What Is Dead May Never Die

Commander / EDH Aggro BG (Golgari) Competitive Ramp Reanimator Toolbox

stevenckopp

Creature (31)

• 1x Agent of Erebos
• 1x Apprentice Necromancer
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Bloodghast
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Cavalier of Night
• 1x Doomed Necromancer
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Hope of Ghirapur
• 1x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
• 1x Lord of Extinction
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Protean Hulk
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Spore Frog
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Underrealm Lich
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Wood Elves
• 1x Woodfall Primus

Land (35)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Castle Garenbrig
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 9x Forest
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x High Market
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 8x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x The Great Henge

Commander (1)

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Command the Dreadhorde
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Victimize

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Journey to Eternity  ^Flip
• 1x Pernicious Deed

Instant (5)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Momentous Fall
• 1x Worldly Tutor

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I knew I wanted to build a B/G commander as soon as I finished my first commander deck (Queen Marchesa). But I had no idea which commander to use. My friend decided to purchase the Commander Anthology #1 for our play group, and then we all picked decks out of it to buy off him. I saw Meren of Clan Nel Toth and knew that was the B/G deck I had been looking for.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of Meren decks out there. A LOT. And it’s hard to find uniqueness in a deck that’s so frequently run and does recursion so well. Initially, I struggled with Meren because she was the first commander deck I built that needed her in play and relied on her. It was extremely easy for my opponents to shut it down by just keeping her off the board.

But over time, I reworked the deck again and again until I figured out some methods of cheating creatures out and manipulating the recursion to make her hit hard and fast. At the core of the deck, your goal is to cheat out big creatures. You can do this with Meren herself or with other cards in the deck which I’ll get to later. The good thing about Meren is that her value engine of experience counters never goes away, so you’re constantly accruing value over time. But in order to do this, you need two things: creatures that self sacrifice or cards that allow you to sac creatures for gain.

Surrounding that entire value engine is a complicated and intricate web of possibilities with no direct route to victory. Everything in the deck benefits from your creatures dying. And when things die, they come back. I don’t know how many of you shop at Wal-Mart, but that sounds like a Great Value to me.

Let’s get to the engine/umbrella and the breakdown:

The Engine/You Can Stand Under My Umbrella

1. Self Sacrificing Creatures: Hope of Ghirapur, Spore Frog, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Caustic Caterpillar, Plaguecrafter, Shriekmaw, Viscera Seer, Apprentice Necromancer, Doomed Necromancer

2. Cards that Sacrifice Creatures: Birthing Pod, Eldritch Evolution, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Plaguecrafter, Skullclamp, Viscera Seer, Ashnod's Altar, High Market, Greater Good, Phyrexian Tower, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, Carrion Feeder, Victimize, Diabolic Intent, Cavalier of Night

The engine is going to get you your experience counters. Plain and simple. All of these cards move you in a forward direction whether it be protection, ramp, tutor, destruction, card draw, or cheating big fatties out of your graveyard. And frankly, most of them are cheap with the highest cost being five.

Think of this category as a big umbrella over the rest of the deck. A lot these cards will fall into a more specific breakdown below but the overall idea is that no matter what my opponent is doing, I’m moving myself toward a goal of enough experience counters and creatures to start hitting hard and repeatedly.

Protection

Hope of Ghirapur, Spore Frog, Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, Heroic Intervention

Spore Frog is hysterical because you can sack it over and over again for basically free and get a constant Fog up. Once you drop Meren with Spore Frog, she can always bring him back. I find most opponents exiling Spore Frog first from my graveyard before anything else.

Hope of Ghirapur is here for one reason. When it gets down to you and one other opponent, Hope of Ghirapur lets you lock them out every turn if they don’t have a flier. Swing, sac, and lock them out of noncreature spells. Then just bring it back with Meren over and over again and cross your fingers.

Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots are standard EDH for protecting your commander. Pretty straightforward.

Sometimes, very rarely, do you want to make sure your stuff doesn’t die. Which is why Heroic Intervention is in the deck. You never know and it’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Ramp

Sakura-Tribe Elder, Solemn Simulacrum, Sol Ring, Ashnod's Altar, Golgari Signet, Wood Elves, Seedborn Muse, The Great Henge, Arcane Signet

Golgari Signet, Arcane Signet, and Sol Ring are solid ramp.

Sakura-Tribe Elder and Solemn Simulacrum both ramp and then either self sac or want to die to keep momentum only to be brought back again with Meren and might net you some card draw.

