I was inspired to make a merfolk-based deck after playing a friend, who I'll call J, and his "Stayin' Alive" deck, which is not EDH, but by all means could and should be turned into one.
The deck was a classic Blue/White control deck, whose centerpiece was a lovely little relic from Zendikar named Lullmage Mentor.
Alright, you read the card? Good! Now imagine this card being the only merfolk creature type in J's deck. Wipe the confused look off your face; J doesn't play tribal decks, so he says...
Because of a the lack of focus on any particular creature type (though I did see many wizards), J's deck played out rather slowly and J's all-over-the-place style forced him to wait until he hit five mana before bringing in the Mentor. His deck also had classic control cards in it like Silent Arbiter and Rule of Law (you can see where this deck is going). Azami, Lady of Scrolls was also in for card draw, but the real tech in this strategy was having a playset of Lullmage Mentors, Merrow Commerce, and four playsets of different counterspells.
Ridiculous? Yes. Unfair? Not entirely. Not nearly as unfair as an infinite turn combo. And besides, there are plenty of ways to get around a 2/2 merfolk wizard.
I did see great potential in playing around with Lullmage, though, and I had to see which cards could work around Lullmage. The card's problems are this: he's only a 2/2, which isn't unreasonable; but you need to have open mana to protect him from Shocks or Bolts or any type of burn. Problem 2 is that you need seven untapped merfolk in order to counter a spell, which is by no means impossible, but highly improbable in a non-merfolk deck, especially if you let your oppenent set down an AEther Flash (eek, and if you didn't counter that enchantment, you deserve to lose your merfolk).
The second problem is actually an easy fix, you just need to go tribal and build a merfolk deck, preferably one with a lot of cheap one- or two-drop merfolk. Summon the School is a nice way to boost your merfolk, but that necessitates white in the deck, which isn't a bad thing. Now once you get one of your Lullmage Mentors out, and you have at least 6 other merfolk (or any other creature) on the field, enchant your Mentor with this:
So, if you had 6 other creatures out when you put this on your Mentor, you now have SEVEN Lullmage Mentors, which means you can tap them to counter target spell, then spit out SEVEN more merfolk tokens, allowing for infinite counters, and infinite merfolk tokens (if your oppenent is casting infinite spells). Not that it's the best win con, since you could face some un-counterable burn or un-counterable creatures or just not cast spells, but it's annoying, and it allows you to tap out your mana if you want to put down that Stormtide Leviathan.
That one is for every opponent who ever said, "Play it now! The blue player's tapped out!"
The only problem with Infinite Reflection is that it takes diversity out of your board, and doesn't allow for any other combos, like this:
Tap seven untepped merfolk: counter target spell, gain seven life! Pretty decent life gain strategy if you ask me. You could also use Soul Warden to gain life when merfolk enter the battlefield, but it'd be kinda hard to get all those cards out on the field at once. Magical merfolk land is a fickle place to furnish.
Anyway, those are just some fun cards that should be in any Lullmage Mentor deck. And if you like all those combos and some more, just make a commander deck around Sygg, River Guide and see what unravels (this deck may be coming very soon to TGZ).
Thanks, and keep your merfolk classy.
-VJ
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