Meren ( help-wanted )

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BOVINE
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Post by BOVINE » 4 years ago




Meren of Clan Nel Toth
| Multiplayer | Reanimator | Casual |






Introduction & Philosophy



Meren of Clan Nel Toth debuted in Commander 2015 and likely needs no introduction. Surely we've had time to acquaint ourselves with her life/death/life cycle shenanigans. However, if you're new to Meren or are simply musing on your own list, you've come to the right place

This deck embraces the "build casually, play competitively" philosophy. Meren, and other value engine decks, can, at times, feel very powerful against other casual decks. This list cuts back in many of the areas that can oversalt a table and detract from a positive communal experience. Our opponents will need to run answers but they shouldn't have to watch us play alone

You won't find an abundance of tutors in this list. Those making an appearance include Entomb, Buried Alive, Fauna Shaman, Protean Hulk, and Finale of Devastation. Fauna Shaman doubles as a discard outlet that suffers a round of summoning sickness. Finale of Devastation can be a reanimation spell and/or wincon and won't always require a game-slowing search and shuffle. The high synergy of Protean Hulk, Entomb and Buried Alive go far beyond being just "face-down" to-the-hand tutors – though each can certainly grab identical cards game after game if the pilot so chooses. I'm mentioning these things because many players are becoming weary of tutors and I want players that are interested in this type of Meren to know you won't be firing off the same combos every game. The majority of the time you'll have to find your path to victory and that's just the way I like it




Why play this deck?



This list is a casual multiplayer reanimator with a budget reaching $450 if you're buying all the cards outright without trading or price-hunting but can be built for as low as $300. An improved mana base will cost ya — as with any deck — but this low of a budget for Meren isn't the norm and you could even knock it down a good bit more without much effort

I love to play this deck because
I appreciate how BG embodies the cycle of life / death / life
I love to play a game of attrition and interacting with my opponents
It has an attractive budget and is easy to upgrade with new sets
I like to cast and utilize Meren
Meren gets into opponent's heads before the game even starts
I enjoy multiple wincons — including combat, table drain, and concessions
Graveyard strategies are my thing and give my opponents opportunity to cripple my first plan
It's casual while having a potent, focused feel at times




Current Decklist & Changelog



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Changelog
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Card Choice Discussion



CMC 1 Creatures
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Dryad Arbor – The only Land Creature card in the game of Magic. That's special. Anything we can do with either a creature or a land, we can do with Dryad Arbor. I'll cover its many synergies as I discuss other cards


Carrion Feeder – No cost, instant-speed sacrifice outlet for any creature. It can stand up tall for an attack with enough creatures on your board and, like all other instant-speed sacrifice outlets, can prevent creature theft and make unprofitable situations into profitable ones


Caustic Caterpillar – Activated Naturalize. Plays around Torpor Orb


Diligent Farmhand – Activated, instant-speed Rampant Growth on t2


Krosan Wayfarer – Fantastic t1 play with lands in hand and never useless with Meren in play. Lot of trickery to be had with it too. Improves our ability to recur Bloodghast, especially since we're running Life from the Loam


Spore Frog – With Meren in play, this little guy is straight up obnoxious for our opponents focused on combat. At the end of turn before ours, it's an experience. At any other time, with or without Meren in play, Spore Frog can be used politically or simply as a one-time Fog


Thoughtpicker Witch – Not always an all-star but it's a cheap sacrifice outlet with upside. Sac to itself to get experience counters rolling, target libraries you know contain graveyard hate, or turn to-the-top tutors into cards opponents think about cutting later that night. Thoughtpicker has so much potential to preemptively save your skin and gives you that little bit of information about what's to be drawn next


Viscera Seer – See my notes on Carrion Feeder above. Viscera Seer is "better" than Carrion Feeder. Card selection is critical at times, especially if we're forced to keep a sub-optimal opening hand


CMC 1 Noncreatures
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Darkblast — A useful dredge card for all stages of a game. Can be used as a way to kill our smaller dudes and to create reanimation targets. Obviously great for picking off our opponent's dorks or to finish off a larger threat. A great card I don't see in many Meren lists