Ashnod's Altar is standard in any deck that focuses on sac’ing creatures. It’s a free sac outlet for mana. What more could you want?

Wood Elves is recurrable etb ramp that in your early game can prove useful.

Seedborn Muse also acts as ramp in that it'll untap your lands during each other player's turns. This deck struggles with acting on others turns and very much wants to do everything on it's own turn so the Muse mitigates this a bit.

What isn't good about The Great Henge? Like honestly. It's rock that can cost as little as 2 that taps for 2 green. And it gains you life. And whenever a creature etbs, it nets a +1 counter and draws you a card. That's pretty much all encompassing but Meren mostly abuses the etb card draw on it. Sure everything else is gold but that's the butter of the card here.

Tutor

Birthing Pod, Diabolic Intent, Eldritch Evolution, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Worldly Tutor, Entomb, Fauna Shaman, Buried Alive, Protean Hulk, Demonic Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith

Some of these are pretty straightforward tutors like Diabolic Intent, Worldly Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith, and Demonic Tutor.

But Meren has the luxury of tutoring not just into your hand but into your graveyard. This is clutch as once you have Meren out, if you tutor into your graveyard and you don’t have enough experience counters yet, Meren will just bring the creature into your hand.

Protean Hulk is a pretty busted card and I got so excited when they unbanned it in EDH. In this deck, you can sometimes sac and recur twice in a turn and net potentially 4-6 creatures off of it. There's no infinite's with this card in the deck. But I think it's one of the most powerful tutor to battlefield's in the deck.

Buried Alive finds you three creatures, dumps them into the bin, so you can get them back. I'll note one small interaction: Buried Alive and Victimize plus Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Lord of Extinction can almost guarantee you the game if you have all the pieces available.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier is also quite a broken tutor in Meren. Play Sidisi, exploit himself, tutor for a card, end of turn get Sidisi back with Meren and tutor again. Once Sidisi is in your graveyard and you have five experience counters, you can tutor for anything you want over and over again.

Eldritch Evolution is in the deck so you can jump from a 4, 5, or 6 cost creatures to your 6,7, and 8 costs. It basically lets you jump from your early mid game to your mid late. Not to mention the creature you sac with it will probably come right back with Meren at the end of the turn pending your experience counters.

Birthing Pod needs no real explanation. It lets you net a sac to get a bigger creature which you can then sac for a bigger one, always scaling upward. And each creature you sac to Birthing Pod will probably come back at the end of the turn via Meren. Full value here.

Entomb is extremely powerful since it’s at instant speed. Dump something in your graveyard right before your turn and then recur. Or dump during your turn to Meren it right onto the field.

Fauna Shaman is a sudo tutor in that you can discard a creature card, find what you need, and then ideally recur with Meren the creature you discarded. In a perfect world, she only nets you.

Removal

Bane of Progress, Caustic Caterpillar, Dictate of Erebos, Maelstrom Pulse, Plaguecrafter, Shriekmaw, Woodfall Primus, Black Sun's Zenith, Beast Within, Living Death, Ravenous Chupacabra, Pernicious Deed, Reclamation Sage, Cavalier of Night, Agent of Erebos

Caustic Caterpillar, Reclamation Sage, Bane of Progress, and Woodfall Primus all deal with artifact & enchantment destruction. Woodfall Primus also benefits from sac engines because it will trigger his persist and then once he’s back in the graveyard, Meren returns him and triggers his persist again. I’ve also found good use out of Woodfall Primus as a land destruction and planeswalker destruction tool as well.

Dictate of Erebos lets you trade an eye for an eye by forcing your opponents boards to get smaller while yours gets bigger as your engine builds.

Plaguecrafter is fun recursion that pairs well with Dictate of Erebos. You sac one creature over and over again and they sac two, or they sac a walker or discard a card. Highly versatile card in Meren and once an opponent gets behind on creatures and cards in hand with a Plaguecrafter loop, its very hard for them to come back from it.

Maelstrom Pulse is fine as spot removal if you need it but it’s better used to wipe out tokens. Zombies, plants, vampires, elves, etc. That’s where Maelstrom Pulse really shines.

Shriekmaw, Cavalier of Night, and Ravenous Chupacabra are for targeted creature removal that you can recur if necessary.

