Deepchannel Duelist

Merfolk lords almost always live in blue, and they almost always stop at the static buff: a passive +1/+1 to the school and nothing else. The white splash here buys a second engine on top of the anthem, and the two halves reward opposite board shapes. The anthem clause excludes the Duelist itself, so it plays as a standard lord that happens to double as a workhorse. The end-step untap is where the design gets pointed: it turns one Merfolk into a repeatable resource by letting it tap out on your turn (to attack, to crew, to activate some tap-ability) and still stand ready for defense, or reset that ability every cycle. Because the untap picks a single Merfolk each end step, it favors builds with one high-value tapper rather than a wide swarm; the anthem favors the swarm. Squaring that tension is the entire deckbuilding exercise. The timing window matters too: the untap resolves on your own end step, not your opponents', so it is protection for your attackers and a free reset for your own activations, not an instant-speed ambush trick. The 2/2 body is unremarkable on its own, which is the point. This is a lord built around keeping one particular fish upright turn after turn.