Hey gonki. Can you do me a favor and respond to GS10 for me real quick?

GS10 Thanks for the question man. You're right, this deck does struggle against Mizzex, but every deck has its Achilles heel. The deck does have alot of graveyard hate, but alot of it is on the body of creatures. Creatures help kill my opponents regardless of the strategy they are playing. Believe me man. This is a really solid deck, and fairs really well against A LOT of strategies. Its not worth not playing the deck because something can beat it. I have already considered abusing the counter feature of anafenza as well, but decided I would just like it to be an added benefit and shoot for the strategy that you see.

Hi GS10 I want to start by linking to my version of this strategy Anafenza Hates Your Graveyard. To be honest even in a deck that doesn't use its graveyard as a strategy most decks use "When this creature dies" to a lesser or greater extent. Anafenza puts a stop to that as that is short hand for "When this creature is put into a graveyard" which never happens when you're exiling them. If you're playing against green they almost always have some kind of recursion and that just doesn't happen when Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void are out. You can also use a card like Yixlid Jailer to stop stuff such as Filth. So that's just examples of where you're disrupting people who want to use anything in their graveyard even if it's not a wincon. And disruption is the beginning of how you win.

My experience with people playing competitive is that they can NOT handle rules changes. If they're playing Oloro then Tainted Remedy is their undoing. My strategy is a lockdown. In a totally ideal world it begins with Dragonloard Dromoka. Then on my turn I can bring in cards like Tainted Remedy, Painful Quandary and Wound Reflection. Simultaneously I'm looking to drop Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Privileged Position. The ONLY way I know of to deal with this is bouncing my stuff or forcing me to sacrifice it. But all I need to deal with forced sacrifice is Sigarda, Host of Herons. Of course this is all ideal but I can run multiple tutors for nearly every one of these cards and inevitably I will draw some of them. I guess the final piece is having No Mercy and/or Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts out. Between her and my fliers I can abuse the effects of Wound Reflection and with even half of the above setup people are hard pressed to do anything about me. They will mostly fight each other and hope they can draw into their combo or get the removal they need in the meantime.

I want to move on to say that with the amount of netdecking that goes on people have a really hard time understanding what I'm doing even after multiple encounters with this deck. Now that's not an issue in Modern or Standard but it's a big problem in EDH. Everything boils down to this deck changing the rules. When you change the rules people just can't deal with it. Of course I encounter good players that can adapt but most people can't. They play decks that autopilot and I take advantage of it.

As a final note I'd like to say this deck can run combos of its own. Infinite mill, Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood and you have a tremendous amount of removal and tutoring available in these colors to get those combos on the board quickly. I just find that people expect that. They're looking for me to combo out so it's easier to just smash them with Avacyn or one of the other large creatures. This deck is a consistent winner. Of course nothing wins 100% of the time in EDH but I bring a lot of decks on an average night and generally someone asks to borrow this deck almost every time. The only other deck I can say that for is From 0 to Dragons.

I'd like to note that list is out of date. There are a few suboptimal cards in there that I pulled. I added stuff like Demonic Tutor that's in the maybeboard on that list. If you're curious about the current build I will update it tonight.

The above is my general strategy. To address Mizzix specifically I'd start with again, Dragonlord Dromoka so I'm not getting counterspelled and Mizzix isn't doing any other random shit on my turn. In my experience people REALLY hate Mizzix so honestly I'd just sit there and remove Mizzix over and over. I have no issues board wiping myself as Anafenza isn't my only way to stop people from playing with their graveyard. I'm not sure what your Mizzix is running but if it's infinite extra turns then Ugin's Nexus. If it's Laboratory Maniac then Sadistic Sacrament to remove it. The sacrament is generally an effective card when I don't have a specific counter to a deck. I just kick it and pull as many problematic cards as I can. Grafdigger's Cage and Yixlid Jailer both deal with Flashback. Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace take care of Mizzix's Mastery. The best part is that Mizzix doesn't have many ways of dealing with this setup besides All Is Dust and Sigarda says no to that. There's Scour from Existence but this deck is redundant so that's not terribly useful. Mizzix has little to no lifegain and if they can't cast spells on my turn I will just hit them in the face with Wound Reflection out.

By no means am I knocking Mizzix. They can throw land destruction in and basically end me if the draws favor them. That is what I would do if I was facing this deck. Destroy plains, destroy forests, destroy nonbasics and the storm card that lets you destroy specific lands.

