Ravnica isn't really new. It's not type 2 legal anymore. But damn, did it have some good stuff in it (and the rest of the block). The semi-Opposition he's talking about is Glare of Subdual. It's Green-White and happened to make some pretty kick ass decks when combined with Vitu-Ghazi and Selesnya Guildmage (both token makers) from the same set.
To a typical tournament player, Urza's Saga is old as dirt. It's no longer even legal for Extended. And, Urza's Saga is the most broken time the game has ever experienced. If you think the game isn't balanced now as compared to the past, then you really aren't playing any tournaments (though you made that clear).
As far as a broken Merfolk deck, well... what seems crazy in a precon vs. precon match simply isn't so. Looking at the top 8 results from States shows a small handful of Merfolk decks, but most of them don't use the cards mentioned. And to boot, the Merfolk decks are outnumbered handily by Elves, Goblins, and Faeries. And that's just talkign tribal decks, let alone the more plentiful U or U/W control decks, Rock decks, and Goyf decks.
While obviously you can get theoretical turn 2 wins with relative ease, and even have a minute possibility of somehow pulling off turn 1 wins with the perfect 6-7 cards, it's just not likely and any other player with a good deck is alos prepared for such an event and has a way to deal with it. That's how tournaments work. The fact is, since Ravnica came out there has been a nearly constant shift in which deck is considered to be the best in the format. It doesn't even take a new release to make new, killer decks half the time, simply because everytime there is a new "best" deck there's already a tool to deal with it available in the format.
There are so many good cards and so few over-the-top cards that the game is simply more balanced than it has ever been before. If you walk into a tournament you'll easily find a half-a-dozen different decks all with a great chance of winning and even more that aren't exactly bad. This is a huge step forward from the past where there were generally only about 3 decks that were playable and one was often times dominant (Madness, Affinity, Goblins, Tog and so many others).
EDIT: There's nothing wrong with infinite combos, as long as they are handled properly. For example, in 5th Dawn they intentionally created an infinite combo. And all you had to do was get 6 different, specific artifacts into play. Not an easy task. Going infinite in Magic these days is very, very hard. Really, it's only been a viable option in a handful of decks since the time Urza's Saga was legal (and at that time a ton of broken cards were banned), and most of those don't actually win you the game (like the life combo deck, which is fun as hell). Though that's the thing magic does, if an inifite combo is allowed to exist it's almost certain that it's either very difficult to assymble or it doesn't actually win the game on its own.
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