Life // Death – The Life side has many uses and I consider it a bonus to the more frequently used Death side of the card. Later game, we can finish off an opponent simply with a 1/1 swarm. Coupled with a Mazirek loop, or just a few sacrifices, and we can close a huge life total out of nowhere. More simple utility like animating our lands to Skullclamp for cards or a few critical sacrifices is not to be overlooked


Reanimate – Best reanimation spell in Magic? It's got to be pretty close. Any creature, any graveyard. Other graveyard-focused decks can seal their own fate with early self-mill. T2 Sakura-Tribe Elder, t3 Reanimate targeting Sakura-Tribe Elder et al isn't a bad play


Unearth – A lot of our creatures intentionally cost 3 or less. Unearth gives us an arbitrary amount of experience counters when paired with Eternal Witness and Phyrexian Altar. Add in certain other cards we're running and we can win on the spot or draw any number of cards – [card]Zulaport Cutthroat/Blood Artist or Grim Haruspex for instance


Entomb – Possibly our best tutor as it has synergy with so many of our effects and at instant-speed. Hold it up for the right time to reanimate the perfect answer


Skullclamp – The storm scale goes from 1 to 10. "Level 10: I [MaRo] never say never, but this would require a major miracle." He rated Skullclamp an 11 :laugh: it's pretty damn good. We make a surprising amount of tokens, have plenty of creatures hitting the board, and a plethora of ways to sacrifice them if need be


CMC 2 Creatures
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Apprentice Necromancer – Instant-speed reanimation effect that can give us a critical attacker/blocker while netting us two experience counters with Meren in play. Like many others, this card is good with Entomb. For example, t2 Apprentice Necromancer into a t3 Entombed Protean Hulk is rather effective


Blood Artist – We want to drain our opponent's life totals and Blood Artist is one of our cheapest ways to accomplish that goal. The Artist puts a hurting on other decks producing a lot of creatures too as it drains whenever any creature dies — not just our own


Bloodghast – Amazing sacrifice fodder and goes well with our ramp creatures and normal land for a turn. Our primary goal is to drain life so Bloodghast is always willing to hit the bin for that purpose – he'll be back


Burglar Rat – One trigger may be all you need to get a big reanimation target into a graveyard. Multiple triggers starts putting you ahead on cards and increases our chances at finding said reanimation target. Skullclamp eats it for two cards. Burglar Rat is this deck's Mindslicer


Dawntreader Elk – Not the fastest ramp but it gets the job done and self-sacrifices


Fauna Shaman – Another of our few tutors. Run Survival of the Fittest if you've got one. If you don't, Fauna Shaman is still a creature that needs to be answered or you'll keep finding exactly what you need while also dropping choice effects into the graveyard. After the inevitable exiling of our graveyard, Fauna Shaman can get us rolling again


Reassembling Skeleton – Recurrsion for 1b is solid. Infinite experience counters when paired with Phyrexian Altar and Pawn of Ulamog


Sakura-Tribe Elder – Our best early guaranteed ramp. Nets us an experience counter and can be clamped when ramp is no longer needed


Satyr Wayfinder – You can keep a two-land opener with Satyr Wayfinder in hand. Goes four cards deep and there's virtually zero chance of whiffing because we don't mind all four cards going to the yard


Vampire Hexmage – New sets mean new walkers. We aren't always going to combat with large threats early and Hexmage can handle them lickety-split while netting us an experience counter. First strike isn't irrelevant and there are plenty of permanents that we'd like to rip counters off of. Bonus for triggering Path of Ancestry


Viridian Emissary – Clamp and ramp. T2 ramp with a t1 sac outlet – of which we have five. It's possible I like Viridian Emissary more than Dawntreader Elk


Zulaport Cutthroat – Not fantastic in all phases of a game but is effective for multiple purposes: The incidental life drain is decent and it wins the game if we have a persist + Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest + a sac outlet. I'm running Cutthroat over Blood Artist because even though Blood Artist triggers on any creature death, and not just our own, we have a lot of creatures dying and Cutthroat will drain each opponent as opposed to a single opponent. That drain will add up over time and make closing the game with Gray Merchant or Kokusho that much easier. Cutthroat, as opposed to Blood Artist, triggers Path of Ancestry