Black Sun's Zenith is in case you need to reset the board. Meren recovers from board wipes surprisingly well if you’re willing and able to keep recasting her from the command zone. There have been many situations where I’ve board wiped purposefully knowing I can cover recover quicker than my opponents can.

Beast Within is useful solely for the fact that it’s ‘target permanent’. There’s so much creature, artifact, enchantment, and graveyard removal in the deck but sometimes you just need to blow up that pesky planeswalker.

Pernicious Deed is such a versatile and threatening card. Once it hits the board, everyone gets on pins and needles about what's gonna get blown up or not. For Meren, she really doesn't care if you make X equal to whatever your creature's CMCs are because she'll net the experience and get them back. It's a big red self destruct button that's fun to sit on.

Agent of Erebos = recurrable graveyard removal? I'll take it. Meren struggles with other graveyard manipulative decks like Muldrotha or Karador. It becomes a race to out pace. But Agent of Erebos lets you constantly recur that removal to keep them behind the eight ball.

Living Death is basically a backwards board wipe to me. Meren usually profits from effects like this and Rise From the Dark Realms. If you think about it, dumping everything on your board to the graveyard only helps Meren recur it back. And returning what was in your graveyard back to the field also helps Meren. It’s a weird win / win here.

Draw

Grim Haruspex, Sensei's Divining Top, Skullclamp, Viscera Seer, Solemn Simulacrum, Greater Good, Underrealm Lich, Guardian Project, Beast Whisperer, Momentous Fall, The Great Henge

The Great Henge I've already talked about above.

Beast Whisperer is great because there's about 30 creatures in the deck.

Guardian Project seems like it was printed just for commander. Every creature in the deck is a single copy so you'll always draw a card whenever a creature enters the battlefield.

Grim Haruspex draws you a card whenever something you control dies which is often.

Momentous Fall draws me a lot of cards, gains life, and is a sac outlet. It's a great reset on your hand if that target something decently large like 5+.

Viscera Seer is a sac outlet that lets you scry for momentum.

Skullclamp is there if you know you’re going to sac something so you can clamp it, sac it, and net. Works wonders with Phyrexian Tower.

Solemn Simulacrum is card draw and ramp that wants to be brought back with Meren. Pretty straightforward here.

Sensei's Divining Top because card advantage.

Greater Good is a win/win here. Sac a big creature, draw a lot of cards, then discard three creature cards to give Meren fodder to recur back or she just gets back the creature you sac’d to Greater Good. This deck has to keep drawing cards or else it will peter out and stall.

Underrealm Lich really gets the deck chugging along if you're able to stack it with a card draw source like Grim Haruspex or Greater Good. Throwing things into the graveyard after taking the card you want of the top 3 only allows for more recursion and the fact you can just pay life to make him indestructible is such good value in a deck that has no problem blowing up everything on the board.

Recursion

Apprentice Necromancer, Eternal Witness, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Rise of the Dark Realms, Journey to Eternity  , Reanimate, Living Death, Animate Dead, Victimize, Doomed Necromancer, Command the Dreadhorde, Cavalier of Night, Bloodghast, Puppeteer Clique

Cavalier of Night I mentioned above in Removal but in the Recursion category it does double time. Sac'ing a creature for the removal trigger nets you an experience counter. Then you can sac the Cavalier to recur a CMC 3 or less creature (ideally one with an ETB effect). Then you recur the Cavalier with Meren, sac the CMC 3 or less creature you got to kill another creature and immediately sac the Cavalier again to recur the ETB creature. That's 3-4 experience counters in one turn and a nice little loop. He does everything the deck wants to in one card.

Eternal Witness lets you get almost any card back from your graveyard which is important in a deck that’s so creature focused. Plus Eternal Witness can be recurred with Meren.

Apprentice Necromancer and Doomed Necromancer are broken in this deck and are honestly at the core of many sequences.

Rise of the Dark Realms and Command the Dreadhorde late game in a multiplayer game is one of the easiest ways to win. There will be so many creatures in graveyards and they’ll all enter at once letting you stack the triggers. I’ve had opponents scoop just from the sheer volume of triggers and sequences. It also loops with Eternal Witness if it’s in your graveyard as you’ll cast Rise of the Dark Realms, it resolves, brings back Eternal Witness, which then brings back Rise of the Dark Realms. So if your opponent board wipes, you can just do it all again. And paying 20-30 life with Command the Dreadhorde will easily let you pick the best creatures (or walkers!) out of opponents graveyards for that last big push.

