Gruul Delirium and Izzet Cauldron alike. Throw in Stock Up for draw and Lifecraft Engine as generic typal support, and that’s Azorius Merfolk for MTG Standard. It’s a fast, flexible deck, and one clearly capable of delivering real tournament results.
So What’s The (Hex)Catch?
Unfortunately, there’s an elephant in the room here. With today’s rotation, Dominaria United leaves the Standard format, and with it, Vodalian Hexcatcher. This leaves Azorius Merfolk without not only its best lord, but also its best piece of interaction.
In the comments, many players pointed out the difficulties the deck might face without it. Beale concurred and also noted that Azorius mana is going to be pretty weak for a while post-rotation, too. With Adarkar Wastes and Seachrome Coast leaving, and no Hallowed Fountain in sight just yet, hitting both blue and white will be much tougher going forward.
Whether or not the deck can survive these blows remains to be seen. There are some interesting Merfolk you can sub in for Hexcatcher, like Harbinger of the Tides and Forensic Researcher, but none really come close to what that card offered. Turning all of your 1/1 Merfolk tokens into decent attackers is hard to replace, and the counter ability even more so.
Because of this, Azorius Merfolk is unlikely to make more moves in the meta now that rotation is here. That said, this could just be a temporary problem. We’re pretty likely to get the other five Shocklands soon, which will solve the deck’s mana issues. On top of that, Lorwyn Eclipsed is slated as the first set of 2026. The original Lorwyn and Shadowmoor sets were full of Merfolk support, so it’s likely we’ll get something on Hexcatcher’s level here to salvage the deck.
Hopefully, this is the case. It’s great to see simple strategies like Azorius Merfolk succeed, especially in an MTG Standard format full of generic ‘good stuff’ Midrange lists.
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