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My Wife Built This Deck Before the Hakbal Precon… and It Might Be Better

 

 

My Wife Built This Deck Before the Hakbal Precon… and It Might Be Better

I played a Simic Merfolk deck last night that honestly caught me off guard.

Not because it was optimized.
Not because it was full of staples.

But because it felt incredible to play.

What makes this even better?
My wife built this deck before the Hakbal precon even existed.

And after playing it, I realized something important:

This deck doesn’t win because of the cards—it wins because of the engines.

The Turn Sequence That Made It Click

Here’s roughly how the game played out:

  • Early setup into Nicanzil

  • Followed by Twists and Turns

  • Then Deeproot Waters

  • Dropped Lord of Atlantis

  • Landed Hakbal

  • Played Spore Frog

  • Then Vorel of the Hull Clade

  • Finished with Shapers of Nature

At the time, it just felt like things were “working.”

Looking back?
I accidentally stacked four different engines.

Engine #1 — Go Wide Pressure

Once Deeproot Waters, Lord of Atlantis, and Hakbal were online:

  • Every Merfolk created more Merfolk

  • The board gained evasion

  • Attacking turned into value

This wasn’t just creature deployment.
It was threat multiplication.

Engine #2 — Growth Through Explore

With Hakbal, Nicanzil, and Twists and Turns:

  • Creatures explored constantly

  • Counters started stacking

  • Lands and draws smoothed everything out

This is where the deck shifted from “developing” to scaling.

Engine #3 — Counter Economy

Then came Vorel of the Hull Clade and Shapers of Nature:

  • Counters doubled

  • Counters moved around

  • Counters became card draw

At this point, counters weren’t just stats—they were a resource system.

Engine #4 — Buying Time

Spore Frog doesn’t look like much, but it did something critical:

  • Gave me a full turn cycle

  • Protected the board

  • Let everything else grow safely

That one card created the time needed for everything else to come together.

Why This Deck Felt So Good

Most precons (even strong ones) tend to feel a bit linear:

Play cards → hope they stick → eventually win

This deck felt different.

Every turn had decisions:

  • Where do counters go?

  • Do I double now or wait?

  • Do I push damage or keep building?

  • Do I cash in value or scale further?

It wasn’t autopilot.
It was interactive value gameplay.

The Big Takeaway

This deck worked because it followed a simple but powerful structure:

Go Wide → Add Value → Multiply Value → Protect → Convert to Win

That’s it.

No expensive staples required.
No perfectly tuned list.

Just stacked synergy.

Final Thought

The Hakbal precon is strong. No question.

But this deck?
This one feels like a system you get to play with, not just a list you pilot.

And honestly?

That’s the kind of Magic I want more of.

 

~M

 

 

*************************

 

1 Aquatic Incursion
1 Arcane Signet
1 Blinding Fog
1 Capture Sphere
1 Cave of Temptation
1 Cenote Scout
1 Cold-Eyed Selkie
1 Command Tower
1 Counterspell
1 Cultivate
1 Deepfathom Echo
1 Deeproot Pilgrimage
1 Deeproot Waters
1 Enter the Unknown
1 Filter Out
1 Forensic Researcher
1 Forerunner of the Heralds
13 Forest
13 Island
1 Jade Bearer
1 Jadelight Ranger
1 Jadelight Spelunker
1 Kiora's Follower
1 Lull
1 Lush Oasis
1 Manor Gate
1 Merfolk Branchwalker
1 Merfolk Cave-Diver
1 Merfolk Mistbinder
1 Merfolk of the Depths
1 Merfolk Seastalkers
1 Merfolk Skydiver
1 Merfolk Sovereign
1 Merfolk Thaumaturgist
1 Merrow Reejerey
1 Mist-Cloaked Herald
1 Murkfiend Liege
1 Naturalize
1 Neutralize
1 Nicanzil, Current Conductor
1 Omen of the Sea
1 Once and Future
1 Opal Palace
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Path of Discovery
1 Predatory Rampage
1 Realmwalker
1 Replicating Ring
1 Retreat to Coralhelm
1 River Sneak
1 Riverwise Augur
1 Sea Gate
1 Shapers of Nature
1 Shipwreck Dowser
1 Silvergill Adept
1 Simic Charm
1 Simic Cluestone
1 Simic Fluxmage
1 Sol Ring
1 Spitting Image
1 Spore Frog
1 Springsage Ritual
1 Stonybrook Banneret
1 Subterranean Schooner
1 Swift Warden
1 Thought Vessel
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Tishana's Tidebinder
1 Tishana's Wayfinder
1 Topography Tracker
1 Twists and Turns
1 Urban Evolution
1 Waker of the Wilds
1 Webspinner Cuff
1 Windrider Patrol

1 Hakbal of the Surging Soul 

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