Journey to Eternity   is in the deck because sure the free recursion of the creature it’s attached to is nice. But the real gem is the land that it flips into, Atzal, Cave of Eternity. Being able to pay 3BG to return any creature to the battlefield is clutch, especially late game.

Reanimate is here for that late game, “I need to get a big fatty back really quickly for cheap.” mentality.

Living Death I’ve already discussed as a board wipe and mass recursion rolled into one nifty spell.

Bloodghast has built in recursion and it is a great target for sacrifice fodder because he'll come right back. He's a reusable wrench/tool in the deck more than an actually aggressive creature.

Animate Dead is in here as a way to get Meren back should you lose her. I've been slowly shifting the deck to include more graveyard to battlefield recursion so that Meren should (ideally) never return to the command zone unless she's in my graveyard and gets exiled.

Victimize falls in the same concept of Animate Dead but it's also a sac outlet and a potential part of tutor/win-con mentioned earlier.

Puppeteer Clique is in here for two reasons. One so that I have a recurrable flying blocker since I recently lost a game because the deck had no way to deal with flying creatures (lesson learned). And two because sometimes the creature you need to solve the problem isn't in your deck, it's in someone else's. So being able to take something and exile it after has proven very useful.

Win-Cons

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, Lord of Extinction, Rise of the Dark Realms, Command the Dreadhorde

Rise of the Dark Realms and Command the Dreadhorde I've discussed in recursion but I truly do think it's the Expropriate of black.

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Lord of Extinction come as a pair in this deck as a potential win-con if you can’t go aggro. Sac Lord of Extinction to Jarad to deal a bunch of damage to each opponent. And then if they’re still alive, recur Lord of Extinction at the end of your turn with Meren to immediately sac to Jarad again. This can easily deal 50-100 damage in one turn.

Outliers

Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Carrion Feeder, Syr Konrad, the Grim

Carrion Feeder = sac outlet on a stick. Enough said.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Syr Konrad, the Grim are back up win conditions if you need to start chipping away at the last bits of life and you can’t do it through aggro anymore. They don't take off large chunks of life (unless you Bojuka Bog yourself for instance with Konrad) but the steady drain is a great resource especially if used over time.

Lands

Ghost Quarter, High Market, Homeward Path, Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Bojuka Bog, Crypt of Agadeem, Mosswort Bridge, Phyrexian Tower, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Thespian's Stage, Castle Garenbrig, Field of the Dead

Homeward Path is a useful tool land since the deck is so creature heavy and gives you an answer to decks that like to steal creatures or reanimate opponents creatures.

Ghost Quarter handles all of those powerful lands in edh and is super budget.

High Market is a utility sac outlet if I don’t have any other means.

Boseiju, Who Shelters All lets you cast those large X spells as uncounterable which will usually net you the game. Or casting a Rise from the Dark Realms without being countered is always juicy too.

Bojuka Bog for a little more graveyard removal.

Crypt of Agadeem for those late game swells of mana to dump into a Rise from the Dark Realms or Protean Hulk.

Mosswort Bridge is pretty easy to get the hideaway off of since you’ll get creatures who total more than 10 power easily.

Castle Garenbrig nets you a green mana if you need to bump up the curve by one either early or late game. And with how many Forests are already in the deck, it's easy to have it come in untapped.

Phyrexian Tower is so clutch in this deck. Sac outlet + mana gets your engine moving very quickly and you don’t really net a loss off of it.

Thespian's Stage is only in here because I don't own a Gaea's Cradle or a Cabal Coffers and if someone else plays one, I'm making a copy of it.

There's a lot of black symbols in this deck but more Forests than Swamps. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is in here to balance out that ratio and turn those forests into dual lands.

Field of the Dead is a great EDH card, let's not worry about that. In Meren, she wants bodies to die so Field of the Dead offers her that fodder. I wouldn't normally run it in a 2 color deck like this but because it helps us net Experience Counters, it's very useful. And the zombies are free sac outlets for other needs. 10/10 very useful little tool.

Thanks for reading! Upvote, comment, or message me if you like!

Update:

Cut - Green Sun's Zenith, Swiftfoot Boots, Beast Whisperer

Added - Avenger of Zendikar, Nim Deathmantle, Torment of Hailfire

Date added	7 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	WUR
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 44 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.23
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Experience Token, Morph 2/2 C, Plant 0/1 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Current Commanders