CMC 2 Noncreatures
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Altar of Dementia – A fantastic core card for our list but remember we aren't trying to pack our graveyard with cards — we don't want to overextend into grave-hate. Alter of Dementia is amazing for recovering from that exact thing though. We have the option to pick away at other libraries while still getting the primary benefit of sacrificing a creature at instant-speed for free. To-the-top tutors become risky for our opponents and we have plenty of cards that card reanimate creatures from any player's graveyard


Animate Dead – Reanimator gunna reanimate


Dance of the Dead – Reanimator gunna reanimate


Life // Death – Another cheap Reanimate that can be used with Mazirek to attack big with our lands provided we have a couple sacrifices available. Restricts targets to our graveyard but it's what we're trying to do anyway. With so many reanimation effects in our deck, feel free to use one early as a ramp spell


Evolutionary Leap – How this card gets cut from other Meren lists I'll never know. Cheap sacrifice outlet that turns tokens (and other creatures) into a cardboard laden grip. After the initial phases of a game, Evolutionary Leap gives us the option to turn our small ramp creatures into bigger threats


Lightning Greaves — Royalty of protection equipment. Comes down early and opens up critical attacks


Finale of Devastation – Only technically a cmc of 2, Finale of Devastation has made its way into Commander decks everywhere. Cast it for X=0 and grab Dryad Arbor on t2 if you don't have any other ramp options. Reanimate or tutor every other time or just win late game


Grisly Salvage – The best card of its kind. Instant-speed, goes five cards deep, gives us card type choice after the reveal, and bins the rest for later recursion


Life from the Loam – Not the most common card to see in Meren lists but I like the low dredge number and ability to recover lost land cards from self-mill or otherwise


Wake the Dead – In my opinion, this card is insane in Meren decks. With Meren in play we go experience counter crazy while we most likely blow out an opponent's attempt to damage us. Hell, we don't even need to be getting attacked to profit massively from a single casting. Later in game, when we can get X up to 2+, be sure to bring back Eternal Witness to bring back Wake the Dead to bring bac... You get the point


CMC 3 Creatures
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Eternal Witness – I don't believe E-Wit is a core card for Meren but it's an amazingly valuable effect – especially on repeat. Be sure to target it with an extra mana when Waking the Dead


Farhaven Elf – Guaranteed color fixing and ramp


Fleshbag Marauder – Recurrable edict 1 of 2


Grim Haruspex – Lots of card draw potential if left to sit, triggers Path of Ancestry, and is the right cmc to maximize our other cards


Liliana, Heretical Healer – Our only planeswalker is conveniently a creature in the graveyard, is easy to flip, creates a free token, flips into an Unearth, triggers Path of Ancestry, is a discard outlet, creates reanimation targets, and dodges creature removal. Not sure why it's cut from other Meren lists for "not doing work" but I completely disagree. Perhaps since we've maximized our 3cmc or less slots


Matter Reshaper – This Eldrazi puts 79% of our cards into play or 100% into our hand. I see people running Treasure Keeper but I like that this guy ramps us and gives of the choice to put the revealed card into our hand. It's also 3cmc, which is important for us


Pawn of Ulamog – Makes tokens that ramp and sacrifice themselves. What's not to love? Gives us tons of counters on his own, goes arbitrary with Phyrexian Altar and Reassembling Skeleton, and triggers a scry on Path of Ancestry


Ophiomancer – Creates rattlesnakes and sacrifice fodder every single turn. Imagine if you could clamp at instant-speed. Now imagine if Yawgmoth, Thran Physician was a real card WotC printed. Ophiomancer and Thoughtpicker Witch go way back too. Have I mentioned Path of Ancestry?


Plaguecrafter – This dude is all value. Recur to great effect. Without a lot of walker removal or an attacking focus, Plaguecrafter really does work for us


Reclamation Sage – I've thought much about running Manglehorn in this spot for its minor stax effect but more targets, effortless clamping, and triggering Path of Ancestry put Rec Sage over the top


Wood Elves – Grab Overgrown Tomb first and don't forget that Dryad Arbor is a Forest


CMC 3 Noncreatures
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Phyrexian Altar – Many uses in addition to a good old sac outlet. Infinite experience counters with Eternal Witness and Unearth


Attrition – I prefer Attrition to Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos for a few reasons: It's a sacrifice outlet, only 3cmc, and is targeted creature removal, something this list doesn't pack a bunch of so Attrition plays a key role in that regard


Journey to Eternity – So many valuable plays you can pull off in the opening turns of a game – Sakura-Tribe Elder comes to mind. If, for instance, you enchant STE, you end up with 6 lands going into t4, with one being Atzal, Cave of Eternity. You can accomplish the same thing with Viridian Emissary if you get 1 or less cmc sac outlet into play


Necromancy – Reanimator gunna reanimate


CMC 4 Creatures
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Disciple of Bolas – Sacrifice outlet, card draw, life gain, Human. Fantastic card for our list


Meren of Clan Nel Toth – The Commander. Meren is an absolute house!