@gonki and @Sergal

I'm not saying Mizzix wins this matchup everytime, I'm just saying that in my meta the field is much more well prepared to deal with Meren, while Mizzix usually strolls to victory whenever she's played. Which is why I said I thought a deck to hate on a specific general or archetype might be a bit too much, but that's my opinion. I woudn't make a whole deck to hate on a general, probably just make my own deck and equip it with the proper answers. If everyone in the meta does that, there's no general too overwhelming.

Which doesn't mean the decks aren't sweet, they are! Therefore, my genuine question about their power level outside of the matchups they were built for. Besides, for me as a Meren and Marchesa (Mirko Vosk/Lazav Reanimator even) player it's very relevant for me to understand all kinds of counters to my graveyard strategies and see how I can adjust to them and even how can I win in such a scenario, if possible at all.

I like to switch around decks a lot, so every new commander deck I play is always a fun experience for me, so it is when a new deck is on the table. Even if the same people play over and over again together everytime, a new deck or even just one or two new cards somewhere, make for a much cooler and fresher experience! So even if this hoses me big time, I'd still play against it, I'd still play the deck and I'd still have fun! ;)

GS10 I just wanted to use Mizzix as an example of the versatility of the deck. It highly depends on which version of this you're looking it. Sergal is on a more modest budget than mine and fredsamboyo even moreso. You can actually run this without a few global graveyard hate cards and have a hybrid of hating everyone else while giving yourself the advantage of using your own graveyard (to the point you can run Meren in the deck). That in itself is quite powerful. While the decks were definitely inspired to hate Meren decks they have dropped out of the meta at the shop we play at because of me, mostly. Everyone that plays her sees this deck pulled out and is unwilling to take the loss. Maybe that's mean but I think comboing out with Mikaeus and Triskalion is mean so I'll accept people's judgment. The result is that my deck while it still appears to be a graveyard hate deck is better characterized as... I guess I would say midrange if you can consider that a thing in EDH. I also like to run hatebears so if you check out my updated list (going to fix it now) you'll see I've added things like Aven Mindcensor and Containment Priest is probably one of the best hatebears out there. She shuts down things like Mayael and Derevi. Unfortunately she doesn't have a lot of backup in terms of redundant cards but she is still mean thanks to the flash effect. I'm hoping we see more of that ability on enchantments and artifacts in the future.

@gonki

Yes I could see that and I agree with you. To me it was not a question of being mean or not. No one likes losing, not even in a format made to have fun, so it's only natural we all have our go-to revenge decks when we've had enough of losing to the same thing (or group of things in my case) over and over again.

For me it's Narset which by herself doesn't hose anything in particular (since my meta is very well balanced and no one nor any deck dominates the field completely) but generates such a powerful stream of plays leading eventually into infinite turns that no one not running a very controlling list can deal with (and again, there is not a true control deck in my usual meta apart from the mentioned Mizzix from time to time, so that makes Narset that much stronger), for you is Anafenza, the Foremost since clearly most of your meta is made of Graveyard Based strategies. Actually, probably your Anafenzas would be a beating in my playgroups. While a lot rely on some way on the graveyard, others flat out lose to some of those hatebears and the tempo loss alone to find the answer needed to be able to play their own game will sometimes be enough to lose the game alltogether.

But yeah, I could definitely see Meren working wonders on an Anafenza deck. As I said when I commented on your deck, she is much more versatile than I first envisioned her and you get critical advantage from disrupting your opponents' main plans, changing the rules as you put it, and being able to do what they now cannot. I wouldn't have built Anafenza this way, but that is definitely the way to go with it. While at first it didn't seem like so much of a strong deck on its own I'm completely convinced now!

Super-sick! I love the list! Graveyard shenanigans happens to be one of my favorite strategies so I definitely understand where you're coming from. I currently have a Feldon deck and a Wort, Boggart Auntie deck and my first instinct when imagining new deck ideas is graveyard crap. Meren is just nuts though.

Just the graveyard hate alone caught my upvote! Have a good day!

Have you considered Bitter Ordeal to bypass the graveyard completely? I'm aware it's a bit more situational depending on the opponent's playstyle.

No Rest in Peace?

Sergal, obviously I don't hate Meren, but I DO love Anafenza and Abzan. In fact, my Anafenza deck runs Meren. Which leads us to...Merang, Rest in Peace is not what i would want because it locks you out of your OWN graveyard. Leyline of the Void does not. My Anafenza strategy revolves around that strategy - value from having access to something your opponents do not. I have not posted this deck yet, but it is forthcoming.Nice deck though.

Love the deck! A card I highly recommend is Identity Crisis