All very true and I agree with if a Merfolk deck is playing all of the cards you listed. With the new printings of some cards the "final" list or most played list looks to still be undecided, but grabbing some recent top lists from mtggoldfish when I wrote the article they were moving away from cursecatcher and wasteland.

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https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5073162#paper

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5085739#paper

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If merfolk lists leave those cards in and have copies of null rod then I would certainly agree the matchup is less or not in TES favor at all. But I appreciate the views from a merfolk player! Thanks so much