Vindictive Lich – Great options and effortlessly clampable. One of our primary wincons is to drain the life of out opponents. Lich helps us there but because we are all in on cutthroat cards like Mindslicer, Vindictive Lich offers us the chance to control players drawing or tutoring a lot of cards.


Bramble Sovereign – We have zero bad targets with Sovereign's ability because we can always use extra sacrifice fodder. Add to that our list of value cards and you've got a serious threat to draw focus


World Shaper — Mills and ramps. Good synergy with our other mill cards and can pull off trickery with Life // Death. It's hard to decide where to stop with the ramp cards but World Shaper does it on death and can put us really far ahead upon its first trip to the yard. Plays well with Greater Good — a card I was weary of including because of how small a lot of our creatures are. World Shaper makes me feel a lot better about it


Yawgmoth, Thran Physician – I know I'm not the only player that spit food when pre-god Yawgmoth was spoiled. This dude is a maniac! Sac outlet, card draw, discard outlet, a little bit of creature control, proliferates experience counters, and triggers Path of Ancestry


CMC 5 Creatures
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Cavalier of Night – Sacrifice outlet with a dash of spot removal that can reanimates 33 of our creatures. Bonus points for life gain


Gray Merchant of Asphodel – Classic reanimation target


Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest – Combos with our two persist creatures. In the case of Woodfall Primus, we should be able to force a concession when we clear out our opponent's lands and trinkets


Puppeteer Clique – Just an all-around good reanimator. Nice combo with Altar of Dementia and Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest or even Vampire Hexmage


CMC 6+ Creatures
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Bane of Progress – Thee answer to a lot of decks. A goddam animal


Grave Titan – Speaking of animals, here's the man himself. I've always loved Grave Titan. He is impending doom. Creates a lot of sac fodder or blockers and even attackers to close out the game.


Kokusho, the Evening Star – Like Gray Merchant Kokusho is a class reanimation target that'll just get it done after a few trips to the yard and back


Protean Hulk – Absurd reanimation target. So much flexibility in what we can grab


Woodfall Primus – Combo boss or straight destruction lord – you decide. With Mazirek and a sacrifice outlet you ought to be able to force a few concessions


Utility Lands
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High Market – Sacrifice outlet that at least taps for c and comes into play untapped


Phyrexian Tower – Sac outlet that can burst us ahead with BB and can still tap for c


Field of the Dead – Enters play tapped but doesn't take long to turn on. It can do a lot of work with World Shaper too


Dryad Arbor – Lots of trickery we can pull off with this Land Creature. Unfortunately, it has summoning sickness the turn we play it


Hissing Quagmire – Not quite as many tricks up its sleeves as Dryad Arbor but it's a heckin good blocker that can be utilized as a creature to keep our gameplan flowing. Entering tapped but tapping for both of our colors is a tradeoff we can live with


Path of Ancestry – Taps for both colors and triggers a scry on 21 of our creatures – that adds up


Westvale Abbey – Sacrificing five creatures is pretty trivial for us and Ormendahl, Profane Prince isn't a joke. The Demon can smack a planeswalker no problem, close a game down, or be a surprise for offense or defense


Notable Exclusions
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Mikaeus, the Unhallowed/Triskelion or Walking Ballista Combo — Too boring. We're running similar combos that aren't insta-gimmes

Mindslicer — Too cutthroat. We're running Burglar Rat and Plaguecrafter for this effect and because we get to keep our hand, there's the potential to Reanimate, Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy, or Puppeteer Clique any discarded creatures

Planeswalkers — Hard to recur and we're aiming to minimize the noncreature, nonland count. Liliana, Heretical Healer flips to a walker and has the recurrability of a creature

Deathrite Shaman — First, this list doesn't have an optimized mana base to capitalize on our own fetchlands. Secondly, it's a meta call based on your opponent's mana base. If we get a chance to optimize our mana, he could find a spot. The grave-hate isn't enough by itself to warrant an inclusion

Beacon of Unrest – A great card for other decks but too expensive compared to the other options we already run. It's also not a creature

Smothering Abomination — Great card and may join the fray someday but with cheaper Grim Haruspex in the list and being playable from a Matter Reshaper trigger and recurrable by Cavalier of Night, I don't know if Abomination makes the cut

Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos — Not creature cards and we already run three recurrable creature edicts, Attrition, Savra, Queen of the Golgari, and Cavalier of Night

Survival of the Fittest — Our budget is better spent elsewhere. Also, We're limiting our tutor count to increase game speed, singleton spirit, and game-to-game variety

Shriekmaw — We're fine without narrow creature spot removal

Ravenous Chupacabra — We're fine without one-trick creature spot removal, albeit recurrable with Meren. It's also 4cmc when 3cmc (or less) is a more important feature for us

Birthing Pod — Our list isn't optimized for pod chains and it slows games down. I've seen too many players not know their list well enough and after 2 minutes of searching realize that they either can't form a chain or the link has been severed

Solemn Simulacrum — Fantastic value card but we're wrapping Solemn and Treasure Keeper into Matter Reshaper

Awakening Zone and From Beyond — Good, not great cards for our list. We make use of Ophiomancer and Pawn of Ulamog for this sort of effect and both trigger Path of Ancestry

More tutors — Previously mentioned but we're limiting our tutors. Sidisi, Undead Vizier is a high consideration though as she doubles as a sacrifice outlet. She can easily cause stagnation in the variety of games – something we want to avoid. We currently only have four tutors so maybe a versatile fifth isn't too bad

Sepulchral PrimordialPuppeteer Clique is faster, exiles problem creatures, and is a general house. With Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest and Altar of Dementia in play, both Clique and Woodfall Primus do amazing work

Eldritch Evolution — We can do better than a single-use noncreature spell

Savra, Queen of the Golgari – I've thought a lot about including Savra – we aren't running Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos so she can fill that role well. Even with that though she isn't currently making the cut. Vindictive Lich is in her spot as the Lich gives us more options with one of them being life drain – Our main wincon

Stax — Perhaps a few would be okay but at that point, why run any? We want to play Magic with our opponents, not alone

Sadistic Hypnotist — I like that we can target ourselves but this could easily salt the table

Perilous Forays — We will have ramped enough by the time we get to five lands. Yes, it's a sac outlet and thins the deck but it's not a creature and slows down the game with each activation. We have search effects but we want to contain them to critical effects that aren't wasting away the time. Good synergy with our Bloodghast though

Corpse Augur and Vulturous Aven — We prefer Disciple of Bolas which triggers Path of Ancestry and gains life

Woodland Bellower — Not a great card for us. It's good but doesn't check enough boxes



Feel free to enlighten us on any of these exclusions or any unmentioned. However, please comment in the spirit of this deck's budget and philosophy of "build casually, play competitively."

Thank you and enjoy the grind









Comments Welcome!






Last edited by BOVINE 4 years ago, edited 60 times in total.
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BOVINE
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Post by BOVINE » 4 years ago

One spot in case I need it.
B O V I N E

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xeroxedfool
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Post by xeroxedfool » 4 years ago

Hey, I like the aesthetics of your thread and username here. Pretty cool stuff. As far as comments on Meren or your deck, I don't have too much. It looks very good and like it would play well.

One thing I would suggest is to un-spoiler your deck and add Meren to the top of the list. Anyone who views the thread will want to skim the deck, no reason to hide it.
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Rumpy5897
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

I've got a vaguely similar thing cruising 'round my meta, except it's helmed by Mazirek. It's nice to see another {b/g} value town deck that isn't hellbent on spamming Grave Pact effects.

A couple things that the meta deck does is go full in on the Pawn of Ulamog variants - Sifter of Skulls and Pitiless Plunderer. Note the last one doesn't say nontoken, so he stacks insanely with the other copies of the effect. He also jams Champion of Stray Souls for crazy value from reversing his 'yard and board, but that might be too slow for you.